2740/They Tried to Make Me Go to Rehab

They Tried to Make Me Go to Rehab
Date of Scene:	11 October 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Sam Winchester, Castiel, Dean Winchester, Winter Soldier, Jemma Simmons, Claire Temple, Mercy Thompson

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Sam Winchester has posed:
It may not be entirely clear to everyone why Sam Winchester finally agreed-- nay, //asked//-- to try this.

A few people here do know all the contributing factors.

Contributing factor the first: Claire Temple. Her matter-of-fact compassion and her professional manner made Sam feel like a human. Not like a worthless addict. And so he laid it right down to SHIELD: he isn't doing shit without Claire Temple on hand, and moreover as far as he is concerned, she is in charge, and anyone who wanted to help would answer to her.

Contributing factor the second: his own stubbornness. The white-eyed demon Alistair wants him on this stuff. Azazel, the demon who killed his mother and his fiancee, wants him on this stuff. Therefore, //he// wants //off// this stuff. The rebel in him serves to his advantage in this case.

He did not want Fred there. He in fact scheduled this for a time when his girlfriend was off working an Angel Investigations case without him. He was on the fence about Dean, on one hand wanting him like a sick child always wants his parent, on the other not wanting him to see any of this. In the end he just sort of let Dean decide, taking on a very stoic air, as if he were just going in for a physical.

He also brought Halfrek, his captured vengeance demon and most reliable source of blood, straight to a SHIELD containment unit covered in Devil's Traps. This is a profound act of trust. He is aware he might not get that back, and it scares him. Until now, he hadn't even told Dean or Fred where Halfrek was. He'd barely confessed to having secured a reliable supply. And as the only supply of semi-potent, midranking demon blood that he can get without hurting any human host, that demon is as precious as diamonds were to Katherine Hepburn right now.

It's been about 3 days of increasingly smaller doses. He's wearing grey sweat pants and a clean white t-shirt. He's got sensors on his head to help with a brainscan, and sensors monitoring his vitals. He's been on a strict diet and sleep regimen. That latter is hard for him, he's not a very consistent sleeper by nature, given a lot of his work takes place at odd hours. But...some valium doses have helped with that a little.

Worth noting, the baseline dose of Halfrek blood was up to about 5 shots every 3 hours when he came in; that's what he admits it took to make him feel and function normally after getting a taste of the white-eyed demon known as Alistair. 'A taste' versus an injection doesn't provide any clear benefit one way or another, but the strength of the demon does apparently matter.

Mercy might realize why, during the course of study...because a run-of-the-mill black-eyes only leaves a small touch of demonic magic in the blood of its host, whereas a more powerful one is absolutely rich with it.

An analysis of his brain and body shows this isn't entirely like a drug addiction. The pleasure centers in the brain do light up, dopamine is happening, but not in a way consistent with barbituates. It's far more like his body now relies on a substance it is not capable of producing, and that substance is demon blood. Like a diabetic who can't produce insulin. Or a member of the fae, to Mercy's nose, of a type who needs a certain connection to magic to survive, and who might say fade away to nothing or grow very sick in areas where the magical supply has dwindled to nothing, where the Veil is too thick.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Steadily decreasing the dose has thus had mixed results. On one hand, his vitals have remained pretty steady, he hasn't thrown up, and he at least hasn't complained. On the other he's started to look pale. He's not admitting to pain: (the answer on a scale of 1 to 10 is always "I'm fine,"), but after three days of dosage reduction he is now sort of curled into his bed with his hands over his head, growing increasingly cranky and disinterested in food, and he's moving like an exhausted chronic pain patient. These are the first real reactions he's shown, and the read out on his vitals show drops in his magnesium levels, drops in serotonin, dialations in his blood vessels, drops in his blood sugar, and a few other signs of a system going slowly haywire, right around the three shots every 5 hours mark. Magically, he does not smell any less like the half-demon, half-man amalgamation of smells that has marked him since Hydra began this process in the first place.

Castiel has posed:
Castiel wasn't invited. In fact, had he followed Agent May's instructions and made a point of asking first, he was fairly certain he'd have been given a firm "No!" a best, and "Go the hell away!" at worst. However, the beauty of not asking was.. he didn't have to bow to anyone's desires but his own..

He could have phoned.. except he'd not been shown how to use the device. It sat in his trench coat pocket, a lumpen reminder that Agent Mom wouldn't approve of what he was doing now. He had other priorities, though. And when Sam went from "I'm fine" to a curled up ball in the medical bay bed, the angel's tags on the young man went from passing glances, to immediate attention needed. The lack of warding making it easy for the angel to merely *pop* into the room where Sam is, possibly to the startle of all others gathered. He doesn't announce himself, though, merely a silent sentinel for the moment. One who notes the lack of any appropriate wards - a large factor in his ease of showing up. It was, he noted to himself, sloppy.

