Sam Winchester goes to Hell and it is nothing as he expected.

There is no one there, other than the four of them.

No racks. No screaming men and women. No demons with black eyes and bloody claws. No instruments of torture. No walls. No floor. No ceiling. No light.

Not dark so much as completely devoid of light. The kind of abysmal night where you open your eyes so wide it hurts and you can't see a thing and it's as if your eyes are closed and open at the same time. Terrifying.

He wishes it were as he imagined—rusty blades or violent beasts.

Instead, every once in a while, his is consumed with a fire so cold it burns that briefly lights the surrounding twenty or so feet and he sees Adam in a similar position, with Michael grasping at his hand and attempting to shield him. Ever the righteous, lawful son of God.

Lucifer offers no such comfort.

He watches Sam. Leers from the brief flickers of shadows, with his massive dark wings like nebulae drifting around him, eyes rolling over every square inch of his writhing body. His eyes glow blue and red from the blackness when the fire recedes. But they do nothing to cut through the black of the Cage.

In some ways, Sam is grateful of this fact.

If he were able to see Lucifer's true width and breadth and awesome terror, he imagines he would shut down completely and lose every trace of his humanity just attempting to take in all that is the Morningstar.

Lucifer sings to him. Led Zeppelin and Metallica and Iron Maiden and AC/DC and it makes Sam want to curl up in on himself and block out all the noise because this is too much like what he craves and wants, this is too much like Dean and he wants his big brother to swoop down and take him in his arms and say "It's okay Sammy. It's okay baby brother. I'm right here. You're okay. It was all a bad dream."

But the years pass and he loses his hope for that.

And the music haunts him.

After a long time he sees a light. Strangely familiar, winged and small compared to the Archangels but still so massive and bright. And it swipes at him and pulls something away. It's as if it's trying to lift him free. And it catches at something. But as it leaves he realizes he's being left behind and he wants to scream no no no no nononono that's not me you've left me you're missing me don't leave me here—

But it's gone.

And Lucifer somehow lights the Cage and Sam can see Adam's soul cowering on the floor, mindlessly. Sometimes it shapes itself into a facsimile of the boy's body and sometimes it's this dimming lump of presence and sometimes it's just a speck of light. And beside him, Michael looms with white wings and silver skin and eyes and eyes and eyes the color of luminescent ice.

And Lucifer stands before Sam in this new illumination, angry. The Lightbringer stands before him with wings spread wider than Sam can fathom. Sometimes it's six wings and sometimes it's so many he can't count and it's all at once. He covers his eyes but Lucifer burns his hands away and lashes him down and sends frost through his nerve-endings and brainstem and veins and arteries and every piece of him until Sam screams and screams and screams and—

Sam Winchester wakes up with a soft pressure in the back of his head and his older brother's eyes looking down at him, lovingly.