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In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered it.
Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.
You know the rest, right? The seas and trees and bugs and birds?
What you don't know is that after God created all that, he made an angel in his own image to coach at his right hand side.
The angel learned, and grew, and saw his Father create other angels. They were smaller and weaker but they had an overarching freedom that the First Angel didn't. They enjoyed the Earth and its many wonders, dipping their toes in vast fjords and delightedly rolling in centuries old dust bowls.
Soon God had an idea. His angels were wonderful but they were just prototypes and he had much bigger plans for his perfect planet. His angels had improved and his youngest was certainly closest to what he wanted but wasn't…perfect.
And so, God created more animals. Ones with large brains that scurried around the Earth on two legs and he decided to nurture these little things just to watch them and to love them unconditionally.
The First Angel looked down upon them and wondered why. Why would the Father he obeyed so tirelessly need these…pets? He also wondered why the other angels loved them so much. Why did they mingle with them, shrouded in their frail bodies, falling in love with mud-monkeys and fornicating with them freely and fruitlessly?
One day, as God was preoccupied with yet another new and improved breed of biped, the angel had an idea and stole away two of them. He laid them down in a beautiful garden, ripe with food and comforts, and imbued them with the tiniest spark of his own power, separate from God's.
Then he watched.
Unfortunately, they couldn't enjoy the fruits of the angel's labor for long as he soon grew bored and began to amuse himself by sending vipers and cold winds to test them. He watched, fascinated by their suffering, as they multiplied despite their hardships. He picked his 'favorites' from each generation and played with them endlessly.
The other angels were banned from his playground. He didn't want his perfect kingdom marred by those carefree deviants planting sinful ideals amongst his devoted servants.
However, the Third Angel found the garden and, hidden, she gazed upon the people there with wonder. They were clad in animal pelts and woven leaves, they grew food instead of gathering it and they lived in huts to escape the strange coldness in the air.
She made herself known to a group of them but they gasped, covered their eyes and scorned her nakedness. The people tried to imprison her but, manifesting her magnificent wings, she escaped. She spread word of the unusual place to the other angels and they were curious. They dressed themselves in similar coverings and investigated.
Soon enough, the First Angel discovered the interlopers and grew enraged. He chased them home where they fell at the feet of God and begged for his protection.
Unfortunately, centuries had passed since the First Angel's creation and he had grown stronger from the fear and devotion of his people. He easily defeated God and, showing rare mercy, sent him away to guard his own newest playground, beneath the Earth.
The other angels cowered in fear, feeding the First Angel's power to the point of omnipotence that far outweighed God's. He had complete control and intended to punish his inferiors by taking away everything they held dear.
First he stripped them of their love of anything but him. Then their empathy, followed by their very freedom of will and finally their memories. Their blasphemous decisions had landed them here so they had to live with the consequences for eternity.
Millenia later, the First Angel now established as the one true God, still played with the Earth but focused his attention on a select few family trees. His favorite one for the last few centuries was the Anglo Saxon family from Wintanċeaster. He poked at them and threw tragedy and heartache at them, as he handpicked other bloodlines with which to breed them.
It was proving tricky to mix diverse families on such a tiny island so he manoeuvred his favorite Iberian family line towards exploration and several generations later—a mere blink of the New God's eye—the Wintanċeaster family (now the Winchesters) immigrated to the Americas.
The New God—known as just God for many years now—refocused his attention on the Winchester story as it picked up speed around two thousand years after his last favorite toy perished.
John Winchester returned home from a pointless, but entertaining war, and met Mary Campbell. Both perfect specimens via very (very) long term divine eugenics.
You know their tragic love story, you know how Dean and Sam Winchester came to be but you don't yet know how God's hubris became his downfall.
Castiel, the last of the Old God's angels, pulled Dean Winchester from Hell. It was surprisingly easy, the dead moving aside as he strode through and the lesser demons fighting without fury. A glimpse of the three-seated Throne of Hell revealed an old man flanked by a yellow eyed demon and a woman in white.
Dean Winchester was rescued and rebuilt to Castiel's great joy and fanfare. The heavenly chorus joined in to rejoice, surprising themselves with their fervent swell of emotion.
Michael and Lucifer, the First and Second angels of the Old God, and as far from humans as angels can be, bickered amongst themselves, vying for the seemingly vacant Throne of Heaven. You know how that goes too.
When the dust cleared and when all souls are where they should be, Dean and Sam Winchester reside in a bunker in the epicentre of the United States of America.
Castiel has a standing invitation, in the form of his own room, and he uses it frequently. His disconnect with heaven has served him well as he navigates Earth as an angel. He first noticed the appearance of intense feelings the day Dean Winchester was saved but couldn't figure out what they meant until he'd very carefully examined the Winchester brothers as they hunted together.
They were both supposed to be near perfect representatives of humanity, as evidenced by their carefully curated bloodline and several powerful beings fighting over them, but ultimately they were flawed. They fought but made peace and they were selfish but altruistic. Sam never cleaned out the plughole and Dean talked with his mouth full. Perfection is impossible, especially when their lives had been manipulated at the whim of a mad god, but they were good men.
So Castiel's feelings simmered beneath a facade of angelic stoicism, bubbling over occasionally but ultimately settling into a rolling boil. It was only a matter of time before it rose again and this time his words filled Dean Winchester with the faith to defeat God himself. The righteous man and his destruction of the New God would prove to be Castiel's catalyst for change.
Soon after, they sat close together, as the often did, in the bunker's 'Dean Cave' ready to play the latest addition to Dean's 'Must Watch' list, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Castiel felt the warmth emanating from Dean's body as he witnessed the opening sequence of the film through the lens of a long forgotten memory.
A fish flopping its way out of the water, crawling on all fours then rising up on two legs. Hairy apes screaming at each other over bones and sticks but it wasn't a black obelisk that stood before them then, it was a bright, spinning, halo of light, covered in eyes, emitting a sound so monstrously beautiful the sky wept...
"Cas? Cas!" Dean's panicked voice roused Castiel from where he'd slumped over. He glanced around—the movie now showing a spaceship—with Dean's, large, gun calloused hands cradling his face.
"Hello, Dean." Cas smiled dopily.
"Hello, Dean?!" Dean ground out incredulously. "You passed out, had some kind of seizure and come back with 'hello, Dean'!? Jesus christ, Cas, you scared the shit out of me!"
Dean released Cas, took a deep, shuddering, breath then froze. "Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked wearily.
"I remember. I remember everything." Cas grinned, taking in Dean's beautiful face and basking in his righteous soul.
"I didn't know you'd forgotten anything." Dean told him softly. "What’ve you been hiding from me, Cas?"
Castiel shook his head and sat up, pulling Dean closer again to speak to him sincerely.
"No, Dean. I mean, I remember everything from before Chuck. I remember the Old God, my real Father. I remember my brothers and sisters as they were. When we were happy and…free." Castiel surged forward and did what he'd always wanted to do but had forgotten why. He kissed Dean Winchester…and Dean Winchester kissed back.