A/N: Hey everyone! If you're reading this it's probably because you've read Turn the Page or The Sound of Silence or both. This is a new installation to my Claire 'Verse, and it's going to be a series of one-shots centered on specific cases. You'll probably notice pretty quickly that it's a lot more lighthearted than the other two stories (I say that now, but who knows what the future holds. I admit I'm predisposed to angst).
Essentially, I want to depict their honeymoon phase/the "lost" Dean/Claire (Daire? Clean?) moments that I didn't really get to explore in the other two stories. Sam was a pretty central character in both TTP and even more so in TSOS, but he's going to take the backseat (such a great pun, I know) in this one. I don't know to what extent just yet, so I'm not going to commit to anything lol.
Background: This takes place immediately after Turn the Page, but it's not essential to read that first, if you're new and you want to just jump right into it. I figure Swan Song took place around the time it was aired, which was May 2010, so this would put us between seasons 5 and 6. Claire's still a prophet, and she's a newbie to hunting. The title is a reference to a song by the Eagles.
Disclaimer: I only own Claire.
Synopsis: After a tour group is brutally massacred in an old Louisiana mansion, Dean and Claire investigate the case and uncover a dark stain on the building's past.
New Orleans, Louisiana
July, 2010
Some monsters only reach their true potential in death.
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It is around noon and the sun is beating down mercilessly on the long stretch of road into New Orleans. The Impala's sleek, black metal roof absorbs it like a magnet, making it impossible to stare at head-on. The interior has turned into a veritable oven, and Claire and Dean are baking inside. There's air-conditioning, sure, and the windows are rolled all the way down, but there isn't any breeze and the heat radiates off of the pavement just as much as it does off the car. On the horizon, water vapor is dancing in the air. The humidity encroaches on them from all angles, seeping in through the windows and bringing with it a dense, swampy scent. All in all, it's everything you would expect from the climax of summer in Louisiana.
"Why'd we have to choose to come here?" Claire complains, fanning herself ineffectively. "And why is your air-conditioning system so shitty? Oh right – 'cause this car is like twice as old as I am. We should never have put my car in storage…"
"Don't diss the wheels," he admonishes gravely.
Claire rolls her eyes. "Did you know Chevrolet means 'goat's milk' in French?"
Dean shoots her a disgusted look. "Since when do you speak French?"
"I don't really. I took it in high school. And an Impala is a type of antelope – that one I looked up."
"I'm gonna pretend I never heard any of that," he says without any hint of insincerity in his tone. He can't imagine why she bothered to look it up in the first place, if not for the sole reason of someday annoying him with the information.
"The more you know," she drawls. More seriously, she adds, "These murders, though – what are you thinking?"
"Dunno yet," he admits. "Could be a lot of things. Ten in a week is a high body-count for just about anything, really. Vamps are a huge problem around these parts – New Orleans is one of the biggest havens in the country. But without seeing the bodies, it's hard to say."
What first attracted them to the case was not the number of murders, but the gruesomeness of them. Claire fishes a crumpled newspaper out of the foot-space in front of her, carefully smoothing out the creases until her palms smell strongly of ink.
The headline reads, TEN GRISLY KILLINGS RATTLE NEWLY RENOVATED MURDER MANSION, and beneath it is a monochromatic image of what looks to be nothing more than an exquisite representation of New Orleans' rich architectural tradition.
From the article's description, it's not clear what happened, but whatever it was ended in a bloodbath. The day of the grand opening of the mansion, after extensive renovations were done to repair damage from Hurricane Katrina, an entire tour group – tour guide and all – was strung-up in the attic, each victim dying some variation of the same horrific death: bleeding out with their innards spilled all over the floor. The bodies were still warm when the next tour group in the cycle discovered them. It took a Hazmat team a full day to clean up the site, and the museum has since been closed indefinitely.
There are two prevailing theories on who committed the crime: authorities think it was either some sort of serial killer, or a group of killers (likely a cult). Murdering ten people at once would be a near-impossible feat for a single criminal, which makes the cult theory persuasive. However, the slaughter occurred in broad daylight, and no one saw anyone leaving the scene of the crime; plus, security would have made it difficult for more than one person to sneak into the mansion in the first place.
Claire asks, "What're we doing first? Field work or research?"
"I'm thinkin' field work," answers Dean. He always preferred to visually assess a situation first in order to get a sense of what they're dealing with.
He steers the Impala into the parking lot of yet-another grimy motel, and immediately Claire starts grumbling something along the lines of, If there isn't air-conditioning, I swear to god…
Luckily, there is. Even the sadistic motel gods are not so cruel as to deny them this small luxury.
Swimming through the heat, they unpack their bags from the steaming trunk and make a beeline for the door – Room 12, the rusty placard reads. Once inside, they crank the noisy window unit up to full blast and begin stripping.
Funnily enough, there's nothing even remotely sexual about it. They might as well be in a locker-room as they quickly change into their professional clothes for a new and exciting round of Bullshitting the Police.
They're almost able to change without any shenanigans bogging them down, but Dean's maturity cannot withstand the test and at the last second he makes a crack about her boobs.
Claire throws her shorts at his face and the button hits him in the eye.
"Ow, fuck," he curses, and she cackles wickedly.
He continues to rub the injured area as though he is genuinely in pain, and a sudden remorse pricks at her conscience.
She treads over to him and ventures, "Are you okay?"
Before she knows it his hands are away from his face and wrapped around her wrists and his body is driving hers into the mattress.
Laughing again, she protests, "No, stop, we have to go figure out what's going on!" as he sloppily kisses the corner of her mouth.
Dean eventually relents, and they both take a moment to run their hands over the newly formed wrinkles in their clothing. Claire peers briefly at him and marvels at how he manages to make a twenty-dollar suit look like Armani. She glances down miserably at her cheap pencil skirt and wishes she could be as fortunate.
At the NOPD station, they succumb to the routine of flashing their fake badges and equally fake smiles to gain access to classified information.
"Agents Burdon and Currie," Dean greets easily. "Occult specialists."
The police chief, Carl Beauford, is an enormous man in both height and girth and seems incapable of smiling. His chubby, sweaty face is paradoxically stony, and he stares at their counterfeit badges through detached and bulging eyes. He looks something like an angry goldfish.
Claire feels thoroughly intimidated, as their spiel usually goes off without a hitch. Dean is never one to get flustered, but even he seems a bit thrown when his introduction is met with stone-cold silence. Carefully tucking his badge away, he goes on, "We're here about the LaLaurie house murders. Based on the manner of the killings, the Bureau thinks it could be the work of a cult."
"Yeah, yeah, come with me," the other man writes off, his voice deep and throaty. As he leads them down to the morgue, where it's nice and cool, and they hear him mutter under his breath, "The Bureau's sending college students nowadays, huh?"
Claire casts Dean an apprehensive glance out of the corner of her eye, but he just shrugs. He's over thirty – it's actually pretty flattering that this guy thinks he's so young.
Handing them off to the coroner, he says, "Look, this is a high-profile case. The faster y'all can get to solvin' it, the better. I've already got a detective lookin' into it – Andy Delacroix. You wanna work with him, go right ahead. I don't give a shit how you do it, I just want this solved and outta the press as soon as possible."
He then lumbers away, back towards the staircase.
