Happy New Year!

I'm not going to hype how great 2021 will be, as we all did that for 2020 and look what happened. Let's just say we've got a brand new year to look forward to, and I will be filling it with fic for you.

Thank you so much MaggieMay17 for beta'ing for me xxx

Chapter Seven

Nick traced the tip of his blade over Sam's cheek, parting the skin and making blood well and drip down his face. The sight of it made his stomach flutter with happiness that became satisfaction when Sam hissed between his teeth.

"Now, Sam, are you going to apologize yet?" Nick asked.

Sam's lips pulled back in a snarl, making more blood drip from the wound as it was stretched. "Go to hell."

Nick chuckled. "We're already there, Sam. And you know whose fault that is. You did this to us all. Because of you, we're here, and I am free to hurt you."

"You don't get to hurt the world," Sam said. "You don't get to hurt Dean."

Nick smiled. "You know Dean doesn't need me to be hurt. Even if he does resist the urge to swallow a bullet to get away from his grief, from the agony of his failed mission to protect you, he's going down in a hunt sooner or later. He'll be sloppy without you to back him up."

Sam smiled inexplicably, his voice confident as he said, "Dean won't be hunting. He's going to someone who will take care of him."

Nick tilted his head to the side. "What have you done, Sam?"

Sam's lips pressed into a thin line as his jaw set stubbornly.

"You will tell me," Nick said confidently. "One way or another, the truth is going to come out. The only question is how much pain you will suffer before it happens."

He traced the tip of his blade across Sam's bare chest, from the collarbone to the bottom of his ribs in a swirling pattern of open skin and blood. Sam grunted, and Nick felt the same satisfaction at the sound. This was the joy of it. Despite popular belief, his joy was not in causing pain. It was in the control and the reactions that pain brought forth. If Sam could bear it without flinching—as he had tried to do in the beginning, before his soul started to tire—Nick wouldn't enjoy it at all.

"What does it matter?" Michael asked.

Nick drew his eyes from Sam's face to the archangel that stood beside them, watching him work with a quirked brow. "It matters to me, Michael," he said.

"But why, Lucifer?"

The name sank into Nick, and a hand gripped his heart and squeezed. His vision swam, and his legs weakened.

He wasn't Lucifer. He was Nick: Nick Winchester. He was not in the Cage, and that wasn't really his brother in front of him, bleeding from the wounds he himself had created.

"I'm not Lucifer," he whispered.

Michael and Sam laughed in unison. "You are," Michael said. "You always have been. You just don't remember."

Nick turned to his brother, his eyes imploring him for more, for hope, for the truth he desperately needed. "Sam, please…"

Sam looked at him with a look of such pure hatred that it ripped through Nick like a knife. His fingers loosened, and he dropped the bloodied blade.

"You're Lucifer," Sam said. "You've always been Lucifer."

Michael grabbed Nick's shoulder and swung him around, lifting his own shining blade to Nick's face, bringing his reflection closer until Nick turned away.

"Look at it, Lucifer. See the truth," Michael said, the words a threat. "Everything will be clear if you look…"

Nick screamed and struggled to free himself. Michael's fingers dug into his flesh, and the blade came closer. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth. He didn't want to look. He knew instinctively that if he saw what Michael was trying to show him, it would drive him mad.

The fingers dug in deeper, pressing against bone, and shook him. The pain was immense, and he knew that he was going to open his eyes. He couldn't resist.

"No!" he bellowed. "Not that!"

He would open his eyes, and the reflection in the bright blade would be Lucifer's true face, not his own. He would look and see that they were telling the truth. He would be the devil, and Sam would be his victim.

"Please, no," he begged.

"Nick!"

Something ground into his sternum, and his eyes flew open, his lungs flat and heart racing.

Sam was bent over him, his knuckles pressed to the painful point on Nick's chest, and his eyes were strangely empty as he moved his hands to the sides of Nick's chest, over his lungs, and sent a surge of warmth into him.

