135
baby, you're bad news
McFly/Supernatural (gen! or, really, UST!)
5,277 words, r. This is my entry to the mcflyslash fic-a-thon challenge. My prompt was to write a crossover with Supernatural. This is what I came up with. Thanks very much to moorfaerie for the read through and to kawaii_tenshi27 for the beta. Any remaining errors are mine.
“You know you’ll always be a slut, Danny,” she says, and laughs when he takes a shaky step back. He doesn’t - how would she know anything about him? “People don’t escape what they are, Dan,” she says, the smirk on her lips belying her serious tone. “Not even you.”
The crowd in the venue is pretty small, but they’re used that here. They’ve been touring in the US for just over two weeks, and at the moment they’re at some bar in the middle of Alabama. It was their own choice to rough it like this - a van instead of a bus, motels instead of hotels - but Tom and Dougie had loved the idea. Danny hadn’t minded going along with it. It’s a nice change of pace from the huge amphitheatres they play in Britain, so Danny doesn’t really care that the sound is a little off - vocals a little quiet, guitars just a tad too loud. Their set is only seven songs long, so they only play their favorites.
Danny’s just glad that they don’t have to play 5 Colours while they’re over here. He loves the song, but having to play it at every show they’ve ever played is something of a strain. He looks over at Tom, watching the way he leans into the microphone, and takes his cue to start the harmony. There are two girls in the front row singing along, and the rest of the crowd is nursing their drinks, swaying to the beat, or just not paying attention. Danny just meets Tom’s eyes and smiles, glancing over his shoulder to where Harry’s busy drumming. Dougie’s bouncing, his eyes closed as he leans over to start singing - people marching to the drums, everybody’s having fun to the sound of love - and Danny can’t help but watch the two girls in the front, their expressions exultant and overwhelmed. Their hair bobs with every move of their bodies, and Danny is grateful for them. He is.
+
Free beer is one of the best perks of being in a band. There are others, obviously, but Danny’s pretty happy at the moment with his free bottle of Corona. He’s tipsy, he knows, and the last out - Tom and Dougie are taking care of hauling their gear back out to the van, and Harry is stuck packing up the merch table by himself.
Normally Danny would help, and they’d go get food, or something, after, but tonight he’d just felt like drinking himself into something of a stupor. Tom’d rolled his eyes when Danny’d told him, but said he see them back at the van later. Danny figures all of them need their space from time to time, and he’s not immune. He sits at the bar with a thump, causing the man sitting to his left to look over and snort.
“Sure you need another, man?” The guy asks, smirking and holding his beer just by the neck of the bottle. He’s shorter than Danny is, but wider, more built. Danny just laughs.
“I’ve still got a ways to go, believe me, mate.” He signals the bartender for another, and takes a long swig.
“Saw you guys playing earlier,” the guy says. “You’re pretty good. Not my taste, but good.”
“Thanks,” Danny says, and he means it. He’ll take all the compliments he can get, really. “I’m Danny.”
“Dean,” the guy says, sketching a salute with his beer bottle.
“You live around here, Dean?” Danny asks, taking another swallow of beer.
“No frickin’ way,” Dean says with a snort. “Soon as me and my bro finish this job, we’re outta this piece of shit town.” Danny laughs, holding his hands up in mock surrender.
“Whatever you say, mate. ‘M just being polite, is all.”
“I don’t do too well in mosquito-territory, dude. If any more of those little fuckers even come near me, I’m in my car and over the state line, Sammy or no Sammy.”
Danny laughs, figuring that Sammy is the aforementioned brother, and takes another swig of beer. He’s beginning to like this bar.
+
Danny’s more than a little drunk when he decides that he needs a cigarette. He leaves Dean at the bar, lets himself outside, and leans against the whitewashed brick, one foot propped up on the wall and his free hand in his pocket.
The air is cool but not cold - he’s just wearing his sweat-soaked t-shirt from onstage, and the faint breeze feels good on his overheated skin. The air smells like city - dirt and fried food and garbage - but Danny’s used to it by now. He sucks smoke into his lungs and ashes his cigarette with a flick of his fingers. His beer’s almost gone; he takes a last long swig, and looks in disappointment at the empty bottle, before letting it drop onto the ground. It hits the concrete with a loud clatter, but doesn’t break, just rolls until it clinks against a crack in the pavement.
“Good show,” someone says from the mouth of the alley, voice low and soft, Southern twang around the edges. Danny recognizes the girl who steps into the light - she was one of the two who’d sung along the whole show through. Her dark hair is pulled up into a tail, and her fringe is long enough to sweep over her eyes. She’s smiling, though, and that’s a smile Danny’s seen before - seductive and molasses sweet.
“Thanks,” he says, and takes a drag on his cigarette. She’s walking closer, and he’s watching the way the low neck of her shirt cuts across her collarbones, the deep v showing off her breasts and the top of her bra - he doesn’t want to, but he’s drunk and old habits die hard. He can tell from the quirk of her lips that she’s noticed.
He starts when her palm presses hard against the center of his chest. He hadn’t noticed how close she’d gotten. She laughs, throaty and rough, and says, “See somethin’ you like, Dan?”
The diminutive throws him off, but he still pushes her away.
“I don’t do that anymore,” he says, dropping his cigarette and putting it out with the heel of his shoe.
“Oh, really?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. She shakes her hair out of her face, and her eyes glow gold in the streetlight, slit like a fucking - cat’s or something. He can’t - he must have imagined it, but. She leans forward, her lips brushing against the shell of his ear. “You know you’ll always be a slut, Danny,” she says, and laughs when he takes a shaky step back. He doesn’t - how would she know anything about him? “People don’t escape what they are, Dan,” she says, the smirk on her lips belying her serious tone. “Not even you.”
“Jesus, who the hell are you?” And he’s not even angry so much as freaked out -
“Not important,” she says, stepping back and waving at him. “Sister’s calling - see you around, Danny.”
It takes him three tries to get his next cigarette lit, and two more cigarettes to steady his hands enough that he can imagine going back inside. He should find his band, he should, he just - doesn’t want them to see him so shaken up. He doesn’t want to worry them. Instead, he sits heavily at the bar, and Dean laughs at the expression on his face.
“What happened out there, man? Did’ya have to hurl?”
“I - no,” Danny says. “There was this girl, and her fucking - her eyes glowed, like a cat’s or something. I don’t - she knew - things. About me.” He doesn’t know why he’s saying anything - Dean’s not going to believe a word of it.
“Fuck,” Dean says. Danny looks up at the vicious tone of the word, sharp and suddenly angry. “Where is your van parked?” Dean’s expression is tense and serious; Danny can only open and close his mouth for a second, before stumbling over his answer.
“What? What do you -” he asks, but Dean cuts him off.
“Your van, the one with your band in it. Where’d you park it?”