If they look like they're in college, the coroner looks like she's in goddamn middle school. She has mousy brown hair, glasses, and a pair of radish earrings à la Luna Lovegood hanging from beneath her frizzy ponytail.
"Well, you heard Stanley," Claire mutters to Dean, hiding her mouth with her hand. His lip twitches in vague amusement, but the coroner actually snickers.
Claire fixes her eyes on her, which have widened in surprise.
"Sorry," she bashfully apologizes. "It's just – we call him that too." Her voice has a Southern twinge to it, but not a full-on accent. "You guys are here for the murder house bodies?"
"Yeah," Dean confirms professionally, his eyes darting warily between the girls.
She nods once sharply, before pulling out one of the stainless steel drawers. "They're this row and the one below it," she explains.
"Same MO for all of them?" Claire asks.
"Basically. If you consider tearing something to shreds an MO, that is."
Usually, this is the part where the coroner leaves them to hypothesize and spout off supernatural jargon without having to censor themselves, but this one seems intent on staying.
Dean grips the white sheet and pulls it back quickly, as though he's ripping off a Band-Aid. Their vic is a teenaged girl, no more than seventeen years old. It's not a pretty sight. Sure, her body is stitched up and cleaned, but the thick black threads crisscross the entire expanse of her ashy torso like marks for a pair of scissors to follow. They can only imagine what she looked like upon being brought in.
"You shoulda seen her before," the coroner murmurs solemnly, as though she can read their minds. "Aisha Harrison, sixteen-year-old honor roll student from Atlanta. Her mother, Carlotta, is in the chamber next to her. Below them are a few members of the Jennings family, from Orlando – what I'm saying is, most of these people were families on vacation from outta state, which is part of why Beauford's so dead-set on getting this case solved," she explains. Claire supposes it's one thing to look incompetent in front your own state, but another to look incompetent in front of your entire nation.
"Cause of death?" Dean interrogates.
"Are you kidding? Between the blood loss and her small intestine being ripped out, it's hard to pinpoint the exact cause."
"Just the intestines? That's all that was ripped out?"
He's thinking werewolf, Claire surmises.
The coroner gives him a skeptical look, her unkempt eyebrows creeping together. "Yeah…"
"And the others – they're the same?"
"More or less."
"What are those marks?" Claire asks, indicating to two deep, purple abrasions mottling either wrist.
"Bruising from the ropes – you guys know they found them hanging from the ceiling, right?"
"The report mentioned it," Dean confirms, replacing the shroud. "Thanks."
"That's all you need?"
"Yeah. We've seen enough. We'll be in touch."
. . .
Back at the motel, "It's gotta be ghouls," Dean postulates, leaning against the headboard of their queen-sized bed. The hideous floral-patterned bedspread contrasts starkly with his shabby, earth-toned clothing. He at least had the decency to remove his boots, but his clothes still seem to be perpetually dusty.
"You can tell that just from that one body?" Claire asks from the desk.
"It happened during the day – that eliminates a whole lotta options. Werewolves, vamps… These are definitely not vamps – did you look at the crime scene photos? A vamp would never let that much blood go to waste. And a werewolf, even if it somehow managed to transform in broad daylight, wouldn't leave the heart."
"As you have mentioned so excessively, though, there are tons of other horrible creatures out there – how can you be so sure it's not one of them?"
"There are tons of horrible creatures out there," he allows, "but very few that travel in groups and very few that would be able to knock off ten vics at once."
"Do ghouls travel in groups?"
"I've heard of it happening."
"What's a ghoul? Like a vengeful spirit?"
He chews the inside of his cheek, considering this analogy. "Kinda, only a lot more cannibal-y. They take on the shape of the last body they consumed."
"Wait, so does that mean the Harrison family's gonna be walking out of the morgue some time soon?"
"It's possible. I took ID from all ten, so we can be on the look-out."
She leans back in the chair, teetering precariously on two legs, and hooks her arms behind her head. "So, how do you kill a ghoul?"
A low whistle emanates from between his lips. "Killing them's the easy part," he answers eventually. "It's identifying them that's a pain in the ass. Holy water, silver, the whole nine – they don't do diddly-squat."
"How do we do that, then?"
"Figure out the history of the property – figure out who would wanna kill a bunch of tourists at some old mansion. The location is way too weird to be accidental, and this place was called Murder Mansion before these killings."
"On it," Claire says happily, fingers flying expertly over her keyboard. She's been dying to learn more about the LaLaurie house this entire time. From the articles she's gleaned that it's infamous because the woman who built it was some sort of serial killer, but that's about it.
Dean tries not to think about how animated Claire looks while doing research; he doesn't want to be reminded of Sam (Sam who left him). Certain components of their personalities are similar, he's come to find, and a love for all things academic is one. That, and their disapproving bitchfaces.
Who knows what Sam's doing now. Who cares. Dean saved his ass, and then Sam abandoned him. What he's doing now isn't his problem – he made that abundantly clear.
But Claire has stopped telling him about her visions, and he thinks he knows why – because they're about Sam. And she doesn't want to reopen that particularly nasty wound.
What she doesn't know is that it's still gushing blood, and the longer they are apart the more rapidly it begins to fester.
After a few minutes of scanning the Internet, Claire briefs, "So, this is what I found. According to historical accounts, a woman named Delphine LaLaurie, a prominent socialite in the 19th Century, built the house around 1832. Some time in 1834 there was a fire, and when firemen responded they discovered a bunch of slaves that had been repeatedly tortured in the attic. The scene was apparently so horrific that an angry mob formed and Delphine was forced to flee to Paris, where she lived out the rest of her days in relative anonymity."
"Damn," Dean interjects.
"That's not all," she continues, "Get this – after the mansion was damaged in Hurricane Katrina, the Preservation Society did an overhaul of the whole place. While they were restoring it, they found a bunch of bodies buried in the yard, so now they think Madame LaLaurie wasn't just torturing slaves, but murdering them. They're estimating her body-count might have been close to a hundred, making her one of the most prolific female serial killers of all time."
Dean's face twists into a confounded grimace. "Where the hell did she bury a hundred bodies?! How the hell was no one suspicious?!"
Claire shrugs dolefully. "I mean, we're talking about the Antebellum South here. There probably weren't a lot of people who came around asking questions about missing slaves."
"Still, you think someone would've noticed her opening a goddamn cemetery in her backyard! And was this broad the Hulk or something? How was she doing this by herself?"
Again, Claire shrugs. "It doesn't say. My guess is she told people the slaves were dying in work-related accidents or something and got other people to deal with the bodies. The ones she buried in the yard were probably the ones that were really hard to explain."
"Shit," he breathes, horror-struck and staring past her.
"Yeah. I'm thinking there's a lot of ill-will on all sides of this situation."
"I'll say," he concurs. "Hell, I'm pissed."
"And-"
"Jesus, don't tell me there's more…"
"A lot more. By some accounts, what the firemen found included but was not limited to: 'men tied to the beams in the attic with their eyes gouged out, their fingernails pulled out, their skin peeled back, their lips sowed shut, holes drilled in their skulls' – and their intestines wrapped around their waists."
"Like our vics."
"Like our vics," she parrots.
"The more I hear, the more I'm thinkin' vengeful spirit," Dean hesitates, "but I've never seen a spirit with that kind of juice."
"LaLaurie's buried in Paris anyway, remember? It can't be her."
"Could be something trying to seem like her to throw us off the trail, though."
