Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sam and Dean were running for their lives, being chased by a couple of very angry hellhounds. If they could just make it to the car, they'd be alright. Just to the car, that was it.

The barking behind them got a little bit closer again and Sam could hear his brother curse under his breath. They rounded a corner and there she was, exactly where they'd left her. Baby. Dean made a sprint for it and Sam followed suit. They reached the car, threw open the doors and jumped in.

Except that they didn't jump into the Impala.

Suddenly the two men were in the backseat of what appeared to be a pretty big car with tainted windows, driving along with the sunset. They exchanged a panicked look that seemed to be screaming the same question. What the hell just happened?

"Dude," Dean mumbled, too shocked to say anything else.

Sam motioned for him to remain quiet. Not only was there a stranger in the front seat, something about the highway they were taking seemed awfully familiar. Of course they'd seen plenty of roads with their way of living, but this one was different...

Before he could figure it out, his brother slapped his upper arm and pointed at a sign on the side of the road. It said, Exit 13 Taylor Way Vancouver.

No matter how much Dean would like to freak out, he decided it might be better to stay calm for once. He was in the back of an unknown car, what was he gonna do? Jump out? So he took a deep breath and went for the driver instead. "Excuse me? Where are we exactly?"

The broad guy looked at him in the rearview mirror and something about him was... also a little familiar? "Just need to cross the bridge. You know it's not far from here, Jensen."

"Jensen?" Dean mouthed to his brother.

And that's when it hit Sam. He patted his pockets, looking for his wallet, and when he'd found it, he took out his driver's license. Exactly what he'd expected.

He showed it to Dean. "Jared Padalecki," he whispered. "Vancouver. Jensen. That ring any bells to you?"

Dean's eyes grew big before he groaned in despair. "Balthazar."

"Except that he's dead," Sam said as quietly as possible. He really didn't want to freak out their driver, who he now remembered seeing the last time they were here too.

"Awesome," Dean mumbled. "We're trapped in freaking Hollywood Life again and we don't even know how it happened."

Sam sighed. "Calm down, we'll fix it. Just... act normal."

His brother grumbled a bit more but then the both of them fell silent, wondering where they would end up this time. If Sam remembered correctly, this Jared Padalecki was married to Ruby's alter ego. Yeah, that was weird. If they were lucky, maybe they'd just go to his place again. Not that he was that excited about it but at least they knew how to handle that.

Ten more minutes passed before the car pulled up into the driveway of a cozy house. A house that neither of them recognized as Jared Padalecki's.

"There you go, Jensen," their driver said. "Home sweet home. You guys have a nice evening."

"Thanks, you too," Sam politely replied, realizing just in time he didn't even remember the guy's name. Guess they'd have to find out about that later.

Dean quickly said his goodbyes and got out.

Sam smiled a last time before following him. "Dean. Dean!" he uttered, while catching up with his brother, who was fervently walking up to the porch. "What the hell are you doing?"

"What am I doing?" Dean exclaimed and Sam could tell he was a lot more pissed off then he'd let on before. "Well, apparently this is my home, so I'm gonna go in and figure out how to get out of this mess! Again!"

"You think I don't wanna go home?" Sam huffed.

"Who knows, maybe you wanted another round with fake Ruby."

"Seriously?" he commented while Dean was patting his pockets like crazy.

"Where the hell are my keys?!"

"How am I supposed to know?" his brother noted. "Why do you even think you'd have a key?"

Dean spread his arms. "I live here, don't I? Shouldn't I have a key then?"

Alright, so maybe he did have a point there. "I guess," Sam shrugged.

"Fine," Dean grumbled and he started to look around. "If I were a spare key, where would I hide?"

There weren't any plants on the porch, so of course he checked the doormat first. There was nothing underneath that though.

Dean was already starting to curse when Sam noticed something. Next to the door was a black marble tile with the doorbell and M & J printed on it.

"Hey," he said. "Check this out."

His brother looked up and came to stand next to him. "M and J?" he frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Pretty obvious, don't you think?" Sam answered. "Looks like Jensen Ackles is married. Or at least got a steady relationship."

"Well, let's see who it is then," Dean said and before Sam could object, he rang the bell.

For a couple of seconds they waited in silent anticipation. When nothing seemed to happen, they exchanged a look.

"Okay, what now?" Sam asked.

"Why do you ask me?"

He suppressed a sigh and realized he'd probably have to fix this by himself. He looked the tile over again and let his finger slide over the letters. It was only when he touched the lower semi-circle of the ampersand that he noticed. It was loose. Sam pulled his fingers away in surprise and a frown formed on his face when he took a step closer to it to investigate it further. He carefully touched the circle-like part again and discovered the slight edge that separated it from the rest of the tile. It moved a bit without issue, so Sam tried to pull it. It came out perfectly smoothly, and sure enough it turned out to serve as the bow of a key.

He laughed in surprise and held the key up to Dean. "Look at this."

Dean pulled up his eyebrows. "Did you really just pull that out of the wall?"

"Yeah," Sam said, shaking his head. He still could hardly believe it. "Whoever made this must be incredibly handy."

"Maybe I made it," Dean grinned.

"Right," Sam huffed and then turned to open the door.

They got in without further problems and walked into the hallway.

Dean's eyebrows shot up in surprise when he entered the house. "At least I have a nice place," he mumbled.

He wasn't wrong. The place was pretty modern, with a couple peculiar touches to it. There was a series of hooks on the wall that looked handmade, all of them from different materials. The walls were white but the ceiling was painted with organic patterns. It was only details but they gave a whole different dimension to the space.

They walked down the hall and entered a big kitchen with a living room attached to it. Here too there were these little creative elements to the interior. The Winchesters had only just started looking around and taking it all in when they heard the front door being unlocked again. They looked at each other and at once started back to the hallway. Whoever was at the door could either be dangerous or capable of explaining a lot of this craziness to them.

The both of them were washed over with relief when the door opened and Castiel walked in. Except for one little confusing detail that is...

"Hey baby, I got you flowers," Cas said in a voice that was very... not Cas, and he held up a bouquet of colorful flowers.

Dean's jaw dropped and he remained speechless. This was very much not what he expected. No no no... Oh god, please be Cas, please be Cas...

Luckily Sam didn't seem to have lost his tongue. "CAS?!"

"Cas" gave them a little laugh and shook his head. "Ahh yes, because that never gets old, Jared." And then he turned his eyes to Dean. "Anyway, how was your day, baby?"

"Me?" Dean managed to get out in disbelief. As soon as realization kicked in, he turned towards his brother. "Dude, I married fake Cas," he said, pointing at the guy that was most certainly not Cas.

"Actually it's Misha," fake Cas corrected him. "You know, just in case you didn't read the marriage license when you signed."

Sam was the first one to decide to just roll with it. They would have to if they didn't want to make a scene. "Right. Misha. Of course," he was quick to say.

The Misha guy smiled softly and walked up to Dean. "You are lucky I'm glad you're home." And then he handed Dean the flowers and kissed him on the cheek. He kissed him on the cheek. Dean immediately started blushing like a teenage girl, looking at the flowers with big eyes, and Sam was doing his very best to hide a big grin behind his hand.

If Misha noticed at all, he didn't mention it. "I saw the spare key is gone. Did you use it?" he just said and took off his jacket.

"Uhm... yeah, I-I forgot mine," Dean stuttered.

Misha laughed and put his coat on one of the hooks before walking away towards the kitchen. "That's new. Normally that's my job. Jared, you wanna join us for dinner?"

Honestly Sam didn't know how or where else to find food, so he might as well take advantage of the situation. "Yeah sure, thanks," he answered and then motioned for Dean to follow him to the kitchen as well. It still took his brother a couple of seconds to completely snap out of it, but then he reluctantly strode after Sam.

Misha was already diving into the fridge, gathering all kinds of ingredients. "So, you never answered," he said, closing the fridge and getting out a frying pan from one of the cupboards. "How did it go on set?"

The Winchesters exchanged a look. How did it go on set?

"You know..." Dean started. "Just the usual."

Sam just nodded in agreement. If they just could keep on giving these vague answers, maybe this could actually work.

"Great," Misha said, turning towards the counter to start cutting the vegetables. "Jared, how did Rich do? Too bad I'm not in this episode and have to miss it. It would've been nice to have all of us work together another time. You guys didn't go too hard on him, did you?"

Sam looked at his brother in panic. He had no idea who this "Rich" was. Dean returned the gesture just as desperately and shrugged.

Vague answers. "Yeah no, he was good," he decided on.

Misha laughed at that and for a moment Sam was scared he'd said something wrong again. "Right," the other guy said, shaking his head. "You forget I know exactly what the two of you are like on set. I mean, I've been through enough of your pranks myself." He turned around, found them still at the threshold and pulled up his eyebrows. "Are you really still standing there? Come on, Jared, you know you can make yourself at home. Oh and honey, I'd put those in a vase if I were you," he added, pointing at the flowers.

Dean looked down at the bouquet he'd forgotten he was holding. "Right. Vase." He looked around the kitchen. Where the hell was he supposed to find a vase?

His apparently husband rolled his eyes at the clear forlornness on his face. "Bottom cupboard at the far left. Seriously, what would you do without me?" he muttered, turning back to the food.

"Yeah, of course," Dean quickly said, making his way to the cupboard Misha had indicated.

Still feeling very uncomfortable but not knowing what else to do, Sam went to sit down at the kitchen table.

His brother successfully found the vase and even realized he should probably fill it with water first. Tap. Misha was standing right next to the tap. And Dean really didn't want to get that close to the man who had just kissed him on the cheek. He looked from the vase to the tap, to Misha, to his brother, and back to the vase. Yeah, he was so screwed.

Sam silently motioned for him to just fill the damn vase. They were already behaving strange enough as it was.

So Dean inwardly took a deep breath and went for it. He stood right beside Misha and filled the vase, keeping an eye on the man next to him. Just in case. You never knew. Once the vase was full, he placed the flowers in and hastily made his way to the kitchen table, where he put them down and went to sit next to his brother.

"Jared, since my husband is apparently not going to ask, would you like something to drink?" Misha went on.

"Uhm... yeah, sure... I guess," Sam let out.

When no one made a move, Misha looked at them over his shoulder. "Jensen."

Dean just blinked. Oh right, that was him. He cleared his throat. "Right. Beer?"

Sam gave him a quick nod and Dean got up to walk towards the fridge, praying that that still was where beers were kept. To his relief there were a couple of bottles in the door. Dean grabbed two of them before shutting the fridge. Family Business Beer Co., they read. Huh. Funny. He'd never heard of that brand.

He went to sit in his chair again and handed one to Sam. They both cracked their bottles open and Dean took a big gulp because dammit, he needed one. As soon as the liquid entered his mouth, he made a face. "What is this stuff?"

Misha laughed. "Very funny, Jensen."

He hadn't been kidding but okay? He looked over at his brother, who just shrugged and took a pull from his beer as well. Sam actually didn't think it was that bad. Beer was the least of their problems right now anyway.

Dean seemed to be thinking the same thing because they exchanged another look and Dean nodded. They could do this. Maybe.

"So anyways, I take it he's still on set?" Misha asked.

Or maybe not.

"Who?" Dean carefully asked.

"Rich." Misha turned around and looked at Sam. "I'm assuming that's why you're here, at least."

"I guess, yeah..." Sam answered hesitantly and drank from his beer again to give himself a bit more time to think.

"You guess?" Misha snickered. "I'd think you'd know where your own husband is."

And that's when Sam chocked on his drink. If he hadn't put his hand over his mouth just in time, he would've sprayed beer all over the kitchen floor.

Dean was looking at him with a little smile and pulled-up eyebrows, as if to say 'hey look, I'm not the only one who's married to a dude'.

Misha had turned around at the sudden noise. "You okay?" he asked with a confused frown and tilted his head a little, a gesture that reminded Dean way too much of Castiel.

"Yeah no... just uhm... went down the wrong way," Sam waved it off. He was really gonna have to find out who Rich was. Preferably sooner than later.

"Is he gonna direct another episode?" Misha said, continuing on the vegetables.

Director. Okay. I can do director. "He... uhm, he doesn't know yet."

Misha turned around in surprise. "Why not? I thought he enjoyed it so much?"

Sam really wanted to facepalm himself. Clearly the wrong answer. "Oh no, yeah of course," he quickly tried to correct himself. "He does, he just, uhm, isn't sure... when. Yet." He prayed to Chuck that was a reasonable reply and that it wouldn't backfire at him.

Luckily Misha nodded understandingly and threw a portion of the vegetables in a pot. "Yeah, I can imagine. With everything going on..."

Sam decided it would probably be better to not ask what exactly Misha was talking about. He was afraid he'd find out sooner or later anyway.

It didn't seem to matter because Misha turned back to Dean. "Oh by the way, Vicki called. She said West and Maison can come over next week."

Dean's eyes grew big and he looked at Sam for support. Unfortunately, his brother was just as clueless. "Okay?" he tried.

Misha huffed at him. "Okay? Jeez, thanks, Jensen. I thought you'd be excited."

"No no no," Dean quickly attempted to fix it. "I am, I just..." When he didn't know how to finish that sentence, he almost carefully shrugged.

His husband shook his head and put butter in the frying pan. "What is it with you? You've been acting weird from the moment I got home. Did something happen at work?"

Dean opened his mouth, to just close it again when he didn't know what to say. "No," he eventually said. "Just... you know... didn't sleep that much I guess." He even forced a smile to go with it.

Misha pulled up his eyebrows at him. "I know. I was there. But you sure as hell weren't complaining."

Sam snorted and Dean's jaw dropped. He'd had sex with fake Cas. He suddenly felt gross.

They spent the rest of that weird evening mostly in quietude and let Misha do the talking. Or in other words, the man would ramble on about subjects they didn't understand a thing about and they would nod and make agreeing sounds as if they did. Luckily, Jensen Ackles's husband turned out to be quite the good cook, so the Winchesters had an excuse to focus their attention on the food.

"Any more wine, Jared?" Misha offered after dinner, taking a sip from his own glass of red.

"No, thanks," Sam answered with a friendly smile. In the last couple of hours he'd come to like the guy. Sure, Misha wasn't Cas but he was nice and funny. He seemed like a good person.

"Yeah, I've had plenty too," Dean added. He really wasn't a wine type of person. Apparently Jensen was, or at least didn't mind the drink. But it contained alcohol and Dean had needed his alcohol.

Misha laughed a little. "You think you can still make it to Jared's?"

The brothers exchanged a look. Even if they remembered where Jared Padalecki's house had been last time, clearly this was another universe. Unless Sam's alter ego had divorced that Genevieve girl and decided he was more into guys after all.

"I- uhm..." Dean started. "I don't know, actually."

Misha's eyebrows shot up. "You don't know?"

Dean just shrugged in response, afraid he'd screw something up again.

"Jensen, I've had four glasses, I can't drive him!"

"I... could... call a cab?" Sam offered. If I knew my address...

Misha let out an annoyed sigh. "No, it's fine... Just... If Rich's not home yet, you can crash here if you want."

"Thanks, C- Misha," Sam nodded and offered a genuine smile. He was glad Dean and him wouldn't be separated over the night.

"Alright." Misha got up and started piling the plates. "Baby, could you start on the dishes? I got a GISH announcement to post and then I'll join you."

"GISH?" Dean asked before he could stop himself.

"Yes...?" Misha replied in a questioning voice.

Sam kicked his brother below the table and Dean quickly cleared his throat. "Yeah. GISH. Of course."

Misha gave a slow, uncertain nod and then disappeared to another room.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Dean groaned as soon as he was gone and he dropped back his head. "This is a complete disaster."

Sam let out an exhausted breath and stood up to take the dishes back to the kitchen. His brother followed after him and they both took a spot at the sink. Honestly, dishes seemed like the one thing they wouldn't screw up at the moment.

