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If Dean had known it would destroy Sam’s life, he would have never stopped the Impala that night. The young man would have died on the side of the road, but what difference would it have made for him? Maybe it would have been more kind.
It was dark already. The sun was setting. It was raining a drizzling rain. Sam and Dean were coming back home. They were alone on the stretch of this country two lane.
The car was a wreck on the side of the road, the hood crumbled, marrying the trunk of a tree. There was smoke escaping from it and glass everywhere on the road.
Sam straightened on his seat, Dean jumped on the brake. The moment the car stopped, they were outside under the cold rain, running toward what looked more like a bunch of battered steel than a car. Dean, opened the car door that creaked so horribly in his hand, he thought it would fall. Inside, there was blood everywhere.
“I call an ambulance.”
“No time. I can barely feel a pulse. We take him in Baby.”
“You could damage his spinal cord.”
Dean could smell how scared his little brother was even under the hard rain. He didn’t have the heart to tell him there was not much to damage anymore.
They carefully pulled the guy from the driver seat. He whined still unconscious and Dean felt his heart race. The guy was in pain but it meant he was still alive.
Sam climbed in the Impala backseat and they tugged the bloody guy on him. Sam gripped him tight and supported him while Dean ran around the car and reached for the wheel.
He ignited Baby’s engine and rushed to the nearest town.
“How is he doing?”
“Not good. You have to drive faster, Dean.”
Dean could hear tears in Sam’s voice. He looked into the rearview mirror and saw his brother hug the bloody stranger tight. This one was so white, he looked already dead. Sam looked terrified.
Blood was drenching on the backseat, slipping between Sam’s fingers. It was like the more Sam tried to hold the stranger in his arms, the more he was slipping away. He was like water, Sam thought. He tugged him closer. A strong smell of blood and sweat was filling the whole car like nothing Sam ever smelt before. It was sickening and maddening. And addictive at the same time. Sam buried his nose in the stranger’s hair and inhaled deeply.
He could never explain how but at this precise moment he knew. This person dying in his arms was mate.
When Dean pulled up in front of the emergency, he jumped out of the car and ran inside the hospital. Sam stayed inside the car and whispered prayers for his alpha to survive. When the doctors finally arrived, they took him away. Sam wanted to hold him back against him but he knew it was for the best. They put him on a hand barrow and ran inside. Sam followed, Dean on his heels, until a nurse forbad them to go further.
Sam’s head was dizzy.
They stayed for hours, waiting for news. It felt like an eternity. Sam kept his eyes fixed on the doors they couldn’t go through. He could feel Dean’s worried eyes on him but he didn’t care.
A doctor finally came to them and asked for basic informations on the stranger. Sam felt utterly lost when he couldn’t provide them. His name. He didn’t even know his name. Sam broke in cries and Dean had to talk for him, as if he was a child.
“We thought he was his omega,” the doctor said to Dean, gesturing to Sam with confusion.
“No, we found the guy on the side of the road. He had an accident.”
“I’m sorry. But in this case, you have to understand that we can’t give you any information on him then.”
“Is he going to be alright?” Sam cried.
The doctor swallowed and didn’t answer. He exchanged an eloquent look with Dean and turned to walk away.
Sam felt like drifting.
Dean took him back to a seat and tugged him on his lap. His big brother hadn’t done this since Sam was a child. And Sam never acted like a weak omega before, next to his brother, since he presented. That was not something they did. But this night, in the hospital, Sam allowed himself to be held tight in Dean’s powerful arms. His strength was an anchor for Sam as Dean sang softly to his ears the old tune their mother used to sing when they were babies. Sam eventually calmed down and felt in a weird state, not awaken but not sleeping. Things blurred in his mind. Only one sense was still working fine, the most primal of all. Between the smells of detergents, of people, alphas like omegas, the smell of antiseptics and all, Sam could still smell neatly a specific mix of blood and sweat. His alpha’s scent.
Hours later, Sam was still refusing to go home. Someone came to them. Dean shook Sam’s shoulder gently to wake him up. Sam looked up to a dark haired man. They got up and the man’s face turned whiter. Sam realized he was covered in blood. The man cleared his throat and recomposed himself quickly. A real alpha posture, Sam thought. He shook their hands, presented himself as Michael and thanked them for having saved his brother.
“What’s his name?” Sam dared to speak up.
“Lucifer.”
“Can I see him?”
The guy turned his head towards Dean.
“Don’t look at my brother like he has to give his permission. He ain’t my alpha and it’s me who is talking to you,” Sam said harshly.
“My brother just comes back from a heavy surgery. The doctors aren’t optimistic. No, you can’t see him.”
Sam was about to answer something angry but Dean stopped him and spoke for him.
“I’m sorry. He didn’t want to confront you. It had been… Hard, tonight. My brother, Sam, is very stressed and worried for your brother. He seems to have taken it… Pretty strongly.”
“I can smell my brother all over you. I know what you’re trying to do and it’s surely not the time nor the place to claim anything from Lucifer. Are we clear, young omega?” Michael toned in Sam’s face.
