Clap Your Hands If You Believe

"Well, uh, there was this..." Dean began. "God help me, Sam, there was this bright white light."

"Did you go toward it?" I asked. "I've told you to ignore those."

Sam set his hand on Dean's back. "It's okay. Safe room."

Then I realized he had copied my movements. My hand was also on Dean's back, rubbing soothing circles over his jacket. 

Dean didn't say anything until Sam pulled his hand back. "And suddenly I was, uh...I was in a different place...and there were these beings, and they were too bright to look at. But I could feel them pulling me towards this sort of table."

"Probing table," Sam exclaimed.

"God, don't say that out loud!" Dean snapped. 

"Right, so, uh, what did you do?"

"What did...What did they do?" I asked, eyes sweeping over Dean. 

"I went crazy," Dean said. "I started hacking and slashing and firing." He scoffed a laugh. "They actually seemed surprised."

"That's my man," I muttered as he stood.

"I don't think anybody's ever done that before," Dean continued. "Yeah, I had a close encounter...and I won."

"You should take a shower," Sam told him.

"I should take a shower," Dean agreed, setting down his glass. "I'm gonna take a shower now."

"Don't put your clothes with mine. Who knows what space germs you have," I called out.

"Oh, shut up."

"Love you too."

______

"So on top of all the demons and the angels, and the ghosts, and the skinwalkers, it turns out that there's--" Dean paused, shaking his head as he played with a strand of my hair as he arm rested over my shoulder. "So if aliens are actually real, what's next, huh? Hobbits? Seriously."

Sam was hardly paying attention. He was making eyes at our waitress as she walked by, checking her out.

I rolled my eyes.

Dean looked downright offended. "You just gave her the silent 'how you doing'," he accused. 

"What?" Sam asked.

"Our reality is collapsing around us and you're trying to pick up our waitress?"

"Are we sure it's soulllessness or is it that they've swapped bodies?" Millie asked, cup of coffee in hand. "Or maybe Dean's having a mid-life crisis."

"All very good guesses," I agreed. 

Sam nodded his head, leaning forward and clearing his throat. "That brings up a question. You got a soul and you're on a case, your brother gets abducted by aliens."

"You do everything you can to get him back," Dean stated. 

"Sam, that's obvious, isn't it?" I asked as Wyatt climbed into my lap, piece of toast in hand.

"Right. You do," Sam agreed. "But what about when there are no more leads for the night? I mean, are you supposed to just sit there in the dark and suffer, even when there's nothing that can be done at that moment."

"Yes!" Dean said. "Yes."

"What?" 

"Dee-o," Rory tugged at Dean's sleeve. She'd been copying me as of late. "Daddy."

Dean lifted her onto his lap and handed her a small piece of bacon. "You sit in the dark and you feel the loss."

"Absolutely," Sam said. "But couldn't I just do all that and have sex with the hippie chick?"

"No," Dean said.

"Mommy, what's sex?" Evie asked.

"Shh," I told her. "Ask your father, he's an expert on the subject."

"Why do you always make me answer these questions?" Dean shot me a look.

"Because most of the time you're the one who prompts those questions."

"But it would be in the dark," Sam spoke up, continuing his conversation.

"No, you're supposed to be suffering. And you can't just turn that off for the night," Dean told him.

"Thanks, guy." The waitress placed the check on the table, smiling at Sam.

Sam smiled back as she walked away. "Why not?"

"Because if you had a soul, your soul wouldn't let you," Dean pointed out. 

"So you're saying having a soul equals suffering?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying," Dean said. 

"So you're saying suffering is a good thing?"

"I'm saying it's the only game in town."

"It sounds depressing," I said. "Yay."

Dean stood, reaching for his wallet.

"So how do we deal with the little green men?" Sam asked.

"Research," Dean answered, dropping money onto the table. "We got about a century of UFO lore to catch up on. There's no time for---" He looked over, staring out of the window. "What's up with that guy?"

"Who?" I asked.

"Guy by the window, giving me the stink eye," Dean said as if it were obvious.

"You mean the cop?" Sam asked, gesturing to the officer by the door.

"No, not the cop," Dean insisted. "The guy. He's right--" He pointed to the window, but stopped. No one was there. "Well, now he's gone."

"Who's gone?" Sam asked.

"Can we please just get out of here?"

"What's wrong with you?"

"Before I hit you."

"Okay. Jeez," Sam muttered. 

____

"Library's closing up soon. I'm almost done," Sam said over the phone as Dean and I scrolling through article after article about aliens. 

"You find anything?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, way too much," Sam replied. "Everyone on the planet believes in UFOs and they will not stop writing books about it."

"Yeah, well, at least books have punctuation," Dean remarked. "Alright, keep digging. We'll see what you got when you get back." He hung up, dropping his phone and then standing up. "Alright rugrats, time for bed." He clapped his hands.

"No," Evie whined as she looked up from the coloring book before her.

"Have to?" Wyatt asked after making the appropriate explosion noises as a group of toy soldiers got hit by a car.

"Yep. You have to, bud," I told him.

"Wait a second, where's Thing One and Thing Two?" Dean asked. 

"Would you not refer to my children as Dr. Suess characters?" I replied.

"Oh, so they're your kids now?" Dean looked over at me. "They're mine when they want to jump off of chairs or when they ask about sex, but they're yours when I call them Thing One and Two?"

"Duh," I said. "They're mine when they behave."

"I'm offended."

