A/N: Shout-outs to FCMP4, Batmanx, The-Knight2000, OhForTheLoveOfDraco, courtneesworld21, and Guest! Extra thanks to my beta Zavier Starwood. Brief reminder, this fic is planned for 15 chapters total.
June 22nd, 2016
For the majority of the drive from Miami to Charlotte, the Slayer slept in the back seat of the Impala, her knees pulled up against her chest. Sitting sentinel in shotgun, Crowley watched the rise and fall of her chest in the rearview mirror as the woman breathed. He still had not decided what to do with her. Alliances were changing all around him, shifting by the minute ever since earlier that morning when he had healed her busted ribs and Dean's busted nose. Frowning, he wondered how long Dean's fascination with the dead girl would last.
"I didn't realize you were going to keep her as a pet," he commented mildly to the demon in the driver's seat.
Dean shrugged but did not take his eyes from the road. "She looks good in a bathing suit."
Well. That was useful information. Hardly ground-breaking, but possibly useful. "I take it you two - "
"No." The black-eyed demon shut him down.
"Shocking," observed the King of Hell. "And here I thought that the minute you took her out of my sight that you would be conducting a very thorough body cavity search."
"Been there, done that. No need for a repeat."
"Aha," said Crowley, although he was not horribly surprised. Irritated, yes, but not surprised. Frankly, he would have found it far more shocking if Dean had actually cut the Slayer's throat and dumped her in a swamp the way he was supposed to.
Still, it was not an entirely displeasing situation. The Slayer had survived twenty-four hours alone with the newest Knight of Hell, ganked the demon that Crowley had sent to dispose of her, and no Sam Winchester or feathered Castiel had come to the rescue, guns a'blazing. If she continued as she had begun, she might be worth making a play for. Her soul was off-limits for the moment, but given time . . . And then of course, there was always the consideration that Faith Lehane had such a delightful history of charcoal-tinted morality.
He pulled out his phone and sent a few texts to set the world back into its proper orbit. There was no time like the present to plot for the future - especially when that future came with a three week expiration date.
June 22nd, 2016, Charlotte, North Carolina, 3:25 a.m.
"I think you and I should have a little chat."
"Now?" spluttered Faith around a mouthful of toothpaste as the King of Hell appeared behind her in the motel bathroom mirror. White flecks sprayed out of her mouth and all over the splotched porcelain sink.
"Yes."
"Okay." After spitting into the sink, the Slayer wiped the toothpaste off her chin with a hand towel. She spun around and crossed her arms over her chest in a purposefully defensive posture. Better to face the demon head on than his mirror image. Flossing could wait. "Shoot."
"Little bird gave me a tip about a town thirty miles or so from here with an overactive blood-sucking problem," said Crowley conversationally.
Faith raised her eyebrows. "Why did you come to me? That's not my gig anymore. I'm permanently retired." But something deep inside her twinged unpleasantly as she said it - whether it was nostalgia or guilt, the Slayer couldn't tell the difference.
"Well," drawled Crowley, in tones of 'we shall see.' "As you may or may not have noticed, our mutual friend has a temper. And rather like a recalcitrant dog, that temper requires periodic release. Your little hotel room brawl was merely a taste of what he is capable of. For the good of everyone - you, me, darling Dean himself - someone needs to take that puppy for a run."
The Slayer frowned at him in quiet skepticism. She spit another gob of toothpaste into the sink and said nothing.
"Here." He passed a piece of paper across the bathroom counter to her. An address was scribbled in red ink in the right-hand corner. "Think on it."
June 22nd, 2016, Stanley, North Carolina, 7:30 p.m.
"Where are we going?"
"I already told you." Faith glanced away from the wheel just long enough to roll her eyes in the demon's direction.
Dean grit his teeth. Right. Some podunk place in the middle of nowhere with a stupid redneck name that he had already forgotten. The Slayer had not said much when she had pick-pocketed his car keys and strong-armed him into riding shotgun, other than a quick flash of a grin and a single word: vampires.
"I mean," he started again in an attempt to regain control. "Why - why are we going?"
"Because I need to make sure this new body works as well as the old one did," she explained patiently. "And throwing a couple of punches at a couple of dumbass Winchesters does not count as a proper test drive."
"If it's a test drive you're looking for . . . " he hinted suggestively.
Too busy squinting at the upcoming road signs, she didn't bother with a truly barbed rebuttal. "Ask me again after we finish this. Does that look like it says 'Green Acres' to you?"
"Like the old TV show?" Dean gave the wooden placard a hard stare. It was now barely fifty feet away. "Yeah, that's it."
"Great." With a smooth twist of the steering wheel, the Slayer turned into the pot-hole filled drive leading to the trailer park. She slowed down when she came to a concrete speed bump and then swung a left into the park proper.
