"Do you know an Eleanor or an Ellen?"

"She seems quite concerned for you. She wants to tell you, pardon me, 'If you don't tell someone how bad it really is, she'll kick your ass from beyond. You have to trust someone again eventually.'"

…

He could still hear them, the words rattling around in his head as though Ellen herself had spoken them and not the creepy tour guide who had grabbed Dean's arm without his say so. No man grabbed Dean without his permission. Except Sam and Bobby and, until recently, Cas.

But he'd told Sam, told him about how he 'felt'. He had said enough to placate his brother, like he always did, so why were those words still rolling around in his head?

How bad it really is.

You have to trust someone again eventually.

Dean shifted and shook his head as though trying to wipe the thought away like an etch-a-sketch before his overly observant, pain in the ass, nosey little brother could catch on. She couldn't have meant that right? Not that. There was no way he was ever telling Sam about…that.

He felt eyes on him and glanced over to see Sam frowning at him.

"What?" he asked in his usual overly caustic tone that enhanced rather than hid the fact that everything was not okay.

"Dean, are you okay?"

Words could not describe how much he hated being asked that question, especially by Sam, because he of all people ought to know that no, Dean was not 'okay'. Dean hadn't been 'okay' in years, decades. The last time Dean had truly been okay, his mother had been tucking him in, singing Hey Jude, and telling him that angels were watching over him.

So he did what he always did when asked that question: rolled his eyes and said in terse tones, "I'm fine, Sammy."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sam looking at him with his 'yeah right' face.

"Yeah right Dean." He said.

Dean's fists tightened on the steering wheel of the blue Dodge Challenger.

"Look, will you just drop it? I apologized for ganking Amy and I explained why. Isn't that enough?"

"No! Not when you look like you still got stuff to get off your chest."

How bad it really is.

Dean could feel it. Everything. All the emotional crap that he'd spent his life pushing down wanting to rise up and spill out in a tidal wave of…feelings.

His hands shook where they clutched the steering wheel. He could feel his brother's gaze on him like a spotlight. He could hear that guy's voice in his head, although it was starting to sound more like Ellen now. He could hear Bobby telling him he was being an idjit for not dealing with his crap. He
could see Cas' eyes lit with the holy fire that surrounded him staring at Dean as though Dean had been the betrayer. He remembered his dad yelling, hitting, tearing him open…

The brakes squealed as Dean pulled the car onto the empty shoulder of the road and rushed out, slamming the door behind him as he stalked off towards the woods that lined the empty highway, feeling as though if he stayed any longer he would explode. Vaguely, he registered the sound of a car
door slamming and heavy footfalls following him.

"Come on Dean, just talk to me!"

"I'm fine Sam, will you just let it go?!"

"No!" Sam caught up, grabbed Dean, and swung him round.

Dean threw Sam's hands off him but stayed facing his younger brother. He brought a hand up to rub at his tired eyes, dark circles evidence of his exhaustion. Sam did not need to be sharing a room with his brother to know that Dean was not sleeping well. Not that his brother ever slept well, but his usual four hours had diminished down to one or two over the past few months and Sam was at the end of his rope. Dean may be a stubborn jackass but Sam was cut from the same cloth as him and he was determined to get Dean to open up about what was bothering him. Even if he had to drag it from him.

"Dean, you need to talk about what's wrong," He ignored Dean's scoff, "You can't just ignore it and expect it to go away! You can't keep going on like this!"

"Of course I can Sammy," Dean retorted, "I've been doing it my whole damn life!"

Sam let out a frustrated sigh and ran his hands through his hair.

"Well, maybe that's the problem."

Dean's face screwed up into a look of confusion. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Sam sighed.

"Just that, maybe if you actually talked about what's going on instead of ignoring it, you might end up feeling better for once."

Dean scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"Please Sam, no chick flick moments."

It was Sam's turn to roll his eyes.

"What about when you came back from hell." Dean pinned him with a dark look and Sam knew he was walking on thin ice. "Just, when you came back and you were drinking a lot and having nightmares and then you finally talked about it and it seemed to get better right?"

Dean's look was still dark but Sam could see he was at least considering his words. Dean sighed and brought his hand to his mouth as he thought about what his brother was saying.

