No Direction Home PART TWO
“No.” Sam won’t meet his eyes.
Dean’s just offered to share his bed, figuring a direct invitation beat out any awkward attempt to talk about what happened back at the poltergeist scene. Sam’s refusal had not been expected.
“Okay.” Dean fights a crushing feeling of rejection. Sam can’t mean no. That just doesn’t make sense. “Look, Sam, you kissed me, back there at the house. I just figured we were on the same page.”
Agony twists Sam’s handsome features. He still won’t look Dean in the eye.
“That was wrong of me, Dean,” he says. His voice is still a little hoarse from his near-strangulation. “You’re not yourself. You can’t agree to that, even if you think it’s what you want. Even if it’s what I want.”
Dean shakes his head. “What makes you think I wouldn’t want it just as bad if I had all my memories?”
“Because I know you, Dean,” Sam says. “You’re all about doing what you think is best for me, taking care of me, protecting me.”
“Sounds about right,” Dean agrees. “But you’re not a kid anymore, Sam. I don’t have to protect you from me anymore, at least not now that you’re an adult. You can make your own choices.”
Sam paces away from Dean and Dean watches his back as the muscles tense and strain. When he turns, fixing his gaze on the floor in front of Dean, his jaw is clenched, but his voice sounds helpless and small.
“We’re brothers, Dean,” he says, turning his hands up as if he’s begging Dean to believe him. “You would never be okay with this if you remembered that.”
Dean’s pretty sure he would be okay with it, even if they really were brothers, especially since it’s something Sam wants. Dean has a powerful intuition that he always wants to give Sam whatever he wants.
As if he can read his mind, or maybe just his dubious expression, Sam adds, “You’re my big brother, Dean. You always think you know what’s best for me. Even when I disagree. Sometimes especially when I disagree. And I depend on your judgment, even when I disagree with it.”
“Of course you do,” Dean says with a smirk. “I’m older and wiser.”
“And more demanding and more controlling,” Sam adds, while not disagreeing. “But I trust you, Dean, I do, because I know you love me and you want what’s best for me.”
Dean takes a step toward Sam, who glances up warily.
“Then trust me now, Sam,” Dean says softly. “Brothers or not, we both want the same thing, man. Have done for a long time, I’m guessing.”
Sam shakes his head. “No, no, no, Dean, you don’t know what you’re saying. Believe me, we almost went there a few years ago, and you were very, very clear about how you felt then. I can’t trust this - I can’t trust you.”
“Huh.” Dean sits down on his bed, thinking about that. “Why would I - I just can’t imagine having a problem with this, man. Not if you were old enough.”
Sam nods. “I was, and you did. You were very adamant that we not, even though I was eighteen. I couldn’t get you to talk about it, but I figure it was ‘cuz we’re brothers. Plus Dad would’ve hated it.”
“Dad’s dead,” Dean reminds him, ignoring the ache in his chest whenever he thinks about his father.
“So now it’s just because we’re brothers,” Sam confirms.
“But we’re not,” Dean insists. “There’s just no way. I couldn’t feel this way about my brother. I wouldn’t.”
Sam nods, blinking away the moisture over his eyes.
“Yeah,” he says. “That’s just it. If you remember, if you really knew who you are, what you and I are to each other, you’d never go there. So I can’t, Dean. You have to understand.”
Dean swipes a hand over his face, determined to hide the crushing disappointment in his chest, not to mention the ache in his groin. He needs a drink.
“This is the stupidest rejection I’ve ever had,” he mutters. “If you didn’t want to have sex with me, you could just say so, but you do want to have sex with me, you just can’t because you think I wouldn’t want to if I could remember that we’re brothers.”
Sam takes a placating step forward, sympathy in his pretty, pretty eyes, and Dean feels like he’s being pitied, which makes him angrier on principle.
He gets up abruptly, reaching for his keys, ignoring Sam’s beseeching gaze, his outstretched hands.
“I’m going out,” he announces, keeping his eyes on the rug as he heads to the door. He stops as he opens the door, glaring back at Sam just because he needs to show Sam that he’s not hurt, he’s just pissed. “Don’t wait up.”
He slams the door after himself for good measure, slams the door to his baby as he slides into the driver’s seat for double good measure, satisfied that Sam could hear that. He turns his keys in the ignition and revs the engine when it starts, just to show Sam who’s boss.
There’s a bar just down the road. He can get drunk if he wants, maybe pick up somebody to have a good time with, somebody who can take his mind off Sam for a hot minute. The bar’s not far, so he can walk back if he needs to.
Dean’s not gonna let some tall, handsome stud who only stole his heart a week ago (even though he knows they’ve known each other for years) keep him from having some fun.
To hell with Sam anyway.
//**//**//
When he stumbles back to the motel later, Sam’s already asleep, a dark, silent lump in the bed farthest from the door. Dean doesn’t even try to be quiet. He flips the overhead light on as soon as he gets inside. He’s damned if he’s about to stub his toe or bang his shin just because Sam’s sleeping. Fuck him.
Sam stirs but doesn’t say anything. Fucker’s probably been awake this whole time, waiting for Dean’s return so they can talk. Fuck that.
Dean sheds most of his clothes right there on the floor, leaves the overhead light on as he stumbles into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He flips it off as soon as he comes out of the bathroom, then stumbles into Sam’s bed in the dark.
“Shit!”
“Dean?” Sam has the nerve to sound sleepy, damn him anyway.
“Shut up, Sam,” Dean growls. “Go back to sleep.”
But Sam’s awake now. Dean can hear him, tossing and turning after Dean finds his own bed and collapses on it, then fights with the blankets to get under them, cursing.
There’s enough alcohol in Dean’s system to tranquilize a horse, but apparently Dean’s brain isn’t ready to sleep yet. The bar was nearly empty except for a couple of truckers playing pool, and they left when Dean tried to get them to let him play. The bartender ignored him except to refill his glass, so Dean sat by himself at the bar and watched TV, seething and muttering about Sam until the bartender told him to leave.
“You get lucky?” Sam asks casually after they’ve been lying quietly for a couple of minutes.
Dean’s starting to feel sorry for himself, so he says nothing.
“Guess that’s a ‘no,’” Sam comments.
“Shut up,” Dean grumbles, but with less heat than before. He’s definitely feeling sorry for himself.
“You used to do that when we were kids, go out cruising for chicks.” Sam’s voice still sounds a little groggy, and Dean resents the notion that Sam was sleeping earlier, just on principle. The guy should’ve been crying into his pillow, losing out on a chance to sleep with Dean.
“Stop talking,” Dean grunts. “I don’t wanna hear about what I did when we were younger.”
“I used to think you did it to piss me off,” Sam admits, ignoring Dean’s words. “But now I think you did it to protect me.”
Dean agrees. That’s probably exactly why he did it. Getting away from the tempting little twink on the other bed, those long smooth limbs and big sad eyes, those deep dimples, that soft dark hair.
“Go to sleep, Sam.”
“I love you, Dean,” Sam says. “You can’t change that, no matter how many times you go out drinking and hooking up.”
Dean sighs. Apparently, Sam’s not gonna leave him alone to pass out in peace. Sam loves him too much.
And Sam’s not done. “Tomorrow, I want you to take us back to that witch who did this, try to get her to reverse the spell. I need my brother back, and you need to remember who you are before we take this even one more day. Will you do that for me, Dean?”
Dean surprises himself by answering, “Okay, Sammy. Okay.”
“Promise me,” Sam presses.
“Promise,” Dean answers. Kid’s really got him wrapped around his little finger, dammit. He feels better right away, giving in to Sam’s demands, giving Sam what he wants. Apparently, Dean’s programmed that way. “You know, if you want to join me over here, my invitation still holds.”
Sam sucks in a breath and Dean waits. He’s not sure he could get it up at this point, but he’d be down for some kissing and heavy petting if Sam would just get over here.
“Good night, Dean.”
Sam turns over onto his side, away from Dean, and immediately starts breathing deeply.
Damn.
//**//**//
Dean mostly manages to ignore the wounded looks Sam gives him the next day as they get dressed, shave, and brush their teeth before heading to the diner for breakfast.
When they’re seated across from each other in their booth, Sam pulls out his battered laptop and reads his notes from research he’s apparently already done on Dean and the witch that hexed him.
“Her name’s Prudence Truly,” Sam tells him. “She operates out of Boulder, Colorado most of the year, spends her summers in Aspen. I think that’s where you met up with her, right after Dad died.”
The name doesn’t ring a bell. All Dean can remember about her is her long dark hair and the sense of calm and rightness emanating from her.
“How did you find her?” he asks, taking another bite of his sausage.
“I backtracked from the moment I found you,” Sam explains. “Once I knew where you were, it got easier to figure out where you’d been. You left a trail of motel registrations.”
