Work Text:
Once upon a time, in a small homey diner off Route 66, there was a corner booth. The table joints were scratched up and the red vinyl of the seats was cracked and chipped, but it just gave the booth more character. The imperfections told a story about all the people that have sat in this booth, the families with rambunctious kids having their Sunday post-church lunches and the new couples bashfully exchanging kisses and holding hands over a shared strawberry milkshake.
There was a small bloodstain on the wall, barely nickel-sized. It told the most important story of all that has happened here. In 2011, Sam and Dean Winchester tracked and killed a werewolf, who pretended to be a waitress, on this very spot. Thankfully, it was after hours, so the diner’s usual patrons weren’t traumatized by the gory scene. They weren’t shocked at Dean’s loud and creative swearing or the rat-tat-tat of the silver bullets leaving Sam’s gun. They didn’t get to gawk at Dean masterfully using tweezers to pull shards of glass out of Sam’s arm or the grateful way they leaned into each other as they walked back to their beast of a car.
No, the town hadn't found out a single thing about it until the next morning, when the diner’s owner discovered the dismembered body and screamed to high heavens, setting the rumor mill of the town in motion. Soon every Steve and Jane in the area were talking about a serial killer who took three victims and will strike again. Soon everyone started locking their kids up at dusk, nervously glancing around for suspicious figures looming around.
They, of course, didn’t know the latest murder actually saved the lives of the little Tommies and Alices running around the playground. The werewolf was the one who had left the previous two bodies. The gruesome murder of an innocent girl that shook the town was, in fact, the best thing that could’ve happened to them. Rather than hastily clean and disinfect the murder scene and reupholster the seats, they should’ve installed a plaque there to commemorate the occasion.
The bloodstain told the most important story of this town. To this day.
Today, this booth was occupied by God.
Chuck leans back in the seat, rubbing his beard. Adding Himself to the story as a character is a bold move. Maybe it’s getting a little too Great American Novel-y, but once He’s made this choice, He has to commit and see it through. No half-measures with something as experimental as this.
The coffee he’s sipping is, of course, delightful. He’s God, after all, which means even at the weakest He’s ever been, He can make the craptastic diner coffee taste like it has been poured at the best caffè in all of Rome. The scrambled eggs on His plate are fluffy, the laptop He took from Becky’s house is merrily chugging along, and the conversations people are having are an enjoyable white noise background but never distracting. He wills it so.
Nothing can possibly stop this story from being His magnum opus.
“Close your eyes.”
“Please, Dean,” Sam says. He’s kneeling in front of his brother, looking up. It’s been a long, long time since Sam had to look up to meet Dean’s eye. This makes childhood memories bounce around in Sam’s head, bright but clouded by fear twisting in his gut. Dean used to greet him after school, day after day, always so damn happy to see him. He used to beam at Sam and ask him how his day went and ruffle his hair and tease him for getting straight ‘A’s and…
And now Dean’s staring at him, and his face is blank.
“You’ll just break the world for me again, Sam. Someone has to get off this merry-go-round first. And I guess that’s gotta be me.” Dean sounds bitter. “The scythe over his head catches the light. Glints. Dean and sharp objects, a dysfunctional love story right there.
Sam has accepted his fate, but Dean’s words send a sudden, sharp wave of anger through him. “So moving on was wrong. But saving you is wrong, too? What the hell do you want me to do, then?”
“The only thing I want you to do is to close your eyes,” Dean says, world-weary. Like he’s a thousand years old and he’s exhausted by every single minute of these thousand years. “Close your eyes, Sammy.”
Sam keeps them open, the last rebellious act of the wayward little brother. He doesn’t miss a second of the swing. The scythe whooshes by his ear before digging into his neck, blood spurting out from a severed artery.
The stories about cut-off heads regaining consciousness were supposed to be fake. Sam knows enough about human anatomy and biology to know it’s not possible to feel a single thing after your head’s separate from the rest of you. And yet, Dean’s hands are warm on his cheeks as he’s lifted up with a hushed “no, no, Sammy, no—”.
Sam wakes up just as Dean presses his head against his chest.
In general, Sam enjoys having the bunker. He likes having the giant library and a familiar bed to sleep in, not that he’s been getting too much sleep lately. But now that life on the road is mostly a thing of the past, some of its elements take a rose tint. For example, they could find hunts in warmer places once the temperatures started dropping. Kansas is a nice spot to set roots, but come late fall, it gets more than a little chilly. And this winter is shaping up to be extra cruel. It’s only December, but the halls are already full of drafts.
So every inhabitant of the bunker is cold and sniffly. Even Cas coughed the other day. Cas. An actual angel of the Lord got sick hanging around here.
“Man, we gotta get a space heater.” Dean’s chopping vegetables for the patented John Winchester cure-all stew, and Sam makes himself look away when the glint of a knife in Dean’s hand reminds him of the dull glint of the scythe.
Sam rubs his hand over his neck and sneezes. Dean throws a worried look at him and chops all the faster, spurred on by Sam being so clearly under the weather.
“I’m gonna go check on Eileen. See if she wants any soup,” Sam says at last because he can’t watch the knife go up and down like a tiny guillotine anymore.
“You do that!” Dean calls after him, annoyingly smug. He gestures with the hand he’s holding the knife in and Sam flinches.
Chuck labels each and every universe he creates for organizational convenience.
