The Woods are Lonely, Dark and Deep
19. The Frayed Ends of Sanity
Hudak is coming round, spluttering, and Bobby sits her with her head between her legs before he stumbles away, hollering.
She looks up and he's about ten feet away from the window that looks into the room where Sam and Dean are. The glass has exploded, and tongues of flame are greedily reaching out to the breeze, feeding on its life-giving oxygen.
And Bobby sinks to his knees, crying out, their names, she thinks.
She pushes herself up onto her feet, walks over beside him, sits next to him, dazed. He collapses forward onto his hands, his face in the grass, and he sobs.
The fire roars its rage at Sam like some wild animal, licking out at him, pinning him down with one searing hand while it reaches out the smashed window and up to the heavens with myriad others. He heaves himself up, knows he needs to act now, doesn't quite remember why.
He reaches out, pats the air, finds the end of the bed-frame, and it seems like days, weeks, years pass by as he feels his way along the bed to his brother. Squinting through the smoke, he sees the oxygen mask, places it on Dean's slack face, twists the valve. His brother lifts a vague hand and makes feeble circles in the air.
The oxygen mask, Sam's brain says, patiently. The oxygen mask is attached to the oxygen tank.
Yep, the oxygen tank, he thinks stupidly.
Yes, Sam, says his brain, in the long-suffering tone it uses so often with his brother. The oxygen tank smack-bang in the middle of a fireball, and doh, his brain facepalms, prissy now. Do not expose oxygen to extreme heat or a naked flame, Sammy!
Fuck.
Sam rips off the mask, hauls Dean's limp body up into a sitting position, ignoring his brother's goggle eyes and the bullet wound, hefts him over his shoulder, thanking God he's a lightweight these days, and staggers to the door. He yelps as he grabs the doorknob, snatches his hand back from its boiling heat, can already feel blisters bubbling up on his palm. He wraps his hand in his shirt-tail, pulls the door, recoils from the blast of heat and billowing smoke.
Jesus. Bad idea, and he kicks the door closed on the towering inferno, wonders confusedly if a towering inferno can even happen in a single floor house, has enough sense to realize his mind is wandering because of the smoke.
He leans over the bed, drops his brother back down on it, hauls the oxygen tank into the bathroom as far out of reach of the flames as he can, and parks it in the shower. He tears his shirt off, thanks Christ the well pump is still operating as he soaks the fabric until it's dripping and rips off one of the sleeves, wrapping it around the lower half of his face to cover his nose and mouth.
He stumbles back into the bedroom on time to see the first flames catch the bed, the pillows combusting with a flash. He heaves Dean down onto the floor, sees his eyes snap open and spin around as his back and head impact on the hard surface, fumbles to wrap the rest of the wet shirt around Dean's face even though his brother's eyes are staring at him in obvious dismay and confusion.
He mutters a steady mantra as he pulls Dean up onto his shoulder again, "It's okay, it's okay," but his voice is so muffled he's afraid it might actually be scaring his brother rather than reassuring him. Again with the door, hand well padded with the end of his tee this time, and even though only a minute-and-a-half at the most has passed since his first attempt, the hallway is like a duststorm screwing a tornado on the fourth of July: a willful, whirling cloud of smoke, soot, cinders, sparks, flashes, crackles and bangs.
Left or right?
Think.
He lurches to the right, feels the heat crisping his eyeballs, smells the acrid scent of burning and knows it's his own hair being singed. He doesn't even know if Dean is conscious, hopes he isn't as he staggers along, lurching into the wall as he goes, yelping as its boiling heat burns his arm.
He sways and loses his balance, hits the wall again, feels his brother's body pad him and nudge him back off like he's the eightball bouncing off the cushions on a pool table, Dean's skin being flame-grilled on the scorching surface in the process. And he feels Dean's body pad him again and break his fall when his foot catches in something and he crashes down, seeing stars and then blacking out completely.
Bobby's quiet now, sitting watching the house burn, and they both fall back reflexively as a small explosion, followed by a much larger burst, blows a hole through the roof above the bedroom and brings tiles raining down around them.
The oxygen tank, Hudak thinks bleakly, looking up to where the flames are lighting up the sky now.
She leans over. "We should go. This must be visible from town and the police are probably on their way."
Bobby says nothing, just stares.
Hudak stands, pulls him up and he doesn't resist. "We have to go," she tells him. "Come on."
He's pinned down, his throat is burning hot and his face is covered by something damp clamped over his mouth. Hand… holding in his cries.
He tries to buck Lee off, jerking his body with all the force he can muster, yelling out his protest and hammering his fists on his brother's back. "Get off me! You don't do this to me, you sick fuck," he hears himself shout. "Fuckin' monster! Kill you, you sonofabitch…"
His fury lends him strength and he pummels Lee, flings him off, races out of reach, to safety, and lives happily ever after.
Sam comes around with a jolt, hears soft whispery cries and gasps, finds himself flopped over his brother, who's doing the half-naked pretzel underneath him and making the barest shaking motion under Sam's greater bulk.
Sam is dazed, watches the fingers of Dean's right hand scribble tiredly on the floor for a second, feels a soft patting on his back and realizes it's Dean's other hand, beating a gentle tattoo.
Jesus, it's hot, he thinks. But at least it's a dry heat.
He hears the roar, raises his head and it all comes careering towards him, and he can almost hear Dean crowing inside his head, dude, it's like that fuckin' awesome scene in Jaws when Brody thinks he sees the shark and the camera races right at him! He pushes up onto his hands and feet, and in a weird way the fall has been their salvation because down here close to the floor there's less smoke and Sam's head can clear enough for him to think. He flops over onto his butt, grabs his brother by the arm and hauls him along the floor, trying not to think about what it must be doing to his shoulder.
Cold, dark air on his face at last, and Sam sucks in a great heaving breath of it as he totters through the doorway, blinking away tears as he squints ahead to where he can see Kathleen Hudak and Bobby stumbling towards her car.
He opens his mouth, releases a strangled cry, and Bobby is already halfway there when he collapses to his knees. He gives Sam a cursory glance before heaving Dean up into a fireman's lift and lumbering away from the burning house, towards the Jeep. "Oxygen tank!" Sam hears him yell as he lays Dean carefully on the ground. "The other one's still in the car!"
