#bamf!sam

The thin, jagged crack of light hovers undulating in the air in a beckoning dance, promising sanctuary on the other side. All of the people Sam and Dean have brought to the fissure between worlds—Mom, Jack, the remnants of human freedom fighters barely hanging on against the tyranny of angels who reduced this Earth to ash—they’ve made it through. They’re free, they’re safe, Sam has done what he had set out to do. But there’s one last thing remaining. Sam watches Dean disappear through the breach and turns to face Lucifer as he approaches, then blocks his path, pushing a hand against the archangel’s chest.

“Sam, what are you doing, man? I’m hurt. Please.”

Sam wants to laugh at the hypocritical plea from the monster who never before showed Sam an ounce of the sympathy he’s expecting now. Nearly two centuries of confinement together gave Lucifer unhindered access to Sam’s innermost thoughts, and he knows how to take advantage of Sam’s propensity to forgive those who seek redemption, knows how to exploit Sam’s instinctive compassion, twisting it to his own ends. But nearly two centuries of confinement together also gave Sam more insight into Lucifer than the archangel is willing to admit. The Devil puts on a good act, Sam will grant him that, and if anyone else were watching they might fall for it, think less of Sam for what he’s about to do, judge him harshly for his treatment of the pathetic creature before him. But Lucifer’s façade of good will wouldn’t fool anyone who has seen Lucifer’s true face, the one he keeps hidden away behind his vessel. The one he lets out to fuel the nightmares of his victims, to torment them in his absence. The one he displays as a reminder that they will never be free of him.

The performance doesn’t fool Sam. “How did you think this was gonna end?”

Sam shoves.

Despite his professed injury and weakness, Lucifer is still an archangel, still possesses raw archangel strength, and is nowhere near as fragile as he would have Sam believe. So Sam puts every memory of the Cage, every moment of anguish, every second of despair into that shove. Every searing burn, every jagged slice, every crushed bone, every torn sinew, every ruptured organ. Every peal of laughter from Lucifer’s delight at his agony. Every falsely proffered mercy taken away, every drop of hope obliterated. Everything Lucifer did to him and the joy he took in doing it, it all goes into that shove.

Lucifer goes down, stunned.

All traces of the archangel’s arrogance drain from his expression. The memory of his true face, a presence that has stalked Sam through every waking moment and in every heart pounding nightmare, diminishes from a visage of overwhelming terror into a pitiful, buffoonish caricature. In that moment, Sam knows that Lucifer has already done the worst he will ever be able do to him, yet Sam is the one left standing. He is the one who stands between Lucifer and what he so desperately wants, and there’s not a damned thing the archangel can do about it.

Sam gazes steadily into Lucifer’s eyes and sees in them an awakening realization, a reluctant bud opening to the dawn light. One hundred and eighty years of burrowing through Sam’s mind, defiling every thought, corrupting every memory, had the archangel assured of his hold over Sam, convinced that he had plumbed the depths of every corner and knew everything that could be known. It’s only now that Lucifer sees the truth, that what he thought he knew was only a persona he’d created for Sam, crafted for him in the Cage, torturing and twisting and reshaping Sam until he was pliant enough to be forced into a mold of conditioned responses. As Sam looms over him now, Lucifer’s eyes betray the epiphany. In his hubris, he thought he'd broken Sam, made him into puppet bound to his will. But it wasn’t Sam that broke; it was the suffocating coffin that Lucifer had constructed to hold Sam a prisoner of his fear that shattered. Had Lucifer known Sam at all, he would have known that a cage of despair couldn’t keep Sam contained forever. He would have known that Sam would turn it into a cocoon.

Sam turns his back on Lucifer, shrugs off the shredded remnants of subjugation that had encased him. Leaves the shadow that has haunted him for years on the ground behind him, powerless. Impotent. He steps through the fissure just as the light begins to flicker and takes a deep breath on the other side as the rift seals behind him.