Dean Winchester has posed:
While Sam curls into himself, Dean feels strangely exposed and vulnerable to everyone here. While he's not the brother on the bed, suffering knits his eyebrows tightly together into a mess of wrinkles and lines across his forehead and face. This process is likely to age him, or so he thinks. The glint in his eyes borders on angry while his arms cross defiantly over his chest. He looks like he's ready to have a standoff rather than slowly watch his brother detox. Over the course of the last few hours, he's become increasingly surly. His jaw has tightens. His skin has paled. And while Sammy suffers, Dean looks on with flared nostrils, leaning heavily into the toxic masculinity his father had modelled their entire lives.

The casual nature of his dress with the grey t-shirt peeking out from underneath a darker grey plaid shirt, doesn't belong here, and almost makes him appear lumberjack rather than consultant. He huffs a heavy breath.

And then it happens. Something in Dean's brain breaks.

He tramples over to Sam and announces, "He needs drugs. Now. Something. Look, I ain't no doc, but even I can see he's completely wigged out and trying to put on a face for all of you," because big brother has seen things bad in the past.

He casts Castiel a long look when the angel shows up out of nowhere, and for a moment, actually seems conflicted. Dean didn't call. He looks towards the angel and says two words, "Fix him."

Winter Soldier has posed:
At least one person present doesn't know all the contributing factors to why Sam finally agreed to a detox now after resisting it so long, but he can guess, and he also knows more than he ought about how Sam got himself into this situation in the first place.

Namely -- because it's his fault. This is on his hands. That may not be objectively true, for reasons of mind control and lack of agency and the fact his hands never came near Sam once after they dragged the young man to Hydra's mercies, but subjectively the weight of it rests heavily on the erstwhile Winter Soldier's shoulders.

So he is present. That is reason number one Bucky Barnes is present. Reason number two is if the detox goes poorly, he needs to restrain Sam and protect everyone else in the room. Especially the two women who he has been watching over all this time, as they try to work on Sam.

He's, accordingly, extremely startled when someone just /appears/ in the room. His hand is on his holstered weapon in an instant, prepared to release the safety, though he doesn't immediately draw due to the lack of immediate hostile action, and the fact that Dean isn't losing his shit about it.

Dean. Another awkward issue. He relaxes his grasp on his weapon, avoiding the sight of the two brothers suffering.

Jemma Simmons has posed:
The plan has been to synthesize the demon blood Sam Winchester and detox him. Simmons has been doing what she can on the synthetic, but it has only been with the blood of Halfrek that she has started to make any real progress on how to go about that. The past three days have been routine - at least as far as Simmons is concerned.

Currently, the biologist is in her white SHIELD lab coat. Her hair is sensibly pulled back and she's scanning through her tablet's stats on Sam's vitals and the amount of blood he has taken and how it has effected him.

Then, she sets the tablet to the side and moves to the bed where Sam is curled up. She gives him a sympathetic look. "I am sure asking you how you feel is not what you wish to hear, however I do have to ask." Having a former Hydra assassin in the lab is not exactly a calming effect, however she is mostly attempting to ignore him. As much as one can do that. To Dean, she shakes her head. "This is what detox is, I'm afraid. Introducing a new drug to his system will not help and in fact may hurt." She looks to the nurse in order to back her up on this.

The sudden man appearing into the medical lab gets a shout from Simmons. "H-how did you get in here?! Someone call security?"

Claire Temple has posed:
Claire Temple wears the last three days on every inch of her.

From the napped-in pleats of her clothes to her bound-up sleeves rolled halfway up her forearms -- not to her elbows, for some mysterious reason -- and the heavy, wavy mass of her hair bound back in a sloppy, inky ponytail, she is one hundred and change pounds of stressed, worried, over-worked woman.

Wearing a TEMP badge of her own, working with Simmons' donated team of technicians and interns, the ex-emergency nurse does what she can to manage a losing fight against whatever's become of Sam Winchester's blood.

Learning what she can about the synthesis of /demonic blood/ -- and while this isn't Claire's exact expertise, she's a surprisingly quick study -- she occupies herself with updates to Sam's bloodwork. Trying to make sense of his symptoms to at least treat them acutely and critically.

And yet even as she works, constantly giving Mercy some drowning-man glances that beg 'tell me you know SOMETHING about demon blood changing up someone's biology', the reality starts to dawn. It may not be a detox at all. It may be past the point of a foreign agent, and now part of his changed human stain.

