Fic: Supernatural, Double Feature (SPN/RHPS Crossover, Sam/Dean, NC-17, 1/2)
Title: Supernatural, Double Feature (The Winchester Horror Picture Show)
Authors: regala_electra & ignited
Movie Adapted: The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Genre: SPN, slash, het
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Dean, Sam/Frank, Dean/Frank, Sam/Columbia
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 15,000
Warnings: Explicit sexual situations and language. Corsets, makeup, thigh-highs, garter belts, impossibly high heels. Oh, and singing.
Summary: A Supernatural remake/remix of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. “This is a record of how these boys were laid astray. How they’re still screwing to this day.”
Notes/Credits: Spoilers for general S2, set post AHBL Part 2. Written for the reel_spn ficathon.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not created for profit. 95% of the lyrics taken from RHPS, modified when necessary by the whim of the authors.
Full Poster & Additional Artwork
Musical Accompaniment: Zip file & linked throughout the story.
*
“There's a point to this,” Bobby starts off, grumbling at the tape recorder he’s got propped up against a stack of books that got damaged last time an exorcism went bad, coffee rings splattering the top book. Continues, “This is a record of Sam and Dean, only two Winchesters left on this mortal coil, damn fine hunters, and how a simple case went south, nothing more than that.”
He stops the tape, pours out a shot, more than that, but you can’t blame him, curls his fingers around the glass, whiskey trembling past four fingers width. Liquid courage is the only thing that’ll get him through this.
Strokes his straggly beard, clicks play. “As I was saying. Yeah, Sam and Dean, last of the Winchesters, both of ‘em as mule-headed as their daddy, more than loyal by half, foolhardy boys ready for a fight. The fight. Once the demons rushed outta hell, only way to get ‘em put back in those fiery pits is nothing more than luck on our part. To this day, we’ve got work to do, war's not over, not by a long-shot. Sometimes we gotta make decisions that no man in his right mind would ever make. Only way to survive, sometimes. Hunting ain’t never been for the faint of heart.”
The shot doesn’t burn his throat. He’s used to it, only puckers his lips for a moment, then explains, “It all starts over at Frankenstein’s place.”
*
It all starts off at the wedding. Sam never catches the name of the bride and groom, as they're already off, down the road, in a Lincoln Town Car, small not-limo, white, actual aluminum cans tied to the bumper. He and Dean are there to question a withered old man, claiming that he almost made it to the mansion before it disappeared when a thunderstorm ended. Less than 13 days ago, these things have rituals. Every thirteen days, it rains cats and dogs. Then the ghosts start zooming through the mist down a forgotten stretch of road and locals swear there’s something out at the woods, something that disappeared years ago. A castle, house, call it a mansion, everyone’s got a name for it, all of them saying it a house of horrors. Not a hell house though. Something else.
“Just wait for the wedding night,” the old man confides to Dean, scritch-scratching the side of his crooked nose, “she got hers, now he'll get his.”
“Damn straight,” Dean agrees, smiling bright. Sam's not entirely sure Dean gets what the old crone-man's saying, as it's delivered in a shaky whisper, but Dean takes everything to be a double-entendre.
The old man, Bladykas, he says, and Dean only presses his lips in a not-smile when it's wheezed out as bladd-er-kiss, is a font of information. Too much, as Sam argues when they're off, Dean ready to head out that night, catch the place a day early, start seeing what they’re dealing with, so off they go.
*
*
“I sent ‘em off. Best thing to do, Dean’s got, well, he’s got some months left before his time’s up, long story, no way to pussyfoot around it: made a bad deal or a good deal, depends on how you look at it, I go with the bad, hell’s never somewhere I’ve been itching to visit let alone get stuck for all eternity.
“So there was this story that cropped up, ‘bout a mansion that had suddenly vanished in the thick of a wood just outside of Denton, Ohio, back in ’74, but it faded out, no one ever heard what for until the demons rushed out of hell and then the storms came. It’s a nasty critter that wedges open a grisly place of death, madness, only thing to call it. Real evil.
“They say a couple vanished, back in ’74, last people known to come across the place, nicknamed Frankenstein’s castle by a scientist, a Doctor Scott, someone else who disappeared in the thick of the night. Only records left are of a criminologist but he got carted off to the nuthouse some years later when he tried to publish the whole thing as nonfiction. Woulda done a sight better to sell it as a novel. Folk can believe and not believe novels, leaves us a hard copy to work with, not just rumor and bad eyewitnesses.”
Yanks his cap off his head, scratches his forehead, knows what’s gotta be said next. Say it, Singer, he chides himself.
“Boys were running low on fumes, Sam’s latest scheme to break Dean’s bargain fell through, only a matter of one of ‘em spiraling down all the way. We didn’t have time for their, well-” Pauses. “I guess you can say those boys are wired to be in tune with each other. Kind of a special Winchester language, good that they’ll always watch each other’s back. But it leads to, well, they’re kids, young enough that everything’s gotta burn bright or it won’t burn at all, that’s how the foolhardy and young operate.”
End this. He’s wandering, pussyfooting around. Round of his cap firmly back on his forehead, he’s just recording, for later, for when this will need to be known, has to be known, can’t just be held in, be his (their) secret: open-secret that it is.
“I asked them to take care of a ghost, maybe demonic infestation, of a psychopath’s lair. Needed ‘em to figure out how the manor was resurrected from nothing, created out of dead land laid bare. This is a record of how these boys were laid astray. How they’re still screwing to this day.”
Looks to his limited supply of whiskey, three bottles already depleted, one of them barely at level with the bottom of the label. Bobby grumbles, “It’s a long story so I’ll cut to the chase.”
*
Chasing after a crazy ass ghost or demon, something, it makes Dean kinda hungry, to be frank, not that his growling stomach can be heard. Not over the radio, that’s the thing, there’s no static. Nothing if you wanna be absolutely precise. Dean almost turns the fucking car around when he can’t even get a freakin’ tape to play.
Sam gives him the highlights of the case, picking up on Dean’s irritation, a good distraction. It’s short and clipped though, not sweet at all, full of Sam’s bitten words of frustration at Dean’s wild swerves and loops down the old road.
There’s a shiny bandage around Sam’s wrist, bad attempt to barter with a bean sidhe, bitch had laughed when Sam explained, it’s a Crossroads Demon.
Nothing left but to keep on keepin’ on, Dean had lamely muttered when he’d stitched Sam’s skin back together, glad it isn’t bad enough to leave a scar. He’d even thrown a rock on fist to Sam, had to block Sam’s own fist, shooting for Dean’s head, missing at the last second.
Dean had told Sam, straight off the bat, when they’d agreed to head out to Ohio, That demon bitch was damn clear. I can’t do jack to stop it. Now let’s send some more of these fuckers straight back to hell. I want ‘em all planning my goddamn welcome party.”
Doesn’t add it’ll be a hell of time because Sam hasn’t laughed at any of Dean’s gallows humor.
So now, Sam’s fiddling with Dean’s radio, eyebrows scrunch and then raise up in disbelief when he gets the A.M. to work, only it’s, well, only way to say it: it’s wrong.
“Dean, this is Nixon’s resignation speech, August 8, 1974.”
“Well, that’s nice and ghosty,” Dean offers. He has to squint to see anything outside, windshield wipers feeble against torrential rain.
The radio’s volume, all the way up, is no match for the noise of the storm brewing ‘round them, hollow metal just the thing for nonstop rat-a-tat-tat when the drops smack onto the car, gunfire in liquid form.
Noise and blur-whine and rumble of Vespa-type bikes slugging past, plunging around, ahead, of the Impala.
Flash of lightning cracks, dull black gleaming, the faint yellow headlights shining through the rain, but indistinct. Ghost gang.
“Huh.”
“That’s the bike gang, Dean, the one you said was too lame to be true.”
“Bike gang.” Dean scoffs, rolls his eyes. “That’s a herd of jerks, only people that’ll ride a freakin’ Vespa.”
“Or Italian,” Sam mutters quick, like Dean can’t catch that, they’re only sitting less than a foot way from each other.
“Yeah, well, this isn’t Gay Rome, it’s Ohio, dude.”
“Gay Rome?”
“Yeah.” Defensive at first, but Dean hesitates, asks, “That’s what they call it, right? All that gay stuff that happened there, dude-on-dude is more popular than chick-on-chick, which, damn, that’s wrong.”
“...Okay, first of all, It’s gay Paris. Pah-rhee-and gay means, originally, happy and I’m not touching the second part of that, man.”
“Yeah. You are kinda happy, now that I think about it.”
