Lucifer and Gabriel are alone in the war room for almost an hour. It's completely silent, the tension impossible not to notice. It's not really clear where it comes from. They're supposed to be friends, right? And even if they have their reasons not to want this, it's not like the other person knows them. Gabriel doesn't know Lucifer heard him talking about him behind his back, and Lucifer doesn't know Gabriel's still suspicious of Kali's death. Really, they should be able to ignore this all, at least for the night, but they don't seem to want to put it behind them.
Michael joins them in the war room over half an hour later. He glances between the two archangels, noticing how they're on completely opposite sides of the room, and in no hurry to change this. After a moment of hesitation, he walks over to Gabriel, who gives him a small smile.
"How are you holding up?" he asks quietly.
Gabriel shrugs slightly. "Been better."
"You could start talking to people again," Michael suggests.
"I don't have anyone to talk to anymore."
"You have me," Michael reminds him.
"You have Jo."
He frowns slightly at that. Well, that makes sense, unfortunately. "You could talk to Sam."
Gabriel subs. "No, I really can't."
"Why?"
Gabriel just shakes his head, and Michael takes the hint not to push.
"You have Lucifer."
Gabriel glances over at him, staring off into space as if he's not paying any attention, when in reality, he's listening to every word because there's nothing else to do.
"I'm not so sure I do," Gabriel says finally.
"What? Why?"
He waves a dismissive hand. "Story for another time." He can't just go around accusing his brother of murder, especially in a building protected by God himself, where murder is supposed to be impossible.
It's then that Lucifer hears a voice in his head, familiar but still hesitant.
Can I reach your through prayer?
Lucifer scoffs. Why would Sam want to know that, anyway?
He disappears, earning confused looks from Michael and Gabriel, who don't realize Sam was contacting him. He flies into Sam's bedroom with a whoosh, where he finds the boy sitting in bed. He jumps when the angel appears, as if Castiel didn't do that to him all the time when his wings still worked.
"Well, duh," Lucifer says, answering his unspoken question. "I am an angel. I just can't answer you back."
"Good to know," he replies.
"What'd you need?" Lucifer asks him. "Just looking for a social call? Or something a little less innocent?"
"No, I was wondering if you could, like, put me to sleep," Sam says, ignoring the angel's suggestive tone
"You mean like punch you in the face until I knock you out?" Lucifer asks with childish excitement.
"What? No! With your angel mojo or whatever!"
"Why bother? You've got maybe three hours of sleep in you. It won't make much of a difference."
"Either that or stay up all night sitting in bed alone," he replies with a shrug. "I'll take the three hours."
Lucifer scoffs. "Wish I had that option. Yeah, sure, I'll knock you out."
"Wait," Sam stops him quickly. "Don't you have Gabriel and Michael to talk to? What're you complaining about?"
"Don't you have Dean and Castiel?" Lucifer counters. "I know when I'm not welcome."
"So, like, all the time."
Lucifer rolls his eyes. "I think I might go the fun knock out way just for that."
"Don't you dare."
"Give me one good reason not to," Lucifer replies, confident that he can't.
"Because then you won't have anyone to talk to," Sam answers.
Lucifer pauses, then concedes, "Yeah, guess so. Granted, if I'm knocking you out anyway, I could knock you out the fun way once you decide you want me to."
Sam frowns. That's actually logical, as much as he hates to admit it.
"Or," he suggests, "you could not knock me out, and we could just, like, talk?"
"Don't worry, I'm not actually going to knock you out using brute force," Lucifer assures him. Probably.
"No, I just mean, like, you're gonna be stuck alone, I'm gonna be stuck alone once I wake up in a few hours. We could just cut out the alone factor, you know?"
Lucifer raises an eyebrow. "You're asking me to stay the night with you?"
"Well..." Sam replies, because it sounds so awkward when you say it like that. Finally, he just says, "Yeah. I guess."
Lucifer hesitates, but he doesn't have anything else to do. Even awkward silence with Sam is better than being the third wheel with his brothers. He's not even a third wheel. He's the wheel that fell off and was forgotten about.
"Sure, I guess?" Lucifer agrees finally.
Sam moves off to the side of his bed, gesturing for Lucifer to sit. When he doesn't, Sam doesn't acknowledge it, instead saying, "So what's new with you?"
"Well, for one, there's a hunter trying to make small talk with me," Lucifer says. "And not very well, I may add."
Sam rolls his eyes. "You know what? At least I'm trying."
"You're trying too hard," Lucifer replies. "Small talk is always awkward. Always."
"Well, glad we can agree on that," Sam replies. "Unfortunately, that's kind of all we've got, so..."
"You could tell me more about fake me," Lucifer suggests.
"And give you more ways to annoy people? Not a chance," Sam replies. "But if we're going this way, you could thank me for saving your ass from Amara."
"And sticking me with Chuck? No, thank you," Lucifer replies. "But if we're looking for thanks, you could thank me for not torturing you into saying yes all those years ago like heaven tried to do to Dean."
"I might have thanked you if you called the whole thing off, but that didn't happen," Sam says. "You could apologize for the apocalypse."
"But I'm not sorry, so that would be lying," Lucifer replies. "But you could and probably should apologize for letting me get nabbed by Amara."
"If we didn't think you could help, we would have left you there," Sam tells him. "Not really something I can say I'm sorry for. You, on the other hand, could apologize to me for everything you did in the cage."
"Don't act like you hated every moment of it," Lucifer says suggestively, doubtlessly remembering their cage time fling. In a more serious tone, he asks, "What would've happened if the cage was different?"
"What do you mean?"
"Like, what if instead of beating you senseless when we were in the cage, we just, like, did this?"
"I don't think we would have had enough to talk about," Sam replies.
"But if we did, what do you think would have happened?"
"You're gonna have to be more specific," Sam says. "What would have happened like...?"
"I don't know. I guess, would you have tried to get me out?"
Sam has to think about this for a moment. Finally, he answers slowly, "I think that if we had made it through most of that time in the cage without fighting, maybe we could have been friends, so yeah, that would have been a possibility. It couldn't hurt to have an archangel on our side."
"You think Dean would have let that slide?" Lucifer asks skeptically.
"Probably not, but if I somehow got you out without him, I think I could have convinced him that it was fine," Sam replies. "I mean, at that point, we didn't have much of a history. There wasn't a real reason not to."
"Yeah, I can see that," Lucifer agrees. "I can't imagine how different things would be if you had."
"Probably better, too," Sam adds. "You've put us through a lot."
"It's a gift," he jokes. "How long do you think working together would have lasted?"
"Well," he says, thinking back over the year after he came back, "I guess you could have helped Cas defeat Raphael, so Cas probably would have stayed up there in heaven, keeping order or whatever, and Dean and I probably could have used the help without him, so maybe we'd still be working together, as long as you didn't piss Dean off too much."
"But I like pissing Dean off," Lucifer protests.
"You like pissing everyone off."
"Picked up on that, did ya?" Lucifer teases.
Sam rolls his eyes. "Bite me, Lucifer."
"Ooh, kinky!"
Sam just gives him a seriously? look.
"Sorry. Except not really," Lucifer says with a smirk.
"I know you aren't," Sam replies. "You never are."
Lucifer shrugs. "Why waste time being sorry when you can live for today?"