A/Ns: Apologies this chapter is being posted later than usual. I spent the weekend in Las Vegas celebrating my birthday. It was a whirlwind, I may be a little hungover, I am definitely a lot exhausted, haha, but here we are!

Chapter Warnings: It's a lengthy one this time, withSam and Dean discovering where Gabe's thrown them. Dean's pissed, Sam's exasperated, there are spiders and trolls and goblins, Oh My! Gabe is cackling, Castiel is glaring, and the Authoress spent entirely too long chirping, 'Hey Listen!' Really, it's a party all around.

Actual Chapter Warnings: Temporary character death. Lots and lots and lots of it XD

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The Road So Far (This Time Around)

Season 2: Chapter 87

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The transition from life-threatening situation in a busy morning diner to melodic, peaceful meadow under an afternoon sun was disconcerting to say the least. Dean blinked at the bright, shining ball of light in the sky that seemed… off somehow, but he couldn't quite place what it was. Actually, everything seemed a little off, and not just because he'd been magically transported to the middle of the Sound of Music, apparently, with the birds singing and bugs buzzing, and what Dean swore to god was elevator music coming and going with the wind.

Where the hell had Gabriel sent them?

Dean spun, immediately searching for his brother's beanstalk frame, and was surprised when the motion made him dizzy. Not fall-over-on-your-drunk-ass dizzy but more like vertigo; you can feel the earth beneath your feet, only it's definitely not moving. It's just your brain that's convinced otherwise. Or was it the other way around? The thought made his stomach clench and initiated a whole second bout of dizziness.

When his head and gut had both cleared, Dean took a stabilizing breath and lowered his arms, uncertain of when he'd raised them. Like a gymnast on a balance beam, only he was on solid ground that definitely wasn't moving, in a goddamn field, feeling ridiculous.

Cautiously, uncertain what had triggered the reaction the first time, Dean tried turning again, slower this time. His vision remained perfectly clear, but his mind swore the world blurred and Dean found himself tilting to the left as the vertigo swelled once more. It wasn't nearly as bad as the first time now that Dean was prepared for it. He righted himself, staring way too hard for way too long at the long grass surrounding him.

He stretched his neck to the left. Then the right. Then abruptly slid his body a foot to the left.

The grass was moving with him. Sort of. No matter how he turned or moved, he couldn't move around the grass. The same side of the blade kept facing him, no matter what he did to see the other side of it. And trying made him dizzy as all get out. Because every blade was turning with him. Like those trick pictures in the mall, or those portraits where the eyes followed you no matter where you stood. Ugh, his stomach felt like sloshed soup.

"What the hell," he muttered, staring at the grass like it was the one that had definitely lost its mind, and not Dean. Definitely not Dean.

"Dean!"

The older Winchester spun towards Sammy's voice, coming from a distance. His giant of a brother was making his way through the field towards him, stopping every few feet to rub at his eyes. Apparently Dean wasn't the only one struggling with whatever the hell was wrong with this place.

The older Winchester took off at a jog only to very, very quickly realize running in this place was a bad idea. He had to stop and recover his inner balance as the edges of everything went fuzzy and shifted. Soon as he could stand up straight again, he started towards Sam at the same damn pace his brother had adopted. A cautious walk interspersed with frequent stops to give his eyes and brain a break from the freaky shifting of everything around them.

"Dude, what the hell," Dean growled as soon as the two brothers had met in the middle.

"I don't know," Sam replied with a wince, eyes wide and trying not to focus on the tall grass surrounding them, swaying in the soft breeze. Although now that they'd stopped moving, the edges had solidified and the whole field almost looked normal. Slightly off, but almost there.

'Like bad special effects,' Dean thought offhandedly. It reminded him of movies where the big bad was CGI and you could really tell. The edges stood out, the lighting didn't quite match. You knew what you were seeing wasn't real.

"No, seriously, what the hell!"

"I don't know," Sam repeated with the same level of distress in his voice as Dean. "What are you wearing?"

"Me?" Dean immediately baulked, comeback forming before he even glanced down at himself. "What about you, Legolas?"

The brothers glanced down at their respective clothing about the same time, Dean pulling at his red and gold tunic, leather belt tied in a knot – sword, sheath and all, attached – and, uh, well, he supposed breaches was as close a term as he could get to whatever the hell covered his legs.

Sam, on the other hand, had a fancy-carved bow and quiver strapped to his back, full of what Dean could only assume were actual arrows. The rest of him looked like he'd walked out of a monastery retreat in the woods. He was wearing so much green in the form of leggings and a shin-length tunic that really qualified more as a robe. Or a night shirt. It was tied around his waist with gold rope, which matched the gold embroidery along every hem. The younger Winchester pulled at the silky fabric with the kind of caution a member of the bomb squad usually reserves for work. And his hair (while already too long in Dean's opinion but still nothing compared to 2016 Sam) seemed longer here. It was also pulled back into a half ponytail. Dean might have found the whole thing knee-slapping levels of hilarious if he wasn't also pissed and confused.

