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Sam's soul was broken. He knew it. Cracked and charred and fragmented from his time in hell, both the literal one and the hell his normal life was.
His body, the perfect vessel, the Lucifer sword, was just as damaged, the spider web of demonic corruption stretching through his flesh and bones so deep he could almost taste in, when he focused. He hadn't touched demon blood in years, but still, on quiet nights, he could taste the metallic, electric poison on the back of his tongue.
Sometimes, when the craving got bad, he imagined biting into his own wrist and gorging on the blood there, hoping to taste whatever meagre trace of the power still remained inside him.
He hid this wish from everyone.
But as broken and filthy as his body was, it surely couldn't compare to his soul.
His soul, the product of six thousand years of torture, torment, isolation and collateral damage from the war between two archangels.
His soul, which had been condemned to an inferno no human had ever been meant to see.
It was a wonder the pathetic little thing still existed, in Sam's opinion.
‘That's not even remotely true, you know,’ a deep voice rumbled from beside Sam.
He turned to look at the speaker, lying beside him in the too-small bed Sam wouldn't allow him to fix.
Lucifer, as always, looked almost heartbroken at Sam's self-despising internal monologue.
‘I've told you before, Lu, if you don't like what I think about, stop listening.’
The archangel sighed. ‘I always want to hear your soul's musings, whether you think I appreciate them or not,’ he informed the human. ‘Get up, Sam, I need to show you something.’
Unthinkingly, Sam obeyed, and as soon as he was upright, the angel snapped clothing onto them both and wrapped his arms around his waist.
‘We're going out?’ Sam asked, surprised. This was unusual. A more typical reaction from Lucifer, when Sam grew too maudlin for his liking, was to bundle his giant mate into bed and wrap around him like a blanket, smothering Sam in comfort until Lucifer was satisfied that he'd been adequately cheered. A trip out into the human world, on the other hand, was unusual no matter what the circumstances were. And they were going to the human world, or Lucifer wouldn't have bothered clothing either of them. Pants were, on the devil, Lucifer's concession to Sam's humanity and the silly scruples that came with it.
Sam put his arms around Lucifer's neck, a silent signal that he was agreeing to be transported wherever Lucifer had in mind. A moment later, accompanied by the roller coaster sensation of angelic flight, Sam opened his eyes in what looked like an art gallery, full of Japanese pottery.
He blinked, and looked around. Lucifer obviously had a very specific message to get across.
But the angel was silent, letting Sam take in their surroundings and figure out the message alone.
Meandering through the beautiful collection, Lucifer's hand clasped in his, Sam began to notice an unusual pattern repeated in all the works, a spiderweb of gold weaving through each of the beautiful pots.
‘Is the gold webbing some sort of artist's trademark?’ Sam asked Lucifer. The angel smiled, and tugged Sam's hand, leading him a few steps on another direction. Following the prompt, Sam walked, and eventually found a sign among all the earthenware.
“Kinsuki/ Kintsukuroi: The Art of Mending with Gold”
Sam read the sign, and thought.
‘Broken pieces, repaired with gold to keep them together instead of being thrown away… so…’ Sam was beginning to understand, now, why Lucifer had brought him here. He looked down at his angel's eyes, swallowing over the sudden lump on his throat.
Lucifer snapped the fingers of his free hand and the world went still and silent around them. ‘Just like you. Broken, yes, but mended into something new, something better and stronger, from gold.’
Lucifer put his hand over Sam's heart, over his soul. ‘It could apply to either of us, really. I could be the shattered pot, and you the gold holding it together, as easily as the reverse. But either way, the way you are now, the way we are together, we're better. Stronger, more beautiful, than we ever were apart. And I'm sorry, I truly am, that we were both so destroyed in order to get us here. But I can't regret walking that path, when it's brought me here, to you.’
Looking around him at the hundreds of pots, at the webs of bright metal running through them, Sam couldn't regret it either.
He'd been broken, and repaired, and he was stronger for it. Stronger, more beautiful, with the addition of his missing piece, the angel who loved him.
Hidden deep within him, Sam's scarred and pitted soul glowed gold.