“It’s outside, in the back lot. Why?”
“Motherfucker,” Dean says, and storms toward the door. Danny is too startled to move immediately - he just stands there with his eyes wide and his mouth open, before gathering himself enough to follow Dean out the back door.
Dean is standing in the lot, silent. The van is gone.
+
“Goddamnit,” Dean says, after a moment. He turns to look at Danny. “Stay here and don’t move, okay?” Dean waits until Danny nods, and then pulls his phone out, walking to the far side of the lot.
Danny doesn’t know what the hell is going on. All he can think to do is call Tom’s mobile - he gets three rings and Tom’s cheery voice on the voicemail. “Tom, you arsehole, where the hell are you?” he asks, voice gruff, before hanging up.
He tries Dougie next, and gets the same - This is Dougie’s phone, I’m off wanking somewhere, probably. Leave a message! - but he doesn’t actually get worried until he calls Harry. After all, they could just be taking the piss, or off scrounging for food. An arsehole thing to do not to let him know, but nothing to worry about. It takes him a second, but then he realises that he can hear the small tinny sound of Harry’s ringtone nearby. He follows it, and finds the mobile facedown on the cracked concrete.
“Fucking hell,” he says, picking it up. Harry doesn’t go anywhere without his phone, not even the fucking toilet.
Pocketing Harry’s mobile, he dials Tom one last time, out of desperation, and -
The phone picks up.
“Tom?” he asks, his voice quiet. He glances over at Dean, but Dean’s talking quietly into his mobile and paying Danny no attention.
Pressing his ear tight to the receiver, all he can hear is heavy breathing, at first; long, drawn out breaths, and he doesn’t know what to make of them. Then -
“Hey, Danny,” a female voice says on the other end of the line. “You’re still listening, yeah? I can hear you thinking.”
“Who are you?” Danny asks - he can hear the sharp edge to his voice, half anger and half fear.
“Oh, darlin’, forgotten me already?” she asks, laughing, and he - recognizes that laugh, the roughness of it.
“What the hell did you do with them?” he asks, and she laughs again. Danny can still hear the laboured breaths in the background, and something that sounds like whimpering. His hands ball into fists at his sides.
“Oh, they’re perfectly fine at the moment. Still breathing and everything. Well, most of them anyway. Can’t be sure about little Dougie - he’s so frail and all.” He can imagine the quirk of her lips as she says it, amused, and he can’t help how much he wants to punch her face in.
“What do you want?” he asks, finally, and she laughs at him. His fingernails dig into the skin of his palms.
“Nothing much, really. We have everything we need right here. Think you boys can find us in time?” she asks, sweetly, and hangs up.
+
Dean’s still on the phone when Danny gets to him.
“I know, Sam, I know,” he’s saying. “Got a location for their den yet?” He pauses, listening. “You know we only have twenty-four hours at the most, Sam. Fuck. Yeah. Yeah, got it. Give us ten, okay? Yeah. Bye.” He shuts his phone, sticking it in his back pocket. “Kid, c’mon, we’re going.”
“What the bloody fuck is going on?” Danny asks, fists still clenched by his sides.
“Fuck, it’s really hard to explain, okay? Just. Look - I’ll tell you when we get there, okay?”
“I -“ Danny starts, thinking about that woman’s voice, the casual violence in her intentions. Dean hadn’t acted like Danny was crazy and that’s - enough. Danny’s willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Okay.”
+
The motel is dingy, dirty, and half of the neon letters on the sign are out, turning The Red Sun Inn into T e ed Su I n. It looks like half the places in the United States that McFly’s already stayed in.
“Wait, wait - what the fucking hell are skin-walkers?” Danny asks when Dean falls silent. He’s sitting on the edge of one of the twin beds in Sam and Dean’s small room, hands clenched on his knees.
“Look, I told you it was hard to believe,” Dean starts, but Sam just holds up a hand, and Dean falls silent.
“They’re creatures, typically from Navajo culture, although there are other Native American tribes with similar myths. They can change their appearances to look like animals or other humans, and, according to the mythology, at least, they can absorb the thoughts and histories of those they’re mimicking.” Sam shrugs. “Navajos are mostly from Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, but we’ve found weirder things in weirder places, so.”
“I can’t - you blokes are completely mad,” Danny says, but he’s thinking about the way that woman’s eyes glowed gold in the light and the sound of her voice on Tom’s phone.
“You saw it for yourself, dude,” Dean says, mouth tilting up in half a smirk. “The only way to tell a skin-walker from a human is to look into their eyes. What’s it say again, Sam?”
“According to the translation, that when they’re in human form, their eyes glow like an animal’s would,” Sam says, like he’s reciting a passage from a book. He shrugs. “Myths also say they live in dens - dark, damp places. Warm.”
“There’re only so many places they could hide in this piece of shit town,” Dean says, cracking his knuckles.
Danny hopes he’s right.
+
Danny’s not sure how he manages to fall asleep, but Dean tells him there’s nothing they can do until they know more about the town - until they at least have a place to start.
“Look,” Dean says. “We’ve got research to do. You don’t know what to look for, so get some sleep. We need you alert and sober when it’s time to head out.”
Danny almost wants to protest, but. He knows Dean is right. He just can’t stop thinking about the sound of that woman’s voice on the other end of the phone, and the way she’d laughed.
He sighs, curling up on the bed, his shoes wrinkling the comforter, and closes his eyes.
+
Danny jolts awake to cold metal pressed against his neck, sharp sting of pain, and he shoves instinctively, knocking the blade away from his throat. He hears it hit the floor with a soft thump as it hits the carpet, and he’s barely got his eyes open when two hands, huge hands, curl around his throat, blunt fingers pressing into his esophagus. Sam’s face glares down at him in the half-light. He grabs at nothing, gasping for breath, trying to find purchase. His hands slide down Sam’s arms, fingernails raking at skin, but Sam doesn’t move, doesn’t change his grip, and Danny is only partially aware of the strained hiccups escaping from his mouth, eyes wide open, tears collecting in the corners as he strains to breathe. He can feel blood trickling down his neck, and he can’t - he can’t -
In a desperate move, he throws his weight to one side, trying to roll over onto the floor, anything, but Sam doesn’t budge. His vision starts to go dark around the edges, and -
“Sammy!” Dean yells. Danny can hear the rustle of Dean moving, the bathroom door hitting the wall with the force of throwing it open, and he appears in the very corner of Danny’s vision, hand already clenched around the hilt of his knife. “Sammy, what the fuck!”
“He’s one of them, Dean, I saw it,” Sam growls, and Danny’s still scrabbling at his arms to no avail. He can barely hear what Dean’s saying - something - he can’t -
And everything goes dark.
