rionaleonhart | I'm Not Very Good At This, Am I?

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I'm Not Very Good At This, Am I?

THIS ENTRY IS NOT GOING TO BE ABOUT INCEST. There has been too much incest in this journal lately.

'TALL TALES': AMAZING. I love it when the writers and actors have clearly had far too much fun with a particular episode. Trickster episodes are the best episodes. (The back-of-DVD blurb was rather amusing, too: Dean and Sam mysteriously start bickering like an old married couple. How sinister! THAT'S - THAT'S NOT INCEST; IT'S JUST A SIMILE.) It sort of makes me want to write an entire fic with Dean in the role of the highly unreliable narrator, but I imagine that would be terribly difficult to keep up for more than three seconds. Also, of course, it would never be able to equal that episode's sheer levels of amazingness.

SPEAKING OF THE AMAZINGNESS OF 'TALL TALES': the two sides of the bar scene on YouTube. SO MUCH JOY. And there are no spoilers! And it's only three minutes long! Meaning that you have very little excuse not to watch it. You like 'two characters tell the same story in different ways' scenes, don't you? Well, you should.

This episode may have made me into a bit of a Sam/Laptop 'shipper. (AND THE LAPTOP IS NOT RELATED TO SAM. I AM STRONG.) Because, you know, their love is true.

HERE IS A QUESTION FOR YOU: if they're both in the Impala, and Dean is driving, and Sam is using his laptop in the passenger seat, is it a foursome? OBVIOUSLY IT IS NOT AN ABSOLUTE FOURSOME, AS NO SAM/DEAN IS INVOLVED. THIS ENTRY IS NOT ABOUT INCEST IN ANY WAY.

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After the fire hadn't burned down the scrub forest, and after a meal had been cooked and eaten and the fire had been safely doused and buried, the matter of sleeping arrangements came up. It was Dean, on inspecting their lodgings, who brought up the most important question.

"Why are there only two rooms in this thing?"

"Why are there only two front seats in your car?" Adam asked. "That's how they make 'em. And someone was too cheap to get a different brand."

"Well," Dean said, "there are three of us."

"Seems like a problem of math, then," Adam said.

"I'll share," Sam said, at the exact same time Adam said "I won't."

"Hey," Dean said.

"I set the damn thing up," Adam pointed out. "And Sam's being nice. Looks like it's the two of you, then."

"...hey," Dean said again, in a It's not too nice to be taking advantage of Mr. Concussion, here voice.

"Sam can take care of you in case you start going cross-eyed," Adam pointed out. "Anyway. He doesn't mind your snoring."

Dean jabbed a finger at Sam. "He's concussed too, you know."

"He was wearing his seatbelt." Adam put on as near to an angelic expression as his face would support. Which was, all things considered, actually quite angelic. "We'll rock-paper-scissors tomorrow," he promised, and slipped into the tent.

"...that doesn't work with three," Sam said, but Adam was no longer listening.

"And I don't snore," Dean appended, belatedly.

"Come on." Sam patted his shoulder, and held open the tent flap. "One night. Not that bad."

Dean sighed. "Yeah."

It almost worked. It was in the process of working without mishap, in fact, when they noticed that, including the one Adam had commandeered, there were only two sleeping bags as well.

It took almost half a second before Dean said "Well, fuck that."

"Maybe we lost one," Sam said. It didn't sound probable, but he hadn't seen one in the trunk, and there definitely wasn't one in the camping kit.

"You take it, Sammy," Dean said. "I'm fine for tonight."

"No, that's--" Sam paused. "Did you just call me 'Sammy?'"

Dean paused as well. "...yeah, I think I did," he said. "Sorry, that's probably way not cool--"

"No, it's fine," Sam said, scrunching his eyebrows, trying to remember. He had no context. Only emotions. He shook his head. "Dean, who are we?"

"Not a damn clue," Dean said, flopping back onto the tent floor. "And believe me, that is pissing me off."

"Yeah. It's... weird," Sam said. "I should be more upset than I am. You get the feeling this happens a lot?"

"No."

Well, at least he had the power of his convictions.

Sam shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "I think there's something more going on, here."

"Well, we've got Adam," Dean said. "We can pick his brain later."

"Said we should try to remember on our own," Sam pointed out. "Look, it's going to get pretty cold out here, tonight. We can either both sleep on the bag, or under it."

