Chapter Text
He’s not sure if he wakes up or appears or comes to but the blinding white eventually fades to a nothingness of sorts, emptiness pressing in on him from every side. He thinks he’s lying on his back so he tries standing up but nothing looks different from his feet – same emptiness, everywhere, endless.
“Sam?” His voice sounds hollow, too loud and too quiet at the same time. “Sammy? You here?” Panic races through his chest at the thought of Sam being back in the Cage, of being stuck in Heaven without Sam or Cas for the rest of eternity.
Time doesn’t feel the way it normally does, because at one point in the future or maybe in the past or maybe in-an-hour-ago he turns around and sees a dark shape behind him.
“Sammy?” He’s hoarse from yelling, but the shape turns and starts jogging towards him and yeah, that’s definitely his brother. He could cry with relief when Sam’s giraffe arms loop around him; his brother smells like clean laundry and gun-cleaning oil, the same way he’s always smelled. He pulls away and something’s off. Sam looks like someone’s chopped off one of his limbs – empty, more than a little broken, like he’s trying to make up for the loss of something. It takes Dean a couple of seconds to realize that Lucifer isn’t around here and he wonders whether that’s it – they definitely had some kind of vessel connection going on, and he can only hope it hasn’t taken a toll on Sam. He doesn’t deserve something like that, even if it’s Lucifer that’s in question.
“Dean, thank god,” Sam says. His voice is wrecked. “Or– I don’t know, is that blasphemy up here?”
“I don’t think He minds,” comes a new voice, and Dean whirls around to see Cas standing in front of them. Cas, Castiel, his Cas, with the slightest hint of a smile on his face and instantly Dean knows.
“Cas, you’re– are you an angel?” he sputters, incredulous. He’s wearing his old trenchcoat over a pair of familiar jeans and dark flannel and a gray t-shirt and he’s never looked better. Cas’s smile widens, barely-just-barely.
“Someone saw fit to restore my rank,” he says, warmth in his voice. “It seems I’ve learned my lesson.” Dean doesn’t care that his little brother is watching. He doesn’t care that he’s in Heaven (or some kind of limbo, he’s still not sure). All that matters is that he grabs Cas by the lapels of that damned coat and kisses him, strong and deep, because it’s the right thing to do. Sam makes a quiet noise of amusement behind him; Dean just slides a hand round the back of Cas’s neck and keeps going. Sam pointedly clears his throat.
“Cas, where are we?” he asks, and Dean forces himself out of Cas’s personal space for the sake of politeness.
“Outside the gates of Heaven,” he responds, and the back of his hand brushes against Dean’s. There’s the tiniest discharge of static electricity. “I requested to be the one to lead you both in.”
The shadow of a grin flits across Sam’s tired face.
“Thanks,” he says, and his voice sounds a tiny bit brighter.
Heaven’s not so bad this time around, he thinks. He and Sam wander off in their own directions for a while, and Dean spends maybe a day, maybe a year, reliving every tiny moment that he loved. Watching Sam shoot a neat line of bullet holes into a target, getting tucked in by Mom, fixing up the Impala, driving it for the first time. Cas flits in and out of his memories and he spends another hour-day-decade with him, sometimes drinking in his quiet breaths, sometimes screaming his name as his mind blissfully blanks out with the rush of orgasm. His life feels complete, for once – he feels like he hasn’t died in vain. Cas tells him that things on earth are shifting back into their normal balance sans Leviathans and Dean feels a sort of serenity and peacefulness he’s not sure he ever felt before.
He eventually persuades Cas into leading him and Sam back into Ash’s heaven. It’s exactly like it was the last time – same old Roadhouse, same angel-radar computer, same bar, same Ash.
“So how’d you end up here this time, amigos?” drawls Ash, chugging a can of cheap beer and leaning onto his elbows. The jukebox is softly playing Going To California and hey, this is Heaven, so Dean mentally lines up a playlist of his favorite songs to come next. Sam chuckles.
“Man, you probably wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” he says. Ash shrugs.
“Easier to believe stuff when you’re dead,” he responds neutrally. “But hang on a sec, someone’s on their way to see you guys.”
Sam’s jaw drops and the next thing he knows, he’s barreling forward and pulling Jo into a tight hug. Ellen has to actually yank Dean off of the bar stool because he’s frozen, but then he melts and wraps Ellen up in his arms. Jo pulls away and gives him a watery smile, and then claps Dean on the shoulder. Sam lets himself get pulled into a rough hug by Ellen and smells food and beer and woodsmoke on her.
“We were hopin’ you boys would have a couple more years on us,” she says sternly. “And Castiel, we heard some rumors about you that better not be true.”
Cas ducks his head; Sam catches Dean subtly reaching out to him. Jo pulls a beer out from behind the bar and cracks it open.
“So,” she starts, “you wanna tell us what’s been happening? We don’t know how reliable the grapevine is ‘round here.”
