Chrysalis Chapter 23 - Won't Fall Down, a supernatural fanfic

Thanks for the review! I'm so tickled someone is reading this. :-)

Chapter title is from song by Stever Fister.

Won't Fall Down – Steve Fister

What the hell was she playing at?

Dean scowled. This was the second time now she'd caught him off guard, ass in the breeze. And she just looked at him, demon him, unafraid.

A normal hunter would have exorcised his ass.

Why didn't she?

Maybe she couldn't say the words. Maybe she wasn't human enough to.

He glared at her back as they picked their way through the woods back to the cars. Feeling his stare, she turned half around, icy calm eyes sweeping him head to foot again like a laser scan. Looking for horns or scales or whatever. She held on tighter to the kid and picked up her pace a little, a few steps away from him, the message in her eyes crystal.

Back the hell off.

His eyes narrowed. He wasn't the one that kept gate crashing her life. He wasn't the one that left cryptic messages with sizzling hot kisses that what? She didn't remember? Forgot?

Hell no. No one kissed like that and forgot.

For a moment he valiantly tried not to remember how much he remembered. It was a distraction he couldn't afford right this minute, and it was a hellishly distracting thought. It had been one thing to have an insubstantial memory, but quite another thing when she was right there, not more than five feet in front of him, the shape and heat of how she had felt in his arms a vivid temptation in those jeans. He wanted to run his hands under that cropped leather jacket she wore, around her slender waist, feel her arch sweetly into his arms again.

Feel warm again.

He'd have to do something about the gun there first, though.

His mind jerked back to reality. She was a few guns short of being Lara-frickin'-Croft, but the idea was the same. Disarming her would take a while, and she looked the type to have hidden sharp edges stashed in unexpected places. A pro.

With a kid.

Again. What the hell?

The kid was watching her feet. Trying to step where she stepped, trying not to make noise. Despite his best efforts, his strides just weren't long enough to avoid crunching along, a kicked rock here, a cracked branch there, loud. Not her kid, then. Dad had Sam and him trained before he would even consider taking them into the woods. He couldn't see her doing any different; she was too put together in every other way to overlook that detail.

He'd guess the boy to be about eight. Whatever had happened, the kid trusted the ninja. He was holding on to her hand tightly, not looking up to see where they were going, just watching his feet, trying to learn. Kind of the way he'd watched Dad's every move, copying them until he had it all down.

Dean bit back a bitter scoff and the desire to pluck the kid off the ground and carry him so the rustling leaf noises would stop. To tell him that this road led nowhere good, he didn't want to go there. He was a human kid, and he ought to be out playing ball at this time of afternoon, or in school, or video games, or something, anything but this.

Unconsciously he clenched his fist. He winced as a fresh jab of pain rocketed up from his wrist to his elbow. One of those mutant "vampire eating zombies" had bit him. That wasn't supposed to happen. He added that to the list of weird that surrounded her. The bite frickin' hurt. It felt like that time he'd accidentally gotten battery acid on his hand, burning a hole in his skin, the thick caustic smell of it eating at his lungs. He thought shit like that wasn't supposed to happen to him anymore, being dead and all, and the only things left to hurt him were anti-demon wards. But his fingers were stiff, felt swollen, felt hot and infected and tender. He could bend them only with effort.

That was a problem. He couldn't grip the First Blade properly, and maybe two or three of those crazy white-eyed things were still out there, dodging their steps. He couldn't sense them nearby, not yet. But he knew his count. He hadn't gotten them all.

Again, how the hell was that even happening?

He glared at her back again. She was somehow at the center of all this, this giant cluster bomb of weird. She said the zombies were after the kid, but they only had her word for it. The kid was human, and needed to be out of this mess. Away from her, whatever she was.

The cars were not far up ahead where they had left them. Sam came to a stop beside Baby and looked back at them. He caught Sam's eye, and moved ahead to join him. He must have had some expression on his face, because Sam's eyebrows went up with an unspoken question. "What?"

He shook Sam off. He knew Sam would object to what he was about to do, but he was going to do it anyway.

"Kid comes with us."

Zee stopped where she was, tensing.

"No."

"Dean." Sam said at the same time, his voice reproving even as surprise flashed across his face.

What the hell was this about now?

