FIC: Shadows Behind (SPN/AtS)
Shadows Behind
A Supernatural/Angel crossover
by mhalachaiswords
Summary: Ellen never expected to see him again, not now, in the shadows behind the Roadhouse, and certainly not with the information they desperately needed.
Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to the CW and Kripke. Angel belongs to Joss Whedon. No profit has been made from this fic, and the only benefit to me is personal satisfaction and the creative process.
Rating: PG-13 for swearing.
Words: 700
Spoilers: Contain spoilers for Supernatural 2x06, No Exit.
Note: For the TTH challenge, 20 Minutes at the Roadhouse. Written in 19 minutes and 45 seconds. If you think I'm implying something about a certain blonde character in this, then yes. That is exactly what I'm saying. Why? Because I'm a troublemaker.
~~~~~~
Ellen dragged the last bag of garbage out to the cans behind the Roadhouse. It was time to close up for the night, nearly four in the morning, and she was ready to sit down and let the day drain away. She was getting too old for this crap life.
Jo was still inside, gently shooing the last of the hunters out of the bar with a winsome smile and a firm hand. She'd learned that somewhere else, but where Ellen could never figure. Ellen had never had the patience to deal with drunken hunters with anything less than a broom in her hands.
The bag went into the can. As Ellen slammed the lid down, she thought she heard something shifting gently in the shadows. Freezing, one hand on the wall, she listened hard.
Nothing.
She heard nothing. Not even the crickets from the meadow out back of the Roadhouse.
Less than ten yards from a handful of well-armed hunters, and it was like being stranded on an ice floe for all the good it would do her. Ellen took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart. What could possibly be stupid enough to come this close to a bar full of hunters?
The answer drifted out of the shadows towards her. Ellen took one look at the interloper, and almost screamed in frustration. "Damn it, Angel, what the hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded.
The man gave her a ghostly smile. "Had to see you, that's all."
He hadn't changed. Not over all those long years since he first saved Ellen's life, her just an inexperienced teenager, trapped behind the movie theatre with something that was just human enough to have rape on its mind. She'd seen Angel again when she was a few weeks shy of twenty, and on her first hunt. She'd salted and burned those bodies without his help, even if he did stand back and watch her every move the whole time.
He hadn't stayed that distant afterwards.
She hadn't seen Angel since the early eighties, one last quick and dirty dance in her husband's pickup while Billy was off tracking a poltergeist with John Winchester. Jo had been born less than a year later and Ellen hadn't let herself give Angel much thought after that.
Now, seeing him unchanged after all these years, still as handsome and haunted as ever... Ellen bit back thirty years of regret. "Like hell."
His smile grew. "I have something for you," he said, reaching into the inner pocket of his expensive suit and pulling out a small ancient book. He laid it on the edge of the Roadhouse steps. "There's something in here you need."
Ellen crossed her arms over her chest. "What is it?"
Angel's smile didn't change, but Ellen was suddenly aware of how alone she was, with this man she didn't understand, who wasn't human any more, if he had ever been. "Something you've been looking for. Information. A... friend of mine had it."
"Friend?" From what Ellen remembered of Angel, he wasn't the type to have friends.
Angel shrugged. "Let's just say she's along for the ride."
He stepped back, coated in the shadows of the building. Ellen went after him before she could think about it. There was so much tell him, so many things she didn't think he knew...
"I'll see you around, Ellen." He took another step back, and then he was gone.
"Crap." Ellen stood staring into the black for a few minutes, then backtracked to the steps.
The book emanated an air of menace, but Ellen made herself pick it up and opened the cover. The first page was covered in words she couldn't understand, but the symbol inscribed on the front page took her breath away.
Angel had given her the clue to defeating a demon, the Demon.
And he'd left without giving her a chance to say thank you.
"Bastard," Ellen muttered. She slapped the book closed as she stormed up the steps, already shouting for Ash.
They had a demon to defeat, and wasn't it just fucking ironic that Angel had shown her the way.
the end