Here There Be Tygers
Title: Here There Be Tygers
Author: kalliel
Recipient: spn_summergen*
Genre: hurt/comfort (anterograde amnesia), curtain!fic, horror
Characters: Sam, Dean
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Questionable care-taking ethics.
Author's Notes: S3 divergent timeline.
Summary: The problem with Dean's memory is, it means he asks that question about eight trillion times more ("Sammy, are you okay? well, are you?"), and as far as Sam's concerned, the answer matters even less. The problem with Dean's life is, it's supposed to end this year. And the problem with Dean's brother, well. Sam's still working on that one.
Sam strongly suspects it's actually some kind of rehab living center. It's the themed housing that tips him off--they're in the jungle apartment, complete with dark green walls and painted hippos, alligators, lions, and other unlikely denizens; according to Dean, their craftsmanship rivals Sam's own artistic abilities. But Sam figures, it comes semi-furnished (the card table, sagging futon, twin camp beds all remind Sam of his long-lost dorm room), the down payment's not bad, and if Marta the Super thinks they're her kind of client then they probably are.
"You good?" Sam asks as he pushes Dean through the door.
Dean grunts and throws their duffel on the couch. Something cracks and clunks. When the dust settles, Dean says, "Home sweet home."
So it's a fixer-upper, sue him. Not that Sam sees either of them doing any fixing-upping; but it's probably for the best. Sam for one would feel worse if they ended up having to tag anything better than the cracked linoleum he's standing on, or crash through furniture that was any better than the apple crate rejects Dean's kicking. Whether they're hunting anymore or not, these remain valid considerations.
"There's only one exit," Dean notes. There's also two small windows--barred for their protection, according to Marta the Super--but neither of them are under sixty pounds nor under five feet all, so the windows are a moot point anyway.
"You know, I hear you get a discount if your building's not up to code," Sam says. "We'll be fine, Dean." If something tails them all the way out here, they won't have anywhere else to run. It'll end here either way.
"There's no point in having one of these things if you're not gonna do anything about it." Dean's inspecting what looks like some kind of monitor.
"Carbon monoxide," he adds when Sam peers over his shoulder. "Do we get a discount for that, too?"
Sam spreads his arms in surrender. "Okay, okay, I get it. I'll let Marta know."
Dean doesn't take his eyes off the CO monitor. "And Marta thinks her building's haunted?"
Sam's a little confused now. "No..."
"I just-- Half the time people get all hyped up on the haunted house thing, and it's just carbon monoxide poi--" Dean says, defensive. "God, I sound like you."
Sam sweeps part of the ceiling under the couch with his boots and tests the couch; it's not that bad. "You remember all that, huh?"
"You're not a special snowflake, Encyclopedia Brown. It's called memory; normal people have it, too," Dean snaps.
"Are you trying to start something?"
"No. Yes. Fuck. I guess I'm just--" Dean starts again, and puts it bluntly this time. "What the fuck are we doing here? If this place isn't haunted."
Sam takes a deep breath. This is what he was afraid of. "We're here to live, Dean."
And it's one of those moments that separates what Sam knew and what Sam's quickly learned to embrace. Dean's face quivers, his disorientation obvious. "Okay," he says. "Uh, for how long?"
"For as long as we can. I told you."
Dean's Why? goes unspoken, though Sam watches as it fills his mouth and presses the rest of him to silence. If Dean has to ask, that's exactly their problem. That's exactly why they're here.
Two rooms, one bath. Functional shower. Two small windows, one door. Decent electrical wiring. Horrendous paint job. Carbon monoxide leak. But at least it's theirs. That's nice, right? It's theirs.
"Then I guess... I guess we're actually gonna have to fix this," Dean says finally. There's more to that, Dean lost to some frantic pattern of thought, but Sam's not invited.
There's a whooping behind them as their neighbors crash against the door adjacent. "They like it here," says Sam. So maybe 'rehab' was a strong word.
"Oh yeah," Dean says. "We're rooming next to a bunch of teenage tweakers. But at least they're our tweakers, right?"
--
"--day is it?" Dean mumbles. The alarm clock's screaming but the pile of magazines between their beds isn't high enough. He can't reach it without actually sitting up. But Dean Winchester doesn't compromise for anything, no sir.
Sam does. He jabs at the clock to shut it up. "It's Wednesday," he says, ears still ringing with a phantom alarm. The clock had been playing some song; Sam can't remember the name of it.
"And you're going... where?"
Sam shrugs a shirt on. "Work."
"Oh." Dean pulls the covers back over his head. Then, after a moment, he asks, "So where am I going?"
"Work," Sam says as he pulls on pants. His jeans are slightly damp already, victim to the humidity. As he jerks the heavy fabric over his ass and up to his waist, he continues under his breath. "If you could remember. Which you can't, so--"
"What?"
Sam runs a hand through his hair, already limp and frazzled at the edges. Mentally, he kicks himself. He didn't mean it like that. "Just sit tight, okay? I got you."
--
Every morning. The last year's spent its days eating away at Sam's patience; by the time they end up here, Sam's got nothing left. And every morning, there's Dean.
"Sammy, what's going on."
Sam scrubs at his teeth harder and thanks every god he knows that the bathroom lock still works. He doesn't want to see Dean's face in the mirror when he starts talking like that. He doesn't want to see that kind of fear. Not on Dean.
"What job are you working?"
"Same job, Dean," Sam says, and unlocks the door. "I'm working the same job. And you're staying put in the same house."
"Where are we?"
"This is our house, Dean."
Since when? Dean does or does not ask. He follows Sam out to the living-space-kitchen-all-in-one room (is this what an open floor plan is?) and yanks back the curtains. The curtains themselves are fairly ingenious; in keeping with the theme, the sport dolphins and octopi. They're malleable in the morning sunlight, and plasticky--a shower curtain, snipped in half. Sam's not sure what the deal is, but it came like that. The view beyond them is unhelpful, just more plaster facade a few feet away, and a murky alley some floors down.
Sam watches as Dean wipes his fingers down his shirt, and his heat-clammy forehead against his sleeve. He shoves the window open briefly, but it's worse outside. "Sammy," he says shakily. Then he takes a few seconds to get over himself. "Sam, where are we?"
--
There's flamingoes in the bathroom. The hippo's in the living room. Lions, tigers, bears--bedroom. At the bottom of their duffel bag, Sam's clothes are starting to smell a little like mold. Maybe he could get Dean to organize the duffel; it could be part of their morning routine.
And there it goes:
"Hey Dean, wanna organize the duffel? Your shit's getting all over my shit."
Dean comes back with, "Sam, where are we?"
"Florida."
"Florida." Dean chokes on the word, something swollen and writhingly humid in itself.
"Florida," Sam repeats. Cold sweat trickles down the small of Sam's back. "This is our house."
"Our h--" Dean says, voice taut with a distress typically reserved for situations that involve a hell of a lot more legs; potentially segmented body parts. "What do you mean, our hou-- hou-- How long?"
Sam ties his laces as he ruminates. These sneakers that probably shouldn't still exist. He'd had no use for them hunting, and they'd slept at the back of the trunk for a good three years now. And honestly, barely had use for them walking to class every day. But he figured if they were really gonna survive this, something had to come out of retirement.
--
Though if Sam's goddamn shoes are going to make up for anything, they're going to have to burst free from retirement. Like fireworks. Really, really big ones.
When Sam asks Dean about the duffel again, and Dean gives him a look like, And why the hell would I do that, Sam? it's almost like old times. Within minutes, however, Dean's circled back around to the abject terror that accompanies his realization that not only do they have an address (which day to day, he cannot remember), it's theirs. Like, actually seriously theirs.
"Seriously?"
"Like, actually really seriously," Sam insists, and he sounds prissy even to his own ears. It's not fair; Dean's always made it abundantly clear that domestic living, like airplanes, were sites of incredible danger to him. Planes crashed and houses were, well, static. Constant. And if Dean's not really into 'constant,' his memory's not doing him any favors. Because it's like being sucked into the same black hole every single morning.
