Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

SEPTEMBER

Lucifer only knows how long it’s been because Sam keeps such careful track of it in his head.

Five months.

To him, that’s nothing. Normally it would pass by so quickly he wouldn’t have even registered the time.

But here, in a human body, fighting for existence, he’s felt every day of those five months.

In the cage, he’d learned to weave his grace in with his confines, had enough of a voice to call out to some of the more powerful demons, had some sway in how things looked, what he saw. It wasn’t much. He still seethes over it. Still hates his father for it.

Apparently it could’ve been worse, though.

Sam Winchester is perfectly built for him. Every cell geared toward housing him. Neural pathways carved to support the very shape of Lucifer’s thoughts and grace.

Which also makes him a perfect cage.

It’s somehow worse here. The cage he was so used to had simply held him, his grace, his form. This cage is biting him back.

And he thinks he is growing weaker for it.

He has never felt power leave him in such a consistent flow without some of it coming back in.

He is trapped. And Sam is learning to ignore him.

Lucifer doesn’t understand how he could possibly manage that. Sam is made for him. Sam is his.

Thousands of years of whispered thoughts, struggling to slip messages in between the bars of his cage. The work of the angels, so fastidious in following God’s word (sheep, all of them).

And what had stopped it? The very things created to bring it to pass.

Every moment he is trapped here, he is growing weaker. He can’t sense Michael when he’s so subsumed in something, in soul, in Sam, in stubbornness—but the times he’s broken free, he’s been able to tell that Michael too is struggling.

He is growing weaker.

Lucifer was built to be a lightbringer, a warrior, a general. He is his father’s strongest. Michael had needed all the angels in heaven to beat him back.

And yet. Sam.

Lucifer has never been wrong before. It is an awful occurrence. He thinks maybe he and the angels went wrong somewhere in making humans to hold beings such as the archangels.

How could they all have been wrong?

Kayla needed a job. Or at least, that's what her mother told her, day in and out. Because school alone was somehow not enough for her, not to mention coding club. Something about not having anything on her resume or activities section for college.

She'd wanted to move in with her grandparents for the school year, get a job closer to Chicago, make new friends outside of Lageme, have new experiences, but no, she's stuck here in Lageme, as usual. Lame Lageme, USA, her whole life. She can't wait to get out.

But to get out, she needs college. For college, she needs a job.

So, she's got her nice dress on, hair in neat plaits, waiting to talk to yet another sexist jerk of a boss, like all the ones she's interviewed with so far this week. She hates Lageme.

She wouldn't mind working here at Darla’s though, she thinks, for her first job. They've really cleaned up the place the last couple of months. It looks nice now, a classic diner with a clean feel. Just opened up a couple of weeks ago, grand opening. The line went out the door and everyone was raving about their milkshakes and pie.

But the bosses are dudes now.

Her mom had known Cecelia Lynn, which is why Kayla is here in the first place. If Cecilia Lynn was in charge, Kayla wouldn't have dragged her feet coming here or waited so long to try and get a job.

But there were new owners, apparently Cecilia Lynn's cousin's kids or something. They'd given her the interview, at the very least. Her mom had been so proud.

And now she’s here.

"Kayla?"

She looks up and the guy who'd greeted her is back, another guy behind him taking up a post at the front of the restaurant.

"Alright, ready for you, let's grab a seat in the back office." He gestures her back and she follows. They walk behind the counter, through a door, and down a hallway, where the guy fumbles for a moment with a ring of keys and unlocks another door.

The office is cramped, not because there's much in there, just because that’s the way it's built.

His name is Sam, according to his name tag. Her initial reaction–to think that the guy either needs a few straight days of sleep or some hard drugs–continues to be supported as she watches him blink slowly at the table in front of him for a long moment before he seems to remember what he's doing.

“Alright, so . . .” Sam shakes his head, takes a breath, “Sorry. My name’s Sam. Me and my brother are the new managers here.”

“Oh,” Kayla says, “I thought you were owners?” Her mom had said something or other about that.

Sam shakes his head, “Cecilia Lynn still owns the place. She’s just turned everything over to us. And we turned things over to Janna.”

Kayla smiles. She goes to school with Janna’s kids. Has since elementary school. She’s good friends with the girls.

