As soon as he found himself in Harvelle's Heaven, Dean was swept away by a tornado of twittering blondes. He was stripped of his T-shirt, seated on an elaborate chair disturbingly similar to a dentist's chair and pinned down by a critical, withering stare of a middle-aged woman. Winchester closed his eyes, hanging on to the mantra he kept repeating. It wasn't Ellen. Just a copy. Ellen was dead and it wasn't his fault, goddamnit. It wasn't his fault.

"You'll need to take that off, honey," she judged, pointing at Dean's chest. After a few blinks of confusion Winchester realized that she meant the feather he was still wearing on a string around his neck. He had gotten so used to always having it on that he'd almost forgotten about it. Now that he realized he still had it on, the touch of cool, silky vane was strangely soothing.

"No way," he opposed, wondering why anyone would ask him to remove it anyway.

"Suit yourself, sweetie."

She shoved the feather aside and went away; while she was arranging something with Gabriel (to his horror Dean discerned words like "manicure", "eyeliner" and "hair color mousse") one of the workers covered his chest with something sticky, gooey, warm and smelling like fruits. It wasn't until the layer of this sweetly scented goo was covered wit strips of paper that he realized that something was wrong.

Next second a searing pain shot through his whole body. Whimpering and fighting for breath Dean managed to squeal:

"Why the fuck did you do that?"

Instead of answering, the torturer shouted over to her employer, who was still chatting with Gabriel in the adjacent room:

"Mrs Harvelle, he's being a wussy again!"

"Oh, don't mind him. Blade? The less you monkey around, the sooner it's over. Now, Gabe, where were we? Oh, the fake tattoo..."

While she was speaking, the aestetician started doing something Dean didn't like. No, he didn't like it at all.

"Are you nuts? God, no! Not my happy trail! Girls dig it!" he pleaded, feeling the warm heaviness of the wax spread on his belly, "GEEE-SUS-FFU-EN-UGHM!"

-xXx-xXx-xXx-

The first thing Dean heard while approaching the conference room was squeal. Building up, swelling, threatening like the wind before a storm. Dean could hardly believe there were only fifty fans waiting for an exclusive meeting and poster signing session they earned by winning some idiotic writing competition about Dean's - Blade's music and its role in growing up. Unbearable shriek must have been produced by thousands of little throats. Winchester felt like he was about to enter a house-sized hornet nest full of emotionally unstable, adolescent, clingy hornets. The idea of being a celebrity suddenly seemed preposterous. Why would anyone do something like this out of his own volition?

The hunter wambled into the room on shaky legs (it wasn't fear - it was solely because of these ridiculous platform boots). All that kept this crowd from trampling him was a single guardrail and Garth who was doing his damnedest to fend off fifty little bouncing, squealing, swarming monsters.

If Dean had ever dreamed of being chased by enamored women, he regretted it with his whole heart. Admittedly some of the fans were legal, but absolutely not Dean's type. Torn skinny jeans, tule skirts, leather jackets, red and purple hair, piercing... It was just wrong.

"Hello, mr Michaels," one of the most legal fans that had been standing on 'his' side of the guardrail beamed at him, trying to shout over the clamor of the audience; she was bouncing off the walls, though she tried to look professional by clinging to a very professional-looking writing pad which she held in front of her like a shield, "would you like to answer a couple of questions before the face-to-face meeting with the fans?"

Dean's eyes widened. He wasn't sure that it was possible to be more face-to-face than he was at the moment. He was sure that if it was possible, there were really few things he wanted less than this.

"What do you mean?"

There must have been something odd in his throaty voice or angry frown; whatever it was, it made the girls freeze up. The silence that replaced previous happy clamor was almost palpable.

The host looked dispirited.

"Hasn't your agent told you?" somehow she shrunk, collapsed into hersel; her smile faded away, "After the interview each of the winners will have one question for you and a chance to take a selfie with you."

A selfie? Fifty squealing tweens groping him and making faces?

"Yeah, whatever..." he snapped, "let's get it over with. The sooner the better," Dean clapped his hands before sitting on a tall stool, towering over the audience.

The host leaned on the other stool warily. Winchester's brusqueness knocked the wind out of her, yet she struggled to keep a straight face.

"Uhm. Yes. Blade..." the writing pad could no longer protect her from her anxiety; she kept scrunching up a corner of the leaflet clamped to it, "I have prepared several questions concerning your music and your mission, but there is something that seems much more important in the light of recent events. First, let me ask about Jimmy. How is he?"

Dean shrugged, pursing his lips.

"Good, I guess. I mean I haven't heard from him..." he waffled with his look fixed on the interviewer, searching for these slight changes in its expression that would indicate that the answer was sufficient "It... It means he's good..." she still didn't look satisfied, "I mean he's tough. He'll be ok."

Phew. That was it. Winchester felt like he'd been thrown back to high school, where he often had to flounder and talk nonsense until he noticed that the teacher was satisfied with the answer. Thank God he still had this talent of selling the most despicable bullshit and having people take it as face value.

