Team Hitter: Mini Big Bang fic.
Title: Midnight Creepin's First on Our Minds
Author: karmaschild
Fandom: Leverage (Eliot, Parker, and Hardison) and Supernatural (Dean and Sam Winchester).
Word Count: 4,016
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Eliot's job was to keep his team safe so that's what he would do. Even if they were doing something stupid.
Note: Story written for leverageland's Mini Big Bang. Title taken from Billy Squier's, "Lonely is the Night." Which I listened to on repeat while writing this.
Spoilers: The Grave Danger Job.
***
"I don't think this is a good idea."
Eliot rolled his eyes, glad for the cover of darkness that kept the other two from seeing it. If he had a dollar for every time Hardison muttered that phrase -- or, "I have a bad feeling about this" -- over the last two hours, he'd be an even richer man. The worst part was that he couldn't even disagree. It really was a bad idea. Unfortunately, it was Parker's bad idea and when Parker asked, Hardison jumped. Usually before he fully understood the consequences of the dive.
That was how Eliot wound up mixed up in the whole thing. Once Parker's plan became clear to Hardison, he'd called for reinforcements. Normally, Eliot would be pleased to sit back and watch the hacker swing from the noose of his own making, but after everything that had happened... he found himself agreeing to come along. He hadn't been there when he was needed at the funeral home and Hardison almost died as a result.
If he thinks about it, he can still hear the panic that edged even Nate's voice over the comm when everything went south and Eliot was too far away to get to them. He pretended to be angry with Nate over the situation at the time, but deep down he knew that he'd been the one to let the team down. Nate told him to stay behind, sure, but he knew he should be there with them and instead he listened to Nate rather than his gut instinct.
"This is a great idea," Parker's voice was as patient as Eliot ever heard it. It was the tone she used when explaining why her insane ideas made perfect sense. To her. "You have to face your fears. Walk right up to them and punch them in the face. Right, Eliot?"
Back up. He was there just in case. Just in case of what, he wasn't entirely sure, but Eliot's job was to keep his team safe so that's what he would do. Even if they were doing something stupid. He looked up from the bag he was holding. His gear for the night.
"Don't bring me into this. I am not getting involved. I'm here strictly as backup." He hefted the bag's strap over one shoulder, handed a flashlight to Parker, and slipped another into his belt. "Let's just get this over with before I change my mind."
"... bad feeling about this," Eliot heard Hardison mutter as they turned and walked across the small parking lot. Gravel crunched under their feet as they made their way to the seven foot stone wall that surrounded the cemetery. Eliot boosted Parker easily over the wall and seconds later, a rope uncoiled over the top from the other side.
"You're up, man." Eliot tipped a nod at the rope and looked back at Hardison expectantly. To say that the other man did not look enthused would have been an understatement of epic proportions. "Let's go."
Hardison took hold of the rope and began his less than graceful ascent. Even with Eliot's assistance, it took a while. The combination squawk-thump from the other side of the wall once he was over told Eliot it hadn't ended any prettier than it began. He shook his head and shimmied up the rope and over the wall in time to see Parker picking Hardison up and helping him dust off.
"Good job, Humpty Dumpty. Can we get moving, already?"
Parker's brilliant plan to cure Hardison of his newly acquired fear of graveyards was to spend a night in one. Personally, Eliot thought it was way too soon to be doing anything of the sort, but as much as the team counted on him to pry them out of a jam once it had occurred, they sure as hell didn't want to listen to his advice beforehand. So, he kept his opinion to himself and followed along, awaiting the inevitable moment when it would all go horribly wrong.
The cemetery she picked for the job was a problem, too. All the things that made it the perfect, safe location for the exercise -- its remoteness, its age, the lack of street traffic -- were all the things that were turning the already twitchy hacker into a paranoid mess. Hardison jumped at every sound and every shadow between the wall and the back of the cemetery. The worn, chipped headstones and low hanging oak branches made the place look like a set right out of a monster movie. Eliot could see this night taking a determined downward spiral starting right about... now.
The cone of light from Eliot's flashlight mixed with Parker's and lit their path. Old, dry leaves crunched underfoot and the occasional twig snap made Hardison flinch. He sighed to himself. Vegas money was on the computer genius coming out of this even more damaged than he went into it. At which point, Eliot was going to hand them both off to Sophie and be done with it.
"Not far now!" Parker chirped happily, seemingly completely at ease in the old bone yard. "There's a neat looking mausoleum we can bunker down next to that'll keep the wind off."
"A mausoleum? Seriously?" Hardison's voice was high with disbelief. "That sounds like a great place to hang out to you?"
"Keep it down," Eliot warned in a growl. "There might be a night watchman around."
"Yeah, so punch him already," the hacker returned irritably.
"I'm not gonna punch out some poor guy who's just doing his job, Hardison. If we get caught, we're leaving." Damned it he didn't see Hardison light up just a little bit at that. Eliot actually felt bad for the guy. If Hardison wanted to take the easy way out, he wouldn't even tease him about it. This once.
