Friends indeed
They were up shit creek, both Dean and Sam agreed. Cas did also, once they’d explained the reference.
Balthazar, however, got one of those weird expressions on his face and said “Hold that thought,” before disappearing with a flutter.
He didn’t instantly reappear though, nor did he after two hours, so the two hunters and one hunter’s apprentice-slash-angel shrugged and went out for burgers.
Sam, having just gotten out of the hospital with 30 stitches in his gut in the shape of Zorro’s “Z,” had soup. He eyed Dean’s and Cas’ beers covetously, though.
The same argument continued through dinner, and by the time they got back to the motel room, Castiel considered smiting his two best friends in the universe just for some peace.
“You can’t do this, Dean,” Sam said for about the thousandth time, and Dean responded with “Watch me,” for about the millionth.
No smiting had been done, however, when Balthazar reappeared around midnight with Sam and Dean.
They looked identical to the Sam and Dean already in the motel room, albeit this new Sam had a nice haircut and was wearing designer jeans and one of those expensive Army ranger watches with a little flashlight and stuff on it. The new Dean wore faded jeans, a T-shirt, flannel overshirt and a leather jacket just like, well, Dean’s. Instead of a horned amulet he wore a slender silver chain around his neck from which was suspended a small disc.
The first Sam and Dean stood up from where they were laying on the beds watching TV and throwing out the occasional “watch mes,” and “you can’ts,” their argument completely frozen by the arrivals.
“What the hell?” Dean said.
New Dean smirked. “Don’t get your panties in a wad, princess. We’re the calvary.”
Dean ignored this comment, turning to Cas. “No, really, what the hell?”
Cas leaned in a little, looking at the two Deans like he was watching a tennis match, comparing their faces, bodies, and expressions. The Sams looked each other up and down, identical smiles of recognition and wonder on their faces.
“Wow,” Sam said.
New Sam nodded. “I knew what to expect and I’m still a little weirded out.”
Sam waved his hand at his counterpart. “Care to enlighten us?”
New Dean plopped down on the only available chair and pulled out his cell phone. “No service, figures,” he muttered.
New Sam stuck his hands in his pocket and looked at his Dean fondly, open affection on his face. Old Sam almost never looked at him that way, so Dean frowned. He’d read about kinky slash stuff on the internet. He hoped this wasn’t one of those things.
“Balthazar told us the situation. You need someone to be symbolically sacrificed and then you have to fight a battle. You, Sam,” and here the New Sam gestured at Sam, as if there were a dozen Sams instead of just the two, “are wounded. Your Dean can’t do both and expect to survive. My Dean will do the sacrifice. Your Dean can do the battle.”
The Deans looked at each other, one with a little half-smile, the other shell-shocked.
“Who the hell are you, and where did you come from?” Dean demanded.
Balthazar sprawled across one of the beds.
“Look, boys, you know there are other dimensions, right? Their dimension has, well, a more open relationship with its minor dieties. This Dean is a designated human sacrifice. I figured he’d be perfect for the job. It’s what he does, after all.”
The new Dean grinned. “Leave it to the professionals, boys,” he said.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” the original Sam and Dean said simultaneously, causing the new Sam and Dean to laugh.
The new Sam patted the shoulder of his Dean, again, with that loving expression on his face, and turned back to them. “There’s a price, of course.”
Dean crossed his arms. “Here we go. What?”
“Your sperm.”
“Come again?” Dean asked, eyebrows shooting toward his hair line, and the new Dean looked down at the floor, a small bitter smile on his face.
“Your sperm. We need a sample of your sperm. To take back with us. In exchange, he’ll shed blood on your behalf,” the new Sam said.
For several minutes, no one in the room spoke. The original Sam and Dean opened their mouths a couple of times, but nothing came out. The new Sam looked at the top of his Dean’s head, which was still bowed. Cas just kept bouncing his eyes between the two Deans.
Finally, Sam cleared his throat.
“Why?”
New Dean looked up, smirking. “I got no nuts,” and watched as his counterpart unconsciously clenched his thighs.
“Your balls?”
New Dean nodded, his smile tight.
“Please tell me this was some sort of tragic accident,” Dean begged.
“Sacrifice, dude. What part of human sacrifice didn’t you get?”
“Dean,” the new Sam said, soothingly. “They have a different system here. And we want their help.”
He got an eye roll from his Dean. “They need us as much as we need them.”
“Fuck,” Dean’s voice sounded a little squeaky. “What could have been worth that?”
New Dean’s chin came up, a little proud, a lot defiant. “My father’s life.”
“What?”
New Sam nodded, his expression almost sorrowful.
“Dean agreed to be castrated to save our father’s life. Since childhood, he’s saved the lives of our father, our mother, my fiancee, many of our friends, and countless others we didn’t even know well. He’s the bravest person I know and we’ve all benefited from his courage and sacrifice. He wants children. He deserves them.”
Sam started to feel like a phlegmy old man and cleared his throat again.
“I’m sorry, your mother and father are alive? And your fiancee?”
His counterpart nodded. “My wife, now, Jessica. She was my girlfriend in college. We have three children. They practically worship Dean and he’s wonderful with them. He wants his own children, though. We prayed about it. One of our gods clearly heard our prayer. This god,” and he pointed here to Balthazar, who only smiled modestly, “said he could arrange a deal.”
Dean sat down on the other bed, as far away from Balthazar and the new Sam and Dean as he could get. He scrubbed his face with one hand.
“Will your, uh, children become this? Sacrifices?”
