Samifer Week #3: Friday, October 12, 2012

All I Ask Of You

Pairing: Samifer (SamLucifer)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 8731
Summary: Sam can hear someone being tortured, but there isn't anyone around. He can only try to sooth him until he can rescue him. (Cage!fic)

Note: This was an attempt at present-tense because I cannot write in present-tense. So sorry about the mistakes. Also, I have no idea if I like this story at all. It's confusing and sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it, so let me know what you think.

Sam barely has time to feel his body slam into the bottom of the cage before he feels himself rising. First it feels like a leg is being pulled up, then an arm, then everything. He thinks he is being saved, being knitted back together, being raised from perdition.

He thinks he can feel the sunlight on his face, and he thinks about Dean and how happy he will be to see him.

Then he feels like something is ripping apart his body, and when he opens his eyes, he is laying face-down in some grass. He didn't have time to think about what the cage would be like, but he hadn't expected it to be a forest – beautiful and light, despite the freezing temperature – and he hadn't expected to be alone. His body tingles with phantom pains and there is something white and bright and throbbing in the pit of his stomach. But he can't see it. He only feels the light thing there. He does his best to ignore it as he pushes himself to his feet, thinking about the times Bobby took him hunting when he was younger.

He needs to find shelter, water, and something to use as a weapon.

He picks a direction at random and walks. For about twenty minutes, Sam encounters nothing – no animals, no angels, no Adam – but when he finally breaks the line of trees and stumbles into what looks like an old ghost town, the only thing Sam notices is that the temperature doesn't fit with his surroundings. Last time Sam was this cold, he was in Montana hunting a rugaru in February. The snow had been up to his waist, and it had already soaked through his jeans. The killing was easy enough, but they had gotten turned around somewhere on the trek back and by the time they finally found the Impala, Dean had mild hypothermia and both of them were bedridden for half a week.

The sun is shining brightly, and he can hear the buzzing sound of some bug that he has only heard on excruciatingly hot days. When they were little and their dad was working a case in Louisiana, Dean had told him that the sound was called the hot noise and he never once questioned it until now.

Because despite wearing three shirts and a jacket, Sam is freezing.

He makes his way into the first house and is more than happy to find a fire burning. After completing the routine that had been engrained on him since he was a child – salt the doors and windows, gather all the iron and silver, draw a devil's trap – Sam collapses next to the fireplace and falls asleep.

He wakes up to screaming.

It is a quick, broken cry of anguish, that ends in a bit of sputtering and gurgling that sounds like the man is choking on his own blood. After a second, it is silent again, and Sam grabs the iron fire poker and makes the rounds through the house again. It's not like someone had snuck into an already occupied house to torture a person, though, and Sam is unsurprised to find himself alone. The man settles back in near the fireplace.

He isn't cold anymore, but he can't sleep.

He figures it was Adam or Michael, and that is why he is alone – why he'd been left to himself for his first twenty-four hours in the cage – Lucifer must already have entertainment. Then again, this could be his entertainment. Waking Sam with screams, knowing the man would want to help, but knowing he never could. How much of this is even real? Is the cage the size of the forest or is Lucifer acting like a djinn?

Sam is probably trapped in a room, awaiting his turn at torture, just imagining the forest and town. He probably is hearing the screams of Adam and Michael. It's just piercing the veil.

Sam has to find where their bodies are, so he can try and… do what? Fight the devil? The man pulls his coat further around him and drifts back into a fitful sleep.

When Sam wakes up again, he almost forgets for a moment that he is even in the cage. He's still huddling near the fireplace in the abandoned house, but he expects to roll over and see Dean. He has a half-formed sentence in his head about the crazy dream he had, but before he can put his back to the embers, Sam remembers what had happened.

How he managed to take control of Lucifer and jump in the cage, dragging Michael and Adam with him. How he had averted the apocalypse. And how it was really only fitting that he was down here. It was, after all, his fault Lucifer got free at all.

The white ball in his stomach gives a leap. It seems to expand, as if it is searching for something.

Sam grabs a silver knife and threads it through one of his belt loops. He makes himself a backpack out of a burlap sack and puts as much of the salt back into the container as he can before adding that to his rations. There are three canteens in one of the dresser drawers, and he fills them up at the pump-spigot thing at the center of town. After a quick sweep, determining that nobody else is in any of the other buildings, he enters the woods again, walking further into the heart of Lucifer's cage.

Or, at least, Sam's perception of it.

The man has no idea how time works here – or really, anything – but around the time the sun is at the highest point in the sky, Sam is freezing again. It's like a switch had been thrown, and Sam's knees almost buckle with the shock of it. He falters, leans against a tree, and watches as his breath puffs out in front of him.

"What –" Sam starts, in the same breath that someone else groans out a long and pained and tortured, "No."

And Sam is sure he heard it, but when he checks the woods around him, he can't find anyone and only succeeds in getting himself turned around. He is pretty sure he had been following the sun east, but he isn't completely sure how to compensate for the way the sun moves through the sky, or even if the sun moves the same way it does topside. He ends up picking another direction at random and hopes to God he doesn't end back up in that ghost town.

