Fic: Almost Home, SPN/Dead Like Me, PG-13
I figured while it's the weekend and I'm feeling both creative and human again that I'd post a snippet or two for 12_daysofficmas, even though my 12 days will probably be more like 2 or 3.
Title: Almost Home
Fandoms: Supernatural/Dead Like Me
Characters/Pairings: Jimmy Novak, Georgia Lass, Mason
Disclaimer: Definitely not mine!
Summary/Teaser: In which Jimmy Novak finds out there’s more to life after death than peace and the Pearly Gates, and that even minus one angel on board, his day job just got a whole lot weirder.
Rating: PG-13 (language, some off-screen violence)
Word Count: 2451
It has to be whipped cream.
He woke up to find himself suspended in some kind of white gooey floaty substance, and he’s had what feels like a long time to debate the various possibilities while he hangs around - it doesn’t smell like mayonnaise, doesn’t feel like meringue or milk, and hello, he hates Marshmallow Fluff, so he’s not even going there.
Yeah, Jimmy’s pretty sure he’s doing the backstroke in Cool Whip.
At least he thinks he’s on his back - it’s a little tough to get oriented because he can’t seem to turn his head or move his arms. Or, technically, find his head or his arms.
This should probably freak him out more than it does, but to be honest, living with an angel inside him has pretty much upped the tolerance on his Freak-o-Meter to insanely high levels over the past year. Besides, it’s not like Castiel has ever been very good about sharing the little details with him. In general he favors a put-the-vessel-to-sleep-first, answer-questions-later approach. Which suits said vessel just fine, thank you, especially after that one time things got a little busy and Castiel only got around to knocking him out after he/they caught a carving knife between the ribs. Still, the current situation is new, annoying, and a little gross, and he’d kind of like to know why this seemed like a good idea to anyone.
So where is Castiel?
“-so where’s Cas?”
He still can’t see or move, but he recognizes the voice. If Dean Winchester’s nearby, it’s a safe bet that his angel is also somewhere in the vicinity. The thought makes Jimmy release a slow breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“-archangels - right out of the house.”
The second voice is unfamiliar and a little winded, like its owner is recovering from hard labor or a bad scare. And apparently whipped cream sort of sucks as a sound conductor, because Jimmy can only catch bits and pieces of the conversation no matter how hard he concentrates.
“-sure, Chuck? Maybe he just vanished in the lights?”
“-like, exploded - a water balloon with chunky soup.”
Okay, so apparently this Chuck person is into the food references too. He can’t quite make out what that’s supposed to mean, but Dean’s tone changes in response to whatever it is.
“Stupid bastard - it wouldn’t have happened if…”
And now Jimmy’s starting to get a little nervous, because that pained, leaden affect just isn’t something he’s ever associated with Dean Winchester, and because he still can’t feel Castiel anywhere at all.
He wonders if he can talk through the Cool Whip, figures it’s worth a shot.
“Castiel? Cas, what’s going on? Are you in here?” He tries to look around, though he’s pretty sure his efforts are in vain. “Hell, where is here?”
He barely recognizes the sound of his own voice, gummy and thick and rapidly damped out by the soft substance surrounding him.
“Dean? Can you hear me? Hello?”
There’s no answer from within or without, just a low thrum of conversation between Dean, Chuck, and a third voice he recognizes as Sam Winchester’s. The words are so muted they’re almost unintelligible, the mood downright funereal, when suddenly Chuck shouts about feeling something and Jimmy simultaneously senses a low static buzzing that fills the space around him.
At last, thank you God, he breathes to himself, because he’s gotten pretty familiar with this form of dramatic entrance over the past year, and he’s only too ready for a little angelic relocation. Forget whining over the heavenly hassles of bleeding eardrums and blinding lights - as soon as he’s out of here he is so ripping Cas a metaphorical new one for abandoning him wide-awake in a vat of goo.
“You just keep your distance, asshat - you jump-started Judgment Day!”
Or...maybe not.
“ - say it’s all our faults and just move on. Like it or not, it’s Apocalypse now.”
