A/N: Ah, the last chapter. Sorry for the wait, I've been working very slowly on it over the last week or two and I'm a little sad to see it end.
Thank you to all of my faithful reviewers- there are too many to name individually, but I thank you, and love you all.
It is possible I might do a sequel to this one (dean/jo) or a Sam centric fic. Please, let me know via review.
Adieu, and enjoy. Xxoo
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There was a peculiar sort of euphoria hanging over Dean for the rest of the evening. Jo found difficulty in putting a finger on it- he seemed vivacious and vibrant all of a sudden, like a weight had been lifted.
She didn't know how, but she knew why- Dean thought he'd found a solution to his woes. Jo didn't share his enthusiasm. Something the demon had told her stuck to mind like a burr and she couldn't shake it despite the fact that even Sam was looking perkier than he had since she'd first met him.
There will always be more hounds in hell then there are bullets on earth.
Jo wasn't tired but she was beginning to feel ill- more to do with the constant cold gales that seemed to haunt Chicago incessantly than anything to do with the demon.
She'd come up in a fever and was snuggled deep in Sam's jacket as they sat around the table, completely exhausted and gently triumphant. At least their work had yielded success, though Jo was still guilty for the three murders she'd been unable to prevent.
"Bottom's up," said Dean spiritedly, sliding a shot glass across the table.
Jo stopped it and ran her fingers across the glass absently before she downed the shot, closing her eyes tight for a moment to dispel the taste of the vodka before she set down the class and sighed wearily.
Dean and Sam exchanged a surreptitious glance but said nothing. Jo convulsed with the cold and then broke out into a barking cough, shivering incessantly.
"Are you alright?" asked Sam finally. He'd salved and bandaged his fingers but they still seemed to be rather tender and he'd taken to cradling his hand to his chest to keep it safe.
"No, I've been bashed and mauled by a demon and his dog but I'm going to fall prey to a particularly nasty cough," replied Jo in a deadpan. "I'm fine, Sam."
Sam shrugged and Dean raised his eyebrows, pouring himself a glass of Smirnoff.
"You're just acting a little… lacklustre," said Sam tentatively, leaning back a little as if expecting Jo to break out in hives and fangs and leap at him over the table.
Jo shrugged again and crossed her arms, leaning back. Sam took the hint and didn't pursue the subject.
"So, where are you headed now?" asked Jo to both of them in general, brown eyes lazily gliding up to appraise them from the shot glass.
"New York," said Sam. He had that hardness to his voice which no longer shocked her as it once had.
Dean looked up fleetingly, saw the same steely expression that she did, and looked back down to his alcohol with a look of steady acceptance. Whatever was in New York was evidently something that couldn't wait. Dean had a suspicion that it might have something to do with Sarah Blake, but he kept his mouth shut.
"I'm exhausted," said Jo finally, blinking sleepily into the fluorescent down lights. Her arms and legs were aching like hell and her eyelids felt weighted.
She crossed her arms and heaved a sigh, her head dropping on to her chest, savouring the warmth in Sam's jacket and the soft burning of Vodka at the back of her throat.
"So am I," said Dean quietly and for the first time in a long while, Jo believed him.
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Jo woke with her teeth chattering and a fever flushing down the length of her body, causing her skin to rise into goosebumps and a peculiar feeling of trepidation and illness to stir in her chest.
It was too cold for the thin cotton sheet she'd been sleeping under for the last few days. Sleeping on the floor generally wasn't something Jo skived out of but this was beyond ridiculous.
Jo rolled out from under the blankets and the cold struck her like a slap to the face. It took her a few seconds to realise she was only in her bra and underwear- her pyjamas were wet from the laundromat, so she'd wriggled out of her dayware clothes under the shield of her blanket and promptly gone to sleep.
Well, no wonder she was so goddamn cold.
Thankful for the darkness and the soft sound of breathing which meant the boys were fast asleep, Jo padded lithely across to the cupboard and wrapped her fingers around the wood, slowly and noiseless pulling it open. It was a creaky cupboard by age and nature but Jo managed to handle it without a sound. She was good like that, stealthy and catlike.
