Supernatural fic: People in Stone Houses 1/2 (SPN/BtVS crossover, Dean/Faith, R)
Title: People in Stone Houses (1/2)
Author: Krisomniac
Rating, Warning, Pairing: R, Dean/Faith, BtVS/SPN crossover
Disclaimer: Neither Faith nor Dean is mine, but a girl can dream, can't she?
Summary: Dean picks up an unlikely stranger on the way to California
Author's Note: Written for thistlerose on the occasion of her birthday… and it totally spiraled out of control. A thousand thanks to medicinal_mirth for the beta. All mistakes left are mine.(3600 words, part one)
I could have anything. Anyone…
I could ride you at a gallop until your legs buckled
And your eyes rolled up.
I've got muscles you've never even dreamed of
I could squeeze you 'til you popped
Like warm champagne
And you'd beg me to hurt you just a little bit more
Faith, episode 4x16
People in Stone Houses
Dean rolls over, slow-drags his arm across his eyes. Half-asleep, he listens to the noises of other people's lives-- showers running, cars starting, morning news-- through the paper-thin walls of the motel.
The sun is up long before he pushes himself off the stiff, coil mattress and stretches in front of the long mirror on the back of the bathroom door.
He looks the same; same skin, same stomach, same hair. His reflection doesn't show the weeks of wear, the hours of waiting and indecision, worry and useless speculation that lie heavy on his shoulders. He turns and leans against it, cool glass sending shivers up his spine.
Shower. Shave. Coffee. Car.
He'll do them one at a time. Then get in the car and go, forgetting this town the moment it disappears in the rearview; he's not even sure what it's called, other than Rest Stop a Full Day's Drive from New Orleans.
One foot in front of the other, one endless stretch of blacktop, one anonymous motel. No calls, no plans, another day will pass in silence.
Dean grabs a paper out of habit, to fill the time until the caffeine hits his blood, to deflect conversation from the other travelers sitting at the counter. He flips past the headlines and special interest, skims the obituaries, and sips his drink. The interesting stories usually start somewhere small and hidden, buried on the bottom of page seven.
His hair is still damp from the shower, droplets of water cling to his collar, and as he reads, he absently scratches the back of his neck. The local schoolboard is cleaning up after a recent fire. A house was burgled, nothing stolen but the front door; juvenile prank suspected. One county over, there has been a rash of missing cats, all black. Dean searches for patterns in the news, fitting the pieces together like a puzzle made of glass. His coffee gets cold on the counter.
It's not even a story, just a community announcement that the midnight vigil for the Patterson children will be held in three day's time, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the orphanage fire.
He chews his pen thoughtfully and glances at the date on top of the page. October 26. He has a few days to spare and is tired of feeling useless. His phone is silent, has been for longer than he cares to think about. What the hell, he figures, it's always a good time to kill something.
~
She's been on the road for weeks; well, thirteen days at least. Thirteen days and thirteen demons between Chicago and wherever the hell she is now. No more than thirteen dollars left of the money she stole off the first one she killed, and she suspects she knows without counting, exactly how many crows are sitting in the road, watching her approach with their dark, greedy eyes.
Thirteen. It would be an ill omen if she believed in that shit.
Faith snorts and accelerates, scattering the flock in a cloud of black feathers over the dusty road. All she believes in is a full tank of gas and an open road, and the needle has been hovering over empty for about fifty miles now. She pulls into the first station she finds, the wheels of the Ford she stole back in Ohio sending pebbles skittering across the lot.
One glance in the mirror is enough to tell her that she needs to find someplace to crash tonight. There are deep shadows under her eyes, and she pulls her hair down to cover the bruises around her neck. Her clothes need washing and she's out of smokes, but she winks at her reflection and pastes a smile on her face, adjusts her bra and climbs out of the car.
As long as the attendants are male, gas and a bit of food shouldn't be a problem. She might even be able to find someplace to spend the night, she thinks as she fingers the few crumpled notes tucked into the back pocket of her jeans.
"Hey, boys," she says, as the bell over the door jingles to announce her entrance.
~
Dean unscrews the Impala's gas cap and tucks the nozzle in. He leans against the trunk and looks out down Main Street. It's less a town than a few clapboard buildings set up against the clear blue sky. The earth is red and dusty, and each rock has a story to tell.
He takes a deep breath, maybe the first since he left New Orleans, chased by the kind of ghosts that can't be driven away with anything as simple as rock salt. The pump clicks off, and Dean goes inside to pay with his latest stolen cards. Sean Kelley, he reminds himself quickly.
