Sleep of the Just (Dean/Faith Fiction)
This is a fic I started after watching AliasJaneDoe's video "Sleep of the Just" (AFTER GETTING HER PERMISSION!) in which Faith sees the report of Dean's death on TV and wonderful angsty stuff ensues. I've taken things past the video, obviously and I'm not finished yet, but some feedback would be nice. Also, please note that my timelines are a little shifty. In this fic, we're still before Sam dies, before Dean's deal and his little trip to Hell and back. That's important, because after I finish this, I think there's going to be a part two...
Warnings: Adult content, Sex, Violence, Language
Pairings: Dean/Faith, Sam/Dawn
Basic cable was such a bitch. Faith flipped from picture to picture, barely pausing to register what was playing on each channel before moving on. Cartoons… baseball… She stopped on the news channel, just because she heard the word “murder.” She was staring at the reporter on the screen as he talked about the “white male who was found dead” and when the sketch came up on the board beside him, her throat seemed to close, her heart stop. She reached for the glass on the table beside her and heard it crash to the floor, but she didn’t look away, couldn’t look away.
It was him. The sketch had a few features a little off, but it was his face.
“Dean,” she breathed and with the name she was far from LA, from Angel’s apartment. She was back in Sunnydale, in the cemetery…
~*~
Faith’s heart was pounding with adrenaline and excitement as she ran. She’d dusted four of the vamps before reinforcements had arrived and, having always had a strong survival instinct, she ran. Even for a slayer, ten to one odds weren’t that great. She leapt over the gate to the cemetery and hit the grass still running, looking behind her to see if she was being followed without ever slowing down.
The fall took her by surprise, but not as much as the landing. She was running and suddenly the ground wasn’t under her feet anymore. She fell hard and the first thing she thought was that she’d landed on a body. It was a cemetery after all. Then it moved and she almost went for her stake, before she realized it was warm. So, not a vamp. She pushed up on her arms and looked down at the guy she’d flattened. He still had the handle of a shovel in his hand, so she assumed he was the one who’d been doing the digging.
“Really shouldn’t leave open graves lying around like this. Someone might fall in,” she said, still catching her breath as she got to her feet. She held out her hand to help him up and he paused for a moment before he took it. She gave a tug and he was up, brushing himself off and she could see his face in the moonlight. Definitely not the kind of guy she usually met up with in cemeteries at night. If it was, she’d be doing a lot more patrolling.
“Who are you?” she asked, glancing around them at the dirt and down, where the wood of a coffin was cracked under their feet.
“Dean,” he said. “Mind telling me what you’re doing running through a cemetery in the middle of the night?”
Oh, Giles would probably have a fit, but she couldn’t help herself. She’d never been much for the secret identity.
“Running from the vampires,” she said, fully expecting him to start giving her that look that said he thought she was nuts. He didn’t though, just sort of groaned and rubbed a hand over his face.
“Dammit, Sammy didn’t say anything about a nest,” he muttered. Faith’s eyebrows rose, but she didn’t comment, just looked up at the sky, then back at Dean.
“So, wanna give me a boost out of here?” she asked, gesturing to the top of the grave, above her head. She might be able to get away with mentioning vampires to a strange guy, but giving away the fact that she was a Slayer, well, that sure as hell wouldn’t go over well.
“Sure,” he said, holding out his hands for her to step in. She took the boost, lifting her self out of the grave with a little hop and pulling herself onto the grass. She turned back to see him climbing out himself.
“So, where was it you saw the vampires?” Dean asked and she smiled a little.
“You don’t want to go in there.”
“Look, it’s sort of my job,” he started and she laughed a little, she couldn’t help it. He sighed, looking a little aggravated, but Faith was used to it. She had that effect on people.
“You look, Dean,” she said, stepping toward him. She reached into her pocket and found the eyeliner she’d sort of ‘borrowed’ from Buffy earlier that night. Then she grabbed his arm and turned his hand over. Using the eyeliner, she wrote the phone number to the motel on the back of his hand.
“You really want to kill vampires, call me tomorrow and we’ll make a day of it. Right now, I gotta get back and check in, or Giles is gonna be wicked pissed,” she told him. Finishing the number with a little flourish, she flashed him a grin and turned to walk away.
“Hey,” he called after her and she turned, walking backward.
“You got a name?”
“It’s Faith.”
~*~
What followed had been a whirlwind of sex and violence and other things that Faith didn’t let herself think too much about. Dean stuck around Sunnydale for a while, he and his brother, Sam. There was a ghost problem somewhere on the outside of town. Ghosts weren’t really in the Slayer’s job description, so she and Buffy had stayed out of their way. Faith and Dean had gone vampire hunting though, destroying the nest she’d found. They’d spent a bit of time after that at the motel, in her room. The same motel he and Sam had checked into the morning after their little encounter at the cemetery.
It was the first time she’d let a guy stay the whole night and it was strange to wake up with him beside her. Stranger still that she found she craved it after that. Two months, they’d stayed and she wondered if they stayed because of ghosts or if they found other reasons. She wondered, but she never asked. For those two months, Dean and Faith spent most of their time together. They argued, they hunted, they played, they made love in the backseat of his Impala. At the time, she’d have denied it, said it was just a tumble, but when she was alone, it was a memory that kept her warm.
When the job came up that they couldn’t ignore, when their friend, Bobby, called and asked for their help, there was a part of Faith that wanted to go with them. The rest of her knew she couldn’t. She had a job here, a calling she couldn’t ignore. Dean and Sam had to go, and she had to stay because if they- if Dean didn’t leave then, she was afraid she might not be able to let him go at all.
They both said they’d call and he had, once. Then her life had taken some unexpected turns and whatever they’d had got left behind along with Sunnydale and the life she’d had there. She had a lot of regrets, but Dean wasn’t one of them…
~*~
“Faith?” she heard Angel say her name and then he was there, taking the remote from her hands, turning off the TV. She had to go, she was mumbling and Angel was telling her no, that she couldn’t just leave. She barely remembered the argument that followed. She knew she told him how much she hated it that it hurt so much. It pissed her off and that gave her strength, maybe enough to get through what came next. The trip was mostly a blur. She drove until she couldn’t see the road anymore and then checked into a cheap motel, trying desperately not to think that it was the kind of place Dean and Sam would have stayed in. She did okay until she took a shower. Memories of another shower, in another motel on a long, lazy afternoon came flooding back and the tears came then, along with the rage.
The walls cracked, porcelain tiles flying when she pounded her fists on the wall in front of her with a painful cry. She didn’t feel them cut her, but she tasted blood, saw it wash down the drain as she scrubbed her hands over her face, as if to wash away whatever tears had escaped. Afterward, she’d curled up on the bed, staring at the wall, hoping desperately not to dream as she fell asleep.
The cemetery was a lot like the one where they’d met, lying in a grave on top of a coffin. Only Dean wasn’t standing on the coffin this time, he was in it. There was his name, engraved on the tombstone. She stood above it, hands in her coat pockets, tears prickling at the back of her eyes when she spoke.
“I know it’s been a while, but… I’ve been busy. I guess nobody would understand that better than you,” she said. She thought she saw a flicker of movement, a flash of brown hair, a quirky smile and she looked up, expecting to see him, but no one was there. Just an empty cemetery. Faith took an unsteady breath and knelt beside the stone.
