Fic - "She Ain't Cautious" | Faith/Jo | PG-13 | For Rebecca
I'm sorry for being all fic-spammy, but this one is important.
She Ain't Cautious
SPN/BUFFY crossover. Jo/Faith; PG-13; 3250 words
Jo hunts a werewolf. It doesn't go as planned.
Thanks to the wonderful missyjack for the helpful and quick beta. This is for r_becca, on the occasion of your birthday, honey. You know you're one of my favorite people. I hope today is awesome! *smooches*
During the hot summer months, Jo cuts easily back and forth across the country.
Her first stop is Independence, Missouri, where a group of shadow leeches are slowly sucking the life out of the teenage population. Then it's Savannah, Georgia and a poltergeist in an old, rambling house that belongs to a lady nearly as old as her home. Jo lands herself a long gash along her chest for her trouble, but she earns a grateful smile, a pat with soft, dry hands and three big loaves of zucchini bread, so she figures it was worth it.
From Oklahoma she calls her mom to ask a question about weather patterns. In Wyoming she takes one night off to go see a movie, but every pair of eyes she looks into appears too dark and too mean in the glowing light from the screen, and she's left Cheyenne before the night is through.
Before she gets into Ohio, by way of a haunting in Tennessee, she stops at a bar with neon lights shining bleakly from its window and fucks the first guy who loses at pool in the back seat of his car, rough and fast. She yanks up her jeans and is out of it by the time he's wiped the surprised look from his face.
It's a three-stoplight town, split evenly along the rust-colored train tracks that run east to west. To the north is a sprawling complex of a high school with a football stadium nearly twice its size, curling streets of black tar with evenly spaced two story homes set on squares of green, a shining car dealership with a sign congratulating the Tigers on their regional victory, and an Applebees whose parking lot is full for a Tuesday night, dinner rush or no. To the south is a rundown motel advertising free HBO and air conditioning, smaller, weedier looking ranches, and a depressed main drag with neon signs proclaiming pool tables and Budweiser.
Jo swerves into the motel parking lot, and even at six-thirty the bright sun and sticky humidity are out in enough force to make her grateful for the stale hum of room number 8's air-conditioner. She checks in for six days, hoping that'll be plenty of time to find whatever force is behind at least three people gone dead bloody over the last two months, and sink it into the ground.
There's an ancient looking pair of vending machines three doors down from her room. She sorts through her loose change and rounds up enough quarters to buy two Twix bars, and it takes three swift kicks and a few choice words before the machine clankingly surrenders a can of ginger ale.
She deadbolts the door behind her, and it's not as if she's truly frightened -she's been on her own now for over two years, had fourteen successful hunts, if you count the blond-obsessed freak in Chicago (which she does) - so it's out of habit alone that she drags the only chair in the room to the door and snugs it beneath the metal knob.
She sinks gratefully onto the double bed, teeth already tearing into the gold wrapper of her dinner. She's never been much of an eater - finicky, her mother called it - but there are times now that she so desperately longs for Harvelle's thick, fragrant chili that she can very nearly taste it, her mouth pooling with saliva. Biting into her Twix proves less than satisfying, the caramel sticky against her tongue and teeth.
Her duffle is red and black, packed hunter style with a gun on top; beneath is a spiral notebook and a crisp, manila folder marked 'Archbold, Ohio' stuffed with photocopies and printouts of newspaper articles dating as far back as two months ago. Taking another bite of her candy bar, Jo pulls the file toward her, flicks on the bedside lamp, and opens her notebook to a fresh page.
She's awesome at research, good at finding patterns, tracking omens and spotting details most lay people would miss, but hunting isn't all books, and though the end game is usually a kill, the most important part is old-fashioned fact gathering, usually in the form of pulling information out of people who'd rather stay quiet.
It's a lucky thing she's able to charm most she meets with a dimpled smile, and if that doesn't work, a swing of her hips and a sway of long blond hair usually does the trick.
