was it recklessness or stupidity that fell the winchesters, the run-and-gun, or shoot first ask questions later? no doubt the eldest winchester was spilling over with a poiosonous anger, a drug that he couldn't resist, because he saw the after-effects of denying his body it's high. the way the ancient curse has twisted and torn his body, to thrive for it, and because he is one many things. except the one known is that, he is nearly as skilled as predecessor, but it wasn't a match for metatron. that much was clear once the blade spilled precious blood, and yet despite not drawing her into his lies. johana beth harvelle is here fleeing with him. but no he's already lost enough blood. “ don't...don't damn it jo! just stop! okay...just stop. ” he grunts through gritted teethe because it was all too much, he couldn't feel his legs anymore and his eyes were getting heavy. “ i can't move anymore. you know it and i know it and that's i'm not making it out. we tried for it for sam but we both know better don't we? just don't.... don't leave please. ” war torn body is all but left a crumbled mess to lay in defeat in the arms of jo. the youngest winchester bolted off to get the impala, but the both have to overcome in the next few minutes, that dean wincehster would die.
oh, this feels familiar. this time it is not the warmth of her blood that coats her hands, nor the jagged hitch of her own breath that spills free from pale brims; this time it is not the eerie truth of her demise that rests in her hands, guts spilling free like slippery ropes that she cannot keep ahold of. no, this time she is holding him, that jagged other half of herself that she desperately tried to file down so that they couldn't fit perfectly against one another. tried to find some way to prove to herself that they will never be what she wanted, and he is her ruination; not her salvation.
but as he sits there now, she can't help the way that hot tears lick at her lower lash line as she presses against his side, hissing at sam to run to get the car, yelling at the sky for trying to take another one from her. her brows knit together before pulling skywards in the middle, evidence that her own steely demeanor is cracking at the edges, slipping away the longer they wait here and wait to be saved. it's dean winchester, he is supposed to be saved. over and over again, he is supposed to find breath back in his lungs, be able to crawl out from his grave with dirt and blood underneath his fingernails and teeth. he is supposed to outlive her, time and time again; he is supposed to be better than all of this.
at his rough timbre, it breaks her resolve all the more, having to ease dean down into a sitting position, upright against a wall to allow him to catch his breath; but she is already mentally ready to hoist him back up, throw his arm around her shoulder, and fight tooth and nail through her own pain to get him to salvation. don't leave, please; he says it to her like she has a choice. like as if every time they part ways, some piece of him lingers behind. it's never something physical, but it feels intangible as her holding him now; feels as real as the tears streak down along her cheeks to mark uncharted paths along her features.
"i hate you," she murmurs out, and it rides on the coattails of a sob. it cracks in her timbre long before she could even get the saying out because even now, it does not feel right on her tongue. because it's not true. she doesn't hate him, it's the opposite for her, in fact. dean haunts her all the way down to her bones, making a home out of her long before she realized that he laid roots. leaning forward she presses a kiss against his cheek, and she has to fight the urge to crumble right there. "you can't leave me," she says quietly, as if heaven and hell could hear them now; this is their secret to share.
"you can't leave me, not like this." jo could watch the back of his leather jacket disappear into his impala, before it hides behind the veil of dust that it leaves in his path. because she knows that deep down, he would find his way back to her, back to the roadhouse, and back within her orbit where they would flirt the edges of something akin to just friends, and something more. he isn't supposed to leave her like this, something so permanent; where she won't be able to understand the way that the callous lines in the fleshy pads of his fingertips feel against her otherwise smooth skin; to know of the way that whiskey stains his breath whenever they linger in too close for an almost there kiss; to understand the way that the warmth of his lips feel against her own, even on her deathbed.
"gods," she curses, leaning in and crashing their lips together for a finality of something that she knows may never come. not this time; not when so much is at stake, and the ruination of dean winchester seems to have been written in history books long before this moment. she wanted to see what it would be like for dean to grow out of the life; to understand what it means to have a family and settle down and have a taste of what if- even if it wasn't with her. but now, she feels robbed; and the white hot anger that follows that feeling threatens to brim to the surface as she presses her lips against dean's for the last time. "i love you," jo finally admits aloud, a contradict to her earlier, more emotionally and raw admittance that disguised a lie. jo could never hate him; not even when will tells her that the winchesters drove her to her grave.
then why does her grave feel like another breath of fresh air? to know what it means to find a hidden passion within the cavern of her chest that woken up in her after she meets him for the first time? dean did not send her to her death; he saved her. he breathed life in her when she thought that she was living; he no longer made her feel like a ghost that was lingering around the roadhouse. "we can wait here," jo says quietly, a silent addmitance of what is to come. dean is going to die, and instead of wasting his final breath in the backseat of her jumped car, she moves so that she is leaning up against the wall next to dean.
jo doesn't care about the blood on her, nor does she think about it as she presses her side against his own and leans so that her head is resting against his shoulder. the closest they have ever come to showing even a sliver of affection for one another, tucked in the solace of knowing that they no longer have enough time together. no longer do they have to hide the feelings that have been bidding within for years; feeling it heighten tenfold when she revived. she twines their arms together, moving so that her palm slips into the blanket of his own, and she links each individual fingers between his own, holding his bloodied hand against her own. "it's okay, dean. you can let go." the sentence breaks something within her, and the tears start to lick at her lower lash line again. she doesn't want to offer him peace, she wants to breathe the same life into him that he gave to her. but she can't, and she knows that only this moment matters. "i'll be right here the whole time. i'll never leave you, dean winchester. not even in the afterlife."
















