Soul Mate
"I'll show you mine, if you show me yours." Dean whispered with a well-timed flirtatious smile. The girl dared a glance up at him, and blushed as she looked away. She slowly reached for the sleeve of her jacket and pushed it up her arm, turning her wrist over to reveal the countdown on the bottom side.
2298d 14h 23m 46s was what her countdown read. Dean slid back the thick armband covering his, revealing 4453d 07h 12m 03s on his own. The girl frowned and looked back up at Dean.
"I guess we're not Soul Mates." She whispered, sounding severely disappointed, as Dean slid a hand across her cheek. He smiled slightly again and slowly leaned in.
"That doesn't mean that we still can't have some fun."
"Does it bother you, Jim?" Amelia asked quietly from the doorway of Claire's bedroom. Jimmy looked up from the sleeping face of his daughter and frowned, looking confused.
"What bothers me?" he asked quietly, walking towards her. She took his wrist and flipped it over, revealing the countdown.
2031d 23h 56m 38s
"We don't match." She said, looking at her own wrist of 3489d 08h 24m 12s. Jimmy extracted his wrist from her grasp and gently placed both hands on either side of her face, tilting it so her gaze met his.
"I don't know about you but I don't really think these countdowns actually work."
"But so many people we know have met their Soul Mate at the end of their countdown."
"You'd be amazed what lengths people will go to hold together a relationship that's 'fated'." Jimmy justified, but he could see Amelia wasn't entirely convinced. He leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. "You should know that you and Claire are my world, and no countdown will ever replace that."
As the years passed, Dean paid less and less attention to the slowly decreasing numbers on his wrist. Especially after Dad disappeared on his hunting trip, and quite literally all Hell broke loose. But there were some nights, when the hotel bed was too hard, when the day had been too scarring, and when sleep would evade him that he'd turn his wrist over and watch the seconds tick away.
0132d 21h 58m 14s
"Poor bastard." He muttered, turning on his side and tucking the wrist under the pillow. "Getting stuck Soul Mated with me..."
Then a silent voice would remind him that, that 'poor bastard' and Dean would never meet. His deal would come up before the Countdown would end. He wondered what would happen to his supposed Soul Mate when he was gone.
0003d 03h 48m 24s
Had Jimmy Novak not had what he hoped was actually an angel, and not just early signs of insanity, talking to him, the approaching arrival of his Soul Mate probably would have worried him more.
That's not to say that it didn't cross his mind, because wasn't that just perfect timing? As if he didn't have enough to think about.
Being sent to Hell, and being retrieved from it by a mysterious force has a strange way of resetting one's priorities. So Dean's rapidly decreasing Countdown did not even cross his mind as he sat with Bobby in the barn.
0000d 00h 02m 49s
"You sure you did the ritual right?" Dean asked Bobby, twirling his knife on the desk. "Okay, touchy, touchy." He sighed at Bobby's scathing look.
0000d 00h 01m 22s
Suddenly, the roof shook, causing the whole barn to shudder. Both hunters jumped to their feet. "Maybe…it's just the wind." Dean tried.
0000d 00h 00m 37s
A light above their heads burst, followed by the rest of the lights in the room, sending sparks shooting to the floor.
The door creaked open, and entered a man in a trench coat and a blue tie.
0000d 00h 00m 00s
"Who are you?"
"I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition."