Chapter Two – Sort Of
Lucifer didn't wake up for three days, and he was surprised to find himself still alive when he did. He thought surely he'd been drugged that night, that his supposed savior had actually meant to poison him and had apparently failed, though her motives were as of yet unclear. No matter, he'd find out one way or another.
Another surprise came in how healthy (and not hungover, thankfully) he felt. His power was by no means at full capacity, but he was certainly feeling better than he had up until then, not to mention looking better. He would be the last to admit it, prideful thing that he was, but he looked terrible that night and the many nights before it. The kid must've done something right after all, or wrong, as his conspiracy would have it.
The bemused, bed-headed archangel rubbed his eyes and pulled himself into a sitting position, stretching languidly as if he'd simply taken a nap and not fallen into a "medically"-induced coma. He noticed the blanket draped over him. It almost made him wonder if his theory was right…was she really trying to hurt him? Grace had to have been the one that put it there; he couldn't walk in his stupor, much less think to cover himself. He hadn't even remembered to put his shirt back on.
"Who'd' ve thought in a million years I'd wake up half-naked in some witch's guest room…I really need to get it together." He swung his feet over the side of the bed and padded down the hallway in search of the home's owner. He didn't have to go far to find her either; she was right back in the kitchen, this time singing to herself with an RC cola and a slice of pizza in her hands, "Can't believe I slept through a concert. Maybe I should've tried that with Vincente."
"…that my love's too big for you my love…oh, well hey to you too." She tried not to notice the fact that he was shirtless, which was difficult to say the least, but mostly because she was trying not to imagine how peeved some of his more ravenous fangirls would be if this made it into one of the books. Her mischievous side hoped it would, "I would've warned you if I thought it was going to do that…you okay?"
"Oh, I'm just dandy." he crossed his arms over his chest, deciding to ignore the worried angle of her head and the hesitant step she took toward him, "Would you have? You sure that wasn't all-"
"Planned? Uh, no." she stopped him midsentence to defend herself, "If I wanted you dead or banished, I would've done it immediately. I wouldn't have let you spend the night if I didn't actually want you here." She went on singing to herself as tossed the crust back into the box and grabbed another piece.
"So, you need me for your own scheme then? You're secretly an evil mastermind with some nefarious plot, aren't you Gracie?" he liked to think that not calling her by her full first name was insulting like it had been with Sam, but his petty jabs didn't seem to faze her as much as he'd hoped. He was dying to know what would. Getting under people's skin was a hobby of his, after all, be it in the literal or figurative sense.
"…you don't need me, but you won't leave me…I already told you what I wanted you for." She shot back, "I'm not the one that needs help. I'm offering it."
"Well you have to want something from me." He growled, "Nothing in life is free. Even the most altruistic have their price."
"No, I really don't."
"Yes, you do."
"Do not."
"I beg to differ."
"You don't beg for anything, and neither do I." She scoffed, "If I want something bad enough, I'll get it myself." She wanted to add that perhaps if he learned some "positive" independence, he wouldn't be so reliant on on his father's approval, but he was already mad enough as it was. She didn't want to rile him up and wind up dead, "But you must still need something from me besides a permanent body…or you wouldn't still be here, now would you?"
Lucifer froze, momentarily taken aback by her accusation. How dare she say he needed her! He didn't need a human for anything! He didn't need anybody now that he was back on his feet, much less some sassy little witch, "What is it you think I want then, since you know me so well, fangirl?" he fired back, trapping her against the counter.
She shrugged, shifting her weight to the other foot, "Besides your shirt, which is right there by the way, it beats the hell out of me." Grace took a sip of her drink before thinking about what Lucifer could possibly desire, aside from the obvious, "You don't want Crowley running Hell, but you don't want to be down there yourself because the job doesn't pay. You want Sam to be your vessel so you can get back at your dad, but you don't actually want to fight Michael or any of your other family. So, you tell me. What do you want? Do you even know?"
