Fic: Heaven or Something (Sam/Dean, R) Part 1 of 2

[smalltrolven]

Title: Heaven or Something

Author: smalltrolven

Pairing: Sam/Dean

Rating: R

Warnings: None

Wordcount: 8,691

Author’s Note: Not my characters, only my words. Written for the 2021 spn-meanttobe fic challenge.

Prompt 58. One Texas Night

Melinda Amery awoke to the double-barreled deep blue eyes of Lieutenant Grady Sloan. A more formidable -- or handsome -- man she'd never seen. And he wanted answers about a murder. Only, Melinda had none. She had no recall, except she knew nothing good would come from remembering... Grady was the kind of cop who wouldn't let go until he got what he wanted. With his job on the line, he needed to break the case. But the only witness had amnesia -- and tormented dark eyes that needed healing. And Grady couldn't help his overwhelming attraction toward Melinda. But would her hidden memories reveal more than either of them wanted to know... ?

***

Summary: Everyone knows there’s hunting for sport and then there’s hunting for survival, even people who can’t remember their own name at the moment. The beautiful eyes of the man who tells him that they’re hunting something non-human tell a story that he knows he has to read all the way to the end.

Read it over on the AO3 right here.

****

He awoke to the sight of the most fascinating pair of eyes, the colors changeable even in the moment. The man was beyond handsome, the sharpest cheekbones, the pointiest perfect nose, and a pair of eyebrow shaped just so. He wanted to reach up and run a finger along the perfect curve of one of them, just to see what the man would do. Before he could begin to stop his impulse, the man’s head tipped forward and he noticed the hair, layers and layers of wavy auburn that shone in the sun streaming in through the dirty window.

Where the hell was he-Heaven or something?

He shook his head, and it all felt muzzy and even more mixed up, he couldn’t reach the part of himself that told him who he was. There was no foundation, nothing to latch onto and feel stable. He looked up at the beautiful man and asked the only question he could possibly form at the moment. “Who am I?”

“Dean, c’mon, stop fooling around, we need to work this case, two more people have been murdered overnight, just heard about it this morning while I was out,” the man said, those perfect eyebrows creasing into a concerned frown.

“Is my name Dean? Dean what? And murder, what are you talking about? Who the hell are you?” he asked in a heated rush, feeling around inside himself for anything to connect the name Dean to himself. The man’s eyes were the only thing that made sense, like they were his favorite colors, or maybe this guy was his favorite person?

“Did you hit your head or something while I was gone? Dean, if you’re messing with me right now, I’m gonna kill you,” the man said, standing up from where he’d been sitting on Dean’s bed.

“So, I take it my name is Dean, which, by the way doesn’t ring a bell to me. I don’t know anything about a murder much less two. Where am I and what the hell is going on?” Dean said, now in a near panic. He fought the wave of adrenaline as it dumped into his system. There was no air all of a sudden, no room for it, everything inside him closed up.

“Breathe, c’mon, Dean, you gotta breathe. I’ve got you,” the man said, folding him into his gigantic arms and tucking Dean’s head against his chest. “Breathe with me, c’mon listen, in-two-three-four, and out-two-three-four.”

The man repeated it several times and finally Dean joined him, he felt his own heart slow down to meet the one he could hear through the man’s soft flannel shirt. The smell of him, it was so familiar, it smelled like home and belonging and everything right in the world. Dean wanted to cry when the man let him go, looking at him closely again, those eyebrows a little higher in a worried scrunch.

“You really don’t know who you are, huh?” the man said, voice going a little softer around the edges.

“No…no, I don’t, I guess I’m Dean, that doesn’t feel wrong to me, even if I don’t remember it,” Dean said in a halting stumble. He struggled to not blurt out that the man smelled like home and his eyes were his favorite colors in the world. He needed to know who this person was before he started spouting off.

“Okay, we’ll start out slow then, you’re Dean and I’m Sam. Can you tell me what the last thing is that you remember, Dean?” Sam took a deep breath and looked at him with a hopeful puppy dog look that made Dean’s heart melt around the edges.

Dean riffled through his near empty brain, closing his eyes against the intensity of Sam’s hope. There was a thread, small and insignificant in all the grayness around him. He tugged on it and his words tumbled out, his eyes still pressed closed against the scattered memories.

