Fanmix Fic: Part 11 - Epilogue
Previous parts here.
I Ain't Scared of Lightning
I ain't scared of lightning.
Come on and do your worst.
If they gave degrees
For cheating destiny
Then man
I got a first.
No I ain't scared of lightning.
It's the same old empty threat.
I've been standing proud
Beneath the gathering cloud.
And man
I ain't dead yet.
~o~
It all works out pretty much okay. Sam goes to night school to finish his degree. Dean gets a job at a garage, where the other guys are pretty chill, the pay is decent, and the owner doesn’t seem fazed by the gaps in Dean’s paperwork. And everyone always thinks they’re gay.
Jan, unsurprisingly, is the apple of Dean’s eye. In his opinion, she is the most amazing baby that’s ever happened in the history of babies (not that he had much of a basis of comparison until now, besides Sam of course). And after the night she turns six months old and he stays up all night, sitting in a rocking chair with the Colt stretched across his lap, hopped up on No-doze and adrenaline, they begin to worry less about the Demon. At least not every single minute of every day.
Because Jan is just a little kid, normal in every way.
There always seem to be creepy crawlies acting up in the area-on occasion Dean thinks that maybe it’s kind of wack that he chooses to raise his girl somewhere with so much supernatural activity. But then it’s what his own dad did, and he never leaves Jan alone or anything like that. Besides, this is what Dean does. Plus, he knows better than most anyone else that it’s not really safe anywhere.
Dean is obsessive about his work, both the hunting when he can get away, and also at the shop. His fingernails are always imbedded with grease no matter how much he tries to wash it away. His boss keeps saying, “Winchester, find yourself a woman, you don’t have to butter me up this much. Not gonna fire my best guy.” But Dean just smiles wryly and says, “Only one woman in my life, man, and she’s less than three feet tall.”
That’s not entirely true though-Dean does goes out sometimes, picks up a random barfly and takes her to a motel. It’s sort of like the old days, except that Sam’s at home on those nights, doing his homework and watching teletubbies with Jan.
Dean doesn’t remember the name of the first girl he fucked after Faith went away. She was the blondest one he could find-tall, voluptuous, all tits and ass; he’d thought he was safe. But turned out she used the same soap as Faith had, and Dean got flashes of Faith’s “O” face the whole time he ate her out. He performed adequately; Dean was pretty sure of that-just gritted his teeth and concentrated really hard on getting off when the time came. Once the chick walked out the door though, wearing an outfit that to his less-drunk eyes seemed way too tight in the wrong way, Dean fell back on the coverlet and let a few exhausted tears run down his face. After that slip though Dean got his shit together, and remembered that sex is just supposed to be a recreational activity, not something you let yourself take too seriously.
His favorite word used to be “fuck,” now it’s “Daddy.” Before Jan learned to talk, it was something of a competition between Dean and Sam as to whose name she’d say first. To Sam, it was a joke, but when his brother took off for class, Dean would repeat it over and over to a wide-eyed Jan, emphasizing the “D” sound as she gurgled in her high chair. The first recognizable thing she uttered did end up being “Da-da,” the second was “no,” and the third was “Sam.”
If Dean had known back in the day that kids were chick magnets, he’d have taken up babysitting. He thinks it’s pretty weird actually, how just hauling his daughter around at the grocery increases the proportion of females checking out his ass. ‘Cause usually, when there’s a tyke in tow, someone else is attached, right? Dean makes a point of avoiding any woman who makes eyes at him when he’s out somewhere with Jan. No big loss, there are plenty others to be had. He does, however, point out these advantages to Sam when he needs to work a double-shift and someone’s got to pick her up from daycare in the afternoon.
They make friends here, guys to play pool with and not take their money. Married dudes who understand about having to check in at home, guys with wives who look at Dean with appreciative yet sympathetic eyes. Sam pals around with kids from the university, but Dean doesn’t really find much of what they say all that interesting and he’s pretty sure they don’t understand a fucking word he says. It’s cool though, because Sam seems pretty content and the two of them still spend most of their time together anyway-there’s just too much shit that other people wouldn’t understand.
Dean fires a lot of babysitters early on before he finally settles on Greg. Greg is some guy that Sam knows from his part-time job at the local bookstore. He’s quiet and kind of strangely tidy-looking and at first Dean says to Sam, “Since when are dudes babysitters?” in response to which Sam just gapes. Jan loves the guy though (but not too much) and Greg does stuff like starts teaching her to read early, which she’s apparently really good at for her age.
Because, you see, Dean doesn’t trust most of the high school girls that come cheap. They’ll probably just bring their boyfriends over and fool around on the couch-Dean remembers all about that. Besides they might fill his little girl’s head with weird crap. Like the one who freaked out about the fact that Jan doesn’t own a single doll. The hell? It’s not like Dean deprives her-in fact, Sam’s always reminding him that they can’t actually afford to buy her every lego set for her age range and also replenish their supply of hunting gear. But when Jan tugs on his pant leg and looks up at him with solemn brown eyes, Dean can’t seem to stop himself from giving her whatever it is that she wants.
Time moves differently now that Jan’s around. For one thing, she grows out of her clothes at an insane rate. But the doctor assures them that she’s not actually a freak, just a healthy, growing girl who’s likely to end up tall. Before Dean knows it it’s almost Jan’s fourth birthday, which kind of makes him feel a little old, even though Sam’s the one who’s started going prematurely grey. Which apparently some girls are into, since Sam seems to do okay that way. After graduation, Sammy starts working at the library, which is infinitely amusing to Dean, but he has to admire how the whole “sheepish, nerdy guy” thing gets his little brother laid. To each their own, man.
So yeah, things are pretty much okay-nothing like how Dean would have expected his life to end up, but then he never really gave all that much thought to the future before.
Now he does.
~o~
Breathe Me
Help, I have done it again.
I have been here many times before.
I hurt myself again today.
And, the worst part is there's no one else to blame.
Be my friend.
Hold me, wrap me up.
Unfold me.
I am small.
I'm needy.
~o~
“Angel, I'm dying.”
“Yeah. It's a lot easier than redemption, huh?”+++
~o~
When Faith stumbles in, lugging her ever-present duffel, she immediately feels out of place. This isn’t what she expected at all.
Angel seems bizarrely cheerful for him, lording over the head of the table as he watches Connor eat. He’s drinking blood from a mug and listening avidly to Connor’s stories about life at Oxford as Connor stuffs his still-skinny frame with pounds of lasagna and salad and bread. Faith’s entrance interrupts all of that. Angel and Connor look up at her with twin turns of the head.
“Uh, sorry,” she mumbles, on the verge of walking out of this Norman Rockwell painting-the undead version. It’s just so fucking strange, seeing Angel like this-a contented patriarch. Faith definitely feels like the wayward child come home. “Guess I’ll just throw this…in the lobby or something. Don’t wanna interrupt.” Her eyelid starts twitching for no apparent reason.
But Angel gets up to greet her before she can flee. “It’s okay, Faith. We were just finishing up. Right?” He looks back at Connor fondly.
Connor nods and chokes briefly on a mouthful of bread before saying, “Yeah, plus I’ve gotta run if I’m going to catch up with Lisa and Greg. I haven’t seen them since Stanford.” Huh. So, the feral boy she met all those years ago has turned tame-he’s got friends.
“Be careful,” Angel calls over his shoulder as Connor throws on his jacket and waltzes towards the door. Connor grins and mock-salutes, rolling his eyes.
Angel watches until his son is completely out of frame, then swirls around and claps his hands together, asking, “So Faith, want something to drink?”
“Yeah,” she says instinctively, and then softer, “That’d help.”
~o~
Angel guides Faith to the most well-appointed part of the Hyperion: his suite. It’s pretty surreal, mostly in the way that Angel’s life seems so normal to Faith-a two-hundred-year-old-plus vampire who’s survived hell and multiple apocalypses shouldn’t have a domestic life. It’s just weird, man. And also, this all makes Faith feel cheated out of one companion in misery. And that makes her feel like shit. Because it’s not like she wants Angel to be unhappy-she knows that being reunited with his son is a dream come true for him. But it’s still…lonely.
“It’s good to see you, Faith, but ah, you didn’t say why you’re here. Is something up that I oughta know about? Something you guys couldn’t say on the phone? Did Giles send you?”
Faith chokes on her beer, a Budweiser that she’s fairly sure Angel got specially in anticipation of her arrival. Angel’s not really the type for cheap brew; he’s having scotch. Faith’s drinking too fast-nerves. She wipes the back of her hand over her mouth and shakes her head. “Nope. No disasters. Just me. Sorry to disappoint.” It’s so easy-slipping into sarcasm, like reflex.
Angel’s staring at her with concerned eyes; that certainly doesn’t help. “I’m not disappointed. Just curious. You’re not exactly big with the social visits most of the time.”
Faith begins to pick at the label on her bottle, looking down. “Yeah, well, I-” She stops, lowers her voice, “I guess I just wanted to see a friend, ya know?”
Angel visibly relaxes, sitting back in his chair. “I’m glad you think of me that way,” he says, still studying her. Faith continues glugging at her beer, finishing it quickly, and by the time she’s done Angel’s already appeared with another. He’s so gracious it makes her feel uncomfortable. He politely asks her about everyone back “home” and she answers in short, staccato sentences: “Buffy’s fine. Yeah, Spike too. Willow has a new girlfriend-way too young. Xander and Dawn, who’d a thunk it? I’m fine. Lots of work. Been away a lot.” And the whole while Angel keeps looking at her in that placid, inspecting way that he has sometimes, the one that’s always made it so much harder to hide anything from him. Other people are easily duped.
Faith doesn’t tell him about her sleepless nights, the ache in her heart that still won’t go away, or her catalogue of regrets, but she thinks that he can sense it all. Angel’s always been able to pick up on that kind of shit.
When she’s run out of small talk and so has he-neither of them are good at this-Faith begins to fidget manically, picking at the seams of her jeans and jostling her foot, until finally she just comes out with it, surprising herself. “Angel?”
“Yeah?” he says, in a gentle tone that sounds like the beginning of a whole new conversation.
“You know there was a guy, right?”
Angel nods. “The demon hunter with the brother? The one you wouldn’t bring home to meet the folks.” He smiles slightly at his own lame joke. He always does that. It’s corny. But Faith likes that about him.
“Yeah, that’s the one.” Faith barrels on, hardly stopping for breath. It’s compulsive-something about Angel makes her want to confess all her sins; she’s still testing him perhaps, to see if he’ll finally get it-that she really is beyond help. “I-we-I had a baby. It was-it was an accident. So fucked up. I just left. Couldn’t help it. Woke up in the hospital and knew I couldn’t hack it. No way, no how. And Dean was so good…”
She looks up tentatively and Angel’s gazing at her like he cares. It’s so wrong. (Even though that’s exactly why she’s here.) “I mean, so he did have a tendency to lie, and well, steal actually, and sometimes cheat-not on me I mean, but at cards and stuff like that. But-but he loved me. God, he must have been on drugs.” She lets her head fall in her hands.
“Why are you telling me this now?” Angel sounds so calm. Faith wants to scream.
“I don’t know!” she explodes, then falls silent, her head reeling. She can hear each tick of the wall clock, because Angel just sits and waits for her patiently, not scolding out loud, not reproving. Eventually, he wins the test of wills and Faith finishes lamely, “It’s just-it’s just been so long. Guess I just wanted someone to know.” She lowers her voice to a throaty whisper again. “Someone who’d get it.”
Faith’s almost convinced herself of this by the time she’s finished saying it. But deep down she’s still pissed that Angel refuses to punish her-that she can’t get that from Dean either, not without going back anyway.
Angel clinks the ice in his glass, pulls no punches. “I already knew. Could smell it on you-the last time.”
Faith’s mind flashes back to the days after she fled, running straight from the birthing center to LA. Angel never asked her then what was wrong, just tended the wounds she’d thought no one could see. He was her oasis then-a few days rest until she made her way back to England where at least there was a readymade purpose.
