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Pain comes first. Before thought, before memory, before identity: pain. Pain that fills and defines the whole world, and rips vivid streaks of red across the darkness. Pain that fills the silence of his mind with unvoiced screams.
Much later, when he has the opportunity to reflect upon events, Castiel will wonder whether it was like this for Dean Winchester when he awoke within reanimated flesh. He hopes not. He tried to ensure that Dean didn't return to consciousness until the rotten remains of his body had been fully restored, but now he has reason to wonder how good a job he truly did of protecting Dean's psyche. In all fairness, Dean was, at that point, so used to being in agony that he may not even have registered the transition from non-corporeal pain to the torments of the flesh. Absence of pain must have been a far greater shock.
For Castiel, returning to life in a body that feels like it has been flayed and had every single bone shattered, every single organ dissolved to mush, the pain is so astonishing in its intensity that he passes out again before he can draw breath to scream.
This time, he takes with him into the darkness the memory of a startled pair of eyes.
When Castiel next awakens, all that remains is a dull ache and the memory of pain like a fading bruise upon his mind. He is cold, but he can feel sunlight falling warm upon the back of his neck, and grass prickling damply into his skin. He can hear birds calling out their challenges and entreaties, and the sound of the wind in the pines, but nothing else. The air smells sweet and clean, carrying soil and sap and a hint of snow, but no trace of humankind. Gingerly, Castiel blinks his eyes open, and only then thinks to marvel that this is how he has extended his senses. As if he were a mortal. One shocked, interminable heartbeat later he understands why this is, and he is on his feet and trying pointlessly to hurl himself into the void. His wings do not unfurl. The world does not become gossamer-thin around him and fade into nothingness. No blade of grass stirs at the pressure of his wrath.
Nothing happens at all.
“Ah – you're back.”
Castiel spins around, skittish and angry and perhaps just a little bit terrified. Behind him he sees the trees thin out into a clearing, grass lush and springy underfoot and thick with flowers, and then the land falls away with shocking suddenness to reveal a truly stunning vista of snow-capped mountains and, far below, a bright river winding, snake-like, at their feet. The jagged peaks reach up to pierce the sky, silent and unspoilt. Breathtaking, in truth, but all of Castiel's attention is concentrated upon the slight figure standing in the clearing, looking out upon the view. A man: tall, slender, fair-haired, barefoot. He hasn't turned to look at Castiel yet.
“Magnificent, isn't it?” he says, gesturing out at the view.
It is not, Castiel is almost certain, either Anna or Zachariah wearing a new vessel. But it must be an angel, he thinks. Or perhaps a demon? Certainly no human has knitted together his ruined flesh and pressed his soul gently back inside until it sits as snug and safe as a pearl in an unopened oyster shell. And as lonely, he realises, and then tries in vain to find Jimmy Novak hiding somewhere inside with him. Nothing. Gone. He swallows, waiting for his saviour to make a move. It is unlikely to be Zachariah, surely; in truth, he doubts that Zachariah is capable of such a feat. Even if he were, it seems most unlikely that he would exert himself on Castiel's behalf. Unless – unless he has something else in store for him. Something worse than what the Archangels did.
He shudders in spite of himself, and prays – although to whom, he no longer knows – that this is not the case.
It is quietly terrifying to find himself trapped in this shell, unable to truly see. To be limited to merely looking at the simple surfaces of things – all textures, and colours, and nothing else. No sense of past or future, no glimpses of the souls of things. This is reality as Dean Winchester perceives it – and it is, frankly, a terrifyingly inadequate perspective. He cannot reach out and touch anyone's thoughts, cannot look upon a tree and know at once the number of its leaves and the moment when it first took root. He is broken, and caged, and terribly lost without his grace. His heart is beating unnaturally fast, and some small, calm part of his mind notes this as a fight-or-flight response to fear. He is at the mercy of hormones and glands and ancient, messy instincts, now. No longer a being of fire and air and thought – now he is built from blood and bone, membranes and nerves. He has never felt so vulnerable – not even in Heaven, when they had him splayed out and helpless before them like a butterfly pierced by a pin, and forced him to accept his punishment. Even then he was, at least, himself, and he had understood what was happening, and why.
“Who are you?” he demands, his voice emerging harsh from his newly-mended throat. “What happened? Where are we?”
His companion glances over his shoulder and directs a smile at him of such dazzling loveliness that Castiel temporarily forgets how to breathe. He knows those eyes.
“So many questions,” his companion says, turning back to look out at the mountains again. “Well then, in reverse order: we are in a clearing atop one of the mountains in a range known, in this time and place, as The Rockies; you died, and I brought you back; and I am your brother.”
Castiel cannot look away from the thin sliver of the man's profile. And perhaps this is how it always feels for humans (for Castiel is under no illusions about what he has become), when they come face-to-face with an immortal being clothed in inadequate garments of flesh – but he thinks not. There was only ever one angel in all the spheres of heaven who shone so bright, only one who drew the eye so ineluctably.
“Lucifer,” he says, his voice barely a whisper as his heart sinks. “We failed, then.”
“Now there's a touching welcome, if ever I heard one.” There is definitely a ripple of laughter in his voice. “Still so earnest, Castiel? And yet something clearly moved you enough to stir defiance in your heart at last, when all my own entreaties availed me nothing.” He turns his back on the mountains and studies Castiel properly, a rueful smile curving his mouth. In one hand he holds a small blue flower, and he twirls it absent mindedly as he surveys Castiel.
“How do you know that?” Castiel demands, wide-eyed.
“Oh, I've always been a quick study, love. And they don't rip your grace out and toss the crumbling ember of your soul out into the void for good behaviour.” He arches one brow. “Or at least – I'm assuming that they don't.” His mouth flickers into a smile again. “I am, however, a little out of touch. Eavesdropping on the humans was an easy enough business, but Heaven was another matter. I suppose it's conceivable that the old bastard has finally gone completely doolally and started having his loyal followers executed just for shits and giggles.”
“You should not speak of our Father thus,” Castiel protests, automatically – even though he has had much the same thoughts himself, albeit couched in more respectful terms. He remembers watching his kin picked off one by one while God did nothing to intervene; remembers too the unpalatable discovery that these had been the faithful members of the garrison. The ones who refused to join Uriel in his quest.
