Losyngerie in the Devilles mouth (1/2)
Summary: After the events of Reading is Fundamental, Castiel starts hanging around Sam - and avoiding Dean. He also has another constant companion, whom he generously allows Sam to see with him. Sam isn't too happy about this, but Hallucifer isn't really Lucifer, right? Anyway, if Castiel is seeing the devil, in whatever form, best he do it where Sam can keep an eye on him... because Sam's really not sure what they're up to when they aren't around. Also, has he mentioned that Lucifer is a complete troll?
Characters: Castiel, Sam, (Hal)Lucifer (or is he?), Dean, Bobby; and... well, someone less expected.
Pairings: Properly speaking, gen. But the story focuses on the following relationships: Sam/Castiel, Sam/Lucifer, Lucifer/Castiel, Dean/Castiel. If I write a sequel, it may go in any of those directions, depending on what the boys get up to.
Written: 16-19 May 2012.
Rating: Teen
Length: c. 12500.
Warnings: Mental illness, although Castiel doesn't see anything wrong with himself.
Notes: Started out as crack-drabble-fluff for princess_aleera's prompt at the Sassy minibang prompt meme. And it grew, into basically my alternate season finale. Written very quickly between the airings of episodes 7.22 and 23; takes place after episode 21; edited after 23 aired, but the only changes were fixing typoes and replacing some of Castiel's random observations with those from 7.23, because they were far more interesting than the ones I'd written for him! So, spoilers throughout season 7.
AO3 link.
--------
“Hello, Sam.”
There was only one person in Sam’s acquaintance who could hit “dreamy” and “gravelly” at the same time, in the space of just two words.
“Hey Cas,” he answered easily, without looking up from the pizza and the Word of the Prophet Kevin. “How’re you holding up?”
“I have been considering my pyjamas,” Castiel pronounced gravely. “The people who wove the cotton were very sad. Such years of exhaustion and hopelessness and narrow vision. I am trying to hunt them down to make them happier.”
“Okay.” Sam blinked up at him. Castiel was standing just a bit too close by his shoulder, like usual, staring dreamily down at Sam with his shoulders and arms all loose and relaxed. His hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed since thrashing around in a mental ward for a few weeks, and he was obviously still pretty out of it, but hey, it was more peaceful than he usually looked. “Okay, well, so long as that’s working for you.”
Castiel cocked his head quizzically at the Page of Kevin, and reached out to lay two fingers gently on the flimsy blue and white paper. He looked almost like he was communing with it. Did angels commune with prophecies? Not that all the usual rules weren’t completely screwed up now. Poor Kevin could probably do with an archangel on his shoulder around about now, for one thing. Sam wasn’t really sure Inias and the tatters of Castiel’s old garrison were going to be much good if a Leviathan came calling.
Then Castiel’s eyes flickered up to a spot on the other side of the table, and the corner of his mouth quirked into a soft open smile. Which, on Castiel’s face, was almost creepy. “It seems that my brother doesn’t hold a very high opinion of Crowley. His epithets are rather virulent.”
Hold on. Did that mean…
“Your brother - Cas.” Sam stared at the empty patch of air, then back to Castiel. “Cas, I thought you said you weren’t seeing him anymore.”
“I wasn’t,” Castiel said serenely. “But that made him lonely, so I let him back in.”
Like it was just that simple. “You let him in?”
Castiel blinked slowly at Sam’s rising tone. “He is much pleasanter to talk to now. Especially when Meg isn’t around.”
Which, yeah, no, Sam wasn’t even going to ask what Lucifer and Meg got up to together. But Castiel didn’t look worried, or tormented, or, well, evil. Just sort of vague, and a little bit puzzled by Sam’s reaction.
“Uh, okay,” Sam tried, and started mentally cataloguing possible ways of restraining a deranged angel if necessary. It was a depressingly short list. “What’s he saying now?”
Castiel looked at him, thoughtful, with just an edge of that old piercing I-can-see-right-into-your-heart-Sam-Winchester intensity. Then he leaned in and, very gently, touched two fingers to Sam’s forehead.
“Hey there, Sammy,” purred Lucifer from the other chair. “Long time no firecrackers.”
Sam really felt he was kind of justified in freaking out, just a bit.
---
Unfortunately, thirty seconds into building up to a really good freak-out, Castiel was looking so worried and upset that Sam had to stop. And, what the hell? Who was the wronged party here? Sam thought they’d had their nice hug-it-(figuratively)-out session last time they’d met and they’d worked it all out then. And he didn’t want to have to start blaming Castiel for things again. It made no sense, and Sam actually had no idea what to do.
He took a deep breath, cut off mid-rant, and just settled on a pleading, “What the hell?”
“Only a little bit,” Lucifer put in, picking thoughtfully at his nails.
Castiel’s eyes were deep blue pools of wounded helpfulness. “You were lonely without him. And he misses you. Don’t you like him?”
Lonely? The hell? “Like him? Cas, he’s the devil.”
Castiel’s face fell. “I don’t understand. You miss him, and he can’t hurt you like this. Why aren’t you happy to see him?”
Sam stared at him, and tried very very hard not to let his gaze slip sideways to the other angel - the non-existent angel - lounging on the other side of the table. He could feel the (non-existent) grey eyes boring into the side of his face, and it was more than a bit disconcerting just how familiar that was. How much that felt like… well, habit. Almost reassuring.
(Lonely?)
“Cas, man,” he said, pitching his voice low and soothing. “That’s… a nice thought, really, but if Dean gets back and I’m seeing Lucifer again, you know he’s gonna freak.” Castiel flinched. Yeah, low blow, suck it. “And I really don’t have time for weeks of sleep deprivation right now.”
“He is not in your head, Sam,” Castiel said, with a hint of his old stern growl. “He is in mine.” Huh. “I chose to share him with you, because sharing is how people demonstrate that they care about the feelings of others.”
… Not touching that one. Although, that was weirdly sweet. In a creepy mental-hospital-slash-kindergarten way.
Sam shoved his hair out of his eyes and huffed. “He can’t miss me, Cas. He’s a figment of a broken imagination.”
“Why should that mean that he doesn’t have feelings?” Castiel tipped his head to one side and stared a little too hard at Sam, a little too hurt. “Is it because he’s an angel?”
Sam gaped.
“Well, this is awkward,” Lucifer drawled brightly. “I feel like the cat in the buttery.”
“You stay out of this,” Sam snapped at him.
Then he froze. Shit. He’d spoken to him again. Lucifer was locked in now.
“Sam, your heart rate is up,” Castiel said, concerned. “Why is your heart rate up? Are you anxious?”
“He said ‘shut up’ to me,” Lucifer explained, sly with an edge of delighted. Then he winked. “Don’t worry if you don’t get it, little brother. It’s our special joke. Just between Sam and I.”
“Ah, I see,” Castiel acknowledged gravely.
“Hold on,” Sam cut in desperately. “If he’s in your head, how come he knows things you don’t know? Like that? I mean, that was just my twisted brain’s version of Lucifer. It wasn’t even real. How can you throw it out there?”
