Christmas Kisses

Disclaimer – Don't own anything you might recognize. They all belong to their respective owners.

Christmas Kisses

The early morning was more than beautiful, despite the close to freezing temperature. The just rising sun cast a sparkle on the snow blanketed ground, and the chilled air was fresh and clear. The only source of movement came from the flap of wings, or the scurry of little paws.

Deafening silence filled the air. Silence that was only broken by the sound of pounding feet on the icy ground as two young women jogged side by side, each smirking as they tried to best each other in speed.

"So, I was thinking," Buffy called, panting only a little.

"About what?" Faith replied.

"Christmas."

"What about it?"

Buffy spotted a frost covered bench up a head of her, and gestured towards it. Faith nodded, and followed Buffy over, stopping in front of it to stretch out her leg muscles.

Buffy flopped down, ignoring the icy coldness that seeped into her jogging shorts.

"It's next week," she answered finally.

"So?"

"I was thinking we could do something for it. Something holidayish. Go somewhere, you know? Like, demon free."

Faith paused and raised her eyebrows in surprise. "You don't wanna go to Cleveland?"

Buffy shrugged. "Nah. I mean, I thought about it and all, but I'm not really ready to head back that way yet. I just have this feeling that once I go back, they'll make it hard for me to leave again."

Faith gave a nod of understanding and went back to her stretches. "Well, I guess we could talk to the guys about it when we get back to the motel. We've been working hard these past couple of months. We deserve a break." And she probably would have agreed to anything after Buffy had admitted that she didn't want to go back to Willow and Xander and the others just yet. "Thinking of anywhere in particular."

"I don't know. Somewhere warm, maybe?"

"You want to spend Christmas somewhere warm? What about the snow? Isn't snow a part of getting into the whole Christmas spirit thing?"

"Guess I'm just missing all those warm Christmas' in Sunnydale. I'm feeling sentimental."

Faith's eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. "I seem to remember it snowing in Sunnydale at Christmas."

"That was like, one time. It was an anomaly."

It would maybe be nice to chill out for a couple of days, Faith mused, as she pondered Buffy's request. The guys would probably kick up a fuss, being the Grinch's of every single holiday known to man and all, but she was pretty sure she and Buffy could swing them. Hell, they'd done it before, plenty of times. "Right then. Somewhere warm it is."

"And demon free. Don't forget demon free."

Faith chuckled, and pulled Buffy to her feet. "Somewhere warm and demon free. Got it."

ARIZONA

"I can't freakin' believe this," Dean grumbled to himself as he sat next to an excited Buffy on an extremely uncomfortable chair in an airport that had clearly never heard of air conditioning. He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and glared over at Sam and Faith, who were sat opposite them and looking like they were about to burst into hysterical laughter at his attitude.

"You look a little stressed, Dean," a highly amused looking Sam commented. "Are you worried about all the big nasty airplanes? Don't worry about them, big bro, they can't hurt you down here."

"Screw you." It actually wasn't the airplanes that were bothering Dean. They only...perturbed him when he was actually in them and they were above ground. The real reason he was in such a foul mood was because they were in the airport, waiting for goddamned Andrew to arrive.

Yeah, Andrew.

Merry screwin' Christmas.

Oh yeah, and Buffy's little sister was coming too. Dawn or whatever. She was on school break and had been spending it in Cleveland so when Buffy had called Andrew to see if he wanted to come join them for Christmas, she had jumped all over it too.

So here they were, waiting for Dawn. And Andrew.

Dean was pretty sure he'd expressly forbidden any visits from Andrew. Ever. Dammit.

He didn't know why they were doing this anyway. Having this whole big Christmas deal. It was ridiculous. But Buffy had pleaded with him and she had used her big eyes and stupid pouty lip and honestly, he couldn't remember the last time he had said no to her for anything. Bitch.

Dean's thoughts were rudely interrupted when Buffy suddenly squealed way too loud and jumped out of her seat, throwing herself towards the arms of a tall, equally loud, brunette girl.

"Dawn!" Buffy yelled delightedly.