"No. No." Sam watches the cogs spin behind his brothers eyes. Dean licks his lips, furrows his brow. The cogs spin and spin and catch on nothing.
Sam waits for his questions. This is Step One to moving into your new home, according to the pamphlets downstairs. Marta was kind enough to stuff approximately twelve dozen copies of each under their door the other day. STEP ONE: (sun bleached diagram.) Establish a daily routine.
Sam ties his shoes, as he always does, and says, "I'm gonna go to work."
But Dean, contrary to many mornings previous, isn't interested. Evidently he's figured something out, because he's gone before Sam even as a chance to do his double knots. He bounds after Dean, one set of shoelaces still flapping. So much for routines.
Today, Dean's questing. He embarks on a rough, haphazard appraisal of their living-room-common-area-kitchen...thing, plowing through furniture like he half expects it'll melt away like a dream. Then he starts to pat down his clothing.
"Dude, where's my stuff?"
And Sam's spent so much time memorizing their mornings by rote, for a few seconds he's honestly not sure what to do with the question. The butterflies haven't quite cleared his throat when he says the only relevant thing he can conceive of. "Your what?"
"My keys, for one."
Sam extracts them from his own pocket. Dean readies his hands, as if to catch them, but Sam doesn't throw.
Dean frowns. "Did I--?" He gestures forcefully toward Sam.
No, not exactly, Sam thinks. But Dean's already moved on to knives. "The knife block."
"The knife bl--"
Sam sighs. "Kitchen, knife block. Where people put all their--"
"I know what a fucking knife block is, Sam." He waits for further explanation. "Why the hell--"
Sam really doesn't have a good answer for that one. He was trying to move them in; it was the best he could manage. "Well, I don't know," he sputters. "It came with the place, I was just trying to--"
But Dean's already clear to the kitchen. Their carnival of knives looks silly stuffed into the Cutco slats, Sam'll give him that. The uniformity of black plastic paring, steak and chopping knives replaced by carved handles, bone handles, ebony-dipped-in-the-blood-of-whatever-the-hell handles.
The handle of one of their less conspicuous knives finds its way into Dean's hand, and the blade finds itself pointed straight at Dean's heart.
"Whoa, Dean, what the hell are you--"
"You know, Sam. I have a weird amount of experience with this, so roll with me here. You die in a dream, you wake up. And I'm gonna--"
--
This is not a dream, Sam explains.
Sam stares up at the ceiling. In seventeen minutes, like clockwork, Dean will wake. It's not a guess. "Step one," Sam breathes. "Establish a daily routine."
He wriggles to the edge of the bed, feeling like some kind of wilted squid in the 90-already? heat. He stares at his sneakers. And he decides, as he shuffles through their kitchen barefoot, that waking up to hide the knives is a shit way to begin one day, let alone a lifetime of them. Daily routine his ass.
Too soon: Dean, voice garbled by sleep. "Sam."
Sam winces.
"What're you doin' with all the knives?"
There are some things--though the knives are not typically one of them--that Sam explains daily. Chief among them, what has happened. Why they're here. How long they're going to stay, and why. Why, why, why. Dean doesn't typically try to understand, or refuses to. Not that Sam blames him; he's not sure if he believes himself half the time. But as the days go by, Sam learns to streamline a little.
"You're sick, Dean," he says, which is not exactly true. (It's not at all true.) "You're hurt." (Closer.)
"I can't--" Remember, Dean doesn't say.
"I know," Sam does. And he knows whose fault that is.
--
This is not a dream. If you die, you do not wake up from it.
"Look, I'm sorry."
"Don't do that." Sam is sitting on the couch with the knife block in his lap. It's a little heavy and a lot sticky, with what Sam doesn't want to know. But it's his goddamn knife block and if he has to sleep with every single knife they own under his pillow then so be it. "Just--don't."
Dean drops his hand away from the shower curtain curtains. He gives Sam a strange, unfamiliar look and takes a step backward. Without breaking his gaze: "A little possessive this morning, Sammy?"
Sam grips the knife block tighter. "I meant, don't apologize," he clarifies. He can't handle that right now. "Fondle the curtains all you want."
"Fondle the c-- okay, Trixie Norton," Dean says, eyebrows raised, face morphing into a mask of bemusement. Finally, he turns away. And he does poke at the curtains again.
"Sam."
Here it comes. Where are we? Why are we here? How long have we been here? Sammy, what the fuck is going on?
"Hey Dean, you wanna organize the duffel?" Sam asks, just for the hell of it. "Your shit's getting all over my shit."
"Sam, was I possessed?"
Sam starts. "--What?"
Dean swings back to face him. He wipes his hand down his face. "Because you're... And I don't-- I don't remember anything. I don't--"
Sam can't reply to that. He knows he has to; otherwise, Dean's in the water alone, with Sam not saving him. (As usual, Sam not saving him.) He has to, because Dean's fear is written in his body language, unease settling into his pockets alongside his hands, eyes bright with what is for now a quiet, private sort of panic. And Sam knows that this is his to fix. He has to. But Sam also knows that even if he does, even if he finds the perfect words and he does, Dean's not going to remember.
Sam, was I possessed? Dean asks again. Sam tugs at his own shirt collar, in part out of his own discomfort (Florida. An early summer. Florida, no A/C) and in part to remind Dean of the tattoo they share.
"We've never tested them," Dean objects.
"You weren't possessed, Dean. You weren't possessed, but I wish to god you were."
Sam looks down at his bare feet as he escapes to the bathroom.
He knows exorcisms. Demons aren't this problem. Ghosts are not his problem. This one's on Sam.
--
"I organized the duffel." Dean's lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Maybe he sees the same shapes Sam did; but probably not. They've never seen the same things, in all their years of ceiling cracks and peeling paint and wispy clouds and blood spatter. Not even once.
"I organized the duffel, Sam," Dean repeats when Sam does not reply in time.
"I can see that."
"But I don't know why I organized the duffel."
"Because your shit was getting all over my shit." Sam flops down on the bed adjacent. His bed adjacent. He doesn't want to deal with this right now.
"That seems like something you'd say," Dean says, sentence slurred by the shorthand of some internal thought process.
"That's 'cause I've been saying it for a week."
"Maybe I just know you. I don't need to hear you bitch about that kind of stuff to--"
"I've been saying it for a week."
Dean clenches his fists. "But that's not possible, we haven't been here a week. We're just..."
"Do you remember moving in?"
"Obviously not." Exasperation. "Sam."
Sam, Sam, Sam. What are you going to do about this, Sam.
"Sam, wait."
Sam doesn't.
--
"Where are you going?" Dean asks into his pillow.
"Work."
Dean raises his head, but doesn't move. Not yet. "What job are we on?"
Sam stares down at his laces and wonders if they're even worth it. "Same job, Dean."
"Where are we?" Florida. "What day is it?" Wednesday.
Dean groans. "What the fuck did I have to drink last night. Because I--"
Sam takes a deep breath. Step One: Establish a daily routine.
--
It goes something like this: Wake up--possible amendment, Sam thinks: Fail to keep sleeping. Them, fail to adequately explain their circumstances. Fail to keep Dean from rushing out of the bedroom. Fail to keep him from upending all their worldly possessions (basically, whatever came with the apartment). Fail to divert Dean's attentions away from the incredible sweeping terror that Sam is not, in fact, fucking with him. Fail to convey appropriate concern for the circumstances Dean makes clear are very much not adequately fucking explained, did you hear me, Sam? not adequately fucking explained, ad nauseam.
But it's hard; it happens every day and by this point Dean's terror and Dean's rage just kind of piss Sam off. On good days, anyway. On good days, Sam's angry; on bad ones, he breaks.
"Where are my things." Dean's patting his pockets, finding them empty. "Sam--"
"Sam--"
Sam hears Dean take a shuddering breath, exhale through pursed lips.
"Sam--"
"Sammy, what's up with you?"
Sam pinches the bridge of his nose until he's half-certain he leaves bruises. Dabs at the edge of his eyes, like he's brushing away an irritating piece of dust. "Nothin'I'mgood," he says. His nose throbs and his eyes feel hot.
