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Dynasty of Larsa (approximately 2400 BCE), Mesopotamia
For longer than Má-leppu could remember—which was a very long time filled with many names and homes—she had Seen the future with divine accuracy.
Usually, she Saw a few months into the future at most but, occasionally, she caught glimpses of strange chariots moving faster than Apollo himself, towers made of glass and landscapes shrouded in thick black smoke.
More often, she witnessed portents of oncoming war and devastating local disasters like this one.
Más-leppu raised her arms to the sky and cried out to curse the rain that fell in torrents. Her hair dripped water onto her forehead and the soft silk of her robe clung to her ample curves, the pale sodden fabric revealing her dark skin underneath.
She watched from her mountainside home, stricken, as her city flooded and buildings fell into the choppy water that just kept rising. She had Seen this month's ago but, as usual, she was ignored and branded mad.
With nothing else she could have done, she had moved herself and her belongings to the small cave on the highest peak in Mesopotamia.
The storm raged on and she wept for those who would not—could not—believe her warnings to escape.
Mycenaean Civilization (approximately 1100 BCE), Troy.
The beginning of this year presented her with visions of a beautiful woman, and an equally beautiful man, meeting in secret in the darkened corners of a great palace. Hushed declarations of adoration lead to fevered love making, followed by desperate plans to leave the city together.
The discovery of their betrayal sent another, older, weathered, man into a rage, screaming orders at his sizable army to follow them. Medea watched another vision in her mind's third eye as two warriors argued passionately then embraced before a tearful goodbye kiss.
Both would later fall at the gates of her own large city as the following war was full of bloodshed and trickery. She sent messages to her young government but she knew from experience that, as she would never be believed, many people would perish, or worse.
Again, she watched from a safe distance as war raged through her city, and, again, she mourned the loss of life and the futility of trying to save them. She shook her head sadly, her dark tightly curled hair fell across her face to hide it as she, again, wept.
Consulship of Vinicius and Longinus. (Approximately 30 AD), Jerusalem.
This was a scene that Mayim had been Seeing regularly for years. It had gotten sharper and louder as it grew nearer. As usual, she tried to warn the man but he wasn't swayed from his mission of martyrdom and she watched sadly as he died at the hands of the Romans.
Early Edwardian Period (Approximately 1910 AD) London, England
Huge chimneys had dominated the sky for decades so now the glimpses of thick black smoke in her past made sense. The world moved much faster now and technology was advancing even faster. For the last year, Missy had been plagued with ghastly nightmares of muddy trenches, fields of red and hundreds of young men with thousand yard stares so, again, she packed her meagre belongings and traveled west across the Atlantic on a large cargo ship bound for New York.
She pushed down the feelings of unease as she watched another ship being waved off by cheering crowds and settled herself in for a long journey.
Turn of the Millennium (2000 AD) Kansas, United States of America
Missouri was only one of many who immigrated to the United States during a time of booming economy but happened to have several thousand years of experience at her disposal and a knack for predicting the Next Big Thing.
Staring out of her office window, Missouri remembered her earlier visions of tall shining structures and reflected on her long life. As she spent the 20th century cleverly buying and selling on Wall Street, she found herself very comfortable and in the position to help in ways she couldn't before. As an example, the money she had made in the 1970's investing in the small handheld devices she'd Seen everyone using soon, had paid for many clinics and outreach centres across the world.
When life was slower and communication relied on word of mouth it was easy for people to disbelieve her premonitions to the point of tragedy but now that she could contribute to society in different ways and use her Gift carefully, she found that she didn't really need anyone to believe her.
She knew she was right and as she'd practiced prodding at a small domino to get a larger one to fall, she found she could often influence things to mitigate catastrophic events. It was hard work and she often felt as though she was playing four dimensional chess with a toddler but she was absolutely certain her influences had saved many lives that she would never have known were in danger in the first place.
The biggest example occurred in the early seventies. She'd been in a meeting with two young men—a quiet engineer and his charming business partner—when she'd had a strong vision.
