MOONSPELL

Rating 》 T-M for Profanity, Adult Situations, Violence and Sexual Content

Pairing 》 Major Reid/OC & Minor Tyler/OC

Disclaimer 》 Fandoms, canons, music, references and source material are not mine, but this plot is. No monetary profit made.

Author's Note 》 For fanart, fanmixes and fanvids, go to hapadoll,wixsite,com/hapadoll (replace , with . )

1. Silver Lights

There was something in the sound of rushing waters against the eerie quiet that had always filled the handsome blond with a sense of comfort. All thoughts and worries melted away and he was able to experience the serenity that existed beneath the turbulent internal dialogue of his mind.

It was then, while he was busy imagining the crests of miniature waves of gasoline crashing against the plastic walls of the tank into a flammable ocean, that stiffness trickled down from his shoulders through his hunched spine. With a chill, he felt the unmistakable icy gleam of an unfamiliar stare fall upon his exposed neck.

Other than himself and the Hummer parked in it, the lot was dead empty. Deserted as the dimly lit street it sat on. While scanning the surrounding woodland edge for life, he quietly settled the gas pump back into its cradle, abandoning the receipt next to it.

Everything was still except for his careful footsteps, deadened by the light snowfall on the ground as he circled the SUV. Clearing every corner and hidden angle until he stopped directly to its front, facing the hood. For a bare second he foolishly wondered to check under the car, but didn't want to be caught with his pants down in a fight. If he was about to be attacked, he was going to be ready for it, not rushed from behind. His eyes bled black as he sent a simple locating spell out. When they returned to their natural lighter hue, it was confirmed there was nothing of alarm existing in his proximity.

Though he hadn't heard a sound or seen a thing, Reid couldn't shake the distinct sense that he was being watched. The feeling was nearly tangible, like a living creature. As if a lightning storm was brewing because you could feel the static in the air. The unrest that refused to settle away in his gut was the 'fight or flight' response kicking in, ready for action.

After the unresolved incident with Chase, everybody was on high alert for good reason. It was unlikely the powerful warlock had stumbled away only to later succumb to his injuries, though they'd all been naively hopeful that was exactly the case. The constant uncertainty was like having testified against a dangerous criminal who was now escaped and knows where you live.

An unexpected beam of pure white light seeped inside his abruptly closed eyelids, overwhelming his vision and distorting his field of view completely. The night's quiet was shattered by the powerful roar of a familiar V8 engine coming alive. Upon instinct, he held up his left hand—fingertips exposed from the knit glove that covered it—like a half visor so that it shielded his upper face from the merciless high beams while he moved out of its illuminated path.

Reid opened his eyes when he was able to. Pale blue and dilated. He bit back a curse as they readjusted and fell upon Tyler's badly acted oblivious face which came into focus only a little spotty. Stupid remote start.

Though he was youngest of their group and generally regarded as the most mild mannered, Tyler wasn't exactly above being a dick at times. It was something he undoubtedly picked up from his older 'brothers' as the baby learning to fight back. Unfortunately for him, he was still too sincere to ever get away with the most important part of any prank; the denying part. He'd always been garbage at lying. Totally transparent.

"Dumbass. Get in the car Baby Boy," ordered Reid, capping the gas tank before closing the little door over it.

Tyler grinned at the hilarious stone cold fact that Reid could only ever be a good sport if he were the prankster, never on the receiving end. He can dish it out but he can't take it; the narcissist's dilemma.

"Yes massa. Whatever you say massa," a mocking Tyler responded in his deep voice, rougher yet from a recent cold he'd been rebounding from. It was that season, making its rounds.

The younger Son stashed the 18-pack he'd been carrying into the backseat, pushing items out of the way to make the rectangular box lay flat. He kept meaning to clean the car out. The plastic grocery bag came up front with them to the passenger side so he could crack into the iced tea that had been nestled between the two bottles of hard liquor. Tyler satisfied the irritation in his throat with a generous sip from the blue can, brightly decorated with cherry blossoms before directing a question to his aggravated friend.

"What were you doing anyway? It's freezing out there. And was that you who Used?"

Tyler's observation of the weather an afterthought more to himself. The questions hung in the air unanswered. For a few moments, Reid drove in silence as he focused on pulling back to the main road without sliding over the black ice.

Reid figured a uneasy 'feeling' didn't warrant worrying his friend unnecessarily.

"Trying to get a quick cigarette if that's okay with you, Surgeon General," came the blond's curt reply, late but still relevant. "And yes, I needed a light."

Another rhetorical Reid remark you didn't question further. Tyler cleared his throat and rolled his blue eyes to the ceiling. He set his drink in the center console to free up his hands so they could undo the scarf around his neck. He adjusted his seating arrangement into something more comfortable, laying the bottles of alcohol to the floor near his feet as a bumper to keep them from rolling around like breakable liquid bowling balls.

