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Wait, cookies? Comfy? What tricks? ...That dog was pretty neat. Dean wanted to look down at it, but it was about ten hundred more feet away from the original nine million bajillion and four, now, and he could only claw at Steph's oversized shirt some more, trying to gain some bearing on the situation.

"Steph. Steph, maybe we shouldn't be up here anymore," he hissed, tugging at her shirt a little. Oh, man, he really didn't want to fall, but he was starting to look a little green from being up in the air so long. God, oh, God.

"Hey! Lady!" Crap, his dad would have backhanded him for using that. She seemed nice. And Dad was only mean to people who deserved it. "Uh. I mean. Ma'am!" he called down loudly, arms wrapping slightly tighter around Steph's middle (HA. Now who was being strangled?!) (...Around the stomach, at least) and frowning down at her. "Am I gonna die if I land on those pillow things?"

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Cookies? Oh man, cookies were....NO! And a doggy? Steph's eyes narrowed into slits. This lady was tricky. And buttface Dean was about to break rank! The no good rank breaker.

"Dean, I'm workin' on it," she hissed. GOSH. "Maybe we can climb up the rope? Are you a good climber? I'm a super good climber."

"You might," she said, voice strained because Dean was squeezing her tummy hard. "They don't look too soft. You might break your head and die, and then you'd be all dead and stuff."

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Choking back a laugh, Lily put arms behind her head and considered him. "Call me Lily," she said with a huge grin. "And absolutely not. These are special cushions. Watch." Lily stood up and walked back. A deft wave of her wand made the cushions glow slightly before fading back to normal. Then, bracing herself, Lily took a running leap into the pile. She bounced up, high, before settling back down again; each landing sent her up in a slightly lower bounce. The charm made sure her landing was firmly on the cushions, softly cradled and with nothing bruised or broken. Then, though, lying back again, quite breathless with laughter, she looked up at Dean and Steph. "But...hmmm..."

She pretended to think, deeply. "Your Captain, there, probably has a very Daring Plan, no doubt. But, if something should go amiss - as sometimes happens with Daring Plans - the cushions would catch you." Lily looked up at Stephanie. "Lead on, Captain. I'll just be waiting below, as your rear guard."

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Fraser had quite literally just been in the neighborhood -- he was taking Dief for a roam around the castle when he spotted the motley little group ahead. Lily and Steeler were unmistakeable, even from behind. The children, he wasn't sure he knew, although one looked extremely familiar... Huh. Anyway, he felt like he should possibly go and check in on that.

"Ah, now what do we have here?" he asked, coming up behind Lily. Dief immediately bounded over to start playing with Steeler, the ball, the cushion, and everything else in the vicinity. Fraser eyed him, sighed with fond exasperation, and raised his glance towards the ceiling. "It seems like you've gotten yourselves into quite a pickle!"

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Oh, dear God! Dean's face went about nine different shades of pale at that. He didn't want to crack his head open. Dad had come home, beaten up and cut and stuff, way too many times for him to not get paranoid that, eventually, the same thing was going to happen to them. Those were some mean hunting trips!

That comment wasn't much in Steph's favor, because Dean was now hugging her even tighter, visualizing splattered Dean brains all over the castle floor. That demonstration did not help at all! Lily didn't fall from nine hundred thousand million bajillion kazillion and ninety two feet! "I don't want my brains to get splattered!" he replied to Steph hysterically, his voice in a hissed whisper.

He barely even noticed the new guy striding up. He was far too paranoid for meeting new people right now! This was a crisis!

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"Oh, I do! I do!" Well, as long as Lily recognized that Steph was the Big Girl around here, it was probably okay if she wanted to hang around and watch Steph being awesome. Hoooofff. It was hard to be awesome when someone was squeezing all of the air out of your tummy.

But she could make due.

Hey! There were not in a pickle! They were in a Plan! "We are not! Your BUTT is a pickle," she called out to the newcomer. Really, why was Steph the only person who seemed to know what was going on around here? "And...pickles...are...GROSS." She felt the need to use what little oxygen she had left to inform everyone of the grossness of pickles.

