With Spit and a Prayer 2/?, Adult
Title: With Spit and a Prayer 2/?
Rating: Adult
Pairing/Characters: Dean/Sam
Warnings: References to rape, incest, suicide. Angst out the wazoo.
Notes: Follow-up to Passenger, and yeah, you gotta read that one first.
Disclaimers: Don't own.
Spoilers: 2x01
Summary: The real tragedy is not the act itself, but the mess it leaves behind.
Chapter one here.
With Spit and a Prayer, Chapter Two
----
Two Days
----
Dean hadn’t slept for 74 hours, and he was starting to see things crawling up the walls. It didn’t help that he couldn’t keep any food in his stomach. It didn’t help that every time he looked up he could see Sam watching him, concerned, like it was Dean that needed taking care of. It didn’t help that every time he closed his eyes, he heard his brother’s voice, desperate and bewildered. Please, Dean, don’t.
“Found a job,” Sam announced. They were staying in some hole-in-the-wall place in Wisconsin. Sam had asked yesterday, asked and asked where they were going, but Dean had just been intent on getting as far away from Mississippi as possible, because maybe if there were lumber forests instead of bayous, the Great Lakes instead of the Atlantic, then this could all be over. But Sam had found a job, found a job, and Dean knew that over was never going to happen.
Sam was looking at him expectantly. The swelling over his eye and nose had gone down a little now, and he was able to see better. He still looked enough like crap that Dean wasn’t letting him check in at motels or buy food at gas stations, though. He told Sam it was because you gotta look trustworthy when you’re pulling credit card fraud. He didn’t tell him about his fear that people would look at him, at them, and just know.
After all, Sam didn’t even know himself.
“Dean?” Sam prompted. “You wanna hear about this job, or what?”
“It’s too soon,” Dean said.
Sam stared at him. “Too soon after what?”
Dean sat on the bed and took a long swig of his coffee. Caffeine wasn’t helping too much any more. Maybe he should think about getting hold of some uppers. “You just got beaten half to hell two days ago,” he said. “You gotta give yourself some time to recover.”
Sam looked incredulous. “It’s just a few bruises! I can’t believe you’re making such a big deal out of this.”
Dean looked away. Sam said he didn’t remember what had happened, but he hadn’t asked about it. That was weird, right? If Dean had woken up with a broken nose and a face that looked like the Elephant Man, he’d have wanted to know how he had got that way. But Sam hadn’t asked, and Dean hadn’t told.
“Dean,” said Sam, breaking into his thoughts again. “What’s with you, man? Why are you acting like this?”
Dean took a deep breath and ignored the shadow grinning wickedly at him from the corner of the room. “I’m just tired, is all. Can we just drop it?”
Sam leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and going for that earnest expression of his, which the reduced mobility of his face couldn’t quite manage. “Well, yeah, you’re tired. You know, you don’t have to stay up with me all night just in case I have a nightmare. I can handle it.”
Dean doubted that Sam even knew how many nightmares he’d had in the last couple of days, but Dean knew. Dean had counted every one in the scars on his palms and the bile in his throat. Fourteen times, and Sam had stopped waking up fully now, just stared blankly until Dean managed to soothe him back to sleep, the sweat on his forehead cold against Dean’s trembling hands.
“Hey!” Sam said, snapping his fingers. “Seriously, man. I’m worried about you. You’ve got to get some rest.”
“I’m fine,” Dean snapped, because how could he tell Sam the reason that he couldn’t close his eyes? Dean had accumulated a lot of material for nightmares in the last twenty-three years, but for the first time in his life he was afraid to sleep.
Sam sighed. “Look,” he said, “I’m going to go pick up some groceries. You just...” he frowned. “Just try and sleep, OK? Please? You’re starting to scare me.”
Dean could only stare as Sam left the room and the shadows closed in.
----
Sam was freaked out. Something seriously weird was going on with Dean, and he had no idea what it was. He’d gone through possible causes a hundred times in his mind - it wasn’t an important anniversary, they hadn’t been on a particularly traumatic hunt, Dean hadn’t been injured or sick. So why was he acting so bizarrely?