"You were taking forever with your cougar woman and I know how you get about smoke in your precious car," Reid added, damn near effortless at lying due to his inclusion of some truth.

From the driver's seat, he eyeballed the drink in the cup holder. A bead of condensation dribbled down the can from the heat blowing out of the vents as it swirled invisibly around them, dispersing warmth throughout the large cabin.

"Coming from the guy who won't even drive his Beamer because he's too afraid to scratch it again," Tyler was quick to point out.

The younger brother brushed his spiked hair back in place and addressed Reid's stab at the little crush Lucy Hayes had on him. The crush that allowed him to purchase liquor without identification, albeit thirty minutes away in Rockport. It was worth the drive, though it was out in the middle of nowhere. His friend just hated that any female preferred her men young, brunette and not named Reid.

Reid scoffed and picked up the tall aluminum can, stealing a sip of the cool beverage, unconcerned about passing any illness on to himself. It slid down his throat like silk. In between mouthfuls, he boasted of a killer immune system.

Something in the rear-view mirror caught his eye about a quarter mile back in the distance: strange, pulsating lights past the tree line. They weren't headlights, that much was certain. The mostly lightless stretch of roadway was void of traffic for quite a ways in both directions when he'd last checked. Then he realized the sparks were soaring from right about where they'd just been parked minutes earlier.

The distraction lowered his response time when they suddenly hit a sheet of ice. Not packed snow or frost, but pure ice. The rear tires immediately lost traction and the car began fishtailing sideways. Reid's focus diverted back to the road ahead of them, where it should have been.

"Reid," warned Tyler while his friend struggled with the wheel.

The handsome brunette braced himself against the dash so he didn't break his neck if they spun out completely from the speed they'd been traveling at. The driver instinctively removed his foot from the pedals and turned into the slide just enough to correct it. Having driven in many a New England winter, Reid knew enough not to touch either the gas or brake if he didn't fully have control of the vehicle.

When they safely recovered from the nerve-racking skid, Tyler broke the silence with a deep breath of relief and an alarmingly on-topic remark.

"I'm glad you feel comfortable enough to drive like a maniac in mine though," Tyler chuckled, only half-joking to lighten the mood though he was still working to calm his pulse back to a normal pace.

Reid wet his lips and sucked in air, internally reminding himself yet again that there was a logical explanation for what he'd just seen. Not that he questioned his sanity, because he knew he'd seen something, but he decided to believe it had nothing to do with the covenant, magic, Chase or anything of a supernatural origin.

"My bad, buddy. I took my eyes off the road for a split second," Reid apologized, though his eyes still flickered up like a magnet with a constant pull in spite of their close call.

"What Reid? What are you looking at? Did you see something?" asked a concerned Tyler, looking and looking back again with his whole body.

"No, just checking—" Reid started, his denial abruptly cut short in its tracks when another silver light flashed up and lit the woods behind them.

As if a firework exploded up into an aerial before it split apart into two or three other lights and fell back into the trees. Each light now less brilliant, each muted in intensity, but all remained glowing somewhere within the dense forest where they landed.

Tyler's head remained fully turned. For several long moments, the young brunette did not speak aloud, though his mind was running a mile a minute, not sure where to begin at grasping for straws. His boyish features were incredulous and glued to the strange landscape in front of him, a clear hint that whatever Reid was seeing, he was as well.

"You see that, right?" Reid questioned, looking for verbal confirmation.

But the other boy didn't answer directly as Reid had hoped. Instead, the bewilderment seemed to grow inside Tyler, and he knew that he would never be able to make logical sense of what he was seeing or share this experience with anybody without them thinking he was a bit unstable.

His dumbfounded response came in the form of the only inquiry he could croak out, "what is that?"

"You can't answer my question with a question," mumbled Reid, tightening his hands on the wheel, battling the urge to pull off to the shoulder or flip a u-turn so he could get a better look.

And then there was a big gust of wind. The cold and cleansing kind that cleared everything away. And it was gone.

"Phosphorescent orange light, circular in shape and moving at a great speed in a seemingly straight-line course."

"Shiny body flying from north to south. Field glasses are at hand. It is a huge body. One side glows in the sun. It is oval in shape. Then it somehow turns in another direction and disappears in the southwest."

"Very bright sphere, much like a large reflective mirrored ball, like an oversized ball bearing."

Chrome had its work cut out for it. The browser must have had twenty tabs open on the laptop. All varied supposed first hand accounts and detailed descriptions of UFO sightings across the world spanning decades. The United States alone was littered with the otherworldly claims from Bangor to Honolulu. Interestingly enough, there was a fair amount over the east coast. At the time, both boys had been quick to claim UFO. Though they hadn't actually seen a standout feature such as an object, the unexplained lights screamed extraterrestrial.

