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“There is longing. So much longing. I am afraid to be so incomplete.”
-Vi Khi Nao, Fish in Exile
When he opens his eyes, he’s looking down at a waterfall in a lush forest. He just takes a moment to breathe, to listen to the water falling loudly, the quiet noise of trees rustling in the wind. He takes a few slow steps until he’s right at the ledge and looks down. He feels the wind beat against his skin, the grass in between his toes. He stands still, just looking, just feeling. He watches the way the water falls, the way it crashes to the bottom, a white, frothy cascade falling into the plunge pool. The sound envelops him and Sam feels weightless.
Somewhere behind him, several steps away, a blond man watches him watch the water.
The weight of the man’s gaze is entirely too comfortable for his liking. Too knowing. He can feel himself slipping away, and wonders what it would be like to just disappear with the wind. To float away. He closes his eyes, and sways with the breeze.
The sounds blur, and there’s a hand on his shoulder. He smiles, a gentle tug at his lips.
-
The next time he dreams, he’s in his bed in his apartment at Stanford. He lies still, and just breathes the smell of the fresh linen detergent Jess insisted they buy, the tulips he got her when she did well in her history final. The smell of her orange perfume. Sam keeps his eyes on the ceiling. It’s unmarred, as if nothing bad had ever happened there. He remembers vividly her nightgown, torn and bloody, but still he looks at the ceiling, never looking away.
Lucifer leans against the wall, his hands in his pockets. Unassuming.
“Sam,” he says, tilting his head slightly. “Sam, we don’t have to do this.”
He sounds so gentle, so sad. Sam knows they don’t have to, but it’s not like he can control his subconscious. He says nothing, just stares at the ceiling, grasping at the sheets, and waits for the flames to consume him.
-
“Sam, you were made for me. All you need to do is say one little word and the world is yours-”
“No.”
-
“I can protect Dean for you.” Lucifer says.
“I don’t need you to. The answer is no.”
-
He always dreams of Lucifer. It doesn’t have any deeper meaning, it doesn’t mean anything apart from that. He sleeps, and Lucifer is there. He’s always there. It becomes a routine, something to expect every night. It always ends the same way.
“Sam. You were made for me. Just one word, and we can be everything. ”
“No. No, I won’t say it.”
-
Once, Lucifer takes him to the ocean. The sun is so bright it’s blinding, and the sand is hot between his toes. He stands at the shore and lets the waves come up to his ankles. It feels like relief, it feels like the calm before a storm. At the point where the water meets his feet, he feels both hot and cold at the same time. The waves rise, the waves retreat. It eases something in him.
“Come here,” he says to the figure behind him.
Lucifer takes his shoes and socks off, rolls up his jeans, and joins him in the water. They stand side by side, facing the horizon. Sam reaches out and grasps Lucifer’s hand in his own.
“This is beautiful,” Sam says quietly, and closes his eyes against the golden rays of the sun and the calls of seagulls overhead. “But I won’t say yes.”
“Sam-”
“You want to destroy the world, leave it in ash and ruins. I can’t let that happen.”
“Sam. I never wanted to destroy it. I want to fix it.”
Lucifer is looking at him now, but he refuses to meet his eyes.
“If you want to fix it, then just leave it alone.”
Lucifer shakes his head, and says nothing else.
-
Sometimes he dreams about what would happen if he said yes. He doesn’t know if it’s Lucifer or his own mind playing tricks on him, but all he can see is blood and violence all around him, and all he can feel is power and grace with every thud-thud-thud of his heart. He dreams of a world covered in ash. He dreams of a white suit amongst crisp red roses, he dreams of pale blue eyes like lightning, he dreams of his own eyes. He wonders if this is what it feels like to be whole.
On nights like these, he doesn’t dream of Lucifer. He doesn’t know if that makes it better or worse.
-
He feels the weight of a hand on his shoulder, cold like ice, and he moves away. He doesn’t want to, all he wants is to lean into that comforting touch, but he can’t. He can’t. He can’t help but feel a longing for Lucifer to touch him. He wonders if Lucifer is the missing piece inside him, the gaping hole that existed for so long, that felt smaller and smaller once Lucifer was free.
“I want to give you everything.” Lucifer says.
“I told you, I don’t want anything from you.”
He thinks he’s lying.
-
“I’m sorry, Sam, but it has to be this way.”
“No. I won’t say it.”
-
“Don’t you want to be something brilliant? Something bright and pure?”
“There’s nothing pure about me and there’s definitely nothing pure about you. I just want to be normal.”
“Sam-”
“No.”
-
Lucifer takes him to the waterfall again. It’s as breathtaking as it was the first time they came here.
“It’s called the Devil’s Kettle,” Lucifer tells him. “You humans and the fascination of naming things for me.”
Sam watches as the water plunges into two pools, one stream seemingly disappearing over volcanic rock.
“Where does it go?”
“It re-surges into the stream below the waterfall.”
