He couldn't remember, no matter how hard he tried, tried to bring back the face, he couldn't. His Sammy. His. How...No, he still couldn't remember. The night was a blur, indistinct shapes against the light. Both of them stumbling home, arms around eachother's shoulders, and then Dean is falling, hurtling to the ground, Sam's huge form above him. Laughing.
"Dude, I'm leaving you here. Dude?" A sharp kick to his ribs, and Dean gurgles something that might be 'go.' The whole world is spinning, the smell of whiskey and tequila on his breath making him gag. "I'm gonna go find someone to help you up...hehe, help you...hehe." Sam's words are slurred, and Dean can feel the smile stretching across his face.
"I'm fine Sammy...Sammy, Sammy, Sammy, Sammmmmmmy." He thinks maybe he took something, too, but can't remember. "I love you little brother..." He saw the shape, sliding behind Sam so quick it made Dean's head spin and he closed his eyes, he fucking closed his eyes. There was a sound, a soft thunk, and when he opened his eyes again, Sam was gone, but he could hear him, frantic calls of his name, the N dropped in the drunken haze reminding him of when they were little and Sam was still learning to talk, when the only word he would say was "Dee" again and again. The bricks were slick, and Dean couldn't quite stand up, boots sliding against the gravel, he couldn't find a hold. Then - clunk - his skull connected with the building painfully as he lost his footing, and he was falling again, but this wasn't the pleasant fall, cushioned by Sam's arms, Sam's smile down on him, this time he landed tasting wet dirt, warm blood on his neck and Sam's voice screaming painfully in the back of his head as he blacked out.
It rained, and he woke up sputtering, almost choking on dirty water tasting like soot. The sun switched on the jack hammer in his brain, perfectly in time with his heart beat, and he couldn't remember where he was. He sat and cricked his neck, feeling the blood flake off and the water pooled in the small of his back rush down to soak the waistband of his pants. Everything was murky, but he could still hear Sam's voice.
"Hey?! Sam? Sammy? Sammy, boy, where are you?" Someone passed him and hurried away as he braced himself on the edge of the building, hand finding the smear of dark where his head slammed and pulling away sharply. Even in the early morning mist, the light hurt his eyes, and he fumbled in his pocket to find his sunglasses before he stumbled forward, calling his brother's name past his raw throat, not giving a damn about the faces turned his way, the last traces of bad liquor keeping his body from shaking and fighting off those first tremors of panic.
He looked down the alleyway, making out Sam's strong form, rumpled on the ground. His heart stopped cold for one beat, two before the shadow shook violently in the cold and he let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding, thanking whatever gods there might be.
"Sammy? Come on, Sam, we gotta go." He half ran to his brother, ignoring the burn in his muscles and blinking as the light adjusted. "Oh...nonononono." Sam was sprawled on his side near the dumpster, jeans low on his thighs, smear of blood on the top, his face buried in his arms. He smelled of sweat and beer and..."Oh God no. Sammy?" Every bad story he had heard, his father's rough voice warning him about strange men with candy and lost dogs, it all came back to him. One day that stopped being relevant. They were grown men, damn it. Somewhere along the way they gained control over themselves, and perverts with flashy smiles weren't a problem. Guess they were after all. "Help? Help! Somebody help me!"
The cops had talked to him as they put his Sammy, his baby brother, into a stretcher. The EMTs had called Sam by a different name and for the longest time he couldn't remember why. Then they started talking about rape kits and tests, and a flash of fear went into Sam's eyes like Dean had never seen.
"No! Dean, don't let them, please, don't let them." He had grabbed Dean's hand so hard it hurt.
"No, shh, Sammy, it's alright, they aren't going to do anything, alright. It's going to be fine." Dean soothed him like he was nine years old again, not like he had seen all the dark, horrible things in the shadows, not his intimidating hulk of a brother.
Some cop, some pompous prick that was somehow unshaken by how broken Sam was, like it was natural for his brother to be this scared, this terrified, had pulled him aside.
"We've got to test him, sir. If the perp didn't wear a...if he gave Dustin something, we should know." Dean stares at him for a second, trying to connect what the hell he's talking about when he realizes that Dustin is the name on Sam's fake license, the one that happened to be in his pocket, the made up reporter from some made up paper. Then everything else slides into place and he has to lean against the side of the cop car, spend all his energy on just not puking.
"If my brother doesn't want to be touched, you aren't going to touch him." He finally says, after he stands up to his full height, towering over the deputy. The guy looked away, eyes down, nodded. "I understand, sir. I just think you should take into account what's best for Dustin." Dean wanted to scream, hit, yell, just for calling him Dustin. That's not his name!
