Jensen, the idiot, actually tried to protest when they didn't take the car. Finally Jared snapped, "If you screw it up you know Dean will find a way to kill you," and Jensen subsided. Instead, Balthazar had grabbed their hands and the world had swung sickeningly sideways and they'd been somewhere else.
Specifically, a motel. A crappy, side-of-the-road motel with inadequate water pressure, worrying stains on the bedding, and probably cockroaches. It was familiar, except insofar as it had a ceiling and none of the walls were designed to be moveable.
Jared sat on one of the beds and tried to get a grip on the feeling that if he went out the door he'd be on the soundstage. Balthazar had spent about thirty seconds making sure they knew how to draw the angel-banishing sigil (and healing Jensen's hand, sort of as an afterthought) and then simply left; Jensen had been literally in the middle of a sentence.
"That really is annoying," Jensen had said, and Jared had nodded fervently. Bobby was in the next room, because clearly Sam-and-Dean had one room and anyone else had another. Never mind that they weren't actually Sam-and-Dean; Jared was sticking with the be-Sam plan, and it was sort of working.
They'd stared at each other for a few minutes, and then Jensen had announced he was going to take a shower. Jared had Sam's laptop. It was password protected, but the second one he'd tried had logged him in, which was scary because it was a password Jared had made up. Thought he'd made up. He did a lot of little character details like that, thinking of what password Sam would use on his laptop or what kind of soft drinks he liked or what movies he watched when he was depressed. It helped him get into Sam's head.
I'm in it now, he thought, and if there was a slightly hysterical edge in there he wasn't going to take any notice. He was doing research, because that was his job, right? Sam did the research.
There were people named Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles and Genevieve Cortese here, all right, and they were actors. They resembled him and Jen and Ginny, in a generic way, but not close enough to be mistaken for each other in anything other than really bad lighting. Jensen-here was on Doctor Sexy, had been since a guest spot as the patient of the week in Season 1. Jared remembered that spot, and remembered Jen turning down the offer of a return because they'd just found out Supernatural had been renewed for its second season. Jared was obscurely comforted to discover that the Jared and Ginny here were married; they'd met filming the seventh season of Firefly (She'd been a regular, Jared a recurring character).
Meanwhile, web searches for "Supernatural Dean Sam" had, sure enough, gotten him a book series. It went up to the end of Season 5. Apparently the author (Chuck Shurley, yes, nom de plume Carver Edlund) had mysteriously vanished not long after finishing the last book. Jared had a feeling he knew what the writer'd been wearing when he did it, too.
That was about as far as he got before he heard Jen's voice from the bathroom, a startled shout that made him push the laptop off his folded legs and stand. "Jensen?" he called, loud to be heard over the shower. After a second, Jensen called back, "Yeah. I'm OK, just...hold on a second, I'll show you." The water shut off, and there were several seconds of Jensen puttering around in the incredibly annoying way Jared remembered from when they'd shared an apartment.
Finally Jensen opened the bathroom door and stood there, clad in Dean's jeans but shirtless. He had the anti-possession tattoo. He also had scars, scars Jared knew Jen had never earned (you live with a guy, you see him naked sometimes). And over Jensen's left shoulder, which Jared thought he should probably think of as Dean's left shoulder, was the handprint. It was clearly well-healed, but just as clearly distinct from the rest of the skin.
Jen looked a shade or two paler than usual. Jared met his eyes and wasn't at all sure he disagreed with the feeling.
"There are angels here, Jay," Jensen said quietly, gesturing at the print. "I mean, I'm in the body of a guy who went to Hell, literal Hell. You're in the body of a guy who went to Hell. What the fuck would happen to us if we died here?"
Jared had a thought, and crooked his arm around to his back to feel along the spine. And sure enough, there was a mass of scar tissue just above the lumbar vertebrae that made him shudder. That was from when Sam had died.
The first time, anyway.
"So we don't die," Jared said, trying for the kind of nonchalance Sam would have used.
Jensen visibly bit back a retort and closed his eyes briefly. "Could you not do that?" he asked after a second. "Yes, OK, I got enthusiastic about the Impala, but I don't know if method acting is going to help here."
"It's this or I go sit in the corner in the fetal position, dude," Jared said sincerely. "You cope your way, I'll cope mine." He picked up the laptop again. "Anyway we knew there were angels. Balthazar even teleported us." He got the name out without stumbling over it, which he was kind of proud of.
"Not quite the same," Jensen said, and the thing was Jared knew what he meant. Jensen stalked over to Dean's duffel bag, moving like he was offended, and yeah, OK, Jared could get that too; this whole thing was just too weird. He was still half-convinced he was going to wake up and find out Misha had spiked his drink or something, but this was a bit much even for a Collins prank. Jensen pulled a t-shirt out of the bag and shrugged into it, yanked out a flannel overshirt and donned it too with the air of a man doing what's expected of him.
"It must be weird as hell for them," Jensen said. "I mean, nothing to fight, right? No vampires or ghosts or angels or demons. Nothing to do but—whoa, Jared, you OK?"
