Title: Blood and Anesthetic
Chapter: 8
Notes: There’s a tiny bit of strong language in this chapter.
~~~~~~~~~
Castiel was going through the inventory with Chuck when Melanie came to find him. She was out of breath and flushed. The gist of her story was that Dean had grabbed Jo and the ensuing argument had left Jo in tears, refusing to leave the cabin.
“He followed her. He wouldn’t leave her alone and the things he was saying were horrible! It looked like they both just snapped!”
He looked at Chuck and set the clipboard down. “I’d better go.”
“Yeah sure.” Chuck nodded. “Go, go. See if Jo’s okay.”
Cas found Jo in the cabin, still wedged in the corner by the bed. Her tears were gone, but her face showed the remains. Her skin was blotchy, eyes bloodshot and a little swollen, and her mouth trembled.
“Is it true,” she asked, voice nasally and husky.
“Is what true?” Crossing to her, he crouched down, reaching out to touch her arm. She shied back and he took the hint, pulling his hand back.
“Did you screw my mother?”
He thought about how to answer her, well aware that his hesitation made him fully guilty according to however Dean had described that relationship to her. How exactly could he explain his relationship with Ellen in a way that wouldn’t upset her further? “What did Dean tell you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I want to hear your version of what happened with her.”
“Okay.” Sighing, he moved from a crouch to a sitting position beside her against the wall, his knees drawn up and arms clasped loosely about them. “While you and Dean were getting to know each other, I ended up spending a lot of time with Ellen. She was there, I was there. She…held me when I cried at being left behind by my brethren and at the pain of losing my angelic identity, taught me that a little whiskey can soothe, and gave me my first real appreciation for the whole beauty of a complicated woman. So….” He shrugged. “While Dean was accurate about the physical occurrence, if he implied I felt little for Ellen, or that she was one of many in a pursuit of decadence, then he outright lied to you. I had feelings for her and she read them rather accurately as first love. I’d never had those feelings before and she knew it. She helped me through it and when you and Dean broke up, we parted amicably.”
There were many more layers to it, but Jo didn’t need to know more.
She groaned, leaning her head back. “He’s an ass.”
“On occasion, but he knows full well how to get a rise from you.” Annoyance tickled at him. Dean had no right to tell Jo that. Ellen hadn’t wanted her to know, explaining to Cas that it wasn’t Jo’s business what she and Cas did. They were consenting adults.
“I let him.”
“Yes, you did.” Reaching out, he took one of her hands in his. This time, she let him touch her.
“He said so many things, Cas. And I jabbed right back. I don’t know were it all came from, it just welled up and spewed out.” She gestured with her free hand. “I brought up things I didn’t even remember happening until then, old things, like from way back when we first met at the Roadhouse. The more he yelled, the madder I got and the madder I got, the more I yelled back until I couldn’t even talk I was so mad at him.” She shifted position. “I’m still shaking. I don’t think I could even stand up if I had to.”
“Then don’t stand.” Raising her hand, he kissed her knuckles. “We’ll sit here awhile.”
She told him what Dean had said, sometimes crying again, but mostly, she grew angry and frustrated. He sat with her until she calmed, holding her against him, then lifted her up onto the bed and pressed a soft kiss to her temple, one hand stroking her hair “It’s going to be okay.”
“No it won’t,” she moaned. “Dean --”
“Don’t worry about Dean. You just…rest awhile.” Castiel stood.
Jo caught his hand in hers. “Where are you going?”
“I still have a few things to do today.” One of them being some business with Dean.
It was time they had a talk about what was and wasn’t acceptable behavior.
~~~~~~~~~~
Dean smelled the pot scent wafting from his cabin before he’d even reached the door. Great. Castiel riding in on pot fumes to save Jo’s honor. Just what he needed right now. He stepped inside.
Cas had made himself at home, stretched out on the couch, smoking away in a pose of ultimate patience.
“You mind putting that out? It stinks.”
His glance flicked to Dean. “You mind not making Jo cry like that?” There was a deceptive mildness to his voice that Dean had heard many times back when Cas still had his angel mojo, a mildness that was usually a prelude to some sort of ass-kicking.
Jo’s tears were all anger. Had to be. “She’s a big girl, Cas.”
“That she is.” He sat, dropping his joint in a cup, and looking at Dean. A glimmer of satisfaction glinted in his eyes and he gestured. “Nice eye.”
“Hurts.” Jo always had thrown a good punch. He touched around his eye. Had thrown and still did throw.
