Act 1: Damned if You Do

Begins in season 5 (sometime between Hammer of the Gods and Two Minutes to Midnight).

Sort of AU; I'm trying to write a fic with a slightly more independent Sam, who tries to stop the apocalypse without putting Dean or anyone else in harm's way.

It was all Sam could do. He saw the dwindling numbers on their side of the fight—Jo, Ellen, Gabriel, Anna, Adam, and other members of their makeshift family were gone. Besides that, Bobby and Castiel were only running at half-strength. It was becoming abundantly clear that this war was far beyond the Winchester boys' pay-grade. They just weren't up to fighting the armies of heaven and hell. The only power the brothers had was the ability to say 'yes' or 'no', and to live with the consequences.

As long as Dean had his way, they'd keep dodging both sides. Keep fighting and researching and looking for the way out. Because as long as they never sank too low, as long as they did things right, there had to be an answer.

It was odd, Sam thought, that Dean was the brother who felt that way. Sam had always been the faithful one, the one who prayed and believed in God and the angels. Yet it seemed it was Dean who had the unwavering idea of right and wrong. And if he continued to follow his elder brother's example, their strategy would never change. It wasn't the black-and-white morality so similar to that of the angels that was needed here.

So Sam used the most special power he had been given by Azazel's and Ruby's blood. That power wasn't physic abilities, or exorcisms, or immunity to the Croatoan. It wasn't even the degree of influence it gave him over Lucifer, really. The power was that he was already impure. An abomination, as Castiel had said so frankly. He was already ruined, so it made sense that he take the fall. The perfect sacrifice, his life not useful for much else.

It was this line of reasoning that led Sam Winchester to leave everything behind. He left his phones, his books, most of his clothes and weapons. He left his laptop and his fake credit cards. Most importantly, he left his older brother and the man's angel. He left every part of him that wasn't entirely focused on the job of stopping the end of the world. Armed with only a half-full duffel bag, the young hunter walked south out of De Soto, Missouri.

"Lucifer," the young man called after nearly an hour of walking. He had ducked into a stand of trees on the other side of a creek from the highway, and was now kneeling awkwardly on a rock, not sure how Dean usually prayed to get Cas's attention.

The air grew cold and crisp, despite it being late spring in this part of the country. The wind picked up with the rapid change in temperature, feeling like an approaching storm. The drop in pressure and the sudden sound of fabric or feathers being torn about by the wind told Sam that his prayer had been heard.

"Sam," Lucifer said, eyebrows raised. "I didn't expect you for another few weeks, I gotta admit." The devil was dressed as he always had been, cheap and well-worn jeans, plain shirt over plain t-shirt, nondescript boots, tarnished wedding ring a quiet reminder that the body was not always Lucifer's. He crossed his arms over his chest, stepping forward until he was just a few feet from the hunter.

Sam scrambled to his feet in response to the overwhelmingly uncomfortable feeling that seemed to surround the casual form the angel had taken. He searched for words he had been rehearsing for days. He had thought he'd come upon the best combination he could manage, but the phrases escaped him now. He made do with anxious improvisation. "Uh, Lucifer. I want to...okay, you said that you would do anything for me, right? Never lie to me or hurt me?" He questioned. The angel nodded, seeming sincere. "Okay, then I want to spend the next 20 days...with...you, I guess," he finished.

The devil's eyes narrowed, and a hand came up to absent-mindedly play with the stubble on his vessel's face. "I doubt that that is sincerely what you want, Sam. But I understand wanting to stall me, or to search for a weakness, or even to try to convince me of the error of my ways." Lucifer looked amused at the thought.

"But you would do something for me even if you didn't want to," the hunter pressed, feeling for all the world as though he were standing on the proverbial thin ice.

"With a few exceptions, yes. Of course I would. Anything to make you understand how important you are to me," he replied as he stepped forward, passing around Sam, grazing close but never touching.

"Okay. Then that's the first thing I want," Sam said with a firm nod, daring to lock eyes with Lucifer.

The devil smiled. "As you wish."

...

