Peace
Title: Peace
Series Title: The Face
Author:
hunters_retreat
Fandom: Supernatural/RPS/Dark Angel/10 Inch Hero Crossover
Pairing: Dean/Jensen/Alec/Priestly, Sam/Logan
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Spoilers through SPN Season 5 possible and anything from DA and TIH.
Summary: Commotion broke out from behind them as a young woman came running through the empty hallway. The others turned to look at her but she didn’t stop running as she got closer. Priestly got a clear view of her then, long brown hair tied up around her face and startling blue eyes that screamed to him.
Author's Note: Futuristic AU. Beset with loss and grief, in a world they no longer known, Dean, Jensen, Alec, and Priestly find one another and challenge the world around them.
“Everyone keep your guard up.”
Priestly rolled his eyes at Dean’s words but he held the gun steady as he kept a look out. He didn’t like what they were doing, but no one really did. Two weeks ago one of their scouts had come back to the base to tell them about an unknown community that had been found. They’d all scrambled to get information and prep for the mission and now they were standing in the front entryway of what had been a large shopping mall.
The building has seen better days, but there didn’t seem to be any structural damage and there was no evidence of bombings in the area. The parking lot was littered with rubbish and long dead cars, pocked with weather marks but nothing more sinister. The doors and front windows had all been busted out but someone had covered it with a mod-podge of what looked like old table tops.
There was a chaos of scrabbling noises and crashing storefront gates as they approached but when they entered further they couldn’t see anyone. The store fronts had all been closed. The path through the center of the mall was clear, only small bits of debris left in the wake of whatever had been there moments before. The floors were well used so there wasn’t even a layer of dust, just bits of junk and trashy remains.
Their look out wasn’t good enough to keep their scouts from finding them in the first place, but they were organized enough to clear out quickly.
Priestly could see the tightness in Dean’s back at the front of the column and knew he wasn’t happy about it. Not that he was happy anytime they met others. Or when all four of them were out in the field together. Control freak.
Dean and Alec were up front with Sam and Logan, while he was stuck behind Michael, Kane, and Jo. There were other soldiers behind them, guarding their back and retreat should they need it. Jensen, at least, was at his side and he looked at the other man who gave him a tight lipped smile.
“At least we were right that it’s a community,” he said quietly.
Alec shot a nasty look back their way and Priestly just smiled because they should be quiet but it wasn’t like it was a secret they were there. The other man with his face rolled his eyes but then Alec nudged Dean and nodded to a doorway before any of them had heard anything behind it.
They waited but Dean didn’t take them a step further into the mall to meet whatever was coming. They might feel a bit like sitting ducks, but there were three floors to the mall and no one wanted to be stuck inside the mall, in what could be a death trap on that bottom level. At least here they could evade and they could get back to the trucks if need be.
A few minutes later, a small group came out to meet them. There were only five people but they were all well-armed. Three of them carried themselves like soldiers, but the other two seemed like the sort of fighter who learned the harder way. Life taught them. They weren’t soldiers, but survivors, much like Priestly had been; rough and raw and ready for a fight, until Dean and Alec had toned and trained him into a soldier. No matter how they’d disliked it.
Dean and Alec lowered their weapons but the others kept them up. No one doubted that there were hidden weapons pointed at them somewhere.
The woman at the front of the group stopped a few feet from where Dean and Alec stood.
“What do you want here?” she asked.
“We got word of your community. We just wanted to talk,” Dean answered.
“What have you got to say?”
“We’re the Face. We run-”
“We’ve heard of the Face. How are we to know you’re it?” the woman asked.
“Um… the face maybe?” Dean said waving at his face and then to Alec’s.
“Dean,” Sam said, exasperation coloring his voice.
“Mimi, wait!”
Commotion broke out from behind them as a young woman came running through the empty hallway. The others turned to look at her but she didn’t stop running as she got closer.
Priestly got a clear view of her then, long brown hair tied up around her face and startling blue eyes that screamed to him.
“Jules?” He ran towards her before anyone else could react, towards the only family he had left from Before.
She threw herself into his arms. “Priestly!”
He held her close, ignoring the tears he could feel on his face, on the ones he felt against his neck. “Jules, I never stopped looking. Darlin’, I never stopped, I swear.”
“I know. Me too,” she said into his collar.
“Priestly?”
