Episode 12: Journey to the West

[redemptionmod]

Title: Journey to the West
Masterpost: Supernatural: Redemption Road (for full series info, warnings, and disclaimer)
Author: peroxidepest17
Characters/Pairing: Dean/Castiel, Sam
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~22,000
Warnings: language, mild violence, spoilers for Journey to the West
Betas: nyoka and zatnikatel
Author's Note: I love this old story, so forgive me if there's a little too much squee about the parallels in my heart. The chapter art is by my good friends frozenlilacs and abitofgray, who are probably too busy to do this shit but love me anyway. I hope.
Art: Chapter banner base art by kasienka-nikki, modified with permission. First digital painting by abitofgray, which you can also find here; second digital painting by frozenlilacs, which you can also find here (art contains spoilers for the episode).

Summary: This story is an old story.





*****

When Sam wakes it's with a pounding headache and an incredibly unpleasant case of dry mouth. By unpleasant he means the kind you get from either a really long surprise trek through a scorching desert, or from too much MSG-laden late night delivery from the Chinese restaurant down the street. Both are, unfortunately, experiences he is incredibly familiar with having grown up Winchester.

As for today's particular flavor of Why God, Why?, he can't recall there being any scorching deserts to trek across in Minnesota at the tail end of winter.

Which means the culprit must have been last night's cheap Chinese food after all.

Groaning softly under his breath, he peels open one gummy eye to half-mast and gingerly sits up. It makes the room spin for a little bit but he doesn't yak or anything, which he takes as a promising sign. Encouraged, he pauses to take a deep breath before slowly peeling open his other eye.

He's in a room. It's nice, even through the slightly unfocused lens of Headache Vision.

Also, this room being nice means that it is most definitely not the same crappy motel they'd checked into this afternoon, when they'd arrived in Walker, Minnesota, hot on the heels of several more leads found via Bobby's comprehensive collection of online newspaper subscriptions, all conveniently involving clear-cut missing-persons-and-questionable-possible-underwater-monster-activities.

Given the circumstances, Sam is beginning to think that the whole thing last night might have been a trap. A trap featuring delicious, drug-laden Chinese delivery at fifty percent off. Bobby had said it sounded like a trap even before the fifty percent off part got tacked on, way back in this case's infancy.

"Cass County?" Bobby had said, around an arched eyebrow and a skeptical look. "Leech Lake? Sounds like a trap to me. And not a particularly good one, either."

Sam, at the time, had thought those coincidences to be too overt, even for monsters that want to kill them and destroy the world (not necessarily in that order, though for some reason they always seem to try it in that order).

Apparently, subtlety is only a characteristic of pre-Lucifer-walking-the-Earth days. Kind of. Whatever.

Sam rubs his face with both hands and feels like maybe he shouldn't have ordered the Sichuan Eggplant last night. His is a life full of regrets.

Nothing to do but to get past them.



He stares at the far wall for a moment, to ground himself, and when he feels like a vaguely competent adult human being again, he stands up and takes in his surroundings more analytically.

He's in some sort of ornate wood-framed bed that could pass for its own room if not for the fact that it is all contained on some sort of raised platform. There are intricate carvings on each of the bed's four posters, with a dragon curving its way along the top archway while the framed window-like panels on either side of him boast some sort of flowery pattern similar to ones he'd seen on the doors of a San Francisco dim sum restaurant once, when he and Jess had taken the weekend and driven up from Palo Alto to see the Golden Gate Bridge just because they could. The carvings on the panels are accented in gold leaf, and he can tell that the finish had once been flawlessly glossy, but looks like a well-loved antique now, in the spots where the sheen has been worn slightly dull with time.

There are entirely too many fat, silk-brocaded down pillows strewn about the bed, which Sam has very obviously flattened pretty thoroughly under the bulk of his very large frame and the apparent violence of his drug-addled slumber. From the state of the bed, he's thinking it's a good thing he can't, for the life of him, remember any of his nightmares.

That portion of the room thus analyzed and deemed non-threatening (if slightly disturbing), Sam stands up, drops slowly over the edge of the bed, and steps off of the paneled platform and into the room proper.

The sight he sees when he gets there makes him wonder if he is in the midst of a drug-addled nightmare after all.

For the most part, the room seems room-like. Four walls, a bed (if a strange one), some cabinets, a few decorative, oriental-looking vases, and a bright, leafy green bamboo plant in a stone-planter beside the large, heavy-looking door right in front of him. It's kind of Zen, though that's the Japanese way of saying it, and this room is pretty clearly Chinese. You know, from what he knows of Chinese stuff, having gone to school in California. What he means to say is, it's pretty standard, as far as he can tell, for a room decorated with some sort of Asian theme in mind.

But at the same time, on either side of the door, there is a pair of floor-to-ceiling glass windows, one to his immediate left and the other to his immediate right. Windows of course, aren't particularly the things of drug-addled nightmares, but to be fair to Sam, what he sees through the windows either means that he is currently in the home of Jensen Ackles - the actor who likes inappropriately large fish tanks in inappropriate places - or he's currently in a fancy Asian-inspired hotel room that is also underwater.

Judging by the slightly murky quality of the water and the fact that the fish lazily swimming by are not exactly the kind you adopt as pets (rock pike and northern bass are probably delicious but not particularly easy to keep, even for a celebrity), Sam is thinking it is more likely he's underwater than at some douchebag actor's ostentatious home. Also, that is just his life.

He takes a moment to sigh a little.

He supposes that on the one hand, he has now miraculously solved the mystery of Leech Lake's string of disappearing people, which is why they'd made the trip in the first place. Here he'd thought it would be complicated too, mostly because all the preceding cases involved salt-water disappearances and people vanishing in large groups with very few (if any) witnesses left behind.

The lake disappearances in Minnesota seemed to have been the exact opposite of all that but somehow similar at once. Intriguing? Yes, at the time. Not so much now that Sam thinks it might actually be some sort of strange tentacle-monster date-rape rather than the strange tentacle-monster face-eating that had fit the patterns.

Dean, Sam thinks, will have a field day with that one. Mostly because Sam cannot forget some of the very strange and disturbing Japanese cartoon porn his brother had pulled up on the internet the other day as "research" on the topic. Sam had said it was irrelevant. Dean had said that he couldn't help what the number one Google search result for tentacles was.

Waking up in a Chinese-style wedding bed with the biggest headache of ever and not being able to remember the details of the night before seems to suggest that Sam's brother had been more right about everything when he'd researched tentacle porn than disgusting (though he had been disgusting as well).

Sam shakes his head groggily. Speaking of brothers, he should probably try to find them.