After both breakfast and lunch at a small diner with mustard-yellow walls and white paper napkins, and after spending last night and most of the day re-scouring the newspapers, she figures she's got all the information she needs. A growing pile of bloody corpses slotted up neatly next to a lunar cycle doesn't leave much to the imagination, but she's jumped the gun more than once where a hunt in concerned, and a long pink scar along her right calve is reminder enough that following the boy scout's motto of preparedness is prudent.
Her second night in the town leads to one of three run-down bars on the main strip. The whole place is pretty much just a square room clad in ancient, fading wallpaper with enough neon to make her head spin. There's something reassuring about it, filled with so many obvious regulars that it makes Jo nostalgic in ways only the smell of cigarette smoke and stale beer can.
That's probably why the girl stands out. She's so obviously not from around here and isn't even bothering to hide it, shiny dark hair and glossy-red lips gleaming under the sour yellow light.
When Jo asks the bartender the girl's name, the old lady just shrugs with a kind smile. The way she carries herself sets Jo on edge immediately. She moves just this side of too fast. She's obviously here for more than a friendly game of pool; while everyone else is captivated by her smile, her eyes narrow and peer around the bar, searching for something.
That's when she notices Jo watching her. Not that Jo was being all that subtle about it, eyes staring fixedly at the girl. Inexplicably, when the girl lets a slow smile split her face in two in Jo's direction, Jo feels heat flood her cheeks. She's no blushing virgin, but the open appraisal makes her feel young and naïve.
Annoyed with herself, Jo stands from the bar and sets a quarter on the pool table. The girl's eyes are on her pretty much the whole time, and Jo ignores the flush that she feels covering her whole chest in favor of shaking her hair out.
She says her name is Faith, and even though her hand is smaller than Jo's, her grip is tight. She chomps loudly on a piece of gum and her eyelashes are sticky with mascara.
"You got winner?" she asks, voice gravely like someone who's been smoking too long.
Jo says, "Yeah," and watches Faith make short work of the guy she's up against.
There's something about her that reminds Jo of Dean Winchester - a sort of cocky, fuck-it-all attitude that Jo can't seem to resist.
Jo has not lost a game she didn't want to in seven years. There have been a few that were close, but she's spent most of her life in bars, and what she hasn't made in tips she supplemented by hustling pool, to the point where no one at the Road House would have played her by the time the place was blown up.
It's no surprise when she sinks the eight ball and Faith still has four balls on the table, even though Jo let her break. Faith doesn't seem all that upset about it. She just blows a pink bubble and smiles her cherry-red smile and offers Jo a cigarette in congratulations. Jo declines, but she watches hungrily as Faith lights up anyway.
Faith offers to buy her a shot, too, but outside the moon is full. Jo has work to do tonight.
She regretfully finishes her beer. "You out?" Faith says, moving next to Jo in a cloud of smoke.
Jo nods. "Early night," she lies.
"Can't stick around for one more game?"
It's tempting, but - "I have a lot of work to do."
"Yeah. Alright, Jo. That's too bad, but it was nice to meet you."
Faith sticks her hand out again, this time in goodbye. Her grip is warm and soft and tight. Jo lets the handshake go on just a little bit longer than normal, and when she says goodbye, she knows she sounds a little bit breathless.
The night air isn't cool on her warm cheeks when she steps outside. She starts up her engine feeling drunk, even though she's had just one beer. The werewolf's hunting ground seems to be over at an abandoned factory, where car parts were once made before most of the auto industry fell or went down south, leaving the town without any real economy. It seems to be a favorite spot for daring pre-teens and teenagers alike. Police reports put most of the victims' deaths between eleven and three AM, so the clock on Jo's truck telling her it's only just nine makes her early, but it's better that way.
While she waits inside the cab of her truck, two guns loaded with silver bullets she'd picked up last time she was up in Oregon visiting Roger Miller, she studies newspapers, searching out more patterns and her next job. She's distracted though, thinking about glossy dark hair and pale skin, and wondering why Faith - which Jo doesn't totally believe is her real name - felt so alien and familiar all at once.