"Sam, we gotta get outta here," Dean muttered and turned on the hot water.

"I know," his brother answered. "We just gotta be patient until we get a chance to do some research. Then hopefully we can find out what exactly is going on and how to fix it."

Dean angrily threw a fork into the water. "Well yeah, what if we can't? Balthazar's dead so obviously it isn't him. So who is? Also, we got dropped in the middle of the highway so there's no way we'll be able to find that exact same spot again. And I don't know about you but I don't remember the ingredients to the spell. If it's even a spell this time."

"We'll figure it out, alright?" Sam said. "We always do."

The older Winchester grumbled a bit more before Misha walked back in and joined them at the sink. "Jared, you really don't have to help, you know."

Sam shrugged. "What, no, that's alright. Happy to help."

Misha gave him a small, curious smile. "I don't know what happened on set today but I'm liking what it's done to you."

He was speechless for a moment. He knew it was meant as a compliment but it just made Sam worry he wasn't exactly portraying Jared too well. He really needed to learn more about the man that was supposed to be playing him, not the other way around.

"Wait, are you saying you don't like what it's done to me?" Dean interrupted his thoughts and Sam's jaw dropped. Was his brother being jealous now?

Misha laughed as if he'd thought the same thing before smiling at Dean in a way that made Sam feel like he was third-wheeling the entire kitchen. "You know I love you," Misha said, his fingers gently caressing Dean's shoulder and trailing down his arm. "But let's face it, you have been acting crazy this entire evening." And then he did the thing again, kissing Dean on the cheek, being it a little closer to the corner of his mouth this time. "Now come on, let's finish this so I can take you upstairs."

And oh boy, if that didn't leave Dean a blushing, babbling mess for the rest of the dishes.

When they were finally done, Misha took Dean's hand and started dragging him to what Dean could only guess was the bedroom. He started protesting a bit but what was he supposed to say? 'Dude, I'm not really your husband, just the character he plays'? Yeah, that didn't sound like the most bright idea.

Not that it mattered since Misha ignored him anyway. "Jared, you know where the guest room is!" was the only thing he said before the two of them left the kitchen.

Of course Sam didn't know where the guest room was. But he honestly didn't really care. He'd figure it out, but right now he was too busy being amused at the very awkward situation Dean would find himself in within minutes. He should probably feel sorry for his brother. Then again, karma apparently really was a son of a bitch.

Chapter Text

The next morning Dean stumbled down the stairs, exhausted from the terrible night of sleep he'd had. He'd somehow managed to prevent any sex happening but there had been no way of escaping a couple of kisses and an entire night of snuggling. And now his body just felt tingly and touchy and plain on weird all over.

When he entered the kitchen, his brother was already there, fully dressed. After a lot of wondering around and praying he wouldn't accidentally end up in the main bedroom, Sam had finally found the guest room last night, and even the guest bathroom and some spare clothes. Looked like Jared Padalecki had crashed here more than once. So now he was ready to go, sipping from a cup of coffee at the table while reading the newspaper. As soon as Dean came in, looking all groggy and grumpy, Sam looked up and had trouble suppressing a smirk. "G'morning."

"Shut your face," Dean mumbled and walked over to the counter to pour himself a cup of his own. He'd never needed it more.

No matter how tempted Sam was to ask about how he slept, he knew they had more important things to worry about and changed the subject. "You wanna get ready? Misha's gone for a run but he told me our driver Clif called to say he will be picking us up in fifteen. He would've told you, but he said you were still asleep."

"Yeah, I pretended till I heard him leave the house," Dean sighed, dropping down on a chair. There had been only so much not-Cas he could take this early. "Did he happen to mention where we're supposed to go?"

Sam shrugged. "Set, I'd say."

His older brother pulled up his eyebrows in disbelief. "And you're planning on actually doing that? Sam, we're not gonna go to set!"

"Why not? Maybe we can find a lead!" Sam protested. "If not there, then maybe on our way over. That's where we were dropped."

"Did you forget that not only we don't have a clue how that stuff works, we're also terrible at acting?"

"Well, you were," Sam muttered.

"Not to mention we don't have any lines and then there's that stupid director guy that apparently named Bobby after himself getting in our way!"

Sam let out a little laugh. "Well, that shouldn't be a problem anymore, my supposed husband being the new director."

As Dean finished his drink and got up, Sam added with a pensive frown, "I can't stop wondering who he is... We didn't meet anyone named Rich last time, right?"

"Not that I remember," Dean shrugged. "But then I barely remembered Misha." There was still a weird tone in his voice as he said the name. He just couldn't get used to it. "Anyway, I'm gonna get changed, so I guess you'll find out soon enough."

Twenty minutes later they were on their way to the set. The drive was mostly quiet, being it because Sam and Dean were keeping an eye out for anything that might be of use to them or because they simply didn't know what to say in the presence of a complete stranger. Okay, they remembered Clif's name now but that wasn't exactly enough to make it easier to have a conversation. Of course Clif didn't know that.

"You guys are quiet," he asked after a while. "Nervous about Sunday?"

Dean was getting really tired of giving vague answers to questions he didn't understand. Luckily his brother jumped in.

"A bit, yeah," Sam said with a friendly smile.

Clif gave them a worried look through the rearview mirror. "Why? You've done it so many times, the fans adore you, everyone's coming over and you don't even have to do any traveling yourselves this time."

Okay, what the hell was happening on Sunday? Sam let out a nervous laugh. "Yeah, that's true. Thanks, Clif."

The Winchesters were incredibly relieved when they finally arrived on set. Even though that probably wouldn't be any better. They said goodbye to Clif and walked towards the big building that they actually recognized from last time.

"Thank god some things haven't changed," Dean mumbled and Sam couldn't agree more.

"Alright," he said. "You go find that trailer of yours again. We need a place to do research. I'll go in to check if the spot from last time's still there and see if there's anything else to find out."

Dean nodded. "Sounds like a plan. I'll look for more in the trailer. Come find me when you're done."

"Good, I'll see you in twenty, max," Sam said and then the brothers went their separate ways.

Sam entered the building with the built sets and immediately noticed they were completely different from last time. He could actually look into a pretty big one and... holy shit. Sam's jaw dropped as he walked up to it and passed the threshold. He was in the bunker. The only home they'd had in years and it was here, exactly the same except for the lamps and camera's placed all around and hung up on the ceiling. Still, it was... it was theirs in a way, and to see it like this, dressed up as a set for some stupid TV show... It made Sam feel comforted and angry at the same time.

He took a deep breath and told himself to just ignore it. The sooner he figured out what exactly was going on, the sooner they would be back home, in their own bunker, without stupid lighting equipment. With that thought in mind he walked out of the set and followed the sound of voices coming from somewhere else in the building. When he rounded another corner, he finally found the source, a group of people, some of them talking to each other, others walking around the sets with a clipboard or other equipment. He was just about to approach them, ask if they maybe noticed something strange on set yesterday, when one of the guys started walking into the direction he was coming from. The man was a lot shorter than Sam and wore a white and blue baseball cap which made it impossible to see his face, being too focused on a bundle of papers in his hand that Sam assumed was a script. It was only when he did finally look up, that Sam froze in his steps. A fraction of a second was all it took for him to recognize that face, even behind the slight beard and heavy-framed glasses.

"Gabriel," Sam basically breathed out before he could stop himself.

And to his enormous surprise the man turned to him and said, "Hi there, Sam."

Sam's eyes grew big. "It's you. But... how... you're dead."

"Well, you know me," Gabriel shrugged.

A broad grin appeared on Sam's face. Finally, something that made sense... "Wait, did you do this? Are you behind this?"

Gabriel laughed at him. "Whoa, don't remember reading that yet. Guess I have a bit more studying to do before next week. But hey, so good of you to take them through in advance."

"Wait... what?" Sam frowned.

Before he'd even properly processed what Gabriel had said, the archangel started talking again. "Oh hey, is Jensen in his trailer yet? At least I'm assuming you two love birds got here together," he said and even winked with it. And then he walked right on by. "Go get him for me, would ya? We're starting in half an hour!"

Sam watched him go in utter confusion. Okay, so obviously that wasn't Gabriel but the actor playing him. But holy shit if the two of them didn't act exactly the same. It was freaking Sam out, really. Sure, he'd met Misha but that was different. Misha and Cas were different, very different. Cas was pretty quiet and kept to himself, Misha was as outgoing as could be. Cas didn't understand sexual puns, Misha loved sexual puns. Cas was awkward with social conventions and personal space because he didn't understand those either, Misha just deliberately ignored them. Even their voices were different. But Gabriel and... whoever his actor was... just the way they both talked and acted alone... they could've been the same person.

Weird. This was all getting way too weird.

He turned around and left the building to look for his brother. After some more wandering around the place, he spotted two identical trailers. Oh thank Chuck... Sam approached the first one and knocked on the door. When he didn't get a reply, he walked over to the next to do the same. After some rumbling sounds, the door opened and Dean let out a relieved sigh.

"Thank god, it's you," his brother said, letting him in and closing the door again. "I don't know if I can deal with one more of Jensen's friends."

Sam huffed. "Well, you're gonna have to. Guess who I just ran into? Gabriel."

Dean was just about to sit down but stopped dead in his tracks at that. "Gabriel? Gabriel Gabriel?"

"Yes. I mean, well no, not our Gabriel of course. The actor," Sam tried to explain.

"Crap," his brother mumbled and dropped down. "Could've used ourselves an archangel."

Sam joined him at the small table. "Yeah, you don't say. Although they really look alike. Seriously, it's creepy. Anyway, what about you? Find anything?"

The older Winchester made a face. "You mean besides sappy pictures of fake me and fake Cas? Only this." And with that he leaned back and grabbed a laptop from the coffee table. "Option of fingerprint recognition, thank god. Never could've guessed this freak's password."

Sam was filled with relief. If they had a computer, that was the first step of their journey figuring this out. "Great. Let's do some researching."

Dean nodded and unlocked the laptop, opening the web browser and turning the screen so Sam could follow along. "Alright, let's see... Where do we start?"

"Hey, uhm... you think we could do a quick search for that Rich guy?"

His brother pulled up an eyebrow at him.

"What, I can't be curious about the man I'm apparently married to?"

"Alright, alright," Dean said, raising his hands in surrender. "What do we know about the guy?"

Sam let out a mocking laugh. "Apart from the fact that his name's Rich and he's the director of this show? Nothing."

"Fine, let's lead with that then. What's this show called again?"

His little brother got that pensive look on his face. "Super... natural? Was that it?"

Dean laughed. "Crappy names, right, yeah now I remember. Okay." He started typing. "'Supernatural'... 'director'... Oh hey look, suggestions say 'Jensen Ackles' and 'Misha Collins'. Huh, guess we're so good they let us direct some too," he grinned. "Alright, and 'Rich'... enter."

Needless to say Sam and Dean's jaws dropped and their eyes nearly jumped out of their sockets at the automated Wikipedia card popping up, picture included.

"Oh my god," was all Dean could say. And after a couple of seconds, "Dude."

Sam just kept staring at the picture. This couldn't be true...

"Dude."

"I know," he managed to get out.

"But dude."

"Yeah Dean, I know."

That was when his brother burst out in laughter. And kept on laughing for what felt like an eternity. Or at least it did to Sam, who still had trouble dealing with the picture on the screen, the picture of the guy he'd talked to only minutes ago.

"And here I thought marrying fake Cas was bad," Dean snickered. "I mean, come on man, Gabriel? Gabriel?"

"There's nothing wrong w-" Sam started but then stopped himself. "First of all, that's not Gabriel and second, I'm not Jared!"

Dean just snorted. "Well yeah, but still..." He opened the Wikipedia page and started reading it out. "'Richard Speight Jr., born September 4, 1970, is an American actor, director, screenwriter and producer' - wow, this guy's been busy - 'who is known for a variety of roles including CBS TV series Jericho and The Agency, and the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. Speight plays a recurring role, the Archangel Gabriel, originally thought to be a "Trickster" or Loki, in the WB/CW series Supernatural.' Well, thank you, Wikipedia."

"Great, we know who he is, can we move on now?"

"Won't you look at that, 'Spouse: Jared Padalecki'. The height difference's gotta be hilarious. He's a lot older though, why would you do that?"

"He can't be that much older," Sam retorted, even though he had no idea why he was even playing defense here.

"Thirteen years."

"Maybe Jared's older than me."

Dean scrolled down and clicked his alter ego's name. "He is. One year," he commented sarcastically.

"Okay, so what if he is? I bet Misha's older than Jensen too!" Sam said, a bit offended.

His brother moved to the two men's pages. "Yeah, four years, which is normal. Seriously, the guy was probably already jerking off when you were still in diapers."

"One, Jared's not me - again - and two, who even cares about age if you- How does any of this even- Why are we having this conversation?!"

"Hey, I'm just saying, out of all the guys you could've picked..."

Sam rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth in frustration. "Okay, you know what, this is ridiculous. Fine, I married a man who's thirteen years older than me. Can we now please move on?"

"You're the one who wanted to check him out," Dean shrugged.

"I didn't want to check-"

"Oh hey, look at this. Apparently he's best friends with some other Supernatural actor named Rob Benedict. Wanna see who it is?"

Sam sighed and leaned back in his chair. He couldn't even bother to care anymore. "Sure."

Dean clicked the name. "Oh god..."

That remark made Sam look at the screen again and his eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Literally," he huffed.

"They also mention this guy named Matt Cohen, you wanna-"

"Okay, stop," Sam interrupted and took the computer from him. This way it was gonna take ages before they actually got to researching. "What else should we know about?"

Dean was a bit annoyed but answered nevertheless. "There's supposed to be something going on this weekend?"

"Right," Sam nodded before starting to type their names and Sunday's date.

When he pressed 'enter', the screen filled itself with hits, the first one already being pretty obvious.

"A convention?" Dean asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, it's a social event, usually about-"

"I know what a convention is, Sam, why the hell does this show have one?"

Sam shrugged. "From the looks of it, it's got a pretty steady fanbase, even after all the years. They're all over the country."

Dean just shook his head. "Seriously though, why would anyone wanna watch a show about two miserable brothers?"

"No idea," Sam admitted. "I really have no idea."

"So how are we gonna get out of it?"

"What do you mean?" Sam frowned.

His brother gave him a confused look. "You do realize we can't actually go to that thing, right?"

Sam nearly laughed just out of shock alone but from the looks of it, Dean was actually being serious. "Dean, people paid hundreds of dollars for this thing!"

"Well yeah, that's not really our problem," Dean admitted.

"How can you say that, it's important to them."

Dean raised his hands. "I know, alright? I know but, Sam, we're not the people they're coming to see!"

"So? We'll pretend. We've managed this far," Sam objected.

"You don't remember from last time that we're literally the worst actors to have ever been on TV? Plus, this isn't just something we can talk ourselves out of, these are fans that have been following Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki for years. They'll be asking questions we don't know the answers to and expecting things we know nothing about."

Sam knew his brother had a pretty good point there, but he couldn't help feeling bad for their supposed fans. "We'll see if we can find a way out later, okay?"

"Fine," Dean sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "Come on, let's see if there are any more surprises we should know about."

It turned out there were quite a few. They discovered West and Maison Collins were Misha's children from his previous marriage with a woman named Vicki Vantoch. Apparently they'd split up pretty peacefully when Misha and Jensen finally admitted their feelings after years of working together. There was a lot of gossip about the situation but it seemed like Misha and Vicki were still close friends. Dean frowned at that. He didn't know why.

They found out GISH was some international contest/scavenger hunt that Misha had invented. Even after scrolling through the website and reading articles about it, Sam and Dean still couldn't say what exactly it was about though. Seriously, there had been a campaign to save unicorns?

