Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or its characters - these were created by Eric Kripke - I'm just borrowing them. I'm not making any commercial gain. No harm or infringement intended.

Warnings: It only gets worse, a lot worse, are you sure you wouldn't be better off reading The Littlest Elf?

"It's the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine..." – R.E.M.

Opheliac Angel Chapter Eight (It's the End of the World As We Know It)

"So, you see, I saved you. You doubted me, fought against me, but I was right all along," smiled Castiel in forgiveness, as he stared across at Dean, drunk on the sheer power flooding through him.

His new strength was unbelievable, far beyond anything he'd experienced or expected; he could feel his body singing in harmony with the whole of creation. If only the purgatory souls would behave it would have been perfect, the human souls he'd devoured in the past had always been reluctant, but still pliable. He wondered if it was due to their essential nature, these were after all the souls of every fanged and sharp-toothed nightmare that mankind had ever had. Fighting is what they were for.

Individually the souls were much weaker than him, but they kept banding together and swarming over him in vast numbers. He could feel them as they kicked and screamed in the back of his mind, growing louder and louder. He pushed them further back while he gloated on his success.

Raphael was dead, her physical remains spread in a fine mist of gore across the floor of the room in a fractal pattern quite pleasing to his eye, and Crowley had fled in the mistaken belief that there was anywhere in all of creation that Castiel could not see. He would be dealt with all in good time.

"Sure thing, Cas. Thank you. Now let's just defuse you, okay?" Dean said in a placating tone as if to a child, feeling a terrible dread, his heart in his mouth.

"What do you mean?" Castiel asked, tilting his head to one side in a familiar gesture that made Dean's heart break.

"You're full of nuke. It's not safe. So, let's get them souls back to where they belong."

"Oh no, they belong with me now. Why do you want to weaken me? Why must you always put me down?" Castiel asked as he peered myopically at the hunter, looking for the stain of demonic possession. Why else would Dean want to act against me?

"After everything that I have done for you and your brother, after saving humanity, why do you still find it so hard to keep believing in me?" Castiel asked.

"All of you have turned against me," Castiel continued, "Everywhere I look I'm surrounded by enemies trying to drag me down. But now I have the power and there's nothing you can do to stop me.

"You think this is the way I wanted to be? I did all of this for you," the angel screamed at the expression of horror on Dean's face, his eyes rolling with madness as he struggled to keep himself under control.

"Listen to me," said Dean, "Listen, I know there's a lot of bad water under the bridge, but we were like family once. I'd have died for you. Please. I've lost Lisa, I've lost Ben, and now I've lost Sam. Don't make me lose you too. You don't need this anymore, Cas. Get rid of it before it kills us all," Dean begged in desperation, no longer recognizing the person in front of him.

"You're just saying that because I won. Because you're afraid. You're not my family, Dean. I have no family," Castiel cried in despair, half out of his mind with the power of the souls and having only heard the phrase 'like family once'.

Distracted from speaking to Dean, Castiel only became aware of Sam as the younger Winchester ran him through with an angel killing sword.

After everything I've done, he thought as he pulled the sword from his back, I brought Sam back from Hell and thanks to me he's now fixed, and still I've ended up being stabbed in the back by the Winchesters. I do love them, but surely there's a limit to how much I can be expected to take?

One of the purgatory souls, the obvious leader, took advantage of his mental turmoil and swept in wresting control of his vessel from him in a strange form of partial possession.

Castiel could sense himself speaking and he could feel his mouth moving, but the sound and meaning of the words escaped him. Struggling to regain control felt like he was walking upstream through a freezing river - it made him think of a vacation in Niagara and he realized that he'd never been, that it was someone else's memory.

Through eyes he no longer controlled he could see Dean, Sam and Bobby looking at him in openmouthed shock and he had an appalling sensation of laughing hysterically in panic, although no sound left his mouth.

More and more of the souls pushed up against him, eroding his control further. I'm losing myself, he thought, They're sweeping me away. I'm drowning in a sea of evil souls and there's no one to save me.

He looked up at Dean with pleading eyes, but the hunter's face was hard and unyielding, the muscles in his cheek jumping.

Oh, please help me, he begged silently.

The swarm of souls within him rose up in a sudden concerted effort and pulled him under.

