Little author's note before we delve into this:
I couldn't help myself. I had to write this. Jack. Ugh. He. Is. Too precious! I am so emotionally invested in this precious bean, he honestly saves this series for me.
Anyways, even though I've never shared my writing before, I thought I'd give this a try. See if I get some constructive feedback on this or something like that.
This story is going to be quite dark and gritty.
Not exactly a joy ride, but with some fun bits here and there - much like Season 12 and 13 of the TV Series, in which this Fanfiction is going to take place.
I can't promise regular uploads, but I'll try to coax out at least one chapter per month, with each chapter coming in two parts as to not make every upload a tediously long read for you guys.
I'm sure you've heard the homework excuse one too many times already, but you guys, 12th grade is keeping me on a tight leash. So bear with me.
Hopefully this will gain enough of an audience to keep me motivated - even though knowing that even one person cares about this little passion project would really fuel my inspiration!
Also, quick Disclaimer: I'm far too bloody lazy to write up something as huge and complex as Supernatural. I don't claim any rights whatsoever on any of the characters (except for my OCs), places, or the major Plot of this fictional work. Also, I'm using tons of dialogue from the show, warping it here and there to make it fit into my story. Yadda yadda yadda, basically nothing belongs to me and I'm doing this purely for pleasure!
(The song mentioned in this chapter is "Bring It On Home To Me" by Sam Cooke)
And now... Enjoy
oooooooooooooo
"First we feel.
Then we fall."
- James Joyce, Finnegan's Wake
oooooooooooooo
It might have been the color of his trainers that set me off.
Red and shiny, they made a piercingly shrill noise as the small boy was dragged after his mother, digging his heels into the dull linoleum floor of the busy supermarket.
I stared at the whispy woman. She seemed to be trying her best to ignore the turning heads as her son began to wail, her gaze almost stubbornly glued to the wrinkly paper she was holding in one hand, keeping an iron grip on the kid's wrist with the other.
I stared at the boy, at his blushing skin and the head full of brown curls, hands curled into defiant fists.
I stared as I felt my own fingers curling up, nails digging into skin as I struggled to control my breathing. My head began to spin as I tore my eyes away, away from the suddenly all too familiar kid, from his trembling mouth, his howling voice - "Moooom!"
Holding my breath, I pressed the balls of my hands over my eyes to soothe the sting of upcoming tears.
Come on. Come on. Come the fuck on. Keep it together, Abrams.
It's not him.
The aisle before me was packed with people, bustling along, minding their own business, each and every single one of them carrying their own emotional package to deal with.
Even though the hardest choice most of them were facing right now probably consisted of whether or not to serve tonight's steak with pasta, the thought of that sobered me enough to at least calm my racing heartbeat down a nodge.
Breathing heavily through the nose, I made a sharp turn, brushing past the crying boy and his mother.
Sam's number was on speed dial, and I hardly stopped to think up a reason for calling before I pressed the phone to my ear.
I hastily tucked away my free hand in the pocket of my bomber jacket as I noticed a stocky clerk assistant openly staring at it. Trying to tone down the tremor somewhat, I buried my fingers into the worn-out material.
The woman gave me a weird look before continuing to sort in the batch of bean cans from a cart standing next to her hunched figure.
Sam picked up almost immediately. I bit my lip at the concern in his voice as he said my name, focusing on the one patched knee of my saggy jeans.
"Is everything alright?"
Deep breaths, I told myself. Nice and steady.
As always, the soft, reassuring familiarity of a friendly voice almost instantly helped to re-establish that much-needed needed sense of safety.
"Sammy! Um, I'm at La Dow's right now, I was just - I was wondering if you had anything in mind? For lunch, or - "
I mentally forced my muscles to relax, to shake that instinctive reaction to a danger that had been dead for years.
Sam let out a questioning huff, and I could tell that I was keeping him from something important - trying to track down Castiel, most likely. I could see him before me, face scrunched up in mild confusion, one hand raking through that absurdly long hair of his.
"You know what, never mind, I just - " I just needed to hear your voice.
The words hovered at the tip of my tongue, daring to slip out. Pressing my eyelids shut and shaking my head, I rambled on.
"I'll make something up as I go along. Pancakes sound good?"
Sam let out a slight chuckle. "Ah, yep! Sure, sounds... awesome - "
I could still make out a trace of puzzlement lingering in his voice - we usually didn't call if there wasn't anything urgent going on. The life-threatening kind.
