Fic: By Some Unseen Light, 1/5
Title: By Some Unseen Light
Author: yellow_pomelo
Rating: R
Pairing/Characters: Dean/Castiel, various others and some OCs
Spoilers: End of S5, just in case
Warnings: Torture, some substance abuse, aged characters.
Word Count: ~22, 800
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any of it's characters.
Summary: Future!fic; Theo's just a delinquent teen laying down new roots in Lawrence, Kansas, and he quickly finds himself in trouble with the man rumoured to be a murderer, Dean Plant. Theo spends the summer helping to fix the property he damaged and seeing a side of the man hidden from public view. Yet the more Theo learns, the less he understands about Dean, himself, and his family. And all the while teens are going missing.
Notes: Thank you so goddamned much to insight2 for being a beautiful shoulder to cry on as this fic brutally murdered me. Without all her amazing support and feedback (and her patience with my lack of writing process and coherency), this fic would never have seen the light of day and I would still be bawling in the corner, never to write again.
Theo’s life is fantastic.
He’s been in Lawrence for a little over four months and already he has amazing friends with amazing talents.
Theo had never seen anyone run as fast as Evan and Jake, but last night had proven them to be the greatest sprinters of their age.
In five seconds flat, the two teens had hit the ground and raced halfway through the fields, and at the time Theo hadn’t understood. He probably should have, considering they’d just taken a tractor for a joyride and crashed it into a shed, but something more clear than dinner plate eyes and a horrified chorus of ‘Plant!’ would’ve been nice.
Instead, Theo had been met with a shotgun to the face and a low growl more chilling than any beast’s, “What the fuck, kid?”
Theo has similar words for Evan and Jake, but he’ll have to save them for later when he’s not being pulled by his mother, her fingers like claws digging into his shoulder as she leads him up the long dirt drive, apparently not caring that she’s about to deliver her only child into the arms of death.
“Well, I hope you’re proud of yourself, Theodore Lucas Loflin. Not even half a year and already you’re in trouble,” she says, tone as clipped as the click of her sensible heels over hard baked earth.
“I just-”
“Nope,” his mother cuts him off, trying to stare him down though he’s much taller than her, “No excuses. Don’t you go telling me you got ‘talked into it’ or that you thought the tractor belonged to one of the other boys - who you still have to name, by the way-” she shoots him a disapproving look. “You were drunk, you were out when you weren’t supposed to be out, and now you’re going to clean up your mess.”
They come to the wall of ugly trees that encircle the main house, a chain link fence twisted in with the growth. Theo thinks the fence is pretty useless since the dying trees should be enough to hide the building and keep people away, but he can’t help hoping that the rusty looking clamp on the gate is stuck shut. His mother might be determined to see this through, but she can’t be willing to vault the fence in her pencil skirt.
Unfortunately for him, the clamp opens easily, and Theo is unsurprised to hear the hinges scream as the gate swings open.
His mother drags him onwards and up the sunken steps of a picture perfect haunted house. She stops before the front door, taking a moment to sigh; she licks her thumb and wipes at Theo’s cheek, holding him in place so he can’t escape her damp fingers, “I just don’t get it, Theo. Why do you have to be like this?”
Theo doesn’t bother replying and neither does he meet his mother’s disappointed brown eyes, instead looking up at the old house and listening for the expected screech of bats or crows, maybe the wail of a banshee.
His mother purses her lips; takes a breath to continue chewing him out, but before she can, the heavy front door opens to reveal Theo’s executioner.
Plant looms in the doorway as if daring any of the weak sunlight that makes it through the trees to try entering his house. His mouth is set in a grim frown, eyes narrowing as he takes in the two barely tolerated visitors standing on his porch.
His mother doesn’t seem to notice any hostility, instead launching straight into a polite greeting, “Good afternoon, Mr. Plant. I’m Melissa Loflin. We talked not too long ago over the phone.” She sticks her hand out for a handshake, but Plant’s hands remain hidden in the sleeves of his large flannel shirt. It only takes a few seconds of Plant staring flatly at her well manicured nails for her to get the hint, and she drops her hand awkwardly.
“Yeah, good afternoon,” Plant nods, an uncomfortable looking tilt to his lips - what might be his version of a polite smile. Then he turns his attention to Theo. “So, kid,” Plant says, though it sounds more like a snarl to Theo’s ears, “Ready to break your back?”
Theo glances sideways at his mother, praying she hears the threatening promise in those words that he hears.
“Theo will help in any way he can. It’s the least he can do. We really appreciate you not pressing charges,” his mother shakes her head. “Again, I’m really sorry for all this.”
“S’alright, Mrs. Loflin, you’re not the one that should be apologizing,” Plant turns a steely glare on Theo and though he’ll never admit it, he’s pretty sure his skin paradoxically frosts under molten green eyes. “It’s your boy that should be sayin’ sorry.”
Theo can tell his mother’s holding back from nudging him with an elbow, but Theo doesn’t say a thing. He’d like to stare defiantly at Plant, too, but his eyes can’t help darting away from the green that starts to burn across his vision like an acidic fade-to-black.
Plant grunts, “Well you’ll be workin’ your ass off for this.”
“Of course he will. The whole summer if he has to,” his mother agrees eagerly, glad that the incident can be swept under the rug with just a little of her son’s sweat and blood. Then she turns to him, scowling, “Bye, now, Theo. You be good for once, and I’ll be back to pick you up at six.”
Then she’s striding off the porch, her bobbed hair bouncing with each of her quick steps, leaving Theo alone with the creep that he’s been told is a crazy axe murderer.
Plant knocks at his shin with his cane, frown deepening, “Aren’t you going to say goodbye to her?”
“No,” Theo answers flatly, holding in a sigh.
Plant rolls his eyes, his low opinion of kids these days obviously dropping down another notch as they watch her go - and Theo tells himself he’s imagining the appreciative look Plant gives his mother’s backside - before Plant turns to Theo, motioning with his cane for Theo to get inside.
Theo reluctantly steps into the darkness past the doorway, trying not to think of how ominous the door sounds as it clicks heavily shut behind them, sealing him in the old house, miles away from anyone - too far to run for help; too far to be heard if he screams.
Theo fists his hands at his sides, fighting back his paranoia and trying not to think of all those horror movies he’s seen but was never bothered by.
Plant can’t really be an axe murderer - or if he ever was, he’s certainly no good at it now. Not when he’s got a limp and a cane, although Theo can’t explain how Plant had appeared so quickly last night. The shed was at the Southwest corner of his land, but it was as if he’d been sitting out in the bushes, waiting for some hooligans to decimate his property.
“Kid, you got a bike?”
“What?” Theo tears his eyes from the mask that may or may not be made of human skin hanging on the wall.
He’d thought that maybe the house only looked spooky because it was poorly maintained, but Plant’s possessions - the tribal masks, animal skulls, black candles, and creepy knick knacks - lying all over the place in dusty heaps don’t take away from the electricity that’s been shivering up and down Theo’s spine since he stepped foot on the land.
“I asked if you have a bike,” Plant whaps his cane against the back of Theo’s knees, getting him to shuffle faster down the narrow front hall to the kitchen.
“Uh, yes. Yes, I do.”
