kore_logs | Taking over this town, they should worry;

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Taking over this town, they should worry;

Who: Jo Harvelle & Dean Winchester
What: They have a little catching up to do, recent events to discuss and some issues to sort out.
Where: The diner.
When: Day 97, afternoon.
Warnings: None so far!

The invitation she'd extended had been brief and to the point. "Whatever you're doing, take a break. Come and meet me at the diner." She'd given him a hard time when they had initially talked about her working a few shifts in the kitchen, eager to do her part to help out but not about to let him get away with making off-color jokes about sandwiches. The food budget, so to speak, was getting noticeably tighter and everyone had to tighten their belts a little in turn, but nonetheless she'd managed to be resourceful and put together a pretty damn respectable lunch for the two of them, which now sat on a table along the far wall.

She helped herself to a seat facing the door, propping her feet up on the opposite side of the booth as she waited, two glasses and a single bottle of the stuff Ellen had managed to get out of the still and have sufficiently tested sitting beside their plates. Things had been tense between Jo and Dean since her arrival, even though they both made efforts to skirt around it as best they could -- but there was a lot to talk about, and Jo had found that there were few conversations that weren't improved by a little booze, especially if Dean was involved.

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Sure, the message sounded friendly, but he doesn't think this is just Jo wanting to shoot the breeze over lunch. She was definitely in his purgatory dream, and they haven't really talked about how he half started to explain where they were and why they were there, and all of that is pretty big news. He had this talk with Chuck; now it's time to have it with Jo.

All that stuff he's mostly okay with. What he's nervous about is the part where he just told Charlie about how he maybe has a thing for Cas, and he and Meg are... f... friend...ly, and he and Jo have always had a weird thing. A weird doomed thing, only now here they are again and it was like yesterday for her but years ago for Dean, and he's still holding onto that trial where Jo's ghost came back. He knew he was guilty then, and he feels guilty now, walking into the bar.

"Nice spread," he says approvingly after he gives her a nod of greeting. He'll skip the sandwich joke. He sits across from her and smiles, though there's some hesitance that he's not really sure he wants either of them to address.

"This the stuff your mom's been working on?"

For what it's worth, she appreciates the small talk, offering him a smile in reply as he makes himself comfortable. They're both full aware of the elephant in the room -- several of them, in fact -- but for now, small talk is easier. There's a lot to be said between them. None if it is going to make for a particularly pleasant conversation.

"Yep. Came out pretty good. Already been tested, strong but not enough to make you blind." Thank God. She doesn't know how long she would have been able to hold out if this batch hadn't come out decently. She's not a heavy drinker, really, but this place kind of drove you to it.

"I figured you were probably due for a break. I've been here awhile now. We haven't really gotten the chance to just sit down and talk, have we? Catch up." Things kept coming up and getting in the way -- things or other people.

There's a herd of elephants in this room, and he can only begin to guess which one she'll want to start pointing out first. He'll definitely leave it up to her to start, though; maybe she's not aware of everything, and he doesn't think it's wrong to want to avoid a conversation that she isn't going to start. He's here and prepared to talk about any number of things -- that's a good start for him, alright?

"That's good. I'd like to be able to see the walls of my prison, if we ever get there." He smiles, but it's sharp and edging on angry, something he usually keeps repressed for the sake of the people around him. Most of them are civilians in his eyes, or people he's meant to protect, and they don't need to see him upset. He can show things to her that he wouldn't show others, though.

"No, we haven't." The hesitation is back now though, and he evens his smile out, leveling her with a knowing look. "Anywhere in particular you want to start?"

The floor's hers. He's letting her lead this dance.

For a moment, she's not even sure where to begin. That forced smile sets her on edge, knowing full well what it means. She knows its not for her, but that doesn't keep it from triggering concern. She leans back in her seat when his expression shifts, pursing her lips thoughtfully as she considers where to start.

If they're being honest, aside from a handful of exchanges that were carefully orchestrated to never approach anything too personal, they hadn't really talked in depth at all. She'd been slapped pretty rudely with an unpleasant revelation when she first showed up, courtesy of her least favorite demon, but there was more bothering her than just that.

A lot of time has passed. He's clearly beyond her now, older. Events that were mere weeks ago for her were years ago for him, and time has definitely changed him. She's not sure yet if it's for better or for worse, but he's not exactly how she remembers. Given the situation, she can't really expect him to be, but it's unsettling all the same.

