[1] Rock Salt and Silver | d.winchester

8

"Right, let's go." Stevie slams the empty glass onto the table, the taste of stale whiskey burning the lining of her throat.

"Go where?" Dean asks in a huffed voice; he'd been on the verge of sleep before she spoke, his head lolling weakly against the wall.

"Police Station. I want to know why that ghost is still there, he's really starting to get on my nerves. It's been about 4 days that I've been on this case now, not including the vampires."
He opens one eye, peeking to see her scowl and her pouted lips and watches her push her hair back neatly to tie up all the stray hairs that were stuck to her face. He can see the agitation in her words, the ghost of failure threatening her pride, so he sits up and stretches briefly, standing, tucks in his shirt and pulls on the blazer.

"Could you say, you're dying to get rid of him?"
He stands there, pausing in his actions to look more than a little pleased with himself and rocking on his heels, waiting for her reply.

"Really?" Dean frowns, sulking. He picks up the blazer he'd bought as a replacement for Stevie, as hers was still bloodied and ripped in the back of the impala, and pushes it towards her with a huff.

"That was good."

"That was bad." The hunter grumbles and picks up his FBI ID from the table, shoving one in his pocket and passing the female the other.

"I thought we had to leave." He mumbles, shoulders drooping and eyebrows drawn together. He pulls the door open with hunched posture and a grunt, turning back to Stevie who is just watching him with one thought: Bless.

Stevie went to follow him before her body jerked to a halt. The basement. The basement of the Davidson's home had been found full of bodies before they bought it - dead bodies operated on, pulled apart and hacked at years ago; Stephanie had felt a sickness when she had read that in the first place, how could she forget? She scowled at Dean for being a distraction.

"Dean." He groans, turning on his heal with his body weight to his left, lolling his head about his shoulders and reminding her of Sammy that one Christmas. He spent hours arguing with the two of them that John wouldn't return for Christmas Day and sat sulking about if they had or hadn't brought him the wrong present. It wasn't a bad present, Stevie would like to clarify, it just happened to be a limited edition Barbie doll. Something this 10 year old boy definitely had on his Christmas list. "Pass me your computer."

"I don't have a computer-" Stevie didn't physically have time to groan, so she pulled him back into the room and spins on her heals, walking backwards out the door, her hand up to signal him to stay.

"Stay here, I'll be 20 minutes, get some salt and- I think I know what we need to do. What we need to burn." Stephanie let herself grin at his clueless shrug, but he winked at her all the same, starting to remove his blazer and tie again. "Right-" The hunter exchanged her weight before muttering a quick 'bye' and closing the door, jogging straight out of the hotel.

Stevie almost ran to the library, regaining her posture as she walked in, a few odd looks from the people walking past her. She darted towards a computer immediately, the first she saw and typed in the history for the Davidson's address. To no surprise of course, she found she was right. David Hail had been convicted for multiple murders in 1927, along with a dozen cases of unauthorised experimentation. A few years later he committed suicide, not wanting to be killed by any other hands than his own. She found he had requested his body went to further experimentation after his death. It hadn't obviously, and his last experiment as stated on the towns history records, had been found still on the table with a scalpel in her only remaining eye. Before she thought about it, Stevie felt her face crinkle in disgust and closed down the page, rushing out of the building in mere minutes of her arrival, running back towards the hotel and basically collapsing through the double doors of the building; clambering up the stairs and through the wooden door of their room.

"I was right- I-" In truth, she was breathless.
Her feet felt like they had been repeatedly stabbed by knives. Her body was leant against the doorframe and her head rested against the wood for a moment. Stevie would've taken being thrown into a mirror any day over running a mile in heels. "I-what are you reading?"

Seeing the distraction in Dean's eyes, she soon found the energy to push her body from the frame and kick off her heels in the process. She made her way over to the bed Dean was sat crossed legged on with a suspicious grin when he closed the magazine he had in his hands.

"I-" His face shot up from the booklet, his eyes locking with hers and his perfectly proportioned face seeming to pale, "I was just- it's just- It's a magazine-" He slipped the book underneath him so he was sat on it, his eyes widening as his fellow hunter took another step closer.

"Dean what the hell was-" Somehow, from Stevie leaning over him to grab at the magazine, he had squirmed so much the pair ended up tackling each other. Rolling over as the other protested. He was shouting things like, 'it didn't matter' and how it was 'none of your business' and several times, 'it's nothing.' But after a fight of legs and arms, Stephanie felt her hand aimlessly grasp hold of the laminated paper somewhere bellow her and pulled it up from behind him with a triumphant and childlike whoop. Stevie squirmed out of his clumsy and panicked grip, standing from the bed and flicking through the pages. That dirty bastard.

"Dean! Oh my God!" He stands up, reaching for the magazine around her which she just rolls into a cylinder. "Get a life!" Stevie turned and hit him repeatedly on the arm, throwing the booklet on to his bed with an amused scowl.

"What?" He whines, "I don't have a computer."

"And now, you're not getting one!"  He pouts but laughs regardless, the sound ringing in her ears like Christmas bells; a sweet short sound leaving her wishing to hear more of it. The strangest things were so lovely about him, but Stevie was yet to figure out which way she viewed that. He was her best friend after all, Ste could never ruin that. But he was beautiful and she had missed him. When the Winchesters had left, Stevie felt broken. Never exactly complete. But when Dean came back, she had started to ignore the fact that she was so scared to loose anyone again, because fact is, she wouldn't loose him. It won't happen because she wouldn't allow it.

Stevie's thoughts were interrupted by a thumping at their front door and when Stevie listened, she didn't just hear slightly aggressive knocking, she heard thudding. She wasn't able to ignore that. "Alright-" Stevie kicked her shoes out of the way of the door, rolling her eyes at whoever complained they were making too much noise, or whatever it was going to be and walked towards the door only realising she was too small to look through the peep without standing on her tip-toes. But her body was still screaming from her encounter with a poltergeist, so she turned her head to the side, sticking her tongue out at the Winchester as the thudding happened again and she grasped hold of the handle, scowling the stranger. "You're literally going to break the door."

Stevie sighed feeling it locked and scrambled for the hotel key off the table, huffing at the mess she had mostly created. Empty beer bottles and a half drank bottle of ancient whiskey were clustered together, empty wrappers and two take-out coffee cups they could have put in the bin across the room cluttered that table. John's journal was beneath it all and two silver blades poked out beneath the wrappers, a small bottle of vodka to the left. Stevie never knew why she drank that stuff, she didn't even like it.

Thump, thump, thump.

Stevie grabbed the keys, whistling an aggravated sigh through her teeth. Dean cocks his head back, laughing. His body was slumped to the side, his arm propping up his head, causing his whole body to shudder when he laughed out loud and it made a smile tug at the sides of Stevie's mouth.

Thump, thump, freaking thump.

"If you knock one more god-damn time, I'll shove this door right up your-"

Even the booming laughter coming from Dean Winchester didn't soothe the hunter when she pulled that door open.