+
It’s the pain in his throat that eventually wakes Danny again. He’s still on the twin bed farthest from the door, lying on the rumpled covers. It takes him a second to hear the muffled noises coming from the bathroom.
His neck protests every movement - he can’t even imagine what the bruises must look like - but he sits up, and.
Someone laughs wetly in the bathroom.
“What is it Dean, worried about Sammy?” The voice is sweet, amused, and almost nothing like Sam’s voice should sound. He presses his fingers to his neck, and finds it sticky with half-dried blood. He can’t have been out that long.
“Motherfucker,” Dean hisses, voice muffled through the door, and there’s the smack of flesh on flesh, breath exhaled hard. “What the hell did you do with him?”
“What do you think, Dean?” Sam’s voice laughs again, and then changes. “Don’t think I can’t hear you out there, Dan. Breathing. Thinking.”
Tom’s voice.
Motherfucker.
Danny can see his hand on the doorknob before he’s conscious of thinking about it, and -
Tom’s face, bleeding and bruised, arms tied to the bar in the shower stall. Smiling with cracked, bloody lips. Eyes gleaming like a cat’s in the fluorescent lighting.
His expression changes, suddenly, eyes going wide and vulnerable, blood dribbling off his chin and hitting the bottom of the tub with a dull splat.
“D-Danny?” Tom’s voice, still, and Danny’s hands curl into fists. Dean’s jaw is clenched, and he’s got his hands wrapped tight across his chest like he’s holding himself back for Danny’s benefit. “What’s going - Dan, how did I get here? Why won’t he stop hurting me?” Tone pleading and confused, and Danny can’t do anything but back out of the bathroom, slow and wary. His feet are soft on the carpet, and he can still hear the sound of that - thing’s - blood hitting the enamel.
He has to get out of this room.
+
He sits on the porch outside the motel room, his back against the dirty stucco. He can’t go back in the room, and he can’t leave. There’s nowhere for him to go, not without - and if they’re dead, there’s nothing for him anyway.
He’s staring at his palms when his mobile rings. Dougie’s number, it says, and Danny’s hands start shaking. It takes him two tries to open the phone.
“You killed her,” the woman’s voice says, no longer amused, no longer smug. “She was our sister, and you killed her.”
“She?” Danny asks, before he can think about it. That thing in there is female?
“Our sister,” the voice says again, hissing.
“She’s not dead,” Danny says, his voice flat. “Not like what you’re planning on doing to the lads.”
“Just wait for what we’re gonna to do to you, Danny-boy. You and Dean.” The phone clicks as she hangs up, and Danny closes his phone.
He’s not sure he can manage to be scared for his own benefit. He just needs to know - he just needs to know.
+
He’s not sure how long he sits there, his mobile in his lap, before Dean opens the door. He’s breathing hard and there’s blood on his shirt. He smells like copper and sweat.
“You killed her,” Danny says, and it’s not precisely a question.
“What?” Dean asks, like he doesn’t want to know the answer.
“The thing in the bathroom. You killed her, didn’t you?” He’s not sure why he believes the woman on the phone, except. He does.
“Yeah, I killed it,” Dean says, and his hands clench into fists. “They’re evil. I slit its fucking throat and if you’ve got a problem with that you’d better let me know now, because I’m not planning on leaving this town until all of them are just as dead.”
“No problem,” Danny says. “She called again. She knows.”
When Dean speaks, his voice is grim. “We’ve got to find the den.”
+
They spend an hour going through the papers Sam had left piled on the desk.
“Even if we find something,” Danny asks, “how do you know the skin-walker didn’t just put it there for us to find?” He’s looking through a pile of town maps, trying to decipher Sam’s haphazard handwriting.
“Why would it try to kill you if it was just setting us up for a trap? It obviously wanted us dead or captured rather than continuing to look for the den.” Dean’s got his head bent over some ancient book that Sam had gotten from the town library.
“I guess,” Danny says, although he’s not convinced. “I just think that - hey. Hey, Dean, I think I - got something.” Sam had circled it twice, in thick black pen, and there’s a question mark with an arrow pointed to it.
Dean looks over his shoulder, and swears viciously. “Motherfucker,” he says. “Always under goddamned churches.”
+
Dean hands him a gun and doesn’t ask if he knows how to use it. Danny figures that Dean just doesn’t give a fuck at this point. The sound of the Impala’s engine is the only sound between them, and Danny watches Dean’s fingers clench and unclench on the steering wheel, knuckles going white.
“Ready?” Dean asks, voice tense and quiet.
“Yeah,” Danny says. He’s not sure that he is, but it doesn’t matter. Not anymore.
+
They’re waiting when Dean kicks open the door. If Danny had time to think about it, he wouldn’t be surprised.
The room is dark, and smells like rotting vegetables - humid air and the smell of decomposition. Danny barely gets to raise his gun before there’s an arm around his neck, the press of a chest against his back. The arm pulls tight across his windpipe, and Danny drops the gun on the floor, both hands flying to his throat.
“What, you think you know how to work a gun, Danny?” Harry’s voice, lips pressed against Danny’s ear in a sensual way Danny doesn’t want to think about. “You’ve never shot a gun in your life, and I’d know, mate.”
Danny struggles against the arm around his throat, trying to elbow the Harry-thing in the gut, anything to get away, so he can shoot the fucker in the head for stealing Harry’s face. He can vaguely see Dean grappling in the doorway and knows he won’t be getting any help.
He’s not sure if the skin-walkers are stronger than they should be, or if it’s just stealing Harry’s knowledge of his body, but he’s can’t get free. The Harry-thing’s free hand brushes against his hip and under the hem of his shirt, touching bare skin, and Danny has to force himself not to vomit at the idea of the - thing - using Harry’s hands to touch him like that. He struggles again, wriggling, trying to break the hold around his neck.
“Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted, Danny? One of us to touch you in the way you dream of, late at night, when you think we’ll never know?” The purr in Harry’s voice isn’t anything that Danny’s ever heard before, and he can’t help shuddering at the sound of it. “You can have it, Danny. Just be still.” It laughs, and air brushes the side of Danny’s face.
He’s never - they’ve never. He pushes it away, tries to breathe, struggle.
Desperately, he kicks the Harry-thing in the shin as hard as he can manage, and it howls in pain, arm dropping from Danny’s neck.
Danny collapses to the floor, gasping for breath, grappling through the dust and debris for the gun. He can see it shining dully in the half-light, and the Harry-thing won’t be long. He scrambles over the floor, vaguely hearing Dean shouting something from behind him, and grabs the gun in both hands. He rolls onto his back and holds the gun up, feet braced against the floor.
The Harry-thing is just standing there, smiling.
“What,” it says, “you’re going to kill me? And ruin this perfect face?”
Danny can barely see the shift, and then Dougie is standing in front of him, bruised and gasping for breath.
