Chapter 6: A Wanted Man

It was a good thing the body of a demon would never tire, or need such mundane things as breathing, if its owner didn't want it to. Crowley had put out the flames on his suit with an afterthought as he was running through the blessed snow-drizzle he himself had summoned and that was now making the pavement wet and slippery. His feet were pounding through the empty streets and his blood was rushing in his ears, but neither of them was loud enough to drown out the howls of the hellhounds. He couldn't try to will himself elsewhere as he was pretty sure that whoever had sent the dogs would also have ways to send them straight after him. No. There was only one place on Earth he could turn to for safety now.

Crowley crashed into the door of the book store he knew better than the back of his hand and started banging on the door desperately.

"ANGEL! OPEN UP!!"

Behind him, he thought he could hear the hell-hounds gaining. Also, there was the noise of squealing brakes and then running feet, but that didn't really interest Crowley, seeing as there were more pressing matters to attend to.

"ANGEL! Dammit! Open up or I'm about to be dog food, going to hell LITERALLY in a hand basket because whatever remains when they've finished with me won't be much BIGGER -!"

"Shield your eyes!"

Crowley thought he had felt the jaw of one of the hounds snap shut just behind the bottom of his trousers as the door finally opened, and he had just enough time to fling himself inside past Aziraphale in the doorway and then cower and shield his face with his arms. And he needed to, because behind him, he could feel the angel's grace lashing out, searing and beautiful and utterly without mercy. It was burning into his back both deadly and so familiar it hurt, and the last thing he heard of the hounds were a few last, desperate howls and then a whimper that faded into nothing.

When two hunters stumbled onto the very same street less than a minute later, the only hint that not everyone was asleep yet was a single light inside the book shop's window.

xxx

"Dammit!" Dean cursed as he had to slam on the brakes and then both of them burst out of the car, knife, shotgun and holy water held at the ready as the two Winchesters took up pursuit on foot after the demon/snake monster/freaky plant fetishist had run through a side street that was far too narrow for any car.

And then came to stand on a completely empty street with no sign of hellhounds whatsoever.

"There! That shop!" Dean pointed to the single house in the street whose windows were still lit, and Sam immediately knew why. In front of it were six black smudges on the pavement that could have been the same size as a large dog, if you had decided it should burn to a crisp.

Dean was at the door of the shop in an instant, banging on the wood as hard as he could.

"Hey! Open the door!"

"We're closed! Please come back at another time!" A voice called back from inside, sounding rather polite, and rather like Mr. Fell – Sam only now realized that this was the same book shop he had visited earlier in the day.

"You might be in incredible danger!" Sam called out, also trying his luck while Dean was attempting to shove the door in.

"Oh no, we're perfectly all right, thank you!" the voice called back, now also sounding rather British.

"Angel! Shut them up now or-!" a second voice cut in, and before Sam could recognize it as Fell's friend, or Dean had had more time than to do anything but stare at his brother and repeat "Angel?!", Fell said:

"Oh all right, all right, dear, just one moment-"

And then there was a single, blinding flash! and both Sam's as well as Dean's world disappeared into instant, sweeping blackness.

xxx

Dean Winchester woke up. He had dreamed something about snakes wearing sunglasses, Tibetan monks tunneling into his motel room and the world being full of dolphins and the Sound of Music for some reason.

He wanted to be back in America so badly.

Dean uprighted himself abruptly on his elbows as the confusion set in when he realized he had no idea why he even was in a bed, or how he had come to be in it. A tartan night gown fell open over his bare chest at the sudden movement, a nightgown that he couldn't remember putting on – or even having been in the cheap hotel room. And on second thought - where were his clothes? A sudden panic let Dean yank the blanket aside and sit up fully, because, even more important than clothes, where was Sam?

The second bed in the hotel room was empty. Still unable to remember anything past yesterday afternoon when he and his brother had been sitting in this very same room, discussing plans, Dean was on his feet and about to start a frantic search for his cell phone to try and call Sam when at least that worry dissolved itself as his kid brother simply stepped out of the bathroom.

"Uh. Sammy?" asked Dean, voice still rougher than usual from sleep, but sounding a bit unsure at the same time. His brother appeared to have just taken a shower, ridiculous hair tousled in a way that always made Dean wish they'd just for once have a case with a possessed lawn mover he could shove Sam in front of. He was dressed haphazardly in a still unbuttoned jeans and the shirt from yesterday hanging open, the black tattoo that assured Dean whatever had happened to them it couldn't have been possession still visible in plain sight. The older Winchester could feel a lot of tension leaving his body as he could at least see that his brother was obviously unhurt (albeit still the walking corpse he usually was before the first coffee of the day.)

At a last glance, he also noticed that Sam appeared to be wearing slippers with little mooses printed on them.

"...hey. You're up," Sam said by way of greeting and then leaned in the doorway of the bathroom. "Nice robe," he commented. Dean shot him an automatic look that dared him to add anything.

"Yeah. No idea where it came from and I wouldn't have put the the thing on if somebody wasn't forcing me at gun point," the older hunter said. "Sam, what the hell happened? I have a giant black-out where last night is supposed to be. And not in a good way."

"I...don't know," Sam admitted, sitting down heavily on his own bed and running a hand through his hair. "I just woke up half an hour ago. You seemed to be fine, so I let you sleep. But I can't remember anything either."

