Fic: Coyote, Wolf and Hound (7/9)
Fic: Coyote, Wolf and Hound (7/9)
Series: Special Projects
Summary: The honeymoon is over and the Winchester family settles into family life by doing what they do best: Hunting. This time they head into the Superstition mountains to look into another beheading case. Can you say Lost Dutchman Mine?
Author: pen37
Beta: Strangevisitor7
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean
Pairing:Chloe/Dean
Rating: pg-13
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Also submitted for the Crossovers_100 challenge. Prompt # 81 Mountain.
Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6, Ch 7, Ch 8, Ch 9
She'd had a hangover once. Back before the meteor rocks kick started her healing abilities. It hurt like hell. And what made it worse was the way sunlight felt like razor-sharp knives stabbing into the back of her skull.
The sun was kind of doing that to her right now. Chloe lifted her hands to shield her face, and then took stock of the situation.
What kind of person does it make me that this is a regular occurrence? She thought wryly. Most girls who wake up with headaches and no memory of the night before just have to worry about how much they had to drink. Me? I get to speculate whether I’m lying in a mortuary fridge, a coffin, or a snow bank in the great frozen north.
Now that she'd pushed past the head pain, she could see that her leg was badly fractured. The bone was sticking out just above the knee. Which would explain why it hadn't healed already. She'd have to set the damn thing, and then stay off of it for a few hours.
But first she needed to stop the elephants from tap dancing on her forehead.
She rubbed her temples, and was surprised to encounter dry, crusty blood around her right ear. She pulled her hand away in shock, before gingerly touching it again.
In a flash, she remembered the human-like thing that had held a rock over her head. That would account for the headache.
She pushed herself to a seated position, and looked around. She was at the bottom of a long mineshaft.
Panic burned white-hot through her veins. It sent her pulse skyrocketing and made her head pound worse.
She forced the panic down with iron will, and made herself consider her situation rationally. She'd been in worse scrapes before she told herself. Focus and take one thing at a time.
She had no idea how long she'd been out, but head injuries usually took a long time to repair.
Judging by the position of the sun, it was high-noon. But what day?
“You know, you're more powerful than you realize,”
She whipped her head around faster than she intended, and the elephants tap dancing around up there must have lost their balance and fallen flat. How else could she have accounted for the way the pounding got worse?
“I mean, you took a rock to the head. You probably broke your skull. Then that thing tossed you down here and left you to die. Most folks don't wake up from something like that.”
Over around the edge of the shaft, there was some kind of tunnel. And leaning against the juncture - was something that looked like Dean.
Without a second thought, she reached down to the unbroken leg, pulled the snub-nosed revolver that Dean had given her from the ankle holster and pointed it at him.
He looked at her with one eyebrow raised in amusement. “Put the gun down, Chloe.”
She frowned, and then cocked the hammer.
“Damit, what is it with you Winchesters and shooting first? I said put the gun down. I'm not the shifter.”
“Yeah? Well you're damn sure not my husband either. Maybe I should just put a silver bullet into your heart to be sure.”
He pulled layers of shirts back to present her with an unimpeded view of his t-shirt-clad torso. “Right here, baby. And if I happen to be possessing Dean's body, then you'll just be shooting him instead.”
“Number one,” Chloe snarled at him and then pulled the trigger. “The Impala is baby. I'm Darlin'.” The creature flinched as the bullet impacted his chest. “But you would know that if you were actually possessing Dean. Number two.” This time, she shot him lower, in the belly. “After the last time Dean was possessed, he took steps so that it won't happen again. Number three.”
This time she aimed lower.
“Wait!” He covered his crotch. “Not there!”
“So you're a trickster,” she said.
He blinked at her. “How did you . . .?”
“If you were the shifter, my first shot would have killed you,” She lowered her gun. “You decided that you wanted to look like Dean. You could have easily come down here looking like Sam. Which means that you must identify with my husband's personality on some level. And . . . I've just spent the past couple of days reading Southwestern legends. Do you know how many bawdy trickster stories there are out there? I figured . . . if you're not willing to let the downstairs brain suffer a direct hit, you must be a trickster.”