“Goodbye, Dean Winchester,” she whispered, touching the cold marble.
Then she stood up and turned and walked away.
~*~
Dawn stepped out of the airport doors with her bag slung over her shoulder and looked around. She’d promised to be here, but, knowing Faith, she’d be late. With a wry little smile, she sighed and sat down on one of the benches near the doors.
Italy had been great, lots to see and do and, thanks to Giles, plenty to learn, but Dawn was tired of being told how to live, where to go and who to see. She knew Buffy and Giles meant well, but the constant nagging to ‘go to college, make a career for herself’ got old fast. Basically the two of them were trying to get her as far from the Slaying, the fighting as possible. She respected that they cared, that they wanted her safe and she had long ago accepted that she wasn’t a Slayer, but she wasn’t ready to give up the fight. Helping people, fighting the things that went bump in the night, she’d grown up with it and it was, literally, in her blood. She’d trained along with the Potential Slayers, though she supposed they were all Slayers now, since Willow had worked her mojo and freed the Slayer power for all of them. She knew how to fight, to defend herself and she didn’t need to be protected. At least not much, she admitted to herself.
So when she turned 18, she used her savings to buy a plane ticket and she called the one person she knew who would be only too happy to help her find a life away from Giles and her sister. She and Faith had always gotten along and the Slayer sounded jazzed when Dawn called and asked to come stay with her. She knew Faith stayed fairly mobile these days, mostly living in motels, moving around from town to town, hunting, slaying, but after these last few years of overly-structured living, Dawn was ready for a change.
A black car pulled up to the curb and through the open window, a familiar face was grinning at her.
“Hey, cutie, need a ride?” Faith asked and Dawn smiled, grabbing her bag and jogging to the car. She got into the passenger seat and Faith took her bag, shoving it over the seats into the back. As they pulled away from the curb, Dawn resisted the urge to reach over and hug Faith. The Slayer had never been much for hugging, she remembered. But it was good to see her, good to be back in the US. Faith maneuvered them through the airport parking lot and onto a highway.
“So, where to first?” Dawn asked, sitting back in the seat and buckling her belt.
“Heard there’s a nest of vampires in a town a few miles down the highway. Thought we might start out with something familiar,” Faith said, flashing her a grin. Dawn smiled back. It was good to be home.
~*~
When Dawn had called her, Faith had hesitated at first, remembering Buffy’s kid sister and how fragile she always looked. Delicate looking, with big eyes and a smile full of mischief. Then she’d remembered Dawn from the last time she’d seen her, the strong, confident girl who’d stood her ground and joined in the fight against the First Evil and the army of nasty looking super vamps. She’d held her own then, without Slayer powers, formal training or anything other than her own backbone. So she’d said yes and now she was glad she had.
Little Dawn had grown up. She was still delicate looking, fine boned and slender, but damn the girl could move. She’d obviously been training and it showed as she drove the stake into the female vamp’s chest. It was the third one Dawn had taken out on her own and Faith was grinning when she spun and dusted the one coming up behind her. She’d forgotten what it felt like to fight with a partner. She and Dawn worked well together, better than most. It had always been a little odd fighting beside Buffy and the gang, considering their past together hadn’t always been friendly. Grudges went deep, she supposed. There was only one other person she’d felt so comfortable with and he- well, she didn’t think about him when she could help it. It was still too raw.
When Dawn and Faith were the last one’s standing in the ratty old barn the vamps had nested in, Faith looked at Dawn.
“Nice moves. I see you’ve picked up a few new skills since I saw you last,” she said.
“Yeah. Buffy wasn’t thrilled about it, but Giles thought it was a good idea that I know how to fight, so I got to train with the girls,” Dawn said, grinning. Her face was flushed, eyes bright and Faith knew she looked the same. Adrenaline was rushing and it was a hell of a feeling.
“Let’s torch this place, make sure we don’t miss anyone, then go find something to do to work off some of this energy,” Faith said, moving toward the door. Dawn followed, closing the barn door and putting the heavy board into place that locked it shut. At the car, Faith popped the trunk and pulled out the two small gas cans she kept filled. She handed one to Dawn and took the other herself. The two of them splashed the gas onto the wooden walls of the barn, making sure the wood was saturated enough to catch easily before Faith pulled a book of matches out of her pocket, lit it and threw the whole thing at the old building.
It went up with a whoosh, flames licking the faded red paint and they stood back and watched until it was fully engulfed. Glancing around, glad to see that only bare dirt surrounded the place, so the fire wouldn’t spread, Faith picked up the cans and put them back in the car, slamming the trunk.
“Let’s bail. I hear a dance floor calling my name,” she said, walking around the car and getting behind the wheel. Dawn was already in and buckling up when she got in. They pulled away and drove down the dirt driveway without looking back.
A quick stop at their motel room to clean up and change their shirts and they were back in the car, pulling into a parking lot. Dawn was raising her eyebrows as they got out of the car and she looked at Faith. Faith grinned, knowing exactly what she was thinking.
“Faith, this is a bar,” Dawn said.
“Yep, that it is,” Faith agreed.
“Hello, I’m not old enough. I’m only 18, remember?” she said and Faith just laughed.
“Trust me, girlfriend. No way the bartender is kicking you out.”
Dawn sighed and Faith linked their arms together, pulling her along, across the parking lot and through the door.
The inside of the bar was dark except for the flashing strobes and colored lights around the dance floor. It was a big crowd for a place so small, mostly young people. No doubt this was the only entertainment to be had in a town like this. Faith glanced at the bar, saw the bartender, a middle-aged guy with a receding hairline. He was watching them walk in and when they came into sight, he grinned and nodded. Faith smirked back and led Dawn to the dance floor.
~*~
Sitting backward on his stool, leaning on the bar, Dean took a long swallow of his beer and glanced at the dance floor, his gaze lingering appreciatively on two dark haired girls who were dancing together. They were moving to the fast heavy beat, throwing their entire bodies into it and what bodies they were.
“Sammy,” he said, nudging his brother with his elbow. Sam turned and raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah?”
“Feel like dancing?”
“Dean, are you drunk already?” Sam asked, sighing with exasperation. He spun around fully when Dean gestured to the dance floor, his eyes immediately landing on the two dark haired beauties.
“Wow,” he said, after a minute. One thing about Dean, he had excellent taste in women.
“There’s two of them,” Dean said, glancing at his brother again, eyebrows raised. It was rare that Sam showed an interest in a woman, so when he did, Dean always felt it was his duty as a brother to encourage it. Sam didn’t have nearly as much fun as a guy his age should.
“Not tonight, Dean, we’re here on a job, remember?” Sam said, glancing at the girls again with something like regret before he turned back to his beer.
“We’re supposed to be finding out about the nest, yeah, I got it, but Sam, its nighttime. We aren’t going after them until dawn at least. There’s no sense in wasting hours and hours between now and then when there’s something like that-“ he gestured to the dance floor- “to keep a man occupied. It’s almost criminal.”