“Good, ‘cause you’ll be ridin’ it every morning and every evening for the rest of this summer. Don’t want to bother your mom with giving you lifts.”
“What?” Theo’s voice barely rises in volume, but it still cracks embarrassingly, “But I live at least ten miles from here.”
“Well, those ten miles didn’t stop you from driving a tractor into my shed, so they shouldn’t stop you from biking up here at the ass crack of dawn,” Plant pushes Theo into one of three mismatched chairs at the kitchen table. “If anything, you should be lickin’ my boots for this. You brats picked the wrong man to jack a tractor from, so just be glad Jefferson owed me a favour, else you’d be lying in a ditch right now.”
Theo isn’t sure he won’t be lying in a ditch when Plant’s done with him, so he sits mutely at the table, watching as Plant hobbles around his kitchen, bringing two chipped mugs down from a shelf. He’s not usually so intimidated by anyone - not even the hulking gym teacher with the bulging veins and metal plate in his skull - but he can’t help flinching with every clack of a cabinet door closing and every thump of Plant’s cane. There’s a cold sweat beading on the back of his neck and his eyes skittishly follow the man, expecting Plant to be holding a cleaver the next time he turns around, instead of the jug of orange juice that he takes out from the yellowed fridge.
It’s surreal, watching Plant. The man can’t be more than an inch taller than Theo but he somehow towers over him - eyes sparked flint; light brown hair, grizzled silver at the temples - bustling around the kitchen like - like he’s just some guy.
But the mirage only lasts a minute at most.
“Ground rules,” Plant says, suddenly taking a knife - which looks unlike any kitchen utensil Theo’s ever seen - out from a drawer. He waves the blade around, using it like a pointer, “Don’t go upstairs, don’t go into my basement, don’t go into my fields, don’t go into my woods, don’t even think of going near my pond or I swear I’ll-”
Plant stabs the knife into the ham on his cutting board, the force of it causing the dishes on the counter to jump and clatter loudly.
The worst part is Theo isn’t sure if Plant is doing this as some sort of display to show Theo who’s boss, or if Plant is genuinely that territorial.
Plant then proceeds to saw his knife through the ham, peeling off several fine cuts and piling them onto toasted bread, and before Theo knows it, there’s a mug of orange juice and a sandwich being plopped onto the rickety wooden table in front of him.
“Eat up, kid,” Plant says gruffly, tugging at the overly long sleeves of his shirt until they hang down over his knuckles. He leans against the counter, “Can’t have you collapsing on me before I’ve got a new shed.”
Theo sits dumbly, looking between the sandwich - which admittedly, looks tasty and not poisonous - and the hard edged man staring steadily at him, eyes bright reflections of what sunlight filters through the dusty kitchen curtains.
“Uh…” Theo squints, like that might help him get a grip on the situation, “Yes… Mr. Plant - sir. Thank you?”
And wow, he called him ‘sir’. He doesn’t even add the ‘Mr.’ to the names of his teachers, and here he’s giving Plant both.
But Theo doesn’t dwell on it, not when Plant’s face splits into a sharp almost-smile, the clouds briefly clearing from his expression and making him seem twenty years younger.
“Don’t ‘sir’ me, I ain’t that old,” Plant says, “Just call me Dean.”
* * *
The first week is Hell, and when Theo tells Plant - Dean - this, the man just laughs harshly and leans farther back in his lawn chair, fingers peeking out from under the too-long sleeves of yet another oversized shirt when he holds his beer in a mocking toast towards Theo. Dean seems to enjoy playing out this classic master-slave scene, even setting up an umbrella for himself and wearing sunglasses as he lazes next to Theo, supervising the teen’s clean up and construction. But somehow the most irksome part of the ordeal is that Dean seems incapable of using his name, like he can’t remember it or can’t be bothered to try pronouncing something more complex than ‘kid’.
So Theo toils irritably through his back breaking work, heaving heavy planks of wood around in the hot sun. It’s especially awful after biking nearly ten miles every morning and evening as Dean had instructed and his legs burn in ways he never knew they could, muscles he wasn’t aware he had suddenly waking up in agony. Theo’s no couch potato, but he certainly isn’t a jock, and he’s starting to feel a little cheated when he gets up in the mornings, looking as stringy as ever but feeling like he should have bulging muscles.
Theo can’t even slack a little bit because despite Dean’s relaxed posture and the car magazines he reads, he seems to have eagle eyes behind his shades, barking at Theo when he sorts the debris improperly - as if there is a significant difference between planks with zigzags scratched on them or planks without - or when he only measures once instead of twice before cutting - because the dimensions of the new shed just have to be that exact.
It doesn’t help that Theo has absolutely no skill in woodworking or any craft, having bombed every shop class or shop-like activity he ever participated in. Hence his work on the shed progresses at the pace of snails, and Theo is surprised that Dean tolerates it.
Theo had thought that Dean would want him to finish fast and then get the hell off his lawn, but Dean doesn’t hurry him. Dean actually guides him through the construction process, albeit gruffly, and Dean can’t be expecting Theo to take any of the lessons to heart, but Dean gives him clear and detailed instructions, like he’s preparing Theo for future projects he might have to tackle on his own.
Strangely enough, the tutorials aren’t limited to construction.
“Have you mixed the garlic puree with the butter yet?” Dean asks from where he stands by the grill, brushing the steak with olive oil.
“Yeah, I’m putting it on the bread now,” Theo says, smearing the mixture onto one side of each slice of French bread.
“’Kay, bring that and the provolone over when you’re done.”
They work together in a surprisingly well coordinated manner, Dean seeming to always be aware of Theo’s position relative to himself, so they have yet to bump into each other and soon a neat row of bread is grilling alongside Dean’s rib-eye steak, the mouth watering scent overwhelming in the best of ways. Theo will probably still smell the slight char of the meat days from now, even after laundry and a dozen showers, if only in his mind.
“We’re bringing the steak to medium-rare. Then we’re going to let it sit five minutes,” Dean narrates curtly. He hands a pair of tongs over to Theo, the pink piggy oven mitts he wears ridiculously distracting.
They’re hardly necessary, but Dean had pulled on the oven mitts before they began cooking and has been wearing them through the whole process - even when he’s far from any heat - but Theo doesn’t comment on it, the same way he doesn’t comment on the man’s nervous shirt-tugging habit. Instead, he takes the tongs from the jaws of the cartoon pigs and listening as Dean continues, “The bread should be golden brown; turn it over and add the cheese.”
“Like this?”
“Yeah. When the cheese’s melted, plate it,” Dean points his chin to the chipped dinnerware left on the side. He takes the steak off, leaving the grill to cool, “Then get to the parsley oil - remember, just half a cup of canola in there.”
“Is this chopped well enough?” Theo gestures to the flat-leaf parsley on his cutting board.
“It’ll do,” Dean nods, prodding at the steak with the tip of his blade, seeming to check with his internal clock - which Theo has learned is disturbingly accurate - to note that five minutes have passed before cutting into the meat, carving it into thin slices and then transferring the strips, layering them onto the cheese and bread.
They spend a few minutes arranging the dishes, centering the sandwiches and drizzling them with Theo’s completed parsley oil.
