Title: Blood and Anesthetic

Chapter: 10

~~~~~~~~~

On the third day of his resting period, Castiel came to see Dean.

“You look like I feel,” Cas told him, moving to the couch and sinking down onto it without asking. He walked with that languid, boneless grace he’d acquired, showing no obvious ill effects, such as sore muscles, that he rightfully should after their fight.

“Wish I felt like you look.” It was unfair, in Dean’s opinion, that Cas already looked halfway healed in only three days, his bruises insulting in their light colors. “I see you’re out and about. Causing trouble?”

“Always.” He rested an ankle on one knee and stretched his arms along the couch back.

“Corrupting innocent young things?”

“Absolutely.” He chuckled. “Speaking of innocent young things --”

“Melanie,” he guessed without waiting for Cas to finish the sentence. What other innocent young thing could he mean? It wasn’t like there were many in the camp.

“Got it in one. She likes you. Body oil, a bracelet, and a few nice words go far with her.”

“I know nothing about a bracelet,” Dean remarked, slowly standing to grab two glasses and the whiskey bottle off the shelf before joining Castiel on the couch. He hadn’t actually given the charm bracelet to her. He’d just taken one look at it and suggested to Chuck that it looked like something Melanie might like. Kitten and puppy charms all the way around it. Sweet and innocent. Two words he had no trouble associating with her. It had been Chuck who put the bracelet in a bag with her name on it and dropped it off at her cabin when she and Alexis were out.

Everyone knew Chuck was sweet on her. How could they not? He wasn’t exactly subtle. He made smores for her at the campfire, or whatever treat they were having, liked to sit next to her at meals, and seemed genuinely worried about her welfare.

“Of course. My mistake,” Cas said in a tone that indicated he knew very well what had happened. It was likely he did know.

Dean handed him a glass, poured a healthy dollop of whiskey in both glasses and set the bottle down. “She seems like a nice girl.”

“She is a nice girl. Quiet, affectionate, cheerful…. Melanie is good to have around. Her smile can brighten the day.”

Clinking glasses, they drank in silence a moment.

Cas leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling. “I’m sorry about the railing.”

Dean eyed him a moment, took in the excessive innocence in his expression and laughed. “No, you’re not.”

A tiny grin curled Cas’s lips and he glanced at Dean. “You’re right, I’m not. I’ve been telling you for months to get that fixed before someone falls through it on accident.”

“I would’ve gotten to it eventually. I didn’t expect it to be me falling through it.”

“Those bushes though….” He looked at Dean square on, the innocent expression returning. “They’re a shame. Those were nice bushes.”

He snorted. “What, are you high already today? Those bushes suck. They reek of cat pee even when there’s no cat around.”

They drank another few minutes in silence, Cas returning his attention to the ceiling like it was the most fascinating thing in the cabin.

Dean looked down at his glass, swirling the amber liquid slightly before taking a long gulp. “Cas?”

“Yes, Dean?”

“Do you really love her, like fairy tale, happily ever after, one and only, whole nine yards, you’d die for her love?” He hated to ask, hated that he felt he had to, but he had to know for sure how Castiel felt about Jo. He wanted to believe that she could have that happiness she wanted, even if it wasn’t with him, because when it came right down to it, he really did want Jo happy.

“Indeed I do.” The response was immediate, with no hesitation, only an instant affirmation of that truth.

He sighed, a heavy, weary sound. “I wish I could have loved her that way. I wanted to. Still do.”

“If wishes were horses --”

He gave a quick snort of sad laughter. “Yeah, I know. We’d all be riding.”

“That we would.” Cas shot several glances his way in rapid succession, then shrugged. “I don’t know what she sees in me, if it’s any consolation. I’m a drugged up, bitter, horny ex-angel who’d rather be screwing the nearest willing woman than fighting. The hell if I know why she loves me back.”

“You give her whatever she needs. Emotional, physical, I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s something I can’t.” He tossed the rest of his whiskey down, enjoying the slight burn as it slid down his throat. “Don’t throw her away like I did. You hold on to her as tight a you can for as long as you can.”

“I plan to.”

Dean set his glass down and stood, moving to his bed and sitting on the edge. “I, uh, I need to rest.”

Cas swallowed the last of his whiskey and stood. “I’ll see myself out.” At the door, he paused. “Good talk, Dean.”

“Yeah. Good talk.” Once the door was closed, he let his shoulders slump and head hang down. He had no more pain pills to take when this one wore off the rest of the way. Jo had taken some of the pills from the bottle, saying it was Doc’s orders, leaving him with barely enough for three days.

He laid down, keeping the pillows bunched so he could breathe without feeling a throbbing in the bridge of his nose. When he woke, Melanie was sitting on the end of the bed watching him, her knees drawn up and arms wrapped about them. No wonder she and Cas got on well, he thought, raising up onto his elbows. She had that same habit he did of watching people sleep.

“Dinnertime already?” He cleared his throat, pushing up to sit and running a hand along the back of his neck. Once sitting, he could see that the pose she was in was pushing her breasts up and together in a pretty display of cleavage. Her blouse had slipped down on one shoulder and forward on her chest, revealing the smooth curve of that shoulder and the fact that she was braless. Always a good look in his opinion. Enough of her was displayed that he knew there was no bra. There couldn’t be. Dean couldn’t help but admire the view -- why not look since it was out there anyway?

“Just about.” He saw her bare toes wiggle. The nails were painted bright pink and she had a ring on her right little toe. “I talked Nathan into bringing the food for me.”

“Sweet talker.”

A little smile hovered at the corners of her mouth, a flush coloring her cheeks a very becoming shade of red. “I asked nicely and he said yes.”

“Be here soon?” There was a knock on the door before he’d even finished the query and he got up from the bed as Melanie let Nathan in. The smell of oregano and garlic made his mouth water and he sat at the table, ready for a nice genial meal where he didn’t have to think about camp matters or anything except those light topics they discussed.

