fic: Give Me a Leonard Cohen Afterworld: 2/2 (Supernatural; Sam, Jess, Dean)
Give Me a Leonard Cohen Afterworld
Part 1 | Part 2
Part 2
*
Missouri's at the door this time when he comes back, concerned look on her face.
"Look," he says, raising the hem of his shirt to show her once they're inside. "I tried washing it off, and I had a vision. Or not a vision so much as memories."
"Memories?"
"Of this life. I remembered dinner with my parents, playing soccer, going to prom--all the things I wished for when I was growing up and never had. It's like I have two sets of memories now--what really happened, and what happened here."
She runs gentle fingers over the marks on his skin. "Hmm. This looks familiar."
"I think it's from the Key of Solomon," he says. "If we can't figure it out, we can call Bobby. He's another hunter--a friend of my dad's. He's helped us out a lot, and he knows his stuff."
"Hold still, boy," she says, grabbing a pen and a piece of paper from her desk and sketching the design. "The writing is unclear now, but I think you're right."
He gestures towards the computer on the desk. "May I?"
She smiles. "You do have nice manners, Sam. Whoever raised you did right by you."
He laughs, because if there's one thing Dean's never been, it's well-mannered. "He tried."
*
It takes him no more than fifteen minutes to match the rough sketch Missouri made with the pentacle of Jupiter, meant to bring wealth and good luck to the person invoking it. Not a protective symbol, then.
Missouri's flipping through books, humming softly to herself as she reads, frown creasing her forehead.
"There's something we're not thinking of," she says, and he knows exactly what she means, feels like the knowledge he needs is somewhere in his own head, just out of reach.
She goes to the kitchen, comes back a few minutes later with two glasses of iced tea and a couple of sandwiches.
"I wish I had Dad's journal," he mutters after a mouthful of sweet tea. I wish Dean were here. I wish... "Son of a bitch. Wishes, Missouri. Djinni." He shakes his head. Dean always says to trust his gut, and he hadn't. He can almost hear Dean laughing at him and calling him, college boy, saying he's too smart for his own good, always ready to trust books over his own instincts.
He thinks back to the botánica, the colorful display of graceful glass bottles for perfumes and oils. Remembers Dean's sudden fascination with them, his sudden focus on them when something caught his eye while Sam was questioning the Jimenezes.
Dean found a genie in a bottle. The ridiculousness of it makes Sam want to laugh. That he spent his wish on this makes Sam want to cry. Or punch Dean out. Probably both, as long as he gets to see Dean again.
Missouri gets up, goes directly to one of her books and flips it open. "Sulieman summoned the djinn and bound it with the pentacle," she reads. "He directed it to grant his wishes, three in number, wealth, health, and happiness, before he set it free." She closes the book, marking her place with a finger, and looks up. "I'll need to pick up a few supplies, but we can summon the djinn--it's bound to you until the pentacle is removed."
"And what? I make a wish?"
She nods, the look on her face unreadable.
*
He can't bring himself to go back just yet, drives around aimlessly for a while, memories that aren't real giving him landmarks--he played basketball in that park, learned to ride his bike on this street, went to kindergarten in that school.
He passes the garage, remembers spending afternoons after school and in the summer there, learning enough about cars to get by, but always more interested in books than engines. That, at least, is the same.
He flicks the radio on, listens to the DJ run through the concert calendar, and tries to imagine his parents in the audience, Dad with his arms crossed over his chest, small grin on his face as he watches Mom laugh and sing along.
He swipes at his eyes, and turns back towards the house.
When he gets there, he sits in the car for a few minutes, preparing himself to say goodbye to his parents, and to Jess.
*
Dad's got the football pre-game show on, and Mom and Jess are nowhere to be found.
"Church," Dad says, shaking his head. "I told Jess she didn't have to go, but you know how your mother is."
Sam nods, remembering a hundred Sunday mornings as a kid when she'd dressed him up and dragged him to church, where he'd sat and tried not to fidget; remembering Dean's words about the way she'd believed, told him angels were looking out for him, and how that faith had been broken by her death.
"You're heading back tonight? Jess said you hadn't bought round trip tickets, but if you've got the interview tomorrow morning..."
