Title: Blood and Anesthetic

Chapter: 12

~~~~~~~~~

“Cas, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to!”

Castiel rolled away from Melanie and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, all amorous thoughts leaving him in a quick rush. Melanie’s crush on Dean had, until right then, not been anything of an issue for him. It didn’t really matter if she had the hots for Dean or if she spent afternoons or even nights with him. This though? This pissed him off. He didn’t care who she was with the rest of the time, but when she was with him alone, he wanted to have her sole attention, not be a stand-in for Dean Winchester. He wanted to snap that she should at least try to be focused on who she was with, but gritted his teeth before the harsh admonishment could leave his lips.

“Please don’t be mad,” she whispered.

He reached for his clothes, pulling them up onto the bed beside him. Her hand touched his back, then jerked away.

“Cas…. Say something. Please?”

She was nearing tears, he could hear it in the slight catch to each word. He closed his eyes, trying to find a calm cool place before he said anything. Another minute, he thought. He needed another minute to be that man he’d always tried to be with her. Opening his eyes, he reached down for her clothes too, also setting them on the bed, counting out the pieces. Lacy panties, jeans, blouse, two socks. Her coat was by the door on a hook.

She sobbed.

Cas took a deep breath and turned, drawing her close with a hand at her neck, pressing his cheek to hers, his lips near one ear. “You don’t have to keep coming here if you’d rather be with Dean.” It was hard to push out those words in an understanding tone. “It’s okay to --”

“But I’m not,” she said, whispering again, hand raising to grasp at his.

“Not?” He loosed his hand from hers, set hers back in the pool of the covers at her waist, and returned his hand back up, fingers stroking the hair by her temple. “Not what?”

“I’m not with Dean. He hasn’t…he doesn’t...he never….”

“Not at all?” Which surprised him. Dean, after all, liked pretty women in his bed and Melanie was a pretty woman who, by her recent behavior, certainly wouldn’t tell him no.

“No. Never. I don’t think he…well, that he notices me that way. I mean, I know he notices, but he doesn’t do anything.”

Somehow, that made it even worse. She’d cried out Dean’s name and Dean wasn’t even doing so much as copping a feel? Why not? Did he think there was something wrong with her, because there wasn’t. Personally, Castiel thought Melanie was a better lay than that Nina Dean seemed to like. Nina reminded Cas of a female human Zachariah, only in an attractive package that used her assets to full advantage with men. And some women. Sure, she was smoking hot, but she was about the only woman in camp that he’d ever turned down. Her kisses and caresses had left him cold, uncomfortable, and he’d put a stop to her advances before they’d even gotten as far as his bed.

“You should go,” he told Melanie, releasing her and moving back to the edge of the bed to begin getting dressed. She was dressed before he’d even gotten his pants fully on, hurrying from the cabin.

The incident bothered him, ticked him off, and when Dean asked to meet with him he was in what Jo referred to usually as a pissy mood.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jo could only guess what was on Dean’s mind when he gathered her, Alexis, and Castiel in Cas’s cabin. He gave no verbal clues or single idea as to his agenda, standing in a pose of silent patience, his hands resting on the back of the straight chair near one window as they waited for Castiel to arrive.

Cas was the last to arrive, frowning in suspicion when he came in. “This had better not be another intervention. That was old by the end of the first time you tried it.”

Dean cleared his throat and shook his head. “No, it’s not. I know better.”

“Oh.” He cheered up, some of the tension draining from his features. “Well, then what’s the issue that so urgently needs discussing?”

“Melanie.”

“Ahh.” Castiel glanced at Alexis and Jo, sliding his hands into his pockets. One brow shrugged. “Urgent, huh?”

“Relatively.”

“Relative to what?” He was going to be contrary, Jo could see that he’d already decided that. He was going to drag his feet and be a pain in the ass about whatever Dean planned to discuss. She hated when he got in that sort of mood.

“Just sit down, will you?”

