Divorce, Winchester-Style
K Hanna Korossy

Dean pulled up in front of their room in the piece of trash car they were driving that week—he missed the Impala more every day—and cursed as he struggled to pull the two bags of laundry from the back seat. Forget false trunk bottoms and warded metal and a sweet 385-horse power engine with her tuxedo-black coke-bottle figure and broken-in vinyl seats and the collapsible steering-wheel column that had probably saved Sammy's life that time with the semi...

Dean sighed, reluctantly pulling himself out of his fantasy. He did still look for moderately safe cars to borrow, but would it kill carmakers to offer a little more room? Sam looked like a pretzel in the front seat of the vehicles Dean had boosted since mothballing Baby, and their weapons bags felt glaringly out in the open just sitting in the trunk. Not to mention the variety of more obscure weapons—Dean still mourned the flamethrower—they had to leave with the Impala because there just wasn't room. Dean huffed; he himself was a considerable 6'1", but it figured that his passenger and his tools were what he was always concerned about finding space for. Story of his life.

Still swearing under his breath, he manhandled the two bulky laundry bags up the steps of the motel. He dropped one to fish the key out of his pocket—literally, as said key was dangling off an ugly-ass wooden fish keychain—and opened the door, unceremoniously shoving the bags in before him.

"The laundromat was totally empty on a Friday night—go figure. Got all six loads done at the same—" He broke off at the realization that Sam had quickly shoved something under his pillow at Dean's entrance, and now stood with a bright, fake grin, hands fumbling before they jammed into his pockets.

"Yeah?" Sam asked, as if he were fascinated by nightlife at the local laundromat.

"Yeah," Dean muttered. He eyed the pillow, then Sam, who was still giving him his best "nothing to see here" smile. Not suspicious at all.

Dean circled around to between the two beds, his back to Sam as he dumped one of the bags onto his bed, ostensibly to start sorting. But after the first undershirt, instead of reaching for the next one, he darted his hand toward Sam's pillow, yanking out what was underneath.

"Hiding the porn again, Sammy? You holding out on..."

The words died messy on his tongue as he read the name of the booklet he was holding: When You've Been Raped.

Sam made a choked sound, grabbing fruitlessly for the pamphlet before giving Dean a shove and tearing it away from his now-loose grasp. Flushed, Sam stuffed it back under the pillow and then stood there with his back to Dean, oddly small and defeated.

"It's... it's not..."

"You..." Dean cleared his clogged throat. "You said you two didn't... She didn't..."

"She didn't, okay? Or," a small, bitter laugh, "She said she didn't. It's not like I remember..."

Crap. Dean closed his eyes, just for a second, willing this conversation, and the last few days, to not have happened. But it had, and it was, and Sam obviously was not okay with it.

Crap.

Becky Rosen had seemed like such a joke from the start. Tiny and bug-eyed and a walking caricature of a smitten fangirl. It'd been funny when she'd been smitten with Sam. Even when she'd whammied Sam into thinking he was in love with her, freakin' married him, it just seemed like fodder for teasing for the next ten years once Dean figured it out. He hadn't really thought, not even when he'd come in on Sam tied spread-eagle to the bed...

Dean grimaced, and grabbed the other bag of laundry to toss onto Sam's bed. "Help fold." Sam did better when he had something to do. Heck, they both did. And this was not something two guys talked about face to face, if they had to talk about it at all.

Sam started moving, slowly, automatically.

Dean cleared his throat again. "Is this, like...Meg?" Because he'd found Sam sneaking similar material then, going to a clinic for testing, struggling with the violation. Dean had inspected the goose egg that bitch Becky had given Sam, but Sam had said there were no other injuries, nothing else to check... Dean found he was throttling a t-shirt and loosened his grip.

Sam, unexpectedly, laughed, this time sounding more like himself. Well, his cynical self. "Meg? Dean, I spent decades in the Cage with Lucifer riding me. He made Meg seem like, I don't know, a bad date. This, Becky? This was nothing in comparison."

Dean rolled the flannel shirt slowly as he tried to find a good response. Because right now, it was hard to think past how much it utterly sucked that Sam had so many horror stories in his past, that being roofied and Total Recall-ed by a girl into her bed didn't even make the cut.

And yet, there was a booklet.

"Don't read more into this than there is, all right?" Sam continued quietly into the silence between them. "I'm just trying to figure some stuff out. I'm managing, you know? But that doesn't mean my head isn't still pretty screwed up."

"Your head's always screwed up," Dean muttered back, just because.

Sam snorted at that.

They kept working, back-to-back, shoulders sometimes brushing as they sorted and folded. Sam never flinched away from him.

Dean took a breath. "I'm sorry, man."

He felt Sam pause. "For what?"

Dean shrugged. "For treating this whole thing like a joke. For giving you a hard time about it and not figuring it out sooner."

"It's not your fault. I mean, it was kinda ridiculous."

"She took advantage of you," Dean said sharply. Letting it go was one thing, but he was done not taking this seriously.

Awkward silence. Sam was motionless.

Dean winced, looked again for the right words for a bizarre situation.

Or maybe...he was looking at it wrong. Maybe he just needed the right words for Sam.

"It sucks," Dean said quietly. "I get it. You've had enough consent issues and alternate realities in your head for a whole therapy group of ex-cons without adding 'Mrs. Rosen-Winchester' to the mix. But you pulled it together when you needed to, Sam. And you just...you don't have to hide it, okay? None of this was your fault, and...if talking about it..."

A pair of his boxers hit the side of his head.

"...or not," Dean smoothly added, catching the underwear before it hit the ground. "I'm here, okay?"

"...I know," Sam finally said, so soft that Dean could barely hear.

Maybe it wasn't even meant for him.

Sam sighed. "If I hadn't taken off on you to go camping, this wouldn't have even happened."

Dean tossed one of Sam's socks aside for later darning. "Yeah, well. I get it if you need some space. Just, you know, maybe not on our annual Vegas trip."

Sam turned. "Dude, I wasn't looking for space. I just wanted to go camping. You could've come, too."

Dean twisted back to squint at him. "Sleeping on the ground eating granola and peeing in the bushes, or going to strip clubs and casinos." His hands, jeans in one and a tee in the other, mimed a balance. "Mmm, tough choice there, Sammy."

Sam rolled his eyes and turned back to the laundry. "Whatever, man."

Dean folded in silence, noting that Sam needed new underwear. "Maybe next time, okay?" he finally said. Camping with Sam still didn't sound as lame as hanging out alone in Vegas had been.

There was a pause. "Not during the Vegas trip," Sam offered in return.

"Uh, no." But Dean found himself smiling.

Maybe he'd pick an SUV, with lots of leg room and a Sasquatch-high ceiling, for their next ride.

The End