Chapter Six: New Residence

Victor immediately sat up and looked around, taking in every part of his environment, just like he did when he had his visions. He was on a bed, and it smelled like mothballs. The scenery was so classic: the neutral yet cheap décor, the small bathroom to the left, the duffel bags strewn about the tan carpeted floor, and the double beds (who was that over there? Were they still asleep? Yes? Good.) told Gavin that he was in a motel. He had made sure that he would 'land' somewhere in the Florence-Coolidge area. Right near his old home, his old 'hunting ground'. And more importantly: the general area where the portal was.

He didn't pause to wonder what he looked like-he could already tell he'd at least gotten a human male's body and that was a big enough success for him not to care about much else. He looked over at his roommate. It was another guy, a young but fit one. Putting two and two together, Victor couldn't help but smirk. Ten years of avoiding the queers in the big house, and as soon as he gets out he becomes one. Had to love the Ancient Ones' sense of irony.

But Gavin wasn't really in the mood to hang around for the roommate to wake up. He needed clothes, cash, and, if possible, a car. So, he went for the duffel bags on the floor. He chose one and random and quickly unzipped it. The sound of the zipper must have been too loud, because the roommate suddenly began to stir. Victor froze from his position on the floor, barely breathing, his eyes on the roommate, whose soft muttering rose ever so slightly, then died.

Victor breathed in relief, then went back to the bag's contents. He did not find what he had been expecting. There were no clothes, toiletries, cash, car keys, or even freaky sex toys. The bag was filled to the brim with IDs. Gavin just gawked at the sight for a minute, stunned by its magnitude, then picked one out and studied it. The picture was on a young man…the roommate or himself? Victor held it up for a comparison, trying to get a good look at the roommate's face from his position. Yeah, that could be him, but it wasn't definite. Gavin scratched his head, and then he realized how long his hair was, his fingers tracing it just a bit past his ears. Yes, then that must be the roommate. The name was 'James Page'. Okay, well now he knew the roommate's name. He chose another. It was the same picture of the roommate, different name: Keith Moon, and according to this he was a park ranger.

Wait a minute… Jimmy Page from Led Zepplin and Keith Moon from the Who?

He took another-this time a different face. The hair length indicated that it might be his new face, but he wasn't sure. The name was 'Syd Barrett' (leader of Pink Floyd, Gavin realized) and the occupation was a reporter for the New York Times.

Gavin paused for a minute to fully appreciate the size of the bag. He himself had had a couple false IDs on hand back in the day, but this… CIA agents didn't have this many aliases. Whose body had he jumped into? Gavin no longer thought the roommate and his new identity as boyfriends. Conmen seemed much more likely at this point.

Finding the bag of aliases essentially useless, Gavin tossed it aside. He was going to move on to one of the other duffel bags, but something on the floor by his bed caught his eye. It was a book, leather bound and stuffed full of various items. His curiosity getting the better of him, Gavin picked up the book and began to look through it.

It didn't take long for Gavin to realize that one of two things had happened either a)-he'd landed in the body of two nutjobs, or b), the far more intriguing option, these two were the real deal. Werewolves, alchemy, exorcisms…even pixies for cripe's sake! Sketches of monsters and the proper weapons to kill them with. Symbols and the rituals they were used for. English translations of languages most people didn't even know had ever existed. Victor Gavin had, until coming upon this book, assumed that he was in the top of his class when it came to the occult. And he was, compared to the average person. But these two, this new body and the roommate… It was like comparing a child learning about the solar system in elementary school to a NASA scientist.

Gavin flipped ahead to a dog-eared section. His-the new body's-eyes widened upon finding the articles with his (his old) face on them. There were notes scrawled here and there, notes about the sacrifices from ten years ago. Details that the police hadn't released. Gavin eyed the roommate suspiciously. Who in the hell were these guys? And why did they have such an interest in this shit, and, more importantly, him?

It occurred to Victor that maybe running off so soon wasn't the best tactic. No way was this a coincidence; the portal is close to opening and these two guys with a book filled with all kinds of freak show shit just happen to be in a motel in the same place? Maybe they were trying to open it… But the notations of binding spells and directions on how to banish, rather than conjure, demons led Gavin to think otherwise. Maybe these guys were white hats. It wouldn't surprise him; whenever something big was about to go down, folks from both sides showed up at the party.

