AN: I've been wanting to do this fic for a long time, but the Sam-And-Dean-pretending-to be-insane has even been overdone in the show, let alone in fanfiction. Still, this is my version. Takes place in S4 when they're still trying to stop seals from breaking. Sam, Dean, and Castiel end up in the 1960s to prevent an enterprising demon from breaking a seal located at Briarcliff Asylum and find out that the building is far more corrupt than the single demon Castiel told them about. This is an American Horror Story crossover, so obviously there is homosexuality. Mostly Sam PoV this chapter.
Monsters of Briarcliff
Chapter 1 – Sam Winchester
"Say that again, Cas?" Dean raised a confused eyebrow at his angel. "You're saying we have to time travel AGAIN!? Nothing we do in the past can be changed, we learned that the hard way, remember?"
Castiel sat down on Dean's bed and almost caressed his thigh, but Sam was present, so the angel resisted the urge.
"This is...different. One of my superiors told me I was needed there. She said she would help us too, to stop the seal from being broken. She gave me the coordinates and said she would come as soon as she could, but we would likely beat her there. Regardless, with her help, we can stop this change. We MUST stop the demon behind the...madness...at Briarcliff."
Castiel gave Dean a pained look, similar to when he occasionally made bad puns without realizing it.
Sam's eyes were more on Castiel and Dean's intense attempts at avoiding intimacy than on the angel's words. He rolled his eyes, but neither apparently saw it.
Shit, you two, just get over yourselves for ten seconds and tell me so I don't have to keep pretending like I don't know. His cell phone vibrated from inside his pockets. He glanced at the caller and grudgingly sent him to voicemail. Why Loki was calling him, he had no idea.
"Ahem. Guys. I'm over here. Is this a private conversation or do I get a say in it? Time travel, really? Is there any way we can just let this seal break? We can save one that doesn't involve something that can only end badly for us."
Castiel pulled his focus from Dean and gave Sam what he likely thought was an intimidating glare. With those baby blue eyes, he was never intimidating, even when he occasionally showed off his pitch black wings.
"This...this is different. This one MUST be stopped. If it isn't, it will guarantee Lucifer's escape from his cage. It will mean that no one has the power to stop the final seal from being broken. We can't allow this seal to fall. Surely you should know this."
Castiel tried horribly to intensify his gaze, but it mostly looked like he was really constipated. Dean raised an eyebrow at Castiel's expression and mouthed I have no idea to Sam. Sam shook his head. He sent Dean a text, saying they really should just go along with the angel. After all, they'd stopped a monster while time traveling before. Killing a minor demon whose only aspiration is to rule a nuthouse shouldn't be that hard.
"Alright, Cas. Let's get going. I'm getting bored just sitting on this bed without-uhm, that is, I want to hunt something." Dean blushed so deeply that Sam would have known something was going on if he didn't already. Once again, the younger Winchester brother rolled his eyes and shook his head at Cas and Dean's idiocy.
"Very well," said the angel, "I will need to borrow power from her, my superior, the one who also wants the seal saved."
"Just do whatever you have to do." Sam said, and thought silently I'm so tired of you two trying to avoid doing or saying anything about your relationship.
Castiel chanted some unintelligible words in Enochian and picked up a Sharpie to draw a set of symbols on the wall of the motel room. Hope we aren't charged for that, thought Sam, Angels don't understand that vandalism is actually a big deal.
Cas stood back as the letters began to glow a ghostly blue. The blue glow intensified until it was nearly blinding to the hunters. The angel just stared at the blinding light blankly for a few moments before announcing the spell was finished.
Cas grabbed Dean's hand and pulled him into the blue light, leaving Sam behind to ponder whether he was actually supposed to follow or not.
"Get in there, you idiot! For all his faults, Cas is right this time!" Sam turned at the voice and was suddenly looking into brilliant green orbs.
"Loki! What the hell are you doing here?" Sam shouted over the howling portal.
"Making sure you do the right thing. My past self might see you there. I've always loved nuthouses. I could do whatever I wanted and no one would believe I actually did, cuz they're all insane. You know this means you guys have to pretend to be crazy again, right?" Loki raised one beautiful eyebrow, his green eyes almost glowing in the blinding light of the portal.
