Three dollars and some change

Summary: Sam and Dean Winchester have heard the stories, about possession and ghosts. But this time, the story came to them.
Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to the CW and those nice folks. Anita Blake belongs to Laurell K. Hamilton. No profit has been made from this fic, and the only benefit to me is personal satisfaction and the creative process.
Rating: R for swearing, sexual situations, violence, and implied sexual violence. There is no Wincest, but Sam and Dean do end up naked in a bed together and both are properly traumatized.
Words: 2,850
Spoilers: Will contain spoilers for the first part of season two for Supernatural, and for Danse Macabre.
Note: My first Supernatural fic. Let me know what you think.

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Dean drifted back to consciousness with one bitch of a hangover. There was a warm body pressed up against him, curves in the all right places, so he supposed the night went okay. Even if he couldn't remember what the hell had happened. Damned tequila.

The tequila didn't quite explain the aches and pain. Without opening his eyes, Dean took stock. It felt like someone had clawed his back up something fierce. This chick must be quite a tiger, he thought hazily. He cracked a grin at that, then winced. When had he acquired that split lip?

Eyes still closed, more of his surroundings began to register. The bed was disturbingly crunchy and more than a little drafty. The sleeping woman smelled good, feminine, but under that lingered the faintest scent of blood and dust, and Sam's deodorant.

Dean's eyes snapped open. Light drifted into the unfamiliar room though a broken window and the rotting wood of the far wall. It was bright enough for Dean to see the young woman curled up between him.

And his naked younger brother.

"Jesus Christ!" Dean exclaimed, pushing himself back and off the bed. What the fuck had been in that tequila?

Sam jerked awake and stared at Dean, stupidly confused. "Dean?"

The woman sat bolt upright on the bed. She looked at Dean, then at Sam, growing panic visible on her face as she scrambled off the bed. "What the hell is going on?" she demanded, backing toward the wall. She didn't seem to realize she was naked until her shoulder hit the rotting wood, then she moved her hands to cover herself. Not the actions of someone who had a good time the previous night.

"Dean, what happened?" Sam asked, pulling the disintegrating sheet over his lap.

"A very good question," the woman said. She gave up trying to cover herself with her hands, and started searching through the discarded clothing. "Let's start with who the hell the two of you are, and what the fuck you did to get me here last night!"

"Technically, that's two questions--" Dean snapped his mouth shut when the woman whirled on him. Her chin trembled, just a little, as if she was about to burst into tears. Please, please no, Dean thought, his stomach sinking. Now that he was more awake, he could see the bruises on her wrists and throat, as well as numerous other places on her pale skin. The darkening purple marks along the insides of her thighs couldn't quite hide the bright red blood smeared the length of her leg down to her knee.

"Is... is this your blood?" Sam asked in a fragile voice. He'd moved the sheet away from his lap and was staring down.

The bottom dropped out of Dean's stomach, and he couldn't stop from looking down at his own groin. Streaks of blood covered his dick and his lower stomach. He wasn't hurt, so it had to be someone else's blood. Glancing up as the woman was pulling on her jeans, Dean saw that the marks on her thighs were the same general size as his hands.

The last meal Dean remembered eating, a burger and fries at that small-town roadhouse, rebelled in his stomach. He could have liked nothing more to crawl into a corner and be sick for a while, but he didn't have that luxury.

The woman refused to answer Sam's question, but as far as Dean was concerned, she didn't have to. She pulled on her shirt with alarming speed, but it wasn't until she tried to thread her belt through something that she frowned. "Where's my Browning?" she asked, staring at her empty shoulder holster.

Gun. She was asking about a gun. Dean pushed to his feet, grabbing what he hoped were his jeans and pulling them on. "You walk around armed?" he asked.

The woman fixed him with a withering stare. "No, I carry the holster around to put my keys in. Of course I go around armed."

Still sitting on the bed, Sam cleared his throat. "Is that it?" He pointed at dusty windowsill.

The nine-millimeter Browning gleamed bright against the grimy wood. The woman finished buckling her belt, empty holster in place, before she walked toward the window. Listening to her footsteps, falling hollow on the rotting floor, Dean wanted to scream, to get Sammy the hell out of here before it was too late, as things began to fall into place, but something held him silent and still.

The woman stopped by the windowsill and picked up the gun, cradling it gently in her hand. Dean knew how easy it would be for her to shoot him, then Sam, then put the barrel in her mouth and end it all, as it was supposed to--

She shook her head hard, and the sparkle of sunlight off the gleaming barrel shattered the shadows holding Dean in place. He let out a ragged breath, weak at the knees, as the woman expertly popped the clip, checked the bullets, then slid the clip home. Instead of putting the gun in its holster, she stuffed the barrel down the front of her jeans.

Dean grabbed the jeans flung over a broken chair. "Sam, put your damned pants on," he ordered. It probably wasn't what Sam needed to hear, lacking in tact and that touchy-feely crap, but at least it got his brother off the bed and moving.