“Danny, you couldn’t really do it, could you? Kill me? Really?”
Tom’s last, looking worried and a little frightened.
“Danny, we need you. I need you. Don’t you need me? I could be so good for you. Do you really think you can kill me?”
And Danny ignores his own shallow, panicked breathing. He just closes his eyes tightly shut and squeezes the trigger with both hands.
“Motherfucking yes,” he says, after the shot echoes fade, as the thing’s body collapses, ruined face and all, to the floor. He can’t look away from the spreading puddle of red blood. It touches the toes of his shoe, pooling outward, but he doesn’t move. “You filthy motherfucker, you fucking deserve it.”
+
Danny almost screams when Dean lays a heavy hand on his shoulder. He does whip the gun around, prepared to shoot. Dean holds his hands up by his face.
“Whoa there,” he says. “It’s just me. Simmer down.”
Danny glances over to the body of the second skin-walker, slumped to the floor near the far wall, and then peers into Dean’s eyes, looking for that glimmer of the unnatural. He finds nothing. Nodding shakily, he takes a deep breath, and lets Dean help him to his feet.
+
They find Dougie first, in a small room by himself, locked from the outside. Danny falls to his knees by the small, curled body and touches his cheek. He can see Dougie’s chest moving slowly. Still breathing.
“Dougie?” he says, “Dougie, can you wake up?”
He’s expecting the bruised skin when Dougie lifts his head, but not the broken whimpers, the hands Dougie brings up to protect his face.
“Please,” Dougie says, “don’t. Not Danny again, please. Just let me alone.”
“Dougie, it’s me,” Danny says, voice urgent and soft. He can hear Dean leave the room, giving them privacy. “What did they do to you?”
“Shut up, shut up,” Dougie says, shaking his head back and forth. “Stop, please, I - I don’t know what you want.”
“Dougie - I. Please, Dougie,” Danny says, and he can feel the way his voice wants to break. He tries to push down the anger that’s welling up inside him - didn’t torture the fucking bitch nearly enough - and keep the sound of it out of his voice. “What can I do to prove it to you?”
Dougie looks at his face, eyes wide and afraid and, without answering, grips his chin almost hard enough to bruise, and turns his face into the light. Danny can feel Dougie’s ragged fingernails digging into his skin, but he just lets him.
Dougie, after a long moment of silent searching, sniffs and presses his face against Danny’s neck, arms wrapping around his waist.
“Oh my god,” Dougie says, “Danny. Danny, I can’t -“
“It’s okay, Dougie,” Danny says, even though he’s not at all certain that it is. “We’ll get you out of here.”
+
Sam’s room is next to Dougie’s, and Danny leaves the two of them hugging, talking in terse words.
“Don’t ever fucking do that to me again, Sammy,” Dean says, and his voice is vicious. Danny feels like a voyeur even listening to it. He wraps his arm around Dougie’s waist and tries not to think about the bruises up and down his arms.
“Yeah, Dean, I’ll try not to.” Sam snorts, like an audible rolling of his eyes, and Danny wonders how often this happens to them.
He is, abruptly and honestly, grateful that he isn’t either one of them.
+
Tom and Harry are in the same room, bound with twine, and Danny can’t help the way his chest clenches when Tom looks at him, eyes full of suspicion. It’s a wariness he never wants to see again. He glances over at Dougie, untying Harry, and wonders if Dougie is getting the same look from him. He shivers, and turns back to Tom.
“Tom?” he asks, his voice tentative. “Are you - are you okay?”
There are strips of skin missing from his shoulders and torso, scabbed and still oozing. Tom stiffens when Danny pulls off his shirt, and Danny doesn’t want to think about what he’s expecting. He decides not to think about it.
Tom still hasn’t said anything.
“I -“ Danny starts. He’s not sure what Tom needs to hear from him. “Here,” he says, and holds out his shirt. “I don’t - I wish I could kill that bitch again for what she did. I don’t - Tom, will you fucking say something, please? Anything.”
Danny almost hates the pleading tone in his voice, but he hates Tom’s silence more. Instead of speaking, though, Tom just wraps both hands around Danny’s wrists, fingers pressed to the pulse. It’s like he’s waiting for something, but Danny doesn’t know what it is. He just stares into Tom’s face, feels his own heartbeats against Tom’s fingers and holds his breath. Tom bites his lip, searching Danny’s face and finally, finally, smiles. It’s weak, just a slight upturn of the corners of his mouth, like he can’t manage anything more, but Danny can’t help the relief that courses through his body. He glances over his shoulder at Dean, who is standing impatiently in the doorway.
“Let’s get a move on,” Dean says. “Sammy and I have some burning to do.”
+
The van is parked behind the church, in the back parking lot. Danny’s not sure if he’ll ever be able to look at it without thinking about this, right now. Tom helps Dougie into the back, and Danny turns to look at Dean, leaning against his Impala. Sam’s already in the passenger seat, asleep.
“Dean,” Danny says, shaking his head. “I can’t - I don’t. Thank you.”
Dean shakes his head. “They only cared about you because of us. I’m - sorry we got you mixed up in all of this.”
Danny shrugs. He doesn’t really have anything to say to that.
Dean sighs, and digs into his pocket, handing Danny a small white card with a number on it. No name, or address, just a telephone number in black pen.
“See anything else like this, you give me a call, okay?”
Danny nods.
“See you around,” Dean says, and slides into the driver’s seat. He leans over to check on Sam, cursory examination of his brother’s sleeping face. Danny thinks he’s earned it. He watches Dean turn the key in the ignition, listens to the blare of unfamiliar hard rock and the purr of the Impala’s engine, and looks on until the car is out of sight.
He turns back to the van, and finds Harry watching him. The entire left side of Harry’s face is bruised and swollen, but. They hadn’t broken any fingers, and that’s pretty much all that matters.
“Time to go?” he asks, and Harry nods. Harry climbs into the passenger seat, and Danny finds the keys in the ignition when he gets behind the wheel. Dougie’s already asleep in the back, curled up on the front row with his head in Tom’s lap. Tom’s combing his hands through Dougie’s hair, staring out the window.
“Danny,” Harry says, his voice almost urgent.
“Yeah?” Danny asks. He hasn’t spoken to Harry yet, and he - just wants this whole thing to go away.
“I knew you’d find us,” Harry says, and it’s so uncharacteristic that Danny has to look over at him. “Or die trying,” Harry adds, and brushes one hand against Danny’s cheek. His fingers press against the nick in Danny’s neck, where the thing’s knife had cut into his skin, and Danny’s breath stutters out of him, and he can’t help but think about how fucking terrified he was. Fucking terrified. “You found us in time, Danny,” Harry says. “We’re fine.”
“Yeah.” Danny says, glancing at Tom and Dougie in the rearview mirror. Just to make sure. “I know.”
