Father, Brother, Lover, Son
Ξ November 30th, 2008 | → | ∇ Imitating Angels, Supernatural, fanfic, gen, pg13 |
Title: Father, Brother, Lover, Son
Author: astrothsknot
Fandom: SPN/Buffy
Series: Imitating Angels AU
Rating: pg13, gen
Characters: Dean/Faith, Sam, John, Lily (OFC)
Disclaimer: I don’t own a TV show. Nor a tie-in book
A/N Spoilers for the novel Go Ask Malice and In My Time of Dying. It helps if you’ve read 10.16.2005. Beta by pheebs1. Faith has something to tell Dean in the aftermath of the truck smash.
Nov 1 2006
Rabbit, rabbit.
First chance I’ve had to update these last few days. I love Halloween! Candy, costumes and puking kids. Hell, yeah!
We went out trick or treating. Duncan was real happy - going out with Ricky in his little dinosaur suit, it was the cutest fucking thing I have ever seen. We cleared out the candy like cops in a donut shop sale. You can’t just give to one and not the other. He swears he got more candy than last year and he’s certain it’ll be because Ricky was there. Everyone just fucking dissolved when they saw him. Great big puddles of goo.
Lily’s not speaking to me because I let Duncan eat all his chocolate and candy and now he’s throwing up everywhere. Seriously, though, I thought Dan’s wife was going to blow up or something, “OMIGOD!!! HE LOOKS ADORABLE!! OH I GOTTA TAKE A PICTURE!” and Ricky of course, just loved it. All that attention and hugs and everyone cooing and fussing over him.
Big shit-eating grin all over his little face and a little bar of chocolate in each hand. I bet he’s gonna have chocolate in places where there’s not even places.
We got back in about 9 and he was dead beat. So I just put him to bed in his little suit - he’s totally in love with it. I’ll upload the photos tomorrow, he went apeshit when I tried to get it off him to change his diaper.
Duncan went as Harry Potter - he’s the only kid going as Harry who can actually do magic. He bet his candy against some other kid who he thinks is a total asshole that he could make the broom fly. I think he threw it, but he swears he didn’t. Of course I get the asshole kid’s bitch-ass mom demanding I make Duncan hand back his candy. She wasn’t happy when I told her to fuck off and treat it as an object lesson. He shouldn’t bet anything he doesn’t want to lose.
So, yeah, no wonder Duncan’s puking like a champ.
Nov 2 2006
Duncan is still puking. Doesn’t stop him eating more fucking candy. I guess he’s making room for it.
Dean called, just to check I was OK and to make sure that I had the cabin salted and warded. I know he’s being cautious since it’s only a year since Sam’s girlfriend was killed, but the Yellow-Eyed Demon’s not the worst thing I’ve had after my ass.
I’m still breathing.
Nov 4 2006
It’s an ordinary night - that’s always how these things start, right? I can’t…take any of this in.
Sam just called and said that they’ve been in a car crash. A truck t-boned them or something. He’s alright, but Dean and John are in a bad way. They’ll make it, he’s sure they will, but maybe I should come and bring Ricky.
He’s never said I should bring the baby before. Not even when Dean got electrocuted. The first I heard about that was about that was when they were on their way to some faith healer.
So it must be bad. Fuck.
I gotta get ready and pack up some stuff. Right. So stuff for the hospital and the diaper bag and oh shit…
***
Longest fucking car ride of my life.
***
Sam just called. John’s awake and mobile, so that’s something, but Dean’s still out and it doesn’t look good. He didn’t say anything but I’m not dumb. Stupid bastard’s gone and really fucked himself up this time…
I asked what they’d been hunting - it must have been big for them all to have teamed up, because I thought John was off trying to draw the demon away from them. John as a Momma Bird or something…I just had this image in my head of John dressed like Big Bird. I need some fucking sleep. Or a drink.
Sam started to tell me, but the coverage went out on my cell. We can put men on the moon and we can’t get universal cell coverage. Maybe those moon landings were fake. We can’t get coverage now, how the fuck did we get moon pictures forty years ago?
Nearly there, thank God.
***
Lily went to sort out a room after dropping me off at the hospital. She offered to take Ricky but I want him with me. I just need him here and it’s not just because Sam told me to bring him. He’s real and solid and none of this seems like that.
