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Maybe insomnia gets purer with age. I certainly feel like the things I stay awake thinking about get bigger and worse with every passing year. Instead of worrying about when we'll find Dad and whether he wants us to, my current waking nightmares are much more personal and far more terrifying.
What if I'm what I'm afraid of? What if who I am is fundamentally wrong? What if my creation is a mistake and there was never meant to be this complication in the lives of two heroes like my brothers?
But these are the abstract questions, the ones that I can avoid thinking about as long as its daylight. Some fears haunt me no matter whether the sky is illuminated in light or highlights its reflection.
Why was I able to save him and not her? Why did Sam decide to push me out of the way instead of shooting that vampire before it could kill Morgan Walsh last month? Why didn't I tell Dean before they left for that hunt that one time that I was sorry for the way I talk to him sometimes and I love him? Why did I make that mistake on the field but not in training?
The what ifs and the whys... these are the products of my insomnia. Or maybe they're its components. Regardless, they are invading my mind now as if they fear they will never again have the opportunity. But if that's what they think, they're fools. I never sleep well. Any mistake that doesn't have a chance to ravage my mind before I fall asleep in the early hours of the morning will get its second in the spotlight tomorrow.
I consider a particularly troubling idea about myself, lying flat on my back in my own bed in the bunker. The lights are off, and I recall a phantom pain in my stomach that has me standing and slapping the light switch. I've made too much noise in the process, but at least there's now a warm light bathing my bedroom. It chases away the darkness, and I breathe deeply. This is my space.
Except that even as I sit on the edge of my bed in my space, I feel like there are roaches crawling inside of my stomach, eating the best parts of me while I cringe at what's left. What's mine is not mine so long as I have surrendered to myself.
I stand, but there's nowhere to go. Sam will be in the library still, though it's after one in the morning. He can't seem to put his mind to anything other than research these days. I don't want to see him, because if I do then he'll ask what I'm still doing up and I'll have to say "Can't sleep," as if it doesn't bother me. I sit again, but it feels like a vulnerable position, feels small. So I stand again. But again, I find that there's nowhere to go.
Can something so pitiful be considered a vicious cycle? If so, I'm in one. Where would Dean be now, I wonder and pretend I'm not doing it as a means of distracting myself. He's probably sleeping by now. He likes to try to be in bed by midnight. Actually, he usually tries to force the same on me and Sam. Sam doesn't listen, adult that he is. I don't have much of a choice.
But tonight I could get away with venturing outside of my room at 1:30am because I'm dealing with a bout of insomnia. This happens fairly often, and usually they notice after a night or two of my sorry ass getting two hours of sleep. I get cranky, I guess, but can you blame me? Two hours is not enough sleep for a teenager. Besides all that, Dean is sleeping. What he doesn't know can't kill him.
Still, though, walking out there will mean dodging the library and being extremely quiet to avoid speaking with Sam or accidentally making him think we're under invasion by a dick angel or something. Of course, there are other options. I could wander into Dean's room and be legitamitely vulnerable-- or just complain a lot-- until he gets up, grumbling, throws on his robe and slippers and guides me to the kitchen where he'll make me some kind of comfort food that's unholy to eat at this time of night.
What's the contest there?
I sigh at the guilt I already feel at the idea of waking my brother for this. I feel like a little kid again, but... well, I want to see Dean now anyway. Sammy too, and he'll probably wander into the kitchen when he hears us up.
I look down at myself and sigh at my rumpled pajamas and the scratches on the insides of my forearms. I'm fine except my exhaustion and my unsettled mind. Is it really okay to disrupt them for this? I settle on a hesitant yes. Seeking comfort in a time of need is not a crime, especially when you're freshly turned fourteen. Right?
I creep down the hallway without making a sound and ease Dean's bedroom door halfway open. He always leaves it cracked-- we all do. It's something of an unspoken code around here since we're all so used to living out 'in case of emergency' scenarios. As expected, Dean is sound asleep. I smile at the sight of him sprawled on his stomach, one arm dangling off the side of his bed. Even his sleep habits have changed since we found this place. He doesn't wake at the sound of a sock against wood anymore, and he doesn't wake with the same violent reactions, which is fortunate for me considering my task right now.
