Every rose has its thorn

A proposal

For a time, there was nothing but searing heat and foul fumes - filling not just every corner of the room, but every fibre of his being.

Sam could barely breathe. Dizzy, he fell to the couch choking while Lucifer continued to rage.

Was it minutes? Hours? Sam lost track. Tears from the fumes streamed down his face like a river.

Nightmare, this a nightmare...how can this just go on and on and on? He became more and more confused.

Lucifer appeared in front of his blurry vison. She was glowing white-gold. Radiant. Was he hallucinating?

"Purple is not your colour Sam".

She blew him a kiss, and suddenly he could breathe again, deep and clear. He greedily sucked in as much air as he could, until he thought he might vomit. His face felt wet. He wiped at it, ran his hands through his hair, damp with tears and sweat.

He was silent for a while, too shocked to speak. Too bewildered to process what just happened.

Lucifer sat down next to him on the overstuffed couch, picked up a magazine and thumbed through it like nothing at all had just happened.

The mental fog took its time in clearing, but as it did so one thought slowly crept up on him. Something he had failed to notice before.

"...Where's Michael?" His voice, raw, caught in his throat

"Michael?" Lucifer carried on flipping through the pages. "I assume he's gone to his 'happy place', like I went to mine. I doubt we'll see him in here..."

"Happy place..." Sam muttered quietly, with a baffled shake of his head. "Happy place..." He was two heart-beats away from laughing so hysterically, he was frightened he would never be able to stop.

Lucifer peered at him, with a look on her face that he couldn't read, put the magazine down on the table. "I'm sorry about the coffee prank Sammy." She stood up and headed towards the kitchen. "Let me make it up to you with a decent bottle of wine. I don't know about you, but I could do with a drink..."

Yeah, Sam could definitely do with a drink. And something a bit stronger than wine. Heroin mixed with vodka mixed with anti-freeze wouldn't be enough. But he kept quiet, focussed on getting his hands to stop shaking, and waited until Lucifer returned.

"Be a dear, would you?" she said, proffering him the open bottle of white wine. The label was unknown to Sam, not that he knew that much about wine anyway.

He took the bottle from her, maybe a bit too quickly, and poured them two very large glasses. Almost in unison, they both drank deeply. No amount of alcohol in hell could make Sam relax, but he let himself take this one tiny moment of almost-peace.

"So. Sam." Lucifer settled back onto the couch, propped a cushion on her lap and rested the wine glass on top of it. Found a loose strand of blonde hair and began twirling it around a finger. "Now that we are sitting nicely...calmly, its time we discussed our future together."

"Our future?" He knew those four seconds of calm were too good to be true. "Our future together..."

Lucifer sighed. "Sam, if you are going parrot everything I say back to me, it's going to get tedious in the extreme. Yes, our future. We are in this together 'for better or worse, for richer or poorer'. Talking of which..."

Sam leaped up from the couch, with a speed he didn't know he possessed. "What...what are you saying...?"

"Oh sit down Sam, you'll spill your wine..."

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE FUCKING WINE!" Sam's hysteria flared back up. "When you first came to me you spent months trying to persuade me to...to let you wear me like a cheap suit and now...now you're saying you what? You want to...to marry me?". Sam felt the acid from the wine scalding his throat.

Lucifer sipped at her glass, and smiled like the cat that got the cream. "I don't need to marry you Sam, I'm quite happy living in sin. I am the devil after all."