jo harvelle took one for the team. (damnrightreo) wrote in brightlightlogs, @ 2010-02-10 20:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | andrea morgan, dean winchester, jo harvelle-winchester, michael |
Who; Michael, Jo, Dean, Andy; Dean!Michael
What; Saying yes
Where; Zenner Corp Tower
When; A couple hours after this.
Warnings; Epically long and really sad and there's some language and people being thrown about and did I mention the sad?
It had been easy enough, at least minus the guilt that tore at him, to grab Andy's phone before she left his apartment. Easier then to send a text message to Dean's wife under the guise of having information to get her out of the house. Yes, it wasn't playing fair but he no longer had time to play fair. Castiel had done an excellent job making the house inaccessible, tricking Jo had been the only way to get at her, and from what he knew of Dean, she was the only way to force him into saying yes. He rested his arms on his elbows where he sat, across the coffee table from Jo and waited for her to wake up after phoning Dean. She woke slowly, through the haze that still lingered from Michael knocking her out. Her eyes fell on him across from her as she sat up straighter. She was quiet as she watched him for a moment, despite the large amount of language that would more than make a sailor blush that begged to be hurled across the space to him. Her eyes flickered from him to the two phones on the coffee table, she recognized the her own and the one she had bought for Andy. And the gravity of the situation hit her then like a ton of bricks. They were so fucked. "Joanna..." Michael started but before he could finish the thought Jo bolted up off the couch and darted for the door. He was there before she could even reach it, grabbed her by her arms and started to pull her back to the couch. "You bastard," she shot at him as she struggled against his grip, kicking out hard and when that failed she managed to grab her knife from her back pocket and sunk it deep into his arm. She knew it wouldn't do anywhere near the damage it would on a person but it bought her enough of a loosing in his grip that she could slip out and bolt for the door again. Michael easily pulled the knife out of his arm and pushed Jo up against the wall, holding her there as he set her knife down on the coffee table. "There's really no point in trying to run," he assured her. She tried to push against the force holding her to the wall but it was useless and only served to frustrate her more. They'd gotten so far, gone so long without this exact thing happening. And she couldn't help but feel like it was over now, done. She, their children, that was all the leverage the bastard needed against Dean. --- It had been a relaxing, ordinary day -- up until Jo got the message from Andy. For some reason, that had set him on pins and needles, considering that Andy was the loudest voice about all of them staying inside, but Jo had insisted on going alone ('because that damn angel would love a chance to jump you'), and, like an idiot, he'd let her. He'd almost been able to shake the feeling that something was going to go horribly wrong when his phone rang. A quick glance at the display had told him it was Jo, but the voice on the other end was emphatically not his wife. The argument had been quick and terse, Michael managing to get out an address before Dean hung up on him, angry and kicking himself for their own stupidity. But Michael was right, he couldn't leave Jo there. The choice was simple. Hell, there was no choice, and he cursed the whole drive back to the apartments. He thought maybe he should have called someone, had some sort of back-up, but in the end, no. It was pointless. They couldn't even figure out how to kill Lucifer, much less Michael, and Jo's life wasn't something he was willing to risk on a whim. It was luck that he didn't meet anyone in the elevator on the ride up (he couldn't say, honestly, that he wouldn't have shot them out of frustration), and he barely resisted the urge to kick down the door, not when it was easy enough to just open it. --- As Dean walked in Michael looked away from Jo to face him. While he figured Dean might have been expecting gloating, a superior I win sort of attitude there was none. There was no winner in this situation, there never would be. It was not a good thing. It was simply what had to be done. "Hello Dean," he spoke calmly. "I had hoped it wouldn't have come to this," he said and glanced back to Jo against the wall who for her part glanced between Dean and Michael, and if looks could kill on the second one they'd be a hell of a lot better off. --- "Yeah, and I'd hoped you'd go jump off a fucking cliff by now. Guess we're both disappointed," Dean shot back at the archangel, but his eyes were only for Jo, sweeping up and down for any sign of injury. No bruises, no blood -- she probably hadn't been hurt, the realization of which made the tightness in his chest ease, just a little. "You okay?" He had to ask, even as he turned his back on Michael, moving toward his wife. What would the sonofabitch do, kill him? Dean was pretty sure not -- Michael needed him alive. --- Okay was definitely a