“Whatever, Dean, I’m not dancing. Go, knock yourself out,” Sam said and Dean gave an exaggerated sigh before hopping off his stool and making his way across the bar.
As he neared the floor, one girl, slightly shorter than the other and dressed in leather pants, turned her head and he was able to see her face clearly. Dean paused, recognition stealing through him. There was no way, not after all this time… but there she was, in living color. He took a breath and kept walking, ending up behind her. He reached out to grab her arm and she pulled it away with out looking.
“Not interested, get lost!” she shouted over the music, continuing to dance. The other girl, though, stopped dancing, her mouth opening in surprise and he had the thought that she looked really familiar, like he should know her too. Faith stopped dancing, apparently seeing the look on her friend’s face and turned to see who was behind her. Dean grinned.
“Miss me, sweetheart?”
~*~
That voice, those eyes, that grin… it was impossible. He was dead. She’d been to his grave, seen his name etched in marble. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think… then she realized and the rage that rose inside her was like a tidal wave.
“How the hell did you get his body?” she hissed, to the demon she knew had to be possessing Dean’s body. “How did you do it?!” It wasn’t possible, Sam would never have let this happen, not in a million years. But there was Sam, walking up behind the demon, his eyes wide in surprise.
“Faith, hey, what are you-“
“Sammy, how could you?” she asked, stepping back, bumping into Dawn. “How could you let that thing inside him?” she demanded and she saw Sam’s eyes widen further as he looked at his brother. Dean was looking confused and annoyingly innocent. He looked at Sam and shrugged and Faith felt a sob rising in her throat. So many thoughts, feelings tearing through her.
“I saw his grave, Sam,” she finally said, then looked at the thing wearing Dean’s body. “I saw the grave, the headstone. Dean’s dead, now get the hell out of his body and let him rest!” Her voice was rising and people were looking at them, but she really didn’t give a damn at that point if the whole world found out about Slayers and demons and monsters and hunters.
Understanding seemed to Dawn on both Sam and the thing-being-Dean’s faces.
“I didn’t die, it wasn’t me,” the Dean-thing said. Sam was nodding.
“It’s true, Faith, it wasn’t him. It was a shapeshifter, trying to frame him for torturing a college student. I swear, this is Dean,” Sam told her, earnestly.
“Dean didn’t die,” she repeated, slowly, staring at Sam. She looked at Dean.
“You didn’t die.”
Dean grinned, that wonderful, infuriating grin.
“Nope, still kicking.” She stared at him for a moment, then drew back her fist and hit him.
~*~
Dean opened his eyes slowly, squinting at the light.
“Too bright,” he mumbled and he heard a female voice say “I’ll turn them out.”
A moment later the room was dim and he was able to see. The first thing he found was a face that he felt like he recognized. He knew she was the girl from the bar who’d been dancing with Faith, but it was more than that. She was hot. Someone he’d hooked up with before?
“I should know you,” he said, carefully. Never a good thing to let a girl know you didn’t remember her after you slept together. She nodded and he felt a moment of profound relief. Getting hit by two women in one night, that would’ve been a record even for him.
“I’m Dawn. Dawn Summers, from Sunnydale,” she said and it clicked in his head.
“You’re Buffy’s little sister,” he said and she sighed.
“Yeah, that too,” she said and he got the idea he’d annoyed her. Groaning, he started to sit up, pausing when the world began to spin.
“I don’t know if you’re supposed to be moving yet,” Dawn said, as Sam came through the door.
“Dean, you’re awake,” Sam said, setting down the bags he was carrying. He moved to the bedside and knelt by it.
“How you feeling?”
“Like I got hit by a truck, or possibly a Slayer,” Dean groaned. He reached up and touched his face carefully, feeling the swollen jaw with his fingertips.
“When I told you to go knock yourself out, I didn’t mean it literally, you know,” Sam said and Dean glared at him.
“Where’s Faith?” he asked.
“She took off, back to our motel room,” Dawn said. “She’s really pissed. She thought you were dead, Dean. She’s been mourning you for over a year now. Angel called Buffy and Giles about it when it happened, to let them know. We got a hold of her a month or two later and she refused to talk about it, but she was pretty ripped up.”
Dean was getting up, sitting on the side of the bed and looking around for his shoes.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Sam asked.
“To find her, explain what happened,” Dean said, spotting his shoes near the door and getting to his feet. His jaw was throbbing and his head was aching, but he was up. That was a good sign. He hoped it meant she hadn’t given him any kind of brain damage with that right hook.
“She knows what happened, Dean, I already told her,” Sam argued.
“I need to tell her myself, okay!?” he snapped, glaring at his brother.
“I can take you to our room. Its a few blocks away,” Dawn said, glancing from one brother to the other.
“Fine, then you can come back and stay with Sam while we deal with this… whatever it is,” Dean growled, putting on his shoes and standing up, looking for his car keys.
“What, you think I’m gonna stay behind and miss this?” Sam asked, grabbing the keys off the table before Dean could reach them. “I don’t think so. And I’m driving. You have a head injury.”
~*~
Dawn watched Dean walk into the room she and Faith were sharing, using her key. She sighed then and crossed her arms, leaning back in the seat. She’d climbed up front after Dean had gotten out and now sat in the passenger seat, with Sam still behind the wheel. Dean had talked his brother out of following him into the room, but Sam was adamant that they were going to wait outside, at least until they knew everything was okay and Faith wasn’t going to kill him for real.
When the door closed behind the elder Winchester brother, Dawn turned her head to look at the other one. Sam still looked the same as he had that summer he and Dean had stayed in Sunnydale. She’d been a kid then, fifteen and she was fairly certain the two of them hadn’t known she existed. She’d noticed them, though. Any girl would have, as long as she had eyes. Dean was cute, definitely, but it was Sam that had her writing page after page in her diaries. Even then, Dean always just called her “Buffy’s little sister” or, when talking to her, “kid”. Sam had at least used her name.
All her life, she’d been the Slayer’s little sister and it drove her nuts. It was just one of the many reasons she’d left Italy. Oh, she was well aware that all of her memories before she was 15 were fabricated by a group of monks, but they sure as hell felt real. Still, it was sort of a double-edged sword. She remembered her life with her mom and Buffy and she held onto those memories as if they were real. Then again, she also remembered the things Faith had done when she was younger, betraying all of them, working for the mayor, but in truth, she’d never met Faith before she showed up at the house to help fight the First. There’d been animosity, sure, but Faith had come through for them, really proved herself to all of them. She and Dawn had clicked then, gotten to be friends for the short time Faith had stayed with the group, before Robin (she still thought of him mostly as Principal Wood) had died from complications from his injuries, before Giles and Buffy had taken Dawn to Italy to live. It drove Buffy nuts, of course, but that was just an added bonus of sorts for both Dawn and Faith.
She glanced at Sam again, wondered if he’d ever been “Dean’s little brother” then figured probably not to anyone but Dean.
“So,” she said, finally breaking the silence, “you guys came here for the vamp nest too?”
~*~
Sam was listening for the sound of breaking furniture- or possibly bones- from inside the motel room and trying to ignore the fact that he was very aware of the girl in the seat next to him. The sound of her voice startled him and he looked at her.
“Huh?”
“Vampires,” she said, “Did you guys come here for them or is there some other big bad in this town?”