It's three hours before she finally hears a scream. Grabbing her gun, Jo unclicks the handle and pushes the door wide with her foot. The pavement is hard as she rushes toward the factory, one gun clenched securely in her hand. She can hear snarls just ahead, and though the factory is dim, she can make out figures in her eyesight. It looks like what appears to be three young guys, none of who are much bigger than she, trapped in fear. By the meager light, Jo can only just make out wide eyes. The werewolf - and it's definitely a werewolf - looks like it's already claimed another victim, as it leans over a figure lying prone on the floor, face bloody.
It doesn't even look up as Jo comes to a halt, too intent on the boy beneath it.
"Run," she yells to the kids. One glances back in fear and probably concern, but Jo doesn't pay any attention to him and she doesn't hesitate.
She's never been totally comfortable with guns, not until recently, but she's a good shot when she needs to be. Jo squints one eye to line the target up, and keeps one arm lose. If you lock up, she remembers hearing her father's distant voice say, you'll break your arm. She hears the satisfying click of the safety disarming.
She probably can't help the kid lying beneath the beast, she thinks, even as her thumb twitches deliberately and squeezes, hard, on the trigger.
That's when everything goes pear shaped and blurry. The gun goes off - she hears it, and she smells the sharp scent of something burning and feels the weight of it her arms. It's a second before she realizes something - no someone - has barreled into her. She's on her side, groaning and reaching for the gun that got knocked away during her fall, when she hears an-almost whimper come from the beast, and then a distinct flop of something solid hitting the cement floor.
Rolling quickly to her feet, gun again firmly in hand, Jo spins around to come face to face with her attacker.
Faith.
"What the hell is your problem?" wasn't really what she had planned on saying, but it's what comes out anyway.
"You were gonna kill him," says a voice to Faith's right - Jo startles and glances over to see a short kid with spiky hair bent low over the prone werewolf, some sort of stun gun in his left hand.
Jo feels her eyebrows knot together. She'd guessed Faith wasn't totally on the up-and-up, but -
"What are you gonna do?" she sneers. "Take it home and keep it as a pet?"
Beside her, she hears Faith snort. Jo glares and resists the urge to rub her side; she's gonna have a massive bruise come sun-up.
The short kid, the one who obviously sedated the werewolf, looks placidly up at Jo. "We're gonna get him help," he says.
Jo shakes her head. "That's impossible. There's no cure."
"Sure there is," Faith says. She's got on boots that are at least three inches high. Jo used to wear shoes with high heels while on the job, she used to paint blush on her cheeks and curl her hair, but she's forgone all of that for sneakers and pulling her hair out of her eyes. Jo didn't even see Faith come at her, didn’t hear Faith either. She narrows her eyes at Faith. Faith just smiles and chomps on her gum.
"I can't just let you take it - him," Jo says, when the other body, the body of the kid who got mauled, makes a rough noise. Jo watches Faith's companion bend down and say something too low for her to make out.
Faith nods. "Yeah," she says, a little slowly. "You don't really have much of a choice."
Jo's whole body is already killing her, while Faith and her friend look totally in tact. Still. She brandishes her gun. "I have the gun," she reminds them aloud.
Faith meets her eyes. "You're not gonna shoot us."
Jo scoffs. "How do you know?"
Without bothering to respond, Faith reaches in her pocket. Jo aims the gun with shaky arms, really not wanting to use it. She's never shot at a person before. But Faith just pulls out a set of keys from jeans that are practically painted on her narrow hips and throws them over to the guy, who catches them with almost preternatural speed.
"Oz," Faith says. "You mind bringing the car around?"
Jo swallows. She's not sure these two are human - vampires, she guesses - but what they would want with one, no scratch that, two werewolves, is beyond her.
