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Sam shut the bunker door as quietly as he could and tip-toed down the wrought iron staircase. Of course the thunk of the door still echoed through the bunker, and the steps protested loudly regardless of how slowly he transferred his weight. None of it mattered anyway, because Dean’s voice echoed out from the library, interrupting Sam’s attempt at stealth before he made it halfway down the stairs.
“Home early again, Sammy?”
Sam sighed and continued down the stairs at his normal pace. He should have known; just because Dean wore an old man robe and old man slippers didn’t mean he actually was an old man. A lifetime of hunting had conditioned Dean to stay up until two or three in the morning whether they were on the road or not.
“What’s the deal, man? How come you keep strikin’ out with the ladies?” Dean sipped his whiskey from a Men of Letters crystal high ball glass. His feet were propped on the table, chair tipped back, and his eyes glittered at Sam over the rim of his glass. “You need some pointers from your big brother?”
As Sam walked up the steps to the library, he made his best attempt at nonchalance and shrugged.
“I just wasn’t into it, that’s all.”
Dean scoffed at him, not buying his crappy lie.
“‘Not into it’? Dude. You haven’t been laid since that roadhouse over a year ago. If it were me, even glory holes in a skeevy bar would look good by now!”
“Well I’m not you, Dean, but good to know you’re keeping track of my sex life. Thanks.”
Sam so did not want to discuss this with Dean. Turning to avoid Dean’s face, Sam poured himself a whiskey, downed it, poured another.
Dean’s chair dropped flat to the floor with a loud crack. Sam could feel Dean eyeing his back, gauging Sam’s mood, trying to decide if he should poke at Sam any more.
“Saammy . . . tell me about your lady problems,” he sing-songed, evidently deciding that Sam’s mood wasn’t dark enough; either that or he had a death wish.
Sam closed his eyes and sipped a third whiskey. He couldn’t tell Dean about what that woman, Lady Bevell, had done to him. He couldn’t tell his brother about how she’d mindfucked him into thinking he’d had sex with her, made him think he’d wanted her, that he’d enjoyed it, that it had been his idea. He couldn’t tell Dean about how she’d made him feel everything as though it were real, both physically and emotionally; her body, her slick heat, how badly he’d wanted - no craved her. Sam’s face flamed, and he felt sick, remembering the wet spot on his jeans when he’d woken up. He felt the gorge rising in his throat and used his whiskey to push it back down.
He couldn’t talk about what happened to him now. Whenever he went out and took a woman home, he’d panic as soon as she was underneath him, sometimes as soon as they kissed. His pulse would shoot up, and his breathing would become erratic. He usually couldn’t muster even half an erection, and he couldn’t maintain it when he did. Two months ago, he’d actually passed out with a girl trying to force himself through the motions. When he’d come to, she’d ben half out of her head scared and was dialing 9-1-1.
He dreamed of her sometimes too. He’d wake up at three in the morning, panting and covered in sweat, hard enough to pound nails, eyes rolling with fear. He’d lunge out of bed and usually make it to the toilet before he threw up.
Toni Bevell had snaked so far into his mind that sometimes even masturbating without feeling sick was hard.
Sam ruefully took another sip of whiskey, but Dean, unaware of Sam’s inner monologue, plowed on like a big, dumb ox, heedless of Sam’s mood.
“Come on, Sam! You can tell your big brother! Did she have a third nipple? Was she actually a man?” Dean grinned and looked just a little bit hopeful.
Sam threw his glass down on the table. Again, he should have known his brother better.
“There was noth-” Sam cut himself off in frustration. One look at his brother and he could tell Dean wasn’t going to let this go, so Sam reverted to a tried and true Winchester avoidance tactic. “I don’t wanna talk about it,” he growled and stalked out of the library to his room, trying to hide his hurt and mortification in fury.
It was five whole minutes before Dean knocked on his door and pushed it open without waiting for an answer. Sam was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling fan. He spared Dean only a glance when he set the whiskey glasses, three fingers of amber liquid in both, on the bedside table and took a seat on the bed.
“Sam. Look man, I’m sorry. If you don’t wanna talk about it, you don’t have to. But it seems like something is really going on, and since we’re doing this whole ‘talking to each other thing,’ I thought. . .”
“Dean, I can’t talk to you about this.”
“Why not?”