Oh, and apparently Misha and Jensen had changed their last names when they got married.

"Collins-Ackles?" Sam laughed.

Dean looked insulted. "What's wrong with that? Come on, the guy couldn't have exactly named himself Misha Ackles-Collins, that's just a tongue twister."

Sam shrugged. "Might as well have just gone for Cockles," he muttered.

"What?"

He cleared his throat. "Nothing. What's next?"

Unfortunately, they couldn't find any clues on how to get home. There had been no sightings of anything strange or even remotely nearing the supernatural. No suspicious activities or weird behavior. (Well, except for their own maybe.)

They were just trying to learn a bit more about Jared and Jensen when the door to the trailer slammed open. Sam and Dean jumped and out of instinct went for their guns, which they didn't have on them anymore of course.

Gabriel - or Richard, whatever - was standing in the doorway. "Guys, what the hell?!" he exclaimed in shock. "We need to start recording in five and you're not even dressed yet!"

"Uh," Dean said smartly. "Sorry, Ga- Richard. We could... go now?"

Richard looked at him like he'd gone crazy and spread his arms. "Well, what are you waiting for?!"

Dean quickly nodded. "Right." He headed for the door, Sam closely behind, when Richard stopped them.

"Jared? Can we talk for a moment?"

The brothers exchanged a look before Sam turned his eyes to the smaller man. "Uhm yeah, sure," he said, feeling a lot more insecure than he hoped he was letting on.

Dean looked between the two of them but after a reassuring nod from his brother, he headed out anyway. It didn't matter he didn't like it, there wasn't exactly much he could about it. So he decided he'd better try to find out where clothes and make-up were done. That freaking make-up again...

As soon as the door closed, Richard put a step closer to Sam and squinted his eyes. "Is something wrong?"

Crap, crap, crap, crap. "No," Sam tried.

Richard lifted an eyebrow and even with the glasses and the cap and the beard it was so... Gabriel. "You sure? 'Cause you acted pretty weird before and now you guys are ridiculously late... By the way, where were you last night? I went home this morning to take a decent shower and change but the place looked like you hadn't even been there at all."

Finally, a question he knew the answer to. "Oh yeah no, I uhm... I stayed with De- Jensen and Misha. It was pretty late, we'd all had too much wine and they offered, so..."

Immediately Richard's expression softened and he sighed, taking another step towards him. "Why didn't you call me? I mean, I know I've been busy but I could've quickly come by to pick you up..."

"Sorry," Sam shrugged, back to not knowing what to say. "Didn't wanna... bother you or something..."

And that's when Richard closed the space between them and Sam's heart skipped a beat out of surprise. "You know you're never bothering me, Mr. Padalecki," the other man said, back with the eyebrows and Sam had to swallow back a lump in his throat. Before he got even the smallest chance to recover, Richard grabbed him by the collar, pulled him down and crashed their lips together.

To say Sam was shocked would have been the understatement of the dimension.

He froze in place, who knew for how long, before his brain decided to do its job again and he realized he should probably do something. The thing was that he was supposed to be Jared. Richard's husband. Who would totally not freeze or freak out at something as normal and simple as a kiss. That meant Sam had only one option left, really, and that was to just go with it.

So... he went with it.

Carefully at first, he allowed himself to relax into the kiss. It took him a couple of seconds but then he pressed his lips against the other man's. It was different from any other kiss he'd ever had - especially the beard - and yet for some reason he didn't mind. Without thinking about it, he was suddenly sliding his hands around Richard's waist, and he was surprised to find that all of... this didn't even really bother him. Dean had been right, the height difference was kinda ironic, but at the same time Sam found something quite enjoyable about it.

Yep, he definitely shouldn't be thinking of Gabriel's actor that way.

When Richard finally pulled away from him, there was a playful sparkle in the guy's eyes that reminded Sam even more of the archangel. Okay, he really had to stop thinking about Gabriel. Seriously. The guy was dead. This time final. End of story. And since when was Sam his biggest fan anyway? Sure, in the end Gabriel had been on their side, but the angel had pulled a lot of crap too. Sam had forgiven him for that a long time ago but that didn't explain why he didn't mind kissing his spitting image.

Richard smiled up at him. In the heat of the moment, his cap had gotten slightly pushed back on his head. "Well, whatever it is that has gotten into you, if this is your way of apologizing, it can stay."

And now Sam was blushing too. Great.

"Now, how about you and that pretty, little ass of yours go find Jensen so we can start shooting in ten, and then we'll finish this... tonight." And then he slapped Sam's ass and walked out of the trailer.

Sam didn't think he'd ever fled this fast. And in his line of work, that was saying a lot.

When he finally found Dean at the make-up department, his brother wasn't looking happy. As soon as he noticed the shock on Sam's face though, his eyes turned worried and started towards him.

"What is it?" he asked in a demanding voice.

Sam would be damned if he told him what had happened between Richard and him, so instead he decided to focus on the one thing that might actually be of use to them. "Richard. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but he is too... Gabriel."

Dean frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Sam said, dropping his voice since there were still crew members around, "there is no way an actor and his character are so much like each other. He is witty and sarcastic and outgoing and... way too sexualized."

The other Winchester pulled up an eyebrow at that. "Where'd you get that from?"

Dean wasn't stupid. He didn't miss the slight fluster that suddenly appeared on Sam's face, he just told himself he'd probably rather not know. Sam was a big boy, he could handle himself.

"Doesn't matter," Sam was quick to say. "Point is, what if..." He sighed. He knew this was gonna sound ridiculous. "What if Richard somehow is Gabriel?"

"But Gabriel is dead," Dean shrugged.

"What if he isn't?" Sam urged. In only a few minutes, his mind had gone over this again and again and again. "What if he's somehow still alive? Or his grace ended up in this universe instead of the Empty? Maybe he doesn't even know who he is anymore and just ended up taking Richard as a vessel or something!"

Dean quickly raised his hands. "Whoa there, Sammy, that's a lot of assumptions, not to mention crazy. Why is it so impossible that they just act alike?"

His brother shook his head and frustratedly ran a hand through his hair. Why couldn't Dean see all of this was too suspicious? "It's just... too much of a coincidence, Dean! Think about it, last time we were here, we didn't even know Rich existed and now I'm married to him?"

"Okay, you are reading way too much into this," Dean stopped him. "Obviously I wasn't married to Cas last time either! This place is just different from last time, alright? Which means that instead of focusing on dead archangels, we should be trying to find a way out of here as fast as we can."

"But..."

"Nope, no 'but's. You wanna know if something strange is going on with this Richard guy? Fine, let's ask." And without further ado he took out his phone and started scrolling through Jensen's contacts.

Sam watched him with a confused frown. "What are you doing?"

Instead of answering, Dean pressed 'call' and waited for the person he'd been looking for to pick up. He didn't have to wait very long.

"Hey, babe," Ca- Misha's voice greeted him. "Everything okay over there?"

"Oh, yeah, fine, I uhm..." Why was it that Dean's brain seemed to stop working every time he was talking to his supposed husband? "I was just wondering about something. You don't happen to know if uh, Richard has been acting a bit off lately, right?"

'What are you doing?' Sam mouthed at him, so Dean rolled his eyes and put the phone on speaker.

"Uhm... no? What do you mean?" Misha asked, sounding even more confused than Sam felt.

Dean tried to sound casual. "Oh, you know... Just a bit different from usual?"

"Why? Did something happen? Where's Jared? This sounds like something you should ask him."

"Yeah, he's around here somewhere," Dean said, deciding not to mention Sam was eavesdropping. Misha was his husband, maybe he'd tell Dean something he wouldn't be comfortable saying otherwise. "Everything's alright, don't worry. I was just thinking... Have you ever, I don't know, noticed that Rich can actually be a lot like... Gabriel?"

"Gabriel?"

"The character."

"Oh, that Gabriel!" Misha laughed fondly. "You're only thinking of that now? Honey, do I need to remind you of basically every time we were ever with him? I mean come on, his sense of humor alone. And if there's one thing we learned from the whole Dick chat thing, it's that Rich can be just as annoying if he wants to."

Sam and Dean exchanged a questioning look. 'Dick chat?' Sam mouthed and Dean just shrugged.

"Oh and hey, remember he once mentioned on a panel that his song would be "The Joker"? If that doesn't cut it, I don't know what does... So yeah, I guess if you want to look at it that way, you could say Rich is basically Gabriel with a love for country music. But that just makes sense, I guess. After all, Gabriel wouldn't be Gabriel without him."

"Yeah, you're right, thanks," Dean quickly said. Now that he had what he wanted, there was no reason to waste anymore time.

For a couple of seconds the other end of the line remained silent. Then Misha suddenly said, "Can't believe this is what you called me for." There was a curious undertone in his voice that Dean didn't know how to deal with.

After multiple attempts of opening his mouth and answering, he eventually blurted out the one reasonable excuse he could think of. "Maybe I just wanted to hear your voice."

Sam choked on air and had to press a hand against his mouth to muffle a snort. Dean just closed his eyes and knew he was never gonna hear the end of this. Before Misha got a chance to answer and make this situation even more uncomfortable, he turned off speaker mode and brought the phone back to his ear. He was only just in time.

"Hey, with you, I'm never complaining, baby."

Dean gulped, hastily rushed out, "Yeah okay, gotta go, see you later, bye," and ended the call.

