"Dean?" Sam calls softly, looking up at his brother, his chin is perched on the man's faintly sweat-slicked chest.

"Deeeaaaannn…" he entices in a breathy, lilting voice that probably shouldn't be sexy, but still really is. "I didn't break you, did I? You haven't said anything in, like an hour. Well, except for those purring sounds I got you to make when I wrapped my lips around your --"

"-- I did so not make a purring sound." interrupts Dean, pouting and scowling.

"Yes, actually, you did." teases Sam, all dimples. "At least I got you to talk to me. Why are you so quiet?" Sam trails a large hand over Dean's bare chest.

"Tell me?" Deans asks gently, not able to meet his eyes. "Tell me what happened to you Sammy?"

Sam hand freezes, his smile disappears. He sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, his back to Dean.

"Hey, talk to me," asks Dean, propping himself up on his elbows.

Sam stands, pulling on his boxers, head lowered.

"Christ's sake, Sam. You can't expect me to just let it go."

"Come on, Dean. After what we just -- can't we just lie here together and be happy for a little while?"

"I need to know."

"Why? What's the point?" Sam sits back on the edge of the bed. "It happened a long time ago. I've moved on." His voice sounds calm and reasonable on the surface, but Dean picks up the undercurrent of fear and desperation, sending a chill down his spine.

"The point is that some monster raped you!" Sam flinches like he's been slapped, and Dean forces himself to keep his anger under control, to soften his voice. "I look at you and I keep imagining it, picturing you being hurt. I need to know what happened. I should have known years ago. You should have told us, Sam! You should never have had to deal with this on your own, when you were just a…just a kid."

"We had to deal with a lot of things other kids didn't have to deal with, Dean."

"No. This is different."

"You're right. It is different. He wasn't a monster, Dean. He was a kid, too. A seventeen-year-old kid. What would you have done? Go and kill him? Call the cops?"

"I don't know, Sam. But I would have -- I should have been there for you!"

"Maybe. But it doesn't matter anymore what I should have done, or what you should have done."

"It doesn't matter anymore?? Do you hear yourself? Of course it matters!"

"You were only sixteen, Dean. You already had too much responsibility for your age. Always having to watch out for me, protect me from god-knows-what. I didn't want you to blame yourself for this. I just buried it. I survived, so I just moved on. Didn't think about it."

"Sammy..." his voice is a pained sigh. Dean moves forward, his chest pushing flush against his brother's back, wrapping his arms around him. He presses his lips against Sam's shoulder.

"You don't want to know this, Dean. You knowing about it...it's not going to fix it. It's just going to hurt you," warns Sam.

"Please, Sammy. I'm begging you," his voice breaks, and Sam can feel Dean's tears trickle down onto his skin.

Sam sits silently for a while, holding on tightly to Dean's arms encircling him. He concentrates on the feel of his brother's breathing - the rise and fall of Dean's chest against his back - letting it give him the strength to find the words. When he does start to speak, his voice is toneless, devoid of emotion, like he's reciting a grocery list, and so low, even from inches away, Dean can barely hear him. But he does hear him - each word searing into his brain like fire. Scarring him. He would never forget a single word.

"You and Dad were on a hunt, so I was staying over a friend's house. Ben. That was his name. After we'd fallen asleep in Ben's room - me on a cot, and Ben in his bed - I woke up because someone had their hands around my throat. It was Ben's older brother. He was on top of me. On my back. He was a lot bigger than me. He cut off my air, squeezing my windpipe with one hand while he yanked down my pajama pants and boxers with the other. I barely even noticed he was undressing me. I was just trying to pry his hands off of my throat -- trying to breathe. He spread my legs, pushing himself between them. When things started to go black -- when I started to pass out from lack of oxygen -- he moved his hand, letting go of my throat and covering my mouth but not my nose. I tried to suck in as much air as I could. And that's when he..." Sam stops, and takes a shaky breath.

"That's when he...pushed inside me. No condom or lube – nothing to prepare me. At first I didn't even know what was happening. I didn't know that could happen. I panicked. It just… it hurt so much." He stops again, and Dean tightens his grip.

"When I tried to scream, his hand went back to my windpipe. He didn't want his brother to wake up, you see? It was how he kept me quiet. He'd cut off my air until stopped fighting and started to go limp, and then he'd let go just enough for me to breathe a little bit. At least it kind of distracted me from what he was doing. I focused on breathing - when he let me breathe - and tried to ignore everything else.

"I wound up passing out before he finished. When I woke up, he was gone. I was bleeding. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't walk back to the motel. It was too far, and I was in too much pain. I couldn't get ahold of you or Dad even if I wanted to - this was before we had cellphones. If I took off, tried to get out of the house, everyone would know something was wrong. I'd have to talk about it. Explain. I told Ben I didn't feel well and locked myself in the bathroom until you guys came to get me."

A dark laugh escapes Sam as he says, while wiping away his tears with the back of his hand, "Dad believed me when I said that I didn't feel well. My voice was wrecked from being choked. He said I looked pale. He took me home and I stayed in bed for a few days until my 'flu' went away."

Dean turns Sam towards him, hugging him so tightly, it's like he's afraid he's going to slip away. He grabs onto the back of Sam's head, fingers twisting in the long strands, gasping, "I'm so sorry, baby." Dean grabs his brother's face, holding it eye-to-eye with his, sobbing, small hurt noises escaping him. "I'm so sorry, Sam."

Sam brushes away Dean's tears, his eyes far away and blank. Dean tilts up his head and kisses Sam, his lips desperate and possessive - trying to bring Sam back from wherever he is, whatever he's remembering or reliving.

At first he just lets Dean kiss him, lets him try to break through the numbness he feels lost in. Slowly, he starts kissing back, as Dean eases him back on the bed. Dean straddles him, and loses himself in Sam, kissing Sam, showing him how much he's loved.

"You have to promise me, Dean. You have to promise you're going to let this go."

Dean says nothing.

"I know you, Dean. I don't want this to be some new 'mission' for you. Finding this guy. I just want to forget about it. I don't want to talk about it anymore, and I don't want you dwelling on it either."

Dean still says nothing.

"I mean it. I'm not giving you any more information. I'm not telling you their names, or what town it was."

Dean thinks to himself that he still knows where their old records – more specifically, their old school records - are. That it wouldn't be too hard to find a Ben in Sam's class the year he was twelve. But he keeps it to himself.

"Okay Sam. I promise. I don't want you worrying."

"Thank you."

"Hey, let's get washed up and go grab some food," says Dean, hopping off of the bed and grabbing some clean clothes.

"Food would be great. Oh, and Dean?"

"Yeah?" asks Dean, turning back to Sam.

"Next time you want to play a game, make it one that doesn't end with crying or reliving horrible memories, okay?"

"Well, I enjoyed the sex. How 'bout one that ends with more sex?" suggests Dean, flashing a smile. He easily dodges the smack Sam aims at his bare ass and quickly closes the bathroom door, laughing.

END