fic post, part 1 of 2
As promised, the French Mistake fic! I cannot believe it is finally done, yo. *_*
Title: Time to Play B-Sides
Word Count: ~13 000
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: Blame Eric Kripke. They're not mine.
Note: This fic is complete in two parts, split primarily due to posting length restrictions. Title from Blue Öyster Cult's "Burnin' For You".
Part 1 | Part 2
And the next second they're crashing through actual plate glass, what the hell. The stunt co-ordinator had better be fired.
Jensen lands with a grunt that's mostly air, too winded to curse. He's pretty sure there's glass embedded in his shoulder and he almost doesn't dare open his eyes, but it's pouring, and that's not right.
"Wha-" It's hardly a word, mostly a piteous groan from beside him, and he squints his eyes open carefully, still scrunched in case there's, like, glass in his hair that's about to fall into his face. Jared's struggling up, looking dazed and ridiculous, hair plastered across his forehead by the downpour and blood oozing sluggishly from a cut on his cheekbone, the rain washing it mostly away, leaving a watery red trail down the side of his face.
"You okay?" The question's automatic: if his co-star's hurt, that means delays and inconvenience. Best to know the situation as quickly as possible. Jensen sits up himself, gingerly trying to avoid cutting himself any more than he probably already has. Dammit, what the hell is with the rain? He can't even tell if he's bleeding.
"I dunno." Jared looks down, trying to assess, and shakes his head. "Think so." He starts to stand, and Jensen scrambles up as well, trying not to run afoul of any more glass. His shoulder's hurting like a bitch, and he wobbles a little getting to his feet, falling into Jared. Jared, infuriatingly, seems perfectly stable, and steadies Jensen until he pulls away, scowling. Lightning flashes, painfully bright, and the thunder is immediate and deafening.
The film crew is nowhere in sight.
Instead, Lanette's standing there, looking mad as hell, and Jensen is sure they've already shot this scene.
"Didn't we shoot this yesterday?" he asks Jared, raising his voice over the wind and thunder.
"Pretty sure, yeah," says Jared, and he looks spooked, like, seriously about to bolt. Jensen's feeling a little skittish himself, but he's not about to let on.
"Hey, Lanette," he calls, immediately feeling like a moron for trying to sound casual in the midst of all this. "What's going on?"
Lanette fixes him with a glare so icy he's surprised the rain doesn't freeze between them. Then, abruptly, she vanishes.
Jensen realises his mouth's gaping open when he chokes on a swerving blast of rain. Sputtering, he turns to Jared, and they stare at one another helplessly for a moment. Then Jared's gaze travels down and his eyes widen.
"Jensen, your shoulder," he says, and Jensen looks down at himself and curses. The left shoulder of Dean's jacket is soaked with blood. "Come on," says Jared, "let's get inside."
Inside where, Jensen wants to ask, because they were supposed to be inside already, but then Jared's turning him carefully, like he's some kind of delicate flower or something, and as he shoves off those gigantic hands in irritation, he registers what's in front of him: Bobby's house, looming out of the thunderstorm like something alive. There's a light on in the room with the shattered window.
He feels briefly lightheaded, then shoves aside his panic for the moment. If he thinks about this right now, he's probably going to pass out, and then Jared will probably carry him inside because the man has no sense of personal boundaries, and there is no way Jensen is going to bear the ignominy of being manhandled by that enormous freak of nature unless a script calls for it.
The window's a little high, so he goes around to the porch, congratulating himself on the way he's not even shaking hardly at all, and that's probably because of the cold and the blood loss anyway. He is an awesome actor.
The door's locked.
He's not that good an actor; he's only ever learned enough about picking locks to pretend really well. He turns to Jared and finds that Jared is no longer there.
For a brief delirious moment he wonders if Jared has simply vanished the same way Lanette did, and then the lock is scraping from the inside and the door swings open, revealing Jared on the other side. Enormous bastard must have gone through the window after all.
"Get in here," he says, and Jensen forgoes objecting to his peremptory tone in favour of getting inside, where it's bright and comparatively warm.
Jared closes the door behind him, and in the light of the entryway, it looks as if Jared's mostly unscathed. Figures.
"We should look at your shoulder," Jared says. Jensen rounds on him, his frayed composure snapping.
"We? Since when is there a we? We're obviously not on set anymore, so do me a favour and stay out of my face."
Jared's face sets dangerously. "You're right. We're not on set. We're in Bobby's house. And it's just us. So the way I see it, we are all we've got right now. I mean, if you'd rather I left you alone to bleed out, I could probably do that, but frankly I'd rather stick with the dude who hates me than wander around out there with who-knows-what. For god's sake, Jensen, for all we know that was actually Raphael back there."
Jensen scoffs, but his heart's not really in it, and now that he's inside in the relative quiet and the adrenaline's wearing off, he's definitely starting to feel a little woozy. He tries surreptitiously moving his shoulder, grimacing when the slight response it gives him brings a renewal of the pain.
"Okay, fine," he says grudgingly. "I guess we might as well stick together." He makes a face, and it's a toss-up whether it's more about how he feels like shit or how much he hates the thought of being stuck with Jared.
__
It's a little tricky finding the bathroom, because they've never seen the house all of a piece before and they're not actually sure of the layout, but they get there eventually. Jared drops the lid on the toilet and nudges Jensen to sit down. Jensen, surprisingly, obeys without protest, and Jared checks the cabinet.
"Hunters, man," he says proudly, pulling out the local version of a first aid kit. Seriously, if they have to deal with whatever the hell is going on, they might as well take advantage of the good parts. Jared's always admired Bobby Singer (well, the character, anyway - the real one's kind of a tool), and this first aid kit is a work of art.
Jensen, meanwhile, has been extricating himself from his jacket and flannel, but when he tries to use his good arm to start tugging the left sleeves off, he lets out a pained cry.
"Whoa, hang on," Jared says. He takes a knee in front of Jensen and pulls his hand away. He peels the sleeves down carefully, both together, his breath catching at the feel of the blood-soaked cloth. They're both so used to fake blood that it should be familiar, but this is real; the strong, metallic smell nauseates him, and he has to breathe carefully, measuredly, for a moment.
Jensen's t-shirt sleeve is soaked, and when Jared finally peels it back, Jensen gives a throaty whimper and then glares at him. Jared's not going to judge, because he's barely holding it together himself, and he's not even hurt much. Just his face, which is honestly bad enough, because his face is perfect and it's going to suck if he ends up with a scar. But Jensen's lost what looks like an awful lot of blood, and he's still bleeding, and Jared is going to do his damnedest to channel Sam Winchester right now, because even if Jensen is an asshole in general, he's still a person, and he's in pain, and Jared doesn't want him to die.