Sam answered for New Dean. “Unlikely, although it’s possible. Sacrifices are rare, special. Dean made his first sacrifice when he was only four. We knew then he’d been chosen by the gods.”
“How’s the pay on a gig like that?” Dean snarked.
New Dean grinned. “It ain’t a pro ball career, I’ll tell ya. But Sammy’s a hot shot lawyer, and he pays me a stipend of his salary. It’s called a sacrificial tithe. The whole family hunts together, also, so we support each other.”
“Your whole family?” Sam asked wonderingly.
“Yeah, well, our mom and grandpa Samuel were already hunters,” New Dean explained. “After a demon tried to contaminate Sammy when he was a baby, Mom taught Dad the trade. Sam and I were raised in it. We joke that it’s the family business.”
Dean nodded. “We have the same joke.”
“What about your grandmother, Deanna?”
The new Sam and Dean exchanged a look. “She’s dead. Sacrificed to save her husband and daughter. It was a long time ago. We never met her.”
New Sam looked with interest at the pair. “What about your parents, are they hunters?”
“They’re dead,” Dean said abruptly. “We weren’t offered any options. Our mom died in a fire. A demon. Dad started hunting after that.”
This time, the pitying looks came from new Sam and Dean. “I’m sorry,” new Sam said.
“Yeah, man, I don’ t know what we’d do without our folks,” new Dean said.
“You’d be OK. I mean a guy who can take what you have? You’re pretty tough,” Dean said quickly.
New Dean raised his chin a little and looked at his counterpart, green eyes glittering. "Wouldn’t you have done the same?"
Dean frowned, looking sad. "Yeah, probably. But, dammit, my... your... balls. Fuck."
The other men in the room laughed at bit sympathetically. New Dean even chuckled. "Yeah, well. It wasn't like they offered me a choice of what parts they'd whack. I might have picked a finger or something, hell, maybe a hand, if they had. The gods decide the sacrifice. That's how it works."
"We didn't have time to preserve his sperm beforehand. Our father was dying. It was done quickly," New Sam said. This time the look he gave his Dean was almost angry. His Dean rolled his eyes. Clearly, there was a story there.
Balthazar sat up, his face growing serious.
“While this foreign exchange student thing is all well and fine, we have a sacrifice to make, darlings,” he said.
New Sam took on what was clearly his lawyer face, half sympathetic smarm and half bitchface.
“We need their Dean’s word that he’ll live up to the bargain, and the sample must be obtained before the battle,” he said.
Dean sat up very straight. “You mean, like, now?”
The five other people in the room looked at him, then down at his crotch. Dean resisted the urge to cover it with his hands.
“You could die. We can’t take that chance,” New Sam said. “My Dean is likely giving up a lot for this.”
“Any chance you know what?” Dean said. That had been one of the problems in the case. They knew a sacrifice had to be made, and a fight ensue, but what the sacrifice was and who he’d be fighting was still a mystery.”
“It doesn’t matter,” New Sam said. New Dean just smiled, almost dreamy.
“What if you die?” Dean said, looking at the other Dean.
“If it’s the god’s will, then I will die. But this ain’t my first rodeo.”
Dean nodded. “Yeah, died a few times myself, Sam, too.”
That caused the visitors to raise their eyebrows. “You died? You mean, died died, as in, stopped brain function and everything, died?” New Dean demanded.
“Yeah, one time for four months. Went to hell. Wasn’t pretty. Another time for a few hours. Then, there were a few months where I died each day, everytime in a new and gruesome way.” He and Sam looked pointedly at Balthazar.
“Hey, it wasn’t me,” the angel objected. “That was our big brother.”
Dean ignored him. He didn’t remember dying, but he distinctly recalled the haunted look Sam had on his face for months afterwards, and then he died for real, and that he did remember. Sam still hadn’t gotten over that one, clearly, hence, the fight over the sacrifice/battle stuff.
“Wow, that’s just weird,” New Sam said. “But do we have a deal? Our family’s probably going to start worrying soon.”
“OK, that’s weird back,” Sam echoed. “Yeah, we have a deal.”
Dean made a noise that could have been a cough, but the two Sams eyed him identically, one eyebrow raised one each of those giant foreheads. “You have a problem?” his Sam said.
“No, no, I guess not. What do you want me to, you know, do it in?”
He didn’t mention that he’d sold sperm before and the Sleepy-Tyme Motel outside of Boise was not the same situation as the various clinics he’d visited in the past. Not to mention the audience, which just gave him heebies to think about.
New Sam pulled out a specimen bottle with lid and plastic baggy and handed them to Sam, who handed them to Dean with a grimace.
Dean looked at the bottle, then at the three men and two angels staring back at him. He gave Sam a pointed look and Sam had the grace to give a shy grin before suggesting to the room at large. “Hey, anybody up for coffee? Dean, we’ll give you... half an hour?”
Dean sighed. “Yeah, that’ll be fine.”
Half an hour later, the others came back to find Dean looking flushed, but the cup contained a thick milky substance. He pointed to it. “OK, you’ve got your spunk. What now?”
New Dean grinned at his Sam, and stuck the cup into his brother’s hand. “Now, we light this torch.”
They drove to the scene in the Impala, both Deans in front, the Sams in back, who spent the drive comparing notes, evidently. The Deans didn’t have much to say, both studiously avoiding looking at the other’s laps.
The scene wasn’t one of those grand battlefield situations. No Stull Cemetery, or warehouse in Detroit, or even Denver. It took place at a Boise Costco, in the pet food section, to be precise.
