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It doesn’t take much research to find news reports on children murdered and given mocking stigmata. Reading about the case swirls Sam’s head into nebulous systems. It’s because of him, isn’t it? He feels phantom pains on his hands and feet and hears his heart rate chase nausea in his throat. He wants to take their places.
Sam knows Lucifer’s not dumb enough to accidentally leave such an obvious clue to his whereabouts, but Sam also wonders if Lucifer wants him to catch up to him. But Sam can’t think of being close to Lucifer. All he can think of is Rowena having a way to get him back into the Cage that doesn’t require Lucifer wearing his skin. That doesn’t require him going back.
He fumbles through pointing out the lead to Dean, terrified of having to defend why he thinks it’s legit. Dean’s been itching for jobs lately, though, rattled by Mary’s distance, and he latches on quickly. Small mercies.
Sam knows this is the last thing he should keep from Dean, in theory. But what’s he supposed to say? "Lucifer reached out to me and threatened innocent people’s lives, but he stopped after getting a picture of me smiling?" It makes Sam’s skin itch, thinking of Dean seeing this as some type of betrayal, of Sam shacking up with the enemy all over again, just like Ruby. The more Sam would have to defend himself, the more Dean would know, and the more Dean wouldn’t get it.
At least, that’s what he tells himself.
It’s all just a blurry waterfall in front of his brain separating him, all just made of shame.
Cas is close by, checks it out, finds the vessel dead and burnt out with no sign of Lucifer. Sam wishes he was there. He deserves to face the collateral damage of him being the sole occupant of his body.
--
Sam’s awake for thirty-four hours before he finally manages to crash with his boots and jacket on just to awaken to his phone ringing in the surreal darkness. He fumbles at answering mildly confused and irritated until he sees he has fourteen missed text messages. He accepts the unknown call in a panic.
“Ignoring me, then, are you?” the recipient says, voice low and sickly sweet.
“I was asleep,” Sam says, heart pounding. Definitely a new vessel alright. Another person to be destroyed because of him.
“Always excuses, Sam. Take responsibility like a big boy, and maybe people won’t find themselves in these positions because of you.” It’s all shattering, all vibrant streaks of bright light against his chest. It hurts it hurts it hurts. Sam’s good and managing to breathe when people’s lives are at stake, but Lucifer, angry, wanting to hurt someone? A whole different ballpark.
“What?” Sam asks dumbly, scared.
“See, I think you don’t understand our arrangement. What do you think? What was it? Cassidy?” Sam’s blood has turned cold, and it’s almost hysterical to him when the unknown number asks permission to share video for the call. What a ridiculous facsimile of a choice. His hand is shaking when he clicks accept.
Usually, he’s good at being steady, reliable. He needs to dissociate more. But he knows these tones. He can read Lucifer’s mood like pointing to colours in the sky. He should be on his knees prostrating, offering to cut out his own eyes.
“Hiya Sammy,” Lucifer says, except it’s a mockery of a mockery. His gaze is hard. He’s possessing some man perhaps in his fifties with dark hair and a tooth pendant around his neck. Sam swears he recognises him, but before he can place it, Lucifer shifts the camera over to a young brunette woman with mascara down past her cheekbones. She’s gagged and tied up, and Sam feels sick. “Anyways, Cassidy, don’t you think Sam should be a good little bitch?” Lucifer removes the magenta lipstick-stained cloth.
“Please,” she says, and she’s so terrified. Her eyes keep darting between Lucifer and the phone. “Just do what he wants please. Please I won’t tell anyone, just let me go.”
“See what I mean! Don’t you need to save the broken, beaten, and damned or something? And isn’t she terribly naive. Sam, do you think I care who she tells?”
“No,” Sam answers, and he’s fighting a million apologies and fawned professions of utter devotion, scared they’ll be some trigger word too, to set Lucifer off.
“Please, just let me go,” she says again.
“You have Sam here to blame for your condition,” Lucifer says, and Sam can barely keep her gaze while she stares desperately at the camera. “Now tell him, tell him word-for-word, that he should be a good bitch.”