"This is bull-crap..." Tyler spoke his thoughts aloud, his brows knitted together like someone expecting an oncoming migraine. "None of these are even consistent."

He scratched his head in confusion and kept on thinking, trying to piece something together that may have been missed in the hustle and bustle of the day before. He was hopeful that reiterating these accounts out loud might help him find a way to connect the dots and link it to whatever it was they'd seen the other night.

"Descriptions of UFOs have ranged from glowing wheels to colored balls of light to cigar, disk, or crescent shaped objects. One of the first well documented UFO sightings occurred in 1561—"

"Holy shit," Reid interrupted from his hovering position behind him.

"in Nuremberg, Germany," Tyler didn't skip a beat. "A broadsheet published that year describes red, blue, and black balls or plates, crosses, and tubes that appeared to battle each other in the sky over the city."

The internet used to be a virtual haven of information for Tyler, offering solutions to every imaginable problem. Understanding to every concept. Every question has an answer, every cause an affect. Every mystery has a factual, verifiable solution. A key. They had to find that key or sleep would elude him for another night. It was the same for Reid with his own unrest at the other end of the room the past couple of nights. With classes starting back up tomorrow, it wasn't an option either of them could afford.

However, Tyler was starting to feel claustrophobic hemmed in by his own thoughts. Having only half a foot of clearance between his face and the screen in front of him, he roughly falls back into his computer chair with a firm bounce. He rubs his dry and cracked palms over his tired face, willing the stress to leave with the soothing gesture.

Tyler could feel his best friend's body heat on his left shoulder. Reading through the pages of text over it. Impatient to highlight the parts he wanted. Being overcrowded was not something Tyler found to be very comfortable with. Reid, with his sense of entitlement had no awareness of personal space or boundaries at times. Definitely no boundaries.

"Come on, man, I can't think with you breathing down my neck like that," howled Tyler. "You're blocking my light. Give me some space."

Instead of backing off as he'd been asked to, Reid rolled the younger man out of the way with a dismissive push and moved to kneel in front of the desk, taking over the space.

"My turn."

The initial sensation of general unease Reid had felt at the gas station still resonating as his fingers pecked the keyboard in a new search. Tyler dragged himself back by using his bare feet as anchors and swatted at the blond's head, lifting a part of his beanie with it.

"Don't fuck up my hair, come on," Reid huffed absentmindedly as he adjusted it single-handedly in the literal sense.

The other hand was all but glued to the external wireless mouse while he scrolled through the results with a purpose. Until he came across a website that caught his eye four pages in. The only one so far that seemed moderately relevant or wasn't a tourist's review of a local business.

Shadowlands Haunted Places Index - Massachusetts

So much for debunking the belief that it was supernatural in origin. The link opened to one extremely long page of text.

"Reid," started Tyler, guilty now himself of reading over shoulders. "How the hell are we supposed to sift through all of that? There's a thousand stories here, statewide and it looks like they're all random."

The star on the navigation toolbar highlighted blue as Reid bookmarked the page to save for later. He threw together an incomplete email with no subject, just to send the link to himself so he could pull it up on his phone another time when he was more available to binge. It seemed like a decent resource to start with and he wouldn't have to continue fighting Tyler for the computer. Two heads were better than one anyway. They didn't need to be on top of one another, agitating each other. The lack of sleep couldn't be helpful either.

"Later. We'll deal with it later," Reid decided. "Come on Baby Boy let's go. We're already late to meet the guys anyway."

Caleb had already checked up via text to see where the two of them were at. Reid initially gave him a cryptic status update, some bullshit excuse about not rushing perfection. Then he shifted the blame to Tyler's alleged moving at grandma-in-a-walker speed, but when it started going back and forth too much for his liking, he ignored Caleb mid-conversation, abandoning it altogether. He was sure the eldest Covenant member was already nice and irritated with them. Usually it was his favorite mood to put Caleb in, but he and Tyler were both too exhausted to argue, to feel angry even. Besides, he had a strong suspicion it wouldn't do any good anyway.

Spring break had come and gone and mid-March was finally upon them, but it certainly didn't feel like spring in northeastern Massachusetts. The entire eastern portion of the U.S. getting hit with a late winter, leaving their recent break feeling more like Christmas vacation.

Caleb had detached himself from the close-knit group for the first time in recent years much to the disappointment of the other three and instead elected to stay behind with Sarah. Almost five months together since October seemed a bit overdue to meet the parents. He felt it was an important step in their relationship that he become acquainted with the people who'd brought up such a remarkable human being that he was crazy about. They'd spent their time off in inner-city Boston where his girlfriend called home and he didn't regret his decision. Though her father still needed a bit of winning over.

