Written for the "Heroic Faith" challenge at the Still_Grrr community on LiveJournal. Thanks to ubiquirk for beta reading.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Jossverse or the Potterverse, and I'm not making any money by playing in them, much less mixing them.

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Faith had known there was something Remus was hiding, something that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up even when she had her tongue halfway down his throat. There’d been someone else who’d set her internal alarms to this sort of low-level buzzing, but damned if she could remember who or why.

Maybe it’s just that it’s been a week and a half and I can’t find his angle. ‘Cause you know he’s got one.

He came back to the table with their beer. Real beer, not that buttery shit they served in wizarding pubs. When she took a sip, she realized he’d managed to cast a Cooling Charm on it at some point. Had to give the man this much: he caught on quick. Warm beer was definitely not her thing.

Taking a seat without quite looking at her, he took a long sip of his piss-warm ale.

Well, that can’t be good.

“So, spill.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re obviously itching to say something. So say it already.”

Dude, how bad can it be? No way I’m losing it that bad that you’re breaking up with me. And there’s definitely not a wife. Teddy would’ve said something by now if there was a wife.

“Ah. I should have remembered how perceptive you are,” he said. His glance fell to the table and then rose to meet hers. “You’re right. There’s something I need to tell you.”

She extended a hand in invitation, then crossed her arms and held his gaze.

No point in making it easy on him. ‘Cause whatever it is? Definitely bad with a lead-in like that.

“There’s no easy way to say this, but you need to know that I –”

Movement at the far end of the pub caught her attention, even though she didn’t look away. Probably a bar fight, even if the place did look a little too nice for that shit. It had booze, and booze equaled fight, often as not.

Then there was fur. Now she did look away, because there were furry things on that table over there that people were backing away from in a hurry.

“Yeah, whatever,” she said to him as she slipped her best knife out of her ankle sheath and went to see what was what.

They were little, just about the size of her two fists together. Little furry things with big-ass teeth and seriously fast.

But not fast enough! Can’t do much without your heads, can you? she thought as she chopped another one in two. Not that you can really tell where the head part stops and the rest of ‘em starts.


By the time she’d killed the first dozen or so, Remus had joined her, not that he was good for much since he wouldn’t use magic here. Least not so long as there were any people left, and she was a little too focused on the fanged furballs to know if any other humans were still in here or not.

“You want to make yourself useful, figure out where they’re coming from,” she barked as she speared yet another. Because she was pretty sure the half-critters weren’t coming back to life, but no matter how many she killed, she didn’t seem to be running out.

He slid under the table, and that seriously irked her.

That’s not helping. That’s hiding. And I ain’t got time to pull his scrawny ass back out of there!

After a few more minutes, she finally ran out of the fuzzy fangies.

Remus backed out from under the table and turned to face her.

“Remind me never to –”

“I’ve sealed off the hole they used to get in,” he interrupted, holding up a large sack that had come from pretty much nowhere. “We should probably dispose of these and then examine the building adjacent to see how many are there.”

“Right. Right.” She turned to the bartender, who was still frozen in shock. “Your rat problem is under control for now, but you might want to keep an eye on that.”

He nodded, jaw hanging loose.

~*~

Once the things were all sacked up and Faith and Remus were outside, she finally said, “That was good back there. Nice to know you’ve got my back.”

And it was. A little too Robin-esque, but the magic part made it different enough not to be weird. Much.

Remus nodded a quick acknowledgement. “It was only a stopgap. Quite literally. Gweeval demons are very resistant to magic, so blocking their entrance was all I could do.”

The building next to the pub was obviously abandoned. Faith thought she could almost hear the things chewing their way out. She looked down at her knife.

“So we do it the old fashioned way, then. If you can do whatever you did to that hole and pen them up into bunches, I’ll just work my way through.”

“I believe that should work, yes.”

She grabbed the door handle and looked up and down the street to make sure no one was watching. “On three then. One. Two.”

She shoved the door in, tearing the lock through the doorjamb, and was shocked by the sheer number of them. They were like a living carpet on the walls and floor.

“Oh, shit!”

A beat later, a wall materialized, leaving her with about six square feet of gweevals to chop up. Whatever they were. As she started hacking at them, she decided that was just about right.

Of course, once they’re gone, there’s the next batch. Hack. Chop. But this’ll work.

~*~

An hour later, Faith sank down against the wall until she reached the floor, gratefully letting Remus deal with the cleanup. She’d have been up for leaving them to rot, but he was all about the neat and tidy.

Would’ve been nice if he could’ve just made them disappear like that from the start. She gave a little mental shrug. Kinda needed something like that though. Been a little too long since I had more than a couple of vamps here and there.

Once he’d finished the last few, Remus joined her with a questioning look on his face.

“I’m fine. Just beat.” She looked at her hands, coated in drying yellow blood. “And gross. So much for dinner.” Then she realized he still had his wand out.

“Would you like me to …” He gestured at her vaguely.

She nodded warily, and a cool jet of air seemed to wash over her from his wand, getting rid of the blood, the fur, and probably even her sweat.

“Wow. Shower fresh,” she said. “You’re pretty handy to have around. Should take you on patrol more often.”

He offered her a hand up, but she waved him off, suddenly remembering the awkward conversation right before she’d seen the first sign of trouble at the pub. She pushed off the wall and stood.

“So what d’you know about these gweeval things? Poisonous or anything? ‘Cause I didn’t get a good look, so I’m not sure nobody got bit.”

An odd look crossed his face, quickly gone. “No. Neither poisonous nor contagious. Most likely any Muggle that was bitten will seek treatment for a rodent bite, which should be more than sufficient.”

“Good.” She slid her hands into her back pockets. “No need to chase them down then. That’s good.”

He was back to looking shifty-eyed.

So much for that.

“Now that’s done, you going to say whatever it is you were going to say before?”

“Erm, yes.” He fiddled with his jacket like that was going to make a difference or something. “I can’t put it off much longer, after all.” His eyes darted to the window.

The window where pretty much all you could see were the buildings across the street and the almost-full moon just above them.

The almost-full moon.

She rolled her eyes.

“That’s it? That’s your big, stupid secret?” She spread her arms in disbelief. “You’re a frickin’ werewolf?”

The look on his face was priceless.

“Remus, I’ve only known you a week, but I’m pretty sure you don’t let yourself go out terrorizing people. Hell, your kid would’ve been dinner by now if you did that.” She frowned. “Or does he change too?”

“Thankfully not.” He raked his fingers through his hair, which did nothing for it, but for some reason looked sexy anyway. “I take the Wolfsbane Potion.”

She nodded. “Yeah. I know a guy takes some herbal shit so he doesn’t have to change.”

And there was the shocked look again.

“He doesn’t transform at all?”

“No-o. What kind of low-grade herbal shit you been getting, then?” She put her hands on her hips. Seemed she might have some more ass to kick, if someone had been screwing with him.

“That’s … may we talk about this somewhere else?” He looked around at the shredded walls and floorboards.

Suddenly feeling much better – but keeping that ass-kicking in reserve for later – she said, “Sure. How about your place?” She grinned. “And maybe we can find out if you get a little wilder right around now.”

His face reddened.

Oh yeah, this screwed up date might just turn out okay after all.