"I get it, Loki, thanks. I mean, thanks a lot. For...for coming here. I mean, we might never see each other again, if we fail." Sam looked away from the intense green stare.
He felt arms on his shoulders, heat against his body, as Loki pulled him into a deep kiss before shoving him to the portal. "Go, Sammy, go. Save this damned filthy world! I'll make sure to be extra dirty with you next time we meet."
Loki smirked at Sam before Sam disappeared into the portal. Sam was flushed and embarrassed, but also...happy. He at least had someone to come back to. Someone he would die for. No, that wasn't right. Someone he would live for. Nausea and pain engulfed Sam as he quickly blacked out.
Dean jerked awake, the prior feeling of nausea and his massive hard-on he'd been hiding ever since Cas sat on the bed with him gone. He got to his feet, feeling a bit drunk. His vision was blurry and his feet would barely hold him up. Cas was standing nearby, apparently unaffected. Dean made a shaky attempt to head over to Cas. The angel looked up, his blue eyes widening as Dean realized he couldn't hold himself up any longer.
He felt Cas's arms around him, catching him as he fell. Cas's body was overheated, like a long-running furnace. Dean felt his slightly chilled body heat up and the hard-on from before return. He groaned. "Cas...you think we got until Sam wakes up for a little-"
Dean stopped talking. Sam was actually just standing a few feet away, seemingly unaffected by the black out. Despite going in the portal last, Sam was the first to awaken and explore their landing sight, apparently.
Sam was examining a newspaper, seemingly oblivious to Dean and Cas. Sam was SO oblivious that occasionally Dean wondered if he had some form of mental retardation. Dean and Cas had intimately touched each other for nearly an hour while explaining something to Sam and the younger Winchester had merely listened with glazed eyes, totally not paying attention at all to what HAD to be so obvious that even Bobby could figure it out. Which he had within the first five minutes of being in the same room as Dean and Cas.
"Ugh, damn, Sammy, how'd you recover so fast? I nearly passed out again! When and where the hell are we, anyway?" He tried to look for a date on the newspaper Sam was holding but couldn't see it. He pulled out his cell phone and obviously got a 'no service' notice since cell phones didn't exist in the 1960s.
Sam wanted to say he had actually focused on recovering quickly rather than risk passing out again just so he could get a hand job from an angel, but said nothing again. "I think it's because I'm so much smarter than you." He offered as an excuse. Dean just snorted a "Yeah right" and asked Sam about the newspaper again.
"Anyway, we're in 1964, Massachusetts. There's the target Cas was aiming for." Sam pointed to a massive building nearby.
"The newspaper says it's Briarcliff Insane Asylum. Well, not in so much words, but it does say this is where they had taken some psycho killer of women, Bloodyface...how original...but I don't know how we're supposed to get in. We have to be in the back of the facility. I don't see any people. Or feel any."
Sam tapped his head.
Dean glared at him. He hated when Sam used his psychic shit. Mostly because Cas didn't like it, honestly. "Uh, hang on. I think your psychic thing might be a little off. I saw some movement. There, behind that tree. Look. Cas, look. Is that a demon or what?"
Cas blinked. He had been trying to contact Shachath, but she obviously wasn't here yet or had turned off her 'angel radio' as Dean called it. Cas focused on the creature Dean had noticed before Sam. He felt a bit of pride that his Dean had beaten that smartass Sam for once.
"No...not a demon. I would feel the aura of the Pit about it...it seems...feels...almost like it was once human, but it's thoughts are pure animal. That is likely why Sam couldn't pick up anything. As for why it's simply watching us instead of attacking...that is possibly because it doesn't know what to make of me. It likely hasn't met many angels in this...sad place."
Cas's blue eyes looked shinier than normal. He stepped behind the tree and placed a hand on the twisted creature's skull. He looked into the soul that loosely occupied the body before pulling the life out of the tormented creature and sending it's warped soul to the afterlife with a brilliant flash of blinding white light..
"These...beings...used to be human. I think they became this way due to some type of experimentation. I put that one out of its misery. The soul inside was practically begging to be released. There are some things I just will not tolerate." Cas gave the corpse a hard glare. "When I find the monster who did this..."