There was a warning in Jensen’s voice and Priestly looked up to see the five strangers all had guns pointed at him. Jensen had placed himself between Priestly and the firearms but it wasn’t making the situation any better.
“Jules?” he said, trying to step back. She moved with him and he grabbed her shoulders gently to look at her. “Hey, Jules, why don’t you tell the friendly gun toting mall cops that I’m not going to hurt you so they stop pointing guns at me and my friends.”
She looked wide eyed at the others before a frown settled on her face. “Mimi, what the hell are you doing? This is Priestly! Go point those things someplace else, target practice maybe, considering who you brought out with you.”
“Well girl, we left our best sharp shooter on the third floor, but she abandoned her post and came running like a love sick school girl,” the older woman said. She made a hand motion and the others backed off.
Priestly would take offense at the words but there was affection in her voice and Jules’ face broke into a smile. She looked back at Priestly then.
“Mimi found me about two years ago. After we were separated she took me in and gave me a place to stay.” She looked around at all the others and shook her head. “The Face?”
Priestly smiled. “It’s a long story, Darlin’.”
“Mimi, we should let them inside so I can hear it then.”
“You may be ready to trust them but I don’t have any reassurances,” Mimi said.
“We just came to talk,” Jensen repeated Dean’s words from earlier. “Now, apparently, we have more to talk about than we thought. Our scouts found you. If you’ve heard of us then you know what we’re doing. We have places in our protection, a system of barter and trade between communities, and we’re fighting to get ourselves free of the psychics.”
“Heard you had one working with you too,” Mimi said skeptically.
“I am,” Sam answered. “I’m only one man, but I do what I can to help.”
Mimi scowled but Priestly smiled at Jules when she strode forward and offered Sam her hand. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Julia Miller. You’re a friend of Priestly’s?”
Sam smiled at her as she shook his hand and Priestly could barely contain his pride at the way she marched right up to Sam like that. She’d always been one of the brave ones.
“I am,” he answered. Priestly knew better than to think Sam wasn’t using the opportunity to make sure she wasn’t juiced up but he appreciated the subtlety that the younger Winchester had. He really needed to teach it to his brother who was standing nearby, scowling at Mimi.
“Then you’re a friend of mine,” she said as she took Sam’s hand and pulled him back towards Mimi. “And I’m going to ask my friends in for something cool to drink since they’ve obviously been on the road a while.”
Mimi stared at Jules and Jules stared right back for a moment before the older woman sighed. “Alright Julia. But the guard is staying put.”
Julia smiled as she looked back at Priestly. She offered her free hand to him. It was only then that he noticed the rifle strapped across her back. He ignored it and took her hand.
“The guard might be up, but I promise, so long as you come in peace, we mean you no harm,” Jules said as she looked over at Dean.
“So take me to your leader?” Dean asked.
She smiled and looked up at Priestly. “I like him.”
“I’m particularly fond of him myself.”
Jules led the way but Mimi and the silent four, as Priestly called them in his head, followed right behind. Dean and the others behind them just in case of any funny business.
“Open up, Jake!” Jules called out as she banged her fist on a metal door. “We have thirsty guests!”
Jules had let go of them then and Sam moved back to Logan and Dean’s side as Priestly just stepped back. He couldn’t pull Jules away from the others just yet to find out what had happened to her since they’d last seen one another but he couldn’t move away from her either.
Alec was at Dean’s side, his face set in a frown but Jensen stepped closer.
“Priestly?”
The door to the storefront was pulled up and behind it was an old restaurant. The guy behind it was presumably Jake and Jules went over to speak quietly to him. The others followed and Priestly found himself alone outside the shop with Jensen.
“You know her,” Jensen started for him.
“Jules. Or Julia. When everything went to hell, her stepmom was one of my best friends. Julia was only 14. Most of the,” he stopped because he didn’t want to talk about it. He’d never talked about it with anyone but he owed them some explanation. “In the end, it was just Julia and I. Three years ago we were cornered in a small business park. We separated and I drew the attention of a psychic so she could get away. I didn’t know they were looking for Dean. They captured me and took me. When I became part of the Face, I asked the scouts to keep an eye out for Jules but no one has ever seen her. It’s been over 3 years since I last saw her. I don’t know what happened to her.”
“Don’t worry,” Jensen said with a small smile. “I’ll run interference and give you some time to catch up.”
