Fic: Monstrosity Divine - Chapter 1
The Kingdom of Heaven was spread vast before him. His kingdom now. His children seemed a frail, trembling lot before him now, scrabbling to placate him. That was wise. Those who resisted had to be eliminated. Many already had. Castiel turned his head and let his eyes roam across the beautiful landscape, admiring the lush grass, the colorful flowers, the thousands of black, ashen wings now spread before him. Tragic, he thought, and yet remarkably beautiful at the same time. These angels died with purpose; they served as an example to all who remained.
“Be obedient, children,” Castiel commanded, lips curving into a small, twisted smile, “and all will be well.”
He departed then. There were matters to attend to below.
Crowley clutched the little roll of paper in trembling hands. This was insane. The entire plan was insane, and if the Winchesters thought they were going to summon Death to kill a freshly powered up god-angel and it wasn’t going to come back to bite somebody, then they were more insane than any of their half-brained schemes. Frankly, as long as it didn’t come back to bite him, he didn’t much care. As far as he was concerned, those two boys had it coming. After all, if they had just minded their own business and left well enough alone, none of this would have gone nearly as bad as it had. Then again, if Castiel had simply listened to him and killed the little troublemakers back when he asked, they would have saved themselves even more trouble. It might all have worked out, Crowley thought. He would be safe, in his rightful position as the King of Hell, formidable enough in his own right to protect himself from his former business partner. Of course, it would figure that the little featherbrain wouldn’t have it in him to simply do what needed doing until after it was too late to really matter. Stupid, careless, idiotic-
“Hello, Crowley.”
Bollocks. Crowley turned around slowly, swallowing the lump in his throat and lifting his eyes up to meet Castiel’s icy blue gaze. “Cas,” he greeted with fake cheeriness, forcing a smile that quickly faded when he saw how Castiel tilted his head and narrowed his eyes in confused scrutiny. “I meant God, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“Well then, our illustrious ruler, what can I do for you on this fine-”
“Stop pandering.”
“Right… But you did want something?”
“Yes, I did. I already made my request of you, Crowley, and you’ve refused me.”
“Refused you? I would never.”
Castiel sighed. “Don’t insult me. I was very generous with you, but now you’ve been disobedient. Worse still, you’ve betrayed me. I can’t allow that.”
Crowley looked up slowly, the increasing panic making his pupils dilate until his eyes were mostly black with just the thinnest bands of green showing. “Wait. Cas, please, you don’t understand. It wasn’t-”
“No.”
There was no snap of Castiel’s fingers, no sudden explosion of bone and flesh and blood. It was very quiet, just two fingers pressed against the demon’s chest, near his heart, and it was still. One brief flash of pale orange light flickered behind the confines of Crowley’s borrowed skin, and then he dropped. The body twitched once, an involuntary spasm of the human who had hosted the demon for so long as he tried to cling to life for a few more seconds. Castiel left him there. He was no longer important. Neither of them were.
Earth had been the pinnacle of God’s creation, beautiful, lush, and capable of supporting all manner of life forms with remarkable self-sufficiency. These days, the planet required practically no intervention from the Host in order to maintain its various inhabitants, but as he surveyed they small blue sphere, Castiel remembered how different things were at the dawn of creation. He remembered how delicate the balance of various chemicals in the air and the dirt were. He remembered how clumsy evolution had seemed at first, little fish dragging themselves up onto the shore. He remembered how many days, months, years he and his siblings had spent carefully monitoring all such developments, guiding this precious planet through its infancy and beyond, but most of all, Castiel remembered the rise of humanity. When God’s chosen children came, the angels had been ordered to vacate, forced to hand over this last, perfect creation into another’s care. Then they were ordered to bow.
