Jesus Christ.
Ok, so not a lot happens in this chapter. And just so you know? No non-action chapter should take as long as this one did.
Remember earlier when I said these were unedited? Well, this one is REALLY unedited, and I've just finished it at midnight and I have not enough sleep already, so...no promises are being made.
This week's excuses are Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and homework. I guess those are all valid, but they're still excuses.
The truth is I could not summon up the will to right this darn chapter. It's hard enough to keep two Winchesters in character, and now I've got to deal with duplicates? Earlier the duplicates were in separate places, little Sam with big Dean and little Dean with big Sam, but now? Now it's Dean on Dean and Sam on Sam and my head is going to explode.
YOU try writing that, see how it works for you.
Why did I write this story in the first place?
Anyway, I did write it. And I have a chapter here for you. (Also, I wrote an Amazing Spiderman/Daredevil one-shot, so...Marvel fans, anyone?) Gimme feedback! Is it awesome or awful or somewhere in between?
Ok. Without any further ado...
Chappie numero thirteen. Ah. Thirteen? Maybe that's why it didn't want to be written.
Oh, and I named my muse. His name is Steven, in honor of the world's most evilest tv screenwriter. Pie to anyone who gets it.
I don't even have the energy for a fun disclaimer. That's how tired I am.
Then
You don't give up on family.
"No. I already warned him away from my family. I don't give second chances."
He sighted along the barrel and Sam flinched back. A cry escaped from the mouth of Sam's own younger self, past-Dean at the same time shouting, "Dad, no!" and then the air was filled with the flutter of wings.
Cas stood behind John, pulling him into an arm lock and wresting the gun from his hand. "Enough!" he said harshly. "Violence will solve nothing!"
John opened his mouth to retaliate, but they never found out what he would have said, because at that moment the air filled with a ferocious growling noise.
"Hellhounds."
All eyes switched to the porch. A strange man stood there, blade at Past-Sammy's throat.
The man's eyes were black.
A footstep behind Sam and the prickle of hairs on the back of his neck alerted him to the approaching figure behind him and he whirled, but it was too late. In seconds he was in the same position as his younger self.
And the demon who was holding him captive was Meg.
"My father really wants to see them. Now, instead of just one meat-suit, we've got two!"
There was a blast of wind and then Sam's surroundings changed. He lashed out violently, but a fist collided his head and sent him spinning into darkness.
The last thing he saw was the bright white flash of Meg's smile
Now
"Sam!"
"Sammy!"
Two voices called out. Two pairs of green eyes widened in horror. Two bow-legged bodies started forward towards an enemy that was no longer there.
In that moment, John saw.
And he understood.
The understanding crashed onto him in a cold wave and he froze, mind racing at the conclusion he just come to.
He didn't know why he hadn't seen it before, when it was right under his nose. The way 'Ash' had moved during the fight—those were the moves John had taught his sons, the adaptations Sammy had made for them to fit his form. The serious tone and the protectiveness in the new man's voice—that was Dean's attitude whenever his younger brother was threatened.
His sons' earlier awkwardness. Sammy's reluctance to talk about what had happened to him. Dean's vague explanation of how he'd been found. Bobby's suspicious behavior concerning John's arrival.
The demon had called them by their names.
"Hey, Sammy!" "Sorry, Dean-o."
"Oh, god," choked out John. His arms went limp in the grasp of the trench coat clad stranger, and he was cautiously released.
The Dean-like newcomer turned to him, face tired. "Do you see it?" he asked simply.
"No…that's not…"
"It is."
"Are you…?" he didn't need to continue. His eyes flitted from his eldest son to the man before him.
"Yep."
He'd hit Ash—Sam. He'd hurt him. Oh, god…
He'd tried to kill him. He'd raised the gun and he was going to pull the trigger.
John's eyes sought solace with Bobby, but the sympathy in the older man's expression was more than he could handle. His gaze trailed from one version of Dean to the next, before finally settling on the empty spaces at either side of his peripheral vision.
"Oh, god, Sammy…" he breathed. "I'm so sorry."
A second apology was sent silently upwards. It was plaintive and deep-rooted and familiar, apology he'd made many times in the past.
It was an apology to Mary, a plea of forgiveness for destroying the lives of her boys.
When Sammy woke up, he had no idea where he was.
The room was dark, the air moldy and damp. He could hear his own ragged gasps reverberating off of the walls.
His breaths...and the breaths of one other.
Scratch that. Still his breaths. Just two sets of them.
Sam—his older self—still seemed to be unconscious. Sammy crawled over to him in the dim light, limbs protesting. Gently he prodded the broad shoulder, reveling at the hugeness he would someday achieve.
