Some hunts went as expected. You find some ghosts harassing the tenants of a college dormitory- collect a few clues, dig up a body, burn some bones. Or maybe there's a literal gremlin cutting the breaks on rental cars and causing deathly accidents, when something like gremlins shouldn't even exist- and some research needs to be done, Bobby needs to be called, and in the end the scaly green little bastards just needs to be set on fire.
Now and then hunts got strange, sometimes they went sideways and the brothers came out of it with bruises and bloody noses and giving each other stitches with dental floss while drowning pained noises and curse words into cheap bourbon.
And then there were cases like the one just north of Helena, Oklahoma. One hunt that had gone so wrong that there was no amount of stitches and blood soaked hotel towels that could fix things.
Sam's arm was throbbing, the cast that locked his elbow into a forty five degree angle felt too tight, though that probably had something to do with the swelling, or the 800mg of aspirin that the nurse had given him that hadn't even begun to touch the pain. He ignored it though. It was easy to ignore- seeing as Dean was unconscious and hooked up to machines with flickering lights and muted beeps, and all those wires and tubes were supposedly keeping him alive, but he was so pale that his skin looked grey.
Tears stung a Sam's eyes. His throat felt strangled, collapsed by an invisible fist that wouldn't let any sound pass other than stifled little noises that sounded too much like his brother's name. Dean didn't open his eyes though. Didn't give Sam a hard time for falling apart. Didn't make bad passes as the nurse and her bright blue scrubs as she came in to check on his IV.
"Any word from the doctor?" Sam's voice sounded like that of a stranger.
She gave him a tight lipped shake of her head. "Sorry. The labs haven't brought back any of the scans yet. We'll let you know as soon as we hear anything at all."
He thanked her because that's what you do, then he went right back to watching his big brother who stubbornly hadn't moved in hours. Dean had been thrown off of a building. A three story building. He'd bled an awful lot, laying out on the pavement and bent at strange and unnatural angles. It had taken Sam nearly five whole minutes to kill the Beaman (or what Dean had repeatedly referred to as a fucking-redneck-yeti), and run down the rusted fire escape, and call an ambulance because it was painfully obvious that he couldn't move his brother. The hospital had done what they could to stop the bleeding. Dean had been in the O.R. for a few hours while Sam got a cast, a couple stitches, and paced the waiting room.
Fractured spine and broken skull and Dean wasn't waking up.
"Come on." Sam whispered, urged, as if by force of will alone he could make the man open his damn eyes. "You've got to wake up. man." You can't leave me. In Sam's relatively short life he'd hardly ever been alone for any length of time. Dean was always in the seat next to him, in the bed on the other side of the room, just down the hall. Here he was though, only inches away, and yet it felt like miles.
Maybe one rather painful hour passed before a doctor came in. Sam could tell it was a doctor because the woman had a clipboard and a pager. She didn't smile. That was a terrible sign.
"I'm Doctor Reese, you must be Sam."
Formalities, and that was also a bad sign.
"I am," he would have stood, but that would have meant taking his hand off his brother's arm and he didn't think that he could manage that. "What did the labs, or tests, or whatever say?"
"The tests are inconclusive," she eased. "For now he's stable, but not where we'd like him to be. He's not able to breath without the ventilator and brain function doesn't look promising."
"Got to tell you, Doc, his brain function wasn't ever all that promising even before the fall." Sam joked because it's what Dean would have wanted. Sam smiled, but it made him feel like throwing up.
"We'll run some more tests in the morning." Reese promised him with this look to her that said she wasn't expecting much change. "Get some rest if you can. You're banged up almost as badly as he is."
He nodded and watched her make small notes on her clipboard before she bid him goodnight and passed beyond the curtains of the little ICU cubicle that the brothers had been tucked away behind. It felt like privacy, even though there were the sounds of nurses passing by, occasional glimpse of their sneakers as they walked past quickly, moving from patient to patient, like bees tending a garden.
Sam pressed his forehead into the mattress beside his brother's, listening to the hiss of oxygen as it made Dean's chest rise and fall in a way that seemed almost natural. "Did you hear her, Dean? She said your brain isn't working. You didn't even have to talk to this woman and she could tell what a mess you are."
And Dean didn't answer, the machines beeping softly in place of a response.
"You've got to wake up. Too many cute nurses you're missing out on here. You'll hate yourself for it." Sam was talking to himself. Talking because it's what they always did together, and it was one of the few scraps of normalcy that he could still cling to, even if no one was answering him.