“No, we were after the nest too. I mean, I’m sure there’s something else around here, but nothing that came up on the radar,” he said, feeling oddly nervous.
It was Dawn for cripes sake, he’d known her since she was a kid. But then, he hadn’t seen her in years and she definitely wasn’t a kid anymore. By his rough calculation she was 18 now and time had definitely changed her. Gone was the slender, pixie-like, slightly awkward kid and in her place, from what he’d seen so far, was a confident young woman with long legs, curves in all the right places and a mouth that seemed completely fascinating. Her eyes were still big and blue, but no longer quite so wide and innocent looking. He wondered, in a vague sort of way, if Faith would break him for making a pass at Dawn.
Sam flicked a glance at the motel room door.
“So, do you think she’ll hit him again?” he asked and Dawn cocked her head to the side, thinking.
“Maybe. Depends on what he says and if she’s more pissed or happy that he’s still alive,” she finally said.
They waited for a few minutes longer and there was only silence from the motel.
“What do you think’s going on?” he asked, finally.
“If she’s not beating the crap out of him? Um…” Dawn trailed of and Sam sighed. It was Faith and Dean after all.
“Yeah.”
~*~
Faith heard the door open and took a deep breath to steady herself. She was in the bathroom, standing with her hands braced against the sink, the black button down shirt drenched from splashing cold water in her face. She’d scrubbed away the last traces of her makeup and when she looked in the mirror, her face looked too pale. Shock, she supposed, and bad bathroom lighting. Pushing away from the sink, she dried her face with the hand towel as she opened the door and stepped into the other room to talk to Dawn.
“Well, did he wake up?” she asked, without looking up. Wouldn’t want to show that it mattered to her if he was okay, after all.
“Yeah, he did,” came the reply and it wasn’t Dawn’s voice. She froze, looking up to see Dean standing just inside the door, his face lighted from the side by a streetlight outside the window. All she could do was stare at him for several minutes, and then she found her voice again.
“You bastard,” she whispered. She heard a tearing sound and glanced down to see her hands clenched in the towel so hard that she was ripping it. She threw it to the floor and looked back at Dean.
“Look, Faith, I’m sorry. I had no idea you’d see that newscast. Hell, I didn’t even know it went national,” he said.
“I thought you were dead. That they put you in the ground,” she said, the words coming out sharp and harsh and she heard him sigh.
“I should have called, told you about the shapeshifter. I just didn’t think-“ he stopped, obviously realizing he shouldn’t finish that statement. She was already starting to move toward him, her whole body shaking, though she wasn’t sure exactly why. Rage, relief, shock, the need to touch him, all of them, she didn’t know.
“I should have called is an excuse for getting in late or standing someone up, Dean, not for letting them believe you died,” she told him. He sighed again and rubbed his hand over his mouth in a familiar gesture that she’d never thought to see again. He was getting aggravated.
“I said I was sorry. Besides, I didn’t think it’d matter so much to you,” he added and suddenly she wanted to hit him again. Her fists clenched as she stepped in front of him, looking up a little to meet his eyes.
“It. Mattered,” she said, pointedly. She was close enough to feel the heat from his body, to see the bruise on his jaw from where she’d hit him, to hear him breathing and then she was reaching up, around his neck, her fingers clenched in his hair to yank him down for a harsh kiss. She felt his arms slide around her waist and then her feet weren’t touching the ground anymore. Eyes closed, she felt them moving, and then felt the bed beneath her, Dean above her and nothing else seemed to matter anymore.
Her fingers found the hem of his shirt and slid underneath, palms running over his chest, finding every scar she remembered and a few new ones. He was lean and strong, every muscle defined and the planes of his torso were still as familiar to her as her own. She broke their kiss long enough to strip the shirt off him and he raised his arms to help her, grabbing the shirt from her and throwing it somewhere behind him. She felt his fingers on her shirt, fumbling with the buttons and she grabbed the neck in frustration and tore it, hearing the buttons pop, not caring about anything but feeling his skin against hers.
She was drowning, lost in the sensation, the relief, the need and a thousand other emotions she refused to look too closely at. Their clothes came off quickly, lost on the floor, until it was just them, Faith and Dean, kneeling on the bed, facing one another, with nothing between them but the years spent apart.
“I need you inside me,” she whispered, against his mouth.
~*~
Dean paused for a moment to look at her, to remember. There were new scars, but only a few. Slayers tended to heal faster than other people and to scar less. He ran his hands down her back, starting at the nape of her neck, palms sliding over satin skin and fingers caressing the lean muscles that moved under them. She’d never been bulky, but she’d always felt like this, silk over steel.
He kissed her again, softer this time and she when she spoke, her voice shook.
“I need you inside me.”
The words were like a match on kerosene and heat tore through him anew. He put one arm around her to catch her and with the other hand, caught the back of her thigh and pulled, tumbling her back onto the bed. He paused over her, looking down, dark hair spread on the white pillow, lips parted, eyes heavy lidded and dark. Faith. Without breaking eye contact, he shifted and slid inside her and felt like he’d finally come home.
~*~
Faith gave a soft cry when he filled her, lifting her hips to meet him, feeling a thickness in her throat, like she might cry. No one else made her feel this way, ever. That sense that he was her match, that they fit together as if they belonged. For a brief moment, she thought there might be tears, but then he moved and all rational thought was lost. There was nothing but Dean, inside her and all around her.
~*~
Dean sighed, breathing in the scent of Faith’s hair. She was curled against him, her head on his shoulder, the sheets tangled around them. He had no idea where their clothes had disappeared to, but at the moment, it just didn’t seem important. He’d almost forgotten about this, almost made himself forget when he’d left her in that little town so long ago. People like them didn’t get happy endings, he’d told himself, but now it just felt like an excuse.
“You know this doesn’t mean you’re off the hook,” Faith said, her breath tickling his chest. He had to smile.
“Yeah, I know.” He was silent for a moment, his fingers trailing up and down her arm before he remembered.
“Huh, I wonder if Sammy and Dawn are still outside?”
Faith raised her head.
“You left Sam and Dawn outside?”
“Well, they kind of insisted. Wanted to make sure you weren’t going to put me in a coma,” he said. She rolled her eyes and sighed.
“It’s been hours, Dean. If they’re still out there, they’re freezing,” she said, getting out of bed. He appreciated the view while she grabbed some clothes out of her bag and slipped into gray sweats and a black tank top.
“The Impala’s got a heater,” he said, in his own defense as she went to the window and peered through the blinds. She glanced back at him with a look that spoke volumes.
“I remember,” she said, and he remembered the afternoon they’d spent together in the Impala, parked just outside of town in the woods.
“They’re not out there. Guess they went back to your room,” Faith said. She looked over her shoulder at him and he blinked, coming back to the present.
“You think we should call them?”
“Why? They’re probably asleep. And if they’re not, I don’t want to interrupt,” he added, as an afterthought. Faith raised her eyebrows, then gave a sort of half-shrug as if to say ‘it could happen’.
“So what now?” she asked, stepping away from the window.
“Now? Now you come back to bed and we get some sleep and in the morning, we go vampire hunting,” he said with a grin, knowing she’d love the idea of a hunt.
