SPN Fic: Smoke Drifting By - Chapter 5
See masterpost for summary and further information.
Chapter 5
If there was a list of the most shocking things to learn about the guy one just slept with, this had to pretty much at the top of it. Dean had to sit down once the words sank in. Sam didn’t, but only because he was already sitting. He was trembling harder than before and didn’t look at anyone.
“Bullshit,” Dean finally said. He was suddenly cold, too aware that he still wasn’t wearing a shirt. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, but do you really think any of us is gonna buy that? Brothers my ass. Don’t you think there’d be some sort… some sort of safety in our brains that would prevent something like that?”
“He’s right,” Sam whispered, barely audible. His eyes were closed and his hands buried in his hair. “He’s right, Dean.”
“How would you know? Your hallucinations told you?” Dean regretted the outburst the moment it happened but it was too late. Sam seemed to curl into himself and just… disappear. Whatever happened around him, Dean could tell that he had no part in it anymore. Fuck.
“This is all your fault!” Dean yelled at Singer. “What business do you have coming here? Things were going great. I don’t know what we forgot, but the fact that neither of us wanted to remember tells me it was good to leave that life. We’re fine here, and now you have to break everything!”
Singer looked at him, unfazed. “You never tried to remember because you were programmed not to,” he said calmly. “By an old… friend who meant well but made everything worse.”
Dean wasn’t even listening anymore. The guy was right. Dean knew he was right. He knew there was a whole world of things he didn’t want to know just waiting to be discovered. But most of all he knew that Sam was whimpering and digging his fingers into his mutilated arm and Dean had to stop him, or maybe he didn’t because stopping him would make things worse. So he sat there and half-heartedly tried to pull Sam’s hands away but then he stopped because he promised, he promised Sam he understood, that he wouldn’t keep him from hurting himself if it helped. But did that even count anymore now that he was Sam’s brother? Didn’t being Sam’s brother mean that he couldn’t sit by and watch him bleed?
In the end he pulled Sam close and whispered words in his ears. Telling him it was alright, as if he could ever believe that himself.
“This was supposed to get better.” Singer sounded helpless. He also looked at them in disapproval, as if he thought since they were brothers now they shouldn’t touch anymore, that Dean’s naked arms had no business wrapping around Sam’s shivering from. So fuck, what kind of douchebag had he been that he wouldn’t comfort his little brother when he needed it? That he thought this was wrong?
“Fuck off,” he growled. ”Leave us alone. Whatever happened, it did get better. This has to be better.”
Sam whispered, “Dean, Dean, oh God, Dean, please,” and Bobby growled, “I didn’t look for you for more than a frigging year only to leave just because some asshole angel toasted your brain. I’m going to fix this, son:”
“What are you, our father?”
“Something close enough.”
Sam whimpered again. Dean noticed that the tips of his fingers were stained with blood, and okay, that was enough now. “Sammy,” he hissed. “Sammy, focus. It hurts, right? Look at me, and focus on the pain. I’m real. Rely on that.”
Much to his relief Sam did look at him. He was crying and his expression broke Dean’s heart, but he focused and seemed to pull himself together for a moment, before his eyes fell on Singer and he winched again.
“Go away!” Dean told the man once more. “Don’t you see that you’re hurting him? He doesn’t know what’s real on the best of days and now he doesn’t know if you’re just one of his hallucinations. He hallucinates so much shit and doesn’t even know why!”
“He’s bleeding.” Singer sounded alarmed, apparently hadn’t noticed until now.
“Yeah, he does that. Hurting himself helps, so we let him, okay? He can only get through this by causing himself pain, so do you really want him to go back to that full time?”
“Don’t you think it might help him if he at least knew where his hallucinations come from?”
“Oh yeah, having all the memories they are based on must be a blast! Tell me, how was he doing before someone knocked us over?”
“At least he wasn’t hurting himself!”
“Dean,” Sam whimpered again. “Shut up.”
Dean stared at him. “What?”
“Shut up. Both of you. You’re too loud. Let me think.” He took a deep breath and still refused to look up. “I need to get outside.”
That, at least, Dean could do for him. He pushed the wheelchair past the front door and to the back, where they would be safe from prying eyes. Singer, as expected, followed, but Dean ignored him for now.
Outside, Sam took a few breaths and then threw up. He managed to avoid hitting the side of the wheelchair with the meager contents of his stomach so perfectly that Dean couldn’t help but wonder if he’d practiced.
“Hey, hey.” He patted Sam’s back. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” Now, finally, Sam looked up, looked at Singer, and said, “Bobby.”
Singer stiffened. “You remember me, Kid?”
“No. Tell me. Who are you? What happened?”
“See?” Singer glared at Dean. “He wants to know.”
“No, I don’t,” Sam clarified. “I really don’t. But I have to. And it’s hard to even ask, so just tell me already.”
Dean didn’t want him to tell them. He didn’t want to hear. He wanted to run so he didn’t have to, wanted to take Sam away from here, or better even shut Singer up before he could open his mouth, in any way it took. But he recognized, at least, that that wasn’t natural, that there was something inside him that forced him to avoid these questions and that was what made him clench his fists and stay and fucking listen, because if there was one thing he hated it was anybody telling him what he wanted to do.
Now he had permission, Singer took his sweet time telling them, as if suddenly he wasn’t sure if it was really such a good idea. But he did, in the end. And Dean and Sam fucking listened.