"Okay, and?"

"Uh, because maybe they got some of your bad traits too."

"My what? Because according to you I'm perfect."

Dean narrowed his eyes at me, making me smile.  "Since when do you listen to a word I say?"

"Find your children."

"Oh, they're mine now, are they?"

"They're missing, aren't they?"

"Not missing, just...misplaced," Dean corrected. 

"Well, then un-misplace them," I told him. 

"You are such a smart-ass," Dean said, smiling at me.

"I'm aware."

We went about putting the kids to bed, all of us huddling on one mattress to read a story. Dean stood, placing the book down once finishing it. He placed a kiss to their heads, whispering goodnight.

"Mama too," Rory told him, smiling.

"Mom wants a kiss too?" 

"Uh-huh." She nodded her head.

Dean leaned toward me, pressing a quick kiss to my lips, making Rory giggle as Evie and Wyatt groaned. Eli was already asleep. 

"One more," Rory told him.

Dean pecked my lips again. "Alright, goodnight." He clicked off the lamp and brushed a piece of hair behind my ear.

We returned to our research then. It went smoothly for a few minutes, then Dean began glancing around strangely. "Oh no," he mumbled. 

"What?" I asked, not looking up from my laptop.

"The lights." Dean stood. "Not again." He pointed out the window. "Don't you see it? The door."

I looked up to find the door was open. "Shut the door, Dean."

"I can't. There's a light."

"I hate this case," I mumbled as Dean shot forward to grab his gun from out bed but jumped back as if something had gotten in his way. 

He leaned down, looking quizzically at something that wasn't there. "Nipples?"

"What are you talking about?" I asked as he stumbled back into the wall as if he'd been hit.

"Bitch," he said.

"Excuse me?" I asked. 

"Not you." Dean ducked away from the wall as if something had ran at him.

He kept stumbling around the room until stopped at the kitchenette. He opened the microwave, then slammed it shut, pressing a button. "Ah-ha."

"Dean, honey, there's no food in there," I said. 

He laughed as the microwave beeped and the light inside went out.

"You've lost your damn mind," I told him. 

_____

"See what?" Sam asked as we all stared inside the empty microwave.

"S--see what? See--se the bl--blood," Dean stammered. "See all the--the blech." He gestured to the microwave.

"Sorry, man. I'm not seeing it." Sam shook his head.

"Does he normally become delusional after a week of no sex?" Millie asked.

"No," I said. "Just grumpy. This...This is new."

"Think sex will fix it?"

"Maybe." I shrugged. "Dean, baby, I love you, you know that, but there's nothing there."

"You don't see the--the ech? It's right there." Dean pointed. 

"Okay, let's go with you see it and we don't," Sam told him. "What the hell was it?"

Dean shut the microwave. 'It was a--" He paused. "It was a little naked lady, okay?"

"Yeah, it's the lack of sex," Millie stated. "Start stripping, Saige."

I sighed. "Okay." I reached for the hem of my shirt.

"No. It was a little, glowing...hot," Dean admitted, "naked lady....with nipples and--and she hit me." He looked at the floor.

"Okay, so Saige took her clothes off and hit you and you start seeing blood in the microwave?" Sam asked. "I'm not supposed to laugh, right?" He got a glare. "Right. Okay, sure. Um--So shot in the dark here--since it wasn't Saige--did this little lady have wings?" He moved to sit down.

"What the hell made you say that?" Dean asked.

"She did, didn't she?" 

"Yeah, but how--?"

"One of the theories I came across," Sam said.

"I still feel like sex might fix this," Millie told me.

"I mean..." I shrugged. "It's worth a shot."

"It's actually what crazy crystal lady was yammering about," Sam continued, typing away. "What if these abductions have nothing to do with UFOs?"

"What?" Dean asked. 

"Okay, say these encounters have been going on for centuries, not with extraterrestrials but with ultra-terrestrials," Sam said as Dean sat down across from him.

I sat down in his lap. "I'm not following."

Milie took the only free chair. "Me either."

"I mean, people nowadays say space aliens or whatever, but they used to call them--" Sam flipped the computer around.

Faerie Feasts was the headline of the photo where small creatures were gnawing on humans.

"Smurfs?" Dean said.

"Fairies," Sam corrected. 

"Fairies? Come on," Dean complained.

"You're the one getting beat up by tiny women with nipples and wings," I pointed out.

"And you were an angel a thousand years ago, so technically I could be talking about you like Sam said," Dean quipped. "You're short, occasionally naked, last I checked you had nipples," he gave my boob a squeeze, "hit me, and had wings. And sometimes you hit me when you're naked."

"Because you appear every time I shower. I swear, you could be across the country and just know when I take my clothes off. You scare me, I hit you. It's how this works."

"There's a thin line between ETs and fairies," Sam said. "Glowing lights, abductions, it's all the same UFO stuff under a different skin."

"You seriously think the secret with the UFOs is--?" Dean asked. 

"Hey, man, you're the one who pizza-rolled Tinker Bell. I'm doing the math. But this is good. This is a lead."

"A lead where?" Dean asked.

"Crazy town," Millie and I said. 

I stood, sighing. "Well, whatever the lead is we can't follow it until morning, so I say it's shower time and then I'm sleeping this craziness away."

"Can I join?" Dean asked.

"....Yes."

Dean laughed. "Yes," he hissed, following me.

I rolled my eyes. "Don't be annoying about it or I'll kick you out."