Repressed memories are really more common than you might think in our line of work. Mostly because there's a lot that can give you a limited (or full-blown) case of amnesia. Physical trauma, emotional trauma, spells, potions, hypnosis, mental manipulation, time displacement. All of these happen pretty often on hunts – though, admittedly, some happen more often than others. Sometimes you can avoid them, but most of the time, you just won't be able to. Chances are that you or somebody you know has something blocked off in their head, either voluntarily or otherwise.

And chances are that you or they or both don't want to remember it. Sometimes, witches or monsters or other nasties will lock away important memories of yours to slow you down or cripple you, but that's usually not the case, and it's really hard to tell when it is. So a general rule of thumb is don't bother it. Don't try to remember. Don't keep scratching at the block. It's like a loose tooth, but in this particular case, the tooth is in adult tooth, and if you poke it with your tongue until it comes out, then there's no way to put it back in.

There are bound to be some memories that you put away for a reason. If you really, really think that it's important, go to a psychic or a hypnotist. Or a witch you know who toes the line. A professional, in other words, who can get that memory out without turning you into a gibbering mess. Don't try to dig it up yourself. And if your professional tells you to leave it alone, do it. There are much more enjoyable ways of hurting yourself out there.

- "Hunting and Amnesia," posted on website of Sam Winchester

Sam watched for the slightest flicker of reaction – any reaction – from Dean, but he didn't see it. He just cocked an eyebrow and, skeptically, asked, "You need what, now?"

"I need to know how to close the Gates of Hell," Sam repeated, managing to keep his voice neutral.

Dean was silent for a few seconds, mouth slightly open, eyes narrowing at Sam. Then he shook his head and stated, "I'm pretty sure you can't do that."

"You can," Sam promised. "There's a ritual. Three tasks."

"Does one of them involve taking off for forty-five minutes and firing a gun?" Dean asked. "'Cause if not, I really don't give a shit right now, Sam. Sorry." He turned around and walked back to his chair. He'd taken the books out of it, setting them aside, but one was still open on the seat. He picked it up before sitting down and tossed it, carelessly, into Sam's chair. "I wanna know what happened outside."

Sam blew out a deep breath. Maybe this was a good way to segue into it – what he needed from Dean and how he was going to get it. "There was a demon."

Dean's eyes widened, and he stood straight up out of his chair. "There was another demon out here? Didn't you think that that might be important enough to tell me about?"

"You didn't sense it?" Sam asked. Obviously not, but he wanted to make sure.

"Not inside a devil's trap and a Circle of Solomon." Dean gestured to the cell that surrounded him. "But you couldn't've, either. How'd you know it was out there? What happened?"

"I saw the vessel walking through the trees while I was getting the ice," Sam replied. He stepped through the doorway, and Dean made room for him by moving the book again. "I didn't know for sure that it was a demon. Not at first. I checked it out, though, just in case – I've been sorta paranoid lately. Can't imagine why."

Dean swore as he sank back down into his chair. "Jesus, Sam. You coulda died…"

"Yeah, maybe, but it was a really weak demon." Sam joined him, perching on the very lip of his chair. One of his legs began to bounce up and down with jittery, nervous excitement. Maybe the whole thing had wound him up a lot more than he thought. "Black eyes, no sign of any telekinetic powers. Had apparently never been splashed with holy water before…it was alone. Said it was a scout."

"A scout." Dean rolled his eyes all of a sudden, dragging a hand through his short hair. "Oh, man. What was the vessel like?"

That was a question Sam hadn't been expecting. "Uh…it was a woman…"

"Blond?" Dean asked, leaning back in his chair. "Big…?" He trailed off and cupped his hands in front of his chest, raising his eyebrows. Sam wondered why he didn't just say "tits." He hadn't seemed to have a problem with the word before. When Nadia was still alive.

"Yeah," Sam admitted.

"Nice suit?"