Castiel flailed in the darkness of his own mind, striking out at the things moving and swarming and oozing around him. He was glad of the dark; there were hideous things out there in the gloom, things that not even an angel should ever have to see. Castiel felt a keen, paralyzing terror as he tried to bury his consciousness ever deeper in an attempt to hide, but it was too late and he felt his sanity on the point of breaking.

With his back to a metaphysical wall, he fought with determined effort and regained control of his vessel piece by piece until there was only one thing in his way of total control. The leader and driving force behind the attack on him was a huge, writhing mass of fleshy tentacles that was lit with a pallid green glow emanating from within its own body. The beast rounded on him.

"Ah, the angel, still feeling limp?" she mocked.

"Eve," he responded in shocked recognition.

"Didn't think about where I would go when you killed me, did you? You're too late! I've already had my revenge," she laughed and laughed until Castiel dealt her a killing blow.

His body suddenly his own again he stumbled over someone's leg. Without thinking he mumbled an automatic apology as he fell to his knees. Turning he realized that it was Dean lying prone on the ground that he had tripped over. He looked on in horror at the torn and twisted body of his friend.

He pulled Dean up into his arms as he struggled in vain to heal him. He turned to Sam and Bobby who were in defensive poses, weapons drawn on him with grim expressions.

"What happened?" he demanded, the words coming out in an almost-shriek.

"You did, when he wouldn't kneel to you," said Bobby.

"What? No, that wasn't me, it was Eve. She possessed me."

Hearing the angel's words, Dean returned to consciousness to find himself in Cas' lap. The angel was looking down at him in concern, but now looking like the Cas he knew, and it was as if a blockage had been cleared and a huge backlog of emotion came pouring out in a massive deluge of pain and anguish and love.

The pain of Sammy's loss, the restlessness of his absence that had stopped him from settling with Lisa and Ben. Sacrificing their love and companionship. The betrayal by Samuel, by Sammy, then finally by Cas. It had all been too much - all rolled up tight in his chest like a heavy cancerous stone, poisoning him all the while dragging him down, down.

With sudden insight he realized that all this time he had been keeping people at arm's distance at best, at worst he'd pushed people away. Why hadn't he called for Cas, why hadn't he even picked up the phone and checked that Bobby was ok, the guy who was like a goddamn father to him?

He realized that he'd been broken for a long time now, incapable of making that initial leap of faith and to actually reach out to someone. He'd waited and waited for everyone else to make the first move - and life just doesn't work like that. Everyone had seen what a shitty life he'd led, the sacrifices and the pain he'd been through and no one had wanted to be the one to drag him back to that life. They'd missed him, but they'd been relieved that he'd not contacted them, taking it as evidence that he was happy at long last, earning the long overdue rewards of the life he'd always deserved. And he'd read it as betrayal, what a douche he must be. From now on, he decided, things are gonna change.

"Cas? You're back. I knew it couldn't be you. I'm sorry I was so rough on you," he rasped despite the agony of his injuries. He grabbed hold of his angel's hand, seeking comfort, knowing that everything was going to be alright now.

"No, Dean. No, I should have listened, I should've found another way to defeat Raphael," Castiel responded still trying in vain to find the means to heal the hunter's wounds. Why isn't it working? he thought in desperation.

A low rattling sound escaped Dean's throat and he struggled to blink against the drops of water splashing onto his upturned face. Eyes glazed in pain he still managed a small confused smile at Castiel.

"Is it... raining?" he asked with a fading breath.

"No," screamed Castiel.

~#~

Officer Steve Reardon wasn't too worried when he first saw the vagrant in the shadows of the alley; it was a sad, but all too common sight these days, the mad, the vulnerable and the dispossessed left to fend for themselves in these times of hardship. For the last couple of months with the endless natural disasters and rising civil disobedience the world had seemed to be going to Hell in a handcart - you knew things were bad when even the atheists started to speak of the End of Days in hushed tones.

As the figure drew nearer, Reardon could see that the man's clothes hung from him in tatters, his black hair and full beard were long and matted, and he had piercing blue eyes that rolled in their sockets. The stench was overpowering, and it was only at the last minute that the cop reached for his firearm as he recognized the smell he always dreaded, the smell that wasn't just unwashed body.

"Do not look at me for I have sinned," mumbled the vagrant in gravel-like tones, as he started to stumble away without seeming to notice the officer.

Officer Reardon raised his weapon, "Stop, police!"

"My beloved had beautiful eyes, they're the window of the soul, y'know," babbled the vagrant to himself and the officer could see that he was shielding something large with his body.