relative term right then and there. Was she physically okay? Unharmed and more pissed off than hurt? Yeah, she was okay. But she sure as hell wasn't okay with the fact that Michael had them both exactly where they needed them. She nodded slightly, tried to shove down the fear that this could only end in the worst way possible. "Yeah... I'm okay." "Dean.." Michael started, taking a step towards the pair, he let go his hold on Jo, if they tried to run it would be easy enough to stop them. "I am sorry. Believe me, if I had another way, I would take it. But there isn't one. And we are running out of time." He paused for a moment. "I do not wish to hurt her, please do not force me into it." --- "You even think about touching her, and not only do you get nothing from me, I will find a way to kill you. And hell'll seem like a damn pleasant vacation when I'm done with you." From anyone else, it might have been an idle threat, but from Dean, it was a promise, marked with narrowed eyes and a shift in his stance that clearly said 'do not fuck with me'. Alastair may have needed him to draw blood to break the first seal, but the demon certainly hadn't needed to keep him around after the fact. Dean didn't necessarily like that side of himself, but he had accepted it, and he would use it. If Michael made him. --- "I am not afraid of your threats," Michael assured him. He had no doubt Dean could, and would, do exactly as he promised if this did not play out according to plan. But if he failed the torture that Dean could inflict would almost be welcome. "And even if you ripped me apart piece by piece it wouldn't change anything," he pointed out. "Joanna, your children, your brother, everyone you love would be gone. This is why we brought you back Dean, this is why you are here." --- "Yeah? Then maybe you should've just kept me on ice, you ever think about that?" he fired back, raising a brow in challenge. But Michael was unimportant right then. "C'mon, Jo. Fuck this guy." Right. Because it'd be easy to just walk out of there. --- Jo highly doubted they would just be able to walk out the front door but she reached for Dean's hand anyways and moved in that direction. They were both right in their doubts of course and before she could even realize it was happening she was back against the wall by the door. She fought hard against the blackness that threatened from her head hitting the wall as hard as it did and could vaguley see Dean being tossed across the room. "You'll understand why I can't just let you leave," Michael said and moved in closer to Jo now that Dean was across the room. "Is the answer still no?" he asked Dean. "Or does this have to turn messier than it already is?" --- It took him a moment to register that Michael was speaking again -- he'd banged his head when he'd gone flying, and he saw stars, even as he struggled to right himself. "Not only no, but go fuck yourself." Dean didn't respond well to threats, never had, but he couldn't deny that Michael had the leverage, right then. He just tried not to let that show. --- "I had hoped you would have come to see reason, but it appears that's beyond your comprehension," Michael stated. "So the hard way it is," he said as he turned to face Jo and raised his hand. She'd been chocked before, but this was worse. There was nothing she could fight against as the invisible force crushed into her wind pipe. While she logically knew there was nothing there her hands instinctively reached to try to pull away at the hands that should be there. --- "Let her go!" He knew, logically, that a gun shot wouldn't do anything (and could, more to the point, very easily ricochet and hit Jo). It didn't stop him from wanting to reach for the gun, but taking guns out of the equation didn't mean he was unarmed, or helpless. Before he could even think of stopping himself, he was launching his weight at the archangel's back, pulling a knife from god knew where mid-jump. It wouldn't kill Michael (unfortunately), but what he hoped for, right then, was a distraction. --- It definitely did prove to be a distraction and as the blade of the knife sank into his back Michael lost his grip on Jo and then both fell to the ground. Michael side glanced to Dean and reached behind him to pull the knife out. "You'll have to do a lot better than that," he said coldly and stood to face Dean. Jo caught Dean's eye behind Michael and quietly reached for the gun tucked in her jeans under her jacket. She fired off half her clip into Michael's back, hoping it would give Dean a chance to reach her. If they could just keep the bastard down for a few minutes they had half a chance of getting the hell out of there. --- With the bullets flying, and Michael standing in between him and Jo, Dean did the only thing he could: he dove for the floor to avoid getting shot, and tried to make his way around the archangel without getting caught. It was a futile hope, at best, but it wouldn't do any of them any amount of good for him to get shot. Knowing their luck right about then, it'd probably kill him. --- The shots did enough to give Dean the time to cross the room and he barely managed to intercept them from reaching the door to the apartment. But despite