What he doesn't understand—has never really understood—is why everyone expects him to be able to fix things. Okay, sure…he supposes if you wanted to go way back and get literal, he in actual fact made this mess, but that's the thing: he made this mess. If he were some infinitely wise grand poobah like they all seem to think he should be, how would that ever even happen?

And that's another thing: who came up with that dumb idea in the first place? What part of "made in his image" do people not understand? Human beings walk out on their responsibilities and screw things up all the time (and don't even get him started on the angels), so why is everyone so damn disappointed when he does it? He's just as selfish, and undependable, and needy, and vain as the next person. He's the reason they're that way; parents always pass their worst flaws on to their children.

For fuck's sake, he created two species whose main purpose in life is to love him. How does that not scream "emotionally dependent headcase with sociopathic tendencies?" Yet their expectations of him are so high, so far beyond anything he could ever hope to reach—and whose fault is that? He blames religion. Maybe history a little bit, too. Clearly, one or the other is not getting its point across if there are still people who think that power and infallibility go hand in hand.

But you're God, they all say. If you can't fix this mess, what good are you?

Chuck asks himself that question on an hourly basis. What good is he? He never asked to be God, he just is. Now he's created all of these people and all of these angels, this lovely planet…and what? He can't even face his own angry children and keep them in check? He's just going to hide out here, write his last Word, and watch it all go to hell because his youngest is having a temper tantrum?

Yeah, okay. Yeah. That's exactly what he's going to do.

He's sure anyone would call him a coward, and they wouldn't be wrong. But does anyone try to see this from his point of view? Well, no. They don't. They just expect him to fix problems because he's God. None of them ever think he might have feelings. To tell the truth, none of them really believe he's there until they need him badly enough that they have no better options. Even to the supposedly devout ones, he's an eventuality. An ace in the hole. When he was younger it didn't bother him so much, but now?

Now, Chuck is tired. He's tired and he's heartsick, and he's lost faith. That's right, world, God has lost faith in himself. More importantly, God has lost faith in his creations…and why not? It's a miracle he's held out this long! He's watched them disobey and die and ignore him and hate him—even when he tried to be more present and more helpful, mind you. He watched his most beloved son, the apple of his eye, seek to kill his brothers—for whatever Lucifer would like to think, humanity are just as much his brothers as are any of the angels—out of simple, vicious spite. Chuck may be God, but as such he is first and foremost a father, and he has outlived billions of his own children. How many men can say such a thing wouldn't break the spirit?

That's the thing, though: men expect him not to care. They want him to care, they're mad that he supposedly doesn't, but they expect him not to in the first place so what, what, what is the fucking point? Who wouldn't leave? Who wouldn't rather die than stay and watch this happen, knowing there is nothing at all they can really do to stop it because, after all, they're children. They have minds of their own. He can tell them what to do but he can't make them do it.

So Chuck's cut himself off. He's exiled himself to Earth and locked himself away in a human body, content to live amongst his youngest children, who he loves so much, until the day Death comes for him or his other sons destroy them all. He drinks, and he forgets himself, and he fills his time with writing down his last Word. He wants nothing more to do with translators and prophets and chains of command; isn't that part of how this whole mess got started in the first place? So he writes about the coming end of the human world, starting with the lives of the two children who will end it because he hopes—and he's well aware that it's a faint, useless hope—that someday his arrogant older children will read of their deceased brothers and sisters. He hopes they will see what made humans worth their messes and flaws, and care, and repent. Over time, and because he's God and dammit, he can, he even manages to forget that he's God, and he can.

He forgets right up until two stony-faced Winchesters come knocking on his front door.

Author's Note: This is really random and came to me in the shower, so I wrote it down. I realize that Chuck is incredibly whiny and self-pitying in all of this, but I can't help it. I don't quite buy the serene, "this was all a test" Chuck that we're shown in the season five finale unless Chuck either wasn't God the whole time (i.e. God took him as a vessel at some point late in the season) or he wasn't aware that he was God the whole time (i.e. he'd made himself forget and didn't remember until after the Winchesters found him). Add that to a combination of my own muddled and probably somewhat blasphemous thoughts and questions concerning God, and you get this.

And of course, because my fanfiction writing career is a study in cliches, the title is taken from the Joan Osbourne song of the same name.