She and Faith stare at one another. Jo's still got her gun out, though her left arm is starting to shake. "You can't help them," she says, really just for something to break the silence of Faith's eyes on her. "I've researched it. Lycanthropy has no cure. They'll be monsters forever."
"They're still human," Faith says.
"Barely," Jo answers.
"Barely's better than nothing at all."
Headlights cut across the open deck before Jo can respond. Oz is driving some sort of sleek looking SUV, big and black, that doesn’t fit him or Faith at all.
As he hops down from the driver's side, Faith looks at Jo. "You can go now," she says, not unkindly. "We've got it."
Jo hesitates. Faith meets her eyes again. "You're gonna have to trust me," she says.
Jo's not sure that she does, actually, but her head hurts and it's obvious these two are determined to steal away the werewolves. She throws a glance at the bodies, kind of amazed to see Oz able to lift the one into the SUV by himself, and decides she's definitely out of her league.
Without looking at Faith again, Jo limps her way back to her truck.
When she checks her reflection in the mirror back at the motel, she looks bruised and beat up. Her whole left side is dirty from the nasty spill she took, and her hair is a wreck. She lifts her white T-shirt over her head to see an orangey-looking bruise just beginning to form; it looks sick and swollen.
There's a loud knock at the door just as she's finally made it out of the shower and into a pair of shorts and another T-shirt, wanting nothing more than to tumble into bed. Jo scowls and stands on tip-toe to aim a look out the peep hole. She's less surprised than she should be to see Faith in the shallow overhead light of the motel.
Jo swings the door open, hand on a hip to see Faith with a plastic bottle of booze in her hand, and says, "How did you know I was here?"
Faith shrugs. "I followed you."
Jo peers around her into the thick night. She doesn't see any cars that weren't here when she pulled up twenty minutes ago. "What, d'you run behind the truck?" she half-jokes.
Faith smiles, but doesn't say anything else, and Jo - inexplicably, because she knows better - pulls the door open wide and gestures Faith and her liquor inside.
Without saying anything, she locates two plastic water glasses and hands them both to Faith. Faith fills both cups up and hands one to Jo. "Figured you could use it," she says.
Jo takes a long, painful swallow.
"You a hunter?" she asks before taking another quick gulp.
Faith looks around the room. "This is nice," she comments. She sits down and bounces on the bed and then quirks an eyebrow. "Firm."
"I take it that's a 'no'."
Faith's still sitting on the bed, legs spread wide. "I'm a friend."
Jo's surprised to find her drink gone. She pours more into the glass, already feeling a bit light headed. She downs it and sits on the bed. She's close to Faith now - so close she can see the lipstick painted on her mouth and the smattering of freckles that march across her nose.
"Friend?" she asks.
Faith nods.
"Okay," Jo says, just before she leans in to kiss Faith. Faith doesn't pull away. She leans into the kiss and tastes like cheap liquor and cigarette smoke and pink bubblegum. Her mouth is firm against Jo, and when she presses Jo back against the pillows of the bed, her body is slight and familiar.
"You with me on this?" Faith whispers into the kiss, and Jo nods, keeping her eyes open as Faith places her lips against the sensitive skin behind Jo's ear, her bellybutton and the inside of her thigh. Faith is confident and gorgeous and sleek and wet. When Jo tells her to stay the night, she nods and switches the lamp off and is a soft lump beside Jo's body when Jo tumbles into sleep, sated.
When morning's feeble grey light shines through the thin curtains, waking Jo, she's unsurprised to find she's alone. There's a Styrofoam cup of coffee and a lopsided muffin on her nightstand, next to the clock that claims it's 7:13. Jo stretches as she sits, pulling the black coffee to her. It's gone cold already, but she drinks it anyway. The muffin's sitting on a napkin that has a number scratched on it, along with: In case you need a friend. Faith.
Jo smiles. She probably won't ever call, but she shoves the napkin into the pocket of her duffle anyway. She stops by the Sunoco on her way out of town, picks up a generic postcard to send to her mom, a local paper and a hot cup of coffee, and puts Archbold, Ohio in her rearview mirror.
