Crossover Fic: Common Bonds
Title: Common Bonds
Author: Dhvana
Crossover: NUMB3RS/Supernatural
Pairings: Don/Charlie, Dean/Charlie, Dean/Sam
Rating: R
Warning: Incest and slash
Summary: Two pairs of brothers, one nasty monster, and the threat of imminent death--so much for a peaceful little hike through the woods.
A/N: My first crossover, this story has been lingering in my mind for months now, and even though my muses are being uncooperative in every other aspect of my writing (uncontrollable bitches that they are), they managed to spit this out in just three days. Enjoy!
Common Bonds
“Having trouble keeping up?” Charlie grinned, glancing back at his older brother, who seemed to be huffing and puffing a little as they made their way up the trail. “If you need me to slow down at all...”
“Charlie?”
“Yes, Don?”
“Bite me.”
Charlie chuckled and continued along the trail, picking up the pace a little. It wasn’t that he wanted to torment his brother...actually, it was exactly that. There were few things he did better than Don, and since he had the time to go out hiking--unlike his brother, who was generally stuck in the office twenty-four/seven--this was one of them. All Don had to do was ask him to slow down, and he’d behave, but since Don would collapse first... Charlie chuckled again, using his hands to help himself up over a fallen tree.
He looked behind him to make sure Don made it--not that he had any doubts, but he liked watching Don and his ego struggle--and forged on ahead. Fortunately, the trail had reached its peak and they’d be going downhill from there on. Once they made it back down into the woods proper, it would be a two and a half mile stroll through the trees and they’d be back at the cabin for dinner, and if Don wasn’t too worn out, for dessert.
Charlie looked back at his brother and smiled. Maybe they should start with dessert, and then have dinner, followed by another round of dessert. It was a rare day when he and Don could spend time together without having to worry about work interfering or, worse, getting caught. Their time alone in the cabin was definitely an opportunity they should take advantage of.
He glanced back again and this time, Don caught him looking, and smiled. Suddenly, Charlie wished he’d chosen a shorter hike.
“Hey Donny, you want to lead for a bit?” After all, he didn’t want his brother to be completely winded by the time they got back, and he could think of worse things than spending an hour or so with his eyes glued to the back of Don’s jeans.
“Getting tired there, buddy?”
“Of the view, maybe. Just trees and tress and more trees. A little variety might be nice,” he said with a wink.
Laughing, his brother rushed forward and grabbed him by the waist, swinging him off his feet.
“Hey!” Charlie protested, though the laughter in his voice and the lack of struggling showed he wasn’t protesting too hard. “Put me down!”
Nuzzling his curls, Don returned him to the earth. “So what is it about our view you don’t like?” he asked, nibbling on his brother’s ear.
“I’m not saying I don’t like it. I’m only saying it could use something to enhance it.”
“Anything particular in mind?”
“A little denim wouldn’t hurt,” he said, closing his eyes and arching his neck as Don’s mouth traveled down his throat.
“I knew there was a reason I wore jeans all the time,” Don said--practically growled--as his hips pressed against Charlie. That was enough of an invitation for him.
“Hey Donny?”
“Yeah?”
“Ever had sex in the woods?”
“Yes.”
Charlie’s eyes flew open--that was not the answer he was expecting. “You have?”
“Haven’t you?”
“No!” He turned around so he was facing his brother. “When did you?”
Don gave him a frank look. “Do you really want to know?”
“I don’t know. Do I?”
Leaning forward, Don softly kissed his lips. “No.”
“Then forget I asked,” he smiled, wrapping his arms around Don’s neck. Just before their mouths met, he paused. “It wasn’t Billy, was it?”
Don laughed, holding his brother close. “No, it wasn’t Billy.”
“Okay,” Charlie grinned. “Now you can forget I asked.” He moved in for a kiss that would hopefully end with them stripped naked and getting wild in the wild. Unfortunately, his plan was literally shot to hell when a shot echoed through the trees.
Don immediately tensed, pushing Charlie towards the ground as he automatically reached for the sidearm he’d left behind on this supposedly non-threatening hike through the woods.
“Get down!”
“Don, the shot wasn’t anywhere near us,” he said even as they both crouched low against the dirt.
“Charlie, do you know how far a bullet can travel?” Charlie opened his mouth and Don quickly cut him off. “Never mind. Of course you know, but we don’t have time for the four hour lecture.”
Charlie shot him a dirty look but decided to refrain from making any comments. Don was in federal agent mode and anything Charlie said would go right by him until Don was positive the danger had passed, so he simply joined his brother in trying to spot the shooter.
From where they’d stopped, they didn’t have much of a vantage point into the forest--ironically enough, there were too many trees in the way. They could hear, though, and both of them tensed as something large came crashing through the brush, followed by something much smaller--a couple of somethings. Charlie started to speak, but Don held up his hand.
