Title: Blood and Anesthetic

Chapter: 11

~~~~~~~~~

That meal Jo remembered wasn’t especially memorable save that it was the first time she’d personally seen Castiel eat anything. She’d seen him drink before. Dean was always handing him something those days, whether coffee, water, beer, or whiskey. Food though? Cas had been holding out, refusing to consider that he might some day need food.

While they sat looking at menus -- Dean, Jo and Ellen -- he’d suddenly reached across Ellen for the dessert menu, flipped it open, and ordered three desserts: cherry pie à la mode, raspberry cheesecake, and the restaurant specialty, a decadent chocolate cake with ganache and extra chocolate sauce. He specified to their server that they were to come out in that precise order to coincide with the appetizer, soup/salad course, and the actual entrees that Dean, Ellen, and Jo ordered.

“Cas?” Dean stared at him.

“Yes, Dean?” He behaved as though he hadn’t just done something strange.

“Dessert?”

“Yes.” He looked at them. “What? You each mentioned what you’d like to have. The choices were clear. Ellen wants the cheesecake, Jo the chocolate and, Dean, you mentioned the pie….” He stopped talking, blinked several times and asked, “Why are you all staring at me?”

Jo watched her mother turn in the booth. “You readin’ my mind again, Cas? I told you once already how I feel about that. Don’t think I’ll put up with it.”

“I didn’t.” He was bewildered, looking from her to Jo to Dean and back again. “I heard you clearly mention you planned to indulge just this once because this restaurant has the best raspberry cheesecake you’ve ever tried.”

“None of us said anything about dessert.” Dean crossed his arms on the table. “Now, I’ll admit to thinking about having a piece of pie later --”

“And I’m having the cake,” Jo interjected. “To go.” Because she knew she couldn’t eat it and her entire meal. The cake was too good not to take a piece back to the room with her.

“But no words were actually spoken.”

“Of course you said them. I understand fully how you all feel about my listening in on your thoughts and I’ve not done so in months. Dean, you told me it’s not polite. I’ve been….”

Ellen tapped him on the shoulder.

Cas looked at her, his expression fluctuating from bewilderment to annoyance to weary contrition. “Ellen, that’s a physically impossible anatomical suggestion.” He glanced down at the table. “No, you don’t need to think it twice.” He sighed. “I’m not doing it on purpose.” Cas kept his attention on the table. “You don’t have to shout. I apologize. It appears I’m…mind reading again and I can’t stop it. I shall endeavor to ‘reign it in’ though I make no promises.”

Later, it was clear that that particular power had fizzled like an old radio finally giving out, tuning in and out, up and down in volume, eventually leaving him only able to hear Jimmy. Until that too went for the most part, the two of them fused together in the body that had originally been only Jimmy’s.

That day however, it had been amusing, something forgotten as he tried a bite of each dessert before sliding the plates to them.

Jo felt Cas’s hand on her leg and covered it with her own, squeezing it.

“Where were you just now?” He was curious, voice lilting just a little.

Across the table, Dean also looked at her with curious eyes. He and Castiel had cleaned their plates, while she’d barely touched half of hers. Jo slid the tray aside, not surprised when they took that as an invitation to divvy up the remains of her meal onto their plates.

“I was remembering that ‘dessert for dinner’ meal we had once. You know, the one where you ordered the desserts we were all thinking about?”

Cas dipped a steak fry into ketchup. “Ahh yes. Late December of 2010. Close to New Years. About two months or so before you and Ellen left.”

It was Dean who asked, “What brought that on?”

“I don’t know. I just thought about it. No reason.”

They accepted her denial of a reason right then, but she wasn’t surprised when Cas brought up that time in their lives later that night, when the lights were all out and they were snuggled together under the blankets.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Why didn’t we talk back then, Jo?” Ever since her admission at dinner of remembering that meal, he’d been thinking about what their relationship had been back then, from February of 2010 to March of the next year. He wondered on it. Why hadn’t they ever talked like they did now? He’d had many conversations with Ellen and of course he and Dean had always talked, but why hadn’t he and Jo? Most of what he’d known about her until her arrival at the camp had been from Dean and Ellen.

He laid his head on her bare stomach.

“You were still an angel.” She stroked a hand along his cheek. “I wasn’t really sure what to say, even when Dean and mom threw us together on jobs.”

“Those misguided attempts to keep us safe.” Trouble had always found them though. He remembered pulling a creature off of Jo, then collapsing in utter exhaustion as she’d killed it, his angelic strength giving out. “We were trouble magnets.”

“I felt awkward. You weren’t really approachable, Cas, and you had a lot going on.”

He didn’t point out that Ellen had had no trouble approaching him. Maybe, he thought, it really only boiled down to one thing: Jo had been focused on Dean, on trying to make it work with him. Everyone else had been periphery. He rubbed his cheek on her stomach. The conversation could quickly grow depressing were they to continue it, dragging up the changes in him during that time and so forth. Cas refused to let it go on that far, choosing instead to turn playful and forget all about conversation entirely.

“Hey, that tickles,” she complained in a teasing tone. “Stop it.”

Of course he didn’t and of course she started laughing and squirming.

Of course one tickle led to another and to an itch that had to be scratched….

~~~~~~~~~

Dean took his recovery slowly, easing himself back into the camp routine in degrees. Getting Jo to agree to help was a stroke of genius and he wondered how long until she demanded he find someone else. He didn’t want anyone else. She was as qualified as the rest of them, more so in his opinion, and he knew she wouldn’t take any crap from anyone. Since he’d gotten that call from Ellen, it had been Jo he’d wanted in the job. Castiel had been right about that as well as everything else.

Cas was right an irritatingly large amount of the time.

He spent time with Melanie, attempting to puzzle her out and make sense of those things that still didn’t quite fit together. As he observed her, he decided that what she needed was guidance, someone to look up to who would give her a sense of safety and that approval she craved. Since that fight with Castiel and the resulting choice to spend time with Melanie, it had become apparent to Dean that both of those things were what she wanted more than anything. Safety and approval.

The sex with Cas and the others? Not about sex at all, but about that safety and approval she felt with them. She felt loved, needed, and wanted.

The friendship with Jo? All about an approving mother figure. Jo’d probably hate it if he were to even suggest that, but he thought it was true despite the relative closeness of their ages. Might even be reinforced by Jo’s refusal to join in the orgies. Likely was. Jo was an authority figure who’d been nice to her, who listened to her, willingly spent time with her, and gave her advice. She was someone who didn’t want the same things others did from her; a complimentary presence to Castiel’s part in Melanie’s life, providing a counter to Cas’s viewpoint and giving Melanie another way to see things.

It had never been that Jo didn’t acknowledge what was out there. She knew it and had known it most of her life. Nor had she fallen fully into Cas’s pursuit of decadence to anesthetize pains. She’d been tired, he knew it now and could accept it. She’d rested up, and while she wasn’t how he’d hoped she’d be, she’d stepped back into the fight at least a little. He knew she only went outside the camp because people expected it, that it was a part of her duties, her job. It wasn’t what she wanted to do, yet she did it anyway, letting herself be pulled back.

He thought about that part of conversation he’d once overheard between her and Castiel. How she’d mentioned feeling she should be fighting and wanting not to and Cas had told her that feeling could fade with patience. Jo hadn’t let it. She still carried that feeling of responsibility inside her. Jo wasn’t a quitter. She didn’t give up even though she’d desired to at that point.

Dean understood about a sense of duty. He had that in spades. There were many times he’d wanted the same thing and had soldiered on in the end.

The one thing she and Cas didn’t seem to be taking care of with Melanie was her refusal to accept the reality outside. She insisted camp life was grand, refusing to talk about the outside after that one conversation he’d had with her, changing the subject if he so much as hinted at wanting to discuss it. Not good. That was what he’d determined about her attitude. It wasn’t good to be like she was, without the knowledge to fight if she ever had to.

