"I'm still not sure what's going on here," Dean tells me as she steers the Impala into the familiar territory of south east South Dakota.
Two days stuck in female bodies and we still can't quite put our finger on what exactly has been done to us.
"We're almost to Bobby's," I say. "He should be able to help us sort this out."
At least I hope he can help us.
I was wrong when I said we had reached our limit of weird. Half the bands we know no longer exist, or rather never did in the first place. In fact, after a little web searching, the bands that do remain all have different members, mostly female. Johnny Cash, for instance, is actually Joanie Cash. There's no such thing as a Lady Gaga, but Lord Gaga is alive, kicking and just as strange. Even the actors and actresses have all changed. No more Jonah Hill, Brad Pitt or Courtney Cox. Now there's Joanne Hill, Barbie Pitt and Cory Cox.
Which means we're probably in some kind of alternate universe. Which is something I don't even want to think about, not until we get to Bobby's and see if he's still... you know... he.
And if you were wondering, I finally mustered up the courage to look at my own reflection. The best way to describe myself in this gender is if I were born a girl. I'm still tall with brown hair and blueish, hazely eyes. Only my features are a lot more feminine.
When we finally reach the old man's house, it looks a lot different. The structure itself is the same, but less dilapidated and dreary. And the lot isn't filled with random cars and auto parts, but rather a lush and vast garden surrounded by a sturdy fence constructed from chicken wire and oak wood slats. There's even a small barn for the animals that wander the property beyond the garden; chickens, goats, a couple of cows and a horse. That's just what's behind the house. The front yard looks like a miniature orchard.
"I don't have a good feeling about this," Dean admits as we wander through the clean, thriving property towards the front door.
I don't say anything, but I've got the same sinking feeling in my own gut.
"If there's one good thing about all this," Dean begins as we knock on Bobby's front door. "It's that we at least make some pretty hot chicks."
"God I wish you hadn't said that," I mutter as the door swings open.
The person standing in the doorway isn't the old man I was praying we'd see. Instead stands an aging woman in her mid fifties with graying brownish red hair pulled back in a bun. She wears dirt stained overalls strapped over a red plaid shirt and tan work boots caked in mud. The smile she wears upon seeing us tells me she knows us.
"Why hello, girls," the pleasantly plump woman speaks. "Ya find Big Foot?"
"B-Bobby?" Dean mutters, her eyes growing wide at what they find. The woman cocks a curious brow at her as she folds her arms across her chest.
"Who'd ya expect?" the woman replies. "Mrs. Clause?" Pause. "Ain't been called that in a while, though. Got so used to you calling me Aunt B I forgot people even used to call me Bobby."
"I think I'm going to be sick," Dean wheels back a few steps and clutches her stomach.
"Oh great," the woman Bobby rolls her eyes. "You forget to take your birth control again?"
"What?" Dean furrows her brows. "No. Wait, what do you mean 'again'?"
Bobby's brows crease as she scans us over through narrowed eyes.
"What's gotten into you two?" she wonders suspiciously.
"Alternate universe?" Dean mutters to me and I nod.
"It's looking that way," I whisper back before returning my attention to lady Bobby. "Something kind of weird happened to us. Mind if we come in?"
"'Course not," Bobby replies, standing aside to let us in. "Hell, I don't know why you even bothered knocking."
We wander through the house and find the place to be organized, clean and bright. Not the cluttered, dusty and dim place we're accustom to. Refreshing, but still disillusioning.
"You girls want anything to drink?" Bobby asks us sweetly as she walks towards the kitchen. Dean and I both shudder.
"I'll take a tall glass of whiskey," Dean says and Bobby raises a brow.
"Whiskey?" she echoes. "You know I'm a wine and vodka kind of gal."
Bile actually rises to my throat. Dean cringes.
"Tall glass of whatever alcohol you've got then," Dean says.
I glance about the bright room, my eyes taking in what girl Bobby's house looks like. My eyes fall to a particular photograph that sits in a silver frame on Bobby's organized desk. The female versions of my brother and I stand on either side of a younger blonde male with a wide smile, each of his arms wrapped around our shoulders. Standing just behind me in the picture is a skinny woman with long, wavy dirty blonde hair wearing daisy dukes and a red plaid shirt tied up to expose her slender stomach. Her arms are folded in this picture and, judging by her playfully sour expression, her eyes were mid-roll when the camera went off.
Dean comes up behind me, her eyes on the same photo.
"Who are those people?" she mutters curiously.
"Like I would know," I return, although I have to admit, the background looks eerily familiar. I remove the photograph from it's clean frame and flip it over, my jaw nearly dropping when I read what's been written in black ink on the back.