I walk to his bedside and poke his arm. "Dean." He shifts and mumbles something in his sleep, but otherwise there's no reaction. "Dean," I say slightly louder. He wakes this time, but it's a slow process. He leans up slightly, lifting his face away from his pillow and rubbing a hand down it. "Dean," I say again.
"Wha's a matter, Rugrat?" He's rubbing his face and leaning up on one elbow, and he sounds like he really cares. Of course he does.
It would be too difficult to say the words I can't sleep and I wanted you, so I instead voice a more specific concern that crossed my mind earlier tonight amongst a string of similar fears and questions. "What if I'm already damned to go to hell when I die, and it's for something I haven't even done yet?"
Dean's expression turns bewildered in the space of a second. He looks around for his alarm clock. When he finds it, he answers me. "This is not a question for 1:30 in the morning, Anna. And you're not going to hell," he adds as an afterthought, but he sounds sure of himself. He drops his face back into his pillow and his breathing starts to even out again in what might be sleep.
"What does dying feel like?" I interrupt.
This curiosity catches his attention in a way I somehow didn't see coming. Because now Dean is sitting mostly upright, and he's got a hand on my arm gripping about as tightly as a person can when they've just come out of sleep. "What did you just say?"
"Don't you wonder what dying feels like?" I mean, I guess he's been dead before. But thinking about that makes me want to cry, so I avoid it. "Does your life really flash before your eyes? Do you see the bullet?"
"No. Think about something else."
"I can't sleep," I admit. "I'm thinking about everything."
Dean sighs, but he finally sounds resigned. He pats my hand twice and sits up all the way. He grabs his dead guy robe and slides into his slippers and slings an arm loosely over my shoulders. "Lucky for you, I know a cure for insomnia."
"A baseball bat?" I deadpan.
"Funny girl," he says dryly and guides me out of his room and toward the kitchen. "No. I was thinkin' about hot chocolate. Or pie. Or both."
I smile. There is nobody on this planet who could come close to being the man Dean Winchester is. Who else could be woken the way I woke him and not only be gracious enough not to get angry, but also sweet enough to get up and spend his time trying to ease my anxiety and help me get to sleep. That's his end goal anyway. Who knows how long we'll be awake before we reach that point.
I sit on one of those swiveling tall chairs in the kitchen, doing bobs over the counter as my body fights sleep though I crave it. Dean is standing in front of the stove rubbing his eyes while he stirs the hot chocolate he's making.
He turns the stove off and moves to the island where I'm sitting, pouring the hot chocolate into two mugs. He set the empty pan on the stove and pulled out a can of whipped cream from the fridge. "Long as we're takin' in this much sugar at two in the morning, we're doing it right," he says as he stacks whipped cream atop our mugs of hot chocolate. He slides one cup across the counter to me with care and then sits across from me, running one hand through his hair with a long exhale. He's not frustrated, but he is tired. "So," he says, then stifles a yawn. "You wanna tell me what's wrong?"
I shrug. I'm not so sure there's really anything wrong. "I dunno. I just couldn't sleep."
"It's that simple?"
"I don't think it's simple. But sure."
Dean smiles sleepily and takes a careful sip of his hot chocolate, getting whipped cream on his nose and over his lip. I laugh openly at his ridiculous appearance and reach over the counter to swipe it off his nose with one finger. It's when I notice he's smiling softly at me that I realize he did it to make me laugh. I let one of my feet swing back and forth between my chair and the island. It's quiet and it's comfortable.
It makes me think of that morning back in Sioux Falls when I was nine years old and Bobby taught me how to make pancakes. It took ten times longer than it should have to make breakfast for the next few days as I was determined to do more and more of the work myself until I got it right. And poor Bobby had to eat the same food for breakfast every day for a week as the pancakes I made began tasting incrementally better. It makes me sad and I look down at my hot chocolate with wet eyes. It's been just over a year since Bobby died, and not a day goes by that I don't think about him. Just like Dad.
"Y'alright?" Dean asks. He looks slightly more awake now, and he's staring at me like he's trying to figure out what I'm thinking.
I nod and scoop up some whipped cream to eat with my finger. The hot chocolate is sweet and warm and comforting, and it makes me drowsier as I drink more of it. I reach a point, about halfway through the cup, when I realize I'm going to fall asleep before I can finish it. Dean is telling me a story about something I did when I was four. I smile sleepily at him, chin in my hand, and fall asleep.
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