A Study In Blood 2/?
Almost two years later…
“Hello, Sam.”
Sam Winchester shot up in his bed. That voice…he would recognize it anywhere, even though he hadn’t heard it in nearly two years, except in his dreams. He reaches a trembling hand towards the lamp on the nightstand next to him, but before he can reach it, it clicks on.
“Allow me,” said the man standing at the foot of his bed, a small smirk on his face.
Sam stared at him, mouth open, unmoving. “…Lucifer.”
Lucifer’s smirk widened. “Oh, so you do remember me! I’m thrilled to see you, Sam. Really, I am.”
The angel sat down on the bed beside Sam’s feet. The younger Winchester immediately moves to jump out of the bed, but was stopped when Lucifer held out his hand and froze his body in place. “Relax, Sam,” he whispered. “I’m just here to see how you’re doing.”
“How I’m doing?!” Sam gasped, anger boiling up inside him. “How do you think I’m doing?!”
Lucifer shrugged. “Well, you seem to be doing just fine. Death did a magnificent job at returning your soul, wouldn’t you agree?”
Sam ignored him. “This is another dream. That’s all. I’m going to wake up in my shitty hotel room, and everything is going to be back to normal.”
Lucifer laughed. “Oh, and, by normal, you mean Purgatory being wide-open and a civil war going on in Heaven? Sure, Sam. That’s definitely normal.”
“I know this isn’t real,” Sam continued, “because you’re in your first vessel. You were poisoning him; he was rotting away. He’s dead now.”
“Oh, it’s real,” Lucifer assured him. Sam’s expression remained dazed, and Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Come on, Sam. You’ve seen stranger things before. When I entered your body, Nick was taken to Hell. The best way I can think to describe the process is that it’s something along the lines of cryonics. My demons preserved him for me. In fact, they made him better.” He motioned to his face, smirking. “See? Not a scratch on him.”
“How did you get out?” Sam asked, his voice barely above a whisper but still managing to crack from the fear filling his heart. “Your cage-”
“Factory defect, I guess,” Lucifer interrupted, grinning, “Michael…” Lucifer’s voice dropped at the mention of his brother’s name, and the smile was replaced by a frown. “Michael…underestimated me.” His eyes took on a nostalgic look, and Sam knew what that meant.
“You killed him.”
Lucifer, even with all the arrogance and evil that surrounded him, was unable to remain impassive to Sam’s accusation. His brow furrowed and his lower lip trembled, so slightly that it was barely noticeable. He nodded slowly. “I did.” As he spoke, his voice took on a higher level of conviction. “I warned him. I told him that I was gonna’ have to kill him, but did he listen to me? Of course not. He just kept saying, ‘This is what Dad wants’ and ‘Dad told me to’. ‘I’m a good son’.” Lucifer shuddered. “I loved him. Really, I did. But God, he pissed me off.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I told you. I’m just here to see how you’re doing. Nothing more.”
Sam snorted. “Right. Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
Again, Lucifer rolled his eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you, Sam? I would never lie to you. I never have, and I never will. I’m sure you think I’m here to ‘possess’ you,” his fingers air-quoted the word ‘possess’, “but that’s just not true. I have a vessel. Not this one, of course; he’ll start breaking down before you know it, but another one.” Lucifer reached out and squeezed Sam’s shoulder. “So don’t you worry, Sammy. You’re in the clear this time.” He stood up from the bed and turned his back, preparing to leave, but then pivoted to face Sam again. “That is, until the world ends. Again.”
Then, with a flutter of wings, he was gone, leaving Sam sitting on the hotel bed, Dean snoring softly in the bed next to him. Sam lowered his head into his hands and took long, deep breaths in an attempt to get his heart rate to slow down. He heard Dean grunt in the bed on the other side of the room, then hears him shout, “You son of a bitch!”
In one fluid motion, Dean had flung the covers off his body and leapt out of the bed. He was now standing there, wearing only a pair of sweatpants, with his eyes darting around the room and his chest heaving up and down with his rapid, frantic breaths.
Sam cleared his throat and pulled the covers off his own body, then swung around so his long legs were hanging off the side of the bed. “Bad dream?”
Dean snorted. “‘Bad dream?’” he repeated sarcastically. “‘Bad dream’” doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, tell me about it.” They sat in silence for a beat. Sam opened his mouth to tell Dean about what had just happened, but he had only gotten the word ‘Lucifer’ out of his mouth when he paused. Dean had begun speaking at the same time as him, and he had uttered the same word: Lucifer.
Both the brothers’ eyes widened. Dean spun around to look at Sam and they stare at each other, both wordlessly asking the pressing question of what the hell?!
“Why would he come to you?” Sam asked his brother.
Dean had begun pacing and rubbing at his eyes, as if trying to wake up from yet another nightmare. “Hell if I know,” he said gruffly. “To gloat, I guess.”
The sudden sound of wings flapping, followed by a strong gust of wind, startled them both. They both tensed up instinctively, in preparation for an attack, but relaxed when they saw that the visitor standing before them isn’t Lucifer, but Castiel. The angel looked terrible; his hair is disheveled, his tie crooked, his coat is more wrinkled than normal-but his eyes are a different story. While Castiel looks exhausted, his eyes are alert and…terrified.
He didn’t waste any time with small talk. “Lucifer has escaped from the cage,” he told them, his deep, gruff voice carrying an urgency that the brothers had never heard before. “Again.”
Dean and Sam simultaneously gasped, “How?!”
Apparently it wasn’t a dream.
Castiel shook his head, defeated. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But I can feel it. I came to you immediately.”
Dean stepped forward and held out his hand to pause Castiel’s words. “Yeah, but…I thought we were hidden from you guys?”
“Yes. I can’t explain that, either. I simply…I simply knew where you were. I don’t know how.”
Sam frowned. If Castiel couldn’t explain something, it was usually pretty bad. “Is it…Is it possible that he told you?”
“Who?”
Sam and Dean exchanged glances. Sam looks back at Castiel and says, as if the answer is obvious, “Lucifer.”
Castiel furrows his eyebrows. “Lucifer? How could he know? He’s been out of the cage for less than ten minutes.”
“Yeah, well, he’s already paid us a house call,” Dean growled. “He left barely two minutes before you showed up.”
Castiel’s lips dipped into a frown. “This is not good. I need to stay with you. There’s no telling what Lucifer’s intent is.”
Now it was Sam’s turn to look confused. “What about Heaven?”
“My forces have the weapons. Balthazar and my other allies can watch over things for a while.”
“Look, Cas, thanks for the offer and all, but Sam and I do not want to be the reason that things go under up there for you. We’re big boys; we don’t need you do watch us.”
“Lucifer has escaped from his cage,” Castiel spat, his voice rising in volume and intensity. “He was able to find you despite the fact that you have an Enochian sigil carved into your ribs. Obviously, his power is greater than it was the first time he walked the Earth.”
Dean nodded. “Ok, fine. But seriously Cas, they need you up there. Why not send someone else down here to watch us?”
Castiel’s face got even more dejected, if that were even possible. “Because,” he said softly, regretfully. “There are very few angels whom I trust now.”