Her Birthday
After an extremely relieved Buffy had finally been released from hospital – or the prison cell, as she taken to calling it – Faith had sat Sam and Dean down and announced that the four of them would be taking a well deserved holiday, somewhere warm and demon free so that Buffy could recover in peace and sunshine. Her tone of voice had left no room for arguments, and Dean, quite unexpectedly, hadn't even tried. He had simply nodded his head in agreement and told Faith that it sounded like a good idea.
Sam, while deep down being slightly put out that the search for their father and the demon would have to be put on hold for a couple of weeks, also recognized Buffy's need for recuperation and after a couple of hours thought, was all for it.
Which was how mere hours after Buffy had arrived back at the motel, the gang found themselves packing up their belongings and heading out on the road to Florida.
Faith was almost childlike in her excitement, thrilled with the idea of going on her first ever real family holiday. Half way there, she had pestered Dean until he had parked up at a large mall, and then dragged he and Sam and Buffy around for at least three hours to purchase all the holiday items she imagined they might need. Dean had tried to draw the line at the giant crocodile lilo, but she had grabbed a hold of his hand and began jumping up and down right there in the middle of the store, whining 'Please, please, please, I need it' until he had finally given up out of sheer embarrassment.
For the rest of the drive, she had demanded that instead of Dean's usual choice of tunes, he play the fun, holiday pop song filled cassettes that she had purchased especially for his totally out of date car. After switching the volume up to the highest it could possibly go, and winding down the windows so that the warm wind was whipping through his hair, even Dean was finding it hard to not catch on to Faith's good humor. And when Faith and Buffy and Sam started singing along to the songs in their loudest, most out of tune voices, he even found himself joining in – to his eternal shame.
By the time they had arrived in Florida, Faith had convinced them that it would be no crummy motel for them for once. In fact, she went as far as insisting on staying in the big hotel on the beach, the one with the gazillion floors and the big, bean shaped pool. And Dean, following in his new pattern of doing the unpredicted, was the first one to agree, although he did insist on getting only one room because the prices were kind of extortionate.
As Dean checked them all in and handed over his fake credit card, Sam had the strangest suspicion that his insistence on getting only one room was more to do with being able to check up on Buffy during the night, rather than a worry over money.
It was perfect.
Everything was perfect. The weather, the hotel, the beach, the people, the surroundings, the demon free environment. It was all perfect.
In fact, it was the simple, carefree holiday that Buffy had always wanted but never quite managed to get – not since before she had been called as the slayer, anyway.
Yet Buffy was perfectly unhappy, though she refused to let it show.
And once again in the never ending circle that seemed to have become her life ever since the day he had barged into it, there was only one man responsible. One stupid, pig headed bastard of a man.
Dean friggin' Winchester.
And it wasn't even as if he was being his usual, argumentative self. That she could handle, quite easily in fact. And he wasn't being rude, either. Or a jerk, or arrogant, or purposely annoying.
He wasn't being anything. Anything at all.
At least not to Buffy.
And there was her problem. She was getting majorly pissed off.
This whole strange new act he had going on had begun right back when they had been watching that film together in the hospital. When it had finished he'd climbed off of her bed, rolling his eyes at the nurse's curt reminder that visiting hours had finished over fifteen minutes ago, and turned to look at Buffy for one long moment. There had been something unreadable in his usually expressive eyes, something inscrutable. But the moment had passed and without a word he had simply kissed her on the forehead and left.
The next day when he and Sam and Faith had arrived to collect Buffy and take her away from the hospital for good, she had noticed straight away that he wouldn't even look at her, let alone speak to her or even acknowledge her presence at all. Shrugging it off, Buffy had just assumed that he was in another famous Dean Winchester strop about something, probably something stupid like Faith using up the last of the syrup at breakfast. But after a while she'd realized that it was only her he was avoiding, and that he was being his usual self with both Faith and Sam. When she'd tried to question Dean about his strange attitude and whether or not she'd done something to upset him in some way, he'd just looked at her a little weirdly and shrugged her questions away, and he'd been going out of his way to avoid her ever since. Even when they were in the car together he would barely spare her a single glance, and once they'd arrived in Florida he'd make a point of leaving a room whenever she entered it.
