"When I'm Dreaming"
"I hear the voices when I'm dreaming.
I can hear them say…"
"Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas
"Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you asleep?"
"Yeah."
There was a moments pause. "Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you really asleep?"
"Yes."
Another pause. "Oh."
Dean sighed. Then he pushed himself up in bed and turned to his brother, lying beside him on the double bed. "What, Sammy?"
Sam sat up, too, sweeping his hair out of his face with one hand. His gray-green eyes reflected the small amount of light coming from the single window.
"Dad's been gone a long time."
Dean looked down, his heart sinking. "Yeah."
"Two months and twelve days," Sam said, biting his lip. "That's nine weeks and five days. Sixty-eight days. One thousand, six hundred, and thirty-two hours. Ninety-seven thousand, nine-hundred and twenty minutes. I counted."
In the dark, Dean rolled his eyes at his brother. Only five years old, and already a math geek.
"That's great, Sam. But it's, like, three o'clock in the morning and-."
"Dean, are you scared?" Sam's hair was hanging down over his eyes again, almost completely covering them. In the back of his mind, Dean noted that he'd have to get a haircut soon.
Dean picked at the blanket between him and Sam and pressed his eyes closed, his other hand digging into his leg. "No, of course not. Dad'll come back. He always does." Dean's voice was full of fake certainty. John had never been gone so long before and Dean didn't want to think about what might have happened.
"Well," Sam said, sitting up taller, "I'm not scared either. We don't need Dad, anyway. We don't need anyone! We can run away, far away so that Pastor Jim can't find us. And then we can get a Mommy, and maybe a big ole dog, and we won't have to move ever again…"
Dean's nails dug further into his leg, and he stared down at the covers. It sounded perfect… a normal life. A life that Dean, at the old age of ten, had long ago realized he could never have.
"Nah, Sammy. We can't do that. What about all the demons and ghosts? We gotta kill 'em. It's our job." And the thing that killed Mom, he thought to himself. Because he didn't want some other mom. Sam might not care, but Dean wanted his mother. The mother that had been taken away from him. The thing that killed her hadn't only taken away his mother- it had taken away any chance of a normal life that Dean had, and he knew it.
Sam thought about what Dean said for a moment. "Well, we could do that first. We could get 'em all, all the ghosts, and the demons, and the monsters, too. And then we could get a dog."
"We need Dad, Sam. We can't do it without him. None of it. Maybe… maybe he'll get us a dog someday." Now Dean was lying through his teeth… anything so that Sam would stop talking about running away.
"Really?" Sam was almost jumping up and down on the bed, all other thoughts forgotten. "Could we get a golden retriever, maybe? Think Dad would let us?"
Dean lay back in bed, letting himself daydream a little. "I don't know. Maybe. I've always kinda wanted a little dog, though… it wouldn't take up much room in the car. Maybe a terrier or something."
Sam lay back, too, a huge grin on his face. "Yeah, a terrier," he said, sighing. There was a moments pause. "Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"What's a terrier?"
88
Dean woke up. Without looking around, he could easily guess where he was. Just another nameless hotel room: two queen beds, two nightstands, an old TV. A place he wouldn't remember in another week, month, year… That time when their Dad had left, Dean had been ten. John was gone for four and a half months: the longest the boys had ever stayed in one place until Sam went off to Stanford. When John had gotten back, the first thing Sam had asked was if they could get a puppy. John had only laughed, told them of course not. They traveled too much for a pet. Sam had cried, but Dean barely cared. His dad was back. They were a family again. What did a stupid dog matter, anyway?
Now, John was gone again. Had been for months. And this time, he really wasn't coming back.
Dean turned on his side and saw Sam in the neighboring bed, blanket only half-covering his huge form.
"Sam?"
Sam moved slightly, groaning.
"Sammy?"
This time, Dean could almost make out a "Yeah?" in the answering grumble.
"You asleep?"
Sam rolled over, his eyes still closed. "Yeah."
Dean rolled his eyes. "Sam?"
"Yeah?" the response was more understandable now.
"You really asleep?"
One of Sam's eyes opened. "Not anymore." He rubbed his eyes and propped himself up on an elbow. "What?"
Dean sat up, too, and looked over at the large shape of his little brother. He opened his mouth to say something, but then changed his mind. "Nothing."
Sam raised an eyebrow. "You woke me up for that?" he tried searching Dean's face, but it was too dark. "Seriously, what is it?"
"Seriously, nothing." Dean lay back on his pillow, staring at the ceiling. Sam stared at him for a moment. If he had been more awake, he probably would have pushed the issue. But it was the middle of the night, and his eyes were already closing. Yawning widely, he lay back, too.
"Bitch," Dean whispered into the almost complete darkness, but Sam was already softly snoring from the bed beside him.