Sam can feel her terror, palpable, and he tries to nod at her, to encourage her to just do what Lucifer wants. Because there are times when Lucifer likes sticks in the wheels and there are times when you just beg him and beg him and foolishly hope.
“Please, just, do what--”
“Cassidy! Word for word!” Lucifer gives out, volume suddenly louder making Sam flinch. Sam nods at her again. She looks down, tears following direction.
“Be a good bitch. Please, I want to go home.”
Sam knows, distantly, that this will haunt him in a different way than anything in the Cage ever did. But he’s so far away from it right now, so caught up in the minute details, all he can feel is relief she’s playing along.
“Good, see Sam, I thought I made it clear. There are consequences to your actions. I say ‘jump’ you say ‘how high." Got it?”
“I do,” Sam says tersely.
“Really?” Lucifer flips the camera back to selfie mode. “Jump,” he says. A bitter humiliation sits in Sam’s gut.
“How high,” Sam replies. He’s not going to let someone get hurt because of pride. Lucifer can play whatever power game he wants.
“Hmm. As high as you can. Don't stop. Set the phone up so I can see and judge,” Lucifer says.
“Okay, okay, just, a second,” Sam says, fumbling to get the light on and set his phone up enough.
“Tick tock,” Lucifer muses.
So he does, he jumps, and hopes to God it’s good enough. That Lucifer will get off enough on his mockery and the submission enough to not hurt anyone. Sam’s overwhelming hopeless. There’s never an escape. He’s always just going to be the devil’s toy.
It’s awkward and humiliating and his jeans keep threatening to slide down too much because he took his belt off before he fell asleep. The last time Lucifer had him jump, though, he wasn’t wearing anything. He wonders if Lucifer is thinking about that. He wonders if Dean might hear him. He’s trying to jump as high as possible and his weight hits the concrete in a way he can’t dampen.
His heart pounds. He’s so so tired.
One time Lucifer had him jump for weeks, on a bed of rough nails. Sam did it, too. He didn’t stop. He was so scared. He knew what would happen when he did. And then when he collapsed--
“Alright, stop, you’re giving me motion sickness,” Lucifer says. Sam grabs the phone, sits down, out of breath.
He’s trying very hard to get rid of the phantom feelings of holes in his feet.
“Will you let her go now?” Sam asks, still heaving.
“Tell me you’d like to take her place. Damsel in distress. All tied up. Not like it’s not usually you,” Lucifer says.
“I’d take her place,” Sam says fast, feeling heat come to his cheeks unwittingly, not because he actually likes it when monsters or Lucifer threaten him by fucking force and tie him up and--
The early formation of the solar system. Sam’s head. Is the early formation of the solar system. He thinks of that. He tries to escape the gravitational force of the sun.
It’s not that. It’s. The audience. She doesn’t know the context. But that’s irrelevant.
“I’d like to take her place,” Sam repeats, amends. “Do you need me to go find the back alley you’re in? Is that what you need?”
“No, Sam, that’s not necessary right now,” Lucifer says. A laugh nearly builds up in Sam’s chest, feels like some horrifying mimicry of elation in his chest. What? Does Lucifer need Sam to engage in self-bondage?
“What do you want from me.”
“I need you to not forget who you’re dealing with,” Lucifer says.
“I couldn’t possibly forget.”
“Jump.”
“How high.” Sam watches Lucifer grin like the fucking devil.
“Good.” Lucifer flips the camera back around at Cassidy. “Now, Cassidy, I should probably let you go right? Since Sam doesn’t seem to want you dead? I’m a good guy after all.”
“Yes, please,” she says, quietly, more demure than before. Sam gets it. Sometimes those survival modes flip. Sometimes terror outrights itself to freeze, and adrenaline locks you up.
He understands that he’s responsible for traumatising this woman for life. And while he knows he ruins people’s innocence everywhere he goes every time he opens his mouth about the supernatural, for some reason this now, this is fucking unbearable. Lucifer flips the camera back around, and Sam can see how shut down Cassidy seems inside herself.
