Title: A Supernatural Tale
Author: Bj Jones
Rating: FRM
Disclaimer: Don’t own them. Never will. They are owned by a variety of executives, producers, studios, and writers that have more lawyers on retainer than I want to mess with. No making any money, and promise to return them.
Summary: Horatio demands answers.
Genre: Pre-Slash
Author’s Note: I blame a certain assistant who knows who they are *glares* for this bunny. This is not necessarily a crossover with Supernatural but does play in its world. And the way Bob works the Boys at one point will show up.
Beta: Star (Gil)
Previous Story: Fate Really Was a Bitch
Challenge: [info]au100 – CSI: Miami
Frompt: #85 - Missing
Word Count: 1694


~*~

Speed just moved towards the driver's side of the car. "Get in; we'll talk."

Horatio eyed him; the man before him was not the CSI he worked with all those years. He kept his mouth shut and took his seat in the passenger side. They drove out of the city limits, to a dive hotel off the beach. Horatio just gave him another look, and Speed just shrugged and headed into his room.

As soon as Horatio was in the room he closed the door, laid down the salt lines and made sure all the sigs were still in place. He pulled his 9mm and set it down on the table, setting a knife next to it, before slipping off his jacket and tossing it on the empty bed. Horatio sat down in one of the chairs and watched his CSI, who was supposed to be dead and buried move around the room. The Timothy Speedle he knew might as well have been dead and buried, because this man was not him.

"Speed?"

He turned and faced his once Supervisor. "Where do you want me to start?"

"From the beginning," Horatio demanded.

"That goes a ways back." Speed sat down across from him. "Are you sure you want to know. It will change how you view the world."

"Tell me. What did you do to Eric?"

"Nothing." He sighed. "Eric has been dead for six months."

"I talked with him this morning..."

"No, actually you were talking with a demon." Speed watched Horatio's expression. "Don't think about it as a friend, but as a CSI. He was shot in the head, died for ten minutes and made a full recovery?"

"Miracles do happen," he pointed out.

"H..." Speed gave him a pointed look. "You saw the scans. I know you desperately wanted him to be alright, especially after losing Marisol, which I'm so not making a comment on."

Horatio stood up and paced the room. He had seen the scans, and had expected to have to tell the Delko's that they lost a second child. Only to have him miraculously recover. Yeah, Eric had memory lapses and problems, but over all he was the same young man... but was he?

"I don't understand," he said. Logically it didn't make sense. A dead man can't walk around. "Does that make you a demon?"

"No." Speed shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "I've been hunting demons, ghosts, werewolves for a decade..."

"Hunting? Speed what the hell is going on? Be straight with me," Horatio demanded.

"Demons are just what you think they are. One entered his body and took it over. They can animate a human body for their needs, or take over one who is alive. This particular demon did it to get at me. I've been hunting the bitch for years; she's the reason I had to leave in the first place," he tried to explain.

"What happened that day?"

"I didn't get the call," Speed said. "I left hunting... wanted to have a real life. But once a hunter, always one. You always get dragged back in. She had me killed."

"How?"

"Shapeshifter. He took my form, probably disappeared soon after; only silver bullets can kill them. This particular one is twisted, caused some problems to another hunter up in St. Louis."

"So this thing looked like you but wasn't. How come we couldn't tell?" Horatio asked, his mind racing with questions. Putting what Speed was telling him with what he had seen.

"They take memories of the person they are duplicating, so he could easily act like me," Speed explained.

"So this demon then took Eric's body?"

He nodded. "It was a dig towards me. She knew I loved him... God, the one thing I regretted was not telling him about who I was."

"How did you become this hunter?" he asked, curious. How does one hunt demons?

"This will need alcohol." He grabbed his gun and coat. "There's a bar up the street. Come on, H, let's toast the loss of a friend, and return of another."

Horatio nodded and followed him out the door. "Despite everything it is good to see you, Speed."

"You too."

They walked silently to the bar, grabbed some beers and sat in a secluded corner. "My first introduction to the supernatural was when I was twenty. Andrew, my lover, best friend, life... He had been paralyzed from the neck down in an accident, when we were eighteen. I was at Columbia working on micro cell regeneration..."