the rapid fire damage he was quick enough to grab Jo, knocking her gun to the ground in the process, and hold onto her despite the fight she put up. Michael pressed the blade of the knife he'd taken out of his own back to Jo's neck and kept her between him and Dean. She stopped struggling with the knife at her throat, knowing the wrong move could end very badly. She locked eyes with Dean and tried to silently plead with him to call the bastards bluff on this one. If it was that at all. "Dean..." he started, almost pleading. "There's nothing you can do, continuing to fight me will only end badly." --- "Bullshit. You won't kill her to get me." He was callling the bluff, but he sounded uncertain about that. Angels were dicks, after all, and didn't seem all that concerned with human life. Hell, what was one life in the face of the end of the world, right? Nothing important. He pulled his gun before he could stop himself, but it wasn't Michael he pointed it at. It was himself. "Let her go. Now. She walks out of here, unharmed or you're cleaning brain spatter off the wall, and you still lose." Maybe it was a bluff, maybe it wasn't. But they couldn't overpower him, and his own life was the only amount of leverage he had. --- She struggled at that the panic at seeing the gun against Dean's head, the instinct to stop him from following through on probably the most idiotic plan she'd ever seen. She winced as it only served to have Michael grip her tighter, the blade piercing her skin as she had pushed against it in the desire to just get the fuck away from Michael. "Dean.." she said quietly, her eyes not leaving his face as she was held by Michael. "I'd only bring you back," Michael pointed out once his grip on Jo was secure again. "So how about this... you say yes and your wife and you children walk out of here unharmed and Joanna doesn't have to live with the memory of watching you blow your brains out in front of her." --- "Not gonna cut it, asshole." He was trying, very hard, not to look at Jo. He didn't want to see that look on her face, that goddamn heartbreaking look. But if he could save her life, save their children from growing up in the world that Andy lived in ... well, he had to, didn't he? "She leaves. Then you get my consent. Of the two of us, I trust my word a hell of a lot more than I trust you." Anybody who'd kidnap a pregnant woman as leverage couldn't be trusted. --- She couldn't quite figure out if the words were just some bluff, some game, last ditch effort to try to get out of the situation but they hit her hard either way and she found herself struggling to remember how to breath right then and there for a moment. She was still in the death grip Michael had on her, terrified to move, terrified for this moment to go forward, if he wasn't bluffing than that was it, it was over. And she was nowhere near ready for it to be over. Michael watched Dean closely as he spoke, looking for the bluff, the flicker of hesitation that would give it away, anything really. And for the life of him he had no clue. He kept an arm around Jo but dropped the one that held the knife to her throat and tossed it to the other side of the room. "Loose the gun," he told Dean. He would be willing to consider the offer put forth but the gun still pressed to Dean's forehead made him a little anxious. --- Dean's hand flexed on the gun, almost as if he considered putting a bullet in his skull right then and there, but he didn't, and after a moment, he eased his finger off the trigger, lowered it, and, after another moment of consideration, he holstered it again. (He wasn't quite stupid enough to completely throw it away.) "Now let her go." I give some, you give some. --- Michael nodded and let go of Jo, taking a step back from her. Jo glanced between the two, biting hard on her lower lip. The deal was if she left Dean would say yes, or at least that's what he said. And she was just enough of a stubborn idiot to make that be enough for her to not take a goddamn step. "She's free to leave," Michael said to Dean and shrugged slightly. Wasn't really his fault if she wouldn't. That wasn't part of the deal. --- His attention was all for his wife now and he took a step toward her. "Jo. Please. Just get out of here." But she wasn't moving, and he shot a dark look at the archangel. "You mind giving us a minute of privacy? Jesus fucking christ." Blasphemy, but ask him if he cared. It wasn't like either of them could exactly run if the bastard stepped out into the hall for a minute. --- Michael nodded silently and stepped out of the room into the hall. It was almost a relief to be asked to do so, while they might not think so the entire situation hadn't exactly been easy on him either and the moment to collect himself was more than welcomed. As soon as she heard the door click behind him Jo shook her head, looking up at Dean. "I'm not leaving," she stated pointedly. If leaving meant him saying yes he'd have to drag her out himself. --- "And I don't want you here. Not for this." Oh, to hell with trying to keep his distance. He moved to pull her into his arms, gently smoothing away the drip of blood at her throat with a thumb. "He's an ass and a bastard and about a