Skies Grown Darker, 2/6 (SPN, Gen)

[parenthetical]

Title: Skies Grown Darker (Part 2 of 6)
Rating: R
Pairing: Gen
Beta: Thank you to my beloved zooey_glass04, who again went above and beyond the call of duty in beta-reading this. I suspect we may be the only two people who can happily analyse a single full stop for three paragraphs. Never change, my lovely. <3
Notes: The sushi incident mentioned is a reference to this awesome fic by zooey_glass04, who kindly agreed to let me borrow it.
Summary: Set following 2.04 - Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things. Dean and Sam try to find a way to move on, but some things can't be outrun. Gen.

"Sam. Sammy. Listen to me. I hate to break it to you, but you're never gonna be Willow. I'm sorry, but you're just too tall, man."

Chapter One

Chapter Two

"WATCH IT!" Dean yelled, lunging for the steering wheel. "Jesus, Sammy, what the fuck?! Pull over!"

Sam still hadn't managed to close his mouth, but he did pull the car over onto the shoulder, because Jesus, this - this couldn't - Dean couldn't - oh, fuck.

"See if I ever let you drive again!" Dean ranted, running one hand across the dashboard, though Sam wasn't sure whether he was trying to reassure himself or the Impala. "What the fuck, Sam?!"

"What the fuck me? What the fuck you! What the fuck, Dean?!" Sam yelled back, adrenaline flooding his system and heart pounding, half from the near car crash and half from the shock of what Dean had said.

Oh god, this was bad.

"What? I say we should head south, you damn near crash the car, and you're asking me what the fuck?" Dean demanded.

"Not the heading south part," Sam bit out. "The part about... about finding Dad." His voice cracked slightly.

"What?" Dean asked, and god, he sounded genuinely confused. "That's what we've been doing all this time, Sam, trying to find Dad. I know you two have your issues, but that shouldn't be making you drive my car off the road!"

Sam lowered his head to rest on the steering wheel.

Dean would not ever, under any circumstances, joke about this. He had forgotten. At some point, Celia had evidently gotten to him, and had stolen Dean's memory of their father's death.

And god only knew what else, too.

Oh fuck, this was really, really bad.

"Sammy," Dean said, the anger gone from his voice, replaced by concern. "Sam, talk to me. What the hell is going on here?"

Sam swallowed hard and stared at his shaking fingers, completely unable to look up and meet his brother's eyes. How could he possibly tell Dean? Obviously not telling Dean was not an option, but how could he possibly stand to break that news to his brother and watch him struggle with it all over again?

"Sam, you're starting to scare me, here," Dean murmured, and there was a very light touch against Sam's hair.

Sam blinked back tears, then drew a deep, shaking breath and sat up. "Dean... okay. We're only, like, fifteen minutes away from Wisconsin Rapids. Let's get there, and grab a motel room, and then... then we'll talk."

"No, Sam, talk to me now," Dean insisted. "I want to know what's going on."

"Dean, please," Sam said, and forced himself to meet his brother's worried eyes. "Please, we can't do this here."

Dean studied him for a moment, but Sam couldn't hold his gaze, looking down and fumbling with the key in the ignition instead.

"All right, get out and we'll swap places," Dean said finally.

"No, Dean, I really think -" Sam started to protest.

"Like hell, Sam," Dean said flatly. "You're in no condition to drive right now. I've had some sleep, I can handle a fifteen-minute drive. Certainly a damn sight better than you can at the moment. Don't even think of arguing with me." He was already opening his door.

Sam sighed and admitted defeat. In truth, he didn't feel up to driving; he was just reluctant to let Dean do so either, in his current... condition.

God.

"Come on, out," Dean said with a flicker of impatience. "You don't want to discuss this here, then let's hurry up and get somewhere where you'll actually fill me in."

Sam levered himself out of the driving seat and walked round to collapse in the passenger seat. Dean shot a glance at him and pulled back out onto the road.

The fifteen-minute journey to Wisconsin Rapids, plus the ten minutes it took Dean to locate and check them into a cheap motel, seemed at once interminably long and alarmingly short to Sam. By the time he and Dean were sitting facing each other on the room's beds, Sam still had no idea where to start explaining things. But it was clear that Dean wasn't about to let him put it off any longer.

He took a deep, shaking breath and started intently at his hands, pressed against his knees. Dean's gaze was burning into his forehead. "Okay. Okay. Dean, Celia got you. She must have. You've... you've forgotten things. Can you think when she might have gotten to you?"

"What have I forgotten?" Dean asked quietly.

"I guess she got to you when you were in the house the second night, before I salted and burned the bones," Sam said, a little wildly. "Though - though maybe she got to you for a few minutes the first night, too; you took too long to come when I yelled, and you asked me to drive, and you got lost the next
day -"

"Sam," Dean cut him off, voice barely above a whisper.

Sam took another deep breath. Figuring out exactly when Celia had got to Dean wasn't going to change the situation. It might postpone what he was going to have to tell Dean by another few minutes, but it wouldn't save him from having to do so.

"Okay. Okay, I'm sorry, I know, I just... God, Dean." He rubbed one hand across his face and realised there was just no good way to do this, no way he could ease the blow. "You said - in the car -"

"I said we should carry on looking for Dad."

Sam glanced up and immediately wished he hadn't. Dean met his gaze, his entire body rigid and waiting for the blow, and god, this wasn't fair, it wasn't right that Dean should have to go through this all over again.

"Tell me, Sammy," Dean said, his voice low and rough. "Just tell me. Please, Sammy."

"Dad's dead, Dean."

The silence stretched and twisted. Dean was staring at him, peering into his eyes as if hoping that, if he stared long enough, looked deep enough, he'd find some clue that he'd misunderstood, that Sam was mistaken, that it wasn't true. Sam forced himself to meet Dean's eyes, although it was one of the hardest things he'd ever done.

A long, long few moments later, Dean's gaze shifted to the wall behind Sam, then the ceiling, and finally the bed he was sitting on. Sam watched how rigidly he held himself, the faint tremble in his fingers, and wished that he could reach out and hold his brother together. But he knew that one touch right now would either send Dean running or shatter him into pieces, so all he could do was shift forward very subtly so their knees brushed together.

Sam swallowed hard around the lump in his throat and kept talking, because he knew Dean couldn't, not yet. "It happened in November. He, um, he was captured by some demons, and we got him back, but it turned out that the demon, the one that..." Oh god, how much had Dean forgotten? Did he even remember the demon? "It had possessed him. We forced it out, and we were driving to the hospital when... when we were hit by a truck. Dad, um, he, uh, he seemed okay, mostly, for a while, but one day he just... he just collapsed."