His look of tolerant amusement morphed into a full-on grin of approval. “Ha!” he slapped his knee and pointed at her. “Knew you had to be smart.”
“So which one are you?” Her eyes narrowed as he crossed the mine and knelt on his haunches before her. She raised the gun again. He lifted his hands, palms outward, to show that he meant no harm.
“Look, I can set that leg for you, but not while you're waving that hand-canon in my face.”
She studied his expression carefully. While he appeared sincere, he was a trickster.
“What makes you think I can trust you?” She asked.
“You probably can't,” he said with a dismissive shrug. “But right now, I think you're out of options.”
She looked around the empty mine, and realized her precarious position: no food, no water. Broken leg. Trapped at the bottom of a mine.
“Fine,” she lowered her gun. “But no funny stuff. I'm not sleeping with you.”
“You seduce one chief's daughter, and your reputation follows you for the rest of your life,” he muttered. His hands on her leg were surprisingly gentle as he tore back the denim, and guided the bone in place. Despite her high tolerance to pain, the feelings of having the bone set were excruciating. To distract herself, Chloe focused on his face.
Despite the fact that he looked like Dean, the mannerisms were all wrong. It was like comparing Bizzaro to Clark: the obvious differences were jarring.
“So which one are you?” She asked.
“What? You haven't figured that one out by now?” He asked.
“You could be some second-rate trickster that no one has heard of.”
He scoffed at that, and Chloe grinned. The annoyance of her broken leg, the pain in her head and her anger forgotten temporarily as she played the trickster's game.
“Or you could be . . . Spider, Fox or Raven.” A sudden hunch crossed her mind. “You're Wolf, maybe?”
“You think Wolf is a trickster?” He repositioned the bone with a pop that left her biting on her lower lip until it was bloody and glowing green. The motion must have distracted him, because he starred at her mouth with an expression of longing.
“I can still shoot your downstairs brain, mister.” she threatened.
“Sorry,” he said with a disarming chuckle.
“So you're not Wolf. But judging by your expression, you know Wolf. Which would make you his brother, Coyote?”
He started at that. Then grinned at her as he rubbed the back of his neck. “You figured it out did you? Damn you're good.”
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“Favor to Wolf,” he said with a shrug.
“And what is that to me?” She asked.
He seemed to produce a roll of something long and thin out of the air. “Learned this trick from a Chippewa medicine man,” he told her with a wink. “You can make a temporary cast out of birch bark. Get it wet, and it goes all limp like paper. But once it dries, it's tough as plaster.”
“Okay.” She said with a nod. “Good to know. But you: avoiding the subject much?”
“Fine,” he rolled his eyes. “The thing you need to know about Wolf: he's a lot like Sammy. Kind of a stick in the mud. But he's earnest and smart and he wants to do the right thing. So over where we live: I think you call it Tir Nan Og but it's got a different name for every culture, there is a lot of debate over which horse to back. You humans, or the demons.”
As he spoke, he draped the soaking wet bark around her thigh. To Chloe, the dampness was cool and welcoming after lying in the sun at the bottom of the dry mineshaft. She wondered if he could pull water out of the air in the same way that he did the bark.
The trickster continued, oblivious to her inner musings.
“Now, there is this one lady who wants everyone to know that her family is on the side that's going to win. And the whole reason that it's going to win is because her grand-niece knows a bunch of big damn heroes and in fact, is one herself. Now I thought that the lady was crazy. But she's got a name that calls up respect: Sullivan. Around a hundred years ago, there was a hunter who had that name. He was the kind of guy who make unseelies afraid of the dark.”
Chloe blinked in astonishment at that. She'd recently found out that her great-grampy had been a hunter back in Ireland and that her great-aunt had gone to live amongst the fairy folk. But that was a part of her history that she hadn't expected to come face-to-face with in the middle of Arizona.