“I was in the place, I was in the house with the…you know…the thing, and it got bright and loud, it smelled like burning hair and then you woke me up, Sam.” Dean intentionally used the man’s name, hoping he’d be able to remember it from here on out. Because how could he ever forget the most handsome man he’d ever met? That would be a damn tragedy, and also something he definitely wanted to keep all to himself, for now.

“You went back there, without me? We talked about this, we had a plan. Goddamnit, Dean!” Sam yelled as he stood up from the bed and began to pace the small room.

Dean looked up at him in astonishment, Sam was so damn tall, talk about wanting to climb someone like a tree, this dude was a freaking redwood. Why was Sam yelling at him though? Why wasn’t he more alarmed himself?

“Sam, I don’t know anything about a plan. Why are you yelling at me?” Dean asked in a quiet voice, drawing into himself, and pulling a pillow onto his lap to hug and hold between them as some dumb approximation of a shield. As if any sort of shield could stop someone built like Sam.

Sam stopped pacing and looked down at him, intense and searching. It felt like he was like having a lie detector and cat scan all at once. Dean didn’t like it one bit, he felt exposed and raw. It also felt familiar as hell and how was that possible when he didn’t know this Sam guy?

Sam sat down on the other bed and put his head in his hands, his long hair completely covering his face from view. “I’m sorry for yelling. It’s just-we talked about this, we agreed. You are the exact kind of victim this thing goes after. We decided I was going to be the one to go in after it, and you would back me up. That was our plan, emphasis on our plan.”

“I honestly have no freaking clue what you’re even talking about,” Dean said, his confidence in what Sam had told him wavering. What was this guy talking about? What did he mean by this thing? A murdering thing? Didn’t he mean a murdering person?

Sam’s hands tightened in his own hair, tugging a little, and Dean’s belly responded with a pulse of want, of always wanting his hands to be there, in Sam’s hair, tugging and pulling until Sam made the sound that meant-

“Hey, Dean, you still with me?” Sam was snapping his fingers in front of Dean’s face.

Dean blinked a few times, trying to refocus on what he was supposed to know how to do in a situation like this, mainly covering up his true feelings, that seemed very important all of a sudden. “You need to tell me who you are, Sam, right the fuck now. Why are you talking about a thing murdering people? I may have amnesia or something, but that sure as shit doesn’t make any damn sense at all.”

Sam’s response was a loud bark of laughter that startled Dean. It was followed up by a wide grin that showed Dean something new. This gorgeous man had dimples, deep and beautiful right there on either side of that pink and full lipped mouth. He wanted to-

“We’re working a case, we’re…uh…we’re partners, and the thing we’re after-” Sam said.

“Thing? Not person?” Dean interrupted to get clarification, trying desperately to ignore those dimples.

“No, Dean, definitely not a person, it’s a creature like the usual shit that we hunt. It’s kind of like a djinn, do you know what that is?” Sam asked.

“Djinn, you mean like a genie? Like from Aladdin? The blue dude that Robin Williams played?” Dean asked.

Sam’s eyes widened and he chuckled softly, smiling less widely, but gone all soft now, his eyes too. God, they were so beautiful.

“I forgot how much you liked that movie,” Sam said. “Yeah, the thing is kind of like that, but instead of granting wishes like in the story or movie, this thing reads your mind and makes you believe you’ve gotten what you most desire, but meanwhile it steals your memories. Eats them or something, we weren’t quite sure, the lore on it that I could find wasn’t too specific.”

“You said I was the type of victim it goes for, what did you mean?” Dean asked.

“Someone with…uh, a lot of desires that aren’t being fulfilled is probably the nice way to put it.”

“You saying I’m a needy, pining little bitch, Sam?”

“That’s pretty much exactly what you said to me when I suggested this plan a few hours ago, so you haven’t really lost all of yourself. That’s some good news there, I guess,” Sam said with a one-sided grin that popped one of those dimples like he was trying to tease Dean with it.

“I’m not up for investigating djinn or genies or murders, not when I don’t really know who the hell I am, much less why I’m even here,” Dean admitted.

“You’re here because we found this case on our way back home from another case. You insisted that we stop here and work it, because there had already been three people dead, and now we know there’s two more after last night.”

“That’s five, that’s a lot, and they’re people that have died not these genie things right?” Dean asked.