“I paid with cash, most of the time,” Dean protests. “Registered under assumed names. It couldn’t have been that easy.”
Sam squirms in his seat. “I know your aliases,” he says. “Same ones Dad used when we were kids. Rock musicians from the seventies and eighties. Easy.”
Dean’s eyebrows go up. “Damn.”
“Yeah, I guess you forgot that it might be me trying to follow you.”
The wounded look is back in Sam’s eyes, and Dean takes a moment to reflect on how miserable he must’ve made Sam when he first disappeared. If what Sam says is true, Dean was gone for almost nine months after Dad’s death. If their situations were reversed, and Sam had vanished on him like that, Dean would have gone crazy trying to find him.
“Why would I do that?” Dean muses. “Just leave like that? I mean, you are not somebody I would want to forget in the first place.”
Sam takes a deep breath. “I’m guessing it was an accident,” he says. “I’m kind of hoping it was, anyway. Some kind of residual effect of the forgetfulness spell.”
Dean nods. “That makes sense. I mean, if I wanted to forget something, it would not be you, I’m pretty sure.”
“Right,” Sam agrees, keeping his eyes fixed on his laptop screen.
“So did you interview her?” he asks. “The witch?”
Sam shakes his head, looking sheepish. “She’s a psychic,” he notes. “She was out of town when I went to her house. Her landlady says she knows when people are coming, so sometimes she does that.”
Dean makes a face. “Do you think she’d talk to us? I mean, if she skips town again when we show up -”
“I’ve got her number,” Sam says. “She doesn’t take my calls, but she might take yours.”
Dean frowns. He doesn’t like what that implies. If he didn’t want to be found, after he asked the witch to do her magic, he might ask her to avoid anybody coming to her who was looking for him. But Sam?
Again, he can’t imagine a situation in which he would deliberately forget Sam. He can’t imagine asking a witch to remove Sam from his memories. It just doesn’t make sense.
//**//**//
Because there’s no sense in wasting time, Dean tries calling Prudence Truly as soon as they get back to the motel. Sam goes out for a run (so he says) to give Dean some privacy (which Dean doesn’t understand - doesn’t Sam want to listen in on the call to the witch who caused all this?)
The call goes to voicemail, so Dean leaves a message, explaining his situation and asking to meet with her, just to ask a few questions.
To his surprise, she calls back almost as soon as he hangs up.
“Dean.” Her voice is smooth and warm, like honey. “I wondered when you’d call.”
“Yeah, I guess you’ve got the whole psychic thing going, so you knew you’d hear from me eventually,” Dean suggests with a nervous chuckle.
“You’ve found Sam,” she says. She doesn’t sound surprised.
“Well, he found me, actually, not that it matters.”
“And now you want your memories back.”
Dean nods, even though he knows she can’t see it. “Yeah. Can you do it?”
“I can,” she says, “but I will need to do it in person. And you must bring Sam.” She pauses for a moment, then adds, “Sam knows where I live.”
“Okay,” Dean says warily. “Hey, if you don’t mind my asking -”
“Yes, Dean,” she interrupts. “You and I had a good time. But that’s in the past now, so I don’t think we need to bring it up again, do you?”
“No, no, of course not.” Dean does his best to conjure her image in his mind, but all he can remember is a pale face framed by long dark hair. “We’ll, uh, see you soon.”
//**//**//
Prudence Truly is tall. She’s taller than Dean, which is an accomplishment, but shorter than Sam. She has shrewd, intelligent hazel eyes, clear pale skin, and an abundance of dark hair that reminds Dean of Sam, now that he thinks about it.
He tries to remember if he saw the resemblance when they first met, but he can’t. Like everything from before, it’s hazy and undefined. She wears jeans and a t-shirt, like Sam, but no plaid flannel. She has a simple, easy-going manner and a dimpled smile that makes her seem likable and trustworthy from the moment she opens the door.
“Prudence Truly?” Dean asks, as if she could be anyone else.
“Dean Winchester,” she answers, then nods at Sam. “Sam. Come in.”
Her home is modest and simple, like her. The entryway opens into a room with a couch, a couple of chairs, and a coffee table. There are no prisms, or dream-catchers or pentagrams anywhere. Sam and Dean sit down on the couch, elbows and knees brushing, as Prudence takes one of the chairs facing them.
“So, you’ve found each other,” Prudence notes, stating the obvious. “And now you want me to restore your memories.”
“Can you tell us what happened?” Sam blurts out. Dean side-eyes him, but the anguish in Sam’s eyes shuts him up. Sam has suffered. He has a right to know if he caused this.
“I reached out to your brother,” Prudence tells him. Dean sucks in a breath. “I needed help with a wood sprite.”
“A wood sprite,” Sam repeats, but Dean can feel him glance at Dean, just checking on him after the big reveal.
Dean’s jaw tightens, but he says nothing. He still doesn’t feel like Sam’s brother. There must be more.
Prudence nods. “Despite what you may think, I’m not a witch,” she reveals. “I know that’s the word in the hunting community, but I’m really just a psychic with some knowledge of spells and some skills at hypnosis. Nevertheless, I tend to attract supernatural beings, and sometimes I need help making them go away.”
“Or putting them down,” Dean suggests. He’s pretty sure he killed something for her.
Prudence lowers her eyes. “On occasion,” she acknowledges. “When they just won’t take no for an answer.”
“So Dean took care of your little problem and you gave him something in return,” Sam says. He sounds pissed.
Prudence looks up at him, something like sympathy in her eyes.
“I did,” she agrees.
“Tell me,” Sam demands. “Tell me what you did.”
Prudence sighs. “It wasn’t about you, Sam, not really.” She glances at Dean, then back at Sam. “Dean was suffering. He believed he was causing people around him to die. Your girlfriend, his dad. A hunting partner he’d only known for a couple of months.”
Dean searches his memories, can’t recall working with anyone other than his dad in all the years he’d been a hunter, but he knows it’s possible. John would have encouraged him to find somebody to provide backup on a difficult case. It made sense.
“So you took his memories away,” Sam says, jaw clenched.
“I took his pain away,” Prudence corrects. “At his request. I never do anything against the will of the person I help. He asked for this.”
“So his memories of me were just too painful for him.” Sam’s voice chokes off and Dean shoots him a concerned frown.
Prudence shakes her head. “I didn’t target memories,” she insists. “Only pain. He needed relief from his anguish, and I gave it to him.”
Dean nods. Just as he suspected. He couldn’t imagine deliberately forgetting Sam. And even if specific memories are missing, he still feels deeply for the kid. That never went away.
“Okay, you say we’re brothers, even though I don’t remember any of that,” Dean says hesitantly. “But I haven’t forgotten how I feel about him, and I gotta say, what I feel for Sam isn’t exactly brotherly.”
He clears his throat, less embarrassed than he should be to be confessing something that feels so intimate, so private. But he trusts her, instinctively. He knows she was only trying to help.
Prudence nods. “You and Sam are bonded,” she says. “I sensed it when you first came to me. I’m sensing it even stronger now. Something deep and unbreakable runs between you two. Deeper than blood.”
“I need my brother back,” Sam snaps, almost growling. “I need him to remember who we are to each other.”
Dean glances at him, willing him to back down, but Sam’s not having it. This is too important to him. He’s jealous, Dean realizes. Prudence took something that belonged to him, however inadvertently.
“Sam -” Dean starts, then stops when Sam glares at him.
“No, Dean,” he growls. “You promised!”
Dean nods, turning back to Prudence. “Can you unhypnotize me? Put me back the way I was before?”
“I can try,” Prudence says. She gestures at the couch. “I’ll need you to lie down and try to relax.”
Sam immediately gets up from the couch and walks around behind the other chair. He’s obviously too keyed up to sit down again, and Dean can’t blame him. His stomach is in knots just thinking about whatever changes are in store for them. For the first time, he considers the possibility that they might actually be brothers. How would that change the way he feels about Sam?
Well, for one thing, there could be no possibility of his ever acting on any inappropriate, non-brotherly feelings. He wouldn’t do that to his brother, but he especially wouldn’t do that to Sam.
Too late, he reminds himself with a sinking feeling in his gut.
Fuck.
//**//**//
Dean wakes with a start. He doesn’t remember lying down on the couch, closing his eyes, listening to Prudence telling him to relax. The pounding in his ears is too loud. The crushing weight on his chest is too heavy. He lifts his eyes to Sam, takes in his anxious, hopeful expression, and he wants to vomit.
“Dean?”
But Dean doesn’t listen. He bolts off the couch, evades Sam’s clutching hands, and whirls on Prudence.
“I told you not to tell him!” He’s shouting, his whole body shaking with terror and rage and guilt. “You were supposed to tell him to leave me alone!”
“He figured it out on his own, Dean,” Prudence says, voice calm and steady. “I didn’t need to tell him anything.”
“I killed his girlfriend!” Dean shouts. “I killed our dad!”
“Dean -” Sam reaches for him and Dean throws his arms up, almost hitting Sam in the chin.
“Get offa me. Leave me alone!”
Guilt clenches Dean’s gut as he recalls what he did, how he let his horrible, pervy feelings show. How he polluted his baby brother with his nasty, sick desires. And all that killing. Dad. Dan. Jessica.
“Dean -” Sam pleads. “Listen to me. It’s not your fault. None of it! We’re made this way, Dean! Did you hear what Prudence said? It’s not sick, or evil, or - or anything. It’s just us!”
“Shut up!” Dean yells, pointing at Sam, his little brother, the baby/child/kid he was supposed to protect, the boy he was supposed to take care of. What the hell was he thinking? “Just shut it!”
“And you!” He turns to Prudence. “You said if I quit hunting and kept moving, he’d never find me. You promised!”
Prudence shakes her head. “I warned you, even if you did that, he could still find you. Sam would never stop looking for you, Dean. You two are linked in ways I don’t even understand. The bond is rooted too deep. It’s too old. It was planted long before any of us were born.”
Dean stares at her, fear and guilt making him furious.
“You said, if I agreed to let you erase him from my memories, I could live in peace!” he accuses.
Sam sucks in a shocked breath, but Dean ignores him.
“I told you that might not work,” Prudence reminds him gently. “It’s not just memories that bind you two. Not just a shared upbringing.”
Dean glares at Sam again. “And you had to go poking around, didn’t you? Couldn’t leave well enough alone!”
He waits until Sam deflates, until his face collapses into that lost puppy look Dean knows too well. Then he turns, grabbing his jacket from the chair where he left it when he laid down on the couch to be de-hypnotized, before everything went to hell. He’s heading out the door before he even realizes what he’s doing, how he’s planning to run, just like before. He’s out of the house and halfway to the car before Sam stops him.
“Dean! Wait!” Sam’s got his arm in a vise and goddamn he’s strong. Dean whirls around, his other fist up, ready to clock Sam if he has to.
But Sam’s too quick. Too strong. He blocks Dean’s swing, then grabs the front of his jacket with both hands and hauls him in close, too close for Dean to get leverage for another swing. So close, all Dean can do is struggle and kick. He can’t even head-butt Sam because the kid’s too tall.
“Dean, stop!” Sam yells, shaking him. Dean wraps his leg behind Sam’s, trying to trip him, but Sam knows that move, too, knows how to fight just as dirty as his brother. He gets an ankle around Dean’s and flips him before Dean can regain his balance.
Dean finds himself flat on his back, on the grass of Prudence’s neatly mowed front lawn, Sam on top of him, holding him down, countering every move Dean knows because of course he taught the kid everything, and now Dean’s smaller and lighter and Sam knows that, too.
“Dean, stop!” Sam hisses, jerking back to avoid Dean’s head-butt while still holding him down, legs wrapped around Dean’s, wrists clenched in Sam’s fists. “You need to listen! I’m not letting you run this time, dammit. You’re all I have! Jessica’s dead, Dad’s dead. It’s just you and me, Dean! Stop fighting me!”
Dean struggles for another moment, just on principle, then goes still. He knows when he’s been beat. Sam’s bigger and stronger than Dean now, and even though Dean has more experience in a fight, Sam’s got him pinned good. All he can do is convince Sam to let him go so he can make another run for it.
“Let me go, Sam,” Dean growls in his best bossy big brother voice.
“If I do, will you stay put?” Sam counters. His face hovers over Dean’s, the rest of his body holding Dean down, and Dean knows he could do damage to Sam’s nose with a sudden head-butt, but he doesn’t.
He wants Sam to kiss him.
He’s got a boner. It’s not the first time he’s gotten one from sparring with his brother. Sam’s got one, too. Dean can feel it.
Dean closes his eyes so he can’t see Sam’s eyes, Sam’s lips.
“She’s dead because of me, Sam,” he says through gritted teeth. “Don’t you get that? If I hadn’t come and got you, taken you away that weekend, that wouldn’t’ve happened. I might as well have pulled the trigger. Lit the place on fire. Whatever.”
“But you didn’t,” Sam hisses back, shaking Dean’s wrists in his tight grasp. “You didn’t, Dean. It wasn’t your fault.”
Dean shakes his head, too keyed up to listen. Now that he’s on a self-pity roll, he can’t stop.
“Dad went off on that New Mexico thing on his own,” he says. “He wouldn’t let me come. I should’ve insisted. I should’ve gone anyway.”
“But you didn’t,” Sam says. “His death wasn’t your fault, either.”
Dean’s eyes fly open. He knows he looks wild and scared because he is.
“Dan was right beside me when that werewolf got him,” he goes on. “Clawed him right through the heart. I should’ve stopped that! I should’ve had his back! We were partners!”
He glares up at Sam. “That could’ve been you, Sammy. It could’ve been you.”
“But it wasn’t,” Sam says, shaking Dean’s wrists again. “It wasn’t. I’m right here, Dean. Not going anywhere.”
Dean blinks away the moisture in his eyes, turning his face away.
“You should’ve let me go, Sam,” he mumbles miserably. “You had a life. You were gonna be somebody.”
“I am somebody,” Sam insists through gritted teeth. “I’m your brother, Dean. We’re a good team, you said so yourself.”
Dean stares up at him, recalling the moment he told Sam how much Sam meant to him - okay, so he just told him they made a helluva team, but that’s what he meant. He could tell Sam understood. He wanted Sam to stay with him. He needed Sam by his side, and Sam understood.
But then Sam left, went back home to his girl and his normal college life, and all hell broke loose.
And Dean felt responsible, so he ran. Sam would be better off without him. Maybe Sam could go on with his life, despite losing his girl. He had a law school interview on Monday, after all.
“You were supposed to have a normal life, Sammy,” Dean reminds him miserably. “Finish your college degree, get a job as some fancy lawyer, get married and have kids. I ruined everything.”
Dean closes his eyes, feels a tear seep out of the corner of one of them and roll down his cheek. He turns his face away again, hoping Sam can’t see.
“No, you didn’t, Dean,” Sam insists. “None of it was gonna happen, not after what happened to Jess. And after you bolted, all I wanted to do was find you. When you disappeared, I realized I didn’t want a life without you in it, Dean. Not ever again.”
Dean lets out a dry laugh. “Some life. Hunting monsters and ghosts with your deadbeat brother who ruined your life and killed your girlfriend. Oh, and perved on you when you were a kid and killed your dad.”
“Damn it, Dean, if you don’t stop feeling sorry for yourself, I might have to hold you down until you do.” Sam shakes him again, then adds, “And I was perving on you first. You do not get credit for that.”
Dean feels the blush heating his cheeks and chest, reddening his ears. He licks his lips, and Sam tracks the movement with his eyes, suddenly dark in the dim light from the streetlamp.
“You can let me up, Sammy,” Dean says, clearing his throat. “I ain’t gonna run.”
Sam hesitates uncertainly for a moment, but when Dean doesn’t resist again, he hauls him to his feet by his jacket. He keeps ahold of him, though, not trusting him not to run as much as making sure Dean can stand on his own.
“I’m fine,” Dean insists, grabbing Sam’s wrists to pull his hands off. He thrusts them away from him, ignoring the wounded look in Sam’s eyes, the rejection.
“You promised you’d help me find out what happened to Jess,” Sam reminds him, pulling himself up to his full height. “You said you’d help me find the thing that killed her.”
Dean starts to protest, then a sudden movement makes them turn, but there’s nothing there. The house is dark, doors closed and probably locked, no car in the driveway. It’s like nobody lives there. Maybe nobody ever did.
“Let’s get outta here,” Dean suggests, and Sam nods.
//**//**//
Dean drives them to the motel they checked into earlier, before they went to Prudence’s house, or whoever’s house that was that they just spent an hour in.
It’s starting to snow. Dean unpacks the cooler full of beer and a half-full bottle of whisky.
When he sets them down on the rickety little table and turns back to Sam, his brother is standing in front of the door, arms hanging helplessly at his sides, like a guard, like he’s afraid Dean will leave again.
“He was my dad too, Dean,” Sam says, voice hoarse with emotion. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
Dean looks away, guilt in the face of Sam’s grief threatening to crush him.
Sam goes on. “The last thing he ever said to me was, ‘If you walk out that door, don’t you ever come back.’ I never even got a chance to tell him I forgive him.”
Conflicting emotions battle in Dean’s chest until he feels like he could collapse under them. Renewed grief for his dad wells up. Old anger at Sam for leaving his family crowds in but has nowhere to go since Sam’s got grief of his own and Dean would be an ass to add to that right now. Freshly remembered guilt over Jessica’s death and Sam’s wrecked life just won’t stop pounding at the back of his skull.