Faith stood up, a grin on her face as she moved over towards the girl she hadn't seen in months, and Sam followed her to be introduced.

Dean considered getting up himself but decided against it, opting to forgo the whole chick lit, girly hugging moment. They could all do the soppy crap without him. He closed his eyes and groaned as he anticipated the rest of the holiday, leaning his head back against his chair and wishing with everything he had in him that he could just be invisible.

When he felt something shift in front of him, he opened his eyes and looked up into the smiling face of Andrew.

"Hey, cowboy!"

Dean sank down further into his chair.

Buffy was pissed. So much for a quiet, demon free Christmas. And okay, so maybe there had been no demons. Unless stupid, angry spirits counted as demons.

And yeah, fine, it hadn't exactly been the hardest job ever, but it had been two days before Christmas and it had seriously been close to dampening her holiday spirits.

They'd been on their way back from the airport after picking up Dawn and Andrew when they'd gotten stuck in a traffic jam. After forty five minutes of sitting in the same spot and having to listen to Andrew's endless chatter about Pokemon and Dawn's relentless gushing about Bailey the 'Ohmigod totally hottest, cutest most adorable guy ever and he's like, totally in my class and he sits next to me and last week when he looked at me I almost died!' guy, Dean had harrumphed and bolted from the car, declaring that he was going to find out what was going on. Rolling her eyes at his over dramatic behavior, Buffy had followed.

They had reached the source of the commotion when they had come across a large bridge. Turned out a man had jumped off and killed himself earlier that day. A man who had been newly married, newly promoted, and expecting a child. A man who had been completely happy with his life and had no reason at all to want to end it. Dean had rolled his eyes as he overheard a police officer musing over the fact that the same thing had happened on this exact date every year for the past nine years.

Well if this wasn't a piece of cake.

Once they had gotten out of the traffic jam, they had headed straight for the town library to research the local history. It came as a surprise to no one when they learned that a man had jumped from that bridge, exactly nine years ago. After questioning a few people – and threatening a few more – they had discovered that the man hadn't in fact jumped, he had been pushed. It had been an accident – just a bunch of drunken friends, fooling around. But fun with the guys had ended up with one dead body and his friends, scared and afraid, had pretended that they weren't even with him when he 'jumped'. A quick dose of salting and burning the body later and they were done.

Easy case, easily dealt with.

And Buffy could finally get back to enjoying Christmas. With her family.

"So, is this what you imagined when decided you wanted to celebrate Christmas properly?" Sam asked Buffy, a teasing smile on his face.

She studied her surroundings with a raised brow as she took a sip of her drink.

They were in a bar. A dingy looking bar at that. The kind often frequented by older, hardened men who had no families to go home to. But it had been the only place open on Christmas day and Buffy had insisted on goingsomewhere other than the motel room. And the owner of the bar had clearly made an effort to make the bar less...dingy, and more...Christmassy. Christmas lights and tinsel were wrapped around every available surface, and holiday music was blaring out of an old jukebox. It was surprisingly busy. The regulars had given up their grumpy solitude for the night and had welcomed the six of them with jolly, open arms. And the single barmaid was just as friendly, just as welcoming. In her early forties, with red hair, a stern face and kind eyes, she was being kept busy keeping the men on track, making sure things stayed jolly and that no one had too much to drink. It was the kind of place where bar fights were a regular occurrence, and nobody wanted trouble on Christmas day.

"You know what," Buffy said, grinning back at Sam. "It's even better."

Sam laughed loudly and asked her if she wanted another drink. And planning on being at least pleasantly tipsy by the time the night was out, Buffy agreed. Ever the gentleman, Sam offered to get drinks for the rest of the table, and as he stood up, Dean followed to help him.

Before he left the table, Dean looked over at Buffy and winked. She stuck her tongue out at him and he chuckled quietly as he left. Buffy watched him go, smiling stupidly.