This was not Faith's favorite kind of haunt for vampire hunting - she preferred old-fashioned Southern cemeteries, closely followed by abandoned factories where she didn't need to worry about people screaming. She did not enjoy hunting down a fang gang in a dilapidated trailer park surrounded by biker gang rejects and poor families with too many mouths to feed . It was an odd place for vamps to set up shop - the only thing going for it was that at least in places like these, nobody asked too many impertinent questions.
"Can you do this quietly?" she asked the demon beside her as she turned the keys in the Impala ignition and began walking casually towards their target - a ramshackle double-wide three slips down.
Closing his door, Dean chuckled. "Where's the fun in that?" He draped an arm around around her shoulders, a mockery of their earliest vampire-baiting evenings out.
"Not in the mood to get dragged off to the clink by the boys in blue," Faith warned him as the hilt of the First Blade on his hip bumped into her still-healing ribs. "I'm not asking for subtle. Just a little less . .. loud."
"I thought you liked loud." Somehow, he managed to pull off lascivious with one quirked eyebrow and the undercurrent of suggestion in his voice.
"Not in a neighborhood with kids." Growing up, Faith's tenement neighborhood in Boston had been the urban equivalent of this place. She had no desire to bring any more violence into the lives of children like her.
"Softie."
"Oh, you know me, honey bear," she bantered back, not without a caustic edge. "Soft-hearted to the core."
To Faith's surprise, this whole ruse was oddly comfortable. Despite the tension that she could feel thrumming through Dean's arm and shoulder into her skin, it was almost like old times.
At the outskirts of the gravel drive leading to the vampires' trailer, they separated. With a look and a nod, they divvied up assignments. Dean slipped around to the back while Faith tugged the neckline of her tank top lower and approached the front door. She knocked twice and waited for the door to open.
When a thin man with piercing dark eyes answered the door, the Slayer asked innocently, "Hey neighbor, I just moved in a few trailers off the other way. Any chance I can borrow a cup of sugar?"
As she looked the vampire at the door up and down, her skin crawled with gooseflesh. Faith always knew. She couldn't have said how - ancient occult blah blah blah - but she could always pick a vampire out of the crowd. Plus, the faint hint of blood and decay smothered in bleach fumes wafting through the open door made it a lot easier.
"Mind if I come in?" said Faith jauntily, after the vampire failed to answer her first question. Without waiting for a reply, she yanked the stake out of the waistband of her leather pants and plunged it into his heart.
The vampire exploded in a cloud of dust, and she stepped neatly inside the trailer before the screen door could swing closed on his ashes. She was standing in a cramped, narrow hallway piled with muddy boots and sandy flip-flops. From somewhere further in, she could hear the vague noises of two people getting friendly. The Slayer padded down the peeling linoleum to the trashed-out living room and the locked back door. Faith opened the door, creaking on its hinges, and the demon stepped through.
After taking one glance at the gray ash liberally coating her shoulders and chest, he grinned. "Couldn't wait to start without me?" Dean swung the side of his jacket back and pulled out his best new donkey jawbone friend.
Faith spared him the briefest of smiles, and then she tilted her head back. "Honey," she called out, "I'm home."
Footsteps pounded along the hallway as four vampires came rushing out of the bedrooms at a dead sprint. They skidded to a halt when they saw Faith and Dean.
"Slayer," hissed the oldest and the most cosmopolitan-looking of the lot. His mouth was crowded with yellow fangs. "There's only one of you with dark hair who carries a stake and travels with a lumberjack. Word on the street was that you died, Lehane."
Faith bared her teeth in a wolfish snarl. "I came back."
"You have got to quit with the small talk," complained Dean, rolling his eyes, and he launched himself at the closest vampire.
Originally, the Slayer had planned to do nothing after staking the first vampire and letting the demon into the building. She just wanted to lean up against the plasterboard wall and watch him go to town on their sorry asses. But when the oldest of the vamps rushed her, Faith forgot all intentions of dodging.
She allowed him to tackle her, to take her down onto the scratchy carpet, just so that she could have the sheer, furious pleasure of locking her legs around him and flipping them a hundred and eighty degrees, then pummeling his face over and over and over again until her knuckles were bloody and his jaw was busted. Only after that did she finally slam her stake into his heart.
When she pushed herself off the ashy carpet and looked up, Dean was lounging on the living room couch, three piles of dust lying scattered at his feet. He smirked at her. "Nice moves there, She-Hulk."
"Shut up." Faith crossed the carpet and jerked him up to a stand by his jacket collar. She kissed him once, harsh and aggressive, and when she pulled away, the edge of his lip was bleeding. Shaking her head like a dog after a bath, she stepped backwards.
