A/N: Hey guys, Just a brief CW, there is some talk of self-harm and suicide in this chapter. I want to make clear that Faith's and/or other characters' opinions that may be expressed in the coming prose are not the opinions and attitudes I personally have towards the topic (especially having suffered from mental illness most of my life). Faith sees things very differently to the way I do, and that way isn't particularly healthy or inclusive (in my opinion).
Anyway, nothing should be too triggering – there's nothing very graphic, just a few comments made – however I do advise you to continue with caution. Thanks!
White Eyes
They went back to Bobby's place. Ellen's car was there, plus Dean and Sam didn't have anywhere better to go. He guessed Faith felt the same, because she barely said a word as they all climbed back into their respective cars and began the journey back to Bobby's house.
As they drove, Dean felt torn between the urge to celebrate and the urge to force Sam to drive so he could just fall into a deep, blissful sleep. On one hand, they'd killed The Demon, their dad had escaped Hell, and all of them had survived. On the other hand, hundreds of demons had just been unleashed upon the earth, and to top it all off, Dean had just 364 days left to live.
At some point, Sammy fell asleep against the glass of the Impala's window. Dean listened to him snore, let the sound and contentment seep into every single facet of his being. It was hard to regret making the deal – and he wouldn't undo it for the world, not if it meant Sam was still breathing – but there was some part of him now counting each breath he took.
Such a strange thing, to know exactly how many he had left to go.
The sun was well and truly risen by the time they made it back to Bobby's place. Dean had to stop for gas on the way, so he and Sam arrived about fifteen minutes after the others. Sloping tiredly into the house, they found Ellen ready to leave, saying goodbye to Faith and Tobias.
"Sorry to see you go," Dean said as Ellen pulled him into a hug. "You sure you don't want to sleep first? It's been a … long few days."
Ellen shook her head. "I couldn't sleep if I wanted to. Besides, only thing I want now is to see Jo. Won't rest till I do."
"Fair enough," said Dean, because if it was Sammy, he'd say exactly the same.
After saying her final goodbyes, Ellen took her leave. Dean accepted the beer from Tobias as they watched her car disappear down the road.
"Get back okay?" Dean asked conversationally. The beer was a Stella – Faith's favourite, and thus in ready supply – and it tasted like heaven on his tongue. It was like everything was stronger, every scent, sound and taste. Like knowing he was facing his end was only making the world feel more beautiful.
He wished he could savour that. Wished the world wasn't only beautiful because he knew that soon he wouldn't be a part of it.
"Faith fell asleep two minutes in," Tobias told him. "I didn't mind – she needed the rest, and it let me finish my audiobook."
Dean cocked an eyebrow. "Audiobook?" Tobias looked at him expectantly and Dean could only chuckle. "Y'know, we might both be hunters, but man, you an' me? We're from two totally different worlds."
Tobias only smiled.
They went back inside to find Sam brewing coffee in the kitchen with Bobby, and Faith sat at the table, staring out into the salvage yard through the back window, seemingly lost in thought. There was a strange look on her face, almost cold. Strange because nothing about Faith was cold – sharp, maybe, sometimes calculating – but never cold.
She must have felt Dean's eyes, because she turned her head enough to meet his stare. A hint of a smile spread across her lips while her eyes remained cold as ice. Something in Dean wavered, suspicious, though he couldn't put a word to why.
Spurred on by that feeling, Dean found his feet leading him across the room to Faith's side, a fresh beer in one hand. He handed it to Faith, who took it with that same, dead-eyed smile. "Thank you."
"Crazy night, huh?" he muttered for lack of anything better to say. Glancing out into the early morning, he saw a light mist clinging to the cars in the salvage yard. Faith twisted the cap off her bottle in one smooth move, and Dean absolutely did not think it was hot.
"Sure was," she said, calculating eyes resting on him like the constricting weight of a blanket on a too-hot night. Dean shook his shoulders as if he could shrug off the uncomfortable feeling, but Faith didn't appear to notice. "You must be so relieved; old Azazel finally having bit the dust."
Everything in Dean went still, the beer he held freezing halfway to his lips. "Who?"
A frown pinched at her brow. "Azazel," she said, seeming confused. "You know, the yellow-eyed demon you've had it out with since you were kids?"
Dean didn't move, staring at her and listening to his own pulse thunder in his ears. "Azazel?" he echoed, just as confused. "Is that its name?"
"You didn't know?"
"He was always just Yellow-Eyes."
Faith shrugged her shoulders as if it didn't matter, turning dismissively from Dean, looking out the window again. His flickering flame of suspicion had been blown into an inferno. He shifted his weight, his grip tightening around the beer in his hand.
"How did you know its name?" he asked Faith insistently. She met his eyes again, lazily turning from the window to pin him with that cold stare.
Until today, her eyes had always reminded him of that one summer he and Sam had spent in San Francisco when they were kids. Their dad had been on a job – a shapeshifter, if Dean remembered correctly – and Sam had wanted to see the Muir Woods National Monument, just a little while north of the city. In those days – hell, even still to this day – Dean had never been able to deny his little brother anything.
So, he'd packed a lunch, and they'd hopped on a bus – paid for with cash he'd stolen from the tip jar at the diner where they'd eaten breakfast – and travelled up into the hills and forests Sam dreamed of.
They'd spent most of the day just wandering through the forest, and Dean remembered thinking the trees were the biggest things he'd ever seen in his life. He remembered thinking about how small he'd felt, standing next to them, staring up at their tops, towering impossibly high above.
The trunks of those great trees had been so close, and he remembered leaning over the railing to press a hand to the damp bark. The colour of it had always stuck in his mind – the deepest, richest brown he had ever seen. Brown in the shadow, but nearly shining golden in the sunlight streaming through the canopy.
At the time, surrounded by those warm, calm, towering trees, Dean had felt strangely free. Sam had been beside him, reading the plaque on the railing in the sort of voice you'd hear in a nature documentary, and the air was so clean it smelled almost sweet. And there came a peace, like for that one, shining moment, not even the monsters could get to him. He'd been safe.
