Chapter Thirteen:But that ain't getting us nowhere
AN: Although Cornwallis is a real place and so is Tepic, all characters described are fictitious and any resemblance to anyone alive or dead is purely coincidental.
(Scene follows immediately on from last chapter)
***
Halifax, Nova Scotia
***
Faith washed her hands in the bathroom, scrubbing under her fingernails. She splashed cold water on her face, drying her skin roughly with a hand towel. She deserved to be punished because she remained fucking retarded. Didn’t she ever learn?
She turned off the light in the bathroom and crept back to bed, please Baby Jesus, let Dean be asleep.
She discovered Dean to be wide awake naturally, sitting up in bed, waiting for her in the semi-darkness.
The condom packet Faith saw, now rested next to the Insect Killer spray can on the bedside table.
“I’ve killed an innocent man in Missouri.” Dean began to try and explain, drawing back the sheet to invite her back into bed with him. “He was possessed by a demon and attacking Sammy. I shot him in the heat of the moment. So I’d understand a lot, but if you don’t wanna to talk about it, fine. I’m never bringing it up again, and moving things along, out of Brangelina, Tomkat and us who do you think makes the sexiest celebrity couple? If we were movies stars that is.”
“Us totally, if we were a couple that is.” Faith threw herself back into bed and willingly allowed herself to be drawn back fiercely into his arms. “Fean or Daith suck as name blends you realize?”
She pressed her burning forehead on his shoulder. “And I killed someone by mistake, Dean. I staked the poor guy thinking he was a vampire in a dark alley. And not a day goes by I don’t regret it and wanna take it back.” Dean would understand her first murder after all, but she could never tell him about her contract hit. What guy would understand that?
“Faith, it’s okay, huh?” Dean held her so hard he thought he might make her ribs crack. “You were just a kid.” He stroked her hair tenderly, god she actually told him the whole truth for once. What a load off her mind it must be for her. Dean loved Faith more than ever for being so brave as to be straight with him.
***
Cornwallis, Nova Scotia
***
Nestled in the scenic Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, Cornwallis didn’t look at first glance like a Hellmouth. But with only two bars and nothing to do in the place apart from fish, visit the local Hydro electrical plant or the tiny military museum, Faith raised in a big city could see it’s immediate resemblance to Hell.
Jo reminded Faith the local amusement park boasted of having the only wooden roller coaster east of Quebec, after the two women returned to the cabin their party rented for the night.
“The park’s only open two months of the year, girlfriend.” Faith sat Red Indian style on the floor, sharpening a stake with a hunting knife over a piece of folded out newspaper, just in case she ran into any vampires tonight. “Don’t let me pass out from the excitement of waiting for it to open in July.”
“Ya being too hard on the place, the tourist farm has skunks, sweetheart. Nothing screams ‘Canada’ like skunks in a cage.” Dean dropped a fond kiss on the top of Faith’s head as he and Bobby returned from their own reconnaissance trip around Cornwallis that afternoon.” “Sammy and Ellen not back yet?”
“They came and left again, Mom wanted to pick up some groceries.” Jo grabbed her hunting knife back off Faith and wet-stoned it back to sharpness.
“We found out the ‘Royal’ Canadian Navy and Air Cadets have their regular camps here, strong EMF readings coming from the whole area Canada’s potential finest are located in, but hey the whole town reads off like it’s the setting for Silkwood.” Dean fetched beers out of the refrigerator for him and Bobby. “Ladies?” He held the beer up in offering.
Both Jo and Faith nodded. Jo held out her hand for a cold one. “That’s what Mom and Sam figured out too, the demons have possessed kids at the cadet camp.”
“We bumped into the slayer who lives here, at the caves by the ocean.” Faith twisted the top off her beer bottle. “Paige Dalgleish her name is, she’d just finished beheading a Kelpie. Said there was nothing new happening in ‘Sunnydale lite’. But there were rumors starting,” Faith put up her fingers in air quotes, still retaining snug hold of the beer bottle. “‘Reoccurring theme’ something weird’s going down at the military brats training base”
Faith hastened to wipe the alarmed expression off Dean’s face. “Relax Dean, the chick isn’t gonna 911 the New Watchers Council, Jo can freaking testify I pretended I was tracking some badass vampire.” God, Dean loved his baby brother beyond all reason, Faith recalled Buffy being over protective of Dawn too and it put her in mind of something, but Jo asking Faith a question attracted her attention away from an emergent idea in Faith’s brain.
