Dean lifted the beer he first opened three years ago to his lips, and it was still cold.
His life hadn't consisted of much picnic table sitting, and he had recognized the location where he had been dropped immediately. He was at a campground pavilion in River Pass, Colorado, and if he reached in his pocket right now… He did so and pulled out War's ring. He twirled it in his fingers and then pocketed it again.
Ma'at had sloughed him back where he and Sam had found Rufus, Ellen, and Jo fighting the first Mac Daddy of the Apocalypse; luckily the goddess had the good sense to drop him after the fight. He remembered the first time he sat here. Sam had just confessed he could no longer hunt, and like a damn fool, Dean had let him go, watched him hitchhike away as if there was a such thing as a break from watching Sammy. The first time Dean had sat at this picnic table, he had been scared to death about the impending Apocalypse. Lucifer was loose, Castiel was looking for God, and Sam was still jonesing for demon blood.
Now he was thinking about the future the freakin' Egyptian goddess had jerked him away from. Cas freed Leviathans, broke Sam's head, and then died, and he had no way of going more than two hours without drinking liquor. He'd been trying to hide that - just like he'd been trying to hide a lot of other things from Sam, like how he'd killed his monster-buddy, Amy. But Dean knew he was about to graduate from the John Winchester School of Drinking. The markers were all there: the pale face, the dark circles, the creeping flaccidity of his body.
He reached down under his coat and pinched his own side. No flesh pulled away from the taut frame. Ma'at had put him back in his 2009 body, which had been a little leaner and meaner than the one he packed today.
Dean squinted up at the sun and tried to decide if he should be panicking. Should he be praying to Castiel for help to get him back to the present? Was Sam going to be scrambling everywhere, looking for him?
Instead of panic, he still felt the edges of that artificial calm the goddess had laid on him. It was like really good dope; it had settled him right out.
Maybe instead of panicking and trying to get home, he should use this opportunity to fix everything. Knowing what he knew now, he could change so much. Maybe he could even protect all the people he loved from all the bad shit coming their way. Maybe he could keep Sam out of the cage, keep Cas from going off the rails, keep Ellen and Jo from being anywhere near Lucifer, keep himself from mixing Lisa and Ben up in everything… He had a whole lot he could fix.
Maybe.
That one stupid, hopeful little word galvanized him, and he stood up. If 2009-Dean had been sent forward to see Leviathans, a broken Sam, and a dead Cas, he would have done anything to come back here and change that future. There was no reason he couldn't do the same thing.
A tinny sound rang from his pocket, and he reached in to pull out a flip phone. Ellen Harvelle's name flashed on the pixelated screen. He tried to remember what Ellen had called about after the demon business in River Pass, tried to remember if this phone answered automatically if you opened it or if you had to press a button.
"Funny what we forget," he muttered as he flipped it open and put it to his ear. "Hey Ellen."
"Boy, I know you didn't think you were just going to leave without telling me what the hell just happened."
His intestines actually clenched inside of him at the sound of her voice. That voice, so brusque and no-nonsense, could not cover its own affection and concern. In the middle of the Apocalypse, she was checking on him as much as she was trying to help him save the world.
Dean remembered now that he had blown Ellen off the first time they had this conversation. His brain had been racing, and he had been trying to ignore the growing black hole inside him, the darkness that always filled him when Sam was gone. This time, he tried a different approach.
"I'm not going anywhere yet. I just had to see Sam off. Then I was planning on coming back into town to check in with you."
"Where's Sam headed?"
"Just needs a little air."
"I saw the way he acted scared of his own shadow. You're making the right call giving him a little break," Ellen said. She paused for a second, coughing a smoker's rattle, and then continued, "So why don't you head back into town and meet us at Dirk's? It's a bar and grill at the end of Main Street. Pretty good burgers and a round on me."
In 2009, he would have said no. Today, he tried another approach.
"See you there."
