A/N: This story kinda came out of nowhere, and wouldn't leave my head until I wrote it. It's my first fanfiction for Supernatural, and my first in a long, long time for BtVS. It is most certainly my first cross-over ever. It's set while Dean is in Purgatory, and just after Buffy dies in The Gift, so the timeline doesn't match up properly. The only other real inconsistencies with the shows iare that Cas was not sent to Purgatory with Dean, and that instead of going to heaven, Buffy went to Purgatory.
I, of course, do not own anything to do with Supernatural or BtVS. If I did, I'm sure I wouldn't be writing on fanfiction haha.
I have fallen in love with the Buffy/Dean ship, and while there may be some hinting to a pairing, this is not a love story. The rating is mostly just for precaution more than anything.
Prologue
Everything burned: her eyes stung from filth, her muscles from exhaustion. Even her thoughts burned her brain. She could not stop; she must never stop. She had lost track of how long she had been here. Four weeks? Four years? Time moved differently here. It didn't matter now, anyways, not really. Every move she made was decided in the moment. She didn't have a plan. Even if she did, what would she be planning to? There was no end in sight. Evil kept coming at her, from every direction – ceaseless. The landscape sprawled out around her went on forever. It was probably a giant circle, she figured. That would be typical for her life. She had heard whispers of an escape hatch, but that seemed unlikely, and she could not bear to entertain the thought. A plan involving false hope was sure to break her heart. It threatened to break her spirit. If she was going to stay alive, she couldn't allow that. That was the only plan she had, if you could call it a plan: stay alive.
She hadn't made it to heaven, which she always kind of figured would be the case. You can't mess with forces greater than you for that long and remain pure enough to make it to paradise. Part of her always figured that she was barely human anyways, so no, she wasn't surprised when she landed here instead of in front of the pearly gates. She didn't end up in hell either, though. She didn't know what hell looked like per se, but she was pretty sure this wasn't it. Even if hell wasn't actually all fire and brimstone, she figured it would be much worse than where she was. She had heard plenty about other dimensions over the years. Willow, Anya, Giles, they had all talked about them. From what she could tell, she was in Purgatory. Time stood still here. Sure there were days and nights, but they blended into each other so effortlessly that she was often caught off-guard by nightfall. The evil that lurked there was unlike anything she had ever encountered before, it had taken a couple of monsters before she found her footing with them. She had since dispatched a countless number of creatures, and word must be circulating now. More and more things seemed to be stepping up to tango with her. Which was fine with her, she would continue to cut them down.
There was no civilization to be found here, no sanctuary. Sleep was a luxury, and one she could not afford. Short, carefully planned naps were taken periodically so she could keep her strength up. Her slayer stamina and strength had remained intact here, and she knew that was her only saving grace. Her acute hearing had saved her more times than she could keep track of. If this was her reward for being the longest living slayer, it was a pretty shitty reward. She had always figured that in death she would finally be free. No more fighting. No more slaying. That she would finally be able to rest. So much for that dream.
Instead, here she was, wiping some kind of black goo off of her face and pulling dead leaves out of her hair. Some things never changed. What kind of monster explodes into black goo anyways? Darkness had fallen sometime during the battle. It caught her off guard, again, leaving her unprepared. Unprepared? She wasn't even sure what that meant anymore. There was no way to prepare for what may come next. No weapon to train with. No trap to set. No research to do. She was relying on herself in the moment, something that Giles had always trained her to do. Probably would have been good to listen. Really kicking herself for that one. Either way, it was getting dark and she needed to move. For whatever reason, this black goo tended to draw a lot of attention. Attention she did not want. She didn't bother thinking about what direction to run in anymore, as long as it wasn't back the way she came. Picking up her crudely carved staff she ran off towards the closest set of trees in hopes of shielding herself from sight. At least for a little while.
As far as forests went, the ones she had encountered so far seemed to be just as dark and warped as the monsters she had been fighting. The trees twisted in unnatural ways, creating an image of tendrils wrapping around her as she bolted between them. The roots jutted up through the hard ground sporadically, and if she wasn't careful she would catch her foot on one. She had fallen a few times, leaving new marks on her face and ripping what was left of her shoes. She did not look forward to the day that the last bit of the shoes gave way. Barefoot in this world was less than appealing. There were vines that hung down from the trees, many covered with thorns big enough to take out an eye if she wasn't careful. Even during the day these woods were nearly impossible to make your way through, and at night they were like darkness incarnate. She had always been able to see well in the dark, another perk of being the slayer she supposed, but being here her night vision improved vastly. The woods may not be what you could consider "safe," but come nightfall, it was her best option for survival.
During the day she never stopped moving, but even with her vision capabilities in the dark, it was safer to try and find a safe spot to stay during the night. Even if she didn't get to sleep much, it was nice to sit in one place for a while. Buffy made her way through the wooded area, looking for a spot that seemed more secluded than the rest of her path. Once she came upon a spot that she felt would do, she would take the time to check the immediate area surrounding it, just to make sure there was nothing lurking in the shadows. Her crude staff was kept close just in case, but once she found no immediate threat, she would let her guard down enough that she would sit down. Leaning against a tree so that her back wasn't exposed, she would rest.