fic: I've never been too good with names (but I remember faces) [SPN; Sam and Dean; gen]
Oh dear god, I feel like I've been writing this story forever. But it is finally done! \o/
I've never been too good with names (but I remember faces)
Supernatural; Sam and Dean; pg; spoilers through 4.08; 8,330 words
Dean's glad that Sam is focusing on the case and not what Dean can't or won't say about what he remembers.
Thanks to luzdeestrellas for the speedy beta, and to everyone who's listened to me whine about this story over the past, oh, nine months or so.
Note: Depe Dene is a real place and that's actually how it's spelled.
~*~
I've never been too good with names (but I remember faces)
"It's a shame about Ray," Bobby says.
Dean hums agreement into the phone, flicking the windshield wipers on. The glass is covered in water, fine droplets of mist like the air is sweating, but it's too sluggish to actually rain. He blinks to clear his eyes, as well, to relieve that sandy sleepless feeling he's all too familiar with these days.
"He was in the middle of a job when it happened," Bobby continues. "You boys are the closest." He sounds apologetic, like he's afraid he's interrupting something. Like maybe Dean's got another mission from the man upstairs and will refuse to go on an unrelated hunt. Then again, last time they looked into hunters dying, it was part of the whole apocalypse deal. Dean's given up trying to figure out the divine plan or his place in it. He's still not sure he believes any such thing exists, even after all he's seen. Maybe especially after all he's seen. Castiel hasn't been around the past few days, and if it weren't for the handprint burned onto his arm--if it weren't for Uriel threatening to turn Sam, and a town of twelve hundred people, into dust--Dean would tell himself the whole thing was a hallucination, left over from that damn ghost virus or whatever.
He hums again, glances over at Sam, who's asleep in the passenger seat, and says, "Gimme the details."
*
"Ray Goddard?" Sam asks, face scrunched up in a frown, sweaty hair stuck to the red mark on his forehead from where it was pressed up against the glass while he was asleep. He rubs his eyes and, for a second, he looks exactly like he did when he was five and he woke up when Dad came in late.
Dean swallows through the sudden tightness in his throat and says, "You remember--it was up near Newport, that time with the kelpie. He drove that crappy eighty-four Monte Carlo?"
"You don't remember what the guy looked like, but you remember his car?"
"It was a real piece of shit, Sam, held together with spit and Bondo, so yeah, I remember it." Things are easier, less painful, to remember than people, and cars the easiest of all. They always have been. He tightens his hands on the steering wheel.
"How do we know he's actually missing? Maybe he just went on a bender or something."
Dean eases up a little on the steering wheel, glad that Sam is focusing on the case and not what Dean can't or won't say about what he remembers about anything. Their four months apart are a gaping hole between them they're both too scared to fill in. His voice is steady when he says, "According to Bobby, he was supposed to show up for his daughter's wedding. His ex-wife says he wasn't around much, but he was looking forward to walking his little girl down the aisle. Promised her he'd show up and all."
"Shit."
Dean snorts. "Yeah." He's pretty sure he's never been to a wedding, at least, not one where they weren't working a job, and he's pretty sure that's never going to change. He shakes his head, focuses on the information Bobby gave him. "Possibly it's a lake spirit? A water elemental? He specialized in water creatures, didn't he?"
"Anyone else gone missing?"
"Bobby didn't have access to his research, but if Ray was on a hunt, it's likely."
Sam nods and pulls out his laptop. "Where did this happen?"
"Lake George."
"So we can eliminate salt water creatures."
"Yeah."
"Okay."
Dean waits, but Sam doesn't say anything else, just sits with the laptop perched awkwardly on his knees, like he's hoping to snag a passing wireless signal as they drive. Dean turns the radio up; he stumbles through a chorus of "I Hate Myself for Loving You" while Sam types away at the keyboard.
He turns the radio off again, taps on the steering wheel in counterpoint to the sound of the click-clack of the computer keys.
The silence otherwise is unnerving, but he doesn't break it. He's not sure how.
Sam chews his lower lip and stares at the screen, and Dean would tell him he's going to have a hell of a headache if he keeps it up, except he can see that Sam keeps looking at him over the edge of the laptop, like he thinks Dean won't notice.
So Dean pretends he doesn't.
*
Lake George Village is full of the typical tourist traps--arcades and miniature golf courses, stores selling logo t-shirts and shot glasses, and ice cream parlors that look old-timey even though they opened in the 1990s. As they drive past one of the many themed motels, Dean catches a glimpse of a vaguely familiar car.
He pulls into the parking lot at the Docksider Inn, parks beneath the flashing vacancy sign. Sam gives him a skeptical look but doesn't say anything.
They get out of the car, and Dean glances up at the sky--they followed the storm up from Virginia, and with night falling early now, it's near full dark though it's only four o'clock.
"We were supposed to meet our uncle," Dean tells the motherly woman behind the counter, "but my dumbass brother here forgot to write down which room he's in. That's his car parked out there," he says before she can ask for a name.
"Oh, yes, Mr. Higgins is in room 108."
"Thank you," Dean says, giving her a fake smile that makes her blush.
*
The old Monte Carlo is parked right outside room 108, and Dean shakes his head at the way the car has been neglected, the boxy body covered in rust spots and pink primer. He blocks the view from the office with his body while Sam picks the lock on the door, and then they're in.
The room smells of stale grease and salt, narrow line of it at the door to keep out whatever Ray was hunting. Ray's clothes are spilling out of his duffle, and there's a sheaf of papers piled up on the coffee table, along with a paper cup stained with the remains of coffee that's a few days old.
Sam sorts through the pile of papers while Dean digs into the duffle. He separates the clothes from the weapons, finds a stash of silver bullets and a wad of cash he'll pocket, and a silver knife he'll give to Sam, if they don't find Ray. The clothes are too small for either of them--Ray was five-seven and a buck fifty on a good day--but Dean thinks they're in good enough shape to sell if it comes to that.
He doesn't say it, but he doesn't expect to find Ray. He doesn't think Sam does, either. It's how hunters usually go, some blood and spilled salt and a wallet full of false ID all that's left to find.
"Okay," Sam says, rustling paper the way he used to when he was a kid, and all his homework had to be done in black and white composition notebooks, pages stiff with ink. "There's a pattern of disappearances, two or three a year, every four years, going back almost a hundred years. The disappearances all take place over a four week period in late October, early November. He's not sure if it's tied to the lunar cycle or the lake itself."
"And nobody notices? People don't just disappear." Even as Dean says it, he knows it's a lie. People disappear all the time--they run away, lose their homes, change their identities like they change their underwear, live under the radar, off the grid.
"Well, obviously, people notice, because we've got records of them disappearing. And Ray showing up to hunt whatever is making them disappear."
Dean hates that tone, riding the line between reasonable and smug. "Okay, smart guy, does he have any of the police reports? Interviews with family members? Interesting theories? Lay it on me."
Sam shuffles the papers again, lips pressed into a tight line. "Yes, yes, and no, not that I've found yet."
"You got any interesting theories?"
Sam hands over half the pages. "I don't know. You tell me."
Dean sighs and runs a hand through his hair, then settles down next to Sam to read.
*
"He found one of the victims," Sam says, breaking the silence.
"What?"
"Glenda Graydon." Sam holds out a copy of a police report, a stained yellow sticky note stuck to it, the woman's name and phone number written in Ray's blocky script. "Disappeared four years ago from the Depe Dene Resort, was found two days later, wandering in the woods at the Mohawk Campground."
"That doesn't fit the pattern, does it? Maybe she went on a bender."
"A thirty-year-old mother of three?"
Dean raises an eyebrow. "Three kids would be enough to drive anyone to drink. And if they were here for Oktoberfest...."
Sam snorts, and Dean can tell he's trying not to laugh. Score. Sam gets his expression under control and says, "She apparently didn't remember anything that had happened when the police questioned her."
Dean wags his head back and forth, frowning at the sticky note. "That's an Albany area code, right? We could drive down tomorrow, talk to her. See if she's remembered anything since."
Sam nods and gets up. "I'll go get a room." He's gone before Dean can say anything.
*
The restaurant Dean picks out of the little guide book is attached to the Depe Dene Resort; the Lone Bull promises steak and pancakes, and--according to the internet--a local scandal nobody will come out and talk about. Dean enjoys local scandals--gossip from the cashiers and waitresses sometimes contains information they don't even know they need, and though he doesn't like admitting it to Sam, it's the kind of insider knowledge that makes him feel like he belongs. He belongs in a thousand different towns across the country, even if it's only for a day or two. It's about as long as he can stand it.
The food is good, and he takes the time to enjoy it, even if Sam's a little mechanical--he's always been a finicky eater and never seems to get the same joy out of food that Dean does, even though he puts enough of it away to feed a small country. He doesn't even complain when Dean orders a fourth beer, just presses his lips together like he's holding back the words, and he holds out a hand for the keys when they leave.
"Dude, I'm fine," Dean says, but he hands them over anyway, because the road is dark and twisty, and he doesn't want to drive them into the lake.
They walk down the steep hill of the parking lot, only to find the car is blocked in by a family of six loading into a minivan. The father gives them a tight smile as the mother straps the youngest kid into a car seat. Sam smiles back and strikes up a conversation with the guy, doing that earnest curiosity thing that works so well for him with civilians.
Dean tunes them out, wanders to the edge of the parking lot and around the back, towards where it connects with the hotel. The steep, dark trail leads down to the waterfront. He knows he should wait until morning, but there's something drawing him down towards the water. He nearly falls when the loose gravel rolls away under his feet, and he pulls out his flashlight. The narrow beam of light doesn't penetrate far into the darkness, but he doesn't need to see more than a foot or two along the path. Trees and gravel give way to sand and scrub when he reaches the shore.
The night is chilly and damp, with a silvery mist that's still not quite rain hanging in the air, clinging to his skin. He shivers, watching a fog bank roll in from across the lake. There's a buzzing in his ears that makes him wonder if the beer's affecting him more than he thought, and he shakes his head to clear it, but it doesn't go away.
It takes him a second to realize it's the EMF meter in his pocket.
