The Treadmill - Part 2
Nov. 13th, 2014 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberdreamsBack to Part 1
Jensen surfaces slowly, floating up into the light in gradual increments, unlike the rush he’d felt when the divers had released his legs before when filming this drowning scene. When he finally opens his eyes he’s surprised to see a white ceiling instead of sky. His first thought is to wonder Where’s the damned lake gone? His second is that his head hurts like a motherfucker. He tries to sit up, and hisses in pain as his shoulder is stabbed through with burning agony. He falls back against the soft pillows and breathes through the pain.
That’s when he remembers.
He was in the gym, then he’d touched the screen and …what? The treadmill generated a vortex in time and space and sucked him through the machine into California? Insane. But he remembers so clearly, how the air had been warm and dry and smelled of sage-brush, so different from rain-washed Vancouver. And then he’d fallen down a hill…but that’s impossible. It’s all impossible.
Worry about these weird delusions gives him the motivation to try sitting up again. This time,he gets as far as setting his feet on the floor and trying to stand before dizziness hits him and he’s back on his ass fighting off a wave of nausea. Eric chooses that moment to walk in. Jensen figures he’s not cutting the best picture for an early return to work right now. He can feel how the blood has drained out of his cheeks, and the way the hospital gown is exposing his bare legs as they dangle over the edge of the bed is making him feel vulnerable. So naturally, he covers it with bravado.
He swings his legs back onto the bed and pretends the movement doesn’t set his injuries jangling like someone’s poking him with an electric cattle prod.
“Jensen! You’re awake. Awesome…though, man, you look like crap.” Eric’s saying, as he approaches the bed. Jensen notes with incredulity the bunch of flowers the writer is clutching. Flowers? Really? Does he look like a chick? Jensen opens his mouth to say something, but he’s missed his chance. Kripke’s a roller-coaster of non-stop verbiage.
“What did you do, kid? I’ve heard of people falling off treadmills before, stupid dangerous places, gyms, that’s why you’d never catch me in one, you know? But anyhow, you really did a number on yourself, the doc said it looked like you’d virtually thrown yourself off, must have been running pretty fast, eh? He said you’ve got road rash as well as concussion and a dislocated shoulder.”
Jensen manages to squeeze a few words in when Eric pauses for breath.
“How long have I been out?”
“Well, we can’t be sure because we don’t know what time you got to the gym last night, but the personal trainer, that big blond behemoth, Karl I think his name is, found you about five am, and you’ve been here for about four hours, give or take.”
Jensen put a hand to his head, gingerly touching the bandage that is probably the only thing holding his brains in. Shit. He really had done a number on himself.
Eric fusses over Jensen like a mother hen. Jensen won’t admit he finds it kind of comforting. Reminds him of something; someone… A nurse comes in, takes one look at Jensen’s pallor and injects something into his arm that sends the half memory floating into the non-existent breeze.
“Kim’s rescheduled the shooting while you recover, so we are filming all Amy’s scenes with Lucas, and the parts with the minor characters drowning.”
That’s good news, so Jensen nods, which is a mistake. Pale blue butterflies puff up in a cloud around Eric’s head, as if they are being irresistibly drawn to the golden glow of Kripke’s receding hairline. It’s raining outside, and the drumming on the window pane seems to create a rhythmic backing track to Eric’s words as he starts telling Jensen about his five year plan for Supernatural and for Dean Winchester.
Jensen blames the morphine for what he says next, because normally, he wouldn’t dream of making major suggestions to the writers. He’s an actor, he’s not creative in any way - he just reads the script and does as he’s told. Except. This feels like an imperative.
“Eric,” he says, interrupting Eric in full flow. Part of Jensen watches with fascination as the vibrations of his voice causes the butterflies to transform into a shower of gold, falling like the Vancouver rain. “Have you never thought that there’s something missing from Dean’s life? Not just his father, I think there’s someone else.”
Jensen blinks, slowly. He doesn’t know where that thought came from but suddenly he’s seeing the face in his dream, the guy from the treadmill’s video. Those wide hazel eyes are looking straight into his soul, and he knows he’s right. There is something very important missing from Kripke’s story. Someone vital.
Just saying it out loud makes Jensen feel better. It feels good, like a release of something tight inside his chest. So he talks some more. Leaning forward, eyes shining with enthusiasm, Jensen tells Eric Kripke what he thinks Dean’s story arc should contain. It takes a while. Apparently Jensen has a lot of opinions on the subject he hadn’t previously been aware of. Whatever they put in his drip is some seriously good shit.
When Jensen wakes up again some time later, Eric has gone and he’s alone. It’s dark outside and everything is quiet except for the soft tapping of the persistent rain on his window. The headache is back, and his shoulder’s throbbing in an unpleasant counter-point. Jensen wonders what on earth he’d said to Kripke. He thinks maybe he went a bit overboard. Slowly snippets come floating back to him.
“Oh my god. I think I gave him about four seasons’ worth of ramblings,” he said to the empty chair.
He flushes a little when he remembers how he’d blathered on about his theory that family, and loyalty, and having to fight for those meant more to Dean than saving random strangers. It would be a miracle if Eric had managed to make sense of anything that had tumbled out of his mouth.
Because thinking back on it now, Jensen certainly can’t.
Why would he feel so strongly about family ties when he can’t even remember the last time he spoke to his own family? In fact, right now, he’s having trouble visualising any of their faces.
Then the morphine drip timer kicks back in and the pain subsides, sliding Jensen into a turbulent sleep full of imaginings. He dreams he’s Dean Winchester. He dreams of flames and loss and a sadness deeper than anything Jensen has ever experienced. He dreams of pain, of failure and guilt and regret. He wakes in the morning with tears still wet on his cheeks and calling out for someone he doesn’t know whose name is Sam.
After his close encounter with his brother, Sam tries the ritual every day for a week; his forearms are scored with red lines from the knife and ache all the time; so much so that he has to constantly remind himself that the trials are over, that he was healed of all that. In spite of it all, the mirror stays empty of Dean.
He tries to get the portal to link to any other location, but it remains fixed on the gym, so Sam does too. He watches the ebb and flow of the fit and the unfit, the buff and the Stay Puft Marshmallow-men and women, but Dean isn’t among them.
Whatever it was that had allowed Sam to meet up with Dean inside the gym machine’s virtual world only seemed to work when Dean was at the other end, because Sam tries and fails again and again to get to that halfway point – but whether it’s the streets of Los Angeles and the Hollywood Hills, Crystal Cove Beach or the mountain trails that come after that – all are inaccessible, no matter who’s using the programs on the gym equipment.
And all the while Sam can’t get the image out of his head of Dean falling.
On top of it all, when Sam does manage to sleep, he dreams about Dean. He has no way of telling whether the dreams are just that, or if they are visions, or even memories. Or maybe all three ingredients mixed up into one messy casserole, stirred by his subconscious. In his dreams Sam sees Dean, pale and unconscious in a hospital bed. People Sam doesn’t recognise sit at his brother’s bedside and Dean looks small and lost and so young – just like he always does when he’s injured. Sam dreams of Dean with one arm in a sling, prowling round a smart apartment, all chrome and leather and huge picture windows. Dean looks uncomfortable in that swanky setting, out of place and restless. He dreams of Dean on a film set that looks exactly like the one Balthazar had sent them to. Sam even recognises some of the crew, including one of the guys - Keith? Kevin? – who had been shot by the crazy angel who’d followed them through to that other universe. Sam guesses from those differences that this must be yet another alternate dimension and it makes his head hurt to think how many there might be out there. How many possible other lives they could have led.
Sam doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know why he’s pursuing this when he’d told Dean he wouldn’t try and get him back if something happened. Or maybe he does know, and that is exactly why he’s trying so hard – because he told Dean he wouldn’t, and Dean believed him. Dean fucking believed Sam wouldn’t care enough about him, wouldn’t miss him, didn’t fucking love him enough to search for him and bring him back no matter where Dean ended up or why.
That makes Sam’s heart ache so bad he can’t feel the pain in his arms any more.
Because maybe Dean had been right.
Two days after being discharged from the hospital, Jensen’s headache goes away, but the feeling of being on the edge of dizziness remains. He says nothing about it though, because enduring a single day of ‘rest and recuperation’ had him climbing the walls of his apartment. So when Kim calls to see how he is, Jensen jumps at the chance of getting back to work. When he arrives on set, after being greeted with an enthusiasm that warms his soul, he’s handed a new version of the script.
“Yeah, apparently Eric had a eureka moment about where the whole season should be going. He managed to sell it to the studio execs, so there’s been some rejigging.”
