Scarecrow – Part Two
"He's a bit young for you, don't you think?" Dean mentioned nonchalantly as they headed over towards his car, after getting the directions and saying their goodbyes.
Buffy frowned in confusion. "What?"
"Josh. Your new little flirting buddy."
Heaving out a huff of annoyance, she stopped walking to send him a truly terrifying glare. "I was not flirting with him. And for your information, he's twenty three years old."
"Yeah, my point exactly. Too young for you."
"Hey! He totally is not! I'm not even old. And anyway, so not the point. Josh and I weren't flirting, we were talking. Having a civilized conversation. I'm sure you've heard of them."
Dean scoffed and ignored her sarcasm. "Yeah. You were just talking. Really looked that way when you were giggling all over each other like simpering school girls."
Shaking her head, Buffy continued on her way to the car. "You know, jealousy is such an ugly colour on you, Dean," she threw over her shoulder with a smirk.
He opened and closed his mouth, looking for all the world like a real, drowning goldfish. "In your dreams, buttercup," he blustered, hurrying after her and climbing into the car.
Buffy, fully ready to continue her teasing until he was about ready to explode, followed in after him. Yet anything she had been about to say was rudely interrupted when he said, "I think your aunt and uncle know a helluva lot more than they're letting on."
She glanced at him to see if he was joking, but surmised by his entirely serious and businesslike expression that he wasn't. "Are you like, completely out of your mind? Did you not just meet them in there? They're the sweetest, nicest people in the world!"
"You know as well as I do that seeming like a nice guy means nothing. People lie, Buffy."
"What is it you think they could possibly know?"
"I don't know, okay?" He sighed as he started up the car. "Look, I know they're your family and all, but that's blind-sided you. You can't afford that. I say we go check out that route they gave us and see what we can find. Think you can do that for me?"
She sat back in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest. "Fine. Whatever. We'll take a look around and do whatever you want. But you're completely crazy if you actually think they have anything to do with it. Or if they somehow know something and aren't saying. They just aren't like that."
"Well, we'll just have to wait and see, won't we, button?"
"I guess we will. And stop with all the stupid names."
"Why? Don't you like them...cherub?"
"Screw you, moron."
"Geez! Sorry...crumpet."
She harrumphed and gave up on the idea of getting him to be anything other than an aggravating dumb-ass for more than an entire minute. He was clearly just in one of those kind of moods. "Whatever. Did you speak to any of the other people in town?"
"Yep. And they were just about as helpful as I expected."
"Nothing?"
"Nope. Stubborn bunch of farmers."
"Or maybe they just don't know anything."
"Yeah, and maybe they do."
"I can tell already that this job's gonna be easy as pie."
They'd been driving down the road that Harley had sent them on for only a couple of minutes before a soft whining sound began to emit from somewhere in the back of the car.
"What the hell is that?" Buffy asked, twisting around in her seat as far as she could to take a look.
Dean frowned. "I think it's my emf detector. Can you reach it?"
She unbuckled her seat-belt and leaned over into the back seat, digging the little machine out of a pile of what she could only assume was trash – she could never tell in this car. Sitting back down, she held up the device between her index finger and her thumb, staring at it like it was a piece of junk. Which actually, it kind of was. And that was why Dean was so proud of it.
"What is it?" she wanted to know. "Some kind of evil alerty thingy? It's very annoying."
"Something like that," he replied distractedly, wondering what the hell could be causing it to go off. Here. In the middle of the road. Maybe it was broken? Nah, his creations didn't break.
He pulled over onto the side of the road and took the emf detector off of Buffy to study it closer.
After a couple of long, silent minutes had gone by, Buffy huffed in boredom and rested her forehead against the window. "Maybe your little machine just doesn't work," she suggested. "The only evil thing around here is rotten apples."
"Impossible," he muttered back. "My stuff doesn't break." He glanced up at her, puzzled. "And what the hell are you waffling on about apples for?"
"Apple orchard," she replied, bored. "All around us. Trees. With apples on. Spooky...not."
