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dime_lioraFirst part
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Sam’s room is empty when Dean finally makes it back to the house. Bonnie whines and follows him, tail between her legs like she knows how bad this has gotten. The garage is empty, and Dean stares at the space the Impala inhabited for a long time before a cold nose nudges him back to the present.
He’s gone. No note, no explanation, just gone. Dean trudges back through the snow with Bonnie beside him, and is amazed that Amy lets him in without hesitation. Everything hurts, he’s tired, and he lets her lead him to the bathroom and help remove his soaking clothes before she dries him off and unbuckles the prosthesis.
Dean is surprised when Amy wraps around him in bed, making the world’s most unbalanced pair of spoons, but the warmth of her at his back and Bonnie at his front lulls him into a sleep populated by dreams of Sam walking out on him and their life.
In the morning nothing is better. The bruising around Amy’s throat is dark and thick, Dean is hobbling badly, and there’s an empty house across the yard that he’s afraid to face. Instead of trying he sets out to fix the rupture Amy hoarsely swears doesn’t exist.
Without Sam the headaches are gone, but that’s cold comfort. Dean stops writing, considers burning the story entirely but that would mean going home. Instead he focuses on clearing the driveways, perfecting Mongolian Beef, and playing with Bonnie. The dog can’t seem to get excited about anything anymore.
Zoe comes home, and Dean stays in the kitchen by Amy’s directive and picks up pieces of the one-sided shouting match between the two of them. When Zoe finally arrives in the kitchen she stares at him as he rolls out dough quietly.
“She’s a shit liar. Was it you or Sam?”
“It was me.” He puts the rolling pin down and turns fully to her, chin tilted up for the hit.
Never before has Zoe looked so much like an ebony statue. Her face is hard, set, and Dean suddenly wonders if he’ll be exiled instead of hit. The pain that bursts in his jaw a second later answers the question without mercy.
“Okay, you deserved that one, and now we’re gonna let it go.” She sits down and runs her shaky hand over her face. “You gotta get treatment Dean. I don’t care what’s been screwed up in your head you can’t choke my girl. You got me? I can’t leave you around here if I have to worry about you hurting her.”
“I’ve got a referral.” Dean rubs his face and considers riding there alone after all the doctor’s visits he’s done with Sam. “I’m sure they’ll drug me stupid and make me talk about my parents.”
“You don’t remember your parents.” Suddenly her vicious smile is sympathetic. “Or your childhood. Or anything else. What the hell set you off?”
He thinks back, there was talking, someone discussing logically how vampires work, and then – nothing. Just blackness and pain until he woke up with his hands wrapped around Amy’s throat and Sam pulling him away.
“A horror movie. Something about nights and days.”
Zoe’s eyebrow arches before she shakes her head. “A horror movie? What are you some sort of monster killing PTSD victim?”
“A soldier could get flashbacks from screaming. Were you a soldier?” Amy slips into the chair beside Zoe and tucks her knees under her chin. “Did they tell you that when you woke up?”
No. It didn’t sound right, but then again it didn’t sound wrong. The memories he’d gained had a lot of structure, a lot of violence, and that felt right, but he’d been in and out of hospitals since he woke up and no one mentioned status as a veteran.
“No. I wasn’t a soldier. I think I just wasn’t ready for a vampire movie.”
They’re nice enough not to press any harder. Instead Zoe releases him to finish his cookies and Amy watches from the table with ice pressed to her swollen throat and the occasional whispered comment.
He thinks of Sam reading off the exact measurements for the dough, pulling out a ruler, and how long Dean busted his balls about being OCD. Is madness contagious? Did Sam’s delusions feed Dean’s, or was it the other way around? None of the fractured memories he’s gotten back fit with what little he knows about himself.
Which means he needs to know more about himself.
----
Dean hasn’t been in the attic since he moved in. The ladder was difficult to maneuver when he’d just started to adjust to the fake leg, and the box he wants is just past the opening. He drags it out and down before sitting on the floor and digging in.
The top level is paperwork. Most of it is legal, the Last Will and Testament of his dead sister, the sale papers for her house, and an unwieldy number of hospital bills and medical records. He digs through that to find the wrapped items saved from the sold manor.
There are two shoeboxes of pictures that go to his right, several baseball trophies with his name, and a stuffed bear. Nothing brings back memories, not even a hint of a headache, and he doesn’t feel anything he didn’t before he opened the box.
The first shoebox has shots of a little boy and girl in various locations and poses. Amusement parks, birthday parties, and backyard play sessions. Dean looks at the little boy with his blonde hair and green eyes pressed up against the brunette girl. That’s his sister. That’s Pamela.
It evokes nothing but confusion.
He should feel longing or loss, maybe sadness, but while the sight of floppy brown hair makes his fingers itch there’s nothing beyond that. It doesn’t help that the little boy in the picture is so far removed from him as to be unrecognizable.
Dean switches to the second shoebox and finds pictures of him in his teens. He was a baseball player, he enjoyed the outdoors, and he loved his sister. There’s something off about the pictures, something that Dean can’t put his finger on, but it leaves a bad taste in his mouth and has him loping across the grass with the box in his hands and the gears in his head whirling.
“Amy! Amy you home?”
She stumbles into view after the first minute of knocking, eyes wide and terrified, and Dean realizes he probably sounds the same way he did when he tried to kill her. He forces a smile and holds up the box.
“I’m sane, but I need your keen eye.”
It’s convincing enough, because Amy opens the door and lets him in. They set up at the kitchen table and Dean spreads the pictures out.
“What’s wrong with these?”
Amy squints. “They were taken on a lousy camera?”
“Yeah, but, no Ames something else. Something is-“
Her hands are fluttering, pushing the pictures into a crazy kind of order, and then she points at the one of him walking beside his sister and looks up. “Your legs.”
For half a second Dean bristles and then he doesn’t know what she’s talking about because Amy would not point out that he once had two of them and no longer does.
“What about them?”