Lucifer is looking at him carefully. “Very well,” he says, with a shrug. “I did not mean to cause you distress.”
Castiel is trembling, whether from the cold or from the shock of this unexpected rebirth, and he cannot stop. Everything has gone very, very wrong.
“The Winchesters?” he asks, hoarsely, afraid of the answer. “Dean?” Dead, he thinks, and is taken aback by how deeply this thought pains him. Dead.
Lucifer's eyes narrow slightly, and he wets his lips. “Thereby hangs a tale, I see. The Winchesters. Hmm. Are they the ones who made all of this possible?” He sounds honestly curious, and Castiel berates himself. If they have gotten away, the very last thing he wants to do is set Lucifer on their trail. “I think we have a little catching up to do, my friend.” He's still smiling as he steps towards Castiel, but his whole body has gone loose-limbed and predatory, and Castiel feels a little flutter of terror, then, because he cannot fly, and he is imprisoned in this weak, breakable casing of meat and bone, and he knows, with absolute certainty, that there is nothing he can do to protect himself from the creature before him. Truthfully, even if he were still himself he wouldn't stand a chance against the Lightbringer; but this – this is weakness of an entirely different order of magnitude. This is horrifying.
Lucifer is going to taste his memories and know the truth, know everything that Castiel has been a party to, and this will be the first step in his conquest of the earth.
Killing Dean Winchester will be the second step.
Knowing it is pointless, Castiel turns around and bolts into the cool shadow of the trees.
He hears Lucifer give a startled laugh behind him and expects wingbeats, or simply to run smack into a newly-materialised form. He expects trees to uproot themselves and build a wall before him. He expects to be struck down. He knows that simply running like a panic-stricken animal is not a good plan – but he is panic-stricken, and he is all human now as well, not some transcendent creature formed from fire and thought; he is an animal, and he can see no other options; and so he runs. His heart is pounding and his veins are flooding with adrenaline, and it is all so coarse and carnal and pitiful that he wants to weep from frustration, and wishes that he could obliterate the whole mountain with both of them on it. This is what Anna meant, he realises, scraping his hand and tearing his coat on a jagged branch – emotions are inextricably tangled with blood and bone and fragility; they exist in time, not in eternity. Everything he has felt before has been a pale simulation of this chaotic rush of feeling. The intensity is staggering. He is terrified, and exhilarated, and furious; and he is unspeakably relieved that the Winchesters yet live. That Dean yet lives. Castiel flings himself recklessly down the slope, stumbling on the uneven ground, arms windmilling at his sides. There is a knack to this, a rhythm that he has seen Dean Winchester fall into effortlessly time after time, but Castiel does not have the skill and he is soon gasping and out of breath, his side hurting and his head spinning. It occurs to him, belatedly, that the air is thinner at this altitude, and that this will make a difference to him, now. But he cannot stop. Behind him he hears Lucifer scrambling down the slope, laughing with breathless glee.
He has only himself to blame when he catches his ankle on an outcrop of rock and falls. Lucifer finds him struggling to rise, tears standing out in his eyes at the unaccustomed pain. He is shivering hard now, all too aware of the cold, and of how badly he has failed.
Lucifer approaches him warily, an expression of rueful amusement on his face. His cheeks are flushed with exertion.
“Well, that was fun!” he says, and then slows down and raises his hands, palms open. “Easy,” he says gently, as if trying to sooth a fractious beast. He smiles, and he is still quite shockingly beautiful, even shrouded thus in this veil of borrowed skin. “Easy now.”
Castiel, helpless and furious with himself as much as with Lucifer, throws a rock at him. It hits him squarely in the face and ricochets off with a clear ringing sound, as though it had been hurled at a steel door. Lucifer's eyes widen, and he gives another laugh.
“Oh, Castiel, Castiel – what has befallen you, my friend?” he says, and scoops Castiel effortlessly up in his arms. Castiel does not struggle, because there would be no point at all to such an undignified display. An instant later they are back in the sunlit clearing, and Castiel has the echo of flexing pinions in his ear, and the afterimage of flame-blue wings burned into his eyelids. Lucifer sets him down on the grass and looks at the ankle with a frown. “Honestly. I only just fixed that,” he murmurs in a reproving tone, and Castiel feels the pain leech swiftly out of his twisted ankle. He tries to balance on it, and it startled to find the pain has all gone, and it feels strong and whole once more. “Take better care of it, or next time I might just let you suffer,” Lucifer says. He cocks his head and smiles. “Now, let's see what's been going on with my long lost family, shall we?” Castiel swallows hard, his mind scrabbling frantically for a plan. And there's nothing. Nothing at all. Lucifer reaches out to press a fingertip to his forehead. “Don't look so worried! I promise, you won't feel a thing,” he says.
Dean, thinks Castiel, his heart twisting in desperation. Dean Winchester is the one destined to kill Lucifer. So Dean Winchester is the first one Lucifer will need to kill. But he doesn't know it yet. And Castiel is about to tell him. He backs away, and then realises that he does have another option after all. He turns and hurls himself across the clearing and towards the precipice, grinding the small white and blue flowers underfoot, and he hears Lucifer's startled hiss of breath as he launches himself out, out, away from the mountainside and into the cold, clean air.
He screams. He can't help it. He is plummeting down out of the sky, the air roaring in his ears, and he can see the ground rushing up towards him – still far away, but getting closer every moment. He screams and he screams, although the air is being crushed out of his lungs, and he can't distinguish any sounds he is making himself from the sounds of the air rushing past him.
And then there are arms around him, and the familiar sound of wings, and the warm, cringing, mortal part of him is shamefully grateful for this reprieve. He clings to Lucifer with his arms and legs, trembling and shocked, and Lucifer holds on tight, and does not let him fall.
“This is starting to get annoying,” Lucifer murmurs, his breath licking warm against Castiel's ear, ruffling his hair. But he doesn't sound annoyed. He actually sounds almost amused. “Perhaps we should be somewhere a little less tempting, hmm? For those of us with lemming-like impulses, and poor decision-making skills?”
Castiel does not trust himself to reply, but Lucifer doesn't seem to be waiting for an answer, so that's okay.
And then the world ripples around them, and they are standing on firm ground once more. Standing in white sand, looking out over a turquoise sea, with the sun beating down out of a cloudless sky. Castiel closes his eyes and concentrates on breathing. He is still shaking. He wonders whether he is going to spend his entire mortal existence shaking.
