Fic: Between Two Mirrors
Title: Between Two Mirrors
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Lucifer, Dean/Castiel
Rating: R
Spoilers: Season 5
Warnings: AU
Word Count: 5550
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: There are other worlds. Some are better, and some are worse, and some are unimaginable
AN: Written for aeon_entwined 's birthday. I was going to write you a proper AU, but I didn't have time, so here's a snapshot of an AU. Happy Birthday ♥
Sam can't remember the last time he slept like this. The last time he could just hover in that nothing space between awake and asleep, comfortable and not quite aware of the world around him yet. Knowing there were things out there to be done, important things, but far enough away that they didn't matter just yet. There had never been enough pauses for them. The world had never waited for the Winchesters. Sam had almost forgotten what they even felt like, those rare moments when they were safe, when the world didn't make demands, when nothing needed saving.
But there's part of him that knows he shouldn't be here. The last thing he remembers is falling. The very last thing he remembers was the feeling that every part of him was burning away.
There's a slow, unhurried trail of fingers making their way across his back, tracing every nerve, every muscle. They stray to the back of his neck, pushing up under his hair. There's familiarity in the touch, it feels like it belongs. There's a possessive, indulgent warmth to it, an intimacy. Sam hasn't been touched like that for a long time, and that's what eventually pulls him all the way up out of sleep. He opens his eyes to white sheets and slants of pale yellow light, the murmur of another voice, deep and questioning. There's something in the timbre of it that he recognises, but not in a good way. It leaves unease crawling over his skin.
He twists around, body still slow and awkward, but when he sees who was touching him he freezes up completely. The hair is longer, the face is less expectant, but it's Lucifer. Sam lashes out and there's a second of stunned incomprehension before Sam's knuckles hit and the pain of it goes all the way up his arm in a wave. Lucifer's face turns back the fraction of an inch that it moved, and he looks nothing but confused.
Sam's stumbling backwards out of the bed before he can think. He doesn’t know where he is, searching every available surface for a knife, or a gun, or something to defend himself with. Though he's fairly sure that nothing he finds will be good enough. His hand's screaming like it's broken and the room's too small, the window behind him is boarded up. But he's too afraid to look away from Lucifer for long enough to wrench at the boards.
"Sam," Lucifer says cautiously, one bare foot sliding to the floor and there's coiled tension in him that tells Sam he's an instant away from moving. He changes his mind about trying to get out, shoulder slamming into the wall and the fingers of both hands are digging under the wood nailed across the window, broken hand grating with pain as he pulls - tries to pry it free.
Lucifer swears, and it sounds strangely fluid, words familiar on his tongue. He's across the room before Sam can drag more than an inch of the wood free of the window. The sunlight flares over Sam's face a second before Lucifer wraps both arms around his chest and hauls him away from it, back to the centre of the room. Sam thrashes instantly, uselessly but violently, against his impossible strength.
"Sam, stop struggling," Lucifer says, and there's still that confusion in his voice, like he doesn't understand what's going on, hands firm but careful.
"Where the fuck is Dean? What have you done with him?" Sam slams an elbow backwards, but it's like hitting a brick wall. He contemplates going dead weight but he doubts the shift will make any difference to Lucifer at all. There's no fist-fighting with angels, not if you want to win.
"I haven't done anything. Stop struggling you're going to hurt yourself -" Lucifer leans away from Sam's ear. "Dean."
Sam tries to turn round towards the door, and he almost wrenches himself free, but Lucifer's still holding his arm and it twists painfully the wrong way. Lucifer stumbles down with him rather than risk breaking it. The door jerks inwards, and Dean's a rough but familiar shape outlined in light, shirt half-undone.
"What the hell is going on?" he demands.
"Dean, get out of here," Sam spits, trying to force Lucifer's arm away, trying to drag himself forward, boot jammed into the carpet.
"Something's wrong with your brother." Lucifer gets out, and Sam digs his fingers in and tries to twist free again. Pretty much convinced that this is one of Lucifer's plans to destroy them both.
"Yeah, I can see that." Dean comes closer, and there's something wrong with his face. It's harder, dirt-smudged, he hasn't shaved for days and there are bruises all up his throat. "Sam, calm the hell down."
"Dean." Sam shakes hair out of his face.
"Did you have another nightmare?" Dean asks.
Sam doesn't understand why Dean is so fucking calm. Why he isn't reacting to Lucifer's presence. He doesn't have any idea what's happening here and he doesn't like it at all.
"No, I didn't have a nightmare, Dean -" Sam's focus shifts to the second figure who comes in behind Dean. Castiel's missing his coat and suit. He's wearing a plain, dark shirt and jeans that look two sizes too big for him. But Sam thinks, by the way he holds himself, by the unnatural pale blue of his eyes, that he's still all angel. That isn't the most shocking thing about him though. The angel is scarred. It starts in the corner of his mouth and flows down over his jaw, it's a raw winding line that's still red, angry. It's jarring enough that Sam goes still, shocked at how vicious it looks, at how wrong it looks carved into Castiel's face. "Cas, Jesus, what the hell happened to you?"
Castiel flinches, surprised.
"Sam, god damn it," Dean says, all edges of horror and sudden anger.
Castiel ignores the question and comes closer, frown going deeper. Dean steps aside to let him past.
"He's wrong," Castiel says quietly. "In subtle ways, but he's definitely wrong." Castiel looks up at Lucifer and Sam can see that the scar goes all the way down his neck and under his collar. "I'm surprised you didn't notice it." Lucifer's hands loosen, just a fraction, but Sam doesn't try and take advantage of it. There's a stillness in the room now, like the words have changed everything. Castiel's still frowning at him, caution, and surprise and something else, something much darker that Sam doesn’t think he's ever caught in Castiel's expression before. It's something guarded, something that isn't right underneath the calm.
"What do you mean he's wrong, Cas?" Dean takes a step back, mouth going tight. He stabs a fingers at Sam, and the gesture isn't kind at all. "Did they get to him?"
"No," Castiel says quickly, far too quickly, reassurance. "No, nothing like that."
Sam twists and the hold Lucifer has on him flexes and then tightens warningly. Sam forces himself to stop struggling until someone answers one of his questions.
"What happened, why is Lucifer here? Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"
"Lucifer, let him go," Dean says quietly. Surprisingly, Lucifer's hands slide free, and Sam's breathing on the floor, broken hand cradled underneath him, heart pounding. He pulls away when Lucifer reaches for him again, to help him up, or check his hand. He doesn't care which.
Castiel very carefully eases Sam upright, fingers passing over the back of his knuckles. There's no sound, but the pain shuts off like it was never there. Sam tests his hand, fingers stretching and curling into a fist.
