Greetings Earthlings,
I realised I haven't done this yet, so disclaimer. None of this belongs to me, I'm not doing this for profit and the characters and previous mentioned arcs belong in their entirety to the CW and Kripke Enterprises.
So now, after all the hullabaloo of the previous three chapters, the brothers are settling down, back to the good ole' saving people mantra. Enjoy!
Things Researched: 30's slang, towns in southern south dakota, plot lines and release dates for old movies, history of colour TV and colour Movies, particulars for the Wizard of Oz movie.
Rewatch: 9x04 Slumber Party
"I've been wandering round
But I still come back to you
In rain or shine
You've stood by me girl
I'm happy, happy at home
You're my best friend."
- You're My Best Friend, Queen
"Stop―stop!"
Sue scowled, pushing her brush through her sisters hair, wrestling with the tangles.
"You're hurting me!" Rachel snarled, jerking away and running her hand over her hair, picking off the bumps that Sue's brush had left. "Can you just stop?"
Sue crossed her arms over her chest. The 16 year old had a nasty habit of turning 12 years younger when she didn't get her way. "You're the one who asked me to do it!"
"Yeah," Rachel agreed. "Do my hair. Not rip it out of my scalp."
"Ooo, big words, little girl."
Rachel looked at her big sister, at a loss. "Which of those was even remotely big?"
Sue opened her mouth to speak, but didn't say anything, just letting her lips press together in irritation. She worked her jaw and threw the brush onto the bed. "Fine. I'll just go then!"
"Good," Rachel said, pushing her hand through her still matted hair, looking pointedly away. Sue glared at Rachel, and made as if to say something, before she turned and her heel and slammed the door.
Rachel took deep breaths as she heard her sister stomp down the hallway into her room, the door sounding shut throughout the house.
She pressed her lips together, forcing a scream to sound strangled as she fell onto her bed. Her date was coming to pick her up in an hour, and she and Sue were supposed to be bonding over it. I mean, sure, Rachel was sure that there was some resentment, her being 14 and already nearly DTRing with a boy, and Sue being 16 and never even having kissed one, but...
As soon as the thought manifested, Rachel felt guilty. But she couldn't go and see Sue now. It didn't matter how trivial the argument seemed. Sue would find something else to fling Rachel's way. Her grades or their parent's divorce, or how much more their mother liked Rachel over her.
Rachel groaned and reached for her headphones, hoping that pounding some top 20's would settle her, or at least put her into a better mood for when Matt arrived.
And so it was, that when a screech and a flash of wings reverberated against her window, she didn't hear it, just sensed it.
And because from however young, we're taught to ignore that slither down your spine that says, there's something behind you, when Rachel realised what was going on, it was already too late.
Deciding to lay low had been Dean's idea. No more hunts for a while. No more ghosts or rugaru's or goddamned pagan gods. No more people needing saving, no more putting their lives on the line.
At least, not for now.
Sam had wanted to see Cas, but the angel was busy, up in heaven. He'd only come down long enough to tell them that he was Caretaker, that he was in charge of all the comings and goings, and that if they needed someone, it was better that they asked Hannah before him. Because from her, they might actually get a response.
"Hey, you right?" Dean asked, barely even registering that he'd asked the same question a thousand times over the past four days. Ever since Sam's resurrection, Dean had been acting like this. Sam couldn't say he blamed him, couldn't hate the eyes that watched his every step, but he could feel disgruntled when Dean came out with chicken soup and a thermometer.
Gladly, he'd only done that once.
Sam looked up from where he was, sitting on the table in the library and quickly clicking over his page to something non-hunting related. His emails had gotten pretty backed up while he'd been...otherwise occupied, and it was as good a cover as any.
"Fine," Sam said easily. "Seriously man, I'm totally fine."
Dean gave the computer a suspicious look. "You weren't researching any jobs, were you?"
"Uh, no," Sam lied easily. "Just, you know, checkin' my email."
Dean rolled his eyes. "You're an honest to god Fletcher Reed, you know that?"
Sam sighed and leant back, clicking open to the new article he'd been reading. "Sorry. I just...I honestly feel fine, Dean. I feel like we should be out there, you know, killing evil."
"No," Dean said defiantly. "You want lunch?"
"Yes," Sam insisted, frowning. Then he let his face drop and ran a hand through his hair. "Look, we just need to check it out. I'm not saying we take it, I'm just saying we get out of here. Honestly, I'm gonna have to go all Shawshank on your ass if I have to stay in here for another week."
Dean managed a smile at the 'Shawshank', but he looked less than convinced. "Call Tracy. Or Carlos. This isn't our call, man. We're out of the frying pan now."
"We can see if it's real, and then call them," Sam suggested. He knew if they just got there, and Dean saw that he was actually fine, then maybe he'd be able to convince him. Because Sam was going stir crazy in the bunker. All the hidden rooms and passages had been mostly found, and all the ones that were left were boring. (Probably). Sam just wanted a reason to stretch his legs, to talk to people who weren't watching him like every breath was going to be his last.
Dean watched him for a while. Then he broke. "You're sure?"
"Positive," Sam affirmed. Fingers rubbing against each other as his hand hovered over the keyboard.
Dean managed to smile again. "Well, it's either that or naming the bunker 'Stalag Luft', right?"
Sam grinned. "Right. We even have Dorothy's motorbike in the garage."
"So what's happened?" Dean asked, leaning over Sam's shoulder to see the screen.
Sam typed quickly on the computer and the articles popped up, springing all over the computer. "Five girls in three days, all across the south of South Dakota, throats torn, inside locked rooms. The whole MO."
"Weird," Dean murmured. "Anything in common?"
Sam shook his head. "Nothing. Didn't even know each other."
"How far apart were they?"
"Far apart enough that it couldn't have been a spirit," Sam sighed, rolling onto another article, bringing up the story of 'Rachel Jenkins', the young girls face smiling in the corner, next to it the tear stained face of her family.
"Wait," Dean frowned. "Is that Rachel's family?"
"Seems to be, yeah," Sam frowned, and then looked up at Dean. "Why?"
"They've got a daughter," he said, pointing at the older sister, a pale, distant girl labelled 'Susan Jenkins' by the bottom of the picture. "I mean, we gotta wonder why her sister was taken, and not her."
Sam let the revelation sink in. Then he looked up at Dean, who was still leaning over him, his chest brushing the back of Sam's shoulder as he bent to see the laptop more easily. Sam smiled. "Interested?"
Dean looked a little taken aback, before allowing a sheepish grin to come over his features. "Oh yeah. Haven't had a full blown murder-mystery in ages."
"Let's suit up," Sam said, jumping up and slamming the laptop closed. "You good?"