That’s not Castiel’s voice, and the sheer power of the new presence is like nothing Jimmy’s ever felt with any previous visitations. It’s overwhelming, rattling the space around him and sending vibrations over and through him with each word of what’s obviously turning into an increasingly antagonistic conversation. What was someone saying about archangels?
“ - listen to me, you two-faced douche.”
And that part was certainly audible enough. There’s a new, cold rage in Dean’s voice that prickles the hairs on Jimmy’s possibly non-existent neck, and he wonders just what the new arrival did to provoke this kind of reaction from someone who’s always been so unflappable. Nothing he can think of is remotely comforting.
“You listen to me, boy - rebel against us - like Lucifer?”
Wait, archangels were the good guys, right?
“You’re bleeding.”
“-insurance policy - learned this from my friend Cas, you son of a bitch!”
There’s shouting and a sudden bright flash of light that penetrates right through him, and a split-second later Jimmy’s yelping in alarm as he twists over and back with the force of the following shock wave. He flails like a rag doll, unable to right himself or stop his momentum or even do the damned doggy-paddle through the Cool Whip, because he still can’t seem to find any of his limbs. He stops bobbing woozily after what feels like a long time, dizzy and nauseated and he hopes to God right side up, because the idea of choking on his own vomit upside-down in cosmic dessert topping is a bit more than he can handle right now.
The powerful buzzing has faded away, and with it, apparently, the creature that caused it. Based on Dean’s reaction, that’s probably a positive.
“Dean? Hello?”
His answer is a very disconcerting quiet.
“Sam? Ch-chunky soup guy, Chuck?”
And still there’s nothing in reply, no voices or sounds of movement or any indication that anyone was ever here in the first place.
Clearly the Winchesters are gone. Jimmy doesn’t want to think too hard about what might have happened to them during the shock wave. His Inner Optimist pipes up helpfully that at least Dean had sounded like the one in control of the situation, but really? After today Jimmy’s not so sure that you can even use words like “control” and “archangel” in the same sentence.
He’s also not too sure he wants to attract any heavenly attention right now, but he’s not really in a position to be very choosy.
“Cas? Castiel? Come on, anyone, hello? Please, what’s going on here? Why can’t anyone hear me?”
Maybe it’s his neurons finally connecting through the Cool Whip, or maybe it’s those last little shards of optimism falling away with an irrevocable horrible finality that do it; but as the words leave his mouth the proverbial lights come on and that last piece of the puzzle clicks into place. And the fractured conversational snippets come together with the clarity of one big terrifying run-on sentence: out of the house Apocalypse Judgment Day stupid bastard exploded oh SHIT.
Jimmy gets it. Castiel isn’t coming back for him.
Castiel isn’t coming back at all.
Okay, now he’s freaking out.
***
He is not going out like this, damn it.
There has to be something - some One - that’ll help. They kept telling him he’d been called for something special, surely even if his task is completed and his angel is gone he’s not just going to be thrown away and forgotten, right? They promised protection.
They promised protection for your family, dumbass, says a little voice in the back of his mind. Why’d you assume you were part of the package deal?
Yeah, apparently his Inner Optimist has turned into a nasty, bitter little bastard who’d rather be filling his glass-half-empty with vodka. Jimmy kind of agrees with him.
Oh God, his family - if this happened to him, what are they going through right now?
He prays for what seems like hours, until his voice is ragged and strained. He calls for Castiel and Dean and God and the police, just to cover all his bases. He recites and then sings all the lyrics to every Bob Dylan song he knows, first alphabetically and then chronologically, in an effort to pass time and hang onto his sanity. Halfway through the third verse of the third go-round of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” he switches gears and starts to talk to Amelia and Claire, a final apology and a final good-bye, but he stops short after the first few words, knowing that even a one-sided imaginary conversation with them will leave him too heartbroken and lonely to survive whatever hell this is.
...Oh God, he couldn’t actually be in Hell, could he?
He’s pretty much exhausted everything he can think of save for screaming like a little girl at the top of his lungs, and that’s looking like a pretty good damned option when he hears a new set of voices.
“Holy shit, look at this splatter-fest. Ugh, Rube is going to owe me big-time for this.”
