"It looks like a hunting knife."

"Probably because it is a hunting knife."

"A demon hunting knife?" Dean seemed skeptical on the whole business. The knife sat between them on the motel room's little table, where it had been since Dean had waltzed himself back in at little after 10am with coffee, bagels, and a smile that had had nothing to do with hustling pool the night before. "And the devil just gave it to you?"

"He also told us how to summon a demon," it's not like Sam had messed this one up. He'd done really well with his nocturnal bargaining, or at least he'd thought so. "And we've got the name of the demon, so all we have to do is call up Dad and then we can finish this."

"What did you trade him this time?"

So much accusation in the simple question, Sam only wished that he didn't have to feel guilty about his answer of "...nothing."

"Nothing?" And it was possible that Dean had been the one to teach Sam this pointless repeating of words that he didn't feel like believing.

"Nothing important." Sam shook his head, folding his arms over his chest in a way that was only the tiniest bit defensive. "Come on. This is a the kind of help that we've been holding out for and you're treating it like it's some kind of trap."

Dean just kept on frowning at the knife same as he had been for the past five minutes or so. "I don't like the idea of you making deals with the devil, Sammy."

Frustrated, Sam blurted, "oh my god. Dean. I'm an adult, you can't keep bossing me around and telling me who I am and who I'm not allowed to talk to."

"This is Satan we're talking about." Dean passed a hand over his eyes with an aggravated burst of breath. "You're making deals with the literal devil, and you're telling me not to worry about it."

"Little deals. No one's going to get hurt."

That look was back. That withering look that only Dean could put so much salt into. "Can you even hear yourself?"

"You know what? I'm going to pack and get the stuff into the car, and you're going to call Dad and tell him that we did in a few hours what he's spent the last twenty years trying to do. Find out where he wants to meet." Sam pushed away from the table and went to go shove his laptop into his bag and find his shoes.

"What did you give him this time, Sam?" Dean pressed, asking again, so quietly. And it was there in his voice, in the way he just watched his little brother. This was a matter of trust between them. Dean needed to know what Sam had promised the devil- either because he knew this choice would inevitably have some weight later in their lives, or because the protective streak in him wouldn't allow for anything less.

And at the end of the day, all Sam ever really had was whatever change was left in his pockets, and his big brother. His brother who was still waiting for an answer.

Trust between the two of them was everything.

Sighing, Sam sat on the edge of his bed, pulling his shoes and and tying the laces a little tighter than wholly necessary. "I told Lucifer that he could have my body when I'm dead."

A sharp sound that could have been mistaken for laugher came from Dean. "As in a 'fuck you, Satan' kind of way- or are you actually dumb enough to have promised him he could have your corpse."

"Between the two of us, Dean, you're the one with a track record for fucking stupid choices." Sam picked up his bag and grabbed the knife off the table, tucking it away safely.

"What the hell makes you think the devil won't just come out here whenever he feels like it, pop a cap in your scrawny ass, and then wear you home?"

If anyone could read him like an open book, it was Dean- but still Sam thought that he might have done a believable job of not flinching in the face of such a suggestion. "He wouldn't."

"He's the devil."

"He wouldn't."

"It's nice that you trust your buddy Satan so much, but you'll have to excuse me if I don't run right out and join the fan club."

"I'm going out to the car. Are you coming?"

Dean laughed again, though it was very strained. "Oh, I see what this is. You still have a thing for him, don't you?"

Refusing to even justify that with a response, Sam simply stepped out onto the porch and into the misting sort of rain that lightly cooled the warmth that he could feel creeping into his cheeks. Maybe there were some unresolved, unsorted, unnamable feelings that he thought he'd overcome years ago. He could shove all those wayward thoughts and impulses aside and keep going with the sure knowledge that given enough time he'd be over those unsteady impulses he felt whenever he found himself too close to the devil. It was nothing more than a childhood crush that he hadn't found closure on yet. It would just take some time.

"You got to get over it, man." Dean called after him, reading his baby brother's mind, the heavy sound of his boots hitting gravel as he jogged to catch up. "The devil wants to get inside of you, Sammy, but not in the same fun way that you're hoping for."

