"Endings are hard. Any chapped-ass monkey with a keyboard can poop out a beginning, but endings are impossible. You try to tie up every loose end, but you never can. The fans are always gonna bitch. There's always gonna be holes. And since it's the ending, it's all supposed to add up to something. I'm telling you, they're a raging pain in the ass."

"No doubt endings are hard, but then again nothing really ends, does it?"" Chuck Edlund.

. . . . .

"CONVERSATIONS WITH HEAD PEOPLE"

AUGUST 15, 2011

9:31 PM

.

Dean appears behind my shoulder and reads the last few lines of text. Here we go again.

"Oh, that is just sick. What is wrong with you?"

"Leave her alone, Dean." Sam sits awkwardly at the table opposite my desk.

"Have you seen what she's written here?" Dean demands.

"I've seen it all." Sam and I catch each other's glance and we share a sad, secret smile.

"She's defaming our reputations, casting aspersions on our characters!" Dean exclaims.

"Oh, come on, Dean," I protest. "Do you seriously believe there's anything about your character that isn't out there already? As homoerotic subtexts go, yours is pretty super. It's glaringly obvious to anyone who's read a little Joseph Campbell. All I'm doing is providing an alternative metaphorical solution to the imperatives implied in the show's psychodrama and the mythic framing narrative."

Dean's lips part to speak then just purse in confusion. He looks cute as all hell, but I realize I'm being unkind. As if Dean's ever read any Joseph Campbell. Sam has, though, and he isn't smiling any more. He's giving me a very unfriendly look and I know I deserve it. Nobody dicks with Sam's brother except Sam.

"Listen, sister, there's nothing psycho about me," Dean insists when he finds his voice. "And there's nothing homo, either. If you have any doubts about that, I'll gladly give you a demonstration," and he treats me to his best "how you doin'?" grin. He does this because, as I write, I'm the kind of young blonde bimbo that Dean would typically give that grin to – because, as I write, I can be anything I want to be. So perhaps its worthy of scrutiny why I never write myself as the kind of woman Dean would desire, or any woman for that matter. More often I'm Dean himself or, most commonly, Sam. It surprised me when the first Supernatural fanfic I wrote came out POV Sam, considering the obsession I have with Dean but, on reflection, it made sense.

Dean's still grinning at me but, tempting as his offer may be, I always try to be an honest writer and there's no way I can make myself believe that that's ever going to happen. And I'm certainly not brazen enough to write myself into a wish-fulfillment fantasy with Dean while Sam's sitting right opposite, watching me like a hawk. So, much as I'd love to drink your bath water, Dean, I'm going to let you fade into the background for now while Sam and I discuss narrative arcs.

"Hey!"

Oh, get over it. It isn't like you don't get enough air time. You've already had three seasons more than you were supposed to get.

Sam is surveying me critically again.

"It's true, Sam, and you know it," I admonish him. "And you know why that is, don't you?"

"Dean has a point," he says, ignoring my question. "You've done some fucked up stuff to us. You had Dean possessed in 'The Personal Demon'; you made him your clown in 'Sugarcoated Sam'; and what you did to me in that last chapter of 'I Can Never Go Home' – that was just . . ." his tongue rolls around the inside of his cheek and he shakes his head ". . . really awkward."

"And you didn't enjoy a moment of it, did you?" I ask archly.

He doesn't answer. He just sits with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them, fingers interlocked, nodding at the floor with a half smile on his face that just touches his dimples. It isn't an acknowledgement. It's just Sam, thinking whatever Sam thinks, and not letting on to anyone what that might be.

Sam's a mystery. It's true what I said about Dean. As close and private as Dean always tries to be, he's really an open book. His motivation is plain and clear for anyone to see. Most people can write Dean to some degree, and mostly they write him the same way. Castiel and Bobby, too. Each of their characters is so idiosyncratic that a few stock phrases or mannerisms will call them to the page, but Sam is different. You can describe the mannerisms and the familiar expressions, but they won't give you Sam, not the core of the character, because nobody's sure what that is. Everyone writes him a little differently, even from story to story. It's like he's a blank canvas on which we all paint the colours of our own soul.

