Eye of the Beholder - New Fic
Hello again,
I am back from an extended long weekend - a holiday the first week of August for us Toronto area Canucks doncha know. Well, I got a whole pile of stuff done for my upcoming wedding in on month (yikes). AAAAAAAAAAND I got this new fic beta-ed!
Thanks kelios , for putting up with my longish story and general pestering.
Sadly, somewhere in the emailing her version of the file was lost, so I don't know if I have gotten the spacing that she would have suggested, but hopefully the paragraphs are not too long any more! Clearly all remaining errors are, and always were, mine.
Title: Eye of the Beholder
Characters: Dean, Sam, Bobby by cell phone
Genre: Gen/Humour - Bodyswap. Werd.
Warnings: None
Rating: 14+ for a gesture, and maybe a little innuendo and off-colour humour - nothing Show wouldn't do, really.
WC: 7800 approx.
A/N: Complete. Dean and Sam take advantage of the opportunity to abuse each other's bodies. Not THAT way, gutter-faces! :P
Disclaimer: Not mine, just fun to play with. If I put them all back when I'm done, you don't sue, okay?
Eye of the Beholder, Part 1
_________________________
Eye of the Beholder
_________________________
Sam hadn’t even opened his eyes yet, but he knew something was wrong. The snuffling, ragged breathing in the next bed wasn’t the usual slow in-and-out of Dean sleeping off the beer plus one whiskey shot of the previous night’s eight-ball hustle.
‘Great, now it’s nightmares for two?’ thought Sam. He sighed wearily and opened his eyes to check that Dean wasn’t aspirating on his own vomit or anything - as happy as something so John Bonham-esque might have made Dean.
Sam looked, and the thing in the bed next to his was not his brother. Sure, it looked human, and masculine in a way that was almost over-doing it; the stiff white sheets slipped low enough to show a bare torso that was all planes and knots of hard-earned muscle. But if it was trying to be Dean it had made several, glaring, mistakes. It was huge, for one thing, sprawled on its back with one over-large hand dangling awkwardly off the bed and its head turned away from Sam. And it had shaggy, too-long hair that was several shades darker than Dean’s sandy spikes.
Unusual as it was for him, Sam found he’d been sleeping on his belly. One hand was tucked under the pillow and curled loosely around the handle of something deadly. Sam wondered abruptly when Dean had started this mutant toothfairy act, but for once, he was thankful for Dean’s overprotective paranoia. Clutching the Bowie knife, Sam eased himself off the mattress as silently as he could, but the creaky motel bedsprings didn’t cooperate. The imposter heard him.
Sam saw its head turn toward him by a fraction. Then the thing leapt out of the bed - and promptly crumpled to the floor, like it wasn’t used to its legs yet. But whatever-it-was had lightning recovery, and it scrambled across the room to grab Dean’s Colt off the table and point it right at Sam’s chest. A killing shot. This thing knew how to handle a gun.
Sam looked up to meet his attacker’s gaze and nearly dropped the knife. It was staring back at him with eyes he’d only ever seen in a mirror; and that wasn’t all. The thing was him in every detail; from the gash on his left forearm courtesy of last week’s critter job, right down to the little mole next to his nose. Sam watched as it opened his mouth and said:
“What the hell are you? And where’s my brother!?”
And Sam thought it must be able to read his thoughts, too. Then it cocked the hammer - and one eyebrow - in an unequivocal threat and said, “Talk, you creepy shape-shifting son of a bitch, before I forget my manners.”
Sam’s sleep-addled mind was slowly making some sort of dread-reluctant sense of this. Dean’s bed was always the one closest to the door. Always. Sam could never be sure if it was out of the aforementioned over-protectiveness, or just a habit born from years of being crawled over at 3 am by a little brother who needed the washroom. Regardless, Sam had definitely woken up on the wrong side of the room. He looked down at Dean’s knife in his hand, and that was all wrong too, but not unfamiliar. He knew it all; the square fist and thick fingers that were so like his fathers’, the forearm lightly downed with curling, golden hairs that did nothing to cover the sparse dusting of - yep - freckles. Sam didn’t need to turn his hand over to know there was a silver ring there, he could feel it digging into his flesh as he ferociously gripped the knife handle in panic. Shit.
Sam dropped the knife - a white flag - and said in Dean’s voice,
“Dean. It’s me. Well, I mean, I’m you. Trans corporis.” This was so just their luck, and Sam couldn’t help it, he laughed. Great, first his body, now he was losing his mind, too? As if in confirmation of the thought, his brain wildly considered quoting ‘Don’t you know your Sam?’ and he had to bite down on his laughter as it threatened to bubble up again. God, he really was a geek.
“Just - look at yourself, Dean.”
“Oh, I’m looking. But as handsome as you are, I’m getting ready to finish up looking and shoot ‘myself’ right between the eyes, if I don’t start hearing what you did with my brother in about the next two seconds.”
Dean wasn’t getting it. Of course, why should Dean believe him? Anything that was capable of looking like Dean was capable of lying about it. He probably still hadn’t gotten over seeing his face on that thing in St. Louis.
“Dean. Last week, we killed a gremlin, and you said it looked exactly like in the movies and you wanted to get it stuffed at a taxidermist’s. Remember?” Dean stared. The Colt’s muzzle didn’t budge.
Sam looked at the .45 pointed at him in his own hands, and just started talking.
