The flipping, thumping, shifting and turning noises from the bed next to his were just enough to keep Dean awake.

At first he’d been irritated by Sam’s obvious inability to sleep properly, or, most nights, at all. Irritation had given way to concern as more time passed and the weight of guilt or sadness or maybe even fear kept his brother from getting any rest. Concern, in time, had become frustration as Dean had exactly zero success in helping Sam deal with whatever was bugging around in his furry head. Not that he’d received any help whatsoever when he tried, however awkwardly, to get Sam to talk about it. And tonight, as Dean lay awake listening to his sibling restlessly flopping around on the squeaky motel mattress, frustration was quickly morphing full circle into irritation.

Things were never this complicated with Dad. But then Dean had always said Sam could complicate making a bowl of oatmeal.

Dean knew a quick fix. Deciding to use it, however, was taking considerably longer than he wanted.

After another half hour of laying in the dark listening to Sam flip and flop around like he was trying to Shake and Bake himself in the ratty motel blankets, Dean let out a growling sigh and yanked the covers back violently.

“Dean? What’s going on?” Sam asked, his voice soft but full of alarm.

What a loaded question that was. Dean thought for a moment of several answers, ‘Sam! Look out!’ being the nastiest, just to watch his brother scramble to attention for the hell of it.

“Just getting up to take a piss, man,” he said, heading for the bathroom. “Go back to sleep unless you wanna come in here and hold it for me.”

“Cute,” he heard Sam say, sounding vaguely annoyed as he pushed the door shut behind him with his heel.

Flicking on the fluorescent light, Dean was not at all impressed by the squinty, tired, and surprisingly old looking face staring back at him. He was ass tired, moreso than he’d been in weeks, yet for some reason he just couldn’t sleep with Sammy awake and fidgiting. Hell, usually he didn’t mind if Sam watched tv, read, pissed around on the computer at all hours. He could sleep through it all because somewhere in the back of his perceptions, he knew it was Sammy near him and not a threat as he laid asleep and vulnerable. The only thing that tended to fuck up his rest was when Sam came and went from their room.

Shaking his head at his less than stellar reflection, Dean grabbed a glass of water.

He knew that Sam had to be aware that all the sleepless nights were beginning to have an effect on both of them, that all the not sleeping his little brother was doing was becoming a strain on him as well. Just like they both knew Sam was definitely not sleeping just now when Dean got up. Just like they both knew Sam wasn’t getting any better, wasn’t having less nightmares. And it didn’t matter that tonight, probably in deference to his exhausted brother, Sam had at least pretended to try and sleep rather than watch tv or research.

How was it that they knew these kinds of things, but insisted on keeping up appearances? Why did Sam pretend to be fine, running for weeks and months on barely any sleep, nodding off and gasping himself awake in the car’s passenger seat nearly everyday? Why did Dean keep pretending this wasn’t bothering him to the point that he was awake at all hours worrying over it?

And not for the first time, he decided it was stupid. He should just go out there, smack his brother upside the head, and force the brat to get his baggage worked through. It was annoying as hell for one of them to be kept mostly awake and tormented when asleep by this stuff but it could very well prove fatal if neither were totally sharp on a hunt. Or, if Dean plowed the car into a phone pole cause he was struck by some kind of sleep deprived, sibling induced narcolepsy - yeah, that could be pretty damn deadly too.

Okay, decided then. He’d go out there, do what he had to do. Smack some sense into his stubborn little bro, have their little Oprah moment (Dean suppressed an involuntary shudder) and be done with it. And if there was some not-resulting-in-serious-injury hitting going on, then maybe, just maybe, this wouldn’t be the most sappy and bear-your-soul-to-me conversation ever.

Yeah, that’s it.

Dean smirked and nodded at his reflection. Making Sam deal with his feelings needn’t be a total chick flick moment if done like men. Hell, he’d go out there and kick a little ass right now and this would all be over within a few minutes, and he could get in a few good hours of sleep before they headed back on the road in the morning.

Dean flipped off the light and slowly opened the door. Silently he moved across the room, ready to pounce on the long, blanket covered form of his pretending-to-sleep brother. Element of surprise, yeah, that would ensure this worked, he thought.

And somewhere between the bathroom door and where Sam laid on the bed, Dean began to realize that feelings probably weren’t meant to be dealt with in the same way as monsters and spirits.

Sitting on the edge of his own bed, Dean looked down at Sam, feeling his brow wrinkle in a way that was becoming so much habit these days he was sure it would stay like that.

“Sammy?” he said, looking at his brother’s face in the soft glow of the orange porch light peeking through the holes in the drawn curtains.

Sam looked all of about 14 laying there, curled up, head poking out of the blankets, stray bits of hair falling into his eyes. The blank look that had been forced onto his face most of the time these days had been tossed away like the mask that it was.

Dean didn’t know what Sam was feeling, maybe he never would again. They had grown far apart during the two year separation, and with all that was happening with their Dad, what had become of Jess, hunting again but as just the two of them - it was all responsible for changing the dynamic pretty drastically. Gone were the days when Dean could read Sam like a book and know just what he was thinking. Well, not that he’d even been THAT easy to understand, but it had been a lot more likely he could figure it out. Of course back then, Sam would freely open up to him and tell him anything, often a lot more than Dean knew what to do with. Knowing he’d lost that, that they’d never be that close again suddenly hurt very badly, perhaps more now than it had when Sammy had left.

“You okay?” Dean asked.

Sam just shook his head slightly against the pillow, not offering up anything more than that. The fixed blank look was coming over his features again, but his eyes remained haunted, tormented. Finally wriggling out of the blankets to sit up, Sam sighed, a weary sound more suited to a man three times his age.