“Yeah, she did.” Jo confirmed Faith’s innocence, upraising her beer to her lips. “Paige was in a hurry anyway, migrating Kelpies from Scotland are what kill tourist fishermen every year here, and she needed to dispose of it’s two ‘cubs or pups’?” Jo checked with Faith.
“Pups.” Faith leaned back into Dean sitting down behind her pulling the back of her against his chest, his outstretched legs enclosing her cross-legged ones. “I woulda thought ‘cubs’."
“Yeah, Paige brains them with a baseball bat, they look like seal pups with human baby heads according to her.” Jo made a face and drank more beer imagining it. “They’re helpless at this stage of their life cycle.”
“Feeling sorry for them, Jo-jo? Gonna hunt them out and throw cans of paint over the big soulful eyed critters to save them?” Dean rested his bearded chin on Faith’s shoulder, holding her snugly around the waist.
“We should throw a bucket of paint over you, sonny-boy.” Bobby set out a map he’d obtained of the town and surrounds of Cornwallis, on the cabin’s table. “Guess we just need Ellen and Sam to come back and we’ll come up with a foolproof plan.”
Bobby scratched a mosquito bite on his hairy arm, next getting out of a paper bag a packet of colored pins to stick on the map. “As foolproof as any plan can be with Winchesters on board.”
***
Dean rubbed mosquito repellent over his bare arms, standing on the cabin porch, watching while Faith chain-smoked down the remaining cigarettes in her fresh packet. Seven hours to go until the first of June.
“Dean, I need to use Sam’s lap-top, huh?” Faith informed him in a tone that said this was a demand not a request, putting down her cigarette packet and lighter safely against the outside wall of the cabin. “I need to e-mail people back home or they’re gonna worry.”
People like her boyfriend, and her home was across the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Dean smiled like he didn’t give a crap instead of the whole situation hurting him like shit. “Yeah, sure. I’m gonna read your out-going messages over your shoulder, sorry. So try and make ‘em interesting could ya?”
Dean grinned genuinely at his brother coming out on the porch to hang out his wet underwear and socks on the railing to dry. “The porn sites on the favorite links are all Sam’s, except the ones that are mine, work out whose are whose and I’ll give ya a shoulder massage.”
“No-brainer challenge, Sam’s are gonna be the real filthy ones.” Faith patted Sam condescendingly on the cheek. “Yo, Sam pal, where’s your lap-top? I need to use it.”
“On my bed.” Sam waited until Faith and Dean left. He pulled out from his jeans pocket, the paper bag containing the practical joke aid he’d bought at the town magic shop and peeked into it satisfied. Man, Faith was asking for this. Sam smirked in evil glee thinking about his cunning scheme to annoy Faith for a change.
***
The Royal Canadian Navy Cadet compound did not fall into the category of heavily guarded military bases. Faith volunteered to take out the four perimeter patrollers - keen eyed kids who were practicing being soldiers.
Sweaty headed in her black woolen balaclava, Faith snuck around through the wooded area, disabling and disarming the cadets from their air rifles with ease. A following balaclava wearing Ellen tied them up securely.
The two women signaled to the rest the coast was clear to creep down to the parade yard.
The team carefully collectively spray-painted a devil's trap onto the assembly parade field
Faith and Ellen set fire to the deserted mess hall and waited for the fire alarms to go off in the barracks.
Sleepy cadets and instructors piled onto the parade ground for an emergency roll call.
Dean, Bobby, Joe and Sam read out loud their exorcisms, hidden behind trees, through microphones they hooked up to the loudspeaker systems in the main office, covering all four corners of the parade ground.
Twelve air force cadets writhed, fell to the ground, opened their mouths screaming and allowed black smoke pour forth from their mouths.
