Fic: Monstrosity Divine - Epilogue
By that afternoon, every news station in the country was covering the disaster at Richard Roman Enterprises. A small fire had broken out in a warehouse section, destroying a massive stockpile of a new coffee creamer product. The fire alarm had gone off, evacuating most of the building’s occupants, but there were strange reports of some employees running upstairs instead of down. The fire department had found the building impossible to enter for hours, but their investigation yielded a sprinkler system malfunction that resulted in major flooding, damaging computer systems and product prototypes alike. Dozens of people were missing, including the company CEO, Richard Roman. A lack of any burnt remains at the site of the fire shed doubts on the idea that they were dead, but investigators were baffled by the mysterious black sludge that clung to the floors and walls. Ultimately, they would come to blame it on an unreleased sugar product that the company was currently developing.
The television streamed the story for hours. When it wasn’t playing on the screen, it was running across the bottom in a text report that moved in a constant, recurring loop. They had long stopped watching it, stopped reading it. It all made sense, really. Richard Roman Enterprises, SucroCorp, Biggerson’s restaurants- food additives had been at the crux of the Leviathan’s domination plans, and now, they were completely destroyed.
“He did it,” Dean mumbled, rubbing his jaw. “Son of a bitch did it.”
Sam simply nodded. He had expected a call, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. He stepped away from the others, wandering outside to stand on the porch, fingers twisting at his side in a nervous twitch. He cast his eyes upwards, but that seemed somehow inappropriate, considering the status of fallen angel. Glancing down didn’t work either. Sam closed his eyes.
“…Lucifer? If you can hear me, I just… I know. I know, okay? And thank you. Really, you and Castiel both. Thank you.”
Lucifer had heard Sam’s voice many times in Hell, but it was never quite like that. The pain was prevalent enough to confuse him, and the way every nerve cell seemed to be shrieking to the point of resonating down to the core of his grace with agony was so much like Hell that he knew all at once. It had all been a dream, an illusion bred by the Cage to torment him, something beautiful dangled in front of him and then snatched away before he could grab it. His body jerked, back curving in a vain attempt to pull out of the confines that held him, to push himself free or upright enough to seek that voice out. The soft touch on his shoulder stopped him.
“Try not to move so much right now.”
Lucifer opened his eyes to a smear of colors, nothing distinguishable, but he knew that voice. “Little Thursday?”
Castiel sighed. “I’m never living that nickname down, am I? You probably shouldn’t try to talk right now either.” He slid his fingers underneath the back of Lucifer’s neck, supporting torn muscles with a gentle hand as he fixed the pillow back into place. “I thought I had lost you…”
“I’m hard to kill.”
“Something for which I find myself immensely grateful now, brother.”
A shaky breath hung in Lucifer’s chest for a moment. He found himself unsure if he wanted to hold it and relish or simply sigh in the contentment of being called such once more. Castiel touched his chest lightly, and he breathed out. “What happened?”
Castiel pressed his lips into a small frown as he reached for the cloth to wipe away the blood that insisted upon flowing past the lines of white gauze. “Everything you said. The humans fled at the sound of the fire alarm, and the Leviathan unintentionally ran into what proved to be poison to them. So long as I stayed in the water, they were easy enough to dispatch.”
“You weren’t hurt?”
“You’re missing pieces, and you’re asking me if I was hurt?” He sighed again. “No, Lucifer. I’m unharmed, as are the others. They sent you their thanks.”
Breath catching again, Lucifer forced himself to blink his eyes open and seek out Castiel’s gaze. “…Others?”
“Inias and Nathaniel. They were being held on site, bound in Enochian warding and holy fire. The sprinklers in that room had been disabled, of course, and so many of the creatures attempted to flee there in an attempt to find relief. I followed them there and freed our brothers. They assisted me in what can hardly be called a battle. We used the sodium borate to disable them, which made them substantially easier to kill. The others scattered what cells might have remained into oblivion. They’ll never pull themselves back together, not from that.”
“Good. That’s good.”
Castiel nodded in agreement and laid his head down on the edge of the bed, closing his eyes briefly.
