Chapter 3
Sam was really starting to get pissed. It was going on a week since he'd awakened and Dean was no where to be found. At first he was only annoyed Dean hadn't said anything to him and that there wasn't even a note. He figured perhaps Dean had run to Benny's rescue again, but when he found Dean's phone on the nightstand and the Impala in the garage, he'd become concerned. After calling Kevin, who'd heard nothing, and Garth and Jodie, with the same results, he became downright worried and had prayed to Castiel. If Dean had taken off somewhere with the angel, it could explain all of the oddities.
But Cas hadn't answered no matter how often or fervently, and by fervently Sam meant angrily, he prayed, so he was done playing around. Maybe Cas could put him on ignore, but there was someone who couldn't. Someone who lately thought he had reason to mess with them. Sam headed into the dungeon and set up a table just outside the devil's trap and began the spell to summon Crowley. Someone had to know something. Once the flame died in the bowl Sam watched the room expectantly. After a moment he was rewarded with Crowley's cheery, "Moose."
"Where is he, Crowley?"
"Who? Your knight in shining armor?"
Sam was irritated even more by Crowley's cavalier attitude and snapped. "My brother! Where's Dean?"
Crowley gave Sam a strange, almost pitying, look, "how should I know? You really need to be more careful with your toys, Sam."
"What did you do with him?"
Crowley smiled and regarded Sam with amusement. "You labor under the assumption that I want to have anything to do with you and Squirrel. I assure you, taking either of you anywhere is the furthest thing from my mind. I've had quite enough of the both of you. Now, if you don't mind," he indicated the devil's trap.
Sam stepped forward considering whether to smudge away the chalk he'd marked in the area left unpainted for just such a purpose, or leave Crowley to rot. But a sudden inspiration made him stop just short of the line. He searched Crowley's expression for a beat. "Could you find him?"
Crowley granted him an oily smile. "And why would I want to do that?"
"What if I had something to offer?"
Crowley chuckled, "What, your soul? Pass."
"No souls, Crowley, just information. So you can be prepared."
"Dear, dear Moose. The apocalypse is over, the Levis are gone and that pesky angel has been plucked. Am I missing anything?"
"Yeah, you're missing how we're gonna make life really suck for all you demons."
"Oh, pray tell!" Crowley replied with feigned enthusiasm.
"First," Sam said harshly, "Do you know where Dean is?"
"No."
"Can you find him?"
Crowley regarded Sam for a moment with narrowed eyes. Sam knew Crowley was deciding if he really did have anything to bargain with, and if the information would actually have any value.
Sam could see the instant Crowley's decision was made by the look on his face and was already scuffing at the chalk line when Crowley answered, "Splitting up the Hardy Boys is better for me. Squirrel can stay where he is."
"Useless as ever." Sam said bitterly, and he scrubbed the sole of his boot across the chalk one last time, breaking the trap. Crowley disappeared immediately.
Cussing under his breath Sam cleaned up his mess and went back to the library. He wasn't even at square one. If fact he was so far away from square one that he couldn't even see it on the horizon. Dammit! Come on Cas! He thought venomously. Back to looking for an angel summoning spell, if such a thing existed.
-wWw-
"You boys live here?" Bobby's tone was incredulous.
"Yeah!" Dean felt a wide smile grow on his face using muscles that hadn't been exercised for a while. "For a few months now."
Bobby continued down the stairs from the Crow's Nest to the War Room. Standing at the railing Dean watched as Bobby checked out the map table and headed for the library. Dean descended the stairs and came up behind Bobby who was standing just inside the doorway to the library taking it all in.
"I mean, in my world, timeline, whatever, we've lived here a few months. I woke up here about a month ago and it took me a while to find Sam, and you and then I went to see Sam." Dean watched as Bobby slowly entered the library. "You wouldn't believe some of the things the Men of Letters collected here."
Bobby stopped at the first book shelf and ran a finger across the spines of the leather bound tomes, obviously taking in the titles.
Dean followed him into the library saying, "There's a whole storeroom full of more books and artifacts. Sam and I were in the middle of cataloging everything when I...well."
"So you don't know everything that's in here?" Bobby pulled a red leather bound book down from a shelf.
"No. Not even close."
"Sounds like we got some work to do, then." Bobby grinned at Dean, obviously excited about the prospect of diving into the extraordinary lore that surrounded him.
