A/N: This scene wouldn't leave me alone. No plans right now to continue, but I probably will at some point. Complete for now. An alternative to the psychic scene in "Lazarus Rising".
Dean was skeptical, to the surprise of no one. Sammy had been quoting Shakespeare at him and Bobby called him an idjit, but psychics? Really? Other than Missouri, he thought they were a load of crap. Liars and cheats the lot of 'em.
But he trusted Bobby, and if his kinda-sorta surrogate dad said that this psychic could help figure out who had rescued him from the Pit then he'd talk to the mook in the turban.
Didn't mean he had to go along quietly though.
"What are we doing here, Bobby?" he growled as they made their way to the front door of the downright eccentric house. It had honest-to-God turrets, bent at less than ninety-degree angles. The windows all had different colored curtains hanging in them. Unrelated objects dotted the front yard: a brand-new banana yellow woman's shoe, a miniature scale-model of the Taj Mahal, a rotted kumquat, and an inflated purple dinosaur pool toy (among other things). Round, fruit-bearing hedges framed the steps to the porch. Dean must have been more rattled by his time in Hell than he thought, because he could swear that the little fruits were floating.
"Getting answers," Bobby returned gruffly before knocking on the bright red front door. The woman who answered definitely fit the house: she was blonde and short and obviously insane. Okay, maybe not insane, but the eye-watering color combination of lime green and electric pink surely wasn't the choice of someone playing with a full deck.
"Hello," she said in a dreamy British voice. Not dreamy in the hot way, either. It sounded like she had just woken up and wasn't quite sure which reality was the correct one.
Her eyes were large and blue and just a little too prone to gazing off into the distance. Dean thought it was weird as hell. Not really, though. Hell was... not the best thing to be thinking about right now.
"I was worried you would not come until tomorrow, when the Nargles would start to nest. It was wise of you to come today."
Sam and Dean exchanged incredulous glances, but Bobby just smiled slightly.
"Nice to see you, Luna. Got a minute?"
"Several," she replied in that same dreamy voice before drifting farther into the house. Bobby and the boys followed (Sam, the gentleman, shut the door behind them). There were pictures everywhere, hand-painted ones surrounded by words painted so small they almost seemed to be straight lines. Dean could swear the painted faces were moving, if he looked at them from the corner of his eyes.
"This place is giving me a headache," Dean muttered to Sam.
"Don't be a jerk," Sam admonished.
"Bitch," Dean replied out of habit.
Luna led them to a sort of sitting room, where a table with a bright purple tablecloth and an honest-to-God crystal ball awaited them in a room painted a truly awful shade of orange.
"I see you're admiring the tablecloth," Luna said. "Purple is one of my favorite colors. Keeps the Nargles away almost as well as mistletoe."
"You've got to be kidding me," Dean said in what he thought was a quiet voice.
"I never joke about Nargles, Dean Winchester," Luna said as she took a seat. The boys exchanged glances: they had not told her their names. Oh well, maybe Bobby had.
Bobby looked around in confusion.
"Where's Hermione?" he asked. Luna smiled at him.
"She's out getting groceries. She should be here by the time we're through, unless the Blibbering Humdingers get her. Why, did you need her for something?"
Bobby shook his head and took a seat next to Luna.
"Now, you all need to be very quiet while I seek out the creature that raised Dean from Hell," Luna said. Three mouths dropped open in astonishment, but Luna continued. "I'm a Seer, not a Searcher. Or is it Hunter? Anyway, please focus your energy on something pleasant while I engage the other realm."
She promptly closed her eyes and started humming.
Or rather, the world started humming. Power filled the room, buzzing along Dean's skin from all sides. Again, he exchanged an incredulous glance with Sam before they both zeroed in on Bobby... who shrugged and mouthed "later" at them.
It only took a few minutes for the real action to start.
"Oh! There you are," Luna said, her eyes still closed but smiling widely. "Yes, no, yes I'm sure it's you. You have that lovely yellow glow about you. It mixes so pretty with the blue. I've seen others like you before. Are you a Heliopath? I asked the others but they wouldn't tell me. My father thought you were- no, please don't go! We have a question for you- Yes it's about Dean. Oh, well that's just not nice. Come back here, Castiel! You will show your -"
Whatever he was going to show her would go unknown for some time, as Luna screamed and fire burst from her eye sockets.
"Holy shit!" Sam and Dean said, jumping away from the table. Bobby dove to catch Luna as she toppled from her chair.
"I don't think that was a Heliopath," she whispered before fainting.
The front door slammed.
"Luna?" a sharp, British female voice called. "Why is there a muscle car parked out front?"
A bushy-haired brunette entered the room to find the Hunters crouched over her eyeless friend.
"Oh no," Hermione sighed. "Not again."