"So be quiet!" Parker glared at them both. She must have noticed the sudden enthusiasm, too.
The sound of voices on the wind made Eliot hesitate a step. Seconds later, the sound of a shotgun being fired had him moving again. He grabbed a handful of both Parker and Hardison's jackets and pulled them down behind a couple of headstones for cover.
"Stay here," he hissed at them and then moved out from behind the stone, moving across the dark cemetery in a crouch, the headstones providing a little cover.
The voices became more clear as he got closer to the back of the cemetery. The first thing he heard clearly was an anxious voice calling, "Hurry, Sam!" And then a muffled reply. Another shotgun blast followed, punctuated by some colorful cursing.
Eliot knelt behind a grave stone and tried to assess the situation. Even seeing it, it didn't make much sense. What he saw was a man standing over a partially dug grave. Piles of dirt ringed the hole in the ground, with a shovel standing where it had been thrust into the loose earth. Inside the grave was another man, still digging. The man standing over the grave was holding a shotgun and, at first, Eliot wondered if he wasn’t forcing the other man to dig. It wouldn't have been his first time witnessing a man being forced to dig his own grave. Hell, he'd been on the receiving end at least once. Upon second inspection, it became clear that the man standing over the grave wasn't pointing the shotgun at the digger. He was providing cover.
Cover from what?
"What's going on?" Parker's voice whispered from Eliot's left. He glanced over to see her huddled behind the neighboring headstone, peering out at the two men with open curiosity. Beside her, Hardison just looked further traumatized.
Eliot growled at her in wordless irritation before the sound of a shell being racked into the shotgun made him look up. The gunman was aiming at a woman Eliot hadn't seen there before. How she managed to join the party without him seeing her was a mystery. He tensed for action, but knew it was a futile effort. He was too far away and the gunman was already squeezing the trigger. The shot went off and the woman... she vanished. Dissolved into so much thin air.
"Little faster, dude." The gunman called to his partner in the grave as he knelt to retrieve more ammo from a bag at his feet. He ejected the spent shells and loaded in new ones, before he was suddenly lifted off his feet. Eliot saw the shotgun go flying in one direction while the man went another.
"Dean!" A shaggy head popped up over the edge of the grave, took in the sight, and disappeared again. "Hang on!"
The woman appeared again. She hovered over the gunman, managing to look pretty menacing in spite of her near translucence and the fact that she had to be sixty years old, if she was a day.
"Stay here!" He hissed again, almost completely certain it would do no good, but he had to try. He bolted out from cover and ran at the shotgun lying out of the gunman's reach. He dove, snatching the gun up and working the pump action as he rolled into a crouch and fired. The woman disappeared again. Across the way, the gunman was staring at him with a baffled expression.
"Reader's Digest version?" Eliot asked, pumping the second shot into the chamber. He watched the other man scramble to his feet and pull a another gun from the bag on the ground.
"That's a ghost. It wants us dead. Now it wants you dead, too. Keep shooting it." The man tossed Eliot another couple of shells, which he caught and pocketed with a nod.
Ghost. Okay.
"Who are you talking to?" The other man asked as looked up out of the grave. He blinked at Eliot. "Wha..?"
"C'mon, Sammy! We don't have all night." The other man barked, moving to stand with his back to Eliot. "Get with the burning, already!"
"Almost got it. Two minutes." He disappeared back into the grave just as the ghost appeared once more, taking a swing at both Eliot and the other gunman with a hand that looked more like a claw than a human appendage.
Eliot ignored the hand and aimed for the head, confident now that he wouldn't be injuring anything living. The ghost vanished once more with a wail of fury and the temperature around Eliot dropped. He shivered underneath his coat.
"She's pissed now," the man behind him commented.
"Good for her," Eliot muttered, emptying the spent shells and loading the shotgun once again. The sound of footsteps made him look up, and he cursed. "Don't shoot the blonde."
"Wha?" The other man turned to look as Parker ran out from her hiding place, dropped into a baseball slide across the loose dirt, and snatched up the spare shovel as she slid into the grave. A masculine yelp of confusion followed her landing and then Eliot heard Parker complain, "You dig too slow."
"That one belong to you?" The man behind Eliot asked, amused and annoyed.
Eliot watched double the amount of dirt begin to fly out of the grave. "Nope. She's otherwise spoken for." Not that she seemed to be entirely aware of it.
A gunshot and a yell of triumph from behind him ended the conversation. The cold was unreal and the ghost kept popping up more and more rapidly. How was it so easy to think of the damn thing as a ghost, anyway? His life was weird.
"Eliot!"
He groaned at the sound of his name, looking over to see Hardison inching closer to them. "Damnit, Hardison! What part of 'stay here' was unclear?"
"Parker didn't stay." Came the surly reply. Sometimes? He really missed working alone.