Coyote looked up at her, as if gauging her reaction. Then he shrugged, and went back to wrapping her leg.
“So then we hear that not only is this big damn hero every bit the hunter that great-grandpa was, she's hooked up with another one of those famous hunter types: The kind of guy who demon parents tell stories of when they're trying to scare their little demon babies into behaving like model demon children.
“And Brother Wolf is very interested in hearing that. Because if it's true, if the Sullivans and Winchesters are fighting shoulder-to-shoulder against the demon hordes, then maybe the humans have more than a chance in this war. Maybe they're going to come out on top. And we like to hear that. Because really? We like humans a damn sight more than demons.
“So he sent me: his sneaky little brother to cage things out.”
Coyote finished wrapping the pliant wood around her leg, and secured it with a bit of old rag. “So what do you think about that?” he asked her.
Chloe pursed her lips. “I'm wondering how much of that was true, and how much was bullshit.”
He seemed to deflate under her words. “You're kidding right?”
“Sort of depends on whether you're Coyote the Fire Bringer, or Coyote who turned his wife into a duck.”
“You know there's more to the stories than that,” Coyote said.
“There always is,” Chloe rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, and you dig up graves and desecrate corpses.”
“Touche,” Chloe said.
“Believe it or not, I'm on your side, Chloe.” Coyote said. “I like people. They're interesting. Why do you think I did any of those things that benefit people: bringing fire, teaching them to hunt and fish, killing giants and monsters. So maybe sometimes one of your kind gets a little too big for his britches, and then I knock him down a peg or two. But some folks would call that irony.”
He pinned her with a patient look. “So what say I help you out of here and along the way we can talk?”
She nodded slowly and then re-holstered the gun as a show of good faith. “You're right about one thing: I don't have much choice but to trust you. And I can't help Dean or Sam from down here.”
“Don't worry about them,” Coyote smirked. “If half what they say about those two is true, they're going to be just fine.”
Series: Special Projects
Summary: The honeymoon is over and the Winchester family settles into family life by doing what they do best: Hunting. This time they head into the Superstition mountains to look into another beheading case. Can you say Lost Dutchman Mine?
Author: pen37
Beta: Strangevisitor7
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean
Pairing:Chloe/Dean
Rating: pg-13
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Also submitted for the Crossovers_100 challenge. Prompt # 81 Mountain.
Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6, Ch 7, Ch 8, Ch 9
She'd had a hangover once. Back before the meteor rocks kick started her healing abilities. It hurt like hell. And what made it worse was the way sunlight felt like razor-sharp knives stabbing into the back of her skull.
The sun was kind of doing that to her right now. Chloe lifted her hands to shield her face, and then took stock of the situation.
What kind of person does it make me that this is a regular occurrence? She thought wryly. Most girls who wake up with headaches and no memory of the night before just have to worry about how much they had to drink. Me? I get to speculate whether I’m lying in a mortuary fridge, a coffin, or a snow bank in the great frozen north.
Now that she'd pushed past the head pain, she could see that her leg was badly fractured. The bone was sticking out just above the knee. Which would explain why it hadn't healed already. She'd have to set the damn thing, and then stay off of it for a few hours.
But first she needed to stop the elephants from tap dancing on her forehead.
She rubbed her temples, and was surprised to encounter dry, crusty blood around her right ear. She pulled her hand away in shock, before gingerly touching it again.
In a flash, she remembered the human-like thing that had held a rock over her head. That would account for the headache.
She pushed herself to a seated position, and looked around. She was at the bottom of a long mineshaft.
Panic burned white-hot through her veins. It sent her pulse skyrocketing and made her head pound worse.
She forced the panic down with iron will, and made herself consider her situation rationally. She'd been in worse scrapes before she told herself. Focus and take one thing at a time.
She had no idea how long she'd been out, but head injuries usually took a long time to repair.
