If anyone had asked Sam to guess how he'd end up spending his Wednesday night, even if he'd had the front and back of a page to write on, 'laying in the grass and watching fireflies while wondering if the deafness from standing too close to the explosion would be permanent' would not have made his list.

Distantly he was aware of the fact that Dean was lying within arm's reach over to his left, their heads close together and their bodies splayed in opposing directions. His brother had spent nearly a whole minute mutely shouting and checking Sam over for broken bones, before just collapsing beside him in relief and exhaustion. They were both breathing. They were both alive. All fingers and toes seemed to be accounted for.

And the utter silence had given way to a dull ringing, so that was probably a good sign.

The red clay on Sam's hands looked too much like blood as the sun was dipping below the trees and casting long and confusing shadows. Both Winchesters undoubtedly looked half dead, which was fitting seeing as they were sprawled out between low and well aged gravestones. He idly wished that there was enough light left for him to read the epitaph closest to him, if only so that he could know the name of the person he was sharing this little spot of dirt with.

Elloree, South Carolina was hardly even a town - but that's where the supposed bear attack had taken place. It was mostly just little vacation homes huddled around a small lake, a few little fish and bait shops and a whitewashed church. There had been nothing special about the crime scene. It looked like every other little cottage in the long line― other than the police tape still over the door.

There had been no stink of sulfur, no claw marks on doors or windows, no obvious sign of a hex, no history of anything exciting having ever taken place in the house, much less on the lake―other than an impressively sized trout that had been caught by a fisherman back in the mid 80s that had made local papers.

The lack of any other direction to look in, and not being willing to just blame a bear, sent the boys out talking to the victim's wife.

It wasn't a hard jump to assume that a wife, whose husband had been cheating on her, might look for some sort of retribution. Her name was Sarah. She was very small. Very Jewish. Very happy that her son of a bitch husband had been torn to pieces. And Dean had been a little too obvious with his flirting.

Flirting that had in no way kept Sarah from sending a golem made of vengeance and clay to the cabin that the Winchesters were squatting in since they came to town. Bullets and salt and silver and iron had been less than small mountain of earth not even batting one of it's small smooth pebble eyes as the hunters did their best.

They'd run.

Not that running away felt like the best solution, but at the time it was all they had. The slowness of the creature was the only weakness that the brothers had been able to exploit.

They'd driven two towns over to try and catch their breath and to form a plan. Dean had been grumpy and not the most helpful with strategizing. Sore from his bruised ribs and his thoughts a bit scrambled by what was most likely a mild concussion from being thrown into not one, not two, but three different walls.

A few hours of research and neither of them had been able to come up with a single good idea.

A bad idea, yes.

A Good idea, no.

Plastic explosives were never, ever a good idea.

Sam didn't even want to know how long Dean had been keeping explosives packed into a sturdy little box in the trunk of the car.

Dean had come up with half a pound of C4, There wasn't much to tell after that.

Golem's were made of cemetery dirt, so the boys had gone to the only cemetery in Elloree, and waited. Sarah came like they'd hoped that she would, and the golem that she made to kill them went up with a very literal bang. If there had been anything around the graveyard other than trees and the distant steeple of the church poking above the foliage than surely someone would have worried what the concussive, bone rattling, sound had been.

Just as the ringing had reached an almost painful decibel, scratching and wounding the battered inside of Sam's skull, a hand slipped over his shoulder. Meaning to push his brother off with a soft pat pat on conformation that he was still alive and well, Sam reached back and gave the wrist a light squeeze. The dip of his palm suddenly felt like he was cupping a pocket of lightning. Very mild lightning. His fingertips brushing along a live wire.

He had more proof than he needed that it wasn't Dean holding onto his shoulder so very carefully, but Sam still turned his head to the right to see the unmistakable moonpale curve of Lucifer's face.

The devil was laying in the grass beside him, a look of concern and curiosity tempering his smile. His lips moved but it was all white noise.

"I can't hear anything," Sam thought that he managed to say. " 'm probably deaf. I won't miss your bad jokes."

Lucifer showed a bit of teeth in a way that could have been mistaken for a grin. He mouthed more words that meant nothing, as he moved his hand from Sam's shoulder up to his cheek, then forehead, brushing hair and grit from his eyes. It was obvious that the devil was laughing at Sam, teasing him. The actual words were irrelevant - their meaning clear enough.

"Knock it off." He pushed the man's hand away from his hair, too tired and sore to be interested in whatever nonsense was being offered to him.

The devil kept talking though, undaunted, from the tilt of his head and the small pauses it was likely that he was asking questions and expecting some kind of answer.

Sam had none to offer, and was tempted to just close his eyes and ignore the world - but he thought better of it by the way that Lucifer sat up on an elbow and pointed into the night with a scowl. Uneasily, Sam sat up too, only to see something that he didn't understand. There was a fourth person out here in the growing dark, back out among the headstones.

It was almost definitely Sarah, and by the rapidly forming mound of dirt beside her it was apparent that she was not daunted by the Winchesters blowing her last golem to tiny bits.

"For fuck's sake," the words formed in Sam's mouth and he reached over to his brother and shook him from his almost peaceful rest.

Dean's eyes came open and almost instantly honed in on the man sitting on Sam's far side, launching himself into a clearly unpleasant greeting that was followed by short, slipped words that didn't need any kind of translation.

"Hey, um, I think Sarah jimmied out of her ropes." Sam wasn't sure if his brother was suffering from the same deafening ringing that he was drowning in. It was like living in a church bell and it could stop any time now and that would be great. He watched with mild annoyance and distress as his brother continued to mutely yell at Satan.

There wasn't time for Dean to work this animosity out of his system though. They had bigger problems than the devil showing up uninvited.

It was obvious that the other man was as deaf as he was; and Sam was forced to resort to snapping his fingers and then waving his hand in his brother's face before gesturing to the distantly rising monster that was not nearly far enough away.

Though the hunters made an attempt to stumble to their feet, Lucifer was faster. He made calming gesture with his hands like a lion tamer in an old timey circus, soothing the brothers and reassuring them as best as he could manage without audible words. He left them, walking so smoothly over the grass, waltzing around gravestones to music only he could hear.

It was fascinating to watch the ease at which the devil managed to do what the Winchesters had struggled so hard with. One hand touched Sarah's head and she crumpled. The same hand moved to the half formed golem and it dissolved like a sugar cube in water.

Words were wasted between them, but the impressed and pleased nod from Dean said plenty. Sam felt the same way.

By the time that the three of them, plus one unconscious lady, made it back to the cabin they were hiding out in Sam could actually kind of hear again. Things were muffled like his ears were stuffed with cotton, all sounds distant like heard from behind closed doors- but it was better than the alternative.

It came with a downside though. It meant hearing all those soft whispers from Lucifer as they walked from the car to the house, Sam catching the door for Dean who had his arms full of a hundred pounds worth of scorned woman.

"Why are we keeping her, Sam?" The devil leaned close, keeping practically on Sam's heels. "I didn't know you and your brother took adorable little prizes like this. It's weird and charming and very unexpected."

Sam closed the door behind them and made room on the couch for their guest. They'd been lucky enough to find one of the lake houses that wasn't currently being rented. All nice and furnished and perfectly comfortably and free for their use. So much better than a hotel - though the clayman attack a few hours ago had left one broken back door and dusty smears of clay over the wooden floors and patterned rugs.

"If we're going to eat her then I call a leg," he peered around Sam's shoulder to watch Dean placing the woman down safe and sound (though her hands were tied). "I'm a dark meat kind of man―"

Sam wondered how long this slightly lunatic rambling had been going on, seeing as he'd done his best not to look at Lucifer while they were all in the car. "We're not eating her, and we're not keeping her."

Startled but amused, Lucifer flashed Sam one of his crooked little smiles that made his eyes so bright. "How long have you been able to hear me?"

"...not long enough to know if you're joking or not about cannibalising Sarah."

"Oh, does that mean that you missed the part in the car when I was singing to you?" A pout twisted his grin, but the laughter was still open on his face. "I can be talked into an encor if you ask real nicely."

Despite some mild curiosity as to what song this terrible man might have seen fit to sing to him, Sam knew that he would not be asking for a repeat performance.

"So why exactly are we keeping the lady who was making a monster to crush you and your very filthy brother?"