Jo crossed her legs and wondered again where Dean was headed. She knew the time he spent with Mel had the girl over the moon and Dean didn’t appear to be discouraging it.

“Okay.” Cas sauntered to the end of the bed and sat down, taking his own sweet time about it. “What about Melanie?”

Dean sat in the straight chair. He was all business, laying it out quickly. “Simply put, she can’t shoot, she can’t fight, and she can’t take care of herself. She’s young, yes, as you pointed out to me before, but so is Alexander. He’s nine and he can shoot. Beth is eleven and can work a knife like Jo. They both practice a little every day.”

Alexander was the boy Cas had made smores with and Beth was Ashley’s daughter. Ashley was big on Beth learning those skills. Alex though, was an orphan, one of the few children they’d found who’d survived by himself in a quarantine zone long enough for them to find him.

Irritation flashed in Castiel’s eyes, rolling about like a tumultuous wave and settling in to stay. “So what?” Dean’s matter-of-fact statement obviously annoyed him, the long lean line of his body tense. He was spoiling for a fight for some reason. Jo wondered what had happened since that morning to cause his mood. She hadn’t seen him since breakfast. “She doesn’t go out on raids or missions. What need does she have for those skills if everyone around her has them? Tell me that.”

Jo saw Dean’s shoulders shifting, his body readying for an argument. He nodded as though in agreement and leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. One hand dangled, the other moved to gesture as he spoke.

“What happens when Lucifer decides he’s had enough waiting and sends his Croats after us? We’re on borrowed time already here. What happens to her if they get through our lines and there’s no one between her and them? Wouldn’t you rather she take a few with her and go down fighting instead of fainting or hiding and hoping she can survive it? Cas, they could tear her apart and Jo can tell you, it’s not a good way to go. We heard Ellen screaming until she couldn’t scream anymore. It was the sound of personal hell right here on earth.”

Sometimes Jo still had nightmares of that; of hearing her mother scream in agony while the Croats used their hands to kill her because they didn’t have weapons. The thought that her mother had willingly gone to such a death on the chance that sacrifice could buy Jo and Dean time floored her every time she thought of it.

“She doesn’t want to learn.” His voice held more than a trace of stubbornness.

“He’s right.” Alexis spoke up, moving from the floor to sit on the other side of the bed, the trunk between her and Cas. “I’ve tried, talked to her until I’m blue in the face, almost pleaded with her to go with me to practice. I told her to just learn the safety measures, that’s all, and she won’t. She says everything’s good here and all that stuff’s outside. We’re protected from it.” She laughed, the sound bitter. “Protected, geez. It’s an illusion. I can’t change her mind. She doesn’t listen.”

Castiel shook his head, hair tumbling on his brow. He needed a haircut and Jo made a mental note to give him one later. “I know what you’re going to ask me to do, Dean, and I won’t. That first week with her, I told her, no I promised her, that I’d never make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. Now that promise wasn’t just about sex, it included everything, even this. I made a promise and I meant it.”

“You have an influence over her. She asks you for advice. If you tell her you’d like her to learn, she will.”

“And break my promise?” Disgust turned his lips. “No.”

Dean clasped his hands together. Jo thought he was keeping his temper rather well. “Can you at least agree that she needs to learn gun safety?”

He couldn’t argue with that. No one could.

“Of course she needs to learn. Everyone does. There are guns everywhere here. It’s common sense.”

“We agree on that. So if she asks your opinion, will you tell her that?”

For a long moment, Cas stared at him, then he tipped his head back to look at the ceiling, leaning on his hands and crossing his ankles. His lips parted and when his gaze darted back to Dean, Jo saw a stubborn glint had taken root in his eyes. She could see it leeching across his face and into his posture the longer he was silent. He was going to oppose this as long as he could. “No.”

“Why not?” Dean’s eyes narrowed.

“Because I know she doesn’t want to learn and for me to express an opinion that might compel her into learning would be breaking my promise. It would be using that influence you claim I have over her in a devious, underhanded way to achieve your end. Sounds like someone we both know, doesn’t it?”