"Ew," Buffy complained, minutes later as they picked their way through the overgrown orchard. "Spooky."
"What now?" a frustrated Dean demanded. If she was going to complain about spiders again he was going to throttle the hell out of her cute little throat.
She stopped walking and pointed to a dark, shaggy looking thing hanging up in the distance. "Scarecrow. And even freakier looking than the usual kind."
"Hmm." He was intrigued. Changing direction, he began to move towards it.
Buffy tutted and followed after him, muttering, "Sure, let's get even closer to the ugly ball of hay 'cause it's just not gross enough from here," not quite under her breath.
"You're just jealous 'cause he's prettier than you."
Coming to a stop right in front of the scarecrow, Buffy unconsciously ignored Dean's comment as she stared up at the thing through thoughtful eyes. "It's too high up. I need to get a closer look at it." Spotting a ladder nearby, she dragged it over and climbed up. Her stomach began to churn horribly when she saw the strange, oh so familiar markings on the arm of the scarecrow.
Dean, who had climbed up behind her and taken out the picture of the missing couple from last year, groaned when he realized that the markings were exactly the same as that of the man's tattoo.
Both cringed, neither one of them concentrating on the closeness of their bodies – for once.
"So...still think I'm crazy thinking bad thoughts about your good old Uncle Harley and Aunt Stacey, huh?
Buffy refused point blank to talk to Dean as they made the short journey back into town. Before they had climbed into the car she had tried to reason with him, tried to make him see that her aunt and uncle could still be innocent and have no clue about the skin wearing scarecrow, but he had just scoffed at her arguments and pointed out that there were two other roads leading out of town towards the interstate, both quicker and less deadly than this one.
It was about at this time that she had stopped talking – mainly because he sort of had a point and it was kinda breaking her heart.
Not the Dean being right part – although that was a strange and new experience. It was more the consequences of him being right. Because if he was and Harley and Stacey were involved...well it was just a scenario she really didn't want to have to think about. Even though it was the only thought in her head, going round and round in repetitive circles.
She couldn't believe it. They had to be innocent. They were just so nice! And sweet, and homely, and everything an aunt and uncle should be. Everything family should be.
She shifted in her seat, holding her arms around herself even tighter, but the antsy feeling in her stomach just wouldn't go away.
By the time the pair had reached town again, they were pretty much at the end of their tethers with one another.
Dean was fed up with her silences and her denial, and Buffy his annoying jibes and his snarky, 'told you so' attitude.
Before the car had even parked up properly, Buffy had jumped straight out and walked away, straight in the direction – to Dean's intense aggravation – of that little dick, Josh.
Right, she so wasn't interested.
Yeah.
Whatever. Wasn't like he needed her anyway.
Sighing heavily at the fact that he couldn't even lie to himself convincingly, Dean tore his eyes away from Buffy and Josh's retreating backs and stormed towards the local diner, determined that he'd at least get a decent meal out of this suckhole of a town.
In actual fact, Buffy wasn't attracted to Josh in the slightest. Not to say that she didn't appreciate the fact that he was a good looking young guy – with an ass to drool over – but Dean, once again, was right. She didn't go for toy-boys – anyone would be able to tell that just by looking at her previous relationships – and at twenty three, Josh was just too young.
Also there was that other stupid asshole who'd taken up permanent residence in her head, which made even contemplating about other men just impossible.
But she knew he'd taken a shine to her, and, she was ashamed to say, she was fully prepared to use it to gather any information she could on her aunt and uncle. After all, he was the one who had lived with them for two years. If anyone would be able to judge their characters, he surely would.
After catching up to him he'd led her back to the garage where he'd gotten them both lemonade and cookies – yep, definitely too young – before joining her outside in the sun.
"They're the sweetest people I've ever met," he told her sincerely when she questioned him, looking a little surprised that she was even inquiring. "I first moved out here when my wife died in a car accident a few years ago. Ella was just a baby, and they were so good to us. They helped us out more than I could even say. I'm honestly not sure I could have gotten through it without them."