"G-d," she said, more to herself than to the demon or the piles of dust. "I have got to get laid. Not -" She held up a hand to silence him. "Not by you, champ. All I need you to do is to get your ass back into the Chevy, and we'll go find me a bar and a random." The slayer stumbled towards the door, muttering to herself as she went, "I really need to get this out of my system."
June 22nd, 2016, Charlotte, North Carolina, 10:42 p.m.
"Oh crap. Oh, crap. Oh, crap." Stumbling through the cramped motel room - too many damn go bags on the floor - the Slayer rushed into the bathroom where Dean was currently washing his hands. She had been halfway through shaking the ash out of her bra, considering which of her new outfits would get her the best bang the fastest, when the nausea slammed into her like a freight train.
"What?" snapped the demon peevishly.
"Move!" Shoving him out of the way, Faith threw back the toilet lid just in time to projectile vomit into the basin.
Dean watched the swirl of orangeish yellow liquid as it disappeared down the drain with the toilet flush. He half-imagined that he could visualize individual chunks. Skipping the preliminaries, he asked, "What did you eat?"
"The Chinese leftovers out of the mini-fridge, right before we left for Green Acres. I thought that since they were less than twenty-four hours old, and they'd only sat in the car for a few hours before they made it into the fridge . . . and I was starving. . . I thought it would be okay." She slid from a crouch into a kneeling position on the tiled floor, bracing her elbows on the cool porcelain of the toilet.
The demon chuckled. "Have fun with your food poisoning. I'm gonna go get laid." Out of curiosity, he laid the back of his hand against her forehead. "You've got a temp, Rambo. Try not to pass out and drown in the toilet?"
"Ungh," mumbled the Slayer, rising onto her knees as another wave of bile surged in her throat.
Still laughing, he went out.
Dean had had zero intention of returning to the motel before morning, but shortly after making plans with a petite brunette, he realized that the Slayer still had his damn car keys from their fanged field trip earlier in the evening. He was left with no recourse but to troup gamely back across the parking lot to retrieve them.
When he entered the motel room, he took one look at the empty beds and followed the silence back into the bathroom. The Slayer was still lying where he had left her two hours before, and by the looks of things, she hadn't heeded his advice about passing out. Her chin was resting on the edge of the toilet seat, her arms slack at her sides. He could hear her breathing, slowly but steadily.
The demon exhaled. He had no desire to deal with this right now, not when Ashley or Ashleigh or Ashlee was waiting for him back at the bar. "Slayer," he said gruffly, "wake up."
His hand closed over her shoulder, and he pulled her back from the can. Faith's eyes fluttered open and then shut, and her head slumped forward, her chin drooping down to her chest. Her face was splattered in partially dried vomit, reaching all the way up into her hairline.
"G-ddamn you," Dean grumbled. "I ain't got the time for this."
Leaning the woman back against his legs, he reached over to the sink and rinsed out a wash rag. He scrubbed the junk off of her face with brutal efficiency and then peeled her tank top up and over her head to get at the puke that had leaked below the neckline. As he ran the washcloth over her collarbones and the tops of her breasts, the Slayer opened her eyes for real this time.
"Why are you here?" she mumbled.
"You and food poisoning," grunted Dean, hoisting her to her feet. "Not quite the kind of horror movie remake I was wanting to watch tonight."
"Why?" repeated Faith weakly.
Feigning sincerity, the demon professed, "You know us knights. Always have a thing for damsels in distress." He snorted at her disbelieving expression. "I needed my damn keys."
"Oh." That was an answer that she could accept.
"Can you stand?"
She attempted to straighten out her legs and almost nose-dived into the toilet bowl.
"Never mind," grunted the demon, reaching under her knees and shoulders to lift her easily in his arms like a child. He carried her through the bathroom door to deposit her on the closest queen-sized bed.
First things first. Dean dug his keys out of the pockets of the Slayer's leather pants, and then he wrestled them off of her. Leaning over, he grabbed the first discarded t-shirt from the floor and manhandled her into it. She was too useful to leave lying around in her underwear and bra in a motel room where Crowley might walk in at any moment.
Her clothes taken care of, he yanked the covers up to the Slayer's chin and propped her upright on the entire room's set of pillows. The demon piled the extra comforter on top of her and then set the empty ice bucket on the mattress. Finally, he said, "A little bad rice isn't gonna kill you. Don't sh-t the bed, all right?"
And without another word, he left.
The sound of the motel room door creaking open startled Faith out of her food-poisoning induced haze. She blinked, and a familiar side-burned face swam into view from halfway across the room.
"How was the field trip?" inquired Crowley.
Faith knew that he had an agenda. The King of Hell always had an agenda. But right now, she was too hazy with nausea and her extensive sunburns to figure out what that agenda was. "Fine."