Sam sings as he walks.

Well, at first, he starts out as humming.

When Sam was much younger – a child, not even a teenager – he used to get petrified of what waited in the dark. He never asked Dean outright to sing to him, but his brother always knew when he was scared and ACDC and Led Zep were the best lullabies a hunter could ask for.

When Sam left and went to Stanford, he and Jess saw an off-Broadway rendition of The Phantom of the Opera. It had been her favorite; they must have watched the Gerard Butler and Emmy Whatsherface version a hundred times, cuddled up in the dorm or in their apartment. For some reason, when Dean was gone or sleeping and Sam needed something to break the silence, he turned to it like the comfort blanket he never really had as a kid.

Sam's breath puffs out in front of him as his chest vibrates the tune of Angel of Music. And Sam hums – goes past Phantom to go to other musicals Jess loved, goes past musicals to pop music Dean would hate – and notices he is singing aloud when he screams, "waaaanted" and chokes up a bit when Dean doesn't answer with dead or alive.

So he takes a deep breath, pauses for a moment when he realizes he isn't cold anymore, and starts singing Phantom aloud. "No more talk of darkness, forget these wide-eyed fears; I'm here, nothing can harm you. My words will warm and calm you." And Sam has no delusions of how great of a singer he is – it was rare for any of the Winchesters to sing aloud – but he can't bring himself to care. He's alone here, and he feels warmer by the second, so he goes on, "Let me be your freedom – let daylight dry your tears – I'm here, with you, beside you. To guard you and to guide you…"

Sam stops singing when he suddenly exits the woods again.

There is one house. There's a road that leads to the house that ends in a cul-de-sac, but there aren't any other houses on the street. It looks familiar, but Sam can't quite place it. It's getting dark and Sam figures he's going to have to sleep somewhere. He walks up to it and scouts the place out, but there is nobody inside. It passes the test so Sam drops himself on the couch – it feels strange to take up the master bedroom or the little girl's princess style canopy bed – and Sam pulls a blanket over him and tries to fall asleep.

It might have been five minutes since Sam stops singing, but suddenly there is a whimper, and Sam is freezing once again. The whimper is a pained, afraid thing, and is followed quickly by screams. Dean used to wake up after he got out of the pit drenched in sweat and screaming like his body was still on fire from the knives. Until this scream, Sam imagined nothing could sound worse than that. Whoever this is – whoever is being tortured – they aren't here with Sam. He tries to run in the direction of the screams, but they never get louder, they never grow quiet, and that's when Sam is sure whoever's yelling really is piercing some veil.

At first, he starts singing to try and drown out the screams. He can almost see each slice Lucifer is cutting into Michael or Adam, each flick of the knife and each grain of salt he pushes into the wound. When he sings, the voice dies down to broken whimpers and the occasional jolting cry in pain.

He settles himself back on the couch, but he doesn't feel tired anymore.

Sam wonders if this really is like a djinn, and maybe Sam's body really is there in the same room with the man being tortured. Maybe he's singing out loud there too, and maybe his voice is helping to calm him.

When Sam starts drifting to sleep, he notices he isn't cold anymore. The man isn't whimpering or anything, but Sam tries to keep a tune in his head, hoping that if the man can hear him, he'll take comfort in it while Sam rests.

When Sam wakes up, he's warmer than he should be. He's inside, he's under a blanket, but despite this, there is a pile of snow throughout the house. The only place that remains untouched by the indoor blizzard is the couch. He reaches a hand out to touch the snow, but he feels like he's under an electric blanket. The snow isn't cold at all, and Sam sighs and rests his head back against the couch. The cage is weird, and the rules of reality imposed here (or the lack of those rules) are starting to get on his nerves.

It takes him a few seconds to realize that he can hear singing.

It's quiet, not so much singing as a whispering of words, like maybe someone is mumbling in his sleep, but despite this, Sam can make them out because he knows the song so well.

"Say you'll love me every waking moment. Turn my head with talk of summertime. Say you need me with you now and always; promise me that all you say is true… that's all I ask of you."

"Hello?" Sam asks aloud, and the mumbling stops. He stands and makes his way out of the house. The snow wasn't cold to walk through, but it didn't leave his pants wet. The wind blows lightly around him, and for a moment, Sam feels the temperature drop. He's colder now than when he walked through a foot of snow inside a suburban house. So freaking werid.

"Sam?" the voice asks, distorted and quiet. It doesn't sound like his father, but he can't completely rule out that it's Michael. It seems more likely that Lucifer is torturing Adam though; Michael would be smart enough to hide. "Sam, is that really you?"

"Yes," Sam responds, looking up like he is praying. "Who is this?"

"Are you okay?" the voice gains some strength, and Sam gains warmth with it. "He doesn't have you, does he?"

"I don't know. I've been wandering around for a couple of days and haven't seen anyone. But I can hear you screaming. So maybe I'm there in the room with you, and it's like a djinn or something."

