Author's Note: Hallo! So I tried writing this chapter in my notebook like I did the last one, but it just felt like complete and utter crap to me, so I'm retrying it here. Wish me luck, and enjoy the chapter, lovely readers!
~ Chapter Seven ~
"Boss?" A young demon was approaching a large black leather chair that was spun around, facing a darkened window and the luminescent moon; he felt tempted to reach out and turn the chair around himself without waiting, but he knew better. You didn't disrespect the boss.
"What?" The Boss snapped back, clearly in no mood to be bothered.
"I'm back from the, uh, errand."
Deafening silence hung in the air for a few moments, before the Boss spoke.
"You failed me."
"N-no!"
"Then where is she?" Heat and anger were growing in the voice that he could only hear, but see no body to which it belonged.
"Well, she's not with me…" The young demon struggled to say.
"Who's she with then?"
"The Winchesters."
There was no verbal response right away, only the brief squeal of the chair as it was spun around to face him. It was a woman sitting in the chair, in a black gown that draped over her every curve of her ageless body. Her brunette looks were arranged in curls, meticulously parted on the side, her skin was porcelain white and looked ready to shatter at any moment, though anyone that worked for her knew better.
"The Winchesters?" She repeated, ice and fire blending together over her lips. Her eyes flickered from the luscious hazel green that they normally were to an intense, burning crimson.
This was going to be it for him and he knew it.
"You left her with the Winchesters? Do you understand what your job was?"
"Yes."
"No, you idiot, I don't think you do."
She was closer now, only a few inches away from him, but she was terrifyingly still, even with all the undeniable rage bubbling up inside of her.
"You were supposed to get into their house, get the kid, and bring her here. Where's the kid?"
"S-still with them–" He was suddenly flying through the air, across the icy room into the wall. He could hear the crunch – whether it was from his meat suit's bones cracking all at once or the wall behind him collapsing under the sudden pressure, he wasn't sure.
"Fool!" The Boss was shrieking at him as she twisted her hand, knotting his intestines around his stomach somehow.
She hadn't touched him, only stepped towards his broken body, glaring down at him with those impossibly red eyes.
"You had one job, and you failed!" She twisted her hand again, and the young demon was almost certain that he could feel his blood starting to boil beneath his skin.
"And now you're going to pay." She hissed through clenched teeth and a twist of her powerful hand.
/
Dean was kneeled over the ground in Jo's room after dinner, trying to pick out the shards of broken glass out of the carpet. It had been a few days since the accident, and no one, especially poor Jo, was having an easy time with it.
He and Cas had tried to go to work the Monday morning following, taking Jo to school and following that normal procedure in hopes of distracting her. It hadn't worked though and Dean got a call from the school saying that Jo had become hysterical during recess, hurt another kid on accident and needed to go home.
When he arrived in the school's office, he found his baby girl, curled up in a ball in one of the chairs in the office, whimpering and not letting anyone touch her.
"Jo, look up. It's Daddy."
He had knelt down before her chair, gently trying to get her attention. There wasn't going to be an easy way to go about this, he could see that right away.
"I didn't mean to…" She mumbled, making eye contact with Dean.
"I know you didn't, kiddo. I'm not blaming you. We're going home."
She nodded and stood up from her chair, wiping her eyes and shakily taking Dean's hand as they walked off the school campus to the car.
It had gotten a little better the days after; Dean and Cas were able to go to work and Jo seemed to be okay with going to school again, her episode of lashing out against another kid over. It was better, in a sense, but at that time that Jo had lashed out, she wasn't having nightmares either.
The nightmares had started Monday night, the night after Sam and Dean had spent the whole day fixing and strengthening the window the demon had busted through and grabbed her. Everything else in the room was in okay shape, aside from the bits of broken glass that he was still picking out, just in case.
Dean shook his head at the memory of his baby girl being held by the back of her shirt, a filthy hand covering her mouth as the damned demon tried to kidnap her... no. He wouldn't think about that now.
His mind did drift to the past few nights though, where he and Cas would be sitting downstairs in the living room, or in their bedroom relaxing or getting ready for bed when the screaming would start. They would both sprint across the hall, or up the stairs into Jo's room, waking Jo from her fit of regular nightmares. It wasn't hard to wake her up, but the screaming wouldn't stop until she realized that her parents were holding her and that whatever nightmares weren't real. That was when the tears would come too and she would end up sobbing her sorry little self back to sleep.
Dean liked to think she was getting better, that the nightmares were growing fewer, but he knew better, deep down. It was getting easier. The nightmares were to be expected every night now, and letting Jo sleep in their bed until morning was a normal occurrence nowadays.
