Usual Disclaimer: I do not own or have any affiliation with anyone or anything connected to Supernatural or its characters and actors. This is FanFic and strictly for recreational use only. I reserve the right to the character Tate though.
A/N: This is my first Supernatural fic and would appreciate any feedback, thanks :)
Summary: Have you ever been so scared that you've felt frozen, like time has stopped?
There's a reason why people talk about a moment out of time and Sam and Dean are about to discover why when they look into sightings of a ghost on a bus.
1. Similarities
'Mom?' Tate waited for a second and then getting no response she did what any self respecting daughter would do, she rattled the newspaper called out a little louder than before, "Mum...MUM!"
"Yes dear?"
She watched her mother glide into the room, really it was the only way to describe how her mum moved, close to silent, sometimes Tate even thought that her mom was so quiet because she wasn't all there to begin with, not in the crazy sense of not all there, just not complete, she was kind of lighter than she should be. It was like having a conversation with someone who was only half listening, like someone watching TV while you lived your life around them. Tate had had a boyfriend once who played RPG's online, it had taken a while before she realised that what annoyed her most about him was that he was too much like her mum, every time they talked some part of his brain was off working out ways to get past the next super-strengthed troll or something similar. They'd broken up very soon after.
"Yes dear?" unlike her daughter her mum never raised her voice.
"Did you see the paper today? Did you see this article? Does it look familiar to you at all?" she rattled the paper so hard that it was doubtful her mother would be able to read the major headline let alone see the small photo at the bottom of the page.
"Yes dear, I saw. You look lovely."
"The problem is mum, that this is not me, it looks a lot like me," exactly like her actually: straight black hair falling just to her shoulders, dark lashes framing pale grey eyes that looked a little sadder than they should be, a straight nose that's just a little too long, a full bottom lip and a stature barely approaching average height from the short end of the scale. "Well a lot like me, but I don't ride the bus and I'm pretty sure I'm never partially see-through..."
"Yes dear."
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"Dude, even I know that you can take one photo, make it see through, put it over the top of another one and, hey presto, ghost on a bus. If you stopped Googling porn for five seconds you'd know about things like Photoshop Sammy," Dean looked over at Sam and then back at the road with a small smile flirting around the corners of his mouth.
"It was research Dean, that site..."
"'Hot Grannies on Bikes' Sammy, does Jo know you're this kinky, because I had no idea..."
"Research. It was research," Sam interrupted Dean before he could get into full swing, he decided to ignore the snort, snigger and eyebrow wiggling his older brother was indulging in, "Anyway the guy who owns the site was sure he had a poltergeist, who knew it would just be rats."
"Rats, ugh I hate those sons of b..." Dean shuddered and then tapped the bundle of papers Sam was holding, "So what's the deal with this one again?"
"This photo was taken from the security camera footage from a bus, but the bus driver swears the bus was empty. The thing is that after they published the story a lot more people came forward and said they'd seen her before, but..."
"There's always a but." Dean shook his head; they were off to Back-of-the-buttsville again chasing ghosts, it not that he didn't appreciate Sam's fervour after losing so many loved one's, and being strangled by more than one ghost or ghoulie, but hey, every now and then it would be good to chase something new, or even not chase something other than the next pretty thing that crossed his path, or even maybe chase something in Florida or even something south of Kansas once in a while.
Noticing Sam was staring at him and realising he'd probably just been asked a question Dean went for the obvious response, "Heh, you said butt." Sam gave him that ol' predictable 'stop being an ass' frown and repeated himself.
"All these people, over 50 of them, have seen her at one time or another over the past 24 years, but most of them disregarded it, the bus route only runs when there's a big game on and it only picks up and drops off students who work at the college union pub after hours." Sam was referring to notes now and Dean considered giving him the obligatory snicker of derision but decided not to.
"So basically we're talking about drunk or so-tired-my-eyes-are-going-to-fall-out-of-my-head college students." Once again his eyebrows rose above the rim of his sunglasses.
"Yes Dean, but hey why does everything to do with college that's not related to cheerleaders require you to use that tone?" Sam looked at dean accusingly.
Dean looked back, clearly his little brother was spoiling for a fight, had been ever since he'd made that crack about Jo having bigger muscles than Sam. Sometimes little brothers and big brothers just never really grew up.
"Mostly Sam it's because I clearly have no clue about what really goes on at a higher learning institution other than what I've seen on TV, it seems I was a little busy chasing things that wanted to kill me before I could kill them, but I thought we'd been over this, is it something that we're supposed to do every couple of months? Bring up the fact that I dragged you away from school and your friends and now you have to hang around with me, your uneducated chump of a brother who's saved your life more times than he has fingers and toes to count with". Is what Dean would have said, but he didn't need to. There'd been plenty enough angst ridden mini-montages of that argument to last a lifetime. Instead he said:
"Cheerleaders Sam, that's all I should need to say. Anyhoo it's about time we visited Indiana again, lets go check out this ghost on a bus... hey, it doesn't need to stay above fifty for her to be seen does it? Because she's a bit of Sandy Bullock hottie." He was rewarded by Sam's quick grin, and answered it with one of his own.
"Did you seriously just say 'anyhoo' back there?" Sam asked a minute later as they sped along the highway.
"Shut your pie hole Sammy."
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