And through it all, Sam’s need threatens to drown him. It pushes through all the other feelings like a bulldozer, reminding Dean that he’ll always be, first and foremost, Sam’s big brother.
He grabs the whisky bottle, unscrews the top, and takes a long swallow before handing it to Sam, who makes a face before taking a sip, then makes another face and coughs as he swallows against the burn.
“I’m tired, Sam,” he says. “All I want to do tonight is take a shower and climb into bed.”
Sam’s lips part. His cheeks and the tip of his nose grow pink, and Dean thinks he should probably clarify the bed thing, but he’s too exhausted even for that. Under the shower spray, he thinks about Sam’s eyes filled with tears. He thinks about his soft lips and his too-long hair that Dean wants to run his fingers through. He thinks about that summer before Sam went off to college, when Sam couldn’t keep his hands off Dean and Dean finally decided that it was for the best that they should separate for a while.
Dean thinks about how much he missed Sam after he was gone, how he wanted to do whatever it took, promise Sam anything, to get him back.
He thinks about how he stalked Sam at Stanford, watching him from across the campus as he walked to class, to his dorm, to the library. He thinks about the drunken phone calls, how he hung up when Sam answered, sometimes before he even picked up.
After his shower, Dean pulls on his black t-shirt and boxers, right there in the bathroom. He runs his fingers through his damp, spiky hair, and brushes his teeth, dropping the towel on the floor when he’s done.
Sam’s still up, watching TV, stripped down to his t-shirt and sweatpants. He scrubs a hand over his face as Dean crosses the room to his bed, taking brief notice of the salt lines in front of the window and door. He crawls under the covers and fluffs up his pillow, checking to be sure his bowie knife is still under the mattress where he can reach it.
Sam doesn’t look at him as he flips the TV off and heads into the bathroom, turning off the overhead light as he goes.
Dean’s almost asleep when he hears the bathroom door open. He listens as Sam’s footsteps cross the room, stop next to Dean’s bed.
“Dean?”
Sam’s voice is full of need, sad and hopeful at the same time, and Dean can’t stand it. He pushes the blankets back, scoots over to make room for Sam, and his brother doesn’t hesitate. He lies down with his back to Dean, hugging the extra pillow under his head, and Dean spoons up behind him, chest pressed to Sam’s overheated back. He places a kiss on the nape of Sam’s neck, feeling Sam’s full-body shiver in response, and closes his eyes.
“Go to sleep, Sam,” he commands, and Sam’s big body relaxes. “It’s gonna be okay.”
//**//**//
Sometime in the night, Dean wakes to find Sam rutting against his hip, panting into his neck. He’s on his back, Sam’s leg heavy between Dean’s, Sam lying half on top of him.
“Hey,” Dean mumbles, shifting to ease the weight on his chest, so he can breathe. He turns his head, slides one hand into Sam’s hair, and kisses his lips lightly. “Hey, Sammy.”
Sam moans, rutting against Dean with greater urgency, lips chasing Dean’s.
“Dean,” he whines as he captures Dean’s mouth, kissing deeply. His big hand comes up to hold Dean’s head, his mouth working like he wants to pull Dean’s tongue down his throat, maybe devour the rest of him while he’s at it.
“Okay, okay,” Dean mumbles when he comes up for air. He slides his hand down between their bodies, finding Sam’s dick through his sweatpants.
Sam moans, throwing his head back like he’s been electrocuted.
“Is this what you want, Sam?” Dean murmurs. He grins, working Sam’s dick through his sweatpants as he drops light kisses along his throat. “Huh?”
“Y- Yeah,” Sam stammers, still holding Dean’s head, thumb caressing his cheekbone. His eyes are squeezed shut, and Dean can see moisture at the corners, shining in the light from the streetlamp outside. “Love you so much, big brother.”
Dean chuckles. “You got a little incest kink there, little brother?”
He finds both their cocks and struggles to free them with one hand so he can rub them together.
“Let me, let me,” Sam pants, shoving his own huge paw down, wiggling free of his sweatpants as Dean sheds his boxers.
When Sam’s big hand wraps around both cocks, Dean gasps. If he hadn’t already known how good it would feel, he might be in shock right now. But as Sam pumps their cocks together, it’s beyond good. It’s right. Like there could never be any other way for them.
Prudence knew, he realizes as he mouths blindly at Sam’s throat. Maybe she even knew this would happen if she helped Dean get over the protective emotional barrier he put in place when it came to Sam. Without remembering that Sam was his brother, without any memories at all of their former life together, Dean’s feelings for the kid were as pure and unfiltered as they could get.
It doesn’t take long to get them both off, almost perfectly in sync, like everything else about them. Dean doesn’t know why he never noticed it before, but he’s sure he’ll never forget it again.
Somewhere along the way, they both took their shirts off, so they were naked under the blankets. It’s snowing heavily outside, creating a whitish glow through the window’s curtains and a stillness outside that makes Dean feel like he and Sam are hiding out in a warm, dark cave, a place all their own.
Dean uses his discarded t-shirt to clean off their bellies, then drops it off the side of the bed and pulls Sam into his arms, half on top of him again. But Sam’s not too heavy anymore. He fits perfectly against Dean’s side, one long arm across his chest, one long leg wedged between Dean’s. He scoots down so he can lay his head on Dean’s chest, tucking it under Dean’s chin, and falls immediately asleep.
They’re snuggling, but Dean doesn’t mind. He can’t for the life of him remember why he ever did.
//**//**//
“So when did you find Dad?”
They’re in the car the next day, headed into the mountains past Grand Junction. As soon as Dean admitted he didn’t go to the coordinates that would have led to Black Ridge, Sam suggested they go there now. It’s only four hours up the interstate. There might still be a case.
“He called me,” Dean says. “About a week after I left California.”
“So what happened to him? Why did he take off so fast from Jericho? Did he ever say? Did you - Did you tell him about what happened to Jess?”
Dean chuckles, fighting down the anxiety in his gut whenever he thinks about his dad.
“You know Dad,” Dean says. “Cryptic. No real information. He thought he was on to something, but then it stopped. He already knew about Jess. Asked me if you were with me, although he seemed to know you weren’t.”
Sam shifts on the seat next to him, a mountain of unease and confusion.
“He didn’t tell you anything about what he was after?”
“No.”
Dean’s been over that last phone call a million times, trying to glean from it whatever intention John might’ve had in calling him, in leaving him in the first place. He’d had the strong feeling that John was on to something, that he left Jericho because he was after it, whatever it was. He and Sam had both thought that maybe, this time, John had finally caught the scent of the thing that killed their mom. That had seemed at least a possibility at the time.
“Well, did he think there was a connection with Jess? I mean, he had to think there was a connection, right? The way she died, just like the way Mom died.” Sam’s voice trails off.
“If he did, he didn’t mention it,” Dean says, clenching his jaw. “That was the last I heard from him.”
“So I guess we’ll never know.” Sam sounds deflated, beyond disappointed.
Dean doesn’t say that John sounded disappointed when Dean admitted that Sam wasn’t with him. John had expected his sons to be together. Dean had let him down somehow.
Well, he was making up for that now, wasn’t he? Sam was right here next to him now and Dean was never letting him go again.
“I think he wanted us to pick up where he left off,” he tells Sam with more confidence than he feels. “You know, hunting things, saving people. The family business. It’s his legacy to us, and the least we can do is honor that, right?”
Sam sucks in a breath. “I guess,” he half-agrees, but Dean knows that’s all he’ll get. Sam needs to find out what happened to Jessica, and Dean’s jealousy over a dead girl shouldn’t get in the way of that. It’s the least he can do, help Sam figure out what happened to the girl he was emotionally cheating on with his brother.
Dean might feel responsible for ruining Sam’s life, for precipitating Jessica’s death, but Sam feels responsible for what happened to her because he never told her who he really is, or what he and his family did that put her in danger.
Not to mention the dreams he had before she died.
“Hey, man, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, after her death,” he says.
Sam snorts. “Wouldn’t’ve made a difference, really,” he says. “The cops thought you might have something to do with it, even though I knew you didn’t. It was probably just as well you left town when you did.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry I stayed gone,” Dean says, feeling lame.
Sam shakes his head. “Dan was killed just a couple of weeks after you left Palo Alto, right? Then Dad died almost two months to the day after Jessica,” he says. “You must’ve been overwhelmed.”
“You had to deal with Jessica’s parents,” Dean reminds him.
Sam winces. “Yeah. That wasn’t fun. But it was the least I could do.”
“Yeah, well, anyway. I’m sorry.”
Sam’s looking at him, so Dean glances over, intending to give him a reassuring smile. But the expression in Sam’s eyes is so raw it takes Dean’s breath away.
This beautiful boy loves him. A lot. Despite what a fuckup he is. Despite everything.
It’s almost too much. Dean swallows thickly and keeps his eyes on the road.
Whatever happens, they’re together, the way it should be.
fin
Dean’s just offered to share his bed, figuring a direct invitation beat out any awkward attempt to talk about what happened back at the poltergeist scene. Sam’s refusal had not been expected.
“Okay.” Dean fights a crushing feeling of rejection. Sam can’t mean no. That just doesn’t make sense. “Look, Sam, you kissed me, back there at the house. I just figured we were on the same page.”
Agony twists Sam’s handsome features. He still won’t look Dean in the eye.
“That was wrong of me, Dean,” he says. His voice is still a little hoarse from his near-strangulation. “You’re not yourself. You can’t agree to that, even if you think it’s what you want. Even if it’s what I want.”
Dean shakes his head. “What makes you think I wouldn’t want it just as bad if I had all my memories?”
“Because I know you, Dean,” Sam says. “You’re all about doing what you think is best for me, taking care of me, protecting me.”
“Sounds about right,” Dean agrees. “But you’re not a kid anymore, Sam. I don’t have to protect you from me anymore, at least not now that you’re an adult. You can make your own choices.”
Sam paces away from Dean and Dean watches his back as the muscles tense and strain. When he turns, fixing his gaze on the floor in front of Dean, his jaw is clenched, but his voice sounds helpless and small.
“We’re brothers, Dean,” he says, turning his hands up as if he’s begging Dean to believe him. “You would never be okay with this if you remembered that.”
Dean’s pretty sure he would be okay with it, even if they really were brothers, especially since it’s something Sam wants. Dean has a powerful intuition that he always wants to give Sam whatever he wants.
As if he can read his mind, or maybe just his dubious expression, Sam adds, “You’re my big brother, Dean. You always think you know what’s best for me. Even when I disagree. Sometimes especially when I disagree. And I depend on your judgment, even when I disagree with it.”
“Of course you do,” Dean says with a smirk. “I’m older and wiser.”
“And more demanding and more controlling,” Sam adds, while not disagreeing. “But I trust you, Dean, I do, because I know you love me and you want what’s best for me.”
Dean takes a step toward Sam, who glances up warily.
“Then trust me now, Sam,” Dean says softly. “Brothers or not, we both want the same thing, man. Have done for a long time, I’m guessing.”
Sam shakes his head. “No, no, no, Dean, you don’t know what you’re saying. Believe me, we almost went there a few years ago, and you were very, very clear about how you felt then. I can’t trust this - I can’t trust you.”
“Huh.” Dean sits down on his bed, thinking about that. “Why would I - I just can’t imagine having a problem with this, man. Not if you were old enough.”
Sam nods. “I was, and you did. You were very adamant that we not, even though I was eighteen. I couldn’t get you to talk about it, but I figure it was ‘cuz we’re brothers. Plus Dad would’ve hated it.”
“Dad’s dead,” Dean reminds him, ignoring the ache in his chest whenever he thinks about his father.
“So now it’s just because we’re brothers,” Sam confirms.
“But we’re not,” Dean insists. “There’s just no way. I couldn’t feel this way about my brother. I wouldn’t.”
Sam nods, blinking away the moisture over his eyes.
“Yeah,” he says. “That’s just it. If you remember, if you really knew who you are, what you and I are to each other, you’d never go there. So I can’t, Dean. You have to understand.”
Dean swipes a hand over his face, determined to hide the crushing disappointment in his chest, not to mention the ache in his groin. He needs a drink.
“This is the stupidest rejection I’ve ever had,” he mutters. “If you didn’t want to have sex with me, you could just say so, but you do want to have sex with me, you just can’t because you think I wouldn’t want to if I could remember that we’re brothers.”
Sam takes a placating step forward, sympathy in his pretty, pretty eyes, and Dean feels like he’s being pitied, which makes him angrier on principle.
He gets up abruptly, reaching for his keys, ignoring Sam’s beseeching gaze, his outstretched hands.
“I’m going out,” he announces, keeping his eyes on the rug as he heads to the door. He stops as he opens the door, glaring back at Sam just because he needs to show Sam that he’s not hurt, he’s just pissed. “Don’t wait up.”
He slams the door after himself for good measure, slams the door to his baby as he slides into the driver’s seat for double good measure, satisfied that Sam could hear that. He turns his keys in the ignition and revs the engine when it starts, just to show Sam who’s boss.
There’s a bar just down the road. He can get drunk if he wants, maybe pick up somebody to have a good time with, somebody who can take his mind off Sam for a hot minute. The bar’s not far, so he can walk back if he needs to.
Dean’s not gonna let some tall, handsome stud who only stole his heart a week ago (even though he knows they’ve known each other for years) keep him from having some fun.
To hell with Sam anyway.
//**//**//
When he stumbles back to the motel later, Sam’s already asleep, a dark, silent lump in the bed farthest from the door. Dean doesn’t even try to be quiet. He flips the overhead light on as soon as he gets inside. He’s damned if he’s about to stub his toe or bang his shin just because Sam’s sleeping. Fuck him.
Sam stirs but doesn’t say anything. Fucker’s probably been awake this whole time, waiting for Dean’s return so they can talk. Fuck that.
Dean sheds most of his clothes right there on the floor, leaves the overhead light on as he stumbles into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He flips it off as soon as he comes out of the bathroom, then stumbles into Sam’s bed in the dark.
“Shit!”
“Dean?” Sam has the nerve to sound sleepy, damn him anyway.
“Shut up, Sam,” Dean growls. “Go back to sleep.”
But Sam’s awake now. Dean can hear him, tossing and turning after Dean finds his own bed and collapses on it, then fights with the blankets to get under them, cursing.
There’s enough alcohol in Dean’s system to tranquilize a horse, but apparently Dean’s brain isn’t ready to sleep yet. The bar was nearly empty except for a couple of truckers playing pool, and they left when Dean tried to get them to let him play. The bartender ignored him except to refill his glass, so Dean sat by himself at the bar and watched TV, seething and muttering about Sam until the bartender told him to leave.
“You get lucky?” Sam asks casually after they’ve been lying quietly for a couple of minutes.
Dean’s starting to feel sorry for himself, so he says nothing.
“Guess that’s a ‘no,’” Sam comments.
“Shut up,” Dean grumbles, but with less heat than before. He’s definitely feeling sorry for himself.
“You used to do that when we were kids, go out cruising for chicks.” Sam’s voice still sounds a little groggy, and Dean resents the notion that Sam was sleeping earlier, just on principle. The guy should’ve been crying into his pillow, losing out on a chance to sleep with Dean.
“Stop talking,” Dean grunts. “I don’t wanna hear about what I did when we were younger.”
“I used to think you did it to piss me off,” Sam admits, ignoring Dean’s words. “But now I think you did it to protect me.”
Dean agrees. That’s probably exactly why he did it. Getting away from the tempting little twink on the other bed, those long smooth limbs and big sad eyes, those deep dimples, that soft dark hair.
“Go to sleep, Sam.”
“I love you, Dean,” Sam says. “You can’t change that, no matter how many times you go out drinking and hooking up.”
Dean sighs. Apparently, Sam’s not gonna leave him alone to pass out in peace. Sam loves him too much.
And Sam’s not done. “Tomorrow, I want you to take us back to that witch who did this, try to get her to reverse the spell. I need my brother back, and you need to remember who you are before we take this even one more day. Will you do that for me, Dean?”
Dean surprises himself by answering, “Okay, Sammy. Okay.”
“Promise me,” Sam presses.
“Promise,” Dean answers. Kid’s really got him wrapped around his little finger, dammit. He feels better right away, giving in to Sam’s demands, giving Sam what he wants. Apparently, Dean’s programmed that way. “You know, if you want to join me over here, my invitation still holds.”
Sam sucks in a breath and Dean waits. He’s not sure he could get it up at this point, but he’d be down for some kissing and heavy petting if Sam would just get over here.
“Good night, Dean.”
Sam turns over onto his side, away from Dean, and immediately starts breathing deeply.
Damn.
//**//**//
Dean mostly manages to ignore the wounded looks Sam gives him the next day as they get dressed, shave, and brush their teeth before heading to the diner for breakfast.
When they’re seated across from each other in their booth, Sam pulls out his battered laptop and reads his notes from research he’s apparently already done on Dean and the witch that hexed him.
“Her name’s Prudence Truly,” Sam tells him. “She operates out of Boulder, Colorado most of the year, spends her summers in Aspen. I think that’s where you met up with her, right after Dad died.”
The name doesn’t ring a bell. All Dean can remember about her is her long dark hair and the sense of calm and rightness emanating from her.
“How did you find her?” he asks, taking another bite of his sausage.
“I backtracked from the moment I found you,” Sam explains. “Once I knew where you were, it got easier to figure out where you’d been. You left a trail of motel registrations.”
“I paid with cash, most of the time,” Dean protests. “Registered under assumed names. It couldn’t have been that easy.”
