Fic: Darkness I Live In (Buffy/Dean) Chapter One

[blue_icy_rose]

Title: Darkness I Live In
Rating: R
Pairing: Buffy/Dean
Summary: After a demon attack, Buffy wakes up with no memories except her name and begins to travel with Dean and Sam. While on the road, Buffy and Dean grow closer. Post Chosen. (I so suck at summaries, lol.)
Disclaimer: I don't own any of them. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon and the Winchesters belong to Eric Kripke. (Lucky bastards.) All the dialogue in Buffy's memory flashes are from episodes of season 7. The title of the story was inspired by Mary Lou Von Meter's poem, Heart of Darkness.
Author's Note: Sorry it took so long for an update on this one. Long story short, the laptop lost all the stories I had on it so I've been rewriting. This is my response to chosenfire's Memories Forgotten challenge at Route 66. If you'd like to see the requirements for the challenge, go here. You can also find this at Twisting the Hellmouth. Enjoy and feedback's always welcome!

Banner made by the wonderful dhfreak from Route 66.

Previous Chapters


“Last name?” Sam asked.

Dean shook his head and glanced in the direction of the closed bathroom door, listening to the sound of the shower running. “She doesn’t remember that either.” He turned back to his brother, raising an eyebrow when he sighed. “What?”

“I’m just wondering why that demon was going after her in the first place.”

“Not sure.” He frowned. “And it’s not like she can exactly tell us,” he added.

“Do you think she was the one fighting it?”

“I don’t know.” Dean’s voice was frustrated. “I mean, she looks too tiny to be able to do any damage to it, right?”

Sam nodded in agreement. “Yeah but there was no one else there so who was fighting it?”

This time Dean didn’t even bother trying to come up with an answer. He couldn’t give Sam the answers he wanted and they both knew it. Just like they knew Sam would ask the questions anyway to try and sort through them.

He looked over to find Sam staring out the window with a frown on his face. Dean tensed, ready to make a move for the nearest weapon. “Sam?”

Sam turned back to him, brows drawn together. “I think she’s still in danger, Dean.”

“What?”

He glanced towards the bathroom. “I don’t think that’s the only demon that’s going to go after her.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s just a feeling I have, that’s all.”

Dean frowned. “Is this one of your freaky ESP feelings?”

“Dean,” he groaned, rolling his eyes. “I do not have ESP.”

“Whatever, Miss Cleo, I was just askin’.”

“Look, all I know is that when I think about her and demons, I get the same feeling I got earlier.”

“The one that meant get our asses out of the cemetery?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“So what are you saying, Sam? That we should take her with us?”

Sam shifted and glanced over at the bathroom once more before turning back to Dean. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Dean stared at him, sure that he had heard wrong. “Are you kidding me?”

“What, you don’t think we should?”

The look Dean gave him said, Duh. “You think? Come on, Sam, think about what we do.”

“She’s already been attacked by a demon once, Dean. It’s not like we have to hide what we do and lie to her about it.” He gave a small shrug. “I mean, let’s face it, do you really think she’d buy a cover up anyway?”

Dean thought about it for a few moments and shook his head. He may not have spent much time with Buffy but he was pretty sure that she’d rather he tell her what was going on instead of coming up with some excuse that probably wouldn’t work anyway. “No,” he said.

“And if there’s a chance she could get attacked again, wouldn’t it be better if we were there to help her?”

He fought to keep from rolling his eyes. He knew exactly what Sam was doing. “Yes.”

“And, hey, we could even teach her how to fight that way she could defend herself if she has to.”

He thought about that for another moment. It was a good idea and Sam had made some good points. If one of them couldn’t be there, he wanted her to be able to defend herself. “Yeah, okay.”

Sam grinned and opened his mouth to say something, stopping when the bathroom door opened, steam flowing out as Buffy walked into the room. Dean turned and grinned at the sight of her.

Her shirt had been ripped and her jeans dirty so he’d given her some of his clothes to wear once she was done. The shirt hung down to mid-thigh on her so that the boxers she wore were just barely visible.

“Better?” he asked. She smiled and nodded.

“Much.” She paused and then lifted her clothes. “I didn’t know what to do with these. I mean, the shirt’s ruined and the jeans are kind of gross so…”

“Well, actually, we’ve got to go to the laundry mat so we could wash your jeans for you,” Sam offered. Buffy bit her lip.

“You wouldn’t mind?”

He shook his head. “Nah. Not at all.”

“Okay then.” Her smile from before returned. “Thanks.” She glanced around and then dropped the jeans near the pile that Sam had started earlier that day. For a moment, she stared at the shirt until Dean’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

“We can go to the store later and get a new one.”

She turned around and sent him a small smile before dropping it in the trash. Dean glanced over at Sam and raised an eyebrow, waiting until he got a nod to step forward. “Actually, Buffy, Sam and I were talking and we wanted to know if you wanted to come with us.” He felt his lips twitch at the look of shock that crossed her face.

“Go with you?” she repeated. “And do…what?”

Here it was. This was the moment where she either decided to go with them or decided they were crazy and she’d rather risk staying in town on her own.

Sam took a deep breath. “Buffy, do you know what it was that attacked you?”

There was a pause as Buffy looked at the floor and began playing with the bottom of Dean’s shirt. “I think…it was a demon.” She looked back up. “It was a demon, right? I’m not crazy?”

Dean shook his head. “No, you’re not.” He studied her for a moment, taking in how she seemed to accept this without freaking out and he wondered if she’d known about demons before, if it was instinct that had her knowing what had attacked. He gestured towards Sam. “Me and Sam, that’s what we do.”

“Fight demons?”

“Well, usually, it’s angry spirits but yeah, sometimes we go after demons too.”

“You wouldn’t have to fight or anything, if you didn’t want to,” Sam added quickly.

“But we’d teach you how. Just in case.”

Buffy looked between the two. The fact that she was even considering it probably meant she was crazy. She didn’t know anything about them.

Of course, she didn’t exactly know anything about herself either.

Slowly she nodded. “Okay.”

Sam grinned. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, I’ll go with you.” She let out a breath. “But, um, I don’t have any clothes.”

Now it was Dean who grinned, causing his brother to roll his eyes. Dean looked over at Sam and smirked. “Don’t worry about it. If you can wait a couple of hours, Sammy here will do the laundry and we can watch a movie or something.” He turned back to Buffy. “Once he’s done, you can put your jeans back on and we’ll go to the store and grab you a few things to start out with. We can get more in other towns or something.”

Buffy’s smile came quickly this time. “I don’t know what I like.”

“Sam’s a huge girl. He won’t mind.”

She laughed as Sam protested and shook her head. “I meant when it comes to movies,” she said. She shrugged. “I think the clothes will be pretty easy. I mean, you just look at them and see what you like, right?”

The sound of her laugh had Dean looking at her with a smile before he caught himself and nodded. “Exactly. See, there’s nothing to worry about.” He moved back and dropped on the bed and waved a hand at Sam. “Okay Sammy. Go get started,” he said, grinning at the fact that it wasn’t his turn to do laundry. He switched on the TV and began flipping through channels.

Sam rolled his eyes. “It’s Sam.” The correction came automatically, even as he picked up the bag of dirty clothes, adding Buffy’s jeans to the mix with a grin at her.

“Thanks, Sam,” she said as she sat by Dean. He nodded at her and had to fight off a laugh when he heard Dean start talking as he closed the door.

“All right, let’s see how you feel about Back to the Future. It’s a classic.”