A quick touch to the forehead had transported both Sam and Lucifer to a small office in a mid-sized city. Soberly-dressed professionals milled about, performing the mundane tasks required of them. Sam looked out the window, hoping to spot a landmark, and found none. They could be anywhere in the lower 48; Hell, they could be in Canada.

"Where are we," Sam asked Lucifer quietly, turning to face the angel.

"In the headquarters of a custom shirt-printing company," was the disinterested reply. The answer explained the mock-ups pinned to cork board throughout the office.

"I meant which city?"

Lucifer's eyes flicked to the window, as if he was checking for the answer. "Boise."

"Idaho?"

"Idaho."

Sam filed the info away. He then realized, based on his experience with the general public, that the workers in the office should have been panicked by his and the angel's sudden appearance. "Are we invisible, or is everyone here, uh, possessed," he asked, whispering the last word.

In response, each of the two dozen heads in the room whipped in his direction, black eyes staring as they continued their work. Sam shivered, but didn't bother voicing a reaction.

"I really don't think you want to see my pre-apocalypse prep work, Sam," Lucifer said frankly, resting on the edge of an unoccupied desk.

"I bet I don't, but I don't care. Take me with you," Sam replied. The angel's frown deepened. "Uh, please," he added, muttering.

Satan sighed. "If you're sure that's what you want," he said, moving to speak with one of the demons who was hurrying past with a stack of file folders. "I'm changing my plan," Lucifer said stiffly, his voice barely loud enough for Sam to hear.

The woman nodded, keeping her eyes low. "Of course," she replied with a careful glance in Sam's direction, the glare of light on her glasses obscuring her eyes from the hunter. "I'll alert your lieutenants at once." She promptly disappeared, the folders stacked in a messy pile on the nearest desk.

"We're leaving, Sam," Lucifer said, causing Sam to jump as the devil appeared at his side.

"Already? Where are we going?" Sam asked.

"To kill an angel."

...

The pair appeared in a car parts factory, somewhere warmer than Idaho. Sam looked around anxiously, knowing how dangerous a fight between angels might become. Everything in the warehouse seemed still, though he could barely make out his surroundings; the only lighting came from the glow of the emergency exit signs and the ambient light from outside.

Lucifer's footsteps sounded, slow but not particularly careful. Sam followed behind the angel, knowing he had no other choice. What felt like an eternity—and was likely about four minutes—passed in that near-total silence and darkness.

"I thought you said I wouldn't want to see this," Sam whispered, his voice so quiet he barely did more than mouth the words. "The angels have actually tortured me and Dean to try to get at you. They're as bad as the demons we've met. I'm not going to be upset if there's one less out there."

Lucifer snorted softly at Sam's comment, which struck the hunter as a disarmingly human response."This is a spontaneous choice. I rearranged my schedule a bit," was the reply, in a tone not nearly as quiet as Sam's. He didn't elaborate.

The sudden whining and whirring of machinery startled the hunter, causing him to crouch low behind a conveyor belt, pocket knife in hand. Lucifer spared him a quick look before striding confidently forward.

"Raziel, sister, I know you're here," the devil called, his tone more serious than Sam had ever heard from him. "Come finish this quickly."

There was a long, achingly tense pause before the lights flickered, revealing a south-Asian woman in a business suit, perched on top of a half-assembled car frame. The hunter's eyes didn't linger on the dark hair pulled into a tight bun, or the cut of the suit, or the well-manicured hands. His attention was focused entirely on the blade she held at her side, tip pointing almost hungrily at Lucifer.

"If I can help it, brother, your death will be anything but quick," she spat.

For the first time that Sam had seen, the archangel had no reply. Instead of drawling out a witty retort, Lucifer took slow but intent steps forward, raising his arms in an invitation to violence.

Raziel only took a minute to glare and raise her blade before leaping off the nearly-car in a high arc, weapon pointed below her as she fell to the floor with more force than the weight of her vessel should have been able to produce. Her brother stepped back, avoiding the blow as if it had been in slow -motion. A quick swipe forward, slashing the air in a wide line ahead of the agent of heaven, blurred by almost faster than Sam could see. He crouched behind his cover, unable to contribute anything to the fight and unsure whether he would need to. It was a win-win situation for him; either way, an enemy was out of the game.