“So I’d fit in over at Gay Rome, huh?”
“Shut up.” Dean goes to push down on the accelerator, needs the speed, gotta get close, knows the trunk’s heavy with weapons and their heads are full of plans, although Dean would love to keep it simple. Thinks that if he just sets a ghost-house on fire, that would be an interesting first. He’s willing to do whatever he’s gotta get to do before he’s yanked off of Earth, down below. The rain’s almost cleared up, but then, it happens: sick lurch, control just goes.
What doesn’t go anymore is the car, stopping dead, everything shutting off. ‘Cept for the radio.
Fuck.
“We have to walk the rest,” Sam says.
“Man, I’m glad you said that, because I was going to start crying about how I don’t know how to fix cars. We’ll be trapped here forever!”
“Fine, drama queen,” Sam says, acknowledging how stupid that sounds, calling Dean the dramatic one, with a wince. “You get all muddy, I’m going to get the weapons out of the car and hoof it over to Frankenstein’s place.”
“Hey, you said that was bullshit, no way it’s Frankenstein’s place,” Dean protests, getting out of the car after taking the keys out of the ignition. Goes back around, soaked in a second’s time, goddamn rain choosing that moment to gather a last burst of tsunami strength, dumping down on him. Decides it’s time to at least get all his weapons ready and when he looks back, he sees Sam struggling with popping the trunk open. God, Sam can be lame.
“I don’t know, Frankenstein’s Place, it sounds appropriate now.” Dean’s just about to warn Sam if he fucks up the paint job while stabbing his key in the trunk lock, he’ll give Sam’s hair a nice mud treatment when there’s a little bzzt noise.
Sam yelps, finger going into his mouth, sucking down, actually cut himself trying to open the damn trunk. Says around his finger, “It’s stuck.”
“Awesome. How much you wanna bet this is all thanks to whatever’s lurking up at the creepy old place in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere?”
“There’s a light,” Sam says, his blood beading on his hand as he points towards a light in the great distance, high above, it cuts through a dark swatch of trees.
“Huh. In the darkness, there’s a light,” Dean agrees, not knowing why he’s fucking saying it.
“There’s a light…”
Soft echo, voices carried on the wind from that direction, that little spot of light. They turn, staring at each other, the last breaths come out with a puff of cold smoke in the air, echoes of lighter, singing voices.
Sam shifts his weight from one foot to the other, rubs a hand absentmindedly over the trunk surface, any sound like a pin drop because uh, yeah, singing voices. “You hear that, Dean?”
“No, I goddamn didn’t.”
He does not hear singing. That’s just way too fucking weird for him to believe right now. They haven’t even gotten to the place yet. He can almost handle his baby getting stopped cold in her tracks, in gay bikers that vanish when lightning cracks overhead, in Nixon once being president of America, but he’s not going to believe in fucking singing.
Only they’re walking out to the place now, quiet, slow and careful-too damn dark, he’s on edge from the cold-so Dean whips out his flashlight, and he’s nodding to the path, all overgrown weeds in the way, saying, “Yeah, here’s the freaky old place, look, can you see, right there? There’s a light...burning in the fireplace.”
Fuuuuck, did his voice go all soft and kinda croon there at the end?
Sam nods, rolls his shoulders. “Dean, I know, but there’s a light, light in the darkness of everybody.”
Sam’s voice goes expansive, breathy, a catch in his throat, Adam’s apple bobbing in shock.
They pause, giving each other a look, weighty but Dean’s not going to examine what the hell it all means.
Then, walking slower, Sam’s voice a little shaky from nervousness or cold, “I can see the flag fly, I can see the rain.”
He looks over at Dean, who answers, gaze lifts in the direction of the looming house, “Just the same, there has got to be-”
And Sam answers, and he’s looking at Dean again in that weird way, “Something better here for you and me.”
Dean sucks in a breath, his brow furrows, says, “Oh god, we’re so fu...”
But he trails off and joins Sam, singing, “There’s a light over at the Frankenstein place.”
Dean frowns, forces out short non-singing words, terse and gritted through his teeth, “Uh, why the fuck are we singing? C’mon. What the hell.”
Together, again: “There’s a light burning in the fireplace...”
Pass the gate, a sign warning them, great, Enter at Your Own Risk, of course there’s gonna be a sign like that, it’s just that kind of hunt.
Sam’s singing, quietly, quickly, like Dean can’t catch it. “In the velvet darkness, of the blackest night, Burning bright. There's a guiding star, no matter what or who you are.”
God. He doesn’t what to know what’s in that fucking mansion, goddamn castle, so long as it’s made of wood, they should just salt and burn, get the hell outta there.
By now they’re almost at the front door, couple yards off, and Sam sucks in a breath, stops, readying himself for something horrible, full out singing, “The darkness must go down the river of nights dreaming...Flow morphia slow, let the sun and light come streaming...”
He then just, like, friggin’ clutches at Dean’s jacket, chest, hand grasping, as he belts in Dean’s friggin’ face, “INTO MY LIFE! INTO...MY...LIIIIFE!”
And Dean here, he purses his lips, wanting to say something, curious this, new heat burning inside, his chest almost constricts with want, forgets he's cold and wet. Doesn’t care that they’re probably possessed or worse, ‘cause then he fucking has to sing the closing chorus.
In the darkness of everybody's life.
*
“Yeah, nothin’ worse than getting whammied with a compulsion to sing. It happens more ‘n you’d think.” Bobby takes another swig. “Funny how that turns out.”
“So the boys end up steppin’ in just as these...well, I don’t know, group of Transylvanians they called themselves-and sure as hell they ain’t, I met Transylvanians, bum rap-finishing their disco dancin’ and boogieing. Dean’s words, those. And then they met him.”
Coughing once, and Bobby adds, general caveat, “You’d hafta to see him to believe him. Or so I’m told.”
*
*
Sam doesn’t understand the Time Warp, what purpose it has beyond being another goofy dance that proves that white people can’t dance.
He doesn’t understand the humpbacked butler with the stringy blonde hair, because, fine you’re balding, happens to most guys (probably not him though, Dad’s hair only started turning salt but was still thick on top), it doesn’t matter, once it gets to the point where it’s a crown of greasy, string hair, that’s time to give it up. Or the maid dressed in Dean’s version of what a maid should be wearing: low-cut, too revealing French maid outfit. Or, uh, well, he doesn’t even know what the overly made-up short-haired redhead is supposed to be doing, some kind of tap dancer? The entertainment for the party?
Whatever, Dean apparently approves of her glitzy look, sidles next to her, hulking huge. Poor Dean, he doesn’t get to feel that way when he’s standing next to Sam so he has to take it where he can get it. Across the murmuring, Sam can make out Dean saying something like, So, your name’s Columbia, huh?
The redhead, Columbia, doesn’t seem to be that impressed by Dean’s flirting.
Meanwhile, Sam’s kindly trying to figure out a way to say Um, I’m not interested to the maid and butler (who seem awfully clingy, they introduced themselves as brother-and-sister, should they be touching like that?), still hasn’t even gotten their names, these gothy, but not real goth, strangers, emphasis on strange.
He’s out of the room by now, can barely see Dean, backing up, keeps on backing up, all of a sudden the maid and butler just stop, automatic and then scurry on back into the main room, the maid muttering something as she tosses her thick hair off of her shoulders, fluttering dark lashes in disagreement with something the butler whispers.
In a dead, flat voice, the butler announces to Sam, “You’re quite lucky that the master is in one of his festive moods.”
Festive? Master?
Somehow, Sam doubts this is particularly good for him or-“Dean!”
Dean drops the éclair out of his hand, eyerolls, rolling shoulders in a sorry, my little brother’s spazzing out again as he makes his way across the dance floor to Sam.
“What?” he asks, mouth full of food, Dean’s always real classy.
“We need to get out of here, Dean, this isn’t, this isn’t how we do this. It’s-”
Madness, but he doesn’t get to say that.
The ramshackle elevator, the one they’re standing next to, oh it’s moving, noisy, hydraulics working overtime, descending is someone, a person, can see a thick heel stomping in time to its own beat.
The person, male, despite the shoes, turns around and it’s like, there’s a scream, old sound, maybe the howl of a ghost or something else, unworldly and then this music starts up and before Dean can get the fuck out of his “What the-” that’s when the accordion door slides open, smiling wide, the man says, “How d'you do?”
“Um,” Sam begins, discombobulated as Frank draws his fingers along the side of Sam’s jaw.
