That Which Lies Hidden, a Ghost Adventures fic, ch1

[dixiehellcat]

That Which Lies Hidden, chap 1, a Ghost Adventures fic by DixieHellcat

Rated R for language, smut, and whumpage, not necessarily in that order.

So. I came here from a GAC group over at deviantart. One fic I love there is this one: The Other Side, by xXTailo-Lives-OnXx. Go read it; it's really good.

But here's my thing. I've been entertaining myself between the posting of its chapters by playing with it in my head. Good to pass time at stop lights and such. The concept of a breakup and re-forming of the GAC interested me, and there are a lot of ways it could happen.

In particular I noted a passing mention of Zak's girlfriend, early in the story. So I began to wonder, who is she, and what if she played a role in the unfolding of events? (not really trying to guess what's gonna happen in the real fic, 'cause I like to be surprised. hehe) So before I knew it, this character had crawled up into my brain and was spilling her guts to me!

Please note, this is not the same 'verse as xXTailo-Lives-OnXx's--similar but not exact--think of it as an AU (alt universe).

It includes mentions of a couple of other fandoms, CSI and Supernatural, but you don't have to know either to follow this story. It's not tied in with Worlds Collide, the GAC/Supernatural crossover fic by tetiny68 and me, either, just so you don't get confused.

This story contains some language and some smut. Be warned. BUT (not to spoiler my own fic, but just sayin' for the comfort of you, dear reader) if you see something that looks like it might become vaguely slashy--IT AIN'T. I promise. :-) Oh, and I do not own the GAC, sadly.

And if a certain somebody looks really, REALLY out of character...I suggest you ponder why, 'cause it's not because I'm that bad a writer. Trust me.



1 The afternoon my life changed did not include a bolt of lightning, or a signpost warning the Twilight Zone lay ahead. Rather, it was like any other Friday afternoon in Las Vegas, with me navigating rush hour traffic, hoping my on-and-off boyfriend hadn't forgotten our dinner date, and wishing there was a support group for women with shitty taste in men. Sure, Zak was good looking, smart, and had a decent job; he was quiet, and responsible, and conscientious; but sometimes he was too quiet even for me. I'm no party girl, but this guy made me look wild. He was chilly, reserved, withdrawn even at times. It was like pulling teeth to get him out of his small apartment for anything beyond the necessities. My previous boyfriends had, for all their various faults, at least had some personality.

"Hi, I'm Claire, and I have man issues."

"Hi, Claire."

With a sigh, I pulled into our complex and headed up the stairs to his top-floor apartment, fishing the key out of my purse. Not that a key does a girl much good when she has to ask permission to use it. Zak was so self-protective it bordered on universal suspicion, and pushing the limits led to unpleasant outbursts of temper. He always apologized afterwards, though. He apologized for everything, it seemed.

Outside his door I paused, hearing Zak's voice inside. It sounded as if he was on the phone. "…I'm sorry, I'm so damned sorry…I know, it was my fault, I'm not going to make excuses, that just makes it—me—even more pathetic…but I love both you guys, and knowing what I did to you—you can't say anything I haven't already said to myself…knowing I'll never see you again, and Aaron, he even left town so he wouldn't risk it—"

His voice cracked, and my breath caught; was he crying? Who was on that phone and what the hell was going on? I knocked, just so he couldn't accuse me of sneaking in. "Zak Bagans? Vegas PD, we're comin' in!" I called. I tried to tease with him, joke and cut up, but he rarely if ever rose to the bait. After dating him for most of the past year and sleeping with him for almost that long, I wondered sometimes why I even bothered.

As I let myself in Zak was getting up from the couch, phone still to his ear. His tie hung loose around his neck and the cuffs of his dress shirt were unbuttoned—even in the warmth of a Vegas spring he wore long sleeves all the time, to hide the tattoos he was so ashamed of. His face was resolutely turned away from the door. "Listen, somebody's coming in, I've gotta go. Thanks for calling. Talk to you later, maybe. Bye."

"Hey, hon." I crossed the room as he put the phone down. He rubbed his face before turning to me, but couldn't hide the redness of his eyes. I played utter innocent. "Zak? What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." I tried to continue, but he cut me off. "I said I'm fine!" he snapped before catching himself. "I'm sorry, Claire. It's just—that was an old friend. We had a, a violent falling out, a couple of years ago, and hearing from him upset me a little, that's all."

Faced with a pat cover story, there wasn't much I could say. I hugged him and felt his tense body relax just a hair. When I stepped back though, my eye caught a washcloth wrapped around his hand. "What happened there?"

"Oh, um, that. Would you believe, the bathroom mirror came loose? I cut my hand trying to catch it. Lousy installation. At least when you have your own house, you only have yourself to blame for that kind of thing."

"Want some help bandaging it up? And are we still on for dinner?"

I reached for his hand but he smoothly avoided my grasp."Dinner? Yeah, I guess so. I'll go fix this—no, I'm good, you wait here."

As soon as he was out of sight I went for his phone. I may only be an administrative assistant, but you don't eat lunch with CSIs every day for six years without learning a few things. I wrote the number on my hand, then checked the contact list. That convo sounded more like an old flame than an old friend. The number was listed under contacts as simply 'Nick'. That gave me pause. So maybe Zak was bi? Hell of a time to find that out. I copied the number onto the note pad in my purse, then went into the bedroom.

"Claire, let's stay in tonight," Zak said from the bathroom. "I'm in no mood to go out on the town."

