"I'm no acting like a prick." Much. "Bitch." He scarfed down a scallion pancake as Sam spoke, pausing mid-chew when Gotham was mentioned. He swallowed, giving Sam a strange look. "Gotham. She said she was from Gotham?"
Sam's lips almost quirked at that. "Shut up. And close your mouth; that's disgusting." He took another swig of soda. "Yeah. Dean, she said a lot of strange things. But yeah. Gotham. And she continued as if Gotham were not just another name for New York."
"You were nine, numbnuts. Now who's acting like the baby?" But fraternal banter aside, Dean's brows were furrowed in thought. "Helena. I think I met her earlier while I was out getting food. Except..." He was staring into the middle distance now and a distracted smile was curving his lips. "Except she had on the hottest get up. Leather from head to toe, man. Just made a guy wanna beg to be hurt."
"Hey it worked, didn't it?" Sam watched as Dean face took a rather stupid-looking expression. He rolled his eye, reached out and snapped twice in front of Dean's eyes. "Back to earth, loverboy. So she was dolled up in leather. But why didn't she act like she knew you then?" And then he added, "Wait, head to toe? Was her face covered too?" Because if not, Dean would certainly have responded as though he'd already met her.
He swatted Sam's hand away in annoyance as he made a sound of agreement. "I just said 'head to toe' didn't, I? Yeah, she was wearing some weird kind of mask. But you want to know the kicker?" He grinned broadly. "She was wearing a cape, too. Like some kind of superhero or something." Dean couldn't keep from chuckling. "Man. She's hot, but off her pretty little rocker." He paused, thoughtfully, almost talking to himself when he added, "She was right about the streets moving, though. Christ, that was weird..."
"If she's a superhero, then we know her secret identity." Sam was only half joking. "Yeah I was beginning to think she was nu-what?" Sam cut himself on mid-word, which was tough to do when the word only had four letters to begin with. "Are you shitting me?"
Dean flopped back on the cheap motel pillows. "I shit you not, bro. Why the hell do you think it took me so long to get back?" He looked over at Sam, brow arching. "So, secret identity, huh? That's pretty cool. Insane, but cool."
"Figured you got lost again," Sam teased, cleaning up the now empty cartons. When he was finished he flopped onto his own bed, immediately rolling to one side. No staring up at the ceiling. "Well a lot of the things she was saying made me wonder. Aside from the streets thing, which really, that's fucked up, she mentioned running into someone who... knew a future version of herself? Or somethng like that. People being from different times and places. And no one knowing how they got here." Sam glanced over at Dean. "Any theories?"
Dean sat up almost immediately. "Whoa whoa whoa, wait. Time travel? I'm sorry, Sam, but I think your new girlfriend escaped from the funny farm. I mean, moving streets is one thing. That can be explained any number of ways: mischeivous spirits, an overabundance of demonic forces fucking with this place on a disturbingly large scale...but time travel?" He shook his head emphaticlly. "No way. that's crazy talk."
"Don't call her that." All trace of humor was gone from Sam's voice in those four short words. Then he continued, lighter, "I never said it made any sense." He shrugged. "Maybe she was confused. Tired. Seeing things. Damned if I know. But one thing's for sure. This place is fucked up."
Ah. Right. Jess. So much had happened since two that morning, he'd actually almost forgotten why Sam was with him in the first place. Dean's own mood took a downward turn. "She's crazy. Or possessed. Or both," he declared as he stretched out, arms pillowing beneath his head as he looked up at the ceiling. "You know...there's something about this, kind of...not familiar, but you know what I mean?"
Sam was silent again for a while before he answered, "Yeah. I know. I guess we should try to figure this place out huh? Preferably in daylight." He glanced over at Dean. "So gonna tell me what happened to you out there?"
Dean already had a vague of where to start brewing, but he kept it to himself and just grunted softly in agreement. Eyes closing as the exhaustion of his extremely long day settled over him suddenly like a warm blanket. "Just what I said. Went out for food, four guys tried to get the drop on me, but Helena showed up in her costume and gave me the heads up. We kicked their asses, she pointed me towards a Chinese place, and we parted ways. Getting the food was the easy part, getting back was a pain in the ass because, like the lady said, the streets tend to have a mind of their own." It was a simple, but informative rundown of events.
Sam opened his mouth, then closed it, all the things he wanted to say staying trapped within. Finally he kicked off his shoes and said, "Go to sleep, Dean. You've been driving all day." It was dropping the subject and another thanks rolled into one.
Dean deserved a full night's sleep. Sam on the other had knew he himself wasn't about to get one. At least one of them should.
Dean really was too tired to argue. He just grunted something unintelligible and rolled over, not bothering to kick off his boots or change out of his wet clothes. Just before he dropped off into sleep, Dean thought to wonder if Sam had gottem any sleep while he'd been out, but it was too late to ask now.