A/N: Sorry I finished this up quite late and I edited it late too. Sorry for any typos that are found. Also there's -I guess - slight Destiel in the story but it doesn't have to be read romantically. It can be read like platonic or familial love. a quick note at the bottom too! Sorry!
In Ward D-2, there's a room. No one goes in there. Not a single one of the staff.
Well, no one except Nurse Masters. And even though she's perfectly pleasant, there's something a little off about her.
The room used to belong to Sam Smith, the kid who couldn't sleep because the voice wouldn't let him. Then he was cured. Like a miracle of God or something.
Now the dark-haired, blue-eyed man has his room.
He's registered at the hospital as Cas Novak. An odd name, and probably not his real one. He's practically catatonic, unresponsive to everyone. He just sits on his bed, muttering to himself. Sometimes - most of the time, actually - he'll talk in a nonsense language. It can't do anything, of course, but a lot of the nurses have had to go home from debilitating headaches when the man speaks.
Sometimes, the lights will flicker on and off in his room. No storms, no electrical problems anywhere else. Except in that room.
If it was anywhere other than a mental hospital, there might be stories and rumors about a ghost. Just something to gossip about. But there's already enough crazy in the building.
"Y'know, I almost feel bad teasing you, you're so pathetic," Lucifer smiles. "I mean, how many times have you been brought back? Averted the Apocalypse. You became God. And now you're stuck in the loony bin?"
Lucifer whistles.
"You've fallen quite low, brother of mine."
Stop it.
Castiel isn't sure if he said that out loud.
"Maybe you didn't," Lucifer smirks. "Maybe I'm real, and you're the hallucination. After all, you're more dead that me."
What? But you're in Hell. In the Cage.
"Sure. But I'm alive in Hell. You were consumed. Obliterated. You think you were brought back, but are you really? I find it hard to believe that our Father would take such an interest in you. The little angel of Thursday, and He raises you three times? I'm a little doubtful here."
He crosses over to join Castiel on the bed.
Jealous?
"Hardly. I like you Cas. You're an angel after my own heart," Lucifer puts a hand over his chest. "Rebellious, prideful, wrathful. I don't know, though. You're pretty righteous too, and I just can't stomach that."
I'm nothing like you!
"We've had this conversation before, little bro. We're just the same," he says. "Remember? In Carthage?"
SHUT. UP.
"Oooh, I'm shaking in my shoes," Lucifer leers. "You're trying to be so brave. Ever the good soldier. Right, Cas?"
Lucifer leans against Castiel. It's uncomfortable, and he wishes Lucifer would stop.
It's Wrong, the same way Sam was without his soul and then he broke his wall and Sam was broken and suffering and Dean had looked at him so desperately and Cas remembered him saying in the Impala as they drove here with a demon in the backseat and he was still Emmanuel and Dean had said I used to be able to just shake this stuff off. You know, whatever it was. It might take me some time, but… I always could. What Cas did… I just can't- I don't know why, and how he hadn't understood any of it. Not until he remembered. Remembered everything he did and everything the Winchesters meant to him.
"Hey Cas, remember how you told Dean that you'd be fine, with me in your head?" Lucifer giggles at him. "Bit of a judgment error on your limits, Cassy."
Cassy. That's what Balthazar called him. Before he stabbed his sword through his chest. For giving information to Sam and Dean. So they could stop him. He should have been stopped. Better, that he had never been resurrected after the Apocalypse.
Castiel whimpers. Or if he's real, he whimpers. Maybe Lucifer is right, maybe he's dead or he's Lucifer's hallucination.
I'm sorry, brother. Sorysorrysorrysorrysorrysorr ysorrysorrrysorrrysorry-
Lucifer looks gleeful. Amused.
-sorrysorrysorrysorryiwasblin dedbyprideanddesperationandi cannotforgivemyselfforitsorrymybrotherwha thaveidonesorrysorry-
That's when Meg comes in.
"Clarence! Damn it, you have to shut up! You're making the lights go out," She says and Castiel can see her true face and it's horrible and he's being consumed by the guilt and the grief and he can't anymore and he wants Sam and Dean…
"Oh! I like that. Claa-rence," Lucifer says, before turning to Meg. "Clarence isn't doing so hot right now. But I don't think it's anything you can help with, sweetheart."
Meg can't see her father. Castiel knows this.
Stopstopstopiamsorryforfaili ngyousorrysorryluciferstopst opimsorryimsorryjuststopplea sestop-
"Castiel, you have to - fuck!" She starts, grabbing her head. "Stop talking in Enochian, Cas, it HURTS!"
