Chapter Text
“Do you think she’ll wake up any time soon?” I hear muddily through the haze of unconsciousness.
“I don’t know, Dean. She’s been out for quite some time now,” another voice answers.
“I’m amazed she’s even alive at all. Last time you got thrown by a demon you were out of commission for a week,” the first voice smirks.
“Not willingly and you know it,” the second retorts.
“Oh, Sammy, you liked lying in bed all day and you know it. Hey, I think she’s waking up.”
My eyes begin to flutter open, and I instantly regret opening them at all. Light stabs into my pupils, forcing me to squint. There’s a dark ceiling above me. The room smells musty and old and I can hear the bed springs creak beneath me as two large men lean toward me, sitting on either side of the bed.
“Hey, hey sunshine!” the first man nearly shouts. I wince and try to sit up. Pain shoots through my arm and shoulder, all the way down to my ribs. I suck in a surprised gasp and quickly look down. My arm is strapped to my chest, and my bare skin from the bra down is covered in an ace bandage.
“Whoa, whoa, easy,” the second man insists. The first things I notice about him are his long brown hair and gentle expression. His hand reaches out to my good shoulder and gently pushes me back against the pillows. “You got hurt pretty badly. Take it easy. Here.” He hands me two white pills and a glass of water.
The other guy - who was also attractive, but with short hair - chuckles at my defensive face. “Relax,” he chides, “It’s just Tylenol.” He nods toward the nightstand where a bottle sits. I shake my head and hand the pills and water back to him. I try to hide the pain of it by gritting my teeth.
“Trust me,” the one with long hair says, “You need them.” He pushes them back into my hand. I sigh and take them reluctantly. The water that rushes down my throat is more refreshing than I expect, and all too soon the glass is empty. I frown at it.
“Here,” the first one says, taking the cup out of my hand. “I’ll get you more water.” He shoots a quick look at the long-haired guy and steps into another room.
The long haired one clears his throat and asks me, “Do you remember anything?” He says it gently. I look at him, really look at him, and my breath catches in my throat. He’s beautiful. Long, chestnut hair coming down to just above his shoulders. His sharp jaw is covered with day-old stubble. Light brown eyes search my face. His expression is concerned.
I suddenly realize that he had asked me a question. “Uh, um…” I stammer, feeling my cheeks heat. I quickly scan my memories, but I can’t remember anything before I woke up. I can’t even remember my name. My eyebrows knit together and I chew on my lip. “I don’t remember anything…”
He sighs. “Well, I’ll give you the basics then.” He places a hand on his chest, introducing himself. “I’m Sam, and that’s Dean, my brother.” The other man walks back into the room then. God, now that I could breathe and think, he’s beautiful too. His light brown hair is cut short, showing the angles of his face. His features are masculine, but there is some kind of model-like perfection to him. His eyes are green and his shoulders broad.
“Here,” Dean says, handing me the refilled glass. I took it eagerly and started to drink.
“She doesn’t remember anything,” Sam tells his brother.
“Shit,” is Dean’s only response.
“Can someone please tell me exactly what the hell is going on?” I huff. The boys eye each other, having a silent conversation. Dean turns to me, sitting down on the bed. He takes a deep breath, trying to find the right words.
“Do you know your name?” Sam asks, noticing Dean’s loss for words.
I try to search my mind again. Blurry, colorless pictures flit by. Smells I can’t name, sounds just too quiet to hear. But for as long as I look, I can’t find my name. “No. I- I don’t remember anything,” I say in quiet defeat.
They both sigh. “Y/N,” Dean says, “Your name is Y/N.”
At the sound of my name, I can see some color in the blurry photos. Nothing significant, but color nonetheless. Blue. The color of the sky, the ocean, my favorite stuffed animal as a child. The name feels right to me. My face breaks into a grin. “My name is Y/N,” I repeat.
Sam and Dean both mirror my smile, though Sam’s is wider. He’s quick to ask, “Did that jog my memory at all?” His eyes search mine, his gaze intense. It feels like he was looking into my memories for me.
My smile fades. “No, nothing else came up,” I say quietly. Sam’s face falls and he looks at his hands. His shoulders slouch. I ache to comfort him, yet I have no idea why. I don’t know this man; I’d just met him. I don’t even know what his last name was. But maybe I knew him before I’d forgotten everything.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Dean pipes up cheerfully. “It’ll come back eventually, right?” I give him a tight-lipped smile. I really hope he’s right.
Later that night, I still haven’t remembered anything. The pictures remain mainly colorless, save for the occasional pop of blue. The brothers and I go to the nearest town, Lawrence, and eat at a little mom-and-pop diner with a 60’s theme. I’m nibbling on a BLT, and I barely notice Dean wolfing down a cheeseburger. My eyes are secretively glued to Sam, who is eating a house salad with grilled chicken and reading the local newspaper. His jaw clenches and relaxes occasionally. A time or two, his eyes meet mine. The gorgeous brown is infused with sadness and confusion, yet I can’t figure out why.