“Listen!” he hissed, and Charlie did to hear the sound of two voices yelling at each other through the woods.
“Do you have a shot?”
“If I had a shot, don’t you think I would have fired by now?”
“Didn’t stop you the first time!”
“Yeah, well, I don’t see you hitting anything!”
“That’s because I know I need to have something to aim at first! Of course, it helps that at least one of us can hit a moving target.”
“I see something moving right now, little brother,” the voice growled. “You might want to be careful it’s not you.”
“Who do you think you are, the vice president? Well, I guess with your aim...”
Charlie stifled a laugh, earning him a dark look from Don.
“What?” he shrugged. “It was funny.”
Don rolled his eyes, but a little of the tension seemed to ease from his body. The people making the voices seemed to come to a halt--Charlie guessed they’d lost whatever they were chasing.
“Sounds like a couple of guys doing some illegal hunting,” his brother surmised as he stood up.
“Yeah, but what were they chasing? I didn’t think there was anything that big around here.”
“Doesn’t matter. They could shoot someone--namely, us. Stay here.”
It was Charlie’s turn to roll his eyes. As if he would let Don wander into a situation like this alone. Ignoring his warning glare, Charlie followed his brother down into the woods towards the still-bickering voices. They were moving now, but slowly--most likely tracking whatever they were hunting.
“My aim’s a helluva lot better than yours. Maybe if you’d put down your pencil just once in three years and picked up a gun, you might be able to hit the broad side of a barn.”
“Oh, here we go again. How many more times are you going to throw Stanford in my face?”
“The rest of our lives, college boy,” a deep voice growled. “The rest of our lives.”
“You just can’t let it go, can you? Or is it just her you can’t get past?”
“What? Look, man, I don’t care who or what you did during your little tantrum--”
“Tantrum! I’ll have you know--”
“Sammy,” he said in a patronizing tone, “I’ve heard your reasons a thousand times--”
“Dean, wait--did you hear that?”
Don and Charlie froze, but it was too late. Exchanging looks, they began moving forward again.
“Yeah. Shut up so I can keep hearing it. And get your gun ready.”
“Don?” Charlie hissed, alarmed. “They’re coming right towards us!”
“I’m always ready. Do you see it?”
“Stay back!”
“No, I--wait, I’ve got a shot!”
“So do I!”
Charlie’s eyes widened. “Don!”
“Then shoot it!”
“FBI! Freeze!”
The two guns lowered, two matching expressions of disappointment and annoyance on their faces.
“Fuck,” the shorter one said.
“Fucked,” the taller one corrected.
The first one sighed. “Yep.”
“Drop your weapons!”
Holding his I.D. ahead of him like a shield, Don approached the two men, who dropped their rifles into the leaves.
“Bags on the ground and put your hands behind your heads!”
They slid their backpacks off their shoulders and put their hands behind their heads, their elbows sticking out on either side of their ears like wings. They were younger than Charlie had expected--younger than both he and Don, though their eyes made them look far older. The taller one appeared apprehensive, his gaze constantly searching the forest around them. The shorter one, on the other hand, flashed them a cocky grin that made Charlie want to smile in return.
“Now, Agent...” he peered at the I.D. and his grinned widened, “Agent Eppes, I can assure you, it’s not what it looks like. I was just teaching my brother here how to shoot--these guns, they’re just BB guns. I figured I’d start him off small, someplace where he couldn’t hurt anyone. If you could see his aim, you’d understand.”
The taller one swung his elbow against his brother’s arm, a scowl on his face.
“Do I look stupid?” Don growled. “Those are not BB guns, and I’m pretty sure that one’s not legal.” He gestured to the gun at the feet of the shorter brother, who shrugged.
“I’m not a big fan of nature--we don’t get along well, so when I go out in it, I like to cheat.”
“Try using that one on the judge,” Don said, picking up the weapons, handing the legal one to Charlie as he removed the bullets from the second gun. “I’m sure he’ll get a big laugh out of it right before he slaps you with a nice big jail sentence.”
“Now, Agent Eppes, is that really necessary? After all, we--”
“Dean!” the tall one warned, his eyes widening.
Dean began twisting around, all humor vanishing from his face as he focused frantically on the sounds coming from the woods around them.
“What is it?” Charlie asked and Dean’s eyes landed on him. He spotted a spark of interest in the green gaze right before it became all business.
“There’s something in these woods, something you really don’t want to run into, and I think it’s coming for us.”
“Right,” Don scoffed, trading guns with Charlie, who’d also begun looking around them. Whatever it was the hunters had heard, they hadn’t imagined it.
