Fic: Echo Limits (Sam/Dean, R) Part 2 of 2
Back to Part 1
(((*0*))))
The more he looked at them over the next week, the scars on Sam’s arms (that he didn’t remember getting) the more they looked like they were from a wildcat or something. He struggled to place where he’d even gotten them from, and eventually made up a story to explain it to himself. He daydreamed about Dean’s hands on him as he’d carefully and oh so tenderly bandaged him up, the softness of his touch contrasting with the gun calluses he always obsessed over. It was a sort of daydream based in Sam’s lived reality. And to fill in the blanks for himself the rest of the way, he kinda sorta recalled that they’d encountered some beast with long claws earlier that summer while hunting with their dad. Out in the forest wilds near the town they’re stuck in now. Was that how they got stuck here in this little town? Was it because of Sam getting hurt? He didn’t remember and it bugged him. Instead he focused on the scars, because they were there, right in front of his eyes. Sam hated the scars, and wore long sleeved shirts even though it was blazing hot when they went back to school the next day like nothing had happened. He knew that the other kids were talking about them when they were visible like in PE class. A couple of his new friends tried asking him about them, but Sam put them off with a joke about fighting off a wildcat in his suburban backyard.
Dean wasn’t in school most of that week, even though he’d drive them in every morning. Sam looked for him all the usual places and would give up. He tried to act normal with his “friends” but everything was all weird now. Between the scars and the Dean thing, Sam was off balance. The wrongness between them all went back to that night, the one they couldn’t remember.
(((*0*))))
Sam forced the issue that night when Dean stumbled in well after midnight. He could barely walk he was so drunk. And the asshole had driven.
“Why the hell are you driving when you’re blitzed like this!” Sam shouted at his brother.
Dean stopped trying to wrestle his leather coat off and gaped at him, mouth clacking open and closed like a damn fish. He rolled his eyes and snorted. “‘m not that drunk, ssee I c’n walk a sstraight line.”
Dean attempted to walk along the line of one of the seams in the crappy linoleum floor, he only made it a few steps before losing his balance and crashing into the kitchen table. Sam caught him before he hit the floor and pushed him into one of the chairs. His hands were on Dean’s shoulders, the flannel of his shirt warm and soft. The leather coat was pushed down around Dean’s elbows, trapping him.
He looked up at him in the harsh yellow light of the kitchen, eyes swimming with whisky and pain. “Couldn’t forget, couldn’t remember, can’t take it, Sammy.”
Sam’s hands slid down Dean’s shoulders to his back and he leaned down for a hug. He pressed his face into Dean’s neck and spoke into his skin, his lips moving against the saltiness of him. “It’s okay, Dean. I’ve got you.”
Dean’s arms wrapped around him, pulling him down so that Sam had no choice but to straddle his lap. He went willingly, he couldn’t fight it, his brother needed him. Dean held onto him so tight, arms wrapped around his ribcage tight as a vice. “Need you, Sammy.”
“You’ve got me, Dean,” whispered into Dean’s ear, lips brushing against the delicate shell.
Dean pushed him away, just enough to be able to crash their lips together. He was too drunk to finesse it, but Sam didn’t care. He took whatever Dean was willing to give him. He could feel how hard Dean was as he ground against his lap, pressing himself into him, searching for release. Dean’s hands fell to his hips, pulling him in, tighter, rougher. “God, damn, little brother, so damn hot like this.”
“Want it, Dean. Want you,” Sam panted, stuffing down the regret he should be feeling, letting himself have this, at least this once that he’d remember.
Dean groaned at his words, his hips thrusting up hard and fast into Sam. His grip on Sam’s hips went bruise-tight and his entire body stiffened against Sam as he came. It made Sam feel this wild thrum of success, of finally getting what he wanted, he couldn’t regret this, he kissed Dean hard and wild, pouring his scream into his brother’s mouth as he came.
Sam lost track then, but they ended up in Dean’s bed, neither of them wearing much, but wrapped around one another under the blankets. He’d never felt so safe and sure of what came next. The scars on his arms ached and blazed at him. Dean’s finger traced along them back and forth.