Then Dean lays a gloved hand on Theo’s shoulder, guiding him to step back so they can take a look at their work.
And it looks amazing. The steak is moist and perfectly cooked, red but not too wet or bloody, letting the bread retain its slight crisp. The provolone is just this side of melted, oozing together to form a white bedding beneath the meat, the parsley oil pooling in the nooks between layers of tender meat and rich cheese, the leaves abstract green shapes bringing colour to the display. Everything is piled neatly on the rectangles of golden bread, the aroma a finishing dimension to the affair.
“Fuck yeah,” Dean’s grin is feral, but he doesn’t seems as enthused as his words imply.
It’s a little - very - bizarre, but Theo has given up trying to understand Dean’s wild mood swings and thought processes. He never placed much stock in the rumours - despite the persistent tingles of unease and the coiling of his muscles when Dean is close. If anything, the guns - plural - Dean keeps in his fridge - one in the door and one under the vegetables - should be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, or in this case, ensures that Theo bikes home and doesn’t look back, but Theo reminds himself that Dean can’t be as awful as people think.
Theo’s hammered his own fingers at least twenty times and burnt himself on the grill, but it’s not all bad. For the first time in a long time, something like pride warms his chest when he sees that he’s managed to saw straight through a plank and before this, the only things he’d ever cooked - assuming microwave dinners and canned food don’t count - are eggs, sunny side up or scrambled.
“Where did you learn to cook?” Theo asks curiously as he picks up a plate and follows Dean to the lawn chairs by the work-in-progress shed.
“Food Network,” Dean chuckles dryly, plopping into his seat, leaning his cane against the arm and finally stripping off his oven mitts. “Ain’t nothing you can’t learn from that channel.”
“Do you watch it often?” Theo bites into the mini open-faced sandwich and has to pause for a moment to keep from making embarrassing sounds as the aged provolone and steak hit his tongue.
Dean doesn’t have any such reservations, chomping into his sandwich with gusto and groaning obscenely, “All the damn time.”
“Don’t you... don’t you have to work?” Theo presses his lips together. He probably shouldn’t have brought up Dean’s apparent unemployment.
But Dean doesn’t seem to mind, “Yeah, but my schedule’s pretty flexible and coordinating vampire hunts and conning the feds is easy as pie.”
Theo stops mid-chew, tilting his head up to look at the man licking his fingers in satisfaction, “Pardon?”
“I’m a freelance writer,” Dean makes a face like he’s just as surprised as Theo.
“You write?”
“Yup, wrote an article for a gun magazine not too long ago.” Dean speaks around a full mouth, “How ‘bout you, makin’ a career out o’ destroyin’ shit? I hear demolition ain’t a bad gig.”
Theo hunches his shoulders, instantly clamming up.
“What, cat got your tongue?” Dean raises an unimpressed brow, but Theo’s eyes lock onto the dead grass beneath the chairs.
Maybe it’s just habit that brings his walls snapping up like they have, or maybe it was the realization that his walls had been down, but Theo doesn’t know. He’s never felt more than a few specks of guilt before - and if that doesn’t sound like the symptoms of an antisocial personality - and he can’t really say he cares about the shed even now.
What does affect him is Dean.
“Y’know,” Dean says, looking up at the clear sky, “You seem like a smart kid. You use big words and tie your shoes all by yourself. You understand the blueprints easily enough and you even improvised a bit and made that lever to help you shift the heavy stuff.”
Theo watches as Dean’s eyes slowly fall to meet his, “Don’t waste your life like an idiot.”
Holding Dean’s stare is like looking into the sun, circles of green fire burning into Theo’s retinas, but he doesn’t break away. It’s a poor illusion, but this way Theo can pretend he’s not just fumbling around in the dark, looking for - he doesn’t even know what - a hobby, a career goal, a political movement to join.
Dean’s the first to look away, sighing tiredly as he glances around, searching for something, “Damnit, we didn’t bring any drinks out. Kid, fetch beer - and a juice box or something for yourself.”
Theo frowns as Dean uses his cane to prod at him from where he sits, “C’mon, get to it.”
And Theo obeys, actually glad for the excuse. He drops his plate and unfinished sandwich onto the seat of his lawn chair as he gets up, but he walks slowly, relishing the ability to move without a cane herding him forwards.
It’s a fairly long walk back to the house, but somehow he knows solemn eyes watch him the whole way as he treads through tall weeds and dead grass, so he keeps his eyes roaming the distance, looking out at the tall trees to the Southeast, the empty space in the grass where the murky pond is, or anything else in the general direction he’s marching towards.
Upon entering the house through the kitchen door, Theo notices something odd, not that any part of the house is normal. Somehow everything is dusty, aged, and mismatched. Every inch is cluttered with suspicious paraphernalia, yet Theo’s eyes don’t fixate on the satanic looking paintings that might be done in blood or the severed monkey’s paw that doesn’t look very monkey-like being used as a bookend on a shelf.
From where he stands by the backdoor, Theo can look into the sitting room. He’s walked past it multiple times, but at this angle, a small photograph becomes visible, squeezed into a shadowy nook.
The photograph is burnt at the edges and blackened in the middle, but it’s tucked carefully inside a frame and it’s the only thing that’s hung straight and proper on the wall.
He’s never seen it before, but it tugs at him - the only photograph he’s seen in the house - so Theo goes.
He walks right into the sitting room, right up to the picture frame and he can just make out the shapes of a few figures. There’s a grizzled man in a wheelchair, two women and a very tall man, none of whom Theo recognizes, of course.
And then there’s Dean, looking to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He looks about the same in the photograph as today, still dressed in a similar fashion, hair still kept in a similar style. Not much has changed, right down to the grim expression darkening his face.
It’s a little... sad, that Dean’s been this way for years.
Theo leans closer to the photo, noticing that there’s one more person. The burnt edge cuts right through the figure, so it’s difficult, but Theo can tell it’s a man - somehow familiar - and he can just see the edge of a long coat, a skewed tie -
“Drinks are normally kept in the kitchen.”
Theo jumps, spinning around to find Dean right behind him.
He doesn’t know how that’s possible because the floorboards creak under the slightest pressure, never mind the thump of Dean’s cane, but Theo hadn’t heard Dean approach and now the man is only a few feet away, any of the strange rapport they managed to build over the past ten days bled out, leaving his eyes cold and flat like faded tundra.
Dean’s wearing his oven mitts again, but Theo can’t find anything hilarious about the situation, and all Dean does is hold out a box of apple juice, “Your sandwich is getting cold.”
Theo hears danger like the click of gunmetal echoed with human teeth, so he sprints back the way he came without grabbing the juice box, the paper carton somehow sinister in Dean’s pink gloved hand. He races out into the clear sky and open grass, feeling like not even an infinite stretch of space can take away his sudden claustrophobia, the sense of drowning in the air.
Today, for the first time in a long time, Theo had felt proud of himself. And today, for the first time in a long time, he feels guilty.
But Dean doesn’t come back outside, not even at the end of the day, so there’s no routine goodbye from Dean or routine lack of response from Theo.
And Theo is sorry, but not enough to make him brave, so he bikes away.
One mile for each good day.