Dean placed a hand on Cas's shoulder. "Dude, this doesn't keep going. You know that. Something stopped it before anything like these things became even a blip in a hunter's journal. Hell, maybe that someone was you." Dean gave Cas what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
"Hey! What are you two doing out here?" It was an old man with cold eyes who had seemingly turned the corner of the building and saw them. He ran over to the monster Castiel had killed. "You...you killed one of my Raspers. You shouldn't have been able to do that."
Apparently the old man could not see Castiel at all, his attention entirely on Sam and Dean.
"Your clothes are odd." The old man looked them up and down, a smile growing on his hard, cold face. "You're trespassing as well. Come with me. I'll make sure you have a bed...for the night. Sister Jude will want to talk to you. We already had trouble with a sapphic reporter trespassing. Turned out she needed to be here for actual treatment. I can't have you blabbing about the creature you saw, either. I'll make sure you aren't charged with anything, as long as you tell Sister Jude nothing of what you've seen out here. Deal?"
Sam felt a chill. This man very definitely talked like a crossroads demon, and the evil he felt coming from him was just as palpable, but it was pure human evil. Sam didn't trust this man any further than he could throw him. "Just a second. I need to have a word with my brother."
Sam pulled Dean away from the man until they could whisper and not be heard. "This man is clearly evil. We need to get out of here, quick. Where is Cas anyway?"
"Cas left. He told me he had to find a way to contact his superior, and fast. He said...he said we need to get inside this place. I don't care how evil this guy is, he's still just a human. We're hunters. We can handle him if we need to."
Sam gave Dean a hard look, but returned to the man. "Deal. I mean, not really for not charging us, mostly for kindly offering us a bed for the night. We're from Kansas and our car broke down not too far away from here."
The man smiled. "Oh dear, that is quite...unfortunate...for you. Do you have any family you could call?"
Sam sucked in a breath. Why did this asshole want to know? He answered however. "Just my brother, Dean, here. Our parents were killed some time ago. It was all so tragic, but we moved on. Anyway, my name is Sam. May I ask your name?"
The man nodded. "You'll get to know my name quite well, eventually...anyway, I'm a scientist and my name is Dr. Arthur Arden. I'm also a medical doctor. If you have any wounds from the car accident, I would be happy to look at them."
Sam was confused. He hadn't said car accident. He'd only said their car had broken down. What the hell was this man trying to do?
"No, we're wound free. We were lucky." Dean gave him a look. Sam prevented a stupid question from him by stepping on his foot.
"Yeah, man, real lucky, uh, especially to find a hospital! Thanks, dude!" Sam rolled his eyes at Dean.
Arden raised an eyebrow. "Follow me."
Sam and Dean obliged and followed him around the corner of the building and into what appeared to be a backdoor. The long corridor was filled with screaming, weeping, or totally mute mental patients. Sam had the severe creeps. It was also consistently icy cold.
There were ghosts here, so many that it would be impossible, even for hunters, to get rid of them. So many wasted lives...so much death and hate and despair here. This place should be charred to the ground, salted, sprinkled with holy water, and covered with a massive plate made of pure iron. Sam shook his head, trying to get the feeling of so much death out of his thoughts.
Arden had eventually led them out of the hall and into a massive foyer with a gorgeous spiral staircase leading to what appeared to be a great pointed ceiling. Religious figures and paintings were everywhere. They watched as the nun attendants gave them not even a passing glance.
A young female nun was walking up the staircase behind them. Sam glanced back at her and nearly fell down the long flight of stairs. Demon. Inside a nun. How is that even possible? That would be like sitting in a pot of boiling holy water, especially with all these religious icons around.
She smiled sweetly at Sam, then her eyes flashed pitch black and she licked her lips, almost as if she wanted to eat him. Sam stalwartly turned away, ignoring every single hunter's instinct he'd learned throughout his entire life. He nudged Dean and whispered, "Demon. Nun behind us." Dean's eyes widened and he started to turn to look. Sam kicked him. "She can't know that we know something is wrong. Call it instinct." He whispered.
Sam and Dean forcibly ignore the demon at their backs as Dr. Arden showed them up to the top floor. He and the demon nun both stopped at a large, unadorned door. The nun was making a show of being cowed, saying they shouldn't interrupt Sister Jude, whoever that was, while Dr. Arden was telling her that he would take the blame so Jude wouldn't blame her for anything. Yeah right. No way an old man, scientist or not, can stop a demon. Sam thought.
