The Jig is up

[DEAN WINCHESTER]

Dean hit the off button on the alarm, or at least he thought he'd hit the off button. He'd underestimated how close the clock had been to his bed and hit the bedside table instead. He grumbled both darkly and incoherently into his pillow before rolling onto his back. "Turn that off, Sam," he grunted, sitting up and tossing back the sheets. "Turn it off yourself," was the mumbled reply he received. He slapped the off button himself, deciding that Sam would pay for that once he had some coffee in him. For now, he went about finding his clothes where he'd tossed them last night. Last night. . . the memory was coming back to him. He'd been buying some girl named Jessica a few shots, asking about a local murder that had happened two weeks ago. She was a grad student, studying English, and a Sagittarius . She hadn't known much about the murder, but she had known how to hold her liquor. He pulled on his jeans and grabbed a clean shirt out of his duffel bag. He finished lacing up his brown combat boots and grabbed a pillow off the bed. "All right, rise and shine there sleeping beauty. We got ourselves a dead guy's house to bust into," he said, tossing the pillow at Sam. Only it didn't hit Sam.

It landed in the middle of a street. He fell to the ground in an undignified heap, the bed having disappeared from beneath him. He whipped his head around, taking in the new surroundings. "Sam?" he called out. "Sammy?!" He stood up quickly, looking in every direction as quickly as he could manage. He couldn't see his brother anywhere which was never a good sign. His mind ran through any number of creatures they or their dad might have encountered in the past that would be capable of something like this. Spirits weren't capable of something as large scale as this, a high power demon might be capable of creating an illusion, but what was the point? He reached instinctively to his back for a gun, but it was obviously not there. He hadn't had time to grab his gun in the two friggen' seconds it had taken for the world to change on him. He pulled up his pant leg and grabbed the dagger he kept tucked in the top of his boot. He never went into any situation without some form of protection.

"Where the hell am I?" he asked of no one in particular. It didn't look like anyone else was around, but if it was some demon or some other creature doing this, they might hear him. When he received no reply, he did the only thing he could do, find someone who could tell him where he was and how he could get back to Indiana and kill whatever had sent him here before it killed Sam. So nothing too complicated or impossible, right? He rolled his eyes and made his way towards the nearest building. "What've we got here?" he asked, eying the sign on the outside. "Armory" it said. What was this the middle ages? Who had armories anymore besides Renaissance Fairs. . .and geeks with way too much money and time on their hands? Well it couldn't hurt to go in and have a look. Well, actually it could hurt. . . a lot. He tightened his grip on his dagger and walked inside.

[ANGELUS]

It still was unclear to the ensouled vampire what the place was. Whether it was a real place of this dimension, one which existed in the now or that had existed back in the days, or whether it was a completely different dimension, one where time lapsed slower or which was less developped than the LA he had been pulled out. Electricity seemed to lack completely, from what he had noticed during the few nights which he had been here. No street lights other than old fashioned gas lamps, only very dim shades of light behind the closed windows – no doubt candle lights. While it reminded him of the past, it wasn't necessarily a definite clue that what he had been through had been nothing more than just a jump through time. Frankly, Angel hadn't bothered too much with figuring out the specifics of where or when he was. Why do so? There was nothing to make him desperate to figure things out and search for a way to return to the city of angels. Nothing tied him to that place any more. His only connection with the town had been the mission to help the helpless so that he could atone and achieve shanshu. A prophecy... probably a fake done by Wolfram & Hart. It was in their headquarter and taking it out of there had been too easy. No special security measure, nothing to keep something so important out of the reach of an enemy? He should have probably tossed it away the moment Wesley decyphered it, it should have dawned upon him that he was being toyed with only so his fall would hurt more. It was too late to realize that now, he couldn't change what had already happened.