Judging by the position of the sun, it was high-noon. But what day?
“You know, you're more powerful than you realize,”
She whipped her head around faster than she intended, and the elephants tap dancing around up there must have lost their balance and fallen flat. How else could she have accounted for the way the pounding got worse?
“I mean, you took a rock to the head. You probably broke your skull. Then that thing tossed you down here and left you to die. Most folks don't wake up from something like that.”
Over around the edge of the shaft, there was some kind of tunnel. And leaning against the juncture - was something that looked like Dean.
Without a second thought, she reached down to the unbroken leg, pulled the snub-nosed revolver that Dean had given her from the ankle holster and pointed it at him.
He looked at her with one eyebrow raised in amusement. “Put the gun down, Chloe.”
She frowned, and then cocked the hammer.
“Damit, what is it with you Winchesters and shooting first? I said put the gun down. I'm not the shifter.”
“Yeah? Well you're damn sure not my husband either. Maybe I should just put a silver bullet into your heart to be sure.”
He pulled layers of shirts back to present her with an unimpeded view of his t-shirt-clad torso. “Right here, baby. And if I happen to be possessing Dean's body, then you'll just be shooting him instead.”
“Number one,” Chloe snarled at him and then pulled the trigger. “The Impala is baby. I'm Darlin'.” The creature flinched as the bullet impacted his chest. “But you would know that if you were actually possessing Dean. Number two.” This time, she shot him lower, in the belly. “After the last time Dean was possessed, he took steps so that it won't happen again. Number three.”
This time she aimed lower.
“Wait!” He covered his crotch. “Not there!”
“So you're a trickster,” she said.
He blinked at her. “How did you . . .?”
“If you were the shifter, my first shot would have killed you,” She lowered her gun. “You decided that you wanted to look like Dean. You could have easily come down here looking like Sam. Which means that you must identify with my husband's personality on some level. And . . . I've just spent the past couple of days reading Southwestern legends. Do you know how many bawdy trickster stories there are out there? I figured . . . if you're not willing to let the downstairs brain suffer a direct hit, you must be a trickster.”
His look of tolerant amusement morphed into a full-on grin of approval. “Ha!” he slapped his knee and pointed at her. “Knew you had to be smart.”
“So which one are you?” Her eyes narrowed as he crossed the mine and knelt on his haunches before her. She raised the gun again. He lifted his hands, palms outward, to show that he meant no harm.
“Look, I can set that leg for you, but not while you're waving that hand-canon in my face.”
She studied his expression carefully. While he appeared sincere, he was a trickster.
“What makes you think I can trust you?” She asked.
“You probably can't,” he said with a dismissive shrug. “But right now, I think you're out of options.”
She looked around the empty mine, and realized her precarious position: no food, no water. Broken leg. Trapped at the bottom of a mine.
“Fine,” she lowered her gun. “But no funny stuff. I'm not sleeping with you.”
“You seduce one chief's daughter, and your reputation follows you for the rest of your life,” he muttered. His hands on her leg were surprisingly gentle as he tore back the denim, and guided the bone in place. Despite her high tolerance to pain, the feelings of having the bone set were excruciating. To distract herself, Chloe focused on his face.
Despite the fact that he looked like Dean, the mannerisms were all wrong. It was like comparing Bizzaro to Clark: the obvious differences were jarring.
“So which one are you?” She asked.
“What? You haven't figured that one out by now?” He asked.
“You could be some second-rate trickster that no one has heard of.”
He scoffed at that, and Chloe grinned. The annoyance of her broken leg, the pain in her head and her anger forgotten temporarily as she played the trickster's game.
“Or you could be . . . Spider, Fox or Raven.” A sudden hunch crossed her mind. “You're Wolf, maybe?”
“You think Wolf is a trickster?” He repositioned the bone with a pop that left her biting on her lower lip until it was bloody and glowing green. The motion must have distracted him, because he starred at her mouth with an expression of longing.
