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As soon as he stepped into the shower, Sam turned the temperature of the water up until it was scalding. He grabbed a bar of soap and a washcloth, and scrubbed until it hurt—and kept scrubbing. He tried not to cry, he really did, but he just couldn't hold it back anymore. He felt tainted. He felt dirty. He felt like nothing more than a piece of fucking meat.

He didn't get out of the shower until the water ran cold. He dried himself off slowly and pulled on the sweats Dean had left for him on the counter. He could feel Dean's worried gaze on him when he emerged from the bathroom, but ignored him and crawled back under the covers. It was still dark out, and he figured he'd have at least a few more hours of sleep.

Dean tried not to stare at his brother. He knew Sam wouldn't want to be coddled, or treated like he was made of glass.

But hell if Dean didn't want to hold him close and never let go—chick flick moments be damned.

What had happened to Sam was not like any cut, or burn, or illness. It wasn't something that Dean could slap a bandage on, or attack with a few pills.

Sam was damaged. Sure, it had only been one time, but one time is all it takes. Dean didn't have a single fucking clue how to fix this.

Dean waited to make sure Sam was asleep before stepping outside. He pulled out his cell and scrolled through his contacts. Dad. His thumb hovered over the send button.

And he hit "End" and went back inside.

Dad hadn't picked up the phone the first few thousand times, not even when Jess died. Why would he now? Dean thought bitterly, thinking back to all the times he heard his father tell Sam to "Suck it up."

This is my job, because Sammy is my kid. Dean quietly padded over to stand next to the bed, running a hand through his brother's floppy chestnut locks. Even in his sleep, Sam turned towards his big brother, quietly murmuring Dean's name. Dean felt a strong surge of love and affection that made his chest swell. "Don't worry, Sammy," he murmured. "I'll fix this."

Sam had expected to be woken the next morning by the alarm, but when he opened his eyes the sun was already up and shining bright. Dean must have let him sleep in.

He heard a toilet flush, and the older Winchester walked out of the bathroom. "Welcome back, sleeping beauty," he grinned, although it didn't reach his eyes. "I got breakfast." He pointed to the takeout bag sitting on the table.

"'M not hungry," Sam mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

"Dude, you gotta eat something."

Sam just shook his head and went to the bathroom. Locking the door behind him, he took this brief moment of privacy to allow his impassive exterior crumble. He sank to the floor and took several deep breaths. Not gonna cry. I'm not gonna fucking cry. God, why was he being such a baby?

He felt a flare of anger and grabbed onto it, using it to chase away the tears threatening to come.

Sam flushed the toilet as an excuse for his time in there, composed himself, and walked back out.

They spent most of the morning in silence. Dean tried not to stare, and Sam tried to think about anything except last night.

Once they had their bags packed, Sam started to head for the door—only to be held back by Dean's hand on his wrist.

"Sam, wait."

Sam sighed, trying not to sound irritated. "What?"

"We need to talk."

"There's nothing to talk about." He started to pull away, but Dean tightened his grip.

"What, are you just gonna pretend like last night never happened?"

Sam turned a glare on his brother. "Yes."

Dean seemed taken aback by this. "But—"

"But nothing, okay? I'm fine. Just leave it." With that, Sam jerked his arm away, yanked the door open and stormed out to the Impala.

Dean swallowed at what was just another testament to Sam not being fine at all. Sam was always a deep little son of a bitch, as Bobby always put it. He was always the one who wanted to talk. The fact that he was closing himself off, and the anger practically radiating from him, just made Dean worry even more.

Maybe he just needs space, Dean thought. Okay, they would start there. But you're going to talk to me eventually, Sammy. You can't just bottle these things up. Dean grabbed his bag and followed his brother out to the car.

Over the next few days, Sam seemed to get better. He didn't talk as much, which bothered Dean, because he was used to a chatty Sasquatch bustling around the room, and he hardly ever smiled. But the bags under his eyes became less pronounced, and he finally began eating more. He spent most of his time hunched over his laptop, and Dean knew he was trying to keep himself busy. Dean had initially wanted to take Sam out to Bobby's, just to chill for awhile, but now he was starting to think that a case would do Sam good.

That was when they got another text from their father. A set of coordinates, the same as the last few dozen times. Dean contemplated calling his father, but once again decided against it.

So they drove out to the small town in Montana that the coordinates led them to, and set to investigating.

"Looks like this is gonna be a simple salt and burn," Dean commented after a day of sniffing around. "The locals are all afraid of that stereotypical old log cabin out in the woods. They think it's haunted. Three kids went in on a dare and only one came out, claiming a ghost killed his friends."