This here is EK-29315, and it was never supposed to be anything out of the ordinary. It doesn’t have the medieval appeal of magic and might of RJ-81419 in which Sam and Dean were a witch and a knight respectively until the day Dean realized his loyalties laid with their father, the king, and he handed Sam over to be burned on the square. “It’s for your own good,” Dean said to Sam as he was tightening his brother’s ties to the very post Sam was going to burn at, scream himself hoarse begging for someone, anyone to save him. “Maybe your soul still can be saved from whatever devil it’s tangling with. Maybe you can still be saved.” Little did Dean know that Sam could never truly be saved from the Devil. It’s a tiny yet crucial detail Chuck likes to keep consistent across the universes.
Forget magic, it doesn't even have the gritty wastelands of BW-71902. In that one, the world had ended with a zombie apocalypse a long time before Sam and Dean were born and they were weary travelers, traversing the world on foot. Eventually, Dean got bit by a zombie in a dilapidated ice cream shop. Sam had to put him down once they both accepted Dean was walking no further. Dean was slumped against the wall in front of Sam, a willing victim. “It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean said to Sam, and only then did he pull the trigger.
And none of these universes have anything on the KS-2370126 where they all are squirrels. Squirrel Dean is the cutest stupid little thing Chuck has ever created. And Sam’s fur is so incredibly fluffy and his eyes so big and shiny, it gives Chuck’s heart the warm-and-fuzzies every time he goes to check in on them. They are one of the last two pairs of brothers that haven’t killed each other yet, but Chuck foresees a battle for an especially delicious acorn going very bad in the near future.
No, EK-29315 is a comfort zone universe. Chuck had created it right after the incredibly labor-intensive worldbuilding of the universe MAS-30044. In that one, Sam and Dean were cyborg-enhanced guns for hire, flying a spaceship named, of course, The Impala. Another one of Chuck’s constants. Inventing the gravitation suppressors for The Impala alone took three hours and after finishing that one up, Chuck was beyond ready for something simple and relaxing. Hence, EK-29315 was born. Their mom burns on the ceiling when Sam’s six months old. Sam and Dean hunt monsters. A classic, really. Chuck rigged it up and watched it go.
He expected it to end pretty early on. To end fast and bloody. One brother killing the other. Sometimes the Devil makes them do it. Sometimes angels do.
Sometimes—and there’s something so appealing about these ones—they make this choice all by themselves.
EK-29315 is absolutely nothing special. These “Sam and Dean are hunters” universes are a dime a dozen. And yet, it’s EK-29315 that still contains both of them, alive. And yet, it’s EK-29315 where they seem to have swerved every downfall the preceding and following Sams and Deans have stumbled into. And yet, it’s EK-29315’s Sam and Dean that have rebelled against God’s will, and, however fleeting their victory was, succeeded.
It’s EK-29315 that Chuck’s confined to because of the wound in his shoulder.
This whole sitch is so not good for His body’s blood pressure. Man, He really wants to check on his squirrels now.
But then again, there’s a certain novelty to being forced to finish this universe’s story Himself. He’s never done it so hands-on before. And anything new or surprising comes along so rarely when you’re God. Maybe He ought to be thanking Sam for his trigger-happy attitude.
Chuck takes another sip of his coffee and places his fingers back on the keyboard.
Today—and most days—God is wearing the visage of a human prophet once-known as Chuck Shurley. Once Chuck's served his purpose of introducing himself to the Winchesters, once the Lucifer vs Michael showdown has concluded with Sam in the deepest bowels of Hell and Dean in the arms of a willing woman, God has reaped Chuck and taken his face, his name, and his place.
Chuck had gotten a promotion upstairs, his very own personal little slice of heaven. There, he saw three memories on repeat. The first one was playing on the swingset in the spring when he was five. His single mom had an unexpected day off work because the water pipes in her office building sprung a leak and flooded the place. So she picked Charlie up from daycare and they spent the afternoon in the park. The burst of joy he felt upon seeing his mommy’s face alone made this moment worth reliving over and over again.
The second one was the day Chuck got his short story about warrior ducks printed in a magazine for kids as a mailed-in submission from the readers. He was ten and he brought the magazine to school and showed it to anyone who’d listen. His nerdy friends thought he was the coolest cat ever. Later in the day, Mac Thompson, a big kid with even bigger anger issues, took Chuck’s magazine away and tossed it into a puddle before giving Chuck an especially painful noogie. But this part wasn’t in the memory and Chuck never thinks of it as he’s running down the halls of his middle school again.
The third one was the moment Mandy, Chuck's first crush, agreed to go out with him. He was twelve. Before leaving, Chuck took the longest time combing his hair before leaving the house and plucked some daisies off a neighbor’s lawn. Mandy was adorable in her patterned tights and she smiled like the sun when he gave her these daisies, and Chuck thought that this is a love for the ages. It wasn’t even a love for a week, but Chuck doesn’t know it, not on that sunny afternoon, not when Mandy’s hand with chipped, bright yellow nail polish is clutched in his.
Some might consider it sad that all of Chuck’s happiest memories were before he even hit thirteen. Chuck certainly doesn’t think so. Chuck doesn’t think of much anymore, too busy living on a loop. Chuck’s happy.
And it’s all about perception, isn’t it? If someone doesn’t know to be miserable, are they miserable?