"Sure," Dean said, standing with him. Sam smiled when he saw the glint of life jump into Dean's eye. "Animal Control, or FBI?"
"Feds," Sam answered easily.
"Your hair's too long to be a Fed."
Sam snorted and rolled his eyes. "You wish."
"Honestly, Sam, just a little off the sides..."
"No."
"Alright, alright. Don't know why you think you're so damn allergic to haircuts, though. Few more years and you'll be a dead ringer for Cousin Itt."
Sam tried not to react to obviously to how casually Dean had said 'Few more years' but couldn't help the grin of excitement.
Dean raised his eyebrows. "Something wrong?"
"Nothing," Sam said hastily. "Just, if I'm cousin Itt, you're Wednesday Addams."
Dean frowned and opened his mouth to retort, before considering it and slowing down. "I can deal with that."
Sam just laughed. "Get your suit on, Wednesday."
"On it, Juror number 8."
The house where the Jenkins's lived was pretty typical of any white family with the last name 'Jenkins'. The white picket fences and clean, grey and beige weatherboards covering a large family home. If the weather had been better, Dean could have taken a photo and sent it in to advertise lawns, or fences, or doorhandles, or whatever the hell it was the people advertised these days.
"Dog?" Dean looked over glaringly at the bunch of toys on the veranda as he and Sam stood by the doorway.
Sam was a little more animated (that is to say, nearly jumped out of his skin in excitement) and turned to where Dean was looking. "Dog? Where?"
Dean laughed. "Seriously, dude?"
Sam looked down, but he smiled. "C'mon, Dean. Dogs."
"They shed all over my car, and bark," Dean stated, flat out. "And bite. All the time."
Sam was exasperated, like he was whenever Dean tugged him into the conversation. "Only some―"
"Hello?" A voice from the doorway asked, and the two turned in synch to the sound. Sam's eyes went from amused and irritated to soft and sincere, and Dean straightened his back.
"Good morning, Ma'am," Dean greeted to the middle aged woman standing in the doorway, who he recognised as Rachel's mother from the picture. "I understand that this is a hard time, but we need to speak to you about your daughter's death."
The woman swallowed, holding her hand close to her throat, a knitted scarf bunched around her hand. "I don't―"
"We understand that you've been through this," Sam assured her softly. "We understand you just want to move on. But we can help. We just want to let Rachel rest in peace."
The woman took in Sam with a new sort of appreciation. She coughed when she realised that she'd been staring at Sam for too long of a time, and step back to let them entrance into the house.
Dean kept his grin to himself, about how Sam only seemed attractive to women a decade older than him, and followed the grieving mother and his brother into the living room.
"Now," Sam said, settling down on the couch, Dean seating himself next to him. Perhaps a little closer than professional, but since Sam had come back, his protective instincts had been kicked into overdrive. All he wanted was for Sam to live through this. Get to a ripe old age, finally grow old enough to catch the eye of a woman his age. Dean looked across at the woman and smiled as Sam spoke. "Who was the last person to see Rachel?"
"Susan," Rachel's mother said, answering immediately.
The brothers exchanged a glance. "Uh, may we speak with her?"
"You can try," she said, barking a humourless laugh. "She shut herself in her room after our press interview."
Dean thought that it was fair enough, the loss of a sibling was...tough, to say in the least. But the mother looked bitter. He supposed he couldn't blame her either. She'd lost a child, and now her other one was on the verge of being lost as well.
If no one saw you, spoke with you, loved you...did you exist at all?
"Do you..." Sam looked at him and gestured to Mrs. Jenkins and then to the stairs.
Dean stood. "I'll talk to Suzy. You just keep answering those questions ma'am, and we'll be out of your hair in not time."
"She's up the top and to the left," Mrs. Jenkin's said. "First door on the right."
Dean forgot her instructions as soon as he walked towards the staircase, but figured he'd be able to figure it out eventually. He shouldn't have worried, because as soon as he was up the stairs, he saw the girl sitting by the railing, back against the wall, eyes closed, listening intently.
"You must be Susan," Dean greeted. "I'm Dean."
Susan took her time opening her eyes. She shifted her head and watched him carefully. "I know."
Dean's expression hardened slightly, eyebrows shifting down. "Just being polite, you know how it is. I say hi, you say hi, we sit down. I ask questions, you answer questions."
Susan watched him for a long time, before slowly standing up, so that she leant on the wall facing him. "You have any siblings?" Dean brought his eyebrows together, but the girl kept on. "Any little siblings?"
Dean paused and melded his features into nonchalance. "A brother."
She watched him, hard. "You ever fight with him?"
"All the time," Dean assured her. He didn't want to ask where she was heading, disrupting her chain of thought, but perhaps her unloading would give him some insight into why her sister was chosen rather than her.
Susan nodded. She balled her hands into fists and looked determinedly close to tears. "And it's always about such stupid things, like, like things that didn't even matter. Not in the end."
"Right," Dean agreed. Not exactly. But most people didn't have fights at an apocalyptic scale, and even then, arguing and fighting came nowhere near as helpful as fleshing it out and talking about it did. Not that Dean would ever admit that.
Susan closed her arms around herself and looked down. "I was so...stupid. We were fighting about the stupidest thing and..." she looked dangerously close to falling apart now, and Dean had half a mind to call Sam to help him. "And I want her back."
"Your mom says you were the last person who spoke with her," Dean said. "Was there anything off about her? Anything unusual?"
Sue shook her head. "Nothing. She was normal. Happy and normal. She'd gotten asked out on a date, you know. Matt was gonna take her to a movie."
Dean was silent in response, wanting to comfort her, but not knowing how.
"Mom's mad at me," she continued, venting. "She hates me for disappearing, but..." Dean didn't need her to fill in the gaps. He got it. She wanted to be alone, she wanted to deal with her thoughts alone.
Dean watched her carefully. "You take care of yourself, but you take care of your mom, too, ok?" He looked at her more intently as she ducked away. "You aren't doing yourselves any favours, locking yourself away from the world."
"This is my―"
"Why?" Dean interrupted her before she could claim that she'd been the cause of her sister's death. "What did you do, exactly, to make it your fault?"
Susan opened her mouth to speak, and slammed it angrily, tight, when she had nothing to say.
"That's what I thought," Dean said, almost cool. "Now. What were you doing before Rachel died?"
"And she was just brushing her hair, man," Dean shook his head, eyes not wavering from the road as he and Sam drove back to the bunker. "Nice and normal."
"By normal, you mean, not summoning Satan?" Sam guessed.
Dean titled his head. "More or less, yeah. But nothing adds up. What's the connection?"
Sam shrugged. "Mrs. Jenkins said that Sue was a bit of a handful. Maybe she was lying."
"Lie, maybe, but why hair brushing?"
