Gilmore Girls/Supernatural fic: I'm Not Ifrit of the Dark (2/2)
I'm Not Ifrit of the Dark (2/2)
part 1 (and headers) | part 2
"So, did your new French boyfriend deliver the goods?" Dean asks.
"Oh, yes," Sam says, and smirks.
"Just spare me the details, and tell me what I need to know," Dean says, looking like he's just bitten a lemon. Way too easy.
"So you don't want to know what I had to do to get the information?"
Dean just glares.
"Ah, well, at least I'll always have the memory," Sam says with a sigh.
"Sam!"
Sam gives in. "He said that if we're after demons, there's something weird going on at Chilton, a posh private school a few miles away. And I did some research, and guess what the school shield looks like?"
"The crest you saw in your dream."
"Sounds like it's our place."
*
Luke looks pale and irritable when he walks in the sitting room. He hmmphs loudly, which Rory thinks is totally unnecessary. Yes, she and Dean are making out on the couch, but it's not like there's anything else they could have been doing to help. They've gone through all the books Luke left, even the ones in weird old languages (they just checked the pictures in those - mostly gruesome, nothing that looked relevant).
"Any idea what the demon is?" Rory asks, hoping it's dealing with Paris that's made him go pale, not the prospect of whatever type of demon it is she's conjured up.
"An ifrit."
"Which she called up because-?" Dean asks, just as a red-eyed Paris walks into the room.
"That's none of your business," she hiccups, and wipes her eyes angrily.
"She wanted a boyfriend, and thought the demon would grant her wish," Luke says, and Rory winces. Tact has never been Luke's strong point.
Paris flushes. "It isn't as though I was desperate or anything," she says, then trails off because obviously she was desperate, and everyone in the room knows it. "The spell just went wrong."
Rory can't help herself. "You think?"
"There's no need to be sarcastic."
"There's no need to be stupid either, but apparently that didn't stop you," Rory retorts.
Paris glares, and Rory glares back at her.
Dean nudges her. "Be nice," he whispers. Then louder. "Looks like Rory and I had better head over to Chilton."
Luke pulls out his keys, but Rory shakes her head.
"It'd be better if you stayed here, do more research, just in case it's not a straightforward rescue."
Luke looks as though he wants to protest Dean going along, and any moment her mom's going to come out of the kitchen and doubtless protest Rory going, so she grabs Dean's hand and makes a run for it.
*
Getting into Chilton is easy.
"Impressive," Dean says when it takes Rory less than five seconds to pick the lock on one of the side doors. "And sexy."
Rory doesn't blush. Much.
They head towards the history classroom - the site of Paris' spell casting - running down the corridors as quietly as possible. There isn't likely to be anyone here on a Saturday, but Rory doesn't want to risk getting caught. Explaining away Slayer business is always tricky. Much better to avoid being seen.
They're nearly at the history classroom when their luck runs out.
*
"These places always smell the same," Dean complains. "Too rich and too privileged, with a strong undertone of hormones and stupidity."
Sam snorts, amused. He can't remember Dean ever putting a foot inside a private school before.
The EMF meter is bleeping noisily, but it seems to be random, nothing to go on direction wise. "Anything from your vision that might help?"
Sam closes his eyes. "Yeah," he says, recalling flashes of the vision. "Books, shelves of them. The kid was in a library."
"Damn place can't have any signs?" Dean mutters.
"What's up? Being in a school really spooking you?"
"Yeah, as a matter of fact. I hate schools," Dean says, and stomps off angrily. Sam follows, resigned to dealing with a bad-tempered Dean for the rest of the day. Maybe they can have dinner at the inn this evening - another meal made by Sookie should improve his mood, and Dean Roth's credit card can take it.
It's only because he's distracted and Dean's glued to the EMF meter that they don't hear the footsteps until they round the corner and literally run into-
Wow.
Himself?
Sam skids to a halt and Dean canons into the back of him.
"What the-" he starts, and then just stares. There's the girl from the diner yesterday, the one who stared at him like he was a ghost. And now he can see why, because the guy she's with could be his twin, if he weren't clearly a few years younger.
"Oh," the younger version of himself says, and Sam's got nothing coherent to add to that.
"What are you doing here?" the girl asks. She's eying them both far too keenly for Sam's liking.
"We could ask you the same thing," Sam counters. He puts his shoulders back and tries to look like he's meant to be here.
"I go to school here," the girl says. "So I have a perfect right to be here. What about you?"
Ah, tricky. He needs to get the kids out of here before things get dangerous, but he and Dean haven't actually worked out a cover story for being in the school. They'd thought it would be empty, which Sam now realizing was painfully short-sighted of them. "We're-" Sam starts, struggling to think while he's got a boy with his face staring at him.
"Pest control," Dean says, waving his EMF meter around as though it's obvious.
"Pest control?" Sam's double says, not even trying to hide his disbelief. "Seriously? That's the best you could come up with?"
At any other time, the look of offense on Dean's face would be hilarious. Now, though, they have a boy to rescue, and the added complication of two civilians to deal with.
"Look, it's difficult to explain," Sam starts. "But. Well, the thing is, there's something dangerous going on here, and you really need to leave now, for your own safety.
The girl actually rolls her eyes. "Hunters," she mutters - and what's with that? Does the entire town instantly recognize hunters when they see them, or are he and Dean wearing lapel cards with HUNTERS in block capitals? - then seems to come to a decision. "Are you here for the ifrit?" she asks.
Sam looks at Dean. Dean shrugs his shoulders. "Um, the ifrit?" Sam asks, helplessly, because it's one thing her recognizing hunters, but knowing about ifrits, that's just weird.
"Are you telling me you rushed in here after something and don't even know what you're hunting?" She sounds thoroughly unimpressed.
Dean makes an irritated sound, and Sam kicks him discreetly. Dean coughs, and manages what Sam's certain is an edited version of the reply he wants to give. "We're more than capable of handling whatever we find here. You, though-" he waves his hand towards Rory, with the obvious implication that she isn't.
Her eyes narrow. "Look, we don't have time to argue. I'm going in, I'm dealing with this thing, and I need you two to keep out of my way."
Sam's seriously impressed, he has to say. Whoever she is, she's got no shortage of confidence.
Dean isn't so impressed, apparently. "Don't be an idiot. As though you-"
Sam's look-alike interrupts, probably wisely. "Rory can handle it. Believe me, if anyone can find Tristin and get him out safely, it's Rory."
"Tristin goes to school here, right?" Dean asks.
The girl - Rory - nods.
"Do you know where Tristin is?" Dean asks, pointedly.
"No, but we'll find him," Rory says.
"The thing is, Sam here does know where your missing schoolboy is. He knows exactly where he is. So why don't you leave this to us."
Sam winces at the tone Dean's using. It isn't going down well on Rory and Sam's double either.
"Look, why don't we work together?" Sam suggests. "We know where Tristin is, you obviously know something about demons. Maybe we can help each other."
Dean snorts, unimpressed with the suggestion, and Rory doesn't look too happy with it either. "Okay," Rory says eventually.
"Dean," Sam says, looking pointedly at him.
Dean looks as though he's got a lot to say to Sam when there's no one else around, but he mutters a reluctant okay.
"Good," Sam says. "That's settled. Now we need to head for the library."
"It's this way," Rory says, and points along the corridor.
*
Sam halts outside the double doors when they get to the library. "In my-okay, so Tristin probably isn't going to be alone. And he might be in a bit of a rough way," he warns Rory. "If he's your boyfriend-"
Rory snorts.
"He is not her boyfriend," Sam's look-alike says, possessively, and now Sam's thinking of it, it's obvious these two are together, the way they look at each other.
"Also, the demon's probably going to be there."
"I'll deal with that," Rory says, in a tone that doesn't brook argument.
Dean looks as though he's going to argue anyway, but there's something about the girl that convinces Sam she's more than she looks. He nods. "Okay, you do that, and we'll get Tristin out."
"I'll just provide the snacks," look-alike boy says.
The doors are locked. The sort of big old key lock that's going to be a devil to pick. Sam straightens up from checking it out, and is just about to suggest they try to break it down instead, when Rory steps up, kicks it, and the door falls down.
"I'm stronger than I look," she says, and runs inside without waiting for Sam to pick his jaw up from the floor.
