Title: Red Balloons and Sewers
Summary: The boys watch Stephen King's 'IT' together. Sam is not taking it well… Brotherly fluff. Gen. Protective!Dean. BigBro!Dean.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Warnings: Spoilers up to season 13. Spoilers for the book/TV series/movie 'IT' by Stephen King.
Not even ten minutes into the movie, Sam could already feel cold sweat pool in the palm of his hands. He sat rigidly on the bed next to Dean, the snacks were forgotten in his lap while his brother stuffed his face with licorice, seemingly unbothered.
Little Georgie was chasing his paper boat, running toward his own demise and Sam's throat closed at the thought of what came next. He remembered seeing the original, back when he was a kid. The clown's soulless eyes and the bright red hair had haunted him in his dreams, even months later. For two weeks straight, Sam had climbed into Dean's bed at night, hiding himself away in the safety of his big brother's neck. Of course, that was thirty years ago and this was now.
Sam was thirty-four now. He was a full-blooded grown-up man and he really shouldn't be this bothered by a dude in a clown costume.
"The kid's an idiot," Dean scoffed, grimacing at the way Pennywise lured little Georgie into the sewers with the boat. Sam almost missed it at first, too occupied with freaking out to pay attention to his brother's running commentary, but when the words finally registered, they threw him off.
"Dude," Sam shot Dean a sideways glance. "He's like six years old. He doesn't know any better."
"Not Georgie," Dean said. "I'm talking about his brother. What, this Bill kid just lets his six-year-old brother play outside during the mother of all rainstorms? Who does something like that?"
Sam frowned. "Bill wasn't much older at the time. And he was sick."
"Yeah, well, he did a crap job at taking care of his kid brother," Dean dismissed him and took a swig of his beer just when the boat washed down a storm drain.
Sam raised an eyebrow at his brother's harsh words, the accusation in his tone. There was nothing Dean had ever judged more harshly than an older sibling's negligence to protect their younger brother or sister. The whole storyline of 'IT' hit a little too close to home for Dean, had always made him scoff and frown, even when Sam was too young to understand why. Sam got it now, though, and it made him feel strangely humbled to know that his older brother would have never let him play outside in the middle of a rainstorm. Dean would have never let him get snatched by a psycho killer clown. And even if Sam got lured into the sewers, his brother would have raised hell in order to get him back. Sam knew that. And he knew that he was damn lucky to have a sibling who would stop at nothing to keep him safe.
Peering down the drain, Georgie saw a pair of glowing, bright yellow eyes and Sam shifted nervously at the sight. Pennywise looked even more terrifying than in the original and Sam felt a chill course down his spine when he heard the clown's raspy and slightly lunatic voice. He dug his fingers into the mattress and wished like hell that Dean didn't have such an affinity with horror classics. How the hell was he going to sit through two-and-a-half hours of this?
"You think we would be able to gank him with the grenade launcher?" Dean threw in casually.
Sam snorted lightly, thankful for the distraction. "You can't 'gank' it, Dean. That's the whole point of the movie."
Pennywise offered Georgie a balloon which he cautiously refused, however, the clown somehow managed to entice the kid to reach into the drain to retrieve his beloved boat.
Sam cringed, body tense with anticipation. He had read the book. He knew what came next.
Pennywise opened his mouth, revealing multiple rows of sharp teeth and severed Georgie's arm, leaving the poor boy to cry and tumble back, crawling across the wet ground and leaving a halo of blood in his wake, bleeding to death in the gutter. It was a much more vivid scene than what Sam remembered from the original movie. He felt a bit taken aback at the brutality, at the way the cute little kid got maimed on screen without any sort of censure. Maybe it felt more real for them because they knew that monsters were real, that kids like Georgie really could get snatched off the streets by the things that went bump in the night.
"Poor kid," Dean commented drily.
Sam just nodded and they both relaxed a little as the movie took its course, introducing the characters and establishing the suburban feel of Derry, Maine in the sixties, ugly wallpapers and hideous fashion included.
It didn't take long for the bullies to make their gruesome entrance, another topic that raised entirely too many dark memories to the forefront of Sam's memory. He watched in a mix of horror and empathy as the overweight "new kid" got bullied by a bunch of teenage boys. Dean tensed on the mattress next to Sam, his jaw clenching into a tight line, cheek muscle ticking with barely contained anger. "Guy needs to get his ass kicked if y'ask me."
Trust Dean to get irritated over a bunch of fictional characters.
"I'm serious. That Bowers guy needs a taste of his own medicine. You only need to stand up to a guy like him once and he'll run off with his tail tugged between his legs."
"Not sure the usual rule applies to him, Dean," Sam countered. "I mean this guy's pretty mental. He's tormenting animals and carving his name into children's chests."
Not to mention that he's also committing patricide.
"Even more reason to kick his ass," Dean said grimly, his fingers flexing around his beer bottle.
Sam remembered a time where a particularly nasty group of bullies had cornered him in the locker rooms after gym class. Sam had been the 'new kid', way too scrawny and far too smart for his own good. They had been on his case pretty much from his first day at the new school, bumping into him in the hallways and calling 'What's up loser?' across the hall during lunch break. It started out small at first and at one point, Sam found himself pinned against the tiled wall of the shower rooms by three guys while one of them- the leader of their self-declared gang- wrote the word 'FREAK' across Sam's chest with a sharpie. They roughed him up good and dumped his school books in one of the toilets. By the time they left, Sam had been curled up in a corner, knees pulled up to his face as he cried bitter tears of shame and embarrassment into his jeans. Dean found him like that, curled up and crying in the shower stalls.
Sam would never forget the way Dean had looked when he carefully coaxed Sam out of the corner, eyes wide with empathy and concern. His voice had been gruff with worry, his hands gentle as they searched Sam's body for injuries.
