Thank you so much Gredelina1 for working beta magic on this chapter for me. Also thank you to Jenjoremy for persuading me a Sam POV could be done without being all torture and SandraEngstrom2 for helping me see how that could work.
Chapter Four
Lucifer smiled widely. "Hey, roomie... upper bunk, lower bunk or you wanna share?"
There was a moment of absolute despair before realization caught up with Sam. This wasn't real.
After Hell, after Castiel brought the wall tumbling down, Sam would dream of the cage almost every night. He would be there and it would feel so real he could feel the bite of cold in the air that surrounded Lucifer and smell the coppery tang of blood. Dean would wake him from those dreams with a hand on the shoulder, a voice saying, "It's okay, Sammy." There would be aspirin in one hand for the headache that always followed and while Sam dry swallowed them and choked out the details of his dream, Dean would squeeze his shoulder and tell him it wasn't real. Sam would sit on the bed, shaking and trying to calm his racing heart, and Dean would say, "Never again, Sammy. We got you out. You're never going back." And Sam would believe, because Dean was there and there would be such certainty in his eyes that Sam had to believe. He would know he was out and there was nothing that could make him go back because Dean wouldn't let him. So this was a dream. He just had to wait for Dean to wake him up again.
"C'mon, Sam," Lucifer said. "Don't go all strong and silent on me. We both know it won't end well. I'll get annoyed and you'll end up with all your skin peeled off."
Sam shuddered.
Lucifer stepped into his space and trailed a finger down Sam's cheek, following the line of the tear that had slipped past his careful control. "I hate to see you cry."
Sam turned away from him and stared through the bars to the place Crowley and Rowena had stood. They were gone, now. His dream had no use for them, thankfully. He didn't want them there to taunt, and he wanted them to witness his capitulation at the hands of Satan even less.
He heard Lucifer moving behind him but he didn't turn. Then he felt the cold hands on his shoulders and he flinched. Cool breath tickled his ear as Lucifer leaned in close to speak, "Talk to me, Sam. The more you talk, the less I'll hurt you."
That was a lie. It didn't matter how much Sam would talk, try to distract, it was never enough to stop Lucifer indulging his sadistic desires.
He clasped his hands together and squeezed a thumb down hard on the scar on his palm. The action was like breathing to him once, he would do it so often. It had been a while, but the feeling of hope—'Let him be gone, please let him be gone'—was the same.
"It's no good wringing your hands. It's not going to do you any good. See, I'm real Sam. Bona fide Satan here, not that hallucination your ruined mind came up with. Which, by the way, was awesome. Congrats to your cracked melon for coming up with that. I am in your head, Sam. I see what you see and I know what you know. Every little secret, every hope and dream you keep from Dean, is mine to sift through for the good parts."
Sam squeezed down on the scar harder and Lucifer yanked his hands apart.
"I am not a hallucination," he said, sounding almost affronted.
"No," Sam agreed. "You're not a hallucination."
Lucifer rolled his eyes. "And I'm not a dream either."
Sam just stared back at him blandly. Lucifer could read his mind because he was Sam's mind. That didn't mean Sam shouldn't guard his reactions. He was a Winchester. He wasn't giving in.
Lucifer sighed heavily. "I didn't want to have to do this. I was hoping you would come around on your own, but you've forced my hand, Sam. In all of your dreams, did you ever feel this?" He thrust his hand forward and gripped Sam around the throat with icy fingers. Sam felt the shock of pain at once and then the constriction as he tried to draw a breath. It was impossible.
It was impossible… He had never dreamed this. Lucifer had never hurt him physically in a dream. It was always the anticipation of pain that scared him, the memories of what he had been through that scared him. He had never felt like this.
"Now you're getting it," Lucifer said approvingly. "Pain equals real and real equals Lucifer. Clever Sam."
"Stop," Sam whispered with his last remaining vestiges of air.
"Of course," Lucifer said, dropping his hand back to his side and watching as Sam bent over and tried to gasp air back into lungs through a burning windpipe.
Tears filled Sam's eyes and he thumbed them away, even though Lucifer knew they were there the moment they appeared. It was real, not a dream. Sam was in Hell. Lucifer was there. They were in a cage. The only thing missing was…
"This," Lucifer said, tapping the tip of the straight-edged razor against his teeth with a chinking sound. He held it in front of him, checked the edge with his thumb and nodded to himself. "Now, Sammy, a few ground rules before we start. Screaming, begging, crying and copious bleeding is good, encouraged even. You know that's my favorite part."
Sam backed away from him until his shoulders hit the bars of the cage, holding him in place as Lucifer stalked toward him.
"One last chance to save yourself, Sam. Say yes and we will bust out of here together and get to work. We'll stuff away the Darkness and have ourselves a good time."