He races back then, to sling Sam's arm over his shoulder and help him over to sit next to his brother while Hudak hefts the tank across the grass towards them. Sam is coughing, wheezing much as his brother's phlegm-filled lungs have been these last two days. He sucks in greedily for a few seconds when Hudak kneels and clamps the mask to his face, then pushes it away. "Dean… Dean," he rasps out.
Bobby is leaning over Dean, slapping his face lightly and blowing on his eyelids in an attempt to rouse him, and Hudak fastens the mask over his face. "We need to leave," she shouts, above the noise of roaring flames and crashing roof timbers. "The cops will be here any minute."
Bobby nods, hauls Dean up, hands under his shoulders, while Sam crawls over and grabs his brother's ankles. They shamble to the car and Sam inserts himself ass first into the back of the Jeep, catching his brother as Bobby feeds his limp body in on top of him, Hudak close behind with the oxygen tank.
As they pull up the trail, Sam can't help wondering if his brother would have gone back in for the kid.
Dean is red hot and drenched in sweat when Bobby eases his limp body out of the Jeep, his teeth chattering so loudly he sounds like a jackhammer. "Jesus. He's burning up," he says to Hudak, as she leads them inside.
"We'll put him in my bed," she says, climbing the stairs. "I've got a thermometer somewhere."
"Check his back for burns," Sam calls wearily from where he's slumped on the bottom step, as Bobby follows Hudak up the narrow stairs to her bedroom, Dean slung over his shoulder.
As he maneuvers through the doorway, he gapes at the fact that it's like a fuckin' birthday cake, all flowers, frills, a mountain of small and utterly pointless cushions, and he reckons some bits are even frosted. Like the cover of House Beautiful, not that Bobby has ever glanced at it while he waits in line at the checkout. He can't help but smirk at the thought of Dean confined in there for God knows how long while he heals. Payback's a bitch, boy, he thinks, as he lowers his burden down onto the bed, although he feels a stab of envy as the kid sinks into the softness.
"Urrghh. And that is just how I'm startin' to feel about this whole mess," he says, straightening up and getting his first good look at Dean when Hudak turns on the lamp. He's smudged gray and black with ash and soot that mix with the sweat to form tar-like streaks. The mess is already rubbing off onto Hudak's pristine comforter, leaving the fabric looking as bruised as Dean's carcass.
Hudak appears with her first aid kit, bustling about while Bobby stands there feeling like the fifth wheel. "Judas priest," she mutters when the thermometer beeps. "104.9… that's seizure territory and I'm sure we'd all just as soon not go there with him again."
She whistles out air, purses her lips. "Sam said to check his back. Says he belted him up against the wall and he might be burnt."
Bobby rolls Dean over onto his side, his lax body totally pliant. He fumes inwardly again at the greenish-yellow reminder of Bender's size twelve, winces at the numerous red-raw, blistering patches where the heat seared off the top layers of Dean's skin.
"I'd say he's medium rare," Hudak says, beside him. "I'll get something for the burns, but I think we're going to need to get him in the shower before we do anything else, cool him off."
Bobby nods. "Burns are a fuckin' nasty business," he mutters, pulling the comforter up and up over Dean as he starts shivering again. Dean flickers his eyes open, the flash of green red-rimmed and swollen, coughs dryly, starts running his tongue over his lips, breathing noisy. Thirsty, he must have a raging thirst, Bobby realizes, and he crosses to the door and hollers for Sam to bring water.
Less than a minute later Sam is hovering next to Bobby, as filthy as his brother, brandishing a stainless steel sports bottle with a straw built into the lid. Fuckin' great idea, Bobby thinks, because he's been standing there wondering where he can get his hands on one of those plastic sippy cups his son used to drink juice from all those years ago.
Sam looks fit to drop, and in fact he does, sitting down heavily on the floor next to the bed as Bobby lifts Dean's head and pokes the straw through his lips. "Take some O2, kid," he says, nods at the oxygen mask as Dean comes round enough to gulp a few mouthfuls down before he starts to dribble the water out.
Sam shakes his head. "Dean needs it," he croaks, before coughing up something Bobby thinks looks unsettlingly like that black oil the aliens used to leak out all over the place in that show about little green men and government conspiracies.
Thoughts of the short, sexy redhead are a pleasant diversion from their present troubles for an instant, before Bobby is brought plummeting back down to earth by a wave of nausea that has him slamming the water bottle down on Hudak's nightstand and diving for the bathroom.
He retches unproductively for a few minutes, stares at his pale, ill-looking face in the mirror and rubs a shaking hand across his brow.
"You okay?" Hudak says from the open doorway.
"Yeah… yeah," he says, flushing now in embarrassment.
"All catching up to you, huh?" she says, and her eyes are warm with sympathy, so warm he gulps.
"Something like that," he says. "The thought of losing him was bad enough, but Sam too… just - too much. Too much…"
She nods and leaves it there, for which he's grateful because, hell, he has already spilled his guts far too much this week. "There's coffee downstairs," she says then. "I can do this if you're beat. Blankets for the couch are in the hall closet."
Bobby follows her back into the bedroom, tempted by the thought of coffee so strong it'll stain his soul brown, but he hesitates. "What about cleaning him up?" he says. "He's dropped a lot of weight but it's gonna be dead weight…"
"I got it, Bobby," Sam says, from where he's leaning against the bed. "Get some rest, man. I can handle him in the shower. I need to get cleaned up myself anyway."
Bobby nods, turns to leave but then glances back at Sam, who's already pulling his tee over his head. It's going be harsh, blunt, awkward, however he terms it. "Sam, maybe you might want to leave the clothes on for this," he says quietly.
Sam stops halfway, face quizzical.
"The water's likely to bring him round to some level of awareness, boy," Bobby continues gently. "I don't think we want him coming out of this while he's being manhandled by a naked guy, even if it is you."
Hudak gets it, Bobby can see, but Sam is still staring up at him with an expression that shouts, huh?
"He's confused, Sam," Hudak elaborates. "He might not realize it's you. He might think something else is going on."
Sam slips his tee back down wordlessly.
It's as bad as Bobby thought it might be.
Dean revives in a frenzy of cries that are choked off by the spray of water and fights Sam with a strength he didn't think his brother was capable of in his present condition, fists beating at Sam's torso and feet skating every which way on the wet tile. Talking to him has absolutely no effect, his brother is in his own private hell.
Sam catches a glimpse of Hudak flapping about anxiously outside the shower cubicle, towels in hand, face worried, and he thinks this was a huge mistake and maybe she should have gotten in there with Dean instead, that his brother would have come around to an opportunity and not an ordeal.