Hours passed and Sam couldn't sleep. His body wanted to, but it would have felt like some kind of betrayal. So he watched over his brother like it was his job to, and waited until the dawn hours when nurses came to take Dean away and run some more tests. It gave Sam a chance to wash his face and find the cafeteria and some halfway decent coffee. He got a little lost simply standing in one of the breezeways of the first floor, holding his coffee like a life preserver and looking out the window at the parking lot. Cars bearing visitors and physicians slowly filled in the empty spaces and strangers made their way into the hospital alone or in groups of twos and threes. No one broke stride. No one was running. They all just moved in this organically slow and easy way, like it was all so natural and there was nothing really wrong here.
Before Sam realised it his drink had gone cold in his hand.
Rubbing sleep from his eyes with his bruised but not broken hand, he returned to the intensive care floor to find Dean back in place. Still pale, still hooked up to more tubes and wires than any man had a right to be, and it was disturbing how dead he already looked.
Reclaiming his chair beside the hospital bed, Sam touched his brother's clammy arm. And he had touched enough corpses to know that there was little difference between what was laying next to him and what would soon enough be on a metal slab down in the basement.
He bowed his head and did something that he should have done the night before. Something that he would have done hours ago if his head had been anything close to clear.
It was nothing like a proper prayer, but Sam didn't think that Lucifer would have wanted anything like a proper prayer. "Luci, I don't know if you can hear me, but I need you… please?" The words were mumbled under his breath, hardly audible, but with so much hope.
Hope that seemed to be misplaced because the devil wasn't suddenly at Sam's side. There was no one here other than an unconscious brother and too goddamned many machines. He put his head back against Dean's pillow, just being close and suffering in the quiet kind of way that Winchesters seemed born to do.
A nurse shuffled in, holding the ends of his stethoscope.
Taking a deep breath, Sam sat up, fingers still pressed to the lose line of muscle in Dean's forearm. He put on a brave face, nodding, "hey. Tests come back?"
"Sweet boy, I got this body from the maternity ward, I don't know anything about tests because he doesn't know anything about tests." Lucifer's smooth and slow speech pattern sounded odd coming from the mouth of the nice latino man, but at the same time, hearing him was beautiful enough to overlook the oddness. "Make this quick, Sam. He's a God fearing man who is honored to help an Angel of the Lord- but he's on his lunch break and I don't want to get him in trouble."
"It's Dean-"
"Yes, I know. Took a nasty fall. I saw all that last night. Get to the what you need part-"
"You saw?"
Lucifer rolled his temporarily dark brown eyes. "I check in on you from time to time. Especially when you're out hunting those things that creep and craw. Need to see if you're going to die and I get my new pretty body. And last night a yeti tossed your brother."
"And you didn't do anything?"
"Me popping up tends to stress you two out. You weren't the one hurt and you didn't ask for my help so I figured it was none of my business."
Something like anger flared wild and hot in Sam. The idea that the devil had been there but hadn't done a damn thing to help made him mad in a way that he hadn't expected. "Do something, Luci."
"Do what?"
"Fix him, you son of a bitch."
Lucifer raised his eyebrows as a disapproving frown took over. "You're obviously having a bad day, so for your benefit I'm going to pretend you're using your nice voice with me."
"You can put him back together. I know you can." He felt like a wounded animal. Help was standing a few feet away and doing absolutely nothing and Sam wanted to strangle the other man for it. "You fixed me up when that bird thing threw me. Fix Dean."
"Honey, I don't know why the nurses haven't told you yet, but your brother is dead as a doornail."
Something like a scream burned in Sam's throat. He looked down at Dean, who wasn't moving, but all the machines were still beeping and whirring and still doing their job and Dean wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead.
He wasn't dead.
"Fix him."
"Look, the lights are on, but no one's home. Humans are funny like that. You all like to keep people breathing and blood moving long after the soul has left the body… it's kind of pitiful really."
"He's not dead."
"Sam, sweetie, the ghost of your brother is standing next to you, yelling all sorts of insults in my direction. Which wont change anything by the way, just so you know-" Lucifer oddly nodded to a space near the curtain like an acknowledgement. "Sam, you're simply going to have to embrace the fact that you're now an only child."
"Shut up," Sam looked from the devil, to the prone body on the hospital bed, to the nothing beside him. And he wished to god that he could see something there other than empty space.
