Samifer Week #6: Monday, October 15, 2012
Folie à Deux
Pairing: Samifer (SamLucifer)
Rating: R
Word Count: 8596
Summary: Folie à Deux – (n) – the sharing of delusional ideas by two people who are closely associated. Dean has always told Sam that Lucifer wasn't real, but if that's true, who's the blond man he's known since high school?
When Dean Winchester parked the Impala in the driveway of his two-story home, he knew instantly that something was wrong. He had been a cop for a few years before he'd gone back to school. It was only his third year in the FBI, but his entire life had trained him to sense disturbances in the natural order. He pulled his gun from the holster, thanking God that Lisa's car was gone, and approached his house.
The door was unlocked, and the lights were off.
Dean did a quick sweep through the foyer, trying to clear his mind of all assumptions. He never had to sweep his own house before, and when he moved from the foyer to the kitchen, he couldn't help but think of his mistakes. He should have called for backup and waited in the car. He wasn't exactly going to be objective if he saw whoever broke into his house.
Thank God Lisa and Ben seemed to be gone.
When he rounded the corner, a figure that had been sitting on the couch stood. Dean flipped the switch to turn the light on, and Sam held up his hands in surrender. Dean sighed, tossed his weapon on the entertainment center and walked toward his brother.
"Jesus, Sammy, you scared the hell out of me," Dean breathed.
Sam turned his head, looking at the empty arm chair, before turning to face Dean once more. "I'm in trouble, Dean. I just wanted to tell you before I left."
Dean sat on the couch and grabbed his younger brother's wrist, tugging him down next to him. He had scruff, and his too-long-hair was a mess. He looked like he hadn't slept in a while, but his pupils were the size of saucers. Dean sighed, "Sammy, are you using again?"
Sam rested his forearms on his knees and leaned forward. His foot was tapping, shaking the man and the couch, and Dean could feel his brother's tremors even though they weren't touching. Sam stared at the chair again, before turning back to Dean.
"I accidently killed Jess."
Dean froze for a split second, before his hand went to Sam's massive shoulder. His younger brother flinched at the contact and tried to squirm away. "What happened?" Dean tried to stay calm – his brother was probably high and apparently he just killed his girlfriend – he needed to keep the taller man calm and hope to God he'd be able to convince him to turn himself in.
"I don't know," Sam admits, running a hand through his hair. "She was in a nightgown, ready to go to bed, and she said something to me. Lucifer was sitting next to me in the bed and Jess started climbing toward him and I just… I stabbed her in the stomach and tugged." Sam pantomimed, stabbing an imaginary knife into the right side of his stomach and dragged it to the left, gutting himself. "And then Lucifer just grinned at me and said, 'Well we better cover this up,' so I changed my clothes, we burned her body and we left."
"Sammy," Dean was shaking, and he was sure Sam could feel it. He hated that name, hated the broken part of Sam's brain that his brother fixated on. In his mind, he flashed backed to sketchbooks Sam showed him before he was sent away. Pages and pages and pages filled with the same face, the blond hair and blue eyes that haunted Dean's dreams almost as much as they haunted Sam's life. "Sam, Lucifer isn't real. We've been over this before. He isn't real."
Sam frowned, shaking Dean off of him and he stood. He looked out the window, and a car in front of Dean's neighbor's house started. It was time to go. "He says the same about you, you know."
"Sam, you have to turn yourself in."
"I can't. They'll take him away, and he's all I've got left now," Sam walked to the door, and Dean thought about grabbing his gun. But he wouldn't shoot his brother – he could never harm the kid he practically raised – so he just stood and watched his little brother open the door. "He's waiting for me, Dean. I just wanted to say goodbye."
He watched Sam jog to the car – he couldn't believe he hadn't noticed his brother's discrete sedan parked two houses away when he pulled up – and Dean pulled out his phone and sighed at the 911 operator.
"I'd like to report a possible 402A and 419…"
It was a year to the day that Sam had killed Jess when his eyes slid open, and it took him a few minutes to place his location. He was never as sharp in the daylight as he was at night, and the cold body pressed against his back was usually responsible for that. Every place where Lucifer's skin met Sam's was frozen – his forehead between his shoulder blades, a hand on his naked hip, his knees pressing into the back of Sam's thighs – but the cold didn't bother him anymore. Despite it being physically displeasing, it filled him with warmth on the inside.
Sam turned so he was facing the smaller man, and when he tried to pull his friend closer to his chest, pale blue eyes opened and looked groggily up at Sam's. For a moment, they just looked at each other. Then Lucifer grinned, buried his face into Sam's chest and murmured, "You still have dried blood in your hair."
The taller man smiled, pressing one hand against the small of Lucifer's back. The man mumbled incoherently and seemed to fall back asleep. Sam turned on the TV, rested his chin against the top of the blond hair, and listened to the news.