Chuck—the new, improved Chuck—never told the Winchesters about the swap. He’s met the two of them, with their shining amulet and their shining eyes, and He knew they wouldn’t understand the concept of rapture and divine will. And they certainly wouldn’t understand the concept of the characters belonging to their creator.
God made Chuck. Then God became Chuck. It’s so simple. But Sam and Dean, being so delightfully and devastatingly human, wouldn’t understand. And Chuck doesn’t want to make them understand. He respects their free-roaming too much. If He directly interferes with who He made them to be, that’d compromise the integrity of the story. Where’s the fun when you yank every string individually? No, Chuck vastly prefers to toss them into a dire situation and watch the two of them look desperately for a way to crawl out of it.
Chuck didn’t want to make them understand. But now, He’s starting to wonder if He even could make them understand. At some point between the creation of the universe and now, something went haywire.
Sam and Dean Winchester of the universe filed under EK-29315 were no experiment. But they still have gone very, very wrong.
For good measure, Sam gives Bobby’s prone body another good whack with the hammer. He opens the cupboard where he knows Bobby used to keep his best whiskey and takes a nice, long swig. It’s not like Bobby’s got any use for it now.
Sam doesn’t even make an attempt to run. He may not need sleep or rest, but he can’t underestimate a determined, dogged Dean Winchester. Dean will sooner or later catch up with him. Might as well skip to the end.
Dean announces his presence with a loud, “What the hell?!”.
This one’s easy. Sam the hell. Sam’s soul is in Hell, and he’s not about to accept it back, not in the state it is now. No refunds or exchanges. The Devil’s got it and the Devil can keep the damned thing. In fact, the Devil’s tearing Sammy apart right at this very second. Sam feels tingly even here, upstairs, like an echo of his soul’s desperate screams makes him itch.
Sammy’s screaming for his brother. Sam puts down the bottle.
“Patricide, Dean,” Sam says casually and spreads his arms wide with a little smile, full-on Christ on the cross. “I’m not a viable vessel for Sammy’s precious soul anymore. So are you gonna finally take me as I am? Are you gonna suck it up and realize I’m the closest thing to Sam you’re ever getting?”
Dean’s silent for an awfully long beat, staring him down. “You’re not Sam,” he says at last. “You’re a monster.”
“Funny. You’ve called me a monster before, and I still had a soul then. Maybe I’m actually closer to the guy I used to be than you’d like. Too close for comfort.” Sam smirks.
“I’ve been deluding myself for months, but— damn. It’s like my eyes are open all of a sudden.” Dean laughs, humorless. “You aren’t anything like him. The only way I can honor his memory is to put you down, you fucker.” Dean takes just a little too long reaching into his jacket. Sam moves quick like a shadow before Dean can fully pull out a weapon. Sam grips Dean’s right forearm with both his hands, twisting and squeezing the flesh. He presses hard, presses until the bone gives.
Dean screams out. His gun slips out of his fingers and lands at their feet with a loud clank. While Dean’s still processing his arm getting snapped, Sam slams him against the wall. Glasses in Bobby’s cupboard rattle on impact.
Dean might be passionate and pissed-off, but Sam’s meticulous and precise. And unlike Dean, Sam doesn’t care about keeping his brother’s body in one piece.
“Quit being a little bitch,” Sam hisses. “You’re erratic, emotional, and, frankly, pretty rusty after that year you spent making BBQ and mowing the lawn. And I wouldn’t have to kill Bobby and I wouldn’t have to do this to you if you’d just let the stupid idea about breaking my brain for a one-in-a-million chance go. You left me no choice.”
He grabs Dean by the neck, fingers digging in deep. Dean scratches at Sam's arm with his still-functional hand but a smack of his head against the wall disabuses him of this last stupid defense.
“If you want to live, you’re going to fall in line. I’m tougher than you, stronger than you, and smarter than you, so it’s only fair I call the shots.” Judging by the face Dean makes, he doesn’t quite agree, but Sam keeps talking. “I’m sick and tired of your crappy lessons in morality and acting like I give a flying fuck about your well-being. I don’t. You’re a decent hunting partner, but the baggage you come with is seriously starting to outweigh your perks.”
Dean groans, eyes rolling back, and Sam eases his grip just a little.
“Gonna behave?” Sam leans in closer, their faces inches away. Every single twitch of Dean’s thinned and angry mouth in plain view. “Nod for yes—”
Dean spits in his face before he can finish the sentence. “Fuck you.”
Guess this answers the question, then. Sam tosses his brother onto the floor, and he collapses in an ungraceful heap. Dean still tries to pick himself up and crawl, but it’s pitifully slow. Sam would laugh if he was in the mood for humor.
Goodbyes are for things with feelings, so he’s got no use for them. Sam picks up Dean’s gun and clicks the safety off. He aims it at Dean’s head. Dean’s eyes grow wide as he’s confronted with his own mortality once again, but he doesn’t plead for mercy or say he’ll play nice. Not that Sam expected him to, really. This was an excuse to cut his losses. After Bobby, Dean wouldn’t let him live anyway.
Sam beats him to the punch with two well-placed gunshots. Not even a Winchester can come back from a double-tap to the head. Not immediately, at least. But if patricide didn’t make Sam ineligible for a soul return, fratricide certainly should.
Somewhere in Hell, Sammy screams.
Sam gasps awake in the car.
“Nightmares again?” Dean looks over, one of his hands hovering in mid-air over Sam’s shoulder, the other white-knuckling the steering wheel. “You were talking in your sleep. I was about to wake you up.”
