#ITS FINALLY FINISHED!!! this sat on my computer unfinished since october of last year so i was like. im bored. lets pick it up again

[fawfulydoo]

puppet boy

[d-s-winchester]

Salem

(gif credit to the creators)

Part One

Master List

Pairing: Misha x OFC Word Count: 1,963 Warnings: None? A/N: In honor of RPF appreciation day I have decided to post the first part of my new Misha series. This story is near and dear to my heart. I have put a lot into this. A HUGE thank you to my best friend in the whole world and the one person who puts up with my nonsense for betaing this for me, Nicole (aka @iwantthedean) without her this story would never see the light of day. Hope you guys like it! Anyway, feedback for this is awesome! :)

The graveyard was filled with no more than one hundred tombstones; small, much like the town where the graveyard was located. A strikingly pale, petite woman walked through the maze of graves, some fresher than others, and pulled her cardigan closer to her body in an attempt to block the early October night’s chill.

 She ran her fingers through her hair as she let out a sigh. In the darkness, her long, lavender hair appeared just as silver as the moonlight that illuminated a familiar name on the gravestone where she stopped. The freshly fallen leaves crunched under her boots as she turned to face the tombstone. She sat down on the cold, hard ground and pulled her knees to her chest, resting her chin on top of them.

 Running his hand over his face as he let out a frustrated groan, Misha Collins leaned back in his desk chair. He didn’t want to stare at the words he had written any longer. When he focused his gaze on the laptop screen again, the blinking cursor and stark white of the blank page taunted him. This wasn’t the first time inspiration had woken him in the middle of the night and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. It was what Misha referred to as The Writer’s Curse; inspiration would come and go, with no regard to the day or time. This was, however, the first time his midnight muse had come and gone with only two paragraphs to prove she had come at all.

 The glare from the computer screen was starting to give him a headache. Resisting the urge to delete everything he'd written since his muse wasn’t going to supply him with another word it seemed, he shut the laptop and got back in bed. Sleep eluded him as he continued to think about the novel he'd recently started.

 Images of his newly formed protagonist flooded his mind every time he shut his eyes, along with a white sign attached to a post that read Entering Salem. Pictures of Salem, and this woman, had been clouding and colliding around Misha’s brain for days now, out of nowhere it seemed. Of all the novels he had written, not a single one had burdened him the way this novel seemed to be doing.

 Misha spent the rest of the night tossing and turning while he tried in vain to force away the pictures of the woman and the town from his mind. It was the most restless night of sleep he'd had in a long time, but by the time he gave up on sleep the next morning, he had made the decision not to fight the images anymore. Ignoring the document where his unfinished manuscript sat, he made a reservation at a small bed and breakfast for an indefinite stay.

 After packing a bag, Misha got in his car and made way for Salem, Massachusetts. His mind felt lighter already; he wasn’t sure what would be waiting for him in the small, New England town, but he had a strong feeling that is where he needed to be to finish this novel.

***

 Ophelia Wilton adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder and unlocked the door to her shop before stepping inside and turning on the lights. October was always the busiest time of the year for her, with all the tourists pouring in from around the world to take in the sights and attractions her small town had to offer, so she had taken to getting to work at least a few minutes early to prepare for the inevitable influx of customers throughout the day.

 The Hexbag was a small shop, specializing in Wicca and the occult, nestled in a cozy little spot between a cafe and bookstore on Main Street in downtown Salem. She had bought the establishment from its previous owner a few years before. The shop was somewhat of a commodity, usually frequented by tourists harboring an obsession with the Salem Witch Trials, but Ophelia didn't mind -- she loved the shop anyway.

 Just as Ophelia walked behind the counter to set down her bag, the bell over the front door jingled. She turned to the door, preparing to tell the customer that the shop wasn’t open yet, but stopped when she saw her best friend, Christine, walking through the door, carrying two lattes from the cafe next door.

 “What are you doing here?” Ophelia asked, accepting the steaming hot drink from her friend.

 “It’s the beginning of your busy time,” Christine smiled, dropping her purse behind the counter. “I figured you’d need some help when the morning rush comes in.”

 “You’re a lifesaver,” Ophelia smiled.

 Christine shrugged and took a sip of her coffee before helping Ophelia get the shop ready for the day. Once the new inventory of books and crystals was catalogued and placed on the shelves, and the other shelves had been balanced and dusted, Ophelia turned the sign on the door from ‘closed’ to ‘open’ and took her place behind the counter while Christine wandered around the small shop, ready to help customers with their choices. Within only a few minutes, the shop was packed with people, tourists and regulars alike.

 It wasn’t until well after noon that the rush finally died down, and the two women were able to take a break. Ophelia did a midday count of the register, while Christine restocked the shelves. Although the subject matter wasn’t something that Ophelia was keen on discussing, she decided to bring up something that had been weighing heavily on her mind for the better part of the day.