“I see you've met my...faithful handyman.” To Dean, he confides, opening his dark painted eyes wide, “He's just a little brought down because when you knocked, he thought you were the candyman.”
And he turns away with a whirl of his hand, striding into the main room. Sam catches himself slightly lurching, Dean tosses him a confused look but they’re both following, following after.
“Don't get strung out by the way that I look,” he declares as the strange partygoers start murmuring, one of them saying pleasure to meet you, Dr. Frank-N-Furter. “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
And here, Frank, turning around as he stands on a little stage at the end of the room, Columbia at his side with the maid and handyman (handyman? Really?) joining, standing behind him, he throws this deadly smile, Sam doesn’t know what for, only, he doesn’t feel wet and stupid and like he’s on a precipice, because he’s already fallen. “I'm not much of a man by the light of day,” Frank sings, and in Dean’s direction, winks, singing, “But by night I'm one hell of a lover."
Then Frank’s throwing off his cape (of course there’s a cape involved; large portions of fabric tend to be evil, just ask Dean that story about a witch and a cursed kimono). Oh god, he’s, it’s just thigh-highs and corset, large necklace, pearls, panties and a garter belt, and Frank thrusts his body forward, declaring, “I'm just a sweet transvestite...from Transsexual, Transylvania-uh-huh.”
Jumping off the stage, striding in heels with the kind of ease that Sam’s never seen before, it’s like, he’s made for them, or maybe it’s the other way around, he has no idea what he means by that.
“So let me show you around, maybe play you a sound. You look like you're both pretty groovy,” Frank sings, making a face that’s clear that he thinks they’re anything but groovy. “Or if you want something visual, that's not too abysmal-we could take in an old Steve Reeves movie.”
Sam feels Dean jostle him, bump his elbow and there he is, his grin all wide, saying, “We’re not into Steve Reeves. Uh. Got any Steve McQueen?”
“I’m glad we could talk,” Sam starts, after staring pointedly at Dean. He feels his voice catch in his throat, like he hesitates, unsure of how to go on before his body does the talking for him, this slip-slide of madness behind the words coming from his mouth. Following a beat that isn’t his, not natural at all.
“It’s been a long, wet walk. We’re park rangers looking for a missing person-” he says, pulls out and flashes a badge before tucking it away, Dean jerking a thumb at Sam and nodding. “Our car broke down, we can’t get into town, and I’d like to get this done before my partner here starts cursing.”
“So, you got caught with a flat. Well, how ’bout that?”
Frank quirks an eyebrow, almost looking off in the distance, not at all. Wags a finger at them, promising,.”Well babies, don't you panic.”
Goes back up on the little stage, voice rising, “By the light of the night! When it all seems all right, I'll get you a satanic mechanic.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute,” Dean interrupts, waves his hands and whatever singing-or faint music, Sam’s sure he heard it, please, let him not be going insane- dissipates as Dean says, annoyed, “There wasn’t a flat, I can fix a damn flat. It was something else-”
“Car trouble, that’s it,” Sam says, picks up on the uneasy tittering among the spooky “guests.”
Frank clamps his mouth shut, frowning, an ugly twist of darkness, hesitates and then seems to carry on as if they’ve said nothing, “So why don't you stay for the night. Or maybe...a bite?”
Voice goes velvet, smooth, offering everything, “I could show you my latest obsession.”
He’s lounging on the throne-chair that’s up there, crosses his heels, but even though, crap, Sam’s still hearing music, there’s nothing else being said, just Frank looking back and forth at him and Dean, clearly plotting something and Sam kinda doesn’t want to know all the details.
Then Frank gets up, striding back towards the elevator, pulls the accordion door open.
Turns around, hand stroking the metal edge of the cage, a visual Sam doesn’t need, really. His voice, strange, rich, almost unearthly, or maybe it’s something more intoxicating, dirtier, “So come up to the lab. And see what's on the slab.”
Dean coughs, goes to say something but Sam silences him, kicking him in the shin. Gets a smack on the back of head, but doesn’t continue, too wrapped up.
Bad move to look directly in the eyes, always a bad move, known that since forever, feels the sudden chill down his spine and Frank answers in a satisfied droll, “I see you shiver with an...ti...ci...”
Frank’s eyes go wide, holding back and Dean babbles out, always the impatient one, “Say it!”
“...pation!”
Sam breathes deep, relieved.
“But,” Frank declares, belting, “maybe the rain...,” murmuring soft, “isn't really to blame.”
Dean and Sam share a quick sideways look, Dean wearing his bust ‘em cowboy face, works better in poker not in this madhouse. Sam has no idea how he looks, only know how he feels and man, he’s hoping that not showing, it’s only for private contemplation, what’s running through his mind. If they can all tell, well, it would be like having someone scribble something in permanent marker on his forehead.
“So I'll remove the cause,” pause large, a lengthy laugh spilling out, Sam uneasy finds himself smiling, it’s just insane, no one really does evil overlord maniacal laughter right? Technically, it’s more a languid chuckle, but still, it’s just, dirty. Then, his face goes deadly serious and, slamming his hand on the button, Frank declares, “But not the symptom!”
Rises up and away, platform heels hit the elevator floor, almost sounds like a crack of thunder, that noise.
“You must be prepared,” the maid tells Sam and Dean, in a goth-vampire way, pray-pahrrred.
“Oh, we’re ready for anything,” Dean assures her. “You got a name?”
“Magenta,” she says, hands on Dean’s belt. “Don’t be shy.”
“Whoa! It’s nice that we’re on a first name basis, but we’re also on a first-hour basis so-”
“That’s longer than some of your relationships,” Sam points out, stepping back when it looks like Columbia’s reaching for his belt.
“Shut up,” Dean says good-naturedly as Magenta and Columbia team up to strip off his clothes and Dean’s grinning; Sam knows he’s not going to say no to that. “This must just be one of their customs. You know, Transylvanians, right?”
“Yeah,” he says, all wobbly arms when Columbia and Magenta try peeling off his many shirt layers, leaves him with a white undershirt that’s gone to hell in their tugging, it was already on its way out, cheap shirt he’d picked up god-knows-where, comfortable but couldn’t stand Laundromat dryers, nubbed all over, hears a rip as they yank off his long-sleeved.
“Way to rock the Flashdance, Sammy,” Dean tells him, pointing out the ripped collar of the shirt. Sam looks like he’s exploded out of his clothing.
The worse is yet to come, belt coming off with a faint protest, wet, muddy jeans slowly yanked down, leaving him in, um, tighty whities.
Dean’s not supposed to see those. Frankly, it’s Dean’s fault Sam’s reduced to wearing them, having fucked up the last laundry rotation, but Sam didn’t figure he’d have to worry about choice of underwear this morning. That his brother wouldn’t be seeing him standing around in next to nothing, and fuck, this just isn’t fair.
Dean looks like he’s going to comment on that but they’re herded back into the elevator (it stops noisily) by the team of petite redheads, they might be tiny but they’ve clearly done this many times before. Yeah, that’s not troubling at all.
The handyman, who finally introduces himself as Riff Raff, bitterly announces, “The Master will be through with you soon.” Shuts them in the elevator, as he, Magenta and Columbia go to take a different route to the lab.
Leaving Sam and Dean in their underwear, in a creepy elevator, about to have a transvestite doctor named Frank-N-Furter be “through” them.
Yeah, that’s nice and ominous.
*
“They shouldn’t have gone into that lab. But they didn’t have their wits about them. Like a bite of the apple, once they had that first taste, oh, it was all over. But what was to happen next, it was only a taste of what’s to come.”
Hmm, apples. He is kinda hungry right now, can’t do anything about it now, has to finish this all in one go.
*
*
They don’t get a chance to do much of anything-stripped down, shit out of luck when it comes to weapons unless they improvise, Sam’s wearing a fucking slip, ‘cause his t-shirt finally gave out and Sam’s being all modest about his package, and now Dean’s stuck in his fuckin’ boxer-briefs. Speaking of the slip, sure there’s no camera to record this precious moment, but that doesn’t mean that Dean’s gonna let Sam forget this. Ever. But they can’t do much when they’re guided into this big room, all salmon tiles and marble statues, red metal and blue screens, lots of buttons and knobs. The lab.
The lab where there’s a chill in the air, this phantom touch that sends a shiver down Dean’s back, that isn’t being fucking helped when Sam goes and touches the small of his back, nudges him, and then Sam walks over to Frank, asks about what kind of experiments Frank’s conducting.