“So, you’ve returned,” the man dressed in a little red vest said ominously. He had been pulling a hand fork lift full of Puppy Chow, but he dropped the handle to devote his attention to the two Deans, two Sams and two angels.
Still, despite the innocuous locale, there was a vibe that everyone could feel. A suburban mom in running shoes pushed a giant grocery cart into the aisle, stopped and backed out again, clearly not willing to risk life and limb to save $3 on Pedigree.
“Can I ask why we’re doing this here?” Dean said, shifting slightly to his left. The new Dean mirrored his action by shifting to his right.
“I like it here,” the god said. “Nobody said you had to be here. You came asking for my intercedence. You asked me to stop the killing. I could care less if one or a dozen more teeny-boppers die bloody.”
The Deans gave matching winces. “OK, what’s the sacrifice?” new Dean said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “I’m your boy.”
The god looked at the two Deans. “Cute trick. Where’d you get the spare?”
“Not a spare, he’s a designated sacrifice,” new Sam said, stepping half a foot in to his brother’s side.
“Oooh, you’re from that dimension,” the god said. “I love that universe. Everything’s so convenient and cooperative.”
Dean growled. “I hate this idea.”
New Dean smiled. “Yeah, sucks royally, but so long as everybody goes home at the end of the day, it’s all good.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, sacrifice. I’m not some vengeful demon you can buy off with your gonads,” the clerk said.
Dean growled again, wordlessly.
New Dean just stood there. “What would you have?”
“I want your firstborn, fool.”
“No. You can have my life or my blood, but I don’t trade the lives of others.”
The thing in the red vest paced a few steps back and forth across the aisle.
“Fine. Your home. You stay here, in this dimension.”
New Dean looked like he’d been slapped, but he began to nod, slowly, when Sam stepped up, one big palm held out. “What’s the point of this? Why take a sacrifice if it means nothing to you anyway?”
“Because it means something to you,” the thing said, smiling between piranha teeth. “That’s why it’s a sacrifice.” New Sam looked like he was sick and kept eyeing his brother, but he never spoke.
Dean stepped up beside new Dean. “What am I fighting?” he demanded.
Red Vest looked around. “How about him?” he said, pointing at New Sam.
“We don’t volunteer,” the Sams said, almost togeather.
It grinned. “OK, no problem. He can fight his doppleganger.”
“Nope,” New Sam put one hand against his brother’s chest. “He’s the sacrifice.”
“Fine, fine,” the guy in the red vest never lost his smile, but he began to lengthen, growing taller, until his feet had disappeared into what was clearly a snakey tail and his head had turned scaley. He looked ilke some sort of lizard, about the size of a VW minibus. It hissed, and Dean pulled his Colt and took two shots at its eyes. It blinked. Neither bullet left a scratch. People from around the store started running and screaming, but none of them ventured into the aisle, although a few peeked around the corners, only to jerk back again after getting an eyefull of the giant lizard-thing.
It’s clothes had disappeared in the transformation, and its scales shone wetly in the florescent lighting of the big box store. It’s sharp teeth looked as long as a child’s arm, and Dean stepped back involuntarily, sticking his gun back into his waistband.
“Sammy, what the hell is that thing?” he stage whispered, pulling out a Bowie knife and unlocking his knees.
“No idea. I don’t think it would be a good idea to get bitten,” Sam answered.
“Thanks a lot,” Dean muttered, and the new Sam and Dean grinned at each other. New Dean stepped back a fraction, then moved several steps to the right to take up a position just behind Dean’s right shoulder.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked.
Dean turned his head just enough to get his counterpart in his peripheral vision. “Maybe if we swapped shirts?”
“I’ll have to gain more than that,” he said. “He can tell, remember?”
“Not if he’s dead,” Dean growled, and the two Sams suddenly looked at one another as if getting it.
“Tools?” New Sam asked.
“Gardening,” Sam responded. “Meet ya back.”
And they took off, or at least as fast as Sam could manage.
Within a few minutes, though, New Sam was back carrying an armload of axes and chainsaws. Dean grabbed a chainsaw and gave a pull. Nothing happened.
“Gas?” he groused, throwing it down, and grabbing up one of the axes just as the snakey thing lunged. The axe bounced a bit, but took out a few scales off the back of its neck as it drew back again.
New Sam started up an electric chainsaw and stepped towards the thing. “Hey, sue me, I’m a damned lawyer. Mom and Dad are the hunters.”
Dean took another swing at the thing. “Then why’d you come?”
“To get Dean his deal, of course.”
“Of course, fucking lawyers,” Dean muttered.
New Dean took up one of the long-handed axes. “Hey, he got you to whack off,” he said.
“Dude, not now,” Dean responded, shifting to the left, to give his counterpart more swinging room. He didn’t have a lot of confidence in the professional sacrifice’s offense abilities.
After about five minutes of swinging, puffing and dodging, the fire alarm went off and the screaming of various Costco customers began to fade away as the building emptied. A few minutes after that, Sam came trotting back pushing a wheelbarrow full of machetes, hoes, and a weird chain about 30 feet long with rope attached to either end.
“Help me get this around it,” he told new Sam.
“What is it?”
“It’s a limb cutter. It’s for cutting tree limbs. It’s a saw, kind of.”