* * *
“Ouch, what the fuck happened to you, man?” Evan winces, the silver hoops of his snake bites glinting as he chews at his lower lip, “You look like the walking dead.”
“No thanks to you two,” Theo flops onto Evan’s bed and grouses into the mattress. It doesn’t smell particularly nice - like pot and too much Febreeze - but he doesn’t do more than turn his face to the side so he can see the blue and blonde tops of his friends’ heads over the edge of the bed.
Jake is entirely absorbed in the video game, his large frame looking a little odd hunched over his controller, but Evan glances repeatedly over his shoulder at Theo, not caring that on screen, his car has crashed into a side rail and is now heading in the wrong direction.
“You need anything?” Evan asks, grey eyes wide with concern, “Food? Water?... Other things?”
“Thanks, but no,” Theo grunts.
He feels like shit, partially due to physical exertion, but mostly because he is shit.
He destroyed Dean’s property and invaded the man’s life when he obviously likes his privacy. It’s a new and unpleasant - horrible - feeling that settles in the bottom of his stomach like a stone that failed to skip across the surface of a pond.
Hanging on the wall or not, it had been none of his business to look at that photo, and he hates to think of what sort of memories Dean might have attached to it. Who knows what happened to the people in that picture, the congregation of sombre figures and the burnt condition of the image not saying good things.
It’s been hours, but he wonders if Dean is still standing in the sitting room, alone on the outskirts of Lawrence with no company but those faces kept safe behind glass.
“We told ya to run, cupcake,” Jake shrugs, response extremely delayed. He taps madly at the ancient controller clutched in his hands, steering his car on the television screen into a hairpin turn, increasing his overwhelming lead on Evan, whose car has accidentally rolled into the pit stop.
“No you didn’t.”
“Well, you’re supposed to be the smart one,” Jake says distractedly, stretching his long legs out on the carpet as if to emphasize Jake’s role as the ‘athletic one’, Theo’s role as the ‘smart one’ and Evan’s role as... something.
And Theo knows Jake doesn’t mean anything by it, but he still winces, recalling Dean’s words.
Jake doesn’t notice Theo’s reaction, but Evan does and he jabs a skinny elbow into Jake’s side, jolting the larger boy and sending his on-screen car driving straight onto the grass.
“Sorry we can’t help, dude,” Evan tosses his controller to the side and turns to talk to Theo, blue hair falling over one eye, “But we’re already in, like, nine kinds of trouble and we’ve got a bad track record, so we’d seriously be shot for getting mixed up with this too.”
Jake pauses the video game, finding no fun in crushing Evan’s delusions of being a race car driver when the slighter boy isn’t paying attention. He sets his controller to the floor beside him as he turns to Theo, a teasing grin stretched wide across his tanned face, “You’re not really mad about it are you Thee-O?”
“What makes you think that?” Theo asks, sitting up on the mattress to look at the curly haired teen resting muscled forearms on the edge of the bed.
“Well pop-tart, even though Plant’s a hermit, you seem to get along fine and dandy with ‘im,” Jake waggles his brows.
Theo looks away uncomfortably, thinking that if ever that was true it certainly isn’t anymore.
Jake shrugs his broad shoulders and exchanges a glance with Evan, cuing the blue haired boy who says, “Okay, well you just be careful, huh.”
“Why?” Theo’s eyes narrow.
“Didn’t we already tell you his origin story?” Jake huffs.
“You mean how the day he showed up, the man who used to own his property left?”
“Disappeared,” Evan corrects, “Somerville was there, and then he just wasn’t.”
Theo looks at the shorter boy, unimpressed, “You were four years old when that happened, and it doesn’t really mean anything. They probably arranged the sale ahead of time.”
“Can’t you feel it though, when you get near him?” Jake nods seriously, “There’s a reason people avoid his place like the plague.”
A chill run’s over his skin, because he can’t deny that there’s something about Dean, but Theo’s unable to stop the defensive edge that sharpens his tone, “That doesn’t make Plant a crazy axe murderer.”
Jake grunts unattractively, scratching at his messy blonde curls, “Well somebody is.”
“De-Plant isn’t abducting teens and locking them in his basement, Jake,” Theo’s hands fist on the edge of the mattress, “This isn’t a horror movie.”
“Maybe they’re not being kept in his basement,” Jake shoots back, teeth flashing.
“Guys, guys,” Evan waves his hands between them, placating, “’Kay, let’s be fair. Plant might not be the one going around kidnapping people-” Jake makes a move to interrupt, but Evan barges on, “But who can say, I mean, he’s got one big ass piece of land and he’s damn creepy in my book.”
“Teens are going missing,” Theo says flatly, “These are real events, unlike those that Plant’s notoriety are built on.”
“No need to get so touchy, Thee-O,” Jake tosses his head in irritation, brows lowering over dark eyes, “And what would you know ‘bout whether or not the rumours are true. You didn’t grow up with ‘em and you weren’t here the first time ‘round.”
“What do you mean, ‘the first time around’,” Theo cocks his head, brows furrowing.
Evan clears his throat nervously, eyes darting to Jake’s scowling face, “Uh, this isn’t the first time people have gone missing like this.”
“Lawrence isn’t that small. I expect that it has its fair share of disappearances.”
“Yeah, but,” Evan twists one hand about his slight wrist, “So far it’s Kyle Tattle and Mi-Michelle,” he stumbles over the name, and Theo feels a little ashamed of himself. He hadn’t been making light of the situation, but he’d forgotten that Evan is friends with one of the missing teens. Michelle and Evan aren’t the closest, but apparently they had been planning a joint birthday party, having been born on the same day.
Jake seems similarly mollified, and he lays a large hand on Evan’s thin shoulder, “Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to bring this up.”
“It’s okay,” Evan sighs, looking especially pale next to Jake’s tanned skin.
“They’ll find her,” Theo tries to assure the shorter boy.
Evan shakes his head, the dark circles under his eyes suddenly suggesting more than sleepless nights, “Not in time.”
“Hey, don’t say that. It’s only been a few days, and we don’t know anything for sure,” Jake frowns, “I mean, yeah, you spent a lot of time looking into it, but you’re no professional, man.”
Evan nods dully, “You’re right, but I think Theo should know about the first time this happened, just ‘cause.”
“If this has happened before, wouldn’t the police have made the connection and the news stations reported it?” Theo asks.
“So far, there’ve only been two, and they’re just missing,” Jake says roughly, expression darkening as he rubs a hand reassuringly up and down Evan’s slumped back, “Last time was seven years ago - four kids - one of them Evan’s cousin - found dead with some freaky shit carved into their skin.”
Theo’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t know what to say to Evan. ‘I’m sorry’ won’t help, not even now that he can sincerely say it, and Evan seems to understand, waving away Theo’s concern, “It was a long time ago. People probably don’t think they’re related ‘cause, I mean, the four kids... only one was from Lawrence.”
Theo purses his lips, asks lowly, “So what makes you think they’re related?”
Evan shakes his head, grey eyes looking up at Theo from under his fringe of blue hair, “August, seven years ago, it was ten year old kids. This time around, it’s seventeen year olds,” he laughs nervously, face twisting fearfully, “Whoever’s doing this is hunting our generation.”
