Subterranean Homesick Blues (Supernatural, gen)
Title: Subterranean Homesick Blues
Genre/pairing: h/c, gen, brief mention of Dean/OFC
Rating: R for themes
Word-count: ~2200
Spoilers: None post-Lazarus Rising.
Warnings: Drug addiction, drug use, drug withdrawal, flashbacks, panic attacks, PTSD, self-harm.
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own, don't sue! Title credit Bob Dylan.
Summary: A series of tiny heart attacks.
Written for this prompt in the h/c meme: Unknown to Sam, Dean has been reliant on anti-anxiety medication since he got back from Hell. [...] One day he wakes up to find that Sam has thrown out all his pills, painkillers, tranqs and booze: he's decided it's time for his brother to sober up. Dean tries to warn him how bad things will get, but Sam still isn't prepared for what happens.
Subterranean Homesick Blues
Low sun gets in his eyes, blinking above the buildings opposite just enough to blind him. Just enough to make him squint unexpectedly. Just enough to make him lose concentration and let his shaking hands get the better of him. Just enough to make him spill the burnt orange bottle and its contents all over the floor.
"Shit!"
He drops to his knees next to the dirty motel sink and tries to gather up the little white pills that are too fucking fiddly for his clumsy fingers to get a grip on. (He used to keep them in a tic-tac box, before Sam stole a mint and couldn't figure out why he felt weird for the rest of the day; he's more careful now.) Breath quickening, he takes a precious second to sit back and tell himself not to panic. Sam only went out for coffee a few minutes ago, he's not about to burst in and see. He's got time. He's got time to clean up his mess.
First things first, he scoops a few pills into his hand and tosses them in his mouth, reaching to get a handful of rusty water from the faucet to wash them down with. He thinks maybe there were too many, but it's not like he takes an exact dosage anyway: he takes an amount for as long as they work, then moves up a grade when they don't stop his heart beating out of his chest.
A few minutes of forcing himself to be calm and letting the drugs kick in, and his hands have stopped shaking. He can get it together enough to stop seeing red behind his eyes, clean up before Sam comes back and sees what he's become.
Dean needs the pills every few hours. This is one of a thousand tiny heart attacks he has over keeping his secret every day.
*
There's the time in Oklahoma when he waits until Sam slopes off to the dingy diner bathroom before taking his meds. He pats his pocket and surreptitiously takes out the familiar bottle, only to find it completely fucking empty.
For a second, he just feels monumentally stupid. He should have known to check how many he had this morning: he got blind drunk last night and most likely took far more than he needed to, not that he remembers in the blackout. For that second, he feels stupid. Then, he panics.
The attack comes on strong in a way he hasn't experienced since he first came back, waking up every night gasping and screaming on Bobby's couch, lurching to the bathroom to throw up the taste of rubbery intestine still in his mouth. It's foolish, he thinks, panicking about panicking, but that's what it is. He's panicking because if he doesn't have his pills he'll start to panic, and if he starts to panic he'll start to remember, and maybe Alistair's promise that he wouldn't leave the pit human will turn out to be true and-
"Buddy, hey. C'mon, breathe, you're safe."
The guy's a vet, Afghanistan, had Dean pegged as the same since he walked in. Slips him some Xanax and Dean could fucking kiss him, swallowing it dry and thankful. The guy sits with him until Sam gets back, which Dean can't even pretend he isn't grateful for, his hands shaking so badly he'd never be able to hide it from his little brother. Sam treats him like he's made of glass for the next few days, which does nothing but piss Dean off because it makes it harder to take his meds when he needs to with Sam watching.
That's a tiny heart attack that makes him more determined to get himself under control. It doesn't matter how many pills he has to take, he's got to keep that thing from the pit out of him. Sam wouldn't understand, so he doesn't try and explain.
*
In Nebraska, he runs out again.
It's late, everything's shut. He breaks into the local pharmacy, but he's clumsy. Stupid. He trips the security system and only realises when he hears sirens out front of the shop, nearly giving him a heart attack and making him break into a cold sweat where he crouches, stuffing bottles into his duffle. He barely makes it out without getting caught.
He tells Sam he got in a bar fight and they have to skip town. He drives while his brother sleeps in the passenger seat. Dean glances at him, looking more peaceful than Dean can ever remember feeling, and thinks about how it would feel to peel the skin off his cheekbones. Downs a couple more pills to kill that thought.
He doesn't run out again for a while.
*
In Illinois, he fucks a girl because he saw a blister pack of pills in her purse when she paid for a drink at the bar. Sam's been watching him in case he has another episode, and he hasn't been able to slink off to a pharmacy for a while now. He's not out, but he's running low, and he can't let that happen again.
He fucks her, waits until she's asleep, and then cleans her out. Medicine cabinet, purse, kitchen cupboard. Feeling guilty, he leaves money where her pills were, hopes she won't wake up panicking and unable to stop seeing true nightmares behind her eyelids like he does when he doesn't have his meds. It's not her fault he can't get it together. It's not her fault, it's not Sam's fault, it's no one's fault but his.
He feels guilty, but not guilty enough to return the pills. He needs them.
*
In Tennessee, Sam wakes up to find him crouched in the tub with a knife in his forearm.
Surprisingly calm, his little brother hauls him bodily out of the bathroom and sets him down on the nearest bed, taking the knife away with uncompromising fingers despite Dean's struggling.
"Wanted to see, missed them so much, no bones up here just mush." Dean's babbling as Sam inspects the wound, kneeling on his other hand to keep his fingernails away from the flesh. "Can't do it Sammy, can't do it anymore."
