"The truth won't go away...words are not small things..."

Cold . Freezing, agonizing, inescapable, cold. He had to get away from the cold. Away from the torture. Away from the images in his head.

He couldn't get away from the images in his head.

"Sam? Sammy, you all right in there?"

The knock on the door and Dean calling his name startled him and the images faded. There was no cold. No torture. He was in the shower. He was at the Bunker.

"Yeah, I – I'm – all right."

"You sure? 'Cause you've been in there twenty minutes now and I haven't heard the water turn on."

He was in the shower at the Bunker. They'd just gotten back from – from – wherever that cellar was. That cellar with that cold water and that torture and those images in his head.

He could never get away from the images in his head.

They'd just gotten back and he needed to take a shower. He needed to go to bed so he needed to take a shower so he was in the shower at the Bunker. But he hadn't taken his clothes off. He hadn't turned the water on. He needed to turn the water on because he needed to take a shower because he needed to go to bed.

He couldn't go to bed.

"I – yeah – I just – was thinking. About something. Else."

"Dude, should I even ask what you're thinking about in the shower?"

Shower. He had to take a shower so he could go to bed. He had to turn the water on so he could take a shower. So he could go to bed.

"I – was thinking – about – bed?"

"Thinking about what, Sam? I didn't hear the last word. What're you thinking about?" There was stress in Dean's voice, a solid thump against the door. "Sam?"

He couldn't go to bed.

"I don't want a shower."

"What? I can't hear you. Sam? Answer me or I'm coming in there. So help me, ready or not, tell me what's going on or –"

He opened the door where Dean stood, hand lifted, ready to thump again.

"I don't want a shower."

"Took you twenty minutes to figure that out?"

He didn't have an answer for that. He wanted a shower. He wanted to wash off the memory, the agony, of the cold. Of the cellar. Of the images in his head. He wanted a shower. After the shower he could to go to bed. He wanted to go to bed.

He couldn't go to bed.

"I don't want -" He didn't want so many things. But he couldn't say what those things were. "I don't want cold water."

"It's not cold water. It's warm water. It's always warm water." Dean walked to one of the showers and turned it on. He pushed up his shirt sleeve and put his hand into the spray. "Yeah, it's warm. Sam?"

Suddenly, he was sitting on the bench along the wall. He wanted to be clean, he wanted to be warm, he wanted to go to bed.

He couldn't go to bed.

Dean turned off the water and sat on the bench. Sat close. "What's going on?"

"Don't want –" He thought, then gestured. Gestured the fall of water onto his head. "Don't want a shower."

"All right. No shower. We'll get a motel room with a bathtub. Get your shoes on, we'll head out."

"Is it okay? To not want -" Exhausted. He was exhausted. Exhaustion pressed down on him, on his brain, on his body. Exhaustion coated his skin and something clawed and sickening skittered underneath it. He wanted to go to bed.

He couldn't go to bed. He couldn't go into his room.

It wasn't his room. Not anymore.

"Is it okay to not want a shower?"

Dean wiped his wet hand, scrubbed his wet arm, on his jeans. "After everything you've been through these past few weeks, Sammy – you have the right to not want anything you don't want."

Anything he didn't want.

There was so much he didn't want.

He didn't want to sleep in his bed. He didn't want to go into his room. Even the clean clothes he had with him were ones he'd brought from the car.

He didn't want to go into his room.

"Is this something more than not wanting a shower?" Dean asked. Knew. He always seemed to know.

"I'm tired."

Dean blew out a breath like he knew that wasn't the answer he wanted but it was the answer he'd work with. "All right, let's get you to your room and you can sleep."

He couldn't go to his room. He didn't want to go to his room.

"Sam?"

"I'm tired."

"Of?"

It wasn't his room. Not anymore. Not since Evil had waltzed in and sat down and made it his own. It wasn't his room anymore.

"I'm tired of going through things no one can imagine and then going on like nothing happened. Having to go on like nothing ever happened at all."

"You don't have to do that."

"Of course I do. I always do. We always do that. Everything we go through and never talk about again."

Dean sighed, shifted, didn't want to agree.

"You can talk to me about anything. You know you can."

Not anything, he thought. Not everything. He couldn't tell Dean the things he didn't know how to say.

He didn't want to go to bed. Evil had waltzed in and sat down and now his bed was as bad as hell.

"Sam? What d'you need? You can take a shower later, a bath if you want, whatever you want, we can get whatever you need."

Whatever he needed. What did he need? He needed to take a shower so that he could go to sleep. He needed to go to sleep. He wanted to go to bed.

But he couldn't go to bed. His room was worse than that cellar. His bed was worse than hell.

"I want to be home."

"You're home, Sammy. All right? You are home. And the water's warm and the food's hot and your room's clean and all you have to do -"

"It's not clean. My room's not clean." He didn't mean to say that. It didn't matter. There were a dozen rooms in the Bunker and he could take any one of them. It didn't matter.

But it did matter. That was his room. And he could never go back in there.

"Sammy – your room's clean."

"No. He was in my room. He was – he was –" He inhaled but couldn't seem to exhale. "He was in my b–" That was too much to say. Too much he never wanted to say. "And I can't. I can't go back in there. I just – I can't "

"Hey, hey. Hey." And Dean was crouched in front of him, hands on his arms, warm through his sleeves, almost too warm, wanting him to pay attention. "I know, Sammy, I know. But I took care of that. All right? I – hey, listen – when I brought Mom here, when Cas was looking for you and I brought Mom here, I took care of that. I got rid of that mattress and pillow and burned all the bedding. I polished everything with holy oil, scrubbed everything with holy water and salt, and prayed all the cleansing prayers I know. Your room is clean, Sam. Your room is your room and it's clean."

He heard Dean's words. They spun inside his head like white noise, like static. "You did that? You – did that?"

"Of course I did. I couldn't have you come home to –" Dean let go of his arm and it was cold and he wanted it back, but Dean ran a hand down his face, hard, like he was scrubbing something off.

"Your room's clean, okay? A fresh mattress and pillow. With military corners, even, that you can bounce a quarter off of, like Dad used to show us." Dean smiled, he tried to, he put his hand over Sam's again. "He's not in your room. Okay? He's not there. Your bed's safe. Your room's clean. Your room's your room."

"It is? You did that?" It made him dizzy. It made him giddy almost. His room. It was still his room. "I can go to bed?"

"You can go to bed." Dean put a hand on his shoulder, squeezed hard. "You can take a shower and you can go to bed. Okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks."

"You bet." Dean stood up and stood and waited, watching, that way of watching that felt like he'd watch forever if he had to.

"Would you turn the water on for me? Again? I just – I need to know it's warm."

"Yeah." Dean turned to the shower and turned the knob and put his hand into the spray. "It's warm. It'll stay warm."

"Yeah."

"Okay. I'm gonna go check on Mom. You come out when you're ready. I'll have some food ready for you."

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Yeah."

Dean left and shut the door and Sam sat another minute in the heat and steam and assurance. He was going to take a shower, then he was going to his room and he was going to go to sleep in his own bed.

The end.

A/N: the title & quote at the beginning are 2 snippets of separate quotes I found on rape on the internet. I don't know for a fact what specifically happened to Sam while he was tortured in hell for 180 years, but I do know that the show serially ignores that anything happened to him at all.