He strides towards the imposing gilded cherry wood door, ignores the bigmouth bass that suddenly thunks right against the window beside him, and tries to think of a way to locate Dean and Cas (if they're even here, because let's face it, in the story of their lives that involves getting inappropriately drugged and hit on by monsters, Sam is the only Winchester who actually answers that call).

Much to his surprise, the door opens with a click under his hand.

*****

Castiel, for the most part, has decided that while he does not enjoy sleep itself, he enjoys the sensation of waking, particularly when he is allowed to do it slowly. And by that, he means that he particularly enjoys the sensation of waking up slowly next to Dean.

Today's experience however, is none of the enjoyable things that he has learned are all possibilities involving Dean over the last few months.

This, he thinks, is a lot more like the hours after he'd drunk the liquor store.

And this time, Dean is not here to offer him medication and companionship.

Dean is not here at all.

Castiel's eyes fly open.

The sight he is greeted with is chilling, despite the fact that he is lying on a warm, comfortable mattress of red silk and goose down, despite the fact that the antique Chinese marriage bed he finds himself in is exquisite, perfectly cared for, and beautifully aged in every detail of its hand-carved Qing dynasty splendor.

Dean is not here.

Castiel scrambles up and out of the warm cocoon of the blankets, forgetting, for the moment, the sluggishness of his mind and the weariness of his bones as he spreads his wings and crashes forward, off of the wooden platform and to the stone-worked floor.

A plethora of wood-carved images greet his eyes as he glances around the room, all of them depictions of a famous journey taken thousands of years ago, an entire world away. The fierce countenance of Sun Wukong entering the Cave of the Water Curtains greets him from the left. When he turns his head in any which direction, the Monkey King is there as well, stealing the peaches from the heavenly gardens and gaining immortality in one depiction, or planting the flag at the peak of Flower Fruit Mountain and declaring himself the Great Sage Equal to Heaven in another.

Wide-eyed, Castiel attempts to throw himself into flight, to follow the thread of himself that is always connected to the Winchesters in order to find them and try to free them from the great and terrifying creature that dwells here. Dean, he knows, is close, and so then, Sam must be as well. He must carry them away from here as soon as possible even if it tears him apart to do it.

He finds he cannot move at all.

And there is no door or window in this room within the Crystal Palace, he discovers mournfully. Only one last, enormous image of Sun Wukong to greet him, with the Monkey King trapped alone for 500 years under Five Finger Mountain, sentenced to imprisonment there by Buddha for his crimes against the celestial armies of the Jade Emperor's court. Sun Wukong killed 100,000 heavenly soldiers that day, until the Jade Emperor had been forced to pray for help. It is a story Castiel remembers well.

He slams a fist into the wall ineffectually and wonders if he is here to be punished in the same manner as the Monkey King, for daring to raise his head farther than his neck should have allowed.

And like Sun Wukong, Castiel thinks he would have accepted this punishment without protest, for his crimes are even greater than those of the Monkey King, who, in the end, only strove to gain recognition for his strength. Castiel attempted to usurp God himself and declared himself not equal to Heaven but greater. If this had been punishment for that, Castiel would have gladly accepted it.

But Dean is here, he knows. He can feel it in the faint thrum of familiarity in the handprint seared over his chest, in the parts of himself he'd given over to Dean's soul when he'd claimed him from the Pit.

If Dean is here as well, Castiel will not accept this imprisonment.

He sits down and tries to think of a way out.

*****

Dean, having had a good number of nights (particularly of late) that he would consider good nights despite some of the stupid things that may have also happened on those nights, wakes up knowing that last night had definitely not been a good night.

For one thing, everything inside of his mouth feels fuzzy in a chemical sort of way that means he hasn't had it anywhere on or in Cas. For another, his eyes are stuck together, and he feels like he could drink a gallon of water and not miss the fact that it's not alcohol. Also, he has no shoes on. Which, okay, would normally be fine, but the thing is, he doesn't remember taking them off last night at all.

In fact, the last thing he really remembers is tipping the delivery guy five bucks and opening up a doggie bag of Orange Chicken for Cas to try while looking at Sam and telling him he agrees with Bobby; there's no way they get called to a case in Cass County without something being fishy.

Sam had been in snooty-nerd mode and muttered something about dead giveaways around a mouthful of greasy, squishy looking eggplant. Dean had been too fascinated by his disgust at watching his little brother consume something that looked like fried slug to pay complete attention to Sam's diatribe on subtle evil-villain type planning strategies. Plus, Cas had been staring at his chicken like he suspected some sort of evil monster attack to come bursting out of it. It had been three kinds of hilariously adorable, and the fact that Dean thought anything was adorable had been enough to stop him in his tracks and force his brain to go searching throughout the rest of his body for any emergency stores of testosterone it might have saved up for a rainy day.

Needless to say, the whole situation had been kind of dire, but if it comes down to it he figures that no one can blame him for not paying that much attention to Sam. Also, Cas had used those chopsticks like a fucking pro, hated the Orange Chicken, and decided that plain white rice was his new favorite food. Dean's last coherent thoughts of the evening had been that the Orange Chicken was boss, rice was okay too, why does Sam keep talking, and I wonder when an angel of the Lord had the time to learn how to use chopsticks but not Google.

Then Dean had woken up here, and well, this is where they are. And he has no shoes.

That Chinese food must have given him one hell of an MSG coma. But on the plus side, the motel bed seems a lot more comfortable than it had looked.

He grunts, rolls over, and reaches blindly to the area to his left, where Cas is probably curled up, probably feeling nothing but regret over the bad Chinese food.

Except Cas is not there.

Dean finally deigns to crack an eye open.

"Fuck," he mutters when he sees what he sees. He shoots up in bed and suddenly feels a lot less groggy.

Waking up to be essentially face-to-face with a two-pound white sucker fish staring you in the eye kind of does that.

Heart and head both pounding strangely, Dean takes a moment to absorb his surroundings. Even in the midst of a bad food coma, Winchester training demands that he properly case a joint he finds himself in within the first few seconds of finding himself there.

The room is straight out of a goddamn Kung Fu movie.

And that's when Dean decides he doesn't care what his surroundings entail so long as he can find his brother and his angel. He tosses the blankets off, stumbles out of the bed, and heads straight for the large wooden door on the other side of the room.

Which is, predictably, locked. From the outside. Via a latch or something, because there certainly isn't any goddamned keyhole Dean can pick.

Dean takes a second to glare at the door before whirling around again and marching back towards the giant glass aquarium window that the bed is pressed right up against.

This time, he takes an inventory of what he actually has on hand in the room with him. There's a vase with some green leafy sticks in it, an end table, some frilly cushions, and a funny-shaped dresser thing on one side. On the other side of the room is a display with two crossed swords (probably fake), a creepy looking jade lion statue similar to the ones he'd seen lining the doorway to the one Chinese restaurant in Sioux Falls, and a painting of some Chinese dude, a pig, and some sort of red-skinned demon following a monkey in gold armor past some mountains.

