Title: God Almighty Reigns
Author: HigherMagic
Pairing(s): Dean/Castiel
Rating:
R
Word Count: ~55,000
Warnings:
character death, angst, pining, soul bonding, language and scenes of violence
Summary: The Winchesters succeeded in closing the Gates of Hell forever. What they didn't read was the fine print – apparently the demons weren't the only ones shut out, and shutting the Gates wasn't the only effect it had on the world. Years later, Castiel is alone. With nowhere for human souls to go and creatures of the Earth getting hungrier and hungrier, he swore to himself that he would stay and protect humankind – until the human souls that he loved and guarded most dearly were ripped from him. Now, somehow, they're back, and Castiel must face a whole new challenge to ensure the survival of the human race – destroying those that would call him God.


Notes: So, this fic is actually about two years old. I started writing it in November 2012. So. That's how long it's taken me to write the damn thing. I don't even care at this point if no one fucking reads it, because I'm just so happy to have it finally finished. It's Unbeta'd, and it probably desperately needs a Beta, but whatever. I'm not even sure what the fic was it was basically me trying to write God parallels? I'm not even sure. Okay.

This fic contains graphic scenes of murder and violence, references towards genocide over 'religious beliefs', blood drinking and the dependency on blood to stay alive, as well as using blood as a ritual. Violence and sigils are used for coercion and brainwashing, and there is a certain amount of dubious consent until the end of the fic concerned with Dean's reincarnation. Also, I introduce a dog and then it dies around chapter 6 - not in a horrible way but it does die.

There is no explicit sex in this story but non-explicit references to past sexual relations. There is also an element of wing!kink and blood!kink. There is also the use of gendered slurs and implications of non-consensual sex between characters that are not the main protagonists.

I was going to make all the OCs current characters, but given that this fic takes place in the distant future where they have all died, I figured it didn't make much sense.

Have at it.


"No."

The word was whispered, cast out into the empty, open air as though it would make a difference – one last, desperate, useless plea against something that he had turned his back on years and years ago. A tired smile met his wide-eyed and fearful gaze, a palm that was wrinkled and callused and worn away to mere skin stretched over bone, slid into his, still warm, somehow, even after everything. Outside, the world was frozen, white blankets putting the Earth to sleep, mother of ice kissing her child goodnight and casting her moon into the air to watch over her child as Earth slept.

"No," the man with eyes the same color as frigid water whispered again, clutching tightly to the warm, frail hand, fingers encased in his. "Dean, please. Please."

"It'll be okay, Cas," came the reply, voice rubbed into nothingness from alcohol and smoke and too many nights shouting out condolences and speeches telling Earth to soldier on. His throat was coated with gunpowder and ashes and it was a wonder he could still speak at all. Green eyes, cloudy and glazed, flickered shut. "It's time."

He wanted to laugh, then. He was an Angel – an Angel. He should be giving this speech, the other way around, but all he could do was clutch tighter to the man's hand and try to stop his shoulders shaking. Tears made their way to his eyes; he shouldn't be crying, shouldn't be able to cry, and yet he could feel them, stinging, pressing against the backs of his lids.

"There's still so much to do," he said to Dean, making the Hunter open his eyes again. They were in a house in the middle of nowhere, and the sun had gone away. Dean smiled, one corner of his mouth quirking up. "There's still…Dean, there's still so many people."

"I know, Cas," Dean replied, exhale a tired sigh, eyes shutting again. He was silent for so long, Castiel feared he might have passed on without warning, and his Grace flared in preparation to follow. "It sucks. But we can't save everyone."

The Angel choked on a sob when Dean's other hand came forward, lying across his. "Do what you can," Dean said, swallowing to wet his mouth enough; "I'll see you on the other side, Angel."

"Dean." Those eyes closed once more, Dean's thin body expanding one more time in a loud breath, before his heart went still and he breathed out. "Dean. No." The Angel was shaking, unable to fathom – just, fathom it at all. He knew he could fly to Heaven, would find Dean waiting for him, but there was still so much to do here. He was lost and stuck and Dean was gone.