He pulls out the scissors and makes to cut the t-shirt sleeve out of the way, but Jensen shies back.
"Whoa, whoa! What the hell, you're gonna wreck it!"
Jared sighs shortly and cocks his head. "News flash, Jensen: it's wrecked already. You know, on account of you bleeding all over it."
Jensen fixes him with a filthy look. "Fine, jackass, you're finding me another one when this is over." Not when you're done patching up my sorry hide, oh, and by the way, thank you, Jared, for helping me in my time of need or anything, the ungrateful jerk. Jared lets out a small huff through his nose and then resolutely ignores how rude Jensen is being. He cuts the whole shirt off just to be rid of it, and Jensen doesn't say anything.
Confronted with Jensen's bare and still sluggishly bleeding shoulder, it's clear that there's at least one smallish piece of glass embedded there. Jared vaguely remembers something from first aid training, like, years ago, about how you shouldn't pull out something that's stuck in somebody, because you don't know how deep it goes and you might damage something worse getting it out and at least while it's in there it's stopping the bleeding. But the alternative right now is leaving glass in Jensen's arm, and he's pretty sure Jensen's going to like that idea even less than he does, and anyway the piece looks really convincingly small.
He figures he'll chance it.
He douses a set of tweezers with alcohol, gets a solid grip on the glass, and pulls it carefully free. As soon as it's out, he claps a gauze pad over it and interrupts Jensen's stream of profanity to say, "Keep pressure on that." He ditches the glass and wets a cloth, then starts cleaning around where Jensen's holding the gauze. There's no more glass, but there are a few little nicks and a fair-sized gash running diagonally underneath the other wound, maybe three inches long, and it starts bleeding a little more eagerly when Jared goes after it. He covers it with gauze too, just for the moment, and then goes rooting around in the kit again one-handed, coming up with a sterile-pack threaded suture needle. He looks contemplatively from the needle to Jensen, but Jensen immediately says,
"Don't even think about it. I don't care who you play on TV, you're not going anywhere near me with sharp things."
Jared pouts a little, but Jensen just keeps glaring, so he finally says, "Fine," and puts the needle back.
Eventually he gets Jensen's shoulder all cleaned up and patched with butterfly bandages and new gauze taped down, and he even finds some Tylenol 3 for Jensen before he gets started on the cut on his own face.
It doesn't take him long, but by the time he's done, Jensen's pretty much passed out where he sits.
And here is a dilemma. If he disturbs Jensen, Jensen will bitch him out, but if he lets him sleep in the bathroom there will be hell to pay. It's not really a hard decision. Waking him up now, though, is not going to suck any less just because he knows there's a worse alternative.
He goes for the uninjured arm, shaking gently. "Hey, Jensen? Jensen, c'mon, man, you don't wanna sleep here."
"Th'hell I don't," Jensen slurs. "Get offa me."
Steeling himself, he shakes harder, but when Jensen just shoves him off, he takes a deep breath and resigns himself to his fate.
"Not letting you sleep here, you'll kill me in the morning," he mutters, insinuating himself under Jensen's good shoulder and lifting him to his feet.
As anticipated, Jensen gives a surly inchoate growl and tries to get away, but he's pretty far gone now, and he only really succeeds in collapsing into Jared, barely keeping his feet under him. It's actually kind of funny.
"Come on, man, there's gotta be bedrooms upstairs. Think you can make it?"
That gets him the Jensen Ackles Special, imperial asperity mixed with scorn, though somewhat diluted by blood loss, exhaustion and T3.
"Anything you can do, I can do better," he declares, and the stubborn ass makes it all the way up the stairs and to the first bed they come across before collapsing across it angle-wise and refusing to move.
Jared thinks about leaving him there, and then thinks that he'd probably treat his pet alpaca better than that, if Colette had shoes and a bed to be tucked into. So he stifles yet another sigh and gets Dean's boots off of Jensen, then briefly considers the still-damp jeans before deciding that they are not his problem. He manages to get the covers out from under Jensen and spread them over him with a minimum of active resistance, and then Jensen's out like a light.
Jared goes back down to check out the study. The rain's settled down some, but there's a five-foot radius of soaked around the broken window. There's an open laptop and a bloody jar standing empty next to a box of salt on the desk. For a minute or so, Jared just stands there looking. Then, feeling a little silly, he lays a salt line across the wet carpet under the window, shuts the curtains, and takes the laptop with him, turning the light off before he leaves.
There are two beds in that first room they found. He takes the second one without thinking too hard about it.
With any luck, they'll wake up tomorrow morning in their own beds in their own homes, or maybe in a hospital after a bad stunt, and this will all turn out to be a nightmare or a concussion dream.
He doesn't really think that's going to happen. And if they wake up here, he doesn't want to wake up alone.
__
Jensen wakes in slow stages, like molasses going down stairs, only with more nausea. He's got cotton-mouth and a bitch of a headache, and when he's awake enough to identify the sound that's been registering in the back of his mind as the dull irregular noise of typing, he lets out an embarassingly frail groan of protest.
The keyboard noise stops immediately.
"Jensen?" Jared's voice is hushed, but it's still too damn loud. "Are you awake?"
"No."
There's a pause, and then Jensen sucks it up and rolls over, blinking and squinting. The morning light is largely blocked by the still-drawn curtains at the window, and Jared is sitting on the other bed with Sam's laptop.
"Oh my god, you hopeless nerd," he says, or means to say, but it comes out a dry incomprehensible mumble.
"You should drink some water," says Jared, nodding at the nightstand between the beds, and Jensen registers the large glass sitting on his side. He tries to lean up to grab it, but his left shoulder is stiff and sore, and he flops back down. He's going to have to actually sit up for this. Jensen's life sucks today.
The sole mercy is that Jared shuts up long enough for Jensen to recover some semblance of equilibrium. Sitting miserably upright on the edge of the bed, sipping his water, he chooses to continue not thinking about where they are and what's going on. Because if he thinks instead about how each swallow of water is gradually restoring him to humanity, he won't have a complete nervous breakdown in front of Jared. His dignity's suffered enough in the last twelve hours or so. Speaking of which:
"What time is it?"
Jared glances down at the corner of the screen.
"Uh, just about 8."
Jensen nods, winces, and then remembers something.
"Hang on, wasn't it, like, early afternoon when we... you know." He waves his near-empty glass in a vague gesture, which he hopes encompasses their arrival into this whole confusing situation.
Jared shrugs.
"Yeah, but I don't think that really matters. It was definitely night when we got here. And, man, I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly in a position to turn down extra sleep."
"Yeah, I can tell you've been going short on the beauty rest," Jensen snips, without even thinking. After six years of dealing with Jared's overeager personality, the imperative to keep his distance is programmed to take over at need. He's not used to actually having to interact with the kid offscreen; it's messing with his calm.