In his absence, the remaining three Sons carried on their annual 'bro' trip tradition. This year to the 'Gambling Capital of the World' as well as Nevada's. Though none of the young men were quite old enough to fully enjoy some of the more favorable aspects Sin City boasted. They returned home rubbing everything Caleb missed in his face.

Kate was currently busy at the mouth with an animated anecdote of her own vacation in south Florida. It was the best place she could have vacationed to effectively get under her on-again, off-again boyfriend's skin. Her wildest moments were vividly recounted whenever he was within earshot in the noisy bar. Though the not-so-subtle way she worked it into the conversation seemed glaringly out of place.

"While I was in Daytona, I drunkenly stumbled upon a bikini booty shaking dance contest on the beach. And of course I entered and won! I barely even remembered it until I found all this money the next day."

Not the response Kate hoped to elicit, Pogue walked away, pulling Caleb over to the bar's countertop with him. The older boy grinned sheepishly, embarrassed for the girl due to her obvious display. Kate could be a sweet girl when she wanted to, and she was undoubtedly a good friend to Sarah, but she had another side that compelled you to bow down to hail the queen of pettiness.

"Listen, don't let it get to you. You know she's just trying to make you feel bad for going to Vegas with the boys."

Pogue made a face that reeked of distress, concern and regret which lingered a few moments across his charming features. That actually wasn't what he pulled Caleb aside for. But now that he broached the subject, he would likely not hear an end to the Vegas thing anytime soon. An uncomfortable Kate had already voiced the concerns she had of him going to such a hard party destination in the first place. But the fact that he was going with Reid, without Caleb really pushed the matter over the edge and off a cliff into a ravine. Though he'd gone to great lengths to reassure her, he'd still gone in spite of her discomfort, eager to spend bonding time with his unofficial brothers. It may not have been the most selfless choice on his part and maybe it wasn't fair to her, but the girl really had a knack for pulling an extraordinary amount of guilt out of a person.

"Easy for you to say from your 'good boyfriend' tower, you actually spent break with your girlfriend," reflected Pogue, now second guessing his decision though it was hindsight.

Caleb gave a sympathetic smile, said, "sorry, it'll blow over. It always does," and nodded towards a parting in the line where they could order drinks.

Pogue grimaced. That was the thing—there's always something to blow over with Kate. Pogue was sure he'd never love another person the way he loved her, but he couldn't go on in this back and forth endless cycle of breakups and makeups. While it made for mind blowing sex, once it happens a few times it can really mess with a guy's head. The more he felt bad or guilty, the more he ended up resenting her and that definitely wasn't fair to her because of his own insecurities. It was a serious conversation they needed to have at some point and he was hopeful that they could restore their relationship to a healthy one. Tonight wasn't the right time so he shifted his thoughts to his original observation and addressed it to Caleb.

"What's up with those two fools?" Pogue nodded towards the rare group of four, all seated at a table together. The two younger boys with the rest of the group instead of swindling Aaron in a game of pool.

"They're just sitting there listening to Kate gossip about who wore it best, who has the best tan lines and who puked least. Even Sarah's looking over here like she's trying to flash us the bat-signal," added Pogue.

While the elder laughed good-naturedly and sent a small wave of reassurance to his girlfriend, she returned the gesture with a look that said, "you're not getting out of this if I'm not". He took that as his cue to rejoin them with a round of sodas on hand, leaving Pogue with a final comment.

"Drunk, half-naked girls on spring break? Of course they're going to be interested."

Pogue was not so convinced and laughed out loud, saying, "huh, yeah, maybe".

Caleb had been heavily preoccupied with Sarah last Friday. He didn't see Reid and Tyler's entry when they walked into the party looking like they'd just been mugged. Both had been acting a little off that night. Reid was less confident, Tyler less friendly. They even left early, without the company of a female or two. And tonight they turned up looking like matching zombies.

In their immediate group, Caleb was usually the one who over-analyzed everything including life itself. Although lately, their uptight brother seemed a lot less high-strung. Maybe it had to do with how close he'd come to losing his love or the fact that she knew his deepest secret and that somehow unlocked the invisible chains he wore over his chest.

A part of him envied Caleb for being able to share that part of his life with Sarah after dating only a few weeks, while he had to hide it from his girlfriend of nearly two years. Like it was some dark enigma he should be ashamed of. Though in reality it was a curse, it was still part of who he was. He hated pretending to be somebody he could never be. It was something he didn't feel right confiding in Caleb about, because he didn't want to bring down his friend's new happiness. All he knew was he could not wait for Tyler and Reid to have serious relationships so he had somebody who understood his inner conflict.

Author's Note: Thanks for reading!