A Canticle for Dr. Sexy (Chapter 3 of 6)
Nov. 25th, 2012 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikificTitle: A Canticle for Dr. Sexy (Chapter 3 of 6)
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: tikific
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Dean/Castiel, Sam, Benny, Chuck, Bobby, Missouri, Pamela, Lenore, Michael, Gabriel, Lucifer, Balthazar, Garth
Warnings: Cursing. Suicidal ideation.
Word Count: ~50,000
Summary: The Croatoan virus has brought down civilization as we know it. Dean Winchester, leader of a motley band of survivors, is searching for volume 25 the Video Safari limited edition box set of Dr. Sexy MD when he stumbles into Cas, an amnesiac grubbing for a can of beans at an abandoned Piggly Wiggly. Together with his brother, Sam, who may be a prophet of the Lord, and some friends they meet along the way, they embark on a cross-country road trip to find a cure for the virus and save humanity. But the journey takes our heroes straight into the middle of an angelic feud.
Notes: Set Post-Croatoan outbreak. The compound is based on the Greenbrier, a real resort. This one owes a huge debt to Zombieland, to Vertigo comics, and to Spirited Away.
Some years ago….
Robert Phillips emerged from his trailer, stretching and yawning. An assistant, standing nearby, handed him a sheaf of paper.
“More new pages?” the actor sighed.
“Yes, Mr. Phillips.”
Robert muttered something under his breath and headed towards the set. He noticed that the morning cold still hadn't worn off. Vancouver winters seemed to last eleven months. He was thankful he didn’t have any exterior shots planned today, although who could tell, with scripts coming in bits and pieces like they had been the past month. He leafed through the new pages as he walked. Stupid demons again. Hadn’t anyone told these idiots they were doing a hospital drama? He really needed to call his agent again about breaking his contract. He was Robert Phillips, one of People Magazine’s Ten Hottest Hollywood Hunks, even though, given his present circumstances, he rarely ventured anywhere near Hollywood.
No, Robert was stuck in fucking Canada, where everybody was so fucking nice, doing a demon-infested hospital drama.
He paused outside Studio B, gazing instead across the lawn at the two lunatics set up at the picnic table. Mac and the redhead. What was her name? Vicky or something. Mac, a tall, rangy guy, was peering into a laptop, and she was pecking on a cool old fashioned manual typewriter. They were wrapped up under umpteen layers of clothing, and were drinking something from a thermos.
Robert looked towards the studio entrance, but for reasons that were vague even to himself, instead started across the lawn towards the two writers.
“Robert!” said Mac, looking up from his computer and smiling broadly.
“Hey Mac,” said Robert. “Hey….”
“Sylvia,” supplied the redhead, who did not pause from typing, her hands swaddled in big knit fingerless gloves.
“Want some tea?” asked Mac, holding up a plastic cup.
“Is it spiked?” asked Robert.
“Not this early in the afternoon,” laughed Mac.
“Whatcha doin’?” asked Robert.
“Writing,” said Mac.
“Duh,” added Sylvia.
Robert however wasn’t paying attention to the insult, as he was now reading his pages, and then scanning the screen on Mac’s laptop. He pulled the computer around to face him. “You just wrote this,” he said. “Just now.”
“Yeah,” sighed Sylvia, who had finally paused. “The Emmy-winning team of Wallace and MacArthur….”
“MacArthur and Wallace,” supplied Mac.
“…Writing about a bunch of scheming demons...”
“...On a TV hospital drama.” Mac was grinning in triumph.
Robert watched them exchange a glance, Mac smiling and Sylvia sadly shaking her head. “You’re still writing today’s script … today, aren’t you?”
Mac looked at him sadly. “Robert, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re all that's left of the writing team.” And now they were both looking at him, like he was some kind of poor bastard, and not Robert Phillips, Dr. Sexy, MD.
“I…. I gotta get to the studio,” said Robert, who turned and left without another word.
The present day, Walley World….
“Dammit. I wanna have at least one run without the damn ghost showing up.”
Gabriel patted Dean on the shoulder as he, Dean and Benny all stood outside the Dr. Sexy Experience in 3D’s exit, located on the main thoroughfare of Walley Studios, inside the world famous Walley World amusement park. “As I understand, the experience is generated randomly, so sometimes you get the ghost-“
“And sometimes you don’t! It stands to reason,” Dean told him. He looked between Gabriel and Benny. “No none likes the ghost. No one! Come on, guys, we gotta go back on the ride. Just one more time.”
“Dean. We been three times already. Sam might be wonderin’ where the hell we are by now,” said Benny. “If he ever gave a shit.”
“One of us could go talk to the guys in the parking lot I supposed,” said Gabriel.
“No, no splitting up,” said Dean.
“Hey, what’s happening down there?” asked Benny, pointing to flickering lights down at the far end of Walley Way, the main road running through the park.
“That’s weird. Did you guys turn on more lights?” asked Dean.
“I don’t think so,” said Gabriel. “Maybe it’s on a timer?”
“It sure smells good!” said Benny who, without waiting for the other two, began to stroll towards the light.
“Benny, what the hell!” said Dean, but it was no use, as Gabriel was already darting after the vampire as well. “Always leading with your stomach.”
They proceeded down the lane to an area of stalls intended for food vendors. Lights flickered everywhere, though the exact source was uncertain. What was evident was that the stalls had all, somehow, come alive. The deep fat fryers were bubbling, pans were sizzling, and pots were boiling.
“Must be on a timer,” Gabriel explained.
“All of this is on a timer?” asked Dean.
“Hey, Wil Walley was a genius! I bet he automated it all before he died,” said Gabriel.
“He’s not dead,” said Benny, tapping his own forehead. “They froze his head in carbonite!”
“That’s an urban legend. He died, and I know he died, because…” Gabriel leaned closer to Benny. “He died in the saddle.”
“No fucking way! Wil Walley?”
“Underaged boy,” said Gabriel.
“Well, that I can see,” said Benny.
Dean shook his head in despair over the truly stupid argument. Everyone knew, after all, that Wil Walley was a secret Nazi who was entombed in a vault hidden underneath Future Walleyland. Dean frowned and sniffed the air. He had rested his arm over on one of the counters, and noticed there was now a paper-wrapped, fragrant-smelling object right next to his elbow. “What the hell?” He unwrapped the waxed paper as Gabriel and Benny hovered over him, revealing a delicious treat.
“Is that a deep-fried Twinkie?” asked Gabriel, reaching out for it. Dean immediately slapped down his hand. “Hey! It’s nice to share.”
“Gabriel, doesn’t it occur to you guys that something is just not right here?” asked Dean.
“Yeah, sure, but the Twinkie looks pretty nummy.” Gabriel reached again and Dean blocked him again.
“Gabriel, stay away.” Dean looked up to a slurping sound. “Benny, what the hell?”
“Hog’s blood shake!” said Benny, shaking the plastic cup he was drinking from. “And it comes in a collectible cup!” he noted, tapping the plastic Moose on the lid.
“Benny! Gabriel!” shouted Dean as the angel finally snatched up the Twinkie. But Gabriel’s victory was short-lived, as the high calorie snack cake was immediately slapped out of his hand by none other than Castiel, who had just run up, panting for breath.
“Hey!” shouted Gabriel. “Jerk!”
“Don’t eat that!” Cas shouted. “Don’t eat anything!”
“What’s going on?” Dean asked.
“There’s spirits. Or something,” huffed Sam, who had arrived along with Cas. “We saw them arrive.”
“That’s what’s running the park?” asked Dean. “Son of a bitch! Let’s get the hell out of here. Benny! Drop that damned shake now!”
“But it’s good,” said the vampire, who only seemed to increase his slurping rate. Dean grabbed the cup out of his hand and hurled it away.
“Litterbug,” sniffed Gabriel.
“But that was collectible!” Benny told Dean.
They all paused to stare up at the light show: luminescent beings, like the ones Sam and Cas had seen over the river that wound behind the park, had begun to flit around and hover overhead.
“Haven’t any of you guys ever read a fairy tale?” asked Sam. “You never eat the food! We gotta get out of here. And we really gotta get Benny out of here.”
“Oh, what are a buncha lightning bugs gonna do to me?” asked Benny, indicating the roiling mass of lights. His question did not remain unanswered for long, for the glowing spirits were now darting towards him. He swatted his hand, as if batting away mosquitos. “Get outta here!”
And then one of the luminescent beings grew a glowing tentacle. And grabbed Benny by the wrist.
“Fuck!” said Benny. Cas was there, slicing through the tentacle with his sword. Dean grabbed Benny by the arm and began to run towards the main entrance.
The rest stampeded after them, save for Gabriel, who turned and seemed to be charging up his sonic attack. “I’ll hold them off,” he shouted.
“Yeah, it worked so well with the fucking tar monsters,” Dean grumbled.
"You're welcome," Gabriel retorted.
They ran along, past roller coasters, merry-go-rounds and the Manny Moose ferris wheel, cringing as they heard the now familiar high pitched sound. A few moments later Gabriel was barreling after them.
“Did it work?” asked Dean.
“Yeah. It made them mad!” said Gabriel, and suddenly there was a whole huge swarm of light beings chasing after them.
The agitated spirits were still swooping after Benny, so as Gabriel and Sam ran alongside him, Cas and Dean hung back, slicing with their weapons at the attacking spirits. It had about the same effect as it did on the tar monsters: the beings merely stitched themselves back together and flew onwards.
“Here’s the gate!” said Sam. The three men in the lead broke into a gallop, but suddenly one spirit broke away from the pack and dive-bombed Benny, sending him tripping headlong. And then several more of the flashing lights crashed into his back and head, creating electrical sparks.
Dean and Cas, running behind, each grabbed Benny under one of his thick arms and half dragged him through the park entrance, where both Dean and Cas collapsed in a heap just outside. The flashing lights hovered for a moment, swarming at the verge of the park entrance, and then, just as suddenly, scattered.
There was a soft click, and the park went silent and dark.
“Damn you and your hungry stomach!” Dean shouted at Benny. “Now I’ll never get to see the Dr. Sexy Experience without that stupid ghost.”
Sam had helped Cas, who was still breathing hard, to his feet. But Benny remained down on the ground, a large, bulky shadow.
“Benny?” asked Dean.
“Hey, Ben,” said Sam, who crouched down right next to him, hand on his shoulder.
Benny looked up.
“SHIT!” said Sam, falling on his ass.
“Benny, what the hell?” muttered Dean. He ran over to the car's trunk and fished out a flashlight, which he trained on his friend.
Benny looked up at Dean and snorted.
And then he oinked.
He threw his great head around, looking confused, sniffing through his large pink snout.
“Holy fuck. Benny?” asked Dean.
“Ha!” said Gabriel. “Looks like we got ourselves a vampire pig.”
Dean heard an odd noise and shone the flashlight over to Castiel, who was covering his mouth. “Were you laughing at Benny, Cas?”
“Uh. No,” snickered Cas.
“Look how you made him feel,” said Dean, shining the flashlight over to where Benny was hanging his piggy head in shame. Which in turn caused Cas to snort with laughter once again.
Benny suddenly lunged at Cas who, graceful as a bullfighter, stepped away, his overcoat trailing like a cape.
“Benny,” scolded Dean, who stood in front of him. “You stop that. Now, it was rude to laugh, but this is all your damn fault.”
“Should we all find somewhere to stay tonight?” asked Sam. “Hopefully far away from this place. It’s getting late.”
Between two angels and two humans, they had managed to wrangle the fat Benny hog into the pickup bed. And then, seeing no other options, they had taken off. They finally ended up camping by the roadside some miles up the road. It was a fair night, so they didn’t bother with tents, just grabbed sleeping bags and assigned sentry duty.
Sam had thought he was too wired to sleep, but he soon found himself walking through an unfamiliar dreamscape. It wasn’t what he thought of as “his” wasteland, it was an evergreen forest. He was making his way down a deserted pathway marked by paving stones. There was a concrete wall to his left. It was too high to see over, even for someone as tall as Sam.