“Mmm, yeah, about that vampire nest,” she said, crawling over his legs and sliding under the sheets beside him. “We sort of already took care of it.”
“Well in that case I guess we can sleep in.”
~*~
Reviews are welcome and please be honest! I can't fix it if I don't know what's wrong.
Warnings: Adult content, Sex, Violence, Language
Pairings: Dean/Faith, Sam/Dawn
Basic cable was such a bitch. Faith flipped from picture to picture, barely pausing to register what was playing on each channel before moving on. Cartoons… baseball… She stopped on the news channel, just because she heard the word “murder.” She was staring at the reporter on the screen as he talked about the “white male who was found dead” and when the sketch came up on the board beside him, her throat seemed to close, her heart stop. She reached for the glass on the table beside her and heard it crash to the floor, but she didn’t look away, couldn’t look away.
It was him. The sketch had a few features a little off, but it was his face.
“Dean,” she breathed and with the name she was far from LA, from Angel’s apartment. She was back in Sunnydale, in the cemetery…
~*~
Faith’s heart was pounding with adrenaline and excitement as she ran. She’d dusted four of the vamps before reinforcements had arrived and, having always had a strong survival instinct, she ran. Even for a slayer, ten to one odds weren’t that great. She leapt over the gate to the cemetery and hit the grass still running, looking behind her to see if she was being followed without ever slowing down.
The fall took her by surprise, but not as much as the landing. She was running and suddenly the ground wasn’t under her feet anymore. She fell hard and the first thing she thought was that she’d landed on a body. It was a cemetery after all. Then it moved and she almost went for her stake, before she realized it was warm. So, not a vamp. She pushed up on her arms and looked down at the guy she’d flattened. He still had the handle of a shovel in his hand, so she assumed he was the one who’d been doing the digging.
“Really shouldn’t leave open graves lying around like this. Someone might fall in,” she said, still catching her breath as she got to her feet. She held out her hand to help him up and he paused for a moment before he took it. She gave a tug and he was up, brushing himself off and she could see his face in the moonlight. Definitely not the kind of guy she usually met up with in cemeteries at night. If it was, she’d be doing a lot more patrolling.
“Who are you?” she asked, glancing around them at the dirt and down, where the wood of a coffin was cracked under their feet.
“Dean,” he said. “Mind telling me what you’re doing running through a cemetery in the middle of the night?”
Oh, Giles would probably have a fit, but she couldn’t help herself. She’d never been much for the secret identity.
“Running from the vampires,” she said, fully expecting him to start giving her that look that said he thought she was nuts. He didn’t though, just sort of groaned and rubbed a hand over his face.
“Dammit, Sammy didn’t say anything about a nest,” he muttered. Faith’s eyebrows rose, but she didn’t comment, just looked up at the sky, then back at Dean.
“So, wanna give me a boost out of here?” she asked, gesturing to the top of the grave, above her head. She might be able to get away with mentioning vampires to a strange guy, but giving away the fact that she was a Slayer, well, that sure as hell wouldn’t go over well.
“Sure,” he said, holding out his hands for her to step in. She took the boost, lifting her self out of the grave with a little hop and pulling herself onto the grass. She turned back to see him climbing out himself.
“So, where was it you saw the vampires?” Dean asked and she smiled a little.
“You don’t want to go in there.”
“Look, it’s sort of my job,” he started and she laughed a little, she couldn’t help it. He sighed, looking a little aggravated, but Faith was used to it. She had that effect on people.
“You look, Dean,” she said, stepping toward him. She reached into her pocket and found the eyeliner she’d sort of ‘borrowed’ from Buffy earlier that night. Then she grabbed his arm and turned his hand over. Using the eyeliner, she wrote the phone number to the motel on the back of his hand.
“You really want to kill vampires, call me tomorrow and we’ll make a day of it. Right now, I gotta get back and check in, or Giles is gonna be wicked pissed,” she told him. Finishing the number with a little flourish, she flashed him a grin and turned to walk away.
“Hey,” he called after her and she turned, walking backward.
“You got a name?”
“It’s Faith.”
~*~
What followed had been a whirlwind of sex and violence and other things that Faith didn’t let herself think too much about. Dean stuck around Sunnydale for a while, he and his brother, Sam. There was a ghost problem somewhere on the outside of town. Ghosts weren’t really in the Slayer’s job description, so she and Buffy had stayed out of their way. Faith and Dean had gone vampire hunting though, destroying the nest she’d found. They’d spent a bit of time after that at the motel, in her room. The same motel he and Sam had checked into the morning after their little encounter at the cemetery.
It was the first time she’d let a guy stay the whole night and it was strange to wake up with him beside her. Stranger still that she found she craved it after that. Two months, they’d stayed and she wondered if they stayed because of ghosts or if they found other reasons. She wondered, but she never asked. For those two months, Dean and Faith spent most of their time together. They argued, they hunted, they played, they made love in the backseat of his Impala. At the time, she’d have denied it, said it was just a tumble, but when she was alone, it was a memory that kept her warm.
When the job came up that they couldn’t ignore, when their friend, Bobby, called and asked for their help, there was a part of Faith that wanted to go with them. The rest of her knew she couldn’t. She had a job here, a calling she couldn’t ignore. Dean and Sam had to go, and she had to stay because if they- if Dean didn’t leave then, she was afraid she might not be able to let him go at all.
They both said they’d call and he had, once. Then her life had taken some unexpected turns and whatever they’d had got left behind along with Sunnydale and the life she’d had there. She had a lot of regrets, but Dean wasn’t one of them…
~*~
“Faith?” she heard Angel say her name and then he was there, taking the remote from her hands, turning off the TV. She had to go, she was mumbling and Angel was telling her no, that she couldn’t just leave. She barely remembered the argument that followed. She knew she told him how much she hated it that it hurt so much. It pissed her off and that gave her strength, maybe enough to get through what came next. The trip was mostly a blur. She drove until she couldn’t see the road anymore and then checked into a cheap motel, trying desperately not to think that it was the kind of place Dean and Sam would have stayed in. She did okay until she took a shower. Memories of another shower, in another motel on a long, lazy afternoon came flooding back and the tears came then, along with the rage.
The walls cracked, porcelain tiles flying when she pounded her fists on the wall in front of her with a painful cry. She didn’t feel them cut her, but she tasted blood, saw it wash down the drain as she scrubbed her hands over her face, as if to wash away whatever tears had escaped. Afterward, she’d curled up on the bed, staring at the wall, hoping desperately not to dream as she fell asleep.
The cemetery was a lot like the one where they’d met, lying in a grave on top of a coffin. Only Dean wasn’t standing on the coffin this time, he was in it. There was his name, engraved on the tombstone. She stood above it, hands in her coat pockets, tears prickling at the back of her eyes when she spoke.
“I know it’s been a while, but… I’ve been busy. I guess nobody would understand that better than you,” she said. She thought she saw a flicker of movement, a flash of brown hair, a quirky smile and she looked up, expecting to see him, but no one was there. Just an empty cemetery. Faith took an unsteady breath and knelt beside the stone.
“Goodbye, Dean Winchester,” she whispered, touching the cold marble.
