Disclaimer All recognizable characters/settings belong to their creators. The stories listed here are transformative works, from which I've made/am making no financial profit.

Warnings Language; references/allusions to torture and non-con.

21. Long Night's Journey Into Day

"Leave the bottle," Dean growls, slamming the twenty down on the bar.

"I don't want no trouble Mister…"

"Then leave the fuckin' bottle."

Dean downs a scorching-hot fifth of Jack that sizzles in his stomach like alien blood, and he even looks down, expects to see it burning a hole through his belly and then bubbling right through the floor and on through every single bulkhead till it fizzles through the outer hull of the spaceship and—

Whoah. Slow down there, dude. This is Hibbing, Minnesota, not fucking Alien.

Though the way his gut clenches uncomfortably on the booze has him thinking that slippery little sucker is going to burst right through his chest any minute now.

That Ripley, she was totally fuckin' hot. Sorta reminds him of Kathleen.

Booth.

Dark.

Quiet.

Peace.

Dean slides off the barstool, picks up his bottle, makes a half-assed attempt to grab the second one too, only to see his hand pass right through it several times. "Cool SFX in this bar," he announces to the old-timer who drove him here, before drawing himself up to his full six foot-one, strides through the bar to a booth at the far end, while virgins throw themselves at his feet and even the town nuns put down their Buds and think unGodly thoughts at the sight.

Cal Mobley, abandoned up at the bar, shakes his head as he watches the boy lurch over to the back, coughing, dragging his leg, shoulders hunched and head bowed, while a couple of the local hobos shoot sympathetic glances his way. "Be out cold in ten minutes," he says to the barkeep.

Dean slides in on the padded bench seat, scoots along so his back is in the corner and he can watch the room. And no one can sneak up behind him.

Shit. He forgot his glass.

No matter. He takes a chug from the bottle, feels the alien acid blood shoot up to his brain this time too. He smiles. When he gets done he's going to have to hold onto the floor to stop himself from falling off the planet. And then he's going to throw one of those nuns across the bar and show her who's God. And then he's going to stagger back to Hudak's house, keeping one eye closed the whole way so he isn't seeing two of everything. And then he's going to piss in her refrigerator. Good times.

And then he hears it.

The unmistakable clack of balls coming from somewhere out back.

He studies his left arm, ponders the logistics of feeding the cue across the cast, thinks fuck it, he's going to do it anyway. Sam's bitchface might look less like their dad sucking on a lemon while a compactor reverses back over his foot if he's fisting a handful of twenties when his brother tracks him down and peels him off the nun.

Shit, the fuckin' weather isn't too good in this bar, he thinks as hailstones the size of golfballs start slamming down from the sky. "You said summer was coming," he seethes to Teenage Weatherboy when his face pushes up out of the table, all lined with woodgrain. "And who the fuck invited you anyway?"

"Let me get this straight. He asked you to leave him the book to read. You did. But unlike the rest of the human race, you don't turn down the corner of the page to mark your place. You use a paperclip. And the rest is history."

Bobby sits down heavily on the bed, picks up the discarded book from the floor, squints at the title, actually laughs, albeit it's a hollow chuckle. "Dean Winchester asked you to leave William Shakespeare's The Tempest handy so he could read it. Well Kathleen, that should have been your first fuckin' clue, wouldn't you say?"

She scowls, feels like a damned idiot. That sonofabitch pulled all her strings with his drowsy aren't I adorable bedtime routine, and she fell for it hook, line and sinker. "Look, Bobby," she says, helplessly. "I don't know what to say. He seemed so genuine. He was so convincing."

The old man quirks his head. "Oh, I don't doubt that, Kathleen. And he always has had a way with the ladies."

"Oh, cut it out Bobby, you know damn well—"

"Now, now. I'm just joshin' with you, Kathleen. Kid's bamboozled us all, truth be told." Bobby shakes his head ruefully. "Fuckin' piss artist, always finds a way when you least expect it. Dealing with him sometimes is like arm wrestling without the arms. Before you know it he's pinned you down and you can't work out how he did it."