Lucifer cackled quietly. Castiel looked mildly disappointed in Sam’s intelligence, but then, that was fairly usual for him.
“Sam,” he said gently. “He’s an angel.”
Which didn’t help at all.
Then the key scraped in the door of the motel room, Sam jumped, all on edge and reaching for his gun, Dean came in and gave him a “seriously, dude?” look, and - Castiel wasn’t there.
Neither was Lucifer.
Sam slumped back into his chair, and scowled when Dean made an utterly hilarious crack about Sam looking like he’d seen a ghost.
Just a regular day in the life of Sam Winchester. Honestly, who wrote this crap?
---
“Hello, Sam.”
“Cas!” Sam dragged his head up from his beer glass and beamed at Castiel through his hair. It had been three days, and no sign of Lucifer, so, hey, not like he could have kept being angry at Castiel anyway, especially when he looked all bedraggled and dreamy and that was kind of Sam’s fault. “How’re you doing, man? You got a drink? You should have a drink.”
Castiel peered at him from his seat on the other side of the booth. “You seem drunk.”
“Quickest angel in the garrison,” Lucifer commented lazily, flickering into existence in the empty seat next to Sam. “Mind you, that’s not saying much. You should have met Obadiah.”
Sam blinked blurrily at him, distracted. “Wait. Wasn’t Obadiah a prophet?”
Lucifer wrinkled his nose delicately, the picture of gentlemanly contempt. “And Zachariah was the husband of the woman the upstairs squad actually cared about, once upon a time.”
Castiel picked dreamily at the salt packets on the table. “I never did understand the policy of elevating a few select humans to Grace.”
“I was not consulted about that,” Lucifer obviously felt obliged to put in at that point. He rested his chin on his thumb, forefinger curling loose and sly against the swell of his lower lip. Then he shuddered, and ran an eye disdainfully over the crowded humanity in the rest of the bar. “Disgusting. Never turned out well. I could hear Gabriel pitching a fit over having to live with that smarmy little upstart from down in Hell.”
“Huh.” Sam’s head felt kind of heavy and spinny, so he let it fall back against the cushions. After all, with two angels here, he didn’t really have to be that alert. Even if one wasn’t really here. And the other one, hah, wasn’t all here. Sam’s mind was kind of witty when he was drunk. Not that anyone else ever thought so. Probably he was saying it wrong.
“Guess Zachariah wouldn’t really have been Gabriel’s type.” Then he giggled. “Poor Zachariah. All… corporate suit…” He flapped one hand, trying to make a gesture that encompassed all of Zachariah’s creepy soulless office persona, then another one that tried to fit Gabriel into that. “Climbing the ladder…” He lost words for a moment in another snort of laughter. “… then, CEO Gabriel.”
Castiel blinked owlishly at him. Sam grinned back, all loose and sort of sloppy. Lucifer chuckled, a rich low rasp of sound next to Sam’s ear, familiar and intimate and Sam’s.
Sam had forgotten that, when he wasn’t keeping Sam awake or being this evil little imp thing, Lucifer’s dry snarky commentary on everything around Sam was actually kind of fun. And often kind of helpful.
So, okay, maybe he’d missed him a bit.
“Why is Dean complimenting that woman on her shoes?” Castiel put in curiously.
Sam snorted. “Because he thinks he’s gonna score. Where?”
Castiel raised one elegant finger and pointed to where Dean was leaning against the bar with his best pulling smile, chatting smoothly to a tall woman with long dark curls and a pink jacket. “I have never noticed in Dean a particular interest in footwear,” he added, frowning faintly.
Sam, who had just picked up his beer again, spluttered into it.
“That, little brother,” said Lucifer smoothly, “is called flirting. And to flirt well, you have to be a master of hypocrisy. Not to blow my own horn, of course,” he added, and flicked an invisible speck of lint from his arm.
Sam eyed him. “Yeah, because you’d know. How much action did you get down there in the last, like, billion years?”
Lucifer’s teeth flashed behind the crook of his finger. “Sammy, Sammy. It’s all about making them hear what they want to hear. That’s where your big bro’s going wrong. Oh, he’s got the hypocrisy down just fine, but that girl? She doesn’t want to talk about her shoes. They’re her younger sister’s, by the way, and they’re too big for her, and she’s borrowed them because she’s got a blister on her right heel from having to walk home from work yesterday when her car wouldn’t start. She wants to hear that she’s capable and attractive, that the stress of the last year isn’t making her look old before her time, and that when her father left when she was in high school it wasn’t because he thought she was a slut.” He paused, and eyed Dean over, one long raking drag of cool assessment and condescension. “Also that he isn’t going to try anything too rough in bed. And he just struck out. Thirty seconds for politeness and she’ll be edging her way out of that conversation.”
“Okay, come on,” Sam huffed. “You’re not even real. How the hell can you know all that?”
Lucifer tipped him a cool look, grey as steel. “Maybe Castiel knows it. Or you’re making the whole thing up. What would you like to hear, Sam?”
And the creepy factor just went up again. Sam scowled at him.
“So,” Castiel put in, still frowning distantly. “When Dean shows an unusual interest in a person’s clothing, does that indicate a desire for a sexual union?”
Lucifer’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully at Castiel, and a sly, mocking twist tugged at the side of his mouth.
“Uh.” Sam blinked. “Maybe? I mean, he doesn’t usually notice clothes at all, just how much they show off the goods, you know?”
… He wasn’t sure, in this light, but it looked like Castiel’s cheeks coloured up a bit.
“Oh my, oh my,” Lucifer said very softly beside him.
Sam was missing something. “What?”
Castiel ducked his head. Then he suddenly looked panicked, and disappeared, along with his non-existent brother.
“… Dude.” Dean was standing by Sam’s table, blinking and swaying a bit, wearing a belligerent scowl. “Wait. Was that Cas?”
Sam sighed, and slumped back in his chair. “Know any other trenchcoated guys in hospital pyjamas who pop in and out of places without using the door all the time?”
Dean glared at the empty chair across from Sam. “Why didn’t he stop to talk to me?”
“Maybe because he doesn’t like conflict?” Sam said sweetly.
“… Screw you too.”
---
It wasn’t always Castiel-and-Lucifer. Often it was just Castiel. Sam got used to him turning up in quiet moments, always when Sam was alone, in pyjamas and trenchcoat and once (in a daring moment) a pair of orange converse.
Sometimes they would talk, soft rambling conversations that kept making the strangest leaps of logic. They always felt oddly surreal, those conversations. Castiel was so very unconcerned by any of the import he would usually have given anything they discussed, was so blissfully free of gravity and doom, that Sam always ended up feeling sort of detached from reality, usually smiling himself. Of course, the fact that Castiel kept getting distracted by board games, or the geometry of light over glass, and the fact that Sam carefully avoided mention of any ‘real’ topics (like, say, Leviathans, or Bobby, or the fact that they were all still being hunted by Crowley and, by the way, needed his blood) added to the dream-like effect. After all, how many conversations did Sam have these days - or, you know, over the past two years - that were about anything that wasn’t essential and life-threatening?