“You can let go any time, you know,” Lucifer says, gently, and Castiel jumps back as if burnt.
“Oh!” he says, and is on the brink of apologising, before reality rears its head. He stands up straighter and sticks his chin out. “I won't help you,” he says. It's not like there's a whole hell of a lot he can do to stop Lucifer from stripping his mind, but at least he can refuse to roll over and accept it.
Lucifer nods thoughtfully. “Okay,” he says, and sits down in the sand.
Castiel stares at him. “Okay?” he says, waiting for the punchline.
Lucifer shrugs. “Okay. I'll find out from somebody else.” He pulls a face. “I was kind of hoping to avoid the somebody elses for a while, though.” He flops back into the sand and closes his eyes, basking in the sun's warmth. “Damn, it's good to be free.”
Castiel stands there, stiffly, and watches him. And watches him. And watches him. And then he asks himself why he is just standing there like an automaton, and reminds himself that nobody is going to give him any more orders, and he turns and walks away down the beach. After a while he stops, removes his coat and his shoes and his socks, and rolls up the bottoms of his trousers a little, and then carries on.
It is nearly sunset when Lucifer finds him again. Castiel's skin feels hot and itchy, and he has been experiencing an empty, growling sensation that he rather suspects is hunger. He doesn't like it very much. He has sweated through his clothing, and there is sand everywhere. He sits in the sand with his knees tucked against his chest and his arms wrapped around them, scowling. He is very, very, very thirsty. And he has no idea what to do.
“Ready to move on?” Lucifer asks, watching him with eyes that hide secrets.
Castiel had known, of course, that there was no hiding. He had faintly hoped to find humans somewhere – although what use he expected them to be against Lucifer is another matter entirely. But the island seems empty of everything but plants, insects and scuttling crabs, and it is small enough that he has walked from one side to the other and back again. He isn't surprised to see Lucifer; although neither would he have been surprised to be left here to rot.
He blinks up into a face of heart-stopping beauty. “Do I have a choice?” he asks.
Lucifer looks surprised. “Certainly. You can stay here, if you really want to, but I don't think it would be a very good idea. It's a nice place to visit, but I don't know why anybody would want to live here. Or what they'd live on.” He frowns. “You probably need feeding and watering, by now, don't you?”
Castiel looks away, flushing and frustrated at how utterly helpless he finds himself.
“Dinner's on me,” Lucifer says, as if it's a joke. “A last supper, before I wave you off. Anywhere in particular you'd like to go?”
“Stop toying with me,” Castiel says, in a low voice. “I deserve better than that.”
“Oh, we all deserve better than we've received, my dear,” Lucifer says with feeling. He looks Castiel up and down, taking in the dishevelled clothes and the salt-stiff, wind-blown hair, and Castiel does not know how to read his smile. “No, you have not been very well treated, have you? Not by any of them.” He shrugs. “Well, join the club.”
“I will not help you.”
“Yes, you said that already.” Lucifer nods absently. “I don't really need very much help. I'm not planning anything particularly dramatic.” He sits down next to Castiel, and looks out at the sunset. “Good spot you picked.”
“I will not help you with the Apocalypse,” Castiel says, lest there be any doubt on the subject.
Lucifer laughs. “Okay then.” He leans a little closer, keeping his eyes fixed on the horizon where the sky is blushing crimson and gold, azure and violet and rose, the fat undersides of clouds painted bright and lovely by the setting sun. “I'm not actually planning on helping out with the Apocalypse myself,” he confides, in a whisper, and then leans back on his elbows, smiling at the sunset.
Castiel's eyes narrow. “I do not believe you,” he says.
“Fair enough.”
They sit in silence for a while, as the sun slides down to kiss the sea. Finally Castiel loses all patience. “It is prophesied,” he says, tersely. “That is why you rose. You want to end the world.”
“If you say so.”
The disk of the sun slides further over the horizon, until at last there's only a tiny strip of light left visible. Castiel is tired, and hungry, and thirsty, and sunburnt, and thoroughly, hopelessly lost. The path that he has spent his whole existence following is long gone, and more than almost anything, he wants to go home. Almost anything.
He can never go home. And neither can he return to Dean Winchester without leading Lucifer right to his doorstep. And, whatever he may claim, Lucifer will want to kill Dean. Or corrupt him. Castiel will not assist in either aim.
“Do you claim that this is not why you rose?” demands Castiel at last. Lucifer turns to him with a very mild expression.
“Castiel, I was trapped. I was imprisoned, helpless, impotent and alone. For millennia. Are you really surprised that I wanted out? Why do I need another reason?” He springs to his feet and brushes the sand away from his jeans and his half-open white dress shirt, and then reaches out a hand to help Castiel up. Castiel ignores it, and scrambles to his feet. “You do like to make things difficult, don't you?” Lucifer says, watching him with a half-smile quirking his mouth.
“Why are you doing this?” Castiel does not shout. Not quite.
“Because I can?” Lucifer's voice does not rise. He glances out at the sea. “Because it would piss them off?” He shrugs. “I can do whatever I want, Castiel. So can you, now. And I don't want to play their games.” Almost, Castiel could believe him. But that would be folly, and dangerous folly at that. “Come on, let's go and get you fed,” says Lucifer, tolerantly, and he reaches out and taps Castiel's forehead.
It is not the kind of restaurant that Dean would ever choose. Castiel glances around, feeling thoroughly disoriented, and wonders whether it felt like this for Dean every time Castiel pushed him through the layers of space or time to where he needed to be. He looks down, realising that he no longer feels sticky or gritty, and discovers that he is dressed in clean new clothes quite unlike anything that Jimmy Novak ever owned: an elegant suit just this side of black, over a shirt in a jewel-bright shade of blue. He feels clean-scrubbed all over, fingers and toes, hair and jawline, and there is no trace of the mixture of salt and sour sweat that has been filling his nostrils for hours.
Lucifer, feet no longer bare, hair no longer tousled, looks him up and down with an approving smile and steps close enough to adjust the knot of Castiel's patterned silk tie.
“Nice,” he says approvingly, and Castiel does not know what to think. “Come on.”
