SPN FIC - Room 509
For the found_fic_spn challenge here. 'Cause Kim made me do it.
Seriously, Dean has seen a lot of dead people more active than Sam. But maybe it's a good thing, because if Sammy were half an inch closer to being conscious, his brain would start telling him he feels like crap on buttered toast, and that would be all she wrote.
Characters: Dean and Sam
Pairings: none
Rating: R, for language and situations
Length: 2933 words
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: Kripke's. Not mine.
Room 509
By Carol Davis
Sammy looks very peaceful lying there.
Angelic, you could say.
Tranquil.
Seriously, Dean has seen a lot of dead people more active than Sam. But maybe it's a good thing, because if Sammy were half an inch closer to being conscious, his brain would start telling him he feels like crap on buttered toast, and that would be all she wrote.
'Cause it's coming: the puking. Enough of it to sweep away a medium-sized Indonesian village. It's one of those things you can bet the farm on, like the sun coming up every morning. Or that the coffee from the free packets you get in motels (like this one, for instance) will taste like any one of a hundred different things, none of which is coffee.
That's why Dean's here. Because there's some Guinness Book of World Records-class yarking on the horizon, and the way Sam's lying - flat on his back on top of the bedspread, spread-eagled (and buck naked, by the way) - he could end up suffocating on his own puke. And suffocating on vomit is just plain not happening to a Winchester.
The other stuff?
Well.
That will never stop being funny.
Dean makes himself comfortable on the other bed, propped up with a mass of impressively squishy pillows between his back and the headboard, and starts paging through the copy of USA Today somebody left on the dresser. He's already called the front desk and asked for late checkout, because this whole endeavor is on somebody else's dime (whose, exactly, he doesn't know and hasn't worked himself up to caring about) and there's no sign of when Sam might be capable of piloting himself out to the car.
Dean sure as hell isn't carrying his ginormous ass out there.
He's pondering the big, colorful national weather map, trying to figure out whether he's gonna have to drive through some freakish monsoon of a rainstorm on the way to Caleb's tomorrow, when Sam does this fascinating twitch. Kind of a JUMP-aftershock-aftershock-aftershock. A few seconds later he horks like he's trying to snort Jell-o.
That goes on for almost an hour and a half, every fifteen or twenty minutes, a regularity that has Dean open-mouthed with awe, mostly because none of it wakes Sam up. And because Jesus, it's disgusting. If it were Dean doing all that twitching and horking and snorting, he'd still be hearing about it from Sam two months after Doomsday.
When 11:00 a.m. rolls around, Dean flips on The Price Is Right and watches a chunky little white-haired woman in a pink sweatshirt that says CLEVELAND THINKS BOB IS HOT!! win a new washer-dryer combo and a year's supply of skin lotion. Now, people have different standards of hotness, and it's true, Pink Sweatshirt is probably quite a ways down the ol' Road of Life, but…Bob Fucking Barker?
Seriously.
If you come down to it, even the spokesmodels are a little long in the tooth. Every time the camera zooms in on one of them, it's pretty clear Barker's picking his Beauties up at the trade-in lot. Which makes sense. Because Barker's eight thousand years old.
Sammy, on the other hand, is eighteen.
Eighteen and one day.
He pitched a massive fit yesterday (and you can count on that happening at least twice a week, because Sam is nothing if not consistent) because Dad took off somewhere and according to Sam didn't give a rat's ass about Sam's birthday. When Dean asked him if they were all supposed to go to Chuck E. Cheese, Sam stormed out and slammed the door so hard, the window next to it broke right clean in half. Why he keeps getting so bent out of shape about what Dad does, when he's been familiar with Dad's routine his whole life, is a mystery. But then, pretty much everything Sam-related is a mystery to Dean. Like how Sam's managed to make it all the way to eighteen with his cherry still in showroom condition.
Well…it might not be now, but if Sam doesn't remember last night, what's the point?
Another look at The Note is called for. To Dean's disappointment, it doesn't indicate in any way, shape or form that there was actual fucking going on in here last night. Just a lot of…gawking. And really? That's kind of pathetic.
It's so pathetic that Dean climbs off the bed and spikes the air conditioner up a couple notches, then stands with his arms folded watching a nice arctic breeze go sweeping across Sam's virgin landscape.