"Dean, Christ, stop-ow, fuck!" he yelps, as his brother's knee barely misses his jewels, and there's nothing for it: Sam uses controlled brute strength to grip his brother's upper arms and turn his slippery body slowly, steadily around, as carefully as he can, mindful of Dean's shoulder and cracked and broken ribs, doing his best not to dislodge the plastic bag Hudak duct-taped onto the broken arm to protect his cast from the water.
He has his brother turned partway around when Dean strikes as fast as a rattler, sinking his teeth into the meat of Sam's forearm, and Sam yelps, forces his brother face-first up against the tile, his own hip and thigh keeping Dean pinned in place, the water pouring down and washing away the muck.
All the fight seems to go out of Dean and he stops struggling. His voice is quiet, all but drowned out by the water, and Sam just barely hears him.
"Why… why you doin' this…"
"Dean, come on," Sam tells him. "It's me, Sam. You're running a fever, we need to cool you down. It's me, it's your brother."
Dean's cheek is against the tile, and the eye Sam can see widens slightly. "Lee. Don't. Please."
Sam can't help himself, he hisses in Dean's ear. "Fucking snap out of it, Dean. It's over. Lee Bender is dead. He wasn't your brother. It's me. Sam. I'm your brother and I would never hurt you like he did."
He doesn't think he's imagining it: he feels his brother relax fractionally.
"Sam," Dean mutters. "Damn… fkn' right… Sammy…"
It's two steps forward, one step back, Sam is thinking an hour later.
He's showered himself and clad in some of Riley Hudak's cast-offs, thanking God the dude matched his own six feet four inches and he isn't padding around in sweats that end midpoint between his knees and ankles.
Dean is reasonably lucid, a fresh bandage on his shoulder, a liberal application of burn ointment slathered on his back and just-this-side-of-tight strapping around his chest, Sam having decided the ribs need support after the fucking debacle that was the shower. Forty-five minutes of pure oxygen seem to have soothed Dean's cough, and Sam finds the tightness in his own chest has eased off somewhat, his lungs protected from the worst of the choking smoke by the soaked shirt he wrapped around his face, although the inside of his nose smarts and dribbles black snot.
On that thought, he pulls the mask away from his brother's face, holds a Kleenex against his nose. "Blow."
Dean obeys, scowls as Sam wipes. "I'm not a fuckin' kid," he coughs, reaching weakly for the mask again. His eyes, barely open, are interested enough to make it to half-mast when Hudak comes in with a tray, and Sam spots the familiar gleam that signals his brother's inner cougar hound scenting fresh prey as he pulls the mask away himself this time.
"Hoah… Dn W'nchester," he slurs, even manages to rustle up a reasonable facsimile of his tried-and-tested thousand-watt smile. "Like the gun."
"We've met," Hudak says dryly, parking the tray on her dresser. "Soup, Sam," she smiles brightly as she exits.
Dean stares after her for a second, and then swivels his eyes around to glare at his brother. "Fuckin' cockbl'ker…"
Sam rolls his eyes, reaches for his cup of soup, sees Hudak has thoughtfully served Dean's up in a bowl with a spoon. He takes a draught of his own, closes his eyes in sheer bliss as the warmth seeps down into his belly. He sets the cup back on the tray, reaches for the bowl and spoon. "Vittals, dude."
And Dean's expression suddenly turns to one of alarm.
"Wha? Whassay?"
"Soup. Dean you need to eat something, you've barely eaten in days."
Sam can see his brother knows this, sees his eyes calculating as they look at the bowl and then at Sam.
"Uh… soup. Kinda soup?"
Sam sighs, sets the bowl down, leans forward. "It's chicken soup, Dean. You're eating it. Not optional, dude, okay?"
Dean's mouth sets in an obstinate line. "Nope."
"Listen to me, Dean," Sam counters, his tone sharp. "I know what you're doing. I know why. I know damn well you remember what happened. But it's over and we haven't come this far so you can waste away because you think it's hikers for dinner." He regrets it the minute he says it, sees his brother's face take on a deer-in-the-headlights expression and his whole body go tense.
"Wh-wh-whassay…?" Dean mutters, and Sam sees his knuckles go white as he fists a handful of the blankets.
"Dean, please," he says, softer now. "We don't know if they gave you that. But if they did, you didn't know. It wasn't your fault. And if they didn't, then you're starving yourself for nothing."
His brother looks subdued now, face blank, and he presses his lips together again.
"Dean. You aren't going to get better if you don't eat," Sam whispers, feeling sudden tears well up. He swipes his sleeve across his eyes, shakes his head.
"Sammy…" he hears his brother breathe out. "S'okay, Sammy. B' fine… jus' not hungry…"
Sam steels himself, stares his brother right in the eyes. "If you don't eat, by Christ, I am going to force this down you. Even if it hurts you. I'm not sitting here watching you fade away to bones in front of me because of some fucked-up phobia that might be totally bogus."
He waits then, but he doesn't see any hint of cooperation on Dean's face, in fact his brother's eyes go arctic-cold, hostile. So he breaks out the big guns. "Last chance Dean. Eat. Now. Or I am out of here and back to Stanford first flight I can get."
He's played Dean beautifully, he thinks, and he manages to convince himself it was the only way as he spoons the last of the now-tepid soup into his brother's mouth a half-hour later. Dean's face is grayish, his eyes sad. Sam knows he shouldn't have forced the whole bowl on him, knows his brother's atrophied stomach might not be able to take it.
He stands up, lifts the tray. "I'm gonna take this back down, get some more water," he says, and he can't help feeling a mean-spirited sense of satisfaction at the fact it's Dean's turn to get served, satisfaction that dissolves into a muddy wallow of guilt as he reaches the door and his brother gives a panicked croak.
"You leaving? Sam? You still leaving? Sammy?"
Sam spins around, sees Dean pushing himself up onto his elbows, wincing as he does so. He drops, puts the tray on the floor, goes back and pulls his brother up into a fierce embrace. "No, no, Dean… I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm not leaving. I just want you to get better. You have to eat. You have to get better. You have to."
Dean doesn't fight, but he doesn't relax in Sam's arms either. In fact his body goes from nought to sixty on the rigid-with-alarm rating in less than five seconds before he's trying to fidget his way free.
"Try, Sam. I'll try…"
Sam smiles against his brother's neck, and his words come out all muffled. "No. There is no try. There is only do. Or do not."
