NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR: I'm not really taking myself too seriously with this. I mostly wrote this for a friend of mine to amuse myself, so I apologise if it seems a little far fetched. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! Drop me a comment and let me know what you think. - Also, I don't own Supernatural or any of it's characters, this is just for fun.
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Stranded on a highway as the eye of a storm passed had not been our plan A. Then again, my life was rarely what I intended it to be. The wind that night had been against us, the rain even more so, but there'd been a brief respite in the clouds as the rain and wind subsided leaving us stranded on the side of the road. Who were 'we'? Well, to be simple about it, my name is Misha Raleigh Winchester, twenty one years old and almost twenty two once the summer rolled around. Location? Meandering up and down a lonesome road in god only knew where with my best and only companion for the most part. My sister, and best friend, Nisha Annette Winchester. Nisha had a couple of weeks on me birthday wise, but that was all that was between us, drawn together by a disturbing similarity in our names. We'd always been like sisters, but now, we actually were in the eyes of legality. We were hunters. New to the trade, but usually pretty effective in what we did. We were soaked. Completely, to the bone, in that way that meant our clothes stuck to us like a second skin and our hair had become sticky tendrils pasted against our heads, coiling against our necks in a way that was just plain irritating. I almost wished the storm would come back, it had been distracting me up until that point from the horrible frigid sensation, and the fact I resembled a drowned rodent. Why were we even sitting on the side of a road in a storm? That was fairly simple. A job. A job gone completely awry. By awry I mean the motor gods had failed us and kicked my car in the metaphorical face. My beautiful, gleaming two-seater, orange 1969 Ford Mustang had broken down. We weren't mechanics, we had no idea why it wasn't purring like a kitty but it wasn't. A fine time for it to bail on us too.
I was sat on the bonnet at that moment, knees raised and my chin leaned in my hand like hope was on a coffee break and I was resigned in myself to just sitting there like an ass. Nisha paced in front of me, the cogs of her mind were turning frantically to deliver some kind of solution. There was a solution, a fairly simple one, but as we'd both agreed that was the absolute last resort. We could have called them. They would have driven out here in no time at all, fixed up my Mustang and we'd be sorted. Of course, they'd also take sweet satisfaction in the fact the stubbornly independent sisters had needed their help. We wouldn't have heard the end of it for weeks. Or even months. Nisha and I had both agreed that the storm was probably easier to endure than that, so we sat there, scheming in the hopes a miracle might drop in our laps. No such luck.
"I am not frigging doing it Misha" Nisha finally said to me, stopping in her pacing to see me sitting like a pixie on a mushroom on the bonnet of my car.
"I'm not asking you to, seriously" I replied with a sigh.
"I mean, no offence, but it's not my husband I'm concerned about…it's yours. You know Dean has this ability to be the most obnoxious individual on the planet. Sam might mention our predicament once or twice, but Dean? He will carry on bringing this up when we're forty. All about how we should have listened to him, and how weren't we mighty having to ask him for his help?" she explained and I only nodded.
"I know Nisha, I know" I agreed, bobbing my head in the palm of my hand.
Nisha sighed again, joining me on the bonnet of the Mustang. She raised her knees up to her chest, leaning her arms over them in a manner that signalled utter defeat. We were boned whatever way we sliced it and we knew it. Nisha knew it, and so did I. I sighed, holding out my hand to her, glancing across at her reluctantly.
"Alright, give me the phone, I cave…I'll call him, let's just get this over with" I went on. "I'm not staying here until that storm brews up again, if they're our only ticket out of here, then by god, I'm willing to swallow my pride."
Nisha muttered something to herself that I couldn't hear, fumbling in her trouser pocket for the cell phone she always carried with her. I'd been with her when she'd bought it. It had been expensive but it had been worth it, that baby had signal no matter how far out of a town we were. We were far out of a town right now as it happened, about forty miles out of Aspen in Colorado, on a road that cut through an expanse of fir trees.
Nisha handed me the phone at that point, and I flipped it open, searching through the contacts for the elusive Dean Winchester. We looked quite a spectacle sat on the bonnet of my car along side one another. Mostly because we couldn't have looked more opposite if we tried. Nisha was always the more exotic looking one out of the two of us, she had skin the colour of pale chocolate and dark hair and eyes. Entirely more mysterious looking than me. I was a blonde, pretty pale as one would expect with greeny-blue eyes that changed colour sometimes, depending on the light. We looked like some sort of personified version of yin and yang.