“When we were little you sang me the Transformers theme when I couldn’t sleep, because it was the only song you knew all the words to. You love chili fries and cheese fries, but you hate chili-cheese fries because it all slides off, and then you have use a fork. You watch Oprah. You used to wet the bed, and Dad had to…”
“Ok, ok. Shut up, Sammy. SHUT UP!” Dean bellowed, and Sam trailed off, oddly intimidated. Was his voice always that deep? Dean was standing there on the wrong side of the room looking down at himself; at Sam’s long gangly legs in flannel pyjama pants, the gun falling slack in his large hand. “Shit, Sam, all you had to say was ‘Freaky Friday’.”
**
Dean had a plan. They were going to: 1) stay calm, and 2) figure this thing out. Good plan.
Sam followed orders and sat down in one of the rickety motel chairs anyway, because he understood that the first part of the plan was Dean’s job, and the second part was his. And the only way Dean could get his half done was if Sam fell in line. Order in the face of chaos, or some other bullshit Dad had told them that basically meant “do as I say, not as I do.” Mostly though, they both just wanted the excuse to sit across from each other and stare. Because, it was weird.
Watching someone else’s expressions on your own face was almost as unnerving as hearing yourself speak in someone else’s voice. Sam had noticed the hyperactivity of Dean’s eyebrows before, but until he saw them performing those acrobatics, he’d never quite noticed his own brows. They had a prominence that would impress a cro-magnon, and Sam made a mental note. When this was over, he was giving up the ongoing battle with his hair and letting it fall forward over his forehead the way Jess used to cut it, even if it did get in his eyes.
But Dean was talking. Well, babbling, but they were in crap-load of trouble and Sam should try and pay attention to Dean’s “plan”.
“…And we’ll have to do some practice training,” Dean was saying, “If I’m gonna be stuck using all your giant, clunky-ass equipment.”
Dean abruptly jumped out of his chair, dashed into the bathroom and slam-locked the door. Nice.
On the word “equipment” Sam had caught a look he didn’t think he’d ever seen on Dean’s face. Twitch was the best word Sam could think of to describe it, and he had the distinct impression it was something his face did whether the person wearing it wanted it to or not. Jerk face. Sam pouted, felt Dean’s lips curve exponentially in relation to the effort he’d put into it, and stopped immediately.
As if on cue, Sam’s (Dean’s?) bladder reminded him he’d been awake for almost an hour now and Dean had spent the night swilling beer like they didn’t make the stuff where he was headed in the morning. No problem. Sam had lock picks. Besides, he told himself, Dean didn’t have anything behind that door that Sam hadn’t seen before.
The mirror was a whole new frontier of messed up. Sam looked at his brother’s face, and watched himself move his brother’s hands. Freaky. He traced Dean’s callused fingers over the bridge of his nose, testing if he could feel the freckles. He prodded his cheekbones, scratched at the stubble on his jawline, and opened his mouth and checked out the straight little rows of Dean’s white, even teeth.
“Dude. You used my toothbrush again.”
“Damn right,” Sam heard his own voice say, from behind the pink flamingo patterned shower curtain. “So don’t you go putting it in my mouth now.”
Oh yeah.
“This is so confusing.” Sam muttered, tearing his gaze off the mirror and getting down to business.
“This is awesome,” Dean countered. “You’re huge, man.”
Sam could feel Dean’s pale skin flushing clear up to the hairline. “I mean, I knew you were huge and everything but…you’re huge!”
Oh, God.
“Dean!” And even in Dean’s voice, Sam managed to make it sound about 4 years old. Dammit. “Quit it.”
“Quit what?”
“Quit…looking.”
“Right, and what are you doing, aiming with your eyes closed?”
“Just - shut up, alright? I can’t do this with you talking to me.”
“Aw, you don’t have to be shy, Sammy. I changed your diapers.” Sam had never wanted to punch his brother in the face more. Great timing, considering now it was his face. “I don’t remember this big, fugly mole though, have you gotten it looked at?” Correction: NOW he had never wanted to punch his brother in the face more.
Instead, Sam finished up and flushed without giving warning. Smirking, he shut the door on the spluttering and cursing of Dean struggling to get all six feet, four inches of himself out of the now-scalding spray.
**
“Dean?” Even scratching its way through the crappy cell phone reception, the concern in Bobby’s greeting couldn’t be clearer. The familiar sound made Sam want to cling to it like someone had tossed him a life preserver.
“It’s Sam,” He explained, hastily. “I just have Dean’s voice. Well I kind of have Dean’s…everything. We’re switched, Bobby. I don’t know how it happened, there’s nothing about it in Dad’s journal and researching the internet for body-swapping is turning up so much garbage and fan fiction I can’t sort through it all.”
“There are plenty of things it could be,” Bobby replied, when Sam finally stopped babbling like a kid. “But the most dangerous is a Phlebotinum curse.”
“Phlebotinum?” Sam repeated, scratching absently at his nape. The close-cropped hairs felt prickly. “I feel like I’ve heard that name before, but it’s not ringing any bells.”
“It’s a spell,” Bobby sighed. “Sort of a popular joke with all kinds of baddies; witches, demons, imps - and you boys are perfect targets. It’s especially fun to play on hunters, because they’re always strapped with weapons, and so paranoid that they tend to panic when they run into ‘themselves’ walking around. Usually end up killing each other within the first five minutes.”
No kidding?
“Yeah,” Sam admitted, “We had sort of a narrow miss this morning.”
“Well, thank your lucky stars you talked your way through it. Most people shoot first, ask questions later; figuring it’s gotta be some kind of shape-shifter or apparition. Only there’s no ‘later’. Part of what the curse does to its victims is distort the connection between body and soul. Once you do in the body, the rightful spirit can’t hang around. Basically, it means if one victim’s body gets taken out, both end up dead.”