And then he feels Dean shudder in his arms, relax just a tad, and he lowers his brother back down onto the pillows.
"N' fair, dude…" Dean says, but he's smiling - sort of. "Yoda? Low blow…"
Another step forward.
Oh-dark-thirty.
Two steps back.
Sam jolts awake to screams that have him blearily wrestling his way out of his sleeping bag as Dean writhes and yells a stream of nonsense. In the end he's forced to sack-race the few feet to the bed, flopping gracelessly down beside his brother and clutching his flailing hands just as Bobby bursts into the room, and having to shout words of comfort over the noise even though he knows that raising his voice totally defeats the purpose.
"Maybe we should cuff him," Bobby says in Sam's left ear, and he's come prepared, is dangling a pair of Hudak's tools of the trade in front of him.
There really isn't any alternative, Sam knows, and he nods, thinks he'd rather take Dean's crap when he comes out of it than have him hurt himself worse. But seeing his brother pulling at the bracelet once again, hearing the clink of metal when he'd thought they might be making progress, tears at him like one of Bender's pitbulls. Even so, not being able to fight his nightmare seems to have the desired effect and Dean quietens down, though he keeps up a hoarse, muttered litany of vicious curses and threats.
Sam jumps as Bobby's hand falls on his shoulder, he's almost forgotten the old man's there, so absorbed is he in his brother's struggle.
"Want me to spell you, kid?" Bobby says, low in his ear, and Sam shakes his head no, but Bobby sits down next to him anyway. "Hard times," he murmurs, scratches his mussed up bed hair.
"I don't know what to do, Bobby," Sam suddenly hears himself saying. "I don't know how to help him, what to say. And I'm afraid he's never really coming back from this, that we're losing him."
Bobby reaches a hand up to the scruff of Sam's neck, holds him there, kneads the tight muscles. "Maybe we just have to accept that we are gonna lose, have lost, some part of him, Sam," he says, gruffly. "I just don't see how he can be the same. We can't be expecting him to just bounce back, kid, it just isn't gonna happen."
Sam's brain knows that's true but his heart just isn't going for it. "I don't want to lose him, Bobby, even a part of him. Everything about him is, is, precious. I can't spare any of it."
Bobby huffs out, nods. "I understand that, Sam, but I think maybe you're being unrealistic. Having expectations of him that he can't meet, isn't able to meet, isn't gonna help either him or you."
"I know… God, I know. But I just can't-"
"Dad…?"
Dean's voice is awestruck, his exhausted face suddenly alight with joy as Sam turns back to face him.
"Dad…" Dean breathes as he gazes at Sam, and God, he's crying, shaking with it. "He said you were dead… Lee said you were dead."
Sam knows he's John Winchester walking minus thirty years or so; he has the same dark features, the same eyes, the same glower, the same mood swings, and, he knows all too well now, the same voice, the same ability to strike the fear of God into Dean in his present confused state. He goes with the subterfuge as long as it might calm his brother down, lays a hand on Dean's cheek, wipes away the tears. "I'm fine, Dean," he says firmly. "Lee lied to you, son. Everything's fine, and you need to rest. Rest. That's an order."
It works like a charm: his brother's eyes drift closed and he's out like a light.
Sam knows his face must look desperate when he turns to Bobby.
"He's hallucinating, Sam," the old man says quickly. "It's the withdrawal kid, believe me. He's just… AWOL. It'll clear. His system just needs to get back into gear after the drugs."
He must see Sam's doubt, because he continues. "Sam, believe me. As unsettling as this is, it is not what we need to be worrying about. This will pass. It's the other stuff we need to be thinking about. And it's clear we're out of our depth here, so we need to start finding out what to expect."
Sam doesn't miss the subtext in what Bobby's saying. "You think it could be even worse than this?"
Bobby throws his hands up. "No, I didn't say that, Sam. I don't know. Neither of us does. But it's clear he's having flashbacks to what the sonofabitch did to him, and we need to know how to get him past that."
Sam thinks about the shower, about Dean's ferocity despite his injuries, glances at Bobby and sees his thoughts reflected in the older man's eyes.
"Dean can drop a man twice his size in point five of a second," Bobby says softly. "He's a lethal weapon, and once he's up and about we can't have him firing at random just because some barfly's undressing him with his eyes."
Dean is the vilest of the vile the next morning, after a curt get these fuckin' cuffs off, has no memory of his little-boy-lost ramblings the night before. Once free he gives Sam the evil eye and spits tacks, albeit weakly, over his back, his shoulder, his leg, his ribs, his lungs, the fuckin' cuffs, pausing only to hoik up sludge into a towel when the coughing flares up.
Sam heaves him up higher on the pillows and has to duck an attempt to dry slap him around the head with the cast, showers and dresses along to a tired torrent of abuse, periodically stops what he's doing to squint at Dean, fully expecting his head to spin and pea soup to erupt from his mouth at any minute.
"Th' fuck you lookin' at?" his brother growls. "Hurts, can't sleep. Need m' fuckin' pills. Asshatt."
Oy. Sam shrugs. "Sorry, kiddo, pills burnt down with the house," he says, and gets that nasty shot of satisfaction again as Dean's face falls. He can't resist adding, "Your peyote, too. Yep, charred to a crisp."
Dean is suddenly quiet. "Wasn't she there?" he says after a minute, almost timid. "Missy. In the house. Did she… burn?"
Fuck. And Sam can't believe that he's actually forgotten, hasn't thought of the kid since that fleeting moment when they drove away from the inferno. "She was there," he confirms somberly. "I couldn't go back inside for her, it was too late. The oxygen tank was in there… it exploded."
He can't really tell what Dean is thinking because his brother's expression is unreadable.
"Dean. We're gonna get through this, you and me, together," he says. "But you need to talk to me, you can't just keep it all inside, what Lee did to you, it'll-"
Dean cuts in, controlled and menacing, even though his voice is still heavy with hurt and illness. "Nothing happened with Lee. There's nothing to talk about."
"But Dean-"
"But nothing, Sam. You're imagining things. Nothing happened. So fuck the fuck off and leave me alone. And just so we're clear, I ain't fuckin' hungry."
Sam fucks off. He parks himself downstairs at Hudak's computer, boots up the web browser. "My brother was raped," he says out loud, to thin air, and it's okay because Bobby and Hudak are off somewhere else in the house, can't hear him. It's the first time he's really let himself think the actual word, the first time he's voiced it instead of pussyfooting around it with terms like attack, and abuse, and assault.
