- Text Size +
A lot can happen in the space between two seconds.

Laughter filled the room, as three small children were playing, the entire family gathered to celebrate. His eyes shone blue from the sunlight coming through the windows, and she leaned in to kiss him. The room shifted, became her office, where her boss smiled at her as he handed her the six month review, and she was given two thumbs up from a man standing right behind her boss. A flash of light brought her to the street at night, where she was walking alone, looking nervously around now and then. Shifted again, this time to her living room, sitting in his arms, watching a movie, warm and comfortable. Happy. Loved. The gunfire on the TV was muted, and then there was just the barrel of a gun. Silence. No faces. No emotions. Just the gun. BANG!

In the eternity between one second and the next, images and emotions from a woman´s present and future ran like shivers up and down Brian´s spine, until a loud ´bang´ ended that future, forever. As the doors closed and the subway started to move again, Brian scrambled to the nearest window, looking through to the people passing by faster and faster on the other side, trying to find the woman who´s future he had seen.

The gunshot from his vision was still ringing in his ears, as he tried to focus, tried to find her again. But there were too many people, too many women who could be her, and he had never seem her face. He knew nothing about her, except what some of the people in her life looked like, which did not mean much in a city like this. The only real thing he knew about her was that sometime in the near future, she would end her life staring down the barrel of a gun.

He tried to focus his mind, see if he could find the vision again without her touching him, to try and get more information out of it. He closed his eyes, tried to will something to happen, but nothing did. Refusing to give up, he almost missed his stop, and barely got out through the doors before they closed again.

With everything he had seen running through his mind he hurried the last ten minutes to the bar, hoping some of the others were already there. He needed to sit down, needed to write down what he knew, to clear his head and get it all sorted on paper. And he needed a drink. A strong one.

**********

“Where the hell is Chris?”. Nick looked up from his book to find AJ leaning over the bar, his face no more than three inches away from his, an annoyed look on his face. “Probably still napping in the back,” he answered, and tried to return to his book, but found it hard to do when AJ snagged it out of his hands. “It´s not napping when you have been at it for four hours” AJ said, using the book as a fan. “Well, he was up about an hour ago to piss, so technically he is now napping,” Nick countered, and made a grab for his book. Holding it away from Nick, AJ shook his head. “Why the hell does he need to sleep, I mean nap for anyway?” he asked, holding the book as high and far away from Nick as he could. “Dude, he works like twelve hour shifts or something,” Nick said in mid lounge, deciding to make a more aggressive move to get his book back. “True” AJ said, jumping back to watching Nick take a tumble over the bar and down on the floor, and was ready to make a run for it with the book when Nick got to his feet. “Why does he do that again?” he asked, trying to get Nick to forget the book. For a second, it seemed to work, Nick stood up, but didn´t continue to chase him down, and he had his should-be-trademarked ´I am thinking´ look on his face. After a few seconds he just shrugged. “Cause there is no way we would eat anything made by Justin, and Sam and Dean would rather quit than cook,” he said. “Right” AJ said, and made the mistake of taking his eyes off Nick. Before he could continue to say something like ´you´re right about that one´, Nick had effectively tackled him to the ground, snapped his book from AJ´s hand, and was doing a dance around AJ, waving the book in the air.

Getting to his feet, AJ was already planning his next move when the sound of a glass being slammed on the counter made him loose his train of thought. They both turned to find Justin standing behind the bar, both eyebrows raised and what passed for an annoying look on his face. “I never thoughts I´d say this, but damn am I glad we don´t have any customers right now. Seriously you guys!” Nick fought to hold back laughter, and AJ tried his best to keep a straight face as he gave Justin what he hoped passed for an apologetic smile. “Sorry, got a bit carried away there.”

Nick looked like he was about to say something else, but they were interrupted by Brian, who came half-running through the door, looking white as a ghost, and breathing heavily like a man who had just been running for his life. “What is it?” Nick asked, rushing over to take his bag from him and hand him the glass of water Justin handed him. AJ, knowing what usually caused Brian´s lack of complexion, jumped over the bar and readied a nice strong shot of JD for Brian, handing that to Nick as well, before putting a hand on Justin´s shoulder, in a low voice asking him to go wake Chris from his nap.

**********

Brian had been running all the way from his stop, darting in between the people who all seemed to be going in the other direction than him. He had been cursed at by old ladies who all seemed to think he should slow down, and had almost tripped over not one, but three little rat-like dogs who all seemed to favor walking directly in front of people who were moving a hundred times faster than they were. And all the time while he was running he was going over and over the vision in his hear, trying to make sense of it all, trying to remember every little detail, trying to remember something that could help him identify her.

By the time he made it to the bar, he was so out of breath he coudn´t seem to form a single word. Thankfully his friends all seemed to know something related to his ´special gift´(as Justin liked to call it) had happened, and how to handle it. Sitting down he gratefully took the glass of water from Nick, drinking slowly, only taking a small sip at a time so he wouldn´t choke on it, and tried to calm his breathing and wet his throat to a point where would actually be able to speak without sounding like a ninety year old man who had been smoking for most of his life.

Once his breathing was mostly under control, and his throat didn´t feel like the Sahara, he downed the JD shot that had mysteriously appeared in front of him (making a mental note to thank AJ later). As he put the shot glass down on the bar again, Chris and Justin were there, both his concerned looks on their faces. Nick had sat down on the stool next to him, and now put his arm around Brian´s shoulder, hugging him closer. “What did you see?” he asked, and everyones eyes turned to Brian, no one saying a word, just waiting for his answer.