Eventually, it seemed, they came to an agreement and Arden opened the door without knocking. A severe-looking, yet oddly attractive, middle-aged nun sat behind a desk, shuffling through paperwork. She looked up as Arden entered.
"You'd best have a good explanation for this interruption, Dr. Arden, Sister Mary Eunice. I have a lot of work to be done." She glared at the doctor and the demon, then ran her eyes over Sam and Dean. Sam felt a chill. Here was another human monster.
"Sister Jude. I have some...trespassers...that you might want to have a few words with. I also promised them a bed, since they have no family and their car is damaged. Also, Sister Mary Eunice had no part in the interruption. It was all my fault. And no, I don't care if I interrupted your work. I have places to be as well. Enjoy your new...patients." Dr. Arden gave Sister Jude an ironic bow.
The demon nun stayed in place, her head seemingly bowed in prayer.
Sister Jude stared at Sam and Dean for a moment, her gaze lingering on Sam for some time. "Why are you men here? Behavior modification? I see you boys are nothing if not close. I'm sure we can work something out. You see, you aren't the only homosexuals here."
Sister Jude said all of this very seriously, in a thick southern accent.
Sam almost broke a rib trying not to laugh. Dean stiffened. Apparently he was thinking of Cas.
"We're brothers, actually. Dean is my only family." They had rather easily decided it was fine to use their own names, since obviously none of this went down in history books.
"But you might be on to something, uhm, Sister? I have been feeling homosexual urges lately. It might have something to do with stress from all the demon and angel shit and the seals on Lucifer's cage being broken."
Sam gave her a very serious look as he simply told the truth. Dean was mouthing What the fuck? At him. Sam shrugged at his brother. He concentrated, hard. Tell her the truth. It will definitely get us inside here. Dean jerked and almost fell. Sam had never tried telepathy until now. It gave him a massive headache. He doubted he would use it again. At least until it was absolutely necessary.
"Uhhh..." Dean started, "Yeah. Uhm. Totally homo. This angel has the hots for me. He keeps trying to have sex with me and I keep telling him no. We have to keep going, no matter what, though. We can't have Lucifer running free."
Sam gave Dean a look as he once again felt a few ribs break as he tried not to laugh at Dean's pitiful excuse for the truth. Dean was the one who had seduced Cas, not the other way around.
Sister Jude had a severe expression on her face. "Clearly, you haven't arrived soon enough. Perhaps if you poor boys had come here quicker, we might have been able to halt the delusions. Poor things. We can start treatment tomorrow. Sister Mary Eunice? Give the poor boys a bed!" She went back to ignoring them.
The demon nun, Mary Eunice, bowed to Sister Jude and turned to the boys. "Of course, Sister. Come you two cuties! I'll give you beds, but I'm afraid you can't share rooms. Even if you're brothers. Homosexuals aren't known for their good behavior." She turned and glared at them angrily once they were outside Sister Jude's office.
She moved fast, like all demons, and pinned Sam to the wall by the neck. Dean tried to intervene, Sam shook his head almost imperceptibly. Dean stopped, but there was a concerned look on his face.
"Tell me, what are you? How do you know about the cage and the seals? Shit." She snarled as she ripped off Sam's jacket and took in the flask of holy water and the bag of salt tied to his belt. "Hunters! You freaks...what are you trying to do here? This is my territory. You have no reason to be here. These people aren't worth saving!"
"Apparently someone thinks otherwise. Ever heard of an angel named Castiel?" It was Dean this time.
"That putz? Of course I have. He's a mindless soldier in the heavenly garrison. Useless. If he's your only help, you're totally in my hands. You're mine. I'll grant you a bed, just like you wanted, hunters." A creepy smiled crossed her innocent looking face.
Dean leaned over to Sam. "You still think this is a good idea, man?"
"Cas trusts his superior. We'll have to as well. You know I hate angels, but I hate demons even more, except Ruby." Sam whispered back.
"Dammit, Sammy, you can't trust her...but fine, I'll go along with it. Ahem. Fine, demon-nun, take us to our bed."
Mary Eunice/the demon smiled. "Very well. Know that your stay here won't be all rainbows and flowers, hunters. I hate the likes of you as much as you hate my kind." Another quick evil smile crossed her face, before she turned it into one of fakest innocent smiles Sam had ever seen and rushed the boys toward the ward.