And he Googles male rape.
Next
Hudak is coming round, spluttering, and Bobby sits her with her head between her legs before he stumbles away, hollering.
She looks up and he's about ten feet away from the window that looks into the room where Sam and Dean are. The glass has exploded, and tongues of flame are greedily reaching out to the breeze, feeding on its life-giving oxygen.
And Bobby sinks to his knees, crying out, their names, she thinks.
She pushes herself up onto her feet, walks over beside him, sits next to him, dazed. He collapses forward onto his hands, his face in the grass, and he sobs.
The fire roars its rage at Sam like some wild animal, licking out at him, pinning him down with one searing hand while it reaches out the smashed window and up to the heavens with myriad others. He heaves himself up, knows he needs to act now, doesn't quite remember why.
He reaches out, pats the air, finds the end of the bed-frame, and it seems like days, weeks, years pass by as he feels his way along the bed to his brother. Squinting through the smoke, he sees the oxygen mask, places it on Dean's slack face, twists the valve. His brother lifts a vague hand and makes feeble circles in the air.
The oxygen mask, Sam's brain says, patiently. The oxygen mask is attached to the oxygen tank.
Yep, the oxygen tank, he thinks stupidly.
Yes, Sam, says his brain, in the long-suffering tone it uses so often with his brother. The oxygen tank smack-bang in the middle of a fireball, and doh, his brain facepalms, prissy now. Do not expose oxygen to extreme heat or a naked flame, Sammy!
Fuck.
Sam rips off the mask, hauls Dean's limp body up into a sitting position, ignoring his brother's goggle eyes and the bullet wound, hefts him over his shoulder, thanking God he's a lightweight these days, and staggers to the door. He yelps as he grabs the doorknob, snatches his hand back from its boiling heat, can already feel blisters bubbling up on his palm. He wraps his hand in his shirt-tail, pulls the door, recoils from the blast of heat and billowing smoke.
Jesus. Bad idea, and he kicks the door closed on the towering inferno, wonders confusedly if a towering inferno can even happen in a single floor house, has enough sense to realize his mind is wandering because of the smoke.
He leans over the bed, drops his brother back down on it, hauls the oxygen tank into the bathroom as far out of reach of the flames as he can, and parks it in the shower. He tears his shirt off, thanks Christ the well pump is still operating as he soaks the fabric until it's dripping and rips off one of the sleeves, wrapping it around the lower half of his face to cover his nose and mouth.
He stumbles back into the bedroom on time to see the first flames catch the bed, the pillows combusting with a flash. He heaves Dean down onto the floor, sees his eyes snap open and spin around as his back and head impact on the hard surface, fumbles to wrap the rest of the wet shirt around Dean's face even though his brother's eyes are staring at him in obvious dismay and confusion.
He mutters a steady mantra as he pulls Dean up onto his shoulder again, "It's okay, it's okay," but his voice is so muffled he's afraid it might actually be scaring his brother rather than reassuring him. Again with the door, hand well padded with the end of his tee this time, and even though only a minute-and-a-half at the most has passed since his first attempt, the hallway is like a duststorm screwing a tornado on the fourth of July: a willful, whirling cloud of smoke, soot, cinders, sparks, flashes, crackles and bangs.
Left or right?
Think.
He lurches to the right, feels the heat crisping his eyeballs, smells the acrid scent of burning and knows it's his own hair being singed. He doesn't even know if Dean is conscious, hopes he isn't as he staggers along, lurching into the wall as he goes, yelping as its boiling heat burns his arm.
He sways and loses his balance, hits the wall again, feels his brother's body pad him and nudge him back off like he's the eightball bouncing off the cushions on a pool table, Dean's skin being flame-grilled on the scorching surface in the process. And he feels Dean's body pad him again and break his fall when his foot catches in something and he crashes down, seeing stars and then blacking out completely.
Bobby's quiet now, sitting watching the house burn, and they both fall back reflexively as a small explosion, followed by a much larger burst, blows a hole through the roof above the bedroom and brings tiles raining down around them.
The oxygen tank, Hudak thinks bleakly, looking up to where the flames are lighting up the sky now.
She leans over. "We should go. This must be visible from town and the police are probably on their way."
Bobby says nothing, just stares.
Hudak stands, pulls him up and he doesn't resist. "We have to go," she tells him. "Come on."
He's pinned down, his throat is burning hot and his face is covered by something damp clamped over his mouth. Hand… holding in his cries.
He tries to buck Lee off, jerking his body with all the force he can muster, yelling out his protest and hammering his fists on his brother's back. "Get off me! You don't do this to me, you sick fuck," he hears himself shout. "Fuckin' monster! Kill you, you sonofabitch…"
His fury lends him strength and he pummels Lee, flings him off, races out of reach, to safety, and lives happily ever after.
Sam comes around with a jolt, hears soft whispery cries and gasps, finds himself flopped over his brother, who's doing the half-naked pretzel underneath him and making the barest shaking motion under Sam's greater bulk.
Sam is dazed, watches the fingers of Dean's right hand scribble tiredly on the floor for a second, feels a soft patting on his back and realizes it's Dean's other hand, beating a gentle tattoo.
Jesus, it's hot, he thinks. But at least it's a dry heat.
He hears the roar, raises his head and it all comes careering towards him, and he can almost hear Dean crowing inside his head, dude, it's like that fuckin' awesome scene in Jaws when Brody thinks he sees the shark and the camera races right at him! He pushes up onto his hands and feet, and in a weird way the fall has been their salvation because down here close to the floor there's less smoke and Sam's head can clear enough for him to think. He flops over onto his butt, grabs his brother by the arm and hauls him along the floor, trying not to think about what it must be doing to his shoulder.
Cold, dark air on his face at last, and Sam sucks in a great heaving breath of it as he totters through the doorway, blinking away tears as he squints ahead to where he can see Kathleen Hudak and Bobby stumbling towards her car.
He opens his mouth, releases a strangled cry, and Bobby is already halfway there when he collapses to his knees. He gives Sam a cursory glance before heaving Dean up into a fireman's lift and lumbering away from the burning house, towards the Jeep. "Oxygen tank!" Sam hears him yell as he lays Dean carefully on the ground. "The other one's still in the car!"
He races back then, to sling Sam's arm over his shoulder and help him over to sit next to his brother while Hudak hefts the tank across the grass towards them. Sam is coughing, wheezing much as his brother's phlegm-filled lungs have been these last two days. He sucks in greedily for a few seconds when Hudak kneels and clamps the mask to his face, then pushes it away. "Dean… Dean," he rasps out.