Sam stepped into his pants quickly, almost losing his balance. While Sam was pulling the denim up his thighs, Dean broke Dean Winchester Rule #12 and looked at his brother's crotch. There was substantially more blood on Sam than had been on Dean. He didn't want to think about why that was.

Sam fumbled with his shirt. "Do you remember any of this?" he asked, back turned to the woman.

"No," Dean admitted, wincing as his shirt pulled at the scratches on his back. "Last thing was leaving the bar, going back to the car."

"Me too." Sam bent over to lace his boots. "Have, um... you ever seen her before?"

"No." Dean would have remembered someone like that. There was something about her, besides the obvious physical attributes. Something he couldn't put his finger on. Something dangerous.

"So," the woman said, hands on her hips. "What was it?"

Dean raised his eyebrows "What are you talking about?"

"Whatever you gave me. Rohypnol? Some sort of preternatural mind-bender?"

"We didn't drug you," Sam interrupted. "Look, this may be hard to believe, but neither of us can remember how we got here."

The woman blinked at them. "What do you mean?" she asked after a moment's pause. "How can't you remember? The last thing I remember was going out to the jeep to get my cell phone."

"The last thing we remember was leaving a bar in town... assuming we're even still in the same town." Sam glanced out the broken window. "I swear, we are not making this up."

"If you don't remember, and I don't--" The woman broke off. Her eyes widened, and any color she may have had in her pale skin drained away, leaving her chalk white. "Oh no."

"What?" Dean demanded. He stepped half in front of Sam, just in case the lady was about to have a belated breakdown and shoot her very large gun. "What's wrong?"

She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself tight. "I need Nathaniel," she whispered, panic growing with every passing moment.

"Okay, we can take you to him," Sam said calmly.

Dean restrained an urge to hit his brother. They needed to get out of there before the lady called the cops on them. Even if they didn't know what was going on, the cops sure as hell weren't going to believe that the two large blood-covered men hadn't attacked this tiny young woman. She doesn't look any older than Sammy, Dean thought, feeling just a little bit worse.

"You don't understand!" the woman said, her voice rising. "He's always there and now I can't hear him!"

"Hey, it's okay," Sam said. He stepped carefully around Dean, hands out, palms down. "We're not going to hurt you. We can help you get to Nathaniel." Without taking his eyes off the woman, Sam reached into his back pocket. "Why don't you use my phone to call him?"

"Sam!" Dean hissed. Great, give the cops his damned phone number. Why didn't he just wrap them both up in a box and deliver it to the nearest sheriff?

"It's just a phone call," Sam said, holding out his phone. "It..." His voice trailed off.

"Sam?"

"The power's flickering." Sam held the phone over his shoulder, so Dean could see the flickering and surging on the LCD screen.

"Fuck," Dean swore, diving for his jacket. He dug in the pockets until he finally found his EPM detector. He switched it on, and it lit up like a Christmas tree. "We're red hot!"

"What the hell is that thing?" the woman demanded, looking around Sam.

"Radiation detector," Dean lied. "Come on, we need to get out of this place, now."

"The hell it's a radiation detector. What are you so scared of?"

"Planes, mostly." Dean rooted around in his pockets for some kind of weapon, but he came up empty. "And snakes."

"You know, this whole smart-ass thing in the face of danger? Really annoying." The woman looked up at the ceiling, and frowned. "There's something trying to keep the metaphysical energy trapped."

"I-- Huh?" Dean gave Sam a look. What was with this chick?

"Something around this room, or maybe the house, keeping metaphysical energy inside." She shuddered. "And it is not happy."

Either the woman was crazy, or she knew about ghosts. Dean decided to take a chance, anything to get them out of this house. "This detects spirit energy," he said, holding up the detector. "Does this house look like it's happy to have us?"

The woman stared at Dean for a long moment. "Fine," she finally said, pulling her gun and clicking the safety off. Dean took an unwilling step backwards. "Let's get out of here."

"You can't shoot these things," Dean told her.

"Yeah, but I can shoot anything else that comes along." She went to the closed door and put her shoulder against the doorframe, then turned the knob with one hand and shoved the door open. She waited until the door was pressed flush against the wall before stepping into the hallway. "It's clear, come on."

Dean looked at Sam. "Shouldn't we be doing that?" Sam asked softly.

"Remember all those haunted house movies when the guy goes first and gets his heart ripped out through his spleen?" Dean said, shoving Sam towards the door. "Move."

The house was as wrecked and drafty as the room upstairs. There were no electrical or gas lights visible on the walls, and everything was made of the same graying wood. Major old usually means some major pissed-off ghosts, Dean thought.

"The heart isn't anywhere near the spleen."

Dean took his eyes off the surroundings. "What?"

"You said I'd get my heart ripped out through my spleen, but--"

"Shut up, Sam."