Okay. The rafters on the ceiling were super wide - waaaay wider than her window ledge, and she sneaked out there all the time. Wordlessly, she started climbing up, which was a very slow-going process, considering the eight year old (possibly even nine – man, that was old) boy clinging to her middle. Her face was also going kind of blue, and that didn't help things.

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Despite all of laughing and joking around, Lily's eyes had been very carefully watching the two intrepid adventurers. If there had been the slightest sign of trouble, she was more than prepared to act. As Stephanie started further up the rope, though, she couldn't help but wince. If someone was watching closely, they might note her fingers curling more tightly around her wand, but she managed to keep from jumping up and just levitating the two down. Though it was a close call.

Tipping her head back to glance at Ben, Lily smiled in greeting and then returned her eyes to the kids. "Yeah, Ben," she murmured with a huge grin and a quiet laugh, "your butt is a pickle."

Sucking in a quick breath, Lily sat up at the expression on Dean's face. For a second there was a flash of intense maternal longing on her face - every fiber of her being was screaming at her to do something to help them, sod it all and let the little girl get huffy. But she steadied herself and merely watched.

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Wait -- he recognized that voice. He was sure he did. Was the girl Stephanie's sister, or... ah. Fraser raised an eyebrow at the jibe and smirked, glancing over to Lily. "Apparently," he agreed with a shrug. "I wasn't aware." Dropping his voice, he leaned closer and added, "Did someone put chocolates out?"

Of course, at a magic school there were about a hundred other possibilities. But having heard -- and experienced -- as much as he had about the dreaded Chocolate Days, it seemed like the likely answer. Oh, boy.

He looked back up at the kids, squinting. "I think your brains will be all right, son, if you want to come down," he called up. "It will be easier going for Stephanie if she doesn't lose her air supply." Or alternately... He eyed the stone walls, pursing his lips thoughtfully. "Hmm."

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Jeeper's crow, she was climbing up higher? "No no no no!" Dean hissed back to her, furiously, grabbing at the rope below Steph's legs and clinging for dear life. Screw that! The rope gave a rather treacherous sway at the exchange of weight, in which Dean let out a strange sort of squeak of a sound trying to keep his bearing, but at least Steph could breath again!

Hey, new guy was talking about his brains. Dean looked down all those millions and millions of feet, looking to the cushions below and suddenly shaking his head. "No, I don't wanna jump!" he replied earnestly, knuckles whitening on the rope. Good God, heights. He was never jumping. "I'm gonna just stay up here!" Pause, and Dean shifted his eyes side to side, momentarily. "Because, uh, because of The Plan! Nothing about being scared or nothing!"

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Air! Hurray for air! And WEE the rope was swinging. Steph kind of wanted to do that again, only Dean looked a little barfy. Maybe another time.

Ah ha! Now Dean was with it. "Yup! See? There's a plan. My Plan." Only...."Dean," she whispered. "We can't just stay here. We can go up, and then maybe climb down-"

Waaaaaait a second. How did Pickle Butt know her name? "Why’d you know my name?," she called down. He was a Stranger! "Hey! Are you stalking me? Because that's NOT NICE." She couldn't very well try and get to the ground if there was a stalker waiting for her.

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Looking over at Fraser, Lily stood, studying a cushion thoughtfully. "Yeah. I would say so. The boy is Dean Winchester." Her voice was low enough so the sprogs couldn't hear her. "They've completely reverted, far as I can tell - they don't recognize me, either."

Calling up to Stephanie, Lily grinned, "No, silly. This is Constable Benton Fraser. He's a mountie - that's like the Canadian police. It's their job to know everyone's name, so they can help people."

She'd caught the look in his eye. "Don't even think about it," she laughed. "I am having a heart attack as it is, those two insane sprogs hanging from a string. I cannot take worrying about you, too."