"We aren't keeping her." There wasn't a 'we' here. Not one that involved the devil at least. "She made a golem to kill her husband. Not exactly any evidence there that we can just hand over to the local police."

"So we brought her back here to… kill her?"

"No!" Frustration made Sam's shoulders tight. It was too long and too difficult of a day to really worry about whether or not Lucifer was still joking or not.

"We're going to talk to her," Dean butted in, apparently joining them on this side of hearing. "Isn't that right, Sam?" The mocking tone was a little too clear in his big brother's voice.

It wasn't fair that Sam was the only reasonable person in the room.

"Look, yes she tried to kill us, but―"

"Twice." Dean pointed out, rubbing the side of his head like trying to shake water from an ear. "She tried to kill us twice."

"―but, but that doesn't mean that we're going to kill her."

"No. Of course not." Dean rolled his eyes and winced as he shrugged out of his jacket. "We just point out that she was being a bit naughty, get an apology, and make her promise that she won't summon any more dirt monsters to hurt anyone."

"That's a terrible plan, Sam. Even for a human that's a terrible plan - and I have very low expectations here." Lucifer lectured softly, still hovering beside the younger hunter, but peering at the unconscious body on the couch.

"That's not what we're doing." Being reasonable shouldn't be so difficult. "We need to talk to her. See if we can't get her to go to the police and confess."

If Dean rolled his eyes any harder he was going to hurt himself. "Yeah, why wouldn't she want to turn herself in?"

"She's just human, Dean." Sam hated that he had to point this out. "We're not going to kill her."

"Yeah well, we're not going to get her to do much of anything with her being all unconscious and hogtied," and Dean sat himself down on the recliner beside the window, leaving dark smears of clay over the cushions, "compliments of your boyfriend. Thanks for that by the way, Satan. You could have showed up and melted that monster of hers hours ago, but better late than never."

"Did you ask me to come earlier? No."

"Did anyone ask you to come when you did?" Dean started working his hands together, scraping off the dried clay. "No. But you butt your nose in places you weren't invited whenever you damn feel like it; so you should at least start to work on your timing."

Lucifer looked unimpressed by the insults, which seemed to be one of his only two responses to teasing. "Two such brave strong hunters as yourselves, I'd hate to emasculate you boys by always stepping in and saving the day. What would all the other other hunters say?"

"They'd say good job having Satan in your back pocket." Dean offered with a hint of teeth.

Sam moved between the two before their banter could go much further south. Breaking their line of sight seemed to help, if Lucifer's easy and sudden smile was any indication.

"Luci, since you knocked her out do we need you to wake her up too. Or are we just…?"

"I mean, I can wake her, if you like to have your ladies alive before you kill them?"

"Oh my god." Sam hissed under his breath. It was rough being in the room with two borderline sociopaths. "We're not going to kill her."

"Pity." Lucifer honestly seemed disappointed that there wasn't going to be some kind of murder tonight. But he snapped his fingers at Sarah―not like a hypnotist waking a volunteer from the audience, but like a man with very little patience trying to get someone's attention―and she came awake with a start.

Waking up with your hands tied, in a strange place, surrounded by two men that you'd tried to kill and one complete stranger, was probably a fairly terrifying way for anyone to wake up. Especially for such a small and delicate sort of woman like Sarah was. If she felt any kind of fear though she hid it well.

"Bastards." She ground out the words through her teeth. "You bastards."

"Yeah, Sammy. She sounds super reasonable and ready to apologise for killing her husband." Dean ran a hand through his hair and made it obvious that he wasn't going to be much help.

"That son of a bitch got what he deserved." She struggled, hands tied from wrists to elbows, but her feet free enough to kick and get her the leverage she needed to move from laying to sitting up. She had a wild sort of look to her, eyes flat and cold, hair a mess, and her makeup slightly smudged. "And if I could bring him back I would do it again."

Sam didn't know what he was hoping for here. Things got complicated when the 'monster' was a human. Witches and average murderers were so much harder to deal with than proper things that went bump in the night. At least for the younger hunter. Dean didn't have as many stipulations.

"He swore to me he wouldn't do it again," Sarah made her excuse. Rationalised. As if she expected one of the men in the room to take her side. "We- we have a daughter the same age as that kid he was screwing. How am I supposed to tell my baby that her dad was cheating on us with a sixteen year old?"