"--shoulda seen her, whew boy, ass like a drum."
"Betcha she's a tomcat in the sack, eh Davey?"
"Guess we'll find out." The guy called Davey spits his chaw into a cup. "She won't last the night up at the old Patterson place. Yeah?" He looks up at Dean. "Whatcha want?"
Dean pays and on the way out follows a hollow clanging sound around to the back of the station. He weaves his way between several rusted out trucks and piles of junk parts on the ground.
Sitting on one of the old tractor tires is a boy about thirteen years old. He's the younger version of the guy, Davey, in the station, clothes too big for his beanpole frame, sandy brown hair falling in his eyes. He brushes it away with a gesture so reminiscent of Sam--
Sometimes Dean can almost forget. Other times it hits him like a punch to the stomach, and for a moment he can hardly breathe.
He clears his throat and the kid looks up.
"What's wrong with it?" Dean asks, inclining his head towards the rifle the kid is knocking against the ground.
"It don't shoot right," he tells Dean, squinting in the sun. "Somethin's jammed."
"Here, let me see."
It's a beautiful gun that's fallen on hard times. Heavy, solid construction, the wood is scratched and dinged. Dirt and stones are stuck in the grooves and joints. He suspects in the mechanism as well. "You know this is a classic?" He takes a seat next to the boy and hands the rifle reverently back. "It's a Winchester."
"Well, it don't work."
"Is it yours?"
"Yeah."
"You ever clean it?"
"Naw."
Dean almost laughs. "You know, if my dad ever--" He stops and starts again. "Anyway let me show you how."
Slowly, they take the gun apart, and Dean finds a small pebble lodged in the firing mechanism. He goes back to the car for oil and a rag, and shows the boy how to keep each piece in working order, explaining its purpose as he goes. He rubs the wood in even circles until the dust is gone and what's left of the original varnish shines through. He doesn't know how long they sit there, or even what the kid's name is, but he finds the tension and worry of the last few weeks slipping away with each methodical action.
When they're done, he hands the rifle over.
"Thanks, mister. Hey, what's your name?"
"Dean."
"I'm Tim." He holds out one grubby hand.
They walk back to Dean's car. "Hey, Tim, you mind showing me how to get to the Patterson place?"
Tim considers for a moment. "Don't go there."
"Why not?"
"My Brother dare you to go there? He dares me when he's mad. I never actually spent the night inside."
"Is his name Davey?"
"Yeah."
"Why don't you stay?"
Tim scratches his nose. "All them kids died there, way before I was born. It's haunted."
~
"Great." Faith kicks at some loose stones in the weedy drive and looks up at the burned out shell of a house. The guy at the gas station wasn't entirely wrong; no one was here and it might've been a nice place to stay -- a hundred years ago. She can still see the skeleton of a huge mansion, but crumbling chimneys are all that remain of most of the outer towers and wings. The roof over the main house, where there still is a roof, sags downwards and all the windows are boarded up or broken. Still, shelter is shelter, and Faith isn't about to go crawling back to his pimply face.
She climbs the worn front steps and slips inside the partially open door.
The front room has broken bits of furniture in the corners and graffiti on the walls. Dust and cobwebs cover every surface and dangle from the ceiling, catching the late afternoon light in their translucent strands. They shift and turn in an unseen breeze.
The rooms farther into the house are dim to dark, and Faith coughs softly as her steps kick up old dirt. So far, she's found a large dining room, library devoid of books, and several empty offices whose old, oak desks were too heavy to move. Some of the walls are charred and black, but the smell of burning wood has long since drifted away.
Gingerly, she climbs the stairs, stepping over loose and missing boards.
Once, with a sudden pang, she thinks of her bed at Chateau Buffy, springy mattress, blankets and more pillows than she ever-- But with it, come the memories of communal meals, pre-pubescent girls, drills and lessons, books and schedules, fake smiles and fucking cumbaya. She kicks her way into a locked room upstairs and figures she's better off here.
Here there's a bed where no one will wake her up, in a room that hasn't seen a warm body in nearly fifty years. The sheets may be disintegrating and the pillows long gone, but for tonight, she's willing to call it home.
She knocks the boards out of the window and listens as the wood splinters on the ground below. The landscape outside is empty and lonely and burning fiery red-orange as the sun sinks below the horizon. The only sound is a distant wind over hills of stone.
And soft, clicking footsteps downstairs.
Faith holds her breath, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling as slayer senses take control. She has only one stake in one pocket of her leather jacket and a long silver blade sheathed at her waist, but her entire body becomes a tightly coiled weapon, ready to spring.
