Title: Blood and Anesthetic

Chapter: 17

~~~~~~~~~~~

“Thanks for the help there, partner,” Jo said, writing down the score. “We lost again. I think that’s a new record.”

Cas leaned over, hand curving about her neck, fingers caressing, and kissed her. “You knew before we started that I always lose at Pitch.” He released her and sat back, raising his arms up and stretching. Jo heard his back pop several times as he twisted.

Across the card table, Maggie stacked the cards and began to shuffle them. “Not that I’m complaining about socializing or anything, but what’s up?”

“Yeah, what gives?” Chuck shifted in his chair.

“What do you mean?” Jo dunked her teabag a few more times and took it out of the hot water.

Maggie shrugged. “You’ve been pretty antisocial and then suddenly decide to play cards?”

“Have we been antisocial?” Cas raised a brow.

“It could probably be seen that way,” Jo confirmed. There were reasons they’d been in the background lately, one of which they would be getting to in a minute.

“I repeat, what’s up?” Maggie waved the deck of cards around, then resumed shuffling. She seemed intent on mixing up the cards well.

“They’re on to us,” Cas murmured out of the side of his mouth, stretching out a hand to stop Maggie before she could deal. “Why not now?”

Jo took a sip of her hot tea and thought about how to start. Dean had asked that she and Castiel keep an eye on Nina. Jo didn’t trust her and with the suspicion Nina may have had something to do with Alexander’s brief disappearance the day of the fire, Dean had decided to have Jo and Cas do steady surveillance on her.

Cas was perfect for it. He had a way of slinking along and barely making a sound that was advantageous in tailing someone. It didn’t seem fair to Jo that a man could move like that.

They’d ascertained Nina’s daily schedule for a week, determining the hours she’d most need watching, and after attempting to do it all themselves, had decided they needed to recruit a couple people to help with the shifts. Maggie and Chuck were perfect. Maggie was sort of a messenger between the various parts of the camp, spending her days running back and forth, while Chuck, due to the infirmary now taking up a corner of supplies, had ample opportunity to observe Nina.

“Super-secret mission time, guys.”

Maggie perked up. “Are you serious?”

Chuck didn’t perk. Instead, he shook his head, managing to look as though the weight of the world had suddenly dropped upon his shoulders. “No, no, no, see whenever Dean says something like that it’s always something dangerous and I just, I’m not --”

“It’s an easy job,” Cas told him. “Jo’s being dramatic. And it’s not dangerous unless you’re caught.” His left eyelid dropped down in a wink.

“Oh, that makes me feel so much better.” His lips twisted, worry in his eyes. “What is it?”

Jo smiled. “It’s not dangerous at all. Now who’s being dramatic?” She arched a brow at Cas. “It’s a tail job. Surveillance.”

Maggie clapped her hands together. “Ooh, I love a good tail! Whose tail needs watching?”

“We need you to keep an eye on Nina.”

Jo outlined the plan she and Cas had begun and gave both of them their time assignments. She knew Chuck wasn’t thrilled with it, but he’d been suspicious of Nina for a long time, hoping to find something that she was doing wrong. As for Maggie, she seemed to think of herself as Nancy Drew in regards to the job. It didn’t matter to Jo, as long as all times were covered.

On December twenty-seventh, the rain that had been threatening for days started, coming down with hurricane intensity. It rained constantly for nine days, the pond and creek swelling, overflowing. Trees fell as earth washed away from their roots and they lost three more people from a flash flood that swept the west side of the camp.

It was a good thing the rain kept people inside the cabins, because Jo was, by then, sick of tailing Nina all over the camp. They found nothing out of the ordinary. She did her shifts as doctor, sulking in supplies with Chuck, one end of the cabin cleared for an infirmary. When she wasn’t there, she was in her own cabin and occasionally she’d surprise Dean in his cabin.

Jo wondered how long until Dean got tired of that bit. The good part of it was she was never there more than a few minutes before he showed up, giving her little time to snoop if that was her aim.

She also met with other men out in the woods and when it grew colder they used the building out by the Impala for their trysts. Jo and Cas made lists of each man she met with and at what time, then handed off reports to Dean every week. Finally, he gave the order to terminate the surveillance. Aside from the other men, she was apparently clear from other wrong doing.

Still, Jo and Cas continued to watch her, unsurprised when Chuck and Maggie insisted on doing the same.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The weird weather that had been going on since 2009 intensified even more, Dean’s birthday bringing in a blizzard that ended up lasting five days before it was over. The temperature dropped sharply, further than it should for their part of the country, Dean helping Cas to put the door back on his cabin and temporarily move the beads. He ignored the fact that he’d reached thirty-five years old since it was about the same as thirty-four.