When this was all over, he was going to tease Dean about this. Mercilessly. For all eternity.
Well….he supposed that would be if this was ever over, not when.
Sam wasn't waking up, so Sammy poked him again. "Wake up," he whispered harshly.
He couldn't seem to get his brain to understand that he and this man were the same person. There was no reasoning with it; the human mind was not built for such matters.
"Sam!" he hissed again, putting both hands on the hunter's shoulders and shaking him violently.
There was a low moan, and for the first time Sammy noticed the blood clumped along his older self's hairline. As he let his gaze travel along Sam's body, he realized just how beat up he was. Obviously the demon that had snagged them had done something injurious to the man, and that was on top of the beating he'd received from Dad.
"Hey! Wake up!" he was starting to feel desperate now; sure, they were the same person, but Sam was older and had more experience. He'd know what to do, right? He'd get them out of here, wherever 'here' was.
In the corner of his mind, Sammy wondered at how easily he'd placed his older self in Dean's position.
"Uhn…"
Sammy's eyes snapped towards Sam's face instantly, eyes straining in the dim light. "Sam!" he insisted, the name strange in his mouth when directed at another person. "Hey!"
"Uh….wha?" The familiar hazel eyes opened slowly. They focused on his face and blinked once. "Oh, god, you're still there."
Sammy wasn't sure whether or not he should be offended by that. He decided to ignore it. "How do you feel?"
Sam sat up slowly. "Well, I have one monster of a headache," he moaned, rubbing his forehead. "Where the hell are we?"
"I dunno," Sammy shrugged. "I just woke up here a couple minutes ago."
"Ugh." Sam closed his eyes for a long moment, forehead wrinkled in an expression of worried thought that Sammy found himself mirroring. "What do you remember?"
"Um…I was inside with Dean and then we heard yelling so we ran outside and Dad was….and when I saw you at first I couldn't believe what I was seeing, but then I remembered how much the other Dean looked like my Dean when I saw him for the first time—"
"Whoa, whoa, wait," said Sam, holding up a hand. "You already met Dean? My Dean, I mean."
Sammy nodded.
"So…he told you about everything that happened? You know who I am?"
"Dude, did you not even hear the part where I called you 'Sam'? And yeah, I know what happened because it happened to me too. I can now officially say that I've seen the future."
"Huh." Sam brushed a loose strand of hair out of his face.
"Can I finish answering your earlier question?"
"Oh! Oh, yeah."
"So I saw Dad and you and…uh…what was happening, and then I wanted to stop him but I didn't know how. And then the air went cold and Dean's eyes got all big and then that demon had me. Then the other one, the girl one, finished talking and everything got all black."
Sam pressed his lips together and inspected a cut on his hand. "Yeah, that's pretty much the same thing I remember. We've got the best luck, don't we?"
"Hm. Yeah," snorted Sammy dryly.
They were quiet for a moment.
The older hunter took a breath as if to speak, and Sammy glanced over, but he'd already closed his mouth again. "What?" Sammy asked.
"Nothing. Just—" he seemed to think for a moment. "Nothing."
"No, seriously, what?"
Sam turned to him, eyebrows knotting together impressively. "Something that Meg said is bothering me."
"Meg…that's the demon that grabbed you, right?"
"Right. Anyway, right before she zapped us here, she said that 'instead of having one meat-suit, they had two'. So…"
Sammy stared at him for a moment, confused. "Uh…so they're planning on possessing us? Aren't there, like, a bagillion other people they could nab? Why make a special trip just for us, and leave the rest of them?"
Up to this point, every new emotion that came to Sam was instantly clear to Sammy. Every gesture, every inflection, every individual syllable was his own. But the look that now filled Sam's eyes wasn't anything he'd ever felt himself. It was sad, and tired. It was desperate.
It terrified Sammy more than anything else he'd seen over the past few days, and that was saying something considering where he was currently.
"There's a lot you don't understand," said Sam softly. "Not yet."
"So explain it to me," Sammy crossed his arms stubbornly. "And don't give me any of that 'you can't know about your future' crap."
Sam sighed. "Well…I don't know how to say this, so I'm just gonna go for it. Angels exist."
"Yeah, I know. How d'ya think I got back here?"
One eyebrow lifted beneath the long brown bangs. "Huh. That makes things simpler."
"Does it?"
"Yeah, it does. Um, so…I'm just going to give you the basics. And…uh…don't freak out."
Sammy stared at him. "Dude. I have time-traveled via angel express, met my older self, and been kidnapped by demons. Nothing you say is going to make me any more freaked out than I already am."
Sam snorted and opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment there came an ominous creaking noise and the door swung open.