“This isn’t your dreamscape, is it, Sam?” An angel sat up on top of the wall, smoking a cigarette.
“Hey, Humpty Dumpty. This isn’t your dream either,” Sam told Cas, who hopped down to walk beside him.
“Humpty … Dumpty?” asked Cas, tilting his head.
“It’s a nursery rhyme. Never mind. I thought we agreed this was a non-smoking dream?”
“Your dreams are non-smoking,” said Cas, tapping out ashes. “However, I do not believe this is in fact your dream.”
“No? Then who the hell’s dream is it? Yours?”
“Angels do not dream. At least, not in any way that a human would be able to comprehend.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“But perhaps this is the purview of the dreamer?” asked Cas as they came upon a large metal gate. Sam peered inside, between the bars. He could see a big, rambling Victorian era house.
“Well, why not?” said Sam, opening the gate. “I don’t see any ‘Trespassers will be shot’ signs.” They passed through the gate and walked up the driveway towards the house, which looked deserted. The windows were curtained, so you couldn’t see inside. Sam rang the doorbell and, receiving no answer, tried the knob. It was unlocked. “I guess whoever lives here is the trusting sort,” he said, pushing his way inside.
A redheaded woman looked up at them as they entered. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a big coffee table. Sam pegged her as the artsy type. She was wearing those cat’s eye glasses the hip girls thought were funky, and the hair was done up in a topknot that looked artfully careless.
“Sam,” she said, pausing in what she was doing. There was an opened prescription bottle on the table, and a lot of capsules spread out on the table’s surface, arranged in neat little rows. “And you must be the angel,” she added.
“I am an angel,” Cas told her. Sam noticed he must have tossed out his cigarette before he entered.
“No, you’re the angel,” she corrected. “The producers wouldn’t let me put you in. They said the Christians would object.”
“Put him into what?” asked Sam, inviting himself to sit down on the couch opposite of her.
She rolled her eyes. “The show of course. Anyway, you’re supposed to meet me in Vancouver. What’s keeping you?”
“We had a little trouble with some Walley World spirits, and our vampire is now livestock,” sighed Sam.
“What?” she asked.
“We are within a day’s travel of Vancouver,” Cas told her. He had remained standing and looked, if not nervous, then at least uncomfortable. Awkward, maybe. “Can you be more specific as to where we might find you?”
“Unfortunately, no,” she said, returning to sorting out her pills.
Sam reached over and grabbed the prescription bottle, eyeing the label. Seconol, it said, secobarbitol. He looked from the plastic bottle to the neat rows of red pills.
And then, with a cry of ”No!” he reached over with his arm and swept all the pills off the table, scattering them across the rug. The redhead stared at him, open-mouthed.
“No,” said Sam. “No, you won’t do it. We’re coming. We’ll be there soon. I’m coming. I’m Sam Winchester, and I’ll be here – or there, or whatever the hell – as soon as I can.” He had caught up her wrists and was staring at her.
She stared back for a while, and then looked up at Cas. “Is he always like this?”
“I have not made Sam’s acquaintance long enough to state his behavior patterns in a definitive manner such as that. However, I have noticed that he has an inclination towards saving people. Particularly attractive young women.”
She gawped at Cas, wresting herself out of Sam’s grip. “Haven’t been accused of that for a while.”
“I am afraid I am not adept at lying,” said Cas.
“OK, then,” she said, sitting back on a couch. “Would you be upset if I died?”
Cas tilted his head. “I’m not certain upset is the appropriate term. It would be unfortunate. You are important, or we would not be here. And you are powerful, as you have drawn Sam, another prophet, into your own dream.”
“Powerful? I don’t feel powerful. I didn’t see him die.”
“See who die?” asked Sam.
She pointed to the mantelpiece. Sam rose and walked over. There were framed photographs neatly arranged there. All of them pictured the redhead and a darker man. They were on a boat, on a mountain, by a lakeside, standing by a glacier, standing in a desert. And they were smiling, both smiling wide as the sky.
He turned back to her. She didn’t look as if she had smiled in a very long time.
Cas was crouching down next to her now, his eyes boring into her. “There is a reason you did not foresee that incident. There is nothing that you could have done. It would not have been prophecy, it would have been torture.”
She stared back at Cas, blinking back tears. Then she looked over at Sam. “I will wait for you, Sam Winchester. But hurry. Please hurry.”
Sam inhaled as he sat bolt upright in his sleeping bag. Cas was sitting cross-legged beside him, looking as if he might have been sitting that way all night, watching over. “Do you remember, Sam?”
“Yeah,” said Sam, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Yeah, I remember.”
“I believe it would be prudent at this juncture to head directly for Vancouver.”
“Yeah, Cas. I gotta agree with you.” Sam slumped forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “Not sure how Dean is gonna take it, hauling Porky to Canada,” he added, pointing to where Benny was happily rooting in the vegetation.
“It is good that he can survive like this. If he needed to be fed pig’s blood, it is possible, philosophically, that would be….”
“Cannibalism?” said Sam. “Ew, dude.”
“Then you will talk to your brother?” Cas asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Sam assured him. “Hey, but he’d listen to you too, you know.”
Cas stared intently at Sam for a moment. “Are you certain?”
“He’d listen. Believe me, he’d listen.” Cas dropped his eyes, seeming to study something on the ground in front of him, and it was Sam’s turn to stare. The realization took a small while to hit his still sleep-muddled brain, but hit it did. “Oh. Uh. You seem to be someone he, um, pays attention to?”
“You think so, Sam?” Cas’s eyes radiated hope.
“Yeah, I think so,” said Sam, scratching his head and yawning. And then Cas was on his feet and off, almost as if he had flown away.
Sam laid back. “So, I’m a suicide hotline for dream girls, and relationship counselor for angels. Great job, Sam.” Just then, he received a sloppy nuzzle from a rather large hog. “Oh gawd!” he groaned, sitting up again. “But I’m not pig food!” he yelled at Benny. “Get away, dammit!”
After they had relocated Benny from his favorite herb patch to the pickup bed, Sam volunteered to trade off driving the pickup truck with Gabriel, and was richly rewarded with a sleepy angel drooling on his shoulder as they made their way to the Canadian border. After giving Gabriel a shove, Sam checked the mirror once again to make sure Benny wasn’t stampeding or anything (what did Sam know, he had grown up in motels following his traveling salesman father, not on a damn farm). Then he trained his eyes up ahead once again. From what he could tell, Dean and Cas, up in the Impala, had spent the entire drive talking. Or at least Dean was talking and Cas was listening. He could see Dean gesticulating, reaching down to turn the stereo up or down, glancing over to see if his jokes had been appreciated. And then Dean reached out his right arm for something, and brought it down on the seat back, hand stretched out and almost but not quite touching Cas’s shoulder.
“OK, please don’t start making out,” Sam muttered.
“Say what?” muttered Gabriel.
“Uh, nothing-“
“What the fuck does my brother think he’s doing with that human?” barked Gabriel, who was staring ahead at Dean with his arm sort-of-but-not-really around Cas.
“Uh, hello. Human present,” said Sam. “Hey, look. The border.”
Sam's ruse worked, and Gabriel was distracted by the appearance of the international border crossing. “Wait, is there someone in that booth?” Sam peered ahead as well. The roadway split into several lanes at the crossing, however all but one lane had been blockaded by debris. There was a light in the booth by the open lane. To everybody's astonishment, a man dressed in a suit came out of the booth and stood by the roadside, hands on his hips.
Sam pulled up right behind the Impala and hopped out.
“Transporting livestock?” the border guard was saying, pointing to Benny. He tutted.
“Balthazar? What the hell are you doing here?” cried Gabriel, running up to tackle the man with a hug.
“Gabriel?” replied Balthazar, who did not hug back, and then pushed Gabriel away as if he were shooing a fly. “I thought you were with Lucifer.”
“I got bored. So I decided to hang with my brother,” said Gabriel, hiking a thumb at Castiel.
“CASTIEL!” gushed Balthazar, who now granted his own one-sided hug at the clearly confused Cas. “Darling! Are you all right? We were so worried.”
“He's all right,” said Gabriel. “Just sort of lost some marbles,” he added, making a circular motion with an index finger near his head.
“You don’t remember, do you, dear?” Balthazar asked Castiel.
“Remember … what?” Cas asked.
“OK, someone wanna tell me what’s going on here?” asked Dean. Benny had poked his hog’s head over the side of the pickup and was grunting inquisitively.
Balthazar now drew nearer to Benny, who snorted at him. “How did your vampire get turned into a pig?”
“Long story,” said Dean. “Look, you gonna let us through? We got business in Vancouver.”
“Well, the municipality of Vancouver is Michael’s domain now,” Balthazar explained.
Gabriel shook his head. “Michael took Canada? Oh, that is so typical him. He probably has everybody acting even more polite.”
“So will you let us through?” asked Dean impatiently.
“That’s problematic, I’m afraid,” sighed Balthazar. Dean noticed there were suddenly more guys standing around, though he hadn’t heard them come up. They wore black suits and dark sunglasses. “We love Cassie here, and it’s a shame what Lucifer did to you….”
“What did he do?” asked Cas.
“He broke your wings. Both of them. Don’t you remember? And as for Gabriel, you’ve really made some less than stellar life choices…” Balthazar continued, as his buddies began surrounding the Impala and the pickup.
One of Balthazar’s men popped the Impala’s trunk, leading Dean to say, “Hey!” But then another guy hopped up on the pickup bed and poked at Benny, who snorted and charged. “Hey, don’t molest the pig!” Dean yelled at them.
“Boss!” said one of them men, who’d been poking his head into the Impala. He flashed a bag of DVDs at Balthazar.
“Hey, do not touch those!” yelled Dean, now striding back to his car. “Nobody touches those,” he said, snatching at the Video Safari bag back, which got tossed over his head to Balthazar.
“You have Dr. Sexy, MD?” asked Balthazar, rifling through the plastic bag. “You have volumes 17 and 18?”
“Yeah, just got ‘em. In Manhattan. Why?” asked Dean.
Balthazar and one of his associates had a rapid, whispered conversation. “Er,” said Balthazar. “It is just possible that, at this particular juncture, we could make an exception to, uh, expedite the immigration process….”
Benny snorted.
“Michael is a Dr. Sexy fan?” asked Sam, who didn’t even believe his brother, Dean, was a Dr. Sexy fan. He had trouble believing that anyone, human or angelic, would waste even a second of their existence on that ridiculous piece of trash.
“I told you he’s a douche,” grinned Gabriel, who was sitting beside him in the pickup truck's cab. “Hey, what’s the big idea?” he asked, leaning forward to watch Dean and Cas in the Impala. Dean had done the arm-draping trick again, although Cas this this time sat stiffly, not turning or nodding. But then they were both looking out the window, pointing and craning their necks at something.
Sam stopped the truck behind the Impala and looked up himself. “What the hell?” he asked. He jumped out to join Dean and Cas, who were looking up and staring. Here, by the waterside, was the big, crazy salmon-tinted building that looked like the world's funkiest apartment complex.
And there were people out on the high balconies, sipping cocktails. Up where they could look down on the ruined city, all the barriers, the debris, the piles of rotting corpses. Sam shuddered.
“I am told the locals called it the Pink Palace,” said a dark-haired man who was one of a party coming out to greet them. “Hello. I am Michael,” he added, extending a hand towards Dean. He wore a sharp, dark, neatly pressed suit, as did his entourage, who were presumably all angelic. It was quite a contrast to the shabby party who had just pulled up in two mud-spattered vehicles, one of which was carrying a hog, who sniffed curiously at the sharply-dressed beings.
“Uh, I'm Dean, and this is my brother, Sam. I guess you know the rest?”
“Yes,” said Michael. “Brother Castiel, I hope you are well?” he asked, more or less sincerely. Cas nodded. “Gabriel,” he said, glaring.
“I love you too, Mikey.” snapped Gabriel. “So you set yourself up in the Gingerbread Man's doll house?”
