Disclaimer: When I own it all, I'll call you!


SHADOWS IN THE DARK

NIGHTMARE? WHAT NIGHTMARE?

The dark shadows were all around; he could feel the evil of them. Looking around he couldn't see anything that looked wrong, but he sure could feel it. He cradled the shotgun tighter to his chest and made his way cautiously to where his brother lay crumpled on the ground. Crouching down, still keeping watch on the surrounding forest, he shook his brother's shoulder, then again and again until the man groaned.

As he felt a sense of relief gathering inside him, he realised at once what was wrong. There were no noises in the forest, total quiet. No birds, no bees, no scurrying patter of animal paws, absolutely nothing. The flare of worry spread through his gut again, how was he going to get his brother up and out of here, with that evil waiting for him to slip up? Sam's breath hitched and caught in his throat. He managed to sit his brother up and he felt the warm sticky feeling of blood dripping over his hand. Dean was hurt, bad if all this blood was anything to go on. Sam realised with utter horror that he could no longer hear Dean groaning, or even breathing. With a sinking feeling he knew, he just knew, Dean was dead. Sam yelled " No, Dean don't" but he couldn't finish the sentence, the "Don't leave me" dying unsaid in his throat as he too crumpled into a heap to lay sobbing, cradling his dead brother's body against his chest.

Dean sat in the booth of the small eatery, waiting for his breakfast. He idly wondered about getting Sam something, but knew that when Sam woke up, he wouldn't be eating anything for a couple of hours. Dean gradually realised there was a young woman standing at the edge of his table with his breakfast order on a tray. She was looking at him in a puzzled kind of way. Dean realised uncomfortably that she had probably spoken to him, and he, being off in La-La land hadn't heard her. Dean smiled up the waitress, putting all his charm into that smile.

"Sorry about that," Dean said, "I'm just worrying about my kid brother. He's not well, and I left him sleeping." Girls always went soft and gooey over men showing their caring sides. Dean was already plotting how he could get this pretty young woman's phone number off her, and where they could go so they could get a bit of "privacy" later on. Hmmm, maybe he needed to take a drive around the town, see what "Beauty spots" there were around.

"You did what?" the young woman ground out. She slid his breakfast onto the table and looked at him, a small frown starting to appear between her eyes. Dean realised that this was not going exactly the way he had planned.

"Hey, it's ok," Dean explained "he's not exactly a kid any more, and it's only a migraine."

The young woman just glared at Dean "And you just left him there, all alone, so you could come and fill your stomach? Typical selfish male, that's all you guys ever think about, your stomachs. He probably needs help, and your too busy stuffing your face to care about him!'

Wow, thought Dean, this girl was seriously Way-Over-the-Top with the TLC thing. Dean stood up, shovelled what eggs and bacon he could onto the slices of toast before him and pushed past the woman. He glared at her and growled out "You don't know nothing, so just shut-yer-cakehole and get out of my face!" With that Dean stormed off, throwing enough money to cover his meal, onto the front counter of the shop. He got in his car, threw it in to reverse, and drove away in a fit of temper. Nobody knew how much time and worry he put into Sammy. No one ever knew how awful he felt when Sam got hurt or sick. No one knew how unfair this felt at times to Dean. Dean felt like he was choking on the whole unfairness of it all. He had been told so often in his life that he was to take care of Sammy, that it was his job to make sure that Sammy was ok, that he did it all without even thinking. The young woman in the shop had cut Dean to the depths of his soul. Dean pulled up outside of the motel room and just sat, thinking about his past, about things that might have happened, about what his and Sammy's life might have been like. Dean sighed and shifted his sight to the motel office, hoping no-one saw him sitting here daydreaming. Being such a girl, this was what Sammy would do – not Dean. Sighing Dean got out of the car and crammed as much of his breakfast as could into his mouth, chewing mightily. As he put the keys into the lock of the motel door, he realised he had seen a newspaper stand outside the office. Withdrawing the key, Dean sauntered down to the newspaper stand and took a paper. He then returned to the room and started reading the sports pages, while he waited patiently for Sam to wake up.

By the time that Sam finally opened his eyes blearily, Dean had read the paper – twice. Good grief Dean groaned in his mind, I'm turning into a geek like Sam, reading all the paper- twice!

However, he admitted, reading the paper had solved their problem of what to do next, well, after he had found out what that little nightmare of Sam's had been about this morning.

"So Sammy," said Dean, "What was with you this morning?"

"Huh?" Sam answered rolling his eyes at Dean's use of Sammy. "What was with me? Hey man, I didn't scream into your face just because I was bored" snapped Sam.