"What are you carrying?" barked Reardon, with a rising sense of dread.

"Have you seen him? I cannot wake him," moaned the man in agitation, as it became clear he held the remains of a man, cradled like a child, against his chest.

The vagrant's face twisted in anguish, tears running in rivulets down his face, as he staggered towards the police officer, "My beloved has gone because I failed him. I seek, but I cannot find; I call, but he does not answer."

For the briefest moment the vagrant's madness seemed to clear and he caught Reardon's eyes in a gaze that seemed to see right down into the officer's soul, "All that power at my command, more even that the sun, and it can't even heal so much as a scratch. All I can do is destroy," growled the vagrant in a voice thick with pain and despair.

Reardon felt an ice cold chill run down his spine and his hair stood on end, his instincts shrieking at him to turn and flee for his life. He had never in all his years on the beat felt so threatened, let alone by someone who looked so innocuous.

Failing to control his sudden overwhelming feelings of terror, Reardon had called a half-dozen warnings and emptied a full clip into the vagrant before his partner, back from his coffee and donuts run, managed to call for backup as the vagrant kept coming.

It was only when the SWAT team arrived that the vagrant started smiting and didn't stop until, with a blast of cold white light, he vaporized the globe.

~#~

The writer sat at his computer typing out the final words of his story. He shook his head in annoyance that despite his best efforts the characters were still insistent on getting away from him.

"Come on, Cas" he urged, "I gave you everything you needed to get to the ending you wanted," he said tutting.

"I think I need to go back to the beginning with this one," the writer muttered to himself.

"Isn't that cheating?" asked the thin, to the point of skeletal, older man in the dark suit who had just appeared in the blink of an eye and was sat eating at the kitchen table.

The author turned, "Hmm, I don't see you for ages, and now it seems like you're there every time I turn around. Should I be worried?"

The thin man merely smiled in response before adding, "You didn't answer my question."

"Rules were meant to be broken," the author dismissed, as he printed out the pages he'd written.

"They don't seem to have a great deal of faith in you, despite all you do for them. Doesn't that bother you?"

"Nah, that's just families, isn't it? Anyway, they need the space to make their own mistakes," dismissed the author, smiling.

"Well, somebody's a lot less wrathful than they used to be," observed the thin man, tucking in to spaghetti and meatballs from a take-out carton.

"Oh, I'm saving it up for the finale, don't you worry," said the author, more to himself than his companion, with a sudden, uncharacteristic steel-like glint in his eye. He looked up and grinned at the thin man, twisting the printed pages he held and wrapping the end back into the beginning.

"I'm going a bit non-linear with this one... again," he explained as the pages glowed white-hot for a second, before disappearing.

"Are you sure you're not just making this up as you go along?" asked the thin man, narrowing his eyes.

~#~

It was long after the remainder of the universe had been reaped and even Death himself had departed back to the realm of the Outer Gods; the eternal slumbering entities who had created him.

Only the god Castiel remained floating in the void at the end of time, in a place that could only be described as no-where and no-when. With only the memory of all the mistakes it had made playing over and over in its mind to keep it company, it had been insane for many long, long aeons.

"...go back to the beginning with this one," the universe seemed to whisper, waking the god Castiel from its reverie.

Detecting the presence of another being, the god Castiel babbled happy nonsense as it poured all of its own existence and grace into the blasted molecules of an earnest, naïve young angel. As they started to combine into a single, more powerful, being they flew back through time, back to the beginning.

"Are you God?" the young angel asked in awe as dead stars burst back into life around him.

The god Castiel shrugged... and this time shook its head. Reality teetered as, after so many loops, something different was happening this time round.

The young angel frowned in confusion, "Oh. How may I serve?" he prayed.

This time divine instruction took the form of three words.

"Go to Dean," said the god Castiel, before it was absorbed into the young angel.

Castiel cried out in pure joy as his being resonated in time to the command that he already carried in his heart.

THE END

~#~

Author notes:

I hope, after ending the world and all, you're all still fine…

I'm slightly stunned that after choosing to name this after an R.E.M. song they choose today to split up…

The Littlest Elf is a fictional book invented by Lemony Snicket.

The vagrant scene is very heavily based on The Song of Solomon.

The Elder Gods belong to HP Lovecraft, or is that the other way round? I'm never quite sure...

And yes, Cas brought himself back from the dead. Someone far more intelligent than me once said that time is a "big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff". So there.

(;,;)