Jared and Dean's Adventures in Monster-killin', Sam-retrievin', and Sexual Confusion (post 1/2)
Title: Jared and Dean’s Adventures in Monster-killin’, Sam-retrievin’, and Sexual Confusion
Author: ciaan
Fandom: Supernatural show/rpf crossover AU
Spoilers: through episode 2x04
Rating: worksafe
Pairings: Jared/Dean, Jared/Jensen, references to other canon couples
Summary: Jared could play along with this. He could pretend to be Sam. No problem, he did that all the time. 17,500 words.
Disclaimer: All persons, places, and events in this story are either fictional or are used fictitiously. Supernatural is owned by The CW, which is not me. This is a non-profit piece of unofficial and untrue entertainment.
Notes: Originally written for estrella30’s All CW Kink & Cliché Challenge and posted in July 2006. This is a revised and updated version of the story. If you read the earlier version, some events have been changed from that. Sequel coming soon.
Thanks: To buffyspazz and allzugern for the awesomely awesome beta comments, kinetikatrue, beckaandzac, coyotegestalt, and idiosyncrarchy for the research help, and everyone who commented on the earlier version for the reassurance and support.
Day One
Jared woke with a start. His head hurt a little and the light was dim, and he wasn’t quite sure where he was. When had he fallen asleep?
“More nightmares?”
He turned at the sound of Jensen’s voice and saw him sitting on the other ratty motel room bed, sharpening a knife. “No. Just…”
Wait. Were they on set? Those were Dean’s clothes, those were Dean’s motions, that was Dean’s low pitch and Dean’s hard expression, shading toward concern - but why didn’t it look right? What were his lines? Shit, had he fallen asleep during a take? Why didn’t they cut? He glanced over at the director, but no one was there. The room had four solid walls, covered in peeling, dingy paper. There were no cameras. The only other person in the room was Jensen. No, Dean.
Dean.
“You okay, Sam?” That was Dean’s worried tone, and when Jared looked back at him, he could see the softening in his eyes, the stillness and then the twitch that meant he was about to get up and check on his brother.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I… I gotta piss,” Jared said, temporizing.
He’d been in his trailer before, so clearly he’d fallen asleep and this was a dream. Okay, he could play along with this. He could pretend to be Sam, no problem, he did that all the time. Jared stood up, smoothing a hand over his t-shirt, realizing he was wearing just that and boxers, and stumbled into the little bathroom, ignoring the mold along the corners of the walls.
Grabbing the edge of the counter, Jared stared into the mirror.
That wasn’t him.
It looked a lot like him, but it wasn’t him. The hair was shorter, brushed back from his eyes. The mole on his cheek was gone, replaced by an almost invisible white line of scarring. His eyes were darker, solid brown, and they stared out at him wildly from the reflection. Everything was just a tiny bit off, and something in the line of the jaw and nose echoed… Dean’s face.
Jared dropped his head, and that brought his gaze down to his arms. The left forearm had a raised pucker of scar running down the side and over the back of his hand, bisected by the leather cords tied around his wrist. The fingernails he was staring at were bitten and ragged in a way that made Jared want to clip them right away.
He looked back up at the mirror and stared at Sam Winchester.
Well, shit.
This was one crazy dream. He’d tell Jensen all about it later, when they got a makeup touch-up; they’d laugh, and the makeup artists would laugh, because Jared was always entertaining them.
But right now, he was not going to run any cold water and splash it on his face, much as he wanted to, just in case it felt too real. Instead, he was going to go out there and talk to Dean, and then they’d kick some monster ass or something. Since this was a dream, it would be fun, no heavy emotional issues or real danger, no need to be worried.
Jared clutched the counter a moment longer, then straightened up and left the bathroom. Dean was still sitting there on the bed. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, feet bare, and he was staring down at his knife, slowly smoothing the edge of the blade back and forth across the whetstone, making a soft ‘shhhck’ noise each time. Jared stared for a minute. Dean didn’t look exactly like Jensen, either. The shape of his face was slightly more like Sam’s, and the muscles in his arms, shifting as he repeated the motion of the knife, were bigger, and his hair was a shade darker.
Dean looked up, and there were hard lines at the corners of his eyes. He didn’t smile. “Everything alright?”
Jared walked back toward the bed, noticing the duffel bag on the floor beside it. “Everything’s fine. What’s the next step?”
“Now that we know where the sucker is, we go get him. Simple.”
Yeah, real simple, only Jared didn’t know what they were fighting, since it sure didn’t sound like the resurrected dead girl story they were currently filming, and he couldn’t exactly just ask. He glanced around the room, but he didn’t see any pages of research stuck to the walls. Maybe this was some other episode, and he’d know the plot. But which point in the storyline? Maybe he should ask to go over the notes again. Or ask how Dean was feeling.
“Hey, Dean… I was just wondering… Can I…” He trailed off, unable to figure it out. “How are you holding up?”
Dean cocked his head to the side, his arms stilling. His face was blank.
Smooth, Jared, he chided himself. Real smooth. That’s Dean’s favorite question right about now, isn’t it.
“What do you mean?” Dean asked.
“You…” That wasn’t Dean putting up walls, that was Dean being honestly confused. Okay, not current. It might be back in Season 1, or some other story completely. He shook his head. “Nothing.”
Jared bent down to the duffel to pull out some pants and give himself a moment. As he was standing up, something hit him in the side, knocking his breath out and sending him careening down to the bed, and suddenly Dean was on top of him. Jared could feel his legs pinned beneath Dean’s, his arms under Dean’s chest, and the edge of the knife pressed into his throat, about to break the skin.
“You’re not my brother. What are you? What did you do to him?”
“Dean…”
“Tell me.” The knife pressed a little harder.
Jared lowered his voice to sound as soothing as possible. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just a person, a human. You won’t believe this, though.” Or maybe he would, since it was all a dream. People always believed things in dreams. Jared didn’t even try struggling.
“Where’s Sam?”
“Hopefully he’s where I… came from.”
Dean stared down at him, face cold and hard with anger. “Where’s that?”
“Are you going to take the knife off me?”
“No.” The knife pressed down a hair more and started to sting.
Jared winced. “Shit. You’re going to go bugfuck insane, the way you always do when Sam’s missing.” Dean was so predictable then, and it wasn’t good for whoever was in his way, and right now that was Jared.
Dean glared, and Jared winced again. “Stop playing with me and tell me where my brother is and who you are.”
“Um.” Jared tried for a shy smile. “Hi, Dean. I’m Jared. Jared Padalecki. I’m an actor, on a TV show you’ve… probably never heard of. Because it’s about you. Well, really it’s about me, Sam, I mean, and you’re the second character, so…”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Dean still looked ready to skin him alive, but the knife eased off just a tad, and Jared swallowed.
“…So I woke up here and I think that means Sam is in Vancouver being me while I pretend to be him, even though you’re supposed to just be fiction, and I am so having a talk with Kripke about what this all means once I wake up.” He realized he was babbling, but who cared?
“Sam’s in Vancouver? Canada? How’d you get to Iowa, then?” Dean had a thoughtful expression, like he believed at least some of it and was trying to figure out what to do next. Which didn’t look to be slitting Jared’s throat right then and there. Jared scrambled to think. Iowa? Was this Salvation? No, Dean didn’t seem desperate enough for that.
“I don’t know. But we could try calling my cell phone.” It seemed like a sensible plan, call Sam up, have him tell Dean he was okay. There was a flaw in the logic somewhere, Jared knew, but he was too distracted by the knife at his throat and Dean’s weight pinning him down to figure out what it was.
“I’d have to let you up. You might attack me.”
“Point a gun at me or something.” Normally Jared would never suggest that Dean Winchester point an actual loaded gun at him, but this wasn't normal. Dean reached his left hand behind him, and suddenly there was a gun at Jared’s temple. Then Dean was standing up, gun still pointed at Jared, dropping the knife on the other bed and transferring the gun to his right hand, left bracing his wrist.
“Sam’s phone is on the bedside table there. Move slow.”
Slow as molasses, Jared reached over and picked up the phone. He dialed his own number. It was out of service. He shook his head, and Dean’s eyes narrowed. Then Jared dialed Jensen’s number. No answer, not even voice mail. Kripke’s number, also out of service. Sandy’s number, and that was Bob and Lisa’s house, leave a message after the tone and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Have a good day, and remember, Jesus loves you.
Jared looked back up at Dean, shoulders slumping. “I think I don’t exist here. Which means Sam’s… a little too far away to drive. Or even fly.”
“So let me get this straight. You’re from some sort of alternate reality, where me and Sam are a TV show, and you’re an actor who plays Sam, and now suddenly the two of you have switched places, but you don’t know how or what you did or how to do it again. Is that right?”
Jared stared at Dean incredulously. “How did you… wait, what?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “I’ve seen science fiction movies before. Did you think I was an idiot?” As Jared started to open his mouth, Dean held out his left hand. “Don’t answer that.”
“Okay, but you’re actually wrong. This is a dream.”
Dean barked with laughter. “No, it’s not. I can cut you up some if you want me to prove that.” He tossed the gun down beside the knife and sat down, staring at Jared. “This is a little different from what I normally deal with.”
“Yeah.”
“And Sam’s safe enough in your Vancouver?”
Jared nodded. “No monsters, no psychos, nobody ought to be trying to kill him. That doesn’t happen to me.”
“Right.” Dean folded his arms across his chest, and Jared noticed the scars circling his right bicep, parallel pale lines. His arms were really strong, and his hands were calloused and tough. Jared focused on them. “So I need to go finish this job and get those kids out, then figure a way to get Sam back.”
“What’s the job?”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re staying here.”
“Don’t you want to keep an eye on me?” The job could very well be dangerous, but Jared didn’t want to be left behind. He wanted to at least watch. He was here, he should take his chance to experience this fully.
Dean stared at him, then shook his head briefly. Jared tried the big puppy dog eyes that always worked on Dean when Sam used them. Dean stared for a moment more, silent, and Jared was about to give up. Finally, Dean sighed. “I guess so. But you’ll have to stay out of the way. You don’t know how to handle yourself, and I don’t want you getting hurt.”
That was good. That meant Dean didn’t think Jared was really a monster. Jared picked up the fallen pair of jeans and slipped them on. As he was doing so, he noticed a set of pockmarks across Sam’s right knee, patterned as if something acidic had splattered on him and burned away the skin. He threw on a hoodie and shoes as Dean put on a black leather jacket and boots, gathered up his weapons, and handed Sam’s cell and the laptop to Jared.
Jared followed Dean out the door. The weather was spring-like, but there was a cool breeze, and Jared was glad of the hoodie. The first thing he saw was the Impala, gleaming black in the rays of the sunset. Jared smiled at the sight. Dean stashed the weapons in the trunk while Jared waited, and then he got in and unlocked the doors. Jared smushed himself in, folding his legs up. This was a sweet car, but he hated the size of the seats.
Dean put his hand on the stick and threw the car into reverse, then flipped on the stereo. Blue Oyster Cult blasted out of the speakers. He glanced over at Jared. “You gonna complain about the music?”
“Nah, I like it.” They drove for a few minutes without talking, then Jared had to ask. “What are we hunting? Is it a ghost?”
Dean’s mouth twisted. Jared thought he would complain about the ‘we’, but he didn’t. “Not a ghost. Something that used to be a person, before it went too far. Now it’s just a predator.”
“Kinda like a wendigo?”
“Yeah, kinda. It goes after little kids.“ His voice was tight when he said that, and Jared nodded. He got it. He couldn’t think of anything that had targeted kids other than the shtriga, though, and it clearly wasn’t that. Dean turned a corner too sharply, his shoulders tense. “So you and Sam switched places.”
“Well, our minds did. This is definitely his body, though. We look similar, but not quite identical, and I certainly don’t have all his scars.”
“Yeah, you probably wouldn’t. You don’t sound quite like him, either. Got a bit of an accent.” Before Jared could reply to that, they screeched to a stop in front of a ramshackle house. “We’re here.”
Jared got out and went around to the back to watch Dean pop the weapons compartment in the trunk. It was full of haphazard piles of guns and sheathed blades, with a few other blades strapped to the top. Garlic and a rosary hung from the corners of the lid. Dean pulled out two odd tazer-like devices and handed one to Jared.
“I want you to stay as out of the way as possible, but if it jumps you, zap the fucker with this.”
Jared stared down at it. He’d seen this before, but... no, couldn’t be. He tried to tell himself that if Dean owned these, he must have multiple uses for them, but he was really starting to worry.
He followed Dean inside. The door was unlocked, so they just walked right on in. Partway down the hall they could hear scrabbling and kids crying behind another door. Dean gestured to Jared to open it, while he covered both the door and the hall with his deliberate gaze. Jared pulled the door open to reveal a closet, and inside were a little boy and girl, hands bound. They heard a roar from deeper in the house.
“You take the kids outside. I’ll get it.”
Dean started to stalk away, and Jared reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Dean, no.” The house wasn’t identical, and it wasn’t all happening quite the same, but he knew what this story was.