He pulls it out, eyes it warily as the lights blink at him and the buzzing sound gets louder. He's pretty sure it's just residual energy from the power lines. He tries not to think about the way he set it off when he had the ghost sickness. He tries not to think about what happened there at all.
"Don't fall in the lake," Sam says, right behind him, and he can't keep from flinching. Sam laughs, thrilled about being able to sneak up on him, and Dean's mouth twists in annoyance.
"Very funny." He holds up the EMF detector. "It's probably the power lines, but maybe she disappeared from around here."
Sam nods. "We'll come back in the morning." He looks like he wants to say more, but Dean shoulders past him and back up the path. He stumbles again, and Sam's hand is strong and steady on his elbow, keeping him from going to his knees. He should shake it off, make some kind of smartass remark, but he doesn't have the energy for it. He hates feeling weak (hates Sam seeing him feel weak), but he wants to lean into it, let Sam take the weight. They're back at the parking lot before it can become a thing, and he slides into the passenger seat, tips his head back and closes his eyes.
Sam doesn't say anything, doesn't turn on the radio either, and there's nothing but the sound of their breathing in the darkness on the ride back into town.
*
They put the hockey game on when they get back to the room, and Dean has another beer, ignoring Sam's frown. Sam settles in with the laptop, so Dean grabs Ray's papers and his own journal and starts taking notes, the low cadence of the play-by-play easy enough to ignore.
"Have you heard back from Glenda Graydon yet?" Dean asks. No use making the drive if they're not home.
Sam shakes his head. "Left another message after dinner. I'll try her again in the morning."
Sam turns in after The Colbert Report, but Dean stays up and contemplates another beer--the constant pressure in his bladder will keep him from sleeping for too long. The motel doesn't have Cinemax, so he finds ESPN and watches the late night edition of SportsCenter until he can't keep his eyes open.
His dreams are full of torment, undiminished by distance, or the knowledge that they're only dreams. He wonders sometimes if they're the reality, and the other is the nightmare, the promise of hope where there isn't any.
He wakes with a start and stumbles to the bathroom. He takes a piss and washes the grit from his eyes, trying to ignore the dark circles forming beneath them, his pale, wide-eyed reflection in the mirror a reproach.
The television is still on, blue light flickering in the darkness, and he climbs back into bed and starts flipping through the channels.
"You should sleep." Sam's voice is gravelly, thick with sleep.
"Yeah," Dean says, repressing a shudder at the memory of yellow eyes, and Sam's voice cold and vicious in the dark. "I did. I will."
The other bed squeaks and the covers rustle as Sam sits up. "Dean." Sam's plea is hard to ignore, the tone familiar and real, helping Dean push away the nightmare memory of oily insinuations that are still ringing in his ears. "You can tell me."
Ruby'd said hell was forgetting, but the truth is, hell is remembering. Every mistake he'd ever made, every cruel thing he'd ever done, every person he couldn't save, every time he'd ever let Sam or Dad down--he'd relived them all, over and over, in fucking Technicolor and surround sound. He'd wanted to forget, wanted to sink down into oblivion where none of it could touch him, where he wasn't waiting for Sam to come save him or hating himself for wanting to forget. For wanting to be saved.
And that had turned out to be the easy part.
"I would if I could," he says, low and truthful. "I just--I can't, Sammy. Not yet." He doesn't say, Probably not ever.
"Okay," Sam says, and Dean can hear the for now hanging in the silence.
Sam's bed squeaks again, and Dean sits in the dark, replay of famous NASCAR crashes muted now, and counts Sam's breaths, knows by how they even out that he's asleep.
Dean doesn't sleep again until the gray light of dawn starts to filter into the room.
*
They go back to the Lone Bull for breakfast, which is a stack of fluffy pancakes covered in blueberry syrup, with bacon and sausage on the side. Dean guzzles coffee like his car guzzles gasoline, ignoring the way it burns his tongue and the roof of his mouth on the first sip. He sucks it down and gets a refill, waiting for the caffeine to kick in and smirking at the way Sam's shaking his head, and for a little while, everything feels normal, or as normal as it ever gets for them.
Dean grins up at the waitress when she tops off his mug again, enjoying the sway of her hips as she walks away, even if neither she nor anyone else on staff have been very helpful in trying to figure out the disappearances. They all agree it's terrible, but nobody knows what happened to anybody.
"We see so many tourists over the summer, for Oktoberfest, for the Winter Carnival," she says. "Unless they're regulars, year after year, nobody can keep track." She smiles at him, then, all pink lipstick and pearly white teeth. "I'll remember you, though, sugar."
He doesn't have to look to know Sam's rolling his eyes, but he doesn't take the invitation, just widens his grin into a real smile and watches her walk away.
After they pay the bill (and he makes Sam laugh by playing with the cheap souvenirs at the checkout counter), they head down the path from the parking lot to the water again. It's easier in daylight, and Dean can see swatches of lake glimmering green between the leaf-lorn branches. The fog from last night has burned off already, though it's still pretty early, and the sun is bright and warm for November, hitting the back of his neck where his collar is turned down.
"What do you think?" He glances up at Sam, who shrugs and pulls out the EMF detector, which gives one brief, low whine and then falls silent.
"Could be the power lines."
"Could be."
Sam shields his eyes from the sun and stares out at the water. Dean wonders what he's seeing.
"Could be whatever it is only comes out at night. There have been disappearances all up and down the lakeshore, so it could have been here once a while ago and moved on."
Dean snorts. "No shit, Sherlock."
Sam just shakes his head, ignores Dean's mood the way he does when he thinks Dean's being childish. He pulls out his phone and makes another call to Glenda Graydon, and Dean listens as he leaves another message. "Mrs. Graydon, I'm so sorry to bother you again, but we really do need to speak with you about your experience four years ago. We've got another missing person, and we're hoping you can help us find him. Please call me back as soon as you can." He really does sound like a cop, and that freaks Dean out a little.
"Aw, Sammy, you sound all grown up."
Sam flips him off and starts walking back to the car. "Come on. Let's talk to the cops and see if we find anything Ray missed."
*
The cops are understaffed and overworked and only too happy to let Sam and Dean sit in a small windowless room with piles of dusty unsolved files, a large percentage of which were already covered in Ray's notes. Dean gets impatient after nearly two hours of flipping through page after page of nothing they don't know already.
The victims come from all over the country, and there seems to be no connection between them, nothing to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle. They disappeared from various locations around the lake, too many for the two of them to check out in any kind of timely fashion, though they're going to start with the public beach tonight.
The library doesn't help, either.
"Okay, seriously, there's a fake lake monster, which everybody knows is a hoax, a handful of ghost stories that are also hoaxes, and nothing about anything that makes people disappear?" Dean says, disgusted, thumping yet another useless book closed and getting the stink-eye from the librarian. "I would really like there to be a cool Indian legend or a crazy Revolutionary War soldier--"
"I think you mean French and Indian War," Sam interrupts, like the smug jerk he is.
"What the fuck ever. A soldier in the French and Indian War who called down a curse on the lake. Or freaking Daniel Day-Lewis looking for that hot chick behind the waterfall. Don't give me that look, Sammy. I know you loved that movie."
Sam laughs. "You're the one who loved that movie, Dean, though I was never sure if your crush was on Hawkeye or Cora."
"Shut up."
"So, Hawkeye, then."
Dean kicks him under the table. "Daniel Day-Lewis was cool, man. Even you have to admit that."
"Sure, Dean. Whatever you say." He can hear the amusement in Sam's voice.
"Tell me there's something we can use in Dad's journal. Please."
For once, Sam lets him get away with changing the subject. "It could be a curse, or a water elemental. Maybe a siren?"
"Has anyone heard singing?"
"Not that I know of."
Dean sighs and scrubs a hand across his face. "I need a drink. Of coffee," he adds when Sam gets that disapproving look on his face and opens his mouth to scold. He keeps talking so Sam won't. "And you know I hate to even bring it up, because it's always a clusterfuck, but could we be dealing with the sidhe?"
Sam slumps in his chair and pushes his hair off his forehead. "God, I hope not. That never ends well."
"That's what I'm saying. Call Bobby and see if he's got any ideas that don't involve fucking fairies. I'm gonna take a piss and see if I can find some decent coffee."
He finds the bathroom, and when he's done there, he tracks down a librarian, who tells him there's a coffee shop a few doors down, though the nearest Starbucks is in Queensbury.
When he gets back to the carrel where they've spread out their stuff, Sam says, "Bobby says the sidhe are a possibility. He's going to check it out, see if anyone's heard about any of those types of disturbances in the area. And Darren Graydon called me back. He's expecting us around four."
Dean nods and starts gathering up his stuff. "Better get moving then."
*
They hit traffic, of course.
"Shouldn't the rush be going in the other direction?" Dean says, scrubbing a hand across his eyes, then pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the headache that's starting behind his left eye. "What the fuck are all these people doing out here?" They roll forward another car-length, and Sam fiddles with the radio, cutting off Robert Plant mid-moan. "Hey."
"Looking for a traffic report."
Dean grunts his reluctant consent to that, and the ridiculously cheerful traffic reporter tells them that there's a jackknifed tractor-trailer on the northbound side about six miles ahead of them, and the Northway is full of rubberneckers. Dean pulls off his tie, shrugs his way out of his suit jacket when traffic stops again, but he's never really comfortable in his dress up clothes, white shirt miles from crisp before he even put it on this morning. He just hopes there are no pit stains, because those are a bitch to get out.
They've already heard side one of Physical Graffiti and Dean is flipping the cassette over when Sam says, "Remember what we did after Dad helped Ray with the kelpie?"
It takes Dean a couple of seconds, but then he laughs. "We went for ice cream. You ate a sundae the size of your head, and then you were sick all over the boardwalk." He shakes his head, taps on the steering wheel in time with John Bonham's drumming. "Good times. You never ate rum raisin again."
Sam laughs, as well. "I still can't take the smell of it. Jess used to love it, though. And Chubby Hubby, too."
"Oh, man, that sucks," Dean says, like he doesn't realize what Sam's doing. "There's a reason I stick with chocolate and vanilla, man. I don't need all that fruit and nut crap in my ice cream."
