Dumat: The Dragon of Silence (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} nearestvessel) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} valarlogs,@ 2013-09-15 14:52:00 |
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What: Dean puts the pieces together and realizes that Cas’ weird dreams might be more than that.
When: 9/15
Where: Lucifer’s, then Hannibal’s, then back to Lucifer's
Rating: Medium - TW for mentions of violence, non-con, torture, but nothing too detailed. Ends schmoopy.
Status: Complete
Dean’d gotten Cas to get him into Lucifer’s place like he’d promised. That Cas couldn’t stay there wasn’t surprising. Dean’d read that look in his husband’s eyes before the angel even had to say anything. A rough ‘go, I’ve got this,’ was all it took.
It took him a few minutes to steel himself enough to actually go down the stairs, and when he did, well...this wasn’t exactly what he was expecting. It was spotless. Everything seemed to be in its place, but that didn’t make it not seem somehow weird.
It didn’t take Dean long to figure out what exactly was weird about this. The furniture was where it was meant to be, yeah, but there was a good deal of leather meant for binding that was missing. And Dean’s toolbox that he’d left there by accident and kept meaning to pick up? Yeah, that wasn’t where it had been before either. Wedged near it in the hardwood floors were tiny bits of leather shavings like someone had been carving.
Dean wanted to call Cas, but he was pretty sure he couldn’t stand to hear that tone of voice from him.
So instead he texted.
Shit’s weird here. Think your dreams might be onto something. Find him.
Dean didn’t expect Cas to text back. He settled in to the couch to wait. Either Cas would find the kid alive, or he’d find his body or he’d find nothing and show up back to see Dean at some point anyway.
At their own kitchen table, Castiel got the text. Read it three times to make sure his mind wasn't playing tricks on him, to make sure he wasn't just dreaming.
He did not respond (how could he? His hands were shaking), but instead closed his eyes took a very sharp breath and then a very deep one. And then he thought about those dreams. The horrible dreams that had woken him every night with sadness and tears.
He ignored that now, and considered only the details. Not here. Not Lucifer's so --
And then he was gone in a flash. Did his wings make sound if there was no one there to hear it?
It was Hannibal's house that he arrived in, and Castiel - wide eyed and over sensitive looked around cautiously in the living room. No one was home. Of course not. They'd be in the hospital, no doubt, what with Abigail…
So he wandered the house, sometimes with his eyes closed. Just feeling.
Samandriel felt Castiel enter the house. He heard him moving around now just like he’d heard everything that went down several days prior. He’d tried to cry out then, but he couldn’t do it physically and neither of his brothers seemed to hear him otherwise. He was bound far too snugly to move much, but he managed to at least wiggle a bit in hopes that maybe Cas would hear him. He cried out with his Grace even though his mouth remained covered, jaw wedged tightly closed and he could feel more splinters digging into his bare skin.
There were footsteps in the room. Samandriel could see the shifting light, feel the vibrations from where he was wedged. Throat dry and sore, he cried out as much as he could, so very muffled but desperately hopeful anyway.
Unsure if he'd felt something or heard something, or maybe a little of both, Castiel paused completely -- unearthly still for a moment before turning and looking around the room, slow, careful.
"Samandriel?" He did not call it so much as whisper the name. It felt like too much to hope for, but it was there anyway. Just like now that he was looking there was something so obviously wrong about the floorboards. He didn't think to find a hammer, just tore against those nails that weren't quite completely in the wood with his fingers and wondered when exactly he'd thrown himself to his knees to do so.
Samandriel whined as best he could to confirm that, and when the board near his foot started to come loose, he managed to move his ankles enough to prove to Castiel that he was still alive and his brother was wrenching things in the right place.
At seeing that, Castiel let out a wrecked sort of noise -- a half sob that turned into a laugh and wrenched its way out of him and only worked to pull harder on the wood. It was easier once full pieces came up. Frantically, deliriously, he sent up a thank you to his Father, and made a note to go to Garcia and show his gratitude however possible when all this was through. She'd prayed. Maybe it was a balance of karma after all.
"Samandriel, Samandriel. I'm -- oh --" He tore off the last bit of wood, fingers pained and not caring, crying, and not caring. "It is you," he said, sounding hushed and reverent and something else he wasn't sure of. He removed the mess of tape and cloth from his brother's mouth first.
Samandriel took a deep breath. There were tracks in the dirt and blood on his face where his tears had broken through, and he was all bound up with leather marked with so many ancient Enochian sigils that even though the bindings weren’t particularly tight, it was no surprise he couldn’t move.