"Bored?" Dean answered puzzled "No Sam, I meant, what was the nightmare about?"

"Nightmare - I didn't have a nightmare Dean, well at least not until you descended into juvenile hell, again, and decided to be a real pain!"

Dean looked at Sam's face, trying to see if Sam was bluffing, or really telling the truth about not remembering the nightmare. He decided that Sam was either getting too smart, or he was actually telling the truth, Dean just couldn't decide which by looking at Sam's face. Dean grunted, letting the subject slide away.

"So when will you be ready to move out Sam?" Dean asked

"Why?" Sam asked "Found us another job?"

"Yep, I think so. But I really need my geek boy on this job, so I think we can wait till tomorrow, and let poor ole geeky have a rest day"

"No way Dean!" Sam growled out. Dean looked up at Sam, wondering what was eating him now. Lately Sam had been really bad tempered, muttering stuff that Dean could only vaguely hear, and shoving his bad attitude in Dean's face, almost the way he did as a bad tempered teen rebelling against their dad's orders. Dean smiled at the memory, only to be pulled back to the present by Sam storming off, muttering under his breath what curiously sounded like a few choice curse words that Dean only occasionally used himself. Dean felt and heard the slam of the bathroom door and Sam disappeared inside the room to shower and dress. Dean realised with a guilty start that Sam thought Dean was laughing at him. Dean rolled his eyes, wondering if kid brothers could get PMT or PMS or whatever it was that women were forever talking about, stuff that made them edgy and moody. Hmmm, Dean thought, Wonder if I can Google that?

Forty minutes later the brothers were speeding along the road, leaving the town behind them. Dean cast his mind back through the last hour, and wondered what was eating Sammy. First Sam had slammed the bathroom door, then he had had a mini meltdown at finding that Dean had eaten all their meagre food supplies the night before, then when they had packed up and moved out to get fuel Sam had stormed off into the shop to get some food, throwing back, of course, the loud comments about Dean's eating compulsion. Dean had ground his teeth in frustration. When they had finally started driving Sam had gone on and on and on about not having any food, about Dean's total selfishness in eating all the food, on and on and on, an endless litany. Finally Dean had shouted "Sam STOP!"

Sam opened his mouth to carry on and Dean growled.

Sam looked at Dean and Dean looked at Sam. "I'm warning you Sam, let it go man, just let it go" Dean wasn't just angry with Sam, he was furious – mostly at himself admittedly. Yes he should have made sure there was food, but Sam's accusing him of selfishness, man that was bad. That was unfair. So they drove away, the car filled with a heavy angry silence that they both wished they could break.

Sam felt awful. He sighed, a deep belly aching sigh, and choked back the lump in his throat. He knew he had been rotten to Dean, and not just this morning either. He always had this headache at the back of his skull, banging away now, all the time. It made him edgy and bad tempered and he knew he had cut Dean to the quick when he had called Dean selfish this morning. Sam knew Dean wasn't selfish; that Dean couldn't be selfish with anything. If they had ever run out of food, Dean had always made sure Sam had had enough to eat, and gone without himself. If Sam was cold, Dean always gave him his coat or blanket. Dean always put Sam before himself. Sam felt like a monster. These continual nightmares that he was getting were scaring Sam too. He desperately wanted to talk to Dean about them, but how could he? Dean died in them. Over and over and over Sam had dreamed about Dean's death, until Sam was doing anything but sleeping. Sam knew that was why he had had the migraine. Too little sleep - that could always be counted on for triggering a migraine with Sam, not that he had ever told Dean that of course. Dean had always assumed that Sam's migraines had come as a result of his visions from the Yellow-Eyed-Demon. Oh hell, Sam realised belatedly that Dean would be worrying about where his migraine had come from, why Sam had got one. Dean also knew Sam had a nightmare, Sam reasoned from Dean's point of view, and just knew that Dean was worrying if some other demon was working its way into Sam's life the way that evil Yellow-Eyed-Demon had. Sam sighed again. It looked like it was time to level with Dean.

Sam turned to Dean, not knowing that Dean had been studying his little brother for a while, wondering what was going on in his freakishly geeky mind. Hopefully, Dean thought, no chick-flick moments, please!

Sam cleared his throat and said "Dean, I need to talk to you, can we pull over for a bit?"

Dean took a long look at Sam, and pulled off into a rest stop siding. Dean reached down and turned the car off, the sudden quiet making Sam remember the last time he had heard such deadly silence – in his dream cradling Dean's dead body to him. Sam bit his lip, took a deep breath and began to tell Dean about his dream that had started over 2 weeks before.