Part 2
Author: yellow_pomelo
Rating: R
Pairing/Characters: Dean/Castiel, various others and some OCs
Spoilers: End of S5, just in case
Warnings: Torture, some substance abuse, aged characters.
Word Count: ~22, 800
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any of it's characters.
Summary: Future!fic; Theo's just a delinquent teen laying down new roots in Lawrence, Kansas, and he quickly finds himself in trouble with the man rumoured to be a murderer, Dean Plant. Theo spends the summer helping to fix the property he damaged and seeing a side of the man hidden from public view. Yet the more Theo learns, the less he understands about Dean, himself, and his family. And all the while teens are going missing.
Notes: Thank you so goddamned much to insight2 for being a beautiful shoulder to cry on as this fic brutally murdered me. Without all her amazing support and feedback (and her patience with my lack of writing process and coherency), this fic would never have seen the light of day and I would still be bawling in the corner, never to write again.
Theo’s life is fantastic.
He’s been in Lawrence for a little over four months and already he has amazing friends with amazing talents.
Theo had never seen anyone run as fast as Evan and Jake, but last night had proven them to be the greatest sprinters of their age.
In five seconds flat, the two teens had hit the ground and raced halfway through the fields, and at the time Theo hadn’t understood. He probably should have, considering they’d just taken a tractor for a joyride and crashed it into a shed, but something more clear than dinner plate eyes and a horrified chorus of ‘Plant!’ would’ve been nice.
Instead, Theo had been met with a shotgun to the face and a low growl more chilling than any beast’s, “What the fuck, kid?”
Theo has similar words for Evan and Jake, but he’ll have to save them for later when he’s not being pulled by his mother, her fingers like claws digging into his shoulder as she leads him up the long dirt drive, apparently not caring that she’s about to deliver her only child into the arms of death.
“Well, I hope you’re proud of yourself, Theodore Lucas Loflin. Not even half a year and already you’re in trouble,” she says, tone as clipped as the click of her sensible heels over hard baked earth.
“I just-”
“Nope,” his mother cuts him off, trying to stare him down though he’s much taller than her, “No excuses. Don’t you go telling me you got ‘talked into it’ or that you thought the tractor belonged to one of the other boys - who you still have to name, by the way-” she shoots him a disapproving look. “You were drunk, you were out when you weren’t supposed to be out, and now you’re going to clean up your mess.”
They come to the wall of ugly trees that encircle the main house, a chain link fence twisted in with the growth. Theo thinks the fence is pretty useless since the dying trees should be enough to hide the building and keep people away, but he can’t help hoping that the rusty looking clamp on the gate is stuck shut. His mother might be determined to see this through, but she can’t be willing to vault the fence in her pencil skirt.
Unfortunately for him, the clamp opens easily, and Theo is unsurprised to hear the hinges scream as the gate swings open.
His mother drags him onwards and up the sunken steps of a picture perfect haunted house. She stops before the front door, taking a moment to sigh; she licks her thumb and wipes at Theo’s cheek, holding him in place so he can’t escape her damp fingers, “I just don’t get it, Theo. Why do you have to be like this?”
Theo doesn’t bother replying and neither does he meet his mother’s disappointed brown eyes, instead looking up at the old house and listening for the expected screech of bats or crows, maybe the wail of a banshee.
His mother purses her lips; takes a breath to continue chewing him out, but before she can, the heavy front door opens to reveal Theo’s executioner.
Plant looms in the doorway as if daring any of the weak sunlight that makes it through the trees to try entering his house. His mouth is set in a grim frown, eyes narrowing as he takes in the two barely tolerated visitors standing on his porch.
His mother doesn’t seem to notice any hostility, instead launching straight into a polite greeting, “Good afternoon, Mr. Plant. I’m Melissa Loflin. We talked not too long ago over the phone.” She sticks her hand out for a handshake, but Plant’s hands remain hidden in the sleeves of his large flannel shirt. It only takes a few seconds of Plant staring flatly at her well manicured nails for her to get the hint, and she drops her hand awkwardly.
“Yeah, good afternoon,” Plant nods, an uncomfortable looking tilt to his lips - what might be his version of a polite smile. Then he turns his attention to Theo. “So, kid,” Plant says, though it sounds more like a snarl to Theo’s ears, “Ready to break your back?”
Theo glances sideways at his mother, praying she hears the threatening promise in those words that he hears.
“Theo will help in any way he can. It’s the least he can do. We really appreciate you not pressing charges,” his mother shakes her head. “Again, I’m really sorry for all this.”
“S’alright, Mrs. Loflin, you’re not the one that should be apologizing,” Plant turns a steely glare on Theo and though he’ll never admit it, he’s pretty sure his skin paradoxically frosts under molten green eyes. “It’s your boy that should be sayin’ sorry.”
Theo can tell his mother’s holding back from nudging him with an elbow, but Theo doesn’t say a thing. He’d like to stare defiantly at Plant, too, but his eyes can’t help darting away from the green that starts to burn across his vision like an acidic fade-to-black.
Plant grunts, “Well you’ll be workin’ your ass off for this.”
“Of course he will. The whole summer if he has to,” his mother agrees eagerly, glad that the incident can be swept under the rug with just a little of her son’s sweat and blood. Then she turns to him, scowling, “Bye, now, Theo. You be good for once, and I’ll be back to pick you up at six.”
Then she’s striding off the porch, her bobbed hair bouncing with each of her quick steps, leaving Theo alone with the creep that he’s been told is a crazy axe murderer.
Plant knocks at his shin with his cane, frown deepening, “Aren’t you going to say goodbye to her?”
“No,” Theo answers flatly, holding in a sigh.
Plant rolls his eyes, his low opinion of kids these days obviously dropping down another notch as they watch her go - and Theo tells himself he’s imagining the appreciative look Plant gives his mother’s backside - before Plant turns to Theo, motioning with his cane for Theo to get inside.
Theo reluctantly steps into the darkness past the doorway, trying not to think of how ominous the door sounds as it clicks heavily shut behind them, sealing him in the old house, miles away from anyone - too far to run for help; too far to be heard if he screams.
Theo fists his hands at his sides, fighting back his paranoia and trying not to think of all those horror movies he’s seen but was never bothered by.
Plant can’t really be an axe murderer - or if he ever was, he’s certainly no good at it now. Not when he’s got a limp and a cane, although Theo can’t explain how Plant had appeared so quickly last night. The shed was at the Southwest corner of his land, but it was as if he’d been sitting out in the bushes, waiting for some hooligans to decimate his property.
“Kid, you got a bike?”
“What?” Theo tears his eyes from the mask that may or may not be made of human skin hanging on the wall.
He’d thought that maybe the house only looked spooky because it was poorly maintained, but Plant’s possessions - the tribal masks, animal skulls, black candles, and creepy knick knacks - lying all over the place in dusty heaps don’t take away from the electricity that’s been shivering up and down Theo’s spine since he stepped foot on the land.
“I asked if you have a bike,” Plant whaps his cane against the back of Theo’s knees, getting him to shuffle faster down the narrow front hall to the kitchen.
“Uh, yes. Yes, I do.”
