Ch. 1

Disclaimer: not mine, I'm only worshipping at the Altar of Kripke

"This is hellhound shit!" Dean snarled at his father, his wings flared high in aggression.

"Watch your tone, Dean!" John warned, his own wings arching. "You're not too old to put over my knee, boy."

Dean grit his teeth and glowered but folded his wings to his back, the membranes making a soft sound like silk sliding together.

"I don't get why we're even thinking of allying with those feathered freaks when they're the one's who've kept this war going as long as it has," he argued in a more reasonable tone; John Winchester wasn't a demon who made idle threats after all.

"That was the old king," Mary explained to her eldest. "This new one wants peace just as much as we do."

"Try to understand, Dean," his father continued. "We've been loosing people, good people, to this war for far too long and now that we're being offered a way out of it I'm going to take it… even if it means marrying you and Sam to Angels."

Dean's eyes widened.

"Dad!"

"John!" Mary scolded at the same time. "Sam is already betrothed."

"You can't take Sam and Jess away from each other!" Dean argued.

John held up a hand to hold off his wife and son's protestations.

"I know," he replied. "And I won't. All I'm saying is that peace comes at a price and the royals are the ones who have to pay it. I won't force you into this, Dean, but I have the welfare of a kingdom to think of and, like it or not, so do you."

SPNSPNSPNSPN

"I won't do it."

Michael spared a glance up from the decree Balthazar had placed in front of him to look his younger brother in the eye.

"This isn't a negotiation, Castiel," he said before returning his attention to the paper in front of him. Their father had left quite a mess for his eldest to sort out, too busy trying to bring their neighboring kingdom under Angelic rule to notice how close his own subjects were to rebellion.

"It should be," the newest Crown Prince snarled, his forever messy silver and onyx feathers puffed up in anger. "Especially when I will be the one tied to one of those animals for the remainder of my existence!"

Michael sighed, setting his pen down and motioning for the others to leave them for the moment. Balthazar gathered up the documents already bearing Michael's signature and royal seal before slipping out of the room behind Lucifer and Gabriel, Castiel's personal guards, who took up stations on either side of the door. Michael tried to massage away the headache he could feel forming; he'd tried his best to keep Castiel away from their father and his anyone-who's-not-an-angel-is-dirt ideals after the death of their mother but it had been his job as the eldest child to take up her place as the General of Heaven's massive army. Though he'd only been 26 at the time Angels were raised as soldiers from the cradle and he'd been ready for the responsibility but it had kept him away from the palace which had left Castiel open to Zachariah's influence more than Michael, or their mother, would have wanted. His brother had only been nine when the Queen had disappeared, their sister, Joanna, not even six months. She, at least, had been left in relative peace, raised mostly by nannies and wet nurses who had been hand-picked by Queen Ellen and so shared her ideals of peace and equality with their neighboring kingdom.

This marriage might actually do his brother some good… if his spouse could refrain from killing him, that is.

"They're not animals, Castiel," Michael said, not for the first time. "They are simply a different race who moved to defend themselves from Father's attempts to wipe them out. They want peace, brother, and if I do nothing else during my time as King I will do this."

SPNSPNSPNSPN

The wedding was to take place in Purgatory, a neutral city/state that had formed along one of the borders shared by Heaven and Hell around the time Zachariah had taken Heaven's throne. The two royal families had arrived at the citadel in the center of the city/state a week before the wedding of the two Princes was to take place so they could all get to know each other.

Dean fidgeted in the overly formal clothing his mother had insisted on as he surveyed the banquet hall. It seemed to be filled with every Lord, Lady, and dignitary either kingdom could boast of and the prince found himself feeling mildly claustrophobic as yet another Sir Something-or-other clapped him on the shoulder and wished him well, this one with a lewd wink that made Dean grind his teeth together. Ducking into an out of the way corner, he watched the races mingle.