Faith shakes her head, trying to dislodge those terrible, delirious days and looks up at Angel with stricken eyes. “I-you-what?” She smacks her head with the flat of her palm and out of her mouth comes, “Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck. If you know, then maybe Spike knows too. And if Spike knows then Buffy… Oh my god, they all must be feelin’ all sorry for me and shit.” She says this like it’s the worst thing that could possibly happen-being pitied-and it used to be, before she lost Dean. Lost him. That makes it sound like he was a pen or a hair elastic, not a person she cared about.
Faith could swear Angel’s psychic sometimes, because the next thing that he says is, “Did you love him?”
She sits rock still for a minute, wordless, then figures she’s got nothing to lose. Well, that’s kind of a given. “Yeah. Yes, I did.”
“So that’s what you gave up?” Funny how she never phrases it that way in her head.
“I guess so.” Faith pauses, then bursts again. “I’ve done so many fucked up things. Wicked bad things. You know more about it than pretty much anybody else. So why? Tell me why the hell this feels just as bad as all the rest?”
Angel’s quiet for a bit, thinking before he speaks. Finally he says, “Because this one you did to yourself.”
“You’re one to give advice,” she says, wanting to cut him for being right.
“Yeah well, considering that I’ve got over two centuries on you, I’d say so, yes.”
She smiles then, crookedly, because it’s an assload better than crying.
Angel walks over to her then, leaning over and touching her shoulder with his hand. Faith shudders but doesn’t look up. Doesn’t push him away either. “It’s never too late, Faith. We have to believe that.”
Faith hears his words, but they drop down inside her, disappearing like a penny in a wishing well.
“It is for me. Maybe not about everything, but it is about this."
+++Note: Opening dialogue taken from AtS, 4.15, “Orpheus.”
~o~
Stolen Car
You walked into my house last night.
I couldn’t help but notice
A light that was long gone still burning strong.
You were sitting,
Your fingers like fuses.
Your eyes were cinnamon.
You said you stand for every known abuse
That was ever threatened to anyone but you.
And why should I know better by now
When I’m old enough not to?
~o~
There’s nothing like fulfilling a lifelong goal to make a man honest. Well, that and whiskey. And a beer or three or four. Dean and Faith have a bottle between them now, instead of a continent, but the gap between them is crackling through the air.
The funny part is that they fought together better tonight than they ever had before, more in synch, hardly even having to speak. Demon’s finally gone, shot through the heart with the old Colt by Sam, with Faith and Dean pinning it down. Sam used his mind to bring the gun right up to the thing’s chest-no fucking around this time, only having one bullet left and all.
But if Dean were a man for metaphors, he’d say that there’s a fuckload of ghosts haunting this room. Yeah, the Demon may finally be over and done with, but the secrets it let out are still in play.
Dean plays back the way that son of a bitch went after Faith with taunts, the whole thing rewinding over and over like a skipping record in his head…
“Murderer. Trash. Piece of meat. Your momma never wanted you either, Faith, that’s why she used you as an ashtray. The neighborhood boys too-they knew what you were, the way you were meant to be used.”
But Faith was unswayed, lashing out with words as well as her fists and blade.
“You think this psych-out mumbo jumbo’s gonna work on me, you bastard? Badder things than you could ever hope to be already pulled this whole 'remind Faithy about her crap childhood' thing to try an’ throw me off my game. Lemme tell ya, I know my sins better than you ever could, motherfucker. Don’t need a friggin’ refresher course, so just shut the fuck up and prepare to die.”
She was eerily, deadly calm then, but now Faith’s face is a completely deadened mask as she drinks straight from the bottle, not looking Dean’s way. “You would pick the only rural hellmouth I’ve ever heard of as place to settle down.”
Dean doesn’t entirely know what she’s talking about, but he can’t concentrate on that right now, so he busts out with a loaded non sequitur instead. “I know you never wanted her,” he says, because he can’t think about anything else. Faith doesn’t immediately respond so he rubs the flat of his palm against his woozy forehead and goes on. “You said you didn’t, more than once. So the thing I’ve spent the last four years trying to figure out is why the fuck you even went through with it at all.”
She still won’t look at him.
Dean opens his wallet, fumbles drunkenly through his billfold and tosses a crumpled snapshot into her lap. “There she is, Faith. She’s fucking beautiful,” he says meanly, even though he hadn’t planned it to come out that way.
Faith holds it up to the light in shaking hands, eyes wide like a scared animal. She takes a long look, various expressions mutating over her features before she stands up and starts pacing, Jan’s department store image fluttering to the ground. After a few tense minutes of that, she spins and stares Dean down, her voice cracked and sullen. “Cat’s outta the bag now, so I might as well just tell you it all.” But then for long seconds after she says nothing and Dean finds himself holding his breath, not knowing what he’s waiting for, just that he has been for what seems like forever. Faith looks up at the ceiling and then finally back down at Dean, eyes burning. “Jesus H. Christ, Dean. Wanna know exactly how many men I killed? Do you?” she snarls.
Dean becomes completely still-every muscle, every nerve on edge, even through the boozy haze.
Faith goes back to the infuriating pacing. “Yeah, you didn’t know that ‘till now, did ya? It was three, by the way, and only the first one was on accident; the others I was gettin’ paid. I guess maybe I figured you can come back from that kind of shit as a warrior, but not as a friggin’ mother. Hell, Murder Two, twenty-five to life, that’s where I really oughta be, if it wasn’t for the Council.” She’s picking up steam now in her tirade, taking heaving breaths to keep going. “I swore I was down for this whole redemption dealie, been paying my dues killing evil things for years. But it’s never gonna be over. Never.” She stops abruptly, piercing him with a look. “So tell me now, Dean. Now tell me you’re not glad I stayed away.”
Dean opens his mouth to talk, but nothing comes out. But Faith’s still on a roll anyway.
“Wanna know how? How I watched them bleed? How I tortured people who were just trying to help me?”
“Think I already know all about that, actually,” he says under his breath, but she hears him-he can tell by the stricken look on her face.
Faith yelling and going off like this is familiar; it’s the next thing she says that cuts him like a dirty kitchen knife. “Funny thing, ain’t it? How that hell spawn couldn’t get a rise outta me, but you still can, just by existing.”
“Faith,” he says, finding his wits enough to rush up and grab her by the arm, stop her before she internally combusts. “I already knew what you were in there for.” What he doesn’t say is: But I should have known about all the rest from the way you woke up shaking at night...
“What?” And just like that, she turns from a mounting hurricane into just a girl-a woman-wounded and real.
“You think I didn’t get nerd boy to look you up? I was waiting for you to tell me, but you never did. And then you just fucking took off.”
“Oh.” Her eyes are huge in their sockets, and Dean drops Faith’s arm and looks down at the floor to avoid getting lost in their swirling brown depths.
“You’re not as good at keeping secrets as you think you are, Lehane. In three years you dropped a hell of a lot of hints. And I learned the hard way that on the front lines, nobody’s clean. Come on now, I’m not as fucking stupid as you take me for.” Dean stops to taste his own anger for a second before raising his voice. “Hell, we both had a hand in offing the poor sucker possessed by the Demon today.” Dean’s full on hollering now himself, and it’s giving him a headache. So he opts for clenching his hands into fists over and over again instead.
They stand silently across the room from each other-with cubic feet of air, too many years, and a seemingly insurmountable amount of emotional wreckage scattered on the floor between them. Faith’s sudden presence is making his home seem treacherous-not his own. This is where Dean and Sam watch Nascar on TV and argue about whose turn it is to do the dishes. Where they spent countless hours on the computer and the phone searching for stray hints about the Demon. Their big family curse that in the end Faith found for them because she’s in with the White Hat mafia. How much sooner would all of this have been over if she hadn’t run off the way she did? (If he'd loved her enough to make her stay.)
This is also where Jan took her first steps. Where he taught her how to tie her shoelaces. Dean thanks god she’s safely away from here, and not just because of the danger but also because if he saw the two of them in the same room right now he might freak the fuck out, drunk and depleted as he is. Sam’s with her now-that’s good.
Faith’s still not saying anything, just staring at him in way that makes it impossible not to just come right out with it and cry out, “Why couldn’t you just trust me, Faith? Why?”
“I did it for you, I think,” she replies, finally answering his almost-forgotten question. “Maybe that doesn’t make any sense. It didn't really then, dunno why it should now. And I did trust you. My problem was-my problem was with me. Can't you get that, Dean?”
Dean takes a good long look at Faith. She’s all angles, pared down to wiry muscle and dark eyes, looking just tough as she always has been, yet also more fragile than he’s ever seen her. “You’re so fucked in the head, Faith. You’re so fucked up,” he says, and yet weirdly, in his head it sounds like, "I love you."
“I know,” she says simply. “Maybe I thought things could be different. Maybe I was wrong. But I can’t take any of it back now, so what’s the point?”
There’s nothing to say to that, so Dean kisses her, brutally, pushing Faith up against the wall, lifting her up so they're pelvis to pelvis as his body impacts with hers, and a wave of frustrated, pissed-off desire courses through him as he runs his fingers through the unruly mass of her hair, his whole body singing with the relief of not being dead. His tongue finds inexplicable ways to speak with hers without the clumsiness of words-Dean thinks she’s listening but still he mumbles out loud, “You drive me crazy, you always did.” He can't believe any of this is real, because the next thing he knows, Dean's nailing the mother of his child up again his living room wall, and she's pushing out breathy encouragement all the while, even though she missed it. She missed it all.
They fuck in a way they never did when they were together, desperate, like it’ll never happen again, like there isn’t enough time. Because Dean’s a dumb ass about Faith still-in spite of the pulse of his still-broken heart, he still wants her, and he’s too drunk and too overwhelmed to rein that in.
~o~
The day breaks white and bleary, sun streaming through the window onto Faith’s face. Her head aches and her muscles are killing her. And here she is, in Dean’s bed, naked and bruised and four years older.
Faith looks around and finds herself alone. This bright sun and plaid, flannel sheets vision of normal might as well be the twilight zone. Before she can get her bearings, a tiny, dark-haired whirlwind bursts though the door and jumps onto the bed next to Faith, who covers herself up the best she can and stares.
“Who are you?”
“I-I’m Faith,” is all Faith can get to come out of her mouth before Dean comes barreling in barefoot and bathrobe-clad, picking up the kid and tossing her over his shoulder.
“She’s Daddy’s friend, baby, and she’s not feeling so good so let’s leave her alone. C’mon, we’ll get you something to eat.” Dean looks back over his shoulder with an unreadable expression as he carries the wriggling, living, little person out in his arms. Faith is left paralyzed, feeling even more naked than before.
Seeing is believing, that’s for sure. Because last night he was burning, pulsing-her man again for a limited time only-and now Dean belongs to another girl.
She manages to reacquire her clothes from the bedroom floor before Dean comes back, face solemn, his hands in his pockets and barely looking at her.
“Um, does she-?” Faith says, using all of her courage to look up and let her question hang in the air. Killing demons is definitely easier than this.
“Jan’s mother is dead,” he says softly, scrubbing the hardwood floor with his toes. “I didn’t expect them to get back until later and I don’t bring chicks home so…look, don’t worry about it. This isn’t your problem.” This all comes out more tired than straight-up bitter and Faith’s trying not to think, Where do you take them then?
“Jan,” she tastes the word in her mouth. “So you really went with that…”
Dean interrupts her, “Yeah, look. Faith, you’ve got to go. I-” And then he falls down on the bed, sitting down and looking at her with bloodshot eyes. Faith doesn’t know what to say, so she waits for him.
He just spits it out, still braver than her. “I’m still a fucking idiot when it comes to you-but the thing is, I’m somebody’s father now. Everything’s different. I won’t confuse her, and I won’t let you.” His tone is firm but not cruel.
“I know,” she says, touching his stubble with her palm. Dean takes her hand and places it gently back in her lap, letting his fingers linger a minute, then releasing.