“Expressing your opinion is breaking your promise?”

He squared his jaw. “Yes.”

“It’s stating your opinion, not breaking a promise.”

“No, Dean, it’s forcing her to do something she doesn’t want to do. Even doing so in a roundabout way is doing so. It wouldn’t change the underlying issue.” His lips curved in a smug, infuriating grin. “You want it to happen,” he pointed at Dean, “you make it happen. I’m done trying to make people do things because the boss man says to; done manipulating when I know it’s not for the best. Those days are gone.”

Jo knew some of what Cas referred to. Zachariah had been big on manipulation and making people, more specifically Dean, do what he wanted them to.

“You don’t know it’s for the best,” Dean argued.

“Yeah, I do. You want her to learn so badly --”

“She can’t protect herself. You do see that, right, Cas?”

“-- you crack your leader whip and order her. She’ll follow an order. Make sure you back it up with some yelling, too. You know, for emphasis. Make sure little helpless Melanie is well aware of how pathetic she is.”

Jo had to side with Dean in this matter.

Alexis drew her legs up onto the bed, curling them beneath her. “Nice suggestion, Cas, that’d scare the crap out of her.”

Dean’s attention slid from Cas, to Jo, Alexis and back to Cas. “And make me the bad guy again, thus ensuring she runs back here for comfort. Funny how all paths for her lead back to you, Cas. Everything she does returns her here to you. Someone upsets her, she’s running to you. She’s hurt, she’s tired, she’s anything she finds you. She doesn’t want to do something, she comes to you and you keep her insulated. This promise you made is another way to --”

Jo thought she could see the point Dean was heading for with the use of that word ‘insulated’. Alexis had already mentioned Melanie refusing to acknowledge what was outside. If Dean was going where she thought, he had a very good point. Castiel did enable her behavior, though he’d argue that he didn’t.

“To me? Really?” Cas chuckled. “Do you want to go there, Dean? Before we do, let’s talk about that influence you have over her. That’s what I find really interesting to contemplate. I mean, she went from being afraid of you to wanting to jump your bones after a few days alone with you. That’s amazing. Admit that, at least. It is amazing.”

He looked away without answering and Jo considered Dean for a moment. It seemed he was aware of Melanie’s crush on him and he was uncomfortable for it to be brought up.

“No reply to that? Yeah, I thought you knew about her feelings. She’s not exactly subtle.” Cas pressed on, voice deliberately taunting. “Not spending much time in private quarters alone with her now are you? Not like you did for a couple weeks there.” He licked his lips, focusing his stare upon Dean. “So why don’t you just use her feelings to your advantage? Hmm? It’s what you’re wanting me to do. Why should I do it if you’re not willing to? Why even have me do it when you’re fully capable? Put your arm around her, lean down, and whisper it in her ear like a sweet nothing. Give her a kiss or two, cop a feel, hell, take her to bed --”

“Not going to happen.” The words were bit out between clenched teeth, but he was keeping his temper so far.

“Why not? Isn’t she worthy of being a Winchester screw toy? Come on, what are you waiting for with her? I’m all for anticipation sometimes, but isn’t it getting a little ridiculous?”

What had gotten into Castiel today? Jo shifted position on the couch. How had they gone from Melanie learning to shoot and fight to this?

“That’s not the issue, Cas.” Dean sat back and set a hand on the trunk beside him, drumming his fingers on it. “We’re discussing --”

The attempt to change the subject failed.

“I think it is an issue. What’s wrong with her, hmm? Want to tell me that? Where is she deficient? Not like you’re particularly discriminate, but you act like you haven’t been doing the same thing I have this whole time. I bet if we actually tally up women, your count would be just as high.” He jiggled a foot. “I don’t get it. You’ll screw Nina and all those others, but you practically pat Mel on the head and tell her ‘good girl, now run along for a bedtime story and a glass of warm milk’, like she’s a child. Maybe it’s not something wrong with her, but something wrong with you.”

