(no subject)
Okay, so! I seem to recall promising unfinished would-be epic Supernatural fic. I'm posting it now because I'm officially going to get Jossed Kripked tomorrow, and I've got enough of it so that I at least want to show it off a little to the flist.
In keeping with the accidental theme of my recent fannish life, it is a crossover of sorts. A while back - late last year, I think - I read a cute little fic that I've lost the link to that was a Supernatural-flavored spoof of Wizard of Oz, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan in the Dorothy role. I found the fic amusing, and then the premise kind of started to eat my brain. There are, I have found, very few fics involving actors transported into the fictional world in the SPN fandom (which, honestly, surprises me, because: SPN fandom), and of course the ones I did find that took the idea more seriously were about Jensen and/or Jared.
So one night I started writing down bits of a 'verse wherein Jeff finds himself in the SPN world, and he's been brought there for a reason. I was just fooling around trying to get it out of my head, and somehow ended up with over nine pages of fragments. These take place over the course of the story; I didn't write them in this order, but I did some rearranging and editing for the sake of clarity.
For context, I started writing this during the winter hiatus, so it's AU after 3x08, "A Very Supernatural Christmas," and I haven't written anything since the post-strike eps started airing. BUT, just to confuse everyone, it begins roughly two weeks before Dean's deal is due up and takes place over the course of those two weeks. Just pretend it somehow makes sense with Jeff's timeline. They don't have to match up, after all.
There is a touch of implied Jeff/Jensen, but it's pretty ambiguous since I couldn't decide whether I wanted to go that route or not (I liked the idea of the added layer of weirdness to Jeff's interactions with Dean, but there's already enough going on that I wasn't sure whether that would just make things too crowded) so if RPS isn't your thing, it's easy to ignore.
I've added notes in between fragments where there are gaps in the narrative, just to help people follow what is going on.
Enough babbling. Have some unfinished-and-likely-to-stay-that-way fic!
[We start with the boys and Jeff en route to Bobby's to see if they can find out why the fuck Jeff is here. By this point in the story, the boys more or less believe that Jeff is who he says he is, and Jeff more or less believes that this is all real and he hasn't just lost his mind.]
The thing about the headache that's really grinding Jeff down isn't its intensity, but its constancy. The intensity is very low, something he wouldn't even waste the aspirin on for a normal headache. But it just. doesn't. stop. It's relentless and exhausting, and combines with everything else about his situation - which, really, is just about everything - to make him tense and short-tempered.
There are a lot of little mundane details the show doesn't address. Jeff can deal with spending hours in a car, listening to the boys fire verbal shots back and forth, and then listening to his head pound when Dean covers up a misfire by cranking the Metallica. It's not like he hasn't been on lengthy roadtrips before, though he was younger then and his body was more willing to take the subtle abuse. What's really getting to him is a small irony - the stress and weirdness of his situation have shot his nicotine dependence to an all-time high right when he has the fewest opportunities to smoke that he's had since he started. He can't smoke in the Impala, not only because he's sharing the small space with two non-smokers and he's a considerate guy, but also he's pretty sure that Dean would kill him, father's face or no, before the flame could get anywhere near the tip of his Marlboro. He can grab a quick smoke during rest stop breaks, if his bladder doesn't need tending to, but then when he gets back in the car he has to deal with exaggerating coughing and Sam theatrically rolling down every window he can reach as fast as he can and Dean bitching about how the smell better not get into the fucking upholstery and Jeff almost prefers the withdrawal to their antics.
He can tell they like giving him shit, though, they almost have too much fun with it, go a little overboard, and he'd bet the next five years of his career that he's a target for twenty-plus years of their repressed frustration with their father. He's sorely tempted to give them a good John Winchester growl, but he knows that this whole thing is weird enough for them without him deliberately aping John. He tries to make a point of avoiding any of John's mannerisms, though he can tell from the looks they occasionally give him that something has slipped through, because all of his roles have carried something of him; he'd quit smoking entirely before he'd lob a grenade like that on purpose. If they give him too hard a time because it wasn't always quite safe to hassle John, then let them have their fun. Jeff likes the idea that they trust him enough for that, which, okay, is probably overstating it, but it helps him keep his temper in check, and maybe John is getting to him just a little, because he keeps thinking that if he can't fight then there has to be some way he can protect them, even if it's just refraining from being an asshole.
**********
When he's done, it feels strange. He's used to at least having some stubble, but the face that looks back at him in the hotel mirror is as unWinchester as he can make it now, so he tidies up and goes back into the main room and pretends he doesn't see Sam and Dean looking at him like they know exactly why he did it.
**********
"You're staying in the car," Dean says firmly as he turns off the Impala's engine. Jeff gives him a tired "no shit" look. He's quite secure in his manhood, thank you very much, he has no need to go running out into the woods after something he still just barely believes exists just to prove that his dick hasn't fallen off.
"Fucking right I am."
The corner of Dean's mouth quirks up briefly. "Good, then we can skip the lecture. Bobby's place is marked in the atlas. We're not back in a couple hours, you get going."
Jeff nods. "Got it."
Dean nods back and gets out of the car. Jeff leans back and closes his eyes, headache thumping faintly in his temples. He listens to the sounds of the boys getting equipment from the trunk, thinking that he is handling this - the role of third wheel in an honest-to-God werewolf hunt - surprisingly well. His matter-of-fact responses to Dean weren't even acting.
The calm lasts for about as long as it takes for Dean and Sam to walk away after Dean slips the keys back to Jeff through a small crack in the window. Then Jeff's eyes pop open and his heart starts to speed up. Sitting in a car on the side of a road that hasn't been maintained since Reagan was president (if he even was President here, he thinks a bit wildly, you never know, maybe he got killed by something years before he could even run for office), in the middle of the night, with a fucking werewolf running around and the only two people on the planet who know he's not crazy (something not even Jeff is sure of all the time) running around after it. And all the weaponry locked in the fucking trunk. That last part he's not so sure is a problem, there's no way this car isn't covered with every single protection charm and symbol that the Winchesters could find, but he'd feel better with a shotgun in his hands. He may not be equipped for a real fight, but he knows how to use a shotgun, he has for years. An actor who tries to handle a gun on camera when he doesn't know anything beyond "point and shoot" looks like an idiot.
Jeff takes a slow, shaky breath. They know what they're doing. They'll be fine. He'll be fine. And if they don't come back, he decides suddenly, he's not going anywhere. It's a werewolf. Daybreak will be all the protection he'll need to go out and find them.
That makes him feel a little steadier. Having a plan in mind always does. And thinking about worrying about them in the possible future is easier to handle than worrying about himself in the immediate present, and somehow less ludicrous than worrying about them in the immediate present.
That last thought makes him laugh to himself. As if anything about this isn't, on some level, inherently ludicrous. As if worrying less about the boys when they're after something deadly than he does whenever he thinks he hears a hint of John Winchester in his tone isn't a serious miscarriage of priority.
He needs to think about something else. The problem is, the only other something else to think about is home. He's been gone for almost three days. Well - he's been here for almost three days. Has he been gone for that long? He's been clinging to the possibility that he hasn't, that somehow time is different here. That he hasn't gone missing from the Watchmen set, that Jensen didn't show up to find his temporary apartment containing no one but a confused and terrified Bisou . . . Jeff's heart clenches at the thought, of Bisou alone for two days, looking for him, not understanding why he isn't there and why there's no food and Christ this isn't helping. Jeff rubs trembling hands over his face, trying to force back the panic-fueled images and be rational. Everyone knows about Bisou. Even if he has been gone for as long as he's been here, the very second his disappearance was discovered someone would have gone to check his apartment and found her. She won't be very happy, but she won't be alone, either. The stress is just getting to him, making his imagination throw out the worst things it can come up with.