See, Dean did know something about psychology. He did sometimes read the odd range of books that showed up here. He knew enough about human beings as a whole to understand about giving a frightened group order and a sense of security; about giving a frightened girl enough approval of the right kind that she began to gain confidence and pull herself into reality.

He wanted to prepare Melanie for what was going to eventually come. That was what his feelings were. Dean vaguely remembered having a similar sort of sensation when Sam was little, so vague there wasn’t a particular memory in mind, only that same sensation when he thought of those days.

It was a parental type of feeling, which sort of freaked him out a little since he didn’t consider himself nearly old enough to possibly have a daughter Melanie’s age.

After thinking about it and growing used to it, he decided to just go with it. He’d do that parental father figure stuff and teach Melanie how to survive if she had to be on her own. It wasn’t going to be easy and there was a lot to teach her, but he thought that he could get Cas and Jo, maybe even Alexis into it with him. He’d do that, really make it up to her for how he’d treated her, and try to reverse some of the damage her real family had done with that ‘ignore it’ attitude.

~~~~~~~~~~

As a child, Jo had often thought that being an adult was going to be great. She’d never ever have to do anything that she didn’t want to do. As an adult, however, Jo knew better. There were always things that one had to do and didn’t want to do. Responsibilities and duties couldn’t be escaped, nor would she trade adulthood and go back to being a child.

One of those things she had to do was that job Dean foisted on her. She supposed she could have refused, but he only would have kept on her about it until she gave in, so why not just do it? He’d gotten it in his mind that she was the one he wanted in the position. That much was obvious in the fact that he didn’t begin to search for another like he’d said he would. He’d had Cas and Chuck pass it around that if he couldn’t be reached for decisions, Jo was the one to go to.

So much for fading away. Truthfully, though, she didn’t think she ever could reach the point Castiel had with duty. Maybe she just wasn’t as broken down as Cas had become. She’d never lost her faith or her identity like he had. It wasn’t part of who she was to let it fade. She still wanted to do some good out there even as the possibilities for good began to disappear. Jo figured that as long as there were people, there’d be someone out there to protect. To the very last day of earth, there’d be that task.

So, Jo shrugged it off, learned those things she knew she had to, dealt with the people and situations she was supposed to and, in the process, discovered that her performing those tasks seemed to take some the tense edge from Dean. He was more relaxed and seemed quieter. While he wasn’t any of the various Dean’s she’d known him as since that day they’d first met, she thought she could grow to like this one if he chose to stick around. There was a carefulness to him that had nothing to do with being hurt, wounded or emotionally distant. A new man slowly emerging from the beaten, smashed up shell he’d been. A new man in time for his thirty-fourth birthday.

It was understandable he’d be cautious in that.

He didn’t celebrate it that she saw, letting the day go by without anyone wishing him well, even Cas. Cas told her Dean didn’t like to be reminded of birthdays, especially his own. Spring wasn’t a good time for Dean and hadn’t been in many years. Jo found that more than a little sad.

She went out on a couple more raids, then put herself down as an alternate if they really needed her. It wasn’t likely they would. There were always people wanting to join up. Castiel started going out a bit more and they developed a little ritual between them before he left.

He’d hold her, kiss her, and ask, “Hold down the fort?”

“Of course,” she’d tell him, smile and kiss him again.

His hands would slip around to brush against her breasts. “That’s my girl. Love you.”

With a final kiss, he’d head out the door and to the truck.

The scavengers they’d been having trouble with appeared to move on to harass other camps, giving them two and a half months of halfway easy raids and missions. It was funny to her that halfway easy was defined by only having to deal with Croats, demons, and U.S. soldiers. They had no trouble until March, when the scavengers returned, managing to wound several in the team, though the team was able to get away that day. The return ticked Dean off. The timing of the ambushes always coincided with one of the big raids where they came back loaded down with whatever they could get. They’d discussed in private that there must be an infiltrator in the camp, but who? Those who had access to information enough ahead of time were trusted and had proven their trustworthiness.