They both look up as Sam comes back in.

"My hoodie's gone from the hallstand, so he must be planning on staying out past curfew," he snaps, and he throws a hard glare at Hudak.

"So, Sam," she parries evenly. "Your idea to unstrap his wrist, wasn't it? Pity, since he'd never have gotten hold of the book in the first place if you hadn't."

Bobby makes an exasperated noise, rises to his feet, pulls off his cap and scratches his head. "He's played both of you, you idjits," he says. "You and your paperclip… Jesus, please remind me to write bookmark on the shopping list. And you…" He looks at Sam. "Sandwich breakthrough, my ass. He only ate the damn thing because he knew he'd get no further than the top of the stairs without some food in his belly."

He strides to the doorway, looks back. "He's been planning this since you started reading to him, Kathleen," he announces. "It's a good sign. He's starting to think like himself again." He seems to be waiting for something and rolls his eyes as Hudak and Sam stare dumbly at him. "Well, come on," he snaps impatiently.

Hudak jumps to it pretty quickly, follows him down the stairs, Sam at her heels. "Where to?" she asks.

"Well if it were me, I'd be fixing to get either high or drunk," Bobby decides as he pulls on his jacket. "I'm guessing drunk's easier so we'll start with the bars. Are there any with pool tables? He'll be needing to hustle some cash for booze."

"Um."

"Um what, Sam?"

"There was a twenty in the pocket of my hoodie."

"Of course there was. How could there not be? Jesus wept a fuckin' river."

Even as far back as Dean is sitting, he's bathed in a draught of cool air each time the door to the bar swings open. The place is filling up, getting noisier, hazy blue ribbons of smoke wreath the air, and he feels his throat clench and his chest tighten with each in-breath. His buddy Jack is the best kind of company: he doesn't talk back, has no opinion, doesn't pity him, takes him for what he is.

Which is, in a word, wasted.

And just a tad queasy.

He skulks in his corner, rests his chin on the top of the bottle when his head gets too heavy for his neck, hears the chatter and the fuckin' lousy lost-mah-woman-an-mah-dog-died country crap recede to muffled background noise, thinks there's nothing like a good pair of liquid earplugs for shutting out the world.

A crocodile of leather-clad bikers streams by, each of them as wide as he's tall, and all of them wearing signs on their backs that read Hustle Me Now, Winchester.

Dean grins, slides along his bench, pushes up, grabs the table as his vision starts to tunnel, closes his eyes through afuckin' awesome head rush.

Okay.

Better now.

Steady.

Sort of…

He trails after them, planting his boots very firmly on the floor because in between him sitting down and getting up they've remodeled the joint, and the cracked linoleum has been replaced with Arctic ice floes that bob up and down with every step, threatening to tip over and cast him into freezing cold, black-as-night water, where Sam will never find him.

"Is Dean a heavy drinker, then?" Hudak says from the back seat of Bobby's truck, before she looms up unexpectedly right between them.

Sam and Bobby glance over at each other and Sam does this little throat clearing thing she has noticed him do when he's avoiding answering a question, like he's playing for time and working out something he can say that will be less incriminating.

"Dean's a… typical twenty-six-year-old male of the species," Bobby says, noncommittally.

"That doesn't really answer my question," she says dryly. "Although somehow it totally answers my question. What I mean is, does he have a history of problem drinking? Is he likely to cause trouble he can't fight his way out of?"

"You mean is he an alcoholic?" Bobby says, bluntly.

Sam snorts. "Alcoholics go to meetings. Dean doesn't, which makes him just your garden-variety drunk."

Bobby huffs. "That isn't fair, Sam," he says mildly. "He likes a drink or two. Purely recreational. And he can hold his liquor." He gives Sam a sideways glance. "Unlike some of us here ridin' shotgun."

