#re-cognition

***

Cas, please.

Sam’s voice was broken in pain.

It’s Dean. Save Dean. Lucifer—Dean’s your best chance at getting to Amara, right? Don’t let him die. Please.

They were there at once, and Castiel didn’t know which of them had spread the archangel’s wings.

They snarled, and tore apart the wendigos with one hand and one thought. Then they were on their knees over Dean, who was gasping for breath, trying to hold in his guts where vast claws had gashed open his belly.

They gripped Dean’s left shoulder and cupped his face in their palm, and sent the fierce white fire of healing and love through Dean’s mangled body, as his eyes fixed desperately on their face, and his emotions bled into their grace.

It was only after it was done that Castiel felt the cold shudders of fear; and Lucifer did not fight him when he bent his forehead and pressed it against Dean’s, and breathed.

Lucifer was strangely quiet, in fact; until Sam cleared his throat and said, cautious with hope, “... Lucifer?”

They pulled back and met Dean’s eyes.

Dean looked at their hand on his shoulder. Then he looked at them with dozens of contradictory words behind his eyes. Recognising.

“Cas?”

Lucifer stirred. “For you, handsome,” he purred, “I could be.”

Dean snorted, and scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “Whatever. Get off me.”

Lucifer rose, more fluid and graceful in this body than Castiel had ever been, and turned.

The one human Lucifer had ever loved leaned heavily against the cave wall, leg bleeding badly, eyes bright and full. The feelings that flooded them were Castiel’s and Lucifer’s at once, and they were messy, and very deep.

“Thank you,” Sam gasped, and sagged to the floor.

Dean rushed to him, of course: Castiel knew it even though Lucifer chose that moment to flee.

He went and slaughtered three nests of vampires in various parts of Spain and Africa, without pausing to brush the blood off in between. Lucifer’s scorn for monsters of all kinds was much simpler and cleaner than his envious hatred for humanity. Against monsters, he could be purely the warrior.

Thank you, Castiel said, when Lucifer had recovered his breath and sarcasm.

It was only afterwards that he realised Lucifer had let slide the perfect opportunity to pressure Sam into consent, and divide himself from Castiel. He wondered whether it had occurred to Lucifer.

***

Lucifer touched the shroud of Turin curiously. “No power here,” he said; but there was hardly any disappointment in it. He traced the faint features of the face marked there.

Was it him? Castiel wondered.

One human looks much like another, Lucifer commented, scornful from habit. I feel the veneration laid on it, though. Years of humans believing in it. How odd, that they should change something like that. I think some of them believed in it more than in Father.

If it was him, would you call that the face of Jesus of Nazareth, or of Michael?

“I only had a ringside seat to the Harrowing, seraph,” Lucifer drawled. “You were in the ring.”

I barely looked at Michael’s vessel, Castiel confessed. I saw only our general. I regret that now. I think he must have been a remarkable man.

“Curious,” Lucifer drawled, “because I barely recognised my self-righteous brother. The human changed him.”

Perhaps he did, Castiel considered, thinking back over those decades. He had rarely been close to Michael, after all. But I think losing you changed him more.

He expected Lucifer’s flinch. He half expected rebuke, even retaliation, and the cold icy wall of Lucifer’s displeasure. But the tide of Lucifer’s feelings, which now mingled so easily with his own, rather flowed toward Castiel than away; and Castiel answered the touch like fingers tangling through fingers.

“What do they want from our Father?”

Castiel hesitated. There was pain in it, and old anger, but not rage. It was a real question.

I think, he said carefully, the same thing that we do. In the end.

And what is that, little bird?

To know that somebody cares. Castiel slipped one hand into the pocket of their slacks, to touch the FBI badge that he kept there. And without him, they look to each other.

***

You could have stayed long enough to mojo Sammy’s leg, Dean grumbled.

***

Lucifer stood outside the door of the bunker, and rang the bell.

Dean opened it.

He leaned just inside the threshold, and crossed his arms, and glared his unimpressed glare.

Lucifer sighed, and stared at the rock above his head.

“Castiel informs me,” he said, “that it is necessary that we go to the movies and see Star War.”

Dean narrowed his eyes. “Star Wars.”

Their forehead wrinkled. “There’s more than one of them?”

“Don’t start that,” Dean growled. “What’s this about?”

“Castiel thinks,” said Lucifer delicately, “that I would... enjoy it.”

Dean glared at them for a minute. Castiel silently willed him not to knock Lucifer back, because this was a tenuous wavering thing, and it had been difficult enough to persuade Lucifer to come at all.

“Fine,” he said. “But no fanboying over evil emperors, y’hear? And no funny business with Sam. And you’re paying. And—and Castiel gets the driver’s seat.”

***

Dean honestly tried to give Lucifer (or Castiel) the silent, sulky treatment. But there was no containing his enthusiasm, or Sam’s, once they were actually in the cinema. Lucifer took some delight in the irritation of the other patrons, until Castiel finally persuaded him to create a sound-proof bubble around them, and then the Winchesters could enthuse to their hearts’ content.

