#flashbacks whump

His head starts to ache more with every single word, the pain working like tendrils behind his eyes, a pressure trying to crush his skull from the inside. Something flashes, bright and almost like a spectrum of rainbow colors, in the corner of his right eye, but it won't resolve when he turns his head.

I got home from work, I told you we had a hot customer who gave me her number, and then... then what?

Jameson stares into darkness so complete it feels like it has weight. Like it's sitting on the bed next to him, like the mattress dips underneath it. A body made of memory, slowly pulling together the pieces of what's been hidden. Clawing them out but leaving deep weals across the inside of his mind, like a corpse's fingers digging into loose dirt to climb out of his grave.

"Caitlyn," He whispers, as the thought crystallizes. A memory, pure and perfect. Some sliver of whatever they broke the person he was into. Some small piece of the man who signed up. "Her name was Caitlyn, not Katie. She... wrote it on the fucking paper."

Right! Okay, so, clearly I told you her name, and then what?

Jameson turns his head, and there he is.

Hank.

His breath catches in his throat.

Hank is younger than he is, even though he was older then. The older brother, trapped in time, while Jameson - Jonathan - keeps aging. The rakish smile is still there and, Christ, Jameson had forgotten that he'd done that stupid thing to his hair - you forgot everything about him, you begged them to take him away from you so that it wouldn't hurt anymore. He's still got that one crooked tooth he'd refused to get braces to fix. That crooked tooth had been in his dental records. It was how they identified his body.

The fucking crooked tooth, the silver-colored fillings, then the DNA tests...

"No," He whispers, going for a vicious hiss, but what comes out is far too close to a whimper. "No. This is-... this is a flashback. This isn't real, this isn't-"

Maybe I left it in yesterday's pants?

"This isn't real, fuck off." Jameson shoves himself off the bed, forgetting his stupid fucking legs don't work. His knees buckle as soon as they have to take his weight.

He lands wrong on one arm and the pain spikes up through his shoulder, making him cry out in the hoarse, rasping voice that his life has left him with. "Fuck!"

He rolls onto his side, but he can't stop himself.

He looks up again. He doesn't want to remember Hank but he's desperate for one more look at his face. Just the one more time.

Just once more.

Hank sighs, raking a hand back through his hair, leaving it mussed-up and sticking out, looking ridiculous. He did that all the time. Bit his nails, too, and tried everything to stop but he never did. He wore those jeans with the ripped knee all the time, their mother had hated it. Hank, wearing the t-shirt for the band they'd gotten concert tickets for but never got the chance to see. Hank, dead for years, smiles to one side at a brother who isn't there.

The brother who erased him.

"Hank," He whispers. "Hank, you gotta-... you gotta go. You're hurting me-"

Damn. Man, it wasn't in my jeans either. Well, I'll find it sooner or later, I guess. Hank shrugs. His eyes are in shadow, not quite defined. Jameson wonders if it's because he's forgotten what color his brother's eyes were, forgotten it deeply enough that even this can't pull it back.

It'll be okay, Johnny. It really will. Hank looks right at him. Jameson's breath catches in his throat. The room is so cold the air burns as he breathes. It never gets this cold in California. It can't be this cold in California. I mean it. Don't cry yourself to sleep over this.

"I cried myself to sleep... all the time, but I don't now. I'm not-... that guy." He can barely speak. He sees his breath puff out when his lips move, and Jameson slumps back. His voice cracks, it creaks like old floors. He didn't stop crying for weeks. He didn't leave his bed. He did any drug he could find trying to not think about Hank, until he realized there was only one way to make sure he never had to think about what he'd done, by letting Hank walk home alone that one night, again. He didn't want to think about that pain anymore.

They had promised him he wouldn't ever have to hurt like this again.

They lied about that, too.

Jameson makes a sound he refuses to admit is a choked-off sob. "I'm not him, Hank. I'm not Johnny... not anymore."

Hank stands, and it's impossible. He's not here. But he holds out his hand anyway, and Jameson takes it without thinking. Hank's grip is so cold it burns, but Jameson lets his dead brother pull him to his feet anyway.

He smells like earth and ice.

"I'm not him," He whispers.

