Chapter 11
Then:
"Yeah, you're not a fan," Sam snickers.
"It's a guilty pleasure," Dean admits grudgingly.
"Call security," Dr. Sexy says almost lazily to a nearby nurse.
"Yeah, go ahead, pal. See, we know who you are." Suddenly, everyone around us freezes, as if someone's hit the pause button on a remote. I guess the analogy's accurate since we're apparently in a television show. Dr. Sexy's scowling face then morphs into a familiar grinning one.
"You guys are getting better!" The Trickster now stands where Dr. Sexy had been, his golden eyes bright with amusement. He looks past Dean and winks at me. "Hey, there, Ariel. Nice to finally meet you in person."
Now:
The Trickster's much more cheerful now than I've ever seen him, but Sam doesn't allow him the chance to talk to me anymore as the taller man steps between us, hiding me from the Trickster's sight.
"How do you know her?" I peek around Sam to see the Trickster's reaction.
"Please, who hasn't heard of her? She crossed dimensions, for crying out loud, that stuff doesn't just slide under the supernatural radar." The Trickster shrugs as best as he can while Dean has him pinned to the wall. "Besides, we're not here to talk about little Ariel, we're here to talk about you two."
"Get us the hell out of here," Dean snaps.
"Or what?" The Trickster takes Dean's arm and twists it, earning a hiss of pain from Dean. "Don't say you have wooden stakes, big guy."
Shocking myself with my own recklessness, I grab his wrist, trying to yank it away from Dean's arm. "Stop it!" The Trickster's eyes flick to me, his expression startled, before he grudgingly releases Dean.
"That was you on the police scanner, right? This is a trick," Sam realizes.
"Helloooo? Trickster!" The shorter man recovers quickly from his surprise at my boldness with a sarcastic comeback. "Come on! I heard you two yahoos were in town. How could I resist?"
"Where the hell are we?" Dean demands as he rubs his arm.
"Like it?" The Trickster grins. "It's all homemade. My own sets." He raps on a nearby glass window. "My own actors." He gestures to the frozen people around us. "Call it my own little idiot box."
"How do we get out?"
"That, my friend, is the sixty-four-dollar question," the Trickster replies with a smirk.
"Whatever," Sam dismisses and plunges ahead, "We just - we need to talk to you. We need your help."
"Let me guess." The Trickster scrunches his nose in mock-thought. "You two muttonheads broke the world, and you want me to sweep up your mess."
"Please. Just five minutes. Hear us out," Sam pleads.
"Tell you what. Survive the next twenty-four hours, we'll talk." The Trickster crosses his arms.
"Survive what?" Dean says blankly.
"The game!" The Trickster grins delightedly.
"What game?" Sam asks.
"You're playing it," the Trickster retorts vaguely.
"What're the rules?" I pipe up. The Trickster doesn't answer, but instead grins cheekily before vanishing in a burst of static. The scene resumes, doctors and nurses milling around us.
"Son of a bitch," Dean summarizes our combined feelings, looking disgruntled as we start walking down the hallway.
I catch sight of the nametag which has reappeared on my clothes and scowl. "That is it! If this thing shows up on me one more time, I'm gonna feed it to you!" I yell at the ceiling, startling both Winchesters, as I rip off the identification card and toss it over my shoulder.
"...I think I'm actually a little scared of you," Dean tells me, wide-eyed, and I shrug. After a moment to recover from the shock, he turns back to Sam. "Oh, by the way. Talking with monsters? Hell of a plan."
"Well, what do we do now?" Sam demands plaintively.
"You know what I'm doing? Leaving." Dean heads for the door just as Dr. Ellen Piccolo reappears. She takes yet another swing at Sam, who dodges quickly.
"Lady, what the hell?!"
"You are a brilliant, brilliant-" she begins.
"Yeah. A coward. You already said that. But I got news for you: I am not a doctor!" I have to resist the urge to laugh, given how serious the situation is.
