Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Erik Kripke, Warner Brothers and quite possibly others who are not mentioned here. My Bloody Valentine belongs to Lionsgate and no doubt others as well. No money will be made from this fan fiction.
Author's note: This is what you get when you watch every existing episode of Supernatural, topped with a viewing of My Bloody Valentine. I hope it will entertain.
BTW: Supernatural wise, this is probably set in fourth season, between The Monster at the End of this Book and Jump the Shark. And just so you know, this story is more from a My Bloody Valentine POV than the Supernatural one, although both sides are there.
Warning: Massive spoilers for My Bloody Valentine and probably some for Supernatural.
Summary: A year and a half before his father died and he went home to sell the mine, Tom met up with two hunters in a motel. There's no way that reality could stay the same after that.
In and Out of Harmony
By Colleen
Chapter One
Tom looked around at the crappy motel room and with a loud thud, dropped one of his duffle bags on the floor near the door and tossed the second one onto the middle of the bed. Half asleep, he staggered over and sat down on edge of the queen-sized mattress, cradling his face in his hands for a moment, before rubbing at it vigorously. Three different motels, in three different towns, in four days and he still did not know what he was running from. But then, he'd never really been sure what he'd been trying to escape when he'd left home all those years ago. Sure, there had been the utter nuclear meltdown of a mistake he'd made that had continued spreading death and misery in an ever widening circle around him. Combined with his father's overbearing criticism and distain that would have been enough to break most men. It had broken him.
Three days after he'd expected to die on the pickaxe of the monster he'd help create, Tom Hanniger had left his hometown of Harmony, Missouri. He gave up his friends, his family, such as it was, and the girl he loved. A year and a half of running had followed. The problem was, he was trying to escape his own anger and fear with frustration and guilt always along for the ride. They would never go away. Never leave him in peace. Added to that mix of emotion was an odd disconnect, one that often left him feeling like he was a stranger in his own body. It had eventually led him to taking his frustrations out on everyone and everything around him.
After close to a dozen altercations with police and hospital staff, from a number of cities across two states, he'd ended up institutionalized. He'd spent the last seven years of his life going in and out of psych clinics and a variety of state run sanatoriums. This time out, he'd packed his bags and left as soon as he'd been released. He was one state over by noon the next day, but that hadn't been far enough. He was now close to half way across the country from where he'd started, and he suspected he wasn't done with running just yet.
The day's drive had been long and he was tired, but too mentally wired to sleep. Hoping it would help him unwind, Tom snagged the remote off the night table next to the bed and hit the on button, bringing the television to life. He let the noise wash over him for a moment, his brain unable to make sense of the sound until it became all to clear.
"A little over eight and a half years ago, the town of Harmony was rocked by one of the most horrifying murder sprees ever seen on American soil. On February 14th, Valentine's Day, a day that most people equate with chocolate and flowers and a romantic evening with the one they love, the people of Harmony were treated to terror and blood and the deaths of 22 of their loved ones."
Tom looked at the screen, numb horror etched onto his face. He fumbled with the unfamiliar remote for a moment before managing to hit the right button and shut off the sensationalized account of the parts of his life he'd never be able to put behind him. He winced as he realized that the occupants of the room next to his must be watching the same program. The narrator's well-modulated tones were leaking through the shared wall. Thankfully, the sound was blunted enough that the words could no longer be understood. With a groan he dragged one of the pillows out from under the covers and lying down, wrapped it around his head to muffle the sound. He closed his eyes, willing his brain to shut down in the hope that he could block out everything for a few hours and just sleep.
Just before he blacked out, he remembered that he'd forgotten to take his pills.
"Seriously dude, we don't have enough crap in our lives, you have to add to it by watching stuff like this?"
