Events in Sun and Shadows, 9/?
Title: Events in Sun and Shadows, 9/?
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.
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight
There was a campground on Lake Hendricks, but they didn’t use it. Tourism was way down, due both to the season and the spate of recent deaths at the lake, but a handful of committed fishing enthusiasts had still braved the conditions.
“Too risky,” Adam shook his head. “A lot of these people bring dogs. The last thing we need is some terrier to come nosing round the tent looking for hotdogs and carry off a shotgun.”
“What about questioning?” Ben asked.
“We’ll come back in the morning.”
They set up camp in a fenced field right on the lake. A signpost just out front declared ‘LAKE DREAM REAL ESTATE. PRIVATE LOT FOR SALE’, with a telephone number printed below the logo. A less professional sign, affixed to the front gate, read ‘NO TRESPASSING’. Ben couldn’t help but smile a little at the ineffectiveness of that.
Bobby had been less than sanguine regarding this second attempt. He wouldn’t come out and say that Ben was a useless hunter, but deflected it into grumblings about how two men on a goose chase was a waste of man power, and that Ben would be better off staying with him and learning something useful. At the last minute he’d admonished them,
“Y’all come back in one piece, y’hear,” before shoving a box of blueberry muffins on top of their packed supplies. Baking, as it turned out, was another one of his unlikely interests. “Made too damn many. Tara’s sniffing around them now, and she’s gettin’ too damn fat.” Tara was Bobby’s elderly Rottweiler cross, a fearsome-looking animal with a fierce bark when alarmed, but generally very placid and even-tempered. Her habit was to lean her solid bulk against a person’s leg and butt them with her forehead in an almost cat-like show of affection.
Bobby likes you a lot,” Adam had told Ben in the car.
“You think?”
“I know. I know Bobby.”
“Oh. Sometimes it seems like he thinks I’m stupid. I know I’m not exactly his fastest student.”
“Well no - his fastest student was Sam, who was something of a genius. But you aren’t stupid.
Far from it. And Bobby doesn’t think so.”
Once the tent was set up, and no irate property owner had immediately materialized, Adam set the torches and laid a bunch of newspaper clippings out on a thin windbreaker. He pinned them with a beer can against the evening breeze. The clippings dated back to the nineteenth century:
A TRUE ACCOUNT of an HORRIBLE MONSTER, seen off the coast of LAKE CHAMPLAIN
A TRUE and VERIFIED SIGHTING of the BEAST OF LAKE ERIE
A most hideous KRAKEN in RAINY LAKE?
And up to the snappier titles of recent decades:
LOCAL WOMAN SPOTS ‘CHAMP’ OF CHAMPLAIN
IS CHESSIE REAL? VIDEO EVIDENCE!
“I think some of these later ones are plesiosaurs,” Adam said: “Generally keep to themselves, pretty quiet and have more sense than to get involved with humans. And if a couple get eaten by natural predators,” -he indicated a clipping from the forties, ‘COUPLE LOST ON LAKE MANITOBA’ - “Well, that’s not really our business. This, however, might be.” He handed Ben last week’s copy of the local newspaper.
BOY, 12, VANISHES AT LAKE HENDRICKS
Witnesses report ‘splashing of tentacles’.
“Two more since then,” Adam went on. “I’m thinking Kraken.”
“Isn’t it kind of arbitrary though,” it occurred to Ben suddenly, “That we go after Kraken because they’re monsters - but leave human-eating dinosaurs alone?”
“I’ve considered it.” The torchlight flickered over Adam’s face as he frowned in concentration. They hadn’t risked a fire, and it was cold. “There are differences. For one thing Kraken are sentient, and they hunt out of bloodlust, not just because they’re hungry. But ultimately,” he shrugged, “Hunting’s a messy business, and you got to draw the line somewhere. Otherwise what -we go after murderers and rapists? That’s not being a hunter, that’s being a vigilante.”
“You’ve thought a lot about this,” Ben said. He wondered if Dean had. If he’d felt guilt over anything he’d killed before.
“One of my many flaws. Now tonight, we reconnaissance. You want to eat first?”
“Nah, after,” Ben said. He would never admit it, but sometimes he got kind of a nervous stomach. Adam checked the safety on his gun and holstered it, then slid a long thin blade into the holder at his belt.
“How do you kill a kraken?” he quizzed Ben.
“Silver bullet between the eyes, or enough salt to shrivel the body up.”
“Right. Not that we’re gonna get close enough for the second way.” They finished arming and secured the lock on their box of provisions. Ben felt adrenalin rising. This time, he wouldn’t mess up, he determined. He would be an asset. He would show Adam he was an adult, and ready. ‘Ready for what?’ his brain asked him. He liked Adam. Yeah, liked him like that. Perhaps he had something to prove. ‘Don’t think about that now,’ he told himself. ‘Just do good. And then - we’ll see what happens.”