Lucifer takes out a knife, and she starts moving in panic again, but he just cuts the cloth. When the camera points at her face again, she mouths out “Thank you.” It makes Sam feel all the more sick.
She backs away cautiously, but when Lucifer doesn’t make any move towards her, she turns tail and runs full speed, the sound of her feet hitting the blacktop echoing into the phone.
Something in Sam is collapsing. He feels like every bit of energy has drained out of him. Like a puppet with its string, just cut loose. He slouches forward somewhat abruptly, takes a jagged breath, feels his eyes sting from fatigue.
“Sam, you look quite, uh, affected, there,” Lucifer says, and Sam feels like he could almost cry just from the hysterical champagne feeling he can’t escape. He doesn’t know what to say. He can barely move. “Hey, we can just voice chat now, okay? Instead of video chat? Go lie down. Just remind me to get those photos from you later.”
It almost sounds caring.
Sam follows the instructions mechanically, though he can hear the change in Lucifer’s voice. Maybe that’s why he’s not as desperate.
He lays down again, phone pressed firmly to the side of his face, body sinking into the mattress and honestly feeling like it’s not even remotely a part of him, like he’s been paralysed or weighed down by invisible forces. For some reason, he doesn’t care, except for the hammering still going in his chest, terrified of falling asleep again.
He feels so dizzy.
“How you feeling there, champ?” Lucifer asks. Sam doesn’t possibly know where to begin with that one.
“What do you want,” Sam asks instead of responding.
“I want you to tell me how this made you feel.”
Oh. So they’re doing that now.
“I’m, um,” Sam starts, scared. He wants to ask Lucifer if he’ll find some other innocent person to traumatise if Sam can’t find a way to share and care properly. “My body, was flooded, with a lot of adrenaline. Which has significantly impacted other parts of my body’s functioning in different systems. And I also, missed a lot of sleep, and only slept for two hours. So it’s, it’s been, really, and it’s clouding the cogni--”
“Sam, come on. You think I don’t know all your trauma responses by now? Tell me straight. Give me the adjectives. You can do it.”
Sam grits his teeth. Well, he feels those trauma responses. In fact, that’s usually all he can feel. But he relents. He hopes it’s because of fear more than habit.
“Scared,” he bites out. “Guilty.”
“Good,” Lucifer says. Sam can practically feel his fucking delight. “What else?” God, Sam hates this.
Lucifer always liked sucking out the poison he put into Sam's wounds, just to spit it in Sam's face.
“Helpless,” Sam admits. Fuck, he can see Lucifer’s smile, eyes closed. Lucifer isn’t saying anything else, so Sam guesses he has to, has to go further. “Trapped.”
“Trapped?” Lucifer says. “Don’t you think you kind of deserve to feel trapped, considering, you know, the millenium I spent trapped solely because of you.”
Sam doesn’t respond to that. He can’t regret it. Even if it’s worthless now.
He hates the twinge of guilt he does feel at the fact that for all the time Lucifer was kept trapped because of Sam trying to protect the world, the world only got a few years without him. A sad part of him wishes Lucifer could have instead just been frozen in some type of angelic ice.
“It’s okay, I’m not angry right now,” Lucifer reassures. It calms Sam down marginally. “Do you often feel this way? Scared? Guilty? Helpless.... Trapped?”
“Yes.”
“And what makes you feel that way?”
“You mean besides you ?”
“Yes.”
They both know the answer that immediately pops into Sam’s head.
“Come on, Sam. Be honest. We’re starting to have such a good time.”
Sam can’t say that. He’s starting to panic again, breathing out of place.
“Sam?”
“D--” Sam starts, and he feels caught between a rock and a hard place. “There was, I was. Possessed. And then, the mark--”
“We can unpack all that later, what were you originally going to say there, Sam? Do I really need to threaten you just for you to open up? For Dad’s sake, you’d think you’d want to have someone who actually cared enough to get inside your head for once.”