"Maybe try to explain to the remains of your brother that going into the light probably isn't as bad as he seems to think it is- because he's really been stressing out the reaper who's come to take him to his new home away from home. This isn't healthy what he's doing. People aren't meant to linger like this."
Sam ignored the garbage being said to him with such good intention, in favor of looking at that empty place where his brother's ghost supposedly stood, "Dean, can you hear me? Are you ok?"
"For pet's sake. Sam. No." Lucifer sighed loudly. "We're not doing this ghost whispering thing. You boys need to let eachother go."
"There's no way that's going to happen." Sam did his best not to yell. There wouldn't be any benefit to drawing the attention of various nurses and doctors to their little room. "If you can bring me back to life after I've died like you seem to think you can, then you sure as hell can fix my brother who's only half dead. So do it. Please."
"I'm not a saint, Sam." The devil shook his head slowly. "I'm not in the habit of performing miracles. I don't go around raising the dead."
"Make me a deal," he tried to keep the desperation from his voice, but probably failed very badly. "Anything. Just anything. Please. I need my brother."
"Humans have always been disturbingly selfish- but you're really raising the bar today." Lucifer folded his arms, a very elaborate but very faded cross tattoo curling along his elbow. "You want someone brought back from the dead just so you don't have to be alone?"
"Dean wouldn't want to die like this."
"On a hunt?"
"In a hospital hooked up to machines. Not like this."
The devil looked from Sam to that blank space beside him, seeming to listen to a voice that only he could here before rolling his eyes and making a face. "You two have some very unhealthy codependency. Has anyone ever told you that?"
"Help him," Sam pleaded.
"Your brother's telling you not to make any deals with me, Sam. He's telling you very loudly and with some exciting adjective and hand gestures."
Which probably wasn't a lie. Sam had internalised his big brother years before and he could imagine just what Dean would be saying. Nothing good, lots of short and unfriendly type words. And Sam ignored them all.
"Anything." Sam reiterated slow and clear, just so there wouldn't be any misunderstanding. "Luci, I swear, no changing my mind later, no extra bargaining. Anything you want, just fix him."
A thoughtful sort of look crossed the devil's face as he actually seemed to consider the offer for the first time.
"You told me a few months back that I'd need a favor eventually and you knew just what you'd ask for in exchange." Sam hated that he was even offering something so stupid. For his brother's life it felt like his bargaining chip needed to be a hell of a lot bigger, but it was pretty much the only thing that he knew the devil wanted from him. "That time is right now and I'm begging for help, so fucking help him."
"Oh, he really doesn't like that one." Lucifer's eyes went a touch wide as he watched that space behind Sam. "Did you tell him about that? Does he know what you're planning to give me, or does he really just not trust me so much that he'd rather be a ghost haunting this hospital for the rest of forever?"
Sam wished that he could see the version of his brother that so cleanly captivated the devil. Not that he would take any of the brotherly advice no doubtedly being yelled at him- but he would have given anything to hear Dean's voice. Which is why he stood, holding his arms out the the man that Lucifer was borrowing. "Do we have a deal? Will you do it?"
"For you?" Lucifer looked almost annoyed. Not sympathetic or affectionate. Annoyed. Like a teenager being told to do their chores. "Yeah, I guess."
Relieved, Sam came closer, leaning down, ready and eager to get this over with so that they could get to the putting Dean back together part of things.
"No, no, no." The devil actually took a step back, leaning away as Sam leaned in for that promised kiss. "I may make deals with emotionally compromised people- but I absolutely do not take payment from them. Not that kind of payment at least."
And Sam was not in anyway braced to deal with whatever the hell that the devil was laying on him. It didn't feel like kindness, but the other options of a definition all seemed to fall short.
Awkwardly, Sam just stood there and slowly let his arms fall empty at his sides, feeling more lost and confused than he ever had at any point in his life that he could remember.
"I'll cram your big brother back into his broken frame, put a bandaid on the ugly bits that the doctors couldn't do much for- and you can just give me a call whenever you're feeling up to making payment in full. Deal?"
Nodding numbly, Sam agreed. What else could he do?
"You mind watching the doors for me? I'm not a fan of an audience and also would rather not have a doctor poking their head in for the next minute or so."
"Y-yeah." It wasn't that Sam had any interest in letting his brother out of his line of sight, but if that's what the devil needed to work, then that's what Sam would be doing.
