This was totally inspired by a conversation between my insomniac friend and my hypersomniac self. It's a little strange and the present tense/daily formatting isn't my usual thing but nonetheless I'm really quite happy with how it came out. Please review and let me know what you thought!
Usual warnings for language, but, really, what did you expect? :D
Title comes from Enter Sandman by Metallica.
Disclaimer: I don't own SPN or Enter Sandman
Exit Light, Enter Night
It takes Dean two weeks to figure it out.
At first he thinks Sam is getting a cold or maybe even the flu. But there isn't a single cough or sneeze. Hell, there isn't even a sniffle. There are other symptoms though. Pale with dark circles surrounding his eyes, Sam is really starting to look like the walking dead. Sometimes Sam's eyes glaze over and he stares into space, sometimes he stumbles over nothing. Dean's starting to worry he'll mistakenly shoot Sam during their next hunt.
Dean is confused. And more than a little concerned.
Monday
Dean wakes up around three am for no reason he can identify. There's something wrong in the air, something his subconscious sensors are picking up. Dean knows better than most than to ignore his gut instincts so he sits up and gives himself a few seconds to adjust to the darkness.
Door – locked. Windows – salted. Gun – under pillow. Sam-
Dean's heart stops.
Sam isn't in bed.
He scrambles from bed, gun already in his hand, finger on the trigger.
"Sam!" he calls out, careful not to be too loud – just in case.
"Kitchen," a dead voice responds. Dean sags over in relief, gun dropping to dangle from his limp fingers. His heart slowly stutters to a start again while his lungs decide to take breathing back up as a hobby.
"Christ, Sammy," Dean says, part annoyance, part relief, as he drags himself into the little kitchen area.
Sam's sitting at the tiny table, the glow of the laptop screen on his tired face the only light. A coffee cup sits dutifully just off to the side, half empty and no doubt cold. Dean drops the gun onto the table, ignoring the way Sam flinches, and drags a weary hand through his hair. Sam ignores him and just looks at the computer.
"What are you doing?"
"Research," Sam says without looking up. Dean checks the clock – just in case the sun spontaneously went out and Dean overslept…but no, it's 2:34 am – then rounds his gaze back to his strange younger brother.
"Know what you mean. 2:30, that right there is prime mental time," Dean agrees mordantly, earning him a patented Sam Winchester Glare. "Seriously, Sam, I know you love research, but I'm sure the internet will still be there in a few hours. I think you can spare just a little time for those unimportant things, like, you know, sleeping." Another glare. Yeah, because Dean's the one being unreasonable.
"Sam," he growls. Sam sighs then makes an exaggerated show of shutting the laptop and tucking it back into his bag.
Dean follows his huffy steps into the bedroom and watches as Sam lies down and stares at the ceiling.
When Dean awakes the next morning, sun shining bright through the crack in the curtains and birds chirping in an irritatingly merry way, Sam is still staring at the ceiling.
Wednesday
Dean's no genius but either Sam got a few IQ points knocked out of his head last concussion or the kids not sleeping. His brother is becoming sluggish and slow to respond to everything Dean says, as though 'What do you want on your burger?' is code for 'What is the meaning of life?' and requires deep pondering.
Dean calls off the hunt that was supposed to happen that night. Sam's in no state to hunt. Not only can Sam not watch Dean's back, he can't even watch his own (which is far more important than the former). The kid can barely stand and Dean will be further compromised if he has to worry about Sam even more than usual (which is a fucking lot).
The whole thing just spells disaster so Dean ix-nays the idea.
Sam's furious. Like, a burning hot fury Dean hasn't seen since Sam's teen years when it clashed never endingly with John.
Sam shouts that Dean is being ridiculous, and this is stupid, people could die, and Sam is fine! Sam didn't really need to storm off and slam the bathroom door for Dean to get the 'fuck off' loud and clear.
Dean thinks about sitting down next to the door and having a Chick Flick moment to tell Sam that he's only worried and he couldn't stand it if anything ever happened to Sam and…
He thinks about it, then decides Sam already knows that.