Jensen starts reading it while he’s walking to his trailer, absorbed within seconds. It’s good. Better than anything Jensen’s doped up ramblings could have come up with. Which isn’t surprising, obviously. Eric is the writer, he’s the one with all the ideas. Jensen’s just an actor who might, just possibly, be cracking up.
Jensen speed reads the revised script, then reads it again. This is going to be interesting. It turns out, Dean’s been suffering from amnesia, due to a head injury on a solo hunt. Jensen can’t help a smile while reading that part. Evidently his own header off the treadmill had provided a spark of inspiration for Kripke. So rescuing Lucas and helping the kid get over the trauma has triggered memories for Dean, and the episode now ends with Dean resolved to head for Stanford, to recruit his estranged little brother into the search for their father.
Apparently, Dean’s brother’s name is Sam.
Jensen stares at the page for a long time.
Jared Padalecki is perfect for the part of Sam. Jensen isn’t sure why he thinks so, but it’s true. Of course, it isn’t Jensen’s opinion that really matters, but it certainly helps their brotherly dynamic on set when the cameras roll. It’s only after Jared arrives that Jensen realises that he’d been holding back something back from his acting, and that the knot in his stomach, that was so ever-present he was hardly aware of it, has gone. It’s funny really, because Jared is nothing like the overly serious, traumatised character Kripke has created. When Jared is being Jared, he bounces around the set like an exuberant puppy on speed, eating boxes full of luridly coloured candy and dragging Jensen into increasingly ridiculous pranks on crew and cast members, seemingly at random. It’s kind of exhausting.
But when the cameras start rolling, Jared becomes Sam Winchester, and after only a couple of days filming, Jensen’s heart is aching for the character, because it seems to him that Jared is the kind of guy Sam could have been, if fate hadn’t been dead set against the Winchesters from the start.
A few days after Jared’s arrival and the insertion of the younger Winchester into the story, Jensen starts dreaming every night. Vivid, terrifying dreams he can only vaguely remember in the morning but that leave him on edge, unsettled again, filled with yearning for something he can’t define.
Five days after he’d caught that first, jarring glimpse of Dean, only to lose him, Sam finds Dean’s body.
Sam’s starting to understand something about the in-between place that seems to be contained somewhere between his mirror and the other world’s gym machines. So, as he’s having no luck contacting his brother again, Sam decides to spend the time exploring In-Between. He likes it there because nobody bothers him. In fact nobody inside the machine world is aware of his presence at all. He’s invisible and inaudible, and after the old lady pushes a shopping trolley right through him, he realises he’s incorporeal too. It’s just like that time Pamela sent him and Dean outside of their bodies to talk to that sad, dark-eyed ghost-kid, what was his name? Yeah, Cole, that’s it.
Except now Dean isn’t there to make Sam uncomfortable with stupid jokes, getting all inappropriate and handsy with his ethereal form.
With nothing to do but search and think, Sam’s been wondering about the fact that this time, Dean appears to be occupying Jensen’s body, rather than replacing the actor physically, as had happened when Balthazar had done his meddling. Which raises the question – where was Dean’s real body? Was Jensen’s soul, psyche, whatever, living inside Dean’s vessel in yet another parallel universe?
Sam works his way methodically through the various locations, always on the look out for Dean in any form, of course, but also alert for any other anomalies. As much as you can search for weirdness in a place that isn’t real, where you yourself are the equivalent of a ghost. The more time he spends In-Between, the more he comes to appreciate its separateness. There is something calming about being able to just investigate, without having to interact with anyone.
He especially loves the beach part of the program. It’s Crystal Cove Beach, with the sun always setting to the west, the same sparse scattering of joggers and walkers, the tide always on the turn. Sam hasn’t yet worked out if the tide ever actually comes in, or whether time moves forward at all when Sam isn’t there. Is the cat in the box alive or dead? Nobody knows… The air is fresh with the tang of salt; the sea breeze keeps the same gentle pressure on his skin, a hint of coolness to counter the dying warmth of the sun. Jessica is the only ghost who follows him here. Maybe because it’s California.
She’s here now, she takes his hand and leads him towards the water’s edge - and that’s when he finds the body. Dean’s body.
The body is lying above the high tide line like so much flotsam. Sam’s heart leaps in his chest with fear.
Jess stays with him as he crouches down feeling for Dean’s pulse, a quiet comforting presence. There is a heartbeat, slow but strong and Sam can breathe again. He refuses to acknowledge how relieved he had been to find that Dean's body, out of all the people populating this space, is actually solid. As always in Sam’s life, Dean must have mass. Jessica’s fingertips rest gently on his shoulder, and he finds it reassuring, even though he knows she isn’t real. Dean’s skin is sun-kissed-warm and Sam revels in the faintest throb of blood moving under his touch.
But it’s just an empty shell. Unoccupied. Vacant.
He should have expected that, he supposes, but somehow he’s never ready to see Dean lifeless. Ridiculous, considering the number of times Sam has been witness to Dean dying, an experience that is hard to forget. But it is always utterly wrong. Dean is made to be loud and in constant movement, like an amplification of Newton’s first Law. Dean is frustrating and annoying and fucking beautiful.
“I wonder why the other guy’s spirit isn’t inhabiting Dean’s body,” Jess muses. Sam doesn’t have an answer, and to be frank, doesn’t really care where Jensen Ackles’s soul is. It’s an intellectual challenge, sure, but not his concern. Sam’s thighs tense as he gathers Dean’s empty shell in his arms. He’s not sure what to do with the body, but leaving it lying here on the beach doesn’t feel right. Dean’s going to need it when Sam gets him back. A large Labrador galumphs past, running through Sam’s leg but paradoxically kicking sand into Sam’s face before he can stand up. Sam allows Jess to brush it off, his hands full of Dean.
He concentrates on removing his hand from the mirror. It’s hard to get his head round it when in one dimension his hands are occupied, but he eventually manages to break the connection. When he blinks he’s back in his room in the bunker, and Dean still a dead weight in his arms.
Sam sags a little in relief. He hadn’t been sure his attempt to bring Dean’s body back would work. He hesitates before carrying Dean over to his own bed and carefully laying his brother down. Dean’s limbs are loose and relaxed, his face slack, the freckles standing out and his thick eyelashes stark against his pallor. This is nothing like death and nothing like sleep and Sam can’t get a grip how he feels.
Gadreel did something twisty and strange to separate Dean from his own body. Because Sam could see that that actor, Jensen Ackles, didn’t bear any of the scars of Dean’s life, but is still, clearly, recognisably Dean. Now he has Dean’s body with all its marks of Dean’s life on it, all he has to do is find out what Gadreel did, and reverse it.
Kevin sighs.
“More research I suppose? Great. Just don’t expect my Mom to be happy about this.”
Sam follows Kevin back to the library.
Jensen is losing himself, and he’s scared. This has never happened to him before. He’s always been able to separate himself from the characters he’s played, to shed the fictional persona at the end of the day when he walked off the set. He’s a professional, dammit - but this is different. Dean Winchester has gotten under his skin, and when Dean bleeds, Jensen bleeds too. He’s too invested, emotionally committed, and if he was a real Hollywood actor he’d be hiring a shrink, lying on that leather couch and pouring out his fears in a torrent every night.
But he’s just a good ole Texas boy, so he bottles it up and tries to deal.
The character bleed intensifies after the concussion and Sam’s arrival. No, he means Jared’s. Except he kind of doesn’t, because Jared is too perfect at being Dean’s little brother.
They film a couple of extra scenes for the Pilot, to introduce Sam’s character, and explain why Dean’s hunting alone during Wendigo and Dead in the Water, then Dean fetches Sam from Stanford in Phantom Traveller and the brothers start searching for their father together. It’s their first encounter with a demon too, which for some reason leaves Jensen rattled.
Jensen’s nights become restless and disturbed again, his dreams fretful and violent when he does manage to fall asleep. He buys an expensive bottle of malt then leaves it on his nightstand, unopened. Its amber glow distorts the digital display on his alarm clock in a vaguely accusing manner.
“You look fucking awful, man. What’re you doing to yourself?” Jared says towards the end of their first week shooting together. He’s munching on something rainbow coloured and sticky that’s turned his tongue multi-coloured. Jensen knows this because Jared keeps waggling his tongue at him, of course. He’s amazed at the ease in which the two of them have fallen into such a close relationship, both on and off set.
“I dunno,” Jensen says, rubbing at the back of his head, running his hand over the bristles of his recent buzz-cut. It’s a Dean-gesture, not his own, but he doesn’t notice. “I think I should get back to some regular exercise. That was helping me sleep last time, before I fell off the stupid treadmill.”
