~~Astoria, Oregon~~
"Jack, make sure Dylan has the right directions this time" said Glenda Castillo to her husband. "Last time it took him an hour before he found the right house."
Jack sighed. "Yes of course. I'll send him a text now." Jack reached for his phone as his wife messed with things around the house in preparation for Dylan's arrival. He sent the text with the directions for at least the fifth time even though he knew Dylan didn't need help with directions.
"Daddy, when do you think uncle Dill will get here," asked his 7 year old daughter.
"Not sure sweetie. I'm sure he's trying to get here as fast as he can to see you, Little Angel."
Smiling at his words, she ran up the stairs to her room. He smiled after her and wondered how his brother could fool everyone so completely. Casually, he walked out onto the porch. He lost himself in thought about how the image everyone has of his brother is so different from reality. There was a tiny shimmering across the street and he squinted to get a better look. The porch light started to flicker on and off and he turned his attention to that. After tapping it a few times it seemed to be okay so he decides to go back inside. But as he was turning around, he thought he saw something move from across the street to his driveway with impossible speed.
"What the –" he exclaimed in shock.
"Don't worry. He'll understand what it's like," said the peculiar child.
Jack just stood there, unsure what to do. Then all of a sudden, everything went dark. When he woke up, there was a strange man asking him if he was all right and how many he had. He ignored the man and got up. He was in a bar.
"Where am I?"
"Dude, you are so wasted," said the stranger. "You're in Twin Spruce Tavern, Warrenton, Oregon."
Jack was reeling from this information. That meant he was somehow about a 15 minute drive away from his house, his family. He was about to ask if there was a bus or something that he could take up to Astoria but he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the window. No longer was he Jack Castillo; suddenly he was Dylan Castillo. And with this final discovery, he passed out on the floor.
~~Supernatural Season 6 Title Sequence~~
Slam!
"Get up Sam," growled Dean as he entered their hotel room. "We finally get to leave this town." Sam sleepily stretched and sat up on his bed and glanced over at the clock. It was 5 in the morning. He was about to ask what kind of emergency is going on that would make it necessary for him to get up at such an hour; but, as he watched his older brother roughly shove their few belongings into their beaten up duffel bag, he remembered this isn't the time to be messing with Dean. He'd been upset ever since his best friend, an angel named Castiel, had betrayed them and started working with the devil, Crowley. Dean's mood soured even more when Crowley captured a woman and her son that Dean loved and lived with for a year and used them as bait against him.
Dean noticed his brother wasn't moving very fast. "What is it, Sam? Are you deaf? We have to go. Bobby says he knows what Cas will try to do next and we need to stop him before he does." He finished putting the things in the bag, flung it loosely around his shoulder and started to walk out of the room. "We're not staying in Warrenton anymore, Sam; it was a bust. C'mon I'll fill you in on the road."
Sighing, Sam got up and got ready to go. When he got into the car five minutes later, Dean handed him a bagel and a semi-warm cup of coffee. Taking it, Sam raised his eyebrows at his brother. He doesn't usually do this sort of thing.
"What? That's so you don't fall asleep on me," Dean asked a little miffed that Sam acted as if his older brother giving him something every now and then means he must be sick. The impala's engine revved to life and they started on their way to Bobby's.
"You look like hell Dean. Have you gotten any sleep since L–," Sam asked worriedly.
"Sam, I warned you if you ever mentioned their names to me again I would break your nose. Just because you're in my car right now doesn't change that or protect you."
"Ok, but have you?"
"No! Now listen up would you," growled Dean.
"Alright, so Bobby said that a friend of his hasn't been seen by anyone in a few days and he thinks that Cas might have something to do with it."
"Whoph za fren an rut rood cash af choo doo witch it?"
"What? Try repeating that without a bagel in your mouth."
He swallowed "I said, who's the friend and what would Cas have to do with it?"
