give us back a taste of the way things were before they made the laws

[attitude]

A deathwish is usually made long before it's realized. Before she was ever made Valentine, Faye was the type of girl who chased after dreams and would leap off the edge of a cliff without looking down. Reckless abandon was encouraged by a pair of parents so caring and attentive that she never wanted for anything, parents who cleared the path of brambles and branches for their daughter, never letting her feel so much as a scratch. To the girl who lived a life of safety, danger and risk were intoxicating and quickened the heart in a way that not even love could, forming thoughts that persisted even when memories had long since faded and broken away.

From early on, Faye was made to be a hunter.

It shows now, in the bright red that runs down from her knee and the harsh breathing that barely manages to fill her lungs. Her gun is held still and the aim true, save for the slight rattle of the weapon that comes from hands being raised through sheer willpower alone. All around Faye, their blood painting books dusty from disuse, are the bodies of Splicers. Figures, she's murmured to herself, that they'd all be hiding out behind stacks of books. Figures, that even men who lose their minds are nothing other than cowards.

Her breath is ragged with a slight protest, an unwillingness on Faye's part to let go. She just has one more. One more Splicer, who lopes around with predatory intent, that Faye needs to put down. She can do it. She could do it. But her vision is starting to swim and adrenaline is learning to fade, replaced by fatigue as her heel grinds against tile and startles the creature, inspires a flying rage.

"Shit," she bites out, raising her voice as she stumbles back, firing a couple of shots that barely clip its shoulder. "Dammit, hold still!"

Comments

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

He's not here this time to play savior.

Dean's in Rapture to find his own trouble today, an itch beneath his skin born of too many losses and too little whiskey to cope, looking for a fight and a whole lot of noise. With a weapon strapped to every part of his body, his boots land heavy enough to bounce pebbles off the dank floors of Rapture with every footfall. He sets them towards every noise he hears, finds friendlies more often than not, and greets his fellow islanders with a faint smile on his lips and a quick nod of his head.

He saves the real smiles for the ugly ones.

Dean's fresh from a hell of a fight with a pack of splicers, all of them fast but pretty stupid. Dean figures sheer numbers are the only reason they landed a hit on him at all, but it's with a look that's almost fond that he rubs the rising bruise across his cheekbone.

He's almost had it for the day, wearing down and thinking about returning topside, but a sound in the deep pricks his ears.

Gunfire.

"All right," he grunts, hefting his Glock. "Here we go again." Taking off at a run, Dean follows the sound of battle through the darkness, closer and closer until all at once he bursts into the ruins of an old library, and Dean wastes as much time as he ever does on the books.

In the center of the room, a hulking shape is driving a smaller one towards the wall, and in the echo of the telltale click that follows his entrance, Dean knows that whoever it is? Just ran out of bullets.

"Get down!" he shouts, trusting them to obey when he aims his gun, firing a shot into the middle of the Splicer's back that rattles the books on their shelves.

[attitude]

The thing about being in the range of gunfire is this: there's absolutely no control after someone pulls the trigger. Countless times, and around people with varying amounts of affection (or, barring that, investment), Faye's found herself barely escaping the whiz of a bullet, the burn of the air hot against her skin. One false move, a bullet misses. One stumble, another hits. And that's why, when the instruction rings across the room to hit the floor, that's exactly what she does— doesn't matter who the person's speaking to, chances are she'll be safer hugging the ground than not, at least for those few seconds. All the same, it only takes the impact of her knee against the gritty ground for anger to replace fear, the frustration and humiliation of not having been able to handle her own battles.

Which is why, as soon as the Splicer cries out in pain from the shot, Faye leaps to her feet with a screech of heel on wood, slamming another round into her Glock and pressing it directly against the Splicer's forehead.

Bang.

"I had him," she calls out to her erstwhile savior, preparing to round on him before her eyes widen. Damn.

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

On the other side of the room, Dean stares at her, aware that his mouth is opening, that air is pushing up and out of his lungs, but he can't hear over the sound of his pounding heart, can't hear whatever words anger has chosen for him in this moment, because he is sick, so sick and tired of coming down here and finding good people doing their damnedest to die.