“Only a dozen.” Ellen bit her lower lip in disappointment at the scene, from the two women’s covered vantage point. “Well those poor kids were obviously some long term back up plan to begin with. This means we’re gonna have to head south of the border, borders, I guess. That must be where the real action is happening.”
“Ole,” Faith shrugged, putting her crossbow down, what a fucking anti-climax Canada turned out to be. She checked the time on Ellen’s wristwatch - five to twelve. Faith took out the one precious cigarette left in her packet. She’d enjoy this last smoke of her life as she walked back to the vehicles parked a mile away.
Faith placed the Morley’s cigarette (and how fitting the American Brand she’d started smoking on should be the one she finished with ) between her lips and picked up her ‘Dunhill Unique’ lighter (she’d hang onto it, it was wicked useful) opening it’s flip top arm, flicking her thumb down on the ignition wheel for the very freaking last time. Bully for her, only losers smoked.
BANG.
Faith and Ellen stopped in their tracks, staring at Faith’s partially exploded cigarette in astonishment.
Practical joker Sam struck again.
***
Montreal, Quebec
***
Sammy lay naked on the floor in the motel unit bathroom, making the ten items of his toiletries bag spin around in steady circles five feet above his head.
Bobby, Ellen and Jo were sight-seeing through the streets of Montreal, debating whether to sample French food or stick with coffee and apple pie at McDonalds. Ellen dragged a chow-xenophobic, protesting Bobby into a patisserie café kicking and screaming.
“We could fly y’know.” Faith bit down on Dean’s bare shoulder, unbuckling his jeans, helping him push them along with his boxers down onto the floor. “You must be able to scrounge up passports from somewhere.” The boys managed to get hold of Homeland Security ID cards.
“Passports are more tricky to swing, it’s cheaper to travel by land in the end.” Dean stepped out of his jeans with a shake of his foot. Plane travel? Hell no. “Listen, we’re not stopping in the U.S. huh?”
He picked her up by the waist, stalk walking her backwards over to the edge of the bed. “We’ll take it in turns to drive, keep driving through the night. We’ll be in Mexico in two days.”
“Ya gonna let someone else drive your wheels?” Christ, the world must be ending.
Faith sank slowly down on the edge of the bed, parting her legs, enabling Dean to kneel directly in front of her, sucking on her neck, pressing his palms down her bare back.
“Not you, sweetheart.” Dean mumbled through his mouth’s progress over her clavicle bones. He raised his head and straightened up to be eye to eye with her. “Faith, I know ya terrified of going back to prison. Believe it or not wearing orange again tops my list of things to avoid, too.”
“I’m not scared of going back to prison because I’m never gonna.” ‘And how many asshole cops and sheriffs will I have to murder to avoid getting put back in a cage? Jesus, what if I start to get off killing humans again? And the assholes will have families, it will be wrong and I won’t be good. I need to be fucking good or everything spirals down the can.’ Faith clasped her hands around his neck, willing him to understand without her having to spell it out. “I don’t wanna hurt anyone, Dean.”
‘Except me, Faith. Have you noticed I’m now a triage candidate for the hospital of emotional pain because of loving you, it’s hilarious huh? I’m meant to have eleven more months before I’m Hell.’ Dean twisted his mouth, mocking her gently, “I thought you wanna make a necklace of Sammy’s guts?”
“Well duh.” Faith pressed her lips against Dean’s lustfully. That jack-ass freak, she was gonna make Sam pay dearly for that stunt he pulled with her cigarette packet.
***
Windsor, Ontario/Detroit Illinois
***
There was a ten minute delay getting across The Ambassador Bridge. Dean beamed his heart out at the U.S. female border guard, producing his forged identification papers with a smarmy flourish.
Sam produced his papers with calm indifference trying hard not to puke with nerves. He left sweat marks from his hands on his fake driver’s license.
Dean flirted some more with the border guard. He didn’t feel he looked as hot with a beard. Sam’s goatee looked plain fugly.
The car in front of them got pulled aside for a random contraband search. They and Bobby and Ellen following behind them were waved on. Thank god.