“Don, there’s something out there.”
“It’s probably just a deer.”
“It doesn’t sound like a deer.”
“Agent Eppes, you might want to give us our weapons back,” Dean warned.
“That’s not going to happen,” Don said, though his gaze was a little uncertain as he glanced at Charlie, clearly concerned for the welfare of his brother.
“Dean, it’s getting closer!”
“I can hear it, Sammy!”
“Any ideas?”
“Yeah. Run!”
“No one’s going anywhere!”
“Uh... Don?”
“Charlie, stay out of this.”
“Don!”
“RUN!” Dean shouted and the two hunters sprung forward, snatching their bags from the ground along the way. Dean grabbed hold of Charlie’s wrist while Sam grabbed onto Don, pulling them into the woods and away from whatever was chasing them.
“Don’t drop that gun,” Dean growled as he led Charlie through the trees. “We’re going to need it.”
He glanced down at the weapon--he’d forgotten it was still in his hand, but now he clutched his fingers around the barrel, afraid to let go. He attempted to spot his brother through the trees, but Don and the other hunter had veered off away from them as they tried to avoid hitting branches and he couldn’t see them anymore. He turned to look behind him at the thing crashing after them, but all he caught was a vague glimpse of thick brown fur and what could have been long, sharp teeth.
“Is it a bear?”
Dean snorted. “I wish. How close is it?”
Charlie looked over his shoulder, but even though he could hear it, it had managed to slip out of sight. “I don’t know.”
“Shit,” he said and started running faster, dragging Charlie after him. Once they’d put a good distance between themselves and their pursuer, he yanked Charlie behind a large tree. The hunter pressed him up against it and covered him with his own body. “Don’t move,” Dean whispered into his ear. “Don’t make a sound.”
He nodded, trying to focus on the noise in the woods around him, but all he could hear was the beating of Dean’s heart and the heavy sounds of his breath, the warm air brushing across the side of his face. He could feel the tension in Dean’s body as he pressed against him, could feel the warmth surrounding him. The man was hot, and he wasn’t referring to the superficial use of the word. Charlie estimated that that Dean ran a couple of degrees warmer than other people, though he consented that it could just have been a result of his exertions running from the animal. Still, his entire body felt enveloped by Dean’s heat, and it wasn’t exactly an unpleasant sensation.
“It’s coming this way,” Dean said so softly, Charlie almost missed it. Swallowing past the sudden lump in his throat, he nodded, a shiver running beneath his skin. Dean reached up and buried a hand in his curls in a gesture of reassurance and Charlie relaxed a little, resting his head against the other man’s shoulder.
The crashing drew near, accompanied by a snuffling sound. It was clumsy, whatever it was, making no attempt to mask its presence. Charlie could hear the smaller trees creaking against its weight, some of them cracking, their trunks snapping in two as they fell to the ground. He desperately wanted to look, but at the same time, he was terrified of moving his head and giving them away. Instead, he breathed in the intoxicating scent of sweat and leather and motel soap that surrounded the hunter. For a few moments, he forgot they were in any danger and he was only aware of Dean’s scent, and his all-encompassing heat.
And then both were gone.
Dean stepped away, eyes glancing around the now silent forest.
“Is it safe?” Charlie whispered.
“For the moment,” he said and his gaze came to rest on Charlie. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
Dean’s eyes took a second to look over his body, whether to assure himself Charlie really was okay or for another purpose altogether, he didn’t know, but he felt himself flush all the same. Abruptly, Dean turned and began walking into the woods, expecting Charlie to follow behind. Seeing as how he had no other options, he did.
“That’s the thing about Behemoths,” Dean said, leading them in a fast walk over the dirt and leaves, “they lose steam quickly, but they’re stubborn sons of bitches. It’s out there, waiting for us to let our guard down so we can make it easy for him.”
“You don’t think it’s gone after the others, do you?”
“Worried about your boyfriend?” he asked, sounding a bit too casual for the weight of his gaze.
Charlie looked away from the piercing green eyes. “Don’s my brother,” he said, hoping he’d kept his voice steady and hadn’t given anything away.
“Your brother. Right. You also a fed?”
“No, I’m a mathematician.”
Dean arched an eyebrow. “Seriously? You do math for a living?”
“Yes.”
“Damn. I didn’t even know that was a career. What do you do all day? Fill notebooks with multiplication tables?”
“I’m a professor at CalSci, as well as being a consultant for NASA, the NSA, the FBI--”
“Giving you a chance to spend time with your ‘brother’,” the man smirked. “Nice.”
“You don’t understand. He really is my brother.”
“Really?”
The hunter sounded skeptical and that made Charlie nervous. In the short time during which they’d had their confrontation, what had he and Don done to make the man suspect? He couldn’t think of a thing. “Yes.”