"Yeah, Cas. Stop. It's hurting the poor demon's ears," Lucifer sticks his forked tongue out at Meg.
Cas screams.
The next day (Or maybe the next century, because "Time runs different in Hell, Cas."), Castiel goes for a walk in the garden.
He likes it here, surrounded his Father's works. Even Lucifer enjoys it. Somewhat. Lucifer is content to rip the petals off the flowers and burn ants.
And Meg's happy that he doesn't cause anymore electrical disturbances. She'll walk with him most days. Sometimes she'll talk to him. More like at him most of the time, but still.
"I really hate this job. I mean you're not exactly easy to deal with, Clarence," Meg bitches this afternoon. "It's just that I'm stuck here with you! Like, really. How did you get brought so low?"
"Your father asks the same question," he replies serenely.
Lucifer nods smugly.
Meg stops and looks at him.
"What did you say?"
"Lucifer tells me the same thing," he wonders why she doesn't know that. His older brother says it often enough in her hearing.
Wait. She can't see him. That's why. Or maybe she's not real.
"Just like you," Lucifer whispers to him.
Stop. I am real. I'm real. I'M REAL.
Meg backs away from him, in what might be horror.
Castiel is sometimes almost completely sane.
Not often, but sometimes Lucifer gets bored and doesn't wear him down so much.
Sometimes, he's even sort of…pleasant.
Today is one of those days.
"You know, there was this one place in Heaven where I would always go. It was a frozen tundra and there was a running stream. It was so pure. I went there whenever I grew tired of my brothers."
Castiel nods at him to continue.
"Cuz, Gabriel could get seriously obnoxious, Raphael was a dick, like, 90% of the time, Metatron was really pretentious ALL the time, and I loved Michael, but he could be a total douchebag," Lucifer says fondly.
"Of course, now he's in the Cage," Castiel feels obliged to point out.
Lucifer narrows his eyes. "Shh. You're ruining my story. I'm trying to bond with you here, Cas."
"I'll be quiet."
He smiles.
Of course, there are the Other Days.
The days when Lucifer is a time bomb, just waiting for an opening, for a chance to explode.
Sometimes the explosions are about Dean, but more often not. Lucifer is more calculated when he tries to hurt Castiel with mentions of Dean. His explosions are more instinctive anger.
Sometimes it's about Sam. It's a pretty easy target, considering that he doesn't even have the excuse of the souls and Leviathans. He broke Sam's wall all on his own.
But mostly it's about the destruction he wrought in Heaven as God.
It was horrific. The angels were only just recovering from the Apocalypse-That-Wasn't, and then He came along. And He decimated them.
But one day, during Lucifer's "explosions", Castiel fights back.
"How can you condemn me? You've killed angels. They're your brothers too!" he screams at the devil.
"Brothers? Ha! They were canon fodder. Disposable, mass-produced, brain-washed soldiers!" he yells back.
"What about Gabriel? What about him? And don't tell me he's a brain-washed soldier! You killed him!" He might be crying now, but he's not sure. Castiel doesn't think he's cried before.
Lucifer goes pale.
"Don't. You. Dare. Talk To. Me. About. That. You know nothing. NOTHING! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!"
And there are flames over his skin, and hid Grace is melting or burning up or freezing. And it's worse than Hell, worse than the time Heaven brought him back to "discipline" him, worse than the way Dean looked at him when he betrayed them, worse than anything…
The last thing he's aware of before he blacks out is Meg coming into the hospital room.
His existence continues like this for a long time. The pain ebbs and flows like the tide. It continues until he loses track of all time and purpose.
Sometimes, he forgets his friend who he did this for. The boy with demon blood, who went against fate and won because of love. Sam.
Sometimes, he even forgets his friend's brother, whom he loves and has sacrificed everything for. For whom he has taken this burden on himself, for whom he healed his friend. All because of the Righteous Man. All because of Dean.
Sometimes, he remembers. Who he was. What his name was. Why he is here.
But gradually, it fades.
It fades like rain on a sunny day, like stories when its listeners are all dead, like the world around him fades. Until it is nothing but him and Lucifer.
He used to call him brother, though now he can't think why. He doesn't know the meaning of the word. Lots of words don't have meaning anymore.
Some words echo in his head. He knows they used to have meaning, but he can't think of it.
God.
Castiel.
Sam.
Dean.
Lucifer is the only word with meaning anymore.
They are eternal. They are locked in combat, unfairly matched as it is.
He wishes it would end.
One day, it does.
"Cas?"
A/N: I know Sam and Dean come to see Cas because Meg called to say that he's up and talking. But not in this story. Bending canon, protecting otps, the fandom business. Hope you enjoyed.