“Ya know, I’m glad we’re not terrorists.” Jo passed around a packet of gum to everyone. “I mean think about it.”
***
Route 54 Missouri
***
Tensions were high. Harsh words were spoken by both parties as take-out purchased; Dean drove back onto the main highway.
“You squirted that ketchup on me on purpose, bitch.” Sam accused Faith, wiping the red condiment off the back of his head.
“It jacked off on you accidentally.” Faith denied hotly, licking the spilled ketchup off her fingers. “I hadn’t come across a ketchup packet like that one before. Jo squirted me, am I havin’ a hissy fit over it?”
“Jo squirted you first. You should have worked out how not to do the same mistake. You thought you could get away with it.” Sam twisted his head around glaring at her.
“Hey, I don’t stoop to your kid level, bud.” Faith announced virtuously, dunking her fry in ketchup. No, she was waiting for the chance to do something truly nasty to pay the shithead back for her ruined last smoke. Faith’s sense of humor level was zero when it came to being played a practical joke on. Sam should count himself wicked lucky she didn’t give him a black eye, once she worked out what he’d done, but she’d reformed. Faith smiled sinisterly to herself, maybe not that much.
“Oh you stoop, Faith.” Sam guffawed in scorn. Sam worked out the first day he found out Faith lived, that a boyfriend waited for her in Ireland. Dean couldn’t lie to Sam for shit these days. No one could anymore. Behind Sam’s brow pounded another severe headache, brought on by sensing everyone’s emotions in the take-out bar in a blinding flash ten minutes ago.
Dean loved Faith. Jo loved Dean. The green-eyed monster gnawed at Jo over Faith. Faith cared deeply for Dean. Dean cared slightly for Jo. Everyone worried about Sam turning evil.
“What the hell does that mean?” Faith swallowed her fry indignantly. “Spit it out, freak.”
Sam ignored her, to bark an urgent request to his brother. “Dean, pull over the car, I’m gonna throw up.” Sam fumbled at the door in queasy panic.
“Crap, hold on, bro.” Dean slowed down over to the shoulder of the road.
“Here use this bag.” Jo leaned over to helpfully hold out a plastic bag containing her discarded half eaten burger.
Sam inhaled the scent of fried onions, heaved his stomach contents and missed the bag.
Dean regarded the vomit on the dashboard and floor mats, distastefully. “Terrific.”
***
Route 44 Texas
***
Dean and Sam leaned against one another, asleep in the back seat of the Impala.
“Even with the window down, this car smells of puke,” Jo screwed up her nose and tried to concentrate on driving.
“And we got such a long way to go to make it to the border of Mexico.” Faith quoted Christopher Cross, stretching her arms out. “Long as you don’t feel on the verge of an up chuck, ‘Hunter Barbie’.”
“I’ve been cleaning up spew in my Mom’s bar since I was thirteen. Cast iron belly.” Jo shared non-resentfully. “I earned my allowance big time.”
“So what didja spend the dough on?” Faith kept talking to Jo to ensure she kept alert. It was eleven in the morning, Jo had been driving since four am.
“Make-up, CDs, normal gal crap.” Jo glanced in the rear view mirror at the Winchester brothers sprawled against each other, dead to the world in their exhausted slumber.
“Have you ever seen siblings more fricking claustrophobically close as those two?” Jo turned up the car stereo more loudly to be heard over the rushing wind.
“Yeah, two Californian sisters,” Faith sipped from her water bottle. “The kid sister was prepared to die in an apocalypse, tasered a guy to be with her big sis when she died. They both didn’t, so happy ending huh?”
Faith’s already high opinion of Dawn Summers rose tenfold when the brat arrived back in Sunnydale driving illegally with an unconscious Xander in tow, to be with B. when they all carked it on the Hellmouth.
And if Dawnie could pull that crap at merely sixteen, what would Dean at twenty-eight be prepared to do in order to bring Sam back to life?
***
El Paso, Texas/ Mexico
***
The Bridge of the Ambassadors experienced no delays, and once again the intrepid party of supernatural heroes was waved through by disinterested border guards of both countries.