"What's going on?" Sam says again, quieter, not so certain now that he knows anything at all.
~ The sky hasn't been the same since. It's heavier somehow now, oppressive. It feels like there's something up there that wasn't before, something awake, or alive, something that watches. Sam's afraid that it's more of them, that they're surrounding the whole world, crushing in on it and devouring it from all sides.
He knows he's not the only one that can feel it. Castiel will stand for hours, staring up at it - while Dean drinks beer after beer on the hood of the car, boots leaving smears and dents wherever they rest. He won't ask, it's almost like he doesn't know how. It's just one of the many things they don't talk about.
They lost half their weapons in the last attack, but they saved more than half the people. They got most of them out of the hospital before the corridors turned into black, empty stretches of darkness.
"Is he going to be ok?" Sam asks, voice nowhere near loud enough to carry on the wind.
There's weight at his back, the press of a hand still awkward, still not sure where to settle, or if it's allowed.
"Which one of them?" ~
Dean's pacing, boots thumping quietly on the cheap motel carpet. Sam's watching him because he's not sure what else to do.
"What the hell do you mean he's not our Sam."
"Exactly what he says," Lucifer says, tone flat like he doesn't care at all. He's propped against the wall now, arms crossed aggressively, or perhaps defensively. He's been refusing to look directly at him since Castiel made his pronouncement. "This Sam is subtly wrong, he doesn’t belong here, he's not - he's not ours."
Sam reacts instinctively to dispute the words. But there's nothing in Castiel's expression but sympathy, and curiosity. Messed up as it sounds it's like a reality punch. Sympathy never means anything good, for any of them. Sympathy usually means it's going to end badly for them. It's going to end badly before someone works out how to fix it.
"He's not misplaced in time, he has a different -" Castiel stops, frowns thoughtfully, he's clearly reaching for a way to explain.
"Lets call him misplaced universally," Lucifer says darkly, though he's obviously unhappy with the term. Not happy with anything if Sam has to guess. As if the devil could ever find anything to be happy about.
Castiel turns and Sam can't make himself stop looking at the scar, though he's fairly sure he's not supposed to. Since everyone else is carefully avoiding looking at it, even though it looks like it hasn't been there long.
"He's another Sam, from another timeline, the choices we make -"
Dean waves a hand, cutting Castiel off with a noise of disbelief. "Parallel universes? You have got to be shitting me. Like we don't have enough to worry about with them now we have to deal with fucking random science fiction bullshit. Where's Sam? Our Sam."
Castiel frowns. "I would imagine wherever this Sam came from."
Sam shakes his head, like he can convince everyone else. "One moment I'm falling and the next I'm in an alternate universe, things like that don't just happen."
Dean's expression is saying exactly the same thing. Sam knows him well enough to know that, no matter how many universes he falls through.
"But why," Dean demands. "Why the hell would this happen now? And how do we get him back?"
"Can we not talk over me please," Sam cuts in, tight and unhappy. He rubs the hand that he broke on Lucifer's face, though he can't feel it any more. It's as good as it ever was, probably better. "I get that all this is wrong, obviously, this is all wrong for me -" he cuts a quick, unhappy look at where Lucifer is still almost motionless by the wall.
"I don't know," Castiel offers, and Sam doesn't even know which question he's answering
Castiel very carefully takes Sam's arm, fingers cold where they curl round his bicep. The angel helps him to his feet. "Sam, what happened when the final seal broke?"
Dean takes a step towards them, expression suddenly close and intent.
"Yeah, what happened?"
Sam looks between them, looks at how close they all are, the points in a room, covering all the exits. Castiel a silent shape by the window. Dean and Lucifer by the doors. It's a well-practised, efficient system. Sam knows because they've been using it for years. Cover the exits, and focus on the target until you decide if it's a threat. Sam's never liked being the one that's being interrogated though. Dean's still glaring like this in some way his fault and he doesn’t like it at all. Whether he's the one crashing a universe or not.
"Lucifer -" Sam spares a glance for the devil, who very obviously doesn't react to whatever shows in his face. "Lilith died, Lucifer rose and started killing people. He took that guy as his vessel, raised Death, hunted me as his vessel. We were going to trick him with the Horsemen's rings -"
"That's enough," Dean cuts him off and Sam goes silent, confused.
"The doorways didn't open," Castiel says quietly and now no one's looking at Sam at all, speaking in words and half-sentences that he's obviously not supposed to understand. Or be a part of.
Dean frowns and shakes his head. "How could it not happen?" he demands, voice full of restrained anger. "How could something like this just not happen. What - they get fucking lost in that universe?"
"Who? What, what doorways?" Sam asks.
Dean looks at him, and there's something there that's familiar. Dean's weighing up whether he can trust him, whether he can afford to trust him.
"Lucifer wasn't the only thing trying to escape, though we're not quite sure whether they were in a prison, or just hanging around outside waiting for some sort of thin spot to come through."
"They?" Sam says, shaking his head in frustration. "Who are they."
Dean clenches his teeth, looks away briefly, to Castiel, though the angel doesn't - won't - meet his eyes.
"Them," Dean hisses as if he really doesn't like the idea of talking about them. Or that he thinks Sam should already know, doesn't understand how anyone could not know. Sam can see him forcing himself to go on. "They're things, or one big thing, who the hell can say for sure. Gabriel once compared them to bees in a hive. Even the angels don't know for sure. They..." Dean shoots a look at Castiel, who says nothing at all. "They devour, that's pretty much all they do. They eat things up and make more of themselves and turn everywhere on the map they've been into some sort of fucking empty space that's almost impossible to get through. They came out just after Lucifer and they're like nothing we've ever fought before. You can't kill them, you can't cut them, or burn them, or break them."
Sam's never heard of anything that can't be killed before. He shakes his head, wants to refuse to believe it. But Dean's pulled himself in, tense and wary. As if he thinks even talking about them can conjure them up. Lucifer and Castiel are carefully avoiding each other's eyes. There's so much here, so many layers he wasn't around for - that this other him was around for.
"Where did they come from?"
"No one knows," Castiel says, slowly, thickly. "They've defied all our efforts to acquire information on them."
"They don't like light," Dean says, a half reluctant throw of information. "Toss out enough of it and you can chase them off for a while. But they eat everything, angels, demons, people and every messed up thing in-between. We've been fighting them for a year and a half, or trying to fight them. The only thing that's ever hurt one -" Dean's eyes slide sideways
Lucifer catches Dean's eyes and there's something under there, something painful that Sam doesn't have the history to understand.
"He burned half of one away getting Cas -" Dean stops talking and Sam knows there won't be anything else.
