To Live and Die in LA Part Nine
Sam began to walk them across campus to his dorm room. If he noticed Dean and her holding hands he didn’t say. "My roommate should be in class, so we can get in and out without anyone noticing."
"You have a roommate?" Dean asked. Sam nodded but said nothing "You never mentioned that."
Sam shrugged "Nothing to mention." but obviously there was.
Faith looked between the brothers and knew they were doing the in-their-heads dialogue at each other from the looks on their faces. So was not hers to ask about. She was imagining hot water and soap. There would be hot water.
As they got to the dorm building Dean looked up and whistled at the seven stories "How many guys live in here?"
"Guy and girls, Dean." Sam clarified "It’s a co-ed dorm."
Dean looked at him in shock "Chicks? You live with chicks?" he looked over at Faith "No one told me college was this cool."
Sam chuckled as he unlocked his door "Co-ed in the building, not the rooms, perv." he said "There’s a girls' shower on the far end of the hall." Sam explained to Faith "I got some towels."
They walked into the small room, half of it was immaculate while the other looked like someone threw a grenade at it. Dean was not the least bit shocked to see Sam pull a towel from the clean side. "Your roommate a pig?" he asked jerking a thumb at the other side.
"Not as much as my previous one." Sam said deadpanned. Dean blinked a few times before he got it and swung at his brother’s shoulder as Sam dodged. "My roommate is ok I guess." Sam said fidgeting with the towel before handing it to her "I can dig up a sweatshirt I think." he said looking in his footlocker "But as for jeans…"
She smiled "It’s cool. I don’t think these are past the expiration date yet." Sam handed her a Stanford sweatshirt about fifteen sizes too big, but it was clean so it was something. "Be back in five." she said smiling and walking out. Both brothers watched her leave.
"Now that" Dean said pointing at the door "is an amazing woman." he finished, jumping on Sam’s bed with his hands behind his head.
Sam swatted Dean’s boots off his bed "Yeah, she’s…" Sam searched for the right words "…different."
Dean looked up "What’s your problem?"
Sam shook his head as he looked back innocently "Nothing." he saw the look on Dean’s face "Nothing at all." Dean glared "Seriously, nothing!"
Dean sighed "So what’s with this roommate?"
Sam said nothing, but he was keeping his head down like he could make himself smaller and divert Dean's attention if he held still. Like Dean was a T-Rex and could only see him if he moved or something. "I mean looks like he isn’t keeping his side of the room all that neat." Dean looked at Sam "You lay down the law yet?"
Sam rolled his eyes "I’m not here to law down anything, Dean." when he saw his older brother’s look, Sam felt a little happy about it, but quashed that. This was not the world he had left behind. This was college, where normal kids did not have machetes under their beds. He still had his knife, yeah, but that didn't mean Dean needed to bust heads on his account. "Let it go Dean, I just want to be normal."
Dean sighed as he closed his eyes "Whatever." he said feeling the drive up here finally catching up with him. He could argue with Sam after some shut-eye. Always time to distress Samantha. "It’s your problem."
Sam looked at Dean for a few seconds before he realized that his brother was dozing off. He crept out of his room to call his friend to tell him he was ditching classes and taking off early for the weekend. If he ever wanted to get into law school, Sam needed every advantage he could find.
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Dean was well into that kind of sleep where you are close to dead when someone kicked his boot.
His eyes jerked open in a flash as a muscle-bound jock stood over him.
The guy's face was angry as he asked "Who the fuck are you?"
Dean’s eyebrow shot up as his mind engaged back to waking. He had to remind himself that he could deal with this annoyance without throwing punches.
"Answer me, shithead." the guy said "Who are you and why the fuck are you in my room?"
Dean didn’t as much budge as he said "Well this is Sam’s room also isn’t it?" No sense in causing problems for Sam just cause his roommate was a douche bag.
"Oh, I get it." the guy said sneering "You his fucking boyfriend or something?"
The guy never saw Dean swing his foot off the bed and connect with his knee. He went down like a sack of potatoes as Dean flipped off the bed and landed behind the florid-faced loudmouth on the carpet. Dean pushed the asshole’s shoulder into the floor as he said in a growl "What’s your name, skippy?"
"Derek" the guy said wincing as his knee began to swell.