~~~~~~~~~~

Melanie was surprised to discover that she liked Dean. She really liked Dean. When he was being nice, he was…nice. Charming. Not the word Jo would use, she suspected. The lunch she shared with him was pleasant, the dinner that same night even more so, and when he invited her to eat with him the rest of the week he was hiding out in his cabin, she accepted with only a slight twinge of anxiety.

Every afternoon when she returned, he was sleeping. She liked to sit on the end of the bed and watch him. He was more at peace in sleep, those hard edges softening, the late afternoon light filtering through the west windows kind to his features. There was something appealing about him that made her want to watch him, to study his features over and over, like a hunger inside her that could only be filled by doing so. She couldn’t get enough of looking at him.

In the evenings, after she’d left Dean’s cabin, Melanie found herself daydreaming about him, wondering what it would be like to kiss him. Or touch him. Be touched and kissed by him.

She was curious. ‘Curiosity killed the cat’, her mother would have said. Only after she’d started management classes had she heard the rest of that saying from one of her classmates. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but ‘satisfaction brought it back’. Maybe, just maybe, her curiosity about Dean could be assuaged. Somehow. She sketched him, both when he was in front of her and from memory, her favorite sketch the one she did of him asleep in bed, the covers twisted about his body and his chest bare. She was embarrassed one evening to realize she was doodling his name over and over on one page and ripped the page out of the notebook before anyone could see it, ripping it up and tossing it into one of the burn barrels across the camp from the cabins.

