Fic: Of Stakes, Souls, and C.E.O.s (1-2/?) (Supernatural/Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel)
Title: Of Stakes, Souls, and C.E.O.s
Author: crackers4jenn
Fandoms: Supernatural, Angel the Series/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG-13 (gen)
Summary: Maybe Sam and Dean's Dad didn't tell them everything there was to know about vampires.
Warnings: N/A
Disclaimer: Not a single one of these characters is mine. Pity. They belong to their respective creators.
A/N: Parts 1 and 2. The others TBC.
Part 1
"Alright," Dean said, shutting the car door behind him. It was skirting past one in the morning and they were sitting pretty in the middle of San Diego, California, the tail end of chasing after some idiot who'd made a deal with the devil finally winding down.
Sam, who was already in the passenger seat, sat bleary-eyed but still eager to listen, or at least resigned to the fact that a basic approach to the next 48 hours needed to be etched. "What do we got?"
"Victims spread out like a Christmas buffet. Ten, eleven. Coroner's report all say the same thing: vicious animal attack--you know the drill."
"Two suspicious looking holes. In the neck."
"Bingo. Anyway, the only thing I found was some small-town article telling us squat in the locals."
"Ten, eleven victims and this isn't front page news?"
Dean stuck the keys in the ignition and revved the motor. "Makes you wonder who's hiding what, doesn't it?"
As Dean put the Chevy in reverse and pushed down hard on the pedal to send them rearing backwards, Sam gripped the dashboard and rethought his usual lack of wearing a seatbelt. Just as quick as they'd backed out, Dean switched back over to drive and peeled out of the motel parking lot of their latest housing.
All of a sudden headlights filled the window, stretched out and bright.
"Dean," Sam shouted, wide-eyed, "watch out for the--!"
Dean managed to swerve past an oncoming big rig that was lumbering down its side of the highway, some pissed off semi that shouted obscenities at them in the form of one long, constant horn-blowing.
Safe in their own lane and feeling none-too-phased in the face of vehicular death, Dean snarked, "You are such a backseat driver, you know that?"
"Backseat--? I was saving our lives!"
"Relax, Chicken Little, I saw it. Besides, it wasn't even close."
"Dean, the car rattled. It shook on its hinges!"
"Hey, woah. My baby doesn't have hinges."
That got an eye roll. "Fine, whatever. Just. Slow down, or something."
"C'mon, Sam, you should know by now that my girl here never creeps below 70. Do you, baby?" Dean tenderly petted the steering wheel, making baby-faces at his vehicle.
Sam stared. Then, because there were seriously much more disturbing things in this world to contemplate, he forced away that tepid anger that came easy when being enclosed in too small of a space with Dean for too long of a time. "How far out are we?"
"Three, four hours, top."
Sighing, Sam slouched against the car door. Sometimes this business-on-the-road thing sucked. Too many long hours with just about zero personal time, all of it spent with his brother. He wiggled into the leather as a light rain started to drizzle, tapping a lazy rhythm against the car's roof, and his eyes, heavy with exhaustion and almost three straight days of constant movement, started to close. "Wake me when we get there," he yawned.
Dean grinned, showing teeth. Just for kicks, he pushed his foot down and upped their speed a couple more harmless miles per hour. "Will do, Miss Daisy."
***
Pulling up to the Los Angeles city line at four in the morning didn't exactly have its thematic charm or, hell, romance. There were a lot of bright lights, sure, and a good amount of star-like twinkling, but mostly it was just deep, dark, wet shadows, nothing like some overly-processed scene in a movie.
Dean cruised the Impala into a gas station where the good stuff was hiked up to $3.94. Hell on the wallet, but it was worth it. No way was he putting anything but the best into his car.
Sam stirred when the engine was cut off. "We there?" his sleepy voice asked.
"Yep," Dean said, and pushed open his door. The night air had a quiet sort of chill to it, heavy with humidity. Winds coming from up North swept across the mostly bare parking lot.
There was something else, though, making his skin prick, and it wasn't the buy-one-get-one-free chili dog deal advertised in the gas station window.
That's when he noticed a scantily dressed, tired-looking woman standing blatantly by the payphones and started to smirk. California living, where the women were easy. Or, in this case, accessible with a pocketful of cash and some loose change. She looked too old to be doing this, like maybe she had some kid in college tucked away at home, but, hell, her legs went up, up, and kept going up, so, whatever, Mrs. Robinson was at least a half-decent hooker.
She made eye contact with him as he fumbled through his wallet, looking for the right credit card to swipe. Smiled, which made Dean aware of the missing front set of teeth, and crooked her hips a little, which made her look less like some divine piece of meat and more like someone suffering from osteoporosis. When she bent her pointer finger and beckoned him over, Dean outright laughed and shook his head in disbelief, marveling to himself. I mean, getting the attention of a sleazy hooker--that's awesome, right?
He stuck his head back into the car, grinning ear to ear. "Hey, Sam!" he said, some kind of shouted whisper in case anything louder spooked the lady off like she was some kind of wild animal grazing civilization for the first time. "Wanna get laid?"
Sam's face scrunched up. "What?"
Excitedly, Dean jerked his head towards the woman. His eyebrows jumped to and fro, like maybe the hilarity of the situation wasn't evident enough without that form of enhanced communication.
Sam’s look turned nauseated. "I hate you."
"Aw, c'mon. Lady that experienced, she probably has all sorts of fun things to share."
"Yeah, like a venereal disease. C'mon, Dean, fill up and let's go."
"Alright, alright," Dean huffed and puffed. "Joy-kill."