"Wow!" Dean says and follows her, Sam close behind. Look-alike boy is right beside him, despite his quip about the snacks.
*
It's hot inside the library. Far too hot. No school wastes power like that. That's Sam's first thought. His second is fuck.
They all skid to a halt.
They'd expected a demon, and they'd expected a schoolboy. What they hadn't expected was a line of schoolboys, all staring fixedly to the front, as though they're possessed.
They are possessed. There's no doubt about that. For one thing, there are fire demons in the room - Sam can't see them when he looks straight on, but he can catch glimpses of them out of the corner of his eye, flickering there malevolently. He can't tell how many, but their little rescue party of four is definitely outnumbered and outpowered.
"Oh, fuck," Dean says.
"Which one is Tristin?" Sam asks Rory, but she's staring in horror and shaking her head.
"He's not here," she says. "But I know most of these boys; they go here. I think they're all on the football team - they must have had practice this morning."
The boys are walking towards them, and somehow the slow, steady pace of their walk is more unnerving than if they'd charged at full speed.
"We can't deal with this now," Sam says. "We need to get out of here and come back better prepared."
"We can't leave without-" Rory starts, and for the first time, she sounds like a teenage girl, scared and unsure.
"Yes, we can," Dean says. "We have to-" he starts, and then he's shaking, and Sam just knows. It's too late, and they need to run, and they're going to have to leave Dean behind. He turns to grab Rory's hand, only she's staring at her boyfriend, and when Sam spares him a glance, he has the same glassy-eyed stare Dean got the instant he started shaking.
Sam can't waste time being nice. He grabs her by the arm and pulls her back, and when she starts to resist he shouts at her. "The only way we can save them is if we get out of here now."
He expects tears and he's prepared to pick her up and carry her out if he has to, but she's pulling him now, running out of the library, through the smashed-in door, and down the corridor.
She's fast, so fast he can barely keep up, which hardly seems possible given her size, but then neither did the whole door-smashing thing either. He doesn't look back to see if they're being followed. He doesn't need to - he can hear the sound of running feet and the hair on the back of his neck is prickling.
"Our car," he shouts when they get outside, offering up a silent apology to Dean for what he's about to do to it. He smashes the driver's window with his elbow and jumps in, opening the passenger door ready. But Rory's got her back to him now, the fucking army of possessed boys drawing up in front of her, Dean and the look-alike blank-eyed among them. One moves forward, and she launches into a kick, felling him instantly.
She's buying him time, but even with skills like that she's not going to hold off that many. Sam bends down and grabs wires - it's been a while, but he can still hotwire a car in under 10 seconds - and the Impala's roaring.
The second she hears the sound of the engine, Rory breaks away from her fight and races round to the passenger side. She's barely inside before Sam floors it.
*
"Okay, research mode," Rory says, trying to calm herself. Everyone's here: her mom and Lane, Gypsy (Luke must have called her), Luke and Sam. Even Paris, who Rory could do without, but who refuses to leave.
"We know they're ifrits, right?" Sam asks, and somehow it makes it worse - hearing Sam's voice, seeing him there, when Dean's been taken. Rory wants to curl up in bed and cry on her mom's shoulder. But she can't, not until Dean's safe, both Dean's are safe. Then she can have a marathon freak-out session and eat all the ice-cream in the house. Until then, she has to keep it together.
"Yeah, Luke identified them," she says, pointing to Luke.
Luke grunts, and Sam nods at him. "So we need to find a way to get the ifrits out of everyone," Sam says. He's poring through what looks like an old diary as he talks, but he keeps shaking his head in frustration. He's clearly not finding the answer he's hoping for.
Gypsy looks deep in thought. "I don't have anything that powerful in the shop," she says. Sam looks at her questioningly. "I own a magic shop," she tells him.
Luke gets up and goes to a box he dumped on the table earlier. "Dig in," he says, and pulls a large, old book out.
"This is not my favorite part of being a Slayer's best friend," Lane says as she grabs a book and a dead spider falls off it.
"I'm sorry," Rory says, and she's finding it hard to hold back the tears.
"Oh, Rory, no, I didn't mean it like that." Lane drops the book and hugs her tight. "Dean's going to be fine, you'll see. Really."
"Everyone wants to be here, hon," her mom says and strokes her hair. "You know that, right? We'll do whatever it takes."
Rory holds on to Lane for a while until she feels a bit better, then pulls back and nods weakly at Lane and her mom. "Pass me a book," she says to the room in general.
A cloud of dust comes out of the book Gypsy passes over. "How long since you opened these, Luke?"
"A while," Luke says, not lifting his head up from the page.
After that it's quiet apart from the sound of pages rustling. Lorelai goes out into the kitchen and comes back with a plate of left-over pizza, but Rory feels too sick to be hungry. It was bad enough with Tristin missing, but with Dean taken, watching his eyes glaze over as the ifrit possessed him and being helpless to stop it, she just feels empty and lost.
"Dean's going to be fine, baby," her mom says, like she can read Rory's mind.
Rory nods and manages a watery smile. "Yeah, he is," she says. And hopes it's true.
*
This has to be the weirdest research session Sam has ever experienced. It could pass for a small town book club if you didn't look too closely at the books. There are snacks and soda on the table. Rory's mother - who turned out to be the MILF from the inn (Sam is going to kill Dean for making him think of her as that) - introduced Sam to everyone, and it's all ridiculously, weirdly normal.
After two hours of reading, Sam's glad of the constant supply of coffee, soda and food. He's less grateful for the presence of the long-haired girl who is apparently not Tristin's girlfriend either - he'd received a death glare from her for asking - but who keeps snapping at everyone. Not Tristin's girlfriend, but she definitely has a crush on him.
"I've never heard of so many ifrits working together," he says to Luke, taking a brief break from The Great Grimoire of Pope Honorius III (an English translation from the Old German), which he graduated to after his dad's journal yielded nothing useful.
Luke shakes his head. "Me neither." The guy doesn't talk much, but then Sam imagines he doesn't get much chance with Rory and her mother around.
"Is there anything around here they could be after? Some reason they've gathered?" Sam asks. If they can learn why they're here, maybe that will help.
"Not unless they like antiques," Lorelai says dryly. "Or small town festivals - we've plenty of those."
"Not the usual sort of things demons go for," Sam says, and the bizarre thing is he actually says it seriously. This place is so peculiar it's hard to tell what's weird and what isn't.
"Well," Rory says reluctantly, looking apprehensively towards her mother. "There is the Hellmouth."
Her mother looks at her. It's not a happy look. Sam gets the distinct feeling Lorelai doesn't know anything about the Hellmouth. He thinks he'd better run interference.
"Hellmouth?" he asks, just as Lorelai says the same thing, only with considerably more bite.
"Yeah," Rory says. "Stars Hollow was built on one. That's why so many wacky things happen here, and why demons and all sorts of supernatural creatures are attracted to the place." She manages to make it sound perfectly normal.
"And how long have you known about-" Lorelai starts, when Lane makes a little excited squeak.
"Eureka!" she says, then looks embarrassed. "Sorry, just, I've always wanted to say that. Anyone know where we can find a black cat with a white tail?"
"Why?" Luke's the first to ask.
Lane looks triumphant. "Because that's going to be the key to us unpossessing everyone," she proclaims.
"You've found something? Something that will work?" Rory asks, and practically trips over Sam's feet in her haste to see Lane's book. Sam feels as relieved as Rory looks.
Lane nods in excitement. "Yes, I've got it."
*
Rory raps on the door. Three sharp knocks, then another three to make sure. Splinters of wood fall onto the snow-covered porch, and the door vibrates.
"We're not waking the dead, honey," Lorelai points out. At least she doesn't sound mad, though Rory knows there's going to be a conversation about the Hellmouth and keeping secrets, and it's not going to be fun. Rory can't even think about that now.
The door opens suddenly, and a frantic Babette appears in the doorway, wrapped up in a voluminous pink bathrobe.
"Are you all right, doll? The house isn't on fire, is it? It is, isn't it?" she rushes, not giving Rory a chance to deny it. Babette turns around and calls out. "Morey, the house is on fire!"
Lorelai steps in quickly. "No, Babette, the house is fine. We just, well, we need some cat hair, from Pepper."