"Sam, I said I'm fine," Dean snapped.

Sam sighed, unzipped the edge of the bag, and rolled it out. Dean rolled his eyes.

"We were hunting something," Dean said, flopping over on his stomach on the padded sleeping bag. "Something all the way out here. No--I think we chased it?"

"In the car?" Sam asked. "All the way out here?"

"We're not that far off the interstate," Dean said. Then he frowned. "I think."

Mnemnovore, Sam's mind filled in, and then he snorted. Memory-eater? The memory-eater was the car crash. He doubted they were hunting it. "...it's what we do," he said.

"Always was." Dean frowned. "The three of us. Us friends."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

Sam lay down, staring at the tent roof. Dean rolled onto his side, quiet.

"So what's with us?" he asked.

Something two quantum steps below a shiver wound its way down Sam's back. "What do you mean?"

"This Adam guy," Dean said, dropping his voice as low as it would go. "I trust him, but it's like I don't. With you, it's different."

"Different?" Sam asked. "Different how?"

Dean shrugged. "Dunno."

Sam watched the shadows on the tent canvas fade into the general darkness. He closed his eyes.

"Yeah," he said. "It's different."

For a few minutes, only the droning crickets chimed in.

It was one finger, at first, tracing the line of his temple and back over his ear. Idly, almost. Experimental. Sam held down another shudder, and didn't look. "What are you doing?"

"Like you said," Dean muttered. His voice was much nearer Sam's ear. "It's going to get cold at night."

You are amazing and I love you more than anything. And Adam would work so well in Supernatural, and I love that they were actually hunting him when he got them. AND YAY FOR AMNESIAFIC. And aaaahfsgh, the end.

Please post this somewhere! Or, you know, you could expand it to encompass the regaining their actual memories and the subsequent freaking-out? Maybe? It would make me very happy.

Haaa. I could try, though it'll probably end up written at the same breakneck speed (with the same general apathy for quality) sometime this afternoon/evening when I get home. (You do realize that if you Shahryar me for a month, you'll essentially get a NaNoWriMo novel. Which I'm sure isn't your intent.)

And, silly Riona! You can't spent a week freaking out about the quality of SPN-fandom writing, and then tell me to post the thing I wrote in~~twenty minutes~~ two hours! :P This is staying safely hidden away in the Comment Thread Of Doom.

Thing was, it made sense.

Three of them, two rooms, two bags. Odd, unplacable sense of attachment. And even if it didn't quite feel right when Dean rolled onto him and pushed his hands under his shirt, it didn't quite feel wrong either. Logic dictated--

Logic didn't dictate any of this.

"Dean," he started, but Dean was already grinding down on his hips. What had been a What are you doing? turned into a "What do you remember?" on its way out of Sam's mouth.

"You," Dean said. "Flashes," as his hand travelled across Sam's arm to take his wrist, pulling it up over his head. "Why? You don't?"

Sam inhaled. His memory wasn't jogging. He was looking for sensory cues, but what he smelled was nothing knew: sweat, leather, cologne. The same smells as in the Impala, recreated between the two of them. "I can't remember much of anything," he said.

Dean's teeth closed lightly on his neck. Sam rolled his shoulder, pulling his wrist free and taking Dean's head in his hands. I should remember something. Anything at all.

"Dude," Dean said, resting one palm at Sam's navel. "The staring thing? That's a turn-off."

"Why don't I remember you?" Sam asked.

"I don't know," Dean said. "I wouldn't forget me. Honestly I'm a bit offended."

"I know. I shouldn't have," Sam said. "I shouldn't--"

"Just shut up." Dean grabbed his wrist again, pushing his weight down. "God, talk, talk, talk. Why do I even bother?" He leaned in again.

Okay, no. Sam twisted, breaking Dean's grip, flipping him, and pinning him. Dean's head smacked the unpadded floor, and he cursed under his breath. "Dude! What?"

"Not tonight," Sam said.

Dean pushed him off. "Fine! Whatever. You could've just said so. What's your problem?"

"We're amnesic," Sam said. "Do you think this might be inappropriate?"

Now it was Dean's turn to stare. "No," he said, "I didn't. But if that's how you feel."