"Don't say that. You are the finest cerebrovascular neurosurgeon I have ever met, and I have met plenty. So that girl died on your table. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anybody's fault. Sometimes people just die," Dr. Piccolo tells Sam breathlessly.
Sam looks almost as if he's buying what she says, but then tells her frankly, "I have no idea what you're saying to me."
"You're afraid. You're afraid to operate again. And you're afraid to love." Sobbing, she runs away.
"...is it bad to laugh at how bad that acting was?" I ask, biting the inside of my cheek to stifle any laughter. Even Kristen Stewart had acted better than that in Twilight.
Sam blinks and then looks at Dean, who's waiting halfway between us and the door, his eyebrows raised. "Yeah, we're getting out of here." We quickly start walking for the door.
"Hey, Doctor." Dean turns around and so do Sam and I. We see a man standing in the doorway to a hospital room. "My wife needs that face transplant."
The last bit of patience Dean has is quickly lost. "Okay. You know what, pal? None of this is real, and your wife doesn't need jack squat. Okay?" He turns back around to start walking and thinking that's the end of it, Sam turns to follow.
"Hey, Doctor," Mr. Biehl calls again and pulls out a gun from the inside of his jacket calmly.
"DEAN!" I scream, but it's too late as the gun fires. Dean collapses as blood stains the back of his white lab coat.
"Real," he gasps as Sam kneels down beside him, his hazel eyes wide with panic, "It's real."
"No, no, no, no, no," Sam says desperately before looking up at the almost-deserted hallway and yelling, "Hey! We need a doctor!"
"Sam, we are the doctors," I remind him.
"Damn it." Thankfully, we see a gurney pull up to us, two nurses handling it, and Sam carefully helps Dean onto it. Surprisingly, Dean's perfectly lucid as we run alongside the gurney to the operating room.
"Y'know, for someone who's just been shot in the back, you're taking it pretty well," I tell him.
"Yeah, well." Dean's face is pale as he grimaces; just because he's awake, doesn't mean he's not in pain. "It's still a T.V. show. Gunshots don't mean the same thing they do in reality." I slip my hand into his, hoping it'll help, and he squeezes my fingers weakly. "Thanks," he mumbles as we roll the gurney to a stop in the operating room.
As the room fills with doctors preparing for surgery, I glance down at my uniform while pulling on a pair of green surgical scrubs over it. No nametag; well, at least the Trickster had taken my threat seriously. Dean is stripped of his lab coat and shirt and placed face-down on the operating table, a hole in the headrest for his face. Sam looks completely nonplussed as a doctor holds out a scalpel.
"Doctor?"
"What?" Sam blinks and I facepalm.
"Sam, do something," Dean hisses at his brother.
"I don't know how to use any of this crap," Sam protests.
"Figure it out!"
"You're a med kid," Sam says to me helplessly and I shrug.
"Hey, I'm still in undergrad." Still, I grab the absorbent gauze another nurse is holding out and press it gently against the wound in Dean's back to wipe away the blood around the injury.
"Okay, um..." I hear Sam stammer from behind me, "I need a penknife, some dental floss, a sewing needle, and a fifth of whiskey." He looks around when the nurses and doctors around him do nothing.
"Say 'stat,'" I advise as I press the gauze against the bullet wound once more, "Works in every hospital drama." Dean hisses slightly in pain and I pat his shoulder reassuringly.
"Stat!" Sam says loudly and the operating room is set in motion once more as everyone scrambles to acquire the things he needs. Ten minutes later, the bullet is out and the wound is slowly stitched closed. Most of the whiskey is gone, only half of it used for cleansing the wound - the other half gone to Dean's liver - and Sam's gloves are bloody. He had taken over once the supplies had arrived, allowing me to pull off my operating scrubs and gloves as I leave the operating room to wait outside.