"Never," Sam ground out.
"In that case, let us begin…"
Soon after Lucifer started, he stopped again. One moment he was gleefully drawing the blade over Sam's chest in swirling, shallow patterns, and the next he was swiping a hand over the mess and leaving smeared blood covering newly healed skin.
He didn't understand at first, and then he heard Crowley say, "Hmm…guess Lucifer wanted a little quiet time." He looked to see through the bars but they were shrouded by white smoke.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
Lucifer pressed a finger to his lips and shushed him. "Listen," he whispered.
Sam moved closer to the smoke and listened, after a beat hearing the most wonderful and unwelcomed voice. "He's in there is he?" Dean! "And this isn't some trick to screw with me?"
Someone answered, Rowena Sam thought, but his mind was occupied by one fact. Dean was there. "Dean!" he shouted, rushing at the smoke and shoving a hand through the bars. He reached out, grasping at the air, and then there was a hand in his, holding it tight. Sam returned the grip, clinging to his brother. He knew it was him by the inexorable comfort the touch from the rough, callused fingers gave him.
He heard Dean gasp. "Oh, God. Sammy. Sammy, I'm so sorry."
Sam leaned his forehead against the bars and clung to his brother's hand as tight as he could. "I'm sorry," he said in return. "I shouldn't have done it. I should have listened. It wasn't God. It was him, Dean, Lucifer. He tricked me. I'm sorry."
Lucifer chuckled. "He can't hear you, Sam."
"But I can hear him."
"Yes," he said as if explaining something very obvious to someone very stupid. "Because I want you to. This is my domain, Sam. I control what you see, hear and feel. I control everything. C'mon, Sam. You used to know this stuff."
"You bastard," Sam hissed.
"Rude. You know what, I was being kind, letting you both have your moment, but I am done with that. Say goodbye, Sam."
"Fuck you!"
Lucifer's expression darkened and he yanked Sam's shoulder, pulling him back into the cage and wrenching him out of Dean's hold. He heard Dean cry out as if in pain.
Sam turned to Lucifer, fury blazing in his eyes, and Lucifer laughed.
"I can use you as a sketchpad and you bear it. I stop the broment and you look as though you want to skin me. Really, Sam, are you aware of just how backward your relationship with your brother is?"
Sam leaned his head against the bars, "Dean."
"Sam!" Dean said desperately. "Don't worry. I'll get you out."
"No!" Sam shouted in return, wishing more than anything that Dean could hear him. "Don't do it, Dean! It's a trap. He'll get out."
Lucifer laughed behind him and whispered in his ear. "You gotta have a Plan B, am I right?"
Sam's heart seemed to freeze. They were doomed. He would spend eternity in the cage with Lucifer or Dean would get him out and the world would be screwed. There was no other option. It was Sam or the world. After last time—'I looked everywhere. I collected hundreds of books, trying to find anything to bust you out.'—he knew which Dean would choose.
Because of Sam's arrogance, his belief that God would have chosen him of all people to work through, he was going to be the cause of the end of the world. Again.
Sam and Bobby were sitting on the back steps of Bobby's place, waiting together for the sun to rise. It had happened a few times before. Sam was an early riser, even on the days they weren't working a case. He liked to run in the pre-dawn light.
When he'd gotten downstairs that morning, though, Bobby had already been awake, filling the coffee pot. He'd said one word, "Sunrise?" and Sam had decided that watching the day start with his friend was an infinitely more appealing prospect than anything else in the world he could think of. They waited until the coffee was ready and then they'd gone outside together and took a seat facing out into the yard.
As the sun appeared over the horizon, Sam lifted his face to the light and drew in a deep breath of fresh air.
"It's good, isn't it," Bobby said.
Sam nodded. "The best."
"Better than what you've got going on."
Sam frowned. "It is?"
Bobby peered sideways at him. "You forget what's happening, Sam?"
Sam was momentarily confused and then his mind caught up—Apocalypse. Lucifer. The Cage. Soulless. Castiel. Leviathans. Dick Roman. The crack of a gun. Idjits.
"You're dead," he stated.
Bobby nodded. "I am."
"Am I?"
"No. Keep looking, Sam."
Sam dutifully closed his eyes and searched back. Purgatory. Trials. Gadreel. Abaddon. The Mark of Cain. The Darkness. God. Lucifer. The Cage. Again.
"Oh."
"Yep. Oh."
"How are you here?"
"The Darkness arrived with a hell of a bang. Things got a little shaky since. Lucifer isn't the only one that can reach out."
Sam sighed. "The Darkness. You know what I did."
"I know you saved your brother. I know you had the best of intentions. I know you didn't mean to do wrong."
"That excuse didn't work last time either," Sam said.
"No," Bobby admitted. "I suppose it didn't."