“Good, ‘cause you’ll be ridin’ it every morning and every evening for the rest of this summer. Don’t want to bother your mom with giving you lifts.”
“What?” Theo’s voice barely rises in volume, but it still cracks embarrassingly, “But I live at least ten miles from here.”
“Well, those ten miles didn’t stop you from driving a tractor into my shed, so they shouldn’t stop you from biking up here at the ass crack of dawn,” Plant pushes Theo into one of three mismatched chairs at the kitchen table. “If anything, you should be lickin’ my boots for this. You brats picked the wrong man to jack a tractor from, so just be glad Jefferson owed me a favour, else you’d be lying in a ditch right now.”
Theo isn’t sure he won’t be lying in a ditch when Plant’s done with him, so he sits mutely at the table, watching as Plant hobbles around his kitchen, bringing two chipped mugs down from a shelf. He’s not usually so intimidated by anyone - not even the hulking gym teacher with the bulging veins and metal plate in his skull - but he can’t help flinching with every clack of a cabinet door closing and every thump of Plant’s cane. There’s a cold sweat beading on the back of his neck and his eyes skittishly follow the man, expecting Plant to be holding a cleaver the next time he turns around, instead of the jug of orange juice that he takes out from the yellowed fridge.
It’s surreal, watching Plant. The man can’t be more than an inch taller than Theo but he somehow towers over him - eyes sparked flint; light brown hair, grizzled silver at the temples - bustling around the kitchen like - like he’s just some guy.
But the mirage only lasts a minute at most.
“Ground rules,” Plant says, suddenly taking a knife - which looks unlike any kitchen utensil Theo’s ever seen - out from a drawer. He waves the blade around, using it like a pointer, “Don’t go upstairs, don’t go into my basement, don’t go into my fields, don’t go into my woods, don’t even think of going near my pond or I swear I’ll-”
Plant stabs the knife into the ham on his cutting board, the force of it causing the dishes on the counter to jump and clatter loudly.
The worst part is Theo isn’t sure if Plant is doing this as some sort of display to show Theo who’s boss, or if Plant is genuinely that territorial.
Plant then proceeds to saw his knife through the ham, peeling off several fine cuts and piling them onto toasted bread, and before Theo knows it, there’s a mug of orange juice and a sandwich being plopped onto the rickety wooden table in front of him.
“Eat up, kid,” Plant says gruffly, tugging at the overly long sleeves of his shirt until they hang down over his knuckles. He leans against the counter, “Can’t have you collapsing on me before I’ve got a new shed.”
Theo sits dumbly, looking between the sandwich - which admittedly, looks tasty and not poisonous - and the hard edged man staring steadily at him, eyes bright reflections of what sunlight filters through the dusty kitchen curtains.
“Uh…” Theo squints, like that might help him get a grip on the situation, “Yes… Mr. Plant - sir. Thank you?”
And wow, he called him ‘sir’. He doesn’t even add the ‘Mr.’ to the names of his teachers, and here he’s giving Plant both.
But Theo doesn’t dwell on it, not when Plant’s face splits into a sharp almost-smile, the clouds briefly clearing from his expression and making him seem twenty years younger.
“Don’t ‘sir’ me, I ain’t that old,” Plant says, “Just call me Dean.”
* * *
The first week is Hell, and when Theo tells Plant - Dean - this, the man just laughs harshly and leans farther back in his lawn chair, fingers peeking out from under the too-long sleeves of yet another oversized shirt when he holds his beer in a mocking toast towards Theo. Dean seems to enjoy playing out this classic master-slave scene, even setting up an umbrella for himself and wearing sunglasses as he lazes next to Theo, supervising the teen’s clean up and construction. But somehow the most irksome part of the ordeal is that Dean seems incapable of using his name, like he can’t remember it or can’t be bothered to try pronouncing something more complex than ‘kid’.
So Theo toils irritably through his back breaking work, heaving heavy planks of wood around in the hot sun. It’s especially awful after biking nearly ten miles every morning and evening as Dean had instructed and his legs burn in ways he never knew they could, muscles he wasn’t aware he had suddenly waking up in agony. Theo’s no couch potato, but he certainly isn’t a jock, and he’s starting to feel a little cheated when he gets up in the mornings, looking as stringy as ever but feeling like he should have bulging muscles.
Theo can’t even slack a little bit because despite Dean’s relaxed posture and the car magazines he reads, he seems to have eagle eyes behind his shades, barking at Theo when he sorts the debris improperly - as if there is a significant difference between planks with zigzags scratched on them or planks without - or when he only measures once instead of twice before cutting - because the dimensions of the new shed just have to be that exact.
It doesn’t help that Theo has absolutely no skill in woodworking or any craft, having bombed every shop class or shop-like activity he ever participated in. Hence his work on the shed progresses at the pace of snails, and Theo is surprised that Dean tolerates it.
Theo had thought that Dean would want him to finish fast and then get the hell off his lawn, but Dean doesn’t hurry him. Dean actually guides him through the construction process, albeit gruffly, and Dean can’t be expecting Theo to take any of the lessons to heart, but Dean gives him clear and detailed instructions, like he’s preparing Theo for future projects he might have to tackle on his own.
Strangely enough, the tutorials aren’t limited to construction.
“Have you mixed the garlic puree with the butter yet?” Dean asks from where he stands by the grill, brushing the steak with olive oil.
“Yeah, I’m putting it on the bread now,” Theo says, smearing the mixture onto one side of each slice of French bread.
“’Kay, bring that and the provolone over when you’re done.”
They work together in a surprisingly well coordinated manner, Dean seeming to always be aware of Theo’s position relative to himself, so they have yet to bump into each other and soon a neat row of bread is grilling alongside Dean’s rib-eye steak, the mouth watering scent overwhelming in the best of ways. Theo will probably still smell the slight char of the meat days from now, even after laundry and a dozen showers, if only in his mind.
“We’re bringing the steak to medium-rare. Then we’re going to let it sit five minutes,” Dean narrates curtly. He hands a pair of tongs over to Theo, the pink piggy oven mitts he wears ridiculously distracting.
They’re hardly necessary, but Dean had pulled on the oven mitts before they began cooking and has been wearing them through the whole process - even when he’s far from any heat - but Theo doesn’t comment on it, the same way he doesn’t comment on the man’s nervous shirt-tugging habit. Instead, he takes the tongs from the jaws of the cartoon pigs and listening as Dean continues, “The bread should be golden brown; turn it over and add the cheese.”
“Like this?”
“Yeah. When the cheese’s melted, plate it,” Dean points his chin to the chipped dinnerware left on the side. He takes the steak off, leaving the grill to cool, “Then get to the parsley oil - remember, just half a cup of canola in there.”
“Is this chopped well enough?” Theo gestures to the flat-leaf parsley on his cutting board.
“It’ll do,” Dean nods, prodding at the steak with the tip of his blade, seeming to check with his internal clock - which Theo has learned is disturbingly accurate - to note that five minutes have passed before cutting into the meat, carving it into thin slices and then transferring the strips, layering them onto the cheese and bread.
They spend a few minutes arranging the dishes, centering the sandwiches and drizzling them with Theo’s completed parsley oil.