I'd dialled the number, hearing the buttons beep as I did. Finally the dial tone phased out and I could hear the ringing through, I only had to wait a moment and the phone was answered. There was a pause, a satisfied pause. He always had a knack for knowing when he'd won, and in that pause I imagined he was grinning victoriously.
"Hello, Dean" I said through clenched teeth.
"Hello, Raleigh" he answered. He'd sometimes call me that, Raleigh. Especially when we spoke on the phone. I guessed because mine and Nisha's names were so similar, he liked to distinguish to Sam who he was talking to in case Sam misheard. Something like that. Oh, did he sound smug.
"So, I'm guessing the Mustang crapped out, right?" he went on, with that smugness. I wanted to smack him.
"Yes Dean, the Mustang is screwed and we're now stranded on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere, the job is as good as over, you were right and blah blah blah" I went on with a roll of my eyes. He had such a superiority complex about our cars, lecturing me constantly about how his Impala was a better car hands down.
He chuckled.
"Alright, Misha, where are you? Sammy and me will come pick you up."
"Forty miles out of Aspen on the main exit, since you think my car is such an obnoxiously loud colour, you'll be able to see us nice and easy right? Don't be long" I replied stiffly, clasping the phone shut and ending the call before my dearly beloved went on any further with his 'I told you so' bit.
"You married a pig Misha" Nisha interjected, taking her phone back from me. "He's not a pig all the time, but right now? He's definitely a pig."
I nodded, it was true.
My marriage, in fact, our whole relationship with the Winchester brothers was a little bizarre. At least on my end it was. I figured, that since I was stranded at this point, this would be the best time to explain a little of our history. It's quite a tale to tell, be assured. Nisha and I were best friends since as long as I could remember, we grew up together and we spent all our time together. We weren't sisters biologically, but we might as well have been. A couple of years ago, when our worlds were still relatively simple as nineteen year olds, we'd been entangled in something that, at the time, was beyond our comprehension. A poltergeist had manifested itself. Things like that just didn't happen in Springfield, Missouri. Not usually, not to us. We were both stubborn teenagers, we knew it all, and we didn't believe in anything supernatural. Then, late that winter, the poltergeist came to town. I realise that makes the ordeal sound like a story of bunnies and rainbows, but it wasn't. This thing had been purely evil, and pretty powerful. It killed several people we knew in our town, and changed our world forever before anything even started to get better. That was when we met them.
I remembered that car rolling into town, it was such a frigging spectacle. I'd been pretty stunned by it, no one had cars like that where we lived. They all drove mini vans or something like that. I remember the first time we ever saw them, they strolled up to Nisha's house, which incidentally was where this poltergeist had taken up residence, wearing cheap suits and flashing badges in our faces like we were supposed to be impressed. I don't know, I suppose it was between the cheesy grin Dean gave and the fact he announced them as 'Mulder and Skully' that made me and Nisha suspicious. They informed us that they were federal agents investigating the murders, and that our names had cropped up, then they went on wanting to ask us questions about it. I didn't believe a word. In fact, Dean from the very first moment I'd saw him irritated me more than I could say. Sam had always been a genuine, caring person, his mannerisms oozed with concern for the victims, namely us, and you could see in his eyes that he was genuinely trying to help. What the hell Dean was up to grinning at us salaciously and bragging about his badge was beyond me, but I didn't like it and I just labelled him an asshole.
The Winchesters were in our town for a couple of weeks, the poltergeist had gotten so violent, that we had to stay with them in the motel at the edge of town so they could make sure we weren't killed by this spirit too. In that time we'd had time to get acquainted with them. Or rather, Nisha got impressively close to Sam. I don't know what it was, but they just seemed to click, and understand one another. They'd just sit and talk for hours about anything and everything, agreeing with one another on most things, whilst I sat there being oggled by Dean in a manner that really suggested he was ignoring my clothes and picturing me without them.