Sam frowned up at his brother, and then pointedly ignored him in favour of the crime documentary on the television. Dean rolled his eyes, before grabbing his keys off the dresser where he'd dumped them when they'd first arrived at the motel. "Fine, I'll go get us some supper, and hope for this thing to be over by the time I get back." He was just reaching for the door handle when the blade of a pickaxe punched its way through the wood at eye level, causing Dean to jerk out of the way. Sammy was up and armed with a sawed off shotgun by the time his brother had taken another step back.
The pickaxe came out of the door with a shower of splinters. Instead of using it to attack the slab of wood again, its wielder expedited matters with the simple application of his foot to the spot just under the lock.
The door burst open and Sam levelled his shotgun at the intruder while Dean pulled out a pearl handled forty-five from where he kept it tucked into the back of his jeans.
Their door crasher looked to be about six feet tall or so and aside from a knitted black face mask and the pickaxe, was dressed in a style similar to the two brothers. The man took a menacing step forward and Sam fired. He was actually surprised that guy turned out to be solid and not a ghost. The rock salt the gun was loaded with staggered the man and ripped small bloody holes into his shirt. He looked down at the mess, surprise and confusion evident even through the mask. The guy stumbled forward one more step and then collapsed, narrowly missing the chance to impale himself on his own weapon.
Dean lowered his gun by a millimetre, looking from the form on the floor and then back to his brother.
"What the Hell?"
Sam shook his head at his brother's question and using his foot, flipped their assailant over onto his back. With Dean covering him, he reached down and pulled off the man's mask.
"Son of a bitch. A shape-shifter. I freaking hate shape-shifters, especially when they decide to go and look like me." Figuring that the gun wouldn't be much use, Dean flicked the safety on and tucked it into the back of his jeans, before moving over to a duffle bag that was sitting on one of the room's chairs.
"Silver knife, silver knife… come on, I know I put one in here."
Sam moved to glance over at his brother, his gaze sliding past the television before his mind reported what it had just seen. His eyes returned to the screen, riveted to the crime show he had just been watching. "Dean?"
"Hah, found it."
"Dean!"
"What?"
Sam just pointed at the television.
"Three days after his near brush with death at the hands and pickaxe of Harry Warden, Tom Hanniger simply disappeared. To this day, no one in Harmony has heard from him."
The picture of the guy shown during that bit of narration was Dean's spitting image. A younger than now Dean of course, since the picture was old, but still… Both men looked down at the doppelganger on the floor and then back at each other, eyebrows raised.
When Tom came to, he was on a bed and handcuffed by his right wrist to the metal frame. This, sadly, was all too familiar. As far as he could recall he had woken in this position at least three times before. Each one of them had occurred after a black out period that had resulted in violence and his quick return to the nearest psychiatric facility the county hospital could send him to.
Guess he hadn't run far enough.
"So, you're Tom."
He sighed and opened his eyes, turning to look at the questioner who sat on his right side. He stared at the man in uncomprehending terror, before his eyes rolled up into his head and he was once again, unconscious.
"Good going Dean."
Dean gave his brother, who was sitting on the other bed, a slight growl. "Shut up."
A few minutes later and the second time Tom came to, he found he was still handcuffed to the bed. There was also a fresh hell added to the situation by a high-pitched screech going off in his left ear.
"Well, the EMF hates him. I'd say he's definitely being haunted. It's probably why the rock salt put him down, it temporarily disrupted whatever was controlling him."
Tom cracked one eye open, relieved to see that the guy that had just spoken was in no way familiar to him. He had longish hair and a worried expression on his face and looked to be a few years younger than Tom. He was probably also taller, although that was a little hard to tell when he was lying down on a bed and the other guy was sitting.
"Where am I?" Ah yes, his standard first question for each time he'd entered a new institution.
Someone on his other side answered him. "You're in our motel room, which is next to your motel room." Tom swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. Given the handcuffs, that response was so much worse than finding out he was back in another mental ward. He turned his head to his right, tracking the voice that had just spoken.
"Don't faint."
