crossoverfic | [FIC], Temperament of a Slayer, PG-13, Buffy/Supernatural (Reply)

Title: Temperament of a Slayer
Author: lilly_pilly
Fandoms: Buffy/Supernatural
Rating: PG-13, for now. It most likely won’t go much higher.
Warnings: Some non-graphic violence and swearing. Oh, and also a demonic ritual if you find that disturbing (but honestly, with these two fandoms, how can you not have a demonic ritual or three?)
Pairings: some reference to Jo/Dean.
Character(s): This will center on Jo, but Sam, Dean, and Ellen will probably have cameos.

Disclaimer: I don’t own either Buffy or Supernatural. That honour goes to Joss Whedon and Eric Kripke respectively.
Summary: Follow up to the first chapter. Jo knew it wasn’t going to be good day when she woke up chained to an alter with three British jerks offering her up to something named ‘Sineya’…

She must have been more tired than she thought, because she fell asleep at some point.

She woke up, chain digging into her ankle. Sunlight was pouring through the window, and in the light of morning, the leftover pieces of ritual looked harmless and even quaint. She was in some sort of abandoned building, judging by the thick layer of dust everywhere.

She sat up, chains rattling. The effects of the drug were gone, and she felt refreshed, rejuvenated. Perky, even.

“Okay. Think, Jo. Think.”

Maybe they’d left a key? She looked about but couldn’t see anything. Okay, so scratch that plan. She gathered a chain to her, tugging experimentally. Last night she’d found they were pretty firmly fastened, and in the light of day she could see they were bolted into the floorboards. But maybe there was some sort of secret latch to it, that would spring free if she found it.

She curled her fingers about it and gave a firmer tug. If there was a weak point somewhere in the chain she’d find it. She leaned back and yanked as hard as she could.

There was the creak of wood, and the plank popped right out of the floor, skidding across to settle at her feet. Jo dropped the chain like it was poisonous snake. It was still attached to her wrists, though, and draped, link by link, to pool sinuously over the plank of wood.

…I made you stronger, faster…

Jo shuddered and took a deep breath. Now was not the time for hysteria. So the wood was shitty quality and had been abandoned for god knows how long. Plus she’d been drugged last night and probably couldn’t have found her own nose unless someone helped her.

Yes. Yes.

Jo let out the breath and actually smiled at her own stupidity. Idiot. It wasn’t the ritual. It was just simple logic. She wasn’t infested by a demon. If she was, she’d be screaming in a corner of her own mind, watching the demon run her life.

Jo allowed herself to be comforted by the soothing logic. The guys had screwed up somehow. Sineya hadn’t come, if she even existed. Jo had never even heard of a demon named Sineya, and she had worked at a bar full of hunters her whole life. And the guys had talked about another reality.

Jo snorted softly, taking hold of another chain and pulling up the board.

Ghosts, demons, gods… she believed in all those sure enough. But another reality? That was something like science fiction.

Another chain popped free with a creak of wood.

She paused, hands curled about the final loop of chain. It all made beautiful sense, fitting into a seamless stream of logic… but for the mist, and the ragged woman in the vision. That one she couldn’t explain.

…Slayer…

The chain was jingling, links tinkling against one another. Her hands were shaking, she realized.

“Stop it,” she said aloud. “Stop it. You are Jo Harvelle. Your mother is Ellen Harvelle, the biggest toughest bitch in history of the world and your father was William Anthony Harvelle, hunter of the supernatural. You are not going to freak out.”

She took a deep breath.

“Now you’re going to pull this last chain free, walk out of here, find a pay phone, and call your mother. Then you can freak out.”

---

She couldn’t get through to the Roadhouse.

Jo stared at the receiver in disbelief. It just didn’t seem fair. On the one day she would have given anything to hear Ellen’s firm no-nonsense tones, she couldn’t get through. She hung up the phone with more force than was strictly necessary. Someone up there had a sense of humour apparently.

The change clunked out, and she dropped it in the machine again. She hesitated, fingers hovering over the dialing pad. It wasn’t that she didn’t know who to call – there were lots of people she could call. Just not a whole lot she would trust with her life when she was infested by an unknown variety of demon. She wasn’t stupid, after all.

The dial tone purred in her ear as she agonised over the decision. Finally she dialed in another number, one that she’d memorised months ago in the furtive giddiness of an adolescent crush and never used, one that she wouldn’t admit to knowing under torture.

There was a moment of silence as she waited with bated breath, then it connected, and began ringing. She let out a shaky sigh of relief and waited, one hand fidgeting with the black curly phone line, coiling the slinky loops between her fingers.

There was a click as someone picked up.

“Yeah?”

It was a male voice. Tired and hollow, and if she weren’t in such deep shit herself, she would have taken the time to find out what was wrong. As it was, she was just relieved as if some terrible burden had lifted from her shoulders.

“Dean? Dean, thank god. It’s Jo.”

She was babbling, words slipping from her mouth, rambling, piling on top of each other until they lost all relation and sense like an alphabet soup.

“I was in this warehouse – I didn’t go in the warehouse, obviously. Not by myself. But there were these three guys, and these chains, and this alter, and this box – did I mention the box? And I can’t get hold of mom, and the box was open, and there was this kind of black mist and–”

“Jo.” Dean breaks in. His patience is wearing thin, like sharp edges riding close to the surface. Too close and he’ll split open. “Your mom’s fine. The Roadhouse just exploded, that’s all.”

“The Roadhouse exploded?”

The idea, the concept, is foreign. The Roadhouse, as much as she loathes it, is home. It is the center of any map she makes, the starting point from which she begins her journey, and which she will return to in the fullness of time.

I can never go home.

Her hand covers her mouth, nails digging into the skin. If she lets go, she’ll cry, and the last thing Dean will want to hear is a crying girl, so she holds on and tries not to shatter.

“Yeah,” Dean says. He talks slowly, words dragged out of him. Weariness, and something else. “You should really talk to her.”

He’s going to hang up, she realizes, and she removes her hand from her mouth. Her voice is thick when it comes out, but it’s steady and she’s grateful for that.

“Just Mom? Is everyone else okay? Did Ash get his stuff out okay?” She tries to inject some humour into it, imagining Ash dashing around trying to decide which piece of technological crap to rescue and which to leave to burn.

Dean’s silence is a beat too long.

“You should really talk to your mom,” he says again. “I’ll talk to you later, kay?”

He hangs up, and she’s left with the empty dial tone in her ear, and the knowledge that yet again, someone she loves is gone.

She hangs up the phone. The black cord sways slightly with the motion, and it’s so mundane and normal and unchanged by what’s passed through it, she feels the rage surging up in a sudden swell. She grabs the receiver and slams it into the phone again and again and again until all that’s left are pieces of yellow plastic and black, twisted wire.

She backs off, her eyes hazed and blurry. There’s something in her hand, and when she looks down, it’s the receiver, the black severed cord dangling lifelessly from it, like the umbilical cord of a baby ripped still born from the womb. She drops it, then turns away and throws up into the gutter.

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