"Oh, you should have said. It's okay, Morey," she shouts again, then turns back to Rory and Lorelai. "Is this for one of Rory's things?"
Lorelai nods, and when Rory glares at her with a Babette knows too? look, she just shrugs, and sends a what can you do? look back.
"Then of course, schnookums. Come on in and make yourselves comfortable a minute. It'll take me a while to find him. He likes to go wandering sometimes. He's a free spirit, that cat."
Morey nods. "Pepper's nothing like Apricot," he says, pointing to the cat asleep on the piano stool.
Lorelai sits down, and pulls Rory down with her onto the overstuffed sofa. Babette keeps talking as she's looking.
"He's the reincarnation of my grandfather, you know. He traveled all over the States, visited every single one, and crossed Canada too, and now he's doing his best to keep on traveling, though his little legs won't carry him so far these days. Aha," she calls, "Got him."
"She's carrying her grandfather by the scruff of his neck," Lorelai whispers, and Rory almost smiles.
*
The plan is set. Everyone knows their task. Sam is trying not to panic about the fact that Dean's safety relies on a motley bunch of townsfolk. At least he knows one of them is a Slayer, which is apparently a big deal and explains Rory's speed and strength, and one's a witch (the good kind, Lane had insisted vehemently) and one's a Watcher (which is apparently some sort of research and backup job for a Slayer). He tries not to think about the fact that half the team are also just schoolgirls.
They park at a distance and Sam and Rory check out the approach. Sam can't see anyone at the windows, and Rory says there's no one outside - she'd hear them. Sam believes her.
She signals the rest, and they head for the gym. They need space for their plan to work, and the gym is at the opposite end of the school from the library.
Gypsy hands out sticks of chalk and photocopied sheets covered in sigils. "These should hold them for a while. Probably. If you do them right." She shrugs pessimistically.
This isn't Sam's part of the plan. "How long will it take to get all set up in here?" he asks.
Gypsy looks around. Luke, Paris and Lorelai are on their hands and knees in three of the four corners of the gym, scrawling chalk over the floor. "Give it five minutes. Say six to be safe, and we'll be done and out of here."
Gypsy heads to the final corner, and Sam goes back to Rory. She's hovering over Lane who's sitting cross-legged on the floor next to a plan of the school, dangling a crystal necklace over it.
"Are you sure the map's good enough?" Rory's asking. She and Paris drew it on the back of a strip of wallpaper, arguing incessantly over the relative dimensions of rooms until Lane had assured them that drawing it to perfect scale wasn't necessary. But Rory's obviously worried and nervous.
Lane somehow manages to concentrate - she must be used to Rory - and eventually looks up with an answer. "They're back in the library," she says. "Look." The crystal swings normally when she passes it over most of the paper, but when it passes over the library it jitters around crazily. "I'm scrying for Dean, you see, um, Rory's Dean, that is, because I don't know your Dean and it's harder when you don't know someone or have something of theirs to use, but then you probably know that already because you're a hunter and- Sorry, babbling." She takes a deep breath and carries on more calmly. "The demons are throwing off the scrying process, but that's okay, because it means they must all be there. Together. That's good, right?" she asks hopefully.
Sam nods. "Great work," he tells her, and she smiles wide at him. "And yes, that's good, having them all in one place. It'll make it much easier."
"Okay, so, what do I do now?"
"Wait for the others, and when they're done you've all got to go straight back to the cars," Rory orders. She looks like she's coming into her own now, smart and determined even in the face of danger. He thinks her Dean's a lucky guy.
He and Rory head to the door, ready for the next stage in the plan.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" she asks, and Sam's touched by her concern.
The answer's no, he doesn't want to do this, but it's Dean in there, and a bunch of school kids who don't deserve to be toyed around with by demons, and so he has to. He'll do whatever it takes. He thinks maybe that shows on his face, because Rory just nods.
"Run fast," she says.
"I will."
*
They didn't pay a lot of attention to this part of the plan. Sam offered, Rory nodded and Luke agreed, and that was that.
Now that he's here, he's nervous. He fingers the medallion around his neck. It's identical to the one he saw on Tristin in the vision, and hopefully it should stop any ifrit who tries to possess him. Gypsy seems to think it will, and Paris confirmed that it's identical to the one she bought as a gift for Tristin. It's a gamble, though; if they don't see him as tasty bait, they're screwed, and if the medallion doesn't work, he's screwed.
He opens the library doors and gulps. It's entirely possible he's screwed anyway. There's an entire football team lined up, plus both Deans, and they don't look friendly.
At least it doesn't look as though he's going to have any problems getting them to follow him. They look like a pack of dogs who've just caught scent of a fox.
Sam turns tail and runs.
*
Rory hates waiting, especially when there's nothing she can do. She doesn't even have a book with her to read - not that she could have concentrated, but just having a book in her bag might have made her feel better.
Instead, she paces. She has a lighter (Gypsy's) in one hand, and a handful of cat hairs clutched in the other, and she paces back and forth across the gym, carefully avoiding the chalked sigils.
It seems like forever before she hears the heavy sound of footsteps running, though the clock on the wall insists it's less then five minutes. She takes up position behind the door.
Sam's breathing hard when he races through the door, but he doesn't stop until he's at the far end of the gym. He looks trapped, but then he's meant to. The demons need to think they've won.
They do. They slow down to a saunter once they're in the gym, laughing to themselves. It's horrid, seeing a vicious smirk on Dean's face that doesn't belong there, isn't him at all. Rory holds her breath and waits until they're all inside, then slams the door behind them. No more need for subterfuge.
She clicks the lighter, and at least one of the demons must realize what she's about to do. It screams, high-pitched and wrong, not the voice of the boy it's possessing. Rory ignores it and lights the hairs, dropping them to the floor as they burn.
If she'd thought a roomful of demon-possessed boys were bad, it's nothing to the confusion and chaos now. The demons are being forced out, black trails of smoke all over the room, and the swirls are getting furious as they realize they're trapped.
There's no time to be gentle. She grabs the first boy she can reach who's no longer possessed and pulls him out of the sigil-marked circle, then another and another. Sam's across the room doing the same, and then Dean's by her side, shaking his head as though he's not quite awake, but sharp enough to work out what needs doing.
*
They've a library full of captured demons and a hallway full of bemused schoolboys and the rest of their rescue team. Sam's just turning to look for Dean when he gets a clip around the ear.
"Ow," he says. Not that it particularly hurt, but it's the principle.
Dean glares at him. "What the hell were you thinking? Playing bait to a whole - what's a group of demons called?"
"A passel?" Rory offers. "A pack? A covey? A blast?"
"A pandemonium?" Lane suggests.
Rory shakes her head. "No, that's parrots. A pandemonium of parrots. But, yeah, it would work well for demons, too."
"She has a copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary," look-alike boy explains.
"Thanks," Dean says politely, looking bemused, and turns back to Sam. "A whole pandewhatsit of demons. Seriously, Sam?"
Sam shrugs. Dean would have done exactly the same, and they both know it.
"So, what now?"
"We blow up the school?" Dean offers, hopefully.
Rory looks horrified. "I go to school here."
"No, Dean," Sam sighs. "We can't blow up the school. We send the demons back to hell."
"That's where we come in," Luke says, motioning to Gypsy and Lane.
*
Paris is scary when she's angry. Rory thinks the football team are less perturbed about the time they spent possessed by demons than Paris Gellar bearing down on them with a very determined look on her face.
"Where is Tristin?" she asks the one who's unlucky enough to be in the front.
"Uh," he says, and Rory thinks he might be about to start stuttering. Paris grabs him by his collar and he tries to back away. "I, uh-"
"He's in the basement," the large guy next to him says quickly. Rory thinks he might be the quarterback or halfback or whatever the team captain is called.
Paris doesn't stop for pleasantries like thank you. She heads off at a run, and really, they've only just got a whole bunch of demons captured, there could be stray ones left in the school, and Rory can't let her go off on her own. She has a one second reverie about the benefits of Paris getting eaten by a stray monster who might've followed the ifrits to Chilton, then goes after her, tugging Dean with her because she can't let him out of her sight, not yet.
