The demons murmured apprehensively as Lucifer was led down the pale terra-cotta hall, watching out of sight, black eyes glinting from the warm shadows. Lazily he murmures, "While I appreciate the sentiment…" then lets it trail off. He's probably not going to do this. At least, he would rather not. It's powerful magic if it can bend the will of an archangel. He has no interest in doing that to himself.

Or leaving both himself and Sam at the mercy of these demons. In any sense. Ever.

"But, Father, please, he is yours and yours alone, and once he is within the spell, he will be unable to deny the bond." The demon in question was excited, it's black eyes were bright with ambient light, and it seemed entirely too pleased with itself, nearly bouncing as it led the way. Lucifer wanted to catch it's head and squeeze it and make those eyes burn out with his Grace.

He only nods.

Lucifer was hesitant to go into a truth ward room, if only because he generally preferred being able to think coherently, not liking the inability to manipulate words. He also was not pleased with the idea of Sam saying yes here, as opposed to Detroit. But he owed it to himself to at least inspect it, for it was a rare opportunity. Not many had existed even when he'd last walked free - certainly now there could barely be the one (and even then, a hundred witches had to be sacrificed for it to even be temporarily functioning again). No doubt, those who had been under it's effects and the effects of it's kin and found themselves displeased with whatever truths they had found themselves revealing. And thus destroyed them.

"It will reveal the truth within me, and as I am an angel, my first instinct will be to smite you." that is a lie. As himself, it is his constant instinct to smite them all. But he would rather not have to think about what they hear and what he says, and generally doesn't appreciate their company at all.

The smile faltered, but then flushed back to delight, "Not to worry, my Lord, for we shall all leave you until the spell ends. Your privacy is most revered, after all."

Lucifer tilted his head at that. They stopped at the entrance to a small room, lit from within with no obvious source. Along the inside of the archway glowing runes sizzled. Across the room, three demons had appeared and were holding a bound and gagged (and furious looking) Samuel Winchester. Who promptly saw him and looked horrified. His struggles resumed with even greater ferocity.

Even as he seemed terrified of Lucifer, Lucifer couldn't help the small smile at the sight of the human. Well, if nothing, this should prove entertaining.

He sighed. "Very well, you have convinced me of it's merits. You have done well, my child." He turned and pressed a gentle kiss upon her brow, holding back his Grace, as she squeaked in evident joy and then backed away, calling the others with her.

He sighed again, then smoothly slipped through the wardings, feeling them drag and pass over his borrowed skin and bubble in his grace before settling. Already, he felt exposed. A lightness of thought encompassed his being, and he distantly noted he should dislike the feeling. It was an absence of sharp clarity, and he does not welcome it.

However, already the magic is suddenly sparking along the vessel's ruined skin, hissing as it healed over the mangled flesh. If nothing, this is useful for extending the amount of time this poor vessel has. He lifts a limp wrist and inspects it, notes the skin flowing over the small discrepancies like liquid, knitting unseen underneath, the bone, the blood, the tissue. He lists the reasons this will be a good experience even as he continues to wish he hadn't done it.

Sam is immediately thrown in as the demons scatter, and he falls on his hands and knees, gasping as he feels the spell start to work. Lucifer decides to kill those three promptly after this is over, for none should think to handle Sam like that. Sam is huffing, and Lucifer knows he has no idea what is happening, most likely, other than something he is very opposed to.

Sam shudders, still fighting, not quite believing where his willpower has suddenly gone.

"I imagine it is much like a wall." Lucifer says quite without intending to. He's just thinking it, and now it's coming out of his mouth. He frowns, wanting to keep his thoughts to himself. "You're trying to hold back the wall and suddenly the wall isn't there anymore and now you're trying to hold back the air. But you can't." Sam is looking up at him, dragging the gag off his neck (it was tugged down shortly before he was hurled in), looking half confused and half horrified. Lucifer can't understand for the Grace of him why humans should like getting drunk and spilling their secrets like this.

"Stop fighting it." He says instead.

Sam's face goes from drawn with alarm to tight and angry immediately. Lucifer thinks Dean calls that a bitch face. Sam scrambles back, leans against the small terra-cotta shrine table. He regards Lucifer half warily.

"Every time I almost say yes because you…but then I realize we're not." He says, not making any sense, but still with a look of surprise comically crossing over his face as it comes out.

Sam is several feet away. Lucifer realizes he does not like this.

And then Lucifer is leaning close, over the hunter and Sam seems frozen for a moment before he relaxes (the spell breeds truth and Sam cannot find himself feeling threatened, because that is the bond he denies them both,) and Lucifer feels a soft hum rise in his chest.

Softly Sam says, "I keep remembering that if it were me, I would be trying to do everything in my power to fix this. Not…"

destroy the world

Lucifer smiles, "Ah, but Sam, what if you knew you were right?"

Sam is still trying to hold on to his control, and he gives a distracted laugh, "You know you're right? Even though God told you you were wrong?"

