Title: Deviation
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: OC, Cas, Jimmy, Claire
Warnings: Technically character death, but I don't think anyone is going to be sobbing uncontrollably lol.
Disclaimer: Don't own. So sad. Too bad.
Summary: This is the Butterfly Effect, and Cas doesn't like where it leads.
A/N: I took a very small comment from "Fried Onions and a Sesame Seed Bun" and decided to play with it, but this is definitely meant to stand on its own. Hope you enjoy this teeny tiny ficlet :)
Twenty-six years previously, in a reality just hugging this one, Doug is a student at Lawson High. He's been there since the sixth grade, after he enrolled in the adjoining middle school, and though over the years his classmates have changed, their attitude towards him has not.
It's Matthew who finally manages it, channeling all the others before him: Jason, Benny, Eric, and on occasion Drew – when he needed the popularity boost. It's Matthew who eventually corners him in the school's pool, a place where Doug had previously felt safe. All it takes is one knock to the head that's just a tad harder than his usual swat. A moment wasted after Doug falls into the water. By the time Matthew gets his shit together Doug's lungs are filled with water and it is far, far too late.
He pulls Doug out anyway, screaming for help until his voice ricochets off the tiled walls. He even tries a messed up version of CPR, pounding his chest and covering his mouth in a way he would have never, ever done before.
Doug knows all this because he watched it happen. Standing next to his body, throwing himself at it and passing through. It takes him exactly thirty-seven minutes to realize he can't go back.
Afterwards, the school holds a memorial service and his little sister, Jenna, leaves him her favorite stuffed rabbit.
His best friend, Laura, gets wasted in the pool's changing room. She screams at the lockers until eventually passing out. Doug can see her dreams, a messed up combination of Spanish class and their trips to the shore.
Matthew, years later, takes a training course from the American Red Cross. He goes on to have a son named Andrew. He visits Andrew's homeroom, telling the other students exactly why they can't pick on one another, even in jest. In the end, he does a lot of good.
Doug doesn't care.
He wanders through the classrooms, feeding off the students' frustration and, occasionally, their fear. All those damaging emotions, they breed so naturally in this environment. He consumes them like food: some for necessity, most for the taste. He finds that he's especially fond of the theater, where the delicate blend of panic and embarrassment that occurs when students are forced on stage is abundant. The laughter that follows is nearly as good. Tart, without being overly so. All of it, all of it makes him stronger. And there is no one there to stop him.
Two states away, there is a Sam and a Dean, but they're currently hunting a shifter instead. The case regarding a poltergeist in an Illinois high school never came their way because Bobby never got the call. His old buddy, Mickey, was going to let him know, before he got caught up in a summoning that blew all the electronics in a ten-mile radius. By the time he gets a new phone he assumes someone's already taken care of the measly poltergeist. No need to worry someone like the Winchesters about it.
Of course, it rarely occurs to humans to question where they are when and why they're there. The web of communication between hunters is delicate, and no one can tell when it's slightly off kilter. Doug is left alone, and nothing seems the worse for it.
Until nine years after his death, on a warm September day, when Claire Novak comes to Lawson High.
Doug doesn't know her. He has nothing against her. There is no cosmic symbol that identifies her as important. But she's walking by the science lab when, inside, a younger girl gets shoved. All she'd done was step on the book bag of a popular boy, earning her face a meeting with the floor. Doug watches it happen, feeling all the glass in the room begin to tighten. Claire has just passed the door when Doug looses it all, letting forth nearly a decade's worth of pent-up psychic energy.
The school calls it a gas leak and subsequent explosion. Hunters, somewhat warily, call it a tidal wave. Mickey calls it a mistake.
Claire's obituary calls it a cause of death.
None of this would be very important, except that in this reality – as in all others – she is the daughter of Jimmy Novak. Standing over the grave of his child, Jimmy looses his faith.
He is not the vessel of Castiel.
Cas, for his part, looks at this reality in confusion. Had Jimmy been incapable of housing him he would have simply found another vessel. There are others out there with the appropriate bloodlines after all, though they are rare. And certainly, his vessels need not be nearly as durable as those of an archangel. He would have stood before Dean in a different visage, but the results should be the same. And yet, here, everything past Claire's death is dark and Cas can see no future for himself.
Shaken, he turns away.
Thank you, Jimmy, he says.
Hm? What for?
You are invaluable.