“Wish we could remember, Sammy.”
“Maybe it doesn’t matter after all, not when I’m finally here, where I’m supposed to be,” Sam said.
“Where?”
“With you, in your bed,” Sam said.
“What if it’s a curse or something making us do this?” Dean asked, muddled and sleepy.
“I wanted this before that night, so it’s not that, not for me,” Sam said.
“Same here,” Dean mumbled, pulling him in closer.
Sam woke up all the way when Dean said that, his mind racing to put it into context. He couldn’t sleep and felt restless so he edged his way out of Dean’s hold and grabbed some clothes. He sat on their three legged saggy couch and watched the tv with the sound off. His eyes were unfocused and his mind wandered with all the possibilities of what they could be, what Dean would do in the morning, all of it a swirl of What-Ifs that kept him up for hours.
“Sam, what are you doing sleeping out here?” Dad asked, trying to scoop him up off the couch, but doing something weird with his arms.
Sam struggled out of his father’s hold and tried to stand up on his own. Dad wasn’t supposed to be back yet, last they’d heard from him, it was going to be ‘at least two weeks’ which usually meant a month. “What’re you doing here? Thought it was at least two weeks,” Sam mumbled, scrubbing a fist at his eyes.
“Well, sorry to disappoint, hunt finished up sooner than I thought,” Dad said, his hands grabbed at Sam’s wrists and tugged his forearms into the light of the tv. “What the fuck happened here?”
“You know, the hunt, in the forest with the thing with the big claws. Isn’t it why we’re stuck here?”
Dad just grimaced and shook his head a little. “Go back to bed, Sam. We’ll talk in the morning.”
“‘k, Dad. G’night,” Sam said, grumbling his way back to their room.
Dean was still on his side, but now his arms were wrapped around his second pillow like he was missing holding someone. Me, that’d be me he’s missing, Sam thought as he fell asleep. But now that’s all over, now that Dad’s back.
(((*0*))))
In the morning, Sam woke to the sounds of an epic fight. It sounded like furniture was being broken, and there was a crashing of glass. He jumped up, saw Dean’s bed was empty and ran out of their room.
“You need to stop, Dad, c’mon!” Dean yelled from the corner of the kitchen, down on the floor in a sprawl amidst broken glasses, weakly holding his arms up to protect his face. Dad stood over him with an empty whisky bottle clenched in his fist. His face was a contorted mask of red anger, he barely even looked like himself. Sam hadn’t seen him like this in a very long time. Not since the night Dean had stolen the Impala and not come home until two in the morning.
“Dad, please!” Dean begged, as the hand with the whisky bottle descended. It broke into shards all around Dean, some of them in his arms, the rest landing in his hair and lap. “You’re not him, get the fuck out of here!”
Dad roared something unintelligible back at Dean and staggered out the front door. It slammed behind him and the house was silent except for Dean’s pained grunts.
Sam knelt next to him and helped him pull the biggest pieces of glass out of his arm. It was bleeding a lot, but the cuts weren’t too big. “You might need stitches on a couple of these. What happened with Dad?”
“It wasn’t him, Sam. That wasn’t Dad,” Dean said, the whisky on his breath reminded Sam of how drunk his brother had been just a few hours ago. Back when they’d been making out and grinding right here in this room.
“Did he figure it out, about us, or was he mad about something else?” Sam asked, guessing that was what the fight was about.
“No, he or it, whatever, was mad about the scars on your arms,” Dean said, struggling to stand. Sam got an arm around Dean’s waist and tried to assist him. They ended up pressed together, Sam leaning full-body against Dean. Sam held him tightly, glad that he hadn’t been even more injured.
Dean took a deep breath and blew it all out, rough and hiccupy. “Sammy, it was mad that you still had them, those scars. It said that you beat him, that was why they were there. It said something about you taking them from him, because you killed his mate, maybe that’s what it said. I think it was talking about the night we can’t remember.”
“How did it look so much like Dad though?”
“Shapeshifter or something like it, I’m guessing,” Dean said.