"All vampires went poof?" He seemed genuinely concerned.
"Yup."
"You're rather monosyllabic this evening," he observed.
"Sick."
The King of Hell wrinkled his nose. "I suppose that explains why the bathroom reeks of bile."
"Ungh." Shivering, the Slayer reached out for her bucket. She dry-heaved into the empty plastic liner and set the bucket back on the nightstand. She was vaguely aware of the television turning on, and then she fell back asleep.
June 23rd, 2016, Charlotte, North Carolina, 8:27 a.m.
Many hours later, Dean swiped his key card outside the motel room and shouldered the door open. He entered to find his new "bestie" and his former "bestie" sharing a bed and watching what looked like some period drama nonsense on the television.
"You two look cozy," he commented.
"View of the screen was better over here," Crowley justified himself. "And demons can't get sick."
Toeing off his shoes by the door, the demon cocked his head to the side in consternation at the TV. "What the hell is this? BBC America?"
"Peaky Blinders," answered Crowley. The Slayer merely continued to stare at the black rectangle mounted by the wall with glassy, slowly blinking eyes.
Dean frowned at the man on the screen in his pageboy cap and weird haircut. "That's the dude from Batman," he observed out loud. ". . . the Scarecrow. Crazy-looking mother-frakker."
"He's hot," countered both Faith and Crowley in unison.
"Uh huh. Not gonna lie, you two agreeing kinda freaks me out." The show didn't look too terrible, however. "Scoot over."
At the malevolent glare the Slayer sent him, he added, "Don't worry. I rinsed off at hers." He flopped onto the mattress on Faith's other side and checked her forehead again. "Fever's better. You should be back to murdering fangs by tomorrow."
"Ungh." The bed dipped with his weight, and Faith slid towards the side, her head falling onto his shoulder.
"You passing out on me, Slayer?" Dean asked.
"Warm," came the terse response.
Odd. He had left her wrapped up in the second comforter. "Where's your extra blanket?"
She managed to mount a full sentence in response, complete with subject and verb. "Crowley stole it."
The demon in question shrugged. "I am the King of Hell," he reminded them. "Not a nursemaid. You might want to keep your expectations realistic."
"Mmm." He allowed the Slayer to lean against him for a moment and then he pushed her over onto Crowley. Unimpressed, Crowley pushed her right back.
This time, Dean allowed Faith to remain slumped against his side, half-asleep with her shoulder digging into the side of his arm. He could feel the other demon's amused stare on the back of his neck. Damn him. Dean was beginning to grow more than a little fed-up with the whole thing - Crowley sending demons after him; him pretending not to notice; and now, the cherry on top - the Slayer.
Initially, he had only seen her in terms of opportunity, usefulness, and amusement. Now, with her over-hot skin pressing on his, he marveled at how easy it was to fall back into old patterns.
He needed her - it would make the eventual split with Crowley go much smoother - but that did not mean that he needed to be nice to her. For whatever reason, habit was harder to break with the Slayer than it had been with his brother. Maybe because he had far fewer negative memories associated with Faith Lehane than he did with his brother. And as loathe as he was to admit it, it was far too easy to feel something beyond indifference for her.
Faith Lehane had never betrayed or abandoned him. Faith Lehane did not crown herself with a halo of sanctimoniousness. Faith Lehane did not need him to pick up the shattered pieces that she left in her wake. Faith Lehane did not need him for anything.
They got on. They had always gotten on. And objectively, Dean could admit that she was funny, clever, and good in a fight. Also much hotter than half the women he slept with these days.
Ironic, he thought, how she was the one thing from his old life that he didn't mind keeping around. He was the same person he had always been, just a little less tethered down. He was beginning to get the impression that perhaps she was, too.
The Slayer mumbled something unintelligible, and Dean was reminded briefly the look of complete satisfaction on her face when she had staked that vamp. He glanced back from the TV to the Slayer. In sleep, she was unusually still. He would keep this thing going, just until the nonsense with Crowley petered out and he no longer needed her. And then?
Well, Dean would cross that particular bridge when he came to it.
"Let's stay put today," he suggested when the next commercial break came around, and he felt the need for a distraction. "I saw these triplets at the bar yesterday . . . they had plans with their parents but they said they would be free tonight."
"Triplets?" Crowley smiled. "Do go on . . . ."
Faith spent the rest of the day sleeping and watching television. Every now and then, she woke to find either Dean or Crowley flopped on the bed next to her and the channel changed. When they went out near the end of the evening to party with their adventurous triplets, Dean left her with a two-liter of ginger ale and a pack of saltines.