"Dean--" Sam turns the earnest puppy-eyes on him and Dean has to turn away, look at the stupid My kid is an honor student! stickers on the minivan in front of them.
"Seriously, Sam, what part of 'no' don't you understand? It used to be your favorite frigging word."
Sam sighs noisily and shifts, crossing his arms over his chest. "Fine. Be that way."
"Not that I needed your permission, but thanks." He doesn't even try to hide his irritation.
They don't talk again until they hit the Albany exit and Sam starts rattling off directions to the Graydons' house.
*
Sam's already up the front steps and ringing the bell while Dean's still standing next to the car, fiddling with his tie. A girl, probably ten or twelve years old, answers the door just as Dean gets to the top step, and he flashes her a tense smile.
Sam says, "Hi, we're Detectives Wyndham and Price. We're here to see your parents."
The girl yells, "Dad!" and in a few seconds, she's joined by a blond man in his thirties, the kind of guy who looks like he was captain of the football team before all the beer and fried food caught up with him.
"I'm Darren Graydon," he says, holding out a hand.
He's got a firm grip, callused fingers, Dean thinks, shaking it. "I'm Detective Price and this is my partner, Detective Wyndham." He's never letting Sam choose the aliases again. He swears that every time Sam comes up with some dumbass names, and yet, here they are again.
"Please come in."
Graydon leads them into the living room, pointing them at the large denim-covered sofa, while he takes the brown leather easy chair. There's a pretty, dark-haired woman sitting in the other chair, her hands folded neatly in her lap.
"Darren said there's been another disappearance?" she says when they sit down.
"Yes, ma'am." Sam lays it out for them while Dean watches the husband, who watches his wife with a look that's half concern and half fear.
"I'm really sorry, but I don't remember anything," she says when Sam's done.
"You were staying at Depe Dene, is that correct?" Dean says, wondering if she's stonewalling, and why. "It's right on the lake."
"That's what I'm told," she answers, and as often as Dean's seen it, he still is not used to people actually wringing their hands, but Mrs. Graydon is--looks like she's scrubbing up for surgery.
Dean looks over at Sam, who's looking back at him, question clear on his face. "What do you mean?" Dean asks.
It's her turn to exchange glances with her husband, though she still looks confused when she answers the question. "I don't remember anything at all before the morning I was found."
"When you say anything, you mean...." Dean trails off, uncertain.
"Anything," she says, and her voice is firm, even if her lip is quivering, and Christ on a bicycle, Dean hates crying women. Her husband moves to sit on the arm of her chair, but she hesitates before she leans into him, so brief that if he hadn't been watching, Dean wouldn't have seen it.
"The doctors say it could come back any time," Darren Graydon says, but it sounds mechanical, automatic, not hopeful. "But after four years--we just don't know."
They take down the names of her various doctors and the hospital she was treated at up in Glens Falls and then leave.
"Shit," Dean says when they're back in the car.
"This changes everything."
Dean loosens his tie and looks over at Sam. "No, really, Captain Obvious?"
Sam snorts a little laugh. "Seriously, Dean. What if Ray's not dead, he just..."
"Doesn't remember."
They're both quiet for a minute, and Dean thinks that's possibly both the best and worst ending for a hunter that he's ever heard of--still alive, but pig-ignorant of what's really out there. Completely alone, and completely free of the past.
"Shit," Dean says again, and puts the car in drive.
*
They stop off at a Denny's just before they get back on I-87, Dean's stomach rumbling like he hasn't eaten in days. Sam just shakes his head and smiles, and Dean grins back.
"We did skip lunch, Sammy. You know my stomach doesn't like it when we do that."
Sam laughs, and it feels good, feels right, like everything's the way it used to be, except they both know it can't last.
Sam's got their research spread out on the table as he eats his turkey club, and Dean tears into a cheeseburger and tries not to get ketchup stains on the cuffs of his white shirt.
"So whatever it is doesn't kill them, it just steals their memories? Maybe you were right. Maybe it is related to faerie." Sam says when the food is almost gone and Dean's sucking down the last of his Coke, ice cubes rattling in the bottom of the glass. "Sounds like something the unseelie court might get a kick out of."
"It's possible. We could look for circles in the grass--there's that horse farm across the road from the restaurant." He takes another sip of watery soda. "We should also check the hospital records for Jane or John Does. Live ones. Shit. There could be a whole lot more missing people. People who don't even realize they're missing."
"Maybe some of them drown in the lake or die of exposure out in the woods?"
"Thanks, Sam." Dean points his pickle at Sam in accusation. "You always know just what to say to cheer a guy up."
Sam gives him a small smile, and Dean eats his pickle.
"Before we head back, we should talk to the Graydons again," Sam says.
"Separately?"
"Yeah."
Dean nods. "Okay."
The Columbo routine works sometimes; the whole, I'm so sorry to bother you again, but could you answer one more question, and I forgot to mention, do you know anything about this? thing can take people by surprise, make them reveal stuff they were trying to hide, or had just forgotten, or didn't want to say in front of anyone else for fear of looking crazy, but since he's been granted his own personal rumpled raincoat angel, Dean doesn't find the reference so amusing.
*
Darren Graydon is putting out the garbage when they pull up. He looks grumpy but he's polite enough when Sam mumbles something about having a few more questions and heads inside to talk to the wife.
"So it must have been hard, huh? Your wife goes missing, and then, thank God, you get her back." Dean leans against the railing and puts on his sympathetic face, pretends he's only interested in the answers for professional reasons. "But she doesn't remember you, or your kids, or anything."
"It was." Graydon stares at a spot past Dean's left shoulder. "It was difficult. It's still hard sometimes."
"I can only imagine." Dean knows it doesn't really matter what he says in these conversations--it's the tone of voice that encourages people to keep talking.
"She's the same person, but she's...not. I mean, she still likes and dislikes a lot of the same stuff, has the same sense of humor, but everything that made her, her--" He shakes his head. "We started dating in college. Broke up a few times, but always got back together. I always knew she was the one for me. And she doesn't remember any of that. I mean, I've told her--everyone's told her--but it's not the same."
"It's the difference between hearing a story and living through it."
"Exactly."
"You can't know what it feels like, because you weren't there. And if you were there, you can't find the words to explain it to someone who wasn't."
"Right." Graydon sounds skeptical now, like he's realized he's been rambling to a stranger, and now that the stranger is returning the favor, he's not so sure about the whole thing.
"But you're making it work out, right? Things are going well?"
Graydon's hesitation is slight, but it's there, before he says, "Yeah, sure. Of course. I told you, we were meant to be. Every relationship takes work, right?" He's pretty convincing, though Dean's not sure either of them believes him.
Dean gives himself a mental shake and gets back to business. "What do you remember from the night she disappeared?"
"It was a beautiful night--clear skies, full moon. It was about fifty degrees. Warm for this time of year. Like now."
"Global warming's a bitch, huh?"
"Yeah." Graydon huffs a little laugh. "We'd had a good night. There were fireworks down by the lake, and Tommy didn't fuss much, fell asleep right after. We'd had a few drinks--wine with dinner, a couple of beers after. First time in a while." He's got a nostalgic look on his face, which makes Dean feel sorry for the poor bastard.
It's possible that this is the part of the job Dean hates most, more than the bone-chilling terror or the backbreaking labor. "You'd been having problems?"
Graydon shrugs. "Glenda had a rough time after Tommy was born."
Dean drags the term out of his memory. "Postpartum depression?"
Graydon's lips twist unhappily. "That's what the doctor said. I don't, I don't understand why--I mean, we'd just had a baby--a healthy baby. I'd just been promoted. Everything was great. But she wasn't--" He shakes his head, rubs a hand over his mouth. "So we took a long weekend and went up to Lake George for Oktoberfest. She'd wanted to leave the kids with my parents, make it just the two of us, but I didn't want to do that. Tommy was only three months old. Babies need their mothers, you know?"
Dean nods.
"It was terrifying when I woke up and she was gone. The sheets on her side of the bed were cold, and the door--The room had these sliding glass doors that overlooked the beach, and the door was open."
Dean doesn't speak, hopes this time, it's his silence that will keep the man talking.
"I was afraid--I checked on the kids first, but they were all still asleep. If I had just woken up sooner. If I'd gone after her first--"
"Then it's possible you would have been taken too," Dean says, "and your kids would have been alone."
"Taken? Is that what you think?" He shakes his head. "Of course, yes. I couldn't leave the kids alone."
Sam comes out of the house then, shaking his head nearly imperceptibly when Dean glances at him. Whatever he'd wanted from the wife, he didn't get.
"What happened next, Mr. Graydon?" Dean says, straightening up. "I know it's hard, but the more you can tell us, the more information we have, the easier our job is."
"I went down to the beach, but she wasn't there. Fog was rolling in off the lake, and it was too hard to see. I didn't want to go too far, didn't want to leave the kids alone in the room. I heard Tommy crying, and I went back. I tried calling Glenda's cell, but she'd left it in the room. So I called the police, and, well, you know the rest."
"Thank you," Sam says, putting a comforting hand on Graydon's shoulder. "We'll be in touch if we discover anything pertinent to your wife's case."
Dean nods and smiles tightly, sure that Graydon knows he'll never see them again.
*
They spend a few minutes catching each other up on what they learned. Sam seems interested in the postpartum depression in particular.
"Glenda says he thinks she tried to kill herself."
"Well, that would explain that."
Sam shoots him an annoyed look. "Thank you, Captain Obvious."
"Isn't that my line?"
Sam ignores him. "So we should re-check the files--see if any of the other victims had a history of depression or suicide, if there is something linking them all that would explain what's going on."
Dean sighs, not relishing the thought of more hours spent hunched over dusty files, but he knows Sam is right.
He zones out a little while Sam spends the rest of the ride back to the motel calling hospitals in the area. There are a number of unidentified corpses, but nobody who's shown up with amnesia. It's not until they expand the search beyond Glens Falls and Bolton Landing that they find someone who might fit the case. Of course, by then, they're already back at the motel, and it's almost a forty minute drive back down to Saratoga Springs.
"We can do it in the morning," Sam says, giving one of the fakest stretch-and-yawn combinations Dean has ever seen, and he'd mastered that technique for feeling up a girl back in seventh grade. "I need a nap if we're going to go out hunting for faerie tonight."