Slowly and surely, Melanie developed one massive crush on Dean.

~~~~~~~~~

Dean refused to let Jo cancel the meeting he was supposed to run. Jo was ready to scream at his stubbornness, even though she’d been expecting it. Dean could be amazingly bullheaded. He told her to go, to listen and take notes, and let him know what happened.

Grumbling all the while, Jo did. When he embraced something, he embraced it, and Dean had decided to take that little vacation Jo and Alan had told him he should take, spending every hour in his cabin. He refused to step outside or even let more than two people in at a time, arranging for Melanie to bring him meals.

The good part of having to attend the meeting was that Jo understood a bit more about the camp.

She returned to Dean with a sheaf of notes. “Dean, who is your second-in-command?” Every leader needed one, especially in situations like theirs where Dean could be seriously injured or killed on a raid or mission. She’d gotten a sense in the meeting that perhaps Bobby had been the second and Dean had never really confirmed another one, so the people at the meetings were uncertain who was in charge when Dean wasn’t there. That could spell disaster if something did happen.

“Cas,” he replied without thinking.

“Are you sure?” She glanced down at the papers. “Because he says, quote, ‘Me? Not unless he’s changed his mind in the past few months.’ unquote.”

“Chuck then.”

Jo shuffled the papers. “Quote, ‘Me? No, no, I can’t. I don’t know anything about leading people. It’s, just, no, no, don’t make me, please?’ unquote.” She tried her best to get the right pleading frightened tone Chuck had used for the full effect.

Dean pursed his lips and sighed. “Did anyone else at that meeting step up to the plate?”

While she could have given him a full, very entertaining account of what each person had said and the ensuing conversation, Jo decided not to. This was a serious matter that needed discussing. “Nope. The rest were somewhere between Cas and Chuck on the denial spectrum.”

“Huh.” He put another pillow behind his back, taking his time fluffing the pillows and maneuvering them. When he finally sat back, Dean’s innocent, ‘I just had an idea’ expression made her wary in a single second. He gestured with a hand. “Why don’t I just have you do it?”

“I don’t want --”

“Temporarily,” he amended. “Until I can decide who’d do the best job.”

“Dean….” She could see getting stuck with it when he forgot to pick someone else. Or simply decided to not pick one and see if she objected. He would, too. If he decided she’d be best, he’d do whatever he could to make it happen, including tricking her into taking the job.

“Come on, Jo. It’ll be a week or two, tops. Did they listen to you in the meeting? Respect your views and opinions?”

“Well, yes….” It wasn’t like she wasn’t on good terms with all of them anyway. She and Cas usually hung out with Jim and Ashley after the Saturday night campfires, she saw Chuck everyday, and Yeager was always good for a few games of poker or darts.

“It’ll be temporary,” he assured her.

She quirked a brow at him. “Define ‘temporary’.”

“Only until I find someone else qualified. Tell Cas and Chuck and they’ll pass it on to the rest of the camp.”

Which sounded awfully permanent to her. All the qualified people had been in that room with her and none of them wanted the job. She dumped the papers on the bed beside him with a disgusted twisting of her lips. “Fine. Here’s your report. Nothing new, didn’t need a meeting, camp is running fine without you. You could probably take another week and still be good.”

“Of course we needed a meeting, Jo, and we’ll need one next week, too. It’s orderly. A nice orderly routine soothes the average person and when they see their leaders going about daily business, they aren’t as afraid. They assume we’re on top of things.”

“It’s all for show?”

“Not all, but a little psychology in running this place doesn’t hurt.”

How right he was. Sometimes Jo was amazed at how well he could see right into the heart of what needed doing. “You amaze me sometimes…Donovan.”

“Only sometimes? I must be slipping.” He smiled. “And if I’m Donovan, does that make you Juliet or Ham?”

“Maybe a bit of both considering our history.” She was pleased that he’d gotten the reference. The original miniseries ‘V’ was as old as she was. Mike Donovan, reporter turned fugitive and eventual leader of the rebellion. Juliet Parrish, the love interest, a doctor, and also a leader. Ham Tyler, former mercenary who later fought for the resistance and had a grudging friendship with Donovan.

“Juliet was prettier.”

“I always liked Ham personally.”

He shook a finger at her. “You can’t stump me, Jo. All those shows and things…I watched them all.”

“Yeah, I know.” She stood. “Anything else, oh fearless leader?”

Lacing his fingers together, he put them behind his head and leaned back. “I’ll let you know.”

With a last roll of her eyes, Jo left him alone.

~~~~~~~~~~

He was having dinner with Melanie on the sixth day of his retreat from the camp, when Nina came to visit. Out of the three women, Nina, Nicole, and Nora, she was the only one who bothered to see how he was, which meant she either actually cared or was simply worried that the status she thought she had by screwing him occasionally might be damaged. He leaned towards the latter reason. Nina wasn’t particularly affectionate. Their arrangement was purely physical and he liked it that way.

In that moment, Dean decided to simplify things for awhile and cut Nora and Nicole loose. He also decided that it would be wise to keep Melanie away from Nina. The look Nina fixed upon her boded ill for Melanie if Nina caught her alone. She most certainly didn’t like Melanie and for a good reason. Bitchy and selfish couldn’t easily compete with sweet, nice, and caring.

When they were done eating, Dean persuaded Melanie into sitting beside him on his bed. She’d relaxed enough around him that he didn’t need to do much coaxing.

“I don’t think Nina likes me,” she said, smoothing the bedspread with one hand.

“Nina doesn’t like anyone.”

“She likes you.”

“She likes power,” he corrected, “and she thinks she has some through me.” He reached for the cooling cup of coffee on the bedside table. “I let her believe it because it’s easier when you know what a person wants. I want sex, she wants sex and power. It’s a physical relationship, Melanie. I couldn’t care less if I ever see her outside this bed.”