“Right, five people, humans, that the thing has killed, which is why we’re here to do our job. Okay, so new plan, here’s what we’re going to do, you stay right here in our room, and I’m going in after it and I’ll come right back and hopefully by killing it, you’ll get your memories back.”

“Wait, hold on, earlier you said we were going back home, you mean we live to…together?”

“Yeah, Dean, we have for a very long time, most of our lives,” Sam said, eyes searching for something like acknowledgement in Dean’s face.

“Is that why I’m…am I supposed to feel like this?” Dean asked.

“Feel like what, what do you mean exactly?” Sam asked.

“Like I trust you, even though I don’t know myself, I trust you, like way deep down inside, like it’s automatic,” Dean said. He reconsidered what he’d just done, but it was too late now. This guy could be the monster or genie or whatever for all he really knew.

When Sam’s face went all soft again, once he’d heard his words, Dean knew that the deep trust he felt in Sam was true and real.

“Good, I’m glad you trust me, that’s uh…really good to hear, actually,” Sam said, reaching across the divide between the beds to pat Dean’s knee.

Dean laid his hand over Sam’s to keep it there. He looked up at the still soft look on Sam’s handsome face and felt his insides practically melt. He was glad he was sitting down, was this swooning? Was he fucking swooning here?

“You okay to stay here alone, while I go get this thing taken care of?” Sam asked, sliding his hand out from underneath Dean’s.

“Won’t it get you too?” Dean asked, “I mean, you seem kinda needy and pining too, dude. Just sayin’.” He tried to hide his disappointment at the loss of contact, his knee and hand seemed incandescent just from Sam’s brief touch.

“Yeah, probably true on that last bit, but no, it won’t get me because I’ve got the protective spell ingredients that you were supposed to wait for me to gather together.”

“I guess I got impatient or something, sorry,” Dean said.

Sam quirked a grin at him. “I really shouldn’t be surprised at that, it’s kinda your MO. I’m guessing you probably heard about the two new vics somehow and went to check it out.”

“Huh, sounds possible. Since we know that two more people just died, Sam, I really think I should come with you. Just in case it comes here to finish me off, or comes after you when you’re alone,” Dean said.

“Dean, you don’t even really know what’s going on, or how to hunt this thing. Plus we don’t know why you’re like this,” Sam said, gesturing with one giant hand at Dean’s head.

“We have a good guess, don’t we? I think I’m probably like this without my memories because of the genie-whatever-thingy, so I think I need to stick with you, just in case,” Dean said.

Sam sighed and shrugged a little. “You have to stay in the car while I go in the place, promise, Dean?”

“Sure, okay, let’s go,” Dean said.

Sam pointed at a bulging plastic bag on the motel room’s small table. “I have to mix myself up the protective spell first.”

“A spell-what are you, some kind of a witch or warlock or whatever it’s called?”

“Something like that, yeah. You’ve been calling me Samantha forever, so I finally grew into it, I guess.”

Dean started humming the Bewitched tv show theme.

Sam’s eyes widened and then he busted out an extremely cute giggle. “How the hell can you remember the freaking Bewitched tv theme song and who played the genie in Aladdin, but not yourself or me?”

“Guess I must have wished for something about you and me. You said this genie thing sucks up your memories, maybe it’s really precise and specific like that,” Dean suggested.

Sam smiled and shook his head, the beautiful shaggy hair going all directions. “You always amaze me, sometimes I’ll be struggling to get somewhere on a case, like now, and you’ll just-blammo, figure it out, out of nowhere.”

Dean tapped at his forehead, “Mind palace, Sammy, gotta keep your mind palace in tip top shape.”

Sam froze in the middle of transferring something big and leafy from a plastic bag into a metal bowl. “What did you just say?”

“Just some Sherlock talk, I bet you love that show,” Dean said.

“You mean the BBC one with Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes? Yeah, I do love that show, but I didn’t know you did.” Sam was mixing something vigorously in the bowl, the spoon he was stirring with was clanging against the edge.

“If we live together, how do you not know something like that?” Dean asked.

“The place we live, it’s…uh, it’s a pretty big place, we have room to spread out. Sometimes I don’t see you much, guess it’s when you’re bingeing Sherlock or something. We tend to give each other space when we’re home, because we live out of each other’s pockets when we’re on the road hunting.”