"No," the voice sighs, and it sounds like relief when he says, "You aren't with me. He doesn't have you yet. But I thought… I could have sworn I heard Castiel come get you."

"Is he looking for me?" Sam asks, looking around like Lucifer will just pop out of nowhere. He ignores the comment about Castiel, but he thinks back to the beginning and remembers falling. Maybe Castiel didn't think he was worth saving. Maybe he dropped him on purpose.

Lucifer doesn't pop out of nowhere, and the voice replies, "He hasn't mentioned it to me, but I wouldn't be surprised. You should… maybe you should come get me out of these chains. We could probably fight him together."

It must be Michael then. Adam wouldn't offer much assistance in a fight, Sam would bet. "Does he have Adam, then?"

"Yes, but your brother is not with me. I don't know where he is."

"Where are you?"

"I'm not sure. It looks like a dungeon, but this cage shouldn't seem this big. You shouldn't be able to walk for days…" the voice sighs again. "Can you follow my voice?"

"No. I hear you in my head."

"I thought as much. I hear you in mine as well."

Sam smiles at that, and he can't exactly figure out why that would make him smile. Or why he doesn't feel uncomfortable at having a direct telepathic line to an angel. Why would Michael and him be connected like this? Oh well, it's probably best not to think about it. Sam picks up his pack and starts walking again. He focuses on the voice – what it sounds like, what it feels like – and somewhere deep in his chest, he feels the white thing vibrate. It hums with warmth and love, and Sam realizes that it's his soul.

He's never felt his soul before. It just seems extra sensitive in hell.

The voice gasps, but not a pained thing like Sam had heard before. More like surprised. "What was… did you just…?"

"I'm sorry," Sam says, but his soul keeps humming. It feels like it's reaching for something off to Sam's left, and he turns and walks toward it. "Do you feel that?"

"I feel…" the angel heaves, and it sounds like he just finished running a marathon. "I feel… is that you? Is that your soul?"

"I think so. I think I can feel you. I think I can track you like this. Does it hurt?"

"No. Sam, I…" the voice grew silent, and even the buzzing of Sam's soul dulled as the temperature drops. "Sam… he's here again."

"Just hang on, okay? I'm on my way," Sam doesn't think that Lucifer will be able to kill Michael. Not here. But he takes off running anyway, hoping to spare the man some pain.

When the screaming gets to be too much, Sam starts singing again. He has to stop almost when he feels something push against his chest. It's like somebody is hugging him around the middle, or at least, like somebody's clinging to him, and Sam falters against it. But there's nobody around – the pressure is deep in his gut – like somebody's something reached out to feel his soul. It lets up as quickly as it got there, and a dull voice whispers, "Sorry."

"No," Sam frowns, and he can't figure out why he would let himself be burdened like this, but it seems like the right thing to do. "You can lean on me if it helps," and Sam pulls the thing toward him. It doesn't feel like the thing inside him at all – Sam's soul feels bright and warm, and the thing he feels seems black and shriveled and diseased like a smoker's lung – but Sam clings to it all the same. He doesn't ask what it is; he just accepts it. And Sam can feel his skin crawl with phantom pains when the body at the other end of the connection is beaten and mutilated, but Sam just clings tighter and sings louder.

By the time the torture stops, Sam can feel the black thing humming along with Stairway to Heaven.

When Sam wakes up the next morning, the black thing seems to be wrapping around his soul like the pair of them are trying to make a Ying Yang symbol. He is warm, like he spent the night wrapped around a person. In his groggy stupor, Sam lets himself give in to the fantasy of waking up safe, with an angel of his own clinging to him, an arm thrown over Sam's waist, a mess of blond hair under Sam's chin.

Sam sits up and rubs a hand over his face, frowning. Instead of focusing on that image (and why it seems like something is off), he starts focusing on the connection he felt throughout his being, pulling him back into the woods. When the man gets up and starts walking toward the angel, he can feel that the person on the other end of the connection wasn't conscious. The black thing is clinging – completely desperate and unashamed – to Sam's soul in a way that seemed highly inappropriate, but comfortable regardless. And as Sam stomps through the woods, he begins to notice stuff about the black thing that he hadn't notice last night.

For example, how it isn't so black anymore.

The thing that is trying to crawl inside Sam's soul still looks cancerous and diseased, but now it is gray – probably a few hues darker than what Sam would usually call gray – but it certainly isn't black. Sam wonders if he even noticed right last night – maybe it had always been gray – but for some reason, he really doubts it. He's sure it had somehow gotten lighter in the night, and he isn't exactly sure that's a good thing.

He notices that if he focuses really hard on it, there is something tiny buried inside the gray thing that's like headlights in heavy fog, but before he gets to think about that, he notices the gray thing starts pulling away as the owner starts to wake up.

It's so much clearer with the angel awake – his path burns brighter between their connection – and Sam can tell that he's close. Less than a day away from him anyway; his heart flips at the thought of being near the angel.