“Oh, a few innovations, a little of this and that. The last experiment was not as successful as I hoped,” he says, sends a stern look over at Magenta and Riff Raff, who’re standing around bored, a feather duster in Magenta’s hands and Riff Raff kinda stroking a long knob that looks, uh, well it looks indecent. Still, they’re not doing much, it’s like they’re waiting. “You know, it’s not often that we receive visitors here. Let along offer them hospitality.”
If Dean didn’t know better, he’d think Frank’s kinda hitting on Sam, hardcore, but then, this Frank guy, his voice kinda lends itself to sex, can’t help himself apparently.
Still, he has to stick up for Sammy, yeah, that’s it. “Look Doc, we just gotta ask some questions and then we’ll be on our way, ‘specially as soon as your crew hands back our friggin’ clothes.”
Sam clenches his jaw, offers a weak smile to Frank. “Uh, my brother Dean didn’t mean-”
Oh good, tell them that they’re brothers, that’s, actually, a really weird look crosses Frank’s face, like he’s excited by something and Dean, uh, he kind of knows what for, and dude, no. Just, no.
However he waves away Sam’s lame apology, walking to stand in front of Dean, in the heels, he’s about the same height, still, he tips his head up, forces Dean to lose the aggressive stance.
“How forceful you are, Dean. Such a perfect specimen of manhood. So...dominant.” Frank says, voices tittering around them, knowing exactly what he means by that, as Frank cants his head, his eyes half-lidded.
Dean shifts his weight awkwardly, not knowing how the hell to take that, with an entire crowd of people (ghost people or whatever, they’re still there) all focused on his crotch.
Frank runs his hands down the length of Dean’s bare arms, taps at the wrists and pulls away, frowning. “This one doesn’t have any tattoos. Pity.”
Snaps his fingers at Riff-Raff and the redheads, calls out, “Please ready the Medusa Version 2.0.” To Sam and Dean, Frank says, “I believe you’ll find that this shall double your pleasure.”
He goes off to oversee the complicated knob twirling and lever pulling, whatever, Dean gets the mechanics of cars but all these high-tech gizmos, they creep him the fuck out.
“Dominant?” Sam says in an undertone, pulling Dean close, breath hot on Dean’s ear.
He isn’t shuddering, not at that, no way to prove it, ‘cause he shrugs, causal, like he stands in freaky mad scientist lairs at least once a week, wearing nothing but his skivvies. “If the shoe fits...”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Sam points out. Then, like he’s surprised, he asks, “You don’t have any tattoos?”
Dean raises an eyebrow, says gruffly, “No.”
“Really?”
“Dude, I don’t know wanna know your fantasies ‘bout my ass, it’s already weird enough.”
Nothing more to say as, quick as anything, the entire room goes dark, like that. There’s chaos, noise, coming from nowhere, then the light comes back on intermittently, this strobe light deal, feels like a bad hangover, illuminates a higher row where Dean can see grinning, leering faces wearing tuxedos, and Frank laughing, now wearing a green smock over his corset and fishnets.
Hands clutched together, gloved hands, pink and pristine.
The worse thing though, is Sam, the way the light casts stark white and blue against his skin-Dean’s seen Sam naked before, loads of times, they’re brothers but this isn’t fair. When did Sam get ripped, almost freakin’ bulging, sweat accenting the definition of his body. And, making it worse, it’s clear he’s anxious as all hell, tension in his jaw as he’s shooting Dean worried looks, calling out Dean’s name in the dark.
To top it all off, when Dean knows these thoughts are going beyond the notion of fucked up that he’s used to on a daily basis, he gets this feeling uncoiling low in his gut, sends this throb of pleasure right to his dick. Barest flash of light on Sam’s collarbone that sets Dean right off.
Frank raising his impossibly made-up eyebrow, throws this smile at Dean, blackened bruise-red, sex-teased.
Only one way to answer that. He starts to sing.
“The Sword of Damocles is hangin’ over my head,” Dean starts, clears his throat halfway before getting up near one of these big tanks, glass and red, rusted metal. Climbs up, holds onto the edge for support, directing his voice to the ceiling, “And I’ve got the feeling someone’s gonna be cuttin’ the thread.”
There isn’t enough time to point out the irony of the lyrics, when Dean throws his shoulders back, says, deep voiced, “Oh, woe is me-my life is a misery. Oh, can’t you see that I’m at the start of a pretty big downer?”
Dude, downer? Someone needs to knock him out before he ends up speaking in surfer lingo. Singing it, actually, motherfucker.
Sam, meanwhile, half runs, half staggers over in the dark, away from pawing hands, grabs onto Dean’s shoulder, slips, clenches his forearm. “Dude. You, uh, you’re singing.”
At this point, Dean’d like to say, yes, dumbass, thanks for noticing, but the next thing coming from his mouth is this moan of frustration, throws his head back and shakes Sam’s hand off, cries out, “I woke up this morning with a start when I fell out of bed-”
“That ain’t no crime!” Sam, barely, squeaks it out, it’s Magenta, Columbia, and Riff Raff doing the most work, higher voices, also, the crowd from nowhere, they join right in on the pity party.
“And left from my dreaming was a feeling of unnameable dread!”
Shit, he has a name for that dread, maybe more now, looking at Sam, crazy lurch of his stomach, almost falls off the edge of the container, has to jump down, almost crashes into Sam.
“That ain’t no crime!”
“My high is low. I’m dressed down with no place to go. And all I know-” Here, Dean’s eyes go wide and he grabs at Sam’s arm with both hands, finishes as the lights come on, all goes silent, “-is I’m at the start of a pretty big downer!”
“That ain’t...” Sam trails off, realizing everyone’s finished with backup vocals. There’s a decidedly settled silence, one that Dean’s happy about considering he just had his first fuckin’ public solo. “Uh. You okay? Feel like breakin’ into song still?”
“Shut up,” Dean snaps, swallows and glares.
The lights shut off and on again, brief flash of black with a whumpf of noise and exhaled breath.
“Well, Dean,” Frank breathes out in that weird breathy way of his, makes something in Dean just kinda forget itself, forget boundaries and think that maybe this guy, with the ‘fro and greasepaint makeup, uh, the corset, garter belt, that weird Marge Simpson pearl necklace deal, um, maybe he’s forgetting something, ignores Sam coughing next to him. “You certainly do like to show your prowess.”
Long slow scan of Dean from head to toes, deliberate slow-down of the mid-section, groin.
Then, singing, but thank god, not from Dean, Frank starts belting out, circling around Dean, like a shark, only a lot more friendly, interested, hands going in several places, almost-touching, his voice thick with something, “But a deltoid, and a bicep. A hot groin, and a tricep, makes me-ooh-shake.”
Dean shakes away Frank’s hand, curving around the top of Dean’s ass, just below his waistband.
“Makes me want to take Charles Atlas,” Frank pauses, splays his hand open, bites his gloved middle finger. “By the ha-aand.”
“Okay,” Dean lamely manages, coughing hard, willing his dick to god no, please do NOT stay down, must think unsexy thoughts before he’s made an absolute ass of himself, what the hell, he is not into dudes who dress like, fuck, needs to think of like, geometry or some shit.
Sam’s backing Dean up, shooting this weird, almost possessive look, doesn’t seem to be helping much, only gets Frank, uh, more interested. He has Columbia and Magenta stripping off his gloves, coat, comes towards him and Sam, kicking up his impossible heels, saying, “I don't want no dissension. Just dynamic tension.”
Sam looming over, pushing Dean back, like what the fuck, they’re both like, under this voodoo curse, doesn’t help, when he speak-sings, “I’m a muscle fa-an.”
“Oh God,” Dean mutters.
“Oh baby,” Frank says, leering at both of them. “I can make you a ma-ha-ha-ha-haan.”
Pause, Dean can feel the pause, full of possibility, but he lets, for once, his brain do the thinking. Says, “Really, we’re flattered, but me ‘n Sam here, we don’t go for that. But thanks. You’re, you’re one hell of a...transvestite. Uh, transvestite-scientist-host.”
Frank twists his mouth, bad look for him, the touch of madness in his eyes goes real dark here but he straightens up (figuratively speaking), bites out, “Fine then. I’ll have Magenta and Columbia show you to your sleeping quarters.”
“We’re not slee-” Sam begins, but Frank cuts him off, waving a hand in dismissal.
“Oh, I...insist. Really,” he says, droll, “I do.”
*
“Gotta have these things cleared up before I go any further,” Bobby insists, rolling an apple on his battered table. “There’s temptation and there’s seduction. Both similar in the end, it always includes a fall. This part here, it’s how they fall.
