Two hours and three frustrated hunters later, Sam, Dean and Amy were no closer to exorcising the demon, simply because it hadn’t shown up yet.
Dean was the first to break the silence.
“Cards, anyone?”
Sam and Amy gave him annoyed looks, and then returned back into their own thoughts again. After all, Sam had a lot to think about, and so did Dean, he thought. So why did he insist on putting on this act of not caring? He felt a twinge of annoyance at the relaxed and calm features of his brother’s face, but then, Sam remembered, he’d always been like that. It was very rare for him to admit that he was scared, nervous অথবা unsure about something in any way, shape অথবা form, although occasionally they did seep through the seemingly impenetrable fortress of Dean’s mask. For some reason, a particular memory suddenly floated to the surface in Sam’s memory; it was back when Sam was just starting to hunt with his brother again, very soon after Jess’s death, and they were trying to find their father. Sam sighed at the apparent ease at which their lives had once had. They had been helping to stop a spirit in a lake, and whilst trying to get information out of the only eye witness, a little boy, Dean had shown one of his chinks in his armour. He had been talking the boy, Lucas, about how hard it was to lose a parent, and how he knew what the boy was going through. And in that moment, he had admitted he had been scared after their mother had died. Having heard Dean say this, having heard Dean’s own forbidden words escape from his lips, it had come as quite a shock to Sam. He had always seen his brother as the strong one, the one who could cope with anything. But knowing that half the time that was just an act, Sam wondered how Dean was really coping with the idea of dying in three months.
Looking across the moonlit room at his brother, Dean wished that Sam would stop looking at him like that, with his puppy-dog persuasive eyes. It just made him feel even guiltier about the choices he had made in the last year. His memory plunged deep and took him back to nearly a বছর ago, when he had watched his little brother get killed in front of him. The sight of the pain suddenly covering Sam’s features as he was stabbed was an image that Dean would never forget, no matter how much he wanted to. The huge weight of loss, the immediate urge of loneliness and the depressing pointlessness of his existence had never been so prominent and overwhelming in that ঘন্টা between losing Sam and striking his deal. He had felt like he could drown in the grief and guilt, and for all those reasons Dean had simply had to make that deal. It hadn’t even seemed like a choice – it was something that, as soon as it had occurred to him, he just had to go through with. Any existence would be better than one without his brother, even having a বছর left to live, অথবা the ever-present threat of hell in the near future.
When the clock hit midnight, it wasn’t surprising to the brothers when they looked over at Amy and she was fast asleep in one of the basement’s rickety, unstable chairs they had managed to scavenge from the broken furniture down in the basement. Sam’s eyelids felt like lead, but he knew he had to stay sharp. His life may depend on his reflexes in the পরবর্তি few hours, and he had been trained to do the occasional all-nighter from time to time when he was younger, দ্বারা their father.
His tired eyes soon snapped open, however, when the roof, অথবা more, the floor of the level above them, began to rattle and thump, as if a small earthquake were hitting it. He snatched a look at Dean, who drew the অশ্বশাবক out of his pocket and stood up. As the noise being made from the unstable flooring of the old motel increased, Sam wondered if it could take much আরো without giving way sometime soon. In case it did, Sam got up and ran over to Amy, shaking her, but she was already awake from the noise before Sam reached her.
“What the hell is that?”
“Sounds like our little guest is finally deciding to show,” Dean said, releasing the safety hatch on the gun. Sam caught the movement of the action as his brother did so.
“Wait, Dean, what are আপনি doing?”
“What does it look like?” He asked, lifting the অশ্বশাবক to his shoulder level and holding it at an arm’s distance, ready to take aim and আগুন if he needed to.
“I thought we were going to interrogate it first, অথবা hell, even exorcise it, not kill the body it’s riding too without even thinking twice about it!”
“Sammy, I don’t think we’re going to have much of a chance, alright?”
Sam stopped and the noise above them seemed to lessen for a সেকেন্ড as he concentrated on the bigger issue right in front of him. He turned to his brother.
“When did আপনি get like this?”
“Like what?”
“Don’t give me that crap, like ‘oh, let’s just kill the bad guy, who cares which innocent people it’s going to kill in the process...’!” Sam shouted over the erupting noise above them.
“What, do আপনি want me to cry at every person we don’t get to save, Sam?” Dean yelled back, his head flicking between his brother and the ceiling.
“Well, how about getting a conscience?”
Amy interrupted at the right moment; Dean looked furious and hurt at what Sam had shouted at him, but the truth of the words had hit প্রথমপাতা a little.
“Um, guys, I think it’s coming any minute!” She yelled. As she did this, the door at the শীর্ষ of the stairs began to shake violently and looked like it was about to be thrown off its hinges. Dean glared at his brother but held the gun out and clicked the safety catch back on again.
“I’ll use it if I have to, okay?”