"Okay," Sam said, "So we just need to figure who's in there."

"Guess so."

They spent the next day asking around at the police station and the courthouse to find out who lived there. They learned that a man named Laurence Fellows did twenty years ago. It looked to be a pretty cut and dry situation—old guy croaks, sticks around, goes crazy, kills folks who trespass on his property. No one really knew where the guy had been buried, but several people claimed they'd heard that his (now dead) wife buried him somewhere at the house.

So that's what led them to the cabin one late afternoon, EMF meters and shotguns in hand. The two split up to cover more ground as they looked for a spike in the EMF readings, hoping that would lead them to the body. Even though it was a relatively small cabin, it still had plenty of rooms.

Sam wandered through his side of the cabin, EMF stubbornly silent. He was just about to call it quits when he found another door. Upon opening it, he discovered a stairway that led down into a basement.

"Dean," he shouted over his shoulder. "I found a basement, I'm gonna check it out."

"Be careful!" Dean voice called from the other room.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yes, Mother."

Dean chuckled, glad his brother was making jokes again. Maybe Sam really was feeling better.

Sam pulled out his flashlight and slowly began making his way down the creaking stairs.

Dean swept the EMF meter around the kitchen. It buzzed a few times, but never enough to suggest strong ghost activity. Dean frowned down at the device in his hand. "I don't think we'll find anything here," Dean called to Sam. "I think we should go back to the courthouse and see if we can't find any burial records." When he didn't receive a reply, Dean looked up towards the door. "Sam?"

No answer.

Dean walked into the room Sam had been. The basement door was open. "Sam, answer me!" He stood in the doorway and peered worriedly down the stairs.

Sam's flashlight lay alone in the middle of the floor.

"Sammy!" Dean raised his shotgun and hurried down the creaky stairs, looking around wildly.

"D-De—"

Dean whirled around at his brother's choked gasp.

Sam stood pinned to the wall behind the stairs, his eyes squeezed shut and tears rolling down his face. In front of him stood the ghost of Laurence Fellows—and Fellows had slithered his hands under Sam's shirt, hips grinding and his head tilted up to suck and nibble Sam's neck.

"What the fuck?" Dean screamed, at the same time firing a shot. With a screech, Fellows dissolved and Sam collapsed to his knees, his body wracked with sobs.

"Sammy, c'mon!" Dean grabbed Sam and hauled him to his feet. The two of them stumbled up the stairs as fast as they could. Dean kept an iron grip on Sam's arm as they ran for the front door, only to have Fellows materialize in front of them. But Dean wasted no time shoving Sam behind him and firing again, before dragging his brother out of the house and back to the Impala.

Dean floored it and they rocketed away from the cabin. Dean swallowed hard, hands trembling and his stomach churning—but he was nothing compared to Sam. The kid had curled into himself, leaning against the door as he clutched his head in his hands. He shook as hot tears streamed down his face, each sob tearing a new hole into Dean's heart. He reached over and rested a hand on the back of Sam's neck, squeezing gently. He wanted to say something, but didn't trust himself to speak.

By the time they pulled up in front of the motel, Sam had managed to stop crying and now simply held his head in his hands. Dean parked and cut the engine off, but made no move to get out of the car. Instead he tentatively reached towards his brother. "Sammy?" he said gently.

Sam slowly uncurled himself and wiped his eyes, sniffing. "I'm fine," he said wetly.

Dean scowled. "No, you're fucking not—"

Sam ignored him and stepped out of the car, rushing into their room. Dean cursed and followed, only to find that Sam had escaped into the bathroom. The shower turned on a minute later.

Dean growled and went back to gather their things from the car. Dropping the duffle on the floor, he then reached for Laurence Fellow's file sitting on the table. He hadn't really bothered to read it thoroughly before, but now he sat down and paged through it slowly. He stopped on the page containing a criminal record. The first few were just speeding tickets, a couple of shoplifting charges, and—Dean froze. He read the next three reports carefully, and then reread them.

He hurled the file across the room and punched the wall.

Laurence Fellows had been arrested three times on accusations of rape, but never convicted.

And Dean had sent Sam in there just days after being nearly raped himself.

Dean stepped outside and paced in the parking lot. His fists trembled and he could barely see, he was so fucking pissed. How could he have not read the goddamn file? He was supposed to take care of Sammy, not break him!

"Stupid, so fucking stupid!"