-
So what information Dean got out of it in the end was that they had had a shitty life (non-defined) and an angel for a friend who fucked up and got eaten by purgatory. He also learned that he had gone to Hell once to save Sam and that then Sam had gone to Hell to save the world (and Dean had let him, how the fuck could he let him go to Hell, what kind of brother was he, anyway?) and had come back after centuries all kinds of fucked over.
So yeah, what it came down to, what mattered here was that Dean had let Sam go to Hell and now Sam was messed up for the rest of forever.
He had been fine, and then their friend the angel, in order to get eaten by purgatory, broke the wall that protected Sam from his memories of the pit and made him crazy. And then he was eaten, but not before Sam had forgiven him (Seriously, Sam, what the fuck?) and the angel had tried to make up for the mess he caused in his last moments.
“He knew his new power was tearing him apart, but as long as he still had it he wanted to use it to help you,” Singer explained. “Unfortunately, he didn’t really know what he was doing. He wanted Sam to be free from the memories of Hell, and he wanted the two of your to be happy. That’s what he told me, just before he snuffed it. For all I saw, Cas apologized and then you were gone. He wouldn’t even tell me where, only that you would be okay. Better off than before.”
“And you didn’t believe him?” Dean asked skeptically.
“If someone took Sam away and told you he was happy somewhere else, would you just take it for face value?”
It was a damn good argument.
“But we are better off,” Dean said helplessly. “I was happy here, and now Sam…” He trailed off. Sam had been miserable, locked away in his apartment, half-insane, and now he was crippled and still half-insane and here…
“I couldn’t find Sam,” Singer recounted. “There was the article about the guy they found without memory in Wisconsin and the description sounded like Sam, but he was gone when I got there and I lost all trace of him. Then I finally stumble over a trace of you, Dean, and I find you here working your job, living in a house and I thought, okay, maybe it’s not so bad. Then I come in and find Sam right there in your bed.”
“It was Sam’s bed,” Dean interrupted him as if there was a fucking point to it. There wasn’t, and Bobby just ignored him.
“And Sam’s skinny as hell and in a wheelchair and still hallucinating even though he doesn’t remember what or why, and goddamn hurting himself, and can you tell me how exactly any of that sounds okay for you?”
“It was okay. Sam was getting better. You think he’s going to improve if he remembers all the shit his hallucinations are about?”
“You think it might be a good idea to stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here?” Sam snapped. He looked up, looked at them with his damn wet eyes and still trembling. He was practically clawing at his injured arm, but he was also very much with them. “Bobby’s right, Dean. This isn’t us. You must have felt that just as much as I did. Something’s wrong, something’s missing all the time. And I can’t even think about it and it’s driving me crazy…”
Dean had to agree with that. Having this conversation was making him want to scream.
“Okay,” he forced out. His hands were clenched so tightly his nails were digging painfully into his palms. “Can you reverse it?”
“I think I can,” Bobby said. “But it’s gonna take a few days. And you need to come with me.”
“And then? We just leave here? Leave everything behind, drop off the map like we have done apparently all our fucking lives? My job, Sam’s… fuck, Sam’s surgery is next week.”
Bobby looked alarmed. “What surgery?” He asked it with the suspicious tone of someone not entirely trusting hospitals and doctors.
“For his legs. So maybe he might be able to walk again. And by walk again I mean hopple around on crutches for half an hour a day.” The more Dean thought about this the worse an idea it seemed, and his voice turned to venom before without his consent. “Hardly the best circumstances to spend your time hunting monsters and running from the law, I would think.”
Bobby didn’t look at him. “We should stay here until that is done with,” he decided. “After this is over… well, it’s up to you if you want to stay here or come back with me.”
He said that like they actually had a choice.
-
Surprisingly enough, it was Sam who panicked. And panicking in this case meant going quiet and sad and doubtful, saying, “You know that this is it. If we remember, there’s no turning back. This is over.”
“How can you be so sure?” Dean asked. “We could just stay here. With all memories. Just say and give the world a big fuck you.”
They were alone; Bobby had left for a moment to check out of the motel he had been staying in since he arrived in town yesterday. From now on he would move into the upper rooms Dean hardly ever used anymore because Sam couldn’t get there. He said he wanted to make sure they were alright, that he had been looking for them for too long to move into a freaking motel, and besides, they had bunked at his place so often it was only fair. He seemed genuinely concerned, too, especially about Sam, but at the same time Dean was sure that the older man just wanted to keep an eye on them. Make sure they didn’t bail and make sure they didn’t fuck.
Dean looked at Sam and he, too, knew that this would be over, or maybe it already was. He would never kiss Sam again, he would never make love to him again, though he was sure that he wouldn’t love him any less. He wondered if it would just disappear, that desperate desire for this kid; if the love would change into something less sexual and more brotherly. Right now, he could not imagine it and wondered if Sam felt the loss like he did.
“We already can’t go back,” Sam whispered, and as much as Dean didn’t want to acknowledge it, he was right.
He kissed him just out of spite. Sam kissed back.
Maybe fate would be kind to them for once and make them forget all this. But then, when had things ever been that easy?
-
There was one thing Dean learned about Sam in the following days: he was a tough son of a bitch. And okay, so he’d kind of known that before, but it was fascinating to see him white-knuckle it through the day. Looking at Singer still obviously made him nearly crazy, but he managed not to flip out and he managed not to hurt himself too badly. Not at first. Not while Dean was watching.
