Author's Notes: The chapter title comes from Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here," written by band members Roger Waters and David Gilmour. If you haven't heard it or have heard it but haven't thought about it in the context of Lucifer, you should give it a listen. (It's better to listen without reading the lyrics beforehand.)
This chapter diverges even further from how things went down in canon, as a result of Gabriel still being alive and interacting with the other characters.
Gabriel hadn't really known what, exactly, he'd expected it would be like to team up with the devil. Maybe creating some natural disasters, some hell raising here and there. He hadn't had any concrete plans, since he hadn't exactly shown up at the hotel planning to join his brother. But whatever he'd thought, the reality had turned out to be a bit anticlimactic. He'd spent several days in Satan's presence with nary a spot of mass genocide between them.
Or at least none that Gabriel knew about since Lucifer had disappeared for hours at a time without saying where he was going.
Gabriel would have thought that Lucifer didn't trust him if his brother hadn't already entrusted him with all things Sam Winchester. But he had, so there had to be some other reason that Gabriel was being kept out of the loop.
Really, all things considered, nobody should have been surprised when Gabriel took things into his own hands. Finding Lucifer was a bit like following the path of a raging asteroid through a fishbowl, in fact, since to another angel's eyes Lucifer left a trail about that big wherever he went.
His brother was in Nebraska, just over the Kansas border, in the middle of a small town where the biggest feature seemed to be a series of enormous warehouses.
There were dozens of demons milling about, and it took Gabriel a few moments to be able to see past their hideous true faces to the meat suits they were inhabiting. He didn't have much practice identifying demons, after all, since they tended to avoid anything more powerful than they were. He had encountered a handful of them over the past few thousand years, ones powerful enough to think they could easily take out a trickster if they had to. They would've never come within a continent of him if they'd been able to tell that he was an archangel, of course.
He announced himself by asking, "Ugh, how can you stand to be around them?"
Lucifer whirled around with a crackle of grace, the ground trembling beneath them for the few seconds it took him to recognize his younger brother. He appeared more surprised than angry, but then again it never was easy to tell with Lucifer, after the… well, just after.
Gabriel's hidden grace shuddered at the thought, and his wings ached with the effort, but he managed to keep everything concealed.
"How are you doing that?" his brother demanded.
Gabriel shrugged. "Well, I couldn't exactly stay lit up like a Christmas tree, could I? I bet you and Michael would have gotten along long enough to drag me back to Heaven, since that would have been the only force strong enough to make me go back."
Lucifer looked pained for a moment, but only a brief one, before he cleared his face of all expression. They had never spoken of it, but Gabriel could only imagine how much it had hurt his brothers when his grace had appeared to blink out of existence. It had taken him years to learn how to conceal his presence, but it had been necessary. Michael and Lucifer never would have let him stay out of it unless they couldn't find him, and back then he hadn't been ready to accept that he would choose Lucifer over their Father and other brothers.
"I couldn't sense you, Gabriel, but did you know of me?" demanded Lucifer. "When I fell to Earth, did you know?"
There was no way that Gabriel could have prevented the flinch across his vessel's face, but he stubbornly let his still-human eyes meet Lucifer's blazing red-orange ones.
"Yeah, of course I knew." He let out a thin, humorless laugh. "I still can't believe the humans think they're the ones who punched a hole in the ozone layer."
The demons were clearly paying attention to everything they were saying, and a few of the more idiotic ones had even paused their work to watch. Lucifer seemed to realize this at the same time as Gabriel, but that was probably only because he had torn his gaze away from his brother's. He never said a word or made a gesture, but suddenly the air around them was filled with burning sulfur and hellish screams.
Gabriel knew without looking that all of the demons were dead. He wrinkled his nose in distaste.
"They smell worse than they look. Really, brother, I don't see the appeal."
Lucifer laughed. "That was the point of them, to show Father that His new favorites were weak and corruptible. That they didn't deserve for us to love them more than we loved Him."