New Sam got a light in his eye, snatched one end of the rope from Sam and took off while the two Deans hacked from opposites sides. Once New Sam had gotten halfway around the thing, though, he pitched the handle back to Sam and took off in the opposite direction, running down the aisle and turning left towards the back of the store. The alarm still sounded, and lights flashed, giving a weird feeling to the almost silent fight. There were no other sounds from the rest of the store, apparently, people waiting for the fire department or SWAT team, Dean speculated aloud.
“SWAT team, great,” new Dean echoed.
The fight almost looked like some sort of bizarre dance, with the snake thing lunging at one or two of them, and the others taking swings where they could, all while Sam pulled on the rope thing in a sawing motion like he was doing a hula hoop with an invisible hoop. Dean noticed spots of blood on his shirt front and yelled at him. “Sam, you’re pulling your stitches, stop it.”
“Shut up, Dean,” he yelled back, and continued to pull.
It was just a few minutes later, although it seemed like more, when new Sam reappeared driving a forklift. Perched on the front was a pallet full of decorative garden stones. Without laying on the brakes, he ran it into the back of the snake thing, dumping the load onto its tail, and stabbing it with one of the forklift arms.
Weighed down by a ton of rocks, it was short work for the four men to hack the head off the thing until the aisle was slick with dark magenta blood and scales and snake meat.
“God, that stinks,” new Sam said, looking from his own clothes to the other three, who were equally covered in blood and gore.
“We have to get out of here,” new Dean said. “Do you think we can get out the back?”
“Maybe, come on,” new Sam answered, slipping a little in his haste to get out of the aisle, followed quickly by Sam and Dean.
It only took a few minutes for them to realize the building was surrounded by first responders.
“Stay here,” Dean whispered. “I’ll be right back.”
He ran towards the store, where things had gotten very quiet with the silencing of the alarm, and was back in about 10 minutes, his arms full of sweat pants and hoodies. “Put these on over your clothes. We’re getting out of here.”
And it was just that simple. They hid in the back and when the cops burst in it was to find four guys, two sets of twins in fact, cowering in the rear. “We were afraid,” new Sam said, making cow eyes at the cops, who took their fake names and fake phone numbers and let them saunter off in stolen hoodies.
This time, the two Sams sat up front, with new Sam driving, while the Deans slumped in back, exhausted.
“I’m hungry,” Dean said, and new Dean perked up. “Food sounds good. I could eat.”
“You can always eat,” new Sam said fondly.
“Hey, sacrificing is hard work,” new Dean said.
“So’s fighting,” Dean said, addressing his own Sam and anyone else who wanted to listen.
“Pizza?” new Sam suggested, and Sam, who was still on liquids nodded. “Yeah, whatever.”
“Hey, Sam Two, stop at a store, we’ll get him a protein shake or something,” Dean said.
“No problem,” new Sam said, and his voice sounded kind of like when he spoke to his own Dean, so Dean smiled a little. If only his Sam would talk to him like that.
An hour later, they’d all showered and three of them were eating pizza like it was their last meal. Sam had already run their bloody clothes down to the laundry room, but he’d returned and was sipping a strawberry-flavored Muscle Milk.
“So, kids huh?” Dean said.
New Dean grinned. “Maybe. I’ve got this great girl I’m seeing. It’ll be up to her, of course. I’m hopeful, though.”
“Yeah? What’s her name?”s
“Carmen,” new Dean said. “She’s a nurse.”
Dean looked down at his pizza. “But your Dad and Mom are good? And you and Sam are, close?” he asked.
“We’re best friends,” new Sam answered. He patted his pocket, where the cup was. “Thanks for this.”
“You want me to top it off?” Dean offered.
New Dean looked at his brother. “Couldn’t hurt.”
Grinning, Dean took the proffered cup and stepped into the bathroom. It took less than 10 minutes before he was back with the cup once again in its plastic bag.
“Damn, son,” new Dean said, smirking.
“Hey, I was inspired,” Dean said. “Good luck with it, by the way.”
“Yeah, thanks,” new Dean said.
Two more trips down to the laundry and their clothes were relatively clean and dry, albeit with some dark stains.
“Hey, tell people it was chocolate,” Dean told the other two.
“Yeah, right. We fell into the vat during a tour of the Hershey plant?” new Dean snarked.
“Makes as much sense as ‘fought off a snake-god in the Costco,” Dean responded.
“OK, he’s got a point,” new Sam said.
“You want to do the honors?” Sam said. “Call for your taxi?”
New Dean got a look on his face and held up a hand. “Just a sec. Does it always feel like that?” he asked, turning to Dean.
“Like what?” Sam said, clearly puzzled.
“Fighting, does it always feel like that?”
Dean grinned. “Yeah. Every fucking time. You should try it.”
“I just might.”
New Sam shook his counterpart’s hand, hugged Dean and whispered “Balthazar,” and the room was suddenly more crowded with two angels.
“We’re ready,” new Sam said.
Balthazar looked back and forth. “No sacrifice?”
“Well, let’s just say something was sacrificed, but it wasn’t what the lizard-king wanted,” Dean drawled.
“Good enough,” the angel said, placing a hand on the new Dean and Sam’s shoulders. “Ciao, darlings.”
With the three of them gone, Castiel stood staring at Dean for several minutes, silently.
“What?” Dean demanded. “What?”
“You could have gone with them. Their world is something you long for.”
“Nah, the universe ain’t big enough for two of us.”
“Yes, I’m sure it is,” Castiel responded.
“Cas, he just means that’s their world, not ours,” Sam explained. “He’s needed here.”