Then Dean lays a gloved hand on Theo’s shoulder, guiding him to step back so they can take a look at their work.
And it looks amazing. The steak is moist and perfectly cooked, red but not too wet or bloody, letting the bread retain its slight crisp. The provolone is just this side of melted, oozing together to form a white bedding beneath the meat, the parsley oil pooling in the nooks between layers of tender meat and rich cheese, the leaves abstract green shapes bringing colour to the display. Everything is piled neatly on the rectangles of golden bread, the aroma a finishing dimension to the affair.
“Fuck yeah,” Dean’s grin is feral, but he doesn’t seems as enthused as his words imply.
It’s a little - very - bizarre, but Theo has given up trying to understand Dean’s wild mood swings and thought processes. He never placed much stock in the rumours - despite the persistent tingles of unease and the coiling of his muscles when Dean is close. If anything, the guns - plural - Dean keeps in his fridge - one in the door and one under the vegetables - should be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, or in this case, ensures that Theo bikes home and doesn’t look back, but Theo reminds himself that Dean can’t be as awful as people think.
Theo’s hammered his own fingers at least twenty times and burnt himself on the grill, but it’s not all bad. For the first time in a long time, something like pride warms his chest when he sees that he’s managed to saw straight through a plank and before this, the only things he’d ever cooked - assuming microwave dinners and canned food don’t count - are eggs, sunny side up or scrambled.
“Where did you learn to cook?” Theo asks curiously as he picks up a plate and follows Dean to the lawn chairs by the work-in-progress shed.
“Food Network,” Dean chuckles dryly, plopping into his seat, leaning his cane against the arm and finally stripping off his oven mitts. “Ain’t nothing you can’t learn from that channel.”
“Do you watch it often?” Theo bites into the mini open-faced sandwich and has to pause for a moment to keep from making embarrassing sounds as the aged provolone and steak hit his tongue.
Dean doesn’t have any such reservations, chomping into his sandwich with gusto and groaning obscenely, “All the damn time.”
“Don’t you... don’t you have to work?” Theo presses his lips together. He probably shouldn’t have brought up Dean’s apparent unemployment.
But Dean doesn’t seem to mind, “Yeah, but my schedule’s pretty flexible and coordinating vampire hunts and conning the feds is easy as pie.”
Theo stops mid-chew, tilting his head up to look at the man licking his fingers in satisfaction, “Pardon?”
“I’m a freelance writer,” Dean makes a face like he’s just as surprised as Theo.
“You write?”
“Yup, wrote an article for a gun magazine not too long ago.” Dean speaks around a full mouth, “How ‘bout you, makin’ a career out o’ destroyin’ shit? I hear demolition ain’t a bad gig.”
Theo hunches his shoulders, instantly clamming up.
“What, cat got your tongue?” Dean raises an unimpressed brow, but Theo’s eyes lock onto the dead grass beneath the chairs.
Maybe it’s just habit that brings his walls snapping up like they have, or maybe it was the realization that his walls had been down, but Theo doesn’t know. He’s never felt more than a few specks of guilt before - and if that doesn’t sound like the symptoms of an antisocial personality - and he can’t really say he cares about the shed even now.
What does affect him is Dean.
“Y’know,” Dean says, looking up at the clear sky, “You seem like a smart kid. You use big words and tie your shoes all by yourself. You understand the blueprints easily enough and you even improvised a bit and made that lever to help you shift the heavy stuff.”
Theo watches as Dean’s eyes slowly fall to meet his, “Don’t waste your life like an idiot.”
Holding Dean’s stare is like looking into the sun, circles of green fire burning into Theo’s retinas, but he doesn’t break away. It’s a poor illusion, but this way Theo can pretend he’s not just fumbling around in the dark, looking for - he doesn’t even know what - a hobby, a career goal, a political movement to join.
Dean’s the first to look away, sighing tiredly as he glances around, searching for something, “Damnit, we didn’t bring any drinks out. Kid, fetch beer - and a juice box or something for yourself.”
Theo frowns as Dean uses his cane to prod at him from where he sits, “C’mon, get to it.”
And Theo obeys, actually glad for the excuse. He drops his plate and unfinished sandwich onto the seat of his lawn chair as he gets up, but he walks slowly, relishing the ability to move without a cane herding him forwards.
It’s a fairly long walk back to the house, but somehow he knows solemn eyes watch him the whole way as he treads through tall weeds and dead grass, so he keeps his eyes roaming the distance, looking out at the tall trees to the Southeast, the empty space in the grass where the murky pond is, or anything else in the general direction he’s marching towards.
Upon entering the house through the kitchen door, Theo notices something odd, not that any part of the house is normal. Somehow everything is dusty, aged, and mismatched. Every inch is cluttered with suspicious paraphernalia, yet Theo’s eyes don’t fixate on the satanic looking paintings that might be done in blood or the severed monkey’s paw that doesn’t look very monkey-like being used as a bookend on a shelf.
From where he stands by the backdoor, Theo can look into the sitting room. He’s walked past it multiple times, but at this angle, a small photograph becomes visible, squeezed into a shadowy nook.
The photograph is burnt at the edges and blackened in the middle, but it’s tucked carefully inside a frame and it’s the only thing that’s hung straight and proper on the wall.
He’s never seen it before, but it tugs at him - the only photograph he’s seen in the house - so Theo goes.
He walks right into the sitting room, right up to the picture frame and he can just make out the shapes of a few figures. There’s a grizzled man in a wheelchair, two women and a very tall man, none of whom Theo recognizes, of course.
And then there’s Dean, looking to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He looks about the same in the photograph as today, still dressed in a similar fashion, hair still kept in a similar style. Not much has changed, right down to the grim expression darkening his face.
It’s a little... sad, that Dean’s been this way for years.
Theo leans closer to the photo, noticing that there’s one more person. The burnt edge cuts right through the figure, so it’s difficult, but Theo can tell it’s a man - somehow familiar - and he can just see the edge of a long coat, a skewed tie -
“Drinks are normally kept in the kitchen.”
Theo jumps, spinning around to find Dean right behind him.
He doesn’t know how that’s possible because the floorboards creak under the slightest pressure, never mind the thump of Dean’s cane, but Theo hadn’t heard Dean approach and now the man is only a few feet away, any of the strange rapport they managed to build over the past ten days bled out, leaving his eyes cold and flat like faded tundra.
Dean’s wearing his oven mitts again, but Theo can’t find anything hilarious about the situation, and all Dean does is hold out a box of apple juice, “Your sandwich is getting cold.”
Theo hears danger like the click of gunmetal echoed with human teeth, so he sprints back the way he came without grabbing the juice box, the paper carton somehow sinister in Dean’s pink gloved hand. He races out into the clear sky and open grass, feeling like not even an infinite stretch of space can take away his sudden claustrophobia, the sense of drowning in the air.
Today, for the first time in a long time, Theo had felt proud of himself. And today, for the first time in a long time, he feels guilty.
But Dean doesn’t come back outside, not even at the end of the day, so there’s no routine goodbye from Dean or routine lack of response from Theo.
And Theo is sorry, but not enough to make him brave, so he bikes away.
One mile for each good day.