“They’re not bowed in these. Not even a little. I mean the prosthesis throws it off a bit, but you’ve got bowlegs Dean. This guy doesn’t. Even if you could explain your hair darkening or the eye color being off because of the pictures this guy’s legs are all wrong. Plus, judging from perspective he’s maybe an inch or two shorter than you.”
He wants to argue, because what she’s saying supports Sam’s crazy story, rips apart what little reality he has, but he can’t. Sure, maybe the pictures were before a growth spurt, and maybe the bow-legged thing became more pronounced with age, but it’s more likely that the kid in the picture isn’t him.
Because it’s never felt like him.
----
The door crashes open and Dean jumps as Amy comes through it and stops just long enough to pet a barking Bonnie.
“Dean! Zoe’s on her way over and she’s got something but she won’t tell me!”
Sam’s been gone for a month, and in that time Dean has started to ask the questions he apparently dropped the ball on. Namely, who he really is. When his own resources, pathetically thin and surface level, ran out he turned to the network of people Zoe had befriended in her time in the fire department.
The taller woman comes through a few minutes later with a grocery bag full of papers and a dour look.
“You better be grateful Sugar, because I gotta take Rueben Lafayette out to lunch the next time I’m in town and that man has some serious jungle fever.”
For his part, the best Dean can manage is a perfunctory smile in the interest of being friendly. Zoe grabs the seat next to him and starts pulling out pages.
“So, before we start stand up and pull your shirt up.”
Dean freezes in place, face no doubt incredulous, and Zoe rolls her eyes.
“You got too few curves and too many dangly parts to spark my fire Sugar just pull that shirt up and turn round real slow.”
He complies, and then takes his seat again. Amy’s mouth is covered and her face is pale.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Are all those scars from the accident?”
Dean shrugs and settles back into his chair. “I dunno. I’ve never really looked too close at myself.”
Zoe shakes her head and lines up medical records. “The majority of them are too old. Plus you’re missing Dean Hunt’s appendectomy scar and the Gemini tattoo on his back.”
Beside the medical records she places an official looking sheet, with a mug shot of the teenager he saw in the pictures and a list of crimes related to drug possession.
“Distinguishing marks as of 2003. Then we got this second problem, where you look exactly like this guy. By the way, this is what got Rueben on my case about lunch.”
It’s an artist’s portrait beside a crystal clear picture, and Dean feels his hands start to shake. It’s almost him. Just a shade off of the face that looks at him in the mirror. He looks younger, cocky and sure, and there’s a smirk that lingers at the edge of his lips.
He reads the list of crimes out loud, voice rising in register with each one. “Murder, theft, credit card fraud, breaking and entering, impersonating a federal agent, impersonating – Jesus, grave robbing?”
But it fits. It fits with Sam’s crazy story because they dig up graves in Dean’s crazy story.
“Here’s the problem, Rueben says that thing is a relic. Dean Winchester died in St. Louis after they caught him butchering some poor girl.” Zoe’s face is serious, hand moving rapidly to collect the records back together. “Said it was big news for a long time ‘cause he was in town with his brother and the girl they caught him slicing up was who the boys were visiting.”
She pulls out one last stack and places it in front of Dean before slumping back into her chair.
“Last bit, and I don’t know if it helps Sam’s story or hurts it, but there was a lot of stuff going down when you had your accident. There’d been four disappearances in the area of men that fit a profile. Namely, they looked like you, Sugar. None of ‘em ever turned up, but the whole thing stopped a few weeks before your accident and it never started up again. Hospital workers reported the man that came in with you claimed to be your brother before the ID proved him a liar, and he was wanted for questioning. Still is technically. Description was a tall, lanky kid with floppy brown hair and big hazel eyes. Had a gash in his arm that was, and I quote, ‘in serious need of medical care’.”
Amy’s got hair wrapped tight around her finger as she bites at her lips. “So Sam was there that night? Doesn’t he have that scar on his forearm?”
Accident. Metal. Like jagged car remnants ripping flesh as someone tried to unbury someone else.
His head doesn’t hurt, there are no flashes of anything confusing or unclear, but Dean knows suddenly and with terrible certainty that there’s a real chance Sam is telling the truth. Even if the truth is crazier than what may be fiction.
“I’m either a drug addict who magically got rid of a scar and a tattoo, or a dead serial killer who fucked his brother.”
Zoe’s eyes jerk up from the table and Amy is off her chair and headed towards him before her wife stops her.
“Dean you listen to me and you listen good. Whatever’s going on here it ain’t that simple. You’re the one who told me the world wasn’t black and white. All of this shit is just one side of some story none of us is equipped to wrap our heads around. Don’t matter though, because whatever it is we’re gonna be standing right beside you.”
Blonde hair flies with the force of Amy’s nodding. “And when Sam comes back we’ll just lay it all out. He can tell us what’s real and what’s not and then-“
“No.” They both stop smiling, eyes focused on Dean as he muddles through his thought process. “Because there’s that chance that Sam is not right, and that makes his information as meaningless as this.”
He pushes up from the table and digs through his drawers until he finds a black ink pen and tape. Both women watch as he doodles on his fingertips and then applies the tape before pulling the pieces off and sticking them to the back of a bill envelope.
The wanted poster and the booking sheet get placed side by side, and Dean squints at the envelope in comparison to the two. Amy sees it first.
Her finger lands on the right sheet and she bites her lip carefully. “You’re Dean Winchester.”
There they are, whorls and loops almost perfect despite the smudges of his faulty prints, and the ink doesn’t lie. The other set is close, but not right.
“I’m Dean Winchester.” He swallows hard and pushes all of it away, watches the histories of the man he was and the man he thought he was flutter to the floor. “I’m Sam’s brother.”
Silence rules the space, and Zoe seems to consider picking the papers up before changing her mind.
“This still don’t mean you’re a dead serial killer.” She pushes the fingerprints and police paperwork back into the bag.
He’s not even sure that’s the part that concerns him the most.
“And maybe – what if – I mean Sam knew right? So maybe that was something you guys, you know, did before. The accident.” Amy’s back in her chair now, knees pulled up as she seems to search for words. “So it’s not a big deal.”