He hung up and walked back to his Impala. Running his hand along the hood, he noticed his ring catching the light. It had only been a couple years since he had taken it off, tired of cutting himself opening beer bottles and getting it snagged during grave digging, but he felt like a different person. He barely knew the man who had worn his mother's resized wedding ring to stay connected to her. Much like the tribal charms and bracelets he used to wear, it had stopped having any metaphorical magic for him with every passing year. Hope really didn't spring eternal.
He got into the Impala and tried not to think about the other half of that "us" Ellen had just used. He was very used to trying not to think about Jo.
In the year after losing Sam, he had woken up in the middle of the night every night with a different fear, a different name on his lips. Most often, it was Sam's, and then he could talk to Lisa, who woke up with a mother's intuition at the slightest disturbance. She would listen, hug, soothe, and sometimes screw, whatever it took to get him back on his feet for the day.
When it had been Jo's name on his lips, though, he had told Lisa to go back to bed, walked downstairs, and poured himself a drink. He'd watched more than a few sunrises thinking about her and reliving the day he failed her. When the hellhound had gotten hold of him that day, his fear had been enough to loosen his bowels because he knew just how unbelievable the pain was about to be. He had known Hell before.
Jo, too ignorant and reckless to be afraid enough, had charged back to save him instead of running. She had charged backwards before his own brother had been able to force himself to turn around. And in that moment of courage, she had traded her life for his, whether she meant to or not. He had relived her death so often that he could tell it down to the last detail, from the temperature of her clammy hand on the detonator to the smell of burnt rubber and chemicals after the explosion.
He hadn't needed Osiris to tell him he was responsible for Jo's death, and seeing her ghost - if that had even really been her ghost - couldn't change that. About the only thing that could change it was not letting it happen again.
He drove across town, cranking up the Black Sabbath in the tape deck. Main Street looked different than it had a few hours ago - or from Dean's perspective, a few hours and a few years ago. People were starting to emerge from the nightmare and try to find life. He saw a couple walking together, clinging tightly to one another's hands. He saw a group of men with trash bags, picking up refuse along the sidewalks. These people were going to move on; they were going to bury their dead and wonder how to find normal in a world that could never believe what they had been through.
If Dean knew anything about people, he knew that on a night like that, the local bar would be packed.
He pulled a left into the parking lot behind the neon sign that glowed "D_rk's" and almost chuckled. Could it be a small-town dive if it didn't have letters out on the sign? Did the owners actually buy them that way just to make sure patrons knew they were welcome in their work boots and flannel?
Sure enough, he was right about Dirk's being busy. He recognized survivors from both fronts of the misguided war, and several people recognized him right back. He got claps on the shoulder, a couple thanks, two promises for beers-on-them and one inquiry about his brother before he made his way to the bar. The woman behind it had a rack on display that made his inner twelve-year-old jump for joy, but when she spotted him, she didn't smile.
"Hi." He tried his charming voice. "I'm looking for Ellen and Jo."
"There's no Ellen or Jo working here," she said, raising both eyebrows.
"Ellen and Jo were rallying the troops around here this week," he replied. "Thought they might be local celebrities since I was getting high fives and have been here less than 24 hours."
"I was hiding under my bar most of the last week and a half." She shot him a look that dared him to criticize that. Then she picked up a rag and started aggressively wiping glasses. Dean figured it was not a good time to point out that the semi-clean rag was for wiping the bar, not the glasses.
"Are you Dirk?" The question popped out before he could stop it. She looked at him for five long seconds, and he watched her face smooth over when she realized he was not about to bust her chops for not picking up a weapon and facing down demons.
"My father was Dirk. I'm Meredith." The smile he had expected when he first approached appeared now.
"Hi Meredith," he said. He turned on his charmer's smile. "It was great of you to open up and give everybody a place to drink tonight. Have you seen a redheaded woman, early 40s, and a blonde, early 20s, who you don't know?"
Meredith nodded. "Yeah. They took a booth over there in the back. Bought a bottle of whiskey and ordered three bacon cheeseburgers."