“Why does that make me sad to hear that?” Dean asked in a near-whisper he hoped Sam hadn’t heard.

Sam’s face told him that he’d definitely heard. “C’mon, I’m all done here, let’s go.” Sam pointedly didn’t answer and finished transferring the mixture into a small plastic tub, snapping on the lid and putting it in his bag.

Sam opened the motel room door wide and waited for Dean to join him.

Dean stood up for the first time, and realized just how freaking tall Sam really was. He fussed with arranging his coat as he moved closer to Sam, and then looked up at him. Way way up.

“Why are you so damn tall anyway?” Dean asked.

“Dude, you’ve been complaining about that literally for years. It’s just how I turned out, shame you couldn’t keep up.”

“Wait, we’ve known each other that long?” Dean asked, the world going swimmy and weird around the edges all of a sudden.

“Yeah, we have. Dean-hey, you okay?” Sam asked, reaching out to catch Dean.

This-this wasn’t swooning, this was fainting maybe? Dean thought as he fell forward into Sam’s arms. His last concrete thought was home, Sam really smells like home, my home. Mine.

****

Dean woke up in a car. His cheek was pressed up against the vinyl seat and he could see it was a vintage model from the looks of the steering wheel and dashboard. At least Sam had a cool car. Or maybe it was his? He could see through the windshield that it was pretty dark outside, but not all the way gone over into night.

I’m Dean, he told himself, me that’s me, I’m Dean. But where’s Sam? What a relief to remember at least that, which was a whole lot better than the last time he’d woken up, he reminded himself.

Dean closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on what he knew or remembered. He found that there still wasn’t much inside himself, but there was something about a new plan, and waiting in the car while Sam hunted a thing that ate memories. This must be the car, he must be waiting and he had apparently fallen asleep while waiting for Sam. That must mean that Sam had been gone a long time, at least enough time for him to conk out.

He looked out the car windows again, it was almost past dusk, and night was coming on fast. The two lane road ahead and behind was empty, no cars, lights or people, but there was a vague shape in the distance, a possible house. The shape of it was vaguely familiar from that first memory he’d had, the burning hair place, where the thing was that they were hunting-Sam was hunting. Dean’s hand was on the car handle door before he could stop himself.

Sam-he was in there. He was hunting the thing alone-Dean had to go, had to help Sam. He smelled it then, there was a sticky greenish substance on his hands and on his neck. It had to be the potion that Sam had been mixing up in the motel room. He must have put it on him, just in case. Dean felt safer somehow, even though it was sticky and a little smelly, like a pesto smell but with less basil, maybe some type of mint?

He walked towards the house shape which he could now see was definitely a big house through the sparse trees. As he drew nearer, Dean could see that there was a light inside the place on the first floor, bobbing around like someone was holding a flashlight while they were running. Hopefully it was Sam on his way back out. There was a scream and the light went out as the sound of the scream faded. Dean ran forward with a lurch of cold fear flashing through his belly, he pounded through the underbrush and small trees, not caring if he got scratched up, nothing could stop him from getting to Sam.

He reached the house’s gravel driveway and slowed his steps, it was an old Victorian kind of place, decrepit and falling apart, all the windows blank and dark like so many eyes watching. He carefully stepped in through the back door and flinched as it squeaked and groaned. It was utterly silent inside, no indication of anyone or anything moving. Dean walked forward, heel toe-ing it as he instinctively avoided the joins of the floorboards.

A scuffle and a low groan down the hall got him moving faster, no longer worrying about the sounds he was making. It was so dark in here where there weren’t any windows, he patted his pockets and found a small flashlight, Sam must have equipped him. That probably meant he’d expected Dean to do just this, come in after him. He felt something heavier in his other pocket and pulled out a gleaming pearl-handed gun. The gun felt very comfortable in his right hand, well-balanced and vaguely familiar.

There was a sudden louder scuffling movement at the end of the hall, like someone struggling to get up, they eventually did, holding onto the wall and the doorknob. The figure was very tall, and had a lot of hair, it had to be Sam. Right?

“Sam?” Dean whispered, bringing the light up to shine in the figure’s direction.

The person’s head whipped around in his direction and Sam hissed at him, “Get back to the car, now.”