Silently, she slinks back into the hallway, keeping to the shadows, ears perked for any sound.
The house settles and groans around her, and she hears it climbing the stairs, getting closer. Whatever it is, it knows she's here. It's light and lithe, and it's not afraid.
Her nostrils flair in anticipation as the last of the sun disappears from the horizon, leaving the house in dusky darkness.
Faith edges to the corner of the wall at the top of the stairs. She closes her hand around the hilt of her blade and waits.
It's only a step or two away.
"Come out and play," she hisses, voice low as she spins around the corner.
"Meow?"
She looks down at a small black cat winding its way between her legs and laughs out loud.
~
By nigthfall, Dean's research is done, and he has reliable directions up to the old Patterson place. He pulls up to the house, and though it's dark, he recognizes it from the pictures in the news after the fire. It burned for three days before fire fighters were able to put out the blaze. Flames roared up the stairways and into the dorms. It started at night and afterwards, no one could figure out what set it off.
Asleep in their beds, so many of the children never had a chance.
They'd been buried in a cemetery behind the house, and the survivors come back every year to hold a candlelight vigil. Fifty years later, he thinks, it's time for them to rest.
But he isn't the only person here.
"Huh." Dean peers into the car, recalling the conversation he overheard in the gas station only a few hours before. She won't last the night up at the old Patterson place She, whoever she is, didn't leave… and it's after dark. "Shit," he whispers. There's enough spirit activity-- his EMF meter has been humming for the last mile-- that the last thing he needs is some teenage girl getting in the way. Then again--
Dean's thoughts are interrupted by the sound of shattering glass as a large chunk of table flies through one of the few remaining downstairs windows. It crashes on the weedy and overgrown lawn with a huge splintering of wood.
Dean runs to the front door, but it's shut tight and no amount of kicking or firing at the handle loosens it at all. He jumps the railing and lands in the garden. There's a pipe next to the window, the one the table came through, and he scrambles up, hoisting himself in, careful of the broken glass.
He drops down to the floor, shotgun and flashlight raised, and surveys the room quickly.
Long spider webs trail from the ceiling and moldings on the walls. A large fireplace sits cold at one end of the hall, and shards of furniture line the walls. The sounds of a fight echo from deeper in the dark house. Dean takes a deep breath and jogs across the room. Halfway, he sees the shimmer of a spirit out the corner of his eye. It's small and translucent, the form of a child playing. Its movements are erratic but determined and it grins as it approaches.
I found you, the air whispers all around him.
Hide and seek.
He cocks the gun, firing without hesitation, and the ghost child breaks into a thousand pieces of shimmering light.
The sound attracts more of them, drifting down the staircases and through the walls. They're all different sizes and ages, all burned almost beyond recognition, all wearing the same eerily delighted grin. Dean runs for the door on the far side of the room.
"--squatters rights, you little bastards!" There's a girl shouting in the next room, and the sound of furniture being hurled against the walls.
He has no time to think or plan, only react, and the sounds of the world give way to the rush of blood in his ears.
Dean kicks in the door.
~
Faith is getting pissed. Vampires, she can stake with her eyes closed, even out gunned and out numbered, even trapped in a house that creaks and crumbles and threatens to collapse all around her. Demons, she owns. Killing demons is her art, sliver blade slicing through the air, teasing them, taunting them, finishing them with a final stab through the heart. She understands enemies with blood she can spill and bones she can break and fucking rules she can use against them.
These spirit children are something else entirely. They arrived after sunset, chasing the cat and dancing just out of her reach, and it doesn’t matter how fast she moves; her fists make contact with nothing but cold, clammy air.
Their fists make contact with her face and her side, her arms and legs, their smiles flickering in and out of sight. They hurl what little furniture is left in the building, but when she throws it back, it passes harmlessly through their shimmering forms.
They don't attack at once-- like cats playing with a particularly interesting toy, they circle and swipe, herd her from room to room. She tries every door and window, but the spirits hold them against her. She feels the sticky-sweet warmth of blood on her shirt where an old nail on of the chairs caught her just over the ribs.
Her lungs burn and muscles ache, so she ducks their blows and waits. Wait them out. Can't get tired. Can't give up. Can't give in.
She hears the shot, and her whole body tenses. The children look up, and a brief burst of panic crosses their disfigured faces, then half their number pass through the wall towards the sound. Fatigue forgotten, Faith leaps over the bench the others are sliding across the room and listens to the sound of approaching footsteps. She grins; ghosts don't have feet and they don't look pleased about the new arrival.
