Thank you so much Jenjoremy for beta'ing this for me — on Thanksgiving! — so I could get this out to you all. You're the best. Thank you Ncsupnatfan for everything you did to make this idea come to life.
I forgot to add some more thanks last time. During the rush of words that was this story, I got stuck a few times with canon questions I couldn't find an answer to in the usual places so I reached out to some awesome people that did what they could to find me an answer. Shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod, Sandycub, Astronema2345 and Rafaela Amanda answered my PMs fast with help and TeamSamAKF, SuperWiki, Angelical_Blue and msa_arda answered my plea for help on Twitter. Thank you all x
Chapter Two
Sam had no idea how long he'd been in the cage, but it had been long enough for the spikes to drive wounds into his stomach and back when he'd unintentionally leaned against them. It was impossible to stay ramrod straight when you were as exhausted as Sam was. As painful as the cage was, though, he was less worried about being inside it than what was going to happen when Lucifer eventually came back.
He spent a lot of time thinking of his family in the real world. He was sure they were alive. Jack had been there when they'd gone through the rift, and he would never have let Michael hurt them. They were okay because they had to be. Sam couldn't bear the idea that they might be gone. He would never see them again, he knew, but if they were alive out there somewhere, he could handle what was going to happen to him. At least that was what he told himself.
His mind shied away from thoughts of himself. They were almost as painful as what he knew was coming for him. He tried to focus on the rest of his family instead, wondering what they were doing. They had a lot to do. Michael needed to be stopped before he turned their world into a wasteland the way he had his own. They would do it. They had Jack and Dean fighting. Jack was strong enough to fight him, and Dean had come up against enemies like that before. He would know what to do. He only hoped they weren't too distracted by him being trapped to do what needed to be done. They needed to write him off as dead and move on with the fight. They couldn't get him back without grace, and Michael needed to be killed not drained. He was too dangerous to risk doing anything else.
The door swung open and Sam started, jabbing his already wounded back on the spikes. He forced his expression to remain smooth as Lucifer sauntered into the room, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much Sam was hurting.
"How did you sleep, Sam?" he asked.
Sam had no voice to reply, so he merely glared at Lucifer as he approached and gripped the sides of the cage.
"Really, I want to know. I don't sleep, so I never had to sleep in that thing. I'm guessing it was uncomfortable. It was definitely uncomfortable to stand in. Did you find yourself relaxing without realizing? I did."
Sam didn't even try to answer him. He didn't want Lucifer to get the satisfaction of knowing he was trying and failing to make the words.
Lucifer seemed annoyed though. He shook the cage roughly, making Sam rock back and forth against the spikes, digging them into his existing wounds. Against his will, a short cry of pain left him, and he was shocked to hear it as more than a breath. His surprise must have been evident as Lucifer laughed.
"You can talk, Sam. I wouldn't be asking you questions if you couldn't. What would be the point in that? You get to talk when I let you, and I'm going to let you now. So, how did you sleep?"
"Fuck you," Sam snarled.
"Rude," Lucifer said, sounding disappointed.
He gave the cage a hard shove and Sam bit his lip to keep himself silent. When the cage had settled again, Lucifer turned it from side to side as if to get a better view of Sam.
"Those wounds look nasty," he said conversationally. "Do you want me to heal them? I can. It would only take a touch."
"Don't touch me!"
Lucifer tutted. "Rude again. I was offering to do you a kindness." He reached in the bars and stroked Sam's cheek almost tenderly. "How does that feel? You like that touch?""
Sam pulled away from him, almost impaling himself on the spikes at his back.
"Really, Sam. We both know it's only a matter of time until you're begging for my touch, my help. It didn't take you that long to break in the Cage. I remember you begging for Adam… and then yourself. Those are some sweet memories. I can't wait until we reach that point again. I will wait though. If you do what I want, there will be no need for you to hurt any more than you already have."
"What do you want?" Sam asked. It was a tactical question rather than one of weakness. He had no intention of doing anything Lucifer wanted from him.
"I have a few questions for you. See, I had something special building with my son, and I want to get back to that."
"Jack is nothing to you!"
Lucifer gripped the bars and Sam braced himself for pain that didn't come. Lucifer just turned it ever so slightly to the side as if to see Sam from a better angle.