When she next woke, the bright light of morning was streaming through the motel mini-blinds, and the demons still had not returned from their wild night. The Slayer showered, dressed, and put on fresh eyeliner. Then Faith grabbed the motel room notepad and a pen, and she began to brainstorm.
At the top of the page, she wrote three names: Abbadon, Crowley, Winchester. Faith stared at the last name on the list, chewing the cap of her pen. She doodled aimless spirals across the page and tried for introspection. It was not something that came naturally to her, but she had had plenty of opportunity to practice in the Veil.
Somehow, she had gotten herself roped into whatever scheme the King of Hell was concocting at the moment. This had not been the plan. Strictly speaking, of course, Faith had never had an actual plan. There had been glimmers - she wanted to see hot springs and mountains and do someone on the watching deck of the Old Faithful Inn while the geyser went off - but nothing very structured. She gnawed on the end of her pen, stared at the angel blade sticking out of her open duffel bag, and thought.
Eventually, she came to a turning point. The easy way out would be the same way that she had come in - taking off in a stolen car. But there might be a more elegant way to solve this, one that didn't result in living on the run. Faith figured that she could compromise - at the very least for a week or so.
As much as the idea of hot men and hot springs entranced her, there was something to be said for the way she had felt taking out the vampires - pure, unbridled exhilaration that she had not felt in ages.
So. A Slayer could die and come back, but she would still be a Slayer. The knowledge, the urges, the needs - to dance with danger, to destroy or to be destroyed - did not go away. She was a nihilist living in an absurdist's body. And that, Faith thought, was a good thing to know.
But this time, she reminded herself, things were different. There were no rules or governing body of old white men. There was no judgement, no Buffy. This time, there was only Faith.
This time, Faith was free.
June 24th, 2016, Charlotte, North Carolina, 2:15 p.m.
Her stomach was still untrustworthy, and so while Dean downed a giant bowl of triple chili (meat, beans, spaghetti) over lunch in one of Guy Fieri's suggested diners and Crowley tore into a BLT that was more bacon than anything else, Faith stuck to a boring PB&J. After she finished her sandwich, she stepped into the bathroom to wash the sticky jam off of her hands. As she turned off the water, she glanced over her shoulder to see Crowley.
"You were right," Faith said calmly, choosing not to mention the demon's penchant for cornering her in restrooms. "He needed that hunt the other night."
"Pardon the schoolboy response, but I did tell you so."
She scrubbed at the vampire ash still stuck beneath her fingernails. "I almost wonder if I needed it more," admitted the Slayer with calculated honesty.
"I had wondered," Crowley said neutrally.
Glancing up from her hands, Faith decided to be direct. "Look, next time you hear of a town with a vampire problem, you just let me know."
"And why would I have information about vampire . . . issues?"
"Uh huh." The Slayer dried her hands on a paper towel and crumpled it up into a little ball. "I know what you're trying to do here, Crowley."
"Excuse me?"
"Using me as your demon boy fluffer. You want me to keep him happy, keep him just this side of homicidal. I don't care why," she added sharply before he could interject. "Hey, this is as decent a gig as I've ever had: free food, free booze, free lodging, a demon to beat the sh-t out of whenever I need to . . ."
Crowley's eyebrows crept up to his forehead. "You expect me to believe that Dean lets you do that? Beat the sh-t out of him."
The Slayer smiled. It was not a friendly smile. "Handsome, nobody lets me do anything."
"Why are you interested in staying?"
Faith shrugged. "Where would I go?"
To that, he had no answer.
After a beat of silence, the Slayer continued, her voice businesslike. "So anyway, my point was that
you don't need to get all secretive. Just give me an address and a sit-rep, and if I feel like it, I'll take a road trip and invite ol' Black Eyes along, okay?"
"I suppose we have an agreement, then."
"Yeah," said Faith. "I s'pose we do."
Although unspoken, the mutual words for now did not go unheard.
June 28th, 2016, Morristown, New Jersey, 9:54 p.m.
There were places, mused Faith, where the cold hand of Time never left its chilly fingerprints. Places content to ignore the rest of the universes. Places that would survive Armageddon, Ragnarok, and the Second Coming. Places, thought Faith, like demon bars.
Partying in Charlotte turned into partying in Richmond turned into Gettysburg turned into Baltimore turned into Trenton, and now here she was, slinking through the wavy glass front door of yet another demon haunt. It had been a full three days of riotous living since her food poisoning fiesta. Faith had screwed strangers twice a day - in a different city every time. She had eaten her weight in cheesesteak sandwiches and crabcakes, and she had taken out a new nest of vampires every night. Wherever Crowley was getting his information from, it was clearly working.
Tonight, however, she needed a break from the constant stench of testosterone and sulfur, and even watching Hell's King and latest Knight flinch whenever she coughed the word "Christo" got boring after a while.