"I'm so sorry. I hadn't even realized you were widowed."
"It's not really something people expect from someone who's only twenty three. And I don't usually like to mention it."
"I understand."
"Have you...have you lost someone too?"
Buffy looked down at her fingernails, suddenly uncomfortable. "Yeah. I lost someone."
"I'm real sorry. Was he young too?"
Had Spike been young? He'd certainly lived death a lot longer than he lived life, but did that count?
"He...he still had a lot to live for. He was...I mean I...God, I'm sorry. It's just I lov...he was special to me in ways I could never describe. It's hard to talk about."
Josh nodded. "You always hear these folks in the movies talking about the glory of dying young...bunch of crap, I say."
"Totally. I'd be happy to die a wrinkly old granny. More than happy. Ecstatic. Gleeful, even."
Josh watched her carefully for a moment as he sipped on his lemonade. "And why am I sensing there's a whole other story to that?"
Buffy smiled sadly. She could hardly explain to him that for eight long years of her life she'd had to live with the shadow of death, the fear that the next birthday would be the one she wouldn't live for, and that it was only in the past couple of years that a whole bunch of superhuman chicks had sprouted up, elongating her life expectancy.
"Because you're a clever guy," she settled on in the end. "Now tell me about the rest of the town."
He chuckled at the obvious subject change, but humoured her anyway. "What can I say? It's just as great as Stace and Harley. I honestly couldn't imagine a nicer place to bring Ella up in. There hasn't been a single day since I moved here that I regretted it."
"And you've never noticed anything weird about it at all?"
"No, not really. I mean, it's a pretty lucky town, I guess, but that's just down to good farming."
"What do you mean by lucky?"
"Well, all the towns around us are kinda falling into disrepair. People are losing money, homes, work. But we're fine here. More than fine. I'd even say blessed, if I believed in that kind of thing."
"So...it's all good? There's nothing odd at all? Even that creepy scarecrow thing in the orchard down the road?"
He visibly shuddered at the mention of the scarecrow. "Okay, you got me there. As much as I'd like to spout off how perfect it all is, that really is one ugly looking guy, right? I hate it, but...keep that on the down low. The folks around town like to think he brings them luck or something. And hey, who am I to argue with tradition?"
"I guess. You think they'd do a little something to make him look friendlier though, right?" Like not dressing him up in the skin of innocents for starters. "Who owns him? I saw a house nearby the orchard..."
"Oh, that place has been empty for years. As far as I know, the scarecrow doesn't belong to anyone. He's just always been...there. Funny, huh?"
"Absolutely hilarious."
Josh's face darkened just a touch, but before she could ask what was wrong, she was covered in shadow.
"Hey there, cuddles!"
"Has anyone ever told you that you're kind of an idiot?" Buffy asked, as Dean pulled up a chair to sit down with them.
"Has anyone ever told you that that's not a nice way to talk to your fiancé?"
Buffy sighed, wishing there was a wall nearby to bang her head against. "What do you want?"
"Need to talk to you." He eyed Josh with obvious distaste. "Alone."
"Fine. Whatever." She turned to Josh and smiled sweetly, only partly doing it to piss off Dean. "It was really nice talking to you."
"Yeah, it really was. Will I see you again before you leave?"
"Sure. Maybe."
"Sorry to drag you away from your boyfriend," a snarky Dean muttered as they strolled away.
"Grow up, Dean."
"Just saying. You know he's probably in on it too, right?"
"Yeah, I bet him and his kid daughter a regular skin thieves. Probably go out at weekends looking for knives as a special, father-daughter bonding treat."
"Never know. Did you at least learn anything from tall and brainless?"
"This and that. According to him this is the only town in the area not suffering depression right now. I asked about the scarecrow but he has no idea how it got there. No one owns the thing."
"So how did it get there?"
"That's what I'd like to know."