Deanna W., Joe H., Samantha W., Ashley H. Roadhouse, 2006.
"Holy crap," Dean mutters over my shoulder. "That's Jo and Ash."
"You girl's hungry?" Bobby calls from the kitchen. "I baked a pear cobbler just this morning."
"Hell yeah," Dean becomes distracted with the thought of food and swiftly excuses herself into the kitchen.
I'll admit, I'm hungry. I'm just still trying to digest... well... everything.
When I do wander into the kitchen, Dean, or rather, Deanna, is sitting at the table giving a wary look at the glass set before her filled mostly with vodka and a splash of red that marbles it's way through the alcohol.
"What's this red stuff in my drink?" Dean questions.
"Cranberry juice," Bobby replies as she places a plate of cobbler in front of him. "You know, the way you usually drink it. Sammy, what would you like to drink? I've got a decent Chardonnay in the fridge."
"Vodka," I reply. "Just vodka, please." I pause, my mind flashing to that photograph on Bobby's desk. What else, I wonder, is different about this universe? "Say, uh, Aunt B," I speak as the older woman places a short glass of vodka on the rocks in front of me before taking a seat across the table from us with a cool glass of white wine. "What do you remember about our dad?"
"I never met your dad," Bobby replies between sips from her glass. "He died before I even met your mother. You knew that."
"Our mom...?" Dean can't quite tell what this means.
"Yeah," Bobby cocks a brow, her suspicions on the rise. "You know, Joan Winchester?"
"Right, of course," I shake my head before taking a long gulp from my vodka glass.
"You girls alright?" Bobby questions and I can see her arm reach under the table for the gun I know is strapped to the other side. "You said something happened in Washington? I'm guessing it wasn't really Big Foot?"
"Yeah, not exactly," Dean sighs, taking a sip of his cranberry splashed vodka. "Hey, this actually pretty good."
I can hear the shot gun come loose from its holster and, within the blink of an eye, Bobby's got the barrel aimed right at us.
"Alright," she says, far more than suspicious. "Who are you and what have you done with Deanna and Samantha?"
That's quite a question. We're not Deanna and Samantha, we're Dean and Sam. Although, in this universe, Dean and Sam are Deanna and Samantha. So, we're not them, but we are them.
How do you explain that to a paranoid old hunter?
"Woah, woah," Dean responds, her hands held up to show she's not armed. "Let's just calm down now, 'Aunt B'. If you'd just let us explain, everything will make a lot more sense."
Bobby eyes us with caution, uncertain if she believes us or not.
"It's us," I say at last when she doesn't lower her weapon. "Sort of."
"What do you mean 'sort of'?" Bobby demands to know.
"It wasn't Big Foot," Dean begins. "It was a trickster. We think it was Gabriel and I think he did something to us."
Bobby's brows furrow.
"Gabriel's dead," is what 'Aunt B' informs us. "Lucifer killed her."
"We're starting to wonder if Lucifer actually killed, um, her," I go on.
"Well?" Bobby presses, her aim never wavering. "What do you think Gabriel did to you?"
"I know how weird this sounds," Dean says. "But I think we're in the wrong universe."
She still doesn't completely trust we're "us", but the idea she finds at least a little intriguing. Interesting enough for her to lower her weapon some.
"What do you mean you're in the wrong universe?" she wants us to elaborate.
"As in, a few days ago, we were guys," Dean finishes. "And all of a sudden, we're accidentally chasing Gabriel and he sent us into this one." Pause. "Either that or we got slipped the weirdest drug ever and this is just one very long, giant trip."
"How do I know you ain't lyin'?" Bobby wants to know.
"Look," Dean says. "Everyone in this universe has pretty much the opposite gender and name as they do in ours. Where we're from, we're Sam and Dean Winchester. Our parents were John and Mary Winchester. Your name is Robert Singer."
Bobby chews this over for a moment before slowly lowering her gun.
"So you're from another universe?" she tries to clarify the bizarre situation.
"Yes," I breath. "And we were hoping you'd be able to help us figure out how to get back there."
"You're an expert on this kind of stuff in this universe too, right?" Dean asks hopefully as Bobby rolls her eyes.
"Multi-universal travel, no," she says. "But if you mean the other weird crap, then hell yeah I am." Pause. "You try to get a hold of Cas?"
"That was the third thing we did," Dean says. "Right after trying to track down Gabriel and freaking the hell out."
"I'd say keep trying," Bobby suggests, taking a long sip from her glass. "I'll dig through my collection and see if I can find anything. In the mean time, you girls go get some sleep. You look like you've been up for days."
We have. You try sleeping after you find yourself trapped in the opposite gender.