Dean glanced over at his brother, and for once his Sam was looking at him with love shining in his eyes. Just for a second.
Balthazar, however, got one of those weird expressions on his face and said “Hold that thought,” before disappearing with a flutter.
He didn’t instantly reappear though, nor did he after two hours, so the two hunters and one hunter’s apprentice-slash-angel shrugged and went out for burgers.
Sam, having just gotten out of the hospital with 30 stitches in his gut in the shape of Zorro’s “Z,” had soup. He eyed Dean’s and Cas’ beers covetously, though.
The same argument continued through dinner, and by the time they got back to the motel room, Castiel considered smiting his two best friends in the universe just for some peace.
“You can’t do this, Dean,” Sam said for about the thousandth time, and Dean responded with “Watch me,” for about the millionth.
No smiting had been done, however, when Balthazar reappeared around midnight with Sam and Dean.
They looked identical to the Sam and Dean already in the motel room, albeit this new Sam had a nice haircut and was wearing designer jeans and one of those expensive Army ranger watches with a little flashlight and stuff on it. The new Dean wore faded jeans, a T-shirt, flannel overshirt and a leather jacket just like, well, Dean’s. Instead of a horned amulet he wore a slender silver chain around his neck from which was suspended a small disc.
The first Sam and Dean stood up from where they were laying on the beds watching TV and throwing out the occasional “watch mes,” and “you can’ts,” their argument completely frozen by the arrivals.
“What the hell?” Dean said.
New Dean smirked. “Don’t get your panties in a wad, princess. We’re the calvary.”
Dean ignored this comment, turning to Cas. “No, really, what the hell?”
Cas leaned in a little, looking at the two Deans like he was watching a tennis match, comparing their faces, bodies, and expressions. The Sams looked each other up and down, identical smiles of recognition and wonder on their faces.
“Wow,” Sam said.
New Sam nodded. “I knew what to expect and I’m still a little weirded out.”
Sam waved his hand at his counterpart. “Care to enlighten us?”
New Dean plopped down on the only available chair and pulled out his cell phone. “No service, figures,” he muttered.
New Sam stuck his hands in his pocket and looked at his Dean fondly, open affection on his face. Old Sam almost never looked at him that way, so Dean frowned. He’d read about kinky slash stuff on the internet. He hoped this wasn’t one of those things.
“Balthazar told us the situation. You need someone to be symbolically sacrificed and then you have to fight a battle. You, Sam,” and here the New Sam gestured at Sam, as if there were a dozen Sams instead of just the two, “are wounded. Your Dean can’t do both and expect to survive. My Dean will do the sacrifice. Your Dean can do the battle.”
The Deans looked at each other, one with a little half-smile, the other shell-shocked.
“Who the hell are you, and where did you come from?” Dean demanded.
Balthazar sprawled across one of the beds.
“Look, boys, you know there are other dimensions, right? Their dimension has, well, a more open relationship with its minor dieties. This Dean is a designated human sacrifice. I figured he’d be perfect for the job. It’s what he does, after all.”
The new Dean grinned. “Leave it to the professionals, boys,” he said.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” the original Sam and Dean said simultaneously, causing the new Sam and Dean to laugh.
The new Sam patted the shoulder of his Dean, again, with that loving expression on his face, and turned back to them. “There’s a price, of course.”
Dean crossed his arms. “Here we go. What?”
“Your sperm.”
“Come again?” Dean asked, eyebrows shooting toward his hair line, and the new Dean looked down at the floor, a small bitter smile on his face.
“Your sperm. We need a sample of your sperm. To take back with us. In exchange, he’ll shed blood on your behalf,” the new Sam said.
For several minutes, no one in the room spoke. The original Sam and Dean opened their mouths a couple of times, but nothing came out. The new Sam looked at the top of his Dean’s head, which was still bowed. Cas just kept bouncing his eyes between the two Deans.
Finally, Sam cleared his throat.
“Why?”
New Dean looked up, smirking. “I got no nuts,” and watched as his counterpart unconsciously clenched his thighs.
“Your balls?”
New Dean nodded, his smile tight.
“Please tell me this was some sort of tragic accident,” Dean begged.
“Sacrifice, dude. What part of human sacrifice didn’t you get?”
“Dean,” the new Sam said, soothingly. “They have a different system here. And we want their help.”
He got an eye roll from his Dean. “They need us as much as we need them.”
“Fuck,” Dean’s voice sounded a little squeaky. “What could have been worth that?”
New Dean’s chin came up, a little proud, a lot defiant. “My father’s life.”
“What?”
New Sam nodded, his expression almost sorrowful.
“Dean agreed to be castrated to save our father’s life. Since childhood, he’s saved the lives of our father, our mother, my fiancee, many of our friends, and countless others we didn’t even know well. He’s the bravest person I know and we’ve all benefited from his courage and sacrifice. He wants children. He deserves them.”
Sam started to feel like a phlegmy old man and cleared his throat again.
“I’m sorry, your mother and father are alive? And your fiancee?”
His counterpart nodded. “My wife, now, Jessica. She was my girlfriend in college. We have three children. They practically worship Dean and he’s wonderful with them. He wants his own children, though. We prayed about it. One of our gods clearly heard our prayer. This god,” and he pointed here to Balthazar, who only smiled modestly, “said he could arrange a deal.”
Dean sat down on the other bed, as far away from Balthazar and the new Sam and Dean as he could get. He scrubbed his face with one hand.
“Will your, uh, children become this? Sacrifices?”
