Chapter Text
It wasn’t always this way.
Sam had never known love before Luc came into his life. He had never known anything like the man who walked in like he owned the whole town and everything in it, like everything that intense gaze fell upon simply became his in an instant. Everything his slow smirk landed on was his. Everywhere his light shone was his territory. That included Sam Winchester, who had felt that light as heat immediately.
That was what Lucius meant, after all, Light. Luc was the angel of light, and Sam worshipped him from minute one.
That wasn’t so long ago. Four years since he first tripped from his dark, dull life into the beaming excitement of love. Three since Luc had truly noticed the shadow following him. But since that moment, that glorious moment when Luc had suddenly, finally seen him, since that slow smirk had claimed him forever, Sam’s heart had been pinned to his sleeve for the taking.
Dean had hated him from the start, of course.
“He’s an asshole,” he had grumbled under his breath. “You don’t need this guy, Sammy.”
“It’s Sam. And I want him. You don’t know him, Dean! I get him! Nobody else could really get him the way I do! That’s what he likes about me! He said that!”
“I bet he said a lot of stuff. Look, just don’t geek out over him too bad, okay? I just don’t get a good vibe from him.”
Sam had rolled his eyes. “Oh. Sure. I’ll just ditch the best thing that ever happened to me because my dumb big brother has a bad feeling.”
“Hey, this dumb big brother can smell trouble a mile away.”
“Yeah, because it smells just like you.”
Dean had shrugged. “Not untrue. But still. Be careful, okay? I don’t like the way this guy just curls his finger and you go running.”
“Depends on how he curls his finger.”
A sharp wince was his reward. “Hey! Knock that off! I don’t need to hear about-about any of it!”
Laying on the gay innuendo was a tried and true way to make Dean get embarrassed and shut up. Anyway, the guy was completely overprotective. He saw demons where there weren’t any. Sam was smart, and he wasn’t about to be taken advantage of, or whatever it was Dean was scared about. He was a grown man, nineteen years old, and he didn’t have to answer to anyone.
But that was three years back.
“I want to know,” Luc was insisting in his quiet but firm voice. “Who were you with?”
Sam shook his head, and sat on the chair. He felt like a child at these times, with Luc standing over him. He swallowed. “It wasn’t-Nothing happened. I just went to the coffee shop, just to do some reading. I didn’t meet anyone there on purpose.”
Luc let an eyebrow peak. “But you did meet someone there.”
“I ran into an old friend from school. Andy. But-but I knew you wouldn’t want me to sit with him, so I didn’t. I just chatted with him a little while, and-“
“About what?” Luc’s hand rested on Sam’s shoulder. The weight of it burned into him.
Sam took a breath, trying to search his memory of the conversation with Andy through the fog of anxiety. “Nothing.”
“It’s never nothing, Sam.”
“No, I just mean nothing important. He told me how grad school is going. I mentioned that my brother had gotten engaged to Lisa. He took his coffee to go.”
Luc nodded down at him, and then a soft smile replaced his frown. Light came rushing back into Sam’s periphery, and he sighed with relief. “Okay. I just wanted to know. This Andy person. A good friend back in school?”
Sam licked his lips, and shook his head quickly. “No, not like that. Just-just a guy I knew. Studied together a few times, that’s all.”
“Does he have a girlfriend?”
“I didn’t ask.”
This was less than satisfactory, he knew. Sam understood that the question had been code for whether or not Andy was gay. Luc watched him for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay,” he said again. “Next time, text me.”
“I will,” he promised breathlessly. “I’m sorry. I just forgot.”
“I worry about you when you don’t answer your phone, and then I find out you’ve been out with someone else.”
“I wasn’t, not really. I really was just there to read by myself outside. I’ll just do that here next time.”
Luc nodded, and he put his fingers into Sam’s hair. It was longer than Sam liked it, but Luc had asked him not to cut it yet, so he didn’t mind. Luc thought he looked good. That was all that mattered. “I missed you today,” he purred. “And I think you owe me a little something for making me worry. Don’t you?”
He gazed up at him with devotion. “What do you want me to do?”
“Why don’t you help me with my belt?” he suggested.
Sam slid off the chair and knelt on the floor in front of his lover. His heart was beating wildly in his chest. He was grateful that Luc wasn’t angry with him. He was grateful for the chance to prove to him that he was Luc’s and only Luc’s, forever. His fingers pried off the belt with practiced movement, and he helped himself to Luc’s hardening bulge without pretense as soon as he could free it from confinement.
He let Luc guide him in this, as in all things. Luc was the first man Sam had ever tasted, and Luc had taught him how to make it good. Sam was very good by now. He loved knowing that Luc had molded him into just what he wanted Sam to be for him. He could never be wrong so long as Luc was the one teaching him, crafting him. The man was only three years older, but far more experienced, and yet he always said that Sam was the best lover he ever had because he had made him perfect for himself. Sam was just what Luc wanted. If ever he wasn’t, Luc would surely fix him so that he was.