“That’s cool,” Kayla says. This isn’t her first job interview, but it’s still nerve wracking. Somehow, Sam’s stilted, awkward way of going about things is helping.

"Do you want a water?" Sam is leaning over to a mini fridge she hadn’t noticed and pulling out a bottle of water.

"Sure," Kayla says. Her mom had told her that having a drink handy could buy some time to answer job interview questions if she needed to.

Sam hands her the bottle and opens his mouth to speak again.

“Yeah. So. We need more staff. Have you ever waited tables before?”

“No, but I’ve got practice managing and keeping track of things.”

Sam nods, pulls over a familiar piece of paper.

“You said on your resume that you’re president of the coding club and the wrestling team manager?”

“Yes.”

“Coding, huh.” Sam seems to think about that for a moment before adding more, “That’s cool.”

“Yeah,” Kayla says. She can feel the awkward start to descend again.

“So,” Sam says, “We want to hire you. If you want the job.”

Kayla blinks, stares at Sam who seems to be a little uncomfortable with it.

“I . . . You want to hire me that quickly? You haven’t even asked any questions!”

Sam shrugs and puts down her resume, “We need the help. As long as you’re willing, we’ll take you. I have . . .” He reaches down and opens a manilla file folder, pulling out a stapled stack of papers, “The top paper is the job responsibilities. You can look it over if you like. The rest is hiring paperwork and a contract. If you want the job.”

Kayla continues to stare. Sam holds the stack of paper out to her, and she reaches out, suddenly feeling out of place.

“I . . . Can I get back to you about the offer?”

“Of course. Here, let me give you our number so you can call and let us know . . .” Sam pulls a sticky note off the pad and jots down a phone number, handing it over once he’s done.

Kayla waits for more, but Sam seems to have finished his piece. She hesitantly stands and extends her hand (just like her mom had drilled into her). Sam, after half a beat, reaches out and shakes, just once, before letting go and standing. He moves to the door and opens it for Kayla. She nods and walks out, heels clicking on the floor.

She passes by the man at the front who gives her a distracted wave as she leaves.

Her car engine hasn’t even fully cooled. She’d rushed over here from school to get here in time. She goes to open her car door and another car pulls up nearby. She looks over and sees Zach Anderson, who she’s had classes with since seventh grade, getting out of his car.

“Hey Zach,” she says, waving, friendly.

“Kayla! What are you doing here?”

“Just had a job interview.”

“Here?”

“Yeah.”

“Dude! I just got my job here a few weeks ago. How’d the interview go?"

“Got the job. Just need to decide if I want it.”

“Oh, c’mon, do it! I need someone my age around here. Sam and Dean are nice and all, but they’re so flippin’ weird. And Shauna and Janna are super nice, but they’re like . . . Moms.”

Kayla is starting to feel a little more like she might want this job. Zach is nice, she’d have a friend around at work.

“Yeah, I just gotta talk to my mom about it.”

“Alright. Well, I gotta head in, my shift starts in two minutes.”

Kayla waves, “See ya’.”

She opens her car and buckles in, seeing Zach greet the guys as he goes in.

Well. Maybe she’ll take the job. It couldn’t hurt to try.

Gideon Hopkins liked to think he was a person with few vices. He was, after all, a pastor. He was, by definition, supposed to emulate the virtues of heaven.

But coffee? He had yet to find the strength to not drink a cup each morning. It’s made all the worse by the fact that the church serves coffee three days a week to anyone who comes in.

But it’s Monday, he has no weddings, no confirmations, and, because of the volunteer service group traveling to Pompasso Heights for the week, no staff meeting. His wife had left yesterday, driving the vans for the volunteers.

And they’re out of coffee.

He’s got bookkeeping to do today, a need to reconcile the tithes collected yesterday, and he needs to tidy up—he hadn’t gotten the chance after services were over.

So, he gathers his papers—a half-written sermon hastily jotted down when he’d been blessed with inspiration just before bed last night—and heads out the door. Darla’s is just around the corner from the church, he’ll grab a cup there before heading to his office, now that it's open again.

It’s not too hard to see, even from the parking lot, that Cecilia Lynn, who’d led the children’s classes in church for years had really followed through on her threat to sell the restaurant to new owners. The siding’s been freshly painted, there are shrubs in the planter boxes, and, even more obvious than those elements is the message on the sign outside—Under New Management. Kids Eat Free Tuesday Night.