Dean sighed, rolling his eyes a little. “What’s really pissing you off, Cas? Why do you care if I screw her or not? What’s your big problem? She call my name or something when you had her on her back earlier today?”

That question shut Cas up, his head turning so he wasn’t looking at Dean. Loathing crawled across his face in slow degrees before disappearing.

Jo exchanged a glance with Alexis. For someone who talked about no strings or jealousy, Castiel sure seemed jealous. Dean’s guess had scored a hit.

A sad weary laugh escaped Dean. “That’s it, isn’t it?” He crossed his arms and shook his head. “She screamed out my name and of course there’s got to be something wrong with one of us if I’m not doing her like you are; if I haven’t even tried to.” He tapped his foot a few times on the floor. “There’s nothing wrong with either one of us. She’s an attractive girl, nice to look at, but I don’t want to do her. I want to help her. You know, that thing we were discussing before you went off on a tangent that has nothing to do with her and everything to do with your own offended ego?”

Alexis shrugged. “The name thing happens. We all know it does. It’s a big deal, but it’s not this big a deal.”

“Easy for you to say,” Cas muttered.

She laughed. “No, not really easy. I’ve been called Cheryl and Heather right at the wrong moment. I’ve even been called a couple guys names. It sucks, and it ticks you off, but --”

“Dude,” Dean interrupted, “if this is the first time it’s happened to you with the number of women you’ve banged the past couple years, then you’re statistically a freak.”

“She says your name right then at that particular moment and, damn it, Dean, couldn’t you at least have had the decency to actually do her at least once?” Cas wasn’t going to be derailed from the topic. “How can you not want her? Explain that.”

“Cas!” Jo stood and began to pace, wondering if they were ever going to get back to the original subject. “Let it go.”

“No, Jo, it’s okay. I’ll answer that.” Dean pursed his lips and was quiet a moment. “All right. Say you have two beautiful women side by side --”

“I do frequently.” Cas leaned forward, taking the pose Dean had abandoned minutes earlier, forearms on his knees and hands clasped together. “Go on.

“Somehow I’m thinking that illustration isn’t going to work and as I don’t have the energy to think up another one --”

“It’s like going to a museum,” Alexis said. She looked at Dean for confirmation, continuing on when he didn’t give it. “Right? You can look at all the fine art and enjoy it without wanting to touch it or own it yourself. Or how about…. She’s nice to look at, but doesn’t really float your boat.” She seemed to be getting more into her attempted explanations as she spoke. “No, no Cas, it’s like…it’s like how I feel about Jo.”

Jo paused in her pacing. “Um, excuse me? You…you what?”

“She’s very cute.” She glanced up at Jo. “You are, really, don’t think I don’t think you are.” As though Alexis perhaps thinking she wasn’t cute would offend her? “I think you’ve got a great body and all, but --”

“I don’t need to know this, Lex.” She heard Dean begin to laugh and try to disguise it as a cough. “Please, don’t go on. I’d really rather you didn’t continue the comparison.” Crossing her arms, she tried to remember how many times she’d changed clothes or finished getting dressed with Alexis in the room. Call her dumb, but it had never occurred to her that Alexis might be looking. That any of them might be looking except Castiel.

“-- but I don’t want to get physical with her. Looking? Always good. Doing? Not gonna happen.”

Dean finished his cough-laughing. “Yeah, it’d be something a little like that, I guess.”

“Seriously?” Castiel kept staring at Dean like he thought Dean was crazy, then transferred his incredulous stare to Alexis. “Seriously?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Alexis grinned. “Very serious.” She sobered, looking back up at Jo. “You’re all weirded out now, aren’t you?”

“Little bit, yeah.” More than a little bit if she was being honest.

“Okay. I’m sorry. Please try not to be weirded out. We’re friends only, not now or ever friends with benefits, that was basically my point. But the illustration worked. Cas gets it now.”

It certainly had. Castiel no longer looked upset, merely contemplative. Jo stepped to Dean. “Right. Can we get back to Melanie and the issue we’re here for to begin with?”

Amusement lingered on Dean’s features. He was going to tease her about this for days, she knew. “No, Jo, hold on. I’m still kind of interested in what Alexis was saying about you being cute and having a great --”