“Why not, Sa- The fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“If you go after it, you’ll die.” The kids were still screaming.
Dean stared coldly at Jared. “You wouldn’t kill me off on your show. I’m too handsome.” He pulled his wrist free.
Jared shook his head. “You’ll be dying. And I won’t be able to do what it’ll take to save you, and neither will you, if you know what it is.”
Frowning, Dean glanced back along the hallway. “What, then? I’m not just letting that thing get away.”
Jared bent to untie the kids, but they scrambled away from him. Dean came over and managed to calm them down with his soothing "talking-to-kids" voice and confidence, working the ropes off. They sent the kids running outside. Dean tried to push Jared after them, but he held his ground, so Dean took the lead, and they continued down the hallway. Jared held the tazer in front of him, ready to shoot, but it was so different from all the other times, following Jensen along fake hallways with guns full of blanks, stalking a stick with a rubber ball on it. It was different from shooting bottles out on someone’s ranch, or going game hunting. His heart was pounding, and he could hardly focus on Dean’s back, let alone any danger there might be.
Which was probably why the thing was able to come up behind him, and he only noticed when its claws sunk into his shoulder and it roared right in his ear, echoing his own scream.
Dean was there then, pulling him free, and Jared slammed into the wall. He blinked, saw the thing swiping at Dean’s stomach, Dean grappling at its neck.
“Shoot it, Jared!”
“Not while you’re right there!” Jared wasn’t going to risk zapping Dean, no way, no how. Dean twisted, got a booted foot up, shoved the thing just a foot away. Jared shot. He watched in shock as the tazer leapt across the hall at the monster, trailing its wire, and electrical jolts ran over its scabby, nasty body until it fell to the floor. Dean and Jared stared at each other, leaning against opposite walls, panting, until Dean walked over and kicked the creature’s body, flipping it over. It didn’t respond.
“Damn straight,” he muttered.
“Oh, fuck.” Jared slumped down to the floor. “Fuck.” He’d saved Dean’s life, but he’d totally screwed up the plot, and only halfway through the first season, no less. Now what would happen?
“Hey, hey.” Dean was right in front of him, hands on his shoulders, leaning in, expression worried. Jared pulled away as Dean’s hand came down where the thing had clawed, making it burn. Dean grimaced and slid his hands down Jared’s upper arms, squeezing. “You still with me?” He leaned in closer, and Jared saw that it had gotten him across the mouth, blood dripping down over his lips. His face was so close, blurring, looking more like Jensen, and Jared reached out and ran a thumb over his lower lip, wiping away the red stain, leaning in himself, opening his mouth to kiss-
“Jesus Christ.” Dean pulled back. “You’re my brother.”
Jared blinked. What the hell? “I’m not your brother.”
“You’re in his body, so don’t invite me to be.” He sat back, letting go of Jared’s arms. Jared just stared at him stupidly, feeling lightheaded. “That what you do with the guy who plays me?”
Jared nodded, throat tightening. This was all getting too confusing, and it wasn’t fair of Dean to make him think about this stuff.
“What’s his name?”
“Jensen.” He wondered what Jensen and Sam were doing just then.
“Well, no wonder, with a pansy-ass name like that.”
Jared blinked again. “Wow, you really are a jerk.”
Dean didn’t say anything, just stood up and grabbed Jared’s uninjured arm, yanking him up as well. He stomped down the hallway, leaving Jared pretty much no choice but to follow him. They drove back to the motel slowly, Dean’s face shuttered. Still, Jared could tell he was really hurt, the way he hunched a little, turned the wheel gingerly, took every corner gently, had blood soaking his shirt. The kids had disappeared, hopefully run back home, and the fact that Dean hadn’t even tried to look for them emphasized how completely upset he was. Shit shit shit shit, Jared kept repeating to himself the whole way back.
It was dark when they pulled up in front of the motel. Dean gathered up his laptop and some stuff from the trunk, locked the car, and went into the motel room, Jared trailing dejectedly after him. He’d really messed things up. A lot.
He slumped down on his bed. Dean opened a battered metal tackle box and walked over, dumping it down next to Jared. “Let me see where it got you.”
Jared looked up at him, uncertain. Dean waved a hand in front of his eyes. “Hey, Jared. Snap out of it, man.” Jared batted the hand away. Dean continued talking, as slowly as he had to the frightened kids, but instead of the reassuring tone there was annoyance in his voice. “Just take off the shirt so I can clean up those claw punctures, okay?”
Jared sighed. “Dean, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He trailed off, not quite sure how to say anything without making it worse.
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”
“Right.” Jared pulled the shirt off over his head.
Dean grabbed a bottle from the tackle box. “Holy water. This shouldn’t sting.” He poured some over Jared’s shoulder, and Dean was right, it didn’t sting, nor was it cold, just wet. It dripped down on the bed, getting into the blanket. Dean wiped at Jared's shoulder with the shirt, then grabbed another bottle. “Whisky. This’ll sting.”
“Whisky? Haven’t you ever heard of rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide?”
Dean shrugged. “Ran out of that drugstore shit.” He dumped a bunch of whisky on the cuts, swiping the shirt over them again. It did sting, and Jared flinched, rolling his head back. Dean pressed the cloth down for a minute, then he was pulling off his own shirt and flopping onto the bed next to Jared. Jared turned toward him.
“Holy fuck.”
Dean had wiped the blood from his mouth long ago, but the wounds on his stomach were red and brown, the blood dried but not yet scabbed, broken open and bleeding again from the force of his fall to the bed.
“It’s not that bad.”
The white lines of older scars were visible curving around his side, over his heart, in addition to the ones Jared had noticed earlier around his bicep. Another line, raised and bumpy, traced over his left hipbone and disappeared under his jeans.
“What do I do?”
“Same as I just did to you.”
So Jared poured the holy water and then the whisky over Dean’s stomach and all over the bed - his bed, he thought, somewhere in the back of his mind. Dean kept his eyes closed, mouth pressed shut, but his face went just a little white when Jared started wiping away blood and water and alcohol with Dean’s shirt. In the end he had to use Sam’s shirt, too, which wasn’t very hygienic, since it was already covered in someone else’s blood - but Jared didn’t think Dean would mind, as it was Sam’s blood.
Dean lay still when Jared was done, and Jared started to wonder if he was going to fall asleep. He kept examining Dean. It was creepy how much he looked like Jensen, but totally distinct, much more so than the difference between Jensen-as-himself and Jensen-in-character. Even with his eyes closed and stomach covered in cuts, he looked completely wary, on edge, ready to leap up and into the fray at the slightest provocation. Jensen would be more relaxed and indolent.
Eventually Dean stood up and disappeared into the bathroom without a word, taking a roll of bandages with him. Jared tossed the bloody t-shirts over into the only corner that had nothing else strewn in it and dumped the sopping blanket on top of them. Luckily, most of the mess had soaked into the top blanket, so the bottom blanket and the sheets were only a little wet. The mattress seemed fine.
When Dean came out, he stalked to the far side of his bed, hands on his hips, midriff swaddled in white cloth, glaring at Jared. Jared stared back at him, and Dean’s eyebrows slowly lifted.
It was hard to tell exactly which part of this little situation had him looking like that, so Jared figured he’d just ask. “What’s bothering you so much?”
“I wouldn’t mind a guy ogling my ass, if it weren’t my brother.”
“I’m not your brother. You said so yourself.”
“Now you’re just reminding me that you’re the one who made him go missing.”
Jared flung out his arms in exasperation. “I didn’t exactly ask to be here. I’d much rather be living my own life, with my girlfriend, and my friends and family, and my job. The hours may be just as bad as yours, but at least the pay’s better.”
“Then go the fuck back there.”
“I can’t. And dude, if I weren’t here, you’d have been electrocuted, and you’d be sitting in a hospital right now, dying of heart failure, leaving Sam desperate.”
That got a response, and suddenly Dean was up in his face again. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know anything,” he growled.
Jared leaned in, yelling back. He wasn’t going to give in to Dean, and Sam’s voice could growl just as well. “I know that you used to crawl into baby Sammy’s crib to sleep with him. When he got attacked by the shtriga, you thought your dad blamed you, and you blamed yourself, and you’ve followed orders ever since. You told Cassie the truth because you needed someone to care for, but she dumped you, and then even Dad left, without a word to you until-”
Dean’s eyes blazed with rage, and he slammed Jared back against the wall, hands around his upper arms again. “Shut. Up.” Jared was actually surprised he’d gotten as far as he had before Dean did anything like that.
“Oh, yeah, that’s something else you do. You get angry to cover the pain.”
Dean’s hand came up, drawing back to punch him.
“Go on, give your brother a black eye to come home to.”
The grin was cold and sharp. “He’ll understand.”
Shaking his head, Jared refused to back down. Dean’s anger was just pissing him off even more, and he really felt he could keep on like this forever. “No, he won’t. You two never understand each other. All the same things happen to you, and you never see them the same.”
“And you think because some guy wrote a TV show, you know all about me and my family? You’re just some idiot who can’t do anything real.” Dean was shaking, but he dropped his fist and pressed his hand against Jared’s chest, holding him there to the wall. Jared’s back hurt now, too. He could see the creeping emptiness in Dean’s eyes, the same emptiness Sam never noticed until it was almost too late.
“I know you’d do anything for them, including put up with me.”
Dean turned away, touching his fingers to his temples, wiping his palm down over his face. “Just stop trying to pull that psychoanalysis bullshit, okay?”
Quotes from previous episodes kept flashing through Jared’s head, and he could hear Jensen’s voice murmuring, “fucking fixated when he gets like this.” He nodded, but Dean wasn’t looking at him anymore, was gazing off at the peeling wallpaper on the other side of the room instead. Jared pushed past him into the bathroom, staring at Sam’s face in the mirror, finally splashing that cold water all over. At least Sam’s skin didn’t seem as dry as Jared’s. When he used the toilet he really tried not to think of it as someone else’s piss coming out. He also tried not to think about it while he brushed his teeth with what he figured was Sam’s toothbrush, the one with the shaped bristles and ergonomic handle, rather than the cheapest plain one that anyone could possibly get laying beside it. Sam clearly didn’t get his teeth bleached as regularly as Jared did. He checked his back for bruises, but it was too soon to tell, and all he could see were more scars. How had Sam explained all of those to Jess? What sorts of crazy stories about dirt bikes and neighbors’ dogs and wacky dares from his older brother did he make up to fool her, trying to turn them true if he repeated them enough?
Jared closed his eyes for a minute. There were really dead women in this world, and killer demons on the loose.
When he finally went back out, Dean was in bed, buried under the blankets, back turned to him. Jared stripped off the stained jeans and crawled into his own damp bed, turning out the lights. It had been around lunch when he woke up here, and he was still hungry, but he was tired, too, and there didn’t seem to be anything else worth doing. He thought about his dogs, wanted them there to help him sleep.
Eventually he rolled over. “Dean?”
There was a low mumble from the dark.
“Do you snore?”
“You’ll find out.” The teasing humor rang clear through Dean’s voice, the vicious anger gone.
Jared smiled and punched his pillow back into shape, snuggling deeper and feeling a little better, though he still fell asleep wanting his dogs.
Day Two
When Jared awoke, Dean was sitting at the little table reading a newspaper, coffee and a bunch of muffins strewn in front of him. When Jared asked, Dean said that the motel had a breakfast bar in the lobby. Jared would have called that a fucking miracle, but given the state of the room, he wasn’t sure how much he trusted the food. Dean seemed happy enough to chow down on it, though, so after Jared showered, dressed, shaved Sam’s similarly-enough shaped chin, and clipped all Sam’s fingernails and toenails, he gave it a try. Dean had also brought him a black coffee and a couple packets of sugar and creamer. Even though it was getting cold, Jared thought that was really considerate.
Dean seemed very serious and focused as he read through a stack of newspapers and magazines, occasionally tearing things out and laying them in a separate pile on the floor. He was wearing a black long-sleeved t-shirt, worn jeans, and mismatched socks, grey and blue. Jared noticed that the ring on his left thumb was bronze, matching the amulet around his neck.
Jared spent the next few hours surfing the net. He couldn’t find any mentions of himself, Jensen, Sandy, or Kripke. Either they didn’t exist, or they were doing totally different stuff with their lives and didn’t show up online. Supernatural didn’t exist, of course, but Gilmore Girls did, as well as Days Of Our Lives, even fucking Smallville, with Tom and Mike and the rest. He found a picture of Elisha and Paris and Chad from House Of Wax, Chad’s arms flung laughingly around some guy Jared had never seen or heard of. Some totally other guy he’d also never seen or heard of had played Dean Forrester on GG, but the rest of the actors were the same, and it had the same plot and schedule on The good ol’ WB.
Dean kept flipping through his papers until the whole pile was finished, and then he took the laptop from Jared and started checking things online. Jared leafed through a couple of the papers, and the news all seemed pretty standard for last year. He didn’t look at Dean’s special pile.
It was boring. Really boring.
