Chapter Text
The guy had been nice. You know, before he’d abruptly become dead. That was probably the saddest part. Not that witnessing murder was ever really a barrel of laughs, but if Grant (Graham? Griffin? Something like that.) had been a jerk you might not have felt so shell shocked. But instead the lanky page had been sweet and friendly and just flirtatious enough to let you know he was interested without coming on too strong. He’d started by complimenting your knee-high boots and how warm they looked (a solid opening), and then further assured a good showing by offering to take you to craft services when you mentioned being hungry.
He’d held the door open for you to walk in first, laughing as you told him you’d never even seen the show whose set your friend had dragged you to – she was the super fan, and you were merely her unwilling accomplice. He followed through the doorway on your heels, but then pulled up sharply as you did, glancing around the unfamiliar room. This didn’t appear to be craft services but instead the set for some kind of cabin that had taken storm damage. The whole thing seemed out of place and almost overly done in its realism – the storm was still raging outside the broken window. You looked up at his smooth face and thick eyelashes to see only confusion. He turned back to look out the open door, only to find the studio replaced with a front porch and more storm.
“What is this? Some kind of special effects?”
“No, I don’t-” Then he’d made a choking sound, eyes wide and lips wet. His face was so distracting that you didn’t immediately notice the bit of silver protruding from his diaphragm until deep red had begun to spread through his light blue polo shirt. The silver disappeared with another, higher noise ripped from him, and he stayed up as if suspended for another one-two-three seconds before his knees buckled and he fell face down. You tracked his progress, heart speeding up though your brain was still about a full minute behind. The door slammed shut.
Movement brought your attention away from the fallen page, and you found a rather imposing man standing in the corner where he must have been hidden behind the door. He held what looked like a long, very shiny dagger, now quite damp and red. If this were a movie, or even that TV show you’d recently confessed to never having seen, you’d scream because some serial killer or monster or whatever those two tall, unnecessarily handsome men killed every week had just murdered the guy you were pretty sure was one more smile away from asking you to get coffee. But this was real life, and these kinds of thing don’t actually happen, you see.
Still, the man or monster was looking at you with an unfamiliar expression and raising his weapon like he thought he was going to stab you, too, and that didn’t seem like something that should be happening in the middle of a Thursday afternoon. So you took a step backwards, even though your absentee brain recognized he could still easily reach you and probably had more experience with this murdering thing if recent events were any indication. Then his blade was blocked by another dagger, equally as long and shiny, shinier even because it wasn’t covered in Grant’s blood. You followed the arm that held it to a man in a trench coat just as he shoved you backwards and sent you stumbling. You felt something at your back right before hands landed on your shoulders to hold you upright.
“Better hold on tight.”
The world blurred and spun and other words that were generally brought up when a person was about to pass out, and frankly you looked forward to the break being unconscious would give you. But you didn’t pass out. Instead you found yourself outside, a much drier outside, and still very much conscious. You stared and blinked and eventually remembered to breath and then somehow managed not to vomit on the exhale. Still, the nausea hit you hard, and you doubled over with your hands on your knees so you could breathe at the ground instead.
“Don’t worry – your first time is always the hardest. It’ll pass eventually.”
That voice from before. He was still behind you. You wanted to whip around to face the potential threat and demand an explanation, but your head and stomach had a quick committee meeting and vetoed that proposal. Too afraid to open your mouth, all you could manage was a muffled whine.
“If you’re going to be sick, kindly do it elsewhere. These shoes are Italian leather.”
You took a deep breath and held it to ask, “What’s going on?”
“Well, that’s complicated.”
You slowly straightened and turned to finally see this man whose accent you couldn’t quite identify and whose V-neck was dangerously low. “That’s not an answer. That’s actually the opposite of an answer and really doesn’t help me right now.”
“My apologies, sweetie, but if you’ll wait just a tick-" a fluttering behind you interrupted, and he smiled. “Ah, Castiel, why don’t you explain to the nice girl what happened?”
The man in the trench coat from before was back, currently glaring at V-neck over Graham’s glassy-eyed body. Your nausea surged even stronger.
