Sympathy For The Devil Chapter 1/?
Title: Sympathy For The Devil
Chapter Word Count: 1,800
Genre: Angst/Romance and eventually some comedy because sometimes you just need a laugh.
Characters, Pairing(s): Eventual Castiel/Lucifer, Dean, Sam, Gabriel
Warnings: Slash,blaspheme, spoilers, swearing, sin's of every nature, ect. NC-17
A/N: No beta, but if you see a mistake feel free to PM me.
Summary: In the end, it all came down to Castiel's understanding of human nature, and Lucivers understanding of Castiel.
He looked at him through a ring of fire and saw a bit of himself, if not more faithful. “Oh Castiel,” he murmured, wishing he could reach through that flame and touch the angel. But no, that wouldn't be right. “I think I've missed you. You've grown up, little brother. Your grace is beautiful.” It reminded Lucifer of tarnished silver, shining through worn. Castiel had done things, said things, thought things, and they painted smudges across his shimmering soul but to Lucifer who's grace was black, it was beautiful.
Castiel looked away, staring down into the fire. “Doubtless,” he murmured. “You, like both Gabriel and Anael, spared no passing glance before turning wing and leaving so many behind. You miss no one.”
“Not true,” Lucifer denied, something welling in this throat, tight and painful. Castiel had been little more than a Cherub when Lucifer had fallen. He had heard through he demonic grapevine that since he rebelled, no new Angels had been brought to light. Castiel was Heaven's own baby.
Turning hi blue eyes, bright and cruel and so fitting for young Castiel, his brother frowned. “Do you claim remorse?”
Remorse! Ah, but to be asked was sweet. Many did not think to ask him, not that it mattered much.“I do not regret what I did Castiel,” he said quietly. “Surely you understand now? You've lived among them.”
“Humans,” Castiel confirmed. “Yes, I have lived among them, and they are beautiful. They are light, and love, and soul. If I die for them, it will not be in vain.”
Lucifer felt the edges of his own tattered grace flare and stretch at Castiel's willful vehemence. “Even if it is not God's will?”
He watched as dark lashes fluttered against Castiel's pale face, guiltily. “There is no one left to speak the will of God. I must do as I believe is right. What I do...I do for Him.”
“But of your own accord,” Lucifer murmured, stepping closer to the flame. Castiel did not move, and Lucifer pressed his grace against the line of the flame, searchingly. “You do as you believe is right.”
“I do,” Castiel denied nothing. “For the love of all God's creatures,” he added, narrowing his eyes at Lucifer. “Do not begin to claim we are the same, Elder Brother.”
“I did what I did for the love of God's first creation! For us, Castiel. He bid us love them as we loved him and I could not.” This time it is he who looked away first. “I cannot. Let them be beautiful, they are not Him.”
The crisp touch of grace against his own startled him, and when at last he looked up he found Castiel staring at him in thought. Castiel's grace met his own at the edge of the fire. It was like breathing the first breath of fresh air after choking on smoke for centuries. In equal measure, however, it was torture. The flames burned, but the feeling of another Angel was a homecoming he did not know he desired.
“Do you so truly believe,” Castiel said, wrapping Lucifer up in his grace like a blanket, and suffocating him with it. “That loving God's creations is any different then loving Him ? They are Him, Elder Brother, built in His image, built of His light and love. They are Him, and to love them is to love Him.”He could tell that it hurt Castiel to push himself through the flames, as blood began to trickle from his vessel's nose. Still, he continued, till Lucifer was so wrapped up in Castiel, he could feel little else.
“He loves them above us,” Lucifer snarled, wriggling beneath he onslaught of Castiel's gentle torture. “And for the gift of His love, they murder and rape. They are ungrateful.”
“It is their choice,” Castiel replied. “Why must you quantify His love? He loves all His Children, human and Angel alike. Let it be enough for you brother!”
“It will never be enough!” He made to tear his grace, and found that he could not.
“Is it what you wished for?” Castiel asked, his rough, flat voice soothing. Through the mouth of the vessel, Lucifer fancied he could hear the sound of Castiel's true voice. Even though the words were cruel, the sound was beautiful. “Is it what you wished it to be? Your demons, your minions, your new brothers; are they everything you desired?”
Wrapped as he was in Castiel's Grace, Lucifer did not see the point in lying. “No,” he said, shamelessly. “The filthy hell spawn that dwell in my Kingdom and do their bidding are no brothers of mine. I wanted freedom, not chaos.”
“Your demons twist a gift that does not even belong to them,” Castiel preached. “You speak of murder, and rape at the hands of humans, but what better are your demons? He created this Earth, and they sully it. You may hold no love for the humans, but you love our Father. You love him and yet you let your demons taint what is His. His gift of freewill. ”
“I have no choice,” Lucifer growled, clenching his fists as the cherub...no, no the seraph -Castiel had grown while he was gone- lectured him.
