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I dropped out of heaven
But I landed with two feet firm on the ground
I can't afford fire
But I keep myself warm with little hope that I found
Mad as a beastly
I'm crooked as hell as a king with no crown
We were born to be broken
But I live to be put back together again
♫ Smoked Out of Heaven by Saint Claire
-
“I love you,” Dean says.
Lucifer snorts, not looking at Dean. “You can't.”
Oh jeez, Dean thinks, here they go. “Sorry, what?”
Lucifer sighs. Can they not? “You can't love me, Dean.”
“Yeah? And why's that?” Dean chirps. “'cause you're the devil?”
“Exactly.” So can they drop it?
N-o-p-e. “Gee, you know, that's right, I guess that just slipped my mind—are you kidding me? You're not even gonna try to believe me?”
“There's no point.”
“Other than the point of me loving you.”
“Dean.”
“Read my mind.”
“What?” It's the first time Lucifer's looked at him since he started this inane conversation. Dean hates anyone poking through his mind.
“Read my mind,” Dean repeats, leaning forward, eyes meeting Lucifer's unflinchingly. “Dig in deep. Make that dive.”
Lucifer draws away. “No.”
“What, you scared?” Dean quips, voice low. “Which scares you more, I wonder? That I'm lying, or that I'm not?”
Lucifer whirls back towards him. “Whatever game you think you're playing, Winchester...”
Ohhh, the W-word, Dean thinks. “No game. Lucifer, trust me.” Those words Dean spoke to Lucifer years ago were a turning point for them and Dean knows they shake Lucifer. Dean knew this was going to be difficult. He wasn't going to back off just because Lucifer was battening down the hatches.
Don't mind dive when you're angry should be a thing, but Dean doesn't jolt even when Lucifer presses scalding hands to his temples and floods grace through him.
Dean's mind isn't organized—it's a wild nervous system of thoughts, one memory firing off, sparking five more down the chain, an infinite processing system. It's beautiful. Lucifer wonders if he could just stay here. It would be enough.
He finds a branch from their most recent conversation and follows it down the line:
“Trust me,” Dean pleads, taking the spot that Sam had flounced away from. Lucifer is bleeding out under him and he's going to die and how stupid is that? When Dean could actually start thinking Lucifer a friend, he's going to just die?!
All because, what? He's too stubborn?
Lucifer wouldn't let Sam help. Fine. Fine... But...
Lucifer nods in response to Dean, and Dean feels the blossom of relief in his soul, engulfing him, spreading out...
The soul can't lie. It's a domino effect of memory.
“Dean, what's with you and Lucifer?”
“He's my friend, Sammy, suck it up.”
“Are you his friend?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“Dude, that's really dangerous.”
“Whatever, man.”
Getting close to the Winchester by itself was a dangerous concept.
Dean stares deliriously up at Lucifer, grinning lopsidedly as he coughs up blood. “You're a ray of sunshine to see.”
“Dean.”
“Sorry, is that insulting? Really didn't mean it. 's'good to see you is all.”
“Dean, stop talking. How are you this bad?”
“You said 'stop talking,'” Dean slurs. He shivers at Lucifer's healing hand starting to stroke down his side. “Werewolf hit. They were gonna finish me off but I slipped down the ravine and they just said fuck it.” He stares unblinking at Lucifer. “How're you even here? How'd you find me?”
“You prayed to me,” Lucifer growls.
“Oh,” Dean says. He sort of remembers that. He really hopes he didn't say anything stupid. “Is that okay?”
“It's fine—I'd rather you not be dead.”
“Awww.”
“Shut up.”
This was why getting close to anyone was a problem. They were so, so mortal and so easy to be lost.
“Whoa—jeez—what are you doing here—”
“You prayed to me. It was concerning given the last time.”
“Okay, fair. Hindsight, I should have said things were fine.”
“Then why—”
“I just,” Dean flails, his embarrassment flaring. “I imagine you don't get many prayers and my last one was shit so I just wanted you to—to have something nice that wasn't just someone needing something.”
Lucifer vanishes. Dean swears. What is that? Friendship over? He wonders if he shouldn't have done it, but he doesn't regret it.
(He sees Lucifer again a few days later, and Lucifer doesn't comment on it. Dean starts to pray to him every few weeks, and Lucifer never says anything about it, so he thinks it's okay.)
Lucifer fucking hates Dean Winchester. He never should have let things get this bad. What the hell is he supposed to do now?
“Hey, um, Cas, weird question that requires your one-hundred percent confidentiality.”
“...Okay?”