Dammit! Why'd Sammy have to be so smart and logical all the time it was fucking annoying as hell!

As Sam continued to glare at him with his patented bitch face, Dean felt the weight of the past few, well, decades settle on his shoulders and weigh him down. He felt exhausted. Not only physically, but mentally. This is why he didn't confront his demons, they were so many and not the type that were
easily taken care of with a simple exorcism or an introduction to Ruby's knife. These were the types of demons Dean was really, truly afraid of; the ones he couldn't fight.

Sam cut off his train of thought with two quiet words.

"Please Dean."

Dean looked up at his brother to find that Sam's bitch face had been replaced by his pleading face. It was the face that meant Dean would be sleeping on the couch because the motel room Dad got only had two beds or that Dean would be going without supper because there was only enough food left for
one of them. It was the face that Dean could not say no to thanks to the endless mantra of look after
Sam, keep Sam safe that echoed in his head in their dad's voice. It was the central tenet of his existence and had been ever since the night John Winchester handed the six-month-old Sam to the four-year-old Dean and told him to take your brother and go!

Dean sighed again, deflating under the combined weight of his thoughts and Sam's powers of persuasion and moved to lean against this week's car, pulling the silver flask from his pocket and taking a long pull. If he was going to have this conversation, he was going to need some help from an old
friend.

Sam moved to his brother's side, at once happy and terrified. Glad that his brother had finally agreed to open up and scared about what was going to come of it. He had a feeling that getting Dean to open up was going to be like opening the Ark of the Covenant: they may not escape this unscathed.

Dean fiddled with the flask, his hands keeping busy as his mind decided what to say.

He cleared his throat.

"Umm, I don't really know how–where to start."

Sam nodded.

"Right, well…okay how about…well you mentioned Cas before." Dean's wince at the mention of the fallen angel did not escape Sam's notice. "How about we start with how you feel about what happened."

Dean glared at Sam and it took every ounce of his will power not to roll his eyes, scoff out a thinly veiled homophobic remark, and make a beeline for the nearest bar to drink away his feelings like he was taught to do by his father. Instead, he cleared his throat and looked off into the forest that surrounded them and thought back to the angel whose coat sat folded in the trunk of the blue Dodge. He hadn't been able to leave it behind when they'd had to ditch his baby.

"How do I feel?" He asked with a bitter laugh, trying to mask the fact that a lump was forming in his throat, "I dunno. Just between him betraying us and trying to be God, breaking your wall and then
walking into that reservoir. I mean…I know that he was sorry for what he did. I could see it in his eyes at the end. But that doesn't change how painful it was…how betrayed I felt. It was like you and Ruby all over again you know?"

Sam felt a strong jolt of shame at the mention of his actions from three years before.

Dean felt hot tears burning, threatening to overflow but he was damned if he was going to cry like a girl. He swallowed and cleared his throat not daring to look at his brother, not daring to let him see this weakness.

"Dean?" Sam asked quietly, "Did…"

He trailed off, biting his lip and hoping that what he was about to say wouldn't send his emotionally constipated brother running.

"Were you…in love…with Cas?"

Sam felt Dean stiffen beside him and he snuck a sidelong glance at his brother.

Dean was frozen in what Sam might describe as fear had he not known his brother as well as he did.

"Dean?" Sam asked when his brother stayed silent.

"I…" Dean began to speak but trailed off his breaths coming in shorter and shorter gasps.

Sam brought his hand up to rest on Dean's shoulder but as soon as he made contact Dean jolted and began backing away from Sam and around the car in a frantic scramble, stopping with his hands planted on the hood, breath coming too quickly and eyes too wide. Sam could see that Dean was well and
truly terrified. His brother, who had been hunting monsters since before he was old enough to hold a gun, was shaking in fear.

He held his hands out in a pacifying gesture and began to move slowly toward his brother.

"Dean, it's alright."

Dean closed his eyes and tried desperately to calm his erratic breathing as a few tears fell unbidden from his eyes. He heard Sam moving slowly towards him and he looked over and met his brother's gaze, which was creased in worry, and no wonder since apparently Dean was falling apart right before his eyes.

"It's okay."

Dean closed his eyes again, this time in building anger.

"No it's not," he growled in frustration as he tried desperately to control himself.

