Sam's already talking when he slides into the car. "We have got to get out of here, man, this place is a freak...show." He stumbles when he catches sight of Misha against the far door and gives Dean a miniscule expression that probably translates to What the hell is he doing here?
Misha manfully resists the impulse to just say "Hello, Sam," and stare; it would be cruel, even though he isn't in costume. "Hi," he says instead, with his most disarming smile. On the other side of the privacy screen, Clif puts the car back in gear. "I'm Misha Collins. You must be Sam Winchester." Sam gives his brother a wide-eyed look and Dean shrugs sheepishly. "He had it figured out before I even walked in the door," he says. Sam transfers his stare to Misha, who shrugs in his turn and says, "I am that good." He wasn't actually sure until the first kiss, but he sees no need to mention that; anyone who doesn't buy the flake act gets the evil genius act instead. "And you don't need to pretend you think it's a joke."
"Uh. OK," Sam says slowly. He eyes Misha's sweater dubiously (which he cannot be blamed for in the least; it's an extremely dubious garment). "So...what are you doing with us?"
"For one thing, it's more in character for me to ride to work with Jensen than it is for you," Misha says. "For another, there's something you need to see before you get your saint's bone." Dean produces the script like a magician pulling doves from his sleeves; it's already open to the relevant page. Sam takes the pages and skims them quickly. Misha can see the moment when he hits the failed spell.
"Crap," Sam says.
Misha nods at him to continue and he does. When he gets to Misha's murder he draws a sharp breath and glances over. "Yeah," Misha says. "You can see why I'm not big on the idea of any of us going to the set today."
Sam looks at Dean, who is not covering his pout as well as he thinks he is, and says, "I can see why you don't want to go, but the two of us probably should. Assuming this script is what's actually supposed to happen, we can't change things too much; it might change how Virgil reacts."
"Sam," Misha sighs. "I can't let you quit Jared's job for him, OK?"
"So I won't," Sam says. "This looks like it's mostly because I'm pissed off and scared of being stuck here. If we know there's a way back, we can take it."
"We don't know there's going to be a way back," Dean says tightly. This is where the argument he and Misha have been having all morning keeps running aground. "We're not letting some dick angel slit Misha's throat, but if Virgil doesn't make his call who knows what Raphael will do?"
"I dunno, Dean," Sam says thoughtfully. Misha's fascinated, watching the wheels turn over in the younger Winchester's head. "According to this, Virgil isn't even here yet. That gives us some maneuvering room. His timeline won't change until we interact with it."
"Yeah, but what good does that do us?" Dean asks. "If we don't let him kill Misha, he'll pick someone else unless we stop him, and stopping him means we're all stuck here."
"Wait a second, wait just a second." Misha sits forward in his seat, elbows on his knees, and buries his hands in his hair. There's an idea at the edges of his mind, and if he can just grab it... "What if we make a call?" he asks, sitting up again. The other two stare at him.
After a second, Dean says, "What, you'll be happier if I cut your throat instead?"
Misha shakes his head. "No, of course not. The spell needs blood, a fair amount of blood—but only about as much as you give when you donate. If it's just the amount, there are ways to get it that aren't lethal. But think about where it comes from. Demons wouldn't have any problem with killing people, and Virgil—he'd kill me just because."
"Because?" Dean says. Sam and Misha give him identical looks of disbelief.
"Because I look like Castiel," Misha explains. It's kind of cute how disgusted Dean gets at that. "Probably why he picks me. But the fact that they do kill people doesn't mean they have to. We might be able to cast the spell without killing anyone."
"We don't know the words," Sam protests.
Misha grins. "We can, though. I'll have to dig up the episode, or no—we can check the transcript in the wiki."
Sam visibly decides to let that go, and says, "OK, stipulating that we can, what good would it do?"
"We can coordinate with people on your side. So even if we stop Virgil, someone else can pull you back." Misha is willing to admit to himself that he'll be sad to see them go, but not nearly sad enough to leave Jared and Jensen trapped in monster-land.
By the time they get to the airport, they have a plan. It's a necessarily sketchy plan, with a lot of contingencies and what-ifs, but it's a plan.
Sam gets the package, opens it, and makes a big show of being confused and worried for Clif's benefit. Misha insisted that Sam at least try to return the damn thing, because even for a household with two successful actors in it, the bone cost a non-trivial amount of money. Jared's probably going to be out the costs of shipping, but that's survivable. Sam gets on the phone to the credit card company as they head for the studio.
Dean almost rebels at the prospect of having makeup put on but Sam and Misha manage to quell him. Misha, meanwhile, doesn't technically need makeup quite this early but decides to get his done in order to show solidarity. Once he's painted up and the stylist has done her quick scrunch of his hair—he's kind of amused how little effort they put into Castiel's fought-with-a-windstorm look these days—he goes in search of supplies.
The bowl is easy; there are three of them in the props lockup, and the kid on the desk buys the story about needing one for a prank with no hint of protest. Misha promises to say he swiped it if caught, and that's the end of that.
Bactine and gauze and surgical tape require raiding a first aid kit; fortunately, there are several stashed around. None of them are elaborate enough to contain a large-gauge needle, though, and Misha runs out of time before he can think of another place to find one. He stashes the stuff he's collected in his trailer and pulls on Castiel's suit with a feeling like he's putting his skin back on right. Before he slips his phone into the trenchcoat pocket he tweets "Joke yesterday? Less of a joke than I thought. Worried about J2 but Dean's a good kisser." He grins. That should drive the fangirls nuts.