"Right," Dean says.
Sam thinks about hamster wheels. He thinks about hamster balls. He thinks about maybe-just-maybe punting hamster balls. He reserves the right to be angry; it beats the alternative.
"Sam, where's my knife?"
"I really don't care, Dean. Sam sighs, still thinking about hamsters but also thinking about knives, and also trying to figure out how to make a beeline for the bedroom without tripping any alarms. He's decided that "under his pillow" is really not secure enough for that kind of thing. This is not a dream, Dean. If you die, we don't wake up.
Sam's halfway to the bedroom again, under the pretense of having forgotten his shoes. Maybe he'll slip in, lock the door behind him. He'll stash them in the mattress. He feels stupid, taking that kind of precaution with Dean of all people, but Dean's first assumption is always possession and his second is always that this is a nightmare. A nightmare he needs desperately to escape. And if Dean's a little more proactive about dealing with that, Sam can name at least a dozen different legitimate reasons--he curses every single one. Because this is their life: There's actually a logic to rushing for the knives the moment life starts seeming like an exceptionally vivid bad dream.
(It's not that bad, Sam says.
There's a fucking hippo painted on the wall.
It's a house, Sam insists. A place to live. How can that be bad?
And Dean says, Have you met us?)
But maybe-just-maybe--and this is something Sam's been thinking for months now, if not years--Dean just wants to off himself. That's not the way he means to put it. That's not the way he thinks about his brother; it's not. But it's one of those things. There's a logic to a lot of their crazy; occupational hazard. But Sam can also name at least a dozen different instances where he'd thought that Dean was just...done. People don't sell their souls to bring their brothers back to life. They just don't. People don't use themselves as bait. People don't leave themselves to worse-than-chance. Not unless-- And Sam figures that's probably the whole reason they ended up here.
Sam sinks against the bedroom door, now locked. He draws his legs in, grips his wrists to form a ring around his knees. His fingers turn bloated pink and leave cold white fingerprints beneath them. When he releases his pressure, the blood flows too slowly back. It's been a long damn year. It's been too short a year. It's supposed to be Dean's last year. And that's really the fucking problem, Sam thinks.
Sam knows he can't let Dean live like this. He does. He can't let Dean keep waking up to the same nightmare, that fresh fear. He can't keep failing to explain--time, date, place. Yes, our house. No, seriously--our house. Yes, in Florida. Yes, it's Wednesday. It happens every week. We've been here for weeks. Yes, weeks. He can't keep watching Dean race to fix what he cannot possibly fix--Dean can't even remember what needs to be goddamn fixed. What fixes Sam has failed to realize.
There's muffled shrieking on the other side of their wall. Their neighbors waking up. It doesn't help.
Oh, fuck this. If Sam has to wallow in his own self-pity for much longer Dean's gonna need to hide the knives from him.
"Dean," Sam says through the door.
"Sam, where's my gun?" Dean replies.
At which point Sam figures it really doesn't matter. Dean won't remember this, anyway.
He cries.
--
"Sam, I'm sorry. I am."
He is.
"Don't give me that look, Sam. I just-- Did I do something to you?"
"You weren't possessed, Dean." Sam is too tired for this shit today. One of his shoestrings breaks when he tries to lace his sneakers. He yanks his shoe tighter and knots the lace back together. Tries to wriggle his foot back to relative comfort once he's made the fix.
"Well, something's wrong I'm not an idiot I know when--"
Sam helps him along. He wants to get to the 'this is fucked this has to be some kind of supernatural nightmare world' part of their day before he has time to overthink it. In fact, if they could just stay in the bedroom and forgo the 'and then they tore through the kitchen in a domestic panic' Sam would feel that much better about the trajectory of today. So he helps: "Do you remember moving in?"
"Obviously not." Exasperation. "Sam--"
Today, Sam woke up early today and just locked all their shit in the car. Problem solved. This house is Dean-proof. (This nightmare is Dean-proof.)
"Sam--"
"I gotta go to work, Dean."
("You... gotta go to w-- What job are we working?") Sam's only half-listening. "Same job, Dean," he says. Then he senses Dean's distraction. He groans inwardly. "What now."
"Tweakers," Dean mutters.
"What?"
"They're our tweakers."
"What?"
"Our neighbors."
"What?"
Dean rolls his eyes. "You know what? Fuck you."
"What?"
"Dude."
"Nonono, wait a sec. What did you say?"
Dean gestures toward the bedroom wall. There's screeching coming from the other side. Their neighbors waking up. "Our tweakers," Dean repeats. "Our house, our neighbors, our tweakers."
"You remember that. That was--"
"No," Dean says. "No, yes."
Sam's lost track of how many mornings he's, spent watching that sad, familiar maelstrom gestate inside Dean, bleed out of him like a sickness. Today he feels himself jittery with the same, and he's the one tracking chaos through their kitchen as Dean follows. Within instants. It's like the whole game's changed. Dean's yelling at him--something insignificant. It doesn't matter. All Sam can think is, Dean remembers Dean remembers Dean remembers. It makes perfect sense. They stayed in the bedroom today. Dean heard the neighbors. He remembered. He remembers.
"What about this?" The knife block. Dean gives him a look.
"Or these?" Sam points at his shoes. Which is stupid, why would Dean remember his shoes, but he'll try anything. "Or the duffel bag--how about you organize the duffel bag?"
"Why the hell would I do that?"
"Because--because your shit is getting all over my shit," Sam explains lamely. He deflates. He doesn't know what just happened. But for a second it felt like-- Sam looks up.
Dean's expression is calculated. "Sam, I think we need to calm this down a little."
"What about the carbon monoxide? You remember that don't you. You were going on about haunted houses, you-- The carbon monoxide, Dean-- You knew there was something wrong, and we--"
"Yeah, I'm getting that. There's definitely something wrong here. Sam." Dean's looking at him like he's gone utterly batshit. Though honestly, Sam's used to that by now. Sam needs to say is 'Florida' and Dean thinks he's crazy. It happens every day.
"Sammy. C'mere."
Dean beckons him away from the stove and the empty knife block, which at the back of Sam's mind is condescending as fuck. But whatever. He lets Dean grip his shoulder briefly, then prod his back, steer him toward the sagging couch.
"The fucking tweakers, really?" Sam says, without veiling his disappointment.
"What happened, Sam."
"Doesn't matter. And that's the one thing you remember? There's nothing else? They're it?"
"I'm getting the impression that it really does matter, Sam."
"Nothing at all?"
"Sam".
"You don't want to know."
Dean struggles obviously against nailing Sam one. He jogs his leg instead. His frenetic pounding makes the whole couch creak. "Then I'm gonna have to live with the disappointment. Because I need to know what happened."
Sam is silent.
"I need you to tell me what happened. Because I can't--"
"--Remember?"
Dean shoots up off the couch and begins to circle it, motions jagged with impressive violence. "Because I can't figure it out on my own." Dean goes on; fuck you for patronizing me, you can't decide what I should know and what I won't, I need this, I need I need I need.
But Sam can't speak. He could lie, of course. Or actually, present the truth in its least complicated form, as most of Sam's lies do: They were on a hunt and shit went down. And Dean, you will never be the same, ever ever again; end of story. But it hurts to think even that much, and there's no point if Dean's just gonna make him relive the agony tomorrow.
Make him; who's Sam kidding. This is not Dean's fault. Not anymore. "I can't, Dean. I can't. Please."
"Okay," Dean says, which is unexpected. He sits across from Sam, on a cardboard box filled with newspapers; their coffee table.
"What?"
"Okay," Dean repeats. "You can't. I'm not gonna force you, Sammy. We got time." Then he pauses.
Sam looks at his shoes.
"Am I still--? You know. On deadline."
"No." Sam's tongue feels as swollen as all of Florida. His cheeks burn. His neck is hot. "No, I fixed it. I fixed that."
It's obvious Dean had completely forgotten about that particular 'deadline.' Imagine a world where the prospect of a house makes Hell pale in comparison. If Hell is a torture that has no end, what Dean's living in now is one with no beginning. Sam's insides fracture when he realizes that he can, indeed, imagine that.
