A/N: This story contains graphic depictions of torture, rape innuendos, non-consensual hair cutting, and suicidal ideation.
Dean had gone to talk to a vic, leaving Sam with the research. Sam had wanted to go with Dean, didn't want to be alone, but he hadn't said anything, didn't want his brother to worry. Sam told himself he was coping with his hallucinations. Sure, Lucifer was annoying, and he sometimes hurt him, and sometimes Sam forgot what was real, even when he was digging his thumb into the scarred palm of his hand, but he was coping, right? He got at least four hours of sleep a night, hadn't resorted to drinking like Dean had suggested, hadn't taken any of the pills his brother had given him, and he was able to work the cases. So, yeah, coping.
Now he was sitting on his bed in their brightly colored motel room that seemed very fond of the primary colors. The bedspreads were red, the walls a faded blue, the curtains a mustard yellow, but at least the spruce furniture brought some relief to his eyes, along with the mahogany flooring and the drab, gray carpets placed here and there. So it wasn't the worst room he'd been in. At least all the appliances were functional and didn't look like they had anything growing in them.
He had his laptop in his lap, looking up the names of the people who had gone missing in the last month. They hadn't found sulfur at any of the crime scenes, and no one had spoken of flickering lights and cold spots, so no demons or ghosts. Sam thought maybe they were dealing with a vampire, but some graves had been broken into recently, so maybe it was a ghoul, one who had gotten tired of rotten meat.
Lucifer was behind him, stroking a hand through his hair, but Sam was ignoring it, or doing his best to.
Sometimes he remembered the Cage, the memories coming upon him suddenly as if they were attacking him, and other times he didn't remember. The wall had come down, and some memories felt like they lasted weeks, or months, maybe even years, though he had figured out he would only blank out for a few minutes at a time. He couldn't remember all of it at once, had a feeling the human mind and soul just couldn't comprehend that much torture, so sometimes when he remembered something it seemed like a new experience, despite the intense feeling of déja vü. And then there was Lucifer. He'd touch him, he'd hurt him, he'd talk to him, he'd sing to him, but Sam knew he wasn't real. He kept telling himself he wasn't, and awful things were happening to him above, in the real world. Losing Castiel was drowning him in grief, even with the betrayal, but he didn't show it because he knew Dean was worse off. He wasn't sure Lucifer would be able to make him feel that grief, wasn't sure if he would be able to make him think Dean was nearly trying to drink himself to death. So this dump of a motel room was real. The hand in his hair wasn't.
"What do you say we take a little break from research, bunk buddy?" Lucifer breathed into his ear.
Sam pressed his lips into a thin line, clenched his jaw, and said nothing.
"I've been thinking lately," he went on, that hand still running through his hair, the fingers freezing him, "since Dean can't see me I can do whatever I want to you whenever I want." He made some sort of pleased sound that was nearly a laugh. "I could make love to you right in front of him and he'd think it'd just be you getting off to something in your head, like a freak." He paused, brushing his lips against Sam's ear, letting out a purr. "Well, I am in your head, aren't I? So maybe you are a freak, freak."
Sam wanted to argue with him, say he wasn't a freak, say it wasn't making love, but he knew Lucifer was aware of that already. He was just trying to bother him. And he was. A lot.
"And I know you don't want to go to the nuthouse, so, I'm feeling generous today, and I thought maybe I could help you with that. We can get to the sex after. You're gonna need it when I'm through with you, gonna want someone to hold you."
Sam couldn't focus on what he was reading anymore, but he kept pretending, eyes on the screen as he pressed his thumb into the palm of his left hand till it throbbed. For a second that icy hand on him left, proving that none of this was real, but then it was back again. Lucifer was grabbing his wrist now, his own thumb stroking over the scar.
"You know, I'm getting real sick of you doing that," he told him. And then his laptop was being brushed off his lap, clattering onto the floor. Sam went to pick it up, still ignoring the Devil, but he grabbed him, tugging him backwards.