“What’d I say?” Sam asks, rubbing his temples as if to keep the vision of his soulless self in. He dreads this dream spilling into reality, through his words or even his thoughts. Sam’s had his fair share of sundry nightmares, mostly Hell-themed, but this latest bunch feels especially real. They are real. In another universe, a little bit to the left to this one, he executed his brother and didn’t look back.
“Random words. Nothing that made sense.” Dean shrugs. “Sounded pretty rough, though.”
Sam opens the glove compartment where they normally keep a spare water bottle. Always useful for washing down pain pills and cleaning wounds. There’s a bottle alright, with no water left in it, and after giving it a disappointed shake, Sam tosses it right back in.
“Fuck, sorry. I forgot to get a new one.” Dean winces and pulls out his flask. “Here. Gonna calm your nerves right up.”
“No, I’m good.” Who knows what mixing these god visions and getting drunk or even just tipsy will do?
“‘Kay. I’ll stop at the next gas station.”
“It’s fine, Dean. I’m fine.”
“C’mon, man. Look at you.” Sam does, glimpses into the rearview mirror at the sweaty, flushed mess he is. His hair is sticking up pretty much any which way and his cheeks are bright red. “Is it a Chuck-a-verse vision again? Me killing you? You killing me? What is it?”
“Yeah,” Sam says shortly. “It was.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sam mutters. After an annoyingly pointed look from Dean, he jerks up in his seat. “I don’t. It’s not a vision of the future, so we can’t prevent it from happening. And it won’t let us understand how to defeat Chuck any better. So how will this conversation help? It just will make both of us feel like crap.”
Sam grows silent, breathing hard. Dean blinks, taken aback.
“Sorry, man,” Dean says placatingly. He looks at him with this worried big brother look that makes Sam immediately feels grossed out at himself for getting bitchy. “Sure you don’t want a drink? Sounds like you could use it.”
“Yeah, yeah, fine.” Sam rubs his face and digs the heels of his palms into his closed eyes until he sees stars. His anger fizzles out, slowly but surely. Sam takes a nice, long sip from the proffered flask and exhales with a shudder. Now that Chuck wants them to kill each other, he can’t afford to slip up, more than ever. Any mistake he makes right now could lead to a bad ending, the bad ending. One of them somehow gets fed up with the other’s shit, finita la comedia.
His hands, still warm with the dream-heat of Dean’s neck, shake so bad he can’t seem to cap the flask back up. Dean squeezes his arm before taking the flask back and that must mean Sam is looking like a total trainwreck.
Little does Sam know, but this is only the beginning. See, God is in this diner for a reason: to keep nudging the story to the inevitable conclusion.
One brother killing the other.
Dean keeps driving on and the Impala keeps purring softly and Sam’s pulled back to sleep by the familiar noises. He fell asleep to it like a lullaby as a baby, and it can still make him doze off in all and any uncomfortable poses.
Sam dreams of Dean twisting the steering wheel and sending them towards the edge of a cliff they’ve passed an hour back. Police sirens howl, hot on their heels. If the brothers fall into their clutches now, they would end up buried so deep within the system, they wouldn’t have a single breath of free air ever again.
“Just like Thelma and Louise, right?” Dean says, eyes shining, and Sam feels almost selfish for rejecting Dean’s delusional happiness when he screams “no!” at the top of his lungs. It’s too late; the car’s careening off a cliff and the two are plummeting to their deaths. Sam wakes up, and he’s in the car again. For the longest time, Sam can’t seem to believe they’re not falling anymore. Dean is sick to his stomach with worry as he hovers over his screaming brother, but he tries not to show it. He fails miserably.
The legos rattle in the heater as they drive on. The car is their home.
And in some universes, God knows, it’s their coffin, too.
“You left me to die for a girl?!” Dean yells. His gun paints the walls of a motel room with Sam’s blood and grey matter.
“So when are you gonna make a move?” Dean asks, viciously stabbing a puddle of ketchup on his tray with a french fry. “She’s hot. She’s a hunter. I say, bang it out, you crazy kids.”
“It’s not like that,” Sam says, voice dull. Even if he wanted to pursue anything, Dean’s weird, played-up enthusiasm makes him bristle on principle.
“Sure it’s not. Guess I’ll have to stand around with a boombox playing romantic songs until you do something about it.”
Sam cringes. “Dean, you’re acting like a rom-com sidekick. And it’s not cute.”
“I’m thinking I’m gonna start with “Come On, Eileen” and—”
“Stop it.” Sam slams his hand on the table and sheepishly pulls it back. A butter knife clinks against the table’s surface at Sam’s outburst. Sam stares at it for a beat or two before tearing his eyes away. “Just… knock it off.”
Yeah, Sam’s read all about intrusive thoughts. All about how it’s important to let them wash over you and not overthink whatever horrifying thought or call to action your brain decided to concoct. But it’s a hard feat to pull off when the intrusive thought tells you to stab your brother and/or yourself with the rounded edge of a butter knife and you’re dreaming of death every night.
Sam must have the entire DSM-5 lurking in the corners of his head by now.
“I was just teasing you, dumbass. Don’t get your panties in a twist.” Dean laughs, leaning back on the vinyl seat. “‘Course you don’t have to hook up with her or anyone if you don’t feel up to it. But you do deserve to have some fun.”
