Sometimes Nightmares Can Be Golden Too
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Sam tossed and turned, held fast in the grip of his nightmares, the scenes flashing through his mind like a newsreel of the worst moments of his life, playing out in all their hellish glory.
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Jess, it always began with her; the beautiful face and body of the girl to whom he had first given his young heart; for whom he had managed to buy a ring by hoarding the tips he'd received working whatever jobs he could find outside of college hours
He had been ingenuous enough to believe he could leave behind the hunting life he had so detested, marry Jess and make her happy. How wrong he had been.
The images of her body burning on the ceiling, of the drops of blood falling thick and red onto his face foreshadowed the replay of Mary's identical death which a gleeful Azazel had shown him at Cold Oak, the only difference being that the blood which had defiled his face and body in the nursery hadn't been the blood of his mother but Azazel's, the ruby-red drops eagerly finding and entering the mouth of his infant self as if they had been living creatures.
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The newsreel rolled around to another of his subconscious' preferred tortures; the hundred times he had been forced to watch Dean die in the most cruel and imaginative ways. His big brother had been caught in a never-ending spiral of days, deaths, resurrections and memory-loss, while each morning Sam would awaken to the now-hated music of 'Heat Of The Moment' and to his big brother's innocent smile.
Perhaps that had been the cruellest torture of all during those terrible days, Dean's innocence; his brother's unawareness that before the day's end he would be dead, unlike Sam who knew that in a few hours he would be left holding his brother's lifeless body in his arms; and that was when it wasn't mashed to bits, mauled or burnt to cinders.
Sam's sleeping body writhed even more in anticipation of his worst memory of that period; the Wednesday he'd woken up thinking it was all over only to find his brother well and truly dead in the parking lot. After having drained his eyes of all the tears they held, he had been forced to burn Dean's body, the smell of the charred flesh never leaving his memory the entire six months he had searched for the Trickster
Not yet satisfied, his traitorous mind jumped to the next scene, that of Dean being ripped to pieces by Lilith's hell-hounds.
Sam's arms flailed faster and faster as the nightmare took firmer hold, and his hand touched and swept away the alarm clock he kept on the little table next to his bed, sending it crashing to the floor; his mind trapped in the horrific images of Dean's shredded body while Lilith looked on laughing.
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Dean was dragged from his own uneasy slumber when he heard the thump of a falling object, the sound re-echoing ten-fold in the silence of the bunker.
He wearily pushed back the covers, his hand already clasping the knife he kept under the pillow, a habit he couldn't shake off, even here in the 'safest place on Earth' as far as the supernatural was concerned.
Any residue of sleepiness had already disappeared however as he made his way down the corridor to Sam's room.
He put his ear to the closed door, not able to suffocate the sigh that burst from him. Once the door would have been lying open, but now it was a symbol of the wall that had erected itself between them; a wall that Dean had no idea how to demolish.
He could hear the moans coming from his little brother, combined with the squeaks and creaks of the bed as Sam's gigantor body thrashed around.
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Sam was in the throes of a nightmare, Dean realised, and while once he would have rushed to his brother's side and tried to rouse him from his dreams, he hesitated, unsure whether to barge in or not.
In the end he pushed open the door, his big brother instincts squashing down any hesitancy..
As he had imagined Sam was tossing and turning, eyeballs twitching jerkily underneath his closed lids, his body glossed over by a sheen of sweat.
Dean laid the knife down on the nearest surface and went to Sam's side.
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"Hey, Sam. Wake up man, You're having a nightmare, a real doozy by the looks of things." He placed a hand on his brother's arm and squeezed gently, readying himself for a violent reaction from Sam; his little brother might never have liked the hunting life but that didn't exclude the fact that Sammy was one of the brightest and best hunters out there.
In a rare moment of silent pride, Dean acknowledged that they both were.
"Come on, Sam. If I were I Wendigo I'd have had your guts for garters by now!"
But Sam was immersed in another of his never-ending series of night terrors, to be exact those in which Lucifer would torture him in every way imaginable using the faces and bodies of those he had loved most, from John to Mary to Jess and even those of his enemies such as Ruby and Lilith, who would twist their expressions into smirks of pleasure as they gutted and cut at him.
Lucifer occasionally mixed things around using the appearances of all those who had died by Sam's hand or through his carelessness.
At that precise moment it was Dean, the one Sam loved most of all who was doing the honours with the scalpel, so when his big brother's voice finally penetrated his subconscious, Sam did exactly what Dean expected, coming awake and throwing his muscled body onto Dean, who for all his lack of a couple of inches on him, was every bit as strong as Sam, so he simply gripped his arms and forced his little brother back down on the bed.
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"Dean, no please," Sam yelled, feeling himself pinned down, before finally opening confused eyes to see Dean staring down at him, concern marring his handsome features.
"Dean..?" Sam stuttered shakily, his awareness still split between the reality of his bedroom and the remnants of his nightmares.
"That's it Sammy. Come out of it. You were dreaming, dude. I had to wake you before you went full-out on wrecking the place," he stated, exaggerating just enough to keep things casual.
He, who had learned to understand his little brother like no other, had recently discovered he no longer seemed to know what went on in Sam's big brain.
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Just when Dean was about to lessen his grip on Sam's arms and distance himself from his now conscious brother, Sam's hands snaked out and pulled him into a tight hug, burying his face in the crook of Dean's neck and leaving the elder Winchester huffing in surprise when the air was practically forced out of his lungs by the force of Sam's hold.
Dean didn't pull back.
It felt so long since they had bonded; the little touches and smiles they once exchanged so easily had dwindled down to nothing when Sam had preferred renewing their relationship as hunting partners only, judging the fact that they were brothers as unimportant and even dangerous.
He breathed in Sam's scent and warmth, allowing his little brother to lead the dance and take all the time he needed.
Before pulling away, Sam whispered in his ear and Dean 's heart began to cautiously hope again as the words sunk in.
Once his father had done the same thing, whispered in his ear about Sammy, leaving Dean horrified that his Dad could even have pronounced such words. "If you can't save Sam then you'll have to kill him"; yet Dean mused, here they were, still alive, and if Sammy's whispered words were anything to go by, they would fix this rift that had grown between them too.
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The enD