FIC: Let Your Sins be Strong (That Crown Don’t Make You a Prince remix)
Title: Let Your Sins be Strong (That Crown Don’t Make You a Prince remix)
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Warnings: Anti-Christ!Sam, religious hooha, fraternal incest.
Spoilers: Up to and including 4.22
Summary: The world’s a mess and Sam just needs to rule it. Dean’s not quite so on board with this plan.
Original story: A Sword and Shield Victorious by dreamlittleyo
Author’s note: This was written before 5.1 aired when I was spoiler-free for everything but casting (which I mostly ignored). Any similarities between this story and 5.1 are purely coincidental and also a symbol of why I should be writing for that show :p
*~*~*
Then: St. Mary's, Ilchester, Maryland.
Dean, with his hands fisted tight into Sam’s coat, and Sam hanging onto him just the same, pushed his brother back, and put himself between Sam and the gaping wound between Hell and Earth. And even with the world about to end, Sam spared a split second to feel a combination of annoyance, sadness and relief that even come the last seconds of their life, Dean was still his brother, still the same, and still needlessly and helplessly trying to protect him.
There was a light so bright and painful that it stripped away everything else, and felt as though Sam’s eyes would burn out of his head, like his flesh would melt away. And there was a sound like a deep ringing bell that came up through his bones and shook him until he thought he would crumble into breath and clay. Sam could feel Dean’s back against his chest, solid and trembling, and wondered if this was how they would die. He had tried to stop it, he had turned himself into something terrible, and now he and Dean were going to die, and he hurt all over, with a pain that was worse than dying, like every inch of was him falling apart.
Then there was silence so abrupt that the ringing in Sam’s ears seemed painfully loud and the light was gone. Sam and Dean were collapsing against each other, one of Sam’s hands cradling Dean’s head, the other still clenched tight to his shirt, Dean’s hands pushing Sam’s face down against his shoulder like if he couldn’t hide Sam from whatever was going to happen he would hide whatever was going to happen from Sam. Sam tucked his brother’s head against his own shoulder and abruptly realized they were huddled on their knees on the floor. He turned his face so he could see, blinked the sunspots and tears out of his eyes and looked up as the aching in him slowly turned from beyond pain into something he could breathe through.
The man standing in front of them, flexing his fingers and toes in a thoughtful sort of way had curly red-blonde hair down to his biceps and he was the most beautiful thing Sam had ever seen. He rolled his shoulders, muscles that Sam was pretty sure most people didn’t have moving under skin that was very nearly the colour of bronze, and his back let out a series of seriously brutal sounding cracks. Then Sam was on his feet, hauling Dean backwards, hard grip on Dean’s wrist, until they both hit the skin-warm stone of the chapel wall.
“Please allow me to introduce myself,” the man said. His voice was gravelly, as though he hadn’t used it for a very long time, but Sam got the impression that it used to be like silk. “I’m a man of wealth and taste.”
Sam’s head was still ringing so it took him a second to realize that the man had winked at his brother, long sooty lashes brushing against the soft, slightly bruised-looking skin under his eyes.
Dean was gaping at the man like an idiot. “You what?” he said, then, “Holy shit. You’re Lucifer.”
Lucifer’s smirk pulled up into something like a smile, and Sam wanted to go back down on his knees. “Pleased to meet you, brothers Winchester,” the angel said. “Guess you guessed my name.” Lucifer, naked, smooth and sexless, put its hand on Sam’s face; it had long, thin fingers, the tips of claw-like nails just touching the fragile skin of Sam’s temple, thumb curved under his jaw. It leaned in, and he could smell Lucifer’s breath: old blood, rotten meat, and something sickly sweet, that reminded him of throwing up too many margaritas.
Sam gagged slightly, breathing hard and fast through his mouth. His grip around Dean’s wrist was sweaty and painful. “Don’t hurt him,” Sam said, and pushed Dean as best he could behind him. Dean had given up everything, and now it was his turn to act. He couldn’t save Dean from the Pit, but he could do this last thing before the world ended. “I set you free, so you owe me one. You do me this favor. Promise never to hurt him, or come after him.”
“Shut up, Sam,” Dean hissed.
“Promise me!” Sam demanded, feeling reckless and dangerous, adrenaline and fear pushing him into the fight response instead of the more sensible flight option.
“We are not a demon you can make deals with,” Lucifer said, patiently, putting its other hand on the other side of Sam’s face and tipping Sam’s head down to get a good look at him. Sam noticed, feeling a little hysterical, that he was actually taller than the devil. “You’re very beautiful. Not that that’s important, in the long run, but we find you pleasing to look at.” Then Lucifer backed away to a more respectable distance and began eyeing the chapel with a little moue of distaste. It prodded Lilith’s dental hygienist’s corpse with a toe. “We tire of this place,” it said. “Until later.”
With a sound like the settling of wings, Lucifer was gone.
