I watched the world fly by the Impala as we headed back to Bobby's from the Djinn hunt. We had returned to the motel to grab our bags then hit the road. Dean wasn't saying much, not after he grounded me for the rest of my life. If he was going to be upset with me, I was going to let him. I screwed up and could have gotten Cass and myself killed, and to be honest that scared me.
What if Cassidy had died? If I didn't have those freak abilities, which I still haven't told the guys about the latest one yet, would she still be sitting beside me right now? Uncomfortable with my own train of thought I shoved it to the farthest corners of my mind. My Ipod had died about an hour ago, leaving me stranded without any source of entertainment, and sleep was not an option at this point in time.
There was, however, one thing that I couldn't get over, my Djinn reality. Was that really the world I wanted? To have a dysfunctional family, but have them be normal. For me not to be cursed with angel blood but cursed with a father in debut who flees to the bar when times get rough. If that's what I wanted, I am glad I don't have it. I will admit something though, it was amazing to see them unbroken and happy. Well mostly happy. That is always going to be something I wish they could be.
Closing my eyes and resting my head against the window I blocked out reality and took a stroll down memory lane. I saw my mom and me walking down Main Street of our town. Laughing and sipping our coffee in the late morning sun. I knew it was summer because the air was fresh and clean and the trees were lined with leaves. Mom was laughing and pushing her dark hair out of her face. Smiling, I watched us.
Reminiscing in the sweet bliss of the innocence of it all. As always ,however, my memories changed to different ones, but instead of being evil and nightmarish it was the first moment I met Dean. I saw his candy apple green eyes shine as he asked me about my pie and his little grin as he listened to Sam. That was my dad, in his most real and open form. Well, at least that I knew of.
I don't know how or when it happened, but I had at some point zoned out because the next thing I knew I was waking up. My eyes fluttered open at the sound of a silent engines, closing doors, and the lack of motion. My eyes were greeted by the dark night sky and the rustic looking house dancing with shadows from the bright porch light, Bobby's. Cass was still asleep next to me, this kinda seemed like her common state. Smiling, I shook her awake.
"Come on Cass. We're home," I said before climbing out of the car. She followed after me in a much slower pace but managed to drag herself out of the car. To save myself from a dirty look I grabbed her bag and carried it into the house. This kid's mood was like the weather, I swear, unpredictable.
It was was warm inside the hallway and the house smelled just like it always had, like Bobby. Beer, old books, strange spices and smoke. It smelled like home. Sam and Dean's voices came from the kitchen including the unmistakeable tone of Castiel. At first I was going to go in and say hi but instead me eyes became heavy and my limbs like lead. Wether I wanted it or not sleep demanded my attention. Cassidy had already disappeared up to her room no doubt. Dropping her bag on the floor I went to the front room and laid down on the couch, my eyes closing instantly.
"Rachel? Rachel?" a voice called out eerily. My eyes opened slowly, unsure if I had heard that or not. The pail morning sun was just coming in through the windows. Again the voice came distantly, but distinct.
"Bentley?" I asked, pushing my gently sleep tangled hair out of my face. His voice repeated my name, louder, closer this time. I got to me feet and went into the hallway. Was he hurt? Was he just trying to mess with me? "Bentley, where are you?"
"Rachel..." this time I was sure that it was coming from the kitchen. I walked towards it quickly but not quickly like a panic, just enough to be considered quick. The kitchen sliding doors were closed.
"Bentley, seriously dude this isn't funny you little creep." I said looking at the doors, but strangely not moving them. There came no reply and a little feeling etched into the back of my mind. "Bentley...are you drunk? Did you pass out? Because I am not dragging your ass up stairs again, this time I'll pour ice water on you." Still no reply. Thoughts tried to seep into my head. "No ,shut up your being stupid." I scolded myself. Was I was though? To prove myself wrong I did the only thing I could do, open the door. It pulled back slowly, the old hinges creaking, like in horror movies. As I looked forward that's when I saw-
My eyes flipped open, stinging at the sudden brightness of the room. I was still on the couch and nothing was calling my name. With a sigh, I ran my fingers through my hair. When would the nightmares stop? I looked around the room and remembered the first time I had woken up here, but quickly repressed them as painful memories started to come back for the reason that I was there. I looked down at the watch on my wrist, 3 a.m.
The thumping of rain on the house was the only thing to be heard besides my foot steps. It was just light enough to see around but everything still seemed coated in the darkness of the night. Like every time before this I went to the kitchen to make coffee. No one was awake and since Bentley wasn't here I knew I'd spend the early hours of today alone with my thoughts.
The coffee pot perked slowly and I watched out the window as the early March rain tapped on the window. Not really thinking about anything in particular, but thinking of everything all at once. You could be better. said a voice of my own creation, You could have been smarter and not have gone into the stupid fun house to begin with. But that's what you are, isn't it? Stupid. And stupid is as stupid does.