His little brother was looking at him way too amusedly, so Dean gave him a glare. "Shut up," he grumbled, pocketing his phone before he started to walk away. "Come on! We've got some acting to do."

~~~

No matter what universe they were in, one thing would never change: Sam and Dean sucked at acting.

After yelling who knew how many 'cut!'s, Richard decided to call it a day. His cap was dangling from the back of his chair and his hair was tousled from the amount of times he'd desperately run his hands through it. "Okay, that was... alright enough." He got up and started gathering his things while looking at them with a smile Sam was pretty sure wasn't entirely genuine. "But hey, don't worry about it. We all have our bad days. You know what, how about next week after we're done, we come back to some of this stuff, alright?"

Dean prayed he wouldn't still be here next week. "Yeah... alright."

"Oh by the way, Jensen, Misha asked me when we'd be finished, so he's coming to pick you up," Richard added when he'd finished packing.

"Oh. Okay."

"Alright." The director slung his bag over his shoulder. "See ya tomorrow at the concert, Jensen." His eyes shifted towards Sam. "And I'll see you tonight." And with that he started to walk away from them.

Sam's jaw dropped in surprise. "Wait, where are you going again?"

He didn't know why he cared. He probably shouldn't. Surely, he was just being curious, that's all.

Richard turned around at once. "Oh. Right, did I forget to tell you? I met up with Bob-o. I mean the guy had to host all of today by himself, so I just thought I'd go over to prep for the rest of the con a bit, you know, maybe jam a little too."

Sam had a feeling he was supposed to know who this "Bob-o" was but he honestly didn't have the slightest clue. "When do you think you'll be home?"

His husband gave him a suggestive smile that teleported Sam right back to 2007. "Oh, don't you worry, sweetheart, we'll have plenty of time to pick up where we left off." And with that he left.

When Sam looked back at his brother, Dean's eyes were filled with confusion, shock, disgust and just enough rage. "What did he do to you?"

"Dean, it's fine..." he started.

"'Cause I swear, if that son of a bitch as much as laid a hand on you-"

"I'm his husband," Sam interrupted him. "Don't worry about it, he isn't trying anything Misha hasn't done to you."

Those words were more than enough to make Dean uncomfortable again. "That's... different."

"How is that different?" Sam huffed.

Dean opened his mouth, closed it and opened it again. "Okay, one, we're not talking about that, and two, it's..." He made a face. "Gabriel."

"No, it's not. It's Richard."

"Well, you're the one who wasn't sure..."

Sam opened his mouth to defend himself but he never got the chance.

"Hey, baby!" Misha's voice suddenly put their banter to a stop. The brothers exchanged a final challenging look before silently agreeing they'd finish this later.

Misha made his way towards them without as much as a clue of what was going on. "Hey, Jared," he greeted Sam before pecking Dean on the lips, which caused the older Winchester to turn a shade of red that tomatoes would have been jealous of. Sam was trying his very best not to laugh too obviously.

Dean cleared his throat and started stammering, "H-h-hi... Misha."

"So you ready to get going?" Misha asked. If he'd noticed Dean's weird behavior, he didn't bring it up.

The Winchester himself, however, really started worrying now. He couldn't just go with Ca- Misha and leave his brother behind. Plus, who knew what Misha planned on doing when they'd be alone for an entire evening... Dean got even more uncomfortable at the idea alone, but he honestly couldn't think of a single good excuse that would get him out of this situation. He looked at Sam, eyes begging for some sort of solution, but it appeared that his brother was just as clueless.

"Yeah alright," Dean eventually gave in and followed Misha outside to their car. It was a nice car, a black Audi, but it wasn't Dean's car. He really missed his baby.

They spent the drive back to the small house where Misha and Jensen lived in silence, and he even remained quiet as they went inside. It wasn't that he was trying to be rude or something but Dean really needed some time to think this through and figure out a solution. Besides, he didn't know Misha, not really, not like Jensen would. Hell, he didn't even know Jensen the slightest bit.

So, all Dean could come up with to do was research, and he prayed that it would be enough to get him out of here. He went into the living room, sat down on the couch and opened Jensen's laptop that he'd brought from the trailer. Usually this part of the job was more Sam's kind of thing, but right now himself was all Dean got and he'd have to do with it.

But where the hell was he supposed to start? They'd already covered their usual investigations. Strange behavior, search different places for clues... There wasn't much left to do. Except for maybe... Was there something they'd forgotten about that had helped them the last time they were sorta here? Dean didn't remember, it had been so long ago. Balthazar, a spell with a bone of a saint and some other crap, that douchebag angel following them, the keys to Balthazar's weapons, Misha, Misha's death, annoying crew members... Was he missing anything?

"What are you doing?" Misha suddenly interrupted his thoughts.

Dean blurted out the first thing he could come up with. "Uh... Just checking my emails."

He heard footsteps and Misha strode over to the counter that was separating the kitchen from the living room. He placed his arms on top of the shiny marble surface and leaned down, his eyes focused on Dean.

"Is something wrong?" he asked in a serious voice with a hint of worry. "You've been quiet. Very quiet."

Shit. Dean tried to think quickly. "Sorry," he said. "I'm just... uhm... it's the con, I guess. Bit nervous."

Misha frowned. "Nervous? Babe, you've done panels a thousand times. Jared will be there right with you, I'll be backstage... Everyone's gonna be there. Come on, you love seeing everyone at cons, especially the actors who aren't on anymore."

As he talked, Dean could imagine Jensen and Jared on a stage, talking to the fans, joking around with people like Misha, Richard and that Rob guy. He wished his life were that easy.

"I... I know."

"Then what?" Misha urged on, and he walked around the counter and came to sit next to Dean, his blue eyes full of concern now.

It was so right and all wrong at the same time. Even though they were completely different, the guy in front of him reminded him too much of his best friend. His best friend that was still in his own universe.

Then the most horrifying thought struck him. What if they never got back? What if he was never even going to see Cas again? Would he stay with Misha? File for a divorce? It seemed like the only option because he doubted he was able to keep living with a guy who looked exactly like Cas but would never be him. And what about the angel? Had he figured out what happened or did he think the hellhounds had gotten to them and finally finished them off? Was he looking for them?

He took a deep breath, pushed his thoughts of Cas aside and forced himself into the role of a decent husband. "Look, I know I've been a little off, alright? I- I guess I just need a little time, okay? Can you do that for me? Give me some space?"

Misha was still frowning worriedly, but he slowly nodded. "Okay."

Then he got up and walked back to the kitchen, and Dean felt like an ass. He really didn't have the time for a fake marriage right now and he knew it was the only way to get Misha to back off of him but that didn't make him feel better about it. He couldn't even imagine what this whole situation must be like for Misha. But hey, if everything went well, the guy would get the real Jensen back soon enough. At least that's what Dean thought would happen when he and Sam finally left.

Leaving... right. Okay, so the last time they were "here". What had that director said back then? Season six?

"Hey, Misha?" he called out. He was going to have to go out on a limb here but it was the only idea he had left.

"Yeah?" Misha answered, reappearing into view, and there was a slimmer of hope in his eyes. Great, now Dean felt even worse.

He cleared his throat. "Uh, random question but do you remember that episode that we did a couple of years ago with, you know... us in it? As in us us?"

"You mean 'The French Mistake'?" Misha said, looking very confused now.

Did he? It sounded possible. "Yeah, sure. Can you think of anything out of the ordinary when we were recording that one?"

Misha huffed and then smiled fondly. "Well, it was kinda a whole out of the ordinary episode. I just remember all of us having a lot of fun with it."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's right," Dean agreed with a fake smile before turning back to his screen. He opened up a browser and started typing, 'Supernatural the french mistake'.

Without bothering to watch Misha return to the kitchen, he started browsing through the results. There were plenty. Eventually he even managed to find a transcript.

"Jackpot," he mumbled to himself as he opened the page. A pensive frown on his face, he started reading through it. It was hella creepy, seeing his own words on screen and realizing that it was all in fact exactly how it had happened. Dean made a face. The thought that millions of people knew all about his life made him feel icky.

As he was reading, Dean suddenly got to a line that made him freeze. No magic... How could they possibly have forgotten about that?

"Son of a bitch," he swore under his breath, slapped the laptop shut and ran his hands through his hair desperately. This was not good. This was not good at all.

He took Jensen's phone out of his pocket, glad that he'd taken it from the trailer too, and scrolled through the contacts until he'd found the one that was listed as Jared. He pressed the call button and prayed Sam had gotten a hold of his actor's phone somehow. For a couple of dreadful seconds, Dean listened to the ringing of the phone.

When it finally connected, he opened his mouth to tell his brother what he'd just realized, but he was interrupted. "Hi, this is Jared Padalecki. I'm not here right now but leave a message and I'll call you back!"

With a frustrated sigh, Dean hung up and thought for a quick moment. Then he went through the contacts again and this time chose Richard's. The director had said he was going to that Rob dude first but it was the only thing he could come up with. He waited again...

"This is Rich Speight's voicemail. Leave a message and I might just make it worth your while..."

"Oh, come on!" Dean yelled as he almost threw the phone across the room.

Misha was back in the room at once, now definitely looking alarmed. "Jensen, what is it?"

Dean was so sick of this. He hated this place, he hated these people and he hated Jensen freaking Ackles.

"Nothing, alright?" he snapped at Misha and then immediately regretted it. He sighed and started, "Look, I'm sorry, I-"

"No, it's okay," Misha stopped him but despite his words, he sounded hurt. Dean's heart sank into his stomach. The way Misha's voice had dropped and the look on his face... In that moment, the only thing that differentiated him from Cas was a forced little smile.

"Rough day, I get it. I'll let you be," his husband said, and then he left and Dean wanted to bang his head against a wall.

Since he was officially out of ideas and couldn't reach Sam, Dean didn't know what to do with himself the rest of the evening. Misha cooked again and it was lovely, which Dean told him in an effort to make up for his crappy behavior. His husband thanked him but barely talked to him otherwise during the meal, and Dean concluded his attempt had failed. He shouldn't care. He hardly knew Misha. He didn't even want to know Misha either, because trying to get to know the guy would mean he was investing in a future in this place, and Dean didn't want a future in this place. Maybe that wasn't fair towards Misha, but it wasn't fair to him either. He just wanted to go home, back to Cas, and Baby, and the bunker, and angels, demons, ghosts, and vampires. It only made sense that he wasn't excited to be here, so why the hell was Misha making him feel so guilty?

It was only when they were both lying in bed, not cuddling, that Misha addressed him again, being it with his back turned towards him. "I've got my first meet and greet at 2.30, so I'll be leaving for the hotel after lunch."

"Oh," Dean cleverly said. Then he decided an actual conversation would probably help the situation a lot better than that. "Yeah okay, I think I'm gonna meet with J-Jared anyway so..."

Misha hummed, then said, "When are you gonna leave to rehearse for the concert?"

"Wait, what?"

Chapter Text

Dean woke up the next morning after a lot of nightmares about what Misha had called the Saturday Night Special. Unless they were doing Led Zeppelin or maybe some AC/DC songs, he would be completely screwed.

He had also done a lot more thinking and become more desperate with every passing thought. No matter how many times he ran through it, there was no denying that the last time this had happened, they only got out because Raphael reopened the... portal or whatever, so that his killer buddy could come back. Which meant they needed someone on the inside to perform the spell, and Dean didn't have a clue on how to manage that.

On top of that, he didn't know where Sam was, they still had to appear at that stupid convention tomorrow, and even tonight apparently, and he was officially out of options. If Sam were with him, he would probably come up with something smart or at least say that they would find a way, but Sam was who knows where with fake Gabriel, and Dean couldn't do it on his own.

"Jensen, you've been sitting there for ten minutes and you still haven't touched your bacon," Misha told him at the breakfast table with a look that was even more worried than yesterday. "Baby, what's wrong?"

Dean looked up at Misha and suddenly a thought occurred to him. Oh god, this was a terrible idea... But what the hell, he had run out of good ideas a long time ago, and if he was lucky, maybe he would get checked into a mental institution before the Saturday Night Special. It was still a really terrible idea though.

"Dude, I gotta tell you something," he said, and Misha's eyebrows shot up at the way he was being addressed, but Dean had made up his mind and he would have to get it all out before allowing himself a chance to turn back.

"Look," he sighed, "this is gonna sound absolutely crazy but this place is driving me nuts, and I gotta talk to someone so it might just as well be you. I'm not your husband, alright? I'm not Jensen Ackles. My name is Dean Winchester, and I know that probably sounds insane to the guy who just pretends to be Cas in front of a camera but it's true. And I don't know how we ended up in here but we gotta get back to our own dimension."

Misha was staring at him with a pensive frown that seemed to suggest he was trying to solve an extremely problematic mathematical issue. After a couple of seconds, he asked, "Are they doing another meta episode?"

Dean gave himself a moment to close his eyes and recompose himself. He should have known it would go like this. "I'm not messing around, okay? I'm being serious."

"Baby, what are you-"

"Listen, pal," Dean interrupted him. "I'm. Not. Jensen. I'm not some stupid actor, working on a stupid show in freaking Canada, and I don't do conventions or concerts or meet-and-greets. I'm a hunter. Everything you guys do on the show? It's real. Maybe not here but it is in my world. And I'm sure you have a nice life here and all of that, but I can't be here. I don't even know you."

Those last words really seemed to sink in. Misha leaned back, his eyes averted and his mind clearly occupied. This time it took a lot longer before he looked back at Dean and answered.

"So what you're saying is that we are basically inside 'The French Mistake'?"

Dean nodded. "I guess, yeah."

"Prove it."

He huffed at that. "And how am I supposed to do that?"

"I don't know," Misha admitted with a shrug.

Dean waited for a minute to see if he was being played but it looked like the guy was actually serious about this. Misha really had to be a very open-minded person. Maybe in Dean's world, he could even make a good hunter.

How the hell was he going to prove that he really was himself though? "Okay, uhm... Ask me something that only I would know."

Misha raised an eyebrow. "Right. Because the... well, real Jensen, I guess, doesn't know everything there is to know about Dean Winchester."

Did he really? Dean didn't know how to feel about that. But he couldn't, right? To Jensen and Misha, it was just a show. They only knew what happened in front of the camera. "What about something that isn't in the show?"

"Well, if it isn't on the show, then how will I know what the right answer is?" Misha asked.

That was fair... But then it suddenly hit him. "Ask Sam."

Jensen's husband's eyes grew big. "Come again?"

"Sam. He's here too, pretending to be that Jared guy," Dean told him. He had started this, so he might as well go all-in.

Misha's jaw actually dropped at that. "That... that was..." He remained silent for a moment. Eventually he said, "Well, it would explain why you've both been acting all weird the last two days."

For once in his life, Dean thought he was happy that they sucked at acting. "Exactly!"

"Or the two of you are playing one of your stupid jokes on me again."

Dean rolled his eyes. "I'm sure you can figure something out to make it work, alright?"

Misha pouted his lips in thought, considering his options, then nodded and pulled out his phone.

"Don't know if he'll answer that," Dean warned him, thinking back to last night, but Misha just held up a finger that told him to shut up while pressing the call button.

After a couple of seconds, he smiled. "Hi, Sam."

Misha had to admit, it was pretty satisfying to have Dean be the one in shock for a change. The Winchester had probably never anticipated him to go along with it so fast. On the other side of the line, Sam was making the unmistakable sound of a man trying to hide the fact that he had just nearly choked on air.

"S-Sam?" Sam said with a nervous laugh. "Wh-what are you talking about... Misha?"

Misha knew Jared was a great actor but also doubted that even he could spontaneously put so much hidden panic into his words. That didn't mean he was convinced though. But he thought he might as well play along until one of them made a mistake or it turned out that they were just going crazy. "Don't worry, Sam, I know what's going on. Dean just told me."

The phone remained quiet for a while. When Sam eventually answered, he sounded even more hesitant. "He... did?"

Pretending to be casual, Misha shrugged. "Yeah, he seems to be thinking I can help or something."

"And you... believe us?"

"That's why I'm calling actually." He exchanged a look with Dean. "See, Dean here wants me to ask him a question that only he would know the answer to. Something that Jensen doesn't know because it has never been on screen. And since you're his brother..."

Again Sam was silent for a while. Misha was just starting to wonder whether Sam was going to reply at all when he spoke again. "Okay, I got something."

Misha nodded. "Go on."

"Well, he's never said it out loud so it definitely can't be on screen... Ask him, if he can only pick one person, who he- well, who the love of his life is, I guess."

Well, that certainly wasn't what he had expected. "But that's obvious. Everyone knows the answer to that, it's canon."

"No, it's not. Sometimes I wonder if he even realizes it himself, so it certainly isn't canon."

Suddenly Misha got the feeling that they were having a different answer in mind. "Who is it?"

When Sam answered, the frown on his forehead got deeper. "What? Come on, that's not... That's just the fans, even Jensen always says he doesn't actually think-" Then he stopped himself. He knew exactly what Jensen's answer would be. If Dean's really was different...

Still suspicious, Misha asked, "How do I know you two didn't agree on all of this in advance?"

To his surprise, Sam laughed. "Trust me, he will not be wanting to answer this honestly. You're probably gonna have to push him a little to admit it. And I think you do know us pretty well, which means you'll also know what a horrible actor Dean is."

It was a decent argument, he had to admit that much. "Yeah, okay." Then he added, "Do you want to hear how this goes down?"

"Oh, you bet I do."

Misha put his phone on speaker and placed it on the table before turning towards Dean, who had actually gotten slightly nervous. He had only been able to hear one half of the conversation but that wasn't a promising half. Misha's surprise had been obvious enough for him to wonder what the hell Sam had told him. And now his sort-of husband was also giving him a serious look, which made it even worse.

"So," Misha started calmly. "Sam and I reached an agreement. I'll ask you a question and you need to answer it honestly. If you get it right, I'll believe you."

Dean suddenly got the feeling that Misha was having a little bit too much fun with this. Not that he could do anything about that. "Yeah, whatever. Go ahead."

Misha barely managed to contain a smile as he asked, "If you had to pick one person, who would you say the love of your life is?"

The older Winchester had already opened his mouth to answer when Misha raised a finger to stop him. "The honest answer, remember? Be careful, your brother knows you better than you might think."

Dean frowned. It was obvious what the answer was. Well, unless... But that didn't really count, and there was no way in hell Sam could know about that. On the other hand, that was exactly what Misha had just warned him about... Did Sam know? And if he did, how? Dean had never admitted it or even insinuated it. Hell, most of the time he tried to suppress every single thought about it himself. It just wasn't going to happen. The end.

But the honest answer... Misha really had seemed surprised, and apparently even Jensen didn't share Sam's opinion, which Dean thought would be very ironic if he was right about this. He didn't want to answer though. Even if Sam already knew, even if Misha had just been told what his reply would be, Dean didn't want to say it because saying it would make it real, and he would much rather spend his days in denial.

Even so, he had started this, and Misha was never going to let him get away with backing out now. He reached out and ended the call before looking up at the actor.

Misha raised his eyebrows in surprise but Dean didn't bother to explain. He would just talk to Sam later. This would be difficult enough as it was.

He took a deep breath and simply said, "Cas. The answer is Cas."

If Dean hadn't known better, he would have said Misha kept on staring at him for at least an hour. The other man's piercing blue eyes seemed to be studying every square inch of his face in great deal. Dean had no idea what he was looking for, or whether he was finding it for that matter, so he just kept quiet and waited. And hoped Misha wouldn't start laughing at him.

When Misha finally did speak, all he said was, "Huh."

Dean blinked at him. "'Huh'? What does that mean, 'huh'? Did- did I get it right?"

"Oh yeah, you got it right," Misha casually said. "I was just trying to see if you were telling the truth."

"Seriously?" Dean said, utterly confused now. "That's all you're gonna say? You're not gonna - I don't know - say something else?"

Misha pouted his lips as in consideration. "What else should I say?"

"Well, I don't know, something!" Dean exclaimed.

"Dean-" The actor suddenly came to a stop. "Oh, that's weird, saying it like that. Anyways... You really haven't ever told anyone about this, have you?"

Oh no, Dean was not going to have this conversation. "Look, whatever, dude. You believe we're real now, right?"

"Oh god, you really are Dean Winchester."

Dean frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Misha quickly said. "But to answer your question, well, I'm still thinking I'm just gonna wake up any second now, but... Yes, I guess I do believe you."

"Okay, good. Now, come on," Dean said as he stood from his chair. This charade had gone on for way too long.

Misha jumped up as well. "Wait, where are we going?"

"To find Sam," Dean told him as he walked through the hallway to the front door. "We've been running around blindly ever since we got here, but with you, we might actually have a shot. And I don't have a clue where he lives."

"Dean, wait!" Misha called after him, and Dean came to a stop. He turned around to find his fake husband still in the doorway. "Why don't you just do it like in the episode?"

Confused, Dean shook his head. "What do you mean? What episode?"

"'The French Mistake' of course. This is kinda what happened in that episode, right? That's why you asked about it last night?" Misha asked.

Dean let out a sigh. "That's what I thought too, but we only got out of there because of Raphael. No magic, remember?"

Misha frowned, with that stupid head-tilting that reminded him so much of Cas. God, he wished Cas was here.

"No..." Misha slowly said. "Well, I mean, yes, we... well, you did get back that way. But you only knew about that because that angel - god, what was his name again? - he killed, well, 'me' and managed to make contact with Raphael, right? So there's gotta be some sort of magic. Maybe we can do something like that to-" He got an amused look on his face. "... to talk to Castiel."

Dean took his time to let the words sink in. He realized Misha was right; Virgil had been able to contact Raphael. Dammit, he really should have read the entire script the day before, then he might have been able to work something out already, instead of having weird conversations with the man who played Cas on TV.

Eventually, he nodded. "Okay. You're right. Let's look into the script if we can find out how."

As he walked back to the living room, Misha gave him a satisfied smile before doing the same. They sat down on the couch, where Dean had left the laptop the day before. He quickly logged in with fingerprint recognition again.

"Oh, that's funny," Misha commented. "I hadn't expected that to work, I guess."

"You and me both," Dean huffed. The webpage with the transcript was still open and he scrolled down till he noticed Misha's name.

The actor laughed as he read along with Dean. "Oh, that was fun to play." Then he suddenly got a pensive frown on his face. "Hey, does this whole situation ever make you feel like you're not real?"

Dean gave him a weird look. "Why would I not be real?"

Misha shrugged. "I don't know, I feel like that a little bit now. I mean, your world is basically just an imaginary subuniverse that one person happened to come up with here. But it could be the other way around too. This world, my world, could just be a configured plot element within yours, just like the version of this world that we showed in 'The French Mistake.' Maybe we're both not real, and your life really is a TV show called Supernatural, and you ending up here is just another episode." He stopped, then asked, "Does that mean there are three me's?"

Trying to suppress all of the weird images he was getting of that, Dean made a face. "Dude. Stop it, you're giving me the creeps."

They read on until they got to Virgil killing Misha. Dean hadn't known exactly how it happened of course, so reading about it felt a little weird. What had Sam and him been doing at that time? He shook off the thought and tried to focus on the task ahead.

"Okay, so a chalice of human blood, that's it?" he said as he read the lines again.

"Hey, that's my blood you're talking about," Misha noted, and Dean rolled his eyes.

"You think humans will be able to pull this off too?"

For a moment, Misha seemed to consider it. "I'm tempted to say no since it's the only form of magic that actually did work. It would make sense if that was the case because the person doing the ritual had magical powers of his own."

"But he couldn't fly," Dean commented.

"I know." Misha let out a sigh. "Okay, so let's say it wasn't because the guy was an angel but because he was trying to contact one? Like it worked because Raphael, who was still in your world where magic does exist, was accepting the call?"

As the pieces fell together, Dean started to nod. "Right, because you can only open up the magic door from the inside. It wasn't Virgil who activated whatever link there was between that world and mine, it was Raphael."

"Yes!" Misha agreed excitedly. "And Raphael was probably expecting a call from him anyway, so he'd know that he would have to allow a connection to make it work."

Dean's heart sank at that. "Well, that's it then, I guess."

Misha gave him a hesitant look. "What do you mean?"

"Cas doesn't know we're here, does he?" he said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

He could see Misha's shoulders drop significantly. "Oh."

"Yeah," Dean sighed.

"Would it do if he was listening for your prayers in general?"

He gave the idea a thought. It wasn't too crazy but he had no idea if it would be enough. "Maybe? Hell, I don't know, man."

"Worth the shot, right?" Misha said casually, and Dean slowly turned to him with a weird look.

"You know, I gotta hand it to you, buddy, you're doing awfully well dealing with a blood ritual to communicate with an angel that you play on TV."

"I'm still waiting till I wake up."

Dean actually had to laugh at that. Everything considered, Misha was turning out to be pretty good to have at his side. Being able to talk to the actor as himself definitely got rid of a huge chunk of stress too.

"Okay," he concluded. "That means we're gonna need human blood and something to collect it in."

Misha frowned. "It doesn't have to be a lot of blood, right?"

"I don't think so," Dean said with a shrug.

"And that chalice? Do we need a special one?"

He thought about it for a second. Now that Misha mentioned it, he did remember that it were almost always Goblets of Blood that were used, but Sam had told him about using a regular cup too once. He guessed it would have to do because he doubted they'd be able to find the real thing in this universe.

"It should work," he answered Misha. "I mean, all of this is really one big gamble, but we've done it like that before in our world."

The actor slowly nodded but Dean thought he was looking a little bit more insecure. Not that he could blame him for it. Dean had been pretty shaken when he'd gotten here. Hell, this place still felt weird to him.

Within seconds, the hint of worry disappeared again though. "Alright," Misha sighed. "How do you want to do this?"

Dean gave it a thought, but in the end he just shrugged. "Set up in the kitchen? The thing itself shouldn't be that hard."

"As long as you're not thinking about cutting open my hand," Misha said as he stood from the couch. "I always thought that would be more painful than they make it look on TV, and I still have that meet-and-greet in a couple of hours."

