A/N: With Sam's big brain on the case they're sure to come up with a solution. Turns out the problem is something Sam is all too familiar with.

Love Me Again (Part 10: Audience) by frostygossamer

Sam had been laying awake for an hour studying the cracks on the ceiling, like they were a map of some far-off world. His mind had been racing so much it woke him up. Half-formed images and jumbled thoughts swirled around in his cranium. Memories of his years as Lucifer's host, memories he had tried to suppress since the moment he had woken up himself again, horrified in a pile of rotting corpses. When Lucifer had decided to smoke out of his body and leave him alive and, for the first time in so long, totally, terribly aware.

The first word to crystallize in his foggy mind had been, as always, "Dean?!"

Back then he had believed Lucifer's vile lie that Dean was dead. Now his big brother was laying beside him in only his boxers, safe, sound and sleeping peacefully. Sam finally felt like he had his anchor back. For too long he had been drifting aimlessly without purpose or focus, without any meaning or even reason to draw breath.

He knew that feeling too well and, what's more, he knew he hadn't been alone in feeling that way. Lucifer, once fair-haired favourite of the Almighty, was cast down into Hell as cruel and unusual punishment, simply because he had gotten a little swollen-headed. Lucifer had felt the same way as Sam: lost, anchorless, desperate.

Sam shook the thought out of his head. There he went again feeling empathy for the Prince of Darkness. Stockholm Syndrome maybe? He turned and observed his carelessly slumbering brother for a moment, before sticking him in the ribs with his elbow.

"Wha- What? Whassup?" grumbled Dean, rubbing a hand over his sleepy face.

"Dean?" Sam chuckled affectionately at his dopey confusion. "Got an idea."

"You got a freakin' idea," Dean mumbled, starting properly to wake up.

"Yep," said Sam. "And you're not gonna like it."

~o~

So there they were on the overpass waiting.

Sam was bravely resisting the urge to throw up, partly from nerves and partly because being within spitting distance of Lucifer again summoned up horrors he would have rather forgotten. They had been standing there over an hour and Dean was getting antsy too. He turned to his brother.

"Beginning to think this is maybe a real BAD idea," he hissed.

"It's an AWESOME idea, Dean," Sam hissed back. "Also our ONLY idea."

Dean had to acknowledge that. If this didn't work they were going to end up like a couple bugs squashed on the sidewalk, diabolic collateral damage.

He turned to face front again only to find Lucifer right in his mug. The Lord of Chaos was glowering down at him darkly. His new vessel was huge and broad as a barn door. He could give Sam a good ten inches in height, but Dean was used to cold-staring a giant.

"Back. The hell. Off," he said, calmly.

Lucifer's eyes bulged and, for a time, he didn't look like he was going to budge. Then he grunted and took a step backward.

"You have my Father. Hand him over now," he bellowed, jerking his chin toward the old guy tied up in the truck.

Dean barked out a laugh. "Nuh-uh. Not your daddy. Guy goes by the name 'Joe Hoover'."

Lucifer looked at him like he was an idiot, utterly perplexed. Dean smirked and deliberately broke eye contact like he didn't give a damn. Lucifer rumbled darkly.

"I am here," came Sam's voice from behind him.

Lucifer wheeled around swiftly and glared at the younger Winchester.

"What kinda smart-ass trick is this?" he demanded.

"No trick," answered Sam, his face wreathed in beatific smiles. "It is I, your Father."

An echo of his words hung in the air. Sam pulled himself up to his full height. There was something about him that was clearly no longer merely human, something greater, something magnificent. The very air around him seemed to hum with electricity.

A warm breeze blew his dark, wavy hair around his head like a wild halo. His eyes glowed like hot coals in their sockets, laserlike, penetrating. Inside his body, God's essence thrummed like an all-powerful dynamo. He seemed to tower above the entire assemblage, even Lucifer.

The archangel of Hell inhaled. "Ah..."

~o~

Two days before...

As Sam had guessed, Dean really did NOT like his idea.

They were out on the 'balcony' again, the first pink rays of dawn sneaking over the horizon. Dean really needed coffee. Shame there was not a bean left.

"First of all," said Sam. "We get Joe Hoover outta his vessel in there. Force him to smoke out."

Dean pondered that and nodded his head. "Sounds good to me."

