Summary: Sam struggles with the events at the asylum.
A/N: More Sam angst. What else? I'm not sure if I think this is what Sam would really think, but it seemed plausible when I wrote it. It just seems like nothing is simple the heads of the Winchester boys. There are so many things that go unsaid, so many unresolved issues. I'm not sure if I tied it all together well enough, although I didn't want everything to seem perfectly resolved. Nonetheless I do worry if it makes sense. So if it doesn't, I'm open to suggestions. Also, I tried to catch all the places where my tense slipped--I was never sure if I liked present of past so I ended up switching half way through which is annoying to edit for.
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine.
Nightmares and Premonitions
The sound of a gunshot tears him from his sleep.
He sits up in bed with a jolt, panting, his eyes adjusting to the dark. His voice catches in his throat and he looks around frantically for Dean.
His panic lessens when he sees his brother sound asleep in the next bed.
Sam blinks, trying to catch his breath. He is so unsettled, he throws his legs over the side of the bed and gets up, moving slowly toward the bathroom.
He gropes in the dark. He and Dean rarely stay in one place very long and the trail of motels keeps him disoriented as he tries to navigate the unfamiliar space. His hand feeling along the wall, he stumbles into the bathroom, closing the door before flicking on the light.
The fluorescent light blinds him and he squints into the mirror. He turns on the faucet and lets cool water spill in the sink. He rubs his hands under the stream, leaning over to splash his face.
Looking up, he can see himself, now mostly awake, disheveled in the mirror. He seems gaunt almost—pale and underfed in the garish light.
Sighing, he closes his eyes and plops down on the toilet. In the darkness of his closed eyes, the dream comes back to him.
He is holding a gun. His arms are taught, his aim secure. His body tenses as he looks down. At first all he can see is rage and anger, hatred and bitterness. He sees his failures and his miseries. He sees his father kicking him out. He sees Jessica dying. He sees his happy life up in flames. The hurt is unbearable; the rage begins to mount.
He is so overwhelmed, so angry, he can't stop himself from pulling the trigger.
But as the crack reverberates in his mind the mist clears and he sees his brother lying beneath him.
His eyes snap open once again. He swears under his breath.
The premonitions are one thing; the nightmares are another.
For so long, he collapses the latter into the former. It makes life easier. It allows him normalcy. But when the dream about Jess comes true, he begins to think about all the other dreams and how many of them have come to fruition without his knowledge.
He knows he is reliving the events at the asylum. Nightmares about what he'd done, about what he'd tried to do. It is guilt, he tells himself logically. Unresolved guilt that would persist until he talked to Dean.
Usually he can calm himself with that promise and go back to sleep. But it has been two weeks and they still stalk him in his sleep. They come upon him with a familiar ferociousness and voracity. Just like when he dreamed about his childhood home. Just like when he dreamed about Jessica.
Sam shudders. The whiteness of the bathroom is cold and unforgiving. He cradles his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees. The nightmares go away; it's the premonitions that always linger.
The feelings are true. Sometimes when Dean went out and left Sam alone in the motel with his laptop, Sam would sit in the chair and stare at the wall, remembering everything he'd lost. The list is long.
Some days it makes him want to implode, fall in within himself, drown himself in his own tears. Sometimes he wants to take the gun to his head and make all of it stop.
Other days, though, when he had no tears left to cry, he becomes angry. His sobs become violent and he wants to scream until his throat is raw, rip the pillows and blankets to shreds, just to let the supernatural forces know he is angry.
Most days though, he is with Dean, and the grief and anger can be nothing more than clichéd touch points, topics to smooth over with the banter of brotherly love.
Sometimes that just makes him angrier.
He is so angry; Dean is so at the center of his anger, although Sam is not directly angry at him.
Dean did not kill his mother. Dean did not move him from place to place as a child. Dean did not kick him out. Dean did not kill Jessica. Dean did not make their father disappear. But Dean is a part of all these things; the only part he has left to hold on to, the only part he has left to blame.
There are moments when he is desperate for someone to hold on to, but even more desperate for someone to blame.
He doesn't know how to tell this to Dean. He doesn't know how to start this conversation. He doesn't know how to sit down and tell him that yes, he meant to pull the trigger, but no, he never wanted to kill his brother. The logic doesn't make sense, not even to Sam.
So he dreams it out, night after night, trying to make sense of it. His mind cannot let it go. It dwells within him. Sometimes he wakes up and believes it's true.
Because he knows it could be true.
Sam raises his head, placing his chin in his hands, and stares at the back of the bathroom door. He does not want to return to bed. He does not want to sleep. The grief and anger give way to fear.
Fear that he will never figure out the words, never know how to start the conversation. Fear that Dean will never forgive him and he will lose his brother's love. Fear that he will never learn to let go of these feelings and that he will rot away inside. Fear that his sanity is an illusion and that the only way to fix it is blow a bullet through his brain.
Fear that when he closes his eyes, he won't know the difference between the nightmares and premonitions, and that he won't keep them from being real.