“Holy shit,” Dean said again. “Holy fucking shit.”
“It quoted the Rolling Stones, right?” Sam said, sounding just as stunned as Dean had. “I mean, that was the Stones?”
“We need to get out of here,” Dean said.
When they got outside there was no fire raining from the sky, no swarms of insects, no demons rushing about in great clouds of black smoke. No nothing, except a light, misting rain which was more annoying than it was evil. Dean turned up his collar with one hand, since Sam was still holding on to his other wrist. He couldn’t bring himself to let go, even when Dean glanced down and said, “Sammy.”
Sam climbed in through the drivers’ side, pulling Dean along with him, and didn’t let go until Dean was behind the wheel, all doors shut and locked. Then he just transferred his grip to the back of Dean’s neck, feeling like if they weren’t skin to skin for more than a second, Dean would vanish. They sat there for a minute, idling, Dean’s foot on the clutch, hands white-knuckled around the wheel.
They couldn’t talk about what Sam had done, and there was no plan, no going back, and not a snowball’s chance in Hell they were getting out of this one. Sam felt the urge to apologize again, but it felt like a stupid thing to do this late in the game. The adrenaline was already wearing off, leaving him shaky and tired. He tried to get a proper handle on what he’d done but it was too big. It wasn’t like killing demons, knowing there was a person in the meatsuit. It was bigger even than drinking a girl’s blood to get at the demon inside her while she cried and begged for him to stop. It just didn’t feel like it could be. He couldn’t have done this. He wasn’t that man.
Dean put the car into drive and pulled the car back onto the road. “Dude,” Dean said, because there was no situation too fucked up for Dean to try and bullshit his way through. “Lucifer thinks you’re hot.”
They went back to Bobby’s because there wasn’t really anywhere else for them to go.
It was mid afternoon when they arrived, the Impala kicking up dust into the haze of the day, muting everything into a dull brown-grey. Sam got out of the car and couldn’t smell any of it, not the dust, not the rust of the junkers piled around him, nothing but the phantom stench of dead things and bile. And Dean’s sweat and the last traces of some hotel shampoo because he’d spent the whole drive pressed up against him so close that Dean had fumbled trying to shift gears. Bobby met them on the porch, shotgun in hand but not pointed at them, hat pulled down over the nasty goose-egg Sam had given him.
“I, uh,” Sam said and then stopped because there wasn’t really anything to say. Dean’s wrist twisted in his grip, not trying to get away, just a change, a slide, until he was holding Sam’s hand, like Sam was that same kid he’d been when Dean could still piggy-back him. Sam looked at Dean and realized Dean had angled his body slightly between the shotgun and Sam.
“I guess you might as well come in,” Bobby said wearily. He was looking past them, watching the road, but there was nothing to see and nothing to hear except the ticking of the Impala’s engine as it cooled down.
They settled around Bobby’s kitchen table, which had been shored up with a slim volume of some sort for as long as Sam could remember, one leg slowly sinking into the pages until the surface sloped again. Bobby found three big ceramic coffee cups, the only clean dishes in his usually moderately tidy kitchen. One of them was chipped, one of them missing its handle. Bobby poured them all full of whiskey and took a determined sip. Sam put his free hand over his face and started to cry, shaking like he had back in that chapel, like he was falling apart.
It was too much, too much to even think about. He’d done this, he’d started the end of the world and how the fuck was he supposed to get his head around that? How was he supposed to make it better? He’d screwed up so hard, thrown in his lot with demons and evil and he’d killed Cindy, he’d bled her dry just so he could let Lucifer out of the Pit and how was he supposed to understand that, never mind live with it?
“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean said and it sounded automatic as he squeezed Sam’s fingers and drank until he had to stop or risk gagging the whiskey back up onto the table.
“Jesus Christ,” Bobby said as Sam put his head onto Dean’s shoulder. Sam wept.
*~*~*
Lucifer came for Sam one week and two days later. Sam was standing purposelessly out in the scrap yard, because it wasn’t as though Bobby was treating him badly, or that Dean was giving him shit, it was more like the two of them were on eggshells and no one was talking about what Sam had done and he had to get away from them, just for a minute, so he could breathe.
He thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye and when he turned around he saw Lucifer perched on the side panel of the flatbed of a truck behind him. It shouldn’t have been possible to balance on so narrow a surface but Lucifer was managing it. The angel was clothed now, black trench-coat, grey suit, white shirt unbuttoned at the neck and untucked. It was still barefoot, still beautiful. Sam stuck his hands in his pockets and thought about Dean, sitting at the kitchen table, cleaning guns that didn’t need cleaning, who pretended Sam hadn’t fucked up worse than anyone in the history of the world and who offered his forgiveness without being asked. Dean who would get between Lucifer and his brother if he was here, knowing he wouldn’t even slow the angel down.