It takes him all of two seconds to decide on the hefty-looking lion statue sitting under the weird painting thing. He figures it's time to break himself the hell out of here.

He sends the base of the lion statue crashing down against the doorframe. The flawless wood splinters and cracks under the weight, and that, Dean thinks with a bit of spiteful glee, is that.

*****

Sam pokes his head out into the hallway at the exact same moment there is a splintering crack from the door directly across the hall from his. He startles, naturally, because up until that moment it had been very quiet and all he had been able to perceive had been the long, red-carpeted hallway that seemed to stretch on forever, the unhinged latch outside of his door, and the fact that the ceiling was entirely clear, as if someone had decided that making an underwater palace out of glass would be the coolest thing ever. Maybe they've been abducted by a celebrity-douchebag tentacle monster. Why the hell not? God is a deadbeat Dad, Hell is a red-tape DMV-wannabe nightmare, and Death is a foodie. Anything is possible in this day and age apparently.

Sam manages to duck back into his room slightly as the door frame across from him continues to splinter under a series of heavy whack, whack, whack sounds that make it seem like whoever or whatever on the other side is really interested in getting the hell out at all speed.

Sam turns slightly white when he imagines that it might be Dean or even Cas, stuck in a locked room within the Asian-fetish style wedding bed of their celebrity-douchebag tentacle monster while it tries to pull a Kobe Bryant Colorado special on them.

Either that or it is the tentacle monster on the other side and it's coming for Sam.

Sam decides that neither option is particularly pleasant, but the first is by far the worst of the two. He darts forward just in time for the closed latch on the door to give a little creak and stutter.

The door bursts open.

Dean stumbles out, holding some sort of ridiculous jade lion statue and looking triumphant.

The two Winchester brothers blink at each other in the middle of the hallway for a second.

"Dean?" Sam asks tentatively.

"Sam."

A moment passes wherein they kind of stare at each other, mostly because they are sizing each other up and making sure they are in fact, who they claim to be. There is no lingering or longing or any of the stuff fangirls like to read into the staring. Just good survival instincts in the face of not having any silver or holy water immediately on hand. From what Sam can ascertain, Dean has all the same scars as yesterday, the same clothes (though both of them seem to be missing their shoes), the same number of faint hickeys that Sam would rather not notice but had anyway because this has been their lives since he was six months old and stuff. His possibly fake-or-possessed brother's face is belligerent and confused and worried, which is an expression that is exactly Dean and that, as far as Sam can remember, none of the monster impersonators have been able to fake quite right as of yet.

"Where the hell are we?" Dean says first, after having apparently come to the conclusion that Sam is indeed as much Sam as can be figured at the moment. He sets the lion down (it looks heavy), while Sam assesses Dean's splintered door and the latch, which is still hanging on to the frame somewhat pathetically. He's pretty sure their celebrity-douchebag tentacle monster isn't going to like that.

"I don't know," Sam says after a beat, furrowing his brow. "I wonder why they locked you in and not me."

Dean blinks. "They didn't lock you in?"

Sam shakes his head and gestures back to his door, still open, the latch completely intact and unused. "It was just…open. When I woke up."

Dean snorts. "Huh. I guess I'm just scarier than you, Sam."

Sam scowls at his brother because he is like an entire foot taller than him and has a twenty-pound advantage and used to house the devil.

Which is…not something he particularly wants to argue as a check in the favor of his scariness, actually.

Dean has already moved on, rubbing one hand along the side of his neck (the side with the most hickeys, coincidentally), as he looks around the empty hallway. "We need to find Cas."

"Is he even here?"

Dean gives him a look, this totally obvious sort of "Well where the hell else would he be?" kind of thing that, if the hickeys weren't a sign, would totally be his first clue that his brother is more in love than sensible right now. "He's here."

"How do you know?" Sam posits, not to be contrary, but mostly because Cas is still sort of an angel and it is entirely possible that whatever has them trapped has taken special precautions to contain an angel. Which might not exactly involve holding Cas in a marriage bed underwater so much as a giant flaming ring of holy oil somewhere drier.

Dean looks vaguely embarrassed at his brother's question, and the hand rubbing at the side of his neck unconsciously drifts over to his shoulder a little, before he resolutely yanks it back down to his side again. "He's here, man. I just know."

Sam supposes that's as good an answer as any. If Dean could find one angel in the eternity of Purgatory then one measly see-through underwater whatever might be child's play for all Sam knows.

"Okay. So then…where is he?"

The two brothers look around. Their two open doors remain as such, and for the first time Sam notices that they are the only two doors readily visible down the entire length of hallway, which is odd, considering the fact that Sam's room hadn't seemed large enough to warrant such a long, unbroken expanse of real estate.

Dean seems to come to the same conclusion.

"I guess we should start looking," Sam says with the slight edge of a sigh in his voice. He reaches behind him and shuts the door to his room. By now it's probably a pointless gesture, but hey, if whoever is keeping them here sees it and thinks he's still inside, it could buy them anywhere from a second (until they see Dean's splintered door frame), to hours, if they don't bother looking at the other side (unlikely).

Dean, in the meantime, grabs the lion statue again (it still looks heavy), before frowning. "Wait here for a second," he says and takes the lion statue back into his room. Sam blinks in confusion before Dean comes striding back towards him a moment later, carrying a pair of large, flimsy swords with golden handles and tasseled ends.

Which are probably useless in the long run, but that isn't the interesting part of this whole sequence of events.

Sam is the one who sees it when, as Dean is closing the broken door behind him (probably more out of instinct than anything else), there is a faint flash of light along the wall right beside Dean's door. The flash itself looks for a moment exactly like another door.

Dean tosses one of the swords at Sam, who fails entirely to catch it because he's too busy going towards the bit of wall immediately towards Dean's right. "Did you see that?" Sam asks. The sword goes clattering to the floor.

Dean frowns. "See what?"

"For a second, I thought I saw a door right here," Sam insists.

Dean stares at the section of wall. "Yeah, I got nothing."

Sam's brow furrows deeply as he runs his fingers along the edges of what he thought he'd seen. "No, I think…"

He trails off, looking triumphant as his fingers (if not his eyes) find a seam. "Dean, there's something here."

Dean blinks and strides cautiously forward. "What, like a secret passageway?"

"I don't know, maybe." Sam stretches both arms out, his impressive wingspan discovering the edges of what seem to be exactly what he'd just seen: a door. "Right here. You can feel it."