Bobby was using his You Listen Good Now tone. Without the words, Bobby’s phone voice said this here’s serious, and you boys take care, and, above all, don’t do anything stupid. He sounded tired, almost bored - and depressingly familiar. Sure, this thing had Sam shaken up and turned around backward, but if Bobby could keep his cool about this, then so could Sam. He was the analytical one, after all. Right?
“We’ll watch out for each other.” Sam said. Reassuring. The very picture of cool.
“That’s always a good plan for you two,” came Bobby’s reply, “but you’re not out of the woods yet. Remember what I said about the distorted soul connection?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Well, it’s progressive. As time goes by that connection gets weaker, and more twisted, until the spirit just wanders off, confused - and crosses over. The victims are dead in twenty-four hours.”
Sam wasn’t cool with this. Not cool at all.
“So even if we keep out of danger, we’ll just…expire sometime in the middle of the night?”
“If the curse runs its course,” Bobby soothed. “But don’t worry. This spell’s power is front-end loaded. It’s fast-acting but just as fast to break if you know how. I’m not sayin’ that’s what it is, like I said, there could be plenty of supernatural causes for transmutation. It’s just the worst-case scenario. But to be on the safe side, the first thing you should do is the counter-ritual. To break it you’re supposed to consume the heart of the one inhabiting your body. If it is the phlebotinum curse, it’ll be fully broken. You’ll be switched back and the natural connection will be restored.”
Oh. Just that simple, then.
“Uhhhm, Bobby…” His pitch cracked a little on his hysteria, and it was disconcerting to hear it in Dean’s timbre, so much better suited to the cocky drawl Sam was used to.
“Relax,” Bobby’s soothing tone was wearing thinner. “I said it’s a ritual. Symbolic.”
“Oh. But, oh, what if it’s not the phlebotinum thing!? We can’t stay like this, Bobby.”
“Dammit Dean, would you let me finish?”
“It’s Sam.”
There was a muffled grunt of frustration. “Does it matter?”
“I…” and Bobby had the next words out before Sam could go on, because: Really? No. …Wow.
“Now, do you want to hear how to break this thing or not?”
**
Just getting dressed to go out and pick up supplies was a trial by ordeal.
When Sam finished his turn in the shower (absolutely without sizing up his new physique in the mirror, or counting freckles and losing track three times before giving up), Dean was standing in the middle of the room, cursing the air blue and fighting a losing battle with his leather jacket. It didn’t stop him from periodically pushing tangled bangs off his face to bark wardrobe directions for Sam, though. (Who knew they still made button-fly jeans? And leave it to Dean to find the only store that carried them.)
Twenty minutes, two rounds with the jacket, and no less than four arguments about whether it was worse to wear another man’s skivvies or to go commando in your brother’s jungle later, and Sam was half-dressed. He was elbow-deep in Dean’s duffel, digging for a wearable t-shirt, when Dean obliged with the proverbial last straw.
“Not that one, the black one. Black’s more badass. My body’s gonna need all the help it can get, with you geeking it up everywhere we go.”
“The black one is dirty.” Sam said, through gritted teeth. “You wore it day before yesterday. There’s mustard. Right there.”
“Turn it inside out.” Dean tried a shrug, but the jacket had him in a full nelson.
“No way, Dean. I’m not wearing dirty clothes, it’s bad enough I have to wear YOU.”
“Hey I’m the one getting the raw deal, you get to be the handsome one.”
“I’m wearing this.” Sam ignored him, trying in vain to shake the wrinkles out of a tee that was well past its best before date, and should have graduated to gun-rag status months ago. “White brings out the brightness of your eyes, Vanity Smurf.”
“Really?” Dean paused in his struggle against a leather-and-bangs headlock.
“No.”
“Bitch.”
“Jer- DEAN. CAN WE JUST GO GET THE DAMN CANDY BEFORE WE DIE AND BOBBY BURIES US IN THE WRONG FRIGGIN’ GRAVES!?”
“Your arms are ten freaky feet long,” Was Dean’s sulky idea of a response. He collapsed, defeated and panting, on Sam’s bed. “And your shoulders suck.”
**
“How much longer?” Dean called from the bathroom. Sam didn’t even want to know what he was doing, but he’d been in there ever since they’d gotten back and had to ask the motel desk clerk for an upgrade to a room with a kitchenette.
“Same as last time you asked.”
It turned out the grocery store down the street didn’t carry Bobby’s symbolic curse-breaking prescription: candy hearts. So Sam was improvising. He didn’t look up from his clean-up until Dean’s emergence from the bathroom was announced by the increasingly familiar smack-curse-thump of Dean hitting his head on the lintel, then taking a retaliatory swing at the door-frame.
“Midgets built this bathroom, I swear to God.”
Sam stared at his brother/himself for a good three seconds before he turned back to the sink to hide his grin. Dean had his hair combed - no, slicked - back over the crown of his head with enough gel to drown the entire cast of an off-Broadway production of Grease.
“That’s a new look for me.” Sam managed, not bothering to stifle his snort.
“It’s drivin’ me crazy!” Dean yelped defensively, “Can’t see a damn thing with all that emo in my face. If this doesn’t work, we’re getting you a haircut, Sam.”
“Uh huh.” Sam reached out to administer a swift dish-soapy slap as a large hand made an un-stealthy grab for one of his freshly baked cookies. “Hot.”