Dean stands on wobbly legs, bottle in hand, watching the frame play out, senses he's being watched and glances over at some guy who's built like a Russian war memorial, with a stare like a noose and leathers that must have used up an entire herd of cows.

"Wanna play, boy?"

Hell, yeah.

He's half the guy's size, knows damn well the ripple of sniggers is the biker's buddies laughing athim, not with him. He lumbers gracelessly around the table, bides his time, pulls his punches, loses, albeit respectably, and then slaps the five bucks he has left down on the table.

"You drive a real hard bargain, kid," War Memorial drawls. "I'm so excited I can barely hold it in."

Dean cocks his head, studies the guy for a second, ranges up close to him, right into his no-fly zone, knows from how the big man's breathing speeds up that he hasn't misread the look in the dude's eyes. "I know some tricks," he breathes, bats his fuckin' eyelashes, licks his top lip with the tip of his tongue because he knows they like that, works the pretty for all he's worth. "I'll throw them in the pot. Fifty bucks."

He sees a bead of sweat suddenly appear on the guy's top lip, then another.

"Fifty it is."

The second bar looks vaguely familiar and it suddenly hits Sam that it's the one he chose to get wasted in right after he thought his brother had died out there in the woods. Bobby turns off the main road, pulls up opposite a platoon of Harley's best parked outside: the local Demon Chrome out to sink a few. Sam sees Hudak glance at them uneasily as they debark the truck.

"Those guys local?" Bobby remarks, as they head up to the door.

"Could be. And depending on which chapter it is, they're not too friendly at the best of times," she replies, and Sam sees her reach a hand down to pat at her hip, checking her service revolver is ready, willing and able, unclipping the stud that secures the flap of the holster.

It's smoky inside, and noisy with chat, laughter and generic background noise, jukebox churning out the usual country-and-western dirge. It's busy too, an assortment of local old-timers with the odd tough guy in the mix, plenty of underdressed women letting it all hang out on a Saturday night. Sam casts his mind back to how deserted the place was when he'd last been there. Why the fuck couldn't his brother have waited until Monday, when Hibbing and his wife were sacked out in front of the TV?

Bobby walks ahead of them, scanning the joint, while Hudak nods at a couple of old guys, stops to talk to one of them as he cuddles his beer. Sam can't see his brother anywhere, and he sends up a prayer of thanks to the Maker, because Dean's recent mood and a bunch of drunken leather-men aren't exactly a match made in heaven, and while his brother might well be capable of pulling a Neo and fighting his way out from under a whole pile of them under normal circumstances, there's no way he can in his current condition.

Hudak makes her way over, dodging a couple of over-friendly drunks en-route, raises her voice and speaks right in Sam's ear. "Cal Mobley – remember him?"

"Cal Mobley of Cal Mobley's upper forty fame?"

"One and the same. Seems he picked up our stray on his way up here but that was over an hour ago and I don't see him anywhere now," she says. "Cal says he bummed a couple of smokes off him and was coughing like a coyote with bronchitis when they got here. Any oxygen left in that tank back home?"

Sam shakes his head. "I don't know for sure. Christ. What the hell has gotten into him?"

Hudak puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezes, leans in again. "If he isn't here he won't have gotten far."

Sam looks about again, peering into as many of the smoky booths as he can without incurring a swift right for his troubles, briefly considers tapping a dishwater blond on the shoulder to see if the guy whose tonsils she's apparently snacking on is his brother, before the guy's thrust-out cowboy boot lets him off the hook.

"Where are the bikers?" he shouts to Hudak, who's talking to the guy tending bar. The guy recognizes Sam, nods.

"In the back. The pool tables are through there." She leans over to talk briefly to the barkeep again, and then turns back to Sam. "Joe says Dean bought a quart of Jack. Didn't cause any trouble, just disappeared somewhere to drink it and hasn't been up to the bar since," she says. "And no trouble in here tonight at all, so we can assume he's either sleeping it off in a corner or the back alley, or that he's on a pub crawl."

