Note: Oh look, a sequel! If you haven't read Echo, I'd go do so now or you probably won't understand what the hell's going on. To those who have read and reviewed, thank you so much for all the favs and reviews, I truly appreciate it. Anyway, I got a ridiculous amount of requests for a sequel, which I really wasn't expecting, but you were all so nice I thought I owed it to all you lovely people. So here it is! Apologies if my updates are inconsistent, but I'm going back to Uni soon so I don't know how much time I'll have for this. So thank you in advance for your patience.

Shadow

Chapter One: Saint Dean

Life with the devil wasn't really what he'd expected. Not that it was really something he'd particularly thought about previously. He'd once had fleeting thoughts, which he'd tried to oppress, about what life would be like as Lucifer, but after quickly remembering that he wasn't supposed to be considering that option, he forced his mind onto other matters.

Life with Lucifer was surprisingly simple. He hunts; minor jobs- poltergeists, werewolves, possessions- with Lucifer watching over him. They stay in hotel rooms, sometimes for weeks at a time. Lucifer was insistent that the world's problems were not all Sam's responsibility, reminding him that there were other hunters out there, and not even everything that went bump in the night was bad.

"Look at me, Sam," Lucifer had said. "I'm as supernatural as it gets, but you're not planning on doing away with me, are you?"

He'd sounded like he was joking, but even so, Sam had pulled him close almost desperately and pressed their lips together, whispering, "no. Not ever."

The idea of getting rid of Lucifer right now was like cutting off one of his own limbs, and that realisation didn't worry him perhaps as much as it should have.

He woke up to an empty space in the bed beside him. That wasn't out of the ordinary. Lucifer was practically all-powerful, something greater than his understanding, and Sam knew it was unreasonable to truly expect him to remain constantly cooped up in grimy motel rooms. Sam used to worry about where he went, but eventually he'd come to realise the important thing was that Lucifer came back.

And he always did.

Sure enough, he was just tying his shoelaces when there was a flutter of wings behind him and Lucifer's cool breath on the side of his face, followed by his lips.

"Hey," Sam muttered, face cracking into a smile as he turned to face his angel.

Lucifer's continuation of wearing Nick's face was still holding up, which Sam had to say he was glad for. Not just because the whole burning vessel this was a little disconcerting, but because he'd come to associate those blue eyes and that messy blond hair with Lucifer, and he honestly had to say he liked it.

"What's the plan for today, Sammy?"

Sam huffed thoughtfully, reaching out for the newspaper on the bed beside him. "There's a pretty odd story here. Petite, five-foot-two wife suddenly butchers loving six-foot, body builder husband of twenty years," he summarised the article with clear suspicion in his tone. "Sounds like o-" He broke off, stopping himself from saying 'our'. This wasn't Lucifer thing, not really. "My kind of thing," he finished hastily.

"Yours and Dean's," Lucifer said, as astute as ever at knowing exactly what he was thinking.

Sam sighed, leaning back into Lucifer behind him so the back of his head rested on the archangel's shoulder. "Sorry," he muttered. "I know you don't like it when I talk about him."

Lucifer shrugged, nudging Sam gently with the movement. "He is your brother," he said blandly, his words tactfully neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

Sam pursed his lips together, nodding, before making an effort to change the subject. "I'm gonna go get breakfast. You coming?"

Lucifer shook his head.

Sam understood. Lucifer grew irritated when around humans for too long, often preferring to remain secluded in the motel room while Sam was out. As much as they were together and appreciated each other's company, Sam knew thousands of years alone in the cage still affected Lucifer; seclusion was comfortingly familiar, even if it wasn't ideally what he wanted.

After planting a quick kiss on Lucifer's lips, Sam left the room, leaving the archangel to his own devices.

Despite his hatred for it's occupants, Lucifer found the world a rather interesting place. He preferred the nature side of things, but the varieties of architecture, entertainment, and general ways of life were fascinating in their own way. As the (ex-)Angel of Music, he could appreciate the availability of music, especially. Unfortunately, he found much of it distasteful, but a small selection, he had to admit was acceptable.