"Yeah."

"Cory," Dean announced with a huge exhale, looking up at the ceiling. "He's a huge fuckin' perv. Sold out at five, so – you can guess when they got him." He glanced at Sam. "Was a huge fuckin' perv, though, I'm assuming."

"Did I just kill a fifteen-year-old?" Sam asked. Fifteen. Wow. Vaughn's age. His leg started jerking up and down faster, the heel of the boot he was still wearing bouncing off the concrete floor.

"No, you just killed a five hundred-year-old," Dean replied, leaning forward again and resting his forearms on his thighs. "Give or take. More importantly…" He cleared his throat. "You killed a demon. A scout. You kept us safe."

Sam nodded in understanding. Dean exhaled powerfully through his nostrils, staring at him, then reached over and clapped a heavy hand down on top of his knee. He forced it still, and kept his hand there for a while.

"You have gotta cut that out," he said frankly. "It's driving me freaking insane, and Hell already made me a psychopath. I don't need to be psychotic, too." Slowly, he took his hand away. Sam was tempted to start jiggling again, but giving into that urge would probably get him smacked or worse. "Look." Dean cleared his throat. "I don't know what you're all hopped up on, Sammy, but you've gotta calm down. You spend almost an hour running another demon down in the woods, then you come in here and start talking to me about closing the Gates of Hell. I've got no idea what's going on. You're gonna have to explain it to me." He clasped his hands between his knees and fixed Sam with a steady green gaze. "Let's start with this: you tell me what that gunshot was all about."

"Okay." Sam blew out a breath as he smoothed his pants down his denim-covered thighs. Dean was right; he really did need to calm down. "I've got a backpack out in the shed. It's full of the basic stuff for…y'know, home defense. Salt, holy water, handgun…"

"Did you shoot at Cory?" Dean asked, loosely crossing his legs. "You've gotta know that doesn't hurt us. Not even if you damage the vessel."

"No. I know," Sam replied. "I snuck up on him, and got a ways away as soon as I saw the eyes. Then I drew a devil's trap in the dirt and fired at the sky."

Dean nodded in understanding and what Sam would like to think was grudging admiration. "Okay. Clever." He tipped his head to the side. "So he came running, you caught him, and…?"

"I interrogated him," Sam replied. "Holy water. It…really only took one splash, and then he just told me everything I needed to know so I wouldn't do it again."

"Yeah, that sounds like him," Dean said with a snort. "Glad you ganked the son of a bitch, honestly. Never could put up with his whining." He shook his head, as if to clear it of memories. "So. What'd he tell you? Something about the Gates of Hell, obviously."

"He told me about you," Sam said, after some hesitation.

Dean raised a brow. "What about me?"

"Why and how you became a Knight of Hell." Sam stood, moved his chair, and sat down again. He and Dean had been sitting, very loosely, side by side. Now they were sitting across from each other. Dean didn't comment on the change in position.

"Well, a hellhound tore me a new one," he began, and thumped himself in the sternum with a closed fist. "Right in the middle of the chest. I woke up hanging from a bunch of meathooks, and Alastair found me, and then Cain was there, too. He did a bunch of fucked up things to me with his creepy teeth knife, and then I was a Knight." He spread his arms wide.

"Yeah, Cain's a problem, too." Sam cleared his throat. "Not one that I can deal with right now, though." He had other, more pressing matters to focus on. "Why did the hellhounds come after you in the first place?"

"I made a deal, obviously," Dean said with a shrug. "That's how everybody ends up in Hell, isn't it?"

"When you were eighteen?" Sam pressed.

"Must've been," Dean agreed.

"Okay, what'd you sell your soul for?" Just starting to get a little frustrated, Sam spread his hands.

"Well, I don't know," Dean replied. "I told you. I barely remember anything at all, and that's apparently one of the things that I forgot. But something huge must've happened to send me to a crossroads."

