Chapter 16

Sam pulls into the motel parking lot and nudges his brother awake. It takes a few tries and Dean grouses mightily.

"Wuz havin' a good dream."

"Yeah? 'Bout what, the Taylor twins?"

Dean gets a sheepish look on his face at Sam's question. Sam thinks he's not going to answer, but then Dean says, "Nah. Not that kind of good. It was about … us, when we were kids."

Dean's eyes are still sleepy, warm. The sudden lump in his throat surprises Sam. "I like those dreams," he offers.

"You have 'em, too?" Dean asks surprised.

Sam nods. "Sometimes."

"Wasn't all bad, was it Sammy?"

His brother sounds all of twelve. "No, it wasn't all bad."

Inside the room they settle on their respective beds and Sam is really glad that Cas isn't with them, knows how petty this is but can't help it. Of course, since Dean's napped for the last 200 miles he's not tired. Sam, on the other hand, really wants to pass out.

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"You were good in that play."

"Huh?"

"In Middle School. Our Town. You were good."

Sam is almost too tired to smile. His brother has found so many different ways to say, I love you, it could fill a dictionary.

"Thanks," he answers.

"Did I ever tell you that?"

I love you, too. "Yes. You did."

Dean is quiet again for a few minutes.

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"You would have made a great lawyer."

A new one. Sam is momentarily stunned, isn't sure what to reply.

"Or a computer customer service rep," Dean tacks on with a laugh.

Sam remembers the yellow shirt, the lab-rat cubicles, the incessant phone inquires that usually could be fixed with did you try turning it off, then on?

"You were driving a Prius, Dean."

"Wasn't me," Dean instantly balks. "Zach gave me that thing. Turned me vegan, for fuck's sake."

"I'm just sayin' …"

"Yeah, well, shut up."

"You started this."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

Dean's quiet again.

"Sam?"

"Dean, I really need to sleep."

There's fidgeting. "Will the T.V. bother you?"

"Just keep it low, should be fine."

Sam hears the hum of the television turn on. Dean flips stations and the sounds blend into a white noise. He's so tired he thinks even if Dean took to watching a marching band it wouldn't matter. All he needs is sleep.

"Hello Sam."

No!

The room has changed. The paintings are now all modern. Broad swathes of red and black and green splattered as if a kindergartner was having a tantrum. The colors are angry, livid, enraged. The furniture is black and white, tables all glass – like ice. Is this Lucifer's idea of anti-Hell? A frozen world where heat doesn't penetrate?

Sam hasn't turned around, doesn't want to see him. He will keep control. He will win. Slowly he moves to face the evil that wants to consume him.

Lucifer is dressed in all black. It's not cheesy. It's slick and fine and rich and he looks like he ripped the clothes off a GQ cover. Sam's still in his sleep clothes, wonders when the fashion show will start.

"I'm disappointed, Sam. You cheated. Getting my brother, Gabriel, to help you."

"He's smart. Knows which team to put his money on."

"Team? I see. You and Dean, I assume?"

Sam doesn't answer. Doesn't want to draw Dean into this. He wishes now he'd used another word.

"You think Gabriel did you a favor? He didn't. I was giving your brother a gift, Sam. You see this, don't you?"

Gift? Trying to kill him? Sam hated that Lucifer was still talking about Dean.

"Think, Sam. If Dean died in 2006, before trading his soul for your life … I was only trying to spare him."

The hairs on the back of Sam's neck stand up. "Why?"

"Because I like Dean," Lucifer says tilting his head slightly. "He is beautiful in his own way. Not like you, of course, but Michael chose well."

"Because we're brothers?"

Lucifer tilts his head again. "Are you asking me who was chosen first?"

Sam is wondering this and can't stand how quickly Lucifer reads him. He shouldn't have asked the question. He feels very certain he will hate the answer. Sam says nothing and hopes Lucifer will move on to the point of tonight's visit. Except Sam already knows.

"It always had to be you, Sam."

Sam just nods. Who cares any more? Just because Lucifer wants him, doesn't mean he's getting him. He's tired of being jerked around. Since before he was even born they've been screwing with his family. It ends here.

A silver bucket materializes on the glass table holding a bottle of champagne.

Lucifer pours and hands Sam a fizzy crystal flute. Sam's wearing a black tux. High quality. Feels like he should be on the freakin' red carpet of some Hollywood premiere. Sam steels himself. The contest of wills begins again.

He accepts the champagne but doesn't bring it to his lips. Doesn't know what kind of affect it can have on him in this dream world and he knows he needs to stay sharp. Lucifer's eyes are glistening again, blue, almost silver. A moonlit ocean. So beautiful. Sam shuts his eyes. No. He will keep control. Remember the scaling skin, the beady, washed out eyes, wasted circles under them.

"Sam, why do you keep saying no?"

Sam stares at Lucifer. The question is almost comical, except the fallen angel asking it is deadly serious.

