AN: This is just a bit of speculation/wishful thinking about what could happen during Sam's return to Hell in 8x19 Taxi Driver. Enjoy!
He's heard it said that if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. He finally understood the full extent of the saying now: his trip back to Hell ensured it.
He hated to think of it as back to Hell, as if it were his true home; where he truly belonged.
He hated how, just by being in this place, pacing along through impossible puddles of murky water and blood that penetrated his shoes and curled around his feet, he began to question himself. His insecurities, brought to the fore, a new one with each tentative step along the corridor of tortured souls. He recoiled from each one, as they reached out to him with bony arms flayed of their skin, and rasping, abrasive voices. They told him to join them, because he was one of them, once. Maybe he was still.
Even with the demon blood, and the psychic stuff, and the damn apocalypse, he wasn't one of them. The damned, the demonic – he'd never gotten stuck in a devil's trap, or felt his skin sizzle off when he made contact with holy water.
Granted, those awful symptoms of being a demon had never been experienced by him in real life, but they had been in one place: Lucifer had always tried to convince him that he was one of his children, and that really, he should praise him as such. Sam had shaken his head: wordless replies were always best, unless he wanted to get his teeth and tongue removed . . . By pliers, by hot pokers, by hammers and scalpels and scissors and-
But, in all of his time there, he'd never once been convinced that he was a demon for any substantial length of time, even when Lucifer made him scream in pain to the rhythm of the Rituale Romanum, or when he poured acid on his skin in the guise of holy water.
No, he wasn't a demon. But yes, he did have his own person Hell down here. It made him shudder to even think of the name, especially when he was down here and so close to it; when all he could hear were screams and sinister, sadistic laughter.
The cage.
Suddenly, he found himself at the end of the corridor of barred cells; the damned no longer screamed and clawed at him from both sides, jeering and screeching and bleeding, forgetting how it felt to be as human as he was. He turned around, squinting in the conflicting orange and blue light, and saw the corridor stretch out in front of him, further removing him from his search for an innocent soul. As it grew, and they moved further and further away from him like he was stuck in some warped, fever-induced dream, he wondered what had caused this . . . Who had caused this.
He turned around again, and was met with his answer. Staring back at him, in the guise of the unfortunate vessel Nick, was Lucifer.
Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.
He reached out, grabbing Sam by the throat, and lifting him up squeezing mercilessly with a smug smile. Sam looked into his eyes, panicking and terrified when faced with his tormentor for the first time since he'd managed to put an end to his hallucinations. But this wasn't a hallucination: this was real. He was in Hell, he could smell burning flesh, and he did have the icy-cold, sharp fingernails of the devil himself digging into his pale flesh.
Hello, bunk buddy. Miss me?
His instinct was his saving grace. He snaked his hand into his jacket, and in one fluid motion, pulled out the demon-killing knife and slashed at Lucifer's forearm. The archangel hissed, and dropped him, which surprised him: it shouldn't have had any effect. He fell to the floor, landing on his back and winding himself. As he scrambled backwards furtively, he noticed the devil snarl at him, clutching his arm . . . But Lucifer never actually spoke to him. His malevolent, void-like eyes just gazed at Sam in deep-engrained, single-minded hatred.
It was then that Sam noticed a shimmer of gold: some form of letter, or symbol . . . He sat up, gaping up at where he imaged a ceiling would eventually be, if it was even possible to see that far up. He didn't know how he hadn't seen it before: he reached out, pressing his fingertips to one of the faint symbols in front of him. It glowed when he touched it, and he withdrew his hand, feeling a wave of cold, pure hatred flow through him.
Now he understood. This was the cage: a physical barrier, formed by what he could only imagine were powerful Enochian sigils. Thinking about it had brought him forth to Lucifer, and had temporarily put him under the control of the illusions he conjured up.
Because Lucifer hadn't actually managed to strangle him. It was just an illusion; it was all he could manage, trapped within the cage, unable to salvage his favourite chew-toy.
When he finished looking at the barely-visible barrier that separated him from a never-ending barrage of hatred and pain, he looked again at his former tormentor, and saw him: really saw him, and not in the form he chose to show.
Sam saw the face of the devil. And he pitied him.
