Comrades and Brothers

Part 7

Five Minutes Earlier…

Holy shit. He felt his hands beneath him, touched the fucking floor. God, his trailer. He was in his trailer again. Jensen almost sobbed with relief, he could feel the tears welling in his eyes just waiting for that one moment to hit before he released the flood, but no, he wasn't going to do that, not now, not here. He swiped his eyes quickly and rolled over until he was lying on his stomach, pushed his arms and knees up, then rose on shaky legs. He almost tripped over, caught himself on the wall and scanned the room quickly to find Jared groaning, sprawled out on the couch. This was insane, hugely insane. Jensen could almost write this off as some kind of bad dream, hallucination maybe, but when he looked at the window it was still broken in as physical evidence of their jump, their crazy, whacked up adventure and Jensen felt his shoulders start to sag in some miserable defeat.

He stumbled around the room, feeling foreign, alien somehow, his mind wandering back to the angel Castiel and Bobby Singer, left back in their own world expecting the return of the Winchester brothers. Then just like that Jensen was heading to the door, hands trembling, ears ringing, old sneakers stomping over the glass shards scattered all over the room and then he thought, this is gonna suck for the guy to clean up all this. He flung open the door of his trailer to the outside world, glad it was cloudy instead of sunny so he didn't have to shield his face from the near blinding light. He caught sight of the other trailers and oh god, he was back again. In the back of his mind, he realized he hadn't been gone that long, maybe a little over a day but god, it already felt like more than that, like a week, like a month. It was insane. Jensen saw people walking around him, cameras, props, a wave here and there when they caught sight of him staring and he grinned, genuinely happy, and waved back and some people sent him some weird stares in response to his unusual enthusiasm but for once, Jensen ignored them because it was seriously fucking good to be back. He was never going to get tired of thinking that, feeling that, at least not for a long time.

Just as Jensen was feeling his body relax, at peace, he noticed a man racing by, caught the blur of a familiar dark jacket…no, that couldn't…it was impossible, right? His eyes widened at the guy's back; that familiar military cut and his hands flew to rub gingerly at his own head involuntarily. Lips pursed, Jensen had a sudden thought and acted out of pure instinct. He raised one hand as if to reach the guy and said, "Wait!" Paused, then, "Winchester, fucking a wait a minute!" Then before Jensen could even figure what was going on, before the guy could jerk to a full stop, he was stumbling over to his impossible doppelganger. When he shot his head back up, he was gripping at the guy's jacket, and yup, that was definitely the jacket that 'Dean Winchester' always wore, the one that always made him look like he was a part of a rock band or so said his fans, and Jesus, he wanted to laugh and sob all at once, because he was either turning into a whacko and this was just some poor dude dressing up and playing pretend and he'd be sent off to the nuthouse before he could even fully form a comprehensive apology, or it was all real and Jensen was going to drive to the nearest bar tonight and drown in all the alcohol money could buy in this world and get some new priorities in the morning.

He could feel a tremor run through the guy for a second before he shook it off and then Jensen's shoulders were grabbed in both hands, god, iron grip much, and then he was being shaken slightly until he was looking the dude in the eyes, in green vibrant eyes, and Jensen was really off the kilter now because he might as well be facing the damn mirror. Christ, this is weird, he thought dazedly. For a moment he wasn't sure what to say to the man, to himself essentially. But Dean didn't seem to have a problem with his next move. His hand came up viciously fast, and soon before Jensen even knew what hit him, his whole world was spinning, his face turned with the hard impact of the loud, resound SMACK. What the everlasting hell, his fucking TV character just—SMACK.

"Dude, you with me yet?"

Jensen shook himself out his daze. His fucking TV character just slapped him twice now. "God, when did my life turn out so weird?"

"Welcome to mine," Dean said. He loosened his grip and stepped back, fixing Jensen with an expected glance. "Okay, so just to make sure we're on the same page here, you're Jensen Ackles, right? The 'me' of this world or whatever."

Jensen blinked dazedly, rubbed at his sore face. "Uh, yeah, I'm Jensen…" Letting his voice trail off, he peered closer at Dean. God this was still so freaky. "You're uh, Dean."

"Yeah. Dean Winchester, hunter extraordinaire, at your service," Dean said with a smirk.