Sam twitches.
Twitches again.
Lets out a gargling, shrieking Guh!
Then he settles back down. Lies there peaceful and untwitching, like a…huge, spread-eagled naked dead guy. But it only lasts a couple of minutes. Bob Barker's running the first Showcase Showdown when Sam flinches and makes a muttery snuffling noise. He's definitely somewhere within shouting distance of awake.
If he lies really still, the yarking might not happen right away - but it's building up, like a big pool of magma underneath a volcano. Frowning, Dean calculates the distance between Sam's now slightly open mouth and where Dean is standing. He's safe, he figures, even though the distance achieved by some hearty projectile vomiting can surprise you.
It should be an Olympic event, he thinks sometimes. Like the shot put.
Sam moans softly.
"Dude," Dean says.
"Nyeehhhhuuhhhh," Sam groans.
He flips himself from his back to his side, head hanging off the far side of the bed, and the ensuing sound says yup, the wastebasket is in exactly the right spot. One of them is, anyway: Dean lined up four of them, two on each side of the bed, and you gotta love a motel room that's got four wastebaskets. Dean figures he'll write some nice stuff on the comment card before he steers Sam's giant ass out of here. The décor's a little too orange for Dean's taste, but you can't have everything.
After about twenty minutes Sam's worked his way through the first phase of the puke-a-thon and is again lying quietly on his back, face pointed toward the ceiling even though he's not looking at anything. Can't be, because his eyes are jammed shut. Every half a minute or so he makes a little whimpering sound like he wants to be put out of his misery.
A guy in a Hawaiian shirt wins the big Showcase of the day (a dining room set, a piano, and a bunch of other shit, the kind of Showcase that pisses Dean off because he has no idea how to price stuff like that, as opposed to, say, new cars or trips to Bali). The guy's hugging his wife, not looking too sure he's happy, when Dean mutes the TV, leaving the room pretty quiet except for the air conditioner and the little "ehn" sounds Sam is making.
That gets boring pretty fast. "So…were they hot?" Dean asks in an idle-conversation kind of way.
There's a three-beat, then Sam mumbles, "Neh?"
"Karen and Sue."
Sam makes a weird sound that Dean translates as What the fuck are you talking about?
"Your dates," Dean offers helpfully.
"Din ha day," Sam mumbles, and moans again.
"Ah," Dean says.
The air conditioning, which is turned on so high that Dean's own nuts are seeking shelter - and he's so very much not looking to see what's happened to Sam's - seems to clear away enough fog from the Samuel John Winchester Colossal Geek Brain that Sam manages a few actual (if whispery) words. Doesn't open his eyes, though. "Where am I," he says without inflection.
"Sign out front said Purgatory."
"How -" Sam begins, then reconsiders and lets it go at that.
"Fuck if I know, man."
But Dean does know. He had to go to four different bars last night before he found someone who remembered Sam.
Remembered the two girls who, when they found out it was Sam's birthday (though, possibly, not which birthday), bought him a very, very generous number of drinks before they half-carried him out the door and across the road to the Day's Inn.
Locating Sam in a motel with more than a hundred rooms would have been a bitch without the little tingle from the ol' Spidey-sense that kicked in when Dean spotted a dark-haired chick hopping out of a Volvo. Everything about her - the furtive look around, the way she headed for the side door instead of the front - said something offbeat was going on, so Dean followed her. In the side door, up four flights of stairs, down a long hallway, around a corner, and down another hall. He stayed far enough behind her to avoid freaking her out, but that exercise went out the window when she stopped abruptly in front of one of the rooms and…gawped.
"Holy shit," she muttered.
Dean moved up behind her, no longer interested in whether he was going to startle her (he didn't; she was way too busy gawping), took a look, and cringed.
The door was propped open, held in place by a wad of toilet paper between its bottom edge and the rug. It made for a nicely framed tableau.
Of Sam.
Lying sprawled on the bed closest to the door, plainly visible from the hallway, truly astonishing in his gigantic pale unconscious nakedness.
Dean and Volvo Chick had been standing there for a good minute and a half when she turned, frowned at him in a puzzled, Did I sleepwalk here? kind of way, and said, "Do you know Karen and Sue?"
In response to his "Huh?" she held out the small piece of paper he's now holding in his right hand.