The idea gave life to a brilliant spark of heat in Sam's gut. Tight lipped and looking straight ahead at the trail, he walked towards the parking lot.

Dean kept on running his mouth, ignoring the fact that he wasn't getting any kind of rise out of Sam. "I mean, I can't say that the cute girly version of the devil we got the other night wasn't tempting, but he's still the fucking devil. That's what he does. He lies to you and tricks you. Dude, you've got to get past your weird little crush and look at the lore on this guy-"

"What lore, Dean?" Not engaging in the conversation would have been the smart thing to do, but the brothers were about to get into the Impala and back on the road, which meant that Dean would have a confined space to lecture Sam for the next few days. It was best to just get it over with. "There's nothing conclusive in the lore. It's not like bloggers of the world have been out there interviewing the devil. There is more consistency in Bigfoot theory than there is in the things written on the Devil. All I've ever been able to find is the bible and a couple different translations of holy text, and the only thing they all have in common is that Lucifer was the first born angel and he got kicked out of Heaven after a war. There's not even a consensus on what the war was about. So that means all I've got to go off of is that this man helped us hunt and kill a monster that was killing kids, he's saved my life twice, and he's told us how to kill the demon that killed Mom. And if all he wants is my corpse once I'm done with it then he's welcome to it."

Dean took out his keys, opening the back seat of the car and tossing in his bag. "Yeah, well… I still don't like it."

"You don't have to." Sam's bag joined his brother's like two lumpy passengers huddled together on the baseboards.

"I don't trust him."

"You don't have to. You're not the one who made a deal with him."

Dean looked at him over the driver's side of the car, his eyes as hard as the line of his mouth. "If you don't think that this affects me too then fuck you, Sam."

.:.

Some things in life were immensely satisfying. The anticipation of an event that you waited years for finally paid off- and every moment that you'd reached was just as rewarding as you'd always hoped.

For normal people this dream that they'd put on a pedestal might be graduating from school or getting married. You know, normal kinds of things.

For some people though, the sorts of people who'd always kept out on the fringes of what anyone would consider normal… people like Sam and his brother and their father; that beautiful shining moment was killing the demon that had killed Mary. And whereas the dream of revenge had kept them going through hell and high water the end result was… underwhelming at best.

They'd laid their trap in the husk of a long abandoned farmhouse far north of Saint Louis, a few miles from the nearest main road. Wallpaper peeling and faded, scrawled over with ancient graffiti left behind by youths who'd probably all grown up and owned homes of their own by now. Leaves and garbage and the underlying sour smell of mold had crept into nearly every corner of the home. The roof was missing in places, bare support beams and starlight clearly visible. And really, the only remarkable thing about the whole house was the devil's trap that had been carefully painted over the weathered floorboards and the dead demon laying in the center of it.

After stabbing the demon upwards of eighty times and then falling into silence, sitting on the floor and putting his face in his hands, it seemed that something in John had broken.

Not really knowing what else to do, the brothers had left their dad alone with the dead body. A silent decision which felt like the only one in the light of what they'd done.

The thick layers of dust over every surface meant that he kept his hands uncomfortably shoved down into his pockets. Sam looked deep into the stained sink basin of what must have once been a well loved kitchen. For one of the first times in his life that he could remember, he felt at a complete loss of words.

It was done.

The thing that had killed Mom was no more.

What was left to say?

"So…" Dean was examining the dirt and red paint caked into the cracks in his nails. "You headed back to California now that it's all over?"

A soft grunt resonated low in Sam's chest.

Dean started to busy himself with arranging the shattered remains of a tile, trying to figure out how they could all go back together again, wasting a few rough minutes before he tried to break the silence again. "I mean, it's done. Right? I think I can get enough cash for a bus ticket for you-"

"There might be a case in Colorado."

Dean looked up, and the questioning hitch of his brows was almost easy to miss in the wan light coming in from the filthy window above the sink.

"I was reading local papers online this morning. Couple suspicious suicides in a girls dorm out at one of the state universities. One girl every first wednesday of the month since the semester started."

"A girl's dorm? As in a whole building full of girls?"

