...I couldn't help myself. This is a mess of a fic, and probably doesn't do at all what I wanted, but augh. I couldn't help it. (More excuses to write Hallucifer ALL THE TIME yes please)

Warnings for suicidal ideation and past (impermanent) suicide. What.

Sometimes Sam thought he was too familiar with the smell of roasting flesh. From Mary to Jess to…this. Funny kind of symmetry.

He could smell it now, part sickly-sweet burnt hair and part burned meat. The smell of blood was sharper from where he'd bitten through his lip so he didn't scream (and scream and scream) because Dean was still sprawled on the other bed, breathing slow and even despite the tongues of fire licking only a few feet from him.

And Lucifer laughing in his other ear, chin resting on Sam's shoulder. "It's all you ever do, isn't it, let me in," he said, "And that's the way I like it. Don't you? You remember how close we got downstairs, Sam. So let's talk. Just like old times."

Dean, Sam thought, almost desperately. He can-

"Can do what?" Lucifer said, and turned Sam's head with his fingers light (cold) against his jaw. "Dean can't do anything for you, Sam. You've known that ever since this – we – started. You wake him up, all you're doing is interrupting a good night's sleep." He detatched from Sam's shoulder and climbed off the bed, held out a hand. The fire bent around him like it didn't want to touch him, and went out. "Come on. Let's go for a walk."

I shouldn't leave, Sam thought, looking at Dean. Lucifer snorted, and didn't withdraw his hand.

"He'll be fine. And I don't think you want to have this conversation in company. It should be just the two of us." Lucifer tilted his head, looking almost petulant. "You owe me, Sam. I did help you save him."

Sam looked at Dean. Thought of how he could have sat in that library all afternoon while Dean… "Okay," Sam said, quietly. Barely whispered. He could feel a trickle of blood sliding down his chin from his split lip.

"What was that?" Lucifer said, almost sweetly.

Sam lifted his head up and forced himself to meet Lucifer's smiling eyes. Gently. "Okay," he said, more audibly. "Let's go for a walk."

~.~

It was pleasantly cool outside. There was a very slight breeze, brushing across the (blisters) skin of Sam's arms. Lucifer walked with him, shoulder to shoulder.

"You should just keep going," Lucifer offered, mildly, hands slipped in his pockets. "Just walk until you can't walk anymore. What else are you going to do?" Sam twitched, glanced sideways away from Lucifer, at the cars passing by.

"You could," Lucifer said, before Sam even knew he was thinking it. "Might make things easier. The world keeps trying to end. Dean said it. Maybe now's the time." He leaned in, slightly. "I promise I could make it look like an accident, if it'd make you feel better."

"I can't do that to Dean," Sam whispered. Lucifer looked faintly annoyed.

"Dean, Dean, Dean," he said. "Stop using him as an excuse, Sam. If you really think you're fine, you can deal with this – that's one thing. But don't keep going just because of Dean. You owe yourself better than that."

Sam opened his mouth, then shut it. A woman was walking toward them, head down. Lucifer waved a hand absently and her neck snapped.

Sam blinked and she was walking by. Lucifer grinned toothily at him.

"Stop it," Sam said, and hated how feeble it sounded.

"They're all going to die eventually," Lucifer said casually. "At the rate the Leviathans are going, sooner rather than later. Stop thinking about other people, Sam. Humor me. What do you want?"

"It doesn't matter. I can't," Sam said, drawing his shoulders up by his ears. "Dean-"

"Dean what? Needs you?" Lucifer shook his head as they passed under a streetlight. "What are you doing for him, Sam? Honestly. Giving him hope? Keeping him alive? You're kidding. You're rapidly passing the edge of crazy, boyo. You really think you can save anyone?"

"I can look out for him."

Lucifer snorted. "Don't make me laugh, Sam. You've got him fooled so far, but how long do you really think that'll last? And after that…" Lucifer shrugged one shoulder. "It'll break him, you know. Break him that last little bit. You and me. What we have."

Sam's hands twitched toward each other, an automatic gesture. Lucifer caught one instead, and dug his fingertips into the familiar scar. "I'm not leaving you, Sam," he said. "I promised, I'm not leaving you, especially not now that we're just starting to get along again."

"You're not here," Sam said. It sounded petulant even to him. Lucifer's fingertips rubbed along his scar, and Sam could feel it break open and start bleeding, warm (known) pain.

"I'm not?"

Sam wished he could feel (sound) more sure when he said, "You're not." Lucifer smiled at him and didn't go away. Kept holding onto his hand, blood sliding down between their palms. Sticky. Familiar.

~.~

They sat down on a bench by a little park with a pond. Lucifer peered out at the water and sighed. "No ducks at this time of night," he said, lightly. "And here I thought we were going to feed them together. You never take me anywhere nice."

Sam dropped his head into his hands. His palm was still bleeding sluggishly where Lucifer (he) had broken it open; the blood was warm but his fingers were cold. "What do you want from me?" he asked, to his knees. Lucifer placed a hand on his back and rubbed it in small, soothing circles.