Looking at Singer nearly made Dean crazy as well, Especially since the man treated them like they knew everything. After the first day he just seemed to forget that they had forgotten. He set up camp in the kitchen, spread books and papers out all around and growled at them whenever he wanted something. He would causally talk about things they had done together and sometimes Dean would answer as if he knew what this was all about and then he would realize what he had done and try not to throw up because the memories of some event or another were all there, pooling in his mind and he didn’t want them.
For Sam it had to be so much worse. He was mostly quiet, mostly kept out of the way, and sometimes he answered to tings that no one had said, but he never reached for the kitchen knife and stabbed Singer out of frustration and self-defense as Dean sometimes wanted to.
In fact, Dean was halfway convinced that the only reason he didn’t do it, or didn’t at least flip out completely, was because Sam didn’t, and if Sam could be that strong, then Dean definitely had to.
There was a limit to what Sam could take, though - or maybe it would have happened anyway, because no matter what Dean liked to tell himself, Sam was suffering from a mental illness and their sex hadn’t magically cured it. It was only a matter of time before it got bad again, really bad. Perhaps it had always been heading towards the point where Dean couldn’t handle it anymore and he had just been too blind to see, too willing to ignore. Just as he had been willing to ignore the fact that he knew the body beneath his hands too well for them to have never met before.
Sam’s nightmares were getting worse and Dean definitely blamed that one on Singer. Sam had often woken up disturbed, but until the other man moved in he had never woken up screaming.
He calmed down after Dean came for him. After the first moments of confusion, after a brief struggle and “No, Michael, please.” After Dean wrapped him in his arms and held him so fucking tight.
Sam had never had nightmares when he fell asleep on the couch leaning against Dean, or in the car leaning against Dean, or just anywhere Dean was near him, so Dean started to let Sam sleep in his own, larger bed, climbed in with him and held him when they slept, and if Bobby was staring from the doorway and frowning and generally being a bitch about it that was his fucking problem.
But that wasn’t enough. Sam might not have woken up in tears anymore but the constant stress was wearing him down. If Dean was going crazy from the leaking memories about every day stuff he could barely even grasp and didn’t want to, he could only imagine how Sam was feeling with centuries of Hell standing in line and knocking on his door. Eventually, he snapped. And it didn’t happen in one big explosion, it happened quietly, in is room, while Dean was having breakfast.
Sam was quiet when Dean got up and his friend (Lover? Brother?) left him alone. After breakfast, Sam still hadn’t emerged, or made a sound, so Dean went to check on him, see if he needed help. Sam could get into his chair on his own, but it was hard and painful and sometimes he just didn’t feel up to it. When Dean opened the door, however, it was to Sam shaking and crying and taking a razor blade to his arm.
He had placed a towel on the sheets to protect them from the blood because even flipping out Sam was too damn practical to just go and soil everything and leave traces and shit. And Dean though that Sam was a fucking asshole because cuts in his flesh were pretty damn obvious traces and how exactly did he plan on making them disappear before he was in the hospital and being undressed by people who thought that Dean was a loser who couldn’t watch out for him and just waited for a reason to take him away?
And then he thought that Sam’s immune system was shot to Hell and he’d get an infection again and the surgery would be postponed again and this damn terrible situation just wouldn’t end.
So he stopped Sam and took away his blade. Disinfected the cuts with alcohol and wrapped them up, all the time cursing and growling, and Sam was rocking back and forth and then clung to him like Dean could save his life by not going away. As if he had any plans of going away. Dean wasn’t going anywhere.
And Sam cupped his face, twisted his long fingers into Dean’s short hair and said, “Please, please,” and “Dean,” and what the Hell was Dean supposed to do but help him? Sam wasn’t his brother. Sam wouldn’t be his brother for another few days.
It was different this time, with Dean knowing what to do, with Sam knowing he could help and just accepting it, accepting everything, like before but with a desperate gratitude that hadn’t been there the first time. And Bobby was sitting two rooms away, oblivious, but he would stop them if he knew, he would give them Hell. This time they knew. There was no excuse for doing this.
Dean came harder than ever before in his remembered life.
-
Sam came out more after that. He sat with Bobby. He talked to Bobby. Bobby, much to Dean’s relief, never tried to dump a load of information about their old lives on him but merely asked for help with some translation or other, and research about demonic activities and something called a black dog. Sam did so without questions, looking like he had never done anything else.
Dean watched them from a distance and couldn’t imagine that this was what they had done. It was crazy (and it felt like home).
He didn’t go to work those final days, called in sick instead and nearly forgot to do even that. There was no way he would leave Sam alone with this familiar stranger who was destroying their world.
When it was time, when they brought Sam to the hospital and he was getting prepared for his surgery, Dean was ready to lose it. There was the anticipation of what would come after, with Bobby and their memories they didn’t want, but there was also the nervousness that always came with someone cutting his brother up, and the ridiculous, stupid and dangerous hope that despite every prognosis the doctor would come out and tell Dean that they had been wrong, it wasn’t quite that bad and Sam would make a full recovery.
That wasn’t going to happen. Sam knew that, which perhaps was the reason why he was so much calmer than Dean. But then, perhaps he just was much better at dealing with being nervous, or stressed, or afraid.
Perhaps it was simply worse to worry about someone else. If that had been Dean there about to be cut up, Sam might have been climbing the walls just as much.
