Title: A Witch and a Hunter Walk Into a Bar
Author's Note: Okay, so recently I got into Supernatural – thank you, BlackRain88. I couldn't resist doing a Charmed crossover with it. I'm not sure precisely when this takes place in the Supernatural world, but it's sometime in the second season. For the Charmed world, it happens pretty much just after season eight. I'm unsure if Billy will be in this fic or not.
Also, I have another fanfic going and that's top priority to me. I will do my best to update this one in between writing chapters for the other, but no promises. Lastly, I'm doing this without a beta reader, so please excuse the small grammar and spelling mistakes. Let me know if I do something really stupid like write Deana instead of Dean.
Chapter One
As Dean loaded up on the snacks at the gas station's mart, Sam had been thumbing through his father journal, not reading it, just letting the action sooth him into a relaxed state. The brothers were going to drive all night and he'll get the morning hours, so he wanted to get as much sleep as he could before it was his turn to get behind the wheel. With all of the pictures his dad drew, it was almost like a child's book about demons, ghosts, and ancient magic.
And that's when Sam made an interesting discovery. Tucked in the back, where the leather had lifted from the cardboard, where two small pieces of paper. One was older, deeper seams. Opening it up carefully, Sam read the message:
"Sam Winchester has been in or apart of an altercation on October 27, 1993. Please contact…"
And groaned. The first time in school he had ever gotten into "an altercation" (and got caught). His sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Appleberry-Worthibee, had caught him kicking a bully in the shins. Of course, Mrs. Appleberry-Worthibee hadn't seen all of the things the bully did, so it was Sam who got sent home with the Fill-In-The-Blanks note. Dean had offered to forge his father's signature but Sam had wanted to be honest with the man. It had lead to an argument and Sam being grounded to his hotel bed for the rest of the night, where he couldn't see the TV.
Sam was surprised that his dad had kept the note, but figured the man stuffed it back there and forgot it all about it. Same with the other piece of paper, that was clearly younger.
"Hey!" Dean greeted as he slid into the driver's seat. Holding up the bags, he put on a big grin, "I got pie!"
Sam smiled back and pocketed his grade school note as Dean arranged the bags for easy access; this was going to be their dinner.
"Hey, Dean, check this out," he handed the piece of paper over to his brother, closed the journal, and got his chips out of the bag. "It looks like dad was working on something in San Francisco."
"Yeah, that's nice," Dean gave back the piece of paper and started off on the road.
"Did you even read it?"
"Yeah, I did. So?"
Sam stared at his brother for a second. "Dean, you're joking right? These people went missing. Dad had a good lead."
"That he didn't follow through."
"Cuz he ran out of time. But, Dean, we could–"
"No, Sammy."
"What? Why not?"
"Because it's out of our way."
"We don't have a way. We're just swinging by Bobby's while we're looking for a job."
"You want to drive all the way to San Francisco, a day's drive out of our way, to look at something that might already be gone?"
Sam raised his eyebrows, surprised that Dean was asking the question. When Dean stared back at Sam, waiting for the answer, Sam huffed. "Um, yeah, Dean, I do. We were looking for a job, we found one. If we get there fast enough, we might still be able to find it."
"Sam…"
"I will hitch. I will get to San Francisco myself if I have to."
Dean looked at Sam's determined face, his jaw set and his eyes staring into his brother's eyes, waiting for the dare. Dean closed his eyes in frustration.
"Fine, fine. We'll go. I swear this better not be some half-baked idea to get me into a gay pride parade." Sam rolled his eyes as Dean started down the road, taking the on rap that lead west, not east out of Nevada. "I mean, I don't have a problem with two guys hitting the sheets. Or, um, two girls, for that matter."
"Pervert," Sam muttered.
whwhwhwhwhwhw
"You've got to help me!"
"I don't know –"
"I'm Justin Messengill. I'm one of Sam Welder's chargers. He told me to find you if he couldn't make it."
Phoebe looked at the man for the first time. Before then, she had been watching him out of the corner of her eye, trying to walk very quickly to her car and get away before his desperate pleads turned angry. The man turned out to be a boy around nineteen or twenty years old. He was thin, dirty, and had panic in his blue eyes. His black hair was to his shoulders and he towered over Phoebe by six inches. If he had been clean and not crazy-sounding, Phoebe might've found him very attractive.
"All right, Justin, just calm down. Tell me what's wrong."