He grabs Dean's hand without permission and presses it up against the edge of his invisible door.

The moment Dean's hand comes in contact there is another flash of impossibly blue-white light, and the borders, for an instant, are made completely visible to both Winchesters.

Dean stares. "Huh," he says, articulately.

From the other side of the door, they hear a faint, confused, "Dean!? Sam!?"

Sam can't help himself when he grins a little at the sound of that voice.

Dean is too busy scrabbling at the wall to notice. "Cas?!" he exclaims, and Sam doesn't for an instant (even as he gloats to himself about being clever), miss the note of blatant relief in his brother's voice.

*****

The first time the wall in front of him flashes slightly Castiel nearly misses it, so immersed in his thoughts as he tries to finagle a way out of here that what is immediately before him seems to lose all consequence.

The second time it happens, much brighter and louder than the first time, and tinged in something so patently familiar that he could not ignore it no matter how deep in thought or crisis he may be, he flies toward it and presses his hand to the wall. "Dean!? Sam?!" he shouts, and he can only wonder what they might be thinking of doing, when they are stuck in this place of all places, guests or prisoners (Castiel hasn't decided yet) of one of his Father's oldest, most monstrous creations.

Funny how a God in his youth is much like a young human in that they are both more fascinated with fantastical, impossible beasts and monsters than in anything remotely practical.

"Cas?!" Dean exclaims in reply, rather more loudly than is probably wise at the moment, and Castiel can hear a pounding from the other side that sounds a lot like fists trying to slam through the wall. It is unlikely such a feat as that is possible in Ao Guang's Crystal Palace. Or wise. The Emperor, Castiel is convinced, would not like tiny human things destroying his priceless antiquities or his ancient home of legend.

"Dean, there is no way out," Castiel informs him. "You must leave me here." Castiel will face Ao Guang, will speak to the old monster and discover what he wants. He will certainly have more courage to do so if Dean and Sam are gone from this place.

"There freaking is a way out," Dean growls back determinedly, and then, more faintly, Castiel can make out Dean telling his brother to "Stay here and keep watch," before marching off, possibly to enact a very hasty, and probably very stupid, plan of attack.

Castiel has no doubts about his love for Dean, but even so, he knows that one of Dean's major shortcomings (or strengths, depending on the moment or the interpretation of the observer) is an inability to sit idly by and wait for anything should he feel he could be doing something (anything) instead, no matter how rashly concocted a plan of attack that something may be.

Castiel sighs.

*****

"Stay here and keep watch," Dean grumbles to his brother darkly, before turning back to the door to his room, possibly to get his jade lion again and bash things until they do what he wants them to. Which might have worked on the wooden doors, but which will probably not work on the heavy stonework of the walls.

Sam is about to protest, except that the second Dean opens the door to his room, the seam under his fingertips delineating the door to Castiel's room suddenly disappears completely, leaving nothing but smooth marble under his fingertips. "Dean!" he shouts in a panic, which causes Dean to come stumbling back out, the jade lion in his arms.

"What?"

"It's gone," Sam reports, frowning. "I can't find the seam anymore."

Dean scowls. "What happened?"

Sam scowls back, because obviously the thread of the door disappearing was all his fault or something. "I don't know, you just went back and then it…"

Dean doesn't wait for reasoning before he's got his nose up against the wall and is pounding at it. "Cas? Hey, Cas!? You still there?!" he demands.

"Yes, Dean," Castiel answers, sounding kind of grumpy. "But Sam is correct. The outline of the door is gone."

Dean shifts the jade lion over his head. "Whatever. Get out of the way, I'm busting in."

"No, don't!" Sam and Cas both manage at the exact same moment.

But not before Dean slams the statue into the wall.

The statue shatters.

The wall does not.

"Goddammit," Dean says and goes back towards his room. Sam can only imagine his brother is going off in search of something bigger and heavier to shatter ineffectually against the wall. Or the invisible door. Or whatever it is.

"Sam," Castiel's faint voice implores from the other side. "What happened?"

Sam huffs a sigh. "Dean went back to his room to find other things to smash," he mutters, and thinks how the headache from the roofied Chinese food is doing a number on his patience as well.

"No…what happened when the seam disappeared? And what happened when it appeared?" Castiel clarifies. "What changed?"

Sam blinks and considers that, and then, not for the first time, feels kind of a surge of joy over the fact that Castiel is with them, because between Dean Hulk-smashing things in his desperation to get to his boyfriend and Sam trying to tell him not to, there's very little room left for any rational thought.

"Right," Sam agrees, because they should do this scientifically. "If we find the trigger, or whatever is causing this, we can…we can find a way out. Maybe." He thinks. "Well, the first time I noticed the light flash was when Dean came back with the swords. The second time was when he touched the door."

He doesn't have to hear anything to know Castiel is thinking hard. "Then perhaps the removal of the swords changed something? Did anything else shift?"

Sam considers it. "The door closed," he says as a kind of detail-oriented throwaway. "Dean dropped one of the swords." But then again, Dean had tossed aside both swords the moment Sam found the door and that hadn't caused anything to change.

"And what changed when the seam disappeared?"

"Dean opened the door and went back in to get the lion."

"And the swords?"

Sam looks over his shoulder where they are still sitting on the floor, forgotten.

"No change."

A beat.

And then, at the exact same moment (and just as Dean is emerging from his room with the end table), the two of them exclaim, rather incredulously, "The doors!"

Dean blinks at his brother, antique table hefted over his head. "What?"

Sam almost, almost, laughs out loud.

*****

Dean has never claimed to be the brightest bulb in the box, but he doesn't necessarily consider himself an idiot either, to be fair. It's just that Sam is freakishly smart, and Cas is as old as dirt and a total nerd, and Bobby is probably a combination of all of those things, so in the long run, the company Dean keeps tends to be the kind of company that makes him look dumb even though he knows he isn't.

This is one of those moments when he thinks he never would have noticed the strange and geeky patterns his brother and his…whatever notice.

"So I think it's a puzzle," Sam theorizes out loud to his brother, while on the other side, Castiel says it's likely.

"My door was unlocked for a reason. Dean's was locked for a reason. Cas's…doesn't exist for a reason."

"Very philosophical, Socrates, but can we get to a point?" Dean snaps, mostly because the ceiling is still freaking him out, and a little because Cas trapped in some magical doorless wonder of a room is giving him an entirely strange sense of uncomfortable déjà vu.

Sam gives Dean this disapproving look. "Well, what we know is that when your door closes, the seam on Cas's appears, and when your door opens, it disappears."

Even Dean isn't so stupid to not know that at this point. Especially since Sam had already explained that part.