~~~

When the line suddenly went dead, Sam stared at the phone in his hand for a moment. He probably should have felt bad for putting his brother in such an awkward position, but if he was being very honest with himself, Sam kind of felt a little better at knowing he wouldn't be the only one having to confess something when they met up again.

He got out of bed and started gathering his clothes, which were spread out all across the room. He dropped those into the laundry basket and went to shower and change into something out of Jared's closet. It was weird wearing another man's clothes that fit him so perfectly. It didn't help that their wardrobes were so different either. Not that Jared's style didn't look good - Sam was actually surprised at how good it looked - but it just wasn't him.

Richard had already left because apparently he sort of hosted this whole convention thing along with that actor who played Chuck. Sam couldn't help but wonder how that had happened. Of course he knew that Gabriel and Chuck knew each other, but since he had never actually seen them in the same room together, that had to mean they had never been on screen together either, right? Still, Rob and Rich seemed really close friends from what Sam had gathered from the internet and the conversations around him. Maybe you were bound to meet at some point if you worked on the same show?

Either way, he had more important things to focus on now. Like figuring out how they were supposed to get out of here. And, depending on how Dean's conversation with Misha went, finding a way to get his brother out of a mental institution.

He took the phone that he had found on his nightstand that morning, and the car keys that he had noticed in the kitchen the night before. While driving to set and then back to Jared's place, he had made sure to pay attention to the roads, and with a little help from navigation, he thought he might be able to find his way back to Misha's. The car looked so expensive that he was a little bit scared to drive it though. And with having grown up in the Impala, that was saying something.

Even with navigation, it took him way longer to find his way around Vancouver than it should have, but eventually he spotted the house where Misha and Jensen lived. The place still seemed as peaceful as the night before, which he took as a good sign. Admittedly, Sam didn't know what to expect at all, but in any case he hoped it meant he wouldn't get the door slammed shut in his face for being a weirdo.

He parked the car on the side of the road, got out and walked up to the front door. For a second, he had to smile at the sign with M & J engraved in it. This universe was so weird, and yet... Maybe it was closer to his own world than Sam could have imagined. He had no idea what that meant for him though.

Shaking off the idea, he rang the doorbell. It didn't even take that long before the door opened and he was suddenly face to face with Misha.

"Oh, thank god it's you," the actor said to his surprise. "Come in, maybe you can figure out what we're doing wrong."

"Wait, so you're...?" Sam started, just to make sure he was reading this right.

Misha sighed. "I'm on board with the whole Winchester crossover business, yeah. It's pretty nuts, but you were right about your brother. He passed my test with flying colors."

Wow. It was pretty hard to believe that Dean had actually admitted that he was in love with Cas after all the years. It was about time, but it was Dean.

"Anyway, we're busy trying to communicate with Cas, so let's go," Misha continued in an admirably casual voice.

"What?" Sam asked, confused, but Misha was already leading him to the kitchen. Where Dean was standing at the table, blood dripping from his hand into a salad bowl.

"Sammy, hey," his brother greeted him before he suddenly tensed up at the memory of that morning's revelation. "Uhm..."

"How did I know?" Sam guessed, unable to completely hide a smile.

Dean made a face. "Okay, we're so not gonna talk about this."

Exchanging a look with Misha, Sam decided it might be better to leave it at that. "So, Misha just told me you're trying to reach Cas? Will that even work in this dimension?"

"It worked in 'The French Mistake'," Misha explained. "We read through the script."

Sam nodded. He had wanted to do the same thing yesterday but got a little... distracted. He cleared his throat. "Alright, sounds good. Anything happen yet?"

"No," Dean grumbled. "Is there a spell or something that we need to say?"

"Shouldn't be," Sam said with a frown. He couldn't remember an incantation for it, but it admittedly had been a while.

"Maybe it needs more blood?" Misha suggested, and Dean's eyebrows shot up.

"You wanna volunteer?"

Shaking his head, Sam suggested, "Just give it one more try. And make sure you're talking loud and clear."

Rolling his eyes - as if he hadn't been doing that the whole damn time already - Dean started over. "Cas? We could really use your help, man. In case you haven't noticed, me and Sam, we're stuck in some sort of different dimension again, like that thing with Balthazar, remember? So if you can hear me, just... I don't know, give us a sign or something. Anything, really. We're kinda running out of options here."

For a long time, the three of them just stood there, staring at the bowl and waiting. Eventually, Dean sighed, shook the last drops of blood off his hand and grabbed a towel to wrap around it. "This is useless."

"Maybe we just gotta give it some time," Sam tried, but he already knew it wasn't going to get him anywhere.

"If Cas could hear us, he would have let us know," Dean shot back. "Hell, he probably would have already zapped us out of this place."

Misha gave him a compassionate look. "Why don't we go over the episode again, maybe there's something else we've missed."

"Yeah right," Dean huffed, dropping down into a chair.

The actor glanced at Sam for help, but he was just as clueless on what to say. When Dean got frustrated, it was always hard to reason with him.

So, Misha suppressed a sigh and tried a different approach. "Hey Sam, did you more or less manage being at home with Richard?"

Sam tried to sound casual. "Oh. Sure. It was fine," he said, not making eye contact with anyone. "We... didn't really talk much."

"Right, of course," Misha nodded. "That makes sense, with Jared and him fighting so much lately."

It took Sam a second to form actual words. "Wait, they're... they're fighting?"

"Well yeah, I thought that would've been obvious after spending a whole evening with Rich," Misha said, giving him a questioning look. "They're trying to work some things out, so it's been pretty tense."

"Hold on," Dean interrupted with a frown. "You said you barely talked to the guy all night, but you didn't think something was wrong?"

A small blush appeared on Sam's face, and he cleared his throat and suddenly seemed very interested in his shoes before he answered. "We uhm... got a little... distracted."

"A little-" Dean started, but then the confusion on his face turned to shock. "Please tell me you're not saying what I think you're saying."

"You slept together?" Misha called out. Dean made a face while Sam tried to regain his composure.

"It just kind of happened..."

"It just kind of-" Dean repeated before shaking his head as if that would rid him of what Sam had just said.

Misha was clearly trying to make sense of the whole situation. "I don't want to judge, but he still thinks you're Jared, right?"

"Yeah," Sam admitted sheepishly, taking a seat too. He did feel bad about misleading the man like that.

"And he still wanted to have sex with you?" Misha asked as he joined them at the kitchen table.

"He started it, I just went along with it because-"

"Please don't finish that sentence," Dean quickly said.

"But why would Rich want to? He knows they're fighting," Misha argued.

Sam's eyes grew big at the realization that Misha was right. "That doesn't make any sense."

Dean raised his hands. "Okay, let's backtrack this before I lose my freaking mind." He pointed to Misha. "You say fake Gabriel and that Jared guy have been fighting. What about?"

"I don't know if I should tell you..." Misha hesitantly answered.

"Why not?"

"Because it's personal," he argued. "Jared and Richard are some of our closest friends, and they told us about their issues in confidence."

Raising an eyebrow, Dean looked at his brother. "Pretty sure Sammy's already seen a lot more personal things about the man."

Misha decided to ignore both the comment and the bitchface in its reply. "Look, there's really not much to say. It's just the typical marriage struggles. They haven't had much time together lately; either Jared is shooting the show, or Richard is doing cons or making an album. They usually see more of their coworkers than of each other, which also doesn't help with any jealousy. Not that either of them would ever cheat of course, but it kinda sucks when your friends spend more time with your husband than you do. And they can't even make the cons a weekend like me and Jensen do because Rich has to be there all the time while Jared's stuck on set until Saturday. This week was supposed to be better because Rich is directing, but well..." He gestured at the Winchesters. "Now you guys are here."

"I suppose it did go better in a way," Dean noted, and Sam gave him another glare.

"Yeah," Misha admitted. "Maybe that's what it was, just Rich trying to make things right again."

"Maybe," Sam said, but he wasn't quite so sure. The scenario Misha suggested didn't feel like what had happened the night before. The vibe was just... wrong. But he didn't have another explanation, so he decided to just let it be for now.

Meanwhile, Misha turned to Dean. "By the way, looking back I suppose I should thank you for holding off that particular boat. Even if I thought you were acting like a huge asshole at the time, I get now why you didn't want to, and I appreciate you saving us both from that awkwardness."

"Uhm," Dean said. "Yeah, don't mention it."

"Unless all of this does turn out to be a sick joke. In that case, I want a divorce," Misha added, and he didn't look like he was kidding.

Sam quickly raised his hands. "No joke, promise."

"I was afraid you'd say that," the actor sighed. "Anyway-" He gestured at the salad bowl. "-what's next?"

"Well, it doesn't look like we're getting out of here anytime soon," Sam concluded. "Which means that we could definitely use some help with this con business."

Misha's jaw dropped. "Oh god, I hadn't even thought of that..." He rubbed his forehead while he took a moment to think. "Okay, first things first. Dean, you're gonna have to prepare for the concert tonight."

"Right," Dean said. "What's up with that anyway?"

"Every con, Rob's band - that's Rob Benedict-"

"Chuck, yeah, we know."

With a nod, Misha continued. "Rob's band always performs a concert on Saturday evening, and some of the actors, like Jensen, join them for a song or two."

Something dawned on Sam. "That's why Richard went to play some music with him?"

"Yes, Rich is doing a song too and plays bass on a few others," Misha confirmed.

Sam nodded. That was one mystery solved. "And you and I?"

"For the sake of the human race, we don't open our mouths when it comes to singing."

Dean snickered at that, but almost immediately frowned afterwards. "Wait, so I'll be alone over there?"

Misha offered him a comforting smile. "Don't worry, Jared and I usually stay in the green room."

"Green room?"

"Backstage."

"Thank god," Dean muttered. "So what song am I singing?"

As soon as Misha made a face, he knew he was screwed. "You're doing two actually."

"Oh great," he sighed. "That's real great. Fine, what songs then?"

"The first one is 'S.O.B.' by Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats."

He looked at Misha blankly. "I've never even heard of that."

The actor grabbed his phone and started a search. "Jensen actually picked it in your honor."

"He did?" Dean questioned in disbelief.

"Yeah. You'll see why," Misha said, before pressing play.

The three of them sat in silence as they listened to the song. After a while, Dean started bobbing his head along a bit. He had to admit that Jensen did know him a little too well for his liking.

"Alright," he concluded at the end. "I can dig this. Gonna have to learn those lyrics real freaking fast, but it's doable. What's the second one?"

"'Heaven'," Misha simply said.

Dean blinked. "The Bryan Adams song?"

When Misha nodded, he dropped his head in his hands. "You've got to be kidding me."

His fake husband shrugged. "The fans love it." Then a grin spread across his face. "And I like to think it's a you song too."

At first, Dean wasn't following, but then he imagined that song being applicable to him. And who he might be singing about. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out, so he closed it again, blushing.

His brother stared at him in amusement. It only seemed appropriate that Dean got to feel a little embarrassed too.

"Besides, as long as you and Jensen have the same vocal cords, the concert is going to be the least of your problems," Misha went on. "It's the Q&A panels tomorrow that have me worried."

Sam nodded. "Is there anything we can do to prepare? Wikipedia pages that could help us?"

"I don't know how useful those would be; most fans will already know anything you can find on there, so that's not the kind of stuff they'll be asking," Misha admitted.

"Don't we have a biography or something?" Dean asked. It sounded to him like Jared and Jensen were plenty popular for one.

Misha started to shake his head but then stopped. "Not a biography, but there is actually something else... Hold on," he said as he stood and left the kitchen. When he came back, he was holding a thin book. Sure enough, on the cover was a picture of Sam and Dean in front of the Impala against a greenish background.

Dean frowned. He hadn't liked Chuck's books about their lives and those didn't even have his real picture. "The hell's that?"