It had started a couple of days ago. That was the night Sam got beaten up, but Dean hadn’t been hurt, had he? But when Sam had playfully jostled Dean on the arm yesterday, he had immediately put about three feet of space between them. In fact, the only time he could remember Dean touching him since this all started was when he woke him from nightmares, and even those touches were barely-remembered, wrapped up in a fog of crippling fear of something that Sam couldn’t even see. Had someone done something to Dean? Hurt him in some way that made him afraid to be touched? But if they had, when could that have happened?
Sam didn’t have the answers to any of those questions, and thinking about them was intensifying his headache. He would pick up groceries, and then he would go back and Dean would be sleeping, and everything would be OK. When Dean woke up, he would want to know about the job, and life would be back to normal.
People stared at him in the store, but Sam didn’t care. He remembered there was a time when he used to worry about how people saw him, what they thought. Right now, though, he just felt tired and worried, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching him. He wanted to get back to the motel room, back into Dean’s orbit, because for the last few days he’d been feeling inexplicably unsettled every time his brother was out of his sight. He was worried about Dean. That was all there was to it. Because there was no reason for him to be so nervous.
----
Dean had never felt anything so good as being inside his brother. Sam was so tight, slicked up with blood, and his struggles just succeeded in moving his ass against Dean’s cock in a way that made stars burst behind Dean’s eyes. Dean bit his lip and groaned with the absolute ecstasy of the moment, and Sam said Please, Dean, don’t.
Dean grinned down, and the terror he saw in Sam’s face just made the pleasure in his belly all the richer. Sam, he whispered. You’ll thank me for this one day. Then he reached out his hands to Sam’s throat. Sam choked once, and then grabbed Dean’s shoulders, shaking him.
“Dean, wake up!”
Dean opened his eyes with a start to see Sam’s concerned face hovering inches from his. He pushed back, falling off his chair and scrambling backwards across the floor. “Get away,” he yelled before he could manage to contain himself.
Sam took a step back, raising his hands in submission. “It’s just a dream, Dean, it’s OK. It’s OK now. You’re awake.”
Dean breathed heavily, shaking his head to try and fend off the wisps of the nightmare. Except wasn’t a nightmare meant to terrify you? Dean didn’t feel terrified, he felt. He felt.
Oh God, he felt turned on.
He moved sharply, jumping to his feet and turning, anything to hide the evidence of his arousal from Sam. “I’m gonna take a shower,” he mumbled, and was in the bathroom slamming the door before Sam even had time to reply. Stripping off his clothes, he turned the water on hard enough to mask the sounds of him retching. Even when there was nothing in his stomach left to throw up, though, his dick was still hard.
Dean climbed into the shower, shutting off the hot water and biting back a yell as the icy spray hit his flushed skin. He tried to think of something that would put all thoughts of sex right out of his head. Mrs. Llewelyn, his third grade teacher. The way a zombie’s head exploded in rotting brains when you shot it at point-blank range. The look his brother got when he was hurting bad.
Shit, that had just made it worse. What the hell was wrong with him?
After twenty minutes of freezing water had failed to do anything but make Dean shiver violently, he gave up and jerked off roughly, gritting his teeth as he came and trying to ignore the images that flashed through his head.
----
Six Days
----
“Let’s go to a bar,” Sam said.
Dean looked over sharply. Sam was concentrating on the road ahead, and in the flickering glare of headlights passing them the fading bruises on his neck stood out in sharp relief. “Tonight,” he said. “Let’s go to a bar. We haven’t had a beer together for ages.”
Dean shook his head. “You make it sound like we’re old college buddies. We spend all our time together, Sam.”
Sam shrugged. “Well, we’re gonna spend tonight together whatever happens. Might just as well be in a bar as staring at the walls in a motel room.”
Dean considered. They’d been on the move for six days, travelling as far as they could before stopping for the night. On the fourth day, Sam had stopped looking for jobs in the newspaper and started staring at Dean like he was going to break any minute. On the fifth, he had stolen the keys out of Dean’s jacket and refused to give them back, saying that if Dean wouldn’t sleep and wouldn’t tell him what the hell was going on, he was sure as hell not going to let him drive. Dean couldn’t help but acquiesce, because Sam might be starting awake several times every night terrified by some nameless threat, but Dean was sleeping less than three hours a night and waking up at the slightest provocation, and all his pride wasn’t going to be much help if he drove them into a tree.