“I know that,” Sam says, voice clipped. There’s so much more he wants to say, but he can’t find the words and even if he did, he’s not sure if Dean would hear him.
Dean reaches out for his jacket and Sam instinctively jerks away. He half-expects a gun in his face, as stupid as the thought is. Of course Dean wouldn’t randomly shoot him. Of course Dean wouldn’t shoot him at all, not if he’s himself. Sam’s well-aware this sudden paranoia is unfounded. It doesn’t mean he can just will it to stop.
Thirty percent of everything Sam knows came from Dean’s lessons. How to shoot a gun, how to hotwire a car, how to walk, how to talk a big talk, how to sacrifice everything for your brother, how to tie your shoes. Five percent of the other knowledge he can cite exactly when and how he learned. The rest comes from “I just read it somewhere”. Sam had started reading everything and anything when he was still a scrawny little kid, hungry for knowledge, and he never stopped. He even reads labels on food just to keep his mind occupied. And to be aware of exactly what kind of crap Dean puts in his body. Sam is a firm believer in the “if you can't pronounce it, then don't eat it” theory.
Come to think of it, is Sam buying Dean this shitty food aiding and abetting his eventual heart attack? Would that count as killing his brother? Maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world if it does; at least it wouldn’t end violent and bloody. Just sad.
Dean places a couple bills on the worn-out tablecloth and exhales, sharp. He’s been injured on the last hunt. Nothing serious, but enough to punch a pained noise or two out of him occasionally. Sam thinks about this one dream where he kicked Dean in the ribs until a broken bone protruded out of his chest. Dean made similar noises then. At first, when he was still trying to be brave.
Dean stands up and Sam thinks about Dean standing in front of him to murder him for trying to leave the life. For shacking up with Jess. For leaving him alone with Dad. Dean’s always got a solid motive. On rare occasion, when Dean has him pinned, Sam channels his inner Han Solo and shoots first. Or stabs first. Or hits him over the head with a lion-shaped paperweight that he keeps on the desk of his fancy lawyer office, over and over again.
Sam read about the nocebo effect somewhere. The opposite of the placebo effect, when just the thought of the medicine affecting the patient poorly makes them have an adverse reaction to sugar pills.
Dean’s his medicine for the aches of the heart and the head, and he can’t seem to keep it down anymore.
Sam pleads with Dean for one thing and one thing only: to let him go.
Dean’s tried it all. All the books in Bobby’s house and all the pages of Dad’s journal. This time around, no one was coming through for the Winchesters. They’ve exhausted their goodwill with the world, even though they saved it once or twice.
Apparently, saving the world was only half their problem. Living in it after the war was so much harder than Sam ever thought it’d be. Anything Dean puts on Sam’s plate turns into squirming maggots the second Sam lifts a bite to his mouth. Anything Sam tries to drink is ice cold or lava hot. Dean wears the Devil’s face and the Devil wears Dean’s and both of them stroke Sam’s thinning hair and hold his hand, careful to avoid the spots where his nails peeled off their beds, bloody. Sam begs both of them to let him go and put him into the ground or toss him into the sky as ashes or let him rot in this bed. No one could ever say Sam’s picky when it comes to the small things.
It’s been twelve days of the Devil keeping him awake when Sam finds a bottle of shady-looking pills on the bedside cabinet and knows exactly what they are for.
Sam is alone as he swallows the pills and washes them down with water which feels like it came from the depths of the Arctic ocean. He is alone, and it’s a mercy he can afford to give Dean. But Sam does wish, as he starts to fall asleep for the first time in almost two weeks, that someone was there to hold him.
Sam used to pray to God when the Devil was haunting his dreams.
But when it’s your connection to God giving you nightmares, there’s no one to escalate your praying to.
Sam’s shoulder stings and aches and sometimes keeps him up at night. Small blessings.
“Are you actually trying to steal Mom’s silver? Man, that’s so fucking low. Even for you.”
“I owe some serious bastards some serious money. I’ll buy it back once I’m back on my feet, I promise. But right now, I need all the cash I can get. ‘Sides, it’s not fair she left it all to you and Jess ‘cause you got married and I didn’t.” Dean’s twitchy and weird. Sam holds his shotgun tighter, just in case. “Put your peashooter down already.”
“You’re kinda freaking me out, Dean. Step away from the cabinet.”
“Don’t make me laugh. You ain’t gonna shoot your own brother.” Dean stumbles over to Sam until the barrel’s aimed right at his chest. Sam wants to back down so bad. To put the gun down, to wrap his arms around Dean, and promise his idiot of a big brother that everything’s gonna be okay.
The disgusting things Dean said to Jess over the sorry excuse for a family dinner a week ago are doing a great job at stopping Sam from doing that.
“You’re drunk off your ass and who knows what else,” Sam says, shaking his head. “Sit down, Dean. You’re sleeping this off, and then we’re gonna get you help. I know things have been rough after Mom…” Sam exhales, unable to finish the sentence. “And I’ve been patient with you, but it’s been months and you’re not getting any better.”
“Nah. I don’t need help. Certainly not from a condescending dick like you.” Dean pulls the shotgun in his direction by the barrel, hammered and idiotic. Sam really doesn’t want Dean to have the gun in this situation. He yanks it back. Dean won’t let go.
This tug-o-war ends when the gun goes off in Sam’s fingers.
