Author's Note: Sorry this chapter is short, I promise the later ones will be longer :) The action's gonna start up soon, so be prepared, haha. I'm really excited for this, to be honest. Also, I'm going to post the first chapter to another Dean/Jo fic that I've written soon, so be watching!
Dean's hands were shaking, and he was in the bathroom again. He was crouched, huddled next to the toilet, as if he were going to vomit. He held his head in his hands and told himself that he was stronger than this, stronger than having a panic attack in a cheapo hotel's bathroom, and yet, he was having one.
It was scary. His mind was racing, his heart was going faster, and he couldn't do anything. Castiel had gone somewhere after their discussion, leaving Dean alone to wait anxiously. They'd talked a little bit more, and he'd told Cas about the dream, albeit briefly. He asked about hellhound bites and whether Cas was sure they could send a person to Hell; a few more questions, and then Cas had said he needed to go somewhere.
Dean hadn't been too suspicious, but the angel was taking longer than usual to get back.
All the guilt and the chaos that was filling Dean's brain stabbed at him, giving him a tension headache. He wondered how long it'd been since he'd woken from the nightmare; how long it had been since Sam had left.
Sam, he hoped, would return soon and give him a distraction. He knew he wouldn't freak out this badly if Sam were here. He was the big brother, it was his job to be tough. And Dean was extraordinarily tough; much more than he thought.
Why did I wait this long, why did I wait so long to try and save you, Dean thought over and over again. I didn't even think. I didn't even realize that you couldn't be in Heaven. He rubbed at his mouth, trying to ignore the way his lower lip was wobbling.
When Sam and I talked to Ash, he said he hadn't seen you or your mom. That should've been my first clue. His head nodded involuntarily, repeatedly, like he was agreeing to his faults. He kept thinking of different times where he should've realized, should've seen.
For the first time in a good while, he craved alcohol. No, this wasn't his average, nightly couple-bottles-of-beer-before-I-go-to-sleep thing. This was his crutch. He rocked back and forth, chastising himself for acting like such a baby. What if Sam or Cas came back and saw him like this? He'd feel absolutely ridiculous.
But at the same time, it didn't matter. He just needed to be sure that he could save Jo. He needed it more than he needed a drink. There probably weren't any nearby, and he had a feeling he wouldn't really want to move anytime soon. After all, he was collapsed on the floor in a shite restroom, sobbing but not crying.
Every goddamn thing he'd done. Every single one. It made him sick. He was a louse in Valhalla, a shit stain on the underpants of the world. He rolled his eyes at the analogies, and tried to sit up straighter so he didn't feel like a crackhead cowering in the corner of a whorehouse.
A few more hours passed, and neither Sam nor Castiel returned. Dean started to get antsy. He was able to get up off of the bathroom floor, only to pace back and forth consistently, rubbing his hands together and checking the window every now and then for signs of trouble.
He wasn't going to call Sam, not yet, don't mother your little brother, Dean, just another hour of waiting and then he'd see. He tried to distract himself with the television set that was nailed to its station; Dean had never in fact thrown one out the window, but he knew he'd probably nail his TVs to their spots, too. If someone he knew was a little more hectic than the average bear.
Jo. Joanna Beth Harvelle. She was amongst Dean's biggest regrets. Probably his worst regret, at that. The sweet, scrawny little girl who'd punched him in the nose and held a rifle on him – when he was over a head taller than her and probably twice her weight; the girl who had proven herself time and time again to him, first with her impressive work on the murderer's ghost, then her strength when it captured her. Her willingness to continue the job so that people could live. It was what drove Dean, too. When she got kidnapped by Meg, she hadn't swayed. She'd listened and she'd gotten angry, yes, but she'd patched Dean up all the same, even though he owed her a damn explanation. She'd never really gotten one.
After that, she'd grown up in the few years they'd been apart. She'd become more quiet and reserved, but her spitfire personality still shone through when she was around him and her mom. She'd fought against the demons who weren't really demons. She'd met Cas, and been perplexed over his personality, like any sensible person would. He was an angel, for God's sake, of course she would've been curious.
