Not Until We Are Lost

There was the meeting, and then there was... a diner.

Johnny sat up straight and sudden, his head whipping around to see what the new surroundings were. One hand was on a gun, but stalled there when he glanced down to see what he was wearing. His typical suit was gone. Replaced with a different, vintage cut. His hat was nowhere to be seen. There were no boots on his feet, only shiny black shoes.

His eyes took in everyone around him, noting that they'd all apparently been dumped in the same spot. Slowly, his brain registered that all he was seeing was devoid of color. Even with all the new information, he couldn't take a moment to rest. There was one face that he needed to see.

The vigilante pushed out of the booth and turned in a circle, scanning the room. Jo, Dean, Cas... there she was. He moved to where Mary sat, relieved to see her. Now ready to take in the rest of it completely, since he was certain she was here and unharmed.

A lot of information had been spilled on them in a short amount of time, and nobody had had a chance to process it before they'd been moved on. He expected that Mary wouldn't be in the best of shape, and he planned to do whatever he could to make her feel better.

Kai's senses were turned up as high as they could go, and had been since the alien had appeared in the circle in the big man's living room. Though the voice wasn't there, wasn't telling her that it needed to be killed and how to do it, all the instinct she'd learned because of it, and at Jack's tutelage couldn't be ignored, that instinct was geared to full throttle.

So when her awareness recentered itself and she realized that they were no longer in the house at all, Kai went into overdrive. She'd been sitting, like one would do in a diner booth, but she didn't stay that way. In a beat, Kai was standing, the table knocked back, and she was ready to fight. There were lots of things in the room that had that voice talking, the same things, Kai knew, that had been in the house with her. Not quite friends, definitely not enemies. It took a lot to keep herself from lunging at any of them, especially with the way she was feeling. Already on edge, she wanted to fight.

It didn't even occur to her to look at herself and see the calf length, full skirted dress that she was wearing, or the wrist length gloves, and heels. Ridiculous getup for fighting in. Kai's brain only dimly registered the lack of color. Her eyes darting here and there, brain moving too fast to process any of it.

She'd just cracked something of a joke to Jo, though she'd also meant it a little bit. If her roommate had given her the go ahead, there was high possibility that Betsy would have done just what she'd offered. Her temper was hair trigger enough on a good day, but when she was abducted by aliens, it was a whole new level of fucked. Jo had said something about not doing it, though, and then a guy had joined their little group.

But she wasn't in that house anymore.

Right away, Betsy recognized it as a diner. One of those really old school ones, back when diners were just hitting their stride. Except, she got the feeling it wasn't just a reproduction. The people who were filling up tables and booths - those that weren't the people she'd been at a meeting with - weren't greasers and rockabilly kids. They were wearing actual 1940s style clothing, not merely modernized versions.

Glancing at herself, Betsy saw that she was also wearing the style. She took a moment to appreciate the dress she was in. It was very cute. It hugged her curves nicely, but not in a trampy way. Her shoes were stylish and comfortable. The one thing that was a little bothersome was that everything was in black and white. Betsy would have liked to know if she was at least wearing a color that suited her.

Luckily, the suddenness of the change and new surroundings hadn't triggered her panic, and she felt no overwhelming elephantine transformation coming on. She supposed that being moved around without her say so was old hat after the first time it happened. Or second, technically.

"Well." She said, looking around. "Could be worse."

The night before, Ilyien retired in the room he secured for himself and Sabev. As had been their usual arrangement since before they found themselves in this strange world, Sabev took the bed; Ilyien slept in a chair drawn close to the door. The last thing Ilyien recalled was falling asleep to the feeling of Sabev's contented dreaming.

And when he opened his eyes again, it was not with the gradual awareness of myriad aching muscles, but with the immediacy of thunder. He shot to his feet on reflex, sending the chair flying behind him. He was not in the room he'd hired for himself and his companion.

This room was completely different -- very much like a restaurant, one of the places he'd learned about during his time in the new world they'd discovered. But this was different, too. Everything in black and white. The raiment he wore. The flesh of his skin. Everyone and everything around him.

These observations were taken in within the first breath he drew. The second thing he noticed was that Sabev was still nearby. He turned, looking for his companion and his charge. As long as she was well, he could manage anything else.