"Yeah," right then would have been a bad time to smile, what with the mess in the other room. So Sam kept his face schooled into a quiet, neutral sort of expression. "I figure if you want to drive, it would sort of be one the way. We could check it out at least, see if it's out thing…"

Dean spared a glance towards the hallway that hid all that they'd done that night. "Well, I mean, they must be terrified. We should definitely look into it."

And it's not like they snuck out the back door and left Dad alone. There were words of parting once the old man finally pulled himself together enough to join them. Apparently now that all the 'to-dos' had been checked off the list, John planned to go visit another hunter out in Wyoming. He told his boys to stay safe and if they fucked anything up too bad to call him.

Life didn't get much more anticlimactic than that.

At least in the few hours that they'd spent in one another's company there hadn't been any fighting, for once. John had readily accepted the half assed lie his sons had fed him about where the demon killing knife had come from, and how the boys came to the knowledge of summoning rituals. Sam had said they got it all from a hunter that they'd met after their last case up in Washington- and thankfully Dad hadn't dug too much after that. He even graciously let the boys keep their new found weapon, though they all seemed to silently hope that there would be no more use for it.

And then Dad was gone and as the Impala's headlights cut white hot gashes into the westbound strip of highway, Sam wondered if they would be seeing him again. More importantly, he wondered if he cared. John Winchester had been more terrifying to him than any monster he'd ever faced, and with a weirdly guilting sort of feeling he hoped that that had been their last goodbye. He hoped that Dad drank himself to death out in the middle of nowhere, even if it would cripple Dean, because never seeing that man again would be more of a relief than anything else. As messed up as that thought was, it didn't carry with it the same level of guilt that Sam knew that it should.

He didn't share these thoughts with his brother. He just reached between them and turned up the volume on the cassette tape that Dean had popped in, flooding the car with a power ballad that his brother didn't even hesitate to sing along with.

Hours later they found themselves between cities, not quite having reached dawn, though the sky looked almost possibly less dark over the corn fields to the east. Dean pulled the Impala down a rather disused looking service road and parked her behind some scraggly looking apple trees that were doing their best to hide a wellhouse.

"Need a couple hours of sleep," Dean admitted as he killed the engine and stretched his arms out above his head, fingertips brushing the ceiling with a dry whisper of sound.

"I can drive," Sam started to offer but was cut off too quickly with a-

"You look as shitty as I feel," and his brother gave an almost gentle shove to his shoulder. "Don't want you driving my baby into a ditch or something. Get in the backseat, man. A bit of shut eye will do us both some good."

He could have argued, but instead Sam crawled his way into the backseat in the same way that he used to when he was a kid. All awkward arms and legs sliding over the backrest until he found a way to fold himself into the too small space. He'd be a little cramped when he woke, but it was something he was used to.

"Hey," Sam wasn't wholly sure what he should say, only they hadn't really said anything of weight between them since every thing had happened too fast hours ago. "You ok, Dean?"

"Course I'm ok. Just a little tired is all."

Sam watched the way the leaves of the trees flickered and swayed outside the back window in whatever breeze was passing through these parts. "You sure?"

"Course I'm sure." Dean grumbled and shifted, laying down and dipping out of sight, smacking the seat between them. "Don't get all weird on me now."

"I'm not." Sam pulled his flannel shirt tight over his chest, crossing his arms and pretending that he had a blanket. "It's just… what happens now?"

"We keep hunting…as long as you're up for it, college boy. Then I guess I keep hunting on my own and you turn into a lawyer."

There were faults in Dean's plan, but now was not the time to go over them. "I mean, that demon, avenging Mom, that's what you and Dad have been waiting for for twenty years to do."

"You too."

"I was just along for the ride, Dean. We both know that."

"Shut up." Dean grumbled without much heat behind it.

Not sure what to add to make it right, Sam mumbled under his breath, "I'm just glad it's finally over, I guess."

The silence in the car was tempered by their hollow breaths and the sounds of nature outside. Somehow Sam had said the wrong thing. For whatever reason, relief was not the feeling that Dean was hoping to share at the end of this hunt. But what he was looking for from his baby brother was anyone's guess.

"As long as we're back on the road by ten we should be able to make it to Colorado by dinner. Get some sleep, bitch." Dean finally said as he slapped a hand against the seat once more.