She was confused. She didn't understand what she'd done wrong or why he had suddenly seemed to stop caring about her very existence, and it was hurting. It was hurting her much more than any argument they'd ever had and Buffy honestly wasn't sure how much more of it she could take.
He'd almost lost her.
It was true. If Dean had arrived at the hospital a mere couple of minutes later with Buffy, she would most likely have bled to death and then he'd have lost her. She'd be dead. The doctors had told him so themselves. He was sure at the time they had meant it reassuringly, and that they were trying to tell him that he'd saved her life in reacting so quickly, but to Dean, it had been an eyeopener. A big one.
He couldn't do it anymore, couldn't keep on...trying to get close to her. Hell, screw the trying part, they were closer than the pages in a closed book. He'd shared more with her than he'd ever done with Sam and his dad, and he was pretty sure she felt the same with him.
So that was what he was left with. Dean couldn't be close with Buffy, because in the end, he'd lose her.
And not even necessarily to death, though that was still a big, wide open possibility – no, probability. One day Buffy was going to realize that hunting – being on the road for hours and hours every day and slumming it in crappy motels with only him and Sam and Faith for company – wasn't the lifestyle she wanted after all, and then she'd go back home to her big fancy school and her crazy bunch of friends and he'd probably never see her ever again because she'd be far too busy to want to have anything to do with him. And while her being home was better than the whole her not being around at all thing, it would still leave him with a very sore heart in the end.
Down another road there was the whole 'her not being around at all thing'. She was a slayer, and led an even more dangerous life than that of a hunter. And yeah okay, she had Faith and all of them other slayers now, but she was the goddamned best. She was always going to be the best, right up until the day she died, and even then she'd be legendary. And as the best, Buffy was always going to be tossed unceremoniously into the deep end, hurled thoughtlessly at the biggest, meanest bad guys. What scared him the most was the thought that one day, he wasn't going to be there to watch her back.
Which is why he had come to the obvious conclusion that the best and only thing he could possibly do was to stay away from her. Distance himself from her both emotionally and physically and avoid all kinds of trouble in the process. Hell, she probably preferred it this way anyway. Any fool knew that if you got close to Dean Winchester, you were gonna end up getting hurt.
He'd even gone as far as deciding that the best possible thing he could do to get over her was to find and sleep with some other hot chick – one who was completely the opposite to Buffy in looks and personality. He was Dean Winchester, for God's sake! This was what he did! In fact, he couldn't honestly figure out why he hadn't done it sooner!
Faith was definitely out of the question – if he went through that door again there'd be even more complications than what he was dealing with now. And to be quite frank, he still wasn't even sure where they stood with each other right now. It was a situation he'd been doing his damned hardest to avoid.
And so that was how he found himself stuck in one of those hip-hoppy bars in Florida on one very warm night – it was the only place he knew that Sam, Faith and Buffy wouldn't bother to look for him in. Attracting a beautiful girl had been no problem for him – he hadn't lost his touch, thank God – and he soon found himself buying a fruity cocktail for Karen, a very sexy collage student. But when Karen smirked and placed a suggestive hand – a hand with long, pointy fingers instead of small and dainty – on Dean's thigh and shook her hair – her curly, brunette hair instead of shiny and blonde – over her shoulder in a way that could only be disguised as seductive, Dean suddenly realized that actually, he couldn't quite stomach the thought of sleeping with another woman, one who wasn't...her. And man if that didn't scare the mothering Jesus outta him.
So after trying and failing once more to be aroused by Karen – he gently brushed away her hand and made his excuses, before paying his bill and heading on back to the hotel.
For Karen, who had been expecting a thrilling night of passion with the sexy stranger, the whole episode had been decidedly disappointing.
But when Dean had arrived back at the hotel, the only person in the room to greet him had been Buffy, because apparently God – or fate, whatever – really did hate him. With his new found awareness of his inability to get it up for anyone who wasn't small, blonde and incredibly annoying still rattling around in his cluttered mind, he had simply turned and walked straight back out, pretending that he hadn't seen the hurt look covering her face. That night he swallowed a whole bottle of whiskey and passed out on one the deckchairs near the hotel pool.
But still he kept to his silent promise to stay away from her. It was just better off for everyone this way.