Dean Winchester glared at her. Her eyes narrowed at the misplaced suspicion in his eyes. He'd had his back up from moment one, which was rich, all things considered. Exorcizamus te was on the tip of her tongue again as she glared back at him, her hand slipping to the sword at her side. Not that that would do any good. Demonic magic blade pretty much trumped sharp steel any day of the week. If she didn't need him, need them, to take care of this zombie problem, she'd be doing something different. Doing her job.

The slaughter back in the clearing had been devastatingly complete. She couldn't even visualize tangling with, how many had he said? Ten? of those reassembling monstrosities at once. Or however many he had actually gotten—it had to be a few—there was enough pulp there to make a few of the walking dead. They were knee deep in it, the pair of them, clinging on to each other, and that was the only thing that had stayed her reflexive incantation. That, and the need to protect the kid behind her.

Toby's hand brushed hers, pulling away when he remembered she might need both of them for whatever was to follow. Four sharp eyes followed the aborted movement like a tell, and it was Sam that stepped forward with his Obi-Wan face switched on.

"We just want to help. We think the kid might be safer with us."

Was there a polite way of saying "you're not up to the job?" And that might have been true if it protecting Toby from the zombies was all they were worried about. Compared to the lean mean killing machine over there, she wasn't even in the same league. But it seemed to her, and they were all hunters here, that the kid would be better off staying with the human in the group.

She took a step back, suspicious again, crowding Toby behind her.

"Why?"

The brothers exchanged a loaded look. What was going on here? She hadn't missed Dean's odd choice of pronouns at the outset, nor Sam's way-too-thoughtful air.

Dean moved to get around Sam, looking at her, still unreasonably narrow-eyed.

"You sure they're not hunting you?"

Of all the…"And why would they be doing that?" She snapped.

"Because you're…"

"Guys." Sam stepped all over what Dean was about to say, shooting him a warning glance. Oh, there was definitely something they were not telling her. Good cop stepped in front of bad cop again, subtly closing the distance between them.

She backed up another step, remembering how fast Sam moved the last time.

"How'd you get mixed up with them in the first place?" Dean changed tack, talking around Sam's efforts.

"She's sending them tolook for me." Toby piped up from behind her, fiercely defensive.

"She? She who?"

"Mother."

The boys exchanged another look, this time reassessing.

"Who is Mother, Toby?"

Toby shot Sam an entirely distrusting look as Sam took another step forward, also not having forgotten Sam's last grab.

"Sam."

That tone was in Dean's voice again. Warning, command, and caution. He was looking towards the trees, a frown on his face, reaching into his jacket left-handed, fishing for the magic weapon. Huh. She was pretty sure he had been right-handed. She squinted at how he was holding his right arm gingerly, ignoring his forbidding frown at her inspection. With a frustrated grunt, he switched back to trying that right hand, grimacing as he tried to bend his fingers to get a good grip on the old blade.

"What's wrong with your arm?"

His mouth set stubbornly, glaring alternately at his hand then at her, like it was all her fault. Her eyes narrowed at his repeatedly awkward attempts to hold his weapon properly.

He glanced off towards the trees, with that counting look on his face again.

"How many?" She shot the question at him, abruptly deciding and turning to face the forest, pulling Toby around so he was between her and the brothers. It gave them the perfect opportunity to make that grab for the kid they seemed so bent on, but she was stuck between a rock and a hard place on choices. Zombie or demon, demon or zombie. She cast another look at Dean Winchester, now pigheadedly trying the weapon in his left hand again, with sadly unstable results.

"Two." He returned shortly, biting down on his lips against obvious pain.

"Dean." Somehow Sam managed to get concern and frustration and exasperation all into that one word as he moved up alongside her, scanning the trees and drawing a Beretta. "Just stay back."

She glanced once at the gun.

"No. Machete."

Unlike some hunters she'd run across, Sam's head was not so chock full of testosterone that he wasted time arguing. He went quickly to the trunk of the long black Chevy and rummaged around, coming up with a well-used 18-inch machete. He was heading her way when a flash of something white moved in the trees, a few inches off the ground.

Without any warning at all, Toby bolted, running flat out, heading away from the flash of white.

She drew, purely in reaction to Toby's panic, but there was nothing there. Nothing in front of her, nothing in the trees. She turned just in time to see Dean reach out and snag Toby by his jacket, pulling the panicked kid to him right-handed, white-lipped with effort, but his hold on Toby remained incredibly gentle.

Dean gathered the shaking kid to his side securely before asking gruffly, "What? What is it?"

Toby shook his head into Dean's jacket, trembling from head to foot.

