#i rediscovered the frame and it grabbed me by the neck and choke slammed me to the ground

[mroddmod]

don't be weepy sleepy puppies

[sammys-happy-ending]

Desaturate: Chapter IX

Chapter Title: Hangover

Pairing: Sam Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 1882

Warnings: Amnesia

Summary: The reader wakes up in a room with Sam and Dean, not having a clue who they are. Through a series of flashbacks, the reader regains her memories, savoring all of the happy moments as well as the tragic ones, as she rediscovers her love for Sam.

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I walked down the stairs into the living room. Mom was passed out on the couch, again. Her glass of rum sat half-empty on the table. The TV was on, playing some 3 a.m. infomercial that no one ever watched. I shut off the TV, poured the rest of her rum down the kitchen sink, stashed the bottle back in the cupboard, and walked back to where she was on the couch. Next came the hardest part.

I nudged her shoulder. “Mom?” I said gently. She didn’t respond. I shook her gently, and she groaned a response. “Let’s get you to bed, mom. You don’t want to sleep here.”

She mumbled incoherently. I reached down to move her from her spot. Fortunately, she wasn’t a big woman. Slight in frame, and growing smaller from the constant drinking and malnutrition. Her eyes opened lazily and she got up unsteadily from the couch. Her room was on the main floor, which was incredibly helpful. She didn’t need to be reminded what room was across from mine upstairs. I helped her shuffle to her room and put her in her bed. After making sure the pillows were positioned so she wouldn’t wake up with a sore neck, I got the bottle of aspirin from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, and a glass of water. I placed it on the bedside table. I kissed her forehead, which reeked of alcohol. I ignored it. She would take a shower when she woke up. “I love you, mom,” I said gently as I turned off the light.

  I was barely awake, and it already hurt. There was a small, far away voice I could hear. It was garbled. A phone, maybe? “Dean, don’t do this,” a deeper, much closer, much louder voice rumbled. I inhaled sharply, both startled and in pain. Everything hurt. I was so freaking thirsty. My head killed. I heard a sigh, then the beep of an ended phone call.

“Hey, you’re awake,” the voice next to me said. I squinted in its direction, and a large, long haired man looked at me with a concerned expression. Sam. It was Sam. Somehow I was both comforted and disturbed by his presence. I rubbed my temples with my thumbs. “There’s aspirin in the glovebox,” he said, handing me a water bottle. I took the drugs out gratefully, unwrapping the plastic sealing from the new bottle, then slammed down the little white pills with a swig of water. “We can stop at the next truck stop if you want to shower,” he said. A sense of déjà vu came over me.

“Yes please, but I'm confused. What happened?” I asked. “I drove all day to come babysit you, then I saw you at the bar. I remember having a couple of whiskeys but then I can’t remember anything.” I finally expanded my awareness to my surroundings. I was in the passenger seat of my car, we were driving, and it was night.  There were no street signs that I could see.

“You got smashed, so I put you to sleep in the office of the bar just before closing. But right after I did, there were a bunch of hunters that had stopped by earlier and took the job I gave them. They-” he hesitated, “They attacked. Afterward, I knew I had to leave, so I grabbed you and your car and now we’re driving.”

“Why did they attack you?”

He sighed. “They interrogated a demon, and it told them about the demon blood thing. And the apocalypse. One of their hunters died.”

“Oh,” was all I could think to say. I could feel the aspirin beginning to work, so I examined Sam a little closer. He looked shaken, and yet there was a hardness to his face that I’d never seen before. “Are you okay?”

He hesitated so long I didn’t think he was going to answer me. “No,” he finally said, almost inaudibly.

“It was more than just a fight, wasn’t it?”

Sam nodded. “They tried to get me to drink demon blood again, went so far as to shove it in my mouth,” he said, his voice quietly containing the rage that was evident from the angry look on his face and the way his huge hands white knuckled the steering wheel. My car could barely fit him, and he looked like a caged animal pacing back and forth behind the bars.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

Sam didn’t answer.

We drove in silence for a few minutes, then something occurred to me. “You didn’t swallow the blood.”

He searched my face in the dim light. “Why do you say that?���

“Just the way you phrased it. They tried, but they couldn’t get you to do it, could they?”

Sam shook his head, a spitefully smug expression on his face. “I spat it in the guy’s face.”

“Good,” I said, satisfied.

Another minute of silence.

“Y/N? Can I ask you something?”

My brow furrowed. “Sure?” I said warily.

“You hated me before, but now were talking like civilized people, and you don’t seem to be upset with me anymore.”

“That wasn’t a question,” I skirted around the subject.

“Okay, why didn’t you like me at first?”

“That’s assuming that I like you now.”

He mumbled his reply, but I caught it anyway. “You convinced me otherwise last night.”

“What?! Did something happen last night?!”