I missed Sam when we got here and the nurse directed me to Dean’s room. I told her I was Dean’s girlfriend and they just nodded and sent me to his room. My slayer-sense or whatever you want to call it was setting off alarms all through my body, but I’m in a fucking hospital, with all sorts of spooks and dead people. No fucking wonder I want to claw my skin off.
John was sitting with Dean. Jesus Christ, he was in such a bad way. He was on a ventilator and his face had this huge cut on it. I just started crying. Real bone deep sobs. I haven’t cried like that since I had that fight with Angel before I went to jail.
All I could feel was this panic, like what if this is it? He’s really gone?
And then John said - and this is really fucking weird - “You’ll get your chance to tell him.”
He wasn’t even looking at me, he was looking at Dean and yeah, how can you not look at Dean? He’s a fucking mess on the bed. I know I came back from worse, but I’m a Slayer for Chissakes! Dean’s a normal guy. Normal guys die all the time.
And then I swear to God that I heard Dean, half-pissed and half laughing in my ear, “All those fucking hunts and it’s a truck that puts me out? That’s just embarrassing.”
I told this to John and he just laughs and says, “Yeah, that sounds like Dean.” Then he got all serious and asked if he could hold Ricky. He looked so sad as he sat with him, like he was trying to record the moment. He told Ricky some story about Dean eating all the Christmas decorations off the tree when he was three. Real happy tale, he ended up in the ER cos not all the decs were chocolate.
John shot me a pointed look while he’s telling the story and I just nodded. “Thought so.”
He played with Ricky for maybe a half-hour before passing him back to me. “Life’s too short, Faith.” Then he got up to go and put his hand on my shoulder before saying, “Mary would have liked you.”
***
Sat with Sam and I got the story out of him. I was right - they were hunting something big - the yellow eyed demon who killed Mary. It possessed John and it all went to shit from there. There was some shit about a magic gun.
A magic gun. Jesus Christ. No wonder they got their asses kicked. This other guy who Dean and John know somehow - sounds like Giles - says something big’s brewing. There’s always some fucking apocalypse in the offing. Been there, done that, got the fucking t-shirt.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” I yelled at Sam. Ricky jumped and started crying, which just made everything a million times better. “I’ve been through a fucking apocalypse! What the hell do you think happened to Sunnydale? We had an asston of slayers and we still only just made it out. How the shit did you expect to take on a demon with a magic fucking gun?”
“Well, it was better that than sitting with our thumbs up our asses!” He snarled back. Ricky started screaming, real upset. “All my fucking life’s been about that son of a bitch. Why shouldn’t we get the drop on it for once?”
“That works if you know what you’re doing. Look at what happens when you don’t.” Lily came in about then. “Want me to take Ricky? The nurses station‘s not happy about the noise.”
“Shit! I’m sorry Faith. I didn’t mean to upset him,” Sam sighs. “I’m just…so…”
I just shrugged and handed Ricky to Lily and he screamed even worse, reaching out for me. I was watching Dean, I was really hoping it was going to be like my soaps when the family arguing pulls them out of the coma. But nothing.
“If your father had let me teach you about real magical theory and practice, you wouldn’t be in this mess,” Lily said and it’s the closest I’ve ever seen a decent guy like Sam come to slapping a woman.
“Lily, just fuck off. Be somewhere else,” he actually stood up so hard he knocked the chair over and did that towering over her thing. I swear his knuckles were white, he was clenching his fists so tight. She stood her ground for a moment, but then the nurse came in and threatened to get security and throw us all out if we couldn’t keep the noise down.
Lily left then, taking Ricky with her. Sam paced the room for a bit, before pulling out his father’s journal and sitting down to read it. I could hear Ricky wailing “Momma! Wan Momma! “ all the way down the stairs. I felt like such a cunt for not taking him back to the motel, but I wanted to stay with Dean. I didn’t know how much longer I would have with him.
“Where’s John? You’d have thought he’d be here.” I said. “We could use the help.”
“You’d think so.” Sam said as he flipped back and forth through their journal. “But I guess he’s got his own plans.”
“How can you get by with just that little book?”
“We’ve managed fine so far. Besides there’s always libraries and the internet. Fair enough, they’re not the kind of libraries you’re used to with all the spells and stuff.” He paused for a moment. “Make our lives easier, I guess if we could get that kind of stuff.”
Then it’s like a light bulb went off in his head, because he sat bolt upright, before taking a list out his pocket. “Do you recognise anything on this list?”
