mellaithwen

Title: Nightmares
Author: Mellaithwen
Chapters: One-shot
Rating: PG
Warnings: General spoilers, especially "Asylum."
Summary: Sam isn't the only one who dreams.

“Dean.” It’s not a command, it’s a low tone, dangerous and unfamiliar, but he turns all the same. “Step back from the door.”

“Sam, put the gun down.” Easy does it. This is Sammy.

“Is that an order?”

“No it’s more of a friendly request.” A friendly request asking your homicidal brother to put the gun down..

“’Cause I’m getting pretty tired of taking your orders.” My orders? Hell you sent us after that Shape-Shifter, you sent us back home!

“I knew it; Ellicott did something to you, didn’t he?”

“For once in your life, shut your mouth.”

“What are you gonna do Sam? Gun’s filled with rock-salt, it’s not gonna kill me.”

Bang.

The gun goes off, and he’s flying through the air.

Darkness then pain, point-blank shot to the chest, winded and on his back, finding it hard to breathe.

“Sam,” His voice is weak and scratchy, and he’s looking around trying to get his bearings, reaching out to his brother. “We gotta burn Ellicott’s bones and all this’ll be over, and you’ll be back to normal.”

“I am normal.” And Dean’s almost glad, because it’s what his brother wants more than anything; he know. “I’m just telling the truth for the first time. I mean why are we even here? ‘Cause you’re following dad’s orders like a good little soldier? ‘Cause you always do what he says without question? Are you that desperate for his approval?”

“This isn’t you talking Sam.” Please say it isn’t Sam talking.

“That’s the difference between you and me, I have a mind of my own; I’m not pathetic like you.”

Time speeds up, and there’s the gun, the gun he handed to his murderer,

“You hate me that much? You think you can kill your own brother? Then go ahead, pull the trigger.” Take me out of my misery. You said you’d die for me, he thinks forlornly, but now you’re killing me.

It’s right in his face, taunting him, and as he screams “Do it!” The click resounds through the air, a horrible click, the sound of his world ending, the sound of death sneering.

But the click is accompanied by another sound. The sound of the bullet as it swerves into the barrel, sliding down the nose of the gun, and with a blast, it’s in him. He’s bleeding and it’s killing him.

Sam isn’t alone. Ellicott’s by his side. His eerie words echoing in the room as the pain shoots through his brain. He turns on Sam, and the world goes black, the last thing he smells is his own blood, the metallic taste on the air as it pools beneath him, the last thing he hears are his own ragged breaths, and screams, the last thing he sees is the death of his baby brother before oblivion beckons and he isn’t strong enough to fight it.

He wakes up, and nothing is real. He knows it, and he shakes it off like it’s nothing. He’ll never acknowledge it, he doesn’t need to. He’s Dean Winchester, and he’s always alright.

Sam isn’t the only one who dreams and bitterly Dean wonders if his little brother knows this. Sam isn’t the only one who has nightmares either, he’s just the only who gets comforted and coddled.

Dean has nightmares too, and sometimes even he wakes up screaming, sometimes un-intelligible words connected with the confusion of his fears in dreams, sometimes they’re something more. Sometimes a name, or a declaration, a cry of “No!” but no one comes to his side, and no one tells him its okay.

His mother did once. Once upon a time, when the world wasn’t so dark and he wasn’t so afraid.

His nightmares were simple, the thing under the bed came after him, but it wasn’t evil, it was just misguided, it wasn’t out to kill, only to scare. How he longed for the innocent dreams to return to him.

The thing under the bed changed as soon as Dean knew what it really was. It was evil, and crude, menacing and definitely in search of blood. And the more Dean grew up, the less it wanted him, and instead, the nightmares would take Sam. His little brother, whom he doted on, adored and loved so much.

Then it wasn’t the thing under the bed, it was the thing on the ceiling, or rather, the thing that put people on the ceiling.

Sam thought he was the only one who dreamt like that. But Dean had seen Jess too, and being of more sound-mind, he could remember the details a lot clearer. Maybe it didn’t hurt him as much, but she was still an innocent, and Dean grieved for the loss his brother must feel, the loss he himself felt for not knowing her better, for not protecting her, for stalling his brother the precious moments as he complimented on their team-work that might have spared her.