"I fixed it," Sam says again. He fixed it he fixed it he fixed it.
"Okay," Dean says again, though the rest of him his teeming with infinitely more suspicion; Sam knows Dean's tells. "Well. Then we got plenty of time. I'm not gonna force you."
You can't know that, Sam thinks. You won't remember any of this.
--
"Sam."
Sam overslept. Fuck.
"Sam--"
He tries to smother himself with his own pillow.
"Sammy."
"Where are we?"
--
Step One: Establish a daily routine. Because this is not a dream.
Today, when Sam explains, "Florida" and "forever" and "yes, for real" Dean's panic is so thick and so large that he cannot breathe around it.
--
The problem with Dean's memory, Sam's decided, is it's exhausting them both. It's just that Sam knows why (which is terrifying), and Dean doesn't (also terrifying). Sam doesn't bother with his shoes anymore. He doesn't bother hiding the knives, or feigning work. Not even when Dean asks him, "So if we've been here this long, who's paying for it?" Or, "If we've been here this long, why don't we have any food?" Sometimes Sam cares enough to stumble downstairs and buy burritos out of the afternoon truck. Sometimes he just--can't.
"Did I take anything last night?" Dean asks. Sam regards him blearily, through half-lidded eyes. Even watery Dean looks especially strung out.
Sam screws his eyes shut and refuses this as long as he can. Dean is Dean is Dean, will always be Dean. He should be the same Dean he was a hundred identical days ago. He should be that day over and over again, unto eternity. He's not.
But sometimes, on days like today, Sam admits that he's changed more. It's a wonder Dean still knows him.
"Sam," Dean says--a reminder.
"No, you didn't," Sam finally replies.
"No reason." Dean shrugs. He's responding to the concern Sam knows he has failed to offer. He's not sure he could anymore, even if he tried.
"I just feel like I--there's this feeling in my chest like something's--"
The problem with Dean's memory is, entire days vanish from his brain, but not his body. His body doesn't purge. It knows. It knows and all the fear, all the anxiety and the suspicion and the automatic guilt keep washing through him, like a drug that just won't go away. His body knows and it can't speak and if it can do something to stop all this (which it's doing, Sam can see that--it's killing him, it's killing them both), it's not gonna end well.
Dean, wobbly, sinks to the ground between the beds and tries to recapture Sam's attention. "Sammy, are you okay?"
The problem with Dean's memory is, it means he asks that question about eight trillion times more, and as far as Sam's concerned, the answer matters even less. The problem with Dean's life is, it's supposed to end this year. And the problem with Dean's brother, well. Sam's still working on that one.
--
Moments Sam can still take for granted:
"What are you writing?"
"Sad poetry, Sam. Go away."
--
Time makes routine easier. That's what the pamphlet said, anyway. Sam suspects that this is not what the pamphlet had in mind. These days, Dean accepts that they're in Florida. He accepts that he doesn't remember shit. He doesn't mind the apartment--their apartment--because it doesn't usually occur to him to ask. And Sam as sure as hell stopped advertising the fact. It's another motel for all Dean knows; that's how Sam's been treating it. (Still no food.)
"Sam, something's wrong."
"You're sick, Dean."
No, I'm not. Dean insists. Is adamant. There's something wrong. He can feel it--he winces--in his chest. Just--in his body. There's something wrong.
"You're hurt," Sam modifies.
"Were we hunting?" Yes. "What were we hunting?" Sam shrugs. The usual. It doesn't matter. "Yesterday?" Sam nods. It's only half a lie. "What day is it?" Wednesday.
"So yesterday was Tuesday."
"That's usually how it happens, yeah."
Dean shakes his head. "Something's wrong."
"We're fine."
"Did we finish the hunt?"
There's a lump at the back of Sam's throat. "No." And before Dean has time to react--"But we will."
"Now?"
"Tomorrow."
Dean licks his lips, gnaws at them. "We gotta do this now, Sam. There's something wrong; I can't-- I don't remember--"
Sam reaches out to touch him, but stops. It doesn't seem right. "I know, Dean. Tomorrow, I promise."
--
Tomorrow:
"Sam," rasps Dean, breathless. "Wake the fuck up."
"Sam--"
"Sam."
"Where are we?"
--
Dean remembers some things. He is aware of some passage of time. He is aware of emptiness. He knows that there are things Sam's keeping back.
"You don't need to remember every single day, Dean. It's okay." They're in their usual spots again, Sam swallowed by the couch and Dean on the box of newspapers. He works to find his balance every time; he doesn't remember the slant of the floor, the weakness of the cardboard. Or maybe he does; and he simply doesn't remember to remember. It's complicated.
"Don' wanna remember every single day," says Dean, in between mouthfuls of thin, gray burrito. (Sam's not a fan.) "I just want one."
"You don't even need one," Sam insists.
Dean bows his head, forearms supported by his knees. He rocks back on the box, and the whisper of paper tearing serves as prelude to Dean's words. "Did I do something? Did I hurt y-- Was I possess--?"
"Jesus christ, Dean, no! Do you have any idea how many times you've asked me that?"
Dean flashes a pained smirk. "No, actually."
"Sorry."
Dean shrugs. "No lasting damage."
"Ha ha, very funny." But Sam smiles in spite of himself.
Dean doesn't. "So what'd you do?"
"What?"
"What did you do? There's something wrong, and if it's not me, then--"
"Then it has to be me? Seriously?"
Dean starts giving him shit about how, yes, that's generally how it works, now what the hell did you do, Sam, until Sam cuts him off.
"Why does it have to be our fault? Maybe something happened to us. I mean, it happens, right? The things we hunt--"
"That's not what this is about, and you know it, Sam." Dean's angry. No, disappointed. Sam's pretty good at predicting when things are about to go to hell. This is one of them.
"What day is it?" Dean asks, and Sam's heart sinks.
"Why does it matter?"
"Why does it matter why it matters? Maybe don't want to miss Taco Tuesdays. Just give it up."
"It's Wednesday."
"Yesterday was Wednesday."
Sam laughs nervously. "I don't think that's possible."
Dean extracts something from his jacket; their father's journal. He flips to the last page. "Yesterday was Wednesday, Sam."
He moves his finger down the page. Scrawled, WEDNESDAY. "And so was the day before that."
Down again. "And before that."
"It was the only way," Sam says quickly. He folds. "I saw a way to get you out, and I took it."
"How."
Sam feels like just breathing is enough to turn him inside out. "This is Broward County, Florida. Where the laws of physi--"
"--Don't." Dean presses his fist to his mouth.
"It's better this way," Sam says softly, even though he does not believe himself. Given the givens, he's half convinced that as the Prince of Hell, all he's done is annex the underworld a new territory. "It's just one day, Dean."
"Not for you."
"I'm okay with that."
"Dude, how many Tuesdays did you have?" The way Dean's looking at him is a mixture of betrayal and blankness, as though this is at once both the most and least significant thing that has ever happened to him--or that Sam has ever done to him, Sam thinks.
"Sammy," says Dean.
Sam barely remembers the person Dean is talking to. "It's too late."
Sam's bullet passes straight through Dean's chest and lodges itself between the eyes of the painted hippo. Sam counts back from ten.
--
He wakes to he grinning face of the tiger on their wall. He turns onto his back and looks up at the blue ceiling instead. He follows the crackle of paint and plaster, and wonders what Dean sees up there.
The alarm clock blares. It's the same damn song every time.
Sam gets up, thinking about heat. He ignores his shoes. Instead, he casts an arm beneath Dean's cot and comes up with the journal. WEDNESDAY in Dean's handwriting. WEDNESDAY WEDNESDAY.
He tears out the page and replaces the journal, but he doesn't throw the page away. Maybe he'll stuff it in the duffel somewhere. Maybe.
Seventeen minutes later, Sam's day truly begins:
"Sam."
"Sam--"
"Where are we?"
--
This is not a dream. If you die, you don't wake up.
Sam's tried.
* Where the intended recipient defaulted, stories are posted as gifts for the community as a whole.