He straightened, but when he went to scope the old lady prostitute out one last time for committing this moment to memory purposes, he saw that she was gone. Which meant that she'd probably skipped off, duty calling. Dammit. He stuck his back through the door and demanded of his brother, "You happy now?"
Sam had the obligatory look of confusion on his face until he saw where Dean's raised brows were all but pointing to, and then he rolled his eyes.
Dean was getting ready to educate Sam on how you always, always make nice with the hookers, always, when a loud crash sounded off behind him, to his right. Like trash cans toppling over, there was a metal-on-metal racket that yelped once and then faded into nothing almost as soon as the sound clamored loud enough to reach their ears. Dean yanked himself into a standing position, alarm bells going off.
Sam's side of the car opened, and Sam warily stood up. "What was that?"
With a half-shrug, Dean went to the back of the car to bulk up. It was automatic, instinctive. Noise like that doesn't just happen coincidentally, not when they were in the middle of a hunt. He popped the trunk, triggered the latch to keep it open, and started rifling through his assortment of weapons, but in a stealthy, concealed way lest anyone showed up and took notice and decided to do that 'good Samaritan' crap and call the cops.
Sam came around the corner, joining him. His eyes were scanning the parking lot, searching mostly where the source of the sound came from: around the backside of the gas station where the street lights mostly didn't reach, and where Mrs. Robinson, lady of the night, had most likely disappeared.
"Here," Dean said, and shoved a bottle of holy water into Sam's hands. He took the crossbow for himself. The tips were already coated in dead man's blood, thanks to previous forethought by Bobby. Gotta love that kind of thinking. Just in case, though, he pulled out a blade big enough for some serious whacking, and a flashlight.
"Seriously?" Sam said, holding up the holy water. It was nice and travel-sized, too.
Dean smirked, closing the trunk with a satisfying slam. "You got a better plan?"
"Yeah, I do." He reached over and snatched the blade from Dean, looking proud of himself.
Dean could argue, or he could go hunt down whatever baddie it was they heard. The latter tugged at him first. "Fine. But if you cut yourself, I don't want to hear it. C'mon."
They took their steps slow and careful, aware of the open splash of light the bright gas station lamps, meant to invoke safety, provided. Inside the building, it looked like there was only one person employed and working, and that man was fixated more on some late-night infomercial than what was happening outside. A glimpse to Dean's right told him the road that lead off of the freeway was car-free, too, which gave them the confidence to stay spotlighted like a couple of ballerinas on stage instead of booking it to some place less inauspicious.
There was another noise, then. A human one this time. A muffled shout, like someone was trying to scream, but couldn't. Dean looked at Sam. Sam looked back with, I heard it. You ready? Then they moved forward as one, faster, weapons held more closely and at the ready than before.
Once they were near enough, Dean shouted, "Hey! Anyone there?" into the darkness. The parking lot on that side of the gas station went down fifty feet and then tapered off into an alley that was sandwiched in by a smaller building beside it. Some little Mom-and-Pop convenience store that, despite the sign that assured it was open 24/7, was dark and empty inside.
Checking again that they didn't have company, Dean clicked on the flashlight. A beam of light split apart the darkness, lighting things up enough that they wouldn't be considered dead stupid to walk in not knowing what they were after. Relatively stupid. But not dead.
Down the alley was a dumpster that lurched to the left, stuffed so full with trash it couldn't even close all the way. There was a scattering of cardboard boxes at its bottom, ragged and moldy from too much time spent out in the sun and rain. Decorative. A couple feet away, garbage cans were toppled over, spilling tossed out food, papers, and god knows what else along the ground.
Sam eyed it. "You think--?"
"Maybe it was just some spooked alley cat knocking over a couple cans of trash?" Dean kept tracing forms in the dark with the flashlight, eyes squinted. "I don't know. Let's go." He took off farther into the alley, stepping around a bunch of nasty gooey stuff he didn't even want to think about, thank you very much. A reluctant Sam followed.
Just then, one of those fallen garbage cans launched itself in mid-air, making Dean and Sam stop in their tracks. It was still soaring high when a flash of black followed its movement, and once that flash hit the flashlight's glow, it turned less into a flash and more into a thing. A vampire, Dean realized a half-second later, exactly what they were on the prowl for, and adrenaline filled up his veins, fast.
"About time," he murmured to himself, prepared to move in and handle things. Sam was tensed up at his side, too, and out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw him take a step forward.
Keeping the flashlight pointed at the thing's face, which was seriously mutated beyond any level of Hollywood attractiveness, Dean raised his crossbow. Steady and slowly, because one move too fast and maybe the vampire flips out and propels forward, and believe me, Dean'd had about just about enough of these things to last a lifetime.
"Crossbow?" A sudden and cheery voice said from behind them, and like two idiots, both Sam and Dean turned around. At least Dean kept the weapon pointed forward. There was some chick standing at the wide opening of the alley, arms crossed, and she looked amused as hell. "Gotta tell you. I'm a little impressed."
Dean shared a quick Huh? look with Sam, then went back to staring at the crazy chick.
"Guys?" she said, and her amused look doubled. With something like a smirk, she pointed behind them.
Which made them realize, yeah, they were pretty damn stupid. Dean turned quick, but the vampire was long gone. "Son of a bitch," he muttered.
"Or not," the girl said, and before Dean could share another Dude, seriously!? look with his brother, she was barreling past them. Fast. He got the look in this time, and Sam shrugged, wide-eyed and just as taken aback.
By the time they'd caught up to her, about a hundred feet down the alley where it was opening up again into another parking lot, she was stopped and staring at them with that same pleased expression, like he and his brother were just a couple of entertaining monkeys.