“I’m starting to feel unimportant in the greater scheme of things, dude.” Sam let out a deep breath of relief as Dean set out on the long drive to Tepic.
(Scene follows immediately on from last chapter)
***
Halifax, Nova Scotia
***
Faith washed her hands in the bathroom, scrubbing under her fingernails. She splashed cold water on her face, drying her skin roughly with a hand towel. She deserved to be punished because she remained fucking retarded. Didn’t she ever learn?
She turned off the light in the bathroom and crept back to bed, please Baby Jesus, let Dean be asleep.
She discovered Dean to be wide awake naturally, sitting up in bed, waiting for her in the semi-darkness.
The condom packet Faith saw, now rested next to the Insect Killer spray can on the bedside table.
“I’ve killed an innocent man in Missouri.” Dean began to try and explain, drawing back the sheet to invite her back into bed with him. “He was possessed by a demon and attacking Sammy. I shot him in the heat of the moment. So I’d understand a lot, but if you don’t wanna to talk about it, fine. I’m never bringing it up again, and moving things along, out of Brangelina, Tomkat and us who do you think makes the sexiest celebrity couple? If we were movies stars that is.”
“Us totally, if we were a couple that is.” Faith threw herself back into bed and willingly allowed herself to be drawn back fiercely into his arms. “Fean or Daith suck as name blends you realize?”
She pressed her burning forehead on his shoulder. “And I killed someone by mistake, Dean. I staked the poor guy thinking he was a vampire in a dark alley. And not a day goes by I don’t regret it and wanna take it back.” Dean would understand her first murder after all, but she could never tell him about her contract hit. What guy would understand that?
“Faith, it’s okay, huh?” Dean held her so hard he thought he might make her ribs crack. “You were just a kid.” He stroked her hair tenderly, god she actually told him the whole truth for once. What a load off her mind it must be for her. Dean loved Faith more than ever for being so brave as to be straight with him.
***
Cornwallis, Nova Scotia
***
Nestled in the scenic Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, Cornwallis didn’t look at first glance like a Hellmouth. But with only two bars and nothing to do in the place apart from fish, visit the local Hydro electrical plant or the tiny military museum, Faith raised in a big city could see it’s immediate resemblance to Hell.
Jo reminded Faith the local amusement park boasted of having the only wooden roller coaster east of Quebec, after the two women returned to the cabin their party rented for the night.
“The park’s only open two months of the year, girlfriend.” Faith sat Red Indian style on the floor, sharpening a stake with a hunting knife over a piece of folded out newspaper, just in case she ran into any vampires tonight. “Don’t let me pass out from the excitement of waiting for it to open in July.”
“Ya being too hard on the place, the tourist farm has skunks, sweetheart. Nothing screams ‘Canada’ like skunks in a cage.” Dean dropped a fond kiss on the top of Faith’s head as he and Bobby returned from their own reconnaissance trip around Cornwallis that afternoon.” “Sammy and Ellen not back yet?”
“They came and left again, Mom wanted to pick up some groceries.” Jo grabbed her hunting knife back off Faith and wet-stoned it back to sharpness.
“We found out the ‘Royal’ Canadian Navy and Air Cadets have their regular camps here, strong EMF readings coming from the whole area Canada’s potential finest are located in, but hey the whole town reads off like it’s the setting for Silkwood.” Dean fetched beers out of the refrigerator for him and Bobby. “Ladies?” He held the beer up in offering.
Both Jo and Faith nodded. Jo held out her hand for a cold one. “That’s what Mom and Sam figured out too, the demons have possessed kids at the cadet camp.”
“We bumped into the slayer who lives here, at the caves by the ocean.” Faith twisted the top off her beer bottle. “Paige Dalgleish her name is, she’d just finished beheading a Kelpie. Said there was nothing new happening in ‘Sunnydale lite’. But there were rumors starting,” Faith put up her fingers in air quotes, still retaining snug hold of the beer bottle. “‘Reoccurring theme’ something weird’s going down at the military brats training base”
Faith hastened to wipe the alarmed expression off Dean’s face. “Relax Dean, the chick isn’t gonna 911 the New Watchers Council, Jo can freaking testify I pretended I was tracking some badass vampire.” God, Dean loved his baby brother beyond all reason, Faith recalled Buffy being over protective of Dawn too and it put her in mind of something, but Jo asking Faith a question attracted her attention away from an emergent idea in Faith’s brain.
