Contains dialogue from the episode Changing Channels, it belongs to Eric Kripke and Jeremy Carver.
Part of my Deleted Scenes series. Full list of fics in reading order available on my profile page. They will make more sense if read in order. :)
I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.
Deuteronomy, 30:15
Dean comes out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and a smaller one in his hands, rubbing it over his hair. There are water droplets running slowly down his damp chest, and the towel is just barely clinging to his hips, and Sam is captivated instantly. Dean knows it too, jerk that he is, and he makes an obvious show of smoothing the towel over his skin and licking a bead of water off his lip when it falls down from his still-wet hair.
Sam grits his teeth and looks away, pretends to be looking at the horrible painting on the wall, and Dean sees through that too. He saunters over to Sam and cups Sam's hips in his hands from behind, fingers slipping under Sam's shirt.
"What'cha doin'?" he asks lightly, and Sam smiles in spite of himself and concedes that he's been caught.
He turns around and drapes his arms over Dean's bare shoulders. "Trying not to stare at you."
Dean grins up at him. "See somethin' you like?"
"Yeah. Whole lotta somethings."
Dean leans up and brushes his lips softly over Sam's, and they slide together for a minute or two, soft and warm and comfortingly familiar. Something inside Sam doesn't feel quite whole whenever he isn't touching Dean – in this mellow, intangible way so that he doesn't ever really notice the loss until Dean's lips or hands are back on him, and then suddenly he realizes everything he's been missing since the last time. It's why he's never happy when they're apart for too long. He might smile and laugh with someone else, he might feel good for a moment, but it never lasts. It's like he can't relax, like there's one last piece of himself left to snap into place before everything can be right in Sam's world. And during times like lately, when things are so good between them – even if the world is crashing to the ground around their feet – Sam gets so addicted to it he doesn't remember how he's ever gone without it for so long before.
"It's, uh …" Sam pauses and chuckles. He runs the tips of his fingers slowly up Dean's abdomen. "It's nice to have this body back."
Dean laughs softly. "Better than the old man, you mean?"
"Yeah." Sam leans down to kiss the center of Dean's chest and then kisses up Dean's neck and jaw. "I like this one."
"You think we'll live long enough to have wrinkly, old people sex?"
Sam laughs again, even though the answer makes him sad. "Probably not."
Dean shrugs a little. "Shouldn't waste time, then."
He captures Sam's lips again in a kiss that's all heat and passion and prelude, sliding his tongue into Sam's mouth and his fingers through Sam's hair. It makes Sam dizzy with want and need and that intoxicating feeling he only ever gets when he's with Dean. It's like pulling teeth out of his own head with pliers to know he has to stop this before it goes any further.
"We … um." Sam pulls back enough for their lips to fall apart, but barely. "We can't."
Dean frowns. "Why?"
"The witch, remember?" Sam says uncomfortably. "I'm not … clean."
"I thought you got that taken care of," Dean replies, clearly fighting back a laugh that he knows Sam would not appreciate.
"Yeah, I did, but it's not instant. It takes a while to get rid of the infection."
"Like how long?"
"Ten days."
Dean groans. His head tips forward, forehead landing on Sam's shoulder. "Seriously?"
"Yeah. Sorry."
"Okay, so no humping. We can do other stuff, right?" Dean asks hopefully.
"Do you not know how STDs work? It's not about sex, it's … fluids."
Dean wrinkles his nose. "You mean like the spit we just swapped?"
Sam chuckles. He hooks his fingers together behind Dean's back and tugs him in, kissing his lips. "No. Like blood. And …"
"Come," Dean finishes, and Sam cringes a little and nods.
"Yeah. That."
"What about with a condom?"
"If people can accidentally get pregnant through condoms, they can accidentally get infected too."
"So, we can't do anything. For ten days," Dean sums up, like it's a death sentence.