It's not helping the headache, either, which is starting to ramp up - and then it spikes, hard, and he yells in the silent car and clutches at his head. The searing pain disappears almost as soon as it hit.
Then, without quite knowing exactly what the hell he's doing or why, but certain that he has no other option, Jeff gets out of the Impala, unlocks the trunk, loads a gun with silver bullets in deft and practiced motions, and goes out into the woods.
He cocks the shotgun as he walks, steps solid and sure, eyes scanning the forest for anything amiss. And he'll recognize it if he sees it. He should be terrified, should be uncertain, should be back in the goddamn car, but he's not. He just watches and listens, stepping carefully to make minimum noise, his mind quiet and still.
He can hear a disturbance up ahead. He shifts his hold on the gun and heads for it.
Sam is on his back, grappling with a snarling werewolf, and a lightning-fast check of his field of vision tells Jeff that Dean is nowhere nearby. Both of them are focused on each other, unaware of him, and it's so easy to drop quietly to one knee and put a bullet in the werewolf's head.
It collapses on Sam, dead in an instant. Sam looks over, expecting to see Dean, and the look on his face would comical if it weren't for this weird mood that's still settled over Jeff. He mouths something that Jeff can't hear and pretends he doesn't see, because killing a werewolf sure as shit doesn't make him John Winchester no matter what it might look like.
"Where's Dean?" he asks, voice a bit distant to his own ears. It carries, though, making Sam blink and focus.
"There were two of them." He pushes the body off him - Jeff will definitely be saving its reversion to human form to worry about and get screaming nightmares from for later - and sits up. "Dean went after the oth -" He stops suddenly, cocks his head, and Jeff hears what he's hearing a split second before something knocks Jeff down and pain explodes in his upper left arm.
The pain is still registering when he hears a shot and whatever's on him falls to the side. He clutches his arm and feels blood, more than he'd like to think about, not that he can think through the agony that makes him want to crawl out of his skin to escape it. He hears the conversation over his head as he holds onto the wound and wishes it would disappear.
"What the hell is he doing here?"
"I don't know. But he killed this one." There's a hesitation in Sam's voice on the last word, then he falls silent.
". . . you okay?"
"Yeah. It didn't get me."
Jeff's adrenaline is going into overdrive and kicking the pain down to a buzzing hum, and he gasps in a deep breath as he rolls onto his back and slowly sits up. Dean kneels next to him, pushing hs hand aside just long enough to get a look at the damage before pressing it back into place and squeezing his own hand over it.
"It just clawed you. You'll be fine. Just keep pressure on it. And don't think we won't be having a talk about your listening comprehension later on."
"Save it, Dean," he growls, looking up. Dean's eyes widen and he stares at Jeff, then looks past him at Sam.
Then Jeff's head flares again, the numbness that took over in the car falls away from his mind, and he's left wondering what the hell he was thinking.
**********
Sam takes him back to the car for a makeshift patch job - "It's gonna need a couple stitches, but that can wait a couple hours till we get to Bobby's." - while Dean does whatever it is that gets done with the bodies of werewolves who no longer look like wolves. Which Jeff is still not thinking about, if only because he's concentrating on not howling like a wolf himself while Sam swabs out the wounds with disinfectant. It burns like a bitch and it's not exactly like he does this on a regular basis. He gets through it with only a few strangled noises, which he is inordinantly proud of, though Sam would probably have cut him some slack for screaming.
"That was a hell of a shot," Sam says conversationally while he bandages Jeff's arm up tight to stanch the last of the bleeding. Even through the haze of pain, Jeff recognizes the tone. He watches the show faithfully, for Jensen's sake, and Sam trots this one out in every episode. It's the "get the civilian to talk" tone, the one designed to subtly ingratiate himself before he starts asking invasive questions. Hearing it used on him annoys the living hell out of Jeff.
"If you have a question, ask it," he says shortly. "Don't have to butter me up first."
Sam, to his credit, looks sheepish for a second. "Sorry. It's kind of automatic." He tears off the end of the surgical tape. "So why didn't you stay in the car?"
Jeff hesitates, debates the merits of various possible answers. Settles on the truth. "I don't know."
Sam just looks at him. Jeff bridles a little.
"I mean it. I don't know. One minute I was thinking about my dog, next minute I was getting out of the car. I didn't even think about it. And I sure as hell wasn't trying to prove how macho I am." He knows that's what it looks like, and almost wishes it was the case because at least it would make some kind of sense, but charging cluelessly into the woods just to prove how tough he is would take some serious, bone-deep stupidity. He doesn't want Sam thinking he's stupid. Or Dean, either, but he's not here right now and in any case he'll probably need a lot more convincing on that point than Sam will.
Sam just nods and digs a mini-bottle of Advil out of the first aid kit. "Best we've got," he says, apologetic. "Anything that hurts enough for something stronger usually ends up in a trip to the ER, anyway." He opens the bottle and tips a few pills into Jeff's right hand. "Should take the edge off, at least."
Jeff thanks him and dry swallows the pills. He considers telling Sam that the sudden dropping of the subject didn't go by unnoticed, but he doesn't really want to talk about it and he definitely doesn't want to think about it. His arm is throbbing and the headache is back at its usual low, constant buzz, and he just wants to get back into the car and see if it's possible to sleep through the last of the drive.
**********
[They arrive at Bobby's, and being settled instead of travelling gives Jeff time to dwell on his situation and start to really feel the stress and panic. He tries to keep it to himself, aware of the fact that everyone is already tense enough over Dean's deal without him adding to the mix, but about a day or so in his nerves get too shredded and he lets loose with his best John Winchester before he can even think about it. He's thoroughly horrified and hastily excuses himself to have a cigarette and start facing up to a few things.]
**********
Jeff taps the last cigarette out of the pack into his hand, and wonders vaguely if he can get Singer to run him out to the nearest convenience store tomorrow for a fresh supply. He'd borrow Singer's truck and go himself, but his wallet is empty of cash now and he doubts that his credit cards are good here, and maybe it's a moot point anyway because the lighter is shaking so badly he can't get the cigarette lit. "Fuck," he whispers, then, so small he can barely hear himself, because only crazy people talk like this and he isn't crazy, he isn't, this is all too real for him to be crazy - "Leave me alone."
The door opens and Jeff tenses, readying himself to explain to a Winchester boy why their father's voice came out of his mouth like a bullet, but it's Singer who sits down next to him.
"How's the head?"
"The same." Jeff's voice is tired and hoarse, but his, not John's, his. He stares at his lighter, feeling Singer looking at him, sizing him up.
They sit for a couple of minutes in silence. Jeff puts the cigarette back into its box, slips the pack into his pocket.
Singer says, "You're not alone in there, are you?"
Jeff looks up, eyes widening, heart thunking hard once because Singer doesn't look at all surprised, or upset, or like someone carefully indulging an insane person while he figures out what to do next. Relief and fear explode in him at once, and he can finally say it out loud.
"I don't think I am."
**********
[And now that he's finally admitted it, things can really start getting interesting . . .]
**********
Jeff is outside on the porch, reaching for a cigarette. Except that his pack of Marlboros is missing. He curses tiredly and looks over.
"I might not be the right man for the job, because I'm gonna fuckin' kill your kids."