Justin took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. "I was looking into some disappearances. My girlfriend's brother had suddenly gone missing, which is so not like him. He keeps his cell phone during movies just in case, ya know? Anyway, he was heading over to Gale's place but he never made it."
"Okay, how did you get involved? Why not call the police?"
"Oh, she did. But they can't do anything until he's been missing for at least twenty-four hours. I went and traced his steps and found his cell phone in an alley way. And that's – that's when it attacked me."
"When what attacked you?"
"I don't know. I honestly didn't get a good look at it. It through me against a dumpster, I called out to Sam, Sam showed up, the thing grabbed a hold of him and then they were gone."
"Gone? Gone where?"
"I don't know, just gone! I've been calling him for hours now, he hasn't answered."
"Okay, okay. Come on, Justin, get in."
"Where are we going?" Justin asked as he got into the car.
"To my sisters, they'll be able to help."
whwhwhwhwhwhw
"Do we know what this thing is?" Dean asked as Sam and he paced slowly up and down the alley way.
"No, we don't," Sam replied. "But it's something."
"Yeah? Something like what, Sammy?"
"I don't know, Dean."
"Something like a bunch of dudes go missing for separate, unrelated reasons?"
"You're starting to sound like the cop back at the station."
Dean jerked his head up at Sam with an insulted look on his face. Even still, he stood his ground and shouted over the rain, "Yeah, well, he raised a good point! Sammy, people go missing all the time. Doesn't mean everyone's connected."
"But the pattern, Dean!" Sam snapped back.
"What pattern? That every twenty years a couple of guys just happen to go missing in this area?"
"In this alley way. We've investigated less," Sam reminded him.
"Not in the rain!"
Sam rolled his eyes and pretended the rain had drowned out Dean's response. The famous city of San Francisco was thought of as alive, vibrant, and colorful. But that was not the case this day. Today, the sky was filled with deep grey clouds that were pouring out buckets of water on the Winchester boys.
"It's cold! And there isn't a busty Asian in sight!" Dean went on. Sam knew that his older brother was more than capable of enduring a little discomfort, such as rain. However, Mr. Mullet Rock had decided before this job had even started that he was going to drag his heals. As tough as Dean acted – as tough as he is – the guy could really pitch a fit when he wanted to.
"Then go back to the hotel!" Sam finally snapped, turning around to face his brother. "If the job is so unimportant to you, then just go back and read your skin mags!"
Dean's eyebrows rose slightly, and for a moment, he seemed really hurt. Then, a small smile cracked on his lips. "You know I don't read those."
Sam sighed heavily and rolled his eyes before turning back around.
"The EMF reader's going off like crazy," Sam said.
"No power lines close enough to do that," Dean said.
"So that narrows down our list. Now we just had to find the right ghost."
At that moment, a huge gust of wind swept down the alley way, causing trash to run and gather around their feet. Dean and Sam shielded their eyes as the rain pelted down extra sharp during that moment and Sam could feel his jacket billow like a little kid was excitedly playing an improvised game.
"I say we find the right ghost in our hotel room," Dean offered and this time, Sam didn't argue. They found all that they were going to in the alley – for now, at least.
whwhwhwhwhwhw
"So, that's the alley way?" Paige asked Justin, pointing to the way across the street.
"Yes, that's it."
"All right, thank you for your help, Justin. We'll take it from here."
"Wait, what? No! I need to find Sam."
"No, you need to stay safe. Whatever took Sam was obviously going for you."
"Then I'll draw it out into the open and you three can vanquish it!"
To this, Piper raised an eyebrow. "You want to draw out a creature, which we know nothing about, and hope that we can vanquish it without a potion or spell?"
"Well, we can't just let it get away! It has Sam!"
"Yeah, and we'll find Sam and vanquish the creature, but first thing's first," Phoebe patted Justin on shoulder. "We need to figure out what the hell we're dealing with and you need to get inside before you catch a cold."
Justin hated to appear weak in front of the Charmed Ones, but he hadn't had time to grab a thicker jacket after he had asked Phoebe for her help. His clothes were fine in the afternoon, but the heavens had opened up that evening and were dumping buckets on everything. Needless to say, Justin felt (and probably looked) like a drowned rat.
"I'll be at Gale's. Call me the moment you guys find Sam, please?"
"We will," Paige nodded.
As Justin left, the girls crossed the street and into the alley way.
"Good kid," Piper said.