He stepped out into the hall, doing his best to keep out of the way of the nurses shuffling past. Sam ground his teeth and promised himself that this was alright. That this was the best thing that he could have done. It was the only thing that he could have done- because moving on without Dean wasn't an option.
Deep breaths hurt, but at the same time the antiseptic bite in the hospital air felt clean and good. A cold hand slid over his arm and Sam jumped, looking over his shoulder to see that dark haired nurse who was being worn by the devil.
"So?"
"I said I would, and I did." Lucifer shrugged and walked around him deliberate and slow like the first steps of a dance. "You're my special little friend, Sam, but favors of this size are pushing my patience with you. Don't you go trying to make this a regular thing, because you wont like my answer the next time around." He looked up at Sam and despite how he was obviously trying to hold himself proud and tall, there were heavy hints of exhaustion in his eyes and the edges of his mouth. Whatever he'd done in there with Dean had taken a toll.
Sam hadn't expected that for some reason.
He'd sort of thought that whatever the devil could do with his weird 'angel magic' would all be things that could be done as effortlessly as drawing breath. Lucifer wasn't meant to look as tired and beaten down as Sam felt.
Gratitude and something he didn't have a name for made Sam's chest ache and he resisted the strange impulse to hug Satan. "No. No, if it's all the same neither of us have any intention of dying regularly."
"Yeah sure. That's what they all say." He blinked slowly, something too much like a wince in that small movement.
The need to hug grew ever so slightly harder to hold back, but Sam resisted and ducked his head in a way that he hoped showed off at least some small measure of what he was feeling right then. "Thank you, Luci."
"Yeah, you can thank me properly when you're looking and smelling less like a hot mess." And without any other parting words he walked off towards the elevator, very likely to return his borrowed body to the maternity ward.
Sam watched that man walking away. Despite still being in a bustling ICU and more or less surrounded by people, he felt very alone right then, and he wrapped his arms around himself because they needed to make that movement or he was going to fall apart.
Somewhere nearby an alarm started going off. Someone's machine making announcements of imminent death or something or other. Sam was only vaguely aware of it as he watched the devil get into the elevator and vanish from sight.
"Sammy?"
If there was anything that could have called Sam back to reality right in that moment it was the sound of his brother's voice. He ducked around the curtains in time to see his big brother sitting up and fitfully picking the tape from his arm that was holding his IV in place. Before Sam could manage some kind of happy shouting there were nurses were pushing past him.
It seems that Dean's machines were the ones shouting and complaining. Which made sense seeing as about a minute ago he'd had a tube down his throat and monitors on his chest and neck- all of which he'd pulled out of and off of himself.
Whatever the devil had done to Dean had apparently been fairly spectacular, because the man who'd been practically dead only moments before now had the strength to try and fight off the two nurses who were so desperately trying to get him to lay down while they figured out just what the hell was going on.
"Get your hands off me." Dean was roaring from behind very well meaning and surprisingly strong nurses. "I'm fucking fine- Sammy, tell them I'm fine."
Only Sam didn't know that his brother was fine. He didn't know the limits of the devil's ability to make people not dead. "Dean, calm down. They're nurses. It's ok."
It took a lot of convincing.
The fact that Dean was being man handled by a tag team of women, who were putting their hands all over him, probably was the key component to the calming of his fight or flight response. It definitely had more weight in the situation than whatever Sam was saying.
He could tell by the way that his brother sort of laughed and said, "hey at least buy me a drink first, sweetheart," as the nurse in black scrubs practically sat on top of him, leaning her weight into his shoulders to keep him in place.
Apparently the hospital wasn't used to the sudden and complete recovery of its patients. Medical staff sort of swarmed over Dean- and the minute that the older hunter had a few seconds to breathe he was looking to his baby brother and in no uncertain terms saying, " get me the hell out of here."
Which was easier said than done.
This wasn't the brother's first visit to a hospital, it was however their first time trying to get past so many nurses who didn't think that Dean had any right to discharge himself. In the end it took a fairly big distraction such as Sam setting off the building's fire alarm. He didn't feel good about it, after all, the flashing lights and blaring siren sound certainly couldn't have been all that relaxing or comforting to the other patients on that floor of the hospital- but it needed to be done.
Being recently mostly dead did wonders for Dean's mood. He was grinning as they cut across the parking lot of a grocery store on the way to where the Impala had been left the day before.
"Slow down,"
"Come on, man." Dean's stride covered a concerning amount of ground. "I want to get the fuck out of this town."