“It's a local landmark, Gabriel,” said Michael.
“It’s totally pink, dude,” Dean pointed out.
“It’s salmon,” Michael snapped. He frowned and walked around the pickup truck. “How did you get yourself into this state?” he asked Benny.
“We, uh, had some dealings with these spirits who's taken up residence at Walley World,” Dean explained.
“Walley World? I have always wanted to go.”
Michael signaled to one of the angels who was standing nearby. The guy reached over and touched two fingers to Benny's brow. There was a pop, and suddenly, he was human again. Or at least back to being a vampire. “Whoa! Thanks, brother.”
“No feeding, vampire, or there will be words,” warned Michael.
“Celestial blood gives me a belly ache,” said Benny, hopping out of the pickup and looking himself up and down. “But don't worry, I don't suck on humans no more.”
Michael gave Benny a sour look and turned back to Dean. “And do you have … the items?”
Dean frowned for a moment, and then reached into the Impala and grabbed the Video Safari bag. One of Michael's assistants snatched it from him. Dean made to protest, but Cas shook his head. “We gonna get those back?” Dean groused.
“He has volumes 17 and 18,” whispered one of the aides, her voice awed.
“Yes, of course,” Michael told Dean. “After the viewing party. We will rip these to DVDs for you.”
“I want the originals back,” Dean growled. “They're mine.”
“If I were you, Michael,” said Sam, “I wouldn't keep my brother away from his Dr. Sexy.”
Michael and Dean had a glare-off for a few moments, with Michael finally backing down. “All right. After all, the Winchesters are our guests. Balthazar tells me you consider yourselves to be on some kind of, er, quest? You are roaming the country trying to complete your collectible set of Dr. Sexy?”
“That. And Death sent us to Vancouver,” said Dean.
“Death?” asked Michael. “He asked … you?” It was uncomfortably close to a sneer.
“Yeah, he appeared to me in a dream,” Sam explained. “Or rather, one of his reapers did.”
“Sam is a prophet of the Lord,” explained Cas.
“The prophet … Sam? I hadn't heard anything about this,” said Michael, officiously crossing his arms. One of his assistants brought up a clipboard and rifled through it, shaking her head at Michael.
“Has it occurred to you maybe Dad doesn't tell you everything, Mikey?” asked Gabriel. “You know, you did start a feud with Daddy's favorite.”
“May I remind you, you are on shaky ground, Gabriel?”
Gabriel grinned. “Mike, quit acting high and mighty. You're down here rooting in the mud with the rest of us.”
“Uhhhh, look, we might need your help,” said Sam, who was growing nervous about all the angel glaring going on. “I had another dream, and we're supposed to meet a girl here.”
“What girl?” asked Michael.
Sam shook his head, looking over at Cas, who sadly shook his head. “Unfortunately, we did not gather sufficient personal information,” Cas confessed.
“Look, this is important. She may be suicidal,” said Sam.
“She is most probably already dead,” sighed Michael dismissively. “If she is not a victim of the virus.”
“No! She was alive. I was in her dream!” said Sam.
“You were in her dream?” asked Michael, his eyes darting back and forth between Sam and Cas. “How is that possible? You are human.”
“I don't know. I don't know how it works,” Sam confessed.
“She is no doubt quite powerful, Michael, as she drew in both Sam and myself," Cas told him.
“Powerful?” asked Michael, raising an eyebrow. “For drawing in a false prophet and a broken angel? That does not bespeak power, don't you think.”
Cas didn't say anything, but lowered his eyes and seemed to wilt. Dean, without quite knowing why, put a steadying hand on Cas’s shoulder. “Cas isn't broken. And my brother is not a false prophet,” he told Michael.
“If he's not in the books, he is not a prophet.”
“Maybe the boys are writin' up a new book, Mikey,” said Benny.
Michael glowered. “We will chat more tonight, over dinner. For now, you look as if you need, er, freshening up after your journey. Ask at the desk inside and you will be escorted you to your quarters.” And with that, Michael turned on his heel, and stalked off, followed by a trail of suited up angels.
Benny looked at Gabriel. “Your brother is one twenty dollar asshole.” He stretched. “Even if he did get me back in my good body.”
“I might sleep out in the truck tonight,” grumbled Gabriel.
“Aw, c'mon, Shorty. I see angels with tiki drinks up there. There's gotta be a bar inside.”
“You got a point, Porky,” said Gabriel, as the two wandered towards the Pink Palace. Cas headed after them, head still down, a few paces behind.
Sam stared after them sadly. “I can't believe that douche is a fellow Dr. Sexy fan,” Dean complained.
“I wish I'd gotten her address. Her name. Something,” Sam told Dean.
“Come on, Sammy. Don't let the angel douche bag get you down. You haven't let us down before. You won't now.”
“I guess so.”
“Let's go see if angels have Canadian beer. And maybe there's a hockey game.”
Cas hadn't made it to dinner, nor to the Dr. Sexy viewing party that later that night. He was, instead, smoking out on a balcony in the late evening when Dean found him. Cas held out his cigarette, but instead found himself grabbed by the shoulders and hustled into the hallway.
“Hey, come see my view, dude,” said Dean, who paused at an apartment doorway. “I got a great room.”
“Aren't the views all similar?” asked Cas. Dean pushed the angel inside his room, slamming the door after him, and then pressed Cas up against the door for a rather long kiss.
“Damn I've been waiting for fucking ever,” said Dean as he finally broke the clench. “What?” he asked, seeing Cas's pained expression. “Why weren’t you at dinner? You must be hungry. You’re always hungry.”
“Dean, you don't want me.” His hands dug into Dean's shoulders.
“Oh, why the hell not? Wait, is this about what Michael said?”
“Dean. I'm broken,” Cas told him, pushing him away.
Dean frowned at him for a moment. “The wings? I don't care about that! Look, you were probably fighting, right?”
“I suppose so. I haven't asked Balthazar to tell me what happened I'm not sure I wanna know.”
“Well, then if you were fighting, wouldn't that be kind of cool?”
Cas shook his head and bit his lip.
“And hey, you figured out how to fight anyway, right?” urged Dean.
“That's true....”
“And besides, we got a room, dude. With a really … big … bed,” Dean concluded, punctuating the speech with kisses applied to Cas's neck. Cas looked over Dean's shoulder into the bedroom. He had indeed been given a king sized bed.
“A room … in Michael's building.” Cas let Dean kiss him. “He would probably be shitting himself. If he found out.”
“All the better,” grinned Dean. Cas pushed Dean back once again and stared at him, looking thoughtful. And then pulled Dean to him again. Somehow, through determined groping, Dean managed to steer the angel into the bedroom and over to the really big bed, stripping off the big coat on the way. Cas seemed reluctant to shed his shirt though, suddenly crossing his arms over his body. “My back. It looks pretty bad,” he whispered.
“What?” asked Dean, who was getting rather impatient with interruptions at this juncture. Cas reluctantly pulled his shirt up in back. Dean had to gasp. “God damn,” he muttered. There were two large, painful-looking purple contusions running up and down either side of Cas's backbone, going from the level of his shoulder blades to the bottom of his rib cage. Dean traced a careful finger down one side. “Oh, this doesn't hurt, does it?” he asked, withdrawing his fingers.
“No it feels.... It feels good when you do that.” Dean tugged at Cas's shirt, and Cas allowed him to pull it off over his head. He put a hand to Cas's back, at the bottom of one of the bruises, and gently rubbed upwards. Cas stretched and emitted a small moan.
“I dunno if these are really bruises. Seems like they’d be tender. You feel all knotted up,” said Dean, now spreading two hands over Cas's shoulders. “Come on, lie down a sec.” Cas batted those amazing eyes at him, causing Dean a small involuntary shiver, and then the angel plunged face down on the bed. Dean straddled him, and started to rub Cas's back, muscles tight as bowstrings slowly easing up under his gentle touch. It wasn't exactly what Dean had planned to be doing right now, but he liked the sound of the soft, small groans as the man underneath him slowly relaxed.
Dean bent over and kissed Cas's back. He smelled really nice up close like this, something like cinnamon and sea air, Dean thought, planting more kisses, up the back, and then on the neck. He rolled Cas over and then they were mouth to mouth again. Ah, this was more like it. It was like being drunk on a really sweet young wine.
“Wait, what?” asked Cas as Dean suddenly leapt up and ran across the room. He sat up. “Dean?”
Dean had grabbed a chair and was wedging it so the back was lodged under the doorknob. “Not gonna risk getting interrupted again!” said Dean. He hopped back on the bed. “Now, where were we?”
“You know if Michael wanted to interfere...” Cas started, but he was blocked by Dean's tongue in his mouth.
“Michael … is getting … nowhere … near,” Dean muttered, now kissing his way back down Cas's torso. He was so lean, you could stop and count the ribs. Down the stomach, down to the waistband of Cas's jeans, where you could just see a few soft, dark hairs. Dean had to pause another frustrating minute to deal with shoes, and then at last he could unzip the jeans – he had briefly considered using his mouth, but was growing awfully impatient to get down to business. He rubbed two hands up Cas's thighs, delighted that Cas was visibly aroused. Cas put a hand in his hair and whispered his name. He was going to be shouting it soon, if Dean had his way. Dean forced himself to take his time, nibbling his way up Cas's inner thigh for a while and getting some frustrated moans in response. He finally took the tip of Cas's dick in his mouth, enjoying feeling Cas's entire body clench under his hands. Gripping Cas's thighs, he set up an achingly slow rhythm. Cas was writhing now, one hand in Dean's hair, one pressed to the headboard, putty in his hands.
Dean moved his hands around to cup Cas's sweet little ass now. He sent two fingers to rub the sensitive asshole. “Oh God Dean!” Cas panted. Dean had ceased the blow job and was now forcing fingers inside him.
“You want me inside you?” Dean asked.
“Oh fuck yeah fuck yeah.”
Grinning madly, Dean withdrew his fingers and slid over to grab his bag.
“Oh what now?” grumbled Cas, who had now attached himself to Dean's back, sucking at his neck and fumbling to unzip Dean's pants.
“Lube.”
“Fuck the lube.”
“That's … really distracting. In a good way,” Dean gasped as Cas got the zipper open and stuck his hand down into Dean's underwear. Dean paused a moment to let himself be groped, but then willed some blood to come back to his brain, and found the tube.
“OK, OK, get over,” he said, trying to roll Cas onto his stomach.
“No. I wanna see you,” said Cas stubbornly rolling back. He was yanking off Dean's shirts while Dean was trying to fumble with the tube, which led to a few moments of sweaty, urgent fumbling. Then Dean wriggled the rest of the way out of his jeans, slung one of Cas's legs over a shoulder, and pressed some greasy fingers into him. Cas arched his back and groaned.
'You're so tight,” muttered Dean, rubbing his erection against Cas's groin while he worked his fingers.
“I want you inside me.”
“Gimme a minute,” said Dean. Cas had grabbed the opened tube and now put a lubed up hand around Dean's dick. Dean bucked and nearly lost it. “Careful careful careful,” he breathed.
Dean pulled out his fingers and lined himself up. “You've done this before?” he thought to ask.
“Not with you. I want you.”
That was all the urging he needed. Dean thrust inside, the sensation taking his breath away. Cas responded, and Dean idly wondered how good the soundproofing was in these rooms. He went slow for the first couple of strokes, but pretty soon Cas's other leg was up over his shoulder and he found himself pounding away with a sort of joyful desperation. Such a rare time, for Dean, nothing else to worry about, no one else to think about, just the world shrunk down to two people. He heard his name shouted out once, twice, three times, and then he was riding his orgasm, and everything was just sticky and sweaty and wonderful.
Cas moaned one last time as Dean pulled out. That voice alone could drive you mad. Dean rolled over on his back, pulling the angel on top of him, and, holding the panting, writhing being as tightly as he possibly could, rubbed him a few more strokes to put him over the edge, Cas coming all over that amazing flat stomach.