The newcomer is either someone who can help or someone she can fight, and either way it's a promising change. So when he yells--
"Down!"
She drops to the floor.
~
He only has an instant to marvel at the speed with which she responds, before Dean rains rock salt on the spirits in the room. Each splits into shining waves, spirals out and pulls itself back together again. Dean presses his way to middle of the swarm, until he's standing over the girl on the floor. He reaches down with one hand to lift her up. Gun in the other, he blasts two of the children away.
"Got it," she says, ignoring his hand and springing to her feet at his back.
"Know how to use one of these?" He offers her a gun without taking his eyes off the ghosts circling them.
"Sure," she says.
"Then cover me." He reloads.
~
The next few minutes are a dance, a fucking tango of whirling bodies and firing weapons, spirits shattering and reforming-- slower with every blast. When Faith ducks, he stands over her; while he reloads, she covers his back.
He tosses her fresh bullets the moment before she runs out. She jumps in front of him and braces herself to take a hurling desk; it shatters against her shoulder.
He whistles low for just a moment before the next spirit takes the attack.
Then it's blazing guns, one in each hand and-- who the hell is this guy, Faith wonders as three more ghosts disappear into mist. The circle is broken.
"Over here," he shouts, dragging her by the arm to the doorway at the back of the room.
She almost flinches away from his hand. "But that's a--" He drags her through it anyway. "Kitchen."
The spirits slam the door behind them.
~
"Shit," Dean growls. He can see the back of the house, windows like shining beacons in its charred shell. Between the two of them and the window, is a wall of children, some more lucent than others, all smiling cruelly. This is it. His heart steadies its racing beat. In the pause before the final storm, everything is perfectly still and perfectly clear. He feels, for the first time in weeks, utterly and completely alive.
He cocks his gun, it's familiar shick, click sounding in the sudden silence.
"Ready?" He grins.
"Oh yeah." She mirrors the expression. They whirl together and fire.
Dean hasn't said ten words to this girl, doesn't know her name, her story, and yet-- And yet she fits herself seamlessly into that place by his side, the aching, empty place he'd tried to forget was there at all, the place where Dad should be, where Sam should be. He fires.
He kills them again and again, acutely aware of her body pressed against his, tighter with each recoil of her gun. Heat rolls off her, and he feels her chest heave with every breath. His heart is pounding again, a low thrum that has nothing to do with fear. A spirit soars towards them and he pulls the trigger, watches it explode.
By the time he hears the high-pitch whisper of knife blade through air, it's already too late.
~
Faith moves a moment before her mind registers the sound. Her hand is closed around the handle before realizes what it is.
The cleaver is only an inch from his face.
"Guess we're even," he says, recovering quickly and leveling his shotgun at a cluster of spirits. The buckshot scatters them. "That iron?" he asks, running his finger along the edge of the rusty blade and touching it to his tongue.
He inclines his head towards the back door, where the ghosts are thickest.
She throws the knife, end over end, and it plunges deep into the wood. The spirits glide away from it, their faint outlines flickering angrily.
"Now!" he shouts, and together they break for the door.
~
Panting, they lay sprawled on the grass, a tangle of limbs and bruises, pounding hearts and breathless relief. Dean almost bursts out laughing.
"Why don't they come after us?" She props herself up on her elbows.
He points at the small, weather-worn headstones all around them. "They can't," he explains. "Consecrated ground."
"Huh." She clambers to her feet, wincing, and Dean takes the opportunity to study her from the ground. Small and tight, black leather and faint scent of smoke, she holds herself upright despite the wound he can see on her side. Dark doe eyes and long, wavy hair soften a mouth that he suddenly wants to--
She touches one of the stones. "You know, all the time I've spent in these places, I never knew-- How do you?" She pauses. "Who the hell are you?"
He climbs to his feet, dusts off his clothes and tucks his gun back into his jeans. There's a thousand reasons to leave, to lie; they rise to his lips and fall silent. She might be one of the Demon's. She might one of any other on a long list of nasty things trying to stop him. No human could've caught that knife, but she did. He should be dead, but he's not. He knows he can't trust her, but seeing her stand there, taut as a bowstring and staring around the cemetery like a trapped animal, he finds himself doing exactly that.
"Dean." He says. "And you?"
She eyes his hand warily. "I'm Faith."
"Well, Faith." Dean smiles and surveys the graveyard. They've got a lot of work to do, and the moon is already high above them, casting long shadows on the ground. "You as good with a shovel as you are with a knife?"