"Are- are my ears pointed?!" Sam suddenly exclaimed with no shortage of horror. Dean couldn't help but snigger when the kid tucked his significantly lengthened brown hair behind a very real, very elvish ear that he kept tugging on.

"Well. It does suit you."

And it was so very Gabe. Which definitely soured how funny it was, unfortunately.

The glare his younger brother sent his way was positively murderous. Dean almost smirked again, just because. "Have- has the trickster- I mean… have we done this before?"

Dean spared his brother a look, smirk dying before it truly got started. If they'd done this before, he wouldn't be asking 'what the hell', now would he? "No. I mean, he did throw us in TV land once-"

"He what?" Sam cut him off, blinking widely at his brother. "Like… with sets and actors and-"

"No, like actual TV land. If they were actors, they didn't know they were acting. You starred in a Herpes commercial." Actually, that part had been pretty funny. None of the rest of it, though. Given the face Sam pulled at that – something between perplexed confusion at what Dean was saying and blanched, abject horror at the possibility he was about to relive it – he didn't find it very funny, either.

Most of Gabe's jokes ended up not being particularly funny. Go figure.

"But this isn't that," Dean continued before Sam could put words together to question any (or all) of it. "That was… real. I mean, it wasn't real, but the world around us was- I mean- it wasn't this. It looked-"

"Real," Sam finished, more or less understanding what his brother was trying to say. They'd been thrown into TV shows (and apparently commercials) as if they were real. Real people, real places. Whatever this was, it didn't feel real. Sam was on the same page. Well, except for the damn ears. Those weren't fake. They weren't coming off.

Sam dropped his hand, trying to focus on anything but his now very-not-human ears. Like why Dean didn't have pointy ears. Or how the tall grass around him bent under his hand, but a fraction of a second too early. Not to mention that Sam couldn't feel the grass under his fingers. Like there was a force field around his hand, and that was what grass reacted to.

Even as it bent, it seemed… flat. Not…. Sam didn't know the right words to describe it. Like a flat plane with the image of grass printed on it. Not real, three-dimensional grass.

"It's like the graphics in a video game," he muttered, not really meaning to speak aloud. But he was real. His hands held dimensionality, he could pull at the ridiculous(ly soft) clothing he was now apparently wearing. Dean looked normal too (wardrobe malfunction aside). It was just the environment around them that wasn't.

"What?" Dean asked with a frown, distracted. He didn't catch what Sam mumbled almost under his breath, instead focused on the gentle breeze sifting through the meadow. "Do you hear, like, dramatic music? I swear it was snooze tunes a minute ago, but now-"

Suddenly the ground shook. One shallow jostle that had both Winchesters bracing themselves against the jolt. A second later, it happened again, this time accompanied by a heavy thud and low rumbling.

"What the hell." Dean held his hands out for balance as a third quake shook the earth beneath their feet. Earth that, now that he was looking at it, didn't look real either. Like he was standing on a photograph of dirt. He shifted his foot, and he heard the sound of a boot dragging through packed earth, but the vibration of it – the feeling of it – was absent. Not a single grain of dirt shifted beneath his foot. It was… trippy. "What the hell."

The earth shook again, deeper and louder this time. Dean was reminded of Godzilla movies. Not the awful American ones (though he enjoyed those for entirely different reasons), but the old Japanese ones.

"Dean." Sam's voice, filled with growing horror and disbelief, resulted in an immediate, almost Pavlovian response. Dean's head snapped up to Sam's face, then whirled to follow the younger Winchester's wide-eyed, incredulous gaze. Dean's jaw dropped, and if it had been a cartoon Gabe threw them into and not a- a- whatever this was, he had no doubt it would have hit the floor.

There was a… a….

Dean didn't have any other word for it: Troll. There was a full-blown, ugly grey, warts-and-all, straight-out-of-Harry-Potter, twelve-foot-tall troll ambling toward them with giant, thudding steps that shook the very ground. It was dragging a crudely carved club that was at least as tall as Sammy and twice as wide.

"Oh my god."

Dean couldn't even process what he was seeing. Beside him, Sam numbly nodded right along.

"What the hell!" Dean all but yelled it. Where the fuck had Gabe sent them?

Unfortunately, his shout drew the- the- troll's attention, and red-ringed, droopy eyes shifted to lock right on the brothers. Sam took a step back out of sheer, instinctual wrongness.

"Um…" He took another shaky step back, now reaching out to grab the back of Dean's red and gold tunic, pulling him back a step as well. "What- what do we do, here, Dean?"