"Jack is my son. Blood is thicker than water, Sam, and he had my blood. I need to get back to him so we can start building that bond up again. For that I need you. I want you to tell me how you got that rift open. Obviously Red played her part, but do I need a witch or can anyone do it? What do you need apart from my grace? There was a glowy rock and some blood, but what was with the fruit?"
Sam pressed his lips together and glared at the archangel. He thought he should have known that this was what Lucifer would want—a way back to Jack. He would never give it to him. Their world was already in danger from Michael; he would not add Lucifer to that threat. And Jack… Sam would defend him from himself and his softening to Lucifer. Jack was good and kind, but there was also a darkness in him that he himself feared. Sam had thought once Jack was going darkside, even though he hadn't been. On the contrary, he had been looking for a way to bring Mary back for Sam and Dean. He couldn't be sure that they boy's trusting nature wouldn't lead him to being corrupted by Lucifer. Sam would not let that happen.
"I'm waiting, Sam," Lucifer said. "Time to ante up the spell. I don't have all day."
Sam looked into his eyes and made sure to enunciate each word carefully as he said, "Fuck you."
Lucifer's eyes glowed red as his face twisted with anger, and he yanked roughly on the cage, sending Sam bouncing between the spikes in front and behind.
"Don't test me, Sam!" he shouted. "I am not in the mood for your stubborn streak to rear its head. I need this."
The cage settled and Sam felt the searing pain from his wounds, but he didn't make a sound. He just fixed his eyes on Lucifer and tried to show his loathing through his expression alone.
Lucifer breathed hard as he calmed himself and said, "You know what, I don't even need you to tell me. I can pluck it from that mop-head of yours with or without your help. I was trying to give you a chance to earn a reward, freedom perhaps, but I will make sure you rot in this cage now."
He reached through the bars of the cage and gripped the sides of Sam's head. He held him so tightly Sam thought he was trying to break his skull, and then he drew a breath and Sam cried out in agony, unable to stop it, as he saw the faces of the people he had loved.
Jessica was lying on a towel on the sand the summer she and Sam had saved enough money for a weekend on Venice beach. She smiled up at him.
His father was sitting at a table with his gun in pieces in front of him and a saucer of gun oil. He pointed to something and looked Sam in the eye with an intensity that made Sam feel like he was seeing right though him.
Ellen and Jo were sitting with Castiel at Bobby's, the night before they went after Lucifer with the colt. There was a line of shot glasses in front of Ellen, and she looked bleary-eyed.
Castiel stood in a motel room, his tie askew and his smile, so rare in those days, was wide as he welcomed Sam back after being re-ensouled.
Bobby was at his desk with books open in front of him and a scowl on his face as he looked up at Sam, probably frustrated at something that Sam wasn't picking up on fast enough.
Mary was standing across from him in the forest, her eyes wide and disbelieving as Sam walked toward her.
Dean was sitting beside him in the Impala, and though there was no sound, Sam knew he was singing.
"Give me the spell, Sam," Lucifer said in an echoing voice. "Show me how she did it."
Sam saw Rowena in the library. She was pouring the blood into the bowl.
He wrenched himself out of the memory and imagined a steel door slamming between it and him. He slid across a bolt and imagined a lock dial spinning.
"No!" Lucifer's shout hurt his ears and made him flinch.
He opened his eyes again and Sam saw the archangel looking at him with fury.
"How did you do that?" he asked.
"Do what?" Sam asked innocently.
"You know. You stopped me from seeing that memory. That's impossible."
"And yet I did it anyway," Sam said.
Lucifer's blade slipped into his hand and he raised it to Sam's face. "Tell me the spell."
"No."
Lucifer swiped the blade across Sam's cheek, down from his eye to his jaw. The sting was nothing compared to the fear Sam had felt that Lucifer was going to take his eye.
"Oh, that's nasty," he said. "That's going to leave a scar."
Sam felt the blood slip down his neck, warm and slick, to the collar of his borrowed jacket, and he wished he could wipe it away, but he hands were pinned at his sides by the cage.
"You are going to tell me, Sam," he said. "You know I can break you."
"No," Sam said firmly, though he doubted the truth of his words. "You won't break me this time. I have been through worse."
"What could have been worse than the fine art I created of your body?"