"So, the questions we need to figure out are, one, why was my door unlocked, which doesn't make sense unless it was supposed to serve a purpose, and two, why your door triggers Cas's door. Or why you touching Cas's door when it's visible makes it flash."

Dean has a headache. "Okay? So how the hell do we figure that out?"

Sam sighs, grabs his brother's hand again, and presses it to about where he remembers the seam being. Nothing.

Dean frowns. "Well so much for that theory."

Sam shakes his head. "No, Dean. It just means certain conditions have to be met before your magic glowing thing works." A light goes on behind Sam's eyes that Dean has since learned to mean his brother's brain is in the middle of that process where it's turning very fast and will probably not make much sense to Dean until it slows down again and goes into explanation mode.

He waits, palm still pressed up against the wall where the door to Cas's prison ought to be.

"We already know both doors being open doesn't do anything, since we didn't notice any effects of this when we were standing with them like that earlier." Sam turns in a circle, looking at his open door and Dean's open door. "And we both know that mine being closed and yours being open doesn't seem to do anything either." He punctuates this with a gesture at both doors, which are currently in their aforementioned states. "But then, when my door was closed and then you closed yours, something changed. So…" he trails off with a thoughtful look at Dean. Dean looks back at him belligerently, because not getting it.

Sam makes a circular motion with his hand, like he expects that gesture to instantly clarify his complex Stanford-educated brain waves into ideas Dean can actually do something with. "So we try the significance of the locks, obviously."

Dean snorts. "Obviously."

Sam presses on despite his brother's unimpressed expression. "Okay. So when I woke up my door was closed but unlocked," he reiterates. "Yours was closed and locked, and we don't know how Cas's was because we couldn't see it under those conditions."

"Again, already been over this, Sam."

"Well, we need to start from the beginning and work forward," Sam tells him before looking over his shoulder to the open and very splintered doorframe of his brother's room. "As best we can, I guess."

Dean scowls. "How the hell was I supposed to know the locks were important?" he says in his own defense. Besides, the latch is still…there. Kind of. Hanging on. Pretty useless, but whatever.

Sam shakes his head. "Just close it and…try to lock it, okay?"

Dean sighs and does as he's told, pulling his door shut again (or as close to shut as it can be), and fiddling with the remnants of each end of the outside latch gingerly, until they at least fold over each other in the way they'd originally been meant to. As he does, the seam to Cas's door flashes again but remains invisible.

Sam looks satisfied. "So, this is what it was when we started. Before I opened my door, before you broke yours down."

Dean barely manages to keep from rolling his eyes.

Sam ignores him, turns back to his door, and opens it. Nothing happens. Apparently satisfied with that (thought Dean isn't), Sam closes it again, but this time snaps the latch shut in order to effectively lock it for the first time.

Across the hall, the latch on Dean's door pops apart and the door itself slides open.

Sam looks triumphant. Dean is not sure why. "Sucky locks," he comments, ignoring the fact that he'd snapped his open by force earlier.

Sam rolls his eyes. "Look, if mine was unlocked and yours was locked, and then when mine locks, yours unlocks, don't you think there's some special way we're supposed to arrange it so that Cas's will unlock?"

Dean supposes it's possible. "Yeah, okay, but his door disappeared when mine was open, right?"

"While mine was unlocked," Sam reminds him.

Dean just wants to smash an end table into a wall and be done with this.

"Okay, Dean, so now, try locking yours again."

Dean thinks that sounds kind of pointless. "Won't it just pop open again?"

Sam looks impatient this time, which is entirely unfair, because he's the one making Dean listen to his brain soundtrack on repeat. "Just do it. Hold it shut if you have to."

Dean shrugs and does as he's told, closing the door, locking the latch, and holding it in place.

This time, the glow of light from Castiel's formerly invisible door is painfully brilliant and not at all unlike an angel's grace exploding. Dean naturally panics at the sight of this, because if all this exercise served to do was blow his angel up he is going to seriously knife a bitch. "Cas!?" he shouts in the midst of the blinding brightness.

"Dean, something is happening!" Castiel answers obligingly, and in accents that do not at all sound like he is going supernova. "Shut your eyes!"

Both Winchesters slam their eyes shut as the light crescendos, impossibly, and then flashes off into nothing.

Dean is the first to open his eyes, just moments before Cas's voice tells them, "It's okay. There is a door now."

And there is.

Right next door to Dean's room, sitting pretty like it had been there all along.

"Can you open it?" Sam asks, looking nerdily triumphant.

There is a thud heavy enough to make both Winchesters wince.

"No," Castiel admits out loud after a moment of what must have been some epic angel trying.

Dean looks at Sam. "Well? Now what?"

Sam thinks. "We got one flash for your door being open and one flash for you touching it. So…"

Dean blinks. "So I touch it and it opens? Really, Sam?"

Sam shrugs helplessly. "It's what I have to go on based on the evidence."

Dean gestures with his eyes to the busted door and the gimpy latch he is holding shut.

Sam sighs. "You know, if your first reaction wasn't just to break things, Dean…"

"Shut up and hold it still," Dean tells him.

Sam goes and takes his brother's place holding the broken door shut, while Dean steps around the shattered pieces of the busted jade lion lying in front of Cas's door.

He takes a deep breath and rests his palm against the edge, just like he had earlier.

The door clicks open, just like that.

Sam looks triumphant. "I knew it!"

Castiel steps out into the hallway, looking more ruffled than usual.

"You all right, Cas?" Dean demands, gruffly relieved, while Sam preens to himself off to the side. He glances over the angel once, quickly, to assess any harm that might have come to him.

Castiel nods once. "I'm fine."

Dean's gruff relief turns to annoyance as he looks at his brother. "So? What the hell was the point of all that?"

Sam shrugs. "I still don't even know where we are, Dean."

Castiel looks grim. "I do," he announces, sounding weary and wary all at once. "And if he has us, then I would imagine everything we do here has a purpose, however clouded it may appear to us at the moment."

Dean is completely at zero patience levels for roundabout explanations and theories at this point. "Well?" he asks. "Wanna share with the class, Cas?"

Castiel straightens his coat a little and nods. "Have either of you ever heard the story of the Journey to the West?"

A beat.

"We covered some of it in World Lit one semester," Sam admits tentatively, at the exact moment Dean blinks and says, "That movie about the Russian mouse?"

Sam and Cas both deign to ignore this comment, which makes Dean wonder (not for the first time) if the geek squad would prefer it if he went outside while they had their tea party alone.

"I believe," Castiel murmurs, voice low, "that we are in the palace of the Eastern Dragon Emperor."

Dean stares. "Are you telling me we all got roofied by a dragon?" he demands incredulously.

Before either his brother or his whatever can answer, a figure materializes in the shadows behind them and clears his throat gently.

