#Aaron looks good and he already sold me as capable from his Bullet Train role but the script I have little faith in

[danwhobrowses]

The best part of the Kraven the Hunter trailer is when he yelled 'I'm Kravin' the Hunt!' then Kraved all over the place

[itmighthavebeenintentional]

Shackled - Ch 7

Summary: After nearly ten years, Sam Winchester calls Miriam Bard to collect on a life debt. Unfortunately for Miriam, Sam leaves out a few important details.

WARNINGS CHANGE EACH CHAPTER, PLEASE CHECK EACH TIME. 

Warning: Show level violence, death of family, blood, grieving, depression, cursing, Demon!Dean, emotional manipulation, mind fuckery, psychological manipulation, questioning one’s sanity, emotional exhaustion, depression, 

Word count: 1351

Author’s Note: Short chapter this time, promise I will make up for it next time. Big thanks to @cracksinthewalls​ , who keeps me sharp, and @thoughtslikeaminefield​ , who keeps me going. Please read/heed the warnings. 18+ ONLY. 

In case you missed it:

Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6

Masterlist

Chapter 7

She and Aaron hadn’t kept a home in the traditional sense, not since their parents had passed away. 

Hunting wasn’t a terrible life for the Bard family, all considering. They’d had good training, their parents had loved them, and above all, Aaron and Miriam had each other. They were well into their teens when their parents had left for a hunt and never returned.

A careless driver, surprisingly not a monster, had changed the Bard children’s lives forever. That was when Miriam became the official chauffeur for the pair, and Aaron took a class at the local community center on emergency first aid.

The moment Miriam was legally able, she put the family house on the market, sold everything sellable, and bought a decent car that would get her and Aaron wherever they needed to go. The rest of the money had gone into a savings account that had proved invaluable when they were tired of sleeping in a tent or the bench seats of the car. 

They rarely splurged, though. No telling when an accident would happen and put one of them out of commission for too long.

And there had been close calls. Some really close calls. For a few seconds in the middle of the dustup with the witch, Miriam had been convinced they needed to quit hunting entirely and find a way to put Aaron through EMT training like he used to dream about when they were little. 

Okay, he’d actually wanted to be the ambulance itself, not an EMT, but his intent had been more or less the same.

But the Winchesters had worked the case with them, swooped in and saved Aaron; they were impossibly cool and heroic, older and experienced and full of advice and reassurance. Sam had seemed a little hesitant to encourage them, but Aaron had been so eager and enthusiastic that even the younger Winchester had been won over in the end.

Years passed. The Bards kept up their training, worked cases, usually managed to save people, and above all, they still had each other. Life was decent and simple, if somewhat terrifying on occasion. They were good at their roles, settled, and they accepted where life had taken them.

Then they had a fight, and a stupid one at that. Miriam thought Aaron’s research on their current case was sloppy and incomplete, that he was jumping to conclusions rather than working all the angles, and she’d told him so in no uncertain terms. 

She had a tendency to be blunt, overly so with Aaron especially because she knew he was capable of much better work. Maybe she could have pulled her punches, been a little less harsh, but it felt like they’d had this argument an awful lot lately, and she was tired and frustrated. 

“I’m not your babysitter,” she snapped, glaring at him over the top of her computer screen. “So buckle down and pull your own goddamn weight already.”

It wasn’t the first time they’d had this particular argument, but it was definitely the worst thus far. Miriam had been unfair, they both knew it, but she refused to apologize. Rather than snapping back, Aaron had gone silent, fuming (sulking, she’d told him), and then he’d taken off to scope out a couple of the secondary sites. 

The last thing Miriam had been expecting was a text two hours later that consisted of an address and their codeword that meant drop everything and haul ass ASAP.

She went in cautiously, armed to the teeth with silver to spare for Aaron, and still, it hadn’t been enough. She’d fired her last silver bullet point-blank under the chin of the final werewolf just as it hooked two claws into the side of her neck. 

It missed her jugular by centimeters, and the side of her throat was wrecked, but she would live.

It was the sight of  Aaron’s blank, staring eyes above the shredded flesh of his throat and chest cavity, torn open and empty, that killed her. 

She’d gathered him up, spilling out apologies in ragged sobs. She cradled him against her chest, rocked him as she’d done through the storms of their childhood, after the nightmares that came in the first months of their hunter training, in the days after their parents’ accident.

And she screamed and screamed into the night.

A week after his funeral, she ripped the black cloth from the mirror and stared hard at her reflection. She’d long since realized that she had essentially killed Aaron; she had not made peace with it (how could she ever?), but she’d accepted it, nevertheless.

So when she looked into the mirror, expecting shadows and dark circles, only to be greeted by Aaron’s sorrowful face gazing back at her, she was convinced she’d gone insane.

It had taken her weeks to look at a mirror again.

It wasn’t always Aaron’s face she saw. Sometimes it was her parents, sometimes it was the people they’d failed to save, whether from mistakes made or just shitty luck. Every hunter had regret stories; she and Aaron had been no different.

Sometimes it was just her own reflection, full of grief and longing, emptier than anything she’d ever seen. Every mirror reflected her losses over and over, and after Aaron, she found the weight of them insufferable.

Eventually, she’d just started avoiding mirrors, covering them when she wasn’t strong enough to look away, and life had become marginally more bearable. 

She couldn’t hunt anymore, though. It didn’t matter how many hunting buddies, their own or those inherited from their parents, enticed her to help or at least do some research. She pushed everyone away until they eventually stopped reaching out and left her alone, just as she deserved. It was safer this way; if no one was relying on her for anything, she couldn’t let them down.

She’d learned her limits, and she’d learned to watch her goddamned mouth. Price paid, lesson learned.

But when Sam Winchester, prodigal son and younger brother, hunter and researcher extraordinaire, had called in a life debt, she’d foolishly jumped in without a thought to any of those lessons. A desperate hope had sprung up inside her, one she barely put conscious thought to.

Perhaps if she helped the men who’d once saved Aaron, she might bring back some small part of her brother, maybe even absolve herself of his death, if only just a little.

But, once again, she’d been criminally shortsighted. 

She was woefully out of her depth here, had no business babysitting any demon, much less one so gifted as Dean Winchester. 

She needed to call Sam, tell him to get his ass back, then leave the bunker and barricade the front door behind her. Sam needed to accept that his brother was gone and there was no saving him.

They’d all have been better off if she and Sam had just admitted that from the beginning.

She stood in the kitchen, phone in her hand, staring at it like she had no idea how to use it. 

Call Sam, she urged herself. Admit you let him down, you can’t even handle this simple job.

She’d failed him as she’d failed Aaron, and it was going to cost him the same as her earlier failure had cost her.

Just call him, she willed her fingers. Her heartbeat kicked up a few notches, her palms beginning to sweat. Her brain felt claustrophobic, her own body crowded and unfamiliar as she struggled with the simple task of dialing her phone. 

Call him now.

But she couldn’t. She didn’t want Sam to return. She wanted... she needed…

Freedom.

Her phone slipped from her fingers, clattered against the side of the kitchen island, and fell to the floor. The case snapped open, tiny electronic parts scattering in every direction.

Her elbows hit the island, and she slumped forward, face in her hands as sobs wracked her exhausted body. The cold metal shocked her fevered skin, and she shivered on the chill surface as the anguish rolled through her. She had nothing left. She was just... 

So… 

Tired. 

...

Chapter 8