He flipped over, turning his back to Sam. Sam groaned. "Dean--"

"Go to sleep, Sammy." The words left unspoken were We're through.

Sam snorted, turning his back on Dean as well. Hell with him, in any case. He was always this difficult.

Always. ...he was sure.

Judging from their breathing, it took a long time for either of them to sleep. And Dean had been right: it did get cold that night.

-

They woke the next day stiff and cranky, and Dean took the opportunity to shove Sam into a patch of dirt when they were crawling out the tent flap. Adam was already up, hair combed and shirt buttoned and looking like he hadn't needed to sleep at all. Sam rummaged in their bag for something edible, and Dean took their shovel and wandered off looking for a suitable site for a latrine. Adam watched him go, then drew up and crouched by the bags.

"I heard you guys fighting last night," he offered.

Sam shot him a glare with a scoville rating over ten thousand.

"I'm cool," Adam said, raising both palms. "Just wanted to know if I could help."

"Not unless you can make us remember again," Sam said.

"Hm." Adam laid a hand on his back, just beneath the collar. "It'll come back. You know, I'd hate to lose all those memories, even temporarily. You two are pretty close. Remember?"

No. Sam closed his eyes. He was still grasping at straws, even if now it seemed like the gaps were filling in. There were still enough questions.

After a moment Adam pulled back, grinning off at the woods. "So, are we ready to hunt this wendigo?"

"Wendigo?" Dean swaggered back into camp, scowling at everything. "What are we doing, reruns?"

"Or whatever it is," Adam said. "Fearsome creature of the woods. Why we're out here in the first place."

"After breakfast. Long as Sam didn't take all the powerbars." He shot Sam a dark look, which Sam returned.

"I hate those things."

-

They were in the woods for the entire day without appreciable luck; they uncovered almost no tracks or spoor, and two of the three bedding areas turned out to be turkey nests. (The third was the remnant of a dry creekbed.) Nothing jumped out at them, literally or figuratively.

Though, it was odd that about halfway through the hunt, Adam vanished.

By the time night had fallen, Sam and Dean were tired and cranky enough to split up themselves, Dean resorting to shooting a hare and cutting it in half just to see if whatever-it-was would be attracted to fresh blood.

Sam was circling around one of the larger trees, shining his flashlight along the ground, when the branches above him groaned. He froze.

"Give me back my tail," said a voice like woven fans.

Sam spun. A lump of darkness detached from the night around it, landing on his chest with a thump that drove him to the ground, knocking his gun away. Long claws spidered across his shoulders.

"Dean," he called, and two yellow eyes opened above him. The creature repositioned itself, shifting from hindfoot to hindfoot on Sam's hips, and its claws glinted in no light at all.

"Give me back," it whispered, voice the same breathy murmur, "my taily-po."

Were it not for the six claws suddenly and violently introduced to his stomach, Sam would have started laughing. He screamed instead.

He could hear Dean crashing through the underbrush, see his flashlight before he got his arms up to protect his face and felt the thing rip at him again. It tore open his arms and moved to his sides, hindclaws tearing at his shins and feet. He got one hand against its face and it whined, batting him away.

A creature, then, not a demon or a spirit--he pushed it up, earning a few split seconds to reach for his gun.

"Sam?"

He didn't get a shot off. The thing dug its feet into his ribs, pushing into a leap that took it careening into Dean and sent them both careening into a tree. Sam grabbed his fallen flashlight, sweeping it across their assailant.

Long limbs, coarse black fur, yellowed eyes. Bloody stump where a tail should have been. It was tearing at Dean with curved claws, moving too fast for him to shoot it off. A fine mist of blood was catching the light. "Dean!"

"Shoot it!" Dean's yell was punctuated by cloth ripping, skin tearing, and the beast whispering my tail my tail my tailypo give me back my tail my tail now.

"Get it off you!"

"Does it look like I'm not trying?" Dean writhed under it, catching its strikes on his arms. "Dammit, Sam!"

Sam aimed.

A second later it gave him all the clean shot he needed as it leapt at him, and took one bullet to the chest just as it landed with its teeth around his neck.

"Sam!"

Sam felt his head go back, felt its teeth break the skin, felt warm blood roll across the skin. He hissed air out, trying to get the pistol back up when the creature jerked back and howled, cutting across the sound of a gunshot. Two more cut across the sound of its scream.