"Hmm." Dean made a mental note to store the information away for later, when there'd no doubt be all that fun research Sam usually jumped at. "Well, when I was just in the diner-" He purposely ignored her snort of sarcastic surprise. "-I got to overhearing this couple chatting. Turns out they only stopped by here 'cause they're having car troubles."
"You think they might be in danger?"
"Fits the pattern. Young couple. Right time of year."
"What do you think we should do? Follow them?"
"I think we need to warn them. Just give them a heads up. Tell them to watch out for trouble."
Buffy frowned. "Right. And how exactly are we gonna do that without sounding like two crazy idiots?"
Dean patted her on the head condescendingly and smirked. "You just leave it to me, angel face. I'll have them outta here in no time at all."
As he walked towards the diner, Buffy raised an amused, sceptical eyebrow at his back. Now this was something she really had to see.
Faith rolled her eyes as Sam heaved yet another heavy, annoyed sigh. "Yuh know," she droned. "Sitting with a face like a slapped ass ain't gonna get us to LA any faster."
"Didn't you hear the lady? There's not another bus until tomorrow, Faith. Tomorrow!"
"Yeah, grumpy. My ears work just as well as yours do. Chill out. We'll just grab something to eat and hang. So we get there a few hours later? No big deal."
He grunted and turned away, refusing to see her point of view.
Getting seriously jacked off with his attitude, Faith eye-balled him, but although he must have felt it, he still didn't turn around. After a moment, she noticed him fingering something suspiciously cellphone shaped in his pocket, and guessed exactly why he was so stressed out.
"Just call him already," she demanded, her face softening. "Dean might be a gigantic pain in the ass, but he's still your brother."
Finally turning back to face her, Sam nodded slowly, and brought the phone out of its hiding place.
"No way! It's you!"
Now there was a voice that Faith recognized...unfortunately. She groaned audibly as the blonde bitch from that morning stood up and approached the two of them – although from the way her hungry gaze was set firmly on Sam, Faith may as well have been invisible.
Sam, on the other and, blinked in surprise. And, a surly Faith noted, pleasure.
"Hey!" he called out, standing up to greet her. "I can't believe you're here." It was with a certain note of finality that he snapped the cellphone shut and slid it back into his pocket.
"Are you seriously just gonna go out and have dinner with her?"
"Faith, I really don't understand what your problem with Meg is."
"Apart from the fact that she's a skanky ho?"
"Very mature. She's just a traveller. Pure and simple."
"I'm telling you, kid, there's something more to her. I can feel it in my bones."
Sam scoffed. "You're telling me Meg sets off that slayer radar thing you've got going on?"
"Yes! No! I don't know!"
"Yeah, I think I'm still gonna have dinner with her. Look, you know you're welcome to come, right?"
"I'd rather chew on my own butt cheeks. Why can't you just trust me on this, Sam? Why are you so blinded by her? You got a crush or something?"
The blush tingeing Sam's cheeks was more than enough of an answer for Faith, and it was with defeat and frustration that she threw her arms up into the air. "You know what, Sammy boy? Screw the absolute hell outta this! I ain't getting my ass fried just 'cause you got a boner from Miss Cow Eyes over there. I'm done."
"Faith," Sam protested weakly, watching in distress as she grabbed up her bags and hoisted them over her shoulder. "Come on! This is-"
"And you know something else?" she continued, as if he'd never even spoken. "I stuck my neck out for you. For you! Ditched my best friend and almost lost her 'cause I thought you were the smart one. Man, was I wrong! You're just as much of an asswipe as that brother of yours. See you around, kiddo."
With hunched shoulders, Sam stared after her as she stomped away.
He considered going after her. Probably should, what with their promise to stick together and all. But hey, she was the one who was walking away, not him!
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Meg smile and wiggle her fingers at him, and any thoughts of trying to reason with Faith disappeared.
That had to have been, without a doubt, the most amusing three and a half minutes of Buffy's life.
In fact, if the young couple in the diner hadn't been in some serious – potential – danger – she would have laughed out loud. Maybe even in his face.
Then again, that probably would have freaked them out even more than Dean had already.
Oh well, she'd had a good laugh on the inside at least.