Priestly looked over at the others and noticed Alec’s expression. The Face was close knit but Priestly felt closer to Alec than the others. He spent more time with Alec and Alec was the one who had first given him a chance when he’d been brought back to the base where the Face lived. He’d never talked to them about his past though and he could see that Alec wasn’t happy about something from that time coming into his life.
“Thank you, Jensen,” he said. “I’ll stay where we can be seen so Dean doesn’t flip out,” he said with a smile.
“And you’ll talk to Alec before we have to worry?” Jensen’s return smile was kind.
“About him or me?”
“Either.”
Priestly laughed at that and when Jules looked back at him, she quirked an eyebrow in question. He smiled at her and nodded his head to one side and he knew she understood. It might have been three years since he’d last seen her, but they still knew how to read one another.
She excused herself from the others and Priestly led her a little farther off from the others but still in full view. She looked back and then at Priestly.
“Spill it,” she said. “Last I saw you, we were running from the psychics and we had to split up. You never came back.”
He shook his head. “I was captured. They were looking for Dean, one of the others that looks like me. They kept me a while until they figured out that I wasn’t him. I’d just been put to work on one of the farms when soldiers came in and helped us escape. They took us to the Face, and that’s where I learned that I looked just like them too. It took a little while, but I found a place with them. I had the scouts looking for you though, Jules. I never let up. I just couldn’t find you on my own.”
She nodded. “I waited for two weeks but then I had to bug out. Here, I’ve been pretty well treated. We all eat well and we take turns with the watch and…it’s not perfect, but it’s better than what I had out there. I scout as much as I can, though to be honest, they keep me up on the wall most of the time.”
“Why?”
“She’s the best sharp shooter we’ve got,” Mimi said as she came up to join them. She offered Priestly some coffee and he looked back to see Jensen’s eyes closed as he sipped at his beverage. Dean rolled his eyes but the smile on the other man’s face let him know that whatever had been said in the last few minutes had put them at ease. Alec watched them closely, but Priestly understood why.
He took the mug and smelled it before he sipped. “The way to the heart of the Face, is through coffee,” he confided.
“So you know Julia,” the older woman asked.
The three of them walked back to the others. Jensen was in love with his coffee so he knew it was only a matter of time before Alec came over anyway. He might as well tell the story once and be done with it. Not that there was much to tell.
There were tables inside the little restaurant and the others sat when they joined them. Alec sat beside him while Jules took the other side.
“Jules and I knew each other Before,” he said to the others. “I used to work at a sub shop in Santa Cruz with her stepmom. There was a group of us. We stayed close even when we started to go our separate ways. When everything went to hell, we just happened to be together for an impromptu sort of reunion. We went to ground and tried to keep together, but you know what it was like,” he said. Alec squeezed his hand and Priestly smiled at him, even if he didn’t feel like it. They all had their sob stories.
“Priestly and I are the only ones left,” Jules said softly. We got separated a few years back and I didn’t know what happened to him.”
“That’s why you’re always fighting to be on the scouts,” Mimi said softly in understanding.
Jules nodded. “This was the safest place I’d ever known but I couldn’t stop hoping that Priestly was out there somewhere.”
Priestly looked over at Dean. “The psychics got me and kept me to see if I was you. Took them a while though before they decided I wasn’t. Then one of your raiding parties rescued me.”
“And you had the scouts looking for her.”
“You knew?”
Dean nodded. “We all lost people. You weren’t the first person to ask them to look out for a loved one.”
“You never asked.”
“You aren’t the first person to want to keep their grief to themselves either.”
Priestly nodded. “Yeah. Though I guess if I had thought about where to find you Jules, I should have known to look at the mall.”
“Hey!” she smacked his arm and Priestly laughed. He pulled her close on one side and finally let out a deep breath. He’d lost everyone else, but he’d found his pretty little gem and he could relax for the first time since he’d been captured.
***
It was late the next night before Priestly left her side to check in with the others. He’d slept on his bedroll beside her in the abandoned store she called home. It used to be a Hot Topics and she said it reminded her of him, which was why she chose it. She’d even stock piled a selection of tee shirts that she’d found in his size as she explored the remains of the mall and its wares.
The next day, Jensen, Logan, and Alec sat with Mimi and her people and began to talk in earnest about their communities and if an alliance could be found here. Dean went exploring with Sam, and the others took the time to talk to the people there with the orders to just get their impressions of the people and if it was really the sort of place they should be involved in.