~ Lucifer tastes like ashes, his skin's almost grey under the flakes and smears of it. Sam's lower lip still tastes like blood, the long plane of his back is hot enough that he knows he'll have bruises tomorrow, so many bruises. Too many to count, and today will just be another memory of blood and horror. But he doesn't want it to be. He needs something so the days stop running into one another.
He'll tell himself, later, that that's why he kisses Lucifer, pushing at his hands every time they lift to stop him, following every step back until the devil is pressed into the wall, until it's too hard and too rough and almost not a kiss at all. But in the end Lucifer is too strong and he tips Sam's head back, forces it back and Sam's gasping air like a drowning man.
"Sam." It's a warning, it's soft and complicated and Sam doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't want to hear a fucking word of it. Sam's fingers find the cold skin under his shirt, he watches ice burn in Lucifer's eyes.
"Are you going to pretend you don't want it as well?" Sam asks. "That you don't want this from me."
Lucifer's hand catches his hair and tightens hard enough to be cruel, dragging him back into his space with a strength Sam will never be able to match, will never be able to resist.
"You have no idea what I want," Lucifer says furiously, his free hand twitches like it wants to grasp Sam's arm and shake him. "What I could do to you. I could burn you alive."
"Maybe I'd rather burn than be ripped to pieces and eaten by those things."
Lucifer's hand twists tighter in his hair, and there's genuine pain, but Sam doesn't resist.
"Don't think for a moment that I would be kind." Lucifer's voice is low and soft. Like it's not a threat at all.
Sam shoves hard at Lucifer's chest and he isn't even half afraid of the look he gets in return. "What makes you think I want kind." ~
Lucifer is in Sam's room - but it's not Sam's room, it's the room he shares with the devil. This boarded-up abandoned motel room. He can't see much through the gaps at the window, nothing but dry dirt, and cold stretches of road. Lucifer is seated against the headboard of the double bed, feet bare. He looks like he belongs there, like he isn't invading the only space Sam's been given. He's watching Sam like he's the interloper, like he's the one that doesn't belong. Sam doesn't even want to think about how, or why that happened. He doesn't want to think about what it means because it makes his skin crawl.
"What are you doing here?" he asks, because he can't hold it in any more. "How the hell did you ever end up helping us fight these things, whatever they are?"
"You and your brother demanded that I help," Lucifer tells him. "You were very persuasive."
Sam refuses to sit on the bed, or even stand close, so he moves to the window, so he can at least feel the breeze on his skin. "Don't pretend you had any reason to help humanity."
"These things aren't just going after humanity. They're not just roaming earth like dogs after carrion. They don't care at all what stands in front of them, they try and destroy it either way. I was...resistant to their desire to consume me. Mutual goals."
"You wanted everything destroyed where I come from."
"A lot has happened since then," Lucifer points out, like whatever happened where Sam came from means nothing.
"Not for me," Sam says forcefully. "You never had a reason not to trample us under like we didn't matter at all. So don't pretend."
"I owe you nothing, you're not -" Lucifer stops, unwilling to finish whatever he was going to say. His mouth thins out, then relaxes, restraint, frustration, impatience. It's the same thing that happened to Castiel. Lucifer hadn't been lying about spending time with them. If there's one thing Sam has learned it's that bits and pieces of humanity crept in if angels and demons spent enough time around them. "I spent longer than you can even begin to imagine in a cage. It's not hard to understand that I had a certain amount of rage - a certain need for revenge."
"Were we part of your revenge?" Sam asks, he can feel the tension in his own expression, it's not even a question, it's assumption, accusation stark and demanding. So close to asking 'what did you do to us, to me?'
Lucifer turns his head slowly. "I've never done anything to you against your will."
Sam doesn't even know what that's supposed to mean, that this whole mess is his fault, that he's the one to blame, the one who was messed up enough to allow this.
"So I'm what? Broken? Is that what this is. You taking advantage of us at the end of the world. Are we your playthings now? Why do you even care?"
Lucifer fixes him with a cold stare. "I care because you demanded that I did."
Sam exhales, surprised. He can't even hope to find words for that.
"We are all imperfect beings," Lucifer explains.
"You more than most," Sam offers, though most of the anger has drained out of the words.
"I'd almost forgotten how little I like your self-righteous streak," Lucifer says tightly.
"I don't need, or want you to like me. I don't even understand why you're here. You're just as bad as this, whatever it is."
Lucifer stares at him, and Sam finally realises what's missing. There's no patience, there's no calm. Whatever plans Lucifer had made, whatever he'd wanted when he broke free of hell, this is a world where they all mean nothing. This is Lucifer unchained, this is him fighting a war, for the second time. All sharp edges and restrained violence and purpose.
"If you'd seen them for yourself, you wouldn't say that. If you'd seen one of them tear an angel apart so that it could consume it, and just keep walking through the pieces, still trailing scraps and shreds of grace." Lucifer goes silent, and it's an empty silence, something that hurts. Sam wants to ask where Michael is, Raphael, Gabriel. But he thinks there's something too raw there, something he's genuinely afraid to push. He can't help but wonder how many brothers Lucifer has lost. How many fronts this war is being fought on.
"Don't try and pretend there's anything redeemable in you," Sam says quietly.
Lucifer looks away from him, eyes fixing on the boarded up window. "I told you that already, I told you I was a creature of greed and selfishness and fury."
"And what did I say?"
"You told me the world needed people like me, if it was going to survive."
Sam doesn't understand this person he is here. There'd be no way, no circumstance, where he would ever - he can't believe that he would ever. What happened here? How could he possibly ever have become someone that would do this?
~ They are on the floor above them, slow-moving figures with gaping mouths were their faces should be. Working their way down the shattered staircases, shuffling like they're broken, but unstoppable, unkillable. Eating everything in their path.
Sam's still pulling himself out of the rubble when Lucifer catches his arms and helps him up. His hands are burning hot, like he's been walking through fire, eyes so pale it's like someone bleached them clean. Sam catches hold of his fingers and doesn't let go.
"Where's your brother?" Lucifer asks.
"Castiel went down there." The rest doesn't even have to be said, because of course Dean went down after him.
Lucifer tightens his hand, bringing Sam to a halt before he's even managed a step. "There's a hole already half-open, they'll tear him to pieces."
"I can't leave him." Sam shakes him off, and then he's moving, boots already skidding on the disintegrating rubble as he makes his way down. He stumbles down to where the debris has been dragged into the hole beneath them, fingers touching the too-hot parts of the wall and coming away smeared black.