Lucifer caught Raziel's arm as she pulled into another wide slash, catching her by the wrist and twisting her blade arm up toward her throat. The younger angel dropped the weapon from the one hand and caught it in her other, striking for Lucifer's jaw in one fluid motion. This attack, too, was dodged, and the devil grabbed his sibling by her coat, pulling her off the ground and keeping her at distance with his longer reach. Raziel spat on his face. The retaliation against a monster known for his arrogance made Sam certain that the fight was coming to an end—there was no way Satan would tolerate such direct disrespect.

"I don't want to kill you, sister. Abandon your mission, or face Michael's fate," Lucifer whispered, his voice full of gravity and barely-contained fury.

"If I cannot reach the one," she told Lucifer spitefully "then I'll take the other." The woman's head whipped to face Sam, who froze. She held out a hand faster than Sam could see it move, and he was blown backwards. The young man crashed like a ragdoll into the wall, and was pinned against it, hanging two feet from the ground. He chocked and struggled, but it felt like an invisible and impossibly strong hand was holding him up by the throat. Aside from panic and rapidly decreasing oxygen levels in his brain, Sam was clearly aware that he had only a handful of minutes before he'd pass out—at which point he'd be at the mercy of whoever won the celebrity deathmatch in front of him.

There was a moment of slow stillness as Lucifer's gaze was turned toward the hunter, face darkening.

Raziel took advantage of the moment, kicking out and pushing Lucifer into a long window at the side of the warehouse. As he collided with the glass, a spray of frost painted itself along the window to the angel's sides, leaving ice crystals in a sharp imprint of wings.

"Enough," the devil's voice boomed, the room flashing a painfully bright light as he spoke. Raziel raised her arm to shield her eyes from the light, dropping Sam as she did. By the time the burning and the hectic spots of light cleared from the human's vision, Raziel was already pinned to the ground. Her arm was extended above her, archangel's blade angled down as Lucifer held her wrist. The devil was perched over his sister, staring coldly into her eyes. "Enjoy the fruits of your loyalty," he whispered simply, then twisted her arm down to push the blade into her heart.

Raziel's grace erupted, spilling out of her eyes and mouth in a bright and whining rush, forcing Sam to shield his eyes again. He heard Lucifer stand and take a couple steadying steps. Sam looked up, blinking. He was surprised to see that the devil's face was contorted with some dark emotion.

"Your brother will hear about this from Castiel, I bet. I assume you're okay with that," Lucifer said without turning to look at him.

It was more than okay to Sam; he'd left Dean a note simply reading "I know you don't believe me, but I'm okay, and I'm trying to work this out. Sorry, Dean." His brother would have been livid and racked with worry, so any news that Sam was still Sam would be worth something, even if it was only delivered by angel radio.

And as dangerous as it might be to let his guard down, the hunter was beginning to believe Lucifer wouldn't hurt him—at least not at the moment. He felt himself slowly relaxing as the adrenaline rush the fight had provoked in him faded. "Lucifer," he began, deciding he needed to take a few more risks if he was going to learn anything useful about the banished angel's plans. "What were you originally going to do, before I asked you to bring me along?"

"Sam, I'm not going to add a disclaimer every time you ask me a question you know you won't like an answer to," the angel cautioned.

The comment, though it made the hunter nervous, impressed upon him the importance of knowing Lucifer's plan. If he wouldn't like hearing it, he would have to make sure it didn't happen. "I think I can handle it," he replied tightly.

The devil reached down, gently pulling the archangel's blade from the rigor mortis of Raziel's fingers and shaking off the blood of her vessel's heart from the weapon's shining surface. When he stood back up, his eyes lingered a moment on the face of his sister's vessel, which had poured out the angel's grace minutes before. "I've had something brewed for me. A special house-warming present to myself. I won't spoil the surprise of it all, but suffice to say I didn't think you'd want to see it in action."

"You were going to go see if some kind of weapon for mass-murder was finished," Sam clarified flatly. "Damn right I wouldn't want to see that, but it's going on whether we're there or not, right? Take me next time," he insisted.

...

