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Sam had stopped taking his medication since the dam in his head broke open. He saw Lucifer everywhere, which terrified him, and flashbacks coupled with vivid hallucinations of Hell were all just not giving him the time to think about keeping up with his medication. He had an autoimmune disorder, has had it since he was born, and prescribed medication was hard enough to get as it was with the brother’s changing identities all the time, so Dean dedicated a bit of time to getting everything together when picking up Sam’s prescription.
“Sam you ready to go?” He called throughout the motel they were staying in at the time. It was small enough that when speaking while beside the front door one’s voice could be heard throughout the space.
Sam sluggishly walked out of the bathroom after a muffled sound came behind the closed door. It was like a someone stumbling around and over things. Dean was aware that the in the past few weeks his brother had been a bit jumpy and sickly, but he figured it was all just side effects from his Hell wall breaking open. Of course Dean was waiting for shit to hit the fan, but for now, he’d assume everything was fine and try to get back into routine. And a part of the brother’s routine was getting Sam’s pills once every two months.
“Yeah, yeah I’m ready” Sam stammered, slicking back his hair, a nervous tic of his. He moved slowly, like his arms and legs were made of lead, and his joints were rusted and dry. He looked a bit unsettling, at least compared to his usual appearance. But with Sam’s tortured soul back into his body, Dean had assumed it was just some sort of after effect of the wall breaking down.
Dean held his hand up, slightly above his head, to catch the pill bottle he wanted Sam to throw at him. He needed to read the label and have the bottle when going to the pharmacy to refill it. Sam, of course, had to be there himself.
The younger Winchester stepped back into the bathroom for a second to get the bottle he left on the sink in the midst of a hallucinogenic episode with Lucifer while he was in the bathroom.
When getting back into the main room, Sam threw the pill bottle towards his brother, his face wincing with a bit of pain in his arm and back as he underhanded the orange bottle.
Dean caught it, just barely though as Sam’s throw was a bit short, but when he heard the clatter of pills in the bottle he brought it up to his face in confusion. He had been doing this for years, and every two months when Sam was due for a refill he would be out of medications. But this time the bottle was completely full.
“You haven’t been taking your meds?” He asked, a bit of disbelief in his voice.
Sam coughed to diffuse the tension, also to ground himself in this reality. “No I guess not” he said, “Must have slipped my mind you know, with everything going on” Sam combed his hair back again, trying to move around to alleviate the ache in his muscles, but the pain never seemed to fade.
Dean marched up to his brother. Sam backed away a few steps to create distance, Dean closed it immediately.
“This isn’t something you can just forget about Sammy, this is life or death for you” Dean held the full bottle of pills up so that Sam could see them. “I don’t care what’s going on in that Hells lose brain of yours, but this your priority”
Sam shrunk back a bit, he knew Dean was right, it was his condition, he knew more about it than his brother did, he knew what not taking his meds would do to him, but he just couldn’t bring himself to take them.
“How do I…”he started, his eyes darting to his bed as if someone was standing there, “How do I know he hasn’t done anything to them…?” Sam leaned in close to Dean, whispering into his ear these things.
“What?” Dean asked in reply.
“He tells me not to take them because he poisoned them” Sam nodded his head slightly towards his bed, signaling to the presence of someone.
Dean turned his head towards the area his brother had haphazardly alluded too, he quickly met with Sam’s eyes again when, as he expected, no one was there.
“What the hell are you talking about?!” Dean asked, thinking he startled his brother with his raised voice as he jumped a bit. He soon realized that Sam was startled by something else, his eyes were darting between Dean and the bed.
He put his hands on Sam shoulders, grounding him, he took note of the skinniness of his frame, not pleased with his baby brother’s condition as of now. “Sam what is going on?”
With another anxious, squeamish glance towards the bed Sam leaned in slightly like he had done before, clearly very worried to have the presumed figure hear him.