Dawn had seen the whole encounter, and was now watching her sister, a puzzled frown marring her features. She spoke to Buffy regularly on the phone and had been subjected to endless rants about how annoying Dean was and what a jerk Dean was and how stupid his stupid sticky up hair was and why did he have to be such an ass all the time anyway? And sure, lately there had been less Dean talk. In fact, every time Dawn brought up his name to see how it was going Buffy would change the conversation...quickly.

And so the fact that Buffy was gazing at Dean as he walked away with a smile approaching dreamy on her face had Dawn quite the bit confused. Quickly, she glanced over at Andrew, who was busy thumb wrestling with Duncan the builder on the opposite side of the table, and at Faith, who was dancing near the jukebox. Assuring herself that there was no chance of being overheard, she edged closer to her sister and nudged her with her shoulder. "You like him, don't you?"

Buffy's head whipped around so fast that her hair flew right into Dawn's face, giving her a nose full of Herbal Essence. Dawn almost laughed at the way her older sister's eyes widened.

"What?" Buffy hissed. "I don't like Dean! That's stupid! Stupider than stupid. It's...dumb! Incredibly dumb. In fact, the only thing dumber than me liking Dean is...is...is me liking Andrew."

"Yeah, I never said Dean."

Buffy's face dropped. "Oh."

"Busted."

"Have I told you lately how much I hate you?"

"You don't hate Dean though, do you?"

"Dawn, will you quit it? Did you not hear the dumb speech?" Buffy glanced around nervously to make sure that no one could overhear them. "I do not like Dean. I mean, I like Dean, but not like like. I mean...wait, what do I mean?"

"You mean that you want to make naughty monkey love with him and have all of his babies and live in a big castle filled with little mini monkey Buffies and little mini monkey Deans." She frowned and looked down at the almost empty drink in her hand. "And I think that's enough for me," she mentioned, delicately placing her glass down.

"Oh my God, Dawn! What the hell are they teaching you over in England? You know, I don't think that the university over there is good for you. Maybe you should come back home and go to collage here and-"

"Okay, first of all, I'm eighteen. I can do what I want, and no way am I coming home yet. I'm having way too much of a blast over there."

"How much of a blast?" Buffy asked sternly.

Dawn blushed and ducked her head, picking her drink back up and downing it nervously. "Uh...just a...normal amount of blastiness," she uttered in a small voice. Buffy made a mental note to have words with Robin and Gunn as Dawn continued. "Anyway, uh...secondly, stop trying to change the subject. Don't think I don't know what you're doing. I may have been gone a while, but I can still read you like a book. You like him."

Buffy considered fighting her sister some more on the point, but the truth was, she was just so tired of it. Tired of lying to herself, to Faith. Tired of trying to hide those stupid, annoying feelings. Tired of trying to make them go away. She sighed in defeat and leaned her body forwards to bang her forehead against the sticky surface of the table. "Fine. I like him, okay? I like him like, maybe seriously really properly like like him."

Dawn regarded the pathetic display Buffy was putting on and rolled her eyes. "So you like him. What's the problem?"

Buffy lifted her head, grimacing as she tried to wipe away the sticky residue on her cheek. "Faith," she replied, as though the answer should be obvious.

"What about her?"

"What do you mean, what about her? You know she had a thing with Dean."

"You told me they weren't having a...thing, anymore. You said he told you that it had been over for ages."

"So?"

"So that means he's free."

Buffy shook her head. "It's not that simple, Dawn. Imagine if you'd been dating a guy, and then a couple of weeks after you'd broken up you discovered that I was dating him. How would that make you feel?"

Dawn thought about Bailey and grimaced. "Yeesh. You have a point."

"Exactly. I'm doomed. It's a big circle of doomy doomedness. I can't go home because I'm actually kinda happy for the first time in a long time and I'm just so not ready to give that up yet."

"You're happier here than you were in Cleveland? And by here I mean everywhere."

Buffy shrugged helplessly. "I feel like I'm helping people more than I have done since Sunnydale collapsed."

"Go on."