"Sorry," Sam says again, and he means it. He wants it as much as Dean does right now. Maybe even more, because Sam spent so many weeks positive Dean would never forgive him for trusting Ruby and killing Lilith, and now that he has, Sam's need for him is more intense than it's been in a long time.
Dean sighs. He wraps his arms around Sam's neck and pulls him down for another kiss. "It isn't your fault. Just sucks, that's all. I'm pissed we couldn't kill that bitch."
Sam nods. "So we should … I don't know. Find a job, I guess."
"We just finished a job."
"You'd rather sit in this motel room staring at each other, knowing we can't have sex?" Sam asks with a grin; it widens when Dean shudders a little and removes himself from Sam's arms.
"Good point. Okay, yes. A job. A really gritty, complicated one. Hopefully one that takes us nine and a half days to wrap up."
"I don't know about nine days, but I read something weird while you were in the shower." Sam gives himself a shake and then goes over to his open laptop, sitting on the bed with the news site he'd been reading on the screen.
Dean takes a few deep breaths and closes his eyes for a moment, his expression strained like he's trying to think about something gross to calm himself back down. Sam smiles a little and can't help it – he likes that he affects his brother. Then he grabs his bag, probably to find some clothes to put on, and says, "Okay. Hit me."
"What you guys call the Apocalypse? I used to call Sunday dinner!" Gabriel proclaims dramatically. "That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war! It's about two brothers that loved each other, and betrayed each other. You think you'd be able to relate!"
Sam frowns. "What are you talking about?"
Gabriel looks at him like it should be obvious and Sam's a colossal moron for not figuring it out. Then he whistles. "You sorry sons'a'bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it! Michael, the big brother. Loyal to an absent father. And Lucifer, the little brother. Rebellious of Daddy's plan."
He's right about the symmetry, and it makes Sam's skin crawl to think he has anything in common with the Devil they're trying to stop from obliterating the entire planet.
"You were born to this, boys!" Gabriel continues. "It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other."
"What the hell are you saying?" Dean demands.
"Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always."
Sam stares at him and tries to comprehend what that means. That their whole lives have been nothing but a part of some enormous, cosmic plan. That it was always supposed to end with one of them killing the other, when they've spent their entire lives doing anything and everything to keep each other safe. It's too big. He can't get it to make sense in his head. He looks at Dean, and finds Dean looking back at him with the same lost, confused, horrified expression Sam's sure is all over his own face.
"No," Dean says after a moment. "That's not gonna happen."
"I'm sorry, but it is." Gabriel sighs. "Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow. But this is real. And it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be. So. Boys. Now what? Stare at each other for the rest of eternity?"
"Well, first of all, you're gonna bring Cas back from wherever you stashed him," Dean says.
"Oh am I?"
"Yeah. Or we're going to dunk you in some Holy Oil and deep-fry ourselves an Archangel."
Gabriel rolls his eyes a little, but then he snaps his fingers and Cas appears out of thin air a few feet behind Dean.
"Cas, you okay?" Dean asks him.
"I'm fine," Cas growls, his steely gaze trained on the other angel. "Hello Gabriel."
"Hey, bro," Gabriel answers casually. "How's the search for Daddy going? Let me guess. Awful."
Castiel glares at him intensely, and Gabriel just shrugs like he doesn't care.
"Okay, we're outta here." Dean takes a few steps backwards. "C'mon, Sam."
Sam follows him, and so does Cas.
"Uh, okay? Guys?" Gabriel calls after them. "So, what, huh? You're just gonna – you're gonna leave me here forever?"
Dean turns back when they get to the door. "No. We're not, 'cause we don't screw with people the way you do. And for the record, this isn't about some prize fight between your brothers, or some destiny that can't be stopped. This is about you, being too afraid to stand up to your family!"
Dean smashes the glass covering the fire alarm and pulls it; the alarm sounds and the sprinklers splutter on, dousing the warehouse with water and putting out the Holy Fire. He yells, "Don't say I never did anything for you!" and then he walks out the door, and Sam trails behind him with his mind reeling and his heart beating too fast and his limbs threatening to give out at any moment over the monumental weight of what they just learned.