“Huh,” Dean said, eyes puzzled for a moment, then he shrugged it off. “Well, you don’t have to worry. He’s got Sammy with him.”
“Sammy?”
“Sam. My brother.”
“And you’re not worried?”
“No,” he said, though Charlie noted the way his gaze flickered in the direction the other two had run. “Sam can take care of himself, and your brother, too. He knows what we’re up against.”
“What are we up against?”
“A Behemoth. Big, dumb, nasty and stubborn as all hell. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to kill, if you can get the damn thing to stand still long enough.”
“A Behemoth,” Charlie frowned. “I’ve been hiking around here for a while and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of one before. Is it native to California?”
Dean gave him a sly look. “Not exactly. You might call it an import.”
“Like someone’s exotic pet that got loose?”
He chuckled. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“So what does that make you--a big game hunter?”
At that, Dean laughed outright. “Professor,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder, “you have no idea.”
It didn’t take a genius to know there was something else going on here, but seeing as how he was wandering through the middle of the woods with a complete stranger who carried illegal guns, Charlie thought it might be best not to pry. All he wanted to do now was find Don and put as much distance between himself and Dean as possible--purely for safety reasons, of course. “What’s next? Are you going to keep looking for this thing?”
“Not with you along. We can either find our way back to my car and wait for our brothers to show up, or we can make our way over to your car and wait for our brothers to show up.”
“I don’t have a car,” Charlie said absently, though he knew that wasn’t the issue.
“Your brother’s car then. Whatever.”
“You really think they’re all right?”
Dean looked at him and smiled. “Yeah, I do. If we’re lucky, it’s still tracking us.”
Charlie glared at him. “That wasn’t exactly reassuring.”
“Story of my life,” he shrugged as he knelt down and studied the earth in front of him.
“Are you tracking it?”
“No, I just like looking at dirt. If we’re going to find the Behemoth, I need to track it.”
Charlie did a double take. “Wait--what? If we’re going to find it? I thought we were going back to the car?”
Dean glanced up at him and grinned. “Unless you want me to leave you here, then yeah, we’re going to find it. There’s just as good a chance that it’ll follow you instead of me, so I’ve decided the smart thing to do is for us to stick together.”
Which was the last thing he wanted. He didn’t know what it was about Dean’s smile--the inherent danger in it, or its utter appeal--but looking at the man was making him increasingly nervous. “You know,” Charlie said, staring up at the sky, “I think I can find my way back to the cabin from here. You go chase your Behemoth. I’ll...I’ll see you around.”
“You’re going to go alone?” Dean asked, standing up.
“Well, yeah,” he said with what he hoped was a confident smile. “I’ll be fine. I may not be as good at tracking as you are, but I can tell it’s not going in the direction of the cabin. I don’t think I have anything to worry about.”
The hunter shook his head. “I can’t let you go alone.”
“Sure you can. Really, I’ll be all right.”
“Whatever you say,” Dean said, shouldering his bag and standing next to Charlie. “So, which way’s the cabin?”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“You either come with me, or I go with you. Your brother the FBI agent would kill me if I let anything happen to you, and I figure I’m in enough hot water with him as it is. Abandoning you to become a bloody corpse is not going to do much to win his favor. So, which way?”
Charlie studied the man’s determined stance, the stubbornness in his eyes, and knew he wasn’t going to escape from Dean that easily.
He sighed.
All right, these were his options. He could either make Dean take him back to the cabin, leaving the Behemoth to run freely through the woods and possibly go after Don, or they could find and kill this thing before it ever reached either of their brothers. There was only one answer. He would rather die than let anything happen to Don, especially if there was something he could do to prevent it.
“This thing...it could really hurt someone?”
“Would I be chasing something that big and nasty if it was harmless?”
Good point. Charlie sighed again, this time in defeat. “All right. Let’s follow it.”
“Atta boy, Professor!” Dean grinned, clapping him on the back. “So, you know how to use a gun?”
Charlie’s lips curled in a little half-smile as he lifted his shoulder in a bashful shrug. “I’ve been known to hit a target or two.”
“Great,” the hunter said, pulling a handgun from his bag. He checked to make sure it had a full clip and handed the gun to Charlie. “If you see the Behemoth, shoot it. That’ll slow it down enough for me to take care of the rest.”
Charlie stared at the gun in his hand, calculating the weight of it, and the only thing running through his mind was that if Don caught him holding it, his brother would wring his neck. Looking back at Dean, who was loading his own gun, he nodded. “You can count on me.”
“Good to know,” Dean said, eyes crinkling with amusement as he started walking. “Come on, let’s go find this thing. If we’re lucky, we’ll be done in time for dinner.”