"It's a collection of pieces written by Supernatural actors for a fan who wanted to publish a book about what our fans mean to us," Misha explained. "Jensen and I only wrote a small bit, but I think you should read Jared's chapter, Sam."

He handed over the book, and Sam took a moment to look at it. It was called Family Don't End with Blood, which made him smile. "Pretty cool that you guys did this for a fan."

The corner of Misha's mouth turned up. "Well, it's a pretty special fandom, you'll see."

"What about me?" Dean asked. "Have I written something big somewhere?"

"Not really," Misha answered. "But you both might want to watch a couple of old panels to get a feel of what Jensen and Jared are like. There's plenty of videos on YouTube."

"Okay."

"And I'll see if I can put together a list of the most important things you need to know about our lives," he continued.

Sam was nodding along. "How many of these panels do we have?"

"Two, and you'll do them both together."

"Thank god," Dean muttered.

"The first one's tomorrow morning and is only for people with a gold ticket. The other is in the afternoon, for everybody," Misha explained.

"That's it?" Sam questioned, trying not to get his hopes up. "Two panels and we're done?"

Misha's face told him plenty. "No. There's also photo ops, autographs and meet-and-greets."

Dean stared at him for a second before rubbing his forehead. "This thing is gonna kill me."

"The photo ops should be okay," Misha tried to put his mind at ease. "People ask for a pose and you do it, that's all. The music's so loud they can't possibly start a conversation. There are some ops with multiple actors, but you two are always with me or each other."

"Well, what if the picture sucks?" Dean commented.

Pursing his lips together, Misha told him, "Just try and look pretty. You're very good at that, don't worry."

"What about the autographs?" Sam asked.

"People give you something and you sign it. Sometimes they have specific instructions, sometimes they don't. Some might say a little something, but there's no real in-depth talking there either."

"Okay, but... we don't know Jared and Jensen's signatures," Sam said.

Clearly Misha hadn't thought of that. "Fucking hell, of course..." He wrung his hands while he took a moment to think. "Okay, you'll have to practice as much as possible. Just google some pictures and do the best you can, I suppose."

"Good thing I'm plenty experienced with forgeries," Dean noted.

"The meet-and-greet is a bit more tricky too," Misha went on. "You've got a general one and a VIP one each and it's basically you and twenty fans in a room talking."

Sam made a face. "That doesn't sound good for us."

The actor hummed in agreement. "My best advice? Ask about them. Do a round of names, is it their first convention, who's their favorite character, that kind of stuff. You'll still have to answer some questions of course but this way you can keep it to a minimum, and they'll love that you're showing an interest in their lives."

"Turn the tables," Dean said approvingly. "I like it."

"Okay, so we've got the book, panels to watch and signatures to learn," Sam summed up. "Anything else we can do to prepare?"

Misha sighed. "Well, you're gonna meet the other actors tonight, so I'll tell you a bit more about them." He looked at Sam. "I'd give you pointers on how to deal with Rich, but it seems you're handling that really well by yourself."

Dean snorted, and Sam tried to ignore the embarrassment that was acting up again. He sincerely feared he was never going to hear the end of that.

"So, the other actors?" he tried to change the subject.

Realizing what his intentions were fully well, Misha and Dean exchanged a look, but the former started telling them about his coworkers anyway. It was both fascinating and weird to listen to. Some actors reminded them a lot of their characters, like Felicia, and some didn't at all, like Matt. They made sure to memorize all the names though. Just when they started to get there, Misha brought up the non-cast people.

"Jason might actually be one of my biggest concerns," he said once he was done going over the band members. "He's Jensen's oldest friend in the group. Usually, he's pretty close with Rob too, but Rob's gonna be on stage the entire night."

"So what do we do about him?" Dean asked.

"The way I see it, we're gonna need a lot of whiskey," Misha said decisively. "And pretending I'm claiming all of your attention."

As Dean's eyebrows shot up, Sam tried to suppress a snicker.

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna overdo anything," Misha quickly said, only just refraining from rolling his eyes at Dean's reaction. "Jensen and I always keep it to a minimum anyway. Acting otherwise would only stand out more."

"Okay," Dean nodded. "Cool." But he still looked a lot more nervous than two minutes ago.

Misha decided to just ignore it like he was doing so many things that day and continued his introductory round of all the people they would see. Despite his best efforts though, Sam and Dean kept feeling incredibly overwhelmed. Every explanation just seemed to lead to more questions, and they didn't have time for that.

"You got one of those meet-and-greets in a few hours, right?" Dean asked at one point. "Are you coming back home after?"

"I can't," Misha said apologetically. "Saturday is my biggest day; I've got one thing after another scheduled, photo ops, m&g's... My auto session starts at six and those can last forever. And then I still gotta get dinner."

"What time is the concert?" Sam asked.

"Nine, I think. But there's soundcheck first."

Dean let out a loud sigh. "I don't know, man. I still think we're in way over our heads here."

"Yeah, me too," Sam admitted. "Somebody's bound to ask a question at some point that we can't answer, even though we really should. We have nothing to fall back on."

Slowly nodding in understanding, Misha leaned back in his chair. "I know. And I would gladly do the talking for you, but this might just be one of the few set-ups where I really can't."

Sam's eyes suddenly grew big. "What if you can?"

"What, you wanna pretend we both mysteriously lost our voices?" Dean scoffed.

He was met with a glare. "No. I was thinking," Sam said, turning back to Misha, "what if we got a kind of earpiece through which you can help us if things get tricky?"

That was reason enough to ban every thought of mockery from Dean's mind. "Sammy, that's brilliant! Misha can just give us all the answers then!"

Misha was already nodding excitedly as he started searching through his phone for the con schedule. "That is perfect actually because we've barely got any overlap. I can help with both of your panels and the regular meet-and-greets. That just leaves you with the VIP ones."

"Okay," Dean agreed. "How long are those?"

"Twenty minutes."

He looked at his brother. "How much damage can we do in twenty minutes, right?"

"Well, don't jinx it," Sam commented.

"Great," Misha decided. "Okay, let's have lunch and go over the important stuff. Then you two can handle the rest while I'm at the con."

The greater part of their lunch was spent learning as much as they could about Jared and Jensen's lives. From relationships to work to family, Misha tried to cover the most important things from all of it. He even had them memorize a couple of birthdays in case fans would ask about the last or the next one. It was a blessing that the Winchesters already knew everything about the Supernatural plot because there was no way he had time for that too. Best case scenario this was going to be a con that heavily focused on the show and what Sam and Dean would and wouldn't do.

"Alright," he said when he was ready to leave. "You know what you have to do. Call me if you have questions or need anything. Actually, text me because I probably won't have time to answer the phone. And don't do anything impulsive."

Sam smiled. "Promised. Thanks, Misha."

"Yeah man, we owe you a lot," Dean added.

Misha looked between the two of them, then shook his head. "This is insane. I'll see you guys at the concert."

Once it was just the two of them, Sam and Dean set to work. The oldest Winchester grabbed Jensen's cedit card to order the earpieces to be delivered tomorrow while his brother started reading Jared's chapter. At some point, Dean put headphones on to listen on repeat to the two songs that he had to sing while he looked up pictures of Jensen's autograph. Then he grabbed a piece of paper and started practicing, nodding along to "S.O.B.". This part he could get right, at least.

When Sam was still caught up in the book two hours later, Dean pulled down his headphones. "Dude, how long is that chapter?"

Sam looked up from the page, quickly blinking away the tears that were gathering in eyes. "I've been going through the rest of the book, actually. Dean, you should read this. I mean, I know we don't have time for the whole thing, but at least Jensen and Misha's pieces. There's so much here, both from actors and fans, and the impact they've had on each other..." He shook his head. "It's amazing. I get what Misha was saying about this fandom being special now."

Dean raised his eyebrows for a moment but then nodded. "Alright. Position switch; you sign, I read."

Half an hour after, he had to admit his brother was right. He was surprised at how much everyone seemed to care, especially the actors. And however brief, reading Jensen's own words at least gave him the idea he knew the man a little bit better.

"We should get around to watching some of those panels," Sam suggested from the table. Jared's autograph was so illegible that he wasn't very worried about getting it right, and his hand needed a break anyway. Plus, he had become much more curious about Jared after reading that chapter.

They spent the rest of the afternoon watching con videos, not just Jensen and Jared's but also of some of the other actors that they would meet over the weekend. As they watched, both brothers became more quiet. It was weird and kind of sad sometimes because so many of these people were actually gone in their own world. Their mom, Charlie, Gabriel, even Meg; their actors all brought up memories, both good and bad. When "Andy" walked on stage in one video, Sam's eyes grew big at the recognition of his old friend, who didn't seem to have changed at all in those past ten years. He suddenly hoped that he would see Gabriel Tigerman over the weekend. Of course it wasn't really Andy, but Sam just... wanted to talk to him, one last time. And these actors seemed to know the people from their world so well that it was close enough.

"Weird, huh?" Sam said after a while.

"Yeah." Then Dean let out a laugh, but it didn't sound convinced. "I never would have guessed Ketch was an American, or that Asmodeus wrote poetry."

Sam just smiled, leaving his brother to deal with the situation in his own way.

By the time they finally felt familiar enough with Jensen and Jared's behavior, the Winchesters only had just enough time left to get ready before Dean had to go rehearse for the concert.

"What the hell do I wear to this?" he asked, standing in front of Jensen's closet.

Next to him, Sam shrugged. "From what I gathered from the videos, something casual chic?"

"Thanks for narrowing that down for me, Sammy," he commented.

He rummaged through the closet for a while, until he found something that piqued his interest. "I want to wear this hat."

His brother gave it a skeptical look. "Are you sure about that? I don't remember Jensen wearing a hat in any of the videos. Might not really be his thing."

Dean raised his eyebrows at him. "It's in the guy's closet, what more do you want?"

"Fine, then wear the hat," Sam quickly surrendered.

Still, after Dean had managed to put his outfit together, he took a picture of himself in the mirror to send it to Misha for approval. It didn't take half a minute for him to get a response: an emoji with heart eyes.

A look of shock appeared on Dean's face, but a second message came in before he had the time to process.

'Sorry, force of habit'

And now, for some reason, he was blushing. Dean pocketed his phone before he could think about it too much. "Sam, we're leaving!"

Clif drove them to the hotel where the con was being held and walked them in through a back entrance. Both Sam and Dean were starting to get more nervous with every step. When Clif finally opened a door, they were met with a plethora of voices.

"Look who joined the party!" Gabriel's - no, Richard's - sounded over the rest of them.

He was dressed in an outfit that seemed vaguely familiar to Sam, but he didn't have time to think about it because Rich immediately walked up to him and pulled him down for a kiss. "I was hoping I'd catch you just before my photo op," he said with a grin.

Sam smiled back happily. Because what else was he supposed to do, right?

"I really gotta go now, but I'll see you later," Richard told him, and after another kiss he rushed out of the room.

Before they got a chance to recover, they were already being greeted by the other actors. Hugs were exchanged, and everyone was so welcoming that it actually became hard to feel like an intruder.

"You just missed Misha," Matt said to Dean. "But he wanted me to wish you good luck with rehearsing. He's so sappy when it comes to you."

"Uh... Thanks."

"I thought it was cute," Lisa added in.

Matt raised his hands. "I never said it wasn't cute."

"Jason?" an unfamiliar woman interrupted the conversation. "We should get going."

"Alright, see you guys later!" Jason said before grabbing a guitar that was leaning against the wall and following the woman outside.

As they went to sit a round table, Sam threw a look at his brother. "Bit chaotic, huh?" he muttered under his breath.

Dean just hummed in agreement. Chaotic was good; there wouldn't be as much eyes on them if they screwed up.

"We were just about to do 'Before He Cheats'," Rob announced, picking up another guitar from next to his chair. "Ready, Briana?"

Making sure to keep his expression in place, Dean wondered what the hell was happening. When Misha mentioned a rehearsal, he had expected the real thing, up on a stage and with microphones. At least then he would have gotten an idea of what the room and setting would look like. But apparently, they were keeping it more casual than that.

Rob and one of the other band members - Dean wasn't sure if his name was Billy or Borja because he had become confused when Misha said they also often used last names - started playing, and Briana broke into her song. She was good. Something about her was very different from Donna, but Dean decided he liked her just the same. She had this energy about her that he respected from the very first second.

When she was done, Rob suggested they would do one of Jensen's next, and Dean picked "S.O.B." to start with. To his surprise, the rest of the cast began clapping along with the rhythm. It was... pretty awesome actually. Even though he didn't know these people whatsoever, it kind of felt like they had his back. So he took a deep breath and started singing.

It wasn't easy. He might have spent the entire afternoon studying the lyrics and the melody, but he still had to adapt to the live instruments. Rob and his band did great though. And even if one of them made a mistake at some point, they just laughed it off and kept going. It couldn't be more clear that this was just a group of great friends who liked to play some music together.

They did more songs afterwards, and at some point Dean even got comfortable enough to softly sing along to those of the other actors. Sam hesitated for a moment because he wasn't sure if it was something Jared would do, but in the end he decided that the guy seemed spontaneous enough.

Some songs they went through twice, Rob suggesting small changes along the way to get it just right. It was fun, and luckily something that didn't require much input from the Winchesters.

Richard returned after a while, this time dressed in a weird shirt. Where did Sam know that previous outfit from?

"Missed me?" his husband asked with a playful wink.

Sam knew he had to play along, so he gave the only answer he could think of. "Always."

"Aww, you guys," Kim commented, and Dean was having trouble not looking as traumatized as he felt.

Once they were done with the track list, the brothers tried not to get too involved in any conversations. Sure, when someone asked them a question, they answered, and they mimicked everyone else's responses at certain comments, but otherwise they made sure to keep still.

It meant that they were very happy when Misha finally got back. Judging from the look on the actor's face, the feeling was mutual.

"Thank god you're here," he sighed when he saw the Winchesters. He drew up a chair next to Dean, gave the other man a pointing look and then pecked him on the lips before he sat down.

If it hadn't been for the non-verbal warning, Dean doubted he would have been able to keep his act together. He was having plenty of trouble maintaining a neutral face as it was. Misha had just kissed him. And while he wasn't Cas, he did have Cas's lips, and that made Dean feel all kinds of things.

Luckily, Misha did an excellent job dragging the attention away from him. "So now that I've got two seconds to sit down, how's everyone's day been?"

"Oh, the ladies panel was so much fun," Briana said. "Was that the first time there were five of us?"

"I was wondering about that! It was awesome having the stage so full," Kim added.

"Not to mention how lucky the crowd was to get all of you together," Rich said, then laughed. "And poor David had to follow that all by himself."

Rob shook his head with a grin before turning to Misha again. "How was your auto session?"

"Oh, it was okay. I got one hater, but..."

"Wait, what?" Dean said before he could help himself.

Misha shot him a surprised look, but quickly composed himself again. "It wasn't a big deal, just the usual."

"That's so fucked up. I can't believe the three of you still have to deal with that!" Kim said, and Dean's head snapped in her direction, eager to find out what they were talking about.

"There's always that one person who ruins it for everyone else, isn't there?" Rich sighed. He raised his hand to play with the ends of Sam's hair, which made the hunter's insides tingle. "I mean, I might get some collateral damage once in a while, but I can't imagine the crap they always give you guys."

Sam felt like he had to add something too, but this seemed like a delicate conversation that he should probably not get into blindly. Besides, he was having trouble focusing on anything other than the feeling of Rich's fingers.

His brother was still staring at Misha, trying to figure out why any of these so-called fans would hate him so much that they apparently felt the need to let it show. It couldn't just be because they didn't like a character, right?

"Let's just forget about it, alright?" Misha quickly said. "It's not the first time and it won't be the last, so we might as well enjoy the rest of the evening. Please say someone has had some nicer surprises today."