I see Dr. Ellen Piccolo there, pressing her hand against the glass of the window as tears stream down her cheeks and, when Sam looks her way, whispering dramatically, "I love you." Sam looks about as disturbed as I feel.
"What is wrong with you, lady?" She glowers at me, the moment having been ruined, but I can hear Sam's muffled laughter through the closed window and Dean's confused voice demanding what's going on with him, so it's totally worth it.
Sam waves to me, calling me back in as he looks worried, so I leave the drama queen to her business and run back into the operating room.
Except I'm not in the operating room when I run through the doors. There's a weird chanting in a foreign language, like a live audience, and I feel really cold. When I look down, I realize why. I'm in a bright red plastic two-piece dress, the top stopping just above my stomach and the skirt going down to the middle of my thighs. My hair is tied into pigtails - pigtails, for crying out loud, I haven't worn this kind of hairstyle since I was five - and I'm wearing white boots that stop halfway up my calves.
"That's it, I'm so staking this guy," I grumble, wrapping my arms around my waist to cover myself up a little. At least my neckline isn't too low.
"Join the club," I hear Dean say irritably and look up to see him and Sam strapped by the shoes to individual platforms. There's a huge red ball that looks like it's made of metal on a large lever in front of each of them.
"At least you guys got your own clothes back," I complain, seeing that they're wearing the same jackets and shirts and jeans they'd worn earlier.
Sam glances at me, taking in my ridiculously-skanky outfit. "Yeah, I guess we got the better deal."
Suddenly, the blue doors behind us slide open and a Japanese man runs through it, beaming at the invisible audience.
He yells something in Japanese before adding in English, "Let's play Nutcracker!" A loud cheer goes up. The host adds something else in Japanese before pulling out an index card. "Sam Winchester."
Sam starts at the sound of his name. "Huh?"
The host asks a question in Japanese and I pick out the words for "brother" and "demon" - not nearly enough to put together and I curse the fact that I haven't watched enough anime to understand the question. "Countdown!" The giant LED screen next to me flashes the number 20 before ticking down the seconds.
"Wha-? I-I don't understand Japanese," Sam protests weakly.
The host simply repeats the question, still in Japanese.
"Is he screwing with me?" Sam asks Dean plaintively and Dean shrugs, looking just as confused. "I-I don't speak Japanese!" Sam tries again just as time runs out.
The host says something in Japanese before saying loudly, "Ruby!"
"Oh!" I facepalm, realizing the question.
"I am sorry, Sam Winchester," the host says grimly.
"Sorry?"
The host mimes a shocked look, his hand covering his mouth, just as the ball on the lever flies up and slams into Sam's crotch. Dean's eyes double in size as he hisses in sympathy, and I wince as Sam doubles over, gasping in pain.
"Nutcracker!" the host calls to the audience triumphantly.
"Sam, you okay?" Dean asks and Sam makes a strangled noise, incapable of forming words. I awkwardly reach over and pat his shoulder.
"There, there. Look at it this way, at least now you can't kill anyone else by sleeping with them." Sam shoots me a dirty look even as he grimaces in pain and I shrug. "Hey, it's true and you know it." Suddenly, I'm yanked backwards by the shoulder, a plastic bag of something thrust into my hands. I look at the bag, bewildered, and find that it's some sort of chips.
The host looks at me expectantly.
"Am I supposed to eat these or something?" I say dumbly.
"Advertise them," Dean suggests from his platform.
"I don't speak Japanese, either!" The host continues to stare at me. "You know what?! Here!" I throw the bag of chips at him. "You advertise the fucking chips!" The bag bounces off the host's chest and fall to the floor as he gives me a disapproving look. "Oh, don't look at me like that, it's your own fault!" I bury my head into my hands helplessly. "I'm arguing with a Japanese reality show host. What even is my life."
"At least you're not gonna get hit in the crotch," Sam grumbles weakly, having finally regained the ability to speak.
The lights above the doors flash before the doors slide open and Castiel walks through.
"Cas!" I say, relieved.