Priestly left Jules once she was buried under her blankets in the nest of clothes she called a bed. She promised to find him as soon as she woke and he was happy enough with that to go find his lovers.
They’d been given their own store to sleep in. The places in use had been hollowed of store equipment and people had refitted them as homes. The first story seemed to be more actual business type places and it reminded him of the storefronts they had back in B Base. The second floor had been turned into homes and most of the third floor was unused, except for the materials that might be found there.
Priestly smiled as he walked into what had once been a coffee shop. Jensen was sitting on one of the couches with Dean and Alec was sitting in a chair across from them. Logan was sitting on another chair. He could almost imagine what it would be like, to have met them Before.
Sam was standing at the doorway, keeping an eye out, though his eyes were as attuned in as out. Priestly had grown to know the look well and he appreciated that the big guy was looking out for them. He knocked him lightly on the shoulder and Sam smiled as Priestly passed him by to join the others.
“I was beginning to think you were going to stand us up again,” Jensen teased.
Priestly plopped down on the couch right between Jensen and Dean. “I tired my pretty princess out. She needed more sleep to find her prince charming.”
“I thought you were her Prince Charming,” Alec commented.
Priestly rolled his eyes because it wasn’t like Alec’s jealousy had been subtle. “More like the Prince’s Dad. Her real dad … he died pretty quick protecting everyone. Jules just…became mine then.”
“I’m sorry,” Alec said immediately. “I was just being-“
He shook his head. “I didn’t give you guys any idea what was happening. Sorry, that’s my bad. I just needed to make sure she was okay. She’s…good. As good as anyone can be in a place like this.”
“And what do you think of a place like this?” Jensen asked.
“So, I interrupted that sort of meeting, did I?”
“You did,” Logan said with a smile. “Everyone’s given their opinion and we were hoping to get yours tonight.”
“Jules is happy here. They take care of one another. They’re more like us than any other group we’ve come across. This place was mostly left alone until they came here. According to Jules, they still find bodies every so often, old ones that let them know someone had tried to defend the place but they were too old to worry about. They got a little privacy, some basics from the backrooms and storerooms in the mall, and shelter from the elements. And she says Mimi runs it pretty tight. From what I could see when she was showing me around, it’s true.”
“Or are you just taking her word for it?” Dean asked.
He shook his head. “I love Jules but I’m not about to believe they’re treating her right until I see it with my own eyes. I believe they are.”
Dean nodded and looked over at Jensen. “That seems to be the consensus.”
“Alliance then?” Logan asked. “Sam hasn’t seen anything to worry about either.”
They all nodded and Jensen smiled. “Guess we just made some new friends while Priestly was finding old ones.”
That seemed to be all they had the energy left for because then Logan and Sam were heading next door to another storefront that they were using and Priestly was left alone with the others. Not that he could get up to the sort of things they preferred when left alone at night, but it was good to be back with them even after just one night.
Alec pulled up behind him with his bedroll and Priestly turned over to rest his head on the other man’s shoulder.
“What will happen next?” Alec asked.
“Huh?”
“Jules. Is she going to ask you to stay?”
And Priestly realized he was a moron because while he thought Alec was being jealous, his lover had actually been worried about losing him to the only family he had left. When Priestly looked at Dean and Jensen who were listening in, he realized they all had been.
“Can’t very well stay here and still be part of the Face, now can I? I already talked to Jules and she’s coming with us. Mimi won’t be too happy to lose her best sharp shooter but Jules said it won’t be bad blood between them. She always told them she was leaving when she found me so it won’t come as a surprise.”
Alec gripped his side tighter and pulled him a little closer. “I suppose we’ll have to find room for her somewhere then.”
“Just maybe not next door,” Priestly said with a grin. “There are some things she doesn’t need to hear about me.”
Alec laughed and Priestly could feel his lover relax a little more.
He hadn’t expected to find Jules. After all this time, he knew his girl was tough but he’d never expected her to beat the odds and find something like this. There’d been hard times and she dusted right past a couple chapters that he knew meant some bad things had happened, but she’d come through it all and was still his Jules.
It was all he’d ever hoped for. She was all he’d had left to hope for, before Alec and Dean and Jensen had given him something more. Now, he couldn’t wait to take Jules home. Now, he could finally get her someplace safe, and Noah and Piper could be at peace at last.