“The better they are, the harder they fall.”
*
ENTER IF YOU DARE
( Part 2 of 2 )
Authors: regala_electra & ignited
Movie Adapted: The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Genre: SPN, slash, het
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Dean, Sam/Frank, Dean/Frank, Sam/Columbia
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 15,000
Warnings: Explicit sexual situations and language. Corsets, makeup, thigh-highs, garter belts, impossibly high heels. Oh, and singing.
Summary: A Supernatural remake/remix of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. “This is a record of how these boys were laid astray. How they’re still screwing to this day.”
Notes/Credits: Spoilers for general S2, set post AHBL Part 2. Written for the reel_spn ficathon.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not created for profit. 95% of the lyrics taken from RHPS, modified when necessary by the whim of the authors.
Full Poster & Additional Artwork
Musical Accompaniment: Zip file & linked throughout the story.
*
“There's a point to this,” Bobby starts off, grumbling at the tape recorder he’s got propped up against a stack of books that got damaged last time an exorcism went bad, coffee rings splattering the top book. Continues, “This is a record of Sam and Dean, only two Winchesters left on this mortal coil, damn fine hunters, and how a simple case went south, nothing more than that.”
He stops the tape, pours out a shot, more than that, but you can’t blame him, curls his fingers around the glass, whiskey trembling past four fingers width. Liquid courage is the only thing that’ll get him through this.
Strokes his straggly beard, clicks play. “As I was saying. Yeah, Sam and Dean, last of the Winchesters, both of ‘em as mule-headed as their daddy, more than loyal by half, foolhardy boys ready for a fight. The fight. Once the demons rushed outta hell, only way to get ‘em put back in those fiery pits is nothing more than luck on our part. To this day, we’ve got work to do, war's not over, not by a long-shot. Sometimes we gotta make decisions that no man in his right mind would ever make. Only way to survive, sometimes. Hunting ain’t never been for the faint of heart.”
The shot doesn’t burn his throat. He’s used to it, only puckers his lips for a moment, then explains, “It all starts over at Frankenstein’s place.”
*
It all starts off at the wedding. Sam never catches the name of the bride and groom, as they're already off, down the road, in a Lincoln Town Car, small not-limo, white, actual aluminum cans tied to the bumper. He and Dean are there to question a withered old man, claiming that he almost made it to the mansion before it disappeared when a thunderstorm ended. Less than 13 days ago, these things have rituals. Every thirteen days, it rains cats and dogs. Then the ghosts start zooming through the mist down a forgotten stretch of road and locals swear there’s something out at the woods, something that disappeared years ago. A castle, house, call it a mansion, everyone’s got a name for it, all of them saying it a house of horrors. Not a hell house though. Something else.
“Just wait for the wedding night,” the old man confides to Dean, scritch-scratching the side of his crooked nose, “she got hers, now he'll get his.”
“Damn straight,” Dean agrees, smiling bright. Sam's not entirely sure Dean gets what the old crone-man's saying, as it's delivered in a shaky whisper, but Dean takes everything to be a double-entendre.
The old man, Bladykas, he says, and Dean only presses his lips in a not-smile when it's wheezed out as bladd-er-kiss, is a font of information. Too much, as Sam argues when they're off, Dean ready to head out that night, catch the place a day early, start seeing what they’re dealing with, so off they go.
*
*
“I sent ‘em off. Best thing to do, Dean’s got, well, he’s got some months left before his time’s up, long story, no way to pussyfoot around it: made a bad deal or a good deal, depends on how you look at it, I go with the bad, hell’s never somewhere I’ve been itching to visit let alone get stuck for all eternity.
“So there was this story that cropped up, ‘bout a mansion that had suddenly vanished in the thick of a wood just outside of Denton, Ohio, back in ’74, but it faded out, no one ever heard what for until the demons rushed out of hell and then the storms came. It’s a nasty critter that wedges open a grisly place of death, madness, only thing to call it. Real evil.
“They say a couple vanished, back in ’74, last people known to come across the place, nicknamed Frankenstein’s castle by a scientist, a Doctor Scott, someone else who disappeared in the thick of the night. Only records left are of a criminologist but he got carted off to the nuthouse some years later when he tried to publish the whole thing as nonfiction. Woulda done a sight better to sell it as a novel. Folk can believe and not believe novels, leaves us a hard copy to work with, not just rumor and bad eyewitnesses.”
Yanks his cap off his head, scratches his forehead, knows what’s gotta be said next. Say it, Singer, he chides himself.
“Boys were running low on fumes, Sam’s latest scheme to break Dean’s bargain fell through, only a matter of one of ‘em spiraling down all the way. We didn’t have time for their, well-” Pauses. “I guess you can say those boys are wired to be in tune with each other. Kind of a special Winchester language, good that they’ll always watch each other’s back. But it leads to, well, they’re kids, young enough that everything’s gotta burn bright or it won’t burn at all, that’s how the foolhardy and young operate.”
End this. He’s wandering, pussyfooting around. Round of his cap firmly back on his forehead, he’s just recording, for later, for when this will need to be known, has to be known, can’t just be held in, be his (their) secret: open-secret that it is.
“I asked them to take care of a ghost, maybe demonic infestation, of a psychopath’s lair. Needed ‘em to figure out how the manor was resurrected from nothing, created out of dead land laid bare. This is a record of how these boys were laid astray. How they’re still screwing to this day.”
Looks to his limited supply of whiskey, three bottles already depleted, one of them barely at level with the bottom of the label. Bobby grumbles, “It’s a long story so I’ll cut to the chase.”
*
Chasing after a crazy ass ghost or demon, something, it makes Dean kinda hungry, to be frank, not that his growling stomach can be heard. Not over the radio, that’s the thing, there’s no static. Nothing if you wanna be absolutely precise. Dean almost turns the fucking car around when he can’t even get a freakin’ tape to play.
Sam gives him the highlights of the case, picking up on Dean’s irritation, a good distraction. It’s short and clipped though, not sweet at all, full of Sam’s bitten words of frustration at Dean’s wild swerves and loops down the old road.
There’s a shiny bandage around Sam’s wrist, bad attempt to barter with a bean sidhe, bitch had laughed when Sam explained, it’s a Crossroads Demon.
Nothing left but to keep on keepin’ on, Dean had lamely muttered when he’d stitched Sam’s skin back together, glad it isn’t bad enough to leave a scar. He’d even thrown a rock on fist to Sam, had to block Sam’s own fist, shooting for Dean’s head, missing at the last second.
Dean had told Sam, straight off the bat, when they’d agreed to head out to Ohio, That demon bitch was damn clear. I can’t do jack to stop it. Now let’s send some more of these fuckers straight back to hell. I want ‘em all planning my goddamn welcome party.”
Doesn’t add it’ll be a hell of time because Sam hasn’t laughed at any of Dean’s gallows humor.
So now, Sam’s fiddling with Dean’s radio, eyebrows scrunch and then raise up in disbelief when he gets the A.M. to work, only it’s, well, only way to say it: it’s wrong.
“Dean, this is Nixon’s resignation speech, August 8, 1974.”
“Well, that’s nice and ghosty,” Dean offers. He has to squint to see anything outside, windshield wipers feeble against torrential rain.
The radio’s volume, all the way up, is no match for the noise of the storm brewing ‘round them, hollow metal just the thing for nonstop rat-a-tat-tat when the drops smack onto the car, gunfire in liquid form.
Noise and blur-whine and rumble of Vespa-type bikes slugging past, plunging around, ahead, of the Impala.
Flash of lightning cracks, dull black gleaming, the faint yellow headlights shining through the rain, but indistinct. Ghost gang.
“Huh.”
“That’s the bike gang, Dean, the one you said was too lame to be true.”
“Bike gang.” Dean scoffs, rolls his eyes. “That’s a herd of jerks, only people that’ll ride a freakin’ Vespa.”
“Or Italian,” Sam mutters quick, like Dean can’t catch that, they’re only sitting less than a foot way from each other.
“Yeah, well, this isn’t Gay Rome, it’s Ohio, dude.”
“Gay Rome?”
“Yeah.” Defensive at first, but Dean hesitates, asks, “That’s what they call it, right? All that gay stuff that happened there, dude-on-dude is more popular than chick-on-chick, which, damn, that’s wrong.”
“...Okay, first of all, It’s gay Paris. Pah-rhee-and gay means, originally, happy and I’m not touching the second part of that, man.”
“Yeah. You are kinda happy, now that I think about it.”
“So I’d fit in over at Gay Rome, huh?”
