Dean didn't know what he'd been thinking. One minute, everything had been going to plan. They were all standing there in the cemetery, and Sam had been about to offer himself to Lucifer as a vessel. The rings of the horsemen were in Dean's pocket. All had to do was wait until Lucifer accepted and then open the gate. It was that simple.

But Dean… he couldn't watch the Devil himself possess his little brother. He just couldn't.

So he broke script. He changed the plan. And he was nearly certain that he, and maybe everyone else, was going to die in the process.

The rings were thrown on the ground, and Sam looked at him like he was insane. Dean wasn't even sure how the next few things had happened. He'd thrown himself- physically, bodily- at Lucifer, at the overly powerful archangel, trying to tackle him into the pit. And nothing had happened at first. It had felt like running into a brick wall.

So that was it. He'd taken a risk, and now he was going to die.

Only mere seconds later, not only was Lucifer falling backwards into the gateway created by the pit, but Michael was falling with them. It felt like Lucifer's hands were trying to pry Dean off of him, even while he fell, but Dean wouldn't let go. He couldn't.

And so into the pit they all fell.

At first, it felt so hot. It reminded him of Hell- which was, you know, apt- and Dean couldn't breathe. There was ash and sulfur in his lungs, and he collapsed to the ground, coughing. It was pretty obvious that this place was not meant for humans.

And then a cool- frigid, in fact- hand landed on his back, and he could breathe again.

Forcefully shoving away his memories of Hell, Dean recoiled away from the touch- Lucifer's touch- finding himself on the other side of the rather small cage. Great. He was stuck in a cage the size of a living room with two Archangels. This was definitely going to go well.

Speaking of two Archangels, Dean looked around for Michael, but he didn't see him. And then a punch with the force of a semi-truck came from behind, and Dean stumbled to his knees.

Michael kicked him in the ribs, basically throwing Dean against the wall with the supernatural force of the action.

He didn't look like Adam anymore, Dean noted vaguely as he started coughing up blood. Instead, his human visage had taken on that of a tall, blond, blue-eyed man wearing a navy blue suit. He knelt down and grabbed Dean by the throat, pulling him up and slamming him into the wall of the cage. The metal was hot and started burning through Dean's clothes, sizzling against his skin.

"You fool!" Michael raged, his voice booming and loud in the Cage. "This wasn't how it was meant to be!"

"The fools here are you and I, brother," Lucifer said, shockingly quiet from the other side of the Cage. "Let him go."

Michael snarled again, and Dean could see a glint of insanity in those perfectly blue eyes.

Lucifer, who was also no longer in his old, rotting vessel, glared and suddenly Michael was thrown against the other side of the cage, and Dean was behind Lucifer. He groaned and fell to his knees, his back still feeling like it was on fire.

"Keep your side of the world, brother," Lucifer said coldly. "And I'll keep mine."

Michael hissed, but suddenly curled up in the corner, turning his back to the rest of them.

Lucifer turned to Dean, who recoiled away from him, groaning in pain.

"Dean," Lucifer said quietly, "look at me."

Dean didn't want to listen. He really didn't, but something in him responded to the Devil's tone, and he looked up into dark blue eyes. His new vessel was just generally darker than his old one. His hair was pitch black, his eyes were a deeper, almost navy blue, and even his skin tone was a light brown. As Dean looked into his nearly black eyes, he saw something there he really didn't expect- compassion.

"This Cage wasn't built for humans," the Devil told him softly, and Dean realized that he had an accent- something Middle Eastern, it seemed. "If you don't let me shield you with my grace, it will eat away at your body, and then at your soul, until you become something far less than human."

"A demon?" Dean spat from his position curled up on the floor of the Cage, trying not to cry at the pain ripping through his body, trying to keep his composure.

"No," Lucifer responded evenly, "something even less."