There's a hum in Sam's head, like the noise Jess would make after a long night's sleep, and the gray thing prods at Sam's soul, reaching out a hand to the other side of the bed to make sure the other person didn't sneak out in the middle of the night. When the connection sparks, the voice sighs and the angel says, "Good morning, Sam."

Sam smiles, and he feels heat radiate from his soul. The angel gives a tired chuckle and says, "That happy to have my company? I remember a time when you weren't so enamored with me."

Sam isn't an idiot, but he pushes the comment away. He knows – deep down, he's always known – but he can't focus on it right now. He cannot rationalize a rescue mission to save that angel, so he thinks of Michael and keeps walking.

The voice sighs, like maybe he heard him, and he doesn't speak again. Although, after a few moments, Sam recognizes that he has started humming. Sam can't help but sing along quietly.

When he exits the woods, he's in front of a giant castle and he's screaming words in his head as his angel is being tortured on the other line. Sam can't tell if what crosses the connection are thoughts or actual words, but he hopes to God they're thoughts. He can't imagine one brother torturing another while he screams, "Please brother, stop it!" and "Sam. Sam. Sam." like a prayer.

Sam does the only two things he can: he starts running to the door of the castle, where he is completely sure his angel is being held, and he starts singing aloud, "Let me be your shelter, let me be your light; you're safe, no one will find you. For fears are far behind you."

He reaches drawbridge and rushes inside. In his haste, he forgets to keep singing, but he can hear it in his head – in his heart and soul – and the screams have stopped, replaced instead with, "All I want is freedom, a world with no more night; and you, always beside me, to hold me and to hide me."

Going on the rules of Shrek, Sam rushes up the stairs, intending to find the highest room in the tallest tower. He seems to have been climbing forever, and he can't help but let his mind wander. He doesn't know why he thinks of the night his father died, but for some reason, it pushes to the forefront, and Sam stops climbing to catch his breath and shake away his thoughts when he suddenly looks to his right. Everything about this castle has been very traditional, but there are florescent lights in this hallway. As he walks toward the only door – twenty yards at the end of the hallway – everything changes. He isn't in a castle anymore. He's in a hospital with white floors and walls and ceilings and for a moment, Sam doesn't think he's in the cage – he hasn't ever been in the cage – something must have snapped and he ended up in the nuthouse. That must be the veil he had been piercing all along. Sam's hand hovers on the door handle, and a pained cry breaks out in his head. Panting and hissing, a grit of teeth and a voice.

"Did you just do something?"

Sam shakes his head. This isn't real, right? This is a game – someone is messing with him – but when his fingers touch the handle, he decides to answer, "I don't think so. Why?"

"I'm not in chains anymore," the voice pants. Sam can almost see the tongue darting out to lick away the blood at a split lip. "I'm strapped to a gurney in a hospital and the knives just turned to needles. He's… Sam, he's going to inject me with something."

His angel has to be on the other side of this door. The gray thing is trembling like a metal detector squeals when it finds something, and Sam reaches out to it with his soul. It comes instantly, and Sam sees the headlights grow, snapping away more of the gray. It was lighter now, this thing that he shares with the angel.

Sam twists the door handle, opens it, and steps over the threshold.

He is cut off from everything and the door slams behind him. The gray thing is gone – Sam reaches out and searches for it with his soul – but there is no trace of it. It's like it had been a joke or a dream and the loss Sam feels from the lack of connection nearly brings him to his knees. His hand searches for something to hold himself up – he had never felt so empty inside, like his soul itself had been ripped out – but the white thing is writhing inside him, searching and wailing in distress.

Sam tries to tap into his hunter senses and search the room, but a hand on his shoulder snaps him out of his desperate search. "Well, hello there, Sam. I can't tell if I want to congratulate you for getting the devil back in the box or smack you because you brought me down with him."

It isn't Michael, and when Sam can finally force his eyes open against the loss, he frowns at his younger half-brother. "Adam? What are you doing here?"

"Mike said I need to stay hidden from Lucifer. He tricked the room out – it's almost completely angel proof – when Mike visits I have to take a few symbols down, but they can't enter until I remove them," Adam helps Sam walk to a table. There are wrapped burgers in a bowl. Adam sits Sam down in a seat before taking a burger and unwrapping it. When Sam won't accept it, the youngest Winchester shrugs and takes a bite. "It gets lonely though. When I was wandering out there before Mike found me, I could at least feel him there and talk to him. Not in here. No reception in here from Angel radio."

Sam isn't hot or cold – he just feels empty – and the things he would give to suffer through his angel's torments. He tries to focus on what Adam had said, tries to make sense of it, tries to figure out where he can find his angel when it dawns on him. He's supposed to be the smart brother, but he realizes what's happening way too late.

"Michael visits you?"

"Yeah," Adam wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. There is a knock at the door – a pattern Sam recognized as one that John used to use to let Sam and Dean know it was him (or at least one that would let his boys open the door and blast him with salt, holy water, and silver) – and Adam stands and starts erasing sigils from the walls. "That's him now."

"No, Adam!" Sam jumps up and races to his brother, searching for some chalk to draw the symbols back on, but he is too late. He hears a chuckle from behind him, and he turns in time to see two fingers being pressed to his forehead.