"Yeah," Sam answers, startled. He hadn't even thought about going back. He could, though. He could buy a ticket back to California, lock himself and Jess up in a circle of salt until the night was over, and go on with his life. Dean would understand. Dean would want him to, would trade himself--had traded himself for the rest of them, and if Sam stays, no one will ever remember that sacrifice. Which is the only way Sam could live with it. "I--Yeah. I need to get online and do that." He flees upstairs to his room.
He can't stay there, of course. Jess comes up and wraps her arms around him, presses a kiss to his cheek.
"I know you're nervous about the interview," she says, "but you're gonna be awesome, Sam. They're gonna snap you up so fast your head'll spin, just you wait and see." She kisses him again, hitting the corner of his mouth this time as he turns into it, kisses her back eagerly.
"I couldn't do it without you," he murmurs against her lips.
"Sure you could," she says, "but you don't have to. I'm not going anywhere."
He threads his fingers through her hair, holds her close. "I know."
He lets her lead him back downstairs, where Dad's dozing in front of the Chiefs-Chargers game and Mom's puttering around the kitchen. She and Jess start planning Thanksgiving dinner, and Sam sinks down on the couch and lets it all wash over him.
The vibration of his phone startles him, and he jolts out of the half-doze he's fallen into.
"I'm ready whenever you are," Missouri says.
"I'll be right there." He doesn't think he can sit through dinner, knowing what he knows.
He gets up to look for his jacket and Jess follows him. "Sam, where are you going? We have to leave for the airport soon."
Mom and Dad look up from their conversation at that. "Sam?" Mom says, rising from her spot on the sofa.
"I forgot something at Missouri's yesterday. I have to go. I'll be back in a bit." He enfolds his mother in a tight hug, tries to memorize the scent of her hair. "I'm sorry I've been so weird this weekend."
"You're under a lot of stress, Sam," she says, brushing his hair off his forehead. "We understand. When you come back for Thanksgiving, we'll have time for a nice long talk."
Dad claps him on the shoulder. "And don't worry if you blow the interview--there's always room for you at the garage."
"John!"
"I'm teasing, Mary. Teasing. He's gonna knock 'em dead. We all know that. Right, Sammy?"
The open, proud look on his father's face is almost enough to break him, but he swallows hard, finds his voice. "Yeah, Dad."
He lets his mother go long enough to hug his father, closing his eyes and breathing him in, so familiar and so different in this version of the world.
Jess walks him outside, arms crossed over her chest in the chilly November afternoon, and when they reach the car, he wraps his arms around her and kisses her, trying to pour every ounce of feeling--love, sorrow, regret--he's got into the kiss. He pulls back, brushes his thumb over her cheek, her lips, trying to figure out how to answer the question in her eyes.
"Love you," he says, leaning in for another kiss.
"I know," she answers, cupping his cheek. "Be quick and be careful. I don't want to miss our flight."
"Yeah."
He can see her shivering in the rearview mirror until he turns the corner, and he forces himself not to cry.
*
"Hold still," Missouri instructs him, but it feels weird and ticklish to have her drawing on him, strengthening the fading lines and symbols on his skin. Dean's always done it while he's asleep, though now he wonders how in hell he's ever slept through this.
When she's done, he chalks the pentagram on the floor and salts around its edges, while she lights the five candles and sets them at each point of the star.
"You don't have to do this, you know," she says. "You can wash the pentacle off and you won't remember a thing about your other life."
He knows what Dean would do if their positions were reversed (and he's sad that he can't even imagine what Dean's secret perfect life would be, but he knows he'd be a part of it, and can't understand why Dean isn't part of his), knows Dean would do it without thought or indecision, and he's a little ashamed that he's had any hesitation at all, that he could even consider letting Dean make this sacrifice for him, and a little angry at Dean for thinking he'd want him to.
"I've thought about it," he says, "but I can't." He gestures at the pentagram, the candles, the books scattered around the room. "I know too much--I know what's out there in the dark, and I can't pretend I don't, even for the few days it'll take to forget completely. I tried to run from the responsibility once, and it didn't end well. I can't do it again."
She nods and takes his hand, squeezes it gently for a moment. Then, "Djinni are powerful, but the seal and the salt should contain it. Don't break the circle--watch yourself."
He nods, lowers himself to the floor about six inches from the thick salt line he'd poured, and nods again, letting her know he's ready.
She reads the incantation slowly and clearly, making sure not to stumble over the foreign words. A warm wind blows through the room, making the candles flicker, and a smoky whirl appears in the center of the circle, spinning like a cyclone until it resolves into the shape of a woman with long dark hair and shining dark eyes.