He sighed, leaning his chair back on two legs, smacking a paper down. Dean didn’t respond. Jared stared at him, counting the faint freckles on the bridge of his nose, until Dean looked up.
“Looking for a new job?” Jared asked.
“I’m reading up on reports of people switching bodies, being transported to alternate universes, that sort of stuff. A lot of it just sounds like all that alien abduction crap, but there’s a few things that could be real. I’ve checked Dad’s journal, but he doesn’t have any mention of this sort of thing.”
Jared gestured to the pile of clippings. “That’s what all those are?”
“No. Those are possible future jobs.”
“Are you as bored as I am?”
“If you’re bored, try doing something useful.”
“I did. I ascertained that I almost certainly don’t exist in this world.”
Dean snorted. “Ascertained. Right. Then tell me what you were doing just before you came here.”
“I was on break, playing PSP in my trailer, and I think I fell asleep. I don’t know. It’s a little fuzzy.”
“Did anything weird happen that day?” Dean leaned forward, propping his chin on a fist.
“Not, like, supernatural-type weird. I mean, Sadie, she’s one of my dogs, was whining in the morning, and Tamara, our guest star, was a little flaky, but…”
“Animals can sense things people can’t. Maybe the dog picked up on stuff. Did anything happen the day before?”
Jared shook his head. “No. I really doubt it was me. I bet it was you guys. Did anything happen here? What were you doing?”
Dean nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve been trying to figure that out. We took out this ghost in Des Moines that was strangling red-headed chicks, then we drove out here based on all the missing kids. Sam thought it was probably just an ordinary pedophile,” and Jared could almost see the contemptuous air quotes around the word ‘ordinary’ even though Dean didn’t make them, “but then we saw the claw markings on the house. The thing wasn’t home, so we came back here to look it up, figured out about the electricity, and Sam conked out. He’s been having more nightmares again recently, and he wouldn’t talk about them, so I let him sleep. Then you were there.”
“Maybe his dreams had something to do with this. No, wait, that doesn’t make sense, because it didn’t happen on the show. So you couldn’t… I wonder if I have psychic powers, now.”
Looking up through his lashes, Dean frowned at Jared. “We’re not some scripted fantasy. We get to make choices. I’m as real as you are.”
“Yeah, but… How are you a TV show? Did you already exist, and if you did, then how’d Kripke know about you, and how much of his story is true? Or maybe you were created by him thinking about you, but then how can you be different from the show in these ways? What else is out there?”
Dean held up a hand in Jared’s face. “No. We’re not having this discussion.”
“It could be useful.” Jared brushed the hair off of his forehead. “I know you don’t believe in God, but you’ve seen enough stuff that you have to admit you don’t know everything, and I guess I don’t, either.”
Dean stared back. “Did you believe in ghosts? Monsters that eat people at night? Really believe?”
“No. Not really, although sometimes I thought maybe.”
“Maybe they aren’t real in your world. Maybe there you’re right. Here, I know stuff’s out there, dangerous stuff. Not every story is real, though. Vampires, the tooth fairy, things like that, some of them are just made up.”
Jared started to open his mouth, then shut it. He didn’t think it was a good idea to tell Dean the future, the truth, even though he’d already changed things by being here. “Not every story is real,” and he thought of the tulpa, “but yours is.”
“Could be you’re the story. Maybe someone out there is writing about you.”
Jared laughed. “Could be.” Dean wasn’t really as anti-intellectual as he pretended, although he preferred to turn his smarts to pragmatic things. Now, abstract discussions of the nature of reality, more Sam’s bag of chips, had suddenly become pragmatic. “But you really can’t think of anything you’ve done or seen lately that might’ve caused this?”
“Nope.”
“Any weird symbols you’ve run into?”
A curious glance, but Dean shook his head.
“Well, that’s…”
“…Pretty useless, yeah.”
Eventually they got take-out from the Chinese place across the street for lunch. Dean grimaced and refused to try any of the sesame tofu Jared ordered, and he hoarded most of the General Tso’s chicken. Afterward, he made Jared read all the info he’d bookmarked online, to see if any of it sounded familiar. Jared watched Dean do push-ups and lunges, glancing over between paragraphs, and just barely managed to talk him out of sit-ups. He didn’t want the scabs on Dean’s stomach breaking open again.
None of the articles and memoirs were helpful. They were all about people ending up in fanciful fairytale worlds or becoming their cats for a day, or something else weird. He figured most of them were just crazies or attention-seekers, and even if they were real, the people never explained why it happened or how to fix it. They all seemed to come back to themselves at some point as randomly as they had left. Jared didn’t want to just sit around and wait for this to be over. There had to be something to do about it.
He kept reading and reading, and then suddenly the screen was gone and he was staring at Dean’s arm. Dean had pushed the laptop shut. “You’re going to drive me crazy. Remember to blink sometime.” Dean smacked his shoulder. “Let’s go out.”
Jared looked up, blinking a lot on purpose. “Getting Sam back? Doing something useful? One track mind? Whatever happened to that?”
“Sam’s living the movie star life in exotic Canada. You and I are going out for beer and steak, because I've had it with this damn room. Besides, you’re clearly finding all that junk as helpful as an icemaker in Antarctica.”
“Okay. Right.”
“Just let me shower first.”
While Dean was showering, Jared searched through the rest of Sam’s duffel bag. There were some clothes, which he’d pawed through a bit in the morning, and a couple of books, and a few weapons. Then he pulled out Sam’s wallet, which he hadn’t looked in before, and opened it up. A bunch of credit cards in various names, a bit of cash, a couple fake IDs, one maybe-real one in the name of Sam Winchester, and behind all the rest, a picture that must be of Jess. She was blonde and pretty, with a playful smile, and she didn’t actually look all that much like Adrianne. There was also a picture of John, Mary, little Dean, and wee newborn baby Sammy. John and Mary didn’t look too much like Jeff and Samantha - they did look a lot more like Sam and Dean, though. Sam took after their dad, and Dean took after their mom. Jared stuffed the pictures back in their hiding place, feeling somehow dirty for spying.
Under all Sam’s neutral and dark clothes, he found one incongruous bright lime-colored t-shirt and changed into that. It made him feel a little better, more like himself and less like someone else. Less like Sam, at least.
Dean emerged from the bathroom shirtless, rubbing a towel over his hair. He’d taken the bandage off and there was another towel bunched around his waist, over his jeans, to catch the drips of watered-down blood from the cuts. Jared looked at him and frowned. Dean looked at Jared and laughed. “You’re wearing that? I got it for Sam as a joke a couple weeks ago. Didn’t realize he still had it.”
“Most of Sam’s clothes are so boring. Why’d you let your cuts open again?”
“Good camouflage, though. And I’m fine. They’re not that deep.”
“Yeah, but you have to let them heal.”
“Worrywart.”
Dean finished swiping the towel over his torso and then wrapped a new bandage around his stomach, getting Jared to fasten it when it ended in the back. He had freckles on his back, too, and a set of reddened marks on his right shoulderblade that looked like they’d been made by teeth. Jared watched the muscles bunch under the clean skin around his left shoulderblade as he shrugged to adjust the bandage. The skin on the small of his back had been unmarked as well. Apparently very few things got Dean from behind.
Jared wanted to reach out and touch, but he didn’t do it. Dean shrugged on a dark grey shirt and his black leather jacket, Jared put on Sam’s brown jacket, and out they went, to a bar and grill just down the street. It was Wednesday, and early, so the place was pretty empty. Their waitress was blonde and buxom and perky, and Dean flirted shamelessly with her while she led them to a little corner table in the restaurant section. She grinned back at him when he said stupid stuff, and Jared could tell she was angling for a big tip.
The place was more run-down than down-home, with red-and-white check plastic table clothes and neon signs for various alcohol brands covering the wooden walls. The waitress, Linda, left to get them a pitcher of beer, and Jared started reading the menu. She came back a few minutes later. Dean ordered a ribeye, and so did Jared. Once she’d cleared out Dean leaned back, sipping his beer.
“So spill.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“You know my life story. Tell me yours.”
Jared took a long gulp. “I’m from Texas. Raised in San Antonio. Got two parents, an older brother, and a younger sister. Took drama classes. Used to swim. Worked on a ranch a bit. Won this contest, got to be on TV, got a job in a show. Did some movies, met my girlfriend, been with her two and a half years. Got cast as Sam on Supernatural. Went to Vancouver for that. Ended up here. Miss my dogs.” He shrugged. “It’s been pretty good. I’m happy.”
Dean nodded absently, spinning his glass, tracing patterns in the condensation with his fingers. “Girlfriend? What about…”
Grinning, Jared nodded back. “Yeah, we have an agreement. Sandy’s the best.”
Dean snorted. “An agreement. Uh huh. She an actress?”
“Yup.”
“She hot?”
Jared rolled his eyes. “Is that a stupid question?” He waved his glass in the air, then held it like a microphone, speaking in a high pitch. “Jared, tell us, is your girlfriend hot?” Then he leaned to the side a bit, rearranging the glass, speaking lower. “Uh, no, my girlfriend is ugly. Isn’t that why I’m dating her?”
Dean laughed. “Okay, man, it’s a stupid question. Let me rephrase it. How hot is she?”
“She was on the cover of Maxim.” Jared hadn’t actually liked that shoot much, too much spit and polish and Photoshop shine covering up Sandy’s real beauty, but it impressed all his friends from home, and he felt like giving Dean a thing or two to think about.
Dean whistled. “Good for you, big boy. I guess being an actor has its advantages. Hey, how much money do you make?”
“You tell me. You’re the hotshot producer.”
“Oh, come on. They all know that’s just a line.”
Jared finished his first glass of beer and poured a second, topping Dean off as well. “Well, we all know it’s not your personality that gets you laid.”
“I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about.”
The waitress arrived with their food just then, and Dean patted her wrist as she set his plate down.
“Hey, sugar, which of us do you think gets more action?” He gestured back and forth between himself and Jared, leering.
She smiled diplomatically. “I’m sure you both get plenty.” With that she scampered back to work, waving back over her shoulder with an, “Enjoy your dinner, now.”
“I rest my case,” Jared said, raising his glass in a toast.
“Which case? You didn’t prove anything.”
“You scared her away.”
“She’ll be back.”
“She’s the waitress. She has to come back.”
“Just my type of woman, then.” Dean took a huge bite of his steak, chewing it roughly, cheeks bulging. Jared cracked up, dropping his head to the table. It was just skeezy, and the worst part was, Dean could pull it off. Jared could sit here and laugh over how unsuave he was, but in a few minutes he’d be back to examining Dean’s face again, transfixed by his lips and eyes. He’d been doing it all day whenever he didn’t think Dean would notice.
He got himself under control and looked up. Dean was staring at him with a goofy grin, expression gone soft.
“What?”
“I just…” Dean ducked his head briefly. “I like seeing you laugh. You know, because.”
“I know.” Yeah, it was probably a damn good thing Dean was so straight. Thinking about how hot he was made Jared feel guilty, like he was perving on Jensen’s brother or something. But really, it was Sam’s brother he was perving on. That would just be so messed up. He tried a bite of his steak, and it was actually really good. They ate in silence for a few minutes. Jared thought his baked potato was a little dry, but the salad was fresh and actually green.
Dean poured another round of beer. “So if you know so much, when’d I lose my virginity?”
“We haven’t said. Jensen thinks sixteen.”
“Nope, fifteen. You?”
“Seventeen.” He didn’t feel any compunction saying that. Most people he’d just met, he wouldn’t be answering as comfortably.
“How’d I get the Impala?”
“Your dad had her all your life. He gave her to you after… Sam left.”
Dean shook his head. “No way. I bought that car myself. She was in bad shape, got her pretty cheap, but still used up a lot of my hard-earned money. Dad helped me fix her, though.”
“Huh.” Jared leaned back in his seat. “Weird. But the car is one of the things that’s different.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mostly it’s little things. In the show, your jacket’s brown leather, and your ring is silver. And we’ve got stickers all over your laptop, band logos and shit.”
“Used to do that with my old one, before the mutant bear ate it.”
Jared raised his eyebrows. “That’d go over in sweeps. Or not. And the monster’s house yesterday, that was similar, but not the same. I think our car’s supposed to be manual, but a lot of our Impalas - we’ve had a half dozen - are automatics, so we just don’t show it clearly. Some of them can’t drive for shit. The first one we used couldn’t go over thirty, and it was so loud you wouldn’t believe. We’ve got one doesn’t even have an engine, just sits on set for parked scenes.”
“My baby? That’s fucking slander.” Dean sat forward, gripping his fork like a weapon. Hyperactive reflexes, Jared thought.
“If it’s any consolation, your car purrs beautifully. And, uh, you’re more buff than Jensen.”
Clinking his fork on his plate, Dean frowned. “That just makes it worse. Tell him he needs to work out more, portray me right.”
“Oh, I will.” Jared waggled his eyebrows and leered, but Dean didn’t take the bait, he just grumbled again.
“Automatic. Engineless.”