Shut up! Shut up! another voice screamed back inside me. Almost desperate. Almost panicked. You are fine just as you are. Smart, strong, brave and careful. It was a mistake and it happens to everyone.
I closed my eyes and pulled my knees up to my chest on the chair. Trying to shut out the voice of doubt and shame. The back of my throat burned, like it did just before I was about to cry.
Go on. Cry! Cry you big stupid failure.
Shut up! Leave me alone!
I pressed my knees into my forehead, trying to use the pressure of them against my forehead to fight away the voices. "Leave me alone...." I breathed, "Leave me alone."
Ever since I'd been to the asylum on the other side, things had changed. For so many nights and days I'd wait in silence. It wasn't that I was afraid to speak, but in a way a refusal to speak. A defiance against the alternate worlds words and opinion. Something that could give me a tiny bit of will to stay strong. Being there really screwed with my mind.
Even though I was constantly surrounded by people, I felt as alone as I had when I was kidnapped by Lily, that's when the voices had started. I mean everyone has one. The voice that commonly says our thoughts; however, I had two that had minds of their own. At first they were comforting, like they were some sort of base, but in all reality the two sides of my fate, it seemed, trying to pull me in half. The cause of my soul breaking into oblivion.
Didn't it make sense though? I was locked in a place where I was constantly told my reality was a figment of my imagination. An idea that had stuck with me after I had come out of the coma. It is so hard to hold onto the already low amount of sanity I had when everything is saying it isn't true. I breathed in deeply and realized the noise inside my head had quieted down.
The sound of creaking floor boards snapped me into the real world. I looked in the direction of the sound, my eyes landing on a figure in the doorway.
"Are you okay?" Dean said coming into the kitchen. His eyes filled with concern. I nodded slowly but didn't move from my position.
"I'm trying to be..." I said after a moment. Dean got cups out of the cupboard and made us both cups of coffee.
"We need to talk," he said sitting down across from me. I nodded in agreement, we did need to talk.
"I'm sorry I got us in a fix back there," I said first. Dean, however, shook his head.
"No, that's not what we need to talk about." I looked at him curiously," Rachel, you were gone for 2 month over here. That's god only knows how much time over there."
"A year and 4 months." I replied quietly, "I was over there for a year and four months. The last 3 were spent in a mental hospital because they thought I was crazy. " I paused for a second remembering it all, "In that world your life, our lives, are-"
"TV shows, I know." Dean said cutting me off. I looked at my dad shocked.
"How...?"
He continued, "Sam and I were sent over there once and it was..." he searched for the right words, "It was definitely different." I smiled a little bit.
"Your doppelgangers in that place were the ones who found me. They paid for me to be taken care of in the hospitals and they even set up a money fund to take care of me if I recovered. They were nice people it seemed like." Dean nodded with a small smirk.
"Yeah, we had a lot of money over there." An awkward silence filled the room.
"Dean...I was scared over there...so scared," my throat was tight, " I didn't think that I'd ever get home and that I'd die there in a world that wasn't my own. I was so alone..." I looked down into my coffee. I hadn't admitted that out loud at all to any one. Dean just watched me for a while, and I fought down the blurring tears that kept coming.
"I went to Hell and Purgatory." he said after a moment.
"What?"
"I sold my soul for Sam and was in actual Hell for four months. It was like forty years down there. And the screams...they never stopped. The pain and torture never stopped. No matter how hard you scream or cried for help there was no sympathy. No escape. Cas was actually the one that pulled me out...and purgatory," he took a drink of his coffee. "It was a fight for survival against every monster ever ganked. The Hunger Games on steroids."
I smiled at Dean and his pop-culture references. "That sucks Katniss," Dean smiled at me from across the table. "I'm sorry you had to go through that, Dean."
He shrugged, "What happened happened and that's it." Our eyes met, "I just want you to know I'm always here for you okay? We're family." I smiled at my dad. We're family and that's all that mattered. The glue that binds us.
"I'll remember that Dean, " I said with a small half smile, "Thanks." He smiled back at me.
"Hey, it's Saturday." I said with another smile, "Want to go watch cartoons?" Dean stood up and put an arm around my neck and we were off to go watch Buggs Bunny and Daffy Duck.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Later in the morning Bentley showed up and I got a twenty minute lecture on how to not get myself killed, then he gave me a hug and told me I was too big of a pain in his ass.
"And you're grounded forever." He said letting me go.
"Aww well, you're too late my friend. Dean and Sam have already grounded me for the rest of my life."
He only smiled and ruffled my hair. After that he went up stairs to the room he usually slept in and crashed for 5 hours. Bobby said he had just come in from one hell of a ghost hunt in Minnesota. We all knew the rule about not bothering a hunter after a hellish hunt. Around 2 pm Bentley finally came back down stairs, looking much better than he had when he first got here.