Author: kalliel
Recipient: spn_summergen*
Genre: hurt/comfort (anterograde amnesia), curtain!fic, horror
Characters: Sam, Dean
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Questionable care-taking ethics.
Author's Notes: S3 divergent timeline.
Summary: The problem with Dean's memory is, it means he asks that question about eight trillion times more ("Sammy, are you okay? well, are you?"), and as far as Sam's concerned, the answer matters even less. The problem with Dean's life is, it's supposed to end this year. And the problem with Dean's brother, well. Sam's still working on that one.
Sam strongly suspects it's actually some kind of rehab living center. It's the themed housing that tips him off--they're in the jungle apartment, complete with dark green walls and painted hippos, alligators, lions, and other unlikely denizens; according to Dean, their craftsmanship rivals Sam's own artistic abilities. But Sam figures, it comes semi-furnished (the card table, sagging futon, twin camp beds all remind Sam of his long-lost dorm room), the down payment's not bad, and if Marta the Super thinks they're her kind of client then they probably are.
"You good?" Sam asks as he pushes Dean through the door.
Dean grunts and throws their duffel on the couch. Something cracks and clunks. When the dust settles, Dean says, "Home sweet home."
So it's a fixer-upper, sue him. Not that Sam sees either of them doing any fixing-upping; but it's probably for the best. Sam for one would feel worse if they ended up having to tag anything better than the cracked linoleum he's standing on, or crash through furniture that was any better than the apple crate rejects Dean's kicking. Whether they're hunting anymore or not, these remain valid considerations.
"There's only one exit," Dean notes. There's also two small windows--barred for their protection, according to Marta the Super--but neither of them are under sixty pounds nor under five feet all, so the windows are a moot point anyway.
"You know, I hear you get a discount if your building's not up to code," Sam says. "We'll be fine, Dean." If something tails them all the way out here, they won't have anywhere else to run. It'll end here either way.
"There's no point in having one of these things if you're not gonna do anything about it." Dean's inspecting what looks like some kind of monitor.
"Carbon monoxide," he adds when Sam peers over his shoulder. "Do we get a discount for that, too?"
Sam spreads his arms in surrender. "Okay, okay, I get it. I'll let Marta know."
Dean doesn't take his eyes off the CO monitor. "And Marta thinks her building's haunted?"
Sam's a little confused now. "No..."
"I just-- Half the time people get all hyped up on the haunted house thing, and it's just carbon monoxide poi--" Dean says, defensive. "God, I sound like you."
Sam sweeps part of the ceiling under the couch with his boots and tests the couch; it's not that bad. "You remember all that, huh?"
"You're not a special snowflake, Encyclopedia Brown. It's called memory; normal people have it, too," Dean snaps.
"Are you trying to start something?"
"No. Yes. Fuck. I guess I'm just--" Dean starts again, and puts it bluntly this time. "What the fuck are we doing here? If this place isn't haunted."
Sam takes a deep breath. This is what he was afraid of. "We're here to live, Dean."
And it's one of those moments that separates what Sam knew and what Sam's quickly learned to embrace. Dean's face quivers, his disorientation obvious. "Okay," he says. "Uh, for how long?"
"For as long as we can. I told you."
Dean's Why? goes unspoken, though Sam watches as it fills his mouth and presses the rest of him to silence. If Dean has to ask, that's exactly their problem. That's exactly why they're here.
Two rooms, one bath. Functional shower. Two small windows, one door. Decent electrical wiring. Horrendous paint job. Carbon monoxide leak. But at least it's theirs. That's nice, right? It's theirs.
"Then I guess... I guess we're actually gonna have to fix this," Dean says finally. There's more to that, Dean lost to some frantic pattern of thought, but Sam's not invited.
There's a whooping behind them as their neighbors crash against the door adjacent. "They like it here," says Sam. So maybe 'rehab' was a strong word.
"Oh yeah," Dean says. "We're rooming next to a bunch of teenage tweakers. But at least they're our tweakers, right?"
--
"--day is it?" Dean mumbles. The alarm clock's screaming but the pile of magazines between their beds isn't high enough. He can't reach it without actually sitting up. But Dean Winchester doesn't compromise for anything, no sir.
Sam does. He jabs at the clock to shut it up. "It's Wednesday," he says, ears still ringing with a phantom alarm. The clock had been playing some song; Sam can't remember the name of it.
"And you're going... where?"
Sam shrugs a shirt on. "Work."
"Oh." Dean pulls the covers back over his head. Then, after a moment, he asks, "So where am I going?"
"Work," Sam says as he pulls on pants. His jeans are slightly damp already, victim to the humidity. As he jerks the heavy fabric over his ass and up to his waist, he continues under his breath. "If you could remember. Which you can't, so--"
"What?"
Sam runs a hand through his hair, already limp and frazzled at the edges. Mentally, he kicks himself. He didn't mean it like that. "Just sit tight, okay? I got you."
--
Every morning. The last year's spent its days eating away at Sam's patience; by the time they end up here, Sam's got nothing left. And every morning, there's Dean.
"Sammy, what's going on."
Sam scrubs at his teeth harder and thanks every god he knows that the bathroom lock still works. He doesn't want to see Dean's face in the mirror when he starts talking like that. He doesn't want to see that kind of fear. Not on Dean.
"What job are you working?"
"Same job, Dean," Sam says, and unlocks the door. "I'm working the same job. And you're staying put in the same house."
"Where are we?"
"This is our house, Dean."
Since when? Dean does or does not ask. He follows Sam out to the living-space-kitchen-all-in-one room (is this what an open floor plan is?) and yanks back the curtains. The curtains themselves are fairly ingenious; in keeping with the theme, the sport dolphins and octopi. They're malleable in the morning sunlight, and plasticky--a shower curtain, snipped in half. Sam's not sure what the deal is, but it came like that. The view beyond them is unhelpful, just more plaster facade a few feet away, and a murky alley some floors down.
Sam watches as Dean wipes his fingers down his shirt, and his heat-clammy forehead against his sleeve. He shoves the window open briefly, but it's worse outside. "Sammy," he says shakily. Then he takes a few seconds to get over himself. "Sam, where are we?"
--
There's flamingoes in the bathroom. The hippo's in the living room. Lions, tigers, bears--bedroom. At the bottom of their duffel bag, Sam's clothes are starting to smell a little like mold. Maybe he could get Dean to organize the duffel; it could be part of their morning routine.
And there it goes:
"Hey Dean, wanna organize the duffel? Your shit's getting all over my shit."
Dean comes back with, "Sam, where are we?"
"Florida."
"Florida." Dean chokes on the word, something swollen and writhingly humid in itself.
"Florida," Sam repeats. Cold sweat trickles down the small of Sam's back. "This is our house."
"Our h--" Dean says, voice taut with a distress typically reserved for situations that involve a hell of a lot more legs; potentially segmented body parts. "What do you mean, our hou-- hou-- How long?"
Sam ties his laces as he ruminates. These sneakers that probably shouldn't still exist. He'd had no use for them hunting, and they'd slept at the back of the trunk for a good three years now. And honestly, barely had use for them walking to class every day. But he figured if they were really gonna survive this, something had to come out of retirement.
--
Though if Sam's goddamn shoes are going to make up for anything, they're going to have to burst free from retirement. Like fireworks. Really, really big ones.
When Sam asks Dean about the duffel again, and Dean gives him a look like, And why the hell would I do that, Sam? it's almost like old times. Within minutes, however, Dean's circled back around to the abject terror that accompanies his realization that not only do they have an address (which day to day, he cannot remember), it's theirs. Like, actually seriously theirs.
"Seriously?"
"Like, actually really seriously," Sam insists, and he sounds prissy even to his own ears. It's not fair; Dean's always made it abundantly clear that domestic living, like airplanes, were sites of incredible danger to him. Planes crashed and houses were, well, static. Constant. And if Dean's not really into 'constant,' his memory's not doing him any favors. Because it's like being sucked into the same black hole every single morning.