Well, or that could be the massive displacement he's feeling from apparently crashing headlong into the fake world he inhabits on TV. Either way, now that he's awake, it's even harder to keep pretending things are fine and normal.
Jared glares at him.
"Dude, what is your problem, seriously?"
"My problem?" Jensen sets down the empty glass loudly. "My problem is that I woke up in a room with you after falling asleep with a sliced-up shoulder that I got from actually jumping out of a window, and apparently, Dean Winchester's life is real. Is that problematic enough for you?"
So much for avoiding the nervous breakdown, then.
Jared snorts.
"It's great how my being here is apparently making things worse for you. You want me to let you do your own first aid next time?"
"No!" Jensen sputters for a moment. "Look, just... you couldn't have picked another bedroom?"
Jared looks away. Inexplicably, Jensen feels a twinge of guilt.
"Anyway, that's beside the point," he continues hastily. "The real issue here is that either I'm insane, or we're inside Supernatural."
Jared nods slowly.
"It does look that way. I've been going through the bookmarks on here and all the sites are legit, not just, like, the fake pages our prop guys make. It's kinda creepy. Hey-" his brow furrows as it occurs to him. "-what do you think happened to the real Sam and Dean?"
"Who says there is a real Sam and Dean? Maybe this is some kind of splinter universe that broke off just for us. Maybe we're the only Sam and Dean there is."
Jared is looking at him with an odd expression.
"Wow. You're actually kind of a nerd."
"Shut up, that's my line." Jensen can feel himself going red. "I'm just trying to figure out what's going on here without losing my damn mind, okay?"
"Well, while you're at it, can you try and do it without making me lose mine?" Jared says, turning his attention back to the laptop screen and starting to type again. Unbelievable.
"God, you're such a diva," mutters Jensen.
Immediately, he has Jared's attention back.
"Excuse me, I'm the diva? Which one of us would have bled out if it weren't for his co-star, huh? I even got you water, but do I get a thank-you? No. All I get is you being a bitch about everything."
Jensen is momentarily speechless.
"I," he finally says, "you, listen, I was in shock, dude, what do you want?"
"You weren't just in shock, you were so out of it you were quoting Annie Get Your Gun. But that was last night."
"Hey!" This, he can deflect. "You recognised a quote from Annie Get Your Gun cold sober. You should talk."
"You're not listening," says Jared impatiently. He claps the laptop shut and rakes a hand through his stupid hair, the gesture aggravatingly reminiscent of Sam. "Look, never mind. I'm going to go see if there's food in the kitchen."
He goes to leave, but stops in the doorway.
"That doesn't mean I'm making you breakfast, princess."
He leaves. Jensen doesn't move for a few minutes. Then he gets up and goes to look for clothes; he still lacks a shirt, and he could do with a change of, well, everything.
___
Jared enters the kitchen with a strong sense of unreality. He's convinced his conscious mind to accept the current situation, but he can't help feeling as though any minute somebody's going to call cut.
[SAM opens the refrigerator and stares inside abstractedly.]
Bobby's not in the episode they were filming, but for all Jared knows he could show up at any moment. They're so far off-book by this point that they're in a completely different library.
He has got to stop thinking like Sam. Or should he be thinking more like Sam? Jared has no precedent. He's always been a bit method, but this is a whole new level of character immersion. It's not comfortable. On the other hand, comfortable has never been in the job description on Supernatural.
He can roll with this. He can.
He takes out a carton of eggs. Sam hates scrambled eggs, but Jared loves them, so that's what he's having, damn it. It's possible he might also toss in a few for Jensen. Maybe. When he's not actually present and actively bitchy, Jared can't help remembering how he was last night, shock-pale and bled shaky.
He pulls out a frying pan from under the counter and nearly drops it on the floor when he turns around to be confronted with a beige trench coat.
"Misha, holy shit," Jared blurts out. "What are you doing here?"
Misha gazes at him with uncharacteristic intensity.
"I was afraid of this," he says, and his voice is pure gravel.
Shit.
"Uh," says Jared. "You're, uh. Oh, god. You're Castiel, aren't you."
That gets him the even for a human you're kind of slow look, and, wow, it's about seven times more powerful than Misha's.
"Don't leave this house," Castiel says. "I need to have a word with Balthazar."
And then he's gone.
Distantly, Jared catalogues his response to the abrupt departure, so he can use it next time he has to pretend that someone's vanished before his eyes. Jensen was always better at that.
He pulls himself together after a moment and gets the eggs on. There's wheat bread in the box and Bobby's toaster oven is a thing of beauty, so he makes toast. Lots of toast. When the eggs are done he covers them while he butters the toast, and then Jensen says from the doorway,
"Jeeze, you eat a lot."
Jared looks up at the ceiling for support. The ceiling's got nothing. He looks back down at the toast.
"Figured it was just as easy to add a few extra. Get a plate."
Jensen hesitates. Then he's brushing past Jared and pulling down two plates and digging out two forks, and Jared feels less like he's made a mistake.
They eat without speaking. Jared watches Jensen periodically while trying to seem like he's not; his colour is better, especially now that he's eating, but he looks exhausted. Maybe it's because they don't normally see each other before makeup. Jared isn't used to Jensen's actual face.
Jensen looks up and catches his eye. "What?" he asks, as belligerently as possible around the last of his toast. Being Jensen, he manages a pretty high level of belligerence.
"Nothing." Jared turns his attention back to his breakfast. Jensen snorts softly. Jared ignores him.
When they're done, they sit awkwardly for a moment until Jared thinks to say,
"Oh, hey, Castiel was here. Before you came down."
"Bullshit."
"Dude." Jared stands and picks up his plate and fork. "Honestly, Castiel was here in this kitchen. I thought it was Misha, but then he talked."
"Misha talks." Jensen is plainly skeptical, clearing his own dishes as he replies.
"Not like this." Jared shakes his head and starts filling the sink. "It's like, you know how Misha just, like, turns on the Castiel? But the whole time, you know that behind all that, he's still..."
"...Misha," Jensen supplies.
"Yeah, exactly. But this was totally different." It's impossible to put it into words, but he tries anyway. "It was like I, like he had this... presence. Like he's older than everything I know. Like everything I know is a fraction of what he knows. I don't even know. Jensen, just trust me, it was him."
Jensen doesn't scoff at the idea of trusting Jared. Jared's going to put that in the win column.
"Okay, so what did he say?" Jensen's got a dish towel out, and Jared kind of feels bad about how hard he must have guilt-tripped him earlier, except that it was totally justified, and hey, help with dishwashing. Never unwelcome.
"He said we should stay here, and he has to talk to Balthazar."