"I believe my grandfather would prefer the term summoned," the newcomer says, sounding vaguely amused.

He is slightly less amused when Dean's first instinct is to turn around and punch him in the face.

*****

Castiel lunges for Dean right after the initial blow lands, wrapping his arms around Dean's waist and pulling him bodily backwards, before he can attempt to pummel the life out of Ao Guang's envoy and ignite a war while they are still very trapped within the confines of the Crystal Palace. "Dean no!" he and Sam say at the exact same moment, and Dean gives almost instantly, turning in Castiel's arms to give him a look halfway between bewilderment and indignation.

"That's the delivery guy that tried to date rape us!" he protests in defense of his sudden violence.

The newcomer, still reeling from the rather solid blow to his jaw, frowns and wipes a trickle of blood from the corner of his lip. "It was not," he begins, but gets cut off by Dean's surly expression. The one that says he's getting another solid sock to his person if he tries to dress it up any. He sighs. "It was a sleeping draught," he admits, a little helplessly. "Grandfather wished to bring you here as quietly as possible."

Dean opens his mouth to protest again, by rote, but Castiel cuts him off, stepping between Dean and the young man who had delivered their food from a Chinese restaurant called the Emperor's Pearl the night before. "Why has Ao Guang summoned us?" he demands as he recalls the perfect circumstances that had led them here, from Dean delighting in the ad they'd found tethered to their motel room door, to calling the restaurant for delivery after seeing the "Show us an out-of-state license plate and receive fifty percent off your order!" special that had been promised in somewhat gaudy purple script across the front of the flier.

Castiel supposes that never has a creature of legend laid a more perfect trap for a Winchester. Food, convenience, and economy, all in one fell swoop, and they had fallen into Ao Guang's clutches without so much as an inkling of something being amiss.

But then again, they are in the realm of a very wily, very ancient, and very dangerous creature. Best then to discover what it is the Dragon Emperor wants.

The messenger looks reluctant to divulge that information, looking down at his feet in a surprisingly human gesture for one who calls one such as Ao Guang "grandfather." He is still wearing the uniform of the Emperor's Pearl, complete with nametag that reads, "Hai" on it, which Dean had found inexplicably comedic the night before when he had been greeting and taking leave of the young man. Castiel still doesn't see why the joke had been so funny; Dean had been pronouncing the delivery boy's - Ao Guang's grandson's - name incorrectly both times he'd done it.

"For now, sirs," Hai says carefully, but in a well-mannered tone, "his majesty only wishes to dine with you." Pause. "He invites you to his table as honored guests," he adds hastily the minute Dean looks like he's going to protest eating anything any of these bastards want to feed him again.

Dean doesn't seem to get the promise within those words however, and starts up again, straining to shove past Castiel and give the messenger a piece of his mind.

Castiel stays him with a gentle hand on his arm and a not-so-gentle expectant look in his eye.

The protest dies in a gurgle in Dean's throat unexpectedly. Though, Castiel thinks, it is likely more out of confusion regarding the angel's strange conduct than out of any wish to behave. Sam, at the very least, seems content to err on the side of caution for the time being and follow Castiel's lead.

"Tell his majesty," Castiel begins, turning very pleasantly (if somewhat coolly) to Hai, "that we would be delighted to share a meal with him."

Hai bows stiffly and gestures them to precede him down the long hallway. "If you please."

Castiel pauses to squeeze Dean's arm, just for a moment, before straightening his shoulders and leading the way down the hall. Dean still looks wary, but relaxes visibly at the gesture. Castiel lets his fingers linger just a little longer than necessary before he moves to follow Hai down the corridor.

*****

Even the ridiculous good-food smells and the fact that the Dragon Emperor's dining room alone looks like it could hold three of Bobby's place right inside, Dean's primary point of interest at the moment is definitely the fact that Cas has stopped acting like Cas suddenly, and seems to be acting a whole lot more like he's back in commanding general mode, all stiff lines and detached confidence.

In fact, it's concerning enough that Dean isn't even focusing on the strange, girly slippers Hai had presented to them before he'd taken them here. Comfortable, sure, but it feels strange to not be wearing his work boots while marching into the line of fire.

Or, as the case may be, into the really fancy dining room with the crystal chandeliers and the high-backed silk-cushioned chairs.

At the head of one long dining table is an old man, sitting pleasantly enough and clearly waiting for them. He smiles toothily at his guests and stands to greet them, long white whiskers pulling back to either side of his face as he grins, eyes crinkling to the sides slightly. "Welcome, welcome!" he calls, for all the world sounding like he is waving in old friends and not three men whom he'd had to drug to get here the night before.

"You honor us with your hospitality, Ao Guang," Castiel says with as pleasant an air as he is capable of given the circumstances. Which means he sounds downright neutral at best.

Sam and Dean take the moment to share an apprehensive look. If this guy is a Dragon Emperor he definitely doesn't look it.

Then again, in the Winchester handbook of survival, that probably means he can eat their faces off from fifty yards away or something.

Ao Guang's eyes glint as if reading their thoughts, but he betrays no more interest in them than that as he gestures to the empty chairs around him. "Please," he says pleasantly. "Have a seat. The first course is ready to be served."

Dean looks him over belligerently. "If it's anything like what you set us up for last night, I bet we're in for a real party."

Ao Guang's grin broadens, if possible, but it's shark-like and just shy of chilling. "Believe me, Mr. Winchester," he says, pleasantly enough, "I always seek to outdo myself."

"Dean," Castiel cuts in sharply and gestures to a chair. "Just sit. Please."

"Yes, dear," Dean grudgingly does as he's told, because Cas usually doesn't take that tone with him and he's not really sure what else to do but listen. Doesn't mean he has to like it, though.

This earns him a blatantly amused look from Ao Guang. Dean glares back and takes a freaking seat.

Once all of his guests are seated, Ao Guang sits down as well and claps his hands together once.

And then, just like that, a sea of servants drifts in out of nowhere, carrying the first course of cold meats on elegant platter. They bow and set them down on the table as Ao Guang does the honor of pouring each of the Winchesters and their angel a cup of fragrant tea.

It is while the first course is being served this way, Dean staring at the food and clearly wondering what ninety percent of it is, when Sam suddenly gives a start.

"What?" Dean demands when he sees the light go on behind his younger brother's eyes for the umpteenth time since they've gotten here. Meanwhile, Castiel keeps up his very pleasant façade of good manners.

"It's just," Sam whispers, and he takes on that tone that makes him sound all of ten years old again, when he used to hiss under his breath at Dean that Dad was such a jerk, "I think these people are the ones we're looking for."

Dean blinks and finally takes his eyes off the questionable cold meat in front of him to actually look the servants in the face. He's surprised to find that he recognizes most of them, and not at all surprised to find that Sam had recognized them first.

