"Girls Bleed" Faith/Dean
Title: Girls Bleed
Author: girlguidejones
Characters: Dean/Faith; with some Sammy cameo memories
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,450
Spoilers: none
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: They are pretty. I am broke. I give them back when I'm done. I am still broke. How is that stealing?
Author's Notes: Written so it would get out of my brain and I can go to sleep. This is for femmenerd, because she is uber-cool and deserves a prezzie. So say we all. And BtVS writer herself_nyc is to be blamed for the bunny. If you're reading her B/A/S WIP you'll know why. And if you're not, well, why not?
When Dean rolls over and puts his hand in the puddle, he panics. Did he fucking wet the bed?
Lucidity starts swimming back to him, then, and the awareness of body tells him he hasn’t pissed -and hasn’t needed to- for a while. Then he thinks it must have been Faith. He knows she was hurt, and hurt bad enough to let him bandage her ribboned-up thigh and feed her a vicodin with only minimal protest. Between the drugs and the injury, maybe she just didn’t wake up? He swallows, and scrounges for his chivalry bone as he sits up and tries to think of what to do so she doesn’t a)die of embarrassment, or b)kill him to keep him from witnessing a). The mattress is soaked, and it’s not like they can pretend nothing happened in the morning. When he raises his hand to turn on the light he stills, adrenalin gunning harder than the Impala with a baddie on its tail.
He knows what blood looks like in the dark.
He can’t believe he didn’t smell it, then, because there’s so much. And then he can’t believe he fucked up and got Faith’s injury assessment so wrong. She wasn’t hurt that bad, not like that. If it was the big artery, she’d have been cold and dead beside him, not warm, albeit restless. Countless times he’d made the call -hospital or no hospital- on Sammy and Dad, and not once did he ever get it wrong. And now he fucks up, with Super-girl?
“Faith. Faith! Wake up!”
She stirs, muzzy and dopey and unguarded, and his stomach does something weird when she looks at him with probably the closest thing to trust he’s seen from her. “Wha…? The fuck, Dean. What?”
“You’re hurt. Bleeding from somewhere. Wake up so we can find it. C’mon, Faith…” He shakes her shoulder again and turns on the light with his clean hand. It illuminates a red, Dean-sized handprint on her wifebeater, like some fucked up send-up of The Shining when Jack Nicholas is going down that hallway. He has a surreal moment then, thinking that Sam’s print would be even bigger. She’s sitting up now, and looking down at herself, and then…
“Fuck. Jesus fucking…” and then she starts trying to get out of bed.
“What the hell do you...Faith? Faith!?!” Dean reaches out, trying to stop her, thinking she’s panicked and about to hemorrhage herself into a coma, but she’s just shoving him away, struggling to stand on one-and-a-half legs and making for the bathroom. “You’re bleeding, you stupid…stop it! Let me help…”
“Don’t need help.”
“Stop being such a bitch and let me…” Let me look, let me help, let me save you.
“Girls bleed, Dean. They bleed every goddammed month. Jeezus, are you that fuckin' thick?” The bathroom door slams in his face as he feels himself coloring up, and he figures it must look a lot like Faith’s did when she spit her answer at him.
Dean’s never seen Faith with so much as a change-purse, and figures she’s in a tough spot. He gets lucky, and the night manager at the front desk is a woman. No, they don’t have complimentary maxi pads, just more shampoo, but he must have looked as morose as he felt because she took pity on him, pulling two tampons from her ratty, Wal-Mart purse. Dean smiles fervent thanks at her, and thinks he never meant a smile more than that one. He hears the shower shut off when he turns the deadbolt back in the room, and taps on the bathroom door after a few minutes. Opening it without waiting, Dean just shoves his arm inside with his offering, feeling for all the world like he’s putting it inside the lion’s den and expecting it to come out less than whole. Faith doesn’t say anything, but a moment later he feels her fingers soft under the back of his hand, and he turns his over and drops the tubes into her palm.
