Cage Torture: Michael Edition + Sam being devotedly in love with Lucifer when he’s pulled out thoughts.

Because what if Michael was the one who turned his anger at destiny being thrown away onto Sam? Sam slips out of Lucifer’s grasp or Michael takes him away by force, but either way, he’s at Michael’s mercy now. And now, Michael can see that Lucifer isn’t the problem. Lucifer might have protested, might have asked Michael for another way out of the Apocalypse, but in the end, he was willing to do what they were always bound to.

No. Sam is the problem. Because to Michael, vessels are tools. Instruments of an angel’s will. Their goals are the goals of the angel possessing them, but Sam made a choice that wasn’t Lucifer’s. (There’s lingering resentment about Dean here, obviously there is.) Or, to be clearer, he made a choice that wasn’t Lucifer. He chose Dean.

Michael’s looking at this mirror of his brother, Lucifer who was cast out for saying he would love God above all else, and Sam didn’t play his part right. Sam chose Dean. Sam chose humanity. He was supposed to choose Lucifer.

He doesn’t love Lucifer enough, clearly. So. Michael fixes that. He rips Sam up and puts him back together, takes away pieces he knows Sam won’t need to play this role, (lobotomizes him, you might say, lmao) and when he’s done, and what’s left of Sam is terrified and utterly devoted to Lucifer, that’s when Michael gives him back.

(There’s a fundamental disconnect here between them. Lucifer values choice in a way Michael doesn’t. During the Apocalypse, he didn’t really believe there was any other path except the one they were on, but it mattered to him that Sam would walk it beside Lucifer of his own free will. And Michael can’t see how that’s important to him. It doesn’t matter if Lucifer wants this from Sam or not, he doesn’t want it like this, because Michael has removed Sam’s agency from the equation.)