When Rey insulted the Millennium Falcon, Dean made a noise of delighted indignation.

“Dude,” he burst out, clutching at Castiel’s arm. “She is so Luke’s daughter.”

This—the importance of the vehicle, the delight that Dean had in this moment of recognition—was a significance that Castiel understood, and Lucifer did not.

“Yes,” he said; “but if she is, that only tells you where she has come from. It does not tell you what she is, or what she will become.”

***

Lucifer was highly indignant at Kylo Ren. In fact, he seemed to like Finn best.

Castiel had high hopes for him.

(Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | AO3)

***

Hey, Cas.

Sam’s prayers were always strong and diffident at once.

Don’t know if you can hear me, but I guess it can’t hurt. Jodi texted me. She said she thinks Claire’s worried about you. Or angry at you. It’s kind of hard to tell, at that age.

Not to make you feel guilty or anything, just. I thought you should know. There’s more than just me and Dean wanting you back. There’s people who’d miss you.

Not like a whole garrison of angels, I guess; but, you know. People choose people. I think that makes a difference.

I know you’re still there. Just... keep fighting, yeah?

Castiel had no intention of doing anything else.

***

“The slingshot of David,” Lucifer purred, and wrinkled his nose. The flames of the torches flickered over his face. “I don’t know, I see myself more as a Goliath figure, don’t you?”

The demons looked at each other, and didn’t reply. Lucifer picked up the ancient twist of wood; sighed, and put it back down. “Shot its load already. Guys, guys, I need you to work with me here. I want something I can actually use. This? This is as useful as a dried-out whore. Capisce?”

That’s disgusting, said Castiel.

Oh, the little birdie’s awake? I am the devil, you know. First name D, second name Evil.

I... don’t believe that is the correct etymology.

Lucifer paused, and Castiel felt the weight of his curiosity. Then he stretched his wings (and how Castiel had missed that feeling!) and slid without effort through walls and clouds and atoms to a cool forest somewhere in northern Europe.

“What a peculiar thing you are,” he said, and he said it mockingly.

Yes. You said that once before. But you said it differently then. There is no need to be... petty, and gross.

“I could hear the prayers, Castiel. I could slip into the minds that wanted me. In the dreams of the most virtuous souls, now and then; into the waking thoughts of some who weren’t.”

Yes. I know.

“Oh, honey,” exclaimed Lucifer, rich with scorn, “I have watched every village and heard every song in every land since their fungus began to creep across the earth. I know every story ever told about me. I know exactly what the Devil is.”

Better the devil you know, Castiel thought. Quotations and cliches turned up in his head unbidden, these days. But Castiel did not know this devil—this smirking, dancing bully. Here was not the vast, brilliant archangel that he had been before the fall, nor even the Adversary of the months of the Apocalypse - quiet, dignified, righteous, blazing with silver certainty.

“Did you ever hear any medieval fabliaux?” exclaimed Lucifer to the skies, turning on his heel with his arms flung wide as if appealing to the vastness of creation around him. “I am a very popular character in those. Usually some clever peasant tricks me into cutting off my own balls, or drinking his piss, or something like that; but in some of them, I’m the hero. There’s one—how did it go, now? God creates man. God takes his rib and creates woman, who, because she is made of bone, requires regular beatings—but he forgets to give her a cunt. I look her over and find only one hole. I go back to God and explain to him his error—what good is a woman without a furrow to plough? He is drunk and resting, and bids me go back to her and do it myself. I pick up my tools—mattock, spade, pickaxe, reaping hook—examine them, and decide the spade will do the job best—after all, every man will thank me for making the hole large. I jam it in to the hilt, wiggle it around a bit, make her good and open. Oh yes—then I sit down in front of her and fart into her mouth. And that is why the devil is in women’s cunts, and the breath of the devil’s arse is in a woman’s incessant chatter.”

You’d let them tell you what to become?

“I am giving them what they asked for, brother.”

This is not you. I remember you, Lucifer. I know what you are.

“You knew what I was—a tiny, seraph-sized glimpse of it.”

What are you now? Castiel wondered. He didn’t say it, but it was possible Lucifer that heard the thought anyway.

The evillest evil that ever evilled. Everybody knew what the devil was.

Lucifer had been listening for thousands of years. He had very rarely been listened to.

***

Castiel, who aren’t in Heaven. This cheeseburger tastes like arse. I’d tell you to come home and I’d make awesome burgers for all of us, but oh wait, the place is inked up in angel warding again because some dipshit went and invited the devil on board.

... Fuck.

Cas, man. You gotta come back, okay? You gotta kick him out. It isn’t worth it. You—I mean, even if he does beat down the Darkness, then we’re just right back where we were five years ago, right? Bad call, man. I just—fuck.

I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. Whatever I did that made you—I didn’t mean it. I’m a dick, Cas, you know that. Just come back. Please.