“You deserved it.”
“She can take care of herself.”
Castiel’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “You shouldn’t have followed her. There’s a line, Dean, and you crossed it not once, but so many times today, it actually surprised me and that’s very difficult for you to do.”
He didn’t reply. He knew he was in the wrong and hardly needed Castiel to point that out. Following her hadn’t been a conscious decision. It had simply happened and if he could take it all back, he would. The last thing he wanted was to hurt Jo like he had.
“She told me some of what you said to her, you know, though there were a few things that pissed her off so much she wouldn’t say them.”
His steady cool regard was uncomfortable and Dean crossed his arms.
“All those things you said to her about me…. She doesn’t want you back. She won’t take you back no matter how much you try to villainize me.”
“I’m aware of that.” He hadn’t meant those things he’d said about Cas. None of them. In reality, Castiel was still one of the best men Dean knew, despite his changed personal attitudes.
“Are you? Are you sure of that? Then stop acting like a jealous dick ex-boyfriend.”
“Newsflash, Cas: I am the jealous dick ex.” Whose mouth had disconnected from his brain.
“Yes.” He leaned back, hands clasping behind his head. “The jealous dick ex who told her that I ‘fucked her mother’ and compare the two of them. Nice. Very classy word choice. Screwed her, did her, fucked her…. All your words to describe a relationship you don’t know the half of. Did you call Jo a whore too, because that would really make it a special moment between you.”
Stepping to the table, Dean removed his jacket and laid it down, flushing from the memory of yelling those things at Jo. “I don’t recall the word ‘whore’ during our altercation. ‘Slut’ maybe, but not whore. Jo’s never charged for it that I know of.”
Dislike simmered in Cas’s eyes. “How is it that she only hit you once,” he mused, lips twisting in disgust.
“Honestly? I stayed out of range. My shins are black and blue, though.”
Cas leaned forward, forearms on his knees. “Ellen didn’t want her to know. She made that very clear to me. It wasn’t Jo’s business what went on between her and I behind closed doors.”
“Ellen’s dead.”
“Ellen would kick your ass from here to either coast and back for treating Jo the way you have recently.”
“True, but again,” he shrugged, “she’s dead. Can’t do much ass kicking that way.”
His laugh was harsh, tinged with annoyance. “Oh man, what is your problem with my relationship with Jo? I’m exactly what you asked me to be to her. Do you remember that? When she first got here? You asked me to take care of her. I do. I give her what she wants and needs --”
“So she needs to be just one more in a damn harem?”
“Like you have room to talk.”
The truth hurt and Castiel went right to it. Those who care know how to hurt the most.
“How many times did she forgive you because you got shit-faced and still had another woman at the room when she got there?”
He didn’t know Cas knew about that. And it had only happened twice. He’d had too much to drink and woken to find a woman there with him he didn’t remember bringing back to the room. Hell, he hadn’t even known what day it was.
Castiel snorted. “Yeah, I knew about that. So did Ellen. Jo though, she still wanted you to be her everything. She forgave you, came back to you, and you threw it away. You sabotaged it and threw her away. Don’t be so pissed when she doesn’t want you anymore.”
“Speaking of other women, Casanova, how many do you have lined up right now for their daily dose of vitamin ‘p’? Five maybe, six?”
He could hear their voices getting louder though he had no recollection of actually raising his voice, their tones growing uglier as words volleyed back and forth.
“At least I’m honest about it. She knew from the start that’s how my life is now. She knows she can’t change me and she’s not even trying. She chose me, Dean, of her own free will.”
“Jo’s special. She’s always been special.” His mantra, that had meant nothing when she’d been his. Now he chanted the damn thing in his head all hours of day or night.
“Nice we agree on something. Jo is special. She’s not just another woman to me and you know that. I honor her every day in ways you don’t understand.”
“I don’t like seeing you together.”
“Get over it.”
“I can’t.”
“Try.”
He slammed a hand on the table. “She should have been fine! A week or two to grieve, to start letting Ellen go and get back to the hunt, but you, you, “ he spat the word like it was filth in his mouth, “sucked her into that free-love, anesthetize your pains bullshit --”
“Whoa, wait, wow, I get it now.” Cas stood and came to the table, staring at Dean like he’d suddenly grasped something crucial. “I totally get the problem. The erratic, irrational behavior, the possessiveness over Jo.” He laughed. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. She was broken.” He made a gesture with one hand in the direction of his cabin and then another one at Dean. “So are you. Two broken halves make a whole, but you’re all pissed because she connected with the wrong broken man.” Now he jerked his thumb at himself. “Me.” Another laugh, his head bobbing in a nod as he warmed to the truth that Dean hadn’t allowed himself to acknowledge. “You thought she’d want revenge.”