"Seriously?" The voice of the man behind Eliot was bordering on outraged. "What is this, a slumber party? How many people do you have out here?"
All at once, they saw it appear on the edge of the grave, reaching down toward the two diggers inside. Hardison dove to the ground while Eliot and the other man both turned, aimed, and fired a double blast into the apparition. Seconds later, a wooden thunk and a cracking sound echoed from inside the grave.
"Got it!" Two shovels were tossed up onto the pile of dirt and Parker scrambled out along with the other man who was freaking enormous. Eliot looked up and up at the guy. Damn.
"Now what?" Parker asked him, looking down into the open grave. Hardison, still on the ground, peeked over into the hole and then jerked away, making gagging noises.
"Burn it, so we can get out of here." Eliot's backup declared. Eliot loaded another couple shells, just in case.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the gravediggers both grab for a bag laid out beside the hole in the ground. The tall man came up with a box of something, while Parker emerged victoriously holding a can of lighter fluid. They glanced at each other, then began to pour the contents into the open grave. A match hissed and then flames erupted inside.
"Oooh!" Parker grinned, watching the fire spread over the casket and the bones inside. By the firelight, Eliot could see the taller man giving her a truly baffled look.
"There is something wrong with you," Eliot commented, unable to refrain from stating the painfully obvious.
The ghost appeared one more time and as Eliot raised the shotgun, he felt a hand on his arm. "Wait," the other man said.
Seconds later, the ghost gave an eerie wail and then disappeared in a burst of flame. The temperature returned to normal and the graveyard went silent. Eliot slowly lowered the shotgun. "Is that it?"
"It's all over but completing the burning and the filling in the grave." The other gunman lowered his weapon and extended his hand to Eliot. "Dean. That's my brother, Sam. Appreciate the help." He glanced over at Parker and Hardison. "Weird as it was."
"Eliot." He answered as he shook Dean's hand, then handed back the shotgun. "Don't mention it."
Really. Don't.
Everyone tensed as Hardison suddenly shot up from the ground, stood ramrod straight, and shouted, "See that? That right there? Nothing is safe about graveyards. Nothing. The living don't belong in graveyards. My phobia? Perfectly justified, thank you very much. I'm leaving."
With that, he turned and marched back the way they came. Eliot glanced at Parker who blinked back owlishly at him. "Eliot," she began, her tone pleading.
"What'd I say?" He pointed a finger at her, punctuating each word with a jab of the finger into the air. "Not. Getting. Involved." Without looking, he pointed the finger at Hardison's retreating back. "This was your idea. You fix it."
Parker flung the lighter fluid can down and stomped around the grave, past Eliot, muttering all the while. "How was I supposed to know some dumb guys were digging up some dumb grave with some dumb ghost in it? How is that my fault?"
Eliot watched her walk away, then turned back to Dean and Sam. Both were staring after her with equal puzzled expressions. Finally, Sam looked over at Eliot and gave an apologetic shrug. "Err, sorry? About your friends."
"You kidding me? You may have just saved me from spending an entire night in this graveyard watching those two make awkward small talk." Eliot grinned. "I'd kiss you if you weren't covered in grave dirt."
Dean burst into laughter. "I think we'll pass on the kissing, thanks. Your gratitude is duly noted."
"I'd better go make sure she doesn't damage him any further. Good luck with your..." He waved a hand to indicate the grave and everything around it. "Ghost stuff."
"Thanks. See ya 'round." The brothers waved and Eliot turned to follow after Parker and Hardison. This was still not the strangest night of his life, but he had to admit, it cracked the top ten.
***
The next morning, sunlight trickled in through the nearly closed curtains over the motel window. A beam of light found its way across Dean's face, causing him to shift in his sleep, gradually swimming his way up to consciousness. He was still not entirely awake when he felt himself being watched. The hand under his pillow tightened on the demon knife and he snapped his eyes open, sitting bolt upright in bed with the knife at the ready.
Across the room, a petite blond woman sat cross-legged on the table. Sam's laptop had been moved to the side to make room. She stared at him, unblinking, while he struggled to put a name with the face he'd seen only briefly the night before.
"Parker?" She nodded. "What the hell? How'd you get in here?"
"Through the door," she answered as if it should be perfectly obvious. Dean glanced at the door in question and found nothing amiss. Yet, somehow, she'd managed to sneak in without him or his brother hearing a thing. He looked over at the other bed and saw Sam still blissfully sacked out under the sheets. Lucky bastard.
"Okay, then." He rubbed his face with his free hand. "Let's try... why are you here?"
"How did you know there'd be a ghost there?"
"Huh?" He stared. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, are there ghosts in all the graves, or just some of them? If it's just some, how do you know which ones?" She looked agitated. "Do you have to dig them up to tell?"
"No. We don't go around just randomly digging up graves to see what's in them." Dean could hear his brother stirring at the sound of voices and hoped Sam hurried up with the waking. He could use some help with this one. "We're hunters. We track monsters and get rid of them. We knew there was a ghost here because we saw the signs. She was hurting people."