"It's me." Castiel looks between the three of us, taking in our states. "Uhh. What are you doing here?"
"Us? What're you doing here?" Dean demands.
"Looking for you three, you've been missing for days."
"So get us the hell out of here, then!" Sam says and Castiel reaches for us.
"Let's go." Suddenly, he disappears in a burst of static and I let out a groan of despair.
"No, no, no, no, no." The host steps between us. "Mr. Trickster does not like pretty-boy angels."
"Well, 'Mr. Trickster' can shove it up his ass," I grumble. The host gives me a scowl before pulling out another card.
"Dean Winchester." Dean looks terrified. The host asks something in Japanese and I pick out the words "mother," "father," "alive," and "brother." This time, I manage to piece the question together.
"Hey, that's not fair! That's technically a philosophical question!" I complain and the host shrugs at me.
"Countdown!" The twenty seconds begin dwindling down as Dean looks at me.
"What's the question?" I open my mouth to tell him, but suddenly, a piece of duct tape materializes over my mouth. I attempt to pull it off and it doesn't budge.
"What do I do?!" Dean gives up on help from me and looks at Sam desperately. "I don't wanna get hit in the nuts!"
"I don't know, I-I, uh..." Sam thinks before it hits him. "Wait. I played a doctor. In Dr. Sexy, I played a doctor. I operated."
"So?" Dean says blankly.
"So I played the role the Trickster wanted me to play. Maybe we should just go along with it."
"Go along with what?"
"With the game!" Sam says exasperatedly, "You know, we're on a game show, right? So just answer the question!"
"In Japanese?" Dean looks at me and I give him a thumbs-up, agreeing with Sam's plan. "I don't know Japanese!"
"Try!"
"Damn it!" Dean slams his hand on the buzzer in front of him, stopping the timer. The host looks at him expectantly and, to both my surprise and Sam's, Dean answers the question in tentative Japanese. The host repeats the tail end of Dean's answer and Dean confirms it, bracing himself for a hit to the crotch.
"Dean Winchester, Nutcracker champion!" Dean cracks one eye open when no hit comes and instead, balloons float down from the ceiling. The crowd cheers.
"How did you do that?" Sam asks, wide-eyed.
"I have no idea." Dean grins shakily.
"So that's it. We play our roles, we survive," Sam notes.
"But for how long?" I manage as I finally manage to rip the tape off. Ow.
"Good question." The grin fades from Dean's face when he realizes that we're essentially screwed.
We abruptly switch settings, this time to a brightly-colored motel room. It's only me and Dean in the room, though I have a feeling Sam's not far away. I'm no longer in the stupid plastic dress, but I'm still wearing a skirt - black and knee-length, thank goodness - and a long-sleeved blue blouse. Dean's voice suddenly echoes around the room, even though Dean himself doesn't speak.
"Supernatural is filmed before a live studio audience." Oh, no. This is definitely telly-ception or something.
Dean turns from the open fridge and looks at the huge sandwich on the table. "I'm gonna need a bigger mouth." A laugh track plays from the black void where the supposed audience is.
"That's what she said," I mutter and he glowers at me even as the laugh track repeats.
Sam then enters the room to applause.
"Hey there, Sam. What's happening?" Dean says cheerfully.
"Oh, nothing. Just the end of the world." More laugh track and Sam's forced smile becomes even more tense as he looks at the sandwich. "You're gonna need a bigger mouth."
I open my mouth before thinking better of repeating the joke. "You guys are just fuelling the shippers, you realize." Both of them turn white with horror and the laugh track goes off again. I'm suspecting it's on a loop.
"Hey, uh, have you done your research yet?" Sam asks.
Dean looks as if he's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Oh, yeah. All kinds of research. All night."
"Yeah?" Sam looks impressed.
The bathroom door then opens and a woman appears in the doorway, clad in only a bikini. "Oh, Dean." We all turn to face her as she grins. "We have some more 'research' to do." Laugh track.
