veneficusvenato | Alice, Through the Looking Glass

Alice, Through the Looking Glass

Do your job, you love it, Lee had said,

and Sokka hadn't helped adding, Be good
and we'll make it worth your while even.

For them, Jo'd stood still while two of the costumers got to make her over in a way she rarely agreed. She told herself if was for Sokka and Leah, but it was for Gillespie, too. Who might have been a Gil, but could have been a Dick, John, Harry or Bartholemuel, too. That was the job, after all. Part of which was dressing up and dragging the newest trainee to a Ministry Function, because that, too, required training this high up.

Learning that this was all part of it, too.

Blending in, using your real name, but with the longest-lived lie you were handed.

Today, which involved watching two people curl her hair and apply her makeup with wands, and even a board that looked more like an artists pallet. Then a short white dress, with just enough give to hide her wand but nothing else, and an even smaller, more ornamental, looking shoulder jacket.

It would have been lovely if that was the worst the night could offer. Dresses, makeup, small talk, and Gillespie. But things never went that easy, really, did they. She couldn't just go home and bitch to her people about the mind numbing boringness and the funny tasting food. No, of course not. Instead the night went from that to explosions, sparks raining purple and black, from two dozen people dressed in black and purple, and running.

Shoving Gillespie, while shouting and and firing behind them. Creating a diversion. A spectacle. They weren't meant to be the people who did clean-up or cattle herding of the ministry wives and children. This wasn't exactly what they were for either, but they excelled in a pinch. Just like a handful of the other groups that had been in the milling dinner crowd.

The throbbing knuckles, and the disarray of her curls, as well as a rip along one side of her skirt, had happened before the running started, but they were lost in that. The way running did. Took every thought that wasn't attacks, hexes, and counter-spells. Stumbling through the doorway that should have led to a staircase, but didn't. She felt it sizzle through her skin, but all the three wizards were following right after, and as a burst of purple exploded toward them, Jo shoved Gillespie out of the path.

But it slammed straight into her, acid burning and needle stinging, sending her stumbling backwards, with a crack that she was sure was one of those damned heels they'd insisted on, which only helped it. She reached out to catch the reddish drape hanging behind her, but her fingers went straight through it, and her shoulders followed sending her into a tumble.....

...that did not have her slamming the ground less than a second later.
Or the one after that. Everything went black around, and she swore she would
have Gil's ass for breakfast, as well as the costumers, and her best friends.....

....before the light returned in a blinding assault and Jo collided solidly,
in an all too familiar feeling, with another body beneath her.

[ Jo's Timeline: 1 Year Before Order of the Jobberknoll
SPN Timeline: ??? ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The first round is easy, or it's supposed to be, which why she knows, again, something is wrong.

More wrong than just the fact her shoulder is a stinging, burning ruin. The disarming spell hadn't seemed hard, but then it was a rudimentary spell. A spell children and duelers alike needed and used. It was not an advanced healing spell meant to actually manipulate the atoms of your body to your will. Which should have been hard, but it should not have felt like she was pushing through walls of sand.

The blood flow still slows down, then stops, but it already feels like pulling teeth and her knuckles are whitening on the counter edge. Which doesn't bode well since the first two rounds are the easiest. The second goes the same as the first. It's still feels like the wand is being shoved into the wound, and not being held two or three inches away, but she can feel the magic sliding through it. Cleaning out whatever might have been picked up on the floor, the car, the fight.

By the end of the second, her left arm is starting to shake visibly, teeth gritting, and it's starting to feel like she's pushing against a rock.

Jo's reactions aren't lost on Dean, making him give her a look of concern. He would prefer she not keel over and make him need to catch her. "Are you sure you should keep going?"

He promises he won't mind patching her up the rest of the way to the best of his ability. Which it looks like he's going to need to do.

"Have to." Is grit out. Even when she shouldn't pause for words. She shouldn't break her concentration for anything. But his voice evades all of her logic. Slides. Into her ears. Into her chest. She can't not hear that voice. Her shoulders are starting to shiver, and she's holding hard as possible to the focus of the healing. "Have to get back to Gil." Her teeth are so tight between words it makes her jaw ache, down into what feels like her collar bones. "The others."

"Something's wrong. They did something--" Something else. Something else. Something else. "--else."

