Title: Events in Sun and Shadows, 6/?
Title: Events in Sun and Shadows, 6/?
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: reading_is_in
Characters: Ben/Adam, Bobby.
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All recognized characters from ‘Supernatural’ are property of Eric Kripke/CW. This fan fiction is not for profit.
Summary: In 2017, Adam visits a grieving Ben after the loss of his family and his beloved hero. He makes the same offer his dead half-brothers once made him: revenge, and a new life. AU.
Warnings: Major character death, confused adolescent feelings, more angst than you can shake a very angsty stick at.
A/N: Apologies, but there probably won't be another update until next weekend. I have a semi-big uni deadline coming up. If other stuff goes quicker than expected, I will update Wednesday as usual, but it's looking doubtful right now. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, commented or sent a message about this, I really do appreciate it.
“Shapeshifter in Kingswood,” said Adam: “You up for it?”
“You want me to come on a real hunt?” Ben looked up startled from his book of revenants.
“That’s what we’ve been training you for, isn’t it?” Adam grinned. “I’m 80% sure it’s a shapeshifter, anyway.” He spread a map of the area over the coffee table. “A kid went psycho and pulled a gun at the high school last week. First I figured it was either a regular human killing, or a vengeful spirit…no shortage of them in high schools, you understand.”
Ben didn’t, really. He hadn’t been a jock , but he hadn’t been bullied or an outcast either. High school. had been okay for him, except for the never-ending fear that someone would find out his secret.
“Only, according to the local paper, the kid swears blind he was playing hooky that day. Docs are saying multiple personality disorder. I considered possession, false memories…but then, the receptionist at the golf club flips out yesterday, stalks a customer on his way home and beats him to death with a golf club. The dead dude, by all accounts, should’ve been able to defend himself - we’re talking a hundred pound, 5 foot woman versus a guy who teaches kickboxing at the Y. And get this - the second victim is the uncle of the kid the shifter shot at the high school. Receptionist’s alibi is she went straight home from work - which is so mundane as to probably be true - and finally, this morning, police arrest a care worker about to top an old girl at the retirement centre. Said care worker supposedly not working that day. A little too much duplication to be a co-incidence.”
“So - we scope the sewers?” Ben stood up, closing the book, feeling the stretch of his newly developed muscles. He’d surprised himself, yesterday, catching sight of his rapidly-developing body in the chipped bathroom mirror when he got out of the shower. He had bruises on top of bruises - but more muscle than he’d ever had in his life. A thinner face. He’d actually stopped and stared for a minute. Wished Dean could see him like this.
“We scope the sewers,” Adam confirmed. “You can kill a shapeshifter with silver to the heart in any form - bullets being the most convenient. I only got six left, so aim carefully. And we’ll each take a silver knife as backup.” Ben waited for him to say, ‘keep behind me’, or ‘do what I say, no questions’, but Adam said nothing else, just reached for a box on the top shelf of the study and started to change the bullets in his usual weapon. He seemed calm, cheerful, and whatever Ben had felt or thought he’d felt the night before seemed to have never touched him. Probably just some sick combination of loneliness, grief and being seventeen without having jerked off for the previous seventy-two hours. Ben shoved it viciously from his mind. It wasn’t like he was even gay or anything.
They left at eight, Bobby clapping Ben on the shoulder with a gruff admonition to be careful. “Dean would be damn proud of you,” he informed him.
“Dean didn’t even want me to fire a gun,” Ben reminded him, and Bobby grimaced. Ben realized he’d said Dean’s name out loud, and the world hadn’t crumbled. His breath caught a little though.
“Well, he would understand now,” Bobby asserted. “And he’d be proud.”
Adam, watching closely, said,
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” mildly.
“Yeah,” said Ben, his mind suddenly made up. “Let’s do it.”
* * *
“Have you hunted a shifter before?” Ben asked Adam, as the Ford rumbled quietly through the city streets.
“Twice,” said Adam. “One I caught, one caught me.”
“Oh.”
“Nobody’s perfect.”
They used the empty car park of a closed department store, kept their weapons hidden as Ben stood lookout and Adam levered the nearest drain cover open. The smell was intense and immediate. Ben gagged.
