It is nighttime.
She is a normal girl-no, woman-sleeping off the hangover of her twenty first birthday. Yesterday wasn't her first drink by far, but being able to do so openly with a real ID and with no little amount of enthusiasm led her to... overindulge. She is a woman, now, a happily boozing woman, and wonders what life has in store for her.
She will soon regret this happiness.
She wakes up tied to a pole with a bunch of ugly, hairy men leering at her and a big, blue, endless ocean surrounding them. Her wrists itch where the rope is constricting her and she's reminded of horrid field trips spent sitting on hay stacks of all things and is pissed, because on top of all of this bullshit is this rocking movement she can't adjust to because she is tied up on a boat.
Her hangover is gone, but she thinks nothing of it when compared to being tied to a pole.
Angry, she kicks at the ugly man closest to her, and the other men laugh as he clutches his hopefully broken jaw. He snarls at her, and she notices a few silver teeth shining amongst the dirt and rot that is his mouth.
They all have swords.
She is surrounded by pirates.
"This isn't anything like the Disney Ride."
"What is that wench goin' on about? Someone tie 'er voice up, too."
She rolls her eyes and throws up in her mouth a little bit from the cloth they stuffed her mouth with. She sends angry hate-waves at the crew and wonders why her wish to vanish into the Supernatural world didn't come true. Jensen and Jared would have been more inclined to save her.
"Is that a maiden in distress I hear?" Cries a dramatic voice and she rolls her eyes. This was the strangest, real-feeling dream she'd ever had.
The hero leaps onto the ship, sword brandished towards the sky, and her jaw drops.
"Richard Speight Jr.?" She yells, but comes out sounding more like "Mmrf Mmph Hmmr?"
"Yes, it is I, Captain John Robin! Come at me, ye dirty heathens!" He waves his sword around and engages in some elaborate swordplay with the dirty pirates.
While the pirates were sufficiently occupied with John Robin, someone snuck up on her from behind and sliced through the ropes holding her. She whipped around to see her rescuer and would have screamed if she weren't gagged. Jared Padelecki?
He put a finger to his lips once he took the gag off, and winked in a manner that was more reminiscent of the Trickster than the brooding Sam Winchester that she was familiar with.
"Where the hell am I?" She whispered as he scooped her up into his arms (and if that wasn't a swoon-worthy moment she didn't know what was,) and leapt off of the boat and onto another, larger, and more hygienic one.
What the hell was with the leaping?
"Captain John Robin's ship. Isn't it wonderful?" He asked with all the eagerness of a child, "I'm Sam. Who're you?"
"In a seriously cracked up dream."
"No worries, young maiden. We are away from those dastardly uncouth individuals." Richard Speight Jr. appears before the two, popping in front of them almost as if he was still the trickster (was he?) and grinning.
"Who the hell are you supposed to be?"
"Captain John Robin. Pirate captain extraordinaire!"
"… Right. And Sam?"
"My first mate! Loyal Sam Winchester. Rescued him from the boredom of his life." He leaned forward and whispered to her, "He was a scholar."
"Oh really?" She asks, amused, after deeming him harmless.
"Yes, fair maiden. From where do you hail from?"
"America."
"That god-awful place?" Sam wrinkles his nose. "Good thing you're with us now, then."
Captain Robin throws an arm around Sam's shoulders, and the large man looks up at him with a smile. She investigates this phenomenon by looking down at the ground and seeing that where Gabriel is standing is raised by a few feet.
"So what can you contribute to the ship?" Captain Robin asks, puffing his chest up a bit.
She's a little startled by this change of the conversation, but figures she'd rather be on this ship than dead in the waters or a slave bought by some noble.
"I can cook?"
"Excellent! Our last cook got thrown overboard. And he couldn't whip up a good pie to save his life. You can make pie, right?" She nods, "Sammy here will show you to your quarters."
"Yeah." She shakes her head at the strangeness of it all, "After all that kidnapping and leaping," and drinking, "I'm exhausted."
She wakes up tied to a chair.
"Oh fuck." Not again.
"Right. So how the hell did you get here?"
"Where is here?" She looked around her and saw a shabby room with godawful curtains and two hunks of men standing in front of her, "Jensen Ackles? Jared? Not that I don't appreciate the eye candy, but why the hell would I want to show up in some ratty motel like this?"
"What did you call us?" The two exchanged glances.
"Let me guess." She said dryly, "Sam and Dean Winchester?"
"What of it? What are you?" The one that looked like Dean asked, "Cause we tried every trick in the book and you sure as hell haven't reacted to anything."