"Police discovered the mutilated corpse of Ruby Cortese, a 23-year-old college student, early this morning in her apartment. There was no sign of forced entry, and police are asking anyone with information regarding this gruesome crime to please call the Salem, Oregon Police Department at…"
Lucifer rolled away from Sam, rubbing his eyes, and muting the TV. The outside of Ruby's apartment was still on screen, and Lucifer asked the obvious question, "Where are we?"
"Goldendale, Washington. Three hours away. We should probably get back on the road as soon as we can though," Sam pressed a kiss into the man's bare shoulder, and Lucifer turned to him, kiss the top of Sam's forehead, humming his agreement.
"That's my smart little psychopath," Lucifer grinned, scratching dried blood from Sam's scalp. "You take the first shower." The smaller man flashed him another grin and rolled away, curling into a ball on the other side of the king. "I want ten more minutes."
Sam grinned, sliding out from under the blankets. Lucifer moved to Sam's abandoned spot, seeking the heat, and soon light sounds of him sleeping filled the room. The taller boy smiled and walked to the bathroom.
Dean showed up at the crime scene and checked his watch. The initial discovery had happened ten hours ago, and he was getting closer. Sam typically would have left after the fire started, but he stopped burning the bodies three victims back because arson alerted the town that something was wrong too quickly. Now he had between hours and days to get the fuck out of dodge before the bodies were even discovered.
Ruby had been murdered around two am on October 12th, her body was found around six am, and Dean managed to get there from Sacramento, California (where the last body had been found three weeks ago) before the locals were done processing the scene.
Luckily, Sam marked his kills. Otherwise it'd be harder than sin to tell which ones were from his baby brother and which ones were from random local psychopaths.
Dean flashed his badge and walked inside.
In the fourteen hours since the murder, Sam would have driven to another state, gotten a room at a cheap motel to get some sleep, and probably hit the road again. So even though Dean was getting closer, he was still miles behind. Sam could be anywhere. He was good, he was careful, and he was clean.
Well, sort of.
Dean stepped into the room where the body was posed. The papers and newscasters never went into the gory details because people didn't like to hear them until someone was locked up. And for the first eight months, nobody knew the extent of Sam's depravity because all that remained were charred bones and clothes. But now that it was left on display, Dean wished he could go back and shoot his brother after he admitted to Jess's death.
Ruby was hanging from the ceiling, but not like that. Tiles had been knocked out to reveal the wood structure and a series of ropes over her arms, legs, and torso made it so her body was lying flat against the ceiling. She was just suspended there. The women were always wearing white night gowns, but they had always been gutted before the garment was placed on them. Last time, the woman the woman's intestines had been completely removed and thrown about the room. This time, Dean could tell they had been left in by the way the nightgown sagged with the weight of her insides slowly spilling out of the hole Sam left in her.
"Alright, let's get her down."
The techies went slowly to preserve trace left on the body, but there wouldn't be any. They were talking about the probability of semen – whether or not this was a sexual crime – and while Dean didn't know for sure if it was sexual for his brother, he knew that the girl hadn't been raped, and there wouldn't be any ejaculate at the scene. What he did in the getaway car, Dean didn't want to know, but Sam had the decency not to do it here.
"Got something," a techie said, and Dean peered over his shoulder to get a look at Ruby's ankle. The placement was different, but the carving was the same. A trident. Well, at first Dean thought it was a trident when he realized it was a pitchfork, he swore up and down the room because he hadn't noticed it before. Always the devil and his stupid pitchforks.
The only other thing worthy of noting about this crime scene was the cleanliness. The bed was made, there was no weapon, and the only sign that a crime happened at all was the body that had been hanging from the ceiling and the puddle of blood under it. Well, that, and the obscene heart drawn on the wall over the bed in the victim's blood. Sometimes Sam left him messages (at the first scene he didn't torch, he wrote I'm sorry, Dean) but this one had a heart that was sort of misshaped and certainly lopsided. The left half reached too tall, and it ran out of blood toward the bottom. The right half was shorter, but the blood was thick and it dripped.
Dean just sighed and wondered if he was going to be able to catch Sam before he killed again.
Lucifer pulled the car over in Cheney, Washington, eight hours away from Ruby and five from Goldendale. Sam had to use the bathroom, and he always tried to brave it out as long as he could, but Lucifer just seemed to know everything about him. They agreed in the car that Lucifer would pump the gas, and Sam would get supplies.
Sam checked his watch. It shouldn't take more than five minutes and they'd be on the road again. Despite their rule of no public affection, Sam pressed his lips to Lucifer's temple before he got out of the car and walked into the gas station. The bathroom was easy to find, but their favorite junk foods even easier. Sam thought about getting something healthy – back when he was with Jess, he would have opted for something better – but maybe they'd stop at a Denny's when they got further away and settled in a new town. Lucifer's favorite was Denny's.
Lucifer walked in to pay around the same time Sam got to the register. They didn't say anything, but they shared a look, roshambo'd, and Sam ended up paying when he threw rock and Lucifer threw paper. The guy at the counter gave a polite smile, and handed Sam back his change.