Gideon isn’t sure how to feel about this. Realistically, there was no way Cecelia Lynn would be able to keep Darla’s running. He knows how may times it’s been closed early because she can’t keep servers and cooks, knows that her eyesight is going, knows she’s been wanting to spend more time with her grandkids—but another part of him, the part that has grown up in town, who’d spent his wild teenage years running these streets and hanging out at Darla’s with friends, mourns the loss of it all the same.

Nonetheless, he needs his coffee, so he exits his car, walks in the door.

There’s a small sign, a piece of printer paper with sharpie words Please Seat Yourself! We’ll be Right with You hanging off the front booth. Gideon walks past the booth to the counter, sitting on a stool, surprised to find new, freshly laminated menus helpfully placed in the condiment holders. He hasn’t been to Darla’s for quite a while, since before they closed, but he knows that the menu has changed. He takes a moment to flip through its pages, interested.

“Hello, welcome to Darla’s,” a slightly out-of-breath voice greets, making Gideon look up from the menu. The waiter is tall, long hair pulled back into a low ponytail. He’s not anyone Gideon knows, which is strange in this town. The metallic nametag on his shirt tells him that this is Sam.

“What can I get started for you?”

“I’ll have a cup of coffee to start, son” Gideon says with a gentle smile. He hadn’t anticipated ordering breakfast, planning to make do with the granola bars in his office, but the new menu has him intrigued.

“Light, American, or French?”

Gideon raises an eyebrow. The old Darla’s had one coffee option, and that was what you made your peace with.

“American, please.”

“Any sugar, half-and-half, or milk?”

“Sugar,” Gideon says, still surprised at his options.

“Alrighty, I’ll get that right out.”

Sam moves away, further down the counter on the serving side, where Gideon notices various drink machines have been placed. Yet another difference from the Darla’s of old.

Mind already made up on his order, convinced by the flashy picture on the menu, he simply watches Sam out of the corner of his eye while he pulls out his sermon notes, wondering and guessing at this new potential member of the fold. His is one of only two churches in Lageme, and unless Sam is Catholic or Atheist, and if he’s moved here to town and not elsewhere in the county, there’s a good chance Gideon can invite him to come by. The greeting committee would be thrilled.

Sam pours the coffee and returns, placing it on the counter and turning to place the coffee pot just behind him, grabbing a tall container of sugar and placing it nearby as well.

“Fantastic, free refills on that coffee, you just let me know when you need it,” Sam says, pulling out a small notepad, “Anything else for your order?”

“I’ll have the maple pancakes, hold the butter.”

“And how’d you like your eggs?”

“Over easy.”

“Maple pancakes, no butter, two over easy eggs, anything else?”

“That’ll be it.”

“Great, that’ll be just a few minutes,” Sam says, giving him a polite nod and a somewhat forced smile, moving to hook the order slip onto an old-fashioned rotating wheel through an opening to the kitchen that Gideon realizes is new as well.

“Vermont stack, eighty-six the axle grease, flop two,” Sam calls through the window. Spinning the wheel, he turns to walk to the other end of the counter, just as another voice calls back.

“Crystal,” says the cook, invisible to Gideon’s sight, but very obviously not Nolan James, the last person to work as a short order cook at Darla’s. He hadn’t been a particularly pleasant man, but that was why he worked in the kitchen.

For the first time, Gideon realizes these might be the new owners. Or, if not the new owners, new permanent staff at least. That'll be good for Darla’s, having permanent people. Cecelia Lynn had been gone half the time and hadn't ever had reliable help when she was out. It was always a guessing game as to if Darla’s would be open that day.

Gideon adds his sugar to his coffee, stirs it in, and takes a sip. It's good coffee. Great coffee, really.

A good change then.

The whole diner has been polished up. Gideon takes the time to look around. It's clear that the new owners were dedicated to giving Darla’s a classic feel to it. It's got the black and white tile now, booths with red upholstery, and the stools at the counter match.

There's art on the walls–road trip, route 66 style. All license plates and postcard views.

It even looks like there’s a jukebox in the corner, lit up with cycling colored lights.

