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“Dean?” Sam rises slowly from his bed, propping himself up on one elbow, bleary eyes adjusting to the pale, bluish glow filtering in from the streetlights outside. A glance at the illuminated digital clock reveals it’s 1:38 in the morning. He’s not sure what woke him up, but then he realizes with a jolt that Dean’s bed is empty; sheets tangled and shoved aside.
“S’fine, go back to sleep.” His brother’s voice is a low, rough, reassuring rumble somewhere in the darkness.
It’s then Sam sees him leaning against the fake-wood paneled wall, tousle-haired and clad in a dark-colored t-shirt and darker boxer shorts, right shoulder pressed against the window frame, looking out the window. In the narrow band of light, the bit he can see of Dean’s face is white and drawn.
“Wassamatter?” Sam swings his legs off the bed, rubbing his eyes, and crosses the room in less than three strides.
“Nothing,” Dean grunts. “Go back to bed, Sam. Everything’s fine.”
Closing the gap between them, Sam peers out the window. Dean’s right; there’s nothing — just the Impala alone in the motel parking lot, her pristine paint job reflecting the moonlight, a gleaming sentry outside their door.
Glancing down at Dean, baffled at the lack of any apparent danger, Sam notices the minute spasms quivering along one arm despite tightly-bunched muscles, the tense clench of his brother’s jaw, subtleties that had been invisible from a distance. “No, dude, something’s eating you.”
There’s a too-long stretch of silence.
“Dean?”
“Hellhounds.” The word is a hoarse, strangled croak. Dean swallows forcefully, green eyes wide and raking the premises.
“You’re seeing them?” Sam can’t keep the horrified surprise out of his voice.
Dean lets the curtain fall back into place, looks at the floor, and shakes his head, refusing to make eye contact. “No. But I can hear them. Barking.”
To anyone else, his voice would seem steady, calm, matter-of-fact. But Sam knows his big brother inside and out, backwards and forwards, knows him better than he knows himself, and he can hear the suppressed fear, the near-panic underneath Dean’s words.
“How long?” he whispers, dumbfounded. “I thought you weren’t...”
“Wasn’t supposed to until my bill came due,” Dean finishes, just as quietly, moistening his lower lip. “Yeah. You and me both. I’ve been hearing them all day.” His gaze meets Sam’s for a heartbeat before skittering away. “They’re way off, but I can still hear them.” His voice cracks, soars slightly. “I’ve got one week left and they know it.” He looks up, emotions raw and unguarded, green eyes desperately searching for reassurance, silently pleading: I’m fuckin’ scared shitless, Sammy. I don’t wanna go to Hell.
“Well, you’re not gonna die tonight. Not unless Lilith wants to break your contract.” That much Sam knows for sure. And he’s equally certain that Lilith won’t go after his brother an hour earlier than the year guaranteed by his deal. Demons lie, but, pervertedly, they also hold true to their word.
“We could always hope.” The feeble attempt at levity suddenly dies as Dean stiffens, swiveling towards the door, combat-ready. There’s nothing.
“What is it?” Sam strains his ears. All he picks up on is the quiet hum of the air conditioner, the gurgle of the minifridge, the odd drip of the bathroom faucet.
“They’re howling.”
“Okay. It’s okay, Dean,” Sam says softly, reaching out, touching Dean’s elbow with his fingertips, trying to soothe his brother’s fraying nerves, to bring Dean back to the reality of their motel room. “Just step away from the window. I gotcha.” He gently tugs the curtain out of Dean’s slack grip, draws the shades.
Dean doesn’t move, his breath shallow and raspy.
“Hey.” The word snaps Dean to attention. “C’mon, just sit down, okay?”
Dean obeys, stumbling across the room, smacking into the bed and table before sinking onto the couch.
Picking up his brother’s leather jacket from one of the chairs, Sam fumbles through the pockets until he finds what he’s looking for. “Look, I’m going to go outside for a minute. I promise I’ll come right back.”
“What the fuck, Sam? Hell, no.”
“What?”
“I mean it. No. Freakin’ Cujo’s out there.” Dean stretches his arm, gesturing beyond their motel room.
