Battle Royale
Author: madamcalamity (previously: mysteryredhead)
Genre: drama, angst
Pairing: none
Rating: M for hunter language and gore-ishms
Spoilers: Mid S4 ep, but the idea is to figure it out.
Feedback: Might actually get you a spinoff...
Summary: Humans, man. Well, damn it all to hell, but she agrees. She agrees more every single day.
Thanks to the Brothers Winchester, every single time she meets evil, she measures it against the night where her world spun the wrong way around, and the evil comes up short. That's going to get her killed one of these days.
A/N: I'm always a little hesitant with SPN fandom, even though I know we're all crazy-supportive, because I want to do it right. This struck me out of the blue and wouldn't let go. I hope you all get it. Enjoy.
The air was wet and chilly on her face, numbing her hands when she fumbled for the key. She locked the trunk of the car on her stash of weapons and limped into the disgusting motel room off highway nineteen she was calling home for the night. Stash. Hah. Danny had taken one look at it and backed out of his garage. "Jesus, you got an arsenal in there. You sure you know what you're doin'?" Course she did, and Danny knew it. He remembered that night just as well as her.
All she feels is terror. She can feel her heart racing, and it sounds so loud, it's a wonder the thing can't find her just by listening for the beats, nevermind that they're trapped and the thing knows it. Not a ghost, that's what the brothers had said, right after it crossed their goddamn line of table salt and the shorter one swung the fire poker. Apparently he didn't have a gun after all.
She can learn a lot just from remembering that night, the things the two brothers did to protect them. She knows now, of course, that the salt thing isn't idiotic or crazy-ass at all. In fact, it's basic knowledge. She has salt caked almost permanently under her fingernails and, by some unfathomable endeavour, in her hair. Her scalp itches something fierce, and it's the little granules which refuse to come out under the lacklustre water pressure of her motel showers which are at fault.
She's screaming, and rightly so. She's screaming at the thing on top of her mother, that thing that came out of their walls and took her brother into the dark. She can't run very fast, and thinks, absurdly, that she wishes she had sneakers on. It would help with the mud, that's for sure. She screams again, at the top of her lungs, and it burns as it rips out her throat, but there's no-one else but them out here in the black.
She doesn't scream anymore, but she does whimper a little when she peels her previously favourite jeans off over the pulsing cut on her thigh. Fucking swamp monsters. She's going to need the peroxide in the passenger seat door for this one. That first night, she screamed, and then she never did again. Nothing could ever, in comparison to that body-shaking horror, scare her again. She hunts evil things now, and none of those monsters scare her.
She's crouched on the porch, sobbing, while the remains of her family gather inside, out of the dawn chill. Her feet are numb. She looks down and sees the black, torn, sopping lumps that were her favourite slippers. She falls backwards and kicks them off, watching as they hit the wet grass at the base of the steps with a quiet splat. Those were her favourite slippers. She doesn't move, or attempt to stop the tears running over her chin when she hears the two brothers leave the house behind her. They obviously don't notice her, curled up as she is, but she hears one of them. Humans, man.
It's a phrase she's come to agree with over the years. Monsters, she has made it her business to deal with, and the fact remains. Humans, man. So fucking true. It's that single phrase which has given her the reputation she has with other hunters. She's a badass in a world where the name means something far more to those who're listening than if Joe-blow saw her in the tight leather jacket and sturdy black boots she habitually wears now. No more bunny slippers.
Sitting curled in a ball as small as possible, she stared at the moving truck, sunk deep into the mud through the night. Someone sits down beside her. When she sees the shorter brother moving over to their car and ducking to growl at the tyres, she knows it's the taller brother. He puts a hand on her shoulder, warm, large and solid. She quietens a little, but the tears keep coming, rolling silent down her face and dripping to her knees. She's staring at the circular drops on the porch when he speaks.
She lowers herself to the floor gently, blood and pus dripping onto the towel. It's going to get infected fast if she doesn't pour the peroxide over it. Fuck. She puts a belt between her teeth and pours. Fuck. That hurts. It always does. It's a hazard for all hunters, but she gets hurt a lot, mostly because she's not afraid of the things she hunts. When she comes up against a monster, she measures it against that night, where she had nothing to fight with, and the evil comes up short. So she goes for it, and ends up with a reputation as a crazy-ass bitch in a world full of semi-suicidal crazy-ass bastards. Jesus, there's irony for you.
