T'was the the night before Christmas
The Italian restaurant was a fairly ordinary establishment. Red and white checked table cloths covered with glass, a white candle burning in the middle of each table.
Megan excused herself to go over and speak to friends she knew at another table. Craig went outside to join Faith in having a cigarette.
“It’s not surprising you’re having problems adjusting, dude.” Sam waved his finger in and out of the blue flame of the candle mesmerized. “You’ve never lived with a woman before. Never had a serious long term relationship - two weeks dating Cassie doesn’t count, jerk. You knew Faith for less than a month before you joined her here. Did you both think you were destined to be together or something when you met up with her again?”
“Don’t be freaking ridiculous, Sam. No and butt out.” Dean loved Faith that was all there was to it. He could see his brother the big gaybo, wanted some personal explanation trash from him regarding Faith’s insecure accusation to Dean and Jo.
“Faith trusts me. Faith just had a crap day at work, that’s all.” Did Faith trust him? Dean thought she did until the weird accusation out of the blue.
Dean couldn’t help looking at women as if imagining they were naked, feeding them corny come on lines. He spent the last ten years behaving that way to women, trying desperately to get laid in a hurry as he passed from town to town. Dean never used prostitutes so what else was he meant to do? Be celibate? Dean didn’t think so. Sounding perpetually as if Dean was trying to pick up chicks was ingrained in his persona. He didn’t want to do actually do anything for real with the women he chatted up daily in Dublin, Faith completely sexually satisfied him and then some, it was just a bad habit.
Dean didn’t get why Faith loved him he was basically an asshole.
Craig came back into the restaurant. “Faith come back in here?”
“No, she’s outside with Jo.” Dean looked at the desert menu speculatively - Pistachio gelato or tiramisu? Contrary to what Sam and Faith accused, Dean could venture out in taste exploration. He decided to stick with apple pie and vanilla ice-cream however.
“No, they’re not.” Craig sat back down annoyed at their table. “Bloody woman’s got my smokes. So much for her giving up.”
***
“Jo’s left her hand-bag behind.” Megan held up Jo’s suede shoulder purse up in an ‘Exhibit A’ pose from off the back of the chair Jo had been sitting on.
“Well where the hell are they?” Dean began to get a gnawing feeling of dread in his gut. “They’re not in the rest room?”
“I checked the bog twice.” Megan confirmed mystified.
***
The room where Faith regained consciousness could be any size, she couldn’t see because of her blindfold but she sensed it was small. Someone didn’t believe in taking any chances when it came to binding her. Faith twisted futilely against the industrial strength ropes wrapped around her body, her mouth muffled with masking tape - not a ball gag. Things could be worse.
Faith could hear what sounded like a party and the sound of breaking china coming far away from a room in another part of the building in which she lay on dusty carpet. She tried not to sneeze. She succeeded - yay her.
***
Faith and Jo had been missing for twenty minutes. The three men found Craig’s near full cigarette pack in the gutter in the side alley outside the restaurant. Faith was not answering her cell.
“You ring up the Garda, triple nine.” Craig instructed a worried sick by now Dean, frustrated because the Irish mobile phone company Faith was signed up with refused to give out Faith’s cell’s GPS location over the phone to Dean because of privacy laws. “I’m ringing up Siobhan.”
“Call in a sixteen year old kid to help with what’s looking more and more like a supernatural kidnapping? Works for me.” Dean dialed the Irish police number on his cell phone. He would have called the police in a second anyway. He and Faith were law abiding citizens in Dublin, there had to be some pay off for their boring lives.
***
Faith finally had the blindfold ripped off her as she was tied face down to a metal pole suspended over a child’s blow up plastic wading pool covered with ashes at the bottom of it. Jo lay suspended beside her unconscious on her own spit roast arrangement.
“I’m ‘Philip The Terrible’, you killed my lover and now I’m going to kill you to bring Kakistos back.” The old vampire informed Faith matter of factly. “I would have thought the other slayer would be awake by now too.” Phillip added to his three minion vamps in disappointment.