"I don't think so. I'm gonna call you Chet" Dean said "Here’s your lesson for today Chet. I’m Sam’s brother and you’re dogshit." the guy paused at the sound of menace in the not-so-sleepy-now guy's voice "Now, I am not sure what kind of bullshit arrangement you have going with my brother, but I have a feeling he is being real nice with you so far." Dean notched up the guys arm behind his back another inch "But me? I am not a nice guy." the guy whimpered as his arm throbbed "So here’s the thing. I find out you’re giving him shit, not doing your part or even looking at him cross eyed, I’m gonna come back here and shove your own leg up your ass." the guy grew silent "Got it Chet?"
Derek nodded his head quickly.
Dean paused and then hit the guys head again "Why do you have to be such a wanker Chet?" the guy was frozen under him in shock "Get it?" Dean smiled "I should give you a set of elephant balls?" the guy shook his head no quickly. Dean sighed "Weird Science man..." he got up off the guy."Whatever.. Now do yourself a favor and get the fuck out of here." he said hopping back on Sam’s bed "Some people are trying to get some rest here."
Derek looked at Dean and then backed out of the room slowly, his eyes wide. He ran into Sam as he was walking in.
"Derek?" Sam asked in shock.
"Sam!" his roommate said jumping back "Um…sorry." he said quickly "I’ll just..I mean…" and he turned and took off down the hall. Sam walked in confused as hell as he saw Dean still lying on the bed looking asleep. Sam looked down the hall as his roommate kept running.
"What the hell was that?" he said to himself, never noticing the small grin on Dean’s face.
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Faith had to admit, the shower was a good idea.
She was in longer than she had planned, but there was something about suspecting you might have blood under your nails that could really make you linger in the steam. She cleaned her nails thoroughly, recalling Meg working her hands. Testing her out to see how far she could go, what she could do. The strain of it all had been enough to make Faith wobbly on her feet- and need to sleep like a brick. If she had not been with Dean, she would have had to hole up somewhere and hope nothing came calling. Which did not lend itself to real rest. But she was feeling her Wheaties again, rejuvenated. She was clean and had food in her belly.
Engulfed in Sam’s oversized sweatshirt she almost felt like a new person. A new person who had a lot of questions for Dean Winchester. Her speech to Sam had been reflex, but she was wondering now. Was this real? It seemed real. Every time she looked at Dean he seemed to be stumbling through this as well as she was. But what if this was just a thing…
She was driving herself crazy and she knew it.
Maybe over-analyzing would be the straw that broke the camel's back, and she would hate herself for it later. She could blame it on her training- say she was forced to be a person that questioned everything and had some trust issues- but that wouldn't make it fair. It would not hurt less because she chose to blame herself. Dean meant something to her already and she hated the thought of every moment she got in deeper with him it was another inch an invisible guillotine was lifting over her neck.
This wasn’t so much about what Sam had said and about the voices in the back of her head telling her she was always going to be the whore and alone.
It was funny how much those voices sounded like her mother sometimes.
This was about wondering if she wanted Dean so badly that she was throwing herself on the train tracks and crossing fingers and toes that it would work. It made her undercut herself when she considered how she didn't have anything to offer Dean. Because deep down, Faith didn't believe 'she' was enough on her own. The people around her had always instilled in her a need to serve and suffer, bleed a little- or a lot- and try to make a dent in their overall bad opinion. She was a self-fulfilling prophecy in some ways, believing that she was bad and letting it come true.
She saw a some guy in a football jersey rush past her muttering something to himself as she walked back to the room. She walked in and saw Sam sitting at his desk while Dean slept. Sam smiled as she looked over at his brother dozing. "He’s beat." he whispered.
"He drove all night." she said marveling at how young he looked asleep.. All his lines and creases went away, making him look…she shook her head at that thought. She wanted to curl up next to Dean, put her arm around him and hold him as he slept. But there was Sam, and they had some more talking to do. She was still a Slayer, after all.
She gestured to Sam to come out to the hall with her. He followed as they quietly closed the door "That mystic thing?" she said "It isn’t going to work."
"It won’t?" he said questioningly.
She shook her head "We got a pretty powerful witch back at the ranch." she explained "And if there was a way to find the potentials by spell, she would have found them already."
Sam bit his bottom lip as he mused on that. He was not even saying what John, his father and mentor- would think of his boys having any dealings with witches. Best to let that go for the moment. "Hmmm…well if magic is out we will need to do it the hard way."
"Bust ass and take names?" she said.
He grinned "Dean always said ‘Kicking ass and taking initials, cause names take too long to get.’" they both laughed at that. After a second he said "You really like him don’t you?"
She nodded, this time not feeling shy at all "I really do."
Sam took that and smiled "He seems different." he said "More…relaxed?" he finally shrugged "Not sure, but he does seem different. I may have been wrong."