Jo had her own suspicions, but no proof, beginning to watch the people with more care, even those considered trusted.

She headed to the weekly meeting, late for the time Dean had set, hurrying into the cabin and sliding into the chair to Dean’s right and Ashley’s left, directly across from Cas. Chuck was at the end of the table, Jim to his right. Yeager wasn’t present this time. He was recovering from the flu like a good portion of the camp. Jo was lucky she hadn’t gotten it, nor had Dean. A miracle with Dean considering his usual stress levels, but Jo had never seemed prone to illness. Ellen had called her the ‘wonder child of health’. When Jo was little, she’d been the only one in her fourth grade class not to get chicken pox only to get it in sixth grade when no one else was sick.

Castiel had been one of the first to have flu symptoms, along with Alexis, Melanie, and Maggie. He and the rest of the last raid team had fallen ill a couple days after returning and since those three women had spent a lot of time with Cas those two days…. It was a wonder to Jo that she hadn’t gotten it since she’d been the one nursing all of them through it, struggling to keep them all separated when they wanted to be close for emotional comfort. All four had recovered quickly once they did what they were told to by Alan.

Jo took one of the cups from the center of the table and poured herself some coffee from the carafe. They’d discontinued having cookies or anything besides coffee or water until the round of the flu was over. Jim and Dean also had cups, while Cas held a can of something in one hand and Ashley had water. Chuck was the only one without something, refusing when she asked what he wanted.

“Nothing, I’m good, thanks, Jo. It’s nice of you to ask. I appreciate that. That’s, uh, nice, really. I mean it.”

She’d noticed he tended to babble when nervous.

“Now that we’re all here,” Dean began with a long look Jo’s way. He was trying for annoyance, she could tell in the way his brows drew together, but his eyes and mouth weren’t in it, gaze calm and mouth too relaxed for actual irritation with her.

She grinned at him, not about to apologize for being late. She had a good reason she’d share if he asked. She’d found that lost big box of shotgun shells they’d been searching all over the camp for. It had been hidden in the trunk of the Impala. Pretty clever she thought. Who would think to look in there? The Impala, though stripped down and getting rustier by the day, was still Dean’s baby. No one was supposed to touch it. Getting the box removed and carted to the munitions area had taken up a chunk of time. “Yeah, some people have no sense of time, do they? How inconsiderate.”

His lips twitched before he looked away. “Chuck has some important things to talk to us about today. Floor’s all yours, Chuck.”

Chuck shuffled the papers in front of him over and over. “Uh…yeah. As you know, I do a weekly inventory and while we’re good on food and toiletries for the time being, Doc’s supplies are low after this run of flu and that ambush last week. He’s worried he doesn’t have enough antibiotics, antiviral meds, and….” He paused, face reddening.

“Yes, Chuck?” Dean’s brows rose. “Spit it out.”

“Well, we need to pick up all forms of, um,” he sighed, “birth control, like immediately. Today preferably. Seems the two boxes labeled ‘Ortho’ and ‘Trojans’ weren’t actually either of those things inside. Doc says if we don’t get either now we’re probably going to have a lot of pregnant women to care for.” He looked at each of them for a couple seconds. “A lot of them.” Another round of glances. “Soon. Like late November and December babies. Maybe a January one.”

All eyes turned to Cas and Jo stifled a snicker when he looked up from setting his soda can on the table to find everyone staring at him. He licked his lips, returning their stares with a slightly amused one of his own.

“What? Like I’m the only one in this room who’s been having sex.”

“You have been having more of it than anyone else, so statistically speaking Doc’s problem is largely yours.” Jim looked like he was biting his lip trying not to laugh.

“And having it with more women,” Chuck added. “Just saying….”

Jo’s snicker burst free, garnering her a raised brow from Cas.

“Embrace your slutiness, Cas.” Amusement danced in Dean’s eyes. “It’s the first step.”

“Shut up,” Cas replied with a genial shake of his head. “Doc’s problem doesn’t have anything to do with me. I’ve procured my own back-up supplies. Tell them, Jo.”