Sam sighed and finally looked at his brother. “Because you’re you.”
“What do you mean, ‘I’m me’?” Dean’s brow furrowed. “Oh, is this like, a performance issue? Because believe me it happens and I’ve got these pills-”
“No, god, Dean!” Sam banged his head once against the wall and covered his face with his hands. “I don’t need drugs. I just don’t want to talk about this with you because . . . because you’re Ladies-Man Winchester, never met a diner waitress he couldn’t screw.”
“Hey! It’s not my fault the ladies can’t resist the Dad Bod,” Dean paused and sobered a bit. “I didn’t know it bothered you-”
“Yeah, it didn’t bother me before when I could get laid if I wanted to. Now, I can’t, so I’d prefer if Casanova left me the fuck alone.”
“‘Can’t’? Sam, you’re a reasonably attractive guy, and with the blue pills-”
Sam blew up and shot up off the bed.
“Dean!” he roared. “Fucking shut up, will you?” Sam paced back and forth a couple times and then viciously shoved his hands through his hair. “Fine, you wanna know what’s wrong with me? I’ll tell you. It’s not my dick that’s the problem. It’s my head. Lady Bevell took one look at me and decided to fuck around in my brain, just like Ruby. Just like Lucifer. Just like Cas. Just like EVERYONE I have ever known. Oh no, physically torturing me wasn’t enough, is never enough. There must be a fuckin’ sign on my forehead that says ‘Enter Here’ or ‘Come on in’ or ‘Today’s Special: the Denver Scramble’!”
Sam was so furious he was rigid, standing in the middle of his room throwing the words at Dean like knives. He had stopped pacing, but his body was vibrating with rage and he kept running his hands through his hair over and over. His scalp felt too tight around his skull, so he yanked on his hair a little, feeling some of the strands break in his fists. Sam realized his heart rate was ratcheting up, responding to his thoughts of all the times other people had stomped through his brain and now--.
Now Dean was going to know. He was about to find out what had happened, and Sam couldn’t stop it. Dean wouldn’t let him stop now. The train had left the station and there was no way to bring it back. He closed his mouth with a snap and breathed heavily and way too fast through his nose.
Dean, seeing Sam’s distress, had risen from the bed and was coming around it to get close to Sam. His face was worried, but not hurt or angry like Sam had expected. That made Sam even more determined to bury everything underneath his anger. As long as he stayed angry, no one could hurt him.
“What are you talking about? I thought you told us what that bitch did. There’s more?”
Sam just looked at Dean, trying to gain control of his breathing.
Dean took a step closer and reached for Sam’s arm, but he jerked out of Dean’s reach, too close to the precipice to have anyone touch him right now. It didn’t matter though, that Dean hadn’t touched him. It was too late. His vision swam for a second, breathing stopped. Suddenly all he could feel was Toni’s hands on his skin and the sheets around his waist. Sam cocked his head and blinked his eyes, trying to keep the room in focus and struggling to breath through his hallucination. He glanced down and saw her fingers around his arm, felt her embrace around his waist. The light in his room swam and flickered like candlelight.
“Come on, Sammy, tell me.” Dean’s voice changed. He sounded more like he was gentling a horse than talking with his brother. He said Sam’s nickname so tenderly it caught at the edges of the vision, wrinkling them so that Sam could see his way back to his bedroom and his brother. Toni Bevell’s grip on his arm loosened and disappeared. His anger evaporated, eaten up by relief at coming back to reality.
Dean didn’t move while Sam regained his equilibrium. Sam settled back into himself, but it still took him a few minutes to find his voice. Sam dropped his head, because he just couldn’t look at his brother anymore.
“Why Dean? Why does everyone mess with my head? Aren’t I broken enough already?”
Slowly, so Sam could see him coming, Dean moved closer and touched Sam’s forearm. When he didn’t flinch away, Dean gripped his arm more firmly and tugged him down to sit shoulder to shoulder against the bed.
“Tell me what happened, Sam, so I can help.”
Sam shuddered and looked at Dean with pleading eyes. “Please don’t make me live through it again,” he whispered.
“It’s okay, Sammy. I’m here now. You don’t have to do it alone.”
Sam broke.