"What the hell?" Jensen tosses down the towel. "Why do we have to stay here? Jared, we have to get home! There is no way I am spending the rest of my life stuck in Supernatural! It's bad enough pretending to get knocked around by monsters for a living; I'm not about to start getting knocked around by monsters for real, with no compensation. This is crazy."
"Shut up a sec," says Jared. "Do you really think you can figure out how to get back by yourself? Like, I think maybe we should leave this one to the angels, you know?"
"Right, like half the angels aren't gunning for us." Jensen picks up the towel again and resumes drying.
"They're gunning for Sam and Dean," Jared says slowly, scrubbing at the pan. "I know what you said about us being them, just go with this for a sec. We - they - were a decoy, right?"
"Yeah, but we went off script at the window jump. None of this is supposed to happen in the show. We're supposed to be off in some foxhole warded to the gills with Raphael scratching at the door. So what the hell is going on?"
"Hell if I know, man." He rinses the pan and hands it off to Jensen, deep in thought.
Jensen puts the pan away ("Bottom right-hand cupboard," says Jared, and Jensen grunts) and then opens the fridge and roots around for a moment before emerging triumphantly with a beer.
"It's, like, nine," Jared protests weakly.
"Don't even start," says Jensen, and hands Jared a second bottle. He opens his own on the ragged edge of the kitchen countertop and then heads out of the kitchen. Jared follows suit, trailing after him towards, as it turns out, the front porch.
Technically still part of the house, Jared supposes.
_____
The sky is brilliantly blue between scraps of leftover cloud cover. Jensen leans on the porch railing as the screen door squeaks and bangs shut. He can tell Jared's kind of hovering behind him, but if the guy can't figure out where the seats are, that's his problem.
He takes a long drink of his beer, closing his eyes as he swallows to shut out the clean-washed beauty of the morning.
This is the weirdest thing that has ever happened to him.
He opens his eyes again, taking in the vehicles - the Impala, Bobby's Chevelle, the big old pickup - and the entrance in the fence, surmounted by the arched sign. That sign actually exists, on this property, near this house. He can almost read the backwards lettering from here. There is actually a yard full of old automobiles out back. He suddenly remembers that Bobby used to have a dog; he wonders if it's still alive. He could try calling, maybe have a look around.
He's an idiot. And they're not supposed to leave the house.
Jared finally makes up his mind and comes up to lean on the railing next to Jensen, backwards so he's facing the house.
"My wife's probably going apeshit by now," he says quietly. "I was supposed to go to a fundraiser with her last night..."
Jensen can't help it. "After the day we had lined up?" he asks incredulously. "She seriously expected you to go out?"
Jared shrugs. "It was important. Anyway, it's moot now." He drops back into silence, and Jensen takes another swallow.
Through the quiet that falls between them, Jensen can hear birdsong and little else. It's a good thing Bobby's place is so isolated; having to interact with people as if he hadn't just been transplanted into an alternate reality would be a massive additional strain.
If nothing else, at least he and Jared are in the same boat.
Before he can think about that for too long, something catches his eye off to the right. He looks, and freezes.
There, just beyond the shadow of the house, a figure stands watching them. It's not Raphael, but Jensen would swear there was nobody there a moment ago.
"Jared," he says quietly. "To my right."
Jared looks and curses under his breath.
"What do we do?"
"Back inside. But don't run." Jensen's not sure why, but running feels like a really bad idea. "Just... casual."
"There is an angel in the yard," Jared hisses. "Casual is a little hard to pull off."
"You're an actor. Act." Jensen turns around in a studiously carefree manner and takes a step toward the door, keeping one eye on the stranger as he does. So he sees the instant the angel vanishes. "Whoa."
"What?" Jared was already a few steps ahead of him.
"Gone." He scans the rest of the yard, though he knows it's a pointless exercise. There's nobody there. He sags back into the railing, a little dizzy from the adrenaline spike.
"Here's what I don't get," says Jared, coming back up beside Jensen and setting his bottle on the railing. "If we are the only Sam and Dean going, why are the angels leaving us alone?"
Jensen shakes his head. "I'm not in love with that theory, man, it was just an idea."
"No, I know," says Jared, all open-faced and sincere. "I'm not trying to, like, shoot it down, I'm just-"
"I get it, it's fine," says Jensen impatiently. "We both want to figure out what's going on. So, Raphael and this other dude left us alone. Possibly because... we aren't the real Sam and Dean?"
"Castiel," says Jared, like he's just realised something. "He knew right away. The first thing he said was, 'I was afraid of this.' So-"
"So the angels can tell," Jensen finishes. "Hang on, hang on." He's almost there. "Okay, listen: in our version of all this, we get zapped off to that angelic safehouse to draw off the search so Castiel can get to the weapons. What if the real Sam and Dean got zapped off somewhere further?"
"Like to our world." Jared picks up the thread. "They came to ours and we got displaced to theirs." He looks at Jensen with dawning horror, and Jensen can only stare back.
"Shit."
The ramifications of this new discovery are coming thick and fast, and he can't quite process it all. Sam and Dean on their set. Sam and Dean in their trailers, in their homes. Sam and Dean with an angel hit man on their tail, because there's no reason to believe that part would differ from their version.
"There's going to be carnage," Jared breathes. "Like, actual, literal carnage. Jensen. What if somebody gets really hurt? What if Genevieve-"
"Hey, hey, whoa." Jensen grabs Jared by the elbow and gives him a little shake. "Don't think like that, okay? You can't think like that. We've gotta have faith in Sam and Dean, here."
"But she was Ruby! What if they, like, gank her on sight?" Jared's only getting more worked up. Jensen reaches up to grasp his shoulder firmly.
"Dude, you're panicking. Think a second. You know Sam better than anyone. Would he do that without even trying to figure out what's going on?"
Jared stills, obviously trying to get a grip. "I- no. I don't think so. But Dean-"
"Dean wouldn't either, not anymore. And if he did, Sam would stop him. Think about the next episode, man. Sam won't even let him shoot Samuel on sight." Jared is still not looking totally convinced, but he's not on the verge of hyperventilating anymore. "Just believe in them, man. They're morons sometimes, but they're not stupid. They'll figure it out. Let them handle it."
Jared lets out the last of his tension on a breath. "You're right." He nods. "They're not stupid. And they're way better equipped for this than we are, god knows."
"Attagirl." Jensen claps Jared on the arm and drains his bottle, wincing at the pull in his shoulder. "Now if we're done with the histrionics, I need another beer." He turns toward the house.
"Hey, you're not still on Tylenol, are you?" asks Jared worriedly. Jensen rolls his eyes.
"No, Mom, I took a couple of those migraine Advil when I got up. I'm set."
As they go back inside, Jensen resists the urge to do another sweep of the landscape. If any more angels are watching them, he doesn't want to know.
