Halloween

Disclaimer – Don't own anything you might recognize. They all belong to their respective owners.

AN – For the sake of the story, just pretend that Supernatural season 1 started a few months before Halloween instead of actually on the day (it's something I completely spaced about when I first started the story :s)

Halloween

SOUTH CAROLINA

Buffy and Faith giggled hysterically as they opened the door to their motel room. A disgruntled Dean followed behind, with an amused looking Sam bringing up the rear.

"Dean," Faith said, waving a hand in front of her nose. "You seriously need to shower. You smell like a campfire." She turned to look at him and promptly burst into laughter once more.

They had come to a small town in South Carolina to investigate a series of suspicious murders. Each victim had been young, attractive and according to locals, very vain. They had eventually narrowed down the suspect to a Lauren Balogh, a young girl of twenty who had committed suicide the month before after lifelong taunts about her unattractiveness. As they had gone to burn her remains, the ghost had appeared and headed straight for Dean, using his own tools to set him alight. Luckily, he had escaped with only a few minor burns and the loss of half an eyebrow, and Sam had successfully managed to salt and burn her grave.

"I don't see why that bitch came after me anyway," Dean complained back in the motel, ignoring Faith and moving over to the mirror to take a closer look at his singed eyebrow.

"Well, you were the one who figured out the ghost's M.O." Sam smirked at his elder brother. "She went after young, attractive, vain people."

"So you think she went after me because I'm pretty?"

Sam snorted at Dean's obliviousness. "Yeah, I'm sure that's it."

"Whatever, dude." He brought a hand up to cover his eyebrow, and then let it drop back down again. "Well, screw tomorrow night. I'm not leaving this motel room at all until the rest of my eyebrow grows back."

Buffy, who had just flopped down one one of the beds, sat up again abruptly. "Dean! You can't just 'screw' tomorrow night! You promised!"

"Yeah," Faith added. "We wanna party!"

"You always 'wanna party'."

Faith waved a dismissive hand at his comment. "Tomorrow's different. It's Halloween, man!"

"Which is why it's a dumb idea to go out anyway. Halloween sucks."

Sam nodded his head in agreement.

"Whatever, Dull and Duller," Faith countered. "You get to dress up and drink lots of booze. What sucks about that?"

"Besides, Faith and I want to go out. And if you guys don't come with us then we'll be left all alone, all by ourselves, in a big bad club where anyone could attack us poor little girls and then you'll be sorry you didn't come with us to keep us safe." Buffy looked very pleased with her argument.

"But you're slayers," Sam pointed out. "If someone tried to attack either one of you, you could break them into little pieces in a second."

Her face fell. "Yeah, that argument's never really gonna work with us, is it?"

"Anyway, it's not even about it being Halloween. It's about the fact that half of my freakin' eyebrow is missing!"

Buffy reached out and grabbed a hold of Dean's hand. "Please?" she begged, sticking out her bottom lip. "Pretty please? I'll even draw on the rest of your eyebrow for you if it makes you feel any better."

Dean looked down at her and cocked his half an eyebrow. As if he was going to be able to say no to that pout. "Fine," he grumbled. "But I am not dressing up."

"Me neither," Sam spoke up, somewhat surprised that his brother had given up so easily. But if they were all going...

Faith gave an airy laugh as she opened the door to their adjoining room. "Yes you are." Though her face held an amused expression, her tone of voice was steely and held no room for objections.

Sam gulped and looked over at Dean. "Guess we're dressing up for Halloween then."

The next evening, Dean was just changing into his costume when he heard the bathroom door opening. Looking up to see Sam exiting, he burst into loud peals of laughter. "Seriously? You dressed as Santa?"

Sam shrugged bashfully and kicked his boot on the floor. "It's all they had left at the store. Well, this and 'Beach Barbie'."

"Should have gone for the barbie." Dean chuckled again and shook his head.

"Well, what are you supposed to be?" Sam asked petulantly.

Dean opened up his arms and looked himself up and down, and then back at Sam as if it was obvious. "What do you think I'm supposed to be?"

"I dunno."

"I'm Brendan Fraser...from The Mummy?"

Sam stared at his brother for the longest time. "Why?" he questioned eventually.

Dean shrugged. "'Cause I get to wear a gun and no one will think anything of it." Yeah, that and that other reason...

"Right. Whatever, man. Where are the girls?"

