This has been a long time coming...
Title: A Ghost At Thunderhead: Coda
Fandom: Speed Racer and Supernatural. YES, I wrote crossover.
Pairing: Rex/Speed (AND IT'S NOT SHOTA.), minor mentions of Wincest (because c'mon, I had to obey the canon)
Rating: NC-17 for sex.
Length: 5,471 words. It... got away from me, yeah.
Status: Complete.
Notes: So, I think this is a first for our fandom? Whatever it is, it's an extension of princessezzy 's A Ghost at Thunderhead (I know, we all thought it was finished, didn't we?), and she's now insisting that I write a sequel (or she does) from X's point of view. Anyway, here it is, it's split into two for length, and beta'd by Ezzy again. It's set mid-series three for Supernatural (sometime after Mystery Spot) and therefore has season three spoilers.
Sam was looking like a bitch when Dean finally came in. He closed the door behind him and dumped the bags on the bed. “Okay, so this is the part where you normally say something like ‘where have you been?’, and I reply with something that starts with ‘well there was this girl, and she had the most amazing’…” He trailed off and sat on the bed, glancing at Sam’s discarded phone. “Bad news?”
Sam nodded. “Jack Marshall’s dead.”
“Jack Marshall…” Dean frowned. “Wasn’t he one of your college guys?” Sam nodded. “Well, shit. How’d it happen?”
“Racing accident.”
“You know someone into racing?” Dean snorted. “You’re so not cool enough for that.” He frowned. “Anything suspicious?”
“Nope. Racing accidents happen all the time.” Sam fingered the newspaper in front of him.
“You want to drive over, check it out just in case? Pay your condolences?”
Sam shrugged. “I dunno, I haven’t so much as talked to him in at least a year. He’s been dead two weeks; it’s taken this long to find out, even if something did happen the killer - human or otherwise - would be long gone.”
Dean nodded. “I’ll get Bobby to check it out with his friend at the CIB.” He scooped up the paper and scanned the headline, whistling under his breath. “Dude, you didn’t tell me he crashed at Thunderhead!”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “And that makes a difference because…?”
Dean snorted. “Do any of the races I watch rub off on you?” Sam thought back to wrestles over the remote and cries of victory and rewards to the winner. “Speed Racer races at Thunderhead.”
Sam shrugged. “And? Why would you want to go driving off halfway across America, anyway? Bobby called me about this job across state, some haunted farm or something - ”
“Haunted farm?! Over Thunderhead?!”
“ - cattle mutilations, weird noises, dead relatives, the whole nine.” They sat and glared at each other for a bit.
“Sam,” Dean said quietly. “Please. I don’t have much time left-”
Sam should have seen this card coming.
“It’s my dying wi-”
“You seem to have a hell of a lot of dying wishes these days, Dean!”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“People are only meant to have one! And they don’t normally include what flavour ice cream we get to buy!”
“You said we could only have one tub! I was desperate!” Dean scowled. “I bet all the other poor dying fuckers don’t have to deal with ice cream Nazis,” he muttered to himself.
Sam closed his eyes and let out a long, slow breath. “Alright. We’ll go check it out.” He held up a finger. “But only for Jack’s sake.” He paused, and added quietly “he was a good friend.”
“You want something to eat before you go out, Speed, honey?” Mom called from the kitchen as Speed shrugged on his jacket.
“No, it’s okay, I’ll pick something up at the track.” He walked into the kitchen and let his mother kiss him on the cheek. “I won’t be back too late, don’t worry.” She smiled and resumed cooking, and Speed turned to grab his helmet and palming his keys walked grinning to the door.
“Dude,” Dean whistled appreciatively. “It’s so much bigger in person.”
The race stands were deserted and dark. They’d got past a confused janitor by claiming to be health inspectors and stood in the top box, looking down at the stands below. “Yeah,” Sam sighed. “Can we go now?”
“Are you kidding me? Sam, you are standing in the presence of greatness.” Dean walked down to the balcony rail and spread his arms. “I remember watching Rex Racer set the lap record on that busted up TV when Dad was out hunting that psychopathic guy with the duck for a head. Do you remember that? That was fucking awesome!” He slapped the balcony and grinned, leaning forwards. He paused. “Rex. Not the duck dude. He was just plain weird.”