"Hell if I know!" Dean shouted, allowing his brother to walk him back as the troll ambled right towards them at a slightly faster pace. The earth shook more consistently now. The thing bellowed, spittle flying from rotting teeth, and both Winchesters flinched back. "Run! Definitely run!"

The brothers took off at as fast a speed they could manage, given the blurred, ever-rotating blades of grass around them. Sam tried to keep his eyes on the tree line they were booking it for – the objects in the distance didn't change with their movement, so those were less dizzying. Still, it was like running with coke bottles strapped on for glasses. The heavy thudding of a troll chasing after them, accented by another knee-quaking roar (and Dean's knees could attest to that descriptor), and the increasingly climatic music they could definitely hear now, were all great motivators, though. They made it to the tree line with their foe trailing fifteen feet behind. Neither man managed a straight line worth a damn – both lost their balance occasionally, listing dangerously to one side before over correcting and stumbling in the other – but they made it to the safety of the trees with feet to spare.

Dean kept going a good twenty more feet before daring to turn and see if the troll could navigate between the trunks. Lucky for them, it was a pretty dense forest. The beast raged and howled and slammed its giant club into several tree trunks, causing the foliage around them to tremble. Leaves rained down from above. After another couple swings, with both Winchesters braced and eying the branches above them as they quivered and quaked, the troll finally lowered his weapon with a resigned, heavy thud. He turned and trudged away, dragging the weapon behind him like an upset toddler.

"Yeah, you better run!" Dean hollered after it, though the threat was as shaky as his legs. Once he felt safe, the older Winchester doubled over, grabbing his knees as he gasped for air after that run, the accompanying nausea, and holy shit, they'd just been chased by a troll.

"Holy shit," Sam breathed out, echoing Dean's inner monologue.

"I know," Dean concurred between heaves. He straightened, sword sheath bumping into his leg and causing him to spin, looking for whatever had touched him. Sam chuckled beside him, earning himself a glare as Dean grabbed clumsily at the hilt and slid the whole thing a little further back on his hip. "Shaddup. Useless weapon, a friggin' sword. I want my gun back, you son of a bitch!"

Sam huffed as Dean shouted and shook a fist at the heavens. Or, presumably, the trickster. When that didn't get him anywhere, the older Winchester sent a pointed look Sam's way, instead.

"Why didn't you, you know, shoot that thing?"

He was gesturing to the bow strapped across Sam's back. The moose of a Winchester glanced over his shoulder at it, while plucking absentmindedly at the string tight across his chest.

"Like I know how to shoot a bow and arrow, Dean," Sam countered, irritated-little-brother tone in full swing. In reality, he probably could manage if he had to. He'd had one or two P.E. classes through his school years that involved archery. He'd always taken to it better than the other students, although he'd assumed it was because he had extracurricular activities those same students could only have nightmares about.

So it was more like what the hell was a little arrow going to do against whatever the hell that had been?

Sam didn't bother bringing that up, however, uninterested as he was in a verbal spat with his brother. No matter how badly Dean wanted to start one. "We need to figure out where we are."

As he said it – looking around at the forest but really meaning the entire place as a whole – a large scroll appeared in his hand, already unfurled and sort of… hovering above his palm. Sam yelped, trying to drop the thing, but it followed him even as he took several half-panicked steps away.

"What the hell!" he waved his arm a little too frantically, trying to get the magic-appearing paper, which followed along with his flailing arm, to detach or disappear or something.

As he thought it, the scroll blinked out of existence and Sam was left standing in the woods holding his arm straight out like it might end up exploding on him.

"Hey, how'd you do that?" Dean asked, having watched the whole thing first with confusion, then a touch too much amusement, and now definite curiosity. "That looked like a map. Maybe it can tell us how to get the hell out of here. Do it again."

"No," Sam responded, maybe a little too quickly.

His brother scoffed with that particular judgmental look all older brothers inherently had. "Chicken."

Sam speared him with the return look that all younger brothers learn real quickly. "You do it if you want a map so badly."

"I don't know what you did, or I would!" Dean argued, throwing his hands up. "Just do it again."

"I don't know what I did, either!"

"Well, figure it out!"

At this point, they were two grown men dressed like dorks standing in a fake forest yelling and flailing their arms at each other. Really, if Dean weren't the one living it, the situation might be hilarious. If Gabe was watching them, he had no doubt the stupid archangel was enjoying this way too much.

Sam forced himself to take a deep breath, even if that breath was released through gritted teeth, and raised his arm. He gestured to his forearm where the map had sort of appeared. "I just wanted to know where we were and-"

The scroll reappeared, hovering over his arm and causing the younger Winchester to stifle a yelp. He managed not to flail his arm this time, but it was a close call.

Across from him, Dean stared wide-eyed at the parchment – lines of a map, with a coastline and several cities nestled in neatly drawn mountains – before closing his eyes and holding out his hands. "I want a million dollars."

