Dean was in bed under the covers, eyes closed but his mind ran and flashed through the past twenty-four hours. Leaving Sam in tears after his outburst, running to find him curled up in bed screaming in agony, hugging him against his chest willing every ounce of warmth to pass into his freezing cold body. Sam's wispy, barely-there 'I love you.' Dean singing their mother's favorite lullaby as he watched Sam fade away, his soft, final reassurance that Sam could sleep.
Dean cringed in the dark, trying to get the memories out of his head. He was already running on fumes. He needed to sleep. He breathed in and out, slow and steady, trying to release tension.
Sam was okay. Sam could walk on his own two feet now. Sam was asleep right next to him, breathing easily and warmed by the five blankets Dean had piled on top of them. They'd both settled into Dean's room quickly, Sam especially falling asleep before the aliens even appeared in Independence Day. Detached, Dean figured nearly dying like that takes a lot out of a person.
The older brother had watched the movie for awhile longer, the presence of his little brother sleeping soundly comforting him more than he cared to admit. A couple times Sam would twitch restlessly in sleep and Dean felt justified placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. It helped; Sam would relax and still under Dean's touch.
Soon Dean had found himself wavering on the edge of consciousness. He turned off the TV, lazily adjusted his pillow and settled down on his side. His eyes relaxed in the darkness. He could see the silhouette of Sam's body faced away from him on his side, his breathing even and calm.
Dean wanted to keep the moment. But then the memories came flooding back, playing and replaying in his mind.
After several hours of restless stirring Dean was on the verge of sleep when the mattress jerked. Dean's eyes snapped open to the sight of Sam's body twitching.
"Sam?" Dean whispered, reaching his hand out. Before he touched Sam's shoulder, his brother twisted onto his back with a gasp. Dean could see a light sheen of sweat on his face, his breath uneven and heavy like he'd been running a marathon.
"Sam?" Dean asked again, louder this time. He put his hand on Sam's shoulder and squeezed.
"Nah...no..." Sam breathed, tilting his face away from Dean.
Dean propped himself up and reached for Sam's face. "Sam, Sammy," he urged quietly, "wake up, kiddo," he asked, palming his cheek. Sam shuddered, shaking his head back and forth under his brother's hand.
"Please... no... please..." Sam was nearly crying.
"Sam, c'mon! It's a nightmare, Sammy," Dean called, still holding his brother's head and sitting up now to press his other hand to Sam's chest. Sam writhed, scared and desperate in the dream until somehow Dean's words clipped it off. Suddenly Dean was staring into Sam's open eyes, full and alert and confused.
"Dean?" Sam gasped but his breath was normalizing already. Dean sighed with relief.
"You okay?" Dean asked, unwilling to move off Sam until he knew. Sam looked around then back up at his brother.
"Yeah I think so... What happened?"
Dean rolled his eyes and slipped his hands off his little brother to lie down next to him.
"Just a nightmare, Sammy. Go back to sleep," Dean whispered.
Sam tipped onto his side to face Dean in the darkness.
"How'd you know I was having a nightmare?"
"Because I'm batman," Dean said, smiling blandly in the dark. He felt Sam's hand shove his shoulder. "S'nothing, Sam. F'it happens again I'll let you know, okay?"
A long pause. Dean didn't know if Sam was deliberating over the agreement or falling back to sleep.
"'kay," was all that came from his exhausted little brother. The latter, then.
Sam jolted awake on his back, gasping for air, his throat clenching and releasing like he'd been crying. He didn't know exactly what he'd been dreaming. All he knew was that he felt weak, vulnerable... humiliated and tainted with something he desperately needed to purge.
"Sam," he heard his brother whisper at the same time he felt an anchoring arm wrap over his chest grounding him.
Sam assessed reality. He was in bed. In the bunker. Safe with his brother right next to him, the familiar weight of Dean's arm and the blankets keeping him down settling his nerves. Sam wanted to curl into it, hold back onto it until the aftereffects of the nightmare, whatever it was, wore off.
"Sammy," Dean's voice called out again sleepily. Sam lifted his hands to his face and wiped off tears. Dean's grasp around him grew stronger, a tacit request for his brother to answer him.
"Yeah," Sam said wetly, quickly trying to stifle sniffs and gasps from uneven breath. It didn't work and Sam could feel Dean's hand spread their fingers out along his side, his arm losing its sleepy dead weight and becoming more of a concerned, bracing hold.
"You're shaking," Dean said, his voice clearer now, his head lifting up off its pillow. Sam looked down and realized he really was. His hands shivered as he wiped his hair off his face and rubbed his nose.
"I'm not cold," Sam assured, gravelly and uneven. Dean got up next to him in the dark and felt his neck and forehead.
"You're right. Another nightmare?" he asked softly. Sam swallowed, slightly embarrassed, and nodded.