"And you've got worse planned for us, haven't you, Fanspired?" Sam prompts me, calling me from my reverie.

"Probably no worse than your own creator has," I counter.

He purses his lips and the corners of his mouth turn down. That is an acknowledgement.

"Anyway, it isn't all my fault," I protest. "I only try to write honestly and this stuff just happens. I come up with a premise and put you guys in it then you take it from there. I can't help the way you react, or the issues that get raised in the process. That's your doing. All I do is ask, 'what happens next?' and you answer me."

Which brings me back to my original question: "So, what does happen next, Sam?"

Without raising his head he lifts his gaze and surveys me through his soft fringe of eye-lashes. His hazel eyes are flecked with twinkling gold. "You know I can't tell you that."

I grin. I have to ask the obvious question. "Can't, or won't?"

And he grins knowingly back at me, his dimples deepening.

"Come on, Sam. How about it? Are your writers honest? Are they going to deal with all the issues they've raised over the past six seasons? Are you? Are you finally going to confront the issue of your powers?"

"Do you think I should?"

I nod emphatically. "I think you should have done three seasons ago. The only reason you didn't was to keep Dean around and, god knows, I sympathize; we all want more of Han Solo, but Luke Skywalker's gotta become a Jedi sooner or later!"

"So you think I should start chugging demon blood again?"

"You know better than that. Ruby told you, you didn't need her to float your feather. And who says your powers are demonic, anyway? Ruby once said they were God given. Maybe that was just a turn of phrase, but maybe it was a slip up. What about that mobile in your nursery that started turning before the demon came? Was that electrical interference, or was that you? Did Azazel really give you your powers, or was he just trying to corrupt them?"

Sam's trademark crease appears between his eyebrows. "Dean thinks I'm a freak," he says in a small voice. "And he's right. Look what happened when I tried to use them before - "

"You were arrogant, then, drunk with power. Maybe that was the lesson you had to learn: 'with great power, comes great responsibility'."

"So now I'm Spider-Man?"

We both laugh now. But, as usual, it all comes back to Dean. He has a lesson to learn, too. And that raises a dark issue that drove Season Two and has been lurking in the background of every season since, but has never been properly confronted. "Dean has never truly faced the issue of whether he will have to save you or kill you."

"No."

"The issue was dodged at the end of Season Two because Jake killed you instead, but the theme of fratricide keeps rearing its ugly head episode after episode all the same. Maybe it's been projected onto Castiel now, since Dean's acknowledged him as a brother, but I think that's a bit of a cop out."

Sam's knees are jouncing agitatedly. His jaw is tight and he jerks it to one side. "You want Dean to kill me?"

"Of course not! The choices of save or kill were the product of your father's limited vision. There's a third option."

Sam looks up. His gaze is alert.

"He could accept you."

Sam draws in a deep breath, leans back in his chair and gazes off to one side. Why should that seem so impossible?

"That's the lesson Dean should have learned when Castiel sent him back in time to meet your mother," I persist. "She made it clear what he needed to do. He needs to love you for exactly who you are."

"Complete with freaky psychic mojo?"

"Why not? He accepted it from the anti-christ child in Season Five. When that boy used his powers, Dean called him awesome. He accepted it from Castiel, originally. In fact he told Castiel he was useless without them. And I saw the look in his eyes when you finally torched Alastair in Season Four. It wasn't disgust, it wasn't even fear. It was awe." I lean forward conspiratorially. "Between you and me, I think it turned him on."

Sam says nothing, but the dimples are showing again.

"Besides, you've done Hell and Puragatory so you know where you have to go next. And how are you going to take the battle to Heaven without your powers? How are you going to defeat Castiel if you're not ready to accept yourself?"

"Because me killing Castiel is so much better than Dean killing me!" Sam's irony is chilling.

There's silence in the room for several moments. It's heartbreaking to contemplate the destruction of that poor, sad innocent, and yet it seems inevitable. "Castiel committed hubris. He has to die. The best we can hope is that he'll be redeemed first. Besides, we all know that his death will just be a metaphor for you assimilating another fragment of your broken psyche, like when you killed Soulless Sam and Hell Sam."

