Chapter 21: in which lucifer rises
Chapter Text
The hire car is cheap and cheerless, part of Sam is overwhelmed by the guilt he feels, after all he has just released Lucifer and kick started the apocalypse, but also that he doesn't feel guilty at all. He is saying the right things to Dean, asking for forgiveness, but at the same time he doesn't really want it. He doesn't regret what he's done, perhaps Jess' darkness will overwhelm the world, eating it from within one molecule in the time. Seth had told him though that it would mean he would never be lonely.
Sam's tired of being alone.
Dean is driving like a maniac, foot down on the accelerator, not even turning on the radio, the Impala is with Bobby in South Dakota and they're in Maryland driving to Chuck's like the devil himself is on their tail, which he might very well be.
Sam is saying the right words, he's asking the right questions, but he doesn't mean any of them. If he feels guilty for anything it's showing Lilith that last piece of compassion and killing her quick.
The lights are on in Chuck's house, but despite Dean's fears the house isn't totalled, there is a ruckus inside but not an archangel smiting the inhabitants ruckus, just someone noisy inside. Dean kicks the door open with his shotgun crossed over his arm prepared for the last fight.
Instead Castiel throws his arm out like a clotheline and stops him as a small child, wearing Castiel's trench as a cape, it's arms tied about his neck, launches himself off the back of the couch into a beanbag, arms thrown out exclaiming he is "Superman." The beanbag explodes as he lands on it, making the child laugh even harder as he goes to do it again, the polystyrene beads falling like snow on the carpet with Chuck trailing after him extolling a list of woes.
Dean slowly lowers the gun. "I thought," he says to Castiel.
"We all thought," Castiel answers, filling in the blank. "we were wrong. The child appeared and the Archangel left."
"Is that?" Dean asks, taking a step back, Dean has two instincts, fight and flight, Sam knows, and he has shifted gears looking at the child.
"Yes," Castiel answers.
The child having exhausted his game is rolling in the polystyrene balls all over the carpet, "it's snowing!" he says throwing them up in the air. The child can't be more than four or five, with soft brown hair and large expressive eyes, he has a mole on the side of his nose. He is wearing an old tee of Chuck's, belted tight like a dress with Castiel's tie and his legs are bare, but he has appropriated Castiel's coat to make himself into a super hero. The new game quickly exhausted he scrambles back to the couch, throwing off the cushions and digging through the couch crap that inevitably gathers. He takes a handful and with a rather innocent smile runs to Dean. "What's this?" He asks offering out his treasures. Dean balks for a moment, before the child reaches out with one hand and lifts a piece of some old food and goes to pop it in his mouth
"No," Dean says, "that's dirty," he drops to his knees, he takes the offending clump of crumbs and throws it over his shoulder, into the existing chaos, "and this is sharp," it's an old thumb tack, "you'll hurt yourself."
"Kay," the kid says and dumps his treasures into Dean's hands, then looks at Sam, grins at him, before going back to the sofa. He climbs on top and starts jumping up and down, little bare feet flying up and down. Then he stops after only a few jumps, "not as much fun as the bed," he decides and runs back into the bedroom.
"Oh god, no," Chuck says trailing after him.
"What the," Sam catches himself short of the curse, there is a baby present, "is going on."
"Lucifer has risen," Castiel says, starting to clear up the mess by putting the cushions back on the couch, "but he is not quite what we expected." He sits down heavily, "there is much to explain but I cannot explain that which I don't understand. I know you seek answers, we have had this argument many times, but I do not have the answers you seek, I must admit I seek them myself."
The child comes roaring out of the bedroom with a sheet over his head going "woooooo I'm a ghost," in his trail things catch in the fabric tumbling to the floor as Chuck lags behind him going "oh god oh god oh god," trying to prevent the worst of the damage.
Then it happens, something inevitable, the child stumbles on the fabric and falls. Dean is a stranger to Sam when it comes to children, he becomes gentle, delicate, and so Sam shouldn't be surprised when Dean steps forward to help him up, lifting him into his arms as he pulls back the sheet wiping the tears away with a callused thumb. "You look just like my baby brother," Dean says softly bouncing the child.
"I know," the child says, "I chose to." He wraps his arms around Dean's neck and snuffles into the leather of his coat, "I wanna," he says and then starts to sob, the manic energy turning to tired crankiness, "I just wanna."