hundred other things ... but he's not wrong, you know." They'd looked, they'd been through countless sleepless nights, trying to find some answer, but there was none. And it was getting worse out there. Andy came in limping or bleeding every damn night; he knew the Slayers were wearing down; the vampires were the only ones who didn't seem to be showing the wear and tear of it all, but that was only physical. There was no end in sight, and he felt damn useless. "If it's not this, it'll be Lucifer. He'll wear Sam down, and Sam won't even know what's coming. Or he'll just flat-out kill me, and then where will we be?" No better off, that was for sure. --- And that was the real kicker. That he wasn't wrong. That somehow she'd always known it would end like this, no matter how much she wished it could be different. The damn bastard was right, they had brought Dean back and this was why, it didn't matter how much she loved him, how much she wanted that happy ending that would always be just out of her reach, he had never been hers to begin with. She'd put herself right in the middle of some goddamn holy war and if she was honest she'd always known it would end badly, that it was just borrowed time. She slid her arms around him and tucked her head under his chin. She wanted to be selfish and tell the world to fuck off, burn for all she cared if she got to stay right there. "I love you," she said quietly, trying to hide the shake in her voice, the way it didn't even seem like enough. She wasn't sure what would be, what could possibly begin to explain what he meant to her, what the time they had meant to her. --- "I love you." The reply came without hesitation, and he held her tight, shutting his eyes. In a way, he thought, maybe they were lucky. They knew it was coming, so they had their few minutes to say goodbye. It was more than either of them could hope for, given their lives, but it didn't make anything about the situation any easier. "Please go home," he murmured after a long stretch of silence. "I don't ... you don't need to see this." If nothing, he wanted her last memories of him to be of him, not some bastard archangel in a Dean suit. --- She had to bit the inside of her lip at his request to keep from falling apart right there. Go home. It wouldn't ever be that again, not without him. She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat and nodded slightly against his chest before she pulled away just enough to be able to lean up and press her lips to his. She kissed him hard, desperate with everything she had left to give. --- His fingers threaded through her hair as they kissed, hard enough to bruise, and he threw everything he had into it, every bit of love he had for her. "Love you so much," he murmured against her mouth. When the kiss finally broke, he pulled back enough to look at her, really look at her, and he managed a half-hearted smile. "Do me a favor, hm? Don't name either of the kids after me. Or Sammy. They don't need to be cursed." --- She managed one of her own in return, though she had to glance down for a moment when he mentioned names and blink hard against the tears that threatened to fall. "Cronin it is then," she tried to joke. She looked back up at him and pressed one last lingering kiss to his lips. She didn't want to use the word goodbye, it sounded too final, too awful to her right then. "I won't ever regret a single minute of it," she said instead when she pulled away. She knew it would always hurt, she knew it would never be fixed and she would always have a gnawing emptiness where he used to be but she wouldn't take any of it back for anything. She reluctantly pulled herself away from him and walked out of the room, terrified that if she looked back she'd lose any of the resolve she managed to scrape together. Once in the hallway she couldn't even find it to say anything to the damn bastard standing there waiting to destroy their lives. She knew she'd said she'd go home but she got about as far as ten steps down after Michael went back into the apartment before she had to stop and lean against the wall to even keep herself standing. She wrapped an arm around her stomach and slowly slid down the wall to the ground, her body shaking with silent sobs now that she was alone. --- By the time Michael had come back, Dean had found his way over to the couch, sinking down with his head in his hands. Agreement might have meant that he didn't have to fight about it anymore, but somehow, that made it worse. He didn't even bother to look up, knowing that it'd just provoke another argument, shake his resolve. "Yes. Just get it over with." He sounded tired, but there was no fight. He just wanted it done, before he had too much time to think. He moved towards Dean on the couch and knew more than ever that this was not a victory. But it did little to change his mind, he knew too much was at stake. The lives of billions in comparison to this family. He could only hope that Dean, one day, freed from the contract that would have had him hell again, and free from the pain of mortal life would come to see that. He wanted to apologize, to try to assure Dean that he took no joy in doing this. But he knew it would do little