Once outside, Lucifer took a bag of Doritos and called shotgun. Lucifer didn't really like driving, so Sam slid into the driver's seat, completely convinced that they had only been out of the car for five minutes at the most. When he checked the time again, it had taken them twice that. His heart felt like it dropped to his stomach, and he sighed as he put the car in drive and pulled back onto the road.
"Aw, Sammy, don't get upset," Lucifer said around the chips in his mouth. He licked his thumb and grinned at his friend. "Next time I'll pay."
And when they stopped again in Helena, Montana (five hours later), Lucifer paid cash for their motel rooms. When the blond man went to take a shower to try and warm up, Sam checked the money in his wallet. The room cost $72 dollars a night, and he was missing three twenties, a ten, and had three ones where he used to have a five. Lucifer opened the bathroom door to find Sam curled up on his side, trying to pretend to be asleep.
When the man slid in bed behind him, Sam was surprised to feel the sweat pants on his friend's bottom half, but even more surprised feeling the moist, warm skin of Lucifer's chest press against his back. Already the warmth of the water was fading, but Sam loved it when the man was fresh from a shower and completely warm. He sighed and pushed back against him.
"What's wrong, Sam?" Lucifer asked, pressing kisses across the wing of the man's shoulder blade. "You don't need to do it again already, do you?"
"No," Sam breathed, turning around to face his friend. Lucifer was smiling, his eyes happy and trusting, and he tucked some of Sam's stray hair behind his ear. It felt so real. It felt so perfect and right that Sam felt tears forming in his eyes. Panic shot through Lucifer, because there was only one thing that Sam Winchester cried about. Lucifer slid an arm under Sam's head and wrapped his arm around the taller man, holding him to his chest.
"Hey, look, you can feel me right? My arms have weight. You can smell me, Sam. And I smell like cheap soap and motel. You could kiss me, or fuck me, or let me fuck you, and you'd get off, wouldn't you?" Sam nodded against Lucifer's chest, and he felt the blond man sigh with relief. "So don't do the shit that they told you to do, okay? Don't cry over a few lost minutes or dollars, Sam. Because it's real – alright? – can't you feel that it's real?"
Dean would say that real was an interesting word choice, but Sam tried to shun his brother's logic. He tried to focus, like Lucifer said, on the physical sensations he was sure he could feel, the smell of the soap that was starting to die off in favor of something more like skin, the way the body had cooled already, sending prickles over Sam's skin everywhere he touched.
And if Sam placed his hands on Lucifer's hips and rolled them, so the smaller man was laying on top of him – and if Sam kissed him, hard and with purpose on the mouth – and if Sam felt the way Lucifer rocked against him, using his leverage to create friction, well then, Sam would at least forget his worries for the moment.
Dean was following up on tips, driving up I-84, when he got off exit 104 because he had to go to the bathroom. He crossed over into Washington and had trouble finding a simple McDonald's because that would just be too easy, wouldn't it?
He ended up driving a mile into Washington on US-97 before he found a rest stop and pulled over. After using the facilities, Dean got back into his car, making himself a nice little hotspot on his phone and checking his computer for the local tip lines again.
Most of them were crap. Dean knew his brother. The kid ran away from home a handful of times and ran away from rehabs and hospitals more often than that. It was always up to Dean to find him before their dad found out, and he'd gotten pretty good at tracking the bastard when he didn't have a car, a body count, or Satan as his copilot.
When Dean was flipping through the list, one caught his eye. A man who ran a motel called the hotline after apparently recognizing Sam's mug. He hadn't said any of the usual things that tipped Dean off to authenticity – talking to himself, perhaps a little doped-up or something, covered in blood and intestines – but Dean just had a feeling. Plus Goldendale was only ten miles down the road. It was getting late, and Dean needed some shut-eye anyway.
When Sam woke up the next morning, he was alone in bed. He panicked. Lucifer would come and go when Sam was a teenager, but since he'd killed Jess, his best friend had been faithful and constant. He didn't sneak out in the night when Sam was asleep – he never went for supply runs alone – because if Sam couldn't find him, bad things tended to happen.
Sam threw the blankets from his bed, heart pounding against his rib cage as he searched the floor for pants. He was stumbling through putting his sweatpants on when the door open and Lucifer walked back in. With one look at Sam, the man looked guilty, but he wasn't even wearing a shirt, so he couldn't have gone far. Sam sighed when he held out the newspaper, but crossed the room in a few strides and wrapped his arms around his friend. Lucifer's hands rested on Sam's sides, allowing himself to be hugged.
"I thought you left me," Sam admitted.
"I told you I would never leave," Lucifer sighed, sounding more like a parent trying to comfort a small child. "Remember the day you told me to shut up? The day you started talking to me again? You let me in, and I will never leave you. I promise."
Sam's giant hand covered the back of Lucifer's head, keeping the shorter man's face pinned to Sam's bare chest. He held him there for a moment, before giving him the space to back up. Lucifer took it and held out the paper to Sam once more.