"Breathe," Sam commanded.

Nick felt his lungs inflate without his control, and his head cleared. "What happened?" he asked on his first exhale.

Sam moved back, and Dean replaced him, his eyes worried as he looked down at him. "You had a nightmare, Nicky, but… Hell, it wasn't like anything I've ever seen before. You were thrashing around and making all kinds of sounds, and then you were screaming, and your heart was going so fast I could feel it hammering my hand when I was trying to wake you up."

Nick grabbed Dean's arm and used it to haul himself upright, feeling vulnerable lying on his back with his brothers standing beside the bed. As he did, he saw Castiel step closer to the end of the bed, his eyes worried. Mary and Jack stood in the doorway. Despite the fact he was overwhelmed and in pain, he was embarrassed to have them all watching him like this while he was weak.

Dean supported him and rubbed his back as Nick bent over and concentrated on breathing for a moment. When he had himself under control, he scooted back so that he was leaning against the headboard and rubbed the sore spot on his chest.

"How do you feel?" Sam asked, the words oddly flat as if he didn't really care about the answer.

Nick shrugged. "Sore."

"I had to inflict pain," Sam stated. "I couldn't wake you up any other way. Dean had already tried everything else when I arrived."

"How are you here?" Nick asked. "Did you…"

"I prayed," Dean said. "You were freaking me out." He glanced at Sam, and a small smile curled his lips that Sam didn't return. "It was instinct, I guess, to call Sammy."

"Thanks for coming," Nick said.

He was pleased that Sam had come, but also surprised. Sam had seemed so freaked when he took off on them, and Nick hadn't been sure he meant it when he'd said he would come back. He also felt a surge of something like happiness that it had been him that brought Sam back; his brother had come to help him. That had to mean he cared still.

The way he'd looked at Nick before, how scared he'd seemed to be, had been replaced by neutrality. It wasn't what Nick wanted to see, he wanted the same love and happiness he felt when he saw Sam, but it was something to build on.

"What were you dreaming?" Mary asked from the doorway.

"It was…" Nick felt a wave of dizziness. "I don't know."

He remembered that it had scared him more than anything he'd felt in his life, but he didn't know what it had been. There was a blank space of memory between him falling into bed, crashing, and waking up with Sam over him.

"I don't remember," he went on, forcing a smile for her. "It's just gone."

Dean looked skeptical. "It must have been something big to do that to you. You weren't even like that after the wall came down."

Castiel shifted uncomfortably at the end of the bed, his eyes averted from Nick and looking instead at Sam, whose jaw was clenched.

"I don't remember, Dean," he said. "Really. I just know it felt like… like I remember hell feeling before Chuck wiped it."

Dean's eyes widened, and he made a sound like the breath had been punched out of him. "The Cage… Cas, you've got to take it back!"

"No!" Nick said firmly. "It's not that."

"What the hell else could it be?" Dean asked. "Cas lost the experience of it, and—"

"Chuck took it," Nick stated. "It's not in me anymore. It's God, Dean; he's not going to lie or let it come back."

Dean looked to Sam as if waiting for an argument, but Sam's expression was still neutral.

"Can you check if it's there, Cas?" Dean asked. "Or you, Sammy? You'll have more insight than Cas."

Sam looked at Castiel, who wore a strange look of sympathy as he asked, "Do you know how, Sam?"

Sam nodded. "I got the download on grace when I came back. Okay, Nick, sit still. This is going to prickle."

"Do you have to touch my soul?" he asked warily.

Dean's eyes snapped to Sam. "Do you?"

"No," Sam said. "I wouldn't even try. That's not something I've ever seen done, and I'm not risking it."

"No," Nick agreed with a sigh of relief. "I don't want to be exploded, thanks."

Dean's lips twisted into a grimace, but Sam looked almost sad. Nick wasn't sure, but he hoped it was some of the bond they'd once had as brothers coming to the fore. He wouldn't want to hurt Nick.