She has work to do.
She Ain't Cautious
SPN/BUFFY crossover. Jo/Faith; PG-13; 3250 words
Jo hunts a werewolf. It doesn't go as planned.
Thanks to the wonderful missyjack for the helpful and quick beta. This is for r_becca, on the occasion of your birthday, honey. You know you're one of my favorite people. I hope today is awesome! *smooches*
During the hot summer months, Jo cuts easily back and forth across the country.
Her first stop is Independence, Missouri, where a group of shadow leeches are slowly sucking the life out of the teenage population. Then it's Savannah, Georgia and a poltergeist in an old, rambling house that belongs to a lady nearly as old as her home. Jo lands herself a long gash along her chest for her trouble, but she earns a grateful smile, a pat with soft, dry hands and three big loaves of zucchini bread, so she figures it was worth it.
From Oklahoma she calls her mom to ask a question about weather patterns. In Wyoming she takes one night off to go see a movie, but every pair of eyes she looks into appears too dark and too mean in the glowing light from the screen, and she's left Cheyenne before the night is through.
Before she gets into Ohio, by way of a haunting in Tennessee, she stops at a bar with neon lights shining bleakly from its window and fucks the first guy who loses at pool in the back seat of his car, rough and fast. She yanks up her jeans and is out of it by the time he's wiped the surprised look from his face.
It's a three-stoplight town, split evenly along the rust-colored train tracks that run east to west. To the north is a sprawling complex of a high school with a football stadium nearly twice its size, curling streets of black tar with evenly spaced two story homes set on squares of green, a shining car dealership with a sign congratulating the Tigers on their regional victory, and an Applebees whose parking lot is full for a Tuesday night, dinner rush or no. To the south is a rundown motel advertising free HBO and air conditioning, smaller, weedier looking ranches, and a depressed main drag with neon signs proclaiming pool tables and Budweiser.
Jo swerves into the motel parking lot, and even at six-thirty the bright sun and sticky humidity are out in enough force to make her grateful for the stale hum of room number 8's air-conditioner. She checks in for six days, hoping that'll be plenty of time to find whatever force is behind at least three people gone dead bloody over the last two months, and sink it into the ground.
There's an ancient looking pair of vending machines three doors down from her room. She sorts through her loose change and rounds up enough quarters to buy two Twix bars, and it takes three swift kicks and a few choice words before the machine clankingly surrenders a can of ginger ale.
She deadbolts the door behind her, and it's not as if she's truly frightened -she's been on her own now for over two years, had fourteen successful hunts, if you count the blond-obsessed freak in Chicago (which she does) - so it's out of habit alone that she drags the only chair in the room to the door and snugs it beneath the metal knob.
She sinks gratefully onto the double bed, teeth already tearing into the gold wrapper of her dinner. She's never been much of an eater - finicky, her mother called it - but there are times now that she so desperately longs for Harvelle's thick, fragrant chili that she can very nearly taste it, her mouth pooling with saliva. Biting into her Twix proves less than satisfying, the caramel sticky against her tongue and teeth.
Her duffle is red and black, packed hunter style with a gun on top; beneath is a spiral notebook and a crisp, manila folder marked 'Archbold, Ohio' stuffed with photocopies and printouts of newspaper articles dating as far back as two months ago. Taking another bite of her candy bar, Jo pulls the file toward her, flicks on the bedside lamp, and opens her notebook to a fresh page.
She's awesome at research, good at finding patterns, tracking omens and spotting details most lay people would miss, but hunting isn't all books, and though the end game is usually a kill, the most important part is old-fashioned fact gathering, usually in the form of pulling information out of people who'd rather stay quiet.
It's a lucky thing she's able to charm most she meets with a dimpled smile, and if that doesn't work, a swing of her hips and a sway of long blond hair usually does the trick.
