Chapter Text
The day Jared turns eighteen, he packs his duffel, grabs the papers and cash he'd been given the night before, and walks out of the children's home that's been his world for as long as he can remember. He's lucky in that he's already graduated, so he at least has some flimsy piece of paper that tells the world that he's not a complete loser. Jared didn't apply to any colleges even though Diane Morgan, the only visitor he's ever had at the home, offered to pay and everything. Jared doesn't think it's wise to start life on his own by taking hand-outs. He also doesn't trust Diane. She showed up out of the blue one day when Jared was around ten years old, claiming to have once known his parents. To this day Jared doesn't believe her but it had been nice to have someone come to see him. Plus it'd shut the stupid bullies up, so he didn't really mind. Jared asked her questions about his parents sometimes and she always gave vague answers, like she wasn't comfortable talking about them. And really, why would she be?
Jared knows that he'd been given up for adoption when he was a baby, the words on his file clearly stated that his mother had handed him over to a home not long after he was born. Which is whatever really, he is fine with it. So fine that he made sure to scupper any chance he had of being adopted. Not that anyone wanted him anyway, but still, he will never give anyone a chance to abandon him again. He leaves the home behind him and that is that. As he walks down the street, he is surprised to see Diane jogging after him. He stops because from the click-clacking of her feet, she is probably wearing those crazy heels she loves so much.
"So, you're finally getting out of here," she says, a little breathlessly, when she catches up with him. “I wanted to be here to walk you out, all official like, but they told me you’d gone already. They give you any cash?” Jared shakes his head a little as she talks in her usual non-stop manner, barely giving him time to figure out what the hell to respond to. A woman walks past, eyes widening when she sees Diane. That's another reason why Jared can't bring himself to trust her. She's the adopted daughter of hotel founders Dean and Victoria Morgan and quite a well-known celebrity. Jared's read enough copies of People to know that people still haven't gotten over the stigma of her being the only black member of a predominantly white family. He's also read enough to know that she has a public image to maintain. None of that really means anything to him, but no one can say that he’s ignorant.
"Okay, okay, I get it, you're in stoic silent mode while you figure out where you want to go from here." Diane's smooth voice cuts into Jared's thoughts and he looks up to see her reaching into her purse. She pulls out a cheque book and scribbles onto a page quickly before ripping it out and handing it to him. He takes it and pockets it without looking at the amount. He doesn’t refuse the money despite his firm ‘no hand-outs’ policy because he knows that she’ll find some way to get it to him. And he’d rather not sanction his own stalking.
"Thanks," he says gruffly. "I'll miss you." Despite her evasiveness, she has been the only ‘family’ he has, despite her reasons for coming; it means a lot that she’s been there for him.
"You can always come and stay with me?" Diane suggests. "I finally divorced Richard. The house is kind of lonely and my brother wants me to move back into our childhood home. Ugh." Jared smiles at her candour. She's always had no filter when it comes to him, even when he was twelve and bemused by the crazy world she seemed to live in. He'd asked her once, why she didn't just adopt him herself and she laughed and said that no one deserved her as a mother. After all these years, Jared still thinks that she's wrong. He feels tears prickling at his eyes and he clears his throat.
"Maybe someday," he says with a nonchalant smirk. "I might need you to get me out of trouble.” She laughs and shakes her head and they part ways soon after.
It’s funny what they say about famous last words.
The day after Jensen turns eighteen he wakes up to find a pretty girl sitting at the end of the bed. That might not sound unusual but Jensen is pretty sure that he hasn’t seen her before, and there's no way she was a pick up or anything because he was strictly into dick, and while he hasn’t officially come out yet, there’s no way he would bring a girl back home. He sits up slowly, ready to ask her who she is, when he notices something about her. Her skin is a pale white colour, almost translucent, as if she is not really there; a flimsy fragment of his imagination.
"What are you?" he finds himself asking, because something tells him that is the more important question. She doesn’t respond, just kicks her legs up and swings them slightly, the red sundress she's wearing cascading around her knees gently.
"Hey," Jensen calls loudly. "Who the hell are you?" He feels more than sees her tense up, a cold shiver runs through him, rendering him useless for a few seconds. By the time the feeling has passed she’s facing him with curiosity painted on her face.
"You can see me?" she asks.
"No, I'm just talking to myself." Hey, Jensen never said that he was a morning person.
"Well, you are really," the girl says with a nonchalant shrug. "I've been dead for the past thirty years."
Jensen gapes at her, his mouth suddenly incapable of forming words. By the time he’s ready to talk, she has gone, the only sign of her presence being the cold chill that Jensen suddenly notices in the room. He burrows back under his covers, questions racing through his mind as he wonders if he was dreaming or hallucinating.
Later, he would look back on that moment and realise that was the day he saw his first vision.