The suit Lucifer is wearing himself surely costs enough to feed a medium-sized family for a year. He looks like an actor posing as a prosperous businessman: too beautiful, too strong, too smart, too elegant. Perfect. He looks like success in human form, bright teeth shining when he smiles, walking with the unassuming confidence of someone who owns everything he beholds, and has nothing at all to prove. Every eye in the place is fixed upon him, and conversations are dying away as people forget what they were talking about and find themselves gazing hungrily at Lucifer instead. Castiel lets himself be led by the hand to the best table in the room, watching waiters nodding and bowing respectfully on every side. Lucifer's fingers are warm and dry around his own, but the grip is not so firm that he could not break it, if he chose.
He knows that he should be protesting at being dragged around like a puppy on a leash, but truthfully he has no idea what to do with himself now that he is mortal. His first thought would have been to seek out the Winchesters, or at least their friend Robert Singer – but he will not lead Lucifer to them. So he has nowhere else to be, and he is uncomfortably hungry, and quite terribly thirsty, and so he lets Lucifer draw him over to the table, and permits a flustered waiter to place a crisp white napkin on his lap, and present him with a creamy menu.
It has been a very confusing day.
Their waiter pours water into tall glasses of cut crystal, and Castiel makes an involuntary sound of pure yearning, and snatches up his glass. He empties it, and the waiter, looking rather startled, fills it again. Castiel empties that one too, and Lucifer, laughing quietly, hands him his own brimming glass as the waiter pours all that is left in his pitcher into Castiel's empty glass.
“May I take your drinks order, sir?” the young man asks, a moment later, his eyes fixed upon Lucifer. It seems a particularly strange question to Castiel, since they have just been presented with drinks, but evidently Lucifer is expecting the question.
“Champagne,” he says, smiling. “Your best champagne.” He looks at Castiel. “A magnum, I think. I have something to celebrate.”
“I do not want alcohol,” Castiel says, as their waiter scurries off to comply. He has emptied Lucifer's glass of water, and now he is looking sadly at his own half-full glass. He is still extremely thirsty.
Lucifer shrugs. “Fine by me. I can see how you might not be feeling entirely celebratory right now, but I am in an exceptionally good mood, and that, as I understand it, calls for champagne.”
“But – you do not need to eat, or drink,” says Castiel, honestly puzzled.
Lucifer throws his head back at that and laughs delightedly. “Who said anything about need? I needed to be free, and now I am. I don't need to eat or drink. But I want to. I want to try it all.” He looks around him almost fondly. “There are so many of them now – doesn't that blow you away, Castiel? How vast the population of humans has grown? And they have created so many extraordinary things.” He shakes his head. “Tiny blind worms, crawling on the face of the earth, living and dying in an instant, surrounded by predators stronger and more terrible than them – but they just won't give up. They don't accept their own limitations. They live, and they thrive, and they reshape the world into what they want, instead of reshaping themselves to fit with what is there. They have built their own wings.” His tone is one of admiration, but Castiel cannot credit that.
“You hate them,” he says, looking right at Lucifer. “You rebelled against our Father because he favoured them above us.”
“I rebelled against our Father because He was a dick,” says Lucifer easily, and Castiel flinches. “Sorry, Castiel, but that's the way it is.” He bites his lip, and then ducks his head a little. “And, okay, perhaps there was a dash of sibling rivalry there too. Because what the hell was all that about, anyway? Why should we bow down to them? I won't do that. But I don't hate them. It isn't their fault, after all. And have you seen the mess they're in? The big guy screwed them over pretty thoroughly, however great iPods and irrigation and airplanes and chocolate milkshakes might be. And he let the demons have their run of the place. I don't hate them, Cas. I pity them.”
“You're lying.”
Lucifer shrugs, and turns his attention to the menu. “Well, if it makes you feel better to believe that, you knock yourself out, my friend. Now – what would you recommend?”
Castiel stares at him incredulously for a long moment, but Lucifer seems thoroughly entranced by the menu, and is paying him no attention. “I have never eaten,” he says at last. “I had no need.”
“Well, now you have needs, Castiel, whether you like it or not,” Lucifer says, his mouth curling in a secretive smile as he studies the writing on the page. “And I have a lively sense of curiosity about the pleasures of the flesh. Starting right here.”
Castiel reminds himself that there is nothing to be ashamed of; that he was right not to indulge in any experimentation while he was possessing Jimmy Novak. But he feels oddly embarrassed at his own ignorance. He was able to sustain Jimmy's flesh without recourse to food or drink, so there was no need. He no longer has that luxury. “Dea- I understand hamburgers are very popular,” he says, and feels a cold sweat prickling out of his skin at how close he just came to giving Dean away. “And French fries,” he adds hastily. Lucifer doesn't seem to have noticed his slip.
“Yes. Yes, I got that impression too. They don't seem to have them listed here, though. Hmm. Roast beef, perhaps? The fatted calf? Oh! The champagne already? Well, what excellent service. Thank you, my dear. Yes, and for my grumpy-looking companion too.” Castiel opens his mouth to protest, but Lucifer waves a hand at him. “Shush – yes you are.”
“Please can you bring me more water?” Castiel says to the waiter, conscious of how dehydrated he still feels. He does not know why Lucifer left him with that physical discomfort, when he had taken care to make Castiel's body clean and fresh once more, and soothed his sunburnt skin.
Lucifer gives him a very level look. “While you're waiting for your water, drink a toast with me, Castiel. Please. Because I brought you back, and gave you your freedom, and because this is the only thing I am asking in return.”
He actually sounds very faintly injured, and Castiel feels a strange little wholly inappropriate twist of shame at his words, and at the expression on his face as he speaks them. He looks – lonely. Suddenly he looks very, very lonely, in spite of all that beauty and brightness - and loneliness is something that Castiel understands all too well.
One glass cannot hurt, surely?
“To a bright new future,” says Lucifer, lifting his champagne flute. His head tilts, and his eyes are wide under slightly raised brows, entreating – not commanding, but simply entreating - Castiel to join him.
Castiel bites his lip, and then lifts his own glass. “A bright new future,” he agrees, marvelling at the strangeness of the situation, and takes a drink.
Life devours life. It is an uncomfortable fact of human existence, but it is also quite inescapable. Dean Winchester loves eating. Jimmy Novak too, loved to eat. It is a necessary part of being human. Castiel looks down at the bowl of soup in front of him with a combination of nausea and eagerness, and fiddles with his spoon. His stomach rumbles, and Lucifer laughs at him.