What he could do was take advantage of the sudden teleport to this new place and forget that there had even been a Los Angeles or a Sunnydale. He could forget Doyle, Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn and Angel Investigations. Unless something randomly pulled him out of the place, he wasn't going to bother with finding a way out. He was just going to adapt to living in this place and to do so he needed a few more things. The issue of the blood had been solved. Angel had been there earlier and managed to arrange for pig's blood to be kept for him, as much as it was possible with the lack of electricity at any rate. The other thing that needed to be sorted out was the issue of weapons. Back at the Hyperion he had an entire arsenal of swords and axes, here he only had the two stakes and the mechanism which he used to keep them hidden under his sleeves and fire them. No, he didn't need the weapons because he expected to use them protecting some innocent soul against evil. Angel needed them to protect himself. There was no telling what awaited for him in this world, what kind of demons, but he planned on being ready to face them.

Angel quickened his pace as he walked through the sewers, carefully deciding on the turns he needed to take at the junctions. Fortunately for him, every town needed sewage, regardless of time or place. Thanks to it, he was not confined inside during day time and he was now able of making his way to the armory. Which should have been somewhere directly above him. Angel trusted his sense of orientation. Climbing up the ladder against the wall, the vampire pushed open the lid that sealed the sewer and quickly sprang outside and into the armory, his coat not managing to keep him completely sheltered. He must have been a sight when he entered, smoke coming out of him, but the one person inside, who seemed to tend to the place, didn't mind him immediately. Seeing that he was the first local he was running into, Angel got the basics out of him – the basics being just a name: Terra. A name which didn't tell him much. Without thanking the man – why do it when the man should have thanked him for not beating it out of him -, Angel focused his attention on the assorted weapons displayed around the place. The first one he cast his eyes on was a broadsword, by far his favorite. Picking it up, he weighed it in his hand before his finger felt the tip for its sharpness. All that missed was something or someone to test the blade on. Angel heard the door open and only spared a glare out of the corner of his eye for the man that walked in, before his attention returned to the other weapons, sword still in hand.

[DEAN WINCHESTER]

If Dean could have made a list of all the things he'd expected to see when he walked into the Armory, well this would have been at least number ten or eleven on the list. It was normal inside. Well apart from the "an entire store dedicated to just about every kind of weapon he could imagine" aspect it was normal. There was a man at the front desk looking like any other store clerk in any other town, and a customer looking at a. . .well the broadsword part was kind of weird too, but still he wasn't getting an overwhelming presence of evil about the place. What he needed was some holy water. That would make him feel a lot more comfortable about this situation. He'd be able to find out pretty quickly if these two guys were as normal as they seemed.

He lowered his hand with the dagger and shrugged his shoulders forward in an attempt to appear more casual as he made his way towards the clerk. "'Scuse me sir," he began, leaning on the counter. "Think you could tell me where I am right now?" Of the course the only reply he got was 'Terra'. A helluva lot of good that did him. "Never heard of Terra," he said with a grin. "You wouldn't happen to have a map on you would you?" He glanced around the shop, eying the guy with sword momentarily. If either of the two was a demon, it seemed likely to be him: tall, beefy, leather jacket a demon would love that sort of crap. "Where's the nearest place I could rent a car?" he went on to ask. "There aren't any," was the reply he got. "What do you mean there aren't any?" Dean asked, his tone growing impatient. He didn't have time for this, not when something powerful was out there liking waiting for the right time to pounce on Sammie. "There aren't any cars. A smile devoid of humor spread across his face as he narrowed his eyes. "Listen mister, I don't have time to play around," he began reaching into his pocket. "I'm a Federal Marshal and I'm gonna need that car for an investigation. You wouldn't want to obstruct justice now do you?" He pulled a leather wallet out of his pocket and flashed a shiny badge.