“Earth to Dean,” said Sam. “Come on, man. One beer.”
And maybe, after all, beer was a good plan. Maybe beer would help him sleep without the threat of dreams. “OK,” he said. “Let’s go.”
----
The bar was dingy and crowded, the air thick with music and smoke. Just the way Dean liked them. Sam, however, was not nearly so much in his element. He felt jumpy, like everyone was looking at him, sizing him up to work out how best to take him out. He knew it was stupid, that he was being ridiculously paranoid, but he couldn’t help himself. He fought down the desire to ask Dean if they could leave, though. They’d only just got here, and Dean looked almost relaxed for the first time in a week. If it would help with whatever the hell was bothering him, then Sam was happy to deal with a little discomfort. Besides, he was just being stupid.
He took a sip of his beer and smiled at Dean across the table. In the smoky light, his brother looked almost normal, if you ignored the dark shadows under his eyes. “Not such a bad idea after all, huh?”
Dean almost-smiled back at him. “Not like you to enjoy the wild life, college boy.”
Sam felt his grin broaden. That was the most Dean had sounded like himself in days. He wondered if this whole thing, the distance, the not-sleeping, the spending hours in the shower, was just cabin fever brought on from too much time worrying about Sam and his nightmares. He hated the way that sometimes Dean gave so much of himself and Sam felt he had nothing to give back. It was such a relief to finally find something he could do to make his brother happy.
He stood up. “I’ll get another round,” he said, making for the bar. As soon as he had his back to Dean, though, he felt his spine crawling. People pressed in around him, and although he was the tallest there, he felt claustrophobic and trapped.
Someone hit him hard on the back, and he spun, immediately falling into a defensive stance, his heart-beat speeding up crazily.
“Hey, watch it,” the guy said. “You nearly spilled my drink.”
Sam started to relax, laughing at himself for being so paranoid, when suddenly the guy jerked backwards and was flung against a table.
By Dean.
“You stay the hell away from him,” Dean growled, pulling back to throw a roundhouse at the guy, and Sam jumped forward, grabbing his elbow.
“Dean, for God’s sake,” he yelled over the hubbub of voices. “He wasn’t doing anything.”
Dean jerked his arm away like he’d been burned, glaring at Sam, his eyes bloodshot and bright with rage (or maybe fear). “Stay out of this, Sam.”
“No, I will not stay out of it,” Sam growled. “We’re leaving. Now.” And he grabbed Dean by the coat and started to pull him through the crowd.
----
By the time they got outside, Dean was ready to go back in and drink himself into a stupor. The last thing he needed now was an argument with Sam, or worse, a heart-to-freakin-heart. Looked like he wasn’t going to get a choice about it, though, because Sam turned to face him and hissed “What the hell was that about?”
Dean scowled. “That guy was being an asshole.”
“No he wasn’t! He wasn’t doing anything!” Sam yelled. “Man, I just don’t get what is with you!”
“Nothing’s with me,” Dean muttered. “It just looked like he was giving you a hard time, is all.”
Sam closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. “Look, you have got to tell me what’s going on here,” he said. “Please, Dean, don’t shut me out like this.”
Dean felt his ears begin to roar. “What did you say?” he whispered.
Sam gave him an odd look. “I mean it. You’re really scaring me here.” But Dean didn’t hear him, because all he could hear was Sam’s voice saying please, Dean, don’t. He swallowed hard and took a step back, and Sam reached out for him, putting a hand on his arm, and that was more than Dean could stand, the sorrow and concern in Sam’s eyes like Dean was somehow the victim in all this, when Sam’s face and neck were still bruised, Sam was waking up every night incoherent with terror, and it was Dean who had done it, Dean.
“Don’t freakin touch me,” he growled, pulling sharply away from Sam’s grasp. “Don’t freakin come near me.”
Sam took a step back, looking hurt and worried. He stood for a moment just staring at Dean, and Dean looked away, looked down at his feet, at the cigarette butts littering the asphalt, at anything so he wouldn’t have to see his brother’s face. Behind them, music oozed out of the bar, loud enough that Dean almost didn’t hear what Sam said when he next spoke.
