Yeah, don't kill me.
One of my foremost resolutions for '07 is to work on/finish WIPs. So bear that in mind, 'kay? I mean it.
Because yeah. Another freakin' bunny. I'm working pretty hard to make sure this is the LAST one for a while, but in the meantime, well, I fell. So. This is not the most original, unique story idea, but I hope there is a twist to it that feels pretty new. Happy New Year!!
Title: Balance
Author: janissa11
Pairing: Dean/Sam; Jared/Jensen. Yep, you read that right.
Rating: Ultimately NC-17.
Warnings: Tons: WIP; Wincest; RPS; crack; AU; crossover; possible dementia on the part of the author. No mpreg though. HAH!
Summary: Something's thrown everything out of balance. Trick is to fix it without screwing up, or maybe ending the world. 2,698 words.
Author's notes: My thanks to innie_darling and embroiderama for having a look at this first chapter and offering commentary; y'all are awesome, and I appreciate you immensely. Yes, this is an SPN/RPS crossover. ::facepalm::
Balance
By Emily Brunson
©2007
The sun is shining, which is the first thing Jensen notices when he wakes up. If the sun is shining, his ass is LATE, because call is always early and this week it’s even earlier than the ass-crack-thirty it usually is. The sun is up, and he’s late, and he kicks Jared and sits up and draws a breath to say something, and it all hisses out in a little weak sigh instead.
It’s not his bedroom. It’s not any bedroom he’s ever seen before.
Beside him, Jared makes a snuffling sound and mumbles, “Just another five minutes. That’s all.”
“Dude,” Jensen whispers, absolutely 150% awake, and without any caffeine. “Get up.”
Jared groans and rolls over, flopping his arm over his face. Then the arm flies out and he’s sitting bolt upright beside Jensen. “Shit, we’re late.”
“No,” Jensen says carefully. He swallows. “I think this is worse than that.”
He looks at Jared, who scrubs his hand over his face fast and hard, then stares around, blinking. “This ain’t your house, Jen.”
“Nah, you think?” Jensen sits there for a second with his mouth open. “Did we, ah. Drink tequila last night and then go someplace that I wouldn’t recognize the next morning?”
Jared appears to think about it, then shakes his head firmly. “I didn’t puke.”
It’s a fact: Jared always pukes tequila. And tequila’s the only thing Jensen can think of that would make him have some kind of blackout like he must have had last night, so.
“Dude,” Jared says in a hushed voice. “Where the hell are we?”
Jensen makes fists in the sheet with his hands. “I have no idea.”
~~~~~~~~~
Jensen’s idea that they got drunk and went to a skeevy motel is finally salted and burned when they risk a look outside. It’s a motel, that much is for sure - as if the cheap percale sheets and stained bedspread weren’t enough supportive evidence - but the parking lot outside is not in Vancouver. Not anywhere NEAR Vancouver. It looks more like -
“Clovis,” says Jared with a lot more calm than Jensen’s feeling right about now. “West Texas, Amarillo. Something. It’s all - hot and dry and dead.”
Jensen nods shakily. Now that Jay’s pointed it out, it does feel like Texas, the deserty northwest part.
He looks down at himself. He’s got on faded blue boxers he’s never seen before, and there are bruises on his shins he doesn’t remember getting. When he looks over, Jared looks about fourteen, and pretty freaked.
“Man,” Jared whispers. “This feels like an episode.”
“It does,” Jen says. “Why are we whispering?”
“I don’t know. Feels like we should.”
“Somebody’s yanking our chains.” Jensen grits his teeth and marches over to the closet. “Where’s the damn camera?”
It’s not in the closet. Wardrobe’s been here, though: a couple of shirts that look costume-familiar, and that ratty gray hoodie Sam wears. And one of Dean’s leather jackets, worse for wear. Jensen huffs and goes to look for his pants, his cell phone, his wallet.
Jared’s already found the torn-up jeans Sam wears. He digs out a wallet, and makes a face. “Another freaking prop.”
Jensen finds a pair of jeans half-hidden under the bed. No wallet. No phone. He nearly hits his head on the bedside table and sees brown leather. Hope flickers and fades; he sighs. “Mine, too.”