Sam answered for New Dean. “Unlikely, although it’s possible. Sacrifices are rare, special. Dean made his first sacrifice when he was only four. We knew then he’d been chosen by the gods.”
“How’s the pay on a gig like that?” Dean snarked.
New Dean grinned. “It ain’t a pro ball career, I’ll tell ya. But Sammy’s a hot shot lawyer, and he pays me a stipend of his salary. It’s called a sacrificial tithe. The whole family hunts together, also, so we support each other.”
“Your whole family?” Sam asked wonderingly.
“Yeah, well, our mom and grandpa Samuel were already hunters,” New Dean explained. “After a demon tried to contaminate Sammy when he was a baby, Mom taught Dad the trade. Sam and I were raised in it. We joke that it’s the family business.”
Dean nodded. “We have the same joke.”
“What about your grandmother, Deanna?”
The new Sam and Dean exchanged a look. “She’s dead. Sacrificed to save her husband and daughter. It was a long time ago. We never met her.”
New Sam looked with interest at the pair. “What about your parents, are they hunters?”
“They’re dead,” Dean said abruptly. “We weren’t offered any options. Our mom died in a fire. A demon. Dad started hunting after that.”
This time, the pitying looks came from new Sam and Dean. “I’m sorry,” new Sam said.
“Yeah, man, I don’ t know what we’d do without our folks,” new Dean said.
“You’d be OK. I mean a guy who can take what you have? You’re pretty tough,” Dean said quickly.
New Dean raised his chin a little and looked at his counterpart, green eyes glittering. "Wouldn’t you have done the same?"
Dean frowned, looking sad. "Yeah, probably. But, dammit, my... your... balls. Fuck."
The other men in the room laughed at bit sympathetically. New Dean even chuckled. "Yeah, well. It wasn't like they offered me a choice of what parts they'd whack. I might have picked a finger or something, hell, maybe a hand, if they had. The gods decide the sacrifice. That's how it works."
"We didn't have time to preserve his sperm beforehand. Our father was dying. It was done quickly," New Sam said. This time the look he gave his Dean was almost angry. His Dean rolled his eyes. Clearly, there was a story there.
Balthazar sat up, his face growing serious.
“While this foreign exchange student thing is all well and fine, we have a sacrifice to make, darlings,” he said.
New Sam took on what was clearly his lawyer face, half sympathetic smarm and half bitchface.
“We need their Dean’s word that he’ll live up to the bargain, and the sample must be obtained before the battle,” he said.
Dean sat up very straight. “You mean, like, now?”
The five other people in the room looked at him, then down at his crotch. Dean resisted the urge to cover it with his hands.
“You could die. We can’t take that chance,” New Sam said. “My Dean is likely giving up a lot for this.”
“Any chance you know what?” Dean said. That had been one of the problems in the case. They knew a sacrifice had to be made, and a fight ensue, but what the sacrifice was and who he’d be fighting was still a mystery.”
“It doesn’t matter,” New Sam said. New Dean just smiled, almost dreamy.
“What if you die?” Dean said, looking at the other Dean.
“If it’s the god’s will, then I will die. But this ain’t my first rodeo.”
Dean nodded. “Yeah, died a few times myself, Sam, too.”
That caused the visitors to raise their eyebrows. “You died? You mean, died died, as in, stopped brain function and everything, died?” New Dean demanded.
“Yeah, one time for four months. Went to hell. Wasn’t pretty. Another time for a few hours. Then, there were a few months where I died each day, everytime in a new and gruesome way.” He and Sam looked pointedly at Balthazar.
“Hey, it wasn’t me,” the angel objected. “That was our big brother.”
Dean ignored him. He didn’t remember dying, but he distinctly recalled the haunted look Sam had on his face for months afterwards, and then he died for real, and that he did remember. Sam still hadn’t gotten over that one, clearly, hence, the fight over the sacrifice/battle stuff.
“Wow, that’s just weird,” New Sam said. “But do we have a deal? Our family’s probably going to start worrying soon.”
“OK, that’s weird back,” Sam echoed. “Yeah, we have a deal.”
Dean made a noise that could have been a cough, but the two Sams eyed him identically, one eyebrow raised one each of those giant foreheads. “You have a problem?” his Sam said.
“No, no, I guess not. What do you want me to, you know, do it in?”
He didn’t mention that he’d sold sperm before and the Sleepy-Tyme Motel outside of Boise was not the same situation as the various clinics he’d visited in the past. Not to mention the audience, which just gave him heebies to think about.
New Sam pulled out a specimen bottle with lid and plastic baggy and handed them to Sam, who handed them to Dean with a grimace.
Dean looked at the bottle, then at the three men and two angels staring back at him. He gave Sam a pointed look and Sam had the grace to give a shy grin before suggesting to the room at large. “Hey, anybody up for coffee? Dean, we’ll give you... half an hour?”
Dean sighed. “Yeah, that’ll be fine.”
Half an hour later, the others came back to find Dean looking flushed, but the cup contained a thick milky substance. He pointed to it. “OK, you’ve got your spunk. What now?”
New Dean grinned at his Sam, and stuck the cup into his brother’s hand. “Now, we light this torch.”
They drove to the scene in the Impala, both Deans in front, the Sams in back, who spent the drive comparing notes, evidently. The Deans didn’t have much to say, both studiously avoiding looking at the other’s laps.
The scene wasn’t one of those grand battlefield situations. No Stull Cemetery, or warehouse in Detroit, or even Denver. It took place at a Boise Costco, in the pet food section, to be precise.