McFly/Supernatural (gen! or, really, UST!)
5,277 words, r. This is my entry to the mcflyslash fic-a-thon challenge. My prompt was to write a crossover with Supernatural. This is what I came up with. Thanks very much to moorfaerie for the read through and to kawaii_tenshi27 for the beta. Any remaining errors are mine.
“You know you’ll always be a slut, Danny,” she says, and laughs when he takes a shaky step back. He doesn’t - how would she know anything about him? “People don’t escape what they are, Dan,” she says, the smirk on her lips belying her serious tone. “Not even you.”
The crowd in the venue is pretty small, but they’re used that here. They’ve been touring in the US for just over two weeks, and at the moment they’re at some bar in the middle of Alabama. It was their own choice to rough it like this - a van instead of a bus, motels instead of hotels - but Tom and Dougie had loved the idea. Danny hadn’t minded going along with it. It’s a nice change of pace from the huge amphitheatres they play in Britain, so Danny doesn’t really care that the sound is a little off - vocals a little quiet, guitars just a tad too loud. Their set is only seven songs long, so they only play their favorites.
Danny’s just glad that they don’t have to play 5 Colours while they’re over here. He loves the song, but having to play it at every show they’ve ever played is something of a strain. He looks over at Tom, watching the way he leans into the microphone, and takes his cue to start the harmony. There are two girls in the front row singing along, and the rest of the crowd is nursing their drinks, swaying to the beat, or just not paying attention. Danny just meets Tom’s eyes and smiles, glancing over his shoulder to where Harry’s busy drumming. Dougie’s bouncing, his eyes closed as he leans over to start singing - people marching to the drums, everybody’s having fun to the sound of love - and Danny can’t help but watch the two girls in the front, their expressions exultant and overwhelmed. Their hair bobs with every move of their bodies, and Danny is grateful for them. He is.
+
Free beer is one of the best perks of being in a band. There are others, obviously, but Danny’s pretty happy at the moment with his free bottle of Corona. He’s tipsy, he knows, and the last out - Tom and Dougie are taking care of hauling their gear back out to the van, and Harry is stuck packing up the merch table by himself.
Normally Danny would help, and they’d go get food, or something, after, but tonight he’d just felt like drinking himself into something of a stupor. Tom’d rolled his eyes when Danny’d told him, but said he see them back at the van later. Danny figures all of them need their space from time to time, and he’s not immune. He sits at the bar with a thump, causing the man sitting to his left to look over and snort.
“Sure you need another, man?” The guy asks, smirking and holding his beer just by the neck of the bottle. He’s shorter than Danny is, but wider, more built. Danny just laughs.
“I’ve still got a ways to go, believe me, mate.” He signals the bartender for another, and takes a long swig.
“Saw you guys playing earlier,” the guy says. “You’re pretty good. Not my taste, but good.”
“Thanks,” Danny says, and he means it. He’ll take all the compliments he can get, really. “I’m Danny.”
“Dean,” the guy says, sketching a salute with his beer bottle.
“You live around here, Dean?” Danny asks, taking another swallow of beer.
“No frickin’ way,” Dean says with a snort. “Soon as me and my bro finish this job, we’re outta this piece of shit town.” Danny laughs, holding his hands up in mock surrender.
“Whatever you say, mate. ‘M just being polite, is all.”
“I don’t do too well in mosquito-territory, dude. If any more of those little fuckers even come near me, I’m in my car and over the state line, Sammy or no Sammy.”
Danny laughs, figuring that Sammy is the aforementioned brother, and takes another swig of beer. He’s beginning to like this bar.
+
Danny’s more than a little drunk when he decides that he needs a cigarette. He leaves Dean at the bar, lets himself outside, and leans against the whitewashed brick, one foot propped up on the wall and his free hand in his pocket.
The air is cool but not cold - he’s just wearing his sweat-soaked t-shirt from onstage, and the faint breeze feels good on his overheated skin. The air smells like city - dirt and fried food and garbage - but Danny’s used to it by now. He sucks smoke into his lungs and ashes his cigarette with a flick of his fingers. His beer’s almost gone; he takes a last long swig, and looks in disappointment at the empty bottle, before letting it drop onto the ground. It hits the concrete with a loud clatter, but doesn’t break, just rolls until it clinks against a crack in the pavement.
“Good show,” someone says from the mouth of the alley, voice low and soft, Southern twang around the edges. Danny recognizes the girl who steps into the light - she was one of the two who’d sung along the whole show through. Her dark hair is pulled up into a tail, and her fringe is long enough to sweep over her eyes. She’s smiling, though, and that’s a smile Danny’s seen before - seductive and molasses sweet.
“Thanks,” he says, and takes a drag on his cigarette. She’s walking closer, and he’s watching the way the low neck of her shirt cuts across her collarbones, the deep v showing off her breasts and the top of her bra - he doesn’t want to, but he’s drunk and old habits die hard. He can tell from the quirk of her lips that she’s noticed.
He starts when her palm presses hard against the center of his chest. He hadn’t noticed how close she’d gotten. She laughs, throaty and rough, and says, “See somethin’ you like, Dan?”
The diminutive throws him off, but he still pushes her away.
“I don’t do that anymore,” he says, dropping his cigarette and putting it out with the heel of his shoe.
“Oh, really?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. She shakes her hair out of her face, and her eyes glow gold in the streetlight, slit like a fucking - cat’s or something. He can’t - he must have imagined it, but. She leans forward, her lips brushing against the shell of his ear. “You know you’ll always be a slut, Danny,” she says, and laughs when he takes a shaky step back. He doesn’t - how would she know anything about him? “People don’t escape what they are, Dan,” she says, the smirk on her lips belying her serious tone. “Not even you.”
“Jesus, who the hell are you?” And he’s not even angry so much as freaked out -
“Not important,” she says, stepping back and waving at him. “Sister’s calling - see you around, Danny.”
It takes him three tries to get his next cigarette lit, and two more cigarettes to steady his hands enough that he can imagine going back inside. He should find his band, he should, he just - doesn’t want them to see him so shaken up. He doesn’t want to worry them. Instead, he sits heavily at the bar, and Dean laughs at the expression on his face.
“What happened out there, man? Did’ya have to hurl?”
“I - no,” Danny says. “There was this girl, and her fucking - her eyes glowed, like a cat’s or something. I don’t - she knew - things. About me.” He doesn’t know why he’s saying anything - Dean’s not going to believe a word of it.
“Fuck,” Dean says. Danny looks up at the vicious tone of the word, sharp and suddenly angry. “Where is your van parked?” Dean’s expression is tense and serious; Danny can only open and close his mouth for a second, before stumbling over his answer.
“What? What do you -” he asks, but Dean cuts him off.
“Your van, the one with your band in it. Where’d you park it?”