“Uh, Jen?”
He looks over, still sitting on the side of the bed, and sees Jared examining the Sam prop wallet. “What?”
“This isn’t the prop.”
“What do you mean? It’s -“
“It’s got stuff in it.”
“Yeah, from -“
“No, I mean, it’s REAL. Look.”
Thing is, with props, sure, they’re real stuff, but take the wallets. Jensen’s real wallet is stuffed with all kinds of things: business cards, receipts, six or seven credit cards, pictures of his nephews, the usual crap. But the prop wallets, his and Jared’s both, they’re…fake. Whatever prop ID they’re using that week, a few things for show, but they don’t even feel real.
The wallet Jared’s holding looks real. Beat-up, one of the seams coming unsewn, and it’s got the same kinds of crap in it that real ones do. Except all of it is SAM stuff. An ID from Stanford University that looks real. Sam looks younger and ridiculously cute in it. A photo of the chick that played Jessica, whose name Jensen can’t remember right now.
And there’s a picture of Jeff, only it doesn’t look like a candid from any of the eps he’s been in, and a photo of Jensen with Jared that he knows they never took. Jared’s way too young in it: maybe fifteen. Jensen’s grinning, his arm around Jared’s shoulders, and he’s got his left arm in a cast.
Jensen’s never broken his left arm. Not the wrist, not the arm, nada.
Everything goes stark black and white for a second, then flashes back to color. He blinks, looks at Jared, who’s watching him with big stunned eyes. Jensen licks his lips carefully. “This,” he says, “is truly bizarre.”
“It’s like - real,” Jared says breathily. “Like this is really Sam’s stuff.”
“Yeah. Only Sam’s a character, Jay. He’s freaking made-up. Fictional.” Jensen makes a face. “It’s a practical joke. Rosenbaum, he -“
“Wait.”
He watches Jared stride across the room, yank open the door. He steps outside, shades his eyes, and then gestures at Jensen. “Look.”
It’s early, based on the angle of the sun in the east, but it’s already hot outside. Jensen looks. One of the Impalas is parked a couple of slots down. It’s a little dusty, but perfectly recognizable; not like there are hundreds of those still on the road, after all.
“It’s a joke,” Jensen says heavily. “Has to be.”
Jared’s stuffing that weird wallet in his back pocket. “But what if it isn’t?” He’s still kinda whispering, and all of a sudden it creeps Jensen out.
“It is,” he snaps, walking over to the car. It’s locked, and he hasn’t found any keys yet. Peering inside, it looks the same. Kinda messy with the crap their characters accumulate: fast-food wrappers, a couple of ratty-looking maps, cassette tapes.
He looks back at Jared. “I’ll prove it to you.”
The keys are on the table by the television set. He ignores the fact that they are not the prop keys the cars usually use. The Navy Pier souvenir keychain is entirely new to him.
When he pops the trunk he just stands and stares, Jared breathing fast and light next to him. The “trunk” of the Winchester Impala is a prop, too - only one of the actual cars is set up to be Dean’s weird rolling arsenal, and it’s one of the ones that doesn’t run very well.
This trunk is the arsenal. Only on crack or something, because there’s more here than Jensen can remember seeing, more than it seems like would fit inside this limited space.
“Holy crap.” Jared looks really pale under his tan. Or - Sam looks really pale. Because this isn’t Jared. Except it is. Those are Jared’s big scared eyes and tight lips, that’s Jared’s little tug on his earlobe when he’s trying to remember his lines. And the sun shines white on four parallel scars along his left cheek.
They were fake. They weren’t REAL. But he can see the faint lines, scars healed so well that only their ghosts remain.
“Um,” Jensen says. His heart is going way too fast. Okay if he were going for a cardio kinda thing, but otherwise -
“I think we got a problem,” Jared says shakily, and Jensen looks back at the lethal armament inside the Impala’s trunk and nods.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
When he wakes up it’s way too dark. Then he realizes he can’t breathe, because Sam’s got his arm flung over Dean’s face.
With an impatient sound Dean flings it off. Guy sleeps like an orangutan. All floppy limbs. Like sleeping with an octopus.