"Neat. Okay then, " I uttered, turning to walk back to where I knew I'd find Cherry Pie, Dean's favorite.
"Are you sure you're alright?," Sam inquired, with Dean chiming in from the background, grumbling an inaudible question.
"Yeah, " I reassured him, keeping my tone as light as I could. "I'm all good. Later, Sam."
I disconnected the call before he could press on the subject any further, positive that he'd take me by my word and not go to the trouble of calling back. We had enough on our hands as it was, so he'd probably write my odd behaviour off as nothing major. And it wasn't like I was bleeding out in some alleyway, either. I was perfectly fine.
Or as fine as you would expect someone to be, with no real chance of ever emotionally dealing with all the shit we went through on an almost daily basis.
Every single one of us was damaged in some way, and compared to Sam and Dean, I was a blank slate. They had been through stuff that I thankfully had a very hard time even trying to imagine. I should be thankful that trembling fingers and a headache every now and then were all I had to live with.
I was so desperate to leave the store that I almost forgot about the change, scrambling for the coins as I somehow managed to simultaneously press the big brown paper bags to my chest and rummage through the pocket of my jeans. My fingers grabbed the cold metal of the keys to my jeep as I rushed through the automatic doors.
The pavement was still wet from the previous night's downpour of rain. I slithered across the street, almost running, ignoring the muddy water that seeped through the thin material of my converses. All I could think about was getting as far away from that boy and his teary, bulging eyes as humanly possible.
Once I reached the jeep and climbed in, pulling the door shut and awkwardly dumping the groceries on the passenger's seat, my chest expanded in a huge, trembling exhale.
My hands were shaking so hard that I had to lean my forehead against the worn leather of the steering wheel, pressing my eyes shut in a desperate attempt to keep the memories from flooding my brain and turning me into a helpless pulp of human failure.
Only now did I register the cool sheen of sweat covering my face and neck.
If Sam or Dean could see me like this... - well, I already knew how they would react.
Sam, in his well-meaning but at times overbearingly caring mindset probably wouldn't stop pestering me about it for the next ten years of my life.
Dean would be even worse. Especially since he was the one that had been treating me like a raw egg, ever since the incident. I swear, the guy was the definition of a helicopter mom. He'd freak out; hazel eyes, widened with worry and panic, unbelieving as I try to reassure him that I'm alright.
I just couldn't bring myself to add to the burden that already weighed down on their shoulders.
Slowly, I straightened my back, keeping my burning eyes trained on the fingers resting on my lap. They had returned to their regular, barely noticeably twitchy state.
I am so messed up.
I huffed out a sigh, roughly fastening my seatbelt and reaching for the car radio. Connecting my phone to the speakers, I turned the volume up in a feeble attempt to drown out my thoughts. Humming along to the familiar tune, I pulled out of the parking lot.
"If you ever
Change your mind
About leavin', leavin' me behind,
Baby, bring it to me,
Bring your sweet lovin'
Bring it on home to me, yeah..."
With the road stretching ahead of me, it almost felt like old times again. Just Rufus, the car and I, nothing but the highway beneath us and and the skies above. Heaven hadn't exactly been a pressing issue back then; not for the two of us, anyways.
Looking at the brooding, grey mass of clouds that was currently blocking the sun, you could almost get the idea that even the asshats upstairs were holding their breath in anticipation for what was to come. A dark chuckle left my throat at the thought.
Not that I welcomed the idea of the literal spawn of Satan walking the earth anytime soon, but until the boys and I got any closer to actually preventing that from happening, imagining the massive pain in the ass he probably was to those arrogant, winged bastards helped me sleep at night.
At least in that department the little brat wasn't an absolute trainwreck waiting to happen.
With the low rumbling engine of my old jeep wrangler beneath me, Sam Cooke booming out of the speakers and my anxiety slowly retracting its claws from the lymbic system of my brain, I almost allowed myself to mentally breathe through. Almost.
The British Men of Letters had been fought back, for now, Ketch was dead and Mary safe and sound. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but feel frustrated at the fact that these days, a victory like this left me feeling hardly anything but the shallow aftertaste of a mixture of joyous relief and utter wariness.
For years now, we'd been stumbling from one Apocalypse into another biblical catastrophe, with barely enough time in between to even fully grasp the amount of fucked up all of this build up to.