It doesn't take a second before the devil's at his shoulder, following him into the depths. ~
Sam shuts himself in the bathroom. He tells himself it's to think, but he's fairly sure it's to get away from Lucifer, from the watchful accusation of Dean's eyes. From the strange edges that Castiel never had before. These are people he knows, but they're not the same people.
The mirror tells him that the body he's in isn't his own. There are scars in places he doesn’t remember, tattoos curved across his shoulder blades and the muscle of both arms, vicious, dark lettering, and in some cases burn scars, done hastily, jaggedly. Some of it's Enochian, but some of it he doesn't recognise at all.
His hair's shorter than he remembers, cut untidily by someone who shouldn't quit their day job. Sam suspects their day job is probably hunting. This is why he doesn’t usually let Dean cut his hair. He was never good at it, even when they were kids.
When he can't stare at his own impossible reflection any more, he makes his way outside, into the dusty afternoon air.
It's not safe to go out at night, too many of them, or so Dean says. Sam feels like the only sane person in a world gone mad. Lucifer hovers, quiet but insistent at his shoulder like he can sense it, that Sam might run off and lose himself somewhere. Sam doesn't even know why he cares if he doesn't need him as a vessel here. If the earth is as much of a battlefield as they say it is. Sam's still not even entirely sure whether to believe all of this, whether to believe any of it. He's only still here because of Dean, because of Dean and Castiel, whatever else might be wrong here, this is where Dean is and Sam doesn't have anywhere else to go.
It's not until he sees the car that it starts to feel real, horribly, painfully real. It's at the back of the motel, close to the wall and it's nothing like he remembers. The black paint is streaked and dirty, covered in scratches and dents and dark patches that look like burns. One of the windows is cracked, the spider web ruin of it taped over. There's a jagged torn scratch along one side, like it scraped along a building, or the edge of some debris, at speed.
It looks like Dean drove it through hell.
"Dean might consider that a fair description." Lucifer says, from where he's moved forward to stand at his shoulder. "Your brother is very good at hanging on to the things which mean something to him." The words are slow, like he's making a point of some sort that Sam doesn't have the history to understand. "It's a lesson I think the rest of us could have learned sooner."
Sam stiffens and moves away. Refuses to turn his back to him, doesn’t trust him, refuses to trust him, no matter what's happened here. He wants to say something about the mind-reading. How Lucifer can just do it so easily, so coldly, take his thoughts apart.
"They can get inside your head if you don't watch closely, eat you away from the inside," Lucifer explains. "I will take your accusation of violation, rather than leave you open to that, especially when you have no idea what they are, or how to resist it."
"So you just, what, know what we're thinking all the time?" Sam snaps. His anger festers in the pause that Lucifer lets drag on, and on.
"Look around you, Sam. Do you really think I could put anything that passes through your head to use now?" he says at last.
Sam does look, finds nothing on the horizon but smoke and clouds of dust. He should be able to see more from here. He should be able to see half the city. The fact that he hadn't registered its absence before leaves a sick hollowness in his stomach. Sam stares into the wind for a long time, like it might suddenly reappear from behind a dust cloud, that it's just briefly obscured and not just broken off at the horizon.
"What happened?" Sam asks, and there's more than a little desperation there now. A plea for someone to explain, even if that someone is Lucifer himself.
"Arrogance," Lucifer tells him. "From all of us. For thinking that Heaven and Hell were the only ones who would ever fight over Earth."
"We're losing, aren't we?" Sam says quietly. Wondering why he suddenly feels everything, feels all of it even though he doesn't belong here.
Lucifer sighs, like no one has ever said it, never dared to say it out loud.
Sam wants to ask where God is, how he could leave the world to this. Lucifer doesn't offer anything, he must hear the question but he doesn't say anything at all.
~ It's barely light out, there's just the first faint hazy glow of dawn breaking through the dark. Sam's too tired to make conversation, he's too tired to sleep, though he needs it. He doesn't say a word, he just pulls the bag of equipment out of Lucifer's unresisting hand and tosses it aside.
The mattress is bare and the window's broken, but it doesn't matter, it matters less with every motel they stay in. Sam's shirt and jeans end up on the dusty carpet, hands pinned over his head on the bed, fingers curling and scratching at Lucifer's knuckles while the devil hisses words he can barely make out into his mouth, all dig of unshaven skin, and hard bite of teeth.
Sam catches his waist with his thighs and pulls him up, weight and pressure and they're kissing so hard he can barely breathe. The fingers of Lucifer's free hand are pushing white marks into his thigh. No way to get physically closer unless they dig underneath the skin. It's familiar enough that it's easy and sometimes Sam thinks it shouldn't be, that the things that really matter always have to be hard. But all it takes is a brief dig in the pocket of his discarded jeans, hastily murmured demands and one stuttering push. It hurts just enough to cut through everything and Sam's drawing a breath too fast, swearing and pleading and hoping Lucifer ignores it all. He's willing to drown in it like an addict, he'll hurt for it if that's what it takes to have one fucking moment of peace. He tilts his hips into the rhythm of it and breathes and doesn't think of anything at all.
Until the light coming through the window is bright yellow, hitting every dark place in the room, boards be damned. Lucifer's arm is curved just right to leave his face out of the glare. Sam thinks if he lays in the quiet for long enough he can coax sleep to come for him, maybe an hour or two, maybe just a few minutes, but he'll take what he can get.
Tomorrow, tomorrow they'll head into the city to look for survivors. Through the jumble of concrete and metal, though Sam already knows that half the city is a burnt-out wreck. They'll be lucky to make it out alive if they get trapped in its back streets, luckier still if they get trapped there after dark. But then they're always lucky to make it out alive, and you can't do that kind of thing forever. You can only get close so many times before you lose someone.
"I love you." Sam doesn't mean to say it. It comes out of nowhere. It grates out like an apology.
"Don't say that." Lucifer's voice sounds angry.
Sam swallows and opens his eyes, though all he can see through his hair is the curve of Lucifer' chest and the peeling wallpaper. He rolls his head and sighs out a breath.
"It doesn't matter you know," he says thickly. "I don't care, I don't care if you don't love me back. If you don't feel anything for me at all. I don't expect anything, not now, especially not now. I just have to - I have to tell you. Because I just need something and I'm willing to fucking pretend at the end of the world -"
Lucifer wraps a hand round his mouth, forces him silent before the words can crack apart at the edges, fingers so tight it hurts. Sam stops talking and just breathes. He can feel Lucifer's chest rising and falling, but he can't make out a heartbeat.
"You're a fool, I'm no better than them," Lucifer says quietly. His hand slips free, falls against the sheets.
"If you really believed that you wouldn't be here," Sam says. "You would have left us all to die."
