.~.Tasted Your Fire.~.
.
i tasted fire,
i'm ready to come alive,
i can't just shut it up and fake that i'm alright,
i'm ready now,
i'm not waiting for the afterlife.
.
"But I onnnnly 'ad one." The room is spinning around him, a blur of colors he can't name. Sam is in front of him, hands outstretched. Dean can feel Sam's fingers digging into his skin. Somehow, the expression on Sam's face is really funny. Dean starts giggling, pulling away from his brother and spinning in circles until the colors follow him in a sloppy, uncoordinated dance. "Yooooou have two noses, Sammy," Dean mumbles, still laughing uncontrollably.
"Alright," Sam says. "C'mon, Dean. Let's get you to bed." The words are muffled, as if Dean is underwater.
Hands are on his shoulders again, pushing him toward a bed. Dean tries once to throw his brother off, but Sam only tightens his grip until they reach the bed. Dean is shoved onto the covers, his lips pressing into the freshly cleaned pillows and boring tan blanket. Normally the motels they stop at having a theme or something, but this one is seemingly trying to convince everyone that they're normal. A little too normal.
"You're not even gonna undress me, Sammy?" Dean says, his voice blocked by the stupid blanket. He brushes it aside with tingling, half-numb fingers. "How rude."
"Prude, remember?" Sam says briefly, pointing to himself. Normally he'd be cracking some kind of smile, but his face remains still this time, nearly frozen. He reaches out and flicks off the bedside lamp. The room is cast into darkness. There are creaking noises as Sam gets comfortable on his own bed, and then silence.
Dean stares into the darkness, wondering if it will swallow him whole. He hopes that it will. A little smile cracks his lips, but it doesn't feel like his. His mouth still tastes like her chapstick, slightly metallic. Her lips had been smudged with blood, he remembers.
"Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"How many did you have?" Sam doesn't really sound like he wants to know the answer. He's tiptoeing.
Dean listens to the sputtering as the air-conditioning kicks in, sending a limp breeze through the room. Chills ride up his spine. The smile is still there on his face, slowly cracking.
"Oh, y'know," Dean mutters, hiccupping and turning onto his side so that he's facing away from his brother. A soft breath escapes from him, weary beyond anything he's felt in a long time. The tears in her eyes - he can still see them so clearly. I'll see you on the other side, probably sooner than later. Her breath, hitching, as she tells him to make it later. "I lost count after ten."
Sam laughs. "This is a new record, even for you," he comments.
Her hand, warm, fragile in between his. Dean can feel his blood pumping through his veins sluggishly.
"I had none, Sammy," he breathes so softly he can barely hear it, only after he's sure that Sam is asleep. "Not one."
..~..
Something shifts. There are fingers trailing lightly up his arm, raising goosebumps, and they're too small to be Sam's. Dean keeps his eyes shut as the fingers move up, over his shoulder, fingers dipping into his collarbone.
"You shouldn't be here," he grunts.
"Where else would I be?" Jo asks gently, cupping his cheek and turning his face up toward her own. He looks at her, something breaking deep inside of him. He struggles to rein the torrent back in, barely catching it.
"This isn't you," he says. He should tear his eyes away, should get up and leave whatever this is, because it isn't Jo.
"Does that really matter?" Jo runs her hand through his hair slowly and Dean shivers at the sensation. There have been some weaker moments when he'd dreamed of little moments like these with her, only now it's too late.
"Of course it matters," Dean snaps, sitting up and grabbing her forearm until she winces. He lightens his grip guiltily, her familiar features unnerving him. "Jo, it's my fault you're dead." Tears pool in the corners of his eyes and one trails down his cheek. She wipes it away.
"No," she says, "it isn't." She cups his face in her hands and leans closer. It all feels so damn emotional, and that's how Dean knows it isn't real. The real Jo, wherever she is, would never behave like this. It's one of the things about her that first caught his attention, and kept it.
"This could be real, Dean," she says. Her lips press against his forehead, and Dean shudders, his anguished eyes locked on her as she pulls back. "All you have to do is get Sam to say yes, and we can be together, forever."
For a moment, so help him, Dean's tempted. He can't bear to think of her body strewn in a million pieces, burning into ash as the hellhounds howl in pain.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, leaning forward until their lips are nearly touching. He could kiss her, wants to more than anything, but he won't. "I'm so sorry, Jo." He can't see Jo for a moment, has to wait until the tears have receded from his vision. But the horrible ache in his heart doesn't leave. It's just something else he'll have to carry with him.
Dean lingers in her presence for a moment longer, knowing that this will probably be the last time he'll ever see her, and then something hardens within him.
"Face me yourself, you cowardly son of a bitch," Dean hisses through his tears, eyes blackened with hate, and Jo bleeds away so fast that he barely sees it. Lucifer is left sitting intimately close to him, his skin peppered with oozing sores, his eyes complacent.
"Now, now," Lucifer says mildly, "there isn't any need to use names." He claps Dean's shoulder, backing away as Dean glares at him. "If you get your brother to say yes, I can bring Jo back to you."
Oh God, he wants to say yes. Already, the thought of Jo's absence is tearing him apart. But he can't. Knotting his fingers together, Dean growls, "I'd rather rot in hell for eternity."
Lucifer's face droops with disappointment. "Oh," he says, "well, that will come soon enough. But I'd rather you cooperate. Things will go so much better for you both if you'd just go along with the plan."
Dean doesn't flinch. He just stares at Lucifer, eyes little more than pieces of flint, and says, "Get out."
Lucifer pauses, studying Dean's expression, and then rises from the bed. "Very well," he acquiesces with a little sigh. "I'm sorry that she had to die, Dean. I really am."
Dean doesn't bother giving him another look. He just stares off in the distance, trying not to think, or feel. When at last he's forced to blink, he is back in the bed with the boring blanket and the fresh pillow now stained with his tears.
Rising up to look around him, Dean's lips quiver. I'll see you on the other side.
Jo's outline flickers in his eyes, reflected by the curtains in the corner of the room. She smiles back at him, carefree, filled with light.
"Make it later," she mouths, looking back at him as she fades away.
Dean clenches one of the pillows tightly to him. His tongue swipes over his lips, capturing her fiery scent and the specks of blood as something dies within him, curling into ash.