"Because I like humanity," he answers honestly.

Lucifer thinks about this. His face twists and for a moment his darkness peeks through. Sam thinks this might be the one sticking point their relationship will not get around.

"There are some things you … humans … got right. I will not deprive you of those things."

Lucifer eases closer and Sam's stomach lurches. The devil's eyes grow darker and … hotter. "Pleasure, for one," Lucifer purrs.

Instinctively Sam tosses the champagne onto the other man's face and sidesteps away. He expects anger but doesn't get it. Lucifer is licking it off his own face in decadent enjoyment.

"We can play rough, Sam."

Sam fights his panic. There's nowhere in the room to hide. Dammit, he's not gonna be fucked by the Devil!

"I want you to know what you're passing up every time you say no. It's not just about the power. Our union will bring you ecstasy beyond your wildest dreams. Sam, I've waited millennium for a body such as yours. Strong enough to take me. As a human you've experienced tiny pleasures, microscopic moments of joy.

"Picture the universe, Sam. The stars, the planets, expanses greater than any human ever conceived. Imagine the energy of everything ever created moving through you, inside you, flowing into your veins, pumping through your heart, lacing through the synapses of your brain. You will know everything. Feel everything. Be everything."

He steps closer to Sam. Close enough to touch. Lucifer's lips move toward his own. Sam jerks his head away.

The Devil smiles. "I forget your silly notions of man and woman. When we are one these things will fall away, the way your hairy ancestors did away with walking on all fours."

The air pulses and suddenly Jess is there. No. Don't do this. Not her.

"Sam, is it easier this way? All soft and round and full?"

Her no Lucifer's hands are on him now, reaching up to his shoulders and her not her lips are grazing his chin and it's familiar and warm and oh God, she smells so good. He hasn't been with a woman for anything more than physical release in forever and he can't help his body responding … Delicate fingers are lightly tracing the angles of his jaw, moving up his cheeks.

"I've always loved these dimples," Not Jessica is saying but she'd really said that and he doesn't understand how the Devil can know this …

"Stop," he is almost crying. "Be Nick. Not this."

Lips … he's always loved her full lips and the things she did with them, the way she'd suck him into her mouth and … he kisses her hard and deep, wants to inhale her because he's been alone so long and it hurt so much when she was taken, destroyed him ...

She invades his mouth and he goes hard instantly at the heat and moistness and sweetness of her tongue, her lips, her face. He's touching her breasts through the sheer white material of her night gown and her nipples harden and he remembers how they taste, how she'd shudder when he teased them.

"Do you love me, Sam?"

Her voice is tender and warm and embodies all the good in the world. He wants to say yes, feels it start to come up his throat and he opens his eyes a fraction and her eyes don't match her voice. She's not in there - her soul is missing. He shuts his eyes again. A figure cowers in a corner of his mind, shaking and crying and rocking back and forth no no no …

Hands cup his crotch wrong wrong and it shoots pleasure through him, he's trembling with it, wants her, can feel himself giving in as she pulls him closer.

"Let me in, Sam, open up … love me. I'll be yours forever. You promised me forever, remember, all those nights in Half Moon Bay, when we watched the shooting stars and I asked how long you'd love me and you said, forever."

"I did … I do … Jess … stop, please …" He wants this and he can't want it, it's not real …

The room shimmers and he's on his back, naked and she's kneeling above him, the nightgown gone - gorgeous, hair radiating moonbeams, skin lit from within, burning him with the lightest touch. The little figure in his head is standing now ranting, raving, screaming, but he can't hear the words, only sees the gestures and they seem silly coming from something so small. What's its problem anyway? This is Jess, the woman he loves, the woman he adores and she's offering him eternity and he'll be safe and it's all he's ever wanted.

"That's it, Sam. Let me love you. I'll love you forever, we'll never be apart. We'll go to Heaven together and past it, blast our way to another realm where nothing can touch us, hurt us …"

"Keep your skanky hands to yourself, you lying sack of scum!"

Dean?

Sam's on his feet again, back in his own clothes, Jess fades back into the form of Nick … Lucifer takes a step back.

Dean stands between them wielding a monstrous sword and looking like a warrior out of a Cecil B. Demille extravaganza - only in jeans and a leather jacket.

"What is this?" Lucifer demands.

Dean smirks. "This is me slicing and dicing and throwing in the extra Ginsu knives for free if you act quick. Now. Back. Away."

Sam moves to stand beside Dean and fights the tremors still racking him from how close he'd come to succumbing to this … thing.

Lucifer is furious. "How did you get that sword? You are not Michael."

"Garage sale," Dean replies. "Funny what folks find in their attics. Now blink or wiggle your nose or whatever it is you dickwads do, and end this."

"You cannot hurt me in here."

Dean shifts the sword a little closer. "Wanna bet?"

Sam can see the mofo expression in Dean's eyes and thinks, this is no bluff. The sword's real. And the Devil knows it.

