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Chapter Ten:

The Morning After

The sun filtered in through the partially closed curtains, falling over Dean in a warm yet unwelcome caress.

As sleep faded away, his skull began to throb, and his bones turned to lead, weighing him down against the mattress as though they were trying to crush him from within.

With a groan and no small amount of effort, he rolled onto his stomach and buried his face into his pillow.

The sadistic asshole who had designed this room had placed the bed so that the first rays of morning sun fell directly onto the pillow. They hit Dean in the face, those gentle beams feeling like evil pinpricks going straight through his eyelids and driving into his brain. He wasn't sure if there was a blanket he could throw over his head, but if there was one, he was either lying on it, or it wasn't within reach—he wasn't capable of enough movement to find out which.

Another groan rattled his throat as his focus went to the foul taste in his mouth and the numb feeling of his teeth. If he were to find out that he'd eaten a decaying skunk, then ripped out half his teeth and replaced them with dentures, he wouldn't have been surprised.

The pounding in his skull worsened, and a whimper tried to force its way out of him, but he wouldn't let it.

He couldn't remember ever being this hungover before, not even after the CBGB incident when he was sixteen and he'd been introduced to tequila, vodka, and whatever else before his dad had hauled his ass out of there. That little headache didn't come close to the sledgehammer currently digging away at his head. His insides roiled as though his stomach had taken a trip to the stormy high seas without him. If he had the energy for it, he was sure he'd throw up.

Last night was a jumble of adrenaline and blank spaces. Fuzzy memories blurred with amnestic episodes, blending into a senseless timeline of events. One thing was for sure: Dean hadn't drunk enough to have caused this. There had been whiskey and beer, but that was it, and he drank more than that practically every other day.

Beer.

The word caught in his mind and jump-started the hangover-soaked gears of his brain.

He bolted upright, wincing as every part of his body complained, and he fought the urge to lie back down. His gaze tripped over the room and landed on the beer barrel, which still sat in the corner by the window, patiently waiting to be dealt with.

Dean stared at it as memories rushed back—Sophie's potion, a bar fight, taking the barrel to the motel, and Cas…something about Cas. He couldn't remember. The holes in his memory yawned wide like black, empty holes, with no hint or clue as to what had happened during them.

He squeezed his eyes shut and gulped air, trying to focus on evening out his breathing and waiting for his heart rate to follow suit.

Slowly, the pounding in his skull calmed to a more manageable level, but the ache in his body remained—a soreness that he was all too familiar with, but which had little to do with the events from last night that he could remember. His muscles felt like jello, and the heaviness pushing him to lie back down wouldn't quit. The knots in his shoulders and back had disappeared, like a wind-up toy whose motor had finally been given a rest. His mouth felt swollen and chapped, and bruises dotted his skin from strong fingers and eager lips. Satiety thrummed through him more completely than even some one-on-one time with Magic Fingers could achieve.

Dean felt thoroughly well fucked, but he couldn't remember any of it.

The spot next to him on the bed was empty and cold, same as the rest of the room. No light came through the half-open bathroom door, and no items of clothing lay forgotten on the floor.

Try as he might, Dean couldn't remember who he'd shared a bed with last night—or if it had happened on a bed. The rug burn on his back suggested it hadn't, but he wasn't sure what to make of the reddened skin that crept from his neck to his chest and lower. The enthusiasm and brute strength it would have taken to make him feel this sore had him thinking that maybe Dr Trisha had been his bed-buddy, but that was the best guess he could come up with.

He rolled out of bed with as much grace as a drowsy bear and stumbled over to the TV set, on top of which sat a pile of his clothes, neatly folded and entirely creaseless.

By the time he'd pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, he was done worrying about his drunken hookup—it wasn't like this was the first time he'd forgotten a girl after the act. Now, he was more worried about Cas. Had he kicked the angel out last night so that he could have a roll in the hay with some chick? He wanted to say no, hoping he had a little more integrity than that, but with Sophie's potion pumping through him, who knew what he was capable of?

His eyes darted around the room, searching for his phone, and he found it on the kitchen table next to a pile of motel stationery.

Legs shaking like a newly-born foal, Dean made his way across the room, holding on to the wall as he went and almost knocking over a beer bottle that sat forgotten on the counter. The table had been pushed away from the window, which Dean vaguely remembered doing to get the barrel inside, but now it meant that he had to shift away from the wall to reach his phone. He got a step before his knee buckled and almost sent him sprawling to the floor. Arms windmilling, he caught himself on the table's edge and thought it would be just his luck if his weight sent the rickety old thing flying, but it stayed put.