Even with his eyes closed, he could hear Sam's eye roll. "Can we focus, please?"

"Pfft, it was worth a shot." Dean opened his eyes and dropped his arms. "So, where are we?"

"Uh…" Sam turned to the map, squinting at the land it depicted. "Some forest called the Elder Woods."

"Well…that doesn't sound so bad," Dean half muttered, glancing around at the less than welcoming trees around them. Moss hung from the branches in ominous clumps, and the canopy overhead was dense enough to block a significant amount of sunlight. It didn't exactly scream 'Bambi'.

"There's a town nearby, called Rocknesse. It's, uh… it's blinking, actually."

Dean frowned at his brother, who was leaning so close to the scroll at this point, arm raised up to his face, that the older Winchester half expected that map to have a dent the size of his kid brother's nose in it.

"Whatdya mean, blinking?" he asked loudly as he tromped over. He grabbed Sam's arm, forcing him to lower the map so he could lean in as well. "Lemme see."

Sam had actually been pretty damn accurate in his choice of words. There was a small town depicted – a wooden wall surrounding a couple dozen neatly drawn houses and larger buildings – with a handwritten, cursive name of Rocknesse above it. And there was a yellow dot in the city that kept fading in and out of existence. Essentially blinking.

There was both a green and a blue dot of similar size located to the southeast, atop a drawing of a forest. The forest was labeled 'The Elder Woods', those dots weren't blinking, and Dean realized he was staring at the equivalent of a "you are here" marker.

"Huh. Well, you don't see that every day," he said far too casually and with a one-shouldered shrug.

"So… do we go to Rocknesse? I think the blinking dot is trying to tell us where to go," Sam reasoned aloud, still staring at the map but occasionally glancing at his brother. Dean had dealt with the trickster before, so he was more likely to know the best course of action for what the demigod wanted with them.

"Hell no," Dean announced way too loudly as he finally let go of Sam's arm, already shaking his head. "No way we do what some blinking, magical-summoned map wants us to do. It wants us to go to town, well we're going deeper into the fucking forest then."

"Uh… I don't think that's-"

"We're not going to some town to get some quest, or go on a duck hunt, or rescue a friggin' princess from a friggin' castle in this freaky, fake-ass world." Dean put his hands on his hips and turned to regard the rest of the woods around them, deciding on his path forward. "Priority number one is to get the hell out of this place."

With that, he picked a direction at (what certainly felt like) random (in Sam's opinion, at least) and started traipsing through the woods. Sam glanced at the map once more and the little blinking dot that seemed like a pretty good indicator of where they should be going, before he dropped his hand and followed after his brother.

-o-o-o-

"Did you have a plan for 'getting the hell out of this place' beyond just picking a random direction to walk?" Sam eventually asked some five minutes later, when going deeper into the forest had not proven particularly easy or fruitful.

Dean had drawn his 'useless' sword several minutes back to chop at the branches, vines, and thorny bushes that grew thicker and more difficult to navigate the deeper they went, Indiana Jones style. It was pretty obvious to Sam at this point that this was not the direction they were supposed to go. Which was exactly why they were going, according to his hard-headed brother.

It had not helped Dean's argument that the music – always in the background, coming and going with the wind – was growing lower and, in Sam's opinion, more ominous.

"You think this is some sort of, like, video game, right?" Dean had picked up enough of the comments on bad graphics and the general vibe of the place – like the map – to put two and two together. It wasn't even off-brand, really. Last time Gabe had thrown them into TV Land. Why not Game Land for round two, huh?

Dean hadn't decided yet, but he was pretty sure he preferred TV Land.

"Well," he continued when Sam didn't bother answering him, "then someone built this world, and that means it's gotta end at some point. We're gonna find that end."

Sam opened his mouth to respond, then closed it and had to let the… not quite stupidity of that comment sink in. He had never been thrown into a video game before, so who was to say that Dean's theory was faulty. But Sam had played a fair share, between childhood friends with Gameboys and early consoles, then later during college where it turned out quite a few games, like Mario Kart, made for very entertaining drinking parties.

In all that time, he'd never found the edge of a video game map. He'd never gone looking for one, either, but usually you were stopped by something before you found the edge of the map. Or just plain killed, starting over somewhere your character was actually supposed to be.

"Even if we do find it," Sam reasoned, trying to ignore that last thought which sent an unwelcome shiver down his spine, "how is finding the edge of a world going to get us out of it?"

"I dunno," Dean answered, raising his sword to swipe at a particularly thick section of bush and vine blocking their way. He figured it would be like the ending of The Truman Show. They were gonna find a sky-painted wall with a staircase and, like, a door they could walk through or something. That would sound dumb out loud though, so instead he said, "Maybe we just walk right out of here. Who knows."