Richard shrugged. "There was a first-timer in my meet-and-greet. That's always fun."

Matt jumped in right away. "You know, it never stops amazing me that after so many years there are still new people finding the show."

They all agreed, and the conversation took a different turn quickly afterwards. Jason came back, as did Ruth a little later. Apparently, the group was now complete because Kim right away suggested they went to get dinner.

On their way there, Lisa came to walk next to Sam at some point. "Hey, how are you holding up?"

That probably wasn't a compliment to his acting skills. "Oh. I'm okay," he quickly said.

"Okay," she answered. "I just thought you seemed a little quiet. Which is perfectly understandable of course, since you and Rich are still working things out."

"Right," Sam said. Why did everyone keep bringing that up except Rich?

"Just know that if you ever want to talk about it, you can always come to me," Lisa assured him, and he offered her a grateful smile. While that might not have been his problem, he appreciated the gesture.

"Thanks."

Maybe Misha had caught some of it because he made sure to keep talking to Sam and Dean throughout most of the dinner, so that anyone else barely got the chance to start a conversation. He also bought drinks to anyone who wanted them. Well, except for Dean, who he thought would better stay sober if they didn't want this to end badly. Dean was a bit offended that his fake husband had so little faith in him, but he supposed the man was right to be careful. This con was enough of a challenge in itself.

When they finally got back to the green room, Dean was ready to tackle this concert. The band went up for a soundcheck while the rest of them settled in to await their turn.

Misha loyally sat next to him and softly asked, "You nervous?"

"A little," he admitted. "But I think I got this."

"Me too." Then Misha dropped his voice even further. "You are Dean Winchester, after all."

Dean grinned at that. He was starting to like the actor more than he had expected. "And I've got a cool hat."

"A very cool hat. Now let's go save your brother."

Sam was currently trying to avoid answering a bunch of questions from Rich. He asked some of his own in an attempt to steer the conversation in a different direction, but his husband seemed adamant about not letting that happen. If it hadn't been for Misha and Dean approaching them, he wouldn't have lasted ten more minutes.

"Hey Rich, how's the album coming along?" Dean asked, just like Misha had whispered in his ear a few seconds ago.

"Pretty much finished, according to Manns," Richard told him. "What about yours?"

Feeling quite proud that he knew the answer, Dean said, "Same with us. Who knows, we might end up releasing them at the same time and have to compete for the fans' attention."

Richard laughed. "Oh, like you wouldn't easily win that fight."

That was when Misha decided to join in. "You know what, you and Jared should come over some time so you guys can play a little music together again."

"That sounds great, we should definitely do that," Sam agreed, just glad that he finally knew what to say.

Luckily, Misha took it from there until the concert was about to start. They could hear all of the fans getting into the main room, and Sam was very happy that he didn't have to perform for that crowd. Not tonight at least.

They all wished Rob and the others good luck before they went out there, and soon enough Louden Swain broke into their first song. The other actors continued their conversations with the music in the background, occasionally stopping to sing along to certain parts. One by one they went on stage to join the band for their song.

Just as Misha said, Richard played a bass on a couple, which Sam didn't mind at the moment; conversations were a whole different thing than flirting and sex. Jesus, now he sounded like his brother.

At one point, Misha leaned over to Dean. "You're up after this song."

"Thanks," he muttered before standing up to go wait behind the stage. To his surprise, Misha joined him.

Sam didn't know if he should come along too, so he decided to just stay and feel abandoned. In terms of Dean and Cas/Misha, this place was starting to feel a lot like home.

Dean looked up at the heavy curtains that separated him from the band. "Any final words of wisdom before I head out there?"

"Yes, actually," Misha said, and he put a hand on Dean's shoulder. "You know the songs and the lyrics. As for everything else? Just enjoy it. This seems like your kind of scene too, so go ahead and be yourself. Let out your inner rock star. I promise it will be okay."

For a moment, Dean looked at the man in front of him, and while he wasn't Cas, Dean was still incredibly grateful that he was there. "Thanks, Mish."

Misha smiled at him, but there was suddenly a hint of sadness in his eyes. Dean wondered if he was thinking about Jensen.

When the song ended and the fans burst out into applause, Dean took a big breath. Then Rob announced him and he gave Misha a final nod before walking up the stairs and through the curtains.

He was pretty sure that no one had ever gotten as excited to see him as the people in that room. It was an amazing feeling.

After taking a playful bow, he took the microphone. "How we doing, Canada?"

Chapter Text

The next morning, Dean woke up in the bed of one of Misha's kids. The alarm on Jensen's phone was buzzing, meaning that it was time for him to get up and get ready for the con.

Dean would be the first to admit that last night had been pretty awesome. His songs had gone great, and the entire group got a couple more drinks afterwards. He was also really starting to dig Jensen's friends.

Nevertheless, he dreaded today. Singing he could do, but panels, pictures, autographs and meet-and-greets? Even after all the research they had done, he wasn't so sure.

But there was no turning back now, so he got up and went downstairs. He wasn't surprised to find Misha already awake.

"Morning," his pretend husband said. "Ready for today?"

With a groan, Dean dropped down at the kitchen table. "Maybe?"

"Well, then you'll be glad to hear that those earpieces you ordered arrived."

"Great. Now, is there coffee too?"

Misha laughed and showed him how to use their fancy coffee machine. "Have you heard from Sam yet?"

Dean shook his head and then made a face. "He might be busy having a little too much fun with Rich again."

"Yeah, how do you think that happened?"

"I don't know, and I don't want to either."

Rolling his eyes at how Dean Winchester that answer was, Misha started on breakfast. He was pleasantly surprised when Dean offered to help. "I didn't take you for the cooking type."

"Then you haven't been paying enough attention to the show," Dean retorted.

"Touché."

Once they had eaten and gotten ready, Clif came to pick them up again. They also went to get Sam and Richard before returning to the hotel.

"I'm gonna find Rob to prepare a bit," Rich announced the moment they entered the green room, and after a cheeky wink at Sam, he disappeared into the direction of the stage.

As soon as it was just the three of them, Dean got out the earpieces. "Alright, let's do this."

They managed to set everything up, and the Winchesters were incredibly relieved when they could hear Misha's voice in their ears. Neither of them knew what they would have done if it hadn't worked.

"No offense, but I can't wait till this con is over and we can go back to finding a way out of this place," Dean said.

Misha shrugged, a little smile on his lips. "No offense, but I can't wait till you get out of this place so that I can have my husband back."

As his brother let out a laugh, Sam tried to smile back, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Or rather, with someone else. But he pushed those ideas aside. There was no point dwelling on it, on what could have been.

"Hey Mish, could you give us a moment?" Dean asked, to the surprise of both men.

"Sure," Misha said before he headed out.

Sam gave his brother a questioning look. "What?"

"You tell me, Sammy. You're the one who was looking pretty constipated just now."

Of course Dean had noticed. Sam didn't know why he thought that he could have hidden it. "It's nothing."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Come on, man, I know something's bothering you. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you don't even want to go home."

"It's not that," Sam sighed. "And it doesn't matter anyway because there's nothing we can do about it."

"Try me."

He huffed, knowing that his brother wasn't going to give up. And maybe it was better to just get it all out and come clean anyway. "Look... I know that Rich isn't Gabriel, okay? That he can't be. But they are so much alike, Dean. Getting to spend time with him has been the next best thing to having Gabe back." He ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. "It's not that I don't wanna go home, but I am gonna miss him when we do."

"I get that, okay? I mean, I'll admit I kinda miss Gabe too-"

"But you're not falling in love with him," Sam interrupted him, effectively shutting his brother up. "You... You didn't wonder all those years ago if maybe there was... I don't know, something between the two of you. And you didn't try to deny it until it was far, far too late."

"You think?"

Sam fell silent as it dawned on him what Dean meant. "Right," he muttered. And his brother was probably missing Cas even more, with everything that they had been through together. "Pretty ironic that precisely the two people we want to be with are located in different dimensions, huh?"

"Except Rich ain't it, Sammy," Dean pointed out sympathetically. "And if you wanna pretend he's Gabe, that's one thing, but the guy still believes you're his husband."

"I know," Sam sighed, burying his head in his hands. "You're right, I know that. No matter what, I can't keep doing that to him." He took a deep breath. "It's probably for the best if we just go home as soon as possible."

Dean nodded and patted him on the shoulder. "Sorry, man."

They went to find Misha again and found him quietly talking to Ruth. She looked pretty panicked, and there was a deep frown on Misha's forehead.

"What's going on?" Dean asked, always ready for action if there was trouble. Although if this universe had ghosts, he was going to be so done.

Ruth jumped when she spotted them, then glanced back at Misha. Finally, she smiled. "I should head back, but I will see you all later." And with that, she hurried off.

"What was that about?" Sam asked Misha in confusion.

"She's not onto us, is she?" Dean added.

Misha grimaced. "No, it's not that. She just... saw something and didn't know who else to tell."

The Winchesters exchanged a questioning look, then turned to Misha and asked in unison, "What?"

For a few seconds, Misha debated what to say. "I don't know if I should tell you..." he admitted.

"Dude, we hunt monsters for a living," Dean argued. "If you think it's gonna sound crazy, trust me, it's not."

"I don't," Misha started, then hesitated again. Eventually, he sighed. "Oh what the hell, you're not staying here anyway. Ruth was looking for Rob and Rich and found them behind the stage."

"So?" Dean pressed.

"Apparently, they were making out."

Sam's jaw dropped. Dean looked utterly disgusted.

"He's cheating?" Sam called out. He couldn't believe it. He hadn't known Richard for that long, but he had always seemed like such a nice guy. And he was so... so...

"That is so not an image of Chuck and Gabriel I wanted implanted in my brain," Dean muttered.

His brother didn't even hear him. "Is that why Jared and him have been fighting?"

"I don't know!" Misha said, looking just as baffled as Sam felt. "I only just found out and I'm pretty sure that Jared didn't know either, otherwise he probably would have told us. I have no idea which happened first, the cheating or the fighting, but I guess there's a good chance they're related somehow. God, I wish Jensen was here, he would know what to do."

Trying to be the reasonable one in the room, Dean raised his hands. "Okay, this is all very sad, but shouldn't we be focusing on the convention that is starting in less than ten minutes?"

"How could he do that?!" Sam questioned, completely ignoring him.

Misha shook his head. "I have no idea. This isn't like Rich at all."

"Maybe I should go talk to him," Sam said.

"No. No, that's a terrible idea," Dean argued. "What are you gonna do, slap him in the face? Then what about Jared when he gets back here? The guy's gonna have no idea what happened."

"Dean's right," Misha sighed. "Maybe for now it's best if we just pretend Ruth never saw anything. I can figure things out once everyone is back in their own universe."

Since his brother was still frowning, Dean added, "Exactly. This is none of our business in the first place."

Sam huffed but remained quiet, which Dean took as a victory.

"Okay." Misha rubbed his hands nervously. "I can process this later. Let's get you two out on that stage."

He led them to the ballroom, with Sam frowning the whole way there. The frown only deepened when they heard Rob and Rich's voices through the speakers.

"Dude, you can be a woman scorned about this later, but try not to make this stupid panel even harder than it already is, okay?" Dean told him.

The only response he got was a bitchface, but Sam did take a deep breath and tried to relax.

Their names were called and the audience burst into excitement. There was a significantly lower number of voices compared to yesterday and Dean suddenly wondered if it would be more noticeable if they screwed up in front of a small crowd.

"Remember what we talked about, listen to what I say and you'll be fine," Misha said.

And with that, Sam and Dean walked on stage for their first, and last, ever Supernatural panel.

~~~

It was all thanks to Misha that the Winchesters managed to get through those thirty minutes. Sure, sometimes they had to stall a little to give him enough time to provide them with the responses, but they didn't say anything stupid. Dean even improvised once, when a fan asked him about Misha, clearly trying to get something cute out of him. Sure, the question made him a little flustered, but then he just gave an honest-to-god answer about the guy's cooking skills and sense of humor and general kindness. The crowd loved it and Misha said through the earpiece, "That was really sweet, thank you. Even if Jensen might have said something different, I think he'd be proud of you."

Dean refrained from rolling his eyes in front of the crowd.

Afterwards, he immediately needed to get ready for photo ops, so he insisted on trying to find himself a beer in preparation. They were in a hotel; it shouldn't have been hard. But in order to prevent some kind of social disaster, it was probably better if the three of them stuck together anyway. Sam didn't even object that much to his drinking behavior, mind still occupied elsewhere.

The trio was making their way through the hotel, back to the green room, but they stopped dead in their tracks when they rounded a corner.

About twenty feet away, Rich had Rob pinned to the wall in a heated kiss. It was absolutely shameless, noisy as hell, their bodies pressed together, hands all over each other. But Rich must have heard them approach, because he immediately pulled away and his eyes caught Sam's.

There was no panic there, no surprise or regret or embarrassment. On the contrary, they held a kind of curiosity. A challenge. A sly eagerness to see what would happen next.

And even behind the glasses, Sam knew that spark.

"Gabriel."

Now, there was a hint of surprise.

Dean cleared his throat and put a hand on his shoulder. "Uhm, Jared..."

But Sam ignored him and strode over to the two men.

"Jared, I-I am so sorry," Rob hurried. "I-"

"Get out."

The guy bolted, but Sam hardly noticed, his eyes never leaving the golden ones in front of him. He was feeling too many things, anger and fear and relief and a stupid flutter of hope. He knew he was right, but he was terrified that he wasn't.

"Where did I screw up?"

The familiar words made his heart swell. He didn't want to smile, but he couldn't help himself. He never would have dared to hope and now...

But that still didn't mean that he was in the mood to entertain Gabriel. "Why? Why didn't you just tell us you were alive? Why bother with all of this crap?"

"Hold on a minute," Dean interrupted, unable to believe what he was hearing. "Gabriel?"

With a snap of his fingers, the archangel made his glasses and beard disappear.

"Holy fucking shit," Misha said.

"Why?" Sam repeated.

Gabriel sighed. "After I 'died', I needed some space."

"You needed some space?" Dean scoffed. "How about lending us a hand when we were trying to save the freaking world?"

"I did lend you a hand, remember? And look where that got me."

"So instead you pull another disappearance act and you drop us in- in-" He looked around frantically. "Canada?!"

"Dean-"

"He could've helped us, Sam!"

"Dean, maybe you should try to calm down a bit," Misha tried.

"Ca- Dammit!" Dean marched towards the archangel. "We trusted you, you selfish bastard, and you bailed on us. So you can suck up whatever piss poor-"

Gabriel snapped his fingers again, and Dean and Misha were teleported out of the hallway.

As Dean realized what had just happened, he started positively seething. "Son of a bitch!"

"Dean," Misha tried.

"What?!"

If Misha was bothered by his outburst, he didn't show it. "Aren't you glad this means you'll be going home?"

That effectively took most of the heat out. To be honest, he was so angry about being played yet again that he had already forgotten his constant anxiety about their situation. Which was Gabriel's fault.

"Of course I am," he muttered. At the very least, he was relieved. Cas wouldn't have to keep looking for him, as Dean knew he would. Things would go back to whatever passed as normal in their lives.

"I'll admit that I literally can't even believe what happened just now, but maybe you should focus on that then," Misha said with a gentle smile. "And for what it's worth, despite all the craziness, I'm still glad I got a chance to get to know you, Dean Winchester."

Dean could count the things that he would miss about this world on one hand, but Misha might just be one of them. So he tried to push Gabriel and his antics from his mind and offered his new friend a smile. "You too, Mish."

The guy got that half-fond, half-sad look again that Dean had spotted a few times since he had revealed his true identity.

"He calls you that too, doesn't he? Jensen?"

The warmth on Misha's face told him everything that he needed to know. "He does. I think you two would get along, you know."

"I'd say I'd love to meet him someday, but honestly, that would be real damn creepy."

Misha laughed and Dean had to admit that he felt better. He was going home. He was going to see Cas again. And Misha would get his husband back, he assumed.

"So what are you going to do when you get back?" Misha asked, starting to return in the direction of the stage.

"Kill Gabriel."

He grinned, but it quickly faded. "And after that?"

Dean shrugged. "Get back to work. Wrap up the case. You know our lives; it won't take long before the next problem shows its ugly head."

After a long pause, Misha asked, "Can I give you some advise, Dean?"

As much as he liked the guy, Dean doubted that he could contribute much to the monster-hunting lifestyle, but he guessed that he could humor him. "Sure."

"I think you should tell Cas how you feel about him."

He froze in place. Misha turned to look at him, waiting patiently for his response.

"I can't do that." The very thought was enough to make him nauseous with nerves.

"Why not?"

"Because!"

"Because?"

"Because- Just- No, okay? No. He's my best friend, I can't-"

"Lose him?"

Dean rubbed a nervous hand over his jaw.

"Why would you lose him?"

"Are you kidding me?" he huffed. "Have you seen my track record?"

"He has already been your friend for years. He literally died and he's still there for you. Honestly, how much worse can you do?"

"What does it matter? He probably doesn't even feel the same way."

Misha gave him the exact same look that Cas would have every time when Dean made a self-deprecating comment. He never knew what to do with that look.

"Yes, he does."

Dean didn't believe him. He couldn't believe him. Because if he allowed himself to think that Cas and him, that they could actually be together or something and he turned out to be wrong...

"No offense, but how would you know?" It came out sadder than he had intended.

"Because I play him that way. Yes, even before Jensen and I got together, if you want to question my ability to separate reality from fiction. And okay, that may not be an entirely foolproof reasoning, but Cas... This probably sounds kinda weird to you, but he's like a really good friend. I like to think I know him pretty well. Maybe in a different way than you do."

Not sure if that was enough to convince him, Dean looked away. "Still. I don't..." He didn't know how to finish that sentence, no matter how long Misha waited for him to.

In the end, the other man sighed. "Dean, you are not a happy man."

"Excuse me?"

"I know the life you lead. I know the people who write it and I know the network it airs on. So you need to believe me when I say that your and Cas's future together is looking pretty bleak. It's not gonna happen by itself. Supernatural definitely isn't going to make it happen for you." He smiled, and it was the kindest smile Dean had ever seen on him. "But you? It's your life, Dean. You can change your story. You can choose to do what will make you happy. And you deserve to be happy, you and Cas both. So while I know that it's scary and risky and miles out of your comfort zone, I don't think you should let any of that get in the way of what you really want. And I'm pretty sure we both know what that is."

For a moment, Dean allowed himself to think about Cas, really think about him. He thought about the wrinkle in his brow whenever he was worried, about how piercingly blue his eyes were, about the little smile that softened his whole face and that Dean felt no one got to see quite as often as he did. He thought about the determination with which Cas fought for and protected his friends. About his bluntness and the way he patiently indulged Dean when he was being utterly ridiculous. About his determination to do the right thing, no matter the cost. And he thought about himself, about the little jump that his heart would make whenever he heard a flutter of wings and about how warm he felt inside when he managed to draw one of those rare, loud laughs from Cas. If he let himself, he could even imagine what it would feel like to kiss him.

He did know what he wanted. It echoed in his bones at each one of those thoughts. And it terrified him - Cas terrified him - but if there was even the smallest chance... Well, worst case scenario, they never had trouble being awkward to each other now either.

"Yeah, okay."

Dean was grateful that Misha didn't say anything in response. He just smiled and patted him on the shoulder as they started walking again.