A tugging smile caught Sam, and he let himself believe that it was possible for everything to be ok. "Goodnight, jerk." And it probably would be, once things settled back into some facade of normal. Whatever normal for two hunters could be.

It's not like there was a set of instructions for this kind of thing.

But if there was, Sam would have been willing to bet that waking up only half an hour after passing out due to the creeping sort of itch that someone was looking at him, would not have qualified as anything remotely like 'normal'.

Sam's knees were crooked, wedged against the door while his feet sort of dangled off at strange angles. He didn't even come close to fitting in the space where he'd folded himself, so it made it exceptionally strange that there was someone laying atop him. Weightless as a cloud, but undeniably there all the same.

The devil was laying on Sam's stomach, his arms folded comfortably between his and Sam's chests. He'd bent his own legs, fit kicking idly somewhere back over his shoulder, the rhythmic movement just discernible in the dark of the car.

Taking a deep and shaking breath, Sam struggled to regain his bearings. He whispered in a sleep wrecked kind of voice, doing his best to not disturb the deep snoring coming from the front seat, "hi?"

"Good morning," Lucifer whispered back with a grin, barely restrained laughter, like they were kids at a sleepover.

"Can I, umm… can I help you with something?"

"No."

"...why are you laying on me?"

"It was the only way I could fit in here with you." The devil scratched at his jaw line, glancing around their close confines. "For such a large car you two boys sure manage to fill it well, don't you?"

Sam answered the question with another question. "Why are you here?" If the other man had weighed anything then Sam might have been more distressed, but as far as he could tell in all actuality it was still only him and Dean here in the car. The devil was only in his head- and that didn't exactly offer any kind of real comfort, but it was something at least.

Lucifer propped his chin up on a fist, peering down at the man beneath him curiously. "You called for me,"

"Sure as hell didn't."

"You were dreaming about me," he winked one of those moon pale eyes. "Calling out, so I thought I'd swing by and make sure that you're ok."

Dimly, and unwillingly, Sam's mind offered up shreds of the dream that he'd been woken from. Confusing bits of images that involved equal amounts of bare skin and bare teeth. "Can you… since you said that you're in my head now, can you see in my dreams?"

"Mmm, I could." He wrinkled his nose, "but that would be crossing a few privacy boundaries, don't you think?"

Sam sank back into the seat, relaxing in increments and taking that small victory for what it was. It was difficult to relax when he was serving as a bed for someone else though. A highly unnatural way to find himself, all awkwardly sprawled out and with no idea of what to do with his arms.

"I just came when I heard you calling, that's all. I figured that you'd fill me in if it was any of my business." It didn't seem like the devil was in a hurry to leave. His feet still slowly kicking the air while he watched Sam from only a few inches away.

"So I… does that mean I don't have to write you name anymore if I need you? I can just call out…" he trailed off as the devil's expression went sort of funny.

"It's not exactly my name that you've been writing."

The trees outside the windows didn't offer and help to Sam. He had a feeling that he wasn't going to like whatever answer he was about to be given, but still he made the effort, "what have I been writing the last two times if it wasn't your name?"

Lucifer chuckled. "I want to start by telling you that your handwriting is just awful," his grin was sharp and borderline mocking. "Well, long story short, once upon a time I needed help getting out of a cage. One of my brothers sort of stole some keys, broke me out of the clink…and so I owed his smug little ass a favor. He decided that that favor would be me eternally answering to the summoning words of 'Lucifer is a bag of dicks'... a rough translation from the original Enochian, but you get the idea. And then he thought it would be fun to give those words to a very gossipy hunter. And for the past three thousand years or so that lovely love letter to me keeps getting passed from hunter to hunter, and on until it got to your daddy a few years back, and then you picked it up."

Denying the curl of laughter that tickled his insides, Sam still couldn't hold back a smile. The idea of someone getting the better of the devil was almost too perfect. "A whole bag of dicks?"

"Yeah, he thinks he's pretty funny."

The snoring in the front seat kept on going like the ticking of clock. "Yeah, I've got a brother like that too."