After both breakfast and lunch at a small diner with mustard-yellow walls and white paper napkins, and after spending last night and most of the day re-scouring the newspapers, she figures she's got all the information she needs. A growing pile of bloody corpses slotted up neatly next to a lunar cycle doesn't leave much to the imagination, but she's jumped the gun more than once where a hunt in concerned, and a long pink scar along her right calve is reminder enough that following the boy scout's motto of preparedness is prudent.
Her second night in the town leads to one of three run-down bars on the main strip. The whole place is pretty much just a square room clad in ancient, fading wallpaper with enough neon to make her head spin. There's something reassuring about it, filled with so many obvious regulars that it makes Jo nostalgic in ways only the smell of cigarette smoke and stale beer can.
That's probably why the girl stands out. She's so obviously not from around here and isn't even bothering to hide it, shiny dark hair and glossy-red lips gleaming under the sour yellow light.
When Jo asks the bartender the girl's name, the old lady just shrugs with a kind smile. The way she carries herself sets Jo on edge immediately. She moves just this side of too fast. She's obviously here for more than a friendly game of pool; while everyone else is captivated by her smile, her eyes narrow and peer around the bar, searching for something.
That's when she notices Jo watching her. Not that Jo was being all that subtle about it, eyes staring fixedly at the girl. Inexplicably, when the girl lets a slow smile split her face in two in Jo's direction, Jo feels heat flood her cheeks. She's no blushing virgin, but the open appraisal makes her feel young and naïve.
Annoyed with herself, Jo stands from the bar and sets a quarter on the pool table. The girl's eyes are on her pretty much the whole time, and Jo ignores the flush that she feels covering her whole chest in favor of shaking her hair out.
She says her name is Faith, and even though her hand is smaller than Jo's, her grip is tight. She chomps loudly on a piece of gum and her eyelashes are sticky with mascara.
"You got winner?" she asks, voice gravely like someone who's been smoking too long.
Jo says, "Yeah," and watches Faith make short work of the guy she's up against.
There's something about her that reminds Jo of Dean Winchester - a sort of cocky, fuck-it-all attitude that Jo can't seem to resist.
Jo has not lost a game she didn't want to in seven years. There have been a few that were close, but she's spent most of her life in bars, and what she hasn't made in tips she supplemented by hustling pool, to the point where no one at the Road House would have played her by the time the place was blown up.
It's no surprise when she sinks the eight ball and Faith still has four balls on the table, even though Jo let her break. Faith doesn't seem all that upset about it. She just blows a pink bubble and smiles her cherry-red smile and offers Jo a cigarette in congratulations. Jo declines, but she watches hungrily as Faith lights up anyway.
Faith offers to buy her a shot, too, but outside the moon is full. Jo has work to do tonight.
She regretfully finishes her beer. "You out?" Faith says, moving next to Jo in a cloud of smoke.
Jo nods. "Early night," she lies.
"Can't stick around for one more game?"
It's tempting, but - "I have a lot of work to do."
"Yeah. Alright, Jo. That's too bad, but it was nice to meet you."
Faith sticks her hand out again, this time in goodbye. Her grip is warm and soft and tight. Jo lets the handshake go on just a little bit longer than normal, and when she says goodbye, she knows she sounds a little bit breathless.
The night air isn't cool on her warm cheeks when she steps outside. She starts up her engine feeling drunk, even though she's had just one beer. The werewolf's hunting ground seems to be over at an abandoned factory, where car parts were once made before most of the auto industry fell or went down south, leaving the town without any real economy. It seems to be a favorite spot for daring pre-teens and teenagers alike. Police reports put most of the victims' deaths between eleven and three AM, so the clock on Jo's truck telling her it's only just nine makes her early, but it's better that way.
While she waits inside the cab of her truck, two guns loaded with silver bullets she'd picked up last time she was up in Oregon visiting Roger Miller, she studies newspapers, searching out more patterns and her next job. She's distracted though, thinking about glossy dark hair and pale skin, and wondering why Faith - which Jo doesn't totally believe is her real name - felt so alien and familiar all at once.