But when they had to leave Sam alone to get prepared for surgery, Sam held on to Dean’s hand like he didn’t want to let him go. Didn’t want to be left alone with these strangers. Dean got that. Dean got that his presence had come to ground Sam and give him a sense of security and he nearly told all those doctors to stuff it, he wasn’t going to leave Sam alone, ever.
Sam then looked at him, openly in a way he rarely did. He pulled Dean down, put his long hands to either side of his head and kissed him, right there in front of everyone. Right in front of Bobby.
Then he let him go and was taken away. It was only when he was out of sight that Dean realized it had felt like goodbye.
-
“Let’s go for a ride.”
Dean could only blink when he heard the words. They did not compute. Sam was in surgery, maybe had flipped out before they sedated him, maybe was having nightmares, maybe would never walk again. Maybe something would go wrong randomly and a doctor would come out to find Dean, and in that case Dean had to be fucking present.
“What the fuck? I’m not going anywhere.”
“The surgery’s going fine. And it’s going to take a few hours more. And really, do you actually believe you’re any use to your brother sitting here worrying about him until you get kinks in your neck?”
Dean automatically moved his head. His neck popped.
Bobby looked annoyed. It seemed to be a normal expression on his face. “We’ll just sit in the damn car, where we can talk. We won’t be far, and they have your number.”
He kind of reminded Dean of Bob, except Bob had more hair. And other than with Bob, who had tried and tried to talk Dean out of taking in Sam, Bobby actually succeeded in getting Dean to the car. In fact, he got Dean to the car and Dean only really noticed that Bobby had slipped into the driver’s seat when he started the engine and drove off.
“You said we were just going to talk!”
“We’re talking, idjit. And it’s easier if you can’t run.”
So they would talk about stuff Dean didn’t want to talk about. What a surprise.
“He’s your brother, Dean,” Bobby said, and of course it had to be that. In all fairness, Dean kind of had that coming.
“He’s not. Not yet. I don’t remember him being my brother. He’s just this kid that lives with me.” It was probably not the best tactic to get all defensive but Dean couldn’t help himself. Something made him want to escape this guy’s disapproval.
“He is your brother, and you know it. I can forgive what happened before, but earlier today? What the Hell were you thinking?”
“I didn’t kiss Sam! Sam kissed me!”
Bobby only glared, so yeah, stupid tactic. And Dean hadn’t exactly pushed the kid away either.
“Isn’t it enough that it will stop soon?” Dean asked desperately. “You’re taking everything away from us here, and I have no idea how Sam will take it. He’s so,,, fragile.” It almost felt wrong to use that word on Sam, despite it being evidently accurate. “You said he wasn’t like this before. Do you think he’ll get better?”
“I don’t know, son.” The grim disapproval disappeared from Bobby’s face and was replaced with tired concern. “He hadn’t had his Hell-memories back for long when you were taken away. But he wasn’t doing so well then either. Maybe it would always have gotten this bad.”
Dean sighed. The car hummed around him and he knew that it always had. No one had to tell him that, he just always felt at home in this car. From the moment it had been presented to him after he woke up without memory a year ago he had known that this was his car.
“Why didn’t it work?” he asked, not even realizing that he was basking in the familiarity of this scene rather than being repulsed by it. “For Sam. I thought this was supposed to help him but it only made things worse.”
Outside the window, trees moved past them. They were driving through the forest just past the city limit that Dean for some reason had never entered before. Maybe there was a Wendigo in here, he thought.
“I can only speculate on that. I fear it’s because it’s his soul that’s injured. The damage transcends mere memory. There’s no fixing it.”
“So Sam won’t get better? Ever?”
“He’s strong. He’ll learn to deal.” But the words sounded empty, lacking conviction. Not at all like Das had sounded when he told Dean that his little brother would get over his resentment of their lifestyle and learn to embrace it. John Winchester had always thought that he could shape other people’s will by the pure power of his own. With Dean it had worked, so he never figured out why with Sammy it didn’t.
“Bobby,” he Dean said dully. “Did you want us to come with you because you knew that our memories would just return like that once we’re got where we came from?”
“That was the idea,” Bobby said grimly and took a turn that would take them out of the woods.
Dean was quiet all the way back to the city.
-
He was with Sam when he woke up. Bobby was not. Bobby was leaving them alone, taking care of something or other, so it was just Dean, holding Sam’s hand and counting his breaths.
Sam came to slowly and without panic. Dean had been prepared for disorientation and fear but Sam just opened his eyes and blinked at him, and after a moment of uncertainty he gave a faint smile. A sad smile. It seemed he was looking for something in Dean’s face and Dean didn’t know if he found it or found it lacking, but he knew Sam found certainty of something.
“You remember,” he whispered, hoarsely because his voice was gone and he was weak and tired.
Dean nodded and he wasn’t even surprised that Sam knew, or that he had remembered before him.
“When did you?” he asked.
“At some point yesterday or the day before, I didn’t even notice. I kept wondering if Bobby had finally gotten the new dog he’d been thinking about while we were gone.”
It was a long sentence that left Sam out of breath. Dean put a hand to his forehead and wordlessly told him to rest. He almost bent down to kiss him but remembered in time. It was over.
When Sam woke the second time early the next morning, he looked at Dean and said, “We should leave.”
It was stupid to go before he had recovered; they had good insurance and Sam would get all the care they could hope for. But Dean understood. He knew.
And so did Sammy. This wasn’t them. This wasn’t theirs.
He and Bobby took Sam away before noon, in a stolen ambulance, to some place that Bobby knew from long ago where no one would find them.
