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There are entire cities that lie still and silent because of the Heir of Cain. The bones of the dead lie scattered among the quiet ruin. Snow and rain and the movements of the earth have their way, and new life teems where humanity once tamped it down. Man’s great buildings become His headstones.
Some places still survive. Some have armed themselves with weapons that might kill the Heir, or at least inconvenience him long enough to make him hesitate, even if it would come at the cost of their own annihilation. He stalks their outskirts like a lion in darkness held back by a fence of thorns. Their fire will die out soon, and he’ll be waiting still.
Some, desperate as they are nihilistic, fly the sigil of the Mark of Cain – a fallen angel’s wing – as their flag in hopes of appeasing his wrath. Countless have begged to serve him. The Heir has no need of servants, only death, and they are dust beneath his feet.
Godkiller, they’ve called him. The Elder Gods that rose up against him met the same end as those who did before the Mark, a thousand years ago. Anansi could not trick him. Athena could not track him. Dread Kali watched him walk out of the flame and saw the Morning Star in him just before she died. The gods are silent now.
The Gospels speak of him saving the world – once, twice, and again – only to become its destroyer in the end. They say he’s Death incarnate, and were there survivors they would know him by his void-black eyes and his bone-white ring.
The last angel follows him, and he hunts the angel sometimes, like stars chasing each other across the sky. Sometimes they fight; their battles last for days and make the earth tremble and crack. Sometimes they– no one knows for certain what happens when they meet in peace.
Castiel has long since stopped measuring time by human marks. It was only whim when he did so – never meant to be. He counts the drift of continents shifting across the planet’s shell. He counts the drift of galaxies away from the Core of All Things. But maybe sometimes he counts the seconds when he’s not alone, and not fighting, because every second he can spend remembering the man Dean Winchester was is precious.
He stands atop the hills of Rome, the great gem finally fallen once and for all; the tattered coat he should have given up centuries ago flutters around him like his equally-tattered wings. He’s given up caring about them both.
“Either you’re getting sloppy or you wanted me to find you,” the Heir’s voice growls out behind him. Castiel does not give him the satisfaction of startling, but he stretches his wings to put distance between them all the same.
“I have been guilty of nostalgia,” he admits. There’s no need to be dishonest anymore. “Will you fight me this time?”
Hundreds of years ago Dean finally abandoned the clothes that were his signature in life. He may be immortal, but denim is not, and there’s no one left to man the ruined looms. The new fabrics of this final age are sleek against his skin; they only make him look more the part of the ultimate predator he’s become.
Dean smiles easily and holds his hands out wide. It makes the angel’s chest hurt in a way his kind was never meant to feel. “Found what might just be the world’s last rugaru this week. They’re extinct now, how cool is that? No weapons tonight, Cas, it’s just me and you.”
“We are weapons, Dean, you know that,” Castiel grumbles back. They leveled Delaware with nothing but their own aegis between them, when Dean came unarmed and the angel would not draw his sword. But tonight the Mark is quiet, and damn him, he hopes, he yearns for one more chance to be something like what they were before.
Dean saunters towards him where he stands at the edge of a cliff. Dean could easily shove him off, and Cas would fall, as he’s fallen for Dean again and again and again. Like all the other times it wouldn’t kill him but it sure would hurt like Hell.
Yet he remains as still as marble, arms loose by his side, watching the seething black of his Righteous Man’s ruined soul beneath the ageless beauty of his face.
“I don’t feel like fighting you right now. Can we skip that part this time?”
Damn him, but the seraph sighs, “Of course, Dean,” and lets the monster who’ll murder the world wrap him up in firm, strong arms.
Damn him, but he tilts his face to meet the mouth that’s laughed at the slaughter of billions. Can he really claim to be better? The slaughter of billions was once his kind’s plan, too.
Damn him, but in quiet hours he lets their blood-stained fingers lace together, and lets their bodies fit together, and calls out the name of the man who slew the world.
Neither of them has need for sleep, but they lie together until dawn chases the stars out of the sky. Dean kneels over him and kisses him deeply as the sun rises. For these scant few hours they feel alive, though neither of their hearts has any need to beat.
He wishes, as he’s wished a million times before, that he could keep Dean here, his Dean, and wait out the end of ages with hands and legs entwined. It’s just a dream, though.
Dean mouths up Castiel’s chest, along his neck, noses at his jaw.
“You better fly, little bird,” the Heir of Cain whispers into his ear.
He surges up and back with no mind for his nudity. In the instant before he whisks himself away he meets black eyes that seem like they’ve only ever just pretended to be green.
Angels were never built to dream.