Unable to see properly in the inky darkness, she rummaged blindly, searching for a blanket with the tips of her fingertips, pressing her frame against the woodwork
She couldn't find anything but towels and doorstoppers and she swore a muffled expletive into the wood, pulling back and shutting the door again. The cold was really starting to bite into her now, vicious and unrelenting. A cough welled in the depths of her throat but she fought it back down, the fever spasming up the length of her body. She keeled momentarily, hands on knees, but recovered without a sound and moved grimly towards the walk-in wardrobe.
A peachy colour stood out in the dark and it looked suspiciously like a folded blanket.
Slightly pissed that she was getting around half-starkers on a midwinter night in Chicago to look for something to keep her warm, she dropped to her knees and crawled forward under the clothes shelves towards it.
She realised upon touching it that it was just another folded towel and she staunchly refused the urge to yell out in frustration.
Turning on the spot, her shoulder accidentally hit one of the hotel luggage cases left there and it fell on top of her with a loud bang and the sound of cascading clothes.
This time she didn't hold back- she let loose a strangled "FUCK!" as the suitcase smacked her onto her belly, folding her legs underneath her and hitting her arms to the floor. She hissed into the blackness.
Something stirred from the bedroom and Sam's voice drifted in, sleepy and slurred as if he was half awake.
"Stuck?" he asked, hardly coherent.
"No," replied Jo spitefully, trying to ease the weight from her back, "I'm delivering a wardrobe."
She half-expected him to spring to his feet and come to her aid but instead she heard the steadiness of his breath returning and that silence which meant he'd gone back to sleep.
Well, damn him to hell.
Wriggling onto her back, she used her legs for leverage and pushed the case off of her torso, crawling out of the confined space and out onto the floor where she collapsed for a moment, enjoying the freedom of movement.
As tempting as it was to make a carpet angel just to confuse the boys in the morning, now it was serious and she was beginning to become a little more audacious in her search for a blanket. Maybe it was the alcohol talking.
She moved quickly but still without a sound out into the bedroom. Jo doubted she'd have the heart to rouse Sam again- and he was a little too empathetic for his own good, he'd leave her feeling guilty.
No, she could go fetch a blanket from the front desk or the communal cupboard down the hall by herself. She just needed the keys.
Slightly vindictive, Jo slid across to Dean's bedside and whispered his name softly. Given that he was a light sleeper, he shouldn't have to go to any lengths to wake himself up.
"Dean," she hissed. He doesn't move and his breathing pattern remains the same- sharp and erratic.
Her hands wrapped around the edge of the mattress and she jogged it slightly, trying to rock him into waking.
He tensed, but made no other indication that he knew she was there and his eyes were still closed.
"Dean!" she whispered again, putting a hand to his shoulder to shake him.
He moved so quickly, she thought that the world had exploded. Dean lunged, took her by the arm, pulled her hard onto the mattress and held a knife to her throat all in one fluid moment.
"Owfuck," hissed Jo, pinned and helpless and extremely disgruntled. But warmed, to a certain degree, by his body and the heat in the sheets.
"Jo," he breathed after a moment, lazily stowing the knife back under his pillow and rolling off her as he realised who it was.
"I was going to ask you for the hotel keys," she whispered tartly. The warmth was too pleasant to leave and she stayed on the mattress for a little while, trying to remove herself from the sheets that Dean had inadvertently tangled her in.
Dean, far too possessive to give up the mattress, refused to budge and as a result they were left lying side by side as Jo slowly unwound herself from the bedding.
The struggle had left her breathless and empty and she drew in a heavy, cold breath of air as if she were surfacing from a lake. The iciness of the oxygen caused her lungs to seize and she twisted as she broke out into a hacking cough, facing away from Dean for the sake of politeness.
After the coughing fit she fell still for the moment. She could feel the vague taste of blood on her tongue- perhaps she was coming down with pneumonia. Sam was still sleeping like a log in the next bed.
"Are you alright?" asked Dean gruffly, albeit with concern.
"Been better," she admitted, finally disentangling herself from the sheets. She made to roll out from under the doona, but found, to her surprise, that Dean was stopping her, holding her back.
"I can sleep on the floor," he whispered, more of a growl than anything else. Jo felt his voice rumbling through his chest.
"No," she said, still attempting to scramble away with a snort and a brisk shake of her head.