“Don’t.” Sam says.
“Sam...” Sam doesn’t like that tone. He panics harder.
“Dean.”
“Brothers tend to do that, don’t they,” Lucifer says, calmly as if Sam isn’t having a crisis just lying there holding the phone to his ear. Sam wants to tell Lucifer that he doesn’t think Lucifer’s ever felt guilty about anything. “You were possessed. That’s got to be difficult for you. You were only made to be possessed by me. I’m sorry anyone else ever did.”
The thing is, Lucifer sounds sincerely sorry. More sincerely sorry than Dean ever was. And while the sincerity is probably more about his prized possession getting handled by someone else’s dirty fingers, it makes something in Sam’s chest ache in the weirdest way. He doesn’t like this at all. But he also knows he’s not supposed to.
“You know all of this already,” Sam states. “You had an all-access pass to my mind and tried to use it against me. What’s the point of this.”
“Just because I know what happened doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear it from you. Come on, Sammy, don’t you want to catch up.”
“Not particularly, no.”
“Well, you are going to, aren’t you?”
“So, what, you’re going to tell me about the hundreds of years after I left that you spent alone in the Cage in the same painstaking detail?” Sam exclaims in frustration, and he’s immediately terrified he went too far.
“No,” Lucifer says darkly. “Too long, didn’t read. It was boring.”
It’s a warning. Sam’s glad he was given one.
“Was soulless,” Sam says. “Got my brain broken. Hit a dog, did the worst thing I’ve done. Got another angel shoved in me. Saved my brother from the mark. Let the darkness out. That good enough?”
“Sam. You know I know all of that. I’m trying to help you. It’s been forever, hasn’t it?”
“Do you what. Want the gory details? Revel in the misery and horror I went through?”
“Did you ever get to talk about it with anyone?” Sam’s breath catches.
“I don’t want to.”
“You remember being soulless?”
“Yes.”
“What were you like soulless?”
“Cold. Calculating. A general ass. Had a lot of sex. Basically, I was heartless.”
“And you wished you didn’t do what you did while soulless, like it was out of your control?”
“Huh?”
“I mean, I know what was happening to you during that time. And that’s you, that’s who I’m talking to you. But your body, now it was being used to do other things. Did that feel like waking up from being possessed?”
“Why the hell do you care?”
“Did you consent to all that sex you have memories of then?”
“What? That’s-- he did, the I mean, my body did. And what the, Lucifer, I tried to kill Bobby . And you were-- why should I--”
“See, Sam. You think that rehashing all this juicy content is fruitless because we both know but come on. We didn’t get to chat. Don’t you like our quality time together?”
“I wanted it, in the memories, that changes--”
“You know what else you wanted?”
“Shut up.” Lucifer chuckles, but he relents and pivots.
“Wish you’d killed Dean while soulless.”
“Don’t even joke about that.”
“Right right, we’re touchy about the brother murder around here. Is there anything you will let me talk about?”
“Let you? Do I have a choice in the matter?”
“Sam, you always have a choice. Shouldn’t you get that by now?” Sam has to take a couple of breaths to calm himself, except this time, from infuriation.
“You don’t even like me. Why the trip down memory lane. What are you trying to convince me of this time.”
“Don’t presume to know me. Maybe I am just trying to help you out of the goodness of my heart.”
“Huh. Yeah. And I’m Taylor Swift.”
“Do you think this is a love story, Sam?” Sam starts shaking. He forgot. He forgot how much Lucifer could fuck him up without even touching him at all. His brain is blank.
“Pretty sure,” he says, but the thought trails off. It with. Pithy. “You like. My. My pain.”
“Well I will avoid the elephant of a response in the room for you bunk buddy. Because I think you need to tell me about your brain breaking. Castiel did that right, the same guy who gave me that ride out. Sad eyes. You still blindly forgive?”
“Yes. Cas did it. He was trying to keep you from being freed,” Sam says, voice still shaky.
“Hm. He did a bad job.”
“Well, I let the darkness out. So.”