“Sorry I’m keeping you awake,” he said, looking down. Dean started to protest, to deny that Sam’s frying bacon routine was any kind of interruption to his snoozing time (because what were the Winchesters if not great at keeping up the appearance of normality by denying their own problems), but Sam held up a hand and stopped him. “I’m going to go to the drug store tomorrow and get something, that way we can both get some sleep for once.”

“That crap’s not going to work for you,” Dean said, knowing that at best it would be a temporary fix. While he still wasn’t sure the exact nature of Sam’s nightmares, he could guess enough to know they weren’t going to back down because of a couple blue pills. If Sam couldn’t just forget or move on, he was going to have to deal with his problems. Forgetting and moving on was not an option for Sam, never had been in matters of guilt and sorrow, so the only option left would be to face his demons (for surely what ate him up inside every night was as furious and damaging as any spirit or creature they dispatched in the real world). Not that Dean was all that happy about playing shrink to Sam, despite the times he’d tried to get him to open up over the past weeks, but if there was one thing he knew it was that Sam would need to start talking and dealing with this stuff, or it was going to destroy him. Maybe destroy them both.

“Yeah, I know,” Sam said, sounding almost dejected, remembering that last time he’d used sleeping pills for similar problems while away at school, the results had not been very impressive.

Having long since abandoned his plan to “jump” his brother and practically beat the issues out of him, Dean took a deep breath and asked Sam if he wanted to talk about it. He still wasn’t keen on having a big sappy conversation, but watching his brother be torn apart night after night, dream after dream by his own conscience and feelings wasn’t an option either. No, Dean would definitely suck it up like a man and spend the time talking like sissies, just like his baby bro needed, if that would end Sam’s suffering.

Though he wouldn’t ask, Dean just wanted to know why the hell Sam had become so much more closed off and distant since he left. This could have been resolved a hell of a lot faster if Sam would just hurry up and spill. Was a time he couldn’t shut the guy up with all the talk of feelings and fears and guilt that poor Sammy never learned to ignore and forget quite the way the rest of his family did after a hunt. For all the times Dean had bitched and moaned to himself about Sammy’s need to talk every last emotional issue to death just to let it go, Dean wished more than anything Sam would at least give him a little to go on now.

“No, I just, I don’t wanna talk about it,” Sam said, laying down again, yanking the covers over his shoulder, but not turning away from Dean.

Dean looked at Sam. Though Sam was no longer giving him eye contact, Dean was no less aware of the sadness and confusion that remained in his brothers’s espression. The dark circles under those eyes drew his attention too.

Making his decision, Dean stood up and walked around the bed, sitting down on top of the blankets, his leg stretched out against Sam’s back. Slouching against the headboard, Dean felt Sam’s back tense.

“What are you doing?” Sam asked, turning his head awkwardly up and behind him to look at Dean.

“I need some sleep. I’m going to GET some sleep. And right now, I don’t care what I have to do to get it.”

Sam was now totally rigid and about half a second away from getting out of the bed. He didn’t think Dean was likely to knock him out just to get some shut eye (and even if that was the plan, then why get into the bed with him?), but Sam was not at all comfortable with what Dean had just said.

“Relax, Sammy. I’m not possessed by an evil spirit or about to strangle you,” Dean reassured him, guessing why Sam had suddenly gone stiff as a board against him. “Just trust me.”

Dean turned Sam’s head so that it was back on the pillow, facing the empty bed and not craned around to try and look at him. Moving his fingers down the shaggy long hair, gently across Sam’s cheekbone, Dean began to use his secret weapon. Very softly he stroked one finger down Sam’s nose. He repeated the action several times and felt Sam begin to relax against him. Trailing the finger along the familiar path, he leaned over just enough to see Sam’s eyes already drifting shut. Within a couple minutes, Sam’s breathing had slowed and he was relaxed into sleep.

Dean thought back to his old house when his mom had still been alive and the most beautiful woman in the whole wide world. Little baby Sammy had cried himself out, but had still been fussing and squirming in the crib when his Mom had put him down and noticed Dean standing in the doorway. She had pulled down the side of Sammy’s crib and hefted Dean up to sit on the edge.

“See Dean, when you do this he starts to fall asleep,” his mom had told him as she soothed the fussy baby. “You try it,” she encouraged. “You just have to be very gentle or he’ll wake back up,” she said, helping young Dean by holding his arm and guiding his motions as he stroked baby Sammy’s nose. “That’s it. Look how good you are at this,” she said quietly to Dean, her little boy beaming as he watched his baby brother stop wiggling around.

“Do you like taking care of Sammy, Dean?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yes Mom!” Dean said, whispering excitedly, trying his hardest to make his clumsy young fingers as steady as his mother’s were on the baby’s tiny nose.

“I know you’re too little to pick him up and rock him, Dean, so whenever you do this, Sammy will know you love him and care about him and you want him to be peaceful. Do you understand, Dean?”

“I understand, Mommy,” Dean had said with the total sincerity that is owned by the very young.

So as he sat beside his brother, twenty some years later, in some shabby nameless motel in the middle of nowhere, petting Sam like a cat, Dean felt only a little silly about his actions. Still sitting against the headboard, Sam curled up beside him, Dean started to dose off, the repeated action lulling himself to sleep. No matter how screwed up his family had become, at least he could still remember when they had all been together, still been alright. Maybe that was why he wasn’t the one tormented by nightmares; perhaps it was in those hazy memories that he found his peace.

Taking one more peek to see that Sam was still very much relaxed and unconscious, and sending a little thought of thanks to his mother, Dean fell asleep.

End

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