My heart bleeded, girl

Title: Waltz of the Flowers
Rating: R
Pairing Sam/Dean
Warnings: None
Summary: Something is killing ballerinas at the Pittsburgh Ballet. Takes place sometime in some nebulous future.
Notes: This was written for 50states_spn. So, I researched folklore and local legends in the 'Burgh and came up with a couple of haunted libraries. While Sam might like that, I was bored. And I wanted to write about something in my city that I know and love, and the Dormont Library wasn't it. So, I made this up completely. The Pittsburgh Ballet Theater isn't the least bit haunted, as far as I know. You could look at this as a bit of PBT RPF, but I would imagine the members of the company would prefer you didn't. The whole thing is farcical enough as it is.
At AO3




Prologue

Alexandra sank gratefully down on one of the prop chairs. This had to have been the longest rehearsal of her life, but now, thank God, it was finally over.

She smiled wanly at Christopher as he practically staggered off down the corridor to his dressing room. He couldn't help moving with grace even when he was exhausted, and Alexandra watched him go with appreciation.

Feeling like she was moving through quicksand, she bent and slowly unlaced the ribbons of her ballet shoes. Her fingers trembled and Alexandra decided then and there that she was going to eat the biggest cheeseburger she could find once she finally got out of the theater.

By the time she got her slippers off, she was alone on stage. Voices and muffled laughter echoed back to her from the dressing rooms, then faded as one by one, the other dancers made their way out onto Seventh Street.

Alexandra liked the way the Pittsburgh ballet shared the lead roles among the Principle Dancers, although sometimes she resented that Erin almost always danced the Saturday night performance.

If you were as good as Erin, you'd dance on Saturday nights, too the voice in her head that sounded just like her grandmother said.

"Shut up, Grandma," Alexandra muttered as she stood and stretched. Her ankle protested the weight, but she ignored it. A little bit of tendonitis never hurt anyone.

Someone must have left an outside door open somewhere. It was cold in the theater, colder than it had been earlier. Alexandra sighed and was startled to see her breath curl out in a white tendril.

The hair on the back of her neck raised and she felt a prickle of fear.

"Hello? Christopher, is that you? Is someone there?" Alexandra's voice was muffled, as if she were calling out in a thick fog, and then the fog was there, surrounding her. It chilled her, got into her bones, raising goosebumps on her arms. She could feel it in her lungs, choking her.

When she screamed, there was no sound.

*

"The what?"

"The Pittsburgh Ballet," Sam replied, as if that were a perfectly reasonable place to propose they hunt a ghost.

Dean put his coffee cup down on the table with all the authority he could muster on four hours sleep.

"No way in hell, Sam. I'm not going to the ballet." Dean stared at his eggs, almost ready to swear that they were staring back. Sam had kept him up pretty late last night. He could have sworn the gray light of dawn had been coming through the window when Sam had finally gotten his fill, slipping out of Dean with a contented sigh.

Dean hadn't been quite so contented, seeing as it was his ass that was sore and leaking, but Sam had fallen across Dean's chest, sliding into sleep before Dean could point out that when they woke up they were going to be glued together with come.

So instead of protesting, Dean had let himself fall asleep, too, more content than he wanted to admit at being covered by both his brother's weight and his bodily fluids.

"We don't have to watch the ballet, Dean," Sam said, in his patient voice, the one that made Dean want to punch him in the face. He couldn't do that anymore, though. They'd made a deal, come to an agreement; Dean would stop punching Sam if Sam would make more of an effort not to annoy Dean.

It was a pretty weak deal on Sam's part, but Dean had to agree to it when Sam pointed out that Dean had punched Sam in the face way more times than was probably necessary in the course of their lives, and that maybe it was time to call a halt.

There also may have been the promise of blowjobs involved.

"We just have to figure out what's killing ballerinas and get rid of the damn thing," Sam said.

Dean didn't believe a word of it. Sam had probably been wanting to see a ballet since he was a kid, and this was finally his opportunity.

"We're not that far from Pittsburgh, Dean. We can at least check it out." Sam downed the rest of his protein shake and put his hands on the table, like this was already a done deal and he was ready to stand up and be on their way.

