He said out of relief. Sam looked him dead in the eye. He didn’t appear to shy away as the archangel approached. That was a good thing, as far as Lucifer could tell.
"I have escaped the Cage, and that is the first thing that you ask."
"Just answer the question."
"What, no ‘please, Lucifer?’ You used to respect me more than that."
"Things change. What do you want?"
Lucifer squinted his eyes and tipped his was to the side as he stepped closer to Sam.
Sam stayed quiet. Lucifer stood less than a foot away from him and stared directly into his true vessel’s eyes. They were supposed to be the windows to the human soul.
"What’s wrong, Sam? Do not lie to me."
"I don’t owe you any answers. What. Do. You. Want."
"You can feel it though, right? The feeling that something’s missing?"
Sam sighed but stood his ground.
"I can’t sleep. I don’t have a difficult time addressing people about difficult subjects. I don’t feel the need to empathize with everyone I work with on cases. Something’s missing, but I’m not sure I care."
"It’s scary, isn’t it?" Lucifer prompted him further. "It’s like there’s a limb that’s missing, and you feel the phantom pains and itches there. Like when you make a snap decision that you might have otherwise deliberated endlessly. You notice it, and it bothers you. It has to."
"What makes you think that?"
"I’m here for you, Sam. That’s it. No catch. No possession requests. No apocalyptic goals. I know what it’s like to have my grace ripped to shreds, my wings battered and damaged beyond repair. Despite that missing piece of yours, we’re still the same, in a sense. Aren’t we?"
Sam’s pupils dilated. That was it. Humans always longed for some sort of comradeship—some sort of familiarity—with others. A human who fits into a minority group will eventually become part of a flock mostly composed of similarly marginalised individuals. It is nature. And Sam, minus the moral compass of a soul, had found a new member of his flock.
Lucifer didn’t like it one bit. He would almost rather have Sam stab him through the chest with an archangel blade than stare at him so blankly. He felt no more whole having found this version of Sam than he had when he was searching desperately for him in the Cage.
Somewhere else, a bright, damaged shooting star had touched down, naked, surrounded by earth, and shivering with a fever and longing for its colder other half.