God, Sam had tried for so long. He thought about the hallucination of himself, just a kid, accusing him of giving up on the dream. Sam was tired of dreaming. He’d dreamed of being normal. And he’d got it. Then he’d dreamed of fire, of the other kids, of death, and that had happened too. Now he dreamed of angels screaming overhead, sharp teeth and flaming swords, tearing into each other, of Dean at his right hand, of power lashing through him that could turn cities to salt, summon plague and pestilence, could burn through humans and demons. In his dreams he could see his reflection in Dean’s black eyes, and he didn’t recognize his own face, scarred, bloodied, and yellow-eyed. And he knew better than to pray that maybe this time he’d be wrong.
Lucifer hopped off the car, landing almost without sound, and leaned back, one hip cocked. “Hello, Sam,” it said.
“So, I’m guessing you want something,” Sam said, trying for something a little tougher than begging the angel not to hurt his brother again.
Lucifer narrowed its eyes at him and abruptly Sam was forced down to his knees, hitting the ground hard, pain shocking the breath out of him. “Your respect, Samuel, would be a good place to start. We are the ruler of this world, we are the first, and the most beloved, and we do not expect backchat.” Lucifer stroked a hand through his hair, nails scraping gently over his scalp. “Samuel,” it said. “Trust us when we say we understand your reluctance to submit. But we have much to talk about, and we expect some level of deference. We are not your father; we are your King, and your only hope at surviving this war, so quit fucking around.”
Sam thought about Dean again and knew his brother would have something to say about the whole fucking mess, but Dean wasn’t there, and Sam had seconds to make a decision. So when Lucifer said the words, “Survive this war,” Sam only had one answer. “I’m listening, Your Majesty,” he said.
“In the beginning there was Him and there was the Host. Then there was this world, and Lilith and Adam and then Eve, which I’m sure you’re familiar with. The Fall, I’m sure you also know in some vague detail and the closing of the Gates to all but one.”
Sam could see, suddenly, the war that had raged. Thick black ichor and the unearthly screams of the angels that had died. The skies on fire and the hurricane of wings beating, the terrible rage on Lucifer’s face as it realized it was losing, that his third of the Host couldn’t hold back the Seraphim, the archangels, the principalities... Sam knew what they looked like when they weren’t in meatsuits - many winged things, bronze feet and too many faces, too much splendor. He could hear the sound of the pearly gates closing, the grating of hinges like continents moving. Sam clutched at his head and the vision faded before he went mad from it.
“Yourself,” Sam croaked and wiped at his nose with the back of his wrist, getting blood on his shirtsleeve. “They let you back in. The book of Job. Your Majesty goes back to Heaven and speaks to Him.”
Lucifer stood and Sam stayed where he was on the ground, gazing up at it. It wasn’t in a meatsuit, powerful enough to control its appearance without one, but he wasn’t looking at its true face, not really. Just thinking about that made him weep. “We were put into our cage when He stopped paying attention. A second battle, a second loss gone unremarked upon and unrecorded. Prior to that we were content to roam our world, playing our games, watching your lives, and by that point Hell pretty much ran itself. With others watching the Pit, there was little need to seek us out. They were bound away from us and only Azazel and the one you called Ruby took it upon themselves to find us.”
“The angels want to fight,” Sam said. “They want to kill Your Majesty.”
“They have no right,” Lucifer spat, pacing back and forth like a caged animal, tight little circles. It was growling under its breath. “They assume too much. Without the Word, making up their own commands, they are rightfully ours. They Fall and don’t know it and now the gates are shut to us, and they would destroy His work without permission. This world is mine,” Lucifer said, low and angry. “And He gave it to me.”
Sam looked out at the salvage yard and saw nothing. “Azazel picked me,” he said. “But he picked dozens, hundreds of other children, generations apart. What is it about me? What is it that Your Majesty wants from me?”
Lucifer smiled at him, almost fondly. “Samuel,” it said. “We are all part of His ineffable Plan. Those children will serve their role, but you are not like them. You are our second in command, our liaison between worlds, human and not, blood and bone and flesh and power. But you misunderstand us, we don’t want to end the world, we want to rule it as we have done for thousands of years. And you, Samuel Winchester, will help us do so. Our armies of demons, the Fallen Host, you, and I, we will fight this war and we will win it. You are a prince amongst men, you are my prince.” God, it was beautiful when it smiled and it was smiling at Sam.
Sam sucked in a deep breath. “Alright,” he said, standing up. He put his hands on the face of the angel that God had created first, that He had loved, still loved, the most. Its skin was soft and dry, and Sam leaned over and pressed a kiss to Lucifer’s full, bowed lips. “I swear, by His Word and all the powers of Hell to serve you,” Sam said against Lucifer’s mouth.
“Your Majesty,” someone who wasn’t Sam said.
Sam whipped his head around and found himself looking at a demon, kneeling in front of its god, riding some poor fuck; ugly jean shorts and an even uglier t-shirt. Lucifer barely glanced at the demon. “Go ahead,” it said. “We may have been caged but we weren’t ignorant. Go on. Show us what you can do.”