He squeezed his eyes shut. This was it, he had completely lost it. His doctor at the last place had been worried that he had dissociative personality disorder given the headaches, memory loss and the one time he'd been stupid enough to tell the man that he sometimes felt he was watching his body do things from outside of it. Still, he never expected to find himself sitting beside himself after having handcuffed himself to a bed in a cheap motel room.
He groaned at that last convoluted thought, surprised that it hadn't given him a headache for its sheer level of crazy.
"Hey… Want to tell us about this?"
Tom opened his eyes and then jerked back, trying to move away from his look-alike as quickly as possible, only to be brought up short by the handcuff. He, the man… himself… whatever he was... He was holding up a pickaxe.
He was sure that, under the hyperventilating, he wasn't all that surprised that he was about to kill himself with that particular miner's tool. Eight and a half years later and he'd never felt he had escaped that fate.
"Dean, you're not helping."
"What? He's the one that almost killed us with this thing."
Tom shook his head. "That isn't mine, there is no way in hell I would own one of those."
"Uh, actually," The longhaired guy said, a slightly apologetic expression on his face. "We checked your room. The receipt for it was in the duffle bag by the door. You bought it from a hardware store two days ago."
"No… That's…" Tom blinked, the brief memory of standing in a store, hefting the pickaxe up by one hand and smiling came to him.
Pain slammed him in the chest.
Gasping, he slapped his free hand to the area, noticing for the first time since he'd woken up that there were blood specked holes in his shirt and some serious corresponding pain. Pain that was already fading down to a dull ache.
"Sorry about that." His double… or whatever he was, said. "The rock salt you got hit with is probably the only thing keeping you, you at the moment. Probably hurts like Hell every time Pickaxe tries to take over though."
Tom looked from one of the men to the other. "What are you talking about?"
"Well," the younger guy said. "We kind of think that… You may have a ghost attached to you."
"Yeah, it's not a total possession, not yet anyway. Give it another year or two though, and you probably wouldn't have been you anymore."
Tom nodded. "Uh, huh. You're nuts, you know that, don't you?"
The two guys just stared at him. The one that looked like him held up a sheet of paper that took Tom all of a couple of seconds to recognize as the release form from the last institute that he'd been a guest of. These guys had gotten into a lot more than just his duffle bag near the door.
Tom rubbed at his forehead in the vain hope that it would help with the headache that was now taking over for the chest pains. "Yeah, guess that makes us three for three in the crazy category."
"Want to tell us what happened to you and … what was his name?" His double shot the question over Tom's head, to his friend.
"Harry Warden."
Tom swallowed. "Why, so you can tell me to suck it up and get over it." He winced. Why did he always come back to his father's not so helpful last words of advice?
"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of, so we could gank this ghost and maybe give you your life back."
Tom laughed. "Nothing's going to get that back for me."
Dean shrugged. "Maybe not, but it's got to be better than what you have right now."
Tom shook his head, but it wasn't a no, it was more of an 'I can't believe I'm going to do this'.
"Okay."
He told them about his family's mine, and about his screw up. About how his carelessness had caused the accident that had trapped those men. He admitted his responsibility in their deaths, because even if Warden hadn't tried to save his own life by murdered them, they would have suffocated long before help could have gotten to them.
Tom was very good at talking about this part of the story. He had told it in therapy often enough. He wasn't so good at the rest of the story. A year after the events at the mine, Harry Warden came out of the coma he was in and slaughtered himself a twisted path through the hospital he woke up in. Somehow, he'd made his way from there to the old number five tunnel, where the original accident had happened. As far as anyone could tell, he'd probably entered that semi-abandoned section of the mine through one of the emergency exits. Any other day it wouldn't have been much of a problem, but that day some of the town's kids were using it to hold a party.
"A party? In that place?"