"So, ghosts are only bad people?" She actually kind of looked happy at that. He felt a little bad having to ruin it for her.
"No, not always. A lot of times they're just regular people who happened to die in... unfortunate ways." Her face fell and Dean looked away. Sam was sitting up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and looking even more confused than was usual for this early in the day.
"Where'd she come from?" Sam asked, giving Dean a puzzled look.
"The door," Dean answered, not at all helpfully. Hey, it was the answer he got when he asked. Sam would have to deal.
They both looked over at Parker who was fidgeting now and the rickety old table swayed a little with the motion. She plucked at the cuff of her sleeve, not looking up at them. "What kind of unfortunate ways? What if it was an accident? Will they be a ghost then?"
"Not always," Sam answered, catching on to the theme of the conversation. "Most ghosts are created by violent deaths. Murder, suicide, that sort of thing. It's not always the case, though. People die every day in horrible ways and never manifest as spirits."
"We don't know what causes it. Luck of the draw kinda thing, maybe." Dean shrugged. it was easier for him not to consider the why's of the business. A man could drive himself insane trying to figure it all out. A knock on the door interrupted anything else that he might have said on the subject and all three heads turned to look.
"Hold that thought," Dean told her as he climbed out of his bed and went to the door. Peeking through the peephole, he saw Parker's friend Eliot standing outside. "Looks like the slumber party's moved to our place, Sam." Dean pulled the door open. "You lose something?"
"Yeah, kinda." Eliot hefted a cardboard carrier with two large coffees inside and handed it to Dean. "Trade ya."
Dean took the coffee and stepped aside, letting Eliot in past him. Eliot looked over to Parker, still perched on the table. "I'm pretty sure we discussed breaking into strangers motel rooms in the middle of the night..."
She shook her head. "No, we didn't."
"Yeah, well we're gonna." Eliot extended a hand. "C'mon. Let these guys sleep. I'll buy you breakfast."
"No, I can't!" She hopped down off the table and stomped over to Eliot. Dean stepped back, giving her plenty of space. She didn't look particularly dangerous, but there was something about her that made him want to get out of her way.
"Why not?" Dean watched Eliot's forehead crinkle up in confusion. He sat down beside Sam and offered a coffee to his brother, before picking up the second one for himself. Somehow, they'd lost all control of their motel room and it just seemed simpler to ride out the crazy than to fight it.
"Because!" Parker hit Eliot's chest with an open palm that made a solid thwack and had Dean wincing in sympathy. Girl had an arm on her. Abruptly, she pointed at Dean and Sam, and both brothers tensed. "Because, they know things! They know things we need to know about ghosts and dead people."
Eliot's hands were held up, palms out in the universally recognized gesture of surrender. "Why do we need to know about ghosts and dead people?"
You had to admire the guy's composure, Dean thought. Eliot was handling the situation with all the calm of a seasoned bomb squad tech defusing a briefcase bomb. There was a whole lot of explosive crazy wrapped up in that little package.
"You know why!" Another thwack. "If ghosts are made because somebody died badly, well... you've seen a lot of that and they could come after you. I've seen... I've seen one and, I don't want him to come after me. I don't wanna have to dig him up and burn him."
"Don't think that's gonna be a problem, Parker." Eliot lowered his hands slowly and Dean held his breath as they came into contact with the blonde's tense shoulders. Don't cut the red wire...
"It could. You don't know why it happens. They don't even know." Parker rubbed the heels of her hands against her eyes. "What if it does?"
"Then we'll fix it. I'll fix it. That's my job, right?" He shook her gently until she looked at him and he gave her a crooked grin. "You trust me, don't you?"
"Yeah..."
"Good." He tugged her in for a quick hug that he would absolutely deny ever having initiated. "Problem solved."
Dean smirked when Eliot glanced over and him and he raised his coffee in salute. "If you two are done, I'd really like to get a shower and some clothes on."
Hey, he was all for family togetherness, but they could do it somewhere other than his motel room, right? Sam was looking at them bemused and slightly misty eyed, the big girl. Definitely time to end the chick flick before his little brother cast doubt on the Winchester manliness by crying or something.
Eliot nodded, leaving one arm looped around Parker's shoulders as he guided her to the door. "If you two can get dressed and moving in a reasonable amount of time, breakfast is on me."
"Oh yeah?" Free food? Dean was so there. "What's the catch?"
"Just might have to answer a few professional questions while we eat." Dean figured he knew what those questions would be. A person couldn't see the sort of thing Eliot and Parker had last night without thinking about the what if's. What if it happened again? How would they be prepared?
"Yeah, I think we can do that." He glanced at his brother who gave an affirmative nod.
"Alright. Eddie's Grill down the street. See you in twenty?" Eliot waited for their agreement before he steered Parker out the door.
Dean looked over at Sam once the door closed behind the two. A beat passed. "Dibs on the first shower."
