Switch, for the Summergen Community

[summergen-mod.livejournal.com]

Title: Switch
Recipient: When a recipient leaves the event, their gift is generously shared with the whole community. Please enjoy and show it love!
Rating: PG, for some swearing and minor canon-typical gore/violence
Word Count or Media: 5668
Warnings: hallucinations
Summary: Sam and Dean get caught in a body swap during season 7 while Sam’s hallucinating Lucifer, and Dean experiences Hallucifer.



“Dean.”

He looks up from the decapitated Leviathan corpse on the ground, black ooze dripping slowly from the blade in his hand. Standing at the other end of the room, dressed in a very familiar dark blue jacket and faded jeans is… himself.

He stares at the doppelganger Dean for just a second before he lunges across the room, arm swinging back as he prepares to swing the blade again. The other Dean’s eyes go wide and he holds his hands up, yelping, “No, stop! Dean, wake up! Wake up!”

A hand jostles his shoulder and his eyes snap open, fingers instinctively curled around the knife under his pillow. He twists, flicking the blade open as he angles it toward the figure standing above him in the darkened room.

“Stop!” the person cries in a voice that’s strangely familiar, backing up with his arms up in a defensive stance. “It’s me!”

As Dean stops short of stabbing the guy, his hair falls in front of his eyes and he automatically reaches up to brush it away before he freezes, hand hovering near his forehead. Wait a second…

Dean reaches over and snaps on the lamp next to his bed, illuminating the room in a dull golden light. Standing at the foot of his bed is someone who looks exactly like him. In an instant, he’s on his feet, shoving the other guy back, blade still cradled carefully in his palm and ready to strike. “What the hell is this? Who are you?!” he growls.

“It’s me!” the guy says, which doesn’t help at all, until he adds, “It’s Sam! Look!” He takes a step back to dig through the weapons bag on the table, and Dean raises his knife again, ready to attack. The guy who looks like Dean, who claims to be Sam, hurriedly pulls a bottle out of the bag, holding up his hands in surrender. “Don’t kill me, okay? Just watch.”

Dean recognizes it as a bottle of their borax stuff, the only thing that seems to have hurt the Leviathans they’ve encountered so far. His evil twin unscrews the bottle and pours some of it over his bare arm. Liquid drips down to the musty carpet under their feet, but his skin doesn’t burn, there’s no acrid stench, no Aliens moments. Just a guy who’s not Dean, standing there in front of him with a bottle of industrial cleaner and a panicked, don’t-slice-my-head-off look on his face.

What.

The fuck.

Dean goes still, staring at the dude who looks so much like him, trying to figure out if he’s still dreaming.

“See?” the other Dean says, holding his hands wide in surrender. He repeats the same process with a vial of holy water and a silver blade, and none of it has any effect. “I told you, it’s just me. It’s Sam. I swear.”

“What the hell are you—” Dean starts, and then goes quiet again, listening to the sound of his own voice. It doesn’t sound right. None of this feels right. He stares down at his hands, realizing that the blade he’s holding doesn’t belong to him. It looks like Sam’s knife. His fingers, curled around the hilt of it, are just a little too long to be his own. The ground seems just a little bit farther away than it used to be.

He slowly turns his head to look in the mirror above the beat-up dresser against the wall. He has to stare at it for a couple of seconds until he’s sure that he’s actually seeing what he thinks he’s seeing.

Standing in the mirror, holding Sam’s knife is, well, Sam.

Dean raises his hand slightly, and mirror Sam echoes the move. He flips the knife closed again, and Sam closes his knife, too. He opens his mouth to speak, and so does the Sam in the mirror.

“Um…” Dean starts dumbly, not quite knowing how to process any of this.

“Yeah,” Sam answers the unspoken question, but he answers it in Dean’s voice.

Dean’s world feels like it’s tilting for a second and he sits down heavily on the bed. “What…” he starts, staring up at his brother—

—no, wait, staring up at himself—

—staring up at Sam. He sighs. He’s already feeling confused. “What the hell?”

“I don’t know,” Sam says.

“No, really, what the hell?”