They're only a few seconds behind Paris when she reaches the basement, but apparently a lot can happen in a few seconds. They walk in on Paris, sitting on Tristin's lap, hugging him like she's going to crush him. That's not particularly unexpected. What is unexpected is that he's very eagerly kissing her back. What's more, he's half-naked and kissing her, and Rory doesn't need to have this image in her brain.
She coughs, loudly.
"Ah, Mary," Tristin says. "A bit late to the rescue - Paris beat you to the spoils."
Dean mutters something under his breath, and Rory tries not to vomit. "It's Rory. And as though I'd touch-" she starts, and can't bring herself to finish. "I'd untie you, but I don't think I'll bother now."
Paris turns around. "It's all turned out perfectly," she says, and waves at herself and Tristin.
Rory turns to Dean. "Let's go before I punch someone," she says.
*
They all end up back at the coffee shop, Luke behind the counter, serving coffee and burgers, the rest of them at two tables they've pulled together despite Luke's glares.
"So, that zombie we saw here when he arrived in town?" Dean starts.
"Oh, yeah, that's Kirk," Luke says, and turns back to his burgers as though there's nothing unusual at all about having a zombie in his coffee shop.
"Kirk?" Sam repeats, because somehow the idea of a zombie having a name is just plain weird.
"Yes," Rory nods. "He used to be the assistant manager at Doose's Market, the DSL installer, a photographer and a swan wrangler. Until he was killed and became a zombie."
"And you've tried to take him out?" Sam asks.
"Oh, no! He'd never hurt anyone," Rory says, sounding horrified at the very idea.
"Though it's not very nice when he sleepwalks," Lorelai says.
"Naked," Rory adds.
"He has night terrors."
Lane wrinkles her nose. "It was bad enough before he became a zombie, but now, well-"
"It's kinda gross." There's a mass shudder - it looks like everyone's had an eyeful of naked zombie.
Sam can imagine. Unfortunately.
"Though Lulu does try to keep him in at night," Lorelai says.
"Lulu?" Sam asks weakly.
"His girlfriend," Rory's Dean says.
"He has a girlfriend?" Dean asks, echoing Sam's own disbelief.
"Oh, yes. They do movie-night together at their house - they mostly show horror shows, and the kids all think he's an added attraction. I'm not sure if they think he wears really good makeup or if they know he's actually a zombie," Lorelai says.
Dean, of course, has to ask. "So I can't kill him?"
"No!" everyone shouts.
*
Lane's staring at Sam. And not discreetly, either, but wide-eyed, mouth-open, very obvious staring.
"Lane!" Rory hisses.
"Yes?" Lane answers, but doesn't stop staring.
"You're staring, Lane," Rory whispers.
"Oh, yes, didn't realize." Lane turns around, and leans in towards Rory. "But, I mean- Just look at him. So tall and hot and sexy and tall. He's like Dean, but sexy."
"Lane!" Rory's offended.
"Well, he is! He's all dark and dangerous and brooding. And so handsome."
"Dean's tall and handsome. And dangerous," Rory adds.
Lane doesn't even try to hide her smile. "Yes, Rory, he's really dangerous," she deadpans.
"Well, he could be. If he wanted to be." Rory feels she has to defend Dean's honor, even though she actually loves the fact that he's not dangerous. Unlike Sam, who probably is.
"I wonder if Sam's into music. And what sort," Lane adds speculatively.
"You do know he's a hunter, right? And he's not going to be hanging around."
"Yeah, I know. But there's no harm in looking, is there? I've got to get my thrills somewhere. And if you won't let me live vicariously through you and Dean-"
Rory smiles. "Yeah, no harm in looking."
*
There's just her, her mom and Dean left at Luke's. Paris and Tristin didn't stay long, which was a good thing, because Luke wouldn't have been happy if Rory had thrown up in the diner. Sam and Dean left half an hour ago, followed by Gypsy, and Lane realized she'd be grounded for the rest of the winter if she didn't get back home soon.
Luke's sorting out invoices, but he keeps coming over to top up their coffee.
They ought to go, but it's nice, somehow, the four of them. Luke's being friendly with Dean - or at least not being rude - and everyone's safe. It's a good feeling.
"Anything you want?" Dean asks, heading towards the counter.
"I'd like a fairy godmother who'll grant me all my wishes, and then go poof in a cloud of smoke whenever I don't want her around. I'd also like my mother to go poof in a cloud of smoke whenever I don't want her around. I could have a special signal, click my fingers or twitch my nose like Samantha, and she'd just vanish," Lorelai says brightly.
Rory smiles at her mom, and turns to Dean. "I want world peace, no one to go hungry ever again, and a kitten," she says, and gives him a beauty pageant smile.
"You need to learn to ask the right question," Lorelai says.
Dean sighs. "Is there any particular food or beverage, available on the menu, that I can order for you?"
"Ah, see, now you're learning," Lorelai says approvingly.
"I'll have a soda," Rory says.
"I'm good."
"That's debatable," Rory says under her breath.
"Daughter!" Lorelai does a good hurt exclamation.
"Mother!"
"Okay, so I'm not Snow White."
"If I say you're my princess, will you shut up?" Luke asks.
Lorelai beams. "Yes." Then, "You've got to actually say it."
Luke rolls his eyes. "You're my princess. Now finish your coffee and get out of here so I can close up."
"Ah, my Prince Charming."
*
"So, I hear you are something of a hero," Michel says. He's looking at Sam as though Sam's covered in chocolate sauce and he wants to lick it all off. Sam preferred the you're dog poo I've just stepped in and need to clean off my shoe look.
Dean coughs loudly, but Michel's attention is firmly on Sam. His hands are firmly on Sam, too.
Sam eases away.
"We're, um, just leaving," he says.
"We can stay longer, if you'd like, Sammy," Dean says, not bothering to hide his grin. "Enjoy the winter festival. What is it, the Spirit of Stars Hollow?"
Sam glares at him. "No, Dean, we're in a hurry, remember? That urgent job in, um, Michigan." He hopes his tone adequately conveys the idea that if Dean disagrees with him, next time he gets possessed, Sam'll leave him to it.
"Oh, that job. Nah, Sam, it's not that urgent."
"Yes, it is. Very urgent. Life or death." Sam's going to cut off Dean's balls, fry them, and feed them to the zombie if Dean doesn't cooperate.
Apparently his plan comes through in his look. "Oh, yes," Dean suddenly agrees and picks up his duffel. "That urgent job. You should have said. We'd better get going."
They crunch through the snow to the car and Sam flings his bag onto the back seat.
Dean pauses and looks over the Impala. "That little girl, what was her name, Lon-?"
"Lane."
"Yeah, that's the one. She was really into you. Couldn't stop staring at you in the diner."
Sam had noticed. "She's still at school," he points out.
"She's legal." Dean wiggles his eyebrows as he eases the Impala out onto the road.
"Just drive, Dean."
Dean drives.
He takes one long look in the rear view mirror as they leave Stars Hollow. "I still can't believe we didn't get to kill the zombie."
*
"So," Sam asks, attempting to sound casual. "When you were possessed, what exactly happened?"
Dean stiffens, and turns the tape up.
Sam turns the tape down.
"I think we should talk about it, Dean. Let your feelings out, get it off your chest. It'd do you good."
"You want me to turn right around and tell Michel that you couldn't bear to leave so soon after all? Or tell Lane you want to trade Facebook details?"
Sam turns the tape back up.
*
"Are you sure you're okay," Dean asks, wrapping his arm around her and settling her against his side. The sofa is comfortable, but Dean's arm is even better.
"I should be asking you that. You're the one who got possessed. I'm sorry," Rory says. "Stuff like that never happened to you before you met me."
"Hey, no moping," he says, and kisses her. "Life's more exciting since I met you."
"You're not just saying that to make me feel better?"
"No. You're worth it. Besides," Dean smiles, "I'm not ifrit of the dark."
Rory groans and cuddles in closer. "So, what exactly was it like, being possessed?"
Dean stiffens and gulps. "Don't remember," he says, and moves in to kiss her again.
Rory puts a hand on his chest to still him. "Really?" she asks.
Dean sighs. "No. But Monday morning, first thing, I'm going to Gypsy and getting her to cast an amnesia spell or something."
"That bad, huh?"