Pushing several cushions together in a vaguely square shape, Lily then tapped them a few times with her wand, making them stick together in a large pillow raft. Then, sitting down, she swished her wand back and flicked it forward firmly, once. Rising up in the air on her magic carpet of pillows, Lily soared up towards the rafters. She didn't attempt to rescue the two, instead simply swinging herself up to perch on the rafter and watch them with a grin, the raft hovering below.

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Fraser leaned in as Lily spoke, chewing his lip as he nodded along. Well, that made sense. Unfortunate sense. He was really going to have to start looking into this whole chocolate business, he thought. But, for now, there were children hanging from a rafter.

He followed her glance up, grinning at her explanation to Steph. "Besides," he called, "you look very much like a Stephanie." Glancing back over at Lily, he added, "We are the Canadian police," in a low voice. "The Royal Canadian Mounted Police. That's sort of the point."

He had just gone back to eyeing the walls when Lily decided to tell him not to. And then float. He blinked at the levitating cushions. "...huh." He cocked his head to the side. "I didn't think of that." And he had now idea how to do it, so that didn't matter much, but if Lily thought that was going to stop him from climbing up, she obviously didn't know him very well at all. Now he had to get up there.

For one thing, if he was the only one to stay down, Dief would laugh at him later.

He took his hat off and set it carefully down next to the pile of cushions, trusting the dogs not to try and eat it or anything. Approaching the wall, he carefully reached for a crack between the stones, tested his weight... and then was up in the rafters in about two seconds flat. "Hi," he called cheerfully, negotiating his way onto the beam above Steph and Dean.

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The weird lady who made the pillow pile was floating. Floating! Dean widened his eyes to her, a bit terrified, wondering vaguely how the heck she did that. Could she fly? Was that like a magic carpet? Except of pillows? A magical carpet of pillows? He didn't even know. It was just crazy.

"Stop flying," he replied in short, gripping the rope tighter in light of the new flying lady. "I don't like it." No, really. It was high up and he didn't like the odds being evened any. And it didn't help that, now, up close, when she wasn't that dizzying amount of distance away on the ground, she really looked weirdly like his mom. And he really didn't like that. Mom was dead. And it wouldn't help things any, this new chick looking like her.

Holy crap, climbing the freaking wall.

Dean's eyes were torn away from floating lady in front of him, dragged back over to the freaking guy scaling the wall! Oh man! "Are you a ninja?" he announced across the room to Fraser, eyes widened, mind temporarily taken away from how many feet he was from the floor. That was quite a feat, actually.

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"He's a cop?" Steph made a panicked face. This did not help Fraser's case, not in the least. As far as Browns were concerned, cops were Not Good. "We didn't do anything!" Steph's bottom lip trembled. "I don't wanna go to jail!" Jail was definitely not part of The Plan!

Oh! And now that lady was flying! Like Soooperman. Only she wasn't wearing an 'S' on her chest, or a bat-symbol, or a cape, or anything. How was Steph supposed to trust her intentions? How? "Yeah," she agreed. "You're not Soooperman! You're not even Power Girl!"

AND OH MY GOD. The cop wasn't just a cop. He was a mind reading ninja cop. AND he didn't even have the cool hat anymore, so his credibility was completely shattered! AND he was coming right for her!

Screw this. Steph simply could not be expected to deal with Non-Professional Flying People and Mind Reading Ninja Cops. Tall Person was on his own! She took a deep breath and let go of the rope, plummeting towards the ground.

Everyone knew Big Girls were invulnerable to broken bones, boo-boos, and owwies. Right?

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"Ah. I thought you were Canadian," Lily told Ben. As if that explained why he wasn't police. Watching him scale the wall had her literally face palming. Oh, Merlin, she was going to have a heart attack. Right now.

"I know you don't." Looking at Dean, she smiled, softly. "But we'll get you down and then we don't ever have to do the whole flying thing again, yeah? And you can help me make cookies."

But then Steph plunged off the rafters. "Oh, shite," Lily muttered. Looking at Fraser quickly, she pointed at Dean, "Get him, he's afraid of heights."

Then, taking a breath, she dove off the rafter and into the pile of cushions after Stephanie.

