A/N: My sister wrote a fic based on this story, if you'd like to check it out: (VesperRegina)'s "like a coin that won't get tossed." Enjoy the fic. :D

Last Death

One - "Past Midnight"

"Dad... he was... a piece of work," Rob said, "When I was nine, he told me that he'd never ditch me anywhere, that he'd always be there, no matter what. I mean, I believed him. But the guy was like forty already, and I guess that didn't register in my little-kid brain."

Lina gave him a look, and he shrugged and smiled self-consciously. "When I was twelve, he told me that he killed his first... demon at that age, but that I wasn't touching a gun until I was twenty-one." He chuckled. "I ended up learning from my adopted uncle the next year." Lina raised a questioning brow, so he explained, "A friend of my dad's."

"Oh, so... the guy raised him or something like that?" the girl wondered. She was so young to be a hunter, but they were getting younger these days. He tried not to think about it.

"No, it's complicated, but the guy was there for him and... and his... best friend during a hard time."

"Oh," she said, shifting in her seat and motioning with her many-ringed hand, "Go on."

"Well," he cleared his throat, "When I was eighteen, Dad was nearly fifty, and he had a heartattack. I... didn't have anybody else but my uncle, so I did something really stupid. I went to a crossroads."

"Huh?" she asked, and he winced.

"You bury something that belongs to you, like a piece of yourself, along with a little voodoo spell," he explained, "And a demon shows up to make a deal with you."

"So you like... totally sold your soul?" she asked in horror.

"Yeah," he said, quietly, remembering how his father had looked when he'd shown up at the hospital room.

The doctor had greeted him with a smile. Dad hadn't.

And when the doctor and nurses had left, he'd torn into Rob with, "What the heck did you think you were doing?"

"Wh-What do you mean?" Rob had asked, but his father had stared through him with those all-knowing eyes, and he'd crumbled. He'd fallen onto the bed, holding his dad's arms and sobbing onto his chest, "Dad, I had to, I don't want you to leave me! Don't leave... Dad..."

"So, what happened?" Lina wondered, leaning forward in suspense.

Rob shrugged. "Dad broke the contract for me."

Lina stared at him silently, for a moment. Finally, she swallowed and said, "You mean, he died?"

He nodded, took a drink from his glass, and smiled at her. "It's okay..."

"But that's... so messed up," she murmured, "Why...? I mean... I understand why... Dang it."

"He said, 'A father shouldn't outlive his kid. Let me go.'"

"That sucks, though. Rotten-eggs sucks." She took a disgusted drink of her own alcoholic concoction.

"You had to've known my dad though, to know why he did it." He cleared his throat.

"Men."

"Nah, it was my dad. A normal man would've buckled under all that crap. Dad took a beating, and he... didn't feel it. I guess." He gazed away at the slow ebb and flow of the bar. There weren't many customers at this hour. Just the hunters, mostly, and the die-hards.

"Masochist," she spit under her breath, but he could tell she was just teasing.

"No," he said, and stared for a few minutes, drinking until the rest of his beverage was gone. "He lost his best friend, and he wasn't the same afterward. He messed himself up real good after... and then he tried hunting instead of drinking. He ended up, according to my uncle, in the hospital five times in one month."

Lina whistled low under her breath, and started shaking her head. "Yeah... and he still didn't manage to kill himself," Rob continued, "And then my uncle tried to reach him, couldn't. Tried to have a hunter's intervention--Dad knocked a couple people out, then walked out. And finally, he started with the women again. That was... uh, about five years after his... after that person actually died, before he got to that place. Guess it finally got through his thick skull that he wasn't going to die." He let out a soft, scoffing breath, and wondered if maybe it would've been better if his father had died.

"Man," Lina whispered, incredulously.

"So, he gets drunk one night, meets up with an old friend... a hunter. She's a little older now, and he doesn't feel guilty about it anymore. He knows she knows the rules." He smiled sadly, "My mother. But then, she died, and my grandmother took me to my uncle, and told him that she couldn't take it. She couldn't keep me because... because the men in my family seemed to have a bad habit of killing the people she loved. I don't know what happened to her after that... my uncle don't either."

Lina's eyes filled, but she clenched her jaw and looked down. She reminded him a little bit of someone, but it was hard for him to remember right now. He needed to finish this story... maybe get some sleep. Maybe not. "Anyway, I was with my uncle for a few months before Dad came around again, messed up as usual... He says when he saw me, he thought I was..." He laughed. "He says he thought I was a hunting job my uncle was working on."

Lina blinked, then let out a nervous giggle. "So... when he find out you were his?"

"When he got mended a little bit, my uncle told him, slapped him, and gave me to him. Said, 'If you don't get your life together now, he never will.' So Dad took me, and he did the best he could."

"That's..." Lina began, then shook her head. She laughed a little. "I mean, my parents were normal. Well, until they tried to kill me. But... I knew it was 'cause they was possessed. So... I'm okay with it now." He could tell she wasn't, by the way her voice had risen in pitch, the way she was murdering that poor napkin on the table.

He took her hand, momentarily. "Never mind."

"Huh?" she asked, and he shrugged and let her hand go.

"When I turned twenty, last year, my uncle told me what happened to my-- my father's friend." He swallowed. "He... started... he killed some people before he died... people thought maybe he was starting to go bad."

Lina stared.

"You know... my Dad always used to say that I reminded him of his friend. He said it... almost everytime he got drunk." A soft chuckle escaped through his nose. "He said, 'You know, you always, always remind me of-- of him. I don't want you to sometimes. Sometimes, I do. But you always do. So I'm glad. You just keep up whatever you're doing. I'm proud.' And after he said that, he'd usually fall asleep."

"What does... what does your uncle say about that?" she asked, with the quirk of a smile at the corner of her lips.

"That he was off his rocker," Rob said, "He says that I'm my father, through and through, and that he just wanted to see his friend in me." He shrugged. "I don't know... 'cause sometimes, he'd look at me, and he had this weird expression on his face. Kinda lost in space, you know? And he'd just stare, and I'd say something, and he wouldn't snap out of it."

"So you think maybe he did," she murmured, and Rob nodded. "But maybe it was just all in his head like your uncle said."

Rob swallowed, and the tears sprang up. He started to say something like, "I need to go--" but she took his hand, and asked, "Are you okay?"

He nodded, but said, "My uncle... died... yesterday. Today...? What time is it now? Past twelve?"