“I don’t know, Dean!” Sam repeats.

This whole conversation is the weirdest one he’s ever had. The words are Sam’s, but the voice is his, and he feels like he’s hearing a recording of himself. Everything sounds just a little off.

Dean leans forward on the bed, elbows on his knees. He raises his arms, resting his head on his palms for a second before he feels Sam’s hair, and it’s weird all over again.

He quickly sits back up, pressing his hands against the mattress, and tries not to think too hard about the fact that he’s currently inhabiting his brother’s body. Maybe this is a hallucination. Maybe it’s all some bizarre dream. Maybe they’ve been dealing with too much shit for too long and he’s finally snapped.

“We’re gonna figure this out,” Sam says, sounding less than sure of himself.

“Yeah,” Dean answers quietly, closing his eyes. “Let’s get right on that.”


* * *


Two hours later, they’re no closer to understanding what’s going on or exactly how they suddenly ended up in each other’s bodies. They’ve called Bobby, who promised to do whatever research he could on the subject. Sam is dutifully stationed at his laptop, trying to research possible causes, while Dean alternates between flipping through some of their lore books and pacing restlessly around the room. Nothing feels right, and every time he moves he feels like an uncoordinated toddler, misjudging the distances between things and constantly stubbing his toes on the furniture or almost knocking things over. He doesn’t even want to remember the awkward few minutes he spent getting dressed, trying very hard not to look at himself or the bathroom mirror. Suddenly being Sam is awkward enough. Changing the clothes on his brother’s body was just weird. He just wants to be back in his own damn body again so he can take a shower without feeling like a voyeur.

Outside, the sun has just started to rise, the sky turning a lackluster hazy orange through the curtains of the motel room.

Dean turns the page of another book, sighing loudly in frustration. So far he hasn’t turned up anything that might be even remotely helpful. And his stupid hair keeps getting in his eyes every time he looks down. How does Sam put up with this?

Across the table, Sam shoots an annoyed look at him and Dean wonders for a second if his brother has also randomly become telepathic before Sam says, “This isn’t fun for me either, you know. Researching ‘sudden inexplicable bodyswaps’ isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Dean retorts. “I can’t believe you’re just sitting there, like being randomly stuck in somebody else’s body is a thing that just happens to people.”

“Uh, Dean?” Sam says. “Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Remember Gary?”

Dean frowns for a moment, trying to figure out what the heck Sam is talking about, before he remembers this has happened to Sam before. “The nerdy kid?”

Sam nods.

“Alright, fine. Point taken. But it’s still not normal,” he insists.

“Not arguing with you there,” Sam agrees, eyes back on his laptop. He doesn’t say anything else, focused on whatever document he’s reading, and Dean can’t think of anything else to say. He’s still annoyed that Sam seems so okay with all of this, like it’s just a run-of-the-mill case and not one of the weirder things that has happened to them lately.

Dean closes his book with another frustrated sigh, because all of this reading is taking him nowhere fast.

“Dean,” Sam says.

“What?” he answers, staring down at the closed book because he knows if he looks up, he’ll see himself sitting there with a disconcertingly Sam-ish expression on his face.

“D’you wanna… I don’t know, go get us some food or something? Clearly we don’t have any books about this. I’ll stay here and keep working,” Sam offers, and Dean recognizes his brother trying to be helpful, to extend the olive branch, in the face of this odd situation.

Dean rubs his hand over his mouth, feeling the unfamiliar angles of Sam’s jawline beneath his fingers. “Yeah,” he agrees with a sigh. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” He pushes himself up from the table and heads for the door, pulling Sam’s boots onto Sam’s gigantic feet before he grabs his keys from the edge of the dresser.

He casts one last look back at Sam, still sitting at the table with a look of intense concentration on his face, picking up a pen to quickly scribble something down before returning his gaze to the laptop screen. It’s like looking at a hybrid person, and Dean finds himself wondering how much of the body language and facial expressions are Sam’s, and how much is still him. Is that really what he looks like when he’s reading?

He blinks, shaking himself out of his musings, and heads out the door with a quick, “Back in half an hour.”


