"W-what?" Sam stumbled, feeling the blood drain from his face. "What do you mean, she owed you a favor? You mean...like payback, right?"
But he knew that wasn't what he meant.
Dean's eyes looked at him, wavering, and then flicked away.
"When you were a baby, our mother was killed by a demon," he started.
Sam jerked in surprise, unprepared for that. "What?" he breathed.
"A demon killed her, right in our house. Dad found her and--Well, that was the moment that started our lives. Mom was gone and Dad learned that evil really existed."
Sam stared at him in stunned awe. His words barely sunk in before Dean continued. "Dad, he devoted his entire life to tracking that thing down--and along the way, he found there were other evils out there, too, other supernatural beings that ruined lives. And he found ways to stop them.
"That's how we grew up – he trained us to fight, and the three of us, that's all we did. We traveled across the country, hunting and fighting evil. That became who we were. Like warriors, you said once."
Sam couldn't move as Dean explained their lives to him. He listened intently as his past was revealed in a faltering summary. He was impatient, but at the same time he thought maybe he didn't want to know.
"You never liked it," Dean told him. "You saw too many kids playing soccer while Dad made you stay inside to clean your .45. You wanted out, wanted a different kind of life. So when you turned eighteen, you left. Went to college."
He shook his head with a sad smile. "You've always been so damn smart, Sammy."
Sam ducked his head, wondering how much of this was true, wondering what Dean was leading up to and why he was going through all of this.
"And you found the life you've always wanted," Dean said. "You had friends, a real career ahead of you...Hell, you even fell in love."
It shouldn't have affected him, there was no reason his eyes should have watered. But Dean's words struck something inside him, and he was suddenly apprehensive, knowing what came next.
"But then Jessica died," Sam said, preemptively, preferring to say the wordsthan to hear them.
Dean nodded.
"Yeah. She did," he said, his voice soft but gravelly. "She was killed by the same demon that killed our mom."
Sam jerked his head up, his chest suddenly seizing. "Wh-what?" he stammered, stunned and horrified. He immediately started to protest. "No, it was just an apartment fire..." But then he remembered his dreams, the images that haunted him.
He remembered the feel of blood on his face.
"Were they both pinned to the ceiling?" he asked suddenly, swallowing past a sudden lump in his throat.
Surprise flashed in Dean's face, but when he nodded, a dark feeling came over Sam.
Dean gave him a humorless smile. "Yeah, you had that exact same look after she died," he said, and Sam ducked his head again, unable to loosen the knot in his chest.
Dean went on. "That's why after three years of school, you decided to come with me again. And together we started hunting evil and saving lives again. Just like we used to, only Dad was gone, so it was just the two of us this time. And this time you were on the same driven mission Dad was – you wanted to kill the thing that killed Jessica. That's what motivated you, kept you going. You know?"
Sam had sunk into Dean's words, letting his monotone wash through his mind and fill in the missing pieces Sam desperately needed. But that last phrase, those two simple words spoken with uncertainty and broken indifference, ripped him back to the present. Now they were getting to the heart of the story, though he doubted Dean knew he had signaled the change with that little phrase.
"We found the demon, didn't we?" Sam concluded dimly.
Dean nodded before replying. "Yeah," he said. "Dad called us one day, asked us to join him. After all those years, he'd finally tracked it down. And he needed our help."
His eyebrows rose as he continued. "There was a long, nasty battle. Then you and Dad killed it." He spoke matter-of-factly, but his tone hid feelings Sam could only guess at.
Sam ran a hand through his hair, blinking furiously. He was relieved that the demon could no longer harm anyone, glad that it got what it deserved, but he was also unsatisfied. He wanted to remember killing it.
A memory slipped into his head. "You said your dad—our dad," Sam corrected awkwardly, "left after a rough hunt. Was that it?"
The corners of Dean's jaw clenched. "Dad devoted over twenty years of his life to hunting that demon down. But once he finally got what he wanted, he didn't know what to do with himself." He shrugged it off, but it was a stiff movement.
"So he left again. He didn't say where he was going, just that he needed to get away, needed some time to himself. To reflect." As much as he tried to suppress it, an edge of bitterness laced his words.
Sam sighed and closed his eyes. After a long moment, he looked back at Dean, who was absently rubbing the bandages on one of his arms.
"So how does this connect to what happened to me?" he finally forced himself to ask.
Dean took in a deep breath and started to rub the top of his thighs with the flat of his hands. "Sam...After that fight, you had nothing left in you. You were miserable and depressed and...that fire was gone. You just...Your heart wasn't in it." Blinking a couple of times, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before he continued.
"I knew you were thinking about changing your mind. I could tell, you wanted to go back to Stanford."
A sick, horrified feeling started to grow inside of Sam.
"The only thing holding you back was guilt," his brother told him. "After Dad left, you were stuck with me, and you'd feel guilty for leaving me behind. No one to watch my back, you know?"
"No, Dean..." Sam said in warning, though he didn't know what he was warning him against.
"But you still thought about it. You still considered leaving. That's what you really wanted."
"What? No." Sam shook his head frantically, his heartbeat racing. "Dean—"
Dean ripped his gaze from Sam to look out the window, even though closed curtains blocked it from view. "You left once before, Sam. You never even looked back." His voice shook dangerously. "And then Dad, he just...he just disappeared. Twice. Without warning."
He swallowed heavily. "Neither of you ever called," he said flatly. "Neither of you would even pick up your goddamn phone."