The laughter bursts from him. “Not a big deal that I was inside of my little brother? You got siblings, both of you, either of you want to bone one of them?”
Amy’s face cramps in automatic disgust before being overtaken by panic. “Well – no but Dean that’s not-“
“If Ames was my sister.” They both turn to look at Zoe’s thoughtful face. “If then, yeah, I would. I mean not my brothers no, but her? I love her. Don’t matter how I know her in the first place.”
“And it’s not like you two can make mutant babies.”
Zoe and Dean laugh at the same time, Dean surprised and Zoe fond and exasperated.
“Baby girl this is why I keep telling you to watch the History Channel with me. That stuff takes generations and it’s not like those horror movies you watched with the hills and the rednecks.”
“Shut up.” She pouts and leans her head against her knees. “It’s an honest mistake.”
“So now we gotta find Sam.”
Both women turn serious, and Zoe lays her hand on Dean’s wrist.
“If he doesn’t want to be found shouldn’t you just wait for him?”
Dean shakes his head. “He’s in trouble. I can feel it Zoe.”
“You guys couldn’t of been the only monster hunters right? Somebody’s gotta know you two, and know how to get a hold of him.” Amy looks hopeful, sure, and it brightens the mood just a bit.
Dean wonders though. Nobody’s come looking for him since the accident other than Sam. Is there anyone out there that cares what happened to the two Winchester brothers?
---
It hits Dean in the middle of walking Bonnie. She’s a pretty good sport about being practically dragged back through the slush and mud of the driveway to reach his neighbors’ house.
“Zoe! Zoe you home?”
There’s a crash from their bedroom and then Zoe comes stumbling out pulling a robe on.
“What the hell set your ass on fire Dean, because I swear-“
“Grave robbing.”
Her facial expression is priceless, and if it wasn’t for Sam being on the line Dean would take time to enjoy it.
“I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt that you ain’t having another breakdown. What are you babbling about?”
“The rest of those charges would be pretty common, but how many people really get popped for grave robbing these days?”
Zoe leans against the wall and rubs her hand over her short hair briskly. “Yeah, okay, fair point. I know some people so I can ask around, but Dean if we find someone what are we gonna do about it?”
“We?”
Her dark eyes narrow and she frowns viciously. “We.”
Dean’s chest tightens and he tries to ignore it. “We’re gonna go looking for him and bring him home.”
----
It’s easier than it has any right to be. Dean attributes some of that to the leftover parts of the old him, because when Zoe comes back with a list of twenty-five people in the state that have been charged with grave robbing Dean is able to rule the first ten out with just a glance.
The last fifteen get a closer look, and he drops anyone still in jail, anyone caught who pled guilty, and two men who upon Googling turn out to have Facebook accounts. That leaves Elias Wood, and the research is promising. Arrested for grave robbing and then released when a string of unsolved murders ended, Elias is an old man living alone in a secluded and defunct dump.
Four hours spent on the road leads them to Elias’s doorstep, and Dean surveys the yard as Zoe gets progressively more tense.
“Dean this ain’t exactly friendly looking. I know your one try at horror movies ended badly, but this is-“
She falls silent at the racking of a shotgun, and they both turn to see an old man squinting at them with the double barrels pointed firmly at Dean’s chest.
“Want to tell me what you two think you’re doing here?”
He licks his lips and then raises both hands slowly. “I’m looking for Elias Wood. I need-“
“Boy, there are signs that say no trespassing, no soliciting, and no proselytizing. Whatever you and your friend here are doing one of those signs applies to you.”
Confidence surges up and Dean takes a half step forward. “There’s no sign banning hunting.”
For a moment it hangs there in the air, Elias’s face still screwed up and Zoe breathing fast and harsh beside him. Then the man smiles and lowers the shotgun, face crinkling with joy and recognition.
“Well damn it I should have seen the chin. You’re John Winchester’s boy aren’t you? And here I am pointing a gun at you. That was rude of me.”
Dean almost laughs, but there’s hysteria right at the edge and he’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to show that.
“I’m looking for leads on Sam.”
“Your brother?”
He doesn’t wince, but it’s close. “Yeah. I lost him.”
Elias nods thoughtfully and then leads them through the wreckage to a rambling shack in the center. The door creaks loudly, and the interior smells worse than the yard around it. Dean accepts a seat in a disgusting chair and watches Zoe wrinkle her nose before taking the other one.
“I’m surprised you came to me instead of Bobby Singer, but I guess you were in the neighborhood. Last I heard you boys were riding together, so you want to tell me how it is you lost your little brother?”
Well first I got my head scrambled in an accident, then I almost made him stay in a car to freeze to death when he was just trying to get close to me, then I fucked him several times and he fucked me, and then he admitted the truth and disappeared.
“It’s a long story that basically ends with siblings and a shrug.” Dean’s head jerks to look at Zoe, but her eyes are fixed on Elias. “Can you help us?”
Elias lifts one bushy eyebrow before grinning broadly. “Well no, not directly, but I have Bobby Singer’s direct line and he’s got the scoop on everything. Give me just a minute.”
He digs through three drawers, casually throwing things on the floor as he mutters to himself, and then he turns with a pen and paper held up triumphantly.
“Sorry we didn’t just go to him, but I’m missing a lot of numbers right now.”
Elias’s eyes sparkle. “You don’t have to be cagy with me boy. Whatever’s going on with you and your brother I’m sure it’s as complicated as a Winchester can make it. You know I worked with your father once. Hell of a hunter and a hell of a man. We took down a Rugaru together, and I swear that man was half machine.” This seems like a compliment, so Dean nods and smiles. From the look on the old man’s face it’s not exactly the right response.
“Thanks for this again. I’m sure Bobby will be able to get it.”
The truck is twenty miles down the road before Dean tries to break the silence.
“That went well.”
Zoe only grunts.
----
He’s on speakerphone, the three of them grouped around the table and Bonnie lying on the floor with her head on his foot.
The phone rings and then a sharp voice cuts over the distance.