John Winchester smirks. "Guess your subconscious thinks you should quit, too."
That's right, he's dreaming. He'd forgotten. He lets his hand drop from his pocket. "You are just along for the ride, right?"
John nods once. "Yeah. That was the best deal I could get."
"Really? God would rather tear the fabric between universes and plop me down here than resurrect you?"
"They salted and burned me, Jeff, and what I get to deal with behind-the-scenes isn't exactly all-powerful. Some rules are laid in place to keep the world in order. Breaking them even once could break them for all time. The best they could do was find me a ride. You've spent time being me. It left a weak spot in your psychic armor for me to get through without destroying your sanity into the bargain."
"How convenient," Jeff says sourly. This might be a dream, but that doesn't mean he has to welcome John into his head with open arms.
"Yeah, I know." John gives him a conspiratorial look. "Between you and me, it doesn't really work quite like that, but that's the closest I can get to putting it into words. You really are the only one who can do this."
"Plus I look and sound like you and the boys respect that whether they realize it or not, and you think they'll listen better and obey faster if they hear your orders in my voice instead of someone else's." It's Jeff's turn to smirk as John looks at him with a blank expression that speaks volumes. "Like you said. I spent some time being you."
John lets a beat pass, acknowledging the truth of that without saying a word, before he speaks again. "You have to stop fighting me. I won't take over. I can't. I can give you a push like I did with the werewolf, but I can't force anything. I'm just riding shotgun, Jeff, you're at the wheel. But I'm the one who has the map and we're gonna get lost real quick if you don't let me navigate."
Jeff wakes up then, no disorienting fade or reflexive gasp, just opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling. He lies awake for some time.
**********
"Why does my head hurt all the time?"
They're on the porch again. Jeff isn't sure who chooses the settings for the dreams, him or John, but he thinks that if it was him, they'd be home. He'd pull Bisou in, too, be ruffling her fur the way she likes or maybe playing fetch while he and John talk. He misses her. He tries not to worry about her when he's awake, because there's nothing he can do except remind himself that there are others to look after her if he's gone missing back home, but he can't hide from things so easily in the dreams. That's probably why John can sit next to him, talk directly to him the way he can't when Jeff is awake.
"Not quite enough room in there for two of us."
Even dreaming, Jeff knows that doesn't make any sense. "What? It's not like you're taking up any physical room." Is he? No. That's ridiculous.
John thinks for a few seconds, then comes at it from a different angle. "Your body knows that something's wrong. The headache is its way of protesting."
Jeff stares at him for a minute. "This is another one of those things where the words don't fit, isn't it."
John chuckles faintly and nods. "Yeah."
"You should maybe just start telling me that, because you sound like a wannabe Zen master when you try to explain anyway."
"You're still fighting me."
Jeff tenses defensively. "I don't know how to explain this to the boys. You've seen how they look at me when I talk like you."
"You're too protective. They can handle it."
Jeff doesn't even know where to start with that sparkling display of astounding hypocrisy. So he says instead, "One way or another, I'm not gonna be around forever. Losing you once was enough for them."
"Jeff, they already know." John slides a look into Jeff's surprised silence. "You've seen how they look at you when you talk like me."
**********
[After that dream, Jeff finally gets up the nerve to admit to Sam, Dean, and Bobby that John has taken up residence with him. The reaction he gets, which pretty much amounts to, "Yeah, that's what we thought," erases any lingering skepticism, and the dynamic between the four of them starts to change. Jeff becomes part of the group, developing a more-or-less comfortable rapport with Dean (Dean never becomes completely at ease with the fact of John riding with Jeff, which keeps a bit of a barrier between them even though they get along well and would be friends under different circumstances) and establishing a bond of trust with Sam (who accepts the John situation more easily and, preoccupied as he is with Dean's deal, seems to think of Jeff as, basically, a likeable version of John. Jeff gets all the benefits of Sam's trust in John and none of the drawbacks of the vast amount of baggage between the two).
Yeah, Dean's deal. Sam is working overtime trying to find a way to get out of it safely, where Dean is just trying to "man up" and accept it and not waste the time he has searching for an answer that doesn't exist. This has been the general theme with these two since before Jeff's arrival, and there's some tension there. Bobby is, by all appearances, Switzerland, though as time goes on he starts working with Sam more, which would be a Subtle Indicator on my part that Sam may have found something. Jeff is convinced that John has a plan, because DUH, and is waiting for John to see fit to reveal it.]
**********
Jeff can hear the television as he makes his way downstairs. He finds Dean in the living room, flipping ceaselessly through the channels without bothering to stop on any of them.
"Can't sleep?" Dean asks, not looking up. Jeff rubs his forehead wearily.
"Don't want to. I'm really not in the mood for Deep Thoughts With John Winchester." He flicks a look over at Dean, because even after everything it still feels strange to refer to John's presence in his head in front of the boys, especially Dean, but Dean just snorts, still staring at the TV.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. He'll just kick your ass when you do fall asleep. You avoid him, you pay the price." Jeff laughs a little at that and looks at the television.
After a few seconds, it becomes abundantly clear why Dean isn't actually checking what's on. There are three channels, two of which are broadcasting infomercials and one of which has shut down for the night. Of course Bobby doesn't have cable, what was I thinking? Jeff stares at the succession of images, thinking over the exchange they just had.
"At what fucking point did I get used to having company in my head?" he asks. "When did I cross the line to where I was able to even think that with a straight face?"
"About the time you stopped expecting to wake up in a padded room?" Dean suggests. Jeff blinks. He has stopped expecting to wake up in a padded room.
"I'll be damned," he mutters.
"Hey, no horning in on my territory." Dean slides the briefest of sideways glances at him, clearly expecting a reprimand for inappropriate humor; Jeff doesn't exactly need to be able to read his mind to know that he's hearing Sam declare stiffly that that's not funny, because Jeff can hear it too.
Except that it kind of is, in that we-who-are-about-to-die sort of way, and it sure as shit puts Jeff's split personality issues in perspective, so he allows himself to laugh. "Shit. I guess I'll have to get my own schtick."
Dean relaxes and smiles, and Jeff thinks it's a fucking shame Sam doesn't realize that sometimes laughing is the only thing keeping you from throwing up.
**********
[And it turns out that John does have a plan! His plan is . . .
. . . for Jeff to make sure that Sam doesn't interfere with the completion of the deal. It is vitally important that Dean be taken on schedule. Jeff is completely shocked, of course, but John swears to him that everything will be fine. It will all work out okay, but only if things go according to the deal. Jeff has a hard time with this, to put it mildly, but accepts it in the end because he can't believe that John could possibly have anything other than his sons' best interest at heart. And, obviously, by this point they've run every test they could think of and a few they made up to be certain this isn't some kind of weird possession, so he knows it's really John. I think I was going to leave this to be revealed after, so that Jeff's actions here would be a surprise to the reader as well as the other characters, but as written it's very first-draft-ambiguous so I'm telling you now.
Meanwhile, as time grows shorter, the tension between Dean and Sam gets worse and worse, and Sam gets kind of unhinged. I actually thought when I reread this a couple of weeks ago that his behavior in this next section was a little over-the-top, but now that we've seen on the show how desperate he's getting, I think it's not too far beyond the realm of possibility after all. An hour and change before the deal is set to come to fruition, they come to blows. Dean loses. For extra fun, see if you can catch the part where I completely misremembered how part of the whole thing works.]
**********
When Sam is satisfied with the knots, he gets up and looks over at Jeff. "Just - make sure he stays put."