They stayed like this for a moment, before Dean kissed him and assured him, “You’re gonna kill me.” He finally, reluctantly, hopped off the bed one last time to go grab a towel, and they cleaned up as well as they could. Dean held Cas tightly, still lazily groping him.
“How was dinner?” Cas finally asked.
“Michael noticed you weren’t there,” said Dean.
“I vaguely remember those kinds of events. They were awful.”
“Yeah, it was awful. And the Dr. Sexy viewing party sort of sucked too. You’d think with so many people having sucked down so many bottles of wine it would have been a scream, but everyone was so….”
“Reverent?”
“Yeah!”
“You drink the wine in order to make it through dinner,” Cas sighed. “To induce numbness, not inebriation.”
Dean persisted. “I mean, during the showing, you’d yell at the stupid ghost, or whatever, and they’d all kind of look at you like you'd just farted. Nobody likes the ghost!”
“Well, if the show was truly being written by a prophet, as the evidence suggests to me, then perhaps they regard it as canonical.”
“What? You mean the show is gospel?”
Cas twisted around so he was looking at Dean. He had a sort of smug look on his face. Dean scowled. “You yourself have always been a devoted fan, Dean. And yet you also admit the show has weaknesses, some of them rather egregious.”
“It’s television. It’s supposed to be brainless.”
“Yet I’ll surmise there are a lot of stupid television programs for which you would not risk a zombie attack to forage for DVDs.”
“There’s a reason I like Dr. Sexy?” asked Dean. “That’s just fucking weird.” They were quiet for a moment. “You know, I could stay like this all night.”
“Dean?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really hungry….”
Dean laughed. “You should have eaten your damn dinner!” He slid out of bed and tossed some clothes at Cas. “Get your damn pants on. We’ll scrounge you up a burger or something.”
Cas stared at him, two huge eyes pleading. “Do you think they have peanut butter?”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“And jelly?”
Dean grinned. “Get your damn pants on....”
“So what we're doing is we're just basically driving around at random,” said Dean, who did not seem at all perturbed by the notion. He whistled as he made the turn through another picturesque Vancouver street.
“Well. Kind of,” Sam admitted from the passenger seat beside him. “I know she lived in a Victorian looking house, and there's supposed to be a section of town with Victorians out this way.” He peered at the map in his lap, and then rotated it 180 degrees.
“Sounds good,” said Dean.
Sam looked at his brother. “OK, what's going on?”
“Whaddya mean, what's going on? It's a beautiful day, I'm behind the wheel, hanging with my brother. You know, Sammy, I've been thinking....”
Sam regarded his brother with no little suspicion. “That's always dangerous.”
“Maybe we shouldn't go back to the camp? Maybe we should just hit the road, you and me, just us two.”
“Yeah?”
Dean grinned, obviously warming up to his own line of bullshit. “Yeah! Like the old days, just family. We'll grab Cas-”
Sam chuckled. “OK, OK, hold it a minute. How can it be just two if that includes Cas?”
“Well, OK, just us three,” agreed Dean, who seemed bound and determined not to be upset by anything.
“What about Benny?”
“He can come. If he wants. Or maybe he'll get a little farm and settle down with Gabriel!”
Sam was openly laughing now. “Uh, Dean, that's really fucking weird.”
Dean grinned. Sam checked through his own random access memory. Something didn't add up. No, it did actually: Cas never made it down to dinner, and then Dean ditched the boring Dr. Sexy viewing party and went up looking for him and never returned. Dean plus Cas equals....
Sam’s smile faded. “Oh, no, Dean! You and Cas?”
Dean shot his brother an irritated glance. “Me and Cas. So?”
“Dean. He's an angel. His brothers are all angels. They smite people. And he's got some kind of weird funky dark power that he can't control.”
“You've got a weird funky dark power, Sammy.”
Sam rolled his eyes heaven-ward. “I have migraine-inducing dreams, Dean. He can blow up cars!”
“Sam,” tutted Dean. “I guess you're just prejudiced against angels.”
Sam rounded on his brother, the stupidest man in the world. “Dean! You didn't even want him driving the damn Impala a couple days ago.”
“That's different. That's my car.”
“And now you're doing the nasty? Did you know, Gabriel told me, angels are not even male or female. Did you even know that?”
“He's definitely a male. I can tell you that.” Dean was smirking.
“Too much information!”
“Then why are you asking?” said Dean, a hint of irritation now creeping into his voice. “Look, Sammy. Come on. I'm happy. He sure as hell seemed happy. Just … be happy, right?”
“Yeah, I'll throw rice at your damn wedding.”
“I'm not the marrying type. Hey, we're just gonna have some raw, nasty sex.”
“TOO MUCH INFORMATION!” wailed Sam, throwing his hands over his eyes just as the car slammed to a halt. “What?”
“Did you see that?” asked Dean.
“I was trying to bleach my mind, Dean!”
“There's a guy,” said Dean, who was already hopping out of the car.
“Wait, Dean, are you sure it's not a Croat? Dammit!” Sam grabbed for the billy club under his seat and followed his brother.
“It’s not a Croat. It was definitely a guy.” Dean strode to the end of the block with a determined air about him. Sam moved more cautiously behind him, scanning the area for movement, all of which he assumed to be hostile. They hadn't encountered any Croats since they had crossed the border, but the devastation around him was enough to make him move carefully. He increased his pace until he was walking abreast with his brother. “Saw it go around that corner,” said Dean, casually pointing with his crazy axe thing. Just like Dean: the first Croat they had encountered in days, so he wanted to go poke it with a stick.
“Let's be chill, Dean. Where there's one, there's bound to be more.”
“Not sure it was a Croat. If it was, it wouldn't have run away,” said Dean, once again moving forward.
“Maybe it was a Scaredy Croat,” Sam suggested. “Anyway, aren't we supposed to be looking for the girl with the pills?”
“Hey, maybe if we got a local, and it can talk, it can tell us where she lives, right?”
Sam nodded grudgingly. “Or it could be running to tell its friends that there was fresh meat on the hoof.”
Dean snickered. “Wait. There!” He had already broken into a run, Sam hot on his heels, running towards the motion. “Head him off, Sam!” Dean called as they reached an alleyway. Sam reluctantly halted at the entrance to the alley while Dean hopped a fence to run through somebody's garbage-strewn yard, presumably intending to catch whatever or whoever it was around the back of the alley.
Sam stood there for a while, feeling a bit idiotic. He wasn't entirely convinced that whatever they had seen wasn't just a big dog or something. Or maybe a bear: this was Vancouver after all. He hefted the billy club in his hand, wishing he'd paused to grab a shotgun out of the trunk.
He heard a rattle. “Dean?” he asked quietly. His view of the other end of the alleyway was blocked by debris, so, after casting a glance back over his shoulders, gripping his billy club, Sam stepped into the narrow alleyway. There was junk everywhere: overturned trash cans, overfilled dumpsters, a rusty shopping cart, a moldy couch. The sun was not yet high enough overhead to shed much light in here. Sam cast his eyes back and forth, seeking any trace of movement in the shadowy doorways.
There was a broken garage door up ahead. He moved up towards it, now cursing himself that he didn't have a flashlight on hand. Why had Dean been so damned jumpy to pursue this guy? If it even was a guy. He walked until he was even with the big crack in the wooden door. The alley narrowed here, as something that looked like a roll of chain-link fence was blocking a good part of it. The hole in the garage door wasn't big, but it might have been big enough for a child. Or an animal. Or a small bear. After another look, and another soft call of, “Dean?” Sam leaned over to peek inside.
And was slammed to the ground, body checked by something or someone. He yelled and got up his billy club.
And then the weight was off him as Dean suddenly appeared and grabbed the guy by the scruff of the neck. “Ha! Gotcha!” he cried.
“Dean!” yelled Sam, scrambling to his feet. “Where the hell were you?”
“Stalking this dude,” said his brother, who had slammed the man – and indeed, it was a man – up against the alley wall, his blade now shining under the guy's chin. “OK, talk!” he ordered.
“I- I-” stammered the man. He was filthy as hell, with a scraggly beard, and bags under his eyes. “Thought you were Croats.”
Dean immediately loosened his grip and stepped back. “Oh my god! It's you! It's you, isn't it?” he asked, suddenly very excited.
“It's, uh, who?” asked Sam, utterly confused.
“It's you!” Dean repeated. “You're him!”
“I'm...” stammered the man. “I'm … Robert Phillips.”
“Sammy it's him!”
“Uh, yeah?” asked Sam.
“It's Robert Phillips! It's Dr. Sexy, MD!”
Some years ago....
While the city slept, angels were watching over.
This was not good news.
They all stood on top of an office tower in Seattle, about two dozen of them. In their heavenly forms, this kind of thing would have been impossible, as a mere one or two of them perching here would have surely crumbled the structure. But they all found themselves, quite to their surprise and dismay, in more or less human form right now. For some of the celestial beings, this was the object of some consternation, and, on the part of others, no little merriment.
“It is obvious that we have been placed down here for a reason,” stated Michael, who was presently tall and dark-haired and stern. He turned to scowl at Gabriel, who had snorted derisively. “Oh what is it Gabriel?”
“A reason? Our Dad? Seriously, are you kidding, Mike?”
“Oh? Then to what would you assign our present predicament?” asked Michael.
Gabriel hopped up to sit on the low wall that surrounded the roof. Had he been a human being, this may have caused a sensation of vertigo, as the building was high and the wind was kicking up.
The wind was in fact stirring because Balthazar was fanning it, although this would not become apparent to everyone until some time later.
“Maybe the Old Man’s just in a bitchy mood. I heard he lost his last chess match with Death.” Gabriel sat on the parapet and merrily kicked his short legs. Far, far below, a manmade river ran by the building. It split the city in two.
“Ouch,” grinned Raphael, who had been standing just off to the side, a wry smile on his face.
“That’s ridiculous, Gabriel,” said Michael.
“I don’t know, Michael,” Raphael told him. “I tend to agree with Gabriel. Our Father gets vain about that sort of thing.”
“I believe we are here to pass judgment,” said Michael.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Castiel.
“Of course it doesn’t make sense to you, dimwit,” said Gabriel, causing Raphael to chuckle cruelly.
Castiel ignored them. “We are messengers. Not judges. Your statement does not make any sense, Michael.”
“The time is nigh! It is clear as the nose on your face,” Michael told him. Castiel crossed his eyes, trying and failing to view his own nose. “It is time to separate the wheat from the chaff.”
“How do you know this, Michael?” asked Castiel, to general giggling.
Michael emitted a deep, infinitely patient sigh. “Haven’t you read the bible, young one?”
“Yes. It importunes to beware of false prophets.”
Despite his exalted status as a celestial being, Gabriel damn near fell off the building in his laughing fit. He held his stomach. Michael halted his speech to glower at Castiel.
“I know why we have been called,” said Lucifer.
“Oh, what now, Lucifer?” moaned Michael, putting an agitated hand through his hair.
“There is no reason for judgment,” said Lucifer. “Mankind is a flawed creation. We are here to extinguish them, once and for all.”
“Oh, poppycock,” sighed Michael. “Quit acting like a spoiled brat, Lucifer.” Lucifer smiled at Michael, though the smile did not reach his eyes.
“How is what Lucifer said different from judging everybody, Michael?” asked Raphael.
“Here is what I would propose,” said Michael, ignoring Raphael and the rest. “We shall go out unto the world, and walk among mankind. Let us say for the period of one human year. And then we will reassemble, on this very spot, and share what we have learned. And then we will decide how to proceed.”
“A year? That isn't much time,” said Castiel. Although he was youngest of the bunch, in comparison to his very long life, a year was barely an eye blink. Not that he was much used to having blinking eyes. It seemed, actually, rather awkward to blink them.
“I said one year,” said Michael, as if that settled it.
“Come on, Cas,” said Gabriel, before Castiel could speak again. He had grabbed the younger angel by the arm and started quick marching him towards the stairwell.
“Where am I going?” asked Castiel, as Balthazar joined up with them.