It's three hours before she finally hears a scream. Grabbing her gun, Jo unclicks the handle and pushes the door wide with her foot. The pavement is hard as she rushes toward the factory, one gun clenched securely in her hand. She can hear snarls just ahead, and though the factory is dim, she can make out figures in her eyesight. It looks like what appears to be three young guys, none of who are much bigger than she, trapped in fear. By the meager light, Jo can only just make out wide eyes. The werewolf - and it's definitely a werewolf - looks like it's already claimed another victim, as it leans over a figure lying prone on the floor, face bloody.
It doesn't even look up as Jo comes to a halt, too intent on the boy beneath it.
"Run," she yells to the kids. One glances back in fear and probably concern, but Jo doesn't pay any attention to him and she doesn't hesitate.
She's never been totally comfortable with guns, not until recently, but she's a good shot when she needs to be. Jo squints one eye to line the target up, and keeps one arm lose. If you lock up, she remembers hearing her father's distant voice say, you'll break your arm. She hears the satisfying click of the safety disarming.
She probably can't help the kid lying beneath the beast, she thinks, even as her thumb twitches deliberately and squeezes, hard, on the trigger.
That's when everything goes pear shaped and blurry. The gun goes off - she hears it, and she smells the sharp scent of something burning and feels the weight of it her arms. It's a second before she realizes something - no someone - has barreled into her. She's on her side, groaning and reaching for the gun that got knocked away during her fall, when she hears an-almost whimper come from the beast, and then a distinct flop of something solid hitting the cement floor.
Rolling quickly to her feet, gun again firmly in hand, Jo spins around to come face to face with her attacker.
Faith.
"What the hell is your problem?" wasn't really what she had planned on saying, but it's what comes out anyway.
"You were gonna kill him," says a voice to Faith's right - Jo startles and glances over to see a short kid with spiky hair bent low over the prone werewolf, some sort of stun gun in his left hand.
Jo feels her eyebrows knot together. She'd guessed Faith wasn't totally on the up-and-up, but -
"What are you gonna do?" she sneers. "Take it home and keep it as a pet?"
Beside her, she hears Faith snort. Jo glares and resists the urge to rub her side; she's gonna have a massive bruise come sun-up.
The short kid, the one who obviously sedated the werewolf, looks placidly up at Jo. "We're gonna get him help," he says.
Jo shakes her head. "That's impossible. There's no cure."
"Sure there is," Faith says. She's got on boots that are at least three inches high. Jo used to wear shoes with high heels while on the job, she used to paint blush on her cheeks and curl her hair, but she's forgone all of that for sneakers and pulling her hair out of her eyes. Jo didn't even see Faith come at her, didn’t hear Faith either. She narrows her eyes at Faith. Faith just smiles and chomps on her gum.
"I can't just let you take it - him," Jo says, when the other body, the body of the kid who got mauled, makes a rough noise. Jo watches Faith's companion bend down and say something too low for her to make out.
Faith nods. "Yeah," she says, a little slowly. "You don't really have much of a choice."
Jo's whole body is already killing her, while Faith and her friend look totally in tact. Still. She brandishes her gun. "I have the gun," she reminds them aloud.
Faith meets her eyes. "You're not gonna shoot us."
Jo scoffs. "How do you know?"
Without bothering to respond, Faith reaches in her pocket. Jo aims the gun with shaky arms, really not wanting to use it. She's never shot at a person before. But Faith just pulls out a set of keys from jeans that are practically painted on her narrow hips and throws them over to the guy, who catches them with almost preternatural speed.
"Oz," Faith says. "You mind bringing the car around?"
Jo swallows. She's not sure these two are human - vampires, she guesses - but what they would want with one, no scratch that, two werewolves, is beyond her.
She and Faith stare at one another. Jo's still got her gun out, though her left arm is starting to shake. "You can't help them," she says, really just for something to break the silence of Faith's eyes on her. "I've researched it. Lycanthropy has no cure. They'll be monsters forever."
