(This part is sort of different than the other two chapters. It backtracks to S12 and explores how Sam might have responded to being locked up for so long. I imagine that would easily spark some intense cage PTSD. I was going to post this as its own story, but then decided it was reasonably fitting with the already posted FEAR. That said, the writing and story-telling mode is somewhat different than in the previous sections. It also isn't quite as exclusive to Sam's trauma. Also, I'm not certain that even the previous sections all follow a single canon. It would be reasonable to take the pieces as individual chunks, rewritten for different reasons.
If anyone has an idea for a rewrite they'd like to see (on this topic), feel free to suggest.)
Season 12
Mary was heartbroken to see her sons so defeated. Since they had gotten out of that terrible prison, Dean was beginning to work himself out of a deep depression, but Sam… Sam had been nearly destroyed by that place. This latest horror was a devastating reminder of his past traumas. He jumped at every movement or sound. He took every excuse to stay out of his room, out of any small spaces, and to avoid sleep. Mary and Dean would catch him holding a book but staring at the walls. They would speak to him, and he wouldn't respond.
Dean, in a moment of what he would call weakness, had broken down and told Mary some of the more gruesome details of their time in confinement. He told her that they'd first stayed silent. Their captors used a similar trick, refusing to acknowledge them at all, leaving them in the darkness and the quiet. But the silence didn't last forever.
After a few weeks, Sam started to scream.
At first, Dean had assumed that their captors had abandoned their plan to wait them out. He said that from what he heard he knew that they had instead decided to torture his little brother. The walls weren't soundproof enough to overcome that kind of torment. But when Sam started begging Lucifer to stop, Dean realized what was really going on.
He said he spent so many nights listening to Sam, and when Sam eventually stopped shouting altogether, Dean feared the worst. He was terrified that even if they ever got out, Sam would be beyond saving. Mary saw how hard it was for Dean to admit these things to her. She could see how damaged he was by the thought that his brother might have reached the breaking point.
"I don't know how he held it together while we were in the woods." Dean had said. "It must have been adrenaline or… something. I guess, when I saw him and he seemed okay, I thought he was going to be alright… that all the… that he had freaked out for a few weeks but then it was over. But now he… What if he's not okay?"
He definitely wasn't okay. And now, days after they'd returned to the bunker, Mary felt herself waiting for Sam to snap at any moment. She hated to think of it that way, but when she turned the corner to find him murmuring in Enochian, when she noticed he had quit eating altogether, she couldn't help but wonder how far off that breaking point was.
It came three days later. It was Dean, and not Mary, who found Sam sitting on the floor with blood in his hands.
All day they'd barely gotten a coherent word out of him. He'd said quite a bit in quiet, muttered Enochian, and he'd woken up, as he had most mornings since returning home, screaming out for Dean's help and begging Lucifer to stop. But he hadn't been able to hold a comprehensive conversation without spacing out or flinching when spoken to. He hadn't eaten anything since the day before, despite Dean's best efforts. Dean had sat Sam down in the kitchen with a sandwich and a glass of water, promising that he would stay there until Sam finished. Mary thought this was harsh until Dean explained that Sam used to hallucinate bugs and fire on his food and that sometimes it helped to have someone sitting across, not responding to things that weren't really there. But this had all been for nothing as Sam still refused to eat, claiming it only reminded him of the times Lucifer fed him his own lungs. But somehow, despite all the escalation, Mary and Dean had fooled themselves into thinking that it was simply a lone bad day.
But it wasn't.
Mary didn't realize what was going on until she heard Dean's shouts.
"Sammy, stop! You're bleeding! Whatever you're seeing, it isn't real! But you are bleeding for real and you need to stop and let me help you!"
Mary rushed into Sam's room, fearing the worst. The reality wasn't far from her fear. Sam was huddled in the corner of his room, a thick trail of blood leading from the center of the room to where he now sat. His right thumb dug aggressively into his left palm, which was pouring blood. Dean was kneeling on the ground in front of him. He tried to grab hold of Sam's bleeding hand, but Sam shoved at Dean and then curled in tighter on himself. When he spotted Mary, his eyes grew even wider with fear. He grabbed for the knife that was abandoned at his foot.
"Not her." He muttered so quiet and frightened. "No, not her, not her, not her not her nothernother."
"Hey, Sammy look at me. She is really here. You're safe, we're at the bunker and she is here for real. Sammy, please! Let me see your hand. I need to bandage it before you bleed too much." He made another grab for Sam, only to be pushed hard into the dresser and watch Sam curl in tighter yet against the wall. Dean couldn't make another move toward Sam for fear he'd realize there was still a knife in his hand.