“You wanna hang with the cool people,” said Gabriel, patting his shoulder.
And then they were headed downwards, into the darkness.
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: tikific
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Dean/Castiel, Sam, Benny, Chuck, Bobby, Missouri, Pamela, Lenore, Michael, Gabriel, Lucifer, Balthazar, Garth
Warnings: Cursing. Suicidal ideation.
Word Count: ~50,000
Summary: The Croatoan virus has brought down civilization as we know it. Dean Winchester, leader of a motley band of survivors, is searching for volume 25 the Video Safari limited edition box set of Dr. Sexy MD when he stumbles into Cas, an amnesiac grubbing for a can of beans at an abandoned Piggly Wiggly. Together with his brother, Sam, who may be a prophet of the Lord, and some friends they meet along the way, they embark on a cross-country road trip to find a cure for the virus and save humanity. But the journey takes our heroes straight into the middle of an angelic feud.
Notes: Set Post-Croatoan outbreak. The compound is based on the Greenbrier, a real resort. This one owes a huge debt to Zombieland, to Vertigo comics, and to Spirited Away.
Some years ago….
Robert Phillips emerged from his trailer, stretching and yawning. An assistant, standing nearby, handed him a sheaf of paper.
“More new pages?” the actor sighed.
“Yes, Mr. Phillips.”
Robert muttered something under his breath and headed towards the set. He noticed that the morning cold still hadn't worn off. Vancouver winters seemed to last eleven months. He was thankful he didn’t have any exterior shots planned today, although who could tell, with scripts coming in bits and pieces like they had been the past month. He leafed through the new pages as he walked. Stupid demons again. Hadn’t anyone told these idiots they were doing a hospital drama? He really needed to call his agent again about breaking his contract. He was Robert Phillips, one of People Magazine’s Ten Hottest Hollywood Hunks, even though, given his present circumstances, he rarely ventured anywhere near Hollywood.
No, Robert was stuck in fucking Canada, where everybody was so fucking nice, doing a demon-infested hospital drama.
He paused outside Studio B, gazing instead across the lawn at the two lunatics set up at the picnic table. Mac and the redhead. What was her name? Vicky or something. Mac, a tall, rangy guy, was peering into a laptop, and she was pecking on a cool old fashioned manual typewriter. They were wrapped up under umpteen layers of clothing, and were drinking something from a thermos.
Robert looked towards the studio entrance, but for reasons that were vague even to himself, instead started across the lawn towards the two writers.
“Robert!” said Mac, looking up from his computer and smiling broadly.
“Hey Mac,” said Robert. “Hey….”
“Sylvia,” supplied the redhead, who did not pause from typing, her hands swaddled in big knit fingerless gloves.
“Want some tea?” asked Mac, holding up a plastic cup.
“Is it spiked?” asked Robert.
“Not this early in the afternoon,” laughed Mac.
“Whatcha doin’?” asked Robert.
“Writing,” said Mac.
“Duh,” added Sylvia.
Robert however wasn’t paying attention to the insult, as he was now reading his pages, and then scanning the screen on Mac’s laptop. He pulled the computer around to face him. “You just wrote this,” he said. “Just now.”
“Yeah,” sighed Sylvia, who had finally paused. “The Emmy-winning team of Wallace and MacArthur….”
“MacArthur and Wallace,” supplied Mac.
“…Writing about a bunch of scheming demons...”
“...On a TV hospital drama.” Mac was grinning in triumph.
Robert watched them exchange a glance, Mac smiling and Sylvia sadly shaking her head. “You’re still writing today’s script … today, aren’t you?”
Mac looked at him sadly. “Robert, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re all that's left of the writing team.” And now they were both looking at him, like he was some kind of poor bastard, and not Robert Phillips, Dr. Sexy, MD.
“I…. I gotta get to the studio,” said Robert, who turned and left without another word.
The present day, Walley World….
“Dammit. I wanna have at least one run without the damn ghost showing up.”
Gabriel patted Dean on the shoulder as he, Dean and Benny all stood outside the Dr. Sexy Experience in 3D’s exit, located on the main thoroughfare of Walley Studios, inside the world famous Walley World amusement park. “As I understand, the experience is generated randomly, so sometimes you get the ghost-“
“And sometimes you don’t! It stands to reason,” Dean told him. He looked between Gabriel and Benny. “No none likes the ghost. No one! Come on, guys, we gotta go back on the ride. Just one more time.”
“Dean. We been three times already. Sam might be wonderin’ where the hell we are by now,” said Benny. “If he ever gave a shit.”
“One of us could go talk to the guys in the parking lot I supposed,” said Gabriel.
“No, no splitting up,” said Dean.
“Hey, what’s happening down there?” asked Benny, pointing to flickering lights down at the far end of Walley Way, the main road running through the park.
“That’s weird. Did you guys turn on more lights?” asked Dean.
“I don’t think so,” said Gabriel. “Maybe it’s on a timer?”
“It sure smells good!” said Benny who, without waiting for the other two, began to stroll towards the light.
“Benny, what the hell!” said Dean, but it was no use, as Gabriel was already darting after the vampire as well. “Always leading with your stomach.”
They proceeded down the lane to an area of stalls intended for food vendors. Lights flickered everywhere, though the exact source was uncertain. What was evident was that the stalls had all, somehow, come alive. The deep fat fryers were bubbling, pans were sizzling, and pots were boiling.
“Must be on a timer,” Gabriel explained.
“All of this is on a timer?” asked Dean.
“Hey, Wil Walley was a genius! I bet he automated it all before he died,” said Gabriel.
“He’s not dead,” said Benny, tapping his own forehead. “They froze his head in carbonite!”
“That’s an urban legend. He died, and I know he died, because…” Gabriel leaned closer to Benny. “He died in the saddle.”
“No fucking way! Wil Walley?”
“Underaged boy,” said Gabriel.
“Well, that I can see,” said Benny.
Dean shook his head in despair over the truly stupid argument. Everyone knew, after all, that Wil Walley was a secret Nazi who was entombed in a vault hidden underneath Future Walleyland. Dean frowned and sniffed the air. He had rested his arm over on one of the counters, and noticed there was now a paper-wrapped, fragrant-smelling object right next to his elbow. “What the hell?” He unwrapped the waxed paper as Gabriel and Benny hovered over him, revealing a delicious treat.
“Is that a deep-fried Twinkie?” asked Gabriel, reaching out for it. Dean immediately slapped down his hand. “Hey! It’s nice to share.”
“Gabriel, doesn’t it occur to you guys that something is just not right here?” asked Dean.
“Yeah, sure, but the Twinkie looks pretty nummy.” Gabriel reached again and Dean blocked him again.
“Gabriel, stay away.” Dean looked up to a slurping sound. “Benny, what the hell?”
“Hog’s blood shake!” said Benny, shaking the plastic cup he was drinking from. “And it comes in a collectible cup!” he noted, tapping the plastic Moose on the lid.
“Benny! Gabriel!” shouted Dean as the angel finally snatched up the Twinkie. But Gabriel’s victory was short-lived, as the high calorie snack cake was immediately slapped out of his hand by none other than Castiel, who had just run up, panting for breath.
“Hey!” shouted Gabriel. “Jerk!”
“Don’t eat that!” Cas shouted. “Don’t eat anything!”
“What’s going on?” Dean asked.
“There’s spirits. Or something,” huffed Sam, who had arrived along with Cas. “We saw them arrive.”
“That’s what’s running the park?” asked Dean. “Son of a bitch! Let’s get the hell out of here. Benny! Drop that damned shake now!”
“But it’s good,” said the vampire, who only seemed to increase his slurping rate. Dean grabbed the cup out of his hand and hurled it away.
“Litterbug,” sniffed Gabriel.
“But that was collectible!” Benny told Dean.
They all paused to stare up at the light show: luminescent beings, like the ones Sam and Cas had seen over the river that wound behind the park, had begun to flit around and hover overhead.
“Haven’t any of you guys ever read a fairy tale?” asked Sam. “You never eat the food! We gotta get out of here. And we really gotta get Benny out of here.”
“Oh, what are a buncha lightning bugs gonna do to me?” asked Benny, indicating the roiling mass of lights. His question did not remain unanswered for long, for the glowing spirits were now darting towards him. He swatted his hand, as if batting away mosquitos. “Get outta here!”
And then one of the luminescent beings grew a glowing tentacle. And grabbed Benny by the wrist.
“Fuck!” said Benny. Cas was there, slicing through the tentacle with his sword. Dean grabbed Benny by the arm and began to run towards the main entrance.
The rest stampeded after them, save for Gabriel, who turned and seemed to be charging up his sonic attack. “I’ll hold them off,” he shouted.
“Yeah, it worked so well with the fucking tar monsters,” Dean grumbled.
"You're welcome," Gabriel retorted.
They ran along, past roller coasters, merry-go-rounds and the Manny Moose ferris wheel, cringing as they heard the now familiar high pitched sound. A few moments later Gabriel was barreling after them.
“Did it work?” asked Dean.
“Yeah. It made them mad!” said Gabriel, and suddenly there was a whole huge swarm of light beings chasing after them.
The agitated spirits were still swooping after Benny, so as Gabriel and Sam ran alongside him, Cas and Dean hung back, slicing with their weapons at the attacking spirits. It had about the same effect as it did on the tar monsters: the beings merely stitched themselves back together and flew onwards.
“Here’s the gate!” said Sam. The three men in the lead broke into a gallop, but suddenly one spirit broke away from the pack and dive-bombed Benny, sending him tripping headlong. And then several more of the flashing lights crashed into his back and head, creating electrical sparks.
Dean and Cas, running behind, each grabbed Benny under one of his thick arms and half dragged him through the park entrance, where both Dean and Cas collapsed in a heap just outside. The flashing lights hovered for a moment, swarming at the verge of the park entrance, and then, just as suddenly, scattered.
There was a soft click, and the park went silent and dark.
“Damn you and your hungry stomach!” Dean shouted at Benny. “Now I’ll never get to see the Dr. Sexy Experience without that stupid ghost.”
Sam had helped Cas, who was still breathing hard, to his feet. But Benny remained down on the ground, a large, bulky shadow.
“Benny?” asked Dean.
“Hey, Ben,” said Sam, who crouched down right next to him, hand on his shoulder.
Benny looked up.
“SHIT!” said Sam, falling on his ass.
“Benny, what the hell?” muttered Dean. He ran over to the car's trunk and fished out a flashlight, which he trained on his friend.
Benny looked up at Dean and snorted.
And then he oinked.
He threw his great head around, looking confused, sniffing through his large pink snout.
“Holy fuck. Benny?” asked Dean.
“Ha!” said Gabriel. “Looks like we got ourselves a vampire pig.”
Dean heard an odd noise and shone the flashlight over to Castiel, who was covering his mouth. “Were you laughing at Benny, Cas?”
“Uh. No,” snickered Cas.
“Look how you made him feel,” said Dean, shining the flashlight over to where Benny was hanging his piggy head in shame. Which in turn caused Cas to snort with laughter once again.
Benny suddenly lunged at Cas who, graceful as a bullfighter, stepped away, his overcoat trailing like a cape.
“Benny,” scolded Dean, who stood in front of him. “You stop that. Now, it was rude to laugh, but this is all your damn fault.”
“Should we all find somewhere to stay tonight?” asked Sam. “Hopefully far away from this place. It’s getting late.”
Between two angels and two humans, they had managed to wrangle the fat Benny hog into the pickup bed. And then, seeing no other options, they had taken off. They finally ended up camping by the roadside some miles up the road. It was a fair night, so they didn’t bother with tents, just grabbed sleeping bags and assigned sentry duty.
Sam had thought he was too wired to sleep, but he soon found himself walking through an unfamiliar dreamscape. It wasn’t what he thought of as “his” wasteland, it was an evergreen forest. He was making his way down a deserted pathway marked by paving stones. There was a concrete wall to his left. It was too high to see over, even for someone as tall as Sam.
“This isn’t your dreamscape, is it, Sam?” An angel sat up on top of the wall, smoking a cigarette.