"No. No." Sam watches the cogs spin behind his brothers eyes. Dean licks his lips, furrows his brow. The cogs spin and spin and catch on nothing.
Sam waits for his questions. This is Step One to moving into your new home, according to the pamphlets downstairs. Marta was kind enough to stuff approximately twelve dozen copies of each under their door the other day. STEP ONE: (sun bleached diagram.) Establish a daily routine.
Sam ties his shoes, as he always does, and says, "I'm gonna go to work."
But Dean, contrary to many mornings previous, isn't interested. Evidently he's figured something out, because he's gone before Sam even as a chance to do his double knots. He bounds after Dean, one set of shoelaces still flapping. So much for routines.
Today, Dean's questing. He embarks on a rough, haphazard appraisal of their living-room-common-area-kitchen...thing, plowing through furniture like he half expects it'll melt away like a dream. Then he starts to pat down his clothing.
"Dude, where's my stuff?"
And Sam's spent so much time memorizing their mornings by rote, for a few seconds he's honestly not sure what to do with the question. The butterflies haven't quite cleared his throat when he says the only relevant thing he can conceive of. "Your what?"
"My keys, for one."
Sam extracts them from his own pocket. Dean readies his hands, as if to catch them, but Sam doesn't throw.
Dean frowns. "Did I--?" He gestures forcefully toward Sam.
No, not exactly, Sam thinks. But Dean's already moved on to knives. "The knife block."
"The knife bl--"
Sam sighs. "Kitchen, knife block. Where people put all their--"
"I know what a fucking knife block is, Sam." He waits for further explanation. "Why the hell--"
Sam really doesn't have a good answer for that one. He was trying to move them in; it was the best he could manage. "Well, I don't know," he sputters. "It came with the place, I was just trying to--"
But Dean's already clear to the kitchen. Their carnival of knives looks silly stuffed into the Cutco slats, Sam'll give him that. The uniformity of black plastic paring, steak and chopping knives replaced by carved handles, bone handles, ebony-dipped-in-the-blood-of-whatever-the-hell handles.
The handle of one of their less conspicuous knives finds its way into Dean's hand, and the blade finds itself pointed straight at Dean's heart.
"Whoa, Dean, what the hell are you--"
"You know, Sam. I have a weird amount of experience with this, so roll with me here. You die in a dream, you wake up. And I'm gonna--"
--
This is not a dream, Sam explains.
Sam stares up at the ceiling. In seventeen minutes, like clockwork, Dean will wake. It's not a guess. "Step one," Sam breathes. "Establish a daily routine."
He wriggles to the edge of the bed, feeling like some kind of wilted squid in the 90-already? heat. He stares at his sneakers. And he decides, as he shuffles through their kitchen barefoot, that waking up to hide the knives is a shit way to begin one day, let alone a lifetime of them. Daily routine his ass.
Too soon: Dean, voice garbled by sleep. "Sam."
Sam winces.
"What're you doin' with all the knives?"
There are some things--though the knives are not typically one of them--that Sam explains daily. Chief among them, what has happened. Why they're here. How long they're going to stay, and why. Why, why, why. Dean doesn't typically try to understand, or refuses to. Not that Sam blames him; he's not sure if he believes himself half the time. But as the days go by, Sam learns to streamline a little.
"You're sick, Dean," he says, which is not exactly true. (It's not at all true.) "You're hurt." (Closer.)
"I can't--" Remember, Dean doesn't say.
"I know," Sam does. And he knows whose fault that is.
--
This is not a dream. If you die, you do not wake up from it.
"Look, I'm sorry."
"Don't do that." Sam is sitting on the couch with the knife block in his lap. It's a little heavy and a lot sticky, with what Sam doesn't want to know. But it's his goddamn knife block and if he has to sleep with every single knife they own under his pillow then so be it. "Just--don't."
Dean drops his hand away from the shower curtain curtains. He gives Sam a strange, unfamiliar look and takes a step backward. Without breaking his gaze: "A little possessive this morning, Sammy?"
Sam grips the knife block tighter. "I meant, don't apologize," he clarifies. He can't handle that right now. "Fondle the curtains all you want."
"Fondle the c-- okay, Trixie Norton," Dean says, eyebrows raised, face morphing into a mask of bemusement. Finally, he turns away. And he does poke at the curtains again.
"Sam."
Here it comes. Where are we? Why are we here? How long have we been here? Sammy, what the fuck is going on?
"Hey Dean, you wanna organize the duffel?" Sam asks, just for the hell of it. "Your shit's getting all over my shit."
"Sam, was I possessed?"
Sam starts. "--What?"
Dean swings back to face him. He wipes his hand down his face. "Because you're... And I don't-- I don't remember anything. I don't--"
Sam can't reply to that. He knows he has to; otherwise, Dean's in the water alone, with Sam not saving him. (As usual, Sam not saving him.) He has to, because Dean's fear is written in his body language, unease settling into his pockets alongside his hands, eyes bright with what is for now a quiet, private sort of panic. And Sam knows that this is his to fix. He has to. But Sam also knows that even if he does, even if he finds the perfect words and he does, Dean's not going to remember.
Sam, was I possessed? Dean asks again. Sam tugs at his own shirt collar, in part out of his own discomfort (Florida. An early summer. Florida, no A/C) and in part to remind Dean of the tattoo they share.
"We've never tested them," Dean objects.
"You weren't possessed, Dean. You weren't possessed, but I wish to god you were."
Sam looks down at his bare feet as he escapes to the bathroom.
He knows exorcisms. Demons aren't this problem. Ghosts are not his problem. This one's on Sam.
--
"I organized the duffel." Dean's lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Maybe he sees the same shapes Sam did; but probably not. They've never seen the same things, in all their years of ceiling cracks and peeling paint and wispy clouds and blood spatter. Not even once.
"I organized the duffel, Sam," Dean repeats when Sam does not reply in time.
"I can see that."
"But I don't know why I organized the duffel."
"Because your shit was getting all over my shit." Sam flops down on the bed adjacent. His bed adjacent. He doesn't want to deal with this right now.
"That seems like something you'd say," Dean says, sentence slurred by the shorthand of some internal thought process.
"That's 'cause I've been saying it for a week."
"Maybe I just know you. I don't need to hear you bitch about that kind of stuff to--"
"I've been saying it for a week."
Dean clenches his fists. "But that's not possible, we haven't been here a week. We're just..."
"Do you remember moving in?"
"Obviously not." Exasperation. "Sam."
Sam, Sam, Sam. What are you going to do about this, Sam.
"Sam, wait."
Sam doesn't.
--
"Where are you going?" Dean asks into his pillow.
"Work."
Dean raises his head, but doesn't move. Not yet. "What job are we on?"
Sam stares down at his laces and wonders if they're even worth it. "Same job, Dean."
"Where are we?" Florida. "What day is it?" Wednesday.
Dean groans. "What the fuck did I have to drink last night. Because I--"
Sam takes a deep breath. Step One: Establish a daily routine.
--
It goes something like this: Wake up--possible amendment, Sam thinks: Fail to keep sleeping. Them, fail to adequately explain their circumstances. Fail to keep Dean from rushing out of the bedroom. Fail to keep him from upending all their worldly possessions (basically, whatever came with the apartment). Fail to divert Dean's attentions away from the incredible sweeping terror that Sam is not, in fact, fucking with him. Fail to convey appropriate concern for the circumstances Dean makes clear are very much not adequately fucking explained, did you hear me, Sam? not adequately fucking explained, ad nauseam.
But it's hard; it happens every day and by this point Dean's terror and Dean's rage just kind of piss Sam off. On good days, anyway. On good days, Sam's angry; on bad ones, he breaks.
"Where are my things." Dean's patting his pockets, finding them empty. "Sam--"
"Sam--"
Sam hears Dean take a shuddering breath, exhale through pursed lips.
"Sam--"
"Sammy, what's up with you?"
Sam pinches the bridge of his nose until he's half-certain he leaves bruises. Dabs at the edge of his eyes, like he's brushing away an irritating piece of dust. "Nothin'I'mgood," he says. His nose throbs and his eyes feel hot.