Sam shrugged. "Easy lie to tell as―"
He paused and frowned. At his silence, Dean glanced over. "What?"
"Watch the road."
Dean sighed and fixed his sight out of the windscreen. "Seriously, Sammy. What?"
"Say that again."
Dean frowned in confusion. "Uh, Seriously―"
"Before that," Sam urged, holding a hand up as he wracked his brain, trying to track down the train of thought eluding him. The one that had held so much promise.
"Ok, the thing about brushing hair or―"
"Hair," Sam said, as it dawned on him. "All the girls, Caucasian, or at least passing for, with red or brown hair. Right?"
"All of them have either red or brown hair?" Dean asked, dubious. "That is what we're building our case off?"
"Better than nothing," Sam said, frowning. "If we follow this up, maybe we can―"
"Sam, we're..." Dean's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "We're laying low, remember? This is not our thing. I got Carlos to send me Tracy Bell's number. Or we could call Jody."
Sam stiffened his jaw, and didn't say anything.
Dean sighed and pressed his foot down, hard, on the accelerator, pressing the impala up a particularly steep hill, soot coloured tire marks stretching out behind them as they gunned it for the bunker, for warmth and safety and home.
If Dean was honest, which, in his profession, where lies came with the fake badge and credit cards, wasn't all that often, he'd say he was scared. Dean didn't have that positive of a relationship with the truth in the first place, but add it with admitting a failure of his strength and well...yeah. Nonexistent.
Because what if he did start fighting again? How would Missouri's spell last with that? Would it wear away faster if he brought back those primal instincts? The ones that had kept him alive in purgatory, the ones that terrified him?
So he'd put up the screen. The failsafe. And part of the truth. Sam had died. He'd been dead. And Dean didn't want to deal with that, didn't want to revisit that. Not any time soon. Sam needed his strength back, needed to jump back in when both of them were sure. But it wasn't the entire truth.
Dean didn't acknowledge any of this as he drove him and his brother through the country to their underground home. Their very own place.
He didn't really acknowledge anything.
Sam had been sitting in the library when it happened. The computer that he wasn't supposed to be on was open on websites he'd been told to avoid, and his mind whirred around the case that Dean was on his way to passing on.
Could he be right? Other than the fact that all the victims were girls, this seemed to be the only connection. Not a very strong one, but perhaps enough to propel him to realise something. Red and brown, red and brown.
The answer knocked him out of his chair, literally.
Apparently, to get to Oz, you needed a magic key and a doorway. To get back, all you needed was a searing, enduring flash and a library table.
The air across the table started to pulsate and surge, white, bright light sizzled around in a mutating cloud of searing heat.
Sam jerked back and fell hard backwards, chair hitting the ground in a crack. He scrambled back, ignoring the pang of pain up his spine and didn't look away from the light, pulling out his gun, holding it, pointed squarely at the middle of the frothing thing.
"Sam!" Dean ran into the room, and Sam met his eyes in disbelief, nodding as Dean pulled out his own gun, copying Sam's pose, finger pressed readily on the trigger.
"I thought this place was supposed to be warded against everything!" Sam managed to make his voice louder that the crackle and snap of the light in front of them.
"It is!" Sam heard Dean bellow back, his brothers eyes still trained on the clouds movements.
And then, almost all at once, it stopped. And two girls fell out.
Dean jerked forward, gun trained squarely on the two, with narrowed eyes and quick steps. Sam followed his lead, finger nearing the trigger, eyes darting from girl to girl, until―
"Charlie?" Dean let the gun fall, so that it grew lax in his hands and pointed to the floor. Sam went another step further, tucking his pistol back into the back of his pants.
Sam moved forward as Dean did. "Wait, Dorothy?"
"Hey, bitches," Charlie made out, tiredly, but grinning, propping herself up on the table. Next to her, Dorothy was regaining her bearings, looking around the room, usually impeccable hair in disarray. "You ever ridden a tornado before?"
"I just...it was wow," Charlie gushed, sighing and curling into her hot chocolate. Sam shook his head, grinning. Dean had insisted that they wrap a blanket around their shoulders and keep their heat up. Dorothy had taken to it surly, but Charlie had relished, cupping the molten chocolate and milk with a dreamy sort of expression. "I mean, you think, Quest! Hooray! But...no way, man. This was...beyond awesome."
"As you can see, she was awfully enthusiastic," Dorothy remarked dryly, but Sam saw the fondness in her eyes as she took in her friend. "The people of the Emerald City didn't know what to do with themselves."
"The Munchkin's, too," Charlie added, taking a sip of her drink.
Dean smiled, and raised his eyebrows. He seemed in a constant state of bemusement around Charlie, but Sam wasn't swayed from the knowledge of how fond Dean was of the girl. She was like his sister, she was like Sam's sister. And extending their little family, after...well, everything, didn't seem like such a bad thing.
"So, then, why'd you leave?" Sam asked, ladling himself out some of the hot chocolate from the massive pot in the kitchen and into another mug.
Charlie winced. "Ah, yeah. So, the Wicked Witch of the West seemed to have a pretty strong fall back plan. And like, the flying monkeys and stuff were a pain."
"More than a pain," Dorothy supplied seriously. "They were massing forces against the two of us, so we lay low for a while. Then it just...stopped. Good for a while, worrying after that."
"You think they've come to earth?" Sam asked, frowning, thinking back to all he knew about them. Then he looked up and saw Charlie and Dorothy. He tilted his head and frowned.
"Yeah," Charlie said, mostly oblivious to Sam's scrutiny. "We think they think we have. And it's either here or another fairy realm, and, well..." she looked sheepish. "Those are really hard to get access to."
"For us and the monkeys," Dorothy expanded. She didn't even seem to bat an eye as she filled in the gaping holes Charlie left in her explanation. Then again, they'd been together for about a year. When you're with someone for that long, you grow and they grow, so that you sort of just slot together. "But there are numerous ways to get to earth, and if you have the means..."
Dean was serious now, his arms crossed against his chest. "And what'll they do? If they get here?"
"They're looking for us," Dorothy said, just as Charlie made out "Carnage." between sips of hot chocolate. Dorothy looked at Charlie and rolled her eyes.
That was the thing that propelled Sam to make the connection. He turned to Dean, already preparing the list of defences he'd put together. "Dean, the girls, red heads and brunettes...you don't think it's a coincidence?"
"Wait, what's happening?" Charlie asked, looking quickly between Sam and then Dean, who was watching Sam, a sort of understanding stealing over his features.
Dorothy was more to the point. "Have you seen the monkeys?"
"Not exactly," Sam answered her without looking away from Dean's troubled face. "But there've been a series of supernatural murders, kudos to some sort of animal. Throat ripped, closed windows and doors, all separate girls along the southern border of South Dakota. You know of any portals to Oz down there?"