Jared kept on talking. “Also, the people don’t all look the same. I saw a picture of Jess in Sam’s wallet, and she’s not very much like Adrianne.” He sighed, not mentioning John and Mary. “Poor Jessica. She really got a raw deal.”
“Yeah. Sam’s not exactly worth dying for.”
Jared stared at him. “You’d do it in a heartbeat.”
Dean stared back, gone all serious. “Faster. But it’s different for his girlfriend to do it.” He speared a piece of potato on his fork. “So, do we ever kill that thing?”
“I… I can’t tell you about that.” This world was different from the show, and he’d already changed things, but it still just didn’t seem appropriate to tell Dean about the future. What if that changed too many more things, ripped a hole in the space-time continuum or caused a paradox or whatever? What if that made it harder to get back? Jared just didn’t understand how this all worked. Best to be safe rather than sorry. Maybe. Best not to piss Dean off even more, too.
“Why not?”
“It just… It wouldn’t be right to say.”
“You already fucked everything up.”
“Yeah, but… I can’t, Dean. I just can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
That shut things up. After a while Dean went to the bathroom, and Jared was left picking over the last of his food until the waitress took his plate and Dean’s empty one away. Jared ordered another pitcher of beer and some water.
When Dean came back he was friendlier again. He beat Jared in four dart games and two pool games, although Jared thought he held his own and didn’t lose by too much, despite the freely flowing beer.
Dean told Jared the story of when he was stranded in Salt Lake City, and how the Mormons tried to convert him until he poured salt over them, and that was how the lake got its name. Jared ignored the fabrications and told Dean about the time in high school he’d taken a girl to sneak into his friend Bobby’s swimming pool at night, and Bobby’s parents had already snuck out for their own naked shenanigans. It had been pretty scary because Bobby’s mother was a MILF but his father was fat and bald and ugly.
Dean held forth on the proper way to make silver bullets and when to use them versus holy wrought iron ones, and Jared regaled him with the tale of Chad’s one-balled puppy in Australia. Dean thought that was hilarious and kept repeating “Nutclops” and laughing, and Jared laughed at him, because of course Dean would find that funny. When Jared teased him for actually getting a reference to ancient Greek myths, Dean started reciting a family tree of the Greek gods until Jared shut him up by waving a pool cue in his face.
Dean wanted to start a new round of pool, and Jared left him setting up the balls to stumble to the bathroom.
Jared leaned his forehead against the wall over the urinal, everything hazy and spinning lightly, trying not to keep picturing Dean bending over the pool table. The only other thing to focus on here was Sam’s dick. Jared sure hoped Sam wouldn’t mind him manhandling that, and he didn’t care if Sam did the same to his, but he really needed to not think dirty thoughts about Sam’s brother right now.
He was just going to concentrate on how this was making him so much more comfortable, and no wonder they called it relieving yourself. He seemed to piss for ages, and he still was going at it when he heard the door open behind him and someone walk in. Jared pushed himself away from the wall, making an effort to stand up straight and keep his balance, and whoever it was stepped up to the urinal right next to his.
Okay, he couldn’t deal with that. He tried to sneak a glance to the right and look at the guy, and he practically fell over when he saw it was Dean, the flow stopping in that moment. Dean seemed to ignore Jared, reaching down to his fly, and Jared turned his head away, closing his eyes, swaying on his feet when he did so. He would not look at Dean, he would not look down, he would not look at Dean, he would not.
He could hear Dean starting to piss, and he still needed to himself, even after the forever it had been, so, oh God, he did. Eventually Dean finished up and moved away, and then Jared was finally done himself.
He turned around and Dean was standing at a sink washing his hands, so Jared moseyed over to the sink next to him. “Damn. Good job there,” Dean said, bumping their shoulders companionably.
Jared mumbled something back, still too confused to even be sure himself what he’d said. He noticed how drunkenly flushed he looked in the mirror, and then he was transfixed by staring at Sam and Dean’s faces side by side. Dean’s hair was short and spiky, Sam’s longer and floppy, and their eyes were all different, Dean’s deep green and Sam’s dark brown, but their chins were the same, and Sam’s nose wasn’t quite as ski-jump pointy as Jared’s. It was so weird.
“Dude, stop with the moping.” Dean bumped his shoulder again, more aggressively this time.
“Right.” Jared finished rinsing his hands off. Dean put a hand on the small of his back and propelled him out the door and over to the bar, where he ordered a couple shots of tequila. Apparently he’d given up on pool. Jared watched Dean’s teeth flash white as he licked salt off his palm.
“So when’d I first get drunk?” Dean asked after they’d downed the shots.
“How the hell should I know?” Picking up another slice of lime, Jared squirted it onto Dean’s hand, and Dean laughed and sucked it off. He signaled the bartender for another round.
“I was twelve, and it only took about two beers. But I grew up.” He caught up his next glass, and Jared watched his throat move as he swallowed, head all the way back. His lips were shiny when he slammed the glass down on the wood. “You?”
“I was nine, at someone’s wedding. Stole a glass of champagne, ended up tripping over some ribbons and bringing down the flowered arch where the photos were being taken.” Jared did his own shot, while Dean slapped him on the knee.
“You a klutz?”
Jared laughed even more, jostling his leg against Dean’s, leaning forward on the little stool. “Last year, I spent all day filming an action scene with Jensen, like, getting thrown into tables and shit, and I was just fine. Then, that evening, I’m sitting down, and I fucking fall out of the chair trying to catch a book someone tosses to me, and sprain my hand. I’m such an idiot, too, because that was just before we got into that bar fight, and it sure didn’t help me any, so the guy actually broke my hand then.” He threw his head back, guffawing, clapping for himself, then tilted the chair over to the side, arms waving, pantomiming falling. Dean grabbed at his shoulder and grinned.
“Well, don’t do it again.”
Jared ended up telling Dean about the mudslide in Australia and the time his car flipped over in Africa, what had happened at that infamous birthday party of Alexis’ and how he’d first kissed Sandy. Dean told him about fighting ghosts all over the country, and scorpion totems in the New Mexico desert, and seeing Elvis in Nashville, and totally failing to find any evidence of Bigfoot in Oregon, and the one time he’d been to Washington DC - he’d gotten stuck in traffic and decided that the government buildings gave him the creeps. Something about people in suits and white marble, apparently.
Dean kept slapping Jared in the chest and grabbing his knees, and Jared kept throwing one arm around Dean’s shoulders and gesturing expansively with the other because that was the best way to tell drunken tales. It wasn’t really a good story unless you could swing the other person around and paint pictures for them in the air, damn it. Dean just laughed at Jared when he did that, and then he’d flick Jared’s hair away from his forehead, and Jared laughed at him for that, and then they were both collapsing on the bar, punching each other’s shoulders.
Dean was so much fun, because he kept pointing out hot women and saying crude things that made Jared stare at him in horror, and he just kept swallowing shots in smooth gulps, licking his lips and fingers afterward, and he laughed at all Jared’s jokes, every single one, and he kept asking Jared stupid questions, like when had Dean first gone to Maine, and when had he first slept with a woman over the age of thirty, and what was his favorite kind of cereal. Jared tried to answer the questions, but he got most of them wrong, and Dean would smack him again and laugh more, tell him the answer, and then make Jared give his own answer about himself. He didn’t ask anything about what Sam had done and Jared didn’t try to tell him.
He ended up telling Jared again about how he created Salt Lake while ghost hunting, only this time he poured a fuckload of salt into Jared’s shot glass and then told Jared to drink it anyway - Jared did, and it was vile, and Dean pounded him on the back. Jared leaned into Dean and almost knocked him off his stool, but he didn’t care that a lot of Dean’s stories probably weren't even true, because maybe yeah, some of Jared’s own were a little exaggerated.
Everything was glowing and blurry and the floor felt really far away, and Jared was awesomely happy, and then Dean broke off in the middle of a sentence while telling Jared about being buried in a snowbank by a troll, and he leaned in real close and whispered in Jared’s ear, and Jared leaned in himself to hear better and to smell the lime on Dean’s chin and throat.
“Are we ever going to find and kill that damn thing?”
Jared knew exactly which thing he meant. The whole room got colder as Dean sat back, moving away from him. Jared shook his head to make this new moment go away, but it didn’t, and Dean’s eyes just got harder and sharper. “I can’t tell you that,” Jared mumbled, even though he didn’t know why he couldn’t.
“Why not? Maybe you’re supposed to. Maybe that’s why you’re here, this could all be for a reason.”
“You don’t believe in those kinds of reasons.”
Dean frowned when Jared said that and stood up. “Well, fuck you, Jared, for only telling me things I already know.” He stormed out of the bar like the wrath of God, and Jared felt fittingly smote.
He paid for their tab with Robert F. Smith’s credit card, and left huge tips for the bartender and their waitress before stumbling back to the motel room.
The room was dim, the overhead light off, and only one bedside lamp on. Dean was standing by the table between the beds, reading Dad’s journal. He didn’t look up or anything when Jared came in. Jared sat down on the edge of his bed, but then he fell over backwards, sticking his arms out, letting his lower legs dangle over the side. The ceiling was made of bumpy white stucco, and it was covered in cracks and grime.
“Dean.”
There was no response at all.
“Dean.”
Dean finally looked over at him, but he didn’t say anything. His eyes were empty. Jared didn’t want Dean to be angry at him, and he really didn’t want Dean to hate him, and he really really didn’t want Dean to look like that.
“C’mere.”
Dean didn’t move.
“Dean. Come over here.”
Setting the journal down, Dean walked over and stood by Jared’s knees, looking down at him. Jared tried to lift his head, but it wouldn’t raise, and so he crooked his finger at Dean.
“Nuh uh, I ain’t falling for that.” Dean shook his head. Jared managed to reach up, and his hand flailed for a moment before catching on to Dean’s wrist. He tugged. Dean just stood there.
Jared beckoned with his free hand again, tugging Dean’s wrist really softly. Dean leaned down a little, and Jared wrapped his leg behind Dean’s knees and pulled. Dean tumbled down on him, and his hands came up and closed around Jared’s throat, while his legs pulled around and held Jared’s down, and this was pretty much how Jared had met Dean in the first place. He stretched up a bit, pressing into Dean’s hands. “It’s a demon,” he whispered. When he dropped his head Dean followed him down, ear by Jared’s lips. “A demon. And it’ll be hard, but you’ll find a way you can kill it. Not just exorcise it, kill it dead.” Jared realized then that he really wanted the demon dead, for everything it had done to all of them.
Dean’s breath hitched. “Dad?” He let go of Jared’s throat and braced his arms on the bed on each side of Jared’s head.
“You’ll see him again. Your old man does care about you.” Jared’s throat felt tight around the words, unable to say anything more than that, looking up past Dean’s face at the ceiling so he wouldn’t see any lies reflected back at him.
Dean clutched at Jared’s hair, digging his fingers in, and pulled himself higher and closer. He tucked his head down, burying his face in Jared’s neck, breathing harshly. Jared wrapped his arms around Dean’s back awkwardly, stroking his hair and shoulderblades and the nape of his neck, petting him like a puppy.
“It’s okay, Dean. It’ll all be okay.” That totally wasn’t true, but maybe it could be. It was going to get worse, much worse, but the series had to have a happy enough ending to sell, right, even though Kripke wouldn’t tell them? “We’ll get Sam back to you. It’ll be okay.” He tried to keep his voice soft and soothing, running his fingertips from Dean’s scalp down along his spine, repeating the promise of a good future.
Jared kept trailing his hands over Dean’s back, and eventually he must have fallen asleep, because he woke up some unknown time later with Dean lying half on him, half off him, and his arms tingly numb from Dean’s weight. Jared shifted, trying to pull his right arm out from under Dean before it fell off. Dean rolled a little, lifting his chin up and yawning.
“Fuck. My mouth tastes like ass.” He slumped back down on Jared’s arm. Jared yanked it harder, but he couldn’t even feel where it was exactly. Dean tried to stand up, his elbows and knees going everywhere, and he jabbed Jared hard in the side before he finally got to his feet.
“Ow. Jeez,” Jared muttered. He managed to fling his left arm over his face to shield his eyes from the light. “Bright.”
Dean switched off the bedside lamp, and Jared relaxed into the dark. There was a crash as Dean banged into the corner of the bed on his way to the bathroom, hitting his knee or stubbing his toe or something.
“Fuck. Ow. Shit. That hurts,” he whimpered.
Jared giggled. Of course Dean would be stoic about a major injury and then whine about a minor one.
“You bitch,” Dean said, and then there was a burst of light for a second before the bathroom door closed behind him.
The feeling finally returned to Jared’s arms, pins and needles receding, and the throbbing in his head became manageable. He was leaning against the wall when Dean got out of the bathroom, and Dean jostled him lightly as he walked past.
Jared pissed for ages again, brushed his teeth and washed his face, felt really glad he wasn’t wearing set makeup, and downed two cups of tap water, just in case. When he opened the door the beam of light showed Dean already in bed, breathing slow and deep and even. Jared maneuvered back to his bed in the dark, unhurt, and shucked his clothes, climbed in, and fell asleep again as soon as his head hit the pillow.
on to the rest of the story...
