Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural.
This isn't the first time that Sam has been slightly terrified of his brother.
It's not that Dean is on another one of his killing spurs or frustration tantrums or even crazy and irrational desire for food, but he's winked three times in Sam's direction in the past hour. And the worst part is that he can feel Bobby's disapproving look eyeing the both of them like a hawk.
"And then we reload them." Sam finishes with a flourish, brandishing a clean rock salt gun in front of his brother's nose. His eyes flicker back to where Bobby is watching the pair on the couch uneasily.
"And I'm guessing this'll… what, make someone back off?"
Sam bites his bottom lip awkwardly, "It'll keep spirits away," he slides a bullet of salt cleanly out of the gun and displays it in his palm, "it's salt. And salt deters spirits. We line rooms with salt if want spirits to stay out. Or in, for that matter."
Dean's eyes run over the salt in fascination. "What about pepper?"
"No," Bobby's voice breaks through their conversation, "that's just for spaghetti, boy."
Dean nods, chuckling, "So can we, like… summon a spirit? And then kill it?"
"No," Sam and Bobby chorus firmly.
"Besides," the younger hunter says, "killing a spirit is a little harder than killing demons."
"And demons?"
"No demons are gonna be invited here either, Dean," Bobby snarls, "sorry, but this sure as hell isn't a tea party."
Dean doesn't seem fazed by Bobby's slightly harsh tone. Sam catches the older man's gaze uncomfortably. Bobby leans across the coffee table discreetly, muttering, "He's growing on you like a colony of E.Coli on room-temperature Canadian beef."
Sam winces.
--
There's a startling thump as Bobby drops a handful of musty books on the table that Sam's been dozing on. His cheek pressed against the hard wood and his disheveled hair splayed on the surface, he's roughly pulled from his slumber at the sound.
"What's going on?" he mumbles groggily, rubbing his eyes. Dean is upstairs in the guest room snoozing away the dark hours of the night. Sam is stuck lounging on the couch.
"You've got some reading to do." Bobby says sternly, leafing through one of the books in the middle of his organized the pile.
"Now?" Through blurry post-sleep vision, Sam checks his watch. He groans. "It's past midnight, Bobby."
"If you want Dean catching you read this, go ahead." Bobby shrugs heatedly.
Sam sighs heavily, "You disapprove."
A muscle twitches in Bobby's cheek, "I'm not your boy's father. But this is weirder than anything I've ever seen, Sam. Most of my life I've seen you two grow up with Dean pull on your hair and deny you cereal while your dad was gone on hunts. You acted like brothers. And now Dean looks at you and sees something… fun," Bobby cringes slightly, rubbing at his hairline, "it's just a little hard to swallow."
"I have it under control."
"Sure you do," Bobby says with a scoff of disbelief. He runs his finger down a textbook before he slams it down on the table, "Read this."
In faded text, a complicated ritual is written out in Latin. Sam sighs.
"God," he groans, "it's too late to be reading Latin."
"It's a ritual, Sam. It's not even tricky. I have everything it says we need."
"What does it do?"
Bobby kneels down so he's at eye level with Sam, "Dean will regain his memory. But at a price. He'll forget everything that you've done after the accident. His amnesia memories would be gone."
Sam smiles into his lap, "I love it," he says, "then he won't tease me about the fact that I didn't stop his obsessive flirting with me."
Bobby chokes out a bark of laughter, "Maybe not him. But I will."
The younger man rolls his eyes, reading the rest of the text. His grin rapidly turns into a scowl, "It's dangerous! It could hurt Dean, hell, it could blow up your house, Bobby! And this'll take like three months just to prep."
"You have somewhere to be?" Bobby says critically, crossing his arms.
"Dean wants to go on hunts."
"You can. But just remember that he won't remember any of it."
Maybe it's just the disorientation of the middle of the night that's screwing with the rational and irrational sensors in Sam's brain. He rubs at his forehead with a sigh. There's something so incredibly ludicrous about Dean's position.
"God, in situation like these I would ask Dean what'd to do. He's my brother."
"Not for the next three months," Bobby says with a purse of the lips, "he'll just be a guy you flirt with."
"Shut up," Sam snaps, raking a hand through his hair.
Bobby chuckles, "At least he won't remember."
"I will," he mutters, "God, Bobby, it's so strange. It's not even… it's not even supernatural. It's not some witch's spell or a demon-induced infatuation… it's Dean. Just Dean."