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...Because the natural solution to one person jumping from a high place is to have someone else follow. Fraser would have stopped Lily, but she'd jumped before he could say anything other than a quiet 'oh, dear.' At least he had enough body mass to provide some kind of cushioning force.... ah, well. He was reasonably sure they would both be fine. He had been planning on jumping down, himself!

Shrugging, he peered over the rafter just long enough to make sure they were all right, then looked up at Dean and smiled. "I'm not a ninja, no. I'm a mountie. Are you all right, son?"

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Whoa, Flying Lady was hardcore! He had been kind of expecting Steph to jump (hey, that chick was freaking brave. And, you know, crazy as anything to boot), Dean watched them fall allll the way down, half expecting them to crack their heads open and... Oh, God. That floor was so much farther away than the last time he looked.

He barely even heard Fraser's words as he spoke them. Dean's eyes were fixated solely on the floor, suddenly unable to tear away. Except. Oh. He wasn't a ninja? He didn't know what a mountie was, but it didn't sound as cool. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm cool," he replied with a fervent nod. The lie might have been a little easier to believe if his knuckles weren't bone white from gripping the rope so hard, not to mention a face to match the color and pinprick eyes still glued to the floor below.

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Oh, man. This was awesome. Steph let out a loud "Wheeeee!" as she went down, completely unaware of the panicked adults around her.

Falling was fun! So fun that Non-Professional Flying Person wanted to join in, and Steph could hardly blame her. Even the hitting-the-ground part wasn't as bad as usual, on account of the pillows and the redhead to cushion her fall. Steph landed, blinked once, and noticed the brown Stetson left unattended near the doggies.

HAAAAAT. She rolled over, and plopped it on her head. Very stylish. Steph had to lift the brim up with both hands in order to see. "The hat," she informed Lily, very seriously "was not part of The Plan, but I think it looks cool."

She looked up, rather oblivious to the peril Dean was finding himself in. "Deeeean! Doesn't my hat look cool?"

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Oof. "I'm getting too sodding old to do things like that," Lily muttered to herself, adjusting Steph so that the little girl's elbow wasn't quite so firmly implanted in her kidney. Glancing up at Ben and Dean, she gave a tiny salute before looking back at Stephanie.

Laughing, Lily nodded. "Well, even the best Plans have room for really cool hats." Steeler found all of this very interesting, trotting over and snuffing at Steph's neck. The husky was quite large, now, coming almost to Lily's waist, so he was huge compared to the girl. Steeler, having decided that Stephanie was a Fun Person, chuffed once and nudged her before running off for his ball. Not nearly enough attention was being paid to him! This must be rectified! Small Fun Person should play with him!

Lily rolled her eyes at the dog and looked back up at Dean. "If you let go," she advised, "you're not going to get hurt! Also, if a girl can do it..." she trailed off significantly. Well, it was still Dean, despite being ickle-fied. His bull-headedness was probably genetic.

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And now Stephanie had his hat. Ah, well... he could trust her with it, he was sure! He hoped. If it ended up with crayon all over it, he might be a bit upset -- his father had stolen his spare, which meant this was the only one he had.

Dief, all too aware of Dead!Bob's theft, paused in his play with Steeler just long enough to check in on the hat issue. He looked up and barked out a question; Fraser shifted onto his stomach on the rafter, waving a hand down at him. "Don't worry about it," he called down, over-enunciating so the deaf wolf could read his lips.

Right, back to the issue at hand. Dean was still up here, and looking queasier by the moment. Fraser scooted along the rafter, moving closer to the boy. "You don't have to jump, Dean, if you don't want to. You can climb with me, if you like." He hesitated. "It is a little bit harder, though. And, well, the distance from the wall to the pillows..." Yeah, he was totally trying to get Dean to jump. Without emasculating him, by preference.

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Hey! Just because a girl did it didn't mean that Dean couldn't. And, yes, that statement probably would have been enough for him to do most of anything right now, were this another situation. However, this was heights. And heights were quite possibly one of the things that scared him the most. That, of course, and the thing that had killed Mommy, whatever it was. He was. HE. Dean had to try to convince himself that there wasn't nearly so much hiding in the dark as his father told him about.