Sam did not want to face Dean. Dean would make him talk, and he didn't want to talk. He took as long as he possibly could, but he knew he couldn't hide in the bathroom forever. So finally, clad in a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt, Sam reluctantly stepped out into the room.

The first thing he noticed was the hole in the wall. The second thing he noticed was the mess of papers scattered about the room. The third thing he noticed was that Dean gone.

Sam began picking up the papers, and realized that it was Fellows's file. He wondered why Dean had seemingly thrown it—until he came to the criminal records page. He read it slowly, and swallowed as he quickly stuffed the papers back into the folder.

When Dean entered the room again, he saw Sam dropping the file on the table.

"You read it?" Dean asked shakily.

Sam nodded.

"Sammy, I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry—"

"Not your fault." Sam sank down on the edge of his bed.

"Yes it is, I should've read the damn file—"

"I probably would have insisted on going in anyway."

"And I wouldn't have let you!" Dean pulled up a chair in front of Sam, dropping down so that he was at eye level with him. For a while they were both silent, and then Dean sighed. "C'mon, man, you gotta talk to me. You can't just bottle this shit up and expect it to go away."

"I don't want to talk about it!" Sam stood and made to leave, but Dean grabbed his hands and pulled him back. Sam tried to jerk away, but Dean only tightened his grip. "Let go of me!" he snarled.

"Not until you talk to me."

"Goddammit Dean, just leave me alone!" Sam shouted, his voice cracking. "I'm fine!"

Dean pulled Sam to his chest, pushing his brother's head down to tuck it against his neck. Sam tried to hit him, but Dean only wrapped his arms tighter around him. Sam screamed and twisted and punched, but Dean just held on.

Finally Sam wore himself out, slumping against his brother, trembling. Dean murmured soothingly in his ear, rubbing his back. Neither of them knew how long they stayed that way, but at some point Dean finally lowered Sam to sit back down on the bed, taking his own seat in the chair. Sam sniffed and wiped his eyes, looking all of five years old again.

"You gonna talk to me now?" Dean asked quietly.

"What am I supposed to say?"

"Just tell me how you feel. I'm trying to shrink you here, okay?"

Sam laughed dryly. "You won't like it."

"Just talk."

Sam let out a long sigh. "Okay. I guess the best way to put it, is that I feel . . . I don't know, guilty I guess."

Dean's eyebrows shot up. "Guilty? What the hell for?"

"Let me finish." Sam looked down at his lap, avoiding eye contact. "There are people who have it a helluva lot worse than me. There are people who've been raped, gangbanged—there are people who are molested everyday of their lives for years at a time. And here I am, losing my shit after I get felt up just twice, and the second time wasn't even all that bad, really.

"On top of that, I feel like it's my fault that it even happened in the first place. The first time, he drugged me. If I had been paying more attention, maybe I would've seen it happen and been able to avoid the whole thing. And it wasn't even anything supernatural, it was just a regular damn human that I managed to let get the drop on me.

"The second time, all it took was for him to touch my thigh and I froze. I could've shot him and got out of there, but no, I fucking froze, and it just went from there. Then of course I have to go and cry like a fucking eight-year-old girl. I'm a hunter, Dean, I've seen and experienced some pretty awful things. But apparently all it takes to break me is a couple of guys putting their hands on me. I'm fucking useless. If Dad were here, he'd tell me I need to just suck it up, and he would be right."

The whole time Sam talked, Dean listened and felt an increasing sense of anger and sorrow. When Sam finished, Dean took a minute to digest his words. Then he was grabbing Sam's shoulders and shaking him. "Sammy, look at me. Look at me."

Sam reluctantly raised his eyes.

"Now, you listen to me, and you listen hard. It was not your fault. Say it."

"It was not my fault," Sam whispered.

"Louder!"

"It was not my fault."

"We don't know how that guy drugged you. Maybe he put something in your drink—everyone doesn't keep an eye on their drink at all times, he probably did it while you were distracted. Maybe he poked you with something that you wouldn't be able to feel. Hell, maybe he wore chloroform instead of cologne, I don't fucking know. Either way, it's not your fault because he made that decision. You didn't make him do anything, he chose to hurt you.

"When Fellows attacked you, he might've used some ghost mojo on you to make you freeze. Or maybe you were still just so freshly damaged that you couldn't handle it and him touching you triggered your body to shut down—that's more than understandable, that's natural!

"You have nothing to feel guilty for. Sure, there are people who've experience worse, but you have every right to get as upset as you did. Violating someone hurts them in the worst possible way. In a way, they raped your soul. They damaged you in a way that nothing else can. And it is completely okay to get upset; it is completely okay for you to cry. Hell, Dad would've cried if it happened to him.