She shrugged herself "It’s ok, you’re looking out for your brother, I get it."
Sam smiled "I was actually looking out for you." he leaned in "Dean is one of those indestructible types."
Faith nodded but internally she thought this boy didn’t know much about Dean at all. Serious hero worship. She was about to say something when shots rang out somewhere outside.
They looked at each other in shock for a moment and began to run towards the hall window. They got two steps when Dean burst out of the room "What the?" he followed as they all looked down and saw three campus security cars surrounding the book store.
"Hell of a school you got, Sammy." Dean said grumbling from being woken up. Again.
Faith looked down as she felt her stomach clench. That could only mean one thing: trouble. "Something’s up." she said not able to look away.
"Something how?" Sam asked.
"Something bad. Something... worse than a cash till getting robbed." she clarified as a female came out of the bookstore, holding another female in a head lock. It was obvious the first girl had a gun to the other. Both Winchesters squinted their eyes to look but Faith already knew who the girls were. At least, one of them.. "Um Sam…" he looked at her "That’s Jessica down there with the gun." She saw his face go pale. She shook her head "I’m sorry, that is someone wearing Jessica’s body down there with the gun."
"Crap" Was all Dean could say knowing, this had just become their problem.
Faith rolled up the sleeves of her borrowed sweatshirt and started for the doors, feeling less sleek than usual. Excess billowy cotton could really slow a girl's roll. They were on their way to the bookstore as if they had been specifically paged there. She reached over to Dean and then her hand slid down his back, taking one of his knives that he kept right there, pressed between the waist of his jeans and the curve of his ass. The dagger was warm from him and she smiled at how he glanced her way.
"Mind if I use this?"
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They got out of Sam's dorm and there were now five campus security cars around the book store. As the Winchesters were surveying the scene Faith started walking across the parking lot. Dean grabbed the edge of the sweatshirt "Whoa" he said pulling her back "What are you going to do? Rush in there and just hit her?"
Faith looked back at him and nodded. The plan sounded strong even said aloud."Something like that."
Dean smiled despite himself "How about something a bit more subtle." he looked over to Sam "We're gonna need something federal. You got it?"
Sam nodded and ran towards the Impala. Dean looked back at Faith "Ok wait for us to get their attention then go in through the roof. Best bet at not being seen." he leaned in "Emphasis on not being seen?"
She saw the twinkle in his eye, he was enjoying this on some level. They might be tired and a little off kilter from this feeling burgeoning between them, but Dean still liked a good fight. Or a bad fight he would be good at. She wanted to bite him in nice ways. "What?" she had to ask.
He shrugged "Kinda cool having a girl that is actually going to go hunt something with me." he said with that little kid's smile "It's kinda hot."
She laughed and kissed him, she had to. There was no other way. He was looking at her like she had just hung a star in the sky and it made her crave his kiss, now.
He kissed her back and for the moment the entire world stopping spinning. There was no demon, no police, nothing. Just her and him...and that was enough.
"Ahem" a cough came from behind them. Sam was standing there holding a police badge out to Dean trying desperately to look like he wasn't caring.
Dean took the badge and rolled his eyes "Take a picture, sasquatch." he said tucking it in his pocket. Looking back to Faith he said "Ok, give us five minutes and you're in."
She nodded and then looked at Sam "Don't worry, I won't hurt Jessica." She wanted to reassure him, because he didn't know her. He might be thinking she had a yen for hurting busty co-eds, and that wasn't the case. It really wasn't her favorite fight. She gave Dean a last dark smile before bolting from them.
Though Sam said nothing, he visibly sighed in relief as she took off. As she vanished in the trees Sam said "She is something."
Dean look up at his brother and paused "I will break you in ways not yet known to man." Sam held up his hands and he laughed. Dean took off directly towards the cops, Sam in tow.
They got within three steps of the scene before a campus cop held out his hand "Sorry boys, can't come this way."
Dean flashed the badge out before the guy had finished with his 'boys'.. "FBI" he said folding the badge back "We have a problem here?"
The cop looked at him and then Sam and then back to Dean "Are you serious?"
Dean gave him THAT look. It was the look John had drilled into both boys when dealing with law enforcement and it always worked "Look bud, we have a perp with a gun in there and possible hostages and I do not have time to argue with rent-a-cops. So tell me what the hell is going on or the best you'll get when this is done is a crosswalk."
The guy stiffened at his tone and Sam hid a grin as the guy began to explain how Jessica had gone into the book store, took one of the cashiers with a gun and dragged her out into the open saying that if anyone went into the store she would start killing people.
"No demands? Nothing?" Dean asked.