Author: ciaan
Fandom: Supernatural show/rpf crossover AU
Spoilers: through episode 2x04
Rating: worksafe
Pairings: Jared/Dean, Jared/Jensen, references to other canon couples
Summary: Jared could play along with this. He could pretend to be Sam. No problem, he did that all the time. 17,500 words.
Disclaimer: All persons, places, and events in this story are either fictional or are used fictitiously. Supernatural is owned by The CW, which is not me. This is a non-profit piece of unofficial and untrue entertainment.
Notes: Originally written for estrella30’s All CW Kink & Cliché Challenge and posted in July 2006. This is a revised and updated version of the story. If you read the earlier version, some events have been changed from that. Sequel coming soon.
Thanks: To buffyspazz and allzugern for the awesomely awesome beta comments, kinetikatrue, beckaandzac, coyotegestalt, and idiosyncrarchy for the research help, and everyone who commented on the earlier version for the reassurance and support.
Day One
Jared woke with a start. His head hurt a little and the light was dim, and he wasn’t quite sure where he was. When had he fallen asleep?
“More nightmares?”
He turned at the sound of Jensen’s voice and saw him sitting on the other ratty motel room bed, sharpening a knife. “No. Just…”
Wait. Were they on set? Those were Dean’s clothes, those were Dean’s motions, that was Dean’s low pitch and Dean’s hard expression, shading toward concern - but why didn’t it look right? What were his lines? Shit, had he fallen asleep during a take? Why didn’t they cut? He glanced over at the director, but no one was there. The room had four solid walls, covered in peeling, dingy paper. There were no cameras. The only other person in the room was Jensen. No, Dean.
Dean.
“You okay, Sam?” That was Dean’s worried tone, and when Jared looked back at him, he could see the softening in his eyes, the stillness and then the twitch that meant he was about to get up and check on his brother.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I… I gotta piss,” Jared said, temporizing.
He’d been in his trailer before, so clearly he’d fallen asleep and this was a dream. Okay, he could play along with this. He could pretend to be Sam, no problem, he did that all the time. Jared stood up, smoothing a hand over his t-shirt, realizing he was wearing just that and boxers, and stumbled into the little bathroom, ignoring the mold along the corners of the walls.
Grabbing the edge of the counter, Jared stared into the mirror.
That wasn’t him.
It looked a lot like him, but it wasn’t him. The hair was shorter, brushed back from his eyes. The mole on his cheek was gone, replaced by an almost invisible white line of scarring. His eyes were darker, solid brown, and they stared out at him wildly from the reflection. Everything was just a tiny bit off, and something in the line of the jaw and nose echoed… Dean’s face.
Jared dropped his head, and that brought his gaze down to his arms. The left forearm had a raised pucker of scar running down the side and over the back of his hand, bisected by the leather cords tied around his wrist. The fingernails he was staring at were bitten and ragged in a way that made Jared want to clip them right away.
He looked back up at the mirror and stared at Sam Winchester.
Well, shit.
This was one crazy dream. He’d tell Jensen all about it later, when they got a makeup touch-up; they’d laugh, and the makeup artists would laugh, because Jared was always entertaining them.
But right now, he was not going to run any cold water and splash it on his face, much as he wanted to, just in case it felt too real. Instead, he was going to go out there and talk to Dean, and then they’d kick some monster ass or something. Since this was a dream, it would be fun, no heavy emotional issues or real danger, no need to be worried.
Jared clutched the counter a moment longer, then straightened up and left the bathroom. Dean was still sitting there on the bed. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, feet bare, and he was staring down at his knife, slowly smoothing the edge of the blade back and forth across the whetstone, making a soft ‘shhhck’ noise each time. Jared stared for a minute. Dean didn’t look exactly like Jensen, either. The shape of his face was slightly more like Sam’s, and the muscles in his arms, shifting as he repeated the motion of the knife, were bigger, and his hair was a shade darker.
Dean looked up, and there were hard lines at the corners of his eyes. He didn’t smile. “Everything alright?”
Jared walked back toward the bed, noticing the duffel bag on the floor beside it. “Everything’s fine. What’s the next step?”
“Now that we know where the sucker is, we go get him. Simple.”
Yeah, real simple, only Jared didn’t know what they were fighting, since it sure didn’t sound like the resurrected dead girl story they were currently filming, and he couldn’t exactly just ask. He glanced around the room, but he didn’t see any pages of research stuck to the walls. Maybe this was some other episode, and he’d know the plot. But which point in the storyline? Maybe he should ask to go over the notes again. Or ask how Dean was feeling.
“Hey, Dean… I was just wondering… Can I…” He trailed off, unable to figure it out. “How are you holding up?”
Dean cocked his head to the side, his arms stilling. His face was blank.
Smooth, Jared, he chided himself. Real smooth. That’s Dean’s favorite question right about now, isn’t it.
“What do you mean?” Dean asked.
“You…” That wasn’t Dean putting up walls, that was Dean being honestly confused. Okay, not current. It might be back in Season 1, or some other story completely. He shook his head. “Nothing.”
Jared bent down to the duffel to pull out some pants and give himself a moment. As he was standing up, something hit him in the side, knocking his breath out and sending him careening down to the bed, and suddenly Dean was on top of him. Jared could feel his legs pinned beneath Dean’s, his arms under Dean’s chest, and the edge of the knife pressed into his throat, about to break the skin.
“You’re not my brother. What are you? What did you do to him?”
“Dean…”
“Tell me.” The knife pressed a little harder.
Jared lowered his voice to sound as soothing as possible. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just a person, a human. You won’t believe this, though.” Or maybe he would, since it was all a dream. People always believed things in dreams. Jared didn’t even try struggling.
“Where’s Sam?”
“Hopefully he’s where I… came from.”
Dean stared down at him, face cold and hard with anger. “Where’s that?”
“Are you going to take the knife off me?”
“No.” The knife pressed down a hair more and started to sting.
Jared winced. “Shit. You’re going to go bugfuck insane, the way you always do when Sam’s missing.” Dean was so predictable then, and it wasn’t good for whoever was in his way, and right now that was Jared.
Dean glared, and Jared winced again. “Stop playing with me and tell me where my brother is and who you are.”
“Um.” Jared tried for a shy smile. “Hi, Dean. I’m Jared. Jared Padalecki. I’m an actor, on a TV show you’ve… probably never heard of. Because it’s about you. Well, really it’s about me, Sam, I mean, and you’re the second character, so…”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Dean still looked ready to skin him alive, but the knife eased off just a tad, and Jared swallowed.
“…So I woke up here and I think that means Sam is in Vancouver being me while I pretend to be him, even though you’re supposed to just be fiction, and I am so having a talk with Kripke about what this all means once I wake up.” He realized he was babbling, but who cared?
“Sam’s in Vancouver? Canada? How’d you get to Iowa, then?” Dean had a thoughtful expression, like he believed at least some of it and was trying to figure out what to do next. Which didn’t look to be slitting Jared’s throat right then and there. Jared scrambled to think. Iowa? Was this Salvation? No, Dean didn’t seem desperate enough for that.
“I don’t know. But we could try calling my cell phone.” It seemed like a sensible plan, call Sam up, have him tell Dean he was okay. There was a flaw in the logic somewhere, Jared knew, but he was too distracted by the knife at his throat and Dean’s weight pinning him down to figure out what it was.
“I’d have to let you up. You might attack me.”
“Point a gun at me or something.” Normally Jared would never suggest that Dean Winchester point an actual loaded gun at him, but this wasn't normal. Dean reached his left hand behind him, and suddenly there was a gun at Jared’s temple. Then Dean was standing up, gun still pointed at Jared, dropping the knife on the other bed and transferring the gun to his right hand, left bracing his wrist.
“Sam’s phone is on the bedside table there. Move slow.”
Slow as molasses, Jared reached over and picked up the phone. He dialed his own number. It was out of service. He shook his head, and Dean’s eyes narrowed. Then Jared dialed Jensen’s number. No answer, not even voice mail. Kripke’s number, also out of service. Sandy’s number, and that was Bob and Lisa’s house, leave a message after the tone and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Have a good day, and remember, Jesus loves you.
Jared looked back up at Dean, shoulders slumping. “I think I don’t exist here. Which means Sam’s… a little too far away to drive. Or even fly.”
“So let me get this straight. You’re from some sort of alternate reality, where me and Sam are a TV show, and you’re an actor who plays Sam, and now suddenly the two of you have switched places, but you don’t know how or what you did or how to do it again. Is that right?”
Jared stared at Dean incredulously. “How did you… wait, what?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “I’ve seen science fiction movies before. Did you think I was an idiot?” As Jared started to open his mouth, Dean held out his left hand. “Don’t answer that.”
“Okay, but you’re actually wrong. This is a dream.”
Dean barked with laughter. “No, it’s not. I can cut you up some if you want me to prove that.” He tossed the gun down beside the knife and sat down, staring at Jared. “This is a little different from what I normally deal with.”
“Yeah.”
“And Sam’s safe enough in your Vancouver?”
Jared nodded. “No monsters, no psychos, nobody ought to be trying to kill him. That doesn’t happen to me.”
“Right.” Dean folded his arms across his chest, and Jared noticed the scars circling his right bicep, parallel pale lines. His arms were really strong, and his hands were calloused and tough. Jared focused on them. “So I need to go finish this job and get those kids out, then figure a way to get Sam back.”
“What’s the job?”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re staying here.”
“Don’t you want to keep an eye on me?” The job could very well be dangerous, but Jared didn’t want to be left behind. He wanted to at least watch. He was here, he should take his chance to experience this fully.
Dean stared at him, then shook his head briefly. Jared tried the big puppy dog eyes that always worked on Dean when Sam used them. Dean stared for a moment more, silent, and Jared was about to give up. Finally, Dean sighed. “I guess so. But you’ll have to stay out of the way. You don’t know how to handle yourself, and I don’t want you getting hurt.”
That was good. That meant Dean didn’t think Jared was really a monster. Jared picked up the fallen pair of jeans and slipped them on. As he was doing so, he noticed a set of pockmarks across Sam’s right knee, patterned as if something acidic had splattered on him and burned away the skin. He threw on a hoodie and shoes as Dean put on a black leather jacket and boots, gathered up his weapons, and handed Sam’s cell and the laptop to Jared.
Jared followed Dean out the door. The weather was spring-like, but there was a cool breeze, and Jared was glad of the hoodie. The first thing he saw was the Impala, gleaming black in the rays of the sunset. Jared smiled at the sight. Dean stashed the weapons in the trunk while Jared waited, and then he got in and unlocked the doors. Jared smushed himself in, folding his legs up. This was a sweet car, but he hated the size of the seats.
Dean put his hand on the stick and threw the car into reverse, then flipped on the stereo. Blue Oyster Cult blasted out of the speakers. He glanced over at Jared. “You gonna complain about the music?”
“Nah, I like it.” They drove for a few minutes without talking, then Jared had to ask. “What are we hunting? Is it a ghost?”
Dean’s mouth twisted. Jared thought he would complain about the ‘we’, but he didn’t. “Not a ghost. Something that used to be a person, before it went too far. Now it’s just a predator.”
“Kinda like a wendigo?”
“Yeah, kinda. It goes after little kids.“ His voice was tight when he said that, and Jared nodded. He got it. He couldn’t think of anything that had targeted kids other than the shtriga, though, and it clearly wasn’t that. Dean turned a corner too sharply, his shoulders tense. “So you and Sam switched places.”
“Well, our minds did. This is definitely his body, though. We look similar, but not quite identical, and I certainly don’t have all his scars.”
“Yeah, you probably wouldn’t. You don’t sound quite like him, either. Got a bit of an accent.” Before Jared could reply to that, they screeched to a stop in front of a ramshackle house. “We’re here.”
Jared got out and went around to the back to watch Dean pop the weapons compartment in the trunk. It was full of haphazard piles of guns and sheathed blades, with a few other blades strapped to the top. Garlic and a rosary hung from the corners of the lid. Dean pulled out two odd tazer-like devices and handed one to Jared.
“I want you to stay as out of the way as possible, but if it jumps you, zap the fucker with this.”
Jared stared down at it. He’d seen this before, but... no, couldn’t be. He tried to tell himself that if Dean owned these, he must have multiple uses for them, but he was really starting to worry.
He followed Dean inside. The door was unlocked, so they just walked right on in. Partway down the hall they could hear scrabbling and kids crying behind another door. Dean gestured to Jared to open it, while he covered both the door and the hall with his deliberate gaze. Jared pulled the door open to reveal a closet, and inside were a little boy and girl, hands bound. They heard a roar from deeper in the house.
“You take the kids outside. I’ll get it.”
Dean started to stalk away, and Jared reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Dean, no.” The house wasn’t identical, and it wasn’t all happening quite the same, but he knew what this story was.
“Why not, Sa- The fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“If you go after it, you’ll die.” The kids were still screaming.