"That was in my head."

I laugh out loud now. "Sam it's all in your head."

He tries to look shocked for a moment, but then the corners of the lips tweek down again. He knows what I'm saying. And so we're back to Dean again.

"That's what's wrong with the idea that Dean needs to save you or kill you, or with the oh-so-neat, homophobic, family-first, Season Five finale with its trope of you sacrificing yourself so Dean could lead a 'normal' life. You keep trying to deny it so you can live out another season, and another, and another with Dean - resetting yourself back to the helpless baby brother again and again so he can keep playing the hero, endlessly sacrificing himself to save your life while you sacrifice your ego to save his . . . but Dean isn't the hero of this story. You are. He was the one who called you to the quest. He's the psychic projection, not you. If anyone has to die, it's Dean. And, lets face it, the Reaper told him it was his time at the beginning of Season Two. That's when the dicking with Destiny started. Death tried to show Dean there were consequences to trying to do that, but who needed Death to point that out? Look at the consequences of Dean's survival: John's death, your death, Dean's bargain, the Apocalypse, Lucifer, the destruction of an Angel - "

"Stop!" Sam's nostrils are flaring now, and I shut up. Hell, I'm not going to risk provoking Sam Winchester when he's angry. "I'm not going to kill Dean!"

I hold my hands up in a pacific gesture. "Hey, I'm not saying you should! Or that you will. Maybe you'll both go out in a blaze of glory, Butch and Sundance style. Maybe you'll drive off into the sunset. God knows, if it were up to me, death wouldn't be my choice of metaphor for reuniting the two halves of the psyche." Then I risk a small twitch of a smile. "Well, maybe a little death." Maybe I wink, too. "If it were up to me, you know I'd give you both a happy ending."

Even Sam can't help laughing now. His tongue rolls around his mouth again, and he nods. "Yeah, I know you would." He chuckles a little longer but then the laughter fades and he looks a little sad. "Do it, then," he says.

"What?"

"Do it. Write us a happy ending."

I give him a sidelong look, but if he's being cute with me there's no clue in his impassive expression.

After a moment he adds "Just in case." He looks hard, straight into my eyes and I realize he's serious. "I'll be your vessel," he says. "I don't mind. You can make me do anything you want me to."

It's a disturbingly suggestive metaphor. "And if you're my vessel, what does that make me?" I ask him.

He casts a look sideways and shrugs before answering. "You'd know best," he responds evasively.

"Mm" I reply. "Of course, it could equally be argued that I'm your vessel."

He smiles. "That works, too."

"I'd be making Dean do things, as well," I remind him.

Sam stares in silence at the floor. Moments pass before he draws in a deep breath and responds, "he won't know."

"No," I acknowledge, sighing. Poor Dean: always abused, always betrayed, by me, by Sam, by his creator . . . "Why is Dean always the victim?" I ask Sam. "Why does he suffer so much?"

"Because he has to. Because it's . . . dramatically necessary."

"Sam. Come on."

Again, Sam stretches his jaw to one side. "Because we want him to," he concedes, with a suspect quaver in his voice, "Because that's when we love him the most . . . because the only way to get inside him is to break him open."

"We're monsters, Sam"

He nods.

"You suffer, too, Sam."

"I deserve it."

I feel myself make a slight, involuntary forward movement. I have the urge to touch him, comfort him, but he's out of my reach. "Do you?" I ask gently. "Are you sure, Sam?"

"I don't know . . . Maybe we'll find out next season." He smiles ruefully.

And maybe we won't. Maybe we'll never know who Sam really is. Sam Winchester is a Chinese puzzle. You can break him open but you won't find any answers inside him. No matter how many pieces you break him into, you only find more layers, more mystery.

For a little while we say nothing. I just watch him, contemplating his form, his gestures, all the accidental details that clothe the mystery: the canopy of hair that's been growing every season, the eyebrows that have been plucked down to neat lines, the eyes that I'll swear change colour in keeping with some symbolic code that I haven't been able to crack satisfactorily – the odd disparity between the almost delicate sensitivity of his facial features and his impressive, even intimidating, height and musculature. What does it all mean?

