Title: Blood and Anesthetic

Chapter: 3

~~~~~~~~~

He didn’t mean to get caught peering at Castiel’s cabin with a pair of binoculars…by Castiel himself. It just sort of happened.

Dean tied back the curtain on the window facing Cas’s cabin, dragged a chair over, and was balanced precariously on the chair back with binoculars in hand attempting to catch a glimpse of Jo when someone cleared his throat behind him. He lowered the binoculars, still staring at the cabin, casually adjusting the binocular strap about his neck. “Yeah?”

“You could always come see her instead of peeping through windows.” Amusement colored Cas’s words.

He glanced over his shoulder, feigning nonchalance. “I was bird watching.” A lame excuse and one that made Cas snicker. Dean had never been bird watching in his life. He could identify the usual ones he’d seen, like crows, hawks, cardinals, pigeons, but little else unless he absolutely had to. He’d never had to.

“Bird watching?” Cas joined him at the window, snagged the binoculars from his hands and raised them in the direction Dean had been looking. The strap around his neck about choked him, Dean wobbling for balance for a few seconds. “Well look at that. I’ll have to remember to close those curtains too,” Cas remarked. “You can see right through to my bed.” Handing them back, he added, “Strange, but I don’t see any birds out there.”

“You scared them off.”

“Oh yes, that must be it.”

Dean fixed an annoyed stare upon him, refusing to be embarrassed. He had every right to look out of his cabin windows, with or without binoculars. “What do you want?”

He shrugged. “To update you on Jo.” One hand lifted, made a gesture at the window. “Since you’re obviously interested.”

“Jo’s a trooper. She can take care of herself. Doesn’t need me worrying over her.” Carefully, he stood from his balanced position and removed the binocular strap from around his neck.

“She is, she can, and while the last may be true, you still do. It’s understandable that you continue to worry about Jo. She means a lot to you.”

He moved the chair back to where he’d gotten it and laid the binoculars aside, ignoring that validation of his feelings for Jo. With his back facing Cas, he asked, “And? Update me. How’s she doing?”

“As well as can be expected after what happened. She’s been sleeping more hours than she’s awake and crying in either state, but I think it’s going to be up now instead of down further. She’s eating and while she hasn’t made it through an entire plateful in one sitting yet, she’s getting there.”

The news brightened his mood to the point that he didn’t even mind having gotten caught peeping at her. “How soon do you think until she’s back to normal?” Did it even count as peeping when he hadn’t gotten a glimpse of her?

“That’s not really something I can measure. She might never be back to her old self, or she might be by tomorrow.”

Dean nodded. “Good, good. Keep working with her or whatever you’re doing.” The sooner Jo was back to normal the better. He needed her that way and looked forward to that day. She was going to be an asset the camp sorely needed and one he intended to utilize to the fullest. His Jo was going to be back soon.

“Will do.”

A moment of silence passed before Dean realized Castiel was watching him and not heading for the doorway. “Was there something else?”

“Yes. One thing.” He held up a finger. “Either be nicer to Melanie or leave her alone altogether.” His tone changed, hardened with that ultimatum.

“I’m perfectly nice to Melanie. Which one is she again?” An attempt to tease that fell flat when Cas crossed his arms with an admonishing stare.

“You know who she is.”

Dean pictured her in his mind, her eyes wide and brimming with both tears and emotional hurt from something he’d said to her. “Brown hair, nice figure, cries a lot. Melanie. Oh her. Sure, I know who she is.”

“Leave her alone.”

“Tell me how, Cas. She’s in my way twenty-four-seven. I can’t go anywhere without running into her since, you know, she lives here.”

“Okay, okay.” He stroked his chin with forefinger and thumb of one hand. “Valid point.” That hand gestured. “Then how about not calling her such charming epithets as ‘naïve little screw toy’. That would help. Thanks.”

“I haven’t called her that….” But he had. Recently.

She’d been helping Chuck pack that vehicle Dean had planned to take to go find Ellen and Jo, standing behind Chuck and ticking items off on a list as Chuck packed them. He’d been in a foul mood, sick with fear for Ellen and Jo and with the knowledge that by the time he made the drive across the country to them, they could be dead. All he’d wanted since Ellen’s call had come through was to be on the road, yet Chuck had insisted he have some supplies besides weapons. He remembered snapping at both of them, taking out his frustrations with words.

It wasn’t like he enjoyed hurting her. He didn’t. He felt like an ass every time something he said made her tear up, but she was too damned sensitive. Every little thing brought on the waterworks. She needed to toughen up, grow a thicker skin. She needed….

He licked his lips. “You layin’ down the law?”

Cas shook his head. “I’m just asking you nicely to treat her better, but if I have to, then yes, I’ll ‘lay down the law’.”

Dean eyed him a long moment, taking in Cas as a whole right then. A soft voice with a hint of steel beneath the words, the way he’d said them reminiscent of how he used to talk right before Sam…. That casual pose with tension almost masked completely, betrayed only in the set of his shoulders. He was stone sober on all fronts, gaze clear, with no altered consciousness yet today, serious beneath the relaxed carefree façade. He’d do what he said. He’d protect Melanie if he thought Dean was really hurting her.

He held up his hands. “Okay. I’ll try to be nicer.”

“No name calling. It upsets her.”

“Sure.”

“No snapping at her in a fit of temper.”

He tried not to roll his eyes. “No more than I do anyone else.”

“If I hear you’ve made her cry on purpose --”

“Like I do that on purpose. She cries more than any woman I’ve ever met. I bet she cries at pictures of puppies and kittens too.”

“She’s young and she’s scared.” His head tilted a fraction to one side. “Don’t you remember what that’s like?”

He did. Somewhat. “I get the point, Cas. Melanie is to be treated like some fragile piece of art in a museum.”

His shoulders relaxed, manner returning to that one he’d walked into the cabin with, as though he could turn it on and off at will. Maybe he could. “Excellent. Good talk, Dean.”

“Sure. Anytime.”

Castiel moved towards the door, pausing as he reached it. “Oh, and Dean? You might be able to see Jo walking out of the bathroom in her towel…or naked even…if you perch in the tree on the other side of the clearing. Looks like it should be a clear view provided the curtains are open. I’m headed that way now. You want to grab the binoculars and walk over there with me? We could check.”

“You’re hilarious.”

With a last chuckle, Cas left.