She exhales slowly, biting at her lower lip. "There's a whole lot of things, really, but seeing as it wasn't all that long ago that I got to take a trip into your personal dreamland..." She pauses. "Purgatory. ... you really went there? Seems like I missed a hell of a lot."

His expression doesn't quite change, not really, but something relaxes around his eyes, and his gaze drops a few inches, and then he drops his chin because he actually can't keep everything from his expression. He'd been hoping maybe she wouldn't remember; maybe she'd write it off, but of course she didn't. And hammering it home with how she's missed it... Yeah, she did.

"That's right." He picks his head up, trying to look like he's in control again. "It was an accident Cas and I wound up there, I swear. We got caught in the blastwave that came from killing off the main leviathan. Guess purgatory wanted him so much, it got overexcited and sucked us up too. We busted out though."

"We" is being generous. That's Cas's story to tell, though.

"That was about a year ago, for me. We, um. We stopped the apocalypse, and Sam went to hell to do it, but Cas sprung him out. After that there was leviathans, then purgatory, then we had a shiny new prophet with an instruction manual on how to close the gates of hell." He picks up his glass and lifts his eyebrows at her, tilting his glass.

"Didn't pan out."

It was a lot to take in. At first, she doesn't say anything at all, pressing her lips together thoughtfully as she recounts what he just told her bit by bit. If she were anyone else, she might have called him crazy, but she knew him. She knew Sam. She knew the kind of trouble they tended to attract -- or otherwise stumble into.

"Sounds like you boys have kept busy," she remarks with a wry smile, managing to keep from adding 'without me' onto the end. It wasn't like they had ever been partners. Friends, of course. Family. Called each other in on a few jobs, if you used the term loosely, but hunting together hadn't been a long-term gig.

Still. She was a little disappointed to have missed out on all the adventure, hellish or otherwise.

"How many years has been, exactly?" She never had asked. "Since we last saw each other."

He knows it isn't easy to hear about how people have been moving on, going on after you've died, and he feels bad delivering the news, but... That's what life has been for them. She's not the first death that gutted him but he had to pick up and keep going when it was over.

"Four," he says quietly, then he looks up at her, almost apologetic. "It's been four years."

If you don't count that whole weird trial thing, and he's not going to count it, and he's probably not going to mention it. No need, right? It's nothing he wants to relive.

"Four years," she echoes, looking down at the table as she lets it sink in. "That's a long time for a hunter." Their lives tended to be short. People tended to come and go. Nobody stayed in your life for long, unless you made them family. Four years? A lot could happen to people like them in four years, and the Winchesters weren't exactly average on the hunter scale. They saw more disasters in a year than most saw in a decade.

Four years. She would have been twenty-eight, if she was lucky enough to survive that long. If the hellhounds hadn't gotten her, it was just as likely that something else would have.

For a moment, she says nothing, only pours them each a glass of Ellen's moonshine and nudges one towards Dean before taking the other and tossing half of it back in one go.

"No wonder so much has changed."

He appreciates the drink; he doesn't like seeing what this knowledge is doing to her, and he doesn't want to know what it's making her think about. How they're all getting on without her? What she would've been doing in the time since? Dean has had to stop himself from thinking about these things on his own in order to keep going without seeing them flicker across her face.

He knocks his drink back too and sets it down, and he barely even winces. It's true that he's always been a drinker, but Jo was dead for a large part of Dean's descent into problematic drinking -- even he can recognize it was a problem. Since purgatory, he's been able to ease off and cut it back.

"We lost Bobby," he says once he puts the glass down, and he clenches his jaw through the emotion that wells up after. And Frank, and Sarah Blake, and god, Benny. Garth's missing now. Way too many people.

"He was a spirit, at the end. Didn't want to move on. He hung on long enough to help, but... He started to go vengeful, so he let go."

"Bobby?"

And for all she'd been thinking about hunters living shorter lives in comparison to the rest of the world, there was still a sense of awe in her voice -- the disbelieving sort. How was that even possible? Nobody was invincible, but damn if she hadn't thought that Bobby came close to it. He could have easily outlived them all.

"Hard to imagine. There are some people you just figure are too damn stubborn to die." Explained why he became a spirit, at least. "I'm glad he let go. Can't have been easy. ... I'm sorry."