His shirt was still missing, blood and welts and wounds still covering his torso, but he was free. Sort of. He breathed heavily, just watching Castiel. “Castiel,” he said, voice still so rough. “Help.” He had to...he had to fix it.
Castiel said nothing, only tore through the pockets of his coat in order to procure the box cutter he had in his pocket and then steadily went to work cutting away those ties and binds. He ignored the Enochian words etched into the leather -- already knew what it was and didn't want to imagine being as mute and helpless as it had made his brother. Confined.
When he was done, he pulled Samandriel out from the spot in the floor until they were a tangle of limbs and he couldn't help himself from just clinging to the other man. "Can you heal?"
Samandriel didn’t so much allow himself to be pulled up, but rather just was pulled up. He flopped forward against him, catching his breath while he worked out adjusting to daylight again and being able to move. Right. Healing.
Cas needed him. Samandriel could feel all the deep bruises and fractures in bones that his brother was clearly ignoring. It took a moment, but he fixed him, and he managed to close his own wounds as long as he was there.
“Wait,” he said roughly, and was briefly gone to go bring his sister out of the coma he’d heard her end up in. When he returned, his legs still weren’t working right under him and he found himself half falling into his brother all over again.
“Dean,” he said, voice growing weaker the more he used it. He needed water, but Castiel could get him where he was going easily enough. His brother’s wings were beautiful. Did he know that? Samandriel wanted to say as much, but it was hard.
It was a shock to the system to feel so completely whole again -- Castiel hadn't even realized, not really, that he had been hurting (of course, he'd been taking a healthy dose of Dean's painkillers the last few days, but more to override his hangovers than anything else). He hadn't been asking to be healed, only for Samandriel to heal himself.
He barely had time to react before Samandriel was back -- before he was wrapping his arms around his little brother again and letting out another little sob. "Okay," he said. "okay." Cas might have just told his brother to slow down, to breathe and relax a little, but the word on his lips only kept them going. Dean.
Two fingers to the other man's forehead and a flutter of wings that Castiel had not taken the time to admire later, and they were in Lucifer's living room -- although still a tangle of limbs on the floor. "Dean."
Dean was headed up the stairs when he heard the thunk and managed to move far faster than he thought possible. The kid looked like shit, and when he reached out to grab Samandriel by the upper arm to help him up, he found instead that his hand was being held and he was very disorientingly put back together.
With that newfound strength, he pulled Samandriel up, sat him down heavily on the black leather couch and looked at Cas.
“Get Lucifer,” he said. “Don’t tell him anything, just take him.” They didn’t have time for explanations and Lucifer wouldn’t be pissed for long. Rushing to the kitchen, Dean grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge, twisted it open and watched as the kid guzzled it down like he hadn’t had a drink in days. To be fair, that was actually the most accurate.
Cas hesitated for only a moment, bright and unapologetically wet eyes flitting to Samandriel before he pulled himself to his feet, squared his shoulders and was gone.
It wasn't hard to find Lucifer -- Castiel knew that he'd been in Lux almost the entire length of time that Samandriel had been… well. Not dead. Presumed. He appeared upstairs rather than in the bar, and was pleased to find Lucifer already there, half asleep and sorry looking on the couch. A wave of concern washed through him, some guilt. He should have seen this brother through the pain, but hadn't been able to.
"Lucifer," he said, and the other man immediately flashed his eyes open to look at him. Castiel offered no other words or explanation other than two fingers to the forehead, and they were gone, reappearing in Lucifer's own living room.
"Castiel, wha--" The words died immediately on Lucifer's lips.
One large bottle of water down, Samandriel was already looking far more healthy than he had when Castiel pulled him out of the hole. He was still filthy, but his voice worked now and there seemed to be proper light returning to his eyes through the exhaustion.
He held the bottle of water in his lap, and Dean was already on his way to get another one when Cas showed up. He paused, and yeah, this was pretty clearly a reunion that needed to happen in private. Dean took Cas’ hand, nodded at him and was more than ready to just let that half of their family be for a while.
Samandriel’s eyes lit up at the sight of Lucifer, disheveled as he was. As they both were, he supposed. He tried to get up, really, honestly did, but his legs still weren’t working how he needed them to.
“Lucifer,” he said, and in the mess that still covered his body all the way down to bare feet, it was clear that this was the young man who’d been in the pictures and desperately wanted a bath even though his lover was more important.
Cas only nodded, understanding -- if he had to be honest, he knew that he and Dean could both use a while in private as well. Even healed, he still somehow felt close to breaking. He took his husband's hand, and then they were gone.