“What?”
“It’s Dean. I’m calling to ask if you’ve heard from Sam.”
“Dean? You got your memory back already boy?”
Amy’s eyes are huge over the table and Dean can’t look away as he tries to answer confidently.
“Yes Sir Mr. Singer. Sam kind of took off on me and I’m trying to track him down. You know, little brothers.” He forces a laugh as he trails off and there’s a long silence.
“So you’re all you again and not a blank slate?”
Blue narrows to slits and her head shakes slowly. “He knows something.” She mouths it and Dean swallows.
“Mostly yeah. Been getting stuff back here and there, but I think I’m almost a hundred percent.”
“You’re gonna have to excuse me boy, because I know you don’t remember me or how our relationship works, but you must think I’m the biggest idjit in the world. I ain’t falling for this one bit.”
What comes next is entirely reflexive, some buried instinct that Dean recognizes as the man he used to be.
“Bobby I’m trying really hard here, but you know that nothing’s gonna stop me from finding Sam right? I’m sure I used to like you a lot, but right now you’re a stranger keeping me from my brother. My brother who might be in trouble. I’m getting a little desperate here, and that’s not gonna end well for anyone.”
“Well at least some things never change. I’ll check on Sam for you, but I ain’t helping you get yourself into worse trouble. You just sit this one out Dean.”
The line goes silent and his phone beeps to tell him it’s disconnected. Dean reacts without thinking, hand sweeping the phone up and throwing it against the wall.
Amy winces and Zoe slaps his shoulder hard. “That ain’t helping.”
“It’s not hurting either. He won’t help me find Sam, but he fucking knows where he is! What gives him the right to decide what’s safe or not for me?”
“Old people tend to take that right as a part of aging. Don’t make them easier to handle but it isn’t something you can talk them out of.”
Dean considers that. Depending on how true the story he’s been writing is, Bobby is a hunter and that means he’s trained to be paranoid and violent. If he’s really dedicated to keeping Dean away from finding Sam then nothing short of that will convince him.
And really, that’s how the plan develops.
---
It’s not hard to track Bobby down. The salvage shop is listed on the internet, and Dean’s gotten pretty good at looking things up.
He takes Zoe and Amy because they insist, leaves Bonnie in Lucas’s care, but he knows that he won’t be taking them any further than the motel room.
In the dead of the night when both women are sleeping in the other bed Dean collects the gun he bought when he started his search for the other hunter and slips out into the night. The trip from the run-down building to Bobby’s place is long enough for Dean to consider a thousand ways this could go horribly wrong. He doesn’t pay attention to any of them.
Leaving the truck down the road Dean awkwardly climbs the fence and then weaves through the rows of abandoned cars. The moonlight glints off them, and Dean is temporarily distracted. Enough that he misses the approach of the dog until it’s on him.
Dean may not remember Bobby, but whatever this beast is it remembers him. Slobber drips from his hands and face as he pushes the big dog off and climbs carefully back to his feet. The dog follows silently as Dean makes his final approach.
When he first left the hospital Dean was terrified of the things he didn’t know. The doctor told him that the cliché about riding a bike had a very real basis. The body remembers even when the brain doesn’t. Driving was only complicated if he let himself overthink, so Dean’s practiced long and hard at letting his mind drift as his body carries out the tasks he once knew so well.
This trick works better than Dean could have imagined. His steps are careful and broad, his hands know how to manipulate the picks he researched and bought, and he twists just in time to knock the shotgun pointed at him aside and then step into Bobby’s space.
It’s quick, brutal, and Dean takes a hit to the gut and one to the face before he gets behind the older man and wraps one arm around his neck putting the loaded gun to his head.
An elbow catches Dean’s ribs and he sucks in a harsh breath before tightening the hold on Bobby’s neck and cocking the gun.
We’re gonna play catch. You know how to play catch boy?
“I’ll loosen the hold so you can talk, but the gun stays out. You got me old man?”
Bobby grunts and Dean lets go a bit and feels the man take a deep breath. He puts enough space in between them so that Bobby can’t take the gun and then studies the man. Grizzled, heavier than Dean expected, and angry as a basket full of rattlers.
“What the hell are you doing idjit? Trying to get me to kill you?”
“Way I see it I’m not the one in trouble here. Now I need you to tell me where to find Sam.”
The man may be older but he’s sharp. His eyes narrow and then he points to Dean’s hand.
“You won’t shoot me boy. I know you better than you know-“
Dean squeezes the trigger, and the gun goes off. He’s a better shot than he thought he’d be, because the bullet pegs Bobby neatly in the shoulder and the hunter staggers back against the wall with his mouth open on a shout.
“What the ever living fuck do you think-“
“It’s a .22 and that’s a flesh wound. I told you Bobby, I don’t know you, and to be honest you don’t know me anymore either. Now tell me how to find Sam.”
Bobby’s mouth pulls down and his face goes thunderous.
“I’ve forgiven the Winchesters a lot boy, but breaking into my home in the middle of the night and putting a bullet in me may be my limit. You know you probably just burned the best bridge you have.”
“I considered that, but to be honest the only bridge I care about right now is Sam.” He swallows once and then makes sure his aim is on. “I’m sorry, and I bet when my memory comes back I’ll regret the hell out of this, but right now you’re in my way. Tell me where to find Sam.”
“Last I heard from your brother he was in Savannah looking for the witch that taught Pamela the spell. The Cirlot Inn. Now get outta my house.”
And Dean does.
----
Zoe doesn’t ask questions, but Amy can’t shut up.
“Are you sure that you should have done that? What if he calls the cops? Also, Dean, violence isn’t-“
“You have to stop. I love you Ames, but you have to stop. Sam is in trouble and I don’t care about pissing the guy off. I can go back to pacifism after Sam is safe.”
They take turns with the drive to Georgia, and Dean is honestly afraid that his temper is reaching some new epic level. Not since those first days in the hospital when he honestly blamed everyone around him for his pain has he been so prone to snap. Zoe keeps quiet, watchful, and Amy tries to soothe, but the combination rubs him wrong. He needs something else and he doesn’t know what it is besides knowing that Sam is safe.
