Living on a Prayer, BtVS/SPN, part 13/?
Living on a Prayer
nwhepcat
Supernatural/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Sam and Dean Winchester, Castiel, Faith Lehane
Follow up to
Like the White-Winged Dove and Waiting for the end of the World.
Faith has a slayer dream which sends her on a reluctant journey to her old territory, on a quest to save a new ally.
Previous parts are here.
The rain slashes down as Faith pulls up in front of Primitive Visions. Castiel's so locked and loaded for smiting that she half expects to see steam rising from him where the rain strikes. By the time she gets out of the car and catches up to him, he's got the door blown open. The front of the shop is darkened, but there's death metal at top volume coming from a room in the back of the studio, and Castiel storms toward it.
There's a guy sitting at a drafting table, skinny and smooth as a skink, covered with so many tattoos he'd have to put on fifty pounds to squeeze in another one. Startled, he looks up at Castiel's violent entrance, abandoning his pencil and sketchpad to reach into a shelf at his side as he stands. Before he can put his hands on a weapon, Castiel has him shoved back against a wall, and Faith splashes holy water into his face.
"What the fuck?!" the guy yells. "Look, man, I'm not the one who inked your daughter. I've never seen her!" Not that he can see anything now, rubbing water out of his eyes and sputtering.
"Hey, check this out," she says to Castiel. She flips through some pages of the open book he's been sketching from, then flips it shut and pushes it along the table toward Castiel. It's wicked old, the bindings crumbling, with spidery text in a language she can't read. It's a Giles book, for sure.
"Keep your hands off that, it belongs to a client."
Castiel exchanges places with her, examining the book while she watches the skink.
"Same guy this belongs to?" Faith unwraps the towel and thrusts it toward him.
"Jesus!"
"Is that your work?" she demands. "How many of these did you do?"
His chin comes up, defiant. "Why should I tell you that?"
"So I don't add your nads to my souvenir collection."
"Three. Two were older guys, the kind that don't normally go for that kind of piece."
Castiel turns from the drafting table. "You have no idea what you're playing with." To Faith he says, "Take the book and the drawings he's copied. We'll burn them."
"Fuck that!" The skink muscles Faith aside, going for Castiel with his bare hands.
Castiel meets him with his own hand upraised.
"Don't!" Faith cries. She's had enough death for one night. But instead of consuming the skink in a blaze of light, he touches two fingers to the man's forehead and eases him to the ground.
"He's unharmed," Castiel says to her. "He'll wake in a few hours, but he won't remember we were here."
Faith lifts him off the floor and dumps him in one of his chairs to sleep it off. As she joins Castiel on the sidewalk outside the studio, she realizes the city's beginning to awaken, though it's still dark.
"So what's to stop him from tattooing someone else with that design again, working from memory?"
"I removed the image from his mind, along with other dangerous ones."
"Damn. There goes his business." She opens the passenger door for him, resisting the powerful urge to apologize again for the crappiness of her car.
"I did replace them," he says as she settles in behind the wheel. "I borrowed some from an angel who's spent more time walking in this world."
"Yeah?"
"One of them has a name," he says. "Thumper."
When she laughs, it feels like the first time in forever.
nwhepcat
Supernatural/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Sam and Dean Winchester, Castiel, Faith Lehane
Follow up to
Like the White-Winged Dove and Waiting for the end of the World.
Faith has a slayer dream which sends her on a reluctant journey to her old territory, on a quest to save a new ally.
Previous parts are here.
The rain slashes down as Faith pulls up in front of Primitive Visions. Castiel's so locked and loaded for smiting that she half expects to see steam rising from him where the rain strikes. By the time she gets out of the car and catches up to him, he's got the door blown open. The front of the shop is darkened, but there's death metal at top volume coming from a room in the back of the studio, and Castiel storms toward it.
There's a guy sitting at a drafting table, skinny and smooth as a skink, covered with so many tattoos he'd have to put on fifty pounds to squeeze in another one. Startled, he looks up at Castiel's violent entrance, abandoning his pencil and sketchpad to reach into a shelf at his side as he stands. Before he can put his hands on a weapon, Castiel has him shoved back against a wall, and Faith splashes holy water into his face.
"What the fuck?!" the guy yells. "Look, man, I'm not the one who inked your daughter. I've never seen her!" Not that he can see anything now, rubbing water out of his eyes and sputtering.
"Hey, check this out," she says to Castiel. She flips through some pages of the open book he's been sketching from, then flips it shut and pushes it along the table toward Castiel. It's wicked old, the bindings crumbling, with spidery text in a language she can't read. It's a Giles book, for sure.
"Keep your hands off that, it belongs to a client."
Castiel exchanges places with her, examining the book while she watches the skink.
"Same guy this belongs to?" Faith unwraps the towel and thrusts it toward him.
"Jesus!"
"Is that your work?" she demands. "How many of these did you do?"
His chin comes up, defiant. "Why should I tell you that?"
"So I don't add your nads to my souvenir collection."
"Three. Two were older guys, the kind that don't normally go for that kind of piece."
Castiel turns from the drafting table. "You have no idea what you're playing with." To Faith he says, "Take the book and the drawings he's copied. We'll burn them."
"Fuck that!" The skink muscles Faith aside, going for Castiel with his bare hands.
Castiel meets him with his own hand upraised.
"Don't!" Faith cries. She's had enough death for one night. But instead of consuming the skink in a blaze of light, he touches two fingers to the man's forehead and eases him to the ground.
"He's unharmed," Castiel says to her. "He'll wake in a few hours, but he won't remember we were here."
Faith lifts him off the floor and dumps him in one of his chairs to sleep it off. As she joins Castiel on the sidewalk outside the studio, she realizes the city's beginning to awaken, though it's still dark.
"So what's to stop him from tattooing someone else with that design again, working from memory?"
"I removed the image from his mind, along with other dangerous ones."
"Damn. There goes his business." She opens the passenger door for him, resisting the powerful urge to apologize again for the crappiness of her car.
"I did replace them," he says as she settles in behind the wheel. "I borrowed some from an angel who's spent more time walking in this world."
"Yeah?"
"One of them has a name," he says. "Thumper."
When she laughs, it feels like the first time in forever.