Author's Note: I may own Supernatural season 11 on DVD, but I don't own these characters. Spoiler alert for episode: The French Mistake.
Chapter Inspiration: The Twilight Zone Theme Song
Chapter 8
Dean was ready to get back to his universe with Sam, but he needed to find answers, and Hermione. She had been asleep upstairs at Bobby's, and if there was a threat to them, there was a threat to her and his baby. A threat he needed to protect them from. He stormed out of a nearby door, on a mission to find her, when his eyes fell on the first relieving sight. A smile bloomed on his face for the first time.
"At least my baby made it." He told Sam, who had followed him out.
He made for the car, chuckling slightly with his relief, until some guy walked over to it, and started splattering what looked like mud all over her wind shield. "He-hey!" Dean angrily exclaimed, ready to tear the guy a new one. Unfortunately for him, before he could, his eyes caught sight of several "Baby's," all in varying conditions: from polished and perfect, to wrecked, with no tires, or doors on the body. "I feel sick. I'm going to be sick."
Sam looked at Dean concerned. He'd gone pale, and actually looked like he was going to throw up. They needed to figure out a way out of here and fast. Before Sam could say anything to calm his brother down though, Dean started walking away. He figured he'd be searching for Hermione now. When he caught up to his older brother, Dean continued talking.
"I want to go home." He complained. "I feel like this place is bad touching me."
"Yeah, I know, me too." Sam empathized. "So what do you think? Cas?"
"It's our best shot, if he's still alive." Dean replied, both walking aimlessly. They stopped in front of a fake door, and the elder Winchester started to pray. "Dear Castiel, who art maybe running his ass away from heaven, we pray that you have your ears on. So, breaker, breaker..."
The end of the prayer trailed off as Dean cracked his eyes to look at Sam, who shrugged. For some reason, they both looked through the opening in the fake doorway to see Castiel standing there, staring as he usually does. "Cas? Cas! Hey!" Dean said, making a break for the angel. "Oh thank God, what is all this, huh? Wh-what did Balthazar do to us?"
Castiel's eyes narrowed on Dean. "To keep you out of Virgil's reach, he's cast you into an alternate reality. A universe that is similar to ours in most respects, yet dramatically different in others." He replied.
"Like, like, bizzaro earth, right? And instead of bizarro superman, we get this clown factory." Dean complained.
"Um, yeah, well, anyway, no time to explain. Do you have the key?" Castiel, though confused by Dean's words, directed his question about the key to Sam, who dug it from his jacket pocket.
"So, um, what does this thing do anyway?" Sam asked, handing the key to Cas.
"It opens a room." Castiel responded vaguely.
"What's in the room?" Dean asked.
"Every weapon Balthazar stole from heaven." Cas replied, the seriousness of the situation reflected on his face.
"He gave it to us?" Dean asked, incredulous once again.
"To keep it safe until I could reach you. With those weapons, I have the chance to rally my forces." Cas replied, a single nod to Dean.
"Oh, okay, good, yeah." Sam replied, the weight of it all sinking into his brain. "So now, uh, what's the deal with all this TV crap?"
"Pardon?" Castiel asked, confusion building in his blue eyes.
"Amen Padaleski. And where's Hermione, while you're at it" Dean added to Sam's question.
"Uh, lecki." Sam said. Dean shot him a confused look. "Padalecki, I'm pretty sure.
Dean was looking both confused, and nervous at Sam, before a whiny "Man, did they put out new pages?" came from Castiel's mouth. Dean turned to see Castiel flipping through random pieces of paper in his hands. He was sure that Cas hadn't had those in his hands when they were just talking.
"What?" Dean questioned, not understanding the question.
"Is this some kind of cosmic joke?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, because if it is, it's stupid, and we don't get it." Dean tacked on.
"Yeah." Sam agreed.
"You guys okay? You don't remember that Emma isn't working today?" Castiel's voice was no longer the deep, gruff, monotone any longer. It was higher in pitch now, and he was removing his tie. He unbuttoned the white dress shirt to reveal some kind of powder blue t-shirt beneath.
"Give me this." Dean replied, yanking the pages out of Castiel's hand.
"These are words in a script. This isn't Cas." Dean said to Sam.
"Dude, look at him." It was the only thing Sam could think of. He looked like Castiel, and before, he'd sounded just like him.
"You guys want to run lines?" The fake Castiel asked. "I'm sure Emma would, but she's not in until tomorrow."
"His name's Misha. Misha?" Dean was beginning to feel even more overwhelmed.
"Oh wow." Sam burst out, yanking the key from, well, Misha's, not Castiel's hand.
Both men stalked away after taking the key back. "Misha? Jensen? What's up with the names around here?" Dean asked Sam as they walked. They may not have known where they were walking to, but they felt the need to get as far away from fake Castiel as possible.
"Oh, you guys! You really punked me! I'm totally going to tweet this one!" Misha called after them, much to their annoyance.
"I just want to dig my fingers in my brain and scratch until we're back in Kansas." Dean commented to Sam, after they'd gotten out of hearing range of fake Castiel.
As they walked, Sam noticed a row of trailers to their right. He turned to study them when he noticed something on the door of one of them. "Hey," he said to Dean to get his attention. Pointing to the sign he read aloud "J. Ackles."
"That's fake me." Dean said, pointing to his own chest.
"Yeah." Sam agreed.
"This must be fake mine!" Dean mused with a smile. Maybe there was somewhat of an upside to this situation.
Deciding to check it out, the boys opened the door and stepped inside. The first thing Dean spotted, was a remote-controlled helicopter. "Dude, I have a helicopter."
"Who puts a 300-gallon aquarium in their trailer?" Sam asked, having spotted one in the opposite direction of the helicopter Dean's eyes had gravitated to.