Bobby’s information takes them to outskirts of the city, and the motel looks shady and unpleasant from the outside. Technically Dean already knows the answer to his question, because he sees the Impala parked in the back and gleaming under the lights. The front desk clerk grunts at Dean’s request for a room and eyes Amy with something a step beyond regular leering.
It gives Dean an idea.
He gets settled in the room and then sends Amy with the picture of Sam in the hopes that the clerk will be more forthcoming. It works, but it earns him a rather hateful glare from Zoe and a decent but easily dismissed amount of guilt.
The tension he’s felt since Sam disappeared is increasing with every second.
Amy comes back victorious. Sam paid for his room for a month up front, and they’re only two down from it. Dean waits until he’s sure no one will be walking by to break into it.
Everything is as neat and tidy as Dean expects it to be. There’s a wealth of papers pinned to the wall, strings leading from pictures of people and buildings to notes written in Sam’s slanted hand. Dean studies all of them and finds the whole thing strangely comforting. This is Sam at his most controlled and logical. At least he knows that the kid went into this with a clear head.
The final target of Sam’s investigation appears to be a woman named Martha, and the picture doesn’t work out quite the way Dean thought it would. She looks respectable, grounded, and he wonders vaguely if Sam is as good at this as he thought he was.
“So we just go to this woman’s house and ask if she’s seen Sam?” Zoe’s peering at the notes while Amy digs through the trash to judge how long Sam has actually been gone.
“Looks that way.”
And it’s that simple, or so Dean thinks. Martha lives in a suburb setting, house set back on a large lawn and full of light and life. Dean knocks with the two women close behind him and then reaches back to touch the weight of the pistol tucked into his pants.
Martha’s just as normal in person as she was in the picture. She smiles brightly through pink lipstick and wipes flour covered hands on her apron.
“How can I help all y’all?”
“We’re looking for my brother. He’s got a condition and we’re worried he may have shown up here to harass you. Have you seen him?”
Dean holds the picture out and watches her study it before her lips purse thoughtfully.
“No I’m afraid I haven’t, but I’ll be on the lookout for him. Why would he be harassing me?” She looks up and her big brown eyes radiate innocence and honesty.
He doesn’t trust it. Something in his gut cramps and screams.
“I couldn’t explain it if I wanted to ma’am. He’s just not exactly right you know? If you hear from him please call me.” Dean slips her a scrap of paper with his number and she smiles brightly.
“Of course I will honey. I’ll be honest though if he seems dangerous I’ll be calling the police too. Nothing personal, but I can’t take a chance with that sort of thing. I’m sure you understand. Good luck on your search and God bless.”
“Thank you ma’am.”
They trudge back to the truck and Zoe leans against the passenger door casually.
“Something ain’t right.”
Dean nods.
----
The wait for the sun to set is agonizing. Every minute is another one that might be Sam’s last. Zoe insists that if they’re going to do this they’ll do it right, and that’s how they end up at a gun store buying two new shotguns.
Dean takes one, Zoe the other, and Amy reluctantly accepts the pistol.
Once the moon is high and the neighborhood is silent Dean parks at a distance and then leads the way through backyards to the witch’s house.
The door gives easier than Bobby’s did, only one lock this time, and then they make their way through a picturesque domestic setting. Doors open silently as Dean peeks into every room, but other than finding the witch’s bedroom and the resultant spike in his blood pressure there’s no success. He considers offing her right there, then taking out the male body beside her, undoubtedly her husband, because leaving them there seems like a bad idea.
Dean feels like pulling his hair out, and he tilts his head back and takes a deep breath to resist the urge. That’s when he sees the string.
Gesturing silently Dean pulls the cord and a ladder slides down with a slight squeak. The three of them stand frozen in place for a bit before Dean grabs the first rung and hauls himself up awkwardly with the shotgun still in hand.
Slope-roofed and overly hot the attic is a large and mostly empty space. The only things in it are a small altar, and a lump of clothes.
Except the lump shifts, and Dean’s heart skips a beat as he thumps across the wood placed over beams until he’s beside what’s left of Sam.
His brother’s face is ruined, bloody and bruised, and Sam’s eyes are too swollen shut to see Dean properly. He’s lost weight again, face gaunt and pale where it’s not black and red, and Dean strokes a finger as softly as he can over Sam’s swollen cheekbone.
A low and pained moan tells him Sam is awake, but trying to play dead. Dean feels down Sam’s arms until he finds the big metal cuffs and then begins to pick the locks on them while murmuring as quietly as he can.
“S’ok Sammy. I got you. I got you baby.”
This close he can smell Sam, and fighting the urge to gag helps him to not think what the mix of scents says about Sam’s stay here. The first cuff pops open and Dean has just begun the second when he hears Zoe shout behind him, and then the quiet of the attic is broken by the roar of a shotgun going off.
He turns in time to see Mr. Witch’s body falling, Zoe’s open mouth, and then she’s flying across the space and slamming into one of the low ceilings as Amy screams.
Martha doesn’t look wholesome anymore. Her eyes are pure black, her hand outstretched, and her mouth is curled into a smile.
“Dean Winchester. Took you long enough.”
Amy steps forward, hands shaking as she lifts the gun, and Dean doesn’t have time to tell her no or to do anything. He just watches in horror as Martha’s hand jerks forward and slams first into Amy’s face and then her chest. There’s a sound, something wet and thick, and then blood pours from the face that has smiled at him so much before she crumples to the ground.
Everything he wrote, every last horrific detail, comes to the forefront of Dean’s mind as he pushes himself up and looks at the demon. He fumbles the salt shaker out of his pocket and holds steady. There’s not enough to make a mistake.
“You might want to smoke out now. Before it gets ugly.”
The grin goes lopsided as it tilts Martha’s head.
“Where’s the patented Winchester wit? Even your little brother there managed to drop a clichéd line before I beat the spirit out of him.”
