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“I’m scared, Sam. I’m really scared.”
Dean’s admission echoes in Sam’s aching head as they sit beside each other, on their respective motel beds, drinking beer and nursing their bruises, while the TV flickers ominously in the darkening room. Dean’s found an old horror movie that he must’ve watched so often he knows it by heart, mouthing some of the lines in sync with the characters, his swollen face lighting up in childlike joy at the outdated, involuntarily comical jump scares.
Sam could never get behind his brother’s enthusiasm for horror flicks. In his opinion, they’re dealing with enough horror in real life as it is. Why Dean would find relaxation - even joy - in watching people getting terrorized and torn apart by monsters, aliens or (worst of all) other humans is beyond him. Why he would fill what little downtime they have with even more fear and blood and pain is something Sam will never understand.
He also can’t get behind the sudden insouciance that Dean is showing, sitting rapt in front of the TV, their earlier conversation about Dean dying in three weeks seemingly forgotten. Very possibly, it’s just a front - a mask he’s put on to disguise the very emotions he admitted to only twenty minutes ago. Up to anyone’s guess whether he’s protecting himself or Sam by sliding back into the brave act he’s put on for months now. Pressed, Sam would guess the latter. In the end, it’s his modus operandi, and as much as Sam rebels against needing protection - he’s twenty-five now, for god’s sake - he believes that, by correlation, it’s what keeps Dean together. Taking care of Sam means he can’t fall apart. Not even three weeks from going to Hell.
Sam shudders.
“Ohhhh– that was nasty, wa’n’t it?” Dean grins at him, pointing at a slashed-up body on the TV screen, the insane killer silently walking out of the frame, machete dripping blood.
Sam shakes his head, albeit carefully, his brain still sloshy from getting knocked out earlier. How can Dean find gory murder amusing when he’s about to get ripped apart himself? He suppresses the ‘A little too close to home, don’t you think?’ he’s got on the tip of his tongue.
Dean slaps Sam’s leg. “Oh come on, Sammy! Admit it - it’s funny!”
Sam doesn’t laugh. “Haha.”
“Wuss.”
A knock on their door pulls Sam out of his thoughts and Dean away from the screen.
“Papa John’s Pizza!” someone announces cheerlessly outside and knocks again, impatient. “Your order’s here!”
Rubbing his hands in anticipation, Dean gets up and, after checking through the window, he opens the door to a weary-looking twenty-something in a red-and-white uniform holding a family-sized pizza box out to him. Dean pays and tips him generously. That, too, is his modus operandi: they may be near-broke most of the time, but Dean never lets a person with a shit, low-paying job go without a tip. He’d rather not order at all. Sam can’t remember if that’s something Dad taught him, but he doesn’t think so.
Door shut and locked, Dean returns to his bed with the steaming box and opens it, his eyes already swinging back to the TV where the crazed machete murderer is stalking his next victim.
“He’s in for a surprise with that one,” he comments cheerfully before he maneuvers a slice of pizza out of the box and bites off, sauce dripping down his chin and onto the bed. Sam wants to say something about the sheets and using napkins, but he doesn’t have it in him. As much as he complains all the time about Dean’s messy eating, he knows he’s going to miss it when–
No. He’s not gonna go there. They’ll find a way to save Dean. It’s not gonna-
“Dude! You’re not even looking!” Dean admonishes, chewing. “This is the best part! The Final Girl!”
There’s screaming on the screen, blood splattering all over the place, and the killer growls and snarls like some rabid dog. It sounds way too much like a Hell Hound. Sam swallows.
“Dude, you okay? Lord of the Flies leave you with a concussion after all?”
Dean’s eyes are on him now, giving him the full Winchester-X-ray scrutiny, pizza and movie momentarily forgotten.
While it’s true that the Crocotta knocked him out, Sam doesn’t think he has a concussion. His head hurts, and he’s a little dizzy, but he can see straight and he doesn’t feel like throwing up the two beers he just drank. No, the lump in his throat is nothing but dread, pushing up through the bravado he, too, has been putting on for Dean.
“D’you want a poem?” he’d joked earlier, to kill the tension and knock Dean out of his panic. It had worked. Humor sometimes was the only thing that worked when his older brother was spiraling. Humor or pure, physical force. And Dean needs him. No matter the show he’s putting on, Sam sees it in the taut line of his shoulders and hears it in his exaggerated laughter. Behind the pretend mirth, despair still glimmers in the green of his eyes.
For once, Sam’s got to be the one to lean on. He can’t waver now.
“I’m fine,” he says, waving at the TV. “Just that Pizza Face over there is not exactly making my mouth water.” More blood sprays on the screen as the triumphant Final Girl takes an ice pick to the killer’s ugly face. Sam pointedly wrinkles his nose. “Yuck.”
Mollified, Dean chuckles. “Lightweight.” He takes another hearty pizza bite and licks a string of cheese from his split lip. “Wait till you see what happens with the teacher in part two! Guy knows how to handle a chainsaw, I’m not kiddin’!”
“There’s a part two?” Sam asks, horrified. Why anyone would want to watch a sequel to this ludicrous garbage eludes him.
Dean grins devilishly, although it must be hurting his badly bruised cheek. “Yeah, and it’s on right after. A marathon, in fact. Parts one through four back-to-back.”
Sam has to keep himself from sagging in dismay, and he stops the agonized groan that wants to slip out of him. A whole night of battling insomnia and the monsters waiting for Dean in Hell with badly made-up, fictional monsters prowling over a scratched TV screen - it’s not his idea of conquering fear. But, apparently, it’s Dean’s, and if this is what his brother needs, if this is what helps him face the nightmare waiting ahead, Sam will be by his side. In this dismal motel room and in the three weeks to come.
“Alright then. Pass me a slice,” he says, gesturing at the pizza, to a crescendo of screaming coming from the TV. “And another beer.”
Dean’s grin widens, and if he’s still scared underneath the twinkle in his eyes and the bright flash of his teeth, it’s hard even for Sam to detect. “That’s my boy!”
He balances a slice from Sam’s veggie half of the pizza onto a napkin and hands it to him, followed by a fresh beer that he pops open with his ring.“Get comfortable, dude,” Dean instructs joyfully, rearranging the pillows between his back and the headboard. Then he lifts his beer bottle to toast to Sam. “It’s gonna be a looong night.”
Sam toasts back, a twinge in his chest. Twenty-one nights left. It’s time they start making them count.