"I thought maybe it was just revenge," Gabriel replied carefully, keeping his tone neutral. "After Adam and Eve were thrown from the garden and Father didn't change his mind, I thought you knew that He never would."
"Only in retrospect, brother," Lucifer told him, offering a somber smile that full of more malice than anything. "I didn't realize until after I transferred the Mark to Cain that God would never change his mind, and that even if He did I would never be forgiven."
Gabriel felt cold. Not the kind of cold his brother was giving off, but rather the kind that sank deep into his grace and settled at the very center of his being until he felt like he might never feel anything besides helplessness and hopelessness ever again. He was wrong, though—the cold was swiftly followed by a kind of heat that would have made even Michael take notice if he'd been there to witness it, and he felt rage.
"He knew!" cried Gabriel, a hint of his true voice leaking through. "He knew what would happen when He gave you the Mark, and He knew when he created Adam and—and when He had Michael cast you out! How could He do that to you? To us?"
Gabriel's self-control was almost non-existent as he allowed himself to think the thoughts he'd actively avoided ever since he'd realized that the Mark their Father had pressed into Samael's grace was corrupting his brother. As painful as it would have been to allow himself to think it back then, the eons of avoidance were making it much worse to think about it now. His grace, which he had carefully concealed for thousands of years, was on the verge of bursting out all at once, which would reveal him to his other brothers and likely remove half of North America from the map. But he couldn't control it, he couldn't stop, he couldn't….
Then his brother's arms came around him and he was surrounded by Lucifer's grace as if he were still that baby archangel accidentally destroying his favorite planets because he didn't have a handle yet on his immeasurable power.
He really should have recoiled at the darkness, at the evil that had infected his brother, but instead he curled himself deeper into the embrace and allowed himself to be calmed. He'd been starved of real affection for too long, and he couldn't even imagine what it had been like for Lucifer.
Eventually, Lucifer said, "It was all I thought about for the first ten thousand years I was in the cage. The Mark was gone and I could see everything I had done with clear eyes, but I could also see that our Father had given me the Mark knowing what it would do to me."
Gabriel made a noise somewhere between a growl and a sniffle, and reached back to curl his fingers into the feathers of his brother's second wing. Lucifer stiffened for a moment, then relaxed.
After a moment, he declared, "I think that's enough for today, little brother."
But although Gabriel was the youngest archangel, he was still an archangel, and he was having none of Lucifer's avoidance.
"No," he said, his tone harsh and brooking no argument in a way he'd never used before on his older brothers. "It will never be enough. The Mark affected you for billions of years, and then you were locked in that cage for tens of thousands of years. And Father knew. Well, fuck him."
Lucifer pulled back from their embrace and put his hands on both of Gabriel's shoulders, scrutinizing him with a disapproving look. "This is blasphemy, brother."
Gabriel laughed, but it was with more incredulity than humor. He almost couldn't believe that Lucifer could have such a double standard for himself versus his younger brother.
"I was already there when I decided to join you, Lucifer. Now I'm just demanding that you include me in your plans."
"Demanding?" echoed Lucifer. He sounded at once disbelieving and proud. "Of me?"
"I'm not your bitch, Lucifer," Gabriel told him matter-of-factly, remembering Dean Winchester's accusation when he'd found out Gabriel's identity. "I am your brother. I may be your younger brother, but I'm Loki the trickster god, and Gabriel the arch-fucking-angel, and I have tricks even you don't have, Lucifer. And I've killed more people than you."
There were several seconds when Gabriel didn't know exactly how Lucifer was going to react, especially to the challenge that his little bro knew things even he didn't. Of course, it was self-evident that it was true, given that Gabriel had tricked Lucifer with his own ploy back at the hotel and that he still hadn't explained to his brother how he concealed what he was. But that didn't mean Lucifer would appreciate it; even though he'd been free of the Mark for tens of thousands of years, he had still been isolated in a cage in Hell and cut off completely from Heaven, and his mental state wasn't exactly what Gabriel would describe as stable. Even if he'd never say so to his brother's face. Or to anyone else's either.