Lucifer stays stubbornly silent under the words. ~
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Lucifer, Dean/Castiel
Rating: R
Spoilers: Season 5
Warnings: AU
Word Count: 5550
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: There are other worlds. Some are better, and some are worse, and some are unimaginable
AN: Written for aeon_entwined 's birthday. I was going to write you a proper AU, but I didn't have time, so here's a snapshot of an AU. Happy Birthday ♥
Sam can't remember the last time he slept like this. The last time he could just hover in that nothing space between awake and asleep, comfortable and not quite aware of the world around him yet. Knowing there were things out there to be done, important things, but far enough away that they didn't matter just yet. There had never been enough pauses for them. The world had never waited for the Winchesters. Sam had almost forgotten what they even felt like, those rare moments when they were safe, when the world didn't make demands, when nothing needed saving.
But there's part of him that knows he shouldn't be here. The last thing he remembers is falling. The very last thing he remembers was the feeling that every part of him was burning away.
There's a slow, unhurried trail of fingers making their way across his back, tracing every nerve, every muscle. They stray to the back of his neck, pushing up under his hair. There's familiarity in the touch, it feels like it belongs. There's a possessive, indulgent warmth to it, an intimacy. Sam hasn't been touched like that for a long time, and that's what eventually pulls him all the way up out of sleep. He opens his eyes to white sheets and slants of pale yellow light, the murmur of another voice, deep and questioning. There's something in the timbre of it that he recognises, but not in a good way. It leaves unease crawling over his skin.
He twists around, body still slow and awkward, but when he sees who was touching him he freezes up completely. The hair is longer, the face is less expectant, but it's Lucifer. Sam lashes out and there's a second of stunned incomprehension before Sam's knuckles hit and the pain of it goes all the way up his arm in a wave. Lucifer's face turns back the fraction of an inch that it moved, and he looks nothing but confused.
Sam's stumbling backwards out of the bed before he can think. He doesn’t know where he is, searching every available surface for a knife, or a gun, or something to defend himself with. Though he's fairly sure that nothing he finds will be good enough. His hand's screaming like it's broken and the room's too small, the window behind him is boarded up. But he's too afraid to look away from Lucifer for long enough to wrench at the boards.
"Sam," Lucifer says cautiously, one bare foot sliding to the floor and there's coiled tension in him that tells Sam he's an instant away from moving. He changes his mind about trying to get out, shoulder slamming into the wall and the fingers of both hands are digging under the wood nailed across the window, broken hand grating with pain as he pulls - tries to pry it free.
Lucifer swears, and it sounds strangely fluid, words familiar on his tongue. He's across the room before Sam can drag more than an inch of the wood free of the window. The sunlight flares over Sam's face a second before Lucifer wraps both arms around his chest and hauls him away from it, back to the centre of the room. Sam thrashes instantly, uselessly but violently, against his impossible strength.
"Sam, stop struggling," Lucifer says, and there's still that confusion in his voice, like he doesn't understand what's going on, hands firm but careful.
"Where the fuck is Dean? What have you done with him?" Sam slams an elbow backwards, but it's like hitting a brick wall. He contemplates going dead weight but he doubts the shift will make any difference to Lucifer at all. There's no fist-fighting with angels, not if you want to win.
"I haven't done anything. Stop struggling you're going to hurt yourself -" Lucifer leans away from Sam's ear. "Dean."
Sam tries to turn round towards the door, and he almost wrenches himself free, but Lucifer's still holding his arm and it twists painfully the wrong way. Lucifer stumbles down with him rather than risk breaking it. The door jerks inwards, and Dean's a rough but familiar shape outlined in light, shirt half-undone.
"What the hell is going on?" he demands.
"Dean, get out of here," Sam spits, trying to force Lucifer's arm away, trying to drag himself forward, boot jammed into the carpet.
"Something's wrong with your brother." Lucifer gets out, and Sam digs his fingers in and tries to twist free again. Pretty much convinced that this is one of Lucifer's plans to destroy them both.
"Yeah, I can see that." Dean comes closer, and there's something wrong with his face. It's harder, dirt-smudged, he hasn't shaved for days and there are bruises all up his throat. "Sam, calm the hell down."
"Dean." Sam shakes hair out of his face.
"Did you have another nightmare?" Dean asks.
Sam doesn't understand why Dean is so fucking calm. Why he isn't reacting to Lucifer's presence. He doesn't have any idea what's happening here and he doesn't like it at all.
"No, I didn't have a nightmare, Dean -" Sam's focus shifts to the second figure who comes in behind Dean. Castiel's missing his coat and suit. He's wearing a plain, dark shirt and jeans that look two sizes too big for him. But Sam thinks, by the way he holds himself, by the unnatural pale blue of his eyes, that he's still all angel. That isn't the most shocking thing about him though. The angel is scarred. It starts in the corner of his mouth and flows down over his jaw, it's a raw winding line that's still red, angry. It's jarring enough that Sam goes still, shocked at how vicious it looks, at how wrong it looks carved into Castiel's face. "Cas, Jesus, what the hell happened to you?"
Castiel flinches, surprised.
"Sam, god damn it," Dean says, all edges of horror and sudden anger.
Castiel ignores the question and comes closer, frown going deeper. Dean steps aside to let him past.
"He's wrong," Castiel says quietly. "In subtle ways, but he's definitely wrong." Castiel looks up at Lucifer and Sam can see that the scar goes all the way down his neck and under his collar. "I'm surprised you didn't notice it." Lucifer's hands loosen, just a fraction, but Sam doesn't try and take advantage of it. There's a stillness in the room now, like the words have changed everything. Castiel's still frowning at him, caution, and surprise and something else, something much darker that Sam doesn’t think he's ever caught in Castiel's expression before. It's something guarded, something that isn't right underneath the calm.
"What do you mean he's wrong, Cas?" Dean takes a step back, mouth going tight. He stabs a fingers at Sam, and the gesture isn't kind at all. "Did they get to him?"
"No," Castiel says quickly, far too quickly, reassurance. "No, nothing like that."
Sam twists and the hold Lucifer has on him flexes and then tightens warningly. Sam forces himself to stop struggling until someone answers one of his questions.
"What happened, why is Lucifer here? Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"
"Lucifer, let him go," Dean says quietly. Surprisingly, Lucifer's hands slide free, and Sam's breathing on the floor, broken hand cradled underneath him, heart pounding. He pulls away when Lucifer reaches for him again, to help him up, or check his hand. He doesn't care which.
Castiel very carefully eases Sam upright, fingers passing over the back of his knuckles. There's no sound, but the pain shuts off like it was never there. Sam tests his hand, fingers stretching and curling into a fist.
