AI
by Ayumidah
The TV screen flickers slightly as it turns on and the man sprawled out on one of the two beds in the sparsely furnished room stirs, a congested sounding moan dropping from chapped lips. Dark, worried eyes glance over at him, narrowing briefly, as the TV's volume is lowered in response to his distress.
Dean's never good at being sick, Sam knows, and watching early evening TV is just annoying to someone having trouble sleeping to begin with. He should know, it's Dean's favorite way of ticking him off. Luckily, it's just a flu that won't die, but the younger Winchester thinks it's hit its peak and Dean should slowly start feeling better from here on out, as long as he lets himself rest and doesn't try to tackle the wendigo they have their eyes on currently for a day or two more.
Listening to him cough and sneeze has tired Sam out too, however, keeping him from sleeping for longer than a couple of hours at a time the night before, so it's not too long before he dozes off with a remote in one hand, and a soda bottle at his side.
Before long, the show Sam had flipped to just before his eyes won the battle and stayed closed for more than two seconds ends, credits roll, and another begins.
Barely five minutes pass before a loud, annoying sound that kind of resembles a demon being exorcised causes Dean to jerk out of a deep sleep, blood shot eyes shooting around the room wildly, looking for danger. His body relaxes slightly as he notices Sam fast asleep on the other bed, and smirks tiredly at the remote slipping from one hand. He stiffens again, ignoring the pain from complaining joints and muscles, as the sound resumes again. "Oh, hell no," he groans through a vicious sore throat, finally noticing the TV. "Do we need to have the American Idol is so bad, even demons couldn't have thought it up discussion again, Sam?"
Despite the horrible noise coming from the speakers right in front of Sam's bed, Sasquatch doesn't move and Dean glares at him through heavily lidded eyes. "There's no way I'm sleeping through that," he groans, hitting his head against his pillow and flinching as pain stabs up through his neck. "Bad idea..."
Even though he's been trying a few times to get up, the flu's left him weak and easily exhausted, so he can barely sit up, much less walk over to Sam's bed to get the remote, which leaves him disgusted with himself. Not that attempting to walk, faceplanting onto the floor and listening to the TV from there would make him feel any better... though if he falls unconscious... but he has Winchester luck, it'd be about right he would break his neck first.
He barely has the strength to throw anything, but after a few more minutes of listening to the so called singers butcher songs he used to love-- and no, no more, time for some of the cassettes to disappear to the bottom of the box, to gather dust till he can get the horrible renditions of them scourged from his bleeding brain-- he has no choice. Valiantly ignoring the trembles assaulting his right arm, he grips a plastic cup, smirking internally at the small amount of water that splashes around in the bottom of it. Taking sloppy aim, he throws it and nearly cheers when the cup bounces off of Sam's broad chest and splashes water against the wall.
Moments pass, and Sam doesn't even flinch. "Dammit!" Dean groans as another song starts up, this time, the singer sounding like Tom Petty would after playing around with a helium tank. It's too much for him and he curls up on his side, coughing slightly as he presses a pillow against his face, uncertain what he wants to do more-- muffle the sound or suffocate himself. He thought the flu was bad on its own, but it combined with American Idol is more terrorizing than the Benders, Constance Welch and poltergeists mixed together.
Every time he comes close to dozing off, another round of mediocre-to-downright-sucky singing begins, compounding his misery ten fold with each 'song'. "Oh please," he moans into the pillow still pressed against his head after about fifteen more minutes of this. "What does a guy have to do to get some sleep 'round here?" He peeks out of the pillow/blanket cocoon he's been working on the last few minutes, and glares at Sam. "Friggin little brothers who can sleep through anything," he growls as loudly as he can around his sore throat.
The words have barely left his mouth when a spectacular burst of sound explodes from the TV, and Dean winces anew, burrowing further between the pillow and blanket, hands pressing against his ears hard enough to make them ring. Apparently today's new stars think singing means squeeching the lyrics as loud as they can.
He's concentrating so hard on this thought, hoping that his brain won't leak from his ears, that it takes him a bit to realize-- silence has descended upon the hotel room. Eyebrows lifted hopefully, he claws himself free from the blanket and gazes blearily at the TV, before moving to look at Sam, who's now awake, and looking at him with a sleepy-- and sheepish-- grin.
"Morning, Sleeping Beauty," the taller Winchester offers, standing up to check his temperature.
"Shut up," Dean groans, slapping his hand away. "Bring me-- stop it!-- the remote," he orders, while ducking away from Sam's insistent fingers.
He stops, raising an eyebrow while peering at his older brother's pale face. "Why? You wanna unmute AI?" Sam can't help but smirk when Dean shoots a despairing glare at him, and relents. "Ok, ok, what's up?" While waiting for the answer, he snags the remote and the cup that had fallen off of the bed when he stood up to check on Dean, a confused look on his face until he notices the water stain on the wall, putting two and two together with an annoyed grimace.
As soon as the cool plastic meets with his palm, he levels an unreadable look on Sam and just waits.
"What?" Sam demands, after a few minutes of waiting, unnerved by his brother's exhausted, red-rimmed eyes boring a hole in him.
"I'm never, ever letting you keep the remote again," he declares, before flicking the TV off petulantly and rolling over, his back to Sam, asleep within two seconds of his head resting against his pillow. Sam simply sighs and rolls his eyes before proceeding to check the stubborn man's temp.
End.