Michael, the new King of Heaven, and his Queen, a fiery-haired female named Anna, were speaking to Dean's parents at one end of the room. When they'd first met, the Angels had welcomed the prince and his family like they were already related, apologizing profusely for the former King's actions and stating that the pair had disapproved of the War from the very beginning but had been unable to do anything about it until the old King's death in battle several months previous.

Michael was young for a King, only 46 though he didn't look a day over 25. It was a trait shared by Demons and Angels; they would age like the humans that lived on the far edge of the Western Continent until they hit their mid-twenties, then their aging would slow to a snail's pace. Dean hadn't yet been able to see it in himself, being only 27, but his parents were both well into their nineties and were youthful enough to pass for his siblings.

Both Royal pairs were dressed in their finest, as the occasion apparently called for. His mother was gorgeous, as always, in a floor-length gown of bright yellow that brought out her golden hair, with an underskirt of molten orange that almost seemed to glow like she'd dipped herself in a forge and formed the liquid metals into clothes for herself. A dainty crown of obsidian rested on her brow, the crown swooping down to a point that rested on her smooth brow, a ruby the size of an eye cradled within the triangle and gleaming in the light. Beside her, King John was dressed in the military uniform used for ceremonies; black breeches and a black over shirt cut in strategic places to allow the red of the undershirt to show through, each mark telling those who knew how to interpret them of an enemy slain, an honor achieved, a comrade saved or avenged. The Demon King's crown was as understated as that of his Queen, a simple circlet of the same volcanic glass with its own ruby glittering in the center; though where Mary's dipped down to grace her forehead John's curved up on either side of the central gem into two curling horns. Both of his parents wore glittering chains of silver draped across the backs of their wings, held on by caps of the same metal set over the wickedly sharp spines that extended from the wings of all Demons; one at each elbow joint and another protruding from the bottom ends of the 'finger' bones the delicate membranes of their fleshy wings stretched between.

The Angels were a sight as well. The Queen, Anna, was in a gown of emerald green that brought out the color of her eyes, with an underskirt of sapphire blue, much in the same style as Queen Mary's gown, but that's where the similarities ended. The Angel Queen's crown was made of silver and looked to be made of one continuous strand of metal dipping and curling across her brow before looping around to the back of her head and forming a delicate halo behind her. A sapphire teardrop roughly the size as Mary's ruby hung from the center of Anna's crown to rest just above her eyebrows. King Michael's crown was nearly identical but more masculine in design, the silver wire thicker and the sapphire in the middle surrounded by the metal instead of hanging free, though the same halo rose behind his head as well. His clothing was the opposite of Anna's, his undershirt the green of her gown and his over shirt the jeweled blue. It was cut out in places, like King John's, though it seemed to be for decoration rather than commemoration as far as Dean could tell. The Angels had their wings adorned as well, though Dean wasn't quite sure what to make of the sparkling gems that seemed to be either tied or sewn onto the feathers. The Queen's wings were red as her hair and tipped with gold. It looked like metal but Dean had been told that Angels of royal blood tended to have metallic or jewel-toned colors on their feathers. King Michael's wings were a dark navy blue, so dark they were almost black, the tips of his feathers striped with double V's of a sapphire blue that matched his over shirt and glittered when they caught the light.

A familiar laugh caught his attention and Dean's eyes swung to Lady Jessica, his brother's betrothed, and found her in an animated conversation with Princess Joanna, or Jo as she insisted on being called. The Angel Princess was Sam's age and didn't appear to share the prejudices of Prince Castiel, who had yet to make an appearance, as she'd brought one of her wings around and was letting Jess run curious fingers over the tan and gold feathers. In return, Jessica curved one of her own wings between the two to show off the delicate gold chains spanning the silken flesh, held on by small rings, not solid caps, which slipped over her spines. She would only be allowed the caps once she and Sam were closer to their wedding. Marriage wasn't something taken lightly in Demonic society so it was frowned upon, nearly to the point of being forbidden, for couples to cover their spines any sooner than a week before the wedding, allowing each partner a chance to back out because, for Demons, there was no such thing as divorce. At this point in the process only Sam and Jessica's near-constant proximity to each other, and the chains themselves, marked them as a Courting Pair, though Dean couldn't see either of them backing out. The two were so far gone on each other that it was almost sickening to watch.