He was an old friend of the family, one she remembered coming around since she was in pigtails, but she hadn't had the relationship with him that Dean did. not even close.

He knows the feeling because he'd had the same one. Out of the people Dean still has around -- which is really just Sam and Cas -- Bobby was the one who'd died the least, and yet here he is, on the long vacation.

"Yeah, well he was, in the end, but he finally let go. I think he can be at peace now." Especially now that he's actually in Heaven and not down in the pit anymore, but she doesn't need to know that part, does she? He can skip over that one.

"Anything else you wanted to ask me?"

For a few moment, she appears to be at a loss. It's a lot to process, and she finds herself staring down into her glass as she considers how to proceed.

There are a lot of questions, actually. About him. About Sam. About the friends they've made, about how things have changed, about the life he's made for himself here. She wants to know more about Purgatory. More about Cas and the angels. About how Dean could possibly trust a demon after all that's happened in the past, and not just any demon -- but the one that loosed the hellhounds that lead to her death, all because she'd run back to save him. That was what stung the most.

It was like until she got here, he had forgotten about her. Whether or not it was true, that was how it felt. It cut deep. It was a betrayal, even though he was so many years ahead of her. If their positions had been reversed, she couldn't help thinking that she would never have forgiven Meg -- she couldn't have forgiven anyone who had hurt him, or Sam.

It was worse when she remembered what Meg told her when she first arrived.

Finally, she lets out a long, slow exhale of breath, and though there are a hundred and one different questions she could ask, the one that comes out might be the hardest of all.

"You don't really have room for me anymore, do you?" In his life, or otherwise. Not the way she wanted him to, anyway.

Edited 2013-09-02 04:13 (UTC)

He isn't sure what she's gearing up to say, but he's sure he isn't going to like it, whatever it is. Turns out his hunch was right, and Dean looks up, stricken by her words. Not even Dean's thick armor can keep that out of his face; really, there comes a point when Dean starts to feel so much that even he can't hide it. If Dean's close to having a superpower, hiding his feelings would be it, but some people know how to hack in, or some people know the right thing to say to bring it out of him. Cas is a big one. Sam, sometimes. And Jo. Jo somehow always knows how to get right at the heart of him.

"It's not like that at all, Jo," he says, his voice small and tight. "Everyone's gone. Everyone. Dad, you and Ellen, Bobby, Chuck vanished. We met my mom's dad, his part of the family -- all assholes, and all dead now." Lisa, Ben. He bites his lip, holding them back, because Dean still can't really talk about them.

"I've had to let go of anyone I ever knew, ever cared about. And then I got sent to purgatory, and you know who was there for me? Had my back the whole time, and even after, even topside? A vampire. And it didn't matter. It didn't matter to me what he was because he was there." Dean stops, clenching his jaw, and he finally looks away from her eyes.

"Jo, I have more room for you now than I ever have. Please. Please don't be another person who walks away from me. And please don't make me have to walk away from anyone else. I'm... I'm tired."

"I'm not walking away."

She leans back in her seat, pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead before putting both hands over her eyes, exhaling slowly to center herself. No. She's not going to cry. Absolutely not, even though the tone of the conversation seems to demand it. She refuses.

But it's different. Even considering what he said about the vampire, it's different. A part of her hated Meg for what she was, yes, but it was more than that. It was for what she'd done. Who she'd served and who's name she'd killed people in. She only knew a tiny fraction of what Meg's history with the Winchesters was, but if she'd known the rest, she would have been even more opposed.

One or two good deeds in desperate times did not redeem someone, especially if you were hearing about it secondhand.

She rubs at one of her eyes before lowering her hands, her expression as resolute as ever. "But it's never going to be the same again, is it? You know it's not."

It can't be.

Jo looking like she's about to cry has Dean needing to look away too; he doesn't think he's as close to the tears as Jo maybe is, but he can feel that sadness welling up in him. He gets why this is so difficult, and he doesn't always really understand what he's doing either. Meg is who she is, and she did what she did, and Dean somehow found a way to be okay with that.

Maybe it's because he can't even remember all the faces of the people he tortured in Hell. Oh, he remembers some, but there were times in between, times he can only remember the methods, the new things he tried. But not their faces. Maybe it's because when he was in purgatory, and he and that place just... clicked, that was when he accepted he wasn't so different from someone like Benny. Maybe even from someone like Meg.

