Okay, so this was a story that I wrote over a long weekend because it just randomly popped into my head and wouldn't let me go, all because I decided to re-read The Princess Bride. It's honestly one of my favorite books/movies and for some reason the idea of crossing it over with SPN and giving it a Megstiel flair appealed to me. So that's what happened.

Now it's not a total parody/crossover because it really all just happens in Cas' head while he's unconscious, but you get the picture.

For setting purposes, this is in the same universe as my story "Worth Fighting For" but you definitely don't have to have read that story, really it's just a way to explain how Meg is living in the bunker as a part of TFW in a S8 timeline. (And this story kinda acts as a fun interlude between that story and the eventual sequel I have planned)

Also, special thanks to Aini-NuFire for being my test subject for this story to make sure it wasn't completely ridiculous :P

And as you can probably imagine, some lines in this story are taken from The Princess Bride, both the book and the movie, which is copyright William Goldman. Some other lines from Supernatural might also appear.

And without further ado, here we go:

As You Wish

A Supernatural Fanfic

Chapter One

Meg and the Winchesters hovered over the bed, worry filling the room like a dark cloud. They had just made their way back to the bunker after a grueling hunt, and gotten Cas comfortable and situated into his bed, but it didn't make them feel much better. Not when their friend hadn't shown any indication of waking up.

"I'm sure he'll be fine once he sleeps it off," Sam offered weakly after a long moment. "There's no indication that he's in pain or anything, just…" he shrugged, motioning helplessly at the comatose angel.

"Idiot," Dean shook his head and Sam cast him a disapproving look.

"I'm inclined to agree," Meg said, folding her arms over her chest, trying to hide most of her worry. "I'd be willing to call him suicidal if I knew his heart wasn't in the right place."

Sam gave her a wry smile. "He did save your life."

"At the possible risk of his own," Meg retorted.

"Yeah, well, that's what Cas does," Dean muttered, but there was admiration in his voice as well as care. "Even though he can be a stupid SOB on occasion."

Meg was still getting over the shock of the fight. They had been going up against an extremely powerful witch, and she had thrown a spell at Meg as soon as she found out she was a demon. Meg had no doubt that the spell would have killed he outright, but Castiel, her stupid angel, had of course jumped in front of her at the last moment. And that was how they had gotten here. Cas in a coma without any sign of waking up.

"I'm going to go see if I can find anything on the spell the witch used," Sam said. "Maybe we can figure out how to break him out of this, or maybe there's some kind of antidote or counter spell or something."

Dean and Meg stayed behind, standing shoulder to shoulder, both unsure of what to do.

Meg finally took initiative and pulled the chair from the desk and sat down in it. "We can take turns watching over him. Someone should be here when he wakes up."

Dean nodded but bit his lip a bit hesitantly. Meg knew he wasn't just going to relax so she said, "I wouldn't mind some coffee. And I bet Sam could use another set of eyes."

Dean narrowed his eyes at her for a moment but then nodded in acquiescence. "Fine. But let me know if he wakes up."

Meg didn't say it as Dean walked out the door, but she had a feeling Cas wasn't going to wake up anytime soon.

With that realization, she quickly retreated to grab something out of her room before returning to Cas' bedside, and sat down with a tattered paperback in her hands.

"Alright, Clarence," she said. "Maybe this will get your head into gear a little better. And while we're at it, you're going to get a much-needed crash course in pop culture."

She gave a fond glance down at the book, one of her personal favorites: The Princess Bride. She'd kept a copy with her for as long as she'd been topside. A constant companion; she didn't know how many times she had read it. Yeah, it was sappy, but hell, she'd given up pretending she wasn't a hopeless romantic a long time ago.

Even now she had the vague hope that this book that had brought her comfort over the years before she had joined up with Cas and the Winchesters, would bring her angel back to her. She really had gone soft, dammit.

After studying Cas' still figure for another long minute, she flipped to the first page and began to read.

Castiel swam through the darkness. Everything was confusion, he truly didn't know what had happened, and with a sudden panic, found himself unable to surface. Unable to get out of this oblivion.

He tried to claw his way out of the dark prison he was trapped in, but was unable to move, and unable even to call out.

And then he became aware of a voice, steady, calming, familiar. It was painting a picture, telling a story, and Castiel instantly latched onto it, focusing on that at his anchor, and suddenly he felt not so alone in this dark prison. He simply closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift. The voice painted a picture, a whole different universe, and with nowhere else to go, he fell into it gladly.