Watching Dean, who was clearly just socially awkward when it came to anything other than seducing women – try and start a conversation with them had been bad enough. But the looks on their faces as he tried to warn them they were in danger...well, it was something she'd remember for a good long time. She supposed she could have stepped in and stopped him long before they'd clearly come to the conclusion that he was a creepy nut job, but...it had just been so much fun to watch.
She was just about to reassure the couple and bring them around when they were approached by the town sheriff, looking very official...and pissed off.
"Me and you need to have a little talk," he snapped at Dean.
Dean sighed and sat back in his seat. "Aw, come on man! You serious?"
"As a heart attack." He glanced over at Buffy, his expression softening fast. "Hey, I know you. You're Stace and Harley's niece, right?"
"I sure am."
"Well then. You're more than welcome to hang around. But I'm gonna have to ask your buddy the ass here to leave town. Now."
It was understandable, really.
"Afraid I'm gonna have to stick with the ass." She smiled at the sheriff to soften the blow.
"Your decision, sweetheart. You're welcome back any time though, mind, any time at all."
Any lingering doubts Sam may have been having about letting Faith walk away so easily soon vanished the more time he and Meg spent together.
It was all he could do not to beg her to stay with him and never leave him as she told him her story over dinner.
She was just like him! Every amazing little bit of her! They were both trapped inside the bubble of expectations their families had of them, families who had absolutely no clue what it was like to want something different out of life to what they'd been given. And here they were, both taking a stand.
Could she be any more perfect?
He smiled in sympathy as she talked about the family who expected her to be the perfect housewife, and felt for the first time since Jess had been murdered that maybe, just maybe, the world wasn't such a lonely place after all.
"Sooo...what now?" Buffy questioned as she and Dean drove out of town. "I mean, it's kind of hard to solve a case and save people's lives and all when you can't get anywhere near them."
Dean shrugged like there was no problem. "We wait until dark and then head on back to the orchard. I got a funny feeling that couple from the diner might be riding right through there tonight."
"What if someone sees us?"
"Then they see us. We gotta risk it or those people might die."
A short while later, once they were clear enough of the town not to risk getting Dean arrested, they pulled over to a grassy verge on the side of the road.
With a weary sigh, Dean leaned back into his seat and closed his eyes.
"You'd think considering we're tryna save their butts here, these people might make things a little easier on us," he complained.
"Why don't you go and point that out to them?" Buffy suggested, only half joking.
"Funny, Summers."
She turned in her seat and watched him for a moment. Though his eyes were closed, the lines on his face were tense. She knew without any doubt just who he was thinking about.
"You worried about him?" she asked.
"Who?"
"Sam."
"What do you think?" he replied sarcastically, snapping his eyes open to glare at her. "Kid's gonna get himself killed out there all by himself."
"He's not a kid. Or by himself."
"He's not a kid? What in the hell do you meant by that?"
"Exactly what I said. Sam isn't a child. Not in the eyes of the law, and not in the eyes of anyone else, either. He's a good hunter, Dean. He's been doing it all his life, just like you. He's smart, and he knows how to get himself out of a sticky situation. You really need to start learning to trust him more.
"It's not an issue of trust-"
Buffy scoffed. "Right. What exactly is it then? You think he can't handle himself in a fight? He learned from you, didn't he? You and your dad? And you know what, he has a few pretty damn good tricks up his own sleeve, too. He went and grew up on you, Dean, and it's about time you realized that."
Dean opened and closed his mouth, his mind blank as his brain took in her outburst, word by word.
He wanted to argue, he really did. Tell her she was crazy and that Sam needed his protection. But there was some stupid feeling deep down inside of him that was yelling out that just maybe, Buffy was right, and Sam really didn't need him any more.
Dean winced and hissed in pain as Buffy applied antiseptic to the gash he'd obtained on his shoulder.
"Damn scarecrow," he muttered.