"Nothing," Lucifer said. "Did I ever?"

(I don't need you to do anything, Sam. I just need you to be. You can give me that, can't you?)

Sam shuddered, stomach knotting. Lucifer smiled kindly at him. "I'm so glad we're talking again," he murmured. "I really did miss you, you know. All this time we could have been working together…no sense crying over spilled milk, though, right, Sambo?" The devil leaned back and kicked out his legs, looking out at the dark water, barely rippling in the light wind. "And now we're here. Together again. Let's look at your choices, shall we? Brainstorm together?"

"I don't want," Sam said, and stopped. He was suddenly very aware of the weapons he was carrying. He wished he could shoot Lucifer.

"What's the worst case scenario, huh?" Lucifer said, conversationally. "Here, how about this. You keep hunting. You keep pretending I'm not here when Dean's around. You go on a hunt and Hell crawls out of your brain, so you shoot, think, it's part of the hunt. Some innocent goes down. Someone's mother or sister or brother or son. They die right there and you don't even realize…or maybe it's Dean. Maybe you mistake Dean for something else, shoot him right through the eye and he's dead before he even knows you shot him. What then, Sam?"

"It won't happen like that," Sam said, and his voice cracked in the middle, remembering a warehouse, Dean's eyes wide and his hands up as Sam's shaking hands aimed a gun at him. "I'm not…I know what's real. I do."

"How sure are you of that?" Lucifer asked, almost gently. "I'm in your head, Sam. I know all your doubts. The mornings you wake up thinking, 'this can't be real. Today's the day it all falls in.' How sure are you, really, that we're here, on a bench, by a pond, and not, say, standing on an overpass, or passed out on the floor while your brother tries to shake you awake? Or still in Hell?"

"I'm sure," Sam said, and a spasm of anger crossed Lucifer's face that made Sam want to curl into a ball under the bench and hide. (Lucifer had looked like that a lot at the beginning.)

"You can lie to everyone else as much as you want," Lucifer said, voice hardening to a crystal's edge, "But don't ever, Sam, don't ever lie to me. I don't want to have to hurt you. But I will. You know how I feel about liars."

Sam squeezed his eyes closed and tried not to…think. Just for a moment, tried not to even be. He tried to find a way to disagree, to…

"What are you so scared of?" Lucifer soothed. "You'll only come back to me, and we know each other so well now, Sam. And wouldn't it be nice? I don't need anything from you. I wouldn't expect anything of you. I don't need you to be okay, to be fine. You could just relax. There wouldn't be anything you could do wrong. No more mistakes you could make, no more people you could hurt. No more guilt. No more blame."

For a second, Sam wanted it so much it hurt. For a second, Sam wanted nothing more. There's something clean about pain, he thought, about hurting so much you can't even…

Lucifer's voice softened. "You could rest with me. Dean could go to heaven. The world might end, or it might not. It wouldn't matter anymore. Haven't you done enough?"

"I can't ever," Sam said quietly, "Do enough." He stood up and looked down at the grass. Lucifer stood up with him and brushed his palms off on his pants.

"What are you going to do, then?" Lucifer asked. "You can't leave me, not now. And I'm not just saying that because I'd miss you. You can't. You're so far left of sane right now that we both know you'll never find your way back. So what are you going to do? Keep going, keep pretending you can keep both you and your brother afloat?"

God, Sam thought, and Lucifer said, somewhat petulantly, "He doesn't listen. I do, remember?"

"I can," Sam said, stubbornly. "I can do whatever I have to."

Lucifer's eyes glittered. "Can you?" He sidled into Sam's space and said it again. "Can you? I remember when you said that last. Alone in a motel room, to yourself. I was waiting for you and you were trying to get the nerve to test me. I can do whatever I have to, you thought, and remember how the gun tasted the second before you fired it? Whatever you have to do. What does that mean now, Sam? What does that mean?"

Sam turned for the motel and started walking back.

"It'd be so easy," Lucifer said. Sam watched his feet move, one in front of the other.

"I don't trust the easy way anymore," Sam mumbled. "You helped teach me that."

~.~

Dean was still asleep when he opened the motel door. Sprawled on the bed and quiet, for once, actually sleeping. Sam sat down on the bed again while Lucifer leaned against the door, his expression one of studied patience.

Sam leaned over and touched Dean's shoulder, then shook it. For a moment, he felt a chill, that Dean wasn't going to wake up, wasn't going to-

Then his brother rolled over and looked at him sleepily, blurrily. "S'm?" He said, squinting, and Sam swallowed and cleared his throat.

"I need," he said, and stopped. "Dean," he said, and willed his voice to remain steady. "I don't think you can trust me anymore."

Lucifer, at the door, started laughing, as Dean's eyes opened wider and his expression shifted. "You say that like he ever did," he said. "You say that like anyone ever did."

"What?" Dean said, blankly. Sam didn't look away and didn't close his eyes. His hand on the blankets left a smear of blood behind. Lucifer clicked his tongue against his teeth and laughed softly, so softly.

"Oh, Sam," he said. "Oh, Sam."