"You didn't go to a crossroads," Sam protested. "You didn't make a deal. The demons tracked you down, they beat you – and then they set the hellhounds loose on you. To drag you to Hell. To Cain. Because they needed you on their side."

Dean squinted at him for a moment, then shook his head with a slight chuckle. "Okay, I was a pretty kickass hunter when I was alive, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't that good."

"They wanted you because you knew how to close the Gates of Hell," Sam told him. "And because you were getting close. There were three tasks, and you'd completed two. They couldn't let you finish – or tell anybody else what you knew."

"Did Cory tell you all of this?" Dean asked evenly.

"Yes," Sam replied.

"Ohh-kay." Dean pushed himself to his feet with a grunt. "Having a little trouble understanding why you believe him over me."

"Well, what's your story?" Sam shot back. "That you sold your soul? You don't even remember doing that!"

"Yeah, but you gotta admit, it sounds a whole lot more plausible than me knowing how to close the Gates of Hell," Dean replied, spreading his hands. "'Cause that's impossible. You can't do it. Take it from me – I'm the commander of an army of demons." Sam realized that he should probably try to find out more about that army. Sometime. "IF there were a way to cut us off from the source of out power, close it in…don't you think I'd know about it?"

"But you do," Sam insisted. "Look. Your memory is screwed up. I've never come across a demon with that problem before. Couldn't it be because they didn't want you to be able to tell somebody how to do it if they tortured you?"

"Okay. All right." Dean raised a hand, glancing down at his boots before making eye contact with Sam again. "Fine. I'll give you that one. But if it's true…" He shrugged. "Then what you wanted to know is gone forever. There's no way to get it outta me."

Sam cleared his throat. Dean snorted.

"What're you gonna do, hypnotize me?" he asked, heavily skeptical. "Hate to break it to you, but I don't think it's gonna work."

"I have a spell," Sam began.

"Of course you do." Dean turned away from him and started to walk around the cell, hands stuffed into the pockets of his new jeans. He was clearly agitated. "Ain't that convenient."

"I've spent the better part of five years doing nothing but research," Sam replied. "I have a spell for everything. Summoning Amaterasu, tripling the growth speed of plants, talking to birds…" He began to flip up his fingers as he spoke. "Turning your hair blue, killing your husband's mistress, extinguishing the sun…"

"Uh…" Looking uneasy, Dean glanced back over his shoulder. "What was that last one?"

"Don't worry about it. It requires a sacrifice of twelve billion living humans, so we've got some time," Sam replied. "My point is that a memory spell isn't that farfetched. Or that hard." He paused for a second before admitting, "I'm…not actually sure if it'll work or not, though."

"Oh, you're not, huh?" Dean asked dryly, putting his hands on the back of his chair as he leaned heavily on it.

"It's just – it's meant for remembering little things," Sam defended himself. "Like where you left your keys or when your boss's birthday is. It wasn't designed to bring back stuff as big as…" He shrugged. "You know. Closing the Gates of Hell."

"So why even bring it up?" Dean asked, shaking his head.

"Because I think I can make it stronger," Sam said, slowly.

Another snort. "You mean you wanna try and force more power into a ritual that wasn't meant to channel it? You're not a witch, Sam. Not by blood or by anything else. Trust me – I can tell." Dean shook his head. "You're gonna end up killing yourself and ruining my vessel. Excuse me for not wanting either of those things to happen."

