The characters in this story belong to Mutant Enemy, Kripke Enterprises, WB distribution and a whole host of other people with more lawyers, cash and sense than I. No copyright infringement is intended or should be inferred..

This follows after my earlier BTVS/SPN crossover - Bleeding Walls. It set at the beginning of Season 9 of Supernatural and disregards everything after BTVS season 7 finale. Please note this is a horror story and is a homage to one of the stories written by comic book writer Keith Giffen

KEWAUNEE, WISCONSIN

MAY 15th

Buffy could hear it moving.

The demon's footsteps crunched against the sand as it moved through the wooden pylons beneath the boardwalk. She tipped her head forward, just past the beam behind which she was hiding, honing in on where it was. In the background, the ocean rushed to shore and then retreated just as quickly, stranding froth and flotsam in its departure. Above her head, the tourists taking a leisurely stroll down the boardwalk had little idea of what was transpiring beneath their feet, oblivious to the battle taking place beneath

Buffy scanned for Faith but saw nothing at first but the wooden beams making up the supporting pylons of the boardwalk. Sunlight streamed through the cracks, illuminating dust particles and obscuring the terrain a little. Finally, she saw Faith signalling to her from behind a beam to the far right. Faith was pointing left. Buffy nodded and craned her neck in the direction Faith indicated. The demon was there. She jerked back behind the beam, fearing it might have seen her.

The demon did not react. Instead, it continued searching for the two slayers who were in turn, hunting it.

As always, Faith attacked first.

Stalking it, she hoped the soles of her biker boots didn't make too much noise as she closed in. Finally, she was able to get a close up look of the thing. It was clad in armour and wearing a helmet of oriental design. A single red gem gleamed from its green, reptilian forehead above misshaped features. It was carrying a katana with an ornate design on the blade, the same weapon reportedly used to assassinate a number of targets in recent months. Its latest victim was a shaman from the Order of the Kun-Sun-Dai who apparently slept with someone's wife.

Apparently in the demon world, adultery was taken rather seriously.

The demon was still scouring the shoreline when it became aware of Faith's approach. It bellowed an outraged cry in a language she did not understand nor cared to identify when it rushed at her, blade swinging. Faith sidestepped the initial blow but the demon was exceedingly fast. No sooner than she moved out of its way, it was hacking at her again. She raised her own weapon to deflect the strikes but even with slayer strength, the demon managed to drive her backwards.

"Hey ugly!" Buffy called out as she came up behind it, trying to draw its attention away from Faith in order to let the slayer regain her footing.

Using the distraction Buffy provided, Faith found an opening it is defences and was able to plunge her blade into the small of its back. The demon threw its head back and screamed, reacting immediately by swivelling around and swatting Faith aside like she was a rag doll. Faith felt air whoosh by her before her skull whacked against the wooden ceiling above. Her vision became a rush of stars as she hit the ground and felt something warm beneath her hair, like blood. It was too hard to tell when the world spinning around her.

Buffy's heart skipped a beat when she saw Faith landing hard against the ground. However, there was no time to help her because the demon had barely slowed, despite having a blade sticking out of its torso. Instead, it slid the weapon out of its flesh countered Buffy's offensive, blow for blow. It attacked viciously, swinging its katana in wide sweeping arcs, any one of which could cut her in half if she couldn't deflect them. Buffy stayed out of its reach, ducking and weaving while using her own weapon to return similarly precise swipes.

It took Faith a few seconds before she was shaking her head to clear it. Looking up, she assessed the situation and knew immediately Buffy needed help. These particular demons were exceedingly skilled and strong and though none had ever taken a slayer, it wasn't because they were lacking in strength or ability. It simply never had the opportunity. Faith didn't intend for today to become the first. Getting to her feet she retrieved her short sword, discarded by the demon, lying impatiently against the sand awaiting her to reclaim it.

This time, the appearance of a second assailant did not go unnoticed and it reacted to her approach by turning its attention away from Buffy. Even though it was a brief glance, Buffy saw the opening and took it. Dropping to the ground, she swung out her leg in a powerful arc and swept the creature's legs from under it. The demon felt down hard on its back, lying against the sand, momentarily dazed. Buffy knew they had less than a second to act.

"Faith! The ruby!"

Faith closed in on the demon and plunged the tip of the blade through the gem embedded in its forehead. Folded steel cracked the jewel's faceted surface and then broke through, the shaft of the sword sliding into the gem and out. It reached bone and flesh with just as much speed. The demon had no chance to cry out. The killing blow took place so suddenly it never saw the death coming until it was too late. Its body spasmed violently, with legs twitching until the last embers of life vanished forever.