Dean grinned back, this was something he'd longed for, seeing Bobby in the bunker. It wasn't his Bobby, but close enough. It filled a hole in his heart where he hadn't known a piece was missing. The only sour note was that he couldn't share this with Sam. They both loved the craggy old hunter who had become their surrogate father. And both had been gutted when they lost him a year ago. With effort, Dean put that out of his mind. He missed Sam far more than he was willing to acknowledge, even to himself. And seeing how Sam might have been had he become a lawyer made him very proud of his little brother. But he needed to lock all that down for the time being and stay on mission so he could get back home.
Dean let Bobby examine the Library, then they wandered the rest of the bunker, Bobby getting the 'two-bit tour'. They ended up in the storage room and Dean slid the bookshelves open to expose the dungeon. Bobby took in the devil's trap painted on the floor and walked to a side wall to inspect the manacles hanging from a hook. He held one up, peering at the sigils in the dim light. "These things work?"
"So far," Dean grinned, loving every minute of Bobby's reaction. But he'd headed to the storeroom with a purpose and while Bobby looked around he collected a few things he would need for the spell he wanted to perform. During one of their long conversations he'd told Bobby about how the Balthazar had sent them to an alternate timeline where he and Sam were actors on a TV show. Since then he'd thought a lot about the trying that spell. He reckoned it would be worth a try, thinking that it should send him back where he came from. At least he fervently hoped it would work that way.
Bobby was heading back to Sioux Falls that evening, being loathe to leave his hotlines unmanned for more than a day, but he'd already decided that they should move into the bunker and set up a base of operations there. Dean couldn't agree more. It would be a perfect place for Bobby to set up shop. A haven for other hunters filled with lore collected over centuries. The apocalypse hadn't happened in this timeline, due, Dean reckoned, to Sam not receiving a visit from Azazel when he was six months old. Or perhaps it went even further back and Mary had never had to bargain for John's life. But there were still monsters in this world, and he couldn't ignore that. If nothing else, sharing the bunker and everything else he and Sam had learned and discovered over the years was the least he could do while he was there.
Dean convinced Bobby that he would stay behind to make the bunker livable and start cataloging so that everything would be ready the minute he was back. Even though in reality he wanted to try the spell and see if he could get home. He spent the next couple of days cleaning a room for Bobby and retrieving some of the more esoteric items from the storeroom which he thought that Bobby should see. The third evening when it was quiet, he sat at the table in his room, sipping whiskey and writing a letter. He wanted to leave something behind for Bobby, wanted to explain some things, wanted to say some things that he knew he could never say out loud. Even writing those words was hard, but he finally finished and tucked several pages into an envelope and sealed it. Then he set the thick envelope in the middle of the map table where Bobby was sure to notice it right away.
He headed back to his room and began preparing the spell. The only question was did he have to crash through the sigil the way he and Sam had crashed through the window? He finally decided no, Balthazar had told them to run, if they'd done that they would have headed for the door and the sigil was already painted on the window he threw them into. So, he thought - he hoped - that it was simply the presence of the sigil that was necessary, not diving through it. So he painted the sigil on the inside of his bedroom door, prepared the mixture on the table, chanted the words and waited.
Nothing happened for hours. He felt defeated, and finally turned in. But not before dressing in his white t-shirt and hot dog pajama pants and carefully placing his new phone on the bedside table in the same position he thought he'd left his phone that night so many weeks ago when everything had spun out of control.
-wWw-
He awoke from the edge of a nightmare. It had been ages since he'd dreamed of his time in Hell, and he spent a few moments untangling the dream as he came fully awake. As awareness came to him he clicked on the bedside lamp and got a vague notion that things were out of place. Rubbing at his eyes blearily he yawned and stretched and the smell of coffee filled his nose. Bobby must have really hauled ass. He also heard several voices, though he couldn't make out any words. And brought some friends.
Dean rose, smiling, stepping into his slippers and grabbing his robe. He was out the door shrugging into the robe calling "Hey, Bobby!" when he stopped short. He could feel his jaw slip open and a cold tremble worked its way up his spine. "Dad?"
John Winchester stood a few feet down the hallway. Tall and solid and, in Dean's eyes, totally out of place. Before he could react John's gaze darted to something behind Dean and as he turned to see what it was, he caught a glimpse of Sam as he was head locked against his brother's chest, a forearm painfully constricting his throat. Dean tried to twist his throat into the crook of Sam's elbow to gain some breath, both hands tugging futilely at Sam's arms. But Sam had the same training and was able to apply enough leverage to keep him in place.
The edges of Dean's vision turned gray and the last thing he knew was his dad's rock hard fist hitting his face before he blacked out.