The clerk however maintained that there were no cars and no way out of this place, and the badge didn't seem to be doing much intimidating. Dean turned on his heel, his arms thrown in the air in frustration as he walked deeper into the Armory. If he had stayed at the counter listening to that moron any longer he would have throttled him, and without Sam there to reason with the clerk, he might actually commit a murder instead of just being framed for one. Well if he was going to get out of here, and despite what that damn clerk said, he was going to get out of here, he was going to need weapons. The longer he stayed in the building though, the less likely it seemed that either of these two were possessed. He'd walked into a shop that was filled with things one usually used to kill and/or maim someone or something, and with nothing but a dagger. He could just hear his brother's voice in his head. Great idea Dean, why didn't you just paint a big sign for yourself that said 'please demons, attack me'? If they were demons, they should have attacked immediately, or at least when his back had been turned.

With that in mind, he took to perusing the merchandise. He grabbed a cross bow and a few steel tipped arrows before stopping at a selection of sawed off shotguns. He grabbed two and two boxes of shells as well before stopping once again at another selection. The shells he would have to empty and replace with salt: something he noticed there wasn't any of in this particular shop. He was nearer the leather clad guy from before, staring at a dagger. From the looks of it, the weapon was made of silver. He put it atop the increasingly unstable pile he was holding. He turned to the dark haired man, a smirk playing at his lips "That's a fancy sword you got there," he said, eying the broadsword. With the profession he had, he had a perfectly healthy interest in sharp weapons, but even by his standards the broadsword was archaic and impractical: you had to use two hands to fight with it. "You gonna slay a dragon?"

[ANGELUS]

Angel wasn't the type of person interested in socializing. He was the type to stay hidden in the shadows, keeping a low profile – the best position if he needed to observe everyone and everything around him. Creepy? Maybe, but he was a vampire. Even if he tried to separate himself from his true nature as much as possible, get closer to a human lifestyle than any other vampire would have even found it tolerable to think, there were things which were better done the way vampires did them. Being friendly and sparking up conversations rarely earned him the information he needed, the kind of information that didn't just run around for the ears of everyone to hear. That he could get only by keeping to the shadows, as hidden as possible. There were times when this wasn't entirely possible. This was one of them. He was in a store, which was more or less open space. Since he needed to get things for himself, he couldn't just chose to hide until he'd hear something useful from the clerk or another paying costumer. Angel could just do what he came to do – look for good weapons – while his enhanced senses would do the rest of the work for him. His sensitive hearing was a great asset in this respect. He could look completely indifferent and absorbed in what he was doing, yet hear every conversation that happened in the location he was in, specially those which a normal human being shouldn't have been able to hear.

To be more accurate, this wasn't entirely the same situation. The man that had walked into the armory wasn't making a purpose in keeping his voice low or making his conversation with the clerk a secret. Angel's brows furrowed slightly as he listened to the exchange. Another person who had arrived to this place without an explanation? Angel managed to hold in a sarcastic chuckle. Asking about cars? Either the man had just walked into this... dimension and hadn't had too much time to notice too many details about it, or he'd been around at night but somehow imagined that the inhabitants of Terra had a taste for old-style urban decorations. There were many people who had a way to just miss the obvious after all, who was to say that this man wasn't one of them?

"I'm a Federal Marshal and I'm gonna need that car for an investigation. You wouldn't want to obstruct justice now do you?"

Angel frowned, a dark glare in his eyes. Fortunately his back was directed at the scene as he pretended to analyze the broadsword with the eyes of a an expert in antique weapons. Bitter about the police, about state authority? That was an underestimation. As far as LA was concerned, all of them were corrupt, just playing Wolfram & Hart's game because they were ones that pulled all the strings. A bunch of people that were too scared to stand up for some moral values. While Kate had seemed to be different than the norm, Angel was not ready to get over the fact that she had practically thrown him out when he'd let her know that the evil law firm was planning something big, when he'd asked for her help. She was just like all the others, after all, closing her eyes when her acting could have made a difference. If the man knew what was good for him, he would hopefully not cross his path while in Terra, specially not if he would be tempted to flash badges in front of him and ask questions about things whose existence he'd start denying, because they would surpass his understanding. Angel made a purpose to ignore him, only aware of the metallic clatter that the weapons made when they were gathered by him. His attention had been drawn by a pair of sai on exhibit and Angel picked one up in his hand, rotating it in in his hand before making a stabbing gesture with it. Had they been made out of wood, they could have been useful against vampires but other than Spike, Angel didn't know how many of them there were on Terra. As for larger demons... too small. The vampire with a soul returned the sai to its place when the sound of the stranger's voice caught his attention and he turned to him with a less than friendly expression on his face. ”If I run into one”, Angel replied with a shrug before moving to another display of the store. There, wasn't that a conversation?