Both slayers dropped to the sand on either side of the dead creature, panting hard. Even together, this had been a difficult hunt. The climax was the kill but they'd been days tracking it across Wisconsin for almost a day now.

"Damn B," Faith exclaimed wiping away the blood from her forehead, "You sure know how to throw the best parties."

"Oh yeah that's me," Buffy said sarcastically as she let out a weary breath, "Buffy the Party Slayer."

Resting her eyes on demon, Buffy remembered the reason they were here. The realisation made her tense. "Come on, let's get this done. We don't have much time."

Getting what they needed from the demon's corpse, Buffy and Faith rushed straight to Ranch Side Airport where Giles had chartered a private plane to take them to Randolph, New York. The trip cross-country would otherwise take them ten hours if they tried to drive it. The plane would get them there in an hour and half. To Buffy, it still didn't feel soon enough and it felt like she'd wasted so much time hunting down the demon to get to this point.

As Faith sat across Buffy on the plane, staring out the window, her silence was unsettling. Buffy was used to her talking, pretending nothing fazed her when in fact, much was going on behind her dark eyes. On this occasion, her eyes mirrored her disposition and Buffy felt a wave of empathy for her sister slayer that was often elusive given their past relationship.

"Faith, we'll get there in time," Buffy assured her even though she wasn't certain herself. However, Faith so rarely let anything get to her it was easy to believe she didn't care.

Except Buffy knew better.

Faith had come into this world with a chip on her shoulder and life as a slayer hadn't improved the situation much. She'd been chosen without really being chosen. She should have been the only Slayer after Kendra passed but Buffy's survival took that away from her. Faith once said two of them were never meant to exist in the same space. It caused entropy. Worse yet, no matter how much Faith tried, the inevitable comparison to Buffy would surface and this eventually led to a disastrous alliance with the Mayor. More wrong choices followed until finally she wound up in jail.

It pained Buffy to no end she never had a chance to tell Angel he was right about Faith before his death in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, Faith had always been a tender subject between them. His belief in Faith's redemption was what had really brought Faith back to them. While they would never be the best friends, Buffy would always grateful for the relationship they were able to build, thanks to Angel.

"Hey people die all the time. That's life isn't it?" Faith shrugged but Buffy could tell she wasn't as indifferent to it as she might like everyone to believe.

"Yeah," Buffy nodded in agreement although she wasn't in the mood to argue about it when Faith was in denial mode.

The truth was, it may be the life but neither of them would ever get used to it.

Somehow, Buffy and Dean made it work.

When Dean Winchester had kissed her and climbed into the Impala with Sam a few months ago, Buffy was convinced he was driving out of her life for good. Despite their promises to each other, the demands of the life he led was something Buffy was intimately familiar with. She knew he meant every word he said, that he would come back to her. Still, reality had a way of making people compromise every promise until it became meaningless. After that, the best outcome was to end it before whatever remaining affection they shared became bitterness.

But then a few days after he'd left, Dean called.

He was somewhere in Podunk, America on a job. Sam was researching and he was bored. They'd talked for most of the night, exchanging stories, telling each other how their week had gone and confiding all those silly thing couples talked to each other about. It was sweet and also surprising.

A few days later, Buffy received another call and once again, they talked for hours. Then after a fortnight, he rang to say he was heading back to Lebanon. Sam needed the break and Dean wanted to know if he could drop by for the weekend. Buffy said yes and cancelled whatever plans she had made.

They'd had a sinful weekend of marathon sex, Chinese food and bad movies.

After the weekend was done and Monday morning arrived, he kissed her goodbye again and drove off. And that was how it continued with them. Telephone calls, text messages and stolen days that made the waiting so worth the while. It wasn't the ideal relationship but Buffy had full-time relationships that never felt as good as this. She could live on this forever and apparently so could he.

When Dean called her from the hospital two days ago, the despair in his voice was so palpable it made her heart break just hearing it. She'd been aware of how increasingly worried he was about Sam's deteriorating condition over the last few months but he'd never sounded as disconsolate as he had now. Buffy knew the heavenly trials to banish the biblical demons back to hell was taking its toll on Sam but until that phone call, Buffy realised Dean hadn't really believed it could kill his brother.