“You could start with the bread?” Castiel eyes the warm rolls nestled snugly in their little basket, and sighs. Bread is made out of dead grass and living fungus, and it is one of the oldest human foods. It probably is a good place to start. Lucifer has already torn up one of the rolls, slathered the pieces thickly with yellow butter, and now he is popping one piece into his mouth. Castiel watches him, curiously, and is surprised by the expression of almost ecstatic pleasure that crosses Lucifer's face. It reminds Castiel almost painfully of the look that he has often seen Dean wear while eating, or listening to his favourite songs. Physical pleasure. Castiel is a purely physical being now.
Lucifer swallows, and licks his lips, and gives a delighted half laugh, and then knocks back another glass of champagne. Castiel's stomach rumbles again and he sighs, then picks out a roll cautiously and cuts it up with his knife. He gets crumbs on the white linen tablecloth. Across the table, Lucifer is smearing pate onto little triangles of toast, and he glances up at Castiel with an almost companionable look on his face, as if he doesn't realise that they are enemies.
“Well, I've got to give the old bastard his due – there might be some ridiculous design features in the human body, but, damn, he certainly got some things right. I can't believe that you've been inhabiting a human form and never even tried this!” He takes a bite of the pate and his eyes flutter closed in delight, and he makes a happy little crooning sound. “Mmm!”
Castiel makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, and then plunges his spoon into the bowl and lifts it to his lips. And promptly scalds his tongue. Lucifer laughs at him again, but it isn't an unkind sound. Castiel is finding it increasingly difficult to hold on to the idea that Lucifer is evil; spending time with him is actually more like spending time with the Winchesters than anything else Castiel can think of. Certainly he is less threatening than Zachariah tends to be. It would be shockingly easy to forget who and what he really is. “Too hot?” Lucifer asks. “You could go for a walk and wait for it to cool – but perhaps that only works for porridge? And bears?” Castiel looks at him blankly, and Lucifer's mouth twitches. “I suppose fairy tales aren't on the approved Reading List? Figures. Well, you try spending the better part of eternity immobilised, listening in on human dreams. It's – educational.” He pours more champagne into Castiel's empty glass. “That should help take away some of the sting.”
Castiel's brows dart together, but the drink is, as he has discovered, pleasantly cold and refreshing, and rather less daunting than the soup, and he is still terribly thirsty, so he swallows it down, and then looks back at his bowl unhappily.
“Fungus grows in unclean places,” he says, fiddling with his spoon. “And cream...you do understand that they squeeze this out of the mammary glands of cattle?” Lucifer chokes on his champagne, and Castiel looks up at him, still frowning. “It is very – unseemly.”
“It's mushroom soup, Castiel,” says Lucifer. “And you're starving, I know you are.” His mouth twitches again, and then he glances down at his own plate. “Do you want to swap? The pate de foie gras is exquisite.”
“But it is made by...”
Lucifer grins. “I know. I am the devil, you know. I think it's probably expected that I eat the liver of some poor tortured creature with wings.” He smacks his lips. “I am a little evil, I suppose, but it's such a delicious kind of evil, Cas. Oh, eat your soup and stop worrying about the poor cows getting groped. They probably enjoyed it.”
Castiel suppresses a shudder, and takes another sip of his champagne.
However unpleasant Castiel might find the concept of needing to consume dead things in order to live, he cannot deny that the mushroom soup was very tasty. He could have happily eaten a second bowl. He watches their young waiter take away his empty crockery with a wistful expression, and absent-mindedly sips at his wine. He is starting to rather enjoy the champagne - which is mostly water, after all. He likes the dryness, and the bubbles. Lucifer keeps topping up his glass like an attentive host, and politely not asking him questions about the Winchesters, or about the angels' plan, or about anything that he is trying to keep secret. Instead Lucifer keeps up a stream of observations about human beings and their quirks and accomplishments, and reminisces about the good old days, before he fell from grace. As conversations go, it does feel a little bit like juggling with chainsaws, but Castiel is enjoying both the food and the company in spite of himself, and he knows that he could get up and walk away at any moment. If he wanted to. Lucifer has made that clear, and Castiel believes him - but the truth of the matter is that he has nowhere else to go, and nobody else to be with, and so here he is, with his head spinning just a very little, learning about food and trying to understand what the Morningstar intends to do with himself, now that he is free.
When the waiter presents him with his main course, Castiel finds himself wishing he had ordered a second bowl of soup. He knows that Dean likes red meat, and considers it far superior to fowl or fish, but as Castiel stares down at the bloody sirloin steak surrounded by crisp green leaves and fat baked potato, he finds himself wondering whether it might have been a better idea to go straight to the dessert. He dips a tentative fingertip into the creamy pepper sauce and licks it clean, and tries not to think about what it's made from. It does taste rather good.
“I can't help feeling that it's a waste of a perfectly good human body, if you're going to go all vegetarian on us,” remarks Lucifer, without looking up from the carnage he is wreaking on his lobster. “I mean, Castiel – you need protein to survive. That's how the old man designed this lot, and you're one of them, now. I can't help thinking that all this squeamishness is a bit pointless.”
Castiel takes another swallow of champagne and peers at the slab of dead flesh over the rim of the glass. He almost says out loud that Dean Winchester likes burgers best, but catches himself in time. His stomach rumbles. He picks up the knife and fork with an expression of determination that makes Lucifer smile, and top up his champagne flute.
“I am not squeamish,” he says. “I am just finding it all rather – strange.” He looks up then, struck by a sudden thought. “But you – can't you see it all? Can't you taste their lives, when you consume the flesh?” Castiel can no longer look upon a leaf or a stone or a drop of blood and know from whence it came, know its history and its soul, but he remembers how it felt. He does not think that he could have brought himself to eat, if he knew every sensation of the things he was eating.
“Of course,” says Lucifer, easily. He smiles, his lips glossy with melted butter. “That's part of the fun, though.”
“Oh,” says Castiel, blankly.
Lucifer licks his lips, and cracks open a lobster claw. “If it helps, I'm almost sure that the steak didn't come from the cow who was molested to create your soup.”