"My girls," Dean mumbled approvingly under his breath before saying, "Thank you, Meredith."
"No problem. I'll be here all night." He did not imagine the flirty wink she tossed his way. He headed to the back of the room. When he spotted the booth, he saw Ellen facing out, two backpacks stacked in the seat beside her. She was wearing an old button-down that had to have belonged to her late husband, and she was smiling as she talked to the other side of the booth.
His feet felt heavy as lead. He swallowed hard before taking the last couple steps needed to reach them.
"You stupid or something? Get over here and take a seat, boy," Ellen greeted. She seemed oblivious to the fact that he could not make himself turn his head to look at Jo. If he saw her, he was scared of what his face would reveal and even more scared of what his insides would do. He stood still a beat too long.
"You can pull up a chair if you'd rather."
Jo's voice tugged at some invisible strings inside of him, and he turned to look at her. He had remembered her prettier than she actually was. A crown of frizz framed her pale face, and her features were narrower and sharper than he remembered, her lips slimmer, her eyes smaller. His memory could not have conjured up that look she gave him now, though, lips curving up at the corner and brown eyes twinkling a little. She tilted her head sideways, giving him a slightly amused and confused expression. He shook his head to clear out the thoughts he didn't have time to deal with.
"Jo." He let her name be a greeting and heeded her suggestion that he pull up a chair rather than squish into the booth beside her. He pulled it up backwards and settled on it, putting his arms on the back. Stupid as it sounded, it felt good just to look at the two women in front of him. They were alive, Cas was alive, and Sam would detox from demon blood before you knew it. This year was better in retrospect.
"How about we swap some stories and drink some whiskey?" Dean reached for a shot glass and tipped the bottle over to fill it up.
"Only if you start. What's going on out there?" Ellen pushed her glass towards him. He filled it up too and then reached over for Jo's. She might as well get ready to knock some back too. If he was going to keep them from wondering why the heck he wasn't more bedraggled and hopeless, they were going to have to drink like it was the end of the world or something.
And drink and swap stories they did. Over the next two hours, they ignored the rest of the bar; its patrons moved from quietly processing their ordeal to celebrating still being alive.
Dean offered honesty he would have ordinarily denied, talking frankly about needing to help Sam kick his addiction and about Bobby's recovery and adjusting to a wheelchair. Ellen approved in a blunt, straightforward way. She nodded along with his statements and told her own stories, explaining how she and Jo had been taking on demons together for the last couple months. Jo spoke up more than she used to around her mom, less self-conscious, not a kid evading a parent anymore but a young woman who could have camaraderie with her mother. She also destroyed her burger and knocked back her whiskey with the ease of any hunter, man or woman.
Dean felt a strange sense of pride settle into his bones. He couldn't believe he hadn't taken the time the first time around to see the kid had grown up. He had been too busy watching his little brother back then, also refusing to see that Sam was grown up. Until he had seen his brother take on the Devil and win, Dean had still been raising Sammy.
Under the pride, something else ran through him: an awareness of how she looked at him. Osiris has referred to her feelings for him, and she had flinched, not wanting to risk making Dean guilty in trial. But Dean had always known she harbored a crush. If pressed, he might have even said "What's not to like?" about himself with a cocky grin. Since her death, he had seen it the way he first had - a girl putting music on the jukebox and making eyes at him - and had conveniently forgotten that same girl putting a shotgun in his back and shooting down his pickup lines. Her eyes sparkled his way, but her tongue cut quick and her sass rivaled anyone's. There was no hero worship here, and that thought changed the way he had framed her in his mind.
Apparently John Winchester's drinking wasn't the only thing he had inherited; he also came by the revisionist history gene too.
"So you think you can beat this thing because you've got a Horseman's ring in your pocket and six shots of whiskey in your veins?" Ellen was saying. Dean nodded, half-smiling as he thought of the three years worth of knowledge and motivation he couldn't mention.