Dean closes his eyes and shudders. "How about you help me forget?" he says, looking hopeful, and Rory can definitely do that.
//
part 1 (and headers) | part 2
"So, did your new French boyfriend deliver the goods?" Dean asks.
"Oh, yes," Sam says, and smirks.
"Just spare me the details, and tell me what I need to know," Dean says, looking like he's just bitten a lemon. Way too easy.
"So you don't want to know what I had to do to get the information?"
Dean just glares.
"Ah, well, at least I'll always have the memory," Sam says with a sigh.
"Sam!"
Sam gives in. "He said that if we're after demons, there's something weird going on at Chilton, a posh private school a few miles away. And I did some research, and guess what the school shield looks like?"
"The crest you saw in your dream."
"Sounds like it's our place."
*
Luke looks pale and irritable when he walks in the sitting room. He hmmphs loudly, which Rory thinks is totally unnecessary. Yes, she and Dean are making out on the couch, but it's not like there's anything else they could have been doing to help. They've gone through all the books Luke left, even the ones in weird old languages (they just checked the pictures in those - mostly gruesome, nothing that looked relevant).
"Any idea what the demon is?" Rory asks, hoping it's dealing with Paris that's made him go pale, not the prospect of whatever type of demon it is she's conjured up.
"An ifrit."
"Which she called up because-?" Dean asks, just as a red-eyed Paris walks into the room.
"That's none of your business," she hiccups, and wipes her eyes angrily.
"She wanted a boyfriend, and thought the demon would grant her wish," Luke says, and Rory winces. Tact has never been Luke's strong point.
Paris flushes. "It isn't as though I was desperate or anything," she says, then trails off because obviously she was desperate, and everyone in the room knows it. "The spell just went wrong."
Rory can't help herself. "You think?"
"There's no need to be sarcastic."
"There's no need to be stupid either, but apparently that didn't stop you," Rory retorts.
Paris glares, and Rory glares back at her.
Dean nudges her. "Be nice," he whispers. Then louder. "Looks like Rory and I had better head over to Chilton."
Luke pulls out his keys, but Rory shakes her head.
"It'd be better if you stayed here, do more research, just in case it's not a straightforward rescue."
Luke looks as though he wants to protest Dean going along, and any moment her mom's going to come out of the kitchen and doubtless protest Rory going, so she grabs Dean's hand and makes a run for it.
*
Getting into Chilton is easy.
"Impressive," Dean says when it takes Rory less than five seconds to pick the lock on one of the side doors. "And sexy."
Rory doesn't blush. Much.
They head towards the history classroom - the site of Paris' spell casting - running down the corridors as quietly as possible. There isn't likely to be anyone here on a Saturday, but Rory doesn't want to risk getting caught. Explaining away Slayer business is always tricky. Much better to avoid being seen.
They're nearly at the history classroom when their luck runs out.
*
"These places always smell the same," Dean complains. "Too rich and too privileged, with a strong undertone of hormones and stupidity."
Sam snorts, amused. He can't remember Dean ever putting a foot inside a private school before.
The EMF meter is bleeping noisily, but it seems to be random, nothing to go on direction wise. "Anything from your vision that might help?"
Sam closes his eyes. "Yeah," he says, recalling flashes of the vision. "Books, shelves of them. The kid was in a library."
"Damn place can't have any signs?" Dean mutters.
"What's up? Being in a school really spooking you?"
"Yeah, as a matter of fact. I hate schools," Dean says, and stomps off angrily. Sam follows, resigned to dealing with a bad-tempered Dean for the rest of the day. Maybe they can have dinner at the inn this evening - another meal made by Sookie should improve his mood, and Dean Roth's credit card can take it.
It's only because he's distracted and Dean's glued to the EMF meter that they don't hear the footsteps until they round the corner and literally run into-
Wow.
Himself?
Sam skids to a halt and Dean canons into the back of him.
"What the-" he starts, and then just stares. There's the girl from the diner yesterday, the one who stared at him like he was a ghost. And now he can see why, because the guy she's with could be his twin, if he weren't clearly a few years younger.
"Oh," the younger version of himself says, and Sam's got nothing coherent to add to that.
"What are you doing here?" the girl asks. She's eying them both far too keenly for Sam's liking.
"We could ask you the same thing," Sam counters. He puts his shoulders back and tries to look like he's meant to be here.
"I go to school here," the girl says. "So I have a perfect right to be here. What about you?"
Ah, tricky. He needs to get the kids out of here before things get dangerous, but he and Dean haven't actually worked out a cover story for being in the school. They'd thought it would be empty, which Sam now realizing was painfully short-sighted of them. "We're-" Sam starts, struggling to think while he's got a boy with his face staring at him.
"Pest control," Dean says, waving his EMF meter around as though it's obvious.
"Pest control?" Sam's double says, not even trying to hide his disbelief. "Seriously? That's the best you could come up with?"
At any other time, the look of offense on Dean's face would be hilarious. Now, though, they have a boy to rescue, and the added complication of two civilians to deal with.
"Look, it's difficult to explain," Sam starts. "But. Well, the thing is, there's something dangerous going on here, and you really need to leave now, for your own safety.
The girl actually rolls her eyes. "Hunters," she mutters - and what's with that? Does the entire town instantly recognize hunters when they see them, or are he and Dean wearing lapel cards with HUNTERS in block capitals? - then seems to come to a decision. "Are you here for the ifrit?" she asks.
Sam looks at Dean. Dean shrugs his shoulders. "Um, the ifrit?" Sam asks, helplessly, because it's one thing her recognizing hunters, but knowing about ifrits, that's just weird.
"Are you telling me you rushed in here after something and don't even know what you're hunting?" She sounds thoroughly unimpressed.
Dean makes an irritated sound, and Sam kicks him discreetly. Dean coughs, and manages what Sam's certain is an edited version of the reply he wants to give. "We're more than capable of handling whatever we find here. You, though-" he waves his hand towards Rory, with the obvious implication that she isn't.
Her eyes narrow. "Look, we don't have time to argue. I'm going in, I'm dealing with this thing, and I need you two to keep out of my way."
Sam's seriously impressed, he has to say. Whoever she is, she's got no shortage of confidence.
Dean isn't so impressed, apparently. "Don't be an idiot. As though you-"
Sam's look-alike interrupts, probably wisely. "Rory can handle it. Believe me, if anyone can find Tristin and get him out safely, it's Rory."
"Tristin goes to school here, right?" Dean asks.
The girl - Rory - nods.
"Do you know where Tristin is?" Dean asks, pointedly.
"No, but we'll find him," Rory says.
"The thing is, Sam here does know where your missing schoolboy is. He knows exactly where he is. So why don't you leave this to us."
Sam winces at the tone Dean's using. It isn't going down well on Rory and Sam's double either.
"Look, why don't we work together?" Sam suggests. "We know where Tristin is, you obviously know something about demons. Maybe we can help each other."
Dean snorts, unimpressed with the suggestion, and Rory doesn't look too happy with it either. "Okay," Rory says eventually.
"Dean," Sam says, looking pointedly at him.
Dean looks as though he's got a lot to say to Sam when there's no one else around, but he mutters a reluctant okay.
"Good," Sam says. "That's settled. Now we need to head for the library."
"It's this way," Rory says, and points along the corridor.
*
Sam halts outside the double doors when they get to the library. "In my-okay, so Tristin probably isn't going to be alone. And he might be in a bit of a rough way," he warns Rory. "If he's your boyfriend-"
Rory snorts.
"He is not her boyfriend," Sam's look-alike says, possessively, and now Sam's thinking of it, it's obvious these two are together, the way they look at each other.
"Also, the demon's probably going to be there."
"I'll deal with that," Rory says, in a tone that doesn't brook argument.
Dean looks as though he's going to argue anyway, but there's something about the girl that convinces Sam she's more than she looks. He nods. "Okay, you do that, and we'll get Tristin out."
"I'll just provide the snacks," look-alike boy says.
The doors are locked. The sort of big old key lock that's going to be a devil to pick. Sam straightens up from checking it out, and is just about to suggest they try to break it down instead, when Rory steps up, kicks it, and the door falls down.
"I'm stronger than I look," she says, and runs inside without waiting for Sam to pick his jaw up from the floor.