Do I?
In the midst of putting his shirt back on to avoid that conversation – he needed to expand his wardrobe soon, these rags just wouldn't do – an earth-shattering roar sailed over the house, sending Nox fleeing down the hallway and Grace cowering in the floor, her drink bottle shattered. Lucifer ducked purely out of reflex. The bone-rattling boom that followed spurred both of them to their feet and to the nearest window.
"I sincerely hope that's not what I think it is." Lucifer mumbled, eyeing the scorched, broken treetops that dipped into the valley below the house.
"Another angel…it has to be." Grace shuddered fearfully. She knew Lucifer was hunted, not just by the Winchesters but by the Heavenly Host too. She'd hoped that they'd lost him for the time being so she wouldn't end up on their hitlist beside him, but no such luck, "Nothing else falls from up there."
He grinned, but it was far from happy; his tone was mostly resigned and irritated when he clapped her on the shoulder and made her jump, "Well, looks like you're really in it now, Gracie. Hope you don't have any plans for…y'know, ever again."
"I didn't, actually, so it's all good." She sighed and thunked her head against the window a few times, "But either your dad has a terrible sense of humor, or my karma is flooring it in reverse." She groaned, covering her face with her trembling hands. Sarcasm could only hide so much.
"I think you mean 'and', sweetheart."
"Yeah, that…" she sighed heavily again, contemplating the mess she'd gotten herself into this time and how she was going to get out of it. If she was going to get out of it… She discovered that it was difficult to think under so much pressure, so she made the executive decision that it was time she and her new cohort went on vacation to clear their minds, "Alright, I reckon we better kick rocks unless you want to be Enochian barbeque…"
Lucifer raised an eyebrow in her direction as she disappeared down the hallway to pack what she needed, "We? You want me to come with you?"
She threw her hands up as she walked away, "Why not? We're already in cahoots with each other, there's no point in kicking you out now. It's not like you have a plan anyway." She added that she hadn't intended on giving him the boot to begin with, but now that they were both in immediate danger it seemed stupid to split up, "I don't have one either, but I have somewhere else we can stay until we do."
"What about your cat?" Lucifer appeared in her bedroom doorway, watching as she bustled about and threw clothes into a suitcase.
"Let him out, he'll be alright 'til I get back…" She didn't want to leave Nox, but she knew it would be easier to run without having to keep up with the cat, especially considering who they might be running from aside from the UFO down the hill, "You don't think…if that is an angel, it's going to attract attention…" they locked eyes as she closed a drawer behind her.
"Don't worry about the Winchesters." He seemed to read her mind without trying; he knew they would come up eventually, "They're totally clueless as to where I am. They might pick up on whoever that was outside, but we'll be long gone by the time they get here. I mean they're probably all the way back in Kansas."
"They aren't who I'm really worried about. Castiel and Crowley were the ones out looking for you, but nobody knows where they are right now." Grace clicked her suitcase shut, then started on a duffle bag filled with books, a laptop, and a camera, "They'll recognize you if they see us, even if they're looking for you in a new vessel."
Lucifer suggested, given this information, that they should keep to the backroads, or just not drive at all and let him teleport them wherever it was they were heading. Grace countered his logic by informing him that Cas and Crowley would likely be on the backroads, given their coaching from the Winchesters, and she informed him that leaving her car behind would look even more suspicious than if they took it. She also accused him of having a car phobia, which he denied with an absolutely pitiful pout. He fell silent again, watching her put things away or throw them into her luggage; her calm demeanor had fallen just a touch, but not because of him. She was more concerned with the danger that was likely lurking in the forest outside than she was with the celestial being lurking in the corner of her bedroom. She didn't seem to notice him at all, not in a way that signified she saw him as a threat…she wasn't constantly looking up to gauge his every move, her own movements weren't guarded, and she wasn't tensed to attack if he twitched the wrong way. She even turned her back to him, something not many lived to tell about.
