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No rock music blared from the room. The hallway was quiet now. Good a time as any, Sam figured, to try Lucifer’s door again. Wait, no. Not Lucifer’s door. This was his room, damn it, not Satan’s.
“Lucifer? Can I come—”
The door swung open.
“—in?”
Lucifer stood in the doorway, eyeballing him and . . . well, looking completely unimpressed.
God, how could he wear Cas’s vessel but look so different from Cas? And why did he look more at home in that vessel than Cas ever had?
Sam tried to wrap his mind around that, but it would never make sense to him. Cas loved humans but didn’t understand them. So he always seemed stiff and awkward in his vessel. Lucifer hated humans, but understood them all too well, so he could pass for one without even trying.
Something about that equation was entirely too fucked up.
Lucifer grinned as he leaned up against the door frame. “You’re right. I do wear this vessel better than Castiel does.”
“Don’t do that.” Sam pitched his voice low, to show just how serious he was. “Don’t dig around in my head.”
But the devil just laughed. “Don’t worry—your thoughts are written right on your face. But, for your information, Castiel is much more human than you think. And way more human than me.”
Sam had to force himself not to raise his eyebrows. He wanted to keep his expression as neutral as possible.
Lucifer didn’t seem to notice. “He’s not exactly neuro-typical, I’ll grant you that much. But a lot of humans aren’t. And Castiel—he understands the small picture. The way he’s so pathetically devoted to an ape like Dean? That’s because he sees him as this cherished, unique individual. Humans aren’t just a teaming mass of roaches to him.”
“Which is what we are to you.”
“Pretty much, yeah.” Lucifer stepped to the side and motioned Sam in. “Except that I like roaches better. Last time I checked, they hadn’t set off any nukes, strained the earth’s resources or kicked off global warming.”
Sam smiled a little as he moved inside—he couldn’t help it. “All right. That’s fair. But we’re trying to save the whole earth right now. The humans, the cockroaches, everything.”
“True.” Lucifer closed the door and leaned back against it. “Is that why you’re here? Did my Father send you to plead with me? Or to make me see reason?”
“No, He didn’t send me. But, listen. If He agreed to sit down and talk, would you?”
“Has He agreed?”
“Not yet,” Sam admitted. “Dean’s talking to him right now. But say He does. Are you on board?”
Lucifer didn’t answer. He stared at Sam instead—a deep, probing stare. Shit, Sam wanted to squirm now.
“How do you do it, Sam?”
Sam took a seat on the edge of his bed. “Do what?”
“How do you stay so unattached?”
“Unattached? Lucifer, I don’t know what you mean.”
“Do you hate your father?”
“What? No.”
“Do you hate my Father?”
“No.”
“That’s what I mean. You should hate both of them.” He paused to laugh a little—a mocking, despairing kind of laugh—as he put his hands on his hips. “They both rejected you, abandoned you, left you to fend for yourself. I mean, neither of them locked you in a cage for millennium, so there’s that . . . oh, but you did end up in the Cage. How could I have forgotten?”
Sam took a deep, slow breath. “Is that how you feel? Rejected and abandoned?”
“You know, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this isn’t about me.”
“Really?”
“Really. I want to know how your brain works, Sam Winchester. I want to know how you get through every day without despising your father for raising you like he did. For turning his back on you when you ran off to college. For telling your older brother to be prepared to kill you—you know, just in case that whole demon-blood thing went south.”
“Dude, you’ve been inside me. Like, literally inside me. Haven’t you seen all my memories?”
“I have. And yet, I still don’t know why you’re so low drama. You’re not lying, Sam—I get that. You really don’t hate your father. Or mine. But I don’t understand how that’s possible.”
Sam hesitated, but only for a second. “If I answer, will you sit down and talk with your Dad?”
He laughed again—but it wasn’t such an ugly laugh this time. “Sure. Why not?”
“The Christmas when I was eight.”
Lucifer blinked. “What?”
“I don’t know if you remember seeing that in my brain. Hell, I don’t remember it much. But that’s when it happened.”
“When what happened?”
“We were in some cheap hotel room—me and Dean, I mean—waiting for our dad to come back. He was supposed be on time for Christmas, you know? But he wasn’t. And I had . . . I had this present all ready for him.”
“Sam, this isn’t exactly a riveting story. Are you sure it’s going to reveal your secret?”
“Look, you’re the one who asked.”
“A thousand pardons.” Lucifer pretended to stifle a yawn. “Continue.”
“I knew our Dad wouldn’t make it back for the holiday, like he promised. I knew it and I understood it. So I—uh, I’m not sure how to explain it. I just decided not to care. Then I gave the present to Dean instead.”
“You just—is that the whole story?”
“Yes.” Okay, there was also the whole amulet side of things, but there was no reason to go there right now. “I remember that exact moment. Dad wasn’t coming back on time—maybe he was never coming back at all—but it was . . . it was okay. I was going to be okay without him.” He locked eyes with Lucifer. “And I loved the guy. Don’t get me wrong. I really did. Still do. But I never cared again.”
“Not even when he turned his back on you over the college thing?”
Sam grinned. “Oh, I was angry as hell. And all self-righteous, you know? That’s a teenager thing. But it didn’t hurt me the way it should have.”
“Because you didn’t care.”
“Right. Not like that.”
Lucifer stared at him. No, it was more like his eyes were probing him again. “You care about Dean, though.”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“But not like he cares about you.”
“What?” Sam blinked. “No, that’s not true.”
“Yes it is.” There was no judgment in Lucifer’s voice, but his eyes were suddenly far off. “I’m sure he’s the most important person in the world to you. But he loves you way more than you love him. You’re probably not capable of loving anyone like that.”
“Lucifer—”
“I mean, how the fuck did I even end up with you as my true vessel?” Lucifer shrugged his arms expansively. “It must be an opposites-attract kind of thing.”
“Look—”
“I don’t like Dean, but I understand him.” Lucifer stared straight at Sam again. Straight at him and straight into him. “You—I don’t know you at all. The hatred I have for my Father . . . I can’t just turn that off.”
Sam swallowed and pushed all the talk about Dean to the side. He wanted to argue with Lucifer, yeah. But he had to stay on point. “You love your Father too, though, don’t you?”
Lucifer scoffed. “Maybe. But, trust me, it’s a twisted, fucked up kind of love.”
“Well, maybe that’s a start. Maybe that’s all you two need.”
“What I need, Sam, is an apology. An apology for using me and then throwing me away. Is He going to give me one?”
“I don’t know.” There was no point in lying, Sam figured. “But there’s only one way to find out.”
Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll meet with him.” He treated Sam to an elaborate mock-bow. “Lead the way.”