"We need to talk."
"We can talk in the car, brother. As soon as I get into my own damn clothes-" the last part was sort of said to himself as an afterthought. Back in the hospital they hadn't been able to find the clothes that Dean had come in with. Which was probably for the best considering that those clothes were inevitably caked in dirt and blood. So they'd stolen the clothes of another patient and the fit wasn't great, but it had to be better than the hospital gown.
"You were dead, Dean."
"Out of body experience, man. Not dead."
"You can't just shrug this off."
"I didn't see any bright light. There wasn't a heaven or a hell. There was just lots of hospital, no one could hear me, and the fucking devil dragged me by the throat back into my body." Dean looked over his shoulder, challenging his brother to keep up. "There, we talked about it. Now come on."
"By the neck?"
"Yeah, that boyfriend of yours is real handsy."
Sam sighed because of all the things that they should be going over right now this one was pretty far down on his list. "He's not my boyfriend."
"Yeah, he's just helping you out of the kindness of his bitty little black heart, ain't he?" Dean shook his head and kept on going. "What did you give him this time, Sammy- and don't you tell me 'nothin' because last time your 'nothin' was permission for him to wear your corpse around like a party dress." They rounded on where the Impala had been parked behind a long abandoned warehouse, out of sight of any passersby. "You got the keys?"
"You're not driving."
"Keys,"
"You were almost dead a few hours ago."
"And now I'm feeling like a million bucks, so give me my car keys."
Sam hesitated at the trunk of the car, not sure if he should move to the passenger or driver's side, not sure if he wanted this fight right now. "Are… are you really ok?"
Dean held his arms out wide for inspection, impatient. "Fresh as a daisy. You want me to walk a straight line or say the alphabet backwards or something to prove it?"
"You were dead, not drunk, Dean." And it wasn't that Sam wasn't happy. He was really, really freaking happy to be arguing with his brother again. "It just kind of feels like a big deal, ok? Neither of us have been dead before."
"Yeah, well, like any good big brother I tried it out for you. Got to say, after testing the waters it wasn't your kind of thing. You wouldn't like it. Don't try it."
"I'll keep that in mind if anyone ever offers." He ran a hand through his hair and pulled out the car keys, tossing them to Dean. "You sure you're alright?"
Dean unlocked the car, going straight for his duffle and pulling out a fresh shirt. "If I decide to file a complaint I'll take it up with the mechanic who did the work." Looking all too pleased with his own joke, he changed clothes right there in the alleyway before getting behind the wheel of the car and looking impatient.
"... and you sure you're ok?"
"Look, Sammy, there's only so many ways I can say it. I'm fine. Now get in the damn car so we can get out of here."
He didn't like it. And it's not like Sam was questioning the quality of work here, but it's not like they had an instruction manual for how to deal with this sort of thing. So he got in the car and buckled up. "Where're we going?"
"Don't care." Dean pulled the car out onto the road and pointed them in the direction of the nearest highway. "We got the son of a bitch that threw me off the building, right?"
"Course I did." Sam frowned. "Can't let monsters think they can get away with killing my brother. What kind of example would that be setting?"
Dean was grinning again, so easy and open.
"You're really feeling alright?"
"Swear to god, Sammy, if you ask me again I will pull this car over and coldcock you- and with you all busted up like you are it's going to be a real short fight."
"It's just… I guess I'm not used to good things happening. This worked out better than expected."
"Dude, you look like you were hit by a car, and god knows what asinine thing you promised the devil this time around- but he was hella into it. I lost my favorite shirt, and am wearing shoes that are half a size too big. How is any part of this good in your book?"
"You're not dead?" Sam laughed. "Sorry if I don't need much more than that to be having a good day."
"Yeah well, I do. How many stitches you let those nurses put in you?"
Lighty, Sam thumbed the little line of sutures under his jaw. "Only four I think."
"And how bad's your arm?" Easy as you like Dean was shifting into big brother mode, taking stock of the damage and worrying.
"Just some hairline fractures," he awkwardly held his cast up for inspection. He'd lost track of how many broken bones were shared between them, but he'd put it in the low twenties if he had to guess. "Should be able to cut the cast off in a couple weeks."
Nodding, Dean got the Impala going South bound. "Good, cuz' your one armed man routine is going to put a real damper on your social life, not to mention you won't be much help hunting 'til you get it off."
Sam rolled his eyes.
