Here it is! The big bang I've been telling you about!
Okay, so this was really difficult to write (not difficult as in it made me emotional, but difficult as in major personal issues got in the way and took up most of November, leaving me with one week left to write 3/4 of it... not ideal) Me and my artist were up past midnight on the deadline day trying to get all of this posted, not to mention the fact I had only finished the story that day, too. So, yeah, I'm really happy to be done with it now. But I am very proud to have gotten it done!
I'm really grateful to my artist, lightthesparks, for being so patient with me and also for creating the most incredible movie-style posters for this story. I've used one of her posters as the cover image, but please make sure you go to her livejournal to see the rest and shower her with compliments. Her prompt was a great one and I really enjoyed coming up with a story behind it. I'm also very grateful to my dear friend winchesterpooja for being a last minute beta. I didn't leave her much time to beta it, so if you do spot any mistakes I promise they're my own.
Anyway, I really hope you enjoy this. Chapters will be updated daily.
Miss Monroe is younger than Dean expected. The bright sign on the door of her apartment promises accurate readings, a chance for whoever has the right amount of cash to catch their future before it knocks them on their ass. Dean doesn't care about his future, doesn't think he's got much of one in his line of work. This isn't about him, anyway. What he cares about is the present.
The door opens on his third knock and Miss Monroe's eyes rake him up and down, mouth pinching at the corners with disdain.
"Don't get many of your kind around here," she says, bitter-mouthed. She perches one hand on her hip, her long silver moon-printed skirt swishes at her ankles. With a sigh, she tucks one loose dread behind her ear, the rest coiled up around her crown like rope. She gives a vague wave of her hand and says, "Come on in then."
The apartment is small, made smaller by the clutter of trinkets that seem to cover every surface. Beads draped on the coat hanger, herbs across the kitchen counter, a cat skull nestled between candles on the TV set. She points one dark, slender finger over to a table at the centre of the room, the bangles on her wrist jangling with the movement.
Dean squeezes in, wedged between a wicker-bound doll with a wooden skull face and a couple of chicken feet.
Miss Monroe takes the vacant seat opposite and gazes at him long and hard. "You're wanting a reading, yes?"
"Yeah, but not for me."
One eyebrow goes up as she says, "A third-party reading? Well, you can guess why that puts me in a compromising position. An ethical tarot reader would never read for someone who ain't given permission. It will be less accurate, besides."
"Not for you," Dean counters. "This person would give their permission if they could, and I hear you're the best there is."
She flusters a little at that, fingertips fiddling with the crystal dangling from her neck. "So, who are you wanting me to read? Don't tell me it's some poor victim, I'd be needing the Ouija if that's the case."
"No, this person's alive. And I'm sure you already know who it is."
She shrugs, placing her hand over a deck of cards in front of her. "You shouldn't be thinking so loud, then. You got anything of theirs?"
Dean reaches for the pocket on the inside of his jacket, pulling out a small journal made for carrying around. It's somewhat new, the leather cover still shines and the pages haven't yellowed yet, but there's also something worn about it, like the dog-eared pages and the fatness of it. He's hesitant as he holds it out, but after a breath he slides it across the velvet table-top.
Miss Monroe presses her fingers over the book for a long while, then Dean watches her shuffle the tarot deck, eyes closed. She stops after a moment to remove one from the top and place is at the centre of the table. She does this twice more until there are three in a row, lying face down.
Flipping over the first, she says, "This is their past."
There's a tower aflame, a king and queen leaping from the window, flying in separate directions, doomed to hit the ground sooner or later.
"The Tower," Monroe reads. "This person has experienced tragedy. Oh, they still feel it, it still hurts. Might never truly stop hurting, but that is the nature of disaster."
Her hand hovers over to turn the second card. A man strung upside-down.
"The Hanged Man is their present," she says, eyes flicking up to Dean. "Helplessness. And the future…"
She turns the final card over to reveal an armoured man astride a white horse, a white rose on the black flag in his hand and people on their knees before him. At the bottom, in thick, black print, it says Death.
"Death does not always mean what you think," Monroe is quick to say. She leans close, hands planted on either side of the set as she peers down intently, like she can see something more behind the pictures that Dean can't. "It can mean an ending, but not necessarily to life. Endings can be good things."
"Drop the bullshit," Dean snaps. "I ain't one of the civilians you pretty up the truth for."