Dean jerks, fights the urge to lunge, and levels the shotgun. He remembers Zoe looking disdainfully at his choice of ammo before loading her slugs.
“You’re in a housewife named Martha. There’s no joke that wouldn’t be obvious.” He takes a step forward, closer to Amy and the demon. Just a few more feet.
“You know what the best sound your brother made was? It’s funny, but no matter how experienced hunters are with being hurt there’s always this particularly surprised quality when you really start digging into them. I like to think that in that moment he realized you weren’t coming to save the day.”
You hurt my brother and I’ll kill you. You understand me?
The pain flares bright and vicious, the demon’s smile goes wide, and Dean throws caution to the wind. He squeezes the trigger and unloads both barrels of rock salt into the demon’s chest before taking the steps necessary to lay the salt line in front of Amy and between them and the demon.
Then he starts the exorcism as he reloads the shotgun, and when the thing tries to move he gentles it with another two barrels. The Latin comes fast and smooth, and the thing smokes out before he’s done, but he finishes the rest of the rite before he lets himself dial 911 with a shaky hand.
Address and brief description of emergency given, Dean goes to Sam. He hears scraping behind him and turns with his teeth bared and the shotgun up, but it’s Zoe trying to get to Amy. There’s keening, Zoe babbling her wife’s name in desperation, but Dean can’t think about that.
Can’t look at the blood that is probably on his hands as he holds a frighteningly still Sam.
----
Dean gets a taste of what Sam suffered in Atlanta. He has no proof that he is Sam’s brother, and so he makes a desperate play by telling them that he is Sam’s partner much as Zoe is Amy’s. She has forms faxed from Maine to prove her medical power of attorney, but Dean just has to rely on the doctor’s pity of how terrified and shaken he is.
They tell him that Sam is malnourished, dehydrated, and has suffered multiple lacerations, burns, and bruises. He has a broken cheekbone, clavicle, and a fractured ankle. The doctor promises Dean that it sounds worse than it is, that Sam will bounce back with proper care and supervision.
Zoe’s news is delivered five hours later by a surgeon with blood still on his scrubs. Dean holds her up as the man tells them that Amy required a transfusion, that four of her ribs were broken and two of them punctured her lung, and that her eye was too damaged to save. She’s listed as stable but critical, and there are no words for the sound that escapes Zoe as she leans into Dean.
Together they stay in the waiting room. Sam and Amy aren’t allowed visitors yet, and Dean and Zoe cannot bring themselves to go back to the motel and rest until that changes.
Police officers come in and out, ask question after question, but they seem as perplexed as Dean is exhausted. Nothing makes sense, from their incredibly weak story about simply looking for his missing boyfriend to the plethora of evidence that an upstanding local woman apparently hid her Satanic hobbies right under the community’s nose. He’s not sure if he and Zoe are excellent liars, or the cops are simply desperate to get away from all the confusion, but they let them go.
The sun has risen when Dean finally gets the courage to say what he’s been thinking since the moment his brain started to work again.
“I’ll leave. Pack up everything and-“
“Bullshit.” When Dean turns Zoe’s face is ashen and her lips pale. Her left hand plucks at dried blood on her pants as her eyes move over the waiting room. “You’ll stick around, you and Sam, and wait for her to wake up and forgive your asses. ‘Cause she- no because we love you both and we did this willingly. Only one at fault is that crazy Martha bitch. You leaving would just punish us.”
Secretly, he wonders if Amy will agree.
---
Sam’s awake and stable enough for visitors first. Dean slips in and surveys the wires and bandages.
“You’re gonna have a hard time helping me around the house with all your shit busted.”
Blackened hazel eyes study him for a long time before Sam licks his cracked lips and croaks, “You’ve never been funny.”
“Well, I can’t argue how true that is, but I have the feeling you’re in pain and just a little bitter.”
“I’m sorry Dean.”
“I have the feeling you say that a lot too. Let’s make this easy, you’re an idiot and you could have died. I love you and I’m glad you didn’t. Everybody forgives you and we’re going to get tired of you apologizing so get it out of your system quick and stop as soon as possible.”
A smile ghosts over Sam’s busted mouth before fading into nothing.
“Don’t leave me?”
He thinks of the hospital, gripping Sam and begging without knowing who he was or what it meant. All the stupid shit he’s said that upset Sam and Dean is only just now beginning to see the double-meanings that would have cut and scarred.
“Yeah, I’ll stay.”
----
Dean parts from Sam long enough to check on Zoe. They’re saying that Amy’s lung is probably going to re-inflate fully without further surgical intervention, and with any luck she’ll wake soon.
Zoe’s in the same clothes, dried blood speckled over her shirt and thighs, and Dean’s not in much better condition. There’s no chance of getting her to leave when she still doesn’t really know anything, and Dean doesn’t bother to try. Instead he promises her he’ll go back to the motel and get a change of clothes for both of them and their toiletries.
There are so many things to ask Sam. How much of the story was true, was accurate, and how much did he get wrong? Did Sam find what he was looking for before he got chained in the attic?
Was he ever planning on coming back?
All of that can wait though because Sam is alive and he’s going to get better. He’s going to come home with Dean and that’s it. That’s as far as he’s willing to plan.
Except the second Dean steps through the motel room door he knows that there’s a problem. Something’s off, something subtle and just this side of wrong, and that same gut feeling that led him to Sam tells him that now is the time to be on high alert. There’s a knife he tucked under his pillow, and if he gets to that everything should be fine.
He’s close, his hand brushes the scratchy bedspread, and then he’s stopped short by a smooth and friendly male voice behind him.
“You will not believe how hard it has been to find you. One minute I can follow your every move and the next you and Sam just drop off the map. Makes a guy feel unwanted.”
Dean turns slowly, hands dangling at his sides as he mentally calculates the space between his twitching fingers and the pillow.
Medium height, medium build, fucking average minus the yellow eyes. Dean doesn’t need his memories. Over a hundred pages in total have been devoted to this demon and his eyes. He knows what the thing has done, what it’s capable of, and how well and truly fucked he is in this moment.