"Surprised you didn't ask your boyfriend to fix you up while he was there."
"You think you're being funny, but it's just really annoying and childish."
The slash of a smile that crept over Dean said that he knew full well what an ass he was being, and just how much he was enjoying himself. "So if he's already getting your body what did you offer the son of a bitch this time?"
A question with only one very bad answer. "It's… it's really stupid. Not dangerous stupid, just regular stupid. You're going to sleep better at night not knowing more than that."
"How long have you known me and you somehow think that saying shit like that is going to sit well with me?"
Sam wanted to keep the stupid little exchange to himself because saying it out loud would just make it too real. "Yeah well, you're just going to have to live with with a little bit of mystery. It's probably healthy."
"Damn it, Sam."
"Look, it's stupid and I don't want to talk about it." He slumped, straining against his seatbelt. "How far south we going?"
"Florida."
"What's in Florida?"
"Cuban food and bikinis."
It would be a lie if Sam said that he didn't enjoy both of these things, even still, "you think there's a case out there?"
"When is there not something crazy going on down in Florida?"
.:.
Dean and Sam had two very different ideas of 'crazy'. Sam was listening to a police radio app on his laptop, sitting cross legged on the floor about a foot away from the blasting ac. Dean was coming out of the bathroom with his hair slicked wet and his cheeks freshly shaved.
"Are you headed out somewhere?"
"We're headed out, Sammy." Dean went and dug through his duffle, finding some cologne that, from Sam's experience, was painfully strong when used in large amounts- which sadly was the only way that Dean knew how to use it. "A night like this? There's no way we're staying inside."
Silently, Sam held up his cast, like it was a get out of jail free card.
"I'm buying you dinner and I'm finding us a couple chicks-"
"They don't like to be called chicks."
"Babes,"
"Women." Sam corrected mild annoyance as he resumed typing. "And no thanks. I've got research to do.
"Dude, Miami is waiting outside; filled with women on spring break, waiting for someone to buy them drinks and whisper sweet nothings in their ears."
"Have fun with that," it's not that Sam was against dinner and stretching his legs after spending the last two days folded into the car- but he'd never been as much of an extrovert as his big brother.
"Oh no, you're not getting out of this."
"I'm injured."
"Girls love that kind of thing. Play up the kicked puppy card and you'll have 'em crawling all over you." Dean was running a hand through his hair, glancing to the mirror over the dresser.
Sam kept arguing his losing battle right up until Dean was pressing a cold beer bottle into his hand and grinning like a madman.
The bar was only a block and a half from their motel. It was called 'Kill Your Idol' and Dean seemed to think that that meant something special for some reason. Apparently the rock and roll paraphernalia on the walls sitting alongside a few taxidermy animal heads, spoke to his brother on some deep level and Sam was not one to question.
They didn't have to wait long before pleasant company wondered their way. Company in the form of two girls who might have been Sam's age, but were possibly a bit young for Dean. Their dresses were short and their heels were high. There was no hesitation before the older Winchester was buying them drinks and letting them giggle and share his recently vacated barstool. They were roommates, grad students, loved dogs, down for the weekend from Tampa, hitting a few clubs, looking for some company.
And to be honest Sam was more interested in the fact that they were both probably either Dominican or Puerto Rican and he had some curiosity over what it was like immigrating- but he could tell by the way that Dean was leaning on the bar and that the girls were giggling and playing with their straws while they spoke, that conversations about political climates and such had no place here.
Touching his cast with such tenderness, the girl closer to him (maybe named Anna, or Angela- it was really loud in the bar and hard to hear) looked up with a worried little pout. "What happened?"
Before Sam could even open his mouth Dean started in with, "We were up in Georgia a few nights back, stopping to get a drink, and my brother here saw a couple guys picking on this girl who'd come in on her own. They were trying to get her to step outside with them and she wasn't interested, and Sammy here got rid of 'em."
A pile of lies, but most of their lives were- and Sam didn't have the energy to call his brother out on it. He was positive that Dean felt justified in his manufactured history because the lie seemingly had it's desired effect. Both women awwwed and cooed over Sam, touching his cast and stroking his arm.
If there was one single thing that Dean liked more than females, it was taking care of Sam- and strangely there was no doubt in Sam's mind that that's what his brother thought he was accomplishing here.
It wasn't easy worming his way out of the trap that he'd been placed into the center of, but he managed. "You know, Dean here was saying that he was really interested in getting some Cuban food while we're out here. Do you girls know any local places that are any good?"
