Title: Philosophical Television
Author: Oldach's Dream
Summary: TV shows, as only our favorite Winchester boys can discuss them.
Disclaimer: If they were mine, they so would not be on TV.
Rating: T
Author's Note: Okay, as much as it may seem like I'm making fun of the TV shows I mention, I'm really not. Well, I might be, a little. But it's purely for the sake of the fic and the point I'm trying to get across. I actually watch most of the shows I mention here. So don't be offended. And...
Enjoy!
o0oo0o
"You actually watch that crap?" Sam asked his brother - who was spread out on another random motel bed - disbelievingly.
"What?" Dead defended himself, taking the coffee that Sam offered him with one hand. "Scully's hot."
Sam sat down on his own bed and sipped his coffee, crinkling his nose in disagreement but saying simply, "Hey if that's how you get your kicks, that's fine with me."
"It's not how I get my kicks" Dean protested. "I just find it amusing."
"You find talk of little green men and conspiracy theories amusing?" Sam asked doubtfully, not getting it.
"Dude." Dean said with a completely straight face. "They're little gray men."
Sam snorted his amusement and Dean went on, "And after all the stuff we've seen, are you seriously telling me you don't believe in aliens, at all?"
"Are you seriously telling me that you do?" Sam couldn't really believe he was having this conversation.
"Maybe." He answered defensively.
Sam sighed. "Alright, maybe, maybe the concept of little green. Excuse me, gray, aliens isn't so unbelievable." And who really knew? "But all that crap about government conspiracies and everyone's out to get Mulder just because he knows the truth about the aliens. And aliens are part of some big government plot to take over the world, and he just happened to see his sister get abducted when-"
"Man," Dean interrupted him, sounding amused. "For someone who thinks the show is a load of crap, you sure know a lot about it."
"My roommate sophomore year was in love with it. Had some of the seasons on DVD, he even had an 'I Want to Believe' poster hung above his bed." Sam defended his intense knowledge of the show.
"Maybe I should get one of those." Dean said thoughtfully. Although Sam could tell he was simply messing with him, the thought freaked him out enough for his eyes to go wide.
"And put it where?" He asked ludicrously.
"Inside the car. Right on the roof." He said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
His eyes got that far away look, like when he was planning a new hunt. "Then every time you wake up from one of those freaky visions of yours, all you'd have to do is look up and know you're not alone, and that yes, there are weirder people out there."
Sam ignored Dean's reference to his 'shining' ability. "You know if you do that, I may never get in your car again."
Dean gave him a bright smile, displaying all of his impossibly white teeth. "An added bonus."
Sam chucked a pillow at him.
"Watch it man," Dean warned. "If you make me spill this coffee, I'm gonna have to kick your ass."
"I bet Mulder isn't afraid of a little scolding hot coffee." Sam couldn't resist teasing his brother.
"That's 'cause he's got Scully there to clean it off for him." And his smirk was back.
"That's another thing I don't get. In almost every episode of that show I was ever forced to sit through, Scully's always complaining about how messed up Mulder's beliefs are. And how there has to be scientific explanation for everything. She obviously thought he was a nut job with deep seated childhood issues. Why'd she stick around?"
"Cause she was hot for him." Dean answered simply. "They end up having a kid together."
"Do not." Sam protested without thinking.
"Yeah they do, sorta."
"How do you sorta have a kid together?"
"I don't really know. In one episode she's pregnant; in the next one Mulder's claiming it's his." Dean shrugged. "It's not like I followed it religiously, I told you, I just think Scully's hot."
"Didn't Mulder disappear, for like, two seasons or something?" Sam wondered out loud.
"Yeah, he got abducted by aliens. They stuck him with a whole bunch of nasty little drills and probes and then sent him back to Scully." Dean told him, sounding morbidly excited at the thought of 'nasty little drills and probes.'
