Where Memories Are Made
K Hanna Korossy

Dean wasn't sure if he hadn't gone to sleep yet or if he'd been woken by the sharp inhale from the other bed.

When they'd returned in the middle of the night from burying Roy Dobbs—clearly decapitation killed Arachne and fire didn't, so they'd left at least that much for Dobbs' widow—they'd crawled into their beds without a word, and it had been silent until now.

Dean stuck his head out of the thermal sleeping bag and listened. They were squatting in a derelict house, no heat, broken shutters on the window, and it was snowing outside, so they'd broken out the all-weather gear. Sam's bed was on the other side of a crumbling partition wall, but Dean could hear his brother's breathing clearly enough, fast and agitated but there. Dean waited, seeing if—

"Dean? You awake?"

"Yeah." His breath puffed in the frigid air, and Dean made a face; he would be glad to put this miserable town in the rear-view and head south.

"Hey, did we hunt a baykok in the last few months?"

Dean frowned into the dark. "No." He paused, considering. "But I think you and the Apple Dumpling Gang did." He didn't ever want to hear the Campbell name again. "Why?"

"I, uh, think some of my dreams lately have really been memories," Sam's sheepish voice floated back.

He was pretty sure he was scowling by now. "Awesome. Even your subconscious can't keep its hands to itself."

He heard Sam shifting in bed. When he spoke again, he sounded clearer, like he'd pushed himself up out of his sleeping bag. "Hey, why do you think Death put soulless-me behind the Wall, too? I thought it was just about protecting me from the Cage."

Dean's shoulders went tight enough to hurt. "I don't know, to keep your brain from exploding from trying to sort out two sets of memories from the same time?" He blew out a breath. "Seriously, dude? I tell you you need to stop scratching at the Wall, so you switch to scratching at why Death put it where he did?"

"I was just—"

"Well, don't," Dean growled.

Silence. Unhappy, weighty silence.

Five seconds became ten. He thought of Sam's horrified face when his memories came back of the hunt with Samuel, the shame as he stood over Roy's body with Brenna, the depression in the car after. As ten became twenty, Dean swallowed, opened his mouth—

"I could feel it." Sam was hushed, confessional. "How much I didn't care. All that mattered was getting the job done—Roy was just collateral damage." More sounds of movement. "God, Dean, I was the monster—you should've—"

"Sam," he said sharply. He really didn't like where this was going. "You weren't a monster, okay? You were…Schwarzenegger from T2, programmed right, just kinda…ready to kneecap anyone who got in the way."

Sam snorted. "Yeah, that makes me feel a lot better." He took a deep breath, coughing a little, probably at the cold burn of the air. "I told you I didn't care about you," he added, just loud enough to hear.

Crap, of all the memories Sam would have to get back. "Yeah, well, that wasn't exactly a newsflash by then," Dean said wryly. He fought with himself a moment before caving and admitting what he told himself each time he remembered that conversation. "But you still wanted to hunt together, to stay with me. Saved my life a coupla times, too, even when you were taking a risk doing it. You weren't just Gort."

A pause. "Gort?" came the puzzled echo.

Dean sighed. "Gort the robot? The Day the Earth Stood Still? Dude, do you remember anything we watched when you were a kid?"

"You mean besides Porky's 2 about a hundred times?"

"Hey, that was educational," Dean shot back, mostly because he would do anything to derail Sam's current train of thought.

Sam laughed. Mission accomplished.

Dean licked his lips. "It was like the end of T2, where he kinda feels something for the kid," he said more softly. He was probably giving Robo-Sam too much credit, but if Dean wanted to remember it that way, Sam could, too.

"Yeah," Sam said finally, softly. "Okay." He probably knew Dean was putting all kinds of spin on this, but they could pretend together. Wouldn't be the first time, or even the hundredth.

"Can we get some sleep now?" From years of practice, Dean could put just the right amount of whine in his voice. "I wanna leave town before Deputy Fife figures out where you went."

"He's Sheriff Fife now," Sam said absently. "Hey, Dean."

Dean froze in the midst of burrowing back into his bag. "What now?"

"Did we do something on a hunt with…patchouli?"

This time when he laughed, it didn't even hurt.

The End