Naturally they knew of a fantastic place and would love to show the boys.
"I was actually thinking that the three of you could go on ahead. I'm actually pretty tired, thinking of turning in for the night."
There was a bit of arguing, from the very pretty girls who would love for him to come too, and from Dean who insisted that Sam couldn't just hide out in the motel.
In the end, Sam won. By no convincing or arguing of his own.
The girl who was not named Anna had tugged on one of Dean's sleeves and said, "it's ok. I'm sure the three of us can figure out how to have a good time even without your brother."
That's all it took.
Dean wasn't the kind of man to turn down an offer like that.
So, with promises of being safe and perfectly fine on his own, Sam bid his brother farewell and good luck- though it looked like Dean had plenty of that all on his own.
Like a well orchestrated plan, the moment that the door was swinging shut behind Dean and his two armfuls of a good night, a man sat in the recently emptied seat beside Sam.
It took the hunter maybe three seconds longer than it should have for him to recognise who the stranger was. He opened his mouth to tell Lucifer that he wasn't in the mood for whatever this was about to be- but he thought better of it.
"Hey there, handsome," the devil rested his elbows against the bar and settled in, looking like his old self and not some random stranger, just to keep things interesting.
Sam only lightly shook his head and took a long sip of his beer.
"I can't tell if you're giving me the silent treatment because I offended you somehow," Luci rolled his eyes, "or because you're just in a mood tonight."
Holding the rim of his beer to his lip Sam carefully said, "I'm not talking to a hallucination in public."
"Oh, is that it? You don't want to look all crazy in front of these nice people that you will never see again." He smiled a smile that made his eyes glint in the barlight. "Seeing as I'm wearing a body tonight, and really very actually sitting here, you might do me the favor of a bit of conversation?"
"...really?"
"Have I ever lied to you before?"
Sam frowned into his drink.
"Barkeep," Lucifer flagged down the man behind the counter. "My friend here would like another whatever he's drinking."
Aside from giving them a slightly strange look, no doubtedly thinking that they were both fairly drunk, the bartender brought Sam another beer.
"See, I couldn't order you a drink if I was just haunting that pretty little head of yours- you will have to pay the man though. I don't carry cash," the devil shrugged loosely, resting his chin on a fist as he peered up at Sam like he was waiting to see what would happen next.
Sighing, because he didn't even want a second beer, Sam handed over a couple bills and nodded politely as the bartender wandered off to help other people.
"You're not going to say thank you?"
"For making me buy myself a second drink?"
"It would only be polite." Lucifer examined the second bottle beside him, poking at the trails of moisture as they beaded against the glass.
It's not like Sam wasn't partially happy to see the man again, especially so soon, seeing as it was usually months if not years between their visits. But there was a certain charm and frustration in this sort of interaction- even if Sam couldn't seem to scratch the itch he felt at the idea that the devil undoubtedly wanted something, or else he wouldn't be here.
Musing softly to himself, Lucifer toyed with his lower lip, "those girls worked out better than I thought the would."
"Excuse me?"
"Well I was only guessing at what you brother's type might be. I figured when in doubt just double up. It worked out alright. Don't you think?"
"Are they… are they your's?"
"You mean…" Lucifer slowly raised an eyebrow, "are they demons?"
Sam didn't know what he'd been implying, but the suggestion horrified him. "Are they?"
"Of course not. I may be the King of Hell, but as far as everyone is concerned I'm still under house arrest; not out and about giving orders to seduce away hunters." The idea seemed to amuse him. "They are just two lovely ladies who were happy to be tempted, and I am so very good at tempting people who are in the mood to be tempted."
Whatever small comfort there was to be had, Sam settled into it. Lucifer apparently just wanted to talk to him without Dean there to mediate, which should have been less concerning than it was. "If you're here to collect on our little deal yesterday, I've got to tell you that I'm not ready."
"Flattering as that is, Samuel- that's not why I'm here." The devil shifted his weight, folding his arms against the bar and sitting up a bit straighter.
"Care to elaborate?"
"What if I just wanted to bask in your company?" He managed to look slightly offended that it could be for any other reason. "Did you ever stop to think that I just enjoy being crammed into small buildings with unwashed masses, getting the stink of humanity all into this newly acquired nose of mine?"
"Yeah, for some reason I don't think that's it."
His nose wrinkled just a touch. "You I don't mind as much, there's a special something that about you that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy- but how can you really stand being around these dirty apes?"