"Oh, don't forget an 80's tape collection and a whole lot of flannel shirts," Jo added. Though she was speaking to her mother, she had her eyes on him, and the healthy, red-blooded appreciation in that gaze kicked up his pulse. Jo knocked back another shot, and Dean glanced over to see Ellen seeing just exactly that. He realized he had scooted all the way up to the table and was leaning toward Jo's side. He pushed his chair back an inch or two
"And a GED and a give-'em-hell attitude," he continued. He didn't smile as he went on, "But yeah, we're going to beat this thing. Not tonight. But we're going to."
"You Winchesters always seem to find a way." Ellen nodded. She slid across the booth and stood up. "Alright, Jo. Let's get out of here before they cut up that damn country music any louder. I need some shut eye."
Dean looked over at Jo and saw her face fall. She tried not to look at him, but he knew she wasn't ready to go. She had missed him - hadn't really seen him in a real long time - and God knows, though Jo certainly didn't, he had missed her in ways she couldn't imagine. He wasn't quite ready to let her out of his sight for fear that this living Jo would be replaced again by all those dark memories.
He was half-afraid if he stopped looking at her, he would be back in the motel room while her ghost held a lighter over the gas.
Just when he was about to open his mouth and suggest she stay, she turned to her mother.
"I'm going to hang with Dean a little longer, Mom. We're going to catch up."
Ellen frowned. "We just did."
Jo ignored the warning in Ellen's voice. "I'll catch a ride back to the motel. It's just outside of town."
They stared each other down, protective mother bear versus precocious cub. Dean felt an unfortunate surge of jealousy; his parents had never gotten the chance to try their hands at basic parenting crap like this. No one had ever told him he couldn't stay out late and have a few more drinks.
Kicking himself for daring to get in the middle, he said, "I'd be happy to give you a ride."
Jo smiled at him with enough gratitude to undo his concern at the vein pulsing on Ellen's temple. She reached over, fingers ghost-light, and touched his hand. He jolted.
"Fine. You're a grown woman, Joanna Beth, and you can stay out drinking with a man if you want." Ellen dragged those words out with enough hot sarcasm to burn a match.
"Not like that, Mom." Jo sounded slightly embarrassed.
"Yeah, not like that, Mom," Dean muttered, earning himself a smack upside his head.
"Don't sass me, Dean Winchester. She'd better be in our motel room, safe and sound, by morning, y'hear me?"
He nodded. "I won't let anything happen to her."
The words felt good coming out of his mouth, and he prayed he could make them true long-term. Ellen left without goodbyes, though she gave Jo's hair an affectionate tousle before paying at the bar and leaving.
Uncomfortable silence descended at the table. Dean considered a few different fronts for conversation, but nothing came to mind. They'd already crash-coursed the Apocalypse, caught up on mutual friends. Jo seemed equally at a loss. They sipped rather than shot back their whiskey now, and Dean tried to pretend he wasn't hearing Willie Nelson on the jukebox. The distinctive nasally whine made him want to shoot out the nearest speaker.
"Favorite song?" Jo broke the silence. Her voice blurred the words together just enough to reveal her buzz.
"What?"
"What's your favorite song?" Jo leaned on the table, elbows first. "I was going to start by telling you mine, but I'm stuck between two, so you'll have to go first."
"What the hell?"
"I'm making conversation, Dean. Damn it. Just answer the question. If we don't talk, I'm going to keep drinking, and I'm already not sure my legs will hold me if I try to stand up."
Dean smothered a smile at the ridiculousness but considered the question. "It's a tie. Do I have to pick one?"
"Yeah." Her warm eyes twinkled at him. "Pick."
"'Ramble On,' Led Zeppelin. You?"
"Not this shit." She giggled and pointed to the ceiling speaker. Then she seemed to really consider the question. "I really can't decide. Do I have to pick one?"