Dean doesn't call him on it, though he has no plans to sleep himself. "Obviously, some of us need our beauty sleep more than others. I'll wake you when it's time to go, princess."
"Dean--"
"Sleep is for the weak, Sammy. No wonder you need so much of it."
Sam frowns, but crawls into bed. Despite his faking, he's asleep in less than ten minutes. Dean watches him for a little while, and then takes the weapons out and starts getting them ready for the trip down to the lake.
He concentrates on the familiar actions, keeps his breathing deep and even. Pushes aside thoughts of forgetting, and what that would mean.
The weapons aren't the only thing that needs to be prepared.
*
It's dark, but the trail down to the public beach is gently winding rather than straight and steep, so it's not too difficult to walk. The EMF meter is useless here, though Dean's pretty sure the chill causing his skin to prickle isn't from the weather.
"You feel that?" he whispers, trying to suppress a shudder.
"Yeah," Sam says.
The same silvery mist from the night before is rolling in off the water, blanketing the sky, tendrils of it slowly uncoiling towards the shore. There's a whisper of voices in it, words Dean can't make out, and he feels a pull in his belly, like gravity when he takes a hill too fast in the car.
"Sam?" He reaches out, hooks a hand in the waistband of Sam's jeans. "You hear that?"
"Yeah," Sam answers, but he sounds really far away.
The tips of Dean's fingers go numb, and he tightens them around the material of Sam's jeans, determined to hold on, to not get separated. The voices in the mist are resolving into words now, whispering, let go and forget, and part of him desperately wants to, wants to sink into the mist and let it take everything away, wipe the slate clean. No more nightmares, no more hell, no more destiny. No more missions from God or threats against Sam.
Sam.
Dean grits his teeth and holds on as tight as he can. He can feel Sam's freakishly long fingers curling around his wrist, calluses rough against his skin, and the voices recede, the pull diminishes.
"Dean. Come on, Dean." Sam's voice is sharp and tight with fear, a call Dean has never been able to resist.
Dean raises his shotgun, fires two salt rounds and watches the mist recoil. He laughs in giddy relief, feels the brief touch of Sam's other hand on the back of his neck, before it settles on his elbow and pulls.
Together, he and Sam stumble away from the water, up the path and out of reach of the mist.
"What the fuck?" Dean says when they're back in the parking lot, minimum safe distance from the water. He leans against the car, and Sam leans next to him, pressed together from hip to shoulder, both of them holding him up.
"I don't know," Sam says. "But we're getting the hell away from it right now." He manhandles Dean into the passenger seat and then slides behind the wheel.
Dean is too surprised to stop him.
*
Dean makes coffee when they get back to the room, and Sam grabs the canister of salt, pours a line across the doorway and on each of the windowsills.
"We're leaving in the morning," he says.
"Sam--"
"Seriously, Dean, we're leaving in the morning. We don't know what that was, and I don't want to take any chances. I'd say we should leave right now, but I don't think either of us is up for driving for that long, and we're probably safer inside than out." He finishes with the salt and starts packing up their stuff.
"Sam--"
Sam straightens up from where he's shoving his dirty underwear back into his bag. "I am not losing you again, Dean. I'm just not. Not to some kind of water elemental or the fucking unseelie court or whatever the fuck that was tonight."
Dean meets his gaze, sees the fear and anger there, the sadness nothing seems to take away anymore, and doesn't flinch. "Okay, Sammy," he says softly, forcing the words out through the ache in his chest. "It's okay."
"It's really not."
Dean gives a little involuntary laugh. "No, it's not. But it will be." He tells the same lie, makes the same promise, he always has, even though he knows neither of them believe it anymore.
Sam goes back to packing, and Dean gets out of his way.
They play cards until neither of them can stay awake anymore, and they sprawl across the bed, cards scattered between them, until the alarm goes off.
For the first time he can recall since he's been back, Dean doesn't have any nightmares.
*
Dean wants to eat at the Lone Bull again ("Come on, Sammy, those pancakes were awesome."), but Sam refuses, wants to get on the road and away from the lake as quickly as possible.
They grab egg sandwiches and doughnuts to eat in the car on the way out of town, and as they're driving, Sam reminds Dean that laundry is his responsibility for the next three months.
"No way, Sam. I totally won the last hand. I had a royal flush, ten to the ace in spades."
"I was not awake for that hand, so it doesn't count."
"Bullshit." Dean sprays crumbs all over and Sam wrinkles his nose in disgust. "It's not my fault you're too weak to stay up and finish a hand of poker."
"It doesn't count. You're going to have to win while I'm awake, which you kind of suck at lately."
"Only because you spend all your time sleeping these days."
"Whatever."
"Whatever."
"Fine."
"Fine."
Dean turns up the radio and starts singing along to "Drift Away." They don't talk again until they pass the sign for the Saratoga Racetrack.
"You ever come to the races here?" Sam asks.
"Once. While you were at school. Dad and I were working a haunting--turns out there was a jockey who'd been murdered for not throwing a race, and he was spooking the horses, making them throw their riders."
"Ouch."
"Yeah. We took care of him before anybody died. Trainer was real grateful, gave us the whole tour of the place, even paid us. It was pretty sweet." Dean grins at him. "Won some money, too."
Sam grins back. "We should come back during the summer, when there's racing."
"Since when do you like to play the ponies?"
"I don't, but there's more to it than just gambling. There's the history of the place, the stories that go with it." Sam shrugs. "I think it'd be cool."
"All righty then. I'll pencil it in. August of oh-nine, we're hitting Saratoga."
"Sounds like a plan. Maybe by then you'll have won a few hands of cards, have some money to bet with."
"Shut up."
*
The hospital smells like a hospital--illness and antiseptic and fear all mingled together under fluorescent lights and the squeak of the nurses' rubber-soled shoes against the bright white linoleum.
Dean hates hospitals, but he figures most people do. It's one of the few things they all have in common.
He flashes his badge. "We're here about your John Doe. The one who can't remember anything?" He doesn't mean to make it sound like a question, but that's how it comes out.
The nurse--her nametag says Alicia Morris--nods. "Room 231 South, bed B."
They follow the yellow line that leads to the south wing of the hospital, and push open the door to room 231.
The man in the bed is thin, with a lined, leathery face, graying hair, and a salt-and-pepper beard, but Dean recognizes him. "Hi, Ray."
Ray looks at them blankly. "Do I know you?"
"You probably don't remember--" Dean starts, and then stops when Sam elbows him in the ribs. "Okay, even if you hadn't lost your memory, you probably wouldn't remember us. I'm Dean Winchester, and this is my brother, Sam. Your name is Ray Goddard, and you hunted with our dad once, about fifteen years ago."
"Hunted?"
"Uh, my brother means fished. You liked to fish," Sam says, looking at Dean for confirmation. Dean shrugs and nods. It's as good a story as any. "And so did our dad."
"Oh. I don't--I don't remember. Is that what I was doing here?" He sounds old, shaky, and Dean wants to give him some kind of reassurance, but he can't. He can't tell him what really happened though, either. Not when he's like this.
"Probably," he says. "You were a good fisherman, Ray. One of the best. Taught me and my brother a lot."
"Good, good. That's good."
"Yeah." Dean turns to Sam and murmurs, "I'm gonna go call Bobby. You," he waves a hand at Ray, "do your comforting the sick thing, or whatever."
"Yeah, okay." Sam's voice is gentle, and he squeezes Dean's shoulder before he moves to sit at Ray's bedside.
Dean's already dialing, ignoring the big sign asking people not to use their cell phones in the hospital. "Bobby, it's me. Call me when you get this message. We found Ray, but he doesn't remember a damn thing. You should probably let his wife know." Dean leaves the rest of the details on Bobby's voicemail, and then heads down to the parking lot to pick up the duffle with Ray's stuff in it. He keeps the weapons and the hunting journal, but puts the money back where he found it.
When he gets back to the room, Sam is telling some ridiculous story about a fishing trip they never went on, and Ray is smiling like it means something, like he remembers.
They spend another twenty minutes or so with him--Dean tells him that his ex-wife was worried about him, and that his daughter's getting married.
"Oh, before I forget," Dean says, and Sam shoots him a sharp look, "here's your stuff. And the keys to your car, which is parked at the Docksider Inn in Lake George Village."
"Maybe it will help me remember," Ray says.
"Yeah," Dean says. "Maybe."
*
They keep heading south once they're back on the road. Dean's got no particular destination in mind, though someplace away from large bodies of water sounds good.
"Did you want to?" Sam asks after they've been driving a while.
"Want to what?"
"Forget. I heard the voices, too, Dean."
Dean glances over at him, sees that fear and sadness in his eyes, and wishes he could make it go away. "No. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know." He thinks of the voices promising oblivion, remembers the blankness in Ray's eyes, the confusion in Glenda's, and shivers. "I didn't want to forget," you, "everything."
"Oh." Sam nods. "Yeah. Good. I mean, it's good that you could fight it off."
"Yeah." Dean looks at him again and grins. "Someone's gotta remember whose turn it is to do the laundry around here."
"And that would be you."
"Damn right it would--wait. No. It's my job to keep track. It's your job to do the laundry."
"Not for the next three months, man. Not for the next three months."
"Whatever. I'm so totally kicking your ass for that."
"Uh huh."
Sam dozes off a little while after that, and Dean hums along with Rush, always happiest with the open road ahead of him.
"I wish you could," Sam says suddenly, when they're just past the exit for Coxsackie, a name that never ever fails to crack Dean up. "I mean, forget hell, without forgetting everything else."
Dean gives him a crooked grin. "Me, too, Sammy. Me, too."
"Maybe someday you'll be able to tell me about it."
No fucking way, Dean thinks. Never. But all he says this time is, "Maybe."
end
~*~
Notes: The Depe Dene Resort and the Lone Bull are both real places (and yes, Depe Dene really is spelled like that), though I've taken a lot of liberties with them for this story. Also, I believe the Oktoberfest at Lake George is in late September, but again, I've taken liberties. The Docksider, otoh, is made up, afaik. Title and first line from the Lemonheads' song It's a Shame About Ray, which I may remember to upload when I get home tonight.