"'S cold," Sam mutters in an observational, though distracted, way.
Then he moans and does another roll to the side, this one involving more of a struggle than the first. His aim is off this time, too. When he's done with this round of puking he just lies there, head dangling over the side of the bed, and makes a little noise that makes him sound like he's five years old and he's going to cry.
That takes all the funny out of it.
Shaking his head, Dean dials the AC back down a ways, yanks the bedspread off the bed he was lounging on and drapes it over Sam, covering him up to the shoulders. Sam's starting to break out into a little bit of a sweat and he shudders as Dean tucks the bedspread around him.
The best thing to do would be to stay the night and let Sam sleep this off. It'd serve those two chicks right, having to foot the bill for that (because the room's got to be on a credit card belonging to one or the other of them), and the room's comfortable enough: decent beds, good reception on the TV, and it smells a lot less used than their apartment. Still, cooling his jets here for another 24 hours here really isn't high on the list of things Dean feels like doing. Especially since he's got weapons cleaning and other chores to finish up before they head out for Caleb's, and if that stuff's not done by tonight Dad's going to have a cow.
Rightfully so, Dean figures.
"Yo. Sammy," he says, and gets a soft groan in response. "Can you walk, man?"
"Wan' die," Sam mutters.
"Yeah. Well. Not an option."
"Don' remember. There was…girl?"
"Two."
"An' I was…" Carefully, an inch at a time, with bubbling sounds that indicate the yarking is far from over, Sam relocates himself under the bedspread until, one more time, he's lying on his back. Turning his head so he can see Dean takes an enormous amount of effort, judging by the way his face contorts. "Wha' happened?"
His expression is so plaintive that telling him what happened almost seems mean.
Almost.
Well, no, it is pretty shitty. But there's a lesson to be taught here. And Dean is the one to teach it, by virtue of the sheer number of times his first waking thought has been What the fuck? Still, he's feeling very little of The Funny as he sits down on the edge of the empty bed and smoothes out the little piece of paper, the note he got from Volvo Chick, against his thigh.
"Debbie," he reads, with a frisson of sympathy.
Go check out the nude guy in room 509 at the Days Inn Motel, just across the Main Street Bridge by the mall. We got this guy so drunk that he passed out. We took all his clothes off him. It was wild! What a body and what a cock! He was passed out cold the whole time we were there. Before we left we hid all his things and left his room door open! He's laying nude on the bed with everything showing. Go for it, it's totally awesome. Later, Karen & Sue
Sam's expression remains so impassive that Dean wonders for a moment if he's passed out again, albeit with his eyes open. Then he seems puzzled, as if he either didn't understand what the note said, or suspects Dean of making it up. "Did -" he says, and can't manage anything more.
"What?"
Sam responds with a badly garbled, "She come nuh looka me naked?"
"Oh yeah," Dean says. "She showed up."
"Was naked?"
"Dude. You still are."
"Where my clothes?"
Dean found them a little while ago, on the top shelf of the closet, carefully concealed behind a couple of pillows and some towels from the bathroom. "They're around."
"Duh eye…" Sam seems to be trying to become one with the bed. "Ohhh."
"Did you what?"
"That."
"Was there sex?"
"Yuh," Sam says.
"If you were passed out cold the whole time? Highly unlikely."
Sam?
Looks disappointed.
"You're a freak, you know that?" Dean groans. "Come on, Sammy. You didn't learn anything from the master?"
That gets him the Steely-Eyed Glare of Doom. Or at least the Terminally Hungover version of it. It only lasts a few seconds, then Sam squinches his eyes shut again and seems to try to will himself into some Zen state of non-puking.
And the thing of it is, even though that little craphole of an apartment a couple of miles from here is only a temporary stop, and they'll be moving out of it for good in another six weeks or so, for now it's home. It's familiar and safe, and Sam's corner of the bedroom is full of his books and clothes and the odds and ends he drags around with him wherever they go. For all the bitching Sam does about Dad, Dean knows his brother feels safer when Dad's around, feels like somebody with some big-time cojones is watching his back.
Missed birthday notwithstanding. And it's not like Dad missed the thing altogether: there was a card, and a couple free passes to a movie Sam will probably like if he stops being pissed at Dad long enough to actually go to it.