It was sort of pathetic, to look into Faith's eyes and see that same safety shining back at him, hidden in the deep brown colour of her eyes, just like the trunks of those ancient trees. It was an unusual shade, giving her an almost otherworldly quality. He'd noticed it that first night they'd met, when her eyes were leaking tears and filled with distress, making the amber in them shine bright.
He hadn't thought of the redwood forests, though, not until a couple days later, when they'd been halfway to Bobby's, Faith was sitting in the back of Baby, quiet but not silent. He'd glanced in the rear-view mirror, and she'd snatched his eyes like a thief. The memory had shot through him like a dart, and he'd nearly veered into the other lane in his distraction.
But now, in the present, looking at her across Bobby's kitchen, he saw none of that warm safety in her eyes. No longer did they remind him of redwoods and safety, but rather of cold nights spent without heating in motel rooms and the flash of cruel hunger in a monster's eyes right before it took a bite out of you.
Faith pursed her lips in a very un-Faith-like move, those cool eyes narrowing a moment before they went just a little bit too wide, a little too innocent. "With the Hades Cult after me, I make it my business to know about demons."
But it still wasn't adding up – Faith's strange demeanour. His instincts told him to play it cool, to play it smart. He leant towards her, getting into her space and staring hard into those redwood eyes, watching for a reaction. The first red flag was that she didn't slap him just for getting too close. The second was the way she leaned slightly towards him, a half-smile curving her lips, as if he didn't make her blood boil just by being alive.
There was blood staining her cheek – she hadn't gotten all of it when she'd cleaned up. It was in a particular splash pattern, though, and suddenly, Dean had a theory. One he didn't like in the least.
He kept everything about his movements casual, easy, even as his heart tried to escape the cage of his ribs. He fixed a tender look on his face, and the thing that wasn't Faith furrowed its brow just a little as he reached out to gently brush the hair from her face.
To anyone watching, it might have been a lover's caress. Hell, in the moment, it sure felt like one. But then Dean hooked the lock of her wild hair behind her ear, revealing the proof he'd been searching for.
The demon didn't have time to react – nobody did – before he wrapped that same arm around her throat and tugged her hard against him, the barrel of his gun pressed to the spot beneath her jaw.
Several voices in the room cried out in shock and horror, but Faith's wasn't one of them. She went still and remained calm; a lion confident in its place on the food chain. "Dean, what the hell are you doing?!" cried Sam, staring at him like he'd lost his mind.
"She's a demon," Dean growled.
"What are you talking about?" Tobias demanded, looking furious with a gun already drawn. Dean wondered if Tobias would shoot him in a blind effort to save Faith, then looked in his eyes and decided he would. Only it wasn't Faith, not anymore.
"She's a demon," said Dean again.
"She's no more a demon than I am!" Tobias spat. "Let her go. Now."
Something in Dean's chest ached, but he forced himself to turn hard, ignoring the ringing pang. "I can't do that."
"Dean," said Sam, also pulling his gun, but aiming it at Tobias. Bobby was the only one other than Faith not holding a weapon, but he turned away, ducking into the cupboard beneath the sink, searching furiously for something. Dean let him work.
"Faith?" Tobias asked, eyes narrowed at his partner, who made no move to wriggle out of Dean's hold. Another glaringly red flag – the real Faith would have well and truly driven her elbow into his crotch by now. Or at the very least be calling him a laundry-list of school-yard names.
"He's crazy," said the thing inside Faith, a convincing tremble in its stolen voice. "Toby, it's me. I'm not a demon. You know me."
"Dean, let her go," Tobias ground out.
Dean shook his head, grip on his gun tightening, although the thought of pulling the trigger was about as pleasant as acid to the eyes. "I'm telling you – this isn't Faith—"
"She's got an anti-possession charm!" Tobias cried.
"Does she?" Dean asked, using the hand not holding the gun to wrench back the hair hiding her ear from view. The place where her possession charm had hung was a bloodied mess, the piercing ripped brutally from her flesh, leaving a mangled piece of helix in its pace.
Sam let out a curse, but Tobias' gun remained aimed at Dean's face.
"So? It fell out," whimpered the demon, voice still trembling with tears. Faith wasn't one to cry, especially not over something like her own mortality. To cry was to show weakness, and Faith didn't like to show weakness. "Toby, it's me," it sniffed pathetically. "It's still me, I swear it. He's crazy. Please, don't let him hurt me!"
But Tobias' resolve had begun to waver. This demon, whoever they were, they hadn't done a very good job of pretending to be Faith. Or maybe, during what time they'd spent together, Dean had just been paying far more attention than he'd pretended he had.
It was a tense few moments – Sam with a gun aimed at Tobias, Tobias pointing a gun at Dean, Dean with the barrel of his gun pressed hard to Faith's throat. Dean was honestly not sure what was going to happen, how this was going to end. In the end, it wasn't any of them who made the final move.
"One way to know for sure," said Bobby, unceremoniously tossing the contents of a bucket at them both. The holy water splashed over them and while Dean only felt the chill of the morning against the wet, Faith's skin began to bubble and sear like Bobby had thrown acid instead of water. She let out an inhuman screech, and Dean took the opportunity to throw her onto the floor.
She landed hard on the linoleum, skin sizzling, but not even a whole bucket of holy water was enough to put whatever was within her down. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, Faith was standing upright. The redwood-eyes were gone, replaced instead by a thick, milky white that stretched from lid to lid.
They were like no demon eyes Dean had ever seen before, and something like terror seized his heart in its cold, clammy hands. Who knew what would happen with that thing inside of her? Who knew if she'd even survive it?
Four guns now were aimed at it, but the demon didn't seem bothered. A smirk found its way to her face, lips twisting into something icy and cruel.
"Are you going to shoot me, Tobias?" the thing possessing Faith simpered, horrible white eyes widening, giving her a horrific stare. Dean's palms grew slick, but his gun remained steady.
"Get out of her," growled Tobias, expression hard as concrete as he flicked off the safety of his gun, the sound loud in the otherwise quiet room.
The demon's twisted smile only grew in size. "No," it said calmly, taking pleasure in their fury.