“You saved our asses, showing up when you did. And that’s something. But I’ve got no clue what to say to you about anything else. Last night...”
“I’ll wait,” she says, cutting him off and standing up on trembling legs.
“All right,” Dean says dazedly, "okay," and settles his head in his hands, scrunching his hair up like he always does when he’s nervous.
Some things don’t change. Like the fact that she’s still always the one walking out the door.
~o~
A Case of You
Oh you are in my blood like holy wine.
And you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet.
Oh I could drink a case of you.
I could drink a case of you darling
Still I’d be on my feet.
And still be on my feet.
I met a woman.
She had a mouth like yours.
She knew your life.
She knew your devils and your deeds.
And she said
Color go to him, stay with him if you can.
Oh but be prepared to bleed.
Oh but you are in my blood you're my holy wine.
Oh and you taste so bitter, bitter and so sweet.
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I’d be on my feet.
I’d still be on my feet.
~o~
After a few months back, Faith goes on the pill. She doesn’t consult Dean, but she doesn’t hide it from him either. She leaves the plastic dispenser out on the bathroom sink, by the mirror, alongside the few other toiletries that she’s just starting to feel like she can take out of her travel case. These things, these normal, little things-her toothbrush in the holder, her Secret perched next to his Speed Stick-make her feel like maybe she belongs here, like maybe for the first time ever, she’s really ready to be his.
One night when they’re in bed, Dean reaches over to the bedside table for a condom and she stops him, shakes her head no, and kisses him hard, pulling his body back into her space. Dean kisses back with heightened interest, gripping her lower back with wide-stretching hands.
When Dean enters her, cock naked and slick from her juices already-they’re like teenagers in this once-again newness, rubbing and teasing for long minutes before they actually fuck-he opens his eyes extra wide. He hisses on a long exhale, arms shaking as they hold his weight in a flexing push-up above her. Faith laughs, because he looks kind of ridiculous, and also amazingly, like porn-star hot. Dean chuckles a little too, then says sheepishly, “It’s just...been awhile since I've done it like this.” Then he kisses her with slow, agonizingly intimate flashes of tongue. “You know what I mean,” he vibrates into her mouth, “without anything. Not since...”
“Yeah,” she says, hypnotized by his concentration on her, on this, on them. “You must have, like, super-sperm or something, ‘cause you still managed to knock me up.”
For a second or two she clenches with fear that she’s said the wrong thing-broken this perfect lusty moment with the sadness from before-but then Dean just grins lopsidedly and says, “Yeah, you know me, I’m all man.”
And then they’re laughing and pulsing into one other and when Faith comes Dean’s chin is hooked into the curve of her neck; she can smell the shampoo on his hair, and everything’s so good.
~o~
They have to wait until Jan’s asleep to screw, and one night while they’re listening for the even breathing sounds from across the hall that indicate she’s konked out for the night, Faith and Dean just lie there naked, still pink from the shower. Dean’s playing with Faith’s breasts lazily, lightly rolling her nipples between forefinger and thumb, just often enough to make her on edge. They’re talking about nothing-his car, the vamps she dusted last night-and Faith likes it, their own strange form of calm, but her body’s whining for him and she wants more.
Dean lowers his mouth to her right breast, licking lightly before catching the tip between his teeth. She cries out and he smiles, puts his finger to his mouth. Hush.
“You have the best tits ever. Really, others don’t compare.” He’s cupping them now and his hands are big enough to engulf them whole. She looks down, bottom lip hanging open and waits for more words. “Big knockers are totally overrated, when there are ones like yours, so perky and cute.”
Unbidden, Faith thinks about how she never breast-fed and that’s probably why at over thirty, she’s still got boobs like a young girl. As if he can read her thoughts, Dean goes on, saying shakily, “Not that they weren’t good when they were bigger too. God, I just wanted to fuck you all the time when you were pregnant.” There’s a broken, dissonant note in his voice, and it cuts into her, hearing the expired longing there.
~o~
Faith thinks she knows when the turning point was, when Dean decided to take her back for real. Sam had just left for England, riding off into the night with Willow on the Council’s private jet. She really should have figured out before that they’d get along, geek to geek, but Faith never thought about it. It makes her sorry, once again, that she’d hidden these two parts of her world from each other for so long.
Faith was living across town then, in an efficiency, because she’s never needed much stuff. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was still here-they could have sent another slayer. It didn’t have to be her. But it felt like a triumph unrivalled by any other in her entire life when Dean let her “babysit” Jan for the first time, and an even greater one when he started calling her first to go out on a hunt. There was that.
They drove out to see a woman named Missouri, a motherish, middle-aged, black lady who reminded Faith of a woman who’d lived on her block when she was a kid. Tongue like a whip and a big, big heart. Miss Regina was the only mom on the street who didn’t treat Faith like she was bad news, destined to be that way. On the ride there, Faith rolled the window down low, enjoying the wind in her hair. Dean was uncharacteristically nervous, even for being around her, biting his fingernails and muttering to himself, and Faith wondered about that. But this Missouri lady was the one who could give them the information they needed-that’s what Dean had said after he got off the phone with Sam. When Faith questioned further, he’d just said, “Look, I don’t know, but that’s what Visions boy had to say for himself,” and that was that.
When they got there, Dean did most of the talking, showing Missouri the amulet and book of spells, sounding shifty the whole time and shuffling his feet. And that’s when Faith understood what his problem was-this woman was one of the few people Faith had ever seen get the better of Dean with words-take his away-almost as good at it as she herself used to be.
When they were on their way out, Faith still hadn’t said much, and so she was surprised when Missouri stopped her on their way out the door, tugging on her sleeve and whispering into her ear confidentially, “He’ll come around, baby girl, you’ll see. All the Winchester men are stubborn, and you ripped him up bad, but he’ll mend, just you wait. But you have to be willing to face up to all the hurt both of you got.”
Missouri raised her head and stared hard at Dean, who patently ignored her gaze, growling out, “Thanks for the info. Come on, Faith, we’ve gotta go.” But on the long drive home, he rested his arm on the back of the seat behind Faith. She could smell his sweat and it gave her an unexpected flicker of hope.
~o~
They did have sex when Faith was pregnant, but she always made him turn off the light. She didn’t want to think about her growing belly, her swelling breasts-didn’t want him to look at them either. Faith has tried not to think about those desperate couplings since. Tried to avoid remembering the actual fucking and the way it satisfied her, even though she was unconsciously already starting to pull herself away at that point. And she especially didn’t want to dwell on what it was like afterwards, seeing Dean all sticky and unhappy. She realizes now that it was because the thing that was making her so miserable made him hot for her-that’s why he’d had that look in his eyes like he wanted to cry.
It takes her awhile to broach the subject with Dean. “You know I love her, right? But Dean, I-I just can’t ever do that again.”
He nods and strokes her hip, looking down.
“It’s okay,” Dean says, in an understanding tone that forces her to try and believe him. “But Faith-” and that’s when he looks up, “in spite of all the shit that’s happened, I’m not sorry I have her.” Jan still doesn’t know that Faith’s her real mother, and neither of them are ready to tell her yet. Faith doesn’t want her to feel unwanted any more than Dean does.
Faith pauses for a long while before responding. “Dean, look at me.” He hesitantly complies. Faith holds Dean’s face in her hands, tracing his freckles with her thumbs, reveling in the fact that anyone would trust themselves under these hands, the ones that smashed and destroyed, the ones that drew so much blood. And then she simply says, “I love you,” only realizing afterwards that in all these years she’d never said that to him once-out loud anyway. Dean stares back at her with still-disbelieving eyes, so she kisses him, trying to wash away his doubts with her tongue.
He asks her in a scratchy whisper, “If I want something from you that's really weird, will you promise not to give me shit?”
She says, yes, anything, but is still taken aback when he says, “Can we just pretend? Just this one time, that we’re doing it over, that we could make her and you’d want it? I know it’s too late…” Startled as she is, Faith gives her wordless consent, drawing Dean in and arranging her body over his, so he can look at her the way he likes.
And that’s when Faith really starts to believe that maybe things are gonna eventually be okay. That even though they made each other bleed over and over-because neither one was able to understand the depths of the others’ scars-they might have a chance of making it right.
Maybe she’s a freak. Maybe it took leaving him-leaving them-for Faith to realize she could never get enough. Because with Dean, she always wants more: every flavor of him, every mood, every crazy streak.
Over breakfast the next morning, when he’s placing her eggs on the plate as she sits with her legs spread wide, feeling groggy minus the coffee that Dean’s still not done with yet, Faith says, “You’ve got me if you want me, Winchester. You’ve got me good. Just one thing-we’re not getting married, all right?”
“You’re staying though.”
“As long as you want me.”
He smiles the smile that completely fucks with her world and presses his lips lightly to her forehead. “It's cool. We’ll live in sin. Our kid’s already a bastard-it’s the least we can do.”
~o~
Road to Nowhere
I was looking back on my life.
And all the things I’ve done to me.
I’m still looking for the answers.
I’m still searching for the key.
The wreckage of my past keeps haunting me.
It just won’t leave me alone.
I still find it all a mystery.
Could it be a dream?
The road to nowhere leads to me.
Through all the happiness and sorrow.
I guess I’d do it all again.
Live for today and not tomorrow.
It’s still the road that never ends.
The road to nowhere’s gonna pass me by.
I hope we never have to say goodbye.
I never want to live without you.
~o~
Sam’s riding shotgun next to Dean on their way out on a hunt; it’s just like old times. Sort of. Except that the car’s a slightly different shade of black. His brother’s newest pet project is a Mustang, still late sixties model though. And this time Sam represents the Watcher’s Council of Britain-Dean’s the only rogue demon hunter here.
“Hey Sammy, tell you what. I’ll let you pick the tunes if you want, seeing as you came out here special and everything. You can even listen to that Radiohead crap you like.” Dean’s voice sounds placating, and suddenly Sam’s really annoyed.
“Do you let her pick the music now too?” Sam says, knowing that he sounds like a petulant child.
Dean gives him a scorching look. “Give it a rest, man. Leave Faith out of this. This is just you and me right now, all right? Come on, be chill.”
“It’s just-I just can’t believe you let her move in, you chump, after everything. It’s bullshit and you know it.”
Dean sighs as he downshifts, then starts drumming his fingertips on the steering wheel, clearly agitated, but Sam doesn’t care right now. If Dean can’t be properly pissed off on his own account, then Sam will do it for him; that’s how it’s always been.
“I mean, I get why you let her see Jan, okay? Faith’s her mom and it’s good that she’s finally starting to admit that and everything, but Jesus Christ. Dean, she ruined you. How can you act like you just forgot about all of that?”
“I didn’t forget, Sam,” Dean says quietly, staring straight ahead at the road, jaw clenched.
Silence reigns for a few excruciating minutes until Dean picks back up right where he left off, like it had all built up. “Do you think it was easy, dude? That I’m ever going to completely forgive her for bailing on us like that? But I don't have to, because I forgive her enough, okay? And I understand her, I think." Dean pauses and purses his lips, taking on a different tone that hits Sam in the gut. "Sam, you know as well as I do-she had it rough. It's not an excuse or anything. It’s just-she’s trying, dude, she really is-you should see it. It’s kind of hilarious actually. It’s almost a good thing she wasn’t here for the diaper phase because I think she might have lost her mind. Wuss.”
“That’s not funny, Dean.” In his head, Sam can hear what Dean isn’t saying: that he forgave Sam for leaving-both times. But Sam never abandoned his own child; it’s not the same. Dean’s capacity for unconditional love on the other hand-that seems to be.
“Look, what the fuck do you want, Sam? You left, and that’s awesome for you and you know I’m totally on board with that, but did you want me and Jan to be alone? I’m proud of you, dude, and Faith is too-you know she put in a word for you, right? Not that you needed it-you were born to be part of the tweed squad. Plus, this is a hell of lot better than you ending up a freaking lawyer or whatever.”
“Stop changing the subject, Dean.”