“George, you have to check out the bedroom - guy was a total pervert, he actually has blow-up dolls in here. Oh God, I think this one is used!”
“Yeah, while we’re on that subject, try and stick a stolen sex doll in my car and you’re walking all the way home. Will you get your ass out here and help me look for the body?”
They’re not angels - the conversation kind of gives that one away - but they don’t exactly seem human either. From where he’s standing/floating/whatever, he can sense a sort of energy, subtler and less dynamic than anything he’d felt from Castiel, but present nonetheless. It prickles around him, raises the small fine hairs at the back of his neck - hmm, apparently he’s beginning to feel his neck again - and stirs the goo into gentle waves.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
His voice sounds stronger, a little more like himself this time, but the others prattle on, still oblivious to his presence and deeply embroiled in a conversation that makes even less sense to him than Dean’s little tête-à-tête with the archangel.
“-still don’t know why we have to fix Supernatural Events’ fuck-ups. Two weeks of piled-up Post-It time because some flunkie Reaper caught his lights early, you’d think Upper Management would actually get off their asses and do something about it.”
“I thought Tessa’d be here.”
“She’s out somewhere in the Midwest with the rest of her team tackling the backlog. Rube said something about all sorts of weird shit going down in the Heartland.”
“Well, damn. I was really hoping to spend some quality time with Tessa.”
“You were hoping for another chance to ogle her rack.”
“Possibly, that too. Okay, yes.”
“God, Mason, you’re such a guy sometimes I - what did I just tell you about keeping second-hand porn out of my car? Are those sex-doll panties sticking out of your pocket?”
“They’re - my handkerchief?”
“Of course they are. Because you’re such a red-lace kinda guy.”
“I am deeply offended by your suspicions, George, really.”
If he weren’t in his current situation, Jimmy thinks, the exchange might be borderline amusing. “Mason” sounds male, British, and guilty, and “George” is annoyed, possessed of a rather impressive catalog of obscenities, and name notwithstanding, decidedly female. She also seems to be the one in charge of - whatever they’re here for. Jimmy readies himself to start yelling for her at the top of his lungs before they leave him too.
“Whatever. Where the hell is this guy?”
“More’s the point, love, where isn’t he? I don’t think the wallpaper in this room was originally red-streaked, you know?”
“So...what? I just touch the wall? I usually have a whole body to work with.”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Because you’ve been doing this a hell of a lot longer than I have, Mason, I figured you’ve seen more weird shit before and after death.”
“This is new territory for me too, Georgie girl. Just pick a piece and go for it.”
Whatever’s going on out there sounds not only ominous but also on the verge of wrapping up, and panic forces Jimmy’s voice into a near-bellow.
“Hey! Hello, can you hear me?”
“Oh, wait - what’s this on the mantelpiece?”
“I think it’s - eww, a molar?” George’s voice jumps a good octave higher. “I’m popping a soul from a fucking tooth? That’s it, I am kicking Rube’s ass for this.”
“Hey! Stop and listen to me, please!”
“Come on and get this over with so we can go, George, this place is seriously fucking creepy.”
“Fine, give me the damned tooth and we’ll go.”
So they don’t hear him either. They’re leaving too.
If Jimmy could find his hands, he’d bury his head in them and scream in frustration, but all he can feel is the cosmic Cool Whip coalescing around him, emitting odd little sparking sensations as it coats his legs and travels up his - wait, what?
In the second it registers that he’s actually beginning to see and feel his body again, George mutters “Okay, J. Novak, come out, come out wherever you are, you poor exploded bastard.”
And then all Jimmy feels and hears is a tremendous pop as something pulls him together and out and down.
He blinks slowly at the pattern in front of his face, the brown paisley a nice change from endless white expanses of goo. There’s something rough and scratchy against his palms, and he realizes he ended up in a sprawl on someone’s wool carpeting. Clearly he won’t be winning any points for style from that landing, but he’s too happy to be solid and three-dimensional and real again to sweat the little details.
He sees two pairs of sneakers a few feet in front of his nose, and he pulls himself onto his knees with a groan, gaze traveling upwards until it lands on two startled faces.
