There's a goddamned alien passed out in the bed of their rusting farm truck and all of the baby lettuces are on fire, but this isn't even the worst shit that will happen to Deanna today.
Or tomorrow, really. Because the fucking foodie-hipster-douchenozzles are going to be pissed when Sam has to tell them there's no arugula because a fireball fell out of the sky and went all scorched-earth policy on their back acre. And then he's going to storm around the farm with a bitchface of epic proportions until he finally finds Deanna – who will most likely be hiding in the barn with Chuck, her one-eyed and perennially cranky miniature donkey, and a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel's because she met a fucking alien and even she's going to need some time to process that shit – and tears her a new one.
Like it's her fault; like she has control over hellfire raining down on them.
Well, if it is hellfire, maybe she does. Because the shit she's done...if there's cosmic retribution due to be doled out on any member of the extended and bastardized Winchester family, it's her. Which is why it makes sense that she's the one dealing with it, why she's the only one outside tonight to see something streaking across the sky, flaming and impossibly fast, flying so low and close that Deanna can feel the heat of it making sweat burst from her skin like Jiffy Pop over an open flame.
It comes closer; the until-moments-ago peaceful spring evening full of gentle breezes and floating fireflies melts, burns, and disintegrates until Deanna can't even remember what it felt like. Because all that matters is now, and now everything is unholy fire and sound and terror - T.S. Eliot was wrong, this is the way the world ends - and she's suddenly sure that she's lived her whole life as an insect under a huge fucking magnifying glass, like some giant sadistic asshole has intensified the sun to the point where she's going to combust at any moment.
And then it - the comet or meteor or whatever the proper scientific term for "giant hunk of flaming space junk" is - screams past her and crashes in their furthest field, charring the plants and earth and kicking up a cloud of dust so thick that it blacks out the fire from view.
And it's a poor reflection on Deanna's life up to this point that her initial reaction is to just sigh and squeeze her eyes shut, (because she's still here and alive and there's a sliver of disappointment about that lodged somewhere near her liver), but that doesn't even help because the fireball has burned into her retinas; she sees its ghost image against her eyelids.
Seriously? Can't a woman just have a few beers and fix the weird clanking noise the tractor has been making without the world ending?
She's still got a flashlight clenched between her teeth and motor oil dripping onto her forehead - and, honestly, she'd kind of like to just ignore the slight apocalypse that seems to be taking place in her back acre. But then she notices that it's making Sam's stupid sheepdog, Ruby, bark her damn head off and Becky the goat has fainted again, so, in what she's sure will prove to be a fatefully stupid move, Deanna drops the wrench in the dirt and trudges off to retrieve the dusty fire extinguisher from the barn.
Because terrifying shit falling from the sky? Definitely her share of the farm work. (Well, either hers or Ash's, but if she lets her perpetually-stoned pseudo-brother deal with this he'll probably just compose some sucky lyrics about the luminescent beauty of the flames while painting band logos all over the wreckage.) And her only other option – Sam - doesn't deserve facing an alien invasion on a random Tuesday evening. He deserves to have plausible deniability and peace of mind; he deserves to park his giant, floppy-haired self in front of their ancient TV with the rabbit ears arranged just right so he can watch Jeopardy and give the answers faster than all three on-screen contestants.
(Bobby would be good with fire and NASA and tentacles or whatever is waiting for her out there, but her perpetually-inebriated surrogate father has already taken his riding lawn mower - the only vehicle they let him drive after about 2 o'clock every day - and swerved his ass back to his farm next door.)
Which means that Deanna's the one in the rattling POS farm truck bouncing over the dusty lanes between the fields toward the UFO and aflame arugula.
Not UFO, she amends when she arrives, popping the gearshift into neutral and crossing her fingers that the truck doesn't roll away since she still hasn't gotten around to fixing the busted parking brake. It's not a UFO because this smoking heap may be unidentified, but it sure as shit ain't flying anymore.
UCO, maybe. Unidentified (Crashed, Crumpled, Charred, Consciousness-free) Object.
And maybe Sam was right all those times he told her she wasted too much of her life watching every cheesy science fiction movie ever made, because even though Deanna keeps looking for a wrecked ship - preferably something like a cross between a Death Star and the Enterprise, or at least some sort of intricately designed machinery with frayed fiber optic cables and corpses with bulbous heads and too many fingers - she'd settle for anything interesting and new and clearly Not From Around Here.
Instead, all she's got is a sweaty dude in an ugly trenchcoat.
Huh. That's a disappointment.
She takes a few tentative steps closer, gets a better look at his face.
...and yet strangely sort of attractive.