“Cool!” Jared bounces on his toes like an excited pre-schooler, albeit a giant one. “Want some company while you’re training?”
“Sure, why not.”
Jensen says yes, but a tiny part of him is reluctant to have Jared with him in the gym. He doesn’t want to think too deeply about why that might be, so he ignores the feeling and the two of them stop off at Gym’n’Trim late that night after shooting ends.
Predictably, Jared loves the fact that they have the gym to themselves and wants to try out everything. Jensen happily spots for Jared while the younger man lifts some ridiculous amount, but declines to risk his own healing shoulder on weights. He finds himself eyeing up the treadmill with some trepidation, unsure whether what he’s feeling is down to his fall, or the fear that he might experience another delusional trip into the world of the machine video. How fucking ridiculous has his life become that he’s worrying about stepping onto a piece of gym equipment? He starts when Jared claps him on the back on the way past him before jumping onto one of the treadmills.
“Are you okay, man?” Jared asks, his expression all friendly concern, and Jensen gives himself a mental shake.
“Yeah, sure. Nothing wrong with my legs,” he says.
Jensen climbs up and starts punching in the virtual run programme, automatically selecting his usual options without even thinking about it. The belt starts moving and Jensen starts to jog. Jared is already running full out, his big size thirteen Nikes thudding down and making the gym’s sprung floor judder in sympathy. Jensen wonders idly if the treadmill is built to withstand these sorts of impacts, and grins.
“Something funny?”
“Unless watching a sasquatch try to run is funny, then no,” Jensen replied, getting a punch to the arm (fortunately on his good side) in reward.
“Hey! Channelling your character much, there, Jen? You know I’m not really Sam Winchester, don’t you?”
Jensen laughs. Of course he knows this happy-go-lucky, unscarred, innocent kid isn’t his little brother.
Jared never stops talking, the running not affecting his breathing one tiny bit. Jensen listens with half his attention on the small screen in front of him. He watches as the LA streets give way to the Hollywood Hills to the Crystal Cove without any sign of anything untoward. Once the video reaches the beach, though, Jensen’s focus sharpens because the sun has nearly disappeared below the horizon, and the wide strip of sand the camera usually pans along is probably half as wide as it has been on previous occasions. The tide that has never moved before is coming in.
Senses on high alert, Jensen waits to see what happens next. His heart rate rockets, much higher than the effort he’s putting in should warrant, then he completely loses track of the conversation a few seconds later, when he spots the guy. His guy, the mystery man who Jensen realises isn’t a mystery any more, because Jensen recognises him. At the same moment he recognises himself.
That guy is the real Sam Winchester. Dean’s brother. His brother that he’s been missing like a phantom limb, never even realising it until now. Without a second thought Dean reaches out and touches the picture on the screen in front of him and the world dissolves. He doesn’t hear Jared shouting ‘Jensen!’ or feel the other man grabbing his arm, just the sound of waves breaking and then the cold of the salt water as he plummets into the ocean.
After the frustrating days of no contact and no Dean, finally there he is, entering the gym. Sam almost doesn’t notice that Dean isn’t alone this time, so it’s a total shock when he finally registers the other guy with his brother. It’s like looking into a mirror that only shows a past that never happened. The guy is a younger, carefree version of himself and Sam is frozen by the unfamiliar familiarity. The uncertainty that had gripped him when he’d first seen Dean in this other dimension comes back tenfold.
What if Dean really would be better off staying in this young actor’s perfect body? Maybe Dean could find true happiness living someone else’s life, could benefit from the healing that must come from inhabiting a body that once housed a soul unblemished by Hell and Purgatory and betrayal.
What if Sam had the same opportunity, being presented to him now?
To live in a world where there was no Hell, no Heaven, where angels and demons, ghosts and ghouls existed only in stories; a world where nobody needed saving. To inhabit a meat-suit that had never tasted demon blood or been required to kill anything more evil than a wasp. To have a body that was clean.
Sam watches the two men exercising for a long time before he presses his bloody palm to the glass and opens the door to In-Between.
The first thing Sam notices on arriving through the portal is that the sun has nearly disappeared and night is falling over the California coast. It gives the place an ominous cast that wasn’t there on his previous visits, and he doesn’t like it. The temperature is dropping with the sun, and a chill breeze is ruffling his hair. It blows sand and salt against his exposed skin.
The beach is empty, no dog walkers or joggers or random tourists. Just Sam, the soaring sea gulls and the incoming sea.
Sam fingers the knife in his pocket and hopes this is going to work. In-Between might have been of interest for a while, but it isn’t somewhere Sam wants to be trapped forever. Even if it is with Dean - of which there is no guarantee. Sam has no way of opening the door from the dimension where Dean is now, all he has is this – the ability to enter a halfway point and the hope that Dean will be drawn through again like before. Whatever happens, whatever choices are made, Sam doesn’t want either of them to be stuck here, where they would be nothing more than living ghosts.
Fortunately, Sam doesn’t have long to sit around imagining worst-case scenarios.
In that instant,Dean materialises. Like last time, Sam helpessly watches as Dean falls, straight down the sandy cliffs into the sea – unlike last time, however, Dean’s apparently attached to someone else. The double splash is considerable, and the water must be deeper there than Sam had thought, because it takes a gut-wrenchingly long time for either man to break the surface again. To make matters worse, the place the two of them came through is several yards down the beach from Sam, who takes off at a run the moment he sees Dean hit the water. Trust his brother to find a weak point between the worlds right where it is most hazardous.
It’s hard to see with the fading light and the cresting waves, but finally Sam spots one dark head, then a second, bobbing around in the water. Sam reaches the water’s edge and without hesitation plunges in. He reaches the two men in a couple of strong strokes, and sees his own eyes, wide and frightened, as the younger guy turns towards Sam. Jared, that was his name, Sam remembers.
Help. Jared’s mouth forms around the words, the sound lost in the crash of surf and the water in Sam’s ears. Help us. Sam can see Dean’s eyes are closed, his head’s lolling against Jared, who’s keeping Dean’s head above the water. Fuck. Sam grabs onto Jared’s shoulder and relies on the actor to keep his brother safe while he tows the two of them to shore. Those few yards feel like infinity, the doubled up weight and the turbulence of the sea taking its toll. Relief washes over Sam like the biggest wave of all when he feels the sand of the beach grinding underneath his shoulders. With one last effort, he hauls himself and his two passengers farther up the beach and out of the surf.
Sam and Jared both move at the same time, and nearly clash heads as they lean over Dean’s inert body.
“Dean!” “Jensen!”
Dean feels like he’s drowning. He can’t breathe and there is a roaring in his ears and holy fuck, that’s because he actually is in the sea and drowning. His mouth is full of salt and there’s a small part of him that is thinking that’s a good thing, keep the demons out, when his head breaks the surface of the water. Only for a wave to hit him in the face full on, sending him back under only having had time to draw a single choking breath. A strong current seizes him and flings him around so he’s no longer sure which way is up, at which point it all becomes academic, because he’s slammed head first into something very hard, and blacks out before he even has time to think oh not again.
Given the circumstances, Dean isn’t expecting to wake up at all, so his first thought on opening his eyes is to look for Death, or at the very least, a Reaper. Finding two anxious Sams bending over him instead is so far down his list of possible scenarios he doesn’t even find it surprising. The imperative to hack up of a lungful of seawater does take him by surprise though, and coughing his way out of that he finds one of the Sams is now holding him upright in his arms. He deduces from that this is his Sammy, which makes the other one Jared Padathingy. The actor guy.
Memories come back stronger than any tide, flooding into all the empty spaces inside his head. Why are there empty spaces? He doesn’t know, and pain stops him speculating. It’s enough that has all that history back (and what a history it is too), and for the first time in months he feels like Dean Winchester. Compared to that certainty, the fact that what he doesn’t know could fill a book the size of Lord of the Rings seems less important. Though it would be nice to find out how he got here, and where here is.
The other Sam sees Dean’s eyes are open and says Jensen just as the bigger Sam who’s holding him says Dean, and eases him into a more comfortable position; still with those big arms wrapped tight round him and Dean doesn’t have the energy to object right now, so sue him if he doesn’t relax just a little bit and enjoy it.
“Where t’fuck?” Dean manages to rasp out, and of course it’s his Sam who answers. And of course, his answer is virtually incomprehensible.
“I’m calling it In-Between. It seems to be an inter-dimensional loop, trapped between our world and the world Jared and Jensen are from. It was lucky this was here because otherwise I had no way of contacting you.”
Man, but Dean’s head hurts. But it’s kind of comforting in its familiarity, all the same.