Most often, though, Castiel would just stand or sit in the same room as Sam, watching the world through the window, or staring at the pattern of the dust, or marvelling silently at the stretch and pull of the fine wrinkles on the back of his own pale knuckles, or contemplating the pull of breath into Sam’s lungs and the soft fall of it out into the air again. It was… weirdly peaceful. Sam cautiously enjoyed it.
He had no idea why Castiel had apparently decided that Sam (and only Sam) was a sort of home base for whatever he was doing, but he wasn’t about to argue. It was good to know that he was more or less okay.
Lucifer came and went on his own whims; but also on Castiel’s, which was reassuring. The first time he made a comment that was too sharp and nasty for Castiel’s tastes, Castiel flinched. Sam looked up sharply, ready to rise, bracing himself for a distressed angel and a cackling, vicious Lucifer. But Castiel just gathered himself, looked up at Lucifer with an expression of gentle disappointment, and said, “I don’t think I want to talk to you just now.” And Lucifer vanished.
Half an hour later, when Castiel let him come back, he was glaring and indignantly silent, like a kid sulking because he doesn’t understand the punishment. Sam didn’t comment, just half turned in his chair so that his body language included both angels in the room; and gradually, Lucifer’s tight jaw and defensively clenched hands faded back into usual sharp, fluid grace.
So, yes. Castiel could handle Lucifer pretty well. Sam still wasn’t happy about his imaginary devil being Castiel’s constant companion when he was in this vulnerable state, even if all he could do was talk to him; but it seemed to make Castiel happy, that semi-solid simulacrum of one of the only brothers left to him.
Pathetic, maybe. But, hey, Sam only had his own brother, an illusion, a ghost, and an insane angel for company - and what’s more, he sort of liked it. He wasn’t about to judge.
---
The next day, Castiel got knocked over by a van. The driver didn’t even slow down. Sam had to forcibly restrain himself from whipping out his gun and blowing the tyres.
Castiel was on his hands and knees in the gutter, blinking dazedly. Lucifer was standing over him, eyes narrowed to thoughtful white-hot slits, staring after the van. Then he looked at Sam.
Sam ignored him, and crouched down beside Castiel, shielding him from the eyes of the alarmed and curious nearby. “You okay there, man?”
Castiel raised his head to blink at Sam; and Sam was struck with a sudden sense of disorientation, even of vertigo. He’d forgotten how deep Castiel’s eyes were, and how bright. Sam had been ridden by the oldest and vastest angel of all. Castiel, alien as he was, should have seemed like small fry compared to the incomprehensible scope of Lucifer’s mind, even what Sam had been able to grasp of it. But this wasn’t so much about the fact that Castiel was an angel. Lucifer, in all his enormity, was finally very simple, too steely-frozen to change. Castiel had lived, and Castiel had experienced, and he wore the richness and the pain of that clear for all to see.
“Did you know,” Castiel rumbled, soft and eager, “that, when snowflakes are first formed as crystals in the clouds, they are all identical? It is their passage downwards through the air, their individual travails as they are buffeted by winds and eddies and, that shapes each one into something unique.”
It was so eerily appropriate to what Sam had been thinking that he just gaped for a moment.
Then he felt a sharp tug on his hair, and looked up with a scowl at the rough stubbled curve of Lucifer’s chin overhead.
“I’m not one to argue with a little street theatre,” he said, stepping delicately over the words like he thought they might dirty him, “but you two lovebirds might want to get off the road before some kindly soul” (and that was said with a sneer) “calls him an ambulance.”
---
“It was just a truck this time, Cas; but what about next time, when it’s something that can actually hurt you?” Sam was tired, worried, sick of repeating himself and sounding soothing, sick of Castiel being weak when he should be the strong one; and the sharp unreadable edge of a grin he could see out of the corner of his eye was even more exasperating than Castiel’s patient soft-edged bewilderment. “If you’re gonna go outside, you’ve gotta pay more attention to what’s going on.”
“Going to keep him locked up for his own good?” Lucifer asked softly, and his mouth curled like a cat’s. Then, as Sam raised his head and rounded on him, he settled back against the pillows with his limbs sprawled out in elegant disarray, like he was preparing to watch the show. “Well, this should end well.”
“He’s broken, Lucifer,” Sam snapped, “and you’re the proof of that.”
Even with Lucifer effectively powerless now, it was hard to shake the effect of almost a year having to be on edge around him. Sam spoke a little more harshly than he’d meant to; and Castiel winced, and shrank into himself.
The sardonic smirk flickered and vanished. Lucifer tipped his head back against the wall and eyed Sam down the length of his nose, unfathomable and ancient. “We’re all broken, Sam. At least he’s broken happy.”
“I.” The uncertainty in Castiel’s voice drew Sam’s attention back to him like a magnet. His forehead was furrowed up, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I don’t feel broken.” His eyes flickered back and forth between Sam and the illusion of his brother. “But I know things about myself that I’d rather not have known.”
... Sam had never been the one who’d had to take care of Castiel before. Or of anyone, really. Dean had always done that.
Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Sam had just assumed he had.
He reached out one arm, snagged it around Castiel’s too-slight shoulders, and swallowed around the sudden burr in his throat. “Yeah. Join the club, man.”
Castiel blinked at the hand tucked around his upper arm like it meant something he wasn’t equipped to understand.
“Speak for yourselves, boys,” Lucifer drawled, bored again. Then, “Come on, brother. Work to be done, no time to dilly-dally.”
Castiel pulled back, and looked at Sam long and piercing. Sam got the feeling he was searching for something; but whatever it was, he had no idea how to answer it, and Castiel turned away without finding it.
“Yes,” Castiel said, as Sam tried to work out what had just happened. “Yes, I suppose we have.”
---
“What work are you doing with Lucifer, Cas? I thought you were hunting depressed cotton-pickers?”
“Secret angel business,” Lucifer whispered rough and dark behind Sam’s left ear. Sam jerked and spun around, but there was nothing there but a trail of laughter skittering away across the room.
Then Lucifer blinked into existence behind Castiel, just long enough to wink and flicker his tongue obscenely out over his lips.
Sam fixed his eyes on Castiel’s instead, and asked gently, “You sure you should be trusting him, Castiel?”
“He is my brother, Sam.” Castiel looked very small and tired. “You must remember that means something quite different in my family.”
Which answered absolutely nothing.
---
Sam felt awful just thinking this, but the fact was that having Bobby standing silent and surly in the corner of the room was just really freaking uncomfortable. And did he really have to glower like that all the time, just because their attempts to contact Crowley had fallen through? It was like he didn’t have anything else to think about. Which was... really disturbing.
The subtle “whoomph” of air like the folding of giant wings was rather a relief. Sam suspected that the smile he felt brightening his face, as he looked up to catch Castiel’s eye, was a bit too enthusiastic, maybe a little manic; but Castiel glowed when he caught it.
It was a bit sad, really, how pleased Castiel got at even the smallest indications that someone was glad of his company. Had they really never thought to make him feel welcome, before? Dean had probably just assumed Castiel knew, like he did with Sam. Either that or he’d been being a dick, of course. And Sam had been following Dean’s lead with the angels, then he’d been distracted by the Apocalypse, then he’d been soulless, then... yeah, okay, not exactly covering himself with glory here either.
