SuperWhoLOCK: The Unearthly Pilot (A Study in Parallels)
Author's notes: This is just a fun little experiment to see if a SuperWhoLOCK fanficwas possible without being a crack fic.
Chapter 1 - If You Believe and You Know it, Clap Your Hands
"Pigeon-toed bastard!" Dean Winchester snarled as his bullet grazed the dark, swooping form of their quarry. The hunter ducked and pressed his back to the trunk of a tree. With his eyes scanning the upper branches of the dusk covered forest Dean heard the sound of leather wings again and shouted, "Get 'im, Sam!"
Despite his older brother's encouragement Sam was struggling to keep an eye on their target in the fading light. The critter was a fast one, but for once a bit on the fluffy side. Sam wouldn't call the creature "fat" (since they still couldn't even catch the blasted thing), but…
For once in what seemed like forever it was just the usual job. No apocalypse hanging over their heads, no angels with God complexes, and no Lovecraft-wannabes. The brothers had caught word of a few mysterious missing persons and found one lone freak of nature to bag and tag. The plan had been well thought out until they realized what they were actually dealing with.
Then again, was there really such a thing as a "usual" job for a hunter? A heavy aura of dread filled Sam's chest. His hunter's instincts were snarling like a watch dog. A storm was coming.
A screech of alarm and a loud THUMP brought Sam back to the present. His eyes sought out Dean. Sam's older brother had put away his guns and was walking out into the open. Dean gave a slow clap of appreciation.
" Oohee! Nice one, Cas!" Dean praised.
"Sure looks strange to me," Cas commented as his eyes gave the creature's one eye and lone horn a once over.
Sam had to agree with Cas on that point. The creature was furry and purple of all things. The Winchesters' angel companion and self proclaimed "third wheel" had the creature subdued with a wire net wrapped around its bat-like wings. The creature struggled to no avail and Sam sighed in relief. Despite his reservations about Cas's reasons for tagging along the angel was, as usual, very useful.
Averting the Judeo-Christian apocalypse together had earned the trench-coat-wearing seraph a permanent spot in the "family" and so Dean was more than comfortable letting Cas come along for the ride. Dean hadn't exactly asked for Sam's input about the ride-along, but Sam was willing to let it slide because Dean had been to Hell, Heaven, and purgatory. Sam had only been to two out of the three.
So far, Sam amended and was about to knock on wood when the creature began fussing again distracting him.
"Please, pleeeease let me go," Their captive pleaded in a high pitched whine. Babbling between half sobs the creature said, "I wouldn't eat you, honest! You're too tough. I only eat purple people…"
Dean gave the creature a rough nudge with his shoe. "What's your deal, dude?"
"Dean," Sam warned. There was no need to be rude. The thing was out right sobbing. It was rather pathetic, really.
"I-I… I just want to get a job in a rock-n-roll band!" The creature pleaded. Sam's eyebrows shot up.
"Yeah, yeah," Dean hoisted the creature over his shoulder. He marched over to the impala and dropped the furry bundle in the trunk. "That's what they all say."
Sam grabbed his brother's shoulder. "I think he's telling the truth, Dean."
Dean gave him a look that roughly translated as- Really, Sam? Really, heart bleeding, Sammy?
Before Sam could retort with a dirty look of his own a new pressure filled the air. The "Doooo ooooooo" of a machine whirling above them grew louder and louder. A spot light shined down looking for something. Sam backed up slowly and asked, "Wasn't the purple-people eater in the movie an alien?"
"It's not me!" The purple-people eater protested. Dean slammed the trunk closed.
"Angels?" Sam asked anxiously.
"No," Cas replied with certainty.
It was Dean who figured out what was up. He shoved Sam into the direction of the passenger door and ordered, "Run!"
Dean had the keys in the ignition and the accelerator to the floor before Cas slammed the door shut. The impala's wheels spun for a terrible second before the old girl shot off like a bullet. Dean took a sharp turn down a packed-dirt road and almost said a prayer until he thought better of it. His baby was more reliable than divine forces anyway.
"Seat belt, Dean." Sam scolded and tried to reach around his brother.
"Dammit, not now Sammy!" Dean shoved his brother back to his side.
"Sorry if I don't want you to die in a traffic accident!" Sam shot back.
"I'll be fine," Dean snapped and nodded pointedly at Cas sitting in the back seat. "We've got bigger problems on our hands."