“Hey, Humpty Dumpty. This isn’t your dream either,” Sam told Cas, who hopped down to walk beside him.
“Humpty … Dumpty?” asked Cas, tilting his head.
“It’s a nursery rhyme. Never mind. I thought we agreed this was a non-smoking dream?”
“Your dreams are non-smoking,” said Cas, tapping out ashes. “However, I do not believe this is in fact your dream.”
“No? Then who the hell’s dream is it? Yours?”
“Angels do not dream. At least, not in any way that a human would be able to comprehend.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“But perhaps this is the purview of the dreamer?” asked Cas as they came upon a large metal gate. Sam peered inside, between the bars. He could see a big, rambling Victorian era house.
“Well, why not?” said Sam, opening the gate. “I don’t see any ‘Trespassers will be shot’ signs.” They passed through the gate and walked up the driveway towards the house, which looked deserted. The windows were curtained, so you couldn’t see inside. Sam rang the doorbell and, receiving no answer, tried the knob. It was unlocked. “I guess whoever lives here is the trusting sort,” he said, pushing his way inside.
A redheaded woman looked up at them as they entered. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a big coffee table. Sam pegged her as the artsy type. She was wearing those cat’s eye glasses the hip girls thought were funky, and the hair was done up in a topknot that looked artfully careless.
“Sam,” she said, pausing in what she was doing. There was an opened prescription bottle on the table, and a lot of capsules spread out on the table’s surface, arranged in neat little rows. “And you must be the angel,” she added.
“I am an angel,” Cas told her. Sam noticed he must have tossed out his cigarette before he entered.
“No, you’re the angel,” she corrected. “The producers wouldn’t let me put you in. They said the Christians would object.”
“Put him into what?” asked Sam, inviting himself to sit down on the couch opposite of her.
She rolled her eyes. “The show of course. Anyway, you’re supposed to meet me in Vancouver. What’s keeping you?”
“We had a little trouble with some Walley World spirits, and our vampire is now livestock,” sighed Sam.
“What?” she asked.
“We are within a day’s travel of Vancouver,” Cas told her. He had remained standing and looked, if not nervous, then at least uncomfortable. Awkward, maybe. “Can you be more specific as to where we might find you?”
“Unfortunately, no,” she said, returning to sorting out her pills.
Sam reached over and grabbed the prescription bottle, eyeing the label. Seconol, it said, secobarbitol. He looked from the plastic bottle to the neat rows of red pills.
And then, with a cry of ”No!” he reached over with his arm and swept all the pills off the table, scattering them across the rug. The redhead stared at him, open-mouthed.
“No,” said Sam. “No, you won’t do it. We’re coming. We’ll be there soon. I’m coming. I’m Sam Winchester, and I’ll be here – or there, or whatever the hell – as soon as I can.” He had caught up her wrists and was staring at her.
She stared back for a while, and then looked up at Cas. “Is he always like this?”
“I have not made Sam’s acquaintance long enough to state his behavior patterns in a definitive manner such as that. However, I have noticed that he has an inclination towards saving people. Particularly attractive young women.”
She gawped at Cas, wresting herself out of Sam’s grip. “Haven’t been accused of that for a while.”
“I am afraid I am not adept at lying,” said Cas.
“OK, then,” she said, sitting back on a couch. “Would you be upset if I died?”
Cas tilted his head. “I’m not certain upset is the appropriate term. It would be unfortunate. You are important, or we would not be here. And you are powerful, as you have drawn Sam, another prophet, into your own dream.”
“Powerful? I don’t feel powerful. I didn’t see him die.”
“See who die?” asked Sam.
She pointed to the mantelpiece. Sam rose and walked over. There were framed photographs neatly arranged there. All of them pictured the redhead and a darker man. They were on a boat, on a mountain, by a lakeside, standing by a glacier, standing in a desert. And they were smiling, both smiling wide as the sky.
He turned back to her. She didn’t look as if she had smiled in a very long time.
Cas was crouching down next to her now, his eyes boring into her. “There is a reason you did not foresee that incident. There is nothing that you could have done. It would not have been prophecy, it would have been torture.”
She stared back at Cas, blinking back tears. Then she looked over at Sam. “I will wait for you, Sam Winchester. But hurry. Please hurry.”
Sam inhaled as he sat bolt upright in his sleeping bag. Cas was sitting cross-legged beside him, looking as if he might have been sitting that way all night, watching over. “Do you remember, Sam?”
“Yeah,” said Sam, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Yeah, I remember.”
“I believe it would be prudent at this juncture to head directly for Vancouver.”
“Yeah, Cas. I gotta agree with you.” Sam slumped forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “Not sure how Dean is gonna take it, hauling Porky to Canada,” he added, pointing to where Benny was happily rooting in the vegetation.
“It is good that he can survive like this. If he needed to be fed pig’s blood, it is possible, philosophically, that would be….”
“Cannibalism?” said Sam. “Ew, dude.”
“Then you will talk to your brother?” Cas asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Sam assured him. “Hey, but he’d listen to you too, you know.”
Cas stared intently at Sam for a moment. “Are you certain?”
“He’d listen. Believe me, he’d listen.” Cas dropped his eyes, seeming to study something on the ground in front of him, and it was Sam’s turn to stare. The realization took a small while to hit his still sleep-muddled brain, but hit it did. “Oh. Uh. You seem to be someone he, um, pays attention to?”
“You think so, Sam?” Cas’s eyes radiated hope.
“Yeah, I think so,” said Sam, scratching his head and yawning. And then Cas was on his feet and off, almost as if he had flown away.
Sam laid back. “So, I’m a suicide hotline for dream girls, and relationship counselor for angels. Great job, Sam.” Just then, he received a sloppy nuzzle from a rather large hog. “Oh gawd!” he groaned, sitting up again. “But I’m not pig food!” he yelled at Benny. “Get away, dammit!”
After they had relocated Benny from his favorite herb patch to the pickup bed, Sam volunteered to trade off driving the pickup truck with Gabriel, and was richly rewarded with a sleepy angel drooling on his shoulder as they made their way to the Canadian border. After giving Gabriel a shove, Sam checked the mirror once again to make sure Benny wasn’t stampeding or anything (what did Sam know, he had grown up in motels following his traveling salesman father, not on a damn farm). Then he trained his eyes up ahead once again. From what he could tell, Dean and Cas, up in the Impala, had spent the entire drive talking. Or at least Dean was talking and Cas was listening. He could see Dean gesticulating, reaching down to turn the stereo up or down, glancing over to see if his jokes had been appreciated. And then Dean reached out his right arm for something, and brought it down on the seat back, hand stretched out and almost but not quite touching Cas’s shoulder.
“OK, please don’t start making out,” Sam muttered.
“Say what?” muttered Gabriel.
“Uh, nothing-“
“What the fuck does my brother think he’s doing with that human?” barked Gabriel, who was staring ahead at Dean with his arm sort-of-but-not-really around Cas.
“Uh, hello. Human present,” said Sam. “Hey, look. The border.”
Sam's ruse worked, and Gabriel was distracted by the appearance of the international border crossing. “Wait, is there someone in that booth?” Sam peered ahead as well. The roadway split into several lanes at the crossing, however all but one lane had been blockaded by debris. There was a light in the booth by the open lane. To everybody's astonishment, a man dressed in a suit came out of the booth and stood by the roadside, hands on his hips.
Sam pulled up right behind the Impala and hopped out.
“Transporting livestock?” the border guard was saying, pointing to Benny. He tutted.
“Balthazar? What the hell are you doing here?” cried Gabriel, running up to tackle the man with a hug.
“Gabriel?” replied Balthazar, who did not hug back, and then pushed Gabriel away as if he were shooing a fly. “I thought you were with Lucifer.”
“I got bored. So I decided to hang with my brother,” said Gabriel, hiking a thumb at Castiel.
“CASTIEL!” gushed Balthazar, who now granted his own one-sided hug at the clearly confused Cas. “Darling! Are you all right? We were so worried.”
“He's all right,” said Gabriel. “Just sort of lost some marbles,” he added, making a circular motion with an index finger near his head.
“You don’t remember, do you, dear?” Balthazar asked Castiel.
“Remember … what?” Cas asked.
“OK, someone wanna tell me what’s going on here?” asked Dean. Benny had poked his hog’s head over the side of the pickup and was grunting inquisitively.
Balthazar now drew nearer to Benny, who snorted at him. “How did your vampire get turned into a pig?”
“Long story,” said Dean. “Look, you gonna let us through? We got business in Vancouver.”
“Well, the municipality of Vancouver is Michael’s domain now,” Balthazar explained.
Gabriel shook his head. “Michael took Canada? Oh, that is so typical him. He probably has everybody acting even more polite.”
“So will you let us through?” asked Dean impatiently.
“That’s problematic, I’m afraid,” sighed Balthazar. Dean noticed there were suddenly more guys standing around, though he hadn’t heard them come up. They wore black suits and dark sunglasses. “We love Cassie here, and it’s a shame what Lucifer did to you….”
“What did he do?” asked Cas.
“He broke your wings. Both of them. Don’t you remember? And as for Gabriel, you’ve really made some less than stellar life choices…” Balthazar continued, as his buddies began surrounding the Impala and the pickup.
One of Balthazar’s men popped the Impala’s trunk, leading Dean to say, “Hey!” But then another guy hopped up on the pickup bed and poked at Benny, who snorted and charged. “Hey, don’t molest the pig!” Dean yelled at them.
“Boss!” said one of them men, who’d been poking his head into the Impala. He flashed a bag of DVDs at Balthazar.
“Hey, do not touch those!” yelled Dean, now striding back to his car. “Nobody touches those,” he said, snatching at the Video Safari bag back, which got tossed over his head to Balthazar.
“You have Dr. Sexy, MD?” asked Balthazar, rifling through the plastic bag. “You have volumes 17 and 18?”
“Yeah, just got ‘em. In Manhattan. Why?” asked Dean.
Balthazar and one of his associates had a rapid, whispered conversation. “Er,” said Balthazar. “It is just possible that, at this particular juncture, we could make an exception to, uh, expedite the immigration process….”
Benny snorted.
“Michael is a Dr. Sexy fan?” asked Sam, who didn’t even believe his brother, Dean, was a Dr. Sexy fan. He had trouble believing that anyone, human or angelic, would waste even a second of their existence on that ridiculous piece of trash.
“I told you he’s a douche,” grinned Gabriel, who was sitting beside him in the pickup truck's cab. “Hey, what’s the big idea?” he asked, leaning forward to watch Dean and Cas in the Impala. Dean had done the arm-draping trick again, although Cas this this time sat stiffly, not turning or nodding. But then they were both looking out the window, pointing and craning their necks at something.
Sam stopped the truck behind the Impala and looked up himself. “What the hell?” he asked. He jumped out to join Dean and Cas, who were looking up and staring. Here, by the waterside, was the big, crazy salmon-tinted building that looked like the world's funkiest apartment complex.
And there were people out on the high balconies, sipping cocktails. Up where they could look down on the ruined city, all the barriers, the debris, the piles of rotting corpses. Sam shuddered.
“I am told the locals called it the Pink Palace,” said a dark-haired man who was one of a party coming out to greet them. “Hello. I am Michael,” he added, extending a hand towards Dean. He wore a sharp, dark, neatly pressed suit, as did his entourage, who were presumably all angelic. It was quite a contrast to the shabby party who had just pulled up in two mud-spattered vehicles, one of which was carrying a hog, who sniffed curiously at the sharply-dressed beings.
“Uh, I'm Dean, and this is my brother, Sam. I guess you know the rest?”
“Yes,” said Michael. “Brother Castiel, I hope you are well?” he asked, more or less sincerely. Cas nodded. “Gabriel,” he said, glaring.
“I love you too, Mikey.” snapped Gabriel. “So you set yourself up in the Gingerbread Man's doll house?”
“It's a local landmark, Gabriel,” said Michael.
“It’s totally pink, dude,” Dean pointed out.