Bobby nodded tersely at the new arrival (well, the one he could see). “Angel,” he said, gruff and non-committal. “Looking pretty good for a dead guy.”
“Robert,” Castiel acknowledged solemnly. Then he got on with his important task of staring out the window.
And that was it. No “my goodness me you seem to be a ghost,” no comments on the coruscation of his spectral aura or anything, no stern glares of “you are bordering on becoming a monster.” Not even a simple “You too.” Sam... sort of had to wonder whether Castiel had even noticed that Bobby was dead.
Bobby lifted his eyebrows at Sam. It was the first non-glowery expression he’d made all day. Sam shrugged, and went back to his laptop.
Lucifer just perched on the headboard of Sam’s bed and grinned at Bobby in a really disturbing way, saying nothing. On reflection, Sam was rather relieved about that. He was pretty sure that, whatever Lucifer had to say about Bobby, Sam wouldn’t want to hear it.
---
The trouble was, Castiel might have been happy (by his standards), but he still didn’t have a great grip on reality. And that made him vulnerable.
For starters, Castiel didn’t understand logical progression anymore, didn’t follow conversations, wandered off on his own tangents. He understood need, and he usually answered direct questions, and he read emotion a little too well (and that could really screw him over because he had no shields against it anymore, against all the little cruelties and sorrows and indifferences of everyone around him). But the physical reality of the world and the potential for consequences? Not in the slightest. He’d trip over a rake on the ground because he was too busy pondering the metalwork of the iron teeth to realise that if he stepped on it just so, the handle would spring up and hit him on the cheek.
Anyway. Wandering the streets in bare feet and hospital pyjamas and trenchcoat, looking vague and polite? Not really the way to avoid notice. And the most important thing for him, right now, was not being noticed. Because, sure, he could flap away if he thought he was in danger - unless he couldn’t. Unless something else happened, and they got the jump on him. Too many angels - even freaking archangels - had died in the last four years for that to sound impossibly remote. And Crowley’s gang, just in that first year after angels started showing their faces, had polished up on their angel knowledge pretty damned fast. If anything they’d have far more tricks up their collective bloody sleeves by now.
And, okay, so Sam had always cared about Castiel, never wanted him hurt or anything, even after the angel had broken his wall, but seeing him like this, so small and fragile and so wondrously delighted with the world? Just the idea of anyone laying a violent hand on him made Sam’s neck prickle like he had hackles to raise, got his blood hot with that slow angry burn he always got when he was lying in ambush for the monster of the week. Because, no. Just - no.
Sam coaxed him into jeans and a sweater, but Castiel stubbornly refused to discard the trenchcoat. Sometimes he and Dean were too much alike.
(Sam wasn’t quite sure why Lucifer snickered quietly pretty much all the way through that conversation, then gave him a double thumbs-up at the end. He was sure, though, that he should be deeply suspicious about it.)
---
“Hey, Cas. What’s with the Dean-avoidance?” Sam tossed Castiel a large packet of rolled oats for the shopping basket, and Castiel peered at it with benevolent curiosity. “I mean, you’re sitting around with me like there’s nowhere else you’re ever gonna need to be, then Dean comes to the door and you make like a tree.”
Castiel smiled at him, a little vacantly, and made a thoughtful noise. “Cats,” he pronounced after a moment.
“I don’t follow you, man.”
Lucifer lifted an eye delicately in their direction, smirked to himself, and went back to reading food labels as if they were particularly interesting bugs. Sam ignored him.
“I didn’t follow you either,” Castiel pointed out serenely. Hold on. Was he playing up this whole spaced-out thing as a reproach?
Sam gave him a Look, and some canned vegetables. He was pretty sure he wasn’t imagining the half twinkle under those sly dark lashes.
“Cats in a storm. They seek out the cat flap.” Castiel looked so very pleased with himself for the explanation that Sam felt kind of guilty for still not getting it. “Dean is angry when he sees me. So I don’t let him see me. This one contains the poison,” he added, handing the can of red kidney beans (seriously?) back to Sam.
Sam sighed. “Great. They’ve struck the canned vegetables. We’re going to have to start hitting the wholefood and organics shops big time when we’re in, you know, a town large enough to have them.”
Castiel looked thoughtful.
“The ubiquitous grain of corn,” Lucifer drawled, eyes sparkling. “Do you think they realise that ninety percent of the beef in their product is processed corn, and the rest is rat and the entrails of pig?”
“Thanks, man. Really,” Sam said drily. “Because I needed to feel better about the state of our groceries.”
Lucifer smiled like an angel. Then he whispered something in Castiel’s ear.
That night, when they both had turned their backs for a moment, three large pizzas appeared on the motel table, steaming hot from the oven. Beside them was a small note in Castiel’s neat, slanting hand.
They’re from Italy.
Dean gave them an angry look, then a sad one. But he did eat.
---
Why had neither Sam nor Dean ever thought of just sitting down and chatting with Bobby? Treating him like they used to, like a person?
Sam snuck a peek over his book at Castiel and Bobby, heads bent together casual and peaceful in the corner over a game of chequers.
This was the fourth time this week. And each time Castiel left, Bobby looked stronger. Not vengeful-spirit stronger, just… more solid, less pale, more comfortable with reality, readier to laugh.
Sam found himself lingering, a little too long to be casual, on the shadowed curve of Castiel’s jaw, and the softness at the corner of his mouth. Contentment, if that was what it was, looked good on him. Maybe it was infectious. When Castiel was around the room seemed... warmer, somehow. Less harsh around the edges.
Sam had been so careful not to ask Castiel for help with the Leviathans, not to ask him to fight, that it had never occurred to him to ask him about this smaller and dearer problem. Or maybe he’d been scared to - asking an angel for help with a ghost, after all, sounded like it would end up even more brutally efficient than burning the flask. But, healing illnesses of a spiritual nature, that was what Castiel had said about his life as Emmanuel, when Sam had coaxed it out of him.
And later, just as himself, harmony and communication.
Well, it wasn’t a bad philosophy, when things weren’t trying to chomp them. As things stood, Sam would rather not harmonise with Leviathans. But, hey, so long as Castiel was keeping Bobby from going all counterpoint on Dick…
Lucifer pointed carefully over Sam’s shoulder at his book. “That’s a fundamental misconception.”
Sam turned his head just far enough to shoot him an enquiring look.
The devil rested his chin on Sam’s shoulder, sharp and vivid as bone (and when had he become solid enough for that?). “Why would a demon turn up just because you stuck hyssop in the fire instead of wormwood? It’s all just timber. If you want Crowley, you’re going to have to offer something he wants.”
“Yeah, well.” Sam smiled a bit, half disdainful and half easy, and pitched his voice low so it wouldn’t carry. “Sorry if I’m not going to take your advice on dealing with demons.”
Lucifer’s long, cool fingers skated down his forearm without rustling the cloth, then traced their fastidious spidery way over the bones of his hand. Sam could see the faint dip and drag of the skin under the tips of his fingers, and was that an illusion? Was that his own skin responding to it?