~
Author: Krisomniac
Rating, Warning, Pairing: R, Dean/Faith, BtVS/SPN crossover
Disclaimer: Neither Faith nor Dean is mine, but a girl can dream, can't she?
Summary: Dean picks up an unlikely stranger on the way to California
Author's Note: Written for thistlerose on the occasion of her birthday… and it totally spiraled out of control. A thousand thanks to medicinal_mirth for the beta. All mistakes left are mine.(3600 words, part one)
I could have anything. Anyone…
I could ride you at a gallop until your legs buckled
And your eyes rolled up.
I've got muscles you've never even dreamed of
I could squeeze you 'til you popped
Like warm champagne
And you'd beg me to hurt you just a little bit more
Faith, episode 4x16
People in Stone Houses
Dean rolls over, slow-drags his arm across his eyes. Half-asleep, he listens to the noises of other people's lives-- showers running, cars starting, morning news-- through the paper-thin walls of the motel.
The sun is up long before he pushes himself off the stiff, coil mattress and stretches in front of the long mirror on the back of the bathroom door.
He looks the same; same skin, same stomach, same hair. His reflection doesn't show the weeks of wear, the hours of waiting and indecision, worry and useless speculation that lie heavy on his shoulders. He turns and leans against it, cool glass sending shivers up his spine.
Shower. Shave. Coffee. Car.
He'll do them one at a time. Then get in the car and go, forgetting this town the moment it disappears in the rearview; he's not even sure what it's called, other than Rest Stop a Full Day's Drive from New Orleans.
One foot in front of the other, one endless stretch of blacktop, one anonymous motel. No calls, no plans, another day will pass in silence.
Dean grabs a paper out of habit, to fill the time until the caffeine hits his blood, to deflect conversation from the other travelers sitting at the counter. He flips past the headlines and special interest, skims the obituaries, and sips his drink. The interesting stories usually start somewhere small and hidden, buried on the bottom of page seven.
His hair is still damp from the shower, droplets of water cling to his collar, and as he reads, he absently scratches the back of his neck. The local schoolboard is cleaning up after a recent fire. A house was burgled, nothing stolen but the front door; juvenile prank suspected. One county over, there has been a rash of missing cats, all black. Dean searches for patterns in the news, fitting the pieces together like a puzzle made of glass. His coffee gets cold on the counter.
It's not even a story, just a community announcement that the midnight vigil for the Patterson children will be held in three day's time, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the orphanage fire.
He chews his pen thoughtfully and glances at the date on top of the page. October 26. He has a few days to spare and is tired of feeling useless. His phone is silent, has been for longer than he cares to think about. What the hell, he figures, it's always a good time to kill something.
~
She's been on the road for weeks; well, thirteen days at least. Thirteen days and thirteen demons between Chicago and wherever the hell she is now. No more than thirteen dollars left of the money she stole off the first one she killed, and she suspects she knows without counting, exactly how many crows are sitting in the road, watching her approach with their dark, greedy eyes.
Thirteen. It would be an ill omen if she believed in that shit.
Faith snorts and accelerates, scattering the flock in a cloud of black feathers over the dusty road. All she believes in is a full tank of gas and an open road, and the needle has been hovering over empty for about fifty miles now. She pulls into the first station she finds, the wheels of the Ford she stole back in Ohio sending pebbles skittering across the lot.
One glance in the mirror is enough to tell her that she needs to find someplace to crash tonight. There are deep shadows under her eyes, and she pulls her hair down to cover the bruises around her neck. Her clothes need washing and she's out of smokes, but she winks at her reflection and pastes a smile on her face, adjusts her bra and climbs out of the car.
As long as the attendants are male, gas and a bit of food shouldn't be a problem. She might even be able to find someplace to spend the night, she thinks as she fingers the few crumpled notes tucked into the back pocket of her jeans.
"Hey, boys," she says, as the bell over the door jingles to announce her entrance.
~
Dean unscrews the Impala's gas cap and tucks the nozzle in. He leans against the trunk and looks out down Main Street. It's less a town than a few clapboard buildings set up against the clear blue sky. The earth is red and dusty, and each rock has a story to tell.
He takes a deep breath, maybe the first since he left New Orleans, chased by the kind of ghosts that can't be driven away with anything as simple as rock salt. The pump clicks off, and Dean goes inside to pay with his latest stolen cards. Sean Kelley, he reminds himself quickly.
"--shoulda seen her, whew boy, ass like a drum."