It’s still too dark. Blearily Dean gropes for his watch. Eight in the morning, so where’s the goddamn sun?
“Sammy,” he says raspily. “Up and at ‘em. S’late.”
“Muh,” comes the groggy reply. “Lih.”
“Sorry, I don’t speak that language.” Dean sits up, rubs his eyes briskly, and flings back the covers. Sam curls up, whining. “Come on, you’re the early riser around here. We got creepy shit to kill, remember?”
“I hate you,” Sam mumbles, shooting him what Dean’s pretty sure would be a glare if he could see it in the murk.
“Cloudy or something?” Dean stands up, and curls his toes in the thick carpet. Didn’t feel this good last night. Felt kinda scratchy and possibly, maybe like not shampooed since it had been installed 116 years ago.
Then he goes very still.
“Dude,” he says hoarsely. “Get your ass up.”
“Oh my GOD, how can you be annoying this early in the -“
“Where’s the other bed?”
“What?”
Dean edges back until his legs hit the only bed in the room. “Last night there were two beds in here. Now there’s one. Am I right?”
Sam slides over, sitting on the edge of the bed. After a very long moment he says, “Yeah. You’re right. The other one -“
“Fuckin’ disappeared,” Dean says tersely. “That ain’t right.”
Sam rubs his stubbly jaw and doesn’t say a word.
“And why’s it so fucking dark?” Dean swallows and stomps around the bed, heading for the single window. “Mid-morning, it should -“
He stands with his hands still on the drapes, mouth hanging open. Staring. A moment later Sam’s there, too, silent and stunned.
“That,” Dean says slowly, “ain’t Texas.”
Sam nods, and says, “And this isn’t our crummy motel room, Dean. This is -- I don’t know what the hell this is. Somebody’s bedroom.”
Dean spins around, hand going to his hip in an automatic search for the gun that isn’t there. Sam’s right: this is some cushy bedroom, big bed and actual furniture someone picked out individually instead of the mass-produced crap motels use. It’s - nice. Way, way too nice for a motel. At least the kind they’re used to.
“What the FUCK,” Dean says breathlessly.
“Did somebody - I dunno, kidnap us or something?”
“Dude, I think we’d have noticed,” Dean snaps.
“Okay, so -- how’d we GET here then? And where is here anyway?”
Dean gives a fast nod. “I dunno, Sammy, but wherever we are, I’d feel a lot better with a weapon.”
Sam snorts softly. “For once? I totally agree with you.”
Except their guns haven’t made the transition with them. There’s a lot of crap in this room - clothes, shoes, tons more clothes and shoes in the gigantic closet, folders and papers and shit on the table, cologne and crap on the dresser, but no freaking weapons.
“Okay, we’re outta here,” Dean says, grabbing the jeans on the floor. They aren’t his, and right now he doesn’t give a shit. “Put something on.”
“Dean, I don’t even know what’s MINE.”
“Who gives a shit? Just grab something.”
The jeans are way too long for him. And too tight. He looks at Sam, sees him in too-big too-short jeans and says, “Okay, trade.”
“Right.”
These jeans feel funny, too, but they fit, and he finds a sweatshirt in the pile and yanks it on. Sam’s wearing some kind of black shirt, not his style at all, pulls a sweater over it.
The boots, though, they fit right. He sort of likes them, beat-up, looking well-worn. Sam’s got a pair of sneakers, seems okay.
“All right.” Dean eyes him grimly and puts his hand on the doorknob, the other lifted to hold his finger over his lips. He raises his eyebrows and waits for Sam’s tense nod.
There’s no one outside. It’s a hallway in somebody’s house, and it sure as hell doesn’t sound like anyone’s home. They creep down the hall, into a big living room. Nice. Gigantic flat-screen tv, big old leather couches, a shitload of DVDs in an expensive-looking rack.
“Whoever it is, must be loaded,” Dean says.
“Yeah, but who? Where the hell are we?”
“You see any ID anyplace?”
Sam finds a wallet back in the bedroom. California driver’s license, with Dean’s picture on it. Dean eyes it narrowly. “Jensen - Ackles? What the fuck kinda name is Ackles?”
“I dunno, you picked it.”