"You don't sense anything close by, do you?" she hefted the bags' straps onto her shoulders and prepared to depart, "Whoever fell hasn't come towards the house, have they?" He didn't feel any hostile forces hovering within his reach, so he shook his head and followed her out, clicking the lights off as they made their way out the door to her garage. Nox didn't bother to see them off.
"How long is this trip gonna take?"
"Around three hours. Depends on traffic. Shouldn't be too heavy this time of night."
He paused at the foot of the steps, rocking back on his heels to leer at her, "You're willing to ride with me for that long? To be alone-"
"I've been alone with you conscious for nearly two hours collectively already, if you were gonna do something, you'd have done it by now." She cut him off again, without missing a beat, "I'm not here to feed your ego, Hot Wings, I'm just trying to save your ass from a really awkward family reunion." She opened the front passenger door of her Beetle and stood off to the side like a chauffeur, "After you."
He didn't try to intimidate her again after they got in the car.
Fighting for lost causes like that was really starting to wear on his nerves.
He didn't even feel the pain when his wings carved paths in the earth as they dragged beneath him. The trees snapping against his vessel didn't register in his mind. The fire surrounding him was nothing new, nothing to pay any mind to.
It took the ragged angel a few minutes to reorient himself, and to heal his corporeal body enough so that he could continue on his way. He had a mission, and he would stop at nothing to accomplish it. That's how he was programed. That's how they all used to be…until their father left them with decisions and the wherewithal to make them for themselves, rather than waiting for His instruction.
That was a mistake.
Angels were not meant to be independent from their father. They needed a leader, but they had been without one for so long that they didn't know what to do when they had one. They asked too many questions, even now that He had come home.
They needed an example to follow.
And that's what he decided to give them.
He would finish what his brother started, what was meant to be and had not yet come to pass. He would set things straight, and things would go back to the way they had been planned.
Yes, his father had objected at first, but once he finished his task, He would praise him for doing the right thing. For being the perfect son, the obedient one. For cleaning up the others' messes…
He marched on, leaving death in his wake before he even began.
"Can I ask you something?" Lucifer glanced over at Grace an hour and a half into their trip into the mountains, after a good amount of silence mixed with a few bouts of karaoke. He noted how her hair seemed to disappear into the dark sky, but her eyes caught every light they passed. He couldn't make up his mind up if they were hazel or not; they looked like dark woodstain until she turned a certain way, and then there were little patches of green and amber.
"Hmm?" She stopped humming along to the radio to respond, and she noticed how the streetlights gave him a halo and turned his eyes silver and his hair almost-grey.
"You gotta tell me what you want out of this deal. I'm not just gonna- well this just doesn't feel right…" he huffed, leaving his thought unfinished. He didn't know what he 'wasn't just gonna' do. Leave her with no show of gratitude? He'd already decided he wasn't going to kill her – that would've been the epitome of ungrateful in this situation, if you asked him – but what was he gonna do? Lucifer hated being unsure of himself almost as much as he hated humankind. And that was something.
She was quiet until they reached the outskirts of the small town they passed through, as if she wanted her answer to be a secret kept entirely between them, "I really don't know..." She finally said, "Haven't thought much about it honestly. Don't really need anything right now so… I guess you'll just owe me one until I do."
"You don't want anything?" He crossed his arms and leaned back impatiently, "Nothing at all?"
"What do you want me to tell you? I'm not gonna waste your powers on something stupid... Are you even at full power?" was that concern that he saw on her face? It sure looked like it, "I mean, Amara kicked you out of Cas, then Rowena hoodooed you and threw you in the world's biggest dunk tank. You've gotta be running on fumes at this point…my little spell can't have fixed everything." That was concern in her voice. What an odd thing that was to hear…
"I feel fine, honestly, but I'd feel better if you name your price. I'm paranoid that if I don't repay you somehow, Pops is gonna strike me down or something."