"Hello, Sam," Michael grins. And as Sam starts crumpling to the floor, he hears the angry screams of his angel reverberating down the stairwell and down the hallway – the voice is so loud Sam must have been close; if only he hadn't stopped to check out this room – and he hits the floor with his name on Lucifer's tongue echoing in his head.

Sam isn't an idiot. Dean would call him the smart brother – after all, one of them had a GED and the other had a few years of college education – but Dean was self-deprecating and never gave himself enough credit. Sam would say he is as smart as any other hunter, which is to say, not an idiot. The idiot hunters die, and Sam is… is he technically dead? He doesn't feel dead.

Anyway, his point stands and he is not an idiot.

The fucking feeling he has as he comes to almost knocks him out again.

His eyes are still closed, his arms stretched out in a T and he can feel wood at his back. He knows instantly that he is tied to a cross. For a split second, he thinks about what that implies about him being suspended in the same way the savior was, before his soul starts freaking out. It seems to thrash in his body like it is trying to escape, and Sam can't help but groan against the feeling. When it settles enough for him to hear over the sound of his blood rushing, he hears two distinct things: the crackle of fire and singing.

This time, the voice isn't something distorted and far away. It's alive, and full, and real, right in front of him. He almost opens his eyes to see his angel, but he's afraid if he lets him know he's awake, he'll stop singing. So he plays dead and indulges.

"Say you'll share with me one love, one life time. Say the word and I will follow you…"

His soul lurches forward, and Sam's singing along before he remembers he's supposed to be playing unconscious. "Say you'll share with me each night, each morning."

Sam hears chains rustle against the concrete floor, and he hears Lucifer's voice ring out in a way he hasn't ever heard it before, "Say you love me…"

Sam's eyes snap open and he takes in the scene before him. The room doesn't look like a castle dungeon or a hospital, but a mix of the two. The walls are white and padded, there are florescent lights above them, but the ground is gray cement caked with dry blood. Sam is on a cross, and Lucifer is on his hands and knees, both are latched in metal with sigils and Enochian symbols burnt into them. The cuffs are chained to the floor. Really, that is just a mental display of dominance because the archangel is at the edge of a circle of holy fire that he can't cross anyway. He looks like Nick – the same way Michael had looked like Sam's young father – but he thinks that is for the benefit of the humans. He doubts even in the cage he can take Lucifer showing his true form with his eyes and life intact.

The blond hair is dirty and caked with blood, but his blue eyes look up from under his lashes like he couldn't really believe Sam is here. Sam's soul reaches toward him, and Sam feels the gray thing inside Lucifer snap. The thing he feels rushing at his soul is tiny and white – whiter and brighter than Sam's soul – and Sam's breath catches in his throat when he feels the two make contact.

Lucifer groans in his chains, and Sam feels sweat drip down the back of his neck like he just ran a mile or had marathon sex. He pushes the thoughts and the feelings away, licks his lips and asks, "Is that your grace?"

Lucifer's eyes aren't quite so blue anymore, but he nods, licking his lips in return. "It woke in me when you reached out with your soul." He looks down, chains echoing around the room as he sits back on his heels and lets his hands fall into his lap. "I… Listen, Sam, do you remember the first time I came to you up there? In your dream? I pretended to be your girlfriend, and I regret that now. I don't know why I feel such guilt, but you showed me your song and gave me my grace back and I…"

Sam swallowed, not believing the devil – his angel – was apologizing. It made him uncomfortable, and Sam cut in before it got too real. He could acknowledge the feelings in himself, but he couldn't even think about Lucifer feeling them too. It was too much. "Why can I feel you but not the others?"

Lucifer continues to look down, "Because you are my vessel and I was inside of you. Michael and Adam can do the same. Michael locked me up then found Adam. He must have him close by…"

"Yeah. I found Adam. Michael found me with him."

"Michael," Lucifer whispers, before jolting his head up. "We need to get out of here before he comes back, Sam. You can't be tortured by him. I can't…" he pauses for a moment before gesturing at Sam's wrist. "He underestimates you in this form. That's just rope; you can get out of that easy."

Sam starts working at the rope, but asks, "What do you mean this form? What's wrong with me?"

Lucifer pauses, his eyes never leaving Sam's wrist. His hesitation doesn't make Sam feel better, but he takes a breath and answers, "You don't have a body. You're just a soul – that's why this cage is different from my last one – in the last one I was stuck in ice in the dark with nobody but Judas, Brutus, and Cassius to keep me company and they were boring. Filled with guilt at betraying…" he shakes his head, returning himself to the important topic. "Adam is limited by his body – this cage is meant to hold angels so Michael and I cannot create or change anything about our surroundings – but your soul is pure creation. You're painting everything – well, projecting everything – so what your soul says goes."

Sam stops struggling for a moment, "So you and Michael are nothing more than human down here? No special powers? Your grace is tapped?"

