Dean Winchester (rambledon) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2013-07-15 01:21:00 |
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Jo was behind the bar at Sam’s. She liked the Sunday night shift. Sometimes new people showed up down there and she could offer them a drink, and help them sort their brains out. Or just give them another drink. It really depended on the person at the time. Daryl she’d given a few drinks to then went to the gym with. Rick she’d given a drink to and talked with. It was all about reading the moods and as a good bartender, Jo was great at reading moods. She was also good at making drinks and figuring out what she needed to make someone’s mood better. If it was turning the place into a Tiki Bar or mixing up a special drink, she’d do it. Despite the fact inside she was still broken. First she’d had an awkward outing with Daryl. Then Meg showed up. Then Tony Stark’s place in Malibu was destroyed, with him going MIA and Ms. Potts being taken. And Dean was gone again. Her nightmares were back in full force, and she could feel the nonexistent scars across her stomach. She knew they weren’t there but she could feel them. Phantom pain. Her week had been rough, sure she was alive and that was better than it could be, but things were... a mess, in her own life and the world, and she couldn’t fix it all. So she was managing the only way she knew how - shove it down deep and ignore it. So here she was, at work, with a big ole smile plastered on her face that never reached her eyes. There were a few origami paper umbrellas still left over from the other night, and she was currently wiping down the bar counter, having piled the little umbrellas into a cup. Jo was in a pair of blue jeans, a wrapped chocolate top, knee high brown boots . Her blonde hair is in loose curls, and down tonight, she didn’t feel like pulling it back, although she made the effort to put makeup on - dark eyes and black nail polish with flecks of glitter on them that catch the light when she moves her hands. She was using her eyeshadow to let out how she was feeling - it wasn’t like she could be mopey at a bar. It was bad for business after all. Jo leaned over to grab a glass of water and looked up as she did so, almost dropping the glass as she saw what she thought was a familiar face walk through the people. New York City. There were too many people here. Even in this tower, which was apparently his home now, there were too many people, and strange ones at that. He felt his pockets, checking for his knife, but it was gone. He'd lost it in Purgatory, along with Benny and Cas and all semblance of sanity. He just couldn't believe that one moment they were fighting tooth and nail, trying to get to the portal, and then he was here. Wherever here was. New York City. Potts Tower. Sam's Bar & Grill. He pushed through the crowd of people, looking for somewhere to be alone. Fortunately, Sam had kept his clothes. He'd needed them. When he'd come through the Tesseract, he had been covered head to foot in mud, ragged and exhausted. Now, though, he wore the usual plaid and jeans, a reminder of home, even if this wasn't home. He didn't know anything, aside from what they had told him, and most of that he didn't really believe. But he did know this wasn't home. Home didn't have all these people. There was a seat at the far end of the bar. He didn't look up as he took a seat. "Give me the strongest of whatever you have," he said. It had been a long time since he had a drink.. "And tell me -" His words caught in his throat. "Jo?" Now the universe was just fucking with him. His words caught in his throat and her hand dropped the glass that she had been holding. She juggled it for a moment before catching it and righting it on the countertop. She had seen who she had thought she saw. She had thought she was hallucinating. Jo had to lean on the bar, had the Tesseract granted her screamed out wish? Or was it just fucking with her like it loved to? She took a deep breath, ragged and threatening to kill her composure. It took her a minute before she was able to give him her real, genuine, smile, this one reaching her eyes. “Dean, it is you. Oh thank heavens.” she hustled her ass to get him a good strong drink before leaning on the bar in front of him and sliding him the glass. “Welcome to New York.” she managed before running her hand through her hair, suddenly terribly nervous. She didn’t know what to say, or think - he’d been here twice before, not that he’d remember, and the first time he was a bit standoffish, the second he had started to flirt and now she was standing here before a third version and totally off kilter and unsure of what was appropriate to say. She bit her lip and smiled. “It’s me. I’m alive. Promise. Already got the holy water, iron, etc treatment from Sam.” she said with a smile that went from sweet to a little crooked. “Um.. hi!” she finally managed before tossing her bar towel down and walking around the bar. She didn’t sit, merely stood for a moment, before making herself sit next to him. “You look about as shell shocked as I was.” she said with a hint of mirthe. "You're alive." He repeated the words stupidly. He wanted to know how. He had a few ideas but none of them seem remotely plausible, nor did they match what others had told him. "You look good," he said, trying to match her smile. It didn't really take. He looked at for her a long time, and then turned to his drink. "So, this isn't a trick?" He spoke quieter than before. "It's not -" He didn't even know what this could be. How many times had his life been manipulated by supernatural forces? He'd started to lose count, but somehow they always found a new way to screw with him. He downed his drink in a single swallow. Nothing changed. There were still dozens of people milling about, chatting about he didn't know what, as if this were all perfectly normal. "God, you have no idea what I've been through today." “I’m alive.” she