Sam and Dean are quiet when we get back from the diner. Dean parks his sleek, black Impala next to a hill with a brick arch set into it. A heavy metal door sits the bottom of a set of concrete stairs.
“What is this place?” I ask. Sam watches me carefully, as if waiting for something.
“Why don’t you find out?” Dean says as he pulls out a little golden box and slides the face of it off. He hands me an old skeleton key. I look at him curiously and slide the key into the lock and turn it. I step inside first, too curious for my own good.
I walk in, and I’m sent back in time. The floor on which I walk overlooks a lower level. There’s a table with a backlit map right below where I entered. Cast iron bars shield me from falling forward. The whole room is all marble and metal and iron and hard wood. I walk down the stairs, amazed by what I’m seeing. The technology in the room is old, ancient even. Its huge boxy qualities with various lights and gauges make me think it was circa the 1950’s.
I continue forward into another room full of books and a few hard wood tables in the center. I notice a line of odd symbols in the doorway. They weren’t drawn there but designed into the floor with different colors of stone. This place is beautiful. I run my fingers across the spines of books lining the shelves. One stands out to me, the spine embossed unlike the rest of them. I pull it out and read the title printed on the cover.
“Binsfield’s Classification of Demons?” I whisper incredulously. I whip around to look at the boys who are watching me closely. “Demons?!”
Dean stiffens uncomfortably and his brother clears his throat. “Y/N,” Sam says, walking over to me. He takes the book from my hand and sets it on the table. For a moment, it looks as though he wants to reach out and take my hand in his, but he resists. He continues speaking then. “Do you remember any stories about monsters? Like vampires, werewolves or ghosts? Anything like that?"
If not for his serious expression, I would be laughing. "Of course I do,” I joke, grinning, “Didn’t you read Twilight when it came out?”
Dean snorts. “No, sweetheart. We mean real monsters. Not a bunch of sparkling pussies.”
My smile fades. “But monsters aren’t real.”
“They are, and we hunt them,” Sam tells me gently.
I choke out a laugh. “So you’re saying you guys are Ghostbusters? That’s hilarious.” My tone is sarcastic. I put the book back on the shelf as I say it, but I don’t turn to face Sam again.
“Yeah, okay. I’m going to go get a drink,” Dean says. I can hear him grumbling under his breath as he walks away. “Ghostbusters my ass. There ain’t no way in hell a ghost is gonna get sucked into a vacuum.”
I sit down at one of the tables in the center of the room. I really hope they’re kidding, but I have the strange feeling they’re telling the truth.
“We’re not Ghostbusters exactly, but that’s a start,” Sam explains over his brother’s mumbling. I look down at the table in front of me. It’s covered in more of the too-weird-to-be-real books. I look at the page of a notebook that lies open. Shapeshifters is the first word that jumps out at me. I look around the page to the other things strewn about. Strange symbols and words I’ve never heard and passages in different languages. Scrap pages of notes are mixed with the study materials.
These guys must be crazy. What the hell are they talking about? I have to get away from them. There’s no way I’m safe around them.
“…all of this is real, we’ve been doing this our whole li- hey, where are you going?” I had jumped up from the chair and started running toward the door I entered in. I hadn’t heard a word Sam was saying.
“I need to get out of here,” I spit out, not looking at him.
“And go where, Y/N? You don’t even know where you are. You don’t really know who you are.”
“I don’t care. I’ll figure something out.” I start climbing the stairs.
“Y/N, wait,” Sam grabs my good wrist and before I can pull away, I stop mid-stride.
Red. The photos had gained another color at Sam’s touch. Blood covering Sam’s mouth; the throes of passion; love; the color of my favorite sleep shirt; my cheeks in the mirror.
The mirror?
I see Sam’s naked body pressing me against a wall. My red lips are parted in bliss.
I turn quickly to Sam, who still has his fingers wrapped around my wrist. I pull his face towards mine by the back of his neck. My lips crash into his, and warmth flooded my body. What surprise he feels quickly fades and his arms wind around my waist. He kisses me as if his life depended on it. I step backward and up a stair so he isn’t craning his neck so far. The kiss is hungry, passionate. His soft lips are familiar, and we move together as if we had done it a thousand times. Somehow staying gentle, he holds me so tightly against him, I could guess he was afraid I would disappear if he let go. His tongue dances with mine and my fingers knot into his brown hair.
“Sammy where did you put my- whoa. Hey now, get a room you two,” Dean’s annoyed voice rounds the corner. I jump back from Sam like we’re teenagers caught by our parents. “I take it she remembers?” Dean asks, both grossed out and pleased at the same time.