Sam squirms in his seat. “I know your aliases,” he says. “Same ones Dad used when we were kids. Rock musicians from the seventies and eighties. Easy.”
Dean’s eyebrows go up. “Damn.”
“Yeah, I guess you forgot that it might be me trying to follow you.”
The wounded look is back in Sam’s eyes, and Dean takes a moment to reflect on how miserable he must’ve made Sam when he first disappeared. If what Sam says is true, Dean was gone for almost nine months after Dad’s death. If their situations were reversed, and Sam had vanished on him like that, Dean would have gone crazy trying to find him.
“Why would I do that?” Dean muses. “Just leave like that? I mean, you are not somebody I would want to forget in the first place.”
Sam takes a deep breath. “I’m guessing it was an accident,” he says. “I’m kind of hoping it was, anyway. Some kind of residual effect of the forgetfulness spell.”
Dean nods. “That makes sense. I mean, if I wanted to forget something, it would not be you, I’m pretty sure.”
“Right,” Sam agrees, keeping his eyes fixed on his laptop screen.
“So did you interview her?” he asks. “The witch?”
Sam shakes his head, looking sheepish. “She’s a psychic,” he notes. “She was out of town when I went to her house. Her landlady says she knows when people are coming, so sometimes she does that.”
Dean makes a face. “Do you think she’d talk to us? I mean, if she skips town again when we show up -”
“I’ve got her number,” Sam says. “She doesn’t take my calls, but she might take yours.”
Dean frowns. He doesn’t like what that implies. If he didn’t want to be found, after he asked the witch to do her magic, he might ask her to avoid anybody coming to her who was looking for him. But Sam?
Again, he can’t imagine a situation in which he would deliberately forget Sam. He can’t imagine asking a witch to remove Sam from his memories. It just doesn’t make sense.
//**//**//
Because there’s no sense in wasting time, Dean tries calling Prudence Truly as soon as they get back to the motel. Sam goes out for a run (so he says) to give Dean some privacy (which Dean doesn’t understand - doesn’t Sam want to listen in on the call to the witch who caused all this?)
The call goes to voicemail, so Dean leaves a message, explaining his situation and asking to meet with her, just to ask a few questions.
To his surprise, she calls back almost as soon as he hangs up.
“Dean.” Her voice is smooth and warm, like honey. “I wondered when you’d call.”
“Yeah, I guess you’ve got the whole psychic thing going, so you knew you’d hear from me eventually,” Dean suggests with a nervous chuckle.
“You’ve found Sam,” she says. She doesn’t sound surprised.
“Well, he found me, actually, not that it matters.”
“And now you want your memories back.”
Dean nods, even though he knows she can’t see it. “Yeah. Can you do it?”
“I can,” she says, “but I will need to do it in person. And you must bring Sam.” She pauses for a moment, then adds, “Sam knows where I live.”
“Okay,” Dean says warily. “Hey, if you don’t mind my asking -”
“Yes, Dean,” she interrupts. “You and I had a good time. But that’s in the past now, so I don’t think we need to bring it up again, do you?”
“No, no, of course not.” Dean does his best to conjure her image in his mind, but all he can remember is a pale face framed by long dark hair. “We’ll, uh, see you soon.”
//**//**//
Prudence Truly is tall. She’s taller than Dean, which is an accomplishment, but shorter than Sam. She has shrewd, intelligent hazel eyes, clear pale skin, and an abundance of dark hair that reminds Dean of Sam, now that he thinks about it.
He tries to remember if he saw the resemblance when they first met, but he can’t. Like everything from before, it’s hazy and undefined. She wears jeans and a t-shirt, like Sam, but no plaid flannel. She has a simple, easy-going manner and a dimpled smile that makes her seem likable and trustworthy from the moment she opens the door.
“Prudence Truly?” Dean asks, as if she could be anyone else.
“Dean Winchester,” she answers, then nods at Sam. “Sam. Come in.”
Her home is modest and simple, like her. The entryway opens into a room with a couch, a couple of chairs, and a coffee table. There are no prisms, or dream-catchers or pentagrams anywhere. Sam and Dean sit down on the couch, elbows and knees brushing, as Prudence takes one of the chairs facing them.
“So, you’ve found each other,” Prudence notes, stating the obvious. “And now you want me to restore your memories.”
“Can you tell us what happened?” Sam blurts out. Dean side-eyes him, but the anguish in Sam’s eyes shuts him up. Sam has suffered. He has a right to know if he caused this.
“I reached out to your brother,” Prudence tells him. Dean sucks in a breath. “I needed help with a wood sprite.”
“A wood sprite,” Sam repeats, but Dean can feel him glance at Dean, just checking on him after the big reveal.
Dean’s jaw tightens, but he says nothing. He still doesn’t feel like Sam’s brother. There must be more.
Prudence nods. “Despite what you may think, I’m not a witch,” she reveals. “I know that’s the word in the hunting community, but I’m really just a psychic with some knowledge of spells and some skills at hypnosis. Nevertheless, I tend to attract supernatural beings, and sometimes I need help making them go away.”
“Or putting them down,” Dean suggests. He’s pretty sure he killed something for her.
Prudence lowers her eyes. “On occasion,” she acknowledges. “When they just won’t take no for an answer.”
“So Dean took care of your little problem and you gave him something in return,” Sam says. He sounds pissed.
Prudence looks up at him, something like sympathy in her eyes.
“I did,” she agrees.
“Tell me,” Sam demands. “Tell me what you did.”
Prudence sighs. “It wasn’t about you, Sam, not really.” She glances at Dean, then back at Sam. “Dean was suffering. He believed he was causing people around him to die. Your girlfriend, his dad. A hunting partner he’d only known for a couple of months.”
Dean searches his memories, can’t recall working with anyone other than his dad in all the years he’d been a hunter, but he knows it’s possible. John would have encouraged him to find somebody to provide backup on a difficult case. It made sense.
“So you took his memories away,” Sam says, jaw clenched.
“I took his pain away,” Prudence corrects. “At his request. I never do anything against the will of the person I help. He asked for this.”
“So his memories of me were just too painful for him.” Sam’s voice chokes off and Dean shoots him a concerned frown.
Prudence shakes her head. “I didn’t target memories,” she insists. “Only pain. He needed relief from his anguish, and I gave it to him.”
Dean nods. Just as he suspected. He couldn’t imagine deliberately forgetting Sam. And even if specific memories are missing, he still feels deeply for the kid. That never went away.
“Okay, you say we’re brothers, even though I don’t remember any of that,” Dean says hesitantly. “But I haven’t forgotten how I feel about him, and I gotta say, what I feel for Sam isn’t exactly brotherly.”
He clears his throat, less embarrassed than he should be to be confessing something that feels so intimate, so private. But he trusts her, instinctively. He knows she was only trying to help.
Prudence nods. “You and Sam are bonded,” she says. “I sensed it when you first came to me. I’m sensing it even stronger now. Something deep and unbreakable runs between you two. Deeper than blood.”
“I need my brother back,” Sam snaps, almost growling. “I need him to remember who we are to each other.”
Dean glances at him, willing him to back down, but Sam’s not having it. This is too important to him. He’s jealous, Dean realizes. Prudence took something that belonged to him, however inadvertently.
“Sam -” Dean starts, then stops when Sam glares at him.
“No, Dean,” he growls. “You promised!”
Dean nods, turning back to Prudence. “Can you unhypnotize me? Put me back the way I was before?”
“I can try,” Prudence says. She gestures at the couch. “I’ll need you to lie down and try to relax.”
Sam immediately gets up from the couch and walks around behind the other chair. He’s obviously too keyed up to sit down again, and Dean can’t blame him. His stomach is in knots just thinking about whatever changes are in store for them. For the first time, he considers the possibility that they might actually be brothers. How would that change the way he feels about Sam?
Well, for one thing, there could be no possibility of his ever acting on any inappropriate, non-brotherly feelings. He wouldn’t do that to his brother, but he especially wouldn’t do that to Sam.
Too late, he reminds himself with a sinking feeling in his gut.
Fuck.
//**//**//
Dean wakes with a start. He doesn’t remember lying down on the couch, closing his eyes, listening to Prudence telling him to relax. The pounding in his ears is too loud. The crushing weight on his chest is too heavy. He lifts his eyes to Sam, takes in his anxious, hopeful expression, and he wants to vomit.
“Dean?”
But Dean doesn’t listen. He bolts off the couch, evades Sam’s clutching hands, and whirls on Prudence.
“I told you not to tell him!” He’s shouting, his whole body shaking with terror and rage and guilt. “You were supposed to tell him to leave me alone!”
“He figured it out on his own, Dean,” Prudence says, voice calm and steady. “I didn’t need to tell him anything.”
“I killed his girlfriend!” Dean shouts. “I killed our dad!”