"Definitely. I'll bet it has something to do with those bodies they dug up in the yard. How exactly does a ghoul come into existence?"
"I'm not really sure," Dean admits. "Last ones I dealt with didn't teach me much other than they're nasty sons of bitches. They usually feed on the dead, but we learned the hard way that that's not always the case. What was the house before all this happened?"
"It doesn't say, but it looks like it just opened as a museum. I'm guessing it was in disrepair before they started renovations."
"I.e. no one was in there, right? No food source?"
"I guess," she reasons. "But Dean…" she falters, before restarting, "…we-we're sure this is supernatural? Not just some psycho, copycat whack-job?"
At this, Dean locks her gaze. "I sure as all hell hope so."
. . .
Locating the people who worked at the mansion was more difficult than they anticipated, since the majority of the tour guides were actually volunteers. However, a well-placed call to Detective Andy Delacroix aided their search.
To be honest, Dean had expected the workers to be cobwebby old farts, and was surprised to find they were mainly nerdy high schoolers looking to put something vaguely impressive on their resume when applying to college. There was only one administrative employee in the building at the time of the murders, but she did in fact fit Dean's preconceived description.
She is the second person they intend to interview – now, though, they're speaking with Selene Paul, the girl who found the ravaged tour group, in her living room. The house is small, but with an elaborate garden out front, and the couch Claire and Dean are seated on looks as though it was upholstered in the 1920s. Selene's mother, a startling short woman wearing a muumuu, deposits a tea tray and box of tissues on the coffee table with a hospitable smile before leaving them to them to conduct their interview.
"Abby was one of my best friends," Selene tells them tearfully, dabbing at her left eye with a balled-up Kleenex. "We were in school together since Kindergarten. She was the one who found me the position in the first place." The girl sitting in the La-Z-Boy across from them looks nothing like her mother, tall and thin as a supermodel and strikingly beautiful to boot.
"I know this must be really hard for you to talk about," Claire says, touching the girl's non-Kleenex-clutching hand compassionately, "but we're trying to find who could do such a sick thing."
"It ain't a who," Selene spits bitterly. "That house is cursed."
Dean's brow creases. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, I knew what had happened there goin' in. But as soon as you step foot in that house… it's like a feeling. Something so horrible – it leaves a footprint, y'know? A scar on the earth." Her irises are gold like tiger's eye, and her pupils are fixed on them raptly.
"What do you mean? Like a cold spot?" Dean questions.
Selene's expression flickers to a look of puzzlement. "No," she replies. "But that whole building is freezing – I guess humidity ain't good for preserving the furniture and paintings and stuff. That's what they told me, at least."
"Did you ever… did you ever see or hear anything out of the ordinary?" Claire asks.
Selene shakes her head, caramel ringlets bouncing. "I always got outta there as soon as I could. That place gave me the creeps from Day One."
"But that was the first tour ever, right?" Dean points out.
"Yeah, but we'd been in there to prep and do mock-tours before."
"And nothing weird ever happened?"
"Abby said she heard a moaning noise once, but I thought she was just messin' with me. Abby loved all that horror-movie crap, which was why she wanted to work there in the first place."
"Can you think of anyone who would have any reason to close the house back up? Maybe someone who wanted to buy it?"
"You're barkin' up the wrong tree," she says, shrugging. "I'm just a volunteer."
Claire catches Dean's eye, and he nods in acknowledgement: they need to move on to the next witness.
"Alright," Dean says, standing from the sofa. "Thanks for your time, kid." His hand brushes her shoulder in a foreign display of tenderness on his way towards the door. And Claire sees right then, deep down, Dean is just a big softy.
The bereaved teenager sniffs and nods in their direction, and then they leave the home.
. . .
Claudia Rubenstein lives across town, in an enormous mansion-turned-apartment building. The mahogany staircase leading up to her third-floor loft was creaky, but had been an irrefutable masterpiece a couple centuries earlier.
Now, they're in her living room/library, sipping another round of sweet tea. She lives on a busy street, and the sounds of engines and people chattering leach into the musty room.
"You two aren't a couple, are you?" is the first thing she asks, all the while peering at them knowingly over her half-moon spectacles and taking a sip of tea.
"Uh, no," Dean says, implementing his professional, so-low-it-can-barely-be-perceived-by-the-human-ear voice, "We're partners." To further his assertion, he scoots an inch away from Claire on the cat hair encrusted chaise-lounge and tries not to sneeze. He's suddenly wishing Ms. Rubenstein had brought out a box of tissues, like Selene's mom.
"So, what can you tell us about the day of the murder?" Claire starts.
"Well, there had been a lot of excitement surrounding the grand opening, as I am sure you can imagine," she states academically. Now that she's spoken more than a few words, they can easily recognize a pretentious, professorial sort of lilt pinching her Southern accent.
"Can you think of anyone who would want to put a stop to the opening?" Dean interrogates.
"Really, no. On the contrary, the community was very much looking forward to it. You know how people are – you must see it in your line of work all the time. For centuries our species has been fascinated with all things macabre, and the estate is no exception."
"So you wouldn't say the opening was controversial? Even after what happened there?"
"The history of the LaLaurie mansion is dreadful, yes – but if anything, we thought it might boost tourism after the hurricane destroyed so much of this magnificent city."
"How exactly was the decision to restore the house made?" Claire asks.
"Well, when the city counsel was assessing which buildings needed to be repaired, it came to their attention that the house was derelict and they contacted the Preservation Society to see what might be done."
"Was the house ever up for auction?"
"No, but there were several people who approached the Society with private bids. Naturally, though, those were never considered. New Orleans' history belongs to everyone, and should be shared."
"Anyone dead-set enough on buying it to, y'know, orchestrate a little mass murder?"
"Goodness, no!"
Out of nowhere, an orange tabby cat jumps down onto Dean's lap and scares the bejeezus out of him. He flinches, and the booming sneeze he had been stifling for the past fifteen minutes erupts from his body, causing the cat to dig its claws into his thigh in its terror and exponentially worsen the situation.
Thinking fast, Claire shoos the cat away and helps him mop up the tea he's spilled all over himself and the chaise-lounge.
"I'm so sorry!" Ms. Rubenstein laments, clutching her pearls. "I should have asked earlier – are you allergic?"
"Yes," Claire answers quickly for him, her tone sounding perturbed.
Ms. Rubenstein narrows her eyes at them suspiciously, but elects not to say anything.
Dean's green eyes flit to Claire's, and she backs off once she realizes that they're in a position that's a little too intimate for two strictly professional FBI agents.
"Okay," she sighs, stretching out the kinks in her legs as she stands. "If you think of anything else, don't hesitate to contact us. Here's my card."
It's only on the way out that Dean starts cussing about how much he loathes cats.
. . .
The next morning, the newspaper slipped underneath the door of their motel room reads, TRESPASSING TEENS MEET GORY END IN MURDER MANSION, CULPRIT STILL AT LARGE.
At around 6:30 AM, Claire unwinds herself from Dean's limp grasp and pads across the evergreen carpet to inspect it, and her eyes widen upon scanning the brassy lettering.
"Dean, wake up," she orders, crawling back into bed and nudging the bare-chested Winchester with her elbow.
"Mmph, what?" he groans.