"Lemme try," Sam pleaded, standing up himself. It felt too weird to try and debate with someone who was walking around the room while he was sitting. "Just think about – "

"Think about what?" Dean interrupted him. Sam wasn't entirely surprised to note that he sounded angry (again), but he was still pretty disappointed by the reaction. "Think about how important it is, to the band of freaking psychos out there who kill stuff like me for fun and only keep you alive because you stay outta the way and figured out how to be useful, that we get rid of all the demons?" He stopped in front of one of the walls and the sigil painted on it, keeping his back to it and folding his arms across his chest again. His posture somehow made it clear to Sam that he could have been leaning back against the bare concrete – if all the warding had let him. "Okay. You seem to keep forgetting this, but I – " He switched his eyes to black and pointed at them with both index fingers, glaring at Sam. " – am a demon. I don't know what'll happen if those Gates swing shut. If I'll be yanked back and locked in with all the other freaks, or if I'll just start losing power until I don't even have enough juice to keep my vessel from rotting off me." Sam tried not to, but he flinched at that visual anyway. Dean must have seen it, because his voice softened and the black of his eyes retracted back into his pupils. "What makes you think I'd wanna close the Gates?"

"I'm not asking you to do it," Sam replied frustratedly. "I just wanna see if I can get you to remember it. Is that asking so much?"

"Yeah." Dean smirked. "I've got you pegged, sunshine. As soon as I tell you, you're gonna start trying to do it. Or you'll tell somebody else, somebody you know can do it for you. For the good of the world or whatever. You're practically leaking the milk of human kindness all over the damn floor." He gave Sam a level look. "You would send me back there. If it meant getting rid of all the others, too."

"No," Sam blurted without thinking about it.

"Yes," Dean insisted, walking across the cell towards him. "I know your type. Rare in our circles, but I hunted with a couple, when I was human. More in love with humanity as a whole than you could ever be with any one person, and I'm not sure that five years of isolation have helped your ability to form personal attachments."

"How is you acting like a dick supposed to convince me not to cast the spell?" Sam snapped, hurt.

"I'm trying to tell you," Dean replied, enunciating every word carefully, "that I'm not like you. I never was – it doesn't have anything to do with being a Knight of Hell. I've always had my whole universe revolve around just a few people, instead of the whole freaking world. Right now, it's just two people. Me…" He stabbed a thumb towards himself. "…and you." He pointed to Sam, whose mouth twitched. "I just don't give a rat's ass about anybody else. Or what other demons might do to them."

Sam felt the muscles of his stomach clench at Dean's brutal honesty, but at the same time, he guessed he couldn't fault him all that much for having a worldview that two-thirds of the population probably shared. Considering what he was, he should really just be amazed that Dean cared about him at all.

But Sam wasn't like that (as Dean had so helpfully pointed out to him). He was burning alive with the need to know how to close the Gates. So, folding his arms across his pectorals, he tried a different tack: "You actually sound pretty sure that you do know how to do it. Somewhere."

Dean eyed him with distaste, before folding his own arms and beginning with, "Okay. Sam." He fixed him with a steady green glare. "Just how dumb d'you think I am? They cut away all my warm fuzzies down in the Pit, not my brain. I'm not gonna agree to your jackass plan just so I can prove to you that I really don't know how to close the Gates."

Well…when he put it like that, it really did sound stupid. "Worth a shot," Sam replied, before clearing his throat. "I'm desperate."

"Yeah, I can tell." Dean's voice softened all of a sudden, all of the irritation and scorn disappearing. He let his arms dangle loosely by his sides as he closed the distance between the two of them. Sam didn't move, even though he was tempted to after he'd been told that Dean didn't give a shit about anyone else. "But you shouldn't be." He pulled Sam into a tight, secure hug. After a moment's hesitation, Sam relaxed into it with a soft sigh. It felt too good to fight. "You don't need to care about the world out there. You're totally safe here, with me. And besides. What's the outside world ever done for you?"

"It's where all my food comes from," Sam replied. His mouth was pressed into Dean's shoulder, so his voice came out muffled. "For one."