He backtracked immediately. “No. You tried to get me to make out with you but I refused.”

This caught me off guard. “Why?”

His gaze snapped to me, incredulous. “Why? Because I’m not the type to take advantage of a drunk girl!”

“Oh,” I said brilliantly. Maybe I had misjudged him. He took care of me when I was drunk, without taking advantage, and even thought to buy me aspirin for the hangover.

After a moment of silence, he said, “You didn’t answer my question, you know.”

I sighed. He wasn’t going to let this go. I squared my shoulders and said curtly, “I didn’t like you because you implied that I was stupid and Ellen was a bad teacher. Simple.”

It was his turn to be caught off guard. “Wait, how did I imply that?”

“You assumed I didn't know anything about demons just because Dean said so. Ellen taught me a lot, and what she didn’t, Jo did. I already knew everything they did when you asked, and that’s why I was pissed.”

“Dean lied? Sounds like him.”

I huffed a laugh. “I’m sure he was just sending me to babysit you. Thus me saving your ass for the first time that day.”

He grinned and playfully punched me in the arm, then looked surprised at his action. “Shoot, I’m sorry.”

I shook my head, smiling. “It’s okay. You're growing on me.”

He searched my face, trying to find my change of heart there. When I didn’t look at him, he said, “What changed your mind?”

“I had to remember some things that I had locked away for years. Getting drunk last night brought them all back.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked me, concern evident on his face.

I shook my head and stared out the windshield. Maybe I would tell him my story eventually, but tonight was not the time. “So, circling back to the demon blood. Why did you start drinking it?”

Sam sighed. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. When I exorcised people, it didn’t kill the victim like the knife did. I was gunning to kill Lilith, and that was the clearest path. I didn’t know how to bring Dean back, even after trying to make deals with crossroads demons. I had to focus on something I could do.”

That made a lot more sense than I expected. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions, right?”

He scoffed at that. “I’m sure Dean would agree with that.”

Something dawned on me then. “Wait, how did Dean come back from hell?”

Surprised, he replied “We never told you?”

I shook my head.

“The angel, Castiel, brought him back.”

I choked out a laugh. “Angels? Really? I’m not falling for that.”

A much lower, gruffer voice retorted from the backseat, “No, he’s telling the truth.”

I whipped around in my seat, my hand instinctively reaching for my pistol. “Who are you?!” I yelled at him.

“I am Castiel, an angel of the Lord,” he replied matter-of-factly.

“What?!”

Sam laughs from the driver’s seat, “Y/N, it’s okay. This is who I was talking about. Cas, this is-”

“Y/N, yes. Daughter of an alcoholic mother and an absent father. Your mother and stepfather were killed by a werewolf 32 days ago. It’s nice to meet you.”

My jaw dropped. I looked to Sam, who happened to be the most familiar thing in the car at the moment. He looked both frustrated and annoyed. “Cas! You can’t just blurt personal info like that!”

“My apologies.”

“Well,” I said, clearing my throat, “it’s nice to meet you, too.”

Castiel nodded at me casually. “Sam, Dean needs you.”

“He seemed to need the exact opposite, actually,” Sam huffed.

“Dean is-” he searched for the right word, “stubborn. He wants to protect you, like he’s always done. But you two need to be together to fight Lucifer.”

During our conversation it was easy to forget that Sam had started the apocalypse. I was beginning to see him in a different light now. Not as an ignorant, childish and destructive threat to mankind, but a misguided man with a big heart and good intentions. The latter of the personalities was much more appealing to me, like a puzzle whose pieces needed to be put back together.

“It’s not that simple, Cas,” Sam defended.

“Sam, just go to him,” I said.

“Did you not just hear me?” He shot back.

I piped up, “If anyone knows about screwed up families, it’s me. But you know what else I know? That there’s nothing you can’t come back from.”

“Y/N is right,” Castiel agreed.

Sam sighed. “Fine. Where is he?”

“He’s about to be in Waterville, Maine.”

“About to be?” I ask.

I’m answered by silence, and when I turn around, Castiel is gone. “What the hell?” I mutter.

“You’ll get used to it. How far is Waterville from here?” Sam asked.

I pulled up the town on my GPS. “About six hours.”

We both glanced at the clock which read a little after three am. “You get some sleep, okay?” Sam said gently. “I'll wake you when I find a truck stop with a shower you can use.”

My heart sputtered at his kindness. “You don't want to take a break from driving?”

“With the hangover you've got, I think I'm better off doing the driving,” he chuckled.

I shrugged. “Fair enough.” I settled down into my seat and rested my head against the window. I dreamt effortlessly of Sam that night, my senses full of him and the familiarity of my car. I would wake briefly to notice his Carhartt jacket draped over me, my body warmed by corduroy and the scent of him.

I would look back later and identify this as the moment I began falling in love with Sam Winchester.