A boxy van driving into a parking structure beneath a tall building that she recognised as having been completed recently in New York. Moments later an explosion rocked the foundations and hundreds of panicked people in business attire streamed from the fire exits.
When she recovered from the Sight, the two men were watching her carefully, and one of them slid a fresh glass of water towards her.
"Ms. Mosley? Are you feeling alright?" he asked.
"Yes, thank you. My apologies, low blood pressure. Where were we?" She assured them with a smile, sipping at the water as he restarted his loan proposal.
Missouri was happy to agree to a sizable investment in the young men's tech company as she had already Seen the taller of the two striding confidently across a stage presenting a sleek glass device to an impressed audience. He had less hair and more wrinkles in her vision but there was no denying those were the same dark eyes.
It took her a few months to figure out vision of the van but when she did, she made a single phone call to Ford motors and offered to release the patent for a new chassis she had invested heavily in that year, in exchange for them including it in their new E-Series vans. They readily agreed and their new vans released in the late nineties were the strongest vans in American automotive history.
In 1993, Missouri had sighed in relief as she watched grainy cctv footage of a van failing to blow up more than a few square metres of underground parking lot. The new chassis had done its job and, as expected, her Vision had come to be.
A strong feeling in her gut—that she ignored at her peril—pulled her out of her deep musings and led her outside. She let the throngs of tourists and business people filling the street guide her but then the gut feeling seemed to communicate directly with her feet and she stopped in her tracks. The woman behind her narrowly avoided walking into her, veering off at the last moment with an impatient huff.
Missouri's eyes clouded over and she shook, her mind overloaded with a very intense vision of a young man crying out in the dark.
His voice echoed but died out before it reached the light, leaving him helpless with no hope of being heard above the traffic, where he stood knee deep in dirty water.
The vision blurred, fast forwarding like a video tape and the water rose, reaching the man's waist, chest, then neck. His skin was very pale, his lips blue and his eyes drooped closed as he still tried to call for help. He could only manage quiet mewls and weak movements as he grew tired of treading water in the narrow space.
Just as his head dipped below the water never to rise again, the vision sped upwards and away from the bubbles of his last breath, past a leaking pipe, between broken floorboards, through an empty construction site and swung dizzyingly through the city streets.
Floating above her own body, she mapped out the route taken in her vision and recognized it as being nearby. As she looked down at herself in the present, she saw a different young man approach her in the street and take her by the elbow. The touch brought her back to her body in an instant and she gasped as if she hadn't breathed in minutes. Maybe she hadn't.
The stranger still held her upright and was speaking to her in a deep, calm, voice.
"...alright?"
"Pardon?" Missouri shook her head, dazed by the oddly vivid images.
"I said, are you alright? Do you need to sit down? I have water." The man answered and gestured to a bundle of sleeping bags and an old cooler that lay in an alcove.
"No, thank you, I'm fine. I will be fine, anyway, but listen, please, this is important!" She knew it was futile but something compelled her to try. The fit, young man would certainly be quicker, but when he didn't believe her, she could try saving the young man herself or at least make sure he was found and put to rest.
"Construction site on Main. A shaft near the east corner. At the bottom you'll find a young man…Dean…in desperate need of help. You're stronger than I, quickly, please."
The man studied her face with bright blue eyes then nodded. He helped her to lean against a wall then took off running in the direction of Main. Surprised and grateful, she stayed there to catch her breath and keep an eye on the man's belongings. It was the least she could do for the first person in her long history to believe her.
"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!" Dean kicked at the water at his feet and tried again to feel around the walls of the narrow space. They were just as frustratingly smooth as before, providing no hand or foot holds so he yelled until he was hoarse and the water had risen to his thighs.
He thought about his brother waiting for him outside his highschool then eventually making his own way home to an empty apartment and finding his last family member gone without trace or explanation. He swore at the rotten boards that had covered the hole, breaking easily when he stepped on them and sending him down a vertical pipe. He'd tried to snag a hose on the way down but just dislodged it enough to leak a steady stream of foul smelling water around him.