He didn't know why her repeating his exact question made him smile, but she touched his hand again as she asked. The pressure of her fingers on his barely registered, though, because at that exact moment, she reached up to rub the side of her neck, hair falling back to reveal a length of milky-white skin. The heat shot through him as he wondered what would happen if he leaned in and kissed her, right there above her collarbone.
He jerked his hand away from her and buried that thought.
"No. Tell me both."
"Well, my daddy used to play 'The Weight' a lot. Y'know, 'take a load off, Fanny'? He could play it on guitar, and he'd put it on in the Roadhouse and spin Mom around." She paused and ran a finger through a drop of whiskey on the table.
"And I love 'Burnin' for You' too." She leaned towards him, and the whiskey in his veins whispered to him that she smelled good. "No good story for that one."
"Blue Oyster Cult's just that good," he said.
"Blue Oyster Cult's just that good," she agreed. That smile slipped back onto her face, and he looked at the empty glasses, the mostly empty bottle of Evan Williams, and back to her. A bad idea tickled at him, the kind of idea born out of alcohol and longing and relief and a whole other mix of emotions. Somewhere a couple years from now, an Egyptian goddess probably thought he was saving the world, but instead, he stood up.
"I'm going to go take a piss," he said. He got up and went to the bathroom to do just that, but when he got out, he let his bad idea lead the way to the jukebox. A place like this had to have The Band on tap. He rummaged through the pockets of his cargo jacket and managed to come up with a quarter.
The opening notes of "The Weight" started as he got back to the booth. He stripped off his jacket and tossed it on top of her backpack. She gave him a confused look, pushing a chunk of blonde hair behind her ear. Instead of explaining, he held out his hand.
"It's your favorite song, right?"
"Definitely top two." She took his hand, and he tried not to feel whatever that damn smile of hers made him feel.
Dean had no idea what he was doing. He was not the kind of guy who put music on the jukebox and asked a girl to dance, no matter how much he'd had to drink. After all, he wasn't a high school senior. Even as a high school senior, he hadn't been someone to pull cheesy crap like this. But she had been sitting there, looking at him like he hung the freakin' moon, and he had just known he could make her smile like that if he did something stupid like this.
He pulled her out onto the makeshift dance floor where other couples had been dancing badly all night and ignored the fact that he was a terrible dancer. One hand on her waist, the other wrapped around hers, he let them fall into the rhythm of the song. She let him have the position for a few seconds before correcting his hand, sliding it from waist to hip, and grinning at him.
"We can be a little less formal."
As they danced, she began to sing, murmuring along with every word of the song. She knew words he didn't, and he really listened to the words themselves for the first time. Hearing it in her voice gave it a meaning he had never heard in it before.
"Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee?"
He said, "Do me a favor, son. Won't you stay and keep Anna Lee company?"
Dean wondered if she thought she was singing to him, asking him to let her carry part of the load. He remembered when Sam had been possessed. After being held hostage and digging a bullet out of Dean's arm, Jo had still asked to come help him find his brother, and he had blown her off. Leaving her behind had been smart, but he knew it had hurt her. He knew how she felt about him, then and probably now, and he knew that dancing with her like this was not helping. But then he felt the warmth of her pressed against him, smelled the citrusy tang of her hair, and he knew he wasn't about to let her go just on principle.
The song ended, and the Jukebox went back to country, kicking up some hard-drinkin' George Strait song he had never heard before. Her fingers tightened around his hand, and she leaned into him, female softness against male hardness. For a second, he had to remind himself that she was Jo Harvelle and not someone he needed to be putting any moves on.
"You want to go sit back down?" He asked
"Are you kidding? This is my third favorite song." Her mouth quirked at the corner, and he chuckled.
"Sing it to me then. If you like it so much, you must know the words," he teased, just to keep her in his arms a little longer. Maybe he was lonely, maybe he just needed a few minutes with a skin-mag to get all this out of his system, or maybe she really did feel just right tucked in against him.
