SPN/BtVS/TC - 15 (stop) - People Live, People Die
Title: PEOPLE LIVE, PEOPLE DIE
Series: Trip My Wire
Part 2 in the series
Author: charming_syrai
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer // Supernatural // [eventually Tru Calling]
Characters: Faith/Dean
Prompt: #015 stop
Word Count: about 2120
Rating: PG-13 (for the language, I'd suppose)
Summary: Faith knows that people born, people live and then, people die.
Warnings: none - just lots of F-words, like usually
Disclaimer: I don’t own Faith or Dean or anything else the creators of BtVS and SPN has come up. Everything else is mine.
Prompt Table here
Author’s Note: After this one, we’ll get to the action and by that I don't mean just smut, ok? I swear there's a plot!
If there's a betareader out there who'd be willing to beta this piece, let me know :)
The second piece in the Trip My Wire series written for 50scenes.
When Dean meets Faith Lehane for the first time, his world has fallen apart in the worst possible manner, he’s lost practically everything, including himself, and she is the only one there to glue the scattered pieces back together. Slowly, but surely, the old picture starts to reform itself, one piece by piece, in no obvious hurry and it works, she makes it work. Still, it is impossible, even for her, to find all the missing pieces, but for the most part, she does good and he never blames her, not for that one, anyway.
But when he meets her, he doesn’t know what's going to happen.
He doesn’t know she’ll try to fix him like that. She doesn’t seem the type to do such thing and really, he isn’t the type to want her to, either. You know, maybe it's because all his life, it's always been him to take care of Dad and Sam and others and it's ok, it gives him something to do, a reason to exist.
He’s on her unmade bed, blindly staring at the ceiling, still wearing those blood-stained clothes and contemplates on getting up, going back there, back to the graveyard, back to Sammy. The fuck was he thinking, leaving him there, with those sons of bitches. He left Sam there like he didn’t mean anything to him and it hurt, hurt so much, just thinking about it.
He believes in heaven and hell, only because he’s seen too much to ignore its existence, but whereas with his mother’s death the thought comforted him, now it doesn't. If Sammy is up there somewhere, he had fucking better be watching him, listening to him, so that he can tell him what an ass he is for dying on him like that.
And someday, he'll tell Sam he is sorry.
Big brothers were supposed to protect their little bros, you know, keep them dry and clean, and now he's realised, he’d never really protected Sam like he should’ve. God, if he could take back that one day, the day he went to fetch Sam after their father disappeared, he’d take it all back in a heartbeat, ‘cause shit, what the hell had he been thinking anyway? Dad knew how to take care of himself, but fuck, this was Sammy, damnit, his baby brother, who always were more of a skinny nerd than a fighter like his brother and they'd all known it, even Dad, and that was what made Sam so special.
Sam had been happy with Jess, and Dean, he’d been jealous. Fuck yeah, he rarely admits it, but it's the truth, he’s always been a little jealous, ok? Sam had chosen other kind of life, the kind his brother had never even dared to dream of, he’d chosen her and left his brother and dad, left their mission as if he didn’t care about the fact their mother’s killer was out there. And even though he’d forgiven him and understood, the jealousy didn’t seem to subside. Now he’d never know.
And it doesn’t matter, at all, that he knows Sam had seen nightmares of her death before that night, that it would’ve probably happened anyway, but shit, if he hadn’t taken his brother away form her, maybe Sam could’ve stopped it somehow, just by being there.
Dean knows Faith’s watching him, but only when he hears her jump down from the table where she’d land her ass a while ago after removing her red leather jacket, he raises his head to look at her - to see where she’s going. He doesn't want to be alone and as weird as it is, her presence seems to keep him from completely losing it. He doesn't like it, he doesn't like needing anyone, relying on anyone else but himself.
She hasn’t really said anything much to him to explain why she was there to begin with, in the middle of the night in a damned graveyard, and Dean hasn’t asked - he doesn’t care. Honestly, it’s not like she and her super human strength would be his number one worry right now, you know, and he's pretty sure there's nothing in Dad's journal that would indicate her to be some evil demon. Plus, she’s been kind of nice to him so far (although the experience with Meg should’ve taught him nice ladies aren’t always that; nice, or what they seem) didn’t say anything when he ran into the bathroom and emptied his breakfast and lunch and whatever he'd eaten, into the toilet. She only threw an unopened bottle of cold water at him (at his knee, to be exact, probably wanting to remind him he wasn’t completely dead yet) while he sat there, back against the bathroom’s wall with face buried into his hands and claimed he should drink something. If he didn't, he'd regret later.
What he wants to drink isn't water, but Dean doesn't say it. Instead, he reaches for the bottle and opens it, drinks, drinks because she's watching and he feels there's nothing else for him to do. Like he'd be a fucking kid being watched by his mother and that's just not right, cause she's no mother, but a hot female and even that can't make it better.
Sam always said, when Dad wasn't around, that if that didn't twitch his brother's cock and bring a mischievous smirk to meet his lips, then damn straight, things were really fucking bad.
His knee hurts now, he bets it's gonna have a new bruise tomorrow and he wonders whether she'll ever apologize for that one, not that it matters much.