repeated again. “It’s not a trick, swear it.” she crossed her legs at the knee and cupped her hands around her knee, having left her glass on the other side of the bar. She tucked her under-side toe on the bar of the stool and tried not to fidget. She was having a real problem with that because she wasn’t expecting this tonight. If he glanced down, her knuckles were scrapped and had been, at one point recently, bloodied. It marred her almost healthy look, but she obviously was as stubborn as she used to be and hadn’t let it get in her way. “Thanks.” she said, in reply to his looking good comment. “I.. got pulled here literally seconds before I died... they patched me up and then Cas showed up, healed me and stole me out of the infirmary. I spent a good week trying to decide which way was up here.” she looked away from him for a moment, eyes closing as she recalled the whole thing, and the ensuing conversations. Then she looked back at Dean, her eyes open, her lips pursed faintly as she shoved it all back down in it’s box. “I … don’t know when you are from, so I can’t imagine, but … “ she unclasped one hand and laid it for a half second on his arm before letting it fall just as quickly, not wanting to encroach. “Did you want another drink, then if you need, I’ve got two good ears...” she said lightly, knowing he’d know she could at least understand things. She might not have lived through everything the boys did but she still knew. He thought back to his morning, or afternoon. Time had never been right in Purgatory; really, nothing had been. The dull grey light of the trees seemed to flash before his eyes, but he pushed the memory away. "I'm fine," he said. The last thing, he realized, he wanted to do was discuss his day. "I don't know either. They don't have clocks in Purgatory." The words tasted sour in his mouth, but he forced himself to continue. "I'm sorry. I've been fighting monsters so long. I don't know how to make polite conversation anymore." If he ever did. He looked at her. She seemed the same as she had always been, maybe a little rough around the edges, but still the same old Jo. She was real. He had felt her hand against his arm, real as his own hands, and feet, and toes. Sam was real, too. It was the rest that he didn't trust. "Sam said this is some sort of comic book universe. But I don't know if I believe him. I don't know if I can believe him." He didn't know why he was telling her this. Except he trusted her, he trusted her as much as it was possible to trust someone without pulling out a knife and testing his trust right there. There were too many people here for that. Besides, even if his senses told him that this wasn't possible, he knew somehow that this was his reality now. He just had to keep telling himself that. Jo was rougher on the edges, learning you die and don’t make it, really does give you a few issues. She knew the boys had died and come back - and it wasn’t like she was thinking it was any different - but she was wholly unprepared to realize she survives here and not there. It wasn’t... it wasn’t what she’d really wanted. But it’d left her to suffer - she really hadn’t talked about it with anyone. She did talk to Cas, but Cas was different. Right? At least she’d stopped insta-flinching at big dogs. She gave him a knowing smile, though. She sighed softly. “Purgatory, huh?” she wrinkled her nose a bit, cute and tired all in one look. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.” she said softly, knowing it didn’t help matters in the least. She lifted her eyes back to him and smiled, a faint one this time. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” she said firmly, giving him a look. “You don’t have to hold a coherent conversation with me if you don’t want. I’ll leave ya be if that’s what you want?” she said with that tone of voice that allowed no wiggle room. “I... if anything, I’m sorry.” Jo tried a smile that wasn’t going to come, she was trying not to think of all the bad things that have happened since, but it wasn’t working out too well.. “Sort of, I guess. Sam’s description is a good place to start. We’re sort of in an alternate reality to our own. It’s fucked up.” she said, quietly. She smiled at him, a faint one. If he had wanted to test her, to see if she was real, she wouldn’t have minded. She would have understood. "No." He reached out to touch her arm, and then thought better of it. He put his hand on the bar, instead. "I didn't mean that. You have no reason to be sorry. It's my fault." He returned her faint smile, trying not to think of every that he'd done to her over the years. It was his fault she was dead, wasn't it? And her mom, too. The thought of the two of them at the end left a bitter taste in his mouth. "I guess I'm still worried your mom's going to show up and hit me over the head with a beer bottle, if I talk too roughly." After a second, he added, "She's not here, is she?" It was pretty fucked up. He had said as much to Sam earlier. But she was alive. They were alive. "God, I just don't get it. You're dead. Sam's from some point in the past. And I'm - I don't even know who I am anymore. After all we've been through, it's like we've stepped into an episode of the Twilight Zone." Which, if he thought about it, probably wasn't as crazy as it sounded. Especially after what Sam had said about the Tesseract and everything. “Don’t be sorry, Dean. It’s not your fault. Never your fault. Don’t you dare.” she snapped at him, full of feisty energy before she relaxed and laid her hand on his arm for a moment. “Please, don’t. I know what I did. I know why I did it. Never blame yourself.” she curled her fingers for a second before removing them to rest on the bar’s top. “No. My mom’s not here. Don’t fret none, she won’t come to scold you for talkin’ rough’” she grinned. “After all this time are you stillscared of my mother?” she teased. “I’m alive, here, so let’s not remind me that I’m dead back home. I have enough