"Dean, listen to me, you're okay." He's got no choice but to leave him alone for a second while he grabs the first aid kit, and comes back to pry Dean's bloody fingers out of the gash in his arm. "You're back, you're safe man. Nothing's gonna hurt you now."
"M'gonna hurt something." His eyes are fever-bright and Sam has to look away, focus on bandaging up the cut. He'll stitch it later, he can't risk going anywhere near Dean with a sharp object right now. "M'gonna hurt someone, need to make it stop, need to keep it away. Make it stop Sammy."
Sam does the only thing he can think of and wraps his arms around his brother, holding him tightly. To his surprise, Dean doesn't try and shove him away. Instead, his invincible big brother clutches onto Sam's shirt and cries like a child into his shoulder while Sam tries desperately to calm him down, running blood-sticky hands over short hair and whispering reassurances. Dean shakes himself apart and all Sam can do is hang on.
Eventually, Dean starts to calm down, relaxing his death grip on Sam and his tears slowing to a few, hitching sobs. By the time Sam lets him go to finish strapping up his arm, he's gone carefully blank, hiding his expression and crawling into bed the second Sam's no longer touching him.
When Dean gets up a few hours later to take his pills, Sam's awake. Dean doesn't know it, but this is the beginning of the end.
*
"Sam, where are my meds?"
At this point, he knows there's no point in trying to keep up the charade. For the past few weeks, he's had a bottle of pills go missing here, a pack of tranquilisers go missing there, nothing too extreme. He started hiding his shit better, but it seems Sam knows him better than he thought. That morning, he wakes up and he's completely out. He leaves it as long as he can before he confronts his brother, hoping he'd just misplaced them but knowing that wasn't true. Finally, he can't take it anymore.
"I got rid of them." Sam's doing that infuriatingly fucking Zen thing again, and Dean could punch his brother in his concerned face. "You're abusing them, Dean."
"Of course I'm fuckin' abusing them Sam, they don't exactly write prescriptions to deal with Hell." Sam doesn't even flinch and Dean knows he's probably fighting a losing battle: once Sam gets something in his head like this, there's no talking him out of it.
"They're making you worse man, you'll get dependent if you keep taking them like a damn drugstore cowboy. You probably are already." He's doing his puppy face and Dean can already feel his hands start shaking, his heartbeat speed up partly with rage, partly with fear. "Just let me help you. Please?"
"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about!" He resists slamming his trembling fist into the wall, but only just. Fighting to keep his voice level, he tries to reason with his brother. "You don't want to do this Sam, you don't know how bad it's gonna get."
"We can get through it together Dean, I can help you through it." Dean realises, with a sickening crunch, that Sam not only doesn't have the first idea what he's talking about, but that he's not going to back down.
"You're actually gonna do this to me, because you have some bullshit idea in your head about shit you don't even know about?"
"It's for your own good man."
This time, Dean does punch the wall.
"Fuck you Sam! You..." But he trails off, knowing it's not going to do him any good, grounded by the soothing pain in his knuckles. "Fuck you, m'going out."
If he drinks, he can hold off the flashbacks for a little while longer, maybe long enough to get hold of some more pills. He can drink himself calm for a while, but not forever.
The heart attack starts when he slams the door, and never stops.
*
After the first few drinks at the bar, he remembers nothing.
Hazy snatches of memory come and go, but he can't tell what's real and what's hallucination. If there's any difference anymore.
Fade in. He's hunched over the motel toilet. There's a hand on his back. To his right, flames lick up the wall and char the already-burnt flesh of his brother's arm. To his left, there's a sloppy pile of skin and organs. He wonders vaguely where the bones went. Fade out.
Fade in. It's freezing, subzero like he's been dipped in liquid nitrogen. He shakes so hard he thinks his teeth are coming loose. Alistair's done this before; Dean knows that the only warmth he'll get is from himself. He bites his tongue, swallowing the warm blood that seeps out gratefully. Then there's a hand grabbing his face and it doesn't feel like claws and someone's yelling and he thinks Sammy. Fade out.
Fade in. His hands are covered in blood and he's got Sam against the wall, jagged shard of broken mirror held against his brother's throat. He drops the glass, sinks down onto the carpet and howls like an animal. He doesn't know if this is real, it wouldn't be the first time he's killed Sam for Alistair, but if it is. If it is. If it is, then the monster's free. He's become the monster he tried so hard to kill.
"It's okay Dean, it's okay." He hears the voice from somewhere above him. Sam? Mom? "I'm gonna help you, okay? Everything's gonna be okay."
Fade out.
*
When he wakes up, it's as if nothing happened.
Sam's shaken and there's a cut on the side of his neck, but he smiles in relief when Dean opens his eyes and knows who he is. Dean could almost pretend nothing happened, were it not for the taste of copper in the back of his throat and the blood under his fingernails.
Sam helps him sit up, hands him a glass of water and carefully makes sure he can hold it before letting go. To Dean's surprise, he also produces a bottle of memorable white pills from his shirt pocket. Stunned into silence, or maybe just too tired to talk, he holds out his hand obediently as Sam taps out a few pills into his palm.
"This something like your usual dose?" His little brother asks, like he doesn't really agree with what he's doing. Dean nods, takes the pills gratefully. "I'll hold onto your meds, okay? You can take them whenever you need to, I just want to know about it."
Dean nods again and lies back down, glad he doesn't remember what happened to convince Sam of what he was trying to keep at bay. They sit there for a little while in silence, both studiously not thinking about last night.
They never speak about what Dean keeps hidden under his skin, locked in with chemicals, but at least the tiny heart attacks stop.