[Fic] Holding Out For No Heroes

[kittydesade]

Title: Holding Out For No Heroes
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: John Winchester, OCs
Word Count: ~1,500
Rating: PG
Summary: John Winchester meant to rescue the civilians and destroy the demons. Except these particular civilians don't need rescuing...
A/N: Written for mundane_bingo "people trying to help you when you don't need help"

This was supposed to be an easy job, and it had turned into a nest of demons bigger than he'd ever run into before. Probably it was the isolated area that did it; Rappahannock County wasn't the biggest bastion of civilization. He'd tracked the last of them to a dead-end gravel road with a metal bar across it, and three cars parked in front of a cabin. Shit.

There were figures in the windows, too, passing back and forth in through the rooms in front of the light. From the road he could see what looked like a kitchen from the curtain pattern, maybe a bathroom from the water tank hanging outside of it, and he didn't know what that third room was. At least two people in the house. Recent arrivals, too, by the heat coming off the hood of at least one of the cars. He made his way up the short, steep hill towards the door, easing open the screen door without creaking it. His breath was coming fast and shallow already, he needed to be clear about this. Focused. Just two demons, nothing he hadn't handled before. One more breath, and he slammed into the door and ...

... almost fell down, water hitting his face with considerable force.

"Shit!" "Did you get him?" "I got him, is..." "He's not smoking." "Doesn't rule out..."

John Winchester was too busy shaking his head to get the water out of his face to hear the rest of it. When his field of vision was clear again there were three people pointing guns at him. Two nine-mils and a...

"... Is that a super soaker?"

She squirted him in the chest this time, at least. "Yes."

He brushed water off his shirt. "What the hell?"

Neither of the taller two moved an inch. The smallest woman, who was dark-haired and tanned and rather pretty except for the ratty clothes she was wearing, put up the water bazooka and came towards him, one fist extended. A pentacle amulet dropped as she came close.

He gave her points for stepping to the side of their line of fire as she closed in on him, though. "At least you seem to be familiar with the routine..." she murmured, reaching up to press the amulet to the side of his neck.

"You're short," was all he could come up with.

She laughed softly at him. "Observo, Master of the Obvious. Stay still." And then her eyes half-closed and something both heated up that side of his neck and jabbed him there; if she hadn't told him to stay still he wouldn't have been braced for the wince. She opened her eyes. "All right. I guess we'll clear you for now."

But the other two waited for her nod before clicking off the safety and holstering their guns. The other woman moved around him to pull the door closed and turn two small gargoyle statues with rubies for eyes back to facing outwards. He would have sworn they'd been facing that way to start with, too. "You could fix that salt line you just busted through, you know," she told him, her mouth twisted in a way that suggested she was laughing at him.

He opened his mouth to respond when she tossed a box of salt at him. Unable to come up with something better, he bent down and fixed the salt line as he was told. "Who are you people? Are you hunters, too?"

The smaller woman snorted. "God forbid. I'm not that suicidal."

"She's a witch," said the young man with a helpful grin.

"Shut up!"

When the two of them turned around again he had his gun out and pointed at her, and once again they were all taking aim. Except the tiny dark-haired woman, who rolled her eyes. "Will you put that thing away before you hurt someone? Not that kind of witch." Again the pentacle came out. "The wicca-kind of witch. I don't truck with demons."

"Truck with?"

"Shut up."

He was pretty sure one of the gargoyles winked at him.

"What's going on here?"

The dark-haired woman sighed, threw up her hands and flopped into a couch along the wall. Her friend shook his head and drew the curtains on the patio window behind them, then closed what looked like some custom-made ceiling-to-floor length shutters. "Well, it was supposed to be a vacation. Then she had one of her dreams and..." Shrug.

"Demons and things," the woman wiggled her fingers. "Scary monsters."

In the kitchen, the other woman began humming a tune.

"You're a psychic," he realized. Maybe the stuff she used was witchy, but the power came from her. She was a psychic. That was at least a little reassuring.

"Something like that." She smiled. That was not reassuring.

The younger woman came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a cloth and shaking her head. "I'm Sandra. That's Daniel. And my bratty big sister there..."

"Hey!"

"Shut up. Is Marisol."

His eyebrows shot up; they didn't look that much alike. "Siblings?"

"Half. Which isn't relevant, the relevant point is demon, front door!" Marisol sat bolt upright, boots hitting the floorboards with a loud thump. He was only mildly relieved to discover that he hadn't been hallucinating as the gargoyles came to life, red eyes glowing and wings mantling. The demon who had just opened the door was even more surprised as they launched themselves at its face.

Marisol fired first, the super-soaker clipping him with a stream of water along his hip and smoking the demon in the stomach.

"Confirmed!" Sandra shouted, took aim, and fired. With a gun she'd taken from the kitchen counter, not the one at her hip. White and red feathers sprouted from the demon's neck, and it stumbled back down the front steps.

By the time John was through the door he was following her, with Daniel and Marisol on his heels. The demon didn't get very far before the tranquilizer took effect, rolling down the hill and into the thorns. "Great," Marisol muttered, and a few other things in Spanish, half of which he remembered from the garage and most of which weren't suitable for mixed company. "Think we can do him right here?"

"Long as it hasn't done anything horrible to the poor guy," Daniel shrugged. "Still be safer indoors."

"True." She sighed, stood. "Bring him in."

"We're taking orders from you, now?"

"Shut up."

John hoisted the man over his shoulder, feeling like he had come in on the middle of a conversation in the center of an arena for a sport he knew nothing about. It wasn't far to the front door, but it was up that damned hill he was rapidly learning to hate. At least Sandra held the door open for him.

"Settle down," Marisol murmured, as the gargoyles started hissing again when they entered. And then she said something in a language he didn't understand. Sounded like German. They led him to one of the side rooms, which turned out to be a bedroom with an old metal bed that could have come from a barracks. The blankets, on the other hand, were knit and quilted and could have come from a flea market.

The medical restraints they tied him to the bed with probably had come from a hospital. He didn't ask how or why. The exorcism was performed with the casual disinterest of an experienced hunter. Which they had all denied, but he had his suspicions.

"You've done this before?" he asked, folding his arms and leaning in the doorway when they were finished. No one paid much attention to him.

"I've been doing this since I was thirteen or so," Marisol shrugged, flopping back on the couch and draping an arm over her eyes. One hand waved in the general direction of the other two. "Started them younger."

"It was kind of hard to avoid it when you kept bringing your work home with you," Sandra called from the kitchen.

"Shut up."

Marisol laughed. "It's not rocket surgery. You just have to be willing to accept the basic premise that you and maybe the rest of the world doesn't know everything."

"I chased two demons into these woods," he told her. Partly to see how they would react, but also because his ego had taken hit after hit in places he didn't know he was vulnerable, with a woman who came up to his armpit taking down demons and another one who seemed to be mostly comprised of scarves and puttering around in the kitchen backing her up. They looked like hippies with more practical attitudes, and they'd almost taken him and a demon down without flinching or even looking up from their relaxing.

They didn't need his help. They'd been doing just fine before he came, maybe better than, since he was the one who'd chased the demons there. He wasn't used to people not needing his help to deal with this kind of thing.

Marisol shrugged. "We got one of them. Other'll have to come out soon enough."

"You want to stick around?" Sandra popped her head out of the kitchen again. "We're making stew and dumplings tonight."

"Vegetarian," the mostly quiet young man added.

John just stared at them all.