Which is the best fucking joke Jeff thinks he's ever heard, because if Dean does manage to get loose he'll be able to kick Jeff's ass in about a quarter of a second, but he nods seriously. They both know this is more about keeping Jeff out of the way but still in a position for John to intervene if - or, as Sam said, when - he chooses. By the time the Hellhounds get to this room, they'll be so focused on their quarry that they won't even see Jeff, much less bother trying to get at him.
His job, in short, is to see it all close up as Dean gets dragged into hell. Even if Jeff hadn't been aware of the sheer morbidity of the task and Sam's stubborn determination (stubborn as fuck, Jeff thinks in the back of his head, like father like son) to ignore that, Dean is pointing it out, loud and angry and profane.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me, Sammy, do you even fucking know what you're doing to this guy? He's gonna wake up fucking screaming for the rest of his life after he sees this, because this isn't gonna work, Sam, you're wasting your goddamn time, you're wasting my goddamn time, SAM! SAMMY!" By the time he gets to the last words, shouting his brother's name at the door that Sam closed behind him, the anger has given way to hoarse desperation that makes Jeff close his eyes. He hadn't believed until right now that Sam would turn his back on his brother.
They sure as hell chose the right guy, he tells John silently. It's not entirely fair because he knows that Sam believes that he's doing what he has to do, that his heart must be shattered from hearing his name hurled desperately at him through the door. That it's not as cold as it seems, not really.
"Jeff."
He opens his eyes and looks over at the bed. Dean is watching him, his mind clearly going a mile a minute behind his eyes, and Jeff has a brief, aching flash of the green eyes that he wishes were on him right now.
"Jeff, man, look, I know you work in Hollywood, okay, happy endings all the live-long day, but there's no such goddamned thing as a guaranteed happy ending in the real world, yours or mine, and this isn't gonna be one and you fucking know it, this is happening, and I can spend the last hour of my fucking life tied to this bed, or I can go make sure Sam doesn't do anything stupid and then meet it on my own terms, not make you fucking watch, Jeff, your call, just get over here, come on, help me out."
"No one's forcing me to be in here, Dean," Jeff answers quietly. He checks his watch. Not even an hour, just forty-seven minutes to go. It's still too long, his nerves crackling with adrenaline under his skin as he half-listens to Dean's temper exploding. He can't listen too close, doesn't think he can handle the begging he knows is going on somewhere beneath the furious rant, so he looks at the floor and runs his fingers over the barrel of the shotgun and waits it out.
After a while, Dean falls silent except for hard, angry breathing. Jeff can't stand another second of this, of making the kid fucking wait, so he puts the gun down and looks back up at Dean. Dean is staring up at the ceiling, his expression a mixture of things that twist at Jeff's gut.
"They'll check at least once more," Jeff says. Dean's head snaps around suddenly, and he stares hard at Jeff. Jeff looks back at him evenly, watching the meaning sink in. Then he offers Dean a smile.
Dean takes a deep, shaky breath and goes back to staring at the ceiling, but his expression is calmer and that twist in Jeff's stomach eases up.
As it turns out, though, the door stays closed. At fifteen minutes and counting, Jeff's phone rings. It's loud in the silence and Jeff, already keyed up, jumps about a mile and a half. He hears Dean huff out a small laugh and takes a second to be dryly glad that he can still find humor in the situation before he answers.
"Yeah."
"How are things in there?" Sam asks. Jeff's mouth tightens. It takes considerable effort not to sneer something sarcastic about how things are great, just wonderful, Dean's been abandoned and denied his dignity by his brother and basically his sentence in hell has started an hour early right here on earth, but hey, at least Sam feels like he's being productive, and that's the important part.
But he can't do that, because Sam has to believe that Jeff is on his side right up until he finds out that he isn't. So he says, voice calm and relaxed as anything and if they had Emmy awards for individual line readings, he'd have a statuette out there somewhere with his name on it, "Fine. I don't think Houdini could get out of those knots. Everything all right down there?"
"Yeah." Sam pauses. "I didn't tell Dean, but I found something that I think is gonna work."
Jeff's blood runs cold and he earns another Emmy. "Did you now?" he asks, a smile in his voice if not on his face.
Sam laughs. "Tell Dean I'll see him in twenty," he says, and hangs up.
Jeff folds his phone shut slowly. He doesn't understand all the wrinkles in this, doesn't know if what he's about to do is supposed to prevent Sam's success or his failure. John didn't mention this part. Thanks for the heads-up, Winchester.
Either way, his job is the same. This just makes it harder.
Jeff really isn't cut out for this saving the world crap.
Dean's voice cuts into Jeff's thought process, pulling him back into the moment. "What's going on?"
Whatever Sam is doing will be keeping both him and Bobby busy. Now is as good a time as any. Dean will be long gone before they realize that they aren't hearing the baying of the Hellhounds.
Jeff leans down and flips up the cuff of his jeans, retrieves the knife he strapped to his ankle after he woke up from the dream. He gets it firmly in hand and straightens up. The look of relief on Dean's face when he sees the blade is enough to get Jeff moving over to the bed, where he sits and starts to cut through the ropes.
The knife is every bit as sharp as he'd expected to find in the house of a hunter, gliding through the strands of the rope like they're hardly even there. Dean is off the bed almost before Jeff is done, narrowly avoiding getting sliced himself. Jeff gets up, too, and they look at each other from across the bed.
"Thanks," Dean says quietly. Jeff nods toward the window, which Sam hadn't bothered to barricade. After all, if Dean somehow managed to free himself, a blocked-up window wouldn't do much to stop him.
"Better get going before I change my mind."
Dean smirks briefly before he turns toward the window. Jeff watches him climb out and doesn't hear him hit the ground, which is how he knows that Dean's avoided detection.
He sinks back down onto the bed, dropping the knife, and rests his head in his hands, eyes closed. "You'd better be fucking right about this, Winchester," he tells John aloud.
[John is right, of course, because I was determined to give it a reasonably happy ending. And I had the worst fucking trouble working out an ending that felt satisfying, felt like something I could write, and didn't feel like the ending of one chapter and the beginning of the next. I totally fucking failed, which is probably why I stopped working on this, but here's what I'd come up with: It all comes down to Sam's whole "potential leader of hell" thing. Dean has to go to hell because Sam has to be completely alone to make the right choice when the time comes - or at least Sam has to think he has. The issue is that the struggle for power in hell, or whoever gains power, would ultimately cause some kind of chain reaction that would fuck all of existence over royally. It has to be Sam, because he's human, because he has a solid-steel core of goodness, because he can keep hell from melting down and taking the rest of reality with it. But with Dean by his side, he will never choose to take control.
So where's Dean? Well - and this is the bit I feel a little squirrelly about, but I'm not sure how else to work it - when Jeff is sent home shortly after the end of the above segment, he discovers that he's got company. And it's not Jensen. Dean spent, oh, five minutes or so in hell to satisfy the deal in letter if not in spirit. John was able to leverage the situation behind the scenes to keep Dean from staying in hell, but only in exchange for engineering a situation that would take Dean out of Sam's reach and force Sam to stand alone. So Dean got pulled out of hell and sent to stay with Jeff, because John trusts Jeff, and because this way Sam is still isolated as is required and Dean can't be grabbed by any demons who might want to use him against Sam. Dean will go back his world eventually - Sam will need his influence to lend him perspective as ruler of hell.]
. . . yeah. So, I'm not sure about that ending, but I always thought the rest of it had potential. But fandom has seen its share of fic about The Deal, and now I'm gonna get Kripked anyway, so fuck it. I could always save some of this to use for a different fic altogether.