NEXT
Chapter 5
If there was a list of the most shocking things to learn about the guy one just slept with, this had to pretty much at the top of it. Dean had to sit down once the words sank in. Sam didn’t, but only because he was already sitting. He was trembling harder than before and didn’t look at anyone.
“Bullshit,” Dean finally said. He was suddenly cold, too aware that he still wasn’t wearing a shirt. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, but do you really think any of us is gonna buy that? Brothers my ass. Don’t you think there’d be some sort… some sort of safety in our brains that would prevent something like that?”
“He’s right,” Sam whispered, barely audible. His eyes were closed and his hands buried in his hair. “He’s right, Dean.”
“How would you know? Your hallucinations told you?” Dean regretted the outburst the moment it happened but it was too late. Sam seemed to curl into himself and just… disappear. Whatever happened around him, Dean could tell that he had no part in it anymore. Fuck.
“This is all your fault!” Dean yelled at Singer. “What business do you have coming here? Things were going great. I don’t know what we forgot, but the fact that neither of us wanted to remember tells me it was good to leave that life. We’re fine here, and now you have to break everything!”
Singer looked at him, unfazed. “You never tried to remember because you were programmed not to,” he said calmly. “By an old… friend who meant well but made everything worse.”
Dean wasn’t even listening anymore. The guy was right. Dean knew he was right. He knew there was a whole world of things he didn’t want to know just waiting to be discovered. But most of all he knew that Sam was whimpering and digging his fingers into his mutilated arm and Dean had to stop him, or maybe he didn’t because stopping him would make things worse. So he sat there and half-heartedly tried to pull Sam’s hands away but then he stopped because he promised, he promised Sam he understood, that he wouldn’t keep him from hurting himself if it helped. But did that even count anymore now that he was Sam’s brother? Didn’t being Sam’s brother mean that he couldn’t sit by and watch him bleed?
In the end he pulled Sam close and whispered words in his ears. Telling him it was alright, as if he could ever believe that himself.
“This was supposed to get better.” Singer sounded helpless. He also looked at them in disapproval, as if he thought since they were brothers now they shouldn’t touch anymore, that Dean’s naked arms had no business wrapping around Sam’s shivering from. So fuck, what kind of douchebag had he been that he wouldn’t comfort his little brother when he needed it? That he thought this was wrong?
“Fuck off,” he growled. ”Leave us alone. Whatever happened, it did get better. This has to be better.”
Sam whispered, “Dean, Dean, oh God, Dean, please,” and Bobby growled, “I didn’t look for you for more than a frigging year only to leave just because some asshole angel toasted your brain. I’m going to fix this, son:”
“What are you, our father?”
“Something close enough.”
Sam whimpered again. Dean noticed that the tips of his fingers were stained with blood, and okay, that was enough now. “Sammy,” he hissed. “Sammy, focus. It hurts, right? Look at me, and focus on the pain. I’m real. Rely on that.”
Much to his relief Sam did look at him. He was crying and his expression broke Dean’s heart, but he focused and seemed to pull himself together for a moment, before his eyes fell on Singer and he winched again.
“Go away!” Dean told the man once more. “Don’t you see that you’re hurting him? He doesn’t know what’s real on the best of days and now he doesn’t know if you’re just one of his hallucinations. He hallucinates so much shit and doesn’t even know why!”
“He’s bleeding.” Singer sounded alarmed, apparently hadn’t noticed until now.
“Yeah, he does that. Hurting himself helps, so we let him, okay? He can only get through this by causing himself pain, so do you really want him to go back to that full time?”
“Don’t you think it might help him if he at least knew where his hallucinations come from?”
“Oh yeah, having all the memories they are based on must be a blast! Tell me, how was he doing before someone knocked us over?”
“At least he wasn’t hurting himself!”
“Dean,” Sam whimpered again. “Shut up.”
Dean stared at him. “What?”
“Shut up. Both of you. You’re too loud. Let me think.” He took a deep breath and still refused to look up. “I need to get outside.”
That, at least, Dean could do for him. He pushed the wheelchair past the front door and to the back, where they would be safe from prying eyes. Singer, as expected, followed, but Dean ignored him for now.
Outside, Sam took a few breaths and then threw up. He managed to avoid hitting the side of the wheelchair with the meager contents of his stomach so perfectly that Dean couldn’t help but wonder if he’d practiced.
“Hey, hey.” He patted Sam’s back. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” Now, finally, Sam looked up, looked at Singer, and said, “Bobby.”
Singer stiffened. “You remember me, Kid?”
“No. Tell me. Who are you? What happened?”
“See?” Singer glared at Dean. “He wants to know.”
“No, I don’t,” Sam clarified. “I really don’t. But I have to. And it’s hard to even ask, so just tell me already.”
Dean didn’t want him to tell them. He didn’t want to hear. He wanted to run so he didn’t have to, wanted to take Sam away from here, or better even shut Singer up before he could open his mouth, in any way it took. But he recognized, at least, that that wasn’t natural, that there was something inside him that forced him to avoid these questions and that was what made him clench his fists and stay and fucking listen, because if there was one thing he hated it was anybody telling him what he wanted to do.
Now he had permission, Singer took his sweet time telling them, as if suddenly he wasn’t sure if it was really such a good idea. But he did, in the end. And Dean and Sam fucking listened.