Then Lucifer's lips quirked upwards and his uppermost wings fluttered just a bit, and he did what he usually did instead of apologizing: He explained, "I'm distributing the Croatoan virus through swine flu vaccines."
Gabriel nearly choked on his own saliva, and he did tug hard enough on Lucifer's feathers to make his brother wince.
"What?"
"Don't worry, Gabriel. I think the humans have ruined Earth enough as it is without turning them into mindless animals—when I get rid of them it will be a cleansing, not a plague. The Winchesters will stop the virus before it gets too far along."
The archangels' brand of precognition came primarily in the form of being able to see every possible future outcome from every possible decision, but they weren't able to tell conclusively which choices would be made and, therefore, which future would result. There were only a few events in the universe that were immutable—that would happen no matter what and no matter how they happened. This was not one of them.
"How can you be sure?" he demanded.
Lucifer grinned, his eyes gleaming and his grace sparking. "Oh, I have faith in Sam."
"But why bother at all?"
Lucifer smiled again and leaned forward to press his forehead against Gabriel's.
"Because, little brother, I want to know what my vessel is capable of."
Gabriel wasn't really surprised when he heard Sam praying for him, but he was more than a little disappointed to find out the reason.
"You killed Pestilence's handler," he repeated slowly, as if he hoped that he would find some new meaning in the words the longer they stayed on his tongue, "before you found out the horseman's location."
Sam had the good sense to look contrite, but that might have had more to do with Dean's glare than Gabriel's.
"He killed Jess!" exclaimed Sam.
Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose. "I know all about just deserts, Sam. I would have even helped you get revenge if you'd asked. But after you found out what you needed to know."
"That's what I said!" inserted Dean. "I would've helped you gank the bastard, Sammy, but right now finding Pestilence is more important."
Sam pursed his lips and looked down at his hands.
"Look, I'm sorry, but it's done now." He looked back up at Gabriel with puppy, dewy eyes. "But you can help. You will, won't you?"
The world was definitely going to fall at Lucifer's feet once he had those eyes, Gabriel decided. Gabriel was beyond annoyed at the kid and wanted to tell him to deal with his own problems, and even he was faltering at that expression. He'd already given up on his Groundhog Day plan because he couldn't stand to torture Sam Winchester. He'd just wanted to teach him a lesson about letting go of Dean, but after he'd seen Sam's sad, tortured eyed he'd realized that he'd gone too far. And now it looked like he was going to cave again.
"I told you I wouldn't help, Winchester," he said harshly, but he only enjoyed his righteous indignation for a few moments before he saw the defeated slump of Sam's shoulders and the way he hung his head again. Gabriel sighed. "I guess you've made a liar out of me. I hate lying."
Dean snorted and placed a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Hey, Michael Knight, can we go back to the part where you faked your death? Twice?"
Gabriel laughed.
"I think I owe you an apology, Dean-o. I thought you were just like Michael, but he doesn't have a sense of humor at all, and he'd never defend any of us after we made a mistake." His laughter faded as his mind wandered to his family, but then he realized that he might be able to start making Sam sympathetic for the devil. He bowed his head and continued, "Lucifer defended Michael even when Mikey didn't deserve it, but Michael never defended Lucifer for a second, not even when he deserved to have someone defend him."
"Yeah, I'm sure that hurt Satan's feeling real bad," said Dean impatiently, and Gabriel had to dig his fingernails into the palms of his hands to stop from killing him again. "Can you tell us where Pestilence is or not?"
"Yeah, I can tell you right now. But I won't."