Silence again. Sam wished he knew what to say. He felt almost like he was deceiving his brother by not telling him all the circumstances - You were in a coma, and then you woke up and the Colt was gone and Dad was dead, Dean; he loved you enough to cut a deal with the demon for your life - but he couldn't. Regardless of what kind of liar that made him, Sam just couldn't do it. The memory of Dean, his cocky, confident big brother, sitting on the Impala's hood with tears coursing down his face - What's dead should stay dead - was still too fresh in his mind, if not in Dean's. He couldn't put Dean through that again. Not even if that made him as bad as Celia.

The silence stretched on, but Sam couldn't think of anything to say or do except sit there, his knees brushing lightly against his brother's, and wait for Dean to process it all.

Finally, Dean cleared his throat, then cleared it again. "I, uh." He swallowed hard and took a deep breath, but didn't look up to meet Sam's eyes. His hands were clenched around the quilt. "I remember the car crash. And... and the possession. Bits of it, anyway. Don't really remember the hospital. Or... well, obviously."

Sam nodded jerkily. He didn't have the first clue what to say.

The silence returned, until finally Dean stood up. Sam had a moment to panic that this was Dean running, but Dean merely paced from one side of the room to the other, turned and paced back again, the fingers of one hand pressed to his lips as he moved. Sam watched until he almost felt dizzy, but didn't try to convince Dean to stop. He couldn't really begin to imagine what his brother had to be feeling.

"So," Dean said finally, not pausing in his pacing. His voice almost sounded normal, and seriously, Sam wondered, how the hell did he even do that? "How do we go about finding out if I've... forgotten anything else? And how are we going to get my memories back?"

Sam took a deep breath and seized on the questions like a life raft, concentrating on them. "I guess we could talk about... things. The big things. Maybe... maybe Celia was trying to remove memories she thought were traumatic -" God, he couldn't even look at Dean while saying that. "- so, I guess we could see if you remember that kind of thing. And maybe the memories will come back by themselves now we've salted and burned her. Your mind's probably still just recovering. You might be back to normal by tomorrow."

"Normal," Dean said without inflection. "Yeah."

He sank back down onto the bed opposite Sam and scrubbed his hands over his face, a gesture of exhaustion and stress and bone-deep grief that Sam had seen so rarely from him until the past few months. "Okay." His voice was steady, but his eyes darted anywhere but towards Sam's gaze. "So. Potentially traumatic experiences, huh? Great." His lips twitched into a smile that had nothing to do with mirth.

Sam's mouth twisted. "Yeah. God. Okay." He took a deep breath and tried to think logically. "Right. More recent stuff first, I guess. Before the whole, um... before all of that happened. Do you remember Chicago? And Meg?"

"I think so," Dean said slowly, then made a sound that wasn't really a laugh at all. "It's kind of difficult to remember whether I've forgotten something, you know?" He made a slight chopping motion with his hand, dismissing that question before Sam could even think of replying. "I remember Meg using us as bait. And the daevas. And... and Dad."

His voice hardly cracked at all, Sam noted, almost disbelievingly.

"Okay, sounds like you remember all of that," Sam said, trying to sound unaffected. "What about when, um, okay, do you remember Roy LeGrange?"

"The faith healer," Dean said quietly. "With the trapped Reaper. When my heart was fucked up."

"Okay," Sam said, and pressed on.

Both questions and answers gradually became shorter and shorter, devolving into a kind of shorthand that only worked because of how well they knew each other. By the end, Sam was down to single words, and Dean was mostly just nodding in response.

By lunchtime, they were both exhausted and depressed, but Dean didn't appear to be missing anything else particularly vital.

"How about some lunch?" Sam suggested finally, as the silence began to grow oppressive again.

Dean nodded without any real enthusiasm and followed him out of the room.

~*~
The day seemed interminably long. Dean was uncharacteristically silent, and Sam was trying not to push him. It wasn't as if he didn't know what was going on with his brother, for once, but Sam really had no idea what to say or do to help. The inactivity was wearing on them both, but an unspoken agreement had been reached that they couldn't afford to get back on the road yet. Neither wanted to head back to Marshfield, but there was no point in driving in the opposite direction in case it turned out that they needed to go back and do something else with Celia Mason's bones.

Sam was desperately hoping that Dean would wake up the next morning with his memories restored.

In the meantime, they were spending the evening in their motel room, neither feeling up to facing a bar and the company of other people. Dean was lying on his bed, ostensibly watching TV but in fact staring blankly at the ceiling. Sam was sitting at the tiny fold-out table next to the room's only window, looking through their father's journal for information about ghosts and other phenomena that might cause memory loss. Without a great deal of success. Every so often another memory would occur to him and he would ask Dean if he recalled it. So far, Dean always had.

"Do you remember the harpies back when you were, what, twenty?"

"Nineteen. Yeah, I remember you almost getting yourself fucking kill-" Dean broke off abruptly.

There was an uneasy pause, then Dean swallowed hard and went on. "Still got that scar on my forearm." He was absently tracing the faint scar with one finger as he spoke, though Sam suspected it was mostly an excuse not to look up at him.

That did give him an idea, though. "What about your other scars?"

Dean did look up at that. "What about 'em?"

"Do you remember them all? How you got them?"

Dean stared at him for a moment, and Sam gave a half-shrug, as if to say something like Hey, it was just a thought, or maybe Sometimes physical scars and mental ones go together. Finally Dean shrugged too, and glanced away, nodding.

"Well. This little one on my hand here's from when my knife slipped, back when I was first learning how to use one. This line on my other palm was that fucking necromancer in Oregon, would have probably ripped my throat open if I hadn't got my hand up fast enough. I've got a few faint marks around my wrists from being tied up - this one right here was from that creepy cannibal family, remember them? This one you can barely see any more, but it was years ago, that witch when I was thirteen. And this one..."

Dean trailed off, and Sam's gaze sharpened. "What about that one?"

Dean was tracing the tiny mark on his wrist. "I don't..." He shook his head slowly. "I don't remember how I got this one. I mean, logically, it looks like the others, like I got it from being tied up, but... I don't remember."

Sam swallowed and nodded, then set down the journal and crossed the room to sit down beside his brother. Dean shifted over wordlessly to make room for him, and proffered his wrist for examination. Sam stared at the scar, then reached out to trace it lightly. Dean stayed very still, watching him.

"This one I think you got right before... right before I left for Stanford. There were two rokurokubi, and they, um, they got you for a while. It took a day or two for Dad and I to bust you out."

Dean stared down at the scar as if seeing it for the first time. "I don't remember that at all." He laughed shortly, a sound devoid of all amusement. "I guess that probably means it was particularly memorable, for all the wrong reasons."

Sam bit his lip. "I guess so. You never... never really talked about it, what happened while they had you."

"I remember all the others, that I've noticed so far, anyway," Dean said after a moment. "Except the one on the back of my neck. Care to fill me in on that one?"