In retrospect, the champagne may have been a bad idea. Well, probably sticking around with Lucifer for a second longer than he absolutely had to was a pretty damn bad idea in the first place, but topping that off with half a bottle of champagne, after spending the best part of a day sweating on a tropical beach, was definitely not one of Castiel's more intelligent decisions. Because now, he is very far from sober indeed.
There are raspberries. He thinks, now, that he should probably have ordered a slice of apple pie, in honour of Dean Winchester. Forbidden fruit. But somehow he seems to have ended up with a raspberry Pavlova instead, meringue towering light and crisp and perfect, like a cloud in some Renaissance depiction of Heaven. The raspberries are soft and yielding, their tartness contrasting perfectly with the cream and the meringue. He has forgotten to feel squeamish about the cream now, and his eyelids flutter closed at the pure perfection of this sweet-sharp-smooth blend of tastes upon his tongue.
Lucifer is watching him, and drinking black coffee.
“It's good, then?” he asks, his eyes fixed upon Castiel's face, curious and satisfied and something else as well.
“Mmm,” says Castiel, with heartfelt sincerity. He blinks up from his plate and feels a wave of unexpected affection. “'S delicious,” he says inadequately. In the future he's going to skip soups and steaks and salads, and just go straight to the desert. It's the best bit. He knows now.
“I'm glad,” says Lucifer, softly, watching him over the rim of his coffee cup. Lucifer understands, thinks Castiel, hazily. Lucifer knows that wrenching sense of disappointment, knows about feeling lost and disillusioned. Lucifer knows about being betrayed by those you trust. About being cast out of Heaven. Castiel thinks back, far, far back, to Lucifer's rebellion against the Lord, and he wonders now what it was that made Castiel so certain that it was wrong. He wonders whether, perhaps, he may have been a little bit stupid, back then. Too gullible, giving all his loyalty and devotion to a God who didn't care a whit for any of it.
“'M sorry,” he says, without really meaning to. “That I fought you. Back then.” He takes another spoonful of this exquisite dessert, and makes a happy little humming noise as the flavours and textures explode into life once more upon his tongue. Dean Winchester, he thinks, would have rebelled against Heaven too.
“You trusted Him,” says Lucifer. His tone is strangely fond. “You were always too innocent for your own good, Castiel. Loyal to a fault. He must have fucked up quite spectacularly to have driven you away.”
“I don't even think He's still there,” says Castiel, forgetting to be circumspect. “Who's seen Him? Who's heard His voice?” He looks up from the Pavlova, suddenly angry and hurt afresh. “Why would He accept all these terrible things, and do nothing? How is that righteous? How is that just?” Lucifer looks so sympathetic, and so beautiful, that Castiel wants to tell him everything. He knows that Lucifer will understand.
“You mean war, and disease, and all the shocks that flesh is heir to?” asks Lucifer, nodding. “All the miseries that he puts these poor fools through before they die?”
“Yes!” Castiel knew that he would get it. “Yes, that! And making us tell lies to good people. And letting people suffer hideous torments, when we could help them. And, and angels killing angels! Brother against brother, and He does nothing! He just lets it all happen!”
He's shouting, he realises. People are turning to stare. Lucifer doesn't seem to mind, though. “I see what you mean,” he says, and his face is very grave. “Yes, it does make one wonder where He is. Whether it's just all some kind of grand game that He plays with all our lives.”
“Yes!” Castiel is looking into Lucifer's eyes like they hold the answer to all the questions he has ever had, and Lucifer is looking right back. And looking. And looking. As if when he looks upon Castiel he does not see a failure, or a fool, but someone truly remarkable. Someone special. Lucifer's smile is very warm, and Castiel realises after a while that he is grinning foolishly back. He looks away, and his face grows hot. “Yes,” he says again, more softly. “It's all just a big game.” He sighs. “But I'm not even sure whether He's the one moving the pieces. Maybe He just – isn't there.”
Lucifer looks shocked. “You don't believe that,” he says.
Castiel carves out another piece of raspberry Pavlova and his mouth waters as he looks at it. He wonders whether Dean has ever tried this. It seems unlikely that pie can actually be superior. “I don't know what to believe,” he says, softly. “I just – I don't know any more.”
It's a very nice room. Castiel suspects that Dean Winchester might be overwhelmed by the opulence – but perhaps not. Dean is not accustomed to luxury, to be sure – but then he isn't very easily impressed by material wealth, or very much attached to things. Castiel is simply glad that he has somewhere to lie down. Somewhere clean, and spacious. But there's no denying that it is a very nice room, with a very large, very comfortable-looking bed.
His vision is a little less reliable than it should be just now, and his balance isn't quite right; he also feels oddly lightheaded, which he supposes must be a consequence of all the champagne. He stands with his nose pressed up against a window that comprises one whole wall of the room, floor to ceiling and wall to wall, splaying his fingers flat on either side of his face, staring out over the cityscape. He has no idea what country they are in, let alone what city, but the neon-spangled darkness is very lovely.
“I hope you're not thinking of jumping,” says Lucifer, mildly. “It's less fragile than it looks. The glass.”
Castiel gives a little huff of embarrassed laughter, and his breath clouds on the window pane. “No,” he says. It is almost impossible to believe that he threw himself off a mountain only this morning. He feels very foolish. He can't remember why he had been so certain that it was necessary. Lucifer is his brother, after all. They are not so very different.
Castiel stumbles a little as he turns around, and then he is startled to find Lucifer standing right there, looking at him with an unreadable smile. He blinks, and then smiles uncertainly back.
“I'm sorry,” he says, slurring the words just a tiny bit. “I've caused you a lot of trouble, I think.” Lucifer is standing very close indeed, and Castiel feels an odd flutter of excitement, although he doesn't know why. “There's no need – I mean, you don't have to help me.” He looks down, embarrassed by how stupidly helpless he is in this form. He is pathetically glad that Lucifer has not simply discarded him, has not left him to beg for change on the street or sleep on a park bench, and he is still thrumming with the remembered pleasure of the raspberries and the champagne - but he is humiliated by his own weakness.
Lucifer's mouth twitches, and he reaches up to adjust Castiel's hair in some way. “I told you already – it isn't about need, Castiel,” he says, and his voice is pitched low and smoky. He wets his lips. “It's about want.”
“Oh,” says Castiel, hoarsely, mesmerised by the way Lucifer's tongue darts out pinkly to slick his mouth. “Oh.”