“I’m not! I’m just telling you about my life, because you’re my brother and if I can’t tell you this shit then that just…really sucks.”
Sam doesn’t know what to say to that.
But what Dean says next breaks him, and not just because he knows it’s got to be incredibly hard for Dean to come out with the words, “I’m-I’m happy, so can you please just let it be?”
For a supposed “tough guy”, Dean really can look exactly like a puppy dog sometimes, so Sam relents and shuts up. He spaces out for a minute or two, thinking about the pleading looks he catches in Faith’s eyes from time to time. How she tries in her own weird, understated way to suck up to him-letting him take the remote control, teasing him less, little stuff like that. If this was a few years ago, when she was his tough-ass partner in crime and co-conspirator in the noble project of the Annoyance of Dean Winchester, he’d have reveled in such things.
But then Dean-being Dean-chooses this quiet moment to play “gross Sam out,” saying, “Besides, man, it’s not like I just let her have this right away,” as he grabs his crotch through his jeans, turning his head to smirk at Sam.
Sam grabs the wheel and shrieks, “Oh my god, Dean, you’re driving, pay attention to the road, for crying out loud! And also, as usual, you’re completely fucking sick.”
Dean doesn’t miss a beat reclaiming the wheel. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, Samantha. Anyway, as I was saying, I made her wait for it, dude. Well, actually, no, I gave her a little taste early, but I was drunk as hell and it was the night after we killed the Demon so I figure I get a pass for traumatic circumstances. Having a chick chase after you? That’s the shit, all right. Well, except for the whole not getting laid part. That was lame.” Dean looks thoughtful. Sam just shakes his head, because it’s just like Dean to make light of something this serious, and make it pervy to boot.
But Sam can’t say that his brother doesn’t have range, because Dean turns on a dime with his next breath, saying earnestly, “But really, Sam, she wasn’t just trying to get in my pants-you saw this part, even if you won’t admit it-Faith wants to do a good job with Jan and I really think she put that first. It’s not…easy for her. Give her a break. Give me a break. I need it.”
Sam nods just slightly, looking over as Dean continues, “I miss you, dude. You’re only here for a few days this time-can we just…not fight?”
Sam tastes his assent in his mouth before giving it, deciding to add a dash of snark to make it more comfortable. “Okay. I’ll try. But you’re still a royal pain in the ass, so it’s going to be hard.”
Dean smiles and reaches over to turn the radio nob. “Hey, I take pride in that. And speaking of, I’ve changed my mind. It’s Sabbath all the way. You can listen to girly boys on your own time.” Dean cranks the volume up a bit and then shouts over the music. “So, feel like ordering up a vision to help me out with my navigation here?”
Sam sighs peaceably. “Dude, you know it doesn’t work that way. The Powers That Be don’t take orders from a guy like me.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’d be nice. Convenient.”
Sam keeps listening to Dean rattle on about the job ahead as he stares out at the scenery going by. No matter how cool it is that he gets paid-legally-to spend most of his time in libraries poring through old books, Sam’s glad this is still part of his job description. Best of both worlds-and yeah, he can admit now that he kind of likes this shit.
But Dean is this kind of shit, just weirdly now also with the living room full of toys, beers and pool with “the guys” on the weekends, and fixing cars on the side. Actually, that last part isn’t that weird at all. And when Sam sees the way Dean looks at Jan, that bit seems completely right also. So that’s why this is different than when Sam went to Stanford. Because now he knows that Dean’s got something that’s his, and with or without Faith, his brother will be all right.
The main part about all of this that actually sucks is that he wants to forgive Faith too. Sam wants his friend back.
~o~
Dance All Night
I ain't lonely now.
Yeah, I've got someone I love.
Someone I think about.
Someone for me to take care of.
And dance all night.
Dance all night.
Dance all night.
Yeah, I think I feel alright.
She ain't lonely now.
See her shuffle 'cross the floor.
Yeah, she's happier now.
See her smile and say 'come on.'
~o~
“I want to stop losing people we love. I want you to go to school. I want Dean to have a home…I just want this to be over.”+++
~o~
Sam takes a cab from the airport, because they aren’t expecting him until the next day. He took an earlier flight out of Heathrow, because he couldn’t wait to be back in a place where people call things what they are-french fries instead of “chips” and bathroom instead of “loo.” When he arrives on the front porch, the screen door is open so he just walks right in and settles his luggage by the front door. He almost trips over a pile of weapons on his way into the living room. After he steadies himself, Sam sticks his head into the room first and finds Jan sitting Indian style on the couch with a pile of papers and school books surrounding her, chewing on a pencil. “Where’re the folks, Jan-I-Am?” he calls out.
“Sam!” she exclaims, jumping up and running across the carpet to jump on him like a puppy, wrapping her skinny arms around his neck. Jan starts talking a mile a minute, the way that young girls are likely to do, and Sam tries to play back exactly how many months it’s been since his last visit, trying to figure out exactly when she started getting so damn big.
“Faith wanted to go dancing and Daddy went with her, because he’s totally fucking whipped. They’re like, so old though. It’s pathetic. And…”
Sam drops her gently on the ground, saying, “You kiss your momma with that mouth?”
Jan grins and settles back on the couch. “Where do you think I learned to talk like that?”
Sam reclines on the couch next to her and stretches out his legs, looking Jan over indulgently-long, coltish legs and unselfconscious determination in her pre-teen eyes. “Huh. So you’re old enough to curse now, but you’re still calling him ‘Daddy?’”
Jan scowls briefly and changes the subject, saying brightly, “So, anything exciting happen in the rest of the world?”
“We-ell, it’s been kinda crazy for me lately, a bunch of new slayers and there was this thing in New Zealand, a portal opened to a demon dimension and we had to go in there and-do you really want to hear about all of this?”
Jan rests her chin on her fists and looks up at him with voracious eyes. “Totally,” she says solemnly, “all Faith and Daddy talk about is vampires and ghosts and boring stuff like that. I want to know about the really cool things.”
“Okay then, but it looks like you’ve got a lot of homework there. Don’t want to get you in trouble if you don’t finish it.”
“It’s cool,” Jan says, “I’m ahead, and besides, they just sign the report cards and that’s it. Plus,” she adds shyly, “I’m getting all A’s.”
“That’s awesome! Dean must be really proud.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she says, twisting a dark brown curl with her finger. “I mean, of course he is. Totally.” She leans in then and whispers conspiratorially, “I heard my dad telling the guys at the garage the other day when he thought I wasn’t listening. Of course, he also told them that I can hit the target every time at the range, which isn’t exactly true.”
Sam laughs and shakes his head, saying, “Yeah, well we all know Dean hasn’t exactly always been known for being the most truthful guy in the world. I hope that’s not something you pick up. Anyway, so about New Zealand…”
~o~
When Faith and Dean get back, Sam and Jan are both half passed out with the TV on, playing the old monster movies that Jan loves. Faith strips off her leather jacket and clomps over, shaking Jan and saying, “Get up, kiddo, it’s time for bed. You’ve got karate in the morning, and I’m not waking up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday to take you if I gotta push your little butt out of bed in the morning.” Jan opens her eyes sleepily and looks up, mumbling, “Sure, whatever,” and falling like a ragdoll into Faith’s arms as she hoists her up.
“Good to see ya, Sammy. I’ll be back down in a bit, and then you’re gonna tell me all the dirt about Buffy, and Willow’s latest little girlfriend, and whatever the hell else,” Faith says as she settles the half-asleep Jan on her own two feet. “And I’m not kidding around. I want all the dirt-the filthiest you’ve got.”
“Sure, sure,” Sam says, twisting a little smile in her direction before turning his attention to Dean, who’s accepting a sleepy kiss on the cheek from Jan. “So, you went dancing, huh? Since when do you do that?”
As soon as the girls are gone, Dean gets up and slaps Sam lightly upside the head. “Since now, Watcher boy. She dances-I drink and watch. It works out. You want a beer? There’s some in the fridge.”
“Yeah, definitely,” Sam replies and watches as his brother ambles over to the kitchen, limping slightly from some new injury or another, but otherwise looking pretty good.
“So,” Sam says as Dean hands him a sweating bottle, “when the hell are you going to come and see me already?”
Dean plunks his ass down on the couch and takes a swig from his own beer. “Ah, that would be never. You know I don’t fly, dude. That shit’s not safe.” Sam shakes his head. Dean acts totally unaware of how incredibly ridiculous what he just said really is, considering.
“Then why do you let Jan come over every summer?” Sam pokes.
Dean ignores Sam’s attempt at imposing logic on the conversation and asks, “How long’s your geekfest gonna be this year?”
“Don’t know yet. Think I’m getting three weeks off in a row though. I’ve been a good boy-my paper on the ‘Colorado Vampiric Anomalies’ was quite well-received,” Sam says, only sort of trying not to sound smug.
“Right, of course,” Dean says, sticking his thumbs in his belt loops and leaning back.
“Why? What are you and Faith going to do?”
Dean’s tongue flicks out slightly over his lower lip. “What d’you think we’re going to do? We’ll fuck in the afternoon on this here couch and eat all the junk food we can while the kid’s not around to be nutritionally corrupted. ” If there was an Olympic event for leering, Dean would totally make gold.
Sam lets out an exaggerated guffaw. “I wouldn’t worry about that too much-she’s smarter than the two of you combined.”
Dean’s smile shifts into proud papa mode and he says, “Ha fucking ha, smart ass. Dude, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were the milkman. If she didn’t have my good looks that is.” He folds his arms over his chest. “We’re talking about going to Vegas.”
“You finally gonna make an honest woman out of her this time or just play grifters like usual?” Sam teases.
Dean snorts. “Of course not. Don’t need a piece of paper to tell me she’s my old lady.”
“I’m your what?” Faith says, appearing out of nowhere and flicking Dean on the ear.
“Ouch! Knock it off, woman. I’m delicate,” Dean says happily, grabbing Faith by the waist and pulling her onto his knee. She protests at first but then settles in, propping her feet up on Sam’s lap at the other end of the couch.
“You’re such a friggin’ whiner, Gramps,” Faith says, kissing Dean with a visible flash of tongue. Sam’s eyeballs lift up towards the ceiling, but he’s used to this so whatever. They cut it out soon though, and Faith turns her head in Sam’s direction, proclaiming, “Gettin’ hitched is for regular people. We’re not like that-boring.”
“Well, ain’t that the truth,” Sam says absently.
This is (almost) the weirdest form of domesticity he’s ever encountered, but it seems to suit them just fine. And yeah, the fight’s never really over-even during lulls like this they all know that-but Sam hopes that some way, somehow, his father is watching-that he can see this too.
Note: Opening quote (John Winchester to Sam Winchester) taken from SPN 1.21, “Salvation.”
~o~
Epilogue: Not a Pretty Girl/Straight Line Revisited
I am not a pretty girl.
I don't want to be a pretty girl.
No, I want to be more than a pretty girl.
Faith didn’t get her first car until she was thirty-five, but she always has done things ass-backwards. She felt like an asshole when Dean gave her the keys inside a felt jewelry box on her birthday-her bitching about him staying late at the garage seemed pretty lame then.
Faith loves driving fast (but doesn’t when Jan’s with her). When she pulls up at a stoplight and some random dude catcalls, Faith automatically flips the bird. Once upon a time she only felt beautiful reflected in Dean’s eyes-now it doesn’t matter. ‘Cause she’s about so much more than that.
I was born to a cold wind. Take the color right out of your eyes.
I just keep what I can carry now, and leave the rest behind.
Dean has a new Impala. Well, actually it’s pieced together from the original plus the fleet of gutted ones littering his front lawn. There are still guns filling his trunk, but less crap in the backseat. On Sundays, he waxes it so the paintjob will stay smooth and sleek.
He likes taking long drives alone sometimes to clear his head, but warmth always spreads through his body as he pulls into the driveway when he gets home. Dean doesn’t have to cram everything that really matters into his car anymore, but it’s still possible-there are four seatbelts after all.
~fin~
I Ain't Scared of Lightning
I ain't scared of lightning.
Come on and do your worst.
If they gave degrees
For cheating destiny
Then man
I got a first.
No I ain't scared of lightning.
It's the same old empty threat.
I've been standing proud
Beneath the gathering cloud.
And man
I ain't dead yet.
~o~
It all works out pretty much okay. Sam goes to night school to finish his degree. Dean gets a job at a garage, where the other guys are pretty chill, the pay is decent, and the owner doesn’t seem fazed by the gaps in Dean’s paperwork. And everyone always thinks they’re gay.
Jan, unsurprisingly, is the apple of Dean’s eye. In his opinion, she is the most amazing baby that’s ever happened in the history of babies (not that he had much of a basis of comparison until now, besides Sam of course). And after the night she turns six months old and he stays up all night, sitting in a rocking chair with the Colt stretched across his lap, hopped up on No-doze and adrenaline, they begin to worry less about the Demon. At least not every single minute of every day.
Because Jan is just a little kid, normal in every way.
There always seem to be creepy crawlies acting up in the area-on occasion Dean thinks that maybe it’s kind of wack that he chooses to raise his girl somewhere with so much supernatural activity. But then it’s what his own dad did, and he never leaves Jan alone or anything like that. Besides, this is what Dean does. Plus, he knows better than most anyone else that it’s not really safe anywhere.
Dean is obsessive about his work, both the hunting when he can get away, and also at the shop. His fingernails are always imbedded with grease no matter how much he tries to wash it away. His boss keeps saying, “Winchester, find yourself a woman, you don’t have to butter me up this much. Not gonna fire my best guy.” But Dean just smiles wryly and says, “Only one woman in my life, man, and she’s less than three feet tall.”
That’s not entirely true though-Dean does goes out sometimes, picks up a random barfly and takes her to a motel. It’s sort of like the old days, except that Sam’s at home on those nights, doing his homework and watching teletubbies with Jan.
Dean doesn’t remember the name of the first girl he fucked after Faith went away. She was the blondest one he could find-tall, voluptuous, all tits and ass; he’d thought he was safe. But turned out she used the same soap as Faith had, and Dean got flashes of Faith’s “O” face the whole time he ate her out. He performed adequately; Dean was pretty sure of that-just gritted his teeth and concentrated really hard on getting off when the time came. Once the chick walked out the door though, wearing an outfit that to his less-drunk eyes seemed way too tight in the wrong way, Dean fell back on the coverlet and let a few exhausted tears run down his face. After that slip though Dean got his shit together, and remembered that sex is just supposed to be a recreational activity, not something you let yourself take too seriously.
His favorite word used to be “fuck,” now it’s “Daddy.” Before Jan learned to talk, it was something of a competition between Dean and Sam as to whose name she’d say first. To Sam, it was a joke, but when his brother took off for class, Dean would repeat it over and over to a wide-eyed Jan, emphasizing the “D” sound as she gurgled in her high chair. The first recognizable thing she uttered did end up being “Da-da,” the second was “no,” and the third was “Sam.”
If Dean had known back in the day that kids were chick magnets, he’d have taken up babysitting. He thinks it’s pretty weird actually, how just hauling his daughter around at the grocery increases the proportion of females checking out his ass. ‘Cause usually, when there’s a tyke in tow, someone else is attached, right? Dean makes a point of avoiding any woman who makes eyes at him when he’s out somewhere with Jan. No big loss, there are plenty others to be had. He does, however, point out these advantages to Sam when he needs to work a double-shift and someone’s got to pick her up from daycare in the afternoon.
They make friends here, guys to play pool with and not take their money. Married dudes who understand about having to check in at home, guys with wives who look at Dean with appreciative yet sympathetic eyes. Sam pals around with kids from the university, but Dean doesn’t really find much of what they say all that interesting and he’s pretty sure they don’t understand a fucking word he says. It’s cool though, because Sam seems pretty content and the two of them still spend most of their time together anyway-there’s just too much shit that other people wouldn’t understand.
Dean fires a lot of babysitters early on before he finally settles on Greg. Greg is some guy that Sam knows from his part-time job at the local bookstore. He’s quiet and kind of strangely tidy-looking and at first Dean says to Sam, “Since when are dudes babysitters?” in response to which Sam just gapes. Jan loves the guy though (but not too much) and Greg does stuff like starts teaching her to read early, which she’s apparently really good at for her age.
Because, you see, Dean doesn’t trust most of the high school girls that come cheap. They’ll probably just bring their boyfriends over and fool around on the couch-Dean remembers all about that. Besides they might fill his little girl’s head with weird crap. Like the one who freaked out about the fact that Jan doesn’t own a single doll. The hell? It’s not like Dean deprives her-in fact, Sam’s always reminding him that they can’t actually afford to buy her every lego set for her age range and also replenish their supply of hunting gear. But when Jan tugs on his pant leg and looks up at him with solemn brown eyes, Dean can’t seem to stop himself from giving her whatever it is that she wants.
Time moves differently now that Jan’s around. For one thing, she grows out of her clothes at an insane rate. But the doctor assures them that she’s not actually a freak, just a healthy, growing girl who’s likely to end up tall. Before Dean knows it it’s almost Jan’s fourth birthday, which kind of makes him feel a little old, even though Sam’s the one who’s started going prematurely grey. Which apparently some girls are into, since Sam seems to do okay that way. After graduation, Sammy starts working at the library, which is infinitely amusing to Dean, but he has to admire how the whole “sheepish, nerdy guy” thing gets his little brother laid. To each their own, man.
So yeah, things are pretty much okay-nothing like how Dean would have expected his life to end up, but then he never really gave all that much thought to the future before.
Now he does.
~o~
Breathe Me
Help, I have done it again.
I have been here many times before.
I hurt myself again today.
And, the worst part is there's no one else to blame.
Be my friend.
Hold me, wrap me up.
Unfold me.
I am small.
I'm needy.
~o~
“Angel, I'm dying.”
“Yeah. It's a lot easier than redemption, huh?”+++
~o~
When Faith stumbles in, lugging her ever-present duffel, she immediately feels out of place. This isn’t what she expected at all.
Angel seems bizarrely cheerful for him, lording over the head of the table as he watches Connor eat. He’s drinking blood from a mug and listening avidly to Connor’s stories about life at Oxford as Connor stuffs his still-skinny frame with pounds of lasagna and salad and bread. Faith’s entrance interrupts all of that. Angel and Connor look up at her with twin turns of the head.
“Uh, sorry,” she mumbles, on the verge of walking out of this Norman Rockwell painting-the undead version. It’s just so fucking strange, seeing Angel like this-a contented patriarch. Faith definitely feels like the wayward child come home. “Guess I’ll just throw this…in the lobby or something. Don’t wanna interrupt.” Her eyelid starts twitching for no apparent reason.
But Angel gets up to greet her before she can flee. “It’s okay, Faith. We were just finishing up. Right?” He looks back at Connor fondly.
Connor nods and chokes briefly on a mouthful of bread before saying, “Yeah, plus I’ve gotta run if I’m going to catch up with Lisa and Greg. I haven’t seen them since Stanford.” Huh. So, the feral boy she met all those years ago has turned tame-he’s got friends.
“Be careful,” Angel calls over his shoulder as Connor throws on his jacket and waltzes towards the door. Connor grins and mock-salutes, rolling his eyes.
Angel watches until his son is completely out of frame, then swirls around and claps his hands together, asking, “So Faith, want something to drink?”
“Yeah,” she says instinctively, and then softer, “That’d help.”
~o~
Angel guides Faith to the most well-appointed part of the Hyperion: his suite. It’s pretty surreal, mostly in the way that Angel’s life seems so normal to Faith-a two-hundred-year-old-plus vampire who’s survived hell and multiple apocalypses shouldn’t have a domestic life. It’s just weird, man. And also, this all makes Faith feel cheated out of one companion in misery. And that makes her feel like shit. Because it’s not like she wants Angel to be unhappy-she knows that being reunited with his son is a dream come true for him. But it’s still…lonely.
“It’s good to see you, Faith, but ah, you didn’t say why you’re here. Is something up that I oughta know about? Something you guys couldn’t say on the phone? Did Giles send you?”
Faith chokes on her beer, a Budweiser that she’s fairly sure Angel got specially in anticipation of her arrival. Angel’s not really the type for cheap brew; he’s having scotch. Faith’s drinking too fast-nerves. She wipes the back of her hand over her mouth and shakes her head. “Nope. No disasters. Just me. Sorry to disappoint.” It’s so easy-slipping into sarcasm, like reflex.
Angel’s staring at her with concerned eyes; that certainly doesn’t help. “I’m not disappointed. Just curious. You’re not exactly big with the social visits most of the time.”
Faith begins to pick at the label on her bottle, looking down. “Yeah, well, I-” She stops, lowers her voice, “I guess I just wanted to see a friend, ya know?”
Angel visibly relaxes, sitting back in his chair. “I’m glad you think of me that way,” he says, still studying her. Faith continues glugging at her beer, finishing it quickly, and by the time she’s done Angel’s already appeared with another. He’s so gracious it makes her feel uncomfortable. He politely asks her about everyone back “home” and she answers in short, staccato sentences: “Buffy’s fine. Yeah, Spike too. Willow has a new girlfriend-way too young. Xander and Dawn, who’d a thunk it? I’m fine. Lots of work. Been away a lot.” And the whole while Angel keeps looking at her in that placid, inspecting way that he has sometimes, the one that’s always made it so much harder to hide anything from him. Other people are easily duped.
Faith doesn’t tell him about her sleepless nights, the ache in her heart that still won’t go away, or her catalogue of regrets, but she thinks that he can sense it all. Angel’s always been able to pick up on that kind of shit.
When she’s run out of small talk and so has he-neither of them are good at this-Faith begins to fidget manically, picking at the seams of her jeans and jostling her foot, until finally she just comes out with it, surprising herself. “Angel?”
“Yeah?” he says, in a gentle tone that sounds like the beginning of a whole new conversation.
“You know there was a guy, right?”
Angel nods. “The demon hunter with the brother? The one you wouldn’t bring home to meet the folks.” He smiles slightly at his own lame joke. He always does that. It’s corny. But Faith likes that about him.
“Yeah, that’s the one.” Faith barrels on, hardly stopping for breath. It’s compulsive-something about Angel makes her want to confess all her sins; she’s still testing him perhaps, to see if he’ll finally get it-that she really is beyond help. “I-we-I had a baby. It was-it was an accident. So fucked up. I just left. Couldn’t help it. Woke up in the hospital and knew I couldn’t hack it. No way, no how. And Dean was so good…”
She looks up tentatively and Angel’s gazing at her like he cares. It’s so wrong. (Even though that’s exactly why she’s here.) “I mean, so he did have a tendency to lie, and well, steal actually, and sometimes cheat-not on me I mean, but at cards and stuff like that. But-but he loved me. God, he must have been on drugs.” She lets her head fall in her hands.
“Why are you telling me this now?” Angel sounds so calm. Faith wants to scream.
“I don’t know!” she explodes, then falls silent, her head reeling. She can hear each tick of the wall clock, because Angel just sits and waits for her patiently, not scolding out loud, not reproving. Eventually, he wins the test of wills and Faith finishes lamely, “It’s just-it’s just been so long. Guess I just wanted someone to know.” She lowers her voice to a throaty whisper again. “Someone who’d get it.”
Faith’s almost convinced herself of this by the time she’s finished saying it. But deep down she’s still pissed that Angel refuses to punish her-that she can’t get that from Dean either, not without going back anyway.
Angel clinks the ice in his glass, pulls no punches. “I already knew. Could smell it on you-the last time.”
Faith’s mind flashes back to the days after she fled, running straight from the birthing center to LA. Angel never asked her then what was wrong, just tended the wounds she’d thought no one could see. He was her oasis then-a few days rest until she made her way back to England where at least there was a readymade purpose.
