Who: David Ryan & Finley Melville What: David finds out Finley’s secret. A public couples fight ensues. Where: A random Starbucks and then Finley’s place in LA. When: Tuesday, November 10th, 2015 Warnings: Lots of yelling, also ‘accidental’ kissing. Drama queens. Status: Complete!
David was pissed. Had been pissed since yesterday when he’d first seen the picture surface on the internet, and he’d stewed about it all night after his fight with Hannah before setting out the next day to confront him. Not only was a picture leaked of himself and Finley kissing on that stupid gossip blog, which in the grand scheme of things wasn’t the biggest deal in the world, but he was pretty sure Finley had been the one to do it. From the angle that the picture had been taken, it was obviously Finley had at least taken the picture in the first place and David had somehow not noticed at the time, and who else could have leaked it? Not only that, but Hannah had seen it, so David had to tell her about the deal he’d made with Finley, which was what David had been trying to avoid in the first place. Now Hannah was angry that he’d made the deal, and David was angry that she’d found out, and they were both angry at Finley for various reasons. He just really needed something to take his anger out on, the next day. Or more accurately, someone.
Finley had gone back on his part of the deal, he'd leaked that picture somehow and now Hannah knew that David had made a deal to bring her back. It had been in writing that part of their contract was Hannah wouldn't find out, he’d seen it, and she had found out, which meant… He wasn't actually sure what it meant. Was their contract null and void now? Probably not, David didn't think he'd get off that easily, but he wasn't necessarily looking to get out of it, especially if it meant losing Hannah again without the deal in place. He was just looking to be angry at someone else for a little while, and considering Finley's presumed involvement, he seemed like the best option currently, especially given that David was still pretty bent out of shape over the whole kiss thing in general. Now it was right in his face all over the internet. David would prefer an actual confession from him so he could feel like his pointedly directed anger was justified.
Problem was, Finley wasn’t answering his phone. That was annoying in itself because what if there had been an actual emergency and David needed him? He called maybe five or six times before he’d given up with a lot of under the breath cursing, now also pissed that the demon wasn’t picking up his calls anymore, before he decided to take the initiative and hunt Finley down himself. He knew where he worked, had known for some time, so all David had to do was take the MTN and stroll right into his office. Finley’s secretary said he was out at the moment, but after a little pressing (and some flirting), David got her to tell him where Finley was. He was at a Starbucks down the street, so David steeled himself for the confrontation and quickly made his way there, hands already balled into fists and poised for a fight when he walked in the door. But what he saw, and heard, made him immediately stop cold just inside the doors.
Was it really so much to ask for that one fucking thing go right in Finley’s day? Just one thing, it wasn’t as if he was asking for the world… though he thought it owed him, after the picture he’d taken on impulse and kept entirely to himself had somehow become public domain. He’d even reconsidered sending a copy to his sister, after realizing that he really had no plausible explanation other than the truth for why he’d been kissing David, not that could hold up once she began asking questions. It had been sitting in his phone’s storage, nearly untouched except for the few (fine, many) times he’d glanced at it. His phone’s storage and, of course, the automatic cloud backup that he’d set up for every bit of data stored on his phone, shuffled into his ‘photos’ folder amidst myriad selfies of himself with his sisters—mostly Juno— and far more reluctant brother.
Finley couldn’t really care less if the photo itself had been leaked. Potentially embarrassing, to be sure, but the photo hadn’t taken more than a moment of his time before he’d realized the full implications of it somehow having been accessed. If his photos had been compromised, that meant that the rest of the data he’d been backing up was compromised, as well, and that was a far more serious problem than whether David’s little fangirls were upset about the idea of their idol swapping spit with another man. Finley kept essentially his entire life on his phone, which was the entire reason for the backup he’d set up, in the first place. If his photos were compromised, then his contracts were compromised, his database of clients, his fucking financial details that he’d far rather keep entirely private. He and Crowley had begun the day with an entirely unpleasant spat about the downfalls of technology and that this was why Crowley had chosen to keep to tried and true methods, a spat that had meant Finley began the day with the throbbing sort of headache that he imagined only another reincarnate could ever truly understand, as it could only be provoked by violent arguments with someone living in one’s own head, so far as he’d ever experienced.
The rest of his morning had been taken up with trying to sort out a new phone, and new storage methods. His old phone had been entirely abandoned, though he hadn’t had it turned off yet. There was too much he still needed to transfer, after all, to his new number. He’d have to make certain that all his clients had the new number, as well, and that was the sort of inconvenient task he really wished he could abandon to his secretary, but she knew very little about the actual details of his clients. Some of Finley’s clients were as interested in Finley’s discretion in the matters of money lending as they were the money itself, allowing him to charge even more exorbitant interest rates that they were happy to pay so long as no one ever knew what had driven them to borrow funds from him in the first place. As for the more demonic sorts of contracts, he’d been careful to choose a secretary that was entirely mundane, and kept her out of the reincarnate side of business as much as he possibly could. It was a satisfactory arrangement, one that allowed him to keep from unfortunate social entanglements with her.
Normally, he’d have sent her for his coffee, but after coming in early and closeting himself in his office to try to sort out all the details, Finley had come to the decision that he needed fresh air before he entirely lost his mind. He was, of course, beginning to regret it. “I ordered a venti half-caff, three pumps vanilla, two pumps caramel, half the foam, extra hot latte. Does this look like half the foam to you?” He’d pulled the lid off his drink to display what was most definitely the full amount of foam that would typically have been put on his drink, not half at all. “And this is not extra hot. I want my drink to be one hundred eighty degrees precisely. This is one seventy-five, at most. Make it again.” The way the barista cowered was satisfying, but not quite satisfying enough. Nor was the idiot girl moving fast enough to fix her mistake. With every bit of the New England upper crust snobbery that he’d ever heard his grandparents admonish an employee with, Finley barked out, “Make it again.”