THE END. God, I hope someone actually read this.
In keeping with the accidental theme of my recent fannish life, it is a crossover of sorts. A while back - late last year, I think - I read a cute little fic that I've lost the link to that was a Supernatural-flavored spoof of Wizard of Oz, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan in the Dorothy role. I found the fic amusing, and then the premise kind of started to eat my brain. There are, I have found, very few fics involving actors transported into the fictional world in the SPN fandom (which, honestly, surprises me, because: SPN fandom), and of course the ones I did find that took the idea more seriously were about Jensen and/or Jared.
So one night I started writing down bits of a 'verse wherein Jeff finds himself in the SPN world, and he's been brought there for a reason. I was just fooling around trying to get it out of my head, and somehow ended up with over nine pages of fragments. These take place over the course of the story; I didn't write them in this order, but I did some rearranging and editing for the sake of clarity.
For context, I started writing this during the winter hiatus, so it's AU after 3x08, "A Very Supernatural Christmas," and I haven't written anything since the post-strike eps started airing. BUT, just to confuse everyone, it begins roughly two weeks before Dean's deal is due up and takes place over the course of those two weeks. Just pretend it somehow makes sense with Jeff's timeline. They don't have to match up, after all.
There is a touch of implied Jeff/Jensen, but it's pretty ambiguous since I couldn't decide whether I wanted to go that route or not (I liked the idea of the added layer of weirdness to Jeff's interactions with Dean, but there's already enough going on that I wasn't sure whether that would just make things too crowded) so if RPS isn't your thing, it's easy to ignore.
I've added notes in between fragments where there are gaps in the narrative, just to help people follow what is going on.
Enough babbling. Have some unfinished-and-likely-to-stay-that-way fic!
[We start with the boys and Jeff en route to Bobby's to see if they can find out why the fuck Jeff is here. By this point in the story, the boys more or less believe that Jeff is who he says he is, and Jeff more or less believes that this is all real and he hasn't just lost his mind.]
The thing about the headache that's really grinding Jeff down isn't its intensity, but its constancy. The intensity is very low, something he wouldn't even waste the aspirin on for a normal headache. But it just. doesn't. stop. It's relentless and exhausting, and combines with everything else about his situation - which, really, is just about everything - to make him tense and short-tempered.
There are a lot of little mundane details the show doesn't address. Jeff can deal with spending hours in a car, listening to the boys fire verbal shots back and forth, and then listening to his head pound when Dean covers up a misfire by cranking the Metallica. It's not like he hasn't been on lengthy roadtrips before, though he was younger then and his body was more willing to take the subtle abuse. What's really getting to him is a small irony - the stress and weirdness of his situation have shot his nicotine dependence to an all-time high right when he has the fewest opportunities to smoke that he's had since he started. He can't smoke in the Impala, not only because he's sharing the small space with two non-smokers and he's a considerate guy, but also he's pretty sure that Dean would kill him, father's face or no, before the flame could get anywhere near the tip of his Marlboro. He can grab a quick smoke during rest stop breaks, if his bladder doesn't need tending to, but then when he gets back in the car he has to deal with exaggerating coughing and Sam theatrically rolling down every window he can reach as fast as he can and Dean bitching about how the smell better not get into the fucking upholstery and Jeff almost prefers the withdrawal to their antics.
He can tell they like giving him shit, though, they almost have too much fun with it, go a little overboard, and he'd bet the next five years of his career that he's a target for twenty-plus years of their repressed frustration with their father. He's sorely tempted to give them a good John Winchester growl, but he knows that this whole thing is weird enough for them without him deliberately aping John. He tries to make a point of avoiding any of John's mannerisms, though he can tell from the looks they occasionally give him that something has slipped through, because all of his roles have carried something of him; he'd quit smoking entirely before he'd lob a grenade like that on purpose. If they give him too hard a time because it wasn't always quite safe to hassle John, then let them have their fun. Jeff likes the idea that they trust him enough for that, which, okay, is probably overstating it, but it helps him keep his temper in check, and maybe John is getting to him just a little, because he keeps thinking that if he can't fight then there has to be some way he can protect them, even if it's just refraining from being an asshole.
**********
When he's done, it feels strange. He's used to at least having some stubble, but the face that looks back at him in the hotel mirror is as unWinchester as he can make it now, so he tidies up and goes back into the main room and pretends he doesn't see Sam and Dean looking at him like they know exactly why he did it.
**********
"You're staying in the car," Dean says firmly as he turns off the Impala's engine. Jeff gives him a tired "no shit" look. He's quite secure in his manhood, thank you very much, he has no need to go running out into the woods after something he still just barely believes exists just to prove that his dick hasn't fallen off.
"Fucking right I am."
The corner of Dean's mouth quirks up briefly. "Good, then we can skip the lecture. Bobby's place is marked in the atlas. We're not back in a couple hours, you get going."
Jeff nods. "Got it."
Dean nods back and gets out of the car. Jeff leans back and closes his eyes, headache thumping faintly in his temples. He listens to the sounds of the boys getting equipment from the trunk, thinking that he is handling this - the role of third wheel in an honest-to-God werewolf hunt - surprisingly well. His matter-of-fact responses to Dean weren't even acting.
The calm lasts for about as long as it takes for Dean and Sam to walk away after Dean slips the keys back to Jeff through a small crack in the window. Then Jeff's eyes pop open and his heart starts to speed up. Sitting in a car on the side of a road that hasn't been maintained since Reagan was president (if he even was President here, he thinks a bit wildly, you never know, maybe he got killed by something years before he could even run for office), in the middle of the night, with a fucking werewolf running around and the only two people on the planet who know he's not crazy (something not even Jeff is sure of all the time) running around after it. And all the weaponry locked in the fucking trunk. That last part he's not so sure is a problem, there's no way this car isn't covered with every single protection charm and symbol that the Winchesters could find, but he'd feel better with a shotgun in his hands. He may not be equipped for a real fight, but he knows how to use a shotgun, he has for years. An actor who tries to handle a gun on camera when he doesn't know anything beyond "point and shoot" looks like an idiot.
Jeff takes a slow, shaky breath. They know what they're doing. They'll be fine. He'll be fine. And if they don't come back, he decides suddenly, he's not going anywhere. It's a werewolf. Daybreak will be all the protection he'll need to go out and find them.
That makes him feel a little steadier. Having a plan in mind always does. And thinking about worrying about them in the possible future is easier to handle than worrying about himself in the immediate present, and somehow less ludicrous than worrying about them in the immediate present.
That last thought makes him laugh to himself. As if anything about this isn't, on some level, inherently ludicrous. As if worrying less about the boys when they're after something deadly than he does whenever he thinks he hears a hint of John Winchester in his tone isn't a serious miscarriage of priority.
He needs to think about something else. The problem is, the only other something else to think about is home. He's been gone for almost three days. Well - he's been here for almost three days. Has he been gone for that long? He's been clinging to the possibility that he hasn't, that somehow time is different here. That he hasn't gone missing from the Watchmen set, that Jensen didn't show up to find his temporary apartment containing no one but a confused and terrified Bisou . . . Jeff's heart clenches at the thought, of Bisou alone for two days, looking for him, not understanding why he isn't there and why there's no food and Christ this isn't helping. Jeff rubs trembling hands over his face, trying to force back the panic-fueled images and be rational. Everyone knows about Bisou. Even if he has been gone for as long as he's been here, the very second his disappearance was discovered someone would have gone to check his apartment and found her. She won't be very happy, but she won't be alone, either. The stress is just getting to him, making his imagination throw out the worst things it can come up with.