He reached for his phone but stopped mid-motion when he noticed the motel notepad and the note scribbled onto it. 'Gone to get coffee,' it read in Cas's neat script. A frown creased Dean's brow. Since when did Cas leave notes?

He grabbed his phone and was about to hit the speed dial button when keys jangled outside, and the lock on the front door turned. Cas walked in, coffee cup in hand, followed by Sam and Sophie.

"Dean," said Cas the moment his gaze landed on him. "Are you all right?"

Dean's stomach flipped, and he braced for the second wave of hangover symptoms, but it laid off after that first hint of nausea. "I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because Sophie cast the reversal," said Sam as he chucked off his coat and slung it over the back of one of the chairs. He looked tired and tense—shoulders set, gaze wayward, and hands shaking from unspent energy. "And then we nearly ran over Cas near that dinner along the highway."

Dean's eyes snapped to Cas, gaze flicking up and down as he checked for injuries, but Cas shook his head and handed Dean the cup of coffee. "I was disoriented, but I'm better now."

"That's my bad," said Sophie. She eyed the beer barrel with a frown and thinly pressed lips before giving her head a light shake and turning her focus to Dean and Cas. "When Sam told me you were infected, I should have warned you that the reversal has a few side-effects."

"What kind of side-effects?" Dean asked, tone rough, ready and willing to chew her out.

She gave him an exasperated head tilt and an eye-roll. "Chill. The hangover isn't permanent; it'll pass in a day or so. What won't pass is the memory loss. You won't remember what the potion made you do. Cas said he's having trouble recalling a few things that happened last night—blank spaces in his memory where the potion helped him act out his impulses."

"That's happening to me, too," said Dean as he side-eyed Cas and wondered what kind of impulses the angel had played out last night. Cas seemed to be asking himself the same thing. He stood against the counter, his eyes clouded by thought, his brows set in a deep thrown, and his lips pouting like an angry two-year-old.

Sophie nodded. "It's normal. The reversal takes its job seriously. It can't undo what was done, but it can make people think it never happened."

Dean scrubbed a hand over his jaw, feeling his stubble scratch his palm and burn it, kind of like the rug burns from his mystery night with his mystery bed-buddy whose identity he'd never get to find out, apparently—not like it mattered. He'd had plenty of one-night stands, and this one was no different, even if it had been above average. It bugged him, though. Something kept tugging at the edge of his mind, a memory floating out of reach, taunting him.

He gave his head a shake, shoving the memory from his thoughts, pushing it to where it would stop bothering him as he got his mind back on track. "So no one'll remember what happened. Great."

Sophie tugged her bottom lip with her teeth and made a noise in the back of her throat. "Not quite. The people who were affected won't remember, but everyone else will."

"The doc said that 90% of the town was acting crazy," said Dean. "In a town this size, what's 10%?"

"Being affected and acting crazy don't necessarily go hand in hand."

Before Dean could start looking confused, Sam picked up where Sophie had left off. "Mob mentality," he said. He folded his arms over his chest, his features scrunching as he held back a yawn. "Not everyone went to that bar downtown to celebrate after the game on Sunday, and not everyone had a beer then or after, but when neighbours and friends started acting up, some people were willing to go along for the ride."

"Huh." Dean joined Cas by the counter and leaned back against it, his elbow brushing against Cas's as he raised the coffee cup to his lips. "That's gonna make for some awkward conversations."

"I'm going to stick around for the aftercare," said Sophie, and when Dean's eyes shot to her, she raised her hands. "No spells or potions. I promise. But I helped make this mess, so I'm going to help clean it up."

Dean reluctantly felt his respect for the woman grow, and Cas said, "That's very good of you, Sophie."

A blush painted her cheeks pink, and she shifted from one foot to the other, tucking her hair behind her ears, before she cleared her throat and straightened her stance. "Yeah, well, I'm also going to help you guys pack because, no offence, but having a bunch of hunters around is making me nervous."

"I'm not a hunter," said Cas.

"What are you then?" Her eyes roved over him. "Their accountant?" Cas frowned, and she shook her head. "Never mind. You're with them, so the same rule applies to you."

Sam gave a weary smile and nodded. "Fair enough."

And so they packed. It took them less than twenty minutes, most of which was spent detoxing the beer and bottling it in the many little liquid storage containers that Sophie had brought along with her from her apartment. When she'd pulled those from the backseat of her old Beetle, Dean had decided that she deserved a second chance.

Now, he stood in the mostly deserted motel parking lot, leaning against the Impala, ankles crossed in front of him, with Sophie perched on the hood of her car as they waited for Sam to finish checking that they hadn't forgotten anything in the motel. Without a task to focus on, Dean went over the thoughts niggling at his brain. A forgotten memory still taunted him. Every time he thought he'd grabbed it, it flitted away, and it was driving him crazy.