At first, David thought he was hearing things. He was looking straight at Finley standing by the barista counter and it definitely looked like he was currently berating the unlucky enough person to be making his drink. Or trying to, as it sounded. It looked like Finley, but it didn’t sound like Finley. Or Crowley, for that matter. There was no hint of that accent left, the one that David had become so accustomed to, anyway. No longer heavy on the British, though he still sounded like he had a stick up his ass. Did he just have a cold? No, people with colds didn’t sound like that. Finley sounded… well, he sounded pretty normal to David. Normal if you’ve been to Boston, which David had once or twice, but still. Normal. That’s what was weird about it.
He stood there with his mouth hanging open like an idiot and observing the scene for the entire time that Finley stood up there verbally cutting the girl down to shreds, hardly able to focus on what Finley was actually yelling about because he couldn’t get over the absence of the accent he’d been hearing for months now, replaced by one entirely different and not even remotely like the former. For what felt like more than a few seconds, David couldn’t get himself to put the pieces together, until his mind finally settled on one, simple, indisputable fact. It didn’t matter what he thought about the nature of his and Finley’s relationship: demons always lied.
“Uh…” David had already been pissed off about the picture, and now, he could already feel that as well as some fresh anger boiling to the brim and threatening to spill over. He didn’t know what was going on, but he didn’t intend to leave until he found out. He was mad enough that he barely noticed they were still in a public place when he heard himself react out loud, barely recognizing his own voice in the midst of the white noise in his ears. “What the hell is going on?”
It was odd, how clearly Finley recognized David’s voice over the general commotion of Starbucks. It could have, perhaps, been anyone, speaking to anyone, but Finley rather thought he could have picked David’s voice out of nearly any sort of crowd, anymore. Quickly following the recognition was realization: David must have heard, quite clearly, Finley speaking to the barista in his own accent, instead of Crowley’s. Following that was a hiss of pain as he squeezed the cardboard cup holding the offensively wrong coffee, splashing liquid that was (while not the perfect hundred and eighty degrees) extraordinarily hot onto his bare hand. He cursed, dropping it and splashing himself with even more coffee in the process, snatching his hand closer to his face to examine the reddened skin. It would fade, soon enough, but for the moment it was annoying.
The rest of the crowd had grown silent, between Finley’s bitching at the barista and then David’s enraged question to Finley. It helped, he supposed, that David was rather easily recognizable. His band wasn’t precisely low profile, now was it? Poor choice for a hunter, really, but not at all surprising. Slowly, he turned, teeth gritted against the pain in his hand and the anger that one more fucking thing just had to go wrong, and he had not a single clue how exactly he was supposed to turn this one around to his benefit. David Ryan really had to go and confuse everything in Finley’s life, didn’t he?
“David. Darling.” Finley still spoke through gritted teeth, lapsing back into Crowley’s accent out of habit when faced with one of the Ryans. “How did you know where to find me?” Oh, Finley knew the answer, and he knew he was going to have to have a word with his secretary once he got back to the office. A word that would likely end in having to place an advertisement for a new secretary. Unfortunate, but he simply couldn’t trust anyone who would give his location away to just anyone who waltzed into the office, regardless of how very attractive they were.
David maybe hadn’t realized just how loud his voice was until he felt most of the eyes in the room on him. He also wasn’t thinking about the fact that people might recognize him from REDO, as big of an ego as he had (or pretended to have, as the case sometimes was), he was barely even thinking about the scene he’d already contributed to causing. If everyone else in the coffee shop had gone silent, David hardly paid attention. As usual, he only had eyes for a demon, but right now that demon was currently the source of all his anger and frustration.
When Finley addressed him directly, speaking again in that British accent that David had come to know so well, the younger man bristled. Finley calling him ‘darling’ had never bothered him much before, but now, it just sounded patronizing. Like he couldn’t even be smart enough to figure this out before, but now he’d caught Finley right in the act of deception, and the man was still trying to pull the wool over his eyes. That did nothing to help the anger subside, and David wasn’t sure he’d ever resented someone so much in his life. It didn’t matter that he should have known better, if Finley had been lying about something as simple as this, what else has he been lying about? Most likely everything, and David had been a fool to think otherwise.
“Save it for one of your other pet hunters,” David snapped, uncharacteristically short with him and hardly noticing the spilled coffee, or bothering to actually answer the question. Finley likely already suspected how David had found him, and it didn’t matter in the end. He had found him, they were here now, and making a very public scene about it. He knew he shouldn’t be taking this so personally, it was just ‘business’ between them, or at least that’s what they kept saying, but barely a week ago he’d let Finley see him at his most vulnerable. He’d made a deal with Finley to save his sister, he’d kissed the man to seal it, after spending months starting to trust the demon who had saved their lives the first time they ever met. David was already aware that despite all this, he still barely knew Finley, but the truth of that had never been so glaringly obvious as it was in this moment. Did he know him at all? David knew that he was being a little prematurely over dramatic about this, but he could hardly see through the anger, and also just how far off could he really be? “No need to keep up the act on my account. I heard you.”
It was possible that Finley was well and truly over a barrel and fucked up the ass… and that was never a position that Finley enjoyed being in. Finley was the one that did the fucking, not the one that got fucked. Figuratively and literally, actually. The comment that David was the only pet hunter he had sat heavy on his tongue, almost rolling off before he realized it would only be said on Crowley’s accent, and that seemed to have only made David’s anger at him worse, thus far. The issue was that it was far more difficult to turn off than David seemed to realize; Finley had fallen deeply into the part he’d set up for himself, with David, a Crowley clone down to the last inflection on a pet name meant to annoy. It had been a dynamic that worked for Finley, and worked quite well, well enough that David had never questioned it.
Difficult it may have been, but Finley managed to avoid falling into the familiar patterns of Crowley’s speech, without flowing right into another of the accents he’d assumed for different jobs—he did a rather nice Italian accent, as well, if he did say so himself. Funny, it was more difficult to lapse into his own natural speech than it would have been to hide behind another lie, now that he was face-to-face with David. Of course, Finley sounded like himself so rarely, had played with accents long before he became Crowley. Hiding himself was natural, by this point, wasn’t it? Natural, and only the intelligent thing to do, in his line of work. Both of them. His secretary, though he was certainly going to have to let her go, now, had known better than to comment on her employer’s constantly shifting accent. If only she’d known better than to send someone to find him when she ought to have known that he’d be off his guard.