Tobias took a step towards her, but the demon only had to flick its fingers and he was thrown backwards. Dean leapt out of the way just in time to avoid being hit by his flying body, watching in no small amount of panic as Tobias crashed against the sink, leaving a small dent in the cupboard below it.
Bobby stepped in front of him and lifted his shotgun to the demon's face. The demon held up its hands as if in surrender, smiling as if placating a room full of children.
"Who are you?" Sam demanded, shifting his weight but moving no closer. She'd made it clear that wasn't allowed.
Dean watched, heart in his throat, as the demon began a slow pace across the kitchen, examining everything like it was seeing it all for the first time. Dean remembered this thing had likely only just managed to crawl itself out of Hell and figured this was probably the nicest place it had seen in eons.
"My name's Myeus," the demon told them, as though they were supposed to recognise the name.
"Sorry to disappoint," snapped Dean, finger tightening on the trigger but not pulling. He couldn't be the one to kill Faith – he wouldn't be able to live with himself. "We've never heard of you."
The demon – Myeus – smiled wickedly. "No, I don't suppose you would have," it said, voice like the slime covering a dead thing. "But in my line of work, names aren't nearly as important as actions, and perhaps you know some of mine. They tend to make the news, after all."
Dean had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but apparently Tobias wasn't quite so clueless.
"You're a Chaos Demon," he said, having climbed to his feet, looking sore but none the worse for wear. Dean turned, his eyebrows raised.
The demon within Faith hummed its approval. "They said you were quick," it simpered, fluttering Faith's long eyelashes over terrible, milky eyes. Dean's gut twisted again and though he wanted to look away, he forced himself to keep watching.
"You're a part of the Hades' Cult."
The demon blinked and Faith's eyes reappeared, their usual amber-brown. But they remained cold, hers but also not; the stark difference left Dean feeling like someone had taken a spoon to his insides.
"We never liked that name," said the demon with a sigh.
Tobias' jaw ticked, but otherwise he gave no reaction. "What do you prefer?"
The white-eyed demon's expression turned haughty. A creature who thought itself above the people around it. By now Dean was used to seeing demons possess the people he cared about, but he was surprised that he couldn't separate Faith from the demon entirely, like he had in the past. Were it anyone else, he'd have attacked by now. But the thought of doing Faith any harm – he just didn't have it in him.
Hadn't she been through enough?
"We transcend names," the demon sneered. "And I'm not a part of the Cult. The Cult is mine."
Tobias looked unafraid and unsurprised. "You're its leader."
The demon took a cocky little bow. "Pleasure to meet you," it said silkily. If it were inside anyone else but Faith, Dean would have shot it for that display alone.
"How many of you crawled out of Hell?"
"Oh, I'd say just about all of us."
"And your goal?"
"To break the curse, of course."
Sam, Dean and Bobby's heads volleyed back and forth between the two of them, their words coming quick and effortless. There were two people who knew exactly what the hell they were talking about. Dean hadn't felt this out of his depth since Sam's tenth-grade science fair.
"What the fuck is going on?!" he exploded before he could rein himself in, frustration boiling over. "What's the Hades' Cult and who in the hell are you?"
He didn't appreciate being stood there like an idiot, holding a gun he couldn't even bring himself to use. He aimed the barrel at the demon but scowled in Tobias' direction. The demon's grin was a little too wide, and Dean almost regretted saying anything at all.
"Oh, have they not told you? Someone's been keeping secrets," it sang like a child sang a nursery rhyme, and Dean felt a chill shudder down the length of his spine.
He caught Bobby's eye, and the older hunter shook his head once. Dean saw the order for what it was – they couldn't show weakness in front of this demon. Let Tobias get the answers he needed, and then he would fill them in once the thing was sent back to Hell where it belonged.
Or else.
"Why possess Faith at all?" Tobias demanded.
The demon looked down at its stolen body, running its stolen hands down the length of Faith's graceful curves. "Why wouldn't I?" it asked leered. "She's one hot piece, wouldn't you say?"
Tobias went utterly still. "Go to Hell."
The demon slashed another grin. "I just got back, actually. And I have plans up here that I'm afraid can't be delayed. And now that you've so kindly opened the Devil's Gate, every member of the Cult is now roaming free on the Gods' green earth and ready to play. And all of them – every single one – is going to be looking for a way to make your darling little Child of War so miserable that she has no choice but to carve out her own heart and hand it over with a bow."
Dean felt himself take a step forwards, only to freeze when the demon twitched Faith's fingers in warning. He remembered the way the thing had sent Tobias flying across the room like it was nothing, and reluctantly took a wise step backwards. The demon's smile was layered with giddy superiority as rage simmered in Dean's blood.
"Why are you possessing Faith?" Tobias tried again.
Dean was surprised when the thing actually gave a straight answer. "I wanted to get to know her on an … intimate level," it said, still running a hand up and down her body, as if it had any right to her. "I wanted to know how strong she was – what exactly I'm working with."
"Well, you've had your fun and gotten your answers," said Sam, surprising them with the edge to his voice. "Now get the hell out of her."
The demon gave a blinding smile, and the way it made Faith's dimples appear sent a white-hot flash of rage through Dean that he couldn't quite explain. He could count on one hand the amount of times he'd seen those dimples – for a demon to be stealing them… It made his blood boil.
The demon's eyes narrowed in on Tobias, who held his rifle in steady hands. An empty threat – they all knew he wasn't actually going to use it. Nobody here was going to hurt Faith, not if they could help it.
"She's screaming on the inside," it told Tobias keenly. "She's throwing everything she has at me. And still, it isn't enough. I'm going to tear her to shreds to get what I want. But in the end, it won't be me who ends it. She'll kill herself, I can promise you that."
Tobias was frozen where he stood, but the demon's attention had already wandered, eyes moving to Dean, who felt a wash of cold under its stare.
"Daddy warned you," the demon sneered, and Dean felt his heart skip a beat. "Before he died, poor Papa Winchester told you to keep an eye on her, didn't he?"
