DA/SPN Fanfic: Ghosts of the Past (2/11)
Title: Ghosts of the Past
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Crossover: Dark Angel/Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Max/Alec-ish, Sam, Dean
Warning/Spoilers: Both Seasons of DA, up to Season 3 finale of SPN
Summary: Seattle 2022. Alec runs into Ben's ghost, or is he simply going crazy like his twin? Alec discovers the world of ghost hunting via supernatural hunters Sam and Dean Winchester.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to their respective owners.
Ghosts of the Past
Chapter 2
After delivering the cigars to Mole-‘I got chased into a smelly old warehouse by a couple of guys from the Cuban mob and had a Twilight Zone experience just for a box of cigars…This is the last time I do any more favors for the old lizard’-Alec trudged up to the apartment he shared with Joshua.
The dog-man was painting, as usual. He glanced up as Alec strode in. “Hey Alec.”
Alec grinned. “Hey Big Fella. How’s it going?” He walked over to look at what Joshua was working on.
Joshua smiled at his friend. “Good. Went to nursery today.”
Alec glanced up at him. “Yeah? How have all the little rugrats been lately? I haven’t stopped by to see ‘em in a while,” he said absently.
Joshua eyed the X5 thoughtfully, but nodded. “Fine. Still sleep lots. Ronnie said first word today.” He grinned. “ ‘Mama’.”
Alec was trying to keep his mind on the conversation, and managed to muster up an enthusiastic response. “Really? I bet Gem’s real proud of that.”
“Yeah.”
Alec wandered into the kitchen and got the bottle of scotch from the cupboard that contained “Alec’s stuff.” He poured himself a glass. Then, he settled himself on the worn couch and turned on the TV. He didn’t really watch the flickering images on the screen, though. He thought about what had happened in that warehouse. Did it really happen? If it hadn’t then that meant he was crazy, didn’t it? Maybe that was how Ben’s insanity had started. If it had-Alec shook his head. No way. Ghosts aren’t real…are they?
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Joshua watched his friend brooding on the couch. He had seemed a little off when he’d come into the apartment. Joshua wondered if it was something Max had said. Again. He loved Max, he really did, but he could not understand how Little Fella could not see how much she hurt her smart-alecky friend sometimes. He had tried to explain to her that Alec was not as impervious to harm as he seemed to be on the outside, but that he was just as sensitive to hurts-especially those Max doled out-as everyone else, if not more, inside. Apparently, Max still didn’t get it.
Just then the other subject of Joshua’s thoughts walked in through the door. Without knocking, but then Transgenics rarely did.
“Hey Little Fella,” he greeted.
Max’s face lit up in a genuine smile. “Hey Big Fella.”
Alec looked up and managed to smile something that looked more like a grimace. “Hey Max.”
Max stopped in front of Alec and crossed her arms. “Where’ve you been, Alec? I was looking for you,” she huffed.
Alec shifted on the sofa so Max could sit down. “Out. I scored Mole some more of his cigars.”
Max snorted appreciatively. “Yeah, I noticed he was getting kinda cranky. Crankier than usual anyways.”
Alec smirked. “Anything to keep Mole from going full-out Godzilla on our asses, right Maxie?” he drawled.
Max smacked his arm. “Don’t call me Maxie!” she growled, more in play than in anger.
‘Did Ben call you “Maxie”? Is that why you don’t like me calling you that?’ Alec thought. Whoa, where did that thought come from?
Alec cleared his throat. “S-so you said you were looking for me?” He winced. Did he just stutter? Max was starting to look at him strangely. He would have to head her off before she decided he needed to “talk” about what was bothering him. Max and her “talks.” He really didn’t need to deal with that right now.
Max sobered immediately. “Yeah. There’s been an incident in the city that I need to talk to you about.”
Alec raised his eyebrows, relieved at the distraction away from his own problem. “Oh yeah? Like what?”
Max shifted uneasily and glanced around at Joshua then back at Alec. She seemed reluctant to tell them. Avoiding his eyes, she said, “A young man was found killed today in the woods. Neck broken. Barcode.”