“Dean -” Sam reaches for him and Dean throws his arms up, almost hitting Sam in the chin.
“Get offa me. Leave me alone!”
Guilt clenches Dean’s gut as he recalls what he did, how he let his horrible, pervy feelings show. How he polluted his baby brother with his nasty, sick desires. And all that killing. Dad. Dan. Jessica.
“Dean -” Sam pleads. “Listen to me. It’s not your fault. None of it! We’re made this way, Dean! Did you hear what Prudence said? It’s not sick, or evil, or - or anything. It’s just us!”
“Shut up!” Dean yells, pointing at Sam, his little brother, the baby/child/kid he was supposed to protect, the boy he was supposed to take care of. What the hell was he thinking? “Just shut it!”
“And you!” He turns to Prudence. “You said if I quit hunting and kept moving, he’d never find me. You promised!”
Prudence shakes her head. “I warned you, even if you did that, he could still find you. Sam would never stop looking for you, Dean. You two are linked in ways I don’t even understand. The bond is rooted too deep. It’s too old. It was planted long before any of us were born.”
Dean stares at her, fear and guilt making him furious.
“You said, if I agreed to let you erase him from my memories, I could live in peace!” he accuses.
Sam sucks in a shocked breath, but Dean ignores him.
“I told you that might not work,” Prudence reminds him gently. “It’s not just memories that bind you two. Not just a shared upbringing.”
Dean glares at Sam again. “And you had to go poking around, didn’t you? Couldn’t leave well enough alone!”
He waits until Sam deflates, until his face collapses into that lost puppy look Dean knows too well. Then he turns, grabbing his jacket from the chair where he left it when he laid down on the couch to be de-hypnotized, before everything went to hell. He’s heading out the door before he even realizes what he’s doing, how he’s planning to run, just like before. He’s out of the house and halfway to the car before Sam stops him.
“Dean! Wait!” Sam’s got his arm in a vise and goddamn he’s strong. Dean whirls around, his other fist up, ready to clock Sam if he has to.
But Sam’s too quick. Too strong. He blocks Dean’s swing, then grabs the front of his jacket with both hands and hauls him in close, too close for Dean to get leverage for another swing. So close, all Dean can do is struggle and kick. He can’t even head-butt Sam because the kid’s too tall.
“Dean, stop!” Sam yells, shaking him. Dean wraps his leg behind Sam’s, trying to trip him, but Sam knows that move, too, knows how to fight just as dirty as his brother. He gets an ankle around Dean’s and flips him before Dean can regain his balance.
Dean finds himself flat on his back, on the grass of Prudence’s neatly mowed front lawn, Sam on top of him, holding him down, countering every move Dean knows because of course he taught the kid everything, and now Dean’s smaller and lighter and Sam knows that, too.
“Dean, stop!” Sam hisses, jerking back to avoid Dean’s head-butt while still holding him down, legs wrapped around Dean’s, wrists clenched in Sam’s fists. “You need to listen! I’m not letting you run this time, dammit. You’re all I have! Jessica’s dead, Dad’s dead. It’s just you and me, Dean! Stop fighting me!”
Dean struggles for another moment, just on principle, then goes still. He knows when he’s been beat. Sam’s bigger and stronger than Dean now, and even though Dean has more experience in a fight, Sam’s got him pinned good. All he can do is convince Sam to let him go so he can make another run for it.
“Let me go, Sam,” Dean growls in his best bossy big brother voice.
“If I do, will you stay put?” Sam counters. His face hovers over Dean’s, the rest of his body holding Dean down, and Dean knows he could do damage to Sam’s nose with a sudden head-butt, but he doesn’t.
He wants Sam to kiss him.
He’s got a boner. It’s not the first time he’s gotten one from sparring with his brother. Sam’s got one, too. Dean can feel it.
Dean closes his eyes so he can’t see Sam’s eyes, Sam’s lips.
“She’s dead because of me, Sam,” he says through gritted teeth. “Don’t you get that? If I hadn’t come and got you, taken you away that weekend, that wouldn’t’ve happened. I might as well have pulled the trigger. Lit the place on fire. Whatever.”
“But you didn’t,” Sam hisses back, shaking Dean’s wrists in his tight grasp. “You didn’t, Dean. It wasn’t your fault.”
Dean shakes his head, too keyed up to listen. Now that he’s on a self-pity roll, he can’t stop.
“Dad went off on that New Mexico thing on his own,” he says. “He wouldn’t let me come. I should’ve insisted. I should’ve gone anyway.”
“But you didn’t,” Sam says. “His death wasn’t your fault, either.”
Dean’s eyes fly open. He knows he looks wild and scared because he is.
“Dan was right beside me when that werewolf got him,” he goes on. “Clawed him right through the heart. I should’ve stopped that! I should’ve had his back! We were partners!”
He glares up at Sam. “That could’ve been you, Sammy. It could’ve been you.”
“But it wasn’t,” Sam says, shaking Dean’s wrists again. “It wasn’t. I’m right here, Dean. Not going anywhere.”
Dean blinks away the moisture in his eyes, turning his face away.
“You should’ve let me go, Sam,” he mumbles miserably. “You had a life. You were gonna be somebody.”
“I am somebody,” Sam insists through gritted teeth. “I’m your brother, Dean. We’re a good team, you said so yourself.”
Dean stares up at him, recalling the moment he told Sam how much Sam meant to him - okay, so he just told him they made a helluva team, but that’s what he meant. He could tell Sam understood. He wanted Sam to stay with him. He needed Sam by his side, and Sam understood.
But then Sam left, went back home to his girl and his normal college life, and all hell broke loose.
And Dean felt responsible, so he ran. Sam would be better off without him. Maybe Sam could go on with his life, despite losing his girl. He had a law school interview on Monday, after all.
“You were supposed to have a normal life, Sammy,” Dean reminds him miserably. “Finish your college degree, get a job as some fancy lawyer, get married and have kids. I ruined everything.”
Dean closes his eyes, feels a tear seep out of the corner of one of them and roll down his cheek. He turns his face away again, hoping Sam can’t see.
“No, you didn’t, Dean,” Sam insists. “None of it was gonna happen, not after what happened to Jess. And after you bolted, all I wanted to do was find you. When you disappeared, I realized I didn’t want a life without you in it, Dean. Not ever again.”
Dean lets out a dry laugh. “Some life. Hunting monsters and ghosts with your deadbeat brother who ruined your life and killed your girlfriend. Oh, and perved on you when you were a kid and killed your dad.”
“Damn it, Dean, if you don’t stop feeling sorry for yourself, I might have to hold you down until you do.” Sam shakes him again, then adds, “And I was perving on you first. You do not get credit for that.”
Dean feels the blush heating his cheeks and chest, reddening his ears. He licks his lips, and Sam tracks the movement with his eyes, suddenly dark in the dim light from the streetlamp.
“You can let me up, Sammy,” Dean says, clearing his throat. “I ain’t gonna run.”
Sam hesitates uncertainly for a moment, but when Dean doesn’t resist again, he hauls him to his feet by his jacket. He keeps ahold of him, though, not trusting him not to run as much as making sure Dean can stand on his own.
“I’m fine,” Dean insists, grabbing Sam’s wrists to pull his hands off. He thrusts them away from him, ignoring the wounded look in Sam’s eyes, the rejection.
“You promised you’d help me find out what happened to Jess,” Sam reminds him, pulling himself up to his full height. “You said you’d help me find the thing that killed her.”
Dean starts to protest, then a sudden movement makes them turn, but there’s nothing there. The house is dark, doors closed and probably locked, no car in the driveway. It’s like nobody lives there. Maybe nobody ever did.
“Let’s get outta here,” Dean suggests, and Sam nods.
//**//**//
Dean drives them to the motel they checked into earlier, before they went to Prudence’s house, or whoever’s house that was that they just spent an hour in.
It’s starting to snow. Dean unpacks the cooler full of beer and a half-full bottle of whisky.
When he sets them down on the rickety little table and turns back to Sam, his brother is standing in front of the door, arms hanging helplessly at his sides, like a guard, like he’s afraid Dean will leave again.
“He was my dad too, Dean,” Sam says, voice hoarse with emotion. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
Dean looks away, guilt in the face of Sam’s grief threatening to crush him.
Sam goes on. “The last thing he ever said to me was, ‘If you walk out that door, don’t you ever come back.’ I never even got a chance to tell him I forgive him.”
Conflicting emotions battle in Dean’s chest until he feels like he could collapse under them. Renewed grief for his dad wells up. Old anger at Sam for leaving his family crowds in but has nowhere to go since Sam’s got grief of his own and Dean would be an ass to add to that right now. Freshly remembered guilt over Jessica’s death and Sam’s wrecked life just won’t stop pounding at the back of his skull.