Dean could see the shine of blood on Sam’s temple, there was a long trail of it down his jaw. Sam had been knocked out by the thing. Dean sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere.

Sam turned back towards the door and opened it slowly, Dean could smell a wave of something familiar from his spot at the other end of the hall, that sick burning hair smell from his hazy memory of this place. “Sammy, don’t go in there,” Dean whispered.

Sam waved him off and stepped inside, the only light in that room was a candle and the glow of it glinted off the giant silvery knife or maybe short sword that Sam held. Still using his flashlight as he caught up, Dean could see that there was something on the blade that looked like blood. Sam had been busy apparently.

Dean wondered again for a moment if he was safe with Sam, there seemed to be an awful lot of weapons involved in their relationship. But Sam had said that they were hunters, of non-human things, whatever that meant and here Dean was holding an actual, for-real gun in his own hand. He watched as Sam’s shoulders bunched up as he raised his weapon, fascinated and a little turned on actually to see the muscles in Sam’s back and shoulders move. Sam was built, and as he jumped towards the thing he was attacking, all Dean could focus on was the perfect shape of Sam’s ass, it really was a thing of beauty.

Focus, Dean, focus, he chided himself.

Then came a sound that could only be Sam’s knife cutting through flesh of some kind, followed by a thump of something heavy hitting the floor and rolling out to rest at the edge of the door like some demented Halloween doorstop.

“Dean? You okay?” Sam asked, stepping around what must have been the genie thing’s head. It was definitely close to humanoid, with intricate blue tattoos all over the skin. The eyes were huge and near black.

Before Dean could answer Sam’s question, he smelled that burning hair smell, even more strongly, and heard something rushing towards his back. Before he could turn and fire his gun, he was enveloped in a crushing hug from behind. Someone had grabbed him-no something, because it wasn’t quite solid like a person, but it was immensely strong. Dean struggled in the thing’s grip, trying to get away, to turn his gun on it, something anything. He was desperate as the thing loudly hissed in his ear.

“Thissss issss who you wisssshed forrrr, thissss muuuuurderer? Thissss one who kiiiiled my maaaate?”

“Let him go,” Sam ordered, taking several careful and measured steps towards them.

“I will taaaake the resssst of his memories, and youuu’ll have nothhhhing left of your loverrrr,” the thing growled through its inhuman lips, taunting Sam.

“I said, let him go,” Sam said, even closer now, brandishing the very large and bloody knife.

The thing’s grip tightened on Dean and he felt himself begin to keen and beg, even though he wanted to be able to stay silent. “Sammy, just go, please. I’ll do anything, I just want to keep him safe, don’t hurt him, please.”

“That’ssss riiiight beg for him, sssshow him whaaat you wisssshed for, what you ssssold to me,” the thing growled in its awful hissing garble.

It hadn’t noticed how close Sam was, Dean could feel the thing’s surprise as it tensed up all over, its grip going from impossibly strong to making Dean gasp for breath as it compressed his chest so that he couldn’t take a single breath. Then came a whoosh of the knife slicing through the air and a thwacking sound just next to his ear. The thing abruptly let go of him, falling in a heap behind him. Sam stood before him, panting from the exertion of chopping another genie head off or maybe from the fear of confronting the two genies. Dean panted too, well no, he gasped in deep breaths after being held by that thing.

Dean searched his face, as he stepped closer, he searched Sam’s face, familiar and dear and saw that it was the fear of losing him that was freaking Sam out. “I’m okay, Sammy.” But he wasn’t okay, not at all. The confrontation with near death was too much, he could feel himself falling, everything going grey again, the only thing in color was Sam, always Sam.

“Dean?” Sam asked, catching him again as he swooned forward.

****

Dean woke up in the motel room again, this time, his boots and jacket were off, actually he was down to boxers and a t-shirt, and he was tucked in the bed, all warm and safe like nothing had happened. He could hear the shower running, it made him smile, Sam was here. He got out from under the covers, took off his shirt and boxers and pushed the cracked open door open. Sam didn’t notice, his head was under the stream of water, washing out the shampoo, the smell of which hit Dean with a wave of the familiar. This was the smell, the one that meant home. Just the scent of it reminded him that Sam had always used this shampoo, for what seemed like forever. He pulled the curtain aside enough to slip in behind Sam.

****
To Part 2