Maybe the construction funding had run out because the site had been closed for weeks. Even the security they'd hired at first had packed up and left so Dean thought he could have a look around for some copper or something else he could sell.
The way his life had gone so far it wasn't surprising he was going to die a disappointment, drowning in shit.
He'd just slipped from where he'd tried to wedge himself against the walls of the pipe to stay above the water when he heard it. A deep voice echoing incoherently around the smooth walls.
"Hello?"
"Help!" Dean rasped, tired and gruff, he gathered his remaining energy to shout. "Down here! It's flooding!"
When only silence followed, Dean desperately squinted up into the small jagged patch of sunlight then hiccuped a relieved breath when a dark shape briefly blocked it out. An interminable time later, a thick rope, knotted at intervals, dropped down, smacking him hard in the shoulder and he tried to grab on but he couldn't feel his fingers and the muscles in his legs ached.
"Can you climb?" the voice asked then added "Nevermind, I'm coming down."
Dean watched a ragged pair of sneakers grip each knot as he lowered himself down. The man hung from the rope by his thighs, then wrapped a slimmer rope around Dean's torso like a harness and tied it securely to the end of the thicker rope.
His saviour then sped back up like he had wings and disappeared over the top of the hole. The sounds of metal being moved and wheels squeaking echoed down the hole then the thick rope pulled taut. Dean held on as best he could as he rose up, knee-walking up the side to keep steady.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the bright daylight then tumbled over onto solid ground. The rope went slack and coiled around him, sliding noisily through the makeshift pulley his rescuer had apparently rigged above the hole.
As Dean lay on his back, gasping and racked with shivers, the sun was blocked by the silhouette of messy hair and broad shoulders.
"Did you inhale or ingest any water?" The dark shape asked as it shifted around, pulling off a thin hoodie to wrap around Dean.
"No." Dean croaked, tired beyond measure. "Than—"
Dean awoke in a hospital bed covered in the thin silver sheets he recognised as the disposable ones used after disasters and tried to move his arms but they felt like lead.
A gentle snore drew his attention to an armchair in the corner where a man sat low in the seat with his feet propped up on an old cooler. His arms were wrapped around a tatty duffle—marked USAF in faded black ink—and his chin was resting on it, half his face buried in the dirty canvas. Dean cleared his throat and the man's head shot up, one hand raised defensively, and the other gripping his bag tightly, with wide blue eyes before he took in his surroundings and relaxed minutely.
"Hello, Dean." The man intoned in a deep voice.
"How do you know my name?" Dean asked warily as he never carried his real ID when he was doing something not quite legal.
"Missouri told me."
"...and who is Missouri?" Dean asked, utterly perplexed.
The man tilted his head and squinted at Dean for a long moment before rising gracefully to his feet and approaching the bed carefully.
"The woman who told me where to find you. I assumed you knew her."
Dean thought for a minute then shook his head.
"Nope, don't think so. Thanks, man. Thought I was a goner. What's your name?"
"My name is Castiel."
"Figures."
"What?" Castiel asked him gently.
"An angel pulled my sorry ass out of a pit." Dean murmured.
"You certainly don't have a sorry ass, Dean."
Dean felt his face get hot as he stared at the man now perched on the edge of his bed. Despite the ragged clothes and unkempt beard, he was definitely good looking, obviously kind and he'd never met someone who looked at him like that.
Dean cleared his throat and Castiel rushed to pour him a cup of water from a jug at his bedside. Instead of just handing it over, he brought the cup to Dean's lips and had him sip from it, maintaining eye contact throughout.
Before Dean could quietly relish the intimate moment, a nurse bustled in, beelining to the chart at the foot of the bed.
"You're awake! Good." They ticked a few marks, checked their watch and made a note then tucked it away again. "I'm Hann, and I'll be your nurse this evening. How are you feeling?"
They asked a lot of questions as they circled the bed to pull back the silver blankets noisily and Dean was distracted long enough that he didn't notice Castiel slip away.