"Where is it? You lose it?" Dean asked, breathing out hard.
"Depends on your definition of the word 'lose'. If you mean, kicked its ass, then, sure. Consider it lost."
"Where'd it go?" Sam asked, and it made Dean feel better about himself when Sam sounded just as winded and out of breath. That whole 'running' thing, man. It was harsh.
Instead of answering, she pinned the two of them with one long, resolved steely gaze. "Who are you?"
Which made Dean abruptly aware of the crossbow. And the holy water. And the long ass blade they were toting around like a couple of dorks straight out of some medieval horror movie. "Uh," he fumbled, at a loss, and because it was drilled in him as easy and obvious as breathing, he looked over to Sammy to help come up with some sort of applicable lie, like, hey, weapon-bearing pizza delivery men. Right?
Sam caught on, covering up quick with, "We're undercover police officers. Me and Lieutenant Styx, here."
Dean coughed into his hand, "Morrison."
Sam glared, but smiled and corrected, "Lieutenant Morrison."
Naturally, that got them an extra long stare. "Right. And the crossbow, that's standard weapon procedure?"
"Uh, well," Dean said, and felt like a complete tool all of a sudden for even holding the thing. It's not like the girl was drop dead gorgeous or anything, but she was a woman, he was a man, and currently she was calling him out on being a card-carrying legitimate freak. That'd rattle anybody. "Not exactly."
"What he means is, we're attempting to capture a dangerous subject, and we should probably... go. Do that." Then Sam's eyes softened, and Dean nearly sighed. Cue the sappy concerned city official routine. "You shouldn't be out here, though. The city's a dangerous place at night, especially when you're unprotected."
That's when she waved a previously unnoticed little wooden stake in front of their faces. For all they knew, she conjured that baby out of thin air. "Just consider this a concealed weapon. That shouldn't be too hard, right, Lieutenant?" That one was directed at Dean, and not kindly. "Besides, call it an ego, but I like to think I can take care of myself."
Sam wasn't going to argue, not paired up against that kind of crazy. He held up two passive hands, like maybe she'd been threatening to use her teeny-tiny piece of carved wood there on them. "Alright. Just tell us where he went."
She played it dumb. Round eyes and round mouth, a girly "Who?" clumsily falling out.
"Listen, lady," Dean said, because gone was the patience. "The longer you stall, the longer you put some innocent bystander at risk--"
The act was dropped completely, just like that. Gone went the doe-eyes, the amusement, the cute little cheerleader-in-an-alley routine. "I'm thinking you're not the brains of the operation. Or the ears. Vampire," she said, slow and punctuated, "dead," she added, "dust."
The beat that passed lasted only long enough for Dean to go to a visual place where the hunted vampire in question was decked out in a French maid outfit, Swiffer in hand, and--wrong, dude, just... wrong.
Sam struggled for something articulate to say, settling for, "What?" There was room for some improvement.
As frustrated with them as they were with her, the chick pocketed her stake and brushed past them, heading back the way they came. Both of them turned as one to watch her go.
To his brother, Dean said, "What the hell just happened?"
Sam's eyes were trained forward. "I have no idea."
"Dude," said Dean, which pretty much covered it all. Then, "Hey!" he shouted. "Who are you?"
She didn't turn around, but they heard her crystal clear anyway: Buffy.
Part 2
Three other times in the following two days, whenever they were on a trail or hunting another vampire down, she’d be there. Buffy. The chick with the Spider-Man complex, stalking their hunk of Metropolis with a stake and a hidden tube of nail polish.
After the third time, even Sam grew frustrated. And thus they devised a well mapped out plan to follow her back to the cave she came from, except in a way that, in words, didn’t sound so creepy. She was always on foot, so, like the two stealthy hunters they were, they tailed her from about 80 feet behind. Down dark alleys someone smarter than a 20-something year old young woman wouldn’t dare stray, up and over chain-linked fences, through cemeteries. Some seriously twisted junk.
Currently they were dodging headstones-which, c’mon-and tree branches hanging head high from dead, twisted, gnarly-looking trees, Sam tripping over every other grave marker, when Dean almost stumbled face first into an open grave.
“Mother of-“ he cried, very manly, and just barely stopped himself before the small drop. Dirt crumbled and chunks of grass chipping off at the edge fell like careening rocks off of a tall cliff into the dug out hole. It wouldn't have done a thing for his mood to have fallen in as well, and, aware of that, Dean shrugged his jacket into place, a symbolic gesture that said, Yeah, I'm still a badass.
“Hey,” Sam said, stopped. He sounded confused. “Where’d she go?”
Still tinkering with his jacket, Dean said, “What?”
“The girl. Buffy. She’s gone.”
Suddenly the 6 foot drop and nearly fatal face plant were nothing but a distant memory. “You let her get away?!”
“I didn’t let her get anything!”
“Yeah?”
”Yeah!”
Dean let Sam’s sorry rebuff sit there between them, long and pointedly. And then, “Alright, so where'd she go? Sail into the mystic?”
“She,” that beginning to get familiar voice said, and as if appearing out of thin air, Buffy leapt off a mausoleum and planted herself no more than three feet away from them, “is starting to get pissed.” Well, that made two of them, then. Looking no less casual than if they were sharing a friendly conversation over a couple of cold beers, she said, “The stalking thing? Gotta tell you. Little bit invasive.”
Sam went wide-eyed. God forbid someone imply he was something other than a harp-carrying Saint. “Oh, no. We’re not-“
Right, that was Dean’s cue. “It’s classified.”