“I thought you wouldn’t,” Lucifer murmured back, breath hot and damp on Sam’s neck.
Sam shivered, and elbowed him in the ribs.
Then Dean’s duffle hit the floor by the door, and Dean said, heavy and resigned, “Cas.”
--------
Part 2.
Characters: Castiel, Sam, (Hal)Lucifer (or is he?), Dean, Bobby; and... well, someone less expected.
Pairings: Properly speaking, gen. But the story focuses on the following relationships: Sam/Castiel, Sam/Lucifer, Lucifer/Castiel, Dean/Castiel. If I write a sequel, it may go in any of those directions, depending on what the boys get up to.
Written: 16-19 May 2012.
Rating: Teen
Length: c. 12500.
Warnings: Mental illness, although Castiel doesn't see anything wrong with himself.
Notes: Started out as crack-drabble-fluff for princess_aleera's prompt at the Sassy minibang prompt meme. And it grew, into basically my alternate season finale. Written very quickly between the airings of episodes 7.22 and 23; takes place after episode 21; edited after 23 aired, but the only changes were fixing typoes and replacing some of Castiel's random observations with those from 7.23, because they were far more interesting than the ones I'd written for him! So, spoilers throughout season 7.
AO3 link.
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“Hello, Sam.”
There was only one person in Sam’s acquaintance who could hit “dreamy” and “gravelly” at the same time, in the space of just two words.
“Hey Cas,” he answered easily, without looking up from the pizza and the Word of the Prophet Kevin. “How’re you holding up?”
“I have been considering my pyjamas,” Castiel pronounced gravely. “The people who wove the cotton were very sad. Such years of exhaustion and hopelessness and narrow vision. I am trying to hunt them down to make them happier.”
“Okay.” Sam blinked up at him. Castiel was standing just a bit too close by his shoulder, like usual, staring dreamily down at Sam with his shoulders and arms all loose and relaxed. His hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed since thrashing around in a mental ward for a few weeks, and he was obviously still pretty out of it, but hey, it was more peaceful than he usually looked. “Okay, well, so long as that’s working for you.”
Castiel cocked his head quizzically at the Page of Kevin, and reached out to lay two fingers gently on the flimsy blue and white paper. He looked almost like he was communing with it. Did angels commune with prophecies? Not that all the usual rules weren’t completely screwed up now. Poor Kevin could probably do with an archangel on his shoulder around about now, for one thing. Sam wasn’t really sure Inias and the tatters of Castiel’s old garrison were going to be much good if a Leviathan came calling.
Then Castiel’s eyes flickered up to a spot on the other side of the table, and the corner of his mouth quirked into a soft open smile. Which, on Castiel’s face, was almost creepy. “It seems that my brother doesn’t hold a very high opinion of Crowley. His epithets are rather virulent.”
Hold on. Did that mean…
“Your brother - Cas.” Sam stared at the empty patch of air, then back to Castiel. “Cas, I thought you said you weren’t seeing him anymore.”
“I wasn’t,” Castiel said serenely. “But that made him lonely, so I let him back in.”
Like it was just that simple. “You let him in?”
Castiel blinked slowly at Sam’s rising tone. “He is much pleasanter to talk to now. Especially when Meg isn’t around.”
Which, yeah, no, Sam wasn’t even going to ask what Lucifer and Meg got up to together. But Castiel didn’t look worried, or tormented, or, well, evil. Just sort of vague, and a little bit puzzled by Sam’s reaction.
“Uh, okay,” Sam tried, and started mentally cataloguing possible ways of restraining a deranged angel if necessary. It was a depressingly short list. “What’s he saying now?”
Castiel looked at him, thoughtful, with just an edge of that old piercing I-can-see-right-into-your-heart-Sam-Winchester intensity. Then he leaned in and, very gently, touched two fingers to Sam’s forehead.
“Hey there, Sammy,” purred Lucifer from the other chair. “Long time no firecrackers.”
Sam really felt he was kind of justified in freaking out, just a bit.
---
Unfortunately, thirty seconds into building up to a really good freak-out, Castiel was looking so worried and upset that Sam had to stop. And, what the hell? Who was the wronged party here? Sam thought they’d had their nice hug-it-(figuratively)-out session last time they’d met and they’d worked it all out then. And he didn’t want to have to start blaming Castiel for things again. It made no sense, and Sam actually had no idea what to do.
He took a deep breath, cut off mid-rant, and just settled on a pleading, “What the hell?”
“Only a little bit,” Lucifer put in, picking thoughtfully at his nails.
Castiel’s eyes were deep blue pools of wounded helpfulness. “You were lonely without him. And he misses you. Don’t you like him?”
Lonely? The hell? “Like him? Cas, he’s the devil.”
Castiel’s face fell. “I don’t understand. You miss him, and he can’t hurt you like this. Why aren’t you happy to see him?”
Sam stared at him, and tried very very hard not to let his gaze slip sideways to the other angel - the non-existent angel - lounging on the other side of the table. He could feel the (non-existent) grey eyes boring into the side of his face, and it was more than a bit disconcerting just how familiar that was. How much that felt like… well, habit. Almost reassuring.
(Lonely?)
“Cas, man,” he said, pitching his voice low and soothing. “That’s… a nice thought, really, but if Dean gets back and I’m seeing Lucifer again, you know he’s gonna freak.” Castiel flinched. Yeah, low blow, suck it. “And I really don’t have time for weeks of sleep deprivation right now.”
“He is not in your head, Sam,” Castiel said, with a hint of his old stern growl. “He is in mine.” Huh. “I chose to share him with you, because sharing is how people demonstrate that they care about the feelings of others.”
… Not touching that one. Although, that was weirdly sweet. In a creepy mental-hospital-slash-kindergarten way.
Sam shoved his hair out of his eyes and huffed. “He can’t miss me, Cas. He’s a figment of a broken imagination.”
“Why should that mean that he doesn’t have feelings?” Castiel tipped his head to one side and stared a little too hard at Sam, a little too hurt. “Is it because he’s an angel?”
Sam gaped.
“Well, this is awkward,” Lucifer drawled brightly. “I feel like the cat in the buttery.”
“You stay out of this,” Sam snapped at him.
Then he froze. Shit. He’d spoken to him again. Lucifer was locked in now.
“Sam, your heart rate is up,” Castiel said, concerned. “Why is your heart rate up? Are you anxious?”
“He said ‘shut up’ to me,” Lucifer explained, sly with an edge of delighted. Then he winked. “Don’t worry if you don’t get it, little brother. It’s our special joke. Just between Sam and I.”
“Ah, I see,” Castiel acknowledged gravely.
“Hold on,” Sam cut in desperately. “If he’s in your head, how come he knows things you don’t know? Like that? I mean, that was just my twisted brain’s version of Lucifer. It wasn’t even real. How can you throw it out there?”
Lucifer cackled quietly. Castiel looked mildly disappointed in Sam’s intelligence, but then, that was fairly usual for him.
“Sam,” he said gently. “He’s an angel.”
Which didn’t help at all.
Then the key scraped in the door of the motel room, Sam jumped, all on edge and reaching for his gun, Dean came in and gave him a “seriously, dude?” look, and - Castiel wasn’t there.