reminders of that nightly.” she gave him a brave smile. But that one didn’t reach her eyes. “We did - step through into an Episode of the Twilight Zone.” she ran her hand through her hair. “It’s crazy. Fucked up. But it’s.. home now. Although I’m still not comfortable.” she let her hand fall across her abdomen, feeling the phantom pain as she talked. “Who else could you be, but Dean Winchester?” she grinned up at him, fingers still resting on her stomach, trying hard not to think about it. “You’re one half of my favorite set of brothers in this world.” she teased lightly. "Don't you know it," he said."Your mother almost killed me that time we hunted down that serial killer." He was smiling now, but it didn't reach his eyes. It was a bitter, wistful sort of smile that recalled things long past, at least for him. He knew it hadn't been quite as long for her. "She's right, you know. I'm no good for you." He spoke in jest, a slight smile on his face, but deep down, he knew what he said was true. Hunters weren't good for each other. Not when the only options were death, or visiting the loony bin. "I better be your favorite half." It felt weird to be here, joking with each other. He knew he couldn't just brush what had happened to him under the rug, but maybe this was his chance for a new start. Or something. It was too damn soon to tell. "Sam's still thinks he's going to Hogwarts." She grinned then closed her eyes. “My mom threatened to whoop me from there until my granddaddy felt it, so I know how that goes.” she quirked a small smile. “But that just means Momma’s worried ‘bout your intentions for her little girl.” she shook her head a bit, then the smile fell from her lips. “Ain’t no one good for me, Dean, but that don’t mean much. I don’t care.” she rolled her shoulder into a shrug. No, Hunters were rarely good for each other. Death happened. A lot. But Jo also was stubborn, and she’d tried being normal - they all had- and she knew it wasn’t for her. A normal boyfriend. A normal life. No one understood her better than a fellow Hunter, and that was Jo’s logic. They might be bad for each other but it didn’t matter much to her. Better to play with fire and get burned, then never to try. But she bit her lip and wouldn’t say anything of the sort. She didn’t know how he’d react - the first time she’d said that to him he had almost laughed at her and almost gotten into a fight in the middle of a diner over it. Time was something she had a ton of. “Of course you are. Even if you don’t like REO.” she teased a bit, eyes lifting to look at him, there was that dangerous feeling in her eyes: hope. She didn’t care what happened in the end. She had her friends here, she loved Sam to pieces, but she got along greatly with Dean and she missed that. Missed that a lot. “Welllllllllll “ she drawled out “We do have Dumbledore here.” she arched a brow at him, grinnin. "Whatever you say, Jo." He leaned on the bar, holding his empty glass in hand. "I know I wasn't born for all that white picket fence bullshit. That's all Sam, and if this is how he gets it, well - why the hell not?" Images of Purgatory came back to him. The trees, the strange light, how time seemed to come in fits and bursts, nothing like the life he had known. There had been no illusions of white picket fences there, no illusions at all. It was pure and, if not exactly simple, uncomplicated. Kill or be killed. That was how life should be. "Damn, I just got here, and you're already on me about REO." He smiled, a little. The memory was a good one. "You can't tell me they exist in this universe, too. Superheroes need good ass-kicking music." He was teasing her now. He didn't care if she like REO, or worse; those things didn't matter much in the scheme of things. Not when the scheme of things in their line of work was the difference between being alive or dead. "Who ever said I want white picket fences?" She gave him a look, rolling her eyes. "I don't like that kind of life. You should know that by now." She spoke quietly, seriously. Jo sighed and gave him a smile. "Sam got a sassy blonde detective chick here. I like her." She gave him a real smile. Then pursed her lips teasingly. "Uh yes?" She teased back. It was a damn fine memory. "Mhm they exist here. Don't worry your favorites are here too." She slid from the stool, and gave him a hug. "I know it's rough here. Different. But... I'm glad you're here." She fought the desire to kiss his forehead as she unwrapped her arms from him and looked at the ceiling. "That makes us the most fucked up people in this fucked up universe." He spoke quieter now, more serious, but he knew she could hear him. He was surprised when she hugged him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, looking down at her. "You better be." And then he let go. It hadn't been the right thing to say, maybe, but he didn't know what else to say. He was here now, and he had to take that. That was what counted. He slid off the stool and looked at her, then he looked at the bar around them. "I should go," he said. He left some money on the bar. "But - I think I still owe you on that end of the world deal." Jo's voice was just loud enough for him to hear. "Sure as fuck are. But im ok with that...." She took a breath in and released it slowly. Then a smile. "Of course I am." She gave him a cocky smile before grabbing the money and empty glass. "Go get settled." She said setting the glasses down behind the counter before grabbing her clean towel. At his words her lips twisted into a smirk, cheeks reddening at the thought. "When you're settled we'll talk who owes who" she punctuated that with a snap of the towel at his leg. "Now shoo, I'll see you later. I got a bar to clean." A real smile on her lips. She looked at him with a blush still on her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes before she threatened with the towel again. Once he left she sagged against the bar, eyes closed. Focusing on work was gonna be rough. |