After being given a surprisingly small bill and the all clear, Dean made his way home. His leather jacket had been ruined and discarded by the clinic so he wore the threadbare hoodie that Castiel had wrapped around him and his still damp jeans. As he squelched home in soggy boots, he hoped Sammy had found a ride home and hadn't used all the damn hot water again.
Missouri was getting headaches now. The visions were coming fast and furious, more so than ever before and it was frustrating. After sending Castiel off to rescue Dean, she had waited for a while until she'd Seen them both at the Moseley Clinic then she'd gathered up the blankets, cooler and duffle to drop them off.
The administrator, Ms. Allen, had greeted her warmly and directed her to their newest addition. A six bed ward for emergency inpatients that Missouri had paid for personally. Of course, no one knew that part but she was 'on the board', well liked, and the rest of the clinic was one of many funded by her company so she was allowed a certain level of interference.
She'd written a short note with her contact details and left the belongings with Ms Allen, who had assured her she would pass them on and Missouri suggested to her that Dean may qualify for several poverty grants to be applied to his, already meagre, bill and that, perhaps if she gave the other young man a chance, he may prove an excellent addition to her staff.
Now, months later, Missouri was still receiving visions of Dean working all hours of the day and Castiel still sleeping rough.
As her interventions usually involved big companies, lengthy research expeditions and complicated city planning, it wasn't difficult to nudge things around. Like that butterfly flapping its wings in the rainforest causing a hurricane. Unfortunately, with most smaller targets, no matter what she did, the dominoes always refused to fall in the right direction.
These particular men turned up in her visions so damn often it was ridiculous. It was obvious they were meant to be around each other in some capacity but she wasn't certain why…yet. It certainly didn't help that Castiel hadn't made use of her contact information as she had hoped she could have helped him in some meaningful way. She pinched the bridge of her nose as another vision hit her.
Without a cloud in the sky, it must have been early summer, and she Saw them both in a local park. A few families were feeding ducks or riding bikes, couples sharing a soft moment in the sunshine and some teenagers skateboarding too close to the water.
Castiel was collecting trash for no obvious reason than to make the area nicer and Dean, working his third or fourth job as a handyman, had been using his gas powered trimmer when it spluttered and died. He'd cursed the machine, then the sky, then himself for good measure. He had been fifty paces away from tending to the grass Castiel was picking through when he was diverted by his equipment and Missouri had watched it play out, frustrated by the near miss.
Later that day, she had Seen Castiel sitting at the bus station, safely out of the fall rain, watching the passengers go about their day, when Dean had walked past him.
It seemed to be around the time that he would catch a bus to meet his younger brother and he rifled in his pockets as he walked. Once he'd presumably found some change, he doubled back to drop it in Castiel's cup then froze when he recognised him. They had stared at each other for a long time, both surprised by the sudden encounter but then Dean had raised his head, shot Castiel an apologetic expression and took off towards a bus.
Castiel had stumbled to his feet and made to follow him when a man in a hurry plowed into him with some force, knocking them both to the ground. By the time Castiel had untangled himself, the bus was gone, taking Dean with it.
Unfortunately, despite this encounter, Castiel had given his covetable spot to a young blonde woman with a teenage daughter so he'd since moved from there to a place as yet unSeen by Missouri.
Ordinarily, Missouri was strictly a patron of libraries but today she was drawn to the large chain bookstore across town. She was an avid reader and she devoured non-fiction, learning all the things she hadn't previously had access to in an official capacity. She'd read all the classics, often as they were released, but her guilty pleasure were trashy romance novels as she found these—as well as telenovellas—a good way to distract her from her visions when they were too visceral. For the same reason, she generally avoided horror and tragedy.
Arriving at the multilevel soulless book-slash-coffee-gift store she followed the streamers and balloons that marked some kind of event and found herself face to massive face with a vaguely familiar man.