The tall brother, he speaks to her quietly, rubbing her back ever so gently, in a soothing monotone. Steady after a night where everything turned upside-down. He tells her that it was a human atrocity, and that sometimes there is evil in the world, and there might come a day where she sees it again, though he says he hopes she doesn't. She looks at him then, clear water still spilling over her face, and asks. How do I do it? Do what, he asks, and she can tell he knows perfectly well what she's asking. How do I protect myself? How do I do it? If it happens again? It won't, he says, but she knows now, she's heard them inside – ghosts – and she has every reason in her topsy-turvy world to believe them. He looks at her for a long moment, deep into her red, swollen eyes, and he must see something, because he answers. You fight.
It burns like fire through her leg, and godfuckingdamnit that hurts. After tipping over to let the fizzing chemical run out of her leg, she picked up the needle and thread she'd laid out – she knew her hands would be shaking too much after cleaning to thread the thing – and started stitching. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. The sharp prick of pain takes away from the glowing in her thigh and when she finishes, tying off and cutting with a snick, she look at it, close. It's going to scar, lightly, but scar nonetheless. What's another one now? She's glad Danny hadn't asked her to stay long – hadn't even invited her into the house, didn't want to scare his wife, or his kids with the Aunt who's absent and dangerous – she'd have to have taken off her jacket, and then her arms would be on display for them to see. At least she's getting better – her early work on herself resulted in wide white scars that almost glow in the dark.
He tells her that there is evil out there, that it what he and his brother do, they fight it, they kill it. It's why they thought it was a ghost, why they spread salt all over the floor and thought that meant safety. He tells her not to think about it, that she's safe now. She disagrees. She knows she'll never be safe, not when she feels like she feels. He takes his hand off her back and puts his hand in his pocket, telling her he can give her their phone number, just in case. He pulls out a pink diary, and she sobs a little harder at the sight of it. He pulls a blank piece from the back and scribbles four words and a phone number on it. He folds it into four and hands it to her, muttering to keep it safe, and only use it if she really needs it. He tells her it's not a world she wants be anywhere near if she can help it. She looks up at him again, dirty and bruised, before looking to his brother, even dirtier and dusty too. Thanks. It's the last word she says for close on seven months.
Her leg is tightly bandaged, and she's taken a few vicodin. It's helping with the pain, so she's sitting with her injured leg stretched out on the bed, cleaning the swamp muck out of her guns and polishing her knives. She loves knives. She's a very good shot, but she loves her knives. She has the requisite steel, like every fighter, but she also has a few special ones. Her most delicate are a bronze and a silver blade – no good for throwing into walls or vampires; they'll just break – but mighty useful for werewolves and a bunch of other evil sonsofbitches. She absolutely loves her heaviest blade. She had it made special. Cast iron, and difficult as fuck to handle if the wielder isn't used to it, because it's forged thick to prevent snapping in the cold, with a sharp enough edge to slice. She's very good at throwing knives, and this one will throw a ghost right off, and it's a damn sight easier than fumbling around for a fire poker. Not only is it iron, but it's consecrated iron. Her priest buddy blesses all her weapons each time she comes to visit him, and it makes a difference on demons at least – they tend to stop laughing and start talking.
She sat on the porch steps in her bare feet and sheep covered dressing-gown, sobbing, while the two brothers drove away. After that, things changed. They moved back to the city, big and noisy, full of people. She is quiet where Danny is loud. She's not sure if he's filling up the space made by her silences, or if she's silent to let him be heard. Her parents try to help her cope, but there's not a whole lot they can do, and she can see that their minds are still blurred with grief for her uncle and brother. One night of terror landed on top of a fractured family, and it glued them together, with all the connecting pieces missing. She never wants to feel as helpless as she did that night ever again, so one day when she passes the entrance to a martial arts and defence centre, she walks in. Her mother understands right away, and is still signing papers at the desk when she walks through a narrow door into a dojo with only one occupant. He's an old man, wiry and strong, she can tell straight off the bat.
When the clock reads 3:46 and all that's left on the TV is crappy infomercials and 80s B-grade romance flicks she settles in to sleep. It's not a simple process anymore, hasn't been since that night where – as cliché as it is for hunters – she realised the truth about the world she lived in. she limps around the room, checking the salt lines on the windows and doors, checks the hex bags in the northern corner and blesses the water that fills the bath, dropping her blue-beaded rosary in with a splash. Then she limps back to the front door and checks the lock. Humans, man. Salt and holy water, hex bags and protection charms are all useless against humans, which is why she sleeps with a ten-inch bowie knife under her pillow, a colt on the nightstand and four throwing knives tucked between the mattress and the bed frame. She lays down on her stomach, hand on the hilt under the musty pillow, leg throbbing faintly, and falls asleep.