And through it all, Sam’s need threatens to drown him. It pushes through all the other feelings like a bulldozer, reminding Dean that he’ll always be, first and foremost, Sam’s big brother.
He grabs the whisky bottle, unscrews the top, and takes a long swallow before handing it to Sam, who makes a face before taking a sip, then makes another face and coughs as he swallows against the burn.
“I’m tired, Sam,” he says. “All I want to do tonight is take a shower and climb into bed.”
Sam’s lips part. His cheeks and the tip of his nose grow pink, and Dean thinks he should probably clarify the bed thing, but he’s too exhausted even for that. Under the shower spray, he thinks about Sam’s eyes filled with tears. He thinks about his soft lips and his too-long hair that Dean wants to run his fingers through. He thinks about that summer before Sam went off to college, when Sam couldn’t keep his hands off Dean and Dean finally decided that it was for the best that they should separate for a while.
Dean thinks about how much he missed Sam after he was gone, how he wanted to do whatever it took, promise Sam anything, to get him back.
He thinks about how he stalked Sam at Stanford, watching him from across the campus as he walked to class, to his dorm, to the library. He thinks about the drunken phone calls, how he hung up when Sam answered, sometimes before he even picked up.
After his shower, Dean pulls on his black t-shirt and boxers, right there in the bathroom. He runs his fingers through his damp, spiky hair, and brushes his teeth, dropping the towel on the floor when he’s done.
Sam’s still up, watching TV, stripped down to his t-shirt and sweatpants. He scrubs a hand over his face as Dean crosses the room to his bed, taking brief notice of the salt lines in front of the window and door. He crawls under the covers and fluffs up his pillow, checking to be sure his bowie knife is still under the mattress where he can reach it.
Sam doesn’t look at him as he flips the TV off and heads into the bathroom, turning off the overhead light as he goes.
Dean’s almost asleep when he hears the bathroom door open. He listens as Sam’s footsteps cross the room, stop next to Dean’s bed.
“Dean?”
Sam’s voice is full of need, sad and hopeful at the same time, and Dean can’t stand it. He pushes the blankets back, scoots over to make room for Sam, and his brother doesn’t hesitate. He lies down with his back to Dean, hugging the extra pillow under his head, and Dean spoons up behind him, chest pressed to Sam’s overheated back. He places a kiss on the nape of Sam’s neck, feeling Sam’s full-body shiver in response, and closes his eyes.
“Go to sleep, Sam,” he commands, and Sam’s big body relaxes. “It’s gonna be okay.”
//**//**//
Sometime in the night, Dean wakes to find Sam rutting against his hip, panting into his neck. He’s on his back, Sam’s leg heavy between Dean’s, Sam lying half on top of him.
“Hey,” Dean mumbles, shifting to ease the weight on his chest, so he can breathe. He turns his head, slides one hand into Sam’s hair, and kisses his lips lightly. “Hey, Sammy.”
Sam moans, rutting against Dean with greater urgency, lips chasing Dean’s.
“Dean,” he whines as he captures Dean’s mouth, kissing deeply. His big hand comes up to hold Dean’s head, his mouth working like he wants to pull Dean’s tongue down his throat, maybe devour the rest of him while he’s at it.
“Okay, okay,” Dean mumbles when he comes up for air. He slides his hand down between their bodies, finding Sam’s dick through his sweatpants.
Sam moans, throwing his head back like he’s been electrocuted.
“Is this what you want, Sam?” Dean murmurs. He grins, working Sam’s dick through his sweatpants as he drops light kisses along his throat. “Huh?”
“Y- Yeah,” Sam stammers, still holding Dean’s head, thumb caressing his cheekbone. His eyes are squeezed shut, and Dean can see moisture at the corners, shining in the light from the streetlamp outside. “Love you so much, big brother.”
Dean chuckles. “You got a little incest kink there, little brother?”
He finds both their cocks and struggles to free them with one hand so he can rub them together.
“Let me, let me,” Sam pants, shoving his own huge paw down, wiggling free of his sweatpants as Dean sheds his boxers.
When Sam’s big hand wraps around both cocks, Dean gasps. If he hadn’t already known how good it would feel, he might be in shock right now. But as Sam pumps their cocks together, it’s beyond good. It’s right. Like there could never be any other way for them.
Prudence knew, he realizes as he mouths blindly at Sam’s throat. Maybe she even knew this would happen if she helped Dean get over the protective emotional barrier he put in place when it came to Sam. Without remembering that Sam was his brother, without any memories at all of their former life together, Dean’s feelings for the kid were as pure and unfiltered as they could get.
It doesn’t take long to get them both off, almost perfectly in sync, like everything else about them. Dean doesn’t know why he never noticed it before, but he’s sure he’ll never forget it again.
Somewhere along the way, they both took their shirts off, so they were naked under the blankets. It’s snowing heavily outside, creating a whitish glow through the window’s curtains and a stillness outside that makes Dean feel like he and Sam are hiding out in a warm, dark cave, a place all their own.
Dean uses his discarded t-shirt to clean off their bellies, then drops it off the side of the bed and pulls Sam into his arms, half on top of him again. But Sam’s not too heavy anymore. He fits perfectly against Dean’s side, one long arm across his chest, one long leg wedged between Dean’s. He scoots down so he can lay his head on Dean’s chest, tucking it under Dean’s chin, and falls immediately asleep.
They’re snuggling, but Dean doesn’t mind. He can’t for the life of him remember why he ever did.
//**//**//
“So when did you find Dad?”
They’re in the car the next day, headed into the mountains past Grand Junction. As soon as Dean admitted he didn’t go to the coordinates that would have led to Black Ridge, Sam suggested they go there now. It’s only four hours up the interstate. There might still be a case.
“He called me,” Dean says. “About a week after I left California.”
“So what happened to him? Why did he take off so fast from Jericho? Did he ever say? Did you - Did you tell him about what happened to Jess?”
Dean chuckles, fighting down the anxiety in his gut whenever he thinks about his dad.
“You know Dad,” Dean says. “Cryptic. No real information. He thought he was on to something, but then it stopped. He already knew about Jess. Asked me if you were with me, although he seemed to know you weren’t.”
Sam shifts on the seat next to him, a mountain of unease and confusion.
“He didn’t tell you anything about what he was after?”
“No.”
Dean’s been over that last phone call a million times, trying to glean from it whatever intention John might’ve had in calling him, in leaving him in the first place. He’d had the strong feeling that John was on to something, that he left Jericho because he was after it, whatever it was. He and Sam had both thought that maybe, this time, John had finally caught the scent of the thing that killed their mom. That had seemed at least a possibility at the time.
“Well, did he think there was a connection with Jess? I mean, he had to think there was a connection, right? The way she died, just like the way Mom died.” Sam’s voice trails off.
“If he did, he didn’t mention it,” Dean says, clenching his jaw. “That was the last I heard from him.”
“So I guess we’ll never know.” Sam sounds deflated, beyond disappointed.
Dean doesn’t say that John sounded disappointed when Dean admitted that Sam wasn’t with him. John had expected his sons to be together. Dean had let him down somehow.
Well, he was making up for that now, wasn’t he? Sam was right here next to him now and Dean was never letting him go again.
“I think he wanted us to pick up where he left off,” he tells Sam with more confidence than he feels. “You know, hunting things, saving people. The family business. It’s his legacy to us, and the least we can do is honor that, right?”
Sam sucks in a breath. “I guess,” he half-agrees, but Dean knows that’s all he’ll get. Sam needs to find out what happened to Jessica, and Dean’s jealousy over a dead girl shouldn’t get in the way of that. It’s the least he can do, help Sam figure out what happened to the girl he was emotionally cheating on with his brother.
Dean might feel responsible for ruining Sam’s life, for precipitating Jessica’s death, but Sam feels responsible for what happened to her because he never told her who he really is, or what he and his family did that put her in danger.
Not to mention the dreams he had before she died.
“Hey, man, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, after her death,” he says.
Sam snorts. “Wouldn’t’ve made a difference, really,” he says. “The cops thought you might have something to do with it, even though I knew you didn’t. It was probably just as well you left town when you did.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry I stayed gone,” Dean says, feeling lame.
Sam shakes his head. “Dan was killed just a couple of weeks after you left Palo Alto, right? Then Dad died almost two months to the day after Jessica,” he says. “You must’ve been overwhelmed.”
“You had to deal with Jessica’s parents,” Dean reminds him.
Sam winces. “Yeah. That wasn’t fun. But it was the least I could do.”
“Yeah, well, anyway. I’m sorry.”
Sam’s looking at him, so Dean glances over, intending to give him a reassuring smile. But the expression in Sam’s eyes is so raw it takes Dean’s breath away.
This beautiful boy loves him. A lot. Despite what a fuckup he is. Despite everything.
It’s almost too much. Dean swallows thickly and keeps his eyes on the road.
Whatever happens, they’re together, the way it should be.
fin