It's not helping the headache, either, which is starting to ramp up - and then it spikes, hard, and he yells in the silent car and clutches at his head. The searing pain disappears almost as soon as it hit.
Then, without quite knowing exactly what the hell he's doing or why, but certain that he has no other option, Jeff gets out of the Impala, unlocks the trunk, loads a gun with silver bullets in deft and practiced motions, and goes out into the woods.
He cocks the shotgun as he walks, steps solid and sure, eyes scanning the forest for anything amiss. And he'll recognize it if he sees it. He should be terrified, should be uncertain, should be back in the goddamn car, but he's not. He just watches and listens, stepping carefully to make minimum noise, his mind quiet and still.
He can hear a disturbance up ahead. He shifts his hold on the gun and heads for it.
Sam is on his back, grappling with a snarling werewolf, and a lightning-fast check of his field of vision tells Jeff that Dean is nowhere nearby. Both of them are focused on each other, unaware of him, and it's so easy to drop quietly to one knee and put a bullet in the werewolf's head.
It collapses on Sam, dead in an instant. Sam looks over, expecting to see Dean, and the look on his face would comical if it weren't for this weird mood that's still settled over Jeff. He mouths something that Jeff can't hear and pretends he doesn't see, because killing a werewolf sure as shit doesn't make him John Winchester no matter what it might look like.
"Where's Dean?" he asks, voice a bit distant to his own ears. It carries, though, making Sam blink and focus.
"There were two of them." He pushes the body off him - Jeff will definitely be saving its reversion to human form to worry about and get screaming nightmares from for later - and sits up. "Dean went after the oth -" He stops suddenly, cocks his head, and Jeff hears what he's hearing a split second before something knocks Jeff down and pain explodes in his upper left arm.
The pain is still registering when he hears a shot and whatever's on him falls to the side. He clutches his arm and feels blood, more than he'd like to think about, not that he can think through the agony that makes him want to crawl out of his skin to escape it. He hears the conversation over his head as he holds onto the wound and wishes it would disappear.
"What the hell is he doing here?"
"I don't know. But he killed this one." There's a hesitation in Sam's voice on the last word, then he falls silent.
". . . you okay?"
"Yeah. It didn't get me."
Jeff's adrenaline is going into overdrive and kicking the pain down to a buzzing hum, and he gasps in a deep breath as he rolls onto his back and slowly sits up. Dean kneels next to him, pushing hs hand aside just long enough to get a look at the damage before pressing it back into place and squeezing his own hand over it.
"It just clawed you. You'll be fine. Just keep pressure on it. And don't think we won't be having a talk about your listening comprehension later on."
"Save it, Dean," he growls, looking up. Dean's eyes widen and he stares at Jeff, then looks past him at Sam.
Then Jeff's head flares again, the numbness that took over in the car falls away from his mind, and he's left wondering what the hell he was thinking.
**********
Sam takes him back to the car for a makeshift patch job - "It's gonna need a couple stitches, but that can wait a couple hours till we get to Bobby's." - while Dean does whatever it is that gets done with the bodies of werewolves who no longer look like wolves. Which Jeff is still not thinking about, if only because he's concentrating on not howling like a wolf himself while Sam swabs out the wounds with disinfectant. It burns like a bitch and it's not exactly like he does this on a regular basis. He gets through it with only a few strangled noises, which he is inordinantly proud of, though Sam would probably have cut him some slack for screaming.
"That was a hell of a shot," Sam says conversationally while he bandages Jeff's arm up tight to stanch the last of the bleeding. Even through the haze of pain, Jeff recognizes the tone. He watches the show faithfully, for Jensen's sake, and Sam trots this one out in every episode. It's the "get the civilian to talk" tone, the one designed to subtly ingratiate himself before he starts asking invasive questions. Hearing it used on him annoys the living hell out of Jeff.
"If you have a question, ask it," he says shortly. "Don't have to butter me up first."
Sam, to his credit, looks sheepish for a second. "Sorry. It's kind of automatic." He tears off the end of the surgical tape. "So why didn't you stay in the car?"
Jeff hesitates, debates the merits of various possible answers. Settles on the truth. "I don't know."
Sam just looks at him. Jeff bridles a little.
"I mean it. I don't know. One minute I was thinking about my dog, next minute I was getting out of the car. I didn't even think about it. And I sure as hell wasn't trying to prove how macho I am." He knows that's what it looks like, and almost wishes it was the case because at least it would make some kind of sense, but charging cluelessly into the woods just to prove how tough he is would take some serious, bone-deep stupidity. He doesn't want Sam thinking he's stupid. Or Dean, either, but he's not here right now and in any case he'll probably need a lot more convincing on that point than Sam will.
Sam just nods and digs a mini-bottle of Advil out of the first aid kit. "Best we've got," he says, apologetic. "Anything that hurts enough for something stronger usually ends up in a trip to the ER, anyway." He opens the bottle and tips a few pills into Jeff's right hand. "Should take the edge off, at least."
Jeff thanks him and dry swallows the pills. He considers telling Sam that the sudden dropping of the subject didn't go by unnoticed, but he doesn't really want to talk about it and he definitely doesn't want to think about it. His arm is throbbing and the headache is back at its usual low, constant buzz, and he just wants to get back into the car and see if it's possible to sleep through the last of the drive.
**********
[They arrive at Bobby's, and being settled instead of travelling gives Jeff time to dwell on his situation and start to really feel the stress and panic. He tries to keep it to himself, aware of the fact that everyone is already tense enough over Dean's deal without him adding to the mix, but about a day or so in his nerves get too shredded and he lets loose with his best John Winchester before he can even think about it. He's thoroughly horrified and hastily excuses himself to have a cigarette and start facing up to a few things.]
**********
Jeff taps the last cigarette out of the pack into his hand, and wonders vaguely if he can get Singer to run him out to the nearest convenience store tomorrow for a fresh supply. He'd borrow Singer's truck and go himself, but his wallet is empty of cash now and he doubts that his credit cards are good here, and maybe it's a moot point anyway because the lighter is shaking so badly he can't get the cigarette lit. "Fuck," he whispers, then, so small he can barely hear himself, because only crazy people talk like this and he isn't crazy, he isn't, this is all too real for him to be crazy - "Leave me alone."
The door opens and Jeff tenses, readying himself to explain to a Winchester boy why their father's voice came out of his mouth like a bullet, but it's Singer who sits down next to him.
"How's the head?"
"The same." Jeff's voice is tired and hoarse, but his, not John's, his. He stares at his lighter, feeling Singer looking at him, sizing him up.
They sit for a couple of minutes in silence. Jeff puts the cigarette back into its box, slips the pack into his pocket.
Singer says, "You're not alone in there, are you?"
Jeff looks up, eyes widening, heart thunking hard once because Singer doesn't look at all surprised, or upset, or like someone carefully indulging an insane person while he figures out what to do next. Relief and fear explode in him at once, and he can finally say it out loud.
"I don't think I am."
**********
[And now that he's finally admitted it, things can really start getting interesting . . .]
**********
Jeff is outside on the porch, reaching for a cigarette. Except that his pack of Marlboros is missing. He curses tiredly and looks over.
"I might not be the right man for the job, because I'm gonna fuckin' kill your kids."
John Winchester smirks. "Guess your subconscious thinks you should quit, too."
That's right, he's dreaming. He'd forgotten. He lets his hand drop from his pocket. "You are just along for the ride, right?"