Dean lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding, and turns back to face yet another Winchester truism: Solving one problem usually just clears the path to the next one. The only bed -in the only vacant room in the only hotel in this tiny hick town- seemed not the least intimidated by his best scowl. Digging in the closet produced a scratchy wool blanket that in better light might have proven moth-eaten, but was at least very thick, and big enough for the job. He unfolds it and refolds, plopping it right down over-top of the bloody mattress just in time for Faith to emerge. She glances at the bed, but doesn’t say anything, just climbs in and turns her back to him. He crosses his hands behind his head, taking his cue just fine, thankyouverymuch. After a while she stirs.
“This screws up the hunt, you know. Fraklors…the only way to take those huge-ass fuckers is by surprise, and with help, and now it’s gonna smell me a mile away. And you can’t do it alone.”
“Got it all figured out.”
“Really. Do tell, Einstein.”
He risks a little with his answer, hoping he’s not reading this all wrong and mistaking her conciliatory tone for something else, like, oh, say, prelude to castration. “Hunting is all about adaptation, Faith. And I’m the best hunter walking.”
“That so?” Dean sees her head turn in the light from the broken blind-slat, and thinks her eyes might be gleaming with something that wasn’t fury.
“Use what you got. And what we’ve...err...you’ve, got, is bait.”
“Bait.”
“Yeah. You’re the worm.”
“You say the sweetest things.”
“I’m a peach.”
“So, that’s the plan, then? I just lay there, play dead, and wait for Prince Charming to rescue me from the monster?”
“Something like that.” Dean pauses. “Well?”
Faith turns fully toward him then, and his belly does the thing again when he sees her mouth corners twitching. “Needs some finessing.”
“We’ll sleep on it.”
They pass a few minutes of companionable silence before she speaks again. “Thanks. For not being a freak about the girly shit. Don’t suppose you had too many tampon runs, dicking around the country with your brother.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Howzzat?” She sounded sleepy again, and Dean figures she might have hit the prescription bottle while he was gone. Torn-up leg, and cramps? That would suck.
“We got cornered by this bitch of a thing…”
“You and your brother?”
“Yeah. Me and Sammy. In this burnt-out gas station in Oregon. Half the roof was caved in and what wasn’t getting rained on daily had gotten soaked by the fire department when they put out the fire.” She had turned back again, cheek resting on the crook of her elbow, eyes watching him. He had forgotten what it was like, to have someone’s rapt attention for his stories. He swallowed around a memory of little-boy-Sammy, and continued. “Sam found a coupla bottles of cheap vodka…”
“’Cuz you’da kept it if it was expensive.”
“You know it. And we decided, ‘Hey! Molotov cocktails. We’ll blow this bitch to hell and salt the shit outta her.’ Except it was still raining, we were soaked to the skin -all our clothes, even- and we couldn’t find anything to use for a fuse.” Dean pauses, the way good storytellers do, even when the endings of their stories are written on the blackboard for all to read. He sees the barest hint of a smile turning up Faith’s lips -redred, like the bed- and he knows she’s got an inkling, but it doesn’t matter. The point is in the telling, not the ending. “We’re hunkered down, figuring what to do, and all of a sudden, I hear Sammy squealing. I think he’s hurt, but he’s holding up a mushy cardboard box that is practically falling apart in his fingers. They’re in there, though, in their snug, dry, waterproof little plastic cocoons, waiting for us.”
“You didn’t.”
“We did. Stuffed those suckers down the bottle necks, tipped ‘em up and soaked ‘em, and blew that spook to kingdom come with the click of a Bic.”
“Fuses.”
“Yep.” He puts every drop of smugness he can wring out into that syllable, but even to his own ears he can hear the Sammy-pride, too.
“Dude. That’s seven kinds of wrong.”
“That’s the Winchester way.”
The bed shimmies a little, from his-and-hers giggles Dean’ll deny in the morning. He rolls her to her side, then, spooning on the scratchy wool, and she nestles back like it’s okay. Things being how they are, his hand naturally finds her breast and cups it. It’s a comfort thing, not a sex thing, but he’s still a guy. “Wow.”
“What?”
“Your tits are...uh...juicier.”
“If I feel so much as a nubbin’ in my backside, I’m gonna Winchester that other fuse right up your ass, Dean-o.”