“Um.” George is petite, blonde and looks a lot younger than she’d sounded before. “Uh, J. Novak, I presume?”
Title: Almost Home
Fandoms: Supernatural/Dead Like Me
Characters/Pairings: Jimmy Novak, Georgia Lass, Mason
Disclaimer: Definitely not mine!
Summary/Teaser: In which Jimmy Novak finds out there’s more to life after death than peace and the Pearly Gates, and that even minus one angel on board, his day job just got a whole lot weirder.
Rating: PG-13 (language, some off-screen violence)
Word Count: 2451
It has to be whipped cream.
He woke up to find himself suspended in some kind of white gooey floaty substance, and he’s had what feels like a long time to debate the various possibilities while he hangs around - it doesn’t smell like mayonnaise, doesn’t feel like meringue or milk, and hello, he hates Marshmallow Fluff, so he’s not even going there.
Yeah, Jimmy’s pretty sure he’s doing the backstroke in Cool Whip.
At least he thinks he’s on his back - it’s a little tough to get oriented because he can’t seem to turn his head or move his arms. Or, technically, find his head or his arms.
This should probably freak him out more than it does, but to be honest, living with an angel inside him has pretty much upped the tolerance on his Freak-o-Meter to insanely high levels over the past year. Besides, it’s not like Castiel has ever been very good about sharing the little details with him. In general he favors a put-the-vessel-to-sleep-first, answer-questions-later approach. Which suits said vessel just fine, thank you, especially after that one time things got a little busy and Castiel only got around to knocking him out after he/they caught a carving knife between the ribs. Still, the current situation is new, annoying, and a little gross, and he’d kind of like to know why this seemed like a good idea to anyone.
So where is Castiel?
“-so where’s Cas?”
He still can’t see or move, but he recognizes the voice. If Dean Winchester’s nearby, it’s a safe bet that his angel is also somewhere in the vicinity. The thought makes Jimmy release a slow breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“-archangels - right out of the house.”
The second voice is unfamiliar and a little winded, like its owner is recovering from hard labor or a bad scare. And apparently whipped cream sort of sucks as a sound conductor, because Jimmy can only catch bits and pieces of the conversation no matter how hard he concentrates.
“-sure, Chuck? Maybe he just vanished in the lights?”
“-like, exploded - a water balloon with chunky soup.”
Okay, so apparently this Chuck person is into the food references too. He can’t quite make out what that’s supposed to mean, but Dean’s tone changes in response to whatever it is.
“Stupid bastard - it wouldn’t have happened if…”
And now Jimmy’s starting to get a little nervous, because that pained, leaden affect just isn’t something he’s ever associated with Dean Winchester, and because he still can’t feel Castiel anywhere at all.
He wonders if he can talk through the Cool Whip, figures it’s worth a shot.
“Castiel? Cas, what’s going on? Are you in here?” He tries to look around, though he’s pretty sure his efforts are in vain. “Hell, where is here?”
He barely recognizes the sound of his own voice, gummy and thick and rapidly damped out by the soft substance surrounding him.
“Dean? Can you hear me? Hello?”
There’s no answer from within or without, just a low thrum of conversation between Dean, Chuck, and a third voice he recognizes as Sam Winchester’s. The words are so muted they’re almost unintelligible, the mood downright funereal, when suddenly Chuck shouts about feeling something and Jimmy simultaneously senses a low static buzzing that fills the space around him.
At last, thank you God, he breathes to himself, because he’s gotten pretty familiar with this form of dramatic entrance over the past year, and he’s only too ready for a little angelic relocation. Forget whining over the heavenly hassles of bleeding eardrums and blinding lights - as soon as he’s out of here he is so ripping Cas a metaphorical new one for abandoning him wide-awake in a vat of goo.
“You just keep your distance, asshat - you jump-started Judgment Day!”
Or...maybe not.
“ - say it’s all our faults and just move on. Like it or not, it’s Apocalypse now.”
That’s not Castiel’s voice, and the sheer power of the new presence is like nothing Jimmy’s ever felt with any previous visitations. It’s overwhelming, rattling the space around him and sending vibrations over and through him with each word of what’s obviously turning into an increasingly antagonistic conversation. What was someone saying about archangels?