“Did I do something?”
Dean blinked a couple of times, still not raising his eyes. For some reason the question didn’t seem to make any sense. “What?”
“This,” Sam said, making a broad gesture. “All this. Is this something to do with me? Did I do something wrong? Because God, Dean, if I did I’m sorry, OK? Just tell me how to fix it.”
Dean did look up at that, totally incredulous. Typical Sam, always ready to blame himself. “Jesus, no. This has nothing to do with you.” Except where it has everything to do with you. “It’s me, OK? It’s my fault. It’s my problem.”
“What’s your fault?” Sam sounded honestly confused. “Does this have something to do with me getting beaten up last week? Because seriously, man, I’m fine. Just a few bruises. I’m sure you did your best to protect me and kicked whatever did it right back to hell.”
It was more than Dean could take. “For Christ’s sake, Sam, would you listen to yourself? ‘Whatever did it’? Don’t you even want to know? Don’t you care how you ended up that way? I mean, Jesus, you were freakin raped--” he stopped suddenly, his tongue stumbling, throat frozen, hearing the echoes of the word that had run through his mind a hundred thousand times in the past week, but that he had not once said out loud. Not like this. Jesus, I didn’t want it to come out like this.
“I was what?” Sam asked, and Dean knew that he couldn’t lie now, couldn’t take it back, because it was Sam, it was Sam, and he had a right to know.
“Raped,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “You were raped.” I raped you.
Dean didn’t know what he expected. Maybe that Sam would cry, would punch him, would be terrified. He didn’t expect him to freakin laugh. He stared in utter astonishment, and all he could think of to say was, “Dude, it’s not funny.”
Sam shook his head, wiping his hand over his face. “Dean, that’s crazy. Why on earth would you think that?”
Dean felt his jaw drop. “Because... it’s true?”
“No,” Sam said, but not in the kind of desperate, miserable tone of someone denying something they knew was the truth. He just sounded surprised. “That never happened. Don’t you think I would know?”
“Sam...” Jesus, what the hell was this? “You don’t even remember. I was there.” I was there.
“I’d remember that. Come on, is this really what’s been bothering you all week? You really think you saw me being raped? It must have been a trick of the light or something, dude, you should have said something earlier.”
Dean’s mouth opened and shut, but no sound came out. He remembered the heat of his brother’s body underneath him, around him. A trick of the light.
“Really,” Sam said, taking a step closer, all traces of amusement gone from his face now. “You should have told me, Dean. I’ve been worried about you.”
“What about the doctor?” Dean blurted, stepping back. This was bad, this was worse than he’d thought.
“What doctor?” Sam asked, and for a moment, Dean though maybe he’d forgotten that too. But then his face cleared, and he shrugged. “He was a quack. He didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.”
“What about the fact that your ass was freakin bleeding?” Just saying it made Dean want to throw up, but goddamn, Sam was really scaring him.
“What are you talking about?” Sam asked, looking honestly confused. Then his features shifted into concern. “Dean,” he said, biting his lip. “Do you think maybe you should... see a doctor?”
Dean laughed in disbelief. “Why the hell should I see a doctor? You’re the one who...” But he wasn’t going to say it. Not again.
Sam shifted from one foot to the other and looked away. “I don’t know, man, you seem so... I’m just worried you might be having, you know. Hallucinations. Or delusions. Or something. I just want us to be back to normal.”
Dean blinked. This was unbelievable. Seriously, he just could not believe it. Sam was acting like he was mentally unstable? He closed his eyes, but opened them sharply again when he saw Sam’s slack, lifeless body tattooed on the insides of his eyelids. Yeah, because having visions of raping your brother every couple of hours was the picture of mental health.
“Look,” Sam said gently, making as if to reach out to him but then stopping his hand before it reached its target, “we’re both tired, OK? How about we just go back to the motel, get some sleep, and talk about this in the morning. But Dean, you really need to sleep. I’m OK, man. Nothing happened to me.”
Dean didn’t have the strength to do anything but follow along, but that night, once Sam was safely asleep and before the inevitable nightmares set in, he looked up denial on the internet. And after some hesitation, he looked up delusions as well.