“Yeah, you might wanna-…,” Adam gestured belatedly to the way he was covering his mouth with his sleeve. One-handed, he grasped the metal ladder and shimmied down the steps, landing with a wet thud in the darkness below. Ben could just make out his head and shoulders before he followed suit. Once down, they clicked on their flashlights and Ben slid the drain cover back into place, surprised by how easily it yielded to his increased strength.
Their flashlights roved over the dank, dripping walls. Now that they were closed in, the smell of rot and human waste was even more overpowering, and Ben did his best to breathe through his mouth until he could adjust to it.
“So - you could go left and I could go right - or - no, it’s your first time, so I guess we should stay together. I mean, unless you want to split up. Can you tell I’ve never trained anyone before?” Adam’s grin flashed in the darkness, torchlight catching his eyes and teeth.
“Let’s stick together,” said Ben.
“Alright. So we’re looking for discarded remains, clothes, especially skin, hair and nails. Listen out for any sounds.”
They started moving, and by silent consent, Adam moved his flashlight over the left-hand side of the curved tunnel, Ben over the left. A murky stream of dubious substance trickled and squished beneath their boots, smell rising fresh every time they turned it over. It felt like a long time passed - but according to the blinking numbers on Ben’s luminous wristwatch, it was less than twenty minutes. “We’re under the school,” Adam observed quietly, apparently reading the markings from a metal hub in the wall, and then -
“Ho-oly shit,” Ben’s flashlight fell on a pile of something, and the exclamation fell from his lips before he could bite it back. It was skin - looked like human skin - festering and fly-covered. Streaked bloody and torn in unnatural ways, from the scalp to the soles of the feet. Interspersed with the shreds of a denim skirt, socks, a jumper - a ripped pair of sneakers lay next to the pile, obscenely white and
innocuous.
“Alright,” said Adam quietly, “We found its first hunting ground.”
A slip-slither of something behind them - the slap of a footfall in moisture.
“Make that its current hunting ground,” Adam said, cocked his gun, and turned around.
Part Seven
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: reading_is_in
Characters: Ben/Adam, Bobby.
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All recognized characters from ‘Supernatural’ are property of Eric Kripke/CW. This fan fiction is not for profit.
Summary: In 2017, Adam visits a grieving Ben after the loss of his family and his beloved hero. He makes the same offer his dead half-brothers once made him: revenge, and a new life. AU.
Warnings: Major character death, confused adolescent feelings, more angst than you can shake a very angsty stick at.
A/N: Apologies, but there probably won't be another update until next weekend. I have a semi-big uni deadline coming up. If other stuff goes quicker than expected, I will update Wednesday as usual, but it's looking doubtful right now. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, commented or sent a message about this, I really do appreciate it.
“Shapeshifter in Kingswood,” said Adam: “You up for it?”
“You want me to come on a real hunt?” Ben looked up startled from his book of revenants.
“That’s what we’ve been training you for, isn’t it?” Adam grinned. “I’m 80% sure it’s a shapeshifter, anyway.” He spread a map of the area over the coffee table. “A kid went psycho and pulled a gun at the high school last week. First I figured it was either a regular human killing, or a vengeful spirit…no shortage of them in high schools, you understand.”
Ben didn’t, really. He hadn’t been a jock , but he hadn’t been bullied or an outcast either. High school. had been okay for him, except for the never-ending fear that someone would find out his secret.
“Only, according to the local paper, the kid swears blind he was playing hooky that day. Docs are saying multiple personality disorder. I considered possession, false memories…but then, the receptionist at the golf club flips out yesterday, stalks a customer on his way home and beats him to death with a golf club. The dead dude, by all accounts, should’ve been able to defend himself - we’re talking a hundred pound, 5 foot woman versus a guy who teaches kickboxing at the Y. And get this - the second victim is the uncle of the kid the shifter shot at the high school. Receptionist’s alibi is she went straight home from work - which is so mundane as to probably be true - and finally, this morning, police arrest a care worker about to top an old girl at the retirement centre. Said care worker supposedly not working that day. A little too much duplication to be a co-incidence.”