"Still getting ready next door. Hold on." He moved over and banged on the door of the adjoining room. "What the hell are you doing?" he called. "You've been in there forever."

The door opened a little and Faith stuck out her head. "We're not ready yet."

Dean rolled his eyes. "How long will you be? Sam and I are ready to head out."

"Hang on a sec." Faith's head disappeared and Dean heard the sound of she and Buffy murmuring through the door. Before he could move closer so that he could hear them clearer, Faith's head was back. "We're gonna be another half hour. Why don't you guys head on out and make a start?"

"But how will you know where we are?"

"It's a small town. How many clubs can there be?"

Dean nodded his head, conceding her point. "Fine. Come find us when you're ready. But just remember you two are the ones who were whining about coming out tonight."

Faith grinned, ignoring his grumbles and disappearing behind the closed door once more.

"No way!" Buffy exclaimed, as she and Faith stood side by side outside on the street. They were both looking up at the name of one of the clubs. "You don't think..."

In neon pink, the flashing light read 'Willy's Place'.

"Nah," Faith dismissed. "Come on, it's not like there ain't more than one tacky Willy in the world. This could be anyone's place."

"I guess."

"We could go check it out though."

"Do you think the guys are in there?"

"Well, they weren't in that other place. And this is the only other bar we've come across."

"Good point."

A devil and a pirate strolled past them and wolf whistled, leering at the pair hungrily.

"Let's just go inside," Faith suggested.

"Yes please."

Dean leaned back in his seat and huffed, checking his watch for the fourth time in ten minutes.

Sam watched his brother bemusedly. "Dean, chill out. They'll be here soon."

"Hey, I am chilled. I'm always chilled. But they said they'd be half an hour and it's already been over an hour."

"Are you worried they've been hurt or something."

"No. I'm worried that we're waiting here for them like total idiots when neither of us even wanted to come out tonight in the first place."

"They'll get here. You know what girls are like. Why are you so stressed about this anyway?"

"I'm not stressed."

"Are you sure? Because if there's something you wanna talk about..."

"Like what?"

"I don't know." Sam shrugged casually. "Faith? Buffy..."

"Why would I want to talk about Buffy?"

Dean was doing that closed off thing he liked to do so well. Sam sighed. "Never mind. Forget I said anything."

"Gladly."

As they finished off their beers, they talked a little more about the case and where they thought they should head out to next. Sam wanted to go to Idaho where a series of parents seemed to be going crazy and killing their children, and Dean wanted to head into California where a couple of women had disappeared and one eyewitness had sworn blind that they had been taken by trolls. Dean suspected that Sam was likely to win this one.

"If we pack up and head out first thing tomorrow morning we can get there by..." Sam's voice trailed off as he stared at something behind Dean's shoulder.

"Sam?" Dean waved a hand in front of his brother's face. "Sammy, what?"

Sam broke out into a toothy grin and he nodded towards the entrance of the bar. "Dude, check it out."

Sighing, Dean swiveled around in his chair, his frown turning into an amused chuckle once he realized what his brother was talking about. Faith was stood at the top of the stairway, right next to the entrance, one hand on her hip as she surveyed the room. She was wearing a 1950's style sundress – white, with red roses. It was belted tightly at the waist and poofed outwards up to where it stopped just below her knees. Her hair was pulled back into an elegant bun, and she looked far from the Faith that both of them had come to know.

Dean's chuckles came to an abrupt halt as a woman shyly stepped out from behind Faith. His mouth opened but no sound came out as he surveyed her, time seeming to disappear completely. She was a goddess. Literally. Her long, simple white wrap was belted together underneath her breasts with only a gold piece of rope, and one perfect leg was sticking out – thigh to heel. Long, chestnut hair fell in waves around her waist, held back from her face by a crown of golden leaves. It was Buffy. Of course it was Buffy, because no other woman on this earth had the power to render him dry mouthed and speechless and crazy and horny all from a single glance in the way that she could.

The rest of the world came back into focus as his brother stood up and waved his arms to get their attention. Goal achieved, he sat back down, still grinning. "Man, they look awesome don't they? Maybe Halloween's not so bad after all. I guess it could be fun."

"Whatever, Santa," Dean quipped, shaking himself out of his Buffy induced daze.

Buffy giggled as she spotted Sam stand up from his table to wave them over.