______
Part 2
Title: Time to Play B-Sides
Word Count: ~13 000
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: Blame Eric Kripke. They're not mine.
Note: This fic is complete in two parts, split primarily due to posting length restrictions. Title from Blue Öyster Cult's "Burnin' For You".
Part 1 | Part 2
And the next second they're crashing through actual plate glass, what the hell. The stunt co-ordinator had better be fired.
Jensen lands with a grunt that's mostly air, too winded to curse. He's pretty sure there's glass embedded in his shoulder and he almost doesn't dare open his eyes, but it's pouring, and that's not right.
"Wha-" It's hardly a word, mostly a piteous groan from beside him, and he squints his eyes open carefully, still scrunched in case there's, like, glass in his hair that's about to fall into his face. Jared's struggling up, looking dazed and ridiculous, hair plastered across his forehead by the downpour and blood oozing sluggishly from a cut on his cheekbone, the rain washing it mostly away, leaving a watery red trail down the side of his face.
"You okay?" The question's automatic: if his co-star's hurt, that means delays and inconvenience. Best to know the situation as quickly as possible. Jensen sits up himself, gingerly trying to avoid cutting himself any more than he probably already has. Dammit, what the hell is with the rain? He can't even tell if he's bleeding.
"I dunno." Jared looks down, trying to assess, and shakes his head. "Think so." He starts to stand, and Jensen scrambles up as well, trying not to run afoul of any more glass. His shoulder's hurting like a bitch, and he wobbles a little getting to his feet, falling into Jared. Jared, infuriatingly, seems perfectly stable, and steadies Jensen until he pulls away, scowling. Lightning flashes, painfully bright, and the thunder is immediate and deafening.
The film crew is nowhere in sight.
Instead, Lanette's standing there, looking mad as hell, and Jensen is sure they've already shot this scene.
"Didn't we shoot this yesterday?" he asks Jared, raising his voice over the wind and thunder.
"Pretty sure, yeah," says Jared, and he looks spooked, like, seriously about to bolt. Jensen's feeling a little skittish himself, but he's not about to let on.
"Hey, Lanette," he calls, immediately feeling like a moron for trying to sound casual in the midst of all this. "What's going on?"
Lanette fixes him with a glare so icy he's surprised the rain doesn't freeze between them. Then, abruptly, she vanishes.
Jensen realises his mouth's gaping open when he chokes on a swerving blast of rain. Sputtering, he turns to Jared, and they stare at one another helplessly for a moment. Then Jared's gaze travels down and his eyes widen.
"Jensen, your shoulder," he says, and Jensen looks down at himself and curses. The left shoulder of Dean's jacket is soaked with blood. "Come on," says Jared, "let's get inside."
Inside where, Jensen wants to ask, because they were supposed to be inside already, but then Jared's turning him carefully, like he's some kind of delicate flower or something, and as he shoves off those gigantic hands in irritation, he registers what's in front of him: Bobby's house, looming out of the thunderstorm like something alive. There's a light on in the room with the shattered window.
He feels briefly lightheaded, then shoves aside his panic for the moment. If he thinks about this right now, he's probably going to pass out, and then Jared will probably carry him inside because the man has no sense of personal boundaries, and there is no way Jensen is going to bear the ignominy of being manhandled by that enormous freak of nature unless a script calls for it.
The window's a little high, so he goes around to the porch, congratulating himself on the way he's not even shaking hardly at all, and that's probably because of the cold and the blood loss anyway. He is an awesome actor.
The door's locked.
He's not that good an actor; he's only ever learned enough about picking locks to pretend really well. He turns to Jared and finds that Jared is no longer there.
For a brief delirious moment he wonders if Jared has simply vanished the same way Lanette did, and then the lock is scraping from the inside and the door swings open, revealing Jared on the other side. Enormous bastard must have gone through the window after all.
"Get in here," he says, and Jensen forgoes objecting to his peremptory tone in favour of getting inside, where it's bright and comparatively warm.
Jared closes the door behind him, and in the light of the entryway, it looks as if Jared's mostly unscathed. Figures.
"We should look at your shoulder," Jared says. Jensen rounds on him, his frayed composure snapping.
"We? Since when is there a we? We're obviously not on set anymore, so do me a favour and stay out of my face."
Jared's face sets dangerously. "You're right. We're not on set. We're in Bobby's house. And it's just us. So the way I see it, we are all we've got right now. I mean, if you'd rather I left you alone to bleed out, I could probably do that, but frankly I'd rather stick with the dude who hates me than wander around out there with who-knows-what. For god's sake, Jensen, for all we know that was actually Raphael back there."
Jensen scoffs, but his heart's not really in it, and now that he's inside in the relative quiet and the adrenaline's wearing off, he's definitely starting to feel a little woozy. He tries surreptitiously moving his shoulder, grimacing when the slight response it gives him brings a renewal of the pain.
"Okay, fine," he says grudgingly. "I guess we might as well stick together." He makes a face, and it's a toss-up whether it's more about how he feels like shit or how much he hates the thought of being stuck with Jared.
__
It's a little tricky finding the bathroom, because they've never seen the house all of a piece before and they're not actually sure of the layout, but they get there eventually. Jared drops the lid on the toilet and nudges Jensen to sit down. Jensen, surprisingly, obeys without protest, and Jared checks the cabinet.
"Hunters, man," he says proudly, pulling out the local version of a first aid kit. Seriously, if they have to deal with whatever the hell is going on, they might as well take advantage of the good parts. Jared's always admired Bobby Singer (well, the character, anyway - the real one's kind of a tool), and this first aid kit is a work of art.
Jensen, meanwhile, has been extricating himself from his jacket and flannel, but when he tries to use his good arm to start tugging the left sleeves off, he lets out a pained cry.
"Whoa, hang on," Jared says. He takes a knee in front of Jensen and pulls his hand away. He peels the sleeves down carefully, both together, his breath catching at the feel of the blood-soaked cloth. They're both so used to fake blood that it should be familiar, but this is real; the strong, metallic smell nauseates him, and he has to breathe carefully, measuredly, for a moment.
Jensen's t-shirt sleeve is soaked, and when Jared finally peels it back, Jensen gives a throaty whimper and then glares at him. Jared's not going to judge, because he's barely holding it together himself, and he's not even hurt much. Just his face, which is honestly bad enough, because his face is perfect and it's going to suck if he ends up with a scar. But Jensen's lost what looks like an awful lot of blood, and he's still bleeding, and Jared is going to do his damnedest to channel Sam Winchester right now, because even if Jensen is an asshole in general, he's still a person, and he's in pain, and Jared doesn't want him to die.
He pulls out the scissors and makes to cut the t-shirt sleeve out of the way, but Jensen shies back.