"Yes it is." Sam said firmly and reached out to him.

Dean once again threw his arm off and stalked away a few feet, his back turned to his brother.

"Dean whatever you're afraid of, it doesn't matter to me. I don't care if you had feelings for Cas, or any other guy for that matter! You're still my brother and I love you!"

Dean stood still, shoulders hunched, arms still wrapped around himself.

"It's not okay," he said in a voice so soft Sam almost didn't hear it.

He turned and Sam could see that he was no longer angry. Sam stared at his big brother, the person who had always been there for him even when he did not want or deserve it, the person who had practically raised him, and realized that he had never seen him look so small or so scared.

Sam moved forwards and once again reached out for his brother. This time Dean let him.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

Dean swallowed and closed his eyes, shaking his head.

Sam sighed and tried to imagine what Dean might be thinking. Obviously, the sudden emergence of homosexual urges from someone as straight as Dean would be traumatic. But Sam couldn't figure out why Dean was so terrified of the prospect of having feelings for another guy. Furthermore, though Sam may have been the more open and emotionally healthy one of the two brothers, he never imagined in his wildest dreams that he would be having this conversation with his older brother and he didn't exactly know where to start.

Sam swallowed. It didn't matter how he felt. All that mattered was helping Dean.

"Look Dean, It doesn't matter alright? It doesn't matter to me if you had feelings for Cas. Or any guy. I don't think any less of you, I know Bobby wouldn't care and I'm sure Dad—" At the mention of John
Winchester, Dean's eyes snapped open and his fearful glance told Sam that he'd hit a nerve. "Is this about what Dad would think?" Dean swallowed and looked away, "Because I'm sure he would have loved you just the same."

Dean closed his eyes again and his voice was so quiet Sam nearly missed it.

"He didn't."

At Dean's words, a cold chill settled uncomfortably in Sam's stomach.

"What do you mean he didn't?"

Dean's expression told Sam that his big brother had hoped Sam hadn't heard what he'd just said. But both brothers knew the cat was out of the bag and there was no way Sam was letting this go. Not until he'd gotten the truth. Dean let out a bone-weary sigh and moved back towards the car, turning
when he reached it and settling in the dirt, leaning back against it. Sam followed and sat next to his brother; close enough to give support but not so close that Dean would feel smothered.

The two men sat in silence as Dean gathered the strength to reveal one of his most closely guarded secrets and Sam gave his brother the time he needed.

"My um…feelings…for Cas…aren't the first I've had for…a guy." Dean began slowly, avoiding eye contact with his brother. "When I was I guess ten or eleven, I found myself…drawn to certain guys, on TV or at
school. At first, I didn't really understand what it was or what it meant. I mean, there wasn't much in the way of education, and Dad well…" Dean trailed off, his fingers digging in the earth at his side, pulling up tufts of grass and shredding them.

"Slowly, I guess through TV and general gut instinct, I started to figure out what those…tendencies meant." Dean chuckled darkly, "I'd never been so terrified and alone when I finally realized that I
was…" Dean trailed off again, the word caught in his throat. Still after all these years, he couldn't vocalize it. His secret, hidden deep down, buried in a vain belief that if it could be ignored and forgotten it would go away. He took a shuddering breath and sniffed, wiping another errant tear away.

"You remember when we were living in Ohio? In '94? I was fifteen, you were twelve?"

Sam nodded, they had settled down in Milford, just outside of Cincinnati and he'd enjoyed living there until John had abruptly announced they were leaving one evening a few months in.

"There was this guy at the school there. A senior. Mike Oberman. He and I…I guess we were going through the same thing. We hung out a lot. You were starting to…resent my hovering; you'd go the library after school or to a friend's house so I ended up alone with Mike a lot. Neither of us
really knew what we were doing or feeling, but it was nice not to feel so alone."

Sam could see fondness in his brother's eyes as he talked about Mike, his lips twitched as though he wanted to smile.