"STAY AWAY. DON'T TOUCH ME!"
"Sammy," Dean kept his distance this time and he lowered his voice. "Sammy, it's just me. Stone number one, remember? Sammy, he isn't here. It's just me. I can help you Sam, but I need you to let me come over there, let me stop the bleeding."
Something that Dean said must have gotten through to him because he was now at least responsive to what was going on. But he was still clearly on edge, and he hadn't fully grasped reality yet. Now, looking definitively at Dean, he said "Dean, you can't. It's the only thing that can make it stop!"
"Sam, I know you want it to stop but this is not the answer. I can't let you carve into your own hand and then sit around as you start bleeding out."
Upon entering the room, Mary hadn't taken the time to consider why Sam's hand was bleeding. A gasp caught in her throat when she heard Dean say that he'd done it to himself. She couldn't bear the thought that her beautiful son would intentionally cause himself such harm. "Dean-"
Sam's eyes grew wide again when she spoke. Dean cut her off with a backward wave of the hand. "Mom, get out of here… Go get some first aid supplies, please, but don't come back in until I say so."
She nodded and left.
As Mary walked away, Dean once again tried to move closer. While Sam didn't shove him away this time, Dean could see that the lesser distance created greater tension. Sam's eyes were still wide and unblinking, and his breathing was rapid and choked.
"Sam-"
"Dean I'm sorry. I tried to make him go away but I can't."
"Sshh. . Sammy, don't worry, he isn't here. Hey, come here. I'm just gonna take a look at your hand okay?" Finally, Sam let him grab hold of the bleeding hand, and he began to examine it gently. Dean was sure to keep one eye focused on the knife clutched in his other hand, but he was pretty sure that they were passed the point where Sam was liable to hurt him. And he was certain even if Sam went for an attack, he was still a bit too out of it to be a real threat. Sam had cut deep, and it was going to need stitches. But it wasn't really life threatening. He decided it would be best to focus his attention on calming Sam before he began with the first aid or let Mary back in. "It's okay, your safe here. I'm just gonna help you out with this cut, okay? We've done this before right? I've been patching you up expertly since we were kids."
"Dean, please, it's the only thing that might work. I can't get him to go away. This is the only thing that might make him leave. I have to make him leave." Sam was no longer violent, and Dean didn't think he'd return to that state for now, but he still darted his eyes around the room seeing things that weren't there. Sam still couldn't focus on reality. "I'm sorry, I tried to make him leave but he won't go. And if I can't get rid of him he… he'll… you have to let me make him go away. You don't know what he could do."
It broke Dean's heart to see Sam so defeated and broken. "Hey, look at me." Sam brought his eyes down to look at Dean, but they still occasionally moved about, checking each corner of the room. "Sammy, just look at me, okay? He isn't here. Hey, no, no, no, just at me. Lucifer is not here. He cannot hurt you. He can't hurt you, or me, or mom. Okay? I promise you, Sammy, you are safe right here. He's not really here. I know you can see him, and I know how much you're hurting right now, but we are gonna get through this. I-"
"He's not here," Sam said it like someone had reached in and ripped it from him. In an instant he dropped the knife and Dean's hand flashed out like lightning and slid it far across the room, out of their reach.
Dean smiled, not caring at all that he'd been interrupted. Usually, when he got Sam to say something aloud it meant that he believed it, and that they had conquered the particular episode of hallucinations, for a little while at least. "That's right. He's not here. Now, do you think you can stand? Let's have you sit in a chair so I can patch this up, yeah?" Sam nodded and moved into the desk chair a few feet away. Dean sat on the bed across from him, still grasping the bleeding hand. "Mom went to grab the first aid stuff, is it okay if she comes in?"
As if on cue they heard a single loud rap on the door. Though it startled him noticeably, Sam managed to say, "Come in."
Mary looked bewildered and then relieved upon entering. She said, "Sam! Oh, good you're…" And she wasn't sure how she intended to finish that sentence. Luckily, she didn't have to.
"Yeah I uhh… Dean got me to… I'm sorry about all this."
"There's no reason to be sorry. I'm just glad you're… feeling better."
It was a room full of people who didn't know what to do, didn't know what to say. Mary could feel the discomfort in the air as none of them would meet each other's eyes. She was glad that Sam was back in reality, but she couldn't delude herself into believing he was okay. He had taken a knife to his own hand.
She wished she could take the moment to feel an ounce of relief but, more persistently, a horrible thought consumed her. What next?