Faith shakes her head, trying to dislodge those terrible, delirious days and looks up at Angel with stricken eyes. “I-you-what?” She smacks her head with the flat of her palm and out of her mouth comes, “Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck. If you know, then maybe Spike knows too. And if Spike knows then Buffy… Oh my god, they all must be feelin’ all sorry for me and shit.” She says this like it’s the worst thing that could possibly happen-being pitied-and it used to be, before she lost Dean. Lost him. That makes it sound like he was a pen or a hair elastic, not a person she cared about.
Faith could swear Angel’s psychic sometimes, because the next thing that he says is, “Did you love him?”
She sits rock still for a minute, wordless, then figures she’s got nothing to lose. Well, that’s kind of a given. “Yeah. Yes, I did.”
“So that’s what you gave up?” Funny how she never phrases it that way in her head.
“I guess so.” Faith pauses, then bursts again. “I’ve done so many fucked up things. Wicked bad things. You know more about it than pretty much anybody else. So why? Tell me why the hell this feels just as bad as all the rest?”
Angel’s quiet for a bit, thinking before he speaks. Finally he says, “Because this one you did to yourself.”
“You’re one to give advice,” she says, wanting to cut him for being right.
“Yeah well, considering that I’ve got over two centuries on you, I’d say so, yes.”
She smiles then, crookedly, because it’s an assload better than crying.
Angel walks over to her then, leaning over and touching her shoulder with his hand. Faith shudders but doesn’t look up. Doesn’t push him away either. “It’s never too late, Faith. We have to believe that.”
Faith hears his words, but they drop down inside her, disappearing like a penny in a wishing well.
“It is for me. Maybe not about everything, but it is about this."
+++Note: Opening dialogue taken from AtS, 4.15, “Orpheus.”
~o~
Stolen Car
You walked into my house last night.
I couldn’t help but notice
A light that was long gone still burning strong.
You were sitting,
Your fingers like fuses.
Your eyes were cinnamon.
You said you stand for every known abuse
That was ever threatened to anyone but you.
And why should I know better by now
When I’m old enough not to?
~o~
There’s nothing like fulfilling a lifelong goal to make a man honest. Well, that and whiskey. And a beer or three or four. Dean and Faith have a bottle between them now, instead of a continent, but the gap between them is crackling through the air.
The funny part is that they fought together better tonight than they ever had before, more in synch, hardly even having to speak. Demon’s finally gone, shot through the heart with the old Colt by Sam, with Faith and Dean pinning it down. Sam used his mind to bring the gun right up to the thing’s chest-no fucking around this time, only having one bullet left and all.
But if Dean were a man for metaphors, he’d say that there’s a fuckload of ghosts haunting this room. Yeah, the Demon may finally be over and done with, but the secrets it let out are still in play.
Dean plays back the way that son of a bitch went after Faith with taunts, the whole thing rewinding over and over like a skipping record in his head…
“Murderer. Trash. Piece of meat. Your momma never wanted you either, Faith, that’s why she used you as an ashtray. The neighborhood boys too-they knew what you were, the way you were meant to be used.”
But Faith was unswayed, lashing out with words as well as her fists and blade.
“You think this psych-out mumbo jumbo’s gonna work on me, you bastard? Badder things than you could ever hope to be already pulled this whole 'remind Faithy about her crap childhood' thing to try an’ throw me off my game. Lemme tell ya, I know my sins better than you ever could, motherfucker. Don’t need a friggin’ refresher course, so just shut the fuck up and prepare to die.”
She was eerily, deadly calm then, but now Faith’s face is a completely deadened mask as she drinks straight from the bottle, not looking Dean’s way. “You would pick the only rural hellmouth I’ve ever heard of as place to settle down.”
Dean doesn’t entirely know what she’s talking about, but he can’t concentrate on that right now, so he busts out with a loaded non sequitur instead. “I know you never wanted her,” he says, because he can’t think about anything else. Faith doesn’t immediately respond so he rubs the flat of his palm against his woozy forehead and goes on. “You said you didn’t, more than once. So the thing I’ve spent the last four years trying to figure out is why the fuck you even went through with it at all.”
She still won’t look at him.
Dean opens his wallet, fumbles drunkenly through his billfold and tosses a crumpled snapshot into her lap. “There she is, Faith. She’s fucking beautiful,” he says meanly, even though he hadn’t planned it to come out that way.
Faith holds it up to the light in shaking hands, eyes wide like a scared animal. She takes a long look, various expressions mutating over her features before she stands up and starts pacing, Jan’s department store image fluttering to the ground. After a few tense minutes of that, she spins and stares Dean down, her voice cracked and sullen. “Cat’s outta the bag now, so I might as well just tell you it all.” But then for long seconds after she says nothing and Dean finds himself holding his breath, not knowing what he’s waiting for, just that he has been for what seems like forever. Faith looks up at the ceiling and then finally back down at Dean, eyes burning. “Jesus H. Christ, Dean. Wanna know exactly how many men I killed? Do you?” she snarls.
Dean becomes completely still-every muscle, every nerve on edge, even through the boozy haze.
Faith goes back to the infuriating pacing. “Yeah, you didn’t know that ‘till now, did ya? It was three, by the way, and only the first one was on accident; the others I was gettin’ paid. I guess maybe I figured you can come back from that kind of shit as a warrior, but not as a friggin’ mother. Hell, Murder Two, twenty-five to life, that’s where I really oughta be, if it wasn’t for the Council.” She’s picking up steam now in her tirade, taking heaving breaths to keep going. “I swore I was down for this whole redemption dealie, been paying my dues killing evil things for years. But it’s never gonna be over. Never.” She stops abruptly, piercing him with a look. “So tell me now, Dean. Now tell me you’re not glad I stayed away.”
Dean opens his mouth to talk, but nothing comes out. But Faith’s still on a roll anyway.
“Wanna know how? How I watched them bleed? How I tortured people who were just trying to help me?”
“Think I already know all about that, actually,” he says under his breath, but she hears him-he can tell by the stricken look on her face.
Faith yelling and going off like this is familiar; it’s the next thing she says that cuts him like a dirty kitchen knife. “Funny thing, ain’t it? How that hell spawn couldn’t get a rise outta me, but you still can, just by existing.”
“Faith,” he says, finding his wits enough to rush up and grab her by the arm, stop her before she internally combusts. “I already knew what you were in there for.” What he doesn’t say is: But I should have known about all the rest from the way you woke up shaking at night...
“What?” And just like that, she turns from a mounting hurricane into just a girl-a woman-wounded and real.
“You think I didn’t get nerd boy to look you up? I was waiting for you to tell me, but you never did. And then you just fucking took off.”
“Oh.” Her eyes are huge in their sockets, and Dean drops Faith’s arm and looks down at the floor to avoid getting lost in their swirling brown depths.
“You’re not as good at keeping secrets as you think you are, Lehane. In three years you dropped a hell of a lot of hints. And I learned the hard way that on the front lines, nobody’s clean. Come on now, I’m not as fucking stupid as you take me for.” Dean stops to taste his own anger for a second before raising his voice. “Hell, we both had a hand in offing the poor sucker possessed by the Demon today.” Dean’s full on hollering now himself, and it’s giving him a headache. So he opts for clenching his hands into fists over and over again instead.
They stand silently across the room from each other-with cubic feet of air, too many years, and a seemingly insurmountable amount of emotional wreckage scattered on the floor between them. Faith’s sudden presence is making his home seem treacherous-not his own. This is where Dean and Sam watch Nascar on TV and argue about whose turn it is to do the dishes. Where they spent countless hours on the computer and the phone searching for stray hints about the Demon. Their big family curse that in the end Faith found for them because she’s in with the White Hat mafia. How much sooner would all of this have been over if she hadn’t run off the way she did? (If he'd loved her enough to make her stay.)
This is also where Jan took her first steps. Where he taught her how to tie her shoelaces. Dean thanks god she’s safely away from here, and not just because of the danger but also because if he saw the two of them in the same room right now he might freak the fuck out, drunk and depleted as he is. Sam’s with her now-that’s good.
Faith’s still not saying anything, just staring at him in way that makes it impossible not to just come right out with it and cry out, “Why couldn’t you just trust me, Faith? Why?”
“I did it for you, I think,” she replies, finally answering his almost-forgotten question. “Maybe that doesn’t make any sense. It didn't really then, dunno why it should now. And I did trust you. My problem was-my problem was with me. Can't you get that, Dean?”
Dean takes a good long look at Faith. She’s all angles, pared down to wiry muscle and dark eyes, looking just tough as she always has been, yet also more fragile than he’s ever seen her. “You’re so fucked in the head, Faith. You’re so fucked up,” he says, and yet weirdly, in his head it sounds like, "I love you."
“I know,” she says simply. “Maybe I thought things could be different. Maybe I was wrong. But I can’t take any of it back now, so what’s the point?”
There’s nothing to say to that, so Dean kisses her, brutally, pushing Faith up against the wall, lifting her up so they're pelvis to pelvis as his body impacts with hers, and a wave of frustrated, pissed-off desire courses through him as he runs his fingers through the unruly mass of her hair, his whole body singing with the relief of not being dead. His tongue finds inexplicable ways to speak with hers without the clumsiness of words-Dean thinks she’s listening but still he mumbles out loud, “You drive me crazy, you always did.” He can't believe any of this is real, because the next thing he knows, Dean's nailing the mother of his child up again his living room wall, and she's pushing out breathy encouragement all the while, even though she missed it. She missed it all.
They fuck in a way they never did when they were together, desperate, like it’ll never happen again, like there isn’t enough time. Because Dean’s a dumb ass about Faith still-in spite of the pulse of his still-broken heart, he still wants her, and he’s too drunk and too overwhelmed to rein that in.
~o~
The day breaks white and bleary, sun streaming through the window onto Faith’s face. Her head aches and her muscles are killing her. And here she is, in Dean’s bed, naked and bruised and four years older.
Faith looks around and finds herself alone. This bright sun and plaid, flannel sheets vision of normal might as well be the twilight zone. Before she can get her bearings, a tiny, dark-haired whirlwind bursts though the door and jumps onto the bed next to Faith, who covers herself up the best she can and stares.
“Who are you?”
“I-I’m Faith,” is all Faith can get to come out of her mouth before Dean comes barreling in barefoot and bathrobe-clad, picking up the kid and tossing her over his shoulder.
“She’s Daddy’s friend, baby, and she’s not feeling so good so let’s leave her alone. C’mon, we’ll get you something to eat.” Dean looks back over his shoulder with an unreadable expression as he carries the wriggling, living, little person out in his arms. Faith is left paralyzed, feeling even more naked than before.
Seeing is believing, that’s for sure. Because last night he was burning, pulsing-her man again for a limited time only-and now Dean belongs to another girl.
She manages to reacquire her clothes from the bedroom floor before Dean comes back, face solemn, his hands in his pockets and barely looking at her.
“Um, does she-?” Faith says, using all of her courage to look up and let her question hang in the air. Killing demons is definitely easier than this.
“Jan’s mother is dead,” he says softly, scrubbing the hardwood floor with his toes. “I didn’t expect them to get back until later and I don’t bring chicks home so…look, don’t worry about it. This isn’t your problem.” This all comes out more tired than straight-up bitter and Faith’s trying not to think, Where do you take them then?
“Jan,” she tastes the word in her mouth. “So you really went with that…”
Dean interrupts her, “Yeah, look. Faith, you’ve got to go. I-” And then he falls down on the bed, sitting down and looking at her with bloodshot eyes. Faith doesn’t know what to say, so she waits for him.
He just spits it out, still braver than her. “I’m still a fucking idiot when it comes to you-but the thing is, I’m somebody’s father now. Everything’s different. I won’t confuse her, and I won’t let you.” His tone is firm but not cruel.
“I know,” she says, touching his stubble with her palm. Dean takes her hand and places it gently back in her lap, letting his fingers linger a minute, then releasing.