Chapter Three.
Rating: Adult
Pairing/Characters: Dean/Sam
Warnings: References to rape, incest, suicide. Angst out the wazoo.
Notes: Follow-up to Passenger, and yeah, you gotta read that one first.
Disclaimers: Don't own.
Spoilers: 2x01
Summary: The real tragedy is not the act itself, but the mess it leaves behind.
Chapter one here.
With Spit and a Prayer, Chapter Two
----
Two Days
----
Dean hadn’t slept for 74 hours, and he was starting to see things crawling up the walls. It didn’t help that he couldn’t keep any food in his stomach. It didn’t help that every time he looked up he could see Sam watching him, concerned, like it was Dean that needed taking care of. It didn’t help that every time he closed his eyes, he heard his brother’s voice, desperate and bewildered. Please, Dean, don’t.
“Found a job,” Sam announced. They were staying in some hole-in-the-wall place in Wisconsin. Sam had asked yesterday, asked and asked where they were going, but Dean had just been intent on getting as far away from Mississippi as possible, because maybe if there were lumber forests instead of bayous, the Great Lakes instead of the Atlantic, then this could all be over. But Sam had found a job, found a job, and Dean knew that over was never going to happen.
Sam was looking at him expectantly. The swelling over his eye and nose had gone down a little now, and he was able to see better. He still looked enough like crap that Dean wasn’t letting him check in at motels or buy food at gas stations, though. He told Sam it was because you gotta look trustworthy when you’re pulling credit card fraud. He didn’t tell him about his fear that people would look at him, at them, and just know.
After all, Sam didn’t even know himself.
“Dean?” Sam prompted. “You wanna hear about this job, or what?”
“It’s too soon,” Dean said.
Sam stared at him. “Too soon after what?”
Dean sat on the bed and took a long swig of his coffee. Caffeine wasn’t helping too much any more. Maybe he should think about getting hold of some uppers. “You just got beaten half to hell two days ago,” he said. “You gotta give yourself some time to recover.”
Sam looked incredulous. “It’s just a few bruises! I can’t believe you’re making such a big deal out of this.”
Dean looked away. Sam said he didn’t remember what had happened, but he hadn’t asked about it. That was weird, right? If Dean had woken up with a broken nose and a face that looked like the Elephant Man, he’d have wanted to know how he had got that way. But Sam hadn’t asked, and Dean hadn’t told.
“Dean,” said Sam, breaking into his thoughts again. “What’s with you, man? Why are you acting like this?”
Dean took a deep breath and ignored the shadow grinning wickedly at him from the corner of the room. “I’m just tired, is all. Can we just drop it?”
Sam leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and going for that earnest expression of his, which the reduced mobility of his face couldn’t quite manage. “Well, yeah, you’re tired. You know, you don’t have to stay up with me all night just in case I have a nightmare. I can handle it.”
Dean doubted that Sam even knew how many nightmares he’d had in the last couple of days, but Dean knew. Dean had counted every one in the scars on his palms and the bile in his throat. Fourteen times, and Sam had stopped waking up fully now, just stared blankly until Dean managed to soothe him back to sleep, the sweat on his forehead cold against Dean’s trembling hands.
“Hey!” Sam said, snapping his fingers. “Seriously, man. I’m worried about you. You’ve got to get some rest.”
“I’m fine,” Dean snapped, because how could he tell Sam the reason that he couldn’t close his eyes? Dean had accumulated a lot of material for nightmares in the last twenty-three years, but for the first time in his life he was afraid to sleep.
Sam sighed. “Look,” he said, “I’m going to go pick up some groceries. You just...” he frowned. “Just try and sleep, OK? Please? You’re starting to scare me.”
Dean could only stare as Sam left the room and the shadows closed in.
----
Sam was freaked out. Something seriously weird was going on with Dean, and he had no idea what it was. He’d gone through possible causes a hundred times in his mind - it wasn’t an important anniversary, they hadn’t been on a particularly traumatic hunt, Dean hadn’t been injured or sick. So why was he acting so bizarrely?