good. So instead he nodded slightly. "Thank you," he said before he reached his hand out to touch Dean's forehead. It was never a pleasant thing, moving into a vessel. Not for him and even less for the person who was already in the body. A collision of souls, of minds and personalities. He couldn't imagine how awful it would be to feel your control over your own life being taken from you. There but not at all. The light, were anyone in the room, was enough to burn eyes from sockets, the heat to burn skin, but both bodies were protected by Michael as he switched. It wasn't a long process, only minutes. And as it completed he could feel it, the change, the knowing that his was his true vessel. That this was the body that would allow him to defeat his brother. He did not move to leave through the door, while Castiel's work kept her hidden he knew regardless that Jo would be there. He knew he could do little for Dean but he could honour that he did not want his wife to see him like this. And he knew before he sought out Lucifer he owed it to Dean to take care of his family. It was easy to find Andy, he'd become so used to seeking her out, and he appeared beside her out on the streets. Thankfully she seemed to be alone in that particular area for the moment but he reached for her quickly none the less, before she could realize what had occurred and try to fight him. He reappeared with her in the Zenner building in the elevator bank of the main floor. "Your friend needs you," he told her, unable to look her in the eye right then. --- Andy had barely a second to register the fact that someone had just appeared out of nowhere beside her. Not quite tall enough to be Michael (she'd learned, quite intimately, exactly how she measured up next to him), too light, which left only one, stomach-churning realization. She was okay with being bait, perfectly fine with taking one for the team, but for half a second, believing Lucifer had swept down on her, she froze. It wasn't until they were in the bright lights of the elevator a moment later that she could breathe again, once she saw exactly who she was looking at, and somehow, that made it worse. He'd done it. She didn't know how, or when, but somehow, he'd done it, and that hurt. Knowing that she was looking at a man reduced now to nothing more than a corpse, knowing that somewhere, her best friend was going to have her heart broken, if she hadn't already, to say nothing of her own conflicting emotions. But with Andy, hurt usually came out as anger, and she couldn't have stopped herself from swinging at him if she'd tried. "You're a complete sonofabitch, you know that?" --- He grabbed her arm easily, keeping her from making contact with him. He had been expecting the anger. He knew that he couldn't even hope for her to forgive him for this. What he hadn't been expecting was how much that had hurt. He also knew well enough by now how to push through her anger, how usually it was just a front for something else. And as much as he knew he had to get her upstairs to find Jo there were a few things he needed to do before he didn't have the chance. "Andy.." he started and kept a hold on her arm as he stepped into her. "I know," he told her. He reached his free hand to brush away the hair that had fallen in her face from the outburst. "And I know what you were trying to tell me all along," he paused, his hand lingering on her face. "If it had been you I would have let this world burn." --- She flinched back from him, as far as his hold on her arm would let her go. Which wasn't far enough, not as far as she was concerned. "Don't fucking touch me. I trusted you. They wanted to trust you." She was shouting, and didn't give a damn who heard it, steamrolling right over what he said about the world burning. She didn't want to hear it. Not because she thought it was a lie. Because she knew it wasn't. Michael didn't lie. They couldn't, not directly. --- He wouldn't let go of her, he knew if he did the chances of her staying there were slim to none. And every word she said was more than true and only served to strengthen the guilt he already more than felt. But he also knew he had once chance at this, that he was destroyed no matter which way the fight with Lucifer went. "I'm sorry," he said though he knew it was not enough, not even close. "I never wanted..." he started and placed a hand on her face again, half on her skin, half on the eyepatch that covered her missing eye. He closed his eyes as he focused on the damage. It was a painless thing, he'd been told it tickled a little. He knew it was not even close to enough to make up for the damage he had done. "I need you to do something," he paused, "not for me," he assured her, he highly doubted she would do a thing for him. He pulled off the eyepatch and smiled weakly at her as two perfectly healthy eyes started back at him. "For Castiel." --- It was disorienting, suddenly being able to see. She'd spent more than a decade with what amounted to zero depth perception, learning how to work around that, and for the world to, quite suddenly come snapping into focus, it made the room spin, just a little, and she found herself blinking. The shapeshifter thing might have given