"What's going on?" Sam says again, quieter, not so certain now that he knows anything at all.
~ The sky hasn't been the same since. It's heavier somehow now, oppressive. It feels like there's something up there that wasn't before, something awake, or alive, something that watches. Sam's afraid that it's more of them, that they're surrounding the whole world, crushing in on it and devouring it from all sides.
He knows he's not the only one that can feel it. Castiel will stand for hours, staring up at it - while Dean drinks beer after beer on the hood of the car, boots leaving smears and dents wherever they rest. He won't ask, it's almost like he doesn't know how. It's just one of the many things they don't talk about.
They lost half their weapons in the last attack, but they saved more than half the people. They got most of them out of the hospital before the corridors turned into black, empty stretches of darkness.
"Is he going to be ok?" Sam asks, voice nowhere near loud enough to carry on the wind.
There's weight at his back, the press of a hand still awkward, still not sure where to settle, or if it's allowed.
"Which one of them?" ~
Dean's pacing, boots thumping quietly on the cheap motel carpet. Sam's watching him because he's not sure what else to do.
"What the hell do you mean he's not our Sam."
"Exactly what he says," Lucifer says, tone flat like he doesn't care at all. He's propped against the wall now, arms crossed aggressively, or perhaps defensively. He's been refusing to look directly at him since Castiel made his pronouncement. "This Sam is subtly wrong, he doesn’t belong here, he's not - he's not ours."
Sam reacts instinctively to dispute the words. But there's nothing in Castiel's expression but sympathy, and curiosity. Messed up as it sounds it's like a reality punch. Sympathy never means anything good, for any of them. Sympathy usually means it's going to end badly for them. It's going to end badly before someone works out how to fix it.
"He's not misplaced in time, he has a different -" Castiel stops, frowns thoughtfully, he's clearly reaching for a way to explain.
"Lets call him misplaced universally," Lucifer says darkly, though he's obviously unhappy with the term. Not happy with anything if Sam has to guess. As if the devil could ever find anything to be happy about.
Castiel turns and Sam can't make himself stop looking at the scar, though he's fairly sure he's not supposed to. Since everyone else is carefully avoiding looking at it, even though it looks like it hasn't been there long.
"He's another Sam, from another timeline, the choices we make -"
Dean waves a hand, cutting Castiel off with a noise of disbelief. "Parallel universes? You have got to be shitting me. Like we don't have enough to worry about with them now we have to deal with fucking random science fiction bullshit. Where's Sam? Our Sam."
Castiel frowns. "I would imagine wherever this Sam came from."
Sam shakes his head, like he can convince everyone else. "One moment I'm falling and the next I'm in an alternate universe, things like that don't just happen."
Dean's expression is saying exactly the same thing. Sam knows him well enough to know that, no matter how many universes he falls through.
"But why," Dean demands. "Why the hell would this happen now? And how do we get him back?"
"Can we not talk over me please," Sam cuts in, tight and unhappy. He rubs the hand that he broke on Lucifer's face, though he can't feel it any more. It's as good as it ever was, probably better. "I get that all this is wrong, obviously, this is all wrong for me -" he cuts a quick, unhappy look at where Lucifer is still almost motionless by the wall.
"I don't know," Castiel offers, and Sam doesn't even know which question he's answering
Castiel very carefully takes Sam's arm, fingers cold where they curl round his bicep. The angel helps him to his feet. "Sam, what happened when the final seal broke?"
Dean takes a step towards them, expression suddenly close and intent.
"Yeah, what happened?"
Sam looks between them, looks at how close they all are, the points in a room, covering all the exits. Castiel a silent shape by the window. Dean and Lucifer by the doors. It's a well-practised, efficient system. Sam knows because they've been using it for years. Cover the exits, and focus on the target until you decide if it's a threat. Sam's never liked being the one that's being interrogated though. Dean's still glaring like this in some way his fault and he doesn’t like it at all. Whether he's the one crashing a universe or not.
"Lucifer -" Sam spares a glance for the devil, who very obviously doesn't react to whatever shows in his face. "Lilith died, Lucifer rose and started killing people. He took that guy as his vessel, raised Death, hunted me as his vessel. We were going to trick him with the Horsemen's rings -"
"That's enough," Dean cuts him off and Sam goes silent, confused.
"The doorways didn't open," Castiel says quietly and now no one's looking at Sam at all, speaking in words and half-sentences that he's obviously not supposed to understand. Or be a part of.
Dean frowns and shakes his head. "How could it not happen?" he demands, voice full of restrained anger. "How could something like this just not happen. What - they get fucking lost in that universe?"
"Who? What, what doorways?" Sam asks.
Dean looks at him, and there's something there that's familiar. Dean's weighing up whether he can trust him, whether he can afford to trust him.
"Lucifer wasn't the only thing trying to escape, though we're not quite sure whether they were in a prison, or just hanging around outside waiting for some sort of thin spot to come through."
"They?" Sam says, shaking his head in frustration. "Who are they."
Dean clenches his teeth, looks away briefly, to Castiel, though the angel doesn't - won't - meet his eyes.
"Them," Dean hisses as if he really doesn't like the idea of talking about them. Or that he thinks Sam should already know, doesn't understand how anyone could not know. Sam can see him forcing himself to go on. "They're things, or one big thing, who the hell can say for sure. Gabriel once compared them to bees in a hive. Even the angels don't know for sure. They..." Dean shoots a look at Castiel, who says nothing at all. "They devour, that's pretty much all they do. They eat things up and make more of themselves and turn everywhere on the map they've been into some sort of fucking empty space that's almost impossible to get through. They came out just after Lucifer and they're like nothing we've ever fought before. You can't kill them, you can't cut them, or burn them, or break them."
Sam's never heard of anything that can't be killed before. He shakes his head, wants to refuse to believe it. But Dean's pulled himself in, tense and wary. As if he thinks even talking about them can conjure them up. Lucifer and Castiel are carefully avoiding each other's eyes. There's so much here, so many layers he wasn't around for - that this other him was around for.
"Where did they come from?"
"No one knows," Castiel says, slowly, thickly. "They've defied all our efforts to acquire information on them."
"They don't like light," Dean says, a half reluctant throw of information. "Toss out enough of it and you can chase them off for a while. But they eat everything, angels, demons, people and every messed up thing in-between. We've been fighting them for a year and a half, or trying to fight them. The only thing that's ever hurt one -" Dean's eyes slide sideways
Lucifer catches Dean's eyes and there's something under there, something painful that Sam doesn't have the history to understand.
"He burned half of one away getting Cas -" Dean stops talking and Sam knows there won't be anything else.