Grace scoffed, "Seriously doubt that Chuck actually gives a damn about what I'm doing to or for anybody. He doesn't exactly pay much attention to anyone down here unless we stand there and scream ourselves hoarse." Lucifer could feel the anger rolling off her in waves, but she was doing very well concealing it visually. Her expression didn't change at all, but her tone grew harsher, "I almost had hope that He would fix things between y'all, I really did…but to be totally honest I wasn't all that shocked when He took off again without you. Pissed, and disappointed, but not shocked."
He took it back; he could see the vein in her temple flaring.
"You didn't deserve that."
He blinked, "What?"
"Him going back on his apology." Her jaw tightened, sharpening the edges of her face, "But y'know, that's just a typical person these days, seems like; apologize for something and then turn around and do the exact same thing again like it's nothing. Guess not even your father is above that." The disgust in her eyes, in the twist of the scowl on her mouth, was so heart-felt that he wondered if she would give his father a piece of her mind, were he present. Did Chuck's behavior so incense her that she would be willing to tell The Man Upstairs Himself just what she thought of Him, consequences be damned?
Man, he sure hoped he'd be there to witness it if it ever happened, "So you're not a fan of Dad's either, huh?"
"Oh hardly. Didn't really hit me until after your concert, when you were talking to Sam and Dean though." She took a deep breath and some of the tension in her muscles melted away, "At the end of the last story before that, I thought, I hoped, maybe He'd taken you back with Him and Amara somehow. That He called you back to Heaven so you could all talk and sort things out. But…guess not." she chewed her bottom lip to cut her rant short. If she got too worked up about this -which she knew was inevitable at this rate – she would be in no state of mind to drive. And he didn't have a license.
"But he didn't. He just…left me. Again."
When Lucifer's voice broke, even as slightly as it was, Grace's heart broke with it. She knew the pain of losing a home and a family. It had been hard to put her pieces back together, and sometimes they just kept falling apart, but it had been worth it, even if she couldn't see that at first. She wondered to herself for a moment, and suddenly a plan bubbled up in her head, "I know what you can do for me…"
Finally, "Shoot."
"I have your word that you'll do what I ask?"
"You got it."
"Ok. That's what I want then." She said, "Call it a behavioral agreement."
He suddenly seemed skeptical, with his fingers steepled in front of his lips, "Go on…"
"The best revenge is getting better, not bitter. Let me help you do that. If I ask you not to do something, you won't. And vice versa. I promise not to make you do anything ridiculous. And I'm not gonna lock you up in the house or anything either. Just keep that promise, that's all I ask."
In response to her request, Lucifer made the most inhuman sound of frustration Grace had ever heard in all her 23 years of life. Why couldn't she ask for a million dollars, or the left pinky finger of her archenemy? Why'd it have to be this hippie mumbo jumbo? Asking him to behave himself… Did she know who she was talking to? He invented the angsty teen rebellion. Why couldn't she be greedy and self-centered? And why the hell was she laughing?
"There's just no pleasing you, is there?" She giggled. He glared over at her; a moment ago she was trying to mend his broken heart, and now she was teasing him, "Fine. Now on top of cooperation, I never want to have to pay for gas again. And I want my closet to always be full of any kind of clothes that I can imagine. And I want a car like Dean's, but I want it to be white with a red interior. And..."
"You're impossible." He muttered.
"I try." She grinned mischievously.
He pushed the thought (the realization, rather) that he was the exact same way most of the time out of his mind and tried to focus on the radio. He had hoped another at least decent song would come on and distract his tormentor, but it wasn't music that caught their ears:
Breaking News: Meteor crashes down in Habersham county, followed by freak lightning storms. Reports filed by forestry service claim a "shooting star" has crashed to earth and wonder if there is a connection to it and the massive thundercloud covering the city. Details as they arrive.
"Sounds like we dodged a bullet. I just hope the gun doesn't reload between here and the cabin." Grace's smile fell as she peered into the rearview anxiously.