“Dean!” Behind her, she heard Cas snickering now, a signal that his mood was changing for the better earlier than Jo had expected. “Will you please focus?”

He gave her a last long amused glance, then nodded. “Spoilsport. If it’s okay with Cas and Alexis that we go back to original topic?” They both murmured consent. “I’ll have to order her I guess, if Alexis can’t convince her and neither Cas nor I are up for the task of seducing her into it.”

“I never said I wasn’t up for seducing her, Dean. I said I wouldn’t. There’s a difference.”

“Difference noted.”

“I’ll do it,” Jo said, hurrying on before Dean could make a remark about Jo seducing Melanie into it. “I’ll talk to her and get her started.” She’d actually been thinking about trying to get Melanie to the shooting range soon anyway

Dean’s expression became neutral, carefully so.

Cas blinked, eyes widening and head shaking. “No, Jo --”

“I never made a promise to her like you did and I won’t lie to her about it. I’ll explain why I want her to learn and she will learn. I agree with Dean. She needs to learn safety at least. It’s the smart thing to do and really, we all have to do things we don’t want to now and then. This is something she has to do, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Honestly, I think she’s just afraid of guns and of hurting someone with one accidentally. I’ll feel her out about it. Once she’s started, the three of you can take up her lessons.” She cut Cas off when he started to interrupt. “No, if you’re concerned it’s the wrong course of action, then you should observe, ready to step in if things do somehow go south. I don’t see how they could…but let’s have that option for you. Is that satisfactory for everyone?”

It was and, as she walked across the camp with Dean, Jo asked, “Was Zachariah that sneaky?”

Dean chuckled. “Worse. He was a devious son of a bitch, but…you know and I know that this needed to be decided by us for her. She’d never do it on her own.”

“You knew that’s how it was going to go, didn’t you? Save the side trip into sex land. Alexis would express her frustrations, Cas would object, and I’d be the peacemaker between you all, volunteering to do that deed you really don’t want to order done.”

“You’re right, I don’t want to order it. I’d rather she not have to learn at all, but at this point, Jo, we need everyone ready whether they want to or not. It’s getting bad out there and it’s only going to get worse.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, Dean. In case you didn’t notice, I agreed with you in there.”

“I did notice. Thanks.”

“We do sometimes agree, you know.” She waved to the group of children playing a game with Noah. It was a shame that childhood wasn’t what it should be for them anymore.

“And we haven’t argued in a long time.”

“No, we haven’t.” They walked a few more steps, nearly to the dining hall. “Hey, can I ask you…how long have you known about her crush on you?”

Dean stopped walking, hands in his coat pockets. “She left her sketchbook in my cabin that week after I was laid up. Hard to miss the pictures she drew of me…and the doodles of my name with the hearts and flowers.”

“You’re kidding.” She faced him, searching his face for the truth of that statement.

“Yeah, I am. The doodles are a complete fabrication. The pictures though…. She’s a good artist. A little too good with the intimate details despite not having seen them.” He looked around them, then back at her. “No, Jo, there’s no way I could miss it. A kid would miss it I’m sure, but I’m a thirty-four year old man. I do have some experience with this you know.” A trace of sarcasm colored the words. “It’s not the first time a girl has had a crush on me. If she starts getting obsessive, I’ll sit her down and talk to her about it, but until that happens, if it does, she’ll just have to suffer through it. I’m not going to stop spending time with her over it. It’d be ridiculous to do that.”

“Any time you spend with her at all alone….”

“I know and I’m being careful. I’m not dumb. I’m a big boy, Jo. I can avoid potentially uncomfortable situations all on my own.”

He was so smug that he had it wrapped up nice and neat, all contained and under control, that Jo hated to remind him that sometimes things happened anyway despite precautions. She didn’t remind him of that. As he said, he was a thirty-four year old man with experience in the matter. He was ready for anything.

Jo left him there and headed on to supplies for a chat with Melanie.