“Buffy Summers seemed tipsy when we shot her. She never could handle her drink we’ve heard.” One vamp explained pompously to his master.
Faith realized why someone would mistake Jo for Buffy in the dark. They were both blonde, short and had brown eyes. She and Jo were going to have their throats cut and their blood poured over the ashes of Kakistos because Faith and Buffy were the closest humans to Kakistos when he died.
Philip must have spent the past months gathering the ashes of Kakistos together using magic. Philip was responsible for trying to piss Faith and Buffy off at each other so much they’d meet in the same country. It also explained the extreme nuisance value as opposed to actual danger of the zombies Philip kept sending around to Faith’s apartment. Philip needed Faith to remain alive until an hour ago.
Except Phillip’s reanimation project wouldn’t work because Jo wasn’t Buffy. Faith tried once more to free herself gaining nasty rope burns in the process to no avail. Philip had never watched the sixties television series of Batman and did not realize as an arch villain he needed to leave the room so Faith could easily escape. Faith was fucked, royally and completely fucked.
Phillip raised a knife in Jo’s direction. Faith felt fatalism sweep over her - this was the end of the road. Shit - just when she found true love with Dean.
Phillip’s knife cut into the crook of Jo’s elbow, blood began to drip in a steady stream over the ashes lining the wading pool. Jo looked near death already, she had been administered a massive amount of tranquilizer for a human.
Phillip smiled smugly at Faith’s surprised expression. “You think I’m going to give you the mercy of a quick death by slitting your throats? I’m exsanguinating you bitches slowly, every drop.” He put his finger in the cut on Jo’s arm and tasted the blood. “Slayer blood is not what it’s cracked up to be, alas.”
Faith quickly figured out what exsanguination was when it was home as Phillip stabbed her own inner right arm. Exsanguination - another new word to add to her vocabulary, and not possibly her last one.
Come on guys! Faith’s body surged with ecstatic hope. She possessed every confidence that Dean, Sam and Craig would be knocking themselves out to find her and Jo. They would get Siobhan on board with a rescue mission. Being reformed would really deliver for Faith in this sitch.
Philip wasn’t so freaking smart after all, he was letting his love for Kakistos cloud his judgment and making Faith suffer for the sake of revenge instead of quickly killing her. Faith sneered at the vampire with contempt. Undead sap.
Like Faith ever let love compromise her way of doing things since she was seventeen. She was a cold hard bitch half the time, she didn’t understand why Dean loved her.
***
As the ordinary school girl Siobhan was, she got on Dean’s nerves. But as a killer of evil he respected her. It had gone against every gut instinct he owned, to sit passively in a graveyard with Faith restraining him from interfering the week he first arrived in Dublin, watching this poor kid basically fight a vampire alone. He conceded Siobhan was stronger and better at vampire fighting than Dean. Dean had reluctantly agreed to stay out of Faith’s life as far as vampire hunting was concerned. It was Faith’s thing. And she had asked him to get involved with killing a banshee the next week. So Dean’s area of expertise when it came to ghosts and spirits was acknowledged by everyone.
Dean took pride in the fact that he deducted Faith and Jo were being held prisoner in the building of the Greek restaurant that Faith first caught the attention of Philip's minions in.
And in rescuing Faith and Jo, Dean played his part most satisfactorily. He shot Phillip through the heart with his rifle creating a hole in the vampire’s calcified with age chest wall for Siobhan to drive a stake through.
Dean’s blood type proved wrong to donate to the very anemic drained Faith and Jo. Sam and Craig donated their universal donor type O to save the girls lives.
Fortunately Dean was able to show Faith how much he loved her, how much she meant to him, by nursing her devotedly the following couple of days.
Faith and Dean both apologized to each other akwardly and swiftly for not being more understanding of each others needs when the cut up Faith regained consciousness. They were both people that never overused the word sorry - on the other hand there was nothing like the threat of death to get life priorities in order.