Sam, who had been glancing up hopefully at the archangel from beneath his hair, jerked his head the rest of the way up in surprise. "But—"
"But nothing," interrupted Gabriel. "You clearly don't have your head in the game, so I'm benching you for the night. Sleep, both of you. Pesty will still be there tomorrow. I promise that the world won't end before then."
Dean grumbled about it as he stripped off his t-shirt and jeans, but his protests seemed to be more out of obligation than any real feeling. He fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit his pillow. Sam, on the other hand, laid back fully dressed and stared up at the ceiling seemingly without any intention of falling asleep. As soon as Dean started lightly snoring, Gabriel made himself visible again and perched on the edge of Sam's bed near his head.
"I could tell that you wanted to ask for more," he began without preamble. Apparently he had been correct about not needing to elaborate. Sam knew immediately what he was talking about, even though Gabriel didn't even need to be an archangel to see the indecision and the stubborn denials on the tip of Sam's tongue. Gabriel held up his hand to forestall Sam's protests and continued, "It's good that you want to know about him. That's the only way you're going to stand a chance of beating him."
Sam's eyes widened for a moment, and then his forehead scrunched as he stared at the angel with a mix of challenge and curiosity. "I'm going to beat him by hearing bedtime stories about him?"
"No. You're going to have a chance of beating him by learning about what makes him tick," Gabriel corrected coolly.
Sam stared at him for several long seconds, then finally settled on saying, "I don't understand."
Gabriel would have laughed if he hadn't thought that would turn Sam away from the desired path.
"There is absolutely no chance that you will be able to overpower my brother with brute force, but what you may be able to do is attack his emotional weaknesses hard enough to distract him. If you get really lucky, you may be able to regain temporary control of the vessel when he's thrown for a loop, but there's no way we can actually plan for that. What's important is just that you distract him well enough that he doesn't see me coming."
He left it there, but Sam was a smart guy. It only took him a second to realize that Gabriel intended to personally shove Lucifer back into the cage.
"Okay." Sam swallowed and looked down at where he'd twisted his hands into the scratchy hotel comforter. "Okay. So… Lucifer deserved someone to be on his side, once upon a time?"
Gabriel would have liked to come right out and tell the kid that Lucifer still deserved to have someone on his side, but he settled for answering, "Yeah. He was the brightest of any of us, and he was Father's favorite and most trusted son. He was the one who took care of me and Raphael. He taught me to fly and how to harness my power and that I should always appreciate the beauty of our Father's creation." Gabriel smiled then, because he didn't want Sam Winchester to see the water building up in his vessel's eyes. "And he also taught me how to play tricks and cause general mischief, of course. He wasn't perfect, and neither was I. We were both too inquisitive, too impulsive. But Mikey and Raphe weren't perfect either, you know: Mikey was too serious, too unforgiving, and Raphe followed in his footsteps. But we all loved each other, and we loved our Father, and we were happy."
Sam looked like there were a million questions he wanted to ask. He ended up asking, "What happened?"
Gabriel sighed and conjured a small hurricane in one of his hands just to give himself something else to think about.
"We all helped Father lock away an evil so powerful that I can't do it justice without using words that would incinerate you. Lucifer was the one God trusted with the key to that particular cage. It was a Mark; our Father seared it into my brother's grace, and the evil it was designed to hold started to bleed through."
"Are you saying that Satan only did what he did because he was infected by some kind of outside evil?" Sam asked incredulously.
He looked less than willing to believe it, and so Gabriel decided that now wasn't the best time to bring up how similar Lucifer and Sam really were. Instead he focused on Lucifer and their brothers.