"Then one day, Dad came home unexpectedly. He was supposed to be away on a hunt but he'd managed to wrap it up early and he walked in on Mike and me…" Dean swallowed, his breath quickening as he relived the memory. "We were just making out, but Dad…he freaked. At first, he was
angry, yelling and throwing stuff. Mike got out of there fast, I never saw him again after that. Then he just stopped and he got real quiet. He asked where you were and when I said at a friend's house…he said 'so you're ditching out on your duty of taking care of your brother to go whoring around with the local faggots?' And then he just kept at it. Calling me every name he could think of, saying he raised me to be a man, not some faggot-fairy," Dean's voice began to break, "Saying mom would be ashamed of me and for once he was glad she was dead so she didn't have to see what her son turned out to be."

Sam had his head in his hands, hating John Winchester more than he ever had during his time at Stanford but at the mention of Mary, Sam turned to Dean and grabbed his shoulder.

"That's bullshit! You know that! Mom would never be ashamed of you, of either of us, for something like that! Dad was just an asshole. A giant, worthless asshole who ruined our lives by dragging us along on his personal vendetta against the monster who killed his wife, all the while ignoring the only things he had left of her, us!"

Dean continued to stare at the ground as Sam tried to reason with him. The problem was though, that despite the truth in Sam's words, Dean could not let go of the shame and guilt that those words of John's had burnt into his soul, shame and guilt he still carried with him.

Sam sighed and leant back against the car. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dean fidgeting, as though he had more to say. Sam turned his gaze back to his brother.

"Did he do anything else?"

Dean's fearful gaze verified his suspicions.

Sam sat up and turned to Dean.

"What? What did he do?"

Dean swallowed and shuffled a few inches away from Sam's crowding form.

"He…after he was through calling me every name he could think of, he left. He was gone a couple of hours and when he got back…It was obvious he'd been to the bar. He stumbled in and I was still sitting on the couch, I'd been there the whole time he'd been gone. I turned and he had this look in his eyes and I got scared. Real scared Sammy." Dean's gaze was far away and his voice was quiet, "He grabbed me and dragged me to the bedroom and threw me down on the bed," Dean swallowed, "and he said…" Dean licked his trembling lips as his mouth went dry, "He said that if that's what I wanted then that's what I'd get."

Both brothers were silent as Sam tried to come to terms with the implications of what Dean had revealed.

"Dean are you saying that Dad…that he…"

Dean sat with elbows resting on bended knees, his hands in his hair, unable to look at his brother as shame painted his features red.

"It was so painful Sammy." Sam had never heard his brother sound so young, so lost, "It felt like I was being torn apart from the inside. Forty years in hell can't compare to it."

Sam felt like throwing up. He had never gotten along well with his father but never would he have thought the man capable of this. Hesitantly he reached out a hand to rest on Dean's shoulder. His brother stiffened but did not throw him off.

"Dean…" Sam trailed off, not knowing what to say. He could feel his brother's strong form shaking violently under his hand and he gave a gentle tug. Dean lowered his hand enough to cast a hesitant glance at his brother.

"I'm sorry." Sam offered lamely, not knowing what else to say. He added, "I'm glad you told me."

Dean's expression screwed up into one of confusion.

"Why?" he asked almost silently.

"Because you're my brother, and I love you."

Dean let out a half-hearted snort of laughter.

"I thought I said no chick-flick moments." he replied in a trembling voice.

"Oh I think we're way beyond that." Sam threw back and was pleased that it had the desired effect of pushing his brother's shaky mirth into half-hearted laughter, until that laughter devolved into tears.

Sam once again tugged on his brother's shoulder until he willingly slid sideways into Sam's embrace, and tears that he had been holding in for nearly twenty years flooded forth. Sam sat and held his brother as Dean grieved for the last shred of innocence that their father had brutally ripped from him.

…

When Dean's sobs eventually died down, Sam helped him to his feet and guided him to the passenger side door. It was disturbing how submissive his normally recalcitrant brother was but at least it made getting him into the car easier.

It wasn't until they were back on the main road that Dean became aware enough of his surroundings to ask, "Where are we going?"

"The cabin" Sam said, glancing sideways to gauge Dean's reaction. He hoped he wouldn't have to drag Dean there. Dean could be a stubborn son-of-a-bitch when he wanted to. But he merely shrugged and leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes, the exhaustion finally catching up to him.

Dean's apathy scared Sam more than anything else. He was used to butting heads with a brother who was as stubborn as a particularly obstinate mule. He was used to fighting tooth and nail for his way.

He was not used to Dean just giving in.

They definitely needed Bobby for this.