Sam was quiet for a moment as Dean kept hacking away. "That sounds too easy, if you ask me-"

Dean managed to slice at the last group of moss-laden, vine-wrapped, thorny branch and bush that stood in their way. The whole thing dropped as one single mass, falling to the ground with a heavy, sunken thud. Beyond was a dark, hooded clearing. It was more of a cave than anything that belonged in a forest, and the edges of where Dean had cut through were covered in a stringy, white substance that looked a lot like spider webs to Sam.

The music was no longer soft, and there was no question about the mood of it now.

'Danger, Will Robinson!' Sam had a second to think before dozens of glowing red eyes appeared within the webbed clearing. All of them were aimed their way.

"What the fuck-"

Sam's scream matched Dean's, decibel for decibel, as a massive spider – half the size of Dean, at least, and covered in spiny, gray and black hair – launched itself through the opening and took the older Winchester to the ground.

-o-o-o-

Dean sat up in the middle of a golden meadow, still screaming. He launched himself into the bright, sunny air, flailing at the giant-ass, furry, eight-legged freak that had been on him just a moment earlier. He punched and swung and spun for several seconds before realizing there was nothing attacking him. In fact, he wasn't even in the forest anymore. Patting himself down, still rather frantically, Dean spun in two quick circles, only getting a little dizzy at the tall grass that turned with him.

He was back in the meadow. There was a hint of a flute and harp on the wind, birds chirping distantly, and the buzz of insects all around.

"What the-"

Sam's screaming abruptly cut the air, and Dean spun. Two dozen feet away, in the same place he'd last seen Sam in this meadow, the younger Winchester sprung upright through the grass. He was doing a fantastic reenactment of the same spider dance Dean had done several minutes ago (not that he'd ever admit it to the beanstalk).

"Sam! Sammy!" Dean waved at the flailing man, even as he started in his brother's direction. Sam was still patting himself down, eyes wide and frantic, as he finally saw Dean.

"Did-" he gasped as Dean caught up, "did we just… respawn?"

"Re-what?"

"Spawn. When you die in a video game, you respawn back at the last checkpoint." Sam looked around, his eyes still a little too wide. "This meadow must be a checkpoint."

Dean opened his mouth to voice just how much of a nerd his brother was, when a shove to his shoulder sent him reeling back a good foot and a half. Sam had squared his shoulders, the look on his face a shade shy of murderous. Given the handful of times he'd seen that expression, Dean realized he was probably lucky his arm had been the target instead of his jaw.

"What was that for?" he still growled, rubbing at his shoulder. Sam had not pulled that hit at all, and Dean hadn't done anything to deserve the younger Winchester's ire. Not recently, at least.

"For getting us killed by giant, freaking, spiders, Dean!" Sam was still running his hands over his torso, chasing away the memory. "I told you that wasn't the right direction!"

"Like you know what the right direction is!"

Which wasn't his finest comeback, Dean could admit, but like hell Sam knew what to do in this situation any more than him. He was the one who'd dealt with the trickster before, not his kid brother.

"You're right, I don't," Sam admitted, first throwing his arms out to the side then dropping them. "But at least I'm trying to listen to what this place is telling us!"

Dean immediately scoffed, rolling his eyes. "This place isn't real, Sam!"

"Well, we're stuck in it, Dean, and that is real."

Sam crossed his arms, defiant and stubborn, and Dean frowned because… well, just because. Maybe because that sounded all too irrefutable, and Dean didn't want Sam to be right about that. Just like he hadn't friggin' wanted Sam to be right about TV Land, and what getting stuck there had meant, either.

'Play your roles, boys.'

"Fuck that," Dean growled out, probably way more aggressively than Sam's comment deserved, but the man from the future's mind was currently stuck in the past. A past he had not enjoyed, and refused to repeat at the whim of a brat archangel who needed to grow the fuck up. "I'm not letting some fake game world tell me what I can and can't do."

With that, Dean turned and marched back towards the forest, this time at a different angle. He wouldn't run into those spiders again (and that was not a chill running down his spine at the thought of repeating that experience), but he would find the edge of this world and break the hell out. One way or another.

-o-o-o-

Sam gave up following his brother after the third respawn. He'd had enough of getting shot in the chest by poisonous arrows (apparently a tribe of some sort of very ugly, very aggressive little goblins lived in the forest), or stomped on by a troll (who was not pleased by anyone who tried to cross through the meadow to the other side, away from the town Sam knew they were supposed to be going to). It didn't matter if the deaths weren't real, the pain and fear and damn memory of it was, and Sam could do with less of all of those things, thank you very much. He would wait right here until Dean ran his thick skull into that stubborn wall enough times to finally have some sense beaten into him.

So Sam stood in the meadow, hands on his hips, as his idiot brother stubbornly stomped off in various directions, only to reappear some ten minutes later, throw a temper tantrum, and launch into a new direction all over again.