So Faith ignored the fucking mess in the kitchen Dean made fixing her lunch as she limped from the bedroom to the bathroom. She concentrated on reminding herself how great Dean was at always remembering to pay the utility bills on time.
Dean suggested they could go out to dinner somewhere fancy before Faith went night-clubbing from now on. He resolved privately not to let her revealing outfits bother him anymore.
Things started to go swimmingly between them. They always did naturally get on well as people, not merely lovers and three months sped by of domestic bliss for them.
***
December 2007
Dublin, Ireland
***
And it came to pass that Christmas arrived in Faith and Dean’s lives, the ultimate Western stress creator.
“So you didn’t get a freaking turkey?” Faith fumed, coming home after working twelve hours without a coffee, lunch or dinner break in a gift wrapping hectic hell of Christmas poinsettia and mistletoe.
“I thought you were gonna.” Dean had been working overtime at his job fixing everyone’s cars brought in for last minute servicing before the season's holidays started.
“Dean, we agreed you’d pick up it, pal.” Faith flung her TV dinner in the microwave.
“No honey, you freaking ordered me to do it like I was some kinda kid as you left the house this morning and I told you I wouldn’t have time.” Dean fiddled with the Christmas tree lights on the coffee table, for some reason they weren’t working properly. It was very important to Faith they have decorations up and here he was trying to make things nice for her. Was she going to notice?
“Shit, have you got oil on the carpet again?” Faith picked up Dean’s overalls from the floor and headed to the bathroom to throw them in the washing machine there. She was trying her best to make the apartment nice for his due-to-arrive tomorrow brother; did Dean ever appreciate her efforts to make Sam feel welcome? She could exsanguinate the bastard sometimes.
She went back out and saw Dean had strung up the Christmas tree lights for her.
“Wow, you got ‘em working.” Faith put her arms around his neck touched. “Ya so good at electrical shit.”
“Piece of cake,” Dean wrapped his hands around her back fondly. He never suspected Faith would be such a sentimentalist over Christmas. “Hey, I’ll pick up the turkey tomorrow. I finish at twelve.”
They kissed affectionately, Christmas always made people on edge but they were gonna cope with it just fine.
***
“Oh holy crap!” Dean slapped his forehead in disbelief at his stupid oversight as he drove Sam home from the airport on Christmas Eve. Traffic was hell getting to Dublin International Airport on Christmas Eve and it was going to be just as freaking hideous getting home.
“I forgot to buy a friggin’ turkey.” The supermarkets would all be closed. He hoped Faith wouldn't go ballistic at him. She’d been a moody bitch this week, all because she was meeting Buffy tonight.
***
Taking off her apron Faith wished her boss a Merry Christmas. She walked with the waiting Buffy to the nearest open pub.
“So Siobhan musta come on the spot, you giving her that award in person for being 'Slayer of the year'.” Faith opened conversation once the two women grabbed an empty table in the crowded bar.
“She was sweetly big with the being pleased. She’s cute totally.” Buffy sipped her white wine. South African fermented grape goodness. “So um, sorry I was so dumb I thought you sent me that letter.”
“I was retarded too.” Faith quickly changed the subject. “It working out okay with you and that guy Daniel still?”
“Yeah, he’s great at working out how to fill in tax returns which I hate doing like a lot, and he enjoys going to poetry reading nights with me.” Buffy volunteered putting her feet protectively over her traveling case so it wouldn’t get knocked over. “You and Sam Winchester’s brother are all happy and contenty, I hear?”
“Yeah, Dean’s great too.” Faith drank her beer. Ten minutes of this phoney B.S. to get through and then Buffy would be catching a taxi to make her flight back to London.
“I guess he must be. Risking his soul to save his brother, selfless much? I thought Sam was just faking wanting to be a watcher too, only joined the New Watcher’s Council to work out a way to rescue Dean before the year on his life ran out, but Sam’s working out fine and peachy as a watcher in Lisbon.” Buffy didn’t think she needed to order another drink did she? Just one would be enough to be socially polite surely? Then she could go. What was Faith narrowing her eyes over?