And, on their last night on earth, she'd shot Dean down. The memory made him smile fondly, but it was a bittersweet smile. She'd gone down fighting, against everyone's warning her to stay away from a hunter's life. She'd saved Dean from the hellhounds, but had ended up getting mauled herself.
And it was his fault.
If he'd been faster, or more clever. Maybe if he'd carried her differently. Maybe there had been a different way than letting Jo and Ellen blow their bodies to bits, just to save the Winchesters.
God, he wanted to die all over again.
He remembered the trail of blood that they'd left behind as he'd carried Jo across the street and into the convenience store. She'd been bleeding so frightfully heavy, but there had to've been a way to save her. There always was. Always.
And now, he thought to himself when his determination rose. Now, I'm going to save you. I can't change it. I can't redo it the right way, but I can do it now.
After Jo and Ellen's deaths, he'd sought to kill Meg for what she'd done. She was responsible for two other hunters' deaths as well, and Dean had blamed her. Although he quit trying to kill her when she proved useful, he was still terribly hateful of the bitch. She'd killed hellhounds once, and it had made him feel weak, to know that someone as ugly as she could fight them off. He and Jo both had been killed by hellhounds. It wasn't fair. He felt like a whiny baby to put it such a way, but it was true.
Knock, knock.
God. Finally.
Dean tried not to rush over to the door, but it unlocked and two men spilled into the room, smelling like breakfast and gas stations. Dean's eyebrows raised as Sam's eyes met his, and then he looked to Castiel. "Where've you been?" he asked, bouncing up and down irritably. He'd been left alone for too long, like a dog.
"I found Sam," Cas replied, as if it was an explanation. Sam mumbled something behind him, having walked towards the small card table. Setting down a brown paper bag and the two coffees he held, he turned to look at Dean again.
"I was doing research at the library," said the younger brother. "Took him a while to find me, I guess."
"Yeah," Dean agreed.
He rubbed his forehead, feeling his fatigue set in. Somehow, even though he'd done virtually nothing for the past ten hours, he felt like he hadn't slept in years. A random snippet of memory went rushing through his head: time passes differently in Hell.
Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the headache that was forming all around his head. Even though he couldn't see Sam, he could tell that Sam's eyebrows were squinched up with his head bent forward when he asked, "Dean, what's this all about?"
Dean opened his eyes and stared at his brother.
"Cas said there was something wrong," Sam elaborated, to which Dean nodded. "Well, actually, he said kind of a lot more than that but it was still very obscure," Sam added, tilting his head and squinting even more at his older brother. Cas walked over to stand by the window behind Sam, but neither of the brothers glanced at him.
"Mmgh," Dean grumbled. "I'm too tired to explain it, okay? I'm gonna catch a few hours' more sleep. It's just, uh, another job that I have to do. And I need Cas to help me."
"Help you do what?" Sam asked slowly, motioning Dean over to the table. Dean went reluctantly, but his eyes lit up when he saw Sam pull six donuts out of the bag. Most of them were pink- or white-frosted and sprinkly, and Dean grabbed the first one he saw right out of Sam's hands.
"Food," he said as he chomped into the pastry. "You'd think I hadn't eaten in years."
"We did have an early dinner yesterday," Sam replied nonchalantly, grabbing a donut of his own and gesturing for Castiel to take one as well. The three sat, two brothers noisily munching away at donuts bought from a gas station, one angel staring perplexed at his before curiously taking a small bite.
Dean rolled the mushy bits of his donut over his tongue, debating whether or not it was a good idea to take a sip of coffee when he still wanted to go to sleep. He wasn't afraid of the nightmare returning, not now, since he had a plan.
The only things he was afraid of were that he might not be allowed Jo's retrieval, or that the next dream would be worse than the last. He'd been spared the horrific sight of what could and would be done in Hell. His brow furrowed as he recalled how it felt to be stripped to the bones of his soul.
"I'm going to go to sleep," he finalized after swallowing the last bit of his breakfast. "I, uh, didn't sleep well."
Sam hurried to swallow the first bite of his second donut as he looked at his brother, his eyes going wide in exasperation. "But you didn't tell me what this job is!"