The 19th of January soon came around, and Buffy woke up to another birthday with the same feeling of dread she had become accustomed to over her years of being the slayer. As she relished another few moments of comfort in bed with her eyes squeezed tightly closed, the usual questions paraded through her mind. What kind of thing could possibly go wrong today? Demons? Zombies? Ghosts? Heartbreaking, life-altering events?
Her birthday was a freakin' curse.
When she had eventually resigned herself to the fact that she couldn't just spend the day hiding away underneath her bedsheets and had opened her eyes, she had been surprised to find that instead of the fiery pit of doom she had been expecting, she was met with a grinning Faith instead.
"Happy birthday, bitch!" Faith hollered laughingly at the top of her lungs, before hurling herself at Buffy's bed and covering the birthday girl in unbearable tickles.
Squealing in a mixture of indignation and delight, Buffy gave back as good as she got, thankful that the injury on her head had pretty much healed now and that she was able to do silly things like play-fight at all.
The fighting ceased some minutes later when Buffy trapped Faith in a headlock and only let her go once she called 'uncle'. As they rolled off of one another and onto their sides so that they were facing each other, they let out silly grins around their panting.
"It's your birthday," Faith declared eventually, observant as ever.
Buffy opened her mouth and widened her eyes in mock surprise. "You don't say!"
Ignoring Buffy's teasing, Faith waggled her eyebrows and announced proudly, "I bought you a gift and everything." She looked very impressed with herself.
"With all of that hard earned money you worked tirelessly for?"
"Hell yeah, angel-puss! Those guys I conned the other night were some smart little bastards. Muscles as hard as rock, too..." she added dreamily.
Grinning, Buffy bounced up and down on the mattress a little. "Okay, wipe away the drool. Where's my gift, you fiend?"
"Can't have it yet."
"What? Don't make me throw a tantrum on you! Want it, want it, want it, want-"
Faith chuckled and reached over to flick Buffy's ear. "Sam's making us do the whole birthday thing proper. Breakfast, gifts, other birthday stuff. That's where him and Dean are now, getting breakfast."
"Aww," Buffy cooed. "That's so sweet."
"Yeah, I guess. I think it's got something to do with the whole not getting to have real birthdays when they were kids thing. Sam told me that their old man hardly ever remembered so they had to make do by themselves. Makes me feel kinda bad, ya know? I mean, my mom mighta been a drunk but she always bought me a cake."
Buffy didn't quite know what to say. She felt sad, both for Faith and Sam and Dean. She remembered her own childhood birthdays. Her mom had always made them special, and even her dad, when he had still been around.
Seeing the expression on Buffy's face and guessing what her friend was thinking, Faith rolled her eyes and grinned toothily. "Don't feel bad for us, dopey. Look at what we've got now. Each other, right? All those times being a kid sucked is okay because this all makes up for it."
It was one of the nicest things Faith had ever said, and Buffy could only nod, dumbly.
"Right on." Faith ruffled Buffy's already sleep tousled hair and flopped back down on the bed.
"So Sam and Dean are out getting breakfast?"
"Sure are, little lady."
"Ooh, breakfast in bed." She looked up at the ceiling with raised eyebrows. "Hmm. Maybe today won't be so bad after all."
Faith looked confused. "What makes you think it could be bad? It's your birthday, girl!"
Buffy held up a hand so that she could begin counting on her fingers. "How about...the Judge, with an unhealthy side of Angelus? Or that really fun 'kill a helpless slayer' birthday game those nifty old watchers came up with? Oh, you know what was really fun? When Dawn found out she was the Key. That made my birthday bash really special. And getting trapped in my house – just blissful. And do you remember last year? With the bees?"
Both girls shuddered as they remembered the bees.
"Yeah," Faith said slowly, pulling a face. "I'd take an apocalypse over the bees any day."
Any further discussion about the bees was halted by the arrival of Sam and Dean, armed with breakfast and the smell of sunshine.
After setting his things down, Sam headed straight over for Buffy and enveloped her in a warm hug.
"Happy birthday," he said, beaming. He kissed her cheek and sat down next to her, one long arm still wrapped around her shoulders. He looked over at Dean – who was busy rooting through the bags of food – and coughed, pointedly.
Dean looked up, startled, as if he'd forgotten the others were even there. "Oh, yeah. Uh...happy birthday and...stuff," he grunted, before fishing a croissant out of a bag and flopping down onto the other bed.