Dean misses Sam like he would miss his own lungs, but he has to admit Claire provides him with a sort of security that Sam never could. Now, it's not that Dean likes cuddling – the very notion is ridiculous. The very notion is emasculating. But he has to admit that this change in routine is not all-bad. Usually, it's nice not waking up alone on a too-small mattress with his brother snoring savagely three feet away from him. Usually, it's nice having someone next to him, having body-heat to remind him that he's not isolated, that not all contact has to be painful, that he's still on earth, that the nightmares aren't real. Usually. But not right now.
"The paper – there was another killing. Three kids dead."
At this, he rolls over onto his back and steals the paper from her hands. After skimming the article, he mutters, "Shit."
"This rules out a person – it's definitely supernatural. Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place."
"Ya think?" he says snippily, crumpling the paper and lobbing it in the general direction of the trashcan. "We need to make a move."
"Tonight?"
"Tonight."
"And do what – break into the place guns blazing?"
"Pretty much," he affirms.
"Dammit," she mutters, echoing his intonation.
He rests his head back into the pillow and arches his neck to look at her. "Whatever this thing is, it's anchored to the house. Prob'ly not a ghoul."
"So what, then? A vengeful spirit? How the hell are we gonna burn LaLaurie's bones all the way in Paris?"
"My guess is there's something in the house. Bones ain't the only thing that can keep a ghost hangin' around. Get dressed – we gotta go check out the crime scene."
. . .
As soon as they duck under the police line, Dean and Claire are hit with the wafting, stomach-churning stench of copper. The revolting smell is minimized, thankfully, due to the unnatural coolness of the building – surely the air-conditioning is working overtime, because outside it's still as hot as the surface of the sun.
They are not, however, given much time to explore the rest of the home, which appears to be very elaborate in their periphery.
Andy Delacroix is at the scene, looking as haggard and strung-out as an archetypal detective in a film noir. The bags under his eyes are engorged (probably with the fifth of bourbon he drank last night), with visible blue veins sprawling beneath the thin flesh; his five o'clock shadow only adds to his frazzled appearance.
"Agents Burdon and Currie," Dean introduces. "We spoke on the phone."
"Oh yeah, yeah you're the occult specialists," he replies absentmindedly.
"Yeah. What've we got here?" he questions, indicating to the white sheets arranged in a perfect line beneath the rafters.
"Coupl'a nosy kids broke in here last night. Didn't end pretty."
"Same as the others?" asks Claire.
"Worse."
"Can we take a look at the bodies?"
"Sure," he replies, running a jittery hand through his graying, sandy-blond hair. "I gotta warn ya, though – I hope you ain't had breakfast yet."
"Occult specialists," Dean reminds him pointedly. "We've seen a lot in our day."
It's not long before they discover Dean had been premature in his assertion – they have not, in fact, ever seen anything like this. They wish only the intestines had been removed, like the others, because whatever happened to these poor kids was, like Delacroix said, far, far worse.
They do indeed bear the same injuries as their predecessors, but whatever bastard committed these murders must have been in a rush the first time, because it clearly took its time with these three.
To start, there are two bloody holes where their eyes should have been, with crimson tears streaming down the cheeks of each of the male victims. A bit further down their faces, black twine is sewn around their lips, each puncture wound still raw and oozing. And finally, meeting their expectations, their entrails have been uncoiled like fire hoses and strewn carelessly around their bodies.
Claire nearly retches at the sight, covering her mouth fully with her hand to resist the urge to vomit. Dean peers at her sympathetically out of the corner of his eye, he himself feeling a little woozy.
Delacroix gives him a hard pat between his shoulders. "I know, son. I was lookin' a little green myself. And you, missy – if you don't mind my sayin', this ain't the sorta thing a lady like you should have to see."
Claire knows he's only trying to be friendly, but the feminist in her bristles. "I'm fine," is her strangled retort.
" 'course y'are," he repents with a flickering smile.
Dean judges Delacroix warily, sensing that his amicability might soon edge on flirtation. "What're you thinking?" he grills to divert his attentions.
The other man blows out a low whistle and scratches the back of his head noisily. "This is a tricky one, I'll tell ya. I've seen a lot of crazy shit in my run, but nothin' like this. Serial killers strikin' twice? Well, that's in the job description. But twice in the same place? It's got me stumped. I'd love to hear your input, to be frank."
"My guess is some group of psycho drifters using this place as a home base – sneaking in at night, hiding out during the day. I'd wager they're not here right now, but once your people clear out I think they'll come back. Clearly this house is at the heart of whatever it is they think they're accomplishing," Dean says, fabricating a lie with commendable ease.
"So what, you're sayin' we should stake the place out?"
"We'd be happy to do it," Claire offers. "You look like you could use the rest," she adds, batting her lashes.
"Yeah, alright," he allows tentatively, oblivious to Claire's patronizing comment. He seems altogether too smitten with her bright eyes and rosy cheeks to notice she doesn't like him.
Clearing his throat, Dean interjects, "Just make sure all the cop stuff is gone – we don't wanna spook 'em."
"Sure," Delacroix mutters. "But you see anything fishy, you call me right away."
"Will do," Claire assures him. "We have your number."
. . .
At night, New Orleans is brighter than almost any other city Claire has visited. Maybe it has something to do with the time of year, but the street's hustle and bustle doesn't really quiet until around 11:00 PM.
When only the late-night stragglers are left zigzagging down the sidewalks, Dean and Claire slip out of the Impala and start towards the looming house. It's on a street corner and takes up nearly the whole block, like some enormous cube people never emerge from.
The front entrance is framed by winding wrought-iron pillars, which might look lovely during the day, but look skeletal and spindly in the dark. The streetlights illuminate the bottom portion of the house, but the top floors – where they are heading – are completely shrouded in the night, to such an extent that they are barely even visible.
Dean expertly picks the myriad locks and padlocks, and after a few moments they are able to pry their way inside. Once inside, they're instantly hit with a wall of ice-cold air.
"I bet they don't even need air-conditioning," Claire reasons aloud. "There've gotta be enough spirits here to create their own climate control."
"Probably."
She makes a move to flip the light-switch, but he stops her immediately. "We can't risk anyone noticing the lights are on," he explains, pulling out a flashlight.
The yellow ray skirts over glass cases of 'artifacts' (If they're only a couple hundred years old, are they really artifacts? Claire wonders fleetingly) and heinously upholstered furniture with ropes banning anyone from sitting in them.
They climb the winding staircase, and once they're in the attic Dean sets his duffel near the door. Looking at the barren room now, it's hard to imagine there were three bodies littering the floor just hours earlier. If each poor soul who died in this room were still in it, though, there'd probably be enough people to violate the city fire code.
"Now what?" Claire asks, shining her flashlight all around in search of anything nefarious.
Dean, unpacking both a salt-loaded sawed-off shotgun and a regular sawed-off one, replies, "We look for something that could be tying LaLaurie to this house."
"This isn't a house, Dean, it's a mansion – it could be anything. That's like searching for a needle in a haystack."
"Yeah, well, we gotta try. That's the only way we're gonna be able to gank this bitch."
"Why are we starting here and not her bedroom or something?"
"Because this is where all the murders took place."
"Yeah, but these were the slaves' quarters – I doubt anything of hers would be up here."
"You never know."
"And are we one-hundred-percent sure this isn't a ghoul?"
"No," he answers, raising the second shotgun far too casually, "which is why we have this."
