Work Text:
35
5
16
28
23
6
11
Sam rubbed his temples, trying to dispel the headache. The numbers still danced before his eyes. Ever since he’d had the vision, two days prior, the numbers had refused to leave him alone. He’d tried everything he knew to figure out what they meant but had come up short. They weren’t coordinates, at least not in the order he’d received them, and if they were mixed up… well, there was no chance he’d be able to figure out which one of the more likely combinations was the one that was actually relevant without more clues.
And that was still assuming thirty-five actually meant thirty-five, not three and five.
They weren’t phone numbers either, though Sam had tried both looking them up and then calling them. He’d taken the numbers through every cipher he knew. He’d checked the corresponding pages in dad’s journal. He hadn’t sent them on to Bobby, but maybe he should.
Sam sighed at the formerly blank page he’d scribbled full of different combinations. Not a single useful one. Like the numbers were just plucked out of a hat. The only consolation he had was that there was nothing about it that felt urgent, none of the stress that came with his visions of blood, death, and destruction.
Even the vision itself had been remarkably peaceful, no nosebleed, barely a headache, he’d even doubted it was an actual vision until it kept repeating.
There was a rustle at the door and he looked up just in time to see Dean enter, dinner in hand.
“Move it, Sammy.” Dean put the take-out bags on the table. “What have you got there?”
“Nothing, just… numbers.”
“Numbers?” Sam can hear the raised eyebrow. He hadn’t mentioned the vision earlier, which was a bit of an oversight.
“Yeah. A vision.”
As if on cue, Dean frowned. “Vision, huh? And, what, just these numbers? Nothing else?”
“Not a thing.” Sam sighed. “I’ve been trying to make sense of it, but… it’s just random numbers.”
Dean took the paper, studied it for a few seconds and handed it back. “Yeah, I can’t make heads or tails of it.”
“It… could be coordinates. Depending on how I toss the numbers around I get an island in Greece or somewhere in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa as the most likely suspects. Mixing it up a bit I can get either just south of Death Valley National Park in California or west of McCullough Mountain in Nevada. Problem is, nothing’s happened there. Completely quiet. And that’s just most likely, if I mix the numbers up further I could probably get any location I wanted.”
“I think we can skip Greece,” said Dean. “And the Atlantic. We head out in the morning, hit Nevada, and if nothing’s going on there it’s on to California. If that’s a bust, we go from there.”
Sam closed his eyes. The numbers floated insistently around in his head. 35, 5, 16… “Sounds like a plan.”
“Great.” Dean slapped a hand on the table. “But right now we eat. I’m starving.”
…28, 23…
Quickly scarfing down their dinner, they started cleaning up their weapons from the latest hunt. Sam eyed one of the shotguns carefully. Despite meticulous upkeep, it wasn’t made for rock salt rounds and it was probably getting up to that time when they’d have to retire it or risk it jamming or worse.
…6, 11
35, 5…
“Any idea what’s on TV?” said Dean, apropos of nothing.
“Uh, no.”
“Me neither. But there’s gotta be something worth watching.” Dean found the remote and turned it on. “Gotcha!”
…16, 28,-
“Twenty-three!” a woman’s voice interrupted from the television. A small ball with the number emblazoned on it rolled to a stop. Two seconds later another ball rolled into view. “Number six!” continued the woman.
A chill crept down Sam’s spine.
“And our final number for today is…”
“Eleven,” said Sam breathlessly, incredulity reducing him to little more than a whisper.
“Eleven!” cried the woman, as the ball rolled so the number became visible.
“The hell?” said Dean. He and Sam traded a look. Then he threw himself at Sam’s scribbled-full paper.
“And here are today’s lottery numbers in numerical order:”
“No way.” Sam shook his head. “No way.”
“Five, six, eleven, sixteen,”
“Are you kidding me?” said Dean, almost drowning out the woman’s call of “twenty-three,”.
“twenty-eight and thirty-five! Let’s see if we got any winners! We do! Today’s highest win goes to a man in-”
Sam grabbed the remote and turned off the television. Dean was shaking his head.
“So this is why psychics never win the lottery. You see this shit too late!”
Sam had been sitting on these numbers for two days.
…Dean was never ever finding that out ever. Ever.
“I can’t believe it,” continued Dean. “Couldn’t you have seen this yesterday?” He laughed a little. “I guess that means no Nevada?”
“No Nevada, no California. Sorry.”
“Worse things have happened.” Dean shrugged. Then he lit up. “Dude, we gotta tell Bobby. He’ll never believe it.”
Sam shook his head and huffed a laugh. “Sure.”
“Just, Sammy…” Dean grinned crookedly.
“Yeah?”
“Try to see this shit a day sooner, next time?”
“Sure, Dean. Sure.”