"She is human." Says a voice from behind them, giving the boys a slight start. She knew that voice.
"Misha?" Sexy?
"I am unfamiliar with that identity." He circles around to face her, standing side by side with the brothers and peering at her.
"Castiel? Jimmy? Sociopathic Paul? Big Dick Manny? I'm running out of names here, so just pick one that you like."
"Castiel will suffice."
"So she's a smartass." Dean deduced.
"Isn't everybody here." Sam muttered, "What do you mean she's human? She showed up passed out in the back of the Impala. If she's not a trap to have us let our guard down then I don't know who is."
"Yeah," Dean adds, "Ruby's dead." He shook his head before having a mental epiphany, "Wait a second. You said that I was Jensen, right? Jensen Ackles? And he's Jared Pandinski?"
"Padelecki, yes." She raises an eyebrow.
"Yeah, sure, whatever. And Cas is some pansy-ass actor called Misha?"
"You are correct."
"And we're all actors." Dean scoffs.
"Not here, you're not." She mutters to herself before speaking up, "Yes, you're all actors."
"And I was some soap opera star and Sam-Jared is married to Ruby?"
"And you're married to this hot model blond." Dean looks a little smug, "I know you more from Dark Angel," His nose wrinkles at the mention of angels, "but I think you were in some soap opera. You're more of a dork now, though. You voiced a character on Batman! I think Misha won in the spouse department, honestly. Not many wifey's write books promoting threesomes."
"Wait, what?" Sam shakes his head. Dean stops listening at 'super-cool hottie' but then starts in surprise at the mention of threesomes. He gives Castiel a curious look.
"This is a fake world again, isn't it." She sighs, "You two think you're Winchesters. I saw the latest episodes. I know what shit goes down and what alternate worlds you end up playing in."
"Wait, what do you mean by it being a fake world again?" Sam, ever the lawyer, picked up on details the others didn't.
"There was some weird-ass place before I woke up here. You," She nodded towards Sam, "And Richard Speight Jr. in some fucked up Pirates of the Caribbean situation."
"Who?"
"Richard? Gabriel, the arch-angel. Loki. The only non-douchey archangel. Short stock. Fun-sized Fun Lord. The Trickster All-Mighty?"
"Gabriel's alive?" Castiel looks down at her and she wonders how someone can have eyes that big and blue. And they say Sam had the puppy-eyes.
"Calls himself Captain John Robin, and claims he saved Sam over here from a life of being a scholar." She looks at Sam and snorts, "He made you into a regular Kiera Knightley, and he's Orlando Bloom, Johnny Depp, and Peter fucking Pan all wrapped up into one short package in a pirate suit. You make a hilarious bitch. But Dean probably would've been funnier."
"What is it with acting like a son of bitch whenever we tie people up?" Dean asks Sam, "You'd think rope would make them nicer."
"You usually tie up demons, or beings you assume are demons. That may be why you are unused to hospitable captives." Castiel explains, still not understanding a rhetorical question even after he'd been with them for so long.
Sam shook his head.
"So how did you end up here?"
"Wished on a falling star for a more exciting life while unbelievably drunk. Or I'm just dreaming." She shook her head, "These ropes are starting to chafe. Can you untie me now?"
"That's a first." Sam said, ignoring the rope burn she was suffering from. Some nurturing side he was supposed to have.
"Shooting star? There's not even magic back in that world. How the hell did a fucking shooting star work there?"
"Beats me." She shrugged, looking down at the ground and noticing both ancient markings and a ring of darkness surrounding it. Dean's lighter is in his hand. Is the darkness holy oil, or did Dean just piss in a circle to intimidate her? His fly is undone.
God, she had no life. Oh wait, was God real now that she was here? Was it God that brought her here? Why was she even here in the first place? Should she convert to Christianity, so if she died here she'd have somewhere to go?
She decides to have her mind stop heading in questions she wouldn't get any of the answers to and decides to bug the boys instead.
"You were Gabriel's first mate."
"What?" Sam almost squeaked.
Dean snorted.
"Sam's his butt-pirate?"
"Yup. From the noble house of Winchester, snatched up and set into a life of adventure. It's really like a soap opera, once you get down to it. Couldn't have scripted it better myself."
Castiel leaned forward and stared into her eyes.
"You are a peculiar human."
Dean cleared his throat.
"Personal space, Cas, we've talked about this." She didn't mind.
She ignores the bickering in favor for the sudden wrenching in her stomach.
"I feel sick." She says, and if she weren't tied up she'd be clutching her gut.
