Less Cleaning Up After
K Hanna Korossy
"Laughs are exactly as honorable as tears. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion, to the futility of thinking and striving anymore. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward." – Kurt Vonnegut
Sam tottered down the hallway yawning, half awake, craving—no, needing—that first cup of coffee. He bounced lightly off one of the walls as he shoved his hair back with both hands, righted himself. He was rubbing his eyes as he finally turned the corner into the kitchen.
Coffeemaker first; there was a reason they had it on a table right next to the door. Thank God, somebody had been up before him and there was half a pot already brewed.
"Mornin'."
Dean, to be exact, Cas not being a coffee-drinker. "Morning," Sam muttered back, more or less coherent. He poured himself a full mug, added sugar, and decided that the fridge was too far for milk. Still drowsy, he wandered to the table and sat down across from Dean.
Who was, Sam did a double take, making his way through a bucket of chicken wings.
"Uh…are those Donatello's wings?"
"Nope," Dean said around a full mouth. "You don't mess with a man's chicken. Got these for myself—I figured, hey, if they worked for Donny…" He peered into Sam's coffee, shook his head, and got up to fetch the milk.
"Huh," Sam scoffed, doctoring his coffee from the greasy milk bottle. "Right. Whatever." He took another drink, and was finally awake enough to notice what else Dean was doing.
Who knows where he'd dug up the whiteboard—did they have those in the Men of Letters' days?—and dry erase pens, but Dean was hard at work making a list. In different colors, no less, and with a few emphatic underlines thrown in.
Sam didn't even bother until he was halfway through the mug. Finally starting to feel his brain rouse, he sat back a little. "So…what are you doing?" He tilted his head in question.
"Makin' a list." Dean glanced up at him, cracking a grin. "Checkin' it twice."
"A list of…?"
Dean finished something in the corner of the board with a flourish, then turned it around and held it up so Sam could read it.
AW Michael, the top line said in red. Then, Lucifer back, also in bright red and underlined. Under that in blue was Mom and Jack, Mom underlined twice. And then in green and smaller, Asmodeus, Ketch, and Sister Jo. A little bit apart on the bottom in black was Cas wasn't Cas.
And…was that a drawing of…bacon in the corner in brown?
Sam blinked.
Dean spoke with far too much enthusiasm for first thing in the morning. "After Cas's little sitrep yesterday, I figured we need to start a spreadsheet or something to keep all the players and threats straight. Red means End-of-the-world big, blue is Important, and green's Characters to keep an eye on."
"And AW is…?"
"Alternate World," Dean said, the duh implied. Maybe he had a point.
Sam gawped briefly like a fish, then took another sip of coffee, regrettably the last. "That's…a really long list."
"I know, right? That's why I wrote it down." Dean peered around the edge of the board at his list like a proud dad regarding his child. "We should probably have one of these up all the time, keep track of who's alive, who's dead, who's tryin' to kill us."
"Riiight. And Cas?"
"Oh, that's, uh." Dean hesitated, then reached around and rubbed the line out with two fingers. "Never mind. Over and done." Still seeming inordinately pleased with himself, Dean fussed with the board until it was balanced against the napkin holder facing them both.
Sam got up to empty the coffeepot and give himself a moment. He sat back down with both hands wrapped around the warm mug and looked Dean in the eye. "Seriously? You're serious about this."
"What?" Dean's brows knitted together as he looked between Sam and the board. "Dude, I don't know about you, but it's kinda getting hard to keep track of who's after us and what we're tryin' to get ahead of before it blows up in our faces. This way, you know," he waved at the board, "we can keep track."
"Of who's trying to kill us," Sam slowly repeated as he poured more milk and sugar.
"Geez, Sam, yes!"
Sam looked at the board again. Satan led the list. Their dead mom and Lucifer's kid were trapped in another universe. A Knight—sorry, a Prince of Hell—who looked like Colonel Sanders' little brother, a mercenary who'd brainwashed their mom, and a rogue angel who healed for money, followed. It was, literally, a Hell of a to-do list.
"…and the bacon?"
"Oh. We're almost out. Also, bacon makes everything better." Secure in his logic, Dean looked smug.
Sam put down the coffee with a snort. Shook his head with a snicker. Then started laughing in earnest, and couldn't seem to stop.
Dean stared at him. At the board. His mouth twitched. Then he started laughing, too.
Oh, man. It wasn't really funny. In fact, it was pretty horrifying. But seeing it in black and white—and red, and green, and blue—was just too much. Every time Sam thought he'd run out, he started cackling again.
They finally started to wind down. Sam's sides hurt. Dean was crying. The board, joggled by their shaking, had slid flat on the table.
"What's so amusing?" came Cas's voice suddenly from the doorway.
Sam and Dean's eyes met, and they doubled up again.
It verged on hysteria, and Cas was probably justified in the concern with which he watched them.
But if the choice was laughter or tears at the supernatural soap opera that was their lives, Sam knew which he'd pick.
The End