It rolled off, dragging itself toward the trees, only to be stopped by a barrage of weaponsfire from both pistols. Sam rolled to his hands and knees as Dean approached it, turning it over with one foot and checking that it was dead.

Corpse ascertained, he holstered the gun and hopped to Sam. "You all right?"

"Scratched up a bit," Sam said, checking the cuts on his neck against the back of his hand. "You?"

A second later a flashlight was shining in his face, and Dean was turning his chin from side to side. "We should get cleaned up," he said.

-

They made it to camp in a running stumble, supporting each other and losing track of whose blood was trickling down their arms. By the light of flashlights they broke into the medkits and performed a triage, hissing as alcohol hit raw wounds and giving no quarter as they cleaned each other up. It was a good thing they packed the equivalent of an ambulance in first-aid supplies.

"I'll tell you one thing," Sam said. "That monster wasn't a wendigo."

"No, not even close." Dean glanced over his shoulder, dropping his voice. "And who mistakes a tailypo for a wendigo, anyway? I know we have more class than that."

"Who breaks formation?" Sam asked. "We still haven't seen Adam. And I'm pretty sure there's no cell reception out here."

"Yeah. No kidding." Dean stood up, and yelled "Hey, thanks for leaving us out there to die!" at the woods.

"We didn't do too bad," Sam said.

Dean chuckled. "Which is good, because if I got killed by something called a tailypo, I would so wind up haunting these woods."

"You don't think Adam--" Sam started.

"Tailypos don't make more than one kill a night," Dean said. "If it killed him, it wouldn't have come after us."

"How'd you know that?"

"Dad must've hunted one once," Dean said, offhandedly. He blinked. "...something like that."

Sam paused. "Your dad?"

"...hunted," Dean confirmed. "Yeah. Sure I mentioned it before."

"Can't remember," Sam said.

"Yeah, that doesn't say much, braincase," Dean said. "Just glad you remembered your way around a pistol. I thought, the way it sounded--"

"Surface cuts," Sam said, fastening a butterfly clip. "Lots of noise and blood, but--"

"Sounded worse than it was," Dean agreed. "Anyway, you still only have about three inches of you that's not torn up."

Sam's entire body was aching, even while his system was pumping him full of endorphins and the adrenaline of the fight hadn't yet worn off. "Three?" he asked. "There are three?"

"Yeah, well--"

Dean shoved the last of the bandages back into the pack, turned off his flashlight, and grabbed Sam's shoulders.

"Hell with all that," he said.

He shoved Sam back, sending the two of them stumbling into the tent, bearing him down in a controlled tackle.

They went for the hearts first, hands and lips on chests and necks, seeking out a pulse, looking for proof they were alive. Then it was flesh, and muscle, and warmth, and need, and this time they didn't stop until they were spent and breathless and the cold night air was cooling the sweat on their skin.

"How did we do this before?" Dean asked, as they were pressed against each other in the corner, fixing the bandages which had been chafed loose. He shook his head, pressing one gash closed again and wrapping the gauze around the wound. "'cause I know one thing. You? Not being dead?" He flashed a grin in the direction of Sam's left hip. "Fuckin' turn-on, man."

Sam grunted. "Name give things that don't turn you on."

"Adam," Dean began, without thinking. "Demons. Especially those big slimy ones, and the ones with all the sulphur--"

Sam had to laugh. "Adam makes the top of your list?"

"Ehh. Something about his eyes."

"You're complaining about somebody's eyes?" Sam asked.

Dean looked up. The sheer amount of white visible around his pupils was a little unnerving. "What?"

"Nothing." Sam laughed.

"We don't need him," Dean said. "He's the third wheel from hell. Don't you ever think we could do this alone?" He leaned in. "Two of us. Like it should be."

"Yeah, maybe," Sam said, mostly for the sake of peacekeeping. He was about to bring up the times Adam had been invaluable, but still couldn't remember any. Dean was right: he didn't feel necessary.

"You and me," Dean said, but he sounded less certain that time.

He rolled over, pulling in a corner of the sleeping bag. "It doesn't add up, does it?" Sam asked.

"Go to sleep, Sammy," Dean said. But the question was in his tone as well.

