So sorry this chapter took so long to post. I've been really busy with college technicalities. I hope it's worth the wait! Thanks so much for sticking with it!

Chapter 7

Castiel went back to that location in the forest in Maine every day. In between searching for ways to rescue Dean himself and checking up on Sam, he made sure to return to that spot at least once every day, doing a quick scan of the forest to make sure he hadn't already gotten out before standing and waiting patiently. He sometimes stood there for hours, watching the sun rise or set. Whenever he returned, he tilted his head to the sky and prayed for Dean's safe homecoming. Prayer had never stirred doubt in his mind until these past few years, when it became apparent that God had abandoned them. But it was all he knew to do while he still had no answers. God had resurrected him at least twice. The third may have been Lucifer but the first two times could have been no one else. Maybe he was still watching. His prayers were short, but consistent. For the rest of his time in those woods he just stood, stoic and unmoving, waiting for something to happen.

Tonight he sat, legs crossed, arms meeting at the wrists in his lap. A feeling of discouragement found him three nights ago, and his visits to this place became shorter. He intended to stay here longer, but found himself disheartened. So he sat in the grass and leaves, under the cover of the rustling leaves from the vast forest surrounding him, mentally praying as loud as he could for Dean to appear tonight.

"You've been praying for hours," he heard Lucifer's voice behind him, "Same prayer on loop all night. Michael can probably hear you from the pit."

Castiel did not stop praying when he responded simply, "Only God is to hear our prayers to him."

"God and the Archangels," Lucifer corrected, and sat down next to him. Castiel did not seem to acknowledge his presence. "We heard them all, every prayer from every angel, seraph, cupid, mortal, whatever. We were his spokesmen, and his administrators, in a sense. Sorting through the prayers was part of the job, which ones to honor and which ones to ignore. As man's numbers grew, so did the prayers. Usually it was us dealing with those. Often times we would be the ones to answer the prayers of our brothers, not Him. The ones we deemed the most important, we would pass on to Him."

"…the most important?" Castiel's words were barely audible.

"People pray about the most pointless things," Lucifer ranted, "especially back when they were first spawned. Seriously, back in the beginnings of man, we never got a freaking break from their prayers. If they stubbed their toe they'd pray for the pain to go away. Nowadays it's a lot of boring and predictable stuff. 'Dear God, please make me filthy rich,' 'Dear God, please let me get that promotion,' 'Dear God, please let a McDonald's open in my town,' they have no will or motivation to achieve anything on their own. Because God makes everything and favors man the most, God should bow to their every will, all seven billion of them. And they claim to be His humble servants." He snorted. "When I got out of the pit I started hearing all of the prayers again, back in the Holy coverage zone. With me gone Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael must have had so much bullshit to sort through. God only ever cared about the really pertinent stuff. Maybe he left because he had nothing to do anymore. Or he was tired of their whining."

"Stop," Castiel tensed bitterly. He had his doubts about Heaven, but to blaspheme God in such a way as Lucifer was now was condemning. He would have no part of it.

"Sorry," Lucifer apologized genuinely, "you know me, highly opinionated. It's a nice feeling though, getting to say and think and do whatever you want." He paused to study his younger brother's face, wrought with uncertainty. "Once you figure out how to use that. And you will. Soon as you realize what it is you want."

"You sound like you already know," Castiel pointed out.

"Of course I do," Lucifer answered smugly, "but telling you would rob you of the discovery. You need to sort it out on your own."

"You continue to say that," The younger reproached, "and then tell me how to do so."

"Because you're doing it wrong," the Morningstar snickered. Castiel gave him a look, which made him cackle louder. He raised his hands in yielding. "Hey, I'll back off if you really wanna travel this road solo."

"I never said that," the raven-haired one denied almost too quickly.

"Then don't question my methods," the devil chimed self-righteously, placing his arm around the younger in a somewhat mocking manner. Castiel shrugged it off of him. "Right, right, my bad; no touching," the older sneered sardonically.

"If you're going to be an ass, just leave," Castiel growled bitterly.

Lucifer's lips fell into a frown. "I'm not trying to upset you, Cas," he explained. "You were praying pretty desperately. You're a mess, which is odd considering it's pretty hard to throw an angel off balance, even a falling one." Castiel shifted uncomfortably. "I'm just trying to lighten the mood. Maybe get you to take a break from your portal duty." His brother did not respond, did not even move. He sighed. "Cas, I know I told you that he'll find this place, but the fact is, that could take a very long time. You shouldn't feel the need to watch it every second of every day. Nor should you feel the need to rescue him, really."

"One of us has to," Castiel almost spat.

"Wrong again," the older disagreed, ignoring the clearly vicious jab. "Accidents can happen now that the Fates are unemployed. And no miracles can bring him back; he's beyond the touch of an angel. Hoping is healthy, praying is reasonable, but destroying yourself with self-loathing while ignoring the possibility that he may never come back will kill you. And I'm not allowing that. Not when this is not your fault."

"Accepting your guilt here?" Castiel inquired.

"Nobody is guilty of anything here," Lucifer avoided, "but it's nice to see the humans have imprinted their desire to project blame on easy parties onto you. Really nice quality, Cas."