"Don't!" Sam shoved Dean's wandering hands away, tears and snot smeared across his face, wet hair strands hanging sadly into his eyes and clinging to his lashes. His eyes were red from crying so much, his cheeks flushed from exertion and there were bruises blossoming on his face, one of his eyes already starting to swell shut from where his tormentors had landed their blows. He tried to fend off his brother's searching hands, one of his skinny arms wrapped protectively around his own chest to try and block Dean's sight from the worst of the damage. "Please don't."
Sam didn't want Dean to see. He didn't want for his older brother to know how weak he had been, how fast he'd been pinned against the wall, unable to defend himself or do anything to stop them.
"Sam, stop it," Dean hissed and snatched Sam's flailing arms in a steel grip before gently pulling Sam's shirt aside. "Let me take a look and—"
Dean's voice had faltered and his mouth had hung open for a moment when he saw it. A myriad of emotions flickered across his face before his features hardened again, lips thinning out into a tight line. "Who? I want a fucking name, Sam."
Sam chewed on his bottom lip, eyes stinging with more tears. He didn't want for Dean to jump to the rescue, to fight Sam's battles. It would only serve to prove how weak he was, how defenseless and useless as a hunter. "D-don't tell dad."
The expression on Dean's face had softened then, but only or a second. Then he seemingly regained his composure and swallowed down his anger, gently smoothing Sam's shirt back over his chest. "C'mon, Sammy. Let's get the hell out of here."
Dean had taken Sam to a nearby diner and grabbed one of his own favorite shirts and a pair of slacks out of his duffle. Once Sam had gotten redressed, Dean had gently dabbed at the blood on his face, wordlessly cleaning up his face. "You know… they're just pissed because you lucked out in the brain department while they didn't get enough oxygen at birth."
Despite himself, Sam had felt his lips tug up slightly at the joke. His brother had always been able to crack him up, even in the worst possible situations. Dean saw Sam's tremulous smile as an encouragement. "I'm serious, man. If there was a zombie invasion tomorrow, these sons of bitches would be safe."
Sam had laughed then, but it was a sad, choked-up thing. He'd swiped at the drying tears on his cheeks and ducked his head until Dean caught his chin and gently lifted it. When their eyes met, Sam squirmed under the intensity of his older brother's emerald gaze. "Sammy, listen. These assholes? They are the real freaks, you hear me? They're the ones that are screwed in the head and they are dead if they ever touch you again."
Sam felt his eyes sting a bit at the memory. He focused his attention back on the movie, where an increasingly unhinged and sadistic Henry bowers had begun focusing his attention on an African-American boy and his father. Catching his bottom lip between his teeth, Sam chanced a look at his brother, thanking his lucky stars to have had Dean at his side when they grew up. Sam had always known that his childhood would have been far more traumatizing if it hadn't been for his older brother shielding him from the worst of it. Dean had made their childhood endurable; he'd always been there for Sam when no one else was. Their mom's reappearance had only made that so much clearer.
"There something on my face?" Dean suddenly asked when he found Sam staring.
"Uh, no, sorry. It's just…"
"You scared, Samantha?" Dean smiled, wiggling his eyebrows at Sam.
Sam shot Dean his patented bitch-face. He would have probably told his bother to fuck off or chucked a piece of that disgusting licorice at his face if the memory of a teenage Dean comforting him and wiping blood from his face with so much gentleness and love wasn't stuck in his mind.
"You know you're too old to bunk in my bed tonight, so if you're scared—"
"I'm not scared," Sam protested with a glare.
"Sure you aren't, tough guy," Dean teased, eyes fixated on the screen even when neither of them was paying attention to the movie anymore. It was always like this with them. They started watching something on Netflix and they would get caught up joking around or making comments and bickering like they used to do when they were kids. It used to drive their dad up the walls.
"I'm just saying if Pennywise comes to haunt you in your dreams, don't expect me to rock you to sleep or anything, Sasquatch."
"Shut up," Sam huffed out, opening his bag of crisps. Without realizing it, the banter had made him more relaxed, so much so that he was now leaning back against Dean's memory foam more comfortably, his shoulders sagged and loose where they had been knotted with tension a few minutes ago. He wasn't quite as bothered by the hideous, horrifying clown on the screen anymore. Not with Dean by his side, anyway. For all his brother's teasing, Sam knew that Dean wouldn't hesitate to shut the movie off halfway-through if it really did become too much for Sam. Dean probably would never let him live it down, would tease him mercilessly – as per big-brother duty- but he'd shut the movie off, no questions asked if Sam got too uncomfortable watching it.
And if Sam wanted to bunk with him, Dean would just scoot over on his memory foam, wordlessly making room for his brother. Sam would pretend to doze off and Dean would wait until he was half-asleep before covering him with a blanket, not calling him out on the act. Secretly, Dean wouldn't mind it. As much as they both enjoyed the luxury of privacy by having their own rooms in the bunker, they both fell asleep easier to the comforting sound of one another's even breathing, to having each other within sight and within reach.
"Seriously, though, what in the world did clowns ever do to you?" Dean huffed out, shaking his head, clearly amused.
Sam just shrugged and returned his attention to the movie. There really was no explanation other than that they were fucking creepy.
"What did planes ever do to you?" he asked, pointing out Dean's equally ridiculous phobia of flying.
Dean's expression turned serious. "Planes crash, Sam."
"Well apparently, clowns kill."
"Bitch."
Sam couldn't help it, the smile coming naturally at this point. "Jerk."
All things considered, there were far worse things than killer clowns.
Things like being an only child.
The End.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed it, guys! I just couldn't help it. Reviews fuel the fire ;)