“No,” Dean says clearly. “I didn’t.”
Sam sighs. “Dean, you got like forty fake IDs, it’s just one -“
“No, Sam, I’m telling you: This ain’t mine.” Mouth dry, he shuffles through the wallet. “See? All this shit’s got the same name on it. This Ackles guy. Credit cards, hah, LIBRARY card -“
“This isn’t California, all right?” Sam glances around wildly. “Way further north. Oregon, Washington, maybe -“
“Canada.”
Sam whips around. “Canada?”
Dean waggles another card. “Some kinda - permit thing.”
“Wait. Just - wait.”
“For what, we gotta -“
“I need to think.” Sam flops down on one of the couches, shoulders slumping. “Give me a second.”
Dean glances at the driver’s license again. Kinda - creepy. He’s sure - positive - he’s never used this alias. It’s like, how would he come up with that name, right? Except that’s him in the picture. Seems like. Sorta - softer-looking, like he was in some kind of really good mood that day or something, but still. It’s definitely him.
“I don’t think we’re us,” Sam says hollowly.
Dean lifts an eyebrow. “Dude, I know who I AM, all right? This stupid ID just -“
“No, Dean. You’re -- You’re not.” Sam’s staring at him now, eyes narrowed with worry. “Listen to me, okay? Look at me. Do I look right?”
Dean shifts on his feet, makes a face. “Course you do. You’re -“
“Because you don’t.”
“Huh?”
“Your scar is gone.”
“Dude, which one?”
Sam gives an impatient huff. “The daevas. Your face. I mean, you can barely see it, but it’s THERE, except now it’s not. Totally gone.”
Dean reaches up, slides exploratory fingers over his face. “Huh.”
“You’re you, except you’re not.”
“Well, what about you?”
“Yeah, Dean.” Sam nods. “What about me? Am I the same?”
Dean peers at him, and swallows. “Sorta. Mostly.”
“Wait.” Sam stands and yanks at the neck of Dean’s sweatshirt.
“Hold on a -“
“It’s not there.” Sam jabs his sternum for emphasis, eyebrows climbing high. “See? No scar. From the thing. Poker thing.” He pokes him again. “You’re not Dean.”
“But,” Dean said weakly, “I AM.”
“No, no, I mean, that body isn’t Dean. It’s that - Jack Ensels. Person.”
“Jensen Ackles.”
“Yeah. Him.”
Dean shakes his head slowly. “Okay, this is freakin’ weird shit, Sammy. I’m in somebody else’s body? Somebody who looks EXACTLY like me?”
“Not exactly. But close enough, and yeah. Me, too.” Sam nods fast.
“So who are you?”
Sam’s mouth opens, but he doesn’t say anything but, “Uh.”
“Right. Go look for another wallet. I’m gonna find out whose house this is.”
~~~~~~~~~
Sam comes back after eight or ten minutes, holding a slim wallet. “I’m somebody named Jared,” he says breathlessly.
Dean sighs. “And this is my house.”
Sam pauses. “Really?”
“Well, while I’m wearing my Jensen Ackles outfit it is.” Dean gives a shrug. “So who the hell is Jared?”
Sam opens the wallet and shows him.
“Jared Pada -- Pada -“
“Padalecki.”
“Padawhattie?”
“Sounds Polish. Or Russian or something, anyway, look, we woke up in this Jensen guy’s bed together, so obviously Jensen and Jared know each other.”
“Yeah, in the biblical sense,” Dean nods. “But - why the hell are we here? How’d this happen?”
Sam gestures him over the couch and sits heavily. “I don’t know, but take a look at this.”
Dean takes the bound sheaf of papers, looks curiously at it. “So?”
“So,” Sam says, “that’s a script. Now - look at the characters’ names. Go ahead.”
“Supernatural,” Dean reads aloud. “Okay, that’s not - WHOA.”
Sam nods grimly. “Yeah. Anything look familiar?”
Dean stares at him. “Dude, it’s got our names in it. Dean and Sam Winchester.”
“Dean, I think these guys - these bodies - I think these guys are actors. And -- Okay, this is so freaking weird, but -- I think they’re playing US.”