-

Adam showed up the net day while Dean was going through the things in the Impala's front seat. He'd just made it onto the third page of a suspiciously truncated journal when Adam tapped on the window, barely allowing it to stand as a courtesy before opening the door and dropping into the seat. "Still alive, then?"

"Could say the same to you," Dean said. "What happened yesterday?"

"I got lost," Adam said. "What are you doing?"

"Ahh." Dean shrugged it off. "Nothing. Looking through my stuff. Cleaning stuff up. You know."

"Looks clean to me," Adam said.

"I can't find half my stuff."

Adam looked taken aback. "Like what?"

"Just stuff," Dean said. "Notes, papers, things. There should be a box of fake IDs in here."

Adam gave him an odd look. "We don't keep them, Dean. Do you have any idea how much trouble we'd be in if anyone ever searched the car?"

"Yeah, and we wouldn't be in trouble if they found the great pile of weapons in the trunk?" He flipped the glove compartment closed and opened it again, shuffling through papers and candy wrappers and at least two parts of purloined library books. "And we won't be in trouble if they turn up in the trash and someone ID's us? They should be here, okay, I'm not that crazy."

Adam reached over to him. "You're having a bad day," he said. "Guns we can pass off, impersonating Homeland Security is serious. We burn the IDs."

"Will you stop touching me?" Dean snarled, slamming the compartment shut. Adam removed his hand, and Dean groaned. He pushed the heels of his palms against his eyes, exhaling. "Maybe I am going insane."

"We all have our bad days," Adam said.

"Yeah. Whatever." Dean dropped his hands, and stared at the dashboard.

"What is it?" Adam asked.

"Nothing. It's nothing." He wiped away a smudge on the speedometer.

"Dean, come on." Adam shifted closer. "I'm the one you talk to."

"I don't need to talk."

"But when you do--"

"I talk to Sam, all right?" Dean said. "And he doesn't go all touchy-feely on me. Not as bad as you do, anyway."

Adam's voice dropped to a minor key. "You fuck him, you don't talk to him. I'm the one you tell things to, Dean, you can tell things to me."

Dean stared. Whatever warped universe Adam had been living in for the past few years, it was totally at odds with his gut and whatever portions of his brain were deigning to weigh in. Adam was--yeah. Adam was a friend. Something. Good third person to have in a fight, anyway, but Dean didn't need a confidant and even if he did, Adam wasn't it.

"Get out of my car," he said.

Adam rolled his eyes. "Dean--"

"Get out of my car or I'll jack you in the face," Dean said, making a fist. "And you know I will."

Adam's eyes hardened, as if he was considering fighting back just for the hell of it. Just as Dean was about to make good on the threat Adam pulled the doorhandle, sliding out of his seat.

"It's not gonna last forever, Dean," he said. "You'll get your memories soon enough."

"Yeah, yeah." Dean said.

"You going to stay here for a bit?"

"And put together my car, yeah," Dean shot. "This thing's a goddamn mess."

-

In camp, Sam was going through their packs--two packs, like the two bags, the two rooms. It was easy to tell which was his and which was Dean's--and Adam was smaller than either of them, and there was nothing sized to fit him.

"I guess now is the time to start explaining," Adam said.

Sam spun. Adam was approaching from the hill, looking like he knew too much. "You shouldn't exist," Sam said--it wasn't quite right. But something was wrong.

"It was the blood, wasn't it?" Adam asked. "Cleaning each other up. You've probably been doing that since your dad started taking you out with him."

"Dad?" Sam asked. "What dad?"

"It can happen," Adam said. "One specific image, or smell, or sound, with ties far enough back. Reasserts the old memories. You start seeing all the contradictions. And you start to wonder." He circled around the firepit, keeping eye contact like he was approaching a low demon. "Dangerous thing, wondering."

"What are you?" Sam asked, backing away. Adam was routing him toward the forest, but close enough that he couldn't risk a glance behind him.

"I just want to live, Sam." Adam spread his hands. "Don't you? Is that so wrong? Don't I have as much a right as you?"

"You screwed up our memories," Sam said. "Made us believe--"

"We were good, weren't we?" Adam's tone rose. He ducked his head, using tactics Sam could recognize from his own persuasive arsenal. "The three of us? Us friends?"