That got him the Are you kidding me? You seriously couldn’t think of anything else? look of reproach from his brother, which made him give back the What? C’mon! Like you were doing any better? You were practically spitting moon-beams at her! look in return.
Buffy stood and stared the stare of the judgmental. “Who are you? And don’t give me that made-up load about a couple of undercover policemen chasing after a couple of vampires. Believe me, if something like that actually existed? I’d know about it.”
Sam’s shrug said that they really didn’t have anything to lose in telling the truth. Obviously this chick knew what she was talking about-that was a completely indifferent mention of vampires, after all-so no worry about having their cover blown, and besides, the whole repress-and-deny shtick they were practicing now was only making them look like a couple of legitimate freaks.
In that soft, meant-to-calm voice, Sam said, “My name’s Sam. This is my brother Dean.” When Buffy’s gaze planted itself on Dean, he raised a brow in greeting. “We’re-“ Another glance towards Dean, just one last need for assurance, “demon hunters.”
A 'get out, no way!' would’ve been expected. Maybe a 'Duh, obviously, something somewhere in the span between, sure, but what they got was a response in the form of laughter.
“Wait, let me get this straight. You’re-“ Some more laughing, “hunters? Of the demon variety? Wow. That’s-you think you’ve heard it all, and then something like this comes along. Who do you work for? The Council? You do know they disbanded years ago, right? Well, exploded.”
“The Council?” Sam asked, hamster wheel a'turning.
Dean was focused on something else. Like his reputation. “Hey, we work for no one. We’re self-employed. We’re freelance. We’re-“
“Rogue?” That made her smile.
Oh, definitely Dean was getting pissed off. “What about you? Read a little too much Ann Rice as a kid? Watch Interview with the Vampire one too many times?”
Her lips rounded. “Slay-er,” she answered, plain as that.
It was Dean’s turn to laugh. “You’re a groupie for some 80’s thrash metal band? Oh, man. That’s just awesome.”
“Dean,” said Sam. He was staring at him in that way that usually meant his mental path was about ten blocks ahead of Dean’s. Mostly in his own head, working things out, he told Dean, “I’ve heard of this before. I mean, I always credited it to lore, you know, just some fairytale passed down from hunter to hunter. But it makes sense." He locked eyes with Buffy, redistributed his weight from one leg to the other. "So, you’re a vampire slayer?”
“Destined and appointed.”
“Wait, hang on.” Dean was lost, and not for the first time that night. “Back up a few plot points. You’re saying she’s for real?”
“I’m saying that, according to legend, a Slayer exists."
"How come Dad never mentioned it? Something like that out there, you think he would tell us. Hell, you think he would show us."
Sam could only shrug. "I don't know. Like I said, it's all mostly lore. Heresy."
"Check me out. Do I look like a lore to you?"
Dean had to give her that. And the obligatory toe-to-chest eye crawl just for further verification and acknowledgment. Shaking himself out of that drawn out moment of boob lingering, he said, "Yeah, I got nothing."
Buffy was finally starting to take them a little more seriously. At least the constant gleam of sick and twisted amusement had left her eyes. "So, you two are really--"
"Hunters?" he cut in, a little bit of a defensive gruff to it. "You betcha."
A singular pause. "'Who you gonna call', or--?"
Dean snorted. "Please. Sam?"
Sam's inner-hamster wheel was still going at it, but he snapped to. "Uh, no." Then he re-thought the validity of that. "Well. Sometimes."
"What?" Dean gaped. "Name one time--"
"Goatman in Michigan."
"Okay, then."
"Our dad was a hunter," Sam started up with the explanation. "We're part of... It's like. It's this--"
"A family business," was Dean's quick and easy definition, and yeah, maybe his tone took on a little Tony Soprano vibe there at the end. Look where they were breezing through current pleasantries: standing in the middle of a cemetery at nearing two in the morning. Vibe most definitely warranted.
And it was as if that thought connected with Buffy's. From behind, she pulled a stake out of the waistband of her jeans, shook her shoulders a little to let her hair fall in layers at her back, and said, "Think you can keep up?"
The obligatory exchanged look between Sam and Dean, a shared say what? passing between them.
Then a muffled groan split the air and not five friggin' feet away, a hand shot up and out of a recently buried grave.
"Dude!" said Dean, reaching up his sleeve for his weapon. That is why he always wore a jacket. Always prepared.
Sam took out the travel-sized bottle of holy water from his own back pocket. With all the hunt-blocking going on recently, they were packing light, relatively speaking in Dean's case, and Sam, unfortunately, was getting the dicked shoulda been more prepared, shouldn't you? side of it.
Buffy took notice of the holy water and said, with a lot of judging, "Seriously?"
Sam pulled off the pitiful look bravely, twisting off the top of the teeny little bottle before holding it squarely in front of him. Like a shield made out of plastic, the size of a bottle of eye-drops. Behold the great defender.
In front of them, the exposed hand stretched into am arm, a shoulder, the tip of a head, and it was freaky as all get-out to watch some thing claw its way out of Hell around the decorative sorry you just died floral arrangement settled atop it's not-so-final restring ground. It's face was twisting with animal-rage, fangs angled towards the moonlight.
Buffy pulled rank. Stake held high, she said, "On my count."
The vampire was tugging harder now, both shoulders free. Dean wasn't one to normally follow commands, but he was feeling that from-the-bones-out restless rush of adrenaline in every limb, crackling, begging, itching.
"One," she started.
Dean re-gripped, ready.
"Two."
Sam drew the holy water higher. His hand was shaking, but it wasn't nerves.