TBC. AFTER "Brothers and Strangers" is continued. Solemn vow.
Because yeah. Another freakin' bunny. I'm working pretty hard to make sure this is the LAST one for a while, but in the meantime, well, I fell. So. This is not the most original, unique story idea, but I hope there is a twist to it that feels pretty new. Happy New Year!!
Title: Balance
Author: janissa11
Pairing: Dean/Sam; Jared/Jensen. Yep, you read that right.
Rating: Ultimately NC-17.
Warnings: Tons: WIP; Wincest; RPS; crack; AU; crossover; possible dementia on the part of the author. No mpreg though. HAH!
Summary: Something's thrown everything out of balance. Trick is to fix it without screwing up, or maybe ending the world. 2,698 words.
Author's notes: My thanks to innie_darling and embroiderama for having a look at this first chapter and offering commentary; y'all are awesome, and I appreciate you immensely. Yes, this is an SPN/RPS crossover. ::facepalm::
Balance
By Emily Brunson
©2007
The sun is shining, which is the first thing Jensen notices when he wakes up. If the sun is shining, his ass is LATE, because call is always early and this week it’s even earlier than the ass-crack-thirty it usually is. The sun is up, and he’s late, and he kicks Jared and sits up and draws a breath to say something, and it all hisses out in a little weak sigh instead.
It’s not his bedroom. It’s not any bedroom he’s ever seen before.
Beside him, Jared makes a snuffling sound and mumbles, “Just another five minutes. That’s all.”
“Dude,” Jensen whispers, absolutely 150% awake, and without any caffeine. “Get up.”
Jared groans and rolls over, flopping his arm over his face. Then the arm flies out and he’s sitting bolt upright beside Jensen. “Shit, we’re late.”
“No,” Jensen says carefully. He swallows. “I think this is worse than that.”
He looks at Jared, who scrubs his hand over his face fast and hard, then stares around, blinking. “This ain’t your house, Jen.”
“Nah, you think?” Jensen sits there for a second with his mouth open. “Did we, ah. Drink tequila last night and then go someplace that I wouldn’t recognize the next morning?”
Jared appears to think about it, then shakes his head firmly. “I didn’t puke.”
It’s a fact: Jared always pukes tequila. And tequila’s the only thing Jensen can think of that would make him have some kind of blackout like he must have had last night, so.
“Dude,” Jared says in a hushed voice. “Where the hell are we?”
Jensen makes fists in the sheet with his hands. “I have no idea.”
~~~~~~~~~
Jensen’s idea that they got drunk and went to a skeevy motel is finally salted and burned when they risk a look outside. It’s a motel, that much is for sure - as if the cheap percale sheets and stained bedspread weren’t enough supportive evidence - but the parking lot outside is not in Vancouver. Not anywhere NEAR Vancouver. It looks more like -
“Clovis,” says Jared with a lot more calm than Jensen’s feeling right about now. “West Texas, Amarillo. Something. It’s all - hot and dry and dead.”
Jensen nods shakily. Now that Jay’s pointed it out, it does feel like Texas, the deserty northwest part.
He looks down at himself. He’s got on faded blue boxers he’s never seen before, and there are bruises on his shins he doesn’t remember getting. When he looks over, Jared looks about fourteen, and pretty freaked.
“Man,” Jared whispers. “This feels like an episode.”
“It does,” Jen says. “Why are we whispering?”
“I don’t know. Feels like we should.”
“Somebody’s yanking our chains.” Jensen grits his teeth and marches over to the closet. “Where’s the damn camera?”
It’s not in the closet. Wardrobe’s been here, though: a couple of shirts that look costume-familiar, and that ratty gray hoodie Sam wears. And one of Dean’s leather jackets, worse for wear. Jensen huffs and goes to look for his pants, his cell phone, his wallet.
Jared’s already found the torn-up jeans Sam wears. He digs out a wallet, and makes a face. “Another freaking prop.”
Jensen finds a pair of jeans half-hidden under the bed. No wallet. No phone. He nearly hits his head on the bedside table and sees brown leather. Hope flickers and fades; he sighs. “Mine, too.”
“Uh, Jen?”