"Oh fuck. She's not going to throw up, is she?" They've ruined enough hotel rooms to last a lifetime.
"There is something familiar tugging on her soul." Castiel cocks his head to the side and leans in closer, staring at her despite her eyes being screwed shut and her body hunched over.
"My soul is in my stomach?" She groans.
"Angels access souls through the chest cavity." Castiel explains, but she's only struggling to keep those gravelly tones in her mind, not to understand what he's saying, "I have heard it is unpleasant."
And she wakes up to another Sam shaking her.
She's in a bed, not tied up, and wishing it really were Johnny Depp who's ship she was on and not Gabriel's, or Robin's, or whoever she was supposed to call him. Because the ship is shaking and there's yelling all around her and she's sure that Captain Jack's ship had more rum and less attacks, despite how many times the thing sunk in the movies.
"What the fuck is going on?"
"We're caught in the crossfire. I'm supposed to keep you safe."
"What? Crossfire between who?"
"The angels and demons."
"You're shitting me."
Sam grins sheepishly and grabs her hand, pulling her out of the room, dodging the various things being thrown around and dragging her down a flight of stairs.
"So this is where all the alcohol was at."
He pays no mind to the crates of liquid goodness surrounding them and instead hovers over her with his freakish height, even after he forces her to crouch down with him. She wasn't that short, but compared to him her 5"4 felt like she was suffering from dwarfism.
"Captain Robin comes from a big family. There's a lot he hasn't told me, but the two out there fighting are his brothers."
"Let me guess, Michael and Lucifer?"
"Are you psychic? Is that why those pirates captured you?" She shakes her head.
"Lucky guess. So the angels and demons?"
"Just nicknames. Michael is from the navy, and Lucifer rapes and pillages his way across the Caribbean."
"And you guys?"
"We may steal a bit, but I'm pretty sure we're the good guys of the situation. We don't get noticed, at least. This was just unlucky timing."
"So which side is the Captain on?"
"None. The two are always fighting, and Gabriel just tries to stay out of the way."
"Isn't he the hero?" She notices the slip-up, but doesn't say anything.
"There is no hero. Not for that battle, at least. Just a lot of lost lives."
"So he doesn't do anything? What about all the people being hurt?"
"They're his brothers." He offers as an answer, and the two wait for the firing to stop.
She knows where she is now, and although she wasn't exactly sure why she was here, she knew what she needed to do.
Back home she was an expert in getting her friends to man the fuck up. She was practically a certified professional. If the reality TV producers got a whiff of her, she'd be on that intervention show 24-7. And right now, she needs one arch-angel to man the fuck up.
"That was random." Dean said using the butt of his rifle to nudge the chin of the chick asleep in the chair they tied her to. She wasn't so bad looking, as far as chicks went, and any chick that had skimpy Wonder Woman pajamas, short red top and starry booty shorts, was either a geek or just fucking awesome.
Castiel squints his eyes at her.
"It was grace that pulled her mind from her body." He straightened himself up and looked at the brothers with his wide eyes, "I believe that, wherever she is, it is Gabriel's doing."
"Isn't it about time for him to show up now? If it is Gabriel that's behind it." Sam asks.
"This isn't Trickster material at all." Dean complained, "What's his M.O.?"
"I do not know. But if Gabriel truly is alive and powerful, then this changes everything."
Castiel disappears before the brothers can respond.
Once the ship is steady again, she's allowed back up to where all the sunshine is and she's carrying a pint of rum with her.
"Thanks," Gabriel says, taking her mug and downing it all in one gulp.
"Asshole." She mutters.
"What? You love me. I'm the hero." Gabriel rolls his eyes as if it were silly of her to think otherwise.
"Yeah. Sure. Captain, can I speak to you in private?"
He waggles his eyebrows, "To the Captain's room then."
She rolls her eyes but follows him anyway.
"You need to wake up, Gabriel." She says, once they're alone.
"Excuse me? It's Captain John Robin." He asks, taking off his hat and looking at her amusedly, "I'm awake right now."
"You are living in a dream. You need to get back to your reality."
"And where is that, little girl?"
"Not this bad pirate movie, for one."
"Hey! This bad pirate saved your life!"
"And Kali? You saved her, too, didn't you?" She pulls on whatever she remembers of him from the show and hopes none of it is just shit she made up in her head,, "And Sam, and Dean, and thousands of others as a consequence. Why are you running away from them now?"
"I'm not running from anything." He crosses his arms and glares at her. She almost pauses for a second, realizing that this is an arch-angel, one badass holy motherfucker that could smite her in a second. But it's that realization that spurs her on, knowing that something so powerful and so good is hiding and licking his wounds. It's a waste.