Sam had needed a drink, and he'd needed to just be out in the world. He found the closest pub to the shirt-printing office and had worked carefully through a handful of beers until his shaking had started to ebb.

He was trying to puzzle together what had happened, and why Lucifer had chosen to show him what he had. The hunter had no way to confirm that Satan didn't have some kind of large-scale weapon., or any way to learn what it was short of simply asking. The only thing he could work on was what he had seen as the archangel had fought against Raziel.

Lucifer had said the fight was a spontaneous choice, though that couldn't necessarily be trusted either. What Raziel had said was likely more honest. Sam had gotten the impression that she had been talking about Sam and Dean when she mentioned taking the one or the other.

Sam slapped a handful of dollar bills on the bar and rushed out of the pub as quickly as he could. Back in the office building, he jabbed impatiently at the elevator call button until it arrived, resisting the ridiculous urge to pace in the tiny elevator. He slipped through the doors as they ground open and rushed down the hallway.

"Where is Lucifer," he demanded when he reached the unit he wanted.

"You can just pray for me next time, Sammy," the devil replied from his spot in a leather-wrapped office chair in the corner.

"Don't call me that," Sam said briskly. "You saved Dean," he stated, still breathing heavily from his hurried arrival.

Lucifer tilted his head to the side. "You sound like you're accusing me of something." He replied, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

"Why," he demanded.

The archangel sighed, sliding his feet off of the desk in front of him and sitting up, his hands tented under his chin. "Because I want you to understand that I don't like the thought of you suffering. You freed me, Sam. I owe you everything. If your brother is important to you, he's important to me."

The hunter might not have believed a word that dripped from the mouth of the Prince of Lies, but for the realization he had come to in the pub minutes ago.

Lucifer had killed Raziel to save Dean from torture. A sibling for a sibling, the action chosen by a creature who despised humans. The thought had ground Sam's brain to a spluttering halt. He had thought that anything he might be offered by Satan was tainted, covered in the blood of humankind. That he should never accept it. That in a world where his idea of morality was in constant upheaval, he could at least be certain the the devil's actions were always the very definition of evil.

But it was Dean.

"Sam," the devil began, rising slowly from his seat. "Why did you come to me? What did you expect to be able to do?" His voice was gentle, but his eyes were sharp and focused intently. The bustling of the office had stopped and all the demons had cleared out without Sam noticing."Did you hope to make up for every mistake you've made? For freeing me? Did you want to clean up your own mess without putting anyone else in harm's way?"

Sam's hands balled into fists. His silence was likely answer enough, but it embarrassed him to be understood so easily by a monster, so he found he could do nothing but hold his tongue.

"I don't understand why you blame yourself," Lucifer said. He came to stand a few feet from the hunter, his voice soft and patient. "All the wrongs that have been done to you," he began, then sighed. The devil shook his head, seeming to struggle to find the words to express himself to the simple creature he must have found Sam to be. "You always try to do what's best, don't you? Even when your beloved brother disagrees. Tell me, Sam, why should you be punished for trying to do what you think is right?"

The question itched at him. It was something he had avoided asking himself since he'd gotten back on the road with Dean and left his normal life at Stanford behind. But he knew where Lucifer's line of thought was going. He knew the lore.

"I'm not like you," Sam said flatly.

"Sorry?"

"You want to annihilate my species. You could never tug at my heartstrings enough for me to sympathize with you about what you think is right," he told Satan defiantly.

"Humanity is...imperfect, but I don't want to be rid of them. I will fight Michael, and I will right the wrongs that have been done to me. Nothing would make me happier than to give you the same opportunity. On your own terms, of course," he added, holding his hand up to interrupt Sam from the protest he was about to voice.

"Is that right," Sam muttered skeptically. "And what exactly do you have in mind? Murder the kids who stole my lunch money?"

"So dramatic," the angel crooned. "It's all up to you, Sam. Tell me, where would you like my vengeance applied?"

...

Oh, I'm going to have a TON of fun writing this.

Please comment and let me know what you thought—what you like, dislike, all of that. Anyone out of character? Any continuity horribly mangled? I'd be delighted to hear what people think.