Neither was Lucifer.
Sam slumped back into his chair, and scowled when Dean made an utterly hilarious crack about Sam looking like he’d seen a ghost.
Just a regular day in the life of Sam Winchester. Honestly, who wrote this crap?
---
“Hello, Sam.”
“Cas!” Sam dragged his head up from his beer glass and beamed at Castiel through his hair. It had been three days, and no sign of Lucifer, so, hey, not like he could have kept being angry at Castiel anyway, especially when he looked all bedraggled and dreamy and that was kind of Sam’s fault. “How’re you doing, man? You got a drink? You should have a drink.”
Castiel peered at him from his seat on the other side of the booth. “You seem drunk.”
“Quickest angel in the garrison,” Lucifer commented lazily, flickering into existence in the empty seat next to Sam. “Mind you, that’s not saying much. You should have met Obadiah.”
Sam blinked blurrily at him, distracted. “Wait. Wasn’t Obadiah a prophet?”
Lucifer wrinkled his nose delicately, the picture of gentlemanly contempt. “And Zachariah was the husband of the woman the upstairs squad actually cared about, once upon a time.”
Castiel picked dreamily at the salt packets on the table. “I never did understand the policy of elevating a few select humans to Grace.”
“I was not consulted about that,” Lucifer obviously felt obliged to put in at that point. He rested his chin on his thumb, forefinger curling loose and sly against the swell of his lower lip. Then he shuddered, and ran an eye disdainfully over the crowded humanity in the rest of the bar. “Disgusting. Never turned out well. I could hear Gabriel pitching a fit over having to live with that smarmy little upstart from down in Hell.”
“Huh.” Sam’s head felt kind of heavy and spinny, so he let it fall back against the cushions. After all, with two angels here, he didn’t really have to be that alert. Even if one wasn’t really here. And the other one, hah, wasn’t all here. Sam’s mind was kind of witty when he was drunk. Not that anyone else ever thought so. Probably he was saying it wrong.
“Guess Zachariah wouldn’t really have been Gabriel’s type.” Then he giggled. “Poor Zachariah. All… corporate suit…” He flapped one hand, trying to make a gesture that encompassed all of Zachariah’s creepy soulless office persona, then another one that tried to fit Gabriel into that. “Climbing the ladder…” He lost words for a moment in another snort of laughter. “… then, CEO Gabriel.”
Castiel blinked owlishly at him. Sam grinned back, all loose and sort of sloppy. Lucifer chuckled, a rich low rasp of sound next to Sam’s ear, familiar and intimate and Sam’s.
Sam had forgotten that, when he wasn’t keeping Sam awake or being this evil little imp thing, Lucifer’s dry snarky commentary on everything around Sam was actually kind of fun. And often kind of helpful.
So, okay, maybe he’d missed him a bit.
“Why is Dean complimenting that woman on her shoes?” Castiel put in curiously.
Sam snorted. “Because he thinks he’s gonna score. Where?”
Castiel raised one elegant finger and pointed to where Dean was leaning against the bar with his best pulling smile, chatting smoothly to a tall woman with long dark curls and a pink jacket. “I have never noticed in Dean a particular interest in footwear,” he added, frowning faintly.
Sam, who had just picked up his beer again, spluttered into it.
“That, little brother,” said Lucifer smoothly, “is called flirting. And to flirt well, you have to be a master of hypocrisy. Not to blow my own horn, of course,” he added, and flicked an invisible speck of lint from his arm.
Sam eyed him. “Yeah, because you’d know. How much action did you get down there in the last, like, billion years?”
Lucifer’s teeth flashed behind the crook of his finger. “Sammy, Sammy. It’s all about making them hear what they want to hear. That’s where your big bro’s going wrong. Oh, he’s got the hypocrisy down just fine, but that girl? She doesn’t want to talk about her shoes. They’re her younger sister’s, by the way, and they’re too big for her, and she’s borrowed them because she’s got a blister on her right heel from having to walk home from work yesterday when her car wouldn’t start. She wants to hear that she’s capable and attractive, that the stress of the last year isn’t making her look old before her time, and that when her father left when she was in high school it wasn’t because he thought she was a slut.” He paused, and eyed Dean over, one long raking drag of cool assessment and condescension. “Also that he isn’t going to try anything too rough in bed. And he just struck out. Thirty seconds for politeness and she’ll be edging her way out of that conversation.”
“Okay, come on,” Sam huffed. “You’re not even real. How the hell can you know all that?”
Lucifer tipped him a cool look, grey as steel. “Maybe Castiel knows it. Or you’re making the whole thing up. What would you like to hear, Sam?”
And the creepy factor just went up again. Sam scowled at him.
“So,” Castiel put in, still frowning distantly. “When Dean shows an unusual interest in a person’s clothing, does that indicate a desire for a sexual union?”
Lucifer’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully at Castiel, and a sly, mocking twist tugged at the side of his mouth.
“Uh.” Sam blinked. “Maybe? I mean, he doesn’t usually notice clothes at all, just how much they show off the goods, you know?”
… He wasn’t sure, in this light, but it looked like Castiel’s cheeks coloured up a bit.
“Oh my, oh my,” Lucifer said very softly beside him.
Sam was missing something. “What?”
Castiel ducked his head. Then he suddenly looked panicked, and disappeared, along with his non-existent brother.
“… Dude.” Dean was standing by Sam’s table, blinking and swaying a bit, wearing a belligerent scowl. “Wait. Was that Cas?”
Sam sighed, and slumped back in his chair. “Know any other trenchcoated guys in hospital pyjamas who pop in and out of places without using the door all the time?”
Dean glared at the empty chair across from Sam. “Why didn’t he stop to talk to me?”
“Maybe because he doesn’t like conflict?” Sam said sweetly.
“… Screw you too.”
---
It wasn’t always Castiel-and-Lucifer. Often it was just Castiel. Sam got used to him turning up in quiet moments, always when Sam was alone, in pyjamas and trenchcoat and once (in a daring moment) a pair of orange converse.
Sometimes they would talk, soft rambling conversations that kept making the strangest leaps of logic. They always felt oddly surreal, those conversations. Castiel was so very unconcerned by any of the import he would usually have given anything they discussed, was so blissfully free of gravity and doom, that Sam always ended up feeling sort of detached from reality, usually smiling himself. Of course, the fact that Castiel kept getting distracted by board games, or the geometry of light over glass, and the fact that Sam carefully avoided mention of any ‘real’ topics (like, say, Leviathans, or Bobby, or the fact that they were all still being hunted by Crowley and, by the way, needed his blood) added to the dream-like effect. After all, how many conversations did Sam have these days - or, you know, over the past two years - that were about anything that wasn’t essential and life-threatening?
Most often, though, Castiel would just stand or sit in the same room as Sam, watching the world through the window, or staring at the pattern of the dust, or marvelling silently at the stretch and pull of the fine wrinkles on the back of his own pale knuckles, or contemplating the pull of breath into Sam’s lungs and the soft fall of it out into the air again. It was… weirdly peaceful. Sam cautiously enjoyed it.