"God wrote the prophecies, yet you still fight fate."

Sam frowned in confusion. "That's different."

"Not really. Why are you fighting destiny?"

Sam abruptly sits up, and then sways as the blood rushes to his head, or he feels something to the effect of that. "I have to."

Lucifer laughs, indulgently, "Well, so do I."

Sam blinks, then understanding glows on his face, "You have to do the apocalypse?" he says, somewhat unsure.

"Yes."

Sam seems wistful, almost sad, "You could choose to be different, though, to not have to."

Lucifer frowns, "Nonsense."

Sam shakes his head like a puppy, a small smile playing on his lips, "If me fighting destiny is what I have to do, and you doing the apocalypse is what you have to do, then if you expect me to eventually change my mind and say yes, I can expect you to eventually change your mind and stop." Suddenly Sam is grinning as if he hadn't thought through it before he'd spoken the revelation out loud and he was glad it still made sense.

Lucifer sighed, "Samuel, I won't-"

"Oh don't." Said Sam softly, "It makes me hopeful. I want to see you forgiven, Lucifer. If only you would try."

Lucifer feels himself burn at those words, but before he can think of what to say to them, Sam suddenly adds shyly.

"I like it when you call me Samuel. Well…I like the way you say a lot of things…" He says thoughtfully. For a moment he stares off into the distance before a sudden look of horror flashes upon his face as he recognizes what's happening.

Lucifer feels just a little cruel, so he leans in and kisses Sam's neck. And then rises to his jaw. And then his mouth , and Sam is pressing into him even as he distantly notices that Sam's conscious is furiously trying to stop himself from kissing back. He could make Sam say yes, now, make him beg.

He doesn't know if he will, but he lets his hands wrap around Sam's shoulders and pull him closer at the thought.

His.

Suddenly, however, Sam is pulling away, "No." He breathes raggedly into Lucifer's cheek, tense but relaxed all at once. Lucifer can't actually stop the flinch. Sam should want to say yes. It hurts. More than he'd like to say.

so he won't.

He can't stop the look on his face, however.

Sam freezes and Lucifer looks at him to find Sam with an upset expression caught between apologetic and hurt and sad and shocked. As if he's realized he can't stop himself from caring whether or not he's made Lucifer unhappy. And that's halfway an unspoken apology if ever there was one.

As if he needs to explain himself he sighs and regards Lucifer evenly.

"Do you really want it to be like this?" He murmurs, pulling back even as he strokes Lucifer's cheek. Lucifer leans into his touch absently. "Do you want it to be a spell that does it? Not a choice?"

Lucifer feels Sam drag his fingers through his hair and sighs. Sam didn't know exactly what was going on, but he could guess. And he supposed Sam was right. That was why he hadn't liked the idea of getting Sam to say yes here. He wanted Sam to say yes without any threats or deals or promises. Well. He would promise Sam the world already, regardless, but otherwise. A tiny part of him wanted Sam to say yes and break just a little as Lucifer had when he'd said no to God, and wish he hadn't even as it was too late, and the rest of him accepted.

"This is a spell that makes you completely honest, Sam. It drags out your honesty and makes you act and speak on it. It's not necessarily forcing you to do anything. You just act as you secretly want."

Sam curls into Lucifer, and isn't it ridiculous, this giant of a man, pressing into Lucifer for comfort. Sam whispers with shame into the crook of Lucifer's neck, "I want you to change for me. To be redeemed. To be happy another way, without trying to make me undo everything I've tried all my life to protect." A sad, tiny voice. It has no hope, no faith in it's dreams.

The most Sam can do is say no.

Lucifer aches, and gently kisses Sam's hair, croons and pulls his fingers through it.

"I know." He says, even though he doesn't. The spell must be wearing off soon, and Sam will return to fighting him tooth and nail and soul and mind.

He means to say, "one day you'll see, you'll understand and you will love the world we remake together."

but somehow it comes out, wrong, confused.

He feels the last dregs of the spell curl up and catch fire and turn to ash in his lungs.

"Maybe one day I'll see, I'll understand why you love this world so much and we'll love it together."

He and Sam both still even as the words spill off his tongue. He tightens his grip on Sam even as the hunter raises his head sharply, clearness already spreading like cool water throughout both their heads.

"Lucifer - ?"

He immediately flies them out of there. To the motel. He has a dim sense of where that is supposed to be.

They arrive in front of it just as Dean is slamming the door to his car and Castiel is regarding the man from across it.

"What-" Sam begins before Lucifer unceremoniously dumps him there, even as Dean is yelling and Castiel is suddenly by the younger Winchester's side.

Lucifer quickly does a short spell in Enochian that blocks Castiel's ability to delve into Sam's mind for that last hour before giving the startled angel a small grin and disappearing. He knows even as Dean's yelling fades that Sam is fainting.


The first thing he does is make the terra-cotta house burn.

There's a reason they didn't survive, he knows, that they often had a way of making people admit things they didn't know they felt.

And now he has something new to reflect on.