Continue to Part 2
Author: Dhvana
Crossover: NUMB3RS/Supernatural
Pairings: Don/Charlie, Dean/Charlie, Dean/Sam
Rating: R
Warning: Incest and slash
Summary: Two pairs of brothers, one nasty monster, and the threat of imminent death--so much for a peaceful little hike through the woods.
A/N: My first crossover, this story has been lingering in my mind for months now, and even though my muses are being uncooperative in every other aspect of my writing (uncontrollable bitches that they are), they managed to spit this out in just three days. Enjoy!
Common Bonds
“Having trouble keeping up?” Charlie grinned, glancing back at his older brother, who seemed to be huffing and puffing a little as they made their way up the trail. “If you need me to slow down at all...”
“Charlie?”
“Yes, Don?”
“Bite me.”
Charlie chuckled and continued along the trail, picking up the pace a little. It wasn’t that he wanted to torment his brother...actually, it was exactly that. There were few things he did better than Don, and since he had the time to go out hiking--unlike his brother, who was generally stuck in the office twenty-four/seven--this was one of them. All Don had to do was ask him to slow down, and he’d behave, but since Don would collapse first... Charlie chuckled again, using his hands to help himself up over a fallen tree.
He looked behind him to make sure Don made it--not that he had any doubts, but he liked watching Don and his ego struggle--and forged on ahead. Fortunately, the trail had reached its peak and they’d be going downhill from there on. Once they made it back down into the woods proper, it would be a two and a half mile stroll through the trees and they’d be back at the cabin for dinner, and if Don wasn’t too worn out, for dessert.
Charlie looked back at his brother and smiled. Maybe they should start with dessert, and then have dinner, followed by another round of dessert. It was a rare day when he and Don could spend time together without having to worry about work interfering or, worse, getting caught. Their time alone in the cabin was definitely an opportunity they should take advantage of.
He glanced back again and this time, Don caught him looking, and smiled. Suddenly, Charlie wished he’d chosen a shorter hike.
“Hey Donny, you want to lead for a bit?” After all, he didn’t want his brother to be completely winded by the time they got back, and he could think of worse things than spending an hour or so with his eyes glued to the back of Don’s jeans.
“Getting tired there, buddy?”
“Of the view, maybe. Just trees and tress and more trees. A little variety might be nice,” he said with a wink.
Laughing, his brother rushed forward and grabbed him by the waist, swinging him off his feet.
“Hey!” Charlie protested, though the laughter in his voice and the lack of struggling showed he wasn’t protesting too hard. “Put me down!”
Nuzzling his curls, Don returned him to the earth. “So what is it about our view you don’t like?” he asked, nibbling on his brother’s ear.
“I’m not saying I don’t like it. I’m only saying it could use something to enhance it.”
“Anything particular in mind?”
“A little denim wouldn’t hurt,” he said, closing his eyes and arching his neck as Don’s mouth traveled down his throat.
“I knew there was a reason I wore jeans all the time,” Don said--practically growled--as his hips pressed against Charlie. That was enough of an invitation for him.
“Hey Donny?”
“Yeah?”
“Ever had sex in the woods?”
“Yes.”
Charlie’s eyes flew open--that was not the answer he was expecting. “You have?”
“Haven’t you?”
“No!” He turned around so he was facing his brother. “When did you?”
Don gave him a frank look. “Do you really want to know?”
“I don’t know. Do I?”
Leaning forward, Don softly kissed his lips. “No.”
“Then forget I asked,” he smiled, wrapping his arms around Don’s neck. Just before their mouths met, he paused. “It wasn’t Billy, was it?”
Don laughed, holding his brother close. “No, it wasn’t Billy.”
“Okay,” Charlie grinned. “Now you can forget I asked.” He moved in for a kiss that would hopefully end with them stripped naked and getting wild in the wild. Unfortunately, his plan was literally shot to hell when a shot echoed through the trees.
Don immediately tensed, pushing Charlie towards the ground as he automatically reached for the sidearm he’d left behind on this supposedly non-threatening hike through the woods.
“Get down!”
“Don, the shot wasn’t anywhere near us,” he said even as they both crouched low against the dirt.
“Charlie, do you know how far a bullet can travel?” Charlie opened his mouth and Don quickly cut him off. “Never mind. Of course you know, but we don’t have time for the four hour lecture.”
Charlie shot him a dirty look but decided to refrain from making any comments. Don was in federal agent mode and anything Charlie said would go right by him until Don was positive the danger had passed, so he simply joined his brother in trying to spot the shooter.
From where they’d stopped, they didn’t have much of a vantage point into the forest--ironically enough, there were too many trees in the way. They could hear, though, and both of them tensed as something large came crashing through the brush, followed by something much smaller--a couple of somethings. Charlie started to speak, but Don held up his hand.