They had gotten to the orchard earlier that night just in time to witness the scarecrow climbing down from his perch to go after the couple from the diner. They'd managed to save the couple, thankfully, but Dean had taken a nasty fall whilst trying to escape. The scarecrow would have sliced more than just his shoulder if Buffy hadn't have been there to help him get away.
And now here they were, in another motel room in one of towns nearby. Dean was sat on the edge of one of the beds, begrudgingly allowing Buffy to tend to his wounds. She was knelt just behind him, trying desperately to remain professional and ignore his extremely hot topless self as she dressed the gash.
Aw boy, she'd tried, she really had.
Once finished, she leaned forwards and placed a gentle kiss on his undamaged shoulder, her lips lingering over his warm skin.
Dean bit back a gasp of surprise and pleasure and rolled back his head. "What are you doing?"
"What do you think?" She kissed him again, this time on his neck.
He shifted around and pressed his forehead against hers, squeezing his eyes closed and taking in a deep breath. He moved his face forwards just an inch, so that their lips were just touching.
And then he brushed away the hands that had been gripping his biceps and stood up suddenly, grabbing his t-shirt and yanking it over his head. "I'm starving," he announced briskly. "I'm gonna go grab something from the snack machine."
Buffy watched him leave, sinking back onto the bed and wrapping her arms around the knees she pulled up tightly to her chest. She was pretty sure that with every step he took, her heart broke just a little bit more.
She tried harder than anything to stop the tears from falling.
And failed.
The sun was shining brightly early the next morning as Buffy and Dean strolled over to the library in the town they'd chosen to stay in.
They'd come up with a plan – a good plan! Hit the library, research the hell out of this thing, and kill it.
A simple plan really, but a good one.
Once inside the library, however, their plan didn't seem so valid. Amidst the hundreds – maybe even thousands– of books, they turned to each other with desperate, baffled expressions.
"We can do this," Buffy announced bravely, nodding her head in what was supposed to be a reassuring manner – although ended up looking more manic. "I mean, Faith and Sam do this researchy stuff all the time. If Faith can do it, I'm sure we can...right?"
"Uh...sure." Not that he believed a word of it. "Yeah. Yeah, we'll be fine. All we gotta do is...look stuff up...in books and...yeah."
"Yep. We look stuff up. Okay. Right."
"Right."
With defeated sighs, they both turned at the same time and headed over towards the librarians desk, hoping there's be someone in this joint who could point them in the right direction.
"I've got it!" Dean declared almost an hour later, the excitement practically oozing out of his pores. "Ha! Who's the smart brother now, huh?"
Buffy gratefully slammed shut the dusty volume she had been attempting to read. "Oh thank God. What do you know?"
"Mr Creepy ain't a scarecrow, not really."
"So what is he?"
"A God."
As he continued to study his book, Dean didn't catch the way that Buffy's skin suddenly turned a pale, sickly white, nor the way that her shaking fingers grasped the table top.
"What makes you say that?" she asked, her voice unsteady.
"Well technically it's a Pagan God, but you know what I mean. Man, I can't believe we didn't see it before! It's been staring us in the face this whole time – the annual killing cycle, always a man and a woman. Frikkin' duh! There's no way it could be anything but a Pagan God."
Buffy was silent for a moment, before standing up suddenly. The chair she had been sitting on tipped onto its side. "Fuck!"
Dean glanced up in surprise, unused to hearing that kind of foul language from her. "What's wrong?"
She couldn't even look him in the face, choosing instead to dart her eyes around the room, anxiously. "Nothing."
He would have questioned her further, but not a second later she kicked out furiously at her fallen chair, her strength sending it shooting straight across the library room.
The other library visitors watched her is shock and horror, and the librarian stood up in outrage, but didn't move from behind her desk in fear.
Buffy didn't seem to notice any of this, and neither did Dean. All he could do was watch in open mouthed surprise as she stormed from the library, her white knuckled fists clenched tightly at her sides.
It took him almost a whole minute to gather his wits together and run after her, and when he got outside, she had already completely vanished. He was unsurprised when she didn't answer her cellphone, and in desperate need of some answers, he called the second to last person he wanted to speak to right now.