"Except we weren't ever friends, were we?" Sam asked. The texture of the ground changed under his feet; small twigs snapped where he stepped. He stretched out his hands, lowered his center of gravity. "You made us believe that."

"It's a living," Adam said.

Sam dropped another few inches, letting his fingers skip across the ground until they hit a branch.

Gotcha.

Adam must have seen him grab it because he lunged, reaching out and snarling. Sam swung, snapped the branch across Adam's ribs and then Adam was on him, hands on his face, force-feeding images into his mind except that they weren't just memories any more. These ones hurt.

These ones were about fire and watching his friends burning, watching his hands burning, watching liquid flame crawl up his arms and blacken the skin. There were about Dean tied up and tortured and his father--their father--being ripped apart by unseeable demons, about feeling hate well up inside so hot and so hard that he pointed a gun at his brother and pulled the trigger, about Dean pushing him down and pushing his shirt up and pushing himself over him--

He fell and Adam followed, pulling him in and cradling him. "We could have been friends," Adam said, running his fingers back behind Sam's ears. "But I think the time for that's passed, now."

He couldn't even scream. Didn't have the presence of mind to try--Adam ceased to exist, replaced by a knife in his hands as he cut his girlfriend across the stomach, a swelling bruise as his father hit him across the eyes, Dean's hands closing on his throat and twisting his arm up above his head.

"Remember this?" he asked. "And I was always there for you, and I held you just like this, and I made it better, Sam, me--"

"Not in my version," Dean said, and Adam looked up into his fist.

He let go of Sam, hitting the ground as Dean drew a pistol.

"See, I should've thought of that," Dean said. "I should've thought of that first. I'm a good driver. Got a memory like an elephant. None of what you were telling me made sense, and that's one of the marks of your kind of demon."

"Dean--" Adam began.

Dean pulled something out of one pocket, keeping the pistol leveled at Adam's face. "Newspaper clipping," he said, letting it drift down toward him. "That town, about five miles back. Spate of couples, murdering each other. Remembering fights that never happened. And some just drive off into the woods for no reason and get torn up in the night. So what's your story?" He curled his second hand around the gun again. "Hate couples? Got a grudge against this town? Or is this just for shits and giggles?"

Adam wiped a hand across his mouth. It came away bloody. "You people," he said. "You don't get it."

"Yeah, we don't really need to. Bye, Adam."

"You can't!" Adam yelled, an instant before he fired. "I mean you can't."

"And why the hell not?" Dean snapped.

"Please," Adam said.

"Not a good reason," Dean said.

Adam pushed himself up, expression changing. "You're going to remember me," he said, bloody grin aching across his face. "You won't have a choice. And as long as you remember me I'll exist in some way--"

"Yeah, and what happens if I shoot you in the face?" Dean cocked the gun. "The way I see it--"

He didn't finish the sentence. His eyes darkened, his jaw tightened, and he pulled the trigger instead.

Adam's head snapped back and his entire body flickered, like a convulsion, like a ghost. Dean shot again and Adam screamed--a sort of full-body decompression shriek as whatever composed him dissolved.

"I'll remember you dead," he said, flipping the safety back on and sliding the pistol into the waist of his jeans. "Sammy, you all right?"

Sam answered by rolling over and vomiting into the brush.

"What did he make you see?" he asked, and didn't give him time to answer. "Well, whatever it was, it wasn't real, okay? Come on." He reached out, clapped Sam on the shoulder.

Sam recoiled. It wasn't a reasoned response, it was conditioned--whatever Adam had left in his brain acted up, made him hit Dean's hand away. "Don't touch me."

Dean's jaw tightened. "I'm going to tear down camp," he said. "Start the car. You okay to make it back there on your own?"

Sam swallowed. Acid and bile still coated his mouth, and his heart was still skipping beats. He nodded.

"Right." Dean wasn't convinced, but he wasn't making any special effort to stick around. "Holler if you need anything."

He walked away at a doublestep. Sam rolled onto his back, blinking, staring up through the branches toward the sky.

-

He lay there until the noise from camp faded away, and pulled himself up when he heard the Impala's engine. He picked his way up the hill slowly, on legs that felt steadier than they should have been. Any moment, he was sure, he was going to collapse into a shuddering heap.