He looked down - down, down, down - to the vast amount of space between his feet and the floor. And the tiny pile of cushions underneath that was looking smaller and smaller by the minute. With a swallow, he tightened his grip on the rope, eyes widening slightly. He didn't like those odds. At all.

"Can't I just, you know. Hang out here?" he asked in a voice that was probably an octave higher than his regular prepubescent one. "It's fun...! You guys can go. I'm all set." If by 'all set', he meant 'about to puke'.

But either he was allergic to bullshit or there was a lot of dust up by the rafters, because he sneezed, then, involuntarily letting go of the rope. And, of course, consequentially missing the wild swipe at it as he fell backwards, flailing, to the pile of cushions below, and oh dear freaking CHRIST.

Was he dead? He was dead. "I'm dead. My brains are all over the FLOOR! CRAP! MY BRAINS!" Dean suddenly wailed, flailing about on the cushions some more. He had to get them back into his skull!

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Steph had a hat, and two doggies. Life really didn't get much better than this. She threw the ball around a couple times, before becoming much more interested in the kind-of sharp things she'd dumped from her backpack. They were so Shiny! Who could resist? Maybe the doggies would rather play with them? Balls had to get boring after awhile. She picked one up, and got ready to throw it down the hall.

...Happily for the mouths of all involved dogs, that was when Dean came tumbling down. Steph dropped the Shiny Object, and ran over to help him collect his brains!

Hmm. She didn't see any brains, but that didn't mean they weren't there! Dean didn't seem like a liar. "Do you have invisible brains?," she asked, very concerned. It was plausible! Steph began tentatively poking around for Dean's invisible brains.

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Right, so, both of the kids on the ground again. Very good. And Dean was flailing around about invisible brains, which was bloody hilarious and she would be mocking him about it, later. But for now she held out her wand, making the end glow a bright purple. "If he has invisible brains," she told them both somberly, "we have to be very careful not to step on them. Now, this light will let me see them, but you have to hold still while I look, all right?"

Pretending to search the ground carefully, Lily reached out and closed her hand around something with a triumphant laugh. "Got them!" Fumbling about with the 'brains', she cupped her hands and held them out to Dean. "They're quite slippery. Now, what you have to do to get them back in, is take a deep breath in through your nose on the count of three." She looked at Dean. "Ready? One. Two. THREE!"

Of course, while she was doing this, she also pulled the knives and such closer to her, and, with her free hand, reached around while the kids were occupied and transfigured all the blades to toy rubber. Yeah. Like she was going to let them run about with sharp objects. She'd barely let grown-up Dean do that without serious worries. As sprogs, they'd probably impale someone.

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Oh, dear. Well, at least the boy was on the floor, now, one way or another. And despite his wailing about invisible brains, Fraser was fairly certain he was unharmed. Probably best to check, though. If only so the kids knew he cared. "Everything all right down there?" he called, shifting to sit on the beam. "Have you cleared up all the brains?"

Now he was the only one left above ground, an odd reversal of the situation he'd been in only a few minutes ago. Huh. Now, how to get back down? He could jump and risk his own not-so-invisible brains (and honestly, he jumped from high places with such regularity that his body was preparing to do so without his even telling it to), or... he could climb. Safer, but a little less exciting -- for the kids, of course. He cupped his hands to his mouth. "Would you mind making some room?"

You're good with children, a voice next to him said. I never knew. Where did you learn that?

Oh, terrific.

Fraser turned to face his father -- who would be visible to the two girls, but not to Dean -- with a sigh. "Dad, I'm kind of in the middle of something, if you hadn't noticed." Bob beamed. They're nice kids, too. I like them. You and the Yank should take them under your wing, they're obviously parentless. "They're not actually--" Fraser glanced down at the ground, then leaned across the beam to whisper to his father's ghost. "They're not actually kids, Dad."

Ah.

"Now, do you mind?"

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