Dorothy shook her head slowly. "The only portal to Oz is with the key. But they might have accidently stumbled upon a way to get there."
"Hot air balloon?" Dean joked.
"Maybe," Dorothy said, misreading the tone of his question, and Charlie's face was pinched with worry. "But it doesn't matter. If it is Flying Monkeys, then we need to stop them. They're lethal and remorseless. They'll kill anything in their path."
"What do we do?" Sam asked, placing his hot chocolate down on the bench and moving nearer to where Dorothy and Charlie were sitting.
"We could...let them know that we were here and trap them back into Oz?" Charlie suggested, looking to Dorothy for the other Hunter's approval.
Dorothy looked unconvinced, but she nodded slowly. "It'd take a bit of manoeuvring, but I think we could do it."
"What would you need?" Sam asked.
"Summoning ritual," Charlie answered, in the space of Dorothy. She frowned a little and looked over to her friend. "Right?"
"Right," Dorothy affirmed.
Down in the archives, Charlie seemed more at home, more relaxed, than she'd been upstairs. She hummed under her breath, running her finger along the spines of books and files, and her cheeriness was almost unnerving.
"You're sure that you're ok, Charlie?" Dean pressed, standing beside her, hand left forgotten, resting on a large book written in Latin.
"Oh yeah, I'm fine," Charlie smiled. "I mean, Hell, Oz was intense, man. But awesome as well. Dorothy..." she trailed off and sighed happily.
"You got a bit of a crush?" Dean guessed. "I don't blame you."
"Don't be a moron, Buzz," Charlie chastised, but she was blushing. She looked a little more happy though, as she went about her business, a small smile her constant friend along the curves of her lips. Dean smiled to himself and went on looking alongside her, tracing his fingers along the spines of the books.
"Oh, by the way," Charlie said, interrupting the quiet abruptly. "I promised Dorothy that we'd watch the movie when we got back. She didn't seem all that for it, but, you know..." she shook her head as if Dorothy was being entirely unreasonable. "It's a movie about her. Like, a movie."
"It'd probably freak her out," Dean said. "I mean, was colour TV even invented when she disappeared?"
"No..." Charlie pondered. "So maybe we could drop her in slowly? Get her used to the whole shindig before the yellow bricks."
"Like...Godzilla?"
Charlie paused again and looked up at him, her face purposefully blank. "The remake or the original?"
Dean was offended. "The remake, because I just love destroying pop culture. No, obviously the original."
Charlie breathed out a sigh of relief. "Thank God. I thought I was going to have to unfriend you."
"Unfriend?"
"Facebook lingo," Charlie informed him, looking up at him, with a wry smile on her face. "It's weird how like, little you know of some things, and then how much you know of others."
"I'm busy. Saving the world and stuff."
Charlie arched an eyebrow. "I love you."
Dean answered automatically. "I know."
Charlie smiled, satisfied, and Dean frowned.
"Who would I, uh, friend?" ― Charlie nodded that he was using the correct terminology― "on facebook anyway?" Dean asked. "Other than you, and Sam if I could press him into getting it. All the people we know are either angels, demons, or dead."
"Fair enough," Charlie said. "But then you wouldn't have gotten so confused about the 'unfriend' bizzo."
"Can't say I'm really missing out on much."
"Yeah," Charlie agreed. "Gotta say, at least you skipped out on your meme phase."
Dean frowned. "What's a 'meem'?"
Charlie shook her head. "Oh, no. You don't wanna know."
"Right," Dean said slowly. "Where's Sam and Dorothy?"
"Probably talking about hair," Charlie mused. "They both have excellent skill man ship."
"Do not tell Sam that," Dean warned. "I've been trying to get him to cut his hair for years. Every time someone compliments him, it sets me back a couple of months."
Charlie laughed. "When was the last time Sam got his hair cut?"
Dean shook his head, smiling, turning back to the books and the rest of the archive half-heartedly. "Who knows? Rapunzel mightn't have had one since he left Stanford."
"Hello," Charlie sang under her breath.
Dean looked over quizzically. "Sorry?"
Charlie blushed, a deep red across her cheeks that melted into the colour of her hair. "I just...Stanford Era Reference?"
Dean was totally out of his depth now. Stanford Era? Like, the time Sam was in Stanford? And then...oh no. Oh God, no. He groaned. "You're not talking about those books, are you?"
Charlie, if possible, turned even redder. "No! Well, yes, but―"
"Charlie, seriously? I thought you were going to try and get rid of them."
"Hey, I never said that," Charlie held up her hands. "The whole Stanford Era thing is just this...thing...in the fandom―"
"What the hell is a 'fandom'?"
"Because you two never talk about it and whenever you do it's always really angsty or anything, so whenever you two do say something about Stanford or Jess in passing it's a really big deal and everyone loves it and sees it as integral to character development," Charlie spilled all at once.
Dean was taken aback. "Wait, seriously?"
Charlie nodded, resolute in that she would not blush anymore.
Dean shook his head, turning back to the spines with a little more concentration than before. "People are weird."
Charlie was silent for a bit, before turning back to her books. They moved on, but Dean could feel her tensing. Then she slammed her hand down on them and turned to Dean again. "Dean―"
"Seriously, however much fun it is to talk to you, we do need to do th―"
"Dean," Charlie interrupted tersely. When it seemed like he was giving his full attention, she took a deep breath. "Ok." She studied his face for a moment, hands tight, stance resolute. "How did you bring me back from the dead?"
Dean turned slowly away from the books and looked at his friend. "I, uh―"
"And don't give me any crap about, like, I don't know, the Wicked Witch's power not killing me, because I talked to Dorothy and―"
"I'll tell you, Charlie," Dean said, and he winced as she drew back from the hoarseness of his tone.
"It had something to do with Sam, didn't it?" Charlie guessed. "You said that she got him as well. But he didn't die."
"Yeah, it has something to do with Sam," Dean sighed. He ran his hand over his mouth and relayed an abridged version of the story. Leaving out Kevin's death and the mark of Cain. And barely going into detail about Abaddon and Metatron.
"Dude," Charlie said, open mouthed. "You let an angel possess him? So uncool."
"I wasn't going to let him―"
"Die, yeah, yeah, I get it," Charlie silenced him with a wave of her hand. "But...jeez. No wonder he was pissed at you. And...that angel, he brought me back?"
"Yes," Dean said shortly, turning back to the same book he'd looked over three times, reading over the name on the spine without retaining any of the words. He didn't want to go over this again, he didn't want to relive the last year. Every year building and building, becoming worse and worse and worse. He didn't want to talk about it with Charlie, because when he thought, when he cast his mind back, everything was lifted in a cloud of dust and mourning. Everything but Charlie. Because she was so friendly or so sweet, or because she smiled more than she frowned and let him get away with his stupid nerd jokes.