It had crossed Sam’s mind briefly that if ever something happened to Luc, and he found himself trying to please a different lover, he wouldn’t know how to go about it. But he pushed that thought aside. He didn’t like to think about life without Luc, and love without Luc was unimaginable.
Luc was love. Light and love and everything good in the world.
The first time Luc had slapped him, it was during sex, and it had stunned him so badly, he had sucked in his breath and frozen in place. Luc had watched him, and Sam could feel just how excited it had made him. It hadn’t really hurt. It was just unexpected, had just scared him a little. So he drew in his breath again, slowly this time. “Did I do something wrong?” he had whispered shakily. Luc had filled him with a groan in that instant, and hadn’t bothered to answer. Something about Sam’s question had sent him over the edge. In spite of his confusion, Sam was proud of having somehow brought his lover a new level of pleasure, and anyway, it seemed embarrassing to ask afterward for an explanation when someone with more experience would probably have understood what had just happened instinctively.
It wasn’t every time anyway. Just once in a while. And Luc liked it so much when Sam stared up at him in shock, he couldn’t really complain. Whatever Luc needed in bed, that was what Sam would be. He only wished he could ever prepare himself, that he could ever know when it was coming. He felt himself flinch sometimes when Luc moved his hand to touch his face, and even the flinch was enough to make Luc’s eyes flash with hunger.
It was only a few months ago that Luc had first slapped him in the face outside the bedroom. But that had been Sam’s fault entirely. He had forgotten his phone at the house when he had gone to spend the day with his brother, and had missed nineteen texts and six phone calls from Luc in just four and a half hours. So he shouldn’t have been surprised to find his boyfriend seething by the time he arrived back home. Luc had said nothing at first, had grabbed Sam’s hair in one hand, and held mercilessly as his other hand struck him across the opposite cheek.
The force of it knocked Sam from his feet, and he had fallen with a shocked cry onto the floor. The hand still gripped his hair, keeping him from turning away from Luc’s rage.
“What the hell were you thinking?” the man shouted finally. “Do you know how worried I was about you?”
Sam was struggling to take a breath, and tears were smearing his vision. “What? Why?”
“Your phone, Sam! I had to leave work early because I was so worried about you! And what do I see? Your goddamn phone sitting there on the counter.”
His breath came shallow and quick. He stared up at Luc. “My phone? God, Luc, I’m sorry! I didn’t even realize-“
“Because you’re never thinking of me! You never think of anyone but yourself!”
Tears spilled out over his burning cheeks. It wasn’t until the salt touched his lip that he realized he was bleeding. “No! Luc, I’m sorry!”
“No, you’re not. But you will be. Because you’re going to sit here and read every one of my messages out loud, listen to every voicemail I left you. And then you’re going to do it again, and again, until I feel like you understand.”
Luc dragged him, half crawling, half falling, to the other side of the room where his phone waited, before he finally released his hair. “Don’t get up,” he warned sharply. “Just sit there and read.”
Sobs choked him until he had almost no voice, but he did as he was told, as he deserved, and read everything four times in succession, listened to the angry messages at the end of each string of texts, swimming deeper and deeper in shame.
Partway through the fifth round, Luc had heard enough. “You are selfish, Sam. Do you realize what it cost me to leave work early? Because I thought you were hurt or sick or something? I had to reschedule meetings, had to use my own sick leave. Is that what you wanted?”
“No!” he had wept. “No, I’m sorry.”
“You never think about me. It’s always all about Sam.”
“I’m sorry. Please. I was just with my brother-“
Luc had snorted at that. “Maybe you shouldn’t have been.”
Sam had slept on the couch for hours that night, until at last Luc had come to get him. He had blinked with disorientation in the dark, pain registering in his head though he couldn’t immediately remember why. But “I’m so sorry” fell from his lips like a reflex when he felt Luc’s hand on his arm.
“Come to bed.” Luc turned and walked back to their room himself, and didn’t bother checking that Sam followed behind. Sam slipped between the covers in silence, and stared at the back of Luc’s head miserably until sleep came for him.
Since then, Sam had been more careful. There had only been two other incidents since that night. He knew what Luc liked and what he didn’t, he reasoned with himself. If he could just do one but not the other, none of this would happen again. It was as simple as that. Sam was smart. He could figure this out. He would never forgive himself if he messed this up.
So when he told Luc about Andy today, he was careful to word everything properly. He wasn’t lying about Andy. And he really hadn’t intended to meet up with anyone. It wasn’t his fault that the nice stranger with the dark hair and blue eyes had sat at his small table. There hadn’t been anywhere else to sit. They had exchanged a few words between them, about the book Sam was reading, but little else. It was hardly worth mentioning to Luc at all.
Not even the part when the man had smiled kindly at him and murmured with a lilt of hope that he would be back again the next day around the same time, and definitely not the part where Sam had smiled back.