"I'm surprised he didn't fight harder to stay with us," Paige said.
"Well, he was pretty miserable looking. And you saw him go all starry-eyed on us when he realized we were the Charmed Ones and you were Sam's daughter."
"Yeah. If only that title could get me into hot clubs."
The Sisters began their quick search, using flash lights in the dim, narrow space between the buildings. None of them wanted to be out in this weather but Paige couldn't just sit at home and wait for the clouds to clear up. When Phoebe had brought Justin home, they had first tried to get all the details out of him that they possible could. Then they searched the Book of Shadows, which was pointless with the little information they had to go on. Piper and Phoebe were ready to call it a night and start fresh in the morning, but Paige was too worried to give up just yet.
"Paige? Paige!" Phoebe grabbed her sister's arm to gain her attention. "Come on, Paige, it's getting really dark and we're not finding anything. Let's just go back home for tonight. We'll keep searching the Book and scrying."
Paige sighed heavily but nodded.
"Don't worry, we'll find Sam."
At that point, Paige's flash light found a scrap of paper plastered to the side of a trash can. It was odd how it was holding onto the side of the metal, but Paige figured the rain was acting like glue in this case. She slowly peeled it off and read the only readable part of the palm-sized, tattered paper that hadn't been washed away from the rain:
Sam W…
"It must be my father's," Paige said as she carefully protected it from the rain. "He must've dropped it during the attack."
"Let's hope it wasn't anything too important," Piper said before they orbed home and out of the rain.
whwhwhwhwhwhw
The new day brought the sun out over a clear sky. The rain had finished itself off around two in the morning and the remaining clouds had been swiftly blown away soon after, leaving only the puddles and wet umbrellas as testament to last night's storm.
Paige had stayed up the entire night, trying to get a fix on Sam. Piper and Phoebe went to bed around one in the morning, after getting a promise from their youngest sister that she'd go to bed soon as well.
"Paige," Piper moaned as she stepped into the attic, quickly followed by Phoebe. Both of them were in their sweats and not looking rested. Phoebe had decided to stay the night and called up Coop to let him know. This had actually gotten the cupid involved but there was little that he could do. "Honey, I thought you were going to go to sleep."
"How well did you sleep?" Paige snot back.
Piper shrugged and dropped the matter when Paige took out the scrap of paper from her pocket. She held it and the scrying crystal in her hand and started scrying again. "Honey, how long have you been doing that?"
"About an hour, but I wasn't using the paper I found yesterday."
"You think that'll help? It's not like it's something important to him or anything."
"It might be, you never know. Maybe it was a personal letter or something."
The scrying crystal suddenly stopped swinging and hit its mark on the map.
"That's the alley we were in yesterday," Phoebe noted.
"Maybe he got away from whatever attack him. Come on!" Paige grabbed her sister's arms and orbed them to the alley way without a second thought.
whwhwhwhwhwhw
Sam went up and down the alley way, hoping that something would show itself in the early morning light. Dean had been asleep when he stepped out and while Sam knew it wasn't the best thing to do, he couldn't help it. They had an amazingly short deadline and very little facts to go on. Their research showed that a lot of people died in and around that alley way and they had still been sifting through the deaths when they drifted off to sleep.
The early morning was so peaceful and quiet, that Sam hadn't noticed the ghost he was looking for until it was too late.
Sam was suddenly grabbed from behind and flung into a dumpster. The wind knocked out of him, Sam slid down the dumpster, gasping for breath. The ghost, an ugly son of a bitch with a bad comb cover, jumped on top of Sam and put shoved his hand into Sam's gut.
Sam screamed as white hot pain laced through him. The ghost chortled evilly; grabbing hold of Sam's other shoulder to stop him from jerking around too much.
Then, suddenly, the ghost exploded into thousands of pieces and disappeared.
"Are you all right?" a woman asked.
Although the ghost was gone, Sam still felt the pain like it had never left. He took in a shaky breath to reassure the three women now kneeling around him that he was fine, but all that came out was a tiny whimper.
One of the girls, a straight hair brunette, pulled up Sam's shirt and saw a huge, purple bruise right where the ghost had stuck his hand in.
"Paige, heal him," the woman ordered.
Another woman, a brunette with wavy hair, put her hand on his bruise. Sam saw a glow come out of her hands and tried to pull away. However, the last girl, another brunette with less wavy hair than the other, thought he was reacting to the pain and held him against the dumpster to make sure he didn't hurt himself any more.