“It’s outside, in the back lot. Why?”
“Motherfucker,” Dean says, and storms toward the door. Danny is too startled to move immediately - he just stands there with his eyes wide and his mouth open, before gathering himself enough to follow Dean out the back door.
Dean is standing in the lot, silent. The van is gone.
+
“Goddamnit,” Dean says, after a moment. He turns to look at Danny. “Stay here and don’t move, okay?” Dean waits until Danny nods, and then pulls his phone out, walking to the far side of the lot.
Danny doesn’t know what the hell is going on. All he can think to do is call Tom’s mobile - he gets three rings and Tom’s cheery voice on the voicemail. “Tom, you arsehole, where the hell are you?” he asks, voice gruff, before hanging up.
He tries Dougie next, and gets the same - This is Dougie’s phone, I’m off wanking somewhere, probably. Leave a message! - but he doesn’t actually get worried until he calls Harry. After all, they could just be taking the piss, or off scrounging for food. An arsehole thing to do not to let him know, but nothing to worry about. It takes him a second, but then he realises that he can hear the small tinny sound of Harry’s ringtone nearby. He follows it, and finds the mobile facedown on the cracked concrete.
“Fucking hell,” he says, picking it up. Harry doesn’t go anywhere without his phone, not even the fucking toilet.
Pocketing Harry’s mobile, he dials Tom one last time, out of desperation, and -
The phone picks up.
“Tom?” he asks, his voice quiet. He glances over at Dean, but Dean’s talking quietly into his mobile and paying Danny no attention.
Pressing his ear tight to the receiver, all he can hear is heavy breathing, at first; long, drawn out breaths, and he doesn’t know what to make of them. Then -
“Hey, Danny,” a female voice says on the other end of the line. “You’re still listening, yeah? I can hear you thinking.”
“Who are you?” Danny asks - he can hear the sharp edge to his voice, half anger and half fear.
“Oh, darlin’, forgotten me already?” she asks, laughing, and he - recognizes that laugh, the roughness of it.
“What the hell did you do with them?” he asks, and she laughs again. Danny can still hear the laboured breaths in the background, and something that sounds like whimpering. His hands ball into fists at his sides.
“Oh, they’re perfectly fine at the moment. Still breathing and everything. Well, most of them anyway. Can’t be sure about little Dougie - he’s so frail and all.” He can imagine the quirk of her lips as she says it, amused, and he can’t help how much he wants to punch her face in.
“What do you want?” he asks, finally, and she laughs at him. His fingernails dig into the skin of his palms.
“Nothing much, really. We have everything we need right here. Think you boys can find us in time?” she asks, sweetly, and hangs up.
+
Dean’s still on the phone when Danny gets to him.
“I know, Sam, I know,” he’s saying. “Got a location for their den yet?” He pauses, listening. “You know we only have twenty-four hours at the most, Sam. Fuck. Yeah. Yeah, got it. Give us ten, okay? Yeah. Bye.” He shuts his phone, sticking it in his back pocket. “Kid, c’mon, we’re going.”
“What the bloody fuck is going on?” Danny asks, fists still clenched by his sides.
“Fuck, it’s really hard to explain, okay? Just. Look - I’ll tell you when we get there, okay?”
“I -“ Danny starts, thinking about that woman’s voice, the casual violence in her intentions. Dean hadn’t acted like Danny was crazy and that’s - enough. Danny’s willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Okay.”
+
The motel is dingy, dirty, and half of the neon letters on the sign are out, turning The Red Sun Inn into T e ed Su I n. It looks like half the places in the United States that McFly’s already stayed in.
“Wait, wait - what the fucking hell are skin-walkers?” Danny asks when Dean falls silent. He’s sitting on the edge of one of the twin beds in Sam and Dean’s small room, hands clenched on his knees.
“Look, I told you it was hard to believe,” Dean starts, but Sam just holds up a hand, and Dean falls silent.
“They’re creatures, typically from Navajo culture, although there are other Native American tribes with similar myths. They can change their appearances to look like animals or other humans, and, according to the mythology, at least, they can absorb the thoughts and histories of those they’re mimicking.” Sam shrugs. “Navajos are mostly from Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, but we’ve found weirder things in weirder places, so.”
“I can’t - you blokes are completely mad,” Danny says, but he’s thinking about the way that woman’s eyes glowed gold in the light and the sound of her voice on Tom’s phone.
“You saw it for yourself, dude,” Dean says, mouth tilting up in half a smirk. “The only way to tell a skin-walker from a human is to look into their eyes. What’s it say again, Sam?”
“According to the translation, that when they’re in human form, their eyes glow like an animal’s would,” Sam says, like he’s reciting a passage from a book. He shrugs. “Myths also say they live in dens - dark, damp places. Warm.”
“There’re only so many places they could hide in this piece of shit town,” Dean says, cracking his knuckles.
Danny hopes he’s right.
+
Danny’s not sure how he manages to fall asleep, but Dean tells him there’s nothing they can do until they know more about the town - until they at least have a place to start.
“Look,” Dean says. “We’ve got research to do. You don’t know what to look for, so get some sleep. We need you alert and sober when it’s time to head out.”
Danny almost wants to protest, but. He knows Dean is right. He just can’t stop thinking about the sound of that woman’s voice on the other end of the phone, and the way she’d laughed.
He sighs, curling up on the bed, his shoes wrinkling the comforter, and closes his eyes.
+
Danny jolts awake to cold metal pressed against his neck, sharp sting of pain, and he shoves instinctively, knocking the blade away from his throat. He hears it hit the floor with a soft thump as it hits the carpet, and he’s barely got his eyes open when two hands, huge hands, curl around his throat, blunt fingers pressing into his esophagus. Sam’s face glares down at him in the half-light. He grabs at nothing, gasping for breath, trying to find purchase. His hands slide down Sam’s arms, fingernails raking at skin, but Sam doesn’t move, doesn’t change his grip, and Danny is only partially aware of the strained hiccups escaping from his mouth, eyes wide open, tears collecting in the corners as he strains to breathe. He can feel blood trickling down his neck, and he can’t - he can’t -
In a desperate move, he throws his weight to one side, trying to roll over onto the floor, anything, but Sam doesn’t budge. His vision starts to go dark around the edges, and -
“Sammy!” Dean yells. Danny can hear the rustle of Dean moving, the bathroom door hitting the wall with the force of throwing it open, and he appears in the very corner of Danny’s vision, hand already clenched around the hilt of his knife. “Sammy, what the fuck!”
“He’s one of them, Dean, I saw it,” Sam growls, and Danny’s still scrabbling at his arms to no avail. He can barely hear what Dean’s saying - something - he can’t -
And everything goes dark.