Then she stood up and turned and walked away.
~*~
Dawn stepped out of the airport doors with her bag slung over her shoulder and looked around. She’d promised to be here, but, knowing Faith, she’d be late. With a wry little smile, she sighed and sat down on one of the benches near the doors.
Italy had been great, lots to see and do and, thanks to Giles, plenty to learn, but Dawn was tired of being told how to live, where to go and who to see. She knew Buffy and Giles meant well, but the constant nagging to ‘go to college, make a career for herself’ got old fast. Basically the two of them were trying to get her as far from the Slaying, the fighting as possible. She respected that they cared, that they wanted her safe and she had long ago accepted that she wasn’t a Slayer, but she wasn’t ready to give up the fight. Helping people, fighting the things that went bump in the night, she’d grown up with it and it was, literally, in her blood. She’d trained along with the Potential Slayers, though she supposed they were all Slayers now, since Willow had worked her mojo and freed the Slayer power for all of them. She knew how to fight, to defend herself and she didn’t need to be protected. At least not much, she admitted to herself.
So when she turned 18, she used her savings to buy a plane ticket and she called the one person she knew who would be only too happy to help her find a life away from Giles and her sister. She and Faith had always gotten along and the Slayer sounded jazzed when Dawn called and asked to come stay with her. She knew Faith stayed fairly mobile these days, mostly living in motels, moving around from town to town, hunting, slaying, but after these last few years of overly-structured living, Dawn was ready for a change.
A black car pulled up to the curb and through the open window, a familiar face was grinning at her.
“Hey, cutie, need a ride?” Faith asked and Dawn smiled, grabbing her bag and jogging to the car. She got into the passenger seat and Faith took her bag, shoving it over the seats into the back. As they pulled away from the curb, Dawn resisted the urge to reach over and hug Faith. The Slayer had never been much for hugging, she remembered. But it was good to see her, good to be back in the US. Faith maneuvered them through the airport parking lot and onto a highway.
“So, where to first?” Dawn asked, sitting back in the seat and buckling her belt.
“Heard there’s a nest of vampires in a town a few miles down the highway. Thought we might start out with something familiar,” Faith said, flashing her a grin. Dawn smiled back. It was good to be home.
~*~
When Dawn had called her, Faith had hesitated at first, remembering Buffy’s kid sister and how fragile she always looked. Delicate looking, with big eyes and a smile full of mischief. Then she’d remembered Dawn from the last time she’d seen her, the strong, confident girl who’d stood her ground and joined in the fight against the First Evil and the army of nasty looking super vamps. She’d held her own then, without Slayer powers, formal training or anything other than her own backbone. So she’d said yes and now she was glad she had.
Little Dawn had grown up. She was still delicate looking, fine boned and slender, but damn the girl could move. She’d obviously been training and it showed as she drove the stake into the female vamp’s chest. It was the third one Dawn had taken out on her own and Faith was grinning when she spun and dusted the one coming up behind her. She’d forgotten what it felt like to fight with a partner. She and Dawn worked well together, better than most. It had always been a little odd fighting beside Buffy and the gang, considering their past together hadn’t always been friendly. Grudges went deep, she supposed. There was only one other person she’d felt so comfortable with and he- well, she didn’t think about him when she could help it. It was still too raw.
When Dawn and Faith were the last one’s standing in the ratty old barn the vamps had nested in, Faith looked at Dawn.
“Nice moves. I see you’ve picked up a few new skills since I saw you last,” she said.
“Yeah. Buffy wasn’t thrilled about it, but Giles thought it was a good idea that I know how to fight, so I got to train with the girls,” Dawn said, grinning. Her face was flushed, eyes bright and Faith knew she looked the same. Adrenaline was rushing and it was a hell of a feeling.
“Let’s torch this place, make sure we don’t miss anyone, then go find something to do to work off some of this energy,” Faith said, moving toward the door. Dawn followed, closing the barn door and putting the heavy board into place that locked it shut. At the car, Faith popped the trunk and pulled out the two small gas cans she kept filled. She handed one to Dawn and took the other herself. The two of them splashed the gas onto the wooden walls of the barn, making sure the wood was saturated enough to catch easily before Faith pulled a book of matches out of her pocket, lit it and threw the whole thing at the old building.
It went up with a whoosh, flames licking the faded red paint and they stood back and watched until it was fully engulfed. Glancing around, glad to see that only bare dirt surrounded the place, so the fire wouldn’t spread, Faith picked up the cans and put them back in the car, slamming the trunk.
“Let’s bail. I hear a dance floor calling my name,” she said, walking around the car and getting behind the wheel. Dawn was already in and buckling up when she got in. They pulled away and drove down the dirt driveway without looking back.
A quick stop at their motel room to clean up and change their shirts and they were back in the car, pulling into a parking lot. Dawn was raising her eyebrows as they got out of the car and she looked at Faith. Faith grinned, knowing exactly what she was thinking.
“Faith, this is a bar,” Dawn said.
“Yep, that it is,” Faith agreed.
“Hello, I’m not old enough. I’m only 18, remember?” she said and Faith just laughed.
“Trust me, girlfriend. No way the bartender is kicking you out.”
Dawn sighed and Faith linked their arms together, pulling her along, across the parking lot and through the door.
The inside of the bar was dark except for the flashing strobes and colored lights around the dance floor. It was a big crowd for a place so small, mostly young people. No doubt this was the only entertainment to be had in a town like this. Faith glanced at the bar, saw the bartender, a middle-aged guy with a receding hairline. He was watching them walk in and when they came into sight, he grinned and nodded. Faith smirked back and led Dawn to the dance floor.
~*~
Sitting backward on his stool, leaning on the bar, Dean took a long swallow of his beer and glanced at the dance floor, his gaze lingering appreciatively on two dark haired girls who were dancing together. They were moving to the fast heavy beat, throwing their entire bodies into it and what bodies they were.
“Sammy,” he said, nudging his brother with his elbow. Sam turned and raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah?”
“Feel like dancing?”
“Dean, are you drunk already?” Sam asked, sighing with exasperation. He spun around fully when Dean gestured to the dance floor, his eyes immediately landing on the two dark haired beauties.
“Wow,” he said, after a minute. One thing about Dean, he had excellent taste in women.
“There’s two of them,” Dean said, glancing at his brother again, eyebrows raised. It was rare that Sam showed an interest in a woman, so when he did, Dean always felt it was his duty as a brother to encourage it. Sam didn’t have nearly as much fun as a guy his age should.
“Not tonight, Dean, we’re here on a job, remember?” Sam said, glancing at the girls again with something like regret before he turned back to his beer.
“We’re supposed to be finding out about the nest, yeah, I got it, but Sam, its nighttime. We aren’t going after them until dawn at least. There’s no sense in wasting hours and hours between now and then when there’s something like that-“ he gestured to the dance floor- “to keep a man occupied. It’s almost criminal.”
“Whatever, Dean, I’m not dancing. Go, knock yourself out,” Sam said and Dean gave an exaggerated sigh before hopping off his stool and making his way across the bar.