But Faith never says she's sorry and he picks up that piece of info pretty damn fast. He’s always been a fast learner, Dad always told him so, with a sad smile on his face, but then, his smiles were always sad, ‘cept when looking at Sammy. Then there was a hint of hope and he knew, Dean always knew, Dad didn’t really have that much hope left for the older son. He just never found out why, still haven’t, but it’s ok. Sam was his glimpse of hope, too, of better future, and now it’s ruined and Dean can’t stop thinking, that really, it’s all his fault.
How could he ever tell Dad? How could he possibly tell the man his youngest son is dead?
And all the while he’s lying there, she’s comforting him by just her presence, which freaks him a little. It’s not something he’s used to.
But what he appreciates the most is the fact she hasn’t, not once, said that it was going to be ok. That it would all be better soon and that the pain, the fucking pain slashing his internal organs would fade, give it some time. Because it wasn’t, it fucking wasn’t.
She walks to the bed and content with the thought she's not leaving, he drops his head again and sighs, wiping his face with his other hand as if to erase all the bad from his memories, but he can't do it.
She’s leaning above the bed, hovering over him and looking down on him, arms folded, but his eyes are closed and he can’t see her anymore. But he's aware of her body's closeness and not in that kinky, sexual way, which actually feels new to him, new and weird.
Faith doesn't speak. Really, what could she possibly say now? Everything he needs to hear will make him angry at the moment, reach for her throat and squeeze, and though she knows she'd beat him into a bloody pile in no time, she doesn't want to go through with it. Cause she knows, for sure, that if he decides to attack her now, he won't give up, he has to take it out, and she'd have to protect herself. There's no power in the verse that would make her let him hurt her, no guy would never get to hurt her again and that's the one rule she's decided to stick with. Other than that, she's not good with rules, not with others' and not with her own.
At least he's not crying anymore, which is good, cause it creeps her out. Still, having him lie there, not doing or saying anything, it doesn't seem that much better, he could just as well be dead, you know, and so she’s trying to figure out whether she should do something. Like go buy some booze and get them both really fucking drunk, ‘cause hey, there’s no way in hell she’ll spend rest of the night watching him weep and throw up, weep and throw up and then, lie there on her bed like a fucking body with no life signs showing.
She can't be bothered to check his vital signs every fucking hour, is all.
And... because she knows what he’s going through and she remembers, remembers what it was like when it had been her. Things could've been so different, if only someone, any one, had bothered to straighten up some cold hard facts for her.
People born, people live, people die.
There’s blood all over the sheets, but she’s not bothered, doesn’t ask him to take his clothes off, not an ideal moment for that kind of shallow crap, and he figures she’s probably seen worst anyway and now, so has he.
He tastes the sour taste on his tongue and wishes he could go back into the bathroom, throw up some more, throw up the pain, but it doesn’t work like that and he knows it.
But it still hurts.
She knows exactly what's going through his head and finally she decides that it can't go on anymore. He has to stop, now. The longer she'll let it go, the harder it'll be for him.
They say, people in general, that a guy in his shoes needs time. But that's not what he needs, it wasn't what she needed.
“Ya know, self-pity only gets one so far,” she says suddenly, and his eyes blink open when he feels the mattress creak, and then, just like that, she’s on the bed and above him, knees and hands resting next to him on both sides and his mind's spinning.
She smiles, but there's not a trace of pity or sympathy in her smile, and just when he’s sure that she’s going to kiss him, that she’s truly fucked up in the head, she rolls over and drops her body on the bed next to his, laughing and he loves how husky her voice sounds.
“I’m Faith, by the way,” she says then, turning her head to look at him and for a moment it feels so normal. Yeah, for a moment Dean forgets, forgets what’s happened, and turns to look at her, wondering how old she is and what's the story behind that tattoo on her arm. His brain finally registers the tight, black tank-top she's wearing with dark shade of red glowing on her lips and if he were himself, he'd pull her close and taste that lipstick, because he wants to know if it tastes like cherries.
But he's not himself.
“Dean,” he says, but without his trademark smirk, and she smiles softly, not saying anything else. Cheesy, hollow lines aren’t her thing, and fuck, it'd be a lie anyway. It isn’t particularly nice to meet him like this, so why bother saying so, you know?
Then she jumps off the bed, startling him slightly. He props his upper body from the bed, but only when she’s already half-way through the door, he finds himself calling after her; “Faith, yo, where ya goin’?”
“Just a sec,” she says already out the door, smirking to herself and not really answering his question, which doesn’t bother him, because he can just tell it’s her, the way she is. This Faith person lives by her own rules and doesn't answer to anyone and he feels like he's sharing a secret with her. Damn if it isn't just how he's lived his life, detached from everything real and meaningful.
When she comes back a moment later, she’s holding a bottle of some cheap liquor; a bottle, which doesn’t stay full for long. She comes back on the bed, but this time she's sitting next to his legs, back towards him and she takes the first gulp. Then, she reaches behind her, bending her back a little and offering the bottle to him, and he takes it without thanking. Faith doesn't mind, though; she's not one to go by such lines, either.
Through it all, he never, not once thinks she’ll stay for the night, despite the fact it’s her room, but she does.
And the following night, she’s still there.