Challenge 11 - But I will never forget!

A little bit of a different one today . . .


"Sam, I understand it!" Dean's voice cracked with emotion, which had Sam looking up at him in alarm. "I understand everything!"

"Just calm down, Dean, everything is going to be fine," Sam replied in a voice that was no doubt meant to be soothing, but he just didn't get it. He didn't even move from his stupid computer. He didn't see how all the answers were right there in front of him because he wouldn't turn off the screen. It was almost more than Dean could bear and Sam couldn't grasp it.

Dean. Understood. Everything.

There were no secrets. The stains on the ceiling - he knew what they meant; the deeper purpose they held was no longer hidden to him.

Every crease on his brother's forehead was a story that he could read as easily as a text message from the universe.

The dust floating in the air around him, illuminated by the first rays of the morning light -

The sun.

God, the sun was beautiful.

He could reach out and touch the beams of light and they didn't even burn. They should probably burn. The sun was so hot.

Dean was hot.

Maybe the sun was burning him and his skin was immune. The sun was burning his insides and leaving his outsides untouched.

"Sammy, the sun is gonna cook me!"

That got a reaction.

Sam got to his feet and hurried to the window, pulling the curtain closed. His movements stirred up more dust, but without the sun's enchanting light, they were diminished, mournful even. Sombre and sad, pathetic flecks of shed human skin and pollen crying out for the light with silent screams -

"Dean?" Sam was in front of him. Dean blinked when his brother reached out to wipe something off Dean's face. His skin was wet. Was he crying?

"Dean, listen to me. You're going to be okay. I promise. I'm working on a way to get you better, do you understand?"

Dean nodded. He understood everything. He comprehended more than he'd ever thought possible. Sam's forehead told of fear, worry, doubt, and pain. It wasn't pain for himself and Dean knew deep in his core that Sam felt that pain for him.

He reached out and traced the deepest line in his brother's skin, trying to erase it - trying to give Sam that peace that had eluded him for so long.

Sam gently pulled his hand away and Dean shook his head. "I can fix it, Sammy. You have to let me fix it."

With a shuddering breath, Sam smiled faintly. "I'm going to fix everything. You have nothing to worry about. Why don't you lie down for a minute?"

Sam pushed his brother gently back until he was resting against a pillow, but Dean didn't want to lie down. He didn't want to sleep. He needed to talk. He needed to tell his brother all the things he knew now that he couldn't have seen before. He needed to make sure he never forgot the depth of meaning under the mundane blanket of existence.

The softness of the bedding.

The cracks in the wall.

The smell of day-old pizza wafted through the room on air currents that Dean had never seen before, but he could now. How could he have missed them for his entire life? How could he never have seen the smells and tastes that drifted all around him?

"The air tastes like pizza."

There was a small sound of worry, but Sam didn't respond. His brother had moved back to his computer at some point, and Dean was suddenly struck by the fact that he could see the air and touch the sunlight, but he'd missed Sammy moving right beside him.

Was Sam even real?

A ringing sound sent pulses of air rushing towards him like ripples in a pond. They hit Dean one after the other, tickling his skin with the warbling trill. He wasn't certain how he felt about that, but he reached out to touch them regardless. His fingers ran across the fabric of the universe as it moved around him and the sensation of wholeness filled Dean with a sense of deep and fulfilling awe.

The ringing stopped and Dean let his hand drop, only then noticing that Sam was speaking. Sam's voice didn't affect the air as much as the ringing had. His voice was softer, more of a breeze than the insistent nature of the ring.

"Bobby, please tell me you have something."

He had felt Sam's voice before he even heard it. Dean had known what Sam was going to say before the words even crossed his lips.

He was inside his brother's mind.

Climbing to his feet, he crossed the narrow room to where his brother was watching him with a fathomless gaze. Dean didn't meet his eyes, instead focusing on his brother's skull where he could see the swirling maelstrom that was his mind - the fabric of his very being. The colours swirled around him, making Dean slightly dizzy as he watched the complex dance play out. How could Sam function with such a tumultuous brain?

"I still have it, what do I need to do with it?"

There was a faint buzzing sound as the voice in Sam's phone rumbled through the room and bounced off the bathroom mirror.

Intrigued, Dean followed the sound and found himself staring into eternity.

He saw himself, pupils blown into wide-eyed blackness, but he knew he wasn't a demon. He could feel it as he stared at the other Dean in the mirror, his dark reflection who stared back at him with a cold gaze.

"You're sure that will work? I have a kettle and a copper bowl . . . how long does it have to be kept boiling, because it won't stay hot for long . . ."

The Dean in the mirror reached up and flicked Sam's voice away, sending it careening into the depths.

Dean stepped back, trying to pull himself away as a sense of unease filled him. There was darkness and misery in that mirror and it terrified him.