Sam likes to find excuses to be mad at Dad. Seems to like butting heads with him, in some weird way.
So, overall? They need to go home.
It takes some serious maneuvering to get Sam into his clothes without provoking him into round three of the upchuck-o-rama. When they're finally done, Dean sits Sam down on the edge of the bed and takes a quick look around to make sure they're not leaving behind anything valuable, then pops a twenty out of his wallet and lays it on top of the TV for the maid. He could bail without doing that and she wouldn't know exactly who to be mad at, but he's got a lot of sympathy for people who have to clean up other people's messes.
"Dad home?" Sam asks in a whisper.
"Difference does it make if he is?"
"Dunno." Sam shrugs, hangs his head. Instead of letting Dean hoist him back to his feet, he pushes himself up gingerly, sways a little but manages to keep his balance. "Didn't," he says as if that's his whole thought, pauses a moment, then adds, "Kinda just wanted cake."
"You get any?"
"Don' think so."
"Tomorrow, maybe."
He can do a couple of steps, get himself halfway to the door. Then he has to wait for Dean to prop him up and keep him moving. He's trembling, kind of, and keeps his eyes on the floor.
"You gonna make it?" Dean asks him.
"Kinda wanna die."
"Yeah. Thing is? Doing this because you're pissed at somebody else is really kinda stupid."
"I guess," Sam murmurs.
Dean waves a finger to get Sam's full attention. "Dude. Learn it. Know it. Live it."
Sam grimaces.
Only the building of the Pyramids took longer than getting him out to the Impala. Dean's barely gotten himself, sweat-sticky from the exertion, settled into the driver's seat when Sam looks (in a Pale With Green Trim kind of way) like he wants to ask another question. "What?" Dean prompts him.
"They thought my…y'know. My thing. Was…"
Dean turns the key in the ignition and fires up the Impala's blessedly loud engine. She takes a few seconds to settle into a steady, powerful idle.
"You are seriously a freak," he tells Sam. "What, you want those women to write shit about you on bathroom walls?"
Sam looks like he doesn't understand the question.
"Your next goddamn birthday?" Dean says as he shifts the car into gear. "We're going to fuckin' Chuck E. Cheese."
Seriously, Dean has seen a lot of dead people more active than Sam. But maybe it's a good thing, because if Sammy were half an inch closer to being conscious, his brain would start telling him he feels like crap on buttered toast, and that would be all she wrote.
Characters: Dean and Sam
Pairings: none
Rating: R, for language and situations
Length: 2933 words
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: Kripke's. Not mine.
Room 509
By Carol Davis
Sammy looks very peaceful lying there.
Angelic, you could say.
Tranquil.
Seriously, Dean has seen a lot of dead people more active than Sam. But maybe it's a good thing, because if Sammy were half an inch closer to being conscious, his brain would start telling him he feels like crap on buttered toast, and that would be all she wrote.
'Cause it's coming: the puking. Enough of it to sweep away a medium-sized Indonesian village. It's one of those things you can bet the farm on, like the sun coming up every morning. Or that the coffee from the free packets you get in motels (like this one, for instance) will taste like any one of a hundred different things, none of which is coffee.
That's why Dean's here. Because there's some Guinness Book of World Records-class yarking on the horizon, and the way Sam's lying - flat on his back on top of the bedspread, spread-eagled (and buck naked, by the way) - he could end up suffocating on his own puke. And suffocating on vomit is just plain not happening to a Winchester.
The other stuff?
Well.
That will never stop being funny.
Dean makes himself comfortable on the other bed, propped up with a mass of impressively squishy pillows between his back and the headboard, and starts paging through the copy of USA Today somebody left on the dresser. He's already called the front desk and asked for late checkout, because this whole endeavor is on somebody else's dime (whose, exactly, he doesn't know and hasn't worked himself up to caring about) and there's no sign of when Sam might be capable of piloting himself out to the car.
Dean sure as hell isn't carrying his ginormous ass out there.
He's pondering the big, colorful national weather map, trying to figure out whether he's gonna have to drive through some freakish monsoon of a rainstorm on the way to Caleb's tomorrow, when Sam does this fascinating twitch. Kind of a JUMP-aftershock-aftershock-aftershock. A few seconds later he horks like he's trying to snort Jell-o.
