Forefathers Part 2
Part of the http://zannes.livejournal.com/5304.html John/Illyria 'verse
Rating: PG Overall (language and nudity)
Genre: Gen - Supernatural/Angel crossover
Characters: John and Illyria...cameos by Sam and Dean
Summary: John and Illyria meet up in Hell, Lucifer wants Illyria gone because she's annoying him so he hooks her up with John and sends them back to the mortal plane. Hilarity ensues. It's like a buddy cop movie gone bad.
Author's Notes: I owe my soul to my betas lyonie17 and hakirby. They made this readable. Kripke owns the Winchesters and Whedon owns Illyria. Even though there's no sex in this story, feel free to imagine it (I did). John and Illyria have become my secret OTP. They just fit each other. This story is complete, but will be posted in several parts so you don't petrify in front of the computer trying to read it in one sitting. It's the longest thing I've written! The lovely icon belongs to phantomas.
Part 2...
Turned out, once he explained the rules to her, Fred was a pool shark. They earned some quick cash at a bar down the road, picking the rest from the pockets of the muggers that tried to shake them down in the alley outside. Grabbing a couple of hamburgers on the way to the nearest motel, John rented them a room where they could recoup for the night.
“This room is small and smells of vermin,” Illyria commented, shifting upon passing the threshold. “Could we not abuse more men and find a domicile more befitting my magnitude?”
“And what magnitude is that?” John asked distractedly.
“The returning God-King and her Guide,” Illyria informed him.
John gazed at her, arching a skeptical eyebrow. “No,” he answered shortly. “This is fine.” He made his way over to the heater and turned it on full blast, still shivering despite the rise in temperature. Heading for the entrance, he pulled a couple of stolen saltshakers from his pockets, carefully twisting off the caps and pouring heavy lines across the doors and windows.
“That is useless,” Illyria declared pointedly.
“It keeps out the bad guys,” John stated with conviction, making sure the lines were thick and unbroken.
“It would not keep out any who matter,” she opined, pausing to study the white line marking the carpet around the doorframe.
“I’m happy if it keeps out even one, “John replied, tossing the empty saltshakers into the trash. “I got us a double so that we’d each have our own bed. Couldn’t afford two rooms, sorry.”
“I do not sleep,” Illyria replied.
John rolled his eyes. “You could have mentioned that earlier! The extra bed costs!” He sighed and slumped with exhaustion onto the nearest bed. “OK, a single from now on to save some cash. Deal?”
Illyria ignored him, standing at rest in the middle of the room. “Do you eat, either?” he asked, peeking in the bag at her still-wrapped hamburger.
“My body does not require the breakdown of nutrients for power. That is a flawed system.”
“More for me, then,” he replied, taking a huge bite.
She studied him with her unblinking gaze as he finished eating, prodding him to ask, “I notice you’re…staring. Do you need something?”
“Are you not going to shed your outer skins to gain more comfort from your rest? Wesley always did. Then he would put on something with stripes or paisley. Do you need paisley to sleep?”
John, the battle-hardened Marine who had faced monsters from people’s worst nightmares, blushed a bright red and stammered, “I’ll…uh, change in the bathroom,” before bolting into the small convenience and slamming the door behind him. While Illyria may not technically count as a woman, she had a female form and it had been years since John felt comfortable enough around a lady to relax, much less change clothes or sleep. This might turn out to be harder than he originally thought - and he had thought it was going to be pretty damn near impossible.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John was torn from his slumber, his throat raw from screaming and his sweat-dampened skin clammy to the touch. Illyria stood beside him, stiff and unmoving, a solid presence against the side of the bed. She briefly touched his forehead before stating in a quiet monotone, “Nothing would dare harm you now. Return to sleep.”
Surprisingly comforted, John did as he was told.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John awoke a second time to find himself alone, Illyria apparently in ‘off’ mode over in the corner of the room. He crept over to the bathroom so as not to disturb her, needing the solitude of a scalding shower to orient himself for the day. He spent longer than usual under the spray, trying unsuccessfully to wash the memories of the past several months from both his mind and body.
After twenty minutes he gave up, sliding the shower curtain back and yelping in surprise as Illyria’s brilliant blue eyes met his, noses only inches apart. “Your rinsing took very long,” she said bluntly. “Is this usual?”
John flushed, holding the shower curtain in front of him as he fumbled for a towel. “OK, new rule. No walking into the bathroom when I’m in here. It’s not polite.”
“Then do not take so long next time,” she replied, turning on her boot heel and stalking towards the door. John caught a glimpse of her face in the bathroom mirror as she left the room and could have sworn he saw a smirk on that winter-white visage.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John knew that their priority was a car. They couldn’t stay in this one-horse town very long - the pool hustlers knew them by sight and they would have a group of very angry young men looking for them soon.
“I don’t know what else to do, Illyria. Credit cards take too long and we need some quick cash.” John sighed in something like defeat. “We’ll have to hitchhike to the next town and hope we can scrounge enough money to consider a car. We need to get mobile and fast.”
Illyria stared at him impassively. He was never sure if she bothered listening to him or if she were too busy studying the dust motes in the air to pay any attention at all. With her typical irritating precision, she blinked and stated, “We could ask the Gharluk demon that scuttled out of the bar when we arrived. Trades are their business. We could barter for a conveyance of some kind.”
John swallowed a sigh. “New rule. If you see a demon, could you please tell me next time?”
“There is no need to kill him, Hunter. They are a harmless breed,” Illyria replied, hands folded behind her back.
“Good to know, but I’d still like to be made aware. Got it?” he reprimanded sharply.
Illyria’s eyes tightened only slightly before she asked, “All of them? Or just those that pose a threat?”