His eyes unwavering, Castiel cocked his head. “But isn't that what you fell for? So you could have choice?” Castiel shook his head. “I feel nothing but shame for you.”
It was a lie, even through the raging storm that was Castiel's grace, Lucifer could still feel that tiny, broken strand of love, thin worn and reserved for the lowest creatures; the murderers, the rapists, and Lucifer. Even though it was repugnant to him, the young Seraph would never forget to love.
Castiel was ashamed of Lucifer. He was ashamed and hurt and abandoned. He ached, a welling pit of despair that would have fit in Hell itself. His brother was in agony, desperate to save this wretched world, prepared to die for it. Lucifer struggled against his brother's grace, wanting to be free of it, and still found that he could not. Castiel felt too much.
“Release me,” he snarled, wondering why he should need to. He was an archangel, powerful and mighty. Castiel was nothing to him.
Castiel stood unblinkingly, gushing blood at the nose, mouth and ears now. “No.”
Standing helpless, Lucifer raged at the shame and sadness he felt in his brother. Oh and the suffering! How Castiel suffered, Lucifer could not bear it. “Release me, cherub!”
“I am a warrior now, His warrior!” His young brother growled right back, the shadows of his wings flashing miles long across the stone walls of the warehouse. “I have slain the enemy; I have battled. I have burned out the evils of the world. I have fought you, and your army of Sin, for so long I am dark with it. You have been gone some time, Elder Brother. I am not the infant you left behind. I am not the cherub you remember, Lucifer!” It sounded suspiciously like a 'you can't tell me what to do', and Lucifer raged.
He struck Castie across the mouth, reaching his hand right over the flames. One could reach in, but not reach out. It still hurt of course, holy fire licking at his worn-thin vessel. Castiel reeled, lip splitting and gushing yet more blood.
He spat at Lucifer, bloody saliva wetting his face and fell to his knees, hands clenched at his side. Sharing his grace had strained him, left him weak. “Stop,” Lucifer begged now, as Castiel coughed up a mouthful of blood, and clenched his teeth to it, red oozing between each tooth. “Castiel, stop.”
More grace flooded him, sneaking into the cracks and crevices of his destroyed soul, as Castiel poured his pain into Lucifer. It cut deeper than any Angel's knife. Angels were not meant to feel this way, which could only mean Castiel was falling. The thought burned Lucifer to his bones; not Castiel, not him. “Why?” Castiel asked, feeling almost nothing but pain and sharing it all with Lucifer. “Why? Feel it brother! Feel it.”
“Castiel,” Lucifer whispered, pushing back weakly with his own grace in a strange effort to comfort. Castiel flinched, and Lucifer felt it. “If this is humanity, I feel even less remorse for it. You hurt! You're dying.”
“Then I die knowing you've felt this pain,” Castiel growled, wetly. Blood poured from the corners of his mouth, and he clutched his stomach. “This is betrayal, Morningstar. This is you.”
As he spoke, an explosion rocked the floor beneath them like an earthquake, a flash of fire glaring through the windows. The scent of smoke hanged heavy in the air, clouding the bright blue sky outside.
“No,” Castiel hissed, his graze wavering then exploding with such new levels of pain, Lucifer himself fell to his knees. “No!”
Lucifer could taste death in his mouth but knew it wasn't the Brother Vessels. He's know if his Vessel met death the instant it happened. “You mourne?”
“My friends are dead,” Castiel coughed, catching himself with one hand as he crumpled forward.
Beneath the pain, Lucifer felt Castiel's love for these friends, Ellen and Jo, he saw within his brothers mind. One old and one young, a mother and daughter. Castiel had loved them and now they were dead. Death seemed so simple but in the light of Castiel's pain, Castiel's despair, Lucifer wavered.
“Brother stop,” he begged, beneath the terrifying rain of endless ache. “Castiel, cherub,” he whispered, the word falling out like an endearment.
Castiel looked up at him through the flame, on all fours as he clutched his stomach and caught Lucifer's eyes. “I will never stop loving them in His name and in my own, Lucifer.”
He crumbled to the ground, unconscious, and his hand fell into the fire and laid there. Lucifer had never lost some one he....he cared about. It had been so long since he last loved his brothers he'd forgotten how, but here one lay face down in death, and Lucifer despaired.
He blew away the roof in an instant, and called down the rain. It smothered the fires, leaving nothing but a scorched black ring around his cherub's body. Scooping Castiel up, he touched his charred hand, and healed it slowly, pink webs of skin growing at his touch, painting each finger new and fresh.
It was against his own chest that he felt a heart beat, and one not his own. Castiel's chest rose and fell, and something in Lucifer swelled up like a balloon, settling in his Vessel's throat and choking him. Hope, he thought in an almost absent way, for hope was so long gone it seemed foreign to him.
TBC