Song Remains the Same

Chapter 73: Everybody Hates Kripke

"No book worth its salt is meant to put you to sleep, it's meant to make you jump out of your bed in your underwear and run and beat the author's brains out."
- Bohumil Hrabal

Padalecki Residence
Canada

Misha Collins and Alex Winchester arrived to a mansion that was unspeakably lavish and elegant. A statue of a jaguar pawing at a marble orb stood in the immaculately landscaped front yard and a decorative water fountain babbled along the stone walkway to the front door. Padalecki was declared in a carefully trimmed, shaped shrub against the house. As Alex wandered up gawking, Misha approached the front door like he'd been there before a hundred times. He walked funny—bouncy and bright, dorky. Not like Cas did with a slow, steady, humble stride.

He rang the bell as Alex drifted up, disconcerted at everything she was seeing. As she looked at the huge door they waited in front of, she suddenly really doubted she was going to find her brothers at all. This was so fancy... they wouldn't know what to do with themselves in this kind of environment. She was probably about to find out she was all alone in this strange universe she'd found herself in...

After they waited for about twenty seconds, the hand-carved solid oak door swung open to reveal a familiar young woman with dark hair and pretty, distinct features. Alex's body went into sudden overdrive as horrified recognition came over her. Ruby! Adrenaline going nuts, Alex reacted on gut instinct and she launched into an attack on the demon who had almost gotten her brother killed two years ago. Ruby was unprepared for the assault; she squeaked when Alex rushed her and slammed her into the wall of the foyer—Alex was already whipping out her knife to finish the job even as Misha began to screech and freak out, pull on her with fluttering hands. "Hey hey hey, don't kill Gen!"

Alex hesitated right before she'd been about to kill Ruby—Gen? Wait... wait. Shit. If Cas wasn't Cas but was Misha Collins, Ruby might not be Ruby either. She backed off slightly, realizing the fatal mistake she'd just been about to make.

Gen was slumped against her own foyer wall, eyes wide with shock as she clutched onto the crown molding there for dear life. "Who the hell is this, Misha?" she demanded in a high-pitched, scared voice. Alex shrank away. Oops.

"Alex!? Oh my god!" a rich, tenor voice sounded nearby—one Alex knew—and she turned, flooded with relief. Sam. He was hurrying forward and crashing her into a tight, relieved, brief hug she accepted, knife and all. He pulled back to look at her with a huge grin on his face, which fell when he saw her scraped face and slashed cheek. Alex shook her head just slightly—I'm fine. Then Sam saw the knife she held and realized what was going on and became furtive and a little awkward. "It's okay, you don't need to stab anyone," he said, trying to joke around then indicating the very flabbergasted woman who still stood slack against the nearby wall. "This is my wife, the actress who played Ruby." He said all that very carefully, trying to tell Alex what was going on.

Alex did a double take. "Your wife?"

"Yeah, you know." Sam paused and gave her a meaningful look. "Because I'm Jared Padalecki."

Oh yeah. Understanding, Alex nodded slowly, conspiratorially. "...Right."

"Um, Jared?" Gen was looking at Alex with no shortage of distaste as she recovered from her shock and became unfriendly. "Who is this?"

Sam faltered, obviously not sure how to answer. "My... uh, friend. Alex."

That earned him a sassy look. "And do all your friends show up in the middle of the night trying to stab me?" Gen demanded snidely. "And are all your friends young females who seem surprised to find out you're married?"