Dean wasn't one to be sympathetic in these sorts of situations though. "How are you supposed to tell your baby that you made a monster to beat her father to death?"

"I'm not apologising to a bunch of hunters." She spat. "You can't come in with some moral high ground and expect me to feel bad about doing exactly the same thing that you do."

Sam was taken aback. When he and Dean had first spoken to her a few days ago they'd introduced themselves as life insurance claim adjusters here to clear up a few things about her husband's unexpected death. Granted, they weren't the most believable insurance adjusters, but he also liked to think that they didn't look like hunters either. Which meant that Sarah had met people like them before - and that's wasn't a great sign.

"Oh honey. We don't summon monsters." As much as Dean was against this conversation, and should have been at least slightly concerned about the turn it was taking, he seemed happy enough to keep up the bad-cop routine.

"No. You kill monsters. That's what I did." No apology in her.

The brothers had talked to the 'mistress' when they'd first got to town. She'd been very pretty and very young for the man that she'd been sleeping with.

And maybe Sarah didn't need to apologize.

Maybe she'd been a little justified.

Sam could very easily see her side of it.

That was one of the complications that came along when they had to deal with humans.

Another, but very unexpected, complication followed.

Sarah stared Dean straight in the eyes and began to speak in a language that Sam didn't recognise.

"The fuck is she―" the older Winchester glanced at Sam, confused and more confused as to what was going on. "What is saying to me?"

Sam could only shrug and turn to Lucifer who was less than helpful.

"What?" He looked away from his casual study of a landscape painting on the far wall, seeming to just notice the woman on the couch who was speaking fast and in rough words. "She doesn't seem to like you boys' plan any more than I did."

"Do I―?" Dean took a step closer to the woman on the couch and raised a hand like he meant to strike her, but he hesitated, also watching Lucifer for some kind of direction.

"I'm not your mom," the Devil shrugged. "You want to belt the woman across the mouth that's your business - but you've got a bit of an unfair advantage and I will silently judge you for it."

"I mean, is she making another monster?" Dean looked so uncertain as the small woman continued her strange unbroken stream of words with that hard look in her eyes.

Lucifer cocked his head to one side, an owl like movement as he studied Sarah. "Those aren't real words. They're a little like Aramaic and little old Hebrew, matching nouns, mostly nonsense though. I think that she just doesn't like you boys."

"Wow. Thanks, Satan." Dean eased away from the couch, hesitation making the small movements stiff. "Real helpful. Glad we had you here to translate."

It was a quiet testament to the overwhelming depths to the hole that Sam had been digging for himself that he stepped in to defended Lucifer. "Give him a break, Dean. He melted the monster that we couldn't take out with explosives―"

"You're welcome by the way." The devil was many things, but humble or modest he was not. He looked like he wanted to say more, but his spine suddenly stiffened and he turned to look at Sarah with this blank and cold expression.

She grinned at him.

At all the men that were towering over here.

No fear in the woman.

But she was apparently capable of summoning monsters capable of pulling people into little pieces, so maybe she had her reasons to feel a bit more confident in these sorts of situations.

Her eyes flooded with a soft amber color and for a moment Sam's gut tightened with memories of the yellow eyed demon that they'd killed months back. There was a whiff of sulfur and that did nothing to ease the nervous sort of violence curling in him and making his palms itch.

"Oh my," Sarah showed too much teeth as she spoke, her tone heavy and very different from moments before. "I had no idea that there were any hunters out here idiot enough to―" those animal eyes of hers widened as she seemed to recognise the blond man who was still lingering near to the walls. "Master… Lucifer, is it really you?"

There was no emotion on the devil's face and even less than that in his words as he spoke. "Ansky, you're just letting humans summon you like this now?"

"I've been bound to their family for centuries… Sir." There was a strange mix of awe and horror on the thing wearing Sarah's face. "You're free from the cage. You made it out. Everyone will be so―"

Whatever 'everyone' was going to be feeling had to remain a mystery though, seeing as Lucifer raised a hand like he was expecting a high-five from the air, and then Sarah exploded.