"Where's the next bar?"

"A mile or so further up the main road. Do you see Bobby anywhere?"

The older man reappears as if she just summoned him, materializing from out of nowhere just to Sam's right.

"There's another bar about a mile up the road," Sam calls over the din. "But we should check the back alley first—"

"No need," Bobby hollers, points into the back of the bar. "We got him, boy."

Sam pushes ahead, maneuvering his way through the crowd into the back room, squinting through the dim light. He sees his brother just poised to take a shot and surges forward, fully intent on grabbing him by the ear and hauling him out of there, only for Bobby to grab his jacket and jerk him to a sudden stop.

"Hang on a minute," the old man says, pulling Sam back into the shadows along the wall.

"What?" Sam snaps. "What's the problem?"

Hudak shunts into them from behind. "Is he okay?"

"He's fine," says Bobby. "Look at him."

Sam glances back over at his brother, then back to Bobby again.

"What? I don't understand. We need to get him and go…"

"Just wait a minute, Sam," Bobby says, exasperated, and he drags him over to a booth and pushes him in, Hudak following behind looking just as puzzled as Sam feels.

"Sit," Bobby orders. "Now look at him. Look at your brother, Sam. Really look at him."

And Sam does, and it's like someone reached out and pulled off the blinkers, the blindfold, the sack over his head, and switched on all the lights. And he lets all his tension out in a sort of sigh crossed with a chuckle.

"What? What is it?" Hudak prods. "What are we looking for? What's wrong with him?"

"It's Dean," Sam says, soft but not so soft that she can't hear him.

She looks over at the pool table herself, and back at both of them. "Yeah, I get that, but what are we doing just sitting here?"

"No, you don't get it, Kathleen," Bobby says, and he smiles. "It's Dean."

God, how could he have forgotten this? Sam thinks. How could he have thought they were making any kind of headway with the fake brother, the cheap black-and-white photocopy of the brightly hued original, the not-Dean they've been shackling to the bed.

His brother looks a tad wobbly, is having to hold on as he limps around the pool table, bends without his usual fluid grace. His hair is hectic spikes, his face so pale it's translucent. But it's all in his eyes and his air of confidence as he lines up his shot, cue sliding smoothly over the edge of his cast. He's alert, seeing clearly, thinking ahead, cool, sly, ruthless, as he knocks the ball home, pockets the roll of bills on the side of the table, hooks his bottle of Jack and sucks it down.

"Who's next?" Sam can hear him saying.

He's feral, deadly, the alpha-dog.

He's Dean.

Until it all goes to hell, until eyes turn predatory, as they invariably do when it comes to Dean.

It happens fast, the big, thickset figure bearing down on his brother from behind, Dean totally oblivious. Sam sees his eyes widen in shock as an arm wraps around his neck and he's shoved forward into the pool table, to a crescendo of whoops and jeers from the leather crowd.

Bobby is already up and moving into the light as Sam shakes himself out of his own dawning horror, and as he follows the older man, he can hear the biker drooling words into the side of his brother's face, aggressively thrusting his hips into Dean's backside.

"C'mon sugar britches, how's about we go outside and you put them cocksuckin' lips to good use like you promised, huh? Or how's about I just bend you over this pool table and—"

"Not today, friend," Bobby snaps behind him, as he clouts the guy smartly on the back of the skull with the handle of his Bowie.

And it's the cue for ten seconds of total mayhem as Sam takes a punch to the jaw that feels like he's been hit by a shovel, reels, ducks, hits out, lands a right to some world light heavyweight biker's nose mid-pounce, grabs a ball from the pool table and hurls it straight into the front teeth of another, slips, catches a glimpse, oh Jesus, no, of a hand raised high, bottle aimed at the back of his brother's head. Sam is grabbed and swung around before he can see if the glass makes contact, sent flying across a table. He crashes through it and lands amid puddles of warm beer, the wind knocked out of him, dimly aware of a gunshot ringing out above the shouting.