Castiel wasn’t bitter about these things. He had come to admire and care for the humans, flawed as so many of them were. They taught him a great deal about freedom, about choice, and at one point, about friendship. But those days were gone, and Castiel had already promised himself that he would not mourn them. Things would be different now. Humans were no longer his charges, no longer beings that he owed a responsibility to or creations that he had to kneel before and protect. Now they were his children, and the choice he intended to present was a very simple one: kneel or die.
It was more than a little unsettling to see what a disobedient group they had become. It was not the theological squabbling that bothered Castiel, though there was a fair deal of that. It was the violation of the inevitable universals. During his brief observation, he witnessed thousands of atrocities being committed: theft, debauchery, blasphemy, even unspeakable forms of violence. Regardless of his kindness, regardless of his compassion and his mercy, Castiel soon faced the reality that some of these beings would be beyond saving. After all, not everyone could inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. That had to be reserved for the righteous, the deserving, the obedient. The rest would have to go elsewhere.
Of course, that should have been Crowley’s responsibility. Even if he had wanted to, chances were that Castiel would never be able to completely erase Hell from existence. He was a new god, a better one, and yet one who seemed to be somewhat locked into a pre-established order, but Castiel didn’t think of it that way. The truth was, deep down, he wanted Hell, just as his Father had. He recognized the need for some safety net to catch the irredeemable sinners, but more importantly, Castiel recognized the potential fragility of his hastily grasped seat of power. He would need Hell as long as he had enemies, and the mighty always have enemies.
The demons were also problematic. Castiel had begun to indulge certain sympathies for them long ago, after his first descent into Hell when the eyes of the supposedly righteous man had first begun to flicker with blackness. The girl had made him even more confused. She was strange, a twisted black soul behind a pretty, borrowed face. For however corrupt she was, she had displayed faith, loyalty, love, and these things were virtues. On the other hand, demons were demons, unholy abominations that would threaten the rest of his creation if not kept in check, but as long as there was a Hell, there would be demons crawling out of it. Castiel sighed and turned his face up towards the sky, an old habit from when he used to look up to his Father for guidance. His face twisted bitterly. God had never answered him. It was up to him now. He knew that, but if he made it his mission to track down every damned soul to keep under control, he’d have time for little else.
There was nothing for it then. Castiel needed Hell, and he needed somebody else to rule it. But there was nobody he could trust, nobody who he had enough of a grip on to put in that position without the risk of betrayal. Crowley and the Winchesters had proved that. That was another matter, he decided quickly. Traitors deserved no more attention than he had already given them. Castiel put as much distance between himself and that situation as he could, both mentally and physically. He departed to a distant mountain, a quiet, isolated peak where he could think things through in peace. Snow billowed around him, little flecks of white clinging to his hair and melting against his skin until it too was cold. The chill didn’t bother him, but he was soon keenly aware of it, and with the impossible cold came an even more impossible thought.
The Cage was buried deep below the ninth circle of Hell. It was the point furthest away from the light of Heaven and the love of the Host in all of creation. The entirety of the pit was awash in fire, unnatural, ancient flames that sizzled and licked at the flesh of the damned so that even those not being actively tortured by any outside force were still in constant agony. Still, the Cage was worse. Self-contained and cut off from the rest of creation, it was a cramped, ever twisting prison. The flames there raged worst of all, but they did nothing to warm the strangely cold air. It was like breathing in frost while your skin roasted on the outside, yet neither sensation did anything to quell the other. The very walls radiated pain.
Castiel wasn’t surprised by this. No, what surprised him was the absolute silence.
The first time he had descended so far down, to raise Sam Winchester, the noise that greeted him had been near unbearable. The pitiful human wailing was almost completely lost under the screeching of the archangels’ true voices. Now there was nothing, and the horrible silence was more deafening than any screaming could ever hope to be. Castiel stood on the threshold with his ears ringing. Silence. Silence. Silence.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Lucifer said quietly.