Sam held out a hand, feeling for the demon blood in him that wasn’t there anymore. There was nothing, nothing to latch onto, no latent powers, no nothing. Maybe relaxing would help, but Sam couldn’t, just plain couldn’t do it, and when Lucifer took a closer look at him, it got a thunderous look on its face and Sam flinched back, suddenly terrified. He realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d told Dean he loved him. He hadn’t said it once. Not even after everything. And now something, probably something terrible, was going to happen and Dean would never have heard it. Sam blinked and felt tears spill down his face. He said, “Please,” one hand reaching out to grab onto the lapel of Lucifer’s trenchcoat, but then he couldn’t speak, there was a rush of air and they were gone.
*~*~*
There’s a cathedral in Italy where the veil between Earth and Hell is thin. How the Italians managed to misplace this crumbling behemoth, Sam had no idea, but it was long abandoned, weeds growing up around the nameless stones outside, the huge wooden doors rotted off the hinges.
Inside it was cool and damp and the baleful stares of the saints were cataracted with dust. Stone angels stood on plinths next to the Virgin Mary who cradled her son’s body in her arms. It wasn’t a replica of the pieta, Sam could see that much from the realism of Christ’s wounds and the devastation on Mary’s face.
Lucifer stalked past it and the Mary began to weep blood, the wounds on Christ’s body dark with it, a slow trickle from the wound in his side. If there ever was a crucifix, it was long gone, the marble altar bare. Sam stood next to Lucifer on the dais as the church filled with demons, until there must have been thousands of them, packed in the pews and aisles, surrounding the building outside, watching Sam because they were too afraid to look at their god who was suddenly real and walking amongst them. Sam was pretty sure that the front rows weren’t demons but fallen angels in meatsuits. He hadn’t thought it could get much worse than freeing Lucifer from Hell. This was worse.
“What-” Sam said and Lucifer grabbed him by the throat and shoved him, dragged him down, until Sam was flat on his back on the altar, Lucifer crouched over him, feet on either side of Sam’s hips.
It tore Sam’s shirts into rags and swept them aside. It wasn’t happy about the tattoo and it’s really wasn’t happy about the burn mark where Meg locked herself inside of him and Bobby’s hot poker forced her out. But whatever it saw when it looked inside of Sam - and he could feel it, like a low hum in his bones - made it furious. “Mary,” it snarled like an insult.
Sam looked helplessly at the statue as its blood dripped down its chin onto Jesus’ body and then he realized Lucifer means his own mother. Mary the hunter, who knew demons were coming. “What did she do to me?” Sam asked. Maybe she’d found something to help protect her youngest son, even if she couldn’t protect herself. His stomach cramped up wondering what she could do to make Lucifer stare through him like he wanted to replace Sam’s bones, tear apart his DNA and remake it. “Oh God,” Sam said. “What are you going to do to me?”
Demons swarmed up onto the dais, catching hold of Sam. “Psalm twenty-two, prophecies for the coming of heirs,” Lucifer said and when Sam tried to get up it planted a foot in the center of his chest, resting its arms on its bent knee, watching his face as the demons stripped Sam down. The cathedral echoed with the sounds of Sam’s furious struggles, his pleading and swearing and then with his screams as they took iron spikes and drove them through his wrists and ankles, staking him down to the altar, driving the metal into the stone with heavy mallets.
“For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet,” Lucifer said calmly. Sam could no longer see, he was in too much agony as his blood poured off the altar to pool at the feet of demons, but he could hear hellhounds, licking his blood off the floor, snarling and snapping at each other. “I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture. But be not thou far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste thee to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.”
Lucifer climbed down off the altar.
“Please,” Sam begged. “Oh my God, please don’t.”
Lucifer kissed him on the forehead and Sam could feel it there, spit like the mark of Cain. “This is going to hurt,” it said as the demons brought it Hellfire because Hell might be inconceivable, beyond explanation, beyond comprehension, but there is fire sure enough.
Lucifer watched Sam try to pull the stakes through his own wrists and ankles to get away and it was smiling at him. Sam could feel the heat of the fire from the other end of the cathedral; having it even close to him was unbearable. He cried out for his brother, too terrified to think, voice cracked with agony and Lucifer laughed at him. “You two are fucking ridiculous,” it said fondly and then it began.
If Sam had any last words other than his brother’s name, they were incomprehensible under the screams. No curses, or forgivnesses, no, “Why have you forsaken me.” His legacy was his brother’s name.
Somewhere across the ocean, flanked by his archangel, holed up and hiding from Heaven and Hell, in a dirty by-the-hour motel, sobbing into the sleeve of his dressing gown, blind with vision and cheap vodka bought from the nearby gas station, Chuck picked up a broken-ended ball-point pen and scrawled out the death of Sam Winchester before staggering to the bathroom and passing out.