She bit her lower lip, teeth grazing it. “I find it hard to believe she was a nurse like she claims she was.”

Nina said she was an emergency room nurse before the virus hit. It wouldn’t surprise him if it was really the truth. He’d met some petty, power mad nurses over the years who didn’t particularly care about people despite their profession.

“Naughty nurse, maybe. Or Nurse Ratched.” The expression on her face reminded him so much of Castiel right then: confused by who Nurse Ratched was, not understanding the reference. While Cas’s confusion stemmed from having been an angel, Melanie’s was probably from her age. Dean winced a little. She was, what?, nineteen?, twenty? Oh, geez. In life experience he was ancient in comparison. Not a pleasant thought. He suddenly felt all of those years. “Never mind. Enough about her. Tell me about yourself. What was your family like?” He took a drink of the coffee, curious to know how a girl like her stayed the way she was in the world they lived in. He remembered telling Chuck she couldn’t be that naïve in reality; that it had to be an act.

Up until now, he’d kept their conversations very light, mostly on her hobbies and things like that.

The request startled her, her brows raising and lips parting. “Myself? Well…I grew up on a farm. My folks were pretty strict, and not what Alexis would call physically demonstrative. They were always worried something bad would happen to me and had all these rules I had to follow to try and keep bad things from happening.”

Which could account for how easily she’d fallen in with Castiel’s groupies. Dean knew that, sometimes, when kids raised in strict environments stepped away from that, they went wild in their newfound freedom, trying things their family would be horrified to know about.

He could understand parents wanting to shield their children, but life happened regardless.

“I never really had a boyfriend.”

Which clinched that analysis. He could see it too. Castiel showing interest in her and Melanie heading straight for him, part rebellion against that upbringing and part crush on the first man to show her romantic emotional and physical affection. It made sense.

“Even when I started taking those management courses, I stayed at home. My job didn’t give me enough to live on. I mean, it was only part-time and more an apprentice type position than anything else. You know that farm? The one the animals came from? I’d been here like two weeks?”

“That was your home.” The way she said it was a huge clue. That farm. Where he’d shot and killed a family that had been infected. The parents and their two children, a teenaged boy and younger girl of perhaps ten.

They’d loaded up the trucks with the animals they knew they could care for, like the chickens, the dog and the one fat and friendly cat that Emily had adopted. On a second trip, they’d cleaned out the pantry and other supplies in the house and barn. Why hadn’t she said anything? He would have been fine with a team taking her to gather some of her own things, clothes and such. “You never said.”

“No one came back with you. If they were alive and well, you would’ve brought them back. Besides, that was my old life.”

“You could let your family go?”

“If they were infected, they weren’t my family anymore, and if they were dead, they weren’t family either.” She toyed with the charms on her bracelet. “Don’t get me wrong, I loved them, but they weren’t easy to live with. I like it here better.”

It was almost as though she didn’t really understand that they were dead and gone. The emotions he thought she should have right now didn’t seem to be there. Unless….

Damn.

He closed his eyes for a few long seconds, sucking in a sharp breath. Her crying those months, that constant flow of tears…. She’d been grieving for her family.

Dean, you stupid son of a bitch.

It made him feel worse for making her cry all those times to understand the reason she’d been so sensitive. Had she told anyone? Cas? Alexis? Anyone until now?

“You like life here,” he asked, studying her in light of what she’d told him. It had never occurred to him that anyone could want the camp life, even desire it. To him, it was merely a necessity, but for a girl who’d lost her entire life it could be a refuge. An escape.

“Sure.” She turned, crossing her legs in the lotus position and smiling. “What’s not to like? I have room and board for working a few hours a week in a job I like, and people who love and care about me. I have a best friend, two really and no one tells me I’m worthless or that I’m not wanted.”

He wondered who had told her both those things.

“People want me here. Cas and Jo protect me.” The trust shining in her eyes was almost uncomfortable, once again reminding him of just how young she really was. “You protect me, Dean. I know you protect all the camp, but I’m a part of it, right? It includes me.”

He shook his head, putting the cup down. “How can you trust me?”

“Cas trusts you,” she pointed out. “He doesn’t trust just anyone. Then when Jo arrived, she trusted you, too. I figure if they can, I can.” Her smile widened. “And I’m not scared of you much anymore.”