“If you were a ‘pet’ you’d be far more well-trained.” It was, Finley knew, a low blow. What else was left to him, cornered so thoroughly in such a public place. The mass of people that had remained between himself and David had cleared, cleared enough for either of them to move through it, if they wanted to. Call him a coward, but Finley didn’t move, quite yet, stayed next to the counter instead as though it would offer some sort of protection from David’s anger. Ridiculous. He was on entirely the wrong side of it, for that, and it wasn’t as though he actually needed protection from David. What, precisely, could David do to him?
If David had been paying attention to his surroundings, he would have noticed the people with their cell phones out recording their whole exchange. He should have been paying attention, he’d been learning how to become more aware of what was around him for months now, but on the wrong day, at the wrong time, all that apparently went right out the window. He should have realized that at the very least, people might recognize him. David had been dealing with the fame that came with REDO for a few years now, and maybe they weren’t as big as Metallica or Fall Out Boy, but David and the rest of the band got recognized out in public more often than not, so he should have been thinking about that before he started in on Finley in such a public place. People always had their cell phones out, like they were poised and ready for something to happen. There was nothing like a celebrity video gone viral these days.
It was entirely possible that he was overreacting. Some part of David knew that, but everything in him that was also part of Dean and knew how often Dean had put his trust in the wrong person (or demon) made it hard for David to see straight in the moment. What happened to Hannah was still too fresh, David’s own wounds from the encounter still too open for him to deal with anything rationally. Having to pretend that nothing had happened made it even worse, having to lie to Hannah, she didn’t know how close he’d come to actually losing her, and David had to go on acting like everything was normal. Except everything wasn’t normal, hadn’t been for a long time, and he had just been too oblivious or stupid to notice it. He and Hannah had gotten jumped by demons in his own apartment and Hannah had almost died - had died - for at least a good five minutes before David made a deal with another demon to bring her back. This was their lives now. There was no such thing as ‘normal’ anymore.
Any chance of David calming down was ruined by Finley’s quip about being ‘well-trained’, making David’s head snap up in shock and renewed anger both at the insult and the still unfamiliar accent that made the hunter spiral into more confusion and made him want to lash out. What game had he been playing with David this whole time, purposefully sounding like someone else? Like Crowley? His own body moved of its own accord without David’s express permission as he crossed the space between them in a few easy steps, ignoring everyone else to get right up in Finley’s face with only a few inches between them, close enough to touch. The brief thought flashed through his mind that the last time they’d been this close, something else had happened, something that he was still struggling to precisely forget, but David very abruptly brushed that thought aside in the midst of what could only be described as his ‘fit’. Up close and personal now, he glared up at Finley and even poked a finger to the other man’s chest, probably not realizing just how potentially suicidal that was, but his self-preservation skills were arguably pretty low at the moment. “It was you who leaked that picture, wasn’t it? Couldn’t have been anybody else. How the hell long have you been playing me, huh? Who even are you?”
“I didn’t leak the bloody picture!” The British swear word didn’t sound quite right in Finley’s own accent, but he wasn’t exactly thinking of that sort of thing right now. Normally, every word was a production, but Finley was outraged that David thought he actually might have set them both up for that sort of stunt.
...well, it wasn’t entirely baseless, but this time Finley hadn’t. If he was going to get scolded for doing something bad, it ought to at least be something he’d had the chance to enjoy doing.
Perhaps it should have occurred to him that he didn’t have to stand there and take that sort of treatment from David. If Finley had chosen to, he could have smacked David across the room with a wave of his hand. More, really. He was a demon, though it seemed he’d forgotten it almost as completely as David had, at that moment. That sort of treatment from anyone else would have ended with a backhand, either physical or metaphysical, from Finley, and the idiot who’d made that sort of grave error doubtless never having the opportunity to make it again. From David, though… it was always different with David, with Dean, wasn’t it? They always got right up on his toes, on Crowley’s toes, and for some damned reason, they almost always let them get away with it where no one else in the world would.
For the moment, Finley thought he could place the blame squarely on frustration, as well as the fact that he still hadn’t gotten his coffee. Clearly that was the only reason it didn’t occur to him that he could damn well force David out of his personal space, if he chose to do so. He could certainly make David take his finger off of him, but instead, Finley stepped in closer, returning the invasion of his personal space with an invasion of David’s own. He of course regretted it immediately; Finley had always stood just far enough back, except for when they were sealing David’s deal, that any differences in height simply didn’t matter. He wasn’t precisely a short man, and had assumed that David was likely the shorter of the two of them. With David in his face, it was impossible to ignore that the little shit had a good couple of inches in height on him. Not as extreme as the height difference between Crowley and Dean, of course, but he’d liked the idea of being the taller one, between the two of them. Turnabout.
A bit late to try to find a way to make up for the height difference, though, when he and David were very nearly chest to chest. Finley scowled at him, reached between them to grab the hand that was poking him and hold it. Not pulling it away, but gripping firmly enough that David couldn’t move it easily, if he had any thought of jabbing him with that finger that was already poking him through the layers of shirt and suit jacket. “What exactly do you think I stood to gain by publicizing that? You, more than anyone, ought to know that when I make an agreement, I keep to the terms of it. Who the fuck do you think I am, I’m…” Bloody Crowley, he wanted to say, but he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a girl holding up a cell phone in an entirely suspicious way, eyes fixed on the screen instead of the two of them. Of course, she was taking a video. Why wouldn’t she be taking a video, they were arguing like fishwives in the middle of a coffee shop.