“Dean...” Sam forces his voice to remain calm and reasonable, repressing his frustration at Dean’s irrationality, reminding himself with an exhale that he isn’t the one hearing the harbingers of his own death. “You okay, dude?”
“You mean, aside from the...” Dean’s gaze flickers to the door, the window. “Y-yeah.”
“It’s gonna be okay. I’m gonna be fine.” Sam appeals to his brother’s logic. “It’s not me they’re after. They won’t come near me. I’ll be safe. And it’s just gonna be for a minute.” Sam shows him the .45. “I’ll take this with me, though. Just in case.” He sticks the handgun in the waistband of his sweatpants, against his lower back, and pulls his t-shirt over it.
“Why do you wanna go out there so bad? We’ve got everything we need in here.” Dean surveys their room, cataloguing their duffles.
Sam picks up the ice bucket. “I’m just gonna grab a couple of things from the car and I’ll be right back. I promise. Three minutes, tops. Trust me.”
“Sonovabi…” An exhale. “Alright. Three minutes.” Sam hears the grudging consent. “Be careful.”
Sam nods. “I will.”
Dean stares past him at the window, begins humming Metallica under his breath.
“I’ll be back in three minutes,” Sam repeats and slips out into the cool April night, beelining for the Impala. He jimmies the key into the lock and opens the trunk. Dragging the beer cooler from the back corner, he checks its contents. By some stroke of fortune there’s four beer bottles, a half-full bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and extra plastic cups left over from Christmas. A quick search turns up a deck of cards and Dean’s old Walkman-converted-to-EMF-meter, both of which he takes. Shutting the trunk, he goes to the passenger seat and snags several of Dean’s cassettes at random before detouring to the ice machine.
He looks over his shoulder as he closes his hand around the door handle out of habit and sees nothing. He jiggles the knob and opens the door to come face-to-face with his brother and Dean’s holding the knife that never strays from his pillow, its blade gleaming wickedly in the streetlight, its point inches from Sam’s abdomen.
“Shit, Dean. I said I’d be right back.” Sam hastily shuts the door behind him. “I had everything under control. I was fine. I can take care of myself.”
“Didn’t want you to hafta go out there alone until you had to,” Dean mumbles, slumping against the laminated wall, making it creak under his weight, looking down at the carpet, knife hanging loosely at his side. Following his gaze, Sam sees the careful lines of graveyard dirt along the inside of the door, on the windowstill.
And Sam suddenly feels like he’s kicked a puppy. A sweet-natured, loyal, obedient puppy who’s done everything in its power to obey his master’s orders.
“Look… J-just go sit down, okay? Don’t move, alright? I’m here.” Sam herds his brother back to the couch, hitting the light switch with his elbow on the way, and he plunks his wares on the metal coffee table. “I’m gonna take care of everything. It’s gonna be okay.” He takes the huge hunting knife from Dean and sets it on the table while pushing the converted Walkman at his brother along with a couple of cassettes. “Turn it way up,” he says, already opening the cooler and pulling out the bottle of Jack, topping two cups filled with ice nearly to the brim.
“What?” Dean blinks at him, confused, picking up the plastic case.
“Your music. Turn it up. Drown out the Hellhounds.” Sam sets one of the cups in front of his brother and sits on the other end of the couch. “I figure neither of us can sleep, so we might as well stay up. You good for a game of poker?” He holds up the deck of cards.
Dean turns the Walkman/EMF meter over in his hands. “I made this for Dad, originally,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “He didn’t come back for Christmas that year, either. Later, when I saw him again, after New Year’s, he told me he didn’t need it. That he already had one. Some kind of fancy store-bought one. Then he ripped me a new one, asking what possessed me to do something like this. That they don’t make ’em like this anymore. It was your third year at Stanford.”
Sam chokes, remembering his own derisive reaction to it more than two years ago, knowing how much effort and love Dean must’ve put into it only to have it thrown right back in his face. Like everything else. He swallows guiltily at the thought of his brother spending the holidays alone with nothing but the Impala for company in some podunk town, wondering about his father and brother, while he stayed with Jess and celebrated with her blissfully normal family, his own barely crossing his mind. Not for the first time, he’s grateful he set aside his own desires and gave Dean the Christmas his brother deserved, one-way ticket to Hell notwithstanding.