"Betcha she's a tomcat in the sack, eh Davey?"
"Guess we'll find out." The guy called Davey spits his chaw into a cup. "She won't last the night up at the old Patterson place. Yeah?" He looks up at Dean. "Whatcha want?"
Dean pays and on the way out follows a hollow clanging sound around to the back of the station. He weaves his way between several rusted out trucks and piles of junk parts on the ground.
Sitting on one of the old tractor tires is a boy about thirteen years old. He's the younger version of the guy, Davey, in the station, clothes too big for his beanpole frame, sandy brown hair falling in his eyes. He brushes it away with a gesture so reminiscent of Sam--
Sometimes Dean can almost forget. Other times it hits him like a punch to the stomach, and for a moment he can hardly breathe.
He clears his throat and the kid looks up.
"What's wrong with it?" Dean asks, inclining his head towards the rifle the kid is knocking against the ground.
"It don't shoot right," he tells Dean, squinting in the sun. "Somethin's jammed."
"Here, let me see."
It's a beautiful gun that's fallen on hard times. Heavy, solid construction, the wood is scratched and dinged. Dirt and stones are stuck in the grooves and joints. He suspects in the mechanism as well. "You know this is a classic?" He takes a seat next to the boy and hands the rifle reverently back. "It's a Winchester."
"Well, it don't work."
"Is it yours?"
"Yeah."
"You ever clean it?"
"Naw."
Dean almost laughs. "You know, if my dad ever--" He stops and starts again. "Anyway let me show you how."
Slowly, they take the gun apart, and Dean finds a small pebble lodged in the firing mechanism. He goes back to the car for oil and a rag, and shows the boy how to keep each piece in working order, explaining its purpose as he goes. He rubs the wood in even circles until the dust is gone and what's left of the original varnish shines through. He doesn't know how long they sit there, or even what the kid's name is, but he finds the tension and worry of the last few weeks slipping away with each methodical action.
When they're done, he hands the rifle over.
"Thanks, mister. Hey, what's your name?"
"Dean."
"I'm Tim." He holds out one grubby hand.
They walk back to Dean's car. "Hey, Tim, you mind showing me how to get to the Patterson place?"
Tim considers for a moment. "Don't go there."
"Why not?"
"My Brother dare you to go there? He dares me when he's mad. I never actually spent the night inside."
"Is his name Davey?"
"Yeah."
"Why don't you stay?"
Tim scratches his nose. "All them kids died there, way before I was born. It's haunted."
~
"Great." Faith kicks at some loose stones in the weedy drive and looks up at the burned out shell of a house. The guy at the gas station wasn't entirely wrong; no one was here and it might've been a nice place to stay -- a hundred years ago. She can still see the skeleton of a huge mansion, but crumbling chimneys are all that remain of most of the outer towers and wings. The roof over the main house, where there still is a roof, sags downwards and all the windows are boarded up or broken. Still, shelter is shelter, and Faith isn't about to go crawling back to his pimply face.
She climbs the worn front steps and slips inside the partially open door.
The front room has broken bits of furniture in the corners and graffiti on the walls. Dust and cobwebs cover every surface and dangle from the ceiling, catching the late afternoon light in their translucent strands. They shift and turn in an unseen breeze.
The rooms farther into the house are dim to dark, and Faith coughs softly as her steps kick up old dirt. So far, she's found a large dining room, library devoid of books, and several empty offices whose old, oak desks were too heavy to move. Some of the walls are charred and black, but the smell of burning wood has long since drifted away.
Gingerly, she climbs the stairs, stepping over loose and missing boards.
Once, with a sudden pang, she thinks of her bed at Chateau Buffy, springy mattress, blankets and more pillows than she ever-- But with it, come the memories of communal meals, pre-pubescent girls, drills and lessons, books and schedules, fake smiles and fucking cumbaya. She kicks her way into a locked room upstairs and figures she's better off here.
Here there's a bed where no one will wake her up, in a room that hasn't seen a warm body in nearly fifty years. The sheets may be disintegrating and the pillows long gone, but for tonight, she's willing to call it home.
She knocks the boards out of the window and listens as the wood splinters on the ground below. The landscape outside is empty and lonely and burning fiery red-orange as the sun sinks below the horizon. The only sound is a distant wind over hills of stone.
And soft, clicking footsteps downstairs.
Faith holds her breath, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling as slayer senses take control. She has only one stake in one pocket of her leather jacket and a long silver blade sheathed at her waist, but her entire body becomes a tightly coiled weapon, ready to spring.