Worst of all, I couldn't shake that little, nagging part of my brain that seemed to grow with every new tragedy plastering the path I had chosen to walk down;
Telling me that I could've had a quiet, peaceful life, Hanukkahs with the family, sharing a workplace with my brother and father. The Family Business. Bickering on about how I had made the wrong decision when the chance was there.
I wouldn't catch myself dead talking like this infront of the guys, Dean especially. Thinking back, I couldn't recall a time in which he hadn't been on edge, constantly ready for the next horror to jump out at him with wedged talons, aiming to rip out his throat. He knew we couldn't afford the luxury of complaining; it had to be done. Had to be.
And it wasn't like I didn't know what I was getting myself into, living the hunting life. The lonely life.
It was only my bad luck that no ghost, no werewolf, no Rufus Turner could have ever prepared me for the literal hellride that I was signing up to upon joining the unstoppable whirlwind that was the Winchester brothers.
oooooooooooooo
Half an hour later, I pulled up on the side of the road, parking my jeep behind a patch of bushes to at least conceal the vehicle to some extent.
Securing the grocery bags in my arms, I jumped out of the car, locking the door behind me. I threw wary glances left and right, keeping a steady pace as I marched towards the bunker, muddy gravel grinding underneath my shoes.
I still had my doubts about this place; this underground lair build by the Men of Letters being the 'safest place on earth' simply sounded a little too pretentious to be true. But the reinforced steel door still looked just as perfectly intact as I left it, and all scepticism aside, I had grown to call the Bunker, or, as Dean and I liked to refer to it, the Batcave, a home just as much as Sam and Dean did.
I hurried down the short flight of stone steps, freeing one hand from my grip around the bags to pull out the key that had been dangling from my neck, safely tucked under the collar of my blouse.
Leaning against the door of the Bunker, I took a moment to trace the Aquarian Star etched into the delicate handle of the key. I'd seen the Symbol of the Men of Letters countless times, during my father's Sunday Lessons, long before even meeting any of the Winchesters.
A smile pulled at the corners of my mouth as I imagined the faces my brothers would be making if they knew about the super-secret, heavily warded facility the shame of the Abrams Family was living in these days. Talk about stepping your game up.
"I'm back!, " I called out, striding onto the wide balcony overlooking the Bunker's main room. Mary Winchester, Sam and Dean's mother, looked up from Sam's laptop as the door fell shut behind me with a thudding noise, managing a crooked smile before she continued to type away.
I immediately sensed that something was off. Sam stood next to his mother, arms crossed, shoulders hunched forward, an eerily blank look on his face.
Frowning, I hurried down the stairs, taking two steps at a time. Dean interrupted his pacing to take the grocery bags out of my arms, throwing me a grim 'thank you' before disappearing into our kitchen.
"Guys? What happened, what's going on?" Mimicking Sam's crossed arms, I took a seat next to Mary, letting my eyes wander over the papers strewn all over the dark wood of the table.
Sam cleared his throat, not meeting my eye. "Just trying to find Cass as quickly as possible, before Lucifer does, " he stated flatly. "With Crowley gone, it doesn't look like we'll get him back into the cage any time soon."
It still felt weird to refer to Crowley as gone or dead. Don't get me wrong, I would've gladly killed him myself for his outrageous stupidity, but it was rather odd not to have the demon around anymore. Especially now that we could use his help, as much as it irked me. Nevertheless, he got what he deserved for popping Lucifer out of his box again.
I shrugged my shoulders, reaching for the notes and beginning to organize them. "So try Rowena, then. We don't need Crowley for every - "
Mary cut me off. "Rowena's dead."
Forgetting about the papers, I leant forward, elbows placed on the table.
"How - "
"Lucifer, "Dean scoffed from behind me, limping towards us and pulling out a chair to sit down, forearms propped up on the backrest.
Sam nodded to his phone lying on the table, clearing the chair to Mary's left from a stack of books and falling into it with a heavy sigh. "He picked up Rowena's phone, you just missed him." He grimaced. "Sends his love."
He remained stone-faced as I pressed my lips into a thin line, momentarily closing my eyes. "Goddammit," I growled, rubbing my face with one hand before reaching for Sams large one with the other.
I squeezed his warm fingers, searching his face for any sign of - well, his whole body posture signified his obvious distress, and he did look a bit pale around the nose.
"Are you okay?, " I murmured, knowing fully well what kind of an effect Lucifer had on the youngest Winchester. They had history.
"Noone in here is going to be okay as long as this asshat is strolling around, " Dean retorted sharply, green eyes blazing. I knew that his anger wasn't directed at me, but I still let my gaze drop to my shoes, shifting uncomfortably in my seat.
