Chapter Text
“So tell me you’re not texting Lucifer,” Dean says, raising his head from Diamonds and Demonology: a Lover’s Approach and glaring at Sam.
Which he has every right to do, because Sam totally is texting Lucifer, and what the fuck? Who even does that? Except for his kid brother, that is. Who is a complete and utter -
“I’m not?” Sam says, but he looks guilt as hell.
Which is ironic, considering.
“Sam, for fuck’s sake,” Dean says, and now he’s standing up, because if he needs to physically go there and wrench Sam’s phone from his hands to put a stop to this thing, he will fucking do it - just watch him.
“Look, I know. But we tried everything. It’s been six weeks, and there’s no sign of him. Maybe we should try and talk to the guy, Dean.”
Dean counts to ten in his head.
“You mean the guy who rotted in a Cage for billions of years before slithering out of it and trying to destroy the world? The guy who lived inside your head and almost made you kill yourself? That guy?”
Sam juts his chin out.
“It wasn’t billions of years. If the stories are true and he's got a beef with humanity, well, modern humans have only been around for -”
“Sammy, not the fucking point.”
Sam mumbles.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Yeah, thought so.”
Still, Dean sits back down. He glances at the book he’d been reading - this chapter seems to be mostly drawings, and whoa, Dean so didn’t need to know Molech had a barbed penis - and then up at Sam again.
His stupid brother is now hiding behind his overgrown hair, and this is precisely the reason why he keeps it long, and Dean hates it.
(Nothing he can do about it, though, because even forming the words in his mind - Just cut it already - brings back nasty echoes of his dad saying the same thing to him; of his dad finally pinning him down and shaving his head after a particularly nasty hunt, because he’d been angry at Dean for almost dying and that had been his way of saying this stuff.)
So Dean doesn't say anything; he looks at Sam for another long moment instead - Sam’s sitting in his usual chair, his freakishly long legs spread out on a second chair in front of him, and he looks - God, he’s texting Lucifer and he’s doing it for him.
There are so many times Dean was a shitty brother, but this takes the cake.
Because if Dean were in any way rational about this, Sam wouldn’t need to text Lucifer. If they approached this strategically - like Cas did (presumably; hopefully) - they would leave Lucifer well alone. Best case scenario, the fucker ganks the Darkness, and worst case scenario - worst case scenario -
Yeah.
But, still, it shouldn’t matter - what matters is saving the world. Nothing else. Also looking out for Sammy, and how is this looking out for Sammy?
(It really isn't.)
(Dean should put a stop to this.)
(Right now.)
“So, has he texted back?” asks Dean, unable to help himself.
“Yeah,” Sam says, in his quiet voice of guilt. “He says, lol, fuckerz.”
Dean just stares.
“I mean, he could at least have spelled that right,” Sam adds, frowning down at the phone.
“What?”
“He used a z instead of a s, and it’s not like it’s shorter, or anything -”
“Sammy. Again - not the point, okay?”
Sam is still hiding behind his girly hair, but it doesn't really matter - Dean knows his tells, and he can see it clearly enough - the tension in Sam’s shoulders, and how carefully he’s sitting - oh, he’s feeling bad alright. And Dean needs to keep him there, because, yeah, feeling bad about being a nerd is much, much better than feeling bad about being (still) a vessel for Lucifer (about Lucifer wearing Sam's best friend and pushing a hand into his stomach and touching his soul, fucking again, just because he can), so.
“What did you say, then?”
“Nothing yet.”
“I meant, before.”
Sam scrolls back.
“We’re on the same side on this one,” he reads, dutifully. “We have a common enemy, and if she gets her way, the world as we know it will cease to exist. Let’s make a deal and take her down together.”
Dean shakes his head.
“You must stop reading that Game of Thrones crap,” he says. “You sound deranged.”
This time, Sam looks up.
“I was simply describing the situation we’re actually in,” he points out, and now Dean feels a bitter taste in his mouth, again, because this is his fault - if he hadn’t accepted the Mark of Cain in the first place - if -
There is a soft ping.
“Jesus, is that him again? What does he wants now?”
Sam stares at the screen, frowns.
“I DO WHAT I WANT,” he says. “All capitals.”
“Oh for the love of - is he busy with an Avengers marathon? Really? That’s what he’s being doing with his time?”
Sam opens his mouth, closes it again.
“Yes, I know it’s a Loki quote. Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything,” says Sam, very, very carefully, not implying, not even for a second, that Loki never actually said that - that it’s something about the comic and about Tom Hiddleston, and if Dean knows about it, it’s either because he spends a lot of time online (that’s why Sam knows about it) or because he just likes to keep up with what Tom Hiddleston does.
No, Sam is not implying anything.
He's just sitting there quietly.
Dean shuts the book with a loud noise.
“What the hell is he, drunk?” he asks, and, right on cue, his own phone pings.
“What is it?” Sam asks, after a while, and Dean is not about to say it’s a selfie of Cas (of Lucifer) making out with some guy with blue hair in what looks like a very seedy club.
He turns off the phone instead, his thumb pressing down so hard on the button he almost breaks it.
“Yeah, he’s drunk,” he says, gritting his teeth, and then he takes the thick volume about weird demonic dicks and flings it against the wall.
Sam pretends not to notice.
Dean breathes in and out a few times, and then puts his hand on the cover of the next thing on his list (Marlowe’s Ravished by Magic) and opens it at random and stares at the page until his eyes start working again and he can actually read.
So, yeah - turns out that texting Lucifer wasn’t a good plan, or even an okay plan, and it doesn’t help against Lucifer in the slightest (shocker), and yet it’s the beginning of everything.
Of him and Cas, that is, and of Sam becoming the smuggest, most superior son of a bitch ever to walk the Earth.