John nods once. "Yeah. That was the best deal I could get."
"Really? God would rather tear the fabric between universes and plop me down here than resurrect you?"
"They salted and burned me, Jeff, and what I get to deal with behind-the-scenes isn't exactly all-powerful. Some rules are laid in place to keep the world in order. Breaking them even once could break them for all time. The best they could do was find me a ride. You've spent time being me. It left a weak spot in your psychic armor for me to get through without destroying your sanity into the bargain."
"How convenient," Jeff says sourly. This might be a dream, but that doesn't mean he has to welcome John into his head with open arms.
"Yeah, I know." John gives him a conspiratorial look. "Between you and me, it doesn't really work quite like that, but that's the closest I can get to putting it into words. You really are the only one who can do this."
"Plus I look and sound like you and the boys respect that whether they realize it or not, and you think they'll listen better and obey faster if they hear your orders in my voice instead of someone else's." It's Jeff's turn to smirk as John looks at him with a blank expression that speaks volumes. "Like you said. I spent some time being you."
John lets a beat pass, acknowledging the truth of that without saying a word, before he speaks again. "You have to stop fighting me. I won't take over. I can't. I can give you a push like I did with the werewolf, but I can't force anything. I'm just riding shotgun, Jeff, you're at the wheel. But I'm the one who has the map and we're gonna get lost real quick if you don't let me navigate."
Jeff wakes up then, no disorienting fade or reflexive gasp, just opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling. He lies awake for some time.
**********
"Why does my head hurt all the time?"
They're on the porch again. Jeff isn't sure who chooses the settings for the dreams, him or John, but he thinks that if it was him, they'd be home. He'd pull Bisou in, too, be ruffling her fur the way she likes or maybe playing fetch while he and John talk. He misses her. He tries not to worry about her when he's awake, because there's nothing he can do except remind himself that there are others to look after her if he's gone missing back home, but he can't hide from things so easily in the dreams. That's probably why John can sit next to him, talk directly to him the way he can't when Jeff is awake.
"Not quite enough room in there for two of us."
Even dreaming, Jeff knows that doesn't make any sense. "What? It's not like you're taking up any physical room." Is he? No. That's ridiculous.
John thinks for a few seconds, then comes at it from a different angle. "Your body knows that something's wrong. The headache is its way of protesting."
Jeff stares at him for a minute. "This is another one of those things where the words don't fit, isn't it."
John chuckles faintly and nods. "Yeah."
"You should maybe just start telling me that, because you sound like a wannabe Zen master when you try to explain anyway."
"You're still fighting me."
Jeff tenses defensively. "I don't know how to explain this to the boys. You've seen how they look at me when I talk like you."
"You're too protective. They can handle it."
Jeff doesn't even know where to start with that sparkling display of astounding hypocrisy. So he says instead, "One way or another, I'm not gonna be around forever. Losing you once was enough for them."
"Jeff, they already know." John slides a look into Jeff's surprised silence. "You've seen how they look at you when you talk like me."
**********
[After that dream, Jeff finally gets up the nerve to admit to Sam, Dean, and Bobby that John has taken up residence with him. The reaction he gets, which pretty much amounts to, "Yeah, that's what we thought," erases any lingering skepticism, and the dynamic between the four of them starts to change. Jeff becomes part of the group, developing a more-or-less comfortable rapport with Dean (Dean never becomes completely at ease with the fact of John riding with Jeff, which keeps a bit of a barrier between them even though they get along well and would be friends under different circumstances) and establishing a bond of trust with Sam (who accepts the John situation more easily and, preoccupied as he is with Dean's deal, seems to think of Jeff as, basically, a likeable version of John. Jeff gets all the benefits of Sam's trust in John and none of the drawbacks of the vast amount of baggage between the two).
Yeah, Dean's deal. Sam is working overtime trying to find a way to get out of it safely, where Dean is just trying to "man up" and accept it and not waste the time he has searching for an answer that doesn't exist. This has been the general theme with these two since before Jeff's arrival, and there's some tension there. Bobby is, by all appearances, Switzerland, though as time goes on he starts working with Sam more, which would be a Subtle Indicator on my part that Sam may have found something. Jeff is convinced that John has a plan, because DUH, and is waiting for John to see fit to reveal it.]
**********
Jeff can hear the television as he makes his way downstairs. He finds Dean in the living room, flipping ceaselessly through the channels without bothering to stop on any of them.
"Can't sleep?" Dean asks, not looking up. Jeff rubs his forehead wearily.
"Don't want to. I'm really not in the mood for Deep Thoughts With John Winchester." He flicks a look over at Dean, because even after everything it still feels strange to refer to John's presence in his head in front of the boys, especially Dean, but Dean just snorts, still staring at the TV.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. He'll just kick your ass when you do fall asleep. You avoid him, you pay the price." Jeff laughs a little at that and looks at the television.
After a few seconds, it becomes abundantly clear why Dean isn't actually checking what's on. There are three channels, two of which are broadcasting infomercials and one of which has shut down for the night. Of course Bobby doesn't have cable, what was I thinking? Jeff stares at the succession of images, thinking over the exchange they just had.
"At what fucking point did I get used to having company in my head?" he asks. "When did I cross the line to where I was able to even think that with a straight face?"
"About the time you stopped expecting to wake up in a padded room?" Dean suggests. Jeff blinks. He has stopped expecting to wake up in a padded room.
"I'll be damned," he mutters.
"Hey, no horning in on my territory." Dean slides the briefest of sideways glances at him, clearly expecting a reprimand for inappropriate humor; Jeff doesn't exactly need to be able to read his mind to know that he's hearing Sam declare stiffly that that's not funny, because Jeff can hear it too.
Except that it kind of is, in that we-who-are-about-to-die sort of way, and it sure as shit puts Jeff's split personality issues in perspective, so he allows himself to laugh. "Shit. I guess I'll have to get my own schtick."
Dean relaxes and smiles, and Jeff thinks it's a fucking shame Sam doesn't realize that sometimes laughing is the only thing keeping you from throwing up.
**********
[And it turns out that John does have a plan! His plan is . . .
. . . for Jeff to make sure that Sam doesn't interfere with the completion of the deal. It is vitally important that Dean be taken on schedule. Jeff is completely shocked, of course, but John swears to him that everything will be fine. It will all work out okay, but only if things go according to the deal. Jeff has a hard time with this, to put it mildly, but accepts it in the end because he can't believe that John could possibly have anything other than his sons' best interest at heart. And, obviously, by this point they've run every test they could think of and a few they made up to be certain this isn't some kind of weird possession, so he knows it's really John. I think I was going to leave this to be revealed after, so that Jeff's actions here would be a surprise to the reader as well as the other characters, but as written it's very first-draft-ambiguous so I'm telling you now.
Meanwhile, as time grows shorter, the tension between Dean and Sam gets worse and worse, and Sam gets kind of unhinged. I actually thought when I reread this a couple of weeks ago that his behavior in this next section was a little over-the-top, but now that we've seen on the show how desperate he's getting, I think it's not too far beyond the realm of possibility after all. An hour and change before the deal is set to come to fruition, they come to blows. Dean loses. For extra fun, see if you can catch the part where I completely misremembered how part of the whole thing works.]
**********
When Sam is satisfied with the knots, he gets up and looks over at Jeff. "Just - make sure he stays put."