Dean continued, his stony expression unwavering. "And you know what, Sam is right. Heck, Lucifer's right. We're screwed. We can't kill him and we can't slam his ass back in the cage."
I opened my mouth to tell him not to give up so fast, that we'd find a way, we always did, but Sam was faster. Leaning back and balancing his chair on one leg, he quipped in:
"Yeah. So maybe we play for time."
Dean let out a grunt. He got up again, continuing to pace around the room aimlessly.
Mary and I exchanged a look. "What do you suggest?"
"Find Cass and Kelly, " Sam continued, slipping his hand out under mine to grab his laptop, opening it and typing in the password.
"And keep them moving, " I went on, mind already racing to come up with a plan.
Sam nodded, meeting Dean's sceptical glance across the room. "If Lucifer can't find them, he can't hurt them, " he emphasized, his fingers flying over the keyboard.
Mary arched a questioning eyebrow at him. "You think Castiel is gonna go along with that?"
Dean shook his head, a bitter smirk playing around his mouth as he sat on the table. "You think we'll give him a choice?"
"What about the...baby?, " I asked, brushing a stray strand of hair behind my ear. "When it comes down to it, we'll be the ones that have no other choice but to play along with whatever it is Cass thinks he's doing, so..."
Sam nodded in affirmation, frowning at me.
"Hopefully, we can still siphon off its grace, " he said. "If not, uh... "
He sighed, cocking his head to one side, brows drawn together in quiet defeat.
"That's where we improvise, " I finished for him. A long pause followed, only the clatter of Sam's typing breaking the silence.
"Huh."
I let out a small huff of joyless laughter. "And I, uh... thought we'd have some burritos for lunch. My appetite just flew out of the win - "
"Calling dibs on your burritos, then, " Dean immediately blurted in, the first real smile in what felt like ages splitting his face.
Rolling my eyes at him, I pushed myself out of the chair, elbowing him in the side as I passed him on my way to the kitchen.
"Alright, then..." Mary, too, got out of her chair, joining me.
Twenty minutes later, the steaming, chicken- and tofu-filled burritos joined the bowls filled with sliced onions, peppers and avocados already waiting on the kitchen island. I smiled thankfully at Mary, wiping my hands with a kitchen towel.
As if he had somehow sensed that lunch was ready, Dean entered the room, closely followed by Sam, who reflexively ducked his head to avoid bumping into the doorframe.
"Smells awesome." Grabbing her by the waist, Dean planted a quick kiss on his mother's cheek before ruffling my hair. "Thanks, kiddo."
Whipping the towel at him, I huffed in annoyance.
"For the gazillionth time, Dean, I'm not a kid anymore."
"Yeah, you tell yourself that, " Dean snickered, adding a ton of shredded cheese on his tortilla roll and practically using up all of the salsa sauce before sitting down at the kitchen table with a satisfied groan.
Sam threw him a dirty look.
"What?, " Dean slurred around a mouthful of burrito, flecks of meat spraying the table.
"Nothing. Jerk."
As if to make a point of setting himself apart from the rather uncultured eating habits of his older brother, Sam wrapped up his burrito in a napkin before setting his plate on the table and taking a seat.
"Bitch," Dean quipped back at him and I couldn't help but grin at their bickering. It felt strangely relieving, almost like old times. Cracking jokes, playfully teasing the boys.
This illusion of safety, the world as it only existed inside our own little bubble, could only hold so long; but I'd be damned if I didn't milk it for all it had.
"So, " Mary threw into the round, both of us leaning against the kitchen island and watching the boys eat, "How do we find them? Cass and Kelly?"
Sam looked at me questioningly, salsa sauce dripping from his burrito. "Do you want to, or...? -"
I nodded at him, hopping onto the metallic surface of the island.
"Alright, so Sam and I have been reading up on Nephilim a little - "
I left out the fact that we'd only left the library in the early morning hours and that my neck still felt like it was filled with gravel.
"And we know that Kelly is going into labour soon - "
"Like, really soon, " Sam added seriously, setting his burrito aside and wiping his mouth.
"Really soon, yeah. Well, according to the lore, whenever a Nephilim is born there are signs. And no, I don't mean something we'd need a prophet to figure it out for, " I added, reading Deans frown correctly.
"We're talking, uh, storms, outbreaks of disease, plague of locusts - "
"So things get biblical, " Mary murmured.