I was in the front room, lounging on the couch catching up on the news and check my long abandoned Tumblr account when I heard Cassidy calling my name.
"What Cass?" I asked her without looking up from the screen. I heard the bathroom door on the other side of the room open.
Cassidy came out of the bathroom with my IPod touch in hand, dressed in a giant sweat shirt, one of Bobby's thermal vests and one of Bentley's baseball caps. The song "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore started to play. She started dancing to the music and moving her arms "all thug like".
"Cass? What are you doing?" I asked looking up at her.
"I'm going to become an interpretive dancer!" She replied with a one of her mischievous grins. She smiled even more as I shake my head in shame. "I could so be a gangster, " She said as she did a horrible, but in her personal opinion fantastic, duggey. Her black and white pajama bottoms, which used to be mine, were way to big for her and she had to keep pulling them up as she danced.
"No, Cass.... Just no..." A series of dance moves followed after this.
"I'll wear your granddad's clothes! I look incredible!" She sang out loudly and came right up in my face as she did so.
"Macklemore? Really? You've poisoned my IPod with your Pop-pollution!" After the song ended, Cassidy went immediately to another one even worse than the last song. She then proceeded to lip sync to something called " And We Danced".
"Cass... you look like your being exorcised." I told her with a raised eyebrow.
"Come at me bro! See what happens!" I could only watch her, a look of mock terror on my face.
"What the hell do you listen to kid!" I asked, covering my eyes. When I opened them again I saw Sam leaning out of the kitchen, a concerned look of confusion on his face. "Don't ask!" I mouthed to him as Cassidy kicked on yet again another song, "Disturbia" by Rhianna.
She started doing a strange version of "Thriller", along with what she called a metaphorical jump rope and something called the octopus. I was convinced that this was something out of an exorcisms that went horribly, horribly wrong. All the while she smiled at me and sang obnoxiously. That's when it happened.
Bentley came into the front room and watched the scene before him with a grin. Then Cassidy put on a song I had never heard before.
"Hey! Where's the drums?
Oh whoa-oh-oh-oh
Let's go!
Ooh girl you're shining
Like a 5th avenue diamond
And they don't make you like they used to
You're never going out of style
Ooh pretty baby
This world might've gone crazy
The way you save me
Who can blame me
When I just wanna make you smile?"
Bentley's eyes suddenly became bright and Cassidy instantly had a new dance partner. The chorus began.
"I wanna thrill you like Michael
I wanna kiss you like Prince
Let's get it on like Marvin Gaye
Like Hathaway
Write a song for you like this
You're over my head
I'm out of my mind
Thinking I was born in the wrong time
One of a kind, living in a world gone plastic
Baby you're so classic
Baby you're so classic
Baby you,
Baby you're so classic"
Bentley and Cass sang and spun around the room, moving their arms in sync with the words and it actually looked good.
"Ima pick you up in a Cadillac" Sang Bentley , moving his hand like a steering wheel, "Like a gentleman bringin' glamour back." He popped his flannel shirts collar
"Keep it reel to reel in the way I feel. I could walk you down the aisle!" sang Cassidy spinning Bentley around before sticking her hand out like showing someone a ring. I laughed as I watched them dance with each other until my sides hurt.
"You're over my head I'm out of my mind" they tossed their arms back over their heads.
"Thinking I was born in the wrong time
It's love on rewind," they spun away then back into each other.
"Everything is so throwback-ish (I kinda like it, like it)
Out of my league
Old school chic
Like a movie star
From the silver screen" They pretended to have paparazzi taking picture of them.
"You're one of a kind living in a world gone plastic
Baby you're so classic
Baby you're so classic
Baby you're so classic " The song ended and Cass jumped into Bentley's arms and he went down onto one knee, both of them grinning like the idiots I knew them as. I clapped and laughed for them. Standing up I hugged them both tightly.
"You guys are awesome," I said with a grin. I loved my family.
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Authors Note: Hi all you awesome people!
Guys I just want to say I feel so blessed for all your love and support and for all the comments, reads, and votes that you all do and give! You are so amazing!
GUYS WE WON THE WATTY AWARDS!!!
I say "We" because I couldn't have won without all of your votes and ny you telling people about the book. You are all truly amazing! I am so glad that you decided to pick these books and read them and I hope that as I grow as a writer that you stick with me, :) AWWW! You guys just rock! Awesome!
I apologize for the lateness of this chapter and the spelling errors of the chapters I will be going back through and fixing those. Work has had my hands tied and so has school but things should be mellowing out so updates should be coming more regularly. Thank you all so much once again for everything guys! Your amazing!!!! Talk to ya' soon!
~Rachel W.