“It’s beautiful,” Sam says. “How can you want to destroy something like this?”
Lucifer says nothing.
-
The demons catch them off guard, and he and Dean fight tooth and nail to get out of there. They do get out, but there’s so much blood, and Dean has a nasty cut above his eye and his arm is broken, but Sam, Sam has been bruised and bloodied with a deep cut in his thigh. His wrists burn where they had him tied with rope to the support beam of a warehouse, trying to summon their Father.
Once they manage to get back to the motel after getting Dean’s arm looked at, they both flop onto the beds and don’t plan to move for several hours.
Lucifer is waiting for him. He looks furious.
“Sam-”
“Not tonight, please, Lucifer.”
It’s the first time Sam has said his name, and it feels like benediction. Lucifer walks up to the bed slowly, and the bed dips when he sits down at Sam’s feet. His eyes study him, dark and inhuman, as if cataloguing his injuries. The thud-thud-thud of Sam’s heart is the only noise in the room. Lucifer doesn’t move any closer.
“Let me heal you,” he says instead.
Sam lets his head fall back against the pillow, closes his eyes, and says, “No.”
“Please, Sam,” the Devil begs, “Let me heal you. I can’t see you in pain.”
“Then leave,” Sam says, and Lucifer looks at him one last time before leaving.
-
“They won’t touch you. You’re mine.” Lucifer says, quietly.
Sam looks at him, surprised, and says, “Um. Thank you, I think.”
Lucifer smiles, and it looks so genuine that Sam has to look away.
-
It’s been a long time since Sam had a dream uninterrupted. He finds himself unexpectedly angry, whereas before it was just the sense of prevailing sorrow and inevitability. He paces the room, back and forth, until Lucifer walks up to him and stops him with a hand on his arm.
“You’re angry,” he observes, “What is it?”
“It’s you, it's always going to be you,” Sam says, head whipping around to meet Lucifer’s eyes, “I already said I’d never say yes so why are you here? What do you want with me?”
Lucifer is silent.
“Why me?”
“I’m sorry, Sam. I want this to be over. I want it to end.”
“Then stop,” Sam looks down to the floor, his bare feet on the carpet, “Please just stop,” he pleads.
“We all have roles to play,” Lucifer says. “This, unfortunately, is mine. My Father wanted the Devil. I never had a choice: I am what he made me to be.”
He says it so softly and genuinely that Sam can’t help but drop onto the corner of the bed, put his head in his hands and weep.
-
They don’t argue anymore. They barely speak, some nights. Sam lies there, not moving, fingers twitching to reach out and touch, and Lucifer stands by the window, refusing to look at him. But his fingers twitch too.
-
Sometimes they lie side by side on a cheap motel bed and just exist near each other. Sam can feel the tension between them, the connection. He wonders if Lucifer feels it too. He longs to reach out, but he doesn’t.
-
Sam’s sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands when he feels it dip behind him, the slow crunch of springs. He lifts his head up, but he doesn’t move from where he’s sitting.
He feels a tentative hand brush through his hair, and he sighs and closes his eyes. Lucifer presses up against his back, and the feeling soothes something in them both.
“Could you stop it all? If you really wanted to?” Sam whispers.
Lucifer says nothing.
They sit there, like that, Lucifer carding his fingers through Sam’s hair, for a long, long time.
-
They’re lying side by side in the bed, and when Sam rolls over on his side, he finds Lucifer already looking at him. Sam just settles in, curling up beside the angel, who is lying flat on his back with his head turned towards him. Lucifer turns over, fitting himself in beside Sam.
Lucifer reaches a hand out to Sam, and Sam doesn’t flinch when it rests on his cheek, just looks away. Lucifer brushes a thumb under Sam’s eye, and Sam didn’t realise he was crying until just then.
“Sam,” Lucifer says, so quietly, and Sam drags his eyes up to Lucifer’s, and watches as Lucifer’s eyes flicker down to his mouth for just a moment. Their mouths are so close, Sam can almost taste him. Lucifer’s hand slides into his hair, gently pushing strands behind his ear. “ Sam .”
Their lips brush, just a gentle touch, but it’s enough. They kiss like they were starving before, as if the only breath they can get is from each other’s lungs. Sam is the first to pull away, his still bright with tears.
“I can’t, Lucifer, I can’t,”
Because you are who you are and I am who I am.
“Sam, everything I do, I do for you. Once, I told you I would give you everything,” Lucifer says.
Tears slip down Sam’s face.
“I would give it all up for you. If you would have me. If this is what you want.”
Sam breathes out shakily and looks into Lucifer’s eyes. All he can see is that unfathomable sadness, something that might be grief, and something that just might be hope. He presses his lips against Lucifer’s again briefly, and says, “This is what I want. I just want you. No apocalypse. Just you.”
“I have been waiting for you for a long time,” Lucifer says. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Yes, Sam. Yes .”