Buffy ducked her head and looked down at her toes. So he was still being all avoidy with her, even on her birthday.
Maybe the day wouldn't turn out so great after all.
"Mm! That was absolutely the nicest, most fulfilling breakfast I've ever had," Buffy declared a while later, wiping her mouth exaggeratedly and rubbing her belly in satisfaction as she finished eating. "And look! All done. Now, don't I remember a certain someone telling me it would be gift time after breakfast?"
Faith chuckled, rolling her eyes but secretly just as excited. "Alright, alright. Man, you're impatient. We can give them to her now, can't we Sammy?"
Sam smiled at their childish behavior, it was really quite endearing. "Sure. I don't see why not.
Faith blew him a kiss and rolled over, bending over the edge of the bed and pulling a bag from underneath it. "I didn't wrap it," she explained unashamedly as she handed it over to Buffy. "Sam wanted me to, but I'm not a little housewife, ya know?"
Buffy shrugged and accepted the gift. "It's okay, I like the paper bag. Very 19th century."
"Funny. Now open it. Or...pull it out or whatever."
Buffy did as she was told, pulling out an extremely short looking red dress and a very large pair of matching high heeled shoes. She looked at the items dubiously – they were both shorter and higher than anything she'd ever attempted to wear before. "You've...signed me up for hooker training?" she asked hesitantly.
"Ha ha," Faith responded instantly. "Aren't you a little comedian tonight. These," She held the dress up against Buffy. "are for when I take you out on the town tonight. Trust me, you're gonna look awesomely hot."
"She's gonna look awesomely naked," Dean added, scowling fiercely at the skimpy garment. "Where the hell is the rest of that dress at anyway? You should take it back to the shop, Faith. I think they conned you."
Buffy frowned and pulled Faith's gift to her chest, annoyed that Dean would insult something Faith had clearly gone out of her way to buy. "Ignore him," she comforted. "I love them. And I'll definitely wear them tonight."
The pleased look on Faith's face was well worth it, as was the disgruntled look on Dean's.
"Mine next," Sam demanded playfully, pulling out two packages from where he'd stashed them in his sleeping bag on the floor. Both packages were neatly wrapped in pink paper, identical red bows tying them together.
"Friggin' girl," Dean muttered with a snort as he caught sight of them.
Sam ignored his brother – more than used to his comments by now – and handed the gifts to Buffy, who wasted no time in opening them up.
The first was an outrageously large quantity of chocolate – a gift that had Buffy squealing in delight. The second was a hand carved stake. The handle was made out of silver and was engraved with her name. It was clear that Sam had taken his time in making it.
"It's stupid," he professed shyly, looking down at the shoe he was scuffing against the floor. "But I didn't know what else to get you, and it seemed like a good idea when I was making it."
Buffy swatted his arm and held up his two gifts. "These are my two favoritest things in the whole wide world. I love them, you dope." She smiled and pulled him into a hug, kissing his cheek as she pulled away. "Thank you."
Dean looked away from the display, repeating to himself over and over in his mind that there was no need to be jealous. Sam and Buffy didn't feel that way about each other, he was sure of it.
The sound of Faith's voice broke Dean out of his inner turmoil. "Dean's turn," she sang.
He looked over at them, puzzled for a second, before finally remembering what they were in the middle of doing. "Oh," he said. "Yeah."
Quite clearly embarrassed, Dean reached inside of his jacket and pulled out a badly wrapped package from one of the inside pockets. "It's nothing special," he mumbled, throwing it carelessly over in Buffy's direction. "Just a bit of cheap junk."
That was a lie. Quite a big one, actually. Buffy's gift had cost Dean more than he'd like to remember. But the second he'd seen it as he'd been passing by some tiny, out of the way store over a month ago he hadn't been able to stop thinking about it. He'd purposely walked past the store at least another half a dozen times before finally going in and purchasing it. He'd been carrying it around in his pocket ever since, berating himself for being such a crazy fool when it came to her. He had debated just not giving it to Buffy at all and just pawning it off, but Faith had been nagging him about getting Buffy a birthday gift for the past week and at the time he'd been smug about the fact that he'd already gotten her one. Faith would kick his ass if she thought he'd been lying to her. And then there was the fact that he couldn't imagine anyone in the world owning this gift apart from Buffy, not now that he'd found it.