They drove to the cheapest, nearest motel they could find, where Sam only managed to convince Dean not to get two rooms by reminding him how unwise it was to split up. On the way, Dean turned the radio up so loud that it was impossible to hear the lyrics, let alone say anything. He kept his eyes glued to the road.

In the room, he picked a bed and dumped his pack out onto it, picking the first thing he could sharpen and going to work on it. Sam listened to the even scrape, scrape, scrape of the knife against the whetstone until he couldn't take it any more. "Dean!"

"What?" Dean asked, not looking up.

"Do you think--" Sam shook his head. "Think maybe we should talk about what happened?"

"What's there to talk about?" The rhythm of the scraping sped up. "Our job, we run these risks. Demons screw with you. Play mind games. It happens."

"What, that's it?" Sam choked. Images were welling up at the back of his mind again, things he didn't believe but couldn't stop seeing. "It's that easy for you? You don't need any sort of--anything? Reassurance? External validation?"

"I didn't say easy, I said it happened," Dean shot back, "and no, I don't, because I know what's happened and what--"

"How?" Sam asked. "He was in our memories, Dean, how--"

"Because I know me," Dean said, "and I know you, and I know--"

He stalled out. Sam raised both eyebrows. "Adam?"

Dean inhaled. Licked his lips. The knife stilled for a moment, before he resumed sharpening. "Look," he blurted, getting the words out as fast as he could, "if you need to talk I'll listen, but if you don't mind, Sam, I'd rather not look at you right now, seeing as how last night I--"

He looked up for a second, eyes white and wide, and went back to his knife.

Sam turned away. One good thing about this place: plumbing meant running water meant glasses of water, and his mouth was getting dryer by the minute.

"Adam manipulated our memories," he said, spitting vitriol through his words. "He made us believe things that weren't real." And if that were true, maybe it hadn't happened at all. Certainly not the way he remembered it. Couldn't have.

"Yeah, well, that doesn't make it any less creepy, okay? If anything--"

"What, it's worse that it wasn't us?" Sam exhaled once, hard. "You get used to demons and their sick senses of humor, and--"

"And I can't get it out of my mind!" Dean yelled back.

A line of ice went down Sam's spine. "You're not still--?"

Dean didn't give him a chance to finish. "No! God, no," he said, and the tempo of blade against stone upped another notch. Sam didn't believe him, and couldn't suppress the stab of fear that went straight to his gut when he realized it.

He could have killed Adam again, for that. He never wanted to feel that way about anyone, especially not Dean. Not his brother.

His fingers raked the bedsheet. "That knife is going to be useless if you oversharpen it."

Without warning, Dean whipped it across the room into the wall. Then he collapsed, hanging his head.

"Things got so screwed up," he said. "I shouldn't have let it go that far wrong."

Sam looked from him to the knife in the wall, trying to return his heart to normal beating patterns. "How were you going to stop it?"

"I don't know. I just should have."

For a moment, the only noise was their breathing.

...which was apparently too much. Dean grabbed the shotgun and the workcloth, disassembling the former. "What did he make you see?" he asked. His voice was oddly flat.

Sam shook his head. "Nothing," he lied, then, when he realized it was obvious as a lie, he said "Jessica."

"You all right?" Dean asked.

Sam gave the only possible answer. "Yeah. Fine."

Neither of them believed it.

Sam rolled over, burying his face in the pillow. Everything still ached.

"Sammy," Dean began.

"Don't." Sam wasn't sure what he was warning Dean off, but he said it anyway. "It's not our fault."

"Yeah," Dean said. "Yeah. I know."

The rhythm of the gun, coming apart and being cleaned out, lasted them on into the night.

-

Sam didn't sleep. After an hour or two of tossing and turning he just gave up, lying still on the bed and staring at the woodgrain pattern on the wall.

A few hours in, just when he was drifting, he heard Dean shift on the other bed and pick his phone from the table between them. It was easy to recognize the series of keys denoting their fathers' autodial, and easier to count the moments it took to ring and ring and cut to voicemail.

Their father's voice was soft and distant, filtering out of the phone speaker. Dean's, when he spoke, was rougher, shaking. "Hey, Dad, it's me. I--"

He stopped. Sam closed his eyes, wondering what he could possibly plan on saying.