The alien's left ankle is still a little flame-y, which she handles easily enough with a quick burst from the fire extinguisher, the white foam mixing with the mud and ash to make a mess that would have ruined his suit pants if they weren't made of such a cheap polyester that they could only be improved upon.
And then she's not sure why she was in such a hurry to come out here, because she has no idea what to do next.
She tosses the fire extinguisher into the back of the truck; she twists at the end of her ponytail; she squishes her boots around in the mud a bit. And the whole time she keeps looking at him, thinking that - for an alien that's probably emitting enough space radiation that she won't ever have to worry about taking the Pill again - he actually looks kind of sweet there. Lonely. Non-threatening. Just a lump of beige coat and tan skin, the dark shocks of his hair and stubble and soot contrasting nicely.
It's beginning to poke at that part of Deanna that turns to a sticky, sickly-sweet marshmallow at the sight of broken things.
That part is why she has a yard full of nonfunctional bits of rusting machinery and a barn filled with animals that possess varying flavors of psychosis but no actual purpose; it's why she moved Ash and all his baggage in with them and can't throw out her old teddy bear even though he's lost at least 85% of his stuffing.
And she'd never have believed that this guy was an alien if she hadn't seen him fall out of the sky with her own somewhat-sober eyes.
He just looks like a marginally-successful insurance salesman.
A cute insurance salesman.
So maybe she could just-
-no.
Fuck, no.
Don't even think about it, Winchester. You absolutely do not need to add to your collection of crazy - especially not with an alien that's probably got fistfuls of anal probes - and not the fun kind - ready and waiting to attack you with when he wakes up.
She sighs and squares her shoulders because, okay, that's settled. She's officially not going to think about that strong jawline or those broad shoulders or the way his hair curls just a bit at the nape of his neck...
The disappointment sliver slices through her again.
And, more immediately, she has no clue what she is going to do with him. She can't just leave him here - Deanna has read her Sun Tzu and she knows to keep your potentially death-ray-wielding enemies close and all that - but she's not sure she wants to drive him up to the house for tea and polite conversation, either.
Maybe he can just sleep off his recent immolation in the barn's empty stall between Chuck and Benny?
Except that won't work, because if she's not willing to face him she sure as shit isn't going to subject her animals to him.
And in a distant part of her brain she's vaguely aware that there are so many questions a sane person would ask at this point - where did he come from? Who - what - is he? How did he survive falling out of the sky on fire? Did he survive falling out of the sky on fire?
But of all the words that have been used to describe Deanna over the years, sane was never one - a fact that's confirmed when the only thing she's actually concerned with is whether he weighs more than a bale of hay with a sack of chicken feed on top. Because that's pretty much the maximum weight she can heave into the truck bed (and, at 31, she's old enough that the last time she lifted that much she tweaked her back and was forced to walk like Igor from Young Frankenstein for four days.)
She frowns, bends over, grabs him by the ankles, and pulls.
And pulls.
And grunts.
Because he's heavier than a hay bale and two bags of feed, but she has made up her mind that she can't just leave him here. So she puts all her weight into it until - finally, finally - he starts to slide.
She's got thirty feet of muddy field to cross before they reach the truck and the dragging weight of him makes a sucking, squelching sound reminiscent of a juicy fart - but the dude doesn't stir. This finally inspires Deanna to check for basic signs of life, putting one hand to his neck and leaning over to see if she can feel his breath on her cheek.
He's warm and solid and smells like an electrical fire; being this close sends a tiny thrill of danger zinging into her fingertips.
His breathing is regular breathing, his heart rate steady; she's not sure what counts as "alive" for aliens, but if he was human he'd be fine.
She goes back to slogging them both toward the truck.
And, through some feat that defies her never-formally-worked-out musculature and probably the very laws of physics themselves, she reaches the truck and is able to sling him up into the bed. She even manages to keep him from landing on the spot that's so rusted through that she can see the field beneath it, although she slices open her thigh on a jagged bit of the tailgate in the process.
And as if that wasn't enough of a workout, the truck begins to roll away from the force she had to use to load him up.
"Fuckin' A," she mutters, jogging to catch up and then skipping to find the right pace to swing into the cab and pop it into gear.
She gets it under control before she destroys too much foliage and swings the truck around, gingerly, the headlights slowly sweeping over the field. The lettuces don't look that bad, actually; the fire is almost out already. She smiles, because it'll be a nice peace offering to Sammy - "Okay, yes, a flaming alien fell out of the sky and he may very well wake up and liquefy all our brains - oh, and btdubs, I think I maybe kinda want to bone him - but at least you won't have to listen to Mrs. Brady bitch that you don't have her farm-fresh, organically-grown, so-trendy-I-want-to-die baby greens for her salad tomorrow."