*~*~*
Part Two
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Warnings: Anti-Christ!Sam, religious hooha, fraternal incest.
Spoilers: Up to and including 4.22
Summary: The world’s a mess and Sam just needs to rule it. Dean’s not quite so on board with this plan.
Original story: A Sword and Shield Victorious by dreamlittleyo
Author’s note: This was written before 5.1 aired when I was spoiler-free for everything but casting (which I mostly ignored). Any similarities between this story and 5.1 are purely coincidental and also a symbol of why I should be writing for that show :p
*~*~*
Then: St. Mary's, Ilchester, Maryland.
Dean, with his hands fisted tight into Sam’s coat, and Sam hanging onto him just the same, pushed his brother back, and put himself between Sam and the gaping wound between Hell and Earth. And even with the world about to end, Sam spared a split second to feel a combination of annoyance, sadness and relief that even come the last seconds of their life, Dean was still his brother, still the same, and still needlessly and helplessly trying to protect him.
There was a light so bright and painful that it stripped away everything else, and felt as though Sam’s eyes would burn out of his head, like his flesh would melt away. And there was a sound like a deep ringing bell that came up through his bones and shook him until he thought he would crumble into breath and clay. Sam could feel Dean’s back against his chest, solid and trembling, and wondered if this was how they would die. He had tried to stop it, he had turned himself into something terrible, and now he and Dean were going to die, and he hurt all over, with a pain that was worse than dying, like every inch of was him falling apart.
Then there was silence so abrupt that the ringing in Sam’s ears seemed painfully loud and the light was gone. Sam and Dean were collapsing against each other, one of Sam’s hands cradling Dean’s head, the other still clenched tight to his shirt, Dean’s hands pushing Sam’s face down against his shoulder like if he couldn’t hide Sam from whatever was going to happen he would hide whatever was going to happen from Sam. Sam tucked his brother’s head against his own shoulder and abruptly realized they were huddled on their knees on the floor. He turned his face so he could see, blinked the sunspots and tears out of his eyes and looked up as the aching in him slowly turned from beyond pain into something he could breathe through.
The man standing in front of them, flexing his fingers and toes in a thoughtful sort of way had curly red-blonde hair down to his biceps and he was the most beautiful thing Sam had ever seen. He rolled his shoulders, muscles that Sam was pretty sure most people didn’t have moving under skin that was very nearly the colour of bronze, and his back let out a series of seriously brutal sounding cracks. Then Sam was on his feet, hauling Dean backwards, hard grip on Dean’s wrist, until they both hit the skin-warm stone of the chapel wall.
“Please allow me to introduce myself,” the man said. His voice was gravelly, as though he hadn’t used it for a very long time, but Sam got the impression that it used to be like silk. “I’m a man of wealth and taste.”
Sam’s head was still ringing so it took him a second to realize that the man had winked at his brother, long sooty lashes brushing against the soft, slightly bruised-looking skin under his eyes.
Dean was gaping at the man like an idiot. “You what?” he said, then, “Holy shit. You’re Lucifer.”
Lucifer’s smirk pulled up into something like a smile, and Sam wanted to go back down on his knees. “Pleased to meet you, brothers Winchester,” the angel said. “Guess you guessed my name.” Lucifer, naked, smooth and sexless, put its hand on Sam’s face; it had long, thin fingers, the tips of claw-like nails just touching the fragile skin of Sam’s temple, thumb curved under his jaw. It leaned in, and he could smell Lucifer’s breath: old blood, rotten meat, and something sickly sweet, that reminded him of throwing up too many margaritas.
Sam gagged slightly, breathing hard and fast through his mouth. His grip around Dean’s wrist was sweaty and painful. “Don’t hurt him,” Sam said, and pushed Dean as best he could behind him. Dean had given up everything, and now it was his turn to act. He couldn’t save Dean from the Pit, but he could do this last thing before the world ended. “I set you free, so you owe me one. You do me this favor. Promise never to hurt him, or come after him.”
“Shut up, Sam,” Dean hissed.
“Promise me!” Sam demanded, feeling reckless and dangerous, adrenaline and fear pushing him into the fight response instead of the more sensible flight option.
“We are not a demon you can make deals with,” Lucifer said, patiently, putting its other hand on the other side of Sam’s face and tipping Sam’s head down to get a good look at him. Sam noticed, feeling a little hysterical, that he was actually taller than the devil. “You’re very beautiful. Not that that’s important, in the long run, but we find you pleasing to look at.” Then Lucifer backed away to a more respectable distance and began eyeing the chapel with a little moue of distaste. It prodded Lilith’s dental hygienist’s corpse with a toe. “We tire of this place,” it said. “Until later.”
With a sound like the settling of wings, Lucifer was gone.
“Holy shit,” Dean said again. “Holy fucking shit.”