"No!" Sam cried out, even though he wasn't even sure what was going on, what Lucifer had planned. But it was going to hurt. He knew it was going to hurt.
Then he wasn't behind him anymore. He was on him, straddling him, holding him down. Just feeling his weight on top of him made Sam feel like he was going to be sick, his body making too much saliva. It was oppressive and terrifying being underneath him, and Sam struggled, but couldn't move. Lucifer took each of his wrists and secured them to the bed with leather straps he hadn't known had been there.
That's because they're not actually there.
With that in mind Sam attempted to move, but he couldn't. There was just leather against his skin, and all he could do was tug uselessly. Then Lucifer was off of him, and the same was being done to his ankles.
Then, out of nowhere, Satan held up a scalpel, giving Sam a smile that could almost be described as radiant if it weren't for the horrific, hungry gleam in his eyes.
Sam licked his lips, fear spreading out in a cold wave from his stomach.
"W-what's that for?" he asked.
Lucifer slowly walked up to his head and then brushed some of his hair off his forehead in a gentle caress.
"Ever heard of trepanation?"
Sam forgot how to breathe, his eyes widening as he looked at the scalpel, then back to Lucifer's face. There was no hesitation there, and why would there be? There never had been in the Cage. He was going to hurt him, and he was going to enjoy it.
"Oh, so you do," he continued. "Thought that since it used to be done to mental patients, why don't I do it to you and save the nuthouse the trouble, huh? Your brother can ship you off with a hole in your head already. Of course, it ain't gonna get rid of me. There's nothing that can do that, I'm afraid."
"It's not real," Sam told himself out loud, thinking maybe hearing the sound of his own voice would help him. "It's not real, it's not real, it's not real."
And even as he said it Lucifer lowered the scalpel to his forehead, just beneath his hairline, and he sliced into him. Before Sam could scream there was a gag in his mouth, and he couldn't move his head away because with a snap of the Devil's fingers he was rendered immobile. He still tried to scream anyway, even as hot blood ran into his hair, ran over his skin. There was so much of it as Lucifer kept on cutting. He couldn't say it was some of the worst pain he'd ever felt since he'd experienced all the agonies of Hell, but he knew this was only the beginning, and it already flared and pulsated sharply within him.
"Calm down, Sammy," Lucifer told him. "I'm just getting started. Gotta make an incision first so I can see what I'm doing."
Then he was holding a towel against his head, the scalpel nowhere in sight, and Sam thought the illogical way this was all happening would shock him back to reality, but it didn't. Maybe this was his reality. The hallucinations were his reality. His left hand tingled, and he tugged at his restraints, yearning to press his thumb against it, yearning to do something. But he was helpless as Lucifer mopped up his blood.
Still, the red liquid kept dripping out of him in a rush, but Lucifer didn't seem to care, now holding up a knife. The sight had Sam widening his eyes in fear, his heart beating incessantly, painfully, and he just wanted this to stop.
He tried to scream again, the gag in his mouth muffling the sound. Lucifer laughed, that same dark laugh that Sam had grown so used to hearing, his voice making cold slither along his spine.
"I know in more modern practices it's common to use a drill, but I thought we'd try out a few different things. Gotta get creative with foreplay."
Sam instantly tried to protest despite the gag in his mouth, and it came out as a muffled cry, to which Satan just gently shushed him as he ran a hand through his hair. He lowered the knife to the incision in his forehead, telling him, "Don't worry. I know exactly what I'm doing."
Vibrations rattled throughout his skull, out from his forehead, and there was an awful scraping noise that made him shiver. It reminded him of that feeling he got when someone scraped their nails against a chalkboard, except the chalkboard was his skull, and the nails were the knife. The scraping and the shuddering pain didn't subside, and an ache alit in him that seemed to be born from the electricity working its way through his head. There wasn't a way to think as pain took him over. His thoughts didn't want to work. There was just alarm and panic that had him sweating profusely, and he was bleeding and crying; Sam felt like he was soaked in his own pain and fear.