Dean turns to Ao Guang with an intense sensation of rage at the sight of these people, all of whom had been reported missing after witnesses had seen them relaxing lakeside, fishing, or boating, or sometimes swimming. "What the hell is this?" Dean demands suddenly, interrupting Cas and the Dragon Emperor's pointless conversation on the quality of the jasmine in the tea or whatever.

"Jellyfish," Castiel explains and dishes out some of the weird, noodly-looking shiny stuff on the platter to Dean's plate. "The flavor is very unique."

Dean scowls because Cas is weird on most days, but he's being particularly weird today, just because they're sitting down to dinner with evil monster royalty or whatever. It's not like Dean hasn't killed a dragon before. "No, I mean the people. Cas, these are the people we read about in the papers, the ones that disappeared."

Castiel sighs at him and keeps serving him more of that gross-looking jellyfish stuff.

Dean is beginning to think Cas has forgotten that they're on a hunt and that all signs point to their roofie-happy host as the absolute perpetrator of the kidnappings.

Strangely enough it is Ao Guang who takes pity on him first.

"These are my servants," he says simply.

"You mean slaves?" Dean counters, standing up from his seat.

"Dean," Castiel begins, a note of warning in his voice. "They are not people."

Dean blinks. "What?"

Ao Guang actually barks in laughter at that. "These, Mr. Winchester," he says, "are my soldiers, who have served me since long before Sun Wukong was given life at the summit of Flower Fruit Mountain."

That makes about zero sense to Dean, but then again, he's thinking this whole wacky adventure is going to be one of those jobs that will make him wish for simpler times. Shooting werewolves, beheading vampires, exorcising demons. The good old days.

Sam, luckily, is there to make sense of a world that has stopped doing so to Dean for the last twenty minutes or so. "It was a set up," he breathes.

"Buh?" Dean manages.

Sam is slightly incredulous. "All of it. Not just the name of the place or the coincidence. I thought maybe…but then it seemed too obvious, but even the people? That's…"

"I do try to be thorough," Ao Guang acknowledges around the brim of his steaming cup of tea.

Sam turns to Dean, because Dean really thinks that Chinese food from last night must have done a number on him. "Dean, the whole case, every part of it, was just a way to get us here. No one was hurt. No one is even really missing."

Dean's brow furrows. "Well, how the hell do we know that?"

"Think about it," Sam points out. "All the so-called victims? No family reported them missing and no witnesses saw them get pulled under or even disappear. A clerk at the bait store or a fellow tourist could place seeing them at the lake, but couldn't remember their names or where they'd come from. All any of the stories had to let us know anyone had gone missing at all was that the locals got suspicious when these so-called tourists didn't pick up an order they'd paid for or didn't return a rental on time. It was...suspicious, to say the least."

Dean has a headache. "So what, this was just a big ruse to get us here?"

"Yes," Ao Guang answers, unrepentant.

"Try the jellyfish, Dean," Castiel says again with another one of those significant looks.

Dean isn't sure why it's so fucking important to eat all of a sudden, and he loves food. But right now, there seems to be more important matters at hand. Plus the jellyfish looks weird.

"We would not want to insult our host by refusing his kindness," Castiel adds placidly, and with an acknowledging nod to a highly amused Dragon Emperor. Then he continues to eat like nothing is fucking weird about this at all, though he does pinch Dean under the table once, when Dean does nothing but glare. As far as Dean is concerned, it is way harder than necessary.

Totally fucking uncalled for, actually.

Dean's eyes flare in impatient indignation, prompting Castiel to give him another quelling significant look that he doesn't know what the hell to do with. He suddenly feels like he's in some sort of ridiculous Hollywood movie or something. Starring Cas as the anxious girlfriend who is bringing her new boyfriend home for the first time, Ao Guang as the disapproving uncle who is actually some sort of goddamned royalty (surprise!), and Dean Winchester as the guy who has no idea what the fuck is going on.

It's all very Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, except this time Spencer Tracy can probably breathe fire or something.

"Cas," Dean grits out, in a tone that he thinks is pleasant enough, given the circumstances. "What the fuck?"

"Dean," Castiel replies, hard-edged but with just a note of pleading, "you must be very hungry."

Well, he sort of is, but not enough to eat any freaking jellyfish. Especially when he's sitting across from a date-raping dragon.

Ao Guang snorts at the display the two of them are making of themselves. He even seems to take pity on Dean, which raises Dean's hackles even more. "The last time I was insulted," Ao Guang says, conversationally, "I wiped out several port cities in a massive typhoon. All things considered, I would listen to your paramour, Mr. Winchester. The jellyfish really is excellent."

Oh.

Dean sinks back into his seat like a stone and fumbles with his chopsticks to try the jellyfish. Cas stops pinching his leg too, which is nice.

"Mmm?" he manages around the first cold, squishy mouthful.

Cas serves him the cold pork next, complete with a layer of jelly-like fat.

Dean eats it and everything else that gets put on his plate from there on out, mostly because he doesn't want cities to be wiped out, but also because whenever he's about to say ‘fuck no, thanks,' to whatever weird-ass food item is on the menu next, Castiel gives him this annoyed-wife look that Dean remembers his mother giving his dad every once in a while, when he forgot to put the seat down after using the bathroom.

Dean starts to worry about what this might mean in terms of his and Cas's whatever. But mostly he hates the fucking fatty pork.

And so they finish the meal in that manner, seven courses later, while an awkward, stilted sort of conversation goes on between the amused Dragon Emperor and his guests (mostly Castiel). They make a bunch of inane comments about the freshness of the water chestnut, or the richness of the broth, or the beautiful flower-cut garnishes alongside their lobster, and Dean has never felt particularly gay until that whole freaking conversation is happening in front of him. Lotus-cut radishes. What the fuck.

It isn't until what seems like a horrible, over-stuffed eternity of food later that Castiel, over a half-eaten portion of almond jelly with fresh fruit topping, finally pushes his plate forward and thanks Ao Guang for the meal and his kindness. Then he finally asks, very straightforwardly, "What is the purpose of your summons, your highness?"

Dean nearly falls forward in relief that this whole weird Alice in Wonderland tea party is coming to a close and they can get back to trying to find their way out of this goddamned rabbit hole. Though he will admit that the almond jelly is really fucking good at the very least, and finishes his and the leftover portions of Cas's as well, just to make sure their host isn't insulted by their lack of interest in dessert. Since Cas seems to care about that a whole lot for whatever reason, and no one wants Minnesota to be wiped off the map because someone didn't like the big mean dragon's expensive dinner party.