Sam looked at him with still-rising fear. "Dean, don't..."
The corner of Dean's lips twitched downward. "Every time I called you, every time I called Dad, I knew I would hear five rings and then your voice mail would answer." His eyes narrowed, squinting. "I never wanted to count to five again."
"Dean," Sam pleaded. "What are you saying?"
He seemed to ignore him. "You and me, we had a huge fight one night, a couple of weeks later," he said. "I thought, this is it. This would be the moment that you announced you were leaving again."
Dean looked at him, his head shaking from side to side. "I couldn't live with it, Sam. I refused to go through that again. I never wanted to know that--that you chose Stanford over me. Not again."
Sam didn't understand why it had to be one or the other, didn't understand Dean, didn't want to understand where he was leading.
"Dean, what did you do?" he whispered.
Dean didn't answer right away. "I called this priestess I'd helped out a while ago. And I asked her if she could do a memory spell."
Everything came to an abrupt stop for one still moment. And then Sam cried out in a surge of anger, leaping to his feet as the wave of rage crashed into him. It sent him reeling, left his face burning hot and his chest cold and dark. He thought his heart might leap out of his throat.
"So you made that choice for me," he burst out, furious.
Dean looked at him again, sad but defiant. "I wouldn't have done it if I didn't know you'd be happier."
That did nothing to ease Sam. His eyes burning, hardening, he sat back down on the bed before his knees could buckle. His hands slapped against the mattress edge.
"So you did this? You had my entire memory erased?"
"It was the only way you could be free from all of this." Dean crossed his arms over his stomach, clutching each elbow with the opposite hand. "I thought this would be the best way—for both of us."
"Tell me, Dean," Sam demanded dangerously, leaning forward. "Tell me there's more to this. Tell me how you could ever think you were doing the right thing. Tell me why you thought you could just throw away everything that I am."
Dean just shook his head, unable to meet his eye.
If they had been standing, if Dean hadn't already been hurt, Sam would have punched him right then.
He almost did anyway, his arm even twitched from the urge, but he bit down on the insides of his cheeks instead. Inside he was raging. His mind had been violated, his entire life had been played with. He couldn't find the words to explain what Dean had done to him. His past was gone, his whole identity had been changed, just because his brother - now a complete stranger to him – decided it would be good for him.
Disgusted, he turned away, rotating his body 45 degrees so that he faced somewhere else, anywhere other than Dean's stolid face.
He wanted to throw up. He needed to strike something.
"You have no idea what you did to me. You don't know what it's like, not knowing who you are..." He twisted his head around to look at Dean. "You just took the most personal part of me away from me, without even—" His voice caught and he couldn't finish. A long moment of charged silence stretched between them.
Then he did stand up, although not to punch Dean. He stood silent and still, towering over his brother.
"Sammy," Dean pleaded up at him.
Sam felt his emotions shut down, his thoughts becoming a dull roar in his head.
"It's Sam."
Dean flinched, but Sam ignored it. He looked Dean up and down, eyeing the bandages that were wrapped around his arms. "You should lie down," he said tonelessly. "You've lost a lot of blood."
There was water in Dean's eyes. "Sammy, c'mon."
Sam didn't reply, leaving it up to Dean to continue. But Dean said nothing more, just looked at Sam for several long moments before tearing his gaze away. Sam remained standing by his chair, where he waited to assist his brother.
Dean finally looked up at him and sighed. "Okay. But my legs work just fine," he said, and he stood up, pushing himself up by the arms of the chair to prove it. Sam stepped back silently, letting him walk by to get to his bed.
The older brother moved stiffly but steadily. But instead of lying down, he sat himself on the edge of the mattress. He glanced up at Sam. "Do you need to use the bathroom? Brush your teeth or anything?" he asked.
Sam scrunched his eyebrows, taken off guard. "What?"
"You should get that out of the way," Dean continue, pulling out his cell phone. "I'm going to make a call."
Sam's eyes widened with rage. He almost refused, just to spite him, infuriated that after everything, Dean had the nerve to ask for privacy.
But after the day spent in the woods, he really did need to go. So he went, storming into the bathroom and slamming the door behind him.
And afterwards he brushed his teeth because he wasn't ready to go back out yet. Then he splashed water on his face, suddenly realizing just how shaky and unnerved the entire day had left him. He splashed his face again, needing that shock of cold water, just to give him something definite and real to feel. He didn't know how long he was in there, but it didn't feel like long enough.
It wasn't until he came back out that he realized maybe Dean had a different reason for suggesting that he take care of business while he had the chance.
Dean was propped up against the headboard of his bed, his legs stretched out in front of him. One arm crossed his stomach and the other was laying alongside his body, clutching the cell phone. "Everything's been taken care of, Sammy," he said, his gaze fixed on the opposite wall.
Sam looked at him, worried and confused. But he didn't have time to ask before he was hit with a dizzying wave of fatigue.
Suddenly alarmed, he stumbled to his bed, sitting down heavily on top of it. But that wasn't enough, and his eyelids started to pull themselves close despite his struggles to keep them open.
He gave Dean one last, betrayed look before he finally succumbed to his body's demands. He let himself fall completely prone, tumbling bonelessly onto the bedspread. He had just managed to pull his legs up onto the bed when he shut down completely. Everything went black.
Yes, it's as many of you feared - maybe even worse.
to be continued...