 “I had that dream again,” Ophelia said. She kept her eyes on the register, an attempt to appear nonchalant about the dream, as though it didn’t bother her. With her eyes on the money in front of her, she didn’t see Christine tense up momentarily before her friend let out a sigh.

 “It’s been six months since he died, Lia.”

 “I know, and I was starting to feel like I was moving forward,” Ophelia said, jotting down the midday numbers. “Thing is, last night was the third night in a row that I dreamed about going to Chris’s grave, but it wasn’t his name on the tombstone.”

 “Then how do you even know it’s his grave?” Christine frowned.

 Ophelia slammed the register drawer shut, feeling frustrated with her friend for the first time in a long time. “Because it’s in the exact same spot. Every single night, I see myself taking the same path from my house, to the cemetery, and then to his grave. It’s the same spot, I know it. It’s getting to a point where I’m not sure if I’m dreaming it or sleepwalking.”

 “Well, you said it’s not his name on the tombstone, so that’s how you know it’s a dream.” Christine shrugged and continued shelving the books customers decided not to buy, as though the dream was not any sort of cause for concern.

 “Still...you don’t think it’s a little weird?”

 Now it was Christine’s turn to sound frustrated. “No,, I think you’re stressed out because your boyfriend died and it’s the beginning of your busiest season. You need to just breathe and not overthink the things you’re dreaming.”

 Ophelia stared at her friend, mouth slightly agape. She couldn’t understand why Christine was acting this way. If anyone could understand the grief she was feeling, she was sure it would be Christine; Christopher was her twin brother after all.

 ***

 Misha parked his car in the small lot of The Henry Derby House Bed & Breakfast, and breathed a sigh of relief. The trip had gone smoothly but seemed to go on forever; finally, he had reached his destination. He got out of his car, grabbed his bags and went to check in as quickly as possible. The moment he had driven past the “Welcome to Salem” sign, ideas for his novel had started rushing through his brain; he wanted those ideas on the page before they disappeared back into the parts of his grey matter he couldn’t voluntarily access.

 He didn't bother unpacking his suitcase when he found his room. Instead, he propped the suitcase against what he presumed to be a dresser door, dug out only his laptop, and set the device on the small desk. He adjusted the chair for comfort, settled his fingers over the home row of keys, then waited the tortuous amount of time it took for the laptop to power on, boot up, and open the document where the manuscript was waiting. With his manuscript displayed on the screen, Misha’s fingers seemed to fly over the keys of their own volition.  

 “Jason,” she said, taking a deep, shaky breath in an attempt to keep the tears at bay, “I miss you. I know it's been a while, but you being gone hurts just as much as the day you left. I wish --” she paused to swallow down the lump in her throat. “I wish there was some way I could bring you back to me.”

 She swiped at the tears that had started to fall as she continued to speak to the sunken grave, marked by the tombstone with the too familiar name. A few minutes felt like hours as she stewed in her sadness, but the trance grief had drawn her into was broken by twigs snapping on the ground behind her. Quickly, the woman stood, turning first and then staying rooted to the spot until the source of the sound revealed itself.

 From behind the trees, a middle-aged woman walked toward her; the smirk on the woman’s face set the younger woman’s heart to racing. She took a few steps back, bumping into the stone behind her. The sudden appearance of the strange woman had her so tense that the sudden contact with the granite stone caused her to startle.

 “I have a way to help you,” the woman said, stopping only a few feet away from the younger woman.

 “What do you mean?”

 “You want to bring your boyfriend back,” the stranger said, as though the answer to the younger woman’s question was plain as day, “and I have a way for you to do that.”

 The young woman looked at her, her wide, frightened eyes now forced to a smaller size by the perplexed frown that burdened her expression. “How? It's impossible. No one can be brought back from the dead.”

 “You think that way because you don't know what I know.” The strange woman’s menacing grin set off alarms in the younger woman’s head, and caused a strange tightness in her chest.

 She swallowed hard as she looked at the woman, a vain attempt to slow her breathing, before answering. “Then tell me.”

 “It's all possible with simple witchcraft, darling -- but it comes at a price.”

 Fear and panic were replaced with an odd sense of hope. Consumed now by the idea of having Jason back in this life with her, she didn't hesitate. “What is your price?”

 “It will cost you your soul.”

 That was as good of a stopping point as any, Misha supposed. He could feel his fickle muse once again pulling away from him, so perhaps it was better to stop before she left him in the middle of a sentence without so much as a possible resolution in mind. After quickly unpacking his personal things from his suitcase, he found his mobile phone, car keys, and a small, wire-bound notebook that fit in his back pocket -- in case he came across anything worthwhile to jot down on-the-go -- and left his rented room to discover more of Salem and, in the process, more of his novel.