* * *


Out in the parking lot, he makes his way over to the stolen Dodge Challenger he’d been driving the past few weeks. He sighs and rolls his eyes. He doesn’t even have the Impala anymore, has lost every shred of familiarity his life has ever had.

His only hope is that McDonalds still exists in this bizarre reality and he can still get an Egg McMuffin and some caffeine in him until he wakes up and everything goes back to the way it should be.

“Well, this is interesting.”

Dean whirls around, nearly tripping over his own suddenly-too-long legs. Right there in front of him is a face he hasn’t seen in two years, but one that he’ll never forget until the day he dies for good.

“You’re not Sam anymore, are you?” Lucifer says with an amused grin, his gaze traveling slowly up and down Dean’s body as if he’s looking right through to his soul.

Dean’s eyes go wide, and his fingers instinctively twitch toward the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

“Whoa, easy there, cowboy,” Lucifer says before Dean can draw his gun. “You know that won’t hurt me.”

“You’re not real,” Dean says, trying to wrap his head around what’s happening. “You’re just in my brain— in Sam’s brain.”

“I never said that,” Lucifer answers, head cocked and arms spread wide. And he does look real, as solid as anything else in the parking lot. Boots on the cement, faded gray shirt rustling in the breeze, the morning sun lighting his face.

“You’re in the cage,” Dean says, trying to sound certain of that fact. “Sam put you there himself. I watched it happen. There’s no getting out of there — not for you, anyway.”

Lucifer puts on a sad, confused expression, eyebrows furrowed together, and repeats the words that had come from Sam’s mouth weeks ago in an abandoned warehouse. “How can you know that for sure?” he says, exaggerating the melodramatic tone of his voice. “You can’t know that for sure.”

“Stop it,” Dean hisses, and he flashes back to the memory of that night, his brother pointing a gun at him, the look of panic and fear on Sam’s face. Dean looks down, staring at the hand that currently belongs to him, the thick scar running across the bottom of Sam’s palm. The skin is still pink and shiny, newly healed. He digs his other thumb into it, feeling the scar tissue and the tingling of sensitive nerves, the pain of the muscles and tendons underneath protesting against the sudden pressure.

Lucifer chuckles, and Dean looks back up. The devil is still standing there, shaking his head dismissively. “Nice try. You really thought that would work?”

“If you’re real, why don’t you just kill me and get it over with?” Dean demands.

Lucifer laughs again. “Dean, Dean, Dean… Why would I want to kill you, when watching your little lizard brain try to figure this out is so much more fun?” he says, clasping his hands behind his back and walking in a slow circle around Dean, examining him. A malicious smile slowly spreads across his face. “How did you get into this mess, huh? You look like the Sammy I know… but there’s not a bit of that pathetic boy left in you, is there?”

“Shut up,” Dean growls.

Ignoring him, Lucifer continues, “So I have to wonder… where is Sam? What did you do with my favorite toy?”

Dean’s eyes flicker toward the motel room on the other side of the lot before he can stop himself.

Lucifer’s eyes light up and he claps his hands together. “Wanna go tell him?” he grins, like a kid with an exciting secret to share.

Dean hesitates, staring at the motel room door, and Lucifer stands there with him, waiting. Sam doesn’t need to know this, Dean thinks. It’ll only make things more complicated than they already are, and there’s nothing he can do about it, anyway.

Lucifer raises his eyebrows and points a finger at Dean, wiggling it around like he’s digging through Dean’s brain. “See, I knew you’d figure it out. I can practically see the gears clunking around in there. What are you going to do, huh? You’re gonna go in there and tell your baby brother the devil’s still inside his head? Only it’s not his head anymore, is it?”

“I told you to shut up,” Dean repeats, turning away from the motel and heading toward the car. Sam’s going to start wondering if he’s not back with the food soon. He climbs into the car and hotwires it to get it started again, pulling out of the parking lot and onto the main road.

In the passenger seat, Lucifer reappears, leaning back against the bench seat. “Okay, so maybe I’m not real,” he admits. “Get used to me, buddy. I’m not going anywhere.”