“Me…I killed someone…uh, something?” Sam asked in a near-stammer. He’d only killed a chupacabra and helped with a swamp monster thing once. Nothing humanoid or even close yet. “Is it going to come back?” He looked down at his arms and tried to picture it, the act of killing something. He couldn’t even imagine himself doing that. Then he noticed-the scars were gone.
“The scars, look, Dean, they’re gone,” Sam said, pressing himself up from Dean’s body and holding them out in the light.
Dean’s fingers traced the soft skin of Sam’s forearms, bare and unmarked. Sam shivered at the feeling of Dean’s delicate touch.
“Maybe it took them back?” Sam asked.
“It was saying something about you mating, the second time, that the marks would be gone,” Dean said in an embarrassed mumble.
“Was that our second time…uh, mating last night? That means, the first was-“ Sam trailed off.
“Yeah, the night we can’t remember, guess so. I’m so sorry, Sammy,” Dean said, mumbling into his own chest.
Sam reached out and tipped Dean’s chin up so he could see his eyes. “Don’t be, I’m only sorry we can’t remember it.” He leaned down and kissed Dean, soft and careful, avoiding his swelling lip from where the Dad-thing had punched him. “Let’s go get you stitched up, then we’ll call Dad, the real one.”
(((*0*))))
It took a while to get Dean cleaned and stitched up. Dad hadn’t answered his phone (of course), so they’d left a message. Sam tucked him back in his bed and went to clean up the broken glass in the kitchen. All they needed was to step on it in the morning. He was sweeping the last bit of the damage into the dustpan when the front door opened, slamming into the wall.
It was Dad. Maybe.
The light from the kitchen hit his face strangely, and now that he wasn’t incensed, Sam could see that it wasn’t really his Dad. A close facsimile, sure, but not the real fire-breathing John Fucking Winchester. “You killer,” the thing said, lips flapping more than they should be around the two words. The tongue lolled out one side, licking at the lips slowly.
“I…I’m sorry, I don’t remember,” Sam said.
“I made it that way, since you took her from me,” the thing said, turning its forearms to the light so Sam could see they were unmarked.
“What do you want?” Sam asked.
The thing took two shambling steps towards Sam and he backed up as far as he could go into the counter. He was still holding the broom handle, so he gripped it tightly with both hands and swung for the fences, just like Dean had taught him. It hadn’t expected anything like that, because it barely tried to move out of the way, the blow landed right along where its ear should be, if it was human. Blood flew as the skin cracked and began to peel away in chunks from the spot where Sam had hit him…it.
A silver knife arced through the air past Sam’s head and landed with a thud in the center of its chest. Dean stepped up beside Sam, bumping their hips together. The thing screamed and guttered as its face fell apart, more chunks splatting and dropping all around it. The thing’s hands wrapped around the knife, like it was trying to take it out, but the rest of it just disintegrated into a clotted mess on the linoleum.
“You okay, Sammy?” Dean asked, slipping an arm around Sam’s waist, tugging him closer.
Sam stared at the remains of the thing and shook all over. “I’ll get the mop.”
Dean laughed and let him go, “Guess that’s a yes then, good. The thing say anything before it fell apart?”
Sam turned to face him, holding the mop handle. “It said I was a killer, and that it made me not remember because I took her from him. Showed me its arms like it was supposed to mean something to me.”
“That’s when you whacked him with the broom, huh?”
“Yeah, once I figured out it really wasn’t Dad, seemed like the right thing to do.”
They cleaned up the mess together and took the completely full garbage bags out to the trash. They rolled the carts down the driveway out to the curb.
“We’re lucky its trash day tomorrow,” Dean said, slamming the lid. He slipped an arm around Sam’s waist as they walked back towards the house. He leaned down and kissed him, right there on their front step, Sam pressing himself all along his brother, melding them together into one. The way they were supposed to be.
A rumble of a familiar truck engine cut through the pre-dawn stillness. Dean pulled away and stepped back with a stumble. He looked away and wouldn’t meet Sam’s eyes as the headlights washed over them. Sam clenched his hands tighter than tight behind his back, digging his nails into his palms, hoping they’d bleed. This was going to be bad.
Dad slammed his way out of the truck and stalked over. “Got your message, you guys okay?”
