Chapter Text
When Dean left the garage, the rain had only been a drizzle. By the time he’d finished lunch and needed to cross back over the street, it had turned into a downpour. It was coming down in sheets and had him soaked in seconds. Water streamed down his neck, pooling in his boots, and had his jeans plastered to his legs.
Perfect. Fucking perfect.
This day had been absolute shit so far. He’d forgotten his lunch and his umbrella. And downtown parking meant that even if he’d taken Baby, he probably would’ve ended up walking farther in the rain anyway.
He wondered if Bobby would let him leave early. There was nothing he wanted more than to go back to his shitty apartment and take the hottest possible shower before pulling on sweats and watching the new episode of Doctor Sexy. Just the thought of spending the rest of the day in the garage cold and wet had him depressed.
Streetlights and headlights smeared across the pavement, turning every puddle into a dirty mirror. Cars splashed through the crosswalk, sending ripples through the puddles collecting in the cracks. Dean shoved his hands deeper in his pockets and cursed whatever cosmic bastard kept kicking him while he was down. Why couldn’t he have a fucking second to breathe?
He envied people with powers, at least the ones who could do useful things like teleport home or dry off in seconds. He’d seen a guy once throw up an invisible dome over his head and the rain had just rolled over it.
Dean didn’t have anything like that. Well, he didn’t have anything at all. He was a null, someone born without a fucking speck power. One in a million. Why couldn’t he have won a different lottery?
And people acted like it was fucking contagious.
He felt like a goddamned leper. Like standing too close might pass this curse onto them. Like he was bad luck in human form. He was bad luck, but only to himself.
It made dating a nightmare. The first question anyone asked wasn’t how are you? or what do you do? It was what can you do? And when he told them, “nothing”, he always saw the little recoil and the condescending smile that meant oh, thanks but no thanks.
Work had been the same way, people sizing him up, waiting for the big reveal of what he could do until Bobby. Bobby didn’t give a damn about powers. “You turn a wrench, you do the job right, you get paid,” he’d said.
Most people’s powers were fucking useless anyway. Finding lost money sounded cool until you realized it meant crawling around picking up pennies off the sidewalk and gutters. Or the guy who could levitate three inches off the ground. Real impressive. Some powers were worse than useless though, like the guy whose hair grew at an alarming rate or the woman who set everything she touched on fire.
What the world actually needed was someone who could do something about this goddamn weather. The storms had been getting worse every year, but this year was something else. Today the black clouds had rolled in fast. And now the wind was cutting down the street like it had teeth.
Dean yanked his jacket higher around his neck and hunched his shoulders, trying to keep some part of himself dry. Rain trickled down his collar anyway. Fucking weather.
He waited at the curb, squinting through the downpour to check for traffic, water sheeting across the road in heavy silver streaks.
That was when he heard it: the sudden snarl of an engine pushed too hard. Tires hit standing water, and his head snapped the other way to see a car fishtailing and sliding straight toward him.
He had just enough time to understand what was about to happen and think, Of course.
Then a hand clamped his arm and yanked him sideways.
Something cracked open inside him. A surge of pure current. His whole body hummed with it, every nerve alight. The world sharpened. Colors flared bright, and the edges became clear. His mind felt stripped clean, like static had burned off everything unnecessary and left him humming in tune with something vast and alive.
He turned, breath caught in his throat. A man stood beside him, or maybe hovered, wet dark hair plastered against his forehead and eyes lit an impossible blue. For a dizzy second they seemed to be falling together, their bodies tilted in a slow arc that somehow never reached the ground.
Holy shit, Dean thought, and then as clear as if someone had spoken it beside his ear he heard, Thank God.
His eyes snapped back to the street. The car that had been barreling toward him was frozen mid-slide, droplets of water suspended around it like shards of glass. The rain hung in the air, each bead glinting from the headlights.
But the angel was wrong. Dean looked down. His boots weren’t touching the ground. Neither were the stranger’s.
Time stopped, the voice said, quiet inside his skull.
And holy shit… it really had.
“We need to move,” the man said, out loud this time. His voice was low, as if gravity bent to him and not the other way around (and apparently it did, because they were fucking floating). He stood first, pulling Dean with him, and somehow that was all it took to make gravity obey again. Dean stumbled upright, still half dazed, and let himself be steered out of the frozen car’s path.
“I think you just saved my life,” Dean managed. The man’s face caught the strange suspended light and Dean couldn’t help but stare at his sharp cheekbones, the rain on his lashes, and glowing blue eyes. The air around him vibrated faintly, a hum Dean could feel in his chest. An angel, he thought before he could stop himself. Has to be.
“I’m not an angel,” the man said, brow knitting in confusion, as if he’d heard Dean think it. “You’re the one who stopped time.”
Dean scowled. “I’m a null.”
“No.” The man’s eyes moved over him. “You don’t feel like a null. And your eyes are glowing.”
“So are yours,” Dean shot back. If his eyes were glowing, it was because this guy was touching him. That had to be it. Whatever this was, whatever he was, it was blending into Dean’s skin, bright and electric and impossible to look away from. Not that he wanted to.
The man didn’t argue. He guided Dean the last few feet down the sidewalk to a spot where the street was actually safe. Then he let go.
The world slipped back into motion.
Sound crashed in with the hammering rain, the hiss of tires, and the sharp crack of impact as the car skidded past where Dean had been standing and plowed into a storefront. The light dimmed, colors washing back to normal. Dean blinked, his heart pounding in his throat, and the afterimage of blue still burned behind his eyelids.
That had been way too fucking close.
Dean turned, wanting to get the guy’s name and say thank you, but the man was gone.