The cop shook his head "Nothing, she won't even answer the phone."
Dean pulled out his pistol "Ok, hold the perimeter and keep everyone back." he said looking back to Sam who had grabbed a piece from the trunk with the IDs. "You ready?" Sam nodded as they started going up the main walkway. Dean made a hand gesture and Sam broke off to circle around back.
As Dean opened the front door he could see people huddling on the ground looking at him. He held the door open and jerked his head as he watched for Jessica. He got six people out before he heard a female voice call out "Were you raised in a barn, Dean? Come in and close the fucking door or I blow this bitch away."
Dean pushed the last girl out and closed the door, inching his way into the book store. In the center stood Jessica holding another girl in her arms, gun pointed to her head "See? Isn't a strong woman a turn on?" she said cocking her head.
Dean locked eyes with her and smirked "Don't know, I'll let you know when I see a woman around."
Her smile faded as she paused "You're a real pain the ass you know?" she said slowly "Where's your brother? Am sure he is around here somewhere." she called out "Come on out, Sam, or this girl gets a bellybutton right in her forehead."
Out of nowhere Sam edged out, his gun pointed at her as well. It was almost impossible to believe anyone that tall could be so quiet, yet there he was "I'm here." he called out never taking his eyes off of her either.
"Awww" she cooed "A family reunion. How sweet." she smiled "Now where's the whore?"
"Here" Faith said directly behind her.
Meg spun around in shock but Faith's hand was quicker. She knocked the gun out of the possessed girl's grip as Sam leapt and grabbed the hostage out of the way. Dean began to move to the right, keeping a straight shot between his site and her head as Meg took a swing at Faith.
The Slayer blocked it with a grin, her hand wrapping around Jessica's. It was a human body being used, so Faith kept from crushing the hand inside her own. "Not so easy on the outside is it?" she said catching the punch and spinning the demon around with one twist. Sam rushed the last of the hostages out as Faith, holding Jessica's arm behind her back looked at Dean "We have any ideas?"
Dean nodded as Sam came running back "We're clear." he said.
Dean never even blinked from Meg's gaze, his eyes and hers were as one "Faith hold her tight." he said "Sam...Latin. Now."
Faith grabbed the other arm as Meg struggled, making sure not to let the demon somehow break the girl's arms to escape as Sam turned around and held out one hand. Faith kept her body tight to Jessica's, muffling every struggling effort with the least amount of pressure. She had promised Sam, after all. The younger brother made the sign of the cross over Jess as he murmured "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus " Meg's eyes shot open, pure black, as she looked at Sam "Omnis satanica potestas" he incited as Meg's whole body shook. Faith felt the demon buckle and try to slip under her so Faith threw her to the ground, holding her there with one arm in the small of her back. Faith felt some sympathy for Jessica, because she knew this wasn't a comfortable way to cozy up to Sam Winchester. It wasn't really first date material and the girl had to be scared in there somewhere. "Omnis incursio infernalis adversarii" Smoke began to pour out of Jessica's form as Faith began to strain to keep her steady. The demon was making the host writhe like a bag of snakes in her grip.
"Hurry up, Sam" she said through gritted teeth. The girl's body was shaking all over as she fought to be free.
"Omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica" Sam said as something began to rise out of Jessica's mouth.
And then a blur hit Faith from above.
She was completely flatfooted. One second she was holding the girl's body for all it she was worth and the next something slammed into her back. It hurt, which told Faith right away the person knew how to fight. Go for those pressure points and make them count. She rolled to the side, her back and legs screaming in pain. Dean dropped his shot as Faith fell to the side, the girl who had jumped down looked to Jessica "Run!"
Meg looked up in confusion and took off towards the door. Sam took a step to stop her and the blond girl grabbed his outstretched arm and spun him to the ground "Back off grabby." she said slamming all 6'3" of Sam into the ground.
Faith snarled as the demon bound Jessica was gone and Sam was hitting the ground. She felt the muscle spasms along her back and legs as she hissed over her bared teeth. They had been so fucking close. So close.
Dean heard the front door click open and close as he knelt down to check Faith. Faith shook her head minimally at Dean and told him with her eyes she'd be okay in a moment. Then she was going OFF.
The newly arrived girl looked at the three of them with a smugness that made Dean want to backhand her and said "It's ok, I got it under control. You're safe now. I'm Buffy and I'm here to stop her." she said pointing to Faith.
Part One/ Part Two/ Part Three/ Part Four/ Part Five/ Part Six
Part Seven/ Part Eight/ Part Nine/ Epilogue