Before I Ran || Perrentes

Chapter 12: Talk

Tony took a shot and typed Password1 into the required field. Ninety percent of him expected it to be rejected, and ten percent dared to hope.

It seemed to be one of the rare occasions that ten percent lucked in, because the password was accepted and Tony immediately found himself with four bars of internet, and he cheered in joy and sat forwards in his seat. "Yes!" He exclaimed. Mike laughed.

"You're kidding me. Are you in?"

"I'm in. I'm actually in. Fuck. I could have Danielle's job any day. Hey, who the hell still has Password1 as their WiFi password, these days?"

"This supermarket, apparently," Mike chuckled, and he looked out the window, waiting patiently.

Vic had disappeared into this little market in the middle of Beech Grove, Indiana, about half an hour ago, with a list to stick to and a Jaime to help him find everything, leaving Mike and Tony in the car alone. After thirty minutes of occasional conversation, Tony decided to try and hack into their WiFi - and, surprisingly, succeeded.

Without missing a beat he typed in the web page he wanted and went to click on the latest episode of Supernatural - but he hesitated and changed his mind before he pressed play. "Hey...want to watch an episode with me? If we're just sitting here doing nothing."

Mike paused, looking down at Tony's phone, and looked as if he was about to pass. But then that sweet, certain smile appeared and he nodded. "Sure. But won't I get a bit lost?"

"We can watch the first episode. Get you hooked, like me."

Tony propped his phone up horizontally on the dashboard and watched as the season one opening credits flashed across the screen. He couldn't suppress a laugh, and Mike cocked his head. "What's so funny?"

"It's just so old."

As the episode began, Tony leant on his left arm on the centre console, positioning the phone in the centre of the dashboard, and Mike mirrored his actions so they were elbow to elbow. Was this tiny bit of contact supposed to make Tony feel so fried by electricity? He thought probably not.

"Oh my God!" Mike exclaimed as the opening scene showed Mary Winchester burning on the ceiling of her youngest son's (Sam's) nursery. "What happened there?"

"You kind of have to watch the whole season to find out," Tony laughed. "But bear this scene in mind for this episode."

"Holy crap. This isn't off to a good start."

"The whole series doesn't make much of an improvement," Tony sighed resignedly. He'd had a similar conversation with Hunter once, and he felt a pang in his chest that was starting to become an all too familiar feeling. He missed Hunter.

"Okay, so this is Sam grown up?" Mike asked as the scene changes and the opening credits rolled away. Tony nodded.

"Yeah. And his girlfriend Jessica."

"She's hot...she's not going to live for very long is she?"

"Don't speculate. Just watch."

Knowing what happened to Jessica at the end of this episode, Tony smirked slightly and then forced himself to frown again. He didn't want to completely give the game away.

The episode played out with Dean showing up at Sam and Jessica's place uninvited to recruit him in the battle of a fearsome ghoul who steals unfaithful lovers from an empty highway, drives them to her ramshackle house and murders them. As it all unfolded, Tony found himself filled with nostalgia. He remembered the first time he'd watched this - alone in his bedroom, with his laptop at the end of his bed and himself positioned at the head board, and he'd had the blanket drawn up to his chin, held by his shaking fingers as his heart raced with the fear and thrill of the story. After so many years the stories didn't really frighten him anymore - the jump-scares startled him, but he no longer had dreams that a Wendigo was going to crawl in through his window and eat him alive in his sleep (but to this day he still had the fact in the back of his mind that if this did happen, the only thing that would kill the Wendigo was a flamethrower). But the stories did remind him of safety, because through this TV show he'd met good people that had helped him see the light in the world - and had helped him to start eating again, and sleeping properly, and feel happier than before.