"Okay," she relents. "But where is there to search?"
Dean doesn't answer, but instead uses the butt of the shotgun to start searching for loose floorboards. He tosses the other shotgun to Claire, and she follows suit.
Ten minutes and four floorboards later, they come up with a disheveled moleskin journal with illegible scrawling inside, a rat skeleton, a human molar, and some loose change that escaped the renovation process.
Dean burns the molar just to be safe, but the odds of this being what's tethering LaLaurie to the scene are, he acknowledges, slim.
Leafing through the journal, Claire asks, "What do you think this could be?" The name scribbled into the front page reads 'Lia,' but that's just about all she can make out – it looks as though someone had been using the pages to practice writing the alphabet and simple phrases.
"Judging by the handwriting, I wouldn't say it's LaLaurie's. It doesn't look like the handwriting of someone who learned to write in some fancy prep school or from some hoity-toity tutor."
"I think they were called governesses," she murmurs unhelpfully. "So, do we have to burn it?"
"No, just leave it."
Feeling a bit relieved, she places it next to Dean's duffel – maybe, when all this is over, that journal will mean something to someone.
"Now what?" she asks again.
"Let's go downstairs."
They make their way into the master bedroom, which has an enormous canopy bed, an armoire, a vanity, a dresser, and two nightstands all made in the same rich mahogany. The wallpaper and textiles are very well preserved and still a vibrant shade of purple. Dean unhooks the rope divisor, stepping onto the Oriental rug in the center of the room and beneath an intricate crystal chandelier.
"Damn," he mutters somewhat appreciatively. If nothing else, this house is certainly a step up from the dumps they usually find themselves in.
Without so much as a warning, he abruptly begins taking the bed apart, until feathers and rumpled sheets are littering the entire floor.
"What are you doing?!" Claire hisses.
"If you were gonna hide something important, you wouldn't put it in the bedside drawer," he states, referring disparagingly to where she is currently searching.
She carefully slides the drawer closed and, after assessing the ruined bed, ventures over to the dresser. He's on his knees in front of the vanity with a pocketknife, looking for hidden compartments, when all of a sudden he's thrown back against the armoire. There's a sickening crack and it's unclear whether the sound is the wood splitting or Dean's bones snapping.
Claire screams, and Dean groans in pain.
"Get your filthy paws offa my tonics," comes a heavy Southern drawl. Amidst the wreckage of bedding, the flickering image of a buxom woman in pristine, 19th Century garb materializes.
As Dean regroups, cradling his elbow, Claire dives for the shotgun, takes aim, and blasts a cloud of salt at LaLaurie's spectral form.
"Are you okay?" she demands.
"Yeah. Keep looking. Apparently we pissed her off, and it's just a matter of time before she comes back."
Abandoning any qualms she had had about destroying something of historical significance, Claire rips through the dresser. After clearing this room, they quickly move on to the next bedroom, which ostensibly belonged to one of her daughters, and similarly disembowel it.
"I told y'all to git," LaLaurie's voice booms once more, sliding through them like acid. "Now you're gonna pay the price."
She appears again in the doorway, and this time Claire isn't fast enough. With a flick of her chunky wrist, she sends her flying into the outer wall, near the window. The shotgun tumbles uselessly from her grasp. Dean lunges for it, but LaLaurie uses her other hand to pin him beside her.
"Dimwits," she chuckles.
All of a sudden, Dean and Claire feel themselves slither down the wall, an invisible hand dragging them towards the homicidal ghost by their ankles. LaLaurie turns her broad back to them, gliding just above the smooth, polished wood floor as her two captives slide down the hallway behind her.
"Don't wanna dirty the house," she hums, more to herself than to them. "I had mosta this furniture imported from France, you know."
Claire's blue eyes flick to Dean's green ones. "Dean?" she demands through gritted teeth, verging on hysterics.
"I'm thinking," he hisses.
Before they know it, they're back upstairs in the attic and LaLaurie is tying them to the rafter without lifting even one sausage-like finger.
"How is she so strong?" she interrogates as a coarse length of rope winds itself around her wrists.
"I dunno," he answers agitatedly. "I've never seen a ghost this roided-up before."
Once they are fully bound, LaLaurie tells them, "Now, I can't start until I've got my tools, so y'all just sit tight and look pretty while I fetch them, alright?"
Dean and Claire must look utterly horrified, but she doesn't seem to notice. "Alright," she says. "I'll be back lickity-split, don't you fret."
"Dean," Claire repeats, her voice increasing in pitch as her fear mounts. "I'm fretting!"
"I know, I know," he says. He fidgets against the ropes, but to no avail. Right now, the two of them are strung up like fattened pigs ready for the slaughter and panic is starting to set in.
"I have an idea," she says, "but I don't know how to implement it."
"I'll take anything at this point."
"She killed like a hundred people in the house, Dean. There've gotta be some other vengeful spirits stuck here, right? How do we summon them?"
"If they're not intervening, it's probably for a reason."
"They're probably still scared of her," Claire reasons. "Hell, I'm scared of her. But she can't kill them if they're already dead."
"To summon a spirit, you either need a medium or an object to act as a medium, like a Ouija board."
"Well, we're shit outta luck on that front. Isn't there any other way?"
"An object that belongs to the deceased can sometimes act as a medium."
"The journal!"
"Yeah, maybe, but it works better if there's a biological connection. We shouldn't've burned that tooth…"
"Think about it – this floor, these walls have been drenched in blood. That's gotta count for something."
"Okay. Say you're right – still there's some incantation or something, and I don't know what it is. Usually we're in the business of ganking spirits, not summoning them."
"What was that thing Lydia Allen said when she was trying to communicate with Sam? Remember that?"
"Yeah – it was like, 'I invoke, conjure and command thee to appear unto this circle'… But we don't have a name."
"Yeah we do! Lia!"
Dean huffs futilely, but decides to give it a shot. "I invoke conjure and command thee, Lia, to appear unto this circle. I invoke, conjure and command thee, Lia –"
In a stroke of god's grace, a small silhouette begins to take shape in the center of the room, eventually settling upon the figure of a girl of around twelve or thirteen.
"Lia?" Claire tries.
Shyly, the little girl nods.
"Please, we need your help – is there something here that belonged to Madame LaLaurie? Something with her hair or some other part of he body attached to it, maybe?"
She nods again, her tiny hand pointing to the wall to their left. "Poupée," she murmurs very quietly.
"What?" Dean demands bluntly, causing her to flinch.
"The journal… It was in creole, that's why we couldn't read it," Claire pieces together in sudden realization.
Before they can further question their own personal Casper, LaLaurie reappears and Lia vanishes with a terrified glint in her eye.
"Great, that was really helpful!" Dean growls.
"That damned, stupid girl," LaLaurie sneers irately. "Caught 'er tryin' to learn to read, can you believe the gall? She 'fell' outta that very window behind ya. It was a big mess – head smashed like a ripe melon. Her papa had to bury her right in the backyard there. She made a great fertilizer for the lovely willow, though… Anyway," she goes on, brandishing some rusty, tweezer-like instrument, "time to start the fun. Now, which o' you two wants to go first?"
Ignoring her, Claire turns to her similarly incapacitated companion and says, "It's a doll, Dean. 'Poupée' means doll."
His eyes widen at this epiphany, and then in horror when LaLaurie approaches Claire.