"Who are you Sam Winchester?" I ask. "Who are you really? Eric Kripke? Ben Edlund? A composite of all the writers? Are you just a purpose-made void where viewers can deposit their own identities, or do you have more control than that? Are you a soul in your own right?"

Sam lifts his head and gazes into the distance. His lips are pressed together and I'm shocked to see tears glinting in eyes grown deep and dark. His voice trembles when he speaks. "If I knew who I was, there wouldn't be a show," he says quietly.

I take a while to digest what's just happened before I reply. "Do you know what, Sam?" He looks at me and shakes his head slightly. "I didn't see that coming," I tell him. "I didn't plan it. It just happened. Right there, in the moment that I wrote it. What do you think that means?"

He shakes his head again.

"Maybe it means you do have a soul, a life of your own, feelings, needs, desires that have to be satisfied, regardless of my whims or those of your creator. You've taken on life and form outside of the show now. You're out of the box. You're no longer entirely under anyone's creative control. I've always known how this story was going to end, but you've just altered the significance of that ending, just by doing something I didn't expect. You're writing me right now, as much as I'm writing you."

Sam is studying me intensely now. The furrows between his eyebrows are at their deepest.

"Are you saying you believe I have free will?"

I take a deep breath. "Sam, I'm not sure anyone really has that but, if anyone does, then I believe you have as much as the next person. And I want to believe you can take control. More than anything, next season, I want to see you take charge of your own destiny. Accept yourself. Believe in yourself. Write your own ending."

Sam's staring at the floor again, hands clasped. He's nodding.

"Sam. Please. Promise me."

He's still nodding. It seems mechanical rather than positive, but eventually he looks up and turns a steady gaze on me.

"I'll try."

Moments pass in silence, then we both know it's time. There's only one thing left to do now. He leans back in the chair and wipes a nervous hand over his mouth. "Right, well . . . er . . . what should I . . . where . . . do you want me to . . . ?" he directs a questioning glance back toward the bedrooms.

I shake my head. "No. It won't be here. I'll send you to where Dean is."

"And where's that?"

I smile. "Are you ready?"

He blows out a steadying breath. It's touching how nervous he is: like a young groom on his wedding night. "Ready as I'll ever be."

"You know you have to say it," I remind him teasingly.

He grins, flashing me those endearing dimples for the last time, then he takes a deep, trembling breath. "Yes," he says.

Sam's heart was racing. He found it hard to believe this was about to happen, even though he knew it must. It was the dramatic climax (ha!), the resolution the narrative arc had inevitably been leading to; it was, in so many senses, his destiny. But if the last six years had taught him anything it was that destiny was by no means assured. The flip side of believing that he could exercise free will was acknowledging that Dean could, too. Whether Dean knew he was being creatively manipulated or not, he still had to consent to it, just as Sam had. And Sam knew from experience that Dean was quite capable of grabbing the best planned plot structure by the throat and blowing the living crap out of it.

"Sam!"

The sound of his brother's voice breaking suddenly into his thoughts startled and thrilled him down to his shoes. He turned and there was the vision that could still snatch every breath of air from his lungs, even after all these years.

"Sam, what's going on?" Dean demanded. "How did we get here? Where did the blonde chick with the laptop go?"

Sam laughed softly. "There was no blonde chick, Dean."

"What?"

Sam didn't try to explain. Instead he looked around him and frowned. "Where the hell are we?" They seemed to be nowhere. There was nothing here, nothing he could grasp and say "this is" but everything he felt was always, already, about to be. Then he understood: "We're in cyberspace."

"We're where?"

"Everywhere. Nowhere. It doesn't matter." Sam turned and stared earnestly at his brother. "Dean, it's just you and me, here, together. This is the one place where you and I can be and do anything. Anything we want. We decide what's right and wrong. We don't have to be dictated to by artificial man-made rules and conventions . . . or arbitrary programming classifications."

"By what now?"