Dean stared coldly at Jared. “You wouldn’t kill me off on your show. I’m too handsome.” He pulled his wrist free.
Jared shook his head. “You’ll be dying. And I won’t be able to do what it’ll take to save you, and neither will you, if you know what it is.”
Frowning, Dean glanced back along the hallway. “What, then? I’m not just letting that thing get away.”
Jared bent to untie the kids, but they scrambled away from him. Dean came over and managed to calm them down with his soothing "talking-to-kids" voice and confidence, working the ropes off. They sent the kids running outside. Dean tried to push Jared after them, but he held his ground, so Dean took the lead, and they continued down the hallway. Jared held the tazer in front of him, ready to shoot, but it was so different from all the other times, following Jensen along fake hallways with guns full of blanks, stalking a stick with a rubber ball on it. It was different from shooting bottles out on someone’s ranch, or going game hunting. His heart was pounding, and he could hardly focus on Dean’s back, let alone any danger there might be.
Which was probably why the thing was able to come up behind him, and he only noticed when its claws sunk into his shoulder and it roared right in his ear, echoing his own scream.
Dean was there then, pulling him free, and Jared slammed into the wall. He blinked, saw the thing swiping at Dean’s stomach, Dean grappling at its neck.
“Shoot it, Jared!”
“Not while you’re right there!” Jared wasn’t going to risk zapping Dean, no way, no how. Dean twisted, got a booted foot up, shoved the thing just a foot away. Jared shot. He watched in shock as the tazer leapt across the hall at the monster, trailing its wire, and electrical jolts ran over its scabby, nasty body until it fell to the floor. Dean and Jared stared at each other, leaning against opposite walls, panting, until Dean walked over and kicked the creature’s body, flipping it over. It didn’t respond.
“Damn straight,” he muttered.
“Oh, fuck.” Jared slumped down to the floor. “Fuck.” He’d saved Dean’s life, but he’d totally screwed up the plot, and only halfway through the first season, no less. Now what would happen?
“Hey, hey.” Dean was right in front of him, hands on his shoulders, leaning in, expression worried. Jared pulled away as Dean’s hand came down where the thing had clawed, making it burn. Dean grimaced and slid his hands down Jared’s upper arms, squeezing. “You still with me?” He leaned in closer, and Jared saw that it had gotten him across the mouth, blood dripping down over his lips. His face was so close, blurring, looking more like Jensen, and Jared reached out and ran a thumb over his lower lip, wiping away the red stain, leaning in himself, opening his mouth to kiss-
“Jesus Christ.” Dean pulled back. “You’re my brother.”
Jared blinked. What the hell? “I’m not your brother.”
“You’re in his body, so don’t invite me to be.” He sat back, letting go of Jared’s arms. Jared just stared at him stupidly, feeling lightheaded. “That what you do with the guy who plays me?”
Jared nodded, throat tightening. This was all getting too confusing, and it wasn’t fair of Dean to make him think about this stuff.
“What’s his name?”
“Jensen.” He wondered what Jensen and Sam were doing just then.
“Well, no wonder, with a pansy-ass name like that.”
Jared blinked again. “Wow, you really are a jerk.”
Dean didn’t say anything, just stood up and grabbed Jared’s uninjured arm, yanking him up as well. He stomped down the hallway, leaving Jared pretty much no choice but to follow him. They drove back to the motel slowly, Dean’s face shuttered. Still, Jared could tell he was really hurt, the way he hunched a little, turned the wheel gingerly, took every corner gently, had blood soaking his shirt. The kids had disappeared, hopefully run back home, and the fact that Dean hadn’t even tried to look for them emphasized how completely upset he was. Shit shit shit shit, Jared kept repeating to himself the whole way back.
It was dark when they pulled up in front of the motel. Dean gathered up his laptop and some stuff from the trunk, locked the car, and went into the motel room, Jared trailing dejectedly after him. He’d really messed things up. A lot.
He slumped down on his bed. Dean opened a battered metal tackle box and walked over, dumping it down next to Jared. “Let me see where it got you.”
Jared looked up at him, uncertain. Dean waved a hand in front of his eyes. “Hey, Jared. Snap out of it, man.” Jared batted the hand away. Dean continued talking, as slowly as he had to the frightened kids, but instead of the reassuring tone there was annoyance in his voice. “Just take off the shirt so I can clean up those claw punctures, okay?”
Jared sighed. “Dean, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He trailed off, not quite sure how to say anything without making it worse.
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”
“Right.” Jared pulled the shirt off over his head.
Dean grabbed a bottle from the tackle box. “Holy water. This shouldn’t sting.” He poured some over Jared’s shoulder, and Dean was right, it didn’t sting, nor was it cold, just wet. It dripped down on the bed, getting into the blanket. Dean wiped at Jared's shoulder with the shirt, then grabbed another bottle. “Whisky. This’ll sting.”
“Whisky? Haven’t you ever heard of rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide?”
Dean shrugged. “Ran out of that drugstore shit.” He dumped a bunch of whisky on the cuts, swiping the shirt over them again. It did sting, and Jared flinched, rolling his head back. Dean pressed the cloth down for a minute, then he was pulling off his own shirt and flopping onto the bed next to Jared. Jared turned toward him.
“Holy fuck.”
Dean had wiped the blood from his mouth long ago, but the wounds on his stomach were red and brown, the blood dried but not yet scabbed, broken open and bleeding again from the force of his fall to the bed.
“It’s not that bad.”
The white lines of older scars were visible curving around his side, over his heart, in addition to the ones Jared had noticed earlier around his bicep. Another line, raised and bumpy, traced over his left hipbone and disappeared under his jeans.
“What do I do?”
“Same as I just did to you.”
So Jared poured the holy water and then the whisky over Dean’s stomach and all over the bed - his bed, he thought, somewhere in the back of his mind. Dean kept his eyes closed, mouth pressed shut, but his face went just a little white when Jared started wiping away blood and water and alcohol with Dean’s shirt. In the end he had to use Sam’s shirt, too, which wasn’t very hygienic, since it was already covered in someone else’s blood - but Jared didn’t think Dean would mind, as it was Sam’s blood.
Dean lay still when Jared was done, and Jared started to wonder if he was going to fall asleep. He kept examining Dean. It was creepy how much he looked like Jensen, but totally distinct, much more so than the difference between Jensen-as-himself and Jensen-in-character. Even with his eyes closed and stomach covered in cuts, he looked completely wary, on edge, ready to leap up and into the fray at the slightest provocation. Jensen would be more relaxed and indolent.
Eventually Dean stood up and disappeared into the bathroom without a word, taking a roll of bandages with him. Jared tossed the bloody t-shirts over into the only corner that had nothing else strewn in it and dumped the sopping blanket on top of them. Luckily, most of the mess had soaked into the top blanket, so the bottom blanket and the sheets were only a little wet. The mattress seemed fine.
When Dean came out, he stalked to the far side of his bed, hands on his hips, midriff swaddled in white cloth, glaring at Jared. Jared stared back at him, and Dean’s eyebrows slowly lifted.
It was hard to tell exactly which part of this little situation had him looking like that, so Jared figured he’d just ask. “What’s bothering you so much?”
“I wouldn’t mind a guy ogling my ass, if it weren’t my brother.”
“I’m not your brother. You said so yourself.”
“Now you’re just reminding me that you’re the one who made him go missing.”
Jared flung out his arms in exasperation. “I didn’t exactly ask to be here. I’d much rather be living my own life, with my girlfriend, and my friends and family, and my job. The hours may be just as bad as yours, but at least the pay’s better.”
“Then go the fuck back there.”
“I can’t. And dude, if I weren’t here, you’d have been electrocuted, and you’d be sitting in a hospital right now, dying of heart failure, leaving Sam desperate.”
That got a response, and suddenly Dean was up in his face again. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know anything,” he growled.
Jared leaned in, yelling back. He wasn’t going to give in to Dean, and Sam’s voice could growl just as well. “I know that you used to crawl into baby Sammy’s crib to sleep with him. When he got attacked by the shtriga, you thought your dad blamed you, and you blamed yourself, and you’ve followed orders ever since. You told Cassie the truth because you needed someone to care for, but she dumped you, and then even Dad left, without a word to you until-”
Dean’s eyes blazed with rage, and he slammed Jared back against the wall, hands around his upper arms again. “Shut. Up.” Jared was actually surprised he’d gotten as far as he had before Dean did anything like that.
“Oh, yeah, that’s something else you do. You get angry to cover the pain.”
Dean’s hand came up, drawing back to punch him.
“Go on, give your brother a black eye to come home to.”
The grin was cold and sharp. “He’ll understand.”
Shaking his head, Jared refused to back down. Dean’s anger was just pissing him off even more, and he really felt he could keep on like this forever. “No, he won’t. You two never understand each other. All the same things happen to you, and you never see them the same.”
“And you think because some guy wrote a TV show, you know all about me and my family? You’re just some idiot who can’t do anything real.” Dean was shaking, but he dropped his fist and pressed his hand against Jared’s chest, holding him there to the wall. Jared’s back hurt now, too. He could see the creeping emptiness in Dean’s eyes, the same emptiness Sam never noticed until it was almost too late.
“I know you’d do anything for them, including put up with me.”
Dean turned away, touching his fingers to his temples, wiping his palm down over his face. “Just stop trying to pull that psychoanalysis bullshit, okay?”
Quotes from previous episodes kept flashing through Jared’s head, and he could hear Jensen’s voice murmuring, “fucking fixated when he gets like this.” He nodded, but Dean wasn’t looking at him anymore, was gazing off at the peeling wallpaper on the other side of the room instead. Jared pushed past him into the bathroom, staring at Sam’s face in the mirror, finally splashing that cold water all over. At least Sam’s skin didn’t seem as dry as Jared’s. When he used the toilet he really tried not to think of it as someone else’s piss coming out. He also tried not to think about it while he brushed his teeth with what he figured was Sam’s toothbrush, the one with the shaped bristles and ergonomic handle, rather than the cheapest plain one that anyone could possibly get laying beside it. Sam clearly didn’t get his teeth bleached as regularly as Jared did. He checked his back for bruises, but it was too soon to tell, and all he could see were more scars. How had Sam explained all of those to Jess? What sorts of crazy stories about dirt bikes and neighbors’ dogs and wacky dares from his older brother did he make up to fool her, trying to turn them true if he repeated them enough?
Jared closed his eyes for a minute. There were really dead women in this world, and killer demons on the loose.
When he finally went back out, Dean was in bed, buried under the blankets, back turned to him. Jared stripped off the stained jeans and crawled into his own damp bed, turning out the lights. It had been around lunch when he woke up here, and he was still hungry, but he was tired, too, and there didn’t seem to be anything else worth doing. He thought about his dogs, wanted them there to help him sleep.
Eventually he rolled over. “Dean?”
There was a low mumble from the dark.
“Do you snore?”
“You’ll find out.” The teasing humor rang clear through Dean’s voice, the vicious anger gone.
Jared smiled and punched his pillow back into shape, snuggling deeper and feeling a little better, though he still fell asleep wanting his dogs.
Day Two
When Jared awoke, Dean was sitting at the little table reading a newspaper, coffee and a bunch of muffins strewn in front of him. When Jared asked, Dean said that the motel had a breakfast bar in the lobby. Jared would have called that a fucking miracle, but given the state of the room, he wasn’t sure how much he trusted the food. Dean seemed happy enough to chow down on it, though, so after Jared showered, dressed, shaved Sam’s similarly-enough shaped chin, and clipped all Sam’s fingernails and toenails, he gave it a try. Dean had also brought him a black coffee and a couple packets of sugar and creamer. Even though it was getting cold, Jared thought that was really considerate.
Dean seemed very serious and focused as he read through a stack of newspapers and magazines, occasionally tearing things out and laying them in a separate pile on the floor. He was wearing a black long-sleeved t-shirt, worn jeans, and mismatched socks, grey and blue. Jared noticed that the ring on his left thumb was bronze, matching the amulet around his neck.
Jared spent the next few hours surfing the net. He couldn’t find any mentions of himself, Jensen, Sandy, or Kripke. Either they didn’t exist, or they were doing totally different stuff with their lives and didn’t show up online. Supernatural didn’t exist, of course, but Gilmore Girls did, as well as Days Of Our Lives, even fucking Smallville, with Tom and Mike and the rest. He found a picture of Elisha and Paris and Chad from House Of Wax, Chad’s arms flung laughingly around some guy Jared had never seen or heard of. Some totally other guy he’d also never seen or heard of had played Dean Forrester on GG, but the rest of the actors were the same, and it had the same plot and schedule on The good ol’ WB.
Dean kept flipping through his papers until the whole pile was finished, and then he took the laptop from Jared and started checking things online. Jared leafed through a couple of the papers, and the news all seemed pretty standard for last year. He didn’t look at Dean’s special pile.
It was boring. Really boring.
He sighed, leaning his chair back on two legs, smacking a paper down. Dean didn’t respond. Jared stared at him, counting the faint freckles on the bridge of his nose, until Dean looked up.