As he neared the floor, one girl, slightly shorter than the other and dressed in leather pants, turned her head and he was able to see her face clearly. Dean paused, recognition stealing through him. There was no way, not after all this time… but there she was, in living color. He took a breath and kept walking, ending up behind her. He reached out to grab her arm and she pulled it away with out looking.
“Not interested, get lost!” she shouted over the music, continuing to dance. The other girl, though, stopped dancing, her mouth opening in surprise and he had the thought that she looked really familiar, like he should know her too. Faith stopped dancing, apparently seeing the look on her friend’s face and turned to see who was behind her. Dean grinned.
“Miss me, sweetheart?”
~*~
That voice, those eyes, that grin… it was impossible. He was dead. She’d been to his grave, seen his name etched in marble. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think… then she realized and the rage that rose inside her was like a tidal wave.
“How the hell did you get his body?” she hissed, to the demon she knew had to be possessing Dean’s body. “How did you do it?!” It wasn’t possible, Sam would never have let this happen, not in a million years. But there was Sam, walking up behind the demon, his eyes wide in surprise.
“Faith, hey, what are you-“
“Sammy, how could you?” she asked, stepping back, bumping into Dawn. “How could you let that thing inside him?” she demanded and she saw Sam’s eyes widen further as he looked at his brother. Dean was looking confused and annoyingly innocent. He looked at Sam and shrugged and Faith felt a sob rising in her throat. So many thoughts, feelings tearing through her.
“I saw his grave, Sam,” she finally said, then looked at the thing wearing Dean’s body. “I saw the grave, the headstone. Dean’s dead, now get the hell out of his body and let him rest!” Her voice was rising and people were looking at them, but she really didn’t give a damn at that point if the whole world found out about Slayers and demons and monsters and hunters.
Understanding seemed to Dawn on both Sam and the thing-being-Dean’s faces.
“I didn’t die, it wasn’t me,” the Dean-thing said. Sam was nodding.
“It’s true, Faith, it wasn’t him. It was a shapeshifter, trying to frame him for torturing a college student. I swear, this is Dean,” Sam told her, earnestly.
“Dean didn’t die,” she repeated, slowly, staring at Sam. She looked at Dean.
“You didn’t die.”
Dean grinned, that wonderful, infuriating grin.
“Nope, still kicking.” She stared at him for a moment, then drew back her fist and hit him.
~*~
Dean opened his eyes slowly, squinting at the light.
“Too bright,” he mumbled and he heard a female voice say “I’ll turn them out.”
A moment later the room was dim and he was able to see. The first thing he found was a face that he felt like he recognized. He knew she was the girl from the bar who’d been dancing with Faith, but it was more than that. She was hot. Someone he’d hooked up with before?
“I should know you,” he said, carefully. Never a good thing to let a girl know you didn’t remember her after you slept together. She nodded and he felt a moment of profound relief. Getting hit by two women in one night, that would’ve been a record even for him.
“I’m Dawn. Dawn Summers, from Sunnydale,” she said and it clicked in his head.
“You’re Buffy’s little sister,” he said and she sighed.
“Yeah, that too,” she said and he got the idea he’d annoyed her. Groaning, he started to sit up, pausing when the world began to spin.
“I don’t know if you’re supposed to be moving yet,” Dawn said, as Sam came through the door.
“Dean, you’re awake,” Sam said, setting down the bags he was carrying. He moved to the bedside and knelt by it.
“How you feeling?”
“Like I got hit by a truck, or possibly a Slayer,” Dean groaned. He reached up and touched his face carefully, feeling the swollen jaw with his fingertips.
“When I told you to go knock yourself out, I didn’t mean it literally, you know,” Sam said and Dean glared at him.
“Where’s Faith?” he asked.
“She took off, back to our motel room,” Dawn said. “She’s really pissed. She thought you were dead, Dean. She’s been mourning you for over a year now. Angel called Buffy and Giles about it when it happened, to let them know. We got a hold of her a month or two later and she refused to talk about it, but she was pretty ripped up.”
Dean was getting up, sitting on the side of the bed and looking around for his shoes.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Sam asked.
“To find her, explain what happened,” Dean said, spotting his shoes near the door and getting to his feet. His jaw was throbbing and his head was aching, but he was up. That was a good sign. He hoped it meant she hadn’t given him any kind of brain damage with that right hook.
“She knows what happened, Dean, I already told her,” Sam argued.
“I need to tell her myself, okay!?” he snapped, glaring at his brother.
“I can take you to our room. Its a few blocks away,” Dawn said, glancing from one brother to the other.
“Fine, then you can come back and stay with Sam while we deal with this… whatever it is,” Dean growled, putting on his shoes and standing up, looking for his car keys.
“What, you think I’m gonna stay behind and miss this?” Sam asked, grabbing the keys off the table before Dean could reach them. “I don’t think so. And I’m driving. You have a head injury.”
~*~
Dawn watched Dean walk into the room she and Faith were sharing, using her key. She sighed then and crossed her arms, leaning back in the seat. She’d climbed up front after Dean had gotten out and now sat in the passenger seat, with Sam still behind the wheel. Dean had talked his brother out of following him into the room, but Sam was adamant that they were going to wait outside, at least until they knew everything was okay and Faith wasn’t going to kill him for real.
When the door closed behind the elder Winchester brother, Dawn turned her head to look at the other one. Sam still looked the same as he had that summer he and Dean had stayed in Sunnydale. She’d been a kid then, fifteen and she was fairly certain the two of them hadn’t known she existed. She’d noticed them, though. Any girl would have, as long as she had eyes. Dean was cute, definitely, but it was Sam that had her writing page after page in her diaries. Even then, Dean always just called her “Buffy’s little sister” or, when talking to her, “kid”. Sam had at least used her name.
All her life, she’d been the Slayer’s little sister and it drove her nuts. It was just one of the many reasons she’d left Italy. Oh, she was well aware that all of her memories before she was 15 were fabricated by a group of monks, but they sure as hell felt real. Still, it was sort of a double-edged sword. She remembered her life with her mom and Buffy and she held onto those memories as if they were real. Then again, she also remembered the things Faith had done when she was younger, betraying all of them, working for the mayor, but in truth, she’d never met Faith before she showed up at the house to help fight the First. There’d been animosity, sure, but Faith had come through for them, really proved herself to all of them. She and Dawn had clicked then, gotten to be friends for the short time Faith had stayed with the group, before Robin (she still thought of him mostly as Principal Wood) had died from complications from his injuries, before Giles and Buffy had taken Dawn to Italy to live. It drove Buffy nuts, of course, but that was just an added bonus of sorts for both Dawn and Faith.
She glanced at Sam again, wondered if he’d ever been “Dean’s little brother” then figured probably not to anyone but Dean.
“So,” she said, finally breaking the silence, “you guys came here for the vamp nest too?”
~*~
Sam was listening for the sound of breaking furniture- or possibly bones- from inside the motel room and trying to ignore the fact that he was very aware of the girl in the seat next to him. The sound of her voice startled him and he looked at her.
“Huh?”
“Vampires,” she said, “Did you guys come here for them or is there some other big bad in this town?”
“No, we were after the nest too. I mean, I’m sure there’s something else around here, but nothing that came up on the radar,” he said, feeling oddly nervous.