-
So what information Dean got out of it in the end was that they had had a shitty life (non-defined) and an angel for a friend who fucked up and got eaten by purgatory. He also learned that he had gone to Hell once to save Sam and that then Sam had gone to Hell to save the world (and Dean had let him, how the fuck could he let him go to Hell, what kind of brother was he, anyway?) and had come back after centuries all kinds of fucked over.
So yeah, what it came down to, what mattered here was that Dean had let Sam go to Hell and now Sam was messed up for the rest of forever.
He had been fine, and then their friend the angel, in order to get eaten by purgatory, broke the wall that protected Sam from his memories of the pit and made him crazy. And then he was eaten, but not before Sam had forgiven him (Seriously, Sam, what the fuck?) and the angel had tried to make up for the mess he caused in his last moments.
“He knew his new power was tearing him apart, but as long as he still had it he wanted to use it to help you,” Singer explained. “Unfortunately, he didn’t really know what he was doing. He wanted Sam to be free from the memories of Hell, and he wanted the two of your to be happy. That’s what he told me, just before he snuffed it. For all I saw, Cas apologized and then you were gone. He wouldn’t even tell me where, only that you would be okay. Better off than before.”
“And you didn’t believe him?” Dean asked skeptically.
“If someone took Sam away and told you he was happy somewhere else, would you just take it for face value?”
It was a damn good argument.
“But we are better off,” Dean said helplessly. “I was happy here, and now Sam…” He trailed off. Sam had been miserable, locked away in his apartment, half-insane, and now he was crippled and still half-insane and here…
“I couldn’t find Sam,” Singer recounted. “There was the article about the guy they found without memory in Wisconsin and the description sounded like Sam, but he was gone when I got there and I lost all trace of him. Then I finally stumble over a trace of you, Dean, and I find you here working your job, living in a house and I thought, okay, maybe it’s not so bad. Then I come in and find Sam right there in your bed.”
“It was Sam’s bed,” Dean interrupted him as if there was a fucking point to it. There wasn’t, and Bobby just ignored him.
“And Sam’s skinny as hell and in a wheelchair and still hallucinating even though he doesn’t remember what or why, and goddamn hurting himself, and can you tell me how exactly any of that sounds okay for you?”
“It was okay. Sam was getting better. You think he’s going to improve if he remembers all the shit his hallucinations are about?”
“You think it might be a good idea to stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here?” Sam snapped. He looked up, looked at them with his damn wet eyes and still trembling. He was practically clawing at his injured arm, but he was also very much with them. “Bobby’s right, Dean. This isn’t us. You must have felt that just as much as I did. Something’s wrong, something’s missing all the time. And I can’t even think about it and it’s driving me crazy…”
Dean had to agree with that. Having this conversation was making him want to scream.
“Okay,” he forced out. His hands were clenched so tightly his nails were digging painfully into his palms. “Can you reverse it?”
“I think I can,” Bobby said. “But it’s gonna take a few days. And you need to come with me.”
“And then? We just leave here? Leave everything behind, drop off the map like we have done apparently all our fucking lives? My job, Sam’s… fuck, Sam’s surgery is next week.”
Bobby looked alarmed. “What surgery?” He asked it with the suspicious tone of someone not entirely trusting hospitals and doctors.
“For his legs. So maybe he might be able to walk again. And by walk again I mean hopple around on crutches for half an hour a day.” The more Dean thought about this the worse an idea it seemed, and his voice turned to venom before without his consent. “Hardly the best circumstances to spend your time hunting monsters and running from the law, I would think.”
Bobby didn’t look at him. “We should stay here until that is done with,” he decided. “After this is over… well, it’s up to you if you want to stay here or come back with me.”
He said that like they actually had a choice.
-
Surprisingly enough, it was Sam who panicked. And panicking in this case meant going quiet and sad and doubtful, saying, “You know that this is it. If we remember, there’s no turning back. This is over.”
“How can you be so sure?” Dean asked. “We could just stay here. With all memories. Just say and give the world a big fuck you.”
They were alone; Bobby had left for a moment to check out of the motel he had been staying in since he arrived in town yesterday. From now on he would move into the upper rooms Dean hardly ever used anymore because Sam couldn’t get there. He said he wanted to make sure they were alright, that he had been looking for them for too long to move into a freaking motel, and besides, they had bunked at his place so often it was only fair. He seemed genuinely concerned, too, especially about Sam, but at the same time Dean was sure that the older man just wanted to keep an eye on them. Make sure they didn’t bail and make sure they didn’t fuck.
Dean looked at Sam and he, too, knew that this would be over, or maybe it already was. He would never kiss Sam again, he would never make love to him again, though he was sure that he wouldn’t love him any less. He wondered if it would just disappear, that desperate desire for this kid; if the love would change into something less sexual and more brotherly. Right now, he could not imagine it and wondered if Sam felt the loss like he did.
“We already can’t go back,” Sam whispered, and as much as Dean didn’t want to acknowledge it, he was right.
He kissed him just out of spite. Sam kissed back.
Maybe fate would be kind to them for once and make them forget all this. But then, when had things ever been that easy?
-
There was one thing Dean learned about Sam in the following days: he was a tough son of a bitch. And okay, so he’d kind of known that before, but it was fascinating to see him white-knuckle it through the day. Looking at Singer still obviously made him nearly crazy, but he managed not to flip out and he managed not to hurt himself too badly. Not at first. Not while Dean was watching.