"Are you always such a drama queen when it's late?" Bobby asks, knitting his eyebrows together, "C'mon, Sam, Dean was in an accident. To civilians, this is just another problem. We'll get through it."
"But I devoted my life to being a hunter, not a civilian. I devoted my life to hunter issues, not civilian issues. That's the only thing this life gives me. And not anymore."
"I don't wanna hear the 'I-should-have-stayed-at-Stanford' talk."
"That's not what I'm saying!" Sam says roughly, shutting closed the book with unnecessary aggression, "I'm saying I should've looked after Dean better!"
"You're taking care of him. We're doing the spell. Period. I've made this decision for you before you're too much of a cranky idget to."
"What the hell is going on around here?"
Like a whip cracking at their necks, Sam and Bobby's eyes rivet to the noise by the stairway. Dean, clad in nothing but a fuzzy bathrobe and obvious pillow hair, looks for the comfort he can normally find in Sam with a perplexed look.
"Sammy? What's going on?"
"Nothing," Sam says hastily, throwing on a smile as hastens over to the staircase.
"Have you been up all night? Not a flattering look for you, cute boy."
"It's Sammy." Sam snaps. If he's going to have a nickname, cute boy isn't going to be it. Cringing lightly, he pats Dean on the back, the poise of his shoulders a little bit too impeccable.
"We're just looking into a hunt, Dean. It's all right." Bobby explains, slinging his books into the crook of his arm.
"I'm not an idiot," Dean mutters. Sam winces. Dean was never skillful at reining his emotions or denying his desire to press for details, "it's like I caught you two playing tonsil hockey."
"You think we're keeping secrets from you?"
Dean nods in something that is definitely not submission or attempts to drop the subject, "Hell yeah," he mutters, "and I think that if my brain wasn't flipping cables to try to remember what the hell I've been doing the last few decades of my life you wouldn't be treating me like the damn third wheel!"
Sam doesn't think that Dean's the third wheel. He's not even the fifth wheel. He's the road. Inside the prison of all of the secrecy he's been suppressing from Dean since his accident, the one concerning the spell is on the tip of his tongue. He bites it.
"What's going on?"
"Supernatural stuff," Sam rattles down hastily, "I swear, Dean, it's nothing that you would understand."
He may not be excellent at holding his tongue, but if he has to let something out, he's good at bluffing. Dean is usually amazing at seeing through his poker face, but the new Dean who can't even remember what Sam's bitchy look resembles can't tell if he's fibbing or not.
"Are you… are you coming upstairs at one point?"
Sam's gaze flickers to Bobby for support, who catches his worried look with a smirk of oh-you're-so-not-getting-me-involved and shuffles out of the room to the library.
"Only one bed, Dean," Sam responds, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.
"So? It's king size."
"I… I roll around a lot."
Dean squints his eyes into disbelieving slits as though he's trying to filter through any of Sam's dishonesty. Innocently, Sam smiles.
"Well. I don't want to be the only one missing out on the… fun. I'll stay awake, let's read into this… supernatural stuff." It's a challenging request, so utterly Dean, but Sam can't stand to be subtly blackmailed. He tilts his head so his ear is brushing the voluminous layers of his clothing on his shoulder.
"All right," he mumbles and grits his teeth, "Bobby!"
Bobby trots reluctantly back into the room, "Boys?" he addresses gruffly.
"Dean wants to read up on that hunt we were talking about."
Bobby nods, "I figured so," he says dryly, and tosses a pamphlet of coffee-mug-stained paper into Dean's unsuspecting fingers, "There's some folks complaining about some strange behavior at the local bars. Demons like… possessing people there."
"So do we go and get 'em?" Dean asks, a hint of enthusiasm tugging at his voice.
Sam shakes his head and firmly puts a hand on his older brother's shoulder to restrain him.
"No," he denies quickly, "no, Bobby can handle it. Go to bed."
Dean sneers at Sam, "You're not my mom."
"I'm not letting a demon rough up an inexperienced Dean Winchester." Sam mutters, and turns to Bobby indignantly for back up. Bobby shrugs, nodding.
"They'll be time for that later, all right, Dean? Just… hang out with Sam."
"Great," Dean mutters sardonically, "maybe we'll have a sleepover and we'll braid each other hair while chick flicks run in the background and popcorn is all over pink sleeping bags."
"Whatever gets you off." Bobby says with a shrug.
"Vivid imagination you have there," Sam mutters.