Sam frowned. "You have a scar on the back of your neck?"

Dean shrugged, a kind of tense resignation in the movement. "I only caught a glimpse of it in the mirror, but I think it's there. I kind of remember having the scar, if you know what I mean, even though I don't remember getting it."

"Can I see?" Sam asked, and somewhat to his surprise, Dean twisted around slightly and lowered his head, exposing the back of his neck to the light.

The scar was faint, but it was there. It was hard to see, running right along Dean's hairline, which was probably why Sam had never noticed it before. He stared at it, racking his brains for something that might have caused it, but he had nothing.

Dean turned back. "So you don't remember it either, huh?"

Sam sank back against the headboard and shook his head. "Sorry, dude. I didn't even know about that one. I've no idea when you might have got it, even." He grimaced. He couldn't help but feel like he'd let his brother down in some obscure way.

Dean shrugged awkwardly. "No big deal. It's probably nothing."

They both knew damn well that if it had been nothing, it wouldn't be missing from his memory now, but neither said anything.

"Well," Sam said, bumping shoulders with Dean companionably, "it might all be over tomorrow anyway. If salting and burning her did the trick, you might remember everything in the morning. Or more, at least, and then we can assume that it'll all come back to you gradually."

Dean smiled faintly. "I guess we'll see in the morning, then. Shift your lazy ass off my bed, Sam, I think I'm gonna grab some sleep now. Especially if you're going to do your alarm clock impression at some ridiculous hour again."

The light-heartedness was forced, and they both knew it, but right now Sam would take what he could get. "Whatever, man. Don't let me hold you back from your beauty sleep; we both know you need it far more than me, after all."

Dean flipped him off without rancour and headed for the bathroom, and Sam got up and started getting ready for bed himself, still lost in thought.

God, he hoped Dean's memory would be back in the morning.

~*~
Sam slept restlessly, haunted by confused, half-forgotten nightmares, startling awake again and again to look over at Dean in the other bed, lying with one hand tucked beneath the pillow where his knife was hidden.

Dean didn't stir, not once, and Sam genuinely didn't know whether his brother was lying there faking it or sleeping like the dead.

When daylight slowly began filtering through the curtains and under the door, Sam gave up on trying to sleep and sat up. He watched Dean for a moment, then debated whether to go fetch coffee or not. On the one hand, both he and Dean would really need coffee this morning, regardless of which way things went. On the other hand, whether Dean's memories had returned this morning or not, Sam really didn't like the idea of not being there when he woke up.

He wavered over the decision for a moment before deciding that the longer he waited, the greater the chance that Dean would wake up while he was gone. It shouldn't take him long to fetch coffee and something to eat, and it was still early. If he was quick, he could get back in time.

Still...

Mentally castigating himself for being such a girl - oh, if Dean were awake, he'd have such a field day with this, he'd be bringing it up for years - Sam grabbed a pen and scribbled "FETCHING YOU YOUR OH-SO-MANLY COFFEE" on a piece of paper and left it on the small set of drawers between the beds.

Now he really did have to hope he got back before Dean woke up, if only so he could steal the note back and dispose of it before Dean ever got wind of its existence.

Alas, it was not to be. When Sam slipped back into the room twenty minutes later, Dean was sitting up and leaning against the headboard, turning the piece of paper over and over in his hands, staring at or through it very intently. As Sam walked in, though, Dean looked up sharply and then grinned broadly at him.

"Leaving me love letters now, Sammy? I'm touched, really."

"Oh, shut up, asshole," Sam groaned, shutting the door behind him. "See if I ever leave a note telling you where I've gone again."

Something flickered across Dean's expression, too fast for Sam to identify, but then Dean was grinning again. "So where's my manly coffee, then, bitch? You better not have put any of that girly shit in it, I'm telling you."

"Oooooh, you're so tough, Dean," Sam mocked, but passed across the right cup. As a general rule, he didn't fuck with Dean's coffee until the very advanced stages of a prank war, and today definitely wasn't the time for it anyway. He could feel his amusement drain away at the thought, and he sat down halfway along Dean's bed, sipping at his own coffee. Dean peeled the lid off his, and they sat together in silence for a moment.

Sam wanted to ask, could feel the words pressing against his lips, but forced himself to stay quiet and let Dean speak when he was ready. Part of him was arguing that the very fact that Dean hadn't said anything yet had certain implications, but he tried to ignore that thought. Dean would tell him when he was ready.

"It hasn't got better."

Sam looked up abruptly from his coffee. Dean was staring down into his own cup as if it held all the answers he was missing.

"You don't remember any of the things you'd forgotten yesterday? Like... like Dad?"

Dean shook his head slowly.

There was silence for a moment, then Sam said, a little wildly, "Well, okay. Maybe it'll just take time, you know?
We'll -"

"I don't think we've got that much time, Sammy." Dean's voice was suddenly weary. "I don't think time's gonna help. It..." Sam stared as Dean fumbled for words. "I think it's getting worse."

"...Worse?" Sam asked cautiously, dreading the answer.

In response, Dean took one hand off his coffee cup and turned it palm up, showing the faint scar which ran across it. "I remember us talking about this scar last night. I remember what I said - necromancer, Oregon, almost took my throat out - but I don't... I don't remember it happening any more. I did last night. I must have, right? I said I did. Now all I can remember is what I said. I don't remember it, Sammy."

Sam stared at the scar, then at Dean's downturned face.

"So I don't think just waiting and hoping for the best is gonna work this time, Sam," Dean said after a moment. "It's getting worse, not better. This carries on..."

He trailed off, and Sam nodded jerkily, turning his head to stare at the wall. This... God. God.

"Okay," he said shakily. "Okay, then. We, um, we need to do some research. See if we can find out more about ghosts that have this kind of effect, and ways to reverse it. We'll find it, Dean."

Dean glanced up from his coffee at last and met his eyes for a moment before looking away. "Yeah."

Sam wondered which of them sounded the least convincing.

~*~
Finding decent information on the subject proved to be difficult.

"Stands to reason," Dean pointed out. "How are you meant to remember running into something that takes away your memories? If the thing's got any sense, it'll erase any memory you have of it, too. Like a freaky kind of camouflage."

Sam sighed. "Okay, sure, but there's still got to be some way to find out about this."

Dean didn't answer, simply focused back on his own computer screen.

They had wound up at the library. Sam had eyed the signs for wireless internet access with ill-disguised longing: he would have much preferred for them to hole up in a quiet corner together where they stood a better chance of not being overheard. They really needed to get a new laptop. As soon as they got this sorted out - and they would, Sam refused to even countenance the idea that they might not - he would talk to Dean about it. For now, they had set up shop in front of two of the library's thirteen internet-linked computers. But they were getting nowhere fast.