"Why have you called me here?" she demands, a soft, unidentifiable accent shaping her words. She narrows her eyes at him and he feels a chill run down his spine, but forces himself to sit straight and still under her scrutiny. "Samuel Winchester. Is your new life not satisfactory? Do you not have everything you wished for?"
"I didn't wish for it," he says. "I want you to make it go away."
Her smile is sharp and thin as a razor. "Your brother and I had a deal. He wanted you to have the normal, happy life you'd always wanted, with no interference from Azazel."
"But he's not here."
"He knew that was a possibility, and made the wish anyway. It is not for you to change the terms of our arrangement. You're not even supposed to remember your other life." He smiles back at her, more a baring of teeth than anything friendly, and raises his shirt to show her the newly darkened pentacle drawn on his skin. She hisses angrily, then says, "He was supposed to use vellum."
"Yeah, it's not exactly something we carry around these days, and skin is skin, right?"
She hisses again. "This is most irregular."
Sam takes a deep breath, holds onto his temper. He's not sure if he's angry at her or at Dean, and it's not really a good idea to piss off something as powerful as a djinn, even if they've got it contained in a salted circle for the moment. "I've summoned you. By the rules of your people, that means you owe me a wish, right?"
She nods curtly. "Yes."
He's thought about what he wants, how to phrase it, because he knows too many stories of wishes gone awry, of people who wished foolishly, who asked for what they thought they wanted and got something else entirely in return.
"Well?" she asks, impatient. "Do you know what you want or are you just wasting my time with your chicanery?"
He takes another deep breath and silently asks Jess, Mom, and Dad for forgiveness before he says, "I wish for you to put the world back the way it was right before Dean made his wish."
She doesn't nod and blink, or wrinkle her nose, or anything else that he can see, but suddenly instead of sitting on the floor in Missouri's basement, he's lying on the soft, creaky bed in the motel room he and Dean had rented two nights ago.
Dean is standing over him with a sharpie in one hand and a pretty, blue cut-crystal bottle he must have pocketed in the botánica when Sam wasn't looking in the other.
As Dean leans toward him, Sam levers himself up and takes a swing, fist connecting with Dean's face with a satisfying thump, and Dean goes sprawling backwards, ass over tea kettle.
"Ow! What the fuck, Sammy? What the hell was that for?"
Sam gets up off the bed so he can loom over Dean. "For making that wish, you stupid, selfish bastard."
"How do you know about that? I haven't even done it yet. And if it works, we shouldn't even be here right now."
"It did work, but I had to summon up the djinn and wish it away."
"Why the fuck would you do something like that? And you call me stupid?"
"You weren't there, you moron. You were dead!"
"Oh." Dean rubs his temple thoughtfully, making no move to get up off the floor. He's probably going to have one hell of a shiner in a little while. "She did say that might happen. Did I at least die heroically? Saving some cheerleaders or the world or something?"
Sam stares down at him, itching to hit him again, but instead he offers him a hand up. Dean must sense the split in his intentions because he hesitates a few seconds before grabbing Sam's hand.
"You died in an electrical fire when you were four," Sam grinds out, yanking him up more roughly than is strictly necessary, and ignoring Dean's grimace in response. "The night of my six-month birthday."
"Oh," he says again. "Mom?"
"Mom was fine. Dad was fine. It was all fine. Safe and happy and normal."
Dean shakes his head, drops down onto the other bed. "Then I don't understand. What the hell is your problem? You had everything you ever wanted."
"You weren't there." He doesn't know how to make Dean understand. "I didn't ask for it, Dean. I didn't ask for you to sacrifice yourself in some stupid, noble gesture so I could have a normal life. What makes you think I would even want that?"
"Sammy, you spent the first eighteen years of your life bitching about how you wanted normal, you wanted safe, you wanted happy. You wanted the little white house with the white picket fence and two loving parents and a dog. Now, suddenly, when you finally get a chance to have it, you don't want it? I don't believe it."
"I never wanted you to die so I could have it, Dean. I didn't ask for it, and I certainly wouldn't choose it, okay?"
"Tonight, I asked you flat-out, pointblank what you wished for, and that's what you said."
"Yeah, I did, but I didn't mean--I didn't want it without you, man. I didn't want it at that price."