“It quoted the Rolling Stones, right?” Sam said, sounding just as stunned as Dean had. “I mean, that was the Stones?”
“We need to get out of here,” Dean said.
When they got outside there was no fire raining from the sky, no swarms of insects, no demons rushing about in great clouds of black smoke. No nothing, except a light, misting rain which was more annoying than it was evil. Dean turned up his collar with one hand, since Sam was still holding on to his other wrist. He couldn’t bring himself to let go, even when Dean glanced down and said, “Sammy.”
Sam climbed in through the drivers’ side, pulling Dean along with him, and didn’t let go until Dean was behind the wheel, all doors shut and locked. Then he just transferred his grip to the back of Dean’s neck, feeling like if they weren’t skin to skin for more than a second, Dean would vanish. They sat there for a minute, idling, Dean’s foot on the clutch, hands white-knuckled around the wheel.
They couldn’t talk about what Sam had done, and there was no plan, no going back, and not a snowball’s chance in Hell they were getting out of this one. Sam felt the urge to apologize again, but it felt like a stupid thing to do this late in the game. The adrenaline was already wearing off, leaving him shaky and tired. He tried to get a proper handle on what he’d done but it was too big. It wasn’t like killing demons, knowing there was a person in the meatsuit. It was bigger even than drinking a girl’s blood to get at the demon inside her while she cried and begged for him to stop. It just didn’t feel like it could be. He couldn’t have done this. He wasn’t that man.
Dean put the car into drive and pulled the car back onto the road. “Dude,” Dean said, because there was no situation too fucked up for Dean to try and bullshit his way through. “Lucifer thinks you’re hot.”
They went back to Bobby’s because there wasn’t really anywhere else for them to go.
It was mid afternoon when they arrived, the Impala kicking up dust into the haze of the day, muting everything into a dull brown-grey. Sam got out of the car and couldn’t smell any of it, not the dust, not the rust of the junkers piled around him, nothing but the phantom stench of dead things and bile. And Dean’s sweat and the last traces of some hotel shampoo because he’d spent the whole drive pressed up against him so close that Dean had fumbled trying to shift gears. Bobby met them on the porch, shotgun in hand but not pointed at them, hat pulled down over the nasty goose-egg Sam had given him.
“I, uh,” Sam said and then stopped because there wasn’t really anything to say. Dean’s wrist twisted in his grip, not trying to get away, just a change, a slide, until he was holding Sam’s hand, like Sam was that same kid he’d been when Dean could still piggy-back him. Sam looked at Dean and realized Dean had angled his body slightly between the shotgun and Sam.
“I guess you might as well come in,” Bobby said wearily. He was looking past them, watching the road, but there was nothing to see and nothing to hear except the ticking of the Impala’s engine as it cooled down.
They settled around Bobby’s kitchen table, which had been shored up with a slim volume of some sort for as long as Sam could remember, one leg slowly sinking into the pages until the surface sloped again. Bobby found three big ceramic coffee cups, the only clean dishes in his usually moderately tidy kitchen. One of them was chipped, one of them missing its handle. Bobby poured them all full of whiskey and took a determined sip. Sam put his free hand over his face and started to cry, shaking like he had back in that chapel, like he was falling apart.
It was too much, too much to even think about. He’d done this, he’d started the end of the world and how the fuck was he supposed to get his head around that? How was he supposed to make it better? He’d screwed up so hard, thrown in his lot with demons and evil and he’d killed Cindy, he’d bled her dry just so he could let Lucifer out of the Pit and how was he supposed to understand that, never mind live with it?
“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean said and it sounded automatic as he squeezed Sam’s fingers and drank until he had to stop or risk gagging the whiskey back up onto the table.
“Jesus Christ,” Bobby said as Sam put his head onto Dean’s shoulder. Sam wept.
*~*~*
Lucifer came for Sam one week and two days later. Sam was standing purposelessly out in the scrap yard, because it wasn’t as though Bobby was treating him badly, or that Dean was giving him shit, it was more like the two of them were on eggshells and no one was talking about what Sam had done and he had to get away from them, just for a minute, so he could breathe.
He thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye and when he turned around he saw Lucifer perched on the side panel of the flatbed of a truck behind him. It shouldn’t have been possible to balance on so narrow a surface but Lucifer was managing it. The angel was clothed now, black trench-coat, grey suit, white shirt unbuttoned at the neck and untucked. It was still barefoot, still beautiful. Sam stuck his hands in his pockets and thought about Dean, sitting at the kitchen table, cleaning guns that didn’t need cleaning, who pretended Sam hadn’t fucked up worse than anyone in the history of the world and who offered his forgiveness without being asked. Dean who would get between Lucifer and his brother if he was here, knowing he wouldn’t even slow the angel down.