+
It’s the pain in his throat that eventually wakes Danny again. He’s still on the twin bed farthest from the door, lying on the rumpled covers. It takes him a second to hear the muffled noises coming from the bathroom.
His neck protests every movement - he can’t even imagine what the bruises must look like - but he sits up, and.
Someone laughs wetly in the bathroom.
“What is it Dean, worried about Sammy?” The voice is sweet, amused, and almost nothing like Sam’s voice should sound. He presses his fingers to his neck, and finds it sticky with half-dried blood. He can’t have been out that long.
“Motherfucker,” Dean hisses, voice muffled through the door, and there’s the smack of flesh on flesh, breath exhaled hard. “What the hell did you do with him?”
“What do you think, Dean?” Sam’s voice laughs again, and then changes. “Don’t think I can’t hear you out there, Dan. Breathing. Thinking.”
Tom’s voice.
Motherfucker.
Danny can see his hand on the doorknob before he’s conscious of thinking about it, and -
Tom’s face, bleeding and bruised, arms tied to the bar in the shower stall. Smiling with cracked, bloody lips. Eyes gleaming like a cat’s in the fluorescent lighting.
His expression changes, suddenly, eyes going wide and vulnerable, blood dribbling off his chin and hitting the bottom of the tub with a dull splat.
“D-Danny?” Tom’s voice, still, and Danny’s hands curl into fists. Dean’s jaw is clenched, and he’s got his hands wrapped tight across his chest like he’s holding himself back for Danny’s benefit. “What’s going - Dan, how did I get here? Why won’t he stop hurting me?” Tone pleading and confused, and Danny can’t do anything but back out of the bathroom, slow and wary. His feet are soft on the carpet, and he can still hear the sound of that - thing’s - blood hitting the enamel.
He has to get out of this room.
+
He sits on the porch outside the motel room, his back against the dirty stucco. He can’t go back in the room, and he can’t leave. There’s nowhere for him to go, not without - and if they’re dead, there’s nothing for him anyway.
He’s staring at his palms when his mobile rings. Dougie’s number, it says, and Danny’s hands start shaking. It takes him two tries to open the phone.
“You killed her,” the woman’s voice says, no longer amused, no longer smug. “She was our sister, and you killed her.”
“She?” Danny asks, before he can think about it. That thing in there is female?
“Our sister,” the voice says again, hissing.
“She’s not dead,” Danny says, his voice flat. “Not like what you’re planning on doing to the lads.”
“Just wait for what we’re gonna to do to you, Danny-boy. You and Dean.” The phone clicks as she hangs up, and Danny closes his phone.
He’s not sure he can manage to be scared for his own benefit. He just needs to know - he just needs to know.
+
He’s not sure how long he sits there, his mobile in his lap, before Dean opens the door. He’s breathing hard and there’s blood on his shirt. He smells like copper and sweat.
“You killed her,” Danny says, and it’s not precisely a question.
“What?” Dean asks, like he doesn’t want to know the answer.
“The thing in the bathroom. You killed her, didn’t you?” He’s not sure why he believes the woman on the phone, except. He does.
“Yeah, I killed it,” Dean says, and his hands clench into fists. “They’re evil. I slit its fucking throat and if you’ve got a problem with that you’d better let me know now, because I’m not planning on leaving this town until all of them are just as dead.”
“No problem,” Danny says. “She called again. She knows.”
When Dean speaks, his voice is grim. “We’ve got to find the den.”
+
They spend an hour going through the papers Sam had left piled on the desk.
“Even if we find something,” Danny asks, “how do you know the skin-walker didn’t just put it there for us to find?” He’s looking through a pile of town maps, trying to decipher Sam’s haphazard handwriting.
“Why would it try to kill you if it was just setting us up for a trap? It obviously wanted us dead or captured rather than continuing to look for the den.” Dean’s got his head bent over some ancient book that Sam had gotten from the town library.
“I guess,” Danny says, although he’s not convinced. “I just think that - hey. Hey, Dean, I think I - got something.” Sam had circled it twice, in thick black pen, and there’s a question mark with an arrow pointed to it.
Dean looks over his shoulder, and swears viciously. “Motherfucker,” he says. “Always under goddamned churches.”
+
Dean hands him a gun and doesn’t ask if he knows how to use it. Danny figures that Dean just doesn’t give a fuck at this point. The sound of the Impala’s engine is the only sound between them, and Danny watches Dean’s fingers clench and unclench on the steering wheel, knuckles going white.
“Ready?” Dean asks, voice tense and quiet.
“Yeah,” Danny says. He’s not sure that he is, but it doesn’t matter. Not anymore.
+
They’re waiting when Dean kicks open the door. If Danny had time to think about it, he wouldn’t be surprised.
The room is dark, and smells like rotting vegetables - humid air and the smell of decomposition. Danny barely gets to raise his gun before there’s an arm around his neck, the press of a chest against his back. The arm pulls tight across his windpipe, and Danny drops the gun on the floor, both hands flying to his throat.
“What, you think you know how to work a gun, Danny?” Harry’s voice, lips pressed against Danny’s ear in a sensual way Danny doesn’t want to think about. “You’ve never shot a gun in your life, and I’d know, mate.”
Danny struggles against the arm around his throat, trying to elbow the Harry-thing in the gut, anything to get away, so he can shoot the fucker in the head for stealing Harry’s face. He can vaguely see Dean grappling in the doorway and knows he won’t be getting any help.
He’s not sure if the skin-walkers are stronger than they should be, or if it’s just stealing Harry’s knowledge of his body, but he’s can’t get free. The Harry-thing’s free hand brushes against his hip and under the hem of his shirt, touching bare skin, and Danny has to force himself not to vomit at the idea of the - thing - using Harry’s hands to touch him like that. He struggles again, wriggling, trying to break the hold around his neck.
“Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted, Danny? One of us to touch you in the way you dream of, late at night, when you think we’ll never know?” The purr in Harry’s voice isn’t anything that Danny’s ever heard before, and he can’t help shuddering at the sound of it. “You can have it, Danny. Just be still.” It laughs, and air brushes the side of Danny’s face.
He’s never - they’ve never. He pushes it away, tries to breathe, struggle.
Desperately, he kicks the Harry-thing in the shin as hard as he can manage, and it howls in pain, arm dropping from Danny’s neck.
Danny collapses to the floor, gasping for breath, grappling through the dust and debris for the gun. He can see it shining dully in the half-light, and the Harry-thing won’t be long. He scrambles over the floor, vaguely hearing Dean shouting something from behind him, and grabs the gun in both hands. He rolls onto his back and holds the gun up, feet braced against the floor.
The Harry-thing is just standing there, smiling.
“What,” it says, “you’re going to kill me? And ruin this perfect face?”
Danny can barely see the shift, and then Dougie is standing in front of him, bruised and gasping for breath.