"I just...I just see him every day and gah! I don't even know how this happened! I mean, I didn't even like him at first. He was all annoying and sarcastic and okay we had the whole looking out for our younger sibling in thing in common but it didn't exactly make us best bosom buddies, you know? And then he was just around all the time and I started looking for him whenever I entered a room and actually wanting his company and now my tummy feels all squiggly when he smiles at me and I just like to look at him all the time and then I think, what if Faith sees me? What if she notices me staring and she can tell that I'm totally crushing on her guy like I'm some kind of teenager again? I'm seriously confused."

Dawn nodded slowly. "You really are."

"Not helping, Dawn."

"Not trying to."

"Well try. I need advice from my wise, taller than me sister."

"You wanna know what I think?" Buffy nodded eagerly and Dawn continued. "I think that you should at least talk to him. See how he feels about you. And then if he feels the same, you should talk to Faith. Maybe she'd be okay with it. It's not like she married the guy or anything. They were only doing it for a few weeks, right?"

"Ah, I see you're favoring the mature approach."

Honestly, Dawn's plan did sound sensible to Buffy's ears. It sounded like the kind of thing that normal, rational people did. Thing was, none of them were normal. Or rational. And she just didn't think that Faith would be okay with it. She would see Buffy moving in on her man as some kind of betrayal. "Dawn, I don't think-"

"God, you're such a chicken!"

Buffy paused in surprise. "What?"

"You clearly like this guy, and it's totally freaking you out. That's why you're so scared."

Buffy scoffed. "I'm not scared."

Dawn crossed her arms and pulled the smug expression she had perfected wonderfully over her eighteen years. "Fine, you're not scared. Then prove it."

Buffy opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, trying to come up with some kind of argument. And then suddenly she tensed her jaw and narrowed her eyes. "Fine."

And with a deep breath, she stood up.

Faith was dancing seductively over by the jukebox when she noticed that Dean was no longer sitting at the table. She watched as he and Sam moved over towards the bar, and ran her hands down her body and swayed her hips, waiting for him to look her way. He didn't, though nearly every other male in the room did.

Sam spoke to the barman, and then turned and leaned against the bar next to Dean as he waited for their order. The two brothers spoke softly to each other for a few moments, and Faith wasn't oblivious to the fact that Dean's gaze kept sweeping past his brother and towards the table he had just vacated.

Sam said something to Dean and he nodded, and then Sam began to walk away.

Enough was enough, Faith decided with sudden determination. If she wanted him to notice her, she'd just have to make him notice her. And now was the perfect time to do it.

"Hey, I just have to run to the mens room, okay?" Sam told Dean, as the two of them waited by the bar. "You'll be okay waiting for the drinks?"

Dean nodded. "Sure, whatever, man."

"'Kay. Be right back."

Dean turned back to the bar to wait, and the barman signaled that he was almost done.

And then Dean felt a powerful pair of hands grab a hold of his shoulders and spin him around, pressing his back to the bar once more. Before he could even blink, hands were pulling at his head and a pair of firm, demanding lips were planted securely on his.

For a second, he almost let himself believe that it was Buffy. Almost let himself believe that she was the one kissing him, she was the one who had gotten up and done something that he was seriously lacking in courage to do, even though he kind of wanted to do it more than anything else in the whole world.

But he'd kissed these lips before. He'd smelled this scent before. He'd felt this body pressed up against his before.

Faith pulled back and looked up at him, hunger in her eyes. "Hello, stranger," she murmured, before capturing his lips with hers once more.

Buffy, pushing her way through a crowd of drunken, singing men, placed a hand across her belly, trying to calm down the raging butterflies inside. She was nervous. So nervous that she felt a little bit sick. But in an odd, reassuring way, the nerves were kind of nice. She was doing something that millions of other girls had done. She was just a girl, not a slayer or a hunter. Just a girl, going to tell a guy that she maybe wanted to be with him. It felt normal. It felt good.

She sighed in relief when she finally pushed herself out of the rowdy crowd.

And then she stopped.

"Oh," she breathed, as she spotted Dean not ten feet away from her. Dean. And Faith.

It was stupid, really. That the butterflies inside of her stomach had vanished into the big black hole that had just erupted inside of her, leaving her to feel nothing. To feel numb. It wasn't like she hadn't know about Faith and Dean. Hell, that's what all of her angsty thoughts had been about lately.