The woman tested the top step. Although it creaked alarmingly, the staircase held her weight as she descended. Sam went next, putting his feet on the outsides of the steps.

Dean walked down the stairs carefully, hating how the wood swayed gently under his feet. If the staircase barely held him, he didn't want to know how the three of them had gotten up to that room the previous night.

The woman kicked open the front door. A cloud of dust flew up into the air as the door hit the wall and splintered, but Dean and Sam didn't wait to see if the house would get angry. They were down the front steps and into the yard before anyone said a thing.

"What a dump," Dean said, taking his first deep breath since waking up. The bright sunlight hammered at his head, making his hangover pound, but at least he was alive. He felt like crap, but alive crap.

"Come on," the woman said. Her gun was still bare in her hands. "We're not far enough away." She started off down the faint path in the overgrowth.

Dean pulled out the monitor. Sure enough, it was still flickering red.

"How did she know that?" Sam asked.

"No idea." Dean grabbed Sam's shirt. "We need to get the hell out of here."

Sam pushed Dean away, but kept walking. They were about twenty yards behind the woman, and she showed no sign of slowing down. "What do you think happened?" Sam asked.

"No fucking clue." The monitor was beginning to die down. "Something powerful enough to grab the three of us and make us--" No, not going down that road. "Do stuff."

"What, like some sort of possession?" Sam clung to the word like a lifeline.

"Maybe. It might be something else, though, so don't get too attached to the idea." He gave the monitor a tap. The lights were dead. "I think we're clear!" he shouted to the woman.

She stopped in her tracks. When Dean and Sam caught up, she had her eyes closed and her lips were moving.

Weird. "Guess she doesn't need your cell phone," Dean said.

"Who's she talking to?" Sam whispered.

"Nathaniel?" Dean guessed. He put the monitor back into his pocket. "God?"

The woman let out a shuddering breath and opened her eyes. "Thank God we're away from there. That place was..." She shook her head. "It was like being coated in metaphysical tar. Can I borrow that phone?"

"Sure," Sam said, handing over his phone before Dean could stop him. "Here."

"Thanks." She dialed the phone quickly, but hesitated a moment before she put the phone to her ear. She started walking again while she waited, as if she expected Dean and Sam to follow.

Well. Dean wasn't about to go trailing after some moderately crazy lady with a gun, no matter how-- He let out a yelp when he realized that Sam was already gone. "Hey! Sam!"

Sam beckoned Dean along. Dean contemplated just leaving his brother to his own devices, but reluctantly jogged after them. He caught up just as the woman said into the phone, "Merle?"

Dean punched Sam in the arm, hard. "Ow!" Sam protested, shoving Dean back.

"Stop running off, dumbass," Dean said.

"She has my phone," Sam pointed out.

The woman slowed. "No, Merle, I'm fine. I'll be fine." She paused. "No, I'm not hurt. Not a lot." Another pause, and she turned away from the brothers. "Nothing that won't heal."

Dean remembered the blood he'd seen covering the bruises on her thighs, and he looked away.

"I have no idea where we are, near some old house. There's a highway up ahead." She squinted at the distant road sign. "It says five miles to Springfield, and ninety to Blue Lake. Does that help?" She bit her lip while she listened, rubbing at the bruises on her throat. "Yeah, we can wait. See you in a bit." She hung up the phone and handed it to Sam. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Sam put the phone away. "I'm Sam."

She blinked at him. "Oh, right." She held out her hand. "Anita Blake."

Sam's face broke into a surprised grin. "Really? Wow, I read those articles you wrote for the police magazine about that Quetzalcoatl dragon in New Mexico last year--"

"Sam, stop your fangirling," Dean ordered. "We're leaving."

"Dean, we can't leave," Sam protested. "We have to find out what did this last night."

"Sam."

"No, I'm serious. Something made us end up in that room last night, and if it wasn't one of us, and it wasn't drugs, then what does that leave?" Sam had that stubborn expression on his face, the same expression Dad used to get, and as usual, it made Dean want to punch his brother. "We've got a job to do, and I for one am not leaving until we get to the bottom of this."

Fleetingly, Dean wondered if he knocked Sam out, if he could carry his brother back to the car. Wherever the hell the car was. "This is a dumb idea."

"Yeah, I'm surprised you didn't have it." Sam turned to Anita. "We'll figure this out, I promise."

Anita raised an eyebrow. "You know, you're not very nice to your boyfriend," she said.

Sam's face went blank, and Dean choked on a mouthful of air. "He's not my boyfriend, he's my brother," Sam stuttered out.

Anita looked mortified. "Oh, I'm sorry, I just... I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Sam said. "Really."

"So, who's Merle?" Dean asked to fill the awkward silence.

"Huh? Oh, he's my... I guess you could call him my bodyguard," Anita said, looking at the road. "He's with me in town on a job."

Bodyguard? Job? Dean was starting to wish he'd bolted with Sam when he had the chance.

He had a bad feeling about this.

to be continued...