Dean was gone.

He took wing, flying away, flying up. He had to get there, had to find Dean's soul from the multitudes milling in Heaven, rejoin with his mate as quickly as he could. Already the absence, the void of nothingness where Dean's soul should be shining so bright…it was too much. The world was too dark and he had to make sure Dean was okay.

But he paused. He could not find Heaven – did not feel the soft warmth of his brothers welcoming him home. He could not hear the voices of Heaven singing, could not feel the brilliance of God's light and love surrounding him as it usually did when he approached Heaven. Something was wrong.

"No."

When he opened his eyes, he was where he had been – in a house in the middle of nowhere, still clutching so tightly to Dean's hand. His eyes widened, and he stood. "No," he whispered, taking a step back. His wings felt heavy, dreadfully heavy, and his hands were shaking when he let go.

Where was Dean? Where was Heaven?

He could find neither of them.

No, no no no, "No!" he shouted, his Grace flaring out sharply enough that the windows shattered, sending glass flying, and the oil lamp that had been burning by Dean's bedside exploded, showering the pair in a sea of glass. Castiel breathed out raggedly, running a hand through his hair, and turned back towards Dean. The Hunter was older, so much older, his face haggard and worn with time, hair greying where there was any hair left, skin dark from the sun, lips turning blue. The moon shone through the broken windows, playing like young Angels off the shards of reflective glass.

Castiel approached Dean slowly, his bare feet crunching into the glass, pain prickling him to remind him he was still alive – dreadfully, horribly alive. "Where have you gone?" he asked of the man, the man who had become his anything, everything and all, and he received no answer. There was nothing. Heaven was silent. "Where are you?"


When the world ended, it was not by fire, nor was it by smoke and ash and pain and a wave of demon-angel battles. The Bible told of the Kingdom of Heaven coming to Earth, wiping the planet clean to make way for those that had made it into the Kingdom, but in reality the Apocalypse is a lot messier than that.

When the world ended, it was not through the clash of two brothers, two vessels of the most powerful beings ever to walk the Earth. It was not as the Angels and demons had foreseen it. Not even close.

When the world ended, it was…silent. Sudden.

There were two Hunters who very few people knew the names of – both then and now – and these Hunters tried to shut the Gates of Hell forever, banishing all of the demons in the process. This plan was desperate, and foolhardy, and doomed to fail.

But it did not fail.

The cataclysmic event of wiping the Earth clean of all demon taint caused the very Earth to shiver. Across the globe most demons that were weakened or vulnerable shattered to pieces with unearthly shrieks of pain – others were dragged, kicking and screaming, by their own Hounds. Volcanoes, long-dormant around the desert areas of California, a stone's throw away from the small town of Ridgecrest, erupted in a spew of gases and debris. Such was the volume, building up as though waiting for the right time, that it covered the sun, and enveloped the Americas and parts of Europe and Australia and Japan, throwing most of the world into a modern ice age.

People survived, as people often do; they were desperate, they were cold, and there was nothing stopping them from dying, from being wiped out by famine or disease or hypothermia. Groups met up with other groups, small bands of survivors able to bear the cold and able to walk for miles without much food.

A new civilization was established in Florida, or what remained of Florida, and the people elected a leader. Two of them, actually. No one knows their names anymore; they were lost in history. But they were strong and brave people and knew what to do when those things that were not human turned on the remaining survivors – knew how to repel and kill the things with claws and teeth that hunted after the last of the human blood.

The modern world faded. Industry became non-existent; if it couldn't run by the labor of man or animal or the burning of fuels, then it didn't run. New forms of hydroelectricity, and solar and wind harnessing once the dust cleared, brought new waves of luxury. Cars were left in favor of wagons and boats; animals could find better grip on the still-thawing world. Coal fires and steam-powered engines were the new things.