“Hey, I’m not complaining! I’m sending the guy a fruit basket. Anyways. How did it feel? For your friend to do that.”
“I don’t think he saw me as a friend.”
“He did. And more importantly, even in the Cage you loved him deeply.”
“He was just trying to help.”
“Dig deeper, Sam!”
“It hurt. You know that. You know all of this. What’s the point,” Sam catches his breath. He knows that Lucifer’s allowing him to wallow and talk back now, but he knows his patience only will run so far. He was pissed earlier, and someone else paid the price. Sam won’t let that happen again. “It hurt. But I still got through to him. He still cared. He’s a good guy. And then he died, and that was way worse than the fact he’d hurt me. And the first thing he did when he came back was save my life.”
“Do you think he’d do something like that again?”
“What?”
“I mean, I appreciate his rash decision-making, but how does that fair for you? Do you ever look at him and think about how he might crush you like the pawn piece you are to him?”
“I trust Cas.”
“I know.” Lucifer laughs a bit. “You’d let him do anything to you.” Sam feels a flash of the pain of Cas’s, Jimmy’s, Lucifer’s arm inside him. He wants to scream. “It’s funny. Dean made a deal to kill you and Cas broke your brain and I don’t think you believe for a second that these actions won’t happen again, yet you forgive them and love them, yet apparently, you hate me?”
“They would never do what you did to me.” That's a conviction Sam does feel certain in.
“It’s just. A bit pathetic that’s all.”
“Okay.”
“So you hallucinated me,” Lucifer plows on. Sam wants to laugh. He was wondering when he’d get to this.
“Yes.”
“Did you miss me?”
“Did I miss being torn apart limb from limb? I’ll take a pass, thanks.”
“That’s not what I asked. Do I need to find another girl to tie up? I thought we were having an honest discussion.”
“Lucifer,” Sam warns. He doesn’t like the answer, the only real answer he can come up with, one that doesn’t make sense, one that Lucifer already has weeded out of the recesses of his mind and fashioned into a weapon against him.
“Did. You. Miss. Me?” Lucifer asks, enunciating every word, spiking terror in Sam’s chest
“Yes.” It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Sam can’t even find the words to explain, to weed out the defences of the question at hand. He wants Lucifer dead more than anything, does that not count for shit?
No one would understand, would get it. There are little specks in his brain like the fur coats on animals just trying to camouflage or the way the white paint wears off in time. He hates hate hates the part of himself that’s wanting to ask Lucifer if he missed Sam, too. He’s drowning in static.
“That’s just. So hilarious,” Lucifer says. Sam tilts his head back more, looks at the headboard. Feels absolutely nothing inside. “You’re fucked up, you know that?” Lucifer waits, probably savouring that.
“Yes.”
“Tell me more about the hallucination.”
“Made bad jokes. Hyperreal flashbacks. Hallucinatory, could feel the flames and hooks. You wouldn’t let me sleep.”
“Yes, quite a record you had gone without sleeping. Do you think you could match it now?” Sam takes in an extremely shaky breath.
“No. Because I’d fall asleep driving a car or cooking or something and he’d be blaring in my head. I’d fail now.”
“Alright. I won’t tell you that you can’t sleep. Do whatever you want. Just remember if you’re too lazy to pick up a fucking phone call someone might die.”
“Okay. Noted.”
“I’m sorry,” Lucifer says. “We don’t need to talk about that now. I want to hear more about what happened to you. The flood of memories. How did that impact you? What exactly did Cas take away?”
“He took away the hallucinations. He did not take away the memories. I don’t remember everything in clarity, but I remember enough. I’m terrified constantly. You ruined me. Is that what you wanted to hear? That I still can’t even tell if this is real? Or if this is just you settling the score of the newest torture you put me through, and I’ll wake up like I’ve never left?”
“We left, Sam. I won’t lie to you about that now.” It knocks Sam off guard more than the barbs.
“What?”
“This is real. You can ask me as much as you want, and I won’t change my answer on it. It’s entertaining that you were tormented by that sure, but I’m not looking to keep you derealised.”