The taller man grabbed it and sat back down on the king bed. He flipped it up and scanned the front page. Nothing. Flip after flip there was nothing: no mention of the serial killer on the loose, no mention of the twelve victims, no mention that he had made his way from Kansas to California, up to Oregon. No one predicted he was coming this way. Sam folded the paper back up, grinning up at his friend before tossing the paper on the floor.
"We've gotten out of the hot zone," Sam said, reaching his hands to rest on his friend's hips. His thumbs pressed against Lucifer's hipbones and the skin there was like ice. He was always cold, and Sam tugged on his hips. The man went easily, spreading his legs so he was standing above Sam – the taller boy's knees between his legs – and the brunet placed hot kisses on Lucifer's torso. Sam knew his mouth would feel like fire on the cold skin, but he knew Lucifer liked it by the way he put a hand on the back of his head and held him there.
Sam rolled his head, resting his chin against the man's xiphoid process to look up at him, arms wrapping around the man's hips to keep him there. Lucifer had his head tilted back, but Sam could imagine the look on his friend's face. Lucifer had been his first – fourteen years old, barely versed in the art of masturbation – and one day he just climbed the tree outside Sam's window, knocked, and rocked his world. They hadn't really even been friends yet, then. Sam had only known him for a week or two and only in passing. And despite the girls he'd had sense then – both sexually and completely – nothing compared to the man arching his back against Sam's chin, trying to get the kisses started again.
After a moment, Lucifer's tongue darted past his lips and he angled his chin down, hands resting on Sam's shoulders as he looked at the man. "Where do you want to settle down then? We can start again, Sammy." Lucifer's short fingernails scraped against Sam's scalp. "We can start new."
"We're still two days from Detroit," Sam sat up taller, raising himself another three inches up Lucifer's chest. "Let's try somewhere in between. If it doesn't work out, then we can still move on. I just don't want to wait two days. One more place in between. I swear, if this doesn't work, Detroit is next."
Lucifer's lips parted, showing his white teeth in a way that might be threatening, but Sam just found it stunning. The brunet grinned, adjusted his head to the right, and flicked his tongue over the blond's nipple. He hissed and dug his fingers into Sam's shoulders. Sam stood – lifting Lucifer by his hips like he weighed nothing – and turned around. When the blond's smaller frame hit the bed with a bounce, the grin had only grown.
But Sam spread himself out across the body, kissing the grin away.
Dean drove right to the motel in Goldendale, Washington where the tip had come from. He started by flashing his FBI badge and showing him a picture of Sam. The picture was a year old – and Sam's hair had grown a lot since then – but he couldn't keep CCTV stills of his brother on him like normal people kept pictures of their kids in their wallets. There was a time when Sam meant everything to Dean and fuck the drugs and the crazy, he couldn't keep the job separate anymore.
Half the time, he was a Fed looking for a serial killer. Half the time he was just looking to bring his little brother home.
The clerk nodded his head and confirmed with, "Yeah, that's the guy who was in here."
"Did you see anyone with him?" Dean asked – it was always the first question – but he always got the same answer.
"Nope, dude was alone."
Dean asked a few more questions but Sam had cleaned up the crime scene. He was starting to clean himself up before he left. Nothing about Sam had stood out to the clerk. The man said he seemed tired, but everyone seems tired who pulls into the motel after driving all night, and Dean asked if he had a room available.
"You want the one he stayed in, or you want something different?" The man asked.
Dean accepted the key to the room Sam slept in the night before, grabbed his bag from the Impala, and started his way toward the room. The room would be clean. His brother wouldn't have left any real evidence behind here, and the cleaning staff would have bleached the sheets by now. Dean dropped his stuff and flopped down in the center of the bed. He laid on his back and looked up at the ceiling, counting the tiles and wondering if this was the exact spot his brother napped just hours after killing a girl by gutting her, then tying her to the ceiling. He wondered if Sam watched as the organs caught in her nightgown, as the blood soaked through the cotton and dripped on the floor.
He could imagine his little brother sitting on the bed, eyes tracking the drops on the way down, hearing the splish-splish as the blood pool grew larger.
If Dean closed his eyes and really thought, he could almost make out the figure sitting on his knees behind Sam, wrapping his arms over his brother's shoulders and whispering his praise in his ear.
Dean's eyes snapped open with the sound of his phone going off.
For the past year, he would hear the phone and wish it was Sam. It never was. There were only two people who called anymore, and neither ever seemed happy to talk to him. He was always away from them, chasing his little brother. They knew, now. They knew that they would always come second after Sam.
After a check of the ID, Dean slid his thumb across the screen to unlock it and held it to his ear.
"Hey, Lisa."
"When are you coming home, Dean?"
Dean sighed. He almost pulled the phone away from his ear and hung up. It would be the end of them, but their end had happened the second Sam had killed his girlfriend. They'd been married for a few years – Dean was raising Ben as his own – but she didn't marry the murderer, and she was getting sick of her husband cleaning up his brother's messes. She didn't care that Sam was killing people – she didn't care that girls were dying – all she cared about was telling Dean at every moment, it wasn't his job to find him this time.