Where Dean believes in “if it bleeds, you can kill it,'' Sam prefers the “if you know it, you can kill it” adage. That’s why he likes doing research. If you know what makes it tick, what its weaknesses and strengths are, it makes ganking the thing so much easier. Sam uses research as a security blanket. The sheer process of looking for a needle in the haystack makes him feel lighter. Dean doesn’t share his hobby, but that’s fine. Some passions can be just Sam’s.
But there’s no way he can stumble upon a way to kill God in any of these books. In a roundabout way, all these books were, too, created by God, and He wouldn’t put in an easy answer for Sam to find. No one’s shot God with an equalizer gun before, either. Nothing even close.
Sam flips through the tomes in the bunker library anyway until he falls asleep, arms folded on a large book like a cushion.
“Rise and shine, Sammy!” Dean chirps from the bed next to him. Sam’s time-jail doesn’t have any permanent walls Sam could make notches on to mark his sentence, but he keeps count all the same. It’s day 93. Today, Dean will die. Again.
Sam slowly sits up and rubs his face.
“Sammy? You okay?” Dean lowers the volume of an Asia song, stares at him all worried-like. Sam can’t even look at him. Sam’s so tired.
“I want it to be over,” Sam says, reaching under the pillow. “I just want it to be over.”
“Hey, what…”
Sam pulls out his gun. Then he shoots Dean dead.
The next “Rise and shine, Sammy!” is a relief rather than a punishment. Sam wouldn’t have wanted to break out of the loop this way.
Sam hates this song so much. He still changes it every time it pops up on the radio.
“I can almost see why my brother enjoyed torturing you so much, Sam. You do break beautifully,” Michael says. He’s abusing Dean’s vocal cords into a strange and alien tone. That’s Dean’s voice, but that’s not what Dean sounds like.
The penthouse is a crime scene, an epicenter of carnage. Sam’s covered in Cas’ and Jack’s and his own blood in equal measures. Michael sighs and runs his hand through his hair. His suit’s pristine, there’s not a drop of blood on that crisp white shirt, and freckles are the only splatters on his skin. “Alas, this little show still wasn’t enough to get Dean to quiet down. Should we go for an encore?”
“Dean. Dean, I know you can hear me in there. You have to fight him,” Sam says, desperate. He reaches out for Dean, but it’s Michael who takes a step back, disgusted like a rich man encountering a filthy beggar in the streets.
“You’re not wrong, Sam Winchester. Dean can hear you and he can see you.” Michael nods, slow and regal. “But what he can’t do is save you. Say goodbye.”
He snaps his fingers and Sam ceases to be.
Dean’s got Sam strapped to a rack, peeling his flesh off, layer by layer, like a giddy child peeling a tangerine.
Sam’s an actual child, eleven years old. He shoves Dean during a heated argument about the perks of bow-hunting over the Mathlete club. Except Dean’s standing next to the motel stairs, and he tumbles down, step by step, until coming to a halt on the last one, his neck twisted the wrong way.
“I hurt Jo, I’m not myself, Dean, please, help me,” Meg begs and laughs once Dean—with shaking hands—puts a bullet through her meatsuit’s skull.
Azazel raises little Sam and teaches him to hate hunters. Sam force-chokes Dean Winchester on sight without letting him get so much as one word in.
Dean gets out of Hell with a brand-new pair of black eyes. When he catches Sam with Ruby, he kills them both. Ruby gets a quick death, but Sam suffers for hours before Dean takes pity.
Sam Wesson punches his boss, Dean Smith, when Dean sneers at the idea of leaving his cushy job to hunt, and Dean dies instantly after hitting his temple on the corner of his fancy desk.
Dean tears Sam’s neck to shreds and eagerly licks the blood that drips out. Sam was the first person Dean, a freshly turned vampire, saw, and bloodlust took hold.
Brady teaches Sam how to do magic. Soon enough, Sam’s a full-fledged witch. Dean comes to hunt him a couple years later. Sam burns Dean’s picture on his altar and he never makes it to Palo Alto.
“Close your eyes, Sammy,” Dean says, holding a scythe tight. Sam doesn’t.
The brothers are in Iowa, hunting… something. A vampire. A rugaru. A wendigo. Sam’s not sure and God doesn’t care. They’re in Iowa, hunting. Let’s put it that way.
Sam walks into the motel room of the evening to find Dean sitting on one of the beds with a gun in his hand. Dean looks up, and Sam whips his own gun out before Dean can even begin to move.
“Sam?” Dean asks, shocked. “Whoa, buddy. It’s me. Put the gun down.”
“No!” Sam snaps. “You first.”
Dean raises his hands and slowly puts the gun aside. “Take it easy. I was just cleaning it.” Sam looks over at Dean’s bed covers and does, in fact, see the cleaning instruments laid out there.
“This isn’t a dream,” Sam says at last.
“No.”
“And you’re not trying to kill me.”
“Affirmative.”
Sam carefully puts the gun away and sits across from Dean on his own bed.
“Can we talk now?” Dean asks, eyes trained on Sam. “Hate to say it, but this feels like a “let’s talk about it” moment, dude.”
Sam sighs. He was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. “I guess the nightmares are getting to me,” he confesses, hushed, forgive-me-brother-for-I-have-sinned. “I know we’re good right now. But it’s God we’re going up against. He’s won so many times before, and I keep seeing us lose over and over again.”
“Damn. That has to be a downer,” Dean says, voice rough but gentle. It’s hard to reconcile the Dean in front of Sam with the murderer plaguing Sam’s dreams.