* * *


Dean finds the closest fast food joint in town and heads inside, ready to order some breakfast and a couple of extra-large coffees. Beside him, Lucifer will not stop talking, but Dean does his best to ignore it. He steps up to the back of the short line of customers, staring up at the menu and waiting to place his order.

“So that’s the plan, huh?” Lucifer asks. “We’re just going to stand here like it’s any other day and you’re Joe Normal getting his morning caffeine fix?”

Dean crosses his arms over his chest, eyes trained on the list of breakfast combo meals, and says nothing.

He can see Lucifer’s shoulders shrug. “If that’s the way you want to play it, fine. I can work with that.”

Dean steps forward in line to place his order, smiling at the cashier at the register and mentally telling himself this is any other day. He is not stuck in his brother’s body. The devil is not standing behind him, whispering in his ear. He’s just getting breakfast, the same familiar fast food crap he’s been eating for years.

The cashier rings up his order and tells him the total, and Dean digs into his back pocket and finds it empty, before he remembers that Sam usually keeps his wallet in the other pocket. He fumbles for Sam’s wallet, handing her a couple of bills and grabbing his change, and then heads over to stand against a wall by the drink machine. He keeps his gaze directed forward, determined not to look at Lucifer, who is standing there at the edge of his vision.

Dean watches as a bored teenage employee calmly puts down the mesh basket of French fries he’s holding and turns back to the fryer. Pushing up the sleeve of his uniform, he reaches forward to stick his arm straight into the boiling oil like it’s nothing. Beside him, the woman at the grill presses her hands onto the hot surface and holds them there, staring placidly down at them as if they’re no different from the burgers sizzling away next to them. The acrid stench of burning flesh begins to permeate the air, and Dean swallows thickly, looking away.

In the dining area, a man in an ill-fitting business suit puts down his breakfast sandwich and takes his left hand in his right, bending his fingers back one by one until they snap with a sickening crunch.

Dean closes his eyes. “Stop it,” he mutters under his breath.

Lucifer’s shoulders shake as he laughs. “I’m just getting started,” he says, gazing around the restaurant. “Hmmm…” he murmurs, tapping one finger thoughtfully against his lips. He nods to a couple of construction workers waiting in line, and Dean watches as one turns and wraps his hands around the other’s throat, squeezing until the other guy starts to go blue. He doesn’t resist at all, letting the man choke the life out of him.

Dean’s fingers twitch, wanting nothing more than to rush forward and make it stop, but he knows it’s not real. It’s not. It can’t be real.

From the front counter, the cashier finally calls his number and he hurries forward, staring at the ground as he grabs the bag from her and rushes out of the restaurant.

Lucifer laughs all the way back to the car.


* * *


Back at the motel room, Dean hastily deposits the bag of food on the table and opens up another book, trying to drown out Lucifer’s voice. “How’s the research going? Got anything good yet?” he asks Sam.

“Maybe,” Sam answers. “Bobby thinks he might have something, but he’s gotta find the right book. His backup collection isn’t completely organized yet. He thinks we might have picked up a curse or something when we were in Lily Dale. Maybe a witch hanging around town, with all the psychics and everything, y’know?”

Dean sighs. “Goddamn witches…” He leans forward and puts his elbows on the table, rubbing at his forehead with the tips of his fingers and pushing Sam’s stupid hair out of his eyes again.

Sam reaches forward for the bag, pulling out a paper-wrapped sandwich, and casts a look at Dean. “You gonna eat?”

“Nah, I ate in the car on the way back,” Dean lies, thinking about the half-eaten sandwich that’s laying somewhere on the side of the road. He takes another swig of coffee, trying to get the taste of rotten meat out of his mouth.

“What, you don’t like my cooking?” Lucifer asks, leaning against the door of the motel room wardrobe.

Dean flips the page of his book and doesn’t look up.

“Dean, you’re too quiet,” Lucifer complains. “Work with me here, buddy. It’s no fun if you don’t engage.”

Dean doesn’t move a muscle. Across the table, Sam’s saying something else, but he’s barely listening, all of his concentration centered on trying to ignore Lucifer’s words.

