Shelter by fuileachd on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

The world as they knew it had ended.

"Do you know the story of Eden?" Lucifer had asked, tossing an apple back and forth between his hands. "Humans are never satisfied with what they have. Humans want knowledge, the truth... everything."

When the gates of hell opened, Dean had been prepared to die in a blaze of gunfire and demon gore along with Sam and the few angels that Cas had managed to convince.

There were demons, indeed, and that was the easy part. The rest were the souls of the damned, some taking physical form from mud and clay and some took flight to the night sky to go wherever they wish to be to enjoy being free.

The world that once enjoyed a touch of innocence and naivette woke up that same night. And the line between humans and demons continued to blur every day.

Angels fell, not because they were killed, but because they had lost their faith in their God and God's people. It was as if the angels simply ceased to exist. Once in a while Dean or Sam or someone else would find the human shell crumpled to the ground in permanent stasis and Cas would grow more silent with each body they find.

In the future that Dean had seen, they had all assumed that the angels left the Earth.

He was wrong. Castiel was wrong.

They now have an entire bunker full of sleeping humans; not aging, not deteriorating; still angels with no will of their own and no faith, and no reason to exist. So they slept like the living dead, while humans and demons alike rampaged in panic and chaos all over earth.

"Cas," Dean mumbled when he stopped feeling the painful downpour of rain on his entire body. He couldn't look at the tattered wings Cas no longer bothered to hide. He wondered, silently, how long before Castiel had nothing left to give. Who'd have thought that an angel's wings were weapons, too? Each feather that Cas had shed became a bullet or blade that their small army kept in the armory for the biggest and the meanest they'd encounter.

But these weapons were only as strong as Castiel's faith. He'd stopped looking for God sometime ago and Dean felt humbled and worried about the worthiness of the recipient of that faith.

"Yes, Dean?"

"This isn't the end."

Cas didn't answer and when Dean looked up from hiding his face in his palms, his eyes met ones that were just as grateful.

fin