"Wait," said Dean softly but audibly and Jo paused mid-scramble, looking slightly ungainly crouched in the sheets alongside him.
She turned to face him and was a little closer than she'd first presumed. Immediately what was playful and perhaps a little erratic became deeper, more intense, static. Jo could see the green of his eyes reflected in the light of the moon outside.
"What did I say to you?" he said finally, voice cracking a little, more from the fact that he'd just woken than anything to do with emotion.
Jo blinked, bewildered. "What?"
Dean cleared his throat. "When I was possessed. I want to know what I said."
Jo stiffened and blinked into the darkness. Well, this was unexpected.
"Nothing," she replied but her tone wasn't very convincing and Dean immediately picked up the quaver in her voice.
"Bullshit," he whispered with a noise of derision. "It's important."
"No it's not," replied Jo defensively, but she knew she was lying to herself. Now keen to get away from him, she rolled away as if to use her momentum to leap to her feet but Dean held her back and pulled her into the centre of the mattress, supporting himself above her to stop her from getting away, arms trapping her on either side.
"Son-of-a-bitch," grunted Jo. Dean was smirking triumphantly above her and cocked his head, quirking his brows with a 'get on with it' sort of look on his face.
"You aren't going to like it," she ventured and shook her head.
Dean didn't say anything but Jo could tell from his silence that he was prompting her to continue.
"Meg killed my father," she said slowly, turning her head away so he wouldn't be able to see any emotion that would well in her eyes. "She possessed your dad because he moved too quickly and made him fill my dad up with buckshot."
"That wasn't his fault," said Dean stonily as if she were directly accusing John.
"No," she continued, gnawing on her lip to hold back the emotion threatening to distort her voice. "It wasn't, you're right. But the demon was still in my father, and he was still alive, just wounded. John shot Bill in the head just for the sake of killing the demon while he was trapped inside him."
A tear ran unbidden down her cheek and she swiftly wiped it away, sniffing ungraciously.
"The worst thing is, evidently, it came to nothing. Meg escaped, anyway."
Dean was silent and tense, contemplative. Sam was still sleeping soundly beside them and Jo reigned in the emotion which had been threatening her ever since that fateful episode in Minnesota.
"I'm sorry," said Dean finally, inclining his head.
"Don't be," said Jo quickly, keen not to make the same mistake twice. "You aren't him, Dean. You aren't John. Don't be sorry."
Dean was silent, if a little gloating, at that. Jo had never ever admonished an apology before and he was sort of basking in the afterglow. He rolled off her, signalling that she was free to go if she wished.
"But can you promise me something?" she whispered as an afterthought.
"Uhh," said Dean hesitantly, not too keen to get into a deal he wasn't going to come through with.
"Don't stop looking for an answer," she told him, grabbing a hold of his shirt and hauling herself up to face him just so he got the point.
"Don't think that you're going to get away with shooting every dog that comes your way, Dean. You need to get out of your deal- you can't just dance around it."
"Oh, right. On whose authority?" said Dean with an archetypical quirk of his brows.
"Mine," purred Jo smugly, poking him square in the chest, "and god knows I'm always right."
Dean groaned and brought both of his hands to his face, pressing the pads of his fingers to the lids of his eyes. "Shut up."
Jo bristled with a snide grin, wrinkling her nose and leaning close so that the impact of her voice was far more intense than it would have been, even with his eyes covered. "Make me."
She knew she was baiting him, asking for trouble, because he would do one of two things. Either sock her one in the face and kick her out of the bed or kiss her. As it was, he chose the latter.
With an impatient grunt of irritation and the sudden flickers of desire he reached up to her neck, searching for a shirt or some type of material that he could use to pull her down. But she was only in her bra and underwear, and Dean seemed to have only just realised. He paused, surprised, but she giggled ruefully and obligingly slid down the length of his body. He was on top of her and suddenly she felt neither sick nor cold. Dean's soul didn't matter, Sam didn't matter, the hunt didn't matter. All that mattered was here, and now, Dean and Jo. It was a feeling of completeness and something in Jo wanted it to stay that way.
Despite the cold Chicago night and the weight of the world that had been unceremoniously tipped on their shoulders, for once in their lives both of them felt a sense of pure, untarnished, undeniable rapture.
THE END