She as Charlie, Charlie, and that's who he wanted her to stay.
She seemed to sense that he wouldn't give anymore if she pushed, so she just turned back to the books, shoulders dropping in defeat, eyes closing for the breadth of a second as she gathered her thoughts. Then she opened them, sent herself a severe talking to and fought on.
"Found anything?" Dorothy asked Sam, as he bent over his laptop and she pooled through the books already up in the library.
Sam shook his head and sighed. "Seems that the only flying monkeys, are, the, you know, monkeys from your Dad's book."
Dorothy scowled and wrenched open another tome. "Swell."
Sam leant away from his laptop and stretched up. "Are we sure that he didn't leave any more clues in the books?"
Dorothy shook her head. "I've read them, and honestly, the rest really are the ravings of a sad old man. Besides, Pops was good, but he wasn't that good. I'm not sure how you'd go about hiding the recipe for a spell in a children's book, but it has to be nigh on impossible."
"Hey, Pencil necks," Charlie announced her and Dean into the library cheerily, taking the seat next to Dorothy just as Dean took the vacant one next to Sam.
"I honestly don't think that there are any spells to summon them," Sam sighed, slamming his laptop shut.
"How do we lure them here, then?" Dorothy asked. "I mean, if we could somehow get them to see us―"
"We could post pictures of ourselves online?" Charlie suggested suddenly.
"I know Dean is kind of an exception to the rule, but do you think the monkeys would be able to use the internet?"
Dean drew back and looked at Sam. "Watch it, Sasquatch."
"We just need one to see, and it'll lead all the others," Dorothy sighed, rubbing a hand across her face. "They're stupid, and they'll attack anything with a heartbeat, but when they see us, they'll know it's us."
"Could they be killing those girls to send a message?" Sam asked, frowning and thinking back to the case of Susan and Rachel, and then all the other girls who'd met their ends.
Dorothy shrugged. "Doesn't matter. We need to get them here regardless. If they spend too long on earth, they might not want to leave."
Dean sighed. "Great."
"Ok, so the monkeys assumed you ran away to earth, followed you here, and now we have no way of them actually finding where you are," Sam summarised, leaning forward onto his elbows on the table, running his fingers over the back of his head. "Amazing."
"Well, I'm beat," Dean announced, standing up. Sam checked his watch and nearly fell out of his chair in a haste to get to his feet. It was nearly midnight.
"Damn bunker," Charlie complained, sighing when she saw her own watch. "How are we supposed to know what time it is?"
"You have a watch," Dorothy pointed out.
"Not helping, Dee-Dee."
"Dee-Dee?" Sam asked, grinning.
Dorothy shot him her best death glare.
"And on that note, let's call it a night," Charlie suggested, standing up as well. "I can have the room I was supposed to have, right fella's?"
"Sure," Sam agreed. "And Dorothy, you're welcome to take any room that you want."
Dorothy nodded her thanks. "I think I'll stay up a bit longer, see if there's anything I missed out on."
The next morning saw Dean brewing a jug of coffee, and Sam sitting heavily on the breakfast bar in the kitchen, slowly swirling his breakfast cereal into crumbs in his milk.
"Taste better that way, or something?" Charlie asked, bouncing into the kitchen like she hadn't just suffered through three hours of sleep.
When Sam looked up in confusion she gestured to the cereal. "You know...fruit loops easier to down in liquid form?"
Sam barked a laugh. "No, God. I just got distracted." He frowned at the mess in front of him. "Ugh. Gross."
Charlie laughed and swung into the chair next to him. "Either of you broads seen Dorothy anywhere? I couldn't find any room that looked like anyone had spent the night in it."
"No idea," Dean said, pouring him and Sam a cup of coffee and giving his brother a look as he took Sam's ruined breakfast from him, tipping the milk down the drain and placing the bowl beside the sink.
"Hey!" Sam said indignantly. "I was eating―"
"Drinking," Dean corrected. "You eat solids, Sam. That was disgusting."
"Maybe to you."
"No, but guys―"
Dean proffered the steaming jug of coffee, pulling out another mug. "Coffee?"
"Yeah, thanks," Charlie agreed, a little distractedly. "But guys, where is she?"
"Here," Dorothy yawned in answer, moving into the room sluggishly, her hair, which had been fixed into its meticulous neatness the day before was rough and spread across her forehead. "Sorry. I stayed up looking. Must have fallen asleep on my books."
"Your neck ok?" Sam asked, in a voice that said he could relate.
"Fine," Dorothy said, nevertheless rubbing her hand across the muscles beneath her hair.
"So, any of you Einstein's think of any way to fix this sitch?" Charlie asked, cupping her hands around the coffee mug to get her hands to warm up, the ceaseless cold of the bunker getting into the tips of her fingers.
"I might have an idea," Dorothy said. "Where was the last murder?"
"Lake Andes, South Dakota," Sam recited. "The Jenkins. Why?"
"Well, there are probably some still hanging around," Dorothy said. "If we went, and then left, perhaps we could lead them back to the bunker, and get them back to Oz like that."
"Which we still don't know how to do, by the way," Dean said.
"We can cast a befuddlement spell on them as they arrive in the bunker," Dorothy said, as if it were obvious. "You do have a lab, don't you?"
"Uh, no?" Sam asked, looking to Dean for confirmation, who nodded.
Dorothy frowned. "Why? How are you supposed to make spells?"
"We have some of the ingredients stored in the dungeon," Sam managed, but under Dorothy's peeved expression, saw that it wasn't close to what she meant.
"Ace," Dorothy sighed. "Really keen job on that one, fellas."
"I love it when she speaks 30's," Charlie whispered.
"So we split up, then," Dean said, reasonably. "Some of us will get the ingredients for the spell, and then the rest will go to lure the monkeys."
"Well, me and Dorothy have to go to Lake Andes," Charlie said. "We can go by ourselves. You still have my car, right?"
"Probably," Dean shrugged.
Charlie paled.
"He's joking, Charlie," Sam assured her. "We have it and Dorothy's bike."
"So we split up?" Charlie pressed. "Me and Dorothy, and then Holmes and Watson?"
Dorothy brightened. "Sherlock Holmes?"
Charlie looked over to the boys, conspirator to some great unknown. "Dorothy always get excited when she understands something I reference."
"You don't say," Dean looked over at the pleased Hunter, who was stealing sips out of Charlie's cup of coffee.
Sam grinned. "Awesome. Ok, so are we splitting up now, or...?" He let the sentence drag on.
"You ready, Red?" Dorothy asked.
"Sure," Charlie agreed. "We're just going to be hanging around, right? Like, we don't actually need to do anything, do we?"