"I could bring you food," Dean told him. He'd started rubbing his back, and it was insanely soothing. Sam went practically boneless against him, a Pavlovian response from his early childhood, and he easily held him up. "And books. And shampoo. And toilet paper. And all those other squishy human things that you've just gotta have to stay alive." He moved his hand up to stroke Sam's hair, and Sam regained his feet, embarrassed. "I mean, you'd have to let me out first, but – "

Sam interrupted him by getting his hands up between them and pushing Dean's arms off of himself. He didn't resist much, letting him manipulate him. Stepping back, Sam met Dean's mildly-concerned expression with an unimpressed one. He folded his arms again, which seemed to be rapidly turning into his go-to position.

"Let you out," he stated, skeptically.

Dean stared uncomprehendingly at him for about a second, then his eyes slid closed and he huffed with realization. "Okay – "

"Is that what this is all about?" Sam interrupted him. He wasn't sure if he was actually angry, actually believed that the demon was trying to trick him into freeing him, or if he was just acting. It'd been a long day. And it was barely past noon. "Are you just trying to get me to let you out of the Circle? What'll you do if I shatter one of the runes? Kill me? Or do you really care about me – would you just leave and go back to your Lords and your army?" Maybe he was just voicing the fears that he'd had since this relationship, unconventional and dangerous, had started.

"Cut it out, Sam," Dean said, full lips tightened into a thin line. "You know that's not what I'd do if you let me out of here."

"So you still want out.

"Well, yeah, of course I do – no offense to you, but this cell sucks," Dean replied, sounding a little angry. "A chair and some books haven't made it a whole lot more comfortable. But if you're afraid of me, still…" He spread his hands, a gesture of helplessness. "Then I can stay in here. Anything to make you feel safe."

Sam strained to hear any trace of sarcasm in that last statement, but if it was there, then he couldn't find it. He reached up to drag a hand, fingers spread, through his long hair. He shook his head.

"You're a Knight of Hell," he said. "You told me that I was gonna get hurt."

"But I don't wanna leave the Circle so I can hurt you," Dean replied, trying to convince him. "Or leave you. I promise."

"Then – prove it to me," Sam said. He wished it came out as confident as it had sounded in his head. "Let me do this spell. Try and remember. Just so I can know if…there really is a way to do it. To close the Gates."

Dean looked at Sam, lowering himself into the nearest chair. Sam saw his mouth work, like he was chewing at the inside of his lips or cheeks. He did that a lot; must be a bad habit. After a couple of seconds, he shook his head, scoffing out a laugh.

"You are really bad at this, aren't you?" he asked, regarding Sam with amusement that he didn't even try to hide. Sam scowled at him. "Sorry, Sammy, but you just suck at manipulation." He shook his head again. "You are such a girl."

"I guess I just haven't had much opportunity to screw with people, these last few years," Sam replied, a little stiffly. "I just haven't had as much practice as you."

"Don't – don't try to make this into a good thing," Dean said, raising a hand to stop him. "This is just sad." He paused. "Are you actually afraid of me?"

Sam took a deep breath, blew it out, and admitted, "Yeah. I think so."

"Probably smart." Dean licked his lips. He pushed himself up then, clearing his throat, said, "So. You tried. A for effort."

"Thanks," Sam said dryly, walking over to the chair that Dean wasn't occupying and sinking into it. The demon reached over and took his hand, squeezing so he could feel his calluses.

"This Gate thing is really that important to you?" he asked. Sam nodded.

"I'm a researcher," he explained, shrugging. "I've…gotta know."

Dean sighed heavily. "All right." He got to his feet, tugging Sam with him. "We'll give it a shot. Sammy, get your spellbook."

Sam blinked. "You're gonna let me – "

"Yeah, I'm sick of you whining about it," Dean said, rolling his eyes. He gave Sam a shove in the direction of the cell door. "Go. I've had way more than I needed of your bitchiness today."

"Thanks." Sam hurred, afraid that Dean would change his mind. His boots scuffed quickly over the floor. He needed to take them off. "Thanks, Dean, it really – "

"Sure," Dean interrupted. "After all. Who'm I to tell you that you can't kill yourself if you really, really want to?"