On to How to Live Again
Series Title: The Face
Author:
hunters_retreat
Fandom: Supernatural/RPS/Dark Angel/10 Inch Hero Crossover
Pairing: Dean/Jensen/Alec/Priestly, Sam/Logan
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Spoilers through SPN Season 5 possible and anything from DA and TIH.
Summary: Commotion broke out from behind them as a young woman came running through the empty hallway. The others turned to look at her but she didn’t stop running as she got closer. Priestly got a clear view of her then, long brown hair tied up around her face and startling blue eyes that screamed to him.
Author's Note: Futuristic AU. Beset with loss and grief, in a world they no longer known, Dean, Jensen, Alec, and Priestly find one another and challenge the world around them.
“Everyone keep your guard up.”
Priestly rolled his eyes at Dean’s words but he held the gun steady as he kept a look out. He didn’t like what they were doing, but no one really did. Two weeks ago one of their scouts had come back to the base to tell them about an unknown community that had been found. They’d all scrambled to get information and prep for the mission and now they were standing in the front entryway of what had been a large shopping mall.
The building has seen better days, but there didn’t seem to be any structural damage and there was no evidence of bombings in the area. The parking lot was littered with rubbish and long dead cars, pocked with weather marks but nothing more sinister. The doors and front windows had all been busted out but someone had covered it with a mod-podge of what looked like old table tops.
There was a chaos of scrabbling noises and crashing storefront gates as they approached but when they entered further they couldn’t see anyone. The store fronts had all been closed. The path through the center of the mall was clear, only small bits of debris left in the wake of whatever had been there moments before. The floors were well used so there wasn’t even a layer of dust, just bits of junk and trashy remains.
Their look out wasn’t good enough to keep their scouts from finding them in the first place, but they were organized enough to clear out quickly.
Priestly could see the tightness in Dean’s back at the front of the column and knew he wasn’t happy about it. Not that he was happy anytime they met others. Or when all four of them were out in the field together. Control freak.
Dean and Alec were up front with Sam and Logan, while he was stuck behind Michael, Kane, and Jo. There were other soldiers behind them, guarding their back and retreat should they need it. Jensen, at least, was at his side and he looked at the other man who gave him a tight lipped smile.
“At least we were right that it’s a community,” he said quietly.
Alec shot a nasty look back their way and Priestly just smiled because they should be quiet but it wasn’t like it was a secret they were there. The other man with his face rolled his eyes but then Alec nudged Dean and nodded to a doorway before any of them had heard anything behind it.
They waited but Dean didn’t take them a step further into the mall to meet whatever was coming. They might feel a bit like sitting ducks, but there were three floors to the mall and no one wanted to be stuck inside the mall, in what could be a death trap on that bottom level. At least here they could evade and they could get back to the trucks if need be.
A few minutes later, a small group came out to meet them. There were only five people but they were all well-armed. Three of them carried themselves like soldiers, but the other two seemed like the sort of fighter who learned the harder way. Life taught them. They weren’t soldiers, but survivors, much like Priestly had been; rough and raw and ready for a fight, until Dean and Alec had toned and trained him into a soldier. No matter how they’d disliked it.
Dean and Alec lowered their weapons but the others kept them up. No one doubted that there were hidden weapons pointed at them somewhere.
The woman at the front of the group stopped a few feet from where Dean and Alec stood.
“What do you want here?” she asked.
“We got word of your community. We just wanted to talk,” Dean answered.
“What have you got to say?”
“We’re the Face. We run-”
“We’ve heard of the Face. How are we to know you’re it?” the woman asked.
“Um… the face maybe?” Dean said waving at his face and then to Alec’s.
“Dean,” Sam said, exasperation coloring his voice.
“Mimi, wait!”
Commotion broke out from behind them as a young woman came running through the empty hallway. The others turned to look at her but she didn’t stop running as she got closer.
Priestly got a clear view of her then, long brown hair tied up around her face and startling blue eyes that screamed to him.
“Jules?” He ran towards her before anyone else could react, towards the only family he had left from Before.
She threw herself into his arms. “Priestly!”
He held her close, ignoring the tears he could feel on his face, on the ones he felt against his neck. “Jules, I never stopped looking. Darlin’, I never stopped, I swear.”
“I know. Me too,” she said into his collar.
“Priestly?”