"Yes," Lucifer admits. "Adam could be a powerful weapon, but he cannot see past his body. He can't even feel his soul, I bet. Not like yours," Lucifer offers a smile and pushes his grace against Sam's soul. It sends a shudder through Sam, and Lucifer gulps. "I have never seen a soul that I didn't want to destroy, but I find yours beautiful."

"If that's not the greatest pick-up line I ever heard, I don't know what is," Sam grins, before turning his attention to his physical body. It feels real – it feels like he has mass and takes up space – but the more he thinks about it, the more he can't really feel the rope dig into his skin. He focuses his energy on the salt he found in the cabin – the backpack, the iron – how he had things he thought he would need. He thinks about finding a knife in his hand, but he can't seem to conjure it. He sighs with frustration, and he feels Lucifer's grace nuzzle at his soul.

"Why did you change the castle to a hospital?"

Sam shrugs. At the time, Sam didn't know it was him doing it, but now he tries to think. He remembers the hospital after the accident a few years ago – the night that John traded his soul to save Dean – and it became a hospital. The ghost town from the first night was the same town that Sam had fought Azazel's other children in the night he died. The second house he stayed in was the house where Lilith's hellhounds killed Dean and dragged him to hell. He seems to change the setting subconsciously, but it always mimics a death of someone important to Sam. When he closes his eyes, he feels Lucifer's grace trying to comfort his soul.

Sam stumbles forward. He isn't on the cross any longer, and when he opens his eyes, he's standing in the center of Stull Cemetery. Well, not the actual cemetery, but a projection of it. Lucifer isn't chained anymore – the chains were a result of the setting – but he is still trapped in holy fire. It is an easy fix for Sam. He digs up some dirt to toss over the flames and stomps a section of the fire out. Lucifer walks free again. Again because of Sam Winchester.

The moment he is free, he forces himself into Sam's arms.

Sam remembers Lucifer having control of his body – he remembers the rage inside him as he slaughters the demons of Sam's childhood – and he remembers how Lucifer beat Dean nearly to death in this very cemetery. Sam's arms wrap around the angel; he is only a soul now and his soul wants to mold to Lucifer's grace, so he doesn't have a choice but act with what his soul wants.

Lucifer nuzzles against his neck, murmuring something in a language Sam can't understand but he can. Apologies, affections, things he can't believe are coming out of the devil's mouth. Sam doesn't understand until it suddenly dawns on him – like everything else in this cage just has come to him – and he realizes that maybe the Impala didn't save Dean that night. Maybe he didn't take control of Lucifer at all.

Maybe the angel saw something and backed off.

Lucifer doesn't offer the answer. Instead, he pulls back, looks Sam in the eye, and tells him they need to hide.

A week pasts before they run into Michael for the first time. They spend a lot of time in nameless, shapeless woods, until Sam manages to remember something from his past that's strong enough for the memory to shoot up around him. That first night, they fall asleep on separate beds in Sam's dorm room. One minute, Lucifer is whispering that his brother must be stuck in a memory far away, the next Sam is waking up stuffed against the wall with an angel curled up at his side. Lucifer's arm is slung over Sam's waist, his face buried in Sam's chest, his hair tucked under Sam's chin.

They try to sleep apart the night after, too. They end up curled together, but this time, Sam had gone to Lucifer. After that, they don't try to sleep apart.

The night they run into Michael, Sam is starting to get the hang of choosing a place to sleep. He picks a motel from years ago – trying to stay away from big, emotional memories – when he opens the door and finds Michael sitting at the table inside. To be honest, Michael seems surprised to see them. Sam throws a punch, but his soul reacts very differently to Michael.

If Lucifer and Sam are opposites and are drawn together through the connection of their soul and grace, Michael and Sam have the same magnetic pull, so they repel. Violently.

The touch slams them into opposite corners of the motel room, and Lucifer is on Michael before Sam has even stood up. If Sam thought the angel gave Dean a beating, it was nothing compared to what he gave his own brother.

Sam rushes to Lucifer, puts a hand on his shoulder, and thinks of two things: another hotel and far away. If the cage is the United States, they traveled from Arizona to Pennsylvania, and Sam can only hope they're actually that far away. Lucifer turns to look at Sam; Michael is gone. They learned early on that the cage is like a sheet of paper. Sam can manipulate the physical surrounding of one place and remain in the center of the paper, or he could jump to different edges. But only he could jump to the edges.

The first time he jumped, it took him a day and a half to follow his soul back to his angel and Lucifer had been so upset over their separation, his grace had started to cloud over again. Sam remembers that Lucifer had hugged him for what felt like an hour.

They kiss for the first time a week or so after they run into Michael.

They are singing that song from Phantom of the Opera, which Lucifer hadn't actually ever seen – he just knew it from Sam's memories – and Sam isn't really paying attention. Suddenly, they step out of the woods and they're in front of a theatre. Sam knows the movie version enough to recreate it for Lucifer. For two hours, they don't worry about Michael or that they're in the cage. When the song comes on, Lucifer cups Sam's face and brings their lips together for a few seconds. Sam can't believe it really happened – it is over that quickly – but when their song is over, Lucifer kisses him again.

