p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Dean!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Sorry man…" Dean said quietly working to pull his head up. He almost got intimate with the nasty carpet after tripping over the threshold. Sam's gorilla arm snaked under his own just in time to prevent the unpleasant style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanThe pair of brothers hobbled to the table and Dean sat down gracelessly eliciting a hybrid of a moan and grunt as he let his head fall back. Exhausted. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Dean."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I am still here. Don't get your panties in a bunch Mrs Doubtfire." Sam made a face. Bobby tried not to smile./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Dean's eyes were closed. His hands folded in his lap. He looked like he always did after just finishing a hunt that went less than smooth. There wasn't impending doom. This was just Tuesday… Nothing settled over the group. A minute passed. Then another. Soon nearly 15 minutes had crawled by without anyone saying a word. Perhaps not even breathing given how eerily quiet it was within the four deteriorating walls. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Sam was fighting tug-o-war with his tongue. Every time a word nearly escaped it was immediately yanked back down his throat. Finally, needing something, he managed to clear his throat looking sheepish. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Dean pulled his head up, pulsing pain reminding there would be no rest, and opened his eyes style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanSam was staring at him, lore books open but pointlessly. First, Sam wasn't reading them, second, they held no answers. Dean knew, he had read it all himself not to mention if Sam was reading it again it would be his fourth time to Bobby's second. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Bobby was, Dean wasn't sure what Bobby was doing. Dean tilted his head trying to get a better view but to no avail. If he didn't know better, Dean woulda swore the old man was praying. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Dean?" Sam said startled, noticing his brother tilting his head oddly to the left. Sam followed his gaze, mimicking his posture subconsciously: brows pulling together down over his nose. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Would you stop saying that ya broken record?" Dean asked distracted. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Yeah. Sure." Sam responded in the same tone. Bobby was too late when he noticed the pair of ostriches evaluating him unforgivingly./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Whaaat?... Just dropped something ya buffoons." He said, standing and dusting off his knees. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Uhuh, and I'm Shirley Temple… Anything is possible now'a days."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Can't be too worse for wear ya idjit, your smart mouth is still intact." Dean smiled. Sam did too before his stomach threatened to drop through the floor with the sounding of 07:00am. Dean pulled his gaze to the irritant on Sam's wrist while little bro fumbled for the correct button./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Day 3 or 2?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Uh.. 3."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Coulda fooled me." Sam frowned. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Dean…"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Sam. You are wearing it out. Seriously." Dean tried to stand up, using the table for support. Him, the chair, and table all wobbled precariously before Dean secured his footing. Sam had to fend off everything impulse to not jump to his aid, but there was a frustrated anger in the taunt posture of Dean's shoulders. It warned Dean was losing patience with the situation. Such would deliver them to a chapter in this story that Sam knew was coming but didn't want to deal with. Not yet, but that doesn't stop the ending of a story from arriving, does it? span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Dean?..." Sam started./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""SAM! For the love of Pete!... Dammit." Dean barked as he stumbled to the bathroom. Hunched slightly forward, one arm wrapped around his middle, he was an echo of the time after getting electrocuted and having a heart attack... only, worse. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Once the door shut, Sam and Bobby both heard the unmistakable sound of knees colliding with the tile floor. Sam was to the door before Bobby could issue warning. His hand hovering over the knob ear tuned to the sound of Dean heaving on the other side. Then again. And again. Sam turned, pale as a ghost, there was nothing he could do to help. Him entering would piss Dean off worse, besides, Dean had lost enough dignity over the last few days already. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""What ya thinkin' kid?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I don't know, that is just it. What should I be- AHH!" Sam's legs buckled, both hands clawing for his skull, and he fell back hard: driving the air from his lungs though he wasn't around to notice, catapulted back to the cemetery. Sam had been there so many times at this point. Never a change in the script. The words. The scene. The nauseating snap back and forth between perspectives… Except this time, the beating didn't stop while Dean's eyes were still open. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"emspan style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I'm not gonna leave you…" Dean mumbled./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"[observeemr/em] emSam watched as he continued brutalizing his brother. The elder's eye closed. Head limply bobbed back and forth. 'NO!' Sam cried.' NO! NO! STOP! STOP IT!' He knew his words would do nothing. They always did nothing. It felt like being skinned alive, cut open and exposed in the most vulnerable of ways. 'DEAN! DEAN! STOP! PLEASE STOP! I HAVE GOTTA STOP!' Only once Dean's face looked like a smashed tomato did his grip on Dean's coat release. The motionless hunter slid sideways, falling into the dirt. /em/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"[in body] emSam tried to force his body down to his brother's level. To grab ahold of him, to convince himself what he saw wasn't true. To check for life. Denied. Instead, Sam just stood there against his will staring down covered in Dean's blood, it dripped off his busted knuckles. 'YOU BASTARD! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!' Sam screamed. /em/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""NOOOOOO!" Sam sat bolt upright. Bobby to his left, Dean to his right. He could feel the sweat running down his spine, down his temples. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Sammy, what the hell? Are you alright?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Yeah. Yeah." Sam breathed. "What about you?" Dean brushed off the question, using his knees to push into a standing position then offered a hand to Sam. Sam took it but didn't exert any force, Dean would have ended up on top of him back on the floor otherwise. If Dean noticed, he didn't express it. Sam was glad for that. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Who wants to watch a movie?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""What?" Bobby asked. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Yeah, Godzilla is on matinee today. Channel 13 I think. Sammy, grab that popcorn." Sam's gaze followed Dean's finger. Sure enough, a bag of popcorn was sitting on the counter. The pre-popped kind. emWhere did that come from?/em/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Sam looked to Bobby for help, all he got was a shrug as Bobby grabbed a warm beer off the table and sat on the empty bed: furthest from the door. Sam swallowed. emNormal. He wants a moment of normal. What if I can't…. I have to. He deserves it. Just in case…/em The moisture was back in Sam's eyes causing him to quickly spin on his heels to physically shield his emotions from view. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Dude. Come on!" Dean hollered. "You're gonna miss the best part!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""The whole movie is the best part to you Dean." Sam retorted, disguise carefully in place. Sam popped open the bag of corn and put it in his brother's grasp. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""So?" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"emspan style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"So this is how it is going to be in the end? You pretending like you aren't dying. Me going along with it because what the hell am I supposed to do? Warm beer, popcorn, a corny movie. Granting you one more memory of the 'good times' before what? Before I pull my visions from my mind into reality and beat you to… /span/emspan style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Sam pushed himself back against the head board on the other side of the bed and closed his eyes. Breathing deeply, a lone tear escaped as his mind fought his heart brutally, shackling him with crippling style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Dean could feel Sam's presence on the bed beside him. He knew the turmoil there but chose to ignore it… at least for now. Talking about that shit again wasn't going to help anything. He wasn't dying this exact moment. So, he stretched out on his stomach, pillow propping him up as he munched away. The position upped the ante from hard-to-breathe to requiring-conscious-effort. Dean didn't care, this was his favorite position to watch a movie. Since it was going to be his last time, he figured fuck it all. He didn't flinch when it felt like he was burning from the inside out. He didn't scream when there was no other explanation then his stomach exploding within his abdomen. He didn't gag when a cough brought up a mouth full of blood. This was his moment. His life. He would go out on his own terms./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Sorry man…" Dean said quietly working to pull his head up. He almost got intimate with the nasty carpet after tripping over the threshold. Sam's gorilla arm snaked under his own just in time to prevent the unpleasant style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanThe pair of brothers hobbled to the table and Dean sat down gracelessly eliciting a hybrid of a moan and grunt as he let his head fall back. Exhausted. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Dean."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I am still here. Don't get your panties in a bunch Mrs Doubtfire." Sam made a face. Bobby tried not to smile./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Dean's eyes were closed. His hands folded in his lap. He looked like he always did after just finishing a hunt that went less than smooth. There wasn't impending doom. This was just Tuesday… Nothing settled over the group. A minute passed. Then another. Soon nearly 15 minutes had crawled by without anyone saying a word. Perhaps not even breathing given how eerily quiet it was within the four deteriorating walls. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Sam was fighting tug-o-war with his tongue. Every time a word nearly escaped it was immediately yanked back down his throat. Finally, needing something, he managed to clear his throat looking sheepish. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Dean pulled his head up, pulsing pain reminding there would be no rest, and opened his eyes style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanSam was staring at him, lore books open but pointlessly. First, Sam wasn't reading them, second, they held no answers. Dean knew, he had read it all himself not to mention if Sam was reading it again it would be his fourth time to Bobby's second. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Bobby was, Dean wasn't sure what Bobby was doing. Dean tilted his head trying to get a better view but to no avail. If he didn't know better, Dean woulda swore the old man was praying. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Dean?" Sam said startled, noticing his brother tilting his head oddly to the left. Sam followed his gaze, mimicking his posture subconsciously: brows pulling together down over his nose. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Would you stop saying that ya broken record?" Dean asked distracted. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Yeah. Sure." Sam responded in the same tone. Bobby was too late when he noticed the pair of ostriches evaluating him unforgivingly./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Whaaat?... Just dropped something ya buffoons." He said, standing and dusting off his knees. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Uhuh, and I'm Shirley Temple… Anything is possible now'a days."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Can't be too worse for wear ya idjit, your smart mouth is still intact." Dean smiled. Sam did too before his stomach threatened to drop through the floor with the sounding of 07:00am. Dean pulled his gaze to the irritant on Sam's wrist while little bro fumbled for the correct button./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Day 3 or 2?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Uh.. 3."