Turning around, Dean spotted the object of Sam's inquiry. "Apparently, Jensen Ackles." He replied blinking.
Spotting a laptop on a table, Sam decided to do what he did best; research. "All right, here we go." Sam celebrated. "Let's see who this guy is."
"Well, he's not a hunter, but he plays one on TV." Dean observed sarcastically.
Sam already had a search engine up, and was typing in the name 'Jensen Ackles'. He was curious to figure out who was playing his brother for a public audience.
"Oh, come on. Look at these male modeling sons of bitches. Nice blue steel Sam." Dean complained, holding up a magazine he'd found so Sam could see their faces on the cover.
Sam shrugged. "Hey, apparently, it's our job."
Dean turned to look at a television mounted on a wall. He could see running footage of who he assumed were Jared Padalecki, and Jensen Ackles.
"All right, here goes. Um, it says you're from Texas." Sam read.
"Really?" Dean asked.
"Yeah." Sam confirmed, seeing Dean's 'it could be worse' face. "And... Uh, oh, it says you were on a soap opera."
Dean's face dropped into one of sheer terror at the words soap, and opera, having anything to do with him. "What?" He questioned just as Sam hit play on a video clip. Dean rushed over to the laptop to watch over Sam's shoulder. Both boys watched the clip play out with confused, and slightly horrified looks on their faces. If ever there was an argument that soap operas were crappy television, this clip proved it. Before the clip was finished, Dean reached out and slapped the lid down to stop the playback. Looking anywhere but at Sam, he said: "Don't like this universe, Sammy. We need to get out of this universe."
"Yeah, no argument here, but I don't think our prayers are reaching Cas. Or the real Cas." Sam said.
"No, I agree. I think we are definitely out of soul phone range, but..." Dean paused, as he picked up a legal pad that had been sitting on a table, along with a pen.
"What?" Sam asked, curious as to where Dean was going with his observation.
"If we can reverse Balthazar's spell. I watched every move. If we just, uh, get the ingredients, right? Get back to that same window, and..." Dean observed before turning the pad around to reveal his replica drawing of the sigil Balthazar drew on the window at Bobby's. "There's no place like home. I can go back to protecting my family."
Sam nodded, agreeing that Dean's plan sounded like the way to go. At least they had a set of stuff that was supposed to be the same as everything the real Bobby had. Making their way from the trailer, they avoided everyone, not even speaking when spoken to. They were on a mission to get back home, using the stuff in the Bobby's house set. What they didn't know, was that the joke would be on them.
"Bone of a lesser saint!" Sam exclaimed pulling it from a desk drawer. Except it felt different. "Got it, uh…" Bringing up his other hand, his fingers began to inspect the piece in his hand. "It's rubber." He informed Dean after a moment of playing with it. Sam bounced it off the top of the desk for emphasis.
Dean picked up a knife, it looked exactly like the demon killing knife. "Dude, check this out." The elder Winchester said to the taller one, while bending the 'blade' back and forth. Grabbing another fake knife, oblivious to the audience they suddenly had, Dean stabbed Sam with no warning, to demonstrate how the fake blade retracted into the handle "Hey, look, it's fake. It's all fake."
Sam startled when Dean stabbed him with the fake knife, but quickly calmed once he realized it wasn't real. He watched Dean use the fake knife to pretend stab himself in the chest and arms, a growing sense of discontent gnawing at his stomach. He figured his older brother was using this as a distraction. He knew that being away from Hermione and the baby had to be driving him insane, because it meant they were vulnerable to Raphael, Virgil, and every other angel after them.
"What are we supposed to do with this crap?" Dean asked grumpily to Sam, tossing a fake machete in the air and letting it fall wherever. Sam shrugged before walking away.
They walked outside once again, towards an Impala that looked like it'd run. "Of course everything is fake, we're on a film set." Sam observed grumpily to Dean. "We need to get back to the real world."
"Now you're talking." Dean agreed, panic at not having seen Hermione anywhere, beginning to eat at him.
Pulling the Impala doors open, the brothers settled in their usual seats: Dean behind the wheel, Sam sitting shotgun. The engine fired with a squeal that made Dean cringe, but didn't deter him from driving. He drove her down random road ways, trying to find the way out of the crazy they'd landed in the middle of.
"All right, we go round up the genuine articles, bring them back here, and work the spell. What the hell is going on...?" Dean said, noticing that the Impala was definitely not driving like his baby. "What is wrong with this thing?"
At that moment, a kid who looked like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, started knocking on the driver's side window yelling through the glass: "Mr. Ackles! Mr. Ackles! Please, sir! Please, stop!" He was begging Dean, while running alongside the moving vehicle.
"Uh, Dean, it's not the Impala." Sam observed.
"You think? It's a freaking prop, just like everything else." Dean got defensive to disguise the dejection he'd felt that even his car was included in the whacky. He stopped the car, slammed the transmission into park, and got out of the car, much to the nervous kid's relief.
"Thank you, thank you so much." The kid said.
"How the hell are we supposed to get out of here?" Dean questioned, he was gruffer with the kid than he normally would be, but he'd had a long day of crazy, a vulnerable woman he cared about, who was pregnant with his kid, that he was worried sick about, and a brother who he was pretending to be calm for.
"Uh, the car service?" The kid's response came out as more of a question than a statement. The sudden hostile nature of the actor was scaring him more than that of the props manager who'd seen the boys driving the car away.
"Where is it?" Sam asked in a slightly less hostile tone.
The kid nervously pointed back down the roadway Dean had been driving on. "See that garage you passed about half way down? That's where it is."
"Thanks." Sam replied, moving to lead Dean away from the nervous kid.
"We've been sent to crazy town." Dean muttered following after Sam.