It had started a couple of days ago. That was the night Sam got beaten up, but Dean hadn’t been hurt, had he? But when Sam had playfully jostled Dean on the arm yesterday, he had immediately put about three feet of space between them. In fact, the only time he could remember Dean touching him since this all started was when he woke him from nightmares, and even those touches were barely-remembered, wrapped up in a fog of crippling fear of something that Sam couldn’t even see. Had someone done something to Dean? Hurt him in some way that made him afraid to be touched? But if they had, when could that have happened?
Sam didn’t have the answers to any of those questions, and thinking about them was intensifying his headache. He would pick up groceries, and then he would go back and Dean would be sleeping, and everything would be OK. When Dean woke up, he would want to know about the job, and life would be back to normal.
People stared at him in the store, but Sam didn’t care. He remembered there was a time when he used to worry about how people saw him, what they thought. Right now, though, he just felt tired and worried, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching him. He wanted to get back to the motel room, back into Dean’s orbit, because for the last few days he’d been feeling inexplicably unsettled every time his brother was out of his sight. He was worried about Dean. That was all there was to it. Because there was no reason for him to be so nervous.
----
Dean had never felt anything so good as being inside his brother. Sam was so tight, slicked up with blood, and his struggles just succeeded in moving his ass against Dean’s cock in a way that made stars burst behind Dean’s eyes. Dean bit his lip and groaned with the absolute ecstasy of the moment, and Sam said Please, Dean, don’t.
Dean grinned down, and the terror he saw in Sam’s face just made the pleasure in his belly all the richer. Sam, he whispered. You’ll thank me for this one day. Then he reached out his hands to Sam’s throat. Sam choked once, and then grabbed Dean’s shoulders, shaking him.
“Dean, wake up!”
Dean opened his eyes with a start to see Sam’s concerned face hovering inches from his. He pushed back, falling off his chair and scrambling backwards across the floor. “Get away,” he yelled before he could manage to contain himself.
Sam took a step back, raising his hands in submission. “It’s just a dream, Dean, it’s OK. It’s OK now. You’re awake.”
Dean breathed heavily, shaking his head to try and fend off the wisps of the nightmare. Except wasn’t a nightmare meant to terrify you? Dean didn’t feel terrified, he felt. He felt.
Oh God, he felt turned on.
He moved sharply, jumping to his feet and turning, anything to hide the evidence of his arousal from Sam. “I’m gonna take a shower,” he mumbled, and was in the bathroom slamming the door before Sam even had time to reply. Stripping off his clothes, he turned the water on hard enough to mask the sounds of him retching. Even when there was nothing in his stomach left to throw up, though, his dick was still hard.
Dean climbed into the shower, shutting off the hot water and biting back a yell as the icy spray hit his flushed skin. He tried to think of something that would put all thoughts of sex right out of his head. Mrs. Llewelyn, his third grade teacher. The way a zombie’s head exploded in rotting brains when you shot it at point-blank range. The look his brother got when he was hurting bad.
Shit, that had just made it worse. What the hell was wrong with him?
After twenty minutes of freezing water had failed to do anything but make Dean shiver violently, he gave up and jerked off roughly, gritting his teeth as he came and trying to ignore the images that flashed through his head.
----
Six Days
----
“Let’s go to a bar,” Sam said.
Dean looked over sharply. Sam was concentrating on the road ahead, and in the flickering glare of headlights passing them the fading bruises on his neck stood out in sharp relief. “Tonight,” he said. “Let’s go to a bar. We haven’t had a beer together for ages.”
Dean shook his head. “You make it sound like we’re old college buddies. We spend all our time together, Sam.”
Sam shrugged. “Well, we’re gonna spend tonight together whatever happens. Might just as well be in a bar as staring at the walls in a motel room.”
Dean considered. They’d been on the move for six days, travelling as far as they could before stopping for the night. On the fourth day, Sam had stopped looking for jobs in the newspaper and started staring at Dean like he was going to break any minute. On the fifth, he had stolen the keys out of Dean’s jacket and refused to give them back, saying that if Dean wouldn’t sleep and wouldn’t tell him what the hell was going on, he was sure as hell not going to let him drive. Dean couldn’t help but acquiesce, because Sam might be starting awake several times every night terrified by some nameless threat, but Dean was sleeping less than three hours a night and waking up at the slightest provocation, and all his pride wasn’t going to be much help if he drove them into a tree.
