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"I've never understood that phrase. Of course, there are atheists in foxholes," Cas said, as he shoved his palm against a demon's forehead and sent it back to Hell. "Christians, Muslims, agnostics, witches; everyone goes to war. I suppose the exception would be if you were a pacifist."
"Cas. It's just a figure of...well, no, I guess it's not a figure of speech," Sam huffed, partly in indignation but mostly because he was fighting a demon of his own. "Because it means what it says. I guess it's really more of an analogy."
Cas whirled, smiting another demon and shoving a third? fourth? into Sam, who twisted it's neck and dropped it. "I don't think so, it's not really a comparison. Are you sure it's not a simile?"
"Huh. I guess you're right about the comparisons, but that means it's not a simile either. It's saying something more specific. Maybe hyperbole?" Sam ducked quickly behind an overturned desk, dodging splinters as another demon smashed it into bits.
"No, hyperbole would be 'there are ONLY atheists', or maybe 'NO ONE who has ever fought stays an atheist.' That's incredibly unwieldy, as well as being inaccurate." As Cas smote another demon, and how many of them were there, anyway?, Sam took down two of his own with a well-placed machete strike.
"Maybe it's ironi-" Sam began.
"Would you both SHUT UP and have this discussion AFTER we're not about to be eaten by demons??" Dean shouted, and took another shot. Under his breath, he muttered "It's clearly a fucking aphorism. Jesus Fucking Christ."