~~~~~~~~~~

For three days, Jo stayed in bed as much as possible, sleeping and crying, eating whatever Castiel brought her. He seemed to have an instinctive knowledge of when to leave her alone and when to fold her in his arms and hold her. Cas held her a lot in those three days.

On the fourth day, she woke to a young woman in the cabin with her, that same woman who’d smiled at her the day she’d arrived. She was arranging items on a tray with great care, humming softly to herself. She was slim, in jeans and a t-shirt, her long brown hair loose about her shoulders, noticing Jo was awake before Jo had time to study her properly.

“Hi. I’m Melanie.” She smiled. “Cas told me to be at your beck and call today.” This was announced in a sing-song tone. “Anything you need. He’s talking with Dean right now, though from what I can tell, their talks are a bunch of arguments and they both emerge from them in a bad mood.” Bringing the tray to the bed, she set it down on the far side. “Is it true you and Dean were an item once?”

Jo pushed to a sitting position. “Yeah. It’s true. We were together for about a year. Why?”

She shrugged, moving the napkin on the tray from the right side to the left. “No reason. Just asking.”

“Oh. Is that coffee?” She indicated the thermos still over by the doorway, already looking forward to the brew. The oft-mentioned Nathan was a master at the coffee urn. Jo suspected he’d run a Starbuck’s or something like it. She didn’t even need sugar in it.

Melanie retrieved the thermos, turned the mug on the tray over, and poured some into it. “I brought an entire thermos and you don’t have to share it. It’s yours to enjoy. I already ate.” She handed Jo the mug.

