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This must be the Empty, where souls go and don't come back from. The darkness, the quiet, the cool. No eyes left to open to see that he floats now in nothingness. Peace. Finally.
No, not peace, not perfect quiet. There's the soft drip of water, the creaking and whooshing of a fan overhead, and the louder thudding of his heart, louder every second, until sensation returns to his finger, his toes, his blood cold with adrenaline and fear, Dean's name still dying on his lips. He is ripped back into consciousness with a gasp.
Alone. He is alone. He remembers his throat being ripped out, the long nails of feral vampires digging into his arms, through the canvas of his jacket, straining against them, towards Dean. Dean was held back, calling after him. He remembers the pain, sharp and sudden, their teeth in his neck, and then he remembers nothing at all, except for a few seconds between death and resurrection of quiet stillness. He has to get back to Dean, to find Mom and Jack. So he doesn't dwell on the quiet. He doesn't dwell on his resurrection or that he's alone. Surely there are demons and angels enough to make deals with here, and it will be a problem to solve when he's with Dean again.
Sam stops to pick up his pack, his skin prickling enough that he shouldn't be so surprised when Lucifer crawls out of the shadows.
He doesn't scream. His childish shock is enough to knock Lucifer back on his heels with laughter, a funny gag that leaves Sam gasping for breath, a scream bubbling up in his chest, but he stops himself from screaming
"Hey, Sammy."
"No."
Sam likes to pretend he can see Lucifer’s face behind Nick's. He can't, not really, but Lucifer is laughing at him, familiar and juvenile and Sam can taste his heart in his mouth, and it's easier for Sam to imagine Lucifer's real face hiding behind Nick's. After Cas, it's been easier. Sam's laid awake thinking of Cas' face, the expression, the eyes, and the way he should have known. When Chuck and Lucifer commandeered the Bunker in their fight against the Darkness, it was impossible to pretend that it was Cas. He could see his wings, he thought sometimes, see the sharpness of his expression. Once, Lucifer cornered him in the kitchen and winked at him with Jimmy Novak's face, and for a split second, Sam thought he had dropped the ruse, pulled back the curtain just a little to let Sam see a peak of the true awfulness of him, but Chuck came around the corner whistling, and Sam felt stupid, ridiculous for the way he was bracing himself against the counter. Chuck didn't say anything to him, didn't even acknowledge his presence, but Sam was grateful all the same.
“Yeah, I mean, you could do the whole pinch yourself, rub your eyes thing,” Lucifer drawls. He’s not even looking at Sam. Sam’s brain is running about thirty seconds behind, trying to clear the death from his brain, but he still has room for indignation. That Lucifer is here — why is here? why is it that every time Sam turns around there he is, smirking at him? — but still won’t look Sam in the eye. “Or you could put on your big boy pants and just, you know, cut right to the realization that yep, it’s me.”
It’s him. It’s always, always him. Here in this cave, in another world, another reality, after Sam’s death. Sam doesn’t want to think about it, but the images come anyway — Lucifer following their same tracks, easy as breathing, following Jack or maybe, worse, following Sam because how could he always be with Sam if he doesn’t always know where Sam is. Crouching down next to Sam’s lifeless body, brushing his hair out of his face; he imagines the care Lucifer could have taken with him in that moment — did he bend down and kiss Sam’s forehead as he’s done countless other times, did he touch Sam in ways that Sam would have resisted if he had been alive? Did he laugh? And then, finally, he must have touched Sam on the forehead, pulled Sam’s battered soul back from wherever it is that souls like Sam’s go when they die in a world that doesn’t belong to them. He — he — “You brought me back to life?” Sam gasps, trying to catch his breath.
There is something horrible about it, about how the next word on Sam’s lips should be thank you, how Lucifer is still smirking at him, no, he’s grinning, like this isn’t just funny but pleasant. “I did. You’re welcome,” he says, and his tone is gentle.