That goes on for almost an hour and a half, every fifteen or twenty minutes, a regularity that has Dean open-mouthed with awe, mostly because none of it wakes Sam up. And because Jesus, it's disgusting. If it were Dean doing all that twitching and horking and snorting, he'd still be hearing about it from Sam two months after Doomsday.
When 11:00 a.m. rolls around, Dean flips on The Price Is Right and watches a chunky little white-haired woman in a pink sweatshirt that says CLEVELAND THINKS BOB IS HOT!! win a new washer-dryer combo and a year's supply of skin lotion. Now, people have different standards of hotness, and it's true, Pink Sweatshirt is probably quite a ways down the ol' Road of Life, but…Bob Fucking Barker?
Seriously.
If you come down to it, even the spokesmodels are a little long in the tooth. Every time the camera zooms in on one of them, it's pretty clear Barker's picking his Beauties up at the trade-in lot. Which makes sense. Because Barker's eight thousand years old.
Sammy, on the other hand, is eighteen.
Eighteen and one day.
He pitched a massive fit yesterday (and you can count on that happening at least twice a week, because Sam is nothing if not consistent) because Dad took off somewhere and according to Sam didn't give a rat's ass about Sam's birthday. When Dean asked him if they were all supposed to go to Chuck E. Cheese, Sam stormed out and slammed the door so hard, the window next to it broke right clean in half. Why he keeps getting so bent out of shape about what Dad does, when he's been familiar with Dad's routine his whole life, is a mystery. But then, pretty much everything Sam-related is a mystery to Dean. Like how Sam's managed to make it all the way to eighteen with his cherry still in showroom condition.
Well…it might not be now, but if Sam doesn't remember last night, what's the point?
Another look at The Note is called for. To Dean's disappointment, it doesn't indicate in any way, shape or form that there was actual fucking going on in here last night. Just a lot of…gawking. And really? That's kind of pathetic.
It's so pathetic that Dean climbs off the bed and spikes the air conditioner up a couple notches, then stands with his arms folded watching a nice arctic breeze go sweeping across Sam's virgin landscape.
Sam twitches.
Twitches again.
Lets out a gargling, shrieking Guh!
Then he settles back down. Lies there peaceful and untwitching, like a…huge, spread-eagled naked dead guy. But it only lasts a couple of minutes. Bob Barker's running the first Showcase Showdown when Sam flinches and makes a muttery snuffling noise. He's definitely somewhere within shouting distance of awake.
If he lies really still, the yarking might not happen right away - but it's building up, like a big pool of magma underneath a volcano. Frowning, Dean calculates the distance between Sam's now slightly open mouth and where Dean is standing. He's safe, he figures, even though the distance achieved by some hearty projectile vomiting can surprise you.
It should be an Olympic event, he thinks sometimes. Like the shot put.
Sam moans softly.
"Dude," Dean says.
"Nyeehhhhuuhhhh," Sam groans.
He flips himself from his back to his side, head hanging off the far side of the bed, and the ensuing sound says yup, the wastebasket is in exactly the right spot. One of them is, anyway: Dean lined up four of them, two on each side of the bed, and you gotta love a motel room that's got four wastebaskets. Dean figures he'll write some nice stuff on the comment card before he steers Sam's giant ass out of here. The décor's a little too orange for Dean's taste, but you can't have everything.
After about twenty minutes Sam's worked his way through the first phase of the puke-a-thon and is again lying quietly on his back, face pointed toward the ceiling even though he's not looking at anything. Can't be, because his eyes are jammed shut. Every half a minute or so he makes a little whimpering sound like he wants to be put out of his misery.
A guy in a Hawaiian shirt wins the big Showcase of the day (a dining room set, a piano, and a bunch of other shit, the kind of Showcase that pisses Dean off because he has no idea how to price stuff like that, as opposed to, say, new cars or trips to Bali). The guy's hugging his wife, not looking too sure he's happy, when Dean mutes the TV, leaving the room pretty quiet except for the air conditioner and the little "ehn" sounds Sam is making.
That gets boring pretty fast. "So…were they hot?" Dean asks in an idle-conversation kind of way.
There's a three-beat, then Sam mumbles, "Neh?"
"Karen and Sue."