“Go back a sentence, B.”
Megan excused herself to go over and speak to friends she knew at another table. Craig went outside to join Faith in having a cigarette.
“It’s not surprising you’re having problems adjusting, dude.” Sam waved his finger in and out of the blue flame of the candle mesmerized. “You’ve never lived with a woman before. Never had a serious long term relationship - two weeks dating Cassie doesn’t count, jerk. You knew Faith for less than a month before you joined her here. Did you both think you were destined to be together or something when you met up with her again?”
“Don’t be freaking ridiculous, Sam. No and butt out.” Dean loved Faith that was all there was to it. He could see his brother the big gaybo, wanted some personal explanation trash from him regarding Faith’s insecure accusation to Dean and Jo.
“Faith trusts me. Faith just had a crap day at work, that’s all.” Did Faith trust him? Dean thought she did until the weird accusation out of the blue.
Dean couldn’t help looking at women as if imagining they were naked, feeding them corny come on lines. He spent the last ten years behaving that way to women, trying desperately to get laid in a hurry as he passed from town to town. Dean never used prostitutes so what else was he meant to do? Be celibate? Dean didn’t think so. Sounding perpetually as if Dean was trying to pick up chicks was ingrained in his persona. He didn’t want to do actually do anything for real with the women he chatted up daily in Dublin, Faith completely sexually satisfied him and then some, it was just a bad habit.
Dean didn’t get why Faith loved him he was basically an asshole.
Craig came back into the restaurant. “Faith come back in here?”
“No, she’s outside with Jo.” Dean looked at the desert menu speculatively - Pistachio gelato or tiramisu? Contrary to what Sam and Faith accused, Dean could venture out in taste exploration. He decided to stick with apple pie and vanilla ice-cream however.
“No, they’re not.” Craig sat back down annoyed at their table. “Bloody woman’s got my smokes. So much for her giving up.”
***
“Jo’s left her hand-bag behind.” Megan held up Jo’s suede shoulder purse up in an ‘Exhibit A’ pose from off the back of the chair Jo had been sitting on.
“Well where the hell are they?” Dean began to get a gnawing feeling of dread in his gut. “They’re not in the rest room?”
“I checked the bog twice.” Megan confirmed mystified.
***
The room where Faith regained consciousness could be any size, she couldn’t see because of her blindfold but she sensed it was small. Someone didn’t believe in taking any chances when it came to binding her. Faith twisted futilely against the industrial strength ropes wrapped around her body, her mouth muffled with masking tape - not a ball gag. Things could be worse.
Faith could hear what sounded like a party and the sound of breaking china coming far away from a room in another part of the building in which she lay on dusty carpet. She tried not to sneeze. She succeeded - yay her.
***
Faith and Jo had been missing for twenty minutes. The three men found Craig’s near full cigarette pack in the gutter in the side alley outside the restaurant. Faith was not answering her cell.
“You ring up the Garda, triple nine.” Craig instructed a worried sick by now Dean, frustrated because the Irish mobile phone company Faith was signed up with refused to give out Faith’s cell’s GPS location over the phone to Dean because of privacy laws. “I’m ringing up Siobhan.”
“Call in a sixteen year old kid to help with what’s looking more and more like a supernatural kidnapping? Works for me.” Dean dialed the Irish police number on his cell phone. He would have called the police in a second anyway. He and Faith were law abiding citizens in Dublin, there had to be some pay off for their boring lives.
***
Faith finally had the blindfold ripped off her as she was tied face down to a metal pole suspended over a child’s blow up plastic wading pool covered with ashes at the bottom of it. Jo lay suspended beside her unconscious on her own spit roast arrangement.
“I’m ‘Philip The Terrible’, you killed my lover and now I’m going to kill you to bring Kakistos back.” The old vampire informed Faith matter of factly. “I would have thought the other slayer would be awake by now too.” Phillip added to his three minion vamps in disappointment.