"Yes. No." Gabriel made a show of vanishing the miniature hurricane and letting out a great huff of breath. "It's complicated, Sam. Archangels were never automatons—Lucifer was always prone to question why Father did something, and he was always very proud of his position, which allowed him more leeway with Father than the rest of us had and probably only fueled his innate curiosity. But Michael, as much as he believes otherwise, was also full of pride, and that translated into jealousy that Lucifer was the favorite son and not him, even though he always did what our Father wanted without question. I never really begrudged Lucifer his position, because I had never been father's favorite—Michael was the oldest, so he had been before Lucifer was created, you see—and I never wanted the responsibility of everything my older brothers were asked to do, but I was envious that Lucifer knew so much that I didn't and I was definitely jealous of Michael because I wanted Lucifer to think as highly of me as he did of Mikey. Raphael had a tendency to be judgmental of any slight deviation from how he thought things should be, and he could be quite hurtful in trying to prove his point."
Sam seemed utterly fascinated by the dynamics. He was leaning towards Gabriel and watching his face so closely as he spoke that Gabriel might have been uncomfortable if he were anyone else. He offered Sam a small, sad smile.
"So the Mark just took traits that Lucifer already had and made them so much worse. It corrupted his innate goodness and blinded him to his own faults, which made him think that what he was doing in his pride and jealousy were the right things. But it didn't happen overnight, Sam, and it didn't corrupt him completely. It happened over billions of years, but he still loved us. When he tempted Eve and when he created Lilith, he was trying to prove to our Father that the humans didn't deserve for him and me and our brothers to love them more than Father. For Michael, Father's declaration that we ought to love the humans more than Him was enough, and there was nothing that could have lessened the weight of Lucifer's sin in questioning Father's order."
"Maybe he truly believed in what he was doing, or maybe he was blinded by his own jealousy and the opportunity to be the good son again, but in the end, when Father ordered Michael to cast Lucifer out of Heaven, he did it without question and without hesitation and without defending our brother or trying to help him overcome the corruption."
Sam sucked in a breath and glanced over at Dean, and Gabriel respected his privacy too much to peek inside his head at whatever thoughts had produced that downtrodden expression on his face.
After a few moments, Sam turned back to him and concluded, "And being away from his family and surrounded by the humans only made it worse."
"Yeah, it did," replied Gabriel. "And he was only on Earth for a few decades—nothing to an archangel—before he corrupted Lilith and convinced Cain to kill Abel, and then Father and Michael threw him in the cage and he was alone for nearly two hundred thousand years."
Sam was breathing rather heavily now, as if he were on the verge of hyperventilating. He clenched and unclenched his fist in the comforter and drew up his knees to rest his head on them. Gabriel wasn't sure whether he should interrupt or let the hunter be, but then, just as Gabriel was about to speak again, Sam groaned and said probably the most insightful thing either of them could have said.
"Oh my God."
Author's Notes: Trivia fact—the phrase really is "just deserts," not "just desserts." When the word is spelled like the dry arid place—"desert"—but pronounced like the after-supper sweets, it means "reward or punishment which is deserved."
Michael Knight is Knight Rider. In the pilot episode he is Michael Long, but his death was faked, he had a face transplant, and he became Michael Knight the Knight Rider.
You may have noticed, if you haven't just started reading, that I changed the archangel's timeline a bit. There is some vague and possibly contradictory information on the show, so what I have decided is that God created the archangels trillions of years ago, well before our universe was created (this is justified in canon by Death telling Dean that we are one planet in one universe that is barely out of diapers). They helped Him to lock away the Darkness, which took billions or maybe trillions of years to accomplish (remember that Amara said that God and Lucifer "conspired for eons" to lock her away), and only then, after he was sure that Amara wouldn't ruin it, did God create our universe. The history of our universe and of our evolution happened more or less scientifically, so there were billions of years between when Lucifer took the Mark and when the first humans were created about two hundred thousand years ago. The two hundred thousand number is an estimate based on when the first modern humans appeared and when the evolutionary Adam and Eve (the Y-chromosome and X-chromosome that all humans on Earth are descended from) are calculated to have existed. I'm sure that we humans like to condense it all into more or less recorded history since civilization as we know it emerged 6000 years ago, but I can't let that one fly in my mind.