"We could die any time with this job, Sammy, you know that."
Sam grunts in frustration and starts pacing. "And we do our best to see that it doesn't happen. But you threw your life away for me. How was I supposed to live with that?"
"Well, you weren't even supposed to remember it--"
"That doesn't matter!"
Dean looks genuinely hurt and confused, and Sam doesn't think it's just because he took a punch to the face. "I was saving you, Sam. I was keeping my promise." He looks down, away, and Sam forces himself not to feel guilty for extracting that promise, knows it was necessary, even if Dean still refuses to believe it. "You got to have the life you wanted, with no interference from the demon at all. No worries about going dark side. I knew as soon as I saw it what the bottle was, and I knew I could use it to keep you safe."
"How did you feel when you realized what Dad had done to save your life?"
Dean's answer is quick and absolute. "That's different."
"It's really not."
"Yes, it is." Now Dean sounds pissed off, and Sam can't believe he's going to argue.
"How? How is it any different, Dean?" Sam stops in front of him and throws his arms out wide, resisting the urge to grab Dean by the front of his shirt and shake some sense into him. "We don't fuck with the natural order of things. You've told me that since before I was old enough to even understand what it meant, and then you go and get a djinn to completely rearrange the world. How is that different?"
"Because it was for you." Dean's voice is low, and there's something sad in it, and true. Dean believes what he's saying, and that resonates in Sam's bones. "I knew you were freaked out after the thing with Meg and what happened with Jo, and that you were upset we hadn't found any trace of Ava at all. I wanted to take all that away, make it easier on you."
Sam sinks down onto his bed, facing Dean, their knees bumping in the narrow space between the beds, all his anger diffused by the quiet conviction of Dean's words.
"I know, but you can't, okay? You can't just make it all go away."
"But I can. I did." He cocks his head. "Well, the djinn did. She was kind of hot, too, don't you think?"
"You're unbelievable." Sam shakes his head incredulously.
"I still don't understand why you remembered. It was supposed to be a clean switch."
Sam lifts his t-shirt and twists. "If you hadn't been too cheap to go out and buy some parchment, I wouldn't have."
Dean huffs a small laugh. "My own damn fault then."
"Oh God, Dean, get down off the fucking cross, okay? Somebody else needs the wood."
"Look, Sam, I don't really care what you think about this, but let me make one thing clear to you. If I see a chance to protect you, to keep you from becoming whatever the hell it is you're afraid of becoming, I am going to take it. And you can bitch and moan about it all you want, but that's just the way it's going to be, and you can't stop me."
"I don't want you to die for me, Dean. Not if there's a way I can prevent it, and you can't stop me from doing that."
"I guess we know where we stand, at least." Dean scrubs a hand through his hair and gives another small laugh. "I could really use a beer."
Sam sighs, knowing that the conversation is over. For now, anyway. "Mom and Dad were pretty cool," he says. "Did you know you were conceived in the Impala?"
Dean grins at him, genuine pleasure lighting up his face, and the room. "Dude. How awesome is that?"
"Pretty freaking awesome, Dean."
"Yeah." Dean gets up, rests his hand on Sam's shoulder for a few seconds, the warm weight of it comforting and familiar. "All things being equal, Sam, I'm glad I'm not dead."
Sam smiles up at him. "Me, too, Dean. Me, too."
He drops back against the pillows, exhausted after everything that's happened. He knows the false memories will fade with the ink on his skin--knows it's easier that way--but he's glad he had them for a little while. As he closes his eyes and starts to drift off to sleep, he remembers the feel of his parents' arms around him, and the scent of Jessica's perfume, and knows those memories will stay.
It's more than he had before, and even though it hurts to lose something he never really had all over again, he knows there was no other choice he could have lived with.
End
~*~
Part 1 | Part 2
~*~
Note: this story was inspired by thepurpleswitch's White Pony.
I started writing this story on January 21, and then it got pushed aside by Remix and then girl!Sam, but then I read some spoilers for episode 2.20 [highlight the following to read the spoiler] in which Dean apparently has a run-in with a djinn and wakes up in an alternate version of his life, where he lives in an apartment in Kansas and Sam is in law school, and lo, I squeed loudly, because this NEVER happens to me, [/end spoiler] and I vowed to finish the story as soon as possible. I am not spoiled beyond what appears in the whited-out portion of this note, so please don't tell me anything else.