Time marched on. Dean watched life happen around him, from Jo and Cas going back to lovey-dovey, to Melanie becoming a damn good shot, to Chuck’s further obsession of paper goods. He enjoyed his relationship with Melanie; how she’d accepted friendship and guidance and felt safe enough in that to be alone with her again. He let himself become attached to her because, hey, she still didn’t go outside the camp and while there were dangers inside the fence, outside was far worse. She was a good kid. All she needed was someone to take her in hand and teach her, be a support while she learned. She was doing well overall in that pursuit and he was proud of her for it. He’d fallen into that father role with her, enjoying it now because he knew he’d probably never have kids of his own; never have the thrill of fatherhood. He should get it now where and while he could.

Why not enjoy it?

If he couldn’t kill Lucifer, this was it. And even if he did, he didn’t think he’d have the time to start a family later since later meant he’d have to immediately begin rebuilding instead of just trying to hold everything together.

The weekly meeting was one short, Jim out on a raid, but Dean saw no reason to post-pone it. Anything Jim needed to know, Dean would tell him when he got in. They gathered together, reviewing those items they needed to touch upon, and were halfway down the list when the door slammed open, Jim storming in. His clothes were ripped, stained with mud and blood.

All conversation stopped, Dean feeling that familiar gut clench that happened when he knew there’d been casualties. He could tell by Jim’s face.

“Demons? Croats?” Dean looked up at him, hoping it was either or both and not scavengers again. The scavenger attacks were getting old. He was spoiling for a fight with them, half considering going out and looking for one. Retribution was in store for all the people they’d killed.

“Another ambush,” Jim announced, almost falling into a chair, his lips twisting in disgust. “Like the last one. They knew where we were going and laid in wait.” He snorted. “We lost seven people this time! Seven!” He counted them off on his fingers. “Jackie, Tom, Roger, Mick, Steve, Doug, Christine. That’s most of my team, Dean. I want to find those bastards and gut them!”

“Damn,” Dean muttered, tension sliding across his shoulders like the caressing hands of a familiar lover. Mick and Doug were two of their best shots. He couldn’t figure out who was tipping off the scavengers. None of the people present at the table would and the information as to where they were going was on a need-to-know basis. No one needed to know until they were nearly leaving and still the scavengers outside knew.

They had a spy. Dean knew it. His team knew it. But who was it?

Castiel was too intent on living it up with Jo to betray them. He’d entered some strange alternate Cas world lately where everything was great and he had a perfect life with Jo -- and his occasional pieces of ass on the side. Not that Dean wasn’t glad they’d made up. He was, but this bizarro world Cas had going on in his mind wasn’t quite right. Cas knew damn well the world wasn’t right, so why the pretend game that it was?

Chuck wouldn’t jeopardize his own safety. He still babbled on about toilet paper.

Jim called all of them his family and since he’d lost his real family, he was a little nutty on keeping people alive -- even by Dean’s standards.

Yeager was loyal, Dean knew it without a doubt.

As for Jo, he knew she wouldn’t betray them. He knew Jo.

After thoroughly discussing who could be leaking information, he asked Jo and Cas to stay. They moved to the chairs beside him. “So,” he asked, reaching for the coffee pot and pouring more coffee into his cup. “Anything?”

“What do you mean?” Jo had a carefully neutral expression on her face. She adjusted her jacket and leaned back in the chair, crossing her arms.

“What do I mean,” he repeated. “I mean what have you and your crack team discovered, since I know very well you didn’t stop watching Nina.” Despite all the evidence to the contrary, he still suspected Nina as their leak. It was a hunch he’d developed that she was the one, somehow. He’d stopped their weekly trysts when it became clear she thought she had some sort of free reign to come and go in his cabin whenever she wanted. They’d had an argument over that, but apparently not enough of one to deter her from coming back to him every so often.

“If it is her, she’s good getting info out, because we haven’t caught her once.” Jo glanced at Cas. “She takes regular walks around the perimeter fence, but then a lot of people do. It’s quite a hike. Good exercise.”

“If she’s the one, then how is she doing it? How is she getting the info and how is she getting it out?”

Cas crossed his arms on the table and looked down at them. “Handing her findings to one of the men she’s seeing and he gets them out? Climbing one of the trees, hopping over, dropping to the other side --”

“Yeah? Then what genius? How does she gets back in? Or he?”

His stare raised, brows lifting. “Have you considered that maybe she’s telepathic? Or whoever it is is telepathic?”

“One outside, one inside?”

“No, that it’s how she’s getting the information to begin with.”

Dean scowled. “That’d be fricken terrific.”

“Hey, I’m just tossing out ideas, here.”

“Well, get me answers.” He didn’t mean to snarl it, but he did, watching Cas’s eyes darken before Cas shoved back his chair and stood.

“As my leader commands.” The door slammed behind him.

“Nice. Your people skills are getting so good these days.” Jo pushed her own chair back. “We’ll figure it out, Dean. You want me to plan a memorial or something?”

He shook his head. He was the leader. It was his responsibility to give the living a remaining chance to say goodbye to the dead, one he did without fail every single time.

“Okay then. I’ll, uh, get right back on the Nina problem.”

Dean sat alone for long minutes, his head in his hands, before taking a deep breath and heading out to say kind words about people he hadn’t even known well at all.