"Whoa, whoa! What the hell, you're gonna wreck it!"
Jared sighs shortly and cocks his head. "News flash, Jensen: it's wrecked already. You know, on account of you bleeding all over it."
Jensen fixes him with a filthy look. "Fine, jackass, you're finding me another one when this is over." Not when you're done patching up my sorry hide, oh, and by the way, thank you, Jared, for helping me in my time of need or anything, the ungrateful jerk. Jared lets out a small huff through his nose and then resolutely ignores how rude Jensen is being. He cuts the whole shirt off just to be rid of it, and Jensen doesn't say anything.
Confronted with Jensen's bare and still sluggishly bleeding shoulder, it's clear that there's at least one smallish piece of glass embedded there. Jared vaguely remembers something from first aid training, like, years ago, about how you shouldn't pull out something that's stuck in somebody, because you don't know how deep it goes and you might damage something worse getting it out and at least while it's in there it's stopping the bleeding. But the alternative right now is leaving glass in Jensen's arm, and he's pretty sure Jensen's going to like that idea even less than he does, and anyway the piece looks really convincingly small.
He figures he'll chance it.
He douses a set of tweezers with alcohol, gets a solid grip on the glass, and pulls it carefully free. As soon as it's out, he claps a gauze pad over it and interrupts Jensen's stream of profanity to say, "Keep pressure on that." He ditches the glass and wets a cloth, then starts cleaning around where Jensen's holding the gauze. There's no more glass, but there are a few little nicks and a fair-sized gash running diagonally underneath the other wound, maybe three inches long, and it starts bleeding a little more eagerly when Jared goes after it. He covers it with gauze too, just for the moment, and then goes rooting around in the kit again one-handed, coming up with a sterile-pack threaded suture needle. He looks contemplatively from the needle to Jensen, but Jensen immediately says,
"Don't even think about it. I don't care who you play on TV, you're not going anywhere near me with sharp things."
Jared pouts a little, but Jensen just keeps glaring, so he finally says, "Fine," and puts the needle back.
Eventually he gets Jensen's shoulder all cleaned up and patched with butterfly bandages and new gauze taped down, and he even finds some Tylenol 3 for Jensen before he gets started on the cut on his own face.
It doesn't take him long, but by the time he's done, Jensen's pretty much passed out where he sits.
And here is a dilemma. If he disturbs Jensen, Jensen will bitch him out, but if he lets him sleep in the bathroom there will be hell to pay. It's not really a hard decision. Waking him up now, though, is not going to suck any less just because he knows there's a worse alternative.
He goes for the uninjured arm, shaking gently. "Hey, Jensen? Jensen, c'mon, man, you don't wanna sleep here."
"Th'hell I don't," Jensen slurs. "Get offa me."
Steeling himself, he shakes harder, but when Jensen just shoves him off, he takes a deep breath and resigns himself to his fate.
"Not letting you sleep here, you'll kill me in the morning," he mutters, insinuating himself under Jensen's good shoulder and lifting him to his feet.
As anticipated, Jensen gives a surly inchoate growl and tries to get away, but he's pretty far gone now, and he only really succeeds in collapsing into Jared, barely keeping his feet under him. It's actually kind of funny.
"Come on, man, there's gotta be bedrooms upstairs. Think you can make it?"
That gets him the Jensen Ackles Special, imperial asperity mixed with scorn, though somewhat diluted by blood loss, exhaustion and T3.
"Anything you can do, I can do better," he declares, and the stubborn ass makes it all the way up the stairs and to the first bed they come across before collapsing across it angle-wise and refusing to move.
Jared thinks about leaving him there, and then thinks that he'd probably treat his pet alpaca better than that, if Colette had shoes and a bed to be tucked into. So he stifles yet another sigh and gets Dean's boots off of Jensen, then briefly considers the still-damp jeans before deciding that they are not his problem. He manages to get the covers out from under Jensen and spread them over him with a minimum of active resistance, and then Jensen's out like a light.
Jared goes back down to check out the study. The rain's settled down some, but there's a five-foot radius of soaked around the broken window. There's an open laptop and a bloody jar standing empty next to a box of salt on the desk. For a minute or so, Jared just stands there looking. Then, feeling a little silly, he lays a salt line across the wet carpet under the window, shuts the curtains, and takes the laptop with him, turning the light off before he leaves.
There are two beds in that first room they found. He takes the second one without thinking too hard about it.
With any luck, they'll wake up tomorrow morning in their own beds in their own homes, or maybe in a hospital after a bad stunt, and this will all turn out to be a nightmare or a concussion dream.
He doesn't really think that's going to happen. And if they wake up here, he doesn't want to wake up alone.
__
Jensen wakes in slow stages, like molasses going down stairs, only with more nausea. He's got cotton-mouth and a bitch of a headache, and when he's awake enough to identify the sound that's been registering in the back of his mind as the dull irregular noise of typing, he lets out an embarassingly frail groan of protest.
The keyboard noise stops immediately.
"Jensen?" Jared's voice is hushed, but it's still too damn loud. "Are you awake?"
"No."
There's a pause, and then Jensen sucks it up and rolls over, blinking and squinting. The morning light is largely blocked by the still-drawn curtains at the window, and Jared is sitting on the other bed with Sam's laptop.
"Oh my god, you hopeless nerd," he says, or means to say, but it comes out a dry incomprehensible mumble.
"You should drink some water," says Jared, nodding at the nightstand between the beds, and Jensen registers the large glass sitting on his side. He tries to lean up to grab it, but his left shoulder is stiff and sore, and he flops back down. He's going to have to actually sit up for this. Jensen's life sucks today.
The sole mercy is that Jared shuts up long enough for Jensen to recover some semblance of equilibrium. Sitting miserably upright on the edge of the bed, sipping his water, he chooses to continue not thinking about where they are and what's going on. Because if he thinks instead about how each swallow of water is gradually restoring him to humanity, he won't have a complete nervous breakdown in front of Jared. His dignity's suffered enough in the last twelve hours or so. Speaking of which:
"What time is it?"
Jared glances down at the corner of the screen.
"Uh, just about 8."
Jensen nods, winces, and then remembers something.
"Hang on, wasn't it, like, early afternoon when we... you know." He waves his near-empty glass in a vague gesture, which he hopes encompasses their arrival into this whole confusing situation.
Jared shrugs.
"Yeah, but I don't think that really matters. It was definitely night when we got here. And, man, I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly in a position to turn down extra sleep."
"Yeah, I can tell you've been going short on the beauty rest," Jensen snips, without even thinking. After six years of dealing with Jared's overeager personality, the imperative to keep his distance is programmed to take over at need. He's not used to actually having to interact with the kid offscreen; it's messing with his calm.
