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Sam blamed the sedatives.
It had been days since the last time he was able to sleep, and it was complete torture. He could feel his eyes drooping, weighed down by what felt like several pounds, but any time he even thought about closing them for more than half a minute, Lucifer was up to something. The hunter believed that the Devil’s personal favourite was reading obscene things to him; children’s stories, psychology books, it didn’t matter. Most people would have thought that being read to wasn’t that bad, that it couldn’t cause sleep deprivation on such a huge scale.
They were right.
But that’s why Lucifer liked it, he thought. The sound of Satan’s voice was actually quite melodic, and if he wasn’t Satan, Sam wouldn’t have minded being read to by him. But, as things were, he was Lucifer; anytime the Winchester was about to doze off in the middle of his readings, Lucifer always pulled something out of his sleeve (fire crackers, very loud and pretty ironic songs, the list was endless and Lucifer was very creative).
“Hey, Sammy, do you think that I should try out for American Idol? I think I should try out for American Idol,” Lucifer’s voice broke through Sam’s vacant staring, but Sam didn’t pay him any attention; that’s how he got into this mess in the first place. “Come on! Talk to me, Sam.”
The hunter yawned, trying to hide it. “You tired, Sam?”
There was a hesitant noise from the door, and Sam turned. The girl from earlier was there, her pretty freckled face easy to place, another chocolate bar in her hand and a slight smile on her lips. “Hey, I come with gifts,” she paused. “Well, gift. Here.” She tossed the bar towards him, and his sluggish muscles barely caught it in time.
“Thanks,” Sam glanced down at the bar for half a second, but when he looked up the girl was already turning around, ready to leave. “Wait, at least share it with me,” the girl—“Maren,” Lucifer drawled out—hesitated once more before going to stand beside him.
“Thanks.”
“Ooh, Sammy’s got a girlfriend,” the Devil was sitting on his bed now, legs crossed at the ankles and arms folded across his chest. “Get rid of her, you only need me,” Sam blinked and blamed the sleep deprivation on this one, because he could have sworn (if he was in a more stable state of mind) that Lucifer’s usually perfectly constructed voice, for a mere second, wobbled into something a tad protective, possessive.
When Sam didn’t do what Lucifer said, he started to sing Stairway to Heaven for the umpteenth time. Except with a microphone.
The hunter’s teeth gritted instinctively. Maren noticed. “If this isn’t a good time, I think I should go....”
Lucifer quieted for a second, as if waiting for Sam’s answer to determine whether or not he was going to continue. “I think that may be a good idea,” Sam said slowly, glancing at the Devil once. “I just have a really bad migraine. Maybe you could swing by another time?”
Maren nodded. “Sure. Just—just try and get some sleep, Sam.”
And with that she left. “Nice job, Sammy.”
***
Lucifer had been a little quiet after that, the lapsing silence almost too much relief. Sam didn’t want to try to sleep, because he knew Lucifer would try to wake him the second his eyes fluttered shut, shattering the semi-peaceful silence.
The hunter had just than been filled with the last dose of sedatives that they could give him without it becoming deadly. Needless to say, Sam was very loopy, and more than a little nauseous.
Very, very loopy. Very, very nauseous.
“You know,” Lucifer started from the perch on the desk, peering down at Sam. “Those drugs aren’t doing you too well, are they?”
The Winchester blanched once again, because he caught it again this time—that protective, possessive curve of Lucifer’s voice. It was only a heart beat longer than the first time (although, to be quite fair, his heartbeats were very slow at the moment), but he had caught it.
It had him thinking.
And in his current state, literally nothing good could come from thinking. He had hard evidence of this when he slurred, “Lucifer, I get how you’re all about not letting me sleep—really, your devotion to this impresses me—but how about you cuddle with me instead?”
Silence hung in the air, and what was left of Sam’s sleep deprived, sedative-soaked mind, found solace in that even though he probably just made a complete fool out of himself, he got a few moments silence.
Wait. Did he just… did he just ask Satan to cuddle with him?
The thought slipped from his mind as soon as it slipped in, and as soon as it left, he found that he was looking at empty space. Lucifer was no longer seated on the desk.
Sam jumped when he felt an arm drape itself over his hips, another snaking under his head to act as a pillow. “Thought you’d never ask,” Lucifer breathed gently against his neck.
For the first time since his soul was shoved back into him, Lucifer was not making any catastrophic noises, no horrible hallucinations, nothing.
Sam fell asleep that night and didn’t wake up for the next 48 hours or so.