He was starting to get irritated with the celestial creator already. Not as if he hadn't always been somewhat miffed with a self-centred deity who had booked it and abandoned the Earth to go to figurative perdition. Somehow Dean had never really felt like God was HIS co-pilot.

"Second of all," continued Sam, more cautiously. "Second of all, we force him to, uh, slip inside ME."

Dean's jaw dropped. No way could Sam be seriously suggesting he surrender himself to be a vessel. Not again. And not for the biggest enchilada of them all.

"No way!" he objected, forcefully. "No way in Hell are you gonna be a vessel for some douchy divinity. Nearly lost you for good the last time. We are so NOT going down that road again."

But Sam wasn't easily dissuaded. He could be as stubborn as a mule when he had the bit between his teeth. He held up his hands.

"It's the ONLY way, Dean. And it'd only be for the minimum time. OK?"

"One freakin' second would be too long," grumbled Dean. "Chuck was a headcase, remember? This mook could seriously fry your marbles."

He had overheard with disgust Sam and Joe's conversation about his dementing visitations on Chuck Shurley. Benevolent or not it had killed the poor sad guy in the end. Sam wasn't deterred.

"I know it. But, Dean, I'm an old hand at the vessel shtick, and I totally believe I'm strong enough. Strong enough with YOU beside me."

He placed his big hands on Dean's shoulders and forced him to look straight in his face. Sam's puppy-dog eyes were intense and sincere. Dean didn't stand a chance.

"Dude, this could even work. Wanna give it a try, Dean. There's a slim but real chance we could pull it off."

Dean ground his teeth. He knew they were up against it, that the human race couldn't last much longer the way things were. Maybe mankind deserved whatever sacrifice they would have to make. Damn shame it always had to be a Winchester at the sharp end.

"OK," he ground out. "But if it all goes south you're taking me along this time. Right, Sammy?"

"Sure, Dean," Sam eagerly assured him. "Gonna make that part of the deal. We're a team."

~o~

When they brought Joe Hoover around from the ancient Hebraic binding spell, he found himself tied to a chair with coils of rope plaited from pages they had ripped from a battered copy of the Hebrew Torah. Around him a wide circular trail of holy oil twinkled as it dripped between the tiles of the raised floor. Sam and Dean were looking down at him with grim expressions. Dean was holding his flint and steel firestarter in one hand and a twist of Bible paper in the other.

"Oh hi, boys," said Joe, cheerily. "Hadn't heard that old ditty in a long time. Kinda fun. What now?"

Dean growled. "Now we're thinking it's time for a little swap meet. Time to let Joe take a mental health day, huh? Let Sam here pick up the slack?"

Joe knitted his brows. "And why would I wanna do that?" he asked, genuinely confused.

Sam moved toward him, stepping over the circle of oil, and halted beside Joe's chair.

"Maybe it's time for a change of perspective?" he suggested.

He splayed his big hand across the old guy's forehead, his face registering a terrible intensity as he focused all the will Lucifer had honed dagger-sharp on the vessel's skull.

"Can't evict me that way," was Joe's nonchalant comment. "You don't have the muscle, son."

"No?" questioned Dean, archly. "But he HAS the 'muscle' to freakin' pulp whatever you've left of the real Joe Hoover."

Dean had full confidence in his brother's psychic wallop. He had seen it kill more than once, men far younger and fitter than Joe's grizzled host.

A look of great concern swept over the deity's face. He really did not want to lose his current favourite puppet. A puppet he generously regarded as his special pet, and friend.

"Very well," he conceded. "Boys, you win."

Sam relaxed for a moment and his brother took the opportunity to use his paper spill to light the holy oil around Sam and Joe.

"You sure about this, Sammy?" Dean asked one last time, as he stood up. "It's not too late..."

"Never more sure, Dean," Sam replied, flashing him a reassuring smile over the flames.

"You girls ready?" asked Joe and closed his eyes tight, opening his thin, bristly lips in an 'O'.

Luminous pure white smoke billowed out of his mouth and swirled about the two figures. Sam sank to his knees as it rushed over his teeth and filled his body with its smothering fumes, strongly redolent of incense and gopherwood. It curdled in his stomach with the skid-marks of Lucifer's soiled grace. Sam struggled not to upchuck on reflex. He crouched on the floor clutching his churning stomach.

When the air had cleared, Dean realized he was still holding the spill and shook it out right before it burned his fingers. The poor guy who had been Joe Hoover slumped on the chair he was bound to with a dazed and spacey look on his face, like he had drunk more strong liquor than his body could hold. Sam was kneeling, hands on the floor, forehead on his knees, still as death.