And hunters continued.

They had to; a lot of people died when the volcanoes erupted and spread their deadly fumes over America, spread to take over the Antarctic, Australasia, even going so far as to take most of Europe and Africa. Other things happened, rifts were created through the sudden movement and thrust of tectonic plates, and the World was born anew.

But that left behind a lot of pissed off spirits.

Shape shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Cursed beings…none of them died of fire or ice or wind or smoke or starvation or disease. None of them left; Reapers continued but there weren't enough of them. The tallies of the dead ran high and behind them all were the hunters.

Keeping their existence a secret wasn't really an option, not anymore. The World embraced hunters as a necessity, a lesser of two evils. In exchange for their services they were well cared for, paid for generously by whatever government had been salvaged, into clans that vaguely resembled the Former States in America. But none of them were United. They were merely tolerant.

Some people learned how to shoot a perfect bulls-eye and how to slice through skin and bone with enough force to sever a limb or a head. Lifestyles that had never been in the light before became the focus of living – libraries were packed with ways to hunt and kill and survive.

Those that were not man, but were not monster; the Angels that had been in vessels on the Earth and the demons that had been strong enough to resist such a spell – well, they stayed. They were human, for all intents and purposes. One has never been taken down a peg until he finds himself unable to jump out of his 'monkey suit'.

Those angels and demons became human; slow, weak, stupid, hungry, thirsty, prone to injury or infection. They had to begin to rely on the beings that had Hunted them, worked with them in exchange for protection from each other, from the cold, from enemies that wanted their heads. Every case an Angel or Demon helped a Hunter solve made sure that that Angel or Demon lived another few months, until he or she and that Hunter parted ways.

But over time they faded. They lost their wings, their powers. Cut off from Heaven and Hell they fell, one by one until they were no more celestial than the vessels they carried. And one by one those vessels that were strong enough fought back, overcame the demons that possessed them and the angels that had been granted permission to enter; they were no longer welcome. Occasionally one could still see a range of black smoke or a shooting star that was one of those beings finding a new host, or being forced from an old one, or simply wandering the plains. At night in the deserts you can hear the high-pitched scream of an Angel in the silence.

Those demons that could not go on, or did not want to, sought out the knife of the demon named Ruby, and ended their own lives. Some of them didn't want to live as smoke, or live at all if the world was damned and cut off from the source of their power – Hunters were smarter, now, and they mercilessly tracked those demons that remained. The knife was melted by the hilt into a stone in the middle of where the White House used to be, blade up for any demon to fall on if they wished to.

But the Angels faded.

The Demons left Earth.

The Hunters continued hunting.

Many, many years later, though mutation from the ash, a genetic failsafe mode, whatever it should be called – a switch flipped, and humanity recovered from its shock. The world began to thaw again. For the first time in centuries, people could remember what the color green was. And there began to sprout these creatures – human on the outside, but with wings and powers, abilities beyond the human norm.

The Hunter crouched down low, long machete at the ready and pressed up against her thigh, one hand curling around the edge of a broken piece of concrete that she had chosen to take shelter behind. This was the fifth case in as many weeks of people going missing, but she'd managed to catch the son of a bitch in the act this time.

This thing – it was new. It wasn't a vampire because the folks it fed from were still alive. It wasn't a werewolf because timing didn't seem to mean shit to it. This thing took a bite and left its consenting host behind – a feeder that had told her it had taken him out into this very warehouse, explained to him that it needed a bite to stay alive and that it would only take it if the victim freely gave. Weirdest and most polite creature she'd ever heard of.

It was how Natalie Grant discovered a whole new species that had managed to stay under the radar since the Great Fall.