Sam looks at me, hopeful and out of breath. I stammer, “I- I don’t…” Panicked, I dart from the room down a hallway. I open a random door and close myself into the room, muffling the protesting voices of the boys. I press my back and palm to the cool surface of the door after quickly locking it. I can’t explain why I had kissed Sam. It had been an unplanned impulse. But I can’t shake the feeling that it had happened before. Many times before. I’d liked it, wanted it, and even standing here, I crave it. I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding. Taking deep breaths to steady myself, I look around the room.
The room is dimly lit by a lamp next to the bed. A water glass and a bottle of lube sit underneath it. I make a face at the latter and look around some more.
There are maps pinned to the walls, along with various notes and newspaper articles haphazardly stuck up next to them. It looks like a scene from a crime drama.
At this point, I can hear Sam knocking and asking to talk to me from the hall. But I’m too intrigued to humor him. Books are stacked in corners, on the desk, and on the dresser. I move toward the chest of drawers, focused on the framed photo sitting half behind a stack of papers.
My breath is shallow as I pick it up. Sam was in the picture with a woman. She’s wearing a simple white dress and Sam in a suit. Their hands are joined as they gaze lovingly at each other. The room is too dim to see her face clearly. Moving toward the bedside light, I peer closer. Her hair is a little shorter, but the same color as mine. With another look at her face, my face suddenly reflects back both in the photo and the light’s glare on the glass. I gasp and drop the frame, the glass shattering at my bare feet. I notice at that point there’s a silver band around my finger. I slip it off my confined hand with shaking fingers and inspect it. It’s a simple ring with a small diamond in the middle. Initials are engraved into the middle of it. “Y/I & S”
The room begins to spin. Y/I & S. Y/N and Sam. Married. To Sam. How can I not remember something like that? How long have we been married? My heart races. My hands shake. My breath becomes shallower and shallower until I’m not breathing at all. Panic surges through my veins. There’s no room for anything but panic.
“I’m sorry Y/N. You’ll feel better afterward.” I spin around barely in time to see a man with dark hair and piercing blue eyes press two fingers to my forehead. Then everything is nothing.
Sam’s voice is the first thing I hear. “Baby, I love you. Promise me you’ll remember that.” I feel him squeeze my hand and graze his thumb across my skin. “I miss you baby. I need you here. Really here. I’m so sorry I couldn’t get to you in time to kick that demon off you. Please come back.” His voice breaks at the next sentence, “You promised me you wouldn’t leave like everyone else has.” I feel a teardrop hit the back of my hand. “Please remember, Y/N,” he whispers. I feel my heart crack for him. Not quite to the point of breaking, but his voice breaking chisels little fissures into me.
I open my eyes and study him silently. His head is down, his brown hair shielding his face from me. He holds my hand in both of his and he presses a kiss to my knuckles. I squeeze him back involuntarily.
His head snaps up and my eyes meet his. They’re red and puffy. He’s been crying or trying not to. I swallow the lump that jumps into my throat, unable to explain why I feel his pain so deeply.
I’m the first to speak. I do nothing more than whisper his name. “Sam…”
He tucks his hair behind his ear and starts to reflexively rub circles into the back of my hand with his thumb. “I’m right here.” When I flinch my hand slightly from his, his shoulders droop. “I’ll let you rest. I’m sure you need time to think about all this.” He lets go of my hand and walks to the door.
“Don’t go,” I say hesitantly. I blush and avert my eyes to the foot of the bed. “Why can’t I remember anything? What happened?” I’m not sure why I’m not freaking out. I don’t understand why I’m not running from him or pushing him away from me. But maybe it doesn’t matter.
He sighs and sits back down in the chair. He looks at me for a moment that seems to last a lifetime, pleading me without words to remember.
“Why don’t I remember marrying you?” My wedding ring peers at me from my left hand in the sling.
He huffs in amusement. “You figured that out, huh?”
“It was hard not to when there’s a picture on the dresser,” I say, smirking at him.
“Yeah. I suppose.” He looks up at me. “Did you remember anything when Cas knocked you out?”
“Was that the guy with the insanely blue eyes?”
“That would be him.”
“Who is he exactly?”
“Try to remember.”
I think about the man for a moment. I gasp suddenly as every shade of brown floods my mind’s eye. The tan interior of the Impala. The mousy shade of brown hair Sam had grown out of. The beige of Castiel’s trench coat. The chocolates Sam brought me when my cramps were so bad that I couldn’t get out of bed.
I feel my eyes widening at him. “Y/N?” He asked, hopefully curious.
“I remember Sammy,” I whisper.
His eyes widen, mirroring mine at the use of his age-old nickname. “What do you remember?” His hand reaches for mine again.
“I remember how we met.”