Sam stepped closer to the bed and said, "I'll search for the experience. It should be close to the surface if it's there. Something that… potent… would leave a strong mark."

He pressed his hand to Nick's forehead, his touch warm and steady, and it occurred to Nick that this was the first time Sam had touched him—alive and with any warmth in it—in almost ten years. The last time he remembered was shortly before the truth about his blood addiction had come to their attention. Sam had hugged him after the ghouls that had killed Adam and his mother had almost bled Nick to death.

With a wave of longing, Nick wished it was a touch born of that same love now.

"Be still," Sam said quietly, and then squeezed his eyes closed.

Nick held his breath, and it looked like Dean was doing the same, only exhaling when Sam pulled back his hands and took a step back from the bed.

"It's not there," Sam said. "There was no sign of Hell's experience in his mind at all."

Nick frowned. "Was there anything else? Could you see my memories?"

"No," Sam said. "I wasn't looking for them."

Nick wasn't sure he believed him. He'd seen Castiel read another angel's mind before, and Sam had even more power as an archangel. He'd been looking for something, so what could he have seen in the process?

It made him feel a pang of worry. He had nothing in his past that he wanted to hide from Sam that he wouldn't already know either from being present for it or from what he'd gained with Lucifer's 'knowledge,' but he had thoughts and feelings he'd rather Sam didn't know.

After Sam let Lucifer in, Nick had been bitter and angry. Even after, when Nick was back and Sam dead, he'd had conflicted feelings about what Sam had done. Nick had been angry that Sam had done it, and also angry that he'd removed himself from their lives in the process. He'd missed his brother and resented the pain he'd caused them—Dean, who had struggled the most without Sam, especially—and the fact he hadn't been there when they'd needed him.

If Sam had seen all that, it was going to strain what already felt like a tenuous bond between them.

"You should sleep," Castiel said. "You all should." He looked from Dean back to Mary and Jack in the doorway. "You all need rest. Sam and I will go."

Dean looked reluctant, but Nick sensed something more in what Castiel said than the mere words spoken. It sounded as though he and Sam needed to get away, too. He wondered what had passed between them when Castiel found him, what had been said before Dean's prayer interrupted.

Dean stifled a yawn and said, "Yeah. Get some sleep, Nicky. You're on breakfast duty tomorrow. I want waffles."

Nick grinned. "Of course you do."

Dean nodded, and, for a moment, it looked at though he was going to hug Sam. But he bit his lip and patted Sam's shoulder instead. "Thanks for coming, Sammy. Will you be back tomorrow?"

Sam looked uncomfortable, but he nodded and said, "If not tomorrow, then in the next few days. There are things I need to do first, and I want to speak to Billie. Her reaper, Violet, was working with Michael, so she needs to be neutralized. I want to know if I can do it or if Billie wants me to deliver her for her own punishment."

Dean looked disappointed, but he said, "Sure. Whenever you can, we'll be here."

"I will come with you, Sam," Castiel said. "There's somewhere I want to show you."

Looking curious and happier than Nick had seen him since long before his possession by Lucifer, Sam nodded and said, "Lead the way."

There were dual fluttering sounds, and Sam and Castiel disappeared.

Dean watched the place Sam had been for a moment and then said, "Okay, see you in the morning, Nicky. Come on, Mom, Jack, let him sleep."

Mary gave Nick a small smile, and then she walked ahead of Dean and Jack into the hall.

Nick bid them goodnight and then adjusted himself so that he was lying down again as Dean slipped out of the room and closed the door behind him.

Nick closed his eyes and tried to quiet his mind. It was hard. He was wary of slipping into whatever nightmare had drawn his brothers to him to help. He didn't remember it all, it was mostly gone, but there was the trace of a voice on the surface of his mind that scared him still.

Look at it, Lucifer. See the truth. Everything will be clear if you look…

So… That would be the wheel Amara set in motion. It's not going to be a fast road to the truth, I'm afraid, but it's hopefully worth the wait.

Until next time…

Jadey xxx