“What’s the matter…?”
“Nothing of any merit. It’s over; it’s finally over. You saved me, in more ways than I could count, and I simply have no words to express… I just…”
“What is it?”
“I thought I would feel more peaceful. I thought there would be some contentment in having helped stop what I alone unleashed, and yet here we are, in the wake of victory, and all I can think about is how many people died… how you almost died. I didn’t deserve to survive this. To say so sounds horrible and ungrateful, which I’m not, I assure you, but still, it seems wrong that I am alive and well when so many people are lost or wounded. It sounds so strange to say, I’m sure, but-” The cool brush of fingers over the curve of his lips silenced Castiel instantly, and he closed his eyes again. He kissed Lucifer’s fingers, kissed his palm and his wrist, leaning up as he did so as to coax his brother’s hand into offering more contact. “It is such a simple thing, I think, not wanting to be afraid anymore, and yet here I am, terrified.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nor do I, not properly, but… I have to confess, I never thought I would be so afraid of losing you.” Castiel looked up to meet Lucifer’s eyes, offering something of a teary smile. He hesitated, a bit fumbling and nervous, holding eye contact for a moment before letting his lashes flutter shut as he leaned forward to press his lips against Lucifer’s. He found them to be pleasantly soft and only a little cool, surprisingly yielding in the way his older brother allowed him to lead until his shoulders relaxed and his head tilted to one side to better fit their mouths together.
Lucifer hummed contently as Castiel pulled away, eyes still closed. “What a peculiar thing you are…”
Castiel just smiled.
Recovery would be a long, arduous process. The Leviathan had proven themselves capable of cutting an angel down to his core, ripping at his very essence and draining him of his grace. Castiel watched Lucifer sleep in thoughtful silence. He diligently tended him, placing in neat rows of tiny stitches and swathing his various injuries in layers of fresh gauze, hopefully holding his vessel together until such time as his grace was strong enough to heal himself. Castiel wondered about his own grace, tried to pull some power up inside himself or stretch the wings that seemed to have curled up and died along the ridges of his spine. Nothing happened. He considered the idea that humanity would be his punishment, and it seemed fitting enough. He had shown himself to be incapable of handling power and committed the most fearsome act of hubris that history had ever witnessed. He counted himself more than lucky to have escaped the ordeal with his life.
When the darkness of night fell, Castiel paced over to the window to look at the stars. He said a quiet farewell to each sibling he remembered killing during the throes of his madness, a thousand names tumbling from his tongue and fogging up the windowpane. Somewhere in the silence that followed, as the tears were stinging his eyes and leaving red streaks down his face, Castiel swore he heard a tiny voice echoing inside his head.
At peace… They are at peace…
He glanced towards the heavens, and for the first time in so long, he hoped that it was something more than a trick of his own insanity. “I love you all,” he whispered, touching his fingers to the glass. “Please forgive me.”
As had become his custom, Castiel lay down at Lucifer’s side, but he did not sleep. He simply listened to the light sound of slow, even breathing beside him and contemplated how comfortable they had become in such a seemingly short time. If freeing Lucifer had been Castiel’s one act as God, he would have been content. They would have to go back for Michael too, he thought. Lucifer would certainly insist upon that, and after everything that had happened, now so would he. Nobody deserved that place. The delicate kiss pressed to his temple stirred him from his thoughts, and he turned to give Lucifer a smile.
“Do you still hear them?”
“Yes and no. It went very quiet the moment you killed him, but sometimes when I close my eyes…”
“I’m afraid that part may take some time. Even now, in moments of silence, I hear a great many things I wish I did not.” Lucifer closed his eyes again.
“The silence echoes.”
“Yes. It does.”
Castiel reached over in the darkness to find his brother’s hand and laced their fingers together beneath the sheets. Then very softly, he began to sing the old Enochian hymn about the birth of various stars. In time, his voice tapered off to a hushed whisper, falling silent sometime shortly before dawn broke as Castiel finally drifted off to sleep. As his song tapered off, another began in its place.
( index)