He shook his head, finally picking up the last piece of glass from the fluffy carpet and stood up, dropping the tiny shards into her small trash bin. Dean could see Cas and Jo sitting at living room table as he went downstairs. Cas was helping her with her math problems again, and apparently Jo was having a hard time with it today as Cas had resorted to using M&M's as a counting device.
"How many M&M's are right here?" Cas pointed at one point on the placemat.
"Ten." Jo responded eagerly.
"And if we eat six of them, how many are left?"
Jo paused, looked up at Cas before counting out six of the chocolates; she put three in front of her Papa and put the other three in her mouth then counted the remaining candies. "Four!"
"Very good!"
They high-fived and Dean grinned as he entered the room. At least this was normal.
/
Dean was sprawled out and asleep on the living room couch that evening Castiel noted as he descended the stairs from Jo's room. He had just put her to bed, and he was beginning to think that maybe it was Dean's bedtime too.
"Dean." Castiel murmured, reaching over the back of the couch to run a hand through his husband's hair.
He was slow to wake up, blinking his green eyes lazily, probably remembering where he was and who he was with; he was normally very disoriented after these catnaps.
"What?"
Castiel moved around the couch to sit at Dean's side, "You fell asleep, dear."
"Oh."
Dean glanced around the room, blinking his eyes some more before sitting up. "Where's Jo?"
"In her bed, probably asleep by now."
He nodded and obviously remembered something. "Sam's staying at Bobby's right now."
Castiel nodded now and gave his partner a quizzical look. Sam had been staying at Bobby's house for a while now. "Yes, they have been looking for information, correct?"
"Yeah. They might've found something though. About the shit that happened to Jo."
"Really?"
"Mhm." Dean stretched and yawned, "I gotta go talk to them on Monday."
Castiel fought to suppress the sigh that wanted so badly to free itself from his throat. Of course he didn't like how Dean kept having to go meet with his younger brother and father figure every few days, but he disliked what had happened to Jo and all her nightmares even more so. He cleared his throat and without looking at his husband softly responded, "That's fine."
"Thanks."
Dean was sitting up now, and he took Castiel's chin in one hand and pulled him into the most tender kiss they'd shared in a while.
"A-are you ready for bed?" He stammered once Dean pulled away. Castiel couldn't quite figure out why he was so nervous, they had kissed like this so many times before; even their first kiss was one like this, so where was the sudden anxiety coming from?
"Uh-huh."
Castiel stood, allowing Dean to properly get up before they went back up the stairs; Dean glanced at Jo through the open door once they were at the top of the stairs and seemed to sigh, but there was no noise sounding from him.
Castiel gently rested a hand on his husband's shoulder, trying to distract him from the intense concern that was clear to see on his face. "She's okay, Dean."
He just nodded and followed his partner into their room and got ready for bed.
Once under the covers, Dean finally spoke again.
"Cas?"
"Yes?" He turned over onto his side, beautiful green eyes meeting his own.
"Do you, uh, remember what we were going to do tomorrow?"
Castiel furrowed his brow and shook his head. "Um, no. What was it?"
Dean seemed to bite his tongue or chew his cheek at the question and Castiel instantly felt guilty for not remembering something that was so clearly causing his love this discomfort.
"The orphanage? We promised Jo a few weeks back."
Oh.
"Yes, of course!" Castiel soothed, reaching out and squeezing Dean's bicep. "I can't believe I forgot about this."
Dean grinned and nodded; his cheeks seemed a little red, at least more so than usual.
But how could Castiel have forgotten? They had spent an entire day that Jo was with a friend cleaning out the extra room they had: moving out furniture, sweeping the floor, painting the walls, and cleaning the windows. The cleanliness of the room was entirely Castiel's job, Dean had volunteered to put reassemble Jo's old crib and changing table, but they had to go buy a new high chair later on.
The room looked much better as a nursery than a storage space, Castiel had realized, enjoying the thought of its snowy white walls, sky blue ceiling and fluffy white carpet beneath the wooden crib. The room had been decorated much like Jo's had: a mostly white room aside from some blue decorations and pieces of furniture. Jo's room had had pieces of purple in it though, not blue because Dean had refused blue, because that was a baby boy's color, and pink was just too girly. Somehow, purple had been better.
"When did you want to go?" Dean asked, waking Castiel up from his happy, busy thoughts.
"Is after church alright with you?" He asked gently, a smile on his face. "I'm sure that Jo won't remember this promise, and we can drive to the orphanage after and surprise her."
Dean smiled a gigantic, teeth-showing smile at the idea. "Yeah. I think she'd like that."
"I do too."
The same beaming smile on his face, Dean reached out for Castiel this time, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as he pulled him into his warm embrace, letting them both fall asleep this way.