But...

Dean had told her that he and Faith weren't together anymore. Not since Cleveland, he'd said. Had he been lying? Or had she just completely gotten a hold of the wrong end of the stick.

Gah! And she had just been about to tell him that she...

God, moving in in your friend's ex was one thing, but if he and Faith were still...

Ignoring the tears pooling in her eyes that she would never allow to fall, Buffy span around and pushed her way back through the crowds, desperate to be anywhere but there.

Finally getting over his shock at Faith's random kiss attack, Dean opened his eyes as he contemplated the best and kindest possible way to push her back and turn her down.

But luck was not on his side, for when he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Buffy, turning and walking away, disappearing into a crowd. There was no doubt in his mind that she had just witnessed Faith kissing him. His entire body went cold.

"Fuck!" he cursed, all ideas of gentleness gone as he pulled away from Faith. She went to grab his shoulders back but he ducked and brushed her hands away.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" she questioned as he turned to leave her. Her voice was low and she was clearly annoyed, but Dean didn't care. Not at that moment.

He was focused on only one thing, and that was finding Buffy and making sure that she didn't think what she had just seen meant anything. He wasn't completely sure why it was so important that he tell her, but he had told her that things with him and Faith were done and goddammit he had thought that it was true.

He rushed in the direction that he had seen her go, cursing the fact that the crowd of merry men had grown so thick. They were huddled together and making movement quite impossible.

But someone must have seen the desperation on his face because they stepped aside, encouraging others to follow suit. With a sigh of relief, he stepped through and managed to continue onwards. Which he did. For about five seconds.

And then he stopped, and he felt all of the color drain from his face as he spied the last thing that he ever wanted to see.

Stood in the middle of the crowd of men were the figures of the two people he knew better than almost anyone in the entire world, save his dad, maybe. But even that was questionable. Who really knew John Winchester?

But that was besides the point.

There was just one point. One stupid, horrible, very sharp point, and it had just been harshly jammed straight into the center of Dean's heart.

Sam and Buffy.

Buffy and Sam.

Kissing.

And by the way that Sam's tongue had just slipped into her mouth, he highly doubted it was just a friendly holiday good cheers kind of kiss.

Dean hated it. He hated it so much that he felt as if there was a fire raging inside of his chest that was about to burst forth and consume everyone in this bar.

He hated that for a moment, he hated Sam, and Buffy, and himself. He hated that he felt so angry and hurt and suffocated, all in the space of a single breath.

This was ridiculous. She wasn't even his girl. She was Sam's, apparently. He wondered if this was a new thing, or if they had been screwing in secret all along, laughing at him behind his back. Which was stupid, he knew, because Sam would never laugh at him or purposely make a fool out of him. And neither would Buffy. And so the anger he was feeling was decidedly unjust. Whatever Sam and Buffy were doing, they weren't doing it to purposely upset him.

Whatever. It still hurt.

There was only one thing he wanted now. Oblivion.

Twirling around, he pushed his way back through the crowds, taking no care to make sure he didn't hurt anyone. He stormed back over towards the bar and shot a single glare at Faith, who had been sat on a stool, waiting where he had left her. He looked away and continue onwards and past her.

"Where are you going?" she called after his back.

"Motel," was his only, curt reply.

"Alrighty then." And she hopped off her bar stool and followed him.

Buffy pushed her way desperately through the crowd, stumbling as her eyesight blurred.

Dammit! She would not cry over this! Dean wasn't hers, and he never had been. Getting upset was stupid, and pointless, and unfair to Dean, Faith and herself. She was acting like a bratty teenager, and she needed to quit it right now. That, and drink an unhealthy amount of alcohol.

Blinking away unshed tears, she glanced down at her feet and her too high boots to make sure she didn't trip over someone's foot while walking. And not watching where she was going, she squeaked in surprise when she walked headfirst into a hard, flat chest.

"Oh crap! I'm sorry!" she cried, as a pair of large hands curled around her upper arms to steady her.

"Buffy? Are you okay?"