“Yeah, she did.” Jo confirmed Faith’s innocence, upraising her beer to her lips. “Paige was in a hurry anyway, migrating Kelpies from Scotland are what kill tourist fishermen every year here, and she needed to dispose of it’s two ‘cubs or pups’?” Jo checked with Faith.
“Pups.” Faith leaned back into Dean sitting down behind her pulling the back of her against his chest, his outstretched legs enclosing her cross-legged ones. “I woulda thought ‘cubs’."
“Yeah, Paige brains them with a baseball bat, they look like seal pups with human baby heads according to her.” Jo made a face and drank more beer imagining it. “They’re helpless at this stage of their life cycle.”
“Feeling sorry for them, Jo-jo? Gonna hunt them out and throw cans of paint over the big soulful eyed critters to save them?” Dean rested his bearded chin on Faith’s shoulder, holding her snugly around the waist.
“We should throw a bucket of paint over you, sonny-boy.” Bobby set out a map he’d obtained of the town and surrounds of Cornwallis, on the cabin’s table. “Guess we just need Ellen and Sam to come back and we’ll come up with a foolproof plan.”
Bobby scratched a mosquito bite on his hairy arm, next getting out of a paper bag a packet of colored pins to stick on the map. “As foolproof as any plan can be with Winchesters on board.”
***
Dean rubbed mosquito repellent over his bare arms, standing on the cabin porch, watching while Faith chain-smoked down the remaining cigarettes in her fresh packet. Seven hours to go until the first of June.
“Dean, I need to use Sam’s lap-top, huh?” Faith informed him in a tone that said this was a demand not a request, putting down her cigarette packet and lighter safely against the outside wall of the cabin. “I need to e-mail people back home or they’re gonna worry.”
People like her boyfriend, and her home was across the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Dean smiled like he didn’t give a crap instead of the whole situation hurting him like shit. “Yeah, sure. I’m gonna read your out-going messages over your shoulder, sorry. So try and make ‘em interesting could ya?”
Dean grinned genuinely at his brother coming out on the porch to hang out his wet underwear and socks on the railing to dry. “The porn sites on the favorite links are all Sam’s, except the ones that are mine, work out whose are whose and I’ll give ya a shoulder massage.”
“No-brainer challenge, Sam’s are gonna be the real filthy ones.” Faith patted Sam condescendingly on the cheek. “Yo, Sam pal, where’s your lap-top? I need to use it.”
“On my bed.” Sam waited until Faith and Dean left. He pulled out from his jeans pocket, the paper bag containing the practical joke aid he’d bought at the town magic shop and peeked into it satisfied. Man, Faith was asking for this. Sam smirked in evil glee thinking about his cunning scheme to annoy Faith for a change.
***
The Royal Canadian Navy Cadet compound did not fall into the category of heavily guarded military bases. Faith volunteered to take out the four perimeter patrollers - keen eyed kids who were practicing being soldiers.
Sweaty headed in her black woolen balaclava, Faith snuck around through the wooded area, disabling and disarming the cadets from their air rifles with ease. A following balaclava wearing Ellen tied them up securely.
The two women signaled to the rest the coast was clear to creep down to the parade yard.
The team carefully collectively spray-painted a devil's trap onto the assembly parade field
Faith and Ellen set fire to the deserted mess hall and waited for the fire alarms to go off in the barracks.
Sleepy cadets and instructors piled onto the parade ground for an emergency roll call.
Dean, Bobby, Joe and Sam read out loud their exorcisms, hidden behind trees, through microphones they hooked up to the loudspeaker systems in the main office, covering all four corners of the parade ground.
Twelve air force cadets writhed, fell to the ground, opened their mouths screaming and allowed black smoke pour forth from their mouths.