People always asked him questions about the role he played on the TV show, questions generally Jensen never cared to think about, like, do you think you share a lot in common with Dean? The standard answer was always yes, yes he did. He had always considered himself loyal to a fault and Dean, well, Dean was as fucking loyal as any son of bitch could get. How far would you go to save a friend? A family member? He wasn't so sure he'd burn in hell for someone. Maybe he would. Maybe he wouldn't. But Jensen never thought about that too seriously because hell wasn't real in the sense it was in the show. Hell was…well, no one really knew if hell actually existed. But now, now walking side by side a man that should never have existed in the first place, it made Jensen think.

Jensen's perspective on things had really been changing the past day. Travelling to another dimension can do that to you, he thought sourly. There was a more interesting question someone asked him more recently at a convention. It went something like this: "If you could ask Dean Winchester anything you wanted, what would you ask?" The fan had worded that as a one question thing but Jensen realized now he had way more than one or two or, hell, a couple questions. Was this like asking himself questions? He thought about that but shook his head mentally. Dean, as far as he could tell, was his own person, not just some extended part of Jensen. He was flesh and blood, and he felt, well, he felt pretty solid to Jensen earlier. Unless he was hallucinating. Then Jared was hallucinating as well. And Sam was a part of it. God everything was so weird. His life was so weird.

They were sitting in Jensen's trailer, all four of them. An hour since Jensen ran up to his doppelganger, fifty five minutes since Jared woke up and saw them together as Dean quickly explained he was trying to find his brother and fifteen minutes of aimless wandering led the three to huddle in a corner of the main set trying to come up with some game plan as to where Sam might have hid out, which eventually led to finding him at the buffet table outside the trailer ten minutes later all broody, and gorging on chicken and rice and all the edibles they had stocked up at the place. Then everyone else decided they were hungry and Jensen offered his trailer for lunch instead of standing around like clueless, suspicious idiots and that had pretty much been that.

"So let me get this straight, you guys were somehow zapped to our world after we fell into yours, and you guys ran into Bobby and he let you stay with him 'til you guys could get things sorted out and then, the angel, Cas, Castiel, whatever the hell you wanna call him, he shows up and sends you guys back here to find us and help get us back home—our home."

Jensen nodded as he dipped a chicken wing into the sauce. "Got it in one, partner."

"Can you believe this, Sammy? Looks like Cas will let any regular Joe help these days," Dean complained. "I mean couldn't he have sent us divine help in the form of an angel at least?"

Jensen opened his mouth to say something but Sam beat him to the punch. "Well, Dean, they're not exactly regular." He glanced briefly from Jensen to Jared with a forced grin that dropped once he got back to dipping his eggroll into the sauce.

"How do you figure that? I bet you they never shot a gun before," Dean said, munching on his rice.

"No…but we, uh, took down a rugaru. Does that count?" Jared chugged down half his beer as the group turned to stare at him. "What? It was gonna get out eventually."

"You took down a rugaru?" Sam choked out.

"With a pipe too, might I add," Jensen chimed in with a grin, then took up his beer in a mock toast. "Ain't such a regular Joe after all, huh?"

Dean blinked in surprise and shared a look with his brother before they all erupted into laughter.

"Jared, man, you gotta tell the story behind that one," Dean said once they all settled down again.

"Uh, nah, you really don't want to know," Jared said with a grimace.

"Why's that?"

Jensen grinned as he patted Jared. He leaned back, relaxed and content from the lunch they had. "Dude, he fucking pissed his pants he was so scared at first. See, it got us trapped in the warehouse and god, lemme tell you now, Jared's got this thing for tight, cramped places—"

"—you can't be serious," Jared cut in. "That's not how it went, jackass, and you know it. Let me tell the story."

Jensen shrugged and glanced to Dean, winking at his doppelganger. This wasn't so bad now that he had a little to drink. He could almost pretend he was just hanging with a bunch of buddies, drinking and talking like old times, just pretend that Dean and Sam were just really, really convincing stunt doubles. He could totally handle this. Taking another swig of his drink he listened as Jared rehashed their impossible adventure.

"…Jensen totally hid behind me like a scared little girl," Jared said with a smirk and took a long pull of his second bottle.