“Looking for a new job?” Jared asked.
“I’m reading up on reports of people switching bodies, being transported to alternate universes, that sort of stuff. A lot of it just sounds like all that alien abduction crap, but there’s a few things that could be real. I’ve checked Dad’s journal, but he doesn’t have any mention of this sort of thing.”
Jared gestured to the pile of clippings. “That’s what all those are?”
“No. Those are possible future jobs.”
“Are you as bored as I am?”
“If you’re bored, try doing something useful.”
“I did. I ascertained that I almost certainly don’t exist in this world.”
Dean snorted. “Ascertained. Right. Then tell me what you were doing just before you came here.”
“I was on break, playing PSP in my trailer, and I think I fell asleep. I don’t know. It’s a little fuzzy.”
“Did anything weird happen that day?” Dean leaned forward, propping his chin on a fist.
“Not, like, supernatural-type weird. I mean, Sadie, she’s one of my dogs, was whining in the morning, and Tamara, our guest star, was a little flaky, but…”
“Animals can sense things people can’t. Maybe the dog picked up on stuff. Did anything happen the day before?”
Jared shook his head. “No. I really doubt it was me. I bet it was you guys. Did anything happen here? What were you doing?”
Dean nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve been trying to figure that out. We took out this ghost in Des Moines that was strangling red-headed chicks, then we drove out here based on all the missing kids. Sam thought it was probably just an ordinary pedophile,” and Jared could almost see the contemptuous air quotes around the word ‘ordinary’ even though Dean didn’t make them, “but then we saw the claw markings on the house. The thing wasn’t home, so we came back here to look it up, figured out about the electricity, and Sam conked out. He’s been having more nightmares again recently, and he wouldn’t talk about them, so I let him sleep. Then you were there.”
“Maybe his dreams had something to do with this. No, wait, that doesn’t make sense, because it didn’t happen on the show. So you couldn’t… I wonder if I have psychic powers, now.”
Looking up through his lashes, Dean frowned at Jared. “We’re not some scripted fantasy. We get to make choices. I’m as real as you are.”
“Yeah, but… How are you a TV show? Did you already exist, and if you did, then how’d Kripke know about you, and how much of his story is true? Or maybe you were created by him thinking about you, but then how can you be different from the show in these ways? What else is out there?”
Dean held up a hand in Jared’s face. “No. We’re not having this discussion.”
“It could be useful.” Jared brushed the hair off of his forehead. “I know you don’t believe in God, but you’ve seen enough stuff that you have to admit you don’t know everything, and I guess I don’t, either.”
Dean stared back. “Did you believe in ghosts? Monsters that eat people at night? Really believe?”
“No. Not really, although sometimes I thought maybe.”
“Maybe they aren’t real in your world. Maybe there you’re right. Here, I know stuff’s out there, dangerous stuff. Not every story is real, though. Vampires, the tooth fairy, things like that, some of them are just made up.”
Jared started to open his mouth, then shut it. He didn’t think it was a good idea to tell Dean the future, the truth, even though he’d already changed things by being here. “Not every story is real,” and he thought of the tulpa, “but yours is.”
“Could be you’re the story. Maybe someone out there is writing about you.”
Jared laughed. “Could be.” Dean wasn’t really as anti-intellectual as he pretended, although he preferred to turn his smarts to pragmatic things. Now, abstract discussions of the nature of reality, more Sam’s bag of chips, had suddenly become pragmatic. “But you really can’t think of anything you’ve done or seen lately that might’ve caused this?”
“Nope.”
“Any weird symbols you’ve run into?”
A curious glance, but Dean shook his head.
“Well, that’s…”
“…Pretty useless, yeah.”
Eventually they got take-out from the Chinese place across the street for lunch. Dean grimaced and refused to try any of the sesame tofu Jared ordered, and he hoarded most of the General Tso’s chicken. Afterward, he made Jared read all the info he’d bookmarked online, to see if any of it sounded familiar. Jared watched Dean do push-ups and lunges, glancing over between paragraphs, and just barely managed to talk him out of sit-ups. He didn’t want the scabs on Dean’s stomach breaking open again.
None of the articles and memoirs were helpful. They were all about people ending up in fanciful fairytale worlds or becoming their cats for a day, or something else weird. He figured most of them were just crazies or attention-seekers, and even if they were real, the people never explained why it happened or how to fix it. They all seemed to come back to themselves at some point as randomly as they had left. Jared didn’t want to just sit around and wait for this to be over. There had to be something to do about it.
He kept reading and reading, and then suddenly the screen was gone and he was staring at Dean’s arm. Dean had pushed the laptop shut. “You’re going to drive me crazy. Remember to blink sometime.” Dean smacked his shoulder. “Let’s go out.”
Jared looked up, blinking a lot on purpose. “Getting Sam back? Doing something useful? One track mind? Whatever happened to that?”
“Sam’s living the movie star life in exotic Canada. You and I are going out for beer and steak, because I've had it with this damn room. Besides, you’re clearly finding all that junk as helpful as an icemaker in Antarctica.”
“Okay. Right.”
“Just let me shower first.”
While Dean was showering, Jared searched through the rest of Sam’s duffel bag. There were some clothes, which he’d pawed through a bit in the morning, and a couple of books, and a few weapons. Then he pulled out Sam’s wallet, which he hadn’t looked in before, and opened it up. A bunch of credit cards in various names, a bit of cash, a couple fake IDs, one maybe-real one in the name of Sam Winchester, and behind all the rest, a picture that must be of Jess. She was blonde and pretty, with a playful smile, and she didn’t actually look all that much like Adrianne. There was also a picture of John, Mary, little Dean, and wee newborn baby Sammy. John and Mary didn’t look too much like Jeff and Samantha - they did look a lot more like Sam and Dean, though. Sam took after their dad, and Dean took after their mom. Jared stuffed the pictures back in their hiding place, feeling somehow dirty for spying.
Under all Sam’s neutral and dark clothes, he found one incongruous bright lime-colored t-shirt and changed into that. It made him feel a little better, more like himself and less like someone else. Less like Sam, at least.
Dean emerged from the bathroom shirtless, rubbing a towel over his hair. He’d taken the bandage off and there was another towel bunched around his waist, over his jeans, to catch the drips of watered-down blood from the cuts. Jared looked at him and frowned. Dean looked at Jared and laughed. “You’re wearing that? I got it for Sam as a joke a couple weeks ago. Didn’t realize he still had it.”
“Most of Sam’s clothes are so boring. Why’d you let your cuts open again?”
“Good camouflage, though. And I’m fine. They’re not that deep.”
“Yeah, but you have to let them heal.”
“Worrywart.”
Dean finished swiping the towel over his torso and then wrapped a new bandage around his stomach, getting Jared to fasten it when it ended in the back. He had freckles on his back, too, and a set of reddened marks on his right shoulderblade that looked like they’d been made by teeth. Jared watched the muscles bunch under the clean skin around his left shoulderblade as he shrugged to adjust the bandage. The skin on the small of his back had been unmarked as well. Apparently very few things got Dean from behind.
Jared wanted to reach out and touch, but he didn’t do it. Dean shrugged on a dark grey shirt and his black leather jacket, Jared put on Sam’s brown jacket, and out they went, to a bar and grill just down the street. It was Wednesday, and early, so the place was pretty empty. Their waitress was blonde and buxom and perky, and Dean flirted shamelessly with her while she led them to a little corner table in the restaurant section. She grinned back at him when he said stupid stuff, and Jared could tell she was angling for a big tip.
The place was more run-down than down-home, with red-and-white check plastic table clothes and neon signs for various alcohol brands covering the wooden walls. The waitress, Linda, left to get them a pitcher of beer, and Jared started reading the menu. She came back a few minutes later. Dean ordered a ribeye, and so did Jared. Once she’d cleared out Dean leaned back, sipping his beer.
“So spill.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“You know my life story. Tell me yours.”
Jared took a long gulp. “I’m from Texas. Raised in San Antonio. Got two parents, an older brother, and a younger sister. Took drama classes. Used to swim. Worked on a ranch a bit. Won this contest, got to be on TV, got a job in a show. Did some movies, met my girlfriend, been with her two and a half years. Got cast as Sam on Supernatural. Went to Vancouver for that. Ended up here. Miss my dogs.” He shrugged. “It’s been pretty good. I’m happy.”
Dean nodded absently, spinning his glass, tracing patterns in the condensation with his fingers. “Girlfriend? What about…”
Grinning, Jared nodded back. “Yeah, we have an agreement. Sandy’s the best.”
Dean snorted. “An agreement. Uh huh. She an actress?”
“Yup.”
“She hot?”
Jared rolled his eyes. “Is that a stupid question?” He waved his glass in the air, then held it like a microphone, speaking in a high pitch. “Jared, tell us, is your girlfriend hot?” Then he leaned to the side a bit, rearranging the glass, speaking lower. “Uh, no, my girlfriend is ugly. Isn’t that why I’m dating her?”
Dean laughed. “Okay, man, it’s a stupid question. Let me rephrase it. How hot is she?”
“She was on the cover of Maxim.” Jared hadn’t actually liked that shoot much, too much spit and polish and Photoshop shine covering up Sandy’s real beauty, but it impressed all his friends from home, and he felt like giving Dean a thing or two to think about.
Dean whistled. “Good for you, big boy. I guess being an actor has its advantages. Hey, how much money do you make?”
“You tell me. You’re the hotshot producer.”
“Oh, come on. They all know that’s just a line.”
Jared finished his first glass of beer and poured a second, topping Dean off as well. “Well, we all know it’s not your personality that gets you laid.”
“I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about.”
The waitress arrived with their food just then, and Dean patted her wrist as she set his plate down.
“Hey, sugar, which of us do you think gets more action?” He gestured back and forth between himself and Jared, leering.
She smiled diplomatically. “I’m sure you both get plenty.” With that she scampered back to work, waving back over her shoulder with an, “Enjoy your dinner, now.”
“I rest my case,” Jared said, raising his glass in a toast.
“Which case? You didn’t prove anything.”
“You scared her away.”
“She’ll be back.”
“She’s the waitress. She has to come back.”
“Just my type of woman, then.” Dean took a huge bite of his steak, chewing it roughly, cheeks bulging. Jared cracked up, dropping his head to the table. It was just skeezy, and the worst part was, Dean could pull it off. Jared could sit here and laugh over how unsuave he was, but in a few minutes he’d be back to examining Dean’s face again, transfixed by his lips and eyes. He’d been doing it all day whenever he didn’t think Dean would notice.
He got himself under control and looked up. Dean was staring at him with a goofy grin, expression gone soft.
“What?”
“I just…” Dean ducked his head briefly. “I like seeing you laugh. You know, because.”
“I know.” Yeah, it was probably a damn good thing Dean was so straight. Thinking about how hot he was made Jared feel guilty, like he was perving on Jensen’s brother or something. But really, it was Sam’s brother he was perving on. That would just be so messed up. He tried a bite of his steak, and it was actually really good. They ate in silence for a few minutes. Jared thought his baked potato was a little dry, but the salad was fresh and actually green.
Dean poured another round of beer. “So if you know so much, when’d I lose my virginity?”
“We haven’t said. Jensen thinks sixteen.”
“Nope, fifteen. You?”
“Seventeen.” He didn’t feel any compunction saying that. Most people he’d just met, he wouldn’t be answering as comfortably.
“How’d I get the Impala?”
“Your dad had her all your life. He gave her to you after… Sam left.”
Dean shook his head. “No way. I bought that car myself. She was in bad shape, got her pretty cheap, but still used up a lot of my hard-earned money. Dad helped me fix her, though.”
“Huh.” Jared leaned back in his seat. “Weird. But the car is one of the things that’s different.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mostly it’s little things. In the show, your jacket’s brown leather, and your ring is silver. And we’ve got stickers all over your laptop, band logos and shit.”
“Used to do that with my old one, before the mutant bear ate it.”
Jared raised his eyebrows. “That’d go over in sweeps. Or not. And the monster’s house yesterday, that was similar, but not the same. I think our car’s supposed to be manual, but a lot of our Impalas - we’ve had a half dozen - are automatics, so we just don’t show it clearly. Some of them can’t drive for shit. The first one we used couldn’t go over thirty, and it was so loud you wouldn’t believe. We’ve got one doesn’t even have an engine, just sits on set for parked scenes.”
“My baby? That’s fucking slander.” Dean sat forward, gripping his fork like a weapon. Hyperactive reflexes, Jared thought.
“If it’s any consolation, your car purrs beautifully. And, uh, you’re more buff than Jensen.”
Clinking his fork on his plate, Dean frowned. “That just makes it worse. Tell him he needs to work out more, portray me right.”
“Oh, I will.” Jared waggled his eyebrows and leered, but Dean didn’t take the bait, he just grumbled again.
“Automatic. Engineless.”
Jared kept on talking. “Also, the people don’t all look the same. I saw a picture of Jess in Sam’s wallet, and she’s not very much like Adrianne.” He sighed, not mentioning John and Mary. “Poor Jessica. She really got a raw deal.”