"The weather in Pittsburgh is crappy this time of year," Dean pronounced. "I don't think so." His eggs had congealed by this time, and he pushed his plate away in disgust.

Sam sighed. "We should go. There are a couple of good micro-breweries in Pittsburgh. You'll like 'em, I promise."

"I'm not drinking beer made out of wheat and berries, Sam," Dean said, outraged at the mere suggestion. He stood up and tossed a twenty on the table.

"Dean, it's Pittsburgh. Home of the Steelers. They don't make berry beer there." Sam rolled his eyes.

Dean brightened. "Maybe we can catch a game while we're there." Counteract the horror of the ballet.

Sam got to his feet. "Come on. We'll drive for a while, then stop and get you a cheeseburger when your stomach's ready for food."

Dean ignored the way Sam looking out for him made him feel all warm inside. He was dragging Dean to the ballet, he damn well better look out for him.

*

"What the hell is a Nutcracker?"

"They're, um, wooden figures, with these handle things on their backs that make them, you know, crack nuts. With their teeth." Sam was trying to draw pictures in the air with his hands while he talked. Dean found it pretty amusing to watch. "You put a nut in their mouth and –" he made an up and down movement with his hand "- sometimes they look like Santa playing golf and sometimes they look like Mickey Mouse, or soldiers –"

"Okay, now you're just making shit up."

"No, come on, Dean, you know what a nutcracker is." Sam glared at him. He was right; Dean wasn't completely devoid of knowledge, but he wasn't telling Sam that.

"All I know is that it sounds painful. Why is this one dancing?" He gestured at the poster plastered on the side of the Benedum Theater. "Guy looks like some kind of mutant, and what's with those tights and that big head? Look at his giant teeth, Sam!"

Sam sighed. Dean hid a grin. It was too easy.

"I'm not watching a mutant Ballbreaker dance, Sam, I don't care what you say."

"Nutcracker," Sam corrected. He brightened. "There's a dancing Rat King, too."

Dean glowered at him. "Oh, hell, no."

Sam shouldered his way in through the stage door. "Come on, let's talk to someone, see if we can find out what's going on."

Backstage was a warren of small dressing rooms, full of people hurtling by with racks of shiny costumes, shouting into headsets. Some of the tiniest women Dean had ever seen passed them by, a couple of them eyeing Sam with interest.

He'd bet they were pretty damn flexible.

Dean had to admit Sam looked sharp in his suit, and his red tie was particularly festive. It made his eyes look bright, which made Dean smile. He was startled out of his reverie as a horde of children, some of them dressed like sheep and some like bumblebees, swarmed by them.

"What the hell, Sam?" Dean hissed.

"Calm down, Dean. We need to find Terrence Orr. He's the artistic director, I think." Sam consulted what looked like a program in his hand. "Those kids are just part of the ballet," he added.

"How do you know that, Sam?" Dean shook his head.

Sam didn't answer, he just worked his way through the chaos backstage until he found an office with the name Terrence Orr on it.

"What kind of a name is Terrence, anyway?" Dean asked, just to be ornery.

"It's a ballet name, is that what you want to hear?" Sam said.

"Yep," Dean nodded, and grinned when Sam turned to look at him. Sam shook his head and smiled back.

"Come on, you Neanderthal," he said as he pushed opened Terrence Orr's office door.

Orr was fairly cooperative once he was convinced they were trying to help. "I really can't afford to lose any more dancers, Agent Mulrooney. I'm going to run out of Sugar Plum Fairies."

"I don't know what that means," Dean said, holding up a hand to forestall Orr from speaking. "And I don't want to know."

"Mr. Orr," Sam said, "If you could just tell us if you know of any reason why someone would want to kill your dancers?"

Orr cocked his head and stared at Sam. "Agent O'Malley, do you know how competitive ballet is?" He gave an impatient snort. "Some of these dancers would kill to get a principle role."

In the Pittsburgh ballet? Dean wanted to ask. Really? Instead, he said, "Yeah, Sammy, didn't you see The Black Swan?"

Sam boggled at him and Dean gave himself five points. "Come on, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis? Dude, what those two girls were doing to each –" he caught himself and broke off, schooling his expression back to "professional officer of the law."