So Dean shouts that he's going for a beer and dinner and he silently prays that Sam will take a nap while he's gone and snap back to his Sammy.
Saturday
Dean has a plan.
When he goes for dinner, he grabs himself a Red Bull as well.
Enough of this shit, he's decided.
He knows Sam's not sleeping. Sam's denying it until he's blue in the face but Dean knows. He's only been Sam's big brother since the kid was born, he's bound to have picked up a few tricks here and there.
So the plan is to stay up, say 'Yeah, that's what I thought' to Sam when the kid doesn't sleep, then have an unfortunately necessary Chick Flick moment about why Sam's not sleeping, overcome this (hopefully with minimal tears and hugging, though Dean will acquiesce to either if necessary), and finally let them both get some sleep.
The problem is, Dean can't seem to stay awake to prove Sam's not sleeping. He wishes he could give his hypersomnia to his apparently insomniac little brother. It's painful to know Sam is suffering in lack of something that comes to Dean easily.
But there's no trading places and there's apparently no way for Dean to stay awake under his own power…so Dean makes The Plan.
Hence the Red Bull.
He brings dinner back, pretends Sam doesn't look like a zombie sitting in front of the laptop with the blue light on his already ghastly pale face and raccoon eyes, and makes extravagant exclamations of hunger.
Sam picks at the salad Dean brought (he was starting to get a bit desperate and if he went almost fifteen minutes out of the way just to find something green for his health-food-loving brother, then so what) which dulls Dean's appetite for his mouth watering bacon burger.
Dean intentionally finds excuses to stay at the table until Sam gives up in frustration and starts to get ready for bed. While he's in the bathroom changing, Dean drinks the Red Bull and gathers his night stuff. He recalls telling stories, and whispering fears and assurances, and all the other stuff he used to do when a younger Sam couldn't sleep.
As they get into bed, Dean silently watches Sam's back, the 'I told you so' poised on the tip of his tongue, and waits.
It takes Dean about half an hour to realize that Sam is sleeping.
What?
Sunday
Sam looks better. Dean feels worse. After about two hours of watching his brother sleep (which was decidedly not as creepy as it sounded) Dean had decided to call it quits and rolled over to go to sleep himself.
Apparently he'd drank a really fucking strong Red Bull because he didn't go to sleep. He's fairly certain that he'd been hit with the sugar crash at about two in the morning, but, despite the screaming exhaustion of his mind, his body had stayed determinedly awake.
When Sam gets up in the morning, looking slightly surprised but pleased, he gives Dean a small smile and heads into the bathroom. Dean himself feels like someone had run him over with a frickin' truck. Then the driver had gotten out and beat him with a bat for good measure. Then a dog had come over and peed on him.
Sam is much more enjoyable to be around that day, making the usual sarcastic quips and laughing quietly when Dean's toothpaste falls off his toothbrush and onto the floor.
Dean feels like punching something and going back to bed.
Tuesday
Dean sleeps like a rock Sunday and Monday night. Sam does not. He bitches almost constantly at Dean (for thousands of tiny things Dean didn't even know bothered the kid) and scowls around at things like the furniture is plotting against him. Dean's annoyed at first, then alarmed when Sam growls, literally growls, at the chair that stubbed his toe.
Sam's going back to his zombie state, apparently with a headache this time, if the rapidly emptying Aspirin bottle is anything to go by.
He wonders how long a person can go without sleep before they go crazy.
Wednesday
"Sammy?" Dean asks quietly, knowing all too well that being loud is a really quick way to get yelled at lately.
Sam, once more sitting in the kitchen at way-too-early AM, doesn't look up from the book he's lazily flipping through.
"Sammy," Dean repeats, trying not to sound desperate. Sam is decaying before his eyes and he's clueless. Not to mention, scared shitless.
Sam sighs and drags his exhausted eyes over to meet Dean's.
The tired expression breaks something in Dean.