"Samandriel." Lucifer couldn't help but just stand there staring for a moment -- letting it sink in -- letting this sink in, before he was in front of the boy, his boy, pulling him close with a desperation that was probably unbecoming. He couldn't care.
"Look," he said, tone higher than normal, a little cracked. "It's you. You're actually--" He paused, pulled back a little and settled his hands on either side of Samandriel's face. "Hello."
Samandriel wasn’t entirely sure what to do with his hands while Lucifer kept moving. He hadn’t ever seen the other angel so full of raw, unguarded emotion that it was a bit disorienting. Finally, things seemed to slow down a bit and he smiled at Lucifer.
“Demons lie,” was all he could say to the half-finished sentences that would have ended with ‘alive,’ when he knew all evidence pointed to the contrary. He kissed Lucifer, not caring that there was dried blood and other dirt still stuck to him. He needed his archangel, needed all of this to be okay. “Can I have a bath?” he asked. They would have time to talk while Samandriel got clean.
Demons lie. Yeah. That was no real shock. Not that Lucifer wasn't still shocked, because he was, he really was. But in the best way he'd ever thought possible. He smiled, nearly laughed, and nodded roughly feeling almost stupid. He licked his lips, not caring for a second that they tasted of blood and grime. It was only Samandriel. "Of course."
He stood, easily noting the way Samandriel was moving, slow, a little weak, not completely together. Without a second thought, he picked the younger man up. He was light, he always had been, and Lucifer didn't want to think that he was any lighter than usual. Arms curved around waist and legs in a bridal style lift, Lucifer would hear no protests about it. Let me help you.
Samandriel didn’t protest. He just wrapped his arms around Lucifer’s shoulders and tried to make himself as unobtrusive a parcel as possible. His eyes closed, trying to smell Lucifer over his own stink. He’d only done a half-assed job of healing himself, knowing he’d need to save his energy for Abigail and Dean, but he managed not to whimper when Lucifer accidentally jostled him or his muscles protested life in general.
The bedroom didn’t look at all slept in, honestly felt like there was this gaping hole where he should have been and Lucifer couldn’t bring himself to look at it. Samandriel didn’t say anything to that either. He just pressed his nose to Lucifer’s cheek and tried to make being set down again in the bathroom as easy as possible.
While Lucifer drew the bath, Samandriel stood and peeled out of his own clothes. The bruises on his too thin hips, across his legs and over his ass ran deep. He didn’t think what happened counted. Not when he’d technically fucked himself in all that dark savagery that Samandriel had never wanted, not even from Lucifer.
The bath warm on the hot side of warm, but not burning -- Lucifer couldn't make it too hot, not with all the cuts and scrapes and bruises Samandriel was sporting. He added bubbles just for the sake of making the room smell nicer, all sandalwood and vanilla at the same time.
And then he turned back to his boy and caught his breath in his throat until the air stuck there nearly cut like a knife. "Oh, Samandriel," he said, like it possibly hurt him more than anything else possibly could have to see.
“Stop,” Samandriel said quietly, ignoring Lucifer’s pain, because frankly his own was so much worse right then. He couldn’t stand to be so vulnerable, but god, he knew he needed the help. He stepped gingerly into the bath, trying not to slip while he sat down. “I did this to myself. No one else.” Lucifer had already killed the psychotic mirror of him that had done this. He just didn’t want to talk about it or think about it or do anything but get his strength up so he could finish healing.
Unsurprisingly, really, Lucifer listened. He clamped his mouth shut, offered hands and support until Samandriel was seated in the bath, and then kneeled right at the edge of the tub, reaching for all the things the younger man might want, but shouldn't have been forced to reach.
"Let me do this," he said after a beat of silence. "Samandriel." He needed to, absolutely. Needed to touch, to know that this was real, and his and not that other thing -- the other version that he'd put a bullet into.
Samandriel nodded. “Thank you.” He honestly didn’t think he could do this himself, and he let the heat and steady movements work through him, bringing strength back he wasn’t sure he’d ever have again. He closed his eyes and relaxed, sighing comfortably when Lucifer got to his matted hair and not minding at all when it pulled a bit.
Lucifer was going for a gentle kind of firm -- figuring that it wasn't fair to treat Samandriel like he was some broken fragile thing. Because he was here, and in one piece and that mattered.
Biting his lip, he scrubbed and scratched his fingers through Samandriel's hair, added more shampoo than was probably necessary and did it all over again before murmuring a guiding word to have the younger man lean back in order to rinse it all out.
He went for conditioner next if only to keep Samandriel there longer. He didn't know what to say, couldn't seem to find the sort of words that he needed, and so almost stupidly blurted the first thing that came to mind. "Your brother missed you." But what he'd meant to say was that he had. Terribly and absolutely.
