A/N: Thanks so much to all those that reviewed 'Option', it was entirely appreciated more than I can honestly say. Thanks to those guys picking up on my little 'error' there as well; very, VERY appreciated. Number 2 in my Hundred Theme Challenge. :DDisclaimer: Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary. ... See? No dark secrets about doing something bad like stealing Supernatural from it's correct owners. : )
Pairing: None.
Summary: Dean always gets lost in his music; Sam never seems to quite realise.
Audio
Dean had never really been that great at paying attention to his little brother when music was blasting in his ears and Sam, for his part, had never really been that great at figuring that out. Sure, he eventually cottoned on to the fact that his big brother wasn't listening to him but for the first three songs it was obvious that the younger Winchester was quite happy to blather on about something on his own.
Maybe Sam just didn't realize or thought that if he talked long enough, then Dean would notice and be forced to remove the little buds set in his ears; didn't work like that. It had always been the same, ever since they were kids and Dean had gotten a portable cassette player from their Dad as a Christmas present.
Like the times Sam had been gung-ho to show Dean the high marks he'd gotten on a report when he was little and had dashed over to his big brother, bouncing on the balls of his feet and repeating the older boy's name over and over again for a good ten minutes. It took an exceptionally loud whine and puppy eyes to finally get Dean to remove the headphones and wonder what the hell was going on.
Then there was that time when their Dad had gone off on a hunt and they'd been left on their own – as was the norm by now – in a motel room. Metallica was blasting in his ears and Dean was happy to sit and read a magazine as he rocked his late-teens head to the beat. Unbeknownst to him, Sam had been attacked by a motel ghost they had known nothing of and had been pinned to the wall before being thrown into the bathtub. Lucky for Sam, he'd had a canister of salt still in his jacket pocket from their Dad handing it to them when they'd been dropped off. He'd been about to lay it around the windows and doors but the ghost had beaten him to the punch. Fine, white sand was flung in every direction about the room at the same time as Sam was yelling his brother's name.
Metallica's 'For whom the bell tolls' finished and Dean frowned as he noticed something obviously wasn't quite right and got to his feet, tugging his headphones down and finally hearing Sam's yells for him to help. Immediately he'd gone into protective big brother mode and had dashed into the bathroom with a shot gun in one hand and an iron bar in the other that he had retrieved from their bag of tools beside the couch. The glare he received was one of the most icy-cold he'd ever seen. Sam hadn't been hurt but to say that he was mighty pissed for the next month was an understatement; kid always did have problems with holding grudges for a bit too long. Dad was no better.
In the latest episode of 'Dean's music is drowning out Sam', they had been driving through the middle of the night and unbeknownst to the older man, Sam was telling him all about their next case and what the specifications for destroying this next being was. Def Leppard was blasting from the speakers and despite not having any headphones in, Dean was still lost in the music like he always had been. Sam continued rattling off details, facts and boring traits of their next hunt and then finally fell asleep against the window when he was done, breath fogging on the glass.
The next town came up on the horizon, the monster was hunted, found and the Winchesters began battling it – as was their normal thing to do. Psycho laughter from the Poltergeist echoed about the house as Dean and Sam rolled every which way to avoid the bits of furniture flying at them until finally the older Winchester got jack of it and managed to land himself beside his brother.
"So how do we kill this thing, Sammy," he asked, watching as a baseball bat twirled through the air almost gracefully to slam into the wall above their heads like a cannon ball. The only response the younger Winchester had then was to sigh – he was so used to Dean not listening to him when he had music going that he should've known to expect this; plus lecturing someone on something right now was decidedly a dumb idea – and then say his brother's name in a whiney manner.
He then explained in a seriously shortened version that this wasn't that powerful a poltergeist but it was also haunting an abandoned house. There were no real connections to the living, it was just an imprint; a tear, one might say, in the fabric of the world left from a seriously tortured soul living there for many, many years. Dean's instant thoughts were to burn the house down and before Sam could finish his explanation and change those thoughts to a better, more 'closed-case' kind of solution, the younger Winchester was thrown against a wall and the baseball bat was pressed into his throat and constricting his air way.
This prompted Dean to move fast and before the poltergeist knew what had happened, the house was alight. It howled its misery and hate as it let Sam go and then tried desperately to put the fire out as the Winchesters escaped out the front door and bolted for the Impala.
"You all good, Sam," Dean asked as he slammed the driver's side door shut and watched the fire blaze in front of them. This place had no chance of being saved as it was out in the middle of Nowhere, Indiana and sat on a little back-road that nobody ever drove down. It had taken a few stupid teenagers going missing here just recently for Sam to catch the idea or feeling that something supernatural was going down.
"Yeah," Sam coughed, rubbing at his abused throat and then frowning heavily. "Why does everything always have to choke me?" Dean couldn't help but smirk at that and he raised an eyebrow slightly as he looked over at his little brother.
"Coz you're a whiney little bitch and bitches need to be choked," he joked and dodged a rather vicious punch on the arm and a muttered 'Jerk,' from Sam. "Next time you wanna rattle off details about some poltergeist or somethin', maybe you should get my attention first from now on, huh? For Joe College, you can be pretty stupid at times, Sammy." Hazel eyes stared at the older Winchester for a while before they narrowed into a huff and turned to face the road ahead as the Impala tore down the half-dirt half-asphalt road.
Such a simple, blatant statement was hard to argue with but at least Sam now knew it was ok to interrupt his brother's audio pleasures. That was all he'd ever been waiting for.
End
A/N: Alright, so Sam's probably not that dense (and not that stand-offish with his brother) that he wouldn't whine and hit and what not to get Dean's attention but I figure he's tried everything in the past and some part of him hopes that subconsciously, his brother is taking all the info in. Reviews are very much appreciated! I had no beta but it's proofed as much as I could stomach so any remaining mistakes are my own. :)