"Yeah s'just a nightmare. Sorry," Sam said and turned around, his back to his brother. "'M fine," Sam added quietly. Dean patted him on the shoulder.
"Okay," Dean replied simply and Sam could feel him lie down again. It didn't escape his notice that Dean settled down closer to him in bed. Taking the cue, Sam pretended to adjust his position and moved a fraction of an inch closer to Dean too. Neither of them were touching but it felt better. Sam thought perhaps falling back to sleep with the conscious knowledge that his brother was so close would stop the nightmares this time around.
Dean was down for the count sleeping like a log when Sam woke him up again talking in his sleep. He could barely register what Sam was saying, his mind clouded, his subconscious screaming at him to just go back to sleep.
"Please... Please... No, not that, please..." Sam whimpered and suddenly the mattress shuddered, breaking Dean out of his stupor into wakefulness because Sam was jerking in spasms. It wasn't like a seizure though. His movements were sharp and reactive like if someone or something was inflicting pain.
"Sam! Sammy!" Dean sat up and turned the lamp on. He swiveled back to his brother. Sam was curled into a ball, shivering. Dean burrowed under the covers to pull him into his arms.
"Sam! Sammy, wake up, c'mon," Dean coaxed, wrapping around his brother. Sam began garbling his words, rendering them gibberish. It didn't scare Dean until it started to sound like he was choking on his own tongue.
"Jesus, Sammy." Dean muttered shakily as he maneuvered his little brother around to fall forward over Dean's forearm.
"Wake up!" Dean yelled, now dismissing the possibility of a gentle re-entry into reality. "Sam!" He roared.
Suddenly Sam stopped struggling, stopped moving but for the heavy shivers Dean could feel wracking the kid's entire body.
"Sam? You okay?"
Sam kept quavering but he remained limp, just hanging over his brother's arm.
"Sammy," Dean whispered and pulled his brother back up to lie against his chest. Sam groaned and let out a whimper over the jostling.
"It's okay, it's okay," Dean promised. Sam clung onto Dean's arms wrapped around his stomach and chest. Dean pulled him up.
"You okay?" Dean asked, light but serious at the same time. Sam was still blurry but at least he was out of the nightmare.
Sam grunted and froze.
"Sam, what? What is it?" Dean asked, worried.
Sam made a wheezing sound that ended with a whimper. Quickly breaking out of Dean's grasp, Sam turned around to face him. He knelt on the bed, eyes wide, face pale with sleep and shock as he clutched at his throat. Sam opened and closed his mouth like a panicked fish, only small gurgles and whines issuing forth into the quiet bedroom.
Dean's stomach dropped at the revelation. No matter how hard he was trying, Sam couldn't speak.
"Oh no," Dean murmured lamely. Sam put a hand to his forehead, overwhelmed, eyes flashing around to no particular place in frantic thought. Dean hurt for his brother when he saw Sam trying to scream. It only resulted in heavy, winded breaths.
Dean's brows furrowed in thought, reconciling this new turn of events. While it was a concern that Sam couldn't communicate verbally, Sam was still making sounds that Dean understood. He wasn't sure what it said about them but he was nearly certainhe and his brother could have a full conversation made up of nothing but grunts, sighs and other incoherent utterances.
Sam was still holding his head in his hands, distraught, when he heard his brother.
"Sam," Dean whispered, reaching out and gently taking one of his wrists. Sam let him, trembling, and understood when Dean pulled. Sam leaned and, already hunched into himself, crawled a knee or two in closer so Dean could give him a hug.
Sam's worry radiated out of him but he sunk against Dean's chest.
While Sam didn't remember the nightmare, it probably had to do with the cage again, especially if he was mute now with a sickeningly familiar sense of shame and rot. Sam had never told Dean specifics. Lucifer would cut out his tongue as a humiliating punishment and continue whatever horrific scenario he forced upon Sam until he got bored and left, only restoring Sam's body and senses right before the next scenario commenced. Needless to say, it had traumatized him.
Sam knew he was safe, that this was reality and he was no longer in the cage, but he held on to Dean tightly, needing his brother's presence to wash the sense of humiliation, the conviction that this was a punishment and that he'd been bad, away.
And Dean was getting better at this kind of stuff every hour, it seemed like. He never rejected Sam, always allowed Sam the time he needed, and instinctively knew how to use words and gestures to calm him down. Sam was a full grown man, as was Dean, but this experience was whittling through to the core bases of who they were and why they cared so damn much about each other.
Dean's heart grew heavy as he whispered reassurances. Maybe it wouldn't endanger Sammy because he and Dean had their own nonverbal shorthand that didn't really matter when it came to how much this would compromise Sam. 'Articulate' didn't even begin to describe Sam's way with words, how he used them in a way that built layer after layer of confidence in his own intelligence and agency. The kid went to school to be a damn litigator after all.