She sighs, index finger tapping the man on the white horse. "The truth? The truth is never pretty. You want the truth? Fine. If you don't fix what you got yourself stuck in, you're gon' lose this person. And you know losing them means losing yourself, too."
"But how do I fix it?" He points to the Hanged Man. "How do I change that?"
She shakes her head. "I told you the reading ain't as accurate if the person in question isn't here. I don't know all the answers, I can't just pull 'em out of a hat like a second-rate magician."
Dean fishes a few crumpled bills from his pocket and tosses them on the table. "Well, thanks for telling me what I already know," he says, getting to his feet. He's at the door, hand barely twisting the knob when Monroe speaks again.
"You're looking in all the wrong places," she says.
"Where am I supposed to look, then?"
She shrugs. "I don't know. Just not where you're looking now."
"Anything else?" Dean asks bitterly.
She stares at him for a moment – or rather, she stares at the space around him. She turns back to the cards laid out on the table and collects them into a neat pile. "There's something stuck on your shoe."
Dean is out the door before she can say anything else, letting it fall shut heavily behind him. Psychics always have to shroud themselves in mystery, a clever way of hiding the fact that they don't really have the answers.
He heads back downstairs, dodging the one step that nearly broke under his weight on the way up. The apartment building is even more aged inside than out, with peeling wallpaper and a bannister worn down by hundreds of hands gripping it.
Back in the sickly hot, crowded streets of New Orleans, Dean is ready to down some whiskey and punch something in the face. He saw a bar a few blocks back, a good place to get that whiskey, he might even find someone itching to be punched. Moving like a fish against a stream back the way he came, he jostles countless shoulders and rouses up a couple of perturbed strangers yelling hey! at his retreating back.
The bar is a little crowded, full of chatter and a swell of music, a quick and nifty pluck of guitar strings. Dean weasels his way through, everyone swaying in time to the music, and he slumps into the first stool at the bar he can find.
"Whiskey, three fingers," he says when a young woman comes to take his order. She fills a glass and slides it over.
"Long day, sugar?" she asks.
Dean snorts. More like a long lifetime. "Something like that."
"Feel like talking about it?"
Dean looks at her properly now. She's fairly young, early twenties maybe, but she definitely looks like a girl he might try to woo into bed. She leans forward on her elbows, drawing Dean's eyes straight down to where her breasts press together under her shirt.
He takes a small sip of whiskey and puts on his most dazzling smile. It's been a while since he got some action, he figures he deserves it with the shitty week he's been having. "I'm just in town for a little while. Came looking for someone who might be able to help me with something, but it ended up a bust."
"Anything I can help with?" she says, leaning even closer. And Dean realises then just how pretty she is, fox-like green eyes, a button nose and perfectly rounded lips, all framed by a shock of red hair. She smiles at him, flashing straight white teeth. "I get off in an hour."
She gives him a wink as she heads to the other side of the bar to take someone else's order. Dean empties his glass in one swallow and signals for another.
On his second drink, he decides he isn't in the mood. She's beautiful, yes, and she practically threw herself at him, but there are other things playing on his mind. One of which being the three phone calls he's left unanswered.
He gets up, drops a few bills by his empty glass and heads back out onto the street. Checking his phone, he finds Bobby's name taking up space in his missed calls. There's a message, too.
Dean, answer your damn phone, would you? Don't worry, there's no emergency, except that you were supposed to check in more'n and hour ago. Call me back, idgit.
He knows he should call back, should head back soon, but he's been stuck on this problem for a week now with no inkling of a solution. Dean doesn't do so well with sitting around with his thumb in his ass. His trigger finger's starting to get really damn itchy.
He'd be happy for a vamp to waltz right up to him, right here in the street, just so he'd have a head to detach.
But that isn't really an option, not unless he wants handcuffs on his wrists, besides he's already got the feds on his tail. He doesn't need to draw any attention to himself by picking fights or running off recklessly just because he wants to blow off some steam.
He finds the Impala wedged between cars on the side of a small back street, one of the few vacant spaces he could find this far into the centre of this city, and he starts the two hour drive all the way back to Breaux Bridge and the empty motel room that waits for him. He hasn't had to endure a silent drive by himself for almost two years now – if he's not counting a few weeks ago when Meg was causing trouble - and after a week of being alone he isn't yet used to an empty passenger seat.