“Fine. I get it.” Lucifer crosses his arms and leans back in the cage. “You don’t want to talk, I don’t need to talk.”

There’s a sudden high-pitched screeching that pierces straight through Dean’s brain and he flinches, one hand coming up to his ear in a vain attempt to block out the noise.

“…Dean…?”

He shuts his eyes, drawing in a harsh breath.

“…Dean…!”

He flinches again as something touches his shoulder and cracks his eyelids open again to see his own face in front of him, crouching down with one hand stretched out in front of him. He rocks back in his seat, pushing himself away from the other person. “What the hell is—” And then reality comes hurtling back to him and he recognizes Sam in his features, the concern furrow of his brother’s brows, the frown on his lips. “Sammy…?” he gasps, trying to catch his breath as the screeching noise stops.

“Looks like someone’s not as strong as he thinks he is…” Dean hears, and he looks up to see Lucifer standing there with a smug look on his face.

“Dean, look at me,” Sam says, and Dean struggles to look back up at his brother, who’s still standing there staring at him, concern etched over his face. “What’s going on?”

Dean takes a couple of careful breaths, not meeting Sam’s eyes. He was a fool to think he could hide this. He inhales and forces himself to look up at his brother. “Sammy,” he says. “There’s something you gotta know.”


* * *


“Sammy, maybe this isn’t such a good idea, man,” Dean says, staring over at his brother in the driver’s seat. The amber glow of streetlights passes over Sam’s face — Dean’s face — in slow waves as they speed down the dark interstate, headed for Montana. They’d both agreed that maybe Dean shouldn’t be driving as long as Satan’s got a special guest starring role in his head, but being a passenger is making him restless, with too much road in front of them and not enough to keep his mind distracted. Lucifer is blissfully absent for the moment, but it’s got Dean on edge, knowing that he could reappear at any moment.

Sam glances over at him. “What’s not a good idea?”

“Maybe… maybe we don’t switch back right away, y’know?” Dean asks hesitantly, pretty sure he already knows what his brother’s answer will be.

Sure enough, Sam isn’t on board with that plan. “What?” he asks. “Why the hell not?”

“Think about it,” Dean responds. “You get back in your own body, and guess what comes with it?” Dean waves a vague hand towards his head. “Maybe it’s my turn, y’know, to have the devil as my copilot for a while.”

Sam’s answer is immediate and decisive. “Dean, no. I’m not letting you do that.”

“Come on, Sam—”

“No. That’s not up to you,” Sam insists. “I know what it’s like, having him in your head. I’m not putting you through that any more than you already have been.”

“Sammy, be realistic—”

“I am, Dean. Are you seriously telling me that you want to spend the rest of our lives trapped in each other’s bodies? I don’t think that’s an option.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Dean, I’m not talking about this.” Sam stares ahead of him at the dark asphalt. “Bobby thinks he might have found something. We’re going to check it out. If it works, we’re switching back. End of story.”

Dean goes quiet at Sam’s decisiveness, lost for any other reason not to switch back into their own bodies. At least, not any other reason that Sam hasn’t already shot down. He glares at his brother in the flickering streetlight and then turns away, staring out the window at the dark, featureless landscape beyond.


* * *


The morning sun is just peeking through the branches of the trees when they finally make it to Rufus’s cabin. As Sam pulls the car into the packed dirt driveway, Lucifer reappears in the backseat.

“Are we there yet?” he asks, leaning forward and getting into Dean’s space. Dean flinches at the sudden noise and movement, and tries to cover it up by shifting around in his seat like he’s trying to find a more comfortable position. From the worried look Sam shoots him, it’s clear that his attempt at playing it casual is not at all successful.

Lucifer gazes through the front windshield at the dilapidated old building. Bobby’s car is already parked out front, waiting for them to arrive.

“Running to your fake daddy for help again, huh?” Lucifer taunts Dean, who refuses to answer. “What’ll you do if dear old Bobby’s not around to help you someday, I wonder? You two apes could have been stuck like this forever…”

Almost before Sam puts the car in park, Dean is opening the front door and climbing out of the passenger seat, crunching through the gravel and up the wooden porch to the front door. He raises one hand and knocks, waiting a moment and listening to the sound of footsteps inside before the door is opened and Bobby’s standing there in the doorway.