“I’m always going to be derealised.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a symptom of trauma. And for me it was... interdimensional. You showed me things I never knew were possible. You told me things... It doesn’t matter. Even that aside, it’s too unimaginable, too horrible, it's just...”
“Trauma?” Lucifer tsks. “Feel whatever you want. But know that this is real. We are both out.”
“Okay,” Sam relents. He wants to thank Lucifer, but Lucifer isn’t making him, so he won’t. The problem is, that’s another thing he’s grateful for.
And it's not like there's anyone else who he could talk about this with.
His brain is slipping, like a waterfall pressure behind him, and he’s on some bed of shifting gravel rocks.
“And then the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
“I hit a dog. I couldn’t let him die. And I met Amelia.”
“Do you miss her?”
“Constantly.”
“She wouldn’t get it, you know? She’d never be able to understand you, and what you’ve gone through. It sucks Dean had to ruin it all for you, but come on, you weren’t actually going to last with her.”
“I know. She was kind, though. She didn’t judge me.”
“But you thought of me, constantly.”
“I tried not to." Sam sighs. "It was strange, being so close to her, having her know so much about things that have happened to me just because of how I reacted.”
“Tell me about the sex.” Sam floats further down, something choking him up. It’s hard to remind himself that he can’t simply freeze, that the repercussions for that are worse.
“I often had panic adjacent reactions, as one does in that sort of situation. She responded in a positive fashion that reinforced trust for intimacy.”
“So you freaked out and she responded well. Okay. Tell me about the sex since.”
“Piper. Before you reached out to me. And, uh. Well, Toni-- well no, that wasn’t. That was. In my head.”
“You can’t catch a break, can you? Also, you’re forgetting someone.”
“I am?”
“Eileen?”
“I-- we haven’t had sex. We only, talked, on video call, we--”
“You want it.”
“She’s a very attractive woman who I admire for her strength and int--”
“It’s okay, you know, to want her. And it’s also okay that you wanted to ditch Dean. It’s not a betrayal to have a separate identity from your brother.”
“But you--”
“What I was talking about wasn’t about that. You just took it that way to reinforce your narrow-minded view of reality. You could flip your brother off right now and never see him again, and I’d be proud.” Nothing feels real. He knows he doesn’t, shouldn't, would hate Lucifer’s approval, but also he wants Lucifer to tell him everything is real again. “Sometime I want to hear more about Amelia, your hallucinations, all of it, but we haven’t even gotten to the trials. Were you chasing the high of the Cage? Righteously suffering?”
“It was different,” Sam said, and for some reason Lucifer’s jabs that could send him off-kilter actually just made him feel more at ease. He is sliding, bad, into bad habits. “I feel so trapped by Dean, but I could do good, and be... be purified. I felt.” Sam almost wants to cry. “I felt like every atom in me was personified and sick, and dying, and it was agony, but--”
Sam stops, freezes, at the small noises he hears from Lucifer’s throat. Guttural. Familiar.
Everything twists again, and he’s nauseous, speechless, and so so helplessly trapped.
“Sam?”
“I’m tired,” Sam says, blindly, as if he has a choice. He traces back, to all the, the cues, the sounds, the questions about Sam and sex. Sam thought it was just, torment, that he was revelling --
“Yeah, nearly killed someone with it,” Lucifer says, offhandedly. Maybe Sam was wrong. But why would Lucifer even care that much about some pseudo torment therapy session if it wasn’t-- “Sam? Continue.”
He hears Lucifer again, unmistakable. It’s not like Lucifer isn’t making it clear on purpose. Or maybe Sam’s hallucinating again. Lucifer would tell him the truth. Lucifer said he would. But Sam can’t-- he’s--
The memories are all pressing up against him, and he feels it, feels the layered imagery and is so so trapped, ashamed, and helpless, trapped, he can’t. Can’t.