Sam didn't answer. He had been through worse, he had lost his brother and he'd become a demon. He'd lost his mother to this world for months, and though he'd believed he would get her back at first, he had still known she was suffering there. Jack had showed him her in this very cage. Castiel had died at Lucifer's own hands. All those things had been worse for him in his heart. All Lucifer could do was hurt him physically. That probably would break him as he had nothing to fight for, but he knew he would never give him the spell
Lucifer sighed, his anger fading and the persona of the reasonable man returning. "I need to be there, Sam. Michael is free in that world, and I'm the only one that can help Jack beat him. My boy is powerful, I know that, but he's also untrained; he doesn't understand his powers. I can teach him that. It's too late for your family, but there are billions more that you want to save, I know. I'm their only hope. Jack can never do it without me.""
"Jack is better than you. He will do it."
"And the fact he's all alone now, without even Castiel or Dean to guide him?"
Sam wouldn't tell Lucifer they were still alive as it would give him another weapon. He knew they were, and that was all that mattered.
"He will do it," he said again.
He had to.
Dean left the others in the library and took Bobby on a tour of the bunker. The mood in the place was somber. He couldn't help but think of how it would have felt if Sam had been with them and not Michael. They would have been celebrating their win. Bobby's people would be experiencing their first night with a decent and safe place to sleep after years of living rough. It would have been a party.
Now it was the furthest thing from a party atmosphere for Dean and his small family; they were thinking of Sam being lost. Though Jack was also thinking of his father, Dean couldn't let himself think of that as it made him want to attack the kid. It wasn't Jack's fault, he knew. Lucifer was the original source of temptation, and he'd made a good case to Jack, but that was in part Dean's fault. They'd never told him what Lucifer had done to Sam in the Cage. Sam hadn't wanted to talk about it, and Dean had respected that as Sam had so few chances to make choices for himself when it came to that, especially since Castiel had freed Lucifer again. Though Dean knew Castiel had been doing what he thought of as the right thing, he also knew it was something he could never really forgive him for. After everything it had taken to trap him in the Cage, Sam's life and almost two centuries of torture, the horrific damage to his soul, Castiel had let him out to torment him again.
Jack didn't know that though, and because of their silence, he was upset that his murdering, evil father wasn't with them.
The rest of the people were thinking of Michael. They had thought they were escaping him, only for him to follow them through and threaten their new world, too. Dean wished there was something he could do for them, as he wished there was something he could do for himself. He would give anything to cut out the part of him that was searing him with pain each time he took a breath. All he could do was focus on his anger and take care of the people that needed him.
"These are the bedrooms?" Bobby asked, cutting into Dean's thoughts.
"What? Oh, yeah. There's only a few taken, so you've got the run of the rest of them." He came to Sam's room and stopped. He didn't want anyone in there, not to sleep or even look at the place. It was Sam's space, no one else's. "Give me a minute," he said. He went into Sam's room, trying not to see Sam's stuff there to protect himself from that pain, but failing. There were clothes waiting to be put away, books on the desk and bedside table that Sam had been reading, all of them books on lore. Dean wondered when Sam had last read something because he was interested in the story, not the information it contained. He couldn't remember seeing Sam doing it in a lifetime.
He took the key from the lock and left the room again, locking the door behind him. "This one's off limits," he told Bobby.
Bobby nodded, probably guessing whose room that had been. Just like the Bobby that had belonged with Sam and Dean, he didn't question or comment.
"I think some of them are going to want to stay somewhere else," he said. "We appreciate everything you've done for us, but after so many years living in the open, they won't be comfortable somewhere subterranean."
"No problem," Dean said. "There's a motel in town called the Rodeway Inn. It's cheap but clean. I'll fix you up with some cash."
"We can take care of that part ourselves," Bobby said. "You've already done more than enough for us."
Dean raised an eyebrow. "How are you going to get money?"
Bobby shrugged. "We'll find a way."
Dean appreciated the sentiment of Bobby wanting to take one problem out of his hands, but he would need to do something. He'd see what Ketch had. He definitely acted like he had money. He could do a little more for the cause and help them out, though if Dean was honest, he knew he'd already done a lot for Bobby's people. If it wasn't for what the British Men of Letters had done to his mother with Ketch's help, Dean would have said he was a decent guy.
He led Bobby back to the library where his people were sitting around the tables and leaning against the walls. Some of them were drinking beers and talking, but most looked shell-shocked still. Dean tried not to search the room for his mother, but his eyes drifted to her of their own accord and he saw her sitting at a table with Rowena and Jack. Her eyes were red though she wasn't crying. Dean thought she was waiting for privacy to let go of the stranglehold she had over her emotions. He was doing the same.