The soldier narrowed his eyes. "If we are naming negative qualities in one another now, might I bring to light –"

"I'm unashamed of my imperfections," Lucifer interjected, "I became aware of just how imperfect our Father and His world and creations are when I fell. I went through the shock of it all and then got over it. And I'm okay with it. You've been exposed to all of it for years now. You've seen what our brothers are really capable of, what you're really capable of. Corruption and imperfection are not limited to the Earth, and they are not absent in us or our Father. We wanna turn this into a chat about all that's wrong with the world? We'd be talking until the end of time. What surprises me, and frankly what I think is holding you back so much, is how hesitant you are to accept this."

Castiel exhaled sharply, trying both to keep his temper in check and resist the urge to lash out in frustration. "Do you understand the weight of that? Asking me to simply accept the horrors is asking me to ignore everything I have grown to know and accept as fact. According to you, my entire existence has been shrouded in lies, when I am supposed to be a harbinger of truth and enlightenment to others. Do you understand what that means for me?"

"Yes," Lucifer bore his eyes into Castiel's until the younger felt obliged to meet his gaze. "What upsets me so much is the fact that you'd rather go against your nature to tell the truth now in order to sell a lie to yourself just because it's more comfortable. You don't have to go through this alone, Castiel. I did, and it was agonizing. I won't let you do it alone."

The younger averted his gaze again, responding to the tense silence with only "you talk a lot," after a minute.

"You engage me," the archangel said simply, "nice to have someone to hold real conversations with after only having dimwitted vermin available for socializing for however long I was down there for. How long was I gone, anyway? Time's all a blur down there. Sometimes it felt like only seconds had passed; sometimes it felt like the universe had run its course."

"Four thousand years," Castiel answered monotonously.

Lucifer shrugged. "Not so bad." The raven-haired one scoffed at the Devil's sarcasm.

"You told me back when I first reappeared that you all missed me," Lucifer reminisced, restraining the heavy sorrow behind the question, "did you mean it?"

Castiel thought back for a moment to give his brother the most honest answer. "Yes," he finally said.

"And you?"

Castiel locked his jaw. "Yes."

Lucifer smiled. Looking up at him, Castiel felt the infectious grin tugging at the corners of his lips. Everything could be okay if the Morningstar was smiling. That smile had helped fuel the lights of the first mornings on Earth. Even now, with all of damnation poisoning his mind, the archangel was still a beacon of purity and hope in the soldier's mind. So maybe, if Lucifer could keep smiling, it would be a great enough miracle to bring Dean back.

"Why did you engage me?" Castiel felt reluctance warning him not to ask, but fought it. "After you pulled me to safety and I attempted to kill you, why did you engage me like that? Of all the ways to respond to someone trying to take your life, that was by far the most peculiar I've ever encountered."

A flash of teeth as Lucifer's grin became slightly perverse. "There's no satisfactory answer to that question for an angel so convinced that the act is impure."

"Ignore my opinions then. What was your motivation?"

Shrugging, Lucifer leaned back on his hands. "Emotions are tricky, Castiel. Anger, sorrow, the really powerful ones can present themselves in pretty violent ways. Hence why you tried to kill me. And repressing them is not easy, nor is it healthy. Emotions need to be released. Bottling them up is harmful. That doesn't necessarily mean that just because they presented themselves as bloodlust, they have to be carried out in such a way. They can be channeled and released through other means." His eyes glimmered with mischief. "Lust causes a lot of physical reactions. I simply offered you a different form of release that didn't involve killing me. I like not being dead; would prefer to stay that way."

"So, you were just –"

"–distracting you, giving you another outlet for all that rage, yes. You embraced the pain of it, remember? Pain releases those built-up chemicals in your head. And as long as you're in a human form, they'll affect you. I don't think it technically counts as masochism so you shouldn't have to worry about any secret fetishes. Not that they're a bad thing. Whatever gets you off." He did not wink suggestively, but he did not have to. Castiel heard it in his tone. Sometimes the Devil's lewd humor was predictable.

"So long as that was not you fulfilling some long repressed desires," the soldier mumbled.

"We met once before my fall," Lucifer said, "don't flatter yourself. Captain of the Garrison of Earth is an impressive title, I'll give you that, but there was no interest there. I knew your name. That's about it. But if you're looking for blackmail, ask Anna about that time during the formation of the Rocky Mountains. Should catch her off guard."

The suggestion hardly registered to the younger. "Anna is dead."

"Oh," suddenly the Morningstar lost his halfhearted tone. "I didn't know. Who killed her? If it was a demon I'll bury the entirety of Hell."

"It was Michael," Castiel explained, "at the aid of the Winchesters." He regretted mentioning the Winchesters at Lucifer's vengeful countenance. "You and Anna were close, then?"

"She was a good soldier," Lucifer nodded, "intended to stand with me during my rebellion. I convinced her not to. She would have been killed for standing with me. Heaven was going to need at least one angel still capable of thinking for themselves when I was gone." He sighed. "A lot of good it ended up doing."

The archangel's thoughts consumed him. Castiel wondered if he would even hear him should he say anything. Clearly whatever his relationship with Anna before his banishment into Hell, it went beyond professional admiration. He wondered for a moment what leaving her behind must have been like.

"I'll just leave you to it, then," Lucifer gestured towards the empty air in front of them as he stood, "you never know, he could be back tonight." Castiel wanted to call to him, insist he stay and share his thoughts, but he found himself incapable of speaking. The Devil was gone before he could work out how he would ask his brother not to leave.

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