Jensen immediately scowled, feeling his face burn up with heat. Jesus. Sam roared with laughter and slapped his brother's back as Dean tried not to choke on his own beer. "Hey, my actor's no pansy!" he protested and slung an arm around Jensen. He leaned up against him and smacked him on hard on the head. Jensen was sure it was supposed to be a reassuring pat but it came out harder than intended due to the amount of liquor in his system and he barely managed to hide a wince. "Don't worry, dude, I got your back," he said, the words coming out a little slurred.

Jensen scrunched his face and pushed his doppelganger off him, sending him crashing into his brother's side. "Ow! Dean!" Sam cried in surprise.

"Sorry," Dean mumbled as he got off his brother.

Jensen sniggered, feeling a weird sense of triumph. They all talked some more after that, eventually letting the conversation steer into more serious territory like how Cas told them they could communicate with him between worlds since magic didn't exactly exist in a more conventional way.

"Human blood and an exorcism in Latin," Dean mumbled as he drained his fourth beer. Jensen raised an eyebrow as he watched the hunter get up on shaky legs. He staggered for a bit before grabbing hold of the wall to balance himself. "Who would've figured that motherfucker was right 'bout something? Angels are goddamn hilarious."

"It's not really funny."

"Well duh, that was sarcasm. Ever heard of it? 'Course it's not funny. I mean, we gotta slit the throat of some poor bastard just to fucking talk to Cas!"

"Jesus, Dean, calm down," Sam said.

Dean scowled at him and said loudly, "I am calm. This is calm, Sammy. Me. Being. Fucking. Calm."

"This is our only way back, Dean," Sam said, starting to get to his feet to face off against his brother now. "You said it yourself, we can't stay here."

Jensen and Jared exchanged knowing looks. Jensen backed up a few steps to get out of the way of an obvious start to a brotherly scrimmage. With Sam and Dean, it always seemed to end up bloody instead of with hugs and kittens. The two hunters started circling around each other, hands clenching and unclenching just itching to release some pent up anger and frustration that had been building for days, maybe weeks. Who knew just how long really?

"Since when have you been such a cold, heart…" Dean's voice trailed off as Sam showed a somewhat self-deprecating grin, his eyes daring Dean to finish what he was going to say. Dean swallowed, looking a bit guilty but continued anyway, "…heartless son of bitch, Sammy?"

"Maybe I've always been one, Dean," Sam said.

Dean shook his head. "No, no matter what you think, you've always had good intentions."

"Good intentions?" Sam snorted. "Dude, what about last year when I didn't have a soul?"

"Dude, hello, soulless. And that wasn't even you so don't start on that here."

"Fine, then what about when I was drinking demon—"

Jared coughed awkwardly and the two paused in their brother/lover's spat long enough to stare at the other two men in the room with them. Oddly enough Jensen thought they had pretty much forgotten Jared and he were even there. Sam looked somewhat embarrassed, his face slightly red and Dean had quickly glanced away, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest trying for nonchalant.

"Right, sorry."

Jensen waved the apology away and got down to business. "So who's the sucker whose blood we're gonna need to do this thing?" He looked at each of the men expectantly.

Almost immediately four arms shoved out to be used in the ritual. "Okay, enough. Let me just say this once: No one here is going to use anyone here in any ritual, capisce?"

Jensen frowned as all the limbs returned to their respective owners, his own retracted somewhat slower than the others. He nibbled the bottom of his lip suppressing the urge to say, "Sir, yes, sir. Want us to get down on our hands and knees and do some pushups as well, sir?" It must have shown on his face though because Dean narrowed his eyes at him and Jensen just smiled oh so innocently, the years as an actor did wonders.

So now they were back at square one, which was really nothing at all. Except for the fact Jensen and Jared had two doppelgangers. He really didn't want to dwell too much on that fact though.

A knock on the door startled Jensen out of his daze. He was half way to his feet when Misha barged in without so much as a warning and Jensen had just enough time to chance a glance to his co-star who was straddling a chair to the table. Sam and Dean had taken the couch which left Jensen standing awkwardly in the middle of his very much cramped trailer, a toothpick dangling between his teeth.

"Oh thank god, Jensen, you're here. Kripke and Singer were starting to—"

Well, nothing like awkward in 'Awkward-Ville', Jensen thought ruefully as he looked around him.

"Awwwkward," Dean's voice chimed into the silence.