Jo obliged, spinning out lyrics involving cowboys, dead dogs, boots, tight jeans, beer, and every other country cliche she could think of. She drew out the vowel in her closing "y'all" so long that she turned his smile into a laugh. By the time the song ended, the alcohol she'd downed had taken full effect, and she had that sweet drunken clumsiness starting to kick in. She let him keep a hold of her hand to steady her as they walked back to the booth and sat down.
"I probably shouldn't let you have another drink," he said. "You'll want to sleep with me."
If he expected his comment to create a pretty blush and some stammering, he was barking up the wrong tree. Instead, she met his teasing head-on, honed from years of bartending.
"I'll risk it." She grinned and grabbed the bottle of whiskey. "You've been wanting to sleep with me for years, so the worst this whiskey can do is make us break even."
"Oh really? You're really going to pretend you don't want to sleep with me too?" He cussed himself up and down internally, knowing all too well that Jo was not going to miss that last word. Both of her eyebrows shot up, and she bit down on her lower lip, trying not to laugh at him. He ignored the images that shot through him.
"Too? I rest my case." Her smile faded away, and she looked down at the scant amber liquid in the bottle. "Now if you'll stop being judgmental, I'm going to have one last shot because it feels good to forget these last few days ever happened."
She put the bottle to her lips and knocked back the rest of the whiskey. She put it down slowly and propped her elbows on the table, putting her chin on her hands. Dean reached into his pocket for his keys. If the drowsy quiet settling over Jo was any indication, he would be taking her home in just a minute. Drunkenness had a way of tipping from fun to melancholy in an instant. The change in her brought about an equal change in him. He went from trying not to notice her legs in those tight jeans to trying not to reach out and pull her into his chest where he could keep her safe.
Again, he acted on neither one. He wasn't here for this. The best way to keep her safe was to stay focused on the business at hand.
"It's been awful here, Dean," she said, her voice so quiet now he had to lean closer to hear her. "I mean, I've been hunting for a while now - demons even, not just ghosts and shit - but these weren't demons and hunters squaring off. These were regular people trying to figure out what to do to stop demons, and they were killing each other. And that was bad enough. But now…"
Jo grimaced and rubbed her hands over her face.
"Now I know they were just shooting their friends and neighbors. I watched a man slit his neighbor's throat, and now I know there was no demon in there. That's what an Apocalypse looks like, isn't it? It's not demons and Hell. It's just chaos."
Dean remembered what loomed ahead of them if he could not stop it. Famine and Pestilence turned people into monsters, slaves to impulse and victims of disease. Angels and demons alike would die inside of powerless human vessels. He himself would create a bomb to blow up the woman sitting in front of him. Chaos wasn't a bad word for what he had seen.
The stark image of 2014 as Zachariah had shown it to him bubbled back up. He supposed that future was back on the table again now that he was back in 2009. That had also been chaos. Jo understood Apocalypse better than most people who had lived it.
He twirled a shot glass on the table and tried to figure out what he was supposed to say to her. Practicality seemed like the way to go.
"You having nightmares?" He asked.
"No." He waited her out, and she finally shook her head. "I'm not having nightmares because I can't sleep."
He knew what it felt like to sit awake, battling all the shit you'd seen in your own head, the one place you had no chance of beating it. This time, he reached over to touch her hand as if somehow that could offer some sort of antidote.
"Tonight might be different. You've had a lot to drink, and it's over for now."
"Nothing's over, Dean. We've faced down one of the four Horsemen, and we barely got lucky enough to get out of that one alive."
Now he did know what to say. "Listen, Jo. You work one case at a time. You've been working a demon case in River Pass, Colorado. Turned out to be War. Doesn't matter. Either way, you've cleared this case. Tomorrow you're gonna pack up and hit the road again."
"But…"
"No. Tonight's the night to get your sleep. Don't let a case that's finished give you nightmares."
If that wasn't the best damn advice he had ever given and never taken, he didn't know what was.