A moment or two later, Dean shook his head and pushed back from the computer. "Look, you carry on here, all right? If there's anything to find online, you're the one who's going to track it down. I'm gonna find somewhere a bit more out of the way and look through the journal."

Sam wanted to protest for a moment - he didn't exactly like the idea of Dean being out of sight or out of reach right now, for reasons he chose not to examine too closely - but he simply met Dean's eyes and nodded slowly. "Okay, sure."

He bit his lip and watched Dean vanish between the bookshelves, then forced himself to concentrate on the computer screen.

~*~
Dean headed through the stacks. The destination he had in mind was one of the armchairs set against the walls, boxed in among the shelves. That way no one would be able to sneak up on him or, more importantly, see the journal. He didn't like other people seeing it, especially now that -

He swallowed hard. That thought kept sneaking up on him, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it.

"Dad's dead, Dean."

Fuck. He'd been trying to focus on the research, on finding a way to reverse what was happening to him, but he couldn't shut this out entirely. He didn't know what to do or think about it. His father was dead. Dead. And Dean couldn't even remember it, how it all went down, except for the sketchy outline Sammy had given him.

There were not even words for how fucked up this all was.

He reached the armchair and collapsed onto it with relief. He felt more at ease here, in a shadowy corner away from all the normal people walking around in the brightly lit centre of the library. At least here he could see them coming.

Dean stared at the journal, running one hand absently over the cover. He'd never really consciously thought about it, but part of him had always assumed that one day they would give their father back his journal. Or that one day Dad would ask for it. It hadn't happened in Chicago - and he couldn't help but feel a touch of relief that he could at least still remember Chicago and what had happened there - but given how badly things had gone there, it wasn't surprising. They hadn't even had time. And then when they'd all met up again - and those memories were hazier, before they just cut off entirely - things had moved too fast, and they'd been hunting together, as a family again, so there hadn't been a need to give the journal back.

And now they never would.

"Stupid," Dean muttered aloud to himself, blinking hard to ease the ache in his eyes. "Stupid. Focus. Do the job."

He opened the journal and tried to concentrate, skim-reading through it looking for information that might be relevant. But there were so many things he didn't know, or no longer knew. Before, he'd been able to scan the first few lines of an entry and immediately remember the hunt involved, what it turned out to be, how they'd killed it, and a thousand other details. He'd been able to glance at a page of the journal, and know at once whether it was relevant or not. Now...

Now, he couldn't remember a lot of those hunts. He had to read the entire entry on them to determine whether they were relevant to his current predicament or not. This journal detailed most of his life, and it remembered more about the things that had happened to him than he did.

"Sitting here bitching about it isn't helping you sort it, moron," he muttered to himself.

Sam coughed slightly, and Dean almost jumped out of his chair. Goddamnit, one of the reasons he'd sat there was so that no one could sneak up on him, and he'd gone and got so caught up in moping like a girl that he hadn't even noticed Sam approaching.

"Talking to yourself, Dean?" Sam asked, teasing, but gently, and Dean knew the difference and couldn't decide whether he hated it or was grateful. "You know what they say."

"Shut up, maybe? 'Sides, dude, I'm way beyond the first sign," Dean said as airily as he could. In truth, the whole talking-to-himself thing was, if not exactly a touchy subject, one he preferred not to be called on, so he changed the topic. "Dig up anything?"

Sam sighed, the teasing smile fading from his face. "Well. Lots of cultures have myths and superstitions about memory loss, and there are some tales of 'memory eaters' and that sort of thing. I didn't find anything too specific, but I think that's a good sign that we may be able to find some kind of ritual to help counteract the effects. Probably not online, though. We should start calling our contacts, I guess, see if any of them can suggest anything." He nodded at the book still open on Dean's knees. "You have any luck at all?"

Dean cleared his throat and glanced down, shaking his head. "No. No, nothing so far." He could feel Sam's eyes on him, measuring, and refused to look up.

"Okay," Sam said softly. "What do you say we get out of here and scare up something to eat? Then we can start calling people this afternoon."

"Yeah," Dean said quietly. Then, "Yeah," more definitely, and he shut the journal with a snap and jumped to his feet. "Let's get out of here before your research addiction kicks back in and I'm trapped here with you for the rest of the day while you get your fix. Again."

Sam rolled his eyes, grinning, and Dean brushed close against him as he walked back through the bookshelves.

~*~
The afternoon passed horribly slowly. They split their list of contacts and slowly worked their way through them. Some people couldn't be reached. Others were unable to help them. One or two offered to do some digging around in their own books and promised to call back if they found something.

Sam hated it. He knew he was growing more irritable and on edge by the moment, but this was reminding him far too vividly of the days he'd spent calling every contact his family had ever had when Dean had been sick and in hospital after his heart attack. He remembered those days only as a dark spiral of panic and denial. He never wanted to go through that again.

He couldn't believe how well Dean seemed to be holding up. Well, strike that - this was Dean, after all, and Sam had watched him crack funeral jokes on his death bed. So he could believe it. But it never ceased to take his breath away, every time. He didn't doubt for a moment that it was mostly a mask for whatever the hell Dean was feeling underneath, but he wished he knew to what extent it was just a facade this time. You couldn't always be certain with Dean.

Bobby was their most encouraging lead. Although demons were his speciality, he had a lot of rare books on a wide range of subjects, and thought that one or two of them might contain something helpful. He promised to call back once he'd done some research, and Sam tried not to let himself get his hopes up too high as he hung up the phone.

"Bobby thinks there might be something in one of his books. He's going to call back."

Dean glanced up from where he was perched on one of the beds, but simply nodded. Sam supposed that he probably wasn't allowing himself to be too optimistic either.

The silence stretched out for a long moment before Dean nodded, as if confirming something to himself, and asked, "So, we done for now?"

Sam tilted his head in query. "I guess so. Why?"

A slow grin spread across Dean's face. "We should go get dinner. And then alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol."

"You're kidding me, right?"

"Not in the slightest, Sammy. There are times when drinking vast quantities of alcohol is the only sane option, and this is one of them." When it looked like Sam might be about to protest, Dean held up a hand. "We'll have our cell phones with us. There's nothing more we can do right now until one of our contacts finds something and calls us back, right? You need to unwind a bit, Sam. Come on, let's go."

~*~
The bar was loud and busy, but hadn't yet reached the point of being rowdy. Sam watched Dean tilt his head back and finish his third beer, then set the bottle down on their table with a hard clink before heading to the bar for a fresh round, not bothering to ask Sam whether or not he wanted one.