“We’re supposed to eat them!” Dean complained as he withdrew, rubbing the back of his hand on his hip to take off the soap and the sting.
“They have to be heart-shaped for the ritual to work, Dean.” Sam reminded him, sharply. “You pick those up now, and they’ll be…paw-shaped.”
Dean scowled, but Sam just huffed. He’ be damned if he was going to give in to his own puppy-eyes.
“Here, take this one near the end, it’s kinda squashed anyhow.” Aw, crap.
“Oo sssure iss’ll work?” Dean asked, mid-cookie. His hair was already starting to fall down around his face in crispy arcs, a la 21 Jump Street.
“Only if this curse really is our problem. But yeah, as long as the shape is right and we declare ownership, any kind of food should cover the requirements for Bobby’s ritual.”
“Is that outfit a requirement?”
“An apron isn’t an outfit, Dean.”
“Whatever you want to call it, its wussy.” Dean jabbed the last half of his cookie at Sam accusingly. “And making me wear it is a betrayal as a brother.”
“You’re not wearing it. I am. And maybe if you kept a clean change of clothes around, I wouldn’t have to.”
Dean only shrugged in response. His mouth was full, anyway.
“Why don’t you make yourself useful and grab those M&Ms?”
“I’m liking this ritual more and more.” Dean enthused, tearing at the bag with gusto and scattering several of the brightly coloured sweets over the table top.
“They’re not for eating,” said Sam, even as Dean swept the fallen candy into his palm and tipped several into his mouth. Sam wrinkled his nose in distaste, wondering when the motel table had last been scrubbed.
“More food we can’t eat?”
“They’re for decorating. I told you there has to be clear ownership of whatever we use for the ritual. All these cookies came from the same tube of dough, which I paid for.”
“With money I gave you.”
“Yes. Fine. Money you gave me that technically belongs to a ‘Mr. B. Wayne’. The point is, one has to be yours and one has to be mine. So just…use some of the M&Ms to spell your initials on one of the cookies before they get too hard.”
By the time Sam had finished cleaning up, and squishing ‘S.W.’ into the cookie of his choice in coloured chocolate, Dean had gotten as far as ‘DV’. He was writing in only green, picking painstakingly through the entire bag of candy. Sam suspected it was just an excuse to eat all the other colours as he went, but he had to admit the effect was sort of pretty. Even Dean looked reluctant to tear his gaze off his masterpiece, when he finished.
“Okay. So now what do we do with these cookies we can’t touch, and candies we can’t eat?”
“Well, first we make a declaration; saying that the offering belongs to us and represents the heart, and naming the person receiving the offering. Then we exchange and consume the offering.”
“Consuming I get. But being all wordy-nerdy is more your thing. Go on, Shakespeare, show me how it’s done.”
Sam sighed. For a guy who liked to call everyone else a wuss, Dean sure liked to take a back seat on the more - awkward - parts of their job.
“Okay, so…I, Sam Winchester, declare this cookie as a representation of the heart of my own flesh…and I present it to my brother…Dean Winchester.” He shrugged, and slid the confection across the table toward Dean, who abruptly stood up, and began shifting his weight nervously from side to side.
“Hi. I’m Dean. This is my cookie.” Leave it to Dean to turn an occult ritual into an AA meeting. “It, um, represents my heart. And I, uh. Give it to you.” He thrust the cookie at Sam without looking at him. “Sammy.” He added, as if in afterthought.
Then their gazes locked, and Sam could hear his brother’s heartbeat pounding in his ears. Dean’s heartbeat was different from his own, quicker and lacking that slight arrhythmia Sam had once been joyfully thankful for, because it meant he got to stay in one town for nearly a whole summer so they could be close to the cardiac specialist that cost Dad a fortune before he confirmed that it was nothing to worry about. Dean’s heart didn’t falter, it beat strong and purposeful, like clockwork; ticking down resolutely as if toward some sworn purpose.
Even at a moment like this one.
This was it. What would happen if it worked, would it be painful? And what if it didn’t work at all?
Sam forced a muzzle over his swirling thoughts and took a bite, watching as Dean followed suit. It was a few seconds before he even tasted the cookie in his hand; sweet in the powdery, unsatisfying way of baking that doesn’t come from scratch, but still warm and dosed with melting candy-chocolate.
He didn’t realize he’d shut his eyes until he was opening them - just in time to see a pair of moss-green eyes across from him do the same. But the lashes were soft brown and down-swept, not long and gold-tipped like they ought to be.
“Nothing happened.” Dean pointed out, unnecessarily.
“Eat the whole thing, just to be sure.” Sam said, also unnecessarily. Dean was licking his fingers avidly, and wiping them off on Sam’s jeans.
“On the bright side, this has to be the tastiest ritual Bobby’s ever dug up. Magical cookies! Too bad there’s no ritual involving magic brownies.”
“The bright side is that it wasn’t the Phlebotinum curse. We aren’t going to die.” Sam said, as the last of his hope disappeared along with the last of his cookie. “…Today.”
“Hallelujia! I’d say that calls for some real breakfast,” Dean crowed, grabbing another cookie along with the car keys.
It would have been funny when Dean tripped over his own feet in the parking lot, and then forgot to duck his head when climbing into the Impala, if Sam wasn’t just so damn disappointed. He sighed, and reminded himself they could always call Bobby again in the hope that he had any other ideas for a cure.
After breakfast. Cookie notwithstanding, Sam was pretty sure he’d never been this hungry in his life.