"What a dork," Faith crowed as they took in his Santa costume, though there was a good natured look in her eyes that showed Buffy that she was only joking.

"Maybe he's trying to make a point," Buffy suggested as they descended the stairs.

"Oh yeah, and what would that be?"

Buffy shrugged. "He doesn't like Halloween, so maybe he's pretending it's a different holiday. Christmas."

Faith snorted and paused so that she could turn look at her fully. "God I'd love to know what goes through your mind, sometimes." They continued onwards towards the table. "What's Dean dressed up as? I can't see."

"Me neither. I'm surprised he actually bothered..."

As they reached the table, the two men stood up to make space for Buffy and Faith. Buffy glanced at Dean and her mouth dropped open. "Rick O'Connell!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands together excitedly. "That's like, my favoritest film of all time! I love him!"

"I know."

"What?"

Dean's eyes widened at his slip. "Uh...what?" He was kind of screwed if she found out that he'd only dressed up like this to impress her.

Thankfully, Buffy was far too mesmerized by his outfit to have paid any real attention. He had it all down. The knee length boots, the shirt, the blue neck scarf. The very tight, tan breeches. Oh boy, the very tight, tan breeches. They clung to him perfectly, and they were making her feel a little hot inside. "You look great," she remarked breathlessly.

"So do you. You look...beautiful. I like the hair. Brunette suits you."

They smiled at each other, and would have kept on doing so had Faith not cleared her throat expectantly.

Dean turned to her. "Hey! You look awesome too!" But his response was delayed and a little forced and they all knew it.

Faith crossed her arms and looked between Buffy and Dean, clearly unimpressed. Her eyes were narrowed and Buffy thought it looked like she might have been trying to decipher the odd moment that had just occurred between she and Dean. Well, she hoped someone would figure it out, because she had absolutely no clue what was going on. Not that anything was going on, she quickly amended to herself. Because she didn't even like the guy. Not at all. Not even with his skin tight breeches. Oh dear.

"I think I'll go get a drink," Buffy announced, desperate for anything to dispel of the awkward silence. She moved to get up but Dean put a hand on her arm to stop her.

"No worries, I'll get them."

Coward, Buffy thought. Oh yeah, Buffy could read him just fine, and he was just as uncomfortable with the sticky situation as she was. Only now he was pretending to be all generous with the drink buying when he was really just looking for an escape. And not fair! He had totally stolen hers!

After determining everybody's order, he got up to leave, squeezing past Buffy on his way to the bar. Buffy gulped as she got a good eyeful of his breeches clad butt. Yeah, those pants hid nothing. She wondered if she could somehow persuade Dean to wear those pants every single day for the rest of his entire life.

She watched him walk away, and then turned her eyes back to the table. Faith was staring at her with a fierce scowl, and Buffy instantly knew that she'd just seen her checking out her boyfriend's ass. Uh oh.

"Uh...I'm gonna go help with those drinks!" she jabbered. She hoped her voice didn't sound as suspiciously high pitched to Faith and Sam as it did to herself.

Faith said nothing, so Buffy jumped up and scampered after Dean.

"Oh my God! Willy! It is you!"

Dean started in surprise as he heard Buffy's excited voice speak up beside him. He glanced from her to the weaselly looking guy behind the bar, and back again. "You know this dude?"

"Slayer? That you? Well blow me over, it is you! What are you doing here?" Willy's face dropped. "You're not gonna punch me are ya? 'Cause I gotta tell you I don't go for none of that demon stuff no more. So whatever you're after, I know nothing. 'Willy's Place' is strictly human only."

Buffy waved a dismissive hand. "No. I'm just here to party. No business on the agenda, I promise."

"That's good. What're you having? Drinks are on me."

"Well all right!" Dean cheered. "I like this guy already."

They gave him their order and he busied himself with pouring their drinks.

"So this is where you set yourself up after Sunnydale?" Buffy asked interestedly.

"Well, I tried Alabama, and then Alaska, but none of those places really did it for me, you know? And then I met a lovely woman by the name of Renee – that's her over there." He pointed to a plump blonde woman pouring drinks at the other end of the bar. "She made an honest man outta me, and then we found ourselves a place up here."

"That's really nice, Willy," Buffy cooed, feeling some kind of nostalgia for the old Sunnydale days. "I'm glad you're happy."