They headed north, back to the campsite and then beyond it, to the long stretch of shore where the victims had been vanishing. It was sparse here - rocky, with little grass, and some dirty scrub sand further down by the water. The wind was biting - but the stars were out, and Ben blew hot air into the collar of his jacket, enjoying the way the heat curled back on his face. Adam was a lithe shadow in front of him, moving soundlessly over the terrain.
The smell hit them before the sight.
“Gross!” Ben couldn’t help exclaiming.
“See, there’s your unnatural,” Adam turned one of the dead fish over with the toe of his boot: “No plesiosaur in the water would cause this.” The shoreline was littered with fish carcasses in various states of decay. “Haven’t seen this mentioned in the local news - must have just happened yesterday.”
“It could be some kind of pollution,” Ben ventured.
“Could be. But combined with the disappearances, somehow I doubt it.”
“You think this is funny?”
They both spun around. An elderly woman, stooped and grim-looking, propped her cane against a rock behind them. She was bundled up in a thick, furred anorak of dark indeterminate colour. The rumble and wash of the lake waves must have masked the sound of her approach.
“God damn kids,” the wind whipped the old woman’s hair in tatters against her skull. “You think this is some kind of adventure game?”
“No Ma’am,” said Adam innocently. “We were just saying, what a shame it is all the fish have washed up. Some kind of pollution, must be.”
“That ain’t no pollution, boy,” the old woman growled. “That’s the Kraken.”
“What’s a Kraken?” Adam said, which was just as well, because Ben had been just about to jump in with, ‘You know about that?’, but obviously they were going to play innocent.
“I ain’t lived here for forty eight years without larnin’ a thing or two.” The woman gestured abruptly behind her, implying that she lived beyond the thick line of evergreens in shore.
“Kraken’s the lake beast. Older than I am, and that’s old. It’s lived here time out of mind, and it ain’t happy with all these - developments.” She glanced sneeringly in the direction of the camping ground. “They’re putting up a hotel. Soon there’ll be tourists year round. Kids playing in its water. Shrieking and scaring the fish. It used to eat fish. Now its moving up in the ways of things,” she chuckled.
“Really?” Ben did his best to sound innocently interested. “We’d love to learn more about it. I mean, we’re sort of - marine biology students….”
“Biology!” the old woman shrieked with laughter. “This ain’t no biology. It’s old magic. Now get out of here. Off my land. This ain’t no place to be hanging around, not when the Kraken is hungry.”
“Yes Ma’am,” said Adam politely. “We’re very sorry to have bothered you. We didn’t realize this was private property.”
“Biology,” she chuckled again. “Go back to college, boy.”
Adam and Ben exchanged glances. The old woman watched them steadily, all the way down the shoreline.
Part Ten
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.
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight
There was a campground on Lake Hendricks, but they didn’t use it. Tourism was way down, due both to the season and the spate of recent deaths at the lake, but a handful of committed fishing enthusiasts had still braved the conditions.
“Too risky,” Adam shook his head. “A lot of these people bring dogs. The last thing we need is some terrier to come nosing round the tent looking for hotdogs and carry off a shotgun.”
“What about questioning?” Ben asked.
“We’ll come back in the morning.”
They set up camp in a fenced field right on the lake. A signpost just out front declared ‘LAKE DREAM REAL ESTATE. PRIVATE LOT FOR SALE’, with a telephone number printed below the logo. A less professional sign, affixed to the front gate, read ‘NO TRESPASSING’. Ben couldn’t help but smile a little at the ineffectiveness of that.
Bobby had been less than sanguine regarding this second attempt. He wouldn’t come out and say that Ben was a useless hunter, but deflected it into grumblings about how two men on a goose chase was a waste of man power, and that Ben would be better off staying with him and learning something useful. At the last minute he’d admonished them,
“Y’all come back in one piece, y’hear,” before shoving a box of blueberry muffins on top of their packed supplies. Baking, as it turned out, was another one of his unlikely interests. “Made too damn many. Tara’s sniffing around them now, and she’s gettin’ too damn fat.” Tara was Bobby’s elderly Rottweiler cross, a fearsome-looking animal with a fierce bark when alarmed, but generally very placid and even-tempered. Her habit was to lean her solid bulk against a person’s leg and butt them with her forehead in an almost cat-like show of affection.
Bobby likes you a lot,” Adam had told Ben in the car.
“You think?”
“I know. I know Bobby.”
“Oh. Sometimes it seems like he thinks I’m stupid. I know I’m not exactly his fastest student.”
“Well no - his fastest student was Sam, who was something of a genius. But you aren’t stupid.
Far from it. And Bobby doesn’t think so.”
Once the tent was set up, and no irate property owner had immediately materialized, Adam set the torches and laid a bunch of newspaper clippings out on a thin windbreaker. He pinned them with a beer can against the evening breeze. The clippings dated back to the nineteenth century:
A TRUE ACCOUNT of an HORRIBLE MONSTER, seen off the coast of LAKE CHAMPLAIN
A TRUE and VERIFIED SIGHTING of the BEAST OF LAKE ERIE
A most hideous KRAKEN in RAINY LAKE?