"All that stuff he was spoutin' in there, you think he was telling the truth?" Dean asks, walking towards the Impala where it's parked a few meters outside the warehouse.
"I think he believes it," Sam says, because he's still desperately hoping it isn't.
"So what do we do?"
"I don't know."
Dean shakes his head. "I'll tell you one thing. Right about now I wish I was back on a TV show."
"Yeah, me too," Sam agrees sadly.
Dean drives, and Sam thinks. He goes over everything, every detail he can remember, and the only conclusion he comes to is that they've never been screwed before like they're screwed now. Any chance they have of fighting this, of beating it together and coming out the other side alive, just got squashed into the mud and Sam can't remember the last time he felt this hopeless.
"So, we never had a chance, did we?"
"What chance?"
"To get out, to be happy, to … to not end up in the life we're in."
Dean chews at his bottom lip and then lets it slide out slowly between his teeth. "Guess not."
"Are you okay with that? Okay with knowing we're just chess pieces to them? That they planned all this before we were even born, spent our whole life manipulating everything to get us here so we could be freakin' angel puppets?"
"Not even a little bit," Dean says tensely.
"I mean, fuck, our whole life," Sam continues weakly. "None of it has been real! Our entire existence has just been a game of checkers to these assholes! Who the hell knows how much they've hand their hands in. How many things seemed like a coincidence but weren't, how many decisions we thought we made on our own but we actually didn't."
"I know. It sucks."
"It worse than sucks! It could be everything! Do you realize that? I mean, did I really choose to go to school? Or was that them? Did they make me do that just so I could meet Jess and then lose her, to, I don't know, make me obsessed with revenge? What if that was all that part of it? Everything I thought was just my life was actually being twisted in some way to make me into the kind of person who'd kill you if an angel told me to?"
Dean shakes his head. "I don't know, Sammy. I hope not, but … I don't know."
"And what about you? Maybe Ruby was in on all this too, maybe she was on the angel pay-roll and part of the plan," Sam continues, so mad he can barely see straight anymore. "Maybe there was a way for me to save you from the deal, but they didn't let us find it because you were supposed to go to Hell. So you could break the first seal, so you'd be busted up enough inside to say yes to Michael when the time came!"
"It's possible," Dean says evenly, and Sam stares at him.
"Yeah, it is. So why aren't you pissed?"
"You think I'm not?" Dean frowns at him momentarily and then turns his eyes back to the road. "I wanna wring their freakin' necks for this."
"I didn't know anything about it," Castiel's low voice pipes up from the backseat. Sam had almost forgotten he was there. "I want you both to know that. I would have told you if I did."
Sam twists in his seat and looks back at the angel. As always, his face bears no expression, so it's impossible to know if he's telling the truth.
"That's kinda becoming your catch phrase lately, isn't it?" Dean says, eyeing Cas through the rearview mirror. "You're in this whole thing balls-deep and yet somehow you never seem to know anything."
Cas manages to almost look hurt. "I was a foot soldier, Dean. I had my assignments and I followed them. I was never privy to the larger plans."
"Well then what the hell are you privy to?"
Sam looks back at his brother. "Dean."
"What?" Dean snaps. "If he's learnin' all this shit in real-time just like we are, then how is he any help to us?"
"Stop it," Sam says, smacking Dean lightly on the arm to show he isn't kidding. "None of this is his fault."
"Don't you have God to track down anyway?" Dean asks sarcastically, looking back up to the mirror, and then he rolls his eyes and mutters, "Fuck."
Sam looks over his shoulder and finds the backseat empty. He glares at Dean. "Nice going."
Dean glares back. "What the hell, Sam? Since when are you two best friends?"
"He is one of the few allies we have left!" Sam says, pointing at the spot where Cas had just been. "We are at war with heaven and hell right now, don't you think it's kinda important we keep him on our side? There's no way we have a shot in this fight without him."