“Roger that.”
Author: girlguidejones
Characters: Dean/Faith; with some Sammy cameo memories
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,450
Spoilers: none
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: They are pretty. I am broke. I give them back when I'm done. I am still broke. How is that stealing?
Author's Notes: Written so it would get out of my brain and I can go to sleep. This is for femmenerd, because she is uber-cool and deserves a prezzie. So say we all. And BtVS writer herself_nyc is to be blamed for the bunny. If you're reading her B/A/S WIP you'll know why. And if you're not, well, why not?
When Dean rolls over and puts his hand in the puddle, he panics. Did he fucking wet the bed?
Lucidity starts swimming back to him, then, and the awareness of body tells him he hasn’t pissed -and hasn’t needed to- for a while. Then he thinks it must have been Faith. He knows she was hurt, and hurt bad enough to let him bandage her ribboned-up thigh and feed her a vicodin with only minimal protest. Between the drugs and the injury, maybe she just didn’t wake up? He swallows, and scrounges for his chivalry bone as he sits up and tries to think of what to do so she doesn’t a)die of embarrassment, or b)kill him to keep him from witnessing a). The mattress is soaked, and it’s not like they can pretend nothing happened in the morning. When he raises his hand to turn on the light he stills, adrenalin gunning harder than the Impala with a baddie on its tail.
He knows what blood looks like in the dark.
He can’t believe he didn’t smell it, then, because there’s so much. And then he can’t believe he fucked up and got Faith’s injury assessment so wrong. She wasn’t hurt that bad, not like that. If it was the big artery, she’d have been cold and dead beside him, not warm, albeit restless. Countless times he’d made the call -hospital or no hospital- on Sammy and Dad, and not once did he ever get it wrong. And now he fucks up, with Super-girl?
“Faith. Faith! Wake up!”
She stirs, muzzy and dopey and unguarded, and his stomach does something weird when she looks at him with probably the closest thing to trust he’s seen from her. “Wha…? The fuck, Dean. What?”
“You’re hurt. Bleeding from somewhere. Wake up so we can find it. C’mon, Faith…” He shakes her shoulder again and turns on the light with his clean hand. It illuminates a red, Dean-sized handprint on her wifebeater, like some fucked up send-up of The Shining when Jack Nicholas is going down that hallway. He has a surreal moment then, thinking that Sam’s print would be even bigger. She’s sitting up now, and looking down at herself, and then…
“Fuck. Jesus fucking…” and then she starts trying to get out of bed.
“What the hell do you...Faith? Faith!?!” Dean reaches out, trying to stop her, thinking she’s panicked and about to hemorrhage herself into a coma, but she’s just shoving him away, struggling to stand on one-and-a-half legs and making for the bathroom. “You’re bleeding, you stupid…stop it! Let me help…”
“Don’t need help.”
“Stop being such a bitch and let me…” Let me look, let me help, let me save you.
“Girls bleed, Dean. They bleed every goddammed month. Jeezus, are you that fuckin' thick?” The bathroom door slams in his face as he feels himself coloring up, and he figures it must look a lot like Faith’s did when she spit her answer at him.
Dean’s never seen Faith with so much as a change-purse, and figures she’s in a tough spot. He gets lucky, and the night manager at the front desk is a woman. No, they don’t have complimentary maxi pads, just more shampoo, but he must have looked as morose as he felt because she took pity on him, pulling two tampons from her ratty, Wal-Mart purse. Dean smiles fervent thanks at her, and thinks he never meant a smile more than that one. He hears the shower shut off when he turns the deadbolt back in the room, and taps on the bathroom door after a few minutes. Opening it without waiting, Dean just shoves his arm inside with his offering, feeling for all the world like he’s putting it inside the lion’s den and expecting it to come out less than whole. Faith doesn’t say anything, but a moment later he feels her fingers soft under the back of his hand, and he turns his over and drops the tubes into her palm.
