Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville/Supernatural
Written for my Paranormal150 Prompt Table. Prompt of the day # 11: Radiant Boys.
"What are you up to Robert?" Chloe demanded to know the moment Bobby had driven up to the house. She'd gotten up immediately as she'd seen his truck and gone to confront him outside, with a hiss that hopefully no other human ear could hear.
Bobby winced, seeming to realize that it was safer for him to stay inside of the truck. "Now Chloe..."
"Don't 'now Chloe' me!" She snapped, feeling feral, like a mother animal whose territory was being encroached on and her cubs endangered. "You told me---you told me---that we couldn't trust them---couldn't trust anyone. You said that the moment they realize I'm different they'll see me as the enemy and want to hunt me!" She paused, eyes narrowed. "Then why are they here when I could possibly die and come back to life?"
Bobby gulped, looking around him before taking in a deep breath and taking the chance of getting out of the safety of his truck, closing the door gently behind him, as if afraid to agitate her further or she might attack or something.
Then again, given how she was feeling right now, Chloe felt ready to attack, so maybe he was right in being so wary and cautious.
"Honey, I don't think you're going to die again." Bobby announced, placing a hand on her shoulder.
Chloe's eyes widened, all anger disappearing instantly. "What? But what about my ghost boy?"
"Yes, about him. I had a hunch, but I wanted to leave you protected by the boys just in case I was wrong." Bobby looked mildly uncomfortable talking about the ghost. "Honey, he isn't a Radiant Boy. Or...he is...but not in the typical sense."
"I don't understand." Chloe frowned, confused. "What are you saying?"
Bobby walked her towards the junkyard to afford themselves more privacy. "Chloe...you're different...we both know that."
Chloe nodded for him to continue, sending a glance back towards the house, wondering if Sam and Dean (who'd fallen asleep watching her Buffy dvds with her) were still dead to the world or if they'd noticed her disappearance.
"Well, Chloe, I'm not one who is much with words, so I'm going to be blunt about it." He replied, already adorably uncomfortable. "You're a Lighthouse."
"Huh?" Chloe blinked, confused. "I'm a building?"
"Um, no, not exactly." Bobby sighed, running his hand over his trucker hat. "What I'm saying is, that the mutation in your body, and the spiritual link of your resurrection with the inhuman world, well, it's left a beacon in you. You're a Lighthouse. You're someone that the supernatural, the undead, the spirits and things will be attracted to...if they want safe passage to a home port."
"A home port..." Chloe was trying to follow but was losing her way horribly. "Bobby, I still don't understand."
Bobby cleared his throat. "Radiant Boys fit a certain pattern, and your description of the boy...and his attitude to you...it didn't really fit it. So I went to go see a psychic friend of mine, Pamela, and I talked to her about it and asked her to see if she could clarify it for me. She's the one who explained this Lighthouse business to me, and told me that it's an extremely rare gift, thats only been recorded once or twice in the past. That because you were dead for three days, you joined with the 'unnatural' world, and when you came back, you brought that connection with you. So other creatures are going to sense that, and are going to feel as if you're like them, and if they're tired and just want a home, they will find you."
Chloe went still. "You're telling me my ghost boy didn't follow the Winchesters?"
"Yes, he did, because he was lonely. But when he found you, he sensed the beacon of the Lighthouse calling to all the lost souls and creatures in the darkness that need shelter and refuge and a home." He winced. "Those were Pamela's words, at least. She---she wants to meet you, says that you're life is going to change from now on and she can help prepare you for what's going to happen."
Chloe brought a shaky hand to her forehead. "I can't believe it. I'm a bigger freak than I'd already thought!"
"You're not a freak." Bobby hissed, eyes narrowed with fatherly disapproval.
She had to smile tenderly at that.
He was a big softie deep down inside.
"You know, there's something I cant understand." Chloe finally asked the question that'd been bugging her since her resurrection. "Why didn't you bury or burn me when I died? You had me dead, in my bed. You didn't--you didn't somehow know I'd come back to life, did you?"
"Of course not." Bobby snorted. "If I had known do you really think I would have put you through all those tests?"
She made a face. "You've got a point there." Her green gaze rose to his. "So why didn't you do anything with my body?"
Bobby looked away, seeming even more awkward and uncomfortable, voice gruff. "I---I'd just found you, or you found me, Chloe. I---I wasn't prepared, mentally or emotionally, to lose you again. To let go."
A worry that'd always been present finally made it passed her lips. "You didn't make any deals, right Bobby?"
He sighed, head lowered. "I'd considered it. I---I was trying to find the nearest crossroad when I heard your scream from the bedroom."
"You idiot!" Chloe whispered, horrified, slapping at his chest. "Don't you ever even think of that again! I wouldn't want to be alive if I knew that it had cost you your soul!"
"I'm an old man, Chloe. I've lived my life...and I'm a hunter, ten guaranteed years would be an upside, especially if....Chloe....I know...I know I don't---I'm not the most affectionate man...but you're my daughter." He cleared his throat, unable to say this and look her in the face at the same time. "And I...um...I..."
Chloe felt her eyes watering, understanding what he was trying to say. "Me too." She whispered before wrapping him in an impulsive yet tight hug. "Me too."
Bobby hugged her tightly.
"Just swear to me you didn't make any pacts." Chloe whispered in his ear. "Swear it to me on this moment."
"I swear." He whispered back without any hesitation.