God, Sam had tried for so long. He thought about the hallucination of himself, just a kid, accusing him of giving up on the dream. Sam was tired of dreaming. He’d dreamed of being normal. And he’d got it. Then he’d dreamed of fire, of the other kids, of death, and that had happened too. Now he dreamed of angels screaming overhead, sharp teeth and flaming swords, tearing into each other, of Dean at his right hand, of power lashing through him that could turn cities to salt, summon plague and pestilence, could burn through humans and demons. In his dreams he could see his reflection in Dean’s black eyes, and he didn’t recognize his own face, scarred, bloodied, and yellow-eyed. And he knew better than to pray that maybe this time he’d be wrong.
Lucifer hopped off the car, landing almost without sound, and leaned back, one hip cocked. “Hello, Sam,” it said.
“So, I’m guessing you want something,” Sam said, trying for something a little tougher than begging the angel not to hurt his brother again.
Lucifer narrowed its eyes at him and abruptly Sam was forced down to his knees, hitting the ground hard, pain shocking the breath out of him. “Your respect, Samuel, would be a good place to start. We are the ruler of this world, we are the first, and the most beloved, and we do not expect backchat.” Lucifer stroked a hand through his hair, nails scraping gently over his scalp. “Samuel,” it said. “Trust us when we say we understand your reluctance to submit. But we have much to talk about, and we expect some level of deference. We are not your father; we are your King, and your only hope at surviving this war, so quit fucking around.”
Sam thought about Dean again and knew his brother would have something to say about the whole fucking mess, but Dean wasn’t there, and Sam had seconds to make a decision. So when Lucifer said the words, “Survive this war,” Sam only had one answer. “I’m listening, Your Majesty,” he said.
“In the beginning there was Him and there was the Host. Then there was this world, and Lilith and Adam and then Eve, which I’m sure you’re familiar with. The Fall, I’m sure you also know in some vague detail and the closing of the Gates to all but one.”
Sam could see, suddenly, the war that had raged. Thick black ichor and the unearthly screams of the angels that had died. The skies on fire and the hurricane of wings beating, the terrible rage on Lucifer’s face as it realized it was losing, that his third of the Host couldn’t hold back the Seraphim, the archangels, the principalities... Sam knew what they looked like when they weren’t in meatsuits - many winged things, bronze feet and too many faces, too much splendor. He could hear the sound of the pearly gates closing, the grating of hinges like continents moving. Sam clutched at his head and the vision faded before he went mad from it.
“Yourself,” Sam croaked and wiped at his nose with the back of his wrist, getting blood on his shirtsleeve. “They let you back in. The book of Job. Your Majesty goes back to Heaven and speaks to Him.”
Lucifer stood and Sam stayed where he was on the ground, gazing up at it. It wasn’t in a meatsuit, powerful enough to control its appearance without one, but he wasn’t looking at its true face, not really. Just thinking about that made him weep. “We were put into our cage when He stopped paying attention. A second battle, a second loss gone unremarked upon and unrecorded. Prior to that we were content to roam our world, playing our games, watching your lives, and by that point Hell pretty much ran itself. With others watching the Pit, there was little need to seek us out. They were bound away from us and only Azazel and the one you called Ruby took it upon themselves to find us.”
“The angels want to fight,” Sam said. “They want to kill Your Majesty.”
“They have no right,” Lucifer spat, pacing back and forth like a caged animal, tight little circles. It was growling under its breath. “They assume too much. Without the Word, making up their own commands, they are rightfully ours. They Fall and don’t know it and now the gates are shut to us, and they would destroy His work without permission. This world is mine,” Lucifer said, low and angry. “And He gave it to me.”
Sam looked out at the salvage yard and saw nothing. “Azazel picked me,” he said. “But he picked dozens, hundreds of other children, generations apart. What is it about me? What is it that Your Majesty wants from me?”
Lucifer smiled at him, almost fondly. “Samuel,” it said. “We are all part of His ineffable Plan. Those children will serve their role, but you are not like them. You are our second in command, our liaison between worlds, human and not, blood and bone and flesh and power. But you misunderstand us, we don’t want to end the world, we want to rule it as we have done for thousands of years. And you, Samuel Winchester, will help us do so. Our armies of demons, the Fallen Host, you, and I, we will fight this war and we will win it. You are a prince amongst men, you are my prince.” God, it was beautiful when it smiled and it was smiling at Sam.
Sam sucked in a deep breath. “Alright,” he said, standing up. He put his hands on the face of the angel that God had created first, that He had loved, still loved, the most. Its skin was soft and dry, and Sam leaned over and pressed a kiss to Lucifer’s full, bowed lips. “I swear, by His Word and all the powers of Hell to serve you,” Sam said against Lucifer’s mouth.
“Your Majesty,” someone who wasn’t Sam said.
Sam whipped his head around and found himself looking at a demon, kneeling in front of its god, riding some poor fuck; ugly jean shorts and an even uglier t-shirt. Lucifer barely glanced at the demon. “Go ahead,” it said. “We may have been caged but we weren’t ignorant. Go on. Show us what you can do.”
