Title: Jamais

Author: .

Rating: T

Summary: "There's an opposite to déjà vu. They call it jamais vu." – Chuck Palakniuk. Sam doesn't expect to go into a simple haunting and come out with no memory and no opportunity to retain any future information or events. Then again, can you expect anything?

Disclaimer: Would you believe me if I said I did own Supernatural?

A/N: I haven't written in a really long time. It's been a sort of horrible year, but I'm back and hopefully writing regularly. Thanks to anyone who reads this!

- - - - - - -

Weeks of turning to the call of your name.

"Dean?"

'Dean' every morning. 'Dean' after the afternoon naps.

"Dean?" waking you up, you were just trying to get some shuteye. 'Dean' and then he knows. He knows every glittering detail about your existence but he can't seem to place how you met, or what your last conversation entailed. He cannot name one single memory shared with you to save his life, but he knows you. He knows that once he awakens from a tiring sleep, your name is the only one worth calling for.

Your brother's name is Sam and he has just woken and there you are. You poor bastard. Look down. There are his lost eyes that meet yours and lock. There is your brother; he has no idea who he is. He is alone and in need of every bit of attention you have in stock.

Do not try to conceal it, 'Dean?' we know that look is killing you. We know you're near the end of your rope.

We all know it has only been four days; you don't need to tell us.

Only four days have passed and the knife in your trunk is looking too sharp, too quick. The gun looks smooth and soundless. Your mind drifts to that last shape shifter you hunted. You remember that slick, silver bullet; the way it slipped from the barrel and like butter pierced the creature. The bullet, so strong and determined, so unlike yourself. You can't even remember admiring Dad this much.

"Dean?"

Maybe he will not realize if you do not respond. Maybe the simple fact (when a person calls for another they usually answers back) has vanished from his memory as well. We know you are sitting there praying that your silence will be taken as normal.

"Dean? Please,"

We all know you hear him whisper, "I'm confused."

So broken, but still. You ignore, ignore that you are both trapped. Trapped in unfamiliar.

You may even be more confused than he is.

But how did you get there?

- - - - - - -

"Dean?"

"Yes, Sammy?"

And you fly to his side.

Grasping shoulders and holding. A squeeze or two and maybe this will seem familiar, but nothing is familiar.

"Wait… Sammy?"

You sigh and bite your tongue, "Yes, that is your name."

Sam's nod stays for a second before becoming a shake of the head, "I don't understand."

"I know Sammy, but you'll get better soon."

- - - - - - -

"Dean?"

"Yeah, Sam?"

And you run to his side.

You rest a palm on his shoulder and look into those glossy eyes. So lost.

"Wait-"

"Sam is your name."

He looks hurt and moves from under your hand.

"Why do I not remember that?" His eyes first downcast are now up and searching. He knows you hold answers.

But you don't want to talk about it.

"You've always been like this Sammy."

And he tries to hold back the tears.

- - - - - - -

"Dean?"

"Mhmm?"

And you walk to his side.

- - - - - - -

And then:

"Dean?"

"What?"

And you inch to his side.

- - - - - - -

Like a wild animal awaking from a short nap, Sam's eyes fly open.

He's the wounded animal clawing at the ground. He is the hunting dog that's just a puppy. Poor thing, doesn't even recognize it's own strength.

Sam is awake and searching for the only person he knows. Sam is awake and dying for an answer or two. An explanation or three.

Sam is awake and crawling. Still weak, four days of non-healing have passed him by. Today is the first, however. Tomorrow will be too. And the day after that, and the day after-

A blurry image pumps against his forehead. He focuses on it. He's managed to retain this one image in his mind, with only one word attached to it. Dean.

One word swims aimlessly through his mind. Dean.

He calls for Dean a couple times before defeated, whispers, "I'm confused,"

Surely Dean is the only person that can make me understand what this place is. What the skin around him means.

Sam sits on his bed, his skin crawling, itching its way out of the covers encircling him. They are too scratchy, too thin. He cannot remember why he does not like the feeling of these blankets. He just knows they are wrong.

"Dean?"

- - - - - - -

He hears the breathy whisper of his name for the fourth time; he is no more inclined to answer.

He sits, his armchair turned slightly to the window, back to his brother. Déjà vu sliding from the tips of his hairs to the bottoms of his feet, causing his body to stick to whatever it is currently touching. The chair is where he will stay, the chair is where his body, his tension fits.

Yet, that voice keeps calling, it says Dean, Dean, Dean. And he feels like he's going to get up; he thinks: enough, enough, enough.

But there's that chair… chair… chair…

"Yes, Sam?" Dean calls back, vacantly, from his seat.

He stares down at his palms, trying to envision his power in them. He could tell Sam to shut up. He could tell his brother he hated him, hated him more than death and disease and war. Say to him in a deathly convincing tone how the very thought of him makes him want to quickly run to the toilet and drown himself. And Sam would cry, Sam would shatter, but he would not remember. It is what makes the inability to move from this seat bearable, it is the excuse. Because no matter how much he fucks up now, Sam will fall asleep again. Sam will wake up blank and calling: Dean, Dean, Dean.

"Wait… Sam?"

Eyes shut quickly and roll in their sockets. Dean pictures them sinking so deep into his skull that they become stuck there. So stuck that he never has to see that confused look on his brothers' face that he knows is there. He plays with the idea of his ears folding in upon themselves, shutting out the sound of that needy, pathetic voice. The voice he cannot bare to hear for one moment more.

"Yes. Your name is Sam, did you forget?"

Eyes fly open and he spins in his seat as much as the glue will allow. He can see the hurt in his eyes.

Because yes, he did forget.

Dean swivels back to the window and hears hands slide to temples and stroke, as if to massage a bit of memory back to that place. It sounds like nails on a chalkboard, honestly. The long sigh, the holding confusion: pots banging, babies crying.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."

His eyes look over his shoulder and they lock. The apology is just too real.

- - - - - - -

The next morning, once they pass introductions, a doctor strides in without knocking. He sympathetically hands discharge papers to a clearly confused Dean. He takes them, examines them and knows it's time to leave. It's time to take his brother to some dirty motel room. Fix him there.

He loads him away into the Impala, wonders if he could leave him behind and show up the next day. Sam wouldn't even notice.

Even though Sam probably does not remember what a hospital is, he seems to be happy to be leaving one. Perhaps, the gloom speaks multiple languages. He doesn't need the definition of a hospital, or the horrible memories he had in them to know this is a horrible, horrible place.

Dean pulls into the first motel they see; the sickening silence between in that car is intolerable.

When he returns with a room key, Sam is asleep. Once all of their things are inside Dean returns to his brothers' side to wake him.

He stirs and Dean looks down painfully, unsure of why he's doing this – resenting his brother. He cannot explain exactly why suddenly a switch is flipped. Why now in the time when his brother needs him the most, needs a reassuring smile, a supportive voice. Why is he denying him?

"Dean?" Sam whispers, searching the figure above him, helpless.

Dean stares blankly, his expression hard, restrained.

"No."

And Dean sees something break there; something he didn't know was breakable.

- - - - - - -

A/N: I have a hunch that this is crap. Let me know if I'm right, I'm sort of out of the swing of things, I've hardly written for a year.

-Lilia