The sun was creeping higher, and for a moment they both just watched it before Bobby broke the silence.
"You know what you've got to do, Sam."
Sam turned to look at him, staring into familiar and lamented eyes. "What do I have to do?"
"Say yes."
"No!" Sam said quickly, devastation ripped through him once again.
"You have no choice, Sam. Think of your soul. Being in there will destroy you and it will destroy your brother. He will rip the world apart to get you out. If you say yes, you'll have some control. You beat him down once. You can do it again. Hold him inside. You can do it, I know you can."
Sam shook his head dolefully. "It won't work."
"It will. You're strong. You are stronger than anyone I've ever known, stronger than Dean even. You can do it."
"No," Sam said sadly. "I mean it won't work, Lucifer. I know what you are doing, and I won't fall for it. I'm not saying yes to you. I can't. I won't be the man that destroys the world a second time."
The scrap yard was replaced with bars. Bobby's face rippled and morphed into Lucifer's. He smiled grimly. "You know, that was faster than I thought it would be. You've gotten smarter in our time apart."
"I just know my friend well enough to know he'd never say that to me. Bobby loves me, but he wouldn't choose me over the world. He knows as well as any hunter that the lives of many matter more than any one man."
Lucifer groaned. "Oh, the stupidity of Man. What's the point of free will if you don't use it properly?"
"Never," Sam said.
"Never say never, Sammy. You'll only look stupid when you change your mind."
"I won't do it," Sam said defiantly.
"But you will. And soon. I can tell. You're fading Sam. You're lying to yourself. Your poor, ruined soul is quickly dying and you will snuff out like a candle."
"And when that happens," Sam said, "I will be no good to you anymore. I can't say yes when I'm not here anymore."
"That's where you are wrong. You will say yes because you will be too far gone to do anything else."
"I guess that's what will keep me strong then," Sam said.
He would fight Lucifer with everything he had and he would keep his soul whole. Sam's new mission was to do whatever it took to not fade away.
The difference between the cage years ago with Adam and Michael was that now there were higher stakes.
Sam hadn't known about his soul being destroyed last time. Even if he had known, he wouldn't have cared. The prospect of snuffing out would have been appealing to him. He'd had no hope of escape, so there was nothing to hold on for. Now he had something to fight for and it was so hard.
Time under the knife was interspersed with visits from people he loved, and each of them would implore him to say yes to Lucifer. Dean would beg him, telling him how he couldn't do it all alone again. Castiel would tell him pragmatically how Dean was slowly destroying himself in the attempt to free Sam. Bobby would come and make the same arguments as before, and though Sam knew it wasn't really them, he would sometimes pretend it was as it gave him a break from the pain.
It was after a visit with Dean that Sam 'woke' to a new nightmare. He was lying on the floor of the cage, curled into a ball. That was nothing new, that was not the problem. The icy arms wrapped around him and the body spooned up against him from behind that scared him. He froze, even his breath ceasing as Lucifer spoke in a soft, crooning, almost seductive voice. "Do you remember when we were together?" he asked.
Sam drew a shallow breath and said, "Not the kind of thing you forget."
"Do you remember how right it felt?"
Sam tried to pull away but the Devil held him too tight, his breath tickling the back of Sam's neck.
"It never felt right," he said emphatically.
"Liar," Lucifer whispered. "I can see it all in your mind. You felt it just as much as I did. We were two pieces made whole. Do you remember the blood of Azazel's gang dripping from our fingers? The rightness of it, seeking revenge together. And that night. Do you remember the night before Michael, and Stull and the cage? Do you remember what we did? We had so much fun, Sammy…"
"No," Sam growled.
"Lies." Lucifer tightened his grip around him. "I know you better than you know yourself. I know your weakness, and I know just how close you are to giving me consent. Soon, Sam, so soon."
The very worst part of it all was that Sam knew Lucifer was right. He was going to perish and would probably say yes. He could feel himself fading from day to day. He didn't know how long he had been in the cage, only that it had been years of intermittent torture of pain and of seeing the people he could never have again. He was doing his best, but Sam knew he was starting to fade away.
"Yes," Lucifer whispered. "You are. You just need a little more persuasion…"
So… How was that? I tried to make it as light on the actual physical torture scene as I could, even though that's happening, too, I hate to read and write it.
Review Replies: First off, thank you all so much for supporting the story. I really appreciate it. I was reading another story the other day and they mentioned in an A/N that they didn't reply to reviews as some people didn't like it. It never occurred to me before that people wouldn't want a thank you. I didn't reply to the latest batch of reviews — which felt very weird to not do — because I figured I'd give you a choice. Do you want replies? I love chatting and I think it's polite to say thank you, but if it bothers you, let me know.
Until next time…
Clowns or Midgets xxx