"Right," Dean says.
Sam thinks about hamster wheels. He thinks about hamster balls. He thinks about maybe-just-maybe punting hamster balls. He reserves the right to be angry; it beats the alternative.
"Sam, where's my knife?"
"I really don't care, Dean. Sam sighs, still thinking about hamsters but also thinking about knives, and also trying to figure out how to make a beeline for the bedroom without tripping any alarms. He's decided that "under his pillow" is really not secure enough for that kind of thing. This is not a dream, Dean. If you die, we don't wake up.
Sam's halfway to the bedroom again, under the pretense of having forgotten his shoes. Maybe he'll slip in, lock the door behind him. He'll stash them in the mattress. He feels stupid, taking that kind of precaution with Dean of all people, but Dean's first assumption is always possession and his second is always that this is a nightmare. A nightmare he needs desperately to escape. And if Dean's a little more proactive about dealing with that, Sam can name at least a dozen different legitimate reasons--he curses every single one. Because this is their life: There's actually a logic to rushing for the knives the moment life starts seeming like an exceptionally vivid bad dream.
(It's not that bad, Sam says.
There's a fucking hippo painted on the wall.
It's a house, Sam insists. A place to live. How can that be bad?
And Dean says, Have you met us?)
But maybe-just-maybe--and this is something Sam's been thinking for months now, if not years--Dean just wants to off himself. That's not the way he means to put it. That's not the way he thinks about his brother; it's not. But it's one of those things. There's a logic to a lot of their crazy; occupational hazard. But Sam can also name at least a dozen different instances where he'd thought that Dean was just...done. People don't sell their souls to bring their brothers back to life. They just don't. People don't use themselves as bait. People don't leave themselves to worse-than-chance. Not unless-- And Sam figures that's probably the whole reason they ended up here.
Sam sinks against the bedroom door, now locked. He draws his legs in, grips his wrists to form a ring around his knees. His fingers turn bloated pink and leave cold white fingerprints beneath them. When he releases his pressure, the blood flows too slowly back. It's been a long damn year. It's been too short a year. It's supposed to be Dean's last year. And that's really the fucking problem, Sam thinks.
Sam knows he can't let Dean live like this. He does. He can't let Dean keep waking up to the same nightmare, that fresh fear. He can't keep failing to explain--time, date, place. Yes, our house. No, seriously--our house. Yes, in Florida. Yes, it's Wednesday. It happens every week. We've been here for weeks. Yes, weeks. He can't keep watching Dean race to fix what he cannot possibly fix--Dean can't even remember what needs to be goddamn fixed. What fixes Sam has failed to realize.
There's muffled shrieking on the other side of their wall. Their neighbors waking up. It doesn't help.
Oh, fuck this. If Sam has to wallow in his own self-pity for much longer Dean's gonna need to hide the knives from him.
"Dean," Sam says through the door.
"Sam, where's my gun?" Dean replies.
At which point Sam figures it really doesn't matter. Dean won't remember this, anyway.
He cries.
--
"Sam, I'm sorry. I am."
He is.
"Don't give me that look, Sam. I just-- Did I do something to you?"
"You weren't possessed, Dean." Sam is too tired for this shit today. One of his shoestrings breaks when he tries to lace his sneakers. He yanks his shoe tighter and knots the lace back together. Tries to wriggle his foot back to relative comfort once he's made the fix.
"Well, something's wrong I'm not an idiot I know when--"
Sam helps him along. He wants to get to the 'this is fucked this has to be some kind of supernatural nightmare world' part of their day before he has time to overthink it. In fact, if they could just stay in the bedroom and forgo the 'and then they tore through the kitchen in a domestic panic' Sam would feel that much better about the trajectory of today. So he helps: "Do you remember moving in?"
"Obviously not." Exasperation. "Sam--"
Today, Sam woke up early today and just locked all their shit in the car. Problem solved. This house is Dean-proof. (This nightmare is Dean-proof.)
"Sam--"
"I gotta go to work, Dean."
("You... gotta go to w-- What job are we working?") Sam's only half-listening. "Same job, Dean," he says. Then he senses Dean's distraction. He groans inwardly. "What now."
"Tweakers," Dean mutters.
"What?"
"They're our tweakers."
"What?"
"Our neighbors."
"What?"
Dean rolls his eyes. "You know what? Fuck you."
"What?"
"Dude."
"Nonono, wait a sec. What did you say?"
Dean gestures toward the bedroom wall. There's screeching coming from the other side. Their neighbors waking up. "Our tweakers," Dean repeats. "Our house, our neighbors, our tweakers."
"You remember that. That was--"
"No," Dean says. "No, yes."
Sam's lost track of how many mornings he's, spent watching that sad, familiar maelstrom gestate inside Dean, bleed out of him like a sickness. Today he feels himself jittery with the same, and he's the one tracking chaos through their kitchen as Dean follows. Within instants. It's like the whole game's changed. Dean's yelling at him--something insignificant. It doesn't matter. All Sam can think is, Dean remembers Dean remembers Dean remembers. It makes perfect sense. They stayed in the bedroom today. Dean heard the neighbors. He remembered. He remembers.
"What about this?" The knife block. Dean gives him a look.
"Or these?" Sam points at his shoes. Which is stupid, why would Dean remember his shoes, but he'll try anything. "Or the duffel bag--how about you organize the duffel bag?"
"Why the hell would I do that?"
"Because--because your shit is getting all over my shit," Sam explains lamely. He deflates. He doesn't know what just happened. But for a second it felt like-- Sam looks up.
Dean's expression is calculated. "Sam, I think we need to calm this down a little."
"What about the carbon monoxide? You remember that don't you. You were going on about haunted houses, you-- The carbon monoxide, Dean-- You knew there was something wrong, and we--"
"Yeah, I'm getting that. There's definitely something wrong here. Sam." Dean's looking at him like he's gone utterly batshit. Though honestly, Sam's used to that by now. Sam needs to say is 'Florida' and Dean thinks he's crazy. It happens every day.
"Sammy. C'mere."
Dean beckons him away from the stove and the empty knife block, which at the back of Sam's mind is condescending as fuck. But whatever. He lets Dean grip his shoulder briefly, then prod his back, steer him toward the sagging couch.
"The fucking tweakers, really?" Sam says, without veiling his disappointment.
"What happened, Sam."
"Doesn't matter. And that's the one thing you remember? There's nothing else? They're it?"
"I'm getting the impression that it really does matter, Sam."
"Nothing at all?"
"Sam".
"You don't want to know."
Dean struggles obviously against nailing Sam one. He jogs his leg instead. His frenetic pounding makes the whole couch creak. "Then I'm gonna have to live with the disappointment. Because I need to know what happened."
Sam is silent.
"I need you to tell me what happened. Because I can't--"
"--Remember?"
Dean shoots up off the couch and begins to circle it, motions jagged with impressive violence. "Because I can't figure it out on my own." Dean goes on; fuck you for patronizing me, you can't decide what I should know and what I won't, I need this, I need I need I need.
But Sam can't speak. He could lie, of course. Or actually, present the truth in its least complicated form, as most of Sam's lies do: They were on a hunt and shit went down. And Dean, you will never be the same, ever ever again; end of story. But it hurts to think even that much, and there's no point if Dean's just gonna make him relive the agony tomorrow.
Make him; who's Sam kidding. This is not Dean's fault. Not anymore. "I can't, Dean. I can't. Please."
"Okay," Dean says, which is unexpected. He sits across from Sam, on a cardboard box filled with newspapers; their coffee table.
"What?"
"Okay," Dean repeats. "You can't. I'm not gonna force you, Sammy. We got time." Then he pauses.
Sam looks at his shoes.
"Am I still--? You know. On deadline."
"No." Sam's tongue feels as swollen as all of Florida. His cheeks burn. His neck is hot. "No, I fixed it. I fixed that."
It's obvious Dean had completely forgotten about that particular 'deadline.' Imagine a world where the prospect of a house makes Hell pale in comparison. If Hell is a torture that has no end, what Dean's living in now is one with no beginning. Sam's insides fracture when he realizes that he can, indeed, imagine that.
