Lucifer looked around appreciatively once Sam was in Dean's car.

"Ooh, nice," he said approvingly. "Leather seats." Directly to Sam, he said, "Imagine slashing these up."

"He does anything to my seats, I'm pulling his wings off," Dean warned as he slid in behind the wheel. "Just gonna tell you that now."

"That won't do much good," Castiel informed him.

"Yeah, they grow back," Sam agreed.

Dean looked at him with a raised eyebrow, illuminated by Castiel's blue glow, then cleared his throat and reached into the back. He handed Sam his wallet and phone on top of a Styrofoam takeout container. "Here you go."

"What's this?" Sam popped the lid even as he asked.

"Your dinner." Dean started the car up and pulled back onto the road. "Figured you'd be hungry."

For some reason, Sam's throat was tight. He swallowed past it and put his phone and his wallet back in his pockets. "Thanks. I...I am."

"Don't let him eat in the car," Crowley said to Dean. "Look at him. He'll get it everywhere - bad enough you let him in here in the first place."

"I doubt it," Castiel countered. "And even if he does, it won't be difficult to clean up. Let him eat. I imagine his blood sugar's dangerously low by now."

"You can go ahead and eat," Dean declared graciously. Sam fought a smirk and picked up half of his wrap.

"Thanks." He took a bite, keeping it over the open box so he wouldn't make a mess. His mouth cramped as saliva flooded it. He couldn't tell if the food was just that good, if he was just super hungry, or both. It didn't really matter. After he swallowed, he looked over at Dean and tentatively asked, "Why were you even looking for me?"

Dean sighed through his nose, then answered the question, eyes fixed on the dark road. "I'll be honest, Sam. I was real tempted to chalk this whole night up to another shitty Fluttr date, mail your crap back to you, and never talk to you again. Crowley was really rooting for that option."

"Would've been the right thing to do," Dean's demon noted, tone reasonable. "Not to mention the easy one."

"Cas wasn't about to let me do that, though," Dean continued. "Wouldn't shut up about how bad you probably needed someone right now, how I wouldn't be able to sleep if I just left you out here, how good the two of us hit it off at first." He shook his head. "He can be really obnoxious when he wants to be, so you can thank him for this lift."

Sam looked at Castiel, who was standing on Dean's shoulder with his wings neatly folded, looking at him. He took another bite of his wrap before saying anything.

"That's funny," he commented when his mouth was empty. "Usually angels will tell their people to stay as far away from me as possible. Most demons do, too."

"I'm not afraid of my elder brother." There was no pride in Castiel's voice; it was just a statement of fact.

"I am," Crowley pitched in. "Any rational being would be. Dean should be."

"As I explained earlier, he's got nothing to fear from Lucifer. He's bound by the conventions of a guardian angel: as much damage as he can do to the environment, he can't hurt or influence anybody but his host. And Sam's no threat to any of us."

Sam's throat felt tight again, even as Crowley asked Castiel, "Sure you can guarantee that?"

"I gotta ask. You're not actually a serial killer, are you?" That was Dean. Sam had just taken a bite of his food, so he shook his head vehemently as he chewed. Lucifer snorted.

"Oh, he wishes."

"No," Sam said firmly once he'd swallowed. "Definitely not. I've never been arrested. Never even broken the law." He considered, then added, "The FBI does track Lucifer's bearers, though. A lot of other law enforcement agencies do, too, after the last one." He pulled a slice of tomato free from his wrap and ate it. "It's kind of like being on parole. I have to tell the police if I'm moving or planning to leave the state, and they check in every so often."

"That doesn't seem right," Dean said. "You haven't done anything."

"It's not all that uncommon," Sam pointed out. "It's the same for a lot of demons. Azazel, Alastair, Lilith, Abaddon..."

"Well, same goes for them," Dean declared. His hands had tightened on the wheel at the list of demon names, but Sam figured anybody's would. "Is that one of the things you're gonna do once you pass the bar?"

Sam didn't bother explaining (again) that you didn't automatically get to start practicing whatever kind of law you wanted as soon as you got your license, even though Ruby wanted him to. He popped the last bite of the first half of his wrap into his mouth and talked around it. "Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I can kind of see where they're coming from, wanting to keep track of us."

"Bullshit." Dean squeezed the wheel even harder. "It's profiling. Discrimination, like you said. You're already saddled with the worst possible angel, last thing you need's to be treated like a criminal while you're dealing with him."

"Wow," Lucifer said loudly. "Rude."

"Plus, you obviously hate him," Dean went on. "I barely know you, but I can already tell you're not gonna do anything he tells you to, and never have."

"Thank you." Sam wasn't sure what else to say to that. He picked at his salad, looking away from Dean.

"Really wish you would've just told me to begin with." Dean sighed through his nose. "I get why you didn't. I guess. But you could've saved both of us a whole lotta grief."