“Why?”Lucifer is talking, but Sam’s brain is finally catching up to the reality of what’s happening here. Lucifer didn’t just waltz through an already opened rift and stumble upon him. He came here, the same way that Sam remembers him doing everything else, even in the nothingness of the Cage — with a purpose, which means people got hurt. People like Rowena, back home, waiting for them, and their only way back. If Lucifer is here, and Rowena is there then — “The rift. The rift. Rowena —”
He’s stumbling over his words, trying not to picture the state of the Bunker, Rowena’s guts spilled over the floor, or panic, but he can’t. Lucifer sneers at him, but he keeps his tone gentle like Sam’s some kid who needs coddling. Sam thinks, somehow, he’s struck a nerve. “She’s okay,” he says in that same soothing tone. “I mean I was gonna kill her,” he muses. Rowena. Lucifer — he can’t stand that, that she’s okay, that she’s still alive and unharmed. Worse — he can’t stand that Sam cares about her. Sam doesn’t care about her. He thought he didn’t care about her, but he can’t deny the wave of relief that washes over him. “She blasted me here before I had a chance to, so…” Lucifer shrugs. “It’s great — self defense. But, uh, I was coming here anyway.“ Lucifer shrugs.
“But we drained you,” Sam chokes.
“So how did I have the juice to pull off my little Lazarus trick? That's a long story, but I was basically tracking you here, and then I came across a handful of Michael's angels and I... ate them.” Lucifer chuckles to himself. “I guess it's not really a long story, is it?”
“What do you want?” Sam manages, his heart still pumping fast and hard in his chest. He stands as still as he can though, frozen between his instincts — to get as far away from Lucifer as possible and to not draw his attention or his ire. Lucifer doesn’t even seem to notice, rambling on about God and reality TV of all things. Sam can’t stand it, adrenaline sick and angry. Angry only in the way that Lucifer can make him nowadays. “Yeah, got it,” he says shortly, not caring if Lucifer is done talking. He stoops to pick up his flashlight and his bag, discarded at his feet, dropped or ripped from him when he was —
“Are you going?” Sam turns to see Lucifer’s outstretched hand and it takes all his strength not to recoil away from it. It’s only a flashlight, offered in what can only be the facsimile of kindness, of generosity. Lucifer is a lot of things but he’s rarely kind, and never generous. Sam doesn’t take it. Lucifer gestures with it and Sam sets his jaw. “Here. It’s dark out there,” he says softly, no hint of threat in his voice, but Sam won’t take anything from him. Not anything else, at least not willingly. Sam clicks his own flashlight deliberately, which makes Lucifer chuckles softly under his breath, like Sam’s a toddler who is insisting that he can tie his own shoes even though they both know he can’t. Despite Sam’s instincts he turns his back to Lucifer, the flashlight beam illuminating the hungry, feral faces of the vampires who killed him.
Sam reels back, trapped between certain death and hungry vampires. Lucifer is laughing at him again.
“Yeah, they’re sorta...sorta all over there, and I’m holding them back. They’re just waiting for a little snap of my fingers, but I didn’t want them flooding in her and eating you again, not until we finished our convo,” he says.
He can’t take this, not any more. Lucifer’s horror movie gags and blasé attitude. Lucifer came here, followed him for miles. “What do you want!?” Cold fury pumps through him now. Lucifer’s sneer broadens, but Sam doesn’t cower, doesn’t fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness. Lucifer wants something. He wants something. As long as he wants something from Sam, he’ll treat him with — if not gentleness, at least Sam won’t end up choking on his own guts.
“I want what you already have,” he says. Lucifer swarms towards him, pulling himself up to his full height, jealousy written all over his face. Sam doesn’t cower, grabbing onto this sentiment, holding it close like it will keep him safe. What does Sam have that Lucifer doesn’t? “A relationship with my son.” Sam’s heart sinks. Jack. Sam would do anything to keep Lucifer away from Jack, and Lucifer knows it, that’s why he’s here, practically on his knees begging. “There was a time that I would, you know, just grab him, but... I've grown.”
“I'm sure you have.”
“I have, Sam,” he entreats. “I want my son, and you're gonna help me.”
There’s no chance in Hell, or Earth 2.0 or wherever they are at least, that Sam is going to willingly help Lucifer, especially in his quest for Jack. Whatever he wants out of Jack, Sam doubts it’s a relationship, or at least not one that Sam’s willing to let Jack experience. Relationships with the Devil…
Sam scoffs.