Finley’s grip on David’s wrist tightened, and he turned his head to stare right at the girl with the phone, snarling, “Piss off.” He’d agreed that he wouldn’t discuss, or publicize, the details of David’s deal with him, and if they were going to get into all the dirty bits of who Finley really was, he’d prefer to not have that conversation in a place where it might be recorded for all of posterity, as well. Simply because David clearly wasn’t going to let this go, it didn’t mean that the rest of Finley’s business ventures had to be ruined because of it. Between one blink of the eye and the next, Finley and David had vanished from the Starbucks, Finley’s coffee still abandoned on the counter.
David’s problem was usually that he often forgot who exactly Finley was. It had become way too easy, when it was just the two of them, and it wasn’t because the time they spent together was so ‘normal’. The first time they’d met was when Finley saved him and Hannah from a demon they’d stupidly hitchhiked with. But somewhere in between the heroics and the Hunting 101 trips they were also doing things like having music wars in his car and going to weird occult festivals in Salem to hang out with his wacky, distant relatives. Almost like they were actually friends. Almost like David actually had fun with him. Fun. He was having fun with Crowley. There was no arguing that David was in deep, so while it was true that Dean had been too comfortable with Crowley at a certain level, it was also true that the level of comfort David had settled into with Finley had already far surpassed that. He’d believed all of Finley’s lies almost immediately, and even now that David had exposed one of them, he still had a hard time getting into hunter mode with the demon. When it came to Finley, he had developed a very obvious blind spot.
A small part of him was actually surprised when Finley didn’t immediately knock him across the room for getting up in his face and poking into his chest like that, but David didn’t exactly take the time to marvel at the minor miracle. The more Finley spoke to him in what was presumably his real accent, despite how strange it still sounded to his own ears, the more irrational and confused and angry David became. There was just no room for anything else. When Finley stepped forward, it was then that David actually did expect to get pushed back, or hit, or something. Instead, Finley just invaded his personal space, and David swallowed. The only other time they’d been that close was a week ago, when they’d had to seal a deal with a kiss. David was momentarily struck speechless, caught between yelling and shutting up entirely.
Finley’s hand on his shocked him, and for a split second he expected to be teleported, like he had been the first time Finley had visited David’s dressing room after a show and took his wrist to teleport without warning. Now, despite all instincts to the contrary, he didn’t try to yank his wrist away. He just stood there gaping, wrist flexing in Finley’s hold while not actively trying to pull himself free. David wasn’t a weak man, but Finley was arguably stronger, so he couldn’t have gotten his wrist back on his own even if he tried. That just made him more frustrated, so he glared back and started yelling again. “Apparently I don’t know you so what good is your word on that, I don’t even-” David cut himself off as he felt Finley’s grip on his wrist tighten, looking between Finley and the girl with the phone that Finley was snarling at, but David didn’t have a chance to finish his aborted sentence. The next thing he knew, his stomach was doing that familiar lurching as it felt like he was being spun around in place, his eyes shutting almost against his will and when they opened again, they weren’t in the coffee shop anymore, they were… somewhere else. Someone’s place, it looked like, but David didn’t immediately recognize it. He nearly wobbled on his feet, feeling dizzy and a little nauseated from the unexpected trip and still pissed off. “Would you stop doing that without warning already,” David growled, actively trying to jerk his wrist free now. “I’m getting whiplash!”
He probably should have been concerned that Finley had just teleported them somewhere clearly private, and away from any eye witnesses, but he wasn’t. Despite everything, David didn’t think Finley would try to kill him. Maybe that was just the huge Winchester bias talking, but Crowley had always seemed to find a reason not to kill Dean, so it could be a safe assumption to make? Except that David had just caught him in a lie, and for what, he still didn’t know what Finley had to gain from putting on that fake accent for him since the day they met. He didn’t know Finley at all. It was possible David had been entirely wrong about him, and he’d been stupid to think he was anything more than a demon. “Where the hell did you take me?”
Perhaps if Finley had been less irritated, he would have thought to give David the warning that they would be leaving the building before teleporting them out. Likely not, of course, because his reaction was usually amusing enough to make up for having to coax him into whatever Finley had teleported them to in the first place. This time, though, he felt a twist of vicious satisfaction; David deserved the whiplash for being such an irritating little brat about the whole thing. Damn it. Of course, even Finley couldn’t fail to acknowledge that David did have the right to be irritated, but he wasn’t particularly interested in that inconvenient fact, at the moment. No, Finley was having a bad day, and they did say that misery loved company. If David was going to make his mood worse, damn right he was going to return the favor. If teleporting him across the city with no warning made David’s day as bad as his, he would be happy to take them back to Starbucks and repeat the entire bloody experience all over. And over. As many times as it took before it started to make him feel better.
Since that would, however, inevitably lead to the exact situation of David dragging his personal details out into the public eye that Finley had been trying to avoid, Finley only stared at him and considered it heavily, for the moment. Fantasized, really. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying as actually doing it would have been, but knowing he could if he wanted to did ease a little of his desire to shake David until he managed to tumble a little sense free from that block of granite he called a brain. He did, however, release David’s wrist at the end of a particularly hard yank, leaving the other man suddenly pulling against no resistance at all. As far as revenge went, it wasn’t quite as good (nor quite as petty), but it would do. Until he could think of something better, at least… or until they'd finished their conversation and he could return to his first idea and teleport them right back out without any warning for David. Finley didn’t exactly want him knowing his address, after all. He couldn’t just let him walk out the door and figure it out.
Perhaps it had been the wrong choice to take him there to begin with, but it was a little late for that, wasn’t it? “I took you to my apartment, unless you'd rather have continued to talk about our deal in a more public forum.” It had been… instinct, Finley supposed. Or impulse. Bringing David into his private space wasn’t something that Finley had ever intended to do, but then again, letting David hear him sound like anyone other than Crowley hadn’t been in his ten year plan, either. “Seeing as you seem to have a strong objection to that, I thought this was a far better choice.” Then, because he could, he offered, “I could take you back, if you have a sudden desire to spread your personal business around like…” Peanut butter? No, a bit too mundane. “A particularly distasteful pâté.” Yes, that was what he'd gone with. It was a bit heat of the moment. He could already hear his sister judging him.