“ - listen to me, you two-faced douche.”
And that part was certainly audible enough. There’s a new, cold rage in Dean’s voice that prickles the hairs on Jimmy’s possibly non-existent neck, and he wonders just what the new arrival did to provoke this kind of reaction from someone who’s always been so unflappable. Nothing he can think of is remotely comforting.
“You listen to me, boy - rebel against us - like Lucifer?”
Wait, archangels were the good guys, right?
“You’re bleeding.”
“-insurance policy - learned this from my friend Cas, you son of a bitch!”
There’s shouting and a sudden bright flash of light that penetrates right through him, and a split-second later Jimmy’s yelping in alarm as he twists over and back with the force of the following shock wave. He flails like a rag doll, unable to right himself or stop his momentum or even do the damned doggy-paddle through the Cool Whip, because he still can’t seem to find any of his limbs. He stops bobbing woozily after what feels like a long time, dizzy and nauseated and he hopes to God right side up, because the idea of choking on his own vomit upside-down in cosmic dessert topping is a bit more than he can handle right now.
The powerful buzzing has faded away, and with it, apparently, the creature that caused it. Based on Dean’s reaction, that’s probably a positive.
“Dean? Hello?”
His answer is a very disconcerting quiet.
“Sam? Ch-chunky soup guy, Chuck?”
And still there’s nothing in reply, no voices or sounds of movement or any indication that anyone was ever here in the first place.
Clearly the Winchesters are gone. Jimmy doesn’t want to think too hard about what might have happened to them during the shock wave. His Inner Optimist pipes up helpfully that at least Dean had sounded like the one in control of the situation, but really? After today Jimmy’s not so sure that you can even use words like “control” and “archangel” in the same sentence.
He’s also not too sure he wants to attract any heavenly attention right now, but he’s not really in a position to be very choosy.
“Cas? Castiel? Come on, anyone, hello? Please, what’s going on here? Why can’t anyone hear me?”
Maybe it’s his neurons finally connecting through the Cool Whip, or maybe it’s those last little shards of optimism falling away with an irrevocable horrible finality that do it; but as the words leave his mouth the proverbial lights come on and that last piece of the puzzle clicks into place. And the fractured conversational snippets come together with the clarity of one big terrifying run-on sentence: out of the house Apocalypse Judgment Day stupid bastard exploded oh SHIT.
Jimmy gets it. Castiel isn’t coming back for him.
Castiel isn’t coming back at all.
Okay, now he’s freaking out.
***
He is not going out like this, damn it.
There has to be something - some One - that’ll help. They kept telling him he’d been called for something special, surely even if his task is completed and his angel is gone he’s not just going to be thrown away and forgotten, right? They promised protection.
They promised protection for your family, dumbass, says a little voice in the back of his mind. Why’d you assume you were part of the package deal?
Yeah, apparently his Inner Optimist has turned into a nasty, bitter little bastard who’d rather be filling his glass-half-empty with vodka. Jimmy kind of agrees with him.
Oh God, his family - if this happened to him, what are they going through right now?
He prays for what seems like hours, until his voice is ragged and strained. He calls for Castiel and Dean and God and the police, just to cover all his bases. He recites and then sings all the lyrics to every Bob Dylan song he knows, first alphabetically and then chronologically, in an effort to pass time and hang onto his sanity. Halfway through the third verse of the third go-round of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” he switches gears and starts to talk to Amelia and Claire, a final apology and a final good-bye, but he stops short after the first few words, knowing that even a one-sided imaginary conversation with them will leave him too heartbroken and lonely to survive whatever hell this is.
...Oh God, he couldn’t actually be in Hell, could he?
He’s pretty much exhausted everything he can think of save for screaming like a little girl at the top of his lungs, and that’s looking like a pretty good damned option when he hears a new set of voices.
“Holy shit, look at this splatter-fest. Ugh, Rube is going to owe me big-time for this.”
“George, you have to check out the bedroom - guy was a total pervert, he actually has blow-up dolls in here. Oh God, I think this one is used!”