Bobby is leaning over Dean, slapping his face lightly and blowing on his eyelids in an attempt to rouse him, and Hudak fastens the mask over his face. "We need to leave," she shouts, above the noise of roaring flames and crashing roof timbers. "The cops will be here any minute."
Bobby nods, hauls Dean up, hands under his shoulders, while Sam crawls over and grabs his brother's ankles. They shamble to the car and Sam inserts himself ass first into the back of the Jeep, catching his brother as Bobby feeds his limp body in on top of him, Hudak close behind with the oxygen tank.
As they pull up the trail, Sam can't help wondering if his brother would have gone back in for the kid.
Dean is red hot and drenched in sweat when Bobby eases his limp body out of the Jeep, his teeth chattering so loudly he sounds like a jackhammer. "Jesus. He's burning up," he says to Hudak, as she leads them inside.
"We'll put him in my bed," she says, climbing the stairs. "I've got a thermometer somewhere."
"Check his back for burns," Sam calls wearily from where he's slumped on the bottom step, as Bobby follows Hudak up the narrow stairs to her bedroom, Dean slung over his shoulder.
As he maneuvers through the doorway, he gapes at the fact that it's like a fuckin' birthday cake, all flowers, frills, a mountain of small and utterly pointless cushions, and he reckons some bits are even frosted. Like the cover of House Beautiful, not that Bobby has ever glanced at it while he waits in line at the checkout. He can't help but smirk at the thought of Dean confined in there for God knows how long while he heals. Payback's a bitch, boy, he thinks, as he lowers his burden down onto the bed, although he feels a stab of envy as the kid sinks into the softness.
"Urrghh. And that is just how I'm startin' to feel about this whole mess," he says, straightening up and getting his first good look at Dean when Hudak turns on the lamp. He's smudged gray and black with ash and soot that mix with the sweat to form tar-like streaks. The mess is already rubbing off onto Hudak's pristine comforter, leaving the fabric looking as bruised as Dean's carcass.
Hudak appears with her first aid kit, bustling about while Bobby stands there feeling like the fifth wheel. "Judas priest," she mutters when the thermometer beeps. "104.9… that's seizure territory and I'm sure we'd all just as soon not go there with him again."
She whistles out air, purses her lips. "Sam said to check his back. Says he belted him up against the wall and he might be burnt."
Bobby rolls Dean over onto his side, his lax body totally pliant. He fumes inwardly again at the greenish-yellow reminder of Bender's size twelve, winces at the numerous red-raw, blistering patches where the heat seared off the top layers of Dean's skin.
"I'd say he's medium rare," Hudak says, beside him. "I'll get something for the burns, but I think we're going to need to get him in the shower before we do anything else, cool him off."
Bobby nods. "Burns are a fuckin' nasty business," he mutters, pulling the comforter up and up over Dean as he starts shivering again. Dean flickers his eyes open, the flash of green red-rimmed and swollen, coughs dryly, starts running his tongue over his lips, breathing noisy. Thirsty, he must have a raging thirst, Bobby realizes, and he crosses to the door and hollers for Sam to bring water.
Less than a minute later Sam is hovering next to Bobby, as filthy as his brother, brandishing a stainless steel sports bottle with a straw built into the lid. Fuckin' great idea, Bobby thinks, because he's been standing there wondering where he can get his hands on one of those plastic sippy cups his son used to drink juice from all those years ago.
Sam looks fit to drop, and in fact he does, sitting down heavily on the floor next to the bed as Bobby lifts Dean's head and pokes the straw through his lips. "Take some O2, kid," he says, nods at the oxygen mask as Dean comes round enough to gulp a few mouthfuls down before he starts to dribble the water out.
Sam shakes his head. "Dean needs it," he croaks, before coughing up something Bobby thinks looks unsettlingly like that black oil the aliens used to leak out all over the place in that show about little green men and government conspiracies.
Thoughts of the short, sexy redhead are a pleasant diversion from their present troubles for an instant, before Bobby is brought plummeting back down to earth by a wave of nausea that has him slamming the water bottle down on Hudak's nightstand and diving for the bathroom.
He retches unproductively for a few minutes, stares at his pale, ill-looking face in the mirror and rubs a shaking hand across his brow.
"You okay?" Hudak says from the open doorway.
"Yeah… yeah," he says, flushing now in embarrassment.
"All catching up to you, huh?" she says, and her eyes are warm with sympathy, so warm he gulps.
"Something like that," he says. "The thought of losing him was bad enough, but Sam too… just - too much. Too much…"
She nods and leaves it there, for which he's grateful because, hell, he has already spilled his guts far too much this week. "There's coffee downstairs," she says then. "I can do this if you're beat. Blankets for the couch are in the hall closet."
Bobby follows her back into the bedroom, tempted by the thought of coffee so strong it'll stain his soul brown, but he hesitates. "What about cleaning him up?" he says. "He's dropped a lot of weight but it's gonna be dead weight…"
"I got it, Bobby," Sam says, from where he's leaning against the bed. "Get some rest, man. I can handle him in the shower. I need to get cleaned up myself anyway."
Bobby nods, turns to leave but then glances back at Sam, who's already pulling his tee over his head. It's going be harsh, blunt, awkward, however he terms it. "Sam, maybe you might want to leave the clothes on for this," he says quietly.
Sam stops halfway, face quizzical.
"The water's likely to bring him round to some level of awareness, boy," Bobby continues gently. "I don't think we want him coming out of this while he's being manhandled by a naked guy, even if it is you."
Hudak gets it, Bobby can see, but Sam is still staring up at him with an expression that shouts, huh?
"He's confused, Sam," Hudak elaborates. "He might not realize it's you. He might think something else is going on."
Sam slips his tee back down wordlessly.
It's as bad as Bobby thought it might be.
Dean revives in a frenzy of cries that are choked off by the spray of water and fights Sam with a strength he didn't think his brother was capable of in his present condition, fists beating at Sam's torso and feet skating every which way on the wet tile. Talking to him has absolutely no effect, his brother is in his own private hell.
Sam catches a glimpse of Hudak flapping about anxiously outside the shower cubicle, towels in hand, face worried, and he thinks this was a huge mistake and maybe she should have gotten in there with Dean instead, that his brother would have come around to an opportunity and not an ordeal.