"Make sure you see them before they see you," Dean said, worriedly.
"Shouldn't be too hard," Dorothy shrugged, standing, her boots hitting the linoleum defiantly. "I've been tracking the suckers my whole life."
"She has," Charlie confirmed, looking over to Dorothy with adoration. "It's amazing."
"Shake a leg, Chuck," Dorothy ordered Charlie, exiting the room. "I'm gonna go freshen up, and then we're outta here."
Before they left, Dorothy left them with a list of ingredients and a step by step method for creating the spell. She expressed her disappointment, again, with how they didn't have a place to actually put the whole thing together, but Charlie managed to drag her out before she hit repeat number seven.
The Winchester's climbed into the impala after Dorothy and Charlie had driven off, and before he turned the ignition, Dean turned to Sam.
"Charlie...she asked how she got back to life," Dean said, slowly. Not comfortable at all with telling Sam everything. Because the constant don't, no, protect him, was a constant song, around and around in his head. But he had to.
Secrets ruin relationships!
"Oh," Sam said. He looked down at his lap. "Huh. What did you say?"
"The truth," Dean managed, turning the key in the ignition, the car jerking to life. He looked over to the list in Sam's hand. "Got any idea where we can get all this?"
"It's not actually that complicated," Sam said. And almost just like that, it was forgotten. How deadly close they'd gotten to talking about the last year. Sam and Dean both knew that they'd have to approach it at some point but now...now was a time for just being. Being and forgetting.
Sam had no idea how to express how thankful he was that Dean was being so blatantly open, and Dean didn't know how to express that he found it so difficult, but wished that he didn't.
The impala rumbled to life and they drove along the driveway and into the air.
"First stop?"
Sam shook his head, bemused. "The supermarket."
"Seriously?"
"Oil, salt, matches," Sam listed. "Yeah, seriously."
"Ok, this is terrifying," Charlie said as they drove slowly through the town where the most recent victim had died.
"Yeah," Dorothy agreed, but for an entirely different reason. She was looking into a computer store, the blood drained from her face. "What the Hell is all of that?"
"That's, uh, Apple."
"That's what apples are, these days?" Dorothy demanded, flabbergasted.
"No, it's, it's like a brand," Charlie struggled to explain. "You know, Steve Jobs...ah, what am I kidding. You don't know."
"I would have thought that the future was going to be more interesting," Dorothy admitted. "I thought you'd at least have flying cars. All you do have is very advanced apples."
Charlie was caught in wordless incredulity. Then she laughed. "Well, you're not wrong."
Dorothy sighed. "I don't think I'm ever going to catch up."
"Don't worry," Charlie shrugged, and she knew that she would probably be looking way more frightened and nervous than the nonchalance she was aiming for. "I'll learn it for you."
Dorothy smiled at her friend and mused her hair. Charlie managed a laugh before focusing fully on driving, hoping that the hunter didn't think that her speech was too Sam-and-Frodo.
Charlie suddenly widened her eyes. She'd known that Dorothy would have missed out on a lot. She would have missed out on Star Wars and Star Trek, and all the other stars that had come and gone between her disappearance and reappearance. But it had never fully dawned on Charlie, that her friend would have lived in a time before Tolkien.
"Merry or Pippin?"
"Is that some sort of new slang?" Dorothy asked immediately, blinking.
Charlie blew out a breath of air, shaking her head in disbelief. "Man, have I got to introduce you to some real literature."
"Uh, yeah, I think so," Dean told Charlie, who was nattering away in his ear.
Dean turned to Sam, interrupting his brother out of looking through all the ingredients they'd bought. They were on the way home, and Dean hadn't hesitated on answering the phone when Charlie had called, despite the illegality. "Hey, Sam, we have the extended edition of the Lord of the Rings, right?"
"Pretty sure," Sam said, without looking up from inventory, checking twice next to the list to make sure they had everything.
"What did Sam say?" Charlie asked, her voice tinny and small from the phone next to his hear.
"He said yeah," Dean supplied. "Why?"
"Dorothy's never read, nor seen Middle Earth, like, ever."
"She was alive in the 30's, wasn't she?" Dean said, driving the car around near the back of the bunker, leading it down into the driveway leading to the Garage.
"That's not the point. I told you, I was pretty much raised on Tolkien. I owe her as a friend and her guide to the 21st century."
"Her guide to the 21st century," Dean echoed, and Sam looked over at that, eyebrows raised. "Alright, Charlie. We're nearly back. Can you tell Dorothy we have everything and we'll be starting the spell as soon as we can?"
"On it," she promised, and the phone clicked off.
Dean tucked the phone into the pocket at the front of his jeans. "Guide to the 21st century," he repeated, shaking his head, smiling fondly. "That girl."
Sam agreed with a low laugh. "Yeah. Ok, you ready?"
The car pulled up, and Dean jerked the key out, effectively shutting it all down. He pulled the key out and smiled at his brother. "'Course."
Dorothy jerked in surprise when they passed a woman wearing a pair of high waisted shorts. They weren't that revealing by most people's standards, but Charlie knew her friend was an outlier in that equation.
"Hey, hey, chill," Charlie said, bracing her hand on Dorothy's arm. "It's all good. Just a bit of skin, never hurt anybody."
Dorothy shook her head. "Sorry, it's just all so, glaring. You know?"
"Yeah, sure," Charlie said, nodding and smiling at the couple nearby giving them odd looks.
Charlie couldn't even think of anything to tell them if they came over to ask why her friend was acting so weird. In her case, she felt like intoxication was the way to go.
Intoxication was always the way to go. Ha. She should get that made into a T-Shirt.
"Seen anything?" Charlie asked, looking around the street.
Dorothy seemed a little overwhelmed, but she was certain when she shook her head. "Nothing, yet. But I don't think they'd come this close to the centre of town."
"If they can move through doors and windows," Charlie said. "Where would they stay?"
"Somewhere high up," Dorothy said, looking around in their immediate area for anywhere on a pedestal. "Like the castle."
"I saw a church on the map of town," Charlie suggested. "It had a bell tower. They might be nesting up there?"
Dorothy smiled and clapped her hands together, in that totally adorable 30's way of hers. "Lead the way!"
"That was way too close," Charlie spieled as she slammed her foot on the accelerator, tearing down the street out of town. "Way, way, way, way too close."
"I get it, Charlie," Dorothy silenced through clenched teeth. She was looking out the back window with iron resolve, all her good humour lost as she watched the empty sky behind them.
"There weren't supposed to be so many!" Charlie stammered. At least she wasn't screaming. A year ago and she would have been. Another three and she probably would have been wetting her pants.
"I know," Dorothy said, her voice still irritatingly steady and aloof.