“Yeah, it came back. Sammy and I, we just took it out.” Dean pointed at the trash can waiting at the curb for pickup in an hour or so.
“Did it say anything to you?” Dad asked.
“It said I killed its mate,” Sam said.
Dad’s eyes shot up, staying lodged there searching Sam’s face for too long. His eyes narrowed and he looked back and forth between them. “Show me your arms, Sammy,” he ordered.
“It’s Sam,” Sam said with what he hoped was his usual sneer. He lifted up the sleeves of his hoodie and flashed them at their dad. How would he know about the arm scars thing, what could he know?
Dad shook his head and coughed as he smiled. “Okay then, you guys want to go get some breakfast? I’m buying.”
“Yeah, I could use some pancakes, let me get my coat from inside,” Dean said, ducking in the front door.
Sam followed him, bumping into his brother’s back at their bedroom door. “What?”
Dean was staring at his rumpled bed, where they’d been sleeping not that long ago. “We can’t let him know, he’d kill me.”
“I know that, Dean, I’m not stupid,” Sam hissed.
Dean turned and looked at him, serious as the proverbial heart-attack. “I know, Sammy. But we have to act like nothing’s changed, like nothing happened or he’ll know.”
“Operation forget-about-it, got it,” Sam said.
Dean was shrugging into his leather coat and his hand jetted out to grasp Sam’s wrist, tugging him into his body. Sam breathed him in, the leather and day-old whisky smell a tonic to his sagging heart. “I’ll never forget, Sammy, not ever.”
Sam wanted to melt into him then and there and never come apart again. But Dad tapped the horn of his truck which they could hear rumbling in the driveway.
“C’mon, before he wakes up the whole damn neighborhood,” Dean said.
((*0*))))
They struggled through the next few days, Dad watching them but not watching them much too closely. Sam was glad to go back to school and not have to wear long sleeves. His friends and school clubs were a good distraction to what was raging inside of him. He still looked for opportunities to get Dean alone so they could talk through all of this stuff. But his brother was avoiding him again, and it made sense to stay apart as much as they could, hopefully throw Dad off the scent.
Were they just going to go back to normal, pretend it didn’t happen? Dean had said he’d never forget, but what did that really mean. Sam wanted to at least deal with what they’d done. What the thing had made them forget. Honestly he wanted to pursue things between them further. Sam couldn’t help but seethe because Dean wouldn’t deal with it right away. It seemed like he was waiting for their Dad to leave again. He probably couldn’t bring himself to go there and do that with Sam when their father was around.
Finally they came home to a note from Dad and an empty house. A sudden burst of relief flowed through Sam. He turned towards Dean, hoping, expecting…something.
“I can’t-not until we know he’s really gone,” Dean said. “It’d be just like him to pretend to leave.”
“Like he does on hunts sometimes, yeah I guess,” Sam said, trying to shrug it off, not let it show how hurt he was.
“I’m not forgetting though, Sammy. I told you I would never, remember?”
Sam nodded, letting his bangs flop into his eyes to hide the sudden tears. He hated being so adolescently emotional all the time. Dean stepped forward and gathered him up into his arms.
“It’s gonna be okay, we’ll figure it out,” Dean said, lips moving against the top of Sam’s head.
Sam burrowed his face into Dean’s shirt, rubbing the soft flannel against his burning cheeks. “Even if it’s just this, it’s enough.”
Dean pulled back from their embrace and looked at him, nodding slow and thoughtful. “Yeah, it’ll have to be.”
“Think we’ll ever remember that night?” Sam asked as they started making dinner for themselves.
“I don’t think so, no,” Dean said, hand tightening on the handle of the knife he was chopping an onion with.
“Oh,” Sam said, huffing in a breath to stop himself from tearing up.
Dean’s hand landed warm and heavy in the center of his back. “I’d rather we make a new memory with just us, and not some weird shapeshifter things in there too.”
Sam pressed back into Dean’s hand, relishing the hot feeling radiating out from where his brother touched him. He nodded, agreeing with every part of himself. “It’ll happen,” Sam said, almost too quiet for Dean to hear.