Three, was a pushed out breath of air, and then it was ass-kicking time.
***
Author: crackers4jenn
Fandoms: Supernatural, Angel the Series/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG-13 (gen)
Summary: Maybe Sam and Dean's Dad didn't tell them everything there was to know about vampires.
Warnings: N/A
Disclaimer: Not a single one of these characters is mine. Pity. They belong to their respective creators.
A/N: Parts 1 and 2. The others TBC.
Part 1
"Alright," Dean said, shutting the car door behind him. It was skirting past one in the morning and they were sitting pretty in the middle of San Diego, California, the tail end of chasing after some idiot who'd made a deal with the devil finally winding down.
Sam, who was already in the passenger seat, sat bleary-eyed but still eager to listen, or at least resigned to the fact that a basic approach to the next 48 hours needed to be etched. "What do we got?"
"Victims spread out like a Christmas buffet. Ten, eleven. Coroner's report all say the same thing: vicious animal attack--you know the drill."
"Two suspicious looking holes. In the neck."
"Bingo. Anyway, the only thing I found was some small-town article telling us squat in the locals."
"Ten, eleven victims and this isn't front page news?"
Dean stuck the keys in the ignition and revved the motor. "Makes you wonder who's hiding what, doesn't it?"
As Dean put the Chevy in reverse and pushed down hard on the pedal to send them rearing backwards, Sam gripped the dashboard and rethought his usual lack of wearing a seatbelt. Just as quick as they'd backed out, Dean switched back over to drive and peeled out of the motel parking lot of their latest housing.
All of a sudden headlights filled the window, stretched out and bright.
"Dean," Sam shouted, wide-eyed, "watch out for the--!"
Dean managed to swerve past an oncoming big rig that was lumbering down its side of the highway, some pissed off semi that shouted obscenities at them in the form of one long, constant horn-blowing.
Safe in their own lane and feeling none-too-phased in the face of vehicular death, Dean snarked, "You are such a backseat driver, you know that?"
"Backseat--? I was saving our lives!"
"Relax, Chicken Little, I saw it. Besides, it wasn't even close."
"Dean, the car rattled. It shook on its hinges!"
"Hey, woah. My baby doesn't have hinges."
That got an eye roll. "Fine, whatever. Just. Slow down, or something."
"C'mon, Sam, you should know by now that my girl here never creeps below 70. Do you, baby?" Dean tenderly petted the steering wheel, making baby-faces at his vehicle.
Sam stared. Then, because there were seriously much more disturbing things in this world to contemplate, he forced away that tepid anger that came easy when being enclosed in too small of a space with Dean for too long of a time. "How far out are we?"
"Three, four hours, top."
Sighing, Sam slouched against the car door. Sometimes this business-on-the-road thing sucked. Too many long hours with just about zero personal time, all of it spent with his brother. He wiggled into the leather as a light rain started to drizzle, tapping a lazy rhythm against the car's roof, and his eyes, heavy with exhaustion and almost three straight days of constant movement, started to close. "Wake me when we get there," he yawned.
Dean grinned, showing teeth. Just for kicks, he pushed his foot down and upped their speed a couple more harmless miles per hour. "Will do, Miss Daisy."
***
Pulling up to the Los Angeles city line at four in the morning didn't exactly have its thematic charm or, hell, romance. There were a lot of bright lights, sure, and a good amount of star-like twinkling, but mostly it was just deep, dark, wet shadows, nothing like some overly-processed scene in a movie.
Dean cruised the Impala into a gas station where the good stuff was hiked up to $3.94. Hell on the wallet, but it was worth it. No way was he putting anything but the best into his car.
Sam stirred when the engine was cut off. "We there?" his sleepy voice asked.
"Yep," Dean said, and pushed open his door. The night air had a quiet sort of chill to it, heavy with humidity. Winds coming from up North swept across the mostly bare parking lot.
There was something else, though, making his skin prick, and it wasn't the buy-one-get-one-free chili dog deal advertised in the gas station window.
That's when he noticed a scantily dressed, tired-looking woman standing blatantly by the payphones and started to smirk. California living, where the women were easy. Or, in this case, accessible with a pocketful of cash and some loose change. She looked too old to be doing this, like maybe she had some kid in college tucked away at home, but, hell, her legs went up, up, and kept going up, so, whatever, Mrs. Robinson was at least a half-decent hooker.
She made eye contact with him as he fumbled through his wallet, looking for the right credit card to swipe. Smiled, which made Dean aware of the missing front set of teeth, and crooked her hips a little, which made her look less like some divine piece of meat and more like someone suffering from osteoporosis. When she bent her pointer finger and beckoned him over, Dean outright laughed and shook his head in disbelief, marveling to himself. I mean, getting the attention of a sleazy hooker--that's awesome, right?
He stuck his head back into the car, grinning ear to ear. "Hey, Sam!" he said, some kind of shouted whisper in case anything louder spooked the lady off like she was some kind of wild animal grazing civilization for the first time. "Wanna get laid?"
Sam's face scrunched up. "What?"
Excitedly, Dean jerked his head towards the woman. His eyebrows jumped to and fro, like maybe the hilarity of the situation wasn't evident enough without that form of enhanced communication.
Sam’s look turned nauseated. "I hate you."
"Aw, c'mon. Lady that experienced, she probably has all sorts of fun things to share."
"Yeah, like a venereal disease. C'mon, Dean, fill up and let's go."
"Alright, alright," Dean huffed and puffed. "Joy-kill."