"Wow!" Dean says and follows her, Sam close behind. Look-alike boy is right beside him, despite his quip about the snacks.
*
It's hot inside the library. Far too hot. No school wastes power like that. That's Sam's first thought. His second is fuck.
They all skid to a halt.
They'd expected a demon, and they'd expected a schoolboy. What they hadn't expected was a line of schoolboys, all staring fixedly to the front, as though they're possessed.
They are possessed. There's no doubt about that. For one thing, there are fire demons in the room - Sam can't see them when he looks straight on, but he can catch glimpses of them out of the corner of his eye, flickering there malevolently. He can't tell how many, but their little rescue party of four is definitely outnumbered and outpowered.
"Oh, fuck," Dean says.
"Which one is Tristin?" Sam asks Rory, but she's staring in horror and shaking her head.
"He's not here," she says. "But I know most of these boys; they go here. I think they're all on the football team - they must have had practice this morning."
The boys are walking towards them, and somehow the slow, steady pace of their walk is more unnerving than if they'd charged at full speed.
"We can't deal with this now," Sam says. "We need to get out of here and come back better prepared."
"We can't leave without-" Rory starts, and for the first time, she sounds like a teenage girl, scared and unsure.
"Yes, we can," Dean says. "We have to-" he starts, and then he's shaking, and Sam just knows. It's too late, and they need to run, and they're going to have to leave Dean behind. He turns to grab Rory's hand, only she's staring at her boyfriend, and when Sam spares him a glance, he has the same glassy-eyed stare Dean got the instant he started shaking.
Sam can't waste time being nice. He grabs her by the arm and pulls her back, and when she starts to resist he shouts at her. "The only way we can save them is if we get out of here now."
He expects tears and he's prepared to pick her up and carry her out if he has to, but she's pulling him now, running out of the library, through the smashed-in door, and down the corridor.
She's fast, so fast he can barely keep up, which hardly seems possible given her size, but then neither did the whole door-smashing thing either. He doesn't look back to see if they're being followed. He doesn't need to - he can hear the sound of running feet and the hair on the back of his neck is prickling.
"Our car," he shouts when they get outside, offering up a silent apology to Dean for what he's about to do to it. He smashes the driver's window with his elbow and jumps in, opening the passenger door ready. But Rory's got her back to him now, the fucking army of possessed boys drawing up in front of her, Dean and the look-alike blank-eyed among them. One moves forward, and she launches into a kick, felling him instantly.
She's buying him time, but even with skills like that she's not going to hold off that many. Sam bends down and grabs wires - it's been a while, but he can still hotwire a car in under 10 seconds - and the Impala's roaring.
The second she hears the sound of the engine, Rory breaks away from her fight and races round to the passenger side. She's barely inside before Sam floors it.
*
"Okay, research mode," Rory says, trying to calm herself. Everyone's here: her mom and Lane, Gypsy (Luke must have called her), Luke and Sam. Even Paris, who Rory could do without, but who refuses to leave.
"We know they're ifrits, right?" Sam asks, and somehow it makes it worse - hearing Sam's voice, seeing him there, when Dean's been taken. Rory wants to curl up in bed and cry on her mom's shoulder. But she can't, not until Dean's safe, both Dean's are safe. Then she can have a marathon freak-out session and eat all the ice-cream in the house. Until then, she has to keep it together.
"Yeah, Luke identified them," she says, pointing to Luke.
Luke grunts, and Sam nods at him. "So we need to find a way to get the ifrits out of everyone," Sam says. He's poring through what looks like an old diary as he talks, but he keeps shaking his head in frustration. He's clearly not finding the answer he's hoping for.
Gypsy looks deep in thought. "I don't have anything that powerful in the shop," she says. Sam looks at her questioningly. "I own a magic shop," she tells him.
Luke gets up and goes to a box he dumped on the table earlier. "Dig in," he says, and pulls a large, old book out.
"This is not my favorite part of being a Slayer's best friend," Lane says as she grabs a book and a dead spider falls off it.
"I'm sorry," Rory says, and she's finding it hard to hold back the tears.
"Oh, Rory, no, I didn't mean it like that." Lane drops the book and hugs her tight. "Dean's going to be fine, you'll see. Really."
"Everyone wants to be here, hon," her mom says and strokes her hair. "You know that, right? We'll do whatever it takes."
Rory holds on to Lane for a while until she feels a bit better, then pulls back and nods weakly at Lane and her mom. "Pass me a book," she says to the room in general.
A cloud of dust comes out of the book Gypsy passes over. "How long since you opened these, Luke?"
"A while," Luke says, not lifting his head up from the page.
After that it's quiet apart from the sound of pages rustling. Lorelai goes out into the kitchen and comes back with a plate of left-over pizza, but Rory feels too sick to be hungry. It was bad enough with Tristin missing, but with Dean taken, watching his eyes glaze over as the ifrit possessed him and being helpless to stop it, she just feels empty and lost.
"Dean's going to be fine, baby," her mom says, like she can read Rory's mind.
Rory nods and manages a watery smile. "Yeah, he is," she says. And hopes it's true.
*
This has to be the weirdest research session Sam has ever experienced. It could pass for a small town book club if you didn't look too closely at the books. There are snacks and soda on the table. Rory's mother - who turned out to be the MILF from the inn (Sam is going to kill Dean for making him think of her as that) - introduced Sam to everyone, and it's all ridiculously, weirdly normal.
After two hours of reading, Sam's glad of the constant supply of coffee, soda and food. He's less grateful for the presence of the long-haired girl who is apparently not Tristin's girlfriend either - he'd received a death glare from her for asking - but who keeps snapping at everyone. Not Tristin's girlfriend, but she definitely has a crush on him.
"I've never heard of so many ifrits working together," he says to Luke, taking a brief break from The Great Grimoire of Pope Honorius III (an English translation from the Old German), which he graduated to after his dad's journal yielded nothing useful.
Luke shakes his head. "Me neither." The guy doesn't talk much, but then Sam imagines he doesn't get much chance with Rory and her mother around.
"Is there anything around here they could be after? Some reason they've gathered?" Sam asks. If they can learn why they're here, maybe that will help.
"Not unless they like antiques," Lorelai says dryly. "Or small town festivals - we've plenty of those."
"Not the usual sort of things demons go for," Sam says, and the bizarre thing is he actually says it seriously. This place is so peculiar it's hard to tell what's weird and what isn't.
"Well," Rory says reluctantly, looking apprehensively towards her mother. "There is the Hellmouth."
Her mother looks at her. It's not a happy look. Sam gets the distinct feeling Lorelai doesn't know anything about the Hellmouth. He thinks he'd better run interference.
"Hellmouth?" he asks, just as Lorelai says the same thing, only with considerably more bite.
"Yeah," Rory says. "Stars Hollow was built on one. That's why so many wacky things happen here, and why demons and all sorts of supernatural creatures are attracted to the place." She manages to make it sound perfectly normal.
"And how long have you known about-" Lorelai starts, when Lane makes a little excited squeak.
"Eureka!" she says, then looks embarrassed. "Sorry, just, I've always wanted to say that. Anyone know where we can find a black cat with a white tail?"
"Why?" Luke's the first to ask.
Lane looks triumphant. "Because that's going to be the key to us unpossessing everyone," she proclaims.
"You've found something? Something that will work?" Rory asks, and practically trips over Sam's feet in her haste to see Lane's book. Sam feels as relieved as Rory looks.
Lane nods in excitement. "Yes, I've got it."
*
Rory raps on the door. Three sharp knocks, then another three to make sure. Splinters of wood fall onto the snow-covered porch, and the door vibrates.
"We're not waking the dead, honey," Lorelai points out. At least she doesn't sound mad, though Rory knows there's going to be a conversation about the Hellmouth and keeping secrets, and it's not going to be fun. Rory can't even think about that now.
The door opens suddenly, and a frantic Babette appears in the doorway, wrapped up in a voluminous pink bathrobe.
"Are you all right, doll? The house isn't on fire, is it? It is, isn't it?" she rushes, not giving Rory a chance to deny it. Babette turns around and calls out. "Morey, the house is on fire!"
Lorelai steps in quickly. "No, Babette, the house is fine. We just, well, we need some cat hair, from Pepper."