Or maybe it was getting over Cas's betrayal that paved the way for him to get over other peoples'.

He starts to nod first, his eyes staring at a spot on the table, before he lifts them up to her.

"I know. I've changed, Jo. I know that."

"I know it's to be expected. It's been a long time, but..."

But there were just some things she didn't think she'd ever see him do. Be pals with a demon was one of them. Be pals with a demon he'd had such a bloodstained history with was right near the top of the list, just under selling the Impala or breaking her down for scrap metal. It just wasn't supposed to be this way.

She sighs heavily, pursing her lips as she centers herself and tries to find a way to articulate what makes this so difficult. That feeling of betrayal is still there, and she imagines it's not going anywhere anytime soon, but there's something more. A disconnect between them, a sadness that dragged her heart down into her stomach whenever she saw just how animated he was with people who had come long after her time.

"I don't really know how to deal with it," she says finally, confessing. "Being so far behind. It's like I got left behind and I'm never gonna catch up, even if we're all in the same place. It's strange, being faced with the evidence that you're just... not part of someone's future. I mean, normally, I'd just be dead, wouldn't I? And I wouldn't care then. It wouldn't feel so wrong. I'd be where I'm supposed to be, I guess. But this place complicates things."

And there's a lot that happened in the middle that Dean has a hard time talking about. What he made Ben do when Lisa was going to die from that demon; what he almost did to Lisa when he was turning into a vampire. What Cas did when he sucked up all those souls, taking out the wall in Sam's head, killing all those people. It took him a while to learn how to get over what Cas did, but he got there, he thinks. Liking Meg is part of that. He doesn't know how to explain any of that to her and have it fix anything, so maybe he just shouldn't say anything.

Because he can't solve that problem, if that's what's really bugging her, and he can't see a way around that. He sighs, hanging his head, tapping his finger against the table, and then he comes up shaking his head.

"I know what you mean. There've been times... I was gone somewhere and came back, and Sam would seem so different, you know?" When he went to Hell, or when Sam came back without his soul, and then Purgatory.

"And that was just one year. Knocked me for a loop every time. I didn't know what to think about him for a long time. You know, this is what he would be if I wasn't around?" He lets that hang kind of awkwardly, and then he makes a face. "He'd put an iPod thing in my car?"

He calms down again, still holding onto a part of that smile, if only to try to lighten the mood at least a little.

"I can't imagine what it's like to see how much has changed all at once."

"It's surreal," Jo admits, and though it's hard, she manages a small smile in reply, attempting to mirror his own. "Feels like it can't really be happening. I still remember how those injuries felt. I remember waiting to pull the trigger. Being here at all is like -- well, not a dream. A nightmare, sometimes. But seeing how everything has changed... sometimes it doesn't feel real, but then it sinks in and everything hits all at once and it just--"

She cuts herself off and sighs, giving him a straightforward look, pained without being angry. "It hurts."

"I get that, Jo, and I'm sorry." He wishes there was something else he could do, but... Back home, maybe he could walk away from Meg like what he did with Benny. This place is small, though, and where's he going to go? Where's she going to go? And if they're going to all be here, then he'd rather try to hope that maybe one day they could get along. Or at least Jo and Ellen can get along with Dean getting along with Meg.

"I wish I knew what to tell you. You can't make up for what you missed, but you do get a chance to... start over." Redemption, rebirth. It's the schtick Dean's been trying out lately, and so far it's mostly only hurt the people he's closest to.

"Start over." Her tone is wry as she echoes him, doubting. It's a nice idea, in theory. If there's a silver lining to this place, it's that it offers people that opportunity -- a fresh start, even if the circumstances are lousy, but it's so much easier said than done. It's hard to start over when the people you feel like you should be able to depend on have moved past you in such a way that there was just no going back.

Starting over would be exactly what it was, in the truest sense of the word. Starting over from square one, with nothing.

She grimaces as she pushes herself away from the table, sliding out of the booth. "I'm just going to -- I'm going to see if mom needs help at the bar."

Because if she's being honest with herself, staying here much longer isn't going to lend itself well to helping her keep up her resolve face.

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Taking over this town, they should worry;

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