Dean allows the child a pillow of his shoulder and sits down on the couch, taking the sheet the kid had worn and using it as a blanket. "I know, I know," he says, leaning back against the cushions so the child is resting in his arms, pillowed on his body, his hand huge against the small back, "sleep, now, little Lucifer, sleep." Then he looks at Cas, his eyes tiger bright and fierce, "if I snap his neck right now, will it end this?"
And Castiel slowly, sadly shakes his head.
"Could you do it?" Sam is suprised he's the one that asks, but he knows if Dean doesn't he will, with what he's done snapping the neck of a child really won't make that much of a difference. If Dean is right and this is Lucifer he won't even pause.
Dean just smiles as he uses his free hand to tug a little thumb from a little mouth, wiping away the little pool of drool before he tucks the hand beside the head and the child snuffles in his sleep. Dean is a den mother in a man's body, fighting this strange maternal urge with shotguns and knives. Sam's only slightly surprised that Dean has immediately adopted the child, even if he is Lucifer, because that's what Dean does.
"Then what are we going to do?" Sam finishes.
"I'm fucked if I know, Sammy," Dean answers, "I've been chasing everyone else's tail for months, god knows alone what the fuck is going on, but," he gestures with his chin to the child asleep on his chest, "this is it."
"I can explain." A blonde man says from the open door, he is wearing a suit, and is perfectly turned out, but has a ruck sack dangling from one hand. "I'm."
"Brady." Sam finishes. He hadn't expected ever to see Brady again, he hasn't been in contact for more than three years although he had been his best friend at college. He and Brady had shared everything at Stanford, Brady had introduced him to Jess, Brady had pulled all nighters with him over courses he had never thought he'd use again but at the time had seemed the most important thing in the world. Then Jess died and he tried to keep in touch but everything happened and he hadn't even thought about him for years.
"Nebeziel." Castiel says at the same time with a certain amount of disgust.
Brady has that angel otherness, not a demon oiliness. It's in the set of his head and Sam wonders how he never saw it before, that sort of shimmer glimmer that marks Castiel out in a crowd if you know what to look at. "Yeah," Brady says, "both. I'm here for the boy."
Dean's maternal softness becomes tiger fierceness, teeth bared and eyes narrow, one hand on the child's back the other clenching around the demon killing knife, and Sam can feel the Darkness coiling around him, hard and sharp, it's whispering tentacles turning to razor wire around the shadows of his feet waiting to lash out and attack, to do him proud even under the electric lights. "I don't think so, do you?" Castiel has a knife in his hand, a long white line, the chrome thing he used against Valtiel and Chuck is backing up for the door. There is going to be blood.
"I'm," Brady starts, looking at the three of them. "I'm not here to hurt him, or you." He says throwing the rucksack into the room, "I've got clothes and things. If he wants to stay with you I'm not in a position to stop you." He doesn't actually step into the house, standing fixed at the door, guarded. "I'm in admin."
"And Brady?" Sam asks, wondering about his friend.
Brady's grin is vulpine, as wide and wicked as Dean's own, a pants wetting grin, "you really wanna know, Sammy, you wanna think he's in here, screaming?" It's a challenge, he is throwing down his gauntlet, pretty sure he's going to win.
"He's not." Castiel interrupts, "very few humans can support our Grace, he wasn't one, he is wearing his corpse." He narrows his eyes, grip shifting on the knife in his hand, his angelic sword, bringing the point up for a thrust. "And has for a long time."
"Since thanksgiving the first year at college." Brady answers, "he overdosed, it was his decision, I was waiting," he looks Sam up and down, "not for you, don't flatter yourself." Sam has so many memories of Brady, good, bad and intimate, and now he knows that they are of this Fallen, this imposter in his friend's skin. "For him," he looks at the boy, "and for the Chosen." Castiel opens the bag with his foot revealing clothes for the child, some sneakers, and a stuffed dinosaur, spilled out on the rug. "He called me here."
"Why?" Dean asks.
"That's above my paygrade." Brady answers bluntly, "my job is to pick him up, to do what he wants. I'm not paid nearly well enough to mess with you three."
"'Rady?" the child says turning. "too loud! wanna sleep!"
"Yes, my lord." Brady says, "by your command."
"Lucifer," Castiel says, "you must offer answers in exchange for your safekeeping, your guise of childhood is known to be a farce but yet we indulge you. We will not so indulge your minion, offer us answers, Lightbringer, and we shall not kill him where he stands and know we are justified in doing so."