He looks over, still sitting on the side of the bed, and sees Jared examining the Sam prop wallet. “What?”
“This isn’t the prop.”
“What do you mean? It’s -“
“It’s got stuff in it.”
“Yeah, from -“
“No, I mean, it’s REAL. Look.”
Thing is, with props, sure, they’re real stuff, but take the wallets. Jensen’s real wallet is stuffed with all kinds of things: business cards, receipts, six or seven credit cards, pictures of his nephews, the usual crap. But the prop wallets, his and Jared’s both, they’re…fake. Whatever prop ID they’re using that week, a few things for show, but they don’t even feel real.
The wallet Jared’s holding looks real. Beat-up, one of the seams coming unsewn, and it’s got the same kinds of crap in it that real ones do. Except all of it is SAM stuff. An ID from Stanford University that looks real. Sam looks younger and ridiculously cute in it. A photo of the chick that played Jessica, whose name Jensen can’t remember right now.
And there’s a picture of Jeff, only it doesn’t look like a candid from any of the eps he’s been in, and a photo of Jensen with Jared that he knows they never took. Jared’s way too young in it: maybe fifteen. Jensen’s grinning, his arm around Jared’s shoulders, and he’s got his left arm in a cast.
Jensen’s never broken his left arm. Not the wrist, not the arm, nada.
Everything goes stark black and white for a second, then flashes back to color. He blinks, looks at Jared, who’s watching him with big stunned eyes. Jensen licks his lips carefully. “This,” he says, “is truly bizarre.”
“It’s like - real,” Jared says breathily. “Like this is really Sam’s stuff.”
“Yeah. Only Sam’s a character, Jay. He’s freaking made-up. Fictional.” Jensen makes a face. “It’s a practical joke. Rosenbaum, he -“
“Wait.”
He watches Jared stride across the room, yank open the door. He steps outside, shades his eyes, and then gestures at Jensen. “Look.”
It’s early, based on the angle of the sun in the east, but it’s already hot outside. Jensen looks. One of the Impalas is parked a couple of slots down. It’s a little dusty, but perfectly recognizable; not like there are hundreds of those still on the road, after all.
“It’s a joke,” Jensen says heavily. “Has to be.”
Jared’s stuffing that weird wallet in his back pocket. “But what if it isn’t?” He’s still kinda whispering, and all of a sudden it creeps Jensen out.
“It is,” he snaps, walking over to the car. It’s locked, and he hasn’t found any keys yet. Peering inside, it looks the same. Kinda messy with the crap their characters accumulate: fast-food wrappers, a couple of ratty-looking maps, cassette tapes.
He looks back at Jared. “I’ll prove it to you.”
The keys are on the table by the television set. He ignores the fact that they are not the prop keys the cars usually use. The Navy Pier souvenir keychain is entirely new to him.
When he pops the trunk he just stands and stares, Jared breathing fast and light next to him. The “trunk” of the Winchester Impala is a prop, too - only one of the actual cars is set up to be Dean’s weird rolling arsenal, and it’s one of the ones that doesn’t run very well.
This trunk is the arsenal. Only on crack or something, because there’s more here than Jensen can remember seeing, more than it seems like would fit inside this limited space.
“Holy crap.” Jared looks really pale under his tan. Or - Sam looks really pale. Because this isn’t Jared. Except it is. Those are Jared’s big scared eyes and tight lips, that’s Jared’s little tug on his earlobe when he’s trying to remember his lines. And the sun shines white on four parallel scars along his left cheek.
They were fake. They weren’t REAL. But he can see the faint lines, scars healed so well that only their ghosts remain.
“Um,” Jensen says. His heart is going way too fast. Okay if he were going for a cardio kinda thing, but otherwise -
“I think we got a problem,” Jared says shakily, and Jensen looks back at the lethal armament inside the Impala’s trunk and nods.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
When he wakes up it’s way too dark. Then he realizes he can’t breathe, because Sam’s got his arm flung over Dean’s face.
With an impatient sound Dean flings it off. Guy sleeps like an orangutan. All floppy limbs. Like sleeping with an octopus.
It’s still too dark. Blearily Dean gropes for his watch. Eight in the morning, so where’s the goddamn sun?