No, they weren’t. If he thought Sam was doing it on purpose, he was wrong. His alpha was kept away from him. Sam couldn’t calm down this far from him, not knowing what they were doing to him and if he was going to be alright or not. He needed him.
The revelation nearly shook Sam from his feet. He needed his alpha. A man he never even spoke to. A man he hadn’t really met. Just someone he embraced in his arms as he needed someone to save him from dying.
He never called anybody ‘alpha’ before. ‘His alpha’ even less.
Sam stayed silent. Michael went away. Dean didn’t speak. He waited and stood by his side the time Sam needed before he could function again and go home.
………
Sam had taken three showers already but the smell wasn’t going away. He was smelling like his alpha now. Dean had remarked it. Sam saw it in his eyes when they shared a breakfast the next morning. They didn’t speak about it but when he was alone, Sam couldn’t stop from smelling himself, inhaling deeply the scent he liked more than anything now. In comparison, everything else started to fade. Everything else smelt dull.
Everything but Michael.
He smelt like Lucifer but in a wrong way. Sam could not describe it. In all honesty, Michael didn’t smell like his alpha’s blood and sweat, far from it. He smelt like fire and book dust. But to Sam’s nose he smelt like a twisted and wrong version of Lucifer’s scent. And he didn’t like it.
………
Everyday, Sam was spending his time at the hospital. The room Lucifer was in was sunny, it had a good exposure. The walls were bright white but there were colorful frames. Sam made sure there were also fresh flowers everyday. It wasn’t a very heavily medicated room if it was not for the respirator Lucifer was connected to.
Everyday, Sam read out loud for hours. He hoped Lucifer could hear him and liked the stories he picked for him. They watched TV too. One of Lucifer’s other brother told him what shows Lucifer liked. Sam found out he liked them too.
It was always hard to meet Michael. Sam prefered to go away on a walk when he was there or it always ended in bad confrontations. If it wasn’t for Lucifer’s other siblings, Sam would have been banned from coming. Hopefully, everybody but Michael seemed to understand that Sam belonged here. The nurses and doctors didn’t bother anymore to try to make him stop coming everyday.
Dean had abandoned that idea weeks ago too.
………
Someone shook Sam’s shoulder softly. The sun was setting, coloring the sky in pink and orange outside. Sam fell asleep, his hand in Lucifer’s, once again.
Raphael was bending over him. They whispered, their voice even lower than usually. Barely just a breath.
“What are you doing here, son?” They asked.
“I’m waiting for him to wake up,” Sam explained, his brain still a little fogged by his nap.
“You know he will never mate you?”
Sam didn’t understand what they meant by that. He looked at their eyes filled in tears. It was the first time he saw them cry. They were usually stronger. Maybe Raphael needed some time alone with their brother. Sometime, Sam could forgot he wasn’t the only one hurt from Lucifer’s absence.
………
Sam woke up to the sound of the rain on his window at home. It was the morning but it was pitch black outside under the heavy clouds. He stood up and felt weird, like his head was filled with cotton. He took a long and warm shower and dressed himself in comfy clothes. The one he wore when he needed to feel protected, secured and loved, when he wanted to see no one and just long in his bed all day, eating snacks, watching TV or reading books. The perfect rainy day. That kind of mood told him his heat wasn’t far.
He picked a new book on his shelf and packed it to go to the hospital. Dean wasn’t up yet. Sam made coffee. The dark brewarage started to flood in the machine, Sam inhaled deeply.
And nothing.
Fear crumpled in Sam’s spine. Something was wrong.
Sam took a big inhale once again but he couldn’t smell anything.
Panic kicked in and Sam ran.
He abandoned the coffee, the book, the bag, Dean coming down the stairs and he ran out of the house.
The cold rain hit him, soaking his clothes and falling in his eyes, warm tears mixing with it on his cheeks. Sam ran until his lungs burnt and his throat was raw, until his legs shivered threatening to not hold him anymore, but he still ran, not acknowledging the pain. The one crushing his heart was scarier anyway.
He didn’t stop in the lobby, he took the stairs because waiting for the lift would have been agonizingly long, he ran along the corridor, leaving water in his trail, making the floor slippery everywhere he went. He slid in front of the door and bursted in the room.
Sam stayed like glued to the door. The room was empty.
Slowly he walked up to the empty bed. It was made anew, like it had never served before. The machines were gone too. Like the flowers and the beautiful frames. The room was completely empty.
Sam climbed on the bed and cried.
Eventually, the bed dipped and Sam smelt him. His every presence repulsed him, but he couldn’t stop crying to make a simple move.
“He died last night. The doctors said they didn’t think he would have made it this far.”
His voice broke, Michael stopped talking for a minute. He sniveled before he spoke again.
“Sam, I think it’s thanks to you that Lucifer fought this long… Maybe he knew you were taking care of him. Maybe he could feel it too.”
Michael’s voice broke again. He didn’t talk anymore. Sam allowed him to touch him and his hands on his arm was surely the most comforting thing in the world at this moment. But it was far from being enough.
Michael covered him with something. A brown leather jacket that smelt like his alpha. Sam breathed deep in it and let his tears fall on the mattress under him. Nothing would ever smell like that again.