“Well, I don’t feel like he’ll give me a chance unless I come bearing gifts,” Lucifer muses, reading Sam’s mind. He laughs. It’s not Sam’s mind he’s reading, it’s his expression. He can feel it, his face drained of blood, his mouth open in slack jawed terror. He can’t help it. Lucifer laughs at his terror. He always, always, finds Sam fear of him amusing. “Yup. You.” He reaches out to touch Sam, but Sam recoils away. Fighting. Always fighting. Never knowing which action will make this worse, but knowing that Lucifer’s hands are dangerous, even when they aren’t actively hurting him. He sighs. “Look, Sammy, I'm — I'm not asking you to like it or to like me. All I'm asking is that you acknowledge the truth, that I was the one who brought you back to life, that I was the one who lifted you from the darkness and into the light.” Lucifer keeps laughing. Sam can taste bile in his mouth. It’s always him. Forever and ever, in perpetuity. At the end of time, Lucifer will be there, standing over his rotting corpse, knotting him back together and saying is that anyway to treat the only person who’s ever really cared for you, Sammy? “Okay?” He’s entreating. He’s laughing. “Apocalypse World, Michael's armies — you really think you and your family can handle that stuff alone? You need me. ”
Sam can already see it — Lucifer breaking him to pieces, and then stitching him back together until Sam breaks. And he will. He has. Not even Sam’s love for Jack will stop this. Worse, Sam thinks, is Lucifer leaving him here, turning up to find Jack —and he will, one way or another. If Lucifer found him in this bombed out world, he can find his own son. Turning up on his knees to Jack and saying I’m sorry, kid. I tried to save Sam, I really did. But they drained me, your old man. If they hadn’t, maybe then I coulda saved him. I’m sorry.
And worst of all, he imagines Lucifer saving them, taking on Michael, annihilating every last archangel in the universe until he stands alone among them, easy as a shrug of his shoulders, triumphant and glorious, smirking at Sam with his true face. Told you you guys needed me, he’ll say, and Sam will have no choice but to fall to his knees and worship him, in front of everyone. Still. He’s never done anything without a fight.
“And what if I say no?”
Lucifer steps into his space, and Sam’s blood curdles, but he bites his lip, sets his jaw in defiance. “All right, let me just make this really, really, really easy,” Lucifer says, tone dark and threatening. This is familiar, this is Lucifer, at last. “Easy enough for even you to understand, Sammy. I’m getting to Jack, one way or the other. The only question is are you coming with?” Sam wants to say no, but Lucifer swings his flashlight back to the hoard of vampires. Cowardice, fear. Terror. He’s died once today already. He won’t stay dead. He’s never stayed dead. He imagines a sisyphean eternity of being chewed by feral vampires until he’s nothing but marrow, still being devoured. “Your move, champ.”
There is no other move. There is only Lucifer.
Sam stumbles into the light, Lucifer behind him. The Devil pauses, sunning himself in the light of the dying sun. Sam doesn’t stop. Lucifer told him to lead him to Jack, so that is what Sam is going to. He’s not going to wait for the Devil, for Lucifer. It doesn’t phase Lucifer. In a few steps, Lucifer is next to him again, stopping just short of draping an arm over Sam’s shoulders. He’s talking, but Sam can’t hear him, drowned out by the rushing of blood in ears. The Devil chattering, talking his ear off. Sam stops himself from shuddering, of reliving the eternity (plus one real, terrible year) he’s lived with just this. Instead he focuses on Jack, how to explain his father to him, how to apologize to his own mother for leaving her here for so long, how explain this failure to Dean —
“How do you think Dean’s taking this?” Lucifer laughs, his voice suddenly cutting through the static in Sam’s brain, reading Sam’s mind, like always. He laughs sharply. “Frankly, I’m surprised I didn’t find two Winchester bodies in that cave. Guess that loyalty only cuts one way.”
“Dean has a mission,” Sam cuts back dryly. Mechanically. Keep going, don’t think of the things they’ve done to keep the other from Death. “Our Mom. Jack.”