“Only a dozen.” Ellen bit her lower lip in disappointment at the scene, from the two women’s covered vantage point. “Well those poor kids were obviously some long term back up plan to begin with. This means we’re gonna have to head south of the border, borders, I guess. That must be where the real action is happening.”
“Ole,” Faith shrugged, putting her crossbow down, what a fucking anti-climax Canada turned out to be. She checked the time on Ellen’s wristwatch - five to twelve. Faith took out the one precious cigarette left in her packet. She’d enjoy this last smoke of her life as she walked back to the vehicles parked a mile away.
Faith placed the Morley’s cigarette (and how fitting the American Brand she’d started smoking on should be the one she finished with ) between her lips and picked up her ‘Dunhill Unique’ lighter (she’d hang onto it, it was wicked useful) opening it’s flip top arm, flicking her thumb down on the ignition wheel for the very freaking last time. Bully for her, only losers smoked.
BANG.
Faith and Ellen stopped in their tracks, staring at Faith’s partially exploded cigarette in astonishment.
Practical joker Sam struck again.
***
Montreal, Quebec
***
Sammy lay naked on the floor in the motel unit bathroom, making the ten items of his toiletries bag spin around in steady circles five feet above his head.
Bobby, Ellen and Jo were sight-seeing through the streets of Montreal, debating whether to sample French food or stick with coffee and apple pie at McDonalds. Ellen dragged a chow-xenophobic, protesting Bobby into a patisserie café kicking and screaming.
“We could fly y’know.” Faith bit down on Dean’s bare shoulder, unbuckling his jeans, helping him push them along with his boxers down onto the floor. “You must be able to scrounge up passports from somewhere.” The boys managed to get hold of Homeland Security ID cards.
“Passports are more tricky to swing, it’s cheaper to travel by land in the end.” Dean stepped out of his jeans with a shake of his foot. Plane travel? Hell no. “Listen, we’re not stopping in the U.S. huh?”
He picked her up by the waist, stalk walking her backwards over to the edge of the bed. “We’ll take it in turns to drive, keep driving through the night. We’ll be in Mexico in two days.”
“Ya gonna let someone else drive your wheels?” Christ, the world must be ending.
Faith sank slowly down on the edge of the bed, parting her legs, enabling Dean to kneel directly in front of her, sucking on her neck, pressing his palms down her bare back.
“Not you, sweetheart.” Dean mumbled through his mouth’s progress over her clavicle bones. He raised his head and straightened up to be eye to eye with her. “Faith, I know ya terrified of going back to prison. Believe it or not wearing orange again tops my list of things to avoid, too.”
“I’m not scared of going back to prison because I’m never gonna.” ‘And how many asshole cops and sheriffs will I have to murder to avoid getting put back in a cage? Jesus, what if I start to get off killing humans again? And the assholes will have families, it will be wrong and I won’t be good. I need to be fucking good or everything spirals down the can.’ Faith clasped her hands around his neck, willing him to understand without her having to spell it out. “I don’t wanna hurt anyone, Dean.”
‘Except me, Faith. Have you noticed I’m now a triage candidate for the hospital of emotional pain because of loving you, it’s hilarious huh? I’m meant to have eleven more months before I’m Hell.’ Dean twisted his mouth, mocking her gently, “I thought you wanna make a necklace of Sammy’s guts?”
“Well duh.” Faith pressed her lips against Dean’s lustfully. That jack-ass freak, she was gonna make Sam pay dearly for that stunt he pulled with her cigarette packet.
***
Windsor, Ontario/Detroit Illinois
***
There was a ten minute delay getting across The Ambassador Bridge. Dean beamed his heart out at the U.S. female border guard, producing his forged identification papers with a smarmy flourish.
Sam produced his papers with calm indifference trying hard not to puke with nerves. He left sweat marks from his hands on his fake driver’s license.
Dean flirted some more with the border guard. He didn’t feel he looked as hot with a beard. Sam’s goatee looked plain fugly.
The car in front of them got pulled aside for a random contraband search. They and Bobby and Ellen following behind them were waved on. Thank god.
“Ya know, I’m glad we’re not terrorists.” Jo passed around a packet of gum to everyone. “I mean think about it.”