But Victor supposed it didn't really matter what side they were on. One of them was already out of the picture anyway. The point was that the other one seemed to know what he was doing. And what was the phrase? 'Two heads are better than one?' The roommate, be he Keith Moon, Jimmy Page, or even fucking Howdy Doody, was looking for the portal, as was Victor Gavin, aka Syd Barret, aka Howdy Doody's sidekick.

Playing the part as someone he'd never even met would be a hell of a lot more difficult than just picking up and going on his own. But Victor saw that there was little risk. Hell, just a couple of minutes ago he'd been on death row in a state prison. This was nothing. He could still run off anytime he liked. And besides, exactly how many times does a person actually think that someone they know has switched bodies with another person?

Vic also was looking forward to the challenge. He'd always enjoyed the good con. Conning five idiot teenagers to get into his car had been easy. Conning his naïve lawyer was kid's stuff and priceless. Conning Tucker to be his virtual slave had barely been worth the time. But this… This would be the king of every con ever played if he pulled it off.

Of course, knowing his own and the roommate's name was required for success. Gavin flipped through the book, searching for clues. But there was nothing; the book seemed strictly business, despite it obviously being a personal possession.

Whoever put it together must be a real hard ass, Vic thought to himself.

Finally, he found one page that stuck out. It was written in large, hurriedly scrawled print, and short, like a message. 'Dean 85-118'. Dean… That could be his new name. Or the roommate's. Or someone else's.

Gavin sighed in frustration. He was about to move to the next duffel bag, but the shifting in his weight caused the floor boards beneath him to creek loudly in protest.

There was a sudden scurry of fluttered sheets and hitched breath from behind, and Gavin turned to see the roommate sitting up in bed, a dagger held out protectively before him.

Shit, Gavin thought, as he kept his face strategically blank, Paranoid much, Howdy?

Dean, light sleeper that he was, had started upon hearing the loud sound, knife out and ready for any attacker that was going to harm himself or his brother. But he saw no dark figure looming over him or the other bed-which was empty. Where was Sammy? Then Dean spotted him on the floor, apparently the source of the noise. Dean breathed with relief as he placed the knife back under his pillow.

"Damn it, Sam. What are you doing, making me think the fucking boogeyman snuck in?" Dean asked, adding humor and a cut to shield himself from any embarrassment.

Gavin wasn't sure how to respond. Too late to re-think pulling the scam. He was caught off guard, and not quite ready to pretend to be in character. He was also a little more focused on discovering that his new name was apparently Sam.

Dean looked over at the clock. It felt early, and the blinking red lights confirmed his suspicions. "What the hell are you doing? It's five in the morning!"

Gavin may not have been ready to pull the con, but he'd been in prison, and there was one thing you told people when they asked what you were doing and you didn't want to tell them.

"Nothing," he replied simply with a voice that wasn't his own. It was youthful and strong. He rose slowly, turning his face away so as to not give anything away. He looked down at the open page in his hands. 'Dean 85-118'. Well, it was a better guess than Howdy Doody. "Nothing, Dean."

Dean looked concernedly at his brother. Why was he up at five reading Dad's journal? Why else? "You have another weird dream?" he asked.

"No." It was a fifty-fifty question, and if he'd said 'yes', Gavin knew that he'd probably have to describe the dream, and he didn't have the energy to make up a convincing one.

"Then get back to bed, Sammy," Dean commanded irritably as he rolled back over. Of course, he understood why Sam would want to avoid sleep. He'd acted weird all of yesterday because of the last one. Not to mention the normal nightmares. But they were on a hunt for a portal to Hell that was supposed to open sometime in the next week. Sam was going to have to get things together.

Gavin decided to obey, setting the book back down and walking over to the bed. It was an odd moment for him, where he was actually listening to a person's orders with out question. So his new name was Sam, and the roommate was Dean. He had a week, or until the location of the portal was discovered,to use that information to pass as this new body's true owner.

Sam slowly came into consciousness. His first thought was 'Oh good, it doesn't hurt anymore.' He was confused, wondering where that had come from. Then it came back. The inability to move, the force pressing down… Shit, what a dream! They seemed to be getting worse with every night. That unsettling feeling had still carried over into the waking world, and had intensified. He began to open his eyes, ready to have the same routine as yesterday. See the motel room, the duffel bags, the laptop, the mothball smelling beds (which didn't smell so bad anymore…in fact, he couldn't smell any mothballs). But above all, see Dean. Hear him make some 'shining' jokes, then get all concerned about him in that big brother way. That was all Sam needed.