“You mean the box that’s as big as I am with about every alternate non-prescription method available?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“Filled.” Jo illustrated by waving a hand over her head. “Like overflowing. Every time he goes out he brings back more. That box is stocked better than most adult erotica shops. I’m surprised none of you noticed him cleaning off the shelves everywhere you go out there.”

“I believe in being prepared,” Castiel explained. “What can I say, I’m a safety guy.”

“That’s what usually comes back in that backpack he takes out.” Jo hadn’t even noticed the backpack until Alexis had wanted to know if he’d brought back anything new one evening. Whereas Jo tended to bring back books, the magazines that remained, and little things to decorate the cabins, Cas returned with condoms, massage oils, and various sexual aids. She kept hoping she’d run into a copy of the Kama Sutra for him, though she didn’t think there was much in there he didn’t already know from one source or another.

“Cas,” Reaching over, Dean squeezed his shoulder. “You’re so my hero. I mean that.”

“You’re just jealous you didn’t think of it first.”

When the laughter had faded, Dean cleared his throat. “Okay then. Problem solved. Everyone see Cas after we’re done here for some rubbers.”

“Funny, Dean.”

“Hey, you’re the one with an excess of raincoats. Share ‘em if you got ‘em and apparently, you’ve got ‘em.” He sobered, looking over at Chuck. “Tell Alan we’ll do our best to get him what he needs, but the truth is…it might not be out there anymore. We’re not the only ones scrounging and supplies are getting harder to find. All supplies. We’ll make it a priority. Until then, he’ll have to make do and do what he can.”

The warning was well founded. They were having to go further and further from the camp to raid for supplies. Soon, they’d be driving hours just one way, long dangerous trips that sometimes took them through quarantine zones where the dangers were multiplied by US soldiers with orders to shoot to kill anything that moved.

Life was getting more dangerous.

In the days following the meeting, they lost three people to the flu, two of them children, and one adult to pneumonia brought on by the flu. The adult with pneumonia was Katie, one of the women who’d been with Cas the longest, almost from the beginning of the camp. Jo was with her at the end, holding her hand when her fever got too high and nothing would bring it down, Katie’s breaths a rattling wheeze in her chest as she struggled to breathe.

Cas had gone back to the cabin to sleep not an hour earlier, having finally been convinced that his presence wasn’t going to determine whether she lived or not. Her death so soon after he’d gone wasn’t going to help his mental state any. Jo stayed with the body half an hour, trying to think of the best way to tell Cas, before covering her up and leaving the quarantine area that had been set up. She followed the rules that would have seemed slightly ridiculous even a year earlier: removing the long gown, mask, gloves, and shoe covers, a procedure as involved as taking off one of those protective suits the CDC used, and washing her hands like a doctor did. She informed Alan, who sat on the porch outside, so tired that his exhaustion radiated from him in waves. He did all he could to keep it from spreading, but in a contained atmosphere like they were, when something like that spread, it spread.

As prepared as they were, there was little they could do to save any of them. They had a limited number of medications and if something was resistant to meds it was a crapshoot as to who survived.

At least Croatoan hadn’t gotten inside the camp. They were vigilant about signs of that infection. One person with it and they’d all be done for.

Sometimes, Jo felt like they were living that story she’d once had to read in school. In it, a prince and some of his nobles hid away from a sickness that found them in the end anyway. Had that been a Poe story? Jo couldn’t quite remember. That whole section of English class had bored her to tears.

Dean arranged the funerals and let Jo deal with the rest. She found she was good at that, all the emotional stuff that had sent him into a decline before. He remained careful with emotional things. A good idea. After that week of recovery, where he’d spent time every day with Melanie, he’d gone to spending only a couple hours every few days with her. Cas still spent more time overall with Melanie than Dean did.

Melanie said they talked. She told Dean about growing up, he taught her those card games she wouldn’t play otherwise. Casual things. Jo wondered if Dean realized he was adding fuel to her crush. Did he even know about the crush? She didn’t think there was any way he could possibly miss it, not Dean Winchester, but then…sometimes guys were clueless. Was Dean?