"Yo!" Faith answered on the first ring.
"Faith, it's Dean-"
"No shit, idiot. They call it caller ID for a reason. What do you want?"
So she was still pissed a him, huh? Great. Women were such stubborn bitches. "Buffy's gone MIA on me. It wasn't long ago so I haven't had an all out search for her yet. I just need some info from you first."
"Info about what exactly? And what the hell do you mean she's MIA? What did you do?"
"What, you just assume it's my fault?"
"It usually is. Get on with it."
He sighed heavily. "We were researching the case – you remember that, right? The one you bailed on?"
"I haven't got all day, douchebag."
"Fine. We were researching the case and we found out we're dealing with some kind of Pagan God thing and-"
"Aw, balls," Faith moaned, causing Dean to pause mid speech.
"What? What's so bad about a Pagan God? They're actually not too hard to gank, surprisingly."
"You don't know about Glory, do you?"
"Glory who?"
He heard Faith cast a weary sigh down the other end of the phone.
"Okay," she said. "I think you'd better make sure you're sitting down..."
Dean slid down the brick wall of the library, resting his forehead on his knees and trying desperately to find the air to breathe.
Buffy had died.
She had died!
Every time the sentence rotated through his mind it felt like a blow to the chest, like someone had hit him in the stomach with a baseball bat and knocked all the air out of him.
She had really died. And not just the couple of seconds kind, either – although she had done that too, apparently.
She'd died. Had been dead. For months!
He wanted to be sick. Sick with the thought that she had gone through that. God, the thought of losing her...the thought of her ever not being there...
He was damned glad he wasn't in her life back then. He was pretty sure that he wouldn't have been able to survive.
"Hey bastard face, you still there?" Faith asked down the phone.
He shook his head and came back down the earth. "Uh...yeah...sorry. So...you think she'll just come back when she's had a chance to calm down?"
"For sure. I mean, this is B we're talking about here, man. No way is he just gonna bail out on a case and leave you knee deep in it."
She was right. Buffy would never do anything to put innocent lives at risk. "Yeah, okay. So, uh...how's...you know?"
"Sam?"
"Yeah."
Faith peered behind the large pillar she had been using as a hiding spot for the past hour, chewing her lip as she watched Sam sitting very closely with that bitch, Meg, against a wall in the bus station. The bus was due in only a few hours, and it looked like they were becoming very fast friends as they waited.
He had no idea she was even there, the jerk.
Smiling to her pitiful self, she shook her head at his naivety. As if she'd ever just walk away and leave him when she'd promised to stick my him while they searched for his father. She may be a hot head, but she wasn't that much of a bitch. Any more.
"Sam's doing fine," she acknowledged. "Just fine."
Dean found Buffy, eventually, and it didn't even take him that long to do it. She had escaped to a little woodland area near the motel and was repeatedly punching the trunk of a tree, giving her now bloody knuckles one hell of a bashing.
It was just a good job she had all that nifty slayer healing, Dean mused, wincing as he spotted the splatters of blood on fallen leaves on the floor. He closed his eyes, trying hard to force away the painful ache in his chest.
When he was able to swallow the ache down – enough so that he could speak, anyway – he moved up behind her, silently, and slid his hands over her shoulders. Gently, he moved one down her arm and around her wrist, forcing her to stop her assault, both on the tree and herself.
"It'll be different this time," he promised, resting his cheek against hers. "This guy's no way near as powerful as that hell bitch you took down in Sunnydale. We'll find a way to stop him so that nobody gets hurt. Nobody. Especially not you."
Buffy's blood, which had been racing through her veins hard and fast, began to calm at the sound of his soothing voice. She turned to face him, wishing more than anything that he would take her into his arms, brush away her anxiety with his warm fingers. But after the way he'd treated her ever since they took this case, she knew it was about as likely to happen as the scarecrow hopping off of his perch and declaring that he was actually Santa.
"I should go talk to my aunt and uncle," she announced. "They could still be innocent in all of this."