Sam looked blank and joined him at the rail. There was the vague sound of engine noises beneath them, and a streak of light shot out onto the track. Sam frowned. “I thought it was closed before the race tomorrow?”
Dean was staring so hard and leaning so far over the rail Sam grabbed him in case he fell to an early death. “Dude,” he gasped. “That’s the freaking Mach 5. That’s Speed Racer!”
Pulling out onto the track was hardly a novelty, and Speed wasn’t excited for that.
Tonight, he was due to have company.
His whole body was tingling as he turned the first corner, this is it, this is normally where he arrives, his heart throbbing with excitement. C’mon, c’mon, please -
He caught the flash of red and his heart leapt, and he let out a hiss of happiness as he floored it to catch up with the ghostly car, zigzagging frantically out in front of him. He saw Rex Racer look across to him and he smiled back, and they weaved and bucked and turned together and it was so familiar and wonderful and God, he loved feeling this happy, this young again.
They juddered to a halt just outside the chequered floor and both exited their respective vehicles, so similar and yet so different. “Hey, Rex,” he said softly.
He didn’t actually know if his brother could hear him - he certainly never heard what Rex said, but he recognised his mouth moving in the shape of “Hey, Speedy,” and smiled.
Dean and Sam stared as the ghostly Rex Racer slowly dissipated and the Mach 5 moved off the track.
“I think we have a job,” Dean said quietly.
Dean was cramming something beige in his mouth when he entered the motel room, and Sam didn’t enquire further to its origin. “So,” he started as Dean came to sit on the bed, wiping his hands on his jeans. “I looked into the background again.” Dean’s head moved towards him, his attention focusing from food for a few seconds. “Well, we all know the story, the tragic crash, the bereavement, blah, blah. But it looks like something got left behind in the aftermath, because Rex is up and around and zipping around the track again.”
“But it can’t be anything physical,” Dean pointed out. “His body got basically burnt in that crash; it’s done our job for us.”
“Yeah, but, it could be his possessions,” Sam reminded him. “Something he left behind.”
“But he only left the Mach 5, and I doubt Speed’ll be too happy if we turn up and try and torch it.” Dean shuddered. “Besides, that’d be like blasphemy.”
“Unfinished business then, maybe? I mean, he did leave behind a whole family, including a little brother that practically worshipped him.”
Dean grinned. “I know how that feels.”
“Shut up.”
“Bitch.”
“Jerk.”
There was silence for a moment, before Sam continued.
“Okay, so, a more interesting alley could be why now. This isn’t a regular occurrence - well, only recently; I checked it out with one of the janitors, and it said that even though Speed’s always been making regular visits to the track they’ve only intensified in the last month or so.” He pulled up the clock-in registers on the laptop screen and Dean scanned them, nodding. “But he’d been working there for the best part of fifteen years and he said something weirder; he told me about this ghost story from just before Rex crashed, where a white car was seen on the track late at night.”
Dean frowned. “That is weird.” He sighed and stretched, rolling back his shoulders. “So what’s next?”
“Check out Speed’s house?” he suggested. “See if the appearances are just limited to the track.”
“Awesome.” Dean frowned. “I have to go clean the car. We’re visiting automotive royalty.”
Speed was looking through photo albums. This had become more common since Rex had started appearing at Thunderhead; he always scanned the pictures for a sign of the Rex he saw now, trying to work out where he was from. It was comforting, too, to see the familiarity in the face he could remember now from more than blurred childhood memories. He sighed and stroked over one of them at Thunderhead, something hot prickling his stomach.
The doorbell went, and he sighed. Mom needed to buy new clothes for Spritle, who had managed to rip all the knees in his jeans, Pops needed a bunch of parts and Sparky got the job of carrying them to the car, so the four of them had bustled off into town earlier, leaving Speed to dwell. Perhaps not the wisest decision. Anyway, he had to answer the door - he got a flashback of Rex reminding him not to talk to strangers, and shook his head as he walked through the kitchen and bypassed clutter to let it open.
Two guys in suits stood there, one smiling nervously, the other staring at him and grinning like an idiot. “Uh, hi,” the former said. “We’re here from the - ”
“Hi, it’s awesome to meet you,” the other gushed and shook his hand, beaming. The first guy glared at him and he dropped Speed’s hand, coughing and staring at the floor.