The ensuing scuffle cost them five minutes.
END
Author: karmaschild
Fandom: Leverage (Eliot, Parker, and Hardison) and Supernatural (Dean and Sam Winchester).
Word Count: 4,016
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Eliot's job was to keep his team safe so that's what he would do. Even if they were doing something stupid.
Note: Story written for leverageland's Mini Big Bang. Title taken from Billy Squier's, "Lonely is the Night." Which I listened to on repeat while writing this.
Spoilers: The Grave Danger Job.
***
"I don't think this is a good idea."
Eliot rolled his eyes, glad for the cover of darkness that kept the other two from seeing it. If he had a dollar for every time Hardison muttered that phrase -- or, "I have a bad feeling about this" -- over the last two hours, he'd be an even richer man. The worst part was that he couldn't even disagree. It really was a bad idea. Unfortunately, it was Parker's bad idea and when Parker asked, Hardison jumped. Usually before he fully understood the consequences of the dive.
That was how Eliot wound up mixed up in the whole thing. Once Parker's plan became clear to Hardison, he'd called for reinforcements. Normally, Eliot would be pleased to sit back and watch the hacker swing from the noose of his own making, but after everything that had happened... he found himself agreeing to come along. He hadn't been there when he was needed at the funeral home and Hardison almost died as a result.
If he thinks about it, he can still hear the panic that edged even Nate's voice over the comm when everything went south and Eliot was too far away to get to them. He pretended to be angry with Nate over the situation at the time, but deep down he knew that he'd been the one to let the team down. Nate told him to stay behind, sure, but he knew he should be there with them and instead he listened to Nate rather than his gut instinct.
"This is a great idea," Parker's voice was as patient as Eliot ever heard it. It was the tone she used when explaining why her insane ideas made perfect sense. To her. "You have to face your fears. Walk right up to them and punch them in the face. Right, Eliot?"
Back up. He was there just in case. Just in case of what, he wasn't entirely sure, but Eliot's job was to keep his team safe so that's what he would do. Even if they were doing something stupid. He looked up from the bag he was holding. His gear for the night.
"Don't bring me into this. I am not getting involved. I'm here strictly as backup." He hefted the bag's strap over one shoulder, handed a flashlight to Parker, and slipped another into his belt. "Let's just get this over with before I change my mind."
"... bad feeling about this," Eliot heard Hardison mutter as they turned and walked across the small parking lot. Gravel crunched under their feet as they made their way to the seven foot stone wall that surrounded the cemetery. Eliot boosted Parker easily over the wall and seconds later, a rope uncoiled over the top from the other side.
"You're up, man." Eliot tipped a nod at the rope and looked back at Hardison expectantly. To say that the other man did not look enthused would have been an understatement of epic proportions. "Let's go."
Hardison took hold of the rope and began his less than graceful ascent. Even with Eliot's assistance, it took a while. The combination squawk-thump from the other side of the wall once he was over told Eliot it hadn't ended any prettier than it began. He shook his head and shimmied up the rope and over the wall in time to see Parker picking Hardison up and helping him dust off.
"Good job, Humpty Dumpty. Can we get moving, already?"
Parker's brilliant plan to cure Hardison of his newly acquired fear of graveyards was to spend a night in one. Personally, Eliot thought it was way too soon to be doing anything of the sort, but as much as the team counted on him to pry them out of a jam once it had occurred, they sure as hell didn't want to listen to his advice beforehand. So, he kept his opinion to himself and followed along, awaiting the inevitable moment when it would all go horribly wrong.
The cemetery she picked for the job was a problem, too. All the things that made it the perfect, safe location for the exercise -- its remoteness, its age, the lack of street traffic -- were all the things that were turning the already twitchy hacker into a paranoid mess. Hardison jumped at every sound and every shadow between the wall and the back of the cemetery. The worn, chipped headstones and low hanging oak branches made the place look like a set right out of a monster movie. Eliot could see this night taking a determined downward spiral starting right about... now.
The cone of light from Eliot's flashlight mixed with Parker's and lit their path. Old, dry leaves crunched underfoot and the occasional twig snap made Hardison flinch. He sighed to himself. Vegas money was on the computer genius coming out of this even more damaged than he went into it. At which point, Eliot was going to hand them both off to Sophie and be done with it.
"Not far now!" Parker chirped happily, seemingly completely at ease in the old bone yard. "There's a neat looking mausoleum we can bunker down next to that'll keep the wind off."
"A mausoleum? Seriously?" Hardison's voice was high with disbelief. "That sounds like a great place to hang out to you?"
"Keep it down," Eliot warned in a growl. "There might be a night watchman around."
"Yeah, so punch him already," the hacker returned irritably.
"I'm not gonna punch out some poor guy who's just doing his job, Hardison. If we get caught, we're leaving." Damned it he didn't see Hardison light up just a little bit at that. Eliot actually felt bad for the guy. If Hardison wanted to take the easy way out, he wouldn't even tease him about it. This once.