The waiter, Sam, walks by him, through to the kitchen window, and calls out again to the cook.

"Strawberry biddy board, shingle with a shimmy and a shake."

"Full or smooth?"

"Smooth."

"Crystal."

Sam hangs the order on the spinning wheel and turns back around. This time, Gideon takes more notice of him. He looks tired, pulling an all-nighter kind of tired. Like his son Josh, during long summer nights when he finally came in from playing night games with his friends, back in the day.

"Just a little longer on those pancakes," Sam says as he passes by once more, the walk of a harried worker, quick steps. He starts bussing a table nearby.

“Sam,” Gideon says, speaking up to be heard, but not loud enough to disturb the other customers, “you’re new to town. Where are you coming from?”

Sam looks up, expression confused before he blinks and shrugs his shoulders, pulling plates and cups off of the table and into a tray, “All over. Most recently coming from Sioux Falls.”

“And how come Lageme? I know as well as any other that you don’t usually choose Lageme. Lageme chooses you.” Gideon smiles, taking another sip of his coffee. He’d never have thought, when he was in school, that he’d end up preaching here.

Sam smiles a little bit at that, genuine. It softens his features, makes Gideon realize that he really is young. The kind of young that makes Gideon feel old.

“I mean, Cecelia Lynn offered us the place. We . . . It was . . . We were wanting to move, so it was just good timing.”

“Ah,” Gideon says, nodding knowingly, “and Cecelia Lynn doesn’t know how to take no for an answer.”

A snort as Sam starts spraying the table down with a chemical cleaner lets Gideon know that Sam has gone through that specific experience before.

“So, you a religious kind of guy?”

Gideon watches Sam’s expression fade to blankness so quickly that Gideon almost thinks he might have changed into an entirely different person right in front of him.

Sam gives a half shrug, finishes wiping the table and then tosses the rag back to the cleaning cart, “Why do you ask?”

“I preach just down the road. Lagme Hope Fellowship. Love to have you come by and meet the congregation, a lot of people in town are there, could be good to help you get settled in.”

“Huh,” Sam says, picking up the tray of dirty dishes and moving to walk past Gideon, hefting the tray onto a shelf behind the counter. He turns back around and leans on the counter, casual.

“I’ll be honest with you, Pastor,” Sam says, “I used to be. Religious. Prayed every day of my life.”

Gideon leans in slightly, interested. He watches Sam, who isn’t looking him in the eye, but instead staring down at his hands, wrapped around each other on the countertop.

“And I don’t say this to brush off your invitation,” Sam continues, “but I can tell you right now that I am the actual last person any believer and God himself would want in a church. I couldn’t even promise I wouldn’t erupt into flames the moment I got through the door.”

Gideon blinks. A small part of him wants to chuckle at the thought, but Sam has looked back up at him and he can see sincerity and hurt on his face, so he chokes the humor down.

“Well, I’m not here to change your mind on anything. Just extending a hand of fellowship.”

Sam nods, acknowledging, and says, “I appreciate that.”

And with that, Sam is moving again, taking the tray of dirty dishes into the back room.

Gideon waits patiently for his order, thinking.

The younger generation. He still struggles to connect with them. Maybe if he can get Benji, the junior pastor, to stop by, they might be able to talk to Sam together. No one should feel like they wouldn’t be welcome in their church. They’re a fellowship, after all.

Shauna doesn’t know what to make of Sam and Dean.

They’re not the worst bosses she’s ever had—far from it, in fact. But they might just be the weirdest.

When she comes in for work at lunchtime, everyday, Dean greets her with a new movie quote. They’re all bad eighties movies she hasn’t seen since before she had kids. Sam will give her a wave if he sees her, but hardly talks to her, unless he has to.

And then there’s the whole language they have with each other. Literally. She’s caught onto a few things, but there’s so many phrases and slang and lingo that she can’t keep up. It seems like Janna knows it better than she does, but she still doesn’t speak in it like they do. They’ll spend the whole work shift hollering the most crass, strange, offensive sounding words at each other and Dean’ll turn around and tell her exactly what dish to make. According to Janna, the customers find it hilarious.

So maybe it’s a marketing strategy. But she really doesn’t think it is.

