Think I've lost my mind
But don't worry about me
Happens all the time
And in the morning I'll be better
—Better. OneRepublic
The bunker is a haunted place at night.
Sometimes it's Dean, crying out after waking up in a cold sweat, or screaming in the dead of night after spending years upon years in Hell—again. He's never fully awake when he yells for Sam, for someone, for anyone, to help him.
If he was fully awake, he never would have made those sounds.
The worst is when he has to watch his brother suffer, over and over and over again. It's reliving hunts gone wrong throughout the years. A demon in Tulsa, a second away from snapping Sam's neck. Werewolves in Idaho as Dean watched him bleed out on a wooden floor. Gordon nearly clawing Sam open, a split second before Sam cut his head off with razor wire.
Sam, tortured to insanity by his own mind. Dean's little brother, always fighting, too tired to fight back, too tired to get angry.
Sam, magic pulsing through his veins, collapsing forward onto Dean with a sob. Sam, laying on a hospital bed, insides burning out and machines keeping him alive.
There's nothing you can do about this, Dean.
Sam's gone. There's red on the bunker floor; its halls are empty.
Sam's gone.
And sometimes, Sam dies. A knife, severing his spinal cord in a ghost town, Dean's name the last word from a broken, icy mouth. Impaled on a wooden stake in a time that wasn't theirs, Dean's name the last word out of pale, punctured lungs.
Throat ripped out by a vampire in a world that did not belong to him, Dean's name the last word out of cold lips painted red with his own blood.
Sometimes Dean's twisted, sleeping mind comes up with ways much more creative, more excruciating, than Dean himself could have ever imagined. He doesn't like to think about it. He reminds himself over and over again that Sam is alive. Sam is here. Sam's not dead.
No, Sam's not dead, but he dies every single night in Dean's waking nightmares.
Dean screams for his brother with something he can't quite help. Sam comes. Without fail, Sam runs to Dean whenever Dean screams for him.
Sam's here, wide-eyed and wide-awake. Sometimes he carries the gun he keeps under his covers, but most times he arrives empty-handed. He's gotten used to the sound of his brother at night.
Dean is always bleary, confused, scared, the bitter, bloody taste of fear mingled with the saltiness of sleep on his tongue. He can feel Sam climb into his bed, pull him up onto his lap, hold him, rocking him gently back and forth. He knows his brother's touch, knows it when Sam rubs his temples, strokes the bridge his nose and his eyelids, whispers soothing words that Dean is too weary to hear or comprehend.
He falls asleep in these arms. He never has nightmares when he's with Sam.
When Dean awakens these mornings, he finds Sam asleep by his side, legs tangled with his, an arm draped over Dean's torso, Dean's head resting on Sam's chest, where he can feel the steady beating of his brother's heart. He doesn't always remember his dreams, but he knows they must have been bad for Sam to be here.
Dean knows it's strange. He knows that two grown brothers should not share a bed. He also knows that nothing else—no one else—can comfort him on the bad nights.
He never mentions it. Neither does Sam.
More often, though, it is Sammy's screams that pierce the still air and float down the hallway to Dean's room. If Dean has nightmares, he knows he cannot begin to imagine what Sam dreams about. He doesn't want to know the origins of Sam's broken, haunted cries, the cries that whirl through their bunker with bone-chilling, blood-curdling, heart-pounding fear.
Dean never brings his gun. He knows nothing in this world could cause Sam to scream like that. He knows that all of Sam's terrors come from his own mind.
The thing about Sam's screams, though, is that when ones comes more are guaranteed to follow. Sam's cries are followed by sobs and gasps and pleas for an end, more often in Enochian than in English. Dean doesn't want to know how Sam learned Enochian.
Sometimes Sam is lucid enough to recognize Dean's presence as real and not as another broken hallucination, but more often he screams at Dean to get away, that he doesn't want to hurt him, that Lucifer is standing behind him and—oh, God, Dean, please stay away from me, I'm cursed, I'm tainted, save yourself while you still can—Dean can see his own rage and despair and grief as if they were tangible beings.
Sam's always trembling, shaking, drenched in icy sweat when Dean wraps his arms around him, buries his nose into Sam's hair and murmurs that it's alright, that it's gonna be okay, we got you, Sammy, I got you.
Sam buries his face into Dean's chest and grabs onto Dean's shirt like the lifeline, the anchor, that it is. His voice is broken, whispers petrified: he burned cold, Dean, I was always so cold, and everything was pain—
Dean whispers that he's sorry. He does his best to warm his little brother his own body, wraps his arms around him, tucks his head beneath Dean's chin, rubs his back, strokes his hair. Sam burrows into him, making himself small as possible.
Dean is safety. Dean is protection.
Dean dozes off when Sam's breathing is no longer erratic hitches, but smooth and steady, and when his tremors subside to an easier stillness.
No, the night is no friend of the Winchester brothers.
Every morning, they pick up the other's pieces and begin again, knowing that the next night is already rearing up to shatter them again.
But they are Winchesters. They know no other life.