"Yes, exactly." Moving towards the sink, I filled up the tea kettle and switched it on, turning to face my small audience.
"If that much power gets released into the world, whenever and wherever it happens - things are bound to get extremely weird."
Dean swallowed loudly, a disgruntled look on his face.
"Weird, huh?, " he grunted, exchanging looks with Sam. "Story of our lives."
"We should get to work, then, " Mary suggested with a sigh. "Get them found as quickly as possible."
Sam and I ended up doing the dishes, with Dean and Mary starting the research.
Tip-toeing to reach the top shelf of a cabinet, I struggled with stack of plates before Sam let out a chuckle, placing his hands around my middle without a warning and scooping me up effortlessly. I let out a surprised yelp. "Sam!"
I hissed at him, embarrassed at the volume of my screech, but he only wiggled his eyebrows, grinning, waiting for me to put down the plates before he let me down, much gentler this time.
"Dude, I swear, one of these days..."
Despite the adrenaline that was just now wearing off, a small giggle escaped my mouth. They'd never stop messing with me.
The grin on my face wore off quickly as Sam's hand lingered at the small of my back, his face growing serious.
"Lou? You know you can talk to us about absolutely anything, right?"
This is about the call, I thought, panic rising in my chest.
He was so freakishly tall that I had to tilt my head back whenever we stood as close as we did now. Lifting my chin, I gave him a pleading look, silently telling him to knock it off, but Sam shook his head at me.
"You're right, you know? You're not a kid anymore, " he went on, his eyes softening a little as I shook off his hand and busied myself to pouring the freshly boiled water from the kettle into my Donnie-Darko-cup, metal rattling against ceramic as I stirred the tea with shaking fingers.
Sam didn't let it go.
"You're twenty-five. You're perfectly able of taking care of yourself, and Dean and I know that. Just - don't shut us out like that? Don't shut me out, " he added, and as he reached into the sink to pull the plug and gave me a last awkward pat on the shoulder, I was close to just grabbing him by his stupid flannel shirt and yanking him into a hug.
I let him wander off, staring after him until he disappeared around the corner.
Shakily breathing out, I wrapped my fingers around the hot mug of tea, shaking my head repeatedly to keep the bleak thoughts out of my brain.
Sam was right - he almost always was when it came to my emotions -, I needed to talk to someone about what had happened, but now was simply not the time.
Once all of this was over, when I wasn't needed with a clear head, yes, but not right now. Right now, what they needed was my encyclopedic knowledge of lore and ability to think. Fast.
Grabbing my cup, with the ends of my sleeves pulled over my fingers, I shuffled out of the kitchen and back into the library, with its wonderful smell of old books and just - well, home.
"... not our kind of weird, " Sam was saying as I entered the room.
He sighed in exasperation, scratching his neck as he stared at something on a tablet.
Pulling out my phone, I sat down next to Mary, pulling up Google. Dean limped over and sank into the chair next to me, gritting his teeth at the pain in his injured leg.
I gave him a pointed look, taking in the cuts on his cheek and sweat stains under the arms of his shirt.
"You should get a shower, Dean, " I commented, already knowing what his answer would be.
Dean rolled his eyes at me, snatching the phone from my fingers - "Don't look at me like that, mine's dead! " - before he told me to get some sleep.
"I know you haven't been sleeping. I saw you leave at half past six, " he deadpanned as I opened my mouth to protest.
"That's because you haven't been sleeping either!, " I snapped back at him, but before Dean could answer, Sam threw us a sharp glance to shut us up.
"Look -, " he began, setting the tablet down, "Whatever this... thing is gonna be, it's - it's gonna big, and bad, and - "
"You rang?"
My head whipped around. I'd recognize that low, gravely, despicably familiar voice anywhere.
There, lounging in a chair at the head of the table, legs casually crossed, sat the King of Crossroads.
Crowley's lips pulled into a wolfish smirk as he took in our frozen faces.
"Hello, boys."
oooooooooooooo
Feedback would be much appreciated! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, dear potential readers.
Rosemary's Baby [Pt. II] will be up in a few days (weeks?) and will finally feature the one character we're all impatiently waiting for, but in the meantime, let me know how you're liking the story so far.
Any thoughts on our lovely Protagonist? Should I keep uncovering her backstory at the current slow pace or are you a fan of long, exposition-heavy inner monologues (I know I'm not, but I'm willing to cooperate)?
Thanks for reading, guys.
Cheers,
Dods