-o-o-o-

"Are you done, yet?" the younger Winchester asked after what had to be the ninth or tenth respawn. Dean had come back into existence screaming and flailing, which had happened a handful of times. Sam didn't ask and Dean didn't offer the information on what exactly had offed him this time.

The older Winchester, still panting, crossed his arms and Sam swore he'd knock that sense into his brother himself if he didn't relent soon. But Dean finally dropped his arms, defeat in the line of his shoulders that spoke to exhaustion. That weariness outweighed the irritation painted clearly across his face.

"Friggin' fine," the man from the future conceded with a pissed off mutter. He'd tried every direction except the one that led to that damn town he knew they were supposed to go to, and every way had ended in a truly gruesome death. He didn't like quitting, and he liked admitting he was wrong even less, but he had to call it quits. Gabriel wasn't letting them out of this place any way but his way.

Fucking dick.

"Lead the way, Legolas," Dean grumbled, gesturing with his hand for his elven brother to take the lead in the only direction left they hadn't tried.

Sam huffed at the nickname but gathered up his robes (at least in Dean's mind), and started towards the town.

-o-o-o-

Gabriel let out a low whistle as the pixelated meadow and two characters that looked very much like Dean and Sam were replaced by the main menu screen for the game. He tossed the remote to the side, not worrying where it landed. "That has got to be a record of some sort. Thickest skull of any human, ever. Call Guinness."

Castiel was not amused, if her renewed struggles were any indication. The littlest angel had gone absolutely apeshit the first time the Winchesters died in the game, only marginally calming down when Gabe finally got through to her that they were fine. It was a game.

Her struggles had not been quite as ferocious after that, but they were no less present at every onscreen death and respawn, until Gabe had genuinely started to worry about her. He could see those spiderweb cracks microscopically expanding, yet she showed no signs of calming down. Just like back in the diner, Castiel was risking herself actual harm if she kept at it, and she didn't seem to care.

Call Guinness for a second record breaker: most stubborn, moronic little angel that could.

"Will you calm the fuck down?" Gabe finally snapped. This was supposed to be fun, but just like Dean had ruined his game back in the diner, Castiel was putting a hell of a rainy cloud over his fun parade now. He wasn't actually causing anyone harm. Not permanently, anyway. Cassie, in the meantime, sure as shit was, and Gabe would be the one forced to clean up the mess.

He might not know this angel, but the state she was in genuinely bothered him. Grace wasn't supposed to look like that, and it was clear those stupid humans she'd been hanging with had very nearly gotten her killed. While she was fine now, Gabe didn't want to see those scars open back up and, loathe as he was to admit it, he really didn't want to be the cause. Which meant if she kept this up and it got worse, Gabriel would be the one helping her to heal.

He scoffed at the thought, looking away with a grumpy pout. Raphy had been the healer, not him.

Castiel was growling something, but it wasn't making much of an impact given the tape once more across her mouth. Gabriel had resorted to re-duct-taping the angel's mouth shortly after the first respawn. With an eye roll, he snapped his fingers and the tape disappeared.

"Release them." The demand was growled so lowly, Gabriel felt a small spark of pride for this littlest angel. He'd almost gotten a shiver from the threat promised in that demand. Littlest angel that could, indeed.

"Uh… no." Gabriel shook his head at his sister's obstinance. Demanding anything of an archangel was laughable. The kid had spunk, though. He could happily admit that much. "They've got a lesson to learn, Cassie."

The lesser angel bristled at the name. Well, actually, she probably bristled at Gabriel refusing to return her two favorite humans, but he liked to think it was the nickname. She really shouldn't be surprised her request was denied, after all.

"Then release me," she demanded instead, attempting to gain control of the situation with one hell of a fierce stare. It was an A for Effort attempt. Really. "Unless you intend to teach me a lesson as well?"

Oh, the sass on this one. Gabe leaned back in his chair, smirking at the littlest angel. There was something about this particular sibling that was quickly growing on him. For every ounce of annoyance she caused, she dished out an equal amount of potential. But potential for what? Mischief? Maybe, if Gabe could tilt those morality scales a bit more in his direction. Destruction? Oh, most definitely. There was a fire in Castiel, that much was for sure.

It was oddly… refreshing.

Gabriel might even claim that hanging around humans was doing the angel some good… were it not for the state of her grace.

"Don't know yet," the archangel answered honestly, shrugging his shoulders and slurping up more soda. "I'm betting there's plenty of lessons for you, Cassie-" and would you look at that, it was the nickname- "anything you're itching to learn in particular, little sis?"

"Where the Winchesters are and what it will take for you to free them."

Well. He'd walked right into that one, hadn't he?