"Oh, you should have said. It's okay, Morey," she shouts again, then turns back to Rory and Lorelai. "Is this for one of Rory's things?"
Lorelai nods, and when Rory glares at her with a Babette knows too? look, she just shrugs, and sends a what can you do? look back.
"Then of course, schnookums. Come on in and make yourselves comfortable a minute. It'll take me a while to find him. He likes to go wandering sometimes. He's a free spirit, that cat."
Morey nods. "Pepper's nothing like Apricot," he says, pointing to the cat asleep on the piano stool.
Lorelai sits down, and pulls Rory down with her onto the overstuffed sofa. Babette keeps talking as she's looking.
"He's the reincarnation of my grandfather, you know. He traveled all over the States, visited every single one, and crossed Canada too, and now he's doing his best to keep on traveling, though his little legs won't carry him so far these days. Aha," she calls, "Got him."
"She's carrying her grandfather by the scruff of his neck," Lorelai whispers, and Rory almost smiles.
*
The plan is set. Everyone knows their task. Sam is trying not to panic about the fact that Dean's safety relies on a motley bunch of townsfolk. At least he knows one of them is a Slayer, which is apparently a big deal and explains Rory's speed and strength, and one's a witch (the good kind, Lane had insisted vehemently) and one's a Watcher (which is apparently some sort of research and backup job for a Slayer). He tries not to think about the fact that half the team are also just schoolgirls.
They park at a distance and Sam and Rory check out the approach. Sam can't see anyone at the windows, and Rory says there's no one outside - she'd hear them. Sam believes her.
She signals the rest, and they head for the gym. They need space for their plan to work, and the gym is at the opposite end of the school from the library.
Gypsy hands out sticks of chalk and photocopied sheets covered in sigils. "These should hold them for a while. Probably. If you do them right." She shrugs pessimistically.
This isn't Sam's part of the plan. "How long will it take to get all set up in here?" he asks.
Gypsy looks around. Luke, Paris and Lorelai are on their hands and knees in three of the four corners of the gym, scrawling chalk over the floor. "Give it five minutes. Say six to be safe, and we'll be done and out of here."
Gypsy heads to the final corner, and Sam goes back to Rory. She's hovering over Lane who's sitting cross-legged on the floor next to a plan of the school, dangling a crystal necklace over it.
"Are you sure the map's good enough?" Rory's asking. She and Paris drew it on the back of a strip of wallpaper, arguing incessantly over the relative dimensions of rooms until Lane had assured them that drawing it to perfect scale wasn't necessary. But Rory's obviously worried and nervous.
Lane somehow manages to concentrate - she must be used to Rory - and eventually looks up with an answer. "They're back in the library," she says. "Look." The crystal swings normally when she passes it over most of the paper, but when it passes over the library it jitters around crazily. "I'm scrying for Dean, you see, um, Rory's Dean, that is, because I don't know your Dean and it's harder when you don't know someone or have something of theirs to use, but then you probably know that already because you're a hunter and- Sorry, babbling." She takes a deep breath and carries on more calmly. "The demons are throwing off the scrying process, but that's okay, because it means they must all be there. Together. That's good, right?" she asks hopefully.
Sam nods. "Great work," he tells her, and she smiles wide at him. "And yes, that's good, having them all in one place. It'll make it much easier."
"Okay, so, what do I do now?"
"Wait for the others, and when they're done you've all got to go straight back to the cars," Rory orders. She looks like she's coming into her own now, smart and determined even in the face of danger. He thinks her Dean's a lucky guy.
He and Rory head to the door, ready for the next stage in the plan.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" she asks, and Sam's touched by her concern.
The answer's no, he doesn't want to do this, but it's Dean in there, and a bunch of school kids who don't deserve to be toyed around with by demons, and so he has to. He'll do whatever it takes. He thinks maybe that shows on his face, because Rory just nods.
"Run fast," she says.
"I will."
*
They didn't pay a lot of attention to this part of the plan. Sam offered, Rory nodded and Luke agreed, and that was that.
Now that he's here, he's nervous. He fingers the medallion around his neck. It's identical to the one he saw on Tristin in the vision, and hopefully it should stop any ifrit who tries to possess him. Gypsy seems to think it will, and Paris confirmed that it's identical to the one she bought as a gift for Tristin. It's a gamble, though; if they don't see him as tasty bait, they're screwed, and if the medallion doesn't work, he's screwed.
He opens the library doors and gulps. It's entirely possible he's screwed anyway. There's an entire football team lined up, plus both Deans, and they don't look friendly.
At least it doesn't look as though he's going to have any problems getting them to follow him. They look like a pack of dogs who've just caught scent of a fox.
Sam turns tail and runs.
*
Rory hates waiting, especially when there's nothing she can do. She doesn't even have a book with her to read - not that she could have concentrated, but just having a book in her bag might have made her feel better.
Instead, she paces. She has a lighter (Gypsy's) in one hand, and a handful of cat hairs clutched in the other, and she paces back and forth across the gym, carefully avoiding the chalked sigils.
It seems like forever before she hears the heavy sound of footsteps running, though the clock on the wall insists it's less then five minutes. She takes up position behind the door.
Sam's breathing hard when he races through the door, but he doesn't stop until he's at the far end of the gym. He looks trapped, but then he's meant to. The demons need to think they've won.
They do. They slow down to a saunter once they're in the gym, laughing to themselves. It's horrid, seeing a vicious smirk on Dean's face that doesn't belong there, isn't him at all. Rory holds her breath and waits until they're all inside, then slams the door behind them. No more need for subterfuge.
She clicks the lighter, and at least one of the demons must realize what she's about to do. It screams, high-pitched and wrong, not the voice of the boy it's possessing. Rory ignores it and lights the hairs, dropping them to the floor as they burn.
If she'd thought a roomful of demon-possessed boys were bad, it's nothing to the confusion and chaos now. The demons are being forced out, black trails of smoke all over the room, and the swirls are getting furious as they realize they're trapped.
There's no time to be gentle. She grabs the first boy she can reach who's no longer possessed and pulls him out of the sigil-marked circle, then another and another. Sam's across the room doing the same, and then Dean's by her side, shaking his head as though he's not quite awake, but sharp enough to work out what needs doing.
*
They've a library full of captured demons and a hallway full of bemused schoolboys and the rest of their rescue team. Sam's just turning to look for Dean when he gets a clip around the ear.
"Ow," he says. Not that it particularly hurt, but it's the principle.
Dean glares at him. "What the hell were you thinking? Playing bait to a whole - what's a group of demons called?"
"A passel?" Rory offers. "A pack? A covey? A blast?"
"A pandemonium?" Lane suggests.
Rory shakes her head. "No, that's parrots. A pandemonium of parrots. But, yeah, it would work well for demons, too."
"She has a copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary," look-alike boy explains.
"Thanks," Dean says politely, looking bemused, and turns back to Sam. "A whole pandewhatsit of demons. Seriously, Sam?"
Sam shrugs. Dean would have done exactly the same, and they both know it.
"So, what now?"
"We blow up the school?" Dean offers, hopefully.
Rory looks horrified. "I go to school here."
"No, Dean," Sam sighs. "We can't blow up the school. We send the demons back to hell."
"That's where we come in," Luke says, motioning to Gypsy and Lane.
*
Paris is scary when she's angry. Rory thinks the football team are less perturbed about the time they spent possessed by demons than Paris Gellar bearing down on them with a very determined look on her face.
"Where is Tristin?" she asks the one who's unlucky enough to be in the front.
"Uh," he says, and Rory thinks he might be about to start stuttering. Paris grabs him by his collar and he tries to back away. "I, uh-"
"He's in the basement," the large guy next to him says quickly. Rory thinks he might be the quarterback or halfback or whatever the team captain is called.
Paris doesn't stop for pleasantries like thank you. She heads off at a run, and really, they've only just got a whole bunch of demons captured, there could be stray ones left in the school, and Rory can't let her go off on her own. She has a one second reverie about the benefits of Paris getting eaten by a stray monster who might've followed the ifrits to Chilton, then goes after her, tugging Dean with her because she can't let him out of her sight, not yet.
