A/N: Woo, okay. Not really sure where this came from, but the muse wants what it wants. Leave a review, I'd like to hear your thoughts!

Warnings: Vague Season 5/6 spoilers, mentions of torture, lots of run-on sentences. Unbeta'd. Consider yourself warned. :)

Sam's stay in Hell begins like this – Lucifer and Michael launching themselves at each other, screaming in Enochian as Sam and Adam huddle in the corner, eyes screwed shut against the bright flashes of Grace.

Lucifer is angry because Michael forced them to fight, refused to see that they didn't have to follow orders mindlessly. Michael is angry because Lucifer refused to follow orders mindlessly, grabbed Michael at the last minute and pulled him down into the Cage with them.

They battle it out for a good year, although Sam thinks that in real time it's probably a lot shorter, if what Dean has told him about Hell holds any merit. He wonders if Dean is okay, if he got his apple pie life with Lisa, if he's dealing. He hopes so.

And then Lucifer turns his attentions to Sam, and Sam forgets how to hope.

They leave Adam alone. It's not Adam that they care about. Adam agreed to be Michael's vessel. It's Sam who went and fucked up the Apocalypse, it's Sam who's to blame for any of them being here in the first place, and it's Sam who pays for it. As Lucifer carves him up with an almost delicate touch, skins him alive and then starts all over again, Sam wonders if it was worth it.

In his darker moments, Sam wonders if he made the right choice, saving the world, because really what has the world ever done for him? And then he pictures Dean, with his bright green eyes and leather jacket and cocky grin, and he remembers that it doesn't matter that the world has screwed him over again and again because he has – had – Dean. The pang of loss hurts even more than the careful torture that Lucifer executes.

They start on Adam around about Year Fifty. Michael gets bored, so Lucifer tosses his big brother a knife and a handful of chains and tells him to get to work. Beaten and bloodied and so damn tired, Sam can't even find it in himself to protest until Adam starts to scream and then he's begging, pleading with them to stop, to leave his brother alone, to take him instead.

Lucifer just laughs, strokes his hair almost gently and asks what would be the point in that, when they can have both of them, and Sam thinks to himself that if John had only had a little self-control they wouldn't be in this situation. He can't stop the bitter laughter after that, because really who is he to talk about self-control?

Around Year Seventy-Five, it changes. Lucifer gets bored with carving Sam up, spilling his blood all over the Cage only to start all over again in new, creative ways. Instead, he starts to taunt Sam, invading his thoughts and memories and tearing them apart, ripping out the lowest points of Sam's life and holding them up for him to watch over and over again. Jessica's death, John's death, Dean's death, Heaven, those dicks that call themselves angels, they all begin to run into one until Sam is a sobbing, bloody mess, his soul ripped to shreds.

Sam's body disappeared a while ago. In the Cage, there is no need for vessels – Sam and Adam's bodies are left to one side like some kind of absurd costume. Sam's isn't there any more. He wonders what that means, wonders if maybe he's dying before he remembers that he's already dead. Besides, Adam's body is still there, and his little half-brother should definitely be dead by this point, if it were possible. Sam tries to protect him, tries to be the big brother Dean always was for him and wonders why he can only ever have one brother at a time, why someone always has to be in danger.

He misses Dean. There's a huge space inside his soul where his brother ought to be.

Lucifer fills it with blood and pain and horror. The Devil might not be great at getting the Apocalypse going but dammit, the guy knows how to torture, knows just where to cut Sam to have him screaming in pain, knows every single one of Sam's weak spots, physical and emotional. He forces himself to think of Dean, up on the surface, safe and alive and living a regular apple-pie life, and tells himself that all of this is worth it because Dean is okay.

And then Death comes strolling into the Cage.

It's enough to shock them into silence for the first time in decades. They are never silent in the Cage. There's always screaming and begging and sobbing, raw human misery only there to entertain the archangels.

"Hello, Sam," says Death.

They all look at him in silence. Then -

"I'm already dead," Sam says to him. "You can't kill me now." But damn, he wishes that weren't true, wishes selfishly that he could just die, but that would mean leaving Adam and he wouldn't want to leave anyone here alone, least of all his brother.

"Thank you for pointing that out," Death says dryly. "I've come to collect your soul. Your brother has asked me to return it to your body."

Sam feels his blood freeze in his veins, his pulse racing as he stares at Death. "No more deals. He promised," he blurts, because Death probably doesn't care about a promise made between two brothers but he has to try.

Death rolls his eyes. "Your brother won't be taking your place," he assures Sam.

Lucifer opens his mouth to speak but Death is already stepping forward, taking a hold of Sam's soul.

Sam's stay in Hell ends like this – a bright flash of light as Death hauls him out of the Cage, his little brother's wounded gaze staring after him as they leave, Sam wondering if his freedom is worth leaving Adam behind, wondering if anything could ever be worth that.