Lucifer yawns, covering his mouth with a tiny hand. "Meanie," he says finally, turning and sitting on the couch beside Dean. "Can't I, just a little longer?" Castiel's gaze is firm, holding him in place. "kay, I shouldn't be out, I shouldn't be free. I can't go back. I wanna be human, I wanna have ice cream and soda and pickles and run and play. I wanna see the ocean and the mountains and the sky. I don't wanna go back, I don't wanna fight, I don't wanna war." His small face is screwed up. "I wanna see the choice. I wanna tell the angels no, I wan'for the demons to go'way. I don't wanna!" He's crying. "I don't wanna."
"Then what do you want?" Dean asks, his voice even, he's saying the words no one else really wants to, stroking the child's hair to soothe him.
"I locked myself away," the child says, "I locked the door again and again and tried to destroy the keys, but I'm not what they want, they want me to fight, they want a common enemy," those words are curiously adult in the child's mouth, "so they won't fight themselves anymore, they want the demon king, but I wanna go to the beach, and drink a beer and see lions and tigers and bears and trees. I aint never seen trees." He takes a deep breath before he continues, "Michael hides and I don't wanna seek, I don't wanna fight. I wanna be free!" He wipes at his face, aware that he's crying and Sam's not sure when it started, but the image of the Lightbringer crying moves him in ways he doesn't like, perhaps it's, as Dean pointed out, that he's wearing child-Sam's face.
"Can I come in," an Arab child says from the doorway, the boy is sloe eyed and dark skinned, his hair cut short but he has a silver ring in his ear and is wearing the very expensive looking uniform of a prep school.
"Envy," Lucifer chirps happily, "you can explain."
"Sam." Castiel says cooly, "perhaps it would be best if you helped Chuck get himself a glass of water." The prophet, who clearly did not see this coming, looks like he's about to faint and is starting to hyperventilate. Sam guides him to the kitchen table where only a few weeks ago he tried to explain the geography of hell with a kindergartner's art project. Even as he sits him down, with a hand on the space between his shoulderblades he's listening to the fallen angels in the living room as they talk.
"It's very simple," Envy says lighting a cigarette with practised ease, "angel's don't choose and demon's can't." He sits down on the mantlepiece in a position that screams inhuman, that suggests a bird of prey watching a rabbit unaware of the hawk's presence. "It's all elemental really, angels live so long that they fear the result of choice, they might choose wrong and that makes them fallible, and you know how they feel about failure," he takes a long drag of his cigarette, the smoke pooling about him in dizzying eddies, "and demons, well if they choose it's their superior who takes the credit or the blame, so that's stamped out pretty quick, so really the only creatures in this universe with that ability are you monkeys. That's what makes you so precious." It's only vaguely sarcastic. "So there's a proviso, a loop hole, as it were, a get out of hell free card, a choice." His full lips curl into a leer "and that's where you come in."
"I'm supposed to make the choice?" Sam asks from the table, god knows Hell's been courting him enough.
"Hmm, ego much?" Envy's laugh is dark and dirty. "No, you, Dean, and rest assured, I wouldn't rely on you to choose the colour of toilet paper let alone the future of the universe," he rolls his eyes, "but the child is about to be born, or at least this generation's child." He takes another drag of his cigarette, "and Heaven, hell and a few million other things in between will do everything to prevent a choice that they have to abide by. Hell, they might even raise Lucifer and start a holy crusade." He waves his cigarette around, it's almost smoked to the butt already, "Michael sits in his tower doing whatever it is he does, Lucifer's in the pit, of course the peons are going to look for an out, a way to impose their own world order, and what's better than eradicating the entire species to make sure the choice isn't made. The kid needs a protector, someone unbiassed."
Dean raises an eyebrow, Sam can see it from the kitchen. "I'm not unbiassed." He says.
Lucifer laughs. "What are demons?"
"Dicks," Dean answers.
"And angels?"
"Dicks with wings. Oh." It clicks into place.
"It's in my best interests that the choice is made," Lucifer says, his tone is strangely adult and the words perfectly formed which they hadn't been before. "Even if the choice isn't in my favour. I choose, Winchester, and I choose to go somewhere sunny and live out a human life doing human things on the beach. I don't want this war, I never did, I just want left alone. The child will be born soon, my coming will have hurried them along. I can provide for you a place, free from the eyes of Heaven and Hell, to raise the child as a human child, so when she makes the choice it is theirs alone."