~*~
Feedback would be adored.
~*~
Part 1 | Part 2
Part 2
*
Missouri's at the door this time when he comes back, concerned look on her face.
"Look," he says, raising the hem of his shirt to show her once they're inside. "I tried washing it off, and I had a vision. Or not a vision so much as memories."
"Memories?"
"Of this life. I remembered dinner with my parents, playing soccer, going to prom--all the things I wished for when I was growing up and never had. It's like I have two sets of memories now--what really happened, and what happened here."
She runs gentle fingers over the marks on his skin. "Hmm. This looks familiar."
"I think it's from the Key of Solomon," he says. "If we can't figure it out, we can call Bobby. He's another hunter--a friend of my dad's. He's helped us out a lot, and he knows his stuff."
"Hold still, boy," she says, grabbing a pen and a piece of paper from her desk and sketching the design. "The writing is unclear now, but I think you're right."
He gestures towards the computer on the desk. "May I?"
She smiles. "You do have nice manners, Sam. Whoever raised you did right by you."
He laughs, because if there's one thing Dean's never been, it's well-mannered. "He tried."
*
It takes him no more than fifteen minutes to match the rough sketch Missouri made with the pentacle of Jupiter, meant to bring wealth and good luck to the person invoking it. Not a protective symbol, then.
Missouri's flipping through books, humming softly to herself as she reads, frown creasing her forehead.
"There's something we're not thinking of," she says, and he knows exactly what she means, feels like the knowledge he needs is somewhere in his own head, just out of reach.
She goes to the kitchen, comes back a few minutes later with two glasses of iced tea and a couple of sandwiches.
"I wish I had Dad's journal," he mutters after a mouthful of sweet tea. I wish Dean were here. I wish... "Son of a bitch. Wishes, Missouri. Djinni." He shakes his head. Dean always says to trust his gut, and he hadn't. He can almost hear Dean laughing at him and calling him, college boy, saying he's too smart for his own good, always ready to trust books over his own instincts.
He thinks back to the botánica, the colorful display of graceful glass bottles for perfumes and oils. Remembers Dean's sudden fascination with them, his sudden focus on them when something caught his eye while Sam was questioning the Jimenezes.
Dean found a genie in a bottle. The ridiculousness of it makes Sam want to laugh. That he spent his wish on this makes Sam want to cry. Or punch Dean out. Probably both, as long as he gets to see Dean again.
Missouri gets up, goes directly to one of her books and flips it open. "Sulieman summoned the djinn and bound it with the pentacle," she reads. "He directed it to grant his wishes, three in number, wealth, health, and happiness, before he set it free." She closes the book, marking her place with a finger, and looks up. "I'll need to pick up a few supplies, but we can summon the djinn--it's bound to you until the pentacle is removed."
"And what? I make a wish?"
She nods, the look on her face unreadable.
*
He can't bring himself to go back just yet, drives around aimlessly for a while, memories that aren't real giving him landmarks--he played basketball in that park, learned to ride his bike on this street, went to kindergarten in that school.
He passes the garage, remembers spending afternoons after school and in the summer there, learning enough about cars to get by, but always more interested in books than engines. That, at least, is the same.
He flicks the radio on, listens to the DJ run through the concert calendar, and tries to imagine his parents in the audience, Dad with his arms crossed over his chest, small grin on his face as he watches Mom laugh and sing along.
He swipes at his eyes, and turns back towards the house.
When he gets there, he sits in the car for a few minutes, preparing himself to say goodbye to his parents, and to Jess.
*
Dad's got the football pre-game show on, and Mom and Jess are nowhere to be found.
"Church," Dad says, shaking his head. "I told Jess she didn't have to go, but you know how your mother is."
Sam nods, remembering a hundred Sunday mornings as a kid when she'd dressed him up and dragged him to church, where he'd sat and tried not to fidget; remembering Dean's words about the way she'd believed, told him angels were looking out for him, and how that faith had been broken by her death.
"You're heading back tonight? Jess said you hadn't bought round trip tickets, but if you've got the interview tomorrow morning..."
"Yeah," Sam answers, startled. He hadn't even thought about going back. He could, though. He could buy a ticket back to California, lock himself and Jess up in a circle of salt until the night was over, and go on with his life. Dean would understand. Dean would want him to, would trade himself--had traded himself for the rest of them, and if Sam stays, no one will ever remember that sacrifice. Which is the only way Sam could live with it. "I--Yeah. I need to get online and do that." He flees upstairs to his room.