"Don't remind me," Dean grumbles.
Sam slumps back in his seat and doesn't say anything else for a few minutes. His mind is racing faster than Dean's driving, over everything that's ever happened to him, bad and good. The friends he's lost, the people he couldn't save, the things he did and didn't do, the hard decisions he's made. All of it feels contrived now. Nothing feels authentic, like every moment in his life was just a perfectly crafted piece of the puzzle, and the last piece is letting Lucifer in. Sam won't do it. He can't do it. But he'd be lying if he said he wasn't terrified of what will happen if he doesn't.
"You really think they've been controlling everything?" Dean asks quietly.
Sam exhales. "It's not like I want to, man. But that's what he said, isn't it? From the time the lights flipped on, it was always gonna be us?"
"So, like … I didn't come find you because I needed help lookin' for Dad. I did it because they made me do it."
"Or Azazel putting demon blood in me when I was a baby. Maybe that's exactly what the angels wanted. To taint me, to make me different so I'd be … an outcast. Like Lucifer. So I'd say yes."
Dean shakes his head. "This is crazy. Maybe he was screwing with us. Wouldn't be the first time an angel's done that."
"Yeah. I hope so," Sam mumbles, even though he doesn't believe it for a second and neither does Dean. "Where are we going, anyway?"
"The closest bar."
"You think drinkin' and hustling pool is gonna help?"
"No. I think drinkin' and then drinkin' some more is gonna wipe this whole mess outta my head for a night. It's been a long damn time since I've wanted to forget somethin' this bad."
It makes him feel sick, but Sam can't help but agree with that.
"So, the Trickster was an Archangel all along."
"Looks like it. What a tool." Dean tosses a shot back and nudges the other one toward Sam. "Drink."
Sam looks at the shot glass but doesn't pick it up. "Y'know what I've been thinking?"
"Tell me."
"That, now that we know he's an angel? Some stuff is kinda starting to make sense to me."
"What stuff?"
"Stuff he said to me. When, uh. When he took you."
"At the Mystery Spot, you mean."
Sam swallows. He folds his hands together on the table and picks at the skin around his thumbnail. "Yeah."
"So what did he say?"
"I can't remember exactly, it … so many things have happened since then." That's only half true. It does feel like a lifetime ago, but Sam remembers perfectly. He doesn't think he'll ever be able to forget. "Stuff about … how he was doing it to teach me a lesson. How he wanted to show me what life would be like without you."
"He knew I was going to Hell," Dean reasons.
Sam shifts a little in his seat and turns his head just slightly away from Dean; trying to hide the lingering emotions that always resurface when Sam thinks about it. "Yeah, but … I mean, think about everything he said earlier. That it was always going to be us. So if he knew all that, then he knew you wouldn't stay in Hell. He knew they'd be sending someone to bring you back so you could be the Michael sword. Why would he take you from me for six months, to prepare me for you being gone only four?"
Dean shakes his head. "I don't know, Sammy."
"It doesn't make any sense, though, right?" Sam pushes.
"No, I guess it doesn't."
"So then what d'you think he was doing?"
"You'd hafta ask him."
"He kept going on about how nothing good would come from you and me always sacrificing ourselves for each other. He wanted me to … I don't know, to learn how to live without you. To be okay with you being gone. But why would he do that if he knew you'd be coming back?"
Dean doesn't answer for a minute or two. He looks around the bar, maybe to make sure no one is eavesdropping on their conversation or maybe to avoid Sam's question. Then he looks back at Sam, his eyes narrowed suspiciously, and says, "So, you're saying you think he was really talking about this? This whole ultimate showdown you'n'me are supposed to have? You think he was sayin' you're gonna win? And then have to live without me?"
"I …" Sam exhales quickly and shrugs one shoulder. "I don't know. Maybe he was."
"You really think you can take me?" Dean asks, and when Sam looks up at him, his eyebrows are raised and his lips are curved just slightly into a smirk.
