Meeting Heroes, 9/?
Title: Meeting Heroes, 9/?
Author: reading_is_in
Fandom: Supernatural
Genre: Humour, Angst, Drama
Rating: PG-13
Summary. 16-year-old Lara Brown endures her last year of high school, life in the Wisconsin winter brightened only by her quiet love for an obscure graphic novel series called Supernatural and her best friend, Abby. Meanwhile, the Winchesters pursue a case in the same town.No damsels will be needing deliverance in this story.
A/N: And we're back to your regularly scheduled updates ;)
They parked out of sight of any security cameras, keeping their heads down as they slipped into the building. The external gates were a simple matter of rearranging the dial lock, though Sam suspected a camera had captured an image of their backs as they approached the main door. That lock was taken care of manually, using a lock-pick. No Scott appeared on the office listings displayed on a wall in the foyer, but a room on the first floor housed administration.
“Freeze!” ordered someone directly behind them. Sam groaned internally as they turned around, hands in the air but not high enough to be totally useless. Dean muttered a quiet curse, the blue beam of his flashlight swinging up towards the ceiling. The guard was little more than a teenager, a skinny kid with a fluff of immature beard around his chin and neck. He looked petrified, but he was aiming a loaded gun in their general direction. Ineptitude and weapons were a dangerous combination, but this kid was dumb enough to be standing ridiculously close, close enough that Dean managed to knock him out with one punch, following the obligatory
“Look man, we don’t want any trouble okay so just-“
Sam felt briefly sorry for the kid, who went down like he’d never taken a punch.
“Shit,” said Dean, nudging a dropped walkie-talkie with his foot as he retrieved the guard’s gun. Kid had no doubt called for backup already.
“Let’s move,” Sam said, indicating the staircase - they ran swiftly and quietly up to the first floor.
The administrative suite presented them with several desks, some in cubicles, others behind glass doors and with name plates. A small safe was built into the wall near the glass doors. Without speaking, Sam and Dean took up positions - Sam attempting to crack the lock whilst Dean stood guard armed with both the new gun and a pistol loaded with rocksalt. An alarm was ringing somewhere in the building. Adrenalin built swiftly in Sam’s body - he preferred lying, if truth be told, to secure insider access, but there was something to be said for an old-fashioned heist on occasion, and he was rather good at controlling himself under this sort of pressure. A familiar chill jolted down his spine and the room flickered with static - Dean fired salt at the spectre of Grace Fitchfield, and Sam couldn’t help a quick glance back over his shoulder.
She had been a tall woman, and was haggard in death, her long face and fingers chalk-white and stretched. She wore a neat blue dress, drawn in at the waist, with a pleated skirt and heeled shoes, a pearl necklace. Her hair was in disarray, pins and strands sticking out everywhere as though she had given up halfway through styling it. Seeing ghosts - though he ought to be used to it - never stopped being sad to Sam, reinforcing the knowledge that this was once a person, once a living, breathing, thinking being, reduced to a travesty of themselves bent on revenge and feeling nothing but sadness and anger. Grace disappeared with a flicker and a grimace as Dean fired the rocksalt.
“Got it!” Sam exclaimed, as the safe fell open, then, “Oh, crap.”
“What?! What crap?!”
Sam ran his flashlight a second time over the inside of the safe, pushing aside the small pile of written contracts. “It’s not here.”
* * *
I’m worried.
Lara read the two-word text again, screen glowing in the little nest she’d made of her duvet. She should have been asleep by now, but was still too worked up and aggravated for sleep to come anywhere near her. Apparently Abby was awake too.
What about? she sent back.
There was a pause as Abby responded with a longer message:
Sam said would call when job done. No call.
Lara’s heartbeat accelerated.
U think trouble?
IDK Abby responded. Maybe am paranoid. Only 2.43. Hunts can take all night rite?
Another pause. Then:
Hang on typed Lara, Tired of txting, and pressed the call button. If she woke her parents up now, she’d get her phone confiscated, but Abby didn’t have a computer in her room and if she went downstairs to use the family one she would probably wake the household. Lara couldn’t imagine living without a laptop herself - one aspect of their different lives that left her slightly embarrassed.
“I have a bad feeling,” Abby said when she answered her phone, “It’s stupid, but I have. It’s not like we could do anything anyway, right? They’re professionals. We’re not professionals. I don’t want to die.”
Lara bit her lip. “Have you tried calling him?”
“No. What if I make his phone go off at a crucial moment?”
“Right.” Lara blew her breath out. “Well, like you say, it’s not 3 a.m. yet. Let’s give it another hour.”
“And then…?”
“And then…I’ll think of something,” Lara resolved. “By the way, I’m grounded. The ‘rents busted me.”
“Sucks,” Abby sympathized.
“The school didn’t call your house?”
“My parents were out all day and grandma doesn’t hear the phone. I deleted the message from the answering machine,” Abby confessed a little guiltily.
“Well Abigail Cooper,” said Lara admiringly. “I did not know you had it in you.”