The tray had a small breakfast of toast and fruit. Fruit seemed to be the canned good of choice, featured with prominence in each meal. Though Jo hadn’t asked, she decided it was likely a case of an excess grabbed during a raid combined with running low on a few things to fully round out the meals. While she ate, Melanie occupied herself with cleaning the cabin. She set the dirty clothes basket by the door and used a cloth to dust.

When Jo had eaten her fill, finishing all but a bite of the toast, she sat back to drink the coffee and asked, “How long have you been in camp?”

“About three months,” was the prompt reply. “I was taking a hotel management course before the virus started really spreading.”

“How did you end up here?”

“Do you really want to know?” She sounded surprised.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

This time, she was slower to reply, her hands pausing in her task. “I went to work one day when it had been advised that people stay home and off the streets. I shouldn’t have gone, but I don’t like calling off. It’s irresponsible, you know? Anyway, I went to the inn, that’s where I worked, and was one of the few to actually show up. I know it was stupid to go. I do, and when things started to go wrong, I didn’t know what to do.” She turned, leaning against the wall, staring at the floor. “So I hid. I hid under the front desk. There were all these noises….”

“The infected?” Jo tossed the covers off and got up, stretching a little, wondering where the brush Cas had used to brush her hair had gone. During a lull from her sleeping and crying, he’d sat behind her, working the brush through the slight snarls in her hair. The gentle tug of the brush had brought back a memory from when she was little.

Her mother had always sprayed detangler on Jo’s hair before combing it out, but one evening, Ellen had gone to answer the phone before she’d gotten the spray bottle out. Determined to be a big girl, Jo had attempted to comb her own hair, making it worse as she listened to her mother arguing with someone. What was a big girl to do to solve that problem but take the scissors on the table and cut off the snarls? Problem solved. Ellen had returned to find Jo standing there with a good chunk of her blond hair on the floor, scissors still in hand. Her mood had strangely not been made worse by the incident.

Jo recalled Ellen laughing, taking the scissors from her and saying, “Your daddy’s gonna love this story when he gets back, Jo. I can hear him now -- El, you left our girl alone with a pair of scissors? What’d you think would happen?”

She finger-combed as she looked for the brush.

“Must have been them because I heard screams. Gunshots. Men yelling.” Her gaze raised, and she must have noticed Jo’s gestures, for she picked up the brush Jo now noticed on the table. “It was Dean who found me.” Melanie crossed to her, handing her the brush and returning to her task of dusting. “He dragged me out, held a gun in my face. I thought he was going to kill me. The look in his eyes was terrible, like he was this creature with no compassion.”

Melanie’s hands were shaking, her voice wavering, betraying the real fear she had of Dean. He’d made a less than favorable impression on her, which was funny in a weird way because women usually liked Dean. It was fully understandable, though. Jo began to brush her hair as Melanie continued. She was going to have to find something to use to tie off a braid for nighttime. Maybe Melanie or another woman would have an extra tie she could have.

“I fainted, or at least that’s what Cas said happened. I don’t remember. When I woke up, I was in the truck and Cas was holding me. He stayed with me while Dean yelled at me. Dean claimed he was only asking me questions about what happened, but really he was yelling. He’s good at that.”

Yeah, Jo agreed silently. Dean was good at yelling. At one time, he’d been good at laughing and smiling and many other things too, but most of those had slipped away in the weeks following Sam’s fall. She finished brushing her hair and set the brush aside, studying Melanie closely, estimating how old she probably was. “Melanie, how old are you?”

“I’ll be twenty next month.”

Twenty? She looked much younger in Jo’s opinion. “And you’re one of Cas’s…what?… friends?” He’d yet to explain that comment he’d made the day she arrived.

“That’s not the word Dean uses. The ones he favors are usually pretty rude.”

Knowing Dean’s vocabulary, Jo had a pretty good idea the sort of things Dean put together as insults, especially when he’d had time to come up with what he thought was a good one. “I can imagine. What does he call you?”