Faith used the lone motel visitor's computer to log into an ancient email account and track down an email that Spike had sent her forever ago of his friend Clem's top 10 demon bars in every state. With a few destinations in mind, she liberated the spare key from beneath the license plate of the Impala and took off.
It was a forty-minute drive to the first place on her list. Faith parked the Chevy a few blocks away from the bar and zipped her leather jacket up to her collar. She had a stake in her boot and the angel blade strapped to her hip, and a half-formed idea. Tonight, she would get to the bottom of the Abaddon problem - or at least have an enjoyable few hours trying.
The Slayer pulled open the heavy wooden door and strolled inside the bar. The interior was packed with things with horns, things with scales, things with horns and scales. Not to mention vampires. There were always, always vampires. She sidled up to the bar and clambered onto a rickety bar stool.
"Tequila." She gestured at the bartender, who appeared more or less human. "Extra lime."
"Sure thing."
When the shot arrived, Faith swallowed it down and tapped on the counter for another. "More."
"Easy, sugar," said the bartender, but he poured her glass up to the top. "You wanna think about taking it slow?"
"No." Faith downed her second shot and motioned for a third. "Less talk, more alcohol."
"This isn't the kinda place you want to get intoxicated, sweetheart." The man (if he was a man. With certain species of demon, it was difficult to tell) was clearly trying to be helpful. "The company ain't always friendly."
Faith tossed back her third drink. "I'm not worried."
"In that case, what are you, then?" It was generally considered the height of impropriety to ask your customers this sort of question, but demon bars had never yet been know for their propriety. The bartender continued, "Vampires, succubus - "
"Slayer." Faith cut him off.
"Oh!" He took a half-step back, already reaching for the panic button under the bar.
"Cool it," ordered the woman. "I'm not here to paint the walls with blood. Just looking for the pals of a dead demon called Abaddon - and enjoying all your lovely free booze, of course."
"Frreeee - " began the bartender. It wasn't clear what shocked him more: a Slayer or the concept of patrons drinking for free.
"Free," Faith reiterated.
"Of course." His Adam's apple bobbed up and down nervously. "Uh, what did you say your name was?"
"I didn't."
"Oh."
"Strike number one, my fine friend." She reached for the bottle of tequila, and the bartender made no move to stop her. Faith drank directly from the neck of the bottle. Wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she set the tequila back on the counter. "Alright, mister. Start talking."
The bartender's information proved to be accurate. Faith had been loitering outside the Rotten Apple pool hall for less than an hour when her quarry, a tall, bald man in a too-small- suit, exited and took off at a rapid lope across the cracked city pavement, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
Abandoning her post leaning up against a brick wall, the Slayer inhaled deeply. Her nostrils flared as she caught a whiff of sulfur. She hurried after the demon. Game on.
She cornered him in an alleyway three streets over, knocking him off his feet with a powerful kick to the chest. The Slayer dragged the demon back up from the ground and shoved him against the closest building. Holding her pilfered angel blade to his throat, she began her interrogation with a terse, "You fight for Abaddon. Where are the rest of your friends?"
"Like I'd tell you," gasped the demon angrily. "Bitch," he spat into her face.
Henchdemons. It didn't matter what they looked like on the outside. On the inside, they were the same: all snark and no substance. Blind followers of whatever demagogue promised them destruction and power. Shaking her head, Faith pressed the tip of her sword to the hollowed notched where collarbones met sternum. "Y'all have got to work harder on your insults." She reached for her hip flask and unscrewed the cap one-handed, then splashed the contents onto his face.
"Ahh!" screamed the demon as boils erupted where the droplets of holy water struck him.
With a feral grin, Faith tucked the flask into the back pocket of her jeans. "Now," she increased the pressure on the angel blade until a thin trickle of scarlet blood blossomed where celestial steel met skin, "I'm not big on the whole repeating myself schtick, so I'll only ask this one more time: where are your friends?"
The demon opened his mouth, perhaps to squeal on his compatriots - more likely to spit or curse her again - but he was cut off by the warning squeal of a police siren and the sudden glare of headlights. The Slayer risked a glance over her shoulder. A police cruiser was turning into the mouth of her alleyway, its window slowly rolling down with an ominous creak.
"G-ddammit," Faith exhaled. They had just been getting into the swing of interrogation.
"Ha," snorted the demon.
A black megaphone protruded through the cruiser's open window. "Ma'am, this is the Morris County Sheriff's department. Put your hands up - slowly - and step away from the victim."
"I do not have time for this," said Faith. She tightened her grip on the angel blade hilt and shoved it forward and up, up, up through the demon's eyes. His eyes flashed with red flame as he died. The Slayer jerked her sword loose, and his body crumpled to the muddy gravel at her feet.
