Chapter Text
His first memory is always of falling.
It’s the second memory, the one that depends on the instance of falling he’s in, that determines which pivotal moment of his life he was remembering.
The very first fall, he was very little, a toddler, and Dean, his brother, still had blond hair. He was still a little kid, four years older in reality, but was larger than everything, his superhero, when he swooped in and caught his Sammy before his head could impact with the first stair riser. Dean had slipped himself, but having John for a father had already taught the little boy to turn them so that Dean took the bruises, not Sammy.
That was the moment he first realized how much his brother loved him, how much he loved his big brother. It was pivotal in the grand scheme of things, such a small moment that ended with their father yelling at Dean for not watching his brother close enough and Dean desperately holding back tears. The utter surprise on John’s face when little Sammy began screaming for him to stop yelling at his brother had startled Dean into hugging him closer, probably thinking John would strike out at the little boy, but John had indeed stopped and backed off, finally taking in the goose egg on Dean’s head and the way he held his arm.
From that moment on, Sam worked on being more careful, being more aware of his body, so Dean wouldn’t get in trouble anymore, so John wouldn’t blame Dean for Sam’s clumsiness. John had required them to train like little soldiers, but Sam had done it less out of obedience, and more out of obligation. If he was strong and healthy, Dean wouldn’t have to be so worried all the time.
Years later, after the fight with John that ended with Sam being exiled from the family because he wanted to go away to college, had gotten into Stanford, he’d slipped in the rain on the way to the bus, too close to the edge of the ravine. He would have certainly ended up with a broken bone at the bottom if Dean hadn’t appeared out of nowhere and grabbed his arm, pulling him back onto his feet. Dean had followed him from the squatter house, intending to make sure his brother was safe.
Sam had strangled on his ‘thank you’ as he gulped down his fear and anger. Dean had gotten back into his car, waiting for Sam to slide into the passenger seat like usual. Sam had been afraid that his brother, who had sided with John in the argument from before, would just turn around and that would be the end of his individuality, so he’d turned away and continued on to the bus station, Dean following behind him slowly all the way. Once he’d gotten on the bus, he’d looked back to meet Dean’s eyes for what he thought was the last time. His brother had that same look of desperately holding back tears. As the bus pulled onto the highway, Sam watched Baby’s taillights disappear the other direction.
There were so many times after that where he’d slipped, he’d fallen, and Dean had been there to catch him or pick him back up. And he realized, Dean had fallen many times, but he hadn’t been fast enough or hadn’t even tried to lend him a hand. He didn’t deserve Dean as his brother.
This is partly what had been going through his head as he fell backwards into the hole he had opened to the Cage once he took back control from Lucifer. He knew it was Michael in Adam’s body falling with him, but it was Dean’s severely broken face, his love keeping him from fighting back, that he saw on the back of his eyelids. There was also the resignation, the no longer hidden tears, and Sam had the acceptance that Dean knew he couldn’t catch Sam this time, couldn’t stop his fall, or even pick him up after.
The fall into the Cage was both interminably long and instant as time was not a concept here. Whatever the Cage was made of defied any attacks from inside or out, only expanding or shrinking, warping the reality around the Grace held within.
Sam remembered slamming into the solid, steel floor, every bone in his very human body shattering, blood flying, flesh splitting, skull bursting open to splat his brains. Through it all, he was aware, eyes open, all nerve endings still registering. It was hot flames, lightning sparking, frostbite cold. And he remembered Lucifer inside, spitting, cursing, abandoning his broken body for his original form, a multi-dimensional wavelength of light of celestial intent. The only part of Sam still intact, his eyes, melted out in the fractured sockets.
Sam was in too many pieces for his lungs to work, to work up a scream. His spirit, his soul, however, screamed.
Next to him, Michael landed lightly, Adam’s face sneering at what was left of Sam. He kicked Sam’s corpse, then ditched Adam’s body to fall lifeless next to him so both archangels, in celestial form, could engage in a battle on what Sam assumed was equal ground.
Sam didn’t have eyes at the end, shouldn’t have been able to see that last part, but the Cage had its own set of rules. Forgotten for the moment, Sam tried to disassociate. He had been hurt enough in the past that he’d trained himself to separate himself from the pain, but he couldn’t now.
Now no longer had meaning either. There was no way to mark time. There were windows, long like openings in the bars of a prison, but each opening showed something different. The sun and moon never moved from the scenes where they appeared, or if they did, it was far to fast to count as days or nights. He knew it was to keep him off-balance, to add to the torment.
There were short and long memories of eating his own entrails, burning without end, disintegrating and slow regenerating with every nerve ending alive. There were visions of loved ones blaming him for not saving them, or telling him how his sacrifice was in vain as the rest of the angels and demons continued the war, so he left them to their fate. He cried tears of acid, sweated icicles. Michael and Lucifer burned him away again and again. The only peace were brief moments where the archangels fought each other and ignored him, but even those ‘peaceful moments’ were still pain-filled and any attempt to move away from the flames and blizzard of the brothers fighting, drew their attention again.
Often, Dean or Cas arrived to rescue him. He was pulled from the Cage without his soul by Cas, without his skin by Dean. He knew none of them were true, but they were all so real, as created by Lucifer or Michael, that when he ‘lived’ through Death himself putting his soul back into his body, and Lucifer revealed himself as a hitchhiker in his brain to torment him, he felt new terror.
He couldn’t allow either of them, or anyone, to open the Cage because even the slim chance that one of the archangels might escape was inconceivable. He was so close to both that their wants, desires, emotions, convictions bled into him. He knew they were both so focused on their own agendas, they would never pause to consider other perspectives. They hadn’t before the fall into the Cage. They certainly wouldn’t in any conceivable future.