“So - we scope the sewers?” Ben stood up, closing the book, feeling the stretch of his newly developed muscles. He’d surprised himself, yesterday, catching sight of his rapidly-developing body in the chipped bathroom mirror when he got out of the shower. He had bruises on top of bruises - but more muscle than he’d ever had in his life. A thinner face. He’d actually stopped and stared for a minute. Wished Dean could see him like this.
“We scope the sewers,” Adam confirmed. “You can kill a shapeshifter with silver to the heart in any form - bullets being the most convenient. I only got six left, so aim carefully. And we’ll each take a silver knife as backup.” Ben waited for him to say, ‘keep behind me’, or ‘do what I say, no questions’, but Adam said nothing else, just reached for a box on the top shelf of the study and started to change the bullets in his usual weapon. He seemed calm, cheerful, and whatever Ben had felt or thought he’d felt the night before seemed to have never touched him. Probably just some sick combination of loneliness, grief and being seventeen without having jerked off for the previous seventy-two hours. Ben shoved it viciously from his mind. It wasn’t like he was even gay or anything.
They left at eight, Bobby clapping Ben on the shoulder with a gruff admonition to be careful. “Dean would be damn proud of you,” he informed him.
“Dean didn’t even want me to fire a gun,” Ben reminded him, and Bobby grimaced. Ben realized he’d said Dean’s name out loud, and the world hadn’t crumbled. His breath caught a little though.
“Well, he would understand now,” Bobby asserted. “And he’d be proud.”
Adam, watching closely, said,
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” mildly.
“Yeah,” said Ben, his mind suddenly made up. “Let’s do it.”
* * *
“Have you hunted a shifter before?” Ben asked Adam, as the Ford rumbled quietly through the city streets.
“Twice,” said Adam. “One I caught, one caught me.”
“Oh.”
“Nobody’s perfect.”
They used the empty car park of a closed department store, kept their weapons hidden as Ben stood lookout and Adam levered the nearest drain cover open. The smell was intense and immediate. Ben gagged.
“Yeah, you might wanna-…,” Adam gestured belatedly to the way he was covering his mouth with his sleeve. One-handed, he grasped the metal ladder and shimmied down the steps, landing with a wet thud in the darkness below. Ben could just make out his head and shoulders before he followed suit. Once down, they clicked on their flashlights and Ben slid the drain cover back into place, surprised by how easily it yielded to his increased strength.
Their flashlights roved over the dank, dripping walls. Now that they were closed in, the smell of rot and human waste was even more overpowering, and Ben did his best to breathe through his mouth until he could adjust to it.
“So - you could go left and I could go right - or - no, it’s your first time, so I guess we should stay together. I mean, unless you want to split up. Can you tell I’ve never trained anyone before?” Adam’s grin flashed in the darkness, torchlight catching his eyes and teeth.
“Let’s stick together,” said Ben.
“Alright. So we’re looking for discarded remains, clothes, especially skin, hair and nails. Listen out for any sounds.”
They started moving, and by silent consent, Adam moved his flashlight over the left-hand side of the curved tunnel, Ben over the left. A murky stream of dubious substance trickled and squished beneath their boots, smell rising fresh every time they turned it over. It felt like a long time passed - but according to the blinking numbers on Ben’s luminous wristwatch, it was less than twenty minutes. “We’re under the school,” Adam observed quietly, apparently reading the markings from a metal hub in the wall, and then -
“Ho-oly shit,” Ben’s flashlight fell on a pile of something, and the exclamation fell from his lips before he could bite it back. It was skin - looked like human skin - festering and fly-covered. Streaked bloody and torn in unnatural ways, from the scalp to the soles of the feet. Interspersed with the shreds of a denim skirt, socks, a jumper - a ripped pair of sneakers lay next to the pile, obscenely white and
innocuous.
“Alright,” said Adam quietly, “We found its first hunting ground.”
A slip-slither of something behind them - the slap of a footfall in moisture.
“Make that its current hunting ground,” Adam said, cocked his gun, and turned around.
Part Seven