A reasonable assumption.
“You thought she’d regroup and head back out there with you, guns blazing. Jo and Dean, like Bonnie and Clyde or something. Side by side you’d run this place, go on the big, unending quest for the Colt, and somehow you’d be right for each other this time because, hey,” he shrugged, “you’re both broken, right?”
Dean decided he didn’t really like Castiel right now. His hands clenched into fists. He hated being open and exposed emotionally. Cas didn’t stop there, breaking down the rationalization further.
“There was one big chink in that plan for her, wasn’t there? Jo was tired. She didn’t want to be out there anymore. Despite your best efforts, she’s had enough of that life. She avoids anything near training, hasn’t shot a gun in months now. The only thing you could get her to do was help Chuck in supplies.” Placing his hands on the table, he rested his weight on them, leaning towards Dean slightly. “You wanted to push her to you, but everything you did came out wrong and you ended up pushing her away.”
“You want to stop right now, Cas.” He clenched his hands tighter.
“I don’t think so. You wanted to make her see that you’re both not whole anymore. That you need each other.”
He wanted to punch that stupid high little smirk off Cas’s face.
“You still weren’t right for each other and it’s not you she needs. Man….” He stood back up. “That sucks.”
The last remnants of that rage he’d felt earlier with Jo washed over him, tumbled him about and Dean quit holding back that urge to hit.
~~~~~~~~~~
The commotion was heard through most of the camp and though Jo could see it from the cabin if she chose, or rather see the crowd gathered around the two men, she kept the curtains closed, doing her best to ignore the sounds from outside. The fight continued long after their voices quite shouting. Only when the sounds of the fight died down did she step to the porch and wait. It wasn’t long before Jim, one of the regular mission leaders, and Maggie brought Cas to the cabin, Jim bearing the brunt of Cas’s weight. Blood dripped from Castiel’s mouth and nose.
Maggie told Jo about the fight while Jo concluded Cas’s injuries were all things she could care for. They didn’t need to get Alan over to tend the wounds.
According to Maggie, Cas had thrown Dean through the railing on Dean’s porch, the whole thing coming down. From there, they’d stumbled into the clearing, fighting dirty until they’d both laid down in the dirt and called a truce, spitting blood and gasping for breath.
Jo directed her to get warm water, bandages, and all those things she’d need, then sent her and Jim on their way.
She took the basin of warm water to the couch and set it down, kneeling in front of Cas, who opened his eyes and looked at her. A trickle of blood ran down his temple from a cut at his hairline. Lips pursed, she wrung a cloth out in the water and wiped away that trickle before dabbing one of many bleeding gashes on his left forearm. “You let him hit you?”
“It’s not like I stood still for it. I did try to keep from being hit.”
She scrutinized his scraped knuckles. One was swollen twice it’s normal size already, but his fingers all looked straight, neither broken, nor dislocated. “Did you break either hand?”
“Not this time.”
“Well, that’s a plus.” She worked in silence a moment. “What were you doing there, Cas?”
He touched her cheek. “I defended your honor.”
“Thanks. Not too many chivalrous white knights around these days. However, not to be the ungrateful stepsister instead of the appreciative princess, but are you sure it was my honor you were defending?” She wrung the cloth, leaving bloody trails in the water, and started in on his face. “You sure you didn’t just go start a fight because you were pissed that he told me something you didn’t want me to know?”
His expression -- what she could see of it through, mud, blood, and lumps -- was wounded. “He called you a slut. I couldn’t let that slide.”
“So you beat each other silly.”
“He deserved it.”
“That he did, but I can’t look at you now without wincing, sweetheart.”
He slid a hand through her hair. “You should see him.”
“I plan to.” Jo planned to go see Dean once she had Cas fixed up and in bed for the night. She suspected Alan wouldn’t be sympathetic enough to give Dean any painkillers. Alan had little patience for ‘tom foolery’ as he called it.
“It doesn’t hurt much.”
“Yeah, I know. It will when all of the pills and happy smoke have worn off, I guarantee it.”
He chuckled. “Happy smoke.”
Jo touched one of the ugly marks. “He used your face for a punching bag.”
“You should see him,” he repeated. The satisfaction in his voice was almost primal.