"I read your early works on it." Horatio sipped his beer. "You had some good theories, and if I'm not mistaken, they've developed some of them."

"I was determined to get him to walk again, or at least feel his body." Speed sighed. "So you can imagine my surprise when I opened my apartment door to see Andrew standing there."

"That would have been quite a shock," Horatio agreed.

"It was my first encounter with Jen..."

"The demon that took Eric?" he asked. "They have names?"

"Just because you're from hell doesn't mean you don't have a name." Speed smirked. "She told me all about my real family, and that I was born for destiny. Turned and walked out of my life, taking Andrew's body. Not soon after I got a call from the doctors that Andrew had died on the table, but the body had stolen out of the morgue."

"I'm sorry."

"It's been a long time, H." He drank down some of his beer. "I've put Andrew behind me, and just shipped Jen's ass back to Hell."

"So how did you start hunting?"

"I started researching, found out the truth of my parents." He leaned against the table. "I hadn't spoken to my parents since I was eighteen; they didn't like the whole boyfriend thing. They weren't shocked though when I confronted them, about being adopted. My dad pointed out so eagerly that my mother was murdered in my nursery when I was six months old, my father was sent off to a psyche ward cause he was claiming it was a demon, but the police suspected he had murdered her. They adopted me cause they couldn't have kids. Twelve years later my brother was born, and I was conveniently forgotten."

"Bastards."

"They weren't evil, and they did raise me..."

"They dumped you when they had a 'real' kid, then dumped you again when they found out you were gay," Horatio pointed out. "Bastards."

Speed smiled. "Thank you for defending my honor."

"I'll always have your back, Speed."

"Anyway, I followed the newspaper article and found the psyche ward, only to learn my dad escaped when I was probably about two," Speed continued with the story. "Don't ask me how, but not six months later he found me. My life was changed forever. It was a demon that had killed my mom, and he was hunting supernatural elements. There was this community... god it was just so overwhelming. I stayed with him for two years hunting..."

"Why did you leave?"

"I didn't like the man I had become," he said. "Andrew wouldn't want me seeking revenge... So I walked away. Went back to school and moved to Miami. I never really stopped hunting, just took cases in the Miami area."

Horatio looked over at him, seeing the tiredness that oozed out of him. "Why not leave now? Eric is revenged."

"Shit has hit the fan in the supernatural world." Speed shook his head. "Really hit the fan. It's war out there..."

"What happened to your father?" Horatio wondered.

"Killed a few years back, werewolf killed him." He downed the rest of his beer. "I'm sorry you've been exposed to this; once you see it you can't unsee it."

"I don't fear what is out there." Horatio finished up his own beer.

"You should, H. You really should." Speed stood up and headed for the door. They walked quietly back to the hotel and Speed's car. He leaned against it and looked over at his once boss. "I'll take you back to Eric's place; you'll probably get the call in the morning."

"Will I find evidence?" Horatio nodded.

"Not from me, Alexx will be confused, since all the tests will indicate the organs have been dead for a while."

"I'll take care of Eric." He laid a hand on Speed's shoulder. "Make sure he's resting peacefully."

"Only way to truly do that is salt and burn him," he whispered. "It will guarantee his spirit won't come back.

Horatio stepped back, shaking his head. "Come back with me, Speed."

"I can't." He looked up at him. "There's too much out there and not enough Hunters. Besides I got friends that need back up. I won't abandon them, not now." He unlocked the doors and got into the car. "Let me get you home, H."

~*~

Horatio stood at his living room window and watched Speed drive off. Wondering if he'd see him again. He pulled his gun and badge and set it on the table, grabbed some scotch and poured himself a glass, and then stepped out onto his deck, looking out over the ocean. He toasted Eric, too young and lost too soon. Too Speed, a lone man trying to save humanity. To himself, to his life that had been forever changed. He downed each drink, relishing the burn down his throat. He looked heavenward, and for the first time in decades, prayed.