Paige concentrated and kept her hand on the bruise for a long minute. Finally, she took away her hand and revealed that the bruise had gone down to half its size but was still there.
"I can't get it to heal any more than that," Paige panted. She looked up at Sam and saw that his face was less contorted in pain and his breathing was less frantic.
But then he screamed like someone was plunging him into a tub of acid. The bruise came back and got a third bigger. Sam felt like someone was stabbing him with a thick, dull sword, slowly twisting it and sending electricity all through out his body.
"We need to get him to a hospitable," the second one said.
"I don't think a hospitable will help him. Come on, Paige, get us back home. We'll figure out what to do with him then."
Paige nodded and orbed her sisters and the new boy to her room. With her sister's help, they put him on her bed so he could be as comfortable as possible. As soon as they put him on the bed, he curled up on his side and whimpered against the pain that was shaking his whole body.
"…Who…" Sam licked his lips and closed his eyes. "Who are you?"
"It's okay, we're here to help," Long Hair brushed back his hair in a motherly fashion. "I'm Piper Halliwell and these are my sisters, Phoebe and Paige Matthews. What's your name?"
"S-Sam Winchester…" Sam gasped as another wave of pain threatened to make him give up the contents of his stomach.
"Okay, Sam. We're going to help you. We need to figure out what's wrong, but we're going to help, okay?"
Sam nodded and tensed up as he felt the pain grow inside of him. Piper told him to hang in there as the three left the room and headed for the attic.
"Sam Winchester," Paige muttered as she frowned.
"What?" Phoebe asked.
"Sam W. Sam Winchester, not Sam Welder. He must have been in that alley before."
"You couldn't have known. I mean, what are the chances that that paper belonged to another Sam W?"
"Apparently very good."
"Paige…"
"No, it's okay. I'm not sorry we helped the boy. I just want to find Sam Welder now."
whwhwhwhwhwhw
Dean parked a few houses down and studied the neighbor. This was not the kind of place that had the crime and shady vibe. But Dean couldn't fathom why Sam would wonder off and not pick up his cell. The two brothers were used to one of them going out on their own sometimes. They weren't joined at the hip and they would probably kill each other if they had to spend every moment together.
But even when they were out getting air or doing a solo part of a job, they always answered their phone unless there was trouble. Or unless they were in bed with a chick. Those were the only two reasons, though.
Dean highly doubted that Sam picked up a chick as quickly as Dean could, so he went with reason one. And that's what led Dean to calling the phone company to turn on Sam's GPS. That led Dean driving to a very nice neighbor, led him to sitting in the car, staring at the house Sam was supposed to be in, and led him to wonder if he was going to run into a psycho Martha Stewart.
After five minutes, Dean finally decided that the pink house was not going to bite him and he had wasted too much time already when he had waited two hours for Sam's call. He got out of the car and shoved a gun in the back of his jeans, hiding it with his shirt. Instead of going in the front, he slipped through the side gate, making it look like he was supposed to be there if there were any neighbors spying on him.
The backyard did nothing to add to the idea that something shady was going on inside the house. It had tricycle and a wagon with plastic buckets in it pushed up against a wall along the side and the bushes and grass were all trimmed.
Dean, however, knew better than to judge on appearances in these cases and picked the backdoor's lock with practiced ease. He took his gun out and pointed to the ground as he slipped into the warm house. It was quiet and bright, with only natural light coming through the windows to illuminate the place. Aside from the children's toys that were scattered on coffee tables, chairs, and pushed into corners, the house was orderly and old fashion.
The first floor revealed nothing of Sam and a quick check of the basement had the same results. It was all just so innocent and normal looking; Dean was starting to wonder if he had broken into the wrong house.
Sam screamed at the top of his lungs, clearly in pain. Dean bolted back up to the first floor and ran up the stairs, following the screams that preceded the first. On the second floor, Dean skidded to a halt, took a breath and headed up the last set of stairs silently.
These stairs lead only to a closed attic door. Dean very carefully twisted the knob, thankful it was unlocked, and waited two heart beats to see if he had been detected.
"SAM!" Dean shouted as he threw open the door and rushed in, gun up and ready to harm anyone that moved.
He first saw candles on tall stands. They were circling his brother, who was on the ground, twisting and crying out in pain, while three women chanted from the side of circle, not paying attention to him.