Anyway, in that time, they managed to figure out what was going on with this poltergeist, and they did what they do best. They rock salted it, they burnt the bones of it's remains and it went away like it had never been there. They'd been about ready to leave, and this moment remains with me permanently, because if it hadn't happened we'd have never ended up the way we were now. Which was sitting on the side of the road on an expired job. I kid. As I was saying, Nisha and Sam had gotten close. I figured that Sam and Dean's lives were lonely and misunderstood but Nisha just understood Sam and that in itself had made him reluctant to leave. Our lives were screwed, completely altered, like our eyes had been opened wide and we'd never shut them again. They were loading up the Impala outside the motel, and we joined them. Nisha talked to Sam for a good fifteen minutes, and before I knew it we'd been invited along with them. They were going to teach us how to fight, how to hunt, how to take care of ourselves. Dean had been utterly reluctant, he'd always been pretty closed off and defensive back then and I figured he just didn't want us to get in the way, but apparently Sam saw something in Nisha that meant he couldn't just leave her to wither away in Missouri. Naturally, I wasn't letting her go alone, so I went too…in the back of the Impala with my best friend and out onto the open road, with some awful mullet rock drowning out the silence.
That year had been purely insane. We saw things, learned things that you couldn't imagine. Horrible things, frightening things, the stuff of nightmares, but we weren't scared. We'd been trained up, transformed into skilled hunters by two of the best in the business.
Six months into that year came the wedding.
During those six months, other kinds of transformations had happened. We'd changed, but also, Dean changed too. I don't know why, but since Sam and Nisha's proximity had grown so much, I'd had to spend more and more time with Dean and I got to understanding him. I found him irritating still, but I don't know, we had some semblance of a friendship. Spending twenty four hours a day with him had meant we'd been forced to have lovely bonding sessions where we simply talked to the other about ourselves, revealing things about our lives that meant we knew one another. Really knew one another. I learned in those months, that even though he was a cocky pig at times, there was more to him. He was crude, and invaded my personal space on more than one occasion but there was something gallant about him, like he was a real hero, with a sense of loyalty and devotion to his family. I got that, I got how he had no childhood to speak of because he'd grown up hunting. We shared all that, and we grew close.
But not as close as Sam and Nisha.
Sam was a romantic then, and so was Nisha and they both still are. I remember it so vividly even now. We'd been on the road six months, and we were in some backward town in the deep south somewhere. It was early evening, and Nisha and Sam had been out getting supplies. A hell of a lot of salt mostly. They came in to me and Dean who were eating vaguely stale potato chips and watching some god awful slasher movie that he loved.
"We're getting married."
Sam had said it, lingering in the doorway with Nisha beside him, sort of awkward. Dean's face was stuffed full of the chips, kind of like a hamster, so it had been me who spoke first. His eyes bulged, staring at Sam in disbelief as I just smiled. I'd congratulated them and so had Dean, eventually. He didn't realise it then, but he came to realise it, they didn't have to be alone, they weren't putting us in danger. They'd found their counterparts. We could hunt, we could take care of ourselves.
A couple of weeks later and they did just that. They got married. We rode out to a small chapel that was in Oregon. I still don't know why we chose Oregon, but that's where we ended up. It was a small ceremony, but it was professional. Nisha had a thing for flowers so she'd had them put everywhere, some traditional, like roses but also an array of wild, exotic flowers that were all kinds of colours and perfumes. The chapel was small, white, with a few rows of seats and a little arched window at the back that let the light pour in. I stood to the side, watching, managing to dress up just a little for the occasion. Compared to Dean I looked down right glamorous, he wasn't putting on a suit unless he was pretending to be an FBI agent or some such. Then, Nisha appeared. Her dress glittered in the light, as Sam turned from his position at the back by the priest, in a simple black suit. Their eyes met, and if I didn't know better there was some sort of mutual knowing. They shared a look that suggested they didn't care for time, it didn't matter it had been six months, they just knew this would work out. I wished in the back of my mind for that myself. It all seemed to go over so quickly, and they were married. Nisha was the first Mrs Winchester.
You did read correctly earlier. I did end up marrying the pig-headed one. Our circumstances were different, not so romantic for one. Another six months had elapsed and we'd just finished a job, Nisha and Sam were sleeping back at whatever dingy motel we were staying at and Dean and I had gone for a drive. Midnight is when it was. We'd dealt with a vampire, a lone one that had been picking off people in the outskirts of Nevada. It was raining, and the moon was peeking out from behind a rather ominous looking cloud. Dean had a cut on his face that had only just stopped bleeding and he was a little sweaty, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel, glancing at me occasionally as I looked vaguely out of the window. Eventually his odd, uncomfortable looks got on my nerves and I demanded to know what was wrong. He'd shrugged it off as nothing, until about half an hour later when he dropped the bomb.