He can't stay there, of course. Jess comes up and wraps her arms around him, presses a kiss to his cheek.
"I know you're nervous about the interview," she says, "but you're gonna be awesome, Sam. They're gonna snap you up so fast your head'll spin, just you wait and see." She kisses him again, hitting the corner of his mouth this time as he turns into it, kisses her back eagerly.
"I couldn't do it without you," he murmurs against her lips.
"Sure you could," she says, "but you don't have to. I'm not going anywhere."
He threads his fingers through her hair, holds her close. "I know."
He lets her lead him back downstairs, where Dad's dozing in front of the Chiefs-Chargers game and Mom's puttering around the kitchen. She and Jess start planning Thanksgiving dinner, and Sam sinks down on the couch and lets it all wash over him.
The vibration of his phone startles him, and he jolts out of the half-doze he's fallen into.
"I'm ready whenever you are," Missouri says.
"I'll be right there." He doesn't think he can sit through dinner, knowing what he knows.
He gets up to look for his jacket and Jess follows him. "Sam, where are you going? We have to leave for the airport soon."
Mom and Dad look up from their conversation at that. "Sam?" Mom says, rising from her spot on the sofa.
"I forgot something at Missouri's yesterday. I have to go. I'll be back in a bit." He enfolds his mother in a tight hug, tries to memorize the scent of her hair. "I'm sorry I've been so weird this weekend."
"You're under a lot of stress, Sam," she says, brushing his hair off his forehead. "We understand. When you come back for Thanksgiving, we'll have time for a nice long talk."
Dad claps him on the shoulder. "And don't worry if you blow the interview--there's always room for you at the garage."
"John!"
"I'm teasing, Mary. Teasing. He's gonna knock 'em dead. We all know that. Right, Sammy?"
The open, proud look on his father's face is almost enough to break him, but he swallows hard, finds his voice. "Yeah, Dad."
He lets his mother go long enough to hug his father, closing his eyes and breathing him in, so familiar and so different in this version of the world.
Jess walks him outside, arms crossed over her chest in the chilly November afternoon, and when they reach the car, he wraps his arms around her and kisses her, trying to pour every ounce of feeling--love, sorrow, regret--he's got into the kiss. He pulls back, brushes his thumb over her cheek, her lips, trying to figure out how to answer the question in her eyes.
"Love you," he says, leaning in for another kiss.
"I know," she answers, cupping his cheek. "Be quick and be careful. I don't want to miss our flight."
"Yeah."
He can see her shivering in the rearview mirror until he turns the corner, and he forces himself not to cry.
*
"Hold still," Missouri instructs him, but it feels weird and ticklish to have her drawing on him, strengthening the fading lines and symbols on his skin. Dean's always done it while he's asleep, though now he wonders how in hell he's ever slept through this.
When she's done, he chalks the pentagram on the floor and salts around its edges, while she lights the five candles and sets them at each point of the star.
"You don't have to do this, you know," she says. "You can wash the pentacle off and you won't remember a thing about your other life."
He knows what Dean would do if their positions were reversed (and he's sad that he can't even imagine what Dean's secret perfect life would be, but he knows he'd be a part of it, and can't understand why Dean isn't part of his), knows Dean would do it without thought or indecision, and he's a little ashamed that he's had any hesitation at all, that he could even consider letting Dean make this sacrifice for him, and a little angry at Dean for thinking he'd want him to.
"I've thought about it," he says, "but I can't." He gestures at the pentagram, the candles, the books scattered around the room. "I know too much--I know what's out there in the dark, and I can't pretend I don't, even for the few days it'll take to forget completely. I tried to run from the responsibility once, and it didn't end well. I can't do it again."
She nods and takes his hand, squeezes it gently for a moment. Then, "Djinni are powerful, but the seal and the salt should contain it. Don't break the circle--watch yourself."
He nods, lowers himself to the floor about six inches from the thick salt line he'd poured, and nods again, letting her know he's ready.
She reads the incantation slowly and clearly, making sure not to stumble over the foreign words. A warm wind blows through the room, making the candles flicker, and a smoky whirl appears in the center of the circle, spinning like a cyclone until it resolves into the shape of a woman with long dark hair and shining dark eyes.