He shouldn't be on the case at all.
Instead, Dean played the role Lisa wanted him to. He put his hand over his eyes and muttered, "He killed again."
"Yes, we heard. It's on the news." Lisa sighed, and she tried to be gentler, "He isn't going to stop until he's caught. You know that."
"Yeah, I do. And that's why I'm still hunting him."
"But how long will it take? Will it be worth it for you to sacrifice everything, Dean? He doesn't have anything to lose, and you're losing everything by chasing after his ghost."
They didn't talk much longer. Dean asked how Ben was (fine), and that was pretty much that. They had nothing left to say to each other anymore. And when she hung up on him, Dean crossed the room and dug out his charger.
He slept in his clothes, like he half expected to get a call in the middle of the night, some new lead to chase. But he didn't. After all, he never did.
Sam and Lucifer drove another hour north to reach Great Falls, Montana. It was their twelfth attempt at finding a home since they started their life together after Jess' death, and Sam had high hopes. Fake IDs and credit cards got them a decent apartment on 16th Ave near the elementary school and the college. Sam got a job as a janitor at the college the next day, and for the first week, they just breathed.
They were getting pretty good at breathing.
Lucifer would be cuddled up to Sam when he woke – a twist of tangled arms and legs – and he would make Sam coffee while the taller man was in the shower. Lucifer would kiss him at the door – sometimes a quick peck, others involved pinning Sam against the door with the press of his body – and Sam didn't know what Lucifer did while he was at work most days. Early on they figured out Lucifer couldn't work. When they both worked together, they ended up screwing in a closet and getting no work done. Half a week later, Lucifer fought with their boss and got them both fired.
At home number 3, they got separate jobs but worked different shifts. Lucifer snapped at that one, too.
It was just safer for him to stay home.
But Sam knew he didn't just stay home either. He scouted. Most days, Sam didn't see him, but on rare occasions, Sam would be halfway through mopping the floor in the chem lab and he'd look up, seeing his friend chatting with a pretty girl. Lucifer had the smooth charm of a sociopath, and could usually get the girls laughing at his self-deprecating humor. They found him endearing and trusting, and by the end of their breather week, Lucifer was sitting up on the couch with his shirt off, alternating his attention between the Buffy reruns on TV and Sam in the kitchen.
"There are three so far, Sammy," he called, shifting his weight so he was perching on the back of the couch. The new angle let him lean back and see his friend in the kitchen. Sam turned his head to look at him, shoving the frozen pizza into the oven. He made his way back into the living room, and when he sat, Lucifer curled up next to him, pressing the cold skin of his chest against Sam's bare arm. "Madison, Bristol, and Meg."
Sam adjusted his arm so it was wrapped over his friend's shoulders, "Yeah? Tell me about them."
"Madison is a cute girl, but she has a bit of a wild side, Bristol is kind of a whore, and Meg is…" Lucifer frowned for a second. He was never short of words, and the fact that the girl gave him pause excited Sam. "Meg would be loyal to the cause. I like Meg."
Sam grinned, drawing his friend in closer so he could kiss the top of his forehead. "Meg it is then."
They sat back and cuddled together while they waited for their dinner. Or at least they did for a few minutes. Sam ended up storming into the kitchen during the next commercial break just to escape the "Angel or Spike" debate. Lucifer usually had impeccable taste, but he was wrong about which vampire was the better character.
Goldendale was too close to Salem for Sam to settle here. He always went eight to twelve hours away and settled somewhere for three or four weeks. He blended in with his surroundings – when police started arriving and asking questions after a murder, they all swore that Sam was a quiet, but stand-up guy – and Dean wasn't exactly sure why Sam killed. Maybe that was why he was still chasing him. Dean just wanted to understand.
Goldendale had Sam nearly pinned in one direction. He wouldn't go north into Canada, and he wouldn't head south again until he'd gone farther east. So when Dean took off the next morning, he figured he'd drive an hour or two east and see where he ended up. He'd stop and look at the tip line when it felt right.
He ended up in Pasco, sitting near the airport eating a burger, trying to decide if he wanted to take 12 south or 395 north. He checked the tip line, which has resulted in fewer and fewer tips the farther east he gets. Even though this is undoubtedly where Sam headed, coverage out here isn't what it is out west. Dean could scream until he was blue in the face about running stories showing his brother's face, but it almost seemed like people didn't want to jinx their town.
If they didn't show Sam's mug, Sam wouldn't appear.
And how wrong they were.
If Dean took 12, he'd end up in Walla Walla. If he took 395, he'd drive forever and eventually reach Cheney. When Sam was younger, he had this strange fascination with Walla Walla after some movie he'd watched in school. Dean folded the wrapper and tossed it back in the bag, driving for a moment before taking a left onto 395. Sam was determined to stay hidden, and Dean had chased his brother enough as children to know he would always choose to go away from his tells.
He happened across the convenient store by pure luck.