"Maybe I'm starting to remember the past," Dean says bitterly, crossing his arms and glaring at Bobby, "I wanna come along."
"No." Sam mutters, realizing just how much he sounds like an over protective mother, "no, then I'll feel responsible for hurting you."
Dean pouts silently but ceases his arguments, "Fine. But I don't wanna be alone in the bedroom anymore."
Sam's eyebrows raise up to his hairline. He glances uneasily at Bobby before he shuffles up another stair step and mutters into Dean's ear, "I've told you before, Dean, we're just… friends."
"I'm not asking friends to get friendly," Dean says heatedly, "I just want to sleep, and not alone. C'mon, dude, it's not like you're my uncle or somethin'."
Sam restrains his wince. He's getting better at completely ignoring Dean's inappropriate comments. With a small smile, he nods curtly, "I'm sleeping on the floor."
At Dean's slightly perplexed face, the words we're related, okay? almost slip from his lips, but his momentary lapse of judgment is gone the moment Bobby clears his throat uncomfortably.
"He's not a homophobe, Dean," Bobby tells the older Winchester reassuringly, "he's just… uptight."
I'm not into incest, Sam thinks furiously, frowning at Bobby. But as he looks Dean up and down and replays all of the conversations they've shared, he's acting nothing like his brother. He's a flirtatious man who needs a friend, and Sam is just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But he's still not an idiot. He won't let anything get too far. He'll have things like hunts and supernatural tutoring to tackle to keep his mind off of the openly playful new Dean Winchester.
"That Bobby sure runs a tight shift up here. Will he smack me on the ass with a paddle if he finds me masturbating?" Dean whispers to Sam as they trot up the stairs and Bobby retreats into the other room again. Sam doesn't know whether he's being genuinely worried or in another one of his coy moods.
"He's not our dad, Dean, he's not that bad."
"So… uh. About that."
Sam raises an eyebrow, "About what?"
"My dad." Dean responds shortly.
"Your dad?"
"And my mom. My family. I mean… who was I before I hit my head?" Dean asks quietly.
Sam smiles woodenly, "Uh. You were Dean Winchester."
"All righttt," he drawls, "I kind of figured that bit. I mean… my parents. What happened to them?"
Sam needs to create two different biographies within the next two seconds, the real one, and the incredibly fake one to stick with his own history. He smiles awkwardly, "Your mom… was killed by a demon when you were younger. You… you had a younger brother at the time, only a baby, but… he died because of the demon. Your dad spent the rest of his life and yours with it trying to figure out what killed her. He died in the process. You ended up killing the demon." No adjectives, no adverbs, no grins. It's a very crude explanation. Sam prides himself for his ability to keep information at a minimum.
Dean stares at the floor, attempting to break a smile and look at Sam for a hint that what he just shared is spurious. "I… I thought I would have a family."
"Hey. You still have me, and I'll be there, all right?" Sam puts a hand on Dean's shoulder to mollify him and quell the sudden despondence radiating from his brother.
Dean exhales lugubriously before he turns his gaze on Sam, "What about you, Sammy? Where's your family?"
"They're… uh. I… My parents are dead. But I have a brother."
"Oh?"
"He's…" Sam can't help as a fond smile flits over his face as he remembers his halcyon days, "he's gone. After a hunt, he… he said he could take care of it himself. He couldn't. He's… he's sick. And he won't get better."
"What… what happened?" Dean dares asking.
"Demons. It was just a stupid accident," Sam sighs heavily.
"He could get better."
"No. No, my brother is lost." The younger man says with a deep sigh, his eyes sweeping over his brother almost as though he's looking at a ghost of an old friend. The sudden, guilty feeling of keeping Dean in the dark about his past tingles up his spine like ants on his neck.
"All right," he mutters, opening the creaking door to the extra bedroom, "bedtime stories are over."
CHAPTER 4 TEASER: "I get the feeling we're related," Dean says. Sam's head perks up at the sentence.
AN: First, let me apologize for the freakishly long wait… I was out for a while for a spur-of-the-moment and impulsive road trip to Chicago! But the next update will be soon, so I can guarantee that this long wait won't happen again!
Halloween's coming up! I'm dressing up like Mr. Yellow Eyes… I got yellow contacts as an early birthday present (October 14 :D) and who wouldn't take the opportunity?? Sure, not a lot of people will know who I am, but I've always loved YED… any cool costumes out there for you readers?
Love,
Julie :D
