Author's Note: These characters belong to their creators, not me. Spoiler alert for episode: The French Mistake.
Chapter Inspiration: Who's On First by Abbott & Costello
Chapter 7
It was finally down to the day before Hermione's appointment with her healer. Since they'd agreed that she was staying at Bobby's, Dean had tried to talk her into finding a doctor in Sioux Falls. However, Hermione had insisted that she could do that after she found out what the baby was with the healer she'd been seeing from the beginning. Dean was worried about her apparating in her condition, which had prompted him to write a letter to Harry, asking him if it would be safe. The response had yet to come in, which was probably now delayed, thanks to the tempest that was rolling through the area.
While the rain, snow, and hail mix pounded down outside; the inside of Bobby's house had Hermione sound asleep in a bedroom on the second floor, Dean drinking while doing internet research in Bobby's study, and Sam sorting through lore books in the living room. Finishing the stack of books he'd been reading, Sam took them into the study, to return them to their place.
"Where's Bobby?" Sam asked. He'd been so engrossed he hadn't realized the older hunter had left.
"In town, supply run." Dean replied, jerking his chin towards the window to his left.
Sam's eyes widened as his brows simultaneously pulled down into a frown, in a look of sheer disbelief. "In this?" He asked.
"Yeah, the man's a hero. We are officially out of hunter's helper." Dean replied, picking up an empty liquor bottle.
"Where's Hermione?" Sam asked curiously. He just realized he hadn't seen her in a while either.
"Asleep. Went up almost an hour ago," Dean replied, looking toward the ceiling.
At that moment, the lights started to flicker, causing both brothers to look around frantically. Either the power was failing, or something supernatural was coming for them. Footsteps sounded, and unceremoniously, Balthazar came striding towards the study with a casual "Hello boys."
Dean stood from his chair, and both Winchesters watched the eccentric angel as he bustled his way through the living room, into the study, to stand behind Bobby's desk. "You've seen the Godfather, right?" He continued to address the speechless brothers.
"Balthazar?" Dean questioned, feeling dread as to why the angel would be there, and concern because Hermione, and his baby were sleeping peacefully upstairs, vulnerable.
"You know the end, Where Michael Corleone sends his men to kill his enemies in one, big, bloody swoop?" Balthazar continued, ignoring Dean completely as Sam looked on in bewilderment.
"Hey!" Dean exclaimed, tired of being ignored when he sensed a threat.
Balthazar continued to ignore Dean as he turned to a shelf where he pulled a box. Inspecting the label, he muttered "Dead Sea brine, good, good," before pouring some in a bowl he'd placed on the corner of Bobby's desk that no one had noticed before. "Moe Green gets it in the eye, then Cuneo gets it in the revolving door..."
"I said: hey." Dean interrupted again, his voice hard.
"You did, twice. Good for you." Balthazar patronized Dean, patting him on the arm in a very sarcastic manner, much to Dean's irritation.
"Blood of lamb, blood of lamb…" Balthazar continued as if nothing had just transpired, looking around. An idea popped into his head, and he transported himself to the refrigerator to poke around there. "Beer, cold pizza... Blood of lamb!" Both brothers continued to look at the angel, now both equally bewildered.
"Why are you talking about the Godfather?" Sam asked, wondering if there was a point to Balthazar's intrusion, and constant commentary.
"Because we're in it. Right now, tonight," Balthazar started, looking at the boy's whose faces, once bewildered, were now drawn in concern. "and in the role of Michael Corleone, the archangel, Raphael." They watched as the angel poured the lambs blood he'd found, into the bowl with the salt.
"You mind telling us what you mean?" Dean questioned, now downright scared, and not just for himself.
Instead of answering, Balthazar went back to his muttering, this time pulling out a drawer from Bobby's desk. Items came flying from it, as he dug around, searching frantically for something. The angel decided to dump out everything into the chair Dean originally had been sitting in, then tried pulling out the bottom of the drawer. It lifted easily, and drew a relieved comment from Balthazar. Pulling a baggie, he held it up in the air between two fingers for the boys to look at. "Bone of a lesser saint." He explained. "This vertebra will do very nicely. Your mister Singer does keep a beautiful pantry."