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Coulda fooled me." Sam frowned. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Dean…"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Sam. You are wearing it out. Seriously." Dean tried to stand up, using the table for support. Him, the chair, and table all wobbled precariously before Dean secured his footing. Sam had to fend off everything impulse to not jump to his aid, but there was a frustrated anger in the taunt posture of Dean's shoulders. It warned Dean was losing patience with the situation. Such would deliver them to a chapter in this story that Sam knew was coming but didn't want to deal with. Not yet, but that doesn't stop the ending of a story from arriving, does it? span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Dean?..." Sam started./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""SAM! For the love of Pete!... Dammit." Dean barked as he stumbled to the bathroom. Hunched slightly forward, one arm wrapped around his middle, he was an echo of the time after getting electrocuted and having a heart attack... only, worse. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Once the door shut, Sam and Bobby both heard the unmistakable sound of knees colliding with the tile floor. Sam was to the door before Bobby could issue warning. His hand hovering over the knob ear tuned to the sound of Dean heaving on the other side. Then again. And again. Sam turned, pale as a ghost, there was nothing he could do to help. Him entering would piss Dean off worse, besides, Dean had lost enough dignity over the last few days already. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""What ya thinkin' kid?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I don't know, that is just it. What should I be- AHH!" Sam's legs buckled, both hands clawing for his skull, and he fell back hard: driving the air from his lungs though he wasn't around to notice, catapulted back to the cemetery. Sam had been there so many times at this point. Never a change in the script. The words. The scene. The nauseating snap back and forth between perspectives… Except this time, the beating didn't stop while Dean's eyes were still open. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"emspan style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""I'm not gonna leave you…" Dean mumbled./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"[observeemr/em] emSam watched as he continued brutalizing his brother. The elder's eye closed. Head limply bobbed back and forth. 'NO!' Sam cried.' NO! NO! STOP! STOP IT!' He knew his words would do nothing. They always did nothing. It felt like being skinned alive, cut open and exposed in the most vulnerable of ways. 'DEAN! DEAN! STOP! PLEASE STOP! I HAVE GOTTA STOP!' Only once Dean's face looked like a smashed tomato did his grip on Dean's coat release. The motionless hunter slid sideways, falling into the dirt. /em/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"[in body] emSam tried to force his body down to his brother's level. To grab ahold of him, to convince himself what he saw wasn't true. To check for life. Denied. Instead, Sam just stood there against his will staring down covered in Dean's blood, it dripped off his busted knuckles. 'YOU BASTARD! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!' Sam screamed. /em/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""NOOOOOO!" Sam sat bolt upright. Bobby to his left, Dean to his right. He could feel the sweat running down his spine, down his temples. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Sammy, what the hell? Are you alright?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Yeah. Yeah." Sam breathed. "What about you?" Dean brushed off the question, using his knees to push into a standing position then offered a hand to Sam. Sam took it but didn't exert any force, Dean would have ended up on top of him back on the floor otherwise. If Dean noticed, he didn't express it. Sam was glad for that. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Who wants to watch a movie?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""What?" Bobby asked. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Yeah, Godzilla is on matinee today. Channel 13 I think. Sammy, grab that popcorn." Sam's gaze followed Dean's finger. Sure enough, a bag of popcorn was sitting on the counter. The pre-popped kind. emWhere did that come from?/em/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Sam looked to Bobby for help, all he got was a shrug as Bobby grabbed a warm beer off the table and sat on the empty bed: furthest from the door. Sam swallowed. emNormal. He wants a moment of normal. What if I can't…. I have to. He deserves it. Just in case…/em The moisture was back in Sam's eyes causing him to quickly spin on his heels to physically shield his emotions from view. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""Dude. Come on!" Dean hollered. "You're gonna miss the best part!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""The whole movie is the best part to you Dean." Sam retorted, disguise carefully in place. Sam popped open the bag of corn and put it in his brother's grasp. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;""So?" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"emspan style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"So this is how it is going to be in the end? You pretending like you aren't dying. Me going along with it because what the hell am I supposed to do? Warm beer, popcorn, a corny movie. Granting you one more memory of the 'good times' before what? Before I pull my visions from my mind into reality and beat you to… /span/emspan style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Sam pushed himself back against the head board on the other side of the bed and closed his eyes. Breathing deeply, a lone tear escaped as his mind fought his heart brutally, shackling him with crippling style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"Dean could feel Sam's presence on the bed beside him. He knew the turmoil there but chose to ignore it… at least for now. Talking about that shit again wasn't going to help anything. He wasn't dying this exact moment. So, he stretched out on his stomach, pillow propping him up as he munched away. The position upped the ante from hard-to-breathe to requiring-conscious-effort. Dean didn't care, this was his favorite position to watch a movie. Since it was going to be his last time, he figured fuck it all. He didn't flinch when it felt like he was burning from the inside out. He didn't scream when there was no other explanation then his stomach exploding within his abdomen. He didn't gag when a cough brought up a mouth full of blood. This was his moment. His life. He would go out on his own terms./span/p