A/N: Next chap, coming on up.

Fanfiction Writing Month: December [818]

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Cas woke up with a start, his mind reeling with fear. Unlike Sam and Dean, when he had nightmares, he remained silent and still; when he woke up, he was quiet and frozen. Now, he was shaking slightly.

It was early, around one in the morning. After checking on his boyfriend and Sam, he went downstairs and sat at the island. He was careful to be quiet; he didn't want to wake anyone else up. He made himself a cup of coffee and drank it quietly, trying to calm himself. He could still feel the cold fingers of his dream on his shoulders—

"Cas?"

Castiel nearly jumped out of his skin; he spilled his coffee in the process. "Oh, God—sorry—" He grabbed a towel and started wiping it up. "I—sorry—I hope I didn't wake you—I was just—"

Dean shook his head timidly, taking the towel from Cas. "Liceat me," he said gently. Allow me. "No nightmares… I just woke up and noticed your bed was empty." Dean cleaned up the coffee in seconds. "Why were you awake?"

Cas shrugged. "Just woke up early, I guess."

Dean began to wash out the towel in the sink. "Please don't lie to me, Cas." His voice was quiet, but his tone was firm. "I can see your hands shaking, and I doubt it's from the coffee."

Cas stared at his hands and tried to will them to stop.

"Cas…" Dean took his hands. "Talk to me."

"It's nothing, Dean," he said. "Really. Just stuff from before I got here… A bad dream, that's all."

"Well, then tell me about it," Dean said. "You're always there for me when I have a nightmare; I want to do the same for you."

"It's not the same—"

"Yes, it is. Here." Dean handed Cas a fresh cup of coffee. "Talk."

He sighed. "Dean, I don't want to scare you…"

SCARY STORY FINE, he answered. I OKAY.

Finally, after several stern looks, Cas told him. "I came to Sonny when I was nine. When I was seven, I lived in Illinois with my parents and my grandpa and my sister." He spun his mug slowly on the table. "Her name was Hannah, and she was three years older than me. I loved her so much; I'd do anything for her. A couple months before I came here, my mom… She started acting kinda funny. She'd stay up all night, talking to herself, she'd forget ordinary things, she'd come home with…" He gulped. "Blood on her hands…" He downed his coffee before continuing. "A couple weeks later, she…"

Dean kissed Cas' hand.

He bit his lip and continued. "She came home and… She started saying all these crazy things. She wasn't herself. She didn't even know her own name, and her eyes…" He shook his head, and his voice dropped to a whisper. "She went crazy. She had this strange knife in her hands, and when she smiled… She killed Hannah and my dad… Cut them to pieces… Grandpa and I managed to get away, but… He lost his arm that day; he barely survived. They took him to a senior home for psych cases after that because he couldn't recover. I ran away, and eventually ended up in foster care. I bounced around for a couple years, but none of the families wanted to keep me because I always ran away. Eventually, I came to Sonny's when they were sick of my running."

Dean was on Cas' side of the table then, and he hugged him tightly. "I'm sorry for what happened to your family," he said. "I understand, and I'm sorry."

Cas kissed Dean, gently. "It was a long time ago," he told him. "I used to get a lot of nightmares, you know? Not as bad as you, but… A lot. After the first year, they started to go away, but I still got them every now and then. Now… Every few months, I get a bad one, but usually I'm okay if I just come downstairs and sit alone for a while."

"That's why you're drinking coffee, then?" Dean asked. "So you don't have to go back to sleep?"

He nodded. "If I sleep again on the same night… The dream always comes back."

They sat for a while, holding each other, taking comfort in the presence of each other. "Her eyes," Dean said suddenly, his back straightening.

"What?"

"Your mom… You said something about her eyes."

Cas shrugged. "Nevermind. It doesn't matter."

Dean gave him a look.

"Dean, I was seven and probably had an active imagination. It's nothing." When it was clear that the other boy would not let it go, he said, "Fine. When...everything happened, I thought I saw… Her eyes were black."

Dean wanted to crawl back into bed and hide beneath the covers, but instead he said, "You weren't imagining that, Cas." And then he explained everything.

A/N: Thanks for reading!