“We’re here from the FBI,” the first guy continued. “I’m Agent Young and this is Agent… Johnson. We’ve heard reports in the neighbourhood of a weird guy hanging around, and we think he’s behind some local burglaries.” Speed wondered for a moment if this Agent Johnson was the aforementioned ‘weird guy’ when he started grinning again. “We’re making door to door enquiries and wondered if you’d heard anything?”
“No,” Speed said, shaking his head. “Inspector Detector didn’t tell me anything about this…”
“Ah,” Young said quickly, “yeah, he told us to come talk to you.”
“I thought you guys were with the FBI, not the CIB,” Speed said cautiously.
“We work in close cooperation,” Young added quickly, smiling.
“Still,” Speed continued, frowning, “normally he’d send X over or something.”
“Racer X?” This came from Johnson, who was speaking for the first time, and in an abnormally squeaky voice. He glanced around nervously, and Speed smiled behind his hand.
“We were in the area,” Young said, glaring at his partner. “Have you heard any weird noises? Like scrabbling, like rats, or something? Cold spells?”
“I thought you guys were investigating this burglar,” Speed said slowly, moving further inside.
“We are,” Young said hurriedly, stepping forward. “That’s just what some of your other neighbours have been reporting.”
“Hi,” Johnson said slowly, and smiled, still staring disconcertingly at his face.
“I still haven’t heard of any burglaries,” Speed continued, starting to close the door. “I think I’d better call X and check.”
“Speed, wait - ”
Speed slammed the door shut and clicked the latch across, shaking his head. Reporters. If they just straight-out asked for an interview he’d be fine with it. Weird noises? Cold spells? He snorted and moved back to the bedroom, but the phone went off halfway, and he moved over to it. “Racer residence.”
“Speed, sweetheart, it’s Mom. We’re going to be later than we thought…” Vague crashing sounds emanated and the sound of a monkey screaming, and Speed winced. “… actually, I think we’re staying the night. Will you be okay?”
“Don’t worry,” Speed smiled. “I’ll call X, get him to come over.”
“Alright, honey. I love you.”
“Love you too, Mom.” Speed hung up and moved back over to the bedroom, and froze as he saw Rex come out of his doorway.
“Hey, Speedy,” he mouthed.
“Well, that went well,” Sam muttered as they moved away from the door. “We’ve probably got a homicidal leathered racer on our tail now.”
“Dude,” Dean breathed. His eyes were glassy with awe. “Dude, he looked at me. Like, looked at me looked at me.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “What do you reckon we should do now?”
“Celebrate?”
Sam ignored him. “Get in the car,” he muttered, shoving Dean in, seeing as he didn’t seem to be capable of doing much but stare at the vibrant Racer household. “We’d better go back to the motel and pick up some kit before we start the stakeout.”
“Dude,” Dean breathed as they pulled away. “We’re stalking Speed Racer.”
They were sat on the bed, staring at each other. The dusk had dissipated, but they sat in the gloom, the curtains thrown open and illuminating the room with the light from the streetlamps outside. Speed was conscious of the fact that Rex was probably sat wondering why Speed was in his room, and not down the corridor. He tried to speak, to explain, but Rex looked at him blankly and Speed sighed. Rex couldn’t hear him either. He tried to write it down on a piece of paper but Rex couldn’t seem to read it, and when he tried to hand it to him it sizzled round his fingers and then slipped through, and Speed stopped trying for fear that Rex would vanish. They compromised by just sitting and looking.
Speed brought his right hand in front of him and held out his palm. Rex did the same, slowly, and there was a cold fizz and then his hand slipped straight through Rex’s.
They couldn’t touch.
Rex looked up at him with sad eyes.
“I miss you,” Speed said softly. Rex seemed to understand him.
Rex leant in to kiss him and it all went wrong.
Sam prowled the car round the house, searching for a spot to look into the house. Eventually he found he could settle comfortably across the street and look into Speed’s bedroom, but all he could see was Speed sitting on the bed, staring off out of his view. He sighed and settled back, bracing his body for the hours of exhaustion.