He had no idea why Castiel had apparently decided that Sam (and only Sam) was a sort of home base for whatever he was doing, but he wasn’t about to argue. It was good to know that he was more or less okay.
Lucifer came and went on his own whims; but also on Castiel’s, which was reassuring. The first time he made a comment that was too sharp and nasty for Castiel’s tastes, Castiel flinched. Sam looked up sharply, ready to rise, bracing himself for a distressed angel and a cackling, vicious Lucifer. But Castiel just gathered himself, looked up at Lucifer with an expression of gentle disappointment, and said, “I don’t think I want to talk to you just now.” And Lucifer vanished.
Half an hour later, when Castiel let him come back, he was glaring and indignantly silent, like a kid sulking because he doesn’t understand the punishment. Sam didn’t comment, just half turned in his chair so that his body language included both angels in the room; and gradually, Lucifer’s tight jaw and defensively clenched hands faded back into usual sharp, fluid grace.
So, yes. Castiel could handle Lucifer pretty well. Sam still wasn’t happy about his imaginary devil being Castiel’s constant companion when he was in this vulnerable state, even if all he could do was talk to him; but it seemed to make Castiel happy, that semi-solid simulacrum of one of the only brothers left to him.
Pathetic, maybe. But, hey, Sam only had his own brother, an illusion, a ghost, and an insane angel for company - and what’s more, he sort of liked it. He wasn’t about to judge.
---
The next day, Castiel got knocked over by a van. The driver didn’t even slow down. Sam had to forcibly restrain himself from whipping out his gun and blowing the tyres.
Castiel was on his hands and knees in the gutter, blinking dazedly. Lucifer was standing over him, eyes narrowed to thoughtful white-hot slits, staring after the van. Then he looked at Sam.
Sam ignored him, and crouched down beside Castiel, shielding him from the eyes of the alarmed and curious nearby. “You okay there, man?”
Castiel raised his head to blink at Sam; and Sam was struck with a sudden sense of disorientation, even of vertigo. He’d forgotten how deep Castiel’s eyes were, and how bright. Sam had been ridden by the oldest and vastest angel of all. Castiel, alien as he was, should have seemed like small fry compared to the incomprehensible scope of Lucifer’s mind, even what Sam had been able to grasp of it. But this wasn’t so much about the fact that Castiel was an angel. Lucifer, in all his enormity, was finally very simple, too steely-frozen to change. Castiel had lived, and Castiel had experienced, and he wore the richness and the pain of that clear for all to see.
“Did you know,” Castiel rumbled, soft and eager, “that, when snowflakes are first formed as crystals in the clouds, they are all identical? It is their passage downwards through the air, their individual travails as they are buffeted by winds and eddies and, that shapes each one into something unique.”
It was so eerily appropriate to what Sam had been thinking that he just gaped for a moment.
Then he felt a sharp tug on his hair, and looked up with a scowl at the rough stubbled curve of Lucifer’s chin overhead.
“I’m not one to argue with a little street theatre,” he said, stepping delicately over the words like he thought they might dirty him, “but you two lovebirds might want to get off the road before some kindly soul” (and that was said with a sneer) “calls him an ambulance.”
---
“It was just a truck this time, Cas; but what about next time, when it’s something that can actually hurt you?” Sam was tired, worried, sick of repeating himself and sounding soothing, sick of Castiel being weak when he should be the strong one; and the sharp unreadable edge of a grin he could see out of the corner of his eye was even more exasperating than Castiel’s patient soft-edged bewilderment. “If you’re gonna go outside, you’ve gotta pay more attention to what’s going on.”
“Going to keep him locked up for his own good?” Lucifer asked softly, and his mouth curled like a cat’s. Then, as Sam raised his head and rounded on him, he settled back against the pillows with his limbs sprawled out in elegant disarray, like he was preparing to watch the show. “Well, this should end well.”
“He’s broken, Lucifer,” Sam snapped, “and you’re the proof of that.”
Even with Lucifer effectively powerless now, it was hard to shake the effect of almost a year having to be on edge around him. Sam spoke a little more harshly than he’d meant to; and Castiel winced, and shrank into himself.
The sardonic smirk flickered and vanished. Lucifer tipped his head back against the wall and eyed Sam down the length of his nose, unfathomable and ancient. “We’re all broken, Sam. At least he’s broken happy.”
“I.” The uncertainty in Castiel’s voice drew Sam’s attention back to him like a magnet. His forehead was furrowed up, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I don’t feel broken.” His eyes flickered back and forth between Sam and the illusion of his brother. “But I know things about myself that I’d rather not have known.”
... Sam had never been the one who’d had to take care of Castiel before. Or of anyone, really. Dean had always done that.
Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Sam had just assumed he had.
He reached out one arm, snagged it around Castiel’s too-slight shoulders, and swallowed around the sudden burr in his throat. “Yeah. Join the club, man.”
Castiel blinked at the hand tucked around his upper arm like it meant something he wasn’t equipped to understand.
“Speak for yourselves, boys,” Lucifer drawled, bored again. Then, “Come on, brother. Work to be done, no time to dilly-dally.”
Castiel pulled back, and looked at Sam long and piercing. Sam got the feeling he was searching for something; but whatever it was, he had no idea how to answer it, and Castiel turned away without finding it.
“Yes,” Castiel said, as Sam tried to work out what had just happened. “Yes, I suppose we have.”
---
“What work are you doing with Lucifer, Cas? I thought you were hunting depressed cotton-pickers?”
“Secret angel business,” Lucifer whispered rough and dark behind Sam’s left ear. Sam jerked and spun around, but there was nothing there but a trail of laughter skittering away across the room.
Then Lucifer blinked into existence behind Castiel, just long enough to wink and flicker his tongue obscenely out over his lips.
Sam fixed his eyes on Castiel’s instead, and asked gently, “You sure you should be trusting him, Castiel?”
“He is my brother, Sam.” Castiel looked very small and tired. “You must remember that means something quite different in my family.”
Which answered absolutely nothing.
---
Sam felt awful just thinking this, but the fact was that having Bobby standing silent and surly in the corner of the room was just really freaking uncomfortable. And did he really have to glower like that all the time, just because their attempts to contact Crowley had fallen through? It was like he didn’t have anything else to think about. Which was... really disturbing.
The subtle “whoomph” of air like the folding of giant wings was rather a relief. Sam suspected that the smile he felt brightening his face, as he looked up to catch Castiel’s eye, was a bit too enthusiastic, maybe a little manic; but Castiel glowed when he caught it.
It was a bit sad, really, how pleased Castiel got at even the smallest indications that someone was glad of his company. Had they really never thought to make him feel welcome, before? Dean had probably just assumed Castiel knew, like he did with Sam. Either that or he’d been being a dick, of course. And Sam had been following Dean’s lead with the angels, then he’d been distracted by the Apocalypse, then he’d been soulless, then... yeah, okay, not exactly covering himself with glory here either.
Bobby nodded tersely at the new arrival (well, the one he could see). “Angel,” he said, gruff and non-committal. “Looking pretty good for a dead guy.”