"Get away from her, you bitch!"
"Now, now you'll have your turn," she laughs, her chubby cheeks creasing into a grotesque smile. She gets right up in Claire's face, and her impossibly hot breath smells like a rotting corpse. "We've got all night – let's start slow," she says. "Give your beau here a show, hm?"
Claire sets her jaw, readying herself for some excruciating pain. LaLaurie is much shorter than she is – probably not even five feet tall – so she levitates up to meet her eye-level. She then slips the cold tool underneath the nail on Claire's left pinky finger, before latching on and abruptly ripping it out.
She shrieks, blood spurting from the injury, and Dean starts thrashing even more frantically against his restraints.
Involuntary tears of pain are welling in the corners of her eyes, but she's trying determinedly not to let them fall. She grinds her molars so hard she can feel them quiver in their sockets, bracing herself for the next violation as her finger burns in agony.
Two things happen at once: LaLaurie tears out the nail on Claire's left ring finger, and Dean breaks free. He does a barrel roll, quickly emptying the discarded shotgun and loading it with salt, before shooting the ghost straight in the back of the head. Claire feels a mist of salt dust her face and hisses in pain as some of it makes its way into her wounds, including her lip that has split from biting it so forcefully.
Dean starts towards her, but she says, albeit weakly, "No, don't worry about me! The wall – it's in the wall!"
Using the end of the gun as a hatchet, he pounds through the wood and exposes the crevice between the inner and outer walls. There's a ton of hay, which they used for insulation, and he immediately begins rifling through it.
Before he's met with any success, though, LaLaurie reappears in a fury.
"You slippery cur!" she snarls angrily, sending him back against the opposite wall. He crashes into the paneling with such violent momentum that the whole house seems to rattle. Still, he perseveres, blasting another round into her moon-shaped face. He quickly clambers to his feet and dashes unsteadily to the gaping hole in the wall, removing hay by the fistful. And that's when he finds it – a rotund voodoo doll, no doubt made in Madame LaLaurie's likeness.
"Not surprised that someone hated her enough to make one of these, but the plan sorta backfired, didn't it," he mumbles wryly to himself, fumbling through his jeans pocket for a lighter.
LaLaurie rematerializes, but he lights a fire under the doll's foot just in the nick of time. As smoke begins to propagate through the room, LaLaurie howls in rage.
"Sayonara, bitch," says Dean, dropping the doll as flames consume it, and so too the outline of LaLaurie.
Once he's satisfied that she's well on her way to the pits of Hell, he rushes to unfasten Claire's bindings. She falls to her feet and wobbles where she stands, bracing herself against his shoulder. He digs a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wraps it tightly around her two fingers to stop the bleeding, but by now blood is already encrusting her entire left hand. She winces as the fabric touches her skin, the contact heralding a blinding, white-hot sting. In an attempt to lessen the pain she flexes her fingers, but her knuckles are stiff and tacky.
"Sorry," he mutters contritely. "You okay?"
"I will be…"
Dean usually avoids hospitals at all costs, but still suggests, "Maybe we should take that to get looked at – you might need stitches," as though neither he nor his brother had ever had a fingernail ripped out before. (They had. Too many times.)
"No, it's fine," she insists with a grimace. "It just needs to be cleaned."
Not wanting to dwell on why he feels the need to make such a fuss about a couple of fingernails, Dean just nods and shoves their supplies into the duffel. They drop the journal on the table by the front door.
. . .
They blow out of town like a twister, leaving the LaLaurie mansion in shambles on their way out. They stop at a roadhouse on their way to the next gig – wherever it may be – for a celebratory drink. Miraculously, Dean's drinking has waned considerably since retrieving Sam, but he still finds his bloodstream yearning for ethanol every now and again.
And Claire – well, Claire wants to forget what happened, wants to compartmentalize the twistedness of what they saw, and wants to numb the dull throbbing in her fingers. He doesn't blame her.
So here they are, at a place called Lola's.
"I wanna dance, Dean," Claire implores after a measly two drinks, trying to haul him into a standing position by his hands.
He doesn't budge. "Not a chance, sweetheart," he drawls scornfully.
She scrunches her nose in disdain for the pet name, but concedes that she has to get into his good graces. "Pleeease?" She sticks out her lower lip, trying to entice him.
He takes a swig of his whiskey. "Nope," he maintains obstinately, popping the 'p.' "I don't dance."
"Fine," she huffs, knowing from experience that this is a lie. "I'll go on my own."
"Be my guest," he scoffs in mild amusement. This should be good, he thinks.
Lola's is way less packed than it should be on a Saturday night – leave it to Dean to find an empty dive bar in a huge city (well, technically they're on the outskirts, but still). The dance floor is especially sparse, and he can clearly see Claire swaying in front of the jukebox from his vantage point at the bar. She looks alluring in her skimpy gray tank top and ass-hugging Daisy Dukes, and the guys playing billiards sure seem to agree, but Dean Winchester does not dance*.
*Unless he's blackout drunk.
Which he's not. And she's not, either, but he's discovered pretty quickly that Claire always wants to dance the moment even a drop of alcohol passes her lips. He wagers maybe this is a girl-thing and he has to admit it's kind of endearing, but his pride just won't let him go out there with her.
So he sits, sipping his drink and enjoying the view.
Claire's rhythm is passable, and what she lacks in skill she makes up for in enthusiasm. She rocks entrancingly, twining her bandaged fingers through her hair. Naturally, it is a noncommittal texture – not straight, but not curly either. Right now, though, in the sweltering humidity, ringlets have begun to form at her hairline, framing her face angelically. She piles the wavy locks on the top of her head, so that the light passes through the few ginger tendrils cascading down her cheekbones and sets them aflame. It's no surprise when a potential suitor soon confronts her.
A self-satisfied smirk curls his lip when he realizes she's glancing at him in vague panic. Her eyes spell What should I do? Are you gonna come over here or what?
He lifts his drink in a toasting gesture, daring her to make a move.
Her eyes narrow to shining blue slits as she glares at him. And then his blood, thick from the heat, clogs his veins when she lets the scruffy asshat glue his filthy mitts to her hips and draws him into her tempo. The smirk melts off his face like an icicle in Hell.
Claire knows that what she's doing may not, strictly speaking, be a good idea. But she's frustrated with Dean for not bending to her will, and she wants to teach him a lesson – this seems as good a way as any. The guy she's with isn't unattractive (he can't hold a candle to Dean, but then again, who can?), and he at least had the decency to ask her if she wanted to dance before simply seizing her. In this day and age, the bar is set pretty low.
Dean's not angry, exactly, but he's flummoxed. In the past, he never really stuck around long enough to figure out if he's the jealous type – looks like he's about to find out.
The man spins Claire around and when the twirling stops she's grinning in delight, and when she looks at Dean he's talking to some curly-haired blonde. Her smile breaks, and she can't help but wonder where this woman came from and how quickly this abrupt switch transpired.
Her face must convey her displeasure, because Dean catches her eyes and winks. That crooked smirk has slid back onto his face.
Smug bastard.
The girl he's talking to is pretty – better looking than the man she's with. She's a natural blonde, with no darkness at the roots, and she wonders if Dean even notices or cares.
This is war.
She spins back around to face her dance partner, and begins grinding up against him rather lewdly in retaliation. His hands start to burn into her waist, sweat beading where his skin touches hers, but she forces herself to ignore it.