[DEAN WINCHESTER]

Dean still couldn't believe this place didn't have any cars. What sort of backwater hick town didn't have cars? He would settle for a Vespa at this point. . .or at the very least a horse and buggy. Just imagining the sort of smell he would have to stomach on the way back in one of those was enough to make him glad they didn't have an alternate means to get out of this little town. Though he didn't like the idea, it looked like they were leaving him with no other choice but to use what the Big Guy gave him and walk back. He could at least walk to the nearest highway and hitch back to Indiana. That shouldn't be too difficult. . . of course that was assuming that whatever creature had drug him here didn't try to stop him from leaving. . . or kill him or both.

He didn't even know how long getting back would take him form here. Hell, he didn't even know where here was. The clerk had said this place was called 'Terra', but he'd never heard of a town called Terra before. Granted he hadn't heard of a lot of towns and cities before, but at least if it had been something like Minot or Lincoln or Pittsburgh, he might have been able to figure out whereabouts he was right now. If he hadn't left his cellphone on the desk between the beds, he could call Sam or even his dad to make sure everything was all right. Well maybe not his dad: lately he wasn't picking up any of his calls and it was impossible to tell if he was actually getting any of his messages. If he had his cell phone he could get Sammy to call the phone company and have his GPS turned on so they could figure out where the hell he was. He supposed there was no use in what ifs and maybes. He didn't have his phone so none of those options were available to him: he'd have to make due with what he had.

What he had right now were the clothes on his back, his fake badge and ID, an armful of weaponry, and exceptionally unhelpful store clerk and a surly fellow customer. He supposed he could exclude the latter two items as they were unlikely to be of any real help. Actually if he was the type to be intimidated, he would be by the fellow customer. Tall, dark and brooding with an avid interested in large primitive weapons who said little to nothing: the guy had potential serial killer written all over him. Of course, things like that had never deterred Dean in the past. When you've been attacked by the spirit of a man wit a hook for a hand, been used as bait for a scarecrow made of human parts sewn together, stared down a Wendigo and the like, a serial killer was almost a welcome normality. Though with those Sai in his hands the guy looked more like a Ninja Turtle only without the green and lovable part.

Dean couldn't help but smirk at the other man's response to his question. It sounded like something he might say if someone asked him a similar question. "Touche," he said, tilting his head as if to concede the other guy had a point. Before anything else could be said, the other guy wandered off to another section of weapons. "Not much of talker, are you?" he asked more to himself as he moved over to the display as well. So far these two guys were his only link to this place, so he might as well find out about it if he could. "So, you a local then?" he asked, wondering idly if barbed wire counted as a weapon or hardware.

[ANGELUS]

Was this place somehow altering people's perceptions of other or was this the way this guy always acted. Usually people didn't have an issue with figuring out when Angel not so subtly showed that he had no interest in carrying a conversation with them. He had a gift of making it pretty obvious. Tall, well-built, dark eyes, frown on his face - one which could get very intimidating when he was serious or angered (or so he had been told, because Angel couldn't exactly see himself in the mirror to confirm the reality of that statement) – he was the type of person which you would leave alone the moment in which he even remotely hinted the fact that he didn't show any interest in a chat. Of course, some people had the gift of being particularly annoying and imagined that they could somehow get him to open up and be more willing to carry a conversation, going on and on and driving Angel to the point in which he wouldn't mind forgetting that he was cursed with a soul which would give him a lot of remorse should he chose to silence them by sinking his fangs into their throat. Undeniably, those kind of thoughts would be followed by self-loathing and shame but just not now. No, Angel wasn't going to jump at the stranger and make him shut up, not just yet at any rate. But if he insisted to try and get under his skin, the vampire wouldn't have minded giving him a clearer message that he wasn't interested in socializing.