Once upon a time, there was an angel and a demon. They lived in the same village and saw each other often, for the angel helped to tend the demon's farm from time to time, and sometimes, she would offer him milk and produce for his labors. The angel was no one of consequence, for long ago, he had forsaken the ways of Heaven, finding it corrupt, and had chosen rather to live a quiet existence among the humans. The demon, likewise, had left her kind and lived a mortal life on a farm, quiet and away from everyone.

In fact, her only true companion was the angel. His name was Castiel, but she only ever called him Clarence.

Their interactions would usually go as such:

"Clarence, the cows are not giving milk, would you have a look at them?"

"As you wish," the angel would reply.

"Clarence, my horse is in poor spirits, could you coax him to behave?"

"As you wish."

"The plants in my garden aren't yielding fruit, Clarence, try to fix them."

"As you wish."

That was all he would ever reply. He never said much of anything, and that was perhaps one of the reasons the demon (who's name was Meg) enjoyed his company so much. Of course she would never admit that she enjoyed his company at all. In fact, to hide, it, she teased him constantly, was possibly even a little abusive. Sometimes she set him impossible tasks, sure that one day he would refuse, but he only ever said "As you wish," and he somehow always accomplished them.

Eventually, Meg found that any time away from the angel was empty, and she began to crave his presence when he came to visit her every other day. Then she began to find his absence excruciating and simply began asking him to do tasks she had no need of him for, just to see him again. The requests became more and more frequent, and more and more ridiculous in their simplicity, but the angel was always there.

"Clarence, polish my horse's saddle. I can't stand to get it on my hands."

"As you wish."

"Clarence, the cows like it better when you milk them."

"As you wish."

"If you would, Clarence, sweep the floor, you've tracked most of the dirt in anyway."

"As you wish."

The secret she didn't even want to admit to herself, of course, was that she only made these things up because she didn't want him to leave. In fact, the longer she lived among the humans and saw their companionship with each other, the more she realized that she was only truly afraid of being alone.

And then she thought that perhaps her angel would leave her too if she continued to ask him to do these ridiculous things, that he would finally snap and tell her off. So she stopped for a day, and it was almost agony. So much so, that by the end of it she stood on the hill overlooking her farm, watching the sunset, every fiber of her being screaming at her to go and find her angel before it was too late. But just when she thought that he might never show up again, there he was, standing beside her. This was, of course, the first time he had ever come without her calling him first, and so he surprised her, and also filled her with something she didn't quite dare believe in: hope.

"Clarence," she breathed, watching him. "I didn't call you."

"I know," he replied, but there was a knowing light in his eyes, and damn him, he knew well enough that she had been thinking about him all day. They stood like that for a long moment until he finally shifted. "I can leave."

"No," she said quickly, then softer. "No, stay, please." This was also the first time she had ever said please to him. To anyone.

He turned to her and looked her in the eye. "As you wish," he said.

And it was then, looking into the angel's eyes and seeing the pureness of his very soul, reading every thought in his mind, that Meg came to the realization that the entire time he had actually been saying 'I love you.'

"Why are you so sweet on me, Clarence?" she asked softly.

"I don't know," he replied and then pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

XXX

Castiel told Meg then that he was leaving. But that she shouldn't worry, because he would be back before she knew it, and he would have a home set up for them.

"I'll build it myself," he promised. "I will work among the humans, earn money, and I will buy land, and I will build a house, somewhere far away and quiet, and we can live there in peace for the rest of our very long lives."

And Meg wanted nothing more than that, so, even though it tore her apart to think of being away from him, with one final farewell kiss, she let him go.

Fool that she was, she let him go.

It was not a year later that Lucifer, the prince, having taken over the kingdom after his father's long absence, sent his demon hoards to quell the rebellions that were rising all over the land. Rebel factions were rising up at the tyranny Lucifer wrought upon the kingdom, with his faithful general, the Yellow-Eyed Demon Azazel, by his side.

During this time, Meg laid low, for she was a deserter in the eyes of other demons, and wanted nothing to do with the inevitable coming war. She anxiously waited for news from Castiel, hoping that he had found a quiet place in a distant land that was untouched by Lucifer and his demons. Somewhere they could wait out this war and not have to fight again as they once had. They had both run away from that life for a reason, they wanted nothing else to do with it.

But when news came, it was not the news she had been waiting for.

There was a letter that came to her door one day, from a witness who had somehow survived, telling her that Castiel had been on a ship bound for a distant land, but the captain had been a suspected rebel and Lucifer's demons had been sent out to attack the ship. There were no survivors, not even the angel who Meg had fallen unconditionally in love with.