That girl is standing way too close to him.
What is she wearing? Is it really necessary to show that much cleavage?
Claire shakes these thoughts from her mind. He's just trying to get a rise out of her. Dean always could make her mad like no other.
"Who's that girl that keeps lookin' over here?" Brittany purrs in Dean's ear. Her voice is high-pitched and syrupy, like a proper Southern Belle's. "Is that your girlfriend?"
He glances at her and immediately regrets it, scrambling to quell the nausea that flares in his stomach. What Dean does notice is the circular warding tattoo identical to his painted between her shoulder blades, branding her as a hunter, and the gauze bandage wrapped around the very tip of her ring finger, further marrying her to the profession. And what he does care about is someone standing where he should be standing, touching her where he should be touching her. Maybe it's wrong, but the more embroiled she becomes in the hunter lifestyle, the more embroiled she becomes in his heart.
"Does she look like my girlfriend?" he snorts, and Brittany shakes her Disney princess head with a pleased little smile. "She's my partner," he elaborates fluidly, downing his fourth whiskey. "Believe it or not, I'm a cop."
"Oooh, can I see your badge?" she coos.
"I'm off-duty," he explains. "Maybe some other time." He grins and she bites her plump lower lip to keep from smiling so wide. He forgot how easy this was – the lying, the seduction. It's like breathing. Or better yet, like riding a bike – he may be out of practice, but he definitely still has game.
The next time Claire looks over at Dean, he's nowhere to be found. And neither is the girl.
Panic floods her bloodstream like a virus. Shit shit shit, I took it too far, she instantly laments.
She needs to fix this. It was just a little fun. A game. No one was supposed to get hurt, least of all her.
She should have known that when Dean plays, he plays to win.
She wrenches away from her new 'friend,' mutters some lame excuse like 'bathroom,' and rushes outside, all the while an acute dread proliferating through her body. She feels sticky and dirty and disgusted with herself. What was she thinking? What did she expect to happen?
To her immense shock and relief, when she finds Dean he is alone, scrolling through his cell phone.
"I was just about to call you," he says innocently, as though she had merely gotten lost in the supermarket and they both hadn't been aggressively flirting with other people.
Without thinking, she bounds towards him and delivers a hard shove to his shoulders.
"Whoa – easy there, tiger," he laughs, hands raised in surrender.
"That wasn't funny!" she hisses. Her tone is very grave, but his smile doesn't waver. "I thought-" She thought exactly what he wanted her to think. This was a trap – he bested her.
Her frustration renewed, she comes at him again, and he catches her wrists in his hands in some form of self-defense. Now, their faces are millimeters apart, and his smile finally drops.
"You didn't like it?" he breathes huskily. The mirth has yet to leave his voice, but there's something else mingled with it, something unmistakable – lust.
"No. Where's Goldilocks?" she demands, spite lacing every word.
"Got 'er a cab home."
"Was she disappointed?"
"Very."
"Good." She knows it was cruel of them, cruel to use people for their own amusement, but she can't help but be relieved that that's all it was – amusement.
"Lookit you, all possessive…"
"I'm not…" she starts, but the sentence dies when she realizes he's making fun of her. He's enjoying this, thoroughly.
"Where's your boy-toy?" he counters.
"Ditched 'im."
"Was he disappointed?"
"Very."
"Good."
He is very close and his breath is very sweet and it is very obvious what needs to happen, but they're both too stubborn for their own good. Apparently, the game hasn't ended just yet.
Dean pitches forward, so that there is a ridiculously minuscule space between their lips, and then angles his head back a fraction of an inch as he feels her lean into him. He is literally baiting her, dangling the prize right under her nose, with that goddamn smirk still plastered across his features.
Just as he planned, it is Claire who caves, who seals the gap. She presses forward so hungrily that Dean's back collides with the shingled wall of the bar. Her hands are fisted into his cotton t-shirt, and her body is flush against his. He can feel the curve of her chest compress against him, and the tautness of her stomach press into his.
Dean loves this game. He can't believe he just discovered it, and now it's definitely his favorite one ever.
When they break for air, his eyes are hooded and his lips are swollen. He teases, "Like I said. Possessive."
Claire figures her only recourse is to kiss him again. She wants him to shut up, after all. It's perfectly logical.
She decides then and there, in the parking lot of some dingy rat-hole, that Dean is probably the best kisser she's ever known.
This time, when they pull apart, she has squeegeed that smirk right off his face. His yellow-flecked eyes are sparking with intent, and his fingertips are implementing a dull pressure on her lower back, urging her towards the Impala.
Now, it's her turn to look smug. Peering knowingly at him through her eyelashes, she singsongs, "You wanna leave so soon?"
"Yep. Definitely," he grunts.
"Oh, I dunno," she drawls. "You were pretty mean to me."
"I was mean to you?" he repeats incredulously.
"You tricked me."
"I'm sorry, baby," he says in a saccharine, insincere tone.
Claire rolls her eyes in exasperation.
More solemnly, he tries, "Y'know, what you did today, coming up with that plan to summon the ghost – that was kinda sexy."
A broad grin unfurls across her face – she could almost laugh at how messed up it is that that sentence even makes sense, but she doesn't. Still considering him through her lashes, she purrs, "Vraiment?"
"Uh-huh," he replies, not really knowing what she's saying but loving the promising sound of it.
Without another word, she grabs his hand and starts to lead him away. Their fingers intertwine automatically, his coarse ones careful not to brush against her bandaged ones, and he almost hates himself for how breezy this feels. How'd he let himself turn into such a pansy?
His eyes trickle down her figure and he answers his own question.
They're about two steps onto the gravel parking lot when a "Hey, asshole!" stops them in their tracks.
Claire is paralyzed, a horrific chill shooting through her – it's her dance partner.
Dean spins around, squaring himself to the other man. "Can I help you?"
"That's my girl you got there," he snaps. He beckons towards Claire, who's hooked under Dean's muscular arm.
Dean casts her a cocky sidelong glance. "Is that so? 'cause that's not the vibe I'm gettin'," he sneers.
"Yeeeah, listen," Claire adds in an attempt to defuse the tension, "thanks for the dance. It was fun. But that's all it was."
"Tease," he bites angrily.
"You got a problem, buddy?"
"Yeah I got a problem." He strides over to where they're standing and shoves Dean – much like Claire had done earlier, but ten-times more forcefully. She absorbs some of the impact, but he shields her from most of it – his arm falls away from her shoulders, and she staggers back in trepidation.
In an abstract sense, Claire had always imagined that it might be thrilling to have two strapping men fight for her affections. Now that something vaguely akin to this is transpiring, however, she feels nothing but terror. Her heart is palpitating erratically in her chest, steeped in crippling guilt, and every cell in her body is begging for this altercation to stop.
"Listen, man, you don't wanna do this," Dean says, that infuriating smile creeping across his face again. She knows this is going to do nothing to mollify the man's outrage.
Stepping between them, she piles on, "You really don't." Turning to Dean, she says, "Let's just go."
Dean looks about ready to listen, until his number one fan takes a swing at his jaw from over Claire's head. He dodges it, but only just; it's far too close for his comfort, and he easily could have slugged her in the back of the head. He lunges towards him, but Claire obstructs his path, using her entire body to block his. "No, Dean. Let's go, come on," she warns.