“I don’t think I can argue with that logic.”

“Then don’t.”

He hesitated before asking, “You do know what’s going on outside that fence out there, right?”

Her smile faded and she looked down at her hands, clasping them together. “I know the virus is a supernatural thing. Cas and Jo explained that to me once. I know there are things out there that belong in horror movies that are real. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts…demons. I know the people that hunted those things tried their best to stop them and that those things aren’t the only things out there. Angels are real, Lucifer walks the earth, and the ‘end of the world is nigh.’” She said the last bit in a dramatic voice, very much like a child determined to be brave when facing something that frightened her.

“Melanie --”

“I know Cas thinks I’m fragile, but I’m stronger than he thinks. I am.”

Her tone indicated that she was trying hard to convince herself of that.

“I’ve heard things and I can make connections myself. I’m not stupid. I may be a little naïve sometimes I guess, but never stupid. I saw the news, read the papers, tried ignoring it all like everyone else I knew until that day at the inn….” She tucked her hair behind her ears. “I know it’s bad out there and it’s worse than it was, but in here, in the camp, it’s good. I have a good life here.”

Good? He wouldn’t categorize it as good by any stretch of imagination.

“I don’t understand you, Melanie,” he admitted, though he thought if he took the time he could get her figured out completely. This attitude of hers? Smacked of burying her head in the sand and continuing to ignore the world outside.

And they were all letting her. Enabling her even. Was it healthy? Was it for the best? Did it make sense to let her go along this path? What happened when the day came that she had to protect herself and she couldn’t, because no one had made her learn how?

“I’m not complicated. Trust me. I’m pretty simple.”

“No, you’re more than you think.” He patted the pillows beside him. “Come here.” When she’d moved close, he slid his arm around her shoulders, wanting to make it up to her a little for the way he’d treated her. After a moment’s hesitation, she laid her head on his shoulder, snuggling against him. He smelled herbal shampoo and a hint of perfume, her body warm against him. Enticing. Tempting.

But not in a sexual way. He never thought he’d see the day when he looked at a pretty woman and realized that, while she was pretty and he enjoyed looking at her and flirting with her, he honestly didn’t want sex from her. He had no real desire to kiss her or touch her in any way that might give her the impression he wanted sex from her.

It was a strange feeling for him.

He should send her right back to Cas. Cas had no problem with that attitude she had or her age.

But what Dean should do and what he did do didn’t always match up.

He needed to figure out exactly what this feeling was and if he wanted to pursue it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jo didn’t need Dean to tell her that for her to be accepted as even a temporary second-in-command by the camp in general she needed to go out on a raid or one of those separate missions they had from time to time. People expected to see her learning those things she’d been avoiding.

Her first raid was with a small team under Castiel’s direction. He’d refrained from popping pills or any other mind-altering substance only because she’d asked him to. She wanted his mind clear so if anything went wrong, he could direct them.

Jo wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

Without chemical aid, he was tense, jumpy, hyper-aware, and generally jittery, his body in constant motion -- tapping his feet, drumming his fingers, rolling his head on his neck, and all sorts of annoying nervous ticks, including popping his knuckles and making a strange clicking sound with his tongue. Once those had a foothold, he began complaining of a headache and nausea, his shirt soaking through with sweat.

Thinking back, she realized it had been months since he’d not ingested some sort of drug on a daily basis. He was having withdrawal symptoms from something he was used to taking. Or many things he was used to taking.

Great. And on a raid, too.

It had to be a miracle that they arrived back at the camp all in one piece and with everything they’d gone out to get. By the time she and Cas reached their cabin, he was argumentative and sullen as well. Jo went immediately to the absinthe, fixing it the way he liked and shoving it at him before going outside to sit on the steps. She warned anyone who started to come over that it wasn’t a good time.

Her watch beeped the evening dinner hour alarm as Dean left his cabin and crossed the clearing to her.

“Heard the raid went well,” he said, hands sliding into his jeans pockets.

The sound of beads clacking together warned her of Castiel stepping out to join them and she glanced over her shoulder at him rather than answer Dean’s statement. “Are you done being a pissy little bitch yet?”

Cas crouched behind her. He’d changed shirts and looked quite a bit more mellow than he had earlier. “I apologize for that.” His fingers slid along her spine in a slow caress.

“You could have said something.”

“I didn’t know it would be that bad.”