There was movement, and she perked up, tightening her grip on her weapon. There it was – leading the way for a nineteen-year-old boy, and she watched as the creature turned, pushing at the human male until he was pressed up against a wall, and fell to its knees in front of him. The creature was the shape of a man and had feathery wings sticking out of its back, the color of midnight and tipped with bronze, brushing the floor. Its eyes were the same color – hazel mixed with brown and filled with an almost desperate plea as it looked up at the human from underneath a mane of dark brown hair, holding a small penknife in its hand. It knelt in a posture of almost complete submission, like a dog desperate to obey its master. Natalie watched, tensed and ready to fight as the human reached down in silence, taking the knife from the creature's hand. Long, pale fingers curled around the handle as the two males' eyes met, and the human nodded.

"Yes," he said, sounding breathless, right before he turned the blade on himself and ran the sharp edge right along the inside of his arm. Natalie ran forward – this was some sort of mind trick, the creature making the human bleed himself dry – and stopped at seeing the absolute joy, devotion radiating from the creature's smile. Its odd, bronze-colored eyes zeroed in on the red line, but it didn't move; waited for permission before the human nodded again and held his arm in front of the open mouth. The creature's wings – fragile-looking and soft as gossamer silk – fluttered slightly in anticipation, lips parting and breathing heavy as the creature brought his hands up around the wrist, holding it tenderly before he sealed his lips around the wound and began to suck.

Again, Natalie was tempted to rush forward, but found she was unable to. It wasn't as though she couldn't…it was more like her mind was telling her body to watch, to be patient. She was about to make one of the greatest discoveries in Hunter history since the Devil's Trap.

The human's fingers curled into a fist, prey-animal body fighting the feeling of teeth against his skin, a tongue probing at his cut like a cat at milk, but then his body began to relax, his head falling back against the steel pillar of the warehouse Natalie had followed the creature to. Since the Hunter was unwilling to stop what was going on, she found herself monitoring instead; finding if what she'd interviewed the victims to find out had really been accurate.

They sure as hell seemed to be; all the 'victims' – she was highly doubting they were victims now – had all described the same thing; a beautiful winged man took them out into some warehouse in the middle of nowhere – check – and basically asked them to cut themselves. It wasn't as though he was forcing them to, though…he just seemed like a desperate man in need of a favor. The blade never hurt, the blood loss was never too great and it never actually harmed the person. Within a day the cut was healed, skin unmarred good as new, and during…

That's when it had begun to get weird. That's what had drawn Natalie's attention.

The humans always seemed to enjoy being drunk from. Natalie's mouth twisted, watching the boy, remembering the flush that had been on a girl's face – the latest in the string of victims – the sink of her teeth into her lower lip, the way her legs had crossed, her breathing unsteady when she remembered. As though the bite had felt incredible.

That much was evident in the way the human's jeans had tented, revealing the very obvious erection underneath and he was very subtly moving his hips, trying to get friction against fabric and air. The actions weren't lost on the creature as he pulled away, chin coated lightly in blood which he wiped with a sleeved forearm – another thing that marked him as 'other'; his light clothes despite the chill of the new world, dressed only in a thin, long-sleeved shirt and jeans ripped at the knees. He pushed himself to his bare feet in a lithe, graceful movement, wings falling to counter the shift in balance and trailing along the grubby warehouse floor. Natalie felt a stab of remorse at such beautiful things being so dirty.

"Thank you," the creature said, and the voice was unlike anything the Hunter had ever heard. It sounded from a long way off – could something be clear and so full of static at the same time? The voice was accompanied with a high-pitched whine, soft but irritating in the back of the Hunter's mind.

The human didn't seem to care.

"Thank you so much," the creature repeated, one hand trailing down the human's chest in a sure, deft stroke, ending at the button of his jeans. Natalie tensed again – after all, it wouldn't be unusual at all for a creature like this to kill his victim after whatever he'd just done, but then again why not just drain him dry? Why thank him? The creature unbuttoned and loosened the fly of the human's jeans, reaching in with long, pale fingers and undoubtedly getting a firm grip on the other male's erection. The human gasped, jaw clenching almost painfully as he threw his head back. The creature's other hand came up to knot in his hair and cushion him from the blow he would have caused to the back of his head.