“It’s salmon,” Michael snapped. He frowned and walked around the pickup truck. “How did you get yourself into this state?” he asked Benny.
“We, uh, had some dealings with these spirits who's taken up residence at Walley World,” Dean explained.
“Walley World? I have always wanted to go.”
Michael signaled to one of the angels who was standing nearby. The guy reached over and touched two fingers to Benny's brow. There was a pop, and suddenly, he was human again. Or at least back to being a vampire. “Whoa! Thanks, brother.”
“No feeding, vampire, or there will be words,” warned Michael.
“Celestial blood gives me a belly ache,” said Benny, hopping out of the pickup and looking himself up and down. “But don't worry, I don't suck on humans no more.”
Michael gave Benny a sour look and turned back to Dean. “And do you have … the items?”
Dean frowned for a moment, and then reached into the Impala and grabbed the Video Safari bag. One of Michael's assistants snatched it from him. Dean made to protest, but Cas shook his head. “We gonna get those back?” Dean groused.
“He has volumes 17 and 18,” whispered one of the aides, her voice awed.
“Yes, of course,” Michael told Dean. “After the viewing party. We will rip these to DVDs for you.”
“I want the originals back,” Dean growled. “They're mine.”
“If I were you, Michael,” said Sam, “I wouldn't keep my brother away from his Dr. Sexy.”
Michael and Dean had a glare-off for a few moments, with Michael finally backing down. “All right. After all, the Winchesters are our guests. Balthazar tells me you consider yourselves to be on some kind of, er, quest? You are roaming the country trying to complete your collectible set of Dr. Sexy?”
“That. And Death sent us to Vancouver,” said Dean.
“Death?” asked Michael. “He asked … you?” It was uncomfortably close to a sneer.
“Yeah, he appeared to me in a dream,” Sam explained. “Or rather, one of his reapers did.”
“Sam is a prophet of the Lord,” explained Cas.
“The prophet … Sam? I hadn't heard anything about this,” said Michael, officiously crossing his arms. One of his assistants brought up a clipboard and rifled through it, shaking her head at Michael.
“Has it occurred to you maybe Dad doesn't tell you everything, Mikey?” asked Gabriel. “You know, you did start a feud with Daddy's favorite.”
“May I remind you, you are on shaky ground, Gabriel?”
Gabriel grinned. “Mike, quit acting high and mighty. You're down here rooting in the mud with the rest of us.”
“Uhhhh, look, we might need your help,” said Sam, who was growing nervous about all the angel glaring going on. “I had another dream, and we're supposed to meet a girl here.”
“What girl?” asked Michael.
Sam shook his head, looking over at Cas, who sadly shook his head. “Unfortunately, we did not gather sufficient personal information,” Cas confessed.
“Look, this is important. She may be suicidal,” said Sam.
“She is most probably already dead,” sighed Michael dismissively. “If she is not a victim of the virus.”
“No! She was alive. I was in her dream!” said Sam.
“You were in her dream?” asked Michael, his eyes darting back and forth between Sam and Cas. “How is that possible? You are human.”
“I don't know. I don't know how it works,” Sam confessed.
“She is no doubt quite powerful, Michael, as she drew in both Sam and myself," Cas told him.
“Powerful?” asked Michael, raising an eyebrow. “For drawing in a false prophet and a broken angel? That does not bespeak power, don't you think.”
Cas didn't say anything, but lowered his eyes and seemed to wilt. Dean, without quite knowing why, put a steadying hand on Cas’s shoulder. “Cas isn't broken. And my brother is not a false prophet,” he told Michael.
“If he's not in the books, he is not a prophet.”
“Maybe the boys are writin' up a new book, Mikey,” said Benny.
Michael glowered. “We will chat more tonight, over dinner. For now, you look as if you need, er, freshening up after your journey. Ask at the desk inside and you will be escorted you to your quarters.” And with that, Michael turned on his heel, and stalked off, followed by a trail of suited up angels.
Benny looked at Gabriel. “Your brother is one twenty dollar asshole.” He stretched. “Even if he did get me back in my good body.”
“I might sleep out in the truck tonight,” grumbled Gabriel.
“Aw, c'mon, Shorty. I see angels with tiki drinks up there. There's gotta be a bar inside.”
“You got a point, Porky,” said Gabriel, as the two wandered towards the Pink Palace. Cas headed after them, head still down, a few paces behind.
Sam stared after them sadly. “I can't believe that douche is a fellow Dr. Sexy fan,” Dean complained.
“I wish I'd gotten her address. Her name. Something,” Sam told Dean.
“Come on, Sammy. Don't let the angel douche bag get you down. You haven't let us down before. You won't now.”
“I guess so.”
“Let's go see if angels have Canadian beer. And maybe there's a hockey game.”
Cas hadn't made it to dinner, nor to the Dr. Sexy viewing party that later that night. He was, instead, smoking out on a balcony in the late evening when Dean found him. Cas held out his cigarette, but instead found himself grabbed by the shoulders and hustled into the hallway.
“Hey, come see my view, dude,” said Dean, who paused at an apartment doorway. “I got a great room.”
“Aren't the views all similar?” asked Cas. Dean pushed the angel inside his room, slamming the door after him, and then pressed Cas up against the door for a rather long kiss.
“Damn I've been waiting for fucking ever,” said Dean as he finally broke the clench. “What?” he asked, seeing Cas's pained expression. “Why weren’t you at dinner? You must be hungry. You’re always hungry.”
“Dean, you don't want me.” His hands dug into Dean's shoulders.
“Oh, why the hell not? Wait, is this about what Michael said?”
“Dean. I'm broken,” Cas told him, pushing him away.
Dean frowned at him for a moment. “The wings? I don't care about that! Look, you were probably fighting, right?”
“I suppose so. I haven't asked Balthazar to tell me what happened I'm not sure I wanna know.”
“Well, then if you were fighting, wouldn't that be kind of cool?”
Cas shook his head and bit his lip.
“And hey, you figured out how to fight anyway, right?” urged Dean.
“That's true....”
“And besides, we got a room, dude. With a really … big … bed,” Dean concluded, punctuating the speech with kisses applied to Cas's neck. Cas looked over Dean's shoulder into the bedroom. He had indeed been given a king sized bed.
“A room … in Michael's building.” Cas let Dean kiss him. “He would probably be shitting himself. If he found out.”
“All the better,” grinned Dean. Cas pushed Dean back once again and stared at him, looking thoughtful. And then pulled Dean to him again. Somehow, through determined groping, Dean managed to steer the angel into the bedroom and over to the really big bed, stripping off the big coat on the way. Cas seemed reluctant to shed his shirt though, suddenly crossing his arms over his body. “My back. It looks pretty bad,” he whispered.
“What?” asked Dean, who was getting rather impatient with interruptions at this juncture. Cas reluctantly pulled his shirt up in back. Dean had to gasp. “God damn,” he muttered. There were two large, painful-looking purple contusions running up and down either side of Cas's backbone, going from the level of his shoulder blades to the bottom of his rib cage. Dean traced a careful finger down one side. “Oh, this doesn't hurt, does it?” he asked, withdrawing his fingers.
“No it feels.... It feels good when you do that.” Dean tugged at Cas's shirt, and Cas allowed him to pull it off over his head. He put a hand to Cas's back, at the bottom of one of the bruises, and gently rubbed upwards. Cas stretched and emitted a small moan.
“I dunno if these are really bruises. Seems like they’d be tender. You feel all knotted up,” said Dean, now spreading two hands over Cas's shoulders. “Come on, lie down a sec.” Cas batted those amazing eyes at him, causing Dean a small involuntary shiver, and then the angel plunged face down on the bed. Dean straddled him, and started to rub Cas's back, muscles tight as bowstrings slowly easing up under his gentle touch. It wasn't exactly what Dean had planned to be doing right now, but he liked the sound of the soft, small groans as the man underneath him slowly relaxed.
Dean bent over and kissed Cas's back. He smelled really nice up close like this, something like cinnamon and sea air, Dean thought, planting more kisses, up the back, and then on the neck. He rolled Cas over and then they were mouth to mouth again. Ah, this was more like it. It was like being drunk on a really sweet young wine.
“Wait, what?” asked Cas as Dean suddenly leapt up and ran across the room. He sat up. “Dean?”
Dean had grabbed a chair and was wedging it so the back was lodged under the doorknob. “Not gonna risk getting interrupted again!” said Dean. He hopped back on the bed. “Now, where were we?”
“You know if Michael wanted to interfere...” Cas started, but he was blocked by Dean's tongue in his mouth.
“Michael … is getting … nowhere … near,” Dean muttered, now kissing his way back down Cas's torso. He was so lean, you could stop and count the ribs. Down the stomach, down to the waistband of Cas's jeans, where you could just see a few soft, dark hairs. Dean had to pause another frustrating minute to deal with shoes, and then at last he could unzip the jeans – he had briefly considered using his mouth, but was growing awfully impatient to get down to business. He rubbed two hands up Cas's thighs, delighted that Cas was visibly aroused. Cas put a hand in his hair and whispered his name. He was going to be shouting it soon, if Dean had his way. Dean forced himself to take his time, nibbling his way up Cas's inner thigh for a while and getting some frustrated moans in response. He finally took the tip of Cas's dick in his mouth, enjoying feeling Cas's entire body clench under his hands. Gripping Cas's thighs, he set up an achingly slow rhythm. Cas was writhing now, one hand in Dean's hair, one pressed to the headboard, putty in his hands.
Dean moved his hands around to cup Cas's sweet little ass now. He sent two fingers to rub the sensitive asshole. “Oh God Dean!” Cas panted. Dean had ceased the blow job and was now forcing fingers inside him.
“You want me inside you?” Dean asked.
“Oh fuck yeah fuck yeah.”
Grinning madly, Dean withdrew his fingers and slid over to grab his bag.
“Oh what now?” grumbled Cas, who had now attached himself to Dean's back, sucking at his neck and fumbling to unzip Dean's pants.
“Lube.”
“Fuck the lube.”
“That's … really distracting. In a good way,” Dean gasped as Cas got the zipper open and stuck his hand down into Dean's underwear. Dean paused a moment to let himself be groped, but then willed some blood to come back to his brain, and found the tube.
“OK, OK, get over,” he said, trying to roll Cas onto his stomach.
“No. I wanna see you,” said Cas stubbornly rolling back. He was yanking off Dean's shirts while Dean was trying to fumble with the tube, which led to a few moments of sweaty, urgent fumbling. Then Dean wriggled the rest of the way out of his jeans, slung one of Cas's legs over a shoulder, and pressed some greasy fingers into him. Cas arched his back and groaned.
'You're so tight,” muttered Dean, rubbing his erection against Cas's groin while he worked his fingers.
“I want you inside me.”
“Gimme a minute,” said Dean. Cas had grabbed the opened tube and now put a lubed up hand around Dean's dick. Dean bucked and nearly lost it. “Careful careful careful,” he breathed.
Dean pulled out his fingers and lined himself up. “You've done this before?” he thought to ask.
“Not with you. I want you.”
That was all the urging he needed. Dean thrust inside, the sensation taking his breath away. Cas responded, and Dean idly wondered how good the soundproofing was in these rooms. He went slow for the first couple of strokes, but pretty soon Cas's other leg was up over his shoulder and he found himself pounding away with a sort of joyful desperation. Such a rare time, for Dean, nothing else to worry about, no one else to think about, just the world shrunk down to two people. He heard his name shouted out once, twice, three times, and then he was riding his orgasm, and everything was just sticky and sweaty and wonderful.
Cas moaned one last time as Dean pulled out. That voice alone could drive you mad. Dean rolled over on his back, pulling the angel on top of him, and, holding the panting, writhing being as tightly as he possibly could, rubbed him a few more strokes to put him over the edge, Cas coming all over that amazing flat stomach.
They stayed like this for a moment, before Dean kissed him and assured him, “You’re gonna kill me.” He finally, reluctantly, hopped off the bed one last time to go grab a towel, and they cleaned up as well as they could. Dean held Cas tightly, still lazily groping him.