Dean was more than concerned. He was scared for him.

"Sam? Sammy?!" he yelled. "Sammy? You OK? Speak to me, Sammy!"

Sam stirred shakily and gradually uncurled. He tried an experimental cough and sat back on his heels.

"Dean? He-help me up, why doncha?"

Dean sprang forward to help his brother onto his wobbly feet.

"Hey," Sam said, chuckling. "You're way shorter than I thought. Feel like I'm up in the clouds here."

"Joe?" Dean anxiously asked. "My brother OK in there?"

"Sure, sure," answered Joe in Sam's voice. "The boy's fine in back. He knows how to play this game."

Sam had had enough experience of being driven by an archangel to know how to survive tucked in a safe corner of his own brain. Sharing his noodle with a god was something else, but he was hoping it had to run on the same rules, more or less.

Dean guided Joe to the couch and sat him down. Joe swung Sam's feet up and lay down full length, letting out a tired sigh.

"Guess I should leave you two guys alone together a while," Dean said, feeling superfluous. "I'll, uh... Guess I'll go find me a demon and invite Luci to the party."

Grabbing his jacket and keys, he left, giving his brother one last glance as he slammed the door behind him.

~o~

When Dean's noisy presence had left the room, the atmosphere grew strangely still. The only sound was the shallow wheeze of Joe's ex-vessel passed out in the chair he was still bound to. The effect was oddly restful.

Behind Sam's closed eyes, the bloodshot darkness gave way to a scene illuminated by a bright, pearlescent radiance. The humming in his ears sounded like a distant celestial choir chanting in chorus.

Sam found himself standing in a large chamber, similar to the inside of some Byzantine cathedral he had once seen on PBS. Before him stood a huge ivory throne adorned with an offensive amount of gold, upon which sat the towering figure of the Almighty. No longer the unassuming earthling Sam knew as Joe Hoover, he was now an indisputably Michelangelesque figure, curly-whiskered, long silver hair flowing, splendid in pure white robes. Sam was so small he barely came up to the divine ankles.

God stroked his long, silky beard and stared right ahead like he hadn't even noticed Sam. Sam looked down at himself. He was the boy Sammy, dressed in the clothes he had been wearing when he ran away from his family to find 'normal' and wound up in Flagstaff with a dog.

"I-" he began, but he halted when his words came out pitched high and thin, like a teen whose voice had yet to break. "Joe, I..."

Sam wasn't sure how he should address the deity in this new form. God turned his head and peered down at him imperiously. Slowly a warm smile spread over the ancient lines of his face.

"Ah, Sam," he boomed. "There you are."

He reached down and scooped Sam up in his enormous hand, placing the diminutive figure on his knee.

"This is cozy," he declared, chuckling indulgently.

Sam wasn't so sure about the coziness of the situation.

"Now we're all alone here in this handsome dome of yours, what shall we talk about, Sam my boy?"

Sam brushed the hair off of his face with one hand, forgetting that his kid hair was shorter.

"Uh... Got a confession to make," he began.

Seemed like the obvious opening, in the circumstances.

God pouted. "I get a lot of that. But it's what I'm here for, I guess."

"Somehow I always figured a sympathetic ear is kinduva basic requirement, god-wise," commented Sam, sharply.

God's eyebrows rose. This guy had the nerve to try to teach him his job, huh?

"OK," he said, settling back to listen. "We're here now. So let me have it."

Sam cleared his throat and inhaled, searching for the right words.

"I'm not much of a Sunday churchgoer," he admitted.

"You don't say?" murmured God, smirking into his beard.

That got him the stinkeye from Sam. So he hushed up, waving his hand to indicate that Sam should go on.

"My dad didn't bring me up that way. I guess he lost his faith when he lost Mom. But he believed in something. Family. And I tried - I tried so hard - but I let him down. That's what I do. I let people down."

"You're being too hard on yourself," said God.

But Sam wasn't listening. He was in full flow, his boyish voice rising in intensity.

"Nothing I EVER did turned out the way I wanted. I never wanted to hurt anyone but somehow they got hurt. And the people I cared about the most, Jess, Dad, Dean, they got hurt the worst. I've been a burden to everyone, a dead weight, a freakin' failure. They trusted me and I betrayed their trust every damn time."