“Earth to Dean,” said Sam. “Come on, man. One beer.”
And maybe, after all, beer was a good plan. Maybe beer would help him sleep without the threat of dreams. “OK,” he said. “Let’s go.”
----
The bar was dingy and crowded, the air thick with music and smoke. Just the way Dean liked them. Sam, however, was not nearly so much in his element. He felt jumpy, like everyone was looking at him, sizing him up to work out how best to take him out. He knew it was stupid, that he was being ridiculously paranoid, but he couldn’t help himself. He fought down the desire to ask Dean if they could leave, though. They’d only just got here, and Dean looked almost relaxed for the first time in a week. If it would help with whatever the hell was bothering him, then Sam was happy to deal with a little discomfort. Besides, he was just being stupid.
He took a sip of his beer and smiled at Dean across the table. In the smoky light, his brother looked almost normal, if you ignored the dark shadows under his eyes. “Not such a bad idea after all, huh?”
Dean almost-smiled back at him. “Not like you to enjoy the wild life, college boy.”
Sam felt his grin broaden. That was the most Dean had sounded like himself in days. He wondered if this whole thing, the distance, the not-sleeping, the spending hours in the shower, was just cabin fever brought on from too much time worrying about Sam and his nightmares. He hated the way that sometimes Dean gave so much of himself and Sam felt he had nothing to give back. It was such a relief to finally find something he could do to make his brother happy.
He stood up. “I’ll get another round,” he said, making for the bar. As soon as he had his back to Dean, though, he felt his spine crawling. People pressed in around him, and although he was the tallest there, he felt claustrophobic and trapped.
Someone hit him hard on the back, and he spun, immediately falling into a defensive stance, his heart-beat speeding up crazily.
“Hey, watch it,” the guy said. “You nearly spilled my drink.”
Sam started to relax, laughing at himself for being so paranoid, when suddenly the guy jerked backwards and was flung against a table.
By Dean.
“You stay the hell away from him,” Dean growled, pulling back to throw a roundhouse at the guy, and Sam jumped forward, grabbing his elbow.
“Dean, for God’s sake,” he yelled over the hubbub of voices. “He wasn’t doing anything.”
Dean jerked his arm away like he’d been burned, glaring at Sam, his eyes bloodshot and bright with rage (or maybe fear). “Stay out of this, Sam.”
“No, I will not stay out of it,” Sam growled. “We’re leaving. Now.” And he grabbed Dean by the coat and started to pull him through the crowd.
----
By the time they got outside, Dean was ready to go back in and drink himself into a stupor. The last thing he needed now was an argument with Sam, or worse, a heart-to-freakin-heart. Looked like he wasn’t going to get a choice about it, though, because Sam turned to face him and hissed “What the hell was that about?”
Dean scowled. “That guy was being an asshole.”
“No he wasn’t! He wasn’t doing anything!” Sam yelled. “Man, I just don’t get what is with you!”
“Nothing’s with me,” Dean muttered. “It just looked like he was giving you a hard time, is all.”
Sam closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. “Look, you have got to tell me what’s going on here,” he said. “Please, Dean, don’t shut me out like this.”
Dean felt his ears begin to roar. “What did you say?” he whispered.
Sam gave him an odd look. “I mean it. You’re really scaring me here.” But Dean didn’t hear him, because all he could hear was Sam’s voice saying please, Dean, don’t. He swallowed hard and took a step back, and Sam reached out for him, putting a hand on his arm, and that was more than Dean could stand, the sorrow and concern in Sam’s eyes like Dean was somehow the victim in all this, when Sam’s face and neck were still bruised, Sam was waking up every night incoherent with terror, and it was Dean who had done it, Dean.
“Don’t freakin touch me,” he growled, pulling sharply away from Sam’s grasp. “Don’t freakin come near me.”
Sam took a step back, looking hurt and worried. He stood for a moment just staring at Dean, and Dean looked away, looked down at his feet, at the cigarette butts littering the asphalt, at anything so he wouldn’t have to see his brother’s face. Behind them, music oozed out of the bar, loud enough that Dean almost didn’t hear what Sam said when he next spoke.