John paused a second before replying, beginning to recognize the subtle cues of reading a once Demon-King. “How many since we got here?”
“I have sensed one hundred thirty-two, but only one was humanoid. The other one hundred thirty-one are the vermin that infest the walls of this motel.” She sniffed, a look of displeasure nearly making its way onto her face. “I said we should have picked another place to rest.”
John buried his face in his hand, counting to ten before rubbing his beard thoughtfully, amending his previous statement. “OK, just the threats then.” He raised his head to look her straight in the eye. “Not dangerous?”
He took Illyria’s slow blink as agreement.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The wizened old man in the ratty knit cap squealed sharply and skittered for cover when he saw the two figures walking down the snowy lane to his run-down cabin. “I ain’t done ya no harm! Go away!” He peeked over the fender of a rusting Plymouth, eyes widening in fear before ducking back behind the car.
“Calm down, mister,” John shouted as soothingly as he could. He drew his hands from his pockets, showing he came unarmed. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“I’m not scared of you, human!” the old man called out. “It’s her! I don’t know what flavor she is, but she’s….”
“Illyria,” she completed as she appeared suddenly behind him, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and shaking him like a terrier with a rat as he bleated in terror. “And I have come to barter.”
“Take what you want!” he squeaked. “Anything! Just leave me be!”
Illyria turned her cool gaze onto John, indicating with a sharp tilt of her chin to list what was needed. With a gruff chuckle, he stepped closer to the wriggling Gharluk, barely missing being swiped by the rat-like tail wriggling wildly from under his coat. “Um…we need a car. Some weapons would be nice - guns and some hunting knives if you have ‘em…ammunition, too. Oh, and rocksalt.” John huddled in on himself, breathing harshly onto his cupped hands to warm them, the tips of his fingers already turning a pale blue.
“Sure! Sure! Got it all!” the Gharluk gurgled, straining for breath as Illyria’s grip tightened. John felt a momentary flash of pity for the pathetic old demon. It was obvious the Gharluk didn’t see many of Illyria’s temperament around here.
“A thick coat and some clothes are also necessary,” she added, giving him another shake. “My Guide is cold.”
John glanced up in surprise, eyeing Illyria with a grudging astonishment. She gazed at him mildly, her grip on the Gharluk not loosening in the slightest. “Let him go, Illyria. He’s got some stuff to fetch.” Obediently, she released her grip, dropping the demon flat on his tail, allowing him to skitter off to collect what they needed.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t kill him?” John asked her curiously once the Gharluk was out of earshot, uncomfortable with the idea of allowing a demon to go free.
Illyria gazed emptily in the distance, saying dismissively, “It would equate to killing a small, yapping dog. Intrinsically satisfying, but with no real purpose.” She shrugged, turning to face him. “Kill him if you like.”
Nearly an hour later, the Gharluk had piled nearly everything they asked for in the back of a beat-up ’76 Jeep Cherokee coated in a hideous orange-red shade, a few large floral decals pasted on the side. It hurt John’s manly sensibilities to even look at it, but it was the best of the lot with the cabin space to carry the extras he needed.
“I only had one hunting knife, a revolver with no ammo, and a rifle with a couple’a boxes of shells. I threw the jeans and shirts into the back with a sack of rock salt,” the demon puffed tiredly, his skin looking a pale grey from exertion.
“Let us go,” Illyria demanded, standing stiffly beside the car. John placed a hand on her arm, keeping her in place even as her blue eyes glared at him in something like disbelief. “You touch me without permission?” she asked bluntly. Her eyes locked with his and he met her unwavering gaze without flinching for the first time. “Bold, Hunter…your courage grows the longer you are here.” Her blue-tinged lips quirked before falling into their usual clean lines, her tentative approval granted.
The ghost of a smile crossed his face as he whispered to her under his breath, “Time for your first lesson, Princess Charming,” before he turned to speak with the Gharluk. “I know we asked a lot of you, and I apologize if we appeared a little rude.” He arched an eyebrow at Illyria, who refused to look even the tiniest bit contrite, instead focusing her gaze at a point above the Gharluk’s head. “We owe you. Is there anything you need done?”
The old man twisted his cap nervously in his hands, rocking back and forth on his feet. He peered up at John, not even daring to glance at the one-time Demon-King he had heard rumor of so many years ago. “Um…,” he hesitated. “I heard she called ya a Hunter?” John nodded cautiously, burrowing further into the dark green winter coat the old man had dug up for him, still shivering in the cool air. The Gharluk shuffled uneasily before stuttering, “I got kin a few counties over. A thunderbird’s been pickin’ off his sheep and he don’t know how to get rid of it.”
John’s features sharpened at the mention. “What about people? Has it gotten any humans?”
The Gharluk shrugged non-committally. “I dunno. He just goes on about his sheep. Said he’d trade me some spring lambs for some help.” The demon smiled, showing sharpened incisors. “I’d sure like some lamb next year.”
John wrinkled his nose in disgust at demons’ typical lack of concern over humans before asking, “Where?”
“Ashby. Ask for Zeke Herimon. Tell ‘im Pete sent ya for the sheep.” The Gharluk bounced excitedly, uncaring when John slammed the car door shut, gripping the wheel in his hands to control his anger.
“We get to kill something?” Illyria asked calmly. At John’s curt nod she nearly purred, turning her eyes onto the road ahead. “Good. It has been too long since I have tasted the blood of my enemy. Hell was so dull.”
John emitted a startled snort, saying, “For you maybe,” before turning on the heater to high and shifting the Jeep into gear. “Suit up, Illyria. We’re goin’ out.” With a turn of her head she shifted, allowing Fred to wave gaily out the car window at the capering demon left behind in the curl of their exhaust.
TO BE CONTINUED...