“Yeah. Sam’s not exactly worth dying for.”
Jared stared at him. “You’d do it in a heartbeat.”
Dean stared back, gone all serious. “Faster. But it’s different for his girlfriend to do it.” He speared a piece of potato on his fork. “So, do we ever kill that thing?”
“I… I can’t tell you about that.” This world was different from the show, and he’d already changed things, but it still just didn’t seem appropriate to tell Dean about the future. What if that changed too many more things, ripped a hole in the space-time continuum or caused a paradox or whatever? What if that made it harder to get back? Jared just didn’t understand how this all worked. Best to be safe rather than sorry. Maybe. Best not to piss Dean off even more, too.
“Why not?”
“It just… It wouldn’t be right to say.”
“You already fucked everything up.”
“Yeah, but… I can’t, Dean. I just can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
That shut things up. After a while Dean went to the bathroom, and Jared was left picking over the last of his food until the waitress took his plate and Dean’s empty one away. Jared ordered another pitcher of beer and some water.
When Dean came back he was friendlier again. He beat Jared in four dart games and two pool games, although Jared thought he held his own and didn’t lose by too much, despite the freely flowing beer.
Dean told Jared the story of when he was stranded in Salt Lake City, and how the Mormons tried to convert him until he poured salt over them, and that was how the lake got its name. Jared ignored the fabrications and told Dean about the time in high school he’d taken a girl to sneak into his friend Bobby’s swimming pool at night, and Bobby’s parents had already snuck out for their own naked shenanigans. It had been pretty scary because Bobby’s mother was a MILF but his father was fat and bald and ugly.
Dean held forth on the proper way to make silver bullets and when to use them versus holy wrought iron ones, and Jared regaled him with the tale of Chad’s one-balled puppy in Australia. Dean thought that was hilarious and kept repeating “Nutclops” and laughing, and Jared laughed at him, because of course Dean would find that funny. When Jared teased him for actually getting a reference to ancient Greek myths, Dean started reciting a family tree of the Greek gods until Jared shut him up by waving a pool cue in his face.
Dean wanted to start a new round of pool, and Jared left him setting up the balls to stumble to the bathroom.
Jared leaned his forehead against the wall over the urinal, everything hazy and spinning lightly, trying not to keep picturing Dean bending over the pool table. The only other thing to focus on here was Sam’s dick. Jared sure hoped Sam wouldn’t mind him manhandling that, and he didn’t care if Sam did the same to his, but he really needed to not think dirty thoughts about Sam’s brother right now.
He was just going to concentrate on how this was making him so much more comfortable, and no wonder they called it relieving yourself. He seemed to piss for ages, and he still was going at it when he heard the door open behind him and someone walk in. Jared pushed himself away from the wall, making an effort to stand up straight and keep his balance, and whoever it was stepped up to the urinal right next to his.
Okay, he couldn’t deal with that. He tried to sneak a glance to the right and look at the guy, and he practically fell over when he saw it was Dean, the flow stopping in that moment. Dean seemed to ignore Jared, reaching down to his fly, and Jared turned his head away, closing his eyes, swaying on his feet when he did so. He would not look at Dean, he would not look down, he would not look at Dean, he would not.
He could hear Dean starting to piss, and he still needed to himself, even after the forever it had been, so, oh God, he did. Eventually Dean finished up and moved away, and then Jared was finally done himself.
He turned around and Dean was standing at a sink washing his hands, so Jared moseyed over to the sink next to him. “Damn. Good job there,” Dean said, bumping their shoulders companionably.
Jared mumbled something back, still too confused to even be sure himself what he’d said. He noticed how drunkenly flushed he looked in the mirror, and then he was transfixed by staring at Sam and Dean’s faces side by side. Dean’s hair was short and spiky, Sam’s longer and floppy, and their eyes were all different, Dean’s deep green and Sam’s dark brown, but their chins were the same, and Sam’s nose wasn’t quite as ski-jump pointy as Jared’s. It was so weird.
“Dude, stop with the moping.” Dean bumped his shoulder again, more aggressively this time.
“Right.” Jared finished rinsing his hands off. Dean put a hand on the small of his back and propelled him out the door and over to the bar, where he ordered a couple shots of tequila. Apparently he’d given up on pool. Jared watched Dean’s teeth flash white as he licked salt off his palm.
“So when’d I first get drunk?” Dean asked after they’d downed the shots.
“How the hell should I know?” Picking up another slice of lime, Jared squirted it onto Dean’s hand, and Dean laughed and sucked it off. He signaled the bartender for another round.
“I was twelve, and it only took about two beers. But I grew up.” He caught up his next glass, and Jared watched his throat move as he swallowed, head all the way back. His lips were shiny when he slammed the glass down on the wood. “You?”
“I was nine, at someone’s wedding. Stole a glass of champagne, ended up tripping over some ribbons and bringing down the flowered arch where the photos were being taken.” Jared did his own shot, while Dean slapped him on the knee.
“You a klutz?”
Jared laughed even more, jostling his leg against Dean’s, leaning forward on the little stool. “Last year, I spent all day filming an action scene with Jensen, like, getting thrown into tables and shit, and I was just fine. Then, that evening, I’m sitting down, and I fucking fall out of the chair trying to catch a book someone tosses to me, and sprain my hand. I’m such an idiot, too, because that was just before we got into that bar fight, and it sure didn’t help me any, so the guy actually broke my hand then.” He threw his head back, guffawing, clapping for himself, then tilted the chair over to the side, arms waving, pantomiming falling. Dean grabbed at his shoulder and grinned.
“Well, don’t do it again.”
Jared ended up telling Dean about the mudslide in Australia and the time his car flipped over in Africa, what had happened at that infamous birthday party of Alexis’ and how he’d first kissed Sandy. Dean told him about fighting ghosts all over the country, and scorpion totems in the New Mexico desert, and seeing Elvis in Nashville, and totally failing to find any evidence of Bigfoot in Oregon, and the one time he’d been to Washington DC - he’d gotten stuck in traffic and decided that the government buildings gave him the creeps. Something about people in suits and white marble, apparently.
Dean kept slapping Jared in the chest and grabbing his knees, and Jared kept throwing one arm around Dean’s shoulders and gesturing expansively with the other because that was the best way to tell drunken tales. It wasn’t really a good story unless you could swing the other person around and paint pictures for them in the air, damn it. Dean just laughed at Jared when he did that, and then he’d flick Jared’s hair away from his forehead, and Jared laughed at him for that, and then they were both collapsing on the bar, punching each other’s shoulders.
Dean was so much fun, because he kept pointing out hot women and saying crude things that made Jared stare at him in horror, and he just kept swallowing shots in smooth gulps, licking his lips and fingers afterward, and he laughed at all Jared’s jokes, every single one, and he kept asking Jared stupid questions, like when had Dean first gone to Maine, and when had he first slept with a woman over the age of thirty, and what was his favorite kind of cereal. Jared tried to answer the questions, but he got most of them wrong, and Dean would smack him again and laugh more, tell him the answer, and then make Jared give his own answer about himself. He didn’t ask anything about what Sam had done and Jared didn’t try to tell him.
He ended up telling Jared again about how he created Salt Lake while ghost hunting, only this time he poured a fuckload of salt into Jared’s shot glass and then told Jared to drink it anyway - Jared did, and it was vile, and Dean pounded him on the back. Jared leaned into Dean and almost knocked him off his stool, but he didn’t care that a lot of Dean’s stories probably weren't even true, because maybe yeah, some of Jared’s own were a little exaggerated.
Everything was glowing and blurry and the floor felt really far away, and Jared was awesomely happy, and then Dean broke off in the middle of a sentence while telling Jared about being buried in a snowbank by a troll, and he leaned in real close and whispered in Jared’s ear, and Jared leaned in himself to hear better and to smell the lime on Dean’s chin and throat.
“Are we ever going to find and kill that damn thing?”
Jared knew exactly which thing he meant. The whole room got colder as Dean sat back, moving away from him. Jared shook his head to make this new moment go away, but it didn’t, and Dean’s eyes just got harder and sharper. “I can’t tell you that,” Jared mumbled, even though he didn’t know why he couldn’t.
“Why not? Maybe you’re supposed to. Maybe that’s why you’re here, this could all be for a reason.”
“You don’t believe in those kinds of reasons.”
Dean frowned when Jared said that and stood up. “Well, fuck you, Jared, for only telling me things I already know.” He stormed out of the bar like the wrath of God, and Jared felt fittingly smote.
He paid for their tab with Robert F. Smith’s credit card, and left huge tips for the bartender and their waitress before stumbling back to the motel room.
The room was dim, the overhead light off, and only one bedside lamp on. Dean was standing by the table between the beds, reading Dad’s journal. He didn’t look up or anything when Jared came in. Jared sat down on the edge of his bed, but then he fell over backwards, sticking his arms out, letting his lower legs dangle over the side. The ceiling was made of bumpy white stucco, and it was covered in cracks and grime.
“Dean.”
There was no response at all.
“Dean.”
Dean finally looked over at him, but he didn’t say anything. His eyes were empty. Jared didn’t want Dean to be angry at him, and he really didn’t want Dean to hate him, and he really really didn’t want Dean to look like that.
“C’mere.”
Dean didn’t move.
“Dean. Come over here.”
Setting the journal down, Dean walked over and stood by Jared’s knees, looking down at him. Jared tried to lift his head, but it wouldn’t raise, and so he crooked his finger at Dean.
“Nuh uh, I ain’t falling for that.” Dean shook his head. Jared managed to reach up, and his hand flailed for a moment before catching on to Dean’s wrist. He tugged. Dean just stood there.
Jared beckoned with his free hand again, tugging Dean’s wrist really softly. Dean leaned down a little, and Jared wrapped his leg behind Dean’s knees and pulled. Dean tumbled down on him, and his hands came up and closed around Jared’s throat, while his legs pulled around and held Jared’s down, and this was pretty much how Jared had met Dean in the first place. He stretched up a bit, pressing into Dean’s hands. “It’s a demon,” he whispered. When he dropped his head Dean followed him down, ear by Jared’s lips. “A demon. And it’ll be hard, but you’ll find a way you can kill it. Not just exorcise it, kill it dead.” Jared realized then that he really wanted the demon dead, for everything it had done to all of them.
Dean’s breath hitched. “Dad?” He let go of Jared’s throat and braced his arms on the bed on each side of Jared’s head.
“You’ll see him again. Your old man does care about you.” Jared’s throat felt tight around the words, unable to say anything more than that, looking up past Dean’s face at the ceiling so he wouldn’t see any lies reflected back at him.
Dean clutched at Jared’s hair, digging his fingers in, and pulled himself higher and closer. He tucked his head down, burying his face in Jared’s neck, breathing harshly. Jared wrapped his arms around Dean’s back awkwardly, stroking his hair and shoulderblades and the nape of his neck, petting him like a puppy.
“It’s okay, Dean. It’ll all be okay.” That totally wasn’t true, but maybe it could be. It was going to get worse, much worse, but the series had to have a happy enough ending to sell, right, even though Kripke wouldn’t tell them? “We’ll get Sam back to you. It’ll be okay.” He tried to keep his voice soft and soothing, running his fingertips from Dean’s scalp down along his spine, repeating the promise of a good future.
Jared kept trailing his hands over Dean’s back, and eventually he must have fallen asleep, because he woke up some unknown time later with Dean lying half on him, half off him, and his arms tingly numb from Dean’s weight. Jared shifted, trying to pull his right arm out from under Dean before it fell off. Dean rolled a little, lifting his chin up and yawning.
“Fuck. My mouth tastes like ass.” He slumped back down on Jared’s arm. Jared yanked it harder, but he couldn’t even feel where it was exactly. Dean tried to stand up, his elbows and knees going everywhere, and he jabbed Jared hard in the side before he finally got to his feet.
“Ow. Jeez,” Jared muttered. He managed to fling his left arm over his face to shield his eyes from the light. “Bright.”
Dean switched off the bedside lamp, and Jared relaxed into the dark. There was a crash as Dean banged into the corner of the bed on his way to the bathroom, hitting his knee or stubbing his toe or something.
“Fuck. Ow. Shit. That hurts,” he whimpered.
Jared giggled. Of course Dean would be stoic about a major injury and then whine about a minor one.
“You bitch,” Dean said, and then there was a burst of light for a second before the bathroom door closed behind him.
The feeling finally returned to Jared’s arms, pins and needles receding, and the throbbing in his head became manageable. He was leaning against the wall when Dean got out of the bathroom, and Dean jostled him lightly as he walked past.
Jared pissed for ages again, brushed his teeth and washed his face, felt really glad he wasn’t wearing set makeup, and downed two cups of tap water, just in case. When he opened the door the beam of light showed Dean already in bed, breathing slow and deep and even. Jared maneuvered back to his bed in the dark, unhurt, and shucked his clothes, climbed in, and fell asleep again as soon as his head hit the pillow.
on to the rest of the story...