In truth, Buffy wasn't surprised to hear the news of Sam's deteriorating condition. When she and Faith had talked, the other slayer voiced her own concerns. Sam and Faith had also kept in touch after their first meeting in Lawrence. Faith had even put a term to this thing that she and Sam had although Buffy didn't find it nearly as amusing as Faith did.

They were Redemption buddies.

While Buffy believed that Faith's friendship with Sam was just that, a friendship, Buffy also knew Faith cared about the younger Winchester more than she'd admit to. Her questions to Buffy had been to inquire if she knew whether or not Sam was really as well as he made himself out to be. After all, sensitive new age guy he might be at times but as far as Faith was concerned, he was still a guy who had this dumb ass notion about keeping the 'wiminfolk' in the dark about his state.

Buffy assured Faith that she didn't know any more than what Dean told her. Yet she suspected the possibility Sam might not get better was something Dean couldn't face himself.

Her fears were confirmed when Dean called after the strange meteor shower that had rained across the planet two days ago. She'd been watching it on the news when the phone rang and learned Sam was sick and was falling into a coma. Dean was always so self-assured. Even when they were tapped in the Razor Realm, he'd been the one to keep up their spirits, refusing to let her give up. Hearing him so anguished had shaken Buffy and she remembered what it felt like when she thought she'd lost Dawn to Glory. She'd shut down and while Dean was handling it better than she had at the time, Buffy knew it wouldn't take much to push him over the edge.

No sooner than she'd hung up the phone from Dean, she'd called Giles and demanded that the full attention of the Watcher Council to find something to help Sam. After all those centuries of gathering supernatural knowledge of demons, monsters, spells and the occult, there had to be something which could be of some help to Sam Winchester. She couldn't bear the thought of Dean losing his brother. Worse yet, from what he'd told her of his family's history, Winchesters had the tendency to make bad deals when their backs were up against a wall.

To save his brother, there was no telling what Dean Winchester was prepared to do.

Giles called yesterday morning with an answer.

There was a demon species called mohra. They were assassins by trade and virtually immortal due to the regenerative properties of their blood. Even when severely injured, the mohra could regenerate and only a blow to the red gem implanted in all their foreheads could kill them permanently. However, what was of greater value to her was the fact that their blood, whether extracted from a living or dead specimen, retained its regenerative properties. If administered to a human, it could restore them to perfect health.

At this point, Buffy had been willing to take the gamble that it could save Sam's life.

There weren't many times in his life that he had felt as helpless as this moment found him.

At least when Sam died almost seven years ago, there was a deal to make. Dean Winchester willingly sacrificed his life to a crossroads demon in order to ensure his brother's survival. True, he'd been unaware of just how bad a deal it was but the truth be told, Dean would make it again in a moment if he could save Sam. Even now, he would consider making a deal if not for the fact that the King of Hell was presently locked in the trunk of his car and hardly in the position to do any horse-trading.

There was Abbadon but he doubted the former knight of hell was in a generous mood. After he'd dismembered her sorry ass and kept her boxed up for months, the demon was most likely to rip his head off if he even put the question to her rather than barter. He'd even tried calling for Castiel even though they had parted company badly, but again but there was no answer. Cas was in the wind and with angels falling from the sky, Dean was starting to suspect something terrible might have happened to the angel.

Dean was out of options and the inevitable he faced now was more than he could stand. The memory of Sam's readiness to die still cut through him. Sam had been prepared to close the deal on the final trial, believing his life was an appropriate payment for all those times he'd let Dean down. How the fuck had he become so sanctimonious that he'd missed what his reproach was doing to Sam?

The guilt gnawed at Dean and if Sam died, this would be his punishment; to go through the rest of his life knowing Sam had died because of him.

Dean lifted his head from the polished wooden pew he had been leaning against to look at the crucifix behind the altar of the chapel. He stared at it, unable to see the hope others in the place still believed in. Dean's knowledge of angels and heaven was too intimate for him to ever believe in its power again. God had left the building, he told himself and even if he was around, Dean had nothing to say to him.

God was a dick.

Still, desperation made all men weak.

He swallowed thickly and prepared to make a prayer that would count, to the only ones left who could help him, whatever the coast.

"Screw it…" he started to say when suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up and his jaw drop.

"Buffy?"

"Hey baby," Buffy looked down at him, smiling affectionately. She saw the redness of his eyes and knew he'd probably wept at some point, the realisation making her heart ache for him. "I came as soon as I could."