He has to put in a cassette just to endure it. The sun remains persistently bright the further he drives and his stomach growls, eager for something to eat. Food isn't high on his list of priorities right now. He's almost half-asleep by the time he gets back to the motel, barely remembering to lock the car as he leaves and stumbles towards his room.
Inside, he locks the door and lines salt at the bottom.
He's tempted just to plant himself straight into the pillows, but he's still wearing yesterday's clothes and about a few days' worth of sweat. He strips down in the grimy bathroom, with its yellowing tiles and water-stained ceiling, and he turns the shower dial as far as it will go.
The noise is comforting, in a weird way. The heavy drum of water against the bath tub masks the silence he's been living with the last week. He undresses and pretends there's not just an empty room waiting on the other side of the door.
The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and he pauses, foot dipped in the tub and already soaked under the spray. Slowly, he retracts, double checks that his shotgun still stands against the toilet.
He's still for a moment, eyes wandering to each corner of the bathroom. He pokes his head out the door, the salt line is still intact, the chain is still in place.
"Paranoid bastard," he whispers to himself, and steps under the hot spray of the shower. He scrubs everything clean, rubbing twice as hard with a soap-soaked sponge. The longer he's in the shower, the longer he can avoid dealing with the real world. Showers are like mystery spots, a place where time has no meaning and everything going on outside is drowned out by the heavy pounding of water.
He's not sure how long he's in there, long enough for the water to run cold enough to chase him out. He wraps the bright yellow motel towel around his hips and stands on the bathroom tiles, dripping wet. He'll dry off and get some sleep, if he can. The alcohol in the minifridge also poses appeal.
Dean turns, every inch of the room is fogged up with condensation, so much so that he almost misses it. The mirror above the sink, cloudy and dripping, the letters almost faded. But Dean sees it; a single word swiped into the misty glass.
Jerk
Bobby picks up on the second ring. Dean's pacing the room, eyes moving from the salt lines under the doors and windows back to the quickly cooling glass of the mirror. The letters have almost faded, and he has to keep checking it's really there to make sure he didn't imagine it.
"Bobby, tell me everything's good," Dean says before Bobby can even say hello.
"What are you on about, boy? It's been business as usual, as in nothing's been going on. I'd have called you otherwise, don't you think?" is the gruff answer. Then, after a beat, "Dean? Has something happened? Are you back in Breaux Bridge?"
The relief is encompassing, a heavy sigh and the loosening of muscles he hadn't known to be so tight. It takes a second, a rough scrub of his palm over his eyes, to gather himself. "Yeah, I just got back," he says. "And there sure was something. There was a message for me on the bathroom mirror when I got out the shower. Just one word: jerk."
There's a pregnant pause on the other line and Dean can clearly picture Bobby's fingers scratching at his bearded chin as he thinks. "That is something," he finally says. "But I promise you, there ain't been a peep on this end and I've been keeping watch all day."
"It sounds like him, though," Dean says. "Doesn't it?"
"Not sure how much you can get from one word," Bobby reasons. "You got salt in the doorway?"
"I'm not a rookie," Dean sighs. He drops down to sit on the edge of the bed, still dripping wet and wrapped in a damp towel. He glances again at the mirror, the word is almost gone, leaving behind only faint lines that are difficult to decipher.
"Have you considered that maybe you've got something on your tail?" Bobby suggests. "It's not just the feds that are after you."
"If it were a demon, I think I'd know by now. There's no hell stink around here."
"You had a demon yanking your chain just a few weeks ago and you were none the wiser," Bobby points out. His voice drops when he next speaks, tone a lot softer than Dean's used to, "You're more vulnerable on your own. There are things out there that will take advantage of that. We should get together to plan our next move."
Dean just restrains himself from blowing up. His instinct is to yell, or at least throw his cell phone across the room. It's been a long week and he's not a very patient person. "What plan?" he demands, teeth gritting together. "I'm tired, Bobby. I've been trying to fix this for the past week, non-stop, and we're no closer to an answer than we were in the beginning. That psychic you sent me to was a bust."
"What exactly did she say?" Bobby asks curiously.
"Nothing helpful. But she did say something's stuck on my shoe and I don't think she was talking about gum. There's something here, Bobby, I know it."
"If it's following you, it'll have followed you here. Look, I'm at the library since visiting hours don't start for another hour. I can head over to the motel now and we can figure it out together."
Dean thinks he'd rather have a few drinks than deal with their problem anymore today. He immediately feels guilty just for thinking it.