"He could have hit you!" he protests furiously.
"But he didn't," she insists. "Please, let's just go."
"Yeah," the man scoffs, "listen to your slut. Run along. She'll give you a good time – I should know."
And then, Claire cringes because she knows it's over. As the coup-de-grace, the douchebag then hocks a loogie at her feet, and Dean is already in motion.
Still, she tries to impede his path. "Dean, no!" she pleads. She hates this type of fighting. Fighting monsters, sure, that's a necessity. But needless violence makes her stomach roil. She doesn't want him to defend her honor and genuinely doesn't care what this stranger thinks of her. They spend more than half their time beating things up and getting beat up in return – the least they can do is try to avoid it off-hours, and she doesn't want to see Dean punch him, or be punched. The sight is far too familiar.
And on top of everything, this is all her fault, utterly and completely. How could she be so careless? So stupid? Someone's going to get hurt and it's going to be solely because of her frivolous thoughtlessness.
"You wanna say that one more time?" Dean shouts, fists coiled tightly at his sides. He's lucky his nails are clipped short, otherwise they would be drawing blood from the heels of his palms. Even as Claire desperately attempts to drag him away, he provokes, "I didn't quite catch that!" He's seeing red, and all he wants to do is pound this idiot's face into the dirt – to pummel him for what he's said, and for even touching Claire in the first place.
But he doesn't. If he truly wanted to break free of her, he could – effortlessly. He doesn't because he can see she's scared of what he's going to do. Her eyes are flashing with fear, and he never wants to elicit that emotion in her. He can deal with everything else in the world being terrified of him – just not her.
The other man, sullen that a bar fight isn't in the cards for him tonight, has already begun skulking back towards the building. He shakes his head to himself, as though he was robbed of some golden opportunity.
Claire is still putting her entire weight into leading Dean along by his wrist. Begrudgingly, he follows her.
He parked the Impala at the back of the lot, out of harm's way, and when they reach it she quickly corners him against the passenger's side. The weather has caused Dean to forgo his habitual button-down, and now there's hardly anything between them apart from a stifling heat. In the slanting light, he can see little pearls of sweat collecting along her collarbone.
"I was gonna hurt him, not really," he grumbles, still seething with rage. "But that dick needed to be put in his place."
"Shut up," she mutters, crushing her mouth to his.
He's taken by surprise, especially as her hands slip underneath his shirt, and the fire in his belly begins to morph into an entirely different sort of fire.
He mumbles, a bit confusedly, against her lips, "That macho shit's got you all hot and bothered?"
"No," she refutes, not breaking contact. "The opposite. You didn't hit him."
She seems shocked by this, and he's not sure how he feels about it. Is that really how he seems? Like some hot-blooded meathead who can't pass up a fight?
But her hands are now at the waistband of his jeans and those questions don't seem to matter anymore. Maybe Sammy was onto something with that sensitivity crap, he thinks offhandedly.
From across the parking lot, someone bellows amusedly, "Get a room!" and Dean grins against Claire's neck.
"You heard 'im," he whispers slyly, his breath lapping at her ear.
"Does the Impala count as a room?" she questions.
Even in the dim light, she can see Dean's blondish eyebrows lift.
"What, don't wanna desecrate your Baby?" she purrs invitingly.
It wouldn't be the first time. His eyes flit around, appraising their shadowy surroundings; there aren't any people around at the moment, and even so his car is parked far away from the bar and underneath a patch of trees.
He seals his lips to hers and when he pulls back, corrects, "Not desecrating. Christening." Wordlessly, he opens the door and guides her into the backseat.
In an instant Claire is on his lap, yanking his gray t-shirt over his head. Dean wants to make some quip about how impatient she's being, but everything wilts in his throat apart from a rumbling groan when her mouth leaves his and finds his pulse-point.
"You've been drinking, anyway," she murmurs, as though there needs to be any justification for what they're doing. "You shouldn't drive."
"Mhm." Sure. Absolutely. Drinking and driving – that's definitely not something he's ever done before.
Her long legs easily straddle him, and in the damp heat her shins stick to the Chevy's seats. Dean is already starting to feel a layer of perspiration coat his flesh, and he knows that as soon as there's skin-on-skin contact it's going jump ten degrees in this car. The night has cooled things some, but it's still hot as hell out here.
All the more reason to strip, he thinks, and she is most certainly on the same page as she helps him remove her tank top. Upon unclasping the back of her lacy black bra, he flips them so she's lying along the length of the seats and fully accessible to him. He kisses her lazily and she nips at his lower lip to hurry him along. God, does she get his blood going, he thinks.
If they were paying any attention at all to the windows, they would notice that condensation is already dripping thin streams of clarity in the fog.
Soon enough the car has turned into a sauna, causing them to slow their movements. It makes every languid brush of contact more intimate, every touch more deliberate. One thing he loves about Claire is that she says his name constantly, and in the quiet he can savor every variation in her cadence each time she says it. Before, half the girls he slept with didn't even know his name, so this seemingly minor detail drives him wild. Dean Dean Dean coming out in short, breathy gasps is the most beautiful music he's ever heard.
So when her hand swipes the back window and recreates that iconic Titanic scene, 'no chick-flick moments' Dean isn't even mad. But a tiny part of him thinks – just maybe – dragging the Impala into it is a little bit desecrating.
Fin
A/N: So, I'm a huge joke. I mean to write a one-shot and I end up with thirty pages.
I did some research on whether or not the Impala would have A/C, and I came up with conflicting results. Somewhere legit-sounding said you could reverse-engineer the heating system to work as A/C, so I figured Dean is mechanically inclined and probably would have done that if he had to. Even so, the car was built in '67, so I imagine its ventilation system isn't exactly top-of-the-line for modern consumers.
Luna Lovegood, as I'm sure most of you know, is a character from Harry Potter.
Stanley is a reference to a character from The Office.
The case itself is half historically-based and half American Horror Story-based lol. If you've seen season 3 of AHS you'll know what I'm talking about. The LaLaurie Mansion is not, to my knowledge, a museum (pretty sure it's a private home… yikes), nor was it damaged in Hurricane Katrina (as far as I was able to glean from my research – the French Quarter was not one of the areas that was most affected). If you want to look Madame LaLaurie up, you should – it's a real horror story. I took creative license with a few details. As for the doll being in the wall – I live in a very old part of the country and people used to do this around here, but I don't know if it was the same in the South. If not, I apologize for the inaccuracy.
In that same vein, I have never been anywhere even close to New Orleans (though I'm dying to visit), so if this is not an accurate representation, I am deeply sorry. I did my best. I prefer to write what I know, but obviously (and especially with Supernatural) that's not always possible.
As for the end, I hope you didn't think their behavior was too OOC. I actually drew from my own experiences (lollll it was definitely not my finest moment morally), so I felt comfortable enough that people would actually act like this. Fights IRL are TERRIFYING, or at least I think so. And in any case, I like the idea that Claire and Dean are kind of like an overwhelming, tumultuous, destructive force, even if they don't mean to be. I admit the scene didn't further the plot, but I wanted to write it so I did ;)
Sorry this was so long. I just want to make sure I cover all my bases haha. Thanks for reading, and pretty please let me know what you think/if you would like to see more of these case-shots. A lot went into this, so I'd like to hear from you guys to see if I should keep going :) :)