He didn't see the other man in the room who introduced himself by tackling Dean to the ground. The gun flew out of Dean's hands and skidded across the room. The women stopped chanting for a second.
"Keep going!" the man shouted and the women, as one, returned to the spell they were casting.
"What are you doing?!" Dean shouted as he struggled against the man who was a few pounds heavier. "What are you doing to Sammy?!"
"Calm down!" the man on top grunted. Dean jabbed him in the side and the man had to get his grip on his wrist again while fighting off sharp pain in his side.
Dean's swears to the man were cut off by Sam, who screamed the loudest Dean had ever heard. Grey smoke seeped out of his stomach and snaked its way through the floorboards. It lasted only a minute, but when it was done, Sam laid on his back, unconscious.
The older Winchester finally shook the other man off of him and ran for Sam, picking up his gun along the way.
"Sam? Sam! Sammy, come on, wake up," Dean kneeled by his brother felt his pulse. It was there, if a little slow. Dean pointed his gun at the women as one of them started to step forward. "What did you do to my brother?! Tell me or I'll blow your brains out!"
"We helped him," the shortest of the three said, looking offended. "You're welcomed."
Dean pointed the gun at the man at his side, to let him know that Dean could shoot the man faster than he could move.
"Look, we found your brother like that," another one said. "We had to help him. Look, he's not in pain anymore, is he?"
Dean's eyes flickered down to his brother again. Sam was drenched in sweat but he looked like he was having a very peaceful dream.
"What did you do to him?" Dean asked again, this time less angry and panicked.
"In short, we took out what was harming him," the shortest one said. "We don't want to hurt you or Sam. We only want to help. Could you put the gun away?"
Dean eyed the strangers again and put the gun down, but not away. Considering this a good enough compromise, the three set about cleaning up. One of the women went over to the man and asked if he was okay. He shrugged off the pain, though Dean caught the slight wince when he moved. The other two blew out the candles and started putting them against the wall.
"So, what are you? A bunch of witches?" Dean asked. "Is this a coven?"
"Please," the one over by the man rolled her eyes. "These are my sisters, Paige and Phoebe. This is my husband, Leo. I'm Piper."
Dean recognized the meaning of this information sharing. "I'm Dean."
"Sam's older brother?" Leo asked with a smile.
"Yeah. How did you know?"
"Lucky guess."
"Dean?"
Dean looked down and saw his brother looking up at him with half opened eyes.
"Sammy? Hey, how're you feeling?"
"Like I got ran over by a train, twice. But I'm okay now."
"What happened? You went to the alley on your own, didn't you?"
"Yeah. The ghost attacked me, put something in me."
"Put what in you?"
"I don't know, but it hurt like a bitch. Dean, they saved me," Sam let his head drop to one side, so he could look at the four who were wisely keeping their distance. "Thank you."
"No problem," Phoebe answered for all.
Sam struggled to get up, so Dean slung one arm over his shoulders and helped lift him up.
"Whoa, whoa, I really think you should rest, Sam," Piper said.
"I'm all right, really."
"We have some important work to take care of," Dean gave her a cocky smile. "Thanks for patching up my brother and all."
"You're going after the ghost, aren't you?" Leo asked. "After what it did to your brother?"
"Because it did that to my brother," Dean growled.
"Let us help," Paige offered.
"Heh, no thanks, Lady."
"Dean, they could help," Sam offered. "They're hunters, too."
"Hunters?" Phoebe asked. "We've never been hunting in our lives. Well, maybe Leo?"
Leo shook his head, considering the boys carefully. "Why would you think we were hunters?"
"You're too clean to be witches and how else would you know how to do that spell?"
"We are witches," Piper said. This was very surreal. These two boys obviously knew about the magical side of life but they seemed to have a different definition. Since when was hygiene a factor in being a witch?
"Oh, even better," Dean sneered. "Come on, Sammy."
Dean and Sam started for the door, but Sam's legs suddenly gave out. The women all seemed to have the same idea, for they all reached out to help Sam at the same time. And they all touched Sam at the same time.
Above the five, a blue-white light appeared and shined down on them for a brief moment before disappearing.
"The hell?!" Dean jerked Sammy out of the women's grasps. "What did you do just do?"
"Did you see that?" Piper asked her sisters and husband, ignoring Dean and talking really fast. "Tell me you saw that!"
"Yeah, we did…" Paige said. "That's only happened once before. When you guys found me."
End: Chapter One