For one thing the other man deserved a bit of credit and that was the reaction he had to the answer about running into a dragon. Normally Angel would have expected to hear: ”Dragons aren't real” or any other sort of similar statements which humans used to hide from the obvious truth. He'd seen humans which would have been capable of saying that, for instance, a dragon wasn't real ten seconds after such a creature would have tried to swallow them alive. It was probably a part of being weak and helpless, that need to deny the existence of all things that couldn't be explained. Telling oneself that it wasn't real somehow made it less scary, somehow served to build the illusion that the creature in question couldn't harm you, it lulled you into a false sense of security. It had been centuries since Angel had been Liam, a simple human whom laughed in the face of stories about blood sucking fiends, telling himself that they were just an invention of the church to scare the believers and keep them on the path laid out by God. Angel still remembered, though. Time had almost no impact on his memories, even those pertaining to his long gone human self.

"Not much of talker, are you?"

Angel rolled his eyes as he stopped in front of the display of crossbows, not bothering to keep it discreet in case the man would be in a position from which he would be able to see it. How logical was it to ask such a thing after coming to the conclusion that the person whom you were addressing didn't care for conversation? Hardly. ”Took you long enough to figure”, he muttered as if he were commenting for himself, though purposely loud enough so that he would be heard. The ensouled vampire picked up a crossbow and armed it, firing an arrow into a bull's eye on the opposite wall. It worked perfectly by his standards. The only thing that needed a bit of fine tuning were the arrows, which would only serve a better purpose once they'd be replaced with fine wooden stakes. Angel doubted the shop carried them, but he could make them himself so that wasn't an issue. ”Do I look local to you?”, he replied coldly.

[DEAN WINCHESTER]

Dean wasn't an idiot, in fact, if he could be so bold he was the very opposite of an idiot. He didn't need fancy schooling to call himself smart. He had a GED and a give 'em hell attitude and that was plenty enough to be able to call himself intelligent. More importantly he could tell that this other, definitely shady if not a demon, guy didn't want to be holding a conversation with him. Of course, considering that the owner of this little establishment didn't feel overly talkative, this other guy was his only option for now. If he couldn't find out anything here, he'd go to any other store or shoppe in this place and find someone who was a little more intimidated by the idea of obstructing an "officer of the law". For the time being, he was going to try to find out as much as he could about this place from the source in front of him, even if he didn't want any parts of him.

If Dean was the very opposite of an idiot, he was even less normal. He'd seen things that people only heard about in fairy tales, fought things you heard whispers about around a campfire, and killed things that shouldn't conceivably exist. Though he'd never seen a dragon, apart from in a textbook or two back when he actually tried studying, he wouldn't put it past them to actually exist: probably somewhere in England with all that folklore and other crap. Telling yourself that something didn't exist just because it seemed illogical or was too terrifying, was the surest way to get yourself killed, as far as he was concerned. Not that this made any difference to the guy in front of him. For all Dean knew, this guy was just trying to be a smartass.

”Took you long enough to figure."

"Yeah, well I'm a slow learner," he said flashing a broad, sardonic smile at the other guy. He watched as the brooding man armed the crossbow and fired it at the opposite wall, dipping his head slightly, and jutting out his lower lip as if to silently concede it was a decent shot. Of course, if what he was doing was meant to be an intimidation, it wasn't working on him. He'd seen scarier things than a guy who could shoot a crossbow into a wall. His dad could do that, though to be honest, half the time his dad did scare him a bit.

”Do I look local to you?”