***
Route 54 Missouri
***
Tensions were high. Harsh words were spoken by both parties as take-out purchased; Dean drove back onto the main highway.
“You squirted that ketchup on me on purpose, bitch.” Sam accused Faith, wiping the red condiment off the back of his head.
“It jacked off on you accidentally.” Faith denied hotly, licking the spilled ketchup off her fingers. “I hadn’t come across a ketchup packet like that one before. Jo squirted me, am I havin’ a hissy fit over it?”
“Jo squirted you first. You should have worked out how not to do the same mistake. You thought you could get away with it.” Sam twisted his head around glaring at her.
“Hey, I don’t stoop to your kid level, bud.” Faith announced virtuously, dunking her fry in ketchup. No, she was waiting for the chance to do something truly nasty to pay the shithead back for her ruined last smoke. Faith’s sense of humor level was zero when it came to being played a practical joke on. Sam should count himself wicked lucky she didn’t give him a black eye, once she worked out what he’d done, but she’d reformed. Faith smiled sinisterly to herself, maybe not that much.
“Oh you stoop, Faith.” Sam guffawed in scorn. Sam worked out the first day he found out Faith lived, that a boyfriend waited for her in Ireland. Dean couldn’t lie to Sam for shit these days. No one could anymore. Behind Sam’s brow pounded another severe headache, brought on by sensing everyone’s emotions in the take-out bar in a blinding flash ten minutes ago.
Dean loved Faith. Jo loved Dean. The green-eyed monster gnawed at Jo over Faith. Faith cared deeply for Dean. Dean cared slightly for Jo. Everyone worried about Sam turning evil.
“What the hell does that mean?” Faith swallowed her fry indignantly. “Spit it out, freak.”
Sam ignored her, to bark an urgent request to his brother. “Dean, pull over the car, I’m gonna throw up.” Sam fumbled at the door in queasy panic.
“Crap, hold on, bro.” Dean slowed down over to the shoulder of the road.
“Here use this bag.” Jo leaned over to helpfully hold out a plastic bag containing her discarded half eaten burger.
Sam inhaled the scent of fried onions, heaved his stomach contents and missed the bag.
Dean regarded the vomit on the dashboard and floor mats, distastefully. “Terrific.”
***
Route 44 Texas
***
Dean and Sam leaned against one another, asleep in the back seat of the Impala.
“Even with the window down, this car smells of puke,” Jo screwed up her nose and tried to concentrate on driving.
“And we got such a long way to go to make it to the border of Mexico.” Faith quoted Christopher Cross, stretching her arms out. “Long as you don’t feel on the verge of an up chuck, ‘Hunter Barbie’.”
“I’ve been cleaning up spew in my Mom’s bar since I was thirteen. Cast iron belly.” Jo shared non-resentfully. “I earned my allowance big time.”
“So what didja spend the dough on?” Faith kept talking to Jo to ensure she kept alert. It was eleven in the morning, Jo had been driving since four am.
“Make-up, CDs, normal gal crap.” Jo glanced in the rear view mirror at the Winchester brothers sprawled against each other, dead to the world in their exhausted slumber.
“Have you ever seen siblings more fricking claustrophobically close as those two?” Jo turned up the car stereo more loudly to be heard over the rushing wind.
“Yeah, two Californian sisters,” Faith sipped from her water bottle. “The kid sister was prepared to die in an apocalypse, tasered a guy to be with her big sis when she died. They both didn’t, so happy ending huh?”
Faith’s already high opinion of Dawn Summers rose tenfold when the brat arrived back in Sunnydale driving illegally with an unconscious Xander in tow, to be with B. when they all carked it on the Hellmouth.
And if Dawnie could pull that crap at merely sixteen, what would Dean at twenty-eight be prepared to do in order to bring Sam back to life?
***
El Paso, Texas/ Mexico
***
The Bridge of the Ambassadors experienced no delays, and once again the intrepid party of supernatural heroes was waved through by disinterested border guards of both countries.
“I’m starting to feel unimportant in the greater scheme of things, dude.” Sam let out a deep breath of relief as Dean set out on the long drive to Tepic.