It would have been more disturbing if Sam had been able to really process what had happened.

Blood and viscera suddenly painted the walls and ceiling and furniture.

It was hot and wet and he'd had been standing far too close to the couch because when he shakily raised a hand to wipe blood from his face he distinctly felt small shards of bone dislodged from his hair and hit the carpet with muted little sounds.

"Son of a fucking bitch," Dean found his words first, taking a deep breath and spitting on the floor before continuing his short tirade. "You got to warn a guy if you're going to― fuck ―my mouth was open and everything, man."

"You… you killed her." Sam's concerns leaned in a different direction.

Lucifer turned slowly to the younger hunter, and that coldness hadn't left his face, his bloodied face. "I didn't have much of a choice. Ansky was one of my generals during the first war - and there he was, being summoned like a lap dog. This is what happens when there's no one with sense enough to rule left in charge down there."

Adrenaline was singing through Sam, making the red of the blood too vibrant. The sounds and scents coming in off the lake too strong as they drifted in through the broken back door and mixed nauseatingly with the mess in the room. "You didn't have to blow them up!"

"He would have returned to Hell and told everyone I was free." If he even noticed the blood dripping from his chin made no sign of it. "I like my privacy."

Chest tight, Sam felt like he needed to catch his breath. "You didn't have to kill Sarah too."

With a shrug, Lucifer turned back to the painting on the wall. "You said she killed her husband. Call this karma if it makes you feel better."

"She had a teenage daughter."

"...and?"

It's not like Sam expected the devil to be saintly. He wasn't that stupid or hopeful. But it still crippled something inside of him to have that level of indifference flaunted in front of him.

It might have been because Dean knew Sam's own mind better than he did at times. That some kind of big brotherly instinct just turned on automatically when he saw the slightest shift in his Sam. "Come on, go get cleaned up and let's get out of here."

Or maybe it was just coincidence.

Either way, Sam was quietly grateful for an easy out.

Ignoring the devil was easy - seeing as there was nothing else that Sam would rather be doing in that moment. He washed up quickly, doing his best not to dwell on the molar he found in the folds of his shirt collar, and getting into clean clothes. Dean did much of the same, the two of them going through the familiar movements without wasted words. It was grim work but fast, and their very incriminating clothes got tossed into the fireplace on their way out the door.

They were leaving behind a mess, but that wasn't abnormal after a hunt. Especially not a hunt that had gone as sideways as this one had. The only consolation seem to be that there was no one left to be summoning up clay monsters, and that Lucifer was no longer haunting the bloodied room. He'd vanished without much warning, and neither Winchester commented on it.

The windows of the Impala almost instantly started to fog on the edges as Dean started up the car. Muggy but chill night coming in the passenger window that Sam was quickly rolling down. There wasn't enough air to clear his head though.

It took putting about eighty miles of bleak night highway between them and Elloree for the iron weight in his gut to lift.

"Dean," the wind was slapping his freshly cleaned hair against his right cheek, leaving him partially deaf in one ear- so all in all his night hadn't really improved all that much, "tell me you were going to want to kill her anyways."

For half a moment, his big brother took his eyes from the road. Just long enough to shoot Sam a confused expression."I like to pretend that we're good guys, Sammy. I like to think that there was a way out that wasn't putting a bullet between her eyes… or you know, your boyfriend painting the wall with her."

And words of comfort those were not.

"Damn it, Dean," Sam internalised the last of that thought, he's not my boyfriend.

"Look, man, she killed her husband." The muscle in his jaw jumped as Dean chewed at the inside of his cheek. "Apparently her family had some pact with a demon - or, fuck, I don't know. But she was bad news, Sammy. You can't deny that she would have killed us if she had the chance."

Probably.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Life was made of uncertainties like that.

.:.

It's not like they could just swing into the nearest hospital and get Sam a replacement cast that wasn't caked in rust colored dirt, or fractured in long spiderweb crackles, or stained with unmistakable smears of dried blood. Which was a shame. A hospital might have been willing to prescribe some kind of pain killers that would have helped take the edge off the ache that kept Sam sullen and irritable.

Dean was a phenomenal big brother though. Brother and mother and doctor all rolled into one big old ball of 'I told you so'. They checked into a motel out in Tennessee, and despite it being nearly four in the morning, Dean set Sam up with a bottle of cheap whiskey and left to collect 'supplies'.