“Hiya, Sam,” he says, stepping back and opening the door fully.

“It’s Dean, Bobby,” Dean reminds him.

“Right. Sorry.” Bobby nods, one hand waving away his mistake as he turns and heads further into the house. “Come on in.”

Dean follows, glancing back at Sam to see him walking up the path towards the house, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket like he’s not completely sure what to do with them. At least Dean’s not the only one who feels a little awkward still at being in someone else’s body.

At the edge of the porch, Lucifer leans against one of the support posts, arms crossed in front of his chest and an amused look on his face. “You really think this is going to fix anything?” he asks Dean, staring at Sam as he comes up the steps.

Inside the little house, Bobby sits them down at the table and pulls a book off of the top of one of the stacks gathered there, flipping it open and paging through it until he gets to the right section. Sam listens as Bobby explains something about a curse and a reversal spell, rattling off a list of supplies they’ll need, but Dean can barely focus enough to pay attention. Lucifer is busy pacing the room around him, examining the weapons and old lore books Bobby has scattered about the cabin.

“There’s no getting around this, you know,” Lucifer says, like they’re just chatting about the weather, and Dean looks up in his direction, frowning but not answering.

Beside him, Sam is busy leaning over to look at the book, running a finger along a line of Latin text as he reads through it.

“You have to give Sam back to me, and you know that.” Lucifer leans down to the fireplace, running his hand through it and watching as a flickering flame dances across his palm. He looks back at Dean. “And doesn’t it just eat you up inside?”

Dean wants to yell back at him, to rage against this horrible situation that they’re in. He’s tired of being yanked around by demons and fate and God and fucking archangels who think the world is just their own personal playground. It’s not fair that Sam should be subjected to any of this, but since when has the universe ever cared what Dean Winchester wanted? The one thing he can do is stay silent, not giving the devil the satisfaction of an answer.

“You can’t save your brother, Dean. Sam knows. I know it. When are you going to admit to yourself that you’re useless? Face it. Sam would have been better off if you were never in the picture,” Lucifer says as Dean watches Sam and Bobby gather ingredients for the reversal spell.

“You don’t know that,” Dean mutters quietly, glaring over at him.

“You think you can protect him?” Lucifer scoffs, throwing a hand out to indicate Sam. “Don’t you know by now there’s not a single thing you can do to keep him safe? You’ve already let him die— twice. You can’t keep Sam Winchester away from me.”

“I can damn well try,” Dean responds, standing up to go over to where Sam and Bobby are standing.

At his brother’s approach, Sam looks up, a book cradled in his hand. “You ready, Dean? The spell’s almost set.”

Dean shakes his head. “No,” he replies.

Sam sighs, closing his eyes for a moment before he opens them again and stares back at his brother. “C’mon, Dean. We’ve gotta do this.”

Dean tries to avoid looking behind him at the devil still lurking near the fireplace. “…He wants this, you know,” he says to to his brother.

Sam stares back at him. “I don’t care what he wants,” he says, sounding resolute in his answer.

“Sammy…” Dean pleads. “I can’t just…” He’d never really understood what it meant, before, when Sam said he was seeing Lucifer. He’d tried to help his brother, to talk him down from the ledge when he got too close to plunging into the deep end of crazy, but he’d never know how it felt, what Sam saw and heard every day with the devil himself riding shotgun. And now that he’s gotten a glimpse of it, he feels a thousand times worse knowing what’s about to happen. “I can’t let you go back to that,” he says.

“Yes, you can,” Sam answers quietly. “You have to.” There’s a melancholy determination to his voice. He knows exactly what he’s going back to, just as much as Dean. He steps forward and takes Dean’s shoulder with one hand, guiding him to the chair and pressing down until Dean sits. “Put your hand there,” he instructs, indicating the empty space on one side of the bowl in the center of the table.