-wWw-
The water was cold and it jarred him from the warm haze that enveloped him. He was tied to a chair, and he saw he was in the dungeon in the middle of the devil's trap. His dad and brother were there, just out of reach and he looked up as Sam hit him in the face with holy water again. Dean spat some of the water from the side of his mouth. "Not a demon. Listen -"
"Who are you?" Sam cut him off, and leaned in closer. "How did you get here?"
"Okay! Okay, Sammy. You know who I am, and I'm not even sure where I am, I mean..." Dean shook his head trying to clear away the cobwebs. "I, uh, this is gonna sound crazy...but..."
Dean looked up to see their dad leaning against a wall. His face was set, eyes narrowed, he wasn't missing anything. But Sam still hovered near him, slowly stepping around and Dean's hackles raised when Sam reached around and slashed at his forearm with what Dean knew was a silver knife.
"Sonuvabitch! Stop it Sam!"
"You're not my brother!" Sam came back around in front of him to yell, "Dean is dead! So who are you?"
"Yes I am! I'm just - I - I'm dead?" What the flying pur-again?
Sam cut him off by pressing the still dripping knife to his throat. "Tell the truth!"
"Sammy."
They both glanced over at their dad who nodded at Sam. "Let him talk for a minute."
Sam glared down at him now, mouth set in a thin, flat line. Dean noticed a scar he'd never seen before pulling at the skin around Sam's right eye.
"Okay, talk. And it better be good." Sam said harshly, slowly withdrawing the knife.
Dean swallowed hard. He could feel a sting and wetness on the skin of his throat and he knew Sam had cut him there, too.
"I am your brother." He looked hard into Sam's eyes, then turned to John. "And I am your son. I'm just not from this world."
Sam scoffed loudly in obvious disbelief.
"I'm telling the truth! I think a spell I did got me here. I was already in an alternate timeline and I was trying to get home. I don't know how this started. I just got moved somehow..." Dean trailed off when he saw Sam's expression soften slightly and turn pensive.
"Alternate timeline?" Sam said slowly. "Like what? Like sci-fi?"
"Well, yeah." Dean answered just as slowly, a little taken aback at how quickly that tide had turned. "Only not science fiction. It's real."
Before anyone else could speak a man Dean didn't recognize walked into the room. John pushed off the wall to meet him where the bookshelves hung open and they conversed in low tones. Sam still stared at him, but Dean could tell his attention was on the whispered conversation that he was probably close enough to hear. This was validated when Sam swung to them and said, "Roman's where?"
John turned around to face Sam, but his gaze was on Dean. "We'll discuss this later, son." And he led the other man from the room.
Sam walked closer and stared down at Dean. His posture was more relaxed and his expression was calm, but Dean could see in his eyes that anger simmered just under the surface. "Keep talking."
Dean stared up and tugged at his bonds, wishing his hands were free so he could rub his face and stuff his brain back into his ears. "Will you untie me Sam?"
Sam only cocked his head to the side, not dignifying the request with an answer.
"Fine." Dean said. "You said Roman. Do you mean Dick Roman?"
Again Sam didn't answer directly but his eyebrow twitched like he was trying to keep from raising it in surprise.
"Great." Dean grumbled. "Leviathans. I hate those guys."
He watched Sam hovering over him for a moment longer, then shaking his head said, "fine. What do you want to know?"
"Explain the alternate timelines. You mean like Sliders?"
Dean raised an eyebrow and frowned in appreciation, "So you watched it with me here, too, huh?"
Sam gave him bitch face number four and Dean grinned, it seemed no matter which timeline, some things never change. "Okay, dude, whatever. Yes. Like Sliders. Except no timer and no twenty-nine point seven years if I miss a jump. And like Batman: Holy Terror and Superman: Red Son. Some things are the same but some are different, okay? The first time an angel sent us to a world where we were actors, playing ourselves in a TV show. The last one I was in, I died when you were a baby and you went to Law School and were a lawyer at some fancy ass place in San Francisco. And I tried a spell to get me back to my timeline and I ended up in this clown show."
Sam didn't seem impressed with his sarcastic description, but let it slide. "You did a spell?"
"Yeah. Matter of fact, the same one the angel used to send us to no magic world. And then we used it to get back, but another angel helped pull us back through, because - wait for it! - it was no magic world." He tugged at the ropes holding his wrists to the chair. "Sammy, come on, untie me, I gotta take a leak, dude."
Before Sam could answer there was a commotion and loud voices down the hall. He turned and started for the door. "Stay put."
"Seriously, dude. You just gonna leave me here?" Dean called after him, not really expecting an answer. "Right," he groaned to himself. "Sonuvabitch."