~~~~~~~~~~

Castiel appeared determined to make it up to Jo for his surliness during his recovery, doing those things he’d done in the beginning. He would spend long minutes just kissing her, or running his hands along her body without touching any single place for more than a second or two. He would massage her back and legs until she fell asleep, her body limp and devoid of all tension, muscles loose and warm. The word for what he was doing was ‘woo’. He wooed her and Jo was more than willing to let it go on. They’d steal moments together throughout the day between the various activities they engaged in.

Like now.

They were on the couch, Cas shirtless, the t-shirt he’d been wearing tossed somewhere to her left, the same direction her shirt and bra had gone flying after he’d removed them from her. Jo was on her back, jeans undone and thighs a cradle for his hips. She was ready to suggest they move to the bed, actually opening her mouth to say it when she saw the two women, Maggie and Alexis, standing in the doorway. Was it time to go already?

Sliding her hands around, she gave Cas a gentle nudge along his ribs. “We’ve got company.” A glance at her watch over Cas’s back showed that the two were actually late.

“Mmm. Okay.” He continued to nuzzled her neck as though her words hadn’t registered.

“Cas, stop. Maggie and Lex are here. We’re going to be late.”

Groaning, he raised up onto his forearms. “If I must. It doesn’t matter if we’re late or if we go at all. It’s just a contest. They’ll start without us.” His attention strayed to the doorway. “Would you give us a couple minutes?” When they’d gone, he levered off of her. “It’s such a shame for you to cover up. You do topless very well.”

“Not in front of an audience I don’t,” she retorted, snagging her bra and sliding it on.

“You always look good topless.” He attempted to draw her back against him.

She squirmed away, knowing very well what would happen if he caught her. She’d be on her back topless again. “Cas, stop. They’re waiting.”

He was quiet a moment, hand sliding on her arm. “They won’t mind,” he replied, his tongue touching the corner of his mouth. His touch on her arm tickled, fingers drawing tiny invisible designs.

Jo glanced at him, holding her shirt against her chest. He was watching her, head tilted a little, lips parted. “They might not and you might not, but I do. No audience. You know that.” She pulled away from him and put her shirt on.

“Wait, Jo, did you think…?” He blinked in surprise, shaking his head. “I meant that we could ask them to come back later and continue where we left off. I wouldn’t ask you to do that. You made it very clear you weren’t interested in that.”

“I’m dressed now.”

“I could take care of that in approximately one minute.” He beckoned with a hand. “Come here. Allow me to demonstrate.”

“No way.” If she let him, it’d take him way less than a minute to divest her of her top and bra. Thirty seconds perhaps?

He did catch her, drawing her into his embrace, his hands on her hips. “I’m glad I have you. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t.”

Pain slid about his eyes in a split second and was gone. Jo decided not to say anything about it, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him. “Do you really want to blow off the contest?”

He sighed. “I guess not. Miss the chance to see Melanie compete with a bow and arrow? That’s a thing I never thought I’d see.”