"And I'm supposed to believe that you want to protect me?" The bravado was somewhat ruined by the fact that Dean choked on the last syllable. It felt like there was fire all around him, burning into his skin, burning through his skin, and he had a hard time remembering how Hell could have been worse than this.

Lucifer suddenly rolled his eyes. "You and Michael really were meant for one another," he growled in annoyance, and suddenly his hand was on Dean's forehead, and the pain- well. The pain was just gone.

Dean gasped as it felt like a flood of water and light surrounded his body, but as soon as he could move again, he recoiled back against the cage wall- away from Lucifer.

Lucifer watched him with impassive eyes. "Take that side of the Cage if you wish, but I wouldn't recommend crossing over to Michael's. It seems the last few thousand years of ruling the world on his own has rendered him somewhat insane." He spoke about Michael casually, but there was a hint of pain in his eyes.

And, fuck it, but Lucifer was right. He'd rather deal with the manipulative but surprisingly docile Devil than the enraged Archangel.

For a little while, there was just silence. Dean couldn't stand it. If he were really condemned to an eternity in this place, it seemed that they could at least have a conversation. Right?

"You look… different."

Lucifer laughed. It was a surprisingly sane and pleasant sound. "The cage immediately burnt up our vessels, as it would have yours if I hadn't shielded you."

Dean tried not to look too surprised. He was pretty sure he failed, but Lucifer didn't comment either way.

"These are our forms as we used when we walked among humanity millennium ago. Back before… everything."

Dean arched an eyebrow. "Well, then, you I kind of get- you look Middle Eastern, aside from the eyes, and even those are dark. But how come he looks like freaking Captain America?"

Lucifer rolled his eyes. "Michael was never exactly a fan of blending in. He wanted everyone to know immediately who he was. He succeeded. They used to call him the Golden God."

Dean frowned. "But isn't that… blasphemous?"

Lucifer looked at him for a moment. "There's a lot that you neither know nor understand."

Dean made a face. As true as that might have been, it rankled his pride. "Then explain it," he challenged. "Not like we have anything better to do."

Lucifer's face darkened for a moment. "Perhaps another time."

Dean scoffed but didn't push. On occasion, he did, actually, have self-preservation instincts. "Okay then. What subjects are on the table? Because I get the feeling that talking about how you betrayed your family and created the demon race all because you weren't Dad's favorite anymore isn't going to go over well either." Or maybe he didn't.

Lucifer, to Dean's lasting surprise, just smirked. "It rather depends on whether you wish to yell at me, or actually listen."

"And if I'd just prefer to rail?"

Lucifer paused for a moment and then shrugged. "If it makes you feel better."

Not the reaction he'd been expecting at all. "What happened to the crazy dude who wanted to take over the world? The one who was more than happy to beat me to smithereens?"

Lucifer's entire expression darkened and his body tensed. "Change of heart?" he tried, quiet and almost uncertain.

Dean snorted. "Right."

Lucifer just shrugged.

There was silence again, but it felt more… well, almost companionable this time.

Dean had no concept of the passage of time in the Cage. Michael barely moved; he stayed huddled up in the corner, curled up into a ball, and Lucifer just reclined against the wall across from Dean with his eyes closed. The boredom was excruciating.

"Come on, tell me something!" Dean half-shouted into the silence.

Lucifer cracked his eyes open. "What did you have in mind?"

"I don't know; you're the one who's thousands of years old. You have to have something to say."

Lucifer arched an eyebrow. "You realize I was locked in this Cage alone for the majority of that time, right? Not a whole lot of exciting happenings down here, in case you hadn't noticed," he said dryly.

Dean exhaled heavily, annoyed. "Yeah, but… come on, dude. There's gotta be something."

Lucifer huffed, looking directly at Dean. "What about you? You've spent a decent amount of time in the world- and doing some fairly exciting things from what I've gathered. I'm sure you have a story or two."

And, funnily enough, that was how it started.