Part 2 - Gimme More
I am back from an extended long weekend - a holiday the first week of August for us Toronto area Canucks doncha know. Well, I got a whole pile of stuff done for my upcoming wedding in on month (yikes). AAAAAAAAAAND I got this new fic beta-ed!
Thanks kelios , for putting up with my longish story and general pestering.
Sadly, somewhere in the emailing her version of the file was lost, so I don't know if I have gotten the spacing that she would have suggested, but hopefully the paragraphs are not too long any more! Clearly all remaining errors are, and always were, mine.
Title: Eye of the Beholder
Characters: Dean, Sam, Bobby by cell phone
Genre: Gen/Humour - Bodyswap. Werd.
Warnings: None
Rating: 14+ for a gesture, and maybe a little innuendo and off-colour humour - nothing Show wouldn't do, really.
WC: 7800 approx.
A/N: Complete. Dean and Sam take advantage of the opportunity to abuse each other's bodies. Not THAT way, gutter-faces! :P
Disclaimer: Not mine, just fun to play with. If I put them all back when I'm done, you don't sue, okay?
Eye of the Beholder, Part 1
_________________________
Eye of the Beholder
_________________________
Sam hadn’t even opened his eyes yet, but he knew something was wrong. The snuffling, ragged breathing in the next bed wasn’t the usual slow in-and-out of Dean sleeping off the beer plus one whiskey shot of the previous night’s eight-ball hustle.
‘Great, now it’s nightmares for two?’ thought Sam. He sighed wearily and opened his eyes to check that Dean wasn’t aspirating on his own vomit or anything - as happy as something so John Bonham-esque might have made Dean.
Sam looked, and the thing in the bed next to his was not his brother. Sure, it looked human, and masculine in a way that was almost over-doing it; the stiff white sheets slipped low enough to show a bare torso that was all planes and knots of hard-earned muscle. But if it was trying to be Dean it had made several, glaring, mistakes. It was huge, for one thing, sprawled on its back with one over-large hand dangling awkwardly off the bed and its head turned away from Sam. And it had shaggy, too-long hair that was several shades darker than Dean’s sandy spikes.
Unusual as it was for him, Sam found he’d been sleeping on his belly. One hand was tucked under the pillow and curled loosely around the handle of something deadly. Sam wondered abruptly when Dean had started this mutant toothfairy act, but for once, he was thankful for Dean’s overprotective paranoia. Clutching the Bowie knife, Sam eased himself off the mattress as silently as he could, but the creaky motel bedsprings didn’t cooperate. The imposter heard him.
Sam saw its head turn toward him by a fraction. Then the thing leapt out of the bed - and promptly crumpled to the floor, like it wasn’t used to its legs yet. But whatever-it-was had lightning recovery, and it scrambled across the room to grab Dean’s Colt off the table and point it right at Sam’s chest. A killing shot. This thing knew how to handle a gun.
Sam looked up to meet his attacker’s gaze and nearly dropped the knife. It was staring back at him with eyes he’d only ever seen in a mirror; and that wasn’t all. The thing was him in every detail; from the gash on his left forearm courtesy of last week’s critter job, right down to the little mole next to his nose. Sam watched as it opened his mouth and said:
“What the hell are you? And where’s my brother!?”
And Sam thought it must be able to read his thoughts, too. Then it cocked the hammer - and one eyebrow - in an unequivocal threat and said, “Talk, you creepy shape-shifting son of a bitch, before I forget my manners.”
Sam’s sleep-addled mind was slowly making some sort of dread-reluctant sense of this. Dean’s bed was always the one closest to the door. Always. Sam could never be sure if it was out of the aforementioned over-protectiveness, or just a habit born from years of being crawled over at 3 am by a little brother who needed the washroom. Regardless, Sam had definitely woken up on the wrong side of the room. He looked down at Dean’s knife in his hand, and that was all wrong too, but not unfamiliar. He knew it all; the square fist and thick fingers that were so like his fathers’, the forearm lightly downed with curling, golden hairs that did nothing to cover the sparse dusting of - yep - freckles. Sam didn’t need to turn his hand over to know there was a silver ring there, he could feel it digging into his flesh as he ferociously gripped the knife handle in panic. Shit.
Sam dropped the knife - a white flag - and said in Dean’s voice,
“Dean. It’s me. Well, I mean, I’m you. Trans corporis.” This was so just their luck, and Sam couldn’t help it, he laughed. Great, first his body, now he was losing his mind, too? As if in confirmation of the thought, his brain wildly considered quoting ‘Don’t you know your Sam?’ and he had to bite down on his laughter as it threatened to bubble up again. God, he really was a geek.
“Just - look at yourself, Dean.”
“Oh, I’m looking. But as handsome as you are, I’m getting ready to finish up looking and shoot ‘myself’ right between the eyes, if I don’t start hearing what you did with my brother in about the next two seconds.”
Dean wasn’t getting it. Of course, why should Dean believe him? Anything that was capable of looking like Dean was capable of lying about it. He probably still hadn’t gotten over seeing his face on that thing in St. Louis.
“Dean. Last week, we killed a gremlin, and you said it looked exactly like in the movies and you wanted to get it stuffed at a taxidermist’s. Remember?” Dean stared. The Colt’s muzzle didn’t budge.
Sam looked at the .45 pointed at him in his own hands, and just started talking.