“You saved our asses, showing up when you did. And that’s something. But I’ve got no clue what to say to you about anything else. Last night...”
“I’ll wait,” she says, cutting him off and standing up on trembling legs.
“All right,” Dean says dazedly, "okay," and settles his head in his hands, scrunching his hair up like he always does when he’s nervous.
Some things don’t change. Like the fact that she’s still always the one walking out the door.
~o~
A Case of You
Oh you are in my blood like holy wine.
And you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet.
Oh I could drink a case of you.
I could drink a case of you darling
Still I’d be on my feet.
And still be on my feet.
I met a woman.
She had a mouth like yours.
She knew your life.
She knew your devils and your deeds.
And she said
Color go to him, stay with him if you can.
Oh but be prepared to bleed.
Oh but you are in my blood you're my holy wine.
Oh and you taste so bitter, bitter and so sweet.
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I’d be on my feet.
I’d still be on my feet.
~o~
After a few months back, Faith goes on the pill. She doesn’t consult Dean, but she doesn’t hide it from him either. She leaves the plastic dispenser out on the bathroom sink, by the mirror, alongside the few other toiletries that she’s just starting to feel like she can take out of her travel case. These things, these normal, little things-her toothbrush in the holder, her Secret perched next to his Speed Stick-make her feel like maybe she belongs here, like maybe for the first time ever, she’s really ready to be his.
One night when they’re in bed, Dean reaches over to the bedside table for a condom and she stops him, shakes her head no, and kisses him hard, pulling his body back into her space. Dean kisses back with heightened interest, gripping her lower back with wide-stretching hands.
When Dean enters her, cock naked and slick from her juices already-they’re like teenagers in this once-again newness, rubbing and teasing for long minutes before they actually fuck-he opens his eyes extra wide. He hisses on a long exhale, arms shaking as they hold his weight in a flexing push-up above her. Faith laughs, because he looks kind of ridiculous, and also amazingly, like porn-star hot. Dean chuckles a little too, then says sheepishly, “It’s just...been awhile since I've done it like this.” Then he kisses her with slow, agonizingly intimate flashes of tongue. “You know what I mean,” he vibrates into her mouth, “without anything. Not since...”
“Yeah,” she says, hypnotized by his concentration on her, on this, on them. “You must have, like, super-sperm or something, ‘cause you still managed to knock me up.”
For a second or two she clenches with fear that she’s said the wrong thing-broken this perfect lusty moment with the sadness from before-but then Dean just grins lopsidedly and says, “Yeah, you know me, I’m all man.”
And then they’re laughing and pulsing into one other and when Faith comes Dean’s chin is hooked into the curve of her neck; she can smell the shampoo on his hair, and everything’s so good.
~o~
They have to wait until Jan’s asleep to screw, and one night while they’re listening for the even breathing sounds from across the hall that indicate she’s konked out for the night, Faith and Dean just lie there naked, still pink from the shower. Dean’s playing with Faith’s breasts lazily, lightly rolling her nipples between forefinger and thumb, just often enough to make her on edge. They’re talking about nothing-his car, the vamps she dusted last night-and Faith likes it, their own strange form of calm, but her body’s whining for him and she wants more.
Dean lowers his mouth to her right breast, licking lightly before catching the tip between his teeth. She cries out and he smiles, puts his finger to his mouth. Hush.
“You have the best tits ever. Really, others don’t compare.” He’s cupping them now and his hands are big enough to engulf them whole. She looks down, bottom lip hanging open and waits for more words. “Big knockers are totally overrated, when there are ones like yours, so perky and cute.”
Unbidden, Faith thinks about how she never breast-fed and that’s probably why at over thirty, she’s still got boobs like a young girl. As if he can read her thoughts, Dean goes on, saying shakily, “Not that they weren’t good when they were bigger too. God, I just wanted to fuck you all the time when you were pregnant.” There’s a broken, dissonant note in his voice, and it cuts into her, hearing the expired longing there.
~o~
Faith thinks she knows when the turning point was, when Dean decided to take her back for real. Sam had just left for England, riding off into the night with Willow on the Council’s private jet. She really should have figured out before that they’d get along, geek to geek, but Faith never thought about it. It makes her sorry, once again, that she’d hidden these two parts of her world from each other for so long.
Faith was living across town then, in an efficiency, because she’s never needed much stuff. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was still here-they could have sent another slayer. It didn’t have to be her. But it felt like a triumph unrivalled by any other in her entire life when Dean let her “babysit” Jan for the first time, and an even greater one when he started calling her first to go out on a hunt. There was that.
They drove out to see a woman named Missouri, a motherish, middle-aged, black lady who reminded Faith of a woman who’d lived on her block when she was a kid. Tongue like a whip and a big, big heart. Miss Regina was the only mom on the street who didn’t treat Faith like she was bad news, destined to be that way. On the ride there, Faith rolled the window down low, enjoying the wind in her hair. Dean was uncharacteristically nervous, even for being around her, biting his fingernails and muttering to himself, and Faith wondered about that. But this Missouri lady was the one who could give them the information they needed-that’s what Dean had said after he got off the phone with Sam. When Faith questioned further, he’d just said, “Look, I don’t know, but that’s what Visions boy had to say for himself,” and that was that.
When they got there, Dean did most of the talking, showing Missouri the amulet and book of spells, sounding shifty the whole time and shuffling his feet. And that’s when Faith understood what his problem was-this woman was one of the few people Faith had ever seen get the better of Dean with words-take his away-almost as good at it as she herself used to be.
When they were on their way out, Faith still hadn’t said much, and so she was surprised when Missouri stopped her on their way out the door, tugging on her sleeve and whispering into her ear confidentially, “He’ll come around, baby girl, you’ll see. All the Winchester men are stubborn, and you ripped him up bad, but he’ll mend, just you wait. But you have to be willing to face up to all the hurt both of you got.”
Missouri raised her head and stared hard at Dean, who patently ignored her gaze, growling out, “Thanks for the info. Come on, Faith, we’ve gotta go.” But on the long drive home, he rested his arm on the back of the seat behind Faith. She could smell his sweat and it gave her an unexpected flicker of hope.
~o~
They did have sex when Faith was pregnant, but she always made him turn off the light. She didn’t want to think about her growing belly, her swelling breasts-didn’t want him to look at them either. Faith has tried not to think about those desperate couplings since. Tried to avoid remembering the actual fucking and the way it satisfied her, even though she was unconsciously already starting to pull herself away at that point. And she especially didn’t want to dwell on what it was like afterwards, seeing Dean all sticky and unhappy. She realizes now that it was because the thing that was making her so miserable made him hot for her-that’s why he’d had that look in his eyes like he wanted to cry.
It takes her awhile to broach the subject with Dean. “You know I love her, right? But Dean, I-I just can’t ever do that again.”
He nods and strokes her hip, looking down.
“It’s okay,” Dean says, in an understanding tone that forces her to try and believe him. “But Faith-” and that’s when he looks up, “in spite of all the shit that’s happened, I’m not sorry I have her.” Jan still doesn’t know that Faith’s her real mother, and neither of them are ready to tell her yet. Faith doesn’t want her to feel unwanted any more than Dean does.
Faith pauses for a long while before responding. “Dean, look at me.” He hesitantly complies. Faith holds Dean’s face in her hands, tracing his freckles with her thumbs, reveling in the fact that anyone would trust themselves under these hands, the ones that smashed and destroyed, the ones that drew so much blood. And then she simply says, “I love you,” only realizing afterwards that in all these years she’d never said that to him once-out loud anyway. Dean stares back at her with still-disbelieving eyes, so she kisses him, trying to wash away his doubts with her tongue.
He asks her in a scratchy whisper, “If I want something from you that's really weird, will you promise not to give me shit?”
She says, yes, anything, but is still taken aback when he says, “Can we just pretend? Just this one time, that we’re doing it over, that we could make her and you’d want it? I know it’s too late…” Startled as she is, Faith gives her wordless consent, drawing Dean in and arranging her body over his, so he can look at her the way he likes.
And that’s when Faith really starts to believe that maybe things are gonna eventually be okay. That even though they made each other bleed over and over-because neither one was able to understand the depths of the others’ scars-they might have a chance of making it right.
Maybe she’s a freak. Maybe it took leaving him-leaving them-for Faith to realize she could never get enough. Because with Dean, she always wants more: every flavor of him, every mood, every crazy streak.
Over breakfast the next morning, when he’s placing her eggs on the plate as she sits with her legs spread wide, feeling groggy minus the coffee that Dean’s still not done with yet, Faith says, “You’ve got me if you want me, Winchester. You’ve got me good. Just one thing-we’re not getting married, all right?”
“You’re staying though.”
“As long as you want me.”
He smiles the smile that completely fucks with her world and presses his lips lightly to her forehead. “It's cool. We’ll live in sin. Our kid’s already a bastard-it’s the least we can do.”
~o~
Road to Nowhere
I was looking back on my life.
And all the things I’ve done to me.
I’m still looking for the answers.
I’m still searching for the key.
The wreckage of my past keeps haunting me.
It just won’t leave me alone.
I still find it all a mystery.
Could it be a dream?
The road to nowhere leads to me.
Through all the happiness and sorrow.
I guess I’d do it all again.
Live for today and not tomorrow.
It’s still the road that never ends.
The road to nowhere’s gonna pass me by.
I hope we never have to say goodbye.
I never want to live without you.
~o~
Sam’s riding shotgun next to Dean on their way out on a hunt; it’s just like old times. Sort of. Except that the car’s a slightly different shade of black. His brother’s newest pet project is a Mustang, still late sixties model though. And this time Sam represents the Watcher’s Council of Britain-Dean’s the only rogue demon hunter here.
“Hey Sammy, tell you what. I’ll let you pick the tunes if you want, seeing as you came out here special and everything. You can even listen to that Radiohead crap you like.” Dean’s voice sounds placating, and suddenly Sam’s really annoyed.
“Do you let her pick the music now too?” Sam says, knowing that he sounds like a petulant child.
Dean gives him a scorching look. “Give it a rest, man. Leave Faith out of this. This is just you and me right now, all right? Come on, be chill.”
“It’s just-I just can’t believe you let her move in, you chump, after everything. It’s bullshit and you know it.”
Dean sighs as he downshifts, then starts drumming his fingertips on the steering wheel, clearly agitated, but Sam doesn’t care right now. If Dean can’t be properly pissed off on his own account, then Sam will do it for him; that’s how it’s always been.
“I mean, I get why you let her see Jan, okay? Faith’s her mom and it’s good that she’s finally starting to admit that and everything, but Jesus Christ. Dean, she ruined you. How can you act like you just forgot about all of that?”
“I didn’t forget, Sam,” Dean says quietly, staring straight ahead at the road, jaw clenched.
Silence reigns for a few excruciating minutes until Dean picks back up right where he left off, like it had all built up. “Do you think it was easy, dude? That I’m ever going to completely forgive her for bailing on us like that? But I don't have to, because I forgive her enough, okay? And I understand her, I think." Dean pauses and purses his lips, taking on a different tone that hits Sam in the gut. "Sam, you know as well as I do-she had it rough. It's not an excuse or anything. It’s just-she’s trying, dude, she really is-you should see it. It’s kind of hilarious actually. It’s almost a good thing she wasn’t here for the diaper phase because I think she might have lost her mind. Wuss.”
“That’s not funny, Dean.” In his head, Sam can hear what Dean isn’t saying: that he forgave Sam for leaving-both times. But Sam never abandoned his own child; it’s not the same. Dean’s capacity for unconditional love on the other hand-that seems to be.
“Look, what the fuck do you want, Sam? You left, and that’s awesome for you and you know I’m totally on board with that, but did you want me and Jan to be alone? I’m proud of you, dude, and Faith is too-you know she put in a word for you, right? Not that you needed it-you were born to be part of the tweed squad. Plus, this is a hell of lot better than you ending up a freaking lawyer or whatever.”
“Stop changing the subject, Dean.”