"Do you always look so constipated when you're thinking?" Sophie asked.

Dean threw her a glare but stopped short of a comeback as that damn memory jeered through his mind. He sighed instead and rubbed a hand over his face. "Are you sure there's no way of finding out what happened last night?"

"'Fraid so. The memory's gone. Right now, your mind is just playing tricks on itself because it doesn't like not knowing; it's trying to incite you to remember what you've forgotten by teasing you with a mirage."

Dean gave her a hard look. "You know an awful lot about this for someone who's never had to use that reversal spell before."

"This isn't magic; it's psychology." Seeing his eyebrows rise, she added, "I have a degree."

His glower vanished, but his eyebrows didn't lower. "You wanted to be a shrink?"

She smiled, and Dean realised this was the first time he'd seen the expression on her. "Not really. I wanted to understand how people work and maybe figure out a way to help a few out."

The thought was nice, bringing about a warm feeling in Dean's chest, but the sentimentality of it had him shifting his weight and dropping eye contact, so he let his mind wander to safer territory, a lopsided smile pulling at his lips as he asked, "So you opened up a sex shop?"

Her smile turned into a grin. "Sex is one hell of a remedy."

Dean's thoughts went to the pleasant ache still weighing him down, and he ran his tongue over his growing smile, dropping his gaze to the ground to hide the expression from Sophie. "Don't I know it."

She laughed, and Dean chuckled. It felt good—like a weight lifting from his shoulders, and he was set on enjoying it after the hell he'd been through over the past couple of months. But all too soon, the mirth left him, and the weight crashed back onto him when his brain started reaching for that illusion of a memory again.

Sophie noticed his silence, and her smile eased away, even though the softness in her eyes remained. "There is one way to find out what you got up to last night." Dean's attention shot back to her. "Think about your impulses—your deepest, darkest desires—and pinpoint the strongest of them. It might not be easy, but you're the only person who can answer your question."

He cocked his brows at her, a hint of a smile returning to his lips. "That sounded like something a shrink would say."

She conceded the point with a nod and a laugh just as Sam stepped out of the motel room, lumbered like a pack mule with his duffel bag, backpack, and satchel. He pulled the door shut behind and juggled his bags and keys to get the door locked.

"We good to go?" Dean asked when Sam stepped over to the car.

"Looks like it," said Sam. He waved at Cas, who sat behind the wheel of his truck, which he'd had to fetch from downtown while Sam and Dean had packed. Dean had offered him a ride into town, but Cas had turned him down, wanting to walk and clear his head.

Cas returned the wave, and Sam popped the Impala's trunk to dump his bags in.

"All right." Dean turned back to Sophie. "If you need a hand around here, there's a Doctor Sarah Idris at the clinic and a young deputy, Matt Warner, down at the station who can probably give you a hand. Just watch what you say around them."

She nodded. "Civilians. Got it."

The trunk closed with a bang, and Sam walked over to give Sophie a gentle clap on the shoulder. "Take care."

"You too."

The boys got into the car, and Sophie leaned down to peer at Sam through Dean's broken window.

"Thanks again for replacing all my locks," she said.

Sam smiled and nodded, and Sophie stepped up onto the curb as Dean turned the keys in the ignition. He backed out of the parking spot and threw Sophie one last wave before peeling out of there.

"You fixed her locks for her?" Dean asked as he veered onto the highway, checking the mirrors to make sure Cas followed close behind.

"Had to do something while we waited for Cas to get to her place with the spell ingredients," Sam said with a shrug, his gaze going to the side window and staying there.

Seven hours of face time with a pretty girl, and that was how his brother decided to spend it? Sometimes Dean didn't understand him at all.

He switched the radio to a soft rock station, lowering the volume so that the notes crooned over the speakers, and watched as Sam fell asleep on the way home. Left alone with his thoughts and the open road, Dean finger-drummed the steering wheel as he considered what Sophie had said about having to figure out his deepest desire. He stared at the road as he thought it over, raising his gaze every few minutes to check on Cas, but his mind came up blank.

With a sigh and a shake of his head, he pressed harder on the gas pedal, eager to put some mileage between him and that town.

A/N: I know the whole "And they forgot it ever happened" thing is on the over-done side, but I wanted this to stay canon-compliant (-ish) so that I didn't get the smart idea of turning it into a long-winded AU (which I would have ended up doing had I not wrapped it up, and I have enough WIPs as is). One last chapter to go, then we're all done!