“Like, if I can start to see one angel's particular wings, does that—does that mean anything?”
Lucifer almost breaks away from Dean's mind completely, his shock mirroring Castiel's.
“Dean, that's—that's—” Castiel swallows. “...Is it Lucifer?”
Dean glances away. “Yeah,” he says, very quiet.
“It's—complicated. It means a lot of potential things. They may be reacting to your soul. Your soul may be reacting to them.”
“It's a... big deal, though?”
“Yes. You may want to talk with Lucifer.”
“I can't, Cas,” Dean's voice cracks. “Call me selfish, but he kinda seems like he'd be a runner. He's my friend, Cas. And maybe he's becoming more than that, but I can't lose him.”
And Lucifer... Lucifer would have run.
“Y'all better fuck off right back to Heaven,” Dean roars, spinning the angel blade in his hand, stepping up around Lucifer, mindful of the partially-visible wings, glancing over how battered Lucifer looks before turning wrathful eyes to the angels.
“He needs to be dealt with. It's been put off for far too long.”
“Aw, cute, Daddy's little murder machines,” Dean snarls.
“Dean, leave it,” Lucifer rasps.
“You can go fuck yourself, Lucifer,” Dean sings, not turning around. Another spin of his blade. “I will gut anyone who comes close, got it?” he yells.
Dean's voice is a proclamation that will never leave Lucifer—nor the Heavenly Host.
“Sammy, we gotta talk.”
“Is this about how you're in love with Lucifer?”
“I—what? I mean, yes, but, what?”
“Dude, you defended him from an entire battalion of angels. Cas heard the stories. No angel is going to mess with Lucifer now.”
“They'd better fucking not. So you... you don't hate me?”
“You've only been getting happier over the years, Dean. Ever since you called him your friend. Like, don't get me wrong, I think it's super strange but... he's saved your life probably as much as you've saved his, so at least I know he's not just gonna let you die.”
The soul. Can't. Lie.
Dean's watching Lucifer work and his soul is an overflowing beacon of life and love and Lucifer might just drown in it. “I love you.”
“You can't.”
Dean's soul bubbles with laughter and it had expected this, and that lessens the rejection.
“Sorry, what?”
“You can't love me, Dean.”
“Yeah? And why's that? 'cause you're the devil?”
“Exactly.”
No amount of prayers, of beating back angels, will ever erase that self-hatred that Lucifer feels for himself, but dammit, Dean loves him, and fucking dammit, one day maybe Lucifer will be able to accept that.
Lucifer jars away from Dean's mind when he feels a hand stroke lightly over his feathers and he shudders, gasping, head ducked down. “If you knew,” he says, voice shaking, “some of the connotations about seeing my wings, why wouldn't you just mention that instead of—instead of allowing me into your mind?”
“Because I wanted you to feel how I felt,” Dean whispers, brushing a finger along the edge of a feather, smiling. “I can see them completely now. It was gradual for a long time, a little more every so often... and then they were just... I don't even know what it was that really triggered it. I just know after whatever went through my head, whatever realization that went oh, I'm in love, the next time I saw you, they filled in.”
“And what about whether or not I'd run?”
“Still a possibility, sure,” Dean says, tilting his head to look at Lucifer. “But I don't think you will.” He draws in a steadying breath. “I'd really like it if you stayed here. With me.” He drops his hand into his lap, like his touch might color Lucifer's thoughts. “I know you hate yourself. I know you don't think you deserve love. But mine—it isn't something that's just going to go away. It's only ever blossomed.”
Lucifer stands and puts distance between them, his pace erratic, a twitch to his limbs. “I saw into your soul, that didn't go both ways,” he bites out.
Dean smiles. “I don't have to see into yours to know, Lucifer. You carry yourself like you still have a mountain on your back. I saw it in how you faced your Dad. I saw it in how you faced the angels. No one needs to enact a punishment at you because you just do it to yourself.”
“I deserve—” Lucifer sneers.
“To let go of your past,” Dean interrupts. “Not forget it. Just let go. You've got a deathgrip on it that's perpetually killing you.”
“You should let that take me,” Lucifer says, his shoulders sagging, his wingtips brushing the floor.
“No,” Dean argues. “I refuse.” He smiles. “God didn't smite you. Michael walked away. Sam's satisfied. Who else are you beating yourself up over?”
Lucifer clenches his hands and his whole body is tense. He won't look at Dean.
Dean's eyes widen. “No,” he says, disbelief overwhelming his tone. “No—why would you?” He stands, quick, crossing the room until he's directly in front of Lucifer, trying to catch his gaze. “Lucifer,” he pleads. Lucifer's eyes are red like a warning in the blackest of night, but Dean doesn't care. “Why?” he repeats. “Why me?”