Sam moves over to the other side, handing Bobby the book as he goes, and sits across from Dean, his hand on the opposite side of the bowl, candles arranged at the points of the chalk-drawn sigil on the table.

“Bobby,” Sam prompts.

Bobby clears his throat and begins to read the Latin incantation, tossing a lit match into the bowl. Dean watches as the ingredients inside catch fire and start to burn, disintegrating to ash as the flames eat through them. His eyelids start to feel heavy, and before he can look up at Sam again for reassurance, Bobby’s voice starts to fade and the world goes black.


* * *


When Dean wakes up, it happens slowly, like he’s been asleep for a week.

The first thing he’s aware of is the creak of floorboards, the distant sound of birds in the trees, crickets chirping steadily outside.

His body feels incredibly heavy, like someone has tied hundred pound weights to all of his limbs, and he’s not actually sure that he can move. He tries, and all he manages to do is shift slightly, causing whatever he’s lying on to squeak softly, old springs protesting against any movement.

“Hmmmmm,” he groans, and finally manages to open his eyes, squinting up at the rough wooden beams of the cabin ceiling above him.

He turns his head slowly and spies the old TV sitting on top of the cabinet, the memory of watching hours and hours of bad telenovelas slowly resurfacing in his brain. He glances around as much as he can, but doesn’t see anyone else. No Sam, no Bobby… and no Lucifer.

Mustering up as much energy as he can, he slowly lifts his hand up, staring at it as he rotates his wrist. There’s no jagged scar on his palm, and his fingers are back to being the right length, light freckles dusted across the back of his hand. Dropping his hand to his head, he rubs his fingers across his scalp. His hair is blissfully short again, and he lets out a sigh of relief.

After a minute of lying there on the couch, relishing the feeling of being back in his own body, he slowly pushes himself upright, leaning against the couch and twisting around to get a look at the rest of the cabin. At the far end of the room, the door to the bedroom is mostly closed.

“Sammy?” Dean croaks, and then can’t help but smile at the sound of hearing his own voice again.

From behind him, the front door creaks open and Dean turns as quick as he can, but it’s only Bobby.

“Bobby, where’s Sam?” Dean asks.

Nodding towards the bedroom door, Bobby answers, “Sleeping. That spell knocked both of you out pretty good. How’re you feeling?”

Dean groans, rubbing both hands over his face. “Ugh, like I was hit by a truck. I’m exhausted.”

“Get some more rest,” Bobby says, indicating the pillows still piled on one end of the couch. “You’ve got nothing else to do until Sam wakes up. Take it easy a while.”

So he does, sinking back into the couch and feeling sleep reclaim him almost immediately. The next time he wakes up, Sam is sitting at the kitchen table, looking as worn out as Dean feels.

“Sammy?” Dean asks, pushing himself up from the couch and stumbling over to where his brother is sitting.

“Hey,” Sam answers, giving him a tired smile. “Nice to see you again, and not me.”

“Tell me about it,” Dean agrees. He hesitates a moment, then adds, “…Sam?”

“Hmm?”

“Is, uh…” Dean waves a hand toward Sam’s head, not finishing the question.

“Dean. Don’t,” Sam responds. “Just let it go.”

Dean sighs. That’s a hell of a lot easier said than done, but he’s gonna have to try, for Sam’s sake. He looks around the room for something, anything that might distract him. “How ‘bout I make us some grub, huh?” he asks, rubbing his palms against his legs as he stands up from the chair, walking the few steps over to the kitchen counter and the beat-up old fridge. The least he can do is take care of Sam the way he’s always done, the only way he knows how.

“Sure,” Sam agrees tiredly.

Dean pulls open the refrigerator door, crouching down to get a look inside and see whether Bobby has actually bought anything besides beer and jerky. Behind him, there’s a whisper of a voice.

“…Dean…”

He stands, turning around to face the open room, but there’s only Sam, chin resting against one hand as he traces the wood grain in the table, oblivious to his brother’s actions.

Dean shakes his head, refocusing on his mission, determined to do what he can to make things feel like they’re normal. It’s not enough, it’ll never be enough, but it’s a start.