Warning: mentions of past abuse and torture, spoilers for 13x06
Sam sees him in Jack sometimes.
He doesn't mean to. He doesn't want to. He knows better. He knows that Jack is nothing like him, nothing like the brutal, cold, sadistic bastard that Lucifer was. Jack is a good kid with a good heart that wants to do right in the world, that doesn't ever want to hurt people.
But he can't help it.
That part of his mind, the part of his subconsciousness that has been integrated with memories of two centuries of endless, unspeakable abuse and torture, can't help but see the fact that he's Lucifer's son, the biological offspring of the being that has torn him apart and broken him in every possible way that he could. There was enough time down there for it all.
He sees it in the way the light sometimes hits Jack's face, just in the wrong way at the wrong angle, and it's enough to make him see him again. It's enough to make him remember flashes of excruciating agony and of bloodied, icy hands and sick, twisted, sneering smiles. It's enough to make him hear a voice in his head, mocking and taunting and just as cold as the rest of him, an underlying, controlled rage that ran so deep and dark that it just looked like calm.
Tutting, look what you've done now, Sammy. You've pissed me off and now I wanna rip something apart.
He breathes every time and he tells himself that Jack will never be anything like him. Jack with the soft eyes and the sweet smiles and the clueless questions and the sadness in his chest of not quite being right on the inside, of trying so hard to not let that mean that he wasn't quite right on the inside at all, too much like himself, too much like Cas and Kelly and nothing like Lucifer.
"Just don't," Jack grits out.
But it didn't always look like calm.
Sometimes that rage used to bleed through in Lucifer's voice, low and harsh and hissing through clenched teeth, red eyes dark and ablaze, "Don't. Don't fight it. I'll make it worse. That what you want?"
Sam quiets immediately, flinching back as his heart jolts violently in his chest. His jaw clenches and his widened eyes flicker down from Jack's face as his hands snap up in placation, feels his fear making him curl inwards and turning him submissive and silent, the briefest thread of one of the countless memories rushing into his mind.
I-I'm s-sorry. P...please.
Jack hears his abrupt shift to silence. His gaze lifts up, swipes across everyone, and lands on Sam's face.
"You're afraid of me," he says quietly in realization. Sam wants to backtrack, wants to take back his stupid fucking reaction because he's not. Damn it, he's not scared of Jack. He's…
It's the ghosts of the fallen angel whose blood flows through his veins, that he accidentally haunts him with sometimes, unknowingly. Now more than ever, he does, with the shadows and flames in his eyes and the hard, angry voice warning him, "don't."
Not Jack. Jack is more like his mother and like Cas than anyone. Jack has never been Lucifer's.
"Jack, no," Cas protests, turning a little towards Jack in his chair.
He wants to tell him he's not scared of him, but then he knows he can't explain what he's really afraid of either. He'll make sure that Jack never finds out what kind of person his biological father truly was, of the terrible things he's done to so many people, as if his self-esteem isn't already in the dumps due to his perpetual sense of something being inherently wrong with him. Being the child of everything he was terrified of becoming (but won't. Sam knows this) would be one hit too many to his sense of self-worth and being good.
"No, maybe you're right…" Jack says, eyebrows furrowed together in a saddening and completely false realization. "Maybe I am just another monster."
The stones of guilt keep piling up in his chest, and Sam hates himself even more.
But his hands stay up even after that look in Jack's eyes is gone and he can't bring himself to speak, his mouth dry and his throat choked and his heart racing, and he's breathing a little too heavy because his lungs feel a bit tight. He keeps glancing at Cas and Dean, and they seem fine, and he wants to be fine too, because he's not afraid of Jack. And Jack shouldn't think he's something to be scared of just because Sam can't put a reign over his emotions and reactions, over his dumb fucking lizard brain.
It takes him too long to get his voice to finally work, but it's too late by then to change Jack's set mind.
"...and I know that if I stay, I'm going to hurt you. All of you...dead. I can't… you're all I have," Jack says, gets slightly choked on his last words. He looks and sounds too sad and too afraid of hurting and losing people. He remembers himself again at twenty-three, after finding out what his father told his brother to do if he couldn't be saved. He can't let Jack feel that way, can't be the last straw in making Jack think he's what he's been so terrified of being, not when his lack of faith in himself has already been solidified after the accidental events of today.
"Jack, listen," Sam tries, shifting on his feet.
"I have to go," Jack cuts him off with a whisper, too lost in his inner turmoil to hear him, his head bowed down. "I'm sorry."
"Jack, no," Cas says, but Jack's lifting his hand, palm outwards, his eyes glowing gold (eyes glowing red, hands folding into fists, his insides shredding with agony as he scr—). And before he knows it, they're all being hurled back by an invisible force slamming into their bodies. The world is a blur of colors and noises, of grunts and yells and thuds, the air being knocked out of his lungs as he collides into something. The world goes still and momentarily black as dark spots dance in his vision, his head light with dizziness and lack of oxygen.
Jack is gone, nowhere to be seen no matter how much he hopes otherwise. He gets up from the ground, scrambling himself to his feet, and runs to the spot that the kid disappeared from. He stares out into the room outside, perhaps in an illogical, wishful expectation of him emerging from there, still somehow here and safe with them.
He turns around a few seconds later, to Cas and Dean, vocalizes what they already know because he's shocked and not able to think anything in that moment besides the fact that Jack's really vanished on them like this. "He's gone."
He can't help but wonder whether things would have gone a lot differently today, if he'd just been able to keep those ghosts inside of him at bay.
Author's Note: Hello!
This was written because Sam was the only one who looked so scared (Dean and Cas seemed okay) and kept looking so scared for a while and it frUCKING HURT SO BAD. This was what went through my mind, and where I believed Sam's head was at, when I saw that. Goddamnit, stop breaking my heart.
Thank you so much for reading! If you have a minute, I'd love to know your thoughts on the story and, if you'd like to, on the recent episode.