"It shouldn't have fired at all. Upstairs is on lockdown until further notice, Dad's orders. No angels in or out until the gate Castiel and Metatron screwed up is fixed." They both doubted that such a monumental task had been completed in the few months since Chuck and Amara left. It may not have taken the wayward angels long to break Heaven's door, but it couldn't be a simple thing to repair.
"What if...couldn't somebody sneak out? I mean it's not like Chuck is watching every single angel all the time, or He –well actually He wouldn't have intervened down here sooner, but you get the point." Lucifer pondered the possibility of a runaway. Castiel did it numerous times to save Sam and Dean, and Gabriel had left when his brother had been cast down, so it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. And it was possibly more dangerous than someone sent intentionally. Their allegiance and purposes were totally up in the air, so they couldn't be trusted.
But then again, could anybody?
Several states away, Team Free Will was assembled in the library of the Bunker, attempting to formulate a plan of their own. Lucifer's lack thereof had caused all of them great confusion and an even greater amount of concern. With no dastardly plot, they had no clue where the rogue archangel would strike next, or what he would strike for, or if he even would.
Sam was arguably the most unnerved, both by the fact that the Devil hadn't killed them all when he had every chance in the world, and by how genuinely upset Lucifer had seemed when he went on his tirade about being abandoned again. He had almost started crying, for Pete's sake. That was not the same obnoxious, insanely malicious person who had gotten stuck in Sam's head for months after they left the Cage. It wasn't even the incredibly spiteful – yet somewhat helpful when he wanted to be – person that had been with them not so long ago. Whatever Lucifer had been through prior to Chuck's return hadn't done it, but God disappearing without a trace again had broken His son entirely.
What scared Sam the most was that he almost felt sorry for Lucifer.
He understood how he felt, though not on such a cosmic scale. Yes, it broke his heart when he fought with his dad before he left for Stanford, and Mary leaving again had devastated him, but he hadn't become a homicidal maniac because of it. If only Lucifer wasn't such a…drama queen… Maybe he could…
"Sammy?" Dean nudged him with his elbow, "Sam."
He shook his head to snap himself back into the present, "S-sorry. I was just thinking…" he massaged the bridge of his nose, and then scraped his hair back with his fingers, "What's up?"
"You didn't hear it?" Cas tilted his head toward the map in the main room, "The alarms were set off. They've been ringing for almost ten minutes now."
"Sounds like we've got company, Moose." Crowley was the only one who, outwardly at least, seemed less ruffled than he should have been. He had healed himself on the way back to the Bunker, so he didn't look like a total train wreck, but the boys had all expected one of his infamous flare-ups at any given moment. He was too quiet after getting the daylights beaten out of him by his most hated rival.
Sam nearly jumped out of his seat, "What? Do we know what it is? Or where?" Dean promptly informed him that they had been discussing that exact matter for the past nine minutes, and then proceeded to ask him where his mind had been during that time. Sam told him he didn't know, which was a lie, and decided to cover it up by repeating himself, "So, what's up?"
Cas leaned over the map table, bracing both hands on the edges, "Something triggered the sensors here," he pointed somewhere between Georgia and South Carolina, "But all we've been able to dig up is a small forest fire and a lightning storm. One site mentioned a "falling star" being seen prior to the storm, but nothing else has happened yet."
"Might be an angel, might not be." Dean added, leaning his weight on the pillar behind Castiel, "Hope not. One feather-brain down here is one too many." The angel in front of him shot him a squinty glare until he clarified that he meant his older sibling and not him, obviously.
"So lads, looks like we're heading east until that handsome Devil pops up again." Crowley stood a little too close to Sam for his liking, but neither bothered to take steps away; they were both too exhausted to care enough, "Unless you lot have a better idea."
Sam huffed. It wasn't like they had any leads on Lucifer after his dramatic exit a few days ago, and there was no sense in waiting on one to crop up on its own. Maybe if they beat the bushes enough on another case, they could catch a break, "Fine by me. First thing tomorrow then?"