Sam and Bobby both turned to stare at him, but he and Tobias never looked away from Faith's commandeered body.
The memory hit Dean hard – his father, whispering one final warning in his ear, the last thing he'd said before he'd given his soul for Dean's: "And keep an eye on Faith; don't let her die – at least not by her own hand. If she does, everything's lost."
"How do you know that?" Dean demanded gruffly in the now.
"You'd shudder to know what I know, Dean," purred the demon. It pursed its lips and looked down at Faith's body with a predatory glint in its eyes. "Now, I may not be able to kill her … but surely a few broken limbs is as good a start to her torment as anything…"
Dean knew the time for talking was through, and he needed no invitation to fire a round. The bullet sailed harmlessly over the demon's shoulder, but the bullet wasn't the point. The bang of the gun was enough to distract it just long enough for Dean to throw himself up into close quarters.
The demon didn't have time to stop him from hitting it. Faith's head snapped to the side, a bead of blood appearing on her lips. But it didn't go down – it barely seemed perturbed at all. The demon simply used its own momentum to fling Dean backwards. As Dean sailed into the far wall, he heard the demon cry out in pain when Bobby splashed it with holy water from his ever-present flask.
On the floor, Dean began calculating how many paces away they were from the devil's trap painted on the ceiling in Bobby's study. Sam cried out in pain, thrown backwards by the demon, whose powers far outshone any they'd encountered before. Dean began to stand to his feet, but an unrelenting pressure pressed down on him, and he collapsed in an undignified heap.
He heard Tobias shout, then another bang of a gun and a shout of pain, but Dean could only stare up at the ceiling. It was like gravity had tripled, crushing him against the floor like a starfish on the bottom of the ocean. He began to inch his fingers towards the second gun at his waist, because he didn't want to hurt Faith – he wanted nothing less – but if it meant protecting Sam and Bobby, then it was a sacrifice he was willing to make—
A deafening roll of thunder rang through the room. The volume of it was unbelievable, and like it was an order, the weight on top of Dean disappeared. He shot to his feet, hands pressed over his ears as he stared out the window at the grey sky – he was so sure it had been perfectly blue only five minutes ago – where the thunder cracks were rolling together, gathering traction like a snowball rolling its way down a hill.
The demon within Faith let out a cry of pure frustration – a defiant child told their playtime was over with. It was staring up at the ceiling, glowering as if furious at the thunder itself, then it looked down to meet Dean's eyes and spoke as if its words were daggers it could attack with.
"You can't protect her," it snarled. "The Child of War is destined to die. You can't see it, but she's already lost."
Everything in Dean went cold. "Like Hell."
The demon only smiled. "Yes," it said, voice thick with satisfaction, " exactly."
Then Faith threw back her head and screamed out the thick, sentient cloud of smoke that was the demon. It burst from her mouth like a torrent, swirling up, up, up and then disappearing out a crack in the window.
For a moment Faith just stood there, head thrown back, body frozen like stone. Then, all at once, the energy seemed to leave her, and Faith – herself once again – collapsed in a heap on the floor.
When Faith came to, it was to find the unlikely combination of Toby and Dean leant over her, Toby gently tapping her cheek to rouse her from unconsciousness, Dean staring down with hard eyes that were maybe just a little bit worried, too.
Faith opened her mouth, but all that came out was a low groan. Toby sighed with relief, reaching for her hand. "Can you stand?" he asked as she took his hand, clutching it fiercely.
She nodded once and he gently began to pull her to her feet. Dean was there, too, guiding her upright with a surprisingly gentle hand on her back. "How do you feel?" Dean asked, quietly worried.
"Like I've been hit by a bus," she muttered, swaying slightly and reaching automatically for Dean's hand. He grabbed it, skin warm and rough against hers. Faith didn't flinch back from the contact, too dizzy to care that she was all but holding his hand. Her head was thumping, and her throat ached something fierce. "What happened?"
Toby and Dean exchanged a look. "You don't remember?"
Faith cast her mind back – the last thing she remembered was being splayed in the dirt at the cemetery in Wyoming, a searing pain in the side of her head and a presence pressing down on her, thick black smoke that tasted of sulphur pouring down her throat. After that was mostly just darkness, but Faith vaguely remembered a voice, something dark and foreboding, ringing with the promise of blood. She couldn't recall what the voice had said, only that it had shaken her down to her core.
"Goddammit," she cursed, free hand moving up to her ear, which now that she remembered it, hurt like someone had taken a pair of pliers to the flesh. She felt the flakes of her dried blood coating the shell of her torn ear and cursed again, pressing the heel of her hand against the aching throb between her eyebrows. "Did I at least look cool with black eyes?" she muttered darkly, only half listening to their answer.
"They were white, actually," said Toby carefully.
"White? That's…" she searched for the right word, "new."
"You should sit down," said Bobby from nearby, and she attempted to smile in his vague direction.
"Actually, I want to brush my teeth," she said. "My mouth tastes like sulphur."
Toby grimaced in sympathy. "I'll go grab your toothbrush so you can use the downstairs loo; avoid the stairs."
Faith smiled gratefully as Toby squeezed her shoulders and disappeared from the room. Faith caught Sam's eye, noting that he was holding his arm a little awkwardly against his side.
"Oh God," she gasped in horror. "I didn't hurt you?"
Sam gave a smile that was more a wince. "It wasn't you."
She frowned. "Shoulder?"
"Just dislocated."
Faith looked back to Dean. "Go," she said, even as the world dipped and swayed like she'd just stepped off a carnival ride. Dean hesitated only a moment before he seemed to realise it was strange for him to linger. His hand slid out of hers reluctantly.
Toby returned with her toothbrush, and she batted him away when he tried to lead her to the bathroom.
"I can brush my teeth without supervision, Toby."
"Forgive me for wanting to make sure you don't drown in the sink," he replied, just as dry. It startled a chuckle from her, but she still stubbornly stumbled her own way down the hall to the downstairs bathroom.
She thoroughly brushed her teeth, then splashed her face with cold water, letting the icy temperature ground her to her own body, reclaiming it as hers. Bracing her hands on either side of the sink, she took a moment to simply stare at her reflection in the mirror.
