Work Text:
It was a nameless planet, third from its sun. Landless; windswept azure oceans roiled across its surface. But beneath the waters murky currents churned, combining and recombining acids, aminos, lipids, and all other gifts bestowed by the Creator. Until finally the fated reaction occurred: a self replicating chain. In the eyes of the Creator the change was instant, and the once lonely oceans now teemed with life.
One such thing, multilegged and compound-eyed, chitinous and pearlescent, crawled across the sandy ocean bottom and, as it had always done, filtered the ever-present currents and brought the tiny specks of life it had caught to its mouth with its pincers.
Was it the hand of the creator that intervened or had the thing reached a level of complexity, is uncertain. But there was a spark within a spark, and suddenly the thing knew itself. Dean, it knew, is what it was.
And with that spark, Dean knew he was alone. Though other things floated and crawled, some little more than gelatinous shapes trailing tendrils, and others even more complex than himself, none were like him.
Despite this new found loneliness, Dean did as he had always done. He crawled across the sun-dappled sands of the shallow waters, filtering and feeding. But food grew scarce.
His shell grew thin and lost its lustre, his legs moved slower than before.
But then motion caught his eyes, unlike any he had seen before. Above him fluttered a translucent thing, wide and flat and asymmetrical, with odd numbers of antennae and pseudopods. Their eyes met, and Dean saw the thing was like himself, alive.
Dean watched as it struggled against the ocean currents and was swept away. Time passed, and Dean grew weaker still. The thing appeared, this time further, in the darker, deeper waters. Again it fought the currents, struggling to stay in place. Their eyes met again and Dean could feel it beckon, goad him towards the cooler waters.
Dean crawled across the ocean bottom, the growing weight of water above him slowing him, his body growing ever frailer. The sun faded, the waters grew cold. He could go no further. His gills spasmed one last time.
But the colder currents had brought a bounty of food, and weakly, Dean fed, his pincers moving slowly, methodically, until his strength returned.
The thing appeared again, this time stopping just above him. It fought the currents, contorting itself in impossible shapes, struggling to stay by Dean.
Dean reached out a pincer and grasped a bristled pseudopod, and in that moment knew the other thing's name: Castiel.
Castiel, weighted down by Dean's shell, was no longer at the mercy of the currents, and Dean, no longer bound to the ocean floor, floated gently above the sand. And so, the pair began to drift slowly through the waters.