"On the town? You make a plate of spaghetti sound like a night of debauchery. You're a hermit, Zak. Next thing I know, you'll have stringy hair down to your butt and be wearing tissue boxes on your feet. Vegas knows from hermits, you know."

He stepped out, not laughing. He never laughed, or smiled, and his eyes were the same dull green all the time, with a distant air that made me wonder sometimes if he did drugs. At least this time he looked me in the eye. "Hermits don't do this," he said, pushed me back onto the bed and climbed on top.

Oh shit, he wants to have sex again. Don't get me wrong, I love sex as much as the next girl, but shouldn't it be a two-way street? Zak never showed any interest in my pleasure. So while he pulled my panties down, unzipped his fly and pounded away, I lay there getting just enough stimulation to frustrate me, mentally making a grocery list and trying to decide what book to read next. After he finished, and I threw in a few oh's and ah's for appearances' sake, I said, "C'mon, Zak, let's just go get something to eat. I've been dreaming about this spaghetti all week. We could even get it to go and bring it back."

"Fine, whatever," he grumbled. "I'll change my shirt."

"Great, thanks." I kissed him quickly. "Let me run in the bathroom and clean up, and I'll wait for you in the living room." That was another quirk he had; his body was hot, but he never undressed in front of me. It was those tattoos, he said, those 'childish mistakes' that embarrassed him so much he didn't even want me to see them.

I cleaned up, and along the way washed the phone number off my hand, glad he hadn't noticed it. In the living room, I sat down on the couch and began idly playing with the tv remote. The set came on the Travel Channel and an ad for the new ep of Man Vs Food, which I love, was on. Then some spooky music sounded and a title card reading Ghost Adventures popped up. What a dopey name! I thought; but I'm fond of the paranormal--my uncle Bobby is a self-taught expert--so I stayed put. A burly bearded bald guy with a camera stood in the middle of a dark room talking to himself, or, apparently, to a ghost supposedly present. After a minute, the scene changed to two other men. One of them, though night-vision green flatters nobody, slightly resembled a punked-out Zak. It made me snicker, and I picked up the remote to turn the volume up. "Hey, Zak," I called over my shoulder in the general direction of the bedroom, "this should give you a laugh. Do you have a long lost--"

A hand reached over my shoulder, plucked the remote from my hand and hurled it across the room. It struck the tv and exploded in a burst of plastic shards and AA batteries. The impact was so hard, it knocked the cheap small set off the table on which it sat and to the floor with a crash. The hand landed on my shoulder and jerked me around. Zak's face was red with fury. "Don't ever turn that shit on my tv in my place. EVER! Understand?"

My jaw dropped, and then I picked it up. "Perfectly," I said. I shook his hand off, grabbed my purse and got up. "Don't worry. I won't be using your tv anymore. Probably won't be in your place anymore, either. Bye."

Of course, five seconds after I walked out, Zak was calling from his door, begging me to come back. I didn't turn around. I'd had enough.

He didn't follow me, and I went home, to my own little pad across the parking lot, with some leftover curry in the fridge, and my faithful vibrator in the dresser drawer to finish what he hadn't. The hell of it was, when I used it, I still thought of him: not the distracted, preoccupied Zak intent only on getting himself off, but a Zak who looked at me, who saw me not as just a convenient piece of ass, but as a friend, companion, lover and beloved.

While I heated up supper & ate, I pondered the phone number I'd pilfered. To call or not to call? What would I say if I did? Was it any of my business? I had no answers, but the memory of the tears in Zak's eyes made me reach for the phone anyway. For all his weaknesses, I did care about him, dammit. Whoever was on the other end of that phone had made him cry, and I wanted to know who and why.

The number was a local one. "Hello?" said a man's voice.

"Hi. Um, do you know a man named Zak Bagans?"

There was a long pause."Who wants to know?"

Time to shit or get off the pot, as Uncle Bobby was fond of saying, though never in my hearing. He did his best not to corrupt me, unsuccessfully, as it turned out. "My name is Claire Browning. I'm, uh—Zak and I have been dating for a while. When I went over to his apartment today he was on the phone. He was very upset but wouldn't say why, only that he'd heard from an old friend he was on the outs with."

"You could say that," the voice replied dryly. "So how'd you get this number, and do you know who I am?"

"Snagged the number off his phone when his back was turned, along with the contact info which only lists the name Nick." The small laugh that answered held a note of wry approval. Heartened, I pushed on. "I'm not trying to be nosy, I swear. I just hated seeing him like that, and I wanted to help, if I could. Maybe I can't. But I had to try."

"What do you know about Zak? About his past?"

"Not much. He makes a wooden Indian look talkative. He grew up back east, but I don't know where. He works for a local film company, back room stuff. He's said a few things that lead me to think he was better off financially in the past than now, and I've wondered if he came by that money illegally, or at least marginally. He keeps a very, very low profile, enough to make you think he's in hiding. And he has several tattoos he's very secretive about, especially one on his back he won't even let me see, and he keeps talking about getting rid of them, that one in particular."

"Getting rid of the back tat—" Nick sputtered. "That's not Zak," he said finally. "It's—just not. Listen, do you have a pen? Let me give you an address. Meet me there tomorrow, and we'll talk."

Comments

[moosyfate82.livejournal.com]

Great OC! I can't wait to read more!

[dixiehellcat.livejournal.com]

thanks! Claire is great fun to write--she's enough like me it's not so hard getting into her head, yet enough different that she's no Mary Sue. :-)

Chapter 2 is up btw!