It was Dawn for cripes sake, he’d known her since she was a kid. But then, he hadn’t seen her in years and she definitely wasn’t a kid anymore. By his rough calculation she was 18 now and time had definitely changed her. Gone was the slender, pixie-like, slightly awkward kid and in her place, from what he’d seen so far, was a confident young woman with long legs, curves in all the right places and a mouth that seemed completely fascinating. Her eyes were still big and blue, but no longer quite so wide and innocent looking. He wondered, in a vague sort of way, if Faith would break him for making a pass at Dawn.
Sam flicked a glance at the motel room door.
“So, do you think she’ll hit him again?” he asked and Dawn cocked her head to the side, thinking.
“Maybe. Depends on what he says and if she’s more pissed or happy that he’s still alive,” she finally said.
They waited for a few minutes longer and there was only silence from the motel.
“What do you think’s going on?” he asked, finally.
“If she’s not beating the crap out of him? Um…” Dawn trailed of and Sam sighed. It was Faith and Dean after all.
“Yeah.”
~*~
Faith heard the door open and took a deep breath to steady herself. She was in the bathroom, standing with her hands braced against the sink, the black button down shirt drenched from splashing cold water in her face. She’d scrubbed away the last traces of her makeup and when she looked in the mirror, her face looked too pale. Shock, she supposed, and bad bathroom lighting. Pushing away from the sink, she dried her face with the hand towel as she opened the door and stepped into the other room to talk to Dawn.
“Well, did he wake up?” she asked, without looking up. Wouldn’t want to show that it mattered to her if he was okay, after all.
“Yeah, he did,” came the reply and it wasn’t Dawn’s voice. She froze, looking up to see Dean standing just inside the door, his face lighted from the side by a streetlight outside the window. All she could do was stare at him for several minutes, and then she found her voice again.
“You bastard,” she whispered. She heard a tearing sound and glanced down to see her hands clenched in the towel so hard that she was ripping it. She threw it to the floor and looked back at Dean.
“Look, Faith, I’m sorry. I had no idea you’d see that newscast. Hell, I didn’t even know it went national,” he said.
“I thought you were dead. That they put you in the ground,” she said, the words coming out sharp and harsh and she heard him sigh.
“I should have called, told you about the shapeshifter. I just didn’t think-“ he stopped, obviously realizing he shouldn’t finish that statement. She was already starting to move toward him, her whole body shaking, though she wasn’t sure exactly why. Rage, relief, shock, the need to touch him, all of them, she didn’t know.
“I should have called is an excuse for getting in late or standing someone up, Dean, not for letting them believe you died,” she told him. He sighed again and rubbed his hand over his mouth in a familiar gesture that she’d never thought to see again. He was getting aggravated.
“I said I was sorry. Besides, I didn’t think it’d matter so much to you,” he added and suddenly she wanted to hit him again. Her fists clenched as she stepped in front of him, looking up a little to meet his eyes.
“It. Mattered,” she said, pointedly. She was close enough to feel the heat from his body, to see the bruise on his jaw from where she’d hit him, to hear him breathing and then she was reaching up, around his neck, her fingers clenched in his hair to yank him down for a harsh kiss. She felt his arms slide around her waist and then her feet weren’t touching the ground anymore. Eyes closed, she felt them moving, and then felt the bed beneath her, Dean above her and nothing else seemed to matter anymore.
Her fingers found the hem of his shirt and slid underneath, palms running over his chest, finding every scar she remembered and a few new ones. He was lean and strong, every muscle defined and the planes of his torso were still as familiar to her as her own. She broke their kiss long enough to strip the shirt off him and he raised his arms to help her, grabbing the shirt from her and throwing it somewhere behind him. She felt his fingers on her shirt, fumbling with the buttons and she grabbed the neck in frustration and tore it, hearing the buttons pop, not caring about anything but feeling his skin against hers.
She was drowning, lost in the sensation, the relief, the need and a thousand other emotions she refused to look too closely at. Their clothes came off quickly, lost on the floor, until it was just them, Faith and Dean, kneeling on the bed, facing one another, with nothing between them but the years spent apart.
“I need you inside me,” she whispered, against his mouth.
~*~
Dean paused for a moment to look at her, to remember. There were new scars, but only a few. Slayers tended to heal faster than other people and to scar less. He ran his hands down her back, starting at the nape of her neck, palms sliding over satin skin and fingers caressing the lean muscles that moved under them. She’d never been bulky, but she’d always felt like this, silk over steel.
He kissed her again, softer this time and she when she spoke, her voice shook.
“I need you inside me.”
The words were like a match on kerosene and heat tore through him anew. He put one arm around her to catch her and with the other hand, caught the back of her thigh and pulled, tumbling her back onto the bed. He paused over her, looking down, dark hair spread on the white pillow, lips parted, eyes heavy lidded and dark. Faith. Without breaking eye contact, he shifted and slid inside her and felt like he’d finally come home.
~*~
Faith gave a soft cry when he filled her, lifting her hips to meet him, feeling a thickness in her throat, like she might cry. No one else made her feel this way, ever. That sense that he was her match, that they fit together as if they belonged. For a brief moment, she thought there might be tears, but then he moved and all rational thought was lost. There was nothing but Dean, inside her and all around her.
~*~
Dean sighed, breathing in the scent of Faith’s hair. She was curled against him, her head on his shoulder, the sheets tangled around them. He had no idea where their clothes had disappeared to, but at the moment, it just didn’t seem important. He’d almost forgotten about this, almost made himself forget when he’d left her in that little town so long ago. People like them didn’t get happy endings, he’d told himself, but now it just felt like an excuse.
“You know this doesn’t mean you’re off the hook,” Faith said, her breath tickling his chest. He had to smile.
“Yeah, I know.” He was silent for a moment, his fingers trailing up and down her arm before he remembered.
“Huh, I wonder if Sammy and Dawn are still outside?”
Faith raised her head.
“You left Sam and Dawn outside?”
“Well, they kind of insisted. Wanted to make sure you weren’t going to put me in a coma,” he said. She rolled her eyes and sighed.
“It’s been hours, Dean. If they’re still out there, they’re freezing,” she said, getting out of bed. He appreciated the view while she grabbed some clothes out of her bag and slipped into gray sweats and a black tank top.
“The Impala’s got a heater,” he said, in his own defense as she went to the window and peered through the blinds. She glanced back at him with a look that spoke volumes.
“I remember,” she said, and he remembered the afternoon they’d spent together in the Impala, parked just outside of town in the woods.
“They’re not out there. Guess they went back to your room,” Faith said. She looked over her shoulder at him and he blinked, coming back to the present.
“You think we should call them?”
“Why? They’re probably asleep. And if they’re not, I don’t want to interrupt,” he added, as an afterthought. Faith raised her eyebrows, then gave a sort of half-shrug as if to say ‘it could happen’.
“So what now?” she asked, stepping away from the window.
“Now? Now you come back to bed and we get some sleep and in the morning, we go vampire hunting,” he said with a grin, knowing she’d love the idea of a hunt.
“Mmm, yeah, about that vampire nest,” she said, crawling over his legs and sliding under the sheets beside him. “We sort of already took care of it.”
“Well in that case I guess we can sleep in.”
~*~
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