Sam sipped his own beer and kept his eyes on Dean's back as he wove through the crowd. He'd been half-expecting Dean to spend the evening chatting up one of the barmaids - there was a pretty brunette who'd smiled at his brother real wide, and normally Dean would have swooped in for the kill - then to disappear and not return to their hotel room until the small hours of the morning. But so far, Dean had largely seemed content to sit and drink with Sam.

It wasn't really all that much of a surprise, Sam reflected, still watching his brother's back. Dean hadn't been chasing women at all since their father's death, and had been limiting himself to smiles tinged with irony whenever a woman did her best to flirt with him. Still, Sam had wondered whether the desire for that kind of distraction was perhaps the motivation behind Dean's sudden determination that they both go out.

He smiled slightly in acknowledgement as Dean returned and pushed a fresh bottle of beer across the table to him. They clinked their bottles together wordlessly and Dean sat back, raising his bottle to his lips and glancing around the bar idly.

"So," Sam said, and stopped, realising he hadn't a clue what it was he wanted to say, except possibly "Are you doing okay?" and he wasn't so drunk as to think that was a good idea.

Dean was giving him a weird look, then he suddenly grinned, blindingly bright. "Dude, you gotta be kidding me. You're drunk already?"

"I am not drunk!" Sam said indignantly. "This is only my fourth beer, for Christ's sake!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Lightweight," Dean mocked. "You up for a game of pool, or are you too far gone to aim straight?"

Sam set his beer down hard. "Oh, you are so going down for that."

Dean laughed, an honest-to-god laugh, and Sam couldn't stop the grin that spread across his face. "Bring it on, bitch."

And okay, maybe Sam was slightly drunker than he'd realised, because Dean beat him at three straight games in a row, and surely Sam wasn't that out of practice, even if Dean did more pool hustling than him. Not that it really mattered who was winning - well, except for the part where Dean was going to be gloating for days - because they were actually having fun for once, and Sam could feel himself relax for what felt like the first time in months as they clung to the pool table to hold themselves up while they laughed, and Dean did hilariously stupid things to distract Sam while he was taking a shot.

They staggered back to the motel together, still laughing, and Sam was asleep the moment he hit his bed.

~*~
Dean couldn't help but laugh at the sight of his lightweight brother sprawled across the bed and already out like a light. He dug through his pockets until he finally found his cell phone - all right, so he wasn't stone-cold sober either, he could admit it - and then snapped a photo of Sam's slack-jawed face. He laughed some more as he put the phone away again, then carefully started to take Sam's shoes off, because he wasn't a complete bastard. He guessed he owed Sam that much for sticking around and drinking with him all night. It had been a good distraction, though, had stopped them from dwelling on too many depressing things that they were powerless to do anything about for the moment, and Sam had seemed to enjoy himself too, so Dean didn't feel too guilty about dragging him out. Sam really did need to learn to chill the hell out sometimes.

He contemplated trying to drag the sheets out from underneath Sam and pull them over him, but immediately abandoned that as a bad idea and dug a spare blanket out of the closet instead. Sam didn't stir as Dean spread the blanket over him, and Dean took the opportunity to study his brother properly for a moment without being called on it.

Then he started getting ready for bed, but the smile slowly faded from his face, and he stopped short as he was about to switch off the light.

The problem with distractions was that they always wore off, and usually sooner rather than later. Dean had been trying to distract himself from a hell of a lot of things, the fact that his father was dead not least among them, but the main thing he'd been trying to forg- no, distract himself from was what was happening to him.

He'd dealt with some fairly freaky shit before - even if he couldn't remember half of it right now - but this was seriously fucked up even by his standards. He could feel the blank spots in his memory slowly spreading, all the time. It was bad enough when he was awake. Waking up that morning and realising how much it felt like he'd lost overnight had been pretty terrifying. The thought of going to sleep again held no appeal whatsoever, despite how tired he was.

Agonising over what-ifs and might-have-beens was more Sam's gig, but since Sam was sleeping the sleep of the lightweight baby brother right then, Dean figured he wasn't going to get too jealous of his role. Besides, Sam didn't need to know that this was freaking him out. Just a little.

Because what would happen if they couldn't find a way to reverse the process? Oh, their nice little theory that Celia had been going after traumatic memories would be hugely comforting, were it not for the fact that Celia was gone, bones salted and burned, and so was no longer in control of whatever the hell was going on. Not to mention the fact that Dean had a sneaking suspicion Celia would have considered most of his life to be traumatic, whether he agreed with her or not.

He didn't think this had happened to the other people Celia had come into contact with. Caleb might not have remembered her or the house, but Dean was pretty certain he'd have heard if Caleb had forgotten about, say, hunting or half of his goddamn past. No, in Caleb's case it had been limited. And Dean hadn't had the impression that Donna or Jenny were going through this kind of thing either. It was just him. Which wasn't that surprising, really: Sam had thought that Celia had probably been messing with Dean when Sam had salted and burned her bones. Sometimes spirits went a bit crazy when they felt that happening - lashing out in desperation, trying to take people with them, that sort of thing. Somehow Celia had gotten her claws into his mind and turbo-charged the whole memory-loss thing, and really, it just wasn't cool at all.

Because if they couldn't find a way to reverse the process, there was no way of knowing at what point it would stop. If it would stop. And a damn lot of good he'd be to Sammy then. He wouldn't be able to watch his back; wouldn't be able to do much of anything, really. He imagined it would be kind of like dying. His body would still be alive, but all the things that made him him, the billions of tiny events and choices and moments that had shaped him into the person he was, they would all be lost. He wouldn't be Dean any more, even if he managed to remember the name.

Dean shook his head, suddenly furious with himself, and snapped off the light. There was no call for panicking like that. They would find a solution. That was what they did. If the information was out there somewhere, Sam would dig it up. Dean had faith in that. They'd faced creepy shit before and come through it. This would be no different.

But...

Very slowly, Dean sat up again and turned the light back on. Then, moving deliberately, he looked around for some paper and a pen, finally coming up with the note Sam had left him that morning, which he'd tucked into his pocket. He stared for a long moment at Sam's handwriting, then slowly turned the piece of paper over.

Just in case.

But the question was, how the hell did you boil everything you were, everything you knew, down to something that would fit on one tiny piece of paper?

Dean sucked on the lid of his pen, lost in thought. Across on the other bed, Sam made a quiet snuffling sound and shifted a little in his sleep. Dean grinned, watching him, and wrote "Sam" down at the top of the piece of paper.

He stared down at what he'd written, and felt his smile fade away. The idea of needing a reminder of who Sam was, of anything about Sam, was... ludicrous. Terrifying. The thought of trying to reduce everything they were and all that was between them to mere words, stark on the page in front of him, just hurt.

But he had to try and capture at least part of it. Just in case.

He chewed on the pen lid again for a few moments, then sighed and started writing.