“Thank you, Sammy,” Dean said quietly from beside him, staring out of the car window. “For letting me see this.”
Sam didn’t answer, but his throat clenched. He focused back on Speed, who was talking to… himself? He couldn’t tell, but he hadn’t seen anyone else enter the house, so it had to be. He opened his mouth to answer his brother when the shimmering head of Rex slipped into his view as Speed leant in to kiss his ghostly brother. “Dean,” he said hurriedly, and shot out of the car, gun in hand, his brother close behind.
The window smashed from the impact of the gunshot and Speed yelled, pushing his arms up to protect his face from the glass. Rex’s head snapped towards the intruders before one of them fired again and Rex vanished into smoke. “What are you doing?!” he yelled, turning to squint at their faces in the light. “That was Rex!” His voice softened. “That was Rex,” he said quietly, and turned to flick on the light. He frowned as he recognised the two faces, and shook his head in disbelief. “You’re those two guys from before, aren’t you? Young and Johnson? The reporters?”
“We’re not reporters,” the taller one said quickly, coming forwards. The short guy was pulling the curtains across and reloading his gun, glancing around the room.
“Whoever you are, get the hell out of my house before I call X!” he yelled, pointing at the broken window.
“Speed, you have to listen to us,” the taller one continued. “I’m Sam, this is my brother Dean, and we know about Rex.”
“You don’t know anything!” Speed snapped, turning to stalk away, pouting at the door.
“We know a lot about something,” the other guy - Dean - said quietly. “And we’re here to help.”
“You don’t know anything,” Speed said again, but softer. Still giddy with adrenaline, fresh loss was surging through him, and an increasing sense of sorrow. What if Rex never came back?
“We know what Rex is, Speed,” Sam said.
“He’s my brother,” Speed said stubbornly.
“Not anymore,” Dean muttered. He was glancing into the corridor outside, before shutting Speed’s bedroom door and leaning against it to survey the room. “We don’t have time to give him the ‘the truth is out there’ speech,” he murmured across to his brother, and Sam nodded, glancing back at Speed.
“I think he’s figured it out anyway,” he said softly. “Speed, what Rex is pretending to be, it’s not him anymore. None of it is him. It’ll look like him and sound like him but it’s evil.”
“That’s stupid,” Speed muttered. “Rex would never hurt me.”
“That’s what it wants you to think,” Sam said gently.
“It’s not an it. It’s my brother.” His voice choked. “I miss him.”
“There’s no such thing as a good ghost,” Dean muttered from the doorway. “These things only want to kill you, and we’d kinda like to stop that happening.”
“Imagine he died,” Speed said suddenly, pointing at Sam and turning to Dean. “Wouldn’t you do anything you could to bring him back, if only for a second? Even if he wasn’t even really there?”
Sam hung his head and looked awkwardly out of the window. Dean smiled for the first time and locked eyes with Speed. “Kid,” he said softly. “You have no idea.”
Speed glanced between them. “You guys are more than just brothers… aren’t you?” They said nothing, but Speed caught the way Dean glanced at Sam. “Look, just get out of my house, alright? I’d better clear up this glass find a reason for this window, or X will go mental.” He let out a long sigh. The two of them stayed put for a moment, before Dean muttered something to Sam and begrudgingly the two of them moved out of the window.
Speed sat on his bed and fought back tears.
“Maybe we should give this ghost Rex a chance,” Sam said as Dean slotted their guns in the trunk.
“There’s no such thing as a good ghost,” Dean reiterated. “You’re smarter than that, Sam.”
“But maybe - ”
“Is this about me going to Hell, Sam? Because no matter whether I do or don’t I’m not going to come back as anything pretty, demon or ghost or whatever!” Dean slammed the lid of the trunk shut and glared across the car at him. “These things are evil, Sam, we’ve hunted them for our whole lives and we’ve never found an exception to that, so it’s not suddenly going to start spawning heartwarming cases!”
“No, Dean,” Sam said quietly. “This isn’t all about you. I was thinking about when we went back to Lawrence and met Mom.”
Dean froze suddenly before sliding into the car. “That was different,” he muttered, starting up the engine. Sam bit his tongue against his argument. They were tired, and needed rest. Dean wouldn’t get any, and neither would Sam, but the bed would act as a principle and they could pretend tomorrow.
part II
Fandom: Speed Racer and Supernatural. YES, I wrote crossover.