“So, you’ve returned,” the man dressed in a little red vest said ominously. He had been pulling a hand fork lift full of Puppy Chow, but he dropped the handle to devote his attention to the two Deans, two Sams and two angels.
Still, despite the innocuous locale, there was a vibe that everyone could feel. A suburban mom in running shoes pushed a giant grocery cart into the aisle, stopped and backed out again, clearly not willing to risk life and limb to save $3 on Pedigree.
“Can I ask why we’re doing this here?” Dean said, shifting slightly to his left. The new Dean mirrored his action by shifting to his right.
“I like it here,” the god said. “Nobody said you had to be here. You came asking for my intercedence. You asked me to stop the killing. I could care less if one or a dozen more teeny-boppers die bloody.”
The Deans gave matching winces. “OK, what’s the sacrifice?” new Dean said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “I’m your boy.”
The god looked at the two Deans. “Cute trick. Where’d you get the spare?”
“Not a spare, he’s a designated sacrifice,” new Sam said, stepping half a foot in to his brother’s side.
“Oooh, you’re from that dimension,” the god said. “I love that universe. Everything’s so convenient and cooperative.”
Dean growled. “I hate this idea.”
New Dean smiled. “Yeah, sucks royally, but so long as everybody goes home at the end of the day, it’s all good.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, sacrifice. I’m not some vengeful demon you can buy off with your gonads,” the clerk said.
Dean growled again, wordlessly.
New Dean just stood there. “What would you have?”
“I want your firstborn, fool.”
“No. You can have my life or my blood, but I don’t trade the lives of others.”
The thing in the red vest paced a few steps back and forth across the aisle.
“Fine. Your home. You stay here, in this dimension.”
New Dean looked like he’d been slapped, but he began to nod, slowly, when Sam stepped up, one big palm held out. “What’s the point of this? Why take a sacrifice if it means nothing to you anyway?”
“Because it means something to you,” the thing said, smiling between piranha teeth. “That’s why it’s a sacrifice.” New Sam looked like he was sick and kept eyeing his brother, but he never spoke.
Dean stepped up beside new Dean. “What am I fighting?” he demanded.
Red Vest looked around. “How about him?” he said, pointing at New Sam.
“We don’t volunteer,” the Sams said, almost togeather.
It grinned. “OK, no problem. He can fight his doppleganger.”
“Nope,” New Sam put one hand against his brother’s chest. “He’s the sacrifice.”
“Fine, fine,” the guy in the red vest never lost his smile, but he began to lengthen, growing taller, until his feet had disappeared into what was clearly a snakey tail and his head had turned scaley. He looked ilke some sort of lizard, about the size of a VW minibus. It hissed, and Dean pulled his Colt and took two shots at its eyes. It blinked. Neither bullet left a scratch. People from around the store started running and screaming, but none of them ventured into the aisle, although a few peeked around the corners, only to jerk back again after getting an eyefull of the giant lizard-thing.
It’s clothes had disappeared in the transformation, and its scales shone wetly in the florescent lighting of the big box store. It’s sharp teeth looked as long as a child’s arm, and Dean stepped back involuntarily, sticking his gun back into his waistband.
“Sammy, what the hell is that thing?” he stage whispered, pulling out a Bowie knife and unlocking his knees.
“No idea. I don’t think it would be a good idea to get bitten,” Sam answered.
“Thanks a lot,” Dean muttered, and the new Sam and Dean grinned at each other. New Dean stepped back a fraction, then moved several steps to the right to take up a position just behind Dean’s right shoulder.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked.
Dean turned his head just enough to get his counterpart in his peripheral vision. “Maybe if we swapped shirts?”
“I’ll have to gain more than that,” he said. “He can tell, remember?”
“Not if he’s dead,” Dean growled, and the two Sams suddenly looked at one another as if getting it.
“Tools?” New Sam asked.
“Gardening,” Sam responded. “Meet ya back.”
And they took off, or at least as fast as Sam could manage.
Within a few minutes, though, New Sam was back carrying an armload of axes and chainsaws. Dean grabbed a chainsaw and gave a pull. Nothing happened.
“Gas?” he groused, throwing it down, and grabbing up one of the axes just as the snakey thing lunged. The axe bounced a bit, but took out a few scales off the back of its neck as it drew back again.
New Sam started up an electric chainsaw and stepped towards the thing. “Hey, sue me, I’m a damned lawyer. Mom and Dad are the hunters.”
Dean took another swing at the thing. “Then why’d you come?”
“To get Dean his deal, of course.”
“Of course, fucking lawyers,” Dean muttered.
New Dean took up one of the long-handed axes. “Hey, he got you to whack off,” he said.
“Dude, not now,” Dean responded, shifting to the left, to give his counterpart more swinging room. He didn’t have a lot of confidence in the professional sacrifice’s offense abilities.
After about five minutes of swinging, puffing and dodging, the fire alarm went off and the screaming of various Costco customers began to fade away as the building emptied. A few minutes after that, Sam came trotting back pushing a wheelbarrow full of machetes, hoes, and a weird chain about 30 feet long with rope attached to either end.
“Help me get this around it,” he told new Sam.
“What is it?”
“It’s a limb cutter. It’s for cutting tree limbs. It’s a saw, kind of.”