"Urgh," he mutters as he's heaved up into a sitting position and finds himself staring dazedly at Bobby.

"How many fingers, boy?" the old men are saying, being as Bobby has chosen that moment to introduce Sam to his two clones, and all three of them are kneeling there with the real Bobby dead center. He thinks.

"Green?" Sam guesses, and the Bobbies shake their heads in unison before propping him against the wall. He blinks hard, takes deep breaths, is vaguely aware of Hudak kicking ass and taking names from among the newly subdued bikers, sits for a minute while the spinning slows down.

Dean.

Sam looks around frantically as Bobby comes back over and kneels down, waves a glass of water at him. "Where's he gone? Bobby?"

Bobby shakes his head. "Rabbited, son. Won't have gone far though, so as soon as—"

"He was hit, Bobby. I saw him get hit, take a bottle to the head…" Sam knows his voice is desperate, panic-stricken. "If he's been drinking he'll bleed heavier… we need to find him now, Bobby, now, we need to—"

Bobby raises his hand. "Just wait. Wait a minute… you look fit to drop, Sam, I don't think—"

"I'm finding my brother," Sam snaps, pushing up awkwardly. "I need to find my brother."

Bobby gazes at him, nods slowly. "Yeah. Okay, kid. We'll go find him together."

Hudak makes her way over from the pool table, frowning. "Listen," she says quietly. "That guy says Dean propositioned him, and all his buddies are backing him up. Seems your brother was unlucky enough to run into the, and I quote, Pink Pistoleros."

Sam bristles. "There's no way," he growls. "No fucking way in hell. After what happened to him? That's crap. They're lying."

Hudak raises a conciliatory hand. "Don't kill the messenger, Sam. Anyway, one of them says he saw Dean head towards the restrooms, so if he isn't in there he might have gone out through the back – it leads into the service alley."

Sam pushes purposefully by her, heads to the restrooms.

Dean stumbles along, legs weak, hands out to the side to keep his balance, laces dragging through puddles, wondering how it is that everything he does just digs the hole deeper and then pulls the dirt in after him.

He vision is graying out. He needs to rest.

He sees a still, quiet corner, sinks gratefully into the blackness and contemplates his sins.

"Bupkis," Sam grates, as he emerges from the restroom. "He must've gone outside. Christ. I'm sure he was hit, Bobby."

"Calm down, Sam," the old man says. "We haven't come this far with your brother to lose him like that. I ain't having it, and neither are you."

They push out through the exit door, the brief light cast by the bar shutting off abruptly as the door slams shut behind them, leaving them standing in pitch blackness. "Sweet baby cheeses on a stick," Bobby murmurs. "It's darker than a hog's ass out here."

The door pushes open behind them and Hudak appears, brandishing a couple of flashlights. "Joe keeps them behind the bar for power outages. The alley isn't very well lit."

She looks to the left and then right, towards the road, where the light is better. "Think he'd head out to the road, try to hitch another ride?"

Bobby shrugs. "It's what I'd do."

Sam moves to trail after them as they start walking, suddenly feels a wave of dizziness.

"Uh. Gonna hurl, I think…" He sits down, his butt landing smack in the middle of a convenient puddle. "I'm gonna take five," he says when Bobby squats down next to him. "I'll catch you up."

"Sure?"

"Yeah… I'll be fine. Just stay on the main road so I can see you."

Bobby hands him the flashlight and walks off up the alley, towards Hudak's bobbing light, and he rests his aching head on his knees for a few minutes, rubs his traitorous gut.

And hears something… snuffling. Animal?

He shifts onto all fours, stands wearily.