Finley’s apartment was, at least, tidy. With an instant of panic, he recalled Juliet, and glanced around to be certain she hadn't taken up one of her favorite stations around the main room. David wouldn’t be able to see her, but it was entirely likely that she would take exception to this stranger yelling at her daddy and come to his defense. Fortunately, she was not, which meant she was likely asleep on Finley’s bed, or in the guest room he'd converted into what was meant to be her own private room for once. He slammed all the open doors in the rest of the apartment closed. It served a dual purpose of keeping Juliet safely shut into whichever she'd made herself comfortable in (he'd have to spoil her with treats later to earn her forgiveness), and not giving David a peek into even more private areas in his home. The main room was bad enough; not having anticipated guests outside of family, he'd decorated to his own tastes, not something strictly professional, and his bookshelf contained favorites instead of the classics and pretentious, obscure titles he had never read that he'd filled the one in his office with. His blu-rays were on display, as well, Gilmore Girls right alongside more acceptable foreign language films that looked far more artsy and cultural than they actually were.
Finley crossed his arms over his chest briefly before forcing them to return to his sides. It was a more confident position, a more forceful one. What? He'd researched power poses. It was what any serious entrepreneur would do. “Though attempting to spread mine about, as well, is in even worse taste. Did you really think that the way I choose to present myself was any of your business?” They weren't friends. He wasn’t obsessed with David like Crowley was with Dean… except he had brought him to meet his sister, and it had been second nature to bring him to his own apartment…
That stare, though it didn’t last for very long, was intense enough that David started to squirm under it before FInley finally let go of his wrist, not expecting it when he’d attempted to pull his wrist back particularly hard so David almost fell over backwards. He managed to catch himself after only faltering slightly, finding his balance again before glaring back at Finley with a renewed contempt. At their still very close proximity, he finally noticed the two or three inches of height he had on Finley too, not nearly as much of a dramatic height difference that had been between Crowley and Dean, but it still made him momentarily smug. Despite the temporary personal crisis he was having in questioning how well he really knew Finley, the hunter felt like he still knew him and the demon in his head well enough to know that would be a point of resentment for the other man. It wasn’t much of a win against Finley, but it was something. He jumped a little when the doors slammed, gritting his teeth as he tried to regain his composure.
“I wasn’t trying to spread anything, I’m not the one who leaked the picture or decided to walk in on you in a Starbucks yelling at a barista with a stick up your ass the size of Boston,” David snapped, temporarily distracted from the subject at hand as new information had come to light. They were in Finley’s apartment? He didn’t really stop to look around, but David couldn’t deny the sudden surge of curiosity that washed over him. Finley had secrets, more than David had realized, but they were in his personal living space. This was where he always had his guard down. That, more than anything, made an impression on him. David had been doing nothing but letting his guard down with Finley, even when he didn’t mean to, so to have those tables turned, even a little? That was a good feeling. Like they were actually on some kind of equal ground for once, even unwillingly. No doubt Finley wouldn’t like it, but David was okay with getting an edge on the demon, even if it didn’t end up being a particularly significant one.
The fact that he’d been consistently letting his guard down around Finley, trusting Finley even when he shouldn’t have, and he had the nerve to stand here in front of David and tell him it was none of his business? That just made him angry all over again. Finley had been doing nothing but getting in his personal business since day one, but David didn’t have the right to know things when it directly affected him? The picture, the accent… Finley had been deliberately putting on an act for him, and for Hannah, since the beginning, and David was just stubborn enough not to leave here until he knew why. He stayed perfectly still, stubbornly looking Finley in the eyes as he silently willed himself not to back down. “You’re damn right it’s my business. You forced your way into my life, lied to my face, put on a performance like that and for what, and then demand that I trust you anyway? But I don’t get to know anything? Why was it so important for me to believe you were exactly like Crowley, right down to the senior citizen card and a cheesy British accent?! It’s not like I didn’t already know he was in your head, so what is it? Tell me or I’m walking out that door right now and this... partnership is over.”
Finley had his reasons. Really, he had. There’d been ample reasons to stick with Crowley’s accent, to put on a show for the Ryans. The reason simply wasn’t one that he quite recalled at the moment, and what he did recall… well, it wasn’t precisely true of the sort of acquaintance that they had developed. They’d been meant to be… “This wasn’t the plan!” Finley sounded every bit as frustrated with that as he actually was. There was no masking that. “You were meant to be the Winchesters. You were meant to be hunters, who knew what they were doing. Not…” It sounded insulting. It was insulting, he supposed, but it was the only reason he had that was real. “It was an arrangement of convenience. I needed you to believe I was capable, and believe it immediately. So, yes, I faked being exactly like Crowley, because that was what you expected to hear, wasn’t it? Be honest, David, would you have even listened to me if I’d come to you as… as…” As a thirty-five-year-old man raised as old money, was what he’d started to say, but just because David didn’t believe the lie anymore, it didn’t meant that Finley had to tell him the truth, did it?
“So I lied. Why are you always so surprised when that happens? You’d think you’d be used to it by now.” It didn’t account for the things about their association that hadn’t been a lie, but if Finley could make him believe that those had all been a part of the act, as well, perhaps he could still salvage something out of this situation. Best of both of them if they weren’t too close. Except he’d already let David too close, hadn’t he? The moment that he’d agreed to introduce him to his sister, he’d been too close. Funny how he hadn’t realized that before, wasn’t it? Still. Just because Finley knew that was the case, it didn’t mean that David had to, now did it? That was a line that Finley didn’t have to cross, and so long as there were lines uncrossed, he was still in control of the situation, even if it was by the skin of his teeth.
That explained why the charade had started, of course, but it didn’t explain why he’d continued it once it became clear that the Ryans were no seasoned hunters, and his relationship with them would be a bit different than the casual business acquaintance he’d envisioned. “Had I then turned around and revealed that I’d misrepresented myself at our first meeting, you’d never have given me the chance to persuade you that you needed me.” And David did need Finley. They’d proved that clearly enough. “And then who would you have called when you needed someone brought back from the dead? Cadence?” The disgust dripping from Finley’s voice spoke his feelings on that far more clearly than words ever could. “Your sister is alive because I lied, and because I continued to lie. You should be thanking me for it!”