While Lucifer helped the water become black and brown and gross, Samandriel worked in his own quiet way knitting up cuts and bruises so that when he emerged from the gross water, he looked every bit the sparkling, shiny young man that Lucifer needed him to be even though his soul was still badly damaged.
“I tried,” he whispered, “reaching out to both of you. It took so much strength to break the bindings enough to do just that. I wasn’t sure either of you would ever believe it was really me.” There were words between words there, the hint that Samandriel had really just wanted Lucifer to find him even though Castiel had been the far more obvious source of rescue. Castiel had his wings after all. He didn’t have to go breaking and entering to revisit the scene of so much tragedy.
“All I could think about while he had me trapped there was you.” Not Castiel, not Dean, not even Abigail whose nightmares he could hear from Hannibal’s room when she slept. “He did...awful things to all of you.” And all of that eclipsed the physical hurt that he visited on Samandriel himself. Perhaps it didn’t so much to the psychological hurt, but then when you knew that none of this was going to actually kill you, the physical was pretty much a non-issue.
Lucifer was immediately guilty -- thinking back to that one half a dream he'd had the first night. Samandriel crying for help. He hadn't bothered sleeping since, that was his fault. He'd ignored those cries for help, selfishly, not being able to face it. No matter that he hadn't known.
"He did it, not you." Lucifer's towels were expensive, of course they were, overly thick and fluffy things. He helped Samandriel out of the tub, and dried him off slowly with more attentiveness than he'd possibly given anything else in his life. "Don't think on it right now." But that would be impossible, wouldn't it?
Samandriel leaned into Lucifer’s touch. He’d cost himself his own therapist, technically. “It’s going to be the only thing I think on for a long while,” he whispered. He walked over to go brush his teeth. He needed that badly before he kissed Lucifer properly.
“How much chaos did he cause that I don’t know about?”
Lucifer didn't answer that for a long moment, instead sat down on the closed toilet seat as Samandriel brushed his teeth. It was weird, watching the young man do such a normal thing after he'd been assumed dead for the last few days. More than strange, because Lucifer had just been fighting with himself to figure out a way to get over it, had just been watching Dean go back to the bottle because of. Hadn't seen Castiel at all, because it hurt too much.
He frowned, considered one of the paintings framed on his bathroom wall. "It depends how much you know about."
“I know about the photos,” Samandriel said, but of course he knew about those. He’d been there for that. “What he did to Dean in some vague detail, and...I guess the showdown. I heard all of that.”
Of course, none of them had completely gotten together and spoken of the whole story -- so it was all mismatched and varying, only occasionally clicking together to make sense. Lucifer nodded, stood up to stand behind Samandriel, arms carefully snaking his their way around his waist. He pressed a kiss to his temple, still a little wet. "Well… you live here now. Your things are in the closet. If there's anything else you need--" he paused, sighed. "I suggest you ask Castiel to get them for you."
Samandriel’s hands covered Lucifer’s on his stomach. “Are they dead?” he asked softly. It wouldn’t have put it past the other him to just slaughter his parents.
"No." There was no real way to not say this awkwardly, no way for it to come out nicely, particularly when Samandriel's parents (well, mother) was involved. "The other you forced a falling out, told your mother just how bad of a mother she was, and then mentioned that she'd attempted selling me what was already mine." A pause. "I'm sorry. I dealt with it, but you'll still need to get your instruments."
Samandriel closed his eyes. “Okay,” he said softly. “At least we don’t have to worry about that anymore.” Bright side, right? He looked over his shoulder at Lucifer as much as he could. “You ready to have me with you full time? Kind of a commitment, right?”
Lucifer was only glad that Samandriel didn't ask for more details. He wasn't sure how his boyfriend might have reacted to the fact that he was actively paying Samandriel's mother absurd amounts of money in order to keep her mouth shut.
Money was inconsequential, though, and he did not dwell on it. Instead, he turned Samandriel around by his shoulders, looked him in the eye. Serious moment, here. "I love you," he told the angel, thumb against his jawline. "And you're staying here, with me. I want that, so long as it's what you still want."
Samandriel closed his eyes to lean into the touch. “Don’t think I’m ever going to tire of hearing that,” he whispered. He looked Lucifer in the eye. “As long as you’ll have me, I’m yours.” Teeth all nice and clean now, he leaned in to kiss his boyfriend properly so that he’d taste more of himself than everything else he’d been through.
Slipping his fingers into Samandriel's still damp hair, Lucifer was only too happy to kiss back. The angel tasted of mint and smelled like Lucifer's own soap and was here and that was the only part he could really focus on. That not two hours prior he was positive that this was something he'd never be able to do again.