"Ginny," Jared said faintly. "What happens if Dean sees Ginny?" Jensen looked puzzled for a second, and then got it. He made a lunge and caught the computer just before it slid entirely out of Jared's grip, saying intently, "No. No, Jay, it'll be OK. She never comes to the set when we're filming, by the time they see her they'll know the deal. If Dean sees her at all. Come on, it's not like I hang out at your place." Anymore, he didn't say, and he actually looked a little unhappy about it.
Jared knew it was unfair, but it was easier to be angry than scared, so he snapped, "Yeah, and whose fault is that?" Jensen's face shut down and he let the laptop fall to the bed.
"Oh, I dunno," he said, almost casually. "That skank you married, maybe?"
"Jesus, Jensen," Jared said, letting his voice climb. (Sam tended to get quiet when he was mad. Jared didn't.) "You're the one complaining about method acting? Here's a hint: you don't have to hate Ginny just because she played a character that Dean didn't like."
"You—" Jensen snapped his mouth shut on whatever epithet he'd been about to throw and breathed out hard. After a second he said calmly, "I'm gonna go see if there's somewhere I can get food. I'll be back."
Jared watched his retreating back and said nothing. If Jensen wanted to run away, far be it from him to try and stop him.
As three hours started to creep closer to four, Jared was forced to admit he was starting to worry. Yes, Jensen liked to flounce off instead of having real arguments, but he didn't stay away longer than an hour, two at the outside. Jared sat on the bed, pretending to read some of Sam's weirder bookmarked pages but really arguing with himself about when he was going to go tell Bobby something was wrong. So when Sam's phone shrilled in his pocket, he jumped. It took him three rings to scramble the thing out—it was bare-bones, too, which at least made it easy to identify the answer button—and he sighed in relief when the screen lit up with Dean.
"Where the hell—" he started, but Jensen overrode him.
"Hey, Sammy," he said easily, in full Dean mode, all traces of his natural voice hidden under Winchester. "Just wanted to let you know you shouldn't wait up." Specifically, lascivious Winchester.
It was Dean's style, but Jared couldn't picture Jensen falling into the role that completely, which meant...
"Sam, Dean," Jared said, with just the right note of peevishness. "If you're gonna tell me about your booty calls you can at least call me Sam."
"Whatever," Jensen said. The tone was Dean-rolling-his-eyes-at-Sam's-prudishness. "See if I try'n keep you from worrying next time."
"Only you could find a hookup in this place."
"What can I say? It's a funky town," Jensen threw back. And if Jared wasn't mistaken, that was Sam-and-Dean code for Mayday, mayday. "Don't even bother with the bar, it sucks and I found the only good one in the place."
"Yeah, sure," Jared grumbled around the sudden fear in his throat. "Just get back here in time to check out in the morning, I'm not packing the car alone."
"Tell you what, if I'm not back by dawn you can leave without me."
"Dean."
"Seeya in the morning," Jensen sing-songed, and hung up.
"Crap," Jared muttered. "Crap, crap, crap, and while I'm at it fuck." He carefully put Sam's phone away, set the laptop aside, and snagged his key on the way next door.
It didn't take much knocking to get Bobby's attention, though the man didn't look happy when he opened his door. "What?" he demanded. Jared waited a second, but Bobby made no move to step back. Jared sighed and drew himself up to his full height—something Sam basically never did, at least not when he had his soul. "Can I come in?" he asked pointedly. Bobby looked perturbed—more perturbed—but reluctantly stood to the side.
As soon as the door was closed behind him, Jared said, "Jensen and I had a fight almost four hours ago and he walked out. Usually when this kind of thing happens he comes back in an hour, maybe two. And I just got a call from him calling me 'Sam'."
Bobby's eyes widened a bit. "You tellin' me he managed to get himself into trouble?"
"He said 'funky town'," Jared said, and then, when Bobby looked confused, "It's a code Sam and Dean have—means yeah, he's in some kind of trouble."
Bobby rolled his eyes. "You get how creepy it is that you know all this stuff, right?" he grumbled. "OK, tell me everything he said." Jared gave him a quick recap of the conversation. When he was finished Bobby looked grave.
"That sounds to me like some kind of deadline," he said.
"Yeah," Jared agreed. "But at least we know where to start. He got nabbed from the bar, or at least that's where he met whatever's got him."
"Sounded to me like he was tryin' to tell us not to bother with the bar," Bobby said.
"Nah," Jared said confidently. "He just needed to mention it somehow, trust me."
"Uh-huh," said Bobby, and then paused for a second. "You two sleepin' together?" he asked bluntly.
Jared gaped at him and then half-yelled, "No!" Bobby regarded him skeptically and Jared felt himself flushing. "We shared an apartment back before the show took off. We were close, OK? Then I got engaged and moved out." And then I got married and Jensen turned into a total asshole, he didn't say. Something of it must have shown on his face, because Bobby's eyebrows climbed, but the older man seemed to sense that it wasn't a good topic. "OK, fine. I'm kinda surprised you ain't tryin' to call the cops, though."
"I'm an actor, not a damn fool," Jared snapped. There wasn't a chance of controlling his accent and he didn't even try. "Been on this show goin' on six years now, I know how well it goes for these two when they talk to the law."
"Huh," Bobby said. "OK, well, maybe we should go check out that bar, then."