“Withdrawal,” Dean guessed with a little smirk. Jim had probably told him what had happened. She thought she’d seen Jim going into Dean’s cabin a little while earlier.

Jo stared up at him, frowning. “Yeah. Big time. Jumpy Jasper here almost shot Jim in the face. Twice.”

“He startled me,” Cas explained.

“He was irritable, argumentative, nervous and an all around high-strung pain in the --”

“It’s not all withdrawal, Jo.” Dean leaned against the cabin, one foot on a step. “You and Ellen were gone before the full…” he shrugged, “weight, I guess would be right, of the scope of human emotions started getting in the way of hunting.”

Wrapping an arm around her, Castiel moved to sit behind her. “The nervous jitters --”

“The irritability and argumentative tendencies --”

“Are just naturally me stuck in a human body --”

“In a high stress situation. The pills were --”

“Are a coping method.”

She looked at Dean, then Cas, then Dean again. “Wow, that was so cute how you just finished each other’s sentences. You mean you both knew some sort of drug was needed and didn’t tell me?”

Dean’s smirk widened into a grin. “I would’ve -- if I’d any indication you were wanting to discontinue doses.”

“How did I not know this?”

“Day to day, I can stand the emotions and feelings for a few hours at a time without aid.” Cas rested his chin on her shoulder. “But in high stress situations, I find it difficult to turn them off enough to function properly. I thought I’d be okay on this raid because it wasn’t a big one. It was a little one we’ve done a hundred times. Easy. Quick. Nothing high stress about it. It didn’t occur to me that I might start having withdrawal symptoms while we were out. So, yes, I’m done being a ‘pissy little bitch’.”

Dean pushed off from the cabin wall. “Good. Let’s go eat. I’m starved. Emily is making cheeseburgers tonight and she promised me steak fries.”

“No, no, no. Wait.” Jo held up her hands. “When did you start taking the pills, Cas?” She’d thought it was after the camp was established, but now she wasn’t so certain it wasn’t further back. “I mean the very first pill you ever took.”

He and Dean shared a long stare and when he turned back to her, Cas looked regretful, as though he really didn’t want to tell her how long ago it was. “After you and Ellen left. It was maybe a month or two later, three at most, right about the time the last of my angelic powers fizzled.”

She pointed at Dean, beginning to understand now the love-hate they seemed to have developed for each other. One day they were best buddies and the next they snarled at each or ignored each other. Back and forth they went, with no indication until they interacted which behavior they’d engage in. “Your idea?”

Dean met her gaze straight on, remorse sliding through his eyes in a quick swirl and slipping away. “At first.”

“I’m the one who ran with it, Jo. Dean may have handed me a pill bottle, but he didn’t cram those pills down my throat. I’m the one who took them, liked the escape they gave, and added to them. A little booze, a little pot, a few more pills, mix in some lovely women and here I am today.”

“If we’d stayed,” she started to ask, then didn’t want to finish the wondering. If they’d stayed, would it have made a difference? Knowing what she now did about her mother’s relationship with Cas, was it possible he might have had an easier time of it with Ellen there? Was it possible Ellen could have kept him going without the drug habit? Or the women?

“I don’t see how that would have made a difference,” Dean said, bending his knee and leaning on it so that he was closer to her, talking directly to her. “You and I made things high stress. Ellen could only counter so much, Jo. I don’t think there would have been much difference in the end. The jitters still would have ticked me off enough that I handed him the first pill.”

No wonder Dean was so hostile to Cas’s pill popping, alcohol, and other substance habit while not batting an eye when anyone else in camp did it. He was the one who’d given Cas that first pill to cope, not realizing Cas would take it to the extreme he had. He felt responsible for it as well as all the other things that weighed him down.

Who would have ever guessed that an angel could have an addictive personality?

As for Castiel, there was the bitterness about needing something to help him cope, maybe a little anger at Dean for not saying yes to Michael and ending things before they got to this stage, and guilt that his habits caused Dean more pain.

“No wonder you two are so screwed up,” she said with a weary shake of her head.

To her surprise, they started laughing, Cas hugging her and kissing her cheek before releasing her and standing. “Yeah, well, it’s a way of life. The finest anesthetic, Jo.” He caught one of her hands and gave a tug. “Come on. Let’s go eat. I think a cheeseburger would really hit the spot right now.”

It was the first relaxed meal she’d shared with both of them at one table since 2010.