Silently, she slinks back into the hallway, keeping to the shadows, ears perked for any sound.
The house settles and groans around her, and she hears it climbing the stairs, getting closer. Whatever it is, it knows she's here. It's light and lithe, and it's not afraid.
Her nostrils flair in anticipation as the last of the sun disappears from the horizon, leaving the house in dusky darkness.
Faith edges to the corner of the wall at the top of the stairs. She closes her hand around the hilt of her blade and waits.
It's only a step or two away.
"Come out and play," she hisses, voice low as she spins around the corner.
"Meow?"
She looks down at a small black cat winding its way between her legs and laughs out loud.
~
By nigthfall, Dean's research is done, and he has reliable directions up to the old Patterson place. He pulls up to the house, and though it's dark, he recognizes it from the pictures in the news after the fire. It burned for three days before fire fighters were able to put out the blaze. Flames roared up the stairways and into the dorms. It started at night and afterwards, no one could figure out what set it off.
Asleep in their beds, so many of the children never had a chance.
They'd been buried in a cemetery behind the house, and the survivors come back every year to hold a candlelight vigil. Fifty years later, he thinks, it's time for them to rest.
But he isn't the only person here.
"Huh." Dean peers into the car, recalling the conversation he overheard in the gas station only a few hours before. She won't last the night up at the old Patterson place She, whoever she is, didn't leave… and it's after dark. "Shit," he whispers. There's enough spirit activity-- his EMF meter has been humming for the last mile-- that the last thing he needs is some teenage girl getting in the way. Then again--
Dean's thoughts are interrupted by the sound of shattering glass as a large chunk of table flies through one of the few remaining downstairs windows. It crashes on the weedy and overgrown lawn with a huge splintering of wood.
Dean runs to the front door, but it's shut tight and no amount of kicking or firing at the handle loosens it at all. He jumps the railing and lands in the garden. There's a pipe next to the window, the one the table came through, and he scrambles up, hoisting himself in, careful of the broken glass.
He drops down to the floor, shotgun and flashlight raised, and surveys the room quickly.
Long spider webs trail from the ceiling and moldings on the walls. A large fireplace sits cold at one end of the hall, and shards of furniture line the walls. The sounds of a fight echo from deeper in the dark house. Dean takes a deep breath and jogs across the room. Halfway, he sees the shimmer of a spirit out the corner of his eye. It's small and translucent, the form of a child playing. Its movements are erratic but determined and it grins as it approaches.
I found you, the air whispers all around him.
Hide and seek.
He cocks the gun, firing without hesitation, and the ghost child breaks into a thousand pieces of shimmering light.
The sound attracts more of them, drifting down the staircases and through the walls. They're all different sizes and ages, all burned almost beyond recognition, all wearing the same eerily delighted grin. Dean runs for the door on the far side of the room.
"--squatters rights, you little bastards!" There's a girl shouting in the next room, and the sound of furniture being hurled against the walls.
He has no time to think or plan, only react, and the sounds of the world give way to the rush of blood in his ears.
Dean kicks in the door.
~
Faith is getting pissed. Vampires, she can stake with her eyes closed, even out gunned and out numbered, even trapped in a house that creaks and crumbles and threatens to collapse all around her. Demons, she owns. Killing demons is her art, sliver blade slicing through the air, teasing them, taunting them, finishing them with a final stab through the heart. She understands enemies with blood she can spill and bones she can break and fucking rules she can use against them.
These spirit children are something else entirely. They arrived after sunset, chasing the cat and dancing just out of her reach, and it doesn’t matter how fast she moves; her fists make contact with nothing but cold, clammy air.
Their fists make contact with her face and her side, her arms and legs, their smiles flickering in and out of sight. They hurl what little furniture is left in the building, but when she throws it back, it passes harmlessly through their shimmering forms.
They don't attack at once-- like cats playing with a particularly interesting toy, they circle and swipe, herd her from room to room. She tries every door and window, but the spirits hold them against her. She feels the sticky-sweet warmth of blood on her shirt where an old nail on of the chairs caught her just over the ribs.
Her lungs burn and muscles ache, so she ducks their blows and waits. Wait them out. Can't get tired. Can't give up. Can't give in.
She hears the shot, and her whole body tenses. The children look up, and a brief burst of panic crosses their disfigured faces, then half their number pass through the wall towards the sound. Fatigue forgotten, Faith leaps over the bench the others are sliding across the room and listens to the sound of approaching footsteps. She grins; ghosts don't have feet and they don't look pleased about the new arrival.