Jared starts asking questions, Sam answering in what might as well be Anglo Saxon riddles for all the comprehension Dean’s brain was doing right now. One thing Dean does notice over the percussion in his head though. His feet are getting wet. Wetter. It seems a trivial thing to be bothering about until he finally does the math. Wet feet means the tide must be coming in.
“We need to move,” Dean says, then repeats it, louder, when the two Sams don’t pay him any mind. He struggles to stand and fails miserably, but his Sam eventually gets on the case. There’s a flurry of activity and then somehow, all three of them are climbing up a steep and crumbling sandy path. Dean isn’t so much climbing as being half dragged, half carried, but he tries to take some of the strain off Sam during the dragging part, and counts that as a win.
The three of them collapse into a panting heap when they reach the summit of the cliff, and Dean finds himself with all the strength and coordination of a ragdoll, too weak to even lift his head. Sam has hold of his T-shirt – and where the hell are the rest of his clothes? He’s wearing shorts for fuck’s sake – and is talking to him. Dean thinks this must be important, so he hones in on Sam’s serious features and listens as best he can through water-bunged ears.
In spite of his best intentions, Dean only grasps every other word. Something about Purgatory, and souls, and Benny. Honestly, he has no idea what is going on. He just nods – a mistake as it feels like his head’s about to drop off – and tells Sam yes. Like he always does.
“Whatever you have to do, Sammy,” he says, “Take whatever you need.” Get us home.
Dean doesn’t flinch when Sam pulls out his bowie knife, and holds steady when Sam draws the blade across his forearm. He vaguely hears the other Sam – no, Jared – shouting a protest, and his Sam saying something reassuring, then Sam is pressing their bloody arms together and the world is dissolving into fire.
Huh. Here we go again.
Jared is in a state of suspended disbelief, right up until the moment the bigger, older and, quite frankly, fucking terrifying version of himself takes out a huge knife and starts cutting Jensen’s arm. By then it’s too late to stop whatever scary shit the guy is doing. For a big dude he sure can move fast.
For some reason, seeing two men light up from the inside out like a pair of Roman candles shocks Jared more than anything else that has happened on this ride into crazy. He barely has the presence of mind to catch Jensen’s body when the light snaps off like someone flipped a switch, and Sam staggers backwards, breathing as heavily as if he’d just finished a marathon. It’s like someone flipped Jensen’s switch off at the same time as the light, because he just crumples. Jared takes all his weight and gently lowers him down, holding his friend in his arms just like the other man – Sam – had been doing just moments ago. Sam isn’t showing any sign of the possessiveness he’d displayed towards Jensen before, in fact he no longer seems interested in either of them. It looks like Sam is just going to fuck off now he’s done whatever the hell he’s done to Jensen, because he has his back turned and is walking away. Which makes Jared furious.
“Hey!” Jared’s shout stops Sam taking another step away, and when Sam spins around, Jared realises from his expression that the guy had actually forgotten they even existed. At least he has the grace to look apologetic about it.
“You can’t just leave us here like this,” Jared tells him, quiet but firm, and Sam nods wearily. To Jared’s relief, Sam walks back and kneels down beside them. Sam looks at Jensen’s pale face for a long moment, and Jared can’t read his expression at all. Regret? Remorse? Or sadness mixed with a hint of envy? Even though Sam’s face is so like his own, Jared can’t tell.
“I think Jensen should be in there; he should be fine,” Sam says, and Jared doesn’t understand what Sam means by the first part, but takes comfort from the latter.
“That’s great,” Jared says, unable to stop the note of bitterness creeping into his voice, “but how do I get him home?”
“You won’t like it, and I can’t promise it will work, but the odds are in your favour. There is nothing to bind the two of you here, and everything calling you back to your home, so…”
Jared listens carefully, takes the bloody knife Sam Winchester gives him, then stares into the dark vacuum that Sam leaves behind when he disappears.
Jared sits on the prickly sea grasses with the Californian night breeze blowing his salt-stiffened hair dry, and holds onto Jensen as if his friend is the only safe and normal thing left in his world.
The first thing he notices is the warmth, then the brightness of the light. The air tastes sweet on his tongue, no trace of bitter salt. He looks around and sees nothing that he recognises, and yet everything feels familiar. It smells like home in a way that no place has ever done since Dean was four years old and his childhood burnt away.
Any sense of urgency, all hint of worry drop away and Dean truly relaxes for what is probably the first time in his life since the death of their Mom. Is this what Heaven should really have been like? He doesn’t know or care.
Wherever this is, Dean feels no need to do anything except be. At any other time, in any other place, he’d have laughed and made some joke about Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, but now, there’s no need to be defensive. It’s as if all negativity has been drained out of him and he is at peace. Finally, here’s the rest when he is done.
There’s no sense of time passing, so Dean has no idea how long he’s been waiting when Sam appears. Somehow the light gets brighter in Sam’s presence, and Dean realises where this must be.
“Am I…inside you?”
“Yup.” Sam pauses a beat, then raises an eyebrow. “What, no innuendo about it making me uncomfortable?”
“I guess not.” Dean shrugs.
“You seem very laid back about all this,” Sam gestures vaguely around. Dean shrugs again. It seems being here isn’t doing anything to expand his body language vocabulary, but Sam is right. He doesn’t remember ever feeling this calm. Except for when he’s on Ketamine, but that doesn’t count as that always comes with a side order of serious injury.
“I like it here,” he says, at exactly the same time Sam says, “You know you can’t stay.”
There’s an impasse. They stare at each other until Dean has to look away. Those five little words have shot his equilibrium down, and anxiety returns in full force. Shadows gather at Dean’s edges.
“This could only ever be temporary, Dean. Carrying your soul inside me. A human body is only made to house one soul, who knows what two will do to me?”
Dean looks up at that. Sam’s right, having him here could be damaging Sam, harming him in ways Dean couldn’t imagine. Sullying him with Dean’s brokenness. Why would Sam want to be this close to Dean when Sam didn’t even want to be his brother any more?
“Shut up, dude, don’t be so fucking stupid,” Sam says, startling Dean out of his downward spiral. “I can hear what you are thinking, your soul’s inside mine, remember? Not that it’s any different now from how we usually work. I always carry a little part of you around inside me, you know that, don’t you?”
Dean can see Sam wants him to say yes, but he can’t do it. Sam, fuck him, actually looks disappointed. Wounded, even, by Dean’s silence. Oh man, his little brother and his sad, sad eyes. Even here, when neither of them have an actual body to feel the compulsion, Sam can make him do and say things he doesn’t want to. So he does. He blurts it out quickly, as if there’s a chance Sam won’t notice.
“I can’t go back, Sam. I can’t live like that. Where you and me aren’t family. What’s the point?”
“I haven’t forgiven you for allowing Gadreel to possess me, for deceiving me.” Sam holds a hand up when Dean opens his mouth to protest. “But I was lying to you, and to myself, saying I wouldn’t do anything to bring you back, because of course I would. You are my brother, nothing can change that. And you might be a selfish dick sometimes, but so am I.”
Dean doesn’t understand what’s brought about Sam’s change of heart, but he’ll take whatever he can get. Especially if it means he gets Sam.
He does get Sam, doesn’t he? Isn’t that how the story ends?
Sam’s back in the Bunker and his arm is burning with the fire of a thousand suns. It’s clichéd but true. He doesn’t remember what it felt like to have an angel inside him, but he does remember how it felt to have Lucifer inside him, and this is totally different.
He stops with his right hand on the handle of Dean’s door, savouring the way Dean’s soul is sending heat through his veins. Sam is warm for the first time since he returned from the Cage, and the Bunker is silent. Peaceful. For the first time, Sam thinks the place smells like home.
Sam understands his brother now, has him nestled close to his heart in a way that was never possible before, and he’s filled with a terrifying reluctance to give that up. If he opens the door, Dean’s body will be there, and Sam will have to let Dean go. Holding on hurts, but letting go is unthinkable.
All Sam’s ghosts are quiet, there is no one there to help him make the right decision, no inner voice telling him what to do.
Except one.
“I stopped you ending it all, Sammy, and maybe the method I chose was the wrong one - but I can’t be sorry for that. Yeah, it was selfish; I just couldn’t face living without you again. Been there, done that.” Dean smiles at him, his expression rueful. Dean lifts his palm up to cup Sam’s cheek, mirroring Sam’s gesture when they’d spoken in that forest, before Sam had walked into the cabin to talk to Death.
“I’d be happy to stay here with you forever, just a voice in your head. Soul mates they said, didn’t they? It’s better than I deserve. Whatever you decide, Sammy, I’ve got your back. Always.”
“I know you have, Dean,” Sam whispers. “I know.”