There was only one thing that would make Toby react like that.

She turned back to the trees, sweeping left to right again, eyes straining for anything at all.

Nothing.

Sam was doing the same besides her, machete held at the ready.

Dean's warning shout came a mere two seconds before the zombies erupted from the trees. Lithe zombies this time, not as hulk-like as the first ones she'd encountered. With inhuman leaps the two figures sprang and crossed the distance of yards in one bound.

She'd had time to think since the last encounter. Take out the knees first, and duck to avoid the grabbing hands. Not quickly enough to avoid a long scratch on her chin but much better than last time. The trick was to be methodical. Just the head wasn't important. A diagonal slice from shoulder to armpit took off an arm and the head. Back up across took off the second arm. She put enough force into her swing the arm went flying off. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sam duck as it went sailing by his head.

Sam had done the usual thing and beheaded his zombie, then halved it across the waist with one powerful swing. He blanched as the top part started crawling towards the legs. He swallowed and stepped forward, whacked the hands off, and swallowed again with revulsion as the hands kept crawling.

"Keep the parts from coming together." She said curtly, kicking at an ambulatory arm, heading to the SUV for the accelerant. She flicked a nervous look at the trees before turning away from them. She felt eyes watching, watching and assessing.

Like this had all been a test.

Dean was still holding on to Toby when she went by the Impala. She made a directional gesture with her head. Dean scowled at her, all kinds of commentary in that scowl, which she ignored.

She grabbed the gas cans and headed back to Sam without stopping to reassure Toby like maybe she should have done. She didn't, because when she glanced at the trees again, the feeling of being watched persisted. Any reassurance would be a lie.

Sam accepted one of the gas cans from her wordlessly, standing watch over the bits of crawling zombie. They had the whole mess doused and lit in short order. She kept a wary eye on the woods the whole time, until Sam said, "What is it?"

"I think she's out there."

"Who? This Mother thing?"

"Yes."

Sam looked up at the trees, repeating her visual sweep before catching Dean's eye.

Supernatural Radar shook his head once, frowning uncertainly.

"Huh." Sam glanced at the trees again, troubled, instincts pricking like hers.

"Yeah." She went back to setting fire to the various still crawling bits, watching to make sure they burned down to ash.

Yep. Fire did the trick. Good to know.

She couldn't be much older than Sam, and he knew Sam could take care of himself, but damn. It was like watching Sam and Soulless Sam in action side-by-side, only if Soulless had shrunk and turned into a girl. She ran cool where Sam ran hot, expressionless where Sam was not, unfeeling where Sam felt too much.

You learned a lot about a hunter by watching how they ganked monsters real time. It was all business to him, all about right and wrong and justice and redemption to Sam, and with her, it was just ice. It was like she turned everything off but what she needed to do—no vengeance, no pleasure, no fear, no victory. She could have been pruning trees for all the expression on her face.

The reason she was making so many pieces of the chopped dead was soon clear. The pieces hadn't done that when he'd cut 'em up, but then he was using the First Blade. Things tended to stay dead. Sam was whacking at the crawling creepy bits on the ground in front of him like a crazed butcher, making "ugh, ugh, ugh" noises like a girl. The girl was coming towards him, heading towards her car, sword sheathed with a slick flick-y move that was apparently not just for the movies.

He tugged the kid more securely to him, ignored the hot stiff hurt in his fingers, putting an arm around the thin shoulders securely. Kid didn't need to see the NC-17 bloodbath going on out there. He was shaking hard enough as it was. Wasn't crying, just trembling from head to foot and edgy as all hell, ready to take off again if he let go.

Again, what the hell was she thinking, bringing the kid into this mess?

She looked at him once, at Toby's face buried in his jacket, and tilted her head. Move it. He doesn't need to see this.

He tried to remember the last time anyone tried to give him a direct order like that, and couldn't.

The gas can she came out with explained things.

Yeah, alright. Kid didn't need to see this.

He pocketed the First Blade and picked the kid up with his good arm, taking him over to the open hatch of the SUV and depositing him on the tailgate. The kid took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, blue eyes stealing a glance in his direction, surprisingly sharp and measuring. Dean looked around the back of the SUV, at the neat freak tidy interior, the modified platform, the height of it slightly wrong for this make and model, and her lockbox tucked tight against the back seats. A tray of bottled water sat next to that—a lot of water, probably holy—beside which was a partially open canvas duffel. He snuck a look inside, because, professional curiosity.