Well, or that could be the massive displacement he's feeling from apparently crashing headlong into the fake world he inhabits on TV. Either way, now that he's awake, it's even harder to keep pretending things are fine and normal.
Jared glares at him.
"Dude, what is your problem, seriously?"
"My problem?" Jensen sets down the empty glass loudly. "My problem is that I woke up in a room with you after falling asleep with a sliced-up shoulder that I got from actually jumping out of a window, and apparently, Dean Winchester's life is real. Is that problematic enough for you?"
So much for avoiding the nervous breakdown, then.
Jared snorts.
"It's great how my being here is apparently making things worse for you. You want me to let you do your own first aid next time?"
"No!" Jensen sputters for a moment. "Look, just... you couldn't have picked another bedroom?"
Jared looks away. Inexplicably, Jensen feels a twinge of guilt.
"Anyway, that's beside the point," he continues hastily. "The real issue here is that either I'm insane, or we're inside Supernatural."
Jared nods slowly.
"It does look that way. I've been going through the bookmarks on here and all the sites are legit, not just, like, the fake pages our prop guys make. It's kinda creepy. Hey-" his brow furrows as it occurs to him. "-what do you think happened to the real Sam and Dean?"
"Who says there is a real Sam and Dean? Maybe this is some kind of splinter universe that broke off just for us. Maybe we're the only Sam and Dean there is."
Jared is looking at him with an odd expression.
"Wow. You're actually kind of a nerd."
"Shut up, that's my line." Jensen can feel himself going red. "I'm just trying to figure out what's going on here without losing my damn mind, okay?"
"Well, while you're at it, can you try and do it without making me lose mine?" Jared says, turning his attention back to the laptop screen and starting to type again. Unbelievable.
"God, you're such a diva," mutters Jensen.
Immediately, he has Jared's attention back.
"Excuse me, I'm the diva? Which one of us would have bled out if it weren't for his co-star, huh? I even got you water, but do I get a thank-you? No. All I get is you being a bitch about everything."
Jensen is momentarily speechless.
"I," he finally says, "you, listen, I was in shock, dude, what do you want?"
"You weren't just in shock, you were so out of it you were quoting Annie Get Your Gun. But that was last night."
"Hey!" This, he can deflect. "You recognised a quote from Annie Get Your Gun cold sober. You should talk."
"You're not listening," says Jared impatiently. He claps the laptop shut and rakes a hand through his stupid hair, the gesture aggravatingly reminiscent of Sam. "Look, never mind. I'm going to go see if there's food in the kitchen."
He goes to leave, but stops in the doorway.
"That doesn't mean I'm making you breakfast, princess."
He leaves. Jensen doesn't move for a few minutes. Then he gets up and goes to look for clothes; he still lacks a shirt, and he could do with a change of, well, everything.
___
Jared enters the kitchen with a strong sense of unreality. He's convinced his conscious mind to accept the current situation, but he can't help feeling as though any minute somebody's going to call cut.
[SAM opens the refrigerator and stares inside abstractedly.]
Bobby's not in the episode they were filming, but for all Jared knows he could show up at any moment. They're so far off-book by this point that they're in a completely different library.
He has got to stop thinking like Sam. Or should he be thinking more like Sam? Jared has no precedent. He's always been a bit method, but this is a whole new level of character immersion. It's not comfortable. On the other hand, comfortable has never been in the job description on Supernatural.
He can roll with this. He can.
He takes out a carton of eggs. Sam hates scrambled eggs, but Jared loves them, so that's what he's having, damn it. It's possible he might also toss in a few for Jensen. Maybe. When he's not actually present and actively bitchy, Jared can't help remembering how he was last night, shock-pale and bled shaky.
He pulls out a frying pan from under the counter and nearly drops it on the floor when he turns around to be confronted with a beige trench coat.
"Misha, holy shit," Jared blurts out. "What are you doing here?"
Misha gazes at him with uncharacteristic intensity.
"I was afraid of this," he says, and his voice is pure gravel.
Shit.
"Uh," says Jared. "You're, uh. Oh, god. You're Castiel, aren't you."
That gets him the even for a human you're kind of slow look, and, wow, it's about seven times more powerful than Misha's.
"Don't leave this house," Castiel says. "I need to have a word with Balthazar."
And then he's gone.
Distantly, Jared catalogues his response to the abrupt departure, so he can use it next time he has to pretend that someone's vanished before his eyes. Jensen was always better at that.
He pulls himself together after a moment and gets the eggs on. There's wheat bread in the box and Bobby's toaster oven is a thing of beauty, so he makes toast. Lots of toast. When the eggs are done he covers them while he butters the toast, and then Jensen says from the doorway,
"Jeeze, you eat a lot."
Jared looks up at the ceiling for support. The ceiling's got nothing. He looks back down at the toast.
"Figured it was just as easy to add a few extra. Get a plate."
Jensen hesitates. Then he's brushing past Jared and pulling down two plates and digging out two forks, and Jared feels less like he's made a mistake.
They eat without speaking. Jared watches Jensen periodically while trying to seem like he's not; his colour is better, especially now that he's eating, but he looks exhausted. Maybe it's because they don't normally see each other before makeup. Jared isn't used to Jensen's actual face.
Jensen looks up and catches his eye. "What?" he asks, as belligerently as possible around the last of his toast. Being Jensen, he manages a pretty high level of belligerence.
"Nothing." Jared turns his attention back to his breakfast. Jensen snorts softly. Jared ignores him.
When they're done, they sit awkwardly for a moment until Jared thinks to say,
"Oh, hey, Castiel was here. Before you came down."
"Bullshit."
"Dude." Jared stands and picks up his plate and fork. "Honestly, Castiel was here in this kitchen. I thought it was Misha, but then he talked."
"Misha talks." Jensen is plainly skeptical, clearing his own dishes as he replies.
"Not like this." Jared shakes his head and starts filling the sink. "It's like, you know how Misha just, like, turns on the Castiel? But the whole time, you know that behind all that, he's still..."
"...Misha," Jensen supplies.
"Yeah, exactly. But this was totally different." It's impossible to put it into words, but he tries anyway. "It was like I, like he had this... presence. Like he's older than everything I know. Like everything I know is a fraction of what he knows. I don't even know. Jensen, just trust me, it was him."
Jensen doesn't scoff at the idea of trusting Jared. Jared's going to put that in the win column.
"Okay, so what did he say?" Jensen's got a dish towel out, and Jared kind of feels bad about how hard he must have guilt-tripped him earlier, except that it was totally justified, and hey, help with dishwashing. Never unwelcome.
"He said we should stay here, and he has to talk to Balthazar."
