Warnings/Disclaimer: Same as in the first chapter
***Longer AN on timeline at the end of the chapter.
Cerberus looked through the racks of clothing, the wire hangers grating on the metal bar that supported them as she shifted items around. Some of the patterns and styles made her cringe back and her fingers danced back from the shirts as a particularly garish shade of orange appeared. She reached farther down the rail and quickly dragged it out of her sight. She was pleased to find a dark grey t-shirt hanging innocently between a purple dress and a shirt with a grinning teddy bear on it. She plucked it off the hanger and added it to her basket along with a pair of dark wash jeans that she had found earlier that fit surprisingly well. Best of all out of all the items in the store they didn't have a particularly high, well feeling about them.
One of the distinct powers of Cerberus besides reading souls was the ability to feel the emotions and sometimes, if they were powerful enough, see the events that had occurred near the object or to its former owner. Cerberus guarded the gates of hell not because it, currently a she, was a big scary dog, but because it had the ability to see and feel normally, to read souls, and also to see and feel the past through objects. Hence the common description of having three heads. In her true form if she was using all three abilities at once it would easily appear to the onlooker that she had three heads because technically three sets of eyes would be staring at them, and sometimes the brain takes strange routes to comprehend and rationalize what it knows is occurring but can't explain. Not that she was complaining, three heads certainly sounded scarier than one.
She had her senses closed down tightly while in the store, usually this ability wasn't a problem but in a store dedicated entirely to selling second hand objects, everything had some memory or emotion attached to it, no matter how faint. Feeling it all at once would be headache inducing at the very least. At least she had some cool powers though, because other than changing into a slightly larger than normal sized dog and being able to kill demons, she wasn't all that powerful. She had millennia of knowledge stored into her brain on how to fight and how to use what abilities she did have, but she couldn't manipulate the area around her like even a low level demon could. The protection spell she put on the family hadn't even been her ability, it was just an old charm that one of her predecessors had found, ancient but powerful.
A young girl ran past her, jostling her slightly in excitement, giggling madly the girl turned and offered a quick apology before dashing off in the direction of a young couple that Cerberus assumed were her parents. She looked down and blushed slightly glad that no one had noticed her just standing there staring down at the t-shirt like it contained the answer to the universe. Spending so much time in hell with very little to do had apparently made her prone to spacing off while thinking. She would have to watch that, doing it around the wrong people could make her look suspicious or as she'd heard Elizabeth say, "Sketchy".
She moved quickly to the front of the store to pay for the few items in her basket, the shirt, jeans, a pair of faded blue tennis shoes, and a small backpack that was just big enough to fit an extra pair of clothing and her cash. She'd quickly tested it out in the changing rooms to make sure it would change with her into dog form. It had luckily enough, and no one had noticed the dog in the changing room either which was a plus.
Cerberus waited patiently in the line and the lady at the register seemed surprised when she pulled out mostly change to pay, but didn't make a comment. She just gave a long suffering sigh and started to count out the change, Cerberus ducked her head slightly as she heard a few aggravated whispers behind her from the other customers. The woman took what seemed like forever to finish before she handed the receipt and bag of clothing to Cerberus with a smile and a slightly forced "have a nice day now!".
Cerberus bolted through the swinging glass doors and onto the now busy street. She stopped two corners away from the store and went into a restaurant, changing quickly she stuffed her outdated clothing into the backpack along with the rest of her money, now closer to $300. She left quietly out a side entrance and walked to the edge of the town. Seeing no one she changed into her dog form and set off at a quick trot that would take her far away from this place, and hopefully closer to the Winchesters. She passed a small cemetery labeled Koerner Cemetery and soon left Peoria Illinois completely and walked about half a mile off the road along the highway heading west.
AN:/ So here's a quick run down of what's happening to Dean and Sam compared to Cerberus's timeline.
September 18, 2008:
Sam/Dean: Episode: Lazarus Rising, 4 months after the deal, Pontiac Illinois, Meet Castiel.
Cerberus: Culture Shock, Cerberus meets Elizabeth and Family, Trip to Vet, Meets Dave.
September 21st 2008:
Sam/Dean: Episode: Are you there God, It's me Dean Winchester, Rising of Witnesses, 1st seal broken.
September 24, 2008:
Cerberus: Leaves family, collects money, finds out about Supernatural Series, Thrift Store, leaves Peoria Illinois.
October-December 2008:
Sam/Dean: Episodes: "In the Beginning", "Metamophosis", "Monster Movie", "Yellow Fever", "It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester", "Wishful Thinking", "I Know What You Did Last Summer", "Heaven and Hell".
Cerberus: Travelling from Illinois west.
Early December 2008:
*Both groups will finally meet in the next chapter in Stratton Nebraska during the events from "Family Remains". Obviously there will be a time skip of a couple months for Cerberus. This is where it will go more off into the direction of an AU than the story already has.