Looking at Singer nearly made Dean crazy as well, Especially since the man treated them like they knew everything. After the first day he just seemed to forget that they had forgotten. He set up camp in the kitchen, spread books and papers out all around and growled at them whenever he wanted something. He would causally talk about things they had done together and sometimes Dean would answer as if he knew what this was all about and then he would realize what he had done and try not to throw up because the memories of some event or another were all there, pooling in his mind and he didn’t want them.
For Sam it had to be so much worse. He was mostly quiet, mostly kept out of the way, and sometimes he answered to tings that no one had said, but he never reached for the kitchen knife and stabbed Singer out of frustration and self-defense as Dean sometimes wanted to.
In fact, Dean was halfway convinced that the only reason he didn’t do it, or didn’t at least flip out completely, was because Sam didn’t, and if Sam could be that strong, then Dean definitely had to.
There was a limit to what Sam could take, though - or maybe it would have happened anyway, because no matter what Dean liked to tell himself, Sam was suffering from a mental illness and their sex hadn’t magically cured it. It was only a matter of time before it got bad again, really bad. Perhaps it had always been heading towards the point where Dean couldn’t handle it anymore and he had just been too blind to see, too willing to ignore. Just as he had been willing to ignore the fact that he knew the body beneath his hands too well for them to have never met before.
Sam’s nightmares were getting worse and Dean definitely blamed that one on Singer. Sam had often woken up disturbed, but until the other man moved in he had never woken up screaming.
He calmed down after Dean came for him. After the first moments of confusion, after a brief struggle and “No, Michael, please.” After Dean wrapped him in his arms and held him so fucking tight.
Sam had never had nightmares when he fell asleep on the couch leaning against Dean, or in the car leaning against Dean, or just anywhere Dean was near him, so Dean started to let Sam sleep in his own, larger bed, climbed in with him and held him when they slept, and if Bobby was staring from the doorway and frowning and generally being a bitch about it that was his fucking problem.
But that wasn’t enough. Sam might not have woken up in tears anymore but the constant stress was wearing him down. If Dean was going crazy from the leaking memories about every day stuff he could barely even grasp and didn’t want to, he could only imagine how Sam was feeling with centuries of Hell standing in line and knocking on his door. Eventually, he snapped. And it didn’t happen in one big explosion, it happened quietly, in is room, while Dean was having breakfast.
Sam was quiet when Dean got up and his friend (Lover? Brother?) left him alone. After breakfast, Sam still hadn’t emerged, or made a sound, so Dean went to check on him, see if he needed help. Sam could get into his chair on his own, but it was hard and painful and sometimes he just didn’t feel up to it. When Dean opened the door, however, it was to Sam shaking and crying and taking a razor blade to his arm.
He had placed a towel on the sheets to protect them from the blood because even flipping out Sam was too damn practical to just go and soil everything and leave traces and shit. And Dean though that Sam was a fucking asshole because cuts in his flesh were pretty damn obvious traces and how exactly did he plan on making them disappear before he was in the hospital and being undressed by people who thought that Dean was a loser who couldn’t watch out for him and just waited for a reason to take him away?
And then he thought that Sam’s immune system was shot to Hell and he’d get an infection again and the surgery would be postponed again and this damn terrible situation just wouldn’t end.
So he stopped Sam and took away his blade. Disinfected the cuts with alcohol and wrapped them up, all the time cursing and growling, and Sam was rocking back and forth and then clung to him like Dean could save his life by not going away. As if he had any plans of going away. Dean wasn’t going anywhere.
And Sam cupped his face, twisted his long fingers into Dean’s short hair and said, “Please, please,” and “Dean,” and what the Hell was Dean supposed to do but help him? Sam wasn’t his brother. Sam wouldn’t be his brother for another few days.
It was different this time, with Dean knowing what to do, with Sam knowing he could help and just accepting it, accepting everything, like before but with a desperate gratitude that hadn’t been there the first time. And Bobby was sitting two rooms away, oblivious, but he would stop them if he knew, he would give them Hell. This time they knew. There was no excuse for doing this.
Dean came harder than ever before in his remembered life.
-
Sam came out more after that. He sat with Bobby. He talked to Bobby. Bobby, much to Dean’s relief, never tried to dump a load of information about their old lives on him but merely asked for help with some translation or other, and research about demonic activities and something called a black dog. Sam did so without questions, looking like he had never done anything else.
Dean watched them from a distance and couldn’t imagine that this was what they had done. It was crazy (and it felt like home).
He didn’t go to work those final days, called in sick instead and nearly forgot to do even that. There was no way he would leave Sam alone with this familiar stranger who was destroying their world.
When it was time, when they brought Sam to the hospital and he was getting prepared for his surgery, Dean was ready to lose it. There was the anticipation of what would come after, with Bobby and their memories they didn’t want, but there was also the nervousness that always came with someone cutting his brother up, and the ridiculous, stupid and dangerous hope that despite every prognosis the doctor would come out and tell Dean that they had been wrong, it wasn’t quite that bad and Sam would make a full recovery.
That wasn’t going to happen. Sam knew that, which perhaps was the reason why he was so much calmer than Dean. But then, perhaps he just was much better at dealing with being nervous, or stressed, or afraid.
Perhaps it was simply worse to worry about someone else. If that had been Dean there about to be cut up, Sam might have been climbing the walls just as much.