~*~
Feedback is adored.
~*~
I've never been too good with names (but I remember faces)
Supernatural; Sam and Dean; pg; spoilers through 4.08; 8,330 words
Dean's glad that Sam is focusing on the case and not what Dean can't or won't say about what he remembers.
Thanks to luzdeestrellas for the speedy beta, and to everyone who's listened to me whine about this story over the past, oh, nine months or so.
Note: Depe Dene is a real place and that's actually how it's spelled.
~*~
I've never been too good with names (but I remember faces)
"It's a shame about Ray," Bobby says.
Dean hums agreement into the phone, flicking the windshield wipers on. The glass is covered in water, fine droplets of mist like the air is sweating, but it's too sluggish to actually rain. He blinks to clear his eyes, as well, to relieve that sandy sleepless feeling he's all too familiar with these days.
"He was in the middle of a job when it happened," Bobby continues. "You boys are the closest." He sounds apologetic, like he's afraid he's interrupting something. Like maybe Dean's got another mission from the man upstairs and will refuse to go on an unrelated hunt. Then again, last time they looked into hunters dying, it was part of the whole apocalypse deal. Dean's given up trying to figure out the divine plan or his place in it. He's still not sure he believes any such thing exists, even after all he's seen. Maybe especially after all he's seen. Castiel hasn't been around the past few days, and if it weren't for the handprint burned onto his arm--if it weren't for Uriel threatening to turn Sam, and a town of twelve hundred people, into dust--Dean would tell himself the whole thing was a hallucination, left over from that damn ghost virus or whatever.
He hums again, glances over at Sam, who's asleep in the passenger seat, and says, "Gimme the details."
*
"Ray Goddard?" Sam asks, face scrunched up in a frown, sweaty hair stuck to the red mark on his forehead from where it was pressed up against the glass while he was asleep. He rubs his eyes and, for a second, he looks exactly like he did when he was five and he woke up when Dad came in late.
Dean swallows through the sudden tightness in his throat and says, "You remember--it was up near Newport, that time with the kelpie. He drove that crappy eighty-four Monte Carlo?"
"You don't remember what the guy looked like, but you remember his car?"
"It was a real piece of shit, Sam, held together with spit and Bondo, so yeah, I remember it." Things are easier, less painful, to remember than people, and cars the easiest of all. They always have been. He tightens his hands on the steering wheel.
"How do we know he's actually missing? Maybe he just went on a bender or something."
Dean eases up a little on the steering wheel, glad that Sam is focusing on the case and not what Dean can't or won't say about what he remembers about anything. Their four months apart are a gaping hole between them they're both too scared to fill in. His voice is steady when he says, "According to Bobby, he was supposed to show up for his daughter's wedding. His ex-wife says he wasn't around much, but he was looking forward to walking his little girl down the aisle. Promised her he'd show up and all."
"Shit."
Dean snorts. "Yeah." He's pretty sure he's never been to a wedding, at least, not one where they weren't working a job, and he's pretty sure that's never going to change. He shakes his head, focuses on the information Bobby gave him. "Possibly it's a lake spirit? A water elemental? He specialized in water creatures, didn't he?"
"Anyone else gone missing?"
"Bobby didn't have access to his research, but if Ray was on a hunt, it's likely."
Sam nods and pulls out his laptop. "Where did this happen?"
"Lake George."
"So we can eliminate salt water creatures."
"Yeah."
"Okay."
Dean waits, but Sam doesn't say anything else, just sits with the laptop perched awkwardly on his knees, like he's hoping to snag a passing wireless signal as they drive. Dean turns the radio up; he stumbles through a chorus of "I Hate Myself for Loving You" while Sam types away at the keyboard.
He turns the radio off again, taps on the steering wheel in counterpoint to the sound of the click-clack of the computer keys.
The silence otherwise is unnerving, but he doesn't break it. He's not sure how.
Sam chews his lower lip and stares at the screen, and Dean would tell him he's going to have a hell of a headache if he keeps it up, except he can see that Sam keeps looking at him over the edge of the laptop, like he thinks Dean won't notice.
So Dean pretends he doesn't.
*
Lake George Village is full of the typical tourist traps--arcades and miniature golf courses, stores selling logo t-shirts and shot glasses, and ice cream parlors that look old-timey even though they opened in the 1990s. As they drive past one of the many themed motels, Dean catches a glimpse of a vaguely familiar car.
He pulls into the parking lot at the Docksider Inn, parks beneath the flashing vacancy sign. Sam gives him a skeptical look but doesn't say anything.
They get out of the car, and Dean glances up at the sky--they followed the storm up from Virginia, and with night falling early now, it's near full dark though it's only four o'clock.
"We were supposed to meet our uncle," Dean tells the motherly woman behind the counter, "but my dumbass brother here forgot to write down which room he's in. That's his car parked out there," he says before she can ask for a name.
"Oh, yes, Mr. Higgins is in room 108."
"Thank you," Dean says, giving her a fake smile that makes her blush.
*
The old Monte Carlo is parked right outside room 108, and Dean shakes his head at the way the car has been neglected, the boxy body covered in rust spots and pink primer. He blocks the view from the office with his body while Sam picks the lock on the door, and then they're in.
The room smells of stale grease and salt, narrow line of it at the door to keep out whatever Ray was hunting. Ray's clothes are spilling out of his duffle, and there's a sheaf of papers piled up on the coffee table, along with a paper cup stained with the remains of coffee that's a few days old.
Sam sorts through the pile of papers while Dean digs into the duffle. He separates the clothes from the weapons, finds a stash of silver bullets and a wad of cash he'll pocket, and a silver knife he'll give to Sam, if they don't find Ray. The clothes are too small for either of them--Ray was five-seven and a buck fifty on a good day--but Dean thinks they're in good enough shape to sell if it comes to that.
He doesn't say it, but he doesn't expect to find Ray. He doesn't think Sam does, either. It's how hunters usually go, some blood and spilled salt and a wallet full of false ID all that's left to find.
"Okay," Sam says, rustling paper the way he used to when he was a kid, and all his homework had to be done in black and white composition notebooks, pages stiff with ink. "There's a pattern of disappearances, two or three a year, every four years, going back almost a hundred years. The disappearances all take place over a four week period in late October, early November. He's not sure if it's tied to the lunar cycle or the lake itself."
"And nobody notices? People don't just disappear." Even as Dean says it, he knows it's a lie. People disappear all the time--they run away, lose their homes, change their identities like they change their underwear, live under the radar, off the grid.
"Well, obviously, people notice, because we've got records of them disappearing. And Ray showing up to hunt whatever is making them disappear."
Dean hates that tone, riding the line between reasonable and smug. "Okay, smart guy, does he have any of the police reports? Interviews with family members? Interesting theories? Lay it on me."
Sam shuffles the papers again, lips pressed into a tight line. "Yes, yes, and no, not that I've found yet."
"You got any interesting theories?"
Sam hands over half the pages. "I don't know. You tell me."
Dean sighs and runs a hand through his hair, then settles down next to Sam to read.
*
"He found one of the victims," Sam says, breaking the silence.
"What?"
"Glenda Graydon." Sam holds out a copy of a police report, a stained yellow sticky note stuck to it, the woman's name and phone number written in Ray's blocky script. "Disappeared four years ago from the Depe Dene Resort, was found two days later, wandering in the woods at the Mohawk Campground."
"That doesn't fit the pattern, does it? Maybe she went on a bender."
"A thirty-year-old mother of three?"
Dean raises an eyebrow. "Three kids would be enough to drive anyone to drink. And if they were here for Oktoberfest...."
Sam snorts, and Dean can tell he's trying not to laugh. Score. Sam gets his expression under control and says, "She apparently didn't remember anything that had happened when the police questioned her."
Dean wags his head back and forth, frowning at the sticky note. "That's an Albany area code, right? We could drive down tomorrow, talk to her. See if she's remembered anything since."
Sam nods and gets up. "I'll go get a room." He's gone before Dean can say anything.
*
The restaurant Dean picks out of the little guide book is attached to the Depe Dene Resort; the Lone Bull promises steak and pancakes, and--according to the internet--a local scandal nobody will come out and talk about. Dean enjoys local scandals--gossip from the cashiers and waitresses sometimes contains information they don't even know they need, and though he doesn't like admitting it to Sam, it's the kind of insider knowledge that makes him feel like he belongs. He belongs in a thousand different towns across the country, even if it's only for a day or two. It's about as long as he can stand it.
The food is good, and he takes the time to enjoy it, even if Sam's a little mechanical--he's always been a finicky eater and never seems to get the same joy out of food that Dean does, even though he puts enough of it away to feed a small country. He doesn't even complain when Dean orders a fourth beer, just presses his lips together like he's holding back the words, and he holds out a hand for the keys when they leave.
"Dude, I'm fine," Dean says, but he hands them over anyway, because the road is dark and twisty, and he doesn't want to drive them into the lake.
They walk down the steep hill of the parking lot, only to find the car is blocked in by a family of six loading into a minivan. The father gives them a tight smile as the mother straps the youngest kid into a car seat. Sam smiles back and strikes up a conversation with the guy, doing that earnest curiosity thing that works so well for him with civilians.
Dean tunes them out, wanders to the edge of the parking lot and around the back, towards where it connects with the hotel. The steep, dark trail leads down to the waterfront. He knows he should wait until morning, but there's something drawing him down towards the water. He nearly falls when the loose gravel rolls away under his feet, and he pulls out his flashlight. The narrow beam of light doesn't penetrate far into the darkness, but he doesn't need to see more than a foot or two along the path. Trees and gravel give way to sand and scrub when he reaches the shore.
The night is chilly and damp, with a silvery mist that's still not quite rain hanging in the air, clinging to his skin. He shivers, watching a fog bank roll in from across the lake. There's a buzzing in his ears that makes him wonder if the beer's affecting him more than he thought, and he shakes his head to clear it, but it doesn't go away.
It takes him a second to realize it's the EMF meter in his pocket.
He pulls it out, eyes it warily as the lights blink at him and the buzzing sound gets louder. He's pretty sure it's just residual energy from the power lines. He tries not to think about the way he set it off when he had the ghost sickness. He tries not to think about what happened there at all.
