SPN Fic: 'The Persistence of Memory'
Title: The Persistence of Memory
Author: uhzoomzip
Summary: Sam, Dean, Gen. Written for H/C meme #2 at hoodie_time.
Prompt: Gen or Wincest. Dean has trouble with his short-term memory, because of a previous injury or after a hunt gone bad.
Author's Notes: Memento-inspired. Very much AU.
Rating: PG for language
Sam took pictures secretly through the years. He would save whatever money he could scrounge to buy cheap disposable cameras at rest stops or Wal-Marts. He'd sneak pictures of everything he could: his dad and Dean when they weren't looking, scenery rushing by from the backseat of the Impala, whatever podunk town they were parked in until whatever supernatural baddie could be identified and eliminated. He even took pictures of the shitty motel rooms, because for better or for worse, they were home.
He supposed he always knew it would end, and badly at that. And when it did, when he was sitting on the bus to California with his father's voice echoing in his head (if you leave, don't come back!) they were all he had left; snapshots of a life he clung to and ran full-speed away from all at once.
And then, he got the call that Dean had had an accident, and that life that lived on in photographs really was gone forever.
***
He learns the look quickly, the one that Dean sports roughly every 20 minutes, the panicked one that says where the fuck am I and what the fuck was I just doing?
"Mirror." Sam says, same as always. He may not be able to make new memories, but Sam's hoping Dean will learn to go to the mirror subconsciously if Sam makes him do it each time he resets. Dean looks at him puzzled, but does as Sam asks. He stares at his reflection, searching and still, until Sam comes up behind him. Dean tenses as Sam reaches his hand around (every single time, Sam thinks) to the front of his t-shirt, pulling it up by the hem.
It was Sam's idea for Dean to get the tattoos, clues and explanations as to his condition now cluttering the freckled skin out of the fear that maybe one day he won't be there when Dean resets. How would Dean ever know that the yellow-eyed demon had killed their mom, that it had thrown Dean so hard that it had caused a brain injury that impaired the short-term memory, that their whole purpose in life now was to find it and kill it?
Of all the information Dean sports, he doesn't have anything about the fact that when the YED tossed him in that graveyard, it was wearing John Winchester.
Dean's itching his forearm, and he peels the bandage off, revealing dark letters so new they were still encrusted with blood along the edges.
Dad is gone. Don't believe his lies.
Author: uhzoomzip
Summary: Sam, Dean, Gen. Written for H/C meme #2 at hoodie_time.
Prompt: Gen or Wincest. Dean has trouble with his short-term memory, because of a previous injury or after a hunt gone bad.
Author's Notes: Memento-inspired. Very much AU.
Rating: PG for language
Sam took pictures secretly through the years. He would save whatever money he could scrounge to buy cheap disposable cameras at rest stops or Wal-Marts. He'd sneak pictures of everything he could: his dad and Dean when they weren't looking, scenery rushing by from the backseat of the Impala, whatever podunk town they were parked in until whatever supernatural baddie could be identified and eliminated. He even took pictures of the shitty motel rooms, because for better or for worse, they were home.
He supposed he always knew it would end, and badly at that. And when it did, when he was sitting on the bus to California with his father's voice echoing in his head (if you leave, don't come back!) they were all he had left; snapshots of a life he clung to and ran full-speed away from all at once.
And then, he got the call that Dean had had an accident, and that life that lived on in photographs really was gone forever.
***
He learns the look quickly, the one that Dean sports roughly every 20 minutes, the panicked one that says where the fuck am I and what the fuck was I just doing?
"Mirror." Sam says, same as always. He may not be able to make new memories, but Sam's hoping Dean will learn to go to the mirror subconsciously if Sam makes him do it each time he resets. Dean looks at him puzzled, but does as Sam asks. He stares at his reflection, searching and still, until Sam comes up behind him. Dean tenses as Sam reaches his hand around (every single time, Sam thinks) to the front of his t-shirt, pulling it up by the hem.
It was Sam's idea for Dean to get the tattoos, clues and explanations as to his condition now cluttering the freckled skin out of the fear that maybe one day he won't be there when Dean resets. How would Dean ever know that the yellow-eyed demon had killed their mom, that it had thrown Dean so hard that it had caused a brain injury that impaired the short-term memory, that their whole purpose in life now was to find it and kill it?
Of all the information Dean sports, he doesn't have anything about the fact that when the YED tossed him in that graveyard, it was wearing John Winchester.
Dean's itching his forearm, and he peels the bandage off, revealing dark letters so new they were still encrusted with blood along the edges.
Dad is gone. Don't believe his lies.