"Well, they've definitely seen us," Charlie said, her grip on the steering wheel tightening. She held her jaw tightly. "Definitely."
"Yes, Charlie, thank you," Dorothy said, in an attempt to placate her friend with tough love. Too bad the act didn't work on Charlie, or she'd have had a permanent gag installed while she was in Oz. She knew Dorothy well enough to know what that meant. She was worried, scared, even.
"Sam was right," Charlie breathed. "They were trying to drag us out."
"Well, we didn't have any other choice," Dorothy replied tersely. She turned to Charlie. "Have you called them?"
"About what?" Charlie was verging on hysterical. She could feel angry, worried tears threaten at the corners of her eyes. No. She would not cry. She was a cold ass, badass, hot ass warrior queen, she was―
"The spell!"
Charlie jerked in recollection and shoved her phone out. "You call them. Quickly. Please."
Dorothy looked small as she stared at the phone. "I don't know how."
Charlie trained her car to keep with the sharp turn, wrenching the steering wheel around the bend. "Use your finger and slide the screen."
"It's a―"
"Try."
The telltale pop noise forced a sigh of relief from Charlie, and she looked over to see how it was going. "Now, the buttons down the bottom. Press the one that looks like a phone."
A moment of silence. "Got it."
"You see those numbers? Press the five."
Dorothy entered the number in slowly.
"Now the green receiver symbol?"
"I don't know what―"
"The only green button, Dorothy!" Charlie said, her speed and worry was making her snarky. She could see that Dorothy wasn't blaming her, following her instruction diligently and pressing onto the screen.
"Got it," Dorothy said. She turned to Charlie in panic. "Charlie, the screen changed...I didn't―"
"It's ok," Charlie took another calm, deep breath. "Hold it up to your ear―" she couldn't help smile "―no, no. The other way, silly duff."
Dorothy smiled, embarrassed and held the phone the right way up. There was a crack in between one of the rings and Charlie heard the reverberations of a man's voice, the faintest impression of his tone all she got from the driver's seat.
"Sam?" Dorothy asked. "We're coming. Are you done?"
A moment of silence and hurried words. Charlie spared a looked from the road (she really shouldn't have, they were Dean-Driving, which is to say, breaking State Law) and studied Dorothy's face, trying to get a read on what was going on.
"Hurry," Dorothy said. "The spell has to be finished for a while to congeal."
There was more chatter, before the phone call ended. Dorothy blinked in surprise and lay the phone flashing the end call screen on her lap.
"Everything ok?"
Dorothy was relaxed, but bemused. "The future is weird."
"C'mon, Marty," Charlie said, and the joke sounded off with her slightly panicky voice. "We've got a plane of existence to save."
The wheels on Charlie's car skidded on the asphalt as they slammed up to the entrance to the bunker.
"Got the spell?" Dorothy asked, jumping, slightly breathless out of the passenger seat.
Sam held up a bottle of the blue liquid. "Here. We weren't sure what to do after this, though."
"That's ok," Dorothy said, pulling the bottle out of his hands and making off to spread it in a circle around the entrance to the driveway. "I can." She looked up at them all sharply. "Do not cross this line, ok?"
Dean saw as Charlie winced at the bottle and climbed the slight incline to stand beside the brothers. "Don't worry."
"So, you found the monkeys, then?" Sam asked, moving around so that he could see Charlie and Dean, coercing them into a half circle.
Charlie nodded tiredly. "Or, they kinda found us. You were right, by the way, Sam. They are smarter than they look."
Sam frowned in confusion. "Right about what, exactly?"
"It was a trap," Charlie relayed.
"There was always the possibility."
"Not helping, Dean," Charlie frowned.
A faint scraping in the sky turned all three of their heads. At first, Dean had no idea what it was, until he started making out faint shapes, and the scraping turned into a more recognisable flapping.
"Dorothy!" Charlie called, her voice timid.
Dorothy looked up and swore colourfully. Or what Dean assumed was colourfully, considering he didn't understand half the words she used.
"Are you nearly done?" Sam asked, his voice was tight, but mostly calm. Dean itched to put his hand around his gun, but fought it off, staring with Sam and Charlie towards the massive, ever growing cloud of flying monkeys.
"Never thought I'd see the day," Dean said, voice tight.
"Well, I can't see anything," Sam said, frowning, and Dean realised that while he'd been looking in the same direction as them, it'd been purely sound orientated. "What the hell's going on?"
"Dean, have you been to a fairy dimension?" Dorothy asked, curious, running over, the bottle of spell empty.
"Guys."
"Uh, yeah. A few years ago." Dean let his expression fall neutral. It wasn't exactly the best experience of his life, to say in the least.
"Seriously, guys―"
"Well, that'd explain it," Sam nodded.
"Guys!"
Dorothy, Dean and Sam turned to where Charlie was avidly trying to get their attention. "Um, not to be the Nancy of the group, but can we hurry this up? Or have this conversation some other time?"
"Right," Dorothy said, moving to one of the driveway doors just as Dean did. He looked across at her, waiting for her signal. She gave it with a nod and they heaved the doors open.
Dorothy and Charlie met in the middle and Sam took over Dorothy's place as sentry. The brothers watched as the girls prepared themselves.
Dorothy's eyes were hard. "You have the key?"
Sam pulled it out of his pocket, showing it and then encasing it in the hand not holding the door.
"Dorothy," Charlie said, watching the black cloud. "That's close enough."
"Now, then," Dorothy said, and Sam and Dean slammed the doors shut. At the disappearance of the two girls, the monkeys grew more agitated, moved faster.
"You got it, Sammy?" Dean asked, standing guard and watching the now distinguishable monsters as Sam slotted the key in.
Sam wrenched the key in the lock, and kept his hand on it, ready to turn. The monkeys were so near now, so deathly close. The first one would be hitting Dorothy's spell any moment, any second.
"Sam! Now!"
Sam turned the key and with a grunt and all their strength, the two brothers broke open the door. With a howl of wind and wings, the monkeys flew through to Oz, it's golden, ethereal light spilling through and out, like honey, like a soft embrace, the kind of light that put the earth's sun and stars to shame.
Dean couldn't see Sam, but he realised that his brother would be able to see him. So he looked across the stream of flying apes and gave his brother that, his reassurance, a smile, warm eyes.
The monsters barraged past, the befuddlement spell did nothing to slow down their speed. They were all red eyes and sharp, jagged, severe fur. All claws and blades for wings, all howling and flapping and screaming.
That's what it was, a long drawn out cry emptying itself into Oz.
The last of the pack of the monkeys came through and without a second thought, Sam and Dean pushed the doors shut. Dean breathed heavily against it, the lack of the strength he'd grown so used to making itself felt as his arms strained to get the doors closed before the monkeys could realise what had gone wrong.