"Don't fall in the lake," Sam says, right behind him, and he can't keep from flinching. Sam laughs, thrilled about being able to sneak up on him, and Dean's mouth twists in annoyance.
"Very funny." He holds up the EMF detector. "It's probably the power lines, but maybe she disappeared from around here."
Sam nods. "We'll come back in the morning." He looks like he wants to say more, but Dean shoulders past him and back up the path. He stumbles again, and Sam's hand is strong and steady on his elbow, keeping him from going to his knees. He should shake it off, make some kind of smartass remark, but he doesn't have the energy for it. He hates feeling weak (hates Sam seeing him feel weak), but he wants to lean into it, let Sam take the weight. They're back at the parking lot before it can become a thing, and he slides into the passenger seat, tips his head back and closes his eyes.
Sam doesn't say anything, doesn't turn on the radio either, and there's nothing but the sound of their breathing in the darkness on the ride back into town.
*
They put the hockey game on when they get back to the room, and Dean has another beer, ignoring Sam's frown. Sam settles in with the laptop, so Dean grabs Ray's papers and his own journal and starts taking notes, the low cadence of the play-by-play easy enough to ignore.
"Have you heard back from Glenda Graydon yet?" Dean asks. No use making the drive if they're not home.
Sam shakes his head. "Left another message after dinner. I'll try her again in the morning."
Sam turns in after The Colbert Report, but Dean stays up and contemplates another beer--the constant pressure in his bladder will keep him from sleeping for too long. The motel doesn't have Cinemax, so he finds ESPN and watches the late night edition of SportsCenter until he can't keep his eyes open.
His dreams are full of torment, undiminished by distance, or the knowledge that they're only dreams. He wonders sometimes if they're the reality, and the other is the nightmare, the promise of hope where there isn't any.
He wakes with a start and stumbles to the bathroom. He takes a piss and washes the grit from his eyes, trying to ignore the dark circles forming beneath them, his pale, wide-eyed reflection in the mirror a reproach.
The television is still on, blue light flickering in the darkness, and he climbs back into bed and starts flipping through the channels.
"You should sleep." Sam's voice is gravelly, thick with sleep.
"Yeah," Dean says, repressing a shudder at the memory of yellow eyes, and Sam's voice cold and vicious in the dark. "I did. I will."
The other bed squeaks and the covers rustle as Sam sits up. "Dean." Sam's plea is hard to ignore, the tone familiar and real, helping Dean push away the nightmare memory of oily insinuations that are still ringing in his ears. "You can tell me."
Ruby'd said hell was forgetting, but the truth is, hell is remembering. Every mistake he'd ever made, every cruel thing he'd ever done, every person he couldn't save, every time he'd ever let Sam or Dad down--he'd relived them all, over and over, in fucking Technicolor and surround sound. He'd wanted to forget, wanted to sink down into oblivion where none of it could touch him, where he wasn't waiting for Sam to come save him or hating himself for wanting to forget. For wanting to be saved.
And that had turned out to be the easy part.
"I would if I could," he says, low and truthful. "I just--I can't, Sammy. Not yet." He doesn't say, Probably not ever.
"Okay," Sam says, and Dean can hear the for now hanging in the silence.
Sam's bed squeaks again, and Dean sits in the dark, replay of famous NASCAR crashes muted now, and counts Sam's breaths, knows by how they even out that he's asleep.
Dean doesn't sleep again until the gray light of dawn starts to filter into the room.
*
They go back to the Lone Bull for breakfast, which is a stack of fluffy pancakes covered in blueberry syrup, with bacon and sausage on the side. Dean guzzles coffee like his car guzzles gasoline, ignoring the way it burns his tongue and the roof of his mouth on the first sip. He sucks it down and gets a refill, waiting for the caffeine to kick in and smirking at the way Sam's shaking his head, and for a little while, everything feels normal, or as normal as it ever gets for them.
Dean grins up at the waitress when she tops off his mug again, enjoying the sway of her hips as she walks away, even if neither she nor anyone else on staff have been very helpful in trying to figure out the disappearances. They all agree it's terrible, but nobody knows what happened to anybody.
"We see so many tourists over the summer, for Oktoberfest, for the Winter Carnival," she says. "Unless they're regulars, year after year, nobody can keep track." She smiles at him, then, all pink lipstick and pearly white teeth. "I'll remember you, though, sugar."
He doesn't have to look to know Sam's rolling his eyes, but he doesn't take the invitation, just widens his grin into a real smile and watches her walk away.
After they pay the bill (and he makes Sam laugh by playing with the cheap souvenirs at the checkout counter), they head down the path from the parking lot to the water again. It's easier in daylight, and Dean can see swatches of lake glimmering green between the leaf-lorn branches. The fog from last night has burned off already, though it's still pretty early, and the sun is bright and warm for November, hitting the back of his neck where his collar is turned down.
"What do you think?" He glances up at Sam, who shrugs and pulls out the EMF detector, which gives one brief, low whine and then falls silent.
"Could be the power lines."
"Could be."
Sam shields his eyes from the sun and stares out at the water. Dean wonders what he's seeing.
"Could be whatever it is only comes out at night. There have been disappearances all up and down the lakeshore, so it could have been here once a while ago and moved on."
Dean snorts. "No shit, Sherlock."
Sam just shakes his head, ignores Dean's mood the way he does when he thinks Dean's being childish. He pulls out his phone and makes another call to Glenda Graydon, and Dean listens as he leaves another message. "Mrs. Graydon, I'm so sorry to bother you again, but we really do need to speak with you about your experience four years ago. We've got another missing person, and we're hoping you can help us find him. Please call me back as soon as you can." He really does sound like a cop, and that freaks Dean out a little.
"Aw, Sammy, you sound all grown up."
Sam flips him off and starts walking back to the car. "Come on. Let's talk to the cops and see if we find anything Ray missed."
*
The cops are understaffed and overworked and only too happy to let Sam and Dean sit in a small windowless room with piles of dusty unsolved files, a large percentage of which were already covered in Ray's notes. Dean gets impatient after nearly two hours of flipping through page after page of nothing they don't know already.
The victims come from all over the country, and there seems to be no connection between them, nothing to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle. They disappeared from various locations around the lake, too many for the two of them to check out in any kind of timely fashion, though they're going to start with the public beach tonight.
The library doesn't help, either.
"Okay, seriously, there's a fake lake monster, which everybody knows is a hoax, a handful of ghost stories that are also hoaxes, and nothing about anything that makes people disappear?" Dean says, disgusted, thumping yet another useless book closed and getting the stink-eye from the librarian. "I would really like there to be a cool Indian legend or a crazy Revolutionary War soldier--"
"I think you mean French and Indian War," Sam interrupts, like the smug jerk he is.
"What the fuck ever. A soldier in the French and Indian War who called down a curse on the lake. Or freaking Daniel Day-Lewis looking for that hot chick behind the waterfall. Don't give me that look, Sammy. I know you loved that movie."
Sam laughs. "You're the one who loved that movie, Dean, though I was never sure if your crush was on Hawkeye or Cora."
"Shut up."
"So, Hawkeye, then."
Dean kicks him under the table. "Daniel Day-Lewis was cool, man. Even you have to admit that."
"Sure, Dean. Whatever you say." He can hear the amusement in Sam's voice.
"Tell me there's something we can use in Dad's journal. Please."
For once, Sam lets him get away with changing the subject. "It could be a curse, or a water elemental. Maybe a siren?"
"Has anyone heard singing?"
"Not that I know of."
Dean sighs and scrubs a hand across his face. "I need a drink. Of coffee," he adds when Sam gets that disapproving look on his face and opens his mouth to scold. He keeps talking so Sam won't. "And you know I hate to even bring it up, because it's always a clusterfuck, but could we be dealing with the sidhe?"
Sam slumps in his chair and pushes his hair off his forehead. "God, I hope not. That never ends well."
"That's what I'm saying. Call Bobby and see if he's got any ideas that don't involve fucking fairies. I'm gonna take a piss and see if I can find some decent coffee."
He finds the bathroom, and when he's done there, he tracks down a librarian, who tells him there's a coffee shop a few doors down, though the nearest Starbucks is in Queensbury.
When he gets back to the carrel where they've spread out their stuff, Sam says, "Bobby says the sidhe are a possibility. He's going to check it out, see if anyone's heard about any of those types of disturbances in the area. And Darren Graydon called me back. He's expecting us around four."
Dean nods and starts gathering up his stuff. "Better get moving then."
*
They hit traffic, of course.
"Shouldn't the rush be going in the other direction?" Dean says, scrubbing a hand across his eyes, then pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the headache that's starting behind his left eye. "What the fuck are all these people doing out here?" They roll forward another car-length, and Sam fiddles with the radio, cutting off Robert Plant mid-moan. "Hey."
"Looking for a traffic report."
Dean grunts his reluctant consent to that, and the ridiculously cheerful traffic reporter tells them that there's a jackknifed tractor-trailer on the northbound side about six miles ahead of them, and the Northway is full of rubberneckers. Dean pulls off his tie, shrugs his way out of his suit jacket when traffic stops again, but he's never really comfortable in his dress up clothes, white shirt miles from crisp before he even put it on this morning. He just hopes there are no pit stains, because those are a bitch to get out.
They've already heard side one of Physical Graffiti and Dean is flipping the cassette over when Sam says, "Remember what we did after Dad helped Ray with the kelpie?"
It takes Dean a couple of seconds, but then he laughs. "We went for ice cream. You ate a sundae the size of your head, and then you were sick all over the boardwalk." He shakes his head, taps on the steering wheel in time with John Bonham's drumming. "Good times. You never ate rum raisin again."
Sam laughs, as well. "I still can't take the smell of it. Jess used to love it, though. And Chubby Hubby, too."
"Oh, man, that sucks," Dean says, like he doesn't realize what Sam's doing. "There's a reason I stick with chocolate and vanilla, man. I don't need all that fruit and nut crap in my ice cream."
"Dean--" Sam turns the earnest puppy-eyes on him and Dean has to turn away, look at the stupid My kid is an honor student! stickers on the minivan in front of them.