(((*0*))))
The End
(((*0*))))
The more he looked at them over the next week, the scars on Sam’s arms (that he didn’t remember getting) the more they looked like they were from a wildcat or something. He struggled to place where he’d even gotten them from, and eventually made up a story to explain it to himself. He daydreamed about Dean’s hands on him as he’d carefully and oh so tenderly bandaged him up, the softness of his touch contrasting with the gun calluses he always obsessed over. It was a sort of daydream based in Sam’s lived reality. And to fill in the blanks for himself the rest of the way, he kinda sorta recalled that they’d encountered some beast with long claws earlier that summer while hunting with their dad. Out in the forest wilds near the town they’re stuck in now. Was that how they got stuck here in this little town? Was it because of Sam getting hurt? He didn’t remember and it bugged him. Instead he focused on the scars, because they were there, right in front of his eyes. Sam hated the scars, and wore long sleeved shirts even though it was blazing hot when they went back to school the next day like nothing had happened. He knew that the other kids were talking about them when they were visible like in PE class. A couple of his new friends tried asking him about them, but Sam put them off with a joke about fighting off a wildcat in his suburban backyard.
Dean wasn’t in school most of that week, even though he’d drive them in every morning. Sam looked for him all the usual places and would give up. He tried to act normal with his “friends” but everything was all weird now. Between the scars and the Dean thing, Sam was off balance. The wrongness between them all went back to that night, the one they couldn’t remember.
(((*0*))))
Sam forced the issue that night when Dean stumbled in well after midnight. He could barely walk he was so drunk. And the asshole had driven.
“Why the hell are you driving when you’re blitzed like this!” Sam shouted at his brother.
Dean stopped trying to wrestle his leather coat off and gaped at him, mouth clacking open and closed like a damn fish. He rolled his eyes and snorted. “‘m not that drunk, ssee I c’n walk a sstraight line.”
Dean attempted to walk along the line of one of the seams in the crappy linoleum floor, he only made it a few steps before losing his balance and crashing into the kitchen table. Sam caught him before he hit the floor and pushed him into one of the chairs. His hands were on Dean’s shoulders, the flannel of his shirt warm and soft. The leather coat was pushed down around Dean’s elbows, trapping him.
He looked up at him in the harsh yellow light of the kitchen, eyes swimming with whisky and pain. “Couldn’t forget, couldn’t remember, can’t take it, Sammy.”
Sam’s hands slid down Dean’s shoulders to his back and he leaned down for a hug. He pressed his face into Dean’s neck and spoke into his skin, his lips moving against the saltiness of him. “It’s okay, Dean. I’ve got you.”
Dean’s arms wrapped around him, pulling him down so that Sam had no choice but to straddle his lap. He went willingly, he couldn’t fight it, his brother needed him. Dean held onto him so tight, arms wrapped around his ribcage tight as a vice. “Need you, Sammy.”
“You’ve got me, Dean,” whispered into Dean’s ear, lips brushing against the delicate shell.
Dean pushed him away, just enough to be able to crash their lips together. He was too drunk to finesse it, but Sam didn’t care. He took whatever Dean was willing to give him. He could feel how hard Dean was as he ground against his lap, pressing himself into him, searching for release. Dean’s hands fell to his hips, pulling him in, tighter, rougher. “God, damn, little brother, so damn hot like this.”
“Want it, Dean. Want you,” Sam panted, stuffing down the regret he should be feeling, letting himself have this, at least this once that he’d remember.
Dean groaned at his words, his hips thrusting up hard and fast into Sam. His grip on Sam’s hips went bruise-tight and his entire body stiffened against Sam as he came. It made Sam feel this wild thrum of success, of finally getting what he wanted, he couldn’t regret this, he kissed Dean hard and wild, pouring his scream into his brother’s mouth as he came.
Sam lost track then, but they ended up in Dean’s bed, neither of them wearing much, but wrapped around one another under the blankets. He’d never felt so safe and sure of what came next. The scars on his arms ached and blazed at him. Dean’s finger traced along them back and forth.
“Wish we could remember, Sammy.”