Which is the best fucking joke Jeff thinks he's ever heard, because if Dean does manage to get loose he'll be able to kick Jeff's ass in about a quarter of a second, but he nods seriously. They both know this is more about keeping Jeff out of the way but still in a position for John to intervene if - or, as Sam said, when - he chooses. By the time the Hellhounds get to this room, they'll be so focused on their quarry that they won't even see Jeff, much less bother trying to get at him.
His job, in short, is to see it all close up as Dean gets dragged into hell. Even if Jeff hadn't been aware of the sheer morbidity of the task and Sam's stubborn determination (stubborn as fuck, Jeff thinks in the back of his head, like father like son) to ignore that, Dean is pointing it out, loud and angry and profane.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me, Sammy, do you even fucking know what you're doing to this guy? He's gonna wake up fucking screaming for the rest of his life after he sees this, because this isn't gonna work, Sam, you're wasting your goddamn time, you're wasting my goddamn time, SAM! SAMMY!" By the time he gets to the last words, shouting his brother's name at the door that Sam closed behind him, the anger has given way to hoarse desperation that makes Jeff close his eyes. He hadn't believed until right now that Sam would turn his back on his brother.
They sure as hell chose the right guy, he tells John silently. It's not entirely fair because he knows that Sam believes that he's doing what he has to do, that his heart must be shattered from hearing his name hurled desperately at him through the door. That it's not as cold as it seems, not really.
"Jeff."
He opens his eyes and looks over at the bed. Dean is watching him, his mind clearly going a mile a minute behind his eyes, and Jeff has a brief, aching flash of the green eyes that he wishes were on him right now.
"Jeff, man, look, I know you work in Hollywood, okay, happy endings all the live-long day, but there's no such goddamned thing as a guaranteed happy ending in the real world, yours or mine, and this isn't gonna be one and you fucking know it, this is happening, and I can spend the last hour of my fucking life tied to this bed, or I can go make sure Sam doesn't do anything stupid and then meet it on my own terms, not make you fucking watch, Jeff, your call, just get over here, come on, help me out."
"No one's forcing me to be in here, Dean," Jeff answers quietly. He checks his watch. Not even an hour, just forty-seven minutes to go. It's still too long, his nerves crackling with adrenaline under his skin as he half-listens to Dean's temper exploding. He can't listen too close, doesn't think he can handle the begging he knows is going on somewhere beneath the furious rant, so he looks at the floor and runs his fingers over the barrel of the shotgun and waits it out.
After a while, Dean falls silent except for hard, angry breathing. Jeff can't stand another second of this, of making the kid fucking wait, so he puts the gun down and looks back up at Dean. Dean is staring up at the ceiling, his expression a mixture of things that twist at Jeff's gut.
"They'll check at least once more," Jeff says. Dean's head snaps around suddenly, and he stares hard at Jeff. Jeff looks back at him evenly, watching the meaning sink in. Then he offers Dean a smile.
Dean takes a deep, shaky breath and goes back to staring at the ceiling, but his expression is calmer and that twist in Jeff's stomach eases up.
As it turns out, though, the door stays closed. At fifteen minutes and counting, Jeff's phone rings. It's loud in the silence and Jeff, already keyed up, jumps about a mile and a half. He hears Dean huff out a small laugh and takes a second to be dryly glad that he can still find humor in the situation before he answers.
"Yeah."
"How are things in there?" Sam asks. Jeff's mouth tightens. It takes considerable effort not to sneer something sarcastic about how things are great, just wonderful, Dean's been abandoned and denied his dignity by his brother and basically his sentence in hell has started an hour early right here on earth, but hey, at least Sam feels like he's being productive, and that's the important part.
But he can't do that, because Sam has to believe that Jeff is on his side right up until he finds out that he isn't. So he says, voice calm and relaxed as anything and if they had Emmy awards for individual line readings, he'd have a statuette out there somewhere with his name on it, "Fine. I don't think Houdini could get out of those knots. Everything all right down there?"
"Yeah." Sam pauses. "I didn't tell Dean, but I found something that I think is gonna work."
Jeff's blood runs cold and he earns another Emmy. "Did you now?" he asks, a smile in his voice if not on his face.
Sam laughs. "Tell Dean I'll see him in twenty," he says, and hangs up.
Jeff folds his phone shut slowly. He doesn't understand all the wrinkles in this, doesn't know if what he's about to do is supposed to prevent Sam's success or his failure. John didn't mention this part. Thanks for the heads-up, Winchester.
Either way, his job is the same. This just makes it harder.
Jeff really isn't cut out for this saving the world crap.
Dean's voice cuts into Jeff's thought process, pulling him back into the moment. "What's going on?"
Whatever Sam is doing will be keeping both him and Bobby busy. Now is as good a time as any. Dean will be long gone before they realize that they aren't hearing the baying of the Hellhounds.
Jeff leans down and flips up the cuff of his jeans, retrieves the knife he strapped to his ankle after he woke up from the dream. He gets it firmly in hand and straightens up. The look of relief on Dean's face when he sees the blade is enough to get Jeff moving over to the bed, where he sits and starts to cut through the ropes.
The knife is every bit as sharp as he'd expected to find in the house of a hunter, gliding through the strands of the rope like they're hardly even there. Dean is off the bed almost before Jeff is done, narrowly avoiding getting sliced himself. Jeff gets up, too, and they look at each other from across the bed.
"Thanks," Dean says quietly. Jeff nods toward the window, which Sam hadn't bothered to barricade. After all, if Dean somehow managed to free himself, a blocked-up window wouldn't do much to stop him.
"Better get going before I change my mind."
Dean smirks briefly before he turns toward the window. Jeff watches him climb out and doesn't hear him hit the ground, which is how he knows that Dean's avoided detection.
He sinks back down onto the bed, dropping the knife, and rests his head in his hands, eyes closed. "You'd better be fucking right about this, Winchester," he tells John aloud.
[John is right, of course, because I was determined to give it a reasonably happy ending. And I had the worst fucking trouble working out an ending that felt satisfying, felt like something I could write, and didn't feel like the ending of one chapter and the beginning of the next. I totally fucking failed, which is probably why I stopped working on this, but here's what I'd come up with: It all comes down to Sam's whole "potential leader of hell" thing. Dean has to go to hell because Sam has to be completely alone to make the right choice when the time comes - or at least Sam has to think he has. The issue is that the struggle for power in hell, or whoever gains power, would ultimately cause some kind of chain reaction that would fuck all of existence over royally. It has to be Sam, because he's human, because he has a solid-steel core of goodness, because he can keep hell from melting down and taking the rest of reality with it. But with Dean by his side, he will never choose to take control.
So where's Dean? Well - and this is the bit I feel a little squirrelly about, but I'm not sure how else to work it - when Jeff is sent home shortly after the end of the above segment, he discovers that he's got company. And it's not Jensen. Dean spent, oh, five minutes or so in hell to satisfy the deal in letter if not in spirit. John was able to leverage the situation behind the scenes to keep Dean from staying in hell, but only in exchange for engineering a situation that would take Dean out of Sam's reach and force Sam to stand alone. So Dean got pulled out of hell and sent to stay with Jeff, because John trusts Jeff, and because this way Sam is still isolated as is required and Dean can't be grabbed by any demons who might want to use him against Sam. Dean will go back his world eventually - Sam will need his influence to lend him perspective as ruler of hell.]
. . . yeah. So, I'm not sure about that ending, but I always thought the rest of it had potential. But fandom has seen its share of fic about The Deal, and now I'm gonna get Kripked anyway, so fuck it. I could always save some of this to use for a different fic altogether.
THE END. God, I hope someone actually read this.