“Did I do something?”
Dean blinked a couple of times, still not raising his eyes. For some reason the question didn’t seem to make any sense. “What?”
“This,” Sam said, making a broad gesture. “All this. Is this something to do with me? Did I do something wrong? Because God, Dean, if I did I’m sorry, OK? Just tell me how to fix it.”
Dean did look up at that, totally incredulous. Typical Sam, always ready to blame himself. “Jesus, no. This has nothing to do with you.” Except where it has everything to do with you. “It’s me, OK? It’s my fault. It’s my problem.”
“What’s your fault?” Sam sounded honestly confused. “Does this have something to do with me getting beaten up last week? Because seriously, man, I’m fine. Just a few bruises. I’m sure you did your best to protect me and kicked whatever did it right back to hell.”
It was more than Dean could take. “For Christ’s sake, Sam, would you listen to yourself? ‘Whatever did it’? Don’t you even want to know? Don’t you care how you ended up that way? I mean, Jesus, you were freakin raped--” he stopped suddenly, his tongue stumbling, throat frozen, hearing the echoes of the word that had run through his mind a hundred thousand times in the past week, but that he had not once said out loud. Not like this. Jesus, I didn’t want it to come out like this.
“I was what?” Sam asked, and Dean knew that he couldn’t lie now, couldn’t take it back, because it was Sam, it was Sam, and he had a right to know.
“Raped,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “You were raped.” I raped you.
Dean didn’t know what he expected. Maybe that Sam would cry, would punch him, would be terrified. He didn’t expect him to freakin laugh. He stared in utter astonishment, and all he could think of to say was, “Dude, it’s not funny.”
Sam shook his head, wiping his hand over his face. “Dean, that’s crazy. Why on earth would you think that?”
Dean felt his jaw drop. “Because... it’s true?”
“No,” Sam said, but not in the kind of desperate, miserable tone of someone denying something they knew was the truth. He just sounded surprised. “That never happened. Don’t you think I would know?”
“Sam...” Jesus, what the hell was this? “You don’t even remember. I was there.” I was there.
“I’d remember that. Come on, is this really what’s been bothering you all week? You really think you saw me being raped? It must have been a trick of the light or something, dude, you should have said something earlier.”
Dean’s mouth opened and shut, but no sound came out. He remembered the heat of his brother’s body underneath him, around him. A trick of the light.
“Really,” Sam said, taking a step closer, all traces of amusement gone from his face now. “You should have told me, Dean. I’ve been worried about you.”
“What about the doctor?” Dean blurted, stepping back. This was bad, this was worse than he’d thought.
“What doctor?” Sam asked, and for a moment, Dean though maybe he’d forgotten that too. But then his face cleared, and he shrugged. “He was a quack. He didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.”
“What about the fact that your ass was freakin bleeding?” Just saying it made Dean want to throw up, but goddamn, Sam was really scaring him.
“What are you talking about?” Sam asked, looking honestly confused. Then his features shifted into concern. “Dean,” he said, biting his lip. “Do you think maybe you should... see a doctor?”
Dean laughed in disbelief. “Why the hell should I see a doctor? You’re the one who...” But he wasn’t going to say it. Not again.
Sam shifted from one foot to the other and looked away. “I don’t know, man, you seem so... I’m just worried you might be having, you know. Hallucinations. Or delusions. Or something. I just want us to be back to normal.”
Dean blinked. This was unbelievable. Seriously, he just could not believe it. Sam was acting like he was mentally unstable? He closed his eyes, but opened them sharply again when he saw Sam’s slack, lifeless body tattooed on the insides of his eyelids. Yeah, because having visions of raping your brother every couple of hours was the picture of mental health.
“Look,” Sam said gently, making as if to reach out to him but then stopping his hand before it reached its target, “we’re both tired, OK? How about we just go back to the motel, get some sleep, and talk about this in the morning. But Dean, you really need to sleep. I’m OK, man. Nothing happened to me.”
Dean didn’t have the strength to do anything but follow along, but that night, once Sam was safely asleep and before the inevitable nightmares set in, he looked up denial on the internet. And after some hesitation, he looked up delusions as well.
Chapter Three.