"I fixed it," Sam says again. He fixed it he fixed it he fixed it.
"Okay," Dean says again, though the rest of him his teeming with infinitely more suspicion; Sam knows Dean's tells. "Well. Then we got plenty of time. I'm not gonna force you."
You can't know that, Sam thinks. You won't remember any of this.
--
"Sam."
Sam overslept. Fuck.
"Sam--"
He tries to smother himself with his own pillow.
"Sammy."
"Where are we?"
--
Step One: Establish a daily routine. Because this is not a dream.
Today, when Sam explains, "Florida" and "forever" and "yes, for real" Dean's panic is so thick and so large that he cannot breathe around it.
--
The problem with Dean's memory, Sam's decided, is it's exhausting them both. It's just that Sam knows why (which is terrifying), and Dean doesn't (also terrifying). Sam doesn't bother with his shoes anymore. He doesn't bother hiding the knives, or feigning work. Not even when Dean asks him, "So if we've been here this long, who's paying for it?" Or, "If we've been here this long, why don't we have any food?" Sometimes Sam cares enough to stumble downstairs and buy burritos out of the afternoon truck. Sometimes he just--can't.
"Did I take anything last night?" Dean asks. Sam regards him blearily, through half-lidded eyes. Even watery Dean looks especially strung out.
Sam screws his eyes shut and refuses this as long as he can. Dean is Dean is Dean, will always be Dean. He should be the same Dean he was a hundred identical days ago. He should be that day over and over again, unto eternity. He's not.
But sometimes, on days like today, Sam admits that he's changed more. It's a wonder Dean still knows him.
"Sam," Dean says--a reminder.
"No, you didn't," Sam finally replies.
"No reason." Dean shrugs. He's responding to the concern Sam knows he has failed to offer. He's not sure he could anymore, even if he tried.
"I just feel like I--there's this feeling in my chest like something's--"
The problem with Dean's memory is, entire days vanish from his brain, but not his body. His body doesn't purge. It knows. It knows and all the fear, all the anxiety and the suspicion and the automatic guilt keep washing through him, like a drug that just won't go away. His body knows and it can't speak and if it can do something to stop all this (which it's doing, Sam can see that--it's killing him, it's killing them both), it's not gonna end well.
Dean, wobbly, sinks to the ground between the beds and tries to recapture Sam's attention. "Sammy, are you okay?"
The problem with Dean's memory is, it means he asks that question about eight trillion times more, and as far as Sam's concerned, the answer matters even less. The problem with Dean's life is, it's supposed to end this year. And the problem with Dean's brother, well. Sam's still working on that one.
--
Moments Sam can still take for granted:
"What are you writing?"
"Sad poetry, Sam. Go away."
--
Time makes routine easier. That's what the pamphlet said, anyway. Sam suspects that this is not what the pamphlet had in mind. These days, Dean accepts that they're in Florida. He accepts that he doesn't remember shit. He doesn't mind the apartment--their apartment--because it doesn't usually occur to him to ask. And Sam as sure as hell stopped advertising the fact. It's another motel for all Dean knows; that's how Sam's been treating it. (Still no food.)
"Sam, something's wrong."
"You're sick, Dean."
No, I'm not. Dean insists. Is adamant. There's something wrong. He can feel it--he winces--in his chest. Just--in his body. There's something wrong.
"You're hurt," Sam modifies.
"Were we hunting?" Yes. "What were we hunting?" Sam shrugs. The usual. It doesn't matter. "Yesterday?" Sam nods. It's only half a lie. "What day is it?" Wednesday.
"So yesterday was Tuesday."
"That's usually how it happens, yeah."
Dean shakes his head. "Something's wrong."
"We're fine."
"Did we finish the hunt?"
There's a lump at the back of Sam's throat. "No." And before Dean has time to react--"But we will."
"Now?"
"Tomorrow."
Dean licks his lips, gnaws at them. "We gotta do this now, Sam. There's something wrong; I can't-- I don't remember--"
Sam reaches out to touch him, but stops. It doesn't seem right. "I know, Dean. Tomorrow, I promise."
--
Tomorrow:
"Sam," rasps Dean, breathless. "Wake the fuck up."
"Sam--"
"Sam."
"Where are we?"
--
Dean remembers some things. He is aware of some passage of time. He is aware of emptiness. He knows that there are things Sam's keeping back.
"You don't need to remember every single day, Dean. It's okay." They're in their usual spots again, Sam swallowed by the couch and Dean on the box of newspapers. He works to find his balance every time; he doesn't remember the slant of the floor, the weakness of the cardboard. Or maybe he does; and he simply doesn't remember to remember. It's complicated.
"Don' wanna remember every single day," says Dean, in between mouthfuls of thin, gray burrito. (Sam's not a fan.) "I just want one."
"You don't even need one," Sam insists.
Dean bows his head, forearms supported by his knees. He rocks back on the box, and the whisper of paper tearing serves as prelude to Dean's words. "Did I do something? Did I hurt y-- Was I possess--?"
"Jesus christ, Dean, no! Do you have any idea how many times you've asked me that?"
Dean flashes a pained smirk. "No, actually."
"Sorry."
Dean shrugs. "No lasting damage."
"Ha ha, very funny." But Sam smiles in spite of himself.
Dean doesn't. "So what'd you do?"
"What?"
"What did you do? There's something wrong, and if it's not me, then--"
"Then it has to be me? Seriously?"
Dean starts giving him shit about how, yes, that's generally how it works, now what the hell did you do, Sam, until Sam cuts him off.
"Why does it have to be our fault? Maybe something happened to us. I mean, it happens, right? The things we hunt--"
"That's not what this is about, and you know it, Sam." Dean's angry. No, disappointed. Sam's pretty good at predicting when things are about to go to hell. This is one of them.
"What day is it?" Dean asks, and Sam's heart sinks.
"Why does it matter?"
"Why does it matter why it matters? Maybe don't want to miss Taco Tuesdays. Just give it up."
"It's Wednesday."
"Yesterday was Wednesday."
Sam laughs nervously. "I don't think that's possible."
Dean extracts something from his jacket; their father's journal. He flips to the last page. "Yesterday was Wednesday, Sam."
He moves his finger down the page. Scrawled, WEDNESDAY. "And so was the day before that."
Down again. "And before that."
"It was the only way," Sam says quickly. He folds. "I saw a way to get you out, and I took it."
"How."
Sam feels like just breathing is enough to turn him inside out. "This is Broward County, Florida. Where the laws of physi--"
"--Don't." Dean presses his fist to his mouth.
"It's better this way," Sam says softly, even though he does not believe himself. Given the givens, he's half convinced that as the Prince of Hell, all he's done is annex the underworld a new territory. "It's just one day, Dean."
"Not for you."
"I'm okay with that."
"Dude, how many Tuesdays did you have?" The way Dean's looking at him is a mixture of betrayal and blankness, as though this is at once both the most and least significant thing that has ever happened to him--or that Sam has ever done to him, Sam thinks.
"Sammy," says Dean.
Sam barely remembers the person Dean is talking to. "It's too late."
Sam's bullet passes straight through Dean's chest and lodges itself between the eyes of the painted hippo. Sam counts back from ten.
--
He wakes to he grinning face of the tiger on their wall. He turns onto his back and looks up at the blue ceiling instead. He follows the crackle of paint and plaster, and wonders what Dean sees up there.
The alarm clock blares. It's the same damn song every time.
Sam gets up, thinking about heat. He ignores his shoes. Instead, he casts an arm beneath Dean's cot and comes up with the journal. WEDNESDAY in Dean's handwriting. WEDNESDAY WEDNESDAY.
He tears out the page and replaces the journal, but he doesn't throw the page away. Maybe he'll stuff it in the duffel somewhere. Maybe.
Seventeen minutes later, Sam's day truly begins:
"Sam."
"Sam--"
"Where are we?"
--
This is not a dream. If you die, you don't wake up.
Sam's tried.
* Where the intended recipient defaulted, stories are posted as gifts for the community as a whole.