han_solo | (no subject)

(no subject)

Dean is Over It.

Nebraska and the Roadhouse cannot come soon enough.

Rachel's getting increasingly more annoying, and Dean's starting to wonder if travelling on his own would be better.

Anything would be better that this, for sure.

... although possibly not, he thinks, stamping on the brakes hard as they cross the border into Kansas and a flickering figure in white appears, screams, falls under the car and disappears -- possibly not this.

Damn.

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Rachel shakes her head, taking a moment to zip up the jacket against the chill while they walk. "She led us to a house with a guy and a girl. I don't know, she hated them? But why lead us there?"

"Musta wanted something," Dean says, frowning. His eyes are on the ground, tracking the patterns formed by the frost. "... apart from killing us."

Slowly, thoughtfully: "... the girl you found ... any pictures in the house, anythin' to acknowledge what she looked like?"

Rachel frowns, picking out what tracks she can in the snow in the dark, shrugging. "Yeah, a few in the bedroom. She was blonde - there was still hair with the body. Pretty thin. Why?"

"So you'd say ... somethin' like you, maybe? If you were, say, lookin' at her through decomposing eyes."

Rachel looks over at him slowly, eyes narrowed and lips curled slightly in disgust. "Thanks for that image. But... yeah... yeah, I guess, something like me."

She doesn't always remember what she actually looks like, without a mirror right in front of her.

Dean nods, thoughtfully.

"Can't be all that easy t'see, when you're dead. Man and a woman come towards you ..."

He trails off, and then shakes his head.

"I'm guessin' there's another body somewhere around here."

Rachel pauses - in words as well as actions, stopping in the frost and ignoring toes covered in frost.

"The body you found... any jewelry? Rings?"

"The guy? Couple of rings, I think. Why?"

She lifts her left hand, wriggling her ring finger. "On this finger? Single band, no jewels?

"Because the woman wasn't wearing any rings."

Dean turns to look behind them sharply.

The white-flickering woman holds up her left hand, mournfully. A simple gold band catches the light before she fades again.

Dean's next snort is disgusted. He might not have much of a moral code -- but if he makes a promise he keeps it.

"People suck."

Rachel follows the look and sighs softly.

"She killed them. And... then what? Killed herself?" She frowns and looks around the woods around them, tucking the pistol into the waist of her shorts again. "So where's her body?"

"Or she killed herself and then killed them," Dean suggests, and shrugs. "Door was bolted from the inside -- wouldn't stop her after she was dead."

He's frowning deeply now -- and stops, crouching to lift a branch aside, revealing a handful of broken roots -- something heavy was dragged over here, but it was a long time ago.

Rachel shrugs, not really concerned with how they died, just that the spirit killed. And for a reason she can understand through media, but not personally.

Tobias would never have, and she'd always said no.

"Now what?"

"Now ..."

Dean looks back. The spirit's still following them, pale eyes fixed on the broken branches.

He looks at the branches. It's odd, the way there's a cleared space. About the size of a body.

God damn this job involves a lot of fucking digging.

"... I guess ... we put her t'rest."

Rachel looks down at the cleared space when Dean focuses on it, starting to frown.

But the frown is gone by the time she's lifted her gaze, staring sadly at the spirit.

"... I'll do it. Ground's too cold without tools."

Dean looks at her -- and then grins.

"Hell, yes. I forgot about you. Dude, that's freakin' excellent."

Rachel makes a face at him, lips twisted as she shrugs out of his jacket and hands it to him. "'Forgot about me.' Thanks. Here, hold this," with the gun slipped out of her shorts and handed back.

She slips out of her sandals, too, looking over once more at the spirit.

Then she closes her eyes and morphs.

Dean's standard response to her morphing is ... exactly the same. Some things never change, sad watching spirit or not.

"Dude. Gross."

He keeps the gun raised, but the spirit doesn't seem to be any danger any more.

She doesn't bother snapping at him - but she does growl. It's impressive, with her current throat.

And she's much better at digging now, even with the cold ground. It doesn't take very long until she's dug a shallow, long hole, long white bones pale against the dark earth.

[There.]

Edited 2008-08-18 05:12 (UTC)

Dean looks over at the spirit, who hasn't moved. She looks back at him with sad, sunken eyes, and then down at the earth.

Dean nods, and unclasps his hip-flask. So far Rachel hasn't seen him drink from it -- the reason becomes clear, shortly, when he shakes out a few sparing drops over the bones and starts chanting quietly in Latin. The spirit bows her head and listens.

Rachel demorphs quickly, watching Dean work, lifting her gaze to the spirit again.

She watches her, nothing else. She can ignore the cold and listen to the chanting and honor this-- thing that doesn't need to be understood to be pitied.

As Dean reaches the end of the rites, salts the bones, and tosses a lit match down into the hole, the spirit looks up again. Straight at Rachel, this time, and -- she's smiling.

And then she starts getting brighter -- and doesn't stop.

Slowly, weakly, Rachel smiles back. Apparently, she's been forgiven for being blonde and thin.

Though, she is bright, bright enough that Rachel squints, lifts her arm to shade her eyes, foot sliding back-

And hitting a patch of ice, slipping straight to the ground and cracking her head on a tree root.

Dean snorts in amusement, dropping his hands as the spirit flares and vanishes. Job well done, and Rachel falls over her own feet at the end?

"You havin' fun down there?"

"...ow," Rachel mumbles, groaning as she sits up and lifts a hand to the back of her head.

It comes away bloody. Not a lot, a shallow cut, but there. Rachel groans again and doesn't look at Dean, struggling to get to her feet. Just what she needed, another reason for Dean to be a jerk at her.