To that glance, she duly backs up Simmons. "Dean, you need to calm down," Claire entreats, her voice gentle, but her eyes firm. "He's not critical. You need to keep it together. We shou --"

And that's when a man suddenly appears in. Claire jerks up to her feet, dropping her tablet. Her eyes immediately find Bucky, in a very obvious: you SEE this shit? Dean's demand of that mysteriously-appearing man does little to assuage her uncertainty. Her eyebrows draw down. "What the hell is this?"

Mercy Thompson has posed:
The call for aid went out to those that Sam Winchester calls friend and family. Mercy Thompson was one of those who answered.

Now, here in the Triskelion, the coyote is. Like those around her she's been here for all three days. All of her outfits have been very similar in taste. T-shirts, jeans, tennis shoes. This third day is no different.

Her attention has been completely engrossed with Sam, Simmons and Claire. Ironically, because of this, Mercy's interactions with Bucky have been relatively painless. Or, at the very least, less awkward on Mercy's part.

While Mercy has paid attention to everything Simmons and Claire have been working on, the majority of it is far over her head. That doesn't mean she can't help. She does. In whatever ways she can with the magical aspect of it. From that Mercy's expression has flickered between attentive and distant. That distant expression of hers only happened when she evoked her more mystical senses. And each time her expression returned to normal, Mercy would give Claire a side-eye and a subtle shake of her head in the negative.

It's only now, this particular day, that Mercy finally says, "The magic within him is lessening. I can sense that, but his scent still reads the same. I assumed it would have changed by now. Gone back to normal, but it's not. I'm not sure if we -"

Though whatever else Mercy was going to say is cut-off midway when Dean explodes into brotherly outrage. Those words of Mercy's can't even be finished a minute later when a familiar figure appears. Like the others Mercy's expression turns surprised, her eyes widening. "What's he doing here?" She asks automatically, even as Dean addresses the grounded angel.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam doesn't really notice Castiel's appearance right away. He's aware of Dean's upset. He thinks Dean is talking to Jemma and Claire. Jemma tells him he's got to tell her how he is, and he mutters grumpily, in an answer that serves for both Jemma //and// Dean:

"I'm fine, Dean. I'm fine, Agent Simmons."

He //demands// this stoicism out of himself. He knew it was going to hurt. He knew it was going to suck. He is not going to give anyone any reason to stop this now. And because admitting to being anything less than fine is just something he doesn't have it in him to do //most// of the time. James Barnes being there drives it further.

The last thing he wants to do is look weak in front of a man who has exhibited such incredible fortitude in his own much rougher life.

Then Jemma asks about security; Claire is asking what the Hell this is, Mercy's demanding to know what this person is doing here...and his head snaps up and out of his hands in confusion. "He's probably not here to kill me," he informs them all, as if he's not 100% sure. Castiel has, after all, mostly seemed to disapprove of him, and did accuse him, on their first meeting, of willfully dipping into demonic powers. "He's Dean's angel. Castiel."

No need for James to shoot the rumpled, trenchcoat wearing angel on his account. Probably.

Guilt suffuses him when he looks up with those red-rimmed hazel eyes to take in Claire's state; it drives home how much //trouble// he is, how much of a problem he manages to cause. He swallows. Looks down and away. There's a three day stubble on his face, he hasn't been bothering to shave.

Castiel has posed:
Castiel is getting used to the non-happy greetings of folks when he arrives. They almost don't even register with him anymore. Dean's gruff 'fix him' barely rates an arch of brow from the angel, Castiel approaching Sam's bed, regarding the man there curled up in classic fetal position of agony. Winter gets a glance, barely a pause of a thing, for his reaching for the gun. But because he doesn't draw it, Castiel is saved the necessity of informing the man how utterly useless the weapon is against him. Dean's sarcastic phrases do more damage in the scope of things. But Simmons.. that one gets attention, Castiel stopping in his tracks to regard the lab coated woman. The blue of his eyes calm upon her as she calls for security.

"That would not be necessary. I am here to help."

Which really has little to do with whether or not security should be called, or how he got here, but as is his wont, Castiel doesn't seem too bothered by the peculialarities of human interaction. "I would need to touch him to see what may be done. This will not alarm anyone?" There's a long pause before the angels feels obligated to add, "Your weapons will not harm me. I assure you, I mean no ill."

Oddly, he does turn to Mercy, greeting the woman by name before turning his attention back to Sam. The other might not see, and Sam might not be in headspace to notice, but there is a gentling of the angel's gaze upon the man. An understanding of where the other is in this moment, and an appreciation of what he is trying to do.

"Sam." the single word both greeting, and something of asking permission.