Chloe hugged him tighter before pressing a kiss to his stubbly cheek and pulling back, smiling at him. "You know, things could be worse. This whole Lighthouse thing isn't a bad thing, I don't think." She paused. "I'm not going to have time to hunt though, am I? What you said this Pamela woman said, well, tons of things are going to come to stay here. Which means they'll be boarding here."
Bobby flinched at the though but nodded, the hunter in him obviously going insane with the thought of having to house things he'd been hunting for years.
"But at least what she said makes it seem like things like my ghost boy will come. You know, not evil ones, but ones that are lonely and need company and to be taken care of." Already, Chloe was getting excited, grinning as she rubbed her hands together. "This is going to be so much fun!"
"We're going to have to keep it a secret, Chloe."
She frowned. "Right. Hunters. Right."
Her gaze went to the house.
"How are they?" Bobby asked, following her gaze.
"Okay now. Sam had...an intense migraine some hours ago, but he's fine now. They're both sleeping in the couch." Chloe frowned, thinking about how Sam and Dean had spent a good thirty minutes up in the room after the 'migraine' before coming back down, and when they had they'd been acting odd. They'd been looking at her weirdly too all through-out dinner. Not suspicious-weirdly or worried-weirdly or aggressive-weirdly...just...well, weirdly-weirdly.
And suddenly they'd become attentive.
Would she like help washing the dishes?
Would she like them to clear up the table?
Wasn't she tired? She could sit down and play with the ghost while they finished things.
It was all downright suspicious, but who was she to look a gift horse in the mouth?
She'd left them to do the work, and went to the living room with her pet ghost and tried to teach him the beginnings of sign language. If he refused to speak, she was going to find another way of communicating with him.
Then, when the guys had finished and retired on the couch, they all started watching her Buffy dvds with her, starting from season one since the brothers had never even watched a single episode.
The sacrilege.
So Chloe had been amused as she listened to Dean both admire Buffy physically and yet complain about her fighting techniques (which Chloe thought were great, actually) and her way of dealing with things (and her choice of weapons...and her choice in guys...) while Sam picked out how Willow was doing something wrong, or how that wasn't how that monster/creature was really like or that wasn't how you killed it...
In the end, Chloe considered their ongoing commentary (or, well, complaining) to be the highlight of the whole experience, which had induced incredulous laughter from her time and time again as they mumbled about how the creator of this series was only misinforming the general public and thus endangering them.
She was sure that Joss Whedon would be safer never meeting these two.
Then again, if he did, he probably would have done a show about them, and called it something like Paranormal.
She smirked.
She would have watched it if he had.
"They're good boys." Bobby announced, in a tone that was suspiciously close to being tender, as he looked towards the house. "It's just that John raised them to be and think like him, and I don't want to risk it, risk you."
Chloe smiled at him. "You're a big softie, Bobby."
He scoffed, going pink at his stubbly cheeks. "What nonsense."
She giggled.
Together they made their way back into the home, and locked up as Bobby kicked at the boys' legs to wake them up before grumbling for them to get to bed.
The two brother crawled up the stairs towards their rooms, Chloe and a curious, wide-awake ghost watching as Bobby shepherded them up the stairs, poking them in the back as they went.
Chloe smirked at the image those three made, before turning to the ghost. "I'm going to sleep now, okay?"
He nodded.
"You can stay here or go to your room, wherever you're more comfortable with. Just don't make noise or get into any trouble"
He nodded once more.
Chloe smiled at him. "Good night." And with that she went up to her room, bathed, and went to bed.
When she woke up hours later in the early to find her ghost sleeping curled around her feet, she didn't take the time to consider it odd, since she'd never thought that ghost might sleep, nor the fact that she could actually feel the boy.
She just smiled at him in an 'awwww' kinda way.
He really was just a motherless child.
I'm going to tell Sam to get me his name first thing Sam wakes up, she decided, laying back down and falling back to sleep.
Or, she would have, if it hadn't been for the fact that she realized, right before she closed her eyes, that there was a Hellhound laying down on the mat by the side of her bed, its head rested on the mat, its fiery red eyes fixed on her curiously.
Chloe shot up in bed, scrambling for her sheets and pulling them to her, looking at the huge canine in slight trepidation. "You're not here to drag me to Hell, right?"
It sniffed at her, as if telling her she was stupid.
The fear left her, as her ghost groaned and turned in bed, pulling at her sheets.
Getting braver, Chloe looked at the Hellhound with curiosity. "Um, you're uh, looking to stay on, right?"
It kept looking at her as if she was stupid and should already know this.
By now Chloe was getting amused. "Well, uh, as long as you don't hurt anyone, and don't, you know, drag them to hell or anything, you're welcome to stay for however you want."
The Hellhound gave her a doggish, lopsided grin, showing fangs.
"You know, the upside about this is that no one can see Hellhounds unless the Hellhounds want them to see them---or they're about to get dragged into hell. So Sam and Dean don't have to know you're here." Chloe decided, already talking to the hellish creature as if it had been there all along. "They won't know you're here, and they won't try to hunt you."
The Hellhound snorted again, closing its eyes, resting its chin on its fronts paws, as if amused with the thought of someone trying to hunt it.
"Uhm, have a good sleep?" Chloe asked.
It gave a little wolfish yip that could have been a 'sleep well too' or a 'shut up'...she couldn't be completely sure which.
Chloe smirked, letting go of her death grip on her sheets.
This was going to take some getting used to.
But as Chloe laid back down, she decided that this was a challenge she was going to enjoy.
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