“Shut up.” Dean goes to push down on the accelerator, needs the speed, gotta get close, knows the trunk’s heavy with weapons and their heads are full of plans, although Dean would love to keep it simple. Thinks that if he just sets a ghost-house on fire, that would be an interesting first. He’s willing to do whatever he’s gotta get to do before he’s yanked off of Earth, down below. The rain’s almost cleared up, but then, it happens: sick lurch, control just goes.
What doesn’t go anymore is the car, stopping dead, everything shutting off. ‘Cept for the radio.
Fuck.
“We have to walk the rest,” Sam says.
“Man, I’m glad you said that, because I was going to start crying about how I don’t know how to fix cars. We’ll be trapped here forever!”
“Fine, drama queen,” Sam says, acknowledging how stupid that sounds, calling Dean the dramatic one, with a wince. “You get all muddy, I’m going to get the weapons out of the car and hoof it over to Frankenstein’s place.”
“Hey, you said that was bullshit, no way it’s Frankenstein’s place,” Dean protests, getting out of the car after taking the keys out of the ignition. Goes back around, soaked in a second’s time, goddamn rain choosing that moment to gather a last burst of tsunami strength, dumping down on him. Decides it’s time to at least get all his weapons ready and when he looks back, he sees Sam struggling with popping the trunk open. God, Sam can be lame.
“I don’t know, Frankenstein’s Place, it sounds appropriate now.” Dean’s just about to warn Sam if he fucks up the paint job while stabbing his key in the trunk lock, he’ll give Sam’s hair a nice mud treatment when there’s a little bzzt noise.
Sam yelps, finger going into his mouth, sucking down, actually cut himself trying to open the damn trunk. Says around his finger, “It’s stuck.”
“Awesome. How much you wanna bet this is all thanks to whatever’s lurking up at the creepy old place in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere?”
“There’s a light,” Sam says, his blood beading on his hand as he points towards a light in the great distance, high above, it cuts through a dark swatch of trees.
“Huh. In the darkness, there’s a light,” Dean agrees, not knowing why he’s fucking saying it.
“There’s a light…”
Soft echo, voices carried on the wind from that direction, that little spot of light. They turn, staring at each other, the last breaths come out with a puff of cold smoke in the air, echoes of lighter, singing voices.
Sam shifts his weight from one foot to the other, rubs a hand absentmindedly over the trunk surface, any sound like a pin drop because uh, yeah, singing voices. “You hear that, Dean?”
“No, I goddamn didn’t.”
He does not hear singing. That’s just way too fucking weird for him to believe right now. They haven’t even gotten to the place yet. He can almost handle his baby getting stopped cold in her tracks, in gay bikers that vanish when lightning cracks overhead, in Nixon once being president of America, but he’s not going to believe in fucking singing.
Only they’re walking out to the place now, quiet, slow and careful-too damn dark, he’s on edge from the cold-so Dean whips out his flashlight, and he’s nodding to the path, all overgrown weeds in the way, saying, “Yeah, here’s the freaky old place, look, can you see, right there? There’s a light...burning in the fireplace.”
Fuuuuck, did his voice go all soft and kinda croon there at the end?
Sam nods, rolls his shoulders. “Dean, I know, but there’s a light, light in the darkness of everybody.”
Sam’s voice goes expansive, breathy, a catch in his throat, Adam’s apple bobbing in shock.
They pause, giving each other a look, weighty but Dean’s not going to examine what the hell it all means.
Then, walking slower, Sam’s voice a little shaky from nervousness or cold, “I can see the flag fly, I can see the rain.”
He looks over at Dean, who answers, gaze lifts in the direction of the looming house, “Just the same, there has got to be-”
And Sam answers, and he’s looking at Dean again in that weird way, “Something better here for you and me.”
Dean sucks in a breath, his brow furrows, says, “Oh god, we’re so fu...”
But he trails off and joins Sam, singing, “There’s a light over at the Frankenstein place.”
Dean frowns, forces out short non-singing words, terse and gritted through his teeth, “Uh, why the fuck are we singing? C’mon. What the hell.”
Together, again: “There’s a light burning in the fireplace...”
Pass the gate, a sign warning them, great, Enter at Your Own Risk, of course there’s gonna be a sign like that, it’s just that kind of hunt.
Sam’s singing, quietly, quickly, like Dean can’t catch it. “In the velvet darkness, of the blackest night, Burning bright. There's a guiding star, no matter what or who you are.”
God. He doesn’t what to know what’s in that fucking mansion, goddamn castle, so long as it’s made of wood, they should just salt and burn, get the hell outta there.
By now they’re almost at the front door, couple yards off, and Sam sucks in a breath, stops, readying himself for something horrible, full out singing, “The darkness must go down the river of nights dreaming...Flow morphia slow, let the sun and light come streaming...”
He then just, like, friggin’ clutches at Dean’s jacket, chest, hand grasping, as he belts in Dean’s friggin’ face, “INTO MY LIFE! INTO...MY...LIIIIFE!”
And Dean here, he purses his lips, wanting to say something, curious this, new heat burning inside, his chest almost constricts with want, forgets he's cold and wet. Doesn’t care that they’re probably possessed or worse, ‘cause then he fucking has to sing the closing chorus.
In the darkness of everybody's life.
*
“Yeah, nothin’ worse than getting whammied with a compulsion to sing. It happens more ‘n you’d think.” Bobby takes another swig. “Funny how that turns out.”
“So the boys end up steppin’ in just as these...well, I don’t know, group of Transylvanians they called themselves-and sure as hell they ain’t, I met Transylvanians, bum rap-finishing their disco dancin’ and boogieing. Dean’s words, those. And then they met him.”
Coughing once, and Bobby adds, general caveat, “You’d hafta to see him to believe him. Or so I’m told.”
*
*
Sam doesn’t understand the Time Warp, what purpose it has beyond being another goofy dance that proves that white people can’t dance.
He doesn’t understand the humpbacked butler with the stringy blonde hair, because, fine you’re balding, happens to most guys (probably not him though, Dad’s hair only started turning salt but was still thick on top), it doesn’t matter, once it gets to the point where it’s a crown of greasy, string hair, that’s time to give it up. Or the maid dressed in Dean’s version of what a maid should be wearing: low-cut, too revealing French maid outfit. Or, uh, well, he doesn’t even know what the overly made-up short-haired redhead is supposed to be doing, some kind of tap dancer? The entertainment for the party?
Whatever, Dean apparently approves of her glitzy look, sidles next to her, hulking huge. Poor Dean, he doesn’t get to feel that way when he’s standing next to Sam so he has to take it where he can get it. Across the murmuring, Sam can make out Dean saying something like, So, your name’s Columbia, huh?
The redhead, Columbia, doesn’t seem to be that impressed by Dean’s flirting.
Meanwhile, Sam’s kindly trying to figure out a way to say Um, I’m not interested to the maid and butler (who seem awfully clingy, they introduced themselves as brother-and-sister, should they be touching like that?), still hasn’t even gotten their names, these gothy, but not real goth, strangers, emphasis on strange.
He’s out of the room by now, can barely see Dean, backing up, keeps on backing up, all of a sudden the maid and butler just stop, automatic and then scurry on back into the main room, the maid muttering something as she tosses her thick hair off of her shoulders, fluttering dark lashes in disagreement with something the butler whispers.
In a dead, flat voice, the butler announces to Sam, “You’re quite lucky that the master is in one of his festive moods.”
Festive? Master?
Somehow, Sam doubts this is particularly good for him or-“Dean!”
Dean drops the éclair out of his hand, eyerolls, rolling shoulders in a sorry, my little brother’s spazzing out again as he makes his way across the dance floor to Sam.
“What?” he asks, mouth full of food, Dean’s always real classy.
“We need to get out of here, Dean, this isn’t, this isn’t how we do this. It’s-”
Madness, but he doesn’t get to say that.
The ramshackle elevator, the one they’re standing next to, oh it’s moving, noisy, hydraulics working overtime, descending is someone, a person, can see a thick heel stomping in time to its own beat.
The person, male, despite the shoes, turns around and it’s like, there’s a scream, old sound, maybe the howl of a ghost or something else, unworldly and then this music starts up and before Dean can get the fuck out of his “What the-” that’s when the accordion door slides open, smiling wide, the man says, “How d'you do?”
“Um,” Sam begins, discombobulated as Frank draws his fingers along the side of Sam’s jaw.
“I see you've met my...faithful handyman.” To Dean, he confides, opening his dark painted eyes wide, “He's just a little brought down because when you knocked, he thought you were the candyman.”