Sam opens the door.
Jensen surfaces slowly, floating up into the light in gradual increments, unlike the rush he’d felt when the divers had released his legs before when filming this drowning scene. When he finally opens his eyes he’s surprised to see a white ceiling instead of sky. His first thought is to wonder Where’s the damned lake gone? His second is that his head hurts like a motherfucker. He tries to sit up, and hisses in pain as his shoulder is stabbed through with burning agony. He falls back against the soft pillows and breathes through the pain.
That’s when he remembers.
He was in the gym, then he’d touched the screen and …what? The treadmill generated a vortex in time and space and sucked him through the machine into California? Insane. But he remembers so clearly, how the air had been warm and dry and smelled of sage-brush, so different from rain-washed Vancouver. And then he’d fallen down a hill…but that’s impossible. It’s all impossible.
Worry about these weird delusions gives him the motivation to try sitting up again. This time,he gets as far as setting his feet on the floor and trying to stand before dizziness hits him and he’s back on his ass fighting off a wave of nausea. Eric chooses that moment to walk in. Jensen figures he’s not cutting the best picture for an early return to work right now. He can feel how the blood has drained out of his cheeks, and the way the hospital gown is exposing his bare legs as they dangle over the edge of the bed is making him feel vulnerable. So naturally, he covers it with bravado.
He swings his legs back onto the bed and pretends the movement doesn’t set his injuries jangling like someone’s poking him with an electric cattle prod.
“Jensen! You’re awake. Awesome…though, man, you look like crap.” Eric’s saying, as he approaches the bed. Jensen notes with incredulity the bunch of flowers the writer is clutching. Flowers? Really? Does he look like a chick? Jensen opens his mouth to say something, but he’s missed his chance. Kripke’s a roller-coaster of non-stop verbiage.
“What did you do, kid? I’ve heard of people falling off treadmills before, stupid dangerous places, gyms, that’s why you’d never catch me in one, you know? But anyhow, you really did a number on yourself, the doc said it looked like you’d virtually thrown yourself off, must have been running pretty fast, eh? He said you’ve got road rash as well as concussion and a dislocated shoulder.”
Jensen manages to squeeze a few words in when Eric pauses for breath.
“How long have I been out?”
“Well, we can’t be sure because we don’t know what time you got to the gym last night, but the personal trainer, that big blond behemoth, Karl I think his name is, found you about five am, and you’ve been here for about four hours, give or take.”
Jensen put a hand to his head, gingerly touching the bandage that is probably the only thing holding his brains in. Shit. He really had done a number on himself.
Eric fusses over Jensen like a mother hen. Jensen won’t admit he finds it kind of comforting. Reminds him of something; someone… A nurse comes in, takes one look at Jensen’s pallor and injects something into his arm that sends the half memory floating into the non-existent breeze.
“Kim’s rescheduled the shooting while you recover, so we are filming all Amy’s scenes with Lucas, and the parts with the minor characters drowning.”
That’s good news, so Jensen nods, which is a mistake. Pale blue butterflies puff up in a cloud around Eric’s head, as if they are being irresistibly drawn to the golden glow of Kripke’s receding hairline. It’s raining outside, and the drumming on the window pane seems to create a rhythmic backing track to Eric’s words as he starts telling Jensen about his five year plan for Supernatural and for Dean Winchester.
Jensen blames the morphine for what he says next, because normally, he wouldn’t dream of making major suggestions to the writers. He’s an actor, he’s not creative in any way - he just reads the script and does as he’s told. Except. This feels like an imperative.
“Eric,” he says, interrupting Eric in full flow. Part of Jensen watches with fascination as the vibrations of his voice causes the butterflies to transform into a shower of gold, falling like the Vancouver rain. “Have you never thought that there’s something missing from Dean’s life? Not just his father, I think there’s someone else.”
Jensen blinks, slowly. He doesn’t know where that thought came from but suddenly he’s seeing the face in his dream, the guy from the treadmill’s video. Those wide hazel eyes are looking straight into his soul, and he knows he’s right. There is something very important missing from Kripke’s story. Someone vital.
Just saying it out loud makes Jensen feel better. It feels good, like a release of something tight inside his chest. So he talks some more. Leaning forward, eyes shining with enthusiasm, Jensen tells Eric Kripke what he thinks Dean’s story arc should contain. It takes a while. Apparently Jensen has a lot of opinions on the subject he hadn’t previously been aware of. Whatever they put in his drip is some seriously good shit.
When Jensen wakes up again some time later, Eric has gone and he’s alone. It’s dark outside and everything is quiet except for the soft tapping of the persistent rain on his window. The headache is back, and his shoulder’s throbbing in an unpleasant counter-point. Jensen wonders what on earth he’d said to Kripke. He thinks maybe he went a bit overboard. Slowly snippets come floating back to him.
“Oh my god. I think I gave him about four seasons’ worth of ramblings,” he said to the empty chair.
He flushes a little when he remembers how he’d blathered on about his theory that family, and loyalty, and having to fight for those meant more to Dean than saving random strangers. It would be a miracle if Eric had managed to make sense of anything that had tumbled out of his mouth.
Because thinking back on it now, Jensen certainly can’t.
Why would he feel so strongly about family ties when he can’t even remember the last time he spoke to his own family? In fact, right now, he’s having trouble visualising any of their faces.
Then the morphine drip timer kicks back in and the pain subsides, sliding Jensen into a turbulent sleep full of imaginings. He dreams he’s Dean Winchester. He dreams of flames and loss and a sadness deeper than anything Jensen has ever experienced. He dreams of pain, of failure and guilt and regret. He wakes in the morning with tears still wet on his cheeks and calling out for someone he doesn’t know whose name is Sam.
After his close encounter with his brother, Sam tries the ritual every day for a week; his forearms are scored with red lines from the knife and ache all the time; so much so that he has to constantly remind himself that the trials are over, that he was healed of all that. In spite of it all, the mirror stays empty of Dean.
He tries to get the portal to link to any other location, but it remains fixed on the gym, so Sam does too. He watches the ebb and flow of the fit and the unfit, the buff and the Stay Puft Marshmallow-men and women, but Dean isn’t among them.
Whatever it was that had allowed Sam to meet up with Dean inside the gym machine’s virtual world only seemed to work when Dean was at the other end, because Sam tries and fails again and again to get to that halfway point – but whether it’s the streets of Los Angeles and the Hollywood Hills, Crystal Cove Beach or the mountain trails that come after that – all are inaccessible, no matter who’s using the programs on the gym equipment.
And all the while Sam can’t get the image out of his head of Dean falling.
On top of it all, when Sam does manage to sleep, he dreams about Dean. He has no way of telling whether the dreams are just that, or if they are visions, or even memories. Or maybe all three ingredients mixed up into one messy casserole, stirred by his subconscious. In his dreams Sam sees Dean, pale and unconscious in a hospital bed. People Sam doesn’t recognise sit at his brother’s bedside and Dean looks small and lost and so young – just like he always does when he’s injured. Sam dreams of Dean with one arm in a sling, prowling round a smart apartment, all chrome and leather and huge picture windows. Dean looks uncomfortable in that swanky setting, out of place and restless. He dreams of Dean on a film set that looks exactly like the one Balthazar had sent them to. Sam even recognises some of the crew, including one of the guys - Keith? Kevin? – who had been shot by the crazy angel who’d followed them through to that other universe. Sam guesses from those differences that this must be yet another alternate dimension and it makes his head hurt to think how many there might be out there. How many possible other lives they could have led.
Sam doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know why he’s pursuing this when he’d told Dean he wouldn’t try and get him back if something happened. Or maybe he does know, and that is exactly why he’s trying so hard – because he told Dean he wouldn’t, and Dean believed him. Dean fucking believed Sam wouldn’t care enough about him, wouldn’t miss him, didn’t fucking love him enough to search for him and bring him back no matter where Dean ended up or why.
That makes Sam’s heart ache so bad he can’t feel the pain in his arms any more.
Because maybe Dean had been right.
Two days after being discharged from the hospital, Jensen’s headache goes away, but the feeling of being on the edge of dizziness remains. He says nothing about it though, because enduring a single day of ‘rest and recuperation’ had him climbing the walls of his apartment. So when Kim calls to see how he is, Jensen jumps at the chance of getting back to work. When he arrives on set, after being greeted with an enthusiasm that warms his soul, he’s handed a new version of the script.
“Yeah, apparently Eric had a eureka moment about where the whole season should be going. He managed to sell it to the studio execs, so there’s been some rejigging.”