"They're still human," Faith says.
"Barely," Jo answers.
"Barely's better than nothing at all."
Headlights cut across the open deck before Jo can respond. Oz is driving some sort of sleek looking SUV, big and black, that doesn’t fit him or Faith at all.
As he hops down from the driver's side, Faith looks at Jo. "You can go now," she says, not unkindly. "We've got it."
Jo hesitates. Faith meets her eyes again. "You're gonna have to trust me," she says.
Jo's not sure that she does, actually, but her head hurts and it's obvious these two are determined to steal away the werewolves. She throws a glance at the bodies, kind of amazed to see Oz able to lift the one into the SUV by himself, and decides she's definitely out of her league.
Without looking at Faith again, Jo limps her way back to her truck.
When she checks her reflection in the mirror back at the motel, she looks bruised and beat up. Her whole left side is dirty from the nasty spill she took, and her hair is a wreck. She lifts her white T-shirt over her head to see an orangey-looking bruise just beginning to form; it looks sick and swollen.
There's a loud knock at the door just as she's finally made it out of the shower and into a pair of shorts and another T-shirt, wanting nothing more than to tumble into bed. Jo scowls and stands on tip-toe to aim a look out the peep hole. She's less surprised than she should be to see Faith in the shallow overhead light of the motel.
Jo swings the door open, hand on a hip to see Faith with a plastic bottle of booze in her hand, and says, "How did you know I was here?"
Faith shrugs. "I followed you."
Jo peers around her into the thick night. She doesn't see any cars that weren't here when she pulled up twenty minutes ago. "What, d'you run behind the truck?" she half-jokes.
Faith smiles, but doesn't say anything else, and Jo - inexplicably, because she knows better - pulls the door open wide and gestures Faith and her liquor inside.
Without saying anything, she locates two plastic water glasses and hands them both to Faith. Faith fills both cups up and hands one to Jo. "Figured you could use it," she says.
Jo takes a long, painful swallow.
"You a hunter?" she asks before taking another quick gulp.
Faith looks around the room. "This is nice," she comments. She sits down and bounces on the bed and then quirks an eyebrow. "Firm."
"I take it that's a 'no'."
Faith's still sitting on the bed, legs spread wide. "I'm a friend."
Jo's surprised to find her drink gone. She pours more into the glass, already feeling a bit light headed. She downs it and sits on the bed. She's close to Faith now - so close she can see the lipstick painted on her mouth and the smattering of freckles that march across her nose.
"Friend?" she asks.
Faith nods.
"Okay," Jo says, just before she leans in to kiss Faith. Faith doesn't pull away. She leans into the kiss and tastes like cheap liquor and cigarette smoke and pink bubblegum. Her mouth is firm against Jo, and when she presses Jo back against the pillows of the bed, her body is slight and familiar.
"You with me on this?" Faith whispers into the kiss, and Jo nods, keeping her eyes open as Faith places her lips against the sensitive skin behind Jo's ear, her bellybutton and the inside of her thigh. Faith is confident and gorgeous and sleek and wet. When Jo tells her to stay the night, she nods and switches the lamp off and is a soft lump beside Jo's body when Jo tumbles into sleep, sated.
When morning's feeble grey light shines through the thin curtains, waking Jo, she's unsurprised to find she's alone. There's a Styrofoam cup of coffee and a lopsided muffin on her nightstand, next to the clock that claims it's 7:13. Jo stretches as she sits, pulling the black coffee to her. It's gone cold already, but she drinks it anyway. The muffin's sitting on a napkin that has a number scratched on it, along with: In case you need a friend. Faith.
Jo smiles. She probably won't ever call, but she shoves the napkin into the pocket of her duffle anyway. She stops by the Sunoco on her way out of town, picks up a generic postcard to send to her mom, a local paper and a hot cup of coffee, and puts Archbold, Ohio in her rearview mirror.
She has work to do.