~~~

Elsewhere in the hotel, Sam was torn. On the one hand, he really couldn't blame Dean for being angry, but on the other, that wasn't going to take them anywhere. Besides, this was Gabriel. He had always held something of a soft spot for the archangel.

"Don't worry, I didn't send them far."

To be honest, the conversation would probably be easier without Dean's presence anyway. "Look, I get that you needed some space. I really do. And you had every right to take it. But that still doesn't explain years of disappearing, then throwing us into a parallel universe where you pretend to be some actor."

Gabriel crossed his arms and sucked in his lip, not looking at Sam. "I did keep an eye on you, okay? In case you two really got in trouble."

"Oh, really?"

"Just because I knew doesn't mean I was in time or in a position to do something about it."

Sam supposed that that was fair.

"Anyhoo, things were looking pretty tight with those hellhounds, so I thought I'd intervene before they made chew toys out of you. But I needed to drop you somewhere safe while I took care of them."

"And this was the first thing that popped into your head?"

Mischief sparkled in Gabriel's eyes as he shrugged. "Honestly? Watching Dean-o pine after my baby bro has had me wanting to shove his feelings in his face for years. I was hoping this place might finally open his eyes and get him to do something about it."

With his powers, Sam would probably already have done the same. But that still left... "And the whole thing with Richard? Was any of that real? And Rob?"

"Would good old Rich ever cheat on his husband? No. But..." The angel's gaze softened into something that Sam wasn't used to seeing on him. "What can I say? I've always liked you, Sam. Ever since your pretty ass showed up at Crawford Hall. And I had you here anyway, so..." He looked down at his feet. "I thought I might as well make use of the opportunity to see how you would react to the idea of us before I actually tried anything."

"So in other words, instead of just asking me out, you decided to pretend that we're married, sleep with me and what, try to make me jealous by kissing another guy?"

"Well, sue me for wanting to test the waters first."

He was impossible. Sam couldn't keep himself from smiling. "You are so stupid."

The corner of Gabriel's mouth curled up. "And?"

And Sam didn't care that Gabriel had faked his death again and dumped them into another universe without a word, just to move them around like puppets, because for two days, he had felt like he was catching glimpses of something truly amazing while knowing that he would never be able to have it. He took a deep breath. "And I'm really glad you're alive."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

He closed the distance between them, cupped Gabriel's cheeks and leaned forward to capture his lips in a kiss. And this time when Gabriel immediately pulled him down and wound his fingers through Sam's hair and demanded entrance, it was without a beard and glasses, and that was just fine with Sam. More than fine even; it felt right.

Someone cleared their throat.

Sam felt a blush spread across his face as he hastily turned around. Dean and Misha were standing at the end of the halfway, the former with raised eyebrows, the latter with an amused little smile.

"Classy, Sam," his brother commented.

"Shut up."

But when he looked back at Gabriel and found the archangel watching him fondly, he couldn't care less about what Dean had to say about it.

The older Winchester rolled his eyes. He could already tell this lovey-dovey stuff was going to get annoying real quick. "Can you just do your stupid finger mojo and get us out of here already? We've wasted more than enough time on this convention crap, don't you think?"

"You got some place to be?" Gabriel questioned with a smug tilt to his lips.

"Dude, be grateful I haven't shoved your own archangel blade up your ass yet."

Misha stepped forward. "Actually, before you go... What will happen here when you guys leave? To us?"

Gabriel waved a hand around. "Don't you worry, buddy, your toy boy is just fine and ready to come back home. Gotta say, I hadn't really expected for you to get involved in this little shtick, but hey, I can improvise. So once I put everyone back where they belong, you and poor, poor Rob will forget all about what happened these last few days and the whole lot of you will just have vague memories of what everyone else remembers. Sam and Dean will just be some guys from a TV show again."

A little frown appeared on Misha's forehead. He opened his mouth, hesitated, then said, "Can I ask you to let me remember instead?"

"Why would you want to remember?" Dean asked. Ignorance is bliss, and all of that. Surely, that held true for the Winchesters.

"Is it really so strange that I like knowing that the characters we play are real, somewhere?" Misha retorted. "That my job is more than just entertainment?"

"I don't think so," Sam said, offering a smile. "Hell, I think playing a part can sometimes bring people into your life you didn't even know were missing." He could practically feel Gabriel's eyes on him but doubted that his brother could handle any more PDA.

"Sure," the angel said. "Why not. Now, you fellas ready to head out?"

"Just-" Dean raised a hand and turned to Misha. "So, uhm... Thanks. For helping us out and everything."

"Yeah," Sam added. "This weekend would have been a disaster without you. We owe you big time."

Misha smiled. "It was my pleasure. Just take care of each other and don't start another apocalypse, okay?"

Sam snorted, Gabriel raised an eyebrow and Dean rolled his eyes as he joined his brother, ready to go home now.

"And Dean?"

He looked back.

"Good luck. Not that you'll need it."

With a snap, the hallway disappeared and they were in a motel room instead. It was the same one that they had been staying at for the hellhound case, complete with their stuff, just as they had left it.

"Cas?" Dean called, eyes automatically turning to the heavens.

Immediately, there was a rustling of wings and when he turned around, the angel was standing by the door.

"Dean," he said in that gravely voice that Dean had missed so, so much. A second later, Castiel enveloped him in a hug.

Suppressing the reflex to just play it cool, Dean wrapped his arms around him in return. "Hey, buddy."

They let go of each other too soon, Cas directing his attention toward Sam. He froze when he saw who else was with them.

"Gabriel?" A deep frown appeared on his forehead. "How are you alive? Where have you been? Where have all of you been?"

Gabriel had already opened his mouth, but Sam knew when their presence was too much. "Actually, Dean can catch you up on that. We'll go ahead and grab something for lunch." He took Gabriel's hand - he quite enjoyed that and vowed to do it whenever he could now that he had the angel back - and dragged him out of the room.

"Oh, is that what the kids are calling it these days?" Gabriel commented as the door closed behind them.

Dean looked back at Cas. Cas was already looking at him, still frowning.

"What happened to you? I have been looking everywhere for you and Sam, but it was like you had vanished from this plane of existence."

He scoffed. "Well, as a matter of fact, we kind of did. Long story short, Gabriel faked his death again and zapped us to another one of those dimensions where our life is just a TV show."

"Why would he do that?"

"Beats me, but..." He cleared his throat, gathering his courage. "Actually, now that we're at it, there was something else I wanted to talk to you about."

Castiel remained silent, ever patient.

"See, in that other place, the actor who plays you was married to the guy who plays me." He laughed a bit, not knowing why because this wasn't funny, dammit, he was dead serious about this. "And I guess it just, I don't know, made me think..."

When he wasn't sure how to continue that sentence, Cas asked, "Think about what?"

This conversation had been so much easier in Dean's mind. When he had agreed with Misha to bring it up, he figured he would keep it casual. I really like you, maybe we could go out sometime? Something like that.

But now that he was actually face to face with Cas, the words evaporated on his tongue. Because the way he felt about Cas wasn't casual. They had gone through so much together. They weren't just friends, they were family. And Dean loved him, he did, more than he could put into words. Playing that down, acting like Cas was just the umpteenth flirt, it wouldn't be right. Cas deserved more than that.

Unfortunately though, that happened to be the only kind of romantic conversation that Dean had any experience with.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and put a step forward, buying himself another three seconds. Then he felt stupid and pulled his hands out again.

He still hadn't answered Cas's question.

"Just, you know, us. Our lives."

Well, that was spectacularly vague.

He took another step. The words weren't bringing him any closer, so his body seemed to be trying out a different approach.

"I mean, we've been friends for quite a few years now."

At this distance, he could see the different hues of blue in Cas's eyes and the tiny wrinkles at their corners that betrayed he wasn't perfectly at ease. Dean wanted to smooth them out with his thumb, then make them reappear when the man smiled at him.

Why on earth couldn't he just say that? He was taking the risk, he wanted to, it shouldn't be this hard.

"You know what, screw this," he muttered, cupping Cas's face in his hands and crashing their lips together.

For a terrifying second - or minute, or hour, Dean honestly couldn't tell - Cas didn't react. Then one hand was on his waist and the other was in his hair and Cas kissed him back like Dean held the world's very last oxygen. It was everything he had expected and so much more, tender and fiery and unabashed and electrifying. It was a kiss that took away all of Dean's fears and made his heart stutter with longing.

Kissing Misha had been weird and awkward, but kissing Cas felt like he was finally home.

When they broke apart, Dean was flustered and shaking, but he had never felt so alive. He dropped one hand to Cas's shoulder, seeking some kind of support from its firmness, before he met the other man's eyes again. They had never looked so bright before, sparkling with affection, and Cas was smiling.

"You look very cute when you're blushing."

Dean turned an even darker shade of red.

Castiel saved him the embarrassment of having to come up with an answer to that and kissed him again, gentler this time. Dean melted into him, butterflies erupting in his stomach. He couldn't believe how stupid he had been to miss out on being able to kiss Cas for all those years. Now that he had, he wanted to do it for the rest of his life.

Eventually, their lips did need to part again, and he wrapped Cas in a hug instead. He was warm and familiar and he smelled like rain and the Impala. In his arms was Dean's favorite place now.

"I love you," he confessed.

Cas's hand tightened around his shoulder. "I love you too, Dean." His voice was soft, almost fragile, but full of conviction. "I love you more than life itself."

Dean buried his face into his trenchcoat, at a loss for words because along the way, Cas had more or less become his reason to live.

They just held each other like that, perfectly content and at ease, the way they had wanted to for so long. It was such a small but peaceful thing that when eventually the door flew open, Dean nearly jumped out of his skin.

"I told you you should have knocked," Sam grinned as he walked in after Gabriel.

"And miss out on this view?"

In his haste to turn around, Dean had mostly pulled away from Cas, but his hand was still lingering on his shoulder and the other man's arm seemed adamant about staying around his waste. And while Dean wasn't usually one for putting his feelings on display, he couldn't quite bring himself to break the connection.

"Relax, Casanova," Gabriel said before Dean could come up with a reply. "I'm just glad my hard work paid off."

"What are you talking about?" Castiel asked as Sam put a few bags with food on the small table.

"Oh, has your boyfriend still not figured out that I chose that universe for a reason?"

With a sigh, Sam wrapped his arms around Gabriel from behind. "You're a matchmaking genius, we know. You can stop boasting now." Then he placed a kiss on Gabriel's head for good measure.

On their way out, there had been plenty of joking and flirting, but they had also touched on some more serious stuff. Gabriel still had a long way to go when it came to talking about the repercussions of his own brother almost literally stabbing him into the back, but in the meantime, Sam was determined to prove that he wasn't going to betray him like everyone else he had ever cared about.

Watching them curiously, Cas was starting to catch on. "Because the actors were married."

"Bingo."

"Were your actors married too?"

"Yeah," Sam said, looking down at Gabriel. "Not that I ever actually met the actor, because someone was having a little bit too much fun cosplaying."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Cosplaying?"

"What? I picked up some vocabulary."

"Hold on a second," Dean said, returning to the archangel as he realized what he had just been told. "So you set us up? All of us?"

"Don't sell yourself short, Dean. You were already so far gone for Cassie that you were an easy target."

His cheeks heated again. Cas was looking rather smug.

"Okay," Sam decided. "How about we just eat something now, before it gets cold?"

It was an easy sell, especially once Dean realized they had brought burgers and pie, among other things. They only had two chairs, so Dean just leaned against the table right next to Cas and Gabriel settled into Sam's lap. The guy really was as shameless as ever.

Did Dean and Gabriel continue to exchange jabs for the entirety of the meal? Sure, but Dean also noticed Sam smiling the whole way through. And honestly, he got distracted by Cas half of the time anyway.

Gabriel slurped up the last of his milkshake. "You two chuckleheads realize you're gonna need a second room now, right?"

"Yes, they are," Cas said. "And I suggest we don't share a wall."

Sam burst into laughter as Dean got all flustered again, but he also couldn't quite keep a stupid smile from playing around his lips.

All things considered, they would both gladly get used to this.