Dean watched him dump the bone from the bag and begin crushing it in his hand. "Wait, Raphael is after you?" He questioned. Nothing Balthazar had told him so far was adding up.
"Raphael is after us all. You see, he's consolidated his strength, and now, he's on the move." Balthazar explained, as he crushed up the bone into fine pieces over the bowl of blood and salt.
"And where's Cas?" Sam asked, concerned. He knew Cas would be public enemy number one on Raphael's hit list.
"Oh, Cassie? He is deep, deep underground. So, good old Raphi put out a hit list on every, last Samaritan who helped our dear Cas. Including both of you, and so much more importantly, me." Balthazar replied. "See, he wants to draw Cas out in the open."
"You expect us to just believe you?" Sam questioned. He knew Balthazar, and the eccentric angel was also a tad shifty.
"Oh don't, he'll go right through you either way." Balthazar commented, while using the contents of the bowl to paint a sigil on the window Dean had been sitting across from.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean asked.
Before Balthazar could come up with another witty retort to answer Dean, the lights once again started flickering on and off. Everyone looked around at the ominous sign. "And that's all the time we have today gentlemen." Balthazar said, starting to check his pockets for something. Stepping closer to Dean, he pulled his coat to the side to check an interior pocket revealing a t-shirt that had a rather large bloodstain on it.
"Woah, what happened there?" Dean asked, frowning.
Looking at the stain then back at Dean, the angel replied, "Oh, garish I know. You see, uncle Raphi sent one of his nastiest to handle me. I'm flattered actually, and down on luck, but that's all right." He then extended a key towards Sam. "Well, here's for you."
Sam looked at the key, confusion once again written all over his face. It's not every day an angel is handing you a mysterious key, while informing you that there was a death sentence on your head. Not to mention the mixing ingredients in a bowl, to paint mysterious sigils on windows. "What am I supposed to do with this?" The younger Winchester questioned.
"Run with it." Balthazar responded, his tone conveying the seriousness of the instructions. Before he could tell them anything else though, Balthazar was being thrown through the air. He landed with a thud and a yell. The brothers moved to check on the angel, when the whoosh of wings sounded. Looking to their left, they saw a man moving through the living room straight for them.
"Virgil." Balthazar greeted, lifting himself from the floor to his feet.
The man, now identified as Virgil, didn't even acknowledge Balthazar. Just continued to walk determinedly in their direction. "I SAID, RUN!" Balthazar yelled at Sam and Dean, before throwing out his hand, his grace propelling the brothers backward through the window. When they landed however, things would not be the same.
Dean felt the flying, the window breaking at his back, and the sensation of falling. What he didn't expect, was a landing that felt softer than what it should have been. He popped up ready to keep fighting to see, well, not Bobby's salvage yard. Instead of looking at the driveway where he knew it should be, he saw people, lights, and expensive looking equipment. Before his brain could process everything he was seeing, someone with a higher pitched, grating voice yelled "CUT!" It was followed by the sound of a bell, identical to the kind high schools used to indicate the changing of classes. From the corner of his eye, Dean could see Sam in a similar position, his body language indicating he'd been prepared to pop up in the middle of a fight.
Eyes wide, they didn't expect the strange people standing around them to start clapping as if they'd seen a performance.
What the hell did you do Balthazar? Dean wondered.
If Dean didn't think things could get worse for him, some guy came over and smacked his ass, complementing his fall. Dean was too stunned to even register that he had called him by some other name. He blinked a few times in bewilderment, feeling very uneasy about this new situation he found himself in. All he wanted to do in that moment, was find Hermione and crawl into bed with her, so he could sleep this away. He tried closing his eyes to try and get rid of the vivid nightmare, but someone yelling "JARED, JENSEN." Had his eyes popping open once again. He and Sam looked at each other, before facing the direction the voice came from.
"Outstanding! That was just great!" A short, overweight, mostly bald guy told Sam and Dean from behind some expensive looking technological equipment.
Frowning, Dean looked at the guy, as Sam who'd caught movement out of the corner of his eye watched a young man with something in his hand run up behind them. Dean turned his head when he heard a young man yelling behind him.
"Supernatural, scene 1, echo, take one, tail slate, marker." Then brought the two parts of the thing in his hands together, a cracking sound echoing in the large room everyone appeared to be in.