The words on the paper dimmed and the letter fell from her hand as she read those words. She didn't cry, she was too far beyond grief for that; she simply sat in her farmhouse for days without moving, leaving her farm untended. She thought vaguely of killing herself, but Castiel would never want that. And it was the thought of him that finally brought her out of her funk and got her back on her feet.

She decided that if she could not have him, then she would simply see their dream a reality by getting as far away from Lucifer's kingdom as she could, and living out the rest of her days in what little peace she could imagine.

So she got up, put on clean clothes, and left, heading into town with the intention of selling the farm. She had no wish to ever see it again. It held all of the only good memories she had left and because of that, it caused her too much pain.

She never got that far however, because the instant she started down the path to town, a caravan of horses thundered down the road. She quickly leapt to one side, but heard a loud "Halt!" and the group came to a thundering stop right beside her.

That was when she looked up and saw Prince Lucifer himself, on his white steed, his faithful Azazel at his shoulder.

"My lord," the yellow-eyed demon asked. "Why do you stop?"

"Why, to admire true beauty," Lucifer said as his eyes fell on Meg. "Would you not agree, General?"

Azazel glanced down at her, and Meg felt her hands clench at her sides. Azazel's eerie eyes bored into her. She had once served under him, a long time ago, and hoped that he didn't remember her, just a lowly demon soldier.

"She is a demon, your majesty," Azazel sniffed. "Likely a deserter too."

"No, she is far more than that," Lucifer said and startled her by dismounting, coming to stand over her in an almost threatening pose that belied the smile on his face.

"Pray what is your name, my lady?" he asked.

"Meg," she told him, nothing to lose.

Lucifer took her hand in his before bowing over it and pressing his lips to it. Meg wasn't sure whether to be surprised or disgusted.

"Lady Meg," he said eloquently. "It is a pleasure. Tell me, are you married, do you have a lover?"

Meg's eyes were steely as she firmly took her hand from Lucifer's. "The only man I've ever loved is dead. And I will never love again."

Lucifer smiled at her, not kindly, not patronizingly, just knowingly. "Ah, I see. Lady Meg, I know this might seem distasteful, but the people, they need someone approachable. Someone who will gain their trust and bring them back under rule. I am looking for a queen with a presence who can accomplish that. You have a presence, my lady. I could not help but stop on the road when I saw you. Azazel says you are a deserter, I believe that must be the truth, but the people never need know that. So I will offer you an alternative to the death you deserve." He leaned in close, making Meg's skin crawl. "Be my queen."

Meg closed her eyes. Her first reaction was obviously to say no. But then, she considered. She would be in the palace with the Prince himself; if she were so inclined she could end the oppression of the kingdom herself. She had done more horrible things to people more innocent in the past. And though, as of now, she had no way to kill Lucifer, she would have plenty of time to figure out a way to do so.

Perhaps, it was meant to be. After all, she had lost Castiel because of this rebellion and she could hardly pass up this opportunity to end it given the chance; to make sure no one else had to lose anyone over it.

So though it went against everything she wanted, she opened her eyes and said, "I will never love you."

Lucifer seemed amused. "I never said you had to. Love is for the weak. The powerful know to cut that out first."

And that, Meg knew was how she would destroy him. Because having loved and lost herself, she knew the secret: that it only made you stronger.

"Then I'll do it," she told him.

Lucifer nodded and pulled her up behind him on his horse, gaining a disapproving look from Azazel before they were galloping back to the castle and Meg was truly wondering what she had just agreed to.

Dean peeked his head into the room, and Meg stopped reading as he brought her a cup of coffee. He glanced over at Cas, seeing that there was no change in his condition.

Meg set the book aside for the moment to take the mug from Dean. "Thank you."

Dean raised an eyebrow at the book, she had propped open over her knee. "The Princess Bride?"

Meg cast him a glance. "What? You think demons can't enjoy the classics?"

Dean shrugged, looking a little chastened. "No, it's just…I don't know." He scratched behind his head in the way Meg had noticed he did when he was trying to change the subject.

"I thought reading to him might help," she said. "At least maybe if he can hear us, it will let him know he's safe. Who knows what might be going on in his head."

"Yeah, that's what I'm worried about," Dean muttered.

"You and Sam find anything promising yet?"

Dean huffed a sigh and shook his head. "No. We don't even really know what to look for. It's gonna be a long night."

"Well, I've got this, so you two go do the research thing," Meg told him.

Dean looked slightly hesitant, but Meg nudged him with one foot as she picked up the book again. "I'll let you know if anything changes."

Dean nodded and finally left the room.

Meg picked up where she had left off, her voice once again filling the small room.