Sam took hold of his brother's face and held it in his hands. "Dean, just trust me, listen to me, please. This is important. Some time in the next year our story could end –probably will - and one of us, maybe both of us, could die – for good. Because that's the way the story always ends, Dean. It's the way it always has, for thousands of years. But it doesn't have to . . . and maybe it won't. Maybe we should give God some credit. Maybe he's more imaginative than that; he hasn't done anything we expected him to so far - "

"Sam, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"We don't have to die to be together, Dean. There's another way, and you know that deep down. You want it. I want it. Fuck, Dean, everyone wants it. And we can give them the ending they want, the one they deserve, right here, right now. We owe them that. We owe it to ourselves."
Dean stared searchingly into Sam's eyes. "Sam," he stammered uneasily, "What are you getting at?"

Sam moved closer. "Dean, we can screw destiny," he breathed in his brother's ear. "Right in the face."

"Sam - "

"Don't fight me, Dean. Not this time, please. Just trust me. This is right, Dean. This is the way it should be."

Dean gave Sam a rough push. "Dude, what are you doing? You are freaking me out!"

Here we go, thought Sam. Here we go. I knew Dean wouldn't just let this happen. What do I do now? I need help. "Please! Help,"he prayed.

As Dean tried to back away something hard butted into the backs of his knees and he sat down with a bump on the bonnet of the Impala. "What the fuck - ?" He turned around and stared at the polished, pristine form of his well loved Chevy. There was a beat in which they both tried to reconcile the solid fact of the car with their recent memories. "This can't be here," Dean breathed. "She was wrecked, smashed, she was . . . . ."

"Crushed. On her back. I know. I saw." Sam shuddered. "Our whole world turned upside down. What do you think that means, Dean?"

Dean turned eyes suddenly wide with pain and fear back on his brother. "Castiel . . ." he choked.

"Yes."

"The wall came down – I don't . . . I still don't know what that did to you Sam! Are you OK? Are you going to be OK?" He grabbed Sam's jacket, pulled him close and stared into his face with frantic searching eyes.

"I don't know, Dean. I just know we're about to walk into a fight that's going to make Hell and Purgatory look like Tuesday afternoon in the park. Can't you feel it?"

Dean swallowed. He was still fixed on Sam's eyes, gaze flickering anxiously from one to the other. "I am so scared I'm gonna lose you, Sammy." His voice shattered into brittle shards, tears pooled for a moment at the bottom of his eyes then began trickling down his face.

"I'm scared, too, Dean." He reached out and cupped a tentative hand round Dean's neck. "I mean I am really, reallyscared."

"We're still there, aren't we? Stuck in that place with Bobby, and Cas on PCP. This is a dream, right?"

Sam laughed hollowly. "Always."

"Always, Sam?" Dean fought vainly to keep his rebel voice under control. "No. Most of the time it's a fucking nightmare."

"Not all the time." Sam moved closer. "Not right now."

Dean stood still, not looking at Sam, not pushing him away either.

"Dean," Sam whispered. "Please." He felt Dean's body shudder as he spoke. "God knows what's about to happen to us. We need to be together now because we can't be sure when we will be again. For all we know this moment may be all that we have to hold onto for the rest of the s - " Sam caught hold of himself, caught his bottom lip in his teeth for a moment, then started again. "If we're gonna stand a dog's chance in what's to come, we need to have this moment, this place to come back to . . . when we need to, to make us strong, and then when it's all over. Always."

"Sam . . ." Dean turned his tear moistened eyes on his brother. His voice still rasped when he spoke. "You talk too much." His arm snaked around Sam's waist and drew him close. The thick curtain of his eyelashes lowered, his lips parted and Sam gasped a half a heartbeat before he felt their cushion softness against his own and the hammer fall of his heart in his chest. For a moment the tips of their tongues trembled hesitantly against each other, then there was a feral groan – whose wasn't certain; it didn't matter – and their mouths melded together, their tongues embraced. Dean reached up and wound his fingers into Sam's hair while Sam cradled Dean's head in his own great paws. Down the length of their bodies their forms melted against one another so there wasn't a particle of space between them, and a dizzying wash of euphoria filled Sam's mind and swept through his entire body as every nerve and sinew he had uttered the long denied "yes!"