She can tell that he can see something in her. The old man is only old when he sits still. When he moves he is young and strong. Stronger than most young men. He can see the pain in her eyes, and he tells her so. You are full of determination, and courage, he says. What are you seeking to do with these? He asks her this over and over again, while he teachers her to fight with her hands and her feet. What are you seeking to do with these? For months on end, he asks, but she is not speaking. They fight and spar and she learns, and she doesn't say a word, not for near on seven months. She cries out in pain and she grunts with exertion, and she growls while they spar, she and the old man, but she does not speak. Those are the only sounds she makes. Like a tennis player, her mother says to her, on the day she arrived early to pick her up. On the anniversary of her brother's death, the old man critiques her form while they spar in the empty dojo. She snaps out a vicious kick, and he catches it. So much determination, so much courage, he muses to himself, still holding her foot. He looks her in the eye and throws her leg down. What are you seeking to do with it? She spins another kick, and surprises herself by shouting an answer at him. Not seeking. Hunting. He does not ask again.
She never sleeps for very long. It's fits and starts as per usual, but it's always worse when she's injured. At 6:19, she curses the world and limps out of bed to shut the curtains which are letting dawn light into her room. Moving as quickly as she can in the grey, she roots through her bag for a sleeping pill and swallows it with a mouthful of holy water. Dropping the silver flask back into the bag, she rolls under the covers again and dozes.
She speaks little after that day, mostly out of her new habit, but sometimes because she realises that she is the only one holding on. Her mother, father, brother, they are all letting go of that night, healing and growing, while she holds tight and uses it as fuel. She learns to fight with her hands and her feet and her elbows and her knees and to use her body as a painful weapon. The old man teaches her every afternoon of every day except Thursdays, until she is competent enough to take on the leather-wearing boys in the years above her. She corners them after school one Thursday and baits them until they try to hurt her. She hurts them back, and they take her in, the girl with the long dark hair and fire in her eyes. They teach her to fight dirty, to play poker with a straight face, to drink any other guy under the table and to hustle men with what she's got. None of them try anything with her – something to do with her flat stare, she suspects – and that's fine by her. She wants only to learn to protect herself, from everything they don't know about. They tech her the basics of knife-fighting, and how to hide a weapon from police officers on the prowl – while doing that, they laugh and say as if. As if a cop would ever pick you out of a crowd. They teach her how to make fake identification and when she asks, they introduce her to a man who owns a firing range.
When she wakes again its 11:03. That's a more decent amount of sleep than she's gotten in a week, tracking that freaking swamp monster every night till the asscrack of day and then schmoozing through town for information. Showering is painful, as is brushing her teeth. One of the thing's tentacles had whacked her in the jaw. She felt around with her tongue gingerly, but apparently she'd escaped without losing any teeth. That's a plus, at least. People are far more wary of a person missing teeth than they are a person with a wide, bright smile and smooth words. Dressing in her new favourite pair of black jeans, the others folded into a trash duffel – no need to leave evidence lying around – she puts on her boots and slips the keys into her jacket pocket. There's a diner two streets down that will most certainly have coffee brewing.
She's a quick learner, and every Saturday morning, when the guys are mostly still hungover, she shoots. The owner takes a shine to her, and teaches her about guns – the Marine way. He's been out of the uniform for more than a decade, but knowledge like this never changes, and she soaks it up. She learns her own strengths, weakness and practices until her arms hurt. Soon she is hitting the centre target, and only the centre target. Then she starts in on moving targets, and soon enough, she is hitting those too. Her parents do not particularly care where she is, do not ask what she is doing, just so long as she is safe. She is safe enough for them, but she knows now. She will never be truly safe. When she is as close to perfect as is possible in that shooting range, she buys her first knife set, and keeps it hidden in shoebox at the bottom of her cupboard, under a pair of red boots she has never worn. They are a present from her mother. From then on, each Saturday morning, she alternates shooting bullseyes and throwing knives at the target. Soon she is hitting the bullseye with the knives too, and the owner come up to her after watching. If you don't mid my asking, he says, why? She looks him flat in the eyes and tells him. I was hurt, and I'm never going to let that happen again. He doesn't ask again.
The diner is too freaking cheerful for her tastes. She can appreciate a little colour and some bright decorations, sure, but is there a real need for baby-chicken curtains and matching napkin dispensers? No, she didn't think so. Her waitress is a little wary – must be new – and is therefore overly polite. She orders her usual – a combination guaranteed in any diner in the country – toast, eggs, fruit if you got it. She's on the road so much of the time that crap is sometimes all she can get, and fruit with breakfast is a nice change from that. It arrives with a smile and more coffee. That makes the waitress at least perceptive, which is an improvement on scared, which means the girl will be getting a decent tip. She does what she can, and sometimes she feels like her karma is better after giving some of her stolen- well, hustled, money to strangers who deserve it. And yeah, in the world of the hunters, a smile and extra coffee from a waitress means deserving.