Hands held above her head, the bloodied angel blade dripping blood down onto her leather jacket, the woman revolved slowly on the spot to face the police car. "Here we go," she muttered under her breath.
Halfway through her revolution, something collided into her belly with a starburst of pain. Faith recognized the projectile as it bounced onto the ground. Seriously? Bean bags? She had just stabbed someone to death, and they were shooting her with bean bags? The Slayer dropped to her knees, still keeping her hands up high. Since they were going to arrest her, she might as well cooperate so that things got out of hand. Killing demons gave her an adrenaline kick. Killing humans, however, was rather more taboo.
Desirous to avoid bloodshed, she stayed silent and cooperated while the two police officers wrestled her to the wet earth, twisted her arms behind her back, and slapped a pair of handcuffs onto her, reading her rights in shouted voices. Faith allowed them to push her facedown onto the hood of the cruiser and go through her pockets. Their search resulted in the flask of holy water, a spare key to the Impala, fifty bucks cash, and a tube of red lipstick. At least she had left her wallet and its fake ID back in the Chevy.
The Slayer continued to keep her cool when the officers shoved her unceremoniously into the back seat of the car. She kept her eyes wide open, waiting for a decent chance to escape. Faith had no desire to murder civilians, but she also had no desire to return to prison. She would play it by ear and seek out the first opportunity to get the Hell out of Dodge.
It was unfortunate, she reflected, as the burlier of the two policemen dragged her out of the cruiser and marched her into the gleaming police station and its less-than-gleaming interrogation room. If Dean hadn't been such a douchebag that afternoon, she might have told him where she was heading. As it was, neither Dean nor Crowley knew anything of her whereabouts. Although it was likely safer for the policemen that way. Of the three of them, Faith was the most inclined to be merciful.
She waited in the empty room with its off-white walls for ten minutes before a rumpled detective with sandy brown hair came charging in. He eyed her handcuffed hands, still stained with the demon's blood, and pulled up a chair on the opposite side of the well-worn wooden table.
"Name?" he asked without preamble, not even bothering to introduce himself.
"Barbra Streisand." Faith couldn't help herself. A smile spread across her face.
"Name?" repeated the detective, this time through audibly gritted teeth.
Oh, pissing him off was going to be far too easy. The Slayer stretched her legs under the table and shifted in her uncomfortable metal chair. "Kate Middleton," she fired back.
"Name?" His eyebrows furrowed as he struggled to keep his cool.
"Liza Minelli."
Metal scraped against the concrete floor as the detective shoved his chair backwards and loomed over the interrogation table. "NAME?!" he demanded, completely losing his temper.
Faith's smile widened. "Would you accept Beyoncé?" she inquired innocently.
Someone knocked at the door, and the detective stepped over to answer it, his shoulders heaving with frustration. After briefing conferring with his colleague in the hallway, he closed the door with excessive force and spun on his heels to sneer down at her, his expression smug and triumphant, a thick, new folder in his hands.
"We found a match for your fingerprints in the computer. Welcome back to the justice system, Ms. Lehane."
"Aw, shucks." The Slayer lifted her wrists off the table as far as the chain would permit. "Guess now you know who I am."
Not that it'll help you keep me, she thought to herself.
"I don't think you understand the seriousness of this situation."
A classic cop line, delivered with less-than-average panache. Faith yawned.
"You realize we have you dead to rights on murder one?" continued the detective, who had yet to introduce himself. "Which will also cause your prior sentence from California to be reinstated in full?"
She would not be staying that long. The Slayer flipped him off. "Up yours, pig."
"You need to take this more seriously, Ms. Lehane. If you cooperate, things will go easier for you."
It was like he was reciting the lines from some bad Jack Reacher novel. Faith leaned forward in her seat. "And if I don't?" she asked lightly. "You gonna send me up the river to Sing Sing."
"Sing Sing is in New York." The words were strangled. "This is New Jersey."
Faith shrugged. "Sucks to be you."
"You can be as sarcastic as you want, Miss Lehane, but it doesn't change the facts. In three hours, soon as transport gets here, you are headed for the max security women's penitentiary - and you'll rot there until your trial."
A timeline, huh? She could work with that. If she remembered correctly, there was a safety pin clipped to the inside of her left bra cup. As soon as minor league Law-and-Order here stepped out of the room, she could fish it loose and start working on the cuffs. Provided there were no interruptions, she reckoned she could bend the bars at the high window, punch through the glass, and wiggle her way out in three minutes flat. Losing the angel blade and the car key kind of blew, but she knew her way around hotwiring an engine. It wouldn't stop her for too long.