Lucifer was sublime. He was beautiful, to the point where it scared Sam to even look at him. It was overwhelming, to perceive something this beautiful, and to know that it was evil – completely, unequivocally evil – in its attitude to you. He felt a pang of some unrecognisable emotion – disappointment? Fear? – as he realised something this beautiful wanted to hurt him over and over again.
The second thing Sam realised, other than his hypnotising and terrifying beauty, was how huge he was; he had to stoop because, despite the seemingly-unending height of the ceiling, it was still too short for him. Sam realised that the entire time he'd been torturing him, Lucifer, too, had been in pain. He just hadn't been able to see it, because he'd been inside the cage and under his influence, and only able to see him as Nick; now he'd broken free from that influence, and fought back, he saw the true pain that the archangel was in. The cage wasn't his playground, like he'd claimed so many times with sadistic glee: it was a tiny crate, holding a proud, vicious animal.
Even though the devil had delighted in keeping Sam in confined spaces as one form of torture, Sam still felt a little sorry for the archangel. He imagined that in Heaven, so mighty and tall and proud, he'd been much loved by his brothers and sisters, and free to do anything he wanted.
But it was because he was so prideful that he had fallen. Lucifer had tried to twist that story; had tried to tell it to Sam so many times, and put his spin on it. Hell, if he hadn't tried to torture it into the hunter, he might have even sympathised with him, and helped ease his pain.
"You don't deserve it," Sam found himself speaking, even though he knew the devil probably couldn't hear him, or didn't care. It reared its head, its eyes still the same shade of vacuous blue, and though Sam knew he was staring into his soul, he carried on staring. He saw Lucifer, now, as what he was: a scared, angry thing; a prideful, wounded beast.
". . . But I pity you,"
It was true. Lucifer was covered in places where he'd been burned by the sigils of the cage, and Sam swore he could even see six or so stumps that protruded from his back, different lengths where appendages had been roughly ripped away. If he had to hazard a guess, he'd say they were where wings used to be, before he fell. He realised that no matter how beautiful Lucifer looked now, he would have been so much more amazing to behold with his wings.
"You're in pain, and you've been let down by the people you love. I get it, I do . . . If things went differently, I might have even have tried to help you," He explained. He picked up his knife from the floor, constantly keeping his eyes on the dull, bottomless eyes of Lucifer. What he said next was important for him to say, more than for the devil to hear.
"But that doesn't mean you were justified in what you did to me. For a while, I thought you broke me . . ."
He clutched the demon-killing knife, and he imagined Dean was there, to put a hand on his shoulder. He was, for the first time, glad that he got to come here, or he'd never have been able to say what he was about to say:
"But I was wrong. You only made me stronger. And you don't get to control me anymore," He yelled up at the fallen archangel.
No more. No more doubting his own humanity, no more thinking he'd end up a demon; no more believing he was too weak to complete these trials; no more waking up from dreams where Dean died over and over, or where he was back in the cage being tortured by this pathetic creature.
It screamed back at him, but he didn't even blink. In fact, he smiled, glad that it could hear him, and that it was riled: its roars were the most hideous sound, but he wasn't afraid – they were only hideous because that was how Lucifer felt. All the self-doubt that Hell intrinsically made him feel just by being there seeped out of him, like water through splayed fingers. He could do this. He could complete these trials, and say goodbye to Lucifer forever.
The archangel threw himself in a blind rage against the wall of the cage with a great burning, sizzling sound, but he couldn't get through to Sam anymore; could create an illusion powerful enough to make the youngest Winchester believe he could hurt him now. He was on a mission to save the world; he'd never be like Lucifer. He was a good man, and he would never, ever let himself become a demon.
Sam smiled, and finally said, "Goodbye, Lucifer,"
Then he walked away, knowing that he'd never wake up screaming from nightmares about that poor, wretched creature again. He could cast the archangel that had once shared his body with him out of his mind, in the knowledge that he had defeated it not just once, but twice, now.
Lucifer was in the past; the archangel didn't matter anymore. Not when Sam had a second trial to complete, to lock him down there for the rest of eternity, with no chance of reprieve.
Any ideas for oneshots? Let me know, if they're my kind of thing, I'll consider writing them :)