* * *
“Ouch, what the fuck happened to you, man?” Evan winces, the silver hoops of his snake bites glinting as he chews at his lower lip, “You look like the walking dead.”
“No thanks to you two,” Theo flops onto Evan’s bed and grouses into the mattress. It doesn’t smell particularly nice - like pot and too much Febreeze - but he doesn’t do more than turn his face to the side so he can see the blue and blonde tops of his friends’ heads over the edge of the bed.
Jake is entirely absorbed in the video game, his large frame looking a little odd hunched over his controller, but Evan glances repeatedly over his shoulder at Theo, not caring that on screen, his car has crashed into a side rail and is now heading in the wrong direction.
“You need anything?” Evan asks, grey eyes wide with concern, “Food? Water?... Other things?”
“Thanks, but no,” Theo grunts.
He feels like shit, partially due to physical exertion, but mostly because he is shit.
He destroyed Dean’s property and invaded the man’s life when he obviously likes his privacy. It’s a new and unpleasant - horrible - feeling that settles in the bottom of his stomach like a stone that failed to skip across the surface of a pond.
Hanging on the wall or not, it had been none of his business to look at that photo, and he hates to think of what sort of memories Dean might have attached to it. Who knows what happened to the people in that picture, the congregation of sombre figures and the burnt condition of the image not saying good things.
It’s been hours, but he wonders if Dean is still standing in the sitting room, alone on the outskirts of Lawrence with no company but those faces kept safe behind glass.
“We told ya to run, cupcake,” Jake shrugs, response extremely delayed. He taps madly at the ancient controller clutched in his hands, steering his car on the television screen into a hairpin turn, increasing his overwhelming lead on Evan, whose car has accidentally rolled into the pit stop.
“No you didn’t.”
“Well, you’re supposed to be the smart one,” Jake says distractedly, stretching his long legs out on the carpet as if to emphasize Jake’s role as the ‘athletic one’, Theo’s role as the ‘smart one’ and Evan’s role as... something.
And Theo knows Jake doesn’t mean anything by it, but he still winces, recalling Dean’s words.
Jake doesn’t notice Theo’s reaction, but Evan does and he jabs a skinny elbow into Jake’s side, jolting the larger boy and sending his on-screen car driving straight onto the grass.
“Sorry we can’t help, dude,” Evan tosses his controller to the side and turns to talk to Theo, blue hair falling over one eye, “But we’re already in, like, nine kinds of trouble and we’ve got a bad track record, so we’d seriously be shot for getting mixed up with this too.”
Jake pauses the video game, finding no fun in crushing Evan’s delusions of being a race car driver when the slighter boy isn’t paying attention. He sets his controller to the floor beside him as he turns to Theo, a teasing grin stretched wide across his tanned face, “You’re not really mad about it are you Thee-O?”
“What makes you think that?” Theo asks, sitting up on the mattress to look at the curly haired teen resting muscled forearms on the edge of the bed.
“Well pop-tart, even though Plant’s a hermit, you seem to get along fine and dandy with ‘im,” Jake waggles his brows.
Theo looks away uncomfortably, thinking that if ever that was true it certainly isn’t anymore.
Jake shrugs his broad shoulders and exchanges a glance with Evan, cuing the blue haired boy who says, “Okay, well you just be careful, huh.”
“Why?” Theo’s eyes narrow.
“Didn’t we already tell you his origin story?” Jake huffs.
“You mean how the day he showed up, the man who used to own his property left?”
“Disappeared,” Evan corrects, “Somerville was there, and then he just wasn’t.”
Theo looks at the shorter boy, unimpressed, “You were four years old when that happened, and it doesn’t really mean anything. They probably arranged the sale ahead of time.”
“Can’t you feel it though, when you get near him?” Jake nods seriously, “There’s a reason people avoid his place like the plague.”
A chill run’s over his skin, because he can’t deny that there’s something about Dean, but Theo’s unable to stop the defensive edge that sharpens his tone, “That doesn’t make Plant a crazy axe murderer.”
Jake grunts unattractively, scratching at his messy blonde curls, “Well somebody is.”
“De-Plant isn’t abducting teens and locking them in his basement, Jake,” Theo’s hands fist on the edge of the mattress, “This isn’t a horror movie.”
“Maybe they’re not being kept in his basement,” Jake shoots back, teeth flashing.
“Guys, guys,” Evan waves his hands between them, placating, “’Kay, let’s be fair. Plant might not be the one going around kidnapping people-” Jake makes a move to interrupt, but Evan barges on, “But who can say, I mean, he’s got one big ass piece of land and he’s damn creepy in my book.”
“Teens are going missing,” Theo says flatly, “These are real events, unlike those that Plant’s notoriety are built on.”
“No need to get so touchy, Thee-O,” Jake tosses his head in irritation, brows lowering over dark eyes, “And what would you know ‘bout whether or not the rumours are true. You didn’t grow up with ‘em and you weren’t here the first time ‘round.”
“What do you mean, ‘the first time around’,” Theo cocks his head, brows furrowing.
Evan clears his throat nervously, eyes darting to Jake’s scowling face, “Uh, this isn’t the first time people have gone missing like this.”
“Lawrence isn’t that small. I expect that it has its fair share of disappearances.”
“Yeah, but,” Evan twists one hand about his slight wrist, “So far it’s Kyle Tattle and Mi-Michelle,” he stumbles over the name, and Theo feels a little ashamed of himself. He hadn’t been making light of the situation, but he’d forgotten that Evan is friends with one of the missing teens. Michelle and Evan aren’t the closest, but apparently they had been planning a joint birthday party, having been born on the same day.
Jake seems similarly mollified, and he lays a large hand on Evan’s thin shoulder, “Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to bring this up.”
“It’s okay,” Evan sighs, looking especially pale next to Jake’s tanned skin.
“They’ll find her,” Theo tries to assure the shorter boy.
Evan shakes his head, the dark circles under his eyes suddenly suggesting more than sleepless nights, “Not in time.”
“Hey, don’t say that. It’s only been a few days, and we don’t know anything for sure,” Jake frowns, “I mean, yeah, you spent a lot of time looking into it, but you’re no professional, man.”
Evan nods dully, “You’re right, but I think Theo should know about the first time this happened, just ‘cause.”
“If this has happened before, wouldn’t the police have made the connection and the news stations reported it?” Theo asks.
“So far, there’ve only been two, and they’re just missing,” Jake says roughly, expression darkening as he rubs a hand reassuringly up and down Evan’s slumped back, “Last time was seven years ago - four kids - one of them Evan’s cousin - found dead with some freaky shit carved into their skin.”
Theo’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t know what to say to Evan. ‘I’m sorry’ won’t help, not even now that he can sincerely say it, and Evan seems to understand, waving away Theo’s concern, “It was a long time ago. People probably don’t think they’re related ‘cause, I mean, the four kids... only one was from Lawrence.”
Theo purses his lips, asks lowly, “So what makes you think they’re related?”
Evan shakes his head, grey eyes looking up at Theo from under his fringe of blue hair, “August, seven years ago, it was ten year old kids. This time around, it’s seventeen year olds,” he laughs nervously, face twisting fearfully, “Whoever’s doing this is hunting our generation.”
Part 2