The reached the range as the contest began.

~~~~~~~~~~

There was no stopping the nightmares that had continued to plague Castiel all these months. They gripped him in the night, as tight and unyielding as Meg’s grasp on him that afternoon he’d finally killed her. Sometimes he wondered if Jo knew that was why he woke her early in the mornings, insistent for kisses, touches, and more until the nightmares faded from his thoughts and pleasure replaced the raw pain. Did she know that her presence was no longer enough to soothe him; that he now needed a more proactive plan of escape from his pains? Had he hidden it well enough from her? He didn’t want to hurt her because he continued to love her.

Cas was careful not to wake Jo as he slipped from the bed and into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He turned on the tap in the sink, cupped his hands beneath the spray and leaned down, splashing lukewarm water on his face, then raised up and dried with a small towel. Narrowing his eyes a little, he studied his reflection.

The face he’d come to call his own, though it was really Jimmy’s, was aging. He could see minute traces of the process -- a slight deepening of the lines at his eyes and mouth and the like.

More weakness. More human frailty. He was rife with it.

There was the briefest of stirrings in his mind, as though Jimmy was trying to say something. Castiel waited. No words came. Jimmy rarely spoke anymore, but every so often, Cas would get a clear picture of Amelia and Claire in his head and knew Jimmy was worrying over their fates.

With a long, shuddering sigh, Cas closed his eyes. Terror from the dream of Meg remained, lingering, an unwanted guest. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, willing the unease to fade and failing in that quest. He always failed anymore in that regard. His comforts to combat that unease, like Jo, were simply not enough anymore, Cas carrying the apprehension with him both day and night.

Why? Because the end was coming.

It was something he could feel , like he’d once felt his angel brethren around him, an electrical tap along his body and a certainty in him that this escalation of events around them was a natural part of Lucifer’s plan. He could sense death in the air like a thick fog covering the earth. The world was Lucifer’s playground now and they were all toys he used and discarded once they were broken.

Cas opened his eyes, staring at his reflection once more.

Eat, drink, and be merry, for the end is nigh.

Grasping the sides of the sink, he bit back a laugh. From all powerful angel to all too broken human. What a great life he had.

Not that he’d have much more of it.

By his calculations, there’d be about three more years before Lucifer had used up the last of the earth and then…the lights would all go out for good. In a way, Cas longed for that to happen, an end to his sufferings -- a desire that scared the crap out of him. Was he actually craving nothingness?

Desperation began it’s rise inside him, that familiar sensation he’d gotten fairly good at hiding from Jo. Whenever he felt it growing, he’d hold her, kiss her, nuzzle her, anything to feel good again.

Without glancing at the shelf to his left, he reached up to it and plucked a pill bottle from the ones there. He kept several bottle there, favorite pills that gave various means of escape alone and together. Over the months, he’d experimented with each one in combinations, discovering which he liked the best. He shook a pill out, stared at it in the palm of his hand a moment, then shook another out, capping the bottle and returning it to the shelf.

Double the pills, double the escape. Add in how he planned to wake Jo in a minute and make that a triple order of anesthetic, please. Down the hatch. Bottoms up, good sir.

Cas took the pills, swallowing them with a little water, then brushed his teeth.

Everything is fine, he thought. Everything is dandy. I’ll grin my way through another day.

And maybe with the triple method he could sleep a little while longer.

He watched himself shove his despair deep inside, replacing the haunted expression with a mask and, ready for the next step in his self-medication routine, he went to wake Jo.

~~~~~~~~~~

It was late when Jo woke to Dean crouched by her side of the bed. She knew it was late because the moon had shifted position.

“Jo,” Dean whispered, hand cupping her bare shoulder and lightly nudging. Even when they’d been fighting, he still woke her as gently as possible. “Come on, Jo. Wake up.”

She raised up onto her elbows. “I’m awake,” she whispered back. “If you need Cas, you’re SOL until morning. He’s been having some hellatious nightmares about some demon so he’s been taking more than usual.”

“No, it’s not Cas we need.”

“You just getting in?”

“Yeah. Get dressed and meet me out front.” He stood. “Hurry.”

Curiosity propelled her, Jo hurrying to throw some clothes over the chemise and put her shoes on. Halfway across the camp, Dean stopped her.

“We had a run-in with those scavengers, wounded them pretty well, but…uh…it wasn’t exactly a fair fight. We caught them with their pants down. Literally.” He ran a hand through his hair. “They had a girl, maybe sixteen years old, down on the ground.” He paused. “They were raping her, Jo. Right out in the open.”

She watched discomfort and disgust slide across his features. He may have changed a lot over the time that had passed, but rape still got to him. “Where’s Jane?”