“Sammy,” he says raspily. “Up and at ‘em. S’late.”
“Muh,” comes the groggy reply. “Lih.”
“Sorry, I don’t speak that language.” Dean sits up, rubs his eyes briskly, and flings back the covers. Sam curls up, whining. “Come on, you’re the early riser around here. We got creepy shit to kill, remember?”
“I hate you,” Sam mumbles, shooting him what Dean’s pretty sure would be a glare if he could see it in the murk.
“Cloudy or something?” Dean stands up, and curls his toes in the thick carpet. Didn’t feel this good last night. Felt kinda scratchy and possibly, maybe like not shampooed since it had been installed 116 years ago.
Then he goes very still.
“Dude,” he says hoarsely. “Get your ass up.”
“Oh my GOD, how can you be annoying this early in the -“
“Where’s the other bed?”
“What?”
Dean edges back until his legs hit the only bed in the room. “Last night there were two beds in here. Now there’s one. Am I right?”
Sam slides over, sitting on the edge of the bed. After a very long moment he says, “Yeah. You’re right. The other one -“
“Fuckin’ disappeared,” Dean says tersely. “That ain’t right.”
Sam rubs his stubbly jaw and doesn’t say a word.
“And why’s it so fucking dark?” Dean swallows and stomps around the bed, heading for the single window. “Mid-morning, it should -“
He stands with his hands still on the drapes, mouth hanging open. Staring. A moment later Sam’s there, too, silent and stunned.
“That,” Dean says slowly, “ain’t Texas.”
Sam nods, and says, “And this isn’t our crummy motel room, Dean. This is -- I don’t know what the hell this is. Somebody’s bedroom.”
Dean spins around, hand going to his hip in an automatic search for the gun that isn’t there. Sam’s right: this is some cushy bedroom, big bed and actual furniture someone picked out individually instead of the mass-produced crap motels use. It’s - nice. Way, way too nice for a motel. At least the kind they’re used to.
“What the FUCK,” Dean says breathlessly.
“Did somebody - I dunno, kidnap us or something?”
“Dude, I think we’d have noticed,” Dean snaps.
“Okay, so -- how’d we GET here then? And where is here anyway?”
Dean gives a fast nod. “I dunno, Sammy, but wherever we are, I’d feel a lot better with a weapon.”
Sam snorts softly. “For once? I totally agree with you.”
Except their guns haven’t made the transition with them. There’s a lot of crap in this room - clothes, shoes, tons more clothes and shoes in the gigantic closet, folders and papers and shit on the table, cologne and crap on the dresser, but no freaking weapons.
“Okay, we’re outta here,” Dean says, grabbing the jeans on the floor. They aren’t his, and right now he doesn’t give a shit. “Put something on.”
“Dean, I don’t even know what’s MINE.”
“Who gives a shit? Just grab something.”
The jeans are way too long for him. And too tight. He looks at Sam, sees him in too-big too-short jeans and says, “Okay, trade.”
“Right.”
These jeans feel funny, too, but they fit, and he finds a sweatshirt in the pile and yanks it on. Sam’s wearing some kind of black shirt, not his style at all, pulls a sweater over it.
The boots, though, they fit right. He sort of likes them, beat-up, looking well-worn. Sam’s got a pair of sneakers, seems okay.
“All right.” Dean eyes him grimly and puts his hand on the doorknob, the other lifted to hold his finger over his lips. He raises his eyebrows and waits for Sam’s tense nod.
There’s no one outside. It’s a hallway in somebody’s house, and it sure as hell doesn’t sound like anyone’s home. They creep down the hall, into a big living room. Nice. Gigantic flat-screen tv, big old leather couches, a shitload of DVDs in an expensive-looking rack.
“Whoever it is, must be loaded,” Dean says.
“Yeah, but who? Where the hell are we?”
“You see any ID anyplace?”
Sam finds a wallet back in the bedroom. California driver’s license, with Dean’s picture on it. Dean eyes it narrowly. “Jensen - Ackles? What the fuck kinda name is Ackles?”
“I dunno, you picked it.”
“No,” Dean says clearly. “I didn’t.”
