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Sam pulls out another book, tucked between a dog-eared cookbook and a moth-eaten Latin dictionary, when he’s returning one on Sumerian lore to the dusty shelf. He’s been systematically working his way through the stacks, picking out the books that catch his eye as the amount of time he spends free gradually increases.
The number of hunts they take has dwindled – it’s partly because of the influx of new hunters joining their ranks, and the greater communication they’ve achieved between them by forming a more formal hunter network, almost like an all-new nexus between hunters and the revived Men of Letters – which is, really, Sam, Garth and a handful of others running a couple of phone lines, scattered across the country doing research and sending in backup when a hunt goes sideways.
Sam enjoys the downtime. He likes the peace and quiet, studying, Lucifer normally somewhere nearby doing his own thing. It’s nice, relaxing – unless Lucifer doing his own thing involves lighter fluid and water guns (and where the fuck he got a hold of those Sam’ll never know, but he suspects Kevin) which is a sign for him to drop whatever he’s doing and give Lucifer attention before he blows them all to hell, in another display of a ridiculously short attention span for a being who spent a few millennia waiting, imprisoned, to enact a plan to destroy the world. Death wasn’t wrong when he called Lucifer a brat, Sam can’t help but think at times like those, though not without a great deal of affection.
Sam’s taken to diverting Lucifer’s attention with books from the Letters’ extensive library, though he almost regretted it after the week that followed Animal Farm, and, inexplicably, a collection of essays by Gloria Steinem. The more books Lucifer reads, familiarising himself with humankind and its ‘petty’ ways, the more Sam discovers about the archangel himself. Lucifer, Sam realises, is a textbook feminist, with an anarchist streak – as well as something of a scholar. They have fascinating discussions on the merits of Communism, and the misogyny and homophobia inherent in most patriarchal societies – at least until Kevin comes in and declares he prefers animals to humans anyway (Sam wonders if he should be worried Kevin’s turning into such a misanthrope), even if Animal Farm ‘creeped the shit out of’ him in school. Lucifer seems to agree, and the conversation devolves to all the reasons humankind deserves to be wiped out in a fiery apocalypse. To Sam’s amusement, Lucifer actually tries to defend humanity a couple of times – though later he claims it was entirely for the sake of argument, looking faintly displeased. With himself, Sam suspects.
Sam carries his latest find to the little blanket fort they constructed together –twice – in a corner of the library one pleasant afternoon (They had to rebuild it when they brought the whole thing down on their heads after deciding to ‘test it out’ with a vigorous make-out session the first time). He sets the book down beside the archangel just as Lucifer places his last – the Bhagavad Gita – on the large pile of books he’s already completed. Lucifer picks up the new book – Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – immediately, fingers lightly brushing over the back of Sam’s before drawing away to flip the book open.
Lucifer devours books. He reads anything and everything Sam chooses to give him, never leaving a book halfway, though Sam has seen him give disgusted or vaguely reproachful looks to some of the books not to his liking. Twilight, for example, which Dean had picked up at a gas station as a joke, and insisted Sam give to Lucifer, to see his reaction (“It’ll be fun! Think of it as an experiment on the effect of mind-numbingly terribly pre-teen pseudo-porn on Fallen archangels,” had been his exact words). Sam told him that if Lucifer snapped and decided to restart the Apocalypse after reading it then it would be entirely Dean’s fault, you twisted fuck, but gave it to him anyway. The look Lucifer had given him when he asked if it was any good had been priceless. “There is no word,” Lucifer had replied severely, “for how foul I find this… book.”
(Dean probably has a picture on his phone, of Lucifer sitting at the dinner table, brows furrowed, reading Twilight.)
Sam settles down next to Lucifer, leaning lightly against his shoulder as he reads, delicately turning pages with long fingers. Sam just watches him, silently.
Recently, he’s been thinking a lot about Lucifer. Not of him, though he does a lot of that too – of how he dislikes coffee, but drinks gallons of it, Winchester Extra-Dark style; how he tries to keep his face so still and blank most of the time, yet can’t help his brows knitting together when he’s reading; of the way his arms extend ever so slightly towards Sam when he sleeps…
But otherwise he thinks about Lucifer, and Falling with a capital F, and how he’s a lot like Satan in Paradise Lost, but then not really. Mostly he can’t help but think about Lucifer in ridiculous metaphor – which, considering who his lover is, is understandable, but sometimes Sam will catch himself comparing Lucifer’s gaze to a piercing, infinite darkness that seems to weigh him down while also lifting him up, and he decides he really needs to go easy on the Byron before he starts spouting poetry. Dean would have a field day (Though Lucifer would probably be amused – Sam makes a mental note to try it sometime).