~ Lucifer tastes like ashes, his skin's almost grey under the flakes and smears of it. Sam's lower lip still tastes like blood, the long plane of his back is hot enough that he knows he'll have bruises tomorrow, so many bruises. Too many to count, and today will just be another memory of blood and horror. But he doesn't want it to be. He needs something so the days stop running into one another.
He'll tell himself, later, that that's why he kisses Lucifer, pushing at his hands every time they lift to stop him, following every step back until the devil is pressed into the wall, until it's too hard and too rough and almost not a kiss at all. But in the end Lucifer is too strong and he tips Sam's head back, forces it back and Sam's gasping air like a drowning man.
"Sam." It's a warning, it's soft and complicated and Sam doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't want to hear a fucking word of it. Sam's fingers find the cold skin under his shirt, he watches ice burn in Lucifer's eyes.
"Are you going to pretend you don't want it as well?" Sam asks. "That you don't want this from me."
Lucifer's hand catches his hair and tightens hard enough to be cruel, dragging him back into his space with a strength Sam will never be able to match, will never be able to resist.
"You have no idea what I want," Lucifer says furiously, his free hand twitches like it wants to grasp Sam's arm and shake him. "What I could do to you. I could burn you alive."
"Maybe I'd rather burn than be ripped to pieces and eaten by those things."
Lucifer's hand twists tighter in his hair, and there's genuine pain, but Sam doesn't resist.
"Don't think for a moment that I would be kind." Lucifer's voice is low and soft. Like it's not a threat at all.
Sam shoves hard at Lucifer's chest and he isn't even half afraid of the look he gets in return. "What makes you think I want kind." ~
Lucifer is in Sam's room - but it's not Sam's room, it's the room he shares with the devil. This boarded-up abandoned motel room. He can't see much through the gaps at the window, nothing but dry dirt, and cold stretches of road. Lucifer is seated against the headboard of the double bed, feet bare. He looks like he belongs there, like he isn't invading the only space Sam's been given. He's watching Sam like he's the interloper, like he's the one that doesn't belong. Sam doesn't even want to think about how, or why that happened. He doesn't want to think about what it means because it makes his skin crawl.
"What are you doing here?" he asks, because he can't hold it in any more. "How the hell did you ever end up helping us fight these things, whatever they are?"
"You and your brother demanded that I help," Lucifer tells him. "You were very persuasive."
Sam refuses to sit on the bed, or even stand close, so he moves to the window, so he can at least feel the breeze on his skin. "Don't pretend you had any reason to help humanity."
"These things aren't just going after humanity. They're not just roaming earth like dogs after carrion. They don't care at all what stands in front of them, they try and destroy it either way. I was...resistant to their desire to consume me. Mutual goals."
"You wanted everything destroyed where I come from."
"A lot has happened since then," Lucifer points out, like whatever happened where Sam came from means nothing.
"Not for me," Sam says forcefully. "You never had a reason not to trample us under like we didn't matter at all. So don't pretend."
"I owe you nothing, you're not -" Lucifer stops, unwilling to finish whatever he was going to say. His mouth thins out, then relaxes, restraint, frustration, impatience. It's the same thing that happened to Castiel. Lucifer hadn't been lying about spending time with them. If there's one thing Sam has learned it's that bits and pieces of humanity crept in if angels and demons spent enough time around them. "I spent longer than you can even begin to imagine in a cage. It's not hard to understand that I had a certain amount of rage - a certain need for revenge."
"Were we part of your revenge?" Sam asks, he can feel the tension in his own expression, it's not even a question, it's assumption, accusation stark and demanding. So close to asking 'what did you do to us, to me?'
Lucifer turns his head slowly. "I've never done anything to you against your will."
Sam doesn't even know what that's supposed to mean, that this whole mess is his fault, that he's the one to blame, the one who was messed up enough to allow this.
"So I'm what? Broken? Is that what this is. You taking advantage of us at the end of the world. Are we your playthings now? Why do you even care?"
Lucifer fixes him with a cold stare. "I care because you demanded that I did."
Sam exhales, surprised. He can't even hope to find words for that.
"We are all imperfect beings," Lucifer explains.
"You more than most," Sam offers, though most of the anger has drained out of the words.
"I'd almost forgotten how little I like your self-righteous streak," Lucifer says tightly.
"I don't need, or want you to like me. I don't even understand why you're here. You're just as bad as this, whatever it is."
Lucifer stares at him, and Sam finally realises what's missing. There's no patience, there's no calm. Whatever plans Lucifer had made, whatever he'd wanted when he broke free of hell, this is a world where they all mean nothing. This is Lucifer unchained, this is him fighting a war, for the second time. All sharp edges and restrained violence and purpose.
"If you'd seen them for yourself, you wouldn't say that. If you'd seen one of them tear an angel apart so that it could consume it, and just keep walking through the pieces, still trailing scraps and shreds of grace." Lucifer goes silent, and it's an empty silence, something that hurts. Sam wants to ask where Michael is, Raphael, Gabriel. But he thinks there's something too raw there, something he's genuinely afraid to push. He can't help but wonder how many brothers Lucifer has lost. How many fronts this war is being fought on.
"Don't try and pretend there's anything redeemable in you," Sam says quietly.
Lucifer looks away from him, eyes fixing on the boarded up window. "I told you that already, I told you I was a creature of greed and selfishness and fury."
"And what did I say?"
"You told me the world needed people like me, if it was going to survive."
Sam doesn't understand this person he is here. There'd be no way, no circumstance, where he would ever - he can't believe that he would ever. What happened here? How could he possibly ever have become someone that would do this?
~ They are on the floor above them, slow-moving figures with gaping mouths were their faces should be. Working their way down the shattered staircases, shuffling like they're broken, but unstoppable, unkillable. Eating everything in their path.
Sam's still pulling himself out of the rubble when Lucifer catches his arms and helps him up. His hands are burning hot, like he's been walking through fire, eyes so pale it's like someone bleached them clean. Sam catches hold of his fingers and doesn't let go.
"Where's your brother?" Lucifer asks.
"Castiel went down there." The rest doesn't even have to be said, because of course Dean went down after him.
Lucifer tightens his hand, bringing Sam to a halt before he's even managed a step. "There's a hole already half-open, they'll tear him to pieces."
"I can't leave him." Sam shakes him off, and then he's moving, boots already skidding on the disintegrating rubble as he makes his way down. He stumbles down to where the debris has been dragged into the hole beneath them, fingers touching the too-hot parts of the wall and coming away smeared black.