If it weren’t for a few key things, she would’ve never believed their claim to be brothers. They’re close, in a way grown adult siblings, in her experience, never are. But they’re just so similar in so many things while being very different people that she thinks they must’ve know each other their whole lives.

Sam, who’s a silent giant any time he doesn’t have customers to serve, can match Dean movie quote for movie quote, can read Dean’s mind by the way he says the word, ‘crystal,’ and can catch a flying item from the kitchen window at any angle without any apparent warning. Dean is touchy-feely, always a hand on Sam’s shoulder or elbowing his ribs, anytime Sam comes into the kitchen. Sam’s all he talks about, whenever they have downtime in the kitchen. ‘When Sammy was small,’ ‘back when Sam was a kid,’ and, ‘Sam’s favorite thing about this is,’ are all common topics of conversation.

They’re weird. But the pay is good and she’s not dealing with the owners of the Subway anymore, so she’s going to stick around and not ask too many questions.

It’s a late Thursday night and Sam locks the door behind them as he, Dean, Janna, and Shauna all head out after close. They still haven’t found a dishwasher, so Sam has been taking charge of it anytime there’s not a lot of customers, but there was still a sinkful left when the last group left, so he and Dean had been washing up while Shauna and Janna finished tidying up.

“‘Night,” Dean calls from across the lot, taking another bag of trash out to the dumpster. Sam is leaning against the car they drive in (and that’s the other common topic of conversation, if she can get Dean to stop talking about Sam), head leaning back, hands shoved in jacket pockets.

She’s never seen Sam look well-rested.

“Night,” she and Janna call, almost at the same time. Shauna goes to open her car door, but Janna waves her over. Shauna walks closer to her, hearing the loud sound of Sam and Dean’s car engine starting up. She looks up to wave at them as they pull away.

“What’s up?” She asks, walking over to Janna’s side of her car.

“Just wanted to check in. How’s work been going?”

“Alright,” Shauna draws it out, raising an eyebrow, “how about you?”

She’s known Janna for a few years, been on PTA with her before, but she can’t say she really knows her as a friend. Work naturally keeps them separated, unless the diner is empty (but it’s been fairly consistently at least somewhat busy these past few weeks, something about a website and google reviews that Sam and Kayla had put together one slow shift).

So, when Janna opens up, she’s a little surprised.

“Work is great, but those two are so damn weird I don’t even know what to do half the time.”

It’s a relief to get confirmation that it’s not just her. The kids, Kayla and Zach, seem to have some kind of hero worship going on, or maybe just a healthy fear of their bosses (although Janna seems to run more of the diner these days than the two of them).

“How the hell are they even functional as people?” Shauna says, the floodgates of complaints and worry starting to spill over.

Janna laughs, “Did you see Sam earlier today? He was straight up staring at a wall for four minutes straight. I timed him. Then Dean yelled something in the kitchen and he was back at it like nothing had happened.”

“Oh my word. I just . . . It’s gotta be PTSD, right?”

“PTSD or something. I always knew Cecelia Lynn hung out with wacky people, but it’s a whole other thing to experience it.”

“Have they done the creepy talking at the same time thing to you yet?”

“Swear it happens at least once a day. And Sam doesn’t even talk all that much to begin with.”

“Sometimes all I hear him say all day is orders in their damn diner lingo.”

“He talks with Pastor Hopkins alright, when he comes by.”

“Oh really?” Shauna raises an eyebrow, “What do they talk about?”

“The Bible I think. I guess Sam’s some kind of Bible scholar or something, because he keeps up with Pastor Hopkins better than anyone else could.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised. According to Dean, Sam’s a genius at everything.”

“Really?”

“It’s all Dean talks about. ‘Sam researched this,’ ‘Sam went to college for that,’ I swear I’m gonna go insane one of these days.”

Janna laughs and Shauna joins in. It feels good to commiserate with Janna and talk about how strange their lives have become working at Darla’s.

“Well, I gotta get going. Need to make sure the boys haven’t burned down the house,” Janna rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, me too. Take care!”

“See you tomorrow.”

“See ya’.”

Shauna goes back to her car and sits for a moment, headlights lighting up the restaurant front with the brand new green shrubbery that apparently Sam had insisted on (though Shauna hasn’t ever heard Sam insist on anything in the last month she’s been around him).

What a life.

But hey, it could be worse.