Author's note: [If you're also reading Azazel's Plan B, skip this.] Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, but I would like to put out a request for more reviews. I realize that I kind of overreacted here a while back, but what you can't know is that right at that time, I felt attacked by someone I had been interacting with online with regard to fanfiction. I got a little touchy, and, as I said, I overreacted.

Look, I need reviews. reviews are love. And, I will say, a couple of people suggested then that I might stop posting because of negative reviews, but the simple fact is that I'm far more likely to stop if I stop getting reviews at all. I have a fairly strong ego, but it needs to be stroked. ;)


Chapter 45

Dean woke cuddled up to Sammy again. They'd all had dinner, and then Cas had taken Bobby home, Ellen and Jo had gone back upstairs and Dean had gone back to bed. Sam had barely let him out of bed for dinner, but he had to admit, he felt like crap. He slid out of Sam's grasp and took a quick glance around to make sure that there were no observers before he got to his feet. He made his tottery way across the living room to the bathroom, cleaned himself up, then settled with a bag of chips on the sofa. He really needed a better TV, but he supposed he could live with this one for a while.

Flipping through the channels, he found some Warner Brothers cartoons, which struck him as about his level of coherent thought at the moment. Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs and getting skunked over and over again suited him. After three or four little mini-cartoons, Sam got up and started puttering around. He got cleaned up, tidied around Dean, and then went into the kitchen. He returned with a bowl of oatmeal, a glass of milk and snatched away the chips away. "Eat that. It's better for you."

"It's just a different kind of starch, Sammy," Dean protested.

"It's not fried starch."

Dean glowered at him and looked down at the glop. Okay, it was brown sugar-flavored glop, but it was still glop. He began to eat it, still watching cartoons. The apartment was cold, and the window was a solid mass of white. "You think we're going to open tonight?" Dean asked.

"Not likely." Sam settled down on the sofa next to him, his laptop in hand. "Ted told me to assume we'd be closed unless he called, and there's no sign the storm's clearing. Online weather forecasts say it'll last through around noon on Tuesday."

Dean sighed. He'd been hoping to get out of the apartment again, not to mention that tonight would have been his last chance to sing. Elmer Fudd was ineffectually pursuing the 'wascally wabbit' over and over again. This time they were doing opera. "Tuesday?"

"That's what the news said." They were silent for several moments, and then Sam cleared his throat. "Do we have to watch Bugs Bunny?" he asked.

"Next one's about Daffy Duck," Dean said. "Duck Dodgers in the twenty-fourth-and-a-half century." He mimicked Daffy Duck's accent, spitting slightly.

"Oh, dude, gross!" Sam brushed at his computer screen, though Dean was reasonably sure that he hadn't actually gotten any on it.

"We're watching it. It's fun, it's mindless, and it requires no effort." He leaned forward and put the oatmeal bowl on the coffee table.

"You want more?" Sam asked helpfully. "Or something to drink?"

"I'm good, Sammy. I just want to watch Marvin and Daffy drive each other nuts."

"You sure?"

Dean gave him a quelling look, and Sam wilted. With silence reigning – apart from the ever present sound of Sam's keys clicking – Dean settled in and kept watching. Loony Toons gave way to Yogi Bear. This cartoon channel was doing some kind of weird nostalgia binge. He got up, went to the bathroom and then grabbed a soda from the fridge. When he got back, a new show was already in progress. He was frankly surprised that Sam hadn't changed the channel while he was gone, but maybe the whole mother hen thing had its perks.

He sat down and took a pull from his Coke. The show came back from commercial, and Dean saw the large round face of a black and white cartoon cat. His fist clenched on the can, and soda fountained out.

"Dean, what are you –" Sammy broke off, but Dean wasn't paying him much attention. He grabbed for the remote and turned off the cable, with the consequence that it looked rather like the black and white scene shattered into the little dots of light and dark that were TV screen snow. He dropped the soda can, stood up, and walked into the bathroom, his gut churning.

He didn't lose his breakfast, but it was a near thing. After a couple of minutes of preparedness, he slumped against the wall and slid down it to sit on the linoleum tile floor. Felix the Cat. It was a friggin' cartoon, for pete's sake. Apparently he had that pretty firmly associated with his attacker.

"What on earth was that?" Sam demanded, and Dean looked up to see that he hadn't shut the bathroom door. "Dean, are you okay?"

"Peachy," Dean said.

Further conversation was postponed while Sam dragged Dean to his feet and guided him back out into the dining room. Once there, he grabbed one of Dean's jackets and brought it over. "You're shivering."

"It's cold," Dean replied, drawing the jacket around himself.

"Not that cold." Sam poured two cups of coffee and came over to sit down. "Dude, what was that reaction?"

Dean shrugged. "I guess I'm not going to watch Felix the Cat any time in the near future," he said. "What's for lunch?"

"Dean, we are going to talk about this," Sam said. "That was a hell of a reaction."

Dean turned and glared at Sam. "Exactly what are we going to talk about? My nonexistent memories? My crap reaction to my nonexistent memories? There's not really a point."

"Maybe we can shake them loose by talking about . . . stuff. You remembered the name Felix. Maybe if you –"

"Who says I want to remember something that makes me flash back to Hell, Sammy?" Dean demanded.

Sam blinked at him silently, as if he hadn't considered that. "Dean, we have to figure out what happened and deal with it, because you can't keep having random reactions like that."