Sam held out a hand, feeling for the demon blood in him that wasn’t there anymore. There was nothing, nothing to latch onto, no latent powers, no nothing. Maybe relaxing would help, but Sam couldn’t, just plain couldn’t do it, and when Lucifer took a closer look at him, it got a thunderous look on its face and Sam flinched back, suddenly terrified. He realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d told Dean he loved him. He hadn’t said it once. Not even after everything. And now something, probably something terrible, was going to happen and Dean would never have heard it. Sam blinked and felt tears spill down his face. He said, “Please,” one hand reaching out to grab onto the lapel of Lucifer’s trenchcoat, but then he couldn’t speak, there was a rush of air and they were gone.
*~*~*
There’s a cathedral in Italy where the veil between Earth and Hell is thin. How the Italians managed to misplace this crumbling behemoth, Sam had no idea, but it was long abandoned, weeds growing up around the nameless stones outside, the huge wooden doors rotted off the hinges.
Inside it was cool and damp and the baleful stares of the saints were cataracted with dust. Stone angels stood on plinths next to the Virgin Mary who cradled her son’s body in her arms. It wasn’t a replica of the pieta, Sam could see that much from the realism of Christ’s wounds and the devastation on Mary’s face.
Lucifer stalked past it and the Mary began to weep blood, the wounds on Christ’s body dark with it, a slow trickle from the wound in his side. If there ever was a crucifix, it was long gone, the marble altar bare. Sam stood next to Lucifer on the dais as the church filled with demons, until there must have been thousands of them, packed in the pews and aisles, surrounding the building outside, watching Sam because they were too afraid to look at their god who was suddenly real and walking amongst them. Sam was pretty sure that the front rows weren’t demons but fallen angels in meatsuits. He hadn’t thought it could get much worse than freeing Lucifer from Hell. This was worse.
“What-” Sam said and Lucifer grabbed him by the throat and shoved him, dragged him down, until Sam was flat on his back on the altar, Lucifer crouched over him, feet on either side of Sam’s hips.
It tore Sam’s shirts into rags and swept them aside. It wasn’t happy about the tattoo and it’s really wasn’t happy about the burn mark where Meg locked herself inside of him and Bobby’s hot poker forced her out. But whatever it saw when it looked inside of Sam - and he could feel it, like a low hum in his bones - made it furious. “Mary,” it snarled like an insult.
Sam looked helplessly at the statue as its blood dripped down its chin onto Jesus’ body and then he realized Lucifer means his own mother. Mary the hunter, who knew demons were coming. “What did she do to me?” Sam asked. Maybe she’d found something to help protect her youngest son, even if she couldn’t protect herself. His stomach cramped up wondering what she could do to make Lucifer stare through him like he wanted to replace Sam’s bones, tear apart his DNA and remake it. “Oh God,” Sam said. “What are you going to do to me?”
Demons swarmed up onto the dais, catching hold of Sam. “Psalm twenty-two, prophecies for the coming of heirs,” Lucifer said and when Sam tried to get up it planted a foot in the center of his chest, resting its arms on its bent knee, watching his face as the demons stripped Sam down. The cathedral echoed with the sounds of Sam’s furious struggles, his pleading and swearing and then with his screams as they took iron spikes and drove them through his wrists and ankles, staking him down to the altar, driving the metal into the stone with heavy mallets.
“For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet,” Lucifer said calmly. Sam could no longer see, he was in too much agony as his blood poured off the altar to pool at the feet of demons, but he could hear hellhounds, licking his blood off the floor, snarling and snapping at each other. “I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture. But be not thou far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste thee to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.”
Lucifer climbed down off the altar.
“Please,” Sam begged. “Oh my God, please don’t.”
Lucifer kissed him on the forehead and Sam could feel it there, spit like the mark of Cain. “This is going to hurt,” it said as the demons brought it Hellfire because Hell might be inconceivable, beyond explanation, beyond comprehension, but there is fire sure enough.
Lucifer watched Sam try to pull the stakes through his own wrists and ankles to get away and it was smiling at him. Sam could feel the heat of the fire from the other end of the cathedral; having it even close to him was unbearable. He cried out for his brother, too terrified to think, voice cracked with agony and Lucifer laughed at him. “You two are fucking ridiculous,” it said fondly and then it began.
If Sam had any last words other than his brother’s name, they were incomprehensible under the screams. No curses, or forgivnesses, no, “Why have you forsaken me.” His legacy was his brother’s name.
Somewhere across the ocean, flanked by his archangel, holed up and hiding from Heaven and Hell, in a dirty by-the-hour motel, sobbing into the sleeve of his dressing gown, blind with vision and cheap vodka bought from the nearby gas station, Chuck picked up a broken-ended ball-point pen and scrawled out the death of Sam Winchester before staggering to the bathroom and passing out.
*~*~*
Part Two