Sam makes a weird sound that Dean translates as What the fuck are you talking about?
"Your dates," Dean offers helpfully.
"Din ha day," Sam mumbles, and moans again.
"Ah," Dean says.
The air conditioning, which is turned on so high that Dean's own nuts are seeking shelter - and he's so very much not looking to see what's happened to Sam's - seems to clear away enough fog from the Samuel John Winchester Colossal Geek Brain that Sam manages a few actual (if whispery) words. Doesn't open his eyes, though. "Where am I," he says without inflection.
"Sign out front said Purgatory."
"How -" Sam begins, then reconsiders and lets it go at that.
"Fuck if I know, man."
But Dean does know. He had to go to four different bars last night before he found someone who remembered Sam.
Remembered the two girls who, when they found out it was Sam's birthday (though, possibly, not which birthday), bought him a very, very generous number of drinks before they half-carried him out the door and across the road to the Day's Inn.
Locating Sam in a motel with more than a hundred rooms would have been a bitch without the little tingle from the ol' Spidey-sense that kicked in when Dean spotted a dark-haired chick hopping out of a Volvo. Everything about her - the furtive look around, the way she headed for the side door instead of the front - said something offbeat was going on, so Dean followed her. In the side door, up four flights of stairs, down a long hallway, around a corner, and down another hall. He stayed far enough behind her to avoid freaking her out, but that exercise went out the window when she stopped abruptly in front of one of the rooms and…gawped.
"Holy shit," she muttered.
Dean moved up behind her, no longer interested in whether he was going to startle her (he didn't; she was way too busy gawping), took a look, and cringed.
The door was propped open, held in place by a wad of toilet paper between its bottom edge and the rug. It made for a nicely framed tableau.
Of Sam.
Lying sprawled on the bed closest to the door, plainly visible from the hallway, truly astonishing in his gigantic pale unconscious nakedness.
Dean and Volvo Chick had been standing there for a good minute and a half when she turned, frowned at him in a puzzled, Did I sleepwalk here? kind of way, and said, "Do you know Karen and Sue?"
In response to his "Huh?" she held out the small piece of paper he's now holding in his right hand.
"'S cold," Sam mutters in an observational, though distracted, way.
Then he moans and does another roll to the side, this one involving more of a struggle than the first. His aim is off this time, too. When he's done with this round of puking he just lies there, head dangling over the side of the bed, and makes a little noise that makes him sound like he's five years old and he's going to cry.
That takes all the funny out of it.
Shaking his head, Dean dials the AC back down a ways, yanks the bedspread off the bed he was lounging on and drapes it over Sam, covering him up to the shoulders. Sam's starting to break out into a little bit of a sweat and he shudders as Dean tucks the bedspread around him.
The best thing to do would be to stay the night and let Sam sleep this off. It'd serve those two chicks right, having to foot the bill for that (because the room's got to be on a credit card belonging to one or the other of them), and the room's comfortable enough: decent beds, good reception on the TV, and it smells a lot less used than their apartment. Still, cooling his jets here for another 24 hours here really isn't high on the list of things Dean feels like doing. Especially since he's got weapons cleaning and other chores to finish up before they head out for Caleb's, and if that stuff's not done by tonight Dad's going to have a cow.
Rightfully so, Dean figures.
"Yo. Sammy," he says, and gets a soft groan in response. "Can you walk, man?"
"Wan' die," Sam mutters.
"Yeah. Well. Not an option."
"Don' remember. There was…girl?"
"Two."
"An' I was…" Carefully, an inch at a time, with bubbling sounds that indicate the yarking is far from over, Sam relocates himself under the bedspread until, one more time, he's lying on his back. Turning his head so he can see Dean takes an enormous amount of effort, judging by the way his face contorts. "Wha' happened?"
His expression is so plaintive that telling him what happened almost seems mean.
Almost.
Well, no, it is pretty shitty. But there's a lesson to be taught here. And Dean is the one to teach it, by virtue of the sheer number of times his first waking thought has been What the fuck? Still, he's feeling very little of The Funny as he sits down on the edge of the empty bed and smoothes out the little piece of paper, the note he got from Volvo Chick, against his thigh.
"Debbie," he reads, with a frisson of sympathy.