Well. Okay. That was a sweet little pile of C4.

He tilted his head consideringly. Firebombing the zombie nest wasn't a bad plan, all in all. Risky. Vaguely stupid considering the kid couldn't exactly move quietly in the woods, but he'd done worse.

Still.

A fleeting sense of something made him look up at the trees again. No. Maybe. He squinted at the middle distance, feeling something winking in and out, there and then not there. There, and not there again. He would have gone to look, except for the kid. He was still frowning at the trees, trying to pin down that feeling when the kid's voice interrupted.

"Are you a zombie?"

"What?! No."

"A vampire?"

"No!"

"Then what are you?"

Dean stopped for a full second with his brows pinched together. There was such a thing as knowing too much. But looking at the kid's steady blue gaze, he could tell a lie wasn't going to cut it. He settled for evasion.

"Something else."

"What?"

"Something."

"Something good, or something bad?"

God, the kid was persistent.

"Something bad."

Toby paused and stared at him. He felt like a bug under a microscope. The kid considered, then cocked his head to one side.

"I don't think so."

"Really."

He gave the kid a stern look.

"Kid, you see something like me, black eyes and all, you run. We're bad news."

Toby considered that for a few seconds. "How will I know if it's like you? You look normal now."

"Holy Water."

Soulless' cool voice came from behind him.

The kid peered around him, a question in that look.

She returned the gas can to its spot. She slipped a thing of bottled water out of the pack and handed it to the boy.

"Holy water; it burns demons when you splash it on them."

The kid gave the water bottle in his hand a strange look before looking at the ninja again. Her expression was bland, but Toby looked reproachful. He uncapped the water and sniffed it.

"Really?" The kid sounded dubious.

Dean heaved a resigned sigh. He held out his left hand.

The ninja went still. Maybe that was what passed for surprise in Soulless Ninja World. Without looking away from him, she held her hand out for the water bottle. Toby obeyed the wordless command automatically, putting the bottle and the cap in her hands. From behind him, he heard Sam make a muffled burp of protest. Dean grit his teeth, and shook his hand out a little to loosen it.

Come on.

Moving slowly, Soulless poured a drop, just a drop, of holy water into the bottle cap. He held her gaze, trying to guess which of the two things in her hand she was going to throw at him—the whole bottle, or the tiny bit. It was hard to tell. She was right handed, and the bottle was in her right hand.

She reached out with her left. Held the bottle cap over his hand. And tipped it.

SON OF A…

He bit down on the curse and shut his eyes, his hand fisting automatically around the sizzling burn like a hot poker to his skin. His arm tensed up, muscles bunching, because goddamn SON OF A …that hurt. He heard the kid suck in his breath, and felt, from the shifting of the air, both the kid and the ninja back up, and her hand would be going to her weapon next if he didn't get things under control. Sam's hands came down on his shoulders, steady, steady, and oh, come on, he'd gone done volunteered for this stupid parlor trick, and it shouldn't be so hard to not go all Cujo.

He took a deep breath.

Sam's hands tightened on his shoulders reassuringly.

He half expected when he opened his eyes again, the kid, the girl, and the SUV would be gone. He cracked his eyes and fist open, unsure how much time had passed.

The kid's blue eyes met his. Were his still black? It took him a moment to focus, to sort out what he was seeing. He was startled again when Toby's arm darted out and wiped the remaining water off his palm with his jacket sleeve. Dean hid his grimace when the fabric brushed against the burn spot, stinging almost as bad as the water, but he said nothing.

He nodded towards the water bottle, still uncapped, still tilted, in the ninja's hands.

"You chuck that whole thing, and you skeedaddle."

Toby reached for the water bottle. Zee capped it, and handed it to the boy. The kid wrapped his hands around it like it was his new favorite toy. How had she not taught him about that yet? It was like hunting 101, that, and how to fire a shotgun. Dean's eyes narrowed as he scrutinized her again. Maybe she hadn't taught the kid, because there were tests she wouldn't pass.

It was hard to ignore someone when they were boring holes into your head with their eyes, but she managed.

"Where are y'all staying?" Sam asked from behind him.

She flicked a look at the trees again. Her glance slid across him, debating evasion, before settling on Sam.

"Utica tonight, I think."

Dean frowned.

"What's wrong with Little Falls?"

"Too close."

Dean looked over at the forest. That winking sensation of something being there-not there…yeah.

"Alright. Take the lead. We'll follow."