"Dean, Christ, stop-ow, fuck!" he yelps, as his brother's knee barely misses his jewels, and there's nothing for it: Sam uses controlled brute strength to grip his brother's upper arms and turn his slippery body slowly, steadily around, as carefully as he can, mindful of Dean's shoulder and cracked and broken ribs, doing his best not to dislodge the plastic bag Hudak duct-taped onto the broken arm to protect his cast from the water.
He has his brother turned partway around when Dean strikes as fast as a rattler, sinking his teeth into the meat of Sam's forearm, and Sam yelps, forces his brother face-first up against the tile, his own hip and thigh keeping Dean pinned in place, the water pouring down and washing away the muck.
All the fight seems to go out of Dean and he stops struggling. His voice is quiet, all but drowned out by the water, and Sam just barely hears him.
"Why… why you doin' this…"
"Dean, come on," Sam tells him. "It's me, Sam. You're running a fever, we need to cool you down. It's me, it's your brother."
Dean's cheek is against the tile, and the eye Sam can see widens slightly. "Lee. Don't. Please."
Sam can't help himself, he hisses in Dean's ear. "Fucking snap out of it, Dean. It's over. Lee Bender is dead. He wasn't your brother. It's me. Sam. I'm your brother and I would never hurt you like he did."
He doesn't think he's imagining it: he feels his brother relax fractionally.
"Sam," Dean mutters. "Damn… fkn' right… Sammy…"
It's two steps forward, one step back, Sam is thinking an hour later.
He's showered himself and clad in some of Riley Hudak's cast-offs, thanking God the dude matched his own six feet four inches and he isn't padding around in sweats that end midpoint between his knees and ankles.
Dean is reasonably lucid, a fresh bandage on his shoulder, a liberal application of burn ointment slathered on his back and just-this-side-of-tight strapping around his chest, Sam having decided the ribs need support after the fucking debacle that was the shower. Forty-five minutes of pure oxygen seem to have soothed Dean's cough, and Sam finds the tightness in his own chest has eased off somewhat, his lungs protected from the worst of the choking smoke by the soaked shirt he wrapped around his face, although the inside of his nose smarts and dribbles black snot.
On that thought, he pulls the mask away from his brother's face, holds a Kleenex against his nose. "Blow."
Dean obeys, scowls as Sam wipes. "I'm not a fuckin' kid," he coughs, reaching weakly for the mask again. His eyes, barely open, are interested enough to make it to half-mast when Hudak comes in with a tray, and Sam spots the familiar gleam that signals his brother's inner cougar hound scenting fresh prey as he pulls the mask away himself this time.
"Hoah… Dn W'nchester," he slurs, even manages to rustle up a reasonable facsimile of his tried-and-tested thousand-watt smile. "Like the gun."
"We've met," Hudak says dryly, parking the tray on her dresser. "Soup, Sam," she smiles brightly as she exits.
Dean stares after her for a second, and then swivels his eyes around to glare at his brother. "Fuckin' cockbl'ker…"
Sam rolls his eyes, reaches for his cup of soup, sees Hudak has thoughtfully served Dean's up in a bowl with a spoon. He takes a draught of his own, closes his eyes in sheer bliss as the warmth seeps down into his belly. He sets the cup back on the tray, reaches for the bowl and spoon. "Vittals, dude."
And Dean's expression suddenly turns to one of alarm.
"Wha? Whassay?"
"Soup. Dean you need to eat something, you've barely eaten in days."
Sam can see his brother knows this, sees his eyes calculating as they look at the bowl and then at Sam.
"Uh… soup. Kinda soup?"
Sam sighs, sets the bowl down, leans forward. "It's chicken soup, Dean. You're eating it. Not optional, dude, okay?"
Dean's mouth sets in an obstinate line. "Nope."
"Listen to me, Dean," Sam counters, his tone sharp. "I know what you're doing. I know why. I know damn well you remember what happened. But it's over and we haven't come this far so you can waste away because you think it's hikers for dinner." He regrets it the minute he says it, sees his brother's face take on a deer-in-the-headlights expression and his whole body go tense.
"Wh-wh-whassay…?" Dean mutters, and Sam sees his knuckles go white as he fists a handful of the blankets.
"Dean, please," he says, softer now. "We don't know if they gave you that. But if they did, you didn't know. It wasn't your fault. And if they didn't, then you're starving yourself for nothing."
His brother looks subdued now, face blank, and he presses his lips together again.
"Dean. You aren't going to get better if you don't eat," Sam whispers, feeling sudden tears well up. He swipes his sleeve across his eyes, shakes his head.
"Sammy…" he hears his brother breathe out. "S'okay, Sammy. B' fine… jus' not hungry…"
Sam steels himself, stares his brother right in the eyes. "If you don't eat, by Christ, I am going to force this down you. Even if it hurts you. I'm not sitting here watching you fade away to bones in front of me because of some fucked-up phobia that might be totally bogus."
He waits then, but he doesn't see any hint of cooperation on Dean's face, in fact his brother's eyes go arctic-cold, hostile. So he breaks out the big guns. "Last chance Dean. Eat. Now. Or I am out of here and back to Stanford first flight I can get."
He's played Dean beautifully, he thinks, and he manages to convince himself it was the only way as he spoons the last of the now-tepid soup into his brother's mouth a half-hour later. Dean's face is grayish, his eyes sad. Sam knows he shouldn't have forced the whole bowl on him, knows his brother's atrophied stomach might not be able to take it.
He stands up, lifts the tray. "I'm gonna take this back down, get some more water," he says, and he can't help feeling a mean-spirited sense of satisfaction at the fact it's Dean's turn to get served, satisfaction that dissolves into a muddy wallow of guilt as he reaches the door and his brother gives a panicked croak.
"You leaving? Sam? You still leaving? Sammy?"
Sam spins around, sees Dean pushing himself up onto his elbows, wincing as he does so. He drops, puts the tray on the floor, goes back and pulls his brother up into a fierce embrace. "No, no, Dean… I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm not leaving. I just want you to get better. You have to eat. You have to get better. You have to."
Dean doesn't fight, but he doesn't relax in Sam's arms either. In fact his body goes from nought to sixty on the rigid-with-alarm rating in less than five seconds before he's trying to fidget his way free.
"Try, Sam. I'll try…"
Sam smiles against his brother's neck, and his words come out all muffled. "No. There is no try. There is only do. Or do not."
And then he feels Dean shudder in his arms, relax just a tad, and he lowers his brother back down onto the pillows.