Dean leaned forward trying to avoid the spot light. The light suddenly appeared in front of them and Dean swerved. "Dammit! Not again, not again, not AGAIN!"
That got Sam's attention. "What is it, Dean? DEAN!"
Sam's warning game too late and the ray of light was right on top of them. Unlike last time "they" took the car and everyone in it. Dean remembered the feeling, but the sensation was new to Sam. He wondered if this was what alien abductions felt like. Well, he knew there wasn't such a thing as aliens, but if normal people lived to tell the story then Sam knew he and Dean would be fine. With that thought giving him peace of mind Sam closed his eyes and let the light swallow him whole.
And after that he felt nothing at all.
[roll opening credits]
There was a low sound like someone strumming a base cord to the staccato of a fluttering heart beat. The sound reverberated in Sam's ears distracting him from the perpetual darkness that surrounded him. Dean and Cas were gone. He wanted to call to them, but there wasn't any air for him to make a sound. Sam would have panicked, but a feminine voice broke the darkness humming accompany to the base cord. The song was both familiar and alien; Comforting and dangerous at the same time. As gray swirls fused with the darkness like puffs of cigarette smoke, Sam found himself humming another familiar song.
"…Masquerading as a man with a reason, my charade is the event of the season…" He didn't know why that song suddenly came to his head.
The feminine voice answered, "I was soaring ever higher but then I flew too high…" And then the melody suddenly changed and a dark voice whispered. "Your song is ending so don't cry, when you hear him knock four times…"
Sam perked up as he heard footsteps. He tried to follow when a sudden ray of light cleaved the darkness in half.
"SAM!" Dean shouted. Sam opened his eyes. Dean's concerned face flooded his vision and Sam's older brother sighed in relief. "You okay, man?"
"I think so," Sam replied as he sat up. "What happened?"
"Nothing good," Cas replied. He was standing behind Dean looking at the world around them.
"Sorry, Sammy, but we're not in Kansas anymore," Dean informed him.
Sam wanted to roll his eyes at the lame reference, but it was true. The area around them looked like a Tim Burton fusion of Candy Land meets the Shire. On the one hand the place was a children's paradise. Right out of a storybook everything was lush and green and gold and every color of a Skittles commercial. The air was sweet like nectar and honey. While the fruit and the flowers dotting the hills didn't look exactly like candy, they looked extremely appetizing… if you were six years old.
The child's paradise was an adult's nightmare. Dentists and Social Services would have thrown a fit. Sam averted his eyes from the bright blue butterflies flitting around. All the winged insects had long, fleshy legs and breasts. Ants, or what Sam assumed to be the world's ant-equivalent, were marching along in tiny lines with tiny black caps and pick axes slung over their shoulder.
Fairies. Sam realized.
"Welcome to Fairyland, little bro." Dean put a solid grip on Sam's shoulder shaking him out of his reverie. "Cas, can you take us home?"
"No, it feels like I've been cut off from Heaven." Cas scratched his arm absently before looking down at his own action in shock.
"Uh oh," Dean muttered. "Feeling anything? Hunger? Thirst? Human?"
"I don't know," Cas admitted. "I can't tell for sure."
"We'll figure it out later," Sam suggested as he stood up. "Right now we should-" He paused. "…Dean? What are you doing?"
Dean had glanced around quickly before striding off determinedly in one direction. He kicked the dirt around for a minute until he found what he was looking for. A pair of bushes hurried out of the way with squeaks of panic. Once they were gone a single line of yellow and black bricks became visible.
"I'm calling us a cab," Dean told them as he stuck out his thumb.
The ground beneath them began to tremble and out of the earth broke a white squash. It maneuvered itself out of the ground like a spider with its vines. The pale veggie shook itself clean of excess dirt and sat up on its roots. The top of the squash popped open and a little field mouse with a little yellow/black checkered hat poked its head out.
"Somebody call a cab?" The mouse asked in a squeaky voice.
Sam stared in disbelief.
"Three to the palace," Dean told him. "And put it on his majesty's tab."
The mouse's nose twitched. "Is this a trick human?"
"Nope."
"Fine," the mouse relented. "Willing guests of his majesty are… few, to say the least. But I suppose it's alright."