"Sadly the world is full of brothers like that." The devil sighed, his shoulders slumping a little as he looked at the wrong side of the front seat and who it was hiding from view. "Sometimes I just want to smite them all down and be free of them."

Which sounded an awful lot like a gentle death threat against Dean for no explicable reason, and the protectiveness in Sam made it impossible to stop the deep and angry breath that moved through him.

"Oh, come on." Lucifer taped a finger to the corner of Sam's lips. "Turn that frown upside down."

Fitfully, Sam turned his head side to side, trying to escape the prodding.

"It's nothing personal. I hate pretty much every since human who's ever been born. You're all a plague on this planet. Well, most humans. Not you, and I suppose that I can make an exception for that bear in the front seat, and not just because he obviously means the world to you."

Sam reached up and grabbed the devil's hand so that it would stop tracing his lower lip.

"Long before your daddy asked me for help I was hearing stories about you Winchesters. Never thought that there'd be something out there that the monsters were all collectively afraid of."

"They are not." It was too ridiculous of a thought to even entertain.

"Little baby monsters check under their beds at night to make sure that your brother isn't there, and I've got to say, there's a certain novelty to that." Eyes the color of moth wings studied the way that Sam's fingers hooked over his. A touch that was almost there, intangible and fleeting as the dreams that Sam was already forgetting. The devil twisted their long digits tightly with a slow and thoughtful noise a bit too much like a purr. "Oh, but I was curious what sort of humans could really get all the collective evil of the world shaking in their boots. And then I finally got to meet you, and I've got to say that you boys don't dissapoint."

Sam briefly considered taking his hand back, but most of his will was currently being funneled into frowning harder than he'd ever frowned before.

"You scare me a little, and I like that about you."

"I scare you?" Sam sort of stumbled over the words, baffled as he watched the man laying on him fit their hands together.

"What you and yours did to Azazel?" Lucifer whispered soft and low. "I mean, I never liked him personally, but wow." He said like he'd seen the whole thing. Like he'd been lurking in the corners and standing witness to their justifiable homicide.

Sam never touched the demon. All he'd done was read the summoning spell because out of the three of them he had the cleanest latin. To be honest, even in the face of what that creature had done to Jess, to the girl that he'd been in love with, he hadn't been able to watch when John got into it. Stabbing someone more than fifty times was not a fast process. It was slow, and messy and took a staggering level of commitment. Sam had had to look away.

"If… seeing as I didn't actually call for you, do you mind leaving?" He struggled to push that still very visceral and fresh memory from his mind. "I'd like to get what sleep I can."

"I suppose that's fair." Lucifer mused softly, eyes moving over Sam's face like he was memorising every agitated little line. "Should we lay out some parameters for the future to avoid this sort of… awkwardness on your part?"

"Parameters would be good,"

"Should I only come around if you're awake?"

"Ideally, yeah."

"Your way sounds boring." Lucifer raised their joined hands and pressed them to a cheek, looking thoughtful and so very strange with the tenderness of the little movement.

"... why are you nuzzling my hand?"

He blinked, sort of startled and he released Sam like he'd been caught doing something wrong. "For reasons that will only sound incriminating if I say them outloud I'm going to simply refuse to answer that."

Sam realised that he wasn't brave enough to press the matter. He didn't think that he'd like whatever answer he was given.

"Yeah, ok." The hunter sort of trailed off, not sure at all how to feel about any part of what was going on, which seemed to be on trend with every other second of every minute that he'd ever spent in this man's company. It was for the best though. People shouldn't let their guard down where the devil was concerned. Sam's reluctance at everything was almost definitely some kind of self preservation chiming in a little too weakly and a little too late to do much good.

"Before you kick me out, can I say that I'd sort of hoped that you were calling for me to give me back my knife?"

"We don't get to keep it?"

Lucifer chuckled, the tip of his tongue toying with the crooked little edge of an incisor. "It would be mighty irresponsible of me to let someone like you go walking around with a demon blade, don't you think?"

"Going to have to argue with you and say that leaving it with us is going to do the most good possible for the most people."

"I'm kind of supposed to be the father of all demons, not literally- but metaphorically you see, and I can't really let a couple of yahoo, trigger happy, hunters like you and Dean go parading around with one of the few things that can kill them. Now can I?"