"You had him," he echoes, so quiet it's almost lost in the settling dust. "You had - you. You didn't have him," he says, taking a step forward, "You didn't have another round in your gun. You didn't have time to put another clip in. You didn't have him, what you had," he says and he's shouting now, but Dean can't feel it, wouldn't even notice but for the way the dust swirls in front of him, "Was a goddamn bullet between your eyes if I hadn't gotten here!"

[attitude]

He's right. And that's the bitch of it all. Every single word that comes out of his mouth is laced with truth and dripping in anger. They wrap around, snaking across her chest and binding it tight, her heart feeling like there's suddenly no space to beat. No space to breathe. She doesn't remember the last time anyone's cared quite like this. She's not sure that anyone has. She's not even sure that she wants it, stomach suddenly churning and nausea coming and passing in waves, anger filling in the blanks where they're strewn and littered.

What gives him the right?

Faye Valentine shouts too, but it's always in response to fear. And quite frankly, even now, even with Dean's eyes darkening in a way that she's never witnessed before, she's not afraid of him. Not one bit.

"Care to run that by me again?" she asks, eyes defiant and a brow raised, hand placed on her hip as she waits for him to close the distance between the two of them. Because she won't take one step.

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

Blood is rushing past his ears fast enough that for a moment, Dean honestly thinks he's heard her wrong. No one could be this reckless, this unrepentantly careless with their own life. But she's standing there, and the hand on her hip isn't a figure of speech, it's reality, and Dean thinks that if he does so much as blink the top of his head might come flying right off. It's too much. On top of everything else, every loss, on the heels of the latest disappearance - god, he only just left Neil weeping in the goddamn garden - and now Faye wants to go, too?

"Do you need to hear it again?" he asks, voice as uneven as the step he takes towards her. "The only way I could make my point any clearer is if I let this fucker - " He punctuates the swear with a kick to the fallen Splicer's side as he walks over it. " - take you down." With a deep breath that does nothing to steady him, Dean stops in front of her, knuckles white around his Glock. "And I think you know that. Which begs the question, Valentine, when the hell'd you decide it was okay to act like a goddamn fool?"

[attitude]

"Me? Act like a fool?"

Her anger runs cold. Maybe because this isn't something that she's ever encountered before. She remembers light slaps on the wrist back when she was a child, being scolded for running too fast or not taking enough time to watch where her feet are going as she flies down the steps, but there's a difference between telling someone to be careful, and telling someone that they aren't allowed to take risks. Dean isn't using so many words, nor is the message clear in any way other than the physical threat that looms over her as he steps close, but the effect is the same. She's put her own neck on the line, too much for his taste. And, by god, if it doesn't just piss her off, that he thinks he can bully her into anything. That he thinks he can make that sort of argument when it simply screams hypocrisy.

Green eyes, acidic, slowly gaze from head to toe, before making contact again.

"Last I checked, I'm not the only one down here. Last I checked, I'm a hunter as much as you are. And last I checked, no one makes my choices for me but myself, so really Dean," she replies, her voice just barely raising in volume, although the edge sharpens by a great deal. "Tell me. What gives you the right to call me a fool? The fact that one damn Splicer slipped through my fingers?"

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

"It only takes one," Dean grinds out, and he'd be a fucking monster to put hands on her with his blood running so high, but he can't help himself. There's a tear in her sleeve and red beneath, another on her thigh. She might be willing and able to put on a show for him, to jerk her chin up and look him in the eye, but who knows what hurts will show themselves when the adrenaline fades? Even in the frenzy that came before, Dean had seen how slow she'd been moving, how fatigued.

Reaching for her, he has the presence of mind, at least, to be gentle, one hand closing around her wrist and the other pushing up her sleeve. "Would've been ribbons," he rumbles, and that's it, all the conviction he needs, all the right to call her a fool he can claim, but it feels like enough. "You shouldn't come down here alone."

[attitude]

All it takes is that one touch to light a match to the fire. Feeling a shiver and a flame running down her spine, Faye locks her jaw to keep from immediately pulling away. All of this twists at her stomach, jars in her mind, because even Dean Winchester doesn't have the right to box her in a cage, and it's only worse when the hands he uses are gentle. Feels like she's being lured into a trap. Maybe one that she's set, herself.