There was a warning in Jensen’s voice and Priestly looked up to see the five strangers all had guns pointed at him. Jensen had placed himself between Priestly and the firearms but it wasn’t making the situation any better.
“Jules?” he said, trying to step back. She moved with him and he grabbed her shoulders gently to look at her. “Hey, Jules, why don’t you tell the friendly gun toting mall cops that I’m not going to hurt you so they stop pointing guns at me and my friends.”
She looked wide eyed at the others before a frown settled on her face. “Mimi, what the hell are you doing? This is Priestly! Go point those things someplace else, target practice maybe, considering who you brought out with you.”
“Well girl, we left our best sharp shooter on the third floor, but she abandoned her post and came running like a love sick school girl,” the older woman said. She made a hand motion and the others backed off.
Priestly would take offense at the words but there was affection in her voice and Jules’ face broke into a smile. She looked back at Priestly then.
“Mimi found me about two years ago. After we were separated she took me in and gave me a place to stay.” She looked around at all the others and shook her head. “The Face?”
Priestly smiled. “It’s a long story, Darlin’.”
“Mimi, we should let them inside so I can hear it then.”
“You may be ready to trust them but I don’t have any reassurances,” Mimi said.
“We just came to talk,” Jensen repeated Dean’s words from earlier. “Now, apparently, we have more to talk about than we thought. Our scouts found you. If you’ve heard of us then you know what we’re doing. We have places in our protection, a system of barter and trade between communities, and we’re fighting to get ourselves free of the psychics.”
“Heard you had one working with you too,” Mimi said skeptically.
“I am,” Sam answered. “I’m only one man, but I do what I can to help.”
Mimi scowled but Priestly smiled at Jules when she strode forward and offered Sam her hand. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Julia Miller. You’re a friend of Priestly’s?”
Sam smiled at her as she shook his hand and Priestly could barely contain his pride at the way she marched right up to Sam like that. She’d always been one of the brave ones.
“I am,” he answered. Priestly knew better than to think Sam wasn’t using the opportunity to make sure she wasn’t juiced up but he appreciated the subtlety that the younger Winchester had. He really needed to teach it to his brother who was standing nearby, scowling at Mimi.
“Then you’re a friend of mine,” she said as she took Sam’s hand and pulled him back towards Mimi. “And I’m going to ask my friends in for something cool to drink since they’ve obviously been on the road a while.”
Mimi stared at Jules and Jules stared right back for a moment before the older woman sighed. “Alright Julia. But the guard is staying put.”
Julia smiled as she looked back at Priestly. She offered her free hand to him. It was only then that he noticed the rifle strapped across her back. He ignored it and took her hand.
“The guard might be up, but I promise, so long as you come in peace, we mean you no harm,” Jules said as she looked over at Dean.
“So take me to your leader?” Dean asked.
She smiled and looked up at Priestly. “I like him.”
“I’m particularly fond of him myself.”
Jules led the way but Mimi and the silent four, as Priestly called them in his head, followed right behind. Dean and the others behind them just in case of any funny business.
“Open up, Jake!” Jules called out as she banged her fist on a metal door. “We have thirsty guests!”
Jules had let go of them then and Sam moved back to Logan and Dean’s side as Priestly just stepped back. He couldn’t pull Jules away from the others just yet to find out what had happened to her since they’d last seen one another but he couldn’t move away from her either.
Alec was at Dean’s side, his face set in a frown but Jensen stepped closer.
“Priestly?”
The door to the storefront was pulled up and behind it was an old restaurant. The guy behind it was presumably Jake and Jules went over to speak quietly to him. The others followed and Priestly found himself alone outside the shop with Jensen.
“You know her,” Jensen started for him.
“Jules. Or Julia. When everything went to hell, her stepmom was one of my best friends. Julia was only 14. Most of the,” he stopped because he didn’t want to talk about it. He’d never talked about it with anyone but he owed them some explanation. “In the end, it was just Julia and I. Three years ago we were cornered in a small business park. We separated and I drew the attention of a psychic so she could get away. I didn’t know they were looking for Dean. They captured me and took me. When I became part of the Face, I asked the scouts to keep an eye out for Jules but no one has ever seen her. It’s been over 3 years since I last saw her. I don’t know what happened to her.”
“Don’t worry,” Jensen said with a small smile. “I’ll run interference and give you some time to catch up.”