“How was dinner?” Cas finally asked.
“Michael noticed you weren’t there,” said Dean.
“I vaguely remember those kinds of events. They were awful.”
“Yeah, it was awful. And the Dr. Sexy viewing party sort of sucked too. You’d think with so many people having sucked down so many bottles of wine it would have been a scream, but everyone was so….”
“Reverent?”
“Yeah!”
“You drink the wine in order to make it through dinner,” Cas sighed. “To induce numbness, not inebriation.”
Dean persisted. “I mean, during the showing, you’d yell at the stupid ghost, or whatever, and they’d all kind of look at you like you'd just farted. Nobody likes the ghost!”
“Well, if the show was truly being written by a prophet, as the evidence suggests to me, then perhaps they regard it as canonical.”
“What? You mean the show is gospel?”
Cas twisted around so he was looking at Dean. He had a sort of smug look on his face. Dean scowled. “You yourself have always been a devoted fan, Dean. And yet you also admit the show has weaknesses, some of them rather egregious.”
“It’s television. It’s supposed to be brainless.”
“Yet I’ll surmise there are a lot of stupid television programs for which you would not risk a zombie attack to forage for DVDs.”
“There’s a reason I like Dr. Sexy?” asked Dean. “That’s just fucking weird.” They were quiet for a moment. “You know, I could stay like this all night.”
“Dean?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m really hungry….”
Dean laughed. “You should have eaten your damn dinner!” He slid out of bed and tossed some clothes at Cas. “Get your damn pants on. We’ll scrounge you up a burger or something.”
Cas stared at him, two huge eyes pleading. “Do you think they have peanut butter?”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“And jelly?”
Dean grinned. “Get your damn pants on....”
“So what we're doing is we're just basically driving around at random,” said Dean, who did not seem at all perturbed by the notion. He whistled as he made the turn through another picturesque Vancouver street.
“Well. Kind of,” Sam admitted from the passenger seat beside him. “I know she lived in a Victorian looking house, and there's supposed to be a section of town with Victorians out this way.” He peered at the map in his lap, and then rotated it 180 degrees.
“Sounds good,” said Dean.
Sam looked at his brother. “OK, what's going on?”
“Whaddya mean, what's going on? It's a beautiful day, I'm behind the wheel, hanging with my brother. You know, Sammy, I've been thinking....”
Sam regarded his brother with no little suspicion. “That's always dangerous.”
“Maybe we shouldn't go back to the camp? Maybe we should just hit the road, you and me, just us two.”
“Yeah?”
Dean grinned, obviously warming up to his own line of bullshit. “Yeah! Like the old days, just family. We'll grab Cas-”
Sam chuckled. “OK, OK, hold it a minute. How can it be just two if that includes Cas?”
“Well, OK, just us three,” agreed Dean, who seemed bound and determined not to be upset by anything.
“What about Benny?”
“He can come. If he wants. Or maybe he'll get a little farm and settle down with Gabriel!”
Sam was openly laughing now. “Uh, Dean, that's really fucking weird.”
Dean grinned. Sam checked through his own random access memory. Something didn't add up. No, it did actually: Cas never made it down to dinner, and then Dean ditched the boring Dr. Sexy viewing party and went up looking for him and never returned. Dean plus Cas equals....
Sam’s smile faded. “Oh, no, Dean! You and Cas?”
Dean shot his brother an irritated glance. “Me and Cas. So?”
“Dean. He's an angel. His brothers are all angels. They smite people. And he's got some kind of weird funky dark power that he can't control.”
“You've got a weird funky dark power, Sammy.”
Sam rolled his eyes heaven-ward. “I have migraine-inducing dreams, Dean. He can blow up cars!”
“Sam,” tutted Dean. “I guess you're just prejudiced against angels.”
Sam rounded on his brother, the stupidest man in the world. “Dean! You didn't even want him driving the damn Impala a couple days ago.”
“That's different. That's my car.”
“And now you're doing the nasty? Did you know, Gabriel told me, angels are not even male or female. Did you even know that?”
“He's definitely a male. I can tell you that.” Dean was smirking.
“Too much information!”
“Then why are you asking?” said Dean, a hint of irritation now creeping into his voice. “Look, Sammy. Come on. I'm happy. He sure as hell seemed happy. Just … be happy, right?”
“Yeah, I'll throw rice at your damn wedding.”
“I'm not the marrying type. Hey, we're just gonna have some raw, nasty sex.”
“TOO MUCH INFORMATION!” wailed Sam, throwing his hands over his eyes just as the car slammed to a halt. “What?”
“Did you see that?” asked Dean.
“I was trying to bleach my mind, Dean!”
“There's a guy,” said Dean, who was already hopping out of the car.
“Wait, Dean, are you sure it's not a Croat? Dammit!” Sam grabbed for the billy club under his seat and followed his brother.
“It’s not a Croat. It was definitely a guy.” Dean strode to the end of the block with a determined air about him. Sam moved more cautiously behind him, scanning the area for movement, all of which he assumed to be hostile. They hadn't encountered any Croats since they had crossed the border, but the devastation around him was enough to make him move carefully. He increased his pace until he was walking abreast with his brother. “Saw it go around that corner,” said Dean, casually pointing with his crazy axe thing. Just like Dean: the first Croat they had encountered in days, so he wanted to go poke it with a stick.
“Let's be chill, Dean. Where there's one, there's bound to be more.”
“Not sure it was a Croat. If it was, it wouldn't have run away,” said Dean, once again moving forward.
“Maybe it was a Scaredy Croat,” Sam suggested. “Anyway, aren't we supposed to be looking for the girl with the pills?”
“Hey, maybe if we got a local, and it can talk, it can tell us where she lives, right?”
Sam nodded grudgingly. “Or it could be running to tell its friends that there was fresh meat on the hoof.”
Dean snickered. “Wait. There!” He had already broken into a run, Sam hot on his heels, running towards the motion. “Head him off, Sam!” Dean called as they reached an alleyway. Sam reluctantly halted at the entrance to the alley while Dean hopped a fence to run through somebody's garbage-strewn yard, presumably intending to catch whatever or whoever it was around the back of the alley.
Sam stood there for a while, feeling a bit idiotic. He wasn't entirely convinced that whatever they had seen wasn't just a big dog or something. Or maybe a bear: this was Vancouver after all. He hefted the billy club in his hand, wishing he'd paused to grab a shotgun out of the trunk.
He heard a rattle. “Dean?” he asked quietly. His view of the other end of the alleyway was blocked by debris, so, after casting a glance back over his shoulders, gripping his billy club, Sam stepped into the narrow alleyway. There was junk everywhere: overturned trash cans, overfilled dumpsters, a rusty shopping cart, a moldy couch. The sun was not yet high enough overhead to shed much light in here. Sam cast his eyes back and forth, seeking any trace of movement in the shadowy doorways.
There was a broken garage door up ahead. He moved up towards it, now cursing himself that he didn't have a flashlight on hand. Why had Dean been so damned jumpy to pursue this guy? If it even was a guy. He walked until he was even with the big crack in the wooden door. The alley narrowed here, as something that looked like a roll of chain-link fence was blocking a good part of it. The hole in the garage door wasn't big, but it might have been big enough for a child. Or an animal. Or a small bear. After another look, and another soft call of, “Dean?” Sam leaned over to peek inside.
And was slammed to the ground, body checked by something or someone. He yelled and got up his billy club.
And then the weight was off him as Dean suddenly appeared and grabbed the guy by the scruff of the neck. “Ha! Gotcha!” he cried.
“Dean!” yelled Sam, scrambling to his feet. “Where the hell were you?”
“Stalking this dude,” said his brother, who had slammed the man – and indeed, it was a man – up against the alley wall, his blade now shining under the guy's chin. “OK, talk!” he ordered.
“I- I-” stammered the man. He was filthy as hell, with a scraggly beard, and bags under his eyes. “Thought you were Croats.”
Dean immediately loosened his grip and stepped back. “Oh my god! It's you! It's you, isn't it?” he asked, suddenly very excited.
“It's, uh, who?” asked Sam, utterly confused.
“It's you!” Dean repeated. “You're him!”
“I'm...” stammered the man. “I'm … Robert Phillips.”
“Sammy it's him!”
“Uh, yeah?” asked Sam.
“It's Robert Phillips! It's Dr. Sexy, MD!”
Some years ago....
While the city slept, angels were watching over.
This was not good news.
They all stood on top of an office tower in Seattle, about two dozen of them. In their heavenly forms, this kind of thing would have been impossible, as a mere one or two of them perching here would have surely crumbled the structure. But they all found themselves, quite to their surprise and dismay, in more or less human form right now. For some of the celestial beings, this was the object of some consternation, and, on the part of others, no little merriment.
“It is obvious that we have been placed down here for a reason,” stated Michael, who was presently tall and dark-haired and stern. He turned to scowl at Gabriel, who had snorted derisively. “Oh what is it Gabriel?”
“A reason? Our Dad? Seriously, are you kidding, Mike?”
“Oh? Then to what would you assign our present predicament?” asked Michael.
Gabriel hopped up to sit on the low wall that surrounded the roof. Had he been a human being, this may have caused a sensation of vertigo, as the building was high and the wind was kicking up.
The wind was in fact stirring because Balthazar was fanning it, although this would not become apparent to everyone until some time later.
“Maybe the Old Man’s just in a bitchy mood. I heard he lost his last chess match with Death.” Gabriel sat on the parapet and merrily kicked his short legs. Far, far below, a manmade river ran by the building. It split the city in two.
“Ouch,” grinned Raphael, who had been standing just off to the side, a wry smile on his face.
“That’s ridiculous, Gabriel,” said Michael.
“I don’t know, Michael,” Raphael told him. “I tend to agree with Gabriel. Our Father gets vain about that sort of thing.”
“I believe we are here to pass judgment,” said Michael.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Castiel.
“Of course it doesn’t make sense to you, dimwit,” said Gabriel, causing Raphael to chuckle cruelly.
Castiel ignored them. “We are messengers. Not judges. Your statement does not make any sense, Michael.”
“The time is nigh! It is clear as the nose on your face,” Michael told him. Castiel crossed his eyes, trying and failing to view his own nose. “It is time to separate the wheat from the chaff.”
“How do you know this, Michael?” asked Castiel, to general giggling.
Michael emitted a deep, infinitely patient sigh. “Haven’t you read the bible, young one?”
“Yes. It importunes to beware of false prophets.”
Despite his exalted status as a celestial being, Gabriel damn near fell off the building in his laughing fit. He held his stomach. Michael halted his speech to glower at Castiel.
“I know why we have been called,” said Lucifer.
“Oh, what now, Lucifer?” moaned Michael, putting an agitated hand through his hair.
“There is no reason for judgment,” said Lucifer. “Mankind is a flawed creation. We are here to extinguish them, once and for all.”
“Oh, poppycock,” sighed Michael. “Quit acting like a spoiled brat, Lucifer.” Lucifer smiled at Michael, though the smile did not reach his eyes.
“How is what Lucifer said different from judging everybody, Michael?” asked Raphael.
“Here is what I would propose,” said Michael, ignoring Raphael and the rest. “We shall go out unto the world, and walk among mankind. Let us say for the period of one human year. And then we will reassemble, on this very spot, and share what we have learned. And then we will decide how to proceed.”
“A year? That isn't much time,” said Castiel. Although he was youngest of the bunch, in comparison to his very long life, a year was barely an eye blink. Not that he was much used to having blinking eyes. It seemed, actually, rather awkward to blink them.
“I said one year,” said Michael, as if that settled it.
“Come on, Cas,” said Gabriel, before Castiel could speak again. He had grabbed the younger angel by the arm and started quick marching him towards the stairwell.
“Where am I going?” asked Castiel, as Balthazar joined up with them.
“You wanna hang with the cool people,” said Gabriel, patting his shoulder.
And then they were headed downwards, into the darkness.