He doesn't get to do this. Doesn't get to make her excuse it all with a soft brush of his hand. Doesn't get to hold her down while he tries to dress her wounds, like she can't handle herself, like she's some kind of delicate flower that needs to be nurtured every step of the way. That just isn't her, and she tries to tug her wrist away. "You don't get a say in whether or not I come down here alone, Winchester," she grits out, her heel clicking sharply against the ground as she takes a half-step back. "Last I checked, you aren't bulletproof. And I'll be damned if you think the majority of people on the ITF are any better than me at handling this place. One mistake doesn't make me a bad shot."

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

Dean lets her pull her arm away, but he follows that half-step forward, the concern leaking into his expression a moment gone now replaced by a renewed fury. She's standing there like she's not bleeding, tone scraping like sandpaper over his last nerve, and Dean can't - he can't -

He can't even process what he's feeling, and when his lungs fill up with hot air he lets it right back out again. "Would you stop acting like you wouldn't be dead if I'd gotten here three seconds later?" he shouts. "Dead, Faye, do you not even - " He's red and gasping, but he doesn't feel any better, won't feel any better until he's punched something, or drunk something, or fuck, he doesn't even know. His heart's pounding against his ribs like he's terrified, but Dean doesn't even know what he's afraid of, short of seeing her dead. "Do you not even care?"

[attitude]

Quick as lightning, she slaps him across the cheek. It's not meant to injure, not intended to bruise, but instead the delivery of a wake-up call. He can't keep on doing this to her. He can't shout, yell, bully her into a corner and act like he has any sort of control over her actions. Because he doesn't. No one does, aside from Faye herself. And while she'll be one of the first to admit that sometimes, you care enough about another person that ownership of that soul and being starts blurring over fast, the underlying implication that she doesn't give a crap about her life jars.

Because sometimes she does, so much that it's been painful, so much that she can hardly even breathe. Other times, it's like someone's pulled a blanket over her senses, dulled everything down until she can't feel anything, not unless she's got her finger in front of a trigger and her heart is racing. It's never constant, and maybe that's just because her life hasn't been so in years, but to be accused of throwing her life away like Spike did isn't something Faye can easily swallow.

"Don't you dare accuse me of not caring, Dean Winchester. Don't you dare act like I came down here on a suicide mission. Walking along the beach everyday and eating muffins every morning? That's not living for me," she tells him in a raised voice, her face startlingly pale. "I need to feel something. Can you understand that?"

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

He can hear her shouting, but it's a long moment before Dean can understand her, everything between his ears white noise since she smacked him hard enough his vision burst into a sea of dancing stars. He comes back to himself with a rush of adrenaline racing down his spine, his every nerve on high alert and his heart not far behind, a lump of something sore and aching in his throat when he goes to swallow.

"Yeah," he says, not embarrassed so much as surprised to feel wetness at the corners of his eyes when he blinks. Yeah, he gets wanting to feel something, but if it feels like this, like fear and desperation and a near unstoppable need to scream, he thinks he might take it back. He should say something now, demand - or ask, what the fuck ever - that she let him get her topside, at the very least watch her back, but he can't seem to form the words. Can't seem to do much of anything, actually, but stand there, thinking about how full and dark her lips are even in the deep of Rapture.

[attitude]

Having Dean fall silent might be more unnerving than anything else. She gets, after all, what it's like to feel angry over someone being willfully reckless. And while that isn't what's happened here, because Faye hasn't come down to Rapture anticipating a brush with death, she can still understand how it looks from his end. It's not behavior that she'll tolerate from him in the long-term, but the empathy still licks there like a lazy flame, and to see all of that die out leaves an unease that curls around her like so much smoke.

Nerves still thrumming to the tips of her fingers and hand tingling in the wake of the slap, none of Faye's resolve has evaporated, even as she carefully lowers the volume of her voice. "Good. Now, unless you've got something else to say." She hefts up her Glock and rests it on her shoulder. "I need to find more ammo."