She bumps out to the dirt lane and speeds up a bit, wincing seven seconds later when she hits a pothole and hears the thunk of her hostage's head bouncing against the toolbox.
And then, long before she's actually ready for it, she pulls up to the farmhouse. She thought she'd see Sam and Ash on the back porch waiting, that they would have yanked their asses out of their respective television and casual drug use to realize that a flaming piece of alien ass has landed on their property, but no. It's as dark as always, lit only by the occasional blue flare of the bug zapper.
She'd honk but the truck's horn is busted, too; she'd go inside after them but she's weirdly paranoid that the alien will disappear and Sam will accuse her of drinking alone in the barn until she started hallucinating shit again.
So she texts Ash.
"Take off the gaming headset put on some pants and FUCKING COME OUT BACK AND HELPP ME DICKLICKER :::pPPPP"
She didn't mean to include the emoticon - Jesus, really, like Deanna would put a fucking :P face in anything - but the dude in the back started rumbling around a bit and her fingers slipped.
The phone buzzes in answer almost immediately.
"No. Busy."
Deanna's grip tightens so hard she can hear the phone's plastic case crack.
"Should have just left him living on the Roadhouse pool table," she mutters, jumping out and slamming the truck door behind her. She peeks carefully into the truck's bed - still just a tan lump, but his breathing seems a bit less even, his eyelids twitching faintly.
He's coming around.
Fuck.
She flings open the house's back door and starts yelling.
"Guys? I was serious about the whole needing help thing, because I'm either having a full-on schizophrenic break or there's a goddamned alien passed out in our pickup."
She's reached the living room by the time she finishes - and no one has moved.
"My money's on you being a schizo," Sam replies without ever glancing away from the TV screen, and in the same breath answers Trebek with,"What is the Ottomon Empire?"
Meanwhile Ash, sprawled spread-eagle over the threadbare rug with his favorite bong beside him, finger-combs his mullet thoughtfully. "Are we talking like Transformers-style aliens, here to watch over and protect mankind, or more of like a Sigourney Weaver situation with dripping tentacles and tearing intestines and shit?"
Deanna sags against the door frame, wondering what heinous things she could have possibly done in a past life in order to deserve this double whammy of karmic retribution - suffering a fucking Close Encounter with only these two idiots as her support system.
And they're just sitting there, Ash blinking up at the ceiling owlishly, Sam's head tilted like he's trying to picture what she'd look like in a straight jacket, and she's sure the damn alien is fully awake by now and probably plotting world domination or some shit-
"WOULD YOU TWO DIPSHITS JUST COME HELP ME ALREADY?!"
She storms out to find that, yes, the alien has awakened, sort of, and is sitting up, rubbing at his head and frowning at her. And, fuck - Deanna realizes too late that she'd feel a hell of a lot better about this whole situation if she could get him tied up before he was back up to full his potentially mind-melting strength.
Which is why, when her brothers flip on the back floodlights and bang open the screen door, they find her - in mud-splattered cowboy boots, fraying cut-offs and a grease-stained wife beater - holding a length of rope and straddling a semi-conscious dude dressed like a traveling salesman who's lying in the bed of the farm truck with his hand on her bleeding thigh.
They freeze, unable to process the scene quickly enough for Deanna, who rolls her eyes and yells.
"Help me hold him down!"
Snapping out of it (but shooting her a look that says she's got some serious 'splaining to do), Sam leaps up into the truck and reaches for the stranger's legs...only to grossly underestimate what he was dealing with. The guy kicks, suddenly and violently, and catches Sam in the eye with the heel of one mostly-melted wingtip.
"Ow, shit-" Sam yells, falling back for a moment and drawing Deanna's attention.
She'd been trying to loop the rope around the alien's right wrist somewhat gently, but the second he hurts Sammy she says a giant mental fuck this noise and slams her fist into his face.
He falls, limp, and Deanna sighs with relief, shaking out her hand. She feels kind of bad punching a guy who was trying to defend himself, but she reconciles it with the fact that Sam will have a matching black eye in the morning.
She and Sam finish getting him tied up fairly easily now that he's unconscious - again - before they flop down side-by-side on the tailgate, breathing heavily and wondering just what in the holy hell they are supposed to do now.
From his supervisory position on the porch, Ash hooks his thumbs through the belt loops in his pants and leans back on his heels.
"Yep, we have definitely got ourselves a Kal-El sort of situation here."
The Winchesters just look up, disbelieving and panting and wincing; Ash remains as oblivious as always.
"Alien falling out of the sky and landing in a farm...it's right in line with the whole Superman backstory." He turns his head and spits before gesturing with his chin at their trussed-up companion. "Besides, bad suit, dark hair, blue eyes? That's one seriously Clark-Kent-looking motherfucker."