"Seriously, Sam, what part of 'no' don't you understand? It used to be your favorite frigging word."
Sam sighs noisily and shifts, crossing his arms over his chest. "Fine. Be that way."
"Not that I needed your permission, but thanks." He doesn't even try to hide his irritation.
They don't talk again until they hit the Albany exit and Sam starts rattling off directions to the Graydons' house.
*
Sam's already up the front steps and ringing the bell while Dean's still standing next to the car, fiddling with his tie. A girl, probably ten or twelve years old, answers the door just as Dean gets to the top step, and he flashes her a tense smile.
Sam says, "Hi, we're Detectives Wyndham and Price. We're here to see your parents."
The girl yells, "Dad!" and in a few seconds, she's joined by a blond man in his thirties, the kind of guy who looks like he was captain of the football team before all the beer and fried food caught up with him.
"I'm Darren Graydon," he says, holding out a hand.
He's got a firm grip, callused fingers, Dean thinks, shaking it. "I'm Detective Price and this is my partner, Detective Wyndham." He's never letting Sam choose the aliases again. He swears that every time Sam comes up with some dumbass names, and yet, here they are again.
"Please come in."
Graydon leads them into the living room, pointing them at the large denim-covered sofa, while he takes the brown leather easy chair. There's a pretty, dark-haired woman sitting in the other chair, her hands folded neatly in her lap.
"Darren said there's been another disappearance?" she says when they sit down.
"Yes, ma'am." Sam lays it out for them while Dean watches the husband, who watches his wife with a look that's half concern and half fear.
"I'm really sorry, but I don't remember anything," she says when Sam's done.
"You were staying at Depe Dene, is that correct?" Dean says, wondering if she's stonewalling, and why. "It's right on the lake."
"That's what I'm told," she answers, and as often as Dean's seen it, he still is not used to people actually wringing their hands, but Mrs. Graydon is--looks like she's scrubbing up for surgery.
Dean looks over at Sam, who's looking back at him, question clear on his face. "What do you mean?" Dean asks.
It's her turn to exchange glances with her husband, though she still looks confused when she answers the question. "I don't remember anything at all before the morning I was found."
"When you say anything, you mean...." Dean trails off, uncertain.
"Anything," she says, and her voice is firm, even if her lip is quivering, and Christ on a bicycle, Dean hates crying women. Her husband moves to sit on the arm of her chair, but she hesitates before she leans into him, so brief that if he hadn't been watching, Dean wouldn't have seen it.
"The doctors say it could come back any time," Darren Graydon says, but it sounds mechanical, automatic, not hopeful. "But after four years--we just don't know."
They take down the names of her various doctors and the hospital she was treated at up in Glens Falls and then leave.
"Shit," Dean says when they're back in the car.
"This changes everything."
Dean loosens his tie and looks over at Sam. "No, really, Captain Obvious?"
Sam snorts a little laugh. "Seriously, Dean. What if Ray's not dead, he just..."
"Doesn't remember."
They're both quiet for a minute, and Dean thinks that's possibly both the best and worst ending for a hunter that he's ever heard of--still alive, but pig-ignorant of what's really out there. Completely alone, and completely free of the past.
"Shit," Dean says again, and puts the car in drive.
*
They stop off at a Denny's just before they get back on I-87, Dean's stomach rumbling like he hasn't eaten in days. Sam just shakes his head and smiles, and Dean grins back.
"We did skip lunch, Sammy. You know my stomach doesn't like it when we do that."
Sam laughs, and it feels good, feels right, like everything's the way it used to be, except they both know it can't last.
Sam's got their research spread out on the table as he eats his turkey club, and Dean tears into a cheeseburger and tries not to get ketchup stains on the cuffs of his white shirt.
"So whatever it is doesn't kill them, it just steals their memories? Maybe you were right. Maybe it is related to faerie." Sam says when the food is almost gone and Dean's sucking down the last of his Coke, ice cubes rattling in the bottom of the glass. "Sounds like something the unseelie court might get a kick out of."
"It's possible. We could look for circles in the grass--there's that horse farm across the road from the restaurant." He takes another sip of watery soda. "We should also check the hospital records for Jane or John Does. Live ones. Shit. There could be a whole lot more missing people. People who don't even realize they're missing."
"Maybe some of them drown in the lake or die of exposure out in the woods?"
"Thanks, Sam." Dean points his pickle at Sam in accusation. "You always know just what to say to cheer a guy up."
Sam gives him a small smile, and Dean eats his pickle.
"Before we head back, we should talk to the Graydons again," Sam says.
"Separately?"
"Yeah."
Dean nods. "Okay."
The Columbo routine works sometimes; the whole, I'm so sorry to bother you again, but could you answer one more question, and I forgot to mention, do you know anything about this? thing can take people by surprise, make them reveal stuff they were trying to hide, or had just forgotten, or didn't want to say in front of anyone else for fear of looking crazy, but since he's been granted his own personal rumpled raincoat angel, Dean doesn't find the reference so amusing.
*
Darren Graydon is putting out the garbage when they pull up. He looks grumpy but he's polite enough when Sam mumbles something about having a few more questions and heads inside to talk to the wife.
"So it must have been hard, huh? Your wife goes missing, and then, thank God, you get her back." Dean leans against the railing and puts on his sympathetic face, pretends he's only interested in the answers for professional reasons. "But she doesn't remember you, or your kids, or anything."
"It was." Graydon stares at a spot past Dean's left shoulder. "It was difficult. It's still hard sometimes."
"I can only imagine." Dean knows it doesn't really matter what he says in these conversations--it's the tone of voice that encourages people to keep talking.
"She's the same person, but she's...not. I mean, she still likes and dislikes a lot of the same stuff, has the same sense of humor, but everything that made her, her--" He shakes his head. "We started dating in college. Broke up a few times, but always got back together. I always knew she was the one for me. And she doesn't remember any of that. I mean, I've told her--everyone's told her--but it's not the same."
"It's the difference between hearing a story and living through it."
"Exactly."
"You can't know what it feels like, because you weren't there. And if you were there, you can't find the words to explain it to someone who wasn't."
"Right." Graydon sounds skeptical now, like he's realized he's been rambling to a stranger, and now that the stranger is returning the favor, he's not so sure about the whole thing.
"But you're making it work out, right? Things are going well?"
Graydon's hesitation is slight, but it's there, before he says, "Yeah, sure. Of course. I told you, we were meant to be. Every relationship takes work, right?" He's pretty convincing, though Dean's not sure either of them believes him.
Dean gives himself a mental shake and gets back to business. "What do you remember from the night she disappeared?"
"It was a beautiful night--clear skies, full moon. It was about fifty degrees. Warm for this time of year. Like now."
"Global warming's a bitch, huh?"
"Yeah." Graydon huffs a little laugh. "We'd had a good night. There were fireworks down by the lake, and Tommy didn't fuss much, fell asleep right after. We'd had a few drinks--wine with dinner, a couple of beers after. First time in a while." He's got a nostalgic look on his face, which makes Dean feel sorry for the poor bastard.
It's possible that this is the part of the job Dean hates most, more than the bone-chilling terror or the backbreaking labor. "You'd been having problems?"
Graydon shrugs. "Glenda had a rough time after Tommy was born."
Dean drags the term out of his memory. "Postpartum depression?"
Graydon's lips twist unhappily. "That's what the doctor said. I don't, I don't understand why--I mean, we'd just had a baby--a healthy baby. I'd just been promoted. Everything was great. But she wasn't--" He shakes his head, rubs a hand over his mouth. "So we took a long weekend and went up to Lake George for Oktoberfest. She'd wanted to leave the kids with my parents, make it just the two of us, but I didn't want to do that. Tommy was only three months old. Babies need their mothers, you know?"
Dean nods.
"It was terrifying when I woke up and she was gone. The sheets on her side of the bed were cold, and the door--The room had these sliding glass doors that overlooked the beach, and the door was open."
Dean doesn't speak, hopes this time, it's his silence that will keep the man talking.
"I was afraid--I checked on the kids first, but they were all still asleep. If I had just woken up sooner. If I'd gone after her first--"
"Then it's possible you would have been taken too," Dean says, "and your kids would have been alone."
"Taken? Is that what you think?" He shakes his head. "Of course, yes. I couldn't leave the kids alone."
Sam comes out of the house then, shaking his head nearly imperceptibly when Dean glances at him. Whatever he'd wanted from the wife, he didn't get.
"What happened next, Mr. Graydon?" Dean says, straightening up. "I know it's hard, but the more you can tell us, the more information we have, the easier our job is."
"I went down to the beach, but she wasn't there. Fog was rolling in off the lake, and it was too hard to see. I didn't want to go too far, didn't want to leave the kids alone in the room. I heard Tommy crying, and I went back. I tried calling Glenda's cell, but she'd left it in the room. So I called the police, and, well, you know the rest."
"Thank you," Sam says, putting a comforting hand on Graydon's shoulder. "We'll be in touch if we discover anything pertinent to your wife's case."
Dean nods and smiles tightly, sure that Graydon knows he'll never see them again.
*
They spend a few minutes catching each other up on what they learned. Sam seems interested in the postpartum depression in particular.
"Glenda says he thinks she tried to kill herself."
"Well, that would explain that."
Sam shoots him an annoyed look. "Thank you, Captain Obvious."
"Isn't that my line?"
Sam ignores him. "So we should re-check the files--see if any of the other victims had a history of depression or suicide, if there is something linking them all that would explain what's going on."
Dean sighs, not relishing the thought of more hours spent hunched over dusty files, but he knows Sam is right.
He zones out a little while Sam spends the rest of the ride back to the motel calling hospitals in the area. There are a number of unidentified corpses, but nobody who's shown up with amnesia. It's not until they expand the search beyond Glens Falls and Bolton Landing that they find someone who might fit the case. Of course, by then, they're already back at the motel, and it's almost a forty minute drive back down to Saratoga Springs.
"We can do it in the morning," Sam says, giving one of the fakest stretch-and-yawn combinations Dean has ever seen, and he'd mastered that technique for feeling up a girl back in seventh grade. "I need a nap if we're going to go out hunting for faerie tonight."
