Some nights he really could sleep like a normal person, a deep, dreamless sleep that left him well-rested and relatively refreshed the next morning. After all the years of hunting, that really was a miracle in itself.
But some nights... some nights even a six-pack and several shots of whiskey didn't help. Some nights he was haunted by too many memories, too many ghosts, too many faces. Face it, some nights were just pure torture - never-ending, self-accusing, why-didn't-I-do-it-this-way torture.
There were nights that dreams of Sam dying in his arms, his spinal cord severed, his head lolling on his big brother's shoulder, would bring back the state of near panic, of pure unadulterated anguish, as if it had just happened.
There were the dreams of deaths, seemingly endless and varied, that woke him from sleep far too often. Mom, Dad, Jo and Ellen, Bobby, Rufus... far too large a list, far too much guilt involved with many of them. John sacrificing himself to save his son, the look on Jo's face as he had kissed her goodbye, Bobby smiling and calling them idjits that last time... they all tore him up inside. Kevin's death crushed him, partly because of the fact that he knew how badly it wrecked Sam. And that was on him, too. And then there was Charlie. Charlie's death had almost finished him, had unleashed the beast that was the Mark of Cain.
There were nights that Hell seemed real around him, and the agony he had gone through wasn't even what he dreamed about. It was the agony he had inflicted on other souls, the smell of fear and blood, the screams echoing through the endless abyss that was the home of the damned. It was the savagery he had been capable of that made him almost long for the sanctuary of insanity, of oblivion, of any type of affliction that would relieve him of the fact that it was real, that it had really happened, that he had been that monster.
It was on a night that he had dreamed of Hell that he climbed out of bed, his feet bare on the chilly floor, and headed for the liquor cabinet. He stood there, staring at the bottle in his shaking hand, for several minutes, but he knew it would provide nothing but a numbing, a dulling of the pain. He finally set it down, turning and heading down the hall towards his room.
He stopped outside her door, reaching for the knob twice before finally taking it in hand and opening it quietly. She was lying on her side, snuggled into the blankets, her hair fanned out over the pillow behind her. He stared at her, an ache blooming in his gut, an ache so intense that it made him clench his teeth and hold his breath. He finally exhaled, gnawing his lip for a moment before giving in, and made his way to her bed, climbing up beside her, gently moving her hair aside and lying down to curl up behind her. He buried his nose in her hair, breathing in the scent of her, warm and clean and comforting, his eyes closed. Then he put his arm carefully over her and moved closer, wrapping himself around her, his legs tucked behind hers, his head on the pillow beside hers, his arm over her waist and angling up to gently hold her shoulder in his large hand. She shifted a little in her sleep, waking slightly at the presence in her bed. "Dean?" she whispered, turning to her back, her hand reaching for his face. "Dean, what are you... Are you okay?" she asked softly.
"I just needed..." His voice faded, and he started again. "Can I stay?"
She didn't answer. She just turned to face him, slipping an arm beneath his neck and pulling him close, cradling his head against her chest, one leg over his hip as she wrapped him in her comfort, her warmth, her acceptance, her love. There would be time for talk later. Right now, this was all he needed.