"So be quiet!" Parker glared at them both. She must have noticed the sudden enthusiasm, too.
The sound of voices on the wind made Eliot hesitate a step. Seconds later, the sound of a shotgun being fired had him moving again. He grabbed a handful of both Parker and Hardison's jackets and pulled them down behind a couple of headstones for cover.
"Stay here," he hissed at them and then moved out from behind the stone, moving across the dark cemetery in a crouch, the headstones providing a little cover.
The voices became more clear as he got closer to the back of the cemetery. The first thing he heard clearly was an anxious voice calling, "Hurry, Sam!" And then a muffled reply. Another shotgun blast followed, punctuated by some colorful cursing.
Eliot knelt behind a grave stone and tried to assess the situation. Even seeing it, it didn't make much sense. What he saw was a man standing over a partially dug grave. Piles of dirt ringed the hole in the ground, with a shovel standing where it had been thrust into the loose earth. Inside the grave was another man, still digging. The man standing over the grave was holding a shotgun and, at first, Eliot wondered if he wasn’t forcing the other man to dig. It wouldn't have been his first time witnessing a man being forced to dig his own grave. Hell, he'd been on the receiving end at least once. Upon second inspection, it became clear that the man standing over the grave wasn't pointing the shotgun at the digger. He was providing cover.
Cover from what?
"What's going on?" Parker's voice whispered from Eliot's left. He glanced over to see her huddled behind the neighboring headstone, peering out at the two men with open curiosity. Beside her, Hardison just looked further traumatized.
Eliot growled at her in wordless irritation before the sound of a shell being racked into the shotgun made him look up. The gunman was aiming at a woman Eliot hadn't seen there before. How she managed to join the party without him seeing her was a mystery. He tensed for action, but knew it was a futile effort. He was too far away and the gunman was already squeezing the trigger. The shot went off and the woman... she vanished. Dissolved into so much thin air.
"Little faster, dude." The gunman called to his partner in the grave as he knelt to retrieve more ammo from a bag at his feet. He ejected the spent shells and loaded in new ones, before he was suddenly lifted off his feet. Eliot saw the shotgun go flying in one direction while the man went another.
"Dean!" A shaggy head popped up over the edge of the grave, took in the sight, and disappeared again. "Hang on!"
The woman appeared again. She hovered over the gunman, managing to look pretty menacing in spite of her near translucence and the fact that she had to be sixty years old, if she was a day.
"Stay here!" He hissed again, almost completely certain it would do no good, but he had to try. He bolted out from cover and ran at the shotgun lying out of the gunman's reach. He dove, snatching the gun up and working the pump action as he rolled into a crouch and fired. The woman disappeared again. Across the way, the gunman was staring at him with a baffled expression.
"Reader's Digest version?" Eliot asked, pumping the second shot into the chamber. He watched the other man scramble to his feet and pull a another gun from the bag on the ground.
"That's a ghost. It wants us dead. Now it wants you dead, too. Keep shooting it." The man tossed Eliot another couple of shells, which he caught and pocketed with a nod.
Ghost. Okay.
"Who are you talking to?" The other man asked as looked up out of the grave. He blinked at Eliot. "Wha..?"
"C'mon, Sammy! We don't have all night." The other man barked, moving to stand with his back to Eliot. "Get with the burning, already!"
"Almost got it. Two minutes." He disappeared back into the grave just as the ghost appeared once more, taking a swing at both Eliot and the other gunman with a hand that looked more like a claw than a human appendage.
Eliot ignored the hand and aimed for the head, confident now that he wouldn't be injuring anything living. The ghost vanished once more with a wail of fury and the temperature around Eliot dropped. He shivered underneath his coat.
"She's pissed now," the man behind him commented.
"Good for her," Eliot muttered, emptying the spent shells and loading the shotgun once again. The sound of footsteps made him look up, and he cursed. "Don't shoot the blonde."
"Wha?" The other man turned to look as Parker ran out from her hiding place, dropped into a baseball slide across the loose dirt, and snatched up the spare shovel as she slid into the grave. A masculine yelp of confusion followed her landing and then Eliot heard Parker complain, "You dig too slow."
"That one belong to you?" The man behind Eliot asked, amused and annoyed.
Eliot watched double the amount of dirt begin to fly out of the grave. "Nope. She's otherwise spoken for." Not that she seemed to be entirely aware of it.
A gunshot and a yell of triumph from behind him ended the conversation. The cold was unreal and the ghost kept popping up more and more rapidly. How was it so easy to think of the damn thing as a ghost, anyway? His life was weird.
"Eliot!"
He groaned at the sound of his name, looking over to see Hardison inching closer to them. "Damnit, Hardison! What part of 'stay here' was unclear?"
"Parker didn't stay." Came the surly reply. Sometimes? He really missed working alone.
"Seriously?" The voice of the man behind Eliot was bordering on outraged. "What is this, a slumber party? How many people do you have out here?"