Dean had been stopping at every gas station in the past five miles, flashing his badge and his brother's face with no luck. The planets must have aligned because not only did he just happen to stop at the same gas station, the same employee was working and recognized Sam from the picture. He gave Dean as much information that he could – that he was acting strangely, kept looking at a spot to his left, that played rock-paper-scissors against himself, that he seemed upset when he got back in the car after paying – and told Dean what he was driving and which way he went.
This time, Dean really felt like he could catch Sam before he killed again.
If anyone ever really stopped and looked at Sam's profile, they'd notice that out of the past twelve girls he killed, nine of them he met in a library. He imagined that after the fact, when he was either on death row or after the lethal injection when enough time has passed for people to not be afraid to talk about it, they'd wonder why he picked a library to scout his victims.
Truth was that he just liked to read.
"Hello, Sam," the voice belonged to a pretty girl with dark hair. He looked down at himself, wondering how she knew his name. He was still wearing his janitor's uniform, which had his name embroidered over his chest, but a look to the shelf in front of him let him know that she wasn't just approaching him for nothing. Lucifer had a big book in his hands, but he was grinning up at Sam. A wink proved it, and Sam sighed, turning his attention back to the girl.
She must be Meg.
"Hello," Sam echoed, watching as the girl sat down.
They talked in hushed voices about whatever lies Lucifer had told her about Sam. How he was working as a janitor so he could go back to school, how he wanted to major in Russian Literature, and how he didn't have any family around.
Lucifer insisted Sam say that, but it felt like he was betraying the man. They were family. And after an hour or so, Meg had to go to class and Lucifer walked three or four paces behind Sam on their way home. Once the door to their apartment was shut, Sam's fingers tightened over his friend's wrist.
"Why do you make me talk to them? Do you like it when I snap?"
"Of course I like it when you snap," Lucifer ran a finger over Sam's jaw, grinning. "I like it when you gut them, rip them apart, and tie them up. Angry is very becoming on you. And I like that you do it all for me. But most of all, I like how you really do think you do it for me – to save our relationship and keep us together – but I'm not the one flirting with the girls everywhere we go. You like baiting them; you like killing them. You think it pleases me and you love to please me."
Sam breathed against his friend's neck, pressing soft kisses against his pulse. "Does it please you?"
"Very much so."
Sam walked Lucifer backwards to the couch. If he hit his head on the armrest when he fell, Lucifer didn't complain.
There was nothing this far out. No clues, no leads to chase, but Dean could feel that he was on the right track. He could feel that he was close. So he checked into a motel in Helena, Montana and bought a huge map of the state to hang on his wall. He paid the guy for two weeks and put the do not disturb tag on the door.
He spent the first few hours in Helena just staring at the map.
Butte was an hour to the south. Anaconda was a little farther away – another couple of miles to the west after Butte. Missoula was two hours west. Great Falls was an hour and a half to the north.
Dean knew that Sam could be at any one of these locations. And unlike Walla Walla, he had nothing to go by. Nothing stood out, except Anaconda was a weird name for a town and their dad's friend Bobby lived in a town called Sioux Falls. Neither of those really meant enough to Sam to choose a place or avoid it, and Dean sighed. He picked Butte at random and took off in the Impala.
Lucifer said he didn't get jealous of the girls. He didn't need to be. He was Sam's first kiss – his first fuck – and his first love. Their bond was forever, and even when Lucifer went away for the short time Sam had been committed after his accidental overdose when he was eighteen, (then missing for the next two years while Sam took his medication as recommended by his physician), he still thought fondly about the devil on his shoulder.
When Sam ran out at college on day, he remembered Lucifer walking into his dorm room. He looked older, out of breath, like he'd been stuck for two years, trying to fight his way out. Sam refilled his prescription, but flushed them one-by-one down the toilet. Brady never asked why Sam suddenly started whispering in his sleep or why he would only sleep on half the bed.
The truth was that Sam had missed Lucifer. And he didn't need to be jealous. Lucifer was his absolute – his constant – and he would do anything to keep him from leaving.
But Lucifer was jealous. And Sam kind of thought it was cute.
Lucifer insisted that Sam have friends. He always had. Even in school, a jock or cheerleader would approach the nerd with a shy smile, and Lucifer would be standing off to the side, grinning at Sam and encouraging him to act normal. He still did it. Eleven of the past twelve girls started as friends that Lucifer pushed at him. All of them but Jess. And it always ended up like this.
Sam and Meg were walking home three weeks later, when Meg's hand just slipped into Sam's. It was nice, comfortable, and unlike the girls holding his hand when he was younger. It wasn't sexual. It felt friendly to Sam, like holding a sister's hand, but as he took a step, he felt something hit the bottom of his foot. He tumbled forward, turning around to glare. Lucifer had his arms crossed, but was giving an innocent look as if anyone else had kicked his heel mid-step to get him to let go. Meg joked about how clumsy Sam was before turning down her street.
Lucifer and Sam walked the rest of the way down sixteenth to their apartment in silence.