“Listen!” he hissed, and Charlie did to hear the sound of two voices yelling at each other through the woods.
“Do you have a shot?”
“If I had a shot, don’t you think I would have fired by now?”
“Didn’t stop you the first time!”
“Yeah, well, I don’t see you hitting anything!”
“That’s because I know I need to have something to aim at first! Of course, it helps that at least one of us can hit a moving target.”
“I see something moving right now, little brother,” the voice growled. “You might want to be careful it’s not you.”
“Who do you think you are, the vice president? Well, I guess with your aim...”
Charlie stifled a laugh, earning him a dark look from Don.
“What?” he shrugged. “It was funny.”
Don rolled his eyes, but a little of the tension seemed to ease from his body. The people making the voices seemed to come to a halt--Charlie guessed they’d lost whatever they were chasing.
“Sounds like a couple of guys doing some illegal hunting,” his brother surmised as he stood up.
“Yeah, but what were they chasing? I didn’t think there was anything that big around here.”
“Doesn’t matter. They could shoot someone--namely, us. Stay here.”
It was Charlie’s turn to roll his eyes. As if he would let Don wander into a situation like this alone. Ignoring his warning glare, Charlie followed his brother down into the woods towards the still-bickering voices. They were moving now, but slowly--most likely tracking whatever they were hunting.
“My aim’s a helluva lot better than yours. Maybe if you’d put down your pencil just once in three years and picked up a gun, you might be able to hit the broad side of a barn.”
“Oh, here we go again. How many more times are you going to throw Stanford in my face?”
“The rest of our lives, college boy,” a deep voice growled. “The rest of our lives.”
“You just can’t let it go, can you? Or is it just her you can’t get past?”
“What? Look, man, I don’t care who or what you did during your little tantrum--”
“Tantrum! I’ll have you know--”
“Sammy,” he said in a patronizing tone, “I’ve heard your reasons a thousand times--”
“Dean, wait--did you hear that?”
Don and Charlie froze, but it was too late. Exchanging looks, they began moving forward again.
“Yeah. Shut up so I can keep hearing it. And get your gun ready.”
“Don?” Charlie hissed, alarmed. “They’re coming right towards us!”
“I’m always ready. Do you see it?”
“Stay back!”
“No, I--wait, I’ve got a shot!”
“So do I!”
Charlie’s eyes widened. “Don!”
“Then shoot it!”
“FBI! Freeze!”
The two guns lowered, two matching expressions of disappointment and annoyance on their faces.
“Fuck,” the shorter one said.
“Fucked,” the taller one corrected.
The first one sighed. “Yep.”
“Drop your weapons!”
Holding his I.D. ahead of him like a shield, Don approached the two men, who dropped their rifles into the leaves.
“Bags on the ground and put your hands behind your heads!”
They slid their backpacks off their shoulders and put their hands behind their heads, their elbows sticking out on either side of their ears like wings. They were younger than Charlie had expected--younger than both he and Don, though their eyes made them look far older. The taller one appeared apprehensive, his gaze constantly searching the forest around them. The shorter one, on the other hand, flashed them a cocky grin that made Charlie want to smile in return.
“Now, Agent...” he peered at the I.D. and his grinned widened, “Agent Eppes, I can assure you, it’s not what it looks like. I was just teaching my brother here how to shoot--these guns, they’re just BB guns. I figured I’d start him off small, someplace where he couldn’t hurt anyone. If you could see his aim, you’d understand.”
The taller one swung his elbow against his brother’s arm, a scowl on his face.
“Do I look stupid?” Don growled. “Those are not BB guns, and I’m pretty sure that one’s not legal.” He gestured to the gun at the feet of the shorter brother, who shrugged.
“I’m not a big fan of nature--we don’t get along well, so when I go out in it, I like to cheat.”
“Try using that one on the judge,” Don said, picking up the weapons, handing the legal one to Charlie as he removed the bullets from the second gun. “I’m sure he’ll get a big laugh out of it right before he slaps you with a nice big jail sentence.”
“Now, Agent Eppes, is that really necessary? After all, we--”
“Dean!” the tall one warned, his eyes widening.
Dean began twisting around, all humor vanishing from his face as he focused frantically on the sounds coming from the woods around them.
“What is it?” Charlie asked and Dean’s eyes landed on him. He spotted a spark of interest in the green gaze right before it became all business.
“There’s something in these woods, something you really don’t want to run into, and I think it’s coming for us.”
“Right,” Don scoffed, trading guns with Charlie, who’d also begun looking around them. Whatever it was the hunters had heard, they hadn’t imagined it.
“Don, there’s something out there.”
