Dean was not a morning person. The sun rose much too early, before he had had the time to reconcile himself to the fact that another, blissful night was over to be replaced with the harshness and cruelty of the day, and the other more pressing issue was that his body and mind weren't ready to face whatever hell awaited him.
Rolling over on his side, his face pressed tightly, comfortingly against his pillow, he breathed deeply as he kept his eyes squeezed shut, hoping to at least put on the illusion that he was still sleeping so his body would perhaps get the idea, and join in for real.
But that would have been too easy.
His mind was also rapidly joining the party that he would have paid gold not to have been invited to. He groaned softly, palming his face blearily as he struggled to keep himself under control, struggled to float back under into peaceful oblivion. Not that he didn't enjoy the day once it begun. It was getting there that was the issue. To him, there was simply no amount of hours in the night that would make up for all the sleep that he had lost over the last few weeks as he stayed stationary, hoping against hope to fall back to sleep.
The nightmares that had recently assaulted his mind hadn't helped either. It was almost always the same one, hardly changing in position or clarity, except for when his cruel subconscious introduced another component, one that made it all that more vivid and brutal. It was something that he had tried hard to rid his body of, but had so far been unsuccessful, as he contemplated confiding in one of his guardians about the odd dreams. Not that he liked to whine about something that was out of their control, but it would be nice to have someone telling him that he was either crazy and that dreams didn't send messages, or that his mind was trying to tell him something serious.
Either possibility was more confusing and frightening than the last.
Caleb was his first choice of confidante.
For nearly as long as he could remember, nine years, the two had shared a beautiful, unbreakable bond with each other that had been born out of a mutual love and respect, and of hunting. Caleb had been his sole trainer in all things supernatural and working out, ever since he had stumbled upon the horrible truth. Beyond the hunting, Caleb had been his rock. Someone that had always been brutally honest with him, had always given him the truth no matter how devastating or harsh it was, and someone that had always been there with a firm but loving shoulder to cry on when all the unforgivable horrors of the world had simply been too much.
It was something that Dean respected immensely about him, even when a lie would have been better than facing the truth, Caleb always knew how Dean thought, always knew that Dean always preferred hearing something straight, as opposed to a condensed version of the truth. If he was going to tell anyone about the nightmares he had been having, it would be Caleb. But first he had to work his mind around to the idea of actually getting out of bed first.
No small feat with how tired he was that morning.
"Morning, kiddo."
"What?" he groaned, when the door to his bedroom had been flung open, and Caleb marched in, turning on the painfully bright lights, and perching himself on the edge of his bed.
"Time to wake up," Caleb said, as if it should be the most natural, obvious thing in the world. "Come on," he egged, pulling back Dean's covers.
"No," Dean resisted, with a cross between a laugh and a groan as he swatted Caleb's hands away. "You're horrible, leave me alone."
"What's the matter?" Caleb asked, momentarily forgoing the teasing tone he had put on when he had first walked into the room, to replace it with one of genuine concern and confusion, while he looked down at the teenager in front of him. "Didn't you sleep?"
"No," Dean shook his head, as he turned over on his side, swallowing thickly against the lump in his throat that had been born out of combined thirst and emotion.
"Why not?"
"I don't know. Take it up with my mind."
"Come on, Dean," Caleb said gently, as he effortlessly turned Dean over on his side so he would have no choice but to face his guardian. "Spill your gut, boy."
"It's nothing-" Dean began, avoiding Caleb's kind eyes. "Just drop it."
"No. See, the thing is, I know you and if something is really bothering you, odds are I need to know about it, and odds are you'll feel better once you spill."
One of the perks of their bond was that they each knew the other so well. However, sometimes, like now when Dean wasn't sure how to broach the subject, it was an annoyance, even though he knew that Caleb's prodding was one of concern and love.
"It's just," Dean began, trying to come up with the right words to covey the strangeness of the dreams, and how they had continued to haunt him the last several days. "A dream. That's all," he added.
"What's the dream about?"
"I don't know. Nothing really, but it's the feeling I get whenever I have it. This feeling of something...bad happening, you know?"
"I do," Caleb quietly confirmed. "I know that feeling very well."
Call it parental concern for the boys, or just paranoia from their latest experiences with the yellow-eyed demon, but Caleb was always on edge, always waiting for the next hit to strike just for the simple fact that he would be prepared.
"Do you think it means anything?" Dean asked quietly, as he twisted his blanket around his finger. "These dreams of mine?"
"I...don't know," Caleb admitted quietly. "I think we should try to track them as much as we can, how often and what you see in them, if anything changes in them or not."
In his experiences with the supernatural, Caleb had never known a demon to possess the ability to control dreams, and manifest something out of them that he wanted someone to see. Normally, a demon would have no problem conducting his dealings in the waking world.
"I know. Just with everything happening lately..."
"I know," Caleb said quietly, as he touched his knee comfortingly.
In the last few months, they had dealt with the crushing loss of Jim, and the knowledge that the YED was likely behind the attack. After that, their once peaceful home in Minnesota no longer felt safe or even desirable to live in. That was where Bobby had come in. Having a house that he had come into possession of, he remade the home to be a safe house of sorts.
"Do you think we're okay?" Dean asked, his green eyes begging Caleb to be truthful about this one, too.
"I don't see why we're not," Caleb said. "The demon hasn't made any new mind trips to Sam lately, and all the wards are still intact, and I think for the time being, it's going okay."
"Good."
"For the time being" meant little in their world. At any seconds, things could change, and it was that part of the life that Dean was so anxious about. It was the last thing he needed, any upheavals or concerns.
"If you want, you can camp up here for a little while longer."
"No, it's okay. Maybe it will do me some good to get downstairs and annoy the crap out of Sam."
"Yeah," Caleb said with a laugh. "Let's see who can annoy who the fastest. Your brother's in rare form this fine morning."
"Well, that makes it even better," Dean said with a mock-serious tone to his voice. "Can we go out and do something later?"
"Yeah, like what?"
"Anything, really."
Dean had been going slightly stir crazy with the enforced confinement, and having to stay inside. Not out of choice, but out necessity. While he understood the security precautions completely, it didn't compensate for the fact that it had been hard adjusting to it all. So much had happened in such a short amount of time that he was slightly surprised that his head wasn't spinning from all the craziness it had been filled with.
About four months previously, they had lost Jim Murphy. Dean and Sam's other guardian, the one that lived with them and Caleb, to the same demon that had been responsible for the horrific murder of his mother, and the right after that, he had had to endure his funeral, which had been emotionally traumatizing for him, and then right after everything had started to settle down, they had made the move to the new house.
"Yeah," Caleb said with a shrug, sensing how urgently both boys needed a break from the place. "We can go get something from the drive-thru and come right back."
"Sounds good."