“Oh yes, Jack,” Lucifer agrees. “Not that Dean really cares about Jack. Not that he could care about something like Jack. That’s the problem with Dean.” Lucifer lets his gait bring him inches closer to Sam so that they’re shoulders a brushing. “He’s afraid of that power. Power like mine. Like Jack’s. Like yours.” Lucifer all but waggles an eyebrow at Sam, but Sam won’t take the bait. He can’t. Dean’s proved himself to Sam too many times. It’s Sam, always, who lets Dean down. “That’s probably why Dean let you die.”
“Dean didn’t let me die.” Dean didn’t let Sam die. He saw his face, ashen white with the realization that Sam was a goner, saw him fighting Cas. The priority right now is getting back to them, help Dean rescue Mom and Jack. Get to Dean before he does anything stupid.
“Whatever you say, Sammy,” Lucifer says lazily. “But remember, it wasn’t Dean who raised you from the dead this time.” He steps in front of Sam’s path now, pointing to himself emphatically. Sam shudders to a halt, a hair from Lucifer’s finger. Lucifer smirks at him. “It was me.” Sam is staring between Lucifer’s finger, now pressing into Sam’s chest, an icy point at his heart, and Lucifer’s face, contorted into a mean little smirk. He collects himself. Lucifer won’t hurt him, not as long as he wants to get to Jack, and all this talk about Dean — water under the bridge between them. He pushes past Lucifer who laugh at him, trailing after him, the Devil on his shoulder. “I mean, you tell yourself that Dean doesn’t care that you’re a freak, or that what —your powers are just, poof, gone?” Sam ignores him. It’s easy enough to do when he’s just talking, prattling on at him. He’s had a lot of practice. “But this whole time, the way he looks at Jack, talks about Jack? It’s the way he still looks at you.”
“And how would you know?” Sam snaps. He keeps his eyes down, but Lucifer is still laughing at him. Sam will always remember this laugh — Nick’s laugh, he supposes. It haunts him, follows him around, rattles knocking around his skull. Sometimes, he had thought he heard it in the Bunker or at a crowded diner, and he would look up, heart hammering madly in his chest, only to see Dean, just Dean, pretending he didn’t notice the wild look in Sam’s eyes, and he would talk until the world stopped swimming around them. But now — Lucifer is here, possessing that poor, dead bastard’s body and laughing at Sam.
“Sammy, Sammy, Sammy,” Lucifer chides. “You know I couldn’t help but take a peak inside your brain. I take up an awful lot of space there. I don’t know if I should be honored or creeped out.” Sam grits his teeth, and Lucifer ignores his discomfort. Pretends to ignore his discomfort; Sam can tell by the smug way he walks, now in lockstep with him, that Lucifer is, in fact, taking a lot of pleasure in Sam’s discomfort. In some ways, that, itself, is comforting. Familiar. Sam can focus on that, on the ground in front of him, on getting to Jack, and Mom, and Dean, and not Lucifer digging around in his brain. “Who’s to say I would have even bothered bringing Dean back?” Lucifer muses. Sam stumbles as he imagines waking up to Dean dead next to him, trapped in a parallel dimension with no one but the Devil for company. “I mean, you two are pathetic. Your death pacts and martyrdom. And Dean’s no good to me. He never was. He just gets the way.”
Sam clenches his jaw. If he speaks now he’s afraid of what Lucifer will do, or what he won’t do. Of what Sam, himself, might say. There’s a long journey ahead of them, and no telling what they’ll face when they even reach the camp. Sam can’t even think of what he’ll say to Jack, to Dean. Lots of time for Lucifer to get under Sam’s skin, lots of time for him to figure out better ways to make Sam suffer. Lucifer shrugs at Sam’s silence, and Sam’s blood runs cold knowing that Lucifer knows all this too. Of course he does. He’s been Sam, Sam’s been him, they spent eternity trapped together, and just a few hours ago, the Devil was rooting around in Sam’s skull. None of it matters. Sam keeps walking.