Jensen starts reading it while he’s walking to his trailer, absorbed within seconds. It’s good. Better than anything Jensen’s doped up ramblings could have come up with. Which isn’t surprising, obviously. Eric is the writer, he’s the one with all the ideas. Jensen’s just an actor who might, just possibly, be cracking up.
Jensen speed reads the revised script, then reads it again. This is going to be interesting. It turns out, Dean’s been suffering from amnesia, due to a head injury on a solo hunt. Jensen can’t help a smile while reading that part. Evidently his own header off the treadmill had provided a spark of inspiration for Kripke. So rescuing Lucas and helping the kid get over the trauma has triggered memories for Dean, and the episode now ends with Dean resolved to head for Stanford, to recruit his estranged little brother into the search for their father.
Apparently, Dean’s brother’s name is Sam.
Jensen stares at the page for a long time.
Jared Padalecki is perfect for the part of Sam. Jensen isn’t sure why he thinks so, but it’s true. Of course, it isn’t Jensen’s opinion that really matters, but it certainly helps their brotherly dynamic on set when the cameras roll. It’s only after Jared arrives that Jensen realises that he’d been holding back something back from his acting, and that the knot in his stomach, that was so ever-present he was hardly aware of it, has gone. It’s funny really, because Jared is nothing like the overly serious, traumatised character Kripke has created. When Jared is being Jared, he bounces around the set like an exuberant puppy on speed, eating boxes full of luridly coloured candy and dragging Jensen into increasingly ridiculous pranks on crew and cast members, seemingly at random. It’s kind of exhausting.
But when the cameras start rolling, Jared becomes Sam Winchester, and after only a couple of days filming, Jensen’s heart is aching for the character, because it seems to him that Jared is the kind of guy Sam could have been, if fate hadn’t been dead set against the Winchesters from the start.
A few days after Jared’s arrival and the insertion of the younger Winchester into the story, Jensen starts dreaming every night. Vivid, terrifying dreams he can only vaguely remember in the morning but that leave him on edge, unsettled again, filled with yearning for something he can’t define.
Five days after he’d caught that first, jarring glimpse of Dean, only to lose him, Sam finds Dean’s body.
Sam’s starting to understand something about the in-between place that seems to be contained somewhere between his mirror and the other world’s gym machines. So, as he’s having no luck contacting his brother again, Sam decides to spend the time exploring In-Between. He likes it there because nobody bothers him. In fact nobody inside the machine world is aware of his presence at all. He’s invisible and inaudible, and after the old lady pushes a shopping trolley right through him, he realises he’s incorporeal too. It’s just like that time Pamela sent him and Dean outside of their bodies to talk to that sad, dark-eyed ghost-kid, what was his name? Yeah, Cole, that’s it.
Except now Dean isn’t there to make Sam uncomfortable with stupid jokes, getting all inappropriate and handsy with his ethereal form.
With nothing to do but search and think, Sam’s been wondering about the fact that this time, Dean appears to be occupying Jensen’s body, rather than replacing the actor physically, as had happened when Balthazar had done his meddling. Which raises the question – where was Dean’s real body? Was Jensen’s soul, psyche, whatever, living inside Dean’s vessel in yet another parallel universe?
Sam works his way methodically through the various locations, always on the look out for Dean in any form, of course, but also alert for any other anomalies. As much as you can search for weirdness in a place that isn’t real, where you yourself are the equivalent of a ghost. The more time he spends In-Between, the more he comes to appreciate its separateness. There is something calming about being able to just investigate, without having to interact with anyone.
He especially loves the beach part of the program. It’s Crystal Cove Beach, with the sun always setting to the west, the same sparse scattering of joggers and walkers, the tide always on the turn. Sam hasn’t yet worked out if the tide ever actually comes in, or whether time moves forward at all when Sam isn’t there. Is the cat in the box alive or dead? Nobody knows… The air is fresh with the tang of salt; the sea breeze keeps the same gentle pressure on his skin, a hint of coolness to counter the dying warmth of the sun. Jessica is the only ghost who follows him here. Maybe because it’s California.
She’s here now, she takes his hand and leads him towards the water’s edge - and that’s when he finds the body. Dean’s body.
The body is lying above the high tide line like so much flotsam. Sam’s heart leaps in his chest with fear.
Jess stays with him as he crouches down feeling for Dean’s pulse, a quiet comforting presence. There is a heartbeat, slow but strong and Sam can breathe again. He refuses to acknowledge how relieved he had been to find that Dean's body, out of all the people populating this space, is actually solid. As always in Sam’s life, Dean must have mass. Jessica’s fingertips rest gently on his shoulder, and he finds it reassuring, even though he knows she isn’t real. Dean’s skin is sun-kissed-warm and Sam revels in the faintest throb of blood moving under his touch.
But it’s just an empty shell. Unoccupied. Vacant.
He should have expected that, he supposes, but somehow he’s never ready to see Dean lifeless. Ridiculous, considering the number of times Sam has been witness to Dean dying, an experience that is hard to forget. But it is always utterly wrong. Dean is made to be loud and in constant movement, like an amplification of Newton’s first Law. Dean is frustrating and annoying and fucking beautiful.
“I wonder why the other guy’s spirit isn’t inhabiting Dean’s body,” Jess muses. Sam doesn’t have an answer, and to be frank, doesn’t really care where Jensen Ackles’s soul is. It’s an intellectual challenge, sure, but not his concern. Sam’s thighs tense as he gathers Dean’s empty shell in his arms. He’s not sure what to do with the body, but leaving it lying here on the beach doesn’t feel right. Dean’s going to need it when Sam gets him back. A large Labrador galumphs past, running through Sam’s leg but paradoxically kicking sand into Sam’s face before he can stand up. Sam allows Jess to brush it off, his hands full of Dean.
He concentrates on removing his hand from the mirror. It’s hard to get his head round it when in one dimension his hands are occupied, but he eventually manages to break the connection. When he blinks he’s back in his room in the bunker, and Dean still a dead weight in his arms.
Sam sags a little in relief. He hadn’t been sure his attempt to bring Dean’s body back would work. He hesitates before carrying Dean over to his own bed and carefully laying his brother down. Dean’s limbs are loose and relaxed, his face slack, the freckles standing out and his thick eyelashes stark against his pallor. This is nothing like death and nothing like sleep and Sam can’t get a grip how he feels.
Gadreel did something twisty and strange to separate Dean from his own body. Because Sam could see that that actor, Jensen Ackles, didn’t bear any of the scars of Dean’s life, but is still, clearly, recognisably Dean. Now he has Dean’s body with all its marks of Dean’s life on it, all he has to do is find out what Gadreel did, and reverse it.
Kevin sighs.
“More research I suppose? Great. Just don’t expect my Mom to be happy about this.”
Sam follows Kevin back to the library.
Jensen is losing himself, and he’s scared. This has never happened to him before. He’s always been able to separate himself from the characters he’s played, to shed the fictional persona at the end of the day when he walked off the set. He’s a professional, dammit - but this is different. Dean Winchester has gotten under his skin, and when Dean bleeds, Jensen bleeds too. He’s too invested, emotionally committed, and if he was a real Hollywood actor he’d be hiring a shrink, lying on that leather couch and pouring out his fears in a torrent every night.
But he’s just a good ole Texas boy, so he bottles it up and tries to deal.
The character bleed intensifies after the concussion and Sam’s arrival. No, he means Jared’s. Except he kind of doesn’t, because Jared is too perfect at being Dean’s little brother.
They film a couple of extra scenes for the Pilot, to introduce Sam’s character, and explain why Dean’s hunting alone during Wendigo and Dead in the Water, then Dean fetches Sam from Stanford in Phantom Traveller and the brothers start searching for their father together. It’s their first encounter with a demon too, which for some reason leaves Jensen rattled.
Jensen’s nights become restless and disturbed again, his dreams fretful and violent when he does manage to fall asleep. He buys an expensive bottle of malt then leaves it on his nightstand, unopened. Its amber glow distorts the digital display on his alarm clock in a vaguely accusing manner.
“You look fucking awful, man. What’re you doing to yourself?” Jared says towards the end of their first week shooting together. He’s munching on something rainbow coloured and sticky that’s turned his tongue multi-coloured. Jensen knows this because Jared keeps waggling his tongue at him, of course. He’s amazed at the ease in which the two of them have fallen into such a close relationship, both on and off set.
“I dunno,” Jensen says, rubbing at the back of his head, running his hand over the bristles of his recent buzz-cut. It’s a Dean-gesture, not his own, but he doesn’t notice. “I think I should get back to some regular exercise. That was helping me sleep last time, before I fell off the stupid treadmill.”