"And you believe in aliens?" Sam asked again, not understanding the logic of doing experiments on humans, only to send them back to earth once they were finished. "And I thought Scully was the one that got abducted. Didn't she have a little chip in the back of her neck?"
"Yeah well, that happened too." Dean agreed. "And I thought we already went over the alien thing. Sam, we fight spirits, demons, possessed people, shape shifters, Wendigos; everything that every other person on the planet doesn't think exists, every damn week, but you can't believe that aliens might be real."
"...cause if they are," Dean went on, trying to prove a point. "Then I doubt The X-files captures the reality of them any better than other shows capture the reality of what we do."
"What TV shows try to capture the reality of what we do?" Getting pulled into a pointless Dean conversation was sometimes unavoidable.
"Um hello, Charmed? Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Angel? Ghost Whisperer?"
"Wasn't Angel just another version of Buffy?" Sam asked.
"It was a spin off, and that's not the point." Dean bit impatiently. "All these shows feature people with some type of magical power, destined to fight Evil."
Sam shrugged, "So what? Dean, its TV. It's not real."
"Exactly." Dean said as if Sam had proved his point. "We don't get any special powers to help us with our job. We choose to do what we do. To help people."
"And to find the thing that killed mom and Jessica."
"Yeah, on some level, that too."
"On some level?" Sam asked, amazed. "Isn't that what this is about? Our whole lives, hasn't it always been about finding the thing that killed mom?"
"Come on Sammy!" Dean sounded exasperated. "Would you stop doing what we do, if we found that murdering son of a bitch?"
"You mean; will I stop doing what we do, when we find and kill, that murdering son of a bitch?" Sam raised his eyebrows at his brother's choice of words.
Dean flushed, "Of course that's what I meant!" He snapped. "And will you?"
"I don't know Dean, don't you want to? After we've done what we've spent years trying to do. Wouldn't it be nice to, I don't know, retire?"
"That's the kind of crap that only happens on the TV shows." He exclaimed. "Kill the Source and you get to have a normal life. Kill enough Vampires and you get to redeem yourself. Die to save the world and you get to go to heaven... until your selfish as hell friends pull you back out, so you can continue to save their asses. Talk about jumping the shark..." Dean trailed off and shook his head, obviously trying to get back on topic. "This isn't a 'Once you hit your goal you win the game.' kinda TV show. We do what we do for life."
Sam did know this, all too well, he'd tried to get out, to have a normal life, and it'd killed Jessica.
"Did Mulder and Scully ever get a happily ever after?" Sam found himself asking.
Dean shrugged, "I never saw the last episode."
Sam smiled. "An unknown ending. Sounds fitting for you."
"Don't go psychoanalyzing me." Dean warned.
"Dude, you just spent 15 freakin' minutes comparing the philosophical differences between supernatural TV shows and our life, and you're telling me not to psychoanalyze you?"
"That's right. You want to go all 'therapist talk' on me; I can drive your ass back to college. I bet they love that crap."
"You're unbelievable." Sam shook his head. But he continued to smile at his brother, knowing it would drive him nuts.
"What are you smirking at?" He finally snapped, as predicted.
"I don't know Dean, that whole speech; it kind of sounded like a chick flick moment." Sam's voice was as serious as he could make it, which wasn't very, and he could barely keep his grin suppressed.
"It did not!" Dean said forcefully, sounding horrified.
"Yeah, it kinda did." Sam's smirk could not be denied any longer, Dean saw it and glared. The pillow that Sam had chucked at him earlier came hurling back towards him. Sam caught it with a laugh.
"Jerk."
"Bitch."
They each relaxed on their respective beds, The X-files still played on the TV and both watched silently.
The end credits rolled half an hour later, but neither made a move to change the channel or switch off the Television. It'd most likely stay on all night. Dean liked background noise while he slept, and Sam probably wouldn't sleep anyway.
"Hey, Sam," Dean called lightly after a few more moments of silence.
Sam grunted his acknowledgment, "Huh?"
"The truth is out there."
Fin.