They get through his scene with Sam and Dean enough better than the script that Misha at least isn't fearing for Jensen's job. He makes comments about "Jared" being worried about the huge purchase on his card, and Dean has enough of a grasp on pretending to be what he's not that he remembers to fake pre-migraine symptoms periodically. It's not perfect, but everyone has off-days, and eventually they even get Sam to stop doing the weird stuff with his arms.
Misha, meanwhile, is finding it very easy to stay in character. In part that's because he doesn't have Jared standing out of the shot making silly faces at him, but he suspects it also has something to do with the other people on set with him.
Finally they get the scene over with. Bob Singer is grumbling about the quality of the footage, but he almost always does, and really there's at least one good reading of every line; it can all be edited together later. There's a break called while the next set gets prepped.
Misha and the Winchesters decamp to Misha's trailer. It takes a minute to find the incantation, because Misha wastes some time clicking episode transcripts before it occurs to him to just check the "Goblet of Blood" page.
"OK," he says, once the Latin is written out on a piece of paper. "We have to decide who's doing this, and how to get enough blood out of me."
"Why you?" Dean says, sounding touchingly alarmed.
"We know my blood works," Misha says, shrugging. "We're already changing the parameters a little by not killing me; we should stick as close as we can otherwise. Also, I'm here to consent to this, and Jared and Jensen aren't. I couldn't find a needle, though, so it's going to have to be a cut."
Dean and Sam both look very unhappy, but bow to the inevitable. They disassemble and disinfect one of Misha's disposable razors and swab Bactine on his inner arm, just above the elbow. Sam holds his arm still. Dean makes the cut, careful, but deep and right over the vein. (His hands are rock-steady as he does it, but Misha doesn't like the lack of expression on his face.) It hurts like a son of a bitch and Misha's glad of Sam's grip because without it he'd have flinched and caused a whole lot of damage.
It takes five minutes or so to get a decent amount of blood into the cup. Sam bandages the cut while Dean takes the cup and says the Latin over it—they decided that "profound bond" probably trumps "I play you on TV".
"Cas, can you hear me?" Dean says. "Castiel, please tell me you can hear this."
Misha's accepted that there's Weirdness going on in his life these last twenty-four hours or so, he really has, but he's still stunned to the point of gaping when his own voice emerges from the goblet. His own voice in character, yes, but it's exactly the way he would say it when Castiel says, "Dean? How are you contacting me?" Castiel sounds faint and far away, like someone on the other side of a large room.
"Goblet of blood," Dean says around a relieved smile. "Nothing else works here. We can't get back on our own. But Virgil's going to be coming through, and we think we have a way to deal with him."
There's a pause long enough that Dean says, "Cas?" before Castiel replies, "How do you know?" Misha thinks of that tone as "You never cease to amaze me and I'm not sure that's a good thing." Castiel uses it a lot with Dean.
"There's a…let's just say we got our hands on some prophecy," Dean says. "Virgil's going to come here after us, but he'll be powerless. Raphael is going to try to pull him back sometime tomorrow afternoon, but get us instead. Also, Cas, you're a jerk and you should have told us about the key."
"This method of communication can be overheard," Castiel says darkly.
"Fine, OK, but we're gonna have words when I get back, got it?"
"Yes, Dean," says Castiel, and Misha takes mental notes on how to fit that much resignation into two words. "I don't have much time," Castiel continues. "What do you need?"
"We're planning to try and fake Virgil out," Dean says. "If he doesn't manage to get Raphael to pull us back, we'll need you to get us, OK? We'll go to the place where we came through every night at nine till you can get us. But if we show up with Virgil we'll play along."
"Yes," Castiel says. "I must go." Misha waves frantically at Dean and hisses, "Ask him about Jensen and Jared!"
"Our friend here wants to know if fake me and Sam are OK," Dean says.
"I haven't seen them," Castiel says. "Balthazar assures me he took them to safety. Goodbye, Dean."
"Wait a second, Cas," Dean says, but there's no reply. "Damn it."
Misha's arm aches like crazy and he's worried sick about Jensen, but he still has to grin. Because that, right there? That is the new top of his list of coolest things that have ever happened to him. "He's real," he says. Sam and Dean turn to look at him, interrupting a brotherly conversation that seemed to be happening mostly in their facial expressions. "That was really Castiel, that was really him." He knows he's babbling a bit and doesn't care. "You guys are awesome, don't get me wrong, but Castiel—I dream his dreams sometimes, but it always could have been just my imagination, you know? But that, that was him."
Dean looks bemused; Sam seems to understand.
They have a little while yet before they have to be back on camera (Dean grumbles at the prospect of more acting and mimes shooting himself in the temple), so Dean and Sam go to watch the set they assume Virgil's going to show up on. Misha drinks a bottle of water to replace his lost fluid and washes out the goblet in his trailer's little sink, noting with queasy fascination that the blood is already clotting like mad.
He hikes across to props and returns the bowl, spinning a little story for the kid about how well his prank went. It's not hard to sound enthusiastic. Halfway back to his trailer he catches sight of Sam, rounding a corner out of easy hailing range, so he picks up his pace a little. A second later Dean comes around the same corner. He looks concerned, which is all Misha has time to register before an arm wraps around his chest and yanks him sideways down a narrow alley between the side of a soundstage and a pile of crates. He hears Dean shout in alarm, but much closer is the voice that growls in his ear, "Are you Castiel?"
Misha would shake his head, except he can feel something sharp against his neck.