Orr's lip curled in disgust. He looked pointedly at his watch and said, "If there's nothing else…"

Seriously, the guy was going to get all uptight because Dean liked a little girl-on-girl action? What a schmuck.

"Wait, I do have one more question," Sam said. Orr stared at him, and Sam continued hurriedly, "Is there anything these girls have in common?"

Orr tilted his head and then nodded. "Of course. They've all danced the Sleeping Beauty."

Seriously? Sleeping Beauty?

"Is there anyone left who's danced, um, Sleeping Beauty, anyone who's not been hurt or, um, dead?" Sam asked.

"The Sleeping Beauty, and yes. Erin Halloran is still alive. She'd better be, she's my Sugar Plum Fairy tonight.

"Okay, thanks. If you think of anything else, call us," Sam said, as he handed Orr a card. Orr handled it like it was covered with germs, barely touching it and dropping it quickly onto his desk.

Dean took offense to that and was about to tell the guy to go fuck himself, but Sam hustled him out of the office.

"Dude, let me go," Dean grumbled, shrugging out of Sam's grip.

"The Black Swan, Dean, really?"

"I'm telling you, Sammy, you should watch it. Well," Dean amended, "at least the sex parts. The rest of it was a combination of crazycakes and boring as fuck."

"Okay, so I guess we need to hit up a library," Sam said, in an obvious attempt to change the subject. He'd obviously seen the movie, too, because his cheeks were pink. It was a good look on him.

"You sly dog, you," Dean said, giving him an admiring pat on the shoulder as they made their way back out into the cold Pittsburgh sunshine.

"Nice day," Sam observed, glancing up at the clear blue sky. "I thought you said the weather in Pittsburgh was lousy this time of year."

"Give it time," Dean said.

*

He was right. An hour later when they emerged from the library, the sky was gray and overcast, with a fine, cold mist in the air. It was very lowering.

"Is there at least a football game we can go to?" Dean asked plaintively. "Please tell me the Steelers are playing at home this weekend."

"It's impossible to get tickets," Sam said. "People leave them to their children in their wills."

"Are you kidding me? We stopped the apocalypse, Sam, I think we can manage football tickets." He squinted at Sam, getting caught for a minute in at the small droplets of water clinging to his eyelashes. "Besides, you're talking about the Packers, with the hard-to-get tickets and all."

"What we really need to get –" and here Sam paused dramatically, and Dean rolled his eyes for probably the millionth time in his life. That felt pretty damn awesome, that he and Sam were still able to be in situations where eye-rolling was the appropriate response. "- is ballet tickets," Sam was saying, showing no respect for Dean's moment of happiness. Completely ruining it, in fact.

Dean snorted. "You can bet your ass there's not a long wait for those," he said. "I'm guessing they're pretty easy to come by."

"I don't know, Dean. It's Christmas, and it's the Nutcracker." Sam sounded serious, like he actually believed himself. Dean slugged him in the arm.

"Hey, I thought we agreed, no more hitting."

"No more punching you in the face," Dean corrected loftily. "Which I did not do."

*

Dean would maintain for the rest of their lives that they could have solved this case without actually having to sit through what he was sure was the longest ballet in the history of the world, but they would never know for sure, because Sam didn't let that happen.

Oh, no, Sam made sure they were sitting right there in the theater, watching the most confusing assortment of dancers do the most surreal things onstage. Dean couldn't follow it for the life of him.

"Is this some sort of story? This doesn't make a damn bit of sense, Sam," Dean complained at half-time.

"It's called intermission, Dean," Sam said. Dean couldn't believe what a geek his brother still was, after all these years, and after all the shit he'd been through.

"What the hell was up with the rats? And the snow, and the giant Christmas tree and the girl with the scarf and the kid with the sled –"

Sam grinned and kissed Dean mid-rant. Right on the mouth and right in the middle of the fucking Benedum theater.

Dean kissed him back thoroughly before planting his hands on Sam's brick wall-like chest and shoving.

"Dude, we're in public and we're in the middle of a case," he snapped, but he wasn't nearly as irritated as he made out like he was.

Sam wasn't the least bit fooled. He grinned down at Dean and said, "Just wait. It gets more confusing in the second half."