Bobby raised his voice and called for silence. "Dean has offered us rooms here," he said, his voice carrying to the whole room. "But there's a place in town if some of you would rather be somewhere a little more open." Most of them nodded, though Dean saw Charlie looked reluctant. Dean guessed she would want to be with them, close to the base of the mission, just as their Charlie would have.
Ketch stood and came to Dean. "They're going to need cash," he said. "I know where there are Men of Letters funds stored in the area. Shall I retrieve them for Bobby?"
Dean wondered why he and Sam hadn't known there was money there. They'd made do by selling some of the artifacts they'd inherited with the bunker: a fancy egg Sam said was Faberge and a few other artifacts they hadn't had a use for. They'd made out okay, and Dean was pleased they had something to offer now, but it would have been a relief for Sam at least to know they would never need fake credit cards again. It was too late for him to know now. A surge of anger built in Dean again. He clung to it as it was easier to feel than anything else
"Talk to Bobby," he said curtly.
Ketch nodded and walked away.
Dean raised his voice and said, "If you're staying here, you should find a room and get some sleep. We've got a crazy archangel out there that needs to be dealt with. We're going to need to be at the top of our game."
Many people nodded but others ducked their heads, looking afraid. Dean supposed they hadn't needed the reminder. It was just another screw-up from him. He was constantly letting people down.
Bobby broke away from Ketch and raised his voice again. "If you're coming with me, we're going now."
People got to their feet and followed him up the stairs to the door. Of his group, only Charlie remained. She ran a hand over her face and came to Dean. "Hey," she said. "I think I'll stay. Is there any particular room I should use?"
"Room five is free," Dean said. That was far enough away from his room that he could have his space.
"Thanks," she said brightly, and then looked guilty. "Sorry. I'll… Yeah, I'll go."
Dean nodded stiffly, feeling guilty for stifling her natural exuberance. Their Charlie had been a ball of joy and laughter most of the time, too, even when things were tough. This Charlie had barely met Sam. But what hurt Dean was that, if she was their world's version, she would have been mourning Sam's death, too.
Mary got up and came towards him. Dean couldn't face talking to her, so he walked back along the halls to the bedrooms. He heard her coming after him, and when she caught his arm, he stopped and looked at her. "What?"
"He's alive, Dean."
Dean shook his head roughly. "No."
"Yes. I know he is," she argued. "I can feel it. When you told me the vampires killed him, I knew it was true as I felt it in my heart. I don't feel it now. He's trapped but he's alive. "
Dean's chest constricted and it was hard to draw a breath. She was reinforcing his worst fears.
"Let him go, Mom," he said roughly. "He's gone."
"No!"
"Get some sleep," he said turning away and walking toward his bedroom again.
"You'll see!" she called after him. "I'm not giving up."
Dean froze, on the verge of turning back to shout at her, but he forced his muscles to unclench and kept walking.
He wasn't giving up on his brother. He was just aware that death was the best outcome. He had to believe that was what happened if he was going to function.
He got to his room and slammed the door closed. He looked at the things he had decorated it with, his weapons on the wall, his records and his photographs. There was a picture of him and Sam there taken by Bobby shortly after Sam got his soul back. They were laughing at something Dean had forgotten, looking perfectly happy together, like life was good. It hadn't been good really. Raphael had been gunning for the world then. In fact, nothing had been good for a long time. It had been damn awful at times, like now. With his brother dead and yet another archangel coming for the world, things were plain screwed.
Dean felt another red-hot surge of anger and he picked up the picture of him and Sam. He looked at it for a moment, and then clenched his fist, balling up the glossy paper. He threw it onto the desk and then swept it onto the floor followed by his records. He stomped on them, feeling the vinyl breaking under his heels. The destruction gave him a feeling of satisfaction; he was making his environment as chaotic as he felt.
Only when he had spent his anger did he stop and fall onto the bed. He pressed his face against the blanket and squeezed his eyes closed.
"Dammit, Sammy!
So… Dean is struggling, needing to believe Sam is dead, and Sam needs to believe the opposite for the rest of his family. I'm afraid things are going to get ugly for them both in coming chapters.
Until next time…
Clowns or Midgets xxx