“Well…” Melanie glanced over her shoulder. “The last thing he called me recently was ‘naïve little screw toy’.”

Jo thought about that a second. ‘Screw toy’ as used by Dean would mean exactly what it sounded like. Then she thought about the brief scene she’d witnessed between Cas and Melanie and the other woman. His gentleness. That almost intimate way he’d spoken with them. “You mean you and Castiel…. You’re gettin’ it on?” Not what she’d been expecting. She reached for her coffee cup again, intending on taking a good swig to get a bit more caffeine running through her system.

Now Melanie turned, alarm flitting across her pretty features. “I wasn’t supposed to say anything!” She covered her mouth with her hands. “Cas said not to. He said none of us should say anything until after he’d told you about our arrangement.”

Us? In the act of swallowing a mouthful of coffee, Jo coughed, the liquid spraying the air. She wiped her chin with her hand. “Plural? You mean there’s more than you?” Okay, he was like Dean then? That didn’t wash, though. Castiel wasn’t like Dean at all from what Jo had seen since she’d arrived. She set the cup back down in preparation for any more bombs Melanie might drop without meaning to.

“Well yeah, but don’t worry or anything. We’re not jealous of you staying here. It’s not like a girlfriend-boyfriend thing. It’s more of a --”

“Thank you Mel.” Castiel was leaning against the doorway, hands in his pants pockets. “I’ll take up the explanation from here.”

Melanie cast an apologetic glance Jo’s way as she moved to the doorway. “It just slipped out Cas, really. I didn’t mean to tell her.”

“I heard.” He didn’t appear angry, or even mildly annoyed. Amused and impossibly relaxed described the look on his face far better and he touched Melanie’s cheek in a fond gesture as she reached him. “Why don’t you go help Alexis while I explain things to Jo? Come back in a couple hours. Jo might have questions that you can then answer freely.”

Jo waited until Melanie was gone and he stepped further into the cabin. “She’s only nineteen.” Granted, Jo herself wasn’t much older , yet in her opinion, there was a world of difference between her age and Melanie’s.

“Nearly twenty.”

She blinked at his nonchalance, shook her head a little. “And?”

He blinked back, sauntering towards the bed. “And she’s sweet? Pretty? Nice?” A few seconds later, he got what she was asking and nodded in a wise way. “Ahhh. You think she’s too young for me.”

“She’s nineteen and you’re --”

“Technically old enough that the oldest woman currently alive could be considered too young for me. I was an angel, Jo.”

Oh yeah. She took fresh clothes from lid of the trunk at the end of the bed. She’d forgotten that part for a few seconds. “So what’s the deal? You got a harem or something?” The words were meant as a joke, a way to break the tension she felt in the air. His response, however, made her speechless for long seconds.

“Something like that, yes.” He dropped onto the bed and laid back so slowly and gracefully it looked like slow motion. “There are no strings, no jealousy, just an exploration of the limits of physical pleasure in a group setting with an eye towards a spiritual experience.”

It took her a moment to translate that. When she did, an embarrassed flush flared across her cheeks. Jo didn’t consider herself a prude at all, but…. “You hold orgies,” she managed to ask.

“Once or twice a week and no more than three.”

“Why?”

He slid his hands beneath his head and crossed his ankles. “Because it’s important to have a day to recover.”

Hugging the clothes to her chest, Jo stared at him. Was he serious?

Cas laughed. “I’m teasing, Jo.”

“Oh.” But just as she started to laugh with him, he continued.

“I only have them maybe twice a month. The rest of the time it’s one-on-one or two-on-me.”

“Well…that’s completely different. I wasn’t asking about the time schedule. I mean why…orgies?” She shrugged.

Cas studied her, a tiny smirk in place. After he’d dragged his gaze down her and back up, he quirked a brow. “Because sex feels good, Jo. Don’t tell me you don’t know that. I remember hearing you and Dean through the motel wall. Sure sounded like you were enjoying yourself.”