David knew, had known, that he and Hannah had been an initial disappointment to him. Finley didn’t have to say so, it was obvious from the expectations he’d clearly had when they’d met, before having to walk them through how to exorcise a demon. Something Dean and Sam had known for years, but for Hannah and David, they hadn’t so much as ever even seen a demon before that day, let alone exorcised one. Since then, Finley at least deserved half the credit for the continued improvement of their hunting skills, maybe more, while the other portion was all Sam and Dean. They’d definitely gotten better, but David wasn’t such an idiot that he didn’t realize just how inexperienced they still were. If what had happened to Hannah was any indication, they were still nowhere near Dean and Sam’s level of experience. Not even close.
In any other situation, David might have been somewhat embarrassed at the reality of his own shortcomings as the reincarnate of Dean Winchester, and maybe he still was in the moment, which is why Finley’s accusations of being meant to be the Winchesters made him flinch a little. And maybe Finley was right, though David wasn’t ready to admit that openly, and in front of him. Maybe a Crowley clone was exactly what he had been expecting, or exactly what he would have expected from any reincarnate of Crowley, but how would he know that now? Finley hadn’t exactly given him the chance to make a different assumption. He didn’t answer Finley’s question about why he was always so surprised when Finley lied, just stood there, stubborn and numb as he tried to work it out within himself why exactly he was so surprised. It’s not like he hadn’t known from the beginning that Finley was a demon. Why had he expected anything different from lies on top of lies? Crowley had certainly not shied away from keeping part of the truth, or the whole truth from Dean, so why had David expected Finley to ever tell him the truth? He didn’t like the answers he was silently coming up with, and it was just more fuel on the fire.
“I did thank you for that,” David shouted, unable to control the volume of his voice anymore, hands uncurling and re-curling into fists at his sides, shoulders shaking a little with anger. “And you're right, I shouldn't have been surprised you've been lying this whole time, so why should I believe anything you say now?!” David sucked in a much needed breath, blowing it out in frustration as a thought dawned on him like it was somehow the most important part of this entire charade Finley had been putting on. It wasn't, obviously, but at the moment David's addled brain was latching onto it for lack of knowing what else to do. “Are you even as old as you said you were or was that whole ‘older than dirt’ routine just another act too?”
He’d meant thanking him for lying, but of course David wasn’t going to get the nuances of conversation. Really, Finley wasn’t sure why he tried, except that being clever was sometimes all that he really had going for him, wasn’t it? It had been enough for Crowley, enough to beat out stronger demons by his wits alone and win over the throne of Hell. Thus far, it had been enough for Finley, but the damned Ryans, and this one in particular, just had to go and screw it all up for him, didn’t they? It was useless, being clever with David, because David just plowed through it all, didn’t he? It really ought to be frustrating. Was frustrating, and not at all amusing, or endearing. Finley didn’t enjoy that about him in the slightest.
He would also keep wiggling at it as if it was a loose tooth, wouldn’t he? This mystery of who, precisely, Finley was, how much of what he’d said had been a lie. He likely wouldn’t believe Finley even if he did tell him the truth about it… which was precisely what provoked him to do so. If he did it now, then likely David would be too caught up in the fact that he couldn’t trust what Finley had said to believe it at all. “Of course it was a lie, you imbecile, I’m only ten years older than you are.” Most of the time, it would be a large gap in age. For a demon, ‘only’ ten years of difference wasn’t all that impressive at all. “I’m thirty-five, Juno’s my youngest sister, Finley isn’t my first name, and I’ve never even been outside the United States.” He wasn’t quite yelling it, but it was a near thing. “And you’re entirely correct, you can’t trust a word I say. Everything I just told you might very well be as much a lie as the rest of it, so you might as well give up on ever knowing the truth because I always lie.” Not, perhaps, the thing that would inspire the most confidence in a continued alliance, but Finley wasn’t thinking of logic, for once.
No, Finley was thinking about how he’d been right from the first, and he really ought to have not tangled with the Ryans, with David, in the first place, because they always got under your skin, didn’t they? Finley scowled at him, and hoped David really would think it had all been a lie. Safest for all of them, if he did.
That should have been enough to make David take a step back from this, put some distance between himself and their twisted partnership. It wasn’t like it was new information that he lied, but it wasn’t that last confession that halted David in his tracks. It was everything else, and against every instinct, despite all evidence that he shouldn’t, David actually believed him. It was mostly because of Juno, as soon as Finley told him she was his younger sister, David knew it had to be true. After spending a handful of hours with the two of them, David thought they’d seemed too close for distant relatives, especially with as old as Finley had claimed to be. Now in hindsight that lie seemed ridiculous, but the reality of Finley only being ten years older than him made David actually feel younger than Finley for the first time. Maybe because the idea of someone being many centuries older than you seemed so intangible. This? This was borderline normal, and David didn’t know whether to laugh or keep on yelling.
He’d been given every reason not to trust him, but David still wanted to believe him as he stood there, mouth hanging open a little in the wake of Finley’s ‘truth’ bombs. True or not, they’d made an impact, but David was still so caught up in the argument that for a moment he still couldn’t see past it. “You always lie? That’s great, you should get that printed on all your business cards. It’ll save people a lot of trouble if they know ahead of time that you’re just gonna screw them over! If I’m so useless to you, then what the hell were you buttering me up for, huh? Why would it matter if I needed you or not? Do you even-”
David trailed off helplessly. He was losing steam, but he didn’t want Finley to get the last word. That he might be hearing the truth coming out of Finley’s mouth for once was still more appealing than he wanted to admit, but the longer he stared, the more it became clear to him how much he was focusing on Finley’s mouth while they shouted at each other, and they were still so close. Close enough that all David had to do was lean in... The fact that he wanted to kiss a guy at all was grounds enough to confuse the hell out of him, and he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it ever since they’d locked lips to seal the deal, which was pretty messed up. Even now, after finding out Finley had been lying to him for months, David still couldn’t stop thinking about it. That was the sad part. With a noise of frustration, he abruptly moved in, grabbing his shoulders and closing the remaining space between them, acting on an urge that he’d long been keeping buried and impulsively crushing his mouth to Finley’s.