"You 'guess' you get why I didn't tell you my angel's Lucifer?" Sam parroted, looking at Dean again. "Even the FBI think I'm gonna snap someday. People cross the street to avoid me when they see him, no one at work will talk to me, my boss gave me my own private office even though I'm only a paralegal so nobody'd have to be around me. It doesn't matter who I am, only who he is. I've known that since I was about four."

"So you planted him in a circle of holy fire back at your apartment and told me you just never got an angel," Dean summarized. "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say he's probably had that one coming for years, but first of all, I think you broke California's angel-cruelty laws tonight."

"Yes!" Lucifer threw his hands out towards Dean in gratification. "Thank you!"

"Second of all, it was dumb." Dean ignored him. "You wanted me to see you and not him, I totally understand that, but you owe it to anybody you meet on that stupid app to be up-front with them before you go out. You don't use a picture of yourself from ten years ago, you tell 'em if you've got kids, and you let 'em know who's on your shoulders. That's why I've got Crowley on my profile." He pointed at him. "Lots of people aren't comfortable dating somebody with a crossroads demon, and that's totally fine. I don't wanna be with anybody like that, anyway."

"Honestly, the prejudice makes no sense whatsoever." Crowley sounded like he'd calmed down some, but he wasn't even visible behind Dean's head, as far away from Lucifer as he could get. "Dean's an excellent negotiator because of me."

"You don't have to stick Lucifer on your page. I don't even wanna think about the kinds of matches you're gonna wind up with if that happened, but you gotta at least tell people, Sam." Dean really didn't sound angry. More frustrated than anything. Still, Sam hunched his shoulders and dropped his head, focus back on his takeout box again. "When you were being all weird about getting dinner, you told me you had a condition. That would've been the perfect opportunity to let me know what was up."

"I'm sorry," Sam mumbled, not even sure Dean could hear him over the engine. "You just seemed so great and I...I wanted it to work out so bad. I didn't mean to fuck everything up."

"You didn't fuck everything up," Dean said, in a voice almost as quiet as Sam's. "But you're not like most people on Fluttr, are you? No matter what that shitty angel of yours says. You don't want something short-term. If you're looking to build a relationship, you really wanna start out on a lie that big? If Lucifer wasn't an archangel and a ring of fire could actually hold him, would you just keep him in your closet for the rest of your life?"

"I honestly don't know what I was thinking, okay?" Sam said with miserable exasperation. "I already explained that to both of them." He waved a hand at his shoulders. "I'm just stupid. I always make everything way harder than it needs to be, and that's on me, not Lucifer. I can shoot myself in the foot just fine on my own."

"Okay. Stop. Right now." Dean's voice was commanding. When Sam looked at him, he fixed him with a steady gaze. "That's him talking, ain't it? And I don't wanna listen to him. I wanna listen to you. 'Cause you're smart." He shook a finger at Sam. "You're in law school. You landed a scholarship to Stanford, and even I know that's impressive. And you're gonna change the world, with what you wanna do." He rubbed a hand over his mouth, turning his attention back to the road. "You're not stupid, Sam. Like I said, you just did something stupid."

There was silence in the car for a while after that. Sam took the opportunity to focus on eating. He'd finished the other half of his wrap and most of his salad before Dean spoke again. He snorted softly, shaking his head, and asked, "How'd you even know about the holy oil thing?"

"I read about it," Sam replied. "I've been looking for tips on how to deal with Lucifer my whole life."

"Dad forbid you just listen to me," Lucifer muttered sulkily.

"I was reading a lot of old books by the time I was in middle school," Sam went on, doing his best not to miss a beat. "In a lot of ways, they knew more about angels and demons back in the middle ages than we do now. More about how to get around them, at least. The book I read portrayed the ring of fire as basically a last resort. Tonight's the first time I ever used it." He shrugged, closing his takeout container and setting it aside. "I've always got plenty of holy oil, though. My parents took me to a doctor when I was really little and that was his main suggestion: squirt Lucifer with oil when he starts acting up."

"Like some kind of animal," Lucifer lamented. "Like a cat. You get what I'm talking about, don't you?" He appealed to Castiel. "It's so demeaning, and it's hell on my wings."

"Sounds like you knew about it before," Sam said to Dean. "How'd you find out about it? Doubt you were looking for a way to control your angel." He glanced at Castiel. "He...seems pretty great, from what I've seen."

Dean chuckled dryly. "Yeah, that's 'cause he's been on his best behavior tonight. He's a dick with wings sometimes, trust me." Castiel looked at him, but otherwise didn't react. "So, yeah. Holy fire." He reached up to rub at the back of his neck, dislodging an annoyed Crowley. "I don't mean to give you my life story or anything, but my dad's a mechanic, like me. He owns a scrapyard back in Sioux Falls. His real passion's angels and demons, though. He does all kinds of research on super obscure stuff, and I guess I've picked up a lot of it."