Sam had taught him about the 'music channels' on the visual device humans were so fond of. At first he'd thought the whole concept mind-numbing and ridiculous, but after hearing Castiel had a preference for television, he submitted to give it a try.

For some reason, the humans seemed to be fond of accompanying their music with strange videos, ranging from mildly acceptable dancing, to frankly bizarre animations. Lucifer failed to see the point in that, but there were some which merely showed the humans playing the instruments live, which he had to confess an interest in.

Sam had informed him the songs he preferred were categorised as 'classic rock'. Lucifer didn't understand why humans were so obsessed with categorising and labeling everything, but it did make it easier to quick track down more favourable shows and selections, so after finding a show titled 'Greatest 80s rock classics', Lucifer contented himself to watch until Sam returned.

As the next song began, Lucifer frowned, attempting to recall why he recognised the strange, gibberish phrase the song began with, followed by the following enthusiastic drum beat. The (comprehensible) lyrics had just begun, reeling off the phrase, "I've got something to say" when a shrill ringing cut through the room and Lucifer's attention was drawn to Sam's phone sitting on the bedside table.

He knew Sam considered the device important, but with hardly anyone to indeed contact it anymore, Lucifer supposed it was failing in it's significance as of late, hence why Sam had been negligent enough to forget it on this occasion. He occasionally got calls from old contacts of his beloved friend Bobby, but they were few and far between. Lucifer considered answering it, if only to please Sam, though he had no desire to speak to some human.

Narrowing his eyes, he leant over and picked the device up out of vague curiosity and simply nothing better to do. The still irritatingly familiar song playing in the background, he turned the phone so he could see the screen, remembering Sam's explanations about caller ID. Lucifer froze.

Dean calling.

Nothing for Lucifer could ever replace the heaven he had lost, but the past year with Sam had been the closest to happiness he'd been in a long time. And if there was one thing in the universe that could threaten to disrupt this newfound happiness, it was Dean Winchester.

Lucifer did not intend to lose his heaven a second time.

He sent a smiting burst of angelic energy at the phone, ensuring it was beyond repair, all the while cursing Dean Winchester and his resilience at not staying dead.

Inevitably, they'd just finished looking around a crime scene they'd gained access to via fake ID, when Sam realised his phone was missing.

"Do you remember where I left it?"

"On the bedside table, I think," Lucifer replied, because he still could never and would never lie to Sam. That technically wasn't a lie. He had answered the question, simply neglecting to mention that fact that he knew Sam's phone was not in fact where he left it, but rather the disintegrated pieces of it were sitting at the bottom of the bin.

"I should go back for it," Sam said.

"Why?" Lucifer insisted. "It's not like you use it much. No one important's going to call." No one important by Lucifer's standards, anyway. "Everyone you'd usually call is gone Sam."

Sam flinched unhappily at those words. He briefly felt like snapping at Lucifer for being so harsh, but seeing as he'd been dissuading the devil from blowing up the planet for the past year, manners and tact were perhaps a detail he could overlook. "Yeah," he sighed. "I suppose."

Instead Lucifer took hold of him and pulled him closer, pressing his lips against Sam's, clutching the hunter to him with unabashed possessiveness.

In the shadows of some narrow alley leading back to where they'd left the Impala, Sam let his eyes flutter closed, sighing as Lucifer's fingers ran through his hair and clenched tight, the other hand gripping his waist almost to the point of hurting. He could almost feel Lucifer's grace burning with each touch, indescribably hot and cold, like sparks of electricity on his skin. There was a voice whispering to him, quiet yet echoing in a guttural, ancient language what he could vaguely comprehend as "nonci chia in". You are mine.

Sam's eyes cracked open, meeting the fierce blue gaze of the angel barely an inch away from him. Lucifer had once said he knew Sam better than Sam did himself, but over their time together, the hunter had realised that may be the case both ways. He knew the angel, too. Enough to know that these touches were too frantic, too possessive, this was a Lucifer that felt threatened.