Sam shrugs in response, noncommittal. Yeah, a downer. Yeah, he’s had worse. Much worse, actually. After Lucifer kept him awake 24/7, even the most disturbing dreams don’t scare Sam all that much. Bad dreams mean he managed to fall asleep that night.
“But it’s all the more reason to keep swinging. We owe it to all the other… all the other us who were put through the grinder for that bastard’s entertainment.” Dean exhales, rubbing his mouth.
Yeah. They always owe someone something. That’s the Winchester way: always in debt to the world, and the world inevitably comes to collect.
“Don’t get me wrong here. I dig a good story of pain and perseverance as much as the next guy. If John McClane was real, he’d clock me for how many times I’ve made him relieve Die Hard. Every Christmas!” Dean chuckles, happy to score a point in their immortal “Is Die Hard A Christmas Movie Or Not” debate. “But he’s not real. We are.”
“Yeah.” Sam bites his bottom lip until he tastes iron. “Can’t say feeling even more responsible helps me any, Dean. I wish it did.” He fidgets, uncomfortable.
“Fine. Look at it this way. We’ve come so far. We’ve beaten so much. Are you seriously telling me we’re gonna let some hopped-up deity armed with a word document and a sick imagination get the last word? Huh?”
Sam knows this tone of voice. It’s the “okay, the world’s collapsing, time to give Sammy a pep talk” voice. Dean must be scared shitless behind that thin veneer of bravado.
“No. We won’t.” Sam gets it. He’s scared too.
“Hell no!” Dean slaps Sam’s shoulder. Sam winces as sharp pain radiates through the left side of his body. It takes agonizing root in the wound and spreads like poison. “Easy, cowboy. Let me see.” Dean starts unbuttoning Sam’s shirt without waiting for an answer. He pulls the plaid fabric to the side and makes a face. It’s an exaggerated face, not a stoic quietly terrified one. So Sam probably doesn’t look like he’s about to kick the bucket.
“How bad is it, doc?” Sam asks with a weak laugh.
“I’ve seen worse.” Dean gets a cloth and starts cleaning Sam’s shoulder. Like it’s gonna help any. Like this is a normal bullethole and not some kind of heavenly connection to Chuck.
“There’s something you’re still not telling me. Spit it out, man,” Dean says, hushed, as he works on Sam’s shoulder.
“I’m worried,” Sam says. “I’m worried I’ll hurt you.” This seems like a nobler thing to be scared of so he ends it there. But Dean sees straight through him.
“And?”
“Or that you’ll hurt me. I mean,” Sam gulps. “Most of these scenarios I saw, Dean, they’re not likely, but they’re plausible. If we fought for each other just a little less. If we were less lucky...”
“Bullshit.” Dean shakes his head. “Yeah, we’ve been low, but we’ve never been that low.”
Sam can’t hold back a bitter smile at that.
“Haven’t we? C’mon, Dean, you really can’t name a single time in our lives when you might’ve killed me? Where I might’ve killed you?”
Dean looks away.
“We’ve been cursed, we’ve been possessed, we’ve been at each other’s throats,” Sam presses on. “We’ve been through all kinds of things. And a lot of them might’ve had a much unhappier ending.”
“Yeah. Guess I can think of a moment or two that might’ve ended bloody.” Dean closes his eyes. “I’ve let you down way—”
“I’m not trying to guilt-trip you,” Sam says hastily. “We both did some messed-up crap. And I’m so, so sorry for my part in it. But we’d be better off not keeping count.”
Dean nods and clicks his tongue. “We’re not a pair of stubborn kids both trying to be the alpha dog anymore. We’re partners.”
“Partners. Huh,” Sam says, voice flat. “That’s why you’re trying to pimp me out to the first eligible woman who happened to pass along?”
“What? No. Fuck no. I’m trying to get you to unwind a little. And, I dunno. You always wanted this. Someone special. I’m cool with you having a girl, Sam. I’m not gonna get weird about it.” Dean raises his hand like pledging Boyscout’s honor. Sam raises his eyebrow, skeptical.
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m fine with your witchy crap, too. As long as you don’t start dropping bodies, we’re good.” Dean takes a small step back from where he’s playing doctor and catches Sam’s eye, like it’s extra important to him Sam hears this next bit. “No more fucking each other over. No more psycho shit.”
Sam snorts. Yeah, right. Psycho shit is their specialty.
“No more psycho shit of this particular flavor,” Dean corrects himself, picking up on what Sam’s laugh was laying down. He finishes rebandaging Sam’s wound, quick and professional. Dean’s practically got a degree in roadside medicine and patching people up on the go.
“Well. I’m cool with not having a girl. It’s not like that with her and me, Dean. Period,” Sam says, voice light. Knowing Dean was earnest about letting Sam go makes it all kinds of easier to stay. Dean tries to play it cool, but Sam knows his brother. He doesn’t miss the relief washing over Dean’s face.
And just how dumb is Dean for thinking Sam would jump onto the first chance of building a life with someone else when Sam’s already got a perfectly good, even if a touch fucked-up, life built with Dean himself?
Then again, how dumb was Sam when he thought Dean might’ve actually been trying to push him away and not misguidedly looking out for him? Like he always does.
The answer to both these questions is such: really fucking dumb. That’s how they roll.
