Summary: Sam hasn't said yes, but Lucifer has him. Another angel watches and sees the same patterns from an eternity ago.

Author's Notes: So we have some outsiders POV on the boys (both sets). Because Lucifer and Michael are supposed to be the mirrors of Sam and Dean and we all know even after fights, betrayals, and millennia apart, our boys would still be the brothers we all know and love. Mentioned connection between all four of our boys, take them as you like. ^_^ Enjoy.

Set after 5x17, but before airing of 5x18.

And Again I See

Lucifer breathed easier amid the flames, the carnage. Perhaps because it is was what he called home for millennia. The thought of heaven now…it sent chills down his spine. Isolated, clinical, sterile. No, he much preferred the dirt and dust of hell, the company, even if it was that of tortured souls and screaming demons.

Yet it was in this small corner of his realm, devoid of heat and tyranny, that Lucifer found the most relief. Here was where he had someone waiting for him. Even if it had not been his plan in the beginning, here he had someone to come home to.

Even if that one was unwilling.

Lucifer approached the bed and gently laid his hand on the side of the beautiful sleeping face. He frowned and began stroking Sam's damp hair back from his forehead, calling for that demon…Meg, was it? The one who seemed to fall all about herself to help him. Filthy thing.

The demon entered and stayed near the door, knowing she was allowed no closer to Sam. She bit back a grimace. Both at being in the all too earthly conditions of this space and at seeing her Lord fawning so over a human, a vessel.

"Yes, my Lord?"

He did not turn to regard her as he spoke, all his attention on Sam.

"Summon Remiel immediately. Tell him to forego whatever other duties he is engaged in. I need him now."

"Of course." Wisely, she left without a backward glance to find the other fallen angel.

Many of Lucifer's brothers and sisters had fallen, been cast out with him.

It was a war after all. A fierce one where allegiance had been almost evenly split between the two sides.

The two brothers.

Lucifer didn't only command demons, but his fallen brethren as well. And right now, he needed Remiel's insight.

"I'm here."

Lucifer glanced up and beckoned the other closer.

"He's not getting any better." Lucifer was still the leader, still in control. He let no emotion show, but Remiel could see through the façade of his little brother. For all his assertions to the contrary, Lucifer was worried about Sam.

Grinning softly, knowingly, the angel moved to touch the human, noting Lucifer tense beside him.

"He's very ill, brother."

"I know that. I want you to tell me why, how to fix it."

Remiel regarded him a moment. Lucifer was a force, he was dangerous and fierce; protective in a way that Remiel had not seen since their fall.

Had not observed him in this state with anyone but Michael.

"He's not here of his own free will." He spoke quickly to end run any of his brother's anger. "But he's not yet been claimed as your vessel either. I need to know the terms of the deal you made with him."

Lucifer frowned and turned away at that. Remiel waited a minute.

"Brother?"

"I am to prevent heaven from gaining access to Michael's vessel, protect him. Also, I healed the man Bobby Singer and found redemption for Castiel. Those three fall under my protection. I keep them veiled from Heaven and fight to do so if necessary."

"For this he would say yes to you?"

"No…for this, he agreed to stay by my side so that I might convince him to say yes."

Remiel was surprised, he didn't know Lucifer had so much invested in this human. Not only in his role in the end game, but in his heart.

The elder Fallen was one of the few that knew, despite the misconceptions, that Lucifer felt as much emotion as any mortal. It was just tempered by a life lived as an angel and a great betrayal that had hardened his heart.

"…What did he want to say yes?"

Remiel knew there had to at least have been discussion of it. Even at his most desperate, Sam Winchester was not a stupid man. He and his brother held all the cards and they knew it. What could he have wanted that Lucifer would not or could not grant?

The Root of Evil turned about and approached the bed where his sick guest lay. The look on his face spoke of despair and confusion.

"He asked that I grant his brother everything he should have had, everything he ever wanted. All the happiness he was denied by their destinies."

Remiel watched Lucifer settle on the bed next to Sam, brushing his hair back once again as the boy gasped for breath and shuddered in pain. He coughed and Lucifer wiped the blood from his lips.

"You could grant this. Give Dean back the mother and father he lost, the girl and child he imagines himself with. You could even arrange his memories as you see fit. It can be done."

Lucifer smiled.

"I've tried. I've tried with Sam too, they always know the difference. Even if they want to believe the lie, they can't."

"Why?"

"I can give Dean almost everything without any illusions. All that he's lost, take them all away from the battle and leave not a trace of it in their minds. But he won't accept it without his brother. He always ends up screaming for Sam. And I can only give him an illusion of that. So I am unable to fulfill the conditions Sam demands because I cannot give Dean Sam."

The other angel was surprised.

"I thought heaven's vessel had given up on his brother; That he hated him now?"

"No, that's what Sam thinks, but it's not true. They could never hate each other, not really…it sounds nonsensical, but…I think that may be why he's so sick."

Remiel's gaze softened. He remembered this Lucifer. This little brother forever chasing his sibling's shadow and hanging on his every breath. Looking on adoringly, blindly certain that Michael would stay by his side no matter what…

But it was not meant to be.

That Lucifer had died the moment Michael refused him, turned his sword on him and cast him down at their father's command without so much as a thought. Lucifer had been broken and caged, forever changed by the unfathomable betrayal.

But Remiel had heard from others. Brothers and sisters with no allegiance in the fight, playing whatever side looked to be winning; he had heard of the changes in Michael as well. The tears in his eyes as Lucifer fell and the stone mask in place ever since.

"They can't stand being apart." He knew Lucifer was talking about the humans now, blind to the ties between them all. "It's not without precedent. It is why some soul's heavens are connected. They would not survive alone."

Lucifer trailed off. Silent as he tended to Sam once more.

Remiel had long ago given up hope of a family reconciliation, but these two…

Lucifer and Michael had always been special. True siblings in a way no other angels were. They took joy in each other's pleasure, were saddened by the other's losses, picked each other up when they stumbled; pitting them against one another…it had been Remiel's final assurance that their father was not one who deserved his praise.

The frail human on the bed coughed weakly again and Remiel watched as Lucifer once more cleaned the blood from Sam's fever-dry lips.

"Remiel. How…do you think this will all end?"

The tone was all his true little brother again.

The other Fallen's eyes softened and he sighed as a trickle of blood ran from Lucifer's mouth. He shook his head.

"I'm sorry…I have no answers for you brother." 'I wish I could have prevented this.' "I'm truly sorry."

Lucifer blinked and nodded slowly before gazing off into the distance. Past the battlefields of demons and ash, angels and treachery, and cosmic plans once again pinned on tearing apart two souls that had always been the world to each other…

Remiel hoped this time, by some hapless miracle, victory would not feel like defeat.

Author's Notes 2: So there you have it. Lucifer has Sam, but can't get him to say yes because he can't give Dean what he really wants, his little brother. And poor Remiel can only watch both sets of brothers waste away without one another. Everyone ready for episode 100 tonight?