“I can still shoot your downstairs brain, mister.” she threatened.
“Sorry,” he said with a disarming chuckle.
“So you're not Wolf. But judging by your expression, you know Wolf. Which would make you his brother, Coyote?”
He started at that. Then grinned at her as he rubbed the back of his neck. “You figured it out did you? Damn you're good.”
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“Favor to Wolf,” he said with a shrug.
“And what is that to me?” She asked.
He seemed to produce a roll of something long and thin out of the air. “Learned this trick from a Chippewa medicine man,” he told her with a wink. “You can make a temporary cast out of birch bark. Get it wet, and it goes all limp like paper. But once it dries, it's tough as plaster.”
“Okay.” She said with a nod. “Good to know. But you: avoiding the subject much?”
“Fine,” he rolled his eyes. “The thing you need to know about Wolf: he's a lot like Sammy. Kind of a stick in the mud. But he's earnest and smart and he wants to do the right thing. So over where we live: I think you call it Tir Nan Og but it's got a different name for every culture, there is a lot of debate over which horse to back. You humans, or the demons.”
As he spoke, he draped the soaking wet bark around her thigh. To Chloe, the dampness was cool and welcoming after lying in the sun at the bottom of the dry mineshaft. She wondered if he could pull water out of the air in the same way that he did the bark.
The trickster continued, oblivious to her inner musings.
“Now, there is this one lady who wants everyone to know that her family is on the side that's going to win. And the whole reason that it's going to win is because her grand-niece knows a bunch of big damn heroes and in fact, is one herself. Now I thought that the lady was crazy. But she's got a name that calls up respect: Sullivan. Around a hundred years ago, there was a hunter who had that name. He was the kind of guy who make unseelies afraid of the dark.”
Chloe blinked in astonishment at that. She'd recently found out that her great-grampy had been a hunter back in Ireland and that her great-aunt had gone to live amongst the fairy folk. But that was a part of her history that she hadn't expected to come face-to-face with in the middle of Arizona.
Coyote looked up at her, as if gauging her reaction. Then he shrugged, and went back to wrapping her leg.
“So then we hear that not only is this big damn hero every bit the hunter that great-grandpa was, she's hooked up with another one of those famous hunter types: The kind of guy who demon parents tell stories of when they're trying to scare their little demon babies into behaving like model demon children.
“And Brother Wolf is very interested in hearing that. Because if it's true, if the Sullivans and Winchesters are fighting shoulder-to-shoulder against the demon hordes, then maybe the humans have more than a chance in this war. Maybe they're going to come out on top. And we like to hear that. Because really? We like humans a damn sight more than demons.
“So he sent me: his sneaky little brother to cage things out.”
Coyote finished wrapping the pliant wood around her leg, and secured it with a bit of old rag. “So what do you think about that?” he asked her.
Chloe pursed her lips. “I'm wondering how much of that was true, and how much was bullshit.”
He seemed to deflate under her words. “You're kidding right?”
“Sort of depends on whether you're Coyote the Fire Bringer, or Coyote who turned his wife into a duck.”
“You know there's more to the stories than that,” Coyote said.
“There always is,” Chloe rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, and you dig up graves and desecrate corpses.”
“Touche,” Chloe said.
“Believe it or not, I'm on your side, Chloe.” Coyote said. “I like people. They're interesting. Why do you think I did any of those things that benefit people: bringing fire, teaching them to hunt and fish, killing giants and monsters. So maybe sometimes one of your kind gets a little too big for his britches, and then I knock him down a peg or two. But some folks would call that irony.”
He pinned her with a patient look. “So what say I help you out of here and along the way we can talk?”
She nodded slowly and then re-holstered the gun as a show of good faith. “You're right about one thing: I don't have much choice but to trust you. And I can't help Dean or Sam from down here.”
“Don't worry about them,” Coyote smirked. “If half what they say about those two is true, they're going to be just fine.”