12

For the first time in five years they got to sleep under the same roof.

Dean was lying on his stomach in bed, he was almost asleep when he heard the slight sound of the door creaking open. He immediately drew out his gun, only to find Sam with his hands up in embarrassment: "It's me."

"What are you doing here?"

"I... nothing." Sam gave a bashful smile, "I still think this whole, you coming back from the dead thing, it's like a dream."

"I'm not a dream, Sammy."

Sam put his pillow at the end of Dean's bed: "Go to sleep, Dean."

Dean sat up and looked at his worried little brother with mixed feelings, he moved closer to the side to make room and patted on the mattress: "Come on up."

Sam climbed up in silence.

"You sure Amelia really don't mind?"

Sam yawned: "She said she understands me because she lost someone she loved too, she said it's what people do when they thought the have lost someone and then regain them. She's a good girl, Dean."

Dean said: "Want me to sing you a lullaby?"

"So we're good?"

"Shut up."

Sam woke up from a nightmare, covered in cold sweats.

When he was with Dean they were always rushing from one place to another and under intense pressure to save the world, he was too busy to have nightmares, most of the times he was dead asleep the second his head touched pillow. Later on when he finally had time the adventures he went through began to unfold inch by inch in his dreams. He had been through too much: his demon blood addiction, being possessed by Lucifer, jumping into Hell, losing his soul, and the result of reliving them in the dream again being that gradually his tolerance for fear had hit a shockingly high threshold. More and more memories turned from horrible nightmares to victories he could look back on, he could even think of Lucifer's Cage with poise because he knew it was all the past. In the end, the only thing he feared, the only pain he couldn't overcome, was Dean being dead. Bad memories were the past, so was Dean.

It still made him cry in his sleeps.

Then he suddenly remembered that Dean was back. Dean was sleeping right next to him. He turned his head to check, the pillow next to him was empty, the dent in it showed that Dean was lying there except that now he was gone.

To woke up from one nightmare only to fall into another one.

Sam's heart pounded wildly, he reached for his gun under the bed, held it tight in his hand, and jumped off the bed barefooted. The sudden embracement of cold air made the hairs all over him stand. He knocked on the bathroom door first: "Dean?"

No answer, no one was in there.

Sam raised his voice: "Dean?"

"What's going on, Sam?"

He heard Amelia's drowsy voice and said quickly: "Don't come out, Amelia, stay right where you are. Stay inside the salt line." His voice was intimidating.

There was a noise outside. He pointed his gun at the door. The sound of picking the lock. He waited nervously.

The slight mechanical sound of his finger on the trigger and the first footstep inside rang out at simultaneously.

"Easy, tiger." It was Dean's voice.

Sam's heart finally settle back into its place, he turned on the light and saw Dean tucking away his lockpick awkwardly. "I didn't find your key."

Sam snapped: "Where were you?"

"Nothing. I couldn't sleep, went out for a bit of air."

Amelia opened the bedroom door and gasped when she saw the gun in his hand. Sam hurriedly went over and hugged her around her shaky shoulders, "It was just a misunderstanding, everything's fine." He waited until after he had escorted Amelia back into the bedroom did he growl at Dean: "What were you thinking?"

"I go out, I drink beer, I sleep with girls. That's me." Dean gave a wave of the hand, "Relax, inside the three-mile radius, no need to report it."

"Dean, you expect me to believe that?" Sam's expression was cold as ice. "I told you not to take another case, don't act alone."

"Guardian, ha?" Dean sneered, "You're not dad, so stop telling me what to do. Honestly this reunion is just an accident and entirely out of my plans, and neither of us should pay for this accident. So if you ask me we just live our separate lives until the goddamn three months are over, that way we could at least get along with each other."

"Get along? You mean your brilliant plan of seeing each other at Christmas and such while ignoring each other completely at all other times?"

They were now standing face to face, anger was building up in their chests as they glared at each other viciously as if one of them had made a grave mistake. But no, they were just living their own normal lives, and now that their lives had mixed up together and turned into this, it was uncomfortable for everyone.

Dean felt irritable, he turned and grabbed a beer from the fridge, Sam snatched it over the second he opened it. Dean spread his hands, he gave an i-don't-care-you-can't-stop-me-anyways expression and got himself another one. Sam gave up, he slumped onto the couch and watched as Dean threw back his head and gulped down his beer. He sighed and took a big swallow too, and as he looked at Dean across his bottle the shift in angle suddenly brought his attention to a small wet patch on his brother's pants.

Blood.

Sam quietly took a few more sips of his beer and reminded himself to stay calm. He asked: "What were you out doing?"

"Just havin' fun." Dean lifted his chin, "Lindsey Orville, you can go ask that girl."

"She's my colleague."

"I know."

Sam held his own forehead helplessly: "Just, don't be too much of a jerk."

"I'll try."

Dean threw Sam his pillow and pointed at the bedroom door: "Sorry that I've ruined another one of your nights, I think you ought to keep Amelia company now. Remember to put in a good word for me."

Sam nodded in silence.

Dean grabbed his bottle of beer and went back to his room, and as soon as he closed the door he took out his phone, he knew Benny was still waiting to hear from him: "Done."

The reply came fast: "Be safe, brother, I'll meet up with you as soon as I'm finished with these twigs and twine dolls*. There are many of them, it's a plan, I'm guessing they're coming after your brother."

"They're not gonna get him, not on my watch."

He promised Sam not to take a case, but when trouble came to find him at his doorstep, it had to be dealt with. Dean leaned on the door, his head pressed back against the wooden panel: "I'll protect you, Sammy."

He didn't know that right now, Sam was sitting outside the door, his head depressingly buried between his knees. He had heard the whisper of his brother and now had a bitter smile on his face. He knew it, if Dean could only pick one reason for bleeding, that reason would be him.

*In the original Chinese fanfic, "twigs and twine dolls" were called by the name "scarecrow" if I translate it directly, but by description they're definitely the creatures in s12e20. I thought if I call them scarecrows someone might confuse them with the creature in s1e11, but I read through the transcript of s12e20 and couldn't find a one-word to describe them, so I'll refer to them as twigs dolls for now, or just "dolls" or "clones."