Sam wasn't kidding. Dean gave up after the giant red dragon, which was actually a little bit cool, and closed his eyes. A little catnap wouldn't hurt, and if Sam thought the ballet was so awesome, let him stay awake and watch it. He could damn well wake Dean up if anything weird happened.

Well, weirder than those kids dressed like sheep playing with hoops onstage.

Dean startled awake to the sound of loud applause ringing in his ears. He looked around, trying to remember where he was and why there were people all around him on their feet yelling "Bravo!"

Sam was standing at his side, applauding right along with everyone else. He stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly, causing Dean to flinch. Standing up, he elbowed Sam in the side. "Quit making that racket."

"Dude, that was awesome!" Sam grinned. He patted his pockets and grabbed Dean's hand, pulling him down the aisle. "We've got what we need, let's get backstage."

They were greeted by more tiny women in sparkly costumes, muscular men, and people with headsets. Sam and Dean wandered around the corridors, keeping a sharp eye out for anything unusual. The previous deaths had happened after either a rehearsal or a performance, once most everyone had left the building.

Things gradually quieted down, and Dean was beginning to think Orr was right, that there was no ghost here, only competitive dancers offing each other for a role, but then he realized that he could see Sam's breath in front of his face.

"Sam," he said.

"I know," Sam answered.

A sudden scream broke the heavy silence and they took off running in the direction it came from.

Pulling up short as they reached one of the small dressing rooms, Dean took in the sight of a beautiful dark-haired women, dressed in a very sparkly tutu, her arms outstretched in mute appeal as a more ethereal, but equally beautiful woman with flowing blonde hair advanced on her, cold fog swirling around the room and almost obscuring them both from view.

"Please," whispered the girl with the dark hair. Dean recognized Erin Halloran from the cast pictures in the program. "Please."

"You took it from me," the ghostly ballerina said. "It was mine and you took it."

"I didn't mean to," Erin cried. "I didn't mean to."

"It doesn't matter, it was MINE." The pure fury on the spirit's face distorted it until she was no longer beautiful, but hideously ugly.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty!" Dean called, throwing a handful of salt at her. He'd told Sam that coming to the ballet without weapons was stupid, but Sam insisted sawed-off shotguns full of salt pellets weren't really welcome here and they'd have to make do with loose salt in their pockets.

"This is the stupidest thing we've ever done," Dean grumbled as he flung another handful at the ghost, who had disappeared at the first handful and re-materialized again behind Sam.

Sam turned quickly and held up a lock of hair, flicking a Bic and lighting it on fire. It burned slowly, filling the room with the usual stench. Dean hated the smell of burning hair.

The ghost screamed and vanished in flames, leaving nothing behind but a wisp of fog. Sam dropped the last piece of hair and let the fire go out on the floor.

Dean glanced at Erin, who was crouched in a corner, staring at them like they'd lost their minds. Sam helped her to her feet, just as Terrence Orr came running into the room, followed by a tall, handsome man, whose arms Erin immediately threw herself into.

"Steven!" she gasped and he picked her up easily, cradling her in his arms and leaving the room without a backwards glance.

Orr looked at the charred piece of blonde hair on the floor, then at Sam and Dean, frowning. "It was Sarah Webster?"

Sam nodded. "It was. She's at peace now, don't worry."

"I wasn't worried about that crazy bitch," Orr snorted. "I just didn't want to lose anymore –"

"Sugar Plum Fairies," Sam and Dean said in unison.

"Right," Dean said. "Let's get out of here, Sammy."

*

"Now this is more like it," Dean said with appreciation. They were seated about halfway up the virulent mustard-yellow seats of Heinz Field, watching the Steelers kick the crap out of the Cleveland Browns. It was colder than shit, and snow swirled across the stadium, but Dean had a cold beer in one hand and a tray of nachos in the other. He was in heaven.

Sam nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that ballet crap isn't really my thing."

Dean turned to stare at his brother in pure indignation. As he watched the corners of Sam's mouth turn up in a smile, he cursed the fact that he couldn’t punch him in the face like he deserved.

He thought about elbowing him in the ribs instead.

But that would mean risking either the nachos or his beer, and it wasn't worth it.

So he settled for, "Payback's a bitch, Sammy," taking a long swallow of beer.

Sam's smile widened.