She looked away. The heat on her cheeks wasn’t lessening. “I’m not having this conversation.”

“Yes you are. When Mel comes back, ask her anything. She doesn’t open up to just anyone.” He raised up onto his elbows. “Melanie is somewhat delicate. She’s fragile emotionally, so it’s best to keep her away from Dean. He’s puts her in tears on a regular basis.”

“If she’s so fragile, should you be having sex with her?”

“”Who says I’m having sex with her?”

A nice, quick counter to the question. “So you’re not?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You evade questions like Dean can. It’s a rather impressive talent, actually.”

Now he laughed, lying back down. “You want the truth?”

She retreated into the bathroom to get dressed. “The truth would be nice,” Jo called out.

He told her about Melanie, how they’d found her hiding and frightened and that Dean was the one who caught her when she fainted. Her head had narrowly missed hitting the edge of the desk. He’d also carried her to one truck and ordered Cas to stay there with her while the rest of them finished their sweep. Cas had held her and kept holding her until she woke halfway back to the camp.

That day hadn’t been Dean’s finest hour, Cas was clear on that. He’d been bitter, surly, curt, and far more sarcastic than normal, not inclined to coddle anyone, even someone who needed coddling like Melanie did. He hadn’t taken into account her age or the circumstances, proceeding to scare her senseless, so badly that all she’d done was cower against Cas, crying. Though Cas had tried to calm her, Dean made it worse by snapping at her.

“Imagine it,” he said. “This young woman who’d grown up fairly sheltered, dealing with the infected, having a gun shoved in her face, waking up with a group of strange men in a strange vehicle, and then having one man spend over an hour snapping at her all in the space of less than a single day.”

Fully dressed now, Jo sat on the edge of the bed beside him. She could imagine it with ease. She knew what Dean was like when he got that tunnel-vision on a mission. Utterly focused on it until the end, or until something managed to break that vision.

“It took Alexis and I two days to calm her down. Melanie rooms with Alexis now.” He rolled onto his side facing her. “Alexis brought her to one orgy and I invited Melanie to spend time with me on a day-to-day basis. She’s very sweet and if you don’t like Alexis, maybe you’ll like her.” Stretching out a hand, he touched her knee, gave it a light squeeze. “They don’t stay here overnight. None of them do. You’re the only one who’s ever stayed here overnight.”

“Why?”

His eyes showed a sudden somber mood change, his lips parting. Cas didn’t answer her, getting up from the bed. “Shall I send Melanie back now or later?”

She ran her gaze over him, noting the discomfort in his stance. Why was he uncomfortable? She couldn’t think of any reason for it, at least nothing she’d said or done. “Um…I don’t know. Whenever is fine.”

Jo ventured outside onto the porch of the cabin, sitting on one of the benches near the doorway. It was a beautiful day. She could hear children yelling somewhere in the distance and the sounds of people talking. By just looking out at the clearing it was impossible to tell that the world beyond the camp was in chaos. Everything looked so neat and orderly compared to outside. The grass was green, there was a splash of color that was probably wildflowers by the tree line, and Jo smelled wood smoke in the air.