her her eye back temporarily, physically, but it had been dead, completely blind, but to be able to see from it ... She had to close that eye to bring his face -- Dean's face -- back into focus. "What?" The word came out far more sharply than she'd intended. He was right, though; in that moment, her anger and her hurt wouldn't have let her do a damn thing for him, but she liked Cas. She respected him. So if it was for him, she felt obligated to listen, at the very least. --- He kept his other hand close but not touching her, prepared to intervene though should the sudden shift in her perception throw her completely off balance. He relaxed slightly when she seemed to find balance for the moment and snapped at him. He let go of her other arm, and pressed his hands together, a glow of sorts emitting from them before he looked back to Andy and nodded towards her hand. When she offered it to him he set in her palm a small unassuming crystal like object. "Please give that to him," he said softly. "It's very important." --- "What is it?" she couldn't help but ask, curiosity getting the better of her as her fingers curled instinctively around the crystal. She looked at it, then looked up at him, trying to ignore the fact that it was Dean's face that Michael was wearing. It didn't work out so well. --- "His grace," he answered her. It had been wrong for him to take it from Castiel to begin with. He knew that now. At least this way it would be returned to who it belonged to, Castiel could choose what he wanted at that point. --- She considered the object a moment longer before tucking it safely away -- down her shirt, where it'd be less likely to get broken or lost. "There's no way of talking you out of this, is there? It's not too late to fix everything." And by everything, she meant Dean. "We'll find another way." --- He shook his head. "No, there isn't," he told her. As sure as he was about not wanting it to be this way he knew it had to be this way. He'd always known. He watched her quietly for a moment, unsure what to say. Much like with Dean he knew anything he did say wouldn't be taken the way he wanted. There was too much anger in the situation for that. "Joanna is upstairs, outside my apartment. You should go," he said instead. --- There were any number of things she wanted to say, and she seemed to struggle for words for a moment. The part of her that was angry wanted to curse at him, call him everything she could think of, and maybe even invent a few new insults; the other part of her, the one she didn't care to explore right then (because, let's face it, it was fucking pointless) wanted to cling to him and beg him to find another way. And not solely because of Dean. In the end, she did neither. "Make it worth it," was what she said, quietly, blinking at him. Really, it was just dust in her eye. (That was bullshit, but she'd deny it until the end.) --- He reached to touch the side of her face again and nodded softly. "I will, I promise," he assured her. He did not take the situation lightly, he understood the gravity of Dean's sacrifice, perhaps more now than ever, he would do everything in his power to make sure it wasn't in vain. He reluctantly dropped his hand and gave her one last look before he turned to walk out of the building. --- She waited until he was gone before she let out the shuddering breath that she hadn't been aware of holding. It ended in a sob, and for a moment, she hated herself for it. But she had a job to do, and though she took a minute to pull herself back together, she managed it, scrubbing a hand across her eyes. She counted to ten, then twenty, giving him time to leave (because she didn't trust herself not to make a fool out of herself), then hit the button for the floor Michael's room was on. Retrieving Jo was the least she could do. --- By the time Andy got there she'd pulled herself slightly together. As far as she was concerned if Dean was even breathing there were options (and even then she knew enough to know while they were options she'd probably be disowned for there were still options past that point). And wallowing in the misery of the situation wouldn't get her anywhere. She took deep, shaky breaths, willing her body to stop trembling. She pulled her knees up under her chin as best she could, a hand still resting over her stomach. Maybe it was too stubborn to think that she would figure something out, that she would not be losing her family over this, maybe it would only set her up for a worse pain later. But right then it was the only thing keeping her close to anything resembling together. She glanced up at Andy with red rimmed eyes when she heard the sound of someone coming towards her. As much as she wanted to just blindly hate the bastard who had done this to her, to Dean, she wasn't an idiot. She kind of wished right then she was, but she wasn't. It hadn't been hard to figure out that something had shifted in Andy over the past little while. And for whatever reason that Jo would probably never understand she knew she wasn't the only one who had lost something right then. So she bit her tongue against the awful things she wanted to say and got to her feet instead. "Let's get out of here." |