Sam walks for twelve straight hours. It’s a miracle what a human body is capable of, under duress. Lucifer speaks to him the whole time, and this alone, is enough incentive to keep Sam moving, always just a hair out of Lucifer’s reach. Not that it would make a real difference. Lucifer consumed a horde of Michael’s angels without breaking a sweat (he has told this story in excruciating detail six times, each time focusing more on the harm he has planned for Rowena when they get back), and he brought Sam back to life. He could atomize Sam with a snap of his fingers, and this would be the kindest thing he could do to Sam, who wonders if that kind of destruction to his body would also, finally, destroy his soul.
He won’t though. Sam’s nothing more than a bargaining chip to get at Jack. This thought makes something ugly inside Sam curdle with jealousy. After all this time, all their time together, since he managed to worm his way into Castiel and out of the Cage, Lucifer has barely paid Sam any attention. Sam was never anything to Lucifer. Nothing more than a tool, a warm body to possess, a weapon and scared little boy to manipulate. Their eternity together meant nothing to him. Sam could have been anyone, and the tortured bestowed on the Devil’s prisoner would have been the same. But Sam had believed, had convinced himself, that it was personal for Lucifer. It had felt personal. It still feels personal, the way he jabs at him now, walking, walking, walking. Sam thinks he’s owed that, that Lucifer thinks about him at least a fraction of the amount of time that Sam thinks about Lucifer. He doesn’t. All their time together, all that torture and pain, all the moments of comfort, tenderness, those shameful moments Sam turned to the Devil because there was no one else, the real, bottomless horror of the Cage that he can never, ever explain to Dean — Dean, who is a lot of things, who understands so much of Hell, especially the things that don’t make sense about it, the evil it breeds inside of you as unspeakable evil is being done to you, but who has always been able to keep his priorities straight when it came to their enemies; he’s had to, since Sam knows that he can’t. Meg. Ruby. The the Devil himself. There are no depths Sam couldn’t sink to.
Still. It made it more bearable to think on, when he remembered, when he was reminded, like this morning, the morning before maybe, in the kitchen with Castiel, explaining the necessity of dealing with Lucifer, the dark pit of shame expanding in his stomach, like the Devil whispering in his ear, over his shoulder like Sam imagined he would if he was ever loose in the world with only Sam for company, to think that Lucifer cared about Sam. Hated him, wanted him dead or worse, but still. Cared about him. He doesn’t. Lucifer is still talking. He switches between his plans for Jack (which range from the laughably benign to the horrifyingly gruesome) and reality TV, and Sam knows, finally, after centuries, that Lucifer doesn’t care. Not about anything, but certainly not about Sam. The thought levels him, sends his vision spinning. It’s so destabilizing that the next thing he knows he has a mouthful of dried leaves and mud, and an eyeful of Lucifer’s face.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, Sammy,” he says, hauling Sam back up to his feet. “Not as strong as you once were.”
“I need to rest.” Sam’s voice is hoarse and distant to his own ears. It hurts to speak and he realizes how dry his mouth is.
Lucifer hauls him to his feet. “No,” he says, voice ice. He crushes Sam’s hand in his, and Sam feels his bones shattering, but their faces are so close that Sam can feel Lucifer’s breath hot on his face that he cannot cry out. “What you need is to do as I say. And I say — bring me to Jack.”
“You don’t need me,” Sam says as Lucifer draws back. Sam gingerly draws his hand close to his chest. “I mean — you said. You could lie to Jack, say you weren’t strong enough.”
Lucifer scowls deep and poisonous at him. “Oh, sure, I could win Jack over eventually, but I don’t just want him to like me, I want him to owe me.” Oh Sam knows. He knows what it is to be in debt to the Devil, and he can’t find a way out of this for Jack. If he could, one tiny loophole…
“Besides,” Lucifer says. “You know, this whole world is on archangel lock down. Sure I could find the camp, but I wouldn’t be able to get in.” The loophole. Sam’s stomach sinks. Because all Sam can do is lead Lucifer astray for as long as possible until Lucifer catches on, and then, well, Hell Hath No Fury, et cetera, et cetera. “Ah-ah,” Lucifer chides. “If I find the camp without you, Sammy, you know what I’ll do to all those people. And I’ll start with your bitch of a mother. Skin her alive, maybe? Draw and quarter? Or is that too medieval?”