"He said it was some chick by the name of Ellie Visyak, and I don't know why Cas would take her but–"
"Ellie Visyak?"
Irritated, Dean rolled his eyes at his brother. "Yes, Sam. I do believe that is what I said. Now would you shut your cake hole and let me tell you what's goin' on?"
"Dean, Ellie Visyak is the person that gave you the sword to fight the dragons, remember? She's an immortal being that fell out of Purgatory and has been quietly living top side ever since. I don't quite know what all Cas needs to do before he can empty out Purgatory, but talking to someone who was there is usually a good way to see what you're up against."
"Ok, but I thought Cas knew what all he had to get in order to open the gates. I mean he made it pretty clear that he's focused on forcing everything in there down his throat. Why would he need an escapee to tell him what's there? It's not like they're going to have a fighting chance, and Balthazar said that he's going to be like a nuclear reactor. Surely he hasn't gotten so pompous that he thinks he needs every evil dead thing plus one."
"Who knows, man. At least it's a lead," Sam said after chasing down his finished bagel with some coffee.
Dean nodded and turned on his Metallica music. He wasn't in the mood for a lengthy conversation. When they were able to get off the highway, Dean checked how full the gas tank was. Not too low but since they had a ways to go until they got to Sioux Falls and he didn't know how far it is until the next station, Dean decided to pull over and refill. Plus some pie might help him to stop snapping at his brother. He got the gas pumping while Sam got the newspaper, and then went inside to find some pie. After standing there debating between the different types, he chose the pecan pie and headed back to the Impala. He felt a tingling at the top of his spine upon leaving the store that usually tells him when something's not quite right, but shook it off blaming it on his bad mood. Sam had taken care of putting the pump away and so they were ready to get back to their long journey to Bobby's. Sam elected to drive so that Dean could eat his pie to which Dean had no argument.
However, when the Impala's engine got close to the city limits, she started to die down and the gas tank read empty. Dean stopped eating and looked around worriedly.
"What the–," he asked enraged.
Sam was willing to put up with a lot because of the emotional trauma Dean was working through, but he knew better than to get in the line of blame when something happens to his brother's car. So he decided to start on the defensive before Dean could get around to yelling at him. "I didn't do anything! The tank was full when we left the station. I don't know what's going on," he said.
Dean took a deep breath through his nose and slowly let it out again to try and calm himself down. He looked at Sam's concerned expression and felt a pang of regret that his brother thinks he has to be overly cautious around him as if he were about to explode. "It's alright, Sam; I don't think you did anything. It's probably just a maintenance problem." Then he got out to check the engine as soon as Sam managed to direct the car to the side of the road before she gave up. Looking at all its parts, Dean couldn't find any reason why his car would be acting up; everything seemed perfectly in order. So he stomped to the back of the car where Sam was still reading the paper and he got a beer out of the trunk.
"Ok, I don't have a clue what happened,…Where the heck are we anyway?"
Sam was only half listening. He gave the paper to Dean and pointed to something he thought could be a case. "Astoria. But Dean, look at this." Dean put his beer down and looked at the article. It was about a drunk, rich man named Dylan Castillo who claimed that his brother's wife and daughter were his and that his brother, Jack Castillo, somehow switched bodies with him. Dylan's brother called the cops on him and he spent the night at the local prison to sober up. But the guy was still repeating the same stuff over and over that it was his family so the Jack had a restraining order put on the guy.
"Ok. So a guy downs a couple drinks and thinks he's reliving a version of Freaky Friday. Why do I need to know about it?"
"Because Dean, maybe this is our sort of thing."
"Yeah that's what you and Bobby said about Warrenton but that was just a total waste of my time," Dean said returning to his drink.
"Maybe not, Dean," Sam said continuing to ignore his brother's attitude. "I mean, the paper says that in his statement to the cops, Dylan said that one moment he was on the porch of his house in Astoria, and then the next he was at some bar that he's never been to in Warrenton."