“You’re going to be in so much pain.”
“So will he.”
“Proud of that, aren’t you?”
“Exceptionally.” His amusement faded as something appeared to occur to him. “Hey…. I’m lucky he didn’t shoot me, aren’t I?”
“You sure are. You think you can eat something or do you want to just go to bed and sleep awhile?”
Laying his head back, he closed his eyes. “Not hungry. Feeling very tired.”
“You did expend a lot of energy throwing Dean through that railing.”
“I didn’t intend to do that. He lost his balance. Besides, it’s his own fault it collapsed. He knew the railing was loose for months and never had it fixed. I hardly threw him through it.”
She got him cleaned up, undressed, and laid in the bed, covers bunched at his waist. Leaning down, Jo kissed one corner of his mouth. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
He grunted and sighed. “Don’t be long.”
Jo slipped on a jacket and went to the basket of pill bottles and baggies, lifting up neatly labeled packages until she found the one she wanted. She took an empty unlabeled bottle from the shelves and poured enough for a few days into it, then added her own label, giving only dosage information. Pocketing the bottle, she left the cabin and stepped across the clearing to Dean’s cabin. The railing was a splintered mess and the bushes in front of the porch had a man-sized hole in them. She went up the steps and knocked, peering through the open door. Dean was slouched in one straight chair at the table. Jo went inside and over to him.
Cas hadn’t been exaggerating, she saw. Dean’s face was far more beat-up than she’d ever seen it. Over the years, she’d seen him injured in many ways. He gave her a sour glance, winced, and touched the tell-tale white strip on the bridge of his nose.
“Go away,” he told her, voice thick.
“He broke your nose.”
“You think? Doc says there’ll barely be a sign of it when it’s healed.”
“He give you something for the pain?”
He looked at the tabletop. “No. He said it served me right and he wasn’t going to waste good meds on stupid macho injuries.”
“I knew there was a reason I liked Alan.” Moving forward, Jo set a pill bottle on the table beside him. “I took these from Cas’s stash. They’ll take the edge off the pain. There’s enough there for four days, which should get you through the worst of it. If you need more after that, I could be persuaded with a few polite words to give you more.”
He picked up the bottle, shook it, read the label. “Why are you doing this? I wasn’t exactly Mr. Nice Guy to you earlier. Or recently at all.”
She put her hands in her jeans pockets, shrugged. “Because when you’re in pain, everybody is in pain and…as much as I hate to admit it right now, I do still care about you.”
“You do? Why?”
Jo studied him. He really didn’t seem to understand why, staring right back at her with a puzzled expression made gruesome by the swelling spots and beginnings of bruises. He was low enough now emotionally that she thought they could actually talk and hear each other. She thought he’d hit rock bottom. Good. It was about time he started working his way back up to the man he’d once been. Or at least a man sort of like him. “Because you’re a part of me, Dean. You always will be. Even when you’re being a complete dick, which has been a lot lately, I have some feelings for you. I don’t want you hurting like this. I’ve never wanted that.”
“Do you forgive me?”
“No, not today.” She sighed. Forgiveness was going to be a long time coming. “But we’ll talk tomorrow.” Turning, she left before he could say anything more.
~~~~~~~~~~
Dean felt drained and numb, devoid of emotion and emptied fully of the toxic anger that had filled him. Hopefully that was a good thing and not a prelude to more of it settling inside him. He didn’t think he could function much longer with the levels of rage he’d been carrying around with him.
Strange. Rage had always been Sam’s problem, not his.
Opening the bottle Jo had left, he dry swallowed a pill, then got up from his chair. He was about one step from feeling like he needed a hospital bed for a few days -- just for a guarantee of rest, not because he was hurt that badly. Pulling his t-shirt over his head, he hissed at the pull of the sore muscles in his back where he’d fallen through the railing.
Okay, maybe he really was that hurt.
He hadn’t expected Cas to fight like he had, though he should have remembered that Castiel did know how to fight. He’d done it many times since Dean had known him. His punches still held a good amount of force, Cas knowing just when to add his weight to the blow to give maximum pain.
Dean brushed his teeth, shuffled over to his bed and finished getting undressed before sliding beneath the covers. He turned out the light on the table by the bedside and lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling as the pill he’d taken began to work.
“I don’t want to be like this anymore,” he said.
But how did he change anything in a world that had no future unless he could find the Colt? How could he be any different than what he was? How…
Dean slid sharply into sleep.