Some deep part of her felt dirty, as if the demon had left a marker of some kind within her. A stain that would never come clean. There were purple circles beneath her eyes and her skin was pale. She'd certainly looked better, and self-consciously fussed at her hair as though that might improve the horror of her face.
It was coming back to her now.
She tried not to think of how suffocated she'd felt, a prisoner trapped within her own body. She'd never really had trouble with small spaces, but the memory of how she'd felt like her whole self had been shoved inside something the size of the head of a pin was clear and sharp in her mind. She hadn't been able to breathe. She'd been beating against the walls of her prison, screaming to be released.
Then, the voice had come, words without a source to pin them to, and slowly the terror had begun to fade, replaced by something closer to desperate fury. Faith strained her brain, trying with everything she had to remember what they'd talked about, she and that white-eyed demon. But all she could recall was the feeling of being trapped and the white-noise buzz of her own voice forming words she wasn't the one speaking.
By the time she'd shuffled her way back into the kitchen, Sam's shoulder had been popped back into place and he had a pack of frozen peas gingerly pressed over the ache.
Toby guided her to a seat at the table and Bobby put a glass of water down in front of her. Faith didn't like being fussed over, and besides, she was fine – but they were only trying to help, and she knew that. It took some effort to swallow back her discontent, but she managed it, thanking Bobby quietly and throwing back the water in a total of three gulps.
"Well, did you learn something, at least?" she asked them. Toby stood at the counter, setting about making some tea. Because he was British, and actually believed tea could solve every problem under the sun. Dean was across the room, fussing with the frozen peas on Sam's shoulder.
Toby relayed what the demon had told them, but he didn't get very far into his recount before Dean spoke, a hint of accusation in his voice.
"What exactly is this Hades' Cult, and why haven't we heard about it until now?" he demanded.
Faith looked up, her expression flat. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I forget to put out an announcement in the latest issue of Hunter's Weekly?"
Sam puffed out a laugh while Dean just scowled. She ignored it, taking the tea from Toby even though she didn't really feel like drinking it.
"While the sarcasm is unhelpful, she has a point, Dean," said Toby patiently. "I'm sure there's plenty you don't tell us about your own hunting endeavours. And besides, these things are sensitive. We didn't want to say anything about it to anyone. If some of these things got out to the larger hunting community…" he trailed off meaningfully, but he didn't need to elaborate. They all knew how bad it could be.
Hunters as a species weren't exactly known for their forgiving nature.
"Well, you could have mentioned it to me," said Bobby, decidedly grumpy. Faith opened her mouth to apologise, but he was still speaking. "Especially considering I actually know a thing or two about the Hades' Cult, and their history."
Faith didn't know what to say. She glanced at Toby, finding him looking just as guilty as her. "Things've been hectic," he mumbled like a scolded child, frowning into the milky depths of his tea.
"Too hectic to pick up a phone, or open your damn mouth when you're here?"
"Sorry, Bobby," said Faith quietly.
Bobby sighed and sat heavily in the seat opposite her. "What do you know?"
Toby looked to Faith, who nodded once and began to speak. Sam and Dean wandered closer, taking up their own chairs around the table, and together the three of them listened as Faith and Toby explained what they'd been working on these last few months.
Faith told them all about what her mom had done that fateful night in Wyoming, how she'd been hunting the Cult in the years leading up to her death, and how she'd sacrificed her life in order to banish them all back to the depths of Hell. She spoke about how they'd been tracking down information about the Cult, trying to figure out whether their vendetta against her was just a plot for revenge, or whether there was something more sinister behind it.
At some point, Faith's already-strained throat began to give out, so Toby took over. In between sips of tea, he told them how they'd been warned about the Devil's Gate but hadn't known they were facing it until they were already there, the Gate wide open, the demons spilling forth across the world like all the evils of Pandora's box.
When they were finally done, Sam and Dean didn't seem to know what to say, and Bobby just looked tired.
"What I don't get is, why do they call you the Child of War?" Sam asked, defrosting peas in one hand, beer in the other. "That's got to mean something, right?"
Faith shrugged, slouching lazily in her seat. "Maybe they just think I'm just exceedingly violent for someone so young."
Toby rolled his eyes and didn't comment. Faith noticed Bobby was frowning down at the whorls in the wood of the table, looking troubled.
"You said you know about the Cult," she reminded him. "What can you tell us that a disgraced small-town sheriff named Clive can't?"
Bobby's only answer was to grunt, standing to his feet and crossing into the study. The four younger hunters watched as he wandered from pile to pile of books, searching intently for something in particular. But he was at it for a while, and eventually their attention drifted. Sam asked what they knew so far, and Toby told him what they'd managed to find themselves, through research and interviews over the last few months.
Faith's tea was drained down to the dregs and nearly all the bottles were empty when Bobby finally returned, a small stack of ancient-looking tomes in hand.
"I wanted facts to back up what I know," he explained gruffly, retaking his seat.
"Memory ain't what it used to be, old man?" Dean asked with a shit-eating grin, clapping him on the back. Bobby's features shifted into a glare severe enough for Dean's grin to slip away, melting into something closer to a wince.
With Dean sufficiently cowed, Bobby cracked open one of his books to reveal a copy of a classical painting done in faded blacks, yellowed whites and burning reds. It depicted what Faith could only guess were souls in the deepest pits of Hell, torn apart by creatures of skeleton and smoke, hungry sneers on the demons' faces, evil glinting in their painted eyes. Bobby flipped the page to reveal more copies of paintings, all done by hands that were long since dead and gone.
A field on fire, people running screaming from a horrible, towering monster with teeth bigger than their arms. Some sort of winged demon, slicing through the air like a bat in the night, eyes glowing red. A river of blood carrying the bodies of children, awful creatures sailing over their corpses on boats made of bone.
"Well, this looks awful," muttered Dean.
"From what I can tell, they've taken some poetic license," Bobby said, but it wasn't really that much of a comfort. "But these are the earliest depictions of Chaos Demons in biblical lore."