They're only a few seconds behind Paris when she reaches the basement, but apparently a lot can happen in a few seconds. They walk in on Paris, sitting on Tristin's lap, hugging him like she's going to crush him. That's not particularly unexpected. What is unexpected is that he's very eagerly kissing her back. What's more, he's half-naked and kissing her, and Rory doesn't need to have this image in her brain.
She coughs, loudly.
"Ah, Mary," Tristin says. "A bit late to the rescue - Paris beat you to the spoils."
Dean mutters something under his breath, and Rory tries not to vomit. "It's Rory. And as though I'd touch-" she starts, and can't bring herself to finish. "I'd untie you, but I don't think I'll bother now."
Paris turns around. "It's all turned out perfectly," she says, and waves at herself and Tristin.
Rory turns to Dean. "Let's go before I punch someone," she says.
*
They all end up back at the coffee shop, Luke behind the counter, serving coffee and burgers, the rest of them at two tables they've pulled together despite Luke's glares.
"So, that zombie we saw here when he arrived in town?" Dean starts.
"Oh, yeah, that's Kirk," Luke says, and turns back to his burgers as though there's nothing unusual at all about having a zombie in his coffee shop.
"Kirk?" Sam repeats, because somehow the idea of a zombie having a name is just plain weird.
"Yes," Rory nods. "He used to be the assistant manager at Doose's Market, the DSL installer, a photographer and a swan wrangler. Until he was killed and became a zombie."
"And you've tried to take him out?" Sam asks.
"Oh, no! He'd never hurt anyone," Rory says, sounding horrified at the very idea.
"Though it's not very nice when he sleepwalks," Lorelai says.
"Naked," Rory adds.
"He has night terrors."
Lane wrinkles her nose. "It was bad enough before he became a zombie, but now, well-"
"It's kinda gross." There's a mass shudder - it looks like everyone's had an eyeful of naked zombie.
Sam can imagine. Unfortunately.
"Though Lulu does try to keep him in at night," Lorelai says.
"Lulu?" Sam asks weakly.
"His girlfriend," Rory's Dean says.
"He has a girlfriend?" Dean asks, echoing Sam's own disbelief.
"Oh, yes. They do movie-night together at their house - they mostly show horror shows, and the kids all think he's an added attraction. I'm not sure if they think he wears really good makeup or if they know he's actually a zombie," Lorelai says.
Dean, of course, has to ask. "So I can't kill him?"
"No!" everyone shouts.
*
Lane's staring at Sam. And not discreetly, either, but wide-eyed, mouth-open, very obvious staring.
"Lane!" Rory hisses.
"Yes?" Lane answers, but doesn't stop staring.
"You're staring, Lane," Rory whispers.
"Oh, yes, didn't realize." Lane turns around, and leans in towards Rory. "But, I mean- Just look at him. So tall and hot and sexy and tall. He's like Dean, but sexy."
"Lane!" Rory's offended.
"Well, he is! He's all dark and dangerous and brooding. And so handsome."
"Dean's tall and handsome. And dangerous," Rory adds.
Lane doesn't even try to hide her smile. "Yes, Rory, he's really dangerous," she deadpans.
"Well, he could be. If he wanted to be." Rory feels she has to defend Dean's honor, even though she actually loves the fact that he's not dangerous. Unlike Sam, who probably is.
"I wonder if Sam's into music. And what sort," Lane adds speculatively.
"You do know he's a hunter, right? And he's not going to be hanging around."
"Yeah, I know. But there's no harm in looking, is there? I've got to get my thrills somewhere. And if you won't let me live vicariously through you and Dean-"
Rory smiles. "Yeah, no harm in looking."
*
There's just her, her mom and Dean left at Luke's. Paris and Tristin didn't stay long, which was a good thing, because Luke wouldn't have been happy if Rory had thrown up in the diner. Sam and Dean left half an hour ago, followed by Gypsy, and Lane realized she'd be grounded for the rest of the winter if she didn't get back home soon.
Luke's sorting out invoices, but he keeps coming over to top up their coffee.
They ought to go, but it's nice, somehow, the four of them. Luke's being friendly with Dean - or at least not being rude - and everyone's safe. It's a good feeling.
"Anything you want?" Dean asks, heading towards the counter.
"I'd like a fairy godmother who'll grant me all my wishes, and then go poof in a cloud of smoke whenever I don't want her around. I'd also like my mother to go poof in a cloud of smoke whenever I don't want her around. I could have a special signal, click my fingers or twitch my nose like Samantha, and she'd just vanish," Lorelai says brightly.
Rory smiles at her mom, and turns to Dean. "I want world peace, no one to go hungry ever again, and a kitten," she says, and gives him a beauty pageant smile.
"You need to learn to ask the right question," Lorelai says.
Dean sighs. "Is there any particular food or beverage, available on the menu, that I can order for you?"
"Ah, see, now you're learning," Lorelai says approvingly.
"I'll have a soda," Rory says.
"I'm good."
"That's debatable," Rory says under her breath.
"Daughter!" Lorelai does a good hurt exclamation.
"Mother!"
"Okay, so I'm not Snow White."
"If I say you're my princess, will you shut up?" Luke asks.
Lorelai beams. "Yes." Then, "You've got to actually say it."
Luke rolls his eyes. "You're my princess. Now finish your coffee and get out of here so I can close up."
"Ah, my Prince Charming."
*
"So, I hear you are something of a hero," Michel says. He's looking at Sam as though Sam's covered in chocolate sauce and he wants to lick it all off. Sam preferred the you're dog poo I've just stepped in and need to clean off my shoe look.
Dean coughs loudly, but Michel's attention is firmly on Sam. His hands are firmly on Sam, too.
Sam eases away.
"We're, um, just leaving," he says.
"We can stay longer, if you'd like, Sammy," Dean says, not bothering to hide his grin. "Enjoy the winter festival. What is it, the Spirit of Stars Hollow?"
Sam glares at him. "No, Dean, we're in a hurry, remember? That urgent job in, um, Michigan." He hopes his tone adequately conveys the idea that if Dean disagrees with him, next time he gets possessed, Sam'll leave him to it.
"Oh, that job. Nah, Sam, it's not that urgent."
"Yes, it is. Very urgent. Life or death." Sam's going to cut off Dean's balls, fry them, and feed them to the zombie if Dean doesn't cooperate.
Apparently his plan comes through in his look. "Oh, yes," Dean suddenly agrees and picks up his duffel. "That urgent job. You should have said. We'd better get going."
They crunch through the snow to the car and Sam flings his bag onto the back seat.
Dean pauses and looks over the Impala. "That little girl, what was her name, Lon-?"
"Lane."
"Yeah, that's the one. She was really into you. Couldn't stop staring at you in the diner."
Sam had noticed. "She's still at school," he points out.
"She's legal." Dean wiggles his eyebrows as he eases the Impala out onto the road.
"Just drive, Dean."
Dean drives.
He takes one long look in the rear view mirror as they leave Stars Hollow. "I still can't believe we didn't get to kill the zombie."
*
"So," Sam asks, attempting to sound casual. "When you were possessed, what exactly happened?"
Dean stiffens, and turns the tape up.
Sam turns the tape down.
"I think we should talk about it, Dean. Let your feelings out, get it off your chest. It'd do you good."
"You want me to turn right around and tell Michel that you couldn't bear to leave so soon after all? Or tell Lane you want to trade Facebook details?"
Sam turns the tape back up.
*
"Are you sure you're okay," Dean asks, wrapping his arm around her and settling her against his side. The sofa is comfortable, but Dean's arm is even better.
"I should be asking you that. You're the one who got possessed. I'm sorry," Rory says. "Stuff like that never happened to you before you met me."
"Hey, no moping," he says, and kisses her. "Life's more exciting since I met you."
"You're not just saying that to make me feel better?"
"No. You're worth it. Besides," Dean smiles, "I'm not ifrit of the dark."
Rory groans and cuddles in closer. "So, what exactly was it like, being possessed?"
Dean stiffens and gulps. "Don't remember," he says, and moves in to kiss her again.
Rory puts a hand on his chest to still him. "Really?" she asks.
Dean sighs. "No. But Monday morning, first thing, I'm going to Gypsy and getting her to cast an amnesia spell or something."
"That bad, huh?"
Dean closes his eyes and shudders. "How about you help me forget?" he says, looking hopeful, and Rory can definitely do that.
//