Buffy was surprised. With the way Dean had been acting around her lately, she hadn't expected anything off him at all. Slowly, she picked away at the sellotape with her thumbnail and unwrapped the gift. "Dean!" she gasped, as she pulled out the prettiest looking necklace she had seen in like...ever. "It's so beautiful!"
It was a simple, thin, silver chain, with an oval shaped gemstone the color of crystal. Throughout the gemstone narrow, black, jagged lines ran through it, like spilled ink.
As Buffy gaped over it in wonder, both Sam and Faith moved in for a closer look.
"Man, that's pretty nice," Sam said admiringly. "I've never seen anything like that before. It's quite unusual."
"It's a quartz," Dean explained gruffly. "Uh, a tourmaline in quartz or some crap like that. It's supposed to uhm...I mean, the old guy in the store said it means home." He looked right at Buffy, the first time he'd allowed himself to properly in almost a week. "It's supposed to remind you where home is."
Buffy and Dean watched each other for a long moment, something indescribable passing between them. It ended abruptly as Dean glanced away, fixing his eyes on the pattern in the wallpaper.
"Dean," Buffy uttered, standing up and moving over towards him. "This must have been so expensive. Thank you so-"
She was cut off when Dean, sensing that she was about to embrace him and fearing that it might break his resolve – rolled quickly off of the bed and sped over towards the door. "Gotta take a leak," he mumbled absentmindedly, before disappearing out of the room.
None left in the room felt it prudent to mention that he could have simply used the en-suite.
Buffy, who had paused mid step, lowered her head in confusion. She didn't understand him, and she didn't understand what was going on inside his head. How could he have given her such an amazing gift one minute and then dismissed her so callously in the next? She'd thought for a moment that perhaps she'd been wrong this past week and he did care about her, but maybe she'd been right about the whole thing after all.
There was no denying it, Buffy decided, as she looked herself up and down in the bathroom mirror once more. Though she'd had doubts about the outfit when Faith had first given in to her, now that it was on and she was all spruced up, she looked hot. Smoking hot, if she didn't say so herself.
As she'd been pulling the dress on, she had assumed that she'd look nothing more than a streetwalker – thank God she'd proved herself wrong. She looked just as sexy as Faith did when she wore these kinds of clothes.
With a happy grin, she turned and let herself back into the bedroom where the other three were waiting for her.
All of them looked up as she entered, and Faith let out a low, appreciative whistle. Sam's mouth dropped open in surprise, and Dean gulped audibly.
"You look hot, sister!" Faith cheered after a moments reflection. She nudged Sam with her elbow. "Don't she look hot?"
Sam nodded vigorously, and then blushed as he realized the implications of his actions. "I mean, you look pretty. Real pretty."
Faith scoffed. "Pretty my ass! You're a sex bomb, B! Hell, I'd do you!"
Dean thought he should probably say something too. Compliment her or whatever. But his brain wasn't really functioning all that well, and honestly, he had no words. He was too busy trying to fight off the need to throw her down on the bed and have his wicked way with her sexy little body. The dress she was wearing was even shorter than the one she'd worn on her pretend date with Sam, and the heels were even higher.
He didn't like it, he decided. It wasn't her. And she was absofuckinglutely gorgeous. Every other man that saw her was going to be all over her. And then he'd have to kill them.
"Dean?"
He shook free of dangerous thoughts, waking up to the fact that it was Faith's insistent voice calling his name, clearly asking for his opinion on what she was naming her 'masterpiece'. "Nice," he announced simply, before standing and slipping into his coat. "Come on, let's get outta here."
And for the second time that day, Dean walked out of the room leaving his three companions in silent disbelief.
Eventually, Faith was the one to break the silence. "Ignore his moody ass," she said, rolling her eyes. "You look awesome and you know it."
"I do know it," Buffy joked, although her heart wasn't really in it.
What was it going to take to stop Dean from being such an ass with her? And why the hell did she even care so damned much anyway?
"Whoa! Slow down, apricot!" Faith yelled over the loud sound of pounding music as Buffy downed her fourth consecutive shot. She might have let it go had Buffy not been guzzling the drinks ever since she had arrived in the nightclub.