“Cool!” Jared bounces on his toes like an excited pre-schooler, albeit a giant one. “Want some company while you’re training?”
“Sure, why not.”
Jensen says yes, but a tiny part of him is reluctant to have Jared with him in the gym. He doesn’t want to think too deeply about why that might be, so he ignores the feeling and the two of them stop off at Gym’n’Trim late that night after shooting ends.
Predictably, Jared loves the fact that they have the gym to themselves and wants to try out everything. Jensen happily spots for Jared while the younger man lifts some ridiculous amount, but declines to risk his own healing shoulder on weights. He finds himself eyeing up the treadmill with some trepidation, unsure whether what he’s feeling is down to his fall, or the fear that he might experience another delusional trip into the world of the machine video. How fucking ridiculous has his life become that he’s worrying about stepping onto a piece of gym equipment? He starts when Jared claps him on the back on the way past him before jumping onto one of the treadmills.
“Are you okay, man?” Jared asks, his expression all friendly concern, and Jensen gives himself a mental shake.
“Yeah, sure. Nothing wrong with my legs,” he says.
Jensen climbs up and starts punching in the virtual run programme, automatically selecting his usual options without even thinking about it. The belt starts moving and Jensen starts to jog. Jared is already running full out, his big size thirteen Nikes thudding down and making the gym’s sprung floor judder in sympathy. Jensen wonders idly if the treadmill is built to withstand these sorts of impacts, and grins.
“Something funny?”
“Unless watching a sasquatch try to run is funny, then no,” Jensen replied, getting a punch to the arm (fortunately on his good side) in reward.
“Hey! Channelling your character much, there, Jen? You know I’m not really Sam Winchester, don’t you?”
Jensen laughs. Of course he knows this happy-go-lucky, unscarred, innocent kid isn’t his little brother.
Jared never stops talking, the running not affecting his breathing one tiny bit. Jensen listens with half his attention on the small screen in front of him. He watches as the LA streets give way to the Hollywood Hills to the Crystal Cove without any sign of anything untoward. Once the video reaches the beach, though, Jensen’s focus sharpens because the sun has nearly disappeared below the horizon, and the wide strip of sand the camera usually pans along is probably half as wide as it has been on previous occasions. The tide that has never moved before is coming in.
Senses on high alert, Jensen waits to see what happens next. His heart rate rockets, much higher than the effort he’s putting in should warrant, then he completely loses track of the conversation a few seconds later, when he spots the guy. His guy, the mystery man who Jensen realises isn’t a mystery any more, because Jensen recognises him. At the same moment he recognises himself.
That guy is the real Sam Winchester. Dean’s brother. His brother that he’s been missing like a phantom limb, never even realising it until now. Without a second thought Dean reaches out and touches the picture on the screen in front of him and the world dissolves. He doesn’t hear Jared shouting ‘Jensen!’ or feel the other man grabbing his arm, just the sound of waves breaking and then the cold of the salt water as he plummets into the ocean.
After the frustrating days of no contact and no Dean, finally there he is, entering the gym. Sam almost doesn’t notice that Dean isn’t alone this time, so it’s a total shock when he finally registers the other guy with his brother. It’s like looking into a mirror that only shows a past that never happened. The guy is a younger, carefree version of himself and Sam is frozen by the unfamiliar familiarity. The uncertainty that had gripped him when he’d first seen Dean in this other dimension comes back tenfold.
What if Dean really would be better off staying in this young actor’s perfect body? Maybe Dean could find true happiness living someone else’s life, could benefit from the healing that must come from inhabiting a body that once housed a soul unblemished by Hell and Purgatory and betrayal.
What if Sam had the same opportunity, being presented to him now?
To live in a world where there was no Hell, no Heaven, where angels and demons, ghosts and ghouls existed only in stories; a world where nobody needed saving. To inhabit a meat-suit that had never tasted demon blood or been required to kill anything more evil than a wasp. To have a body that was clean.
Sam watches the two men exercising for a long time before he presses his bloody palm to the glass and opens the door to In-Between.
The first thing Sam notices on arriving through the portal is that the sun has nearly disappeared and night is falling over the California coast. It gives the place an ominous cast that wasn’t there on his previous visits, and he doesn’t like it. The temperature is dropping with the sun, and a chill breeze is ruffling his hair. It blows sand and salt against his exposed skin.
The beach is empty, no dog walkers or joggers or random tourists. Just Sam, the soaring sea gulls and the incoming sea.
Sam fingers the knife in his pocket and hopes this is going to work. In-Between might have been of interest for a while, but it isn’t somewhere Sam wants to be trapped forever. Even if it is with Dean - of which there is no guarantee. Sam has no way of opening the door from the dimension where Dean is now, all he has is this – the ability to enter a halfway point and the hope that Dean will be drawn through again like before. Whatever happens, whatever choices are made, Sam doesn’t want either of them to be stuck here, where they would be nothing more than living ghosts.
Fortunately, Sam doesn’t have long to sit around imagining worst-case scenarios.
In that instant,Dean materialises. Like last time, Sam helpessly watches as Dean falls, straight down the sandy cliffs into the sea – unlike last time, however, Dean’s apparently attached to someone else. The double splash is considerable, and the water must be deeper there than Sam had thought, because it takes a gut-wrenchingly long time for either man to break the surface again. To make matters worse, the place the two of them came through is several yards down the beach from Sam, who takes off at a run the moment he sees Dean hit the water. Trust his brother to find a weak point between the worlds right where it is most hazardous.
It’s hard to see with the fading light and the cresting waves, but finally Sam spots one dark head, then a second, bobbing around in the water. Sam reaches the water’s edge and without hesitation plunges in. He reaches the two men in a couple of strong strokes, and sees his own eyes, wide and frightened, as the younger guy turns towards Sam. Jared, that was his name, Sam remembers.
Help. Jared’s mouth forms around the words, the sound lost in the crash of surf and the water in Sam’s ears. Help us. Sam can see Dean’s eyes are closed, his head’s lolling against Jared, who’s keeping Dean’s head above the water. Fuck. Sam grabs onto Jared’s shoulder and relies on the actor to keep his brother safe while he tows the two of them to shore. Those few yards feel like infinity, the doubled up weight and the turbulence of the sea taking its toll. Relief washes over Sam like the biggest wave of all when he feels the sand of the beach grinding underneath his shoulders. With one last effort, he hauls himself and his two passengers farther up the beach and out of the surf.
Sam and Jared both move at the same time, and nearly clash heads as they lean over Dean’s inert body.
“Dean!” “Jensen!”
Dean feels like he’s drowning. He can’t breathe and there is a roaring in his ears and holy fuck, that’s because he actually is in the sea and drowning. His mouth is full of salt and there’s a small part of him that is thinking that’s a good thing, keep the demons out, when his head breaks the surface of the water. Only for a wave to hit him in the face full on, sending him back under only having had time to draw a single choking breath. A strong current seizes him and flings him around so he’s no longer sure which way is up, at which point it all becomes academic, because he’s slammed head first into something very hard, and blacks out before he even has time to think oh not again.
Given the circumstances, Dean isn’t expecting to wake up at all, so his first thought on opening his eyes is to look for Death, or at the very least, a Reaper. Finding two anxious Sams bending over him instead is so far down his list of possible scenarios he doesn’t even find it surprising. The imperative to hack up of a lungful of seawater does take him by surprise though, and coughing his way out of that he finds one of the Sams is now holding him upright in his arms. He deduces from that this is his Sammy, which makes the other one Jared Padathingy. The actor guy.
Memories come back stronger than any tide, flooding into all the empty spaces inside his head. Why are there empty spaces? He doesn’t know, and pain stops him speculating. It’s enough that has all that history back (and what a history it is too), and for the first time in months he feels like Dean Winchester. Compared to that certainty, the fact that what he doesn’t know could fill a book the size of Lord of the Rings seems less important. Though it would be nice to find out how he got here, and where here is.
The other Sam sees Dean’s eyes are open and says Jensen just as the bigger Sam who’s holding him says Dean, and eases him into a more comfortable position; still with those big arms wrapped tight round him and Dean doesn’t have the energy to object right now, so sue him if he doesn’t relax just a little bit and enjoy it.
“Where t’fuck?” Dean manages to rasp out, and of course it’s his Sam who answers. And of course, his answer is virtually incomprehensible.
“I’m calling it In-Between. It seems to be an inter-dimensional loop, trapped between our world and the world Jared and Jensen are from. It was lucky this was here because otherwise I had no way of contacting you.”
Man, but Dean’s head hurts. But it’s kind of comforting in its familiarity, all the same.