Shit. This was bad. Alec looked at Joshua to see that his friend had the same uh-oh look as he did on his face.
“Familiars?”
“No.” If Alec didn’t know better he would have thought that she was going to cry. But that was impossible. Tough, bitchy Max rarely cried. This must have really shaken her up. She continued, “All his teeth were pulled out. There’s a Catholic priest reported missing from sector seven. They think the body might be his.”
Oh. Oh. Alec’s eyes widened in comprehension. “That’s Ben’s MO. You think this has something to do with Ben?”
Max was looking at him with an expression in her eyes that Alec couldn’t decipher. Her eyes were shining more than usual but other than that, she was doing a pretty good job hiding her emotions. There’s Manticore for ya.
“Ben’s dead, Alec. He was dead when I left him. I killed him, I snapped his neck. It couldn’t have been him.” A tear betrayed her impassive façade and trickled down her cheek. “And that’s not all,” she said as she wiped the single tear away. “Another priest’s been kidnapped from the city.”
Alec frowned. “So he’s the next victim?”
Max nodded. “Probably.”
“Who’s Ben?”
The two X5s turned to look at Joshua. They’d become so engrossed in the bad news that they had forgotten he was there and that he didn’t know about Ben. Max glanced at Alec, unsure whether to tell their friend everything.
Alec met her gaze. “I think you should tell him. I mean, he’s already heard what we’ve said so far, and of all the people we know, he’s the most likely to understand what you had to do.” ‘He’d had to kill his brother Isaac to keep him from hurting people,’ ran through both of their minds.
Max swallowed before turning back to Joshua. “Ben was in my unit,” she began in a flat voice. “We escaped together, but lost track of each other once we got out. Two years ago, an informant told Logan that there was a body found in the woods outside of the city. Young male, barcode.”
Max swallowed convulsively. “His neck was twisted and all his teeth were pulled out. I recognized the barcode. So I went to pay my respects and realized then that it wasn’t Ben and that it was him who killed the guy.” She paused for a moment to attempt to compose herself.
She took a breath before continuing. “Logan found out that there were more murders matching this one, not just in Seattle, but in Chicago and Miami, and other places, too. To make a long story short, I tracked him down right before he was going to kill the priest. While we were fighting, Manticore was tracking him, too. I’d injured him, so there was no way we could both make it out of there. So he-he asked me to kill him…and I did. I asked him to tell me the story he always told us about the Good Place. And then I broke his neck. I had to. I had to stop him. He was killing people, and he didn’t want to go back to Manticore. He knew what they’d do to him.”
Max covered her face to try to keep from crying but the tears came anyway. Alec and Joshua held her trembling body in their arms, like how Max and Alec had when Annie was killed. “They would have done to him what they ended up doing to Alec,” she whispered. “Only worse.” Alec’s arms tightened and he buried his face in her hair.
Joshua frowned in confusion. “What they did to Alec? Why Alec?”
This time it was Alec who spoke. His voice was rough and he had to clear his throat before speaking. “Ben was my twin. My genetic clone. 493. They thought the insanity might be genetic. Turns out, it’s not.” He sighed. “Or maybe it is, they just couldn’t dig it out then or something.” This last part was said quietly, more to himself than his companions. Max and Joshua both looked up quickly.
“What’s that supposed to mean? ‘Maybe it is,’” Max demanded. “Alec.”
He shook his head. “Nothing.” They hadn’t been meant to hear that. His control was slipping. He needed to get away.
“Something wrong with Medium Fella. Joshua felt when came home. Not right.” Joshua spoke gently, knowing that this was more likely to get results than Max’s aggression.
“ ‘Not right’ is right,” Alec said with a bitter laugh. Shit. He hung his head. He’d really said enough this time. Maybe it was the scotch. Maybe his Transgenic inability to get drunk was finally letting up.
Max put a gentle hand on his arm. “Alec. You can tell us, you know? Is something bothering you? Remember I told you I’d always be here if you wanted to talk? I-” Alec stopped her by holding his hand up.