Lucifer's bullshit petty jealousy used to upset Sam. He could remember screaming at him at the top of his lungs in high school, begging him to make up his mind. Now, it just excited him. He liked the idea of cutting his losses and starting over new. They would be happy in Detroit. Only one thing stood in their way, and Sam was nearly shaking with the anticipation of it.
When Lucifer slammed the door behind him, Sam didn't wait to capture the smaller body against the door with his larger frame. Lips found lips, and Lucifer made a surprised sound before wrapping his arms around the taller man's neck.
If Lucifer was getting jealous, it meant it was almost time.
"Detroit?" Sam asked, fingers sliding under the hem of Lucifer's shirt, tugging it up and over his head with no resistance. Lucifer sighed, and Sam leaned over, kissing and nipping at the man's exposed collarbone. "Ready to go home?"
Lucifer's hand moved to the back of Sam's head, trying to guide him lower, but the taller man just chucked. He grabbed Lucifer's belt and started working it off, as he tugged the man toward their bedroom.
Butte was a bust. Anaconda was a bust. And so far, Great Falls was a bust, too. His brother's MO hardly changed from town to town – settle down, get an easy, non-conspicuous job, and befriend a girl – but Dean checked Sam's usual haunts and found nothing. He didn't have a job in any bar in the town, he hadn't even been to any of the bars in town, and the public libraries hadn't recognized his mug either.
Dean sighed, about to cross Great Falls off the list when he was forced to turn off 17th Ave onto 20th Street and saw the University of Great Falls before him. It didn't take long. The first person he ran into on campus IDed Sam as a janitor who liked to hang out at the campus library. A quick run to the library gave Dean the best lead he'd had on Sam since the night Sam confessed to Jess' murder a year ago: Sam's address and the name of the girl he was presumably seeing.
The agent jumped in the car and raced to the apartment on 16th Ave.
Lisa was right about this case. It was going to destroy Dean – he was too invested in this case – there was a conflict of interests. Dean jumped from the Impala after throwing it in park, completely forgetting to call for backup. He didn't even pull out his gun. He just raced to the door and pounded his fist against the wood three times.
There wasn't an answer, but the door was unlocked.
Dean let himself in.
Sam's apartment on 16th Ave was exactly like every other apartment Sam had rented in the past year. Furnished, clean, and devoid of anything personal. There was nothing in the house – no pictures, no food, no clothes – and that was when Dean realized that Sam had already bailed. This apartment was empty; his little brother had no intention of ever coming back here.
But the girl, Meg Masters, had been alive this morning – the librarian was in her Civics class – and Dean's heart clenched in his chest. He had to stop Sam before he killed the girl.
"Hey," Sam whispered over the sound of the shower running in the next room. Lucifer looked up at him and grinned. He loved Sam like this – pupils blown wide with lust and desire – and even if it wasn't for Lucifer's body, it still was for the blond man. Killing the girls was symbolic or metaphoric or something that proved Sam's bond. It made them connected on a level deeper than physical intimacy. It was, "Look at what I did for you" and it was intoxicating. Sam was shaking for it, and Lucifer could feel the snap in the air rolling off of Sam in waves. Their best times were the nights they were three hours from a crime scene, pressed together in a mess of teeth and blood and tangled limbs, and Lucifer couldn't wait to get there. Get to that moment. Get to Detroit.
"Hey," Sam repeated. "Grab me a knife and draw the shades." He leaned over, pressing a hard kiss to Lucifer's mouth, before the water shut off, and they could hear Meg stepping over the tub, singing to herself.
Lucifer just grinned and left the room.
The lights were on inside Meg's apartment. The curtains were closed on the left side of her house, but Dean could see into the kitchen. He breathed. Sam's car was parked out front with different plates, but Dean knew he had him. He knew his brother was in there. He knew he needed to do this by the book.
If he didn't, Sam could walk on a technicality, and regardless of their brotherly bond, Dean couldn't let that happen.
He called for backup and waited in the car, checking to make sure his gun was loaded and the safety was off. ETA was five minutes. He could wait that long to finally get his brother the help he needed.
Or at least, he could have, if he hadn't seen the shadow walking into view in the kitchen. The shadow stood at the refrigerator for a second, and Dean couldn't help but think something was off. He knew how tall Sam came up to on an average refrigerator – they spent most of their lives together – and he was pretty sure Sam's hair was longer than that. The figure dug in a drawer near the fridge before walking toward the window. He reached to the side, and the venetian blinds shut backwards, blocking the man from view.
Dean sat there for another half a minute, heart slamming in his chest. He recognized the man, or at least, he could have sworn he recognized him. He looked older now, but undeniably like the man in Sam's drawings.
Screw waiting. Dean rushed the house in a blur. He opened the door, gun at arm's length and made his way from to the right, to the only room in the house that had the door shut. Dean opened it and started strong. His arms extended, he found Sam's form standing on a chair instantly and yelled, "Freeze."
But that was when he saw the body.