Lucifer still hasn't seen the ending Phantom of the Opera.

They keep walking. At night when they're cuddled together by a fire in the woods or in a shitty motel that Sam only half remembers, Lucifer likes to kiss Sam's fingertips and murmur about what he'd do differently if he could turn back time.

He would never ask Sam to let him in – he would find him and be his angel – keep him safe, protect him from everything. Sam argues that without the connection they share from their time together – the part of Sam's soul that Lucifer took or the shard of Lucifer's grace that got left behind… they aren't sure which – that would have never happened. They couldn't ever reach this moment without everything leading up to it.

Lucifer thinks Sam is a skeptic, but Sam think Lucifer romanticizes everything.

Michael finds them. Sometimes he catches up to them twice in one week; other times a month goes by and they think they've escaped him when he springs a trap and catches them. Michael separates them, but he cannot pin Sam's soul down to anything and so escape is always imminent. Sometimes a year pasts and they catch Michael by surprise. They try to run away because fighting is useless. Nobody can die, so most times it's easier to escape.

They see Adam for the first time after twenty years. It took Adam twenty years what it took Sam a week or so to learn. He still isn't very good. The night after their encounter – when Sam dropped the Impala on Adam's head, breaking his brother's concentration so he couldn't escape. Michael had to pull the car off of him and by the time he was free, Lucifer and Sam were long gone – Lucifer runs his cold hands over Sam's bare chest and whispers that he is the smartest Winchester.

And poor Adam is only half Winchester. He would never be able to measure up.

After sixty years in the cage, Lucifer realizes that it's been five years since Michael actively came looking for them. Lucifer and Sam haven't aged – neither has Adam or Michael – but they aren't getting any younger, either. Lucifer asks Sam to pick a house. They'll stay stationary until they're attacked.

Lucifer is surprised when Sam picks the house his mother died in. They spend the first year of their settling going through everything. Sam tells Lucifer everything – he describes every memory he has with every picture with his mother, and things are clearer in death, so he remembers more – and when Sam tells Lucifer about the night his mother is killed, Lucifer amends what he would change if he could turn back time.

If he could turn back time, he would never tempt Lilith. Because he hadn't created the vermin, Azazel would never become a demon, and he wouldn't kill Sam's mother in the process of freeing Lucifer from his cage. Lucifer would spend another few millennia locked in the ice with Judas, Brutus, and Cassius if it meant Sam was free to live a happy, normal life.

Sam kisses him and tells him that it hasn't been all bad.

They have had sex before. They pretty much had to – whenever Sam's soul touched Lucifer's grace, it sent shivers of anticipation through them – but it had always been quick, afraid Michael would show up and smite them with their pants down. It doesn't start to change until five years after they settle down. Sixty-five years into a relationship isn't usually when quickies turn into something this passionate – they spend most of their sixty-sixth, sixty-seventh, and sixty-eighth year in the thrall of marathon sex – Sam thinks it's funny that they cool off in the sixty-ninth year, but Lucifer doesn't get it.

Until Sam shows him.

Then he thinks it's funny too.

They spend most of that year involved as well.

Eighty years in the cage brings Adam knocking at their door. Michael is in tears and Sam doesn't get everything, but by the end of that year, Michael and Lucifer are hugging and it seems they made up for the fall. In that year, Sam got to know Adam pretty well.

He's glad his little brother didn't grow up in the life, but it sucked that he was killed because of the life he didn't know about. Adam tells him Heaven is awesome. He doesn't regret any of it. (Except, he admits in private, saying yes to Michael. Or at least, he regretted that initially. Michael and Adam took longer to get to the domestic partnership than it took their brothers, but there was nothing else to do but play house. Everyone was tired of the chasing and fighting.)

They see Michael and Adam a few times a year – they celebrate holidays and birthdays – Michael picks Dean's birthday as his own. Lucifer wouldn't pick one for himself, and he gets upset when Sam gets sick of it after several years and picks for him.

He picks the day his mother was killed by Azazel.

It upsets Lucifer so much, he leaves for a year.

One year is nothing compared to ninety. Sam doesn't even worry about him – he never doubts that he won't come back – and Lucifer shows up on his new birthday on their 91st year in the cage with flowers.

That night when they lay in bed and Lucifer runs his fingers through Sam's hair, he admits that if he could go turn back time and do anything over again, he wouldn't fall. He doesn't love humanity like Michael does – but he cares for Sam, he cares for Adam, and through Sam's stories, he cares for Dean – and if he could tell his prideful self that he only needed to wait a few millennia and he would meet the best the human race had to offer, it would be worth it.

He romanticizes spending his days with Sam, Adam, Dean, Michael, and Castiel the Peculiar in the garden. Sam denies that it would ever work, but he likes to hear it anyway.

They celebrate their 100th year in the cage like people celebrate fifty years of marriage. Except they still inhabit young bodies. It takes them ten years to celebrate their live together.

Sam doesn't even really feel guilty about not being dead – about not finding a way out and looking for his brother – because he only hopes that Dean took his advice. He hopes Dean is as happy with Lisa as he is with his angel.