“It’s probably just a deer.”
“It doesn’t sound like a deer.”
“Agent Eppes, you might want to give us our weapons back,” Dean warned.
“That’s not going to happen,” Don said, though his gaze was a little uncertain as he glanced at Charlie, clearly concerned for the welfare of his brother.
“Dean, it’s getting closer!”
“I can hear it, Sammy!”
“Any ideas?”
“Yeah. Run!”
“No one’s going anywhere!”
“Uh... Don?”
“Charlie, stay out of this.”
“Don!”
“RUN!” Dean shouted and the two hunters sprung forward, snatching their bags from the ground along the way. Dean grabbed hold of Charlie’s wrist while Sam grabbed onto Don, pulling them into the woods and away from whatever was chasing them.
“Don’t drop that gun,” Dean growled as he led Charlie through the trees. “We’re going to need it.”
He glanced down at the weapon--he’d forgotten it was still in his hand, but now he clutched his fingers around the barrel, afraid to let go. He attempted to spot his brother through the trees, but Don and the other hunter had veered off away from them as they tried to avoid hitting branches and he couldn’t see them anymore. He turned to look behind him at the thing crashing after them, but all he caught was a vague glimpse of thick brown fur and what could have been long, sharp teeth.
“Is it a bear?”
Dean snorted. “I wish. How close is it?”
Charlie looked over his shoulder, but even though he could hear it, it had managed to slip out of sight. “I don’t know.”
“Shit,” he said and started running faster, dragging Charlie after him. Once they’d put a good distance between themselves and their pursuer, he yanked Charlie behind a large tree. The hunter pressed him up against it and covered him with his own body. “Don’t move,” Dean whispered into his ear. “Don’t make a sound.”
He nodded, trying to focus on the noise in the woods around him, but all he could hear was the beating of Dean’s heart and the heavy sounds of his breath, the warm air brushing across the side of his face. He could feel the tension in Dean’s body as he pressed against him, could feel the warmth surrounding him. The man was hot, and he wasn’t referring to the superficial use of the word. Charlie estimated that that Dean ran a couple of degrees warmer than other people, though he consented that it could just have been a result of his exertions running from the animal. Still, his entire body felt enveloped by Dean’s heat, and it wasn’t exactly an unpleasant sensation.
“It’s coming this way,” Dean said so softly, Charlie almost missed it. Swallowing past the sudden lump in his throat, he nodded, a shiver running beneath his skin. Dean reached up and buried a hand in his curls in a gesture of reassurance and Charlie relaxed a little, resting his head against the other man’s shoulder.
The crashing drew near, accompanied by a snuffling sound. It was clumsy, whatever it was, making no attempt to mask its presence. Charlie could hear the smaller trees creaking against its weight, some of them cracking, their trunks snapping in two as they fell to the ground. He desperately wanted to look, but at the same time, he was terrified of moving his head and giving them away. Instead, he breathed in the intoxicating scent of sweat and leather and motel soap that surrounded the hunter. For a few moments, he forgot they were in any danger and he was only aware of Dean’s scent, and his all-encompassing heat.
And then both were gone.
Dean stepped away, eyes glancing around the now silent forest.
“Is it safe?” Charlie whispered.
“For the moment,” he said and his gaze came to rest on Charlie. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
Dean’s eyes took a second to look over his body, whether to assure himself Charlie really was okay or for another purpose altogether, he didn’t know, but he felt himself flush all the same. Abruptly, Dean turned and began walking into the woods, expecting Charlie to follow behind. Seeing as how he had no other options, he did.
“That’s the thing about Behemoths,” Dean said, leading them in a fast walk over the dirt and leaves, “they lose steam quickly, but they’re stubborn sons of bitches. It’s out there, waiting for us to let our guard down so we can make it easy for him.”
“You don’t think it’s gone after the others, do you?”
“Worried about your boyfriend?” he asked, sounding a bit too casual for the weight of his gaze.
Charlie looked away from the piercing green eyes. “Don’s my brother,” he said, hoping he’d kept his voice steady and hadn’t given anything away.
“Your brother. Right. You also a fed?”
“No, I’m a mathematician.”
Dean arched an eyebrow. “Seriously? You do math for a living?”
“Yes.”
“Damn. I didn’t even know that was a career. What do you do all day? Fill notebooks with multiplication tables?”
“I’m a professor at CalSci, as well as being a consultant for NASA, the NSA, the FBI--”
“Giving you a chance to spend time with your ‘brother’,” the man smirked. “Nice.”
“You don’t understand. He really is my brother.”
“Really?”
The hunter sounded skeptical and that made Charlie nervous. In the short time during which they’d had their confrontation, what had he and Don done to make the man suspect? He couldn’t think of a thing. “Yes.”
