And the Nightmares Begin

And the Nightmares Begin

The headaches are disabling. They drive Sam to seek the darkness but even the motel room with its heavy drapes pulled shut and a pillow over his head isn't enough. There's always that tiny bit of light seeping through and it pierces like a nail driven into his skull. He tries not to move because motion makes it worse but the stillness brings the creepy crawlies to his legs so then it becomes a matter of swapping one pain for another. Eventually, the tears come not totally from pain but from the meaning. And the tears make his head pound worse and each time he's sure that it's a tumor or an aneurism neither of which we be so bad because at least then there would be an end.

Dean tries to help, but his comforting words only make Sam angrier that he's the one who has to bear this horrible gift. Relax. Breathe. It'll pass. Stupid things to say to a person whose brain is being slowly eaten away by the anguish of a million tormented spirits. Sam learns that the trick is to pick one. To hone in on one and really see his plight. But that only stops the pain in his head and sometimes it leads to worse things - like the one young woman who was left alive on the railroad tracks - crushed. How can he possibly explain to Dean what it feels like to have two tons of metal severing your body into pieces?

"Oh god, Dean help me," Sam pleads, knowing there is nothing his brother can do. Slightly comforted by the fact that Dean would do, anything, trade places if he could.

"If I knew how, Sammy. . ." Dean is sitting on the bed with his back to the headboard, arms wrapped around Sam who is half in his lap. He rubs his brother's back and presses the cool, wet cloth to his neck but nothing stops Sam's pitiful whimpering.

They're coming on more frequently now, a fact that upsets and scares them both. Dean no longer makes jokes about Sam having The Shining. It just sounds too cruel. And for the third time this month, Dean whispers for Sam to try and relax. He holds him tight and rubs and strokes and tries desperately to come up with something that would distract his little brother from his burden.

Normally, they stay like this until pure exhaustion pulls Sam into sleep and then the nightmares begin, and from the nightmares come the visions and when it's done they know where they must go and what they must do. Normally is not tonight.

With strength born of desperation, Sam drags himself out of Dean's weary embrace. "I can't do this anymore," he sobs. "Not again and again."

"Sam, you have to sleep and let the dreams come and then it'll be all over."

"No! You don't understand what it's like! I let them in and it's getting harder and harder to crawl back out." Sam's on his knees bouncing the bed with his shaking. "Dean, I'm scared. I'm really scared."

"There's nothing to be afraid of." Dean gets to his knees too and clasps his hand around the back of Sam's neck. "I won't let them take you. I'll always be here, right beside you when they come and I will always bring you back."

"NO! You can't make that promise!" Sam presses the heels of his hands to his temples, closes his eyes and waits out the wave of nausea that runs through his body. "I don't want this! I didn't ask for this and it's not fair! I just want to be normal!" He ducks out of Dean's grip and backs off the bed, loses his balance and hits the wall that is two feet away. As he slides down the wall, Sam grabs the glass of water on the bedside table. Water for sleeping pills that he's refused to take as sleep is more frightening than the pain. "I can't do this anymore, Dean. It's tearing me apart inside and I can't."

Dean thinks Sam is going to drink the water so he relaxes a moment, comes down off his knees and rolls to the opposite side of the bed to get up. He's halfway into this motion when the glass shatters on the edge of the bedside table and by the time he can turn around Sam's raking the jagged edge over his pale wrist.

"No!" Dean practically flies across the bed instead of going around. He slams down on the floor beside Sam and they tussle over the glass, Sam having more strength than either of them expected. Dean wins in the end because he is stronger and sharper and in a way his desperation is more than Sam's. The glass gets pushed under the bed, then Dean scrambles for the wet washcloth he'd been using on Sam's neck and uses it instead to stop the bleeding. "You idiot. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I just want it to stop." Sam falls against him. Shuddering sobs steal his breath away but he doesn't resist as Dean grips his wrist and applies pressure. The cuts aren't deep. A halfhearted effort. Sam doesn't really want to die.

So sensitive - Dean figures that's why Sam was chosen instead of himself. Four-year old Sammy who worried about the pain of flowers when they were snipped from the garden. Older Sammy who never stepped on a bug or killed spider because they have feelings, too. Grown up Sam who still carried the weight of Jessica's death in his heart even though there was nothing he could do to stop it.