A while back, Lucifer had torn a girl's heart out of her chest because she'd made Sam laugh while flirting with him in the back car park of some bar. Sam had yelled and screamed at him until he undid the damage, before wiping the girl's mind and taking off.

A rather intense fight between that had ensued with Sam refusing to speak to him, lips pursed and adamantly keeping his back to the angel, until Lucifer had slammed him against a wall to force some acknowledgement.

Sam tried to think now, what could have happened for Lucifer to react this way. There hadn't been any particular bold moves of anyone flirting with him, as far as he could remember. In fact, the two of them had been pretty secluded the past few days, which was generally how Lucifer was happiest.

"Everything okay?" he asked the angel eventually.

Lucifer said nothing, because that meant he could in no way be said to be lying. Instead, he walked down the rest of the alley to the dank car park at the end. The sky was darkening by now, the area empty beside them, the Impala, and a couple of battered old SUVs.

Lucifer had stopped walking just at the edge of the lot. Sam hovered beside him, watching curiously as Lucifer bent down and plucked an old, thorny weed from between the cracks of concrete. The hunter watched in fascination as it grew in Lucifer's hand, expanding into multiple stems that wound around each other and sprouted thorns and buds, which then quickly blossomed into roses of deep crimson.

Sam had seen tricks like this before. It was strange, that the flowers Lucifer made always seemed dark somehow, never bright and fresh, but dark like something old that had been there so long and yet couldn't quite manage to wilt.

The spindly vines of deep green ceased their growth, interlocked together in a circles with the rose heads sprouting at intervals from the sides. Sam just smiled tiredly, consenting to bend at the neck as Lucifer placed the bizarre crown upon his head.

"Must you always dress me up?" he muttered.

Lucifer waved his hand and a neat little rose formed on the lapel of his suit. "You deserve to be dressed up," the angel replied. He reached out and tucked Sam's hair back behind his ears as he liked it. "You are something beautiful, Sam."

Sam couldn't help but smile. He knew others thought well of him- that he was a good hunter, that he was clever- but it was only from Lucifer that these spontaneous compliments came. The compliments that made him feel that wasn't something wrong, or unclean, or broken.

"I love you," he told the devil, because it was true.

"Do you?" Lucifer muttered.

Sam frowned. Lucifer would do this sometimes, this weird method of double-checking. It reminded him of that day he'd said yes, and Lucifer had replied "excuse me?", as if he'd just wanted to make sure.

"You know I do."

Lucifer wouldn't meet his gaze, staring at the rose on Sam's lapel. "I could take you anywhere, you know? There's so much you would love to see, Sam. The pyramids, Stonehenge, I could take you to the summit of Mount Everest."

Sam sighed, reaching up self-consciously touching the thorny crown on his head. "Maybe someday."

Lucifer frowned, as if displeased. "I could give you the world, Sam," he insisted. "Even now."

The hunter shook his head. He reached up and took off the crown, plucking the rose from the button hole in his lapel. "I don't want the world, Lucifer."

"Then what do you want?"

"You," the hunter said with a fond smile. "You, and the time we spend together, and to help people, and..." His smile faded, teeth scraping his bottom lip. "Ideally, you know, I just want somewhere to belong. With you and..." He knew Lucifer wouldn't like this, but he felt compelled to say it. "And with Dean, too."

However, Lucifer was no longer listening. There was something he liked even less at that moment, visible over Sam's shoulder in the distance. He gritted his teeth, wings flapping with such force the cars in the lot actually trembled and creaked on their suspension, the trees almost bending over with a breeze that seemed to spread outward like no natural wind could.

Sam just blinked at the empty space where Lucifer had vanished. Subconsciously, his hands clenched on the thorny stems in his hands but they abruptly wilted and fell apart, the remains slipping through his grasp and onto the ground.

"Sammy!"

Sam turned, wide-eyed, hands still half held out in front of him, the breath catching in his throat as Dean passed between two cars parked at the side and headed straight over to throw both arms around him.