Lucifer doesn't look that good anymore. He's not falling apart like Nick but his skin is normal and his eyes are just blue and Sam decides the black suit is cheesy after all. He stands shoulder to shoulder with his brother. All fear is gone. He takes a step closer, knows Dean has his back.

"You come near me again and I'll tear your face off. For starters. Now let me the fuck out of here. NOW."

Sam sits up with a start. He's in his bed, Dean leaning over him.

"Oh, thank God. Sam, you okay?"

Disorientation threatens to make him fall back on his pillow. He reaches for his brother. "What? … How did you …?"

"Here. Slow down. Take it easy, I got you." Dean hands him a glass of water.

Sam swallows and the memories of what he nearly did, who he almost did it with return in a churning fury. He's up and tears to the bathroom, just makes it over the toilet when the greasy dinner he ate earlier spews out in a violent purge.

Dean's rubbing his back and handing him a wet wash cloth and while he's grateful, part of him wishes his brother would leave him alone because Sam can't look at him, knowing that Dean saw, that Dean knows …

Dean is at his elbow as Sam stumbles back to his bed. His brother stares at him, eyes huge with concern and Sam just wants to crawl up in a corner and die.

"Lucifer?" Dean asks. "One of his dreams?"

Sam looks up at this. "How did you do it?"

"Do what, Sam?"

"You came in like a fucking ninja with that sword …" He looks around, almost expecting to see the magnificent weapon appear in the shabby room. "You saved me from-"

"Sam. You were shouting. Screaming. Saying no. And I tried to wake you up. Shook you till I was afraid I'd knock your teeth out but you wouldn't come out of it, man. Scared the shit out of me."

"But you … You didn't see …"

"I saw you thrashing. I heard you tell that maggot to take his hands off you. You called him a 'lying sack of scum'. Couldn't of put it better myself."

Sam tries to process best he can. Dean wasn't there. So that meant it had been …

"I did it," he says softly.

Dean looks at him. "Well, of course. Only heard your part of the conversation but I'd say you had the cockroach running at the end." Dean must think Sam is going to be okay because he gives a little smirk as he adds, "You yelled something about Ginsu knives."

"He … he was Jessica. I …"

Dean interrupts. "Bastard."

Sam shudders at how close he'd come … how much he'd wanted to say yes. To be with her forever. But the hallucination - within a hallucination - another Sam Winchester first, he wagers, it stopped him. Was it Michael? Was the archangel trying to help him? Clearly that was his sword.

Dean sits restlessly next to him, trying to give him space but not leaving him alone. It's hard for his brother to be still.

He has to make Dean see. "You were there."

"What?"

"You were in Lucifer's dream with me. I think you had Michael's sword. You told Lucifer to leave me alone. You threatened him. That's why it ended."

Dean looks at him like he's grown an extra head. "Dude, from the moment you woke me up till right now I haven't left this room. Been awake the whole time."

Sam shakes his head. Tries again to understand. "I made you up?"

"Looks like," Dean shrugs casually but his face is hard. "All I know is I wish I could have jumped into your brain and gutted that monster with my bare hands."

They're both silent a moment.

"Sam. I know how hard this has been. Or maybe I don't … This sonuvabitch is older than time and slicker than Brylcreem. But I do know he's the same evil we've been fighting our whole lives. Whatever he says, whatever he does, you remember who you are, Sam."

"He … tries to make me forget," Sam admits softly.

"I know it. But you're stronger."

"Not as strong as you and Dad."

"Sam, you just told the Devil to get the fuck out of your head. And he did."

"I was scared. I've never been so scared. The things he …" Sam looks away again, shame heating his face.

Dean's voice is very quiet. "Uh-uh. There is nothing you can't tell me. Was my mistake last year. Not making it again."

Sam continues to stare at the cruddy brown carpet.

"Sam, I'd be worried if you weren't scared. I'm scared. Scared out of my fucking mind pretty much all the time. And it's okay. We've got each other's backs. Like we always did."

The smile Dean gives him is ferociously warm. And for the first time since waking up to this endless nightmare months ago, Sam feels a glimmer of hope.

"I know you think you weren't there in the room with me and Lucifer, but you saved me." The brave part of me looks like you.

"Thought we already worked it out that it was all you, Sammy."

"Yeah," Sam smiles.

– – –

Bobby Singer feels pretty good. Sure he has some aches here and there. And his acid reflux is acting up again making his chest ache. But none of this is new and like he told old man Dean, it's just a part of growin' old. Nothing you can do about it so best not to whine. And even stuck in this damn chair there are still things he can do.

If his arm could reach around himself far enough he'd give himself the biggest pat on the back this side of Mt. Rushmore. The answer didn't appear in any one book. The Old Ones were clever bastards and didn't connect any dots. But he'd found the last puzzle piece and snapped it into place like the Lego pieces he bought for when the Winchester boys came around.

So, he is feeling good, because the bitch is toast.