Sam seemed surprised. " Biblical lore?"
"Most of demonic lore is biblical," Bobby said dryly.
"There's mention of Chaos Demons in the bible?"
"Well, not explicitly." Bobby sighed and Faith knew this explanation wasn't going to be of the simple variety. "There's one mention of the word chaos in this context, and even then, it's weak at best. Researchers have suspected for years that it refers to Chaos Demons, but it's only conjecture at this point."
Toby leant forwards in his seat. "What's the passage?"
"It's in Chronicles," said Bobby. "Reads: In those days no one could travel safely, for total chaos had overtaken all the people of the surrounding lands. Now, there's an argument to be made that it's just speaking about general turmoil, but the surrounding passages seem to suggest there was an actual blight, a force of some kind that swept through the land and tore it to shreds from the inside out. It's said in that time that God abandoned his people and left chaos to reign over the world."
"What does any of this matter?" Dean demanded. "The bible's not real – it's just a bedtime story written by Christians to make them feel better about being terrible people."
Faith laughed at that, the single sound tearing from her aching throat. Dean's eyes cut to her, eyebrows raised and a little bit smug. Faith pretended to ignore him.
"You an expert, now?" Bobby asked Dean scathingly.
The shit-eating grin disappeared. "No sir," he said contritely.
If Faith had the energy to be the smug one at that, she would have been. As it was, every muscle in her body hurt, aching something fierce, and her head was throbbing in time with her pulse. Exhaling heavily, Faith drooped until her forehead pressed against the table, finding the cool wood on her skin soothing.
"However, we can't entirely rely on the bible as a source of information," Bobby said gruffly. "There're plenty of other sources to draw from in that era. Paintings; poetry; so many books you couldn't read 'em all in a single lifetime."
Toby leant forwards. "And what does it tell us?"
"The picture it paints," Bobby began, "is that the Cult – known in some circles as the Hades Cult – is made up entirely of Chaos Demons. They're meant to serve at the behest of Satan himself. From what I can tell, they're basically the special forces of Hell's army."
"Supposedly," said Dean quickly. Bobby looked up. "Right?"
Sam shook his head. "Given everything else we've found to be real, I can't imagine this is any different."
Dean remained sceptical. "Hell's army?"
"Are you gonna shut up and let me finish?" Bobby growled.
Dean ducked his head like a scolded child. Bobby leant over his books again, picking up where he'd left off.
"There's mention of them all throughout history – if you know where to look. They pop up out of nowhere every few decades, usually concentrated in one specific area – a town, or a city. You ever hear of the Reign of Terror?"
Faith leant over the book, peering down at the image on the page – a rendering of someone getting their head chopped off at a guillotine, surrounded by a gaggle of demonic goblin-looking creatures, all clamouring over themselves to get a better look.
Sam made a noise of disbelief. "That was demons?"
"Demonic influence," corrected Bobby. "It's only speculation, but the pattern repeats time and time again. Periods of great violence or unrest, focused in a specific area of the world. It's like they come up for air every twenty or thirty years, their only mission to cause – well … chaos."
"Then they just disappear?" Faith pressed.
Bobby pulled an even thicker tome out from beneath the one he had open. "There's a theory," he began, saying the words with care, as if he thought some of them might rattle Faith to her core, "that long ago, the Cult was cursed."
The words echoed like a gunshot in Faith's head, and the image of sloping words written in her boyfriend's blood flashed behind her eyes. Had it been raining that night? She suddenly wasn't sure. Time did that to memories – made them foggy and difficult to capture. Her memory supplied a thundering sky anyway, an ominous flash of distant lightning the only light to illuminate that final, terrible message.
Faith's wasn't the only mind to flit to that night, to that message. Sam and Dean's eyes flicked to her, but Faith only stared steadily at Bobby, giving no indication of the dark path her thoughts had wandered down.
"Cursed how?" she asked.
Bobby inhaled slowly. "Well," he said on a sigh, "the accounts and theories all vary, but in my opinion, the curse keeps them only half as strong as they'd want to be. Sort of … bound. As if they're stuck with one hand tied behind their back. Now, this curse would have been cast centuries ago – long enough that we're going to have to dig deep for the exact wording – but obviously, it has something to do with you."
"Bobby…."
Bobby shut the book with the clap of pages and leather thumping together, then pushed the books away from him like he couldn't bear to look at them a moment longer. "You want my best guess?"
" Please," said Faith, only a little bit desperate.
"That night, when your mom died in that barn? I don't think they were coming after her."
Faith frowned. "I thought she went after them?"
"Well, no one knows for sure," said Bobby. "But I knew her, and so did Ellen, and it'd have been stupid for her to go after the Cult. According to lore, they're the oldest and most ruthless of Lucifer's soldiers. And she thought she could take them down single-handedly? She was a great hunter; I don't buy that she'd be so reckless. Especially not with a newborn baby depending on her."
Something in the region of Faith's heart gave a pang, and she lifted a hand to rub over the racing organ, feeling it thump beneath her touch. "So, if you don't think she went after them, and they weren't coming for her…"
"They were after you," said Toby grimly. He looked tense where he sat, like he was ready to leap into a fight right then and there, if it meant saving Faith from whatever grim fate awaited her.
"All this time, I assumed the curse had something to do with whatever my mom did in that barn," Faith murmured. "But what I'm getting now is that the spell she worked in that barn only happened because they were already cursed."
"She was protecting you," said Dean quietly, and when Faith glanced up, he was already looking at her, green eyes glowing in the low afternoon light. "You said she banished them back to Hell, right? She was probably buying you time."
"Time?"
"Time to grow up, get strong," Toby agreed, nodding his head to his own points. "Time to find a way to break the curse without breaking yourself in the process."
It was a lot to take in at any one time, and Faith pressed a hand back over her sternum. "So, she's dead … because of me," Faith said slowly, the words like a puzzle she didn't understand.
The others exchanged looks above her head, but Faith was done listening. Done paying them any attention. "We don't know that, Faith—" Toby began, but she didn't stop to hear it.