“Robert,” Castiel acknowledged solemnly. Then he got on with his important task of staring out the window.
And that was it. No “my goodness me you seem to be a ghost,” no comments on the coruscation of his spectral aura or anything, no stern glares of “you are bordering on becoming a monster.” Not even a simple “You too.” Sam... sort of had to wonder whether Castiel had even noticed that Bobby was dead.
Bobby lifted his eyebrows at Sam. It was the first non-glowery expression he’d made all day. Sam shrugged, and went back to his laptop.
Lucifer just perched on the headboard of Sam’s bed and grinned at Bobby in a really disturbing way, saying nothing. On reflection, Sam was rather relieved about that. He was pretty sure that, whatever Lucifer had to say about Bobby, Sam wouldn’t want to hear it.
---
The trouble was, Castiel might have been happy (by his standards), but he still didn’t have a great grip on reality. And that made him vulnerable.
For starters, Castiel didn’t understand logical progression anymore, didn’t follow conversations, wandered off on his own tangents. He understood need, and he usually answered direct questions, and he read emotion a little too well (and that could really screw him over because he had no shields against it anymore, against all the little cruelties and sorrows and indifferences of everyone around him). But the physical reality of the world and the potential for consequences? Not in the slightest. He’d trip over a rake on the ground because he was too busy pondering the metalwork of the iron teeth to realise that if he stepped on it just so, the handle would spring up and hit him on the cheek.
Anyway. Wandering the streets in bare feet and hospital pyjamas and trenchcoat, looking vague and polite? Not really the way to avoid notice. And the most important thing for him, right now, was not being noticed. Because, sure, he could flap away if he thought he was in danger - unless he couldn’t. Unless something else happened, and they got the jump on him. Too many angels - even freaking archangels - had died in the last four years for that to sound impossibly remote. And Crowley’s gang, just in that first year after angels started showing their faces, had polished up on their angel knowledge pretty damned fast. If anything they’d have far more tricks up their collective bloody sleeves by now.
And, okay, so Sam had always cared about Castiel, never wanted him hurt or anything, even after the angel had broken his wall, but seeing him like this, so small and fragile and so wondrously delighted with the world? Just the idea of anyone laying a violent hand on him made Sam’s neck prickle like he had hackles to raise, got his blood hot with that slow angry burn he always got when he was lying in ambush for the monster of the week. Because, no. Just - no.
Sam coaxed him into jeans and a sweater, but Castiel stubbornly refused to discard the trenchcoat. Sometimes he and Dean were too much alike.
(Sam wasn’t quite sure why Lucifer snickered quietly pretty much all the way through that conversation, then gave him a double thumbs-up at the end. He was sure, though, that he should be deeply suspicious about it.)
---
“Hey, Cas. What’s with the Dean-avoidance?” Sam tossed Castiel a large packet of rolled oats for the shopping basket, and Castiel peered at it with benevolent curiosity. “I mean, you’re sitting around with me like there’s nowhere else you’re ever gonna need to be, then Dean comes to the door and you make like a tree.”
Castiel smiled at him, a little vacantly, and made a thoughtful noise. “Cats,” he pronounced after a moment.
“I don’t follow you, man.”
Lucifer lifted an eye delicately in their direction, smirked to himself, and went back to reading food labels as if they were particularly interesting bugs. Sam ignored him.
“I didn’t follow you either,” Castiel pointed out serenely. Hold on. Was he playing up this whole spaced-out thing as a reproach?
Sam gave him a Look, and some canned vegetables. He was pretty sure he wasn’t imagining the half twinkle under those sly dark lashes.
“Cats in a storm. They seek out the cat flap.” Castiel looked so very pleased with himself for the explanation that Sam felt kind of guilty for still not getting it. “Dean is angry when he sees me. So I don’t let him see me. This one contains the poison,” he added, handing the can of red kidney beans (seriously?) back to Sam.
Sam sighed. “Great. They’ve struck the canned vegetables. We’re going to have to start hitting the wholefood and organics shops big time when we’re in, you know, a town large enough to have them.”
Castiel looked thoughtful.
“The ubiquitous grain of corn,” Lucifer drawled, eyes sparkling. “Do you think they realise that ninety percent of the beef in their product is processed corn, and the rest is rat and the entrails of pig?”
“Thanks, man. Really,” Sam said drily. “Because I needed to feel better about the state of our groceries.”
Lucifer smiled like an angel. Then he whispered something in Castiel’s ear.
That night, when they both had turned their backs for a moment, three large pizzas appeared on the motel table, steaming hot from the oven. Beside them was a small note in Castiel’s neat, slanting hand.
They’re from Italy.
Dean gave them an angry look, then a sad one. But he did eat.
---
Why had neither Sam nor Dean ever thought of just sitting down and chatting with Bobby? Treating him like they used to, like a person?
Sam snuck a peek over his book at Castiel and Bobby, heads bent together casual and peaceful in the corner over a game of chequers.
This was the fourth time this week. And each time Castiel left, Bobby looked stronger. Not vengeful-spirit stronger, just… more solid, less pale, more comfortable with reality, readier to laugh.
Sam found himself lingering, a little too long to be casual, on the shadowed curve of Castiel’s jaw, and the softness at the corner of his mouth. Contentment, if that was what it was, looked good on him. Maybe it was infectious. When Castiel was around the room seemed... warmer, somehow. Less harsh around the edges.
Sam had been so careful not to ask Castiel for help with the Leviathans, not to ask him to fight, that it had never occurred to him to ask him about this smaller and dearer problem. Or maybe he’d been scared to - asking an angel for help with a ghost, after all, sounded like it would end up even more brutally efficient than burning the flask. But, healing illnesses of a spiritual nature, that was what Castiel had said about his life as Emmanuel, when Sam had coaxed it out of him.
And later, just as himself, harmony and communication.
Well, it wasn’t a bad philosophy, when things weren’t trying to chomp them. As things stood, Sam would rather not harmonise with Leviathans. But, hey, so long as Castiel was keeping Bobby from going all counterpoint on Dick…
Lucifer pointed carefully over Sam’s shoulder at his book. “That’s a fundamental misconception.”
Sam turned his head just far enough to shoot him an enquiring look.
The devil rested his chin on Sam’s shoulder, sharp and vivid as bone (and when had he become solid enough for that?). “Why would a demon turn up just because you stuck hyssop in the fire instead of wormwood? It’s all just timber. If you want Crowley, you’re going to have to offer something he wants.”
“Yeah, well.” Sam smiled a bit, half disdainful and half easy, and pitched his voice low so it wouldn’t carry. “Sorry if I’m not going to take your advice on dealing with demons.”
Lucifer’s long, cool fingers skated down his forearm without rustling the cloth, then traced their fastidious spidery way over the bones of his hand. Sam could see the faint dip and drag of the skin under the tips of his fingers, and was that an illusion? Was that his own skin responding to it?
“I thought you wouldn’t,” Lucifer murmured back, breath hot and damp on Sam’s neck.
Sam shivered, and elbowed him in the ribs.
Then Dean’s duffle hit the floor by the door, and Dean said, heavy and resigned, “Cas.”
--------
Part 2.