"Crowley and I could leave ahead of you. We don't need the rest that-"
"Uh, no." Dean stopped Cas, "You both got your asses handed to you. Neither one of you is leaving this bunker until you take a break. Now I don't know what has you two, especially you Crowley, on this kamikaze kick all of a sudden but y'need to nip it in the bud, like, yesterday."
Cas started to object -he wasn't a child, and he wasn't about to be bossed around like one, not when this situation was partially his fault – but Crowley beat him to the punch when his anger finally exploded, "Well perhaps if we got a thank you here and there, not every bloody time we help clean up after you two of course, just every so often, we wouldn't feel the need to put on a bloody show, Squirrel." He snapped, "But instead I get kicked to the curb like some dirty mutt, regardless of the fact that I very well could've died for your sakes on several occasions, and Cas may get preferential treatment between the two of us, but he still doesn't get any gratitude." The King of Hell turned to the angel for backup, but all he got was a slightly perplexed stare. It was then that he discovered that they weren't on the same page at the moment.
"I uh…" he scratched the back of his neck, "he does have somewhat of a point, but that's not what I had in mind, actually…"
Dean already knew what Cas had in mind. He always knew at times like this, because it was always the same, self-depreciating thought with pretty much everyone in the room, himself included, "Castiel, for the last time, not everything is your fault. You are not always the only one responsible for something going wrong, man."
"Dean's right, Cas. Yeah, you let Lucifer out, but he helped us, er, tried to anyway…" Sam chimed in, "And he was doing fine until Chuck went back on His apology and left. Honestly, I think if that hadn't set him off, he'd have gotten his own vessel and left us alone." Dean and Crowley didn't share this theory, they were a little more cynical about the matter and didn't know what Sam had been smoking when the thought that up, but Cas couldn't help but wonder if that wouldn't have been the case.
Even when they shared his vessel, he could sense that the other angel was growing weary of all this back-and-forth business between them and him. He hadn't tried to escape from them or betray them in the process of battling Amara, and it became even more evident at the concert that he was sick of the whole charade. If one looked closely enough, one might conclude that Lucifer didn't want this anymore than anyone else. He wanted out.
Cas fell into a guilty silence, his head hung low, and he sighed a muffled, "Fine." He was tired of all the fighting too, and had been for a while now. None of them deserved having to deal with this nonsense, the Winchesters especially. They didn't deserve any of what they'd been put through by Chuck, Azazel, or anyone else.
He felt he didn't deserve Dean's comforting hand on his shoulder, but he chose to keep that to himself, lest that thought spark another argument, "We'll fix this thing, Cas, but we gotta do it together. No more flyin' solo, got it?" Their gazes met, and held. Cas nodded, "That goes for you too, Crowley." Dean added, reluctantly turning away, "Look, I am sorry that you feel 'left out' or whatever…so uh, thanks for earlier."
He shot Sam a meaningful glance, implying that he should throw something in too, but the younger Winchester's show of appreciation lacked the conviction that was in his brother's voice. Dean had temporarily been friends with Crowley, even when he was no longer a demon himself, but Sam lacked whatever strange connection they had. He didn't trust him, or particularly like him…he really didn't know how to feel about him after the failed Demon Trials. Uneasy was all he could manage.
"Now was that so hard?" the demon gave them a smug grin with a pinch of lingering irritation, "Do what you will, Cas, but I'm not leaving until tomorrow morning. I look forward to our little roadtrip, part two." He sneered, almost suggestively, then disappeared just in time to miss the sensors blaring again, this time further up the map.
"It's moving, whatever it is." Cas mentally noted the new location, "I'll stay in here tonight and keep an eye on it. You go get some sleep." Sam and Dean agreed that it was far past their bedtime, told their third Musketeer goodnight, and headed off to their respective rooms for a few hours of restless sleep.