Dean gave him a visual sweep, taking in the jacket, the pronounced forehead, the surly expression, even down to his boots. "You look like a stalker to me, buddy, but I was gonna give you the benefit of the doubt," he replied with the same grin. If he was going to be a jerk about this, well two could play at that game. "In case you hadn't noticed, I just came into town, so yeah for all I know you could look like a local. A simple 'no' would have done it." He was already on edge from being transported to this weird place and not knowing where Sam was, he did not need some self important idiot interfering with his plans to get out of this place. "So you're not a local, then you must have gotten here somehow," he went on, musing slightly to himself. "Do you have a car somewhere nearby?"

[ANGELUS]

The man's presence was beginning to become irritating. There were times when Angel could be very patient. Angelus, for instance had excelled in it. It took a strong sense of patience to be capable of torturing your victims for hours and hours, to the point in which they would break and lose the smallest shred of hope they had been clinging on. It was what had made him different than Spike – better than him. The other vampire was all for the rush, unable of even pretending to have the necessary patience to use his mind before doing something. No, Angelus could wait however long it took before he dived in for the kill, just as long he filled his time with the sweet smell of fear he would draw from his chosen victim. Even with a soul, having this little treat had proven to be useful. You couldn't pry information out of overly cautious snitches if you went straight to the point, without slowly building up their confidence in advance. At times, though, Angel's patience just seemed to have a very low threshold and this looked like it was one of those situations. He might have been a nearly two hundred century old vampire but that didn't mean that he couldn't be very childish in his behavior – specially when it came down to the things he liked.

Weapons were one of them. For more than a century, the only two weapons he had really counted on had been his fangs and his words. They were all he needed to cause harm, the rest – swords, knives, daggers – were simply defensive means. Words could hurt more than the sharpest of blades but they could only do so little when something threatened to cut your throat or go through your heart. For Angelus, weapons had been an occasional necessity. For Angel, they had become a true passion – admittedly, not in the same measure as cars were. Since joining the good fight, the ensouled vampire had managed to gather himself a pretty impressive collection, constantly expanding it with some rare item or some improvisation made to a classical piece, with the purpose of making it more unpredictable and more efficient against other vampires. Inside the armory, he was like a child in a candy shop – as much as he would have been willing to beat up anyone that would dare voice that analogy out loud. He could have spent hours looking at the items, searching for the perfect pieces to replaces to numerous weapons which had remained behind, at the Hyperion but, instead of the quiet he would have liked to enjoy in the mean time, he had to put up with questions from a guy which seemed to be just as lost as he was – only in the sense that he had no clue where he was and seemed to have just appeared in this Terra place as well.

"Yeah, well I'm a slow learner,"

”I could tell”, he replied, an undertone of sarcasm in his voice. After firing, Angel focused his attention on the crossbow, carefully inspecting its mechanism for any flaws which the eye could have missed at a first glance. The stranger started speaking again, voicing his assumption on what he was, and Angel cast his eyes over to him, a mock thoughtful look on his face. ”Stalker?”, he repeated with a small chuckle. ”In terms of insults, I think it's the first time I hear that one.” Not that the guy was too off on his guess, because Angel's stalking skills were exceptional. The vampire doubted that it would be wise to let the other man in on that piece of information, simply because he didn't want to start a fight before he knew enough about his adversary. To the next comment, he shrugged. ”Gee, where were my manners?”, he muttered, perfectly aware that it had been loud and clear enough to be heard. The question about the car made Angel sigh faintly. God, he missed his car! So what if Terra didn't even have the proper roads to drive on? The ensouled vampire just happened to care for his car very much and he didn't enjoy the thought that it had been left behind, at the Hyperion, for dust to settle on it. Hopefully he would find it in good condition when he returned – if he returned. ”Let me see... Opened the door to the hotel, stepped inside and suddenly I was in a dark street...”, Angel started answering. ”No car.”, he concluded, firing another arrow in the same target he'd fired the first in.