"What about you?" he asked as he placed their glasses down in front of them. "This your fella over here?" He glanced at Dean. "Handsome guy. Looks a lot friendlier than your previous manly friends."

Buffy blushed. "No! No. This is Faith's uh...friend."

Willy turned a shade pale. "Faith's here. She's not still...uh, evil, is she?"

"No!"

Willy, clearly not quite believing her, soon moved on to other customers, and Buffy picked up two of the glasses so that she could take them back over to their table. Dean moved to follow her, and then paused. "Wait...Faith was evil?"

Back at the table, Faith's earlier bad temper seemed to have vanished and she was now in high spirits. Whether that was due to the arrival of alcohol or the fact that she had won a twenty off of Sam after an arm wrestle, Buffy wasn't sure.

Hours passed, and eventually Faith seemed to grow bored. She threw her arms above her head and yawned unconvincingly. "Man, I'm beat," she lied, looking straight at Dean with a suggestive smirk. "Why don't you take me back to the motel room and we can get me off...to sleep." She winked cheekily.

But Dean wasn't even looking in her direction, let alone concentrating on anything she was really saying. "I was thinking me and Buffy should do a patrol tonight," he said. "It's bound to be crazy with it being Halloween."

Buffy frowned. "Haven't we just spent the past hour telling you how Halloween is evil's night off?"

"No, you've just spent the past hour telling us about all the messed up things that have happened on Halloween," he corrected. "So your 'bad guys don't like to come out on Halloween' theory is a whole bunch of crap."

"Yeah, but most of those things that happened were all down to humans. I mean, the turning into our costume thing was Ethan's fault, the frat party disaster happened because of a bunch of stupid collage boys." Buffy paused and pulled a face. "Dawn did almost get turned one year 'cause a few vamps were trying to be badass 'rebels'..."

"Well there you go." Dean seemed satisfied that he had won and was already standing up. "Do you really want some girl just like Dawn getting hurt because we didn't go out just in case something might not have happened?"

Damn it, he was right. She couldn't exactly shirk her responsibilities, even if she did want to stay and party. And he had to go and play the sister card on her. Asswipe. She heaved a gigantic sigh. "I guess." She studiously avoided looking at Faith as she stood up. "You guys might as well stay and have some fun. This town's pretty small. I bet there's only one or two graveyards in the whole place. We'll do a sweep and hopefully won't be back too late."

"Be careful," Sam warned, as he always did.

After they had left, Faith and Sam sat in a very awkward silence for a long, long time. Faith's expression was stony, and Sam wasn't really sure what to say. He was pretty certain that she'd never been turned down for...that...ever. Especially not by Dean.

He coughed. "Do you, uh...do you want another drink?"

"No." Ouch. Who knew so much venom could be forced into one single word.

"Wanna dance?"

"No."

"Want me to leave you alone?"

"Yes."

Oh. Well then. He looked at her closely to see if she was joking. She wasn't. "Right," he said slowly. "I should probably get back to the motel anyway. Gonna need to catch up on my sleep if we're heading out early tomorrow."

She glared at him expectantly, waiting for him to leave.

Once he'd gone, Faith sighed pitifully and downed the rest of her drink, suddenly feeling very alone. She shouldn't have been such a bitch to him. Damn, she didn't really know what was wrong with her. Life was great! She was on the road with her best friend and a couple of hunks, fighting evil and kicking ass. What more could she want? Maybe she was just antsy because she hadn't actually gotten a kill in with that bitch of a ghost. Salting and burning was good and all, but it didn't exactly leave you with that wicked post slay feeling. And Dean wasn't making things any easier. Whenever she got this way – got this unsatisfied feeling – she knew the best fix was a good, hard screw, and Dean had been the perfect solution. Good sex, without the pesky feelings involved. But they hadn't actually had sex since before they killed that Hatoss dude, and man was she getting frustrated. And she knew it wasn't her fault, because she'd been making come on after come on. It was him. And despite what she'd been thinking earlier, she didn't think it was Buffy's fault either. So Dean might have the hots for Buffy, who didn't? There was no way he'd ever do anything about it. He might be a player but he understood the bond she and Buffy held. It was similar to his and Sam's in a way. And there was no way he'd ever do anything to jeopardize that. Same went for Buffy. They were closer than they'd ever been. Buffy would never do anything to betray her.