Then they were peeling off clothes. Sam shrugged off his brown corduroy jacket and slid his hands under Dean's denim over-shirt. Dean's was popping the buttons of Sam's check shirt with trembling fingers, and Sam couldn't help smiling just a little. All those women . . . all of Dean's hundreds upon hundreds of sexual exploits, and now he was as nervous as Sam. This was new to both of them. And yet, at the same time, it felt as old and familiar as time itself.

Sam felt the air touch his skin as Dean lifted the shirt off his shoulders and stared at him with emerald eyes grown smokey dark. There were no more covert glances that turned away in hasty shame, no attempt to wear the business-like mask he maintained through all the many times he patched up Sam's wounds. Now, at last, he let the naked desire of his gaze run all over Sam's flesh and Sam felt it like a warm caress. Sam's nostrils flared with sudden urgency and he tugged the blue shirt down Dean's arms and let it fall to the floor as he peeled the black t-shirt off and over his brother's head. And then they were in each others arms again, coiled around one another, flesh against flesh. Sam could feel the heat of Dean's body suffusing him, and the strong vital rhythm of his brother's heart beating through his own bones. Their mouths met, lips rolled together, tongues writhing in a slow, deep, sensual embrace, while their hands explored each other's flesh, every smooth plane of skin, every dimple, bump or scar, every line of bone and rippling curve of muscle in an ecstatic orgy of knowing.

Then Sam let his hands roam down to Dean's hips, running over the line of the hip bone then sliding them under the curve of his buttocks and snapping him in tight against his own groin.

"GUH!" Dean let out a breathy gasp. "Sam!"

Sam could feel the heat and the hardness of Dean's arousal pressing into him, and he knew Dean could feel his. His hands slid further down, wrapped around the backs of Dean's legs, gripped, lifted, pulled him up bodily and sat him on the bonnet of the Impala with his own body snug between his brother's thighs.

Dean's eyes widened with surprise. "You taking charge, Sammy?"

"You gonna let me, Dean?"

Dean's head cocked slightly to one side and, as he studied Sam through half lowered lashes, Sam tried to interpret the play of emotions he saw in the smokey-green orbs: lust, resistance, interest, apprehension, curiosity, arousal, excitement . . . consent?

"Well, OK . . ." Dean's gravel-washed voice was half grudging, half mocking. "But, Sam . . ." for a moment he placed a restraining hand against Sam's chest, his eyebrows lifted and the crows feet at the corners of his eyes crinkled merrily. "You'll be gentle with me, right?"

Sam rolled his eyes and pushed Dean down impatiently, but he could feel some genuine tension in Dean's body as he lay back on the hood of the Impala. This surrender was unnatural to him; Dean's whole being was geared to act, to give, not to receive – the fatal imperative that his dangerous broken angel had failed to understand – to lie there passive now and wait for Sam to act . . . cost him something. Sam prepared to repay him with interest.

He leaned over and ran his fingers along Dean's jawline, brushed his thumb against the satin-soft lips, then drew his palm in a smooth firm stroke down Dean's chest until he could feel the beat of the heart under his hand, more rapid now, but still strong and constant. He bent over and laid his head against his brother's breast so he could listen to its unerring rhythm, then he rolled his head over so he could plant a kiss on the smooth, firm flesh. As his lips brushed over Dean's chest and his hands stroked and caressed his torso, his breath was coming out in long, intoxicated sighs. It was as if he was worshipping at the temple of Dean Winchester. Sam's character might be doomed to inhabit the mind of any chapped-ass monkey with a keyboard, but this beautiful, perfect body in front of him was the only vessel to which his soul would ever truly give its consent.

Their eyes held each other again for a moment then Dean pushed himself up and wrapped his arms around Sam. "Oh, fucking come here," he growled, and their mouths found each other and locked in fierce and tender passion that made their heads and hearts swim and was almost independent of all that was happening below their waists. And when they emerged from the kiss they paused, resting against each other's foreheads and exchanging panting breath for long moments before their eyes lifted and met once more, and Sam whispered "Are you ready?"

Dean's eyes opened wide for a moment, then he swallowed. "Yes," he murmured thickly through trembling and barely parted lips.