Then, Bobby says, "You've got a habit of avoiding things you don't want to deal with. I know you're probably itching for a drink or two, but it's not going to help any."
There it is. Even over the phone, Bobby can read him better than anyone. Well, almost anyone. Dean stands there, phone to his ear, and stares at the soft yellow wall paper. What he'd thought were decorative squiggles are actually hundreds of tiny lassos printed onto the walls. Figures, even the lampshade is a cowboy hat.
"I'm going to get a little shut eye then I'll meet you there, Bobby," he says, then hangs up. He pulls the towel from his waist and uses it to scrub his hair dry. He fetches his clothes from the bathroom - the message on the mirror is gone - and he dumps them in his duffel to be cleaned later. He dresses in fresh clothes and drops onto the still unmade bed, water still dripping down the shower walls.
They've been driving for several minutes– according to the clock on the Impala's dash - and Sam's getting sick of Dean playing the same damn Stix song over and over. The worst part is that no matter how many times he asks Dean to change it, Dean doesn't. He'd put up with it for the two hours to and from New Orleans, but he can't take anymore.
"You need to buy new music," he says, but Dean just keeps on staring at the road ahead. Sam's used to this by now, he's been invisible for… how long has this been going on? Time's starting to meld together into one big lump. Yesterday is today for all he knows.
Renegade starts playing for the third time in a row, the lyrics beating themselves into Sam's brain, and he doesn't think, just leans over and punches his finger at the tape player's eject button. The music cuts off and the little plastic cassette pokes out of the slot.
For a second, the Impala swerves before Dean gets a grip on the wheel to straighten it.
"What the fuck?" he mutters under his breath.
Sam, meanwhile, is too busy marvelling at the fact he actually touched it. He's beginning to wish he'd written a longer, more explanatory letter to Dean on mirror – something along the lines of Dean, I'm here and I've been here this whole time and I'm pretty sure I'm not dead because I think I'd remember dying, besides ghosts can't cross salt lines like I can - but getting a physical grasp on anything is proving difficult. Four letters were the best he could manage, and he'd been sure Dean would get it. Who else calls him jerk?
Dean quickly pulls off onto the side of the road, earning a few angry horn blasts from other drivers, and he parks the Impala by a sidewalk with the engine still purring. He fishes one of his battered, home-made EMF meters from the glove compartment and flicks the switch on. Sam's can't help smiling with relief when it picks nothing up, no shrill beeping or flashing green to indicate the presence of ghosts.
"I knew it," he says to his brother. "I'm not dead, Dean. I'm not. Ghosts can't cross salt. I'm – I'm just cursed or something."
Dean doesn't hear him or see him or even feel the waft of air as Sam waves his hand in front of his face. Dean doesn't so much as blink, and Sam slumps back into the passenger seat.
"Where are we even going?" he asks. "You are looking for me, right? Just – just look at me, Dean, I'm right here."
No answer, like there's been no answer the countless other times he's said something along these lines. It gets old pretty quick after… however long it's been since this started. Some time is missing, he can tell that much. Sam rubs at his tired eyes and struggles to think back to the beginning, tries to recall the last time he was visible. He can remember going to sleep in the usual damp motel room with bleached motel sheets, Dean right there in the other bed. Weird dreams, he remembers having a lot of strange and vivid dreams about a little girl and… he doesn't remember the rest.
Lucy Finch, that's all there is. A little girl that went missing, their last case before all this mess started.
"Did you find her?" Sam asks quietly, but Dean's too busy tapping the EMF like he suspects it's broken. Sam turns in his seat to find a road sign, some sort of indication of where they might be headed, but there's nothing but Breaux Bridge's old, rickety houses and a blur of cars whipping past. Anything could have happened to Lucy by now, all because Dean's looking for Sam instead of her.
Dean's eyes are narrowed, gaze gliding levelling around the cabin of the car like he might just catch a flicker of something supernatural that needs shooting. Finally, after what feels like several minutes of silence, he leaves the EMF meter on the bench by his hip and pushes the cassette tape back into the music player.
Then, they're hurtling off down the road. The rest of the short journey is filled with the same stupid song, Dean's fingers tapping softly against the wheel, and Sam talking out loud just to keep himself sane. He tries to solve their case.