She stood so abruptly that the scrape of her chair against the floor made several of them flinch. Faith headed towards the back door, relieved when nobody tried to stop her. The screen door clattered against the frame as she shoved her way out into the afternoon air. The sun was inching its way towards the horizon, nearly hidden behind the towering piles of cars stacked around her.
Faith's brain felt too-full as she paced through the salvage yard, thinking of everything and nothing at all. She tried to focus on the thud of her shoes against the tightly-packed dirt and gravel that made up the path, but it was hard to think of anything but her own awful reality.
She knew, logically, that she hadn't directly done anything that put her mother in harm's way. She knew she hadn't been the one to pull to trigger – so to speak. She'd only been a baby, it wasn't her fault.
Only it was.
Somehow, someway, she was responsible for her mother's death. She was the reason she was alone. She literally had nobody but herself to blame.
Before now it had been easy, in a way, to blame her mother for leaving her. Her mom had gone looking for trouble; she'd prioritised the Cult and the job over her own daughter. But suddenly all those long, sleepless nights of rationalisation were for nothing; her world tipped on its head once again.
Instead of hunting in spite of Faith, her mom had hunted for her.
At some point Faith stopped walking, knowing that it would be stupid to go too far from the house. The gates of Hell had opened, and the Cult were free. Wandering out into an empty field without so much as a knife to protect herself with – well, she wasn't suicidal.
Somewhere near the edge of Bobby's property Faith found the backseat of a car propped up against the skeleton of an old Mustang. She sat down without worrying about the dirt and the dust. Faith circled her arms around her knees, staring up into the sky, watching as it slowly went from blue to lavender to deep purple.
Dean found her at some point, appearing as if by magic, wordlessly handing her a chilled beer. She popped it open in the door jamb of the Mustang, throwing back a mouthful without saying a word. Dean sat down beside her, unbothered by the dirt.
"It isn't safe to be out here on your own," he said quietly.
She snorted. "Save the lecture."
"I'm just saying – the Cult got free from Hell last night, along with who knows how many other demonic sons of bitches. You can't just go storming off because you got upset."
Faith glowered at him in the dying light of day. "I needed a minute alone. Sue me."
He arched a brow. "You didn't even bring a gun."
He had a point, but she wasn't in the mood to admit it. "Won't happen again," she muttered insincerely, tossing back another mouthful of crisp, cold beer.
Dean chuckled drily. "Yeah, I bet it won't."
Faith didn't deign to respond, and for a long few minutes they sat in tense silence, no sounds but the rustle of the wind and the distant hooting of an owl to fill the air. Faith didn't want to talk about the tragedy of her mother, or the mystery of her father, or the Cult that was, as they spoke, probably summoning up the strength to find and kill her.
But the silence was stifling, and she had to say something – the quiet threatened to swallow her like a maw.
"What'd you do to get Sam back?" she asked, eyes on the stars only just beginning to twinkle.
Dean went still, but just as quickly cleared his throat as if he hadn't. "Nothing," he lied. Faith looked away from the stars to glower at him, and he doubled down. "I'm serious, Bueller, I didn't do anything."
Her temper flared like it had been lying in wait; a flame he'd just drenched with gasoline.
"Don't you sit there and lie to me like I'm some kind of idiot, Winchester," she snarled. "Sam was dead and gone; and now he's walking around, not a scratch on him. Forgive me for not jumping for joy, but that's some dangerous, powerful shit. It wouldn't have come without a price."
Dean made a noise of frustration, like she was the one being difficult. "Can't you just be glad he's alive?"
"Of course I'm glad he's alive, you prick," she shot back. "But what did it cost you?"
Dean threw back some more beer, the last of the light disappearing from the sky, replaced instead by the distant glow of stars and the little sliver of moon hanging over their heads. "Doesn't matter," Dean grunted, looking tired all of a sudden.
Faith shook her head and said nothing, her flash of temper winking out.
Suddenly she wasn't much in the mood for a fight. She was beginning to learn the language of Dean, the way he thought and operated. She was beginning to understand him in a way that went beyond simple acquaintanceship. She shuddered to realise, but by this point, they might have even been friends.
"You're a stubborn asshole, you know that?" she said instead.
Dean made a sound that was either a scoff or a laugh. Either way, it was bitter. "Yeah," he said, voice like the gravel beneath them. "I'm aware."
A moment passed in silence, and then another and another, until finally Dean turned to look at her in the glow of the constellations above.
"It isn't your fault your mom died," he said, the words like ripping off a band aid. It hurt about as much, too. A quick, sharp sting on all the sensitive parts of her.
She scowled at him over the rim of her beer bottle. "If we can't talk about your personal shit, then we can't talk about mine," she told him darkly. "That's how it works."
"I'm just saying," Dean pressed, somewhat reluctantly, "you were only a baby. It wasn't your fault."
"Thanks, Dr. Phil," she snapped. Dean scowled and gave up.
"Hey, Faith?" he said once their beers were empty. The use of her name made her look up, finding him frowning. "You don't feel…" He didn't seem to know how to put into words whatever was swimming in his head. "You don't want to hurt yourself, do you?" he eventually managed to ask, the words rough.
" Hurt myself?" she echoed, staring at him in bewilderment. "Jesus Christ, Dean – I walked out of one conversation. And I can handle a little doom and gloom. You don't need to check me into a goddamn psych ward."
"That's not what I—" He shook his head, frustrated. "Look, can you just tell me you're not suicidal, so I can stop worrying?"
She gaped at him. "Why in the hell would I be suicidal? So, it's been a bad day – it hasn't been so bad that I'm planning to pop some pills and take the stairway to fuckin' heaven."
Did he seriously think she was so breakable, so goddamn fragile, that he was seriously sitting there worried she was going to go off herself? It was offensive – like he thought she wasn't capable of handling this life, even though she'd proved over and over and over again just how capable she truly was. She opened her mouth to let him have it a little more, but he held up a hand and she fell begrudgingly quiet.
"I just wanted to check," he muttered, suddenly looking so much older than he was.
Faith opened her mouth, unsure what was going to come out. In the end, it was begrudgingly gentler than she'd expected. "I can handle myself, Dean. Seriously. You don't have to worry."