“Huh,” Dean said, eyes puzzled for a moment, then he shrugged it off. “Well, you don’t have to worry. He’s got Sammy with him.”
“Sammy?”
“Sam. My brother.”
“And you’re not worried?”
“No,” he said, though Charlie noted the way his gaze flickered in the direction the other two had run. “Sam can take care of himself, and your brother, too. He knows what we’re up against.”
“What are we up against?”
“A Behemoth. Big, dumb, nasty and stubborn as all hell. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to kill, if you can get the damn thing to stand still long enough.”
“A Behemoth,” Charlie frowned. “I’ve been hiking around here for a while and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of one before. Is it native to California?”
Dean gave him a sly look. “Not exactly. You might call it an import.”
“Like someone’s exotic pet that got loose?”
He chuckled. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“So what does that make you--a big game hunter?”
At that, Dean laughed outright. “Professor,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder, “you have no idea.”
It didn’t take a genius to know there was something else going on here, but seeing as how he was wandering through the middle of the woods with a complete stranger who carried illegal guns, Charlie thought it might be best not to pry. All he wanted to do now was find Don and put as much distance between himself and Dean as possible--purely for safety reasons, of course. “What’s next? Are you going to keep looking for this thing?”
“Not with you along. We can either find our way back to my car and wait for our brothers to show up, or we can make our way over to your car and wait for our brothers to show up.”
“I don’t have a car,” Charlie said absently, though he knew that wasn’t the issue.
“Your brother’s car then. Whatever.”
“You really think they’re all right?”
Dean looked at him and smiled. “Yeah, I do. If we’re lucky, it’s still tracking us.”
Charlie glared at him. “That wasn’t exactly reassuring.”
“Story of my life,” he shrugged as he knelt down and studied the earth in front of him.
“Are you tracking it?”
“No, I just like looking at dirt. If we’re going to find the Behemoth, I need to track it.”
Charlie did a double take. “Wait--what? If we’re going to find it? I thought we were going back to the car?”
Dean glanced up at him and grinned. “Unless you want me to leave you here, then yeah, we’re going to find it. There’s just as good a chance that it’ll follow you instead of me, so I’ve decided the smart thing to do is for us to stick together.”
Which was the last thing he wanted. He didn’t know what it was about Dean’s smile--the inherent danger in it, or its utter appeal--but looking at the man was making him increasingly nervous. “You know,” Charlie said, staring up at the sky, “I think I can find my way back to the cabin from here. You go chase your Behemoth. I’ll...I’ll see you around.”
“You’re going to go alone?” Dean asked, standing up.
“Well, yeah,” he said with what he hoped was a confident smile. “I’ll be fine. I may not be as good at tracking as you are, but I can tell it’s not going in the direction of the cabin. I don’t think I have anything to worry about.”
The hunter shook his head. “I can’t let you go alone.”
“Sure you can. Really, I’ll be all right.”
“Whatever you say,” Dean said, shouldering his bag and standing next to Charlie. “So, which way’s the cabin?”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“You either come with me, or I go with you. Your brother the FBI agent would kill me if I let anything happen to you, and I figure I’m in enough hot water with him as it is. Abandoning you to become a bloody corpse is not going to do much to win his favor. So, which way?”
Charlie studied the man’s determined stance, the stubbornness in his eyes, and knew he wasn’t going to escape from Dean that easily.
He sighed.
All right, these were his options. He could either make Dean take him back to the cabin, leaving the Behemoth to run freely through the woods and possibly go after Don, or they could find and kill this thing before it ever reached either of their brothers. There was only one answer. He would rather die than let anything happen to Don, especially if there was something he could do to prevent it.
“This thing...it could really hurt someone?”
“Would I be chasing something that big and nasty if it was harmless?”
Good point. Charlie sighed again, this time in defeat. “All right. Let’s follow it.”
“Atta boy, Professor!” Dean grinned, clapping him on the back. “So, you know how to use a gun?”
Charlie’s lips curled in a little half-smile as he lifted his shoulder in a bashful shrug. “I’ve been known to hit a target or two.”
“Great,” the hunter said, pulling a handgun from his bag. He checked to make sure it had a full clip and handed the gun to Charlie. “If you see the Behemoth, shoot it. That’ll slow it down enough for me to take care of the rest.”
Charlie stared at the gun in his hand, calculating the weight of it, and the only thing running through his mind was that if Don caught him holding it, his brother would wring his neck. Looking back at Dean, who was loading his own gun, he nodded. “You can count on me.”
“Good to know,” Dean said, eyes crinkling with amusement as he started walking. “Come on, let’s go find this thing. If we’re lucky, we’ll be done in time for dinner.”
Continue to Part 2