The doors slammed shut, a clang heralding the beginning of silence, the absence of the crack and smack of the wings, the howling, the cries.
"You right?" Sam managed, who was breathing hard himself, arms still braced on the door.
"Fine," Dean stated shortly, lungs straining to get air. "That was...really somethin', hey?"
"Really somethin' would be right," Sam said, and Dean smiled when his brother laughed.
"Should we open the door?"
"Probably."
But neither moved, just standing where they were, basking in the quiet, in the aftermath. The sky stretched above them and the earth below them, and there, together, arms nearly brushing as they both turned to lean against the door, backs resting side by side.
"So," Sam started, and Dean heard the smile in his voice. "Which of us is Holmes, and which is Watson?"
"I'm Holmes."
"No way, man. I'm the smart one."
"Sure, but you're also the side-kick."
"Side-kick? I'm gonna kick your ass."
"Whatever, Robin."
"I was always Batman, you were Superman."
"What, and Batman isn't just one of Superman's sidekicks?"
"I'm telling Charlie you said that."
"Don't you dare."
The popcorn was fresh and buttered, and Sam's room was properly outfitted with blankets and pillows. Sam had the best TV, and the shittiest room, but they'd had to make do. Dean had driven down with Sam to buy snacks, mostly peanut M&M's and three massive packs of microwavable popcorn, while Dorothy and Charlie went about making sure that everything was in optimal marathon position.
Dean juggled the bowl of buttered popcorn and packet of M&M's, while Sam precariously held a beer for each of them.
"Perfect," Charlie sighed, reaching her hand out and grabbing a fistful of popcorn, squishing it all into her mouth at once. She murmured incomprehensibly in delight and fell back, head resting on Dorothy's leg.
The Hunter didn't seem to mind, taking some of the chocolate that Dean offered and waiting, comfortable, on one of the two beds in Sam's room.
"Nothing that can't be cured by a massive bowl of popcorn," Dean admonished proudly.
"That and a Lord of the Rings marathon," Charlie agreed. She sat up and reached for another handful.
Sam handed out the beers and walked forward and inserted the first disk, sitting back next to Dean as the movie started to play. He glanced over at his brother when Dean wasn't watching and smiled, actually smiled, again.
He seemed to have been doing it a lot lately. And not all of it was forced.
"So," Dorothy said, finally curious. She'd taken to everything quite well. She'd understood Charlie when she'd more delicately gone through all the things that made her phone tick, and nodded her understanding when Dean taught her how to use the coffee machine. She drew the line at a search engine, informing Sam that she'd been able to survive without one so far, and that even if she was in this time for good, she'd be able to get by without out 'Goggle' or whatever it was. "What's this film about anyway?"
"It's kind of complicated," Charlie whispered, as Galadriel's voice spilled out of the speakers. "Don't worry, you'll pick it up."
Dean offered Sam some M&M's, flashing a smile as Sam took a healthy handful.
Sam smiled sheepishly and picked at the piled, one by one, making them last. He looked around. Charlie was sitting beside Dorothy, propped up on pillows, head resting on her friends shoulder. Dorothy was enraptured, eyes wide as she took in the screen. Sam wasn't sure how much film had changed since she'd disappeared in the mid 30's, but it probably didn't have thousands of people marching on CGI constructed fields of war.
Then he looked at Dean, and saw that his brother was at peace. His hand still hovered over the mark, but even as he watched, his hands shifted, like he wasn't thinking, like it was starting to...not matter. Dean had gone into relatively deep detail when it came to what Missouri had done, but Sam was still light on the particulars. But it didn't matter, not now. Because here they were, sitting side by side.
Here they were, brother and brother. Side by side, smiling and laughing and trusting.
Home and here, and together. And the world was suddenly, finally, looking up.
"Dean made a Tolkien reference once," Sam said, his voice a little slow with tiredness. The first movie had passed in a blur. Dorothy had cried unashamedly and laughed as well. She seemed to be enjoying herself, and Dean was a little jealous that she was so new to this, and could be so invested in non-reality.
But before that, he had something to take care of. "Yeah, it was really relevant as well."
"What was it?" Charlie asked, a yawn swallowing the very end of her sentence.
"The 'I can carry you' thing," Sam said, detached, eyes blurry as he watched the screen, empty packet of M&M's dangling forgotten at his fingertips.
"Wait," Charlie tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. "Sam's totally the Frodo of this relationship, which makes Dean the Sam."
Sam cleared his throat awkwardly and Dean ducked his head.
Charlie grinned. "I knew it."
"Sorry," Dorothy turned their attention back to the movie. She was frowning at it, tilting her head, and her eyes were narrowed in confusion. "But are you sure that those trees aren't real?"
"It's just the magic of Tolkien, sister," Charlie sighed, laying back into Sam's bed. Then she paused. "With a little assistance from my main man, PJ."
REFERENCES
Return of the Jedi: Chapter 6 of the Star Wars saga.
"You're an honest to god Fletcher Reed, you know that?" - Fletcher Reed was the main character in Liar, Liar (1997)
"I'm gonna have to go all Shawshank on your ass if I have to stay in here for another week." - Shawshank Redemption (1994) is a movie where the main character escapes from a High Security prison.
"Well, it's either that or naming the bunker 'Stalag Luft', right?" - Stalag Luft III was the name of the prisoner of war camp that the 'Great Escape' (1963) is based at.
"Right. We even have Dorothy's motorbike in the garage." - Steve McQueen's character in the Great Escape attempts to get across the Swiss Border in arguably the most famous motorcycle chase scenes of all time.
Few more years and you'll be a dead ringer for Cousin Itt." - Cousin Itt is a character in the Addam's family who had long hair all over his face.
"Just, if I'm cousin Itt, you're Wednesday Addams." - Another character from The Addam's family who was best known for her homicidal thoughts and hatred of everything and everyone.
"On it, Juror number 8." - Juror # 8 was the main character in 12 Angry Men, a movie/play where he convinces the other 11 jurors that the boy on trial is innocent of his father's murder, despite extreme prejudice and racism.
"Don't be a moron, Buzz." - From Home Alone
"I love you." "I know." - Star Wars, Leia and Han Solo
"Me and Dorothy, and then Holmes and Watson?" - From Sir Arthur Conan Doyles mystery's
"C'mon, Marty." - Marty McFly, back to the future.
"Sam's totally the Frodo of this relationship, which makes Dean the Sam." - Some main guys (Kripke or Singer, I think) said that Sam would be the Frodo and Dean the Sam of their relationship. So yay to that right.
FINAL NOTES: Hope you enjoyed it! If you prefer, this is also found on AO3 under the user neatomosquito. Please review if you have the time, thank you! And the next chapters name is: Running Up That Hill