In spite of all the millenia spent watching men and women do this very dance, Castiel still doesn't put two and two together and understand what he's feeling until Lucifer closes the small distance between them, gently cups the back of Castiel's head, and kisses him. Castiel steps back and bumps into the glass, and Lucifer follows him without breaking the kiss. Castiel lifts his hands, startled, and presses them to Lucifer's chest with every intention of pushing him away – but he doesn't. Because his head is spinning, and the warmth and the intimacy is satisfying an ache that he didn't realise he had, and because although this is passing strange, it is making his heart race, and his nerve endings prickle with startled desire. He can feel himself growing breathless and aroused as Lucifer's tongue sweeps around inside his mouth, stealing the last traces of raspberries and cream and replacing them with the taste and texture of his own wicked, borrowed tongue.
When Lucifer breaks off, Castiel is almost sure that he should be protesting, or fleeing, or doing something other than staring like an idiot. His mind is sluggish and stupid, as though his thoughts were wrapped in clouds, and it's very difficult to concentrate on anything other than the excited messages his body is sending him.
“Oh,” he says shakily at last, licking his lips. “I see.”
Lucifer grins. “Yes,” he says, and his voice is rougher now. Then he twines his fingers around Castiel's tie and jerks Castiel forward with a sudden sharp move, and kisses him again. And if the first kiss had been astonishingly sweet, the second is overwhelming. Castiel is starting to see what all the fuss is about. It occurs to him that in the past, when he has felt frustrated with Dean Winchester's enthusiasm for indulging in the various physical pleasures, he may have been a little unfair. He can see how this might be very distracting. Addictive, even. In fact it surely would be quite impossible not to cleave tight to the warm body pressed up against his; impossible not to dig clumsy, eager fingers into the thick blond hair and pull him closer; impossible not to give in and surrender to all these extraordinary sensations. He wonders if this is how Dean feels when he kisses some pretty waitress, and the thought makes him moan into the kiss and grind closer.
Lucifer laughs, and in a very few moments Castiel finds himself flat on his back on the bed, with Lucifer pinning him in place and smiling smugly down at him. He feels dizzy.
“If you were never tempted to try so much as a potato chip, I'm guessing that you didn't indulge in any of the other mortal appetites either?” Lucifer asks, his voice thick with affection and amusement.
Castiel flushes, and looks away. “No!” he says, feeling scandalised at the idea. “It would have served no purpose.”
Lucifer loosens Castiel's tie with long, clever fingers. “You know, I think you'd break my heart, if I had one,” he says, smiling. “Such a waste. In so many ways. What fools they were to cast you aside, Castiel. You really are perfectly delicious, my dear.”
Castiel swallows hard, and wishes his head were clearer. The champagne had been very pleasant and refreshing, and he had been surpassingly thirsty, but he has a strong suspicion that his judgment is somewhat impaired. He knows that he shouldn't be doing this. He just can't quite remember why, or what might be more important than the way that Lucifer is looking at him now. As if he shines.
Lucifer finishes unfastening Castiel's tie and slithers it free from his collar; he could, Castiel knows, make the tie and the suit and everything else disappear with a thought, but apparently he doesn't want to do that.
“Should I stop?” he asks, trailing his fingers idly down Castiel's chest and scraping a fingernail over one of his nipples through the crisp blue fabric. Castiel gasps, and his hips jump. His long-neglected penis is hard and aching, demanding friction and warmth, and before he can think about it he finds that he is grinding himself fervently up against Lucifer; and apparently that is answer enough. In a very few moments his shirt is wholly unbuttoned and hanging open, and Lucifer is exploring his exposed skin with interest, licking and sucking and kissing and biting until Castiel cries out and bucks helplessly underneath him. He is perfectly astonished to discover how sensitive his nipples apparently are, and it makes Lucifer laugh against his skin, and kiss him harder.
“You do want to make me happy, Castiel, don't you?” Lucifer whispers, licking a circle around his belly button and kissing his way down lower.
“Yes!” gasps Castiel with absolute sincerity – although a frightened voice in the back of his head insists that he shouldn't; that he's forgetting himself; forgetting something vital; that he's losing himself by inches. That he really needs to get away.
Lucifer thumbs open the button on Castiel's fly, and watches him bite his lip. “You never did this, did you?” he asks. “How you could resist the temptation...” He licks a wet stripe across his palm, and a moment later Lucifer's fingers close warm and firm around Castiel's erection, wringing another gasp from his throat.
“I never,” he says, shuddering and wide-eyed. “Oh – oh – oh please!”
Lucifer leans close again and kisses him, and this time Castiel kisses back with passionate urgency while Lucifer's hand moves over him, sure and firm and almost unbearably good. It doesn't take him very long at all to climax; and when he does, the intensity of it leaves him speechless. For a long, perfect moment he forgets that he has lost his wings, and simply hangs there; breathless; nameless; overwhelmed. There are tears in his eyes. Lucifer licks them away, and then slides sticky, bitter fingers between his lips. Castiel chokes a little at the sudden intrusion, but obediently licks them clean.
“All that time you wasted, my dear,” Lucifer murmurs fondly, and kisses him again. “Being good. Virtue is terribly over-rated.”
The voice in the back of Castiel's head is trying to cut through the haze of champagne and the languorous afterglow of orgasm, insisting that he needs to get away before it's too late, but Castiel ignores it. He can't imagine anything that could be more important that being right here, right now.
“You do want to make me happy, don't you?” Lucifer says again, tucking Castiel back tidily into his pants and then idly tugging at one of his nipples.
“Yes,” says Castiel, shivering. “Yes, of course.”
“Good. Come here.”
Castiel feels loose-limbed and pliable, drunk on sensation, and what he would really like is the opportunity to just lie there and try to get over the fuzziness caused by the unwise indulgence in alcohol and this first foray into sexual intercourse, but he knows that isn't fair. He owes Lucifer – well, pretty much everything, at this point. So he allows himself to be manhandled upright, and he stumbles to his feet, raking a hand through his hair and clutching self-consciously at his peacock-blue shirt.
Lucifer seems to like this look, because he grabs the open edges of his shirt and yanks him forward into another kiss for a long moment before doing anything else. When he releases Castiel, Lucifer cups the side of his face with one hand and rubs the pad of his thumb over Castiel's glossy lower lip.