"Is it true that there were some personal..." the girl blushed, "inducements that pushed him towards this nearly suicidal attempt to protect you? You seemed very moved and concerned..." she trailed off, noticing that Dean's expression went from dismissive and jaded to angry.

"It's none of your business!" he growled. The host was taken aback; her eyes widened in utter shock.

The temperature in the conference room dropped to a few degrees above absolute zero.

In this oppressive, ice-cold silence Dean heard pent-up sobbing and a sour whisper:

"See? I told you he's only nice for the camera."

"I can't believe we wrote these stupid essays... It's all a lie!" whimpered another girl - probably the one who'd been trying not to burst into tears.

Excellent. He had been thrown into this world with a mohawk and piercing, he wore butt-squashing pants, tranny boots and makeup for a whole day, he had his chest waxed, he had to pose with a raven - a friggin live huge-ass raven that nearly bit off his nose - for a photo shoot, listen to Garth's babble and now he made a girl cry.

He made a girl cry.

Shit.

Dean stooped, resting his elbows on his thighs and his head on his hands; he took a deep breath, then another, until he felt his voice wouldn't waver.

"Look..." he began wearily, "I've had a terrible day. In fact I had a terrible week. I feel like blowing off everyone and everything and just going home to take a long, long shower and go to bed," forcing each word through his vocal cords was a struggle, but he felt he'd crossed the line; no matter how hard apologizing was, it had to be done, "That doesn't justify fucking up the day you've been looking forward to for so long. You're here because you've written the best essays out of how many contestants?" Dean threw the host a quick glance.

"Five hundred thousand," she was still windy, yet hopeful.

"Woah. Anyway you're here because you wanted it really bad and you were the best at something..." he straightened up slowly as he was speaking, though his look was still firmly fixed at the floor, "You deserved a good time and I acted like a turbo douche. I'm sorry. Can we just start over again?" Dean finally found the guts to look at the audience; he immediately noticed a few pairs of eyes staring back at him in confusion, "I'll be a bit down, because these boots suck and my ba... I mean my legs hurts and my whole face is sticky and my best friend is somewhere I cannot reach him and I don't know if he's all right and I don't know if I will ever have an occasion to apologize for ruining everything, as usual," he blurted; the confusion he had seen melted into understanding and sympathy, "So yes. I'll be grumpy. It can't be helped, but I'll try not to be a massive asshat. There's no reason why my bad temper should ruin this day for you. OK?"

It started with a few happy yelps and a shrill shriek of the girl who'd been blubbering. The clamor built up until it was as loud as before, but somehow Dean didn't mind it that much.

-xXx-xXx-xXx-

There was a short note stuck to a tablet and a bag of candies on his bedstand when he came back to the hotel. The note said: You don't read enough, muttonhead. Check this out and tell me what ya think!

Dean tapped the tablet hesitantly. The content of a pre-loaded webpage hurt his eyes with all the shades of purple on black and a cringeworthy, ornamental font that was probably supposed to resemble letters scraped in metal with a screwdriver. The text was short, though. Apparently Gabriel wanted him to familiarize himself with the winning essay. Whatever. Winchester figured he might as well read it.

When he finished, he had to take a couple of long, deep breaths and swallow hard against a bitter knot forming in his throat.

"Gabe?" he called shakily, "Is this real? Are there people who actually think..."

His phone chimed in the dark, soft silence; the screen lit up, showing one unread message from someone whom he had saved as 'Big G' on the contact list.

YEP it read.

"Damnit," he muttered to himself before wrapping himself in the sheets of egyptian cotton and succumbing to a heavy, dreamless sleep.

-xXx-xXx-xXx-

He woke up in an entirely different room. Everything - the smell, battered wallpapers, ugly and idiotically juxtaposed colors, rough carpeting under his soles - shouted 'motel'. The familiarity of the setting added to a feeling of being well-rested, healthy, relaxed and okay on the whole. Admitedly, the proportions seemed somehow distorted, as if Dean watched the world from a point situated a bit lower than normally, but hell, one could call himself lucky if he'd been tossed about alternate universes and got away with such mild side-effects.

Dean stretched until he heard a clicking sound in his spine; he felt something heavy, wobbly and soft on his chest, but he brushed the observation off, contributing the feeling to having slept in a weird position. Still half-asleep he did what he did every morning: reached down to scratch his...

Oh no...

Hi guys! Thank you so much for your reviews and support. Special big thanks to pyroleigh and CortLand! Kasey123, Tiddo-mus, I hope you'll stay with me :)

I have a question for you all:

I've actually written this "winning essay" and intended to put it in the story, but I figured it would be too sappy, touchy-feelsy, turgid, and, simply speaking, boring. Nonetheless I just love finding songs that I can somehow associate with Supernatural. I've noticed that some of you like it too. Would you like to read it? I could put this "essay" as an AN to the next chapter.