There's a dumpster back there and Sam approaches it cautiously, training the beam of light around it into the corner, fully expecting to see raccoon headlights reflected back, maybe even have the critter jump right out at him.

What he sees has him sink to his knees. "Dean…" he breathes.

"Knew just where to look, Sammy, huh?" his brother rasps. "With the rest of the trash."

Sam eases forward, stops as he sees his brother tense, draw up his legs and hug himself tight, raise the broken bottle defensively, holding it out in front of him like he would his Bowie.

"Stay. Right. There."

And Sam finds he's had enough, decides it ends here. "Why? Why do I have to stay here? Are you scared of me? Do you think I'm going to hurt you, Dean? Do you honestly think that?"

He directs the flashlight beam right into his brother's face, sees Dean recoil, pull his arm up in front of his eyes, but not before Sam sees the bloody trails streaking down his cheek. "You're hurt."

"Isn't the first time, won't be the last."

Dean: glass-half-empty now, Sam thinks. "Answer the question, Dean," he presses.

"What? What question?"

Dean suddenly sounds confused, unsure. Head wound, Sam thinks. He sets the flashlight down, his brother still bathed in its powerful glow. "Do you think I'm going to hurt you?"

"Uh…" Dean squints, shakes his head as if he's trying to shake out the chaos, the clutter. "You did before. In the woods."

Sam suddenly remembers the painful, roundabout conversation he'd had with his brother when he was trying to convince him he wasn't Gabe, thinks this is looking to turn out just like that if Dean can't stay in the now. "That wasn't me, Dean," he says wearily. "That was Lee."

"Lee, Sam. What's the difference?"

And Sam explodes. "What's the difference? What's the fucking difference? I didn't rape you, Dean. That's the fucking difference. I didn't rape you, and how you can—"

"No, dammit," Dean says harshly and his face is all lit up with alarm, dismay, dread, trepidation. "No, that isn't… what the hell are you talking about? That never happened, it never happened." He shakes his head again, violently, vehemently. "No. That never happened. It's a fuckin' lie. You're lying."

"God…" Sam makes a move towards Dean, has this longing to grab him tight, shield him from the world, forever.

"Stay the fuck away from me!"

"Okay! Okay!" Sam raises his hands in submission, falls back and waits a minute, waits until Dean's heaving breaths slow down. "Dean," he tries. "You're never going to recover from this if you don't face up to it. I can help you, I'm your brother, I want to be there for you—"

"Did Stanford make a huge mistake or are you deaf?" Dean snarls. "Nothing fuckin' happened. You just got a vivid imagination, Sam, that's all."

There's nothing else for it, Sam thinks, knows he's going to lance this pussing sore right here and now. "We know it happened, Dean," he says gently. "We know what Bender did. We saw the cuts, the bruises. We found out what to check for, and we checked. We know."

His brother is silent for long minutes, and when he finally speaks, all the fight is gone. He's devastated, destroyed, his voice cracked and broken. "You checked? How could you do that, how could you… what does that even mean? I can't believe you did that…"

Sam doesn't know what he really expected, but knows the sheer defeat in his brother's voice and the lost look in his eyes isn't it. "Dean, I just… I had to know," he says, haltingly. "I couldn't just sit and wonder, speculate about it."

"Why? Why couldn't you do that?" his brother chokes out, scrubbing at his eyes. "Why couldn't you leave me with a shred of fuckin' dignity… what is this to you, what is it you're getting from this? Proof I'm an equal-opportunity whore? Is that it?"

"No, no, Dean – Jesus." Sam swallows down the lump swelling his throat, keeps going. "No… you can't really think that, tell me you—"

Dean cuts in again, his eyes and voice suddenly cold, bleak. "When we were kids," he says, so quiet Sam can barely hear him. "When we were kids, dad would leave us for weeks at a time."