Dean nodded, although there wasn't even the smallest part of him that believed it. "Yeah, sounds like a plan. I'll drop you off as close to town as I can risk without being run out again."
"Thanks. What are you gonna do while I'm there?"
"Apparently there's a community college around here somewhere. I was thinking I could go have a talk with one of the professors. I bet one of them's gotta know something about Pagan Gods."
"Just...I'm proud of you, Sammy...Yeah, I mean it...Promise me you'll take care of yourself?..Okay. Call me when you find Dad."
Buffy watched on in pride as Dean finished up his emotional phone conversation with Sam. She couldn't believe he'd really done it. He'd actually listened to something she'd had to say – something important – and taken it in and really thought about it, accepted that an opinion that wasn't his may be right. An then he'd gone and bitten the bullet and actually called Sam up, shared...emotional thoughts with his brother.
It was really quite beautiful.
She looked down tenderly at the large hand clasping tightly onto hers and squeezed it comfortingly.
"Who was that?" Meg questioned Sam as he snapped his phone shut, a humbled look on his face.
"Uh...that was my brother. Or at least someone doing a pretty good impression of his voice."
"Oh. What did he want?"
"To say...goodbye."
Meg moved to sit behind him, placing an oh so comforting hand on his shoulder as she forced her smirk to stay down. If the other slayer hadn't of been watching them so carefully, she would have rolled her eyes at his poor little puppy dog tone of voice.
For Faith's benefit, Meg slid her hand down Sam's arm, making sure to move even closer to him. "It'll be okay," she soothed. "It'll all be okay."
Buffy and Josh were chatting about his daughter when her aunt and uncle arrived back at the garage, looking decidedly solemn. She cringed, realizing that they must have heard about what had happened with Dean.
She saw them shoot each other a troubled glance, before wiping their faces blank and sending her enormous smiles.
"Buffy, hon," Harley began excitedly. "You're back! And so soon!"
Stacey bustled past her husband into the room and slipped an arm around Buffy's shoulder. "Well I am glad. And I was just about to serve some nice apple pie. Can I tempt you with a slice?"
Dean groaned as his eyes slowly opened and his focus began to return. He rubbed a sore spot on his head and looked around. Where the hell was he? And how had he got here? And had he been asleep?
He cursed as the memories started seeping back into his mind. Damned professor had knocked him out! Or had it been the sheriff? Either way, he was pissed!
Carefully, he sat up, peering around his surroundings to try and gauge exactly where it was the assholes had dumped him. Seemed to be some kind of cellar, if the smell of mould and the empty crates were anything to go by. The only way out appeared to be the hatch in the ceiling, but it was too high up to reach and obviously, they hadn't left him with a ladder.
Hearing a noise come from outside the hatch, he jolted, and reached down automatically for his gun. "Shit!" he expressed angrily when he realized the thieving douchebags must have taken it.
The hatch opened and – not at all to Dean's surprise – Buffy's uncle appeared above him.
"Hey!" he called up to him. "Let me out of here you stupid son of a bitch!"
Harley shook his head sadly. "You should have just left all alone, Dean." He blinked unhappily. "Catch."
"Wha-" Dean didn't even have time to finish his question before an unconscious body was dropped down into the hatch towards him. Stumbling slightly, he caught it, and then cursed furiously when he realized that it was Buffy. "What the hell did you do to her, you freak worshipping bastards?!"
When none of them answered – not that he was exactly expecting it – Dean huffed indignantly and dropped down to his knees, carefully laying Buffy out on his jacket on the floor. He checked her pulse – which was steady, thank God – and her breathing, which was nice and even. Just unconscious then. Probably knocked out, like him.
He glared up into the closing hatch. "She's your family, dammit! Doesn't that mean anything to you? I don't care about me but why the hell are you doing this to her?"
Dean was sure he could have sworn that for just one moment, the expression on Harley's face was almost...regretful, but within moments it was back to a blank mask. "For the common good," he replied.
And then the hatch slammed shut.