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

Dean raises a brow, cheek stinging with the movement, and holds up a fresh clip. He has no hope of her taking it, everything about Faye suggesting she means to do every last thing the hardest goddamn way possible, but it's worth a shot.

"Would you at least let me patch you up?" he asks. They're standing in filth, in blood and dust so old he can hardly stand to breathe it, and she has open wounds. "Look around you, Faye, there's no shortage of crap to infect you."

[attitude]

When he speaks up again— and that he would wasn't even a question, really— Faye sighs through her teeth, eyes falling shut as she tries to understand the source of the tension that she feels, something knotting in her gut, twisting there with more than mere irritation, and not quite unease. Again, he has a point. She's bleeding from half a dozen places, and while her constitution is pretty good, it's not something she should be taking for granted. They don't have an unlimited supply of IV drips to throw here and there to try to flush a girl's system out. She's supposed to be careful.

But it's just another snag, at the end of the day, one that turns her gaze back as quick as lightning as she throws her hand up in disbelief. "Dean," she reiterates, a slight growl of frustration under the name. "I know how to take care of myself. What can I do to convince you of that?" Taking a couple of deep breaths, her voice lowers for the next question, green eyes fixed directly on his.

"Or is there another reason why you're afraid?"

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

"I'm not afraid." It's knee jerk, the need to defend himself immediate, rising up well before Dean's had a chance to consider her words. His heart's beating too fast, too hard, it hurts him, and he's - so what if he's afraid of seeing her hurt? He's supposed to be.

"You know what?" he barks out, suddenly fed up, and with so much more than Faye. He's sick of people dying, sick of people leaving. Sick of people doing their damnedest to make both those things happen and then walking away like it doesn't leave him bleeding, so fuck it. He'll do the walking this time.

"Here." He tosses her a fresh roll of bandages from his pack, dirt crunching under his boots as he shifts to go. "Take care of yourself then."

[attitude]

This is exactly what she's asked for. Isn't it? Not wanting Dean to get all worked up over her, wanting him to go his own way, wanting him not to keep on breathing down her neck like she's some kind of kid who needs constant supervision. Yet somehow, as her hand reaches out to catch the bandages just in time, Faye's eyes are fixed on his retreating figure, and it hurts. It twists something in her chest, leaving it hard to breathe. Everyone leaves. Everyone does, and Dean's departure at the moment reminds her too heavily of Spike, until she turns around sharply and heads in the opposite direction, throwing her gun at the pipes and hitting them as she goes.

She's about ready for all of the monsters to come out of the shadows.

"I will," she mutters, just enough for her voice to carry. "Just watch."

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

He's to the hall, he's nearly out, out of earshot, out of reach, out of fucks to give, but she's making so much goddamn noise. He'd thought he'd meant it before, but now Dean's sure of it. Faye really does want to bring them all down on her.

He's half-turned to shout Stop when he sees it, a flicker of movement closing in on Faye's left flank. "Shit," Dean grunts, starting forward, but it isn't Faye the Splicer attacks, isn't either of them Dean thinks for a long, stupid moment, and then he realizes the tiny clunk he heard in front of him was the landing of a grenade.

"Shit," Dean repeats with equal fervor, and there's only time to get his hands up before the blast lifts him off the ground, propelling him sideways towards the wall. Dean squeezes his eyes closed and braces for impact, but the wall crumbles like wet paper around his shoulders, letting him straight through to the other side.

The ground there is not so kind. Dean crashes down with a force that stuns him, his ears full up with his own roaring blood and a singing pain at the back of his skull, but he can't lie here, he's supposed to be doing something, supposed to be -

"Faye!" Dean shouts, cursing when his first dizzy attempt to rise puts him right back on the ground.

[attitude]

The clang is a familiar one. Faye turns around, too late to see much movement in all of the dark, but instinct tells her to run in the opposite direction of the noise. Always in the opposite direction of the noise. Her own heels grate against the ground as she holds her Glock up in the direction of the shadows, her pulse pounding in her ears, her finger on the trigger and thumb ready to knock off the safety. Too late, however, it feels like she watches the explosion in slow-motion. She's heard of this type of thing happening before, heard of hunters mentioning how sometimes the briefest of instants can take an eternity to pass.