“When we were little you sang me the Transformers theme when I couldn’t sleep, because it was the only song you knew all the words to. You love chili fries and cheese fries, but you hate chili-cheese fries because it all slides off, and then you have use a fork. You watch Oprah. You used to wet the bed, and Dad had to…”
“Ok, ok. Shut up, Sammy. SHUT UP!” Dean bellowed, and Sam trailed off, oddly intimidated. Was his voice always that deep? Dean was standing there on the wrong side of the room looking down at himself; at Sam’s long gangly legs in flannel pyjama pants, the gun falling slack in his large hand. “Shit, Sam, all you had to say was ‘Freaky Friday’.”
**
Dean had a plan. They were going to: 1) stay calm, and 2) figure this thing out. Good plan.
Sam followed orders and sat down in one of the rickety motel chairs anyway, because he understood that the first part of the plan was Dean’s job, and the second part was his. And the only way Dean could get his half done was if Sam fell in line. Order in the face of chaos, or some other bullshit Dad had told them that basically meant “do as I say, not as I do.” Mostly though, they both just wanted the excuse to sit across from each other and stare. Because, it was weird.
Watching someone else’s expressions on your own face was almost as unnerving as hearing yourself speak in someone else’s voice. Sam had noticed the hyperactivity of Dean’s eyebrows before, but until he saw them performing those acrobatics, he’d never quite noticed his own brows. They had a prominence that would impress a cro-magnon, and Sam made a mental note. When this was over, he was giving up the ongoing battle with his hair and letting it fall forward over his forehead the way Jess used to cut it, even if it did get in his eyes.
But Dean was talking. Well, babbling, but they were in crap-load of trouble and Sam should try and pay attention to Dean’s “plan”.
“…And we’ll have to do some practice training,” Dean was saying, “If I’m gonna be stuck using all your giant, clunky-ass equipment.”
Dean abruptly jumped out of his chair, dashed into the bathroom and slam-locked the door. Nice.
On the word “equipment” Sam had caught a look he didn’t think he’d ever seen on Dean’s face. Twitch was the best word Sam could think of to describe it, and he had the distinct impression it was something his face did whether the person wearing it wanted it to or not. Jerk face. Sam pouted, felt Dean’s lips curve exponentially in relation to the effort he’d put into it, and stopped immediately.
As if on cue, Sam’s (Dean’s?) bladder reminded him he’d been awake for almost an hour now and Dean had spent the night swilling beer like they didn’t make the stuff where he was headed in the morning. No problem. Sam had lock picks. Besides, he told himself, Dean didn’t have anything behind that door that Sam hadn’t seen before.
The mirror was a whole new frontier of messed up. Sam looked at his brother’s face, and watched himself move his brother’s hands. Freaky. He traced Dean’s callused fingers over the bridge of his nose, testing if he could feel the freckles. He prodded his cheekbones, scratched at the stubble on his jawline, and opened his mouth and checked out the straight little rows of Dean’s white, even teeth.
“Dude. You used my toothbrush again.”
“Damn right,” Sam heard his own voice say, from behind the pink flamingo patterned shower curtain. “So don’t you go putting it in my mouth now.”
Oh yeah.
“This is so confusing.” Sam muttered, tearing his gaze off the mirror and getting down to business.
“This is awesome,” Dean countered. “You’re huge, man.”
Sam could feel Dean’s pale skin flushing clear up to the hairline. “I mean, I knew you were huge and everything but…you’re huge!”
Oh, God.
“Dean!” And even in Dean’s voice, Sam managed to make it sound about 4 years old. Dammit. “Quit it.”
“Quit what?”
“Quit…looking.”
“Right, and what are you doing, aiming with your eyes closed?”
“Just - shut up, alright? I can’t do this with you talking to me.”
“Aw, you don’t have to be shy, Sammy. I changed your diapers.” Sam had never wanted to punch his brother in the face more. Great timing, considering now it was his face. “I don’t remember this big, fugly mole though, have you gotten it looked at?” Correction: NOW he had never wanted to punch his brother in the face more.
Instead, Sam finished up and flushed without giving warning. Smirking, he shut the door on the spluttering and cursing of Dean struggling to get all six feet, four inches of himself out of the now-scalding spray.
**
“Dean?” Even scratching its way through the crappy cell phone reception, the concern in Bobby’s greeting couldn’t be clearer. The familiar sound made Sam want to cling to it like someone had tossed him a life preserver.
“It’s Sam,” He explained, hastily. “I just have Dean’s voice. Well I kind of have Dean’s…everything. We’re switched, Bobby. I don’t know how it happened, there’s nothing about it in Dad’s journal and researching the internet for body-swapping is turning up so much garbage and fan fiction I can’t sort through it all.”
“There are plenty of things it could be,” Bobby replied, when Sam finally stopped babbling like a kid. “But the most dangerous is a Phlebotinum curse.”
“Phlebotinum?” Sam repeated, scratching absently at his nape. The close-cropped hairs felt prickly. “I feel like I’ve heard that name before, but it’s not ringing any bells.”
“It’s a spell,” Bobby sighed. “Sort of a popular joke with all kinds of baddies; witches, demons, imps - and you boys are perfect targets. It’s especially fun to play on hunters, because they’re always strapped with weapons, and so paranoid that they tend to panic when they run into ‘themselves’ walking around. Usually end up killing each other within the first five minutes.”
No kidding?
“Yeah,” Sam admitted, “We had sort of a narrow miss this morning.”
“Well, thank your lucky stars you talked your way through it. Most people shoot first, ask questions later; figuring it’s gotta be some kind of shape-shifter or apparition. Only there’s no ‘later’. Part of what the curse does to its victims is distort the connection between body and soul. Once you do in the body, the rightful spirit can’t hang around. Basically, it means if one victim’s body gets taken out, both end up dead.”