Go check out the nude guy in room 509 at the Days Inn Motel, just across the Main Street Bridge by the mall. We got this guy so drunk that he passed out. We took all his clothes off him. It was wild! What a body and what a cock! He was passed out cold the whole time we were there. Before we left we hid all his things and left his room door open! He's laying nude on the bed with everything showing. Go for it, it's totally awesome. Later, Karen & Sue
Sam's expression remains so impassive that Dean wonders for a moment if he's passed out again, albeit with his eyes open. Then he seems puzzled, as if he either didn't understand what the note said, or suspects Dean of making it up. "Did -" he says, and can't manage anything more.
"What?"
Sam responds with a badly garbled, "She come nuh looka me naked?"
"Oh yeah," Dean says. "She showed up."
"Was naked?"
"Dude. You still are."
"Where my clothes?"
Dean found them a little while ago, on the top shelf of the closet, carefully concealed behind a couple of pillows and some towels from the bathroom. "They're around."
"Duh eye…" Sam seems to be trying to become one with the bed. "Ohhh."
"Did you what?"
"That."
"Was there sex?"
"Yuh," Sam says.
"If you were passed out cold the whole time? Highly unlikely."
Sam?
Looks disappointed.
"You're a freak, you know that?" Dean groans. "Come on, Sammy. You didn't learn anything from the master?"
That gets him the Steely-Eyed Glare of Doom. Or at least the Terminally Hungover version of it. It only lasts a few seconds, then Sam squinches his eyes shut again and seems to try to will himself into some Zen state of non-puking.
And the thing of it is, even though that little craphole of an apartment a couple of miles from here is only a temporary stop, and they'll be moving out of it for good in another six weeks or so, for now it's home. It's familiar and safe, and Sam's corner of the bedroom is full of his books and clothes and the odds and ends he drags around with him wherever they go. For all the bitching Sam does about Dad, Dean knows his brother feels safer when Dad's around, feels like somebody with some big-time cojones is watching his back.
Missed birthday notwithstanding. And it's not like Dad missed the thing altogether: there was a card, and a couple free passes to a movie Sam will probably like if he stops being pissed at Dad long enough to actually go to it.
Sam likes to find excuses to be mad at Dad. Seems to like butting heads with him, in some weird way.
So, overall? They need to go home.
It takes some serious maneuvering to get Sam into his clothes without provoking him into round three of the upchuck-o-rama. When they're finally done, Dean sits Sam down on the edge of the bed and takes a quick look around to make sure they're not leaving behind anything valuable, then pops a twenty out of his wallet and lays it on top of the TV for the maid. He could bail without doing that and she wouldn't know exactly who to be mad at, but he's got a lot of sympathy for people who have to clean up other people's messes.
"Dad home?" Sam asks in a whisper.
"Difference does it make if he is?"
"Dunno." Sam shrugs, hangs his head. Instead of letting Dean hoist him back to his feet, he pushes himself up gingerly, sways a little but manages to keep his balance. "Didn't," he says as if that's his whole thought, pauses a moment, then adds, "Kinda just wanted cake."
"You get any?"
"Don' think so."
"Tomorrow, maybe."
He can do a couple of steps, get himself halfway to the door. Then he has to wait for Dean to prop him up and keep him moving. He's trembling, kind of, and keeps his eyes on the floor.
"You gonna make it?" Dean asks him.
"Kinda wanna die."
"Yeah. Thing is? Doing this because you're pissed at somebody else is really kinda stupid."
"I guess," Sam murmurs.
Dean waves a finger to get Sam's full attention. "Dude. Learn it. Know it. Live it."
Sam grimaces.
Only the building of the Pyramids took longer than getting him out to the Impala. Dean's barely gotten himself, sweat-sticky from the exertion, settled into the driver's seat when Sam looks (in a Pale With Green Trim kind of way) like he wants to ask another question. "What?" Dean prompts him.
"They thought my…y'know. My thing. Was…"
Dean turns the key in the ignition and fires up the Impala's blessedly loud engine. She takes a few seconds to settle into a steady, powerful idle.
"You are seriously a freak," he tells Sam. "What, you want those women to write shit about you on bathroom walls?"
Sam looks like he doesn't understand the question.
"Your next goddamn birthday?" Dean says as he shifts the car into gear. "We're going to fuckin' Chuck E. Cheese."