They say it only happens when one is about to die.

Shutting her eyes quickly, Faye quickly stumbles towards a pillar standing in the distance, letting out a cry (one that she can't even hear) as she's suddenly thrown across the path. Her eyes are the first to open, although they sting from all the dust, kicked up even further when she coughs into the crook of her elbow. Her ears ring, and a brush of her fingers against her left lobe reveals a wetness there, Faye pushing herself as quickly as she can off the ground. Coughs prevent her from getting out of the way, and a small amount of alarm lodges in the back of her neck and spreads, passes over her skin like ice.

"Dammit," she grits out, eyes watering. "Who in the world uses a grenade to— coward." Rubbing the corner of her eyes against a shoulder, she aims the gun in front of her, backing away from the debris as she looks for any movement, any unusual shadows off to the side. A tinny laugh echoes through the hall, raising hairs at the back of her neck. She can only hope that Dean got out in time.

Knowing him, though, the blast will just end up bringing him right back.

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

When Dean finds his feet, it's pure dumb luck that sets them stumbling in the right direction, the white of a pillar little more than a gray smudge in the shadows swimming before his eyes. Soon there's a body rising out of the dust in front of him, and Dean aims his Glock, realizing just in time that it's Faye. Still standing then. Well, that's just pure dumb luck, too.

"Faye," he whispers when he reaches her, setting his shoulder against the pillar. Hell, it must be the only solid thing in this room, and Dean leans hard, lets it take his weight while he reloads his gun with fingers that would tremble, but Dean's fought his way through enough concussions that they don't.

"There's two behind me," he says, eyes landing on the bolt of crimson by her ear, following it down to her jaw. "At least. You good to shoot?"

[attitude]

It's a good thing that Faye isn't the type to just shoot on sight, she thinks to herself, as soon as Dean stumbles out of the distance. Immediately, she feels relief release the vice-like hold around her chest, breathes deep as she leans her back against the pillar. The problem with relief, she quickly finds, is that adrenaline rushes out of her system and takes all of the strength with it, her hands practically shaking until she has to will everything into those fingers, gripping the Glock that suddenly feels heavy. When her eyes raise to settle on his face again, it's his lips that she finds herself drawn to, and while not all of his words register from movement alone, Faye catches her name there.

It's enough.

With a quick nod, she hefts her gun before mouthing, "On three."

But when she whips around, gun firmly in hand, the area seems empty. No sign of movement, no trace of a splicer. With sound still largely slipping past, all Faye can think as she scans the area is that both of them are at a disadvantage now. And it's all her fault.

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

Dean takes up position behind her, back to back and aiming his gun into the darkness that spreads all around them. Nothing, there's nothing, just settling dust and their own harsh breathing, until -

There's a sound so small, so shuffling and slight, that Dean could think he imagined it, but it doesn't stop. Straining his ears, Dean steps away from Faye, gun trained first right, then left, but still there's nothing, but the sound continues, seems like it's getting closer, and Dean looks up.

"Faye!" he shouts, but he can't stop the Splicer's descent, its inhuman body unfixed from the ceiling above, red hooks in hand and headed right for Faye. There's no time to warn her, no chance to shoot its body without risking hers, and Dean does the only thing he can do. He takes a running leap and barrels into Faye with enough force to shove her out of the Splicer's path, twisting as they fall to fire a round through the Splicer's chest.

[attitude]

The first thing that breaks through the white noise is Dean's shout, fuzzy in the background, all of its weight and urgency lost as Faye turns around to look for him. She has only enough time to think that they've possibly lucked out, that maybe they can make a break for the bathysphere and put all of this filth behind them, before suddenly he's leaping towards her, wrapping one arm to keep her from hitting the ground while using the other to hit the Splicer straight through the chest. If anything, that's the greatest insult to injury, that all of her attempts to show her own abilities have resulted in Dean coming around to save the day. How he'll take the fact isn't hard to guess.