The scraping seemed to go on for an eternity, so much so that he grew used to the sound of it, and he was surprised when it stopped. Something felt wrong, really wrong, and Sam was pulling at his restraints again. He needed to get away, escape what was happening to him. He felt vulnerable, more vulnerable than just being restrained made him feel. Something was wrong, and it was something he couldn't go back from, that could never be fixed.
Some part of him deep down knew what it was, especially since he knew how this process worked, but he couldn't make sense of it. No, that couldn't be it. It definitely wasn't. Sam hadn't just had part of his skull scraped away. That was impossible.
Those thoughts formed more in emotions - denial, terror - as Satan held a towel to his head, and Sam could imagine that it was now a bright red.
He pulled the towel away, smiled. "Look at your little brain in there. So cute." Now he had the scalpel again, started cutting, and then he cursed. "Your hair's in the way. Gotta fix that."
Then Sam was subject to Lucifer cutting his hair, and he looked to the right, his throat aching with grief, feeling like he was losing part of himself, as he saw some of his hair fall down onto the pillow just beside his head. The Devil then used an electric razor to shave some of his hair. It didn't hurt, but he cried anyway. He could've sworn it hurt. Something inside was hurting from it.
"Such a baby," Lucifer commented. "It's just a little haircut. Don't worry, it'll grow back. Besides, you'll still have that nice, pullable hair."
The razor went up and up and up, nearly to the very top of his head, and then the whirring stopped. Lucifer brushed his hair away, and Sam foolishly tried to curse his name as he saw more hair fall down to the pillow, joining the pool of blood.
"Bet your enemies love that," he went on, now holding the scalpel again, cutting into his skin till Sam's voice was leaving him in a screech. "They can just grab your hair, throw you around, hold your head back, or, as I like to do, pull on it when, well, you know, your mouth is full." He chuckled as he put the scalpel away again.
Sam saw a gleam of silver out of the corner of his eye, and then Lucifer was holding it over him to let him look at it. It was a hand drill and was probably small enough to fit in his pocket. The drill bit at the end was long, long enough to remind Sam of the spikes Lucifer sometimes liked to stab him with, and it made fear shoot through him till the mere beating of his heart drove agony into his blood. He knew the drill bit didn't have to be that long, knew that this was some kind of fear tactic, but it was working anyway.
"Nice, right?" Lucifer asked. "I think so. Very elegant for a drill. It's why I like it."
The more Sam looked at it the more familiar it seemed. Maybe he'd seen it in a hardware store somewhere. The proof that his mind was simply taking from things it'd experienced before should've helped snap him out of it, and he thought for a second there wasn't a gag in his mouth, he wasn't tied to the bed, and there wasn't a hole in his head. But Lucifer was still there and he was lovingly stroking the drill, his fingers curling around it suggestively before thumbing a switch on the side and turning it on.
The whirring started up, a high-pitched metallic shriek, and Sam felt much too hot, the noise cutting into him. Tension crackled in the air, ready to burst into agony once the drill hit bone, like fire after a lightning strike. The drill was lowered to his skull, and he had thought he was prepared for the vibrations, remembering how it had felt last time with the knife, but now it felt like his entire head was being shaken vigorously, at a speed he couldn't comprehend, but with none of the pain in his neck. All the pain was deep, in his bone, and he was crying again, and he thought he could hear something. It sounded like an animal that no one had been kind enough to put out of its misery. He wanted that animal to shut up. It was sickening, heartbreaking, terrifying. Sam was surprised he heard it over the metal shrieking against his bone.