He straightened, but when he went to scope the old lady prostitute out one last time for committing this moment to memory purposes, he saw that she was gone. Which meant that she'd probably skipped off, duty calling. Dammit. He stuck his back through the door and demanded of his brother, "You happy now?"
Sam had the obligatory look of confusion on his face until he saw where Dean's raised brows were all but pointing to, and then he rolled his eyes.
Dean was getting ready to educate Sam on how you always, always make nice with the hookers, always, when a loud crash sounded off behind him, to his right. Like trash cans toppling over, there was a metal-on-metal racket that yelped once and then faded into nothing almost as soon as the sound clamored loud enough to reach their ears. Dean yanked himself into a standing position, alarm bells going off.
Sam's side of the car opened, and Sam warily stood up. "What was that?"
With a half-shrug, Dean went to the back of the car to bulk up. It was automatic, instinctive. Noise like that doesn't just happen coincidentally, not when they were in the middle of a hunt. He popped the trunk, triggered the latch to keep it open, and started rifling through his assortment of weapons, but in a stealthy, concealed way lest anyone showed up and took notice and decided to do that 'good Samaritan' crap and call the cops.
Sam came around the corner, joining him. His eyes were scanning the parking lot, searching mostly where the source of the sound came from: around the backside of the gas station where the street lights mostly didn't reach, and where Mrs. Robinson, lady of the night, had most likely disappeared.
"Here," Dean said, and shoved a bottle of holy water into Sam's hands. He took the crossbow for himself. The tips were already coated in dead man's blood, thanks to previous forethought by Bobby. Gotta love that kind of thinking. Just in case, though, he pulled out a blade big enough for some serious whacking, and a flashlight.
"Seriously?" Sam said, holding up the holy water. It was nice and travel-sized, too.
Dean smirked, closing the trunk with a satisfying slam. "You got a better plan?"
"Yeah, I do." He reached over and snatched the blade from Dean, looking proud of himself.
Dean could argue, or he could go hunt down whatever baddie it was they heard. The latter tugged at him first. "Fine. But if you cut yourself, I don't want to hear it. C'mon."
They took their steps slow and careful, aware of the open splash of light the bright gas station lamps, meant to invoke safety, provided. Inside the building, it looked like there was only one person employed and working, and that man was fixated more on some late-night infomercial than what was happening outside. A glimpse to Dean's right told him the road that lead off of the freeway was car-free, too, which gave them the confidence to stay spotlighted like a couple of ballerinas on stage instead of booking it to some place less inauspicious.
There was another noise, then. A human one this time. A muffled shout, like someone was trying to scream, but couldn't. Dean looked at Sam. Sam looked back with, I heard it. You ready? Then they moved forward as one, faster, weapons held more closely and at the ready than before.
Once they were near enough, Dean shouted, "Hey! Anyone there?" into the darkness. The parking lot on that side of the gas station went down fifty feet and then tapered off into an alley that was sandwiched in by a smaller building beside it. Some little Mom-and-Pop convenience store that, despite the sign that assured it was open 24/7, was dark and empty inside.
Checking again that they didn't have company, Dean clicked on the flashlight. A beam of light split apart the darkness, lighting things up enough that they wouldn't be considered dead stupid to walk in not knowing what they were after. Relatively stupid. But not dead.
Down the alley was a dumpster that lurched to the left, stuffed so full with trash it couldn't even close all the way. There was a scattering of cardboard boxes at its bottom, ragged and moldy from too much time spent out in the sun and rain. Decorative. A couple feet away, garbage cans were toppled over, spilling tossed out food, papers, and god knows what else along the ground.
Sam eyed it. "You think--?"
"Maybe it was just some spooked alley cat knocking over a couple cans of trash?" Dean kept tracing forms in the dark with the flashlight, eyes squinted. "I don't know. Let's go." He took off farther into the alley, stepping around a bunch of nasty gooey stuff he didn't even want to think about, thank you very much. A reluctant Sam followed.
Just then, one of those fallen garbage cans launched itself in mid-air, making Dean and Sam stop in their tracks. It was still soaring high when a flash of black followed its movement, and once that flash hit the flashlight's glow, it turned less into a flash and more into a thing. A vampire, Dean realized a half-second later, exactly what they were on the prowl for, and adrenaline filled up his veins, fast.
"About time," he murmured to himself, prepared to move in and handle things. Sam was tensed up at his side, too, and out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw him take a step forward.
Keeping the flashlight pointed at the thing's face, which was seriously mutated beyond any level of Hollywood attractiveness, Dean raised his crossbow. Steady and slowly, because one move too fast and maybe the vampire flips out and propels forward, and believe me, Dean'd had about just about enough of these things to last a lifetime.
"Crossbow?" A sudden and cheery voice said from behind them, and like two idiots, both Sam and Dean turned around. At least Dean kept the weapon pointed forward. There was some chick standing at the wide opening of the alley, arms crossed, and she looked amused as hell. "Gotta tell you. I'm a little impressed."
Dean shared a quick Huh? look with Sam, then went back to staring at the crazy chick.
"Guys?" she said, and her amused look doubled. With something like a smirk, she pointed behind them.
Which made them realize, yeah, they were pretty damn stupid. Dean turned quick, but the vampire was long gone. "Son of a bitch," he muttered.
"Or not," the girl said, and before Dean could share another Dude, seriously!? look with his brother, she was barreling past them. Fast. He got the look in this time, and Sam shrugged, wide-eyed and just as taken aback.
By the time they'd caught up to her, about a hundred feet down the alley where it was opening up again into another parking lot, she was stopped and staring at them with that same pleased expression, like he and his brother were just a couple of entertaining monkeys.