"That wasn't random, we knew the trigger in advance."

"Did you know you were going to freak out like that and shower us with cola?"

Dean took a swallow of coffee and tried to ignore his brother because he didn't have a good answer for that. Even with the connection made to that cartoon cat, Dean would never have expected so strong a reaction. He stood up and went back into the living room. With a stab at the power button on the TV, he shut it off.

"Dean, where are you going?"

"I don't know," Dean growled. He stared at the cracks in the wall. "This sucks, you know?" He swallowed a lump in his throat. "Crappy stuff happened to me, and I don't remember it. That should be a good thing."

"I know."

"You know." Dean shook his head and contained himself. Blowing up at Sam because he sounded like a Hallmark card wasn't fair. He cleared his throat. "He whistled the theme song," he said.

"What?"

"The guy, Felix, he whistled the theme song. I think he thought it was funny."

A thump behind him made him jump, and he turned his head. Sam had clearly just punched the wall. "Sorry," Sam muttered. "That just pisses me off."

Dean shrugged. "It's over, the bastard's dead, and since I'm reasonably certain Bobby and Cas conspired to give me a way more personal exam than I wanted, I haven't actually been raped. There are worse things that could happen."

"Yeah, maybe," Sam said. "That's not the point."

"Then what is?"

"The point is we've got to deal with what we've got, and . . ."

"I am not talking about this," Dean said. He walked over and turned the TV on, and then he threw himself down onto the couch, ignoring the dampness that still remained from the spill. Grabbing the remote, he said, "I'm going to find Perry Mason, because I'm fairly sure that there isn't anything in that to freak me out."

Sam shrugged and went back over to the table. So far as Dean could tell, he was fixing lunch. Dean didn't find Perry Mason, but he found Army CID. It was one among many procedural cop shows, but he hated it less than some of the others. He settled back and watched.


Sam listened vaguely to the TV while Dean watched. He didn't want to let Dean sit and stew, but he didn't know how to get his brother to open up. He searched through the Salt Lake papers, looking for episodes of homosexual assault, figuring that would be his best bet on how to find the guy who'd attacked Dean. After the way Dean had described that incident, and how thinking back on it make him feel, Sam wasn't about to let the guy get away with it.

One show gave way to another, but in the middle of the third, the power went out. Sam was startled when the sudden cessation of stimulus didn't cause Dean to stand up and start complaining. He glanced over and saw that Dean was asleep again, and Castiel was standing two feet in front of him, just watching.

"Cas?" Sam said. "Something wrong?"

"He was dreaming."

"I didn't hear anything," Sam said.

"He made no noise," Castiel replied. "I . . . sensed it."

Sam blinked. "Do you know what he was dreaming about?"

"Being bound, spread-eagled." Sam's stomach turned at the image. "I don't know much more than that because I did not allow the dream to continue."

"What do you think we should do?" Sam asked.

"I think we should get Dean out of Salt Lake City, but I do not believe he will agree to go."

Sam nodded. "And Bobby's right, he'd just turn around and come back if we made him leave."

"I think the angel and the brother should shut up so that Dean can get some more sleep," Dean said, making both Sam and Cas look down at him.

"Are you tired, or are you just sleeping so you don't have to think?" Sam asked.

"Is there a difference?" Dean asked.

"We need to talk about what happened."

"Not happening, Sammy." The power came back on, and Dean peered between them. "Hey, it's America's Next Top Model! Why don't you guys go somewhere else and leave me alone?"

Sam sighed and walked away. Castiel stayed in front of Dean. "You should leave this city, Dean." Dean ignored him. "Dean, did you hear me?" Dean crossed his arms and leaned back on the sofa, gazing intently at the screen which Sam guessed was probably showing a half-naked woman. He wasn't grinning, he looked like he was studying for a test. "Dean, this is important."

"So is this," Dean said, gesturing at the TV. "I want to know who wins, Brandi or Shaundra. Pilar is right out. She screwed up the last turn on the runway last time."

Sam stared at him incredulously. "You know that?" he exclaimed.

"Of course," Dean said. "All the guys watch. Didn't you know?"

Sam shook his head. Castiel had turned around. "Who is Brandi?" he asked.

"The long brown hair, there, with pale skin. Wait, look, she's doing her confessional whatsit."

"She does seem to be physically attractive," Castiel said.

"Yeah!" Dean said, laughing. "Sit on down. Enjoy yourself. You can look, can't you?"

Castiel took a seat on the sofa next to Dean, looking soberly at the screen. Sam rolled his eyes. "Great, Dean, corrupt the angel."

"Iniquity is one of the perks, Sammy boy," Dean said with an irritating grin.

Castiel tilted his head "What this blond woman is wearing looks somewhat like what Chastity wore."

Dean knit his brows. "That's Shaundra." He studied the screen. "Yeah, sort of, but hers had those dangling bits, like wings or something. I don't know what they're called."

Sam knew that Chastity was the hooker Dean had set Cas up with, so he was curious. That was his only motivation for rising from his chair. He only wanted to know in what way Dean had imposed on the angel. That was his story, and he was sticking to it. "Peplum," he said. "I think."

Dean turned and looked up at him. "Who knows shit like that?" he demanded rhetorically. "And you all keep asking me if I'm really gay."

Sam sat down on the end of the couch watching the women pose in various types of lingerie. "Shut up, Dean," he muttered. Dean chuckled, but he didn't say anything else, and the three of them watched in relative silence.