Lucifer's breath hitches. The air is frigid around them. Dean can see his breathing. Lucifer's lips pull back, revealing teeth, and his words bite out like a feral animal, “Because Dean,” he purrs dangerously, “I am the reason everything in your life happened. I am the reason for your mother, your brother, your descent into Hell.”
“Okay, first off, my life is a lot longer than everything leading up to Apocalypse 1.0,” Dean says, his voice too light, and he knows that throws Lucifer off. “Second off, what did I just say about letting go of your past? It's my past, too. That past is my foundation. You may have been part of the machinations, but so was God, so was Michael. Hell, so was my mom and dad and my brother. You made the stepping stones. All of us? We fucking made the jumps. You don't get to take the blame—or the credit—for the decisions we made in our life. Free Will, Lucifer. It's a fucking bitch.”
Lucifer stares at him in twisted confusion. There's still a faint redness to his eyes, but that thrum of power is fading, and the temperature is slowly remembering to rise.
“I don't understand you,” Lucifer whispers.
“I got time for you to learn,” Dean answers. “If you're willing.”
The red fades. Lucifer crumples forward into Dean's space and Dean reaches up around him, hands sinking into his wings, holding him as Lucifer rests his head atop Dean's shoulder.
“Hey, I got you,” Dean murmurs. “I'm not going anywhere.”
“You really, really should,” Lucifer mumbles.
“Yeah, well, you know me, I'm a stubborn piece of shit. Trouble with authority, folks more powerful than me. Always gotta be rebellious. Sound familiar?”
Dean can feel Lucifer laugh against him. He chalks that up as a point in his favor.
“Lucifer,” Dean says, after longer than he knows, “how much have you let yourself give up on in your life?”
Lucifer doesn't answer. Dean kind of expected that.
“How many times have you stopped trying?” Dean continues.
“I think you can imagine,” Lucifer answers, “after my first time, after there was no longer a script...”
After the failed Apocalypse, Dean thinks.
“You gotta stop running eventually,” Dean says, pulling away enough to watch Lucifer.
“You think you can keep me?” Lucifer forces out, but the sharpness doesn't flow right.
“Wouldn't dare,” Dean answers anyway. “Not ever. You stay because you want to, not because I've made you. I'm not building a relationship on a lie, even if you think that might make it easier for you.” Dean's gaze is serious. “Doing things the easy way is what got you into your downward spiral. Life's hard. But it can be easier.”
“You writing motivational speeches now?”
Dean moves a hand free, only to punch Lucifer in the shoulder. “Shut up. I'm trying to help you. Ease the burden. Dumb partner shit.”
Lucifer sighs, like his entire being has left his body with that single gesture. “You eased my burden a long time ago,” he says.
“Yet you're still holding onto your guilt complex.”
Lucifer shrugs one shoulder, glancing away. “We believed our Father made us as Perfection. But that was wrong: he made us in his image.” His gaze flicks back. “Our Father isn't Perfect.”
Dean whistles. He expects the room to open up and swallow them both, but they're still standing. Dean wonders if Lucifer was making one last play in order to get his Father, to get anyone, to smite him. When time continues to tick by and nothing happens, Lucifer finally chances a smile.
“Well.” Dean grins. “Two semi-broken, not perfect people?”
“I should run,” Lucifer starts, quiet, considering, and Dean freezes, locked in the moment. But then Dean feels the touch of another mind, like a hand held out, a gentle offering—and that holds a greater understanding than ever seeing Lucifer's wings. He feels the echoed blossom of love, a powerful quake answering Dean's continued proclamations, and then he hears: “but for once I think I won't.”
“Wouldn't let you get away that easily, anyway. Bet you I could catch up with the right resources.”
“Oh?”
“I mean I bet if I phoned up Adam saying 'Lucifer's being stupid will Michael please help me' he just might even if they both want nothing to do with us.”
“Please don't bring my brother into this.”
Dean smirks and leans back into Lucifer. He can still feel the hum of Lucifer's mind like an embrace, and it settles something in his soul. Lucifer puts an arm and a wing around him to add to the weave of his mind.
“I suppose,” Lucifer says aloud, “it would be fun if you ran along with me.”
Dean burrows his face in feathers to muffle his laughter. “You sap.” There's an instant reply of satisfaction from the edges of Lucifer's mind and Dean really doesn't think Lucifer's going to bolt but even if he does they'll figure that out, too.