Author's note: Thanks a lot to my beta reader, Ghastly Eternity, for finding all those poor little missing commas. And thanks to everyone who left a review, or let me know that people are reading this by adding the story to their favorites or story alerts.

3

Sam was still holding his arms up waiting for the machete to impact on his skin when the loud chants of "Jerry, Jerry, Jerry" brought to his attention that the scene had changed once more.

"Son of a -" Dean said before a beeping sound covered up the rest of his statement.

It spoke volumes about the mental state Sam was in that his first thought to that went along the lines of "Strange, I thought they added those sound-effects in post-production".

"My guests today are Sam and Dean," Jerry Springer finally began to talk. Both Winchesters could have gladly lived without that ever happening though. Chances were that whatever they were here for they wouldn't like it. Not liking whatever the hell was going on seemed to be what everything was about to them these days.

"Sam, you teamed up with a demon behind your brother's back and started the Apocalypse," the talk-show host went on like he was talking about nothing more than one of the usual scenarios that were brought up on his show. Well, it was Jerry Springer they were on, so of course their story might even be considered pretty tame compared to what their everyday guest would talk about.

The audience booed energetically.

Sam hid his face in his hands before allowing himself a moment to express his annoyance in a tone of voice dangerously close to a whine, "I want back to Camp Crystal Lake!"

Dean apparently agreed with him if the expression on his face was anything to go by.

"Look, um," he started addressing the talk-show master "It's not like… I mean he was being played and Ruby was one manipulating -" The beeping cut him off once more.

To tell the truth Dean found it sort of hard to defend his brother in the matter. While he was glad that Sam had seen sense in the end – even if it had been too late – and that they were back to fighting together he still couldn't say that there were absolutely no hard feelings. Also expressing his thoughts on the topic while a studio audience and an annoying jerk were listening just wasn't Dean's piece of pie so to say.

"I have a question!" one of the audience members said standing up and focusing her stare at Sam, "What does it feel like to know we're all going to die because of you?"

And wasn't that woman lucky that they hadn't been able to bring any guns into TV-land? Wanting to shoot annoying but ultimately innocent bystanders was by no means Sam's first reaction on any normal day, but this was different on so many levels that he found the thought rather pleasant.

"What do you think it feels like?" he shot back rather sarcastically glancing over to his brother just to see if he could read any thoughts on the topic on his face. As expected there really wasn't anything new there, just the usual disappointment and general dislike of the subject.

"Don't you think it's unfair that everyone's only blaming you when Dean was the one to break the first seal?" another audience member asked.

Even though that one seemed to be more on his side Sam's urge to kill rose again immediately. Why did all those idiots think they could comment on their lives anyway? The Trickster made them do it of course! The urge to kill didn't fade when Sam reminded himself of that fact it just found a new and more fitting target.

"Alright," Dean interrupted Sam's inner musings about all the nasty things he wanted to do to the Trickster, "How do we get out of here as fast as possible?"

"We answer questions and talk about crap we wouldn't talk about in private on national television," the younger Winchester explained what he was pretty sure would get them through this the fastest, though he knew that his brother was going to resist the idea especially since talking about private things was involved.

Dean's entire reply was covered up by beeping noises this time but it was easy enough to figure out what he had just said anyway.

"Now you're just trying to say every word they'll censor," Sam observed slightly irritated, "And that won't get us anywhere!"

It wasn't like he was so keen on sharing his feelings on the freaking Apocalypse with a bunch of strangers but at least they weren't really on national television, so that was something. Damn, now that he thought about it he wouldn't put it past the Trickster to actually broadcast the little scheme he had going on here or at least bits and pieces of it.

"Oh yeah? And how do you know that? It's -" censorship of course once more wouldn't allow him to go on talking uninterrupted, "Jerry Springer! How do you know we don't have to curse our -" at this part the beeping returned with a vengeance, "off? Or maybe we're just seriously overdressed!" Dean was getting frustrated with being censored in mid-speech. Freedom of speech apparently went hand in hand with the freedom to censor whatever the fuck they wanted. And yes, Dean was getting agitated about being unable to use swearwords but he had had it with TV-land for quite some time already and he had loathed the fucking Trickster ever since they had first met him to begin with, so excuse him for losing his nerves!

"Sure, Dean, you'd rather get naked than talk… now that's new!" Sam retorted with more annoyance than was actually aimed at his brother but Dean wasn't the only one this was getting to. Not to mention that apparently the freaking theme of the show was just how bad Sam had fucked everything up.

"Bite me!" Dean shot back immediately and with more force than he had intended to use.

"You two really need to calm down and think about the people you are hurting with your behavior," the talk-show host interrupted their argument in a grave tone that was supposed to come across as caring.

The brothers stopped yelling at each other, if only because they both didn't really know that the jerk was talking about. He had clearly just spoken about them bickering so who the hell could they be hurting with that? Other than each other of course but that was kind of the point.

Thinking about it like that they really should stop before things got completely out of hand and they ended up saying things they'd really regret.

"Huh?" Dean asked eloquently just as Sam said, "Come again?"

"You really should have resolved your conflicts before you chose to adopt the little one," Jerry elaborated putting a sad expression on his face as he pointed toward the video-wall that was showing Castiel's face.

The angel was looking around confused but seemed otherwise no worse than he had been the last time he had managed to get to them. That was something at least. Before either of the three men could say anything or try to communicate in another fashion the screen went blank again.

It figured that the Trickster would not give Castiel the chance to finish saying what he had meant to tell the brothers but the very fact that he had brought the angel to the talk-show showed how sure he was that Cas couldn't do anything against him.

While the Winchesters still were nowhere near solving their predicament they at least had learned two important things: Castiel was alive and relatively fine and the Trickster had a power-level that had to be well enough above that of an angel. Granted, the latter didn't really help them since they had suspected that already. Dean's niggling feeling that he wasn't seeing something that was right in front of his eyes became stronger though.

"Castiel is a strong… person, he can take listening to us argue," Sam said somewhat lamely. His real thoughts were more into the direction that Castiel didn't like him anyway so as long as it seemed that Dean was going to win the argument he clearly wouldn't give a damn. If he voiced that thought it'd only bring an issue to the table that really wasn't an issue at all however.

For a guy that was way out of touch with his own feelings Dean sure had the tendency to pick up on everything he thought Sam might be implying and then blow it out of proportion so badly that Sam wished he had never said anything to begin with.

"He also knows that we're just letting off some steam," he added after it became clear that Dean wasn't even dreaming about contributing to the conversation, "And that we really… um… have this family-bond…"

Sam might be more in touch with his feelings than his bigger brother – which wasn't hard in the first place – but he wasn't going to say that he loved his brother in front of an audience he didn't feel comfortable around without either of them close to death.

"Yeah… what he said," Dean agreed with a curt nod.

Maybe if they could overcome the differences that the show said they had that would be the end of it. It was worth a shot anyway.

"Hug, hug, hug!" the audience chanted which had the brothers stare at each other awkwardly.

In the end it was Sam that just grabbed his brother and pulled him into a bear-hug.