It didn't matter. They'd deal with it. And Dean had to find the silver lining for Sammy because he was sure that no matter how hard he hugged him or whispered the platitudes he was throwing out like candy right now, this was still hitting Sam hard.
"You in any pain?" Dean finally asked.
Sam grunted lowly and shook his head against Dean's shoulder.
"Okay that's good," Dean replied easily, "right?"
Sam replied with a halfhearted, doubtful mewl and Dean couldn't help but chuckle quietly.
"It's okay. It's all right, Sammy. We'll figure it out, okay? If it's not painful, we're still okay. We just work around it," Dean promised. Sam sniffed and gave a small nod.
After a few more minutes, Sam started to relax, his heart beat going back to normal, the shakes easing under his arms. Dean rubbed his back.
"Must've been some nightmare, huh?" Dean joked quietly and Sam gave a derisive huff. Dean put a hand against the back of his head and Sam leaned in closer.
"Let's try to get some sleep. Maybe you'll get your voice back in the morning, right?" Dean asked calmly. Sam looked up and hummed uncertainly.
"The nightmares won't come this time, I promise," Dean said, reading his mind. Sam pressed his lips together and sniffed one last time before he broke away from Dean.
"C'mon, get under the covers," Dean instructed, pushing his own legs down into the mass of blankets. He lifted the covers up, inviting Sam in from where he was still kneeling on the bedspread. Sam's expression had turned skeptical.
"Sammy, I don't care if you're deaf, blind or dumb. It's two in the morning." Sam cinched his mouth to the side, unsure and nervous that with another nightmare like tonight's, his next symptom would be deafness or blindness.
"Sam. Trust me." Sam looked at his brother and Dean held his gaze. Eventually Sam blew out a sigh of surrender, threw his hands up and crawled forward to get under. Dean leaned backwards to turn off the light as Sam settled down on the same pillow in the same position he'd been in before only this time lying on the side facing Dean. It was with only a small measure of embarrassment that Sam wanted to be able to see his brother from now on tonight.
Dean's eyes adjusted to the dark as he turned back and found Sam facing him. "No, no. Turn around," Dean ordered casually. Sam whined. "C'mon, do it," Dean ordered again, not interested in explaining how he wanted them to sleep: the act of spooning Sam would be enough of an embarrassment.
Sam finally gave an annoyed huff and turned around. He hadn't even gotten his head settled on the pillow when he felt Dean come up against his back and wrap an arm around Sam's chest. Sam let out a small gasp and held it, surprised, which quickly morphed into deep guttural chuckling noises.
"Shut up," Dean retorted and Sam hummed giggles at his brother's expense as Dean pulled up closer against Sam's back. Despite his laughter Sam snuggled up too. "If you tell anyone - Oh wait, you can't," Dean quipped smugly and Sam stopped laughing. At the abrupt halt of sound coming from his brother, it was Dean's turn to crack up. He playfully wiped his hand down Sam's face, a thing they used to do to each other when they were kids. It drove them both nuts but using it now was a clear signal telling Sam Dean was just messing with him.
Sam still blustered and Dean chuckled as he gave his little brother a brief hug. Any remaining tension in Sam melted with it and he allowed himself to relax, sink into the mattress and feel the security blanket that was now just Dean literally cuddling him.
Sam could feel his brother's heartbeat, his warmth. He could hear the steady rhythm his breath. Sam was safe, taken care of, loved. All he needed to do or think about or worry over was going to sleep now. Dean could take point on the rest.
Sam idly tried to sync his breath and heart beat to Dean's. To his surprise, it actually worked and he began to float away to sleep, calm and secure, listening to the rhythms of his big brother's life beating and breathing against him.
Dean was right. If anything could stop his nightmares, it was this.
A/N: Originally published 4/5/2019, revised 8/11/2019. Thank you so much for reading, please comment if you can spare the time!
For posterity, I'm leaving this old A/N here, haha :
This marks my second choose-your-own-adventure type request from you guys, my amazing amazing beloved readers! I'm not sure how much I'm going to take the poll results seriously, but I think it'd be extremely helpful to hear how y'all would prefer the story to continue. Option 1: Sam and Dean stay in the bunker and deal with a supernatural monster (of my own creation) just the two of them. Option 2: Dean recruits the help of SPN's supporting characters OR my own OCs (feel free to specify which you'd prefer) to help him with taking care of Sam.
Option 1 would be going a more thriller/horror genre route. Option 2 would be pretty schmoopy & would likely feature quite a few outsider POVs and their inner thoughts/revelations as they observe and help Sam and Dean.
So yeah - I'd love to hear your thoughts! I love you guys! ~ Alex