Dean apparently didn't know, either. He ground his teeth, moving on the bed and dropping his voice. "Look, I screwed up. Pretty bad this time. Missed something pretty important, and--" He paused. Exhaled. "--Sam got hurt. He's still not telling me most of it. I just, if you get this--" Pause. Shift. "God, I don't even know where to begin. But, your journal. That memory-eater thing. We killed it, but it got us both." Pause. Shift. Exhale. Sam was sure he heard him steady his breath; when he spoke again, his voice was rougher. "Look, Dad, if you get this, call me. Okay? Please."

He hesitated before he hung up, and even then it was another minute before he replaced the phone on the table.

Sam kept quiet. Kept still. It was easy enough to play dead, and Dean wouldn't want to know he was awake, anyway.

It was one of the rules of the job: sometimes, you didn't get rescued. Sometimes, rescues came too late. What their father--theirs, not Dean's, not someone nice and safe and removed--was going to do about any of this, Sam didn't know.

Maybe it was for external validation. Tell us what to believe.

Dean rolled over. Sam could nearly feel him staring at the back of his neck. He wanted to say that everything was fine, would be fine, had been fine, wanted to wrap it all up in that nice, safe denial. Nothing could change now, so why not just push it all away? His throat closed up.

"Sam?"

He closed his eyes tighter. Played dead. Nothing to say, no way to say it.

Dean exhaled. "Yeah," he muttered, rolling over again. "Me too."

Moments passed.

"I'm sorry."

Sam didn't make a sound. Dean grabbed the covers on his own bed, digging in. Trying to last the night.

- end -

"I wouldn't forget me. Honestly I'm a bit offended." Hee!

I absolutely love Dean being all 'Pfft, we may be amnesiac, but I don't see why we shouldn't have sex. THERE CANNOT BE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THIS PLAN.' Oh, Dean.

I find the 'oh, yeah, and Adam disappeared. MOVING ON' far too amusing.

Sam and Dean were tired and cranky enough to split up themselves

DO NOT SPLIT UP. SPLITTING UP IS ALWAYS A BAD IDEA.

I am actually wincing at the fight with the Tailypo. Ouch.

Dean stood up, and yelled "Hey, thanks for leaving us out there to die!" at the woods.

Have I mentioned that you write a very good Dean? And "You? Not being dead?" He flashed a grin in the direction of Sam's left hip. "Fuckin' turn-on, man." is brilliant.

I love "Will you stop touching me?" Dean snarled. ADAM'S WORST ENEMY: A MAN WHO DOES NOT LIKE BEING TOUCHED BY PEOPLE WHO ARE NEITHER FEMALE NOR FAMILY.

Also, Adam is so creepy.

I really, really like using tactics Sam could recognize from his own persuasive arsenal.

"Not in my version," Dean said, and Adam looked up into his fist.

ASKFJHGDGDJGDKH OH MAN I AM FLAILING SO MUCH THEY ARE THE WINCHESTERS AND THEY SAVE EACH OTHER AND I LOVE THEM

"Yeah, we don't really need to. Bye, Adam."
"You can't!" Adam yelled, an instant before he fired. "I mean you can't."
"And why the hell not?" Dean snapped.
"Please," Adam said.
"Not a good reason," Dean said.

Seriously, it's a shame you don't like Dean, because you are amazing at writing him.

Sam recoiled. It wasn't a reasoned response, it was conditioned--whatever Adam had left in his brain acted up, made him hit Dean's hand away. "Don't touch me."

Oh, and this distresses me so much. And, of course, it reminds Dean of what happened, and why do I have this simultaneous adoration and hatred of Winchester-angst?

"Look," he blurted, getting the words out as fast as he could, "if you need to talk I'll listen, but if you don't mind, Sam, I'd rather not look at you right now, seeing as how last night I--"

Oh, hearts. Dean and his guilt is a wonderful thing.

Augh, it is so horrible when there's awkwardness between them!

It was easy to recognize the series of keys denoting their fathers' autodial is a really lovely detail. And oh, oh, boys.

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This may be the roughest thing I've written in three months. ...actually, it felt good.

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Re: This may be the roughest thing I've written in three months. ...actually, it felt good.

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Re: This may be the roughest thing I've written in three months. ...actually, it felt good.

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Re: This may be the roughest thing I've written in three months. ...actually, it felt good.

Re: This may be the roughest thing I've written in three months. ...actually, it felt good.