“Lucifer is over there…”
The words perked Dean up a bit. He whipped his head around the motel room, taking Sam’s words as fact for a moment before he realized no one was in the room. Then he remembered the wall that broke down in his head. His memories of Hell must be leaking into the real world, like a flashback.
Dean pulled his brother into a hug, Sam had to lean down a bit to have his shoulders fit under Dean’s arms, but he relaxed into him a bit.
“I don’t see anyone” Dean assured.
“I know he’s not real, but sometimes he’s just so…convincing” Sam sighed, bringing his arms up to clasp around the top of Dean’s back. “He tells me that he’s poisoned my meds, and I just can’t bring myself to take them…”
“He hasn’t, and you know it. You’ll kill yourself anyway if you don’t take them” Dean replied, still glancing around the room to just make sure this Lucifer hallucination wasn’t real somehow.
Sam stayed quiet, not soothed by Dean’s words at all. He didn’t expect him to understand the nuances of his psyche, but telling him what he thought was so obviously not true it was dumb to believe, just upset him. He didn’t pull away from Dean’s embrace though, as he felt safer when touching someone else than being alone.
It seemed Dean had picked up on Sam’s reaction to his words, assuming his advice didn’t reach him as he intended it to. He pulled away from his brother, going to drop his hands off of his shoulders, but leaving them there when Sam gripped his shirt while glancing towards the bed again. In his eyes something was there, but to Dean, not even an aura was detectable.
“How about I keep these on me” he said, pulling one of his hands away to show the bottle of pills to Sam. “I’ll keep it so no one can get to it”
Though a pang of appreciation went through his heart, his positive expression faded as he eyes the pill bottle.
“But he already…poisoned them” Sam again glanced to the bed.
The last thing Dean wanted to do was indulge his brother’s delusions, but there really wasn’t anything he could do. Sam had to take his medication, he’d die if he didn’t, and these hallucinations and his paranoia stemmed from his time in Hell, and Dean could empathize with that. He was a torturee for most of his time in Hell, and though it was mentally torturous, Sam’s time in the cage with Lucifer and Micheal was probably filled with the most vile, twisted, disgusting, and grieving torture he could think of. Not to mention the time difference. Dean was in Hell for a few months, while Sam was in there for a year and a half.
Considering all of this, Dean felt it wasn’t his place to deny his younger brother’s comfort.
“Then we’ll go get more, like we planned”Dean slapped Sam’s shoulders, feeling a bit bad at how he shook and faltered under his heavy hand.
Dean stepped away from Sam, pill bottle in hand, and poured them down the running sink in the small kitchen of the motel. Sam seemed reluctant to let go of Dean as he walked away, so he balled his fist into the slack of his older brother’s flannel shirt and followed him to the kitchenette, looking back over his shoulder to find that Lucifer was no longer sitting on his bed. He sighed deeply, finally feeling a sense of safety.
“That Lucifer you’re seeing is not there, Sammy, he’s not real” Dean felt he had to clarify that “When you’re tripping Hell’s bells, let me know”
“And you’ll do what Dean? Shoo away the monsters under my bed?” Sam let out a pathetic chuckle, running his unused hand through his hair, combing over his bangs.
Dean sighed, turning around and capping the pill bottle. As he turned around Sam’s hand lost its grip in his shirt. With an empty hand now in site, Dean held it gently and placed the empty bottle in his palm. Sam instinctively closed his hand around it but gave his brother a questioning look.
“Hold onto this” he said, “So you know what’s real” Dean tapped his nail against the plastic between Sam’s fingers. “This is real, they don’t have plastic in Hell, it’s too hot” he meant that as more of a joke, but it was still true in a sense.
Sam tapped his thumb nail against the orange plastic, attempting to imitate the same hallow sound that Dean had made. He laughed at how absurd this whole idea was. And he found it even funnier when it actually helped. He looked around the motel room and still didn’t see Lucifer or any specs of Hell.
“Now let’s go” Dean walked towards the front door, checking his pockets for his car keys.