And he turns away with a whirl of his hand, striding into the main room. Sam catches himself slightly lurching, Dean tosses him a confused look but they’re both following, following after.
“Don't get strung out by the way that I look,” he declares as the strange partygoers start murmuring, one of them saying pleasure to meet you, Dr. Frank-N-Furter. “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
And here, Frank, turning around as he stands on a little stage at the end of the room, Columbia at his side with the maid and handyman (handyman? Really?) joining, standing behind him, he throws this deadly smile, Sam doesn’t know what for, only, he doesn’t feel wet and stupid and like he’s on a precipice, because he’s already fallen. “I'm not much of a man by the light of day,” Frank sings, and in Dean’s direction, winks, singing, “But by night I'm one hell of a lover."
Then Frank’s throwing off his cape (of course there’s a cape involved; large portions of fabric tend to be evil, just ask Dean that story about a witch and a cursed kimono). Oh god, he’s, it’s just thigh-highs and corset, large necklace, pearls, panties and a garter belt, and Frank thrusts his body forward, declaring, “I'm just a sweet transvestite...from Transsexual, Transylvania-uh-huh.”
Jumping off the stage, striding in heels with the kind of ease that Sam’s never seen before, it’s like, he’s made for them, or maybe it’s the other way around, he has no idea what he means by that.
“So let me show you around, maybe play you a sound. You look like you're both pretty groovy,” Frank sings, making a face that’s clear that he thinks they’re anything but groovy. “Or if you want something visual, that's not too abysmal-we could take in an old Steve Reeves movie.”
Sam feels Dean jostle him, bump his elbow and there he is, his grin all wide, saying, “We’re not into Steve Reeves. Uh. Got any Steve McQueen?”
“I’m glad we could talk,” Sam starts, after staring pointedly at Dean. He feels his voice catch in his throat, like he hesitates, unsure of how to go on before his body does the talking for him, this slip-slide of madness behind the words coming from his mouth. Following a beat that isn’t his, not natural at all.
“It’s been a long, wet walk. We’re park rangers looking for a missing person-” he says, pulls out and flashes a badge before tucking it away, Dean jerking a thumb at Sam and nodding. “Our car broke down, we can’t get into town, and I’d like to get this done before my partner here starts cursing.”
“So, you got caught with a flat. Well, how ’bout that?”
Frank quirks an eyebrow, almost looking off in the distance, not at all. Wags a finger at them, promising,.”Well babies, don't you panic.”
Goes back up on the little stage, voice rising, “By the light of the night! When it all seems all right, I'll get you a satanic mechanic.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute,” Dean interrupts, waves his hands and whatever singing-or faint music, Sam’s sure he heard it, please, let him not be going insane- dissipates as Dean says, annoyed, “There wasn’t a flat, I can fix a damn flat. It was something else-”
“Car trouble, that’s it,” Sam says, picks up on the uneasy tittering among the spooky “guests.”
Frank clamps his mouth shut, frowning, an ugly twist of darkness, hesitates and then seems to carry on as if they’ve said nothing, “So why don't you stay for the night. Or maybe...a bite?”
Voice goes velvet, smooth, offering everything, “I could show you my latest obsession.”
He’s lounging on the throne-chair that’s up there, crosses his heels, but even though, crap, Sam’s still hearing music, there’s nothing else being said, just Frank looking back and forth at him and Dean, clearly plotting something and Sam kinda doesn’t want to know all the details.
Then Frank gets up, striding back towards the elevator, pulls the accordion door open.
Turns around, hand stroking the metal edge of the cage, a visual Sam doesn’t need, really. His voice, strange, rich, almost unearthly, or maybe it’s something more intoxicating, dirtier, “So come up to the lab. And see what's on the slab.”
Dean coughs, goes to say something but Sam silences him, kicking him in the shin. Gets a smack on the back of head, but doesn’t continue, too wrapped up.
Bad move to look directly in the eyes, always a bad move, known that since forever, feels the sudden chill down his spine and Frank answers in a satisfied droll, “I see you shiver with an...ti...ci...”
Frank’s eyes go wide, holding back and Dean babbles out, always the impatient one, “Say it!”
“...pation!”
Sam breathes deep, relieved.
“But,” Frank declares, belting, “maybe the rain...,” murmuring soft, “isn't really to blame.”
Dean and Sam share a quick sideways look, Dean wearing his bust ‘em cowboy face, works better in poker not in this madhouse. Sam has no idea how he looks, only know how he feels and man, he’s hoping that not showing, it’s only for private contemplation, what’s running through his mind. If they can all tell, well, it would be like having someone scribble something in permanent marker on his forehead.
“So I'll remove the cause,” pause large, a lengthy laugh spilling out, Sam uneasy finds himself smiling, it’s just insane, no one really does evil overlord maniacal laughter right? Technically, it’s more a languid chuckle, but still, it’s just, dirty. Then, his face goes deadly serious and, slamming his hand on the button, Frank declares, “But not the symptom!”
Rises up and away, platform heels hit the elevator floor, almost sounds like a crack of thunder, that noise.
“You must be prepared,” the maid tells Sam and Dean, in a goth-vampire way, pray-pahrrred.
“Oh, we’re ready for anything,” Dean assures her. “You got a name?”
“Magenta,” she says, hands on Dean’s belt. “Don’t be shy.”
“Whoa! It’s nice that we’re on a first name basis, but we’re also on a first-hour basis so-”
“That’s longer than some of your relationships,” Sam points out, stepping back when it looks like Columbia’s reaching for his belt.
“Shut up,” Dean says good-naturedly as Magenta and Columbia team up to strip off his clothes and Dean’s grinning; Sam knows he’s not going to say no to that. “This must just be one of their customs. You know, Transylvanians, right?”
“Yeah,” he says, all wobbly arms when Columbia and Magenta try peeling off his many shirt layers, leaves him with a white undershirt that’s gone to hell in their tugging, it was already on its way out, cheap shirt he’d picked up god-knows-where, comfortable but couldn’t stand Laundromat dryers, nubbed all over, hears a rip as they yank off his long-sleeved.
“Way to rock the Flashdance, Sammy,” Dean tells him, pointing out the ripped collar of the shirt. Sam looks like he’s exploded out of his clothing.
The worse is yet to come, belt coming off with a faint protest, wet, muddy jeans slowly yanked down, leaving him in, um, tighty whities.
Dean’s not supposed to see those. Frankly, it’s Dean’s fault Sam’s reduced to wearing them, having fucked up the last laundry rotation, but Sam didn’t figure he’d have to worry about choice of underwear this morning. That his brother wouldn’t be seeing him standing around in next to nothing, and fuck, this just isn’t fair.
Dean looks like he’s going to comment on that but they’re herded back into the elevator (it stops noisily) by the team of petite redheads, they might be tiny but they’ve clearly done this many times before. Yeah, that’s not troubling at all.
The handyman, who finally introduces himself as Riff Raff, bitterly announces, “The Master will be through with you soon.” Shuts them in the elevator, as he, Magenta and Columbia go to take a different route to the lab.
Leaving Sam and Dean in their underwear, in a creepy elevator, about to have a transvestite doctor named Frank-N-Furter be “through” them.
Yeah, that’s nice and ominous.
*
“They shouldn’t have gone into that lab. But they didn’t have their wits about them. Like a bite of the apple, once they had that first taste, oh, it was all over. But what was to happen next, it was only a taste of what’s to come.”
Hmm, apples. He is kinda hungry right now, can’t do anything about it now, has to finish this all in one go.
*
*
They don’t get a chance to do much of anything-stripped down, shit out of luck when it comes to weapons unless they improvise, Sam’s wearing a fucking slip, ‘cause his t-shirt finally gave out and Sam’s being all modest about his package, and now Dean’s stuck in his fuckin’ boxer-briefs. Speaking of the slip, sure there’s no camera to record this precious moment, but that doesn’t mean that Dean’s gonna let Sam forget this. Ever. But they can’t do much when they’re guided into this big room, all salmon tiles and marble statues, red metal and blue screens, lots of buttons and knobs. The lab.
The lab where there’s a chill in the air, this phantom touch that sends a shiver down Dean’s back, that isn’t being fucking helped when Sam goes and touches the small of his back, nudges him, and then Sam walks over to Frank, asks about what kind of experiments Frank’s conducting.