"Maybe Lucy Finch wasn't taken, maybe she just turned invisible. Maybe she was there the whole time, like me," he says, and the way Dean hums to the music almost sounds like an agreement. Sam ponders further, brushing his hand against the glass, watching his fingertips fall through like it's made of water.
"How come I could write on the mirror and eject the tape when everything just slips right through me? How am I sitting in the car right now and not falling through the footwell? Even weirder, I don't remember the last time I ate or slept. Dean, how long has it been?"
Dean's only answer is a soft mutter of song lyrics under his breath, "Hangman is coming down from the gallows and I don't have very long…"
The drive must last no longer than half an hour but the quiet of the car drags the minutes by painfully slow. Old houses and trees and cars whiz by like pictures in a flip book. Sam watches Dean and the way his jaw clenches and unclenches like it usually does when he's stressed, index finger tapping restlessly like its eager for a trigger.
It's getting dark when the car slows on city roads, passing buildings Sam can faintly recognise. He's been here before. Finally, Dean pulls into a hospital's parking lot.
"What are we doing here?" Sam asks with increased urgency. "Is this about Lucy Finch?"
Dean doesn't answer, like he never answers. He gets out the car, letting the door fall shut with a thunk that's louder than necessary. He's anxious in a way Sam hasn't seen since Dad died. Sam slips through the door like it's little more than air, something he's still not used to. He's got a growing list in his head titled what the fuck is going on and it's already several pages long.
Dean moves fast, striding into the hospital, right past the information desk and towards the elevators with a surety that says he knows exactly where he's going. Sam quickly catches up and waits by Dean's side as the lift goes up. The levels light up as they rise.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Dean's out the second the doors slide apart, turning left without having to look at the signs on the walls. A strange feeling captures Sam then, like a warmth in himself he hadn't realised was missing, like a tug of an invisible rope that could be tied around his middle. Something feels right about being here, and it only makes his heart pick up its pace even further.
They turn the corner and almost run right into Bobby.
"What's going on?" Dean asks, taking in Bobby's raised eyebrows.
"I don't know, I was just going to find someone…" Bobby says, and if he had more to say neither brother hears it because Dean's already marching past, down the hall and into a room at the end. Sam pauses in the doorway and watches Dean snap to the bedside like he's magnetised. He can hear a steadily rising beep, his heart pounds in his chest as he steps closer for a better look.
For a second, he doesn't know who it is. Just some sick kid, deeper than asleep and half-buried under thin hospital blankets. There are tubes everywhere, up the kid's nose, in the crook of his arm, drooping out from under the blanket between his legs.
It takes a second. A godawful, long second. Sam knows this kid, although he knows his face the other way around, mole on the other side of his nose as he's seen it plenty times in the mirror. Sam hitches a breath, heart hammering in his chest. The beeps on the monitor ring closer and closer together, the number in the corner of the screen rises higher.
He glances down at the chart hanging from the bedrail. Sam Singer is scribbled in pen at the top.
"What's going on?" a voice says from behind, then a tiny woman in hospital scrubs walks right through him. Sam startles and backs into the wall, almost slipping through it altogether. Bobby is standing right beside him, eyes on the Sam in the bed rather than the Sam next to him.
"His heartrate just picked up all of a sudden," Bobby says, fingertips pulling at the hairs on his chin worriedly.
The nurse nods, pulling back the lid of one of Sam's eyes. Even from across the room Sam can see there's nothing but the whites of his eyes showing underneath, like his irises have rolled all the way back, or disappeared completely.
He stumbles away, right through Bobby and back into the hall. His hands are shaking and he quickly glances down just to make sure they're all there, just to be sure he hasn't faded away. There's a sinking sensation in his stomach, a growing surety that he's been here before. Déjà vu strong enough to catch his breath.
Sam glances up to a dark and empty hallway. The constant hum of hospital activity is gone, there's no sign of another person, just the dim halls and the dark windows.
There's something at the end of the corridor, too far to make out, a shadowy shape that's only an imitation of human, no part of it quite fitting with the rest. It doesn't move, but it isn't completely still, wavering in the distance like a mirage. Sam backs up a few steps, tempted to look for Dean but not daring to take his eyes off whatever the thing in front of him is.
It's looking at him. He can feel its gaze on him rather than see it. He doesn't even know if it has any eyes, but he can feel the prickly weight of its attention on him from meters away.
It knows him, and Sam thinks he knows it, too.
Before he can even think to run the thing rushes at him in a cloud of black.
TBC