“So if you’re not gonna tap that, can I make a mo...” Dean stops himself short under the fire of Sam’s dry ‘fuck you’ look. “Just kidding. Don’t kill me or anything.” He waggles his eyebrows.
“Seriously? This isn’t funny. You aren’t funny, dude,” Sam says, slapping Dean upside the head as he gets up from the bed. “Not even a little.”
“‘Course not, I’m friggin’ hilarious,” he calls back, rubbing the smacked spot. Sam laughs, not because Dean’s joke is remotely amusing but because a heavy weight falls off his shoulders, leaving only a bullet hole in its wake. And that wound doesn’t feel like a biggie anymore, either. Not the first time he’s been shot, not the last. As long as he’s got Dean, ‘tis but a scratch.
“Poor loyal Dean,” Sam’s voice says. His fist punches Dean once more. Sam feels something crack and give under his knuckles. Sam can only watch. “So stupid.” Punch, punch, punch.
“I’m here,” Dean says and grabs Sam’s sleeve. “I won’t leave you.”
Sam’s hand uncurls like a blooming flower and he stumbles back. Dean yanks the rings out of his pocket and tosses them into the middle of the graveyard. A hole to the center of Hell opens wide. A hungry maw in the middle of Stull.
“I got him,” Sam says, and straightens up. “I got him, Dean.” The Devil rages and rattles in his head, but Sam’s not letting him take the wheel. And yet, he can’t seem to move either, can’t make these three last steps to the void. It already takes all he’s got to hold the Devil back. One step, another, and he feels these icy fingers reach out to snuff his consciousness out like a light.
Dean wraps his arms around him and walks the last step with him. Sam tosses himself over the edge and exhales with relief. They’ve won.
Sam only realizes in mid-air that Dean’s falling with him, holding on tight.
Sam wraps his arms around Dean and closes his eyes.
Sam wanders over to the bunker’s kitchen bright and early to grab a bite before his run only to stumble upon Dean there. Dean’s making pancakes. With blueberries. Sam’s favorite. Watching Dean carefully pour the batter on the pan feels like a scene from a movie. A happy movie. A slice-of-life comedy, maybe, where people have lots of fun and their problems are no bigger than a spilt coffee and they resolve all their issues just in time for dinner. Sam stands on the threshold. He doesn’t get to be in movies like that. His life is all film noir and low-budget horrors.
Dean turns around, grinning, and only then does Sam take a step into the kitchen.
“Mornin’, sunshine.”
“It’s so early. Why are you up?” Sam bites back a yawn and rubs his jaw.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Dean flips the pancake. “And I know you go jogging at this ungodly hour, so I thought I’d make breakfast.” He tsks. “Why you voluntarily put yourself through this shit, I’ll never know.”
“It’s good for you.”
“Yeah, good for making me wanna kill myself.” Dean rolls his eyes. He sets down a plate of pancakes in front of Sam. “Soup’s on.”
Sam doesn’t mention that pancakes are a little too heavy of a meal to eat right before a run, especially the way Dean makes them, all hearty and oily and definitely bringing both of them slightly closer to their natural deaths. If they should ever be so lucky. No, Sam doesn’t mention any of that.
He bites into a pancake instead and groans around the blueberry-infused mouthful. There’s a knife lying on the table and Sam’s not scared anyone will get stabbed with it.
Except, deep inside, Sam still fears what his brother is capable of. He’s seen Dean fresh after losing their father and he’s seen what he’s been like right after Purgatory, angry and twitchy. He’s seen Dean under the influence of the Mark of Cain and he’s seen him with black eyes.
Sam knows he himself has rot in his heart, too. Sam remembers the day he punched Dean’s lights out in the rented honeymoon suite, with Ruby watching. He remembers squeezing Dean’s neck until Dean almost went limp and dead under his touch all too well.
Sam remembers how he desperately ducked away from the hammer Dean yielded in the Bunker’s dimly lit hallway. Only divine intervention helped him survive that day.
Sam remembers hod…
Whoops, typo. Chuck presses the backspace button, but it doesn’t just erase the last letter. It jams and starts deleting His story, symbol by symbol, speeding up as it goes. Chuck desperately clicks on the browser icon to switch to another application and stop the needless destruction of His document.
He opens a new tab and keysmashes into the address bar to make sure the jammed button had stopped misbehaving. It did. Chuck switches back to His word document to find the past three paragraphs about Sam’s doubts gone. He can’t even ctrl+Z the bastards back. The cursor blinks, taunting.
It would be so easy to blame the jammed button. Except He is God. His coffee is never bad, His eggs and bacon are never oversalted, and His laptop never glitches. That’s how the universe works.
Apparently, EK-29315 works by different rules. No, something is definitely wrong with it. Maybe after He is through with this Sam and Dean, once He regains His full power, Chuck should snap this world out of existence. He certainly won’t miss it. And if He ever does, He can make a new, identical one, but without this baked-in flaw. Even God screws up sometimes. He’ll learn from this.
Chuck calls the waitress over and politely asks for a burger and a plate of fries. Then He cracks his knuckles and starts typing again.
Somewhere in a squirrel universe, squirrel Dean starts to get jealous of squirrel Sam’s prized acorn collection.
In this universe, Sam helps Dean wash the dishes. Sam wouldn’t go as far as to say either of them doing are good or even simply okay, but at this second, they’re definitely not miserable. And he knows better than to take it for granted.
Sam hands Dean the kitchen knife and smiles.