~~~~~~~~~~

By the time Melanie got to supplies for her afternoon shift, she was feeling even worse about that time with Cas before lunch. He’d pretended it didn’t bother him that she’d said Dean’s name, but she’d seen the hurt in his eyes before he’d rolled away, felt the tense muscles of his back against her hand, heard the tightness in his voice as he kept a close reign on how he spoke to her.

She went about the duties Chuck gave her, neatening the shelves, dusting them, and stocking them from boxes in the very back room of the cabin, but her enjoyment of the task was overshadowed by what had happened that morning. Periodically, she had to pause to wipe her eyes. She wasn’t crying, but if she let herself keep thinking about it, she knew she would be soon.

It had never been her intention to hurt Cas. He meant everything to her! Melanie wasn’t sure how it had even happened. She’d been fully enjoying what he’d been doing, yet the name that came out wasn’t his. She’d been mortified. Still was.

“Mel?”

Looking up, she saw Chuck standing at the end of the aisle. “Yeah?”

“Are you okay?” He put his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunching.

“Not really. How did you know?” She thought she’d been hiding it pretty well.

“You look…well you just look upset. Is there anything I can do?”

She ran the rag she was dusting with along one shelf. “I don’t think so. I think I may have screwed up everything with Cas.”

“I doubt that. Cas can forgive an awful lot and has.”

“Not this. I hurt him, Chuck, and I didn’t mean to.”

He came to her, taking the cloth from her, and motioning for her to follow him up to the desk. “Give him a couple days and I bet you’ll be fine. Come up and take a break with me. The shelves can be dusted later.”

“I’d rather keep working.” She followed him anyway, sitting on the cushioned chair when he took the plain hard one.

He looked out the door, glanced around, and reached under the desk and into a large paper sack. “You like Mountain Dew, right?”

“I used to.” It was her favorite soda, one she’d indulged in between classes since she knew she’d never get it at home. Her mother had claimed soda would rot her teeth.

He brought a can up from the sack and set it in front of her. “Here. It’s the last one I have. We haven’t found any in weeks, so I’ve been saving it for a rainy day.”

“No, I couldn’t take it. It’s yours.” Melanie moved it in front of him.

“Now it’s yours.” He slid it back towards her. “You need a pick-me-up and it’s nowhere near as addicting as most of that crap Cas takes on a daily basis.”

After a moment, she smiled. Chuck really was nice. Not the cutest of guys, but always kind to her. She liked spending the time in supplies with him. “Thank you. That’s nice of you.”

The door opened, Jo stepping inside. She nodded to Chuck and raised a hand, beckoning to Melanie. “I need you to come with me.” Her tone was serious, expression almost stern.

“Is something wrong?”

“Grab your coat because you’re not coming back to work today. Chuck, if you need help, holler outside. Dave and Jack are right out there giving the older kids lessons on car maintenance.” She beckoned again. “I mean it, Melanie. Now.”

She got up and put her coat on, slipping the unopened soda into her pocket and following Jo outside. “Where are we going?” The thought that Jo might know what she’d done that morning made her uncomfortable. She didn’t want Jo to know about it. “Jo?”

“We’re going to the shooting range.”

“No.” She stopped walking, a bit of panic sprouting in her chest. “I don’t want to.” Guns scared her and after her last experience of having one pointed at her head, she was in no hurry to get close to one ever again.

Jo’s expression didn’t waver, her voice calm and steady, making it clear she wasn’t going to yield on this matter. “You’re coming with me. It’s not a request. You’re going to learn the parts of a gun and how to handle one that may or may not be loaded and when you have that down to my satisfaction, you’re going to learn to load and shoot. We’ll work our way from one kind of gun to others, starting small.” She tilted her head a little to one side. “Now, you can cry and pout or yell and curse, whatever, just realize that I’m not changing my mind. You’re doing this. I’ve already made the decision.”

She sounds like a mom, Melanie thought. Not necessarily a bad thing. She thought Jo’d make a kick-ass mom. Her tone meant business. “I don’t want to. Cas said --”

“That promise Cas made was his own. Not mine, or anyone else’s. Cas won’t step in here. Dean agrees with me on the necessity of you learning and, frankly Mel, Dean’s the head honcho here, not Castiel. You’re going to learn and that’s final. It’s not as scary as you think. Believe me. We’ll take it one step at a time. Dean and Alexis will help you as well and if you like, I’m sure Cas would be willing to help. He’s actually pretty good with a gun. I want you able to defend yourself if you have to. I understand you’re scared, but we might not always be there to protect you. I’d like the assurance that you can take care of yourself if we’re not here. I don’t want to have to keep worrying about you.”

“You worry about me?”

“Yeah, I do. So does Cas, Alexis, Dean…all your friends.”

Melanie thought about that a moment. She still didn’t want to learn or go anywhere near a gun, but if she had no choice in the matter, she might as well accept it and accept help from her friends. “If I have to.”

Jo’s smile was gentle. “You do. It’ll be fine. You trust me, right?”

“Of course.”

“Come on. Let’s go take the scary out of a piece of metal.”

Melanie followed her to the shooting range, swallowing her fears and taking on the task of learning a new skill that scared the hell out of her.