Meg was already dead, already dressed in the white nightgown, but she was tainting the color by lying in a pool of her blood. Sam had one tile knocked out, his arms were raised to get the second one, and he looked surprised. His mouth was open, like he couldn't process the fact that his brother was standing in front of him. Dean faltered, but he tried to regain some semblance of control.
"Sammy, get down from the chair and interlace your fingers on the back of your head."
"Dean?" Sam obeyed. He stepped of the chair and wrapped his fingers behind his head. He even dropped to his knees. Either he didn't see the puddle of blood or he didn't care that it was soaking through his jeans. His eyes held his brother's. "Is that really Dean?"
Dean frowned, wondering why Sam asked it like that when he noticed the form slipping from the bathroom behind Sam. He leaned against the jamb, grinning at Dean with his arms crossed. He was blond. He had blue eyes. And Dean recognized him instantly.
Dean's knees hit the floor hard, and his body crumpled over.
"Yeah, Sammy. Would you look at that? Your brother finally found us," Lucifer crossed the room, placing his hand over Sam's, still interlocked behind his head.
Sam called out to him, worried, but just then a bunch of men stormed the room. They were in full SWAT gear – considering Sam only ever killed with a knife, it seemed unnecessary – and they quickly cuffed the younger Winchester and pulled him to his feet, dragging him from the room.
Black was swimming in Dean's vision and he tried to yell. In his head, he heard, "What are you doing? Arrest the other one!" but Lucifer remained a free man. He leaned over and winked at Dean, before he calmly followed Sam out of the door.
Sam sat quietly in the armchair. His back was against the arm, his long legs over the other side of the armchair. His shoes were kicked off and on the floor; his socks were as white as his pants and shirt. He had a sketchbook spread out on his lap, a pencil between his teeth, and his thumb on the page, smudging the graphite to shade the picture.
Nobody was surprised when he entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Despite the highly publicized trial and the victim's angry families, nobody could disprove his claim. He'd been in and out of psychiatric facilities since he was a teenager. There was a public outcry when he was sentenced to life in a psych ward. And Sam was sure he could handle himself in prison, but he enjoyed the easy freedom of being a lunatic.
Sam grabbed the pencil from his mouth and spared a look at the chair opposite of him. The best part about this stint was that they fucked up his medication. As long as Sam wasn't too obvious with it, they believed his lies that Lucifer had disappeared.
Lucifer looked up when Sam did, grin spreading across his face. He abandoned his book and walked across to the gap between the chairs and took the sketchbook. After situating himself on Sam's lap, he looked down at the picture.
Sam had gotten a lot better since high school.
They were trying to keep a low profile. They didn't talk much in the dayroom, and Sam tried to keep Lucifer out of his drawings. Half the pictures in the sketchbook were non-controversial – a dog Sam had as a child, objects, the occasional Johnlock fanart – but there was certainly some damning drawings as well. Sketches of Jess or Ruby or Lucifer and Sam as teenagers. Lucifer's favorite picture was of Dean with his chin in his hand, fingers curled up and over his mouth, not entirely concealing the mischievous grin. He wasn't looking toward the drawing, but at something Sam didn't draw off to his right. The detail in the wrinkles of pleasure in his eyes (and the freckles) boasted obvious talent from the younger Winchester.
The picture he was drawing was something Lucifer knew Sam wanted more than anything. Sam was in the center with his arms wrapped around Lucifer and Dean's shoulders. The three of them looked happy.
Lucifer sighed.
"You know you should probably be mad at him. It's his fault that we're stuck here for the rest of our lives."
Sam took the sketchbook from his friend, closing it and tossing it on the table next to him. The pencil was abandoned as well, and Sam's arms wrapped around Lucifer's hips.
"Cut him some slack, Lucifer," Sam whispered, shooting his eyes around the room to make sure nobody was listening. If they caught them talking, they might up his dose. Lucifer promised never to leave again – not after last time – but Sam wasn't completely sure Lucifer could control it. Sam wasn't sure if Lucifer was real or not, and he didn't want to risk the latter. "He lost everything to get us here."
Lucifer frowned – Dean hadn't exactly been Lucifer's biggest fan growing up – but he sighed and stopped talking about it. They sat in quiet for a moment, before Sam's head turned to look at the other side of the dayroom. Lucifer followed his gaze and let out another sigh before forcing a smile. He would play nice.
Lucifer waved his arm and gave a friendly sort of wave.
The cry that escaped from Dean was so loud that they could hear it even all the way over here. Dean drew his knees to his chest, put his forehead on his knees, and wrapped his arms over his head, like if he couldn't see Lucifer, then Lucifer couldn't see him either. Dean was thinner – he'd lost a lot of his muscle after his admission – and he looked dwarfed in his white clothes.
The drugs weren't working on Dean either.
Sam just grabbed his sketchpad again and rested it across Lucifer's lap, resuming the drawing of the three of them, together and happy. And for once, Lucifer just ran his fingers over Sam's legs and sat with him in silence, indulging Sam in his fantasy.