“I’m not! I’m just telling you about my life, because you’re my brother and if I can’t tell you this shit then that just…really sucks.”
Sam doesn’t know what to say to that.
But what Dean says next breaks him, and not just because he knows it’s got to be incredibly hard for Dean to come out with the words, “I’m-I’m happy, so can you please just let it be?”
For a supposed “tough guy”, Dean really can look exactly like a puppy dog sometimes, so Sam relents and shuts up. He spaces out for a minute or two, thinking about the pleading looks he catches in Faith’s eyes from time to time. How she tries in her own weird, understated way to suck up to him-letting him take the remote control, teasing him less, little stuff like that. If this was a few years ago, when she was his tough-ass partner in crime and co-conspirator in the noble project of the Annoyance of Dean Winchester, he’d have reveled in such things.
But then Dean-being Dean-chooses this quiet moment to play “gross Sam out,” saying, “Besides, man, it’s not like I just let her have this right away,” as he grabs his crotch through his jeans, turning his head to smirk at Sam.
Sam grabs the wheel and shrieks, “Oh my god, Dean, you’re driving, pay attention to the road, for crying out loud! And also, as usual, you’re completely fucking sick.”
Dean doesn’t miss a beat reclaiming the wheel. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, Samantha. Anyway, as I was saying, I made her wait for it, dude. Well, actually, no, I gave her a little taste early, but I was drunk as hell and it was the night after we killed the Demon so I figure I get a pass for traumatic circumstances. Having a chick chase after you? That’s the shit, all right. Well, except for the whole not getting laid part. That was lame.” Dean looks thoughtful. Sam just shakes his head, because it’s just like Dean to make light of something this serious, and make it pervy to boot.
But Sam can’t say that his brother doesn’t have range, because Dean turns on a dime with his next breath, saying earnestly, “But really, Sam, she wasn’t just trying to get in my pants-you saw this part, even if you won’t admit it-Faith wants to do a good job with Jan and I really think she put that first. It’s not…easy for her. Give her a break. Give me a break. I need it.”
Sam nods just slightly, looking over as Dean continues, “I miss you, dude. You’re only here for a few days this time-can we just…not fight?”
Sam tastes his assent in his mouth before giving it, deciding to add a dash of snark to make it more comfortable. “Okay. I’ll try. But you’re still a royal pain in the ass, so it’s going to be hard.”
Dean smiles and reaches over to turn the radio nob. “Hey, I take pride in that. And speaking of, I’ve changed my mind. It’s Sabbath all the way. You can listen to girly boys on your own time.” Dean cranks the volume up a bit and then shouts over the music. “So, feel like ordering up a vision to help me out with my navigation here?”
Sam sighs peaceably. “Dude, you know it doesn’t work that way. The Powers That Be don’t take orders from a guy like me.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’d be nice. Convenient.”
Sam keeps listening to Dean rattle on about the job ahead as he stares out at the scenery going by. No matter how cool it is that he gets paid-legally-to spend most of his time in libraries poring through old books, Sam’s glad this is still part of his job description. Best of both worlds-and yeah, he can admit now that he kind of likes this shit.
But Dean is this kind of shit, just weirdly now also with the living room full of toys, beers and pool with “the guys” on the weekends, and fixing cars on the side. Actually, that last part isn’t that weird at all. And when Sam sees the way Dean looks at Jan, that bit seems completely right also. So that’s why this is different than when Sam went to Stanford. Because now he knows that Dean’s got something that’s his, and with or without Faith, his brother will be all right.
The main part about all of this that actually sucks is that he wants to forgive Faith too. Sam wants his friend back.
~o~
Dance All Night
I ain't lonely now.
Yeah, I've got someone I love.
Someone I think about.
Someone for me to take care of.
And dance all night.
Dance all night.
Dance all night.
Yeah, I think I feel alright.
She ain't lonely now.
See her shuffle 'cross the floor.
Yeah, she's happier now.
See her smile and say 'come on.'
~o~
“I want to stop losing people we love. I want you to go to school. I want Dean to have a home…I just want this to be over.”+++
~o~
Sam takes a cab from the airport, because they aren’t expecting him until the next day. He took an earlier flight out of Heathrow, because he couldn’t wait to be back in a place where people call things what they are-french fries instead of “chips” and bathroom instead of “loo.” When he arrives on the front porch, the screen door is open so he just walks right in and settles his luggage by the front door. He almost trips over a pile of weapons on his way into the living room. After he steadies himself, Sam sticks his head into the room first and finds Jan sitting Indian style on the couch with a pile of papers and school books surrounding her, chewing on a pencil. “Where’re the folks, Jan-I-Am?” he calls out.
“Sam!” she exclaims, jumping up and running across the carpet to jump on him like a puppy, wrapping her skinny arms around his neck. Jan starts talking a mile a minute, the way that young girls are likely to do, and Sam tries to play back exactly how many months it’s been since his last visit, trying to figure out exactly when she started getting so damn big.
“Faith wanted to go dancing and Daddy went with her, because he’s totally fucking whipped. They’re like, so old though. It’s pathetic. And…”
Sam drops her gently on the ground, saying, “You kiss your momma with that mouth?”
Jan grins and settles back on the couch. “Where do you think I learned to talk like that?”
Sam reclines on the couch next to her and stretches out his legs, looking Jan over indulgently-long, coltish legs and unselfconscious determination in her pre-teen eyes. “Huh. So you’re old enough to curse now, but you’re still calling him ‘Daddy?’”
Jan scowls briefly and changes the subject, saying brightly, “So, anything exciting happen in the rest of the world?”
“We-ell, it’s been kinda crazy for me lately, a bunch of new slayers and there was this thing in New Zealand, a portal opened to a demon dimension and we had to go in there and-do you really want to hear about all of this?”
Jan rests her chin on her fists and looks up at him with voracious eyes. “Totally,” she says solemnly, “all Faith and Daddy talk about is vampires and ghosts and boring stuff like that. I want to know about the really cool things.”
“Okay then, but it looks like you’ve got a lot of homework there. Don’t want to get you in trouble if you don’t finish it.”
“It’s cool,” Jan says, “I’m ahead, and besides, they just sign the report cards and that’s it. Plus,” she adds shyly, “I’m getting all A’s.”
“That’s awesome! Dean must be really proud.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she says, twisting a dark brown curl with her finger. “I mean, of course he is. Totally.” She leans in then and whispers conspiratorially, “I heard my dad telling the guys at the garage the other day when he thought I wasn’t listening. Of course, he also told them that I can hit the target every time at the range, which isn’t exactly true.”
Sam laughs and shakes his head, saying, “Yeah, well we all know Dean hasn’t exactly always been known for being the most truthful guy in the world. I hope that’s not something you pick up. Anyway, so about New Zealand…”
~o~
When Faith and Dean get back, Sam and Jan are both half passed out with the TV on, playing the old monster movies that Jan loves. Faith strips off her leather jacket and clomps over, shaking Jan and saying, “Get up, kiddo, it’s time for bed. You’ve got karate in the morning, and I’m not waking up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday to take you if I gotta push your little butt out of bed in the morning.” Jan opens her eyes sleepily and looks up, mumbling, “Sure, whatever,” and falling like a ragdoll into Faith’s arms as she hoists her up.
“Good to see ya, Sammy. I’ll be back down in a bit, and then you’re gonna tell me all the dirt about Buffy, and Willow’s latest little girlfriend, and whatever the hell else,” Faith says as she settles the half-asleep Jan on her own two feet. “And I’m not kidding around. I want all the dirt-the filthiest you’ve got.”
“Sure, sure,” Sam says, twisting a little smile in her direction before turning his attention to Dean, who’s accepting a sleepy kiss on the cheek from Jan. “So, you went dancing, huh? Since when do you do that?”
As soon as the girls are gone, Dean gets up and slaps Sam lightly upside the head. “Since now, Watcher boy. She dances-I drink and watch. It works out. You want a beer? There’s some in the fridge.”
“Yeah, definitely,” Sam replies and watches as his brother ambles over to the kitchen, limping slightly from some new injury or another, but otherwise looking pretty good.
“So,” Sam says as Dean hands him a sweating bottle, “when the hell are you going to come and see me already?”
Dean plunks his ass down on the couch and takes a swig from his own beer. “Ah, that would be never. You know I don’t fly, dude. That shit’s not safe.” Sam shakes his head. Dean acts totally unaware of how incredibly ridiculous what he just said really is, considering.
“Then why do you let Jan come over every summer?” Sam pokes.
Dean ignores Sam’s attempt at imposing logic on the conversation and asks, “How long’s your geekfest gonna be this year?”
“Don’t know yet. Think I’m getting three weeks off in a row though. I’ve been a good boy-my paper on the ‘Colorado Vampiric Anomalies’ was quite well-received,” Sam says, only sort of trying not to sound smug.
“Right, of course,” Dean says, sticking his thumbs in his belt loops and leaning back.
“Why? What are you and Faith going to do?”
Dean’s tongue flicks out slightly over his lower lip. “What d’you think we’re going to do? We’ll fuck in the afternoon on this here couch and eat all the junk food we can while the kid’s not around to be nutritionally corrupted. ” If there was an Olympic event for leering, Dean would totally make gold.
Sam lets out an exaggerated guffaw. “I wouldn’t worry about that too much-she’s smarter than the two of you combined.”
Dean’s smile shifts into proud papa mode and he says, “Ha fucking ha, smart ass. Dude, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were the milkman. If she didn’t have my good looks that is.” He folds his arms over his chest. “We’re talking about going to Vegas.”
“You finally gonna make an honest woman out of her this time or just play grifters like usual?” Sam teases.
Dean snorts. “Of course not. Don’t need a piece of paper to tell me she’s my old lady.”
“I’m your what?” Faith says, appearing out of nowhere and flicking Dean on the ear.
“Ouch! Knock it off, woman. I’m delicate,” Dean says happily, grabbing Faith by the waist and pulling her onto his knee. She protests at first but then settles in, propping her feet up on Sam’s lap at the other end of the couch.
“You’re such a friggin’ whiner, Gramps,” Faith says, kissing Dean with a visible flash of tongue. Sam’s eyeballs lift up towards the ceiling, but he’s used to this so whatever. They cut it out soon though, and Faith turns her head in Sam’s direction, proclaiming, “Gettin’ hitched is for regular people. We’re not like that-boring.”
“Well, ain’t that the truth,” Sam says absently.
This is (almost) the weirdest form of domesticity he’s ever encountered, but it seems to suit them just fine. And yeah, the fight’s never really over-even during lulls like this they all know that-but Sam hopes that some way, somehow, his father is watching-that he can see this too.
Note: Opening quote (John Winchester to Sam Winchester) taken from SPN 1.21, “Salvation.”
~o~
Epilogue: Not a Pretty Girl/Straight Line Revisited
I am not a pretty girl.
I don't want to be a pretty girl.
No, I want to be more than a pretty girl.
Faith didn’t get her first car until she was thirty-five, but she always has done things ass-backwards. She felt like an asshole when Dean gave her the keys inside a felt jewelry box on her birthday-her bitching about him staying late at the garage seemed pretty lame then.
Faith loves driving fast (but doesn’t when Jan’s with her). When she pulls up at a stoplight and some random dude catcalls, Faith automatically flips the bird. Once upon a time she only felt beautiful reflected in Dean’s eyes-now it doesn’t matter. ‘Cause she’s about so much more than that.
I was born to a cold wind. Take the color right out of your eyes.
I just keep what I can carry now, and leave the rest behind.
Dean has a new Impala. Well, actually it’s pieced together from the original plus the fleet of gutted ones littering his front lawn. There are still guns filling his trunk, but less crap in the backseat. On Sundays, he waxes it so the paintjob will stay smooth and sleek.
He likes taking long drives alone sometimes to clear his head, but warmth always spreads through his body as he pulls into the driveway when he gets home. Dean doesn’t have to cram everything that really matters into his car anymore, but it’s still possible-there are four seatbelts after all.
~fin~