"And what about me?" Sam asks.
"You made your choice, Sam-I-am," Envy laughs, "the forces of hell await their boy king, when you're ready. Come join the party, you've chosen your queen, the rest is all logistics."
"You want me to look after this child, why me?" Dean asks and god help him if Sam doesn't think it's the most intelligent thing Dean has said in years.
"Because," Lucifer answers, "you have a heart as big as a mountain, and you give the best hugs, and lots of reasons. You can say no, yanno, you can choose."
"And if i want to go with you to the beach?" Dean sounds like he's considering it.
"I'll get the sunblock," Envy says, "something tells me you have thighs that I'd love to rub the cream into."
Castiel growls, literally growls. "He is mine." Like Sam hadn't realised that. "How long do we get to choose?" And just like that Cas include himself on the plan.
"I'd give you world enough and time," Lucifer says, "but the child is due, two days and then we will be there for the birth. You don't hav'ta say yes," his speech is reverting to that of a child, "but you can stay there, safe, and raise them, away from every'fin."
"I need to think about it," Dean stammers.
"By your command," Lucifer says and then hops down off the couch, and raises his hand for Brady to take, "come on, Envy, Brady, let's go, when you're ready, let me know."
But Sam already knows the answer, he knew the answer all along, as soon as he was told the choice, Dean will raise the child because it will protect humanity and he can protect it. Dean might prefer to hunt, but he'd sacrifice himself for humanity in a heartbeat.
With Lucifer comes the morning, unnannounced and unwelcome. He doesn't knock, or wait for them, but instead launches himself on Sam's bed, Sam is in the shower, and proceeds to bounce until Dean lifts him down with the admonishment he'll hurt himself. So Sam leaves the bathroom with a towel about his hips as Dean is holding the child above the floor and explaining to him using short words that it really is too early in the morning for this kind of shit, and that is the word he used.
"Gotta go," Lucifer says with a grin, "she is being born, can you not hear it," he casts his head back in glee, "they tried to force it, but I'm cleverer than clever and I found her, she is being born. I'm sorry, Dean, there's no more time, do you agree? Will you raise the child as you see fit?" Sam quickly pulls on jeans and a tee, slipping his feet into his shoes without socks or lacing thme.
"yes." Dean answers calmly, "I'll raise her to bring down the lot of you."
"If you want," Lucifer answers, "but we've gotta go now."
Then with a flash that more Darkness than Castiel's blinding light they are in the hospital. Castiel stands there looking lost, because he has been included on this plan. "Excuse me," the nurse asks Sam, "are you the father?"
Dean licks his lips once, twice, a third time, "no," he says, "I am." And it's true but he's never met the mother, this is Lucifer's taunt and gift all in one.
"She's asking for you, if you'll follow me." And Sam goes to go but Lucifer stops him, with a shake of his head. Castiel ignores the other angel and just goes in regardless.
Sam doesn't know much about childbirth, he's under the impression it always takes a long time and is very difficult so when Dean comes out less than half an hour later looking grey and tired Sam's surprised, he imagined it would take days. "It's a girl." he says and Castiel puts his hand on Dean's shoulder, "she's so tiny."
"And the mother?" Lucifer asks with that adult voice that he sometimes uses.
Dean shakes his head. "I have to, I have to fill in some forms, they let me hold her, she's so small, Sammy, like she could fit in my hand. They're doign tests, to make sure she's okay, but she's so beautiful, Sammy, and so small."
"Are you sure you want this?" Lucifer asks again, "if you don't I can find another."
"She's mine," Dean answers, "and I'll protect her from all of you, I'll bring you all down, I'll burn the very firmament of heaven to protect her. They let me hold her and she grabbed my finger, she chose me, she," he stops, "she's so small, Sammy."
Lucifer nods, then vanishes, leaving them to their paperwork and how Dean is listed on the birth certificate is not something Sam questions, Lucifer could rebuild reality if he wanted to, this is nothing.
"What are you going to call her?" Sam asks, terrified of the glazed expression on Dean's face, the proprietary hand on his shoulder from Castiel.
"Grace." Dean answers calmly, "her name is Grace, Grace Ellen Mary Winchester."