"Sam, we are not going to chase this. Some other hunter can look into your Freaky Friday switch-up case but we need to find Cas and stop him."
Sam gestured to their still immobile vehicle. "Yeah, and we're making such great progress with that, aren't we?"
Dean was getting madder and madder with every word that came out of Sam's mouth. Didn't he understand that Cas is going to open Purgatory, swallow up all the souls, not be able to handle it, and blow up half the planet? Even if there was a case here, can't he see that Cas is the priority? The choice is between one little town with a small supernatural problem or one fallen angel intent on defeating all the other angels while hyped up on monster souls. The answer was obvious to Dean, and it frustrated him immensely that his brother apparently couldn't come to that same conclusion. So instead of punching him in the face to relieve some of his frustration, he took a few big drinks of his beer.
Sam sighed and took a few steps closer. "Ok, how about we find a hotel here in Astoria to stay the night. You can figure out why the car won't work and I can look into the case by myself. We can call Bobby and tell him that the car is having a few problems and that we'll try to be on the road by tomorrow."
Dean thought it through and couldn't see a problem with it as long as Sam left as soon as the car was ready to go, no matter how far along he gets on his case. They agreed to each other's terms and walked back into town. Sam found them a hotel and settled in to start scouring the Web for further information; Dean called the tow company to have the Impala brought to the hotel and went to work on fixing it after he finished his pie.
"So, Dylan claimed that his sister-in-law and niece were his wife and daughter. Do you know of any reason that he would think that," asked Sam to Officer Stanton. Sam – though at that time he was posing as FBI agent Rook – was questioning Stanton because he was one of the policemen involved in the Castillo case.
Officer Stanton scratched his head and said, "Well, it's a really weird case. I mean the guy had more money than his brother Jack would ever see, and he'd never worked a day in his life. But, I don't know, maybe he wished he had a family of his own so he was drinking and thinking about it and then shows up at their doorstep and well…"
"I see. Was there anything strange when you got there? Like a weird smell like sulfur or just anything you thought was odd about the case?"
"Well, I think the whole case is weird, but no, I don't remember smelling anything out of the ordinary."
Sam finished scribbling down things that Stanton had told him in his "FBI" notepad, thanked him for his time and headed back to the hotel. When he got there, Dean was exactly how he had left him: a greasy monkey under the hood of the impala.
"Any luck?" asked Sam.
Dean peeked around the hood with a frown. "No." Dean grabbed the rag towel and wiped some of the grease off of his hands as he walked around to lean on the car. "It's almost dinner time. Did you eat anything since this morning?"
"No. You?"
"Nope. C'mon, I'll get changed into clean clothes and then we can go to Biggerson's or something."
"Sounds good," Sam said to Dean as he followed him into their room. Sam looked up how far away Biggerson's was while Dean changed. Dean scowled because the impala was still not an option and it was a ten minute walk.
"I hate this," he complained as they walked off of the parking lot.
"It's not that bad, Dean. We're just walking and it's not like it's going to hurt us."
Dean rolled his eyes. Sure walking may not physically hurt him, but that feeling he had at the gas station had never completely gone away. It made him uneasy to know that if something did happen to them on their little walk they wouldn't have access to what they may need because it might be in the trunk. "Let's just hurry up. I'm starving."
They got there in eight minutes due to Dean making them fast walk. They ordered what they usually had: Dean with his double bacon cheeseburger with extra onions and Sam with his salad.
After a while of watching his brother scan the room twice, Sam asked "Dean, are you alright?"
Dean returned his attention to Sam. "What would make you think I'm alright? My baby is sick, I'm stuck in this town, Cas is about to blow up the world and you and Bobby don't seem too worried about it."
Sam leaned over to argue back but just then their food came. Sam sighed and let it go. He was glad to see that at the arrival of food, Dean's mood had lifted a bit and was hopeful that he wouldn't be so grouchy now. For a while they just sat there eating in silence.