"Do you wanna' marry me?" he'd asked, suddenly, breaking the awkward silence. He said it in a way that was more of an awkward demand than a question. I 'd stared at him blankly adding a surprised 'what?'.
"What is this, the 'lets be even with Sam' game?" I'd asked eventually, frowning a little. It seemed odd for him to ask. We'd grown very close, sure, but Dean had never struck me as the married type. I guess I'd been wrong.
"I'm serious, right now, we find a ship's captain, a priest, or whoever the hell is legal" He went on, glaring across at me in frustration that I was being difficult. "Dammit Misha, don't make this more difficult than it is already, just answer me."
"What? No big dress or cake? We just go find someone appropriate to patch up the document?" I asked.
"That's basically my plan, yes, no social awkwardness….just quick and painless" he replied with a shrug, and a slight pouting of his lips.
"Gee, thanks" I'd replied, folding my arms and rolling my eyes.
I don't know why, but I'd agreed. Dean had apparently had this planned out for a while, and had researched who would be legal to marry us, and where they lived. Bribery had also been a factor as I recall, and we'd driven to this crazy old priest's house. In his living room we exchanged vows, Dean had 'blah blahed' his way through most of it, and at precisely 1:23am, we were married. We told Nisha and Sam in the morning and that was probably one of the most strange and awkward mornings I had ever endured. Oddly enough, despite the circumstances that marriage lasted. I've been married for a year now.
Our marriages couldn't have been more different. Sam was a tender, romantic soul, who felt completed by Nisha's understanding of him and was an equal as far as romance went. They had a relationship entirely more conventional. Sam would buy flowers, sprinkle rose petals in a bath. Nisha would cook, and they'd be together constantly, exchanging embraces and conversations. They were sort of, perfect? Mine? Well, mine was messed up in many senses and a lot of the time people didn't understand how it worked. Dean and I argued, we were physical more than tender and conversational and he was about as romantic as a mop but there was still something there between us, that was important. He had difficulty accepting feelings like Sam did, but there was a silent respect and protectiveness, a devotion and because of that I put up with Dean's flaws. Occasionally he would try, he'd take me to a burger bar and pay, that was him trying to be romantic. Not romantic in the least, but the fact he tried always made me smile.
As I conclude my recollection of our history, I saw the familiar gleam of that damned Impala. It's shiny black paint rounding the corner, reflecting the heavy greys of the stormy sky above. It was about to rain again. Hopping off the bonnet of my Mustang, I folded my arms as the Impala pulled up to the side of the road, parking. The windows were open and we could hear AC/DC's greatest hits album blaring away at ridiculously loud decibels. As soon as the engine was switched off, the radio went off too and mercifully, AC/DC was silenced. The door to the passenger's seat opened, and Sam climbed out, walking up to us with his hands tucked into his pockets. He made no satisfied remarks, and he didn't grin stupidly, he just smiled like he was relieved to see us. Particularly Nisha. Sam always was the entirely more mature half of the Winchester brother duo. He exchanged an embrace with Nisha, putting his arm around her shoulders and leaning down a substantial way to kiss her and hold her near. I couldn't help but grin at the sizeable difference in their height. After all, Sam was easily six feet four, and Nisha was five foot one.
Finally, Dean emerged from the 'metallicar', his mannerisms the opposite of his brother. He grinned, walking up to us swiftly, putting his hands on my shoulders and looking down at me with pure satisfaction. My eyes narrowed.
"Just fix the Mustang before it starts to rain again" I growled.
Dean just smirked, kissed my forehead and patted me in a thoroughly patronising manner.
"You look adorable when you realise I'm right about everything."
Sam rolled his eyes.
"Just fix the car, Dean."
"On it" Dean replied with a half hearted salute.
I just slumped my shoulders, sighing deeply as he popped the hood of the Mustang, he spent about half an hour or so meddling with this and that under the hood, but he fixed it. One more thing for him to be smug about. I loved that man, really, as odd as our relationship was but he was still an utter pig.
Sam shared one last kiss with Nisha, and I waved lightly to Dean who blew me a sarcastic kiss before we each went into our respective vehicles. There was another job to go to, and we were going to make this a family affair.