~*~
Sam was not about to admit that he felt anything even approaching hungover the next morning, but he couldn't deny that he wasn't feeling at his very best when he woke up still wearing his clothes from the day before, with a horrible taste in his mouth and eyes that didn't quite want to let him peel them open.

He managed to fight his way out of the horribly patterned blanket that Dean had presumably draped over him the previous night, because Sam certainly couldn't remember fetching it himself, and lurched to the bathroom to brush his teeth and have the hottest shower in living memory.

By the time he emerged, much later, he was feeling almost human again, and he tried to keep the noise down while he got dressed. Dean was still crashed out on his own bed, one hand tucked under the pillow where his knife was hidden, the other curled in front of his face. Sam grinned, half-tempted to take a picture with his cell phone, but decided against it. Although that did remind him to go back into the bathroom and double-check the mirror, just in case Dean had decided to take advantage of him passing out to draw on his face or anything. It wouldn't have been the first time.

The mirror reassured him that his face at least had been spared, and Sam grinned and shook his head at his reflection. He would chance going out to fetch coffee. Coffee would definitely help with his not-hangover.

He was slightly surprised that Dean wasn't already awake when he returned, but the sound of the door closing did the trick, and Sam saw Dean go for his knife and then relax as he realised it was only Sam.

"Hey," Sam said, "I come bearing coffee. How you feeling this morning?"

Dean accepted the proffered cup of coffee and took a gulp. "You mean in terms of how hungover I am, how much more I've forgotten, or what?"

Sam grimaced. "Let's say all of the above."

"In that case, I bet I'm not nearly as hungover as you, lightweight. You were out before you even hit the bed, dude."

"Yeah, yeah," Sam said dismissively. "Whatever, Dean. And the rest of it?"

Dean glanced away and took another gulp of his coffee. "Yeah, well. What can I say, Sam? It's not like I can start listing all the things I've forgotten since last night, you know. But... yeah. Pretty sure I'm missing more."

Sam took a deep breath and released it again. "Okay. Okay. After breakfast we'll try calling people again, see if any of them have come up with anything. Okay?"

"Might as well," Dean muttered, still staring blankly at his coffee; then he made a visible effort to snap out of it. "You better not have used up all the hot water, princess, because I could really use a hot shower right about now."

"Only one way to find out, coward," Sam said nonchalantly, waving grandly towards the tiny bathroom.

Dean slid out of bed, coffee cup still clutched protectively in his hand. "You totally have, haven't you, you little brat?"

Sam put on his best poker face and sipped at his coffee, blinking innocently at his brother.

"I will seriously fuck your shit up," Dean warned, heading for the bathroom and taking his coffee with him.

"Yeah, yeah," Sam scoffed, settling down on the chair next to the window with his coffee and their father's journal.

"I mean it!" Dean called back over his shoulder, before the bathroom door shut with a snick.

Sam grinned and listened for his brother's reaction when he turned the shower on.

~*~
"Bobby? This is Sam Winchester."

Dean glanced up and watched as Sam switched hand, cradling his cell phone to his ear. He was staring out of the diner's window, unseeing, focused on his conversation.

They had stayed at the diner even after they'd finished their breakfast. Neither had particularly wanted to return to the motel room again while they called back everyone who might have stumbled across a lead since they'd spoken the previous day. At least the diner had enough other people to serve as a vague distraction, plus free refills of semi-decent coffee.

Dean refocused on their father's journal, carefully turning the page. He was leaving Sam to do the actual calling; he would have felt weirdly awkward talking to their contacts about this, now that they would possibly have to admit what this was all about. The previous day they had only told a trusted few the exact details of the situation, but he had still felt... exposed. Fortunately, he hadn't been forced to try to explain that to Sam - he would have preferred to suck it up and make the phone calls rather than admit to that - as his brother had just calmly suggested that he take another look through the journal while Sam made the calls.

He wasn't sure whether Sam had somehow picked up on his feelings or just thought it the most logical approach, but he hadn't been about to argue, and was doing his best to put it out of his mind.

So far, Sam had gone through three of the people they'd spoken to yesterday, the ones who had thought they might be able to find some useful information for them somewhere. So far, all three had drawn a blank. There had only been four people on their list, so Dean was doing his best to concentrate on the journal rather than Sam's conversation with Bobby. He wasn't doing too good a job of it, though.

"Really?" It was the tone of Sam's voice that snapped his attention back. He watched intently as Sam straightened out of his slumped position against the corner of the booth and sat up, grabbing his pen. "Tell me."

Dean bit the inside of his cheek and stamped down firmly on his hopes. He watched, motionless, as Sam scribbled notes.

The conversation lasted close to fifteen minutes, and Dean was about ready to start climbing the walls by the time Sam thanked Bobby profusely, promised to call back soon, and hung up. Sam exhaled sharply, sat back, and finally, finally, looked up to meet Dean's eyes.

There was a spark of fierce hope and determination in Sam's eyes that hadn't been there before, and Dean took what felt like his first deep breath in two days.

"Bobby thinks he's found something," Sam started, holding Dean's gaze. "It's not really his speciality, but he has some of Pastor Jim's old books, and... Well, he found a ritual he thinks might help. It'd be risky, though, Dean, really risky - we'd be going just on what's in the book, Bobby doesn't know anything about it, whether it would -"

"I'm doing it, Sammy," Dean said firmly, without glancing away. "If there's a chance, I'm doing it. Unless it calls for me to blow my brains out, there's no way it can be riskier than doing nothing at this stage."

Sam swallowed hard and looked away, glancing around the diner. Dean continued to stare at him, and Sam finally met his eyes again, tight-lipped. "Look, Dean, I know you're -"

"No," Dean interrupted. "No, Sammy. This is the only lead we've come up with. I know damn well how risky this is, and when you finally get around to telling me what the hell this ritual involves, I bet it will not sound like my idea of a good time, but we have got to do something, and I am not seeing any other options here."

Sam held his gaze for a long moment, then sighed and nodded. "Okay. Okay, Dean. I get it, okay? But - look, it has to be performed on the night of the new moon. That's, what, tomorrow night? So that gives us today and tomorrow to, to research it, try and figure out what we're doing."

"Tomorrow night?" Dean asked. He wasn't entirely sure which was strongest: his disappointment that they couldn't perform the ritual right then, or his relief that it wasn't further away. He slumped back against the booth.

"We wouldn't be able to do it tonight anyway," Sam said, "we'll need to pick up some supplies and make some preparations. So we might as well take the opportunity to do some research too. I'd feel better about this if we knew more about what we're doing."

His eyes were just a touch too understanding for Dean's comfort, so Dean forced a smirk. "Fine, research junkie. Let me at least pay the bill before you drag me back to your precious library."