It doesn't take a second before the devil's at his shoulder, following him into the depths. ~
Sam shuts himself in the bathroom. He tells himself it's to think, but he's fairly sure it's to get away from Lucifer, from the watchful accusation of Dean's eyes. From the strange edges that Castiel never had before. These are people he knows, but they're not the same people.
The mirror tells him that the body he's in isn't his own. There are scars in places he doesn’t remember, tattoos curved across his shoulder blades and the muscle of both arms, vicious, dark lettering, and in some cases burn scars, done hastily, jaggedly. Some of it's Enochian, but some of it he doesn't recognise at all.
His hair's shorter than he remembers, cut untidily by someone who shouldn't quit their day job. Sam suspects their day job is probably hunting. This is why he doesn’t usually let Dean cut his hair. He was never good at it, even when they were kids.
When he can't stare at his own impossible reflection any more, he makes his way outside, into the dusty afternoon air.
It's not safe to go out at night, too many of them, or so Dean says. Sam feels like the only sane person in a world gone mad. Lucifer hovers, quiet but insistent at his shoulder like he can sense it, that Sam might run off and lose himself somewhere. Sam doesn't even know why he cares if he doesn't need him as a vessel here. If the earth is as much of a battlefield as they say it is. Sam's still not even entirely sure whether to believe all of this, whether to believe any of it. He's only still here because of Dean, because of Dean and Castiel, whatever else might be wrong here, this is where Dean is and Sam doesn't have anywhere else to go.
It's not until he sees the car that it starts to feel real, horribly, painfully real. It's at the back of the motel, close to the wall and it's nothing like he remembers. The black paint is streaked and dirty, covered in scratches and dents and dark patches that look like burns. One of the windows is cracked, the spider web ruin of it taped over. There's a jagged torn scratch along one side, like it scraped along a building, or the edge of some debris, at speed.
It looks like Dean drove it through hell.
"Dean might consider that a fair description." Lucifer says, from where he's moved forward to stand at his shoulder. "Your brother is very good at hanging on to the things which mean something to him." The words are slow, like he's making a point of some sort that Sam doesn't have the history to understand. "It's a lesson I think the rest of us could have learned sooner."
Sam stiffens and moves away. Refuses to turn his back to him, doesn’t trust him, refuses to trust him, no matter what's happened here. He wants to say something about the mind-reading. How Lucifer can just do it so easily, so coldly, take his thoughts apart.
"They can get inside your head if you don't watch closely, eat you away from the inside," Lucifer explains. "I will take your accusation of violation, rather than leave you open to that, especially when you have no idea what they are, or how to resist it."
"So you just, what, know what we're thinking all the time?" Sam snaps. His anger festers in the pause that Lucifer lets drag on, and on.
"Look around you, Sam. Do you really think I could put anything that passes through your head to use now?" he says at last.
Sam does look, finds nothing on the horizon but smoke and clouds of dust. He should be able to see more from here. He should be able to see half the city. The fact that he hadn't registered its absence before leaves a sick hollowness in his stomach. Sam stares into the wind for a long time, like it might suddenly reappear from behind a dust cloud, that it's just briefly obscured and not just broken off at the horizon.
"What happened?" Sam asks, and there's more than a little desperation there now. A plea for someone to explain, even if that someone is Lucifer himself.
"Arrogance," Lucifer tells him. "From all of us. For thinking that Heaven and Hell were the only ones who would ever fight over Earth."
"We're losing, aren't we?" Sam says quietly. Wondering why he suddenly feels everything, feels all of it even though he doesn't belong here.
Lucifer sighs, like no one has ever said it, never dared to say it out loud.
Sam wants to ask where God is, how he could leave the world to this. Lucifer doesn't offer anything, he must hear the question but he doesn't say anything at all.
~ It's barely light out, there's just the first faint hazy glow of dawn breaking through the dark. Sam's too tired to make conversation, he's too tired to sleep, though he needs it. He doesn't say a word, he just pulls the bag of equipment out of Lucifer's unresisting hand and tosses it aside.
The mattress is bare and the window's broken, but it doesn't matter, it matters less with every motel they stay in. Sam's shirt and jeans end up on the dusty carpet, hands pinned over his head on the bed, fingers curling and scratching at Lucifer's knuckles while the devil hisses words he can barely make out into his mouth, all dig of unshaven skin, and hard bite of teeth.
Sam catches his waist with his thighs and pulls him up, weight and pressure and they're kissing so hard he can barely breathe. The fingers of Lucifer's free hand are pushing white marks into his thigh. No way to get physically closer unless they dig underneath the skin. It's familiar enough that it's easy and sometimes Sam thinks it shouldn't be, that the things that really matter always have to be hard. But all it takes is a brief dig in the pocket of his discarded jeans, hastily murmured demands and one stuttering push. It hurts just enough to cut through everything and Sam's drawing a breath too fast, swearing and pleading and hoping Lucifer ignores it all. He's willing to drown in it like an addict, he'll hurt for it if that's what it takes to have one fucking moment of peace. He tilts his hips into the rhythm of it and breathes and doesn't think of anything at all.
Until the light coming through the window is bright yellow, hitting every dark place in the room, boards be damned. Lucifer's arm is curved just right to leave his face out of the glare. Sam thinks if he lays in the quiet for long enough he can coax sleep to come for him, maybe an hour or two, maybe just a few minutes, but he'll take what he can get.
Tomorrow, tomorrow they'll head into the city to look for survivors. Through the jumble of concrete and metal, though Sam already knows that half the city is a burnt-out wreck. They'll be lucky to make it out alive if they get trapped in its back streets, luckier still if they get trapped there after dark. But then they're always lucky to make it out alive, and you can't do that kind of thing forever. You can only get close so many times before you lose someone.
"I love you." Sam doesn't mean to say it. It comes out of nowhere. It grates out like an apology.
"Don't say that." Lucifer's voice sounds angry.
Sam swallows and opens his eyes, though all he can see through his hair is the curve of Lucifer' chest and the peeling wallpaper. He rolls his head and sighs out a breath.
"It doesn't matter you know," he says thickly. "I don't care, I don't care if you don't love me back. If you don't feel anything for me at all. I don't expect anything, not now, especially not now. I just have to - I have to tell you. Because I just need something and I'm willing to fucking pretend at the end of the world -"
Lucifer wraps a hand round his mouth, forces him silent before the words can crack apart at the edges, fingers so tight it hurts. Sam stops talking and just breathes. He can feel Lucifer's chest rising and falling, but he can't make out a heartbeat.
"You're a fool, I'm no better than them," Lucifer says quietly. His hand slips free, falls against the sheets.
"If you really believed that you wouldn't be here," Sam says. "You would have left us all to die."
Lucifer stays stubbornly silent under the words. ~