"Do you ever have nightmares?"
He wanted to nod and tell her exactly what nightmares had kept him up at night the past couple years, but instead, he shook his head and pushed back his chair.
"No. Because I follow my own advice." He stood up before she got smart enough to call him on his bullshit. "I'm going to go pay and then get you back to the motel."
Dean walked across the bar to see Meredith still slinging shots and cleaning glasses. Her chest again deserved a second look, and he couldn't resist peeking down as he caught her attention. Everyone seemed to have gotten drunk enough now to forgive her not fighting with them, and if the overflowing tip jar was any indication, they had also gotten drunk enough to lose interest in material wealth. Dirk's was making a killing tonight.
"Hey Meredith. I'm ready to close out." He flashed her his characteristic smile, and she smiled back. She grabbed his bar slip and motioned him down to the register. Glancing back at Jo to make sure she was okay, he followed to see Meredith punching numbers into the register.
"Y'know I was hoping she was your little sister when you first went over there to sit down earlier." Meredith didn't look up as she accepted his credit card - a Mr. James Reston - and swiped it through the machine.
"Yeah?" The word came out as more of a noncommittal sound than actual question.
"Yeah. We don't get many men as good-looking as you around here, and honestly, I enjoy being the cliche slutty bartender." She slid him the receipt to sign, and her eyes still held a question. Dean knew that if he wanted to, he could take her home tonight. Her offer was still sitting on the table. She might be expecting to be denied, but she wanted a yes. He scrawled out a sideways cursive-like blob on the receipt.
"She's not my sister," Dean started to deliver it like a line, getting ready to add a 'but' on the end of it. Then he looked back over at Jo. At the same moment, she looked over at him, and the contemplative expression on her face melted into something else. She gave him a tiny wave that said 'Whatcha looking at?', but the smile that appeared had no guile. He turned back to Meredith and shrugged, taking away his line.
"Guess not," Meredith put the receipt in the cash register and handed him his copy. "Thanks for coming in tonight, James."
"It was nice meeting you, Meredith."
He walked back over to the booth. It was amazing the difference ten minutes and one more shot of whiskey could make in a person. Jo's eyes had gotten glassier, her smile looser, and when he got close enough, she reached out to touch his arm, pulling herself up. When she rose, she fumbled. His childhood training kicked in, and he braced himself to catch the weight of a drunk, but Jo weighed a lot less than John Winchester. She folded against his side, head resting somewhere between armpit and chest. His arm fit around her so naturally and easily he hardly realized he had moved it.
"There you go. I've got you," he said, reaching down with the other hand to grab their coats and her backpack.
"I didn't suddenly become five because I've had too much to drink. My legs are just the first thing to give out on me." She sounded petulant, and he stifled a laugh as he glanced down at her watching her own feet stumble. Her drunken state had tipped again from melancholy back to funny. Maybe not funny to her, he would admit, but amusing for him.
"I'm sorry for treating you like a kid, big girl. You want me to let you walk on your own?" He half-carried her to the door and resisted the urge to let go of her. She giggled.
"No, I kinda want you to carry me instead." She turned her nose sideways into his chest and breathed in. "You smell good."
"I probably smell like sweat."
She shook her head, nose still pressed into his chest. "You smell like sweat and deodorant and maybe some blood."
"World's best cologne," Dean muttered to himself. She didn't hear him, and he guided her out to the Impala. She managed to open the door and slide into the seat on her own, and that would have been good enough for him except that she started fumbling above her right shoulder.
"What are you doing?"
"Looking for the seatbelt." She turned her head now to look up at the corner in agitation.
Dean shook his head. "Damn it, woman. This is a car, not a pansy-wagon. I'm not going to crash."
"I always wear my seatbelt because cars are a stupid way to die."
"You're a… stupid way to die," Dean groused under his breath but reached over her to grab the lapbelt clip and put it in her hand. He spoke louder now so that she could actually hear him. "Go crazy. Here's the seatbelt."