“Danny, you couldn’t really do it, could you? Kill me? Really?”
Tom’s last, looking worried and a little frightened.
“Danny, we need you. I need you. Don’t you need me? I could be so good for you. Do you really think you can kill me?”
And Danny ignores his own shallow, panicked breathing. He just closes his eyes tightly shut and squeezes the trigger with both hands.
“Motherfucking yes,” he says, after the shot echoes fade, as the thing’s body collapses, ruined face and all, to the floor. He can’t look away from the spreading puddle of red blood. It touches the toes of his shoe, pooling outward, but he doesn’t move. “You filthy motherfucker, you fucking deserve it.”
+
Danny almost screams when Dean lays a heavy hand on his shoulder. He does whip the gun around, prepared to shoot. Dean holds his hands up by his face.
“Whoa there,” he says. “It’s just me. Simmer down.”
Danny glances over to the body of the second skin-walker, slumped to the floor near the far wall, and then peers into Dean’s eyes, looking for that glimmer of the unnatural. He finds nothing. Nodding shakily, he takes a deep breath, and lets Dean help him to his feet.
+
They find Dougie first, in a small room by himself, locked from the outside. Danny falls to his knees by the small, curled body and touches his cheek. He can see Dougie’s chest moving slowly. Still breathing.
“Dougie?” he says, “Dougie, can you wake up?”
He’s expecting the bruised skin when Dougie lifts his head, but not the broken whimpers, the hands Dougie brings up to protect his face.
“Please,” Dougie says, “don’t. Not Danny again, please. Just let me alone.”
“Dougie, it’s me,” Danny says, voice urgent and soft. He can hear Dean leave the room, giving them privacy. “What did they do to you?”
“Shut up, shut up,” Dougie says, shaking his head back and forth. “Stop, please, I - I don’t know what you want.”
“Dougie - I. Please, Dougie,” Danny says, and he can feel the way his voice wants to break. He tries to push down the anger that’s welling up inside him - didn’t torture the fucking bitch nearly enough - and keep the sound of it out of his voice. “What can I do to prove it to you?”
Dougie looks at his face, eyes wide and afraid and, without answering, grips his chin almost hard enough to bruise, and turns his face into the light. Danny can feel Dougie’s ragged fingernails digging into his skin, but he just lets him.
Dougie, after a long moment of silent searching, sniffs and presses his face against Danny’s neck, arms wrapping around his waist.
“Oh my god,” Dougie says, “Danny. Danny, I can’t -“
“It’s okay, Dougie,” Danny says, even though he’s not at all certain that it is. “We’ll get you out of here.”
+
Sam’s room is next to Dougie’s, and Danny leaves the two of them hugging, talking in terse words.
“Don’t ever fucking do that to me again, Sammy,” Dean says, and his voice is vicious. Danny feels like a voyeur even listening to it. He wraps his arm around Dougie’s waist and tries not to think about the bruises up and down his arms.
“Yeah, Dean, I’ll try not to.” Sam snorts, like an audible rolling of his eyes, and Danny wonders how often this happens to them.
He is, abruptly and honestly, grateful that he isn’t either one of them.
+
Tom and Harry are in the same room, bound with twine, and Danny can’t help the way his chest clenches when Tom looks at him, eyes full of suspicion. It’s a wariness he never wants to see again. He glances over at Dougie, untying Harry, and wonders if Dougie is getting the same look from him. He shivers, and turns back to Tom.
“Tom?” he asks, his voice tentative. “Are you - are you okay?”
There are strips of skin missing from his shoulders and torso, scabbed and still oozing. Tom stiffens when Danny pulls off his shirt, and Danny doesn’t want to think about what he’s expecting. He decides not to think about it.
Tom still hasn’t said anything.
“I -“ Danny starts. He’s not sure what Tom needs to hear from him. “Here,” he says, and holds out his shirt. “I don’t - I wish I could kill that bitch again for what she did. I don’t - Tom, will you fucking say something, please? Anything.”
Danny almost hates the pleading tone in his voice, but he hates Tom’s silence more. Instead of speaking, though, Tom just wraps both hands around Danny’s wrists, fingers pressed to the pulse. It’s like he’s waiting for something, but Danny doesn’t know what it is. He just stares into Tom’s face, feels his own heartbeats against Tom’s fingers and holds his breath. Tom bites his lip, searching Danny’s face and finally, finally, smiles. It’s weak, just a slight upturn of the corners of his mouth, like he can’t manage anything more, but Danny can’t help the relief that courses through his body. He glances over his shoulder at Dean, who is standing impatiently in the doorway.
“Let’s get a move on,” Dean says. “Sammy and I have some burning to do.”
+
The van is parked behind the church, in the back parking lot. Danny’s not sure if he’ll ever be able to look at it without thinking about this, right now. Tom helps Dougie into the back, and Danny turns to look at Dean, leaning against his Impala. Sam’s already in the passenger seat, asleep.
“Dean,” Danny says, shaking his head. “I can’t - I don’t. Thank you.”
Dean shakes his head. “They only cared about you because of us. I’m - sorry we got you mixed up in all of this.”
Danny shrugs. He doesn’t really have anything to say to that.
Dean sighs, and digs into his pocket, handing Danny a small white card with a number on it. No name, or address, just a telephone number in black pen.
“See anything else like this, you give me a call, okay?”
Danny nods.
“See you around,” Dean says, and slides into the driver’s seat. He leans over to check on Sam, cursory examination of his brother’s sleeping face. Danny thinks he’s earned it. He watches Dean turn the key in the ignition, listens to the blare of unfamiliar hard rock and the purr of the Impala’s engine, and looks on until the car is out of sight.
He turns back to the van, and finds Harry watching him. The entire left side of Harry’s face is bruised and swollen, but. They hadn’t broken any fingers, and that’s pretty much all that matters.
“Time to go?” he asks, and Harry nods. Harry climbs into the passenger seat, and Danny finds the keys in the ignition when he gets behind the wheel. Dougie’s already asleep in the back, curled up on the front row with his head in Tom’s lap. Tom’s combing his hands through Dougie’s hair, staring out the window.
“Danny,” Harry says, his voice almost urgent.
“Yeah?” Danny asks. He hasn’t spoken to Harry yet, and he - just wants this whole thing to go away.
“I knew you’d find us,” Harry says, and it’s so uncharacteristic that Danny has to look over at him. “Or die trying,” Harry adds, and brushes one hand against Danny’s cheek. His fingers press against the nick in Danny’s neck, where the thing’s knife had cut into his skin, and Danny’s breath stutters out of him, and he can’t help but think about how fucking terrified he was. Fucking terrified. “You found us in time, Danny,” Harry says. “We’re fine.”
“Yeah.” Danny says, glancing at Tom and Dougie in the rearview mirror. Just to make sure. “I know.”