Neither of them was holding back now. Mouths, bodies, flesh all embracing, they moved together with the innate, instinctive sympathy and understanding that they had always shared when they were hunting. Moan answering moan, breath sharing breath, alert to every move, every sound, every facial nuance, they were as vitally and acutely aware of each other's pleasure as they were of their own. Their rhythms, their breathing, their heartbeats, the pulse of their blood, everything synchronous until, at the moment of its greatest intensity, the remaining barriers between them simply dissolved, and they flowed into one another to the rhythm of a single pumping heart . . . . .

Afterwards he lay on the hood of the Impala, just this side of consciousness, savouring an almost wholly unfamiliar sense of peace. For a while he did nothing, but simply allowed the solid metal beneath him to support his weight. At length he began to breathe more deeply, drawing in cleansing lungfuls of air, and he began to move his limbs gently, gradually bringing himself back to full awareness. Sitting up slowly then rising to his feet he stretched his limbs and reveled in their vibrant energy. He felt stronger and more alive than he had ever been.

Combing his hair through his fingers and sweeping it back off his face he began picking out clothes. He slipped into a pair of boxers and jeans and slid the black t-shirt over his head, then donned the blue shirt and the brown corduroy jacket. Once fully dressed he opened the door of the Impala and slid behind the wheel. Gazing down the road ahead of him, into the distance, he could see its limitless potential now. He was no longer intimidated by the monsters of Season Seven, the show, nor any of the creative beasts it had spawned. And he was no longer afraid of his own creative power. He had a weapon and he wasn't afraid to use it. He knew now whatever happened to him in the body of the story, when it came down to the bottom line, he'd still be there – screwing with it.

He raised his hand to the rear view mirror and adjusted it so he could see his own reflection and grinned into it. "We've got work to do," he said. Emerald eyes grinned back at him and winked. "Bring it on, bitches!"

Wrapping both hands around the steering wheel he glanced down at the gear shift and watched it move into drive. "Cue music," he breathed, and the opening bar of a familiar Kansas track barked from the speakers as he gunned the engine into life and steered out onto the never ending road.

. . . . .

So . . . the soul and its true vessel are one and whole at last . . . but I still can't quite grasp who he is. He has gone where I can't follow, but I can still hear fading musical chords and a snatch of the lyric: "Don't you cry no more."

And that's it. The perfect ending

. . . or is it?

I sigh. No. Too easy. I know, if I'm honest, those two will never be at peace. Their differences can never be resolved with some simplistic metaphor, be it sex or death, for their struggle is eternal. They will never be together but they will never be free of each other, either. Chained together, close but never touching, they will keep re-enacting the same tragic cycle of self-expression and self-sacrifice until their energies are spent . . . then they will be somebody else, but always the same two brothers: body and mind, heart and soul, hero and saviour, victim and tyrant, endlessly exchanging egos, loving and hating, fighting and fucking, forever. Always driving each other to greater and greater acts of heroism, and driving us, inspiring us. How beautiful, and yet how dark and monstrous the inspiration that drives us to keep perpetuating their cycle of ecstatic torment. Sam knew it. Chuck knew it. The creator knows it. And you and I both know it, too, don't we? We are the monsters.

We are the monsters who create their suffering. They suffer because we make them, because we want them to, so we can love them for it. But Sam and Dean have been fighting monsters all their lives. That's what they do. And sometimes they win.

Dean appears behind my shoulder and reads the last few lines of text. Here we go again.

"Oh, that is just sick. What is wrong with you?"

"Leave her alone, Dean." Sam sits awkwardly at the table opposite my desk.

"Have you seen what she's written here?" Dean demands.

"I've seen it all." Sam and I catch each other's glance and we share a sad, secret smile.

9:31:01 PM *

* Supernatural 6/22 aired in Australia on Channel 11 on 15th August at 8:37 pm, and finished at 9:31 pm.

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NB Unfortunately stories on this site are subject to arbitrary classifications and, in order to meet them, I've had to edit sections from the sex scene that I actually think are dramatically necessary. However, the full uncut text is available on the Sam/Dean Slash Archive for anyone who's interested. Just google the archive and do a search for Fanspired.