"Where is it? You lose it?" Dean asked, breathing out hard.
"Depends on your definition of the word 'lose'. If you mean, kicked its ass, then, sure. Consider it lost."
"Where'd it go?" Sam asked, and it made Dean feel better about himself when Sam sounded just as winded and out of breath. That whole 'running' thing, man. It was harsh.
Instead of answering, she pinned the two of them with one long, resolved steely gaze. "Who are you?"
Which made Dean abruptly aware of the crossbow. And the holy water. And the long ass blade they were toting around like a couple of dorks straight out of some medieval horror movie. "Uh," he fumbled, at a loss, and because it was drilled in him as easy and obvious as breathing, he looked over to Sammy to help come up with some sort of applicable lie, like, hey, weapon-bearing pizza delivery men. Right?
Sam caught on, covering up quick with, "We're undercover police officers. Me and Lieutenant Styx, here."
Dean coughed into his hand, "Morrison."
Sam glared, but smiled and corrected, "Lieutenant Morrison."
Naturally, that got them an extra long stare. "Right. And the crossbow, that's standard weapon procedure?"
"Uh, well," Dean said, and felt like a complete tool all of a sudden for even holding the thing. It's not like the girl was drop dead gorgeous or anything, but she was a woman, he was a man, and currently she was calling him out on being a card-carrying legitimate freak. That'd rattle anybody. "Not exactly."
"What he means is, we're attempting to capture a dangerous subject, and we should probably... go. Do that." Then Sam's eyes softened, and Dean nearly sighed. Cue the sappy concerned city official routine. "You shouldn't be out here, though. The city's a dangerous place at night, especially when you're unprotected."
That's when she waved a previously unnoticed little wooden stake in front of their faces. For all they knew, she conjured that baby out of thin air. "Just consider this a concealed weapon. That shouldn't be too hard, right, Lieutenant?" That one was directed at Dean, and not kindly. "Besides, call it an ego, but I like to think I can take care of myself."
Sam wasn't going to argue, not paired up against that kind of crazy. He held up two passive hands, like maybe she'd been threatening to use her teeny-tiny piece of carved wood there on them. "Alright. Just tell us where he went."
She played it dumb. Round eyes and round mouth, a girly "Who?" clumsily falling out.
"Listen, lady," Dean said, because gone was the patience. "The longer you stall, the longer you put some innocent bystander at risk--"
The act was dropped completely, just like that. Gone went the doe-eyes, the amusement, the cute little cheerleader-in-an-alley routine. "I'm thinking you're not the brains of the operation. Or the ears. Vampire," she said, slow and punctuated, "dead," she added, "dust."
The beat that passed lasted only long enough for Dean to go to a visual place where the hunted vampire in question was decked out in a French maid outfit, Swiffer in hand, and--wrong, dude, just... wrong.
Sam struggled for something articulate to say, settling for, "What?" There was room for some improvement.
As frustrated with them as they were with her, the chick pocketed her stake and brushed past them, heading back the way they came. Both of them turned as one to watch her go.
To his brother, Dean said, "What the hell just happened?"
Sam's eyes were trained forward. "I have no idea."
"Dude," said Dean, which pretty much covered it all. Then, "Hey!" he shouted. "Who are you?"
She didn't turn around, but they heard her crystal clear anyway: Buffy.
Part 2
Three other times in the following two days, whenever they were on a trail or hunting another vampire down, she’d be there. Buffy. The chick with the Spider-Man complex, stalking their hunk of Metropolis with a stake and a hidden tube of nail polish.
After the third time, even Sam grew frustrated. And thus they devised a well mapped out plan to follow her back to the cave she came from, except in a way that, in words, didn’t sound so creepy. She was always on foot, so, like the two stealthy hunters they were, they tailed her from about 80 feet behind. Down dark alleys someone smarter than a 20-something year old young woman wouldn’t dare stray, up and over chain-linked fences, through cemeteries. Some seriously twisted junk.
Currently they were dodging headstones-which, c’mon-and tree branches hanging head high from dead, twisted, gnarly-looking trees, Sam tripping over every other grave marker, when Dean almost stumbled face first into an open grave.
“Mother of-“ he cried, very manly, and just barely stopped himself before the small drop. Dirt crumbled and chunks of grass chipping off at the edge fell like careening rocks off of a tall cliff into the dug out hole. It wouldn't have done a thing for his mood to have fallen in as well, and, aware of that, Dean shrugged his jacket into place, a symbolic gesture that said, Yeah, I'm still a badass.
“Hey,” Sam said, stopped. He sounded confused. “Where’d she go?”
Still tinkering with his jacket, Dean said, “What?”
“The girl. Buffy. She’s gone.”
Suddenly the 6 foot drop and nearly fatal face plant were nothing but a distant memory. “You let her get away?!”
“I didn’t let her get anything!”
“Yeah?”
”Yeah!”
Dean let Sam’s sorry rebuff sit there between them, long and pointedly. And then, “Alright, so where'd she go? Sail into the mystic?”
“She,” that beginning to get familiar voice said, and as if appearing out of thin air, Buffy leapt off a mausoleum and planted herself no more than three feet away from them, “is starting to get pissed.” Well, that made two of them, then. Looking no less casual than if they were sharing a friendly conversation over a couple of cold beers, she said, “The stalking thing? Gotta tell you. Little bit invasive.”
Sam went wide-eyed. God forbid someone imply he was something other than a harp-carrying Saint. “Oh, no. We’re not-“
Right, that was Dean’s cue. “It’s classified.”