Priestly looked over at the others and noticed Alec’s expression. The Face was close knit but Priestly felt closer to Alec than the others. He spent more time with Alec and Alec was the one who had first given him a chance when he’d been brought back to the base where the Face lived. He’d never talked to them about his past though and he could see that Alec wasn’t happy about something from that time coming into his life.
“Thank you, Jensen,” he said. “I’ll stay where we can be seen so Dean doesn’t flip out,” he said with a smile.
“And you’ll talk to Alec before we have to worry?” Jensen’s return smile was kind.
“About him or me?”
“Either.”
Priestly laughed at that and when Jules looked back at him, she quirked an eyebrow in question. He smiled at her and nodded his head to one side and he knew she understood. It might have been three years since he’d last seen her, but they still knew how to read one another.
She excused herself from the others and Priestly led her a little farther off from the others but still in full view. She looked back and then at Priestly.
“Spill it,” she said. “Last I saw you, we were running from the psychics and we had to split up. You never came back.”
He shook his head. “I was captured. They were looking for Dean, one of the others that looks like me. They kept me a while until they figured out that I wasn’t him. I’d just been put to work on one of the farms when soldiers came in and helped us escape. They took us to the Face, and that’s where I learned that I looked just like them too. It took a little while, but I found a place with them. I had the scouts looking for you though, Jules. I never let up. I just couldn’t find you on my own.”
She nodded. “I waited for two weeks but then I had to bug out. Here, I’ve been pretty well treated. We all eat well and we take turns with the watch and…it’s not perfect, but it’s better than what I had out there. I scout as much as I can, though to be honest, they keep me up on the wall most of the time.”
“Why?”
“She’s the best sharp shooter we’ve got,” Mimi said as she came up to join them. She offered Priestly some coffee and he looked back to see Jensen’s eyes closed as he sipped at his beverage. Dean rolled his eyes but the smile on the other man’s face let him know that whatever had been said in the last few minutes had put them at ease. Alec watched them closely, but Priestly understood why.
He took the mug and smelled it before he sipped. “The way to the heart of the Face, is through coffee,” he confided.
“So you know Julia,” the older woman asked.
The three of them walked back to the others. Jensen was in love with his coffee so he knew it was only a matter of time before Alec came over anyway. He might as well tell the story once and be done with it. Not that there was much to tell.
There were tables inside the little restaurant and the others sat when they joined them. Alec sat beside him while Jules took the other side.
“Jules and I knew each other Before,” he said to the others. “I used to work at a sub shop in Santa Cruz with her stepmom. There was a group of us. We stayed close even when we started to go our separate ways. When everything went to hell, we just happened to be together for an impromptu sort of reunion. We went to ground and tried to keep together, but you know what it was like,” he said. Alec squeezed his hand and Priestly smiled at him, even if he didn’t feel like it. They all had their sob stories.
“Priestly and I are the only ones left,” Jules said softly. We got separated a few years back and I didn’t know what happened to him.”
“That’s why you’re always fighting to be on the scouts,” Mimi said softly in understanding.
Jules nodded. “This was the safest place I’d ever known but I couldn’t stop hoping that Priestly was out there somewhere.”
Priestly looked over at Dean. “The psychics got me and kept me to see if I was you. Took them a while though before they decided I wasn’t. Then one of your raiding parties rescued me.”
“And you had the scouts looking for her.”
“You knew?”
Dean nodded. “We all lost people. You weren’t the first person to ask them to look out for a loved one.”
“You never asked.”
“You aren’t the first person to want to keep their grief to themselves either.”
Priestly nodded. “Yeah. Though I guess if I had thought about where to find you Jules, I should have known to look at the mall.”
“Hey!” she smacked his arm and Priestly laughed. He pulled her close on one side and finally let out a deep breath. He’d lost everyone else, but he’d found his pretty little gem and he could relax for the first time since he’d been captured.
***
It was late the next night before Priestly left her side to check in with the others. He’d slept on his bedroll beside her in the abandoned store she called home. It used to be a Hot Topics and she said it reminded her of him, which was why she chose it. She’d even stock piled a selection of tee shirts that she’d found in his size as she explored the remains of the mall and its wares.
The next day, Jensen, Logan, and Alec sat with Mimi and her people and began to talk in earnest about their communities and if an alliance could be found here. Dean went exploring with Sam, and the others took the time to talk to the people there with the orders to just get their impressions of the people and if it was really the sort of place they should be involved in.