Pairing: Rex/Speed (AND IT'S NOT SHOTA.), minor mentions of Wincest (because c'mon, I had to obey the canon)
Rating: NC-17 for sex.
Length: 5,471 words. It... got away from me, yeah.
Status: Complete.
Notes: So, I think this is a first for our fandom? Whatever it is, it's an extension of princessezzy 's A Ghost at Thunderhead (I know, we all thought it was finished, didn't we?), and she's now insisting that I write a sequel (or she does) from X's point of view. Anyway, here it is, it's split into two for length, and beta'd by Ezzy again. It's set mid-series three for Supernatural (sometime after Mystery Spot) and therefore has season three spoilers.
Sam was looking like a bitch when Dean finally came in. He closed the door behind him and dumped the bags on the bed. “Okay, so this is the part where you normally say something like ‘where have you been?’, and I reply with something that starts with ‘well there was this girl, and she had the most amazing’…” He trailed off and sat on the bed, glancing at Sam’s discarded phone. “Bad news?”
Sam nodded. “Jack Marshall’s dead.”
“Jack Marshall…” Dean frowned. “Wasn’t he one of your college guys?” Sam nodded. “Well, shit. How’d it happen?”
“Racing accident.”
“You know someone into racing?” Dean snorted. “You’re so not cool enough for that.” He frowned. “Anything suspicious?”
“Nope. Racing accidents happen all the time.” Sam fingered the newspaper in front of him.
“You want to drive over, check it out just in case? Pay your condolences?”
Sam shrugged. “I dunno, I haven’t so much as talked to him in at least a year. He’s been dead two weeks; it’s taken this long to find out, even if something did happen the killer - human or otherwise - would be long gone.”
Dean nodded. “I’ll get Bobby to check it out with his friend at the CIB.” He scooped up the paper and scanned the headline, whistling under his breath. “Dude, you didn’t tell me he crashed at Thunderhead!”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “And that makes a difference because…?”
Dean snorted. “Do any of the races I watch rub off on you?” Sam thought back to wrestles over the remote and cries of victory and rewards to the winner. “Speed Racer races at Thunderhead.”
Sam shrugged. “And? Why would you want to go driving off halfway across America, anyway? Bobby called me about this job across state, some haunted farm or something - ”
“Haunted farm?! Over Thunderhead?!”
“ - cattle mutilations, weird noises, dead relatives, the whole nine.” They sat and glared at each other for a bit.
“Sam,” Dean said quietly. “Please. I don’t have much time left-”
Sam should have seen this card coming.
“It’s my dying wi-”
“You seem to have a hell of a lot of dying wishes these days, Dean!”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“People are only meant to have one! And they don’t normally include what flavour ice cream we get to buy!”
“You said we could only have one tub! I was desperate!” Dean scowled. “I bet all the other poor dying fuckers don’t have to deal with ice cream Nazis,” he muttered to himself.
Sam closed his eyes and let out a long, slow breath. “Alright. We’ll go check it out.” He held up a finger. “But only for Jack’s sake.” He paused, and added quietly “he was a good friend.”
“You want something to eat before you go out, Speed, honey?” Mom called from the kitchen as Speed shrugged on his jacket.
“No, it’s okay, I’ll pick something up at the track.” He walked into the kitchen and let his mother kiss him on the cheek. “I won’t be back too late, don’t worry.” She smiled and resumed cooking, and Speed turned to grab his helmet and palming his keys walked grinning to the door.
“Dude,” Dean whistled appreciatively. “It’s so much bigger in person.”
The race stands were deserted and dark. They’d got past a confused janitor by claiming to be health inspectors and stood in the top box, looking down at the stands below. “Yeah,” Sam sighed. “Can we go now?”
“Are you kidding me? Sam, you are standing in the presence of greatness.” Dean walked down to the balcony rail and spread his arms. “I remember watching Rex Racer set the lap record on that busted up TV when Dad was out hunting that psychopathic guy with the duck for a head. Do you remember that? That was fucking awesome!” He slapped the balcony and grinned, leaning forwards. He paused. “Rex. Not the duck dude. He was just plain weird.”