Startled, she looked up. It was Sam. Sam was the one she had walked into. At least some things weren't so bad. Nodding, she answered, "Yeah, I'm fine. Peachy. Just wasn't paying attention to where I was going.

He looked skeptical. "Are you sure you're okay? You look upset."

"I always get emotional around holiday time," she lied. She opted for a quick subject change to stop any further interrogations. "What about you? I thought you were getting drinks?"

"I was. I had to go to the bathroom. Dean's waiting on the drinks by the bar. I was just on my way back to him."

A rotund man with a large, whiskery beard sidled up to Buffy and nudged her shoulder. "Look," he spoke, his voice gruff as he pointed up at the ceiling. "Mistletoe. Gonna give me a kiss, little lady?" He smiled toothily and puckered up his lips.

Buffy's eyes widened and she cringed in distaste, until Sam nudged her back a little until they were the ones stood under the mistletoe.

"Actually," he announced with a smile. "I think that kiss belongs to me."

The whiskery bearded man let out a good natured chuckle at Sam's craftiness and nodded in defeat before moving on his way.

Buffy, now smiling in amusement and at how easily the situation had been dealt with, turned to thank Sam for saving her.

He tapped his cheek playfully. "I meant what I said. Kiss belongs to me."

Her heart feeling lighter the longer she spent with Sam, Buffy let out a little giggle and placed her hands on his shoulders, leaning up on her tiptoes to place a well deserved kiss on his cheek. But a short second before her lips found contact, an especially buoyant singer threw out his arms in joy. His movement jostled Sam and caused him to stumble just a little, and instead of catching his cheek, Buffy instead found herself kissing Sam's lips.

They were both completely still for several long seconds, each aware of how awkward the situation had become, and neither quite sure about what to do with it.

And then Sam closed his eyes and moaned a little and deepened the kiss, placing one hand on her back and pulling her closer to him and threading the other hand through her hair.

And Buffy, seeing no reason not to, followed suit. She wrapped her arms around his neck and stood as high as she could, trying to get closer to him. When she felt his tongue press against her lips, she opened her mouth and let him in.

The second his tongue touched hers, both of them pulled away abruptly and took a step back from each other. Their breathing was rapid as they looked into each others eyes, each aware that what they did now had the possibility to change their relationship forever.

And then Sam broke out into a wide grin, quickly followed by Buffy as she burst into an infectious set of giggles.

"That was weird," Sam declared, chuckling at how quickly the tension had left the situation.

"It totally was," she agreed. "Like kissing my brother."

Sam cringed. "Yeah, let's not do that again."

"Definitely not."

They shook their heads and laughed again, before Buffy stepped forwards and pulled Sam into an almost bone crushing hug. "Thank you."

"What for?"

"I was in a totally crappy mood just a minute ago and you've cheered me right up."

He ruffled her hair and kissed the top of her head. "Well then, thank you too."

"Why?"

He looked down at her with a sweet smile. "Because that didn't make me feel guilty at all." After a moment, he looked away from Buffy and glanced over at the bar, his happy smile turning into an annoyed frown. "Where did Dean go? He was supposed to be waiting on the drinks."

Buffy's eyes followed in the direction his were glaring in. He was right, of course. The bar was completely devoid of any signs of Dean. And Faith. And she couldn't see them anywhere else in the room, either. She felt as if she had just been kicked in the stomach with very big boots. "He and Faith must have left already," she replied.

"Together?" Sam was puzzled. He'd thought that Dean's thing with Faith had fizzled out months ago. "Are you sure?"

"I saw them before. They looked pretty...cozy."

Sam stopped looking for his brother and glanced down at Buffy's face. Her voice had been quiet when she answered, and he remembered that she had looked upset just minutes ago. Wisely, he decided that a serious subject change was in order. "Hey, I just had an awesome idea."

"And what would that be, Mr Winchester?"

"I say we go get them drinks, head back to Andrew and Dawn and spend the rest of this Christmas getting really, really drunk."

Buffy grinned. "Now you're talking my language, Sammy, now you're talking my language."