Black leather boots leading up to dark jeans and a black leather jacket. Dark gray t-shirt and stringy obsidian hair framing a round face and a pure white smile.
Meg.
"Hello, boys. Comfortable?"
Dean was pacing.
He'd been pacing for the last hour, silently watched by an old drunk, his dead father, an angel, and his own younger self.
It was like the setup to a comedy routine.
When he'd first had the thought he turned around to joke about it to Sam, expecting the typical roll of the eyes and practiced annoyance. But the words had died on his lips, because Sam wasn't there.
Damn Meg. Damn the Apocalypse. Damn it all to Hell.
"Are you sure you can't find them?" Dean said to Cas for what must have been the tenth time. "I mean, little Sammy doesn't have the rib tattoos yet, so…"
Cas sighed, exasperated. "As I have already told you, Dean, no. Wherever they're being kept must be warded against angels."
Dean pressed his lips together and resumed his pacing. They all sat there in silence for a moment longer, before John spoke.
"Can we talk about what's going on now?" His voice was strained, his eyes tired. Dean knew that his father was horrified by what he'd done, and yet all he could feel was anger towards him.
It must have shown in his face that he did not want to explain, because after a brief pause, Past-Him spoke up.
"They're from the future. My understanding is that some demon did something that pulled our Sammy from the now and swapped him with that Sam. That's me. The other guy who you...the other guy is Sammy."
John looked away. "So how'd future-you get back here?"
"That would be me," said Cas, not moving from his position leaning against the doorframe.
"And who the hell are you?"
"My name is Castiel. I am an angel of the lord."
"Seriously?" John asked, unbelieving.
"Yes. I was able to bring Dean and this time's Sam back so that he would be returned to you and so that we could retrieve our Sam."
Bobby crossed his arms. "So why do the demons want either of 'em anyway? And what was all that crap about 'meat-suits'?"
Dean couldn't take it anymore. Sammy was missing—his Sammy, and two versions of his Sammy, and Dean had let it happen—and they were just sitting around talking. So what if Cas couldn't find them with his angel mojo? Dean was prepared to manually search the entire country until he found his brother.
"It doesn't matter!" he exploded. "Sam's missing and we're sitting around chatting like a bunch of useless bums! We should be out looking for him!"
They all stared at him in shocked silence for a moment. "Dean…" Cas started cautiously.
"Dammit, Cas, no!" yelled Dean, throwing his hands up. "Don't talk to me like that! All of you! Stop looking at me like I'm made of glass! Get off your asses and do something!"
"He's right," said Past-Dean, standing. "Or, well, I guess I'm right. Whatever, the point is that—"
"Stop it. Both of you." John's tone was low and final, making it very clear that he was now in command of the discussion. "We'll find Sam. Believe me, we will. But yelling and acting rash isn't going to help. I want him back as much as you, but the fact is we have no idea where to start. You say we should be out looking. Fine, then, we'll look. Where, exactly, are we looking? Do we have any ideas? At all?"
Dean squeezed his eyes shut, face taught with pain. He gave no reply, and neither did his younger self.
"Right. So we need a plan. You know how we get a plan? We sit down and we think, but most importantly we get all the facts. We know our enemy: their objectives, their motives. What do they want? Why do they want it? Where would they keep it, and how will we find it?
"I know you're panicking. I know you're scared for Sam's sake. And believe me, I am too. After all, I'm the one who…" he cleared his throat. "The point is that as much as it hurts, we can't lose our heads. We have to put our feelings aside and focus on asking the right questions. If we do that, we can find your brother."
There was a pause, before Past-Dean spoke up softly. "Do you think he knows we're coming?"
Something inside Dean broke to hear the words spoken aloud. Those were the words that sang like a mantra through his head; those were the words that pounded through his veins with every beat of his heart. Where is Sam? Will we find him? Is he ok? Does he know we're coming for him?
He thought back to all the times Sammy had gotten himself into trouble, all the times Dean had had to save him. He remembered feeling his brother's blood between his fingers as Sammy's body grew cold, Bobby's footsteps disappearing into the night in pursuit of the monster responsible, followed by his desperate bid to save Sam, even if it cost him his own soul. He remembered coming back from Hell and the look on Sammy's face, the way he embraced Dean like he never wanted to let go. He remembered Sam's eyes, clouded with demonic power, so afraid as he realized what he'd done and the light filled the room.
He remembered all these things, and Dean knew one thing. He knew that no matter what happened, wherever Sam was, he would find him. He would save him.
He was willing to bet Sammy knew it too.
"Yeah," he said, not looking at his younger self. "I think he knows."