Sam looked blank and joined him at the rail. There was the vague sound of engine noises beneath them, and a streak of light shot out onto the track. Sam frowned. “I thought it was closed before the race tomorrow?”
Dean was staring so hard and leaning so far over the rail Sam grabbed him in case he fell to an early death. “Dude,” he gasped. “That’s the freaking Mach 5. That’s Speed Racer!”
Pulling out onto the track was hardly a novelty, and Speed wasn’t excited for that.
Tonight, he was due to have company.
His whole body was tingling as he turned the first corner, this is it, this is normally where he arrives, his heart throbbing with excitement. C’mon, c’mon, please -
He caught the flash of red and his heart leapt, and he let out a hiss of happiness as he floored it to catch up with the ghostly car, zigzagging frantically out in front of him. He saw Rex Racer look across to him and he smiled back, and they weaved and bucked and turned together and it was so familiar and wonderful and God, he loved feeling this happy, this young again.
They juddered to a halt just outside the chequered floor and both exited their respective vehicles, so similar and yet so different. “Hey, Rex,” he said softly.
He didn’t actually know if his brother could hear him - he certainly never heard what Rex said, but he recognised his mouth moving in the shape of “Hey, Speedy,” and smiled.
Dean and Sam stared as the ghostly Rex Racer slowly dissipated and the Mach 5 moved off the track.
“I think we have a job,” Dean said quietly.
Dean was cramming something beige in his mouth when he entered the motel room, and Sam didn’t enquire further to its origin. “So,” he started as Dean came to sit on the bed, wiping his hands on his jeans. “I looked into the background again.” Dean’s head moved towards him, his attention focusing from food for a few seconds. “Well, we all know the story, the tragic crash, the bereavement, blah, blah. But it looks like something got left behind in the aftermath, because Rex is up and around and zipping around the track again.”
“But it can’t be anything physical,” Dean pointed out. “His body got basically burnt in that crash; it’s done our job for us.”
“Yeah, but, it could be his possessions,” Sam reminded him. “Something he left behind.”
“But he only left the Mach 5, and I doubt Speed’ll be too happy if we turn up and try and torch it.” Dean shuddered. “Besides, that’d be like blasphemy.”
“Unfinished business then, maybe? I mean, he did leave behind a whole family, including a little brother that practically worshipped him.”
Dean grinned. “I know how that feels.”
“Shut up.”
“Bitch.”
“Jerk.”
There was silence for a moment, before Sam continued.
“Okay, so, a more interesting alley could be why now. This isn’t a regular occurrence - well, only recently; I checked it out with one of the janitors, and it said that even though Speed’s always been making regular visits to the track they’ve only intensified in the last month or so.” He pulled up the clock-in registers on the laptop screen and Dean scanned them, nodding. “But he’d been working there for the best part of fifteen years and he said something weirder; he told me about this ghost story from just before Rex crashed, where a white car was seen on the track late at night.”
Dean frowned. “That is weird.” He sighed and stretched, rolling back his shoulders. “So what’s next?”
“Check out Speed’s house?” he suggested. “See if the appearances are just limited to the track.”
“Awesome.” Dean frowned. “I have to go clean the car. We’re visiting automotive royalty.”
Speed was looking through photo albums. This had become more common since Rex had started appearing at Thunderhead; he always scanned the pictures for a sign of the Rex he saw now, trying to work out where he was from. It was comforting, too, to see the familiarity in the face he could remember now from more than blurred childhood memories. He sighed and stroked over one of them at Thunderhead, something hot prickling his stomach.
The doorbell went, and he sighed. Mom needed to buy new clothes for Spritle, who had managed to rip all the knees in his jeans, Pops needed a bunch of parts and Sparky got the job of carrying them to the car, so the four of them had bustled off into town earlier, leaving Speed to dwell. Perhaps not the wisest decision. Anyway, he had to answer the door - he got a flashback of Rex reminding him not to talk to strangers, and shook his head as he walked through the kitchen and bypassed clutter to let it open.
Two guys in suits stood there, one smiling nervously, the other staring at him and grinning like an idiot. “Uh, hi,” the former said. “We’re here from the - ”
“Hi, it’s awesome to meet you,” the other gushed and shook his hand, beaming. The first guy glared at him and he dropped Speed’s hand, coughing and staring at the floor.