"You've spent half of your existence running! But you died a hero, Gabriel. Out of all the arch-angels, you're the one that was good. You're the one that was brought back. Why are you wasting it, living in this fantasy world?"
If this were a movie, that would've been the speech that ended it. But this was not a movie. A crappy book series in this world and a television show in hers, both with cult-worthy followings, yes, but not a movie.
And it seemed to run on shitty luck.
So she was locked in the brig.
"Fucking coward!" She shrieks, sitting down on the bench/bed provided for her and pouting.
When she wakes up again, this time it's on a hard bed, softer than a wooden bench but still rather uncomfortable, with the smell of burgers wafting through her senses.
"Mm. Fast food?" She mumbles, opening her eyes and seeing the Winchester brothers having a meal together. How heart-warming.
"Got you a burger, in case you woke up."
"So I didn't disappear? Just looked like I was sleeping, then?"
"Yeah, you… What's your name, sweetheart?" Dean flashes a smile as soon as the food in his mouth is swallowed and she's put at ease, despite being in a room with two full-grown strangers.
"Elizabeth. Elizabeth Stam." This is the first time they're asking her name for all the ages she's felt like she's been here. Back in Gabriel's head, she's just 'young maiden'. It's kind of refreshing.
"So where'd you disappear to this time? The moon?"
"Naw. Gabriel's fantasy world still."
"Oh, like his TV Land?"
"I fucking wish. He's still playing Captain John Robin."
"And he's still after Sam's booty?" Dean snorts despite the punch to the arm Sam gives him.
"No offense, Sam, but Gabriel has made you into even more of a dork than I think you really are. You two have a gay love going like nobody's business if the swooning looks are anything to go by." Sam chokes on his fries. "But I think he might've been the one to bring me here. Like, he was trying to just get a 'young maiden' to rescue but actually got a real girl instead. I dunno. Maybe it was God. This is all fucked up in so many kinds of ways."
"I don't want to know any of this."
Elizabeth tilts her head to the side, "Really, Sammy?" she ignores the obligatory correction to his name, "Because I don't see Dean there, or Cas, or hell, even Kali. The only others recognizable in that world are Michael and Lucifer, and even then they're just ships firing at each other from miles away. I think he has a little crush on you."
Dean laughs again, this being just the humor he needed after such a crappy life, and Sam pulls a bitchface that says he is not amused.
"Deny it all you want, but you beat Dean. He may have been Heaven's chosen or what the hell ever, but you got an archangel in love with you."
"Gabriel is not in love with me."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Not even the teensiest bit? I mean, even watching the show I could tell he swung both ways. Hell, for a bit there I was wondering if he was going to go for Dean. Until that bit when he killed him a hundred times over. All for you, Sammy."
Dean was no longer amused.
"Listen, sweetheart-"
"No, you listen. I'm trying to convince him to come back, but if he does I don't want him disappearing again." He was her favorite character, after all, "He needs to be Gabriel again, not some cheesy Xena-reject scouring the seven seas, because Gabriel is badass and Xena is a fun show, but it is for lesbians and horndogs and Karl Urban obsessors and Richard Speight Jr. is neither. And so you guys'll have to help him out, because I wouldn't trust him with a God after everything that happened, Pagan or otherwise, and Heaven isn't fit for him, either. He needs familiar humans. Then he can go fight Cas' war."
"What are you, his fucking social worker? We don't take orders from you."
"I was a psych major before I dropped out."
"You're a dropout too?"
She could tell the brothers were thinking about better times, if the dark moods they were showing were anything to go by.
"Cooking was my real calling. I make pastries in a bakery my friend owns." She sighs wistfully, missing the smell of eggs, butter, and flour baking together to form yummy pastry goodness.
"Are they any good?" Dean asks, his demeanor suddenly changing.
"The fucking best. Because I've been obsessing over making the perfect crust since grade school."
Dean salivates at the thought of a perfect pie.
"So, Gabriel has me locked up in the brig right now for trying to get him to see reason." She says casually, swinging out of the bed and stretching. Dean makes a poor attempt to disguise his perversion, but even she notices how his eyes eat anything up. Atleast he's feeling better. He hadn't gotten laid on the show in awhile. "Because if that boy's good at anything, it's living in denial."
She surveys the boys. He wasn't the only one on the show who lived in denial. And was that Sam Winchester blushing?
This might've just been a dream, but it was a pretty damn interesting one.
Author's Note: Excuse all grammar mistakes, please, I only read through it a few times.