“Buffy Summers seemed tipsy when we shot her. She never could handle her drink we’ve heard.” One vamp explained pompously to his master.
Faith realized why someone would mistake Jo for Buffy in the dark. They were both blonde, short and had brown eyes. She and Jo were going to have their throats cut and their blood poured over the ashes of Kakistos because Faith and Buffy were the closest humans to Kakistos when he died.
Philip must have spent the past months gathering the ashes of Kakistos together using magic. Philip was responsible for trying to piss Faith and Buffy off at each other so much they’d meet in the same country. It also explained the extreme nuisance value as opposed to actual danger of the zombies Philip kept sending around to Faith’s apartment. Philip needed Faith to remain alive until an hour ago.
Except Phillip’s reanimation project wouldn’t work because Jo wasn’t Buffy. Faith tried once more to free herself gaining nasty rope burns in the process to no avail. Philip had never watched the sixties television series of Batman and did not realize as an arch villain he needed to leave the room so Faith could easily escape. Faith was fucked, royally and completely fucked.
Phillip raised a knife in Jo’s direction. Faith felt fatalism sweep over her - this was the end of the road. Shit - just when she found true love with Dean.
Phillip’s knife cut into the crook of Jo’s elbow, blood began to drip in a steady stream over the ashes lining the wading pool. Jo looked near death already, she had been administered a massive amount of tranquilizer for a human.
Phillip smiled smugly at Faith’s surprised expression. “You think I’m going to give you the mercy of a quick death by slitting your throats? I’m exsanguinating you bitches slowly, every drop.” He put his finger in the cut on Jo’s arm and tasted the blood. “Slayer blood is not what it’s cracked up to be, alas.”
Faith quickly figured out what exsanguination was when it was home as Phillip stabbed her own inner right arm. Exsanguination - another new word to add to her vocabulary, and not possibly her last one.
Come on guys! Faith’s body surged with ecstatic hope. She possessed every confidence that Dean, Sam and Craig would be knocking themselves out to find her and Jo. They would get Siobhan on board with a rescue mission. Being reformed would really deliver for Faith in this sitch.
Philip wasn’t so freaking smart after all, he was letting his love for Kakistos cloud his judgment and making Faith suffer for the sake of revenge instead of quickly killing her. Faith sneered at the vampire with contempt. Undead sap.
Like Faith ever let love compromise her way of doing things since she was seventeen. She was a cold hard bitch half the time, she didn’t understand why Dean loved her.
***
As the ordinary school girl Siobhan was, she got on Dean’s nerves. But as a killer of evil he respected her. It had gone against every gut instinct he owned, to sit passively in a graveyard with Faith restraining him from interfering the week he first arrived in Dublin, watching this poor kid basically fight a vampire alone. He conceded Siobhan was stronger and better at vampire fighting than Dean. Dean had reluctantly agreed to stay out of Faith’s life as far as vampire hunting was concerned. It was Faith’s thing. And she had asked him to get involved with killing a banshee the next week. So Dean’s area of expertise when it came to ghosts and spirits was acknowledged by everyone.
Dean took pride in the fact that he deducted Faith and Jo were being held prisoner in the building of the Greek restaurant that Faith first caught the attention of Philip's minions in.
And in rescuing Faith and Jo, Dean played his part most satisfactorily. He shot Phillip through the heart with his rifle creating a hole in the vampire’s calcified with age chest wall for Siobhan to drive a stake through.
Dean’s blood type proved wrong to donate to the very anemic drained Faith and Jo. Sam and Craig donated their universal donor type O to save the girls lives.
Fortunately Dean was able to show Faith how much he loved her, how much she meant to him, by nursing her devotedly the following couple of days.
Faith and Dean both apologized to each other akwardly and swiftly for not being more understanding of each others needs when the cut up Faith regained consciousness. They were both people that never overused the word sorry - on the other hand there was nothing like the threat of death to get life priorities in order.
So Faith ignored the fucking mess in the kitchen Dean made fixing her lunch as she limped from the bedroom to the bathroom. She concentrated on reminding herself how great Dean was at always remembering to pay the utility bills on time.