The Slayer was halfway through calculating the tensile strength it would take to rip her cuffs out of their chained attachment to the table when the familiar ricochet of gunfire echoed throughout the small police station. The color drained from the detective's face. "Don't go anywhere," he said automatically, pulling his sidearm from its holster. "I'll be right back."
Once the door closed behind him, Faith scooted even further forward, until her hands could reach inside the wide collar of her t-shirt and unhook the safety pin from the fabric of her bra. She opened the pin and then gripped it in her teeth, contorting her body in order to stick the sharp end inside the handcuff keyhole. Thirty seconds after she started working, all gunfire ceased. A moment later, the interrogation door was kicked open.
Dean Winchester strolled in, his green eyes smirking out at her from the depths of a black ski mask. Faith would recognize those bowlegs and that silver-plated handgun anywhere. "Get up," commanded Dean, tugging the ski mask off his face. "We gotta run."
"All the girls in the world, and you came back for me," she said drily, rising to her feet. "I'm flattered. How'd you find me?"
"Crowley's got eyes on everyone," he answered in a curt voice. The demon fished a handcuff key out of his pocket and released her. He gave the Slayer a push towards the door. "Move it, sweetheart."
They ran through the police station, the cheap government-issued carpet now scattered with cops, detectives, and other employees, all clutching their shot-out knees or otherwise out cold. Faith paused just long enough to grab her things from the detective's desk - why throw away a perfectly serviceable angel- and demon-killing sword? - and then they were out in the dark city. She followed Dean over a chain-link fence, through a twenty-four-hour laundromat, and across two floors of a parking garage until they came to the Impala.
"You moved the car, too?" she wondered as he slid behind the wheel and the motor roared to life.
When he remained silent, she decided to hold onto her next question. Ultimately, half an hour and thirty-five miles passed before she spoke again. "Why did you show up back there, Dean? Nothing in it for you, rescuing me."
"You snore less than Crowley does. Plus, out of the two of you, you have the better boobs."
Faith stared at him for a brief moment, considering. Then she said, "Pull over."
"What?" He gawked at her in surprise. "Might have escaped your notice, Your Zombieness, but we're kinda on the run from the cops right now."
"Dean." Her hand snaked along the inseam of his jeans, working its way past his knee and upwards. "I mean, pull over so I can say thank you."
He instantly began scanning the road beside them for the next turn-off. "I thought you didn't do monsters," Dean hazarded.
"I don't," said Faith. "But in this case, I can make an exception."
"You're late." The demon on the other end of the line was unimpressed.
"Ran into trouble - the thin blue line kind." Dean glanced across the front seat of the Chevy to the Slayer, who was once again employing her uncanny ability to fall asleep anywhere at any time. After their pit-stop in the woods, she had lapsed into one of her funks, and he knew better than to try and talk her out of it before she was ready. Besides, he was still busy replaying the memory of that pit-stop in his mind. "Thoughts on Nebraska?" he asked Crowley.
"I suppose it might be better than West Virginia."
He didn't disagree. West Virginia did not make it into Dean Winchester's list of top twenty-five states. "Good. We'll meet you in Lincoln."
"Agreed," purred the King of Hell silkily. "Oh, and Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"Next time, don't be late."
June 29th, 2016, Lebanon, Kansas, 6:30 p.m.
When the caller ID said Lily Price, Sam should have known better than to answer the phone. He hadn't spoken to either of the Slayers in weeks, not since Dean had died. He couldn't bring himself to ask them for help – not when that help always came with so many Slayer strings. And then when the fit hit the shan with the five o'clock news this afternoon . . . accepting Lily's call had not been a good idea. Instead, it was one that he regretted.
"Sam," said Becka, her usually calm voice vibrating with rage, "why is there footage of Faith and Dean breaking out of a county jail in the middle of New Jersey? I thought you killed all the Leviathans."
"Uh . . . about that . . . " He mumbled the bare bones of how Faith had been first a ghost and then not a ghost, and was now gone. Along the way, he filled them in on the sensitive subject of Dean and the Mark of Cain.
"YOU MEAN SHE'S ALIVE?" yelled Lily into the phone. Sam winced. "She's been alive for a week, and you didn't tell us?! And now she's off with your Knight of Hell brother doing God knows what?"
"We're going to have to tell Buffy," Becka muttered, almost to herself. "That Faith's back and . . ."
"And if the newsreels are telling the true story, she's gone bad."
"Yeah."
"Buffy's gonna flip."
"Basically."
Lily cleared her throat, ending the side conversation. "Tell you what, Sam. We'll set our people onto this. We'll call you later. The Slayers will handle everything."
"But -"
Becka laughed without humor. "There may be some black-eyed bug riding around in your brother's skin these days, but don't worry. We'll take care of it. You just stay out of this."
"But – "
"Out. Of. It."