Gabriel sighed and grabbed the game controller once more. He slouched down in his comfy chair with an overly loud, disappointed sigh and a pout that he hoped made the littlest angel the littlest bit guilty.

When it very clearly didn't – Castiel's eyes laser-focused on the tv screen, waiting for the menu to disappear and the game to resume so she could see the state of her precious humans – Gabriel rolled his eyes, but hit the start button.

"You're such a bore, Cassie."

-o-o-o-

The town was really nothing more than two dozen shabby buildings under thick-thatched roofs, all of which were surrounded by an eight-foot log fence with sharpened points at the top. There was one road leading straight up to the gate, which was conveniently the two-wheel dirt tracks the Winchesters were currently trekking. The meadow had been conveniently cut through by a road going the exact direction they needed it to go. And it had led right to the fucking town.

They were a bunch of puppets in this place, and it rankled Dean to no end.

On their way to the gate, a stopped wagon blocked their path, one wooden wheel clearly broken. The very colorful driver waved them down with a way too wide smile on his face. And what a face. It, like the rest of the environment around them, was just off. Like a living geometric breakdown of a face. So many planes. Just wrong.

Also, there was an exclamation mark floating over his head. But at this point, that was hardly the weirdest thing about this place.

"Hello, travelers!" the driver called, voice overly loud and as cheerful as the rest of him. "Have you come for the festival?"

"Um…" Sam exchanged an uncertain glance with his brother.

"It's too bad about this broken wheel," he continued, despite a lack of answer. "Now I can't sell my wares at the festival."

"Er.."

The silence stretched between the three, with Sam continuously glancing at Dean, and Dean looking at him like 'what the hell do you want me to do about this?' The cart owner just kept staring right at them, smiling idly, like he was waiting for a programmed response.

Which… he probably was.

"Well, good luck with that." Dean turned and headed off the path to make his way around the downed cart.

"Dean!"

"Perhaps you could sell my wares at the festival!" the driver announced with sudden brilliance, and Sam was kind of surprised that exclamation mark still hovering over his head hadn't turned into a lightbulb.

Whoever wrote this game had spent one too many nights fueled by energy drinks. Next they'd be expected to throw chickens or play a musical instrument or something else equally inane.

"Um…"

"Yeah, we're not doing that." Dean had made it to the other side of the cart and was hoofing his way to the front gate of the city, hand on sword and goal clenched tightly between pinched shoulder blades.

Sam sighed and chased after him, grabbing him by the arm when calling his name wasn't enough to halt him. "Dean, come on."

"No!" The shout was more of a surprise than his brother whirling on him. Sam gave him the obligatory step back he certainly didn't owe the man, but he knew Dean too well. "No, I'm not coming on! This is stupid, Sam!"

"Agreed." The agreement came too readily, too calm and too genuine. Sam watched his brother deflate, that obstinate goal of making it to the damn city (if for nothing else than to say he'd done the thing) finally releasing from those tense shoulders. Sam continued, "This is beyond stupid, and I don't want to be here. But we are, so we're going to have to play along."

"Play along," Dean muttered viciously, his feelings on being forced to do anything very clear from the snarl on his face. "How the fuck are we supposed to know what to do, anyway?"

Sam knew his brother was griping more than asking a real question. The answer was as obvious as this entire scenario was stupid. Still, he couldn't help but rib the man that darn near never stopped ribbing him. He gestured to the cart, which was literally blocking the way to their goal. "Have you never played a video game before? Sheesh."

"No, Sam, I haven't. I've been hunting and saving people, not wasting my time at college playing games!"

And wow, that had been an absolutely perfect rendition of 2007 Dean. The man from the future hadn't been aiming for 2007 Dean – he hadn't needed to since Sam figured it out and thank fuck for that, because now he could just be himself – but, yeah, trying or not, he'd nailed that one. Especially if the hurt bitchface coming off his brother was his scale of judgment.

Ugh. Fine.

Dean gave a growl that was as much a sigh of defeat as it was a declaration of war and tromped back to the cart and the driver, who was still just standing there, stupid idle smile on his stupid idle face.

"Hello, travelers!"

"Just give us the damn 'wares,'" Dean demanded, hand held out and stormy expression on his face. Coming around the side of the cart, Sam was trying – and failing – not to grin. Not that this situation was remotely funny, of course.

"Certainly!" The cart owner's face never changed. Dean's eye started twitching. "If you sell all my wares and bring me back the coin, I will give you a rare treasure as a reward!"

"Of course you will," Dean muttered as Sam thanked the driver for his generosity. Nothing happened, and the older Winchester gestured with his hand impatiently. "Well?"

"Good luck!"

The two brothers just stared at the driver, who stared back. Sam glanced at Dean, then held out his own arms out, palms up. "Um… wares?"