Dean Winchester has posed:
Dean's green eyes sweep towards Bucky and then back to Castiel. Nothing about his gaze suggests that anything is okay, but it also shouldn't give anyone alarm. "This is a bad idea," he mutters back to Simmons, sullen and still determined.

"He looks bloody well unwell to me," Dean replies to Claire. "I've seen a lot of corpses in my day in various states of dead, undead, walking dead, and all kinds of dead between. Sammy's starting to look like them." He arches his eyebrows and treads back towards Sam's side.

Sam declares himself fine. "Yeah, fine like that time the Harper kid pummelled you and you sat in front of the television bleeding and insisting you were fine? I know the tone." He levels his gaze back to Claire. Because he knows things, not about medicine, but definitely about Sam.

But then Sam introduces Castiel as //Dean's angel//. "Dude. That's a level of commitment I'm not prepared for," he snarks. "He has declared himself a guardian. So." Dean actually shrugs at that, but nothing in his posture loosens.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Bucky has unconsciously moved in front of Claire, but as some explanation arrives, he releases his weapon and silently lets the matter go -- though not without a roll of his eyes at talk about guardian angels.

There is a not insignificant amount of security just outside, half of it to monitor the erstwhile Winter Soldier himself, but he makes no move to call them in quite yet based on these assurances.

He holds his silence for the time being, likely out of a sense that demonstrativeness would increase Sam's discomfort. And likely his own, for that matter; demonstrativeness is not exactly in his wheelhouse.

Jemma Simmons has posed:
Simmons knows grumpy. There was the time she rearranged some of Fitz's plans. There was the time she labelled a bag with an abbreviation. Of course, there is always the time she did the autopsy of the cat. Sam's own form of it is met with something of a smile. "Yes, of course."

Over the course of the three days, she has started to get used to Claire's demeanor as well as her sass. There is still a bit of hesitation and bristle she feels for the nurse. The lab is her and Fitz's space. She rarely works with anyone closely other than her scientific partner. However, the medical bay? That is more of a shared space and she feels more at ease and in sync with her. That swear endears the nurse to her just a bit more.

As the fully fledged scientist of SHIELD and - certainly - the highest ranking person of that organization in the room, Simmons shakes her head at the angel - some grit and authority creeping into her voice. There's no way she trusts that someone who bamfs into a secure facility doesn't have ulterior motives. "This is a secure facility. There are agents with both the physical and magical means to kick you out or lock you up right outside the doorway." What with the demon in a container and the Winter Soldier, security is certainly on alert. Then, however, Dean and Sam say that they know him, that he's a guardian, that he's not here to kill Sam? Wariness seeps into her expression. "They remain right outside."

Dean is given a curious study. "Fix him? What? How?" Moving backward, she attempts to impede Castiel's approach to Sam. "This is a medical lab and I am simply not comfortable with a magical appearing man attempting to interfere with a patient." Again, she entreats Claire and this time Mercy to agree with her.

Claire Temple has posed:
For a moment, the weight shifts to the balls of Claire's feet, ready to insinuate herself between the alleged angel and Sam -- and with Bucky intervening himself in front of her.

The night nurse is well-acquainted to all thirty-one flavours of bullshit that come between her and doing her job, but this one is new on her palate. When Sam attests it's all right, she backs down, though not without imparting Dean a quick, searing look that could strip the paint off a car. None of this is necessary.

Breathing out her aggravation, she lays a hand briefly on Bucky's right arm to gentle him too. No one needs a too-antsy super soldier.

"She's right," she says of Simmons. "I usually don't work under these kinds of conditions either. Sam's an adult, and he asked me to do this for him."

But the so-called angel is asking to help, or being told to fix, and Claire is about three days dry of patience to wave one hand and be done with her control conditions. "Whatever. Your call, Sam."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
Surprise still lingers within Mercy's expression. Now for the fact that the Winchester's and Casitel seem to already know each other. Between that and Sam's explanation, Mercy can't quite stop the look she shifts between Sam, Dean and Castiel. Castiel's own greeting toward the mechanic pulls forth a return nod.

After that, Mercy's attention returns to the group at large, especially when Claire and Simmons speak. What the two other women have to say garners a nod from Mercy, but it's really Simmons' look that pushes the coyote into action.

Pivoting slightly upon heel, Mercy turns the majority of her attention upon the fallen angel. "What do you plan on doing?" Comes her question, asked with perhaps a touch more bluntly than what might be typical for Mercedes Thompson; but time, and perhaps patience, it seems to be in short supply currently. As such, flowery words and sentences are dropped for very plain speak.

And with that question of hers, Mercy will momentarily look toward Dean and Sam, before her gaze returns to Castiel - waiting for that answer from him.