Seconds passed, but each fraction of those seconds was a torment filled crawl. There was heat aching and radiating out from his head, from the destruction the drill was causing. The epicenter was alight with ruining, bleeding torment that was crushing and grinding and pulverizing. It kept going till there was nothing left to destroy, and his face was soaked with tears, his body spasming from the tension coiled tightly into each muscle.
The damp, bloodied towel was held to his head again, and Lucifer was humming. Sam recognized the tune, but was too out of it to put a name to it. Then he realized it was one of his favorites, a song he had never let Dean know he liked, figuring he'd tease him about it: movement I of "Moonlight Sonata". Even with that animal whining and growling Sam could hear him. Lucifer was stroking a hand through what remained of his hair as he hummed, not caring that it was soaked through with sweat. Through a blur of tears Sam thought he saw a serene smile on his face. He'd expect such a smile from someone who was maybe sitting on their porch at the end of a hot day, drinking a glass of lemonade, not from someone who was drilling away at the skull of a living, suffering being. But this was the Devil. Suffering seemed to be all he knew. It was all he'd shown Sam. Centuries in the Cage and Lucifer still remained a mystery to him. Sure, he could tell when he was going to do something, what he was going to do, maybe even why with his sick, deluded way of thinking. But at the core of it all, Sam didn't know. Comprehending that much evil was beyond any human mind or soul. It was evil that had touched Sam at his core, evil that had seen all he was, had taken all he was, had twisted it and broken it and ruined it beyond belief. And though he knew this was simply a result of that, he still saw a flash of silver, and a scalpel was still slid into his skin. The dying, wounded animal grew louder, but its voice was muffled as if someone had gagged it. It confused Sam. Someone had gotten close enough to gag it, but they hadn't killed it? Why wouldn't they kill it? Why wouldn't it just die? Sam wanted it to die.
Maybe Lucifer could kill it for him. Sam looked up at his tormentor with pleading eyes, even as more agony tore into him, sharp as a knife, cold and hot, and unforgiving. In the midst of all this Sam realized he just wanted someone to hug him. He wanted his brother. He wanted him to cover his eyes, not let him see the evils in his soul. He knew they'd find a way, they always did, but he wanted something, anything, to relieve him of this burden, this hot, bleeding, screaming thing.
Then the drill again. The drill that seemed to screech at him, hungry for his pain. It was insatiable, and louder than the Devil's horrifically beautiful voice.
By the time Satan was holding the reddened towel to his head again, Sam thought he was getting used to the pattern. Scalpel, drill, towel. Scalpel, drill, towel. He figured he'd keep doing this till his skull was riddled with holes; weak, and easy to crush, his brain vulnerable. He supposed he was glad he wasn't using the knife again. The drill tore into him more viciously, heat searing his skull from it, but the knife was slower. Sam didn't want this to be dragged out. With every second he begged for it to end. He wept. He wept for himself, and he wept for that animal he heard.
Scalpel.
Blood.
Drill.
Sam couldn't take it any longer. He hadn't been able to take it to begin with, but he was drenched in his own blood, his head was being crushed and torn apart with violent pangs of pure, and utter torture. This was pain at its rawest form, at its most base, terrifying sensations. Lucifer had stopped humming, and now he was mopping up his tears with the towel, smearing blood across his flushed cheeks.
Then he was laughing, a cruel laugh that made Sam try to flinch, try to cover himself, try to get away, but he was trapped and helpless and weak.
He poked at his head, his index finger dangerously close to one of the holes. "One hole, two hole, red hole, new hole." With each word, he poked near the appropriate hole, traveling further and further up his head, and then he was laughing again, clearly amused with his own vile joke. "Come on, Sam. Nothing? That's funny! Or are you not a Dr. Seuss fan?"
He was laughing again, the scalpel in his hand, and then he felt his hand against him, then felt the metal against him, then it was in him, and then he could barely see, his vision turning red. Sam felt like he was crying again, but it wasn't joined by the aching in his throat, the shaking of his shoulders. No, there was just red. He soon felt something thick and hot coming out of his ears and nose as well. Before he could figure out what it was his eyes had rolled back into his head, some sense of impending doom squeezing his heart till he couldn't begin to understand how he was alive. Black. Nothing but black.