Knowing all of that does nothing for the urge to reach, to find, and his fingers stretch back and back over what feels like miles of cheap fabric as he tries to find a knife that will help him as much as prayer will.
“What can I say? We’re private people. I’m kinda busy right now, but if you’re interested you can just give me your information and I’ll send you ours when we’re back home.”
The demon smiles, ambles in and shuts the door casually.
“How I have missed that Winchester wit. Hey, Dean, help me out because I’ve been fighting with myself about which would be more impacting. Sam finding out I brutally tortured and murdered you, or Sam finding out I’ve taken you?”
Nothing prepares him for the sudden burst of speed, and the Yellow-Eyed Demon is there right in front of him. The monster from his book, the death of the family he doesn’t remember, and the catalyst that led to him being crushed under a car and scrambling his brains.
“To be honest I don’t think Sam would have a preference. Maybe we’ll go for the alternate ending where I gank your lousy ass.”
So close, pillow stuffing and case right there, and any second his fingers will find the wood of the handle.
“Oh Sammy will get his preferences eventually. Once he’s fulfilling his destiny he’ll get anything he wants. He can even have you back if he hasn’t found a better piece of ass by then.”
For half a second Dean thinks that he put the knife in the wrong way, because it’s not wood but smooth metal. Except what he’s touching isn’t sharp and it feels too warm and slightly alive. His hand tingles at the contact, his arm tightens reflexively, and then Dean is in motion before his mouth can form a return insult.
The demon tries to move, starts to move, but Dean’s faster. So fast he’s pretty sure his shoulder pops out of its socket as he sinks the blade into the thing’s chest. Dean doesn’t know what he hopes will come out of this moment, but he had no way of being prepared for this.
Electricity snaps behind the demon’s eyes and time stands still as Dean watches the sparks jump from one side of the monster’s mouth to the other. Then the lights dim and become regular eyes before the body slides off the blade and thumps to the floor.
Cylindrical, smooth, oddly shaped, and apparently made out of one piece of metal the short sword has no markings and no explanation. It was simply there, and whatever it is it can kill a demon.
Dean slips it into the bag he brought and hides it in the back of the truck’s cab. He empties both motel rooms of everything that can be connected to them and pays the rest of the room fees before he speeds back to the hospital.
----
Zoe’s still in the waiting lounge, head tipped against the wall as she snores loudly. Dean goes down on one knee and tries to wake her gently but he’s shaking too much and his right arm is stiff. She jerks instead, eyes flying open, and her fake hand slaps Dean on reflex.
“Holy shit Sugar I didn’t mean to hit you. What happened?”
“Amy. Did they say how long it would be before Amy can go home?”
She takes a deep breath and then looks away. “If the lung goes back to normal the way it’s supposed to? If there’s no new bleeds and all the cauterized arteries and veins in the socket hold? Three weeks. Minimum, and she ain’t allowed to fly back. Even then she’s gonna be on bed rest and close supervision. Why?”
“I gotta go, and I’m taking Sam with me. I can’t explain everything right now but I think you two will be fine. Just stay here as long as you have to and then come back to Maine. I’m leaving the truck in the parking lot and going back for the Impala.”
He honestly expects her to argue with him or ask more questions. Maybe it’s what happened the last time she got involved though, or potentially she just trusts the gut that has been leading them, but Zoe simply nods and squeezes his aching shoulder.
“Want me to make a distraction?”
“That would be excellent.”
-----
Doctors and nurses are held up in the tableau of Zoe going into hysterics outside Amy’s door. It looks like they’re trying to calm her and move her at the same time, but Zoe’s tall frame is immovable as she wails and screams for her wife.
It takes longer than he wants to move Sam, too drugged to help and too aware to not try, but eventually he wedges the huge frame into a wheelchair and begins to push. Once they’re past the nurse’s station it’s all about looking like Sam is supposed to be up and moving.
Then Dean realizes that his brilliant plan has them stuck here if he really leaves Zoe the truck. Sam looks blearily around the parking lot before pointing out Dean’s vehicle proudly. “That there!”
How much morphine did they put in the kid? Dean pats Sam’s shoulder as gently as he can before looking to the road. “Yeah, I see it. Problem is we need to get back to the motel a different way after I unload the truck.” There’s not much to grab so that’s a relief. He starts pushing Sam that way.
It’s perfectly logical to assume that Sam has drifted off on a wave of opiates, but then as he’s pulling the last bag out of the bed Sam pipes up.
“That one. The little Honda.”
Dean turns to spot the older car sitting a bit apart from the rest of the lot. It looks abandoned to be honest, and Dean wonders if there’s something beyond it.
“The little Honda what, Sammy? You see something?”
Sam’s head shakes as his finger wobbles around in the air. “Take it.”
Laughter bursts out of him unexpectedly. “What? Just, walk up and take it?”
Bleary hazel eyes settle on him and then a small smile curls Sam’s mouth. “That’s my boy.”
The burst of pain is sudden but expected, and Dean props himself up against the side of the little car and takes a deep breath.
“Okay buddy, save the memory lane trips for after we’re in the clear.” The car is unlocked, probably the owners betting on no one wanting it, and Dean settles Sam in the passenger seat with his knees practically around his ears before heading for the driver’s side.
It only occurs to him as he’s adjusting the seat that he has no idea how to do this. He turns to Sam and finds that same amused and distant look.
“No clue on what happens next. Tips?”
Sam waves the hand not trapped in a sling and smiles lopsidedly. “Hotwire it.”
“Yeah that’s helpful. Really helpful. How do you do that?”
“Taught me. Taught me everything. Love you.” Sam’s eyes drift shut and Dean’s left alone with a task that may as well be brain surgery. Apparently Grand Theft Auto doesn’t fall under muscle memory.
Frustration leads him to punch the dashboard and the little car shakes so hard the visor drops down and a set of keys land in Dean’s lap.
Providence, at this point, is not a thing he’s willing to question, and Dean cranks the Honda on before heading to the motel. No new catastrophes hit them between the hospital and the Impala, and Dean digs through the bag of Sam’s belongings from the hospital before finding his key ring.