Dean scowled. "Of course I worry."
That took her by surprise. "Why?"
"Because you're my responsibility," he said, startlingly honest. "Because I brought you into this shit. You're a hunter now, and that's on me. I should have just left you to your goddamn apple pie life, but instead I had to…" he shook his head angrily.
He was having a rare moment of emotion – and while Faith would usually prefer to stay quiet and let him have it, his words had unfortunately stoked that little flame inside her up into an inferno once again.
"My 'apple pie life'?" she seethed, anger white-hot in her veins.
Surprised by the venom in her voice, he looked up from the label he was picking off his beer bottle. Faith shot to her feet, feeling a lot better when she was standing over Dean – like she was the one with the advantage.
"You don't know the first thing about me, or my life," she snarled. "Don't sit there and pretend you're somehow better than me just because you've been doing this since you were a kid, or like somehow my whole fucking world revolves around you. It wasn't your good graces that brought me into this life, Dean. In fact, if what Bobby says is true, then I've been a part of this whole thing longer than even you have. You're not better than me, and you're not the reason I'm here, doing any of this."
Dean seemed shellshocked, staring up at her dumbly. But at the end of her tirade, Dean's expression finally folded into anger. He sprang to his feet too, and upright, he towered over her. Despite the height difference, Faith's anger didn't melt. She glowered up at him, receiving hot ire in return.
"I don't think I'm better than you," he seethed. "I'm fucking terrified for you, Faith. Because yeah, maybe you have been in this since you were born – but you'd gotten out. You were free. And I did what I always do, and I screwed it up. You think it doesn't keep me awake at night, thinking about what might have happened if we'd just let you be? If you'd gone to stay with a friend that night, and kept your shitty waitressing job, and just staying fucking normal?! You're a hunter now, and yeah, you're good at it, and maybe you've even found some messed-up kind of peace in the job, but that's still on me!"
Faith stared at him, and Dean stared right back. She didn't think either of them was expecting that outburst. Time passed and neither looked away. Faith watched him and felt like she was seeing behind the curtain, looking at someone who had finally peeled off a mask they'd had glued to their face. Her anger began to thaw, like something frozen pushed into the sunshine.
"Not everything is your fault, Dean," she managed to whisper, words carried on a cool breeze. "Certainly not this. And if you're worried that I resent you for – for anything – I need to know that I don't. I'm only grateful. Without you – and Sam – I might not be alive right now to yell at you. And that … it would really suck."
It wasn't the most elegant thing she'd ever said, but Dean seemed to appreciate it. He swallowed, the sound loud in the otherwise quiet salvage yard. Their eyes remained locked, and Faith could almost feel all of the unsaid things floating by their heads, like bees circling flowers in the springtime.
Words pressed against her tongue, but she bit back whatever they might have been, afraid she might accidentally reveal too much of herself, some piece of her soul that was best kept secret. She didn't want Dean to see the truth of her; there would be no coming back from that.
The tension continued to climb, rising to the point where the air felt thin and the temperature stifling. Desperate to get rid of it, Faith forced a lazy slash of a grin onto her face, a careless, wicked expression that was designed specifically to get under Dean's skin.
"So…you think I'm a good hunter?" she asked sweetly, fluttering her eyelashes for effect.
And just like that, the dangerous, nameless tension was gone. Dean took a healthy step backwards and rolled his eyes, everything between them back to the way it should be.
"Don't let it get to your head, Bueller," he grunted. "Let's get back inside before it starts raining toads or something."
They picked their way back through the salvage yard, Bobby's house a glowing beacon of warmth in the night. It was late April, and the night air still held a bite. Faith pulled her jacket tighter around herself, trying not to flinch when it jostled her sore ribs.
Toby, Sam and Bobby seemed to have finished researching for the night, much to Faith's relief. Bobby was making up burgers in the kitchen, while Sam and Toby played cards at the table, neither looking particularly invested in the game.
Faith was worried they might try to talk to her about what they'd uncovered, but instead dinner was a sombre affair. Conversation was scarce, so many sensitive topics floating in the air around them that nobody wanted to risk setting them off like landmines. They ate in tense quiet, and by the time they were finished with their meal, it was clear the time for socialisation was over, and they were all eager to get back to their usual pairings.
Faith could sense that Sam and Dean wanted a minute alone with Bobby, and Toby was itching to get moving anyway, so they were the first to leave. She kissed Bobby on the cheek, thanking him quietly for dinner.
"You sure you don't wanna stay the night?" he checked.
"Toby caught wind of a possible job out in Omaha," she told him. "If we drive straight through, we can be there by morning."
Bobby looked disapproving. "You two ever hear of a thing called sleep?"
She smiled. "We'll be fine."
Sam was so tall, she had to push up onto her tip toes to wrap her arms around his neck. He made a noise of surprise as she gripped him tight but didn't wriggle out of her hold, instead just gingerly hugging her in return.
"I'm really glad you're okay, Sam," she quietly, even as some small part of her brain wondered what, exactly, she was hugging.
Sam chuckled, a tiny bit thin. "Yeah, me too."
She pulled away and looked up at him sternly. "If you need anything…"
"I'll call," he promised. "And hey, same goes for you."
Toby was just shaking Dean's hand when she passed them. She didn't much feel like going through the motions with Dean, so Faith simply nodded at him once. "See ya," she said offhandedly, like it came as an afterthought. Dean's expression twisted like he'd bitten into a lemon, but he only nodded back, and then she and Toby were out in the muggy summer heat, making their way to the car.
The open road had become a comfort to Faith, and as she and Toby made their way onto the interstate, she felt herself breathe a sigh of relief.
"You okay?" Toby asked gently, the first chance they'd had to speak alone since the onslaught of discomforting revelations about her mom.
Staring up at the sky, Faith tugged distractedly at her mangled ear. "I will be," she said, tracing the constellations with her eyes.
Toby hesitated. "When?"
Faith looked away from the stars. "When you and I figure out exactly what the Cult wants from me, and why, and how we can make sure they never, ever get their hands on it."