“Yeah, while we’re on that subject, try and stick a stolen sex doll in my car and you’re walking all the way home. Will you get your ass out here and help me look for the body?”
They’re not angels - the conversation kind of gives that one away - but they don’t exactly seem human either. From where he’s standing/floating/whatever, he can sense a sort of energy, subtler and less dynamic than anything he’d felt from Castiel, but present nonetheless. It prickles around him, raises the small fine hairs at the back of his neck - hmm, apparently he’s beginning to feel his neck again - and stirs the goo into gentle waves.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
His voice sounds stronger, a little more like himself this time, but the others prattle on, still oblivious to his presence and deeply embroiled in a conversation that makes even less sense to him than Dean’s little tête-à-tête with the archangel.
“-still don’t know why we have to fix Supernatural Events’ fuck-ups. Two weeks of piled-up Post-It time because some flunkie Reaper caught his lights early, you’d think Upper Management would actually get off their asses and do something about it.”
“I thought Tessa’d be here.”
“She’s out somewhere in the Midwest with the rest of her team tackling the backlog. Rube said something about all sorts of weird shit going down in the Heartland.”
“Well, damn. I was really hoping to spend some quality time with Tessa.”
“You were hoping for another chance to ogle her rack.”
“Possibly, that too. Okay, yes.”
“God, Mason, you’re such a guy sometimes I - what did I just tell you about keeping second-hand porn out of my car? Are those sex-doll panties sticking out of your pocket?”
“They’re - my handkerchief?”
“Of course they are. Because you’re such a red-lace kinda guy.”
“I am deeply offended by your suspicions, George, really.”
If he weren’t in his current situation, Jimmy thinks, the exchange might be borderline amusing. “Mason” sounds male, British, and guilty, and “George” is annoyed, possessed of a rather impressive catalog of obscenities, and name notwithstanding, decidedly female. She also seems to be the one in charge of - whatever they’re here for. Jimmy readies himself to start yelling for her at the top of his lungs before they leave him too.
“Whatever. Where the hell is this guy?”
“More’s the point, love, where isn’t he? I don’t think the wallpaper in this room was originally red-streaked, you know?”
“So...what? I just touch the wall? I usually have a whole body to work with.”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Because you’ve been doing this a hell of a lot longer than I have, Mason, I figured you’ve seen more weird shit before and after death.”
“This is new territory for me too, Georgie girl. Just pick a piece and go for it.”
Whatever’s going on out there sounds not only ominous but also on the verge of wrapping up, and panic forces Jimmy’s voice into a near-bellow.
“Hey! Hello, can you hear me?”
“Oh, wait - what’s this on the mantelpiece?”
“I think it’s - eww, a molar?” George’s voice jumps a good octave higher. “I’m popping a soul from a fucking tooth? That’s it, I am kicking Rube’s ass for this.”
“Hey! Stop and listen to me, please!”
“Come on and get this over with so we can go, George, this place is seriously fucking creepy.”
“Fine, give me the damned tooth and we’ll go.”
So they don’t hear him either. They’re leaving too.
If Jimmy could find his hands, he’d bury his head in them and scream in frustration, but all he can feel is the cosmic Cool Whip coalescing around him, emitting odd little sparking sensations as it coats his legs and travels up his - wait, what?
In the second it registers that he’s actually beginning to see and feel his body again, George mutters “Okay, J. Novak, come out, come out wherever you are, you poor exploded bastard.”
And then all Jimmy feels and hears is a tremendous pop as something pulls him together and out and down.
He blinks slowly at the pattern in front of his face, the brown paisley a nice change from endless white expanses of goo. There’s something rough and scratchy against his palms, and he realizes he ended up in a sprawl on someone’s wool carpeting. Clearly he won’t be winning any points for style from that landing, but he’s too happy to be solid and three-dimensional and real again to sweat the little details.
He sees two pairs of sneakers a few feet in front of his nose, and he pulls himself onto his knees with a groan, gaze traveling upwards until it lands on two startled faces.
“Um.” George is petite, blonde and looks a lot younger than she’d sounded before. “Uh, J. Novak, I presume?”