Bolts of fabric blinked into existence in his arms, and Sam staggered slightly under the sudden weight of unexpected material. Dean's eye started twitching worse.

"I hate this place."

With that he turned on his heel and trudged back off the path, around the cart, and towards the city. Sam followed diligently, managed to disappear the 'wares' as suddenly as he'd summoned them.

-o-o-o-

"I would be happy to buy your wares."

They were in a shop about two blocks in from the city gate. Sam had followed Dean down a main, cobblestoned street lined with colorful tents, people milling about and sellers hawking their goods. None of the people had had exclamation marks over their heads, which Sam quickly confirmed meant they couldn't be engaged with. Not that Dean had given him much chance to find out. The younger Winchester had paused only once to see what this festival was about before being grabbed, forcefully, by the shirt-sleeve (robe sleeve, Dean had corrected with snark) and pulled along to the nearest place they were likely to ditch the bolts of fabric and end this.

Which, of course, had been marked by a wooden sign with a sewing needle and thread carved in relief. Because of course it had.

"Great, good, do that and let's go."

Sam resisted comment – and there were oh so many he could pick from, but all would get him in more trouble than it was worth – and held out his arms. The wares that appeared with a single thought. He could admit, disturbing as that was, it was also kind of cool.

Dean was pulling him out of the store the minute the sound of clinking coins coming out of nowhere signaled they'd been paid. He only had to pull his brother past the stalls two more times on their way out.

-o-o-o-

They made it back to the cart owner, who thanked them with the same amount of fanfare as before – an annoying amount – and gave them… a key. An old, rusty key.

Some freaking treasure.

"Well that was totally worth it," Dean grouched with no lack of sarcasm, dripping and venomous. Sam steered clear. "Now what, nerd genius?"

The taller man rolled his eyes, knowing his brother's irritation was born from frustration and feeling less than competent in this environment. Heaven forbid the younger Winchester be more capable at something than his big brother. Dean had a lot of triggers, but that particular one was damn near numero uno on Sam's list.

(Which Sam knew wasn't completely fair. Dean was fine with him excelling at plenty of things: research, books, spells, general knowledge, magic, anything that required study, and so on. Pretty much anything that didn't involve action. Unfortunately for the older Winchester, that was all there was to do in this world – boring as said action might be for the most part – and Dean didn't like failing at action. Action was supposed to be his one skill.)

((Which was also not fair. Sam knew Dean had plenty of skills beyond his abilities in a fight. It was Dean that didn't seem to know that.))

"We clearly have to find the door it goes to."

Dean stared incredulously at him. Then glanced at the walls of the town. Then Sam again. He gestured to the place with a wide, agitated arm. "In a freakin' city?"

Sam rolled his eyes again, grabbing the key from his brother and making his way back to where they'd just come from. "It's a town, Dean, not a city. There can't be more than twenty buildings to search."

"And it's such a good thing that every building only has one door," the older Winchester replied grumpily, knowing that was definitely not how their luck was going. "Not like emergency exits are a priority in a friggin game."

Sam didn't deign to comment, and instead re-entered the city. Lucky for his brother, he had a more interesting task at hand than the stalls this time, and no pulling-along was required.

-o-o-o-

Fifty-seven. Fifty-seven doors before they found the right one. Dean hated this place with the fiery, burning passions of hell. And he was going to unleash every one of those talents he'd learned in Hell itself upon the archangel when he got out of here.

The door swung open, the first to relent to the turn of the key in the lock, and the room was flooded with blinding, impossible light. It was so bright they couldn't see what was past the door, and Dean hated this place just that much more.

"After you, Legolas," Dean said just to be a punk because, even as he gave the door a grand sweeping gesture, he entered before his brother could. Dean knew the kind of games Gabriel played, and as much as he didn't want to take a Japanese game punch to the nuts, he sure as shit wasn't letting Sammy take it first.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A/Ns: One game down! This world is not meant to reflect a real game, and is instead very loosely inspired by games like Skyrim and Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

This chapter got away from me when I wrote it. I went back and forth on how the world would look – I really wanted it to feel like being inside a video game, but knew that would be a very visually–heavy decision, which is not always easy to translate in writing. I almost didn't commit to it, because I knew it was going to be very description-heavy, and wonky description at that. Eventually I committed, though I'm still concerned I didn't successfully pull it off. I work in the VFX industry, so I drew off that – trying to describe how those graphics would look from a 3-dimensional perspective, but I'm not actually sure how well it will translate for everyone. You all let me know if that was a misstep.

References: The Truman Show is a 1998 film staring Jim Carrey as Truman, a man raised on a TV set, though he doesn't know it. Danger Will Robinson is a line from Lost in Space and has colloquially become a general warning of "shit's about to go down!" :P

Next Up: Time for Game Two! What could Gabriel have in store for the boys next? Do they make games for Herpes?

Cheers,

Silence