Charles Shirley looked down at her with light blue eyes, a graying beard and a smug expression from a poster that declared he was an author signing his new book in store today. Looking around, she noticed a line of people dressed in leather jackets, flannels and jeans in front of a table covered in hundreds of copies of the same book featuring a large black car against a moody night sky. Behind this table sat Charles Shirley himself, smiling tightly up at a young woman who was chattering excitedly and holding a sharpie above the inside front cover.
"Yes, that's very flattering. What name?" Charles asked impatiently and the woman must have answered. "Alright, 'To Becky. We've got work to do. Chuck. xo' There. Next!" He shoved the book into her hands and, already looking at the next person in line, waved Becky away.
Missouri joined the queue but when she arrived in front of Charles Shirley, a wave of nausea swept over her, her knees buckled and a vision hit her hard.
A dark, dusty maintenance shed. Charles doing something with a gas strimmer, hiding behind a shelving unit as Dean appeared to collect the machine, then leaving and Charles following him.
Missouri and Charles both gasped as another vision hit immediately.
Familiar but from a different angle, she watched Charles watch Dean stride through the bus station. As Castiel determinedly got to his feet Charles bounced once on his toes and set off at a sprint towards him.
Missouri winced when they collided and the vision ended.
Charles was staring at her, his mouth hanging open then he frowned, anger etched deeply into every line of his face.
"You." He hissed then glanced behind her to find she was the last attendee. "Come with me."
Against her better judgment, but sharing a pointed look with the bored sales assistant attending the table of books, Missouri followed him to a storage space that had been temporarily made up as a dressing room of sorts. He closed the door behind them and immediately began to pace from one side of the small room to the other, running his fingers through his hair.
Missouri watched him, trying not to betray the panic she felt at being confined with an agitated lunatic.
"You're like me, yes?" Charles suddenly asked. "You See things?"
Missouri nodded. She could see the moment Charles decided between anger and curiosity when he stopped and heaved out a sigh. "Do you ever tell anyone?"
"I used to, Charles, but it never did any good."
"Chuck." He corrected her.
"Well, Chuck, I See many things. Some are useful, some are pleasant…most are not." Missouri shared sadly and Chuck must have understood because he slid down the wall, nodding.
Sitting on the dusty floor, his back against the cracked wall, Chuck rested his forehead on his knees. He looked so small and fragile but that changed suddenly when he looked up and eyed Missouri venomously.
"Why couldn't you have stayed out of it this time? Why Dean?" he hissed and Missouri moved back as far as she could.
"Before your little intervention, Dean Winchester was beautifully wretched! Now he's just some pathetic sad sack pining after some hobo! He was supposed to die in that pit. It was poetic!" he spat.
Missouri couldn't believe what she was hearing. This weird little man was granted the gift of Prophecy and he used it as fodder for pulpy tragedy porn?
"I mean, dead mom? Abusive dad? Doe eyed little brother to take care of?" he touched his fingers to his lips in a chef's kiss and smiled beatifically. "Perfect soldier, a tragic hero…" In a heartbeat, his face changed from closed eyed adoration for his 'character' into a dangerous scowl. "How did you do it? How did you make him believe you?"
Missouri didn't answer right away and he postured angrily, she stood her ground, fearless in her conviction to a future she'd already Seen.
"Chuck? How long did it take you to get like this?"
He seemed surprised by the question. Enough to stop glowering and blink at her dumbly for a long moment until he answered.
"Centuries."
Missouri nodded sadly and he continued.
"Helplessly, I've Seen nations rise and fall, civilisations flourish and countless languages die." Chuck closed his eyes and his whole body sagged like his strings had been cut. "I'm tired."
His head dropped to his knees again and he fell silent. Missouri wondered if he'd fallen asleep but eventually he looked up at her wretchedly. "Please tell me how you did it. How did you make Castiel believe you?"
"I didn't do anything." Missouri told him gently. "I guess he just had faith."
2002, Lebanon, Kansas, USA
Tobias DeWit drummed the fingers of his free hand on the cluttered surface of his mahogany desk as the phone at his ear continued to ring. He'd left messages of course however, thus far, they'd remained unreturned.