But when they had to leave Sam alone to get prepared for surgery, Sam held on to Dean’s hand like he didn’t want to let him go. Didn’t want to be left alone with these strangers. Dean got that. Dean got that his presence had come to ground Sam and give him a sense of security and he nearly told all those doctors to stuff it, he wasn’t going to leave Sam alone, ever.
Sam then looked at him, openly in a way he rarely did. He pulled Dean down, put his long hands to either side of his head and kissed him, right there in front of everyone. Right in front of Bobby.
Then he let him go and was taken away. It was only when he was out of sight that Dean realized it had felt like goodbye.
-
“Let’s go for a ride.”
Dean could only blink when he heard the words. They did not compute. Sam was in surgery, maybe had flipped out before they sedated him, maybe was having nightmares, maybe would never walk again. Maybe something would go wrong randomly and a doctor would come out to find Dean, and in that case Dean had to be fucking present.
“What the fuck? I’m not going anywhere.”
“The surgery’s going fine. And it’s going to take a few hours more. And really, do you actually believe you’re any use to your brother sitting here worrying about him until you get kinks in your neck?”
Dean automatically moved his head. His neck popped.
Bobby looked annoyed. It seemed to be a normal expression on his face. “We’ll just sit in the damn car, where we can talk. We won’t be far, and they have your number.”
He kind of reminded Dean of Bob, except Bob had more hair. And other than with Bob, who had tried and tried to talk Dean out of taking in Sam, Bobby actually succeeded in getting Dean to the car. In fact, he got Dean to the car and Dean only really noticed that Bobby had slipped into the driver’s seat when he started the engine and drove off.
“You said we were just going to talk!”
“We’re talking, idjit. And it’s easier if you can’t run.”
So they would talk about stuff Dean didn’t want to talk about. What a surprise.
“He’s your brother, Dean,” Bobby said, and of course it had to be that. In all fairness, Dean kind of had that coming.
“He’s not. Not yet. I don’t remember him being my brother. He’s just this kid that lives with me.” It was probably not the best tactic to get all defensive but Dean couldn’t help himself. Something made him want to escape this guy’s disapproval.
“He is your brother, and you know it. I can forgive what happened before, but earlier today? What the Hell were you thinking?”
“I didn’t kiss Sam! Sam kissed me!”
Bobby only glared, so yeah, stupid tactic. And Dean hadn’t exactly pushed the kid away either.
“Isn’t it enough that it will stop soon?” Dean asked desperately. “You’re taking everything away from us here, and I have no idea how Sam will take it. He’s so,,, fragile.” It almost felt wrong to use that word on Sam, despite it being evidently accurate. “You said he wasn’t like this before. Do you think he’ll get better?”
“I don’t know, son.” The grim disapproval disappeared from Bobby’s face and was replaced with tired concern. “He hadn’t had his Hell-memories back for long when you were taken away. But he wasn’t doing so well then either. Maybe it would always have gotten this bad.”
Dean sighed. The car hummed around him and he knew that it always had. No one had to tell him that, he just always felt at home in this car. From the moment it had been presented to him after he woke up without memory a year ago he had known that this was his car.
“Why didn’t it work?” he asked, not even realizing that he was basking in the familiarity of this scene rather than being repulsed by it. “For Sam. I thought this was supposed to help him but it only made things worse.”
Outside the window, trees moved past them. They were driving through the forest just past the city limit that Dean for some reason had never entered before. Maybe there was a Wendigo in here, he thought.
“I can only speculate on that. I fear it’s because it’s his soul that’s injured. The damage transcends mere memory. There’s no fixing it.”
“So Sam won’t get better? Ever?”
“He’s strong. He’ll learn to deal.” But the words sounded empty, lacking conviction. Not at all like Das had sounded when he told Dean that his little brother would get over his resentment of their lifestyle and learn to embrace it. John Winchester had always thought that he could shape other people’s will by the pure power of his own. With Dean it had worked, so he never figured out why with Sammy it didn’t.
“Bobby,” he Dean said dully. “Did you want us to come with you because you knew that our memories would just return like that once we’re got where we came from?”
“That was the idea,” Bobby said grimly and took a turn that would take them out of the woods.
Dean was quiet all the way back to the city.
-
He was with Sam when he woke up. Bobby was not. Bobby was leaving them alone, taking care of something or other, so it was just Dean, holding Sam’s hand and counting his breaths.
Sam came to slowly and without panic. Dean had been prepared for disorientation and fear but Sam just opened his eyes and blinked at him, and after a moment of uncertainty he gave a faint smile. A sad smile. It seemed he was looking for something in Dean’s face and Dean didn’t know if he found it or found it lacking, but he knew Sam found certainty of something.
“You remember,” he whispered, hoarsely because his voice was gone and he was weak and tired.
Dean nodded and he wasn’t even surprised that Sam knew, or that he had remembered before him.
“When did you?” he asked.
“At some point yesterday or the day before, I didn’t even notice. I kept wondering if Bobby had finally gotten the new dog he’d been thinking about while we were gone.”
It was a long sentence that left Sam out of breath. Dean put a hand to his forehead and wordlessly told him to rest. He almost bent down to kiss him but remembered in time. It was over.
When Sam woke the second time early the next morning, he looked at Dean and said, “We should leave.”
It was stupid to go before he had recovered; they had good insurance and Sam would get all the care they could hope for. But Dean understood. He knew.
And so did Sammy. This wasn’t them. This wasn’t theirs.
He and Bobby took Sam away before noon, in a stolen ambulance, to some place that Bobby knew from long ago where no one would find them.
NEXT