“Fine,” Sam sneers. “But I’m still — Jack isn’t going to be too happy.” He raises his broken hand. “Bruised packaging.”
“You’re so fragile,” Lucifer snorts, pressing his palm to Sam’s forehead. Sam braces himself for something horrible, but instead Lucifer’s grace washes through him, cool and refreshing. His mouth isn’t so dry and the headache forming behind his eyes fades a little. The bones in his hands reform, crunching a little. “Better, princess?” Sam doesn’t say anything to him. He feels refreshed. It isn’t right. Deep down, Sam knows that none of this is right, but this is Lucifer’s show. It always has been. “Then keep walking.”
A mile from camp, Lucifer points Sam in the right direction. “You first.”
So Sam walks. Bone tired, limping. He hears, distantly, commotion, and then sirens. People stop in their tracks to watch him, and there is Dean, voice hoarse with disbelief, with grief, with relief, and his mother, who is as whole as he’s ever seen her. Dirty and war-weathered, but the same, in so many ways, as Sam always imagined her. Better. Better, because she’s real and more complicated, more prickly and unsure of herself than she ever was in Sam’s fantasies, but real — alive and his mother, a mother who was pulled out of time and tasked with understanding men who can’t even understand themselves. But she’s there, and Sam, who can’t face the reality of what he’s towing behind him, goes to her, somehow knows that she won’t hate him for this evil that’s been his burden since he’s been six months old. She embraces him and he lets her, lets her feel his muscles quivering with exhaustion, and he wishes, not for the first time, or the last, that he wasn’t so tall, that he could shrink back down the baby she left behind.
Sam shrinks into the background when Lucifer makes his appearance over the hill, behind Dean, behind his mom. She’s braver than all of them in the face of ultimate evil. When Lucifer talks, Sam shrinks, flinches at the familiar sound of his name in the Devil’s mouth. They all know now, who he is, what he is, to the Devil. He brought him here, to these people. Mary reaches out and grabs his hand, squeezes it, and he lets his mother keep him upright while Dean argues with the Devil, gets in his face and screams, still hot from Sam’s death.
Jack disappears, and the band dissipates in a frenzy. Lucifer smirks at him over Dean’s shoulder. Mary squeezes Sam’s hand harder. “Are you okay?” she asks softly, her other hand rubbing his arm. He has the same instinct he’s had since the moment she’s been back, to grab her and shake her, scream: don’t you see what I am? But even now, Mary doesn’t quite flinch away from him, understands him, this, in some way. Maybe because she spent some time with Lucifer, stuck here, or maybe because she thinks she’s the one who started all of this. She isn’t really. It isn’t her fault. Not like it’s Sam’s.
“Yeah,” Sam breathes. “I’m — I have to —we don’t have much time.” That’s what Lucifer just said. Thirty hours, give or take. Time wasted on the walk, time Sam wasted arguing with him.
“Hey, Sammy,” Mary whispers, not wanting to draw too much attention. “Go get cleaned up. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
Sam finds himself on the collapsing porch on what, at one point, must have been a nice house. Now it’s derelict, rotting, but sturdy enough to serve as HQ for this band of hunters and refugees in a war Sam and Dean barely managed to stop in their own world. He’s staring at his phone, the timer the only thing it’s good for here. Dean finds him, and Sam, defeated, turns to see his stony face. He’s pissed, and it’s Sam’s fault.
“I’m — I’m sorry about all this. I —”
“Are you good?” Perfunctory, short-tempered. A wellness check.
Sam doesn’t know how to answer this question, so he says, “I’m alive,” instead.
Dean wastes no time. There’s nothing he can do except fold Sam into his arms, and Sam doesn’t want it now. They have to go, get Mom and Jack out of here. Have to find Jack. Have to deal with Lucifer. Dean is shaking, but he grips Sam tighter, and Sam lets go a little, just enough to enjoy the comfort of this, of knowing that Dean’s here, angry but not with him, and pretend that he can believe he’s safe in Dean’s arms. It’s been almost a decade of pretending just that, he can manage for twenty seconds without falling apart.
“What are we gonna do about Lucifer?” Dean asks, like he, too, can read Sam’s mind.