The hard liquor burned his throat and made his stomach lurch, but Sam eased himself into the bottle and let it numb the throbbing pain that came from broken bones and countless bruises and scrapes.

He'd had worse nights.

He'd had worse hunts.

Inevitably he'd have worse ones as the years would stretch on.

But this one would stick with him. He wasn't likely to shake the images of that room covered in the remains of a very small and very angry woman and the devil standing idly by without an ounce of apology.

Steadying the whiskey between his knees, Sam used his good hand to undo the laces of his boots before kicking them to the floor. He eased into one of the room's queen beds and did his best to not think about everything that his mind seemed so very determined to dwell on.

He must have fallen asleep because he never heard the Impala roll in over the loose gravel of the parking lot. Never heard the door open. Didn't even knowingly close his eyes―but someone was lightly pawing at an ankle and shaking him awake.

The room was bleary in alcohol and the light of the single bedside lamp.

Sam shifted his weight, fumbling the mostly empty bottle of Jack over to the bedside table before running a hand over his eyes and trying to pull the world into focus. "Hey, did you… Lucifer, why are you here?"

The devil was standing beside the bed, spotless clothes and that easy, gentle look softening the winter sky color of his eyes. "I know I told you that Lucifer is my favorite name, but I'd be lying if I said hearing you call me Luci makes my little black heart go pitter pat."

"I don't want to do this."

"Do what?"

"Any of this." Sam wished that he could clarify a bit better, but his head was still swimming in whiskey. He felt oddly very small and lost, like a boat that had drifted far from its moorings, and not at all like a giant of a man on a motel bed with floral print blankets that hadn't been attractive since the late seventies. "Whatever you're here for, I don't want it."

"I wanted to check on you - so I did. But you're not usually so roughed up; so liquored up. It beared an actual conversation I thought."

"I don't wanna talk to you." Even to his own ears, Sam sounded like a sullen child.

A narrowing kind of confusion darkened the lines on Lucifer's face. He idly toyed with the hem of Sam's jeans. "Are you mad at me?"

If it wasn't for the way that the whiskey had smoothed all his rough edges, Sam probably would have been able to keep it together. Instead he laughed, a dark ugly thing clawing up from a place deep down that he hadn't known he had.

One eyebrow inched up. "That would be a yes."

"You don' care how anyone other than you feels. Don't― don't try to pretend to me that you're gettin' all worried." Sam's words slurred on the edges and stumbled over themselves and it was more of a mess than he wanted to acknowledge.

"It's too easy for me to forget that you're just human sometimes," the bed dipped under the weight of the devil as he sat himself down beside Sam's feet, "and you're bound to get all sensitive about things."

"Sensitive?"

There was a tiny roll of his eyes, but oddly he didn't tease Sam about repeating him for once.

"This isn't me being a sensitive lil' human." Sam pushed himself to a more upright sort of position like better posture would somehow make the other man listen to him. "You killed a woman, right in front of me,"

"Is that all?"

"Fuck you, you spooky son of a bitch."

"Was she or was she not trying to kill you and your brother? I believe I did you both a favor."

And there was no doubt in Sam's mind that the devil actually believed what he was saying. "You did yourself a favor by killing her and whatever was in her. It had nothin' to do with Dean an me."

"Call it a two-for-one deal. Everyone got out just fine."

"Yeah, everyone except the woman you popped like a birthday balloon."

"Would you prefer I stop helping you, Samuel?" It was a little unnerving to watch the way that no matter how mad or frustrated Sam got with him, the devil only tilted his head or raised an eyebrow. Curious but not offended in the slightest. "You don't need to get so upset about this. You don't owe me for tonight. That wasn't a trade - and by that look on your face that says you're stabbing me in your mind, I'm guessing that that wasn't the right thing to say."

Even drunk, Sam knew he was wearing what Dean always referred to as his 'bitch face'. He wasn't going to apologize for it. "We're not friends. I don't want favors from you."

"Would you rather owe me for tonight?" Lucifer kept rubbing the edge of Sam's jeans between his thumb and forefinger. "Because I'd say that your bartab is already getting to be a bit more than you can handle."

