Warnings: This chapter references to underage rape, torture, non-con.
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Sam woke up to something tickling his face. He slowly eased his eyes open to be met by Dean's rascal grin. "Up and at them cowboy!" Dean grinned as he slid a long-sleeved plaid shirt over his t-shirt.
"What?" Sam felt as if his brain was still partly asleep. He glanced at the clock on Dean's shelf. It was almost noon! He had been asleep for over 10 hours!
Then he heard the dreaded, though not wholly unexpected words, "I've found us a hunt, Sammy". He'd known this was coming from the moment he had seen Dean's easy grin.
Part of him wanted to argue, to protest. But he also knew his brother, knew he needed this after last night.
And he was determined to show how little the extra knowledge meant to how he viewed Dean. Dean, who had always been 'big brother, the protector, the mediator between dad and Sam' now Sam had added 'survivor' and 'stronger than I ever knew' to the list.
"Ok. Just give me a minute to shower", he answered and lumbered back to his own room.
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As always, the hunt had been more difficult than expected. Sam had dislocated his shoulder, Dean had wrenched his knee. The supernatural creature was no more, the small town was as safe as they could make it. They retreated home to the bunker to recuperate.
Only that night, Dean's curse returned.
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Sam hated the curse. As he listened to his brother's cries he cursed the witch in ever more creative and dark invectives. Anything to distract himself from the obvious cries of pain emitting from the small cell.
"I don't have anything more to tell. You know it all now."
They were back in the library. The curse was still in place. Cas had left to try and find another way to lift it and had yet to return. Since their return from the hunt, they had had days of being unable to move far and recovering from their injuries, and Dean was hoarse from speaking. Yet, the curse was not broken.
Was it possible that to speak his truth, Dean had to tell all, even things he did not consciously remember, Sam wondered. Were there things in his memories that Dean did not remember that he had somehow concealed?
Only one thing that Dean had never spoken of, that Sam knew he did not remember. Dean's time in hell.
Yet, Sam did not want to know. Something worse than the things Dean had already revealed, worse enough that he had repressed the memories. What could be worse than what he had already revealed? No, if it was worse Sam didn't want to know.
To be ignorant meant he could rejoice in their shared memories, their lives lived. Not colour it all through a lense of pain and torture. The year Dean had been gone, Sam had imagined what hell was like through guilt and an odd notion of penance. He knew he'd never voluntarily want to revisit that time in his mind.
Yet, did he not owe Dean? Dean had lived that time, after all, for Sam. Bearing witness to those memories, was that not a chance for real penance for Sam? For him to suffer this once so Dean could stop suffering?
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"So what you are saying is that it's not enough for me to have to dredge up all my old crap. You're going to get into my head, mess around with my memories, see if you can dig worse stuff up. That it?" Dean was speaking with a quiet intensity Sam knew was like the quiet before the storm.
"Dean, you don't have to remember them. You don't have to know." Sam continued. "The African dream root, it lets me see your experiences as you recall them in your dreams. I can speak those memories for you."
"I thought I had to speak them. Speak my truth", Dean answered curtly.
"I don't think it matters who speaks them. The point is that they must be spoken for the curse to be broken."
"You don't think!" Dean scoffed. "And what if you're wrong? What then?"
"Then we find another way," Sam continued unfazed. "It's worth a try."
Dean went down another route of attack. "What if I dream of rainbows or unicorns, of sexy Asian beauties. how will going into my dreams help you then? I can't control what I dream of. I may never dream of hell."
"You dream of hell." Sam stated with a miserable finality. And Dean was too much of a coward to find out how Sam knew.
"No," he shouted. And with that one word, he turned and left the room, effectively ending their argument.
But Sam did not relent. And the nightly pain slowly wore down Dean's resolve.