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Sam and Dean Winchester, plus Castiel the angel were humanity's last hope. Despite all of the odds, Sam still prayed every night.
Sam wasn’t sure who or what he prayed to, but he prayed nevertheless. Some days he thought he was praying to a God that, if he was truthful with himself, he didn’t even believe in. Sometimes he decided he was praying to a God, a higher being with total control. Sometimes he prayed for them to come out on top, to walk away from it all, bruised and battered but alive. Other days Sam prayed for the quiet to take him in his sleep.
On some days, he didn’t even praying to God. On those days, it’s Gabriel. The Archangel who gave his life to save him and Dean way back the first time he let Lucifer out. He wanted Gabriel to know most of all that he was sorry for doing it again.
One day when Sam was praying to Gabriel Dean placed his hand on his shoulder, distracting Sam from the prayer. He'd been telling Gabriel about the graffiti he'd seen last patrol, the graffiti that read ANGELS SHALL SAVE US ALL. Sam wasn’t sure if he believed the graffiti, in actuality he wanted to know who wrote it there. He wanted to meet the person with that much faith in the higher beings.
Dean just gave Sam a curt nod, telling him it was time. They'd wrangled up a few more people, there was now 6 of them now, a tiny rag tag adjuvant in the middle of a chaos worn city. There was a woman, then 2 more men. Of course, then adding the hero, the broken one, and the fallen angel into the mix. Dean told Sam it was time again, and Sam knew instantly what was happening. It was the final offence. Today was do or die.
Dean walked in front of Sam, taking him out to where the people were waiting. Sam raised a hand, blocking the sunlight from his eyes and he swore for a second that the eyes of the thin man at the back flashed gold and his heart leapt. But then he realised it couldn’t be. The man was too tall, too thin, too lost looking to be the angel Sam refused to accept he still believed in. And so they all climbed into the truck that they used, the Impala long since been broken into pieces, Sam shotgun, Dean the driver, the way it always was.
~*~
They arrived, all climbing out, most of them acting like they'd never held a gun before, twitchy trigger fingers balanced carefully in prime position for pulling and firing. Sam took the lead, because he was the least afraid. He'd been ready for years for the end to come, in some ways he'd been wistful for it, Sam was just too tired for all of this now. On some mornings he didn’t even recognise the man in the mirror who looks at him with the eyes shrouded in shadows. He didn’t recognise the man he glimpsed in the reflection on the top of the coffee he had cradled in his hands.
So he was the willing leader of the group, taking them in, pistol balanced perfectly, one foot in front of the other in impeccable form because whenever had Sam Winchester been anything other than meticulous and in his prime?
Sam found a room. A room that in any other universe would have been empty. But in this universe, the one he was in, the room wasn't empty. A familiar face stood in there, a hand coming up to swing and make the door close with a heavy slam behind him, Sam looking over his shoulder at the barred exit.
This was it, he knew it. This was his end. Maybe, just maybe he could injure the man in front of him, give the others a better chance, better than the chance he had at least. He raised the muzzle of the gun and shot 4 times, aiming for the chest, but Lucifer just laughed it off, waving his hand to pin Sam to the wall. Sam choked, air cutting off and chest heaving as he tried to breathe frantically, oxygen rapidly becoming less and less of a thing, vision clouding on the edges.
"Say yes Sam... let me walk out of this room as you, they won't suspect a thing." The voice drawled and he shook his head. No. Sam Winchester was loyal, he was loyal to the bone if not to humanity then to Dean, he couldn't betray Dean in this kind of way. He might have overpowered Lucifer once before, but something at the back of his mind told him that this time? He wouldn't find the strength to.His lips moved, forming a silent no directed right at the fallen angel, a slow and cruel laugh leaving Lucifer.
"Oh Sam..." he began, hand rising again, the constriction on his throat making him grab at his shoulders and neck at the hand that simply wasn't there, trying to tear it off. Blackness creeped closer and closer, he was going to be the first to fall, but he'd shot him a few times at least, given the others a chance to decide it was a bad idea and run, to save themselves. If he was the only causality, today was a win. Right as he thought he was about to lose consciousness, a whisper came in his ear.
Close your eyes kiddo.
He did so, unsure why he was listening to the voice, a whiteness permeating his eyelids seconds after he obeyed. The hold on his neck vanished and he crumpled, gasping loudly as he breathed in the musky air, a wet noise across the room making him desperately want to look up and see what had happening but he couldn't moved, the oxygen starvation was just too much, limbs numb and stiff. "We win." A strange voice growled, one that Sam recognised, one that he knew.
When Sam finally opened his eyes and looked up, the room was empty. No one there except Lucifer's body limp against the opposite wall. Sam crossed his legs, looking at the room in confusion. But... he'd heard? He stood, wobbling a little on his feet.
"Ga-"
"There will always be help for those who ask for it." The voice sung and Sam's eyes widened, the man who the voice belonged to appearing in front of him.
"You came..."
"You called sugar. Hello, ethereal being with an intense connection to humanity?" Gabriel raised his eyebrows at Sam, shrugging a little. Sam didn't stop to even think, he just moved forward, his hands on Gabriel's face, kissing the angel like it would be the last time, because for all he knew it would be the last time, and he kissed him so desperately he ended up out of breath again.
"Don't go, please, tell me you're real, you're real and this, all this shit is over." He stammered, thumbs stroking Gabriel's soft cheeks, the actual feeling of another human being making Sam's heart swell. It also made him realise how touch-starved he'd been since Gabriel had gone, but that didn't matter right now.
"Yeah, yeah I'm real, I'm back, but listen, I can’t beat him, I’m powered down Sam, I can’t beat him like this. I’m not big enough, strong enough. Say yes to me Sam, say yes, let me in and we can beat him together.”
Sam gazed down into the molten gold eyes of the angel that he’d fallen in love with and he nodded, whispering yes because if there was anyone in the world that Sam Winchester trusted, it was Gabriel.
It was once the light once again faded away that he realised he’d made a grave mistake. Lucifer’s body was gone from across the room, there was no more dirty blond haired man slumped seemingly unconscious there. There was an awake man however, with wide and scared eyes, looking around with blown pupils.
“I didn’t mean anything, nothing, I didn’t want to do it, please don’t make me, don’t make me kill anymore…” he whined, rocking backwards and forwards. Sam’s eyes went wide as the Grace wrapped around his mind, pushing him to the background.
Oh Sam. I didn’t think it would be that damn easy.
It wasn’t Gabriel. Of course it wasn’t Gabriel. He’d been tricked, tricked into saying yes. Lucifer’s laugh echoed in his ears as he walked out the room, slipping into Sam’s persona easily to find one of the men they’d picked up and planting a bullet in his brain. One by one they were picked off, until Sam knew. Sam knew it was him -- Lucifer - versus Dean and Castiel. He tried to close his eyes. He didn’t want to watch.
He didn’t want to watch the way Dean cradled Castiel’s body against his chest, the way the tears drew lines in the dirt on Dean’s face, or the way the light faded from Dean’s eyes as Lucifer murdered him.
Now it was just Lucifer and Sam - the only living son of each of their respective fathers. Sam felt sick as Lucifer took pride in striding around the desolate city. Gabriel hadn’t been back. Sam Winchester had never been a lucky man. Not then, and not now.