So it’s not too surprising that he’s sitting here thinking that Lucifer and God seem to have a likeness to Mary Shelley’s Monster and Dr. Frankenstein. It makes sense, in a morbid, possibly blasphemous way. The creature, a monster, rejected by its maker and twisted in its purpose, wont to destroy in its rage and hurt. The creator, experimenting with life, finding his pet creation not to his liking, his rejection of it creating a monster he is from then on plagued by.
He’s not just imagining things. Shelley was greatly influenced by Milton, and ‘Paradise Lost’. Sam’s wondering if he’ll regret this later – Lucifer hasn’t yet voiced any opinions on The Bible, or Paradise Lost, or other works he’s technically ‘in’, and Sam doesn’t know what he thinks of them. Sam’s thinking that when a day later – they’re sitting in the blanket fort, again – Lucifer turns to him and says, gesturing at the book he’s finished reading, “It’s all very familiar, isn’t it?”
Sam chooses, this time, to play dumb. “Oh? How so?”
Lucifer sees through him immediately, ofcourse, he always does now. He snorts almost imperceptibly, but plays along.
“Unwanted, monstrous creation dedicating its life to opposing the creator who rejected it for being what it was? Not ringing any bells?”
There’s a pause as he considers what to say. “I wouldn’t call you ‘monstrous’, in any sense of the term,” Sam murmurs in reply. There. Safe reply. Still time for Lucifer to change the topic, if he wants. Live up to the honorary Winchester name and not talk about it.
“You wouldn’t have said that a few years ago,” Lucifer points out. He’s being strangely calm about this, which is at odds with the unease Sam is starting to feel. He doesn’t like to think of then, the distant past, when Lucifer was another horror in the night, Cas was unreliable and Dean was drinking himself to an early grave. Now he wakes up to Lucifer’s cool fingers in his hair, Cas is his best friend and Dean cooks in an actual kitchen.
“Things are different now.”
“But I am the same. I am what I always have been. This,” Lucifer gestures around him, to encompass the Bunker, where they live in this semi-domestic bliss, or maybe the still-whole Earth, unscorched by apocalyptic fires, “doesn’t change that.”
Sam can’t think of anything to say that doesn’t sound trite or hollow. What do you say to an all-powerful, (admittedly, not so powerful anymore) timeless being who has been the cause of a lot of untold misery for millennia, who has now changed, learned to love the very creatures he once despised – or at least, one of them – when he believes he’s a monster?
Sam latches on to what he can counter right then. “You’re not unwanted.”
Lucifer gives him a look, as if to say, ‘you don’t count.’ Sam pushes away his momentary indignation to add, “No, really! Not just me, Charlie, and Cas, and Kevin, and even Dean, they’d miss you if you were gone!”
Maybe ‘miss’ is too big of a stretch, though Charlie, without the past baggage and scars, and with all her wonder at the immense knowledge he holds, would miss Lucifer, certainly. Castiel would feel the loss of his kin, the only other one there to know what it’s like to be made of concentrated love and divine wrath, barely contained within a mortal body. Dean would miss having someone to try new recipes out on (Kevin refuses, after what he calls the ‘Bagel Debacle’, to eat anything new Dean makes unless someone else has tried it first, and Sam won’t eat most of that greasy, artery-clogging stuff anyway).
Lucifer laughs softly, almost bitterly. “I have my uses. I suppose even God wouldn’t reach his monthly followers quota without the Devil, now, would he?”
Sam doesn’t like this look on him, the resigned hurt and anger, the self-dismissiveness, carefully hidden behind his façade of cool and calmness. Where is the being of glorious light and righteous fury and so, so much love, his Lucifer? He turns to face him fully.
“I’m glad you were created”, Sam says.
Beside him, Lucifer makes a sound as if to say, ‘I disagree, but I’m going to humour you because you’re cute and we sleep together.’ Sam makes a note to himself to worry about the expressiveness of Lucifer’s snorts later.
“I’m grateful, because it means we can be together now,” Sam continues.
Lucifer seems to realise he’s being serious, that he’s saying something he means, and falls silent. “I don’t know why you were created, if there even was a reason – but if there was, it’s wasn’t just to Fall, so you could be the Big Bad, or whatever. I think it was the same reason the rest of us were made – to live. Learn. Love. You said it once, I was made for you. We were made for each other. Maybe not in the way you meant back then, but it’s still true.” Sam clears his throat, laughing awkwardly. “So, I’m glad. That you were made. For me.” ‘And that should be enough for us’ lies unspoken, but Sam thinks Lucifer understands.
Lucifer looks at him, finally. “Why, Sam,” he murmurs. “Unusually straightforward today, aren’t you.” But his hand is tightly gripping Sam’s, knuckles white, as if he’s trying to convey all his love and gratitude through the simple grip. Sam grins and swiftly kisses his cheek, handing Lucifer the next book. (It’s Harry Potter.)