She fumbled to put it in. Being drunk and working by the dim light of a street lamp a few yards away was not a winning combination. He watched her biting her lower lip, wearing the soft flesh out in her teeth, and a surge of heat shot through him for about the hundredth time that night. She was killing him with this lip-biting habit.
Once she had successfully buckled, he was grateful to shut the door and walk through the brisk air to the other side of the car. It was bad enough he had just lost track of time and spent hours drinking and dancing with her; he didn't need to lose sight of what mattered.
He got behind the wheel and started her up, listening to his engine purr. In 2009, his last Impala rebuild wasn't that far behind him, and she sounded good. He backed out of the parking space and started driving. He had seen the town's only motel, just outside of the limits, on his way in earlier. Vacancy probably wouldn't be a problem under the circumstances, especially since he only needed a single. He wondered where Sam had gone that night, the first one, because wherever it had been, that was where he was now.
Though it was only a few miles, Jo slept for most of it. Dean realized she had fallen asleep against the window when he heard the first small snuffles of her snoring. Her sleep sounds had nothing on the bear-like cacophony his brother could create from the passenger seat, but the sight of her face pressed against the window, mouth a little open and hair mussed around her face, sent the same spread of warmth across his chest. He cut the radio on low.
He hooked a right at the motel sign. The glowing beacon had all of its letters, but otherwise fulfilled all the expectations of a cheap, small town hotel. Overgrown bushes replaced what was probably meant to be landscaping, and old beer cans littered the parking lot. Ellen's battered pickup truck matched the general aesthetic. He pulled in beside it and put his Impala in park.
Jo let out a snore that sounded more like a snort. He reached over to touch her arm, and she turned towards him without opening her eyes. The radio kicked up the first notes of The Rolling Stone's "Wild Horses," and Jo smiled drowsily.
"I love this song," she mumbled.
"You love a lot of songs, Pamela Des Barres," he replied. "We're here. Can you walk yourself inside?"
"If I say no, will you help me?" The crooked smile that accompanied her words turned them from flirty to funny, and he found himself nodding even though her eyes were closed.
"I'll help you either way. Hang on."
He cut the radio off just as the Stones sang "You know I can't let you slide through my hands" and walked around the other side. Jo grabbed onto his arm and pulled herself up, giving him another lecture on how she was a mature adult and not a child even as she refused to pull out her room key.
"I've hidden it somewhere very mysterious," she crooned.
"Real mature, Jo." He fished in the pocket of her jacket and found it immediately. "You've got to walk in here yourself or your mother is going to kill me. Saving you from demons isn't going to matter if she realizes how drunk I let you get."
"I'm 24, Dean. You didn't let me do anything."
"I'm a decade older than you."
"A decade? Quit being melodramatic." She cocked her head back to look at him. "Have you even turned 30 yet?"
Dean realized his own mistake and covered with a laugh. "Whatever, kiddo. I'm the boss, and I say you're going to have to walk in there by yourself."
"No problem, boss." She replied coyly, and just like that, his skin prickled. There was nothing like the mouth of a pretty girl calling you boss, even sarcastically. "I'll see you in the morning. When you call me and let me know how we're going to kick this Apocalypse in the ass."
She turned the key in the door and let it open a crack. Calling her in the morning was a bad idea. No matter how much he thought she and Ellen might help, he knew he shouldn't have her anywhere near this fight. He needed to keep her safe. "I'm not going to have your blood on my hands," he had once told her, and this time, he wanted that to be a promise he kept.
"Call me in the morning, Dean?" She repeated it as a question, a hard edge creeping into her voice in spite of all the alcohol swimming in her system.
"Sure, Jo. I'll call you in the morning."
He didn't mean it, and she didn't look like she believed him as she walked inside and shut the door behind her.
Trying to push her out of his mind, he headed toward the front lobby to check himself in, so he could get started. He had a long night ahead of him, and it was already 1 a.m.