Bobby was using his You Listen Good Now tone. Without the words, Bobby’s phone voice said this here’s serious, and you boys take care, and, above all, don’t do anything stupid. He sounded tired, almost bored - and depressingly familiar. Sure, this thing had Sam shaken up and turned around backward, but if Bobby could keep his cool about this, then so could Sam. He was the analytical one, after all. Right?
“We’ll watch out for each other.” Sam said. Reassuring. The very picture of cool.
“That’s always a good plan for you two,” came Bobby’s reply, “but you’re not out of the woods yet. Remember what I said about the distorted soul connection?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Well, it’s progressive. As time goes by that connection gets weaker, and more twisted, until the spirit just wanders off, confused - and crosses over. The victims are dead in twenty-four hours.”
Sam wasn’t cool with this. Not cool at all.
“So even if we keep out of danger, we’ll just…expire sometime in the middle of the night?”
“If the curse runs its course,” Bobby soothed. “But don’t worry. This spell’s power is front-end loaded. It’s fast-acting but just as fast to break if you know how. I’m not sayin’ that’s what it is, like I said, there could be plenty of supernatural causes for transmutation. It’s just the worst-case scenario. But to be on the safe side, the first thing you should do is the counter-ritual. To break it you’re supposed to consume the heart of the one inhabiting your body. If it is the phlebotinum curse, it’ll be fully broken. You’ll be switched back and the natural connection will be restored.”
Oh. Just that simple, then.
“Uhhhm, Bobby…” His pitch cracked a little on his hysteria, and it was disconcerting to hear it in Dean’s timbre, so much better suited to the cocky drawl Sam was used to.
“Relax,” Bobby’s soothing tone was wearing thinner. “I said it’s a ritual. Symbolic.”
“Oh. But, oh, what if it’s not the phlebotinum thing!? We can’t stay like this, Bobby.”
“Dammit Dean, would you let me finish?”
“It’s Sam.”
There was a muffled grunt of frustration. “Does it matter?”
“I…” and Bobby had the next words out before Sam could go on, because: Really? No. …Wow.
“Now, do you want to hear how to break this thing or not?”
**
Just getting dressed to go out and pick up supplies was a trial by ordeal.
When Sam finished his turn in the shower (absolutely without sizing up his new physique in the mirror, or counting freckles and losing track three times before giving up), Dean was standing in the middle of the room, cursing the air blue and fighting a losing battle with his leather jacket. It didn’t stop him from periodically pushing tangled bangs off his face to bark wardrobe directions for Sam, though. (Who knew they still made button-fly jeans? And leave it to Dean to find the only store that carried them.)
Twenty minutes, two rounds with the jacket, and no less than four arguments about whether it was worse to wear another man’s skivvies or to go commando in your brother’s jungle later, and Sam was half-dressed. He was elbow-deep in Dean’s duffel, digging for a wearable t-shirt, when Dean obliged with the proverbial last straw.
“Not that one, the black one. Black’s more badass. My body’s gonna need all the help it can get, with you geeking it up everywhere we go.”
“The black one is dirty.” Sam said, through gritted teeth. “You wore it day before yesterday. There’s mustard. Right there.”
“Turn it inside out.” Dean tried a shrug, but the jacket had him in a full nelson.
“No way, Dean. I’m not wearing dirty clothes, it’s bad enough I have to wear YOU.”
“Hey I’m the one getting the raw deal, you get to be the handsome one.”
“I’m wearing this.” Sam ignored him, trying in vain to shake the wrinkles out of a tee that was well past its best before date, and should have graduated to gun-rag status months ago. “White brings out the brightness of your eyes, Vanity Smurf.”
“Really?” Dean paused in his struggle against a leather-and-bangs headlock.
“No.”
“Bitch.”
“Jer- DEAN. CAN WE JUST GO GET THE DAMN CANDY BEFORE WE DIE AND BOBBY BURIES US IN THE WRONG FRIGGIN’ GRAVES!?”
“Your arms are ten freaky feet long,” Was Dean’s sulky idea of a response. He collapsed, defeated and panting, on Sam’s bed. “And your shoulders suck.”
**
“How much longer?” Dean called from the bathroom. Sam didn’t even want to know what he was doing, but he’d been in there ever since they’d gotten back and had to ask the motel desk clerk for an upgrade to a room with a kitchenette.
“Same as last time you asked.”
It turned out the grocery store down the street didn’t carry Bobby’s symbolic curse-breaking prescription: candy hearts. So Sam was improvising. He didn’t look up from his clean-up until Dean’s emergence from the bathroom was announced by the increasingly familiar smack-curse-thump of Dean hitting his head on the lintel, then taking a retaliatory swing at the door-frame.
“Midgets built this bathroom, I swear to God.”
Sam stared at his brother/himself for a good three seconds before he turned back to the sink to hide his grin. Dean had his hair combed - no, slicked - back over the crown of his head with enough gel to drown the entire cast of an off-Broadway production of Grease.
“That’s a new look for me.” Sam managed, not bothering to stifle his snort.
“It’s drivin’ me crazy!” Dean yelped defensively, “Can’t see a damn thing with all that emo in my face. If this doesn’t work, we’re getting you a haircut, Sam.”
“Uh huh.” Sam reached out to administer a swift dish-soapy slap as a large hand made an un-stealthy grab for one of his freshly baked cookies. “Hot.”