The newcomer is either someone who can help or someone she can fight, and either way it's a promising change. So when he yells--
"Down!"
She drops to the floor.
~
He only has an instant to marvel at the speed with which she responds, before Dean rains rock salt on the spirits in the room. Each splits into shining waves, spirals out and pulls itself back together again. Dean presses his way to middle of the swarm, until he's standing over the girl on the floor. He reaches down with one hand to lift her up. Gun in the other, he blasts two of the children away.
"Got it," she says, ignoring his hand and springing to her feet at his back.
"Know how to use one of these?" He offers her a gun without taking his eyes off the ghosts circling them.
"Sure," she says.
"Then cover me." He reloads.
~
The next few minutes are a dance, a fucking tango of whirling bodies and firing weapons, spirits shattering and reforming-- slower with every blast. When Faith ducks, he stands over her; while he reloads, she covers his back.
He tosses her fresh bullets the moment before she runs out. She jumps in front of him and braces herself to take a hurling desk; it shatters against her shoulder.
He whistles low for just a moment before the next spirit takes the attack.
Then it's blazing guns, one in each hand and-- who the hell is this guy, Faith wonders as three more ghosts disappear into mist. The circle is broken.
"Over here," he shouts, dragging her by the arm to the doorway at the back of the room.
She almost flinches away from his hand. "But that's a--" He drags her through it anyway. "Kitchen."
The spirits slam the door behind them.
~
"Shit," Dean growls. He can see the back of the house, windows like shining beacons in its charred shell. Between the two of them and the window, is a wall of children, some more lucent than others, all smiling cruelly. This is it. His heart steadies its racing beat. In the pause before the final storm, everything is perfectly still and perfectly clear. He feels, for the first time in weeks, utterly and completely alive.
He cocks his gun, it's familiar shick, click sounding in the sudden silence.
"Ready?" He grins.
"Oh yeah." She mirrors the expression. They whirl together and fire.
Dean hasn't said ten words to this girl, doesn't know her name, her story, and yet-- And yet she fits herself seamlessly into that place by his side, the aching, empty place he'd tried to forget was there at all, the place where Dad should be, where Sam should be. He fires.
He kills them again and again, acutely aware of her body pressed against his, tighter with each recoil of her gun. Heat rolls off her, and he feels her chest heave with every breath. His heart is pounding again, a low thrum that has nothing to do with fear. A spirit soars towards them and he pulls the trigger, watches it explode.
By the time he hears the high-pitch whisper of knife blade through air, it's already too late.
~
Faith moves a moment before her mind registers the sound. Her hand is closed around the handle before realizes what it is.
The cleaver is only an inch from his face.
"Guess we're even," he says, recovering quickly and leveling his shotgun at a cluster of spirits. The buckshot scatters them. "That iron?" he asks, running his finger along the edge of the rusty blade and touching it to his tongue.
He inclines his head towards the back door, where the ghosts are thickest.
She throws the knife, end over end, and it plunges deep into the wood. The spirits glide away from it, their faint outlines flickering angrily.
"Now!" he shouts, and together they break for the door.
~
Panting, they lay sprawled on the grass, a tangle of limbs and bruises, pounding hearts and breathless relief. Dean almost bursts out laughing.
"Why don't they come after us?" She props herself up on her elbows.
He points at the small, weather-worn headstones all around them. "They can't," he explains. "Consecrated ground."
"Huh." She clambers to her feet, wincing, and Dean takes the opportunity to study her from the ground. Small and tight, black leather and faint scent of smoke, she holds herself upright despite the wound he can see on her side. Dark doe eyes and long, wavy hair soften a mouth that he suddenly wants to--
She touches one of the stones. "You know, all the time I've spent in these places, I never knew-- How do you?" She pauses. "Who the hell are you?"
He climbs to his feet, dusts off his clothes and tucks his gun back into his jeans. There's a thousand reasons to leave, to lie; they rise to his lips and fall silent. She might be one of the Demon's. She might one of any other on a long list of nasty things trying to stop him. No human could've caught that knife, but she did. He should be dead, but he's not. He knows he can't trust her, but seeing her stand there, taut as a bowstring and staring around the cemetery like a trapped animal, he finds himself doing exactly that.
"Dean." He says. "And you?"
She eyes his hand warily. "I'm Faith."
"Well, Faith." Dean smiles and surveys the graveyard. They've got a lot of work to do, and the moon is already high above them, casting long shadows on the ground. "You as good with a shovel as you are with a knife?"
~