To say the brothers were confused, and overwhelmed, would be an understatement of mythic proportions. There was a burst of activity from various people all around them, as they got up from the mat they'd landed on. Looking through the window, they saw an area set up to look just like Bobby's study.
"So, no angels." Sam observed in a hushed tone.
"No angels I think." Dean confirmed, looking everywhere, at everything.
"Should we be killing anybody?" Sam asked, looking around him, at his surroundings as well.
"I don't think so." The older Winchester guessed.
"Running?" Sam questioned, trying to figure out what he should be doing.
"Where?" Dean asked.
The boys took a closer look at the stuff around them. Sam decided to pick up a piece of what looked like glass, what he wasn't expecting, was for it to flop around like a stretched out gummy bear. He wiggled it in Dean's face, the later giving a disgusted look at the wiggly fake-glass. For a while no one was paying attention to them, so they just explored, like overgrown children. Finally, someone yelled about moving on, and the lights above Sam and Dean came on. Another man called something about a "wrap," which made Dean's stomach growl.
A woman rushed up to Sam grabbing his arm, and dragged him away from Dean. "Jared, a few minutes', okay?" She asked at the same time Sam was asking Dean, "Who the hell are…"
Dean turned to follow his brother and the pushy, but perky blonde. "Where're we going?" Dean loudly whispered.
Before Sam could answer though, another girl, this time with brown hair, intercepted Dean, and herded him in a different direction. "Jensen, there you are. Let's just get you in the chair." She guided him enthusiastically towards a chair, that was sitting in front of a counter, that had all sorts of stuff on it. A lighted mirror rose from it at a ninety-degree angle, positioned so that the chair, and Dean, were reflected from the center of the reflective surface.
"The chair?" Dean questioned, not understanding what the importance of the chair was, although the lighted mirror was making him nervous. Not to mention the pictures of him and Sam hanging above the lights.
"Okay, we're just going to get this makeup off your face." The woman said, grabbing some tissues from a box, then lifting them as to wipe his cheek.
He laughed at the absurdity of that statement, grasping for her wrist to stop the wiping. "Wait, I'm not wearing any make..." Dean's protest was cut short when he saw the section of tissue that had touched his skin, had come away with color on it. Horror sunk into his bones when he realized he not only had a different name, and had crashed through fake glass, now he was wearing makeup like some girl. He looked in the mirror and raised a hand to his other cheek. "Oh crap, I'm a painted whore." He said aloud.
At this point the brunette was looking at him like he'd lost his mind. She wasn't sure what to make of the man in the chair. He slumped down in the chair and prayed she got the makeup he was wearing off him, and quickly. If this is what he thought it was, this could be really, really bad. He almost wished he were Sam, who was off somewhere with a pushy, perky, blonde. Guilt poured through Dean as a picture of Hermione suddenly came to his brain. It consumed him so quickly he didn't register the words "Okay, you're done." From the brunette, he just got up and took off, power walking in the direction Sam had been herded in. Luckily, his brother had finished whatever it was he'd been forced into, and was on his way back to find Dean.
"Dude, they put freaking makeup on us. Those bastards." Dean complained once he'd reached the younger Winchester.
"Look, I think I know what this is." Sam replied, semi-calmer than his older brother.
"Okay, what?" Dean questioned, momentarily side tracked from the Hermione situation to hear where in the world they were.
"It's a TV show." Sam said.
"You think?" Dean replied sarcastically.
"I mean here, where ever 'here' is. This-this twilight zone Balthazar zapped us into, for whatever reason, our life is a TV show." Sam went on to explain.
"Why?" Dean asked.
Sam shrugged. "I don't know."
"No, seriously. Why? Why would anybody want to watch our lives?" Dean questioned. So far as he knew, there was nothing about their lives worth watching.
"Well, according to the interviewer, not very many people do." Sam started. At Dean's annoyed face he continued quickly: "Look, I'm not saying it makes sense. I'm just saying we landed in some dimension where you're Jensen Ackles, and I'm something called a Jared Padalecki."
"So, what, now you're Polish?" Dean questioned incredulously. "Is any of this making any sense to you? To top it all off, where's Hermione?" Before Sam could reply to any of his rapid-fire questions, Dean walked away, pushing open a door to the outside.