Dean presses on, as though there was no break, still looking at the battered plastic, not noticing his brother, “one thing I never told Dad — it’s still a Walkman if you want it to be.”
He slams his walls into place again, flashing a cocky, devil-may-care grin, but it doesn’t stick and Sam can still see the knotted tension in his shoulders, can almost count the stark freckles scattered across Dean’s nose.
“What do you want? Metallica? AC/DC? BOC?”
Sam shrugs. “Anything you want, bro. Anything loud enough to block them out.”
Dean slips in a cassette and jacks Metallica up to ear-bleeding decibels. Picking up his whiskey, he throws his head back, draining the cup in one shot.
Sam deals out the cards.
“I was thinking,” Sam says slowly, speaking above the music screaming out of the tiny, tinny speaker, picking up his hand. “Maybe we could go to the Grand Canyon. Take a break.” He doesn’t want to, not really, not when there’s still a chance he could save his brother. But he’d do it for Dean.
“No.” Dean shakes his head for emphasis. “No. I don’t wanna see the Grand Canyon just ’cause I’m gonna be dragged off by some Hellhounds. Not like I’m some kind of fuckin’ Make-A-Wish charity kid being sent to Disney World.” He studies his own cards. “If I ever saw the Grand Canyon, I’d’ve wanted it been back when I wasn’t running from a friggin’ countdown...” A breath and he presses on, “’Sides, you’d be miserable at the Grand Canyon. You’re just itching to get me out of this deal so so bad. And I can’t say I blame you. I don’t wanna die. I really don’t.” A hitch bordering on a near-sob. “But there’s no way out of it, Sammy — it’s pretty damn airtight as far as I can tell — we find a loophole, worm me out, you die. Plain and simple. And I’m not gonna let that happen. I’m not gonna let both of us go to Hell over this.” Dean’s eyes bore into Sam’s. “So, if you wanna knock yourself out and keep looking, fine. I’m through…”
Dean stops, waits.
Sam nods, the implications of Dean’s words — if you wanna knock yourself out and keep looking, fine — sinking in. It’s as clear a permission to break his brother’s deal as he’s ever heard since the whole dream-root thing a couple of months ago. He knows that Dean’s got conditions attached, terms he’s more-or-less laid bare before — no deals, no demons, not even that Ruby Bitch, make damn sure you’re alive at the end of it all, and I’m not turned into something we’d gank.
“Good. I just don’t wanna waste this whole week arguing if…” Dean swallows, doesn’t finish his sentence. “So…” he releases the word on a slow exhale, meeting Sam’s gaze levelly. “It’s your call, Sammy. I just want it to be us. Us, the Impala, the road, the way it’s always been.”
Sam’s at a loss, taken aback by the simplicity of his brother’s desires, humbled by how Dean’s still putting little brother before everything. “Dean...”
Dean doesn’t answer as takes another swig of whiskey, this time straight from the bottle, and fiddles with the volume, turning the music up even louder.
“How about Bobby’s?” Sam offers, making Dean glance up, thinking of Bobby’s vast library, the wealth of knowledge the older man could provide, but knowing it’s the sense of security and home Bobby’s property promises that Dean craves. He crosses his legs, pulling up his knees, making room on the couch cushions in front of them for their cards, ignoring his throbbing eardrums, processing the screaming lyrics as white noise.
Dean drops his gaze and nods. He picks at a small, dark stain in the upholstery by his knee that looks suspiciously like blood. Or maybe ectoplasm.
“Yeah. Okay,” Sam agrees easily, readily. Dean’s eyes snap up in surprise at his brother’s words as Sam sets down his first card. “Okay. We’ll go to Bobby’s in the morning. At first light. In the meantime, let’s play.” Sam searches his brother’s gaze, telepathing: No more talk about Hellhounds or due dates tonight, I promise. Just us.
“You know I can still kick your ass at poker, right?” Dean grins even though it doesn’t really reach his eyes and slaps down a pair.
“Says the dude who taught me.”
“Hey. You learned from the best.”