"Justin! Justin!"
Twelve-year-old Justin turned over in bed. He pulled the blankets up over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut even tighter.
"Justin!"
Not being able to take it anymore, he threw the blankets off of himself and sat up in bed. "What!?"
Five-year-old Kyle was sitting up opposite of him on his own bed. Tears were streaming down his cheeks and he was practically shaking. "Justin, help me!" he wailed.
"What's wrong, Kyle?"
He pointed to the corner of the room where Justin's desk sat. "There's a dragon! I saw it! He's going to eat me!"
Justin sighed. "Come over here."
"I can't! He'll eat me if I get out!"
Justin climbed out of his bed and sat down on the end of Kyle's. The little boy threw his arms around his brother so tightly, that Justin was afraid he might cut off his circulation. "It was only a bad dream," Justin assured him. "It's not real, Kyle. You can go back to bed."
"He was red," Kyle sobbed, "and he was chasing me and he had really big teeth! I tried to run, but I couldn't move! He was chasing me!"
"He's not real. I promise he's not real."
Kyle sniffed. "He looked real. I felt the fire!"
"It was just a bad dream, I promise. You need to go back to sleep. I have to get up at six tomorrow for school."
Kyle only held on tighter. "I can't," he cried. "Don't let go!"
"Okay, fine," Justin gave in. "You can sleep in my bed. Okay?"
But Kyle still didn't let go. "If I get up, he'll eat me!"
Justin rolled his eyes. "Hang on, then. I'll carry you over." He stood up and brought his little brother over to his bed, setting him down gently on top of the covers. "Get under the covers," he instructed.
Kyle did so as he stared up at Justin.
Justin smiled. "If you sleep in my bed, then I guess I'm going to have to sleep in yours," he teased. He turned around to walk away, but Kyle's little fingers clawed into his shirt.
"No!" he said. "You can sleep here, too! Get under the covers!"
Justin chuckled as he did what Kyle told him to do. He put his head back down on his pillow as his little brother cuddled against his chest. "Now, go to sleep or I'll make you sleep in Phil's room."
"No!"
"Then go to sleep!"
"Justin, what if the dragon comes back?"
"He won't," Justin promised. "He's not real, Kyle."
"But I saw him!"
"You were dreaming!"
"How do you know?"
"Do you see any dragons in this room?"
Kyle shook his head. "Not anymore."
"I never saw them."
"That's because you were sleeping!"
"Dreams aren't real, Kyle. You were sleeping, too."
"You don't know that," he said sadly.
"I know everything," Justin assured him. "Trust me, Kyle, dragons aren't real."
"I'll believe you if you don't make me go back to my bed alone."
"Good. Then go to sleep."
Kyle didn't say anything, but after a moment of silence, Justin heard him crying.
"What's wrong now?"
"You don't believe me!" Kyle sobbed.
"If you go to sleep, I'll believe you."
"No, you won't!"
Justin sighed. How was he supposed to get Kyle to sleep when he wouldn't shut up? "Maybe if you tell me what he looked like again, I'll tell you if I saw him or not."
"He was red," Kyle said. "He had big teeth and fire came out of his mouth! He was fast and mean and his eyes were red, too!"
"Maybe I have seen him," Justin muttered, but when Kyle only clutched him tighter, he realized that he probably shouldn't have said that. "He was in your story book. Remember? We read it last night before we went to bed."
Kyle shook with fear. "He came out of the book?"
"Remember when we talked about how what was in books wasn't real? And how they were made up?"
"How did he get out of the book?"
"You imagined him out of the book. He wasn't real, Kyle."
"Imagined?"
"Yes. You saw him in your head while you were sleeping. Since what's in books isn't real, then the dragon couldn't possibly be real. He's only made up."
"I felt the fire!" Kyle insisted.
"You imagined the fire," Justin reminded him. "It might have seemed real, but it wasn't."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. I have bad dreams, too. They aren't necessarily dragons in them, but they're scary. When I wake up, I'm scared just like you are... but then I remember that they're not real, and I go back to sleep."
"Really?" Kyle looked up at him in awe. "You get scared, too?"
"All the time," Justin told him. Hopefully he'd go to sleep soon.
"But you're so big!" Kyle protested. "The dragon couldn't eat you!"
"My dreams have bigger dragons."
"They do?"
Justin closed his eyes. "Yes."
"And you wake up and you go back to sleep?"
"Yes, I go right back to sleep. Then when I wake up in the morning, I realize how silly I was to be so scared. You'll see. I promise."
Kyle finally snuggled back up against Justin's chest. "You're so smart, Justin. I wish I was as smart as you."
"I know," Justin told him. "You will be some day."
That morning, Justin could barely keep from falling asleep in his cereal when Mom shook his shoulder.
"You okay? You look like you're about ready to pass out," she said. "Are you feeling sick?"
Justin thought about the opportunity to fake sick, but decided against it. "No. Kyle had a bad dream last night."
Phil set his orange juice on the table so hard that Justin felt the wood vibrating. "I heard him crying from my room," he grumbled.
"Get over it," Justin shot back at him. "You didn't have to convince him that his dream wasn't real."
Mom put the milk back into the refrigerator and then turned to face Justin. "You could have sent him to my room. It's not your job to take care of him... especially when you have school the next day."
Justin shoveled a spoonful of cereal into his mouth and chewed. "He wouldn't get out of his bed." Just as he swallowed, Kyle came skidding into the kitchen in his socks, grinning and holding up a piece of paper for Justin to see.
"Look, Justin! I drew this for you!" he squealed in delight, proudly displaying his artwork. On the paper were a few red circles, orange and yellow fire and big black jagged lines coming from one of the circles. Justin smiled. It had to be the dragon. "I drew it for you!" Kyle said again, pushing it forward so Justin would take it.
Justin took the paper in his hands. "Wow," he said. "He really is scary."
Kyle nodded in all seriousness. "I told you he was! And you can put him in your locker at school so that every time you get scared you can remember what's really scary. I don't think there's anything scarier than a dragon."
Justin grinned. "That's a good idea, Kyle. Thank you."
"You're welcome!" Kyle exclaimed, smiling proudly. "See? I'm smart like you!"
Justin nodded and as quick as Kyle had ran in, he ran out. Mom was practically beaming.
"Oh, Justin," she said. "He just adores you! You're such a wonderful big brother."
Phil was trying hard not to laugh at the other end of the table, but Justin gave him a fierce glare. "Shut up, moron," he hissed to Phil.
Family: Timberlake
Non-Nsync Fiction
I'll Never Stop {Fiction}
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