Priestly left Jules once she was buried under her blankets in the nest of clothes she called a bed. She promised to find him as soon as she woke and he was happy enough with that to go find his lovers.
They’d been given their own store to sleep in. The places in use had been hollowed of store equipment and people had refitted them as homes. The first story seemed to be more actual business type places and it reminded him of the storefronts they had back in B Base. The second floor had been turned into homes and most of the third floor was unused, except for the materials that might be found there.
Priestly smiled as he walked into what had once been a coffee shop. Jensen was sitting on one of the couches with Dean and Alec was sitting in a chair across from them. Logan was sitting on another chair. He could almost imagine what it would be like, to have met them Before.
Sam was standing at the doorway, keeping an eye out, though his eyes were as attuned in as out. Priestly had grown to know the look well and he appreciated that the big guy was looking out for them. He knocked him lightly on the shoulder and Sam smiled as Priestly passed him by to join the others.
“I was beginning to think you were going to stand us up again,” Jensen teased.
Priestly plopped down on the couch right between Jensen and Dean. “I tired my pretty princess out. She needed more sleep to find her prince charming.”
“I thought you were her Prince Charming,” Alec commented.
Priestly rolled his eyes because it wasn’t like Alec’s jealousy had been subtle. “More like the Prince’s Dad. Her real dad … he died pretty quick protecting everyone. Jules just…became mine then.”
“I’m sorry,” Alec said immediately. “I was just being-“
He shook his head. “I didn’t give you guys any idea what was happening. Sorry, that’s my bad. I just needed to make sure she was okay. She’s…good. As good as anyone can be in a place like this.”
“And what do you think of a place like this?” Jensen asked.
“So, I interrupted that sort of meeting, did I?”
“You did,” Logan said with a smile. “Everyone’s given their opinion and we were hoping to get yours tonight.”
“Jules is happy here. They take care of one another. They’re more like us than any other group we’ve come across. This place was mostly left alone until they came here. According to Jules, they still find bodies every so often, old ones that let them know someone had tried to defend the place but they were too old to worry about. They got a little privacy, some basics from the backrooms and storerooms in the mall, and shelter from the elements. And she says Mimi runs it pretty tight. From what I could see when she was showing me around, it’s true.”
“Or are you just taking her word for it?” Dean asked.
He shook his head. “I love Jules but I’m not about to believe they’re treating her right until I see it with my own eyes. I believe they are.”
Dean nodded and looked over at Jensen. “That seems to be the consensus.”
“Alliance then?” Logan asked. “Sam hasn’t seen anything to worry about either.”
They all nodded and Jensen smiled. “Guess we just made some new friends while Priestly was finding old ones.”
That seemed to be all they had the energy left for because then Logan and Sam were heading next door to another storefront that they were using and Priestly was left alone with the others. Not that he could get up to the sort of things they preferred when left alone at night, but it was good to be back with them even after just one night.
Alec pulled up behind him with his bedroll and Priestly turned over to rest his head on the other man’s shoulder.
“What will happen next?” Alec asked.
“Huh?”
“Jules. Is she going to ask you to stay?”
And Priestly realized he was a moron because while he thought Alec was being jealous, his lover had actually been worried about losing him to the only family he had left. When Priestly looked at Dean and Jensen who were listening in, he realized they all had been.
“Can’t very well stay here and still be part of the Face, now can I? I already talked to Jules and she’s coming with us. Mimi won’t be too happy to lose her best sharp shooter but Jules said it won’t be bad blood between them. She always told them she was leaving when she found me so it won’t come as a surprise.”
Alec gripped his side tighter and pulled him a little closer. “I suppose we’ll have to find room for her somewhere then.”
“Just maybe not next door,” Priestly said with a grin. “There are some things she doesn’t need to hear about me.”
Alec laughed and Priestly could feel his lover relax a little more.
He hadn’t expected to find Jules. After all this time, he knew his girl was tough but he’d never expected her to beat the odds and find something like this. There’d been hard times and she dusted right past a couple chapters that he knew meant some bad things had happened, but she’d come through it all and was still his Jules.
It was all he’d ever hoped for. She was all he’d had left to hope for, before Alec and Dean and Jensen had given him something more. Now, he couldn’t wait to take Jules home. Now, he could finally get her someplace safe, and Noah and Piper could be at peace at last.
On to How to Live Again