“Me neither,” Abby admitted. “I’ll text you when Sam calls.”
“You do that,” said Lara and hung up. ‘If’ went unspoken.
* * *
“Drop your weapons and put your hands behind your heads!”
This was not one of their finer hunts, Sam reflected. The ghost was deterred but not dealt with, the crucial artefact was missing, and now the local police had descended upon them. Sometimes the job was less exciting than headdesk-inducingly frustrating. The alarm still wailed somewhere beyond the walls, building to a nerve-grating crescendo.
“Officers,” said Dean charmingly. “It seems like there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Uh huh,” said the older cop sceptically. “Well, you can just explain everything about it down at the station.” He gestured for the junior officer to start handcuffing Dean, and at that moment, the ghost of Grace Fitchfield reappeared right in front of Sam. He made an instinctive movement for his own salt gun, but she wasn’t paying attention to him - she scowled, and made a clenching movement with her right hand, and the young cop that had moved behind Dean suddenly gasped and clutched at his throat. With a thud that shook the filing cabinets, the older cop fainted.
Sam blasted the ghost with rocksalt, and she disappeared, releasing the pressure on the younger cop’s throat, who fell to his knees, gasping.
“What - shit - what was that -?!” he choked out, and Dean hauled him up by one arm without sympathy.
“Playing away from home, huh?” he asked grimly.
“HUH?!” exclaimed the cop. He was very pale, and his eyes were bugging out.
“Oh I don’t particularly care,” said Dean, “But our spirit here has a hate-on for illegitmate romance.”
“S- spirit?” said the cop.
“Spirit. Ghost. Spectre,” Dean confirmed. “Yes, they’re real. Yes, that was one, and no, she isn’t particularly friendly. At least not to douchebags.”
“Wh - what - what do I do?” squeaked the young cop.
“Shut that alarm off for one thing,” said Sam. “And tell your dispatchers the situation is under control.”
The cop obediently pressed a button on his walkie-talkie and said, “Everson - code green. Yes ma’am. I’ sure ma’am. Everson out.” Seconds later the alarm silenced.
“Now,” Dean breathed out. “You - stay in here.” He rapidly chalked a salt circle around the cop and his fallen superior. “My brother and I are gonna search this room for the thing that can get rid of her. Do not cross this line, for any reason, and if she appears, you fire on her.” He handed the cop one of their salt pistols.
“Um,” the cop looked at it.
“You remember how to aim?” Dean said impatiently.
“Yes.”
“Good. Have your freakout later. We just got to hold her off long enough to find and burn this trinket.”
Part Ten
Author: reading_is_in
Fandom: Supernatural
Genre: Humour, Angst, Drama
Rating: PG-13
Summary. 16-year-old Lara Brown endures her last year of high school, life in the Wisconsin winter brightened only by her quiet love for an obscure graphic novel series called Supernatural and her best friend, Abby. Meanwhile, the Winchesters pursue a case in the same town.No damsels will be needing deliverance in this story.
A/N: And we're back to your regularly scheduled updates ;)
They parked out of sight of any security cameras, keeping their heads down as they slipped into the building. The external gates were a simple matter of rearranging the dial lock, though Sam suspected a camera had captured an image of their backs as they approached the main door. That lock was taken care of manually, using a lock-pick. No Scott appeared on the office listings displayed on a wall in the foyer, but a room on the first floor housed administration.
“Freeze!” ordered someone directly behind them. Sam groaned internally as they turned around, hands in the air but not high enough to be totally useless. Dean muttered a quiet curse, the blue beam of his flashlight swinging up towards the ceiling. The guard was little more than a teenager, a skinny kid with a fluff of immature beard around his chin and neck. He looked petrified, but he was aiming a loaded gun in their general direction. Ineptitude and weapons were a dangerous combination, but this kid was dumb enough to be standing ridiculously close, close enough that Dean managed to knock him out with one punch, following the obligatory
“Look man, we don’t want any trouble okay so just-“
Sam felt briefly sorry for the kid, who went down like he’d never taken a punch.
“Shit,” said Dean, nudging a dropped walkie-talkie with his foot as he retrieved the guard’s gun. Kid had no doubt called for backup already.
“Let’s move,” Sam said, indicating the staircase - they ran swiftly and quietly up to the first floor.
The administrative suite presented them with several desks, some in cubicles, others behind glass doors and with name plates. A small safe was built into the wall near the glass doors. Without speaking, Sam and Dean took up positions - Sam attempting to crack the lock whilst Dean stood guard armed with both the new gun and a pistol loaded with rocksalt. An alarm was ringing somewhere in the building. Adrenalin built swiftly in Sam’s body - he preferred lying, if truth be told, to secure insider access, but there was something to be said for an old-fashioned heist on occasion, and he was rather good at controlling himself under this sort of pressure. A familiar chill jolted down his spine and the room flickered with static - Dean fired salt at the spectre of Grace Fitchfield, and Sam couldn’t help a quick glance back over his shoulder.
