A/N: Normally I re-watch episodes before writing my tag, but I didn't with this one because I hated it, so apologies if there are any inaccuracies.
Title from Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
Sometimes, Sam wonders if anything he's done has ever really mattered. He used to believe it, that he was making a difference; it was the only thing keeping him going at some points. He's never enjoyed hunting, not in the way Dean does, or Dad did, but saving the world, killing monsters, helping people, these made all the pain and death worthwhile. That's what he told himself anyway, in the years after Jess, after Dean, after Hell. It worked, for a time. He doesn't really know when it stopped, only that it did.
Perhaps it was after Lucifer escaped for the first time, after years of defying fate and millennia of paying penance in the worst ways unimaginable were undone. That hurt, because he had tried so hard not to let Lucifer out again, but he'd still had hope back then. It was bruised, broken hope, but it was hope all the same.
Perhaps, then, it was the second time Sam's efforts to lock Lucifer away failed. He remembers how he felt after that motel room, and before they were taken away to the supermax. He had felt almost victorious, to have told Lucifer to go to Hell, and been the one to rip him from his vessel and send him back. Sam doubts that the Men of Letters' device would have been able to throw him back into the Cage, but he would have been gone, still. This time was both worse than the first, and not. He's always known that Crowley had his own agenda when it came to Lucifer, so it was barely a surprise to learn that he had, once again, interfered in their plans.
He thinks it most likely, then, that it is here, now, when he is once again staring down Lucifer in another shitty, no-name motel when his belief finally breaks. Perhaps another version of him from too many years ago would argue that it's third time's the charm, and that they'll finally manage it this time, to get rid of the Devil for good, but Sam can't believe that. Not when past experiences are screaming in his ears, telling him to grow up for fuck's sake. The best they can hope for is to survive this encounter, and then the next, and the next, until they come up with another useless plan to temporarily hold Lucifer at bay.
And, eventually, as is the way of the things that Sam Winchester does, they'll have to do this dance all over again. But he has grown weary of remembering the steps, so maybe next time he'll go wrong, and they can leave Lucifer to someone better. Maybe that way, the Devil will stay gone.
(He knows that he's kidding himself, but he smiles anyway. It's a nice dream)
A/N: Haha how awful was that ending. Thank you guys so much for reading, and please leave a review if you have a moment!