Okay, she seriously needed to get over this. When had she become so damn paranoid? She glanced at her empty glass and frowned. A drink would make a good start. She moved over towards the bar, grinning as she spotted a hulk of a guy dressed up as a vampire. Well wasn't that just precious? She winked at him and he smirked back, edging closer as he looked her up and down appreciatively.

An hour later, she was crying out in pleasure as he screwed her up against his apartment door.

"So?" Dean asked, as he and Buffy walked side by side through the only graveyard in town.

"So what?" a confused Buffy wanted to know.

Dean shrugged bashfully. "So are you gonna stay? With me..us, I mean. Are you gonna stay with us?" Aw crap, he could not get his words out. "It's just you said you were going to wait until after the first hunt and then decide whether you wanted to stay or-"

"Do you want me to stay?"

"Yes," he answered instantly.

"I want to stay, too."

"So...you're staying."

"Guess I am."

"Good."

"Good?"

"Yeah."

They lapsed into silence, and Buffy was left wondering when things had changed between them. It was subtle. A change that she hadn't even realized was occurring. They'd been fighting less and less, and then having actual conversations more and more. And dare she say it, beginning to actually enjoy each others company. It was strange. When had they become...friends? "You're still very annoying, though," she thought it important to mention.

"Yeah? Well you're still a bitch."

This was more like it. "Wow, and the originality just keeps on coming."

Dean was about to respond when the beam of a flashlight shone directly into his eyes. Both he and Buffy fell into a fighting position as they tried to discover the source of its location.

"Stop right there!" a voice sounded. The beam lowered, and they saw that it was no bad guy, just a police officer. "Mind explaining to me what you're doing out here?" he asked.

"Just taking a walk," Dean proclaimed quickly.

"In a graveyard?"

"Yuh huh."

"I only ask because we've had a bit of trouble last night. Wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"Trouble?"

"Grave desecration. Arson."

Whoops. "Ew!" Buffy expressed, feigning disgusted surprise. "Who would wanna mess around with graves?"

"That's exactly what I'm wondering. Just like I'm wondering what a couple of youngsters like yourselves are doing out here so late at night."

Thinking fast, Dean slipped an arm around Buffy's waist, pinching her when she moved to protest. "Look, officer," he said in a low voice. "We're kind of on a date here. It's Halloween, the stars are out. I thought maybe if I brought her out here she'd get scared and wanna stay a little closer to me, you know?" He winked for effect, and Buffy had to restrain from rolling her eyes.

The police officer crossed his arms. "You're not from around here, are you? It's a small town, I wouldda seen you before."

"No sir, we're just passing through."

"Ah, with that other young man, right? The tall one?"

Dean frowned suspiciously. "Why'd you ask?"

"Because you should have said. He was very pleasant. Asked all sorts of weird questions, but pleasant nonetheless."

That was right. Sam had gone to the station to find out information about the case. "Yeah, that's Sammy alright. Pleasant as a daffodil."

The police officer yawned and checked his watch. "It's getting late, kids. Why don't you get outta here so I can get home to my wife?"

"Will do." Dean nodded and lead Buffy out of the graveyard.

As soon as they hit the pavement outside, Buffy shrugged off his arm and thumped him in the shoulder. "God, could you be any more of a shmuck?"

"Hey, I just saved our hides in there!"

Buffy hated to admit that he was right. And so she wouldn't. "Whatever. This patrol has been a total bust. The only annoying evil out tonight is you."

Dean looked offended. "I'm not evil."

"Just annoying then. Can we just go back to the motel now?"

"Sure. I guess the bad guys really don't come out on Halloween."

"That's because I was right and you were wrong."

"I wasn't wrong, I was just cautious."

"Cautiously wrong."

He looked up into the sky desperately. "Please can I shoot her, God?"

"You know what," Buffy huffed. "I don't even care what you think. Because you're a dork."

"A dork? Summers, that hurts."

"Ugh. And here I was beginning to think you weren't so bad." She turned on her heel and began to stalk in the opposite direction.

"Where are you going?" he called.

"Back to the motel."

Shrugging, he loped after her, slipping his arm back around her waist once he'd reached her. Buffy stopped.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Police officer might be watching."

They both knew he wasn't. They both knew that he had gone almost as soon as he had sent them on their way. Yet neither of them felt compelled to remove his arm. And so he didn't.