“Oh, a few innovations, a little of this and that. The last experiment was not as successful as I hoped,” he says, sends a stern look over at Magenta and Riff Raff, who’re standing around bored, a feather duster in Magenta’s hands and Riff Raff kinda stroking a long knob that looks, uh, well it looks indecent. Still, they’re not doing much, it’s like they’re waiting. “You know, it’s not often that we receive visitors here. Let along offer them hospitality.”
If Dean didn’t know better, he’d think Frank’s kinda hitting on Sam, hardcore, but then, this Frank guy, his voice kinda lends itself to sex, can’t help himself apparently.
Still, he has to stick up for Sammy, yeah, that’s it. “Look Doc, we just gotta ask some questions and then we’ll be on our way, ‘specially as soon as your crew hands back our friggin’ clothes.”
Sam clenches his jaw, offers a weak smile to Frank. “Uh, my brother Dean didn’t mean-”
Oh good, tell them that they’re brothers, that’s, actually, a really weird look crosses Frank’s face, like he’s excited by something and Dean, uh, he kind of knows what for, and dude, no. Just, no.
However he waves away Sam’s lame apology, walking to stand in front of Dean, in the heels, he’s about the same height, still, he tips his head up, forces Dean to lose the aggressive stance.
“How forceful you are, Dean. Such a perfect specimen of manhood. So...dominant.” Frank says, voices tittering around them, knowing exactly what he means by that, as Frank cants his head, his eyes half-lidded.
Dean shifts his weight awkwardly, not knowing how the hell to take that, with an entire crowd of people (ghost people or whatever, they’re still there) all focused on his crotch.
Frank runs his hands down the length of Dean’s bare arms, taps at the wrists and pulls away, frowning. “This one doesn’t have any tattoos. Pity.”
Snaps his fingers at Riff-Raff and the redheads, calls out, “Please ready the Medusa Version 2.0.” To Sam and Dean, Frank says, “I believe you’ll find that this shall double your pleasure.”
He goes off to oversee the complicated knob twirling and lever pulling, whatever, Dean gets the mechanics of cars but all these high-tech gizmos, they creep him the fuck out.
“Dominant?” Sam says in an undertone, pulling Dean close, breath hot on Dean’s ear.
He isn’t shuddering, not at that, no way to prove it, ‘cause he shrugs, causal, like he stands in freaky mad scientist lairs at least once a week, wearing nothing but his skivvies. “If the shoe fits...”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Sam points out. Then, like he’s surprised, he asks, “You don’t have any tattoos?”
Dean raises an eyebrow, says gruffly, “No.”
“Really?”
“Dude, I don’t know wanna know your fantasies ‘bout my ass, it’s already weird enough.”
Nothing more to say as, quick as anything, the entire room goes dark, like that. There’s chaos, noise, coming from nowhere, then the light comes back on intermittently, this strobe light deal, feels like a bad hangover, illuminates a higher row where Dean can see grinning, leering faces wearing tuxedos, and Frank laughing, now wearing a green smock over his corset and fishnets.
Hands clutched together, gloved hands, pink and pristine.
The worse thing though, is Sam, the way the light casts stark white and blue against his skin-Dean’s seen Sam naked before, loads of times, they’re brothers but this isn’t fair. When did Sam get ripped, almost freakin’ bulging, sweat accenting the definition of his body. And, making it worse, it’s clear he’s anxious as all hell, tension in his jaw as he’s shooting Dean worried looks, calling out Dean’s name in the dark.
To top it all off, when Dean knows these thoughts are going beyond the notion of fucked up that he’s used to on a daily basis, he gets this feeling uncoiling low in his gut, sends this throb of pleasure right to his dick. Barest flash of light on Sam’s collarbone that sets Dean right off.
Frank raising his impossibly made-up eyebrow, throws this smile at Dean, blackened bruise-red, sex-teased.
Only one way to answer that. He starts to sing.
“The Sword of Damocles is hangin’ over my head,” Dean starts, clears his throat halfway before getting up near one of these big tanks, glass and red, rusted metal. Climbs up, holds onto the edge for support, directing his voice to the ceiling, “And I’ve got the feeling someone’s gonna be cuttin’ the thread.”
There isn’t enough time to point out the irony of the lyrics, when Dean throws his shoulders back, says, deep voiced, “Oh, woe is me-my life is a misery. Oh, can’t you see that I’m at the start of a pretty big downer?”
Dude, downer? Someone needs to knock him out before he ends up speaking in surfer lingo. Singing it, actually, motherfucker.
Sam, meanwhile, half runs, half staggers over in the dark, away from pawing hands, grabs onto Dean’s shoulder, slips, clenches his forearm. “Dude. You, uh, you’re singing.”
At this point, Dean’d like to say, yes, dumbass, thanks for noticing, but the next thing coming from his mouth is this moan of frustration, throws his head back and shakes Sam’s hand off, cries out, “I woke up this morning with a start when I fell out of bed-”
“That ain’t no crime!” Sam, barely, squeaks it out, it’s Magenta, Columbia, and Riff Raff doing the most work, higher voices, also, the crowd from nowhere, they join right in on the pity party.
“And left from my dreaming was a feeling of unnameable dread!”
Shit, he has a name for that dread, maybe more now, looking at Sam, crazy lurch of his stomach, almost falls off the edge of the container, has to jump down, almost crashes into Sam.
“That ain’t no crime!”
“My high is low. I’m dressed down with no place to go. And all I know-” Here, Dean’s eyes go wide and he grabs at Sam’s arm with both hands, finishes as the lights come on, all goes silent, “-is I’m at the start of a pretty big downer!”
“That ain’t...” Sam trails off, realizing everyone’s finished with backup vocals. There’s a decidedly settled silence, one that Dean’s happy about considering he just had his first fuckin’ public solo. “Uh. You okay? Feel like breakin’ into song still?”
“Shut up,” Dean snaps, swallows and glares.
The lights shut off and on again, brief flash of black with a whumpf of noise and exhaled breath.
“Well, Dean,” Frank breathes out in that weird breathy way of his, makes something in Dean just kinda forget itself, forget boundaries and think that maybe this guy, with the ‘fro and greasepaint makeup, uh, the corset, garter belt, that weird Marge Simpson pearl necklace deal, um, maybe he’s forgetting something, ignores Sam coughing next to him. “You certainly do like to show your prowess.”
Long slow scan of Dean from head to toes, deliberate slow-down of the mid-section, groin.
Then, singing, but thank god, not from Dean, Frank starts belting out, circling around Dean, like a shark, only a lot more friendly, interested, hands going in several places, almost-touching, his voice thick with something, “But a deltoid, and a bicep. A hot groin, and a tricep, makes me-ooh-shake.”
Dean shakes away Frank’s hand, curving around the top of Dean’s ass, just below his waistband.
“Makes me want to take Charles Atlas,” Frank pauses, splays his hand open, bites his gloved middle finger. “By the ha-aand.”
“Okay,” Dean lamely manages, coughing hard, willing his dick to god no, please do NOT stay down, must think unsexy thoughts before he’s made an absolute ass of himself, what the hell, he is not into dudes who dress like, fuck, needs to think of like, geometry or some shit.
Sam’s backing Dean up, shooting this weird, almost possessive look, doesn’t seem to be helping much, only gets Frank, uh, more interested. He has Columbia and Magenta stripping off his gloves, coat, comes towards him and Sam, kicking up his impossible heels, saying, “I don't want no dissension. Just dynamic tension.”
Sam looming over, pushing Dean back, like what the fuck, they’re both like, under this voodoo curse, doesn’t help, when he speak-sings, “I’m a muscle fa-an.”
“Oh God,” Dean mutters.
“Oh baby,” Frank says, leering at both of them. “I can make you a ma-ha-ha-ha-haan.”
Pause, Dean can feel the pause, full of possibility, but he lets, for once, his brain do the thinking. Says, “Really, we’re flattered, but me ‘n Sam here, we don’t go for that. But thanks. You’re, you’re one hell of a...transvestite. Uh, transvestite-scientist-host.”
Frank twists his mouth, bad look for him, the touch of madness in his eyes goes real dark here but he straightens up (figuratively speaking), bites out, “Fine then. I’ll have Magenta and Columbia show you to your sleeping quarters.”
“We’re not slee-” Sam begins, but Frank cuts him off, waving a hand in dismissal.
“Oh, I...insist. Really,” he says, droll, “I do.”
*
“Gotta have these things cleared up before I go any further,” Bobby insists, rolling an apple on his battered table. “There’s temptation and there’s seduction. Both similar in the end, it always includes a fall. This part here, it’s how they fall.
“The better they are, the harder they fall.”
*
ENTER IF YOU DARE
( Part 2 of 2 )