That got him the Are you kidding me? You seriously couldn’t think of anything else? look of reproach from his brother, which made him give back the What? C’mon! Like you were doing any better? You were practically spitting moon-beams at her! look in return.
Buffy stood and stared the stare of the judgmental. “Who are you? And don’t give me that made-up load about a couple of undercover policemen chasing after a couple of vampires. Believe me, if something like that actually existed? I’d know about it.”
Sam’s shrug said that they really didn’t have anything to lose in telling the truth. Obviously this chick knew what she was talking about-that was a completely indifferent mention of vampires, after all-so no worry about having their cover blown, and besides, the whole repress-and-deny shtick they were practicing now was only making them look like a couple of legitimate freaks.
In that soft, meant-to-calm voice, Sam said, “My name’s Sam. This is my brother Dean.” When Buffy’s gaze planted itself on Dean, he raised a brow in greeting. “We’re-“ Another glance towards Dean, just one last need for assurance, “demon hunters.”
A 'get out, no way!' would’ve been expected. Maybe a 'Duh, obviously, something somewhere in the span between, sure, but what they got was a response in the form of laughter.
“Wait, let me get this straight. You’re-“ Some more laughing, “hunters? Of the demon variety? Wow. That’s-you think you’ve heard it all, and then something like this comes along. Who do you work for? The Council? You do know they disbanded years ago, right? Well, exploded.”
“The Council?” Sam asked, hamster wheel a'turning.
Dean was focused on something else. Like his reputation. “Hey, we work for no one. We’re self-employed. We’re freelance. We’re-“
“Rogue?” That made her smile.
Oh, definitely Dean was getting pissed off. “What about you? Read a little too much Ann Rice as a kid? Watch Interview with the Vampire one too many times?”
Her lips rounded. “Slay-er,” she answered, plain as that.
It was Dean’s turn to laugh. “You’re a groupie for some 80’s thrash metal band? Oh, man. That’s just awesome.”
“Dean,” said Sam. He was staring at him in that way that usually meant his mental path was about ten blocks ahead of Dean’s. Mostly in his own head, working things out, he told Dean, “I’ve heard of this before. I mean, I always credited it to lore, you know, just some fairytale passed down from hunter to hunter. But it makes sense." He locked eyes with Buffy, redistributed his weight from one leg to the other. "So, you’re a vampire slayer?”
“Destined and appointed.”
“Wait, hang on.” Dean was lost, and not for the first time that night. “Back up a few plot points. You’re saying she’s for real?”
“I’m saying that, according to legend, a Slayer exists."
"How come Dad never mentioned it? Something like that out there, you think he would tell us. Hell, you think he would show us."
Sam could only shrug. "I don't know. Like I said, it's all mostly lore. Heresy."
"Check me out. Do I look like a lore to you?"
Dean had to give her that. And the obligatory toe-to-chest eye crawl just for further verification and acknowledgment. Shaking himself out of that drawn out moment of boob lingering, he said, "Yeah, I got nothing."
Buffy was finally starting to take them a little more seriously. At least the constant gleam of sick and twisted amusement had left her eyes. "So, you two are really--"
"Hunters?" he cut in, a little bit of a defensive gruff to it. "You betcha."
A singular pause. "'Who you gonna call', or--?"
Dean snorted. "Please. Sam?"
Sam's inner-hamster wheel was still going at it, but he snapped to. "Uh, no." Then he re-thought the validity of that. "Well. Sometimes."
"What?" Dean gaped. "Name one time--"
"Goatman in Michigan."
"Okay, then."
"Our dad was a hunter," Sam started up with the explanation. "We're part of... It's like. It's this--"
"A family business," was Dean's quick and easy definition, and yeah, maybe his tone took on a little Tony Soprano vibe there at the end. Look where they were breezing through current pleasantries: standing in the middle of a cemetery at nearing two in the morning. Vibe most definitely warranted.
And it was as if that thought connected with Buffy's. From behind, she pulled a stake out of the waistband of her jeans, shook her shoulders a little to let her hair fall in layers at her back, and said, "Think you can keep up?"
The obligatory exchanged look between Sam and Dean, a shared say what? passing between them.
Then a muffled groan split the air and not five friggin' feet away, a hand shot up and out of a recently buried grave.
"Dude!" said Dean, reaching up his sleeve for his weapon. That is why he always wore a jacket. Always prepared.
Sam took out the travel-sized bottle of holy water from his own back pocket. With all the hunt-blocking going on recently, they were packing light, relatively speaking in Dean's case, and Sam, unfortunately, was getting the dicked shoulda been more prepared, shouldn't you? side of it.
Buffy took notice of the holy water and said, with a lot of judging, "Seriously?"
Sam pulled off the pitiful look bravely, twisting off the top of the teeny little bottle before holding it squarely in front of him. Like a shield made out of plastic, the size of a bottle of eye-drops. Behold the great defender.
In front of them, the exposed hand stretched into am arm, a shoulder, the tip of a head, and it was freaky as all get-out to watch some thing claw its way out of Hell around the decorative sorry you just died floral arrangement settled atop it's not-so-final restring ground. It's face was twisting with animal-rage, fangs angled towards the moonlight.
Buffy pulled rank. Stake held high, she said, "On my count."
The vampire was tugging harder now, both shoulders free. Dean wasn't one to normally follow commands, but he was feeling that from-the-bones-out restless rush of adrenaline in every limb, crackling, begging, itching.
"One," she started.
Dean re-gripped, ready.
"Two."
Sam drew the holy water higher. His hand was shaking, but it wasn't nerves.
Three, was a pushed out breath of air, and then it was ass-kicking time.
***