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The Cage isn’t anything like Sam had expected. He’d thought he’d find a dungeon, or maybe a battlefield. He’d thought he’d land in a trench surrounded by phantoms of the dead and dying. He’d envisioned blood and gore, intestines spilt across the floor, rats and mice and maggots and fire and brimstone.
What he finds is so much worse.
***
Hell is a beach where the world ends before it begins. The waters are frozen in great tsunami waves, towering high above his head and burning. This is the beach of goodbyes, the resting place of last chances, the place where dreams go to die.
Sometimes a train goes by, lonely whistle blowing frozen stream as he reads the stories in the faces of the corpses contained within. The year is 1945. There’s a man returning home to his girlfriend from the Eastern Front. There’s a ring in his pocket, and blood on his hands, and a hole in his head.
Sometimes the waves shimmer and turn silver and reflect his own bloody past. It’s his favorite part of every decade; little flashes of color in his grey world to paint his dreams, small snatches of feeling to replace the numbness, tiny bits of warmth to burn to stave away the cold.
He goes blind after a hundred years.
***
He wakes up after a thousand years in a bed. It’s raining outside; he can hear it. It smells like copper and iron and acid.
“Hello,” Lucifer greets. “Did you miss me?” He lays his hand across Sam’s heart. It burns.
Sam doesn’t answer. He’s forgotten how.
***
He doesn’t get around to going outside for two years. He sticks his hand out and drinks the rain greedily. It tastes like blood so he goes outside and lays down and tries to drown in it.
Lucifer comes out later and pokes him. “Are you dead?” He asks.
Sam nods. It’s nice to pretend.
***
He finds himself on the beach a million years later. He can’t see, or speak. He can’t taste the blood raining down all around them or hear the sizzle of the waves as they burn. All he knows is the cold.
He feels Lucifer say something across his skin and he smiles. Almost.
The ground rumbles as the train goes by. All of humanity has ridden upon that train; all fifty billion of them from the beginning to the very end. He knows all of their stories. This time, it’s the loneliest man in the world, all five hundred and three years of him. The year is 3451, and the world ended four years ago, and he’s only ten. He’s the man that time forgot – the one that got left behind when everyone else crumbled into dust.
“Are you ready?” Lucifer asks. (The last time he’d actually heard his voice, he’d been babbling in a language Sam didn’t understand. He fills in the blanks whenever Lucifer seals his lips over his and starts to speak.)
Sam nods. He’s been ready.
The cold fades away and he falls up.
***
Hell is a beach where the world began. The perfumed waters are tranquil and still, and the sky overhead is an impossible scarlet blue. This is the beach of love at first sight, the breeding ground of second chances, the place where dreams are born.
Sometimes he meets Dean on the platform and they have coffee and talk about their lives, happy and laughing and living through the best day of their lives on repeat. He sees everyone he’s ever loved and he gets married to Jess and he celebrates his parents’ hundredth birthdays.
Sometimes the waters shimmer and turn silver and he sees his perfect life reflected back at him; a 4.0 GPA at law school, a successful business, a white picket fence and a lawn and a wife and two perfect children who play the violin and a dog and a cat.
He spends a hundred years there.
***
He wakes up after a thousand years in a bed. It’s raining softly outside and smells like fresh cut flowers and newly mowed lawns and honeydew.
“Hello, love,” Lucifer greets. “Did you sleep well?” He lays a hand across Sam’s heart and he falls in love.
He doesn’t answer; the smile on his face says it all.
***
They don’t go outside for two hours. Sam drags Lucifer out into the summer rain and they dance before falling down on the slippery green grass.
“Are you happy?” Lucifer asks.
Sam nods. He’s never felt happier.
***
He finds himself back on the beach when they get married that May.
“Are you cold?” Lucifer asks. It’s their vows; it’s their “I do’s’ and it’s their yes after the most important question in the world.
He closes his eyes and lets himself fall the rest of the way. “Not anymore.”