Before the outlanders' eyes the white squash grew and grew until it reached a size able to carry all three. Sam was still trying to wrap his head about the oddity of their situation. Dean was much more composed, but he had already been to Fairyland and back. Cas didn't seem to have any opinion. He easily climbed up the squash's green vines and sat on the rounded backside of the veggie. Sam and Dean followed suit as the mouse grumbled something that must have been the fairy equivalent of gas prices.
Their ecofriendly transport was a smoother ride than Sam would have originally guessed for a walking salad. Except for the occasional bump their transport was quiet. The mousey driver could be heard whistling with all the grace of a tin-whistle. Sam leaned over to nudge Dean.
"He's a mouse." Sam commented.
Dean shrugged. "It can be whatever it wants to be."
"What do mean?" Sam's face scrunched up in confusion.
Cas joined the huddle to offer insight, "It is my understanding that fairies use magic to cover their true appearance."
Dean nodded. "Fairies generally pick one 'Sunday's best' as they call it. Knowing a fairy's true name makes them obey your orders. Knowing a fairy's birthday lets you control their fate and they never, ever let anybody see their true form."
"Explains the stories," Sam nodded. "What else?"
"Don't eat or drink anything." Dean warned. "Think Purse-ah-phone."
"Persephone," Sam corrected automatically. "Right"
In no time at all their destination came into view. The palace was carved of white stone and went straight into the mountain as if nature herself had prepared it as a gift for the fairy king. Their taxi driver bid them farewell and good luck before the squash shrank and departed. Dean struggled to push open the grand marble doors until Cas came over to lend a hand. When the doors were forced aside music flowed out of the main halls as drums and strings played tag around the hall's guests.
Sam tried to imagine a human house where the ants and mice had open invitations to come in and sip the wine and dine with the cats and dogs and humanoid hosts. Pests and rat-catchers offered punch to each other while foxes and hounds waltzed across the entry hall. Apparently fairies didn't judge one another by their "Sunday best".
A second level rested above the entry hall where the more traditional looking fairy folk danced in layers of cloth and magic. Sam found his leg muscles twitching in response to the uplifting and lighthearted tune that chased around them. Dean's face twitched in irritation. He wasn't looking forward to what was going to happen next. Apprehensively the older Winchester brother marched up the red-carpeted stairwell to the second level. Fairy gentry gave the trio a look before making room for them.
At the very center of the activity danced a red-haired fairy that stood about 4'9 tall. The fairy creature was limber in its dance. His voice lilted with the musicians'. They were singing curses and challenges to devil himself.
Oh, the irony, Sam thought.
When the song finished the red-haired fairy spun and approached the trespassers with a predatory grin what sent shivers down their spines. Whatever advantage they may have had with salt and guns didn't matter because they were in his world now.
"You must be King Oberon." Cas observed taking in the flashes of fear the other fae gave the tiny man.
The red-haired fairy gave an evil grin and scratched his short beard.
"Actually," he said with what could have been considered an Irish brogue. "It's pronounced O'Brian. The French never could get it right."
The fairy king gave the older Winchester brother a saucy wink, "How goes it, Dean?"
"I'm fine- whoa!" Dean held up his arms to prevent the king from the advancing towards him. "Keep your grabby hands to yourself!"
The king clicked his tongue in disappointment. "Ooo touchy, touchy."
"Not if I can help it." Dean snapped.
Sam put a hand on his brother's shoulder to calm him. "Not helping Dean."
Dean turned to glare at Sam and retorted with, "I have every right to be- Hey! Get away from the car!" Dean's attention was diverted when a small platoon of fairy soldiers rolled the black impala into the ballroom.
King O'Brian's eyes lit up with mischievousness.
"Looks like you brought me a present." The king floated over to Dean's car and popped the trunk with magic. "How thoughtful!"
The one-eyed creature in the trunk looked up at the fairy king with an expression of fear and humiliation. O'Brian looked the creature over with a glint in his eyes.
"I've been in need of a new musician." The king declared. "Do you know Heart of Gold?"
"Um …maybe?" The one-eyed creature replied uncertainly.
"Excellent." The king snapped his fingers and the solders removed the one-eyed beast and dragged him to parts unknown. "I'll accept the gift as an apology for the damages you caused last time, Dean." The king swiveled around on his heels and sat down on a throne that his subjects had brought to the center of the hall. "I wouldn't want us to get off on the wrong foot since I am in need of your help. If you don't mind me skipping the foreplay this time, it's time to talk shop."
A/N: Aaaaaaand rechecked for errors. ta-da.