Sam sighs. "Would you take this seriously?"
"No. That's exactly what we came here not to do, remember?" He picks the shot glass up and puts it back down right next to Sam's hands. "Drink."
"I have been." Four shots of whiskey and Sam's comfortably buzzed – a little relaxed, a little less pissed off – but it isn't making him forget anything.
"Yeah, but you're sad-drinking. I need you to be happy-drinking."
"Are you happy?"
Dean rolls his eyes. He leans forward, resting his elbows on the table and rubbing his hands over his face. "Not really, no."
Sam picks up the shot and swallows it, grimacing as it burns on the way down. "Least you're being honest for once."
Dean glances sideways at him, and asks, "Would it make you feel better if I let you pick a fight?"
"No." Sam looks back at him and then down at the table in front of him. "Sorry."
Dean pats him briefly on the chest. "S'okay. No more moping, though. Everything that happened in the last few days sucks a bag of dicks, but it's tomorrow's problem, alright?"
He picks up the half-empty bottle the waitress left for them earlier and refills the shot glasses. This time, Sam drinks it without argument. A few more and the room is fuzzy and vibrating and he's sweating underneath too many layers and Dean smells good beside him.
"What are you smiling about?" Dean asks, the consonants of his words relaxed and slight southern twang slipping into his gravelly voice.
"Am I?" Sam brings a hand ungracefully up to his face and feels his own mouth. "Oh. I didn't mean to."
Dean laughs. "Your brain is always try'na be a downer even when your body wants you to have a good time."
"I guess so." Sam laughs too, and then he laughs harder for a moment when he remembers a thought he had a few days ago, when they were still stuck in TV land.
"What?" Dean asks, his smile wide and bright. "God, either you're pouting or you're giggling like a teenage girl."
"You have a crush on Dr. Sexy," Sam tells him.
Dean glares at him and blushes at the same time. "Shut up! No I don't. He isn't even real."
"Nope," Sam agrees. "Not real. Y'know what, though? I know why you have a crush on him. I figured it out."
"I don't," Dean insists. Then he raises an eyebrow curiously and asks, "Okay, why?"
"Because he looks like me."
"No he …" Dean pauses, and then Sam practically sees the light bulb flash on over his head, and Dean groans and drops his head down to rest on his arms where they're folded on top of the table. "Fuck."
Sam chuckles and pokes his brother's shoulder. "Did you really never make that connection?"
"No!" Dean cries, his voice muffled against his sleeves. He lifts his head up and tries to look menacing, but doesn't manage it at all because his eyes are unfocused and his cheeks bright pink. "If you ever tell anyone about this? I will put you in the ground."
He points a shaky finger in Sam's face, and Sam snorts and bats it away. "No you won't. B'sides, who exactly would I tell? Hey, Uncle Bobby? My brother has a boner for a TV character because he looks like me and we fuck a lot."
"Shh!" Dean looks around quickly and then turns his wide, dilated pupils back to Sam. "You wanna get us killed?"
"Like we'd even get a scratch on us if any of these fuckers wanna be a tough guy." Sam gestures at the other people in the bar – mostly the small town, blue-collar types – and isn't sure if he's just imagining several of them looking right back at him. "We've got more guns than all these first-amendment-lovin' jackasses combined."
"The right to bear arms is the second amendment. You're the one who's supposed to know nerdy shit like that. And just 'cause we've got guns doesn't mean we can use 'em," Dean points out. "Not on guys who haven't done anything wrong."
"Is there a problem here?"
Sam looks up, blinking a few times in an attempt to get his eyes to focus, at the big, burly bartender with tattooed arms who's suddenly standing right in front of their table.
"No problem, officer." Dean smiles and gives him a sarcastic military salute.
Sam tries not to laugh.
"Let me rephrase that, then," the guy says, with an entirely humorless smile. "The two of you are over here drinkin' like it's the end of the world and yellin' about having guns, so I guess I'm the one who's got a problem."
