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You walk into the library. Both of them are in there, which is exactly what you needed.
“Hey. I got something for you guys.”
Dean looks up. “You got us something? Why? What is it?”
Sam just gives you a curious look.
“It’s something I thought might help on hunts. Some of them, anyway.”
You set the open box on the table and pull out two jewelry boxes.
Dean squints. “You got us jewelry?”
At the same time, Sam asks, “What are they?”
You laugh a little. “Just open them.”
They lift the lids. Inside each box is a silver medallion on a chain, each one marked with the same sigil. Sam picks his up carefully, studying the symbol. Dean looks between the necklace and you. For a second, neither of them says anything.
“Necklaces?” Dean says.
“Okay, here’s a hint,” you say. “They’re real silver.”
Sam turns his medallion in his fingers. “What’s the symbol?”
“It’s a sigil for protection from deception. I’m not sure if the sigil actually does anything, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.”
“Thank you,” Sam says.
Dean holds his up by the chain. “Yeah, uh, thanks for the necklace.” He says it in the tone of a man trying to be polite about a deeply confusing gift.
You smile and shake your head because neither of them has figured it out yet.
Sam keeps looking at his, thinking. Dean just holds his like maybe it’ll explain itself if he stares hard enough.
You fold your arms. “Come on. Think about it.”
After a moment, you sigh. “Okay, wow. You two are killing me. They’re silver. You know, silver. Shapeshifters and skinwalkers can’t touch them, let alone wear them.”
You pause, giving them one last shot. They both just look at you.
“So when one of those things tries to impersonate one of you, which, if I remember correctly, they pretty much always do...”
Sam gets there first. “We’d know which one is real. The one wearing the silver necklace has to be the actual brother.”
“Exactly. So if you keep them on, or at least wear them on hunts where a shifter might be involved, you don’t have to play guess which Winchester is the monster. And if you’re the one getting copied, you don’t have to just stand there hoping your brother stabs the right one.”
The room goes quiet for a second after that.
Dean looks back at the necklace, his expression shifting. “Okay,” he says, nodding his head. “That’s pretty smart.”
Sam looks at it again, his thumb brushing over the sigil. Then he comes over, kisses your forehead, and pulls you into a hug. “Yeah,” he says softly. “It is. Thank you.”
Dean nods again once. “Yeah. Seriously. Thanks.” This time it sounds like he means it.
You grin, because now they get it. “You’re welcome.”
Sam looks at the medallion again and walks to where his laptop sits. “I’ll do some research on the sigil. See if it actually does something.”
Dean glances up. “Wait. Where’d you even get these?”
A grin slips back onto your face. “Etsy. I had them custom made.”
Dean blinks. “You custom-ordered monster-detection jewelry off the internet?”
“You can get anything made on Etsy.”
Dean lets out a quiet huff. “Well, at least that means they probably don’t have some ancient death-magic curse on them.”
“They better not,” you say. “I’m pretty sure Etsy has a return policy for that, and I would definitely leave a one-star review.”
That gets a laugh out of Dean and a smile out of Sam, and some of the weight in the room breaks.
Sam still holds the necklace carefully, like it matters because it came from you. Now he understands just how important it might be.
Dean looks down at his own, turning it over once in his fingers before curling his hand around it. “Seriously, though,” he says. “Good thinking.”