There were times when Sam only dealt with either Lucifer or Michael as one would pull out a trick to diminish the other temporarily. Michael was not as creative, but just as cruel. It was those times that Sam felt a flash of gratitude that Adam’s soul wasn’t here with him. If he had survived the Molotov cocktail and fallen with them, Michael would have use Adam to hurt Sam, and would have found ways to torment Adam for not doing more to save them from the fall.
In essence, there was no indignity Sam did not suffer, but he at least didn’t hold any false hope that something new and more terrifying would happen. It was horrible and terrible and unending, but it was focused only on him, rather than the rest of humanity that would have suffered.
When the first pulse and thrum had started from somewhere ‘outside’, it startled even Lucifer and Michael, as ‘outside’ didn’t happen here. They had immediately cast Sam aside and thrown themselves at each other in battle, demanding to be the first out once whatever was happening happened. Sam took the chance to focus his mind and just feel where it was coming from in the Cage.
A pentagram flashed into being and five dead men fell into the gore and ichor where Sam floated, slowly drowning. The center of the pentagram pulsed a voice chanting some familiar language pierced the void. With a struggle, Sam pushed himself towards the voice, avoiding the corpses, knowing there were no souls within them.
When his head and shoulders breached the center point, finding his arms and making them work to draw him upwards now that there was an ‘up’ to head towards took effort. He didn’t make it far before there was a flash and a screech from below and some of the corpses were breaching into the air around him. He got a glimpse of soldiers in unfamiliar uniforms, one wearing a little different suit and holding THE ‘BOOK’, before Lucifer pulled him back and he fell back, not yet sinking back into the CAGE.
Then Lucifer, bright and terrible and freezing cold, rose up behind him wearing one of the corpses. The frostbite coming from the foot that stepped on his back was sharper for having been outside the Cage itself.
He could feel the souls of the soldiers, nervous, but arrogant, milling around the border that Lucifer couldn’t penetrate. It was the only reason he didn’t outright attack the archangel yet, to pull him back. But the presence of the BOOK and some other warmer souls hovering in confusion further away, one being bright and righteous, gave him his first hope in however long it had been since the fall that while there was someone, the captain, general of the soldiers, who could use the BOOK and open a window into the Cage, there were also someones who could stop the general and possibly close the window again.
He barely listened to the back and forth between Lucifer and the general, mostly ignoring the taunts from Lucifer. When he was kicked, he couldn’t help but react as he’d been basking in the warmth from the souls further out. Then Lucifer had named them, ‘Avengers’, and the warm souls leapt in, taking down the soldiers, hopefully ready to close the Cage again. Once the battle was over, with none of them crossing the border in or out, Sam felt Lucifer’s chill more astutely and huddled, chilled and worried.
He heard the one who called himself Thor, son of Odin, who had died by Lucifer’s hand, brother of Loki, the trickster god Gabriel had borrowed his longstanding persona from, address the archangel and demand proof in the form of leaving the bound area.
Sam tensed, but as he realized the spell cast to open this portal, or whatever, was missing some components, so none of them could cross the border caused by the devices he could hear buzzing.
He wanted to laugh and instead, spoke out loud without meaning to.
“You can’t.”
He felt their attention on his naked, filthy flesh as he struggled back up to stand in front of the archangel; the only one that mattered was Lucifer, who demanded he shut up and kneel. He threatened Sam with Dean, once again, but this time Sam knew it was an empty threat.
“No,” he said, growing bolder. “Dean is still safe from you.”
As Sam stumbled towards Lucifer, meaning to grapple him while these people, this god, could close the portal, Lucifer tried to make him obey again, making the mistake of backing away. Lucifer did send some power towards him, slashing at Sam’s flesh, but Sam had been shredded many times before, so this was nothing new. He kept moving around, herding Lucifer, who bumped into the border near the man dressed as Captain America, and nearly crowed as the archangel’s vessel burned at the touch of the border.
Lucifer demanded that the man with the shield let him out, but Sam was not giving up.
“No, you’ll never be free.”
Sam realized he’d ended up in front of Thor, whose hammer was glowing with a brilliance that reminded Sam of the fireworks that Dean had gotten for them that 4th of July that had accidentally burned down the field they’d been in. Dean had kept him safe and until the last firework cast the spark that started the fire, Sam had felt powerful.
He couldn’t stop himself from reaching towards that feeling, towards the hammer itself. The burn and sizzle of his hand going through the border was nothing, comparatively. He stamped down the hope of himself escaping, concentrating only on protecting everyone else.
Mjolnir, his brain supplied fuzzily, slapped into his palm, and he was swinging broadly, bringing it up to slam Lucifer back towards the center of the portal, knocking him into the gore and ichor. Sam heard the snarl of a threat as Lucifer was yanked back down by Michael, who had regained control and was focused on keeping his brother from escaping if he could. Sam knew his own future torture didn’t matter. Sam slammed the hammer overhead, beating Lucifer back down where Michael could hold him under the surface, then slammed the hammer again and again, the fireworks bursting from the head of the hammer, sparking out to overload the devices.
After a few slams, the border was flickering and Sam was sinking back into the Cage. He knew it was closing so he tossed the hammer back to Thor, who was staring at him in awe.
“Who are you?” Thor asked.
Sam groaned as he fought the pull, but only for enough time to get his message across. The ‘Avengers’ kept trying to cross the border to pull him out, but he knew they would not be able to and that was fine.
“Drown the book in holy water,” Sam cried out in agony. “Keep it safe.” He was swallowed back into the Cage, where Lucifer and Michael were again in their celestial forms, attacking each other. There was no sign of any of the corpses, except Adam’s, which lay off somewhere, preserved pristinely from the fall.
Sam sighed as he shuddered as his eternity continued.