“We’re here from the FBI,” the first guy continued. “I’m Agent Young and this is Agent… Johnson. We’ve heard reports in the neighbourhood of a weird guy hanging around, and we think he’s behind some local burglaries.” Speed wondered for a moment if this Agent Johnson was the aforementioned ‘weird guy’ when he started grinning again. “We’re making door to door enquiries and wondered if you’d heard anything?”
“No,” Speed said, shaking his head. “Inspector Detector didn’t tell me anything about this…”
“Ah,” Young said quickly, “yeah, he told us to come talk to you.”
“I thought you guys were with the FBI, not the CIB,” Speed said cautiously.
“We work in close cooperation,” Young added quickly, smiling.
“Still,” Speed continued, frowning, “normally he’d send X over or something.”
“Racer X?” This came from Johnson, who was speaking for the first time, and in an abnormally squeaky voice. He glanced around nervously, and Speed smiled behind his hand.
“We were in the area,” Young said, glaring at his partner. “Have you heard any weird noises? Like scrabbling, like rats, or something? Cold spells?”
“I thought you guys were investigating this burglar,” Speed said slowly, moving further inside.
“We are,” Young said hurriedly, stepping forward. “That’s just what some of your other neighbours have been reporting.”
“Hi,” Johnson said slowly, and smiled, still staring disconcertingly at his face.
“I still haven’t heard of any burglaries,” Speed continued, starting to close the door. “I think I’d better call X and check.”
“Speed, wait - ”
Speed slammed the door shut and clicked the latch across, shaking his head. Reporters. If they just straight-out asked for an interview he’d be fine with it. Weird noises? Cold spells? He snorted and moved back to the bedroom, but the phone went off halfway, and he moved over to it. “Racer residence.”
“Speed, sweetheart, it’s Mom. We’re going to be later than we thought…” Vague crashing sounds emanated and the sound of a monkey screaming, and Speed winced. “… actually, I think we’re staying the night. Will you be okay?”
“Don’t worry,” Speed smiled. “I’ll call X, get him to come over.”
“Alright, honey. I love you.”
“Love you too, Mom.” Speed hung up and moved back over to the bedroom, and froze as he saw Rex come out of his doorway.
“Hey, Speedy,” he mouthed.
“Well, that went well,” Sam muttered as they moved away from the door. “We’ve probably got a homicidal leathered racer on our tail now.”
“Dude,” Dean breathed. His eyes were glassy with awe. “Dude, he looked at me. Like, looked at me looked at me.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “What do you reckon we should do now?”
“Celebrate?”
Sam ignored him. “Get in the car,” he muttered, shoving Dean in, seeing as he didn’t seem to be capable of doing much but stare at the vibrant Racer household. “We’d better go back to the motel and pick up some kit before we start the stakeout.”
“Dude,” Dean breathed as they pulled away. “We’re stalking Speed Racer.”
They were sat on the bed, staring at each other. The dusk had dissipated, but they sat in the gloom, the curtains thrown open and illuminating the room with the light from the streetlamps outside. Speed was conscious of the fact that Rex was probably sat wondering why Speed was in his room, and not down the corridor. He tried to speak, to explain, but Rex looked at him blankly and Speed sighed. Rex couldn’t hear him either. He tried to write it down on a piece of paper but Rex couldn’t seem to read it, and when he tried to hand it to him it sizzled round his fingers and then slipped through, and Speed stopped trying for fear that Rex would vanish. They compromised by just sitting and looking.
Speed brought his right hand in front of him and held out his palm. Rex did the same, slowly, and there was a cold fizz and then his hand slipped straight through Rex’s.
They couldn’t touch.
Rex looked up at him with sad eyes.
“I miss you,” Speed said softly. Rex seemed to understand him.
Rex leant in to kiss him and it all went wrong.
Sam prowled the car round the house, searching for a spot to look into the house. Eventually he found he could settle comfortably across the street and look into Speed’s bedroom, but all he could see was Speed sitting on the bed, staring off out of his view. He sighed and settled back, bracing his body for the hours of exhaustion.
“Thank you, Sammy,” Dean said quietly from beside him, staring out of the car window. “For letting me see this.”