Finley waited, faux-polite, for him to finish that last question. Did he even… oh, he knew David didn’t have anything, but the longer he let the silence trail on the more obvious it became that David was far more lost in this conversation than Finley was. Considering that Finley felt entirely lost, it was a minor victory that he intended to clutch onto. He quirked an eyebrow, tilted his head to the side, and opened his mouth to finally break the silence with a quip, something witty. Something cruel, because Finley wasn’t certain how to be anything but that, at the moment, when tensions were already high between the two of them. On a normal day, it would be merely teasing, but he knew very well that his words were aimed to slice a bit too deep, that night. David would… perhaps not forgive him, but begin to tolerate him again. Like it or not, and Finley very much doubted at the moment that he liked it, he did need Finley.
So, something that would make David even angrier, too angry for words, because wasn’t that how Finley won these fights? He opened his mouth to egg him on, and then found his lips being used for rather a different purpose altogether, David’s hands firm on his shoulders to keep him there as their lips met, hard and demanding. It took a moment for Finley’s brain to catch up, a moment where his lips were slack, slightly parted, unresponsive to the unexpected crush of David’s mouth into his own. Then, something flared, white hot, and he fisted his hands in David’s shirt and jerked him closer, making a small, needy, involuntary noise in the back of his throat.
Kissing to seal a deal had been one thing. Finley had initiated that kiss. He’d been in control of it. It had been about business, though he’d put rather more effort into it than he usually did into a kiss to seal a deal. The circumstances had been such that there’d been no thought of it meaning anything else, going anywhere else. This, though, this was entirely different. This was David kissing him, with nothing on the line, no reason other than that he wanted to kiss Finley… and oh, there was no denying that Finley wanted to kiss him, too, and no reason for him to hold back from it. He slanted his head to deepen the kiss, lips working hungrily against David’s, hot and open-mouthed. David had seen how Finley kissed when it was about business… it was very nearly a duty to show him how much more thoroughly he kissed when it was for pleasure. How much more thoroughly he would do anything when it came to this.
Well, that had definitely succeeded in shutting Finley up entirely, but David couldn't pretend that had been his main motivation when he'd gone for it. He could lie to himself and his band mates and everybody else who already suspected something was going on between them, but any hope of their first kiss being some sort of fluke went completely out the window once Finley started to kiss him back. It had been that increase in pressure at the end, and that subtle swipe of tongue from their first kiss that had stuck in David's mind for days after, how it'd very nearly made him feel a little weak in the knees, but there was no way it hadn’t just been in his head. It had to have been the heat of the moment, his reaction to kissing Finley just some universal fluke. But if that was how Finley kissed for a business arrangement, then David had been in no way prepared for how he'd kiss when it was more personal.
And it was personal. Like it or not, and David didn't particularly like it at the moment, Finley had gotten under his skin. He'd gotten under his skin in a big way, and after a certain point, David had just let him. He knew that, likely Finley knew that too, but David liked to think he'd gotten a little under Finley's skin in return. If today was any indication, the way they'd publicly and privately yelled at each other, the way Finley was yanking him into the kiss now… David was pretty sure that for once, they were even. It likely wouldn't last, and he was still pissed off about the picture and all the lies, but at the moment? Kissing Finley again felt almost like a relief. He'd been carrying around these undisclosed desires for way too long, much longer than the last time their lips had touched, though that had done nothing to quiet his urges, but that first kiss had barely scratched the surface of how much David unwillingly wanted Finley. How much he resented wanting him like this, but right now, as close as they were, he couldn't go another second without scratching that itch. He could just blame it on the adrenaline later.
He didn't fight Finley's grip on his shirt, letting himself be yanked closer and falling into the other man none too gracefully, but David barely noticed. His grip on Finley's shoulders tightened considerably before his hands circled around to cling onto the back of Finley's neck, almost desperately, unable to separate himself from what was happening between them anymore as he got completely caught up in the way Finley was already trying to consume him. The only thing David could do in response was try to consume him back, lips firmed around his and dragging themselves upward as he tilted his jaw, allowing his lips to be forced apart by the way Finley's moved against his. David panted hotly into his mouth, opening his own wider and unable to keep from uttering a small noise of his own in the back of his throat that vibrated between their constantly moving lips. David pressed more deeply into the kiss without hesitation, inhaling Finley like a dying man desperate for air.
Had it not been for the argument and the revelation that had come before, Finley would have thought that his current position, with David’s mouth on his, was a dream. Not the first he’d had of the sort, not even close to that, and while some of them had involved the sort of violent argument that led to shutting one another up with their mouths, it had never ventured into him revealing more of his true identity to David. That was more like a nightmare, to be honest, but what had come after… he’d wondered about how David would kiss, wondered with a hand on his dick and his head thrown back on the pillow. Told himself it was simple curiosity, simply that David was undoubtedly an attractive man. Told himself all manner of lies, really, when the truth of the matter, the plain and simple truth that he’d avoided at all costs, had been that he desperately wanted David Ryan, as desperately as Crowley had panted after Dean… and it was really difficult to miss exactly how desperate Crowley had been to get in Dean’s pants, not that Crowley chose to acknowledge it even when Finley pointed it out.
The kiss had been excellent, before, but when David’s lips parted, when their mouths slotted together even more intimately, it seemed to send a shock straight to Finley’s core. He kept his grip tight on David’s shirt, pressing against him so that their chests and stomachs were pressed tight together. His hips, those he was careful to keep twisted away. David might have been peeking out of his closet, but Finley didn’t want to frighten him right back in with the reality of a dick attached to the face he was making out with. The lack of breasts pressed to his chest, and the scratch of Finley’s beard against his face, was likely disconcerting enough without adding the hard proof of Finley’s attraction to him to the mix quite yet. By the end of the night, perhaps, once he’d gotten David worked up to the point that there was no turning back. Finley had plans for how to make that particular event happen, but it did require a few very specific steps in the process, and the first one was not to rub his hard-on against David until he exploded in his pants like a teenager, no matter how nice the thought sounded at the moment.