Jared starts asking questions, Sam answering in what might as well be Anglo Saxon riddles for all the comprehension Dean’s brain was doing right now. One thing Dean does notice over the percussion in his head though. His feet are getting wet. Wetter. It seems a trivial thing to be bothering about until he finally does the math. Wet feet means the tide must be coming in.
“We need to move,” Dean says, then repeats it, louder, when the two Sams don’t pay him any mind. He struggles to stand and fails miserably, but his Sam eventually gets on the case. There’s a flurry of activity and then somehow, all three of them are climbing up a steep and crumbling sandy path. Dean isn’t so much climbing as being half dragged, half carried, but he tries to take some of the strain off Sam during the dragging part, and counts that as a win.
The three of them collapse into a panting heap when they reach the summit of the cliff, and Dean finds himself with all the strength and coordination of a ragdoll, too weak to even lift his head. Sam has hold of his T-shirt – and where the hell are the rest of his clothes? He’s wearing shorts for fuck’s sake – and is talking to him. Dean thinks this must be important, so he hones in on Sam’s serious features and listens as best he can through water-bunged ears.
In spite of his best intentions, Dean only grasps every other word. Something about Purgatory, and souls, and Benny. Honestly, he has no idea what is going on. He just nods – a mistake as it feels like his head’s about to drop off – and tells Sam yes. Like he always does.
“Whatever you have to do, Sammy,” he says, “Take whatever you need.” Get us home.
Dean doesn’t flinch when Sam pulls out his bowie knife, and holds steady when Sam draws the blade across his forearm. He vaguely hears the other Sam – no, Jared – shouting a protest, and his Sam saying something reassuring, then Sam is pressing their bloody arms together and the world is dissolving into fire.
Huh. Here we go again.
Jared is in a state of suspended disbelief, right up until the moment the bigger, older and, quite frankly, fucking terrifying version of himself takes out a huge knife and starts cutting Jensen’s arm. By then it’s too late to stop whatever scary shit the guy is doing. For a big dude he sure can move fast.
For some reason, seeing two men light up from the inside out like a pair of Roman candles shocks Jared more than anything else that has happened on this ride into crazy. He barely has the presence of mind to catch Jensen’s body when the light snaps off like someone flipped a switch, and Sam staggers backwards, breathing as heavily as if he’d just finished a marathon. It’s like someone flipped Jensen’s switch off at the same time as the light, because he just crumples. Jared takes all his weight and gently lowers him down, holding his friend in his arms just like the other man – Sam – had been doing just moments ago. Sam isn’t showing any sign of the possessiveness he’d displayed towards Jensen before, in fact he no longer seems interested in either of them. It looks like Sam is just going to fuck off now he’s done whatever the hell he’s done to Jensen, because he has his back turned and is walking away. Which makes Jared furious.
“Hey!” Jared’s shout stops Sam taking another step away, and when Sam spins around, Jared realises from his expression that the guy had actually forgotten they even existed. At least he has the grace to look apologetic about it.
“You can’t just leave us here like this,” Jared tells him, quiet but firm, and Sam nods wearily. To Jared’s relief, Sam walks back and kneels down beside them. Sam looks at Jensen’s pale face for a long moment, and Jared can’t read his expression at all. Regret? Remorse? Or sadness mixed with a hint of envy? Even though Sam’s face is so like his own, Jared can’t tell.
“I think Jensen should be in there; he should be fine,” Sam says, and Jared doesn’t understand what Sam means by the first part, but takes comfort from the latter.
“That’s great,” Jared says, unable to stop the note of bitterness creeping into his voice, “but how do I get him home?”
“You won’t like it, and I can’t promise it will work, but the odds are in your favour. There is nothing to bind the two of you here, and everything calling you back to your home, so…”
Jared listens carefully, takes the bloody knife Sam Winchester gives him, then stares into the dark vacuum that Sam leaves behind when he disappears.
Jared sits on the prickly sea grasses with the Californian night breeze blowing his salt-stiffened hair dry, and holds onto Jensen as if his friend is the only safe and normal thing left in his world.
The first thing he notices is the warmth, then the brightness of the light. The air tastes sweet on his tongue, no trace of bitter salt. He looks around and sees nothing that he recognises, and yet everything feels familiar. It smells like home in a way that no place has ever done since Dean was four years old and his childhood burnt away.
Any sense of urgency, all hint of worry drop away and Dean truly relaxes for what is probably the first time in his life since the death of their Mom. Is this what Heaven should really have been like? He doesn’t know or care.
Wherever this is, Dean feels no need to do anything except be. At any other time, in any other place, he’d have laughed and made some joke about Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, but now, there’s no need to be defensive. It’s as if all negativity has been drained out of him and he is at peace. Finally, here’s the rest when he is done.
There’s no sense of time passing, so Dean has no idea how long he’s been waiting when Sam appears. Somehow the light gets brighter in Sam’s presence, and Dean realises where this must be.
“Am I…inside you?”
“Yup.” Sam pauses a beat, then raises an eyebrow. “What, no innuendo about it making me uncomfortable?”
“I guess not.” Dean shrugs.
“You seem very laid back about all this,” Sam gestures vaguely around. Dean shrugs again. It seems being here isn’t doing anything to expand his body language vocabulary, but Sam is right. He doesn’t remember ever feeling this calm. Except for when he’s on Ketamine, but that doesn’t count as that always comes with a side order of serious injury.
“I like it here,” he says, at exactly the same time Sam says, “You know you can’t stay.”
There’s an impasse. They stare at each other until Dean has to look away. Those five little words have shot his equilibrium down, and anxiety returns in full force. Shadows gather at Dean’s edges.
“This could only ever be temporary, Dean. Carrying your soul inside me. A human body is only made to house one soul, who knows what two will do to me?”
Dean looks up at that. Sam’s right, having him here could be damaging Sam, harming him in ways Dean couldn’t imagine. Sullying him with Dean’s brokenness. Why would Sam want to be this close to Dean when Sam didn’t even want to be his brother any more?
“Shut up, dude, don’t be so fucking stupid,” Sam says, startling Dean out of his downward spiral. “I can hear what you are thinking, your soul’s inside mine, remember? Not that it’s any different now from how we usually work. I always carry a little part of you around inside me, you know that, don’t you?”
Dean can see Sam wants him to say yes, but he can’t do it. Sam, fuck him, actually looks disappointed. Wounded, even, by Dean’s silence. Oh man, his little brother and his sad, sad eyes. Even here, when neither of them have an actual body to feel the compulsion, Sam can make him do and say things he doesn’t want to. So he does. He blurts it out quickly, as if there’s a chance Sam won’t notice.
“I can’t go back, Sam. I can’t live like that. Where you and me aren’t family. What’s the point?”
“I haven’t forgiven you for allowing Gadreel to possess me, for deceiving me.” Sam holds a hand up when Dean opens his mouth to protest. “But I was lying to you, and to myself, saying I wouldn’t do anything to bring you back, because of course I would. You are my brother, nothing can change that. And you might be a selfish dick sometimes, but so am I.”
Dean doesn’t understand what’s brought about Sam’s change of heart, but he’ll take whatever he can get. Especially if it means he gets Sam.
He does get Sam, doesn’t he? Isn’t that how the story ends?
Sam’s back in the Bunker and his arm is burning with the fire of a thousand suns. It’s clichéd but true. He doesn’t remember what it felt like to have an angel inside him, but he does remember how it felt to have Lucifer inside him, and this is totally different.
He stops with his right hand on the handle of Dean’s door, savouring the way Dean’s soul is sending heat through his veins. Sam is warm for the first time since he returned from the Cage, and the Bunker is silent. Peaceful. For the first time, Sam thinks the place smells like home.
Sam understands his brother now, has him nestled close to his heart in a way that was never possible before, and he’s filled with a terrifying reluctance to give that up. If he opens the door, Dean’s body will be there, and Sam will have to let Dean go. Holding on hurts, but letting go is unthinkable.
All Sam’s ghosts are quiet, there is no one there to help him make the right decision, no inner voice telling him what to do.
Except one.
“I stopped you ending it all, Sammy, and maybe the method I chose was the wrong one - but I can’t be sorry for that. Yeah, it was selfish; I just couldn’t face living without you again. Been there, done that.” Dean smiles at him, his expression rueful. Dean lifts his palm up to cup Sam’s cheek, mirroring Sam’s gesture when they’d spoken in that forest, before Sam had walked into the cabin to talk to Death.
“I’d be happy to stay here with you forever, just a voice in your head. Soul mates they said, didn’t they? It’s better than I deserve. Whatever you decide, Sammy, I’ve got your back. Always.”
“I know you have, Dean,” Sam whispers. “I know.”
Sam opens the door.