As soon as he opened his eyes, however, Sam knew that something was wrong. The ceiling of the motel room was a sick, faded yellow. Dean had commented that it looked like Goldilocks had puked the stolen porridge up there. This ceiling was white washed. And the floor… This was not the lumpy mattress, nor the scratchy carpet. It was cold concrete.

Sam sat up and looked around his new environment, his heart starting to beat faster. It was a cell, all white washed, about five feet wide and just over ten feet long. Near by, there was a cot with a steel frame and a thin, green woolen blanket on top. A TV sat on a plain table across from the bed. Pipes lined a portion of the left wall.

The 'dream' hadn't been one at all; it had actually happened, Sam knew as his stomach churned with worry. He really had been taken away. But away to where?

Sam stood and, upon the peculiar touch against his skin, he looked down to finally realize that he wasn't wearing the 'Notre Dame' t-shirt and boxer shorts anymore. In their place was a light blue uniform and a white undershirt. Damn it, where the hell was he?

And where was Dean? Sam's concern immediately jumped to his brother. Had Dean been taken as well? Was he in a cell similar to this, trying to figure out what the hell had happened, or in worse condition? Or there was the flip side of the coin: he was either already was or was soon going to be crazy with worry about his missing little brother. But if that was the case, than Sam knew that Dean was going to do everything in his power to find him and rescue him. Again.

Sam had to smirk at that thought. Once again, he'd been kidnapped and put in a cell, with little else to do than twiddle his thumbs and wait for Dean to show up. Well, at least the place looked a bit more comfortable than the Benders' humble abode. Still, the motive for his placement here could be just as sinister.

There was light shining in from a barred window at the other end of the cell. Sam decided that he could look out of it to try and figure out where he was. It was warm… not a bad, spook sort of warm, but the hot Arizona morning kind that he'd been exposed to in these past few days. Okay, so he was still in Arizona, or at least in the west. And given how dry the air felt, it was in the desert.

When he got to the window, Sam got even more puzzled. The window wasn't more than six feet off the ground, probably to give the occupant better ventilation to relieve them from the heat. The clothes were long sleeved and probably made of a cheap fabric, like polyester. It wasn't exactly comfortable. But despite the low level of the window, Sam couldn't reach it. He was about an inch or so short of looking out of it. Sam paused for a minute to try to figure out how this was possible. He ran his hand through his hair…

Wait.

He'd thought that his neck had felt cooler than normal. It was short, close-cropped.

Sam was slowly starting to fall into the waves of panic that he'd been suppressing since waking up. That feeling of not belonging, of being unnatural, was all over him, suffocating him. He'd been kidnapped, his clothes changed, his hair cut, and his height somehow altered. And all the while, what, he'd been knocked out? Winchesters were light sleepers themselves, but nobody stayed totally out of it when their hair was cut and their clothes changed.

Magic was the only answer Sam could think of. He decided to just leave it at that until he figured out where he was and/or a way to escape.

He stepped up onto a cluster of pipes (he was wearing Velcro shoes. Why?) and grabbed the two bars of the small window to hoist himself up to see out of it.

The vista that greeted him was flat desert stretching as far as the eye could see, a rather depressing reward for his efforts. Directly below him and off to the side were bleak gray buildings with larger windows, also with bars. Sam could also see the chain-link fence with rings of barbed wire at the top that seemed to encircle the whole compound. A watchtower stood to the right where a uniformed guard stood with a rifle in hand.

Sam's eyes widened and he could feel his heart pounding as it began to dawn on him where he was. He jumped back down to the ground. He looked at the rectangular patch sewn to his chest. A series of black numbers stared back at him: 3278459.

He was in prison.

"Shit," Sam muttered. But as soon as he'd spoken, he started. Sam didn't curse all that often, that was more Dean's thing. When he said it, it sounded unnatural, like a politician or priest saying it. But that wasn't why a chill was going down Sam's spine at the oath. It was because his voice hadn't spoken. A rough, older voice with a Southern or Texan flavor had said it instead.

Sam looked at his hands, which were shaking as he raised them. They were tan, older, and callused. And there were definitely not his.

He was in jail, shorter, and wearing someone else hands.