Sam is caught off-guard by his brother's sharp left, but fuck knows, if Dean ever needed him to indulge him it's now. So he does. "Yeah, I remember. And you took care of me, and that's why you need to let me take care of you now. My turn to be the big brother…"

"Sometimes… sometimes the money would run out."

Dean's voice is getting softer and softer, and Sam suddenly starts to feel a dull ache in his chest, a lump in his throat, the urge to scream out, no-stop-there-don't-wanna-know-you-did-that-for-me.

But he already knows, always has known.

"I was too young to hustle pool."

And Sam remembers how he always hated it when Dean left him alone in the motel room after dark, remembers how he always hated it when Dean came back late and wept himself to sleep.

"I know you heard what that guy said," his brother hisses. "Cocksucking lips. Guess what goes around comes around, huh, Sammy? Guess I was fuckin' asking for it, huh, sending out some signal."

"Shhhh…" Sam whispers, scoots a couple of inches closer. "Stop this. Stop trying to push me away. Whatever you did then doesn't matter. It makes no difference. There's no shame here, Dean. No shame. That's why I needed to know."

Dean is looking at the ground, and Sam can see he's shaking, sees him put the broken bottle down and start rubbing his brow, back, forth, sees him start to retreat back into himself, back into not-Dean.

"Dean, look at me." There's no response, and Sam raises his voice, injects a shot of John Fuckin' Winchester. "Look at me!"

His brother obeys, just like he knew he would.

"Dean, I needed to know so I could look you in the eye, like I'm doing right now, and tell you that you don't have anything to feel ashamed of, or guilty for," Sam says. "So you would know I know, and that it changes nothing for me, nothing about the way I feel for my brother. Nothing about the kind of man I think he is. The best. The best."

Dean crumples abruptly and completely. "I can't… I don't… don't know what to do, Sammy, I don't… I feel…"

Sam creeps even closer, stealthy. "You don't have to do anything, Dean, just let me do it. Let me help you, let us help you. We can help you. It wasn't your fault, Dean… not your fault. You don't have to feel ashamed, never that…"

His brother looks up then, right at him, and his eyes are desolate. "But you don't know," he whispers. "You don't know, Sammy, don't know what happened, when he, when he—"

Sam cuts in, isn't going to force his brother to lay out the details, knows that though he's so close now his brother needs more time, and he's infinitely patient, can give him that time. "Dean," he soothes, reaches out, puts his hand on his brother's cheek. "I know what he did. You don't have to—"

"No!" Dean's outcry is laced with pain, grief, self-recrimination. "Not him! You don't know what I did! You don't know what I did when he – when he…" He hugs himself even tighter, pushes himself so far back into the wall he looks as if he's trying to embed himself in it, trying to melt into it.

And words from a website march across Sam's field of vision and it suddenly slots into place. Oh… oh no… no-no-no. "God. Dean… Jesus, man."

Caution tossed aside, Sam crowds in, wraps his arms around his shaking brother, feels him tense up with anxiety. "No… you don't get to do that with me, Dean," he says, firmly. "You know I would never hurt you. You know that."

There's a second or two when Dean doesn't react but then he throws himself into the embrace, hanging on with an almost frightening intensity at the same time Sam senses movement just beyond the dumpster, sees Bobby peek round it, eyebrows raised in a question. Sam shakes his head almost imperceptibly, and the old hunter reads the signal loud and clear and ducks back out of sight.

He grips onto his brother, tight, to soothe the tremors. "I do know what you did, Dean. I do know," he murmurs in his ear. "But you need to listen to me now, very carefully. It was a natural reaction. It's how we're programmed. I know you're confused… but it didn't mean you liked it, or wanted it. It didn't mean you took part or led him on. It happens all the time. All the time. I can prove it to you. Please believe me. Do you believe me?"

Dead silence for long moments and then his brother whispers a reply. "I want to go home."

"We'll go home, Dean. We'll go soon, I promise."

And they sit, and Sam holds onto his brother and rocks him.