~*~
Dean read over Sam's notes for the third time, frowning. "Well, it really doesn't sound like my idea of a good time, but I've got to say, Sam, the way you were acting in the diner, I was expecting worse."

Sam cast him an irritated glance. "I will remind you of that when your head starts rotating through 360 degrees, I swear."

Dean rolled his eyes and leaned forward for a better look at the website Sam was reading. "So, you're researching... what? The shit I have to take?"

"Yeah," Sam said quietly. "I don't think we'll be able to find much on what the effects of the ritual itself are, but the things you're going to have to ingest... that at least we can find out about." He gestured to the screen. "Check it out."

"Periwinkle," Dean read aloud. "Side-effects can include nausea, hair loss, a drop in blood pressure. Large doses can be poisonous. Not recommended for medicinal purposes. Sounds like fun."

"Like a laugh and a half," Sam agreed grimly, already clicking through links looking for more information. "Apparently there's been some initial evidence that it might help some people with Alzheimer's Disease. European doctors used it a lot in medieval times for memory-related problems, too."

"Well, at least that sounds vaguely promising," Dean muttered. "What else is there?"

"Blessed thistle," Sam said, running a new search. "Here we go. Well, 'memory improvement' is listed as one of the traditional uses people have ascribed to it. Possible side-effects... nausea and vomiting. 'May increase risk of bleeding'. It doesn't look quite as risky, though."

"'Do not use during pregnancy'," Dean read. "Well, that's one thing I don't have to worry about, at least."

Sam remained diplomatically silent on that one. "Pass me the list again." He checked through the remaining items that Dean would have to ingest and grimaced. "Well, I can't say I envy you, man. But it doesn't look like that stuff will kill you. Probably. It wouldn't surprise me if you're throwing up for a few days, though."

"Dude, I have to eat thistle. I'd say throwing up is a given," Dean said flatly. "But if there's any chance it'll reverse what's happening to me, I'm doing it. You think we're going to be able to get all this stuff around here?"

"I saw a herbalist's a few streets over," Sam offered. "I think we should be able to get it there. We've still got plenty of candles in the trunk, haven't we?"

"Far as I can recall, yeah," Dean said, half-joking, half-not.

Sam just looked at him for a moment, and Dean braced himself for Sam to come out with something hideously girly, but all he said was "You ready to get out of here?"

"Yeah," Dean said, suddenly exhausted. "Yeah, I kind of am."

Sam said nothing more, just grabbed his notes together and waited for Dean to lead the way out of the library.

~*~
"You ready?"

Dean took a deep breath and accepted the cup Sam held out to him, staring down at the thick liquid.

He wouldn't deny that he was somewhat nervous. The previous night had been almost entirely sleepless: he'd spent a lot of time staring up blankly at the ceiling, going over the things he could remember, running through the things he'd written on his piece of paper, worrying away at the blank spots in his memory like he would the gap left by a missing tooth. Then he'd spent a few hours thinking through the details of the ritual, trying to recall every aspect.

The thought of going through with the ritual did make him nervous, no matter how obliviously foolhardy Sam might think him. Dean wasn't an idiot, and he was all too aware how stupid it was to mess with something like this without knowing exactly what you were doing. And they didn't have a clue. Dean hated rituals whose ramifications he didn't fully understand. He had a hunch that at least one of his vanished memories dealt with how he'd learned that particular lesson. The memories might be gone, but the lesson wasn't; he was just going to ignore it anyway, because really, what choice did he have?

He couldn't carry on like this for much longer before he just lost it. He was losing his mind a piece at a time, and he didn't know what to do except clutch on to the most important pieces and try to hold it together. He'd kept his note in his pocket all day, and every time Sam was out of sight he'd dug it out and read it again and again, trying to burn the knowledge into his treacherous memory.

Yeah, he was more than slightly creeped out by the ritual they were about to perform, but not half as panicked as he was about the idea of it failing.

"Hate to break it to you, Dean, but I don't think you're going to be able to glare it into tasting better."

Sam's voice dragged Dean back out of his thoughts and he glanced up sharply, then forced a grin. "Hell, was worth a try." He raised the cup to his brother. "Cheers."

Fuck, but it tasted awful. Dean grimaced, tried to put everything they'd researched about the contents out of his head, and forced himself to pretend he was forcing down one of Sam's disgustingly girly coffees instead. Oh, god, he hadn't tasted anything this revolting since that time Sam had double-dared him to try some sushi -

- and oh, man, he really couldn't think of that right now or he would throw up, and he couldn't afford to do that until after the ritual. Ritual first, and then he could hurl to his stomach's content. Or more likely hurl up his stomach's contents.

He forced down the rest of it and closed his eyes while he got the urge to gag under control. He felt Sam take the cup away from him, but focused on breathing for several long moments before he opened his eyes again.

"Okay?" Sam asked, looking worried.

Dean nodded carefully. "Just so long as I don't have to drink anything like that ever again. Fuck."

Sam winced in sympathy. "But that should be the hard part over now for you. You get to sit there and concentrate on not throwing up while I deal with the incantations and stuff."

"Dude, that is going to be a harder part than you can imagine," Dean muttered. "How soon can we start?"

Sam shrugged. "Now, I guess. We might as well set everything up so we're ready when midnight comes. You need to come sit on the floor over here."

Dean stood up, and was slightly taken aback by the realisation that his balance was shot. "Whoa."

Sam was beside him in an instant, catching one arm to steady him. "Jesus, Dean, you okay? Come on -"

Dean was a little irritated, but also a little disoriented, so he cut his losses and let Sam guide him across to the space they'd cleared by shoving the beds against the walls. He sank to the ground, sitting cross-legged and pressing his hands against the floor to hold himself upright.

Sam crouched in front of him, and now he looked really worried. "You still with me?"

"Not going anywhere," Dean said quietly, smiling a little to reassure him. "Hey, least we know that stuff's doing something, right?"

"Right," Sam agreed, mouth quirking. "You think you can manage to stay upright while I set things up?"

Dean waved one hand airily, then replaced it hurriedly on the floor as the world tilted. "Get to chalking, bitch, I got things covered on the staying upright front."

Sam laughed quietly, but moved away. Dean could hear him setting up candles and chalking lines around Dean on the floor. The motel carpet was going to be a write-off, at this rate. Good thing the credit card wasn't in his name.

Some time later - he wasn't sure how long, time had started to go strange - he opened his eyes, blinking, wondering when he'd closed them. Sam was crouched down again, but at arm's length this time, outside the lines he'd chalked on the carpet. He was saying Dean's name, repeatedly.

"Sammy," Dean answered, surprised by the slight slur in his voice.

"Everything's set up," Sam said. "Lines are chalked, candles are in position. Doors are salted. It's almost midnight. You okay?"