"Ok, Charlton Heston." Sam would have been more offended if he wasn't able to smell the underlying musk of sweaty bodies and liquor that was just part of being in a bar. It wasn't a particularly pleasant smell, but it was also just part of being in a bar. You got used to it.
"I'm sure that your joke was very funny to you, so congrats." Lucifer nodded gently, appreciative that Sam would waste the energy to tease him.
"Planet of the Apes?" But for the hunter is was an oddly sobering feeling that the devil might somehow actually not get the reference. It was just such an unnatural concept.
"Should that mean something to me?"
"...do you know what movies are?"
Lucifer gave him a very long suffering look. "Do you know how many people have sold their souls to me to become famous? Yes I know what movies are- but that doesn't mean that I waste my time watching them."
"So you've never seen Planet of the Apes?"
"You're asking this like I've committed some kind of crime."
"It's just weird." Sam just shook his head, not sure how to feel about the idea that there could possibly be a living soul that had somehow missed out on such an iconic film. He and Dean could practically quote the whole damn thing. Like the Star Wars trilogy, Planet of the Apes had been played over their motel televisions countless times. It was like a familiar old bedtime story.
Lucifer was still watching Sam, and Sam had an inclination that this was probably a look reserved mostly for all those other humans out there that the devil didn't have all that much affection for.
Awkwardly, Sam looked away, focusing in on his still not finished first beer. "So, uh… you look like you're feeling better than yesterday?"
"A new body has a way of putting a certain spring in a man's step."
Sam would just have to take the devil's word for it. "How long are you borrowing this one for?"
"Oh, for a few years I would assume. It's not a great fit so I'm not expecting it to last forever." The slant of his eyebrows softened and he smiled the faintest smile in Sam's direction. "I mean, it's not you, but I needed some flesh and bone and this one will do until you're ready to hand yours over."
Unable to hold back his frown, Sam did his best to try and hide it behind his beer. There should have been some small comfort in the idea that the Devil had been rehomed for the time being, but it just managed to feel a little like a stay of execution. "If it's not to collect on our deal from yesterday then why… um, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"
The devil lit up, grinning in a way that bordered on predatory. "Oh, but you sure do talk pretty when you want to." He pulled from the pocket of his jeans a single Sharpie pen and held it aloft. "I came to sign your cast."
Sam may have snorted a surprised kind of choking laugh into his beer. "Yeah?"
"I know the custom," Luci caught at Sam's hand, a strange but not unpleasant kind of current prickling along the space where their skin touched, tugging his injured arm closer and flicking the cap off his marker. "I pay attention to things."
Weirdly charmed by the offering, Sam didn't argue or fight to get his arm back. He just let the devil write in curling script from the edge of his thumb to the bend in his elbow. Sam couldn't read a word of it. The letters weren't in a language that he recognised.
"Do I even want to ask what that says?" Sam dared as he watched the last few touches being added, the equivalent of crossing 'T's and dotting 'I's no doubt.
"It says 'this one here has been claimed, and if you even look at him wrong you will be skinned'." Lucifer finished his strange looking letters with a slightly lopsided heart, before looking up at Sam with that same slightly hungry grin firmly in place. "It should help keep you at least slightly safe… from certain sorts at least."
"Wow… that's really sweet of you."
"Right?" There was no shame in the man. He just sat there looking so pleased. "You know, sometimes I surprise myself with how sweet I can be."
Sam glanced down at the very ominous scribbles, and back at the devil who was practically kicking his feet with joy. "That's one way to say it I guess," though Sam had been sarcastic and he wouldn't have chosen the words with any seriousness.
"I only get this way with you." Lucifer pointed out as he tossed his pen onto the floor so casually. Obviously done with it. "You should be flattered."
"Oh I'm definitely something."
The other man pushed Sam's beer further down the counter, not out of reach, but definitely out of the way. "Come on, I'm going to walk you back to your motel."
"That's not necessary," he said maybe a little too quickly before adding words that didn't soften the first ones, "and it's really weird for you to offer."
"It was not an offer, it was a statement." Lucifer's eyes darted for just a moment around the room. "Sam, you told your brother that you would be heading back soon, and you're not leaving me in here with all these people. So I'm walking with you, whether you like it or not."
For the safety of the other humans in the bar Sam let him come along.
He didn't like to think about what might happen if he left the devil here without some kind of supervision.