“I’m fine Max. I just…don’t worry about me. I’m always alright, remember?” He shot them a wry smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I guess I’m just a little tired, that’s all, and then there was the news about that guy that was killed. Shook me up a little.” Weak lie. He mentally smacked himself upside the head, Max-style. What happened to all his super-duper Manticore skills?
“No Max right. Something bothering Alec,” Joshua interrupted his self-criticizing. He could see now that whatever was bothering his friend did not have anything to do with Max as he originally thought. However, his agitation had increased with what Max had said about Ben. “Need to tell friends. Max and Joshua Alec’s friends.” He sought out Alec’s eyes and held them in a kindly gaze.
Alec wavered. He sighed and unconsciously rubbed his barcode with his hand. He really wanted to tell them, he really did, but he was afraid of how they would react. Especially Max. She and Josh had both had brothers they’d been forced to kill when they’d gone crazy and killed people. He didn’t want them to have to do it for him. Not ever. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, tell them.
So he did what he did best; he deflected the conversation away from himself. “Don’t we need to figure out what to do about that Ordinary? He was an Ordinary, right, not a Transgenic who had decided to be a servant of God or whatever? And that other guy who disappeared? We need to find him before he gets killed.” That’s right. Steer the conversation away from the uncomfortable mushy stuff.
Max huffed in exasperation. “Alec, do I need to beat it out of you? Come on, you obviously need to talk. Like Joshua said, we’re your friends. We’re here to help you.” She had started out in a harsh tone, but her voice had softened into the gentle quality that matched her eyes and the calming touch on his arm. Joshua was also looking at him with those big puppy dog eyes that he had never really been able to resist.
Alec groaned. He took a sip of his scotch before speaking. A looooong sip. “Fine. If the both of you are going to gang up on me like that.” He paused, hoping his friends wouldn’t react badly to what he was going to say next. He rubbed his face tiredly with the open palm of his hand. “I…I think I might be going crazy. I saw something today, something I shouldn’t have seen, something I know couldn’t have been real, but I saw it, or at least I think I did, and I think I’m going crazy but I-”
Here he cut off; he couldn’t breathe-oh god, he couldn’t breathe. Eyes wide open, panicking, palms sweaty, hands tightly clenching the material of his pants, he was vaguely aware of his friends calling his name, telling him to calm down, to breathe. He felt Max’s hand on his arm gripping it so hard he felt the tears come. Joshua’s on his shoulders as well. Following their touch, he closed his eyes and managed to calm down slightly, mentally urging his heart rate and breathing to slow.
Taking a few minutes to recover, he opened his mouth to speak. “Sorry about that, guys.” ‘Damn. That had sounded so weak…and breathy.’ “I just wanna go to bed right now.” Alec paused. He noticed that Max’s hand was still on his arm, anchoring him. “I promise I’ll tell you what’s going on later.”
Max frowned at him with a concerned look on her face. “Alright. It’s late,” she said quietly. “But we will talk in the morning.” Her expression was stern.
“Yes ma’am,” Alec saluted, earning himself a light punch in the arm, more like a pat, really. “Yes, Maxie, then,” he smirked. Or tried to, anyway.
She rolled her eyes at that and said, “Goodnight, ya ass.”
He snorted as he walked-‘Ha! More like staggering…Shut up’-towards his room. “G’night, Big Fella.”
“Night, Medium Fella.”
Two pairs of worried eyes followed their friend as he left the room. “He’s really got to stop with that ‘I’m always alright’ routine. It’s getting old. He’s going to end up-”
“Hurting himself?” Joshua finished for Max.
She pursed her lips in a thoughtful expression. “No, doing something stupid. And what do you think he meant about seeing things? And what was up with that panic attack just now?”
Joshua sighed. “Don’t know but talk in morning. Promised.” He nodded sagely. “Can’t push. Will only hide more inside. Talk when ready.”
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AN: Ronnie is Gem’s daughter, named after Normal, whose real name is Reagan Ronald. Well, what do you think?
Chapter 3