In the meantime, Ao Guang's smile fades, his expression turning serious, and his eyes vaguely stormy as he considers how to answer Castiel's question.

Dean hopes this doesn't mean they can kiss Minnesota goodbye now.

"It seems, Castiel," Ao Guang begins, voice a deep rumble as he leans back in his chair, "that I have once again been charged with presenting a challenge to a righteous man and a rebellious son of Heaven as they make their westward pilgrimage."

Dean blinks. "What the hell do you mean, again?" He's pretty sure that if he'd met a Dragon Emperor during the apocalypse he would have remembered him. Especially since they seem to come with roofies and so much fucking food.

Ao Guang snorts. "This is a story thousands of years old, Mr. Winchester," he says matter-of-factly. "Much older than you. You all are, at best, the sequel. Perhaps the remake. Those seem to be in fashion these days."

"That makes no sense to me," Dean admits, crossing his arms.

Ao Guang tsks. "They teach nothing in schools these days, I suppose. Especially in this country." He sits back and reaches for an orange on the table, peeling it thoughtfully. "You see, thousands of years ago, Sun Wukong, a powerful warrior born from the union of Heaven and Earth, rebelled against the gods. He gained immortality and frightening power, and with it, defeated the celestial armies of the Jade Emperor until the Buddha himself was forced to strike him down, imprisoning him under the earth for his crimes. And there he would have stayed, if the monk Xuanzang had not heard his voice and sought to free him." Pause. Smirk. "But I digress. I believe Castiel is already familiar with the relevant portions of this story as is."

Dean bristles instinctively. "The hell does any of that crap have to do with us?"

Ao Guang's eyes flash as he turns to look directly at Dean, for once seemingly irritated by the human's constant badgering. "It has everything to do with you, Mr. Winchester," he booms, and Dean swears the ground around them rumbles a little in time with his voice. "The story is universal. History repeats itself. And I am here, before you, however unwillingly, because I must serve a function that my kind began in the times when we first breathed within the waters of this earth, billions of years ago."

"Wait, billions of years? But didn't you just say that the story was only thousands of years old?" Sam pipes up in that detail-oriented way of his.

Ao Guang waves dismissively at that. "The war and the story are not related. Just as the places and the circumstances have not always been the same. The only constant is the players. This enemy you face, like the demons Sun Wukong and Xuanzang faced on their own journey, are my enemies as well. We have fought them in cycles, warred for ages from one universe to another, from this realm to all others. You are the pieces on the board now, you and this rebellious angel, Sun Wukong and Xuanzang before you, and a thousand other names and people and lifetimes from now as well, until Death sees fit to reap time itself."

"That makes no sense," Dean insists stubbornly.

Ao Guang's nostrils flare. "That is because you are too puny to truly understand the scope of the war you have rekindled!" he snaps angrily, and for a second Dean can see a flash of fangs and hear the sound of a thousand storms crackling in the distance.

"Grandfather, please, calm down," Hai intones meekly from one of the far corners, stepping forward to implore the Dragon Emperor to stop the earth from shaking apart beneath them and swallowing them whole.

Ao Guang sighs and sits back. "Yes, forgive me, Hai." He takes a moment then to close his eyes and compose himself again.

"So you see," he murmurs after several minutes pass. "You are who you are, and we are where we will always be. I had hoped this fight would be far in the making, but it has been brought to our doors again in this time and age."

Sam looks immensely weirded out, but not in a necessarily bad way so much as a curious way. "So you're saying Cas represents Sun Wukong and Dean represents Xuanzang and this…this has all happened before? That the story is true?"

"Yes," Ao Guang says simply.

Dean is not as complacent as his brother. "I am not some monk," he protests, however ineffectually.

"Dean, don't you see?" Castiel asks, remembering the story of Xuanzang's visit to the Eastern Dragon Emperor's Palace, mind racing back to the images carved onto the wall of his room. "This means that Ao Guang is here to help us."

"That," Ao Guang murmurs, "remains to be seen. I can only help you if you are wise enough to help yourself."

"Well, that is some useless fortune cookie bullshit if I ever heard it," Dean scoffs.

Some of the mirth returns to Ao Guang's eyes. "Speaking of which…" He trails off and claps his hands again, spurring a servant - a young boy with mischievous dimples - to stumble forward, carrying a small platter of very familiar looking cookies. "Let us end our meal in a way you are accustomed," the Dragon Emperor says and gestures to the fortune cookies on the table.

Sam's eyebrows dart up at the sight of them, but he goes ahead and takes one obligingly. "I thought these weren't even Chinese," he notes as he cracks his in half.

Ao Guang shrugs and takes up his own fortune cookie with relish. "Adapting with the times is what separated my people from those who had to be locked away. We endured Heaven's squabbles, embraced humanity's determination to survive, and desired nothing more than to live peacefully and in good fortune with those we held dear. With those principles comes a certain willingness to acknowledge that as stupid as your kind is, you are not entirely without your creative merit as well."

"Okay then," Sam allows as Dean picks up his fortune cookie and nudges the last one on the plate towards Cas.

Sam pulls out his fortune first and reads it out loud. "The trick to finding the things you've lost is to look where you last saw them."

"Talk about obvious," Dean snorts and pulls the little slip of paper out of his cookie at the same time Cas does. He looks expectantly at the angel, who sighs and reads his as well.

"When one door closes, another door opens," he says, and then, as if remembering something important, reluctantly adds, "…in bed."

Dean sort of regrets teaching Cas that game the night before, but then again, by the way both Ao Guang and Sam's eyebrows reach their hairlines, maybe regret is not what he's feeling at all. Maybe he's just realizing (not for the first time) that Cas is awesome.

Grinning, Dean reads his next. "An enlightened individual is one who knows his own true value." Pause. "In bed." He waggles his eyebrows and tosses the paper onto the tabletop.

"Charming," Ao Guang comments.

"What about yours?" Dean asks the Dragon Emperor, who holds his in his hand but makes no move to read it.

"Mine is not yet determined," he admits cheerfully, and with a note of finality that dares any of his guests to press the issue. "Can I offer you any more tea?"

Both Winchesters look at each other suspiciously at this dismissal, but before either can devise a ploy to ask more about it, Hai steps out of the shadows again.

"Excuse me, Grandfather," he says, glancing down at his wrist watch. "It's almost time."

"Time for what?" both Sam and Dean say in perfect, wary tandem.

Ao Guang grunts and nods, pausing to wipe his mouth with a napkin before standing again. "Well, gentlemen," he says, "now that you have partaken of my food, as guests of my house, I am afraid this old host of yours has a particular favor to ask of you." He smiles.

No one there who sees that smile is fooled into believing that the Dragon King is asking them anything.

Episode 12: Journey to the West (Continued)