She had been a tall woman, and was haggard in death, her long face and fingers chalk-white and stretched. She wore a neat blue dress, drawn in at the waist, with a pleated skirt and heeled shoes, a pearl necklace. Her hair was in disarray, pins and strands sticking out everywhere as though she had given up halfway through styling it. Seeing ghosts - though he ought to be used to it - never stopped being sad to Sam, reinforcing the knowledge that this was once a person, once a living, breathing, thinking being, reduced to a travesty of themselves bent on revenge and feeling nothing but sadness and anger. Grace disappeared with a flicker and a grimace as Dean fired the rocksalt.
“Got it!” Sam exclaimed, as the safe fell open, then, “Oh, crap.”
“What?! What crap?!”
Sam ran his flashlight a second time over the inside of the safe, pushing aside the small pile of written contracts. “It’s not here.”
* * *
I’m worried.
Lara read the two-word text again, screen glowing in the little nest she’d made of her duvet. She should have been asleep by now, but was still too worked up and aggravated for sleep to come anywhere near her. Apparently Abby was awake too.
What about? she sent back.
There was a pause as Abby responded with a longer message:
Sam said would call when job done. No call.
Lara’s heartbeat accelerated.
U think trouble?
IDK Abby responded. Maybe am paranoid. Only 2.43. Hunts can take all night rite?
Another pause. Then:
Hang on typed Lara, Tired of txting, and pressed the call button. If she woke her parents up now, she’d get her phone confiscated, but Abby didn’t have a computer in her room and if she went downstairs to use the family one she would probably wake the household. Lara couldn’t imagine living without a laptop herself - one aspect of their different lives that left her slightly embarrassed.
“I have a bad feeling,” Abby said when she answered her phone, “It’s stupid, but I have. It’s not like we could do anything anyway, right? They’re professionals. We’re not professionals. I don’t want to die.”
Lara bit her lip. “Have you tried calling him?”
“No. What if I make his phone go off at a crucial moment?”
“Right.” Lara blew her breath out. “Well, like you say, it’s not 3 a.m. yet. Let’s give it another hour.”
“And then…?”
“And then…I’ll think of something,” Lara resolved. “By the way, I’m grounded. The ‘rents busted me.”
“Sucks,” Abby sympathized.
“The school didn’t call your house?”
“My parents were out all day and grandma doesn’t hear the phone. I deleted the message from the answering machine,” Abby confessed a little guiltily.
“Well Abigail Cooper,” said Lara admiringly. “I did not know you had it in you.”
“Me neither,” Abby admitted. “I’ll text you when Sam calls.”
“You do that,” said Lara and hung up. ‘If’ went unspoken.
* * *
“Drop your weapons and put your hands behind your heads!”
This was not one of their finer hunts, Sam reflected. The ghost was deterred but not dealt with, the crucial artefact was missing, and now the local police had descended upon them. Sometimes the job was less exciting than headdesk-inducingly frustrating. The alarm still wailed somewhere beyond the walls, building to a nerve-grating crescendo.
“Officers,” said Dean charmingly. “It seems like there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Uh huh,” said the older cop sceptically. “Well, you can just explain everything about it down at the station.” He gestured for the junior officer to start handcuffing Dean, and at that moment, the ghost of Grace Fitchfield reappeared right in front of Sam. He made an instinctive movement for his own salt gun, but she wasn’t paying attention to him - she scowled, and made a clenching movement with her right hand, and the young cop that had moved behind Dean suddenly gasped and clutched at his throat. With a thud that shook the filing cabinets, the older cop fainted.
Sam blasted the ghost with rocksalt, and she disappeared, releasing the pressure on the younger cop’s throat, who fell to his knees, gasping.
“What - shit - what was that -?!” he choked out, and Dean hauled him up by one arm without sympathy.
“Playing away from home, huh?” he asked grimly.
“HUH?!” exclaimed the cop. He was very pale, and his eyes were bugging out.
“Oh I don’t particularly care,” said Dean, “But our spirit here has a hate-on for illegitmate romance.”
“S- spirit?” said the cop.
“Spirit. Ghost. Spectre,” Dean confirmed. “Yes, they’re real. Yes, that was one, and no, she isn’t particularly friendly. At least not to douchebags.”
“Wh - what - what do I do?” squeaked the young cop.
“Shut that alarm off for one thing,” said Sam. “And tell your dispatchers the situation is under control.”
The cop obediently pressed a button on his walkie-talkie and said, “Everson - code green. Yes ma’am. I’ sure ma’am. Everson out.” Seconds later the alarm silenced.
“Now,” Dean breathed out. “You - stay in here.” He rapidly chalked a salt circle around the cop and his fallen superior. “My brother and I are gonna search this room for the thing that can get rid of her. Do not cross this line, for any reason, and if she appears, you fire on her.” He handed the cop one of their salt pistols.
“Um,” the cop looked at it.
“You remember how to aim?” Dean said impatiently.
“Yes.”
“Good. Have your freakout later. We just got to hold her off long enough to find and burn this trinket.”
Part Ten