One or two stories exchanged between the two of them. Lucifer would tell Dean about before the Fall, about Heaven and the Angels. Dean told Luc about growing up a hunter. He even told him about his mom. They avoided the people who had been left behind by unspoken agreement. Lucifer didn't talk about Castiel. Dean didn't talk about Sam.

Oddly enough, Gabriel had come up once- only once.

Lucifer had been reminiscing on what seemed to be a fond memory of walking among humans before the Fall. Dean wasn't sure how that fit into the Biblical narrative, but he'd learned that Lucifer didn't want to answer questions. It was rare enough that Dean could get him to talk about the past, although he was perfectly willing to banter. And, yeah, bantering with the Devil was shockingly fun.

Regardless, Lucifer had been in one of his rare moods where he was willing to talk about the past. Apparently he'd had a great deal of fun pranking humanity in the youth of their race, and he was telling him a story about how he screwed up this big ceremony that had been held in Michael's honor. Dean had a hard time following sometimes because a lot of the things he was talking about were extremely archaic, but he had gathered that the High Priest was soaking wet and quite a few things were on fire by the end of the night.

"How did Michael react?" Dean asked, chuckling. With the Devil. That was never going to stop being weird.

Lucifer snorted. "Oh, he was pissed as hell, of course. Started ranting on about responsibility and how humans were supposed to respect and fear us and what not." He grinned. "Of course, then Gabriel showed up just covered, and I mean from head to toe, in milk," the grin fled as soon as it had come, and Luc suddenly got very, very quiet. "It derailed the conversation rather quickly," Lucifer muttered.

Dean knew that, according to their unspoken arrangement, he should just let it go. Lucifer never pressed when Dean shut up. He also knew that he was getting way too friendly with the Devil, and the reminder that said Devil had murdered his own brother, who Dean might have kind of admired wasn't helping anything. He kept telling himself that it didn't matter if he was friends with the Devil since he was trapped down here for the rest of eternity anyway… but that didn't excuse being friends with a cold-blooded murderer.

"Yeah, I bet. He was always a funny guy, wasn't he, Gabriel?" Dean commented, his voice cold and harsh.

Lucifer looked up sharply, eyes flashing in a way that told Dean very clearly that he should leave the subject alone.

But maybe Dean had gotten too comfortable around Lucifer, because right now he just felt like scolding him like he might've Sam. "He made a fantastic Trickster. You really should have seen him; I have no doubt you would have approved."

"Dean," Lucifer growled in warning.

"But then, you probably knew all his tricks, didn't you?" Dean finished, harsh, cold, and unrelenting.

In the blink of an eye, Lucifer was across the room, pinning Dean to the cage wall. Yet the protective light that came from Lucifer's grace, the warm feeling that had surrounded him since Lucifer had saved him from Michael, didn't go away. "Stop," Lucifer growled.

"You didn't," Dean spat.

And just like that, Lucifer let him go, and Dean slid down to the floor while the archangel turned his back. "No," he said quietly, "I didn't."

And, yeah, okay, that was unexpected. There was dead silence for a moment.

Dean slowly stood. "Um… Luc? I…. I'm sorry." And yes, he was apologizing to the fucking Devil. "I didn't mean-"

"You're right," Lucifer said abruptly. "I killed him." And Dean was shocked at how utterly cold his voice was. "Anything else you want to rub in my face now?" he snapped, turning. "Because you might as well get it all out now. Or, hell, just wait. You have an eternity."

Dean went very quiet. "I have no idea what was going on with you out there," he said slowly, "but I shouldn't have thrown that in your face. Under any circumstances. I'm sorry."

Lucifer blinked and then slowly cracked a smile. "Get some sleep, Dean."

There was no keeping track of time in the Cage, but Dean still didn't require sleep, so he shrugged and laid down. He froze when he felt a cool presence at his back.

"Don't turn around, Dean," Lucifer muttered, "and stop overthinking. Go to sleep."

And Dean did.