Dean's own spines were capped completely with silver, the jingling chains made of the same, the glittering metal contrasting brightly against the traditional black and red of his pre-nuptial garments and signaling, to other demons at least, that he was off the market, permanently. He'd never worn the gold chains, never met anyone he'd wanted to give them to either, and to suddenly find himself capped with silver was enough to make his stomach churn. Plucking the plain obsidian circlet from his head Dean ran a hand through his short hair, swallowing hard. By the Shades in the Underworld, why had he agreed to do this?

"There's the blushing bride," an obnoxiously cheerful voice announced and Dean slit his eyes open to glare at the newest addition to his personal guard detail.

"Fuck off, Crowley," he growled. The annoying demon had been sent to him from his grandfather, Samuel. He'd been told that the soldier was both crafty and deadly, a combination that could come in handy if the Angels ever tried something, but Dean had a feeling the Hades Demon had been sent away just to get him out of Samuel's hair.

A great many of the residents of the former kingdom of Hades, which had been joined to Hell with Mary and John's marriage, still saw themselves as separate from the rest of Hell's residents and quite a few took personal pride in being as annoying as mortally possible.

Crowley smirked, snagging a glass of Hellfire Vodka from a passing servant and took a swallow, "Nah, you'd miss me."

"Where's your keeper?" Dean asked, scanning the crowded hall for Azazel, the guard who had been assigned Dean's safe-keeping since the prince's birth.

"You know," Crowley answered, taking another deep swallow. "Around."

Dean rolled his eyes and pushed off of the wall as his father motioned him over, slipping through the crowd to his parents' sides. The older Demon was never far off but seemed to get a perverse sort of pleasure out of making Dean suffer the new guard's company. Dean was beginning to regret all of those pranks he'd pulled on the other Demon when he'd been growing up and wondered, not for the first time, exactly why Meg had to choose now to settle down with Alastair and raise a litter of babies when she'd been perfectly content to string him along the entirety of Dean's remembered life. He was being punished, he just knew it.

Tugging on Sam's golden chains as he came up beside his brother, Dean offered his arm to Princess Jo which she took as Jessica slipped her own around Sam's and the four joined the Kings and Queens who were moving to the head of the banquet table. Azazel took up his customary position by the wall behind Dean's chair and the Prince couldn't hold back his smirk as the older Demon snatched the glass of Hellfire from Crowley and smacked the Hades Demon upside the head.

The Cupid who would be doing the actual ceremony had joined the royals at the head of the table. As far as Dean could tell, the pudgy, overly happy Angel seemed to be a mixture of priest and matchmaker and far too hung up on love to be entirely sane. Also, he seemed to want to hug everybody, which the Angels all took in stride but Dean just found awkward as fuck. The Cupid wasn't the only new face Dean discovered as the four of them joined his parents and Jo's brother and sister-in-law.

The Angel looked to be Dean's age, which meant he could be anywhere between 25 and 225, and was obviously royalty if the obsidian black, metallic silver tipped feathers of his wings were anything to go by. He was shorter than Dean but not by much and dressed in the traditional white and sky-blue garments of Angel marriage attire, a plain silver circlet was set atop his head and trying its best to tame the dark flyaway locks that made him look like he'd just stumbled out of some maid's bedchamber. Brilliant blue eyes locked with Dean's own green as Michael smiled a moved forward to wrap a brotherly arm around the new Angel.

"Prince Dean," the King of Heaven said. "I'd like to introduce you to your intended; my brother, the Crown Prince Castiel."