And up to the snappier titles of recent decades:
LOCAL WOMAN SPOTS ‘CHAMP’ OF CHAMPLAIN
IS CHESSIE REAL? VIDEO EVIDENCE!
“I think some of these later ones are plesiosaurs,” Adam said: “Generally keep to themselves, pretty quiet and have more sense than to get involved with humans. And if a couple get eaten by natural predators,” -he indicated a clipping from the forties, ‘COUPLE LOST ON LAKE MANITOBA’ - “Well, that’s not really our business. This, however, might be.” He handed Ben last week’s copy of the local newspaper.
BOY, 12, VANISHES AT LAKE HENDRICKS
Witnesses report ‘splashing of tentacles’.
“Two more since then,” Adam went on. “I’m thinking Kraken.”
“Isn’t it kind of arbitrary though,” it occurred to Ben suddenly, “That we go after Kraken because they’re monsters - but leave human-eating dinosaurs alone?”
“I’ve considered it.” The torchlight flickered over Adam’s face as he frowned in concentration. They hadn’t risked a fire, and it was cold. “There are differences. For one thing Kraken are sentient, and they hunt out of bloodlust, not just because they’re hungry. But ultimately,” he shrugged, “Hunting’s a messy business, and you got to draw the line somewhere. Otherwise what -we go after murderers and rapists? That’s not being a hunter, that’s being a vigilante.”
“You’ve thought a lot about this,” Ben said. He wondered if Dean had. If he’d felt guilt over anything he’d killed before.
“One of my many flaws. Now tonight, we reconnaissance. You want to eat first?”
“Nah, after,” Ben said. He would never admit it, but sometimes he got kind of a nervous stomach. Adam checked the safety on his gun and holstered it, then slid a long thin blade into the holder at his belt.
“How do you kill a kraken?” he quizzed Ben.
“Silver bullet between the eyes, or enough salt to shrivel the body up.”
“Right. Not that we’re gonna get close enough for the second way.” They finished arming and secured the lock on their box of provisions. Ben felt adrenalin rising. This time, he wouldn’t mess up, he determined. He would be an asset. He would show Adam he was an adult, and ready. ‘Ready for what?’ his brain asked him. He liked Adam. Yeah, liked him like that. Perhaps he had something to prove. ‘Don’t think about that now,’ he told himself. ‘Just do good. And then - we’ll see what happens.”
They headed north, back to the campsite and then beyond it, to the long stretch of shore where the victims had been vanishing. It was sparse here - rocky, with little grass, and some dirty scrub sand further down by the water. The wind was biting - but the stars were out, and Ben blew hot air into the collar of his jacket, enjoying the way the heat curled back on his face. Adam was a lithe shadow in front of him, moving soundlessly over the terrain.
The smell hit them before the sight.
“Gross!” Ben couldn’t help exclaiming.
“See, there’s your unnatural,” Adam turned one of the dead fish over with the toe of his boot: “No plesiosaur in the water would cause this.” The shoreline was littered with fish carcasses in various states of decay. “Haven’t seen this mentioned in the local news - must have just happened yesterday.”
“It could be some kind of pollution,” Ben ventured.
“Could be. But combined with the disappearances, somehow I doubt it.”
“You think this is funny?”
They both spun around. An elderly woman, stooped and grim-looking, propped her cane against a rock behind them. She was bundled up in a thick, furred anorak of dark indeterminate colour. The rumble and wash of the lake waves must have masked the sound of her approach.
“God damn kids,” the wind whipped the old woman’s hair in tatters against her skull. “You think this is some kind of adventure game?”
“No Ma’am,” said Adam innocently. “We were just saying, what a shame it is all the fish have washed up. Some kind of pollution, must be.”
“That ain’t no pollution, boy,” the old woman growled. “That’s the Kraken.”
“What’s a Kraken?” Adam said, which was just as well, because Ben had been just about to jump in with, ‘You know about that?’, but obviously they were going to play innocent.
“I ain’t lived here for forty eight years without larnin’ a thing or two.” The woman gestured abruptly behind her, implying that she lived beyond the thick line of evergreens in shore.
“Kraken’s the lake beast. Older than I am, and that’s old. It’s lived here time out of mind, and it ain’t happy with all these - developments.” She glanced sneeringly in the direction of the camping ground. “They’re putting up a hotel. Soon there’ll be tourists year round. Kids playing in its water. Shrieking and scaring the fish. It used to eat fish. Now its moving up in the ways of things,” she chuckled.
“Really?” Ben did his best to sound innocently interested. “We’d love to learn more about it. I mean, we’re sort of - marine biology students….”
“Biology!” the old woman shrieked with laughter. “This ain’t no biology. It’s old magic. Now get out of here. Off my land. This ain’t no place to be hanging around, not when the Kraken is hungry.”
“Yes Ma’am,” said Adam politely. “We’re very sorry to have bothered you. We didn’t realize this was private property.”
“Biology,” she chuckled again. “Go back to college, boy.”
Adam and Ben exchanged glances. The old woman watched them steadily, all the way down the shoreline.
Part Ten