Right, like that argument ever works. Hank just grins, shaking his head. The man Jameson was - the one he had begged to leave behind - is the reason Hank will look like this in his memories forever. He's the reason there isn't another Hank, only this one, locked in the memories he wanted to boil and burn out of his own head. They're still there, though. They break through.

They never stop breaking through.

He would crawl back into Robert's cage himself if it only meant he didn't have to remember that it's his fault Hank is dead.

Tears run hot down his cheeks - the only thing in him that isn't frozen is his grief, wildfire in his chest leaving nothing but ash behind. Forests after wildfires are ghosts, Hank said once, when they were both high and everything sounded fucking important.

Jameson had called him an idiot - he remembers that now. But... he also thinks Hank was right. He closes his eyes as tightly as he can, focusing. He isn't here. Hank cannot be here. "I don't remember... remember you-... I don't want to remember you! It was my choice to forget!"

Hank claps him on the shoulder. His smile goes briefly gentle and soft. Jameson can see it with his eyes closed. Whatever you say, man. Just promise me you'll call Mom sometime soon, okay?

The pain is too much. If he can't pass out soon, he might die just from having to experience it, unending, never stopping, rising higher and higher. "Mom...?"

Yeah, dumbass. Mom. Our mother? Who gave birth to us and never lets us fucking forget it? I keep trying to talk to her, but I guess my signal's bad. Hank laughs, and Jameson's whole body breaks with the sound of that familiar laughter. The way Hank could throw his head back without the slightest bit of self-consciousness, how he'd hear that laugh across a crowded room and know it was his brother's, know right where he was.

Until he didn't.

Until nobody did.

Until the cops found what was left.

Until-

Jameson jolts again, and finds himself still lying on the floor next to his bed. He's burning up, boiling hot, pouring sweat until his sleep shirt sticks to his back and his arms feel slick with it, his hair sticking to skin. A droplet trickles down the back of his neck like a fingertip, barely touching. He rips his shirt off, then his pants, throwing them as far away from himself as he can, until he's naked on the floor but it isn't enough.

He's still sweating, still breathing in harsh gasps, fighting around the strength of his racing heart to get enough air to fill his lungs. He looks frantically around, but no one's here.

The ceiling fan circles lazily overhead.

He takes in a breath, his heart pounding. It feels like it's going to grow wings and fly away, up his throat and out of his mouth. He's still crying, he realizes only now. He closes his eyes as tightly as he can and fights tears back through sheer willpower and rage, curling his hands into fists. Just like they used to be, his fingers know - muscle memory of mittens that had kept him powerless, once. Now, he does it on purpose, and he forces them to curl through the pain.

Forces down the dream.

Wills himself to forget he ever had it.

"Four... f-four things you can see," he whispers to himself, slumping back down. His voice keeps trembling, catching, and it's everything he has to open his eyes again around the pounding headache in his skull and look. "The-... moon. Out the... window. The, my dresser... for my clothes... M-My, uh, the picture Nat p-printed of me and Allyn... fuck, the... the doorknob."

Every time he thinks he knows how much of his body can hurt at once, some nerves he didn't know existed decide to join the party. He has to breathe in and out, slow and controlled, trying to will his body to cooperate. He won't walk tomorrow, he can tell already. It'll be a day to spend in bed, or using his wheelchair. It might be a week until his body lets him walk again.

He fights back a new well of rage and despair at how well he knows the next way his body will fail him. He can't think about that right now, or the pain and the panic will spiral out of control. He might hurt someone. He can't hurt anyone, not ever again.

He won't.

"Three... things I can touch," He murmurs. "My, my... my shirt, fuck, gross, sweaty... my... my hair... the floor, feels... cold, feels good... the corner of my bed..."

It helps. He makes himself focus on this, on real things, not the nightmare of his brother.

He won't remember his brother.

He won't.

"Two things I can hear. Uh, the, there's... crickets or something outside, and-... and I can hear-"

Hank's voice whispers right next to his ear.

Call Mom.

His breath hitches.

"Not real," he whispers. "One... one thing I can taste..."

All he tastes is blood, and for one horrified half a second he's sure it's Hank's blood, until he realizes he bit his tongue in his sleep.

The blood is his own.

Call Mom.