Dean suggested they could go out to dinner somewhere fancy before Faith went night-clubbing from now on. He resolved privately not to let her revealing outfits bother him anymore.
Things started to go swimmingly between them. They always did naturally get on well as people, not merely lovers and three months sped by of domestic bliss for them.
***
December 2007
Dublin, Ireland
***
And it came to pass that Christmas arrived in Faith and Dean’s lives, the ultimate Western stress creator.
“So you didn’t get a freaking turkey?” Faith fumed, coming home after working twelve hours without a coffee, lunch or dinner break in a gift wrapping hectic hell of Christmas poinsettia and mistletoe.
“I thought you were gonna.” Dean had been working overtime at his job fixing everyone’s cars brought in for last minute servicing before the season's holidays started.
“Dean, we agreed you’d pick up it, pal.” Faith flung her TV dinner in the microwave.
“No honey, you freaking ordered me to do it like I was some kinda kid as you left the house this morning and I told you I wouldn’t have time.” Dean fiddled with the Christmas tree lights on the coffee table, for some reason they weren’t working properly. It was very important to Faith they have decorations up and here he was trying to make things nice for her. Was she going to notice?
“Shit, have you got oil on the carpet again?” Faith picked up Dean’s overalls from the floor and headed to the bathroom to throw them in the washing machine there. She was trying her best to make the apartment nice for his due-to-arrive tomorrow brother; did Dean ever appreciate her efforts to make Sam feel welcome? She could exsanguinate the bastard sometimes.
She went back out and saw Dean had strung up the Christmas tree lights for her.
“Wow, you got ‘em working.” Faith put her arms around his neck touched. “Ya so good at electrical shit.”
“Piece of cake,” Dean wrapped his hands around her back fondly. He never suspected Faith would be such a sentimentalist over Christmas. “Hey, I’ll pick up the turkey tomorrow. I finish at twelve.”
They kissed affectionately, Christmas always made people on edge but they were gonna cope with it just fine.
***
“Oh holy crap!” Dean slapped his forehead in disbelief at his stupid oversight as he drove Sam home from the airport on Christmas Eve. Traffic was hell getting to Dublin International Airport on Christmas Eve and it was going to be just as freaking hideous getting home.
“I forgot to buy a friggin’ turkey.” The supermarkets would all be closed. He hoped Faith wouldn't go ballistic at him. She’d been a moody bitch this week, all because she was meeting Buffy tonight.
***
Taking off her apron Faith wished her boss a Merry Christmas. She walked with the waiting Buffy to the nearest open pub.
“So Siobhan musta come on the spot, you giving her that award in person for being 'Slayer of the year'.” Faith opened conversation once the two women grabbed an empty table in the crowded bar.
“She was sweetly big with the being pleased. She’s cute totally.” Buffy sipped her white wine. South African fermented grape goodness. “So um, sorry I was so dumb I thought you sent me that letter.”
“I was retarded too.” Faith quickly changed the subject. “It working out okay with you and that guy Daniel still?”
“Yeah, he’s great at working out how to fill in tax returns which I hate doing like a lot, and he enjoys going to poetry reading nights with me.” Buffy volunteered putting her feet protectively over her traveling case so it wouldn’t get knocked over. “You and Sam Winchester’s brother are all happy and contenty, I hear?”
“Yeah, Dean’s great too.” Faith drank her beer. Ten minutes of this phoney B.S. to get through and then Buffy would be catching a taxi to make her flight back to London.
“I guess he must be. Risking his soul to save his brother, selfless much? I thought Sam was just faking wanting to be a watcher too, only joined the New Watcher’s Council to work out a way to rescue Dean before the year on his life ran out, but Sam’s working out fine and peachy as a watcher in Lisbon.” Buffy didn’t think she needed to order another drink did she? Just one would be enough to be socially polite surely? Then she could go. What was Faith narrowing her eyes over?
“Go back a sentence, B.”