Sam's face pinches up, giving up his façade and drops his head down to rest on his propped hands. The defeated position beats at the already broken something in Dean.
He comes up behind Sam, resting a hand on his siblings shoulder.
"I can't sleep," Sam says very quietly.
"I know." Dean squeezes his shoulder before releasing his grip to sit down next to Sam. "Why?"
"Don't know," Sam offers with a shrug. His eyes start to droop then he suddenly sits up alertly, more alert than Dean has seen him in a long time.
"Sam?"
Sam doesn't reply, only gets up and all but bolts to his bed. Dean shakes his head in confusion before emptying Sam's left over coffee into the sink and trashing the gas station cup.
When he gets to the bedroom, Sam's fast asleep.
Dean stays awake all night.
Thursday
Dean awakes around one in the morning. Sam is, of course, awake. In bed, but awake nonetheless. Dean watches him sadly before getting up to relieve himself.
When he comes back, Sam is asleep.
Dean frowns. He gets in bed.
Dean stays awake the rest of the night and thinks.
Friday
He puts his theory to the test.
He's right.
He wishes he wasn't.
Saturday
"Only one of us can sleep." Sam looks up from the newspaper with one eyebrow quirked. How he can still manage that much facial emotion after god knows how many days of missed sleep, Dean doesn't know.
"What?" Sam's face scrunches in confused incredulity. He clearly thinks that Dean's the one in danger of going off the deep end.
"Only one of us can sleep," Dean repeats, still stuck on the oddness of it.
"Yes," Sam says slowly, like he's talking to a five-year-old. "There are two of us, and I can't sleep. Therefore, only one of us can sleep." Dean resists the urge to smack him.
"No, I mean, only one of us can sleep at a time. Think about it, if you're asleep, I can't sleep and if I'm asleep, you can't sleep. And whenever I get up at night, you're suddenly able to sleep." Sam frowns like this is a complicated Rubik's cube that just needs the right turns to solve.
Finally, he nods and looks up. Dean blows out a breath. He was so sure Sam wasn't going to believe it, was going to claim Dean was just trying to find a reason Sam couldn't sleep, trying to find a way to tie the problem to Dean so he could feel guilty (which he did). He'd spent all night thinking of how to explain it without sounding crazy.
"What do we do?"
Dean didn't think that far ahead.
Sunday
They decide to call Bobby Sunday night. He thinks they're messing with them until Dean quietly pleads with the older man while watching Sam drift to sleep on the couch.
He promises to do what he can.
Dean thanks him and hangs up.
He's relieved to have a definable problem, but horrified at the damage it's already done and could continue to do if they can't figure a solution out.
Tuesday
Bobby calls them back with something call Curse on the Living Dead, cast upon a dead body so that anyone who should disturb the body once it's been laid to rest will find themselves unable to sleep.
Dean thinks back to their last hunt – a supposedly routine salt and burn – and wonders why nothing can ever go right.
Because they were both there, Bobby hypothesizes, the spell mutated unto them both, with Sam taking the brunt as he was the one digging the grave.
Dean demands answers as how to remove it and Bobby tells them.
Wednesday
They find the grave, the dirt still looking slightly fresh from when they dug it up a little more than two weeks ago.
They both slit their palms, letting the blood dribble onto the grave as sacrifice payment and read the bit of Latin Bobby gave to them.
They find a motel. They make awkward conversation and nervous movements until it's a reasonable time to go to sleep (though Dean's pretty sure he hasn't gotten into bed at 9 pm since he was ten).
Dean waits with (embarrassingly) baited breath as Sam lays in bed.
"Stop watching me."
Dean makes a lot of noise rolling around, then continues to watch Sam from the corner of his eye.
After a few minutes, the younger man's eyes began to droop and he slips into sleep, snoring faintly.
Dean smiles to himself then gets comfortable.
He's still smiling when he falls asleep.
End
Reviews are love :) I'm bouncing around a lot of one-shot ideas right now as well as a big ass project that's hopefully going to be EPIC, so more to come soon. Rock on.