Catching Up
Chapter 18 – The Benders

"Sam and Dean head to Minnesota, where a young boy witnesses a man vanishing into thin air," Mary read. "What are 'benders'? I've never heard of them before."

"Not what, who," Dean said meaningfully.

"You're kidding," Mary's jaw dropped. "Humans? Really?"

"Oh you have no idea," Sam started the show. It opened on a young boy watching TV. The noises from the television were not able to stop the kid from hearing something outside and he goes to the window in time to see a man throw out some garbage before getting pulled under a car. TV!Sam and TV!Dean come to investigate and the boy swears that some kind of monster had taken the man.

"A monster with a whining growl," Mary repeated the child's words dubiously. "And these are people, humans?"

"I've come to learn that humanity is really a malleable concept," Cas shrugged.

As for the show, TV!Sam and TV!Dean were discussing the case at a bar but with little evidence decided to start fresh in the morning. TV!Dean wanted to stay out but TV!Sam was insistent that they head back to their motel. They separate briefly as TV!Sam goes out to the parking lot to wait for his brother when he hears a noise. He decided to look around and is startled by a cat. "Real slick there Clouseau," Dean chuckled.

"Yeah, that was scary," Sam exaggerated his face and voice – Dean got the message and kept his mouth shut.

Momentarily distracted by the brothers, the room hadn't noticed TV!Sam's disappearance but the change in music and TV!Dean's calls for him caught their attention. "Sam was snatched?" Mary halfway got up from her seat, TV!Dean was at the police station. "How?"

"I wasn't ready for it," Sam shook his head. "There I was, just standing by the car when something hooked my ankles and pulled me down. Before I could make a sound, they knocked me out and I woke up in a cage. And dude you went to the cops?"

"Didn't have a choice, it's not like I could hack traffic cams back then," Dean sighed. "I sure as hell couldn't track you on my own. Case in point," he nodded to the screen where the younger Winchester had woken up to find himself trapped in a cage with the other kidnapping victim. TV!Dean and the police officer from the station, Kathleen, catch a break when a vehicle is spotted on the traffic cam and TV!Dean comes to realise that they are dealing with people.

"Not too many cases where the monsters are human," Dean rubbed his eyes. "Thank God for that."

That happens to be my specialty. "I don't know how you do it," Sam watched himself struggle to get out his cage and his talk with Jenkins the other prisoner.

"It may be strange to you but 'hunting' humans are what angels have done for centuries," Cas said and Sam jolted.

"What?!"

"I was merely commenting that just like how hunters such as yourselves must destroy the supernatural that harms humanity, angels were tasked with removing those that have caused evil, both man and creature. We have become less involved over time but it is a burden that we must still shoulder when called upon."

Meanwhile TV!Dean and Kathleen are searching along the roads for where Sam may have been taken and Kathleen finds out Dean lied about being a cop. "And this is where it all goes to hell," Sam announced.

"Dean remains the only man I know who could lie so spectacularly horribly," Cas sighed dismally.

"Seriously? 'I lost weight and I got that Michael Jackson skin disease'?" Sam hid his face. "I'm embarrassed to be your brother right now."

"Well how would you explain not being a more rotund, African American smartass?"

"Say that had to be an error, tell her the badge got recycled. Something other than Michael Jackson skin disease," Sam grimaced as the other captive, Jenkins, is inexplicably released and tries to escape. He put up a good effort but the kidnappers attack him from all sides, toying with him before ultimately killing him. Elsewhere, Kathleen opened up to TV!Dean about her brother going missing but then cuffs him to her police cruiser when they got to the house.

"I like her," Mary pronounced. "Not a smart move going it alone, all things considered, but she's not like the usual dumbass cops hunters have to put up with."

Onscreen, Kathleen meets a young girl Missy and is ambushed by what appears to be the patriarch of the twisted family while TV!Dean is still stuck. He manages to escape before the brothers arrive to hide the cruiser and Kathleen is now in the other cage with TV!Sam. TV!Dean arrives but he can't free them without a key so he goes off searching, coming across photos of all the victims and the brothers posing with them like hunting trophies. "People are f**** crazy," Mary concurred.

"I didn't say it quite like that but yeah," Dean nodded in awe. As this was going om, TV!Dean continued to search for the keys in the house which seemed to be more of a haunted carnival attraction rather than someone's home. He'd just found them but got distracted by a jar of teeth allowing the girl to sneak up behind him. He tried to get out but Missy alerted her family and TV!Dean is caught.

"Okay what in the actual hell was that?" Sam stared at his brother gobsmacked. "You let the little girl AND the old man get the jump on you?"

"Not one of my finer moments, but hell it was four on one. Those are long odds at the best of time," Dean shrugged.

"You did great," Mary assured him. "Anyone would get sidetracked by a mason jar of teeth." In the show, the family had TV!Dean tied up and he discovered that they enjoyed hunting humans, a long standing family tradition.

"The way he speaks of hunting and family," Cas observed. "It's like an awful parody of you."

"Stop right there," Dean warned. "Maybe they are family but they are absolutely NOT hunters, not like us or anyone else. They are monsters and one good thing about going to Hell, I know exactly what they got and they deserve it."

"You went where?!" Mary exclaimed.

"Oh boy, that's going to be a long discussion," Sam rubbed the ridge of his brow. "But hey look we're winning." He added in a pathetic attempt to their attention back to show. It worked mostly but Mary kept her eye on her eldest, clearly set on getting answers. TV!Dean was forced to choose his brother in the hope that they would let him go when really all the father was going to do was kill them. TV!Sam overpowered the first brother and with Kathleen took out the both. The cop elected to keep an eye on the father while the younger Winchester went looking for TV!Dean. That ended up being short-lived as she killed him within moments out of hatred and anger over her brother and allowed TV!Sam and TV!Dean to walk free, literally making them walk to back to town.

"She was a good person," Dean smiled a bit. "Kind of like Jody."

"Who's Jody?" Mary asked.

"A friend of ours, she's a sheriff out in Sioux Falls," Sam told her. "We'll introduce you sometime."

"I'd like that," Mary smiled but dropped it quickly. "Now about Hell -"

"Oh hey look the next episode is ready to go," Dean all but snatched the case. "Shadow. Great, good times."