Tom shrugged at Dean. "Yeah, it wasn't my idea of a good time either, not after what had happened there. I only went because my girlfriend was going and… Well, my head really hadn't been in a good place that past year. I thought maybe if I faced it, walked back into the mine, that I could…." He shook his head. "Anyway, Harry Warden killed almost everyone there. My girlfriend and a couple of other guys I know managed to get away… then it was just me and Harry."
"So what happened?" Sam asked.
"Harry was standing over me and I thought… I thought that that was it. That I was dead for sure. Then the Sheriff showed up." Tom shook his head and huffed out a bark of incredulous laughter. "He actually managed to track Harry from the hospital. He shot Warden before he could follow through with taking a swing at me with a pickaxe. Harry and I were close enough to each other that I ended up with my face covered in his blood. I was lucky that I was on the ground. The bullet that went through him actually sailed over my head and buried itself in one of the tunnel walls."
"Okay, so they shot him and that was that."
"Uh, no."
Dean rolled his eyes up towards the ceiling. "Of course not."
Tom closed his eyes. The memory was always so clear and sharp. Sometimes it felt like he cut himself on it every time he remembered it. "He ended up on his knees and we just looked at each other, face to…well, gas mask. Then he got up and took off. I don't know how many times they shot him, but it didn't seem to matter, he just kept going. It was actually a cave in that stopped him. Even then, they weren't able to find his body after they dug it out. Still, with that many bullets in him, there was no way he could have survived… Right?"
Sam and Dean looked at each other, and then shrugged. "Given the, you're being haunted thing? Yeah, he's probably dead." Sam told him.
Dean tilted his head in a sort of half shrug. "Unless of course he ended up back in a coma somewhere. Wouldn't be the first time that someone went walk about without their body. If that's the case, then getting rid of the 'ghost' will be even harder."
"Great."
Tom looked Dean over. He didn't know what was more out there. The fact that he had a double or that he and the guy's friend kept talking about ghosts. Worse, their belief in spirits seemed genuine and it was starting to infect him as well. "So, who are you anyway? I mean, assuming you're not seven years of crappy therapy, come home to roost in some twisted sort of split personality…"
His look-alike gave a snort of laughter and traded a glance with the other man. "Name's Dean, Dean Winchester. That's my brother, Sam. As to why you could pass as my twin, I don't have a frickin' clue. And believe me, we tested for the most likely possibilities while you were unconscious."
"What possibilities would those be?" Tom asked, wondering if any of those tests would explain why his left arm had a brand new cut on it. One that seemed more likely to have come from a blade than a door splinter.
Dean looked like he was going to answer him, when Sam cut into the discussion. "Why don't we tell you about them later? I think we need to fix your current problem, before we start dumping any new ones on you."
Ghosts and losing his mind weren't bad enough, there was more?
"Besides, if we're going to stop this ghost we need to find Warden's remains, and that means…"
Tom swallowed, finishing Sam's sentence. "That means that we have to go back to Harmony, and back to the mine." Yeah, that was more than enough of a problem. Tom's knee jerk reaction was to say hell no to the idea, but… The truth was, he was damn tired of running.
Dean nodded. "If you ever want to be free, then we have to find what's left of him and salt it and burn it. That's the only way any of this will be over for you."
Tom closed his eyes. "Somehow, I doubt that, even if everything else you've told me turns out to be real." He opened his eyes and looked at the two of them. God, he really was insane. "So you're actually going to drive half way across the country to go ghost hunting, just to help me out?"
Sam gave a little shrug and nodded.
"Why?"
Dean's smile was really more of a smirk, but Tom suspected that it was just the guy's default setting.
"It's what we do."
Tom left his Bronco at the motel.
Besides the fact that the people that stayed there tended to mind their own business, it turned out that the reason that no one had called the cops when Sam unloaded a shotgun at Tom was because the owner of the motel knew the brothers and owed them. Tom didn't know for what, but it was big time, whatever it was.
Anyway, the guy was willing to let Tom leave his car there free of charge. He just hoped the thing would still be in one piece when he got back.