When he came to, what might've been a few seconds later, he hurt all over, and there was a coppery taste in his mouth. Sam tried to swallow it, but there was more, flooding him till he thought he was going to choke.
"Oops. Looks like you bit your tongue. My bad." There was no remorse, no guilt, no sympathy, no humanity, in his tone. Just pure and utter pleasure at the suffering he'd unleashed. "I'm sure I can still make good use of it after this. Your pretty mouth needs more than just a gag in it, wouldn't you say?"
The scalpel was being teasingly dragged across his skin now, and Sam jumped from it. He was a shuddering mess as it tore into him, and then he felt a hand against his, a familiar hand, the skin roughened from fighting and holding weapons.
Humming again. The same song in his angelic voice.
Sam looked to the left, searching for his brother, but he couldn't see him. There was blurry shadow, like maybe he was there, but he wasn't. He looked to the right, and the Devil was far more real than that dark shadow.
"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy…" Lucifer mused, breaking off from his humming, though he'd been getting to quite a pleasant part of the song.
He held up the drill once more.
That wounded animal cried louder than ever, even with the gag, and Sam wanted someone to block his ears so he didn't have to listen to it, didn't have to have his heart torn apart. He wanted to go to it and hold it, tell it everything was going to be alright as he slit its throat, helping it to the afterlife where it would find peace.
Peace. Sam greatly desired peace.
But the drill was turned on and he realized he'd never have it.
"Sammy!" the Devil was shouting now.
"Sammy!"
Dean?
That had been Dean's voice.
"Sam!"
The torment owning his head vanished, the Devil vanished, the restraints vanished, and he was able to speak again. His whole body was still wracked with pain, and his tongue was bleeding. Now that he didn't hurt so much Sam figured he'd had a seizure, and he realized that the animal he'd heard had been him. He wiped tears from his face with his right hand, his brother holding the other.
"You with me?" he asked, green eyes huge with worry.
Sam nodded slowly, put a hand to his head. He was met with his own sweaty hair, and he wanted to sob with relief, but he held it in. He was okay. He had to be okay. He had a job to do. Dean wasn't supposed to have to take care of him like this.
Dean's thumb was now gently massaging the scar in his palm, and Sam was so shaken from his hallucination that he didn't ask him to stop.
"I was coming back from talking to the vic, thought I heard something, and then I saw you lying there. How long you've been like that?"
"Don't know. Lucifer…" He swallowed roughly. No, he couldn't talk about it. It was too much.
Dean got up from where he was kneeling beside the bed, and wrapped Sam in a tight hug. Sam eagerly returned it, clutching at Dean's jacket tightly, feeling like he'd fall and slip into the memories of his tortured soul if he let go.
"It's okay. It's just me here. Just me. I'm gonna take care of you. I gotcha."
"You shouldn't have to take care of me," Sam muttered bitterly. "I'm fine."
Dean pulled back, and Sam was now weakly holding on, still not wanting to let go. His brother held his shoulder with one hand, and the other cupped his cheek.
"No, you're not fine. But you know what? That doesn't mean you're weak. You went through hell Sam. And you beat it. You just being here, alive, means you beat it. Yes, your soul is… damaged, but it's your soul. You. You're still you, Sammy, and you're still my brother, broken or not. So you're gonna keep on fighting, and I'm gonna keep on doing what I do - taking care of you."
Sam's vision blurred with tears again, and he ducked his head down. Dean fondly pat him on the shoulder and then ruffled his hair. Sam managed to get himself to let go of him and hunched in on himself, massaging his scarred hand.
Keep on fighting.
That's what he had to do. That's what he was going to do. For Dean. For himself.
Sam was going to keep on fighting.