“On your knees,” he says thickly - and Castiel may not have done this before himself, but he certainly knows how it works. There's nothing that humans can do to one another that he hasn't witnessed, and although he's finding it is all very different, experiencing things first-hand like this, he still thinks he should be able to do this. And it's only fair, after all. He drops down to his knees.
He still feels a little dazed, but he tries hard to ignore it and concentrates on unfastening the button and the zipper in front of him, while Lucifer cards through his hair with long, elegant fingers and murmurs soft words of encouragement. The erection, when he frees it from all the layers of clothing, is, frankly, rather daunting. It looks bigger up close, and Castiel is abruptly very conscious that he has never actually done this before. He glances nervously up at Lucifer and is overwhelmed afresh by just how very beautiful Lucifer is. Even without his grace, Castiel can still see Lucifer's soul shining through his eyes, bright and warm and terrible as fire.
“Please,” says Lucifer, looking into his eyes – but he isn't begging. He's simply being polite, and reminding Castiel that he's doing this of his own free will. That he could refuse, if he wanted to. It's an awful lot more effective than threats or coercion. And the way that he smiles at this moment makes Castiel feel warm to his very core: seen, and appreciated, and cherished. Wanted.
So he does his best to show that he is grateful for being restored, and for being fed, and for being saved from his own folly. Very grateful to find he isn't alone after all. He does his best to show how amazing that first orgasm was, and how extraordinary the raspberries and cream had tasted, and how filled with wonders he is finding all the pleasures of the flesh. Tries to share some of that delight. He licks and sucks his way wetly along the underside of Lucifer's cock, works his way up to the crown, trying to call up fuzzy recollections of people he has seen doing this before over the centuries, and finding that, instead, he is having to rely a lot on instinct. He clamps his left hand over Lucifer's hip, clinging on as much to stop himself from losing balance as anything else, and wraps his right hand around Lucifer's shaft, as he sucks the crown wetly into his mouth and takes it in as far as he can. Lucifer's fingers tighten in his hair, and he begins to thrust in and out slowly, stretching Castiel's mouth wide and pushing in deeper each time.
It isn't very pleasant, to be perfectly honest. Lucifer's fingers are tugging at his hair, and his hips are starting to move faster and faster, and Castiel finds himself choking and breathless, but he knows that this is supposed to be enjoyable for the other party, and he holds on to the thought that he owes Lucifer everything right now, and he endures it as best he can, sucking and licking and making stifled humming sounds against Lucifer's flesh. It takes Lucifer a lot longer to reach his climax than it took Castiel, and if Castiel could think about anything other than trying to fight against his gag reflex, and trying not to be a disappointment, he might spare a moment to feel a little embarrassed at how easy he evidently was to please. But he can't.
The only warning he gets is a groan, and then his mouth is full of the not-entirely-pleasant taste of ejaculate, and Lucifer's thrusts slow down and finally come to an end. He swallows, and pulls back, sitting back on his feet, feeling his shoes pressing hard against his buttocks, and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. Lucifer is flushed and radiant above him, and Castiel thinks that it was worth it, to see him look so happy. He truly is glorious, even in this human disguise. Uriel had been quite right about his beauty.
“Freedom!” Lucifer says, like it's the name of God, and he reaches down and pulls Castiel to his feet, and holds him steady when he sways. “Oh, Castiel, Castiel, the fun we're going to have, you and I.” He kisses Castiel fiercely, and runs his hands down Castiel's back to cup his ass. “I want to do everything. Everything. And all with you.” He tilts his head slightly, and gives Castiel that same entreating look that had undone him so effectively before. “You'll let me inside you, won't you? I really want to be inside you, Castiel.” He squeezes one of Castiel's buttocks, pointedly.
Castiel bites his lip, because he suspects that this will hurt, but the thought of disappointing Lucifer is almost unbearable at this point, so he nods. “Yes,” he says, trying to be brave about it. It's supposed to be very enjoyable for both parties, from what he's seen. Once you're used to it. “Yes, of course.”
“Good,” says Lucifer, smiling a very predatory smile. “I thought so.”
He pushes Castiel back down onto the bed and straddles his lap, still smiling, and shoves him back down onto the pillows. “Don't fight it, my dear,” he says, leaning down to kiss him, and those words are all the warning that Castiel gets before pure white light surges up out of Lucifer's eyes and mouth and rushes into him, filling him up painfully, crushing him into something tiny and compact and trembling inside his own skin as Lucifer's soul takes possession of his flesh.
“No!” Castiel cries, or tries to cry. He has no control over his mouth now, but he thinks that Lucifer hears him anyway, because he laughs.
The body Lucifer had been occupying only seconds before slumps bonelessly to one side, and topples down onto the floor, and a moment later Castiel feels his own body sitting up and getting off the bed, stepping over the motionless human like it's a discarded sock. He flails helplessly around inside, trying to wrest control back from Lucifer, but it's like trying to fight a hurricane. Lucifer walks over to the mirror and glances at the body that had been Jimmy Novak's, and then, briefly, Castiel's, and he smiles a smile that is nothing like Jimmy's smile at all. Dazzling. His disordered clothes pull themselves quickly back into place, the tie fastening itself perfectly around his neck, and he runs stolen fingers through his hair, nodding quietly. When he looks into his eyes in the mirror, Castiel knows that Lucifer is looking right at him.
“Really, Castiel – you could break my heart, if I had one.” He smiles, and it is terrible to behold. “All those wasted opportunities while you were walking around in this form. Such a pity.” He brushes an invisible fleck of lint from the sleeve of his jacket, and glances back into the mirror. “Don't worry, though. I plan on making up for all that lost time.” He laughs, and it is not a kind sound at all. “I don't think that your precious Dean Winchester is going to stand a chance, do you? Shall we fuck him first?” he asks, licking his lips. “I think you'd like that, wouldn't you? Rather a lot, unless I miss my guess. And I know that he'd let you.”
Castiel tries to scream, and kick, and claw, but he knows precisely how futile this is. He remembers how it felt to have Jimmy Novak's mortal soul glowing and trembling up against him, tiny and fragile and completely impotent, and he has no words for the horror that courses through him at the realisation that there is nothing he can do.
“It's been fun, my dear, but we mustn't dillydally any longer,” Lucifer says, stepping away from the mirror. “Places to go, people to kill, worlds to bring tumbling down.”