Dean doesn't call him on it, though he has no plans to sleep himself. "Obviously, some of us need our beauty sleep more than others. I'll wake you when it's time to go, princess."
"Dean--"
"Sleep is for the weak, Sammy. No wonder you need so much of it."
Sam frowns, but crawls into bed. Despite his faking, he's asleep in less than ten minutes. Dean watches him for a little while, and then takes the weapons out and starts getting them ready for the trip down to the lake.
He concentrates on the familiar actions, keeps his breathing deep and even. Pushes aside thoughts of forgetting, and what that would mean.
The weapons aren't the only thing that needs to be prepared.
*
It's dark, but the trail down to the public beach is gently winding rather than straight and steep, so it's not too difficult to walk. The EMF meter is useless here, though Dean's pretty sure the chill causing his skin to prickle isn't from the weather.
"You feel that?" he whispers, trying to suppress a shudder.
"Yeah," Sam says.
The same silvery mist from the night before is rolling in off the water, blanketing the sky, tendrils of it slowly uncoiling towards the shore. There's a whisper of voices in it, words Dean can't make out, and he feels a pull in his belly, like gravity when he takes a hill too fast in the car.
"Sam?" He reaches out, hooks a hand in the waistband of Sam's jeans. "You hear that?"
"Yeah," Sam answers, but he sounds really far away.
The tips of Dean's fingers go numb, and he tightens them around the material of Sam's jeans, determined to hold on, to not get separated. The voices in the mist are resolving into words now, whispering, let go and forget, and part of him desperately wants to, wants to sink into the mist and let it take everything away, wipe the slate clean. No more nightmares, no more hell, no more destiny. No more missions from God or threats against Sam.
Sam.
Dean grits his teeth and holds on as tight as he can. He can feel Sam's freakishly long fingers curling around his wrist, calluses rough against his skin, and the voices recede, the pull diminishes.
"Dean. Come on, Dean." Sam's voice is sharp and tight with fear, a call Dean has never been able to resist.
Dean raises his shotgun, fires two salt rounds and watches the mist recoil. He laughs in giddy relief, feels the brief touch of Sam's other hand on the back of his neck, before it settles on his elbow and pulls.
Together, he and Sam stumble away from the water, up the path and out of reach of the mist.
"What the fuck?" Dean says when they're back in the parking lot, minimum safe distance from the water. He leans against the car, and Sam leans next to him, pressed together from hip to shoulder, both of them holding him up.
"I don't know," Sam says. "But we're getting the hell away from it right now." He manhandles Dean into the passenger seat and then slides behind the wheel.
Dean is too surprised to stop him.
*
Dean makes coffee when they get back to the room, and Sam grabs the canister of salt, pours a line across the doorway and on each of the windowsills.
"We're leaving in the morning," he says.
"Sam--"
"Seriously, Dean, we're leaving in the morning. We don't know what that was, and I don't want to take any chances. I'd say we should leave right now, but I don't think either of us is up for driving for that long, and we're probably safer inside than out." He finishes with the salt and starts packing up their stuff.
"Sam--"
Sam straightens up from where he's shoving his dirty underwear back into his bag. "I am not losing you again, Dean. I'm just not. Not to some kind of water elemental or the fucking unseelie court or whatever the fuck that was tonight."
Dean meets his gaze, sees the fear and anger there, the sadness nothing seems to take away anymore, and doesn't flinch. "Okay, Sammy," he says softly, forcing the words out through the ache in his chest. "It's okay."
"It's really not."
Dean gives a little involuntary laugh. "No, it's not. But it will be." He tells the same lie, makes the same promise, he always has, even though he knows neither of them believe it anymore.
Sam goes back to packing, and Dean gets out of his way.
They play cards until neither of them can stay awake anymore, and they sprawl across the bed, cards scattered between them, until the alarm goes off.
For the first time he can recall since he's been back, Dean doesn't have any nightmares.
*
Dean wants to eat at the Lone Bull again ("Come on, Sammy, those pancakes were awesome."), but Sam refuses, wants to get on the road and away from the lake as quickly as possible.
They grab egg sandwiches and doughnuts to eat in the car on the way out of town, and as they're driving, Sam reminds Dean that laundry is his responsibility for the next three months.
"No way, Sam. I totally won the last hand. I had a royal flush, ten to the ace in spades."
"I was not awake for that hand, so it doesn't count."
"Bullshit." Dean sprays crumbs all over and Sam wrinkles his nose in disgust. "It's not my fault you're too weak to stay up and finish a hand of poker."
"It doesn't count. You're going to have to win while I'm awake, which you kind of suck at lately."
"Only because you spend all your time sleeping these days."
"Whatever."
"Whatever."
"Fine."
"Fine."
Dean turns up the radio and starts singing along to "Drift Away." They don't talk again until they pass the sign for the Saratoga Racetrack.
"You ever come to the races here?" Sam asks.
"Once. While you were at school. Dad and I were working a haunting--turns out there was a jockey who'd been murdered for not throwing a race, and he was spooking the horses, making them throw their riders."
"Ouch."
"Yeah. We took care of him before anybody died. Trainer was real grateful, gave us the whole tour of the place, even paid us. It was pretty sweet." Dean grins at him. "Won some money, too."
Sam grins back. "We should come back during the summer, when there's racing."
"Since when do you like to play the ponies?"
"I don't, but there's more to it than just gambling. There's the history of the place, the stories that go with it." Sam shrugs. "I think it'd be cool."
"All righty then. I'll pencil it in. August of oh-nine, we're hitting Saratoga."
"Sounds like a plan. Maybe by then you'll have won a few hands of cards, have some money to bet with."
"Shut up."
*
The hospital smells like a hospital--illness and antiseptic and fear all mingled together under fluorescent lights and the squeak of the nurses' rubber-soled shoes against the bright white linoleum.
Dean hates hospitals, but he figures most people do. It's one of the few things they all have in common.
He flashes his badge. "We're here about your John Doe. The one who can't remember anything?" He doesn't mean to make it sound like a question, but that's how it comes out.
The nurse--her nametag says Alicia Morris--nods. "Room 231 South, bed B."
They follow the yellow line that leads to the south wing of the hospital, and push open the door to room 231.
The man in the bed is thin, with a lined, leathery face, graying hair, and a salt-and-pepper beard, but Dean recognizes him. "Hi, Ray."
Ray looks at them blankly. "Do I know you?"
"You probably don't remember--" Dean starts, and then stops when Sam elbows him in the ribs. "Okay, even if you hadn't lost your memory, you probably wouldn't remember us. I'm Dean Winchester, and this is my brother, Sam. Your name is Ray Goddard, and you hunted with our dad once, about fifteen years ago."
"Hunted?"
"Uh, my brother means fished. You liked to fish," Sam says, looking at Dean for confirmation. Dean shrugs and nods. It's as good a story as any. "And so did our dad."
"Oh. I don't--I don't remember. Is that what I was doing here?" He sounds old, shaky, and Dean wants to give him some kind of reassurance, but he can't. He can't tell him what really happened though, either. Not when he's like this.
"Probably," he says. "You were a good fisherman, Ray. One of the best. Taught me and my brother a lot."
"Good, good. That's good."
"Yeah." Dean turns to Sam and murmurs, "I'm gonna go call Bobby. You," he waves a hand at Ray, "do your comforting the sick thing, or whatever."
"Yeah, okay." Sam's voice is gentle, and he squeezes Dean's shoulder before he moves to sit at Ray's bedside.
Dean's already dialing, ignoring the big sign asking people not to use their cell phones in the hospital. "Bobby, it's me. Call me when you get this message. We found Ray, but he doesn't remember a damn thing. You should probably let his wife know." Dean leaves the rest of the details on Bobby's voicemail, and then heads down to the parking lot to pick up the duffle with Ray's stuff in it. He keeps the weapons and the hunting journal, but puts the money back where he found it.
When he gets back to the room, Sam is telling some ridiculous story about a fishing trip they never went on, and Ray is smiling like it means something, like he remembers.
They spend another twenty minutes or so with him--Dean tells him that his ex-wife was worried about him, and that his daughter's getting married.
"Oh, before I forget," Dean says, and Sam shoots him a sharp look, "here's your stuff. And the keys to your car, which is parked at the Docksider Inn in Lake George Village."
"Maybe it will help me remember," Ray says.
"Yeah," Dean says. "Maybe."
*
They keep heading south once they're back on the road. Dean's got no particular destination in mind, though someplace away from large bodies of water sounds good.
"Did you want to?" Sam asks after they've been driving a while.
"Want to what?"
"Forget. I heard the voices, too, Dean."
Dean glances over at him, sees that fear and sadness in his eyes, and wishes he could make it go away. "No. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know." He thinks of the voices promising oblivion, remembers the blankness in Ray's eyes, the confusion in Glenda's, and shivers. "I didn't want to forget," you, "everything."
"Oh." Sam nods. "Yeah. Good. I mean, it's good that you could fight it off."
"Yeah." Dean looks at him again and grins. "Someone's gotta remember whose turn it is to do the laundry around here."
"And that would be you."
"Damn right it would--wait. No. It's my job to keep track. It's your job to do the laundry."
"Not for the next three months, man. Not for the next three months."
"Whatever. I'm so totally kicking your ass for that."
"Uh huh."
Sam dozes off a little while after that, and Dean hums along with Rush, always happiest with the open road ahead of him.
"I wish you could," Sam says suddenly, when they're just past the exit for Coxsackie, a name that never ever fails to crack Dean up. "I mean, forget hell, without forgetting everything else."
Dean gives him a crooked grin. "Me, too, Sammy. Me, too."
"Maybe someday you'll be able to tell me about it."
No fucking way, Dean thinks. Never. But all he says this time is, "Maybe."
end
~*~
Notes: The Depe Dene Resort and the Lone Bull are both real places (and yes, Depe Dene really is spelled like that), though I've taken a lot of liberties with them for this story. Also, I believe the Oktoberfest at Lake George is in late September, but again, I've taken liberties. The Docksider, otoh, is made up, afaik. Title and first line from the Lemonheads' song It's a Shame About Ray, which I may remember to upload when I get home tonight.
~*~
Feedback is adored.
~*~