“He’s dead, isn’t he? Like, actually dead. This isn’t some kind of elaborate prank the studio likes to play on visitors.”
You vaguely noticed the two men (the living ones) exchange a look before you doubled over again moaning.
“I am sorry you were brought into this.” The second man’s voice was deeper and very much akin to what you’d imagine sand would sound like in a food processor.
“What is this? Where am I?”
“Another dimension.”
You laughed, though it sounded suspiciously like choking. “A what now?”
“Another dimension, another world, somewhere over the rainbow, are you catching up yet?”
Deep breath, stand straight, glare at the rude one. “Okay, okay, sure, I’m in another dimension. Why am I in another dimension?”
“Because we needed to send the Winchesters to your dimension.”
Winchesters. Why did that sound familiar?
“Still not seeing what that has to do with me.”
“You can’t just move matter around willy nilly, can you? You'll end up throwing everything out of whack. Two apes go in, two apes come out.”
Did… did V-neck just call you an ape?
“What Balthazar means is,” trench coat glared at his compatriot, “in order for Dean and Sam to transfer to your dimension, equal matter needed to be exchanged.”
“Dean and Sam.” Connections lit up on your brain like those old telephone boards you’d seen women working in movies. “Winchester. Like in the show? Those two really tall guys who kill monsters and stuff.”
“Sounds accurate enough.”
“Why not just bring those two actors who play the guys?”
“Oh no, that wouldn’t work. See, most of us exist over various dimensions, but we can only focus on one at a time. They are there and here, so there’s not two things to swap. You, however, do not exist here, so bingo bango, you’re the next contestant on The Price is Equivalency.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Look, it’s all very technical and scientific, and we don’t have time to get into it right now.”
“You can’t just cite science and hope no one questions you!”
“Unless you can find someone else to explain the quantum mechanics of parallel universes you’re out of luck.” People shouldn’t get smile lines by their eyes when they’re being snarky.
“This is ridiculous. I can’t-” Your eyes landed on Griffin of their own accord, and you somehow managed to swallow and cough at the same time. You ripped your attention back to trench coat because he seemed like the more agreeable of the two. “So what are you? Some kind of wizards?”
V-neck snorted, but trench coat’s expression remained unmoved. “I am Castiel, and he is Balthazar. We are angels of the Lord.”
“None of this seems very angelic to me.”
“We’re fighting a war.”
“Wait,” your eyes darted between them, “you’re not being hyperbolic are you? You mean you’re literally angels.”
“Look who’s catching on.”
“So that guy back there – he was a demon or something?”
Castiel’s lips tightened, and his eyes took on a dark sheen. “He was also an angel.”
“You guys are fighting against each other? How is that possible? I thought…” You desperately tried to remember what you knew of Christian theology. “I thought after you got rid of Satan and his followers that God ran a pretty tight ship.”
“Unfortunately, daddy hasn’t been around for quite some time.”
You elected to ignore that the one named Balthazar (Balthazar?) just called God daddy, which was uncomfortable on so many levels. “What does that mean? Where could he go? He’s God!”
“If you get an answer, be a lamb and tell the rest of us, won’t you?”
“So you guys misplace God, and instead of finding him, you start an angelic civil war?” Hearing the words out loud felt like a physical shock. “What am I saying? This is stupid. I’m going insane.”
“I apologize again for the inconvenience-”
“Inconvenience? He’s dead!” You jabbed a finger at Grantham's body, and Castiel had the decency to look at least a little regretful.
“I did not intend for that to happen. I should have been there sooner to intercept Virgil.”
“Fat lot of good that does him now.”
“Not that this chat isn’t just fascinating, but we really should be going.” Balthazar did not seem regretful in the least – just impatient.
“Where are we going?”
“We need to go retrieve a cache of weapons. You just sit tight and try not to die until we’re ready to switch back.”
“No, no, no, you can’t bring me here, make me watch the cute PA get murdered, tell me God’s on vacation, and then leave me with a dead body in a world I don’t know anything about!”
“Well, when you lay it all out like that, it sounds bad.”
“She has a point, Balthazar.”
“Thank you!”
“I will retrieve the weapons. You remain to stand guard.”
Wait, what?