BOBBY'S PLACE - SUNDOWN
Bobby took a step forward and to the side, putting himself between Castiel and the boys.
"Get back in the house," Bobby said in a low voice. He refocused, aimed his gun at Sam.
"Cas, take that thing away from him already!" Dean barked.
Castiel shook his head subtly, looking positively apologetic. But the fact that Dean asked made Bobby pause. He didn't lower the shotgun, but a sort of skeptical expression took over his face.
"Bobby, listen to me," Castiel said. "That's Sam and Dean - the real Sam and Dean. Put the gun down. Please." He reached out trepidly and set his hand on the barrel of the shotgun to lower it.
Bobby put the shotgun down, seething. "If you're really them," he said, "then you know what comes next."
Sam and Dean nodded grudgingly. Time for the tests. Bobby gave Castiel a look. Cas went into the house and the others followed.
Walking into this dimension's version of Bobby's house, the boys got another little shock. The books were all gone... That bears repeating. There wasn't a single book in sight. The furniture was appropriate to the rooms - a dinette set in the kitchen, etc. The study was a living room again. It had a large flat-screen television opposite a sectional couch. There was a new coat of paint on the kitchen cabinets, new appliances, and the shutters were all open. The banister leading upstairs was replaced with something sturdier. Houseplants in every corner. The old wallpaper was still around and the floor wasn't varnished or anything, but the place was spotless. The last time the house was close to being in this kind of shape, the dead were rising.
Dean leaned in to Sam. "There's a friggin' house in this house," Dean whispered angrily. "What's a house doing in Bobby's house?"
Sam was too distracted to answer. He was staring longingly at something in the kitchen. "Dude, he has one of those Keurig things," he said.
Dean gave Sam a hard tap on the face. "Hey, don't start drinking the kool-aid," he said. "My side, Sam, you're on my side."
Sam nodded. "Right," he said. "Sorry."
Sam and Dean sat at the kitchen table. Bobby had put out shot glasses and was filling them with holy water, all the while keeping his back to the wall. And Castiel was... well, he was doing something at the stove. Bobby noticed.
"Will you get outta here?" Bobby asked, annoyed.
"You were letting it boil over," Castiel said.
Bobby shook his head and took a silver knife from the sheath in his back pocket.
The boys drank their shots and Sam took off his jacket, rolled his sleeve back. As he did, Bobby gave him an odd look. He was holding something back. He handed Sam the knife and Sam cut his forearm. When he was done he passed the knife on to Dean, who did the same.
Bobby seemed satisfied after that, but when he relented, he slunk off to the living room with a conflicted, almost sad look in his eyes. He sat on the couch, next to something round and white. It looked like a throw pillow from a ways away, but no. It was a New Zealand white rabbit, and it was staring straight at Sam and Dean. They flinched when they saw it, over-reacting a tad.
"I think that varmint's mad-doggin' us," Dean said.
"Why is Bobby sitting with it?" Sam asked.
"That's Frank," Castiel said. "He's my rabbit, and he's okay to be on the couch."
The boys turned back to Castiel. They finally had a moment to notice that there were a few things different about him, too.
Castiel had always been a little bit like a character on Scooby-Doo: he always wore the same thing the same way and he was always a little on the stiff side (he just didn't have the excuse that it made animating him cheaper). So whenever there was something even a little off about him, it stood out. In this dimension, Castiel didn't wear an overcoat. He didn't have a necktie, let alone a screwy one, and he wore cuffed jeans instead of slacks. His hair was neat. He wore a v-neck navy sweater over a white Oxford shirt and a pair of beat-up old army boots that looked more like something Bobby would wear. He just looked... nerdier, if that was even possible.
And he was cooking.
"Is Cas making spaghetti?" Sam whispered to Dean.
Dean grimaced. "Man, I hope that's not for us," he said.
"Yeah," Sam said halfheartedly. "Only... I'm really hungry."
Dean looked at Sam like he was turning into a pod person.
"What?" Sam whispered defensively. "It smells okay."
"It smells like Prego, dude," Dean said.
"You once called Prego your favorite vegetable," Sam said. "Look, it's been three years. Maybe he's learned to cook."
"I've watched this guy get outsmarted by a revolving door," Dean whispered. "I don't trust him with my internal organs."
The more they talked, the louder Castiel's cooking got. Finally, he brought two plates of spaghetti with garlic bread over to them. He got them forks and practically slammed Dean's on the table in front him, giving him mighty bitch-face. He then went back to the stove, plating the rest of the pasta.
Sam and Dean eye-balled their food for a moment. Sam picked up his fork. Dean shook his head, eyes wide with warning: for the love of god, Sammy, no. Sam looked at Dean, then at the spaghetti, then back at Dean.
Sam took a deep breath. "See you in hell," he said, and then dug in.