All at once, they saw it appear on the edge of the grave, reaching down toward the two diggers inside. Hardison dove to the ground while Eliot and the other man both turned, aimed, and fired a double blast into the apparition. Seconds later, a wooden thunk and a cracking sound echoed from inside the grave.
"Got it!" Two shovels were tossed up onto the pile of dirt and Parker scrambled out along with the other man who was freaking enormous. Eliot looked up and up at the guy. Damn.
"Now what?" Parker asked him, looking down into the open grave. Hardison, still on the ground, peeked over into the hole and then jerked away, making gagging noises.
"Burn it, so we can get out of here." Eliot's backup declared. Eliot loaded another couple shells, just in case.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the gravediggers both grab for a bag laid out beside the hole in the ground. The tall man came up with a box of something, while Parker emerged victoriously holding a can of lighter fluid. They glanced at each other, then began to pour the contents into the open grave. A match hissed and then flames erupted inside.
"Oooh!" Parker grinned, watching the fire spread over the casket and the bones inside. By the firelight, Eliot could see the taller man giving her a truly baffled look.
"There is something wrong with you," Eliot commented, unable to refrain from stating the painfully obvious.
The ghost appeared one more time and as Eliot raised the shotgun, he felt a hand on his arm. "Wait," the other man said.
Seconds later, the ghost gave an eerie wail and then disappeared in a burst of flame. The temperature returned to normal and the graveyard went silent. Eliot slowly lowered the shotgun. "Is that it?"
"It's all over but completing the burning and the filling in the grave." The other gunman lowered his weapon and extended his hand to Eliot. "Dean. That's my brother, Sam. Appreciate the help." He glanced over at Parker and Hardison. "Weird as it was."
"Eliot." He answered as he shook Dean's hand, then handed back the shotgun. "Don't mention it."
Really. Don't.
Everyone tensed as Hardison suddenly shot up from the ground, stood ramrod straight, and shouted, "See that? That right there? Nothing is safe about graveyards. Nothing. The living don't belong in graveyards. My phobia? Perfectly justified, thank you very much. I'm leaving."
With that, he turned and marched back the way they came. Eliot glanced at Parker who blinked back owlishly at him. "Eliot," she began, her tone pleading.
"What'd I say?" He pointed a finger at her, punctuating each word with a jab of the finger into the air. "Not. Getting. Involved." Without looking, he pointed the finger at Hardison's retreating back. "This was your idea. You fix it."
Parker flung the lighter fluid can down and stomped around the grave, past Eliot, muttering all the while. "How was I supposed to know some dumb guys were digging up some dumb grave with some dumb ghost in it? How is that my fault?"
Eliot watched her walk away, then turned back to Dean and Sam. Both were staring after her with equal puzzled expressions. Finally, Sam looked over at Eliot and gave an apologetic shrug. "Err, sorry? About your friends."
"You kidding me? You may have just saved me from spending an entire night in this graveyard watching those two make awkward small talk." Eliot grinned. "I'd kiss you if you weren't covered in grave dirt."
Dean burst into laughter. "I think we'll pass on the kissing, thanks. Your gratitude is duly noted."
"I'd better go make sure she doesn't damage him any further. Good luck with your..." He waved a hand to indicate the grave and everything around it. "Ghost stuff."
"Thanks. See ya 'round." The brothers waved and Eliot turned to follow after Parker and Hardison. This was still not the strangest night of his life, but he had to admit, it cracked the top ten.
***
The next morning, sunlight trickled in through the nearly closed curtains over the motel window. A beam of light found its way across Dean's face, causing him to shift in his sleep, gradually swimming his way up to consciousness. He was still not entirely awake when he felt himself being watched. The hand under his pillow tightened on the demon knife and he snapped his eyes open, sitting bolt upright in bed with the knife at the ready.
Across the room, a petite blond woman sat cross-legged on the table. Sam's laptop had been moved to the side to make room. She stared at him, unblinking, while he struggled to put a name with the face he'd seen only briefly the night before.
"Parker?" She nodded. "What the hell? How'd you get in here?"
"Through the door," she answered as if it should be perfectly obvious. Dean glanced at the door in question and found nothing amiss. Yet, somehow, she'd managed to sneak in without him or his brother hearing a thing. He looked over at the other bed and saw Sam still blissfully sacked out under the sheets. Lucky bastard.
"Okay, then." He rubbed his face with his free hand. "Let's try... why are you here?"
"How did you know there'd be a ghost there?"
"Huh?" He stared. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, are there ghosts in all the graves, or just some of them? If it's just some, how do you know which ones?" She looked agitated. "Do you have to dig them up to tell?"
"No. We don't go around just randomly digging up graves to see what's in them." Dean could hear his brother stirring at the sound of voices and hoped Sam hurried up with the waking. He could use some help with this one. "We're hunters. We track monsters and get rid of them. We knew there was a ghost here because we saw the signs. She was hurting people."