“I’ll handle it,” he says weakly. Dean gives him that look, that — that infantilizing look. But he doesn’t understand it. Sam’s mess. Sam has to clean it up. “I will. Let me handle it.”
“Okay,” Dean concedes. They have bigger fish to fry right now. “Listen. Sammy — your clothes.”
He says it like he’s only just noticing it. Sam laughs hollowly. “I liked this shirt.” At least this makes Dean laugh too.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.”
“No, Dean, come on,” Sam says. They don’t have time. It took almost four days to get here. They don’t have time for Sam to get changed. “We’re kinda…in the middle of something, you know.”
“Sammy, you’re — you’re covered in your own blood,” Dean points out. Sam swallows. For Dean. He knows too well what it feels like to look at your brother’s blood. “Sam, please,” he begs, but Sam’s already taking off his jacket. Lucifer is watching them, Lucifer is always watching them, and he whistles at Sam and Sam’s heart jumps, his already shaking hands getting tangled in the fabric of his coat. He can see Dean’s jaw clench at the gesture, at Sam’s flinch, and so Dean takes matters into his own hands and steers Sam away from prying, evil eyes. Sam doesn’t mind. Dean doesn’t steer him wrong, sits him down and begins undressing him. Sam’s body catches up to what’s happening too late — he’s too busy thinking about where Jack ran off too and how little time they have, and what he’s going to say to Jack once they do find him, that Dean’s got half of Sam’s buttons undone before Sam even realizes. When Sam swats him away, Dean wanders a little distance to find clean-ish clothes to wear. He sets the clothes on the cot next to Sam and then he starts wiping the blood from Sam’s face. Sam lets him. What is he supposed to do? Everything inside him is warring, and strongest of all is his desire to get away from Lucifer, a world away. Stronger than saving Mom, and Jack, or even letting Dean take care of him. He wants to leave this place, wants to be where he isn’t. But he has to be here with him, has to work with him, has to let Lucifer save him. Fine then. Dean’s hands are warmer than anything else in this whole damned world, and his mind keeps wandering to horrible possibilities — Michael finding Jack, or worse, Lucifer finding Jack — and remembering the kinds of thing Lucifer would say to him, do to him. Dean’s hands on his face and chest are doing their best to anchor him in the here and now. The incredibly suck here and the horribly bleak now. But Dean is here. And Sam is here with Dean, so it will be enough. It has to be enough for the next thirty-one hours. Thirty one, quickly dwindling hours.
“This is so fucked up,” Dean hisses. Sam jumps, startled by Dean’s voice. Dean holds up his hands in lieu of an apology. An unnecessary one. It’s not Dean’s fault that Sam’s like this, that he’s afraid of his own brother’s voice.
“I gotta find Jack,” Sam tells him hoarsely.
“We got people out looking for Jack,” Dean counters. “I’m almost done.” Dean’s scrubbing the rag in the cranny of his collarbone where blood pooled, gently like he’s afraid of hurting Sam. It makes it better if Sam imagines them in a different time and place. A motel twenty-five years ago where Dean is doing a haphazard job of cleaning off his skinned knees after Sam fell off the bike Dean stole, too big for Sam and too small for Dean. Midnight in the woods after a hunt gone well, Sam moody and fourteen and covered in werewolf gore, dreaming of a world where he doesn’t have to worry about all this. Fantasies. Fantasies about fantasies. Dean steps back a second to let Sam get dressed.
“Are we done?” Sam asks.
Dean doesn’t answer. He moves to clean the blood from Sam’s jaw line. So gentle, so tender, that Sam can’t help but imagine a different life altogether. Dean and he, alone in the bunker in blissful solitude, his mother performing her normal maternal duties she and Sam missed out on, wiping his face, his nose. He has some hazy memories of Dean doing that for him. As tender as Dean stooping down on Sam’s first day of kindergarten to tie Sam’s shoes for him. He can’t cry, because if he starts he won’t stop. But he wants to. Thinking about all of it.
“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean says, almost to himself, but Sam can always hear him, and Sam can almost always believe it when he says it. “Good as new, huh?” Rough thumb against his cheek, wiping away a stray tear that Sam didn’t allow himself to shed.