"Why have you called me here?" she demands, a soft, unidentifiable accent shaping her words. She narrows her eyes at him and he feels a chill run down his spine, but forces himself to sit straight and still under her scrutiny. "Samuel Winchester. Is your new life not satisfactory? Do you not have everything you wished for?"
"I didn't wish for it," he says. "I want you to make it go away."
Her smile is sharp and thin as a razor. "Your brother and I had a deal. He wanted you to have the normal, happy life you'd always wanted, with no interference from Azazel."
"But he's not here."
"He knew that was a possibility, and made the wish anyway. It is not for you to change the terms of our arrangement. You're not even supposed to remember your other life." He smiles back at her, more a baring of teeth than anything friendly, and raises his shirt to show her the newly darkened pentacle drawn on his skin. She hisses angrily, then says, "He was supposed to use vellum."
"Yeah, it's not exactly something we carry around these days, and skin is skin, right?"
She hisses again. "This is most irregular."
Sam takes a deep breath, holds onto his temper. He's not sure if he's angry at her or at Dean, and it's not really a good idea to piss off something as powerful as a djinn, even if they've got it contained in a salted circle for the moment. "I've summoned you. By the rules of your people, that means you owe me a wish, right?"
She nods curtly. "Yes."
He's thought about what he wants, how to phrase it, because he knows too many stories of wishes gone awry, of people who wished foolishly, who asked for what they thought they wanted and got something else entirely in return.
"Well?" she asks, impatient. "Do you know what you want or are you just wasting my time with your chicanery?"
He takes another deep breath and silently asks Jess, Mom, and Dad for forgiveness before he says, "I wish for you to put the world back the way it was right before Dean made his wish."
She doesn't nod and blink, or wrinkle her nose, or anything else that he can see, but suddenly instead of sitting on the floor in Missouri's basement, he's lying on the soft, creaky bed in the motel room he and Dean had rented two nights ago.
Dean is standing over him with a sharpie in one hand and a pretty, blue cut-crystal bottle he must have pocketed in the botánica when Sam wasn't looking in the other.
As Dean leans toward him, Sam levers himself up and takes a swing, fist connecting with Dean's face with a satisfying thump, and Dean goes sprawling backwards, ass over tea kettle.
"Ow! What the fuck, Sammy? What the hell was that for?"
Sam gets up off the bed so he can loom over Dean. "For making that wish, you stupid, selfish bastard."
"How do you know about that? I haven't even done it yet. And if it works, we shouldn't even be here right now."
"It did work, but I had to summon up the djinn and wish it away."
"Why the fuck would you do something like that? And you call me stupid?"
"You weren't there, you moron. You were dead!"
"Oh." Dean rubs his temple thoughtfully, making no move to get up off the floor. He's probably going to have one hell of a shiner in a little while. "She did say that might happen. Did I at least die heroically? Saving some cheerleaders or the world or something?"
Sam stares down at him, itching to hit him again, but instead he offers him a hand up. Dean must sense the split in his intentions because he hesitates a few seconds before grabbing Sam's hand.
"You died in an electrical fire when you were four," Sam grinds out, yanking him up more roughly than is strictly necessary, and ignoring Dean's grimace in response. "The night of my six-month birthday."
"Oh," he says again. "Mom?"
"Mom was fine. Dad was fine. It was all fine. Safe and happy and normal."
Dean shakes his head, drops down onto the other bed. "Then I don't understand. What the hell is your problem? You had everything you ever wanted."
"You weren't there." He doesn't know how to make Dean understand. "I didn't ask for it, Dean. I didn't ask for you to sacrifice yourself in some stupid, noble gesture so I could have a normal life. What makes you think I would even want that?"
"Sammy, you spent the first eighteen years of your life bitching about how you wanted normal, you wanted safe, you wanted happy. You wanted the little white house with the white picket fence and two loving parents and a dog. Now, suddenly, when you finally get a chance to have it, you don't want it? I don't believe it."
"I never wanted you to die so I could have it, Dean. I didn't ask for it, and I certainly wouldn't choose it, okay?"
"Tonight, I asked you flat-out, pointblank what you wished for, and that's what you said."
"Yeah, I did, but I didn't mean--I didn't want it without you, man. I didn't want it at that price."
"We could die any time with this job, Sammy, you know that."