He’s got no idea how long it actually takes to fill them in on everything, from that night in Carthage to the Horsemen’s rings to being in the Cage to being back out to Cas’s brief god-hood to the Leviathans to Lucifer to the vampires to the spell. There are approximately forty empty beer bottles he’s responsible for, but he’s still only pleasantly buzzed. One of the many perks of being dead, he supposes.
The story has broken down into aimless conversation between the six of them and Sam sits back, watching Cas animatedly tell the story of how Dean tried to get him laid via hooker. Dean’s laughing and watching every move that Cas makes with a sort of softness in his eyes that Sam hasn’t seen in decades – since before he left for Stanford, probably. It feels good to see him happy and hell, Cas is awesome. Cas is more than awesome. Ash is listening to them with one ear, using the majority of his attention to tweak something on his laptop.
And then, three things happen at once:
Cas goes stock-still, eyes wide, and within a second there’s the loud snap of wings and he’s gone.
The computer starts beeping frantically, accompanied by a chorus of colorful curses from Ash.
And Sam nearly passes out.
His bones are on fire and he’s never felt anything like this – a pleasure so immense that it almost hurts and his core is burning so fiercely that he thinks he’s going to disintegrate and he realizes he’s on his knees, clutching futilely at his chest and Dean is yelling and Ash is yelling and Jo is yelling and Ellen is yelling and then somehow, through the din, an impossibly familiar voice cuts above everyone else.
“Hi, Sam.”
It’s not possible.
It’s not possible because he felt the connection die when the whiteness swallowed everything – like a sword cutting through all the cords binding them – and he’s been a half-soul for all this time and it’s not possible that Lucifer is standing in the middle of the Roadhouse as Sam hauls himself to his feet, still shaking. Dean grabs his elbow and helps him up; the silence is deafening.
Lucifer is still smiling, that same easy smirk he always wears, and he walks over and opens the door expectantly. There’s empty nothingness outside.
“Shall we?” he says.
Sam is absolutely past the point of functioning so he barely registers Dean’s palm shoving him gently forward until he stumbles out of the Roadhouse and the door quietly snaps closed behind him.
He’s got no idea how much time they spend staring at each other, and then he finally regains enough control over himself to break the silence.
“It’s really you?” he whispers, hoping against hope.
Lucifer’s smirk melts into something softer and everything suddenly lines up for Sam. He crosses the distance between them in three long strides and kisses him.
It’s weird. God, it’s weird that the Devil’s mouth is a perfect fit against his and the way he sighs into Sam and the curve of his jaw and most of all, it’s weird that this feels like the most natural thing to do. He doesn’t even know what to do with his hands for all of the four seconds it lasts, and he ends up with his fingers curled around one of Lucifer’s biceps.
“Well, Sammy,” he murmurs, “can’t say I was expecting that.” Sam’s bones are made of hot ashes and coal-fire and he pulls Lucifer into a rough, desperate hug.
“How– What ha–” He swallows and starts again. “How?”
The emptiness dissolves and ripples and shifts and they’re back in The House, their house – in Sam’s bed, under the same scratchy sheets, on the same lumpy mattress. Lucifer smiles and he looks exactly like a self-satisfied cat so, naturally, Sam grins back and kisses the smug smirk off of his face. Lucifer’s mouth is cool and soft and exactly like he’d imagined it to be.
Not that he’d ever thought about kissing the Devil.
“Are you gonna let me talk or keep me busy?” says Lucifer, lips curling up. “‘Cause I’m fine with either.” Sam pushes himself up onto one elbow.
“What happened?” he asks, trying to keep a stupid smile off of his face. There’s a hum deep-set in his bones and it’s flooding every inch of him with euphoria.
“I talked to my father,” says Lucifer quietly, trailing fingers down Sam’s side, resting barely under the hem of his t-shirt. He chuckles at the look on Sam’s face. “Michael too.”
“But how? Why?” Lucifer’s palm slides up under his shirt and Sam nearly forgets what he just said at the feeling of fingertips dancing lightly across his hipbones.
“He was testing me, you know,” he murmurs, and kisses Sam once, twice, until he’s breathless and the slightest bit dizzy. “He’s the one who let me slip out of the Cage with you. He wanted to see what I’d do, and I made the right choices.”
“Sacrificing yourself?” asks Sam. Lucifer shrugs.
“I learned from you and Dean,” he corrects. “Apparently Dad did a lot of thinking, too. We had a nice talk about our feelings. You know, hankies for everyone, stuff like that.” The next part is so quiet that Sam barely hears it. “He’s proud of me.” The happiness radiating from Lucifer is so strong and infectious that Sam grins in response, slings his body over Lucifer’s and kisses him until he can’t breathe.
“Me too, you know,” he murmurs. “Against everything you’re supposed to be, you did the right thing.”
And with a ferocious blaze of light and wings and Grace, Lucifer lets him in and Sam’s never felt more perfect.
“I know.”