“Maybe it doesn’t matter after all, not when I’m finally here, where I’m supposed to be,” Sam said.
“Where?”
“With you, in your bed,” Sam said.
“What if it’s a curse or something making us do this?” Dean asked, muddled and sleepy.
“I wanted this before that night, so it’s not that, not for me,” Sam said.
“Same here,” Dean mumbled, pulling him in closer.
Sam woke up all the way when Dean said that, his mind racing to put it into context. He couldn’t sleep and felt restless so he edged his way out of Dean’s hold and grabbed some clothes. He sat on their three legged saggy couch and watched the tv with the sound off. His eyes were unfocused and his mind wandered with all the possibilities of what they could be, what Dean would do in the morning, all of it a swirl of What-Ifs that kept him up for hours.
“Sam, what are you doing sleeping out here?” Dad asked, trying to scoop him up off the couch, but doing something weird with his arms.
Sam struggled out of his father’s hold and tried to stand up on his own. Dad wasn’t supposed to be back yet, last they’d heard from him, it was going to be ‘at least two weeks’ which usually meant a month. “What’re you doing here? Thought it was at least two weeks,” Sam mumbled, scrubbing a fist at his eyes.
“Well, sorry to disappoint, hunt finished up sooner than I thought,” Dad said, his hands grabbed at Sam’s wrists and tugged his forearms into the light of the tv. “What the fuck happened here?”
“You know, the hunt, in the forest with the thing with the big claws. Isn’t it why we’re stuck here?”
Dad just grimaced and shook his head a little. “Go back to bed, Sam. We’ll talk in the morning.”
“‘k, Dad. G’night,” Sam said, grumbling his way back to their room.
Dean was still on his side, but now his arms were wrapped around his second pillow like he was missing holding someone. Me, that’d be me he’s missing, Sam thought as he fell asleep. But now that’s all over, now that Dad’s back.
(((*0*))))
In the morning, Sam woke to the sounds of an epic fight. It sounded like furniture was being broken, and there was a crashing of glass. He jumped up, saw Dean’s bed was empty and ran out of their room.
“You need to stop, Dad, c’mon!” Dean yelled from the corner of the kitchen, down on the floor in a sprawl amidst broken glasses, weakly holding his arms up to protect his face. Dad stood over him with an empty whisky bottle clenched in his fist. His face was a contorted mask of red anger, he barely even looked like himself. Sam hadn’t seen him like this in a very long time. Not since the night Dean had stolen the Impala and not come home until two in the morning.
“Dad, please!” Dean begged, as the hand with the whisky bottle descended. It broke into shards all around Dean, some of them in his arms, the rest landing in his hair and lap. “You’re not him, get the fuck out of here!”
Dad roared something unintelligible back at Dean and staggered out the front door. It slammed behind him and the house was silent except for Dean’s pained grunts.
Sam knelt next to him and helped him pull the biggest pieces of glass out of his arm. It was bleeding a lot, but the cuts weren’t too big. “You might need stitches on a couple of these. What happened with Dad?”
“It wasn’t him, Sam. That wasn’t Dad,” Dean said, the whisky on his breath reminded Sam of how drunk his brother had been just a few hours ago. Back when they’d been making out and grinding right here in this room.
“Did he figure it out, about us, or was he mad about something else?” Sam asked, guessing that was what the fight was about.
“No, he or it, whatever, was mad about the scars on your arms,” Dean said, struggling to stand. Sam got an arm around Dean’s waist and tried to assist him. They ended up pressed together, Sam leaning full-body against Dean. Sam held him tightly, glad that he hadn’t been even more injured.
Dean took a deep breath and blew it all out, rough and hiccupy. “Sammy, it was mad that you still had them, those scars. It said that you beat him, that was why they were there. It said something about you taking them from him, because you killed his mate, maybe that’s what it said. I think it was talking about the night we can’t remember.”
“How did it look so much like Dad though?”
“Shapeshifter or something like it, I’m guessing,” Dean said.