Sam sighs. “Dean, you got like forty fake IDs, it’s just one -“
“No, Sam, I’m telling you: This ain’t mine.” Mouth dry, he shuffles through the wallet. “See? All this shit’s got the same name on it. This Ackles guy. Credit cards, hah, LIBRARY card -“
“This isn’t California, all right?” Sam glances around wildly. “Way further north. Oregon, Washington, maybe -“
“Canada.”
Sam whips around. “Canada?”
Dean waggles another card. “Some kinda - permit thing.”
“Wait. Just - wait.”
“For what, we gotta -“
“I need to think.” Sam flops down on one of the couches, shoulders slumping. “Give me a second.”
Dean glances at the driver’s license again. Kinda - creepy. He’s sure - positive - he’s never used this alias. It’s like, how would he come up with that name, right? Except that’s him in the picture. Seems like. Sorta - softer-looking, like he was in some kind of really good mood that day or something, but still. It’s definitely him.
“I don’t think we’re us,” Sam says hollowly.
Dean lifts an eyebrow. “Dude, I know who I AM, all right? This stupid ID just -“
“No, Dean. You’re -- You’re not.” Sam’s staring at him now, eyes narrowed with worry. “Listen to me, okay? Look at me. Do I look right?”
Dean shifts on his feet, makes a face. “Course you do. You’re -“
“Because you don’t.”
“Huh?”
“Your scar is gone.”
“Dude, which one?”
Sam gives an impatient huff. “The daevas. Your face. I mean, you can barely see it, but it’s THERE, except now it’s not. Totally gone.”
Dean reaches up, slides exploratory fingers over his face. “Huh.”
“You’re you, except you’re not.”
“Well, what about you?”
“Yeah, Dean.” Sam nods. “What about me? Am I the same?”
Dean peers at him, and swallows. “Sorta. Mostly.”
“Wait.” Sam stands and yanks at the neck of Dean’s sweatshirt.
“Hold on a -“
“It’s not there.” Sam jabs his sternum for emphasis, eyebrows climbing high. “See? No scar. From the thing. Poker thing.” He pokes him again. “You’re not Dean.”
“But,” Dean said weakly, “I AM.”
“No, no, I mean, that body isn’t Dean. It’s that - Jack Ensels. Person.”
“Jensen Ackles.”
“Yeah. Him.”
Dean shakes his head slowly. “Okay, this is freakin’ weird shit, Sammy. I’m in somebody else’s body? Somebody who looks EXACTLY like me?”
“Not exactly. But close enough, and yeah. Me, too.” Sam nods fast.
“So who are you?”
Sam’s mouth opens, but he doesn’t say anything but, “Uh.”
“Right. Go look for another wallet. I’m gonna find out whose house this is.”
~~~~~~~~~
Sam comes back after eight or ten minutes, holding a slim wallet. “I’m somebody named Jared,” he says breathlessly.
Dean sighs. “And this is my house.”
Sam pauses. “Really?”
“Well, while I’m wearing my Jensen Ackles outfit it is.” Dean gives a shrug. “So who the hell is Jared?”
Sam opens the wallet and shows him.
“Jared Pada -- Pada -“
“Padalecki.”
“Padawhattie?”
“Sounds Polish. Or Russian or something, anyway, look, we woke up in this Jensen guy’s bed together, so obviously Jensen and Jared know each other.”
“Yeah, in the biblical sense,” Dean nods. “But - why the hell are we here? How’d this happen?”
Sam gestures him over the couch and sits heavily. “I don’t know, but take a look at this.”
Dean takes the bound sheaf of papers, looks curiously at it. “So?”
“So,” Sam says, “that’s a script. Now - look at the characters’ names. Go ahead.”
“Supernatural,” Dean reads aloud. “Okay, that’s not - WHOA.”
Sam nods grimly. “Yeah. Anything look familiar?”
Dean stares at him. “Dude, it’s got our names in it. Dean and Sam Winchester.”
“Dean, I think these guys - these bodies - I think these guys are actors. And -- Okay, this is so freaking weird, but -- I think they’re playing US.”
TBC. AFTER "Brothers and Strangers" is continued. Solemn vow.