Dean looked at him. Sam was okay, today. This week. Nothing was going on in his demon-blood-slash-Lucifer's-vessel department. That was a first; at least, the first time since Dean could really remember. A long time.
He started to pace again, slowly. "I'm exhausted, Sam. Exhausted. Just…Cas?"
The angel looked up. "Yes, Dean?"
"D'you think you could fill Sam in while I get some shuteye?"
Castiel nodded, and Dean fell into his bed. Any remains of his sweat-soaked night terrors had dried up. Physically, he felt fine, and it was strange for a moment to think of how that could be when he was so tired, but then he thought of how it was his soul and his mind that were exhausted, more than just his body and muscles.
He fell asleep to Castiel beginning to explain. "Dean woke up five hours ago from a bad nightmare. He didn't tell me the exact occurrences in the dream, but he mentioned that blonde-haired woman, Joanna, and the hellhounds that killed her. He asked me if hellhound bites could send a person to Hell, and then he asked me if that's where Joanna's soul and the rest of your souls were intended to go when Joanna and Ellen died. I answered 'probably' to both, and Dean got very sad. He said that he's going to find whoever he can who he thinks can help him: Crowley, my Father, anyone."
"Dean, this is a bad idea!" Sam hissed, looking exasperated. It was later that night, perhaps around eight o'clock, and Castiel had disappeared with a promise to return in the morning. Dean figured he was out getting information or something. As soon as Dean had woken up, about an hour before, Sam had jumped down his throat about the plan.
Dean turned to Sam, his voice desperate. "You ever heard of necessary evil?"
"Of course I have! But what's dead should stay dead, and I knowyou think so, too! You've said it, Dean-" The younger Winchester's voice hitched and cut off as his brother grabbed him by the shirt. Dean gripped Sam's shirt so tightly that there would certainly be wrinkles afterward, but Sam knew that now wasn't the time to fuss over that.
"Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't do the same thing for Jess," Dean said, his voice low and gruff. "Sammy, I know it's God-awful. I know it's wrong. But look me in the eye and say you wouldn't make deals with the Devil and go to Hell and back for Jess."
"Dean, it's been too long a time for that," Sam said, sighing heavily. He wiped his hair out of his eyes, and with a shaky voice said, "I would do it, if I could. I would've done it then and I'd do it now, but...it's been years, Dean. Jess is in Heaven."
Dean inhaled roughly; something that Sam knew was a masked sob. "Yeah, well, Jo isn't," Dean said after a moment, fighting to control himself in front of his punk little brother. "She's in Hell, Sam, and of all people, she doesn't deserve that."
Tilting his head to the side, Sam watched Dean's face as it contorted, expressing multiple emotions at once: anger, grief, frustration, despondence, hatred, disbelief, despair, longing, guilt. It was all there, open like a book. Lord knew that didn't happen too often, not for Dean.
Slowly, Sam began to nod, his eyes not leaving his brother's face. "This is a bad idea, Dean. You know the risks."
Dean nodded, avoiding his brother's eyes as he let Sam go. Licking his lower lip, turned around and let his fingers find the gun that was placed brazenly on his bed. Should clean it, he thought.
"It's…foolish of you to even consider that things will go your way," Sam continued, trailing a little after Dean. But Sam also knew that his brother wouldn't give up, wouldn't rest until Jo was safe in his arms. Sam knew what that kind of love felt like; what it could do to a human being. Sam remembered Castiel explaining that Dean had described this mission as 'pulling a fast one on Perdition.'
"I know, Sam," Dean replied tiredly. His shoulders were hunched but not in defeat, and when Dean turned his head to look to the side, Sam saw that his jaw was set in defiance. When Dean got determined, he wouldn't quit. This was a stupid enough idea that Sam could barely believe Dean was the one who came up with it; Sam felt as if it were only he himself who could think up such a thing, and have Dean chew him out for it later, after the plan failed. Dean didn't make these kinds of mistakes. Not without a damn good hope for success. And that was reason enough. I'd follow you into Hell, Sam thought, pursing his lips.
So Sam nodded, and said, "What can I do to help?"