Lucifer doesn't mean to upset Sam when he says Dean will never be happy with Lisa. He tucks Sam's hair behind his ear and says that if Dean is lucky, he'll be happy with Castiel, though. Sam doesn't cry much in the cage, even though he's a soul and mostly emotions. When Lucifer tells him that, he hopes that Dean doesn't stay with Lisa for Sam. He didn't even think of Castiel back then.

If Sam could turn back time, he would tell Dean to play house with Castiel instead.

One hundred, fifteen years after they crashed in the cage, Lucifer wraps his arms around Sam while the human is doing dishes. He presses kisses to his lover's bare shoulder, and Sam can recognize the song he's humming. A century ago that stopped being his and Jess's song and started being his and Lucifer's.

The blond stops the kissing and reaches around Sam to shut the water off. They face each other, Sam leaning against the counter so they're the same height. Lucifer had stopped being self conscious over Nick's smaller frame decades ago, but they were equals. Sam liked to remind Lucifer of that whenever he could.

Lucifer's hands find Sam's hips, and he kisses the anti-possession tattoo over Sam's chest. He's hiding his face, and Sam can tell because he's usually much colder than this. His lover is blushing. Over a century together, and he's blushing about something. Sam kisses the top of Lucifer's head.

"Do you remember the night Michael crucified you? That night the first week in when you found me?" Lucifer kisses across the bone. Sam murmurs his affirmative and Lucifer goes on. "You never finished the song with me."

"What?" Sam asks, moving Lucifer to be arm's length away. The angel looks upset – more upset than Sam has ever seen him – like he had been thinking about this for way too long.

"I sang, "Say you love me" and you never answered back."

It had been too long. 114 years and 51 months too long.

Sam sighs, but he smiles. He run his fingers through the blond hair, admiring the way the hair is soft and messy. He wonders if Lucifer really looks like Nick in his true form. A long time ago, Lucifer would laugh about that – about how terrifyingly beautiful he used to be – but after this long, Lucifer doesn't mind being chained to a comet like this. And when Sam compliments his outward appearance anymore, Lucifer doesn't get upset that Nick gets the praise. Because there is no Nick – there hasn't been a Nick for a long time – it's only Lucifer.

"Say it," Sam says.

Lucifer is anything but prideful right now. He runs his fingers over Sam's shoulders and nearly begs, "Say you love me."

Sam grips the back of Lucifer's neck, making sure he's looking at him. Sam's soul and Lucifer's grace cannot become one. After all this time, they have tried. The grace had been completely restored – not that grace worked in the cage – but it brought Sam joy that he could help Lucifer find his faith. The soul gives a push, a little nudge that made Lucifer smile and Sam drops his voice, completely serious when he says, "You know I do."

Five years later, Sam awakens from a dead sleep. Lucifer is sitting on his knees on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Sam looks up at the same time the roof is ripped away. A man's face fills the night's sky. He looks sunken and old, and Lucifer stands on the bed.

"Death, no," he whines.

Sam assumes it's the horseman and can't figure out what he wants. Lucifer starts begging, Sam hasn't heard him that worked up since before he found him, and Michael was taking a blade to him. He begs, he cries, he actually stomps his foot, and Death hisses, "You are still a child, Lucifer. What do you have to show for 120 years down here?"

Lucifer drops to the bed and wraps his arms around Sam. They kiss, and Sam knows one of them is leaving. But he doesn't really expect it to be him. Death swats Lucifer away like he's nothing. He picks up Sam's body – his soul – like it's nothing. Lucifer is still yelling at him, yelling that he loves him, and Sam tries to yell it back.

Everything goes dark.

Sam and Dean have been hunting for a little while. Dean isn't telling Sam anything, but the younger Winchester knows he's hiding something. He thinks about calling Castiel. He will later tonight when Dean goes out.

His brother is flipping through the channels in their motel, and one minute Sam is on the computer, the next he's wrestling Dean for the remote. After a few moments of struggle, Sam stands, triumphant and Dean's holding his arm in his hand giving a pretty good impression of Sam's bitchface.

Sam flips it back.

The Phantom of the Opera is on.

He sits down in the corner of the bed, and he watches as Christine and Raoul emerge on the roof. It's snowing, and they start to sing.

"Sammy?" Dean asks.

He doesn't know why he's crying. Sure, this song got him through some rough patches – it made him think of Jess – but never hit him like this before. He has to sit at the corner of the bed, and Dean has to get him a glass of water. His brother is upset, like he's afraid Sam is breaking, and Sam isn't convinced that he's not.

Something feels like it's trying to rip itself from Sam. Something painful and heartbroken.

Dean doesn't ask. He just sits next to him and rubs Sam's back like he's eight again and afraid of the monsters under his bed.

Christine says, "Say you love me."

And Sam whispers back, "You know I do."

Dean steps out, and Sam is shaking as he starts to call Castiel. Something isn't right, and Sam needs to know what has been going on this past year.

Love me. That's all I ask of you.