Sam grunts in frustration and starts pacing. "And we do our best to see that it doesn't happen. But you threw your life away for me. How was I supposed to live with that?"
"Well, you weren't even supposed to remember it--"
"That doesn't matter!"
Dean looks genuinely hurt and confused, and Sam doesn't think it's just because he took a punch to the face. "I was saving you, Sam. I was keeping my promise." He looks down, away, and Sam forces himself not to feel guilty for extracting that promise, knows it was necessary, even if Dean still refuses to believe it. "You got to have the life you wanted, with no interference from the demon at all. No worries about going dark side. I knew as soon as I saw it what the bottle was, and I knew I could use it to keep you safe."
"How did you feel when you realized what Dad had done to save your life?"
Dean's answer is quick and absolute. "That's different."
"It's really not."
"Yes, it is." Now Dean sounds pissed off, and Sam can't believe he's going to argue.
"How? How is it any different, Dean?" Sam stops in front of him and throws his arms out wide, resisting the urge to grab Dean by the front of his shirt and shake some sense into him. "We don't fuck with the natural order of things. You've told me that since before I was old enough to even understand what it meant, and then you go and get a djinn to completely rearrange the world. How is that different?"
"Because it was for you." Dean's voice is low, and there's something sad in it, and true. Dean believes what he's saying, and that resonates in Sam's bones. "I knew you were freaked out after the thing with Meg and what happened with Jo, and that you were upset we hadn't found any trace of Ava at all. I wanted to take all that away, make it easier on you."
Sam sinks down onto his bed, facing Dean, their knees bumping in the narrow space between the beds, all his anger diffused by the quiet conviction of Dean's words.
"I know, but you can't, okay? You can't just make it all go away."
"But I can. I did." He cocks his head. "Well, the djinn did. She was kind of hot, too, don't you think?"
"You're unbelievable." Sam shakes his head incredulously.
"I still don't understand why you remembered. It was supposed to be a clean switch."
Sam lifts his t-shirt and twists. "If you hadn't been too cheap to go out and buy some parchment, I wouldn't have."
Dean huffs a small laugh. "My own damn fault then."
"Oh God, Dean, get down off the fucking cross, okay? Somebody else needs the wood."
"Look, Sam, I don't really care what you think about this, but let me make one thing clear to you. If I see a chance to protect you, to keep you from becoming whatever the hell it is you're afraid of becoming, I am going to take it. And you can bitch and moan about it all you want, but that's just the way it's going to be, and you can't stop me."
"I don't want you to die for me, Dean. Not if there's a way I can prevent it, and you can't stop me from doing that."
"I guess we know where we stand, at least." Dean scrubs a hand through his hair and gives another small laugh. "I could really use a beer."
Sam sighs, knowing that the conversation is over. For now, anyway. "Mom and Dad were pretty cool," he says. "Did you know you were conceived in the Impala?"
Dean grins at him, genuine pleasure lighting up his face, and the room. "Dude. How awesome is that?"
"Pretty freaking awesome, Dean."
"Yeah." Dean gets up, rests his hand on Sam's shoulder for a few seconds, the warm weight of it comforting and familiar. "All things being equal, Sam, I'm glad I'm not dead."
Sam smiles up at him. "Me, too, Dean. Me, too."
He drops back against the pillows, exhausted after everything that's happened. He knows the false memories will fade with the ink on his skin--knows it's easier that way--but he's glad he had them for a little while. As he closes his eyes and starts to drift off to sleep, he remembers the feel of his parents' arms around him, and the scent of Jessica's perfume, and knows those memories will stay.
It's more than he had before, and even though it hurts to lose something he never really had all over again, he knows there was no other choice he could have lived with.
End
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Part 1 | Part 2
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Note: this story was inspired by thepurpleswitch's White Pony.
I started writing this story on January 21, and then it got pushed aside by Remix and then girl!Sam, but then I read some spoilers for episode 2.20 [highlight the following to read the spoiler] in which Dean apparently has a run-in with a djinn and wakes up in an alternate version of his life, where he lives in an apartment in Kansas and Sam is in law school, and lo, I squeed loudly, because this NEVER happens to me, [/end spoiler] and I vowed to finish the story as soon as possible. I am not spoiled beyond what appears in the whited-out portion of this note, so please don't tell me anything else.
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Feedback would be adored.
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