Her palm is pressed to the ground, dirt and grit dragging against her skin as she heaves a breath or two, hair dragging down, a few strands clinging to the sweat of her temple. She can feel the sting where her knee meets grime, and judging by the deeper color of her thigh, her face is probably entirely covered in dust. But pride and obstinance leave her refusing to budge, and the very moment Dean's lips move again, Faye leans forward to cut his words off, pressing her lips firmly against his own. "Shut up," she murmurs when she has to pull away to catch a breath, not giving him space to talk before she crushes another kiss to his lips, free hand groping for her Glock.

Once she has a good grip, she quickly looks over her shoulder, eyes scanning over the ceiling— there's another Splicer in the corner. Backing off, she holds her left hand out to Dean to help him up, already aiming for the Splicer with the right.

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

They land sprawled together, and despite it all, Dean's first instinct is to make a joke, mouth open and headed for some throwaway lewdness to dispel the fact that they're still surrounded, but then her lips are on his. Her mouth is sweet and warm and gone almost as quick, and in the beat between Dean draws a breath, only half-gathered before she kisses him again.

God help him, the sound Dean makes is less grunt than groan, contact he's been starved for suddenly freely offered, and he doesn't care if it's meant to distract, to punish, to shut him up. It feels good, and so does she, and when they part Dean's dazed and gasping, taking the hand she offers with startled eyes that only grow wider when she dispatches the nearest Splicer with a deadly blast from her Glock.

"Okay," says Dean, swiping his forearm over his mouth before he grabs another twisted body before it can leap, drags it down and close enough that he can crack his fist over cheekbone and jaw. "That works, too."

[attitude]

She glances briefly at the body that's sprawled in front of them both, joints bent at inhuman angles, and it's all that Faye can do to keep from choking in disgust. Nausea fights her in waves as she blinks— she's gotten this far, but only because she hasn't thought too deeply about any of it, hasn't bothered looking down at the corpses strewn. Every hunter deals with death, but Faye Valentine does so in a manner consistent with how she treats everything: she runs. It's easier to think of the Splicers as roadblocks, as hurdles to pass over, rather than people that once might have been worth saving.

With a look in Dean's direction, she finds her mind at war again, eyes brushing over his lips. It'd be easier to just lose herself in it, in him, and the part of Faye Valentine that always opts for the easier way out without regard for consequence takes a step closer to him, considering. Her breath comes and goes heavily, shoulders still pulled back with the pride that she just can't shake.

Ultimately, she thinks better of it, shaking her head as she starts walking towards the nearby bathysphere station. "I'm outta here," she says at last, before quietly shooting a look over her shoulder. "You coming?"

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

For the longest moment she just stands there, looking at him like she wants to take a step closer, and god - despite the bodies lying all around, the blood on both their faces, he wants her to. He wants her to do what he's still too afraid to do and take that step, but she doesn't.

Dean's breath leaves him all at once, disappointment warring with relief that he hasn't fallen yet, is neither climbing nor slipsliding towards something he can't escape from. Never mind that what he's hiding from could save him. It could hurt him, and he's spent so long hurting already. He needs to stop being so goddamn reckless around her, needs to be careful. He believes that, too, armor almost up and settled familiar on his shoulders, right up to the moment she calls to see if he's coming, and Dean is moving at a speed that shouldn't be left in his tired limbs.

He catches up with her as the hallway expands, close at her side as they journey towards the bathysphere that will take them home. His hands won't seem to behave, almost reaching for hers before he stops them, hovering near the small of her back, little touches that are surely meant to reassure himself more than her, but after everything, Dean can't be sure that they'd be welcome. If anything, Faye's given every indication that she prefers to do things on her own, and she can climb into a bathysphere without help, can hit its buttons without Dean close by her side, but here he is, lips still tingling and eyes never straying far. Even in the faded light of Rapture, she's so goddamn beautiful, an angry flush high in her cheeks that only makes her eyes brighter, and Dean finds himself reaching despite all the ways he's tried not to, smoothing violet locks back from the cut along her hairline.

"Sorry," he says quietly, and even as he says it, he doesn't know what it's for. Everything, maybe, the things he can control and all the ones he can't, for his hands on her and the way he can't seem to make himself stop. "Faye."