He can't remember the ambulance ride, only can remember how Sam wouldn't let anyone touch him but Dean, how he had held onto his brother's hand so tight Dean's fingers turned blue and his bones ground against each other. The EMT's wouldn't shut up, phrases like "post-traumatic stress,""anxiety,"all the words Dean never ever wants to hear again.
Now Dean's staring through a sliver of a glass window. He doesn't want to go in there. Sam's clothes are in a neat folded stack in the corner, his jeans stained with black. First thing Dean's going to do is burn them. Then Sam's head turns and his eyes lock with Dean's, not so shockingly green but kind of washed out, like he's been crying too much. He hasn't though. He hasn't shed one tear.
Then Sam blinks, and his face crumples like he might, like he could, and he turns his face away.
The room smells like antiseptic, but its oddly quiet. All the times it had come down to a hospital, every time it had gotten that bad, the rooms were always loud and constant and obnoxious. Dean remembers being eight years old, watching his baby brother being hooked up to a respirator, watching as they snaked a tube down his throat. It must have been pneumonia, but Dean couldn't really remember the details. For months, long after they left the hospital, all Dean could hear was the soft exhale of the machine.
"Sammy?" He closed the door as softly as he could behind himself, and Sam gave him a weak smile, the kind he gives before he passes out from blood loss, the one after a nightmare, the one he gave when he'd come home with bruises. Sammy was always just too good to fight back.
"Hey, Dean." He says Dean's name a few more times, then he is crying, huge wracking sobs that look like they hurt and Dean just can't see any more pain."I'm so sorry. I'm sorry you have to be here." Dean's already protesting, hands on Sam's face, his thumb rubbing down the lines of Sam's tears like he's trying to pressing them into the skin where he can't see them anymore. "You could get into so much trouble being here. I don't want you to pay for my mistakes. Dean, you should go, you should go, Dean, Dean..." Then he's three years old again, and his entire vocabulary is made up of his brother's name. Dean can see the beginnings of a panic attack, and goes back to soothing him. Sam goes suddenly still, and Dean thinks 'oh, shit, he's going into shock' but then Sam speaks.
"Don't tell Dad. Dean, promise me, you can't tell Dad." He talking like he used to when he did something wrong, like when Dean came home to a shattered mirror and a broken lamp and a bleeding Sammy blubbering about nightmares. Every spilled cup, every messed set of clothing, always accompanied by a quick 'Don't tell Dad.'
"Sam, he won't be mad, it's alright."
"No, no, you can't tell Dad. Please, Dean, Please." He's crying even harder, and Dean is nodding before he can think.
"Alright, Sammy. It's alright, I won't tell."
So he didn't. He never told their father. Their Dad thinks he knows the reason that Sam left, but Dean thinks it's what happened that night. They had gone home, and Sam couldn't even look at his father. He flinched at every touch, any touch from anybody except Dean. Dean remembers his father's drunken words one night, the first night he really landed a punch on his father.
"You ain't ever gonna go out on your own, boy. Too damn jumpy all the damn time. What the fuck are you scared of?" Sam's eyes had darkened, and his face had fell, and he was murmuring sorry before he even thought about it. Then Dean was up and over the thin plywood table, leaping across it and it's weird how pliant his father felt against his fists.
Yeah, he still thought about it. He thought about his baby brother, tossled and jerked around and beaten and bruised and violated and scarred from the inside out. How could he not? He still thought about the bastard that was still out there. He should've found him. Should've cut him up in little pieces, starting from the bottom up, listened to him scream like Sam probably wanted to scream, like he still screamed sometimes in the night.
When he finally goes to get Sam, he's surprised. He guesses it was Jess that did this, this total transformation. Sam stands tall against him, powerful and a little intimidating. He gets up in Dean's face, argues and laughs and lies like he used to. There isn't a trace of that fear.
They sit in the motel room together, before the job is done, and finally Sam speaks.
"It's okay. I never told you that, but it's okay. We were both drunk, and he jumped me." Dean considers pretending he doesn't know what Sam is talking about, but that would be cheap, cruel even. Can't pretend it didn't happen. "I never blamed you, Dean. Not even a little. And I'm okay now." He looks at Dean and gives that little smile, and Dean thinks of the irony. All the monsters they've faced, the evil they fought, it was just a man that disabled his brother, just a woman that put him all back together. "I've buried it, Dean. To me, he's dead." And thats the end of it.