His eyes would open as his body shot up to a sitting position on the bed. Sweat on his forehead as his breathing came in gasps. The heat of the flames that had licked around his skin echoing in the back of his mind. The cruel words that hadn’t been those of a demon’s, or a spirit, or even an enemy. But Sam. Sam’s words, calling him pathetic, hating him, killing him. Hell, he preferred reliving the attack at the Asylum. It was familiar and it didn’t surprise him anymore.

Sam would kill him, and each night it would be different with the odd repeat of a previous slaughter. It wasn’t healthy, hell it wasn’t normal, but Dean wouldn’t say a thing. Ever. He wouldn’t flinch when Sam handed him a gun, or bristle at a joke regarding his death, no, he would smile, and laugh, and live his life and when he slept he would die each night, by his brother’s hand.

He would wake up, only some two or three hours after falling asleep. He would run a hand down his face, wiping the perspiration from his brow, and take a few shaky breaths. He would satisfy his inside’s screaming for release as he gave in and headed for the bathroom. The sound is minimal; he doesn’t want to wake Sam.

He walks over to the small table, he sits in the chair, moving his fingers periodically as though he’s playing invisible piano, fascinated as his skin ripples with the movement beneath, the joints working together, and he stares. He stares at his hand; suddenly clean from his morning wash; looking so pale in contrast to its usual mud infested state.

Idly, he sits, staring from his seat, now no longer watching his hands but instead taking a keen interest in his brother’s, so far, peaceful slumber on the bed closest to the window and furthest from the door. It had always been that way, it wasn’t a subconscious thing, and it wasn’t because Sam preferred the view, or that Dean hated the sunlight streaming through the cracks in the worn out curtains to disturb his sleep.

No, it wasn’t that.

Though, Dean wondered, if that was Sam’s own interpretation to his older brother’s stubborn-ness about it.

Dean took the one closest to the door, just like Dean was the one between Sam and the monsters. Just like Dean was placed in the middle, always. In the middle of Sam and his father, raging at their most recent argument, that would always escalate. And now, on the road, it was Dean placed between Sam sleeping, and the door that held so many dangers behind its barriers. The door where anyone could walk in, but it would get Dean first, or rather, it would try to get Dean first.

He realised suddenly how much he and his brother seemed to be morphing into each other. Sam was slowly but surely becoming Dean, keeping his emotions locked away until they ate at his insides, running head-first into situations, while Dean, well Dean wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t eating. He simply existed, creating his own demise, simply because Sam didn’t notice.

Sam didn’t know how to notice.

Sam was used to being taken care of, and for so long since the two had hit the road once more Dean had been the one asking about Sam. Dean didn’t stop asking, didn’t stop worrying, so Sam always assumed that meant Dean was fine. Dean was perfect.

But he wasn’t.

Not by far.

Being perfect meant happiness, didn’t it? Because that was perfection, being completely unfazed forever. And if that was true, then Dean was never perfect.
Especially when Sam came into the matter. They did have issues, serious issues. But Dean being Dean would never acknowledge them as important enough to warrant another’s attention. And Sam seemed to think shooting his brother was the solution to all bad things.

It made sense.

Didn’t Sam blame Dean for it all? Maybe he wouldn’t admit to it, but he did, and his older brother was sure of it. He had taken Sam away, and Jess had died.
He had let Sam leave, and let him find a life, only to be cruelly reminded that the demon’s would never go away. He had been an ass, an unsupportive ass.

But he knew it, and he blamed himself daily for it.

He had changed into something that could no longer chase away his little brothers fears by a hug, or a simple story at night. His brother no longer truly confided in him, and as hypocritical as it made him, Dean hated that fact.

He was the oldest, and it was his job, his responsibility to bear the brunt of the pain, to be the one in constant agony, because Sam was Sammy, and he always would be a little brother.

Until Dean followed through, and Sam was made an only child.

Dean has nightmares too, they don't predict events, and maybe they're not as special as Sam’s, not as important. But he has them, and he keeps it all to himself, hell, he always would.

Because Sam didn’t wake up when Dean was torn from the nightmare, because he wasn’t by his brother’s side-reassuring him, because Dean still had the harsh bruising on his chest from the rock salt, because even when the bruises fade, the hurt never would.

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