Dean lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding, and turns back to face yet another Winchester truism: Solving one problem usually just clears the path to the next one. The only bed -in the only vacant room in the only hotel in this tiny hick town- seemed not the least intimidated by his best scowl. Digging in the closet produced a scratchy wool blanket that in better light might have proven moth-eaten, but was at least very thick, and big enough for the job. He unfolds it and refolds, plopping it right down over-top of the bloody mattress just in time for Faith to emerge. She glances at the bed, but doesn’t say anything, just climbs in and turns her back to him. He crosses his hands behind his head, taking his cue just fine, thankyouverymuch. After a while she stirs.
“This screws up the hunt, you know. Fraklors…the only way to take those huge-ass fuckers is by surprise, and with help, and now it’s gonna smell me a mile away. And you can’t do it alone.”
“Got it all figured out.”
“Really. Do tell, Einstein.”
He risks a little with his answer, hoping he’s not reading this all wrong and mistaking her conciliatory tone for something else, like, oh, say, prelude to castration. “Hunting is all about adaptation, Faith. And I’m the best hunter walking.”
“That so?” Dean sees her head turn in the light from the broken blind-slat, and thinks her eyes might be gleaming with something that wasn’t fury.
“Use what you got. And what we’ve...err...you’ve, got, is bait.”
“Bait.”
“Yeah. You’re the worm.”
“You say the sweetest things.”
“I’m a peach.”
“So, that’s the plan, then? I just lay there, play dead, and wait for Prince Charming to rescue me from the monster?”
“Something like that.” Dean pauses. “Well?”
Faith turns fully toward him then, and his belly does the thing again when he sees her mouth corners twitching. “Needs some finessing.”
“We’ll sleep on it.”
They pass a few minutes of companionable silence before she speaks again. “Thanks. For not being a freak about the girly shit. Don’t suppose you had too many tampon runs, dicking around the country with your brother.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Howzzat?” She sounded sleepy again, and Dean figures she might have hit the prescription bottle while he was gone. Torn-up leg, and cramps? That would suck.
“We got cornered by this bitch of a thing…”
“You and your brother?”
“Yeah. Me and Sammy. In this burnt-out gas station in Oregon. Half the roof was caved in and what wasn’t getting rained on daily had gotten soaked by the fire department when they put out the fire.” She had turned back again, cheek resting on the crook of her elbow, eyes watching him. He had forgotten what it was like, to have someone’s rapt attention for his stories. He swallowed around a memory of little-boy-Sammy, and continued. “Sam found a coupla bottles of cheap vodka…”
“’Cuz you’da kept it if it was expensive.”
“You know it. And we decided, ‘Hey! Molotov cocktails. We’ll blow this bitch to hell and salt the shit outta her.’ Except it was still raining, we were soaked to the skin -all our clothes, even- and we couldn’t find anything to use for a fuse.” Dean pauses, the way good storytellers do, even when the endings of their stories are written on the blackboard for all to read. He sees the barest hint of a smile turning up Faith’s lips -redred, like the bed- and he knows she’s got an inkling, but it doesn’t matter. The point is in the telling, not the ending. “We’re hunkered down, figuring what to do, and all of a sudden, I hear Sammy squealing. I think he’s hurt, but he’s holding up a mushy cardboard box that is practically falling apart in his fingers. They’re in there, though, in their snug, dry, waterproof little plastic cocoons, waiting for us.”
“You didn’t.”
“We did. Stuffed those suckers down the bottle necks, tipped ‘em up and soaked ‘em, and blew that spook to kingdom come with the click of a Bic.”
“Fuses.”
“Yep.” He puts every drop of smugness he can wring out into that syllable, but even to his own ears he can hear the Sammy-pride, too.
“Dude. That’s seven kinds of wrong.”
“That’s the Winchester way.”
The bed shimmies a little, from his-and-hers giggles Dean’ll deny in the morning. He rolls her to her side, then, spooning on the scratchy wool, and she nestles back like it’s okay. Things being how they are, his hand naturally finds her breast and cups it. It’s a comfort thing, not a sex thing, but he’s still a guy. “Wow.”
“What?”
“Your tits are...uh...juicier.”
“If I feel so much as a nubbin’ in my backside, I’m gonna Winchester that other fuse right up your ass, Dean-o.”
“Roger that.”