Castiel hesitated to look at him. Without a vessel to confine his true form, Lucifer was all light and wings, all terrifying, twisted beauty. Even after an eternity in Hell, Lucifer was still immensely bright. However, God does not stare, Castiel reminded himself, but nor does he avert his gaze. He tried to look at Lucifer levelly, letting the light and power of the souls churning inside him radiate past his vessel.
Lucifer was unimpressed. “You’ve come for the other one? Good luck with that.”
“Other… No. I’ve come to talk to you.”
“Me?” Lucifer laughed, a deep, rumbling sound. “What would you have with me, Little Thursday?”
Castiel’s face spasmed with frustration, brows knotting sharply, eyes narrowing, mouth pulling down. “You will not call me that.”
“Very well. What shall I call you, dear brother?”
“…Nor that. We are no longer brothers.”
“We are always brothers, Castiel, but surely you didn’t come all this way to debate potential nicknames and epithets. Did you not want me to retrieve Milligan for you? You did miss quite a lot of Sam during your first visit, after all.”
“I wouldn’t gloat in your position, Lucifer.”
“Nor I in yours.”
Castiel was silent for several long moments. He watched Lucifer closely, eyes lingering on the way his tattered, blackened wings twitched and shrank away from the fire that billowed around him. “This was a mistake.”
“Was it? I have no way of knowing as you’ve yet to disclose anything to me other than which names you do not wish to be called.”
“I had a proposition for you, but it seems that you’re unwilling to take me seriously.”
“I take you very seriously, little brother.”
“And yet you continue to call me that. Can you not see? Can you not see what I have elevated myself to, what I have become?”
Lucifer was silent then, observing through the haze of fire and pain. Yes, he could see that something was very different about Castiel now, but it was something that seemed to escape his vision, something that was blurred around the edges and nonsensical in its perception. He folded his wings in around himself to shield the core of his grace from the unyielding blaze. “Tell me what you’ve come for, Castiel. I will listen.”
“Our Father is gone.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“He has irresponsibly abandoned His creation, and someone had to take over. Someone needs to fix the mess that has been left in the wake of a godless universe and an abandoned apocalypse.”
“That is an immense task.”
“I’m undaunted.”
“I can see that, but what I do not see is why you’ve brought this information to me.”
“Hell is its own undertaking.”
Lucifer’s wings ruffled with something other than pain: amusement. “You’re asking for my help?”
“I’m offering you a chance at redemption.”
“Redemption?” Lucifer echoed, wings bristling.
Castiel cocked his head. “Does that not suit you? Very well. I’m offering you a chance at freedom.”
Lucifer was very still all at once, his grace seeming to expand towards the outer edges of the cage hopefully before retreating, almost as if fleeing from the burns. “You can’t open this door.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Why?”
A silence hung in the air between them as Castiel’s eyes moved over Lucifer’s strangely coiled form. “You’re suffering.”
“I’ve been suffering.”
“Yes, but if I release you, then you would owe me a measure of loyalty, and I find that would be beneficial to me at present.”
Lucifer’s voice came out like a low, warning growl. “A measure of loyalty? What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what it sounds like. I free you, and in exchange I expect you to be loyal to me, show me more respect than you did the first God.”
For a moment, Lucifer’s grace flared. His wings unfolded, and the bright spirals of light at his core surged with energy and rage.
Castiel was unphased. “Do you want out or not?”
Lucifer hesitated, torn between pride and freedom, considering the cost of being relieved from his anguish. He looked up, and his answer was evident in his eyes.
“Then you’ll meet my terms,” Castiel said. Without further comment, he held up a hand. The Cage shuddered, reacting to his will, and in mere seconds, Lucifer could feel the bonds holding him beginning to loosen. His true form expanded, eager for freedom, desperate for release from another eternity of torment. He felt a cool rush of air, a breeze blowing on the back of his neck, and then he could breathe. Something warm brushed against his cheek, and it felt familiar- the touch of another angel. Then there was nothing but darkness and quiet and the slow cessation of pain.
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