He was about to hang up when a gruff voice interrupted the answering machine.
"'Lo?" it grunted sleepily.
"Good morning, am I speaking to Mr. Winchester?" DeWit enquired politely.
"Depends who's callin'" the voice answered, more awake sounding now and DeWit chuckled. He heard that one a lot but it never failed to amuse him.
"My name is Tobias DeWit and I'm an estate attorney in Lebanon, Kansas."
"You got the wrong guy. John wouldn't leave us shit…"
"Mr Winchester!" DeWit raised his voice to account for the man obviously hanging up. "Dean Winchester? Or perhaps Samuel?"
"Yeah, alright, you got Dean. Now spit it out…workin' nights."
The attorney knew from his research that the young man not only worked nights but days too. It was an unusual bequeathment so he'd been following the case with interest. Samuel Campbell hated his son in law so he'd written his last will and testament as a trust to spite the man.
"You'll be turning twenty five next month, yes?" Silence but he barrelled on regardless, "Samuel Campbell organised his estate to be released to you on your twenty fifth birthday. He wished to bypass your parents completely and distribute his wealth between Samuel and yourself."
"S'Sam."
"Excuse me?"
"He prefers Sam." Dean answered, sounding far too weary for a man so young, and also missing the point completely.
"My apologies. Sam will receive his share on his twenty-fifth birthday. Can you make arrangements to attend a meeting with my office to begin transference to be completed on January 29th?"
"Yeah, sure, I'll have my people call your people…"
"That woul-" DeWit found himself talking to the dial tone and he sighed. Hopefully, Dean Winchester will be the man his grandfather hoped he would be and take this more seriously.
A month later, two young men sat across from him. When he'd entered the younger one had been poking around the room with unconcealed interest, and the older one stood in front of the bookcase stacked with encyclopaedias of Law; thick, impressive looking, but largely dull, leather bound books, with his head tilted, reading the titles.
DeWit had cleared his throat, gestured to the chairs in front of his desk and the two had, reluctantly, sat down.
The meeting was uneventful besides the realisation that these two men, boys really, had a huge amount of untapped potential and, against his better judgment of detachment, he found himself very pleased that they would be receiving a life changing sum of money. He had little doubt they could achieve great things and he tucked away the knowledge that Sam was aiming to be a lawyer himself, for potential use later. After all, it's not what you know but who you know that counts.
2003, Lawrence, Kansas, USA
Castiel closed his eyes and lifted his face to the sun. Despite the layer of clouds, its warmth glowed red through his eyelids and he relished the feeling. It would rain soon—he could feel it in the pulsing headache he always got before a storm—and he should probably get back to work as Ms Allen tended to worry about him.
The day he'd met her had been both the best and worst day of his life. He'd told her what had happened in the construction site and she had offered him a job on the spot. Normally cynical to a fault, Castiel had surprised himself by accepting gratefully and began custodial duties at Moseley Clinic almost immediately. Living clean on the street didn't cost much and his very fair wages grew quickly enough to rent a studio apartment nearby. Not a day went by that he didn't think about a pair of desperate green eyes staring up at him from the darkness of that pit. Castiel actively avoided thinking about what might have happened if he hadn't been in the right place at the right time to receive the mysterious warning.
He shuddered despite the sunshine, brushed the crumbs from his lap to the waiting pigeons, and began to gather the remains of his lunch. A fat drop of rain hit him square in the forehead, and he jumped, looking to the sky where a dark cloud had quickly gathered. The rain didn't usually bother him but he had his new-to-him laptop in his bag so he shoved it beneath his hoodie and set off at a run. It was that deceptive, ploppy, sort of rain that could soak you to the bone before you knew it and Castiel cursed when he had to stop at a crosswalk.
He was shaking the water out of his hair when the rain stopped suddenly and he blinked up at the underside of the white umbrella now protecting him, then at the man holding it.
"Hey, Cas. Been lookin' for ya."
Castiel grinned, happy, hopeful.
"Hello, Dean."