Dean let out a heavy breath, surprised by how good it felt to have her here with him. He dropped his head against her belly, allowing her to coil her arm around his neck and stroke his head like he was a little boy, needing the comfort. He let himself be held by her because for a few moments, the weight in his chest felt a little more bearable. Dean supposed it was no surprise she was here. He'd suspected she might come after he'd told her what was happening but his head had been too filled with Sam to give it further thought.

He almost told her she didn't have to but stopped himself. He was glad she was here. Dean needed her.

When he lifted his gaze to her, Buffy saw just how devastated he was. He looked as lost and helpless as she'd feared he might be.

"I don't know what to do Counsellor," he admitted with clear despair, "they've done all the can do but it's not good enough." His voice was shaking, like it could break at any time.

Drawing in her breath, she took her face in his and said firmly, "Dean, come with me. I think I can help."

"Come on Sammy!" Faith snapped, holding Sam Winchester down as he convulsed and shook against his bed. He was jerking up and down violently, the eyes behind his closed eyelids moving back and forth furiously, as if he were experiencing a terrible nightmare and could not awaken.

"Get your hands off him!" The nurse behind Faith, tried to prise her off but Faith was having none of it. She was determined to hold Sam down, to let the treatment she'd administered do its work without him falling out of his bed. Sprawled across the floor near the door, Sam's doctor lay unconscious, having been put there by Faith when he'd tried to get in her way.

Oblivious to the dramatics taking place around him, Sam continued to convulse, causing everyone in the room to give him their undivided attention. Faith was still wrestling with the nurse trying to pull her away from his bed, while outside an orderly was calling for security.

"Come on, you're tougher than this!" Faith shouted at him. "You threw down with Lucifer for Christ sake, you can snap out of it!"

"Let him go! We're calling security!" The nurse whom Faith had secretly named 'Rachet' was still trying to get her away from Sam and Faith was struggling to keep from knocking the woman out like the doctor on the floor.

When she and Buffy had arrived at the hospital, Buffy had gone to look for Dean while Faith went to Sam's room. Buffy knew the alias the duo were using so it wasn't difficult to find Sam Doherty's room. Even though they'd been talking to each other over the phone and had occasion to share a beer or two a month ago, Faith was unprepared for the state she found Sam in when she walked into his hospital room. Whatever was left of her composure shattered at the sight of him. He looked almost dead and the fear that thought struck in her heart was so strong she was reacting before she had time to pause and consider her actions.

Faith injected the vial of mohra blood straight into his arm.

"What the hell is going on?" Dean demanded when he and Buffy reached the room amidst the chaos.

"Faith what the heck did you do?" Buffy asked, looking down at the unconscious physician on the floor. The whole damn hospital was going to show up soon, she cursed to herself.

"I gave him the stuff," Faith retorted and slammed her elbow back. It connected with the nurse's face and she crumpled behind her.

"Jesus!" Dean exclaimed, catching the woman before she hit the ground. "What stuff? What did you do?" He demanded again, eyes widening in horror as he saw Sam's body convulsing. The bed was rocking as Sam's head tossed from side to side.

"We gave him the mohra blood." Faith explained, "He just needs to ride out its effects."

"What the hell is a mohra?" Dean shot Buffy a look as he set the unconscious nurse down on a chair.

Oh he was not going to like this, Buffy thought before answering, "A demon."

"DEMON BLOOD?" Dean exploded as he stared at Buffy incredulously, "you gave my brother demon blood? Are you freaking crazy! Get your hands…"

Dean moved towards Faith, ready to haul her off Sam when suddenly, Sam's convulsions stopped and the patient monitor next to his bed started beeping louder and faster. The sluggish and limping readings of the past two days began to spike with life. Heart rate, blood pressure and respiration began to gain momentum and Dean found himself transfixed as Sam's skin which had been pale and sallow, regain its former colour.

For a few seconds, no one could speak. The commotion beyond the room went unnoticed because the three were transfixed by the patient in the bed. While the transformation was not quite instantaneous, it was nonetheless rapid. Only Buffy had presence of mind to tear herself away from the scene to lock the door to the room, twisting the handle sharply enough for it to snap, ensuring no one would be barging in at least for the next few minutes.

"Is it working?" Dean asked, almost afraid of the answer. He didn't dare to hope but the evidence of his eyes before him gave Dean good reason to.

"I think so," Faith nodded, feeling the swell of relief rising to the fore inside of her.

And then with his eyes still closed, Sam Winchester spoke up in a slurred voice and asked, "What's working?"