"Dean," Sam says sternly and Dean looks at the invisible audience.
"Son of a bitch!"
Cue cheerful opening sequence and cheesy theme song. Okay, I won't deny it, the song is pretty awesome for a spur-of-the-moment creation and I'm sort of considering asking the Trickster for a copy of it. Not to mention watching our names and our respective actors flashing across the screen in Full House font as we run around a park attempting to be cheerful is cool. Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and Misha Collins go by before my own actress's name comes up. Curious, I pause in my throwing a football at Sam's head to read it.
Lucy Hale.
Huh. That's actually rather flattering, seeing as she's beautiful and I'm...well, not ugly, but certainly not pretty. Dismissing it, I successfully nail Sam in the head with the football and he comically falls over.
Finally, we're back in the motel room at the table, Sam and Dean clinking beers as the theme song draws to a close.
We're now on a basketball court, all of us dressed in workout clothes.
"Pants!" I exclaim, relieved, plucking at the sweatpants I now wear. "Oh, how I've missed you!"
Dean actually rolls his eyes at me. "Freak."
I glower back at him. "Don't make me ask the Trickster to stick you back in Nutcracker." His face turns pale at the threat as I pick up the basketball and throw it, missing the hoop by a long shot. There's a reason I was never any good at gym class.
"I've got genital herpes," a woman's voice echoes through the air and we look around, bewildered.
"I've got genital herpes," a man's voice then repeats.
Dean and I look at each other before glancing at Sam, who scowls. "Seriously?"
"Hey, you're the one who said play our roles." Dean pats Sam's shoulder and Sam sighs wearily before looking at the black void that seems to be where the "camera" is located.
"I've...got genital herpes," he says uncomfortably.
I snort. "Is it a bit weird that every supernatural creature I've met so far seems to have an issue with Sam's genitals?" Dean chokes on air and starts laughing as Sam throws us an epic bitchface.
The woman's voice continues, "I tried to be responsible."
The man adds, "Did I try."
Sam's jaw clenches. "But now I take twice daily Herpexia to reduce my chances of passing it on."
"Ask your doctor about using Herpexia," the woman says.
Dean pipes up, unable to stop himself from saying, "Patients should always consult with a physician before using Herpexia. Possible side effects include headache, diarrhea, permanent erectile dysfunction, thoughts of suicide, and nausea." He looks nauseous himself after that speech.
I'm the only one laughing hysterically at the looks of discomfort on both their faces as Sam says grudgingly, "I am doing all I can to slightly lessen the spread of - of genital herpes." He forces a smile that looks painful. "And that's a good thing." He grabs the basketball from Dean and shoots. The ball swishes through the net...
...and we're back in the motel room, as if we'd never left it.
"We now return to Supernatural," Dean's voice says, even though the real Dean's mouth doesn't move.
"Son of a bitch!" Dean repeats.
Sam leads the bikini-clad woman out of the motel room, looking uncomfortable. "I am really, really, very sorry, but, uh, we've got some work to do."
"But we did do work." The woman shoots a conspiratorial grin over her shoulder at Dean. "In depth." Laugh track.
Dean flushes and waves a little at her as Sam shuts the door behind her. "How long do we have to keep doing this?" he says through a forced smile as the invisible crowd applauds.
"Maybe forever?" I suggest wryly.
"We could die in here," Sam says grimly through his own fake grin and the audience laughs.
Dean shoots them a dirty look. "How is that funny?! Vultures."
Suddenly, the door slams open and Castiel stumbles through. His face is bloody and the audience gasps at the sight of it.
"Cas, are you okay?" Dean asks, startled, and I move to examine the angel's injuries.
He jerks away from my touch, shaking his head. "I don't have much time. This thing is more powerful than it should be."
"What, the Trickster?" Dean demands.
"If it is a Trickster."