"N' fair, dude…" Dean says, but he's smiling - sort of. "Yoda? Low blow…"
Another step forward.
Oh-dark-thirty.
Two steps back.
Sam jolts awake to screams that have him blearily wrestling his way out of his sleeping bag as Dean writhes and yells a stream of nonsense. In the end he's forced to sack-race the few feet to the bed, flopping gracelessly down beside his brother and clutching his flailing hands just as Bobby bursts into the room, and having to shout words of comfort over the noise even though he knows that raising his voice totally defeats the purpose.
"Maybe we should cuff him," Bobby says in Sam's left ear, and he's come prepared, is dangling a pair of Hudak's tools of the trade in front of him.
There really isn't any alternative, Sam knows, and he nods, thinks he'd rather take Dean's crap when he comes out of it than have him hurt himself worse. But seeing his brother pulling at the bracelet once again, hearing the clink of metal when he'd thought they might be making progress, tears at him like one of Bender's pitbulls. Even so, not being able to fight his nightmare seems to have the desired effect and Dean quietens down, though he keeps up a hoarse, muttered litany of vicious curses and threats.
Sam jumps as Bobby's hand falls on his shoulder, he's almost forgotten the old man's there, so absorbed is he in his brother's struggle.
"Want me to spell you, kid?" Bobby says, low in his ear, and Sam shakes his head no, but Bobby sits down next to him anyway. "Hard times," he murmurs, scratches his mussed up bed hair.
"I don't know what to do, Bobby," Sam suddenly hears himself saying. "I don't know how to help him, what to say. And I'm afraid he's never really coming back from this, that we're losing him."
Bobby reaches a hand up to the scruff of Sam's neck, holds him there, kneads the tight muscles. "Maybe we just have to accept that we are gonna lose, have lost, some part of him, Sam," he says, gruffly. "I just don't see how he can be the same. We can't be expecting him to just bounce back, kid, it just isn't gonna happen."
Sam's brain knows that's true but his heart just isn't going for it. "I don't want to lose him, Bobby, even a part of him. Everything about him is, is, precious. I can't spare any of it."
Bobby huffs out, nods. "I understand that, Sam, but I think maybe you're being unrealistic. Having expectations of him that he can't meet, isn't able to meet, isn't gonna help either him or you."
"I know… God, I know. But I just can't-"
"Dad…?"
Dean's voice is awestruck, his exhausted face suddenly alight with joy as Sam turns back to face him.
"Dad…" Dean breathes as he gazes at Sam, and God, he's crying, shaking with it. "He said you were dead… Lee said you were dead."
Sam knows he's John Winchester walking minus thirty years or so; he has the same dark features, the same eyes, the same glower, the same mood swings, and, he knows all too well now, the same voice, the same ability to strike the fear of God into Dean in his present confused state. He goes with the subterfuge as long as it might calm his brother down, lays a hand on Dean's cheek, wipes away the tears. "I'm fine, Dean," he says firmly. "Lee lied to you, son. Everything's fine, and you need to rest. Rest. That's an order."
It works like a charm: his brother's eyes drift closed and he's out like a light.
Sam knows his face must look desperate when he turns to Bobby.
"He's hallucinating, Sam," the old man says quickly. "It's the withdrawal kid, believe me. He's just… AWOL. It'll clear. His system just needs to get back into gear after the drugs."
He must see Sam's doubt, because he continues. "Sam, believe me. As unsettling as this is, it is not what we need to be worrying about. This will pass. It's the other stuff we need to be thinking about. And it's clear we're out of our depth here, so we need to start finding out what to expect."
Sam doesn't miss the subtext in what Bobby's saying. "You think it could be even worse than this?"
Bobby throws his hands up. "No, I didn't say that, Sam. I don't know. Neither of us does. But it's clear he's having flashbacks to what the sonofabitch did to him, and we need to know how to get him past that."
Sam thinks about the shower, about Dean's ferocity despite his injuries, glances at Bobby and sees his thoughts reflected in the older man's eyes.
"Dean can drop a man twice his size in point five of a second," Bobby says softly. "He's a lethal weapon, and once he's up and about we can't have him firing at random just because some barfly's undressing him with his eyes."
Dean is the vilest of the vile the next morning, after a curt get these fuckin' cuffs off, has no memory of his little-boy-lost ramblings the night before. Once free he gives Sam the evil eye and spits tacks, albeit weakly, over his back, his shoulder, his leg, his ribs, his lungs, the fuckin' cuffs, pausing only to hoik up sludge into a towel when the coughing flares up.
Sam heaves him up higher on the pillows and has to duck an attempt to dry slap him around the head with the cast, showers and dresses along to a tired torrent of abuse, periodically stops what he's doing to squint at Dean, fully expecting his head to spin and pea soup to erupt from his mouth at any minute.
"Th' fuck you lookin' at?" his brother growls. "Hurts, can't sleep. Need m' fuckin' pills. Asshatt."
Oy. Sam shrugs. "Sorry, kiddo, pills burnt down with the house," he says, and gets that nasty shot of satisfaction again as Dean's face falls. He can't resist adding, "Your peyote, too. Yep, charred to a crisp."
Dean is suddenly quiet. "Wasn't she there?" he says after a minute, almost timid. "Missy. In the house. Did she… burn?"
Fuck. And Sam can't believe that he's actually forgotten, hasn't thought of the kid since that fleeting moment when they drove away from the inferno. "She was there," he confirms somberly. "I couldn't go back inside for her, it was too late. The oxygen tank was in there… it exploded."
He can't really tell what Dean is thinking because his brother's expression is unreadable.
"Dean. We're gonna get through this, you and me, together," he says. "But you need to talk to me, you can't just keep it all inside, what Lee did to you, it'll-"
Dean cuts in, controlled and menacing, even though his voice is still heavy with hurt and illness. "Nothing happened with Lee. There's nothing to talk about."
"But Dean-"
"But nothing, Sam. You're imagining things. Nothing happened. So fuck the fuck off and leave me alone. And just so we're clear, I ain't fuckin' hungry."
Sam fucks off. He parks himself downstairs at Hudak's computer, boots up the web browser. "My brother was raped," he says out loud, to thin air, and it's okay because Bobby and Hudak are off somewhere else in the house, can't hear him. It's the first time he's really let himself think the actual word, the first time he's voiced it instead of pussyfooting around it with terms like attack, and abuse, and assault.
And he Googles male rape.
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