He fisted his hand in Dean’s shirt and told him everything: the candles, the wine, how the sheets smelled, and how she felt beneath him. How small her body had been pressed against his large one, how warm and ready for him she was. Her skin had been soft, and she’d whispered all the things he wanted a lover to tell him. He’d cared for her. She’d made him care for her.
Then it’d cracked and he’d known he was in Hell. Back in that chair he never left, in that hole, taking her insults and jibes. It had almost broken Sam. She was worse that Lucifer, because she’d made Sam feel things that weren’t real. Lucifer had made him HURT, made him see things that weren’t always real, but Sam had always known which feelings were his own in the Cage. Lady Bevell had violated his mind and his feelings, made him question his reality. He’d been so grateful when she’d started to hurt him, because at least he knew that was real; the pain told him what was real.
“But now I can’t . . . with women. Be. . . because she-” Sam had to stop and gather himself. For a miracle, Dean didn’t say anything. Sam cleared his throat and forced himself to say the last part out loud.
“Because she’s in my head, De. Still. It’s been months and she . . . I can still feel her and my scars don’t work anymore, so sometimes when I’m with someone, I panic because I can’t tell what’s real. Sometimes I’m back in that basement with her. Sometimes . . . I can’t even . . . with just myself.”
There was a long moment where neither of them said anything.
“That bitch,” Dean spat with more vehemence that he’d ever used for Ruby. “I should have killed her myself.” He turned to look at Sam. “Sammy. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know, and here I’ve been makin’ jokes about your prowess.”
Dean didn’t say anything more, so Sam simply sat and felt the agonized relief of having finally told someone. Two big tears rolled down his face, and he ducked his head to wipe them away.
“Listen, I don’t think I can help with this,” Dean said after awhile. “I want to, believe me, but it sounds like it’s too big for me, and it sounds different than the other times with Luci or Cas or . . . me. Maybe it’s worse because all those other people have been in there first, I don’t know. But, I think you should talk to someone. A professional.”
Sam snorted and let go of Dean’s shirt so he could wipe his nose. “What am I gonna tell them? ‘Hi. This woman shot me, kidnapped me, drugged me, and then cast a magic spell on me to make me think we’d had consensual sex, when actually there was really no sex at all, not even contact, but I still feel violated’?”
Dean shrugged. “For starters.” He looked down at his shirts where Sam had been clutching, and tried in vain to smooth out the wrinkles. He grimaced a little in annoyance when the wrinkles stubbornly refused to let go, and then gave up.
Sam just stared at him, absently rubbing the impressions of shirt buttons in his palm. “Dean, who am I going to talk to? Dr. Phil for hunters?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m suggesting. Only less douchey.”
Sam looked at Dean like he’d grown a second head. “There’s no such thing.”
Dean shrugged one shoulder this time. “I see a guy in Lawrence, sometimes.”
“What?” Incredulous, Sam turned to fully face Dean. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean, sometimes I go talk to this guy. When the nightmares are bad, or my other emotional shit gets really bad; like bad where shooting and killing don’t help anymore. His name is Steve, he knows the Life, and I think you should call him.”
“Dean . . . Wow, that’s really . . . Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Thought you knew, honestly. I could have sworn I’d mentioned it at some point. Why do you think it takes me three hours to get beer sometimes? I’m not always with a diner waitress.” Dean grinned at him to let him know he was joking. Catching the expression on Sam’s face, the one that says he’s about to launch into a huge heart-to-heart about his brother’s mental health habits, Dean frowned.
“What?”
“Nothing!” Sam said quickly, momentarily distracted from his own issues. “It’s just . . . It’s so healthy of you. I mean, you, seeing a--”
Dean cut him off abruptly.
“Look, don’t make this a Thing. It’s not a big deal, okay? We met at a bar, traded a few beers and some stories, and he left me his card. I called him when things were really bad after Charlie, and he helped a little. So now I call him sometimes. End of story. Anyway, aren’t we talking about you?”
Sam looked back at his shoes.
“Yeah, yeah we were. There’s not much more to tell.” Sam scoffed at himself a little. “Dean, I think I’d like to go see this guy. Thanks. Thanks, uh, for listening.”
“Don’t mention it. “I’ll go get his number. And the whiskey.” Dean used the bed to push himself up to standing and headed for the door. “Oh, and Sam?” he said from the doorway.
Sam looked up at him. “Yeah?”
“Good talk.” Dean winked and disappeared out into the hallway.