Buffy waved a dismissive hand and drank her final shot. "I'm having a good time!" she slurred. "It's my birthday! Supposed to be wild, remember? I'll slow down once we've gotten back to the hotel."
"Carry on drinking this fast and we'll be carrying your unconscious butt back to the hotel over our shoulders."
Ignoring her, Buffy signaled the bartender and ordered another beer.
Truth was, Buffy was more drinking to forget than to have a good time.
Drinking to forget that Dean clearly didn't want anything to do with her anymore, forget that it was her birthday and therefore she was getting older, forget that one day probably soon she was going to have to give up this amazing new lifestyle and go on back home to her responsibilities, and forget that Dean was on the other side of the room, flirting outrageously with a very sexy redhead.
Yeah, she thought, as she gulped down her beer while watching the redhead run a hand over Dean's arm,tonight's definitely all about the forgetting.
Finally! Dean cheered internally as he finally managed to extract his self from the annoying redhead that had been clinging on to him for the past half an hour. Becky might have had a nice rack on her, and it had been fun flirting with her for the first five minutes, but she had absolutely nothing going on conversation wise.
He stopped mid step on the way to the bar and shook his head is disbelief. Since when did Dean Winchesterrequire a girl to have half a brain on her before he'd even consent to spending any time with her?
Apparently since he'd become completely whipped by a girl who was far, far out of his league and had absolutely no idea that she was all he ever thought about or that he kind of adored her.
He wondered what she'd say if she did know. If he told her.
She'd probably be disgusted. Or she'd laugh. Or she wouldn't care at all.
Or...
Maybe she wouldn't.
Because sometimes, Dean got the giddiest feeling inside of him when he looked at her, because often, she was looking at him right back. And when she was, there was a certain something in her eyes that made his heart beat faster, something that really made him believe...
He got the feeling that when he thought about her, maybe she thought about him too. And not in the normal way you think about somebody you spend a great deal of time with. But in a way that was...more.
He puffed out his chest. He was gonna tell her. Maybe because he'd had a few more beers than he usually did and so he was feeling extra confident, or maybe because he wasn't sure how much longer he could go onwithout telling her. He was going to do it, get it over with, because finding out how she really felt couldn't make him feel any worse than the way he was always feeling right now, could it?
But first he had to find her.
She'd been dancing with Faith ten minutes ago. He knew that for certain because he'd been unable to drag his eyes away from her and Bailey, or Becky, or whatever her name was had been getting increasingly annoyed with the lack of focus on herself. But a quick search of the dance floor was enough to make certain that they were no longer there.
But it didn't take him long to find out where they had gone, and as soon as he saw them propped up against the bar he headed straight over.
Faith was the first to see him approach, and as she did her eyes widened in what looked like apprehension and he saw her mouth 'uh oh' to herself. He frowned at this, wondering what the problem could possibly be.
As he got closer, and he was able to see them fully, he finally realized exactly what was wrong.
Buffy and Faith were not alone.
They were with two guys. One of them sat behind Faith – clearly forgotten about by the look of disgruntlement on his face as Faith watched worriedly over her friend – and the other sat under Buffy, his hands around her waist as she perched on his lap.
One thing was clear to Dean – Buffy was clearly very, very drunk.
He watched as the asshole Buffy was practically fucking right there at the bar slid his slimy little hand up her thigh. A burning fury built up inside him as he saw her giggle drunkenly in response.
Storming over with his hands clenched, he ignored Faith's calm "Dean, back off. I've got this under control." and grabbed a hold of Buffy's arm and pulled her away from her boy toy.
"Hey!" Buffy screeched crossly. "What in God's name do you think you're doing you...you...you big moron?"
Dean rolled his eyes. No way was he about to get into an argument with her when she could barely even get her words out. "I'm taking you back to the hotel. You've had too much to drink."
Buffy's 'date' looked between the two of them, a little line appearing between his eyebrows. "You didn't say you had a boyfriend!" he directed at her accusingly. He glanced over at Dean and held up his hands. "Hey pal, she never said she had a boyfriend."
"Ew! He's not my boyfriend!" Buffy's protests were so loud that several nearby patrons turned around to stare at her.
The man behind Faith, clearly deciding that he'd had enough, huffed and stood up. "Come on, Leon. Let's get outta here. This ain't worth our time."