This wasn't Sam's first rodeo. "What will you trade us for it?"

"Oh sweet boy, I could listen to you talk to me like that all night-" he bit his lip, looking down at Sam like he was some sort of dessert, "but no. You don't get to keep it. That wasn't part of our deal."

"Please?"

"Oh, 'please'? Why didn't you say that in the first place? All I wanted was a little politeness."

The teasing wasn't necessary and Sam didn't appreciate it.

"I've already taken it out of you bag. But it seemed like I should explain now why it will be missing latter, so you don't go for it in a moment of need and come up empty handed."

"Gee, that's real nice of you?" Sam couldn't really make a big fuss, seeing as technically the knife hadn't ever been his in the first place. Didn't mean he had to appreciate the devil going through his things.

"I do try," Lucifer winked and nuzzled down into Sam for just a moment, drawing their faces close together. "Just for you, I do try."

"We're going to, uh, need to establish some boundaries." Sam blinked, struggling to keep the other man in focus when their noses were almost touching. "Because this is way too close."

"But I'm not technically here."

"Too close."

"You can't even feel me."

"And I don't want to." Sam explained. "Just, no more sitting or laying on me. Alright? It's weird."

"You are possibly the least fun human that I've ever met."

"I think I can live with that."

"Sammy, who the hell are you talking to?" Somewhere during their quiet conversation the snoring in the front seat had stopped, and now the top of Dean's head and his bleary, sleep dimmed eyes were glaring at Sam over the back of the seat.

"The… the devil." Sam winced, remembering that when Lucifer was in his mind no one else could see him. "He wanted his knife back."

"You didn't let him take it, did you?"

"He didn't give me much of a choice." Sam glanced from his brother to the man still laying atop him and struggled to accept that technically only one of them was actually here.

"So no more demon knife?"

Uneasily, Sam forced himself not to look at the devil who was grinning at him. "Guess not. But we made it this far without a demon slaying knife, so we'll probably be ok."

The tilt of Dean's head indicated a shrug. "Yeah. We'll be alright. Sure would have been nice to have though."

"You want me to try and get it back from him?"

"Fuck no, man. Don't want you owning no more favors to that father of all lies, son of a bitch, sarcastic, devil in disguise, fucking ass hat-"

"Bag of dicks?" Sam offered with as straight of a face as he could manage.

"Bag of dicks," Dean grinned, sitting up a little bit more, "underwhelmingly evil, vanila Satan knock off, prick."

Lucifer was laughing. A restrained chuckle that came out in sharp hisse, his head bowed, shoulders shaking as he seemed to relish in the onslaught of insults.

"You saying you don't like him?"

"I'm saying fuck that guy. We've got enough troubles with out the devil himself making pretty eyes at you."

And Sam couldn't argue with that.

"We don't need that level of weird." Dean rolled his eyes. "I mean, I know he gets you all hot and bothered, you kinky bastard, but you've got to draw the line somewhere."

Lucifer's laughter passed into a range that was not audible. He buried his face in his arms and just shook with mirth.

"Dean!"

"I-I think I might love him," the devil wheezed, peeking up from beneath his eyebrows to gaze at Sam. "He's so good."

"Fuck you." Sam sighed, putting a hand over his eyes so it wasn't too obvious which man he was talking to.

"Yeah, yeah. Fuck you too, princess." Dean said with such warmth and affection. "Get some sleep. We want to both be well rested for that girl's dorm situation waiting for us."

"Good night, Dean."

"Night, Sammy." His big brother layed back down and out of sight.

Lucifer's breath ghosted over Sam's face and the back of his hand that hid his sight of the car and it's other occupants. "Night, Sammy."

The youngest Winchester kept himself as hidden as he could, not wanting to think or worry about why he could suddenly feel any aspect of the man laying on him. He silently mouthed the words 'g'night, Luci'.

No response came, and after nearly a whole minute of silence that seemed to drag out into forever, he spread his fingers and looked to see that he was alone in his backseat. Alone and considering calling the devil back to him, just to see that smile again, and Sam started to consider for the first time the sheer magnitude of the problem that he had here.