God tut-tutted. He hated to see one of his flock so unjustly down on themselves. And he noticed that Sam's eyes were beginning to fill as he staggered on.

"I am SO sorry. I called my dad a self-righteous, monomaniac prick who didn't care a crap about his kids, to his face, and he freakin' DIED before I could take it back. And Dean? Dean went to HELL for me, and I STILL dissed him and let him down. He TOLD me not to say yes to Lucifer and I HAD to know better. I betrayed him and I broke his goddamn HEART."

"Dean's heart isn't damned," commented God. "Shattered, yes, but not damned."

Sam glanced up at God. He couldn't be sure whether the deity was mocking him or not, but he plowed on regardless.

"And the kicker is, he STILL has faith in me. After everything I've done he still believes I can come through for him. I've been such an ungrateful freak. 'Cause he's the only one that does, time and again. I can't - I won't - fail him another time."

"You're not perfect," said God, wisely. "I didn't want mankind to be perfect. I wanted you to succeed DESPITE your imperfections."

"No," Sam agreed. "We're not perfect. We try and we fail. We reach too far and we fall short. But it's not because we don't make the effort. It's because we hafta strain too damn hard and the bar is set too damn high. And we don't even get credit for trying."

"We?" asked God, suspiciously. "You're not talking about you and your brother now, are you?"

Sam ignored the question and went on.

"We made a mistake. We thought we weren't kids anymore, that we could make our own choices, do it our way. We got too sure of ourselves. We got stupid. And we paid the price. It didn't feel like it was fair. What we did wrong we did wrong because we hurt. But now we've served our time. Do we hafta go on paying forever? I think we learned our lesson. We just wanna come home."

"Who are you talking about now?" God demanded. "You? Or Lucifer? Lucifer defied me!"

Sam tried not to tremble and lose his foothold on God's knee as the deity shuddered with anger.

"You DARE to speak for him?!" thundered God.

"He was in my head," Sam reminded him. "I felt his pain. And - Dean would kill me for this but - I saw his point, kinda."

Even Sam found it hard to believe that he could feel sympathy for the devil but he had had a ringside seat to the working of that monstrous psyche for so long. He couldn't help but identify.

"Lucifer was your son, Joe. Your SON. And he was everything you wanted him to be until he acted out ONE time. You turned your back on him, exiled him to that prison you built for him and called Hell. He was your son! I know how that feels, if you don't. You never HAD a father. I had."

God's face had turned stony and his eyes were averted from the tiny human before him. Sam was seriously scared that he would be smitten at any moment. But then...

But then he noticed a silvery glimmer as a single tear rolled down the Almighty's wrinkled cheek. Maybe the old guy's reputation as the paradigm of compassion was more than ecclesiastic hype. Sam hoped it was no lie.

"He was my favourite," God said. "But he was head-strong, not like his brother Michael. Michael was always such a good boy, always called me 'Sir', ate up his vegetables, tidied his room. Shame about that stick up his butt. I couldn't help but love my wayward Lucifer just a little more."

God gave a little sob and sniffed like a walrus.

"I only wanted him to apologize," he quavered, his voice tremulous with emotion. "He has NEVER apologized."

"Have you let him?" asked Sam, quietly. "Were you ever listening?"

God wiped the tear from his face with his sleeve and sighed.

"You know you were never alone in Flagstaff. I was with you."

"You were?" asked Sam, not entirely believing it. He remembered feeling dreadfully alone.

"You do know 'dog' is 'God' backward, right?" God gave him a wink.

Sam shook his head. Whatever, his argument was spent. He had to hope that the great and ancient deity before him would live up to his fame as a benevolent being who heeded the prayers of his supplicants. But Sam knew, as Lucifer had commented, no one could force God to do a damn thing he didn't want to do. All he could do was cross his fingers and pray.

Then God coughed hoarsely.

"Sorry," he said, but in a small voice this time.

Because it wasn't God THIS time.

Sam opened his eyes and blinked. He was back in the real world, laying in Dean's apartment, in what remained of Detroit. Then there was another cough. It came from Joe Hoover, or whatever his real name used to be. He had come around, and was now scared and pulling weakly on his Pentateuchal restraints.

"What goin' on, eh?" he demanded, in a frightened voice with a faintly Canadian accent. "Who stole my personal Messiah?"

TBC

A/N: One more chapter to come.