He shouldn't have opened his big mouth. He'd tried for so long to keep it under wraps, to not say a word, to never, NEVER let Sammy on to what had happened to him.

"Need another, sugar?"

Dean looked up and saw the particularly hot bartender smiling at him, and he wondered what she was doing working in a shit-hole like this. For a second he thought about hitting on her, but for once he wasn't up for it.

He wasn't up for much of anything.

"Sure. Thanks." He pushed his empty beer mug towards her. She winked and took it from him.

Fuck, he hated this depression shit.

He remembered the look on Sammy's face when he'd finally told him... well, not everything, but everything he was going to tell him.

His little brother, who he'd tried to protect for so long, for his whole life, had just heard things from Dean that he'd never wanted Sammy to know.

What was hell like? What do you remember? Will you ever be okay again? Will you ever really be my brother again?

Dean could see all those questions in Sammy's eyes. So he ran to the nearest bar, leaving his brother in their shitty motel room to wait for him to get it out of his system.

Get what out of his system?

The images? The memories? The taste of blood in his mouth that never seemed to fade, no matter what he ate or drank to drown it out?

It would never be out of his system. It was in his body, like a disease.

And now, because of his big stupid mouth, it was in Sammy, too.