For her eighteenth birthday, her parents offer to buy her a car – one of the new and expensive hybrid ones that looks like it was just pulled out of a cereal box – and she says no thank you, she wants something old and sturdy, she doesn't really mind what it looks like, or how well it runs. In addition to the multitude of skills taught to her by the guys, they have also been teaching her about cars. She knows they think it's a little bit amusing, like a pet project, but she soaks up the information, like always, and is confident she can keep a car running perfectly fine. Her parents are a little surprised, but say yes. She so rarely asks for anything, so rarely complains about anything, and they can't think of any downside. She loves the car they get her; the most beat-up 1968 Ford Mustang two-door on the market. She spends eight months worth of Sunday mornings fixing it up till it runs beautifully. She's gearing up to leave, not that she is telling her parents or Danny that yet. She knows where she needs to go, because she's been looking for things out of the ordinary. Death had seemed a likely place to start, and that's when she started reading the obituaries. Her parents had put it down to just another thing she did that was a little bit off, and didn't push it, because at least she wasn't acting out. Patterns emerged to her eyes, and she researched until she couldn't see straight, every night while her bruises from training bloomed bright and painful.
She's a little annoyed at herself now. She hadn't quite assessed her leg in all its functions, and spending the day driving along the highway is not going to help anything. That means she's going to have to spend the day in town, or in bed, resting up until she can drive again. She tips the waitress with some hustled money from the dive bar in the town before this one, and steps into the sunshine. Her skin, always a little pale, soaks it up, and she's warm. Back at the motel, she checks the salt, doors, windows, water, hex bags, weapons on and around the bed and orders Godzilla off the pay-per-view. She falls asleep to the sound of Tokyo burning.
She tells the old man that she's leaving soon, and he asks, to hunt? She's not surprised at his question, and she answers truthfully. It might be her last truthful conversation in a while. Yes. He nods in response and flies at her. She drops to a roll and comes up kicking.
She tells the owner of the firing range, and his goodbye is a Colt 1911, a box of ammo, and a warning to be fucking careful, alright? She responds with Thank you and Yes. Her last target has only one hole, as wide as two of her fingers, right through the middle of it, and a full clip flattened into the board behind it.
She tells the guys, and they're happy for her, because they don't know where she's going or what she's doing. They only know she's a fighter. They pool some money as a going-away present, and ask her what colour she wants the car painted. Black, she says, and they laugh at her, as usual, hugging her around the shoulders and not one of them is surprised either.
When she' up and ready to go, two cups of crappy motel coffee in her, she drains the bath, retrieving her rosary and drying it on a grey towel. She collects the hex bags and the knives from the bed and slips the gun into her backpack. She drags a sheet through the salt to spread it over the room – no need to make the maids suspicious – and steps to the door to do a last visual check. Satisfied that the room is clean, she loads the trunk and hands in the key to a predictably bored teenager at the desk. The car is her home now, and the road she wants is north. Sliding into the driver's seat, she touches briefly a nail sticking out of the dashboard, rusty from the time she got water and blood on it after a hunt went south in the early days. She starts up the car with a comforting rumble and turns onto the road, breathing easier already.
She tells Danny, and it surprises her that he isn't surprised to hear her tell him. I know, he says, serious for a rare moment. Her little brother has been bright and loud since that night, appearing to only want for the easy and normal that his many friends and long-term girlfriend provided. She knows that he remembers though. They all remember.
Her parents are upset, but understanding. They do, however, think she's going on a road trip. They want to say that she shouldn't go alone, she can tell, but she's perfectly competent and capable of looking after herself. They want to get her to promise them, dates and times and celebrations where she'll be back, but its futile trying to argue, and they know it. She's not stubborn, but she knows where she wants to go and there isn't anything they can do to stop her. She knows they saw it coming long ago, that after that night she was irrevocably different, and that eventually, she would leave them behind to be that changed person somewhere else.
She slides into the driver's seat, and tosses her backpack onto the passenger side. She shuts the door and starts the car with a familiar rumble. Before she pulls out, she bushes her hand over a nail sticking out of the dashboard. The nail is driven right through the centre of a piece of paper that has been folded four times. It sits flush against the dashboard, faded pink lines on the paper barely visible, but she breathes deep at the sight and steels her eyes forward.
Kate pulls out onto the road, and begins.