She sat still, watching the camp, savoring the fact that nothing was happening that needed her attention. There was no job to do, nothing she needed to work on, and no pressure whatsoever. She could finally relax, if only for a little while.

~~~~~~~~~~

Her question rang in his mind as he made his way to where the few children they’d found were having lessons. Alexis taught them two days a week, while a young man named Noah taught three. It was a way to give them structure and a sense of safety, the familiar schedule comforting when several of them had lost parents and siblings.

Why was she the only woman to stay overnight?

Castiel watched Melanie and Alexis with the children, playing some sort of game in the clearing. He thought about why he kept to himself at night. It was silly really, and maybe another reason he’d argued with Dean until they’d gotten separate rooms the previous year before setting up camp.

Sleeping meant vulnerability.

When he slept, it was with trepidation, even after these months had passed. He was vulnerable enough as a human without anyone witnessing that helpless state. The fear of being unconscious and open to attack wouldn’t cease, hence that drink mix he’d come up with. At least with the drug in his system, he didn’t lie for long in the dark with dread and fear dancing along his skin. Without it, he tended to toss and turn, jumping at every sound, until sleep took him.

Some nights it had been so bad that he’d been unable to sleep at all. Not a good idea, he discovered. The human body needed sleep to rejuvenate, unfortunately. He missed those days of angelic ability; of waking Jimmy to talk while he waited for Dean somewhere.

So why, if he was so afraid, had he let Jo stay? Why even offer to begin with?

Because he knew her. Because he’d been close to her mother. Because…she needed him. Honestly, he’d barely thought about his sleeping problem at all when he’d invited her to stay with him for an indefinite period. It had seemed the right thing to do at the moment.

He decided he liked having her there with him. Already, Jo had become a comfort to him; a familiar presence he could wrap his arms around when he woke in terror at two a.m. from nightmares that always featured the demon Meg and her ideas of fun.

At Lucifer’s behest, Meg had focused her efforts on Cas, though she’d admitted in one encounter that part of her craved to rip his wings away any way she could. She’d hardly needed Lucifer’s prodding once she realized Cas was going native and there was a somewhat limited timeframe to indulge in playtime. She was a warped, foul creature that deserved the worst corner of hell. It pleased him to have been the one to send her back there.

He shuddered, pushing all thoughts of her aside. He’d rather contemplate Jo and how he felt with her there in the night.

The previous night he’d turned against her, an arm about her waist, pressing his face against her neck and breathing in the scent of her skin. Later, he’d woken to find that she’d moved against him, bare legs tangled with his, her head and one hand on his chest. Her breath had tickled in a very pleasant way.

Jo was warmth and light in the harsh cold of night and he wanted her to stay with him.

He remembered the first time he’d slept. It had been Ellen with him, explaining that the falling sensation he might experience was perfectly normal when one fell asleep. He’d hated that sensation, fought against it, not wanting to give in to the pull and admit he was going to be mostly human sooner rather than later.

Ellen had insisted he have a bedtime ritual to start with. A shower maybe to relax. A few minutes reading. Something, anything, to get him in the frame of mind for sleep. It was Ellen who’d given him hot chocolate for the first time, doing so that night and insisting he drink it all before lying on the bed beneath the covers. She’d taken one of his hands in hers, fingers stroking along his skin, and smiled.

“I’ll be right here,” she’d said. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

She’d been a start and maybe if Jo and Dean had managed to stay together until that two month slide into sleep had been completed he wouldn’t have this irrational fear of it. But they hadn’t stayed together and halfway through learning to deal with his need for both sleep and food, Ellen and Jo were gone. Dean hadn’t been the sort of support Castiel needed, too wrapped up in his pains -- from the break-up with Jo among other things -- to pay much attention to what Cas needed. He’d needed someone to continue what Ellen had begun; to reassure him nightly that he was going to be okay and that nothing would hurt him.

Since then, he’d realized that, in regards to his terror of sleep, he was very much like those children playing in the clearing, needing that adult authority to reassure and calm. Ellen had done the best she could in the time they’d had together, teaching him things Dean probably never realized Cas didn’t know. She’d seemed to have a list in her mind, working through it with a sense of urgency that he’d felt but hadn’t understood at the time. Now, he thought she’d seen the signs that Jo and Dean’s relationship was failing long before either of them knew it. Ellen had known that she and Cas didn’t have much time left and had made each moment count.

Like her mother before her, Jo’s presence was both reassuring and calming, a healing balm in the dark of night, chasing his fear away.

He decided right then not to press her to ask Dean for her own cabin. He’d ignore the issue, wait for her to bring it up and see how, or if, she asked him about it. Maybe she’d ease into his daily life so well that she’d forget she didn’t have to stay. Maybe she’d want to stay.

He hoped she would.

Cas caught Melanie’s eye and waited for her to join him.