“Me…I killed someone…uh, something?” Sam asked in a near-stammer. He’d only killed a chupacabra and helped with a swamp monster thing once. Nothing humanoid or even close yet. “Is it going to come back?” He looked down at his arms and tried to picture it, the act of killing something. He couldn’t even imagine himself doing that. Then he noticed-the scars were gone.
“The scars, look, Dean, they’re gone,” Sam said, pressing himself up from Dean’s body and holding them out in the light.
Dean’s fingers traced the soft skin of Sam’s forearms, bare and unmarked. Sam shivered at the feeling of Dean’s delicate touch.
“Maybe it took them back?” Sam asked.
“It was saying something about you mating, the second time, that the marks would be gone,” Dean said in an embarrassed mumble.
“Was that our second time…uh, mating last night? That means, the first was-“ Sam trailed off.
“Yeah, the night we can’t remember, guess so. I’m so sorry, Sammy,” Dean said, mumbling into his own chest.
Sam reached out and tipped Dean’s chin up so he could see his eyes. “Don’t be, I’m only sorry we can’t remember it.” He leaned down and kissed Dean, soft and careful, avoiding his swelling lip from where the Dad-thing had punched him. “Let’s go get you stitched up, then we’ll call Dad, the real one.”
(((*0*))))
It took a while to get Dean cleaned and stitched up. Dad hadn’t answered his phone (of course), so they’d left a message. Sam tucked him back in his bed and went to clean up the broken glass in the kitchen. All they needed was to step on it in the morning. He was sweeping the last bit of the damage into the dustpan when the front door opened, slamming into the wall.
It was Dad. Maybe.
The light from the kitchen hit his face strangely, and now that he wasn’t incensed, Sam could see that it wasn’t really his Dad. A close facsimile, sure, but not the real fire-breathing John Fucking Winchester. “You killer,” the thing said, lips flapping more than they should be around the two words. The tongue lolled out one side, licking at the lips slowly.
“I…I’m sorry, I don’t remember,” Sam said.
“I made it that way, since you took her from me,” the thing said, turning its forearms to the light so Sam could see they were unmarked.
“What do you want?” Sam asked.
The thing took two shambling steps towards Sam and he backed up as far as he could go into the counter. He was still holding the broom handle, so he gripped it tightly with both hands and swung for the fences, just like Dean had taught him. It hadn’t expected anything like that, because it barely tried to move out of the way, the blow landed right along where its ear should be, if it was human. Blood flew as the skin cracked and began to peel away in chunks from the spot where Sam had hit him…it.
A silver knife arced through the air past Sam’s head and landed with a thud in the center of its chest. Dean stepped up beside Sam, bumping their hips together. The thing screamed and guttered as its face fell apart, more chunks splatting and dropping all around it. The thing’s hands wrapped around the knife, like it was trying to take it out, but the rest of it just disintegrated into a clotted mess on the linoleum.
“You okay, Sammy?” Dean asked, slipping an arm around Sam’s waist, tugging him closer.
Sam stared at the remains of the thing and shook all over. “I’ll get the mop.”
Dean laughed and let him go, “Guess that’s a yes then, good. The thing say anything before it fell apart?”
Sam turned to face him, holding the mop handle. “It said I was a killer, and that it made me not remember because I took her from him. Showed me its arms like it was supposed to mean something to me.”
“That’s when you whacked him with the broom, huh?”
“Yeah, once I figured out it really wasn’t Dad, seemed like the right thing to do.”
They cleaned up the mess together and took the completely full garbage bags out to the trash. They rolled the carts down the driveway out to the curb.
“We’re lucky its trash day tomorrow,” Dean said, slamming the lid. He slipped an arm around Sam’s waist as they walked back towards the house. He leaned down and kissed him, right there on their front step, Sam pressing himself all along his brother, melding them together into one. The way they were supposed to be.
A rumble of a familiar truck engine cut through the pre-dawn stillness. Dean pulled away and stepped back with a stumble. He looked away and wouldn’t meet Sam’s eyes as the headlights washed over them. Sam clenched his hands tighter than tight behind his back, digging his nails into his palms, hoping they’d bleed. This was going to be bad.
Dad slammed his way out of the truck and stalked over. “Got your message, you guys okay?”