For the next couple weeks, Meg was the unofficial betrothed princess to Lucifer. He had given her the title so that the nobles wouldn't complain. Of course, anyone who complained about Lucifer usually didn't last long enough to give much of an opinion anyway, and frankly, she couldn't care less. This had become a mission for her now. Though at this point, she was really just learning the ways of the court. Azazel certainly didn't trust her, and he kept an almost constant watch on her. So much so that she had to watch her back every minute of every day, and keep any planning she did of the utmost secret. But she would endure. She had to, otherwise she felt that Castiel's death would be for nothing.

Then came the day when Lucifer would make the official announcement to the people of the kingdom about their coming marriage, and his inevitable kingship. He brought her to the top of the castle, overlooking the square where any people in the near vicinity had been rounded up and herded into the castle courtyard to hear the announcement and tremble at the might of Lucifer, their prince.

"My people," Lucifer said, holding his hands out as if about to embrace them, even though he had to know how much the people hated him. "Two months from now our country will celebrate its five hundredth anniversary. And to commemorate that day, I will wed the lovely Princess Meg."

Here he pulled her forward to present her to the crowd. There was applause, but Meg knew it was mostly for show, so no one would get dragged away and beaten, or worse. Lucifer waited for the noise to die down before he continued.

"I will soon have need of a woman I can trust by my side," Lucifer said. "I know it is no mystery to any of you that my father has…disappeared. Without any knowledge of whether he will be back or not, I must do what is right for my kingdom. And so the decision has been made, that on the anniversary of our kingdom's founding, the day after the Princess and I are to be married, the coronation will also be held to make us King, and Queen."

Murmurs went through the crowd, until several of the guards took their spear poles to the people and they began to clap politely at best.

Lucifer turned to Meg. "We begin the public relations now. Let us walk through the crowd."

He led her down the steps to the courtyard, Azazel and his highest guards standing close, and stopped at the gates to tuck Meg's arm in his elbow.

"Smile, darling," Lucifer told her with a smile himself that was all cold eyes.

Meg glowered back, but as soon as the door opened, she did give the townspeople a genuine smile, trying to convey to them that she was not, in fact, with Lucifer, but rather with them, if anyone.

They seemed to see something in her eyes, because they all watched her, rapt, as they parted to let the betrothed couple wander through the crowd. Lucifer slipped a purse into Meg's hand and she passed out coins like she was expected to.

She felt eyes on her back then, and turned just in time to see a short, well-dressed figure disappear into the crowd, two taller, cloaked figures, following close behind.

She hadn't realized she had stopped until Lucifer tugged her arm.

"Something the matter, Princess?" he hissed with a hint of warning.

Meg shook herself and renewed the smile. "Nothing at all, my lord."

Lucifer steered her through the crowd then, and she missed entirely the second figure watching her. But he would have been easy to miss, for he was wearing all black and stood off in the shadows to one side of the square. Even the demon guards missed him.

But he only had eyes for the Princess.

XXX

Meg spent the next few weeks suffering through the interminable planning of the kingdom's anniversary, and of the wedding. The guest lists, the menu planners, the seamstresses who were hired to make her spectacularly ridiculous dresses.

And then her own planning that she did when she finally had a minute to herself late into the night. Recording every movement of every guard down to the minute. Every servant in the house. Lucifer's habits, Azazel's habits. All the passages in the palace, and the surrounding grounds. The mysterious underground prison that was run by Lucifer's chief torturer, Alastair, and had been appropriately termed 'The Pit of Despair'. She hadn't ventured there yet, but at some point during each day, there would almost certainly be screams from some poor soul that had been pegged as a rebel coming from that direction. Meg well knew her fate if she was ever found out, and she knew it wouldn't be quick.

But she did still manage to get out of the castle sometimes, alone, to ride in the countryside, and it was only in these moments, she allowed herself the freedom to think of Castiel and what could have been.

And it was because she was thinking of her lost angel, that she completely missed the man who was standing in the middle of the road until she was almost on top of him. Her horse reared and the man threw up his hands.

"My lady, please, a moment of your time," he said.

"What do you want?" she demanded shortly. He was young, tall, and dressed in commoners' clothes.

He didn't reply, just looked past her shoulder. Meg spun to look as well, and saw a much shorter man, in a well-tailored suit standing there, with his hands in his pockets.

"Hello, darling," he said.

A sack was thrown over Meg's head then as she was dragged from the horse. She struggled as she felt two men trying to restrain her, and got a few kicks in, hearing their curses.

"Just knock her out, she'll be less trouble," came an annoyed voice from further away—the short, well-dressed man.

"Wait!" she grunted but it was too late. Something struck her head and she was left in oblivion.