Leon held a hand up to stop his friend. "Now hang on a minute, Joe. Buffy here says this guy ain't her boyfriend and she clearly don't wanna go with him." He turned to Dean. "So how's about you unhand her and I'll let you walkaway with no bruises."
The idea that this idiot could harm Dean in any way was laughable. So laughable in fact, that Dean actually guffawed in his face. "Man, I could snap your neck in half before you even took a step."
There was something in Dean's eyes, something dark, and Leon, though dimwitted, obviously saw it, because he began backing away.
"He means it, Leon," Faith told him, doing her best to hide her amusement. "He's done it before."
"Joe's right," Leon said gruffly. "This ain't worth our time. Come on Joe, we're going."
Buffy, who had been too busy trying not to sway on her feet to pay attention, looked around and realized that her new friends were no longer around. "You dumb-ass!" she said hotly to Dean. "I was having fun with Lee! Why'd you make him leave?"
"His name was Leon. And he was only gonna take advantage of the fact that you're piss drunk. Now stop being an idiot and let me take you back to the-"
"First of all, I'm not an idiot!" she slurred. "And fourth of all...I'm not drunk." And then she fell over.
Which was how not ten minutes later Dean, both brassed off and amused, found himself carrying an unconscious Buffy in his arms as he made his way back to the hotel. He was walking slowly, not because of the extra weight because really, the girl weighed freakin' nothing, but because he was enjoying being able to hold her for just a few precious moments, even if she was passed out from drinking too much to know about it. Both Faith and Sam – who they'd found eventually taking part in an animated discussion with a plump girl about chemistry or some crap like that – had offered to accompany him, but Dean had told them to stay behind and enjoy themselves. They hadn't put up too much of an argument.
Unfortunately, the walk back to the hotel wasn't a long one, and as Dean walked into the lobby he rolled his eyes in amusement at the clerk, who chuckled along with him when Buffy began to mumble incoherently in her sleep.
Once he'd reached their floor, he opened the door awkwardly, moving straight over to the bed to lay her gently down. Quietly as he could, he slipped off her shoes and debated for a moment over taking off her uncomfortably tight looking dress in exchange for her pajamas, but in the end thought better of it. She may have a hangover the next morning, but it wouldn't stop her from kicking his ass if she thought for one moment he'd taken advantage of her drunken state for a good eyeful.
So instead, he collected a glass of water and some paracetamol and left them on the table by her bed where she'd be able to reach them easily the following morning. After he'd tucked her in, he moved over to the edge of the bed, content to just sit and watch her sleep for a while. The heavy dark makeup around her eyes had smudged and her lipstick was now just a faint reminder and her hair was a wild mess. She was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen.
"Dean," she mumbled, and for one heart stopping moment he thought she had awoken and caught him watching her. But her eyes were still closed, and it was clear she was still asleep.
"Yeah, princess?" he asked, smiling fondly.
"Make sure you get it."
"Get what?"
"The one with the yellow tail. Gotta get the one with the yellow tail."
"Okay," he answered, wondering what on earth she was dreaming about. "I'll get it."
"Gotta get it," she repeated, before shifting over and settling back down in her sleep.
Dean sighed and shook his head, cursing his bad luck. The first – and most likely only – time he'd worked up his stupid courage to tell her how he felt about her, she had to go and pass out on him. Perhaps this was fate's way of telling him that they just weren't meant to be. He couldn't ever imagine another moment to tell her coming up again. Not while she was awake, anyway.
"You know something," he said softly to her sleeping form. "I was gonna tell you tonight. Tell you that I'm mad about you. Tell you that the reason I act so damned crazy around you all the time is just 'cause I want you to be my girl." He shook his head at how much of a chick he sounded. "Maybe in another lifetime, huh? When neither of us have to save the world all the freakin' time."
The only response he received was a soft, little snore.
Carefully, so as not to disturb her, he leaned forwards and placed the gentlest of kisses on her soft lips. It felt like both the happiest and the saddest day of his life. He lingered for as long as he dared, before pulling away to wipe a few stray strands of hair from her forehead. He smiled as he traced the thin chain of his necklace, laying around her neck. It made him warm inside to think that she liked it enough to wear it.
With one last lingering look, Dean slowly slipped out of the room.