"So, still don't know what's wrong with the car, huh?" asked Sam. Dean opened his mouth to speak but Sam beat him to it. "How about you swallow those onions before answering, Dude?"
Dean swallowed the food in his mouth. "It's really weird, Sammy. I checked everything. Everything is in perfect condition; it shouldn't be having any issues at all." He took another bite and then said, "What about you? Ready to admit there's not a job here?"
"No, I still think there's something supernatural going on here."He said.
"C'mon Sam enough is enough."
"What Dean? Yes Cas is a huge problem right now, but there isn't much we can do about that right now. But it looks to me like there is something to hunt around here and I'm doing it. Why is that so hard for you to understand?"
Dean glared at Sam. "No. What you're doing is trying to get my mind off of Cas and Crowley by distracting me with nonexistent cases. It's not going to work. Crowley is going to regret what he did to me and I warned Cas not to do what he's doing. They're both going to get what's coming to them. It's all I can think about. No made up case is going to change that."
Sam stabbed at his salad in frustration and his fork glanced off of a tomato. The tomato went flying off the plate to roll on the floor after hitting a nearby waitress. The waitress turned and glared daggers at Sam. Sam hurriedly got up to go apologize. "I'm so so sorry. It was an accident. It just hit the fork wrong and–"
"Back off! I'm already having a bad enough day without an ungrateful, way overgrown child throwing his food at me." She stormed away through the now silent restaurant and Sam awkwardly made his way back to his seat. Dean was quietly laughing hard with his head resting on the table.
"It's not funny, Dean," Sam growled.
Dean managed to bring his violent laughter down to a few chuckles and leaned back in his seat. "No of course not. It's just," he looked at Sam. "Man, you sure have a way with girls."
"Ha ha, Dean," Sam said with bored sarcasm which only seemed to make Dean laugh more.
They finished their meals with small talk. Neither wanted to talk about the car or the possible job again for fear of fighting. When they were finished, they paid for their meals with one of Dean's credit card scams, and headed back to their hotel room.
The brothers entered their room and prepared for bed. Sam took a shower first while Dean called Bobby to tell him about the car and to try and figure out why it's acting up. Then Dean took his shower and Sam organized the things he learned about his case. Finally they both went to bed.
Sam fell asleep almost instantly, but Dean stayed awake. He hadn't been able to sleep for the past couple of nights because he could still see Benjamin's terrified face every time he closed his eyes. To make matters worse it wasn't the demons or even the demon in his mom that had him terrified. It was Dean. He had lived with Dean for a year, trusted him, thought of him as a father figure, but it was the first time he had ever really gotten to see the hunter side of Dean and it terrified him. Dean could see it in his face. He could see the look of betrayal in Ben's eyes. Dean also saw Lisa every time he closed his eyes. He saw the woman he loved being possessed by an evil black eyed demon. Heard her laugh as the demon gave its suit a fatal knife wound. There was no way Dean could ever get any sleep with those instant replay images rolling through his head over and over.
Dean rolled on his side trying to escape. He reminded himself that they were fine, they were alright. Cas had healed Lisa and erased all of her and Ben's memories of Dean. They are fine. They can get on with their lives. Lisa can find someone with a respectable job and an honest income that she can marry; Benjamin can live with his mom without the threat of Dean's work following after them. They can live normal happy lives. They just can't let Dean be a part of them.
Remembering Cas healing Lisa reminded him of all the things Cas had done that led up to his decision to open Purgatory and betray Dean in the process and that cleared the images away. He had to find Cas and stop him. And with that final thought, he drifted into sub consciousness.
Unknown to either Winchester however, there was a strange child that had been watching them throughout the day. The child effortlessly glided through the wall and into their room after they had both fallen asleep. "Don't worry Sam, Dean will regret the way he's been treating you soon enough," the child whispered. Smirking, the child gingerly touched Sam's shoulder and then was gone.