In an echo of their first kiss, he touched his tongue to David’s lower lip again… but this time, David’s lips were already parted, his heated mouth primed to be invaded, and Finley was a conqueror. He licked into David’s mouth, gently at first, a mere taste of what was to come. It was infinitely hotter, and wetter, than licking at his lower lip, of course. Better, and he followed with a harder thrust, a more thorough claiming of David’s mouth.
It was definitely strange at first to feel Finley’s beard scratching against his face every time the position of their kiss shifted even slightly, but it barely registered for David at first. The facial hair, the lack of breasts pressing against him, he was aware of the differences that went into kissing a man, but in the moment it was just as much a part of the background noise as everything else outside of this little bubble where he was shamelessly kissing Finley like it wasn’t the most complicated thing in the world. Complicated because of Crowley and Dean, because of Hannah, because David had never so much as kissed a guy before, let alone really thought about it. Being curious was healthy, but David’s fixation on Finley went far past curiosity. As time went on, all the joking and flirting and attention from the older man had become something David started to seek out intentionally, finding that he didn’t want to get through the day without it, like an addict. Finley Melville was addictive, and David didn’t want to stop doing this dance with him.
Some part of him knew how stupid this was. Letting Crowley get close had never really done Dean any favors, and as far as David knew, they’d never been as close as David and Finley were right now. He was letting his guard down with Finley, again, but it felt so good that he had a hard time caring enough to stop. The tighter Finley pressed himself to him, the more thoroughly he kissed him, the more David really sunk into it, to the point that by the time he felt Finley’s tongue starting to explore the inside of his mouth, David was trembling a little with need. He tilted his head more into the kiss with a muffled noise of approval and slid his tongue in next to Finley’s with a shaky breath, not so much trying to invade Finley’s mouth without permission but entwining their tongues together where their breath mingled and he could already feel the wet heat radiating from Finley’s mouth. He took one last step inward, flattening and pressing the upper half of his body as much as he could against Finley’s and sucking in another breath, the harder thrust of Finley’s tongue inside his mouth provoking David to kiss back more roughly for a split second before he finally seemed to wake up a little from the spell he’d been under.
David’s eyes shot wide open, the reality of what they’d just done finally sinking in fully while their mouths were still more or less attached to each other’s. With some measure of regret, but mostly panic, he abruptly tore his mouth away and wrenched himself from Finley’s grasp, still shaking a little and breathing hard as he backed up a few steps while watching him, face flushed, with wide, uncertain eyes as he came to his senses. With a sinking feeling, David knew he’d just done something with Finley that he wouldn’t be able to take back, because now it wasn’t just a joke between them anymore, Finley actually knew how much David wanted him. Blinking, David was at a complete loss of what to say, eyes still momentarily locked on Finley as he swallowed, before looking around at their surroundings and noticing what looked like a front door. Wordlessly, and without warning, David turned his back to Finley and made a straight shot for it, not exactly running, but attempting to get out of there as quickly as humanly possible and hoping that Finley would just let him leave. He was so unbelievably screwed.
Had Finley wanted to, he could have kept David in his grip, not let him pull away from the kiss that he’d initiated. He’d started it, after all, and oh, Finley hadn’t wanted him to finish it, not in the least. Perhaps David was simply an excellent kisser, but Finley knew that wasn’t the reason that he’d felt that contact down to his toes. The slide of their tongues together, the sounds he’d made as their lips clashed, as their kiss grew deeper, more intense… nothing about that had anything in particular to do with David’s skill at kissing. It had nothing to do with Finley’s skill at kissing, a well-honed skill that he’d been delighted to show off to David in their first kiss, the kiss that had been only to seal a deal. This second kiss had taken him entirely by surprise, and skill hadn’t factored into his response to it, only desire. Not that desiring David had been a surprise, in itself, but the depth of it, that it was something Finley could get swept away by, was.
Yes, he could have stopped David from pulling out of his arms, but Finley had no need to force his partners. They’d always come willingly, some of them more than willingly; there’d been times they’d thrown themselves at him, not that he was bragging. He’d never needed to force them, he’d never needed to pay, he’d never even needed to beg. He wasn’t about to start with David. He let his arms fall away when David pulled back, lips still parted, dilated pupils as clear a sign of his arousal as anything happening a bit further south. David had done this to him… not that it was a surprise, but he’d done his best to keep that hidden. Well hidden, he’d thought, though perhaps… not as well hidden as he’d thought. The cat was certainly out of the bag, now, wasn’t it? For both of them, he supposed, not that he’d doubted that somewhere, deep down in his closet, David had been panting for him for nearly as long as Finley had him. And oh, Finley had been panting… gagging, really. He’d never quite imagined it would happen, not when he’d assumed that David was as staunchly dedicated to his image of heterosexual machismo as Dean, but he’d really assumed that if it did, he’d be the one making the first move. He should likely be a bit irritated about it, but it was difficult to remain irritated when you’d just been kissed like that.
David was headed for the door, and Finley had forgotten entirely that there was a reason he’d intended to only teleport him out of the room. He imagined if he seized David and stopped him then, if he did make it out the door he’d likely have never come back, contract or no contract. Perhaps he still would like to never see Finley again, but if Finley let him go… he imagined he could bring up their deal as an excuse for why David couldn’t exactly avoid him, and actually get away with it. Still in a bit of a daze, he unlocked the door and opened it for him with another wave of his hand. Maybe it was for the best, really, that David left right then. It would give both of them (but mostly David) time to cool down a bit. Think over what they’d done. And then… if David didn’t come back to him, Finley knew exactly where to find him.