"Thanks, Bobby," Sam said somewhere in the background and Dean wanted to scream for him, but his voice wouldn't work.

The other Dean didn't move, but his very presence promised the coming of terror and the smell of blood.

Dean needed to warn his brother. He needed to stop it.

He needed to break the mirror . . .

He rushed forward, slamming his hand against the glass with all of his might. Fragments of glass floated around him, each one filled with the malevolent gaze of his doppelganger. Dean was struck with the sudden thought that maybe he had just released the creature he had sought to destroy -

Hands were on him; his brother hands and his concerned words cocooned Dean from the falling glass as it bounced harmlessly around his body and fell lazily to the ground.

"Dean!"

The dust was fleeing. It was afraid of what was coming.

"I have to tell you," Dean muttered, grabbing Sam's arm in an inescapable grip of desperation. "I need to warn you-"

"You need to lie down. I have a cure, but it's gonna take a few minutes. I need you to stay still, Dean, please?"

He found himself turned back to the bed, once again made to sit as his brother rushed over to the counter and hurriedly filled the kettle.

Dean's head was swimming. He needed to warn Sam, but he was forgetting it. The thoughts were too heavy and they were dropping from his ears. He tried to keep them in by covering his head with his hands, but they slipped out from between his fingers.

"I can't forget to remember," he muttered. "I need to remember."

"Not much longer, Dean. Hold on."

Sam pulled some kind of rodent out of a bag and dropped it into a large bowl before pouring boiling water over it.

The air swirled angrily over the bowl, as though protesting against whatever was being done.

Dean looked away and wished he hadn't.

The bathroom light cast a dark shadow across the floor and it crept towards him with sinister purpose, like a thick fog of nothing but pure evil.

It swallowed the thoughts that had fallen to the floor, devouring them before Dean's horrified eyes.

"You're trying to make me forget," he gasped, "but I will never forget!"

His breath caught in his throat as he choked on the thick air trying to work it's way into his mouth. He couldn't let it in; he couldn't let it make him forget -

"Dean! Come on, don't do this! I need you to drink this!"

Sam's hands were on him again, sweeping away the fog as he brought something up to Dean's lips.

Without even being aware of what he was doing, Dean drank the liquid that found its way past his lips. He gagged on the taste, the colour red that burned its way down his esophagus, the feeling of claws tearing at him as they ripped into his senses.

He might have cried out, but he didn't know if his voice was truly his own. He couldn't tell how long the agony lasted - it could have been hours or days, maybe even centuries, but it consumed him, burning him bare for an eternity.

And suddenly, it was over.

The pain fled and he was left exhausted and sweat-drenched, lying on the bed staring up at his brother's fear-filled eyes.

Dean blinked, trying to remember where he was and what had happened. His head ached with a dull pressure and his stomach was churning miserably, but he somehow felt clearer.

"Dean, are you okay?"

He wasn't sure how to answer that, but he nodded anyway, wincing at the movement. "What happened?"

Sam sat beside him on the bed. "You got bitten by a lavellan. They're pretty venomous. It sent you on a really bad trip before Bobby figured out a cure."

Lavellan? That was a new one.

"What the hell was a lavellan doing here? Aren't they from Scotland?" He didn't bother trying to get up. He felt like a limp noodle.

Sam nodded. "I guess it hitched a ride or something. I had never seen one before last night."

"Good thing Bobby figured out a cure."

"Yeah, good thing." Sam's voice was deceptively light, as though he wanted to talk about anything but that and Dean's eyes narrowed.

"What was the cure?"

"You just had to drink a concoction and it counteracted the venom," Sam replied. "I almost thought it was too late, you've been out almost a day."

"What was in the concoction?" Dean asked, a faint memory tickling his senses. Sam was definitely trying to change the subject. "Sam?"

Sam let out an awkward cough. "Turns out that you can counter the effects by boiling the lavellan head in water and drinking it."

Dean swallowed a gag at the thought. "You made me drink boiled lavellan head?"

"It worked," Sam tilted his head and smiled apologetically. "Honestly, though, how are you feeling? You were pretty high there for awhile."

The sudden serious tone in his brother's voice told Dean everything he needed to know about how the previous day had gone. Sam had been worried; it had been a close call.

Dean felt a trickle of unease run through him. Sam had reason to be worried, that much he recalled, but the nature of his experience was muted somehow, like it had happened in a barely remembered dream.

There was something, though, something important that he needed to say . . .

"Hey. You with me?" Sam patted Dean's shoulder lightly, jarring his thoughts and bringing him back to the present.

The darkness flickering at the edge of his vision dissipated in an instant, leaving only the ancient motel room with its cracked walls and water-stained ceiling.

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean said with a forced smile. "I'm with you."