“Yeah, it came back. Sammy and I, we just took it out.” Dean pointed at the trash can waiting at the curb for pickup in an hour or so.
“Did it say anything to you?” Dad asked.
“It said I killed its mate,” Sam said.
Dad’s eyes shot up, staying lodged there searching Sam’s face for too long. His eyes narrowed and he looked back and forth between them. “Show me your arms, Sammy,” he ordered.
“It’s Sam,” Sam said with what he hoped was his usual sneer. He lifted up the sleeves of his hoodie and flashed them at their dad. How would he know about the arm scars thing, what could he know?
Dad shook his head and coughed as he smiled. “Okay then, you guys want to go get some breakfast? I’m buying.”
“Yeah, I could use some pancakes, let me get my coat from inside,” Dean said, ducking in the front door.
Sam followed him, bumping into his brother’s back at their bedroom door. “What?”
Dean was staring at his rumpled bed, where they’d been sleeping not that long ago. “We can’t let him know, he’d kill me.”
“I know that, Dean, I’m not stupid,” Sam hissed.
Dean turned and looked at him, serious as the proverbial heart-attack. “I know, Sammy. But we have to act like nothing’s changed, like nothing happened or he’ll know.”
“Operation forget-about-it, got it,” Sam said.
Dean was shrugging into his leather coat and his hand jetted out to grasp Sam’s wrist, tugging him into his body. Sam breathed him in, the leather and day-old whisky smell a tonic to his sagging heart. “I’ll never forget, Sammy, not ever.”
Sam wanted to melt into him then and there and never come apart again. But Dad tapped the horn of his truck which they could hear rumbling in the driveway.
“C’mon, before he wakes up the whole damn neighborhood,” Dean said.
((*0*))))
They struggled through the next few days, Dad watching them but not watching them much too closely. Sam was glad to go back to school and not have to wear long sleeves. His friends and school clubs were a good distraction to what was raging inside of him. He still looked for opportunities to get Dean alone so they could talk through all of this stuff. But his brother was avoiding him again, and it made sense to stay apart as much as they could, hopefully throw Dad off the scent.
Were they just going to go back to normal, pretend it didn’t happen? Dean had said he’d never forget, but what did that really mean. Sam wanted to at least deal with what they’d done. What the thing had made them forget. Honestly he wanted to pursue things between them further. Sam couldn’t help but seethe because Dean wouldn’t deal with it right away. It seemed like he was waiting for their Dad to leave again. He probably couldn’t bring himself to go there and do that with Sam when their father was around.
Finally they came home to a note from Dad and an empty house. A sudden burst of relief flowed through Sam. He turned towards Dean, hoping, expecting…something.
“I can’t-not until we know he’s really gone,” Dean said. “It’d be just like him to pretend to leave.”
“Like he does on hunts sometimes, yeah I guess,” Sam said, trying to shrug it off, not let it show how hurt he was.
“I’m not forgetting though, Sammy. I told you I would never, remember?”
Sam nodded, letting his bangs flop into his eyes to hide the sudden tears. He hated being so adolescently emotional all the time. Dean stepped forward and gathered him up into his arms.
“It’s gonna be okay, we’ll figure it out,” Dean said, lips moving against the top of Sam’s head.
Sam burrowed his face into Dean’s shirt, rubbing the soft flannel against his burning cheeks. “Even if it’s just this, it’s enough.”
Dean pulled back from their embrace and looked at him, nodding slow and thoughtful. “Yeah, it’ll have to be.”
“Think we’ll ever remember that night?” Sam asked as they started making dinner for themselves.
“I don’t think so, no,” Dean said, hand tightening on the handle of the knife he was chopping an onion with.
“Oh,” Sam said, huffing in a breath to stop himself from tearing up.
Dean’s hand landed warm and heavy in the center of his back. “I’d rather we make a new memory with just us, and not some weird shapeshifter things in there too.”
Sam pressed back into Dean’s hand, relishing the hot feeling radiating out from where his brother touched him. He nodded, agreeing with every part of himself. “It’ll happen,” Sam said, almost too quiet for Dean to hear.
(((*0*))))
The End