New Sam got a light in his eye, snatched one end of the rope from Sam and took off while the two Deans hacked from opposites sides. Once New Sam had gotten halfway around the thing, though, he pitched the handle back to Sam and took off in the opposite direction, running down the aisle and turning left towards the back of the store. The alarm still sounded, and lights flashed, giving a weird feeling to the almost silent fight. There were no other sounds from the rest of the store, apparently, people waiting for the fire department or SWAT team, Dean speculated aloud.
“SWAT team, great,” new Dean echoed.
The fight almost looked like some sort of bizarre dance, with the snake thing lunging at one or two of them, and the others taking swings where they could, all while Sam pulled on the rope thing in a sawing motion like he was doing a hula hoop with an invisible hoop. Dean noticed spots of blood on his shirt front and yelled at him. “Sam, you’re pulling your stitches, stop it.”
“Shut up, Dean,” he yelled back, and continued to pull.
It was just a few minutes later, although it seemed like more, when new Sam reappeared driving a forklift. Perched on the front was a pallet full of decorative garden stones. Without laying on the brakes, he ran it into the back of the snake thing, dumping the load onto its tail, and stabbing it with one of the forklift arms.
Weighed down by a ton of rocks, it was short work for the four men to hack the head off the thing until the aisle was slick with dark magenta blood and scales and snake meat.
“God, that stinks,” new Sam said, looking from his own clothes to the other three, who were equally covered in blood and gore.
“We have to get out of here,” new Dean said. “Do you think we can get out the back?”
“Maybe, come on,” new Sam answered, slipping a little in his haste to get out of the aisle, followed quickly by Sam and Dean.
It only took a few minutes for them to realize the building was surrounded by first responders.
“Stay here,” Dean whispered. “I’ll be right back.”
He ran towards the store, where things had gotten very quiet with the silencing of the alarm, and was back in about 10 minutes, his arms full of sweat pants and hoodies. “Put these on over your clothes. We’re getting out of here.”
And it was just that simple. They hid in the back and when the cops burst in it was to find four guys, two sets of twins in fact, cowering in the rear. “We were afraid,” new Sam said, making cow eyes at the cops, who took their fake names and fake phone numbers and let them saunter off in stolen hoodies.
This time, the two Sams sat up front, with new Sam driving, while the Deans slumped in back, exhausted.
“I’m hungry,” Dean said, and new Dean perked up. “Food sounds good. I could eat.”
“You can always eat,” new Sam said fondly.
“Hey, sacrificing is hard work,” new Dean said.
“So’s fighting,” Dean said, addressing his own Sam and anyone else who wanted to listen.
“Pizza?” new Sam suggested, and Sam, who was still on liquids nodded. “Yeah, whatever.”
“Hey, Sam Two, stop at a store, we’ll get him a protein shake or something,” Dean said.
“No problem,” new Sam said, and his voice sounded kind of like when he spoke to his own Dean, so Dean smiled a little. If only his Sam would talk to him like that.
An hour later, they’d all showered and three of them were eating pizza like it was their last meal. Sam had already run their bloody clothes down to the laundry room, but he’d returned and was sipping a strawberry-flavored Muscle Milk.
“So, kids huh?” Dean said.
New Dean grinned. “Maybe. I’ve got this great girl I’m seeing. It’ll be up to her, of course. I’m hopeful, though.”
“Yeah? What’s her name?”s
“Carmen,” new Dean said. “She’s a nurse.”
Dean looked down at his pizza. “But your Dad and Mom are good? And you and Sam are, close?” he asked.
“We’re best friends,” new Sam answered. He patted his pocket, where the cup was. “Thanks for this.”
“You want me to top it off?” Dean offered.
New Dean looked at his brother. “Couldn’t hurt.”
Grinning, Dean took the proffered cup and stepped into the bathroom. It took less than 10 minutes before he was back with the cup once again in its plastic bag.
“Damn, son,” new Dean said, smirking.
“Hey, I was inspired,” Dean said. “Good luck with it, by the way.”
“Yeah, thanks,” new Dean said.
Two more trips down to the laundry and their clothes were relatively clean and dry, albeit with some dark stains.
“Hey, tell people it was chocolate,” Dean told the other two.
“Yeah, right. We fell into the vat during a tour of the Hershey plant?” new Dean snarked.
“Makes as much sense as ‘fought off a snake-god in the Costco,” Dean responded.
“OK, he’s got a point,” new Sam said.
“You want to do the honors?” Sam said. “Call for your taxi?”
New Dean got a look on his face and held up a hand. “Just a sec. Does it always feel like that?” he asked, turning to Dean.
“Like what?” Sam said, clearly puzzled.
“Fighting, does it always feel like that?”
Dean grinned. “Yeah. Every fucking time. You should try it.”
“I just might.”
New Sam shook his counterpart’s hand, hugged Dean and whispered “Balthazar,” and the room was suddenly more crowded with two angels.
“We’re ready,” new Sam said.
Balthazar looked back and forth. “No sacrifice?”
“Well, let’s just say something was sacrificed, but it wasn’t what the lizard-king wanted,” Dean drawled.
“Good enough,” the angel said, placing a hand on the new Dean and Sam’s shoulders. “Ciao, darlings.”
With the three of them gone, Castiel stood staring at Dean for several minutes, silently.
“What?” Dean demanded. “What?”
“You could have gone with them. Their world is something you long for.”
“Nah, the universe ain’t big enough for two of us.”
“Yes, I’m sure it is,” Castiel responded.
“Cas, he just means that’s their world, not ours,” Sam explained. “He’s needed here.”
Dean glanced over at his brother, and for once his Sam was looking at him with love shining in his eyes. Just for a second.