Sam didn’t answer, but his throat clenched. He focused back on Speed, who was talking to… himself? He couldn’t tell, but he hadn’t seen anyone else enter the house, so it had to be. He opened his mouth to answer his brother when the shimmering head of Rex slipped into his view as Speed leant in to kiss his ghostly brother. “Dean,” he said hurriedly, and shot out of the car, gun in hand, his brother close behind.
The window smashed from the impact of the gunshot and Speed yelled, pushing his arms up to protect his face from the glass. Rex’s head snapped towards the intruders before one of them fired again and Rex vanished into smoke. “What are you doing?!” he yelled, turning to squint at their faces in the light. “That was Rex!” His voice softened. “That was Rex,” he said quietly, and turned to flick on the light. He frowned as he recognised the two faces, and shook his head in disbelief. “You’re those two guys from before, aren’t you? Young and Johnson? The reporters?”
“We’re not reporters,” the taller one said quickly, coming forwards. The short guy was pulling the curtains across and reloading his gun, glancing around the room.
“Whoever you are, get the hell out of my house before I call X!” he yelled, pointing at the broken window.
“Speed, you have to listen to us,” the taller one continued. “I’m Sam, this is my brother Dean, and we know about Rex.”
“You don’t know anything!” Speed snapped, turning to stalk away, pouting at the door.
“We know a lot about something,” the other guy - Dean - said quietly. “And we’re here to help.”
“You don’t know anything,” Speed said again, but softer. Still giddy with adrenaline, fresh loss was surging through him, and an increasing sense of sorrow. What if Rex never came back?
“We know what Rex is, Speed,” Sam said.
“He’s my brother,” Speed said stubbornly.
“Not anymore,” Dean muttered. He was glancing into the corridor outside, before shutting Speed’s bedroom door and leaning against it to survey the room. “We don’t have time to give him the ‘the truth is out there’ speech,” he murmured across to his brother, and Sam nodded, glancing back at Speed.
“I think he’s figured it out anyway,” he said softly. “Speed, what Rex is pretending to be, it’s not him anymore. None of it is him. It’ll look like him and sound like him but it’s evil.”
“That’s stupid,” Speed muttered. “Rex would never hurt me.”
“That’s what it wants you to think,” Sam said gently.
“It’s not an it. It’s my brother.” His voice choked. “I miss him.”
“There’s no such thing as a good ghost,” Dean muttered from the doorway. “These things only want to kill you, and we’d kinda like to stop that happening.”
“Imagine he died,” Speed said suddenly, pointing at Sam and turning to Dean. “Wouldn’t you do anything you could to bring him back, if only for a second? Even if he wasn’t even really there?”
Sam hung his head and looked awkwardly out of the window. Dean smiled for the first time and locked eyes with Speed. “Kid,” he said softly. “You have no idea.”
Speed glanced between them. “You guys are more than just brothers… aren’t you?” They said nothing, but Speed caught the way Dean glanced at Sam. “Look, just get out of my house, alright? I’d better clear up this glass find a reason for this window, or X will go mental.” He let out a long sigh. The two of them stayed put for a moment, before Dean muttered something to Sam and begrudgingly the two of them moved out of the window.
Speed sat on his bed and fought back tears.
“Maybe we should give this ghost Rex a chance,” Sam said as Dean slotted their guns in the trunk.
“There’s no such thing as a good ghost,” Dean reiterated. “You’re smarter than that, Sam.”
“But maybe - ”
“Is this about me going to Hell, Sam? Because no matter whether I do or don’t I’m not going to come back as anything pretty, demon or ghost or whatever!” Dean slammed the lid of the trunk shut and glared across the car at him. “These things are evil, Sam, we’ve hunted them for our whole lives and we’ve never found an exception to that, so it’s not suddenly going to start spawning heartwarming cases!”
“No, Dean,” Sam said quietly. “This isn’t all about you. I was thinking about when we went back to Lawrence and met Mom.”
Dean froze suddenly before sliding into the car. “That was different,” he muttered, starting up the engine. Sam bit his tongue against his argument. They were tired, and needed rest. Dean wouldn’t get any, and neither would Sam, but the bed would act as a principle and they could pretend tomorrow.
part II