Sam just shook his head, squaring his shoulder off against the swimming sort of feeling that still kept his head a disorganised and angry place.

"A body, and then a kiss, and I really don't think you can deal with much more than that, Sam."

It wasn't the most stupid thing that he'd done in the past few weeks, and he certainly could one-up himself if given the chance. He surged forward, grabbing a messy handful of the devil's shirt and closed the short distance between them. It was a rough kiss, if it even qualified as one at all.

A soft sound battered itself against Sam's lips, something from Lucifer that was halfway between a hum and a whimper and the hunter swallowed it down. He sat back, rattling the bed's headboard as he pushed the other man away with something very much like anger. "Just a body. I don't owe you anything else."

"H-how are you," Lucifer's eyes were closed, his lashes pale lines over the curve of his cheeks that possibly had a touch too much color to them, "how are you not ass over teakettle for that feeling?"

If Sam got a little distracted watching the uneven line of the other man's mouth, or felt his own thoughts going a bit astray when he started to wonder if he could draw that same sound out of the devil a second time - well, it was hardly his own fault. Dean, after all, had supplied him with the booze.

"I don't like it," which wasn't true. "It's like standing too close to power lines, except it's under my skin," which was very true.

Lucifer suddenly laughed, a confused, almost panicked sort of unwilling sound that he cut off by rubbing his hands over his face and clearing his throat. "Sam, I―"

Familiar headlights cut through the room's flimsy curtains, the crunch of gravel announcing that they weren't alone. Dean was back, and that meant a bunch of good and bad things all together.

"Even if you would rather I didn't, I'll still come help if you call for me." He reached out like he wanted to pat Sam's leg again, but for some reason through better of it and stood. "Free of charge."

"I don't want your help."

"Want and need are sometimes very different things," he shrugged. "And as long as you promise just to keep it between the two of us, I'll let you in on a little secret."

Sam didn't want a secret between them.

But Lucier smiled, a crooked little thing. "I find myself at a weird place where I kind of want to help keep you alive." He winked and he was gone with that thunderous sound of flapping wings.

The motel room opened and Sam was left trying to collect himself in a mad sort of scramble like a deck of dropped cards.

"Hey, brother. You still conscious?" Dean grinned, though his eyes relayed a heavy need for sleep. "I've got the cure for you right here." He set down a plastic grocery bag before pulling from his jacket pocket a little brown and white prescription bottle.

He tossed the pills to his invalid brother on the bed and Sam majestically didn't catch it. Awkwardly the younger Winchester fumbled the bottle up of the blankets and read the label.

'Sameulson, Lora- 600mg Narco- Take one by mouth every six hours as needed'

"You stole someone's pills?"

"Anything for my baby brother." He grinned, rifling through his bag and pulling out a package of beef jerky and a handful of Sharpies. "Take your pills, eat some, and let me at that nasty cast of yours."

Sam did as he was told, chewing on a dry little hunk of meat while watching Dean set to work scribbling over the stains of his cast. It was hard to say if it was the marker fumes or the painkillers that hit him harder; his eyes watering a bit and his body very quickly feeling like it belonged to someone else.

"You ok up there, Sammy?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm alright."

The dubious look that Dean shot him said that he wasn't buying it, but they'd had a long night and it was obvious that he wasn't interested in a long conversation to match. "Give me one of those happy pills, and I'll finish putting a fresh coat of paint on ya in the morning."

"It's already morning." Sam may have done his best to hide a smile as he clumsily wrestled with the childproof cap before digging out one of the little white pills for his brother.

"You've always got to be right, don't you?" Dean laughed, and being the heathen that he was, bit the pill in half, tossing the part he wasn't swallowing down onto the nightstand. "Sadly we can't both get loopy on pills, one of us has to keep a clear head."

Between the two of them, Dean was probably more deserving of some deep sleep. He'd definitely been on the receiving end of more than half of the night's violence - but that wasn't how the two of them worked, and Sam was already too groggy to argue.

The light went out, and still fully dressed and on top of the covers, Sam settled down. His thoughts fought against the pull of the pills and liquor though. Confusing thoughts about the man who wasn't in the room with them. Thoughts that he really, really didn't want to have.