"So, ghosts are only bad people?" She actually kind of looked happy at that. He felt a little bad having to ruin it for her.
"No, not always. A lot of times they're just regular people who happened to die in... unfortunate ways." Her face fell and Dean looked away. Sam was sitting up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and looking even more confused than was usual for this early in the day.
"Where'd she come from?" Sam asked, giving Dean a puzzled look.
"The door," Dean answered, not at all helpfully. Hey, it was the answer he got when he asked. Sam would have to deal.
They both looked over at Parker who was fidgeting now and the rickety old table swayed a little with the motion. She plucked at the cuff of her sleeve, not looking up at them. "What kind of unfortunate ways? What if it was an accident? Will they be a ghost then?"
"Not always," Sam answered, catching on to the theme of the conversation. "Most ghosts are created by violent deaths. Murder, suicide, that sort of thing. It's not always the case, though. People die every day in horrible ways and never manifest as spirits."
"We don't know what causes it. Luck of the draw kinda thing, maybe." Dean shrugged. it was easier for him not to consider the why's of the business. A man could drive himself insane trying to figure it all out. A knock on the door interrupted anything else that he might have said on the subject and all three heads turned to look.
"Hold that thought," Dean told her as he climbed out of his bed and went to the door. Peeking through the peephole, he saw Parker's friend Eliot standing outside. "Looks like the slumber party's moved to our place, Sam." Dean pulled the door open. "You lose something?"
"Yeah, kinda." Eliot hefted a cardboard carrier with two large coffees inside and handed it to Dean. "Trade ya."
Dean took the coffee and stepped aside, letting Eliot in past him. Eliot looked over to Parker, still perched on the table. "I'm pretty sure we discussed breaking into strangers motel rooms in the middle of the night..."
She shook her head. "No, we didn't."
"Yeah, well we're gonna." Eliot extended a hand. "C'mon. Let these guys sleep. I'll buy you breakfast."
"No, I can't!" She hopped down off the table and stomped over to Eliot. Dean stepped back, giving her plenty of space. She didn't look particularly dangerous, but there was something about her that made him want to get out of her way.
"Why not?" Dean watched Eliot's forehead crinkle up in confusion. He sat down beside Sam and offered a coffee to his brother, before picking up the second one for himself. Somehow, they'd lost all control of their motel room and it just seemed simpler to ride out the crazy than to fight it.
"Because!" Parker hit Eliot's chest with an open palm that made a solid thwack and had Dean wincing in sympathy. Girl had an arm on her. Abruptly, she pointed at Dean and Sam, and both brothers tensed. "Because, they know things! They know things we need to know about ghosts and dead people."
Eliot's hands were held up, palms out in the universally recognized gesture of surrender. "Why do we need to know about ghosts and dead people?"
You had to admire the guy's composure, Dean thought. Eliot was handling the situation with all the calm of a seasoned bomb squad tech defusing a briefcase bomb. There was a whole lot of explosive crazy wrapped up in that little package.
"You know why!" Another thwack. "If ghosts are made because somebody died badly, well... you've seen a lot of that and they could come after you. I've seen... I've seen one and, I don't want him to come after me. I don't wanna have to dig him up and burn him."
"Don't think that's gonna be a problem, Parker." Eliot lowered his hands slowly and Dean held his breath as they came into contact with the blonde's tense shoulders. Don't cut the red wire...
"It could. You don't know why it happens. They don't even know." Parker rubbed the heels of her hands against her eyes. "What if it does?"
"Then we'll fix it. I'll fix it. That's my job, right?" He shook her gently until she looked at him and he gave her a crooked grin. "You trust me, don't you?"
"Yeah..."
"Good." He tugged her in for a quick hug that he would absolutely deny ever having initiated. "Problem solved."
Dean smirked when Eliot glanced over and him and he raised his coffee in salute. "If you two are done, I'd really like to get a shower and some clothes on."
Hey, he was all for family togetherness, but they could do it somewhere other than his motel room, right? Sam was looking at them bemused and slightly misty eyed, the big girl. Definitely time to end the chick flick before his little brother cast doubt on the Winchester manliness by crying or something.
Eliot nodded, leaving one arm looped around Parker's shoulders as he guided her to the door. "If you two can get dressed and moving in a reasonable amount of time, breakfast is on me."
"Oh yeah?" Free food? Dean was so there. "What's the catch?"
"Just might have to answer a few professional questions while we eat." Dean figured he knew what those questions would be. A person couldn't see the sort of thing Eliot and Parker had last night without thinking about the what if's. What if it happened again? How would they be prepared?
"Yeah, I think we can do that." He glanced at his brother who gave an affirmative nod.
"Alright. Eddie's Grill down the street. See you in twenty?" Eliot waited for their agreement before he steered Parker out the door.
Dean looked over at Sam once the door closed behind the two. A beat passed. "Dibs on the first shower."
The ensuing scuffle cost them five minutes.
END