"What the hell?" Jensen tosses down the towel. "Why do we have to stay here? Jared, we have to get home! There is no way I am spending the rest of my life stuck in Supernatural! It's bad enough pretending to get knocked around by monsters for a living; I'm not about to start getting knocked around by monsters for real, with no compensation. This is crazy."
"Shut up a sec," says Jared. "Do you really think you can figure out how to get back by yourself? Like, I think maybe we should leave this one to the angels, you know?"
"Right, like half the angels aren't gunning for us." Jensen picks up the towel again and resumes drying.
"They're gunning for Sam and Dean," Jared says slowly, scrubbing at the pan. "I know what you said about us being them, just go with this for a sec. We - they - were a decoy, right?"
"Yeah, but we went off script at the window jump. None of this is supposed to happen in the show. We're supposed to be off in some foxhole warded to the gills with Raphael scratching at the door. So what the hell is going on?"
"Hell if I know, man." He rinses the pan and hands it off to Jensen, deep in thought.
Jensen puts the pan away ("Bottom right-hand cupboard," says Jared, and Jensen grunts) and then opens the fridge and roots around for a moment before emerging triumphantly with a beer.
"It's, like, nine," Jared protests weakly.
"Don't even start," says Jensen, and hands Jared a second bottle. He opens his own on the ragged edge of the kitchen countertop and then heads out of the kitchen. Jared follows suit, trailing after him towards, as it turns out, the front porch.
Technically still part of the house, Jared supposes.
_____
The sky is brilliantly blue between scraps of leftover cloud cover. Jensen leans on the porch railing as the screen door squeaks and bangs shut. He can tell Jared's kind of hovering behind him, but if the guy can't figure out where the seats are, that's his problem.
He takes a long drink of his beer, closing his eyes as he swallows to shut out the clean-washed beauty of the morning.
This is the weirdest thing that has ever happened to him.
He opens his eyes again, taking in the vehicles - the Impala, Bobby's Chevelle, the big old pickup - and the entrance in the fence, surmounted by the arched sign. That sign actually exists, on this property, near this house. He can almost read the backwards lettering from here. There is actually a yard full of old automobiles out back. He suddenly remembers that Bobby used to have a dog; he wonders if it's still alive. He could try calling, maybe have a look around.
He's an idiot. And they're not supposed to leave the house.
Jared finally makes up his mind and comes up to lean on the railing next to Jensen, backwards so he's facing the house.
"My wife's probably going apeshit by now," he says quietly. "I was supposed to go to a fundraiser with her last night..."
Jensen can't help it. "After the day we had lined up?" he asks incredulously. "She seriously expected you to go out?"
Jared shrugs. "It was important. Anyway, it's moot now." He drops back into silence, and Jensen takes another swallow.
Through the quiet that falls between them, Jensen can hear birdsong and little else. It's a good thing Bobby's place is so isolated; having to interact with people as if he hadn't just been transplanted into an alternate reality would be a massive additional strain.
If nothing else, at least he and Jared are in the same boat.
Before he can think about that for too long, something catches his eye off to the right. He looks, and freezes.
There, just beyond the shadow of the house, a figure stands watching them. It's not Raphael, but Jensen would swear there was nobody there a moment ago.
"Jared," he says quietly. "To my right."
Jared looks and curses under his breath.
"What do we do?"
"Back inside. But don't run." Jensen's not sure why, but running feels like a really bad idea. "Just... casual."
"There is an angel in the yard," Jared hisses. "Casual is a little hard to pull off."
"You're an actor. Act." Jensen turns around in a studiously carefree manner and takes a step toward the door, keeping one eye on the stranger as he does. So he sees the instant the angel vanishes. "Whoa."
"What?" Jared was already a few steps ahead of him.
"Gone." He scans the rest of the yard, though he knows it's a pointless exercise. There's nobody there. He sags back into the railing, a little dizzy from the adrenaline spike.
"Here's what I don't get," says Jared, coming back up beside Jensen and setting his bottle on the railing. "If we are the only Sam and Dean going, why are the angels leaving us alone?"
Jensen shakes his head. "I'm not in love with that theory, man, it was just an idea."
"No, I know," says Jared, all open-faced and sincere. "I'm not trying to, like, shoot it down, I'm just-"
"I get it, it's fine," says Jensen impatiently. "We both want to figure out what's going on. So, Raphael and this other dude left us alone. Possibly because... we aren't the real Sam and Dean?"
"Castiel," says Jared, like he's just realised something. "He knew right away. The first thing he said was, 'I was afraid of this.' So-"
"So the angels can tell," Jensen finishes. "Hang on, hang on." He's almost there. "Okay, listen: in our version of all this, we get zapped off to that angelic safehouse to draw off the search so Castiel can get to the weapons. What if the real Sam and Dean got zapped off somewhere further?"
"Like to our world." Jared picks up the thread. "They came to ours and we got displaced to theirs." He looks at Jensen with dawning horror, and Jensen can only stare back.
"Shit."
The ramifications of this new discovery are coming thick and fast, and he can't quite process it all. Sam and Dean on their set. Sam and Dean in their trailers, in their homes. Sam and Dean with an angel hit man on their tail, because there's no reason to believe that part would differ from their version.
"There's going to be carnage," Jared breathes. "Like, actual, literal carnage. Jensen. What if somebody gets really hurt? What if Genevieve-"
"Hey, hey, whoa." Jensen grabs Jared by the elbow and gives him a little shake. "Don't think like that, okay? You can't think like that. We've gotta have faith in Sam and Dean, here."
"But she was Ruby! What if they, like, gank her on sight?" Jared's only getting more worked up. Jensen reaches up to grasp his shoulder firmly.
"Dude, you're panicking. Think a second. You know Sam better than anyone. Would he do that without even trying to figure out what's going on?"
Jared stills, obviously trying to get a grip. "I- no. I don't think so. But Dean-"
"Dean wouldn't either, not anymore. And if he did, Sam would stop him. Think about the next episode, man. Sam won't even let him shoot Samuel on sight." Jared is still not looking totally convinced, but he's not on the verge of hyperventilating anymore. "Just believe in them, man. They're morons sometimes, but they're not stupid. They'll figure it out. Let them handle it."
Jared lets out the last of his tension on a breath. "You're right." He nods. "They're not stupid. And they're way better equipped for this than we are, god knows."
"Attagirl." Jensen claps Jared on the arm and drains his bottle, wincing at the pull in his shoulder. "Now if we're done with the histrionics, I need another beer." He turns toward the house.
"Hey, you're not still on Tylenol, are you?" asks Jared worriedly. Jensen rolls his eyes.
"No, Mom, I took a couple of those migraine Advil when I got up. I'm set."
As they go back inside, Jensen resists the urge to do another sweep of the landscape. If any more angels are watching them, he doesn't want to know.
______
Part 2