"Really?" Sam shifted in his seat some, so that he was facing Dean better. "That's pretty awesome. Did you get all of it from him, or have you kept doing research on your own?"

"Little bit of both." Dean didn't seem very interested in talking about this. "Some stuff's kinda interesting, but it's not a great hobby. Pretty nerdy. And nobody else is really into it, so it ain't like I can talk about it with anybody but my dad."

"Well, I'm pretty nerdy - " Sam began.

"Very," Ruby cut in. "Extremely. Embarrassingly. Practically to the point of social disability."

" - and I think it's awesome," Sam finished. "And I'm into it, for obvious reasons. You can talk to me about it any time you want." Not that he was sure they'd be talking at all in the future. He still didn't know if Dean still wanted to try and make things work with him, or if he'd rather cut off all contact once he got him home. It really sounded like he was still interested, but Sam wouldn't blame him at all if he didn't want to get involved.

Castiel turned and began to speak into Dean's ear. Sam couldn't make out what he was saying, but after a minute, Dean started nodding. "Yeah. Okay...that might be a good idea."

He looked at Sam. "So, I've got a few tricks that might make things a little easier on you, even with Satan riding around on your shoulder. Ones that aren't illegal and won't risk burning your whole building down. Cas thinks I oughta share 'em with you."

"Bullshit," Lucifer said loudly. "Don't listen to him, Sam, he's a mechanic, not a demonologist. He's just trying to get you on the hook; he's got a crossroads demon. Their king! He doesn't have anything that'd work on - "

Lucifer's warnings trailed off into muffled outrage as Sam reached up and (gently) closed a hand around him, putting a thumb over his mouth. He knew he was going to get bit, but he didn't care.

"That - that'd be great," Sam told Dean, feeling a genuine smile spreading across his face. "I mean, if it's not too much trouble. You sure it's okay?"

"I wouldn't've offered if it wasn't," Dean pointed out. "You gotta stop being so shocked about somebody being nice to you." There was some whispering from his left side, then he added, "Crowley thinks I oughta tell you I'm really not a con man. 'Unfortunately.'"

"I figured that one out on my own," Sam assured him. "Speaking of profiling, it must suck to have a recognizable type of demon. At least Ruby's garden-variety." Ruby snorted.

"It definitely can," Dean acknowledged, turning to look at Sam, "but I'm pretty sure you've got it way worse than me on that front. No offense."

"Yeah, none taken." They'd reached Palo Alto proper. Sam recognized the buildings, and that they were getting close to where he lived. "Did you...memorize my address?"

"Well, the street," Dean admitted. "I know where it is." He nodded to the mostly-empty takeout box on the seat between them. "You feel better now that you've eaten?"

"Way better."

"Good. I'm glad." Dean turned onto Sam's street, commenting, "I know it was traumatic for pretty much everybody when Lucifer showed up - almost positive we're both getting banned from that place, by the way - but one good thing came out of it."

"What?" Sam asked with half a smirk, not at all surprised about the restaurant.

"Well, when you just had a demon and she was a girl, I wasn't really sure what you were doing on a date with me," Dean said, tipping his head a little. "Finding out you actually do have an angel, and he's definitely a guy, was kind of a relief."

"Oh," Sam said, blinking. That hadn't even occurred to him, despite the fact that he noticed other people's angels and demons automatically. It'd jumped right out at him that Dean's were both obviously male. "I'm sorry. Guess I should've said something to let you know I wasn't, like, experimenting with you...why didn't you just ask?"

"'Cause I knew it'd be rude and Cas'd already got on my case for that once." Dean slowed in front of a building. "This it?"

"Nah. One down." Sam gestured, having to take his hand off Lucifer to do it. He had bitten him, multiple times, but he hadn't broken the skin.

"You're only relieved 'cause you don't know what turns him on yet," Lucifer spat at Dean as soon as he could. Sam was glad when Dean just ignored him. Didn't even ask Sam about it.

He was expecting Dean to just drop him off in front of his building. And he was also still half expecting to never hear from him again after tonight, despite how understanding and just plain nice he'd been on the way home. Excitement and anxiety clashed in Sam's stomach when Dean pulled around the side to where the parking spaces were.

"What'd I tell you?" Ruby whispered harshly into his ear. "Crossroads demon. He did something for you and now he thinks you owe him."

"Dean," Castiel said mildly as Dean killed the engine, "it'd be wise to explain your reasoning to Sam."

"Right." Dean glanced at him, embarrassed. "Uh, I was thinking I'd show you those angel tricks tonight. 'Cause no offense, but you look like you haven't been sleeping all that great, which I'm guessing is because of him, and I might be able to help with that. But if you'd rather do it some - "

"No, that'd be great. Tonight's great." Sam cut him off without thinking, on impulse. Neither Ruby nor Lucifer had told him to. "How 'bout you come on up?"

If he lived to regret this, at least it was his own decision.