Trying not to be too alarmed yet, Dean nodded, taking this information in. "Okay. So let's try and see what's the last thing we actually can remember."

"I think..." his younger brother sounded a bit hesitant, "We were...chasing this guy, right?"

"Hell hounds. There were hell hounds," Dean then said, with the voice of a man who would probably never forget that particular barking any time soon. "And then...I don't know. But yeah, we were hunting something, I remember that too. That demon with the yellow eyes."

"And there were hell hounds involved, yeah," Sam said, eyes narrowing. "But...something about that doesn't seem right. I don't think they were chasing us. I think I can remember chasing after them."

"You sure? Sounds like the worst idea ever," Dean, who didn't know the plot of season 8 yet, grunted.

"Pretty sure," Sam said. "I can't remember much else, but I think at the end there was, like, this explosion. Or like lightning, maybe. No idea idea what happened just before."

"Something evil messing with us, definitely," Dean growled, cursing under his breath."Dammit. I hate mind-screwy things." He stood up and started to head over to the bathroom. Looking back at his brother who was still staring into space with an expression of severe concentration, he added: "Don't strain yourself too hard, okay? We both know there's things you re probably better off not remembering anyway. Whatever monster we're hunting, it's not worth that. "

"Yeah..." Sam replied, a bit absent-mindedly, but after Dean's last few sentences actually turned around and looked at his brother curiously, as if a new idea had just occurred to him.

"Wait. Dean, maybe...whatever did this to us...it might even not mean us any harm. Yet."

"What?" asked his brother flatly, his voice the tone a man would use who knew his world just didn't work that way. "Are you suggesting something may not be trying to kill us?"

"Well, maybe," Sam insisted, standing up and gesturing at himself and Dean and the hotel room in general. "Like Death. He screwed with my mind to protect me. I mean...whatever this thing did to us last night, it knocked us both out cold. Or put us to sleep, anyway. At its mercy. And all that happens is that today we wake up in our beds, practically unharmed."

"Unharmed except for any sense of style, maybe," Dean grumbled, shrugging off the tartan gown with more force than necessary. Beneath it, pajama pants with the same plaid pattern became visible, which produced a look of horror.

"Sam? I feel violated."

"Take it as an indicator that we're not in some Djinn's perfect dream world," Sam suggested. "Whatever zapped us back here also took care of our own clothes, by the way."

Dean's gaze followed Sam's and came to land on a small pile consisting of his clothing on the dresser, shirts and jeans all appearing neatly ironed and folded. Dean only now noticed that the same had to have happened to Sam's stuff, because his younger brother was now wearing the same ensemble that yesterday had still been drenched in holy pond water. He picked the topmost shirt up and sniffed at it.

"Someone put me in tartan pajamas today and my shirt smells like lavender. This is a whole new level of weird, even for us."

Sam, who wasn't about to divulge that he'd woken up in a night dress instead of pajama pants, shrugged.

"Point is, nothing really bad happened. And I've been checking the news. Nothing about anyone maimed by animals in the night either. So whatever took us out and zapped us back, almost looks like it took out the hell hounds and sent them back, too. Maybe we're not dealing with our usual monster here."

Dean grunted, but still didn't seem entirely convinced.

Then he froze.

"...wait," he said. "We didn't go out on foot last night. We took the Impala."

Sam blinked, remembering it as soon as Dean had said it. "Yeah." He frowned. "That's right. What-?"

Before he could finish his sentence, Dean had already dashed over to the window of their room that looked out over the parking lot of the hotel. Sam didn't need to look outside for himself to know what his big brother roaring like a wounded tiger meant.

"It's gone, then?" Sam asked, but was largely drowned out by his sibling's much louder

"THEY TOOK MY DAMN CAR!"

"Dean," Sam tried to be the reasonable one here. Really, he tried. "Calm down. I think I remember we got out of it at some point. It's probably standing around somewhere."

"My BABY! All alone in a foreign country!"

"Dean-"

"They drive on the wrong side here, Sammy! She's probably scared to death!"

Sighing and abandoning the logical route of 'Dean, cars don't have feelings', and instead choosing the well-trodden path of all siblings of insane people, Sam went for soothing reassurement instead. "Yeah. Right. It's okay, Dean. We will find...her...,and if we don't, the police will and we can get her out of the pound. Better than that, it might even give us a hint where we were and maybe we can pick up the trail again. This is good thing, Dean," Sam said, trying to speak as slowly and well-enunciated as possible.

"Speak for yourself," his big brother grumbled, but at least his feathers appeared to be smoothed again.

"Right." Sam rose from the bed and began buttoning up his shirt. "Let's have breakfast and we'll call the pound while we eat, okay?"

"Fine," Dean muttered and went to grab his toothpaste to disappear into the bathroom. As he bent over to fish it from the chaos of the bed side table though, he paused as he suddenly spotted something on Sam's bed.

Something large and white that was severely crumpled and half-way stuffed under the pillow as if somebody had been trying to hide it. Something large, white and...- Dean pulled it out - ...frilly.

"Dude?" he turned to Sam, still holding the thing aloft with both hands. "Is that a night dress? Did you wake up in a night dress?"

"...shut up."

To be continued...

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