Really, he was loathe to pull away for breath. "You don't get to leave again," he told Samandriel, still not completely able to get back to his carefully constructed wall of just enough emotion. Maybe he never would be able to again, not around Samandriel. It was impossible to know right now. "Understand?" As if Samandriel had had a say in the weeks events, as if Lucifer could by sheer will alone refuse to let something like this happen again.
Samandriel touched Lucifer’s face, trying not to pretend that there wasn’t the slightest bit of grey in his hair that hadn’t been there before or that maybe there wasn’t a new line or two in his forehead.
“Yes, Lucifer,” he said reverently. “You know what that was dangerously close to, don’t you?” he said, holding his boyfriend’s gaze.
He had to admit just Samandriel's tone had him more comfortable, more -- able to let this all sink in. Lucifer only looked right back, and then shook his head - a tiny little gesture. "What?"
"Asking to put a ring on it." It was the truth. They were as they always seemed to have been, Lucifer's water to Samandriel's air (and by extension, Castiel and Dean's respective earth and fire,) all too perfect together. Inseparable and one of the few things in the world that made any kind of sense.
Lucifer actually laughed at that, a sharp noise, and he was nearly surprised at himself for it. Lucifer couldn't help it, he rubbed a hand over his face and then stepped back a little to really look at Samandriel, sticking his hands in his pockets as he did so.
"Is that -- something you want?" Gone now was his usual air of self assurance, blown entirely to the wind and scattered, and he couldn't keep the slight nerves from his expression.
Samandriel leaned against the counter, smiling softly to himself. “You know, for a while I was convinced you weren’t actually going to tell me you loved me until we got married and it’d be this big extravagant thing that you’d spare no expense on except for buying Dean and Castiel plane tickets because they clearly wouldn’t need them, and then it’d be right there at the altar at you may kiss the groom whispered against my lips for no one else to hear.” It was very much a dream he still had in his heart. “Not that I’m disappointed that you said the words before that, but I’ve known…” Samandriel shook his head. “I’ve been yours since you first walked up to my counter and chased my father’s friend away just by existing. I think we’ve both known that. Why would I do anything but marry you as soon as I could?”
Lucifer laughed again, but this time it was a little less shocking, a little more fond. "You're ridiculous," he told Samandriel, stepping back a little more, leaning against the door frame. "The things you do to me--" he stopped, shook his head and smiled. He wondered, idly, where it was Samandriel imagined that they'd be married that the Winchesters might need plane tickets for it.
He pulled his hand out of his pocket, a tight fist, and huffed out another weird noise. "This isn't how I imagined. And you're -- I mean. Look. You're not eighteen yet, and we can't." Holy crap, the floor was amazingly interesting, it was like he couldn't look away from it. "Not yet. But I got you this, and I'd like you to wear it."
He held his hand out to the younger angel, opened it palm up. "It's made of Meteorite. Practically from the heavens, right?"
Worst proposal ever? Possibly.
Samandriel tipped his head. “What is this?” he asked, because even for as old as he was, he was young and needed to know. He didn’t think he was actually ready to be really for real engaged even if he saw no one else for him but Lucifer. It was a big commitment and he was sure people would accuse him of rushing into it just because he wasn’t dead. Frankly, Samandriel was glad that Lucifer would have rather killed him than let him stay as the other him was. That didn’t mean it was anything less than possibly impulsive or that Samandriel’s chest wasn’t tightening up in a way he didn’t quite understand.
"You told me you wanted a more permanent mark," Lucifer said, sounding a little wary now that Samandriel did too. He couldn't help it -- perhaps he'd gone a bit overboard. His words hadn't so much been a proposal as they'd been the promise of one later, but perhaps it had been too much a bit too soon.
"And this is what I thought would fit. It's -- well. It took a while. It was a custom order, so."
Samandriel nodded and walked over to Lucifer. “I was going to be pissed if you were proposing and didn’t even actually ask the question or get down on one knee.” He gave Lucifer his right hand. “I’d be glad to keep you with me in more ways than just my heart and stolen clothing.”
Taking Samandriel's hand, Lucifer slipped the ring onto it and was pleased over how steady his own hands were. It was a bit of an improvement from earlier. Tilting his head up to look Samandriel in the eye, he ran his thumb over the angel's knuckles, and then the ring. "You're a little shit, you know that?"
Samandriel reached up with his left hand to cup Lucifer’s cheek. “You wouldn’t have me any other way.” With that he kissed him slow and easy, looking forward to spending the night where he belonged, where he would always belong. With Lucifer in their bed.