“I’m, I was tired, during the trials, I kept. I wanted to die. I was supposed to die. I just wanted to die. I wanted to die. Dean wouldn’t let me go. No one lets me go. He regretted it, he regretted it too. I should have died then, and then--”
“Seeming frazzled, Sam?”
Lucifer’s mocking him. Of course, he’s mocking him. For some reason, Sam feels bizarrely stupid that Lucifer’d care about his pain . He just, he thought since, he might enjoy Sam’s pain but not. He thought maybe they could just talk. Sam feels so utterly stupid.
“I’m tired,” Sam repeats. “You going to, going to act like like a cartoon villain, if I... sleep?”
“You’d jump for me now, wouldn’t you Sam?”
Sam feels like he’s about to throw up. He should feel lucky. He’s so lucky. The things Lucifer has done to him. This isn’t, this is nothing. This is nothing.
Lucifer could just be toying with him anyways. Sam has no clue what's going on. Nothing matters. Sam tries to tell himself he's safe.
“Yes,” he says. He doesn’t want to be a part of this. He’s not going to let someone die so he’s not a part of this. He doesn’t have a way out. He’s very aware he hasn’t asked Lucifer to stop. But of course, he can’t. He’s not sure if it’s fear or just plain stupidity that he can’t ask.
“What did it make you feel?”
“You made me, made me jump before--”
Sam thinks of talking about Amelia, about Eileen.
“Can I, I’ll fall asleep on call, you can yell, wake me up, I just, please, I want to sleep.”
“How did I make you jump before?”
“Once on hot coals," Sam says, there were so many times, but he feels on fire right now. “You wouldn’t let me stop. You wouldn’t let me stop.”
“Good,” Lucifer says, gasps again, is quiet. He laughs a bit, after a moment. “Fine, sleep, whatever.”
Sam’s quiet after that. He’s allowed to be. Lucifer makes a few noises from here to then, hums little tunes. Sam falls asleep, disoriented and sick to his stomach and unwilling to let the guilt hit.
--
When Sam wakes up, he panics and checks his phone, horrified to see he’s slept for almost 6 hours and it’s well past nine. But it looks like Lucifer had been the one to hang up, and while Sam is certain he had a bunch of missed messages before, now he only has one from about an hour ago.
“Good talk. Eat meat with breakfast. And DON’T WORRY! It doesn’t HAVE to be human. ;);)”
It’s so petulant, it makes Sam take stock of everything Lucifer has done -- to him -- in the last couple of days. Which is, realistically: nothing at all. Sam feels deep-seated embarrassment that makes him not even want to show his face around Dean right now, or anyone, really, again. All Lucifer has to do is say a few words or even look at him a certain way, and Sam’s completely fucking undone.
The thing is, Lucifer knows that. It’s not like Lucifer hasn’t just fucked around with his brain before, hasn’t looked at Sam and thought “it’d also be fun to humiliate him by the fact I’m not even touching him now.” And both Sam and Lucifer know that Lucifer gets bored of it.
Sam’s overreacting, to everything, it’s true. He tries to tell himself it’s natural, that there are more memories than a human is supposed to even have locked up in his brain, and that it blows everything else out of proportion. That he should be grateful, count his fucking blessings, that Lucifer is just messing around with him because it’s fun to see that he still can. Because it will get worse, that’s obvious.
And Sam needs to do better. Find ways to never bring up Amelia or Eileen’s names. When he thinks about how he did, nausea twists into a blank red spot that matches the space at the back of his head. He just wanted to not enrage Lucifer, not make Lucifer go after someone else and hurt them, he tries to convince himself. He needs to find a better balance. It’s all flimsy bullshit excuses.
Lucifer will feed and relish on Sam’s turmoil, every contrary conflicting part of it, and then he’ll escalate. It’s just all a fucking game to him, how to fuck around and torment Sam the most. Sam’s so lucky, right now, he’s so lucky. He remembers what it’s like for Lucifer to--
He’s so lucky.
When he throws up the sausage he put into a sandwich with his breakfast that next morning, he tells Lucifer immediately.
And is relieved when Lucifer texts back saying it still counts.