Headache aside, driving the Impala is like settling into a second skin. Dean relaxes the further they get from Savannah, eyes darting less and muscles losing tension with every mile. At some point Sam wakes up enough to pop a tape of rock music in, and then he’s back to drooling on the window and snoring as Dean heads north on 95.
-----
Zoe calls him the next day to say that Amy has woken up, and that she’s answering a lot of questions from the police as to where Sam disappeared to. She’s distracted, maybe a little depressed, but she sounds proud of herself when she explains the ridiculous story she told them about having only met Dean and Sam a week before at a gay bar.
It takes them three days to get home, because Sam absolutely cannot drive and Dean has to take breaks to medicate and sleep off the pain. When they finally pull into the driveway he considers going to get Bonnie that night and immediately rules it out.
Sam is quiet, morphine replaced by lower dose painkillers from a first aid kit in his trunk. Dean doesn’t push for more than being assured that Sam is alright other than the various aches and pains.
The two of them make their way inside, and Dean gets Sam set up in his bed before heading to the kitchen. There’s enough soup in the pantry to get by for a few days without shopping, and Dean’s pretty sure that they’ll be fine here. That the demon was telling the truth that being here keeps them hidden.
He heats up a small pot of soup and then makes grilled cheese sandwiches before dropping everything on a tray and taking it back into the bedroom. Sam’s sitting up, head hung low, and Dean clears his throat before sliding the tray onto Sam’s lap.
“Can you do that one-handed or do you need help?”
Sam sends him a resentful look that Dean imagines he was once used to before shakily lifting the spoon and slopping soup into his mouth.
Dean slides to the floor and props his back against the wall before tearing into his own sandwich. They eat in tense silence for a while before Sam drops the spoon and turns to Dean.
“Aren’t you going to shout at me or tell me how stupid I am? Or maybe you could tell me why we booked it out of Savannah so fast?”
Melted cheese sticks to his fingers and Dean licks it off before meeting Sam’s desperate glare.
“Is that something I usually do?”
His brother’s head falls back down, and Dean wonders about how much that aggravates his broken cheekbone.
“So you’re mad about that?”
Possible responses run through his head at high speed even as Dean pushes up from the floor and makes his way across the room to the edge of the bed. He sits carefully to not upset the tray on Sam’s lap and takes the sharp chin before tilting Sam’s face up so that their eyes lock.
“Did you find it at least? The answer you were looking for?”
What little color was left in Sam’s face beyond the swelling and bruising bleaches out, and he swallows thickly.
“Later?”
Yeah. Later.
-----
Later comes a week after they’ve returned. The swelling is going down, minus the fallout from his cheekbone, and Sam is starting to look like himself again. On the other hand, the more Sam’s health improves the more withdrawn he gets. He watches Dean as if some impending explosion is building, and the twitchiness is starting to get on Dean’s nerves.
Admittedly, Dean does nothing to ease that tension. What time he doesn’t spend making sure Sam is regaining weight and staying off his leg is devoted to studying every page of his story. It makes the nights long, and Dean finds himself stumbling to Sam high on painkillers more than he cares to admit.
This isn’t a narrative anymore, a hobby to distract him from his own problems, this is their history. Every insult, every joke, and each heart shattering moment happened to them once upon a time. The man who sold his soul is their father, the woman who burned on the ceiling is their mother, and the strained relationship is theirs.
Jensen screams from the pages, trapped in a life that seems to have no exits, and Dean tries to picture himself similarly stymied. Tries to imagine a life in which he loves Sam but hates him, and the two things twist into some overly protective and repressed system of catch and release.
Did Sam really leave him that many times? Did Dean really say that? He wants to ask but he’s afraid to know. The only thing he can be sure of is that when he was Dean Winchester he loved his brother more than life, and he hated himself for the quality of that love.
Finally something breaks, and whatever it is Dean is secretly glad for it. Sam drops two pieces of paper in front of him and then adjusts his sling before sitting carefully.
“Those are our choices.”
He blinks rapidly, each paper a list of ingredients and actions that mean nothing at all to Dean.
“What do they do?”
Sam taps the one on the right and winces with the movement. “This one erases your old memories entirely. You’ll just be who you are now, and there’s no way to get the rest of it back once it’s done. It literally wipes what Pamela did and who you were. The other one will bring back your old memories and wipe the implanted and new ones, but-“
He cuts off and licks his swollen lip before leaning back and forcing himself to really look at Dean. Sam looks scared, and Dean’s honestly right there with him.
“But there’s a problem. Pamela did the original spell to try to make you into her brother. She implanted you with as many memories as she could, and if I had gotten to you then I could have wiped them out without too much trouble. The accident though, it did too much damage. Scrambled the memories she covered and the ones she gave you. Me being here has brought the old ones up, but it’s making the damage worse. So there’s a chance that bringing all the old memories forward and erasing what she did could burn your brain entirely.”
Dean swallows reflexively and then dry scrubs his face.
“You’re saying making me your brother again could kill me?”
Sam nods, eyes still partially swollen shut and shining with tears.
“I’ve been reading my book. You know that right?”
“Yeah.”
“I think, from the way you reacted, that it’s pretty accurate. Dean Winchester didn’t like himself too much Sammy. Did you know that?”
His brother, his ex-boyfriend, the man he’s been building his world on for longer than he can remember lets out a small noise and turns away.
“I like who I am. I’ve got good friends, I’ve got a house and a dog, and I’m pretty satisfied with that. On the other hand I think I know where this is going. I say I want to stay the same and you gotta leave to protect what’s left of my brain. Is that right?”
Sam nods and looks down. “Dean I don’t-“
He pushes the left sheet of paper towards Sam and stands up.
“Do it. Tonight if you can.”
Epilogue
Master post
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where do we begin chap 4
Date: 2014-03-06 05:35 am (UTC)Re: where do we begin chap 4
Date: 2014-04-04 09:27 pm (UTC)