“She got shot. Nina’s patching her up.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Come sit with the girl, keep her company. It’s just for a few hours, until Nina can check her out. Gunshot wounds are priority first.”

This was what Jo hated about finding survivors anymore. Unless they were in a group, those who came to them these days were in extremely bad shape and even then, some of the groups were in horrible shape themselves. Some people lived only hours, from injuries they’d tried to treat before Dean’s teams found them. Others did little more than barely exist. And then there were the rape victims. It wasn’t just scavengers who did it. They’d found victims of U.S. soldiers as well. Bad times brought out the worst in men regardless of what side they claimed they were on.

He motioned for her to follow him and resumed walking. “There were a couple other women being held by them, waiting their turn, I guess. One of them has quite a mouth on her. I think you’ll like her. Name’s Risa. They had her trussed up pretty well and gagged. She told Jim she’d killed two and wounded another before they brought her down. Said that they told her she was going to be last because they wanted the entertainment to last awhile.”

“Nice. Classy people out there.” To her surprise, she found Melanie already there, talking to the girl in a low voice, hand stroking her brow. The girl was asleep, yet still, Melanie talked.

“Mel?”

“Jane said to keep talking to her even if it looked like she was asleep,” she explained. “I’m not sure why.”

Jo joined her. “You’ve come a long way,” she observed, bumping her shoulder to Melanie’s a little.

Melanie glanced at her. “I was lucky, you know? That could have been me.” She moved her hand down, taking the girl’s left hand in hers. “I was lucky Dean dragged me out from under that desk, that I was brought here, that you came here, and…everything. I was lucky. A lot of people weren’t.”

That summed it up pretty well. A lot of people weren’t lucky.

Over the next few weeks, Jo got to know the new people brought in and continued to work on the scavenger puzzle. The method for relaying information had to be one so simple it was obvious, something they were over thinking. Granted, Nina was smart, but she wasn’t so smart she could outsmart Jo, Castiel, Dean and a team of others. It bothered her that they couldn’t figure it out, rather like a sore tooth that twinged with pain every so often.

It seemed the days flew by and by Jo’s birthday, they were already having a heat wave. Bake or freeze, there didn’t seem to be an in-between anymore.

Jo was putting away her clean laundry when a knock sounded on the doorframe. With the warmer temperatures, Cas had removed the door again and returned the beads to the place he preferred them. “Come on in,” she called, expecting it to be either Melanie, Maggie, or Alexis.

It was Dean.

He stood inside the door, hands behind his back, an odd wary expression on his face. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” Finished with her trunk, she closed the lid and stood. “You need something?”

“No, no.” He brought his hands around, holding a rectangular box wrapped in…angel wrapping paper? “I, uh, I came to give you this.”

“Is that Christmas paper?”

“It’s all Chuck had.”

She took it, hefted it, noting that the angels were all blond and wore white dresses. There was some weight to the box. “What is it?” It’s a properly wrapped gift, her mind drawled, unlike the last one he tried to give you.

“Open it and see.”

Sliding a finger under the tape, she carefully unwrapped the box and lifted the lid. Inside was a knife very much like her dad’s knife -- the one she’d lost during that attack that had left her mother dead. “Oh Dean….”

“Happy birthday, Jo. See? I did remember this year. I thought you might like to have a knife again.”

“It was sweet of you. Thank you.” Moving close, she raised up on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

His hands curved around her arms, holding them in a loose grip. “Jo, are you happy? I mean with Cas and all of that.”

“Um…yeah.” Why on earth would he ask that? “Of course I am. Why…?”

“Good, good. I’m glad to hear it.” He cleared his throat. “Would you do me a favor?”

“What’s that?”

“If something happens, would you step in? I mean something really bad. Would you take care of these people?” His fingers slid up and down her arms, the touch tickling a little.

“I guess. Why? You know something I don’t?”

“No, I just want to cover all my bases.”

She thought he was lying, but didn’t know for certain. Dean was very good at lying when he wanted to be. “Okay. Sure. I’ll take care of them. It’s in my job description, right?”

“Promise me.”

“Dean, I promise I’ll take care of these people. I promise I’ll lead them in your absence.”

Giving her arms a final squeeze, he released her, lips slipping into a crooked grin. “Thank you.” With the extraction of that promise, he left without any more conversation passing between them.

Though Jo pondered what that promise he’d asked for could mean, she decided it meant nothing. It was only Dean being cautious.