It was just a standard list for a multi-purpose summoning ritual and I said that. “I’ve never seen this stuff in anything in a public library, only in books that the Council or other occult people have.”
“That’s what I thought. I bet that fucking bitch gave it to him.” He’s got that look like he wants to kill her again.
“Hey, asshole, you’ve said yourself, John knew a shitload of people who knew this stuff. Besides, John’s a fucking adult. If he wants to summon a demon, that’s his problem. Don’t blame Lily because your father’s a prick.” I stood up and got my jacket. “I’m going for a walk or something. I’ll see you in a while. Anyway, it‘s not like John‘s an amateur, is it?”
He muttered something and then went back to his research.
***
I guess I just wandered around the hospital for few hours. Mostly I was trying to stop that feeling where my skin wants to crawl off my body. It’s usually only like that when there’s something big around. It was so painful I just had to get out of there. I went to the chapel and luckily it was empty and it wasn’t so bad there. I called Lily to ask how Ricky was and he’d fallen asleep in the car and was fine.
She asked how Dean was, so I told her there was no change. I didn’t bring up Sam, you didn’t need to be psychic to know that she was still pretty pissed off at him. I asked her to come over after breakfast with Ricky.
I fell asleep after that and woke up with a weird pain in my neck and a weird dream where the Mayor was sitting with me in the church. “He seems like a nice boy and you have been sweet on each other for years.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d have liked him.”
“He’s not what I would have chosen for my special girl, but he loves you. And you love him and he treats you and little Ricky well. Sometimes you can’t ask for more than that.” He looked up at the flickering lights. “You should go and tell him now, before he finds out what John’s gone and done. It won’t mean the same to him when he finds out.” He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “You make sure that gorgeous little tyke of yours drinks his milk. These early years are important for the teeth and bones.”
I woke up knowing I had to get to Dean now! So I bolted along that corridor to hear Sam yelling for help. Dean had come around!
As far as I can gather it was some kind of miracle and Sam’s dancing about all happy but I just felt really fucking terrified for Dean. Doesn’t fucking help that John’s nowhere to be found. I can’t talk to Dean because he was away for the next hour and a half getting this scanned and that x-rayed and when he came back Sam and the doc’s with him and I needed to say it to him in private.
Then I get a call from Lily, she’s got Ricky downstairs and can I come and get him, because if she sees Sam, she’ll knock him into next week. She didn’t laugh when I said I’d pay to see that. I got Ricky from her and told her about Dean, she just said, give him my best, but she wasn’t coming up. She’d maybe see him when his guard dog was gone.
I got up there with Ricky and all hell’s breaking loose. John’s collapsed and they were working on him, but it made no difference - he was gone.
John fucking Winchester’s gone.
I…he must have known, when he was playing with Ricky what he was going to do.
He must have. It’s the only thing he could have meant when he said I’d get my chance to tell him.
***
With one thing and another it was the evening before I could get in to see Dean - they were keeping him in another night, just to be sure. Sam had gone to the motel to sleep.
So I took Ricky with me to see him. He was just staring out the window. “Dean? I can go if you don’t feel up to it.”
He turned around and saw Ricky and he smiles, really smiles. It was lovely to see something break through the closed look on his face. “Hey, Champ, you come to see me?”
“You can hold him, if you want,” I said.
Dean had his arms out for him and thank God, Ricky went straight to him. He’s fascinated by Dean’s stitches on his forehead and laughed when Dean kept going, “ouch!”
“Daddy all sore?” Ricky said and Dean just stared me in shock. He’d got this look in his eyes like I betrayed him somehow and he can’t cope with this on top of everything else.
“Really?” he breathed and he sounded…fuck, I don’t know. Not good, anyway.
I just nodded. Dean said nothing, just hugged Ricky close. “I gotta tell Dad…”
Then he remembered and he’d got that look in his eyes again.
“John knew, if it helps,” I heard myself say. It’s stupid, even as I’m saying it, but hey, John told me himself, life was too short. I gotta get this bit out before anything else happens. “Dean, I want us to be together, Life’s too short to fuck around.”
Dean closed his eyes and held out his other arm to me and hugged me close, so close that I thought he was going to bust my ribs. I climbed onto the bed and I’m laying in it with him. He was murmuring something like, “Why today? All this time, so why today?” but when I asked him, he denied it.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but I think we must have eventually fallen asleep. I don’t know if we’ll make it, but you gotta try, right?
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