"So you have to promise me that you'll stop blaming yourself, and that you'll stop feeling guilty. And don't you dare let me hear you say that you're useless ever again, you understand me? Because there's nothing wrong with you, Sammy, nothing."

Sam blinked hard as tears filled his eyes, but they spilled out anyway. He swallowed hard. "Okay," he whispered. "I promise."

"Do you really, or are you just saying that?"

Sam thought about it. "In time, maybe. I can't say it'll happen right away . . . but as for the long run? Yes, I promise."

Dean smiled and thumbed away the stray tears rolling down his cheeks. "'Atta boy."

"But you have to promise me the same thing, too."

Dean frowned. "What do you mean?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "You know exactly what I mean. I know you. You're gonna blame yourself until the end of time for everything—for not keeping a closer eye on me at the bar, and you just threw a fit at yourself for not reading the file. It's not your fault, either. You can't be expected to foresee and protect me from every evil in the world."

Dean sighed. "Okay, fine. I promise."

"Do you really, or are you just saying that?" Sam smirked, parroting Dean's words.

Dean thumped Sam's nose, smiling. "I really do. Just probably not right away."

Sam chuckled. "Fair enough."

Suddenly Dean leapt to his feet. "I'm hungry," he declared. "You want pizza? I want pizza." And then he was on the phone ordering in.

After eating and settling back on the bed, Sam felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He even smiled instead of scoffed when Dean made a show of trying to stuff an entire slice of pizza in his mouth.

Later that night found Sam burrowed under the covers and Dean watching TV with the volume turned down. Usually Sam could sleep just fine with a little background noise, but as he lay there he started to think. Thinking led him to reliving those awful recent memories, and his throat closed up as he squeezed his eyes shut. It's over, he told himself. They can't hurt you anymore. Dean already beat the shit out of the biker, and tomorrow he's going to go take care of Fellows. Earlier Dean had mentioned this, saying that Sam was going to stay in the room and out of it. He'd left no room for arguments, and honestly Sam didn't want to go back there anyway.

Finally Sam managed to calm himself down and was able to sleep.

Only to shoot up in the middle of the night with a scream.

"Sam!"

He could hear Dean jumping out of bed. "What happened, are you okay?"

Sam buried his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes wearily, as if he could wipe the nightmare out of his mind. He could still feel phantom hands sliding under his shirt, fingers slithering between his legs. He shivered. "Yeah," he mumbled through his fingers. "I'm fine. Sorry I woke you, just go back to bed." He threw himself back down onto the pillow and curled into a tight ball.

He started when he felt the mattress dip, and suddenly Dean was crawling into bed beside him.

"Dean, what—"

"Shut up, don't make this weird." Dean pulled Sam closer, who, after stiffening for a moment, relaxed into his side. "We never speak of this," he mumbled into Dean's shirt.

"Damn straight," Dean said, but there was no bite to his words. He gave a comforting squeeze, and Sam smiled. He didn't have any more nightmares that night.

I like platonic cuddling, okay? Sue me.

So this was actually inspired by my own unfortunate experience. While it wasn't nearly as bad as what happened to poor Sammy—the guy's hands stayed outside my clothing—it scared the living fuck out of me. I just remember driving home from church (it happened at church, of all places) and crying my eyes out the entire way home, and then crying some more. And while I knew it wasn't my fault that it happened, I actually felt guilty for getting that upset. My thought was, people have had it a shitload worse than me, so what right do I have to cry for days about some man groping me for a few minutes?

Of course, after talking to my parents and a handful of close friends, I finally started to feel better and realized that it's okay to get upset. You don't have to have been full on raped, or violated multiple times before you're allowed to get upset about it. So I guess this is for anybody who might've gone through something similar to me: It's okay, it's not your fault, and you have absolutely nothing to feel guilty for. Talk to someone about it. Trust me, it helps.

The guy who did it to me did end up getting arrested and charged for sexual harassment of a minor, or however the cops put it. Either way, he's in jail now, so it's all good. Unfortunately I still struggle with it from time to time; I can barely stand the thought of anybody touching my breasts—seriously, even when I'm in the shower I have to wash them quick and then move on while trying not to think about it. But I've been talking to my friends, who've helped me out probably far more than they even know, and it's getting easier to deal with and forget about.

ANYWAY! That's enough of my sob story. Please review, tell me what you think! I'm always looking for honest opinions, good and bad. So if you dislike it, feel free to tell me how I can improve. Don't worry, I'm very open minded :)