"We're sorry," Sam says quickly. "My drink and I just had too much to brother tonight."
Dean cracks up, laughing so hard he tips over on the booth's bench seat and lands heavily against Sam's side.
"Wait." Sam laughs too. "That wasn't right."
The bartender doesn't look remotely amused. "Okay, boys. Time to go."
Sam shoves at Dean. "C'mon, Sundance."
Dean grumbles, "M'not Sundance, you're Sundance," but he gets up and walks on unsteady legs toward the exit. Sam follows him. Just before Dean reaches the door, he looks over his shoulder and yells, "And it is the end of the world, but we're gonna stop it! Your sorry asses are welcome!"
"Go." Sam shoves him through the open door and then closes it behind them.
"Well, it is," Dean says, swaying just slightly on the spot and then taking a few steps toward the car.
"You can't drive," Sam tells him.
"You can't drive," Dean returns immaturely, and Sam can't help the smile that tugs at the corner of his mouth.
"I mean you shouldn't. 'Cause we'll die."
"Oh. Yeah." Dean taps the side of his head and grins at Sam. "Always thinkin'."
"There's a motel across the street." Sam points at the neon vacancy sign.
Dean nods. He pats the top of the Impala lovingly, murmurs, "Be good, baby," and then throws his arm around Sam.
Sam has to bend down awkwardly to fit under Dean's arm but he doesn't really mind. They cross the street and Dean gets them a room – with a stern warning from the manager that if either of them pukes, they'll be paying for the clean up – and after they stumble through the door, Dean locks it behind them and then shoves Sam down onto the bed and tackles him. He lands hard on top of Sam's chest, knocking the wind out of him a little, and kisses him sloppily. Sam kisses back, his head already spinning from the booze and the taste of it on Dean's tongue as it slides into his mouth makes everything a little more sparkly and pleasantly blurry. Even still, he feels invisible strings pulling him down into sleep, as much as he wants to stay up and kiss his brother until they can't breathe.
"Your dick's still broken, isn't it?" Dean asks, sounding annoyed about it.
"It's not broken," Sam answers reproachfully, hitting Dean's shoulder.
"Diseased, whatever."
"Yeah. I mean, maybe, I don't know. How long did the Trickster have us? Or Gabriel, or whoever the fuck."
Dean rolls off him with a put-upon sigh and drapes his arms over his face. "I don't know. Only a few days, I think. That's what Cas said, right?"
"We'd probably pass out in the middle of it anyway."
Dean chuckles. "That would be a really, really awkward way to wake up tomorrow."
Sam laughs too. "Yeah."
Dean groans quietly and sits up. He fumbles with his shoes but gets them off and lets them drop down to the floor with two soft thumps. Then he reaches for Sam's shoes and takes them off for him, and Sam smiles to himself. He lies back down when he's done and tugs Sam into his arms even though they're still fully clothed, and Sam goes gratefully because his eyelids are heavy and his limbs don't seem to want to function properly all of a sudden. He leans into Dean's chest and Dean hugs him, kissing the top of his head and sighing sleepily.
"We should drink at least drink some water," Sam says, yawning widely and making no attempt to move.
"Probably," Dean agrees, and he doesn't move either.
"We're gonna feel like shit tomorrow."
"Definitely."
"What … um." Sam gets momentarily distracted when Dean's hand slides under his shirt, warm palm splayed wide on the small of Sam's back. "What are we gonna do?"
"About what?"
"Everything."
Dean shakes his head. He nudges Sam's face with his nose; Sam tips his head up and Dean kisses him gently on the lips. "Nothing tonight. Go to sleep, Sammy. I got you."
Sam nods. He closes his eyes when they start to burn; Dean's words bringing back years of memories, of him saying those same words when Sam was young and would have a nightmare so bad only Dean could soothe it away. He used to feel so safe in Dean's arms; like nothing could touch him. Nothing but his big brother. Maybe if Sam pretends hard enough, it will still work.