"Still upright," Dean murmured. "Sam. Sammy. Listen to me. I hate to break it to you, but you're never gonna be Willow. I'm sorry, but you're just too tall, man."

That startled a laugh out of his brother, and Dean grinned broadly to himself. Long as he could make Sammy laugh like that, things couldn't be too bad.

"Thanks, I'll bear that in mind." Sam's smile faded and Dean sobered too. "You sure you want to do this, Dean? Still time to back out."

"After drinking that shit? No fucking way," Dean said as firmly as he could, considering he could barely see straight. "No, Sammy. No backing out. Need to do this. Need you to do this."

Sam nodded slowly. "Okay, Dean. Okay." And then he stood up and was out of Dean's line of sight.

Dean let his eyes slip shut, listening distractedly to the flare of candles being lit. There was a moment's pause, then he heard Sam draw in a deep breath and begin his incantation.

Sam was good at this kind of thing, Dean knew. He'd been performing exorcisms and reading incantations since he was a kid. Always the baby of the family, and reading the rituals had given him something useful but above all comparatively safe to do while Dean and their father handled the more dangerous physical aspects of subduing whatever they were hunting. That had changed when Sam was older and could hold his own, of course, but it'd still been Sam who'd performed the incantations, more often than not. Sam was good at wrapping his tongue around whatever ancient language a ritual called for, at memorising line upon line if necessary, at keeping going no matter what was going on around him.

Sam could do this, and Dean trusted that. So he allowed himself to relax into the soothing, confident warmth of Sam's voice, and let the world ebb and flow around him.

Time had gone truly strange on him now. It felt a little like floating, surrounded by Sam's voice, the air shivering around him. The tension and power of the ritual built up slowly around him, making it difficult to breathe. Then it was building in him, moving slowly up through his body, and he gasped, head tilting back on his shoulders, and let the ritual take him.

For a long, endless moment, it kept building, past the point where he could make sense of what was happening to him, then suddenly everything seemed to stop and just hold, hanging breathless and motionless at the peak -

- and then it was like a crashing wave, like an explosion, and Dean thought he probably cried out, but he couldn't hear anything over the roaring in his ears and the rushing in his head, memories flooding through him too fast to grasp, overwhelming him. A million memories danced before his eyes, things taken or suppressed, things half-forgotten or buried, things cherished or burned into him, all at once, all there, all immediate and bright and sharp, cutting into him like knives, and it built, confusing, dizzying, until -

- white-out.

~*~
Sam had performed rituals many times before, carried out exorcisms and read incantations, had performed them with and on and for Dean. So he knew better than to let himself focus too closely on his brother and his reactions. They were committed to the ritual now, and the only way he could help Dean was to concentrate and complete it to the best of his ability. He didn't know precisely what would happen if he allowed the ritual to fall apart, but he was certain that finding out would be a very bad thing.

So he focused on the incantation and only allowed himself to watch out of the corner of his eye as Dean suddenly went rigid, head tipping back, a strangled gasp escaping him. When Dean cried out, Sam was hard-pressed to keep his voice steady, but it wasn't until Dean just collapsed, hitting the floor like a puppet whose strings had been snapped, that Sam almost lost it and lunged for his brother. Instead, Sam clenched a fist, feeling his nails dig into the palm so hard he'd have marks later, and forced himself to complete the incantation, trying not to unconsciously speed it up, because god only knew what effect that would have on Dean.

The three minutes it took to complete the ritual felt like an eternity, and Sam could barely take his eyes off his brother long enough to glance at his notes for the proper words. When he finally reached the end and the candles blew themselves out, Sam was across the chalk marks and kneeling at his brother's side before the notes he'd dropped had even hit the floor.

"Dean!"

Even though he could hear Dean gasping for breath, Sam's first reaction was to reach for his pulse, because he'd never quite forgotten going down into that basement where the rawhead had been lurking and seeing Dean collapsed on the floor, and finding nothing when he'd searched frantically for a pulse. Ever since then, Sam had been unable to break the habit of checking Dean's pulse every time his brother went down and didn't immediately get up and start cracking jokes.

Dean had never called him on that.

Sam's relief at feeling Dean's pulse was immediately overwhelmed by concern at how rapid it was. Dean's heart was racing, and Sam had never heard him fight for breath in quite that way unless they'd been sprinting flat-out for five miles with werewolves on their heels.

"Jesus, Dean. Can you hear me? Dean, it's done. Talk to me, man." Sam told himself firmly that he was not going to panic. All right, so he had no clue what the ritual had done to his brother, but Dean was alive and his heart was beating and he was breathing, and everything else they could deal with.

Dean didn't respond, gave no sign that he'd even heard, and Sam pressed a palm to Dean's cheek. "Hey. Hey, come on, man." God, it was too dark now that the candles had gone out, he couldn't see a goddamn thing. "How about we get you off the floor, huh? Okay, Dean? Come on, stay with me, bro."

Levering Dean up off the floor was easier said than done. Dean was... not unconscious, as far as Sam could judge, but completely out of it, no question. He was almost dead weight, and manhandling him onto the bed took a lot of work. Sam turned away for a moment to snap on the table lamp, and when he came back Dean was curled up on his side, huddled into a ball, and shaking all over.

Shit.

"Dean," Sam breathed, reaching out to touch Dean's forehead, an attempt to soothe that he would never dream of trying if Dean were even vaguely aware of his surroundings. His brother's forehead was clammy to the touch. "Hey, Dean. Just breathe. It's okay. Come on, I'm here, come back to me."

There was no reaction, and okay, maybe Sam was going to panic just a little bit after all. "Dean. Hey, you're starting to scare me a bit here." Sam was aware enough to have noticed that sometimes the idea of causing Sam pain or worry would get through to his brother when nothing else seemed to, and he wasn't above using that on occasion, for Dean's own good. Underhanded, perhaps, but it wasn't like it was a lie - seeing Dean curled up like this, watching him shake so violently, was terrifying.

Dean didn't respond at all and that, more than anything, convinced Sam that his brother was completely unaware of anything outside of whatever was going on inside his own head right then. Sam bit his lip, frowning, feeling utterly helpless. Finally, he went to the bathroom and soaked a cloth in cold water, then returned and pressed it gently to Dean's forehead. He wasn't sure whether it would help at all, but he had to at least try.

He sat at Dean's bedside for almost an hour, sometimes reaching out to touch his hand, his forehead, sometimes talking softly, soothing nonsense. Nothing seemed to have any effect. Eventually, Sam swallowed hard and got up to clean up the mess they'd made with the ritual. He scrubbed away the chalk marks and tossed the candles in the garbage, and resolved that if Dean was no better by morning, he would drag him to the hospital.

He watched Dean shake for a long time before his eyes slid closed against his will, and he dozed off in the chair beside Dean's bed.

~*~

Chapter Three