"What do you mean?" Before Castiel can respond, he's thrown against the wall by an invisble force. When he staggers to his feet, a piece of duct tape is plastered over his mouth. So much for non-repetitive material.
The Tricskter then appears in the doorway, grinning mischievously. "Hello!" The audience goes wild, cheering and wolf-whistling. I'm pretty sure I hear some girls screaming "OMG, I love you!" from the crowd. Chatspeak should not be allowed to be spoken out loud. "Thank you, thank you, ladies!" The Trickster smirks, clearly loving the attention from his own handiwork, before turning to Castiel. "Hi, Castiel!" Castiel's eyes widen as the Trickster snaps his fingers, vanishing the angel with another burst of static.
"You know him?" Sam asks.
"Where'd you send him?!" Dean snaps furiously and I can't help but inwardly "aww" at his protectiveness over Castiel. Damn my fangirl instincts.
"Relax, he'll live." The Trickster's eyes slide sideways thoughtfully. "Mmmaybe." Laugh track.
The last of Dean's patience disappears. "All right, you know what? I am done with the monkey dance, okay? We get it."
"Yeah?" The Trickster tilts his head. "Get what, hotshot?"
"Playing our roles, right? That's your game?"
"That's half the game." Still, the Trickster grins delightedly, glad Dean's catching on.
"What's the other half?" Sam pipes up.
"Play your roles out there." The Trickster waves vaguely at the door. "You know." His voice adopts an announcer-like quality. "'Sam starring as Lucifer. Dean starring as Michael.' Your celebrity death match. Play your roles."
"You want us to say yes to those sons of bitches?" Sam sounds about as horrified as I feel.
"Hells yeah. Let's light this candle!"
"But the world will end," I protest, finally speaking up, and the Trickster rolls his eyes at me.
"Yeah? And whose fault is that, princess? I know you're all in the Winchesters' corner, but you can't deny who popped Lucifer out of the box." Sam flinches and looks at the floor. "Look, it's started. You started it. It can't be stopped. So let's get it over with!" Despite his casual tone, he stares at me as if he's willing me to understand something, but I can't understand what it is.
"Heaven or hell, which side're you on?" Dean demands and the unknown emotion slips off the Trickster's face as he turns back to Dean.
"Neither."
Dean smirks humorlessly. "Yeah, right. You're grabbing ankle for Michael or Lucifer. Which one is it?"
"You listen to me, you arrogant dick. I don't work for either of those S.O.B.s, believe me."
Dean hums thoughtfully. "Oh, you're somebody's bitch."
All humor disappears from the Trickster's face as he grabs the front of Dean's jacket and slams the older Winchester against the wall. I try to intervene again, like last time, but the Trickster simply shoves me back with his free hand. I stumble backwards, startled.
"Don't you ever, ever presume to know what I am." The Trickster's voice, normally light and amused, is now pitched dangerously low. Dean grunts slightly, struggling to breathe against the crushing grip on his windpipe, and the Trickster smirks. "Now listen very closely. Here's what's gonna happen." He looks between Dean and Sam. "You're gonna suck it up, accept your responsibilities, and play the roles that destiny has chosen for you." On the word "destiny," he presses down on Dean's throat and Dean chokes.
"And if we don't?" Sam says quietly.
The Trickster smiles coldly. "Then you'll stay here in T.V. Land. Forever." A small chuckle leaves his lips. "Three hundred channels and, uh, nothing's on." He lifts his free hand and snaps his fingers. The motel room around us dissipates and we prepare for the next show we land in.
Except when I look around, Sam and Dean are nowhere to be found.
I wanted to get this episode done with by this chapter, but Changing Channels took much longer than I expected to write out. So hopefully, it'll be completed in the next chapter.
Damn you and your awesomeness, Trickster. I swear, I'm probably one of those screaming girls in the fake audience. Also, I do imagine Lucy Hale as Ariel, except maybe with lighter hair.
Review and I will give you all Fritos - perhaps the greatest chips of all time.