“We’re supposed to eat them!” Dean complained as he withdrew, rubbing the back of his hand on his hip to take off the soap and the sting.
“They have to be heart-shaped for the ritual to work, Dean.” Sam reminded him, sharply. “You pick those up now, and they’ll be…paw-shaped.”
Dean scowled, but Sam just huffed. He’ be damned if he was going to give in to his own puppy-eyes.
“Here, take this one near the end, it’s kinda squashed anyhow.” Aw, crap.
“Oo sssure iss’ll work?” Dean asked, mid-cookie. His hair was already starting to fall down around his face in crispy arcs, a la 21 Jump Street.
“Only if this curse really is our problem. But yeah, as long as the shape is right and we declare ownership, any kind of food should cover the requirements for Bobby’s ritual.”
“Is that outfit a requirement?”
“An apron isn’t an outfit, Dean.”
“Whatever you want to call it, its wussy.” Dean jabbed the last half of his cookie at Sam accusingly. “And making me wear it is a betrayal as a brother.”
“You’re not wearing it. I am. And maybe if you kept a clean change of clothes around, I wouldn’t have to.”
Dean only shrugged in response. His mouth was full, anyway.
“Why don’t you make yourself useful and grab those M&Ms?”
“I’m liking this ritual more and more.” Dean enthused, tearing at the bag with gusto and scattering several of the brightly coloured sweets over the table top.
“They’re not for eating,” said Sam, even as Dean swept the fallen candy into his palm and tipped several into his mouth. Sam wrinkled his nose in distaste, wondering when the motel table had last been scrubbed.
“More food we can’t eat?”
“They’re for decorating. I told you there has to be clear ownership of whatever we use for the ritual. All these cookies came from the same tube of dough, which I paid for.”
“With money I gave you.”
“Yes. Fine. Money you gave me that technically belongs to a ‘Mr. B. Wayne’. The point is, one has to be yours and one has to be mine. So just…use some of the M&Ms to spell your initials on one of the cookies before they get too hard.”
By the time Sam had finished cleaning up, and squishing ‘S.W.’ into the cookie of his choice in coloured chocolate, Dean had gotten as far as ‘DV’. He was writing in only green, picking painstakingly through the entire bag of candy. Sam suspected it was just an excuse to eat all the other colours as he went, but he had to admit the effect was sort of pretty. Even Dean looked reluctant to tear his gaze off his masterpiece, when he finished.
“Okay. So now what do we do with these cookies we can’t touch, and candies we can’t eat?”
“Well, first we make a declaration; saying that the offering belongs to us and represents the heart, and naming the person receiving the offering. Then we exchange and consume the offering.”
“Consuming I get. But being all wordy-nerdy is more your thing. Go on, Shakespeare, show me how it’s done.”
Sam sighed. For a guy who liked to call everyone else a wuss, Dean sure liked to take a back seat on the more - awkward - parts of their job.
“Okay, so…I, Sam Winchester, declare this cookie as a representation of the heart of my own flesh…and I present it to my brother…Dean Winchester.” He shrugged, and slid the confection across the table toward Dean, who abruptly stood up, and began shifting his weight nervously from side to side.
“Hi. I’m Dean. This is my cookie.” Leave it to Dean to turn an occult ritual into an AA meeting. “It, um, represents my heart. And I, uh. Give it to you.” He thrust the cookie at Sam without looking at him. “Sammy.” He added, as if in afterthought.
Then their gazes locked, and Sam could hear his brother’s heartbeat pounding in his ears. Dean’s heartbeat was different from his own, quicker and lacking that slight arrhythmia Sam had once been joyfully thankful for, because it meant he got to stay in one town for nearly a whole summer so they could be close to the cardiac specialist that cost Dad a fortune before he confirmed that it was nothing to worry about. Dean’s heart didn’t falter, it beat strong and purposeful, like clockwork; ticking down resolutely as if toward some sworn purpose.
Even at a moment like this one.
This was it. What would happen if it worked, would it be painful? And what if it didn’t work at all?
Sam forced a muzzle over his swirling thoughts and took a bite, watching as Dean followed suit. It was a few seconds before he even tasted the cookie in his hand; sweet in the powdery, unsatisfying way of baking that doesn’t come from scratch, but still warm and dosed with melting candy-chocolate.
He didn’t realize he’d shut his eyes until he was opening them - just in time to see a pair of moss-green eyes across from him do the same. But the lashes were soft brown and down-swept, not long and gold-tipped like they ought to be.
“Nothing happened.” Dean pointed out, unnecessarily.
“Eat the whole thing, just to be sure.” Sam said, also unnecessarily. Dean was licking his fingers avidly, and wiping them off on Sam’s jeans.
“On the bright side, this has to be the tastiest ritual Bobby’s ever dug up. Magical cookies! Too bad there’s no ritual involving magic brownies.”
“The bright side is that it wasn’t the Phlebotinum curse. We aren’t going to die.” Sam said, as the last of his hope disappeared along with the last of his cookie. “…Today.”
“Hallelujia! I’d say that calls for some real breakfast,” Dean crowed, grabbing another cookie along with the car keys.
It would have been funny when Dean tripped over his own feet in the parking lot, and then forgot to duck his head when climbing into the Impala, if Sam wasn’t just so damn disappointed. He sighed, and reminded himself they could always call Bobby again in the hope that he had any other ideas for a cure.
After breakfast. Cookie notwithstanding, Sam was pretty sure he’d never been this hungry in his life.
Part 2 - Gimme More