The creature stroked, twisting his hand, firm, loose, firm, he seemed to know exactly what the human wanted, for within a minute the teenager was coming, cry of ecstasy echoing loud and rough along the cold, metallic walls. His eyes closed for the briefest second, and so did Natalie's, and when the Hunter opened his eyes again the creature was gone. The only evidence that it had ever been there was the dark patch of semen on the human's jeans and the blood clotting around his wrist.

Natalie begun investigating, then, calling in contacts she hadn't heard of, spoken to, Hell some of them she didn't even know the names of in his research, but the leather-bound journal she'd found in front of a Hell's Gate had never led her astray before. The thing was legendary – it had once belonged to the two greatest hunters the world has ever known.


So the Angels left, faded, and changed, the journal said. They evolved, just as everything must – as they fell, human desires for food and survival began to take over. They shied away from getting too close to fire and were wary of old and rotting buildings. They knew the desire for a warm body to keep them company at night.

Natalie documented her search and knowledge about these knew creatures. Their essences could not handle human food or drink, and relied off of human blood to sustain them – they only needed small amounts and never took what was not willingly given. Natalie dubbed them 'Angelus Subsannatio' meaning 'Angel Mockers'. Eventually, as the populace of Hunter and Civilian alike grew in their knowledge, the name of them was shortened to 'Mockers'.

And so the Mockers spread. It seemed that now people knew what to look for, they were cropping up everywhere. The only problem was that not all Hunters were open to the idea of them sharing the same breathing space and when they discovered them, they were intent on their extermination.

Natalie wouldn't have that.

She established a foundation with like-minded Hunters and Civilians to save these creatures from extinction. They were precious, and non-threatening, and the only thing Man had left to tie him to Heaven, to God. She believed with all her heart that they should be saved, treasured, and so she began a missionary service. When the demands of the job became too harsh on her fifty-year-old body, she retired from actively saving them and ran a Haven for the creatures she had discovered, where they could come and be safe from the persecution of Hunters.

And that's when it got interesting.

These creatures had powers, just like their Angel and Demon predecessors. They were psychics of a sort, could see things others couldn't, could fly, teleport, and cast illusions. Some of them had more specialist powers than others, and it was then, as these things became more widespread knowledge, that they stopped being hunted, and started to be recruited. Mockers began to be sought out for specialist jobs, companions on a Hunting trip, tools for Hunting and partners for Hunters and Humans alike. The creatures didn't seem to mind this; being treated as no more than a piece of weaponry – as long as they were fed properly they were happy. They were such benign creatures, so kind-hearted and willing to serve that eventually…eventually…they were almost accepted as people. Do-gooders in the world. One could often hear stories about how one of the creatures saved a bunch of human lives, or helped stop an evil spirit, or even just showed any kindness to a fellow creature…They were less like pets and more like servants.

And they didn't mind one bit.

The sanctuary turned under new management; a man named Alex Maher took over after Natalie died and turned the place into more like a breeding ground and hatchery, for Hunters and Civilians to buy the creatures as they pleased. A law was passed that a human could have no more than three Mockers in their home, but it didn't really seem to matter to anyone who wanted to buy them. It was recommended that they were purchased whilst still in their egg – they stayed for approximately two months after being laid by their carrier – to strengthen their bond and sense of servitude, like a baby bird would do to the first thing it sees, assuming that is its mother. So far as people had reported, it didn't matter what gender the owner was, or what gender the Mocker was for breeding – they had adapted to survive whatever might happen to them. Some people theorized that they could alter their outward shape to become whatever the buyer wanted.

What people had not yet realized – what Natalie had no way of discovering before she passed on to wherever souls were meant to go now after life here – was that Mockers were not the only things still hanging around, that had grown from the end of the world. After all, something had to have happened to start this, right?

It couldn't have been simple evolution.