She can't checklist it. She has to stay focused, even when her shoulders curl, and she thinks that new pressure is her chin hitting her chest. Spine curving. She has to get through the words. She has to start them again. Her fingers on the counter staying white, something she can't feel anymore, beyond a desperate need to focus. Words. Words. She has to say all the words. Each one harder than the last as the muscles over the bone in her shoulder start reknitting what feels like a strand at a time, and the skin over that at the edges is already trying to push together, melting and covering cracks and tears.

It feels like her focus tries to splinter the harder she pushes, the harder she forces. The pain is overwhelming, and she doesn't have to question that she'd probably be seeing spots if her eyes were open. That the pain outside of her half-wards would probably have her trying to pitch further forward, losing what dinner she'd had, than she was already trying for. The counter barely felt and the want to curl into a ball loud against the locked shake of her body.

"Dammit, Jo," Dean swears, starting forwards to catch her if he has to. "You're too fucking stubborn for your own good. If you try to keep going, you'll pass out."

He can ask who Gil is later, if he doesn't forget about it. Right now, he's more interested in keeping her from hurting herself in her attempt to unhurt herself.

There's something that's a hiccup of a laugh, and oh bloody fuck she shouldn't laugh, that hurts, but it's sounds right. That sounds so right. Her name, against those words, that tone. Swearing at her, in a way that sounds both like an order and pleading. All at once. His voice in that tone. How long has it been. How many years. He's close now. Too close. Not close enough. And she has to wonder if she is going to fall off a counter, doing a healing spell of all things. Breaking, not mending. Breaking, not mending. He always said. He was always right.

"Price of the party." He knows that. He knows what they signed up for. Blood and promises. (Be safe.)
The price is everything that it has to be, and it has to be themselves, well, they signed up for that party, too.

She starts. Again. A second time, or is it a third. She has to get through the third recitation without breaking it again. He's such a bad influence. He always was. Kept her in one piece. Happier than she ever was before. After leaving them. Mend. Mend. Mend. The words are Latin, but the thoughts are brutal. Images, not words. Like a jackhammer, and she knows it's force not finesse that is going through her numbing fingers, when her hand -- body? -- shakes so hard her wand actually slips from her hand and her hand snaps up, snapping, clawing fingers hard around her shoulder instead of floundering from her wand.

Focus, focus, focus. Just get through the words. Two more lines. One. A few words. It feels like something is exploding inside her head.

Snaps, against the last word, as she feels it snap free. The words finishing. The pain giving. The explosion blooming in her head. When the words become not Latin, but English, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, bloody fuck,", and she's trying to curl toward her knees, and there's no counter balance in the thought of it, or the fact she'd been precariously balanced on a counter as it was.

Needless to say, Dean saw her pitching forwards coming and grabs her. Just what she needs on top of everything else; landing on her head.

"You overly stubborn pain in the ass," he mutters, shifting his hold on her so he could carry her over to the bed and lay her down. "Always gotta prove you're just as tough as any guy hunter, don't you?"

That's. She's not. Words hurt. But her brain won't shut up, and her breathing doesn't stop. So suddenly, the usual of old, old familiarity is almost as brutal as everything else. With nothing to prepare her, and no means to have been held back. Suddenly, she's breathing in leather, warmth, motor oil, and Dean. And she wants to swear as much as she just wants to tuck her head into his shoulder, against his neck. Where it will be warm, and his pulse will be beating. Where she used to tuck her face, her nose, like she owned those inches and everything else connected to them.

There's a bed a second later, and she's blinking. As suddenly as he was pressed against her, he isn't, and she almost hates that, too. There's a lot of hate to be spread around. Some at him, most at herself. A lot at the new Sparkle Tossers. But giving is not in her vocabulary. Not ever. "I am." Her fingers pushed into her forehead, and she twisted, even when it swung her vision dizzy, spotted, to her shoulder. It looks more like she cauterized her skin than healed it. But it was closed. All one piece. Scarred. (Things her team could handle later, or she could. Since it was the only scar on her.)

And there's that taste still. That one at the back of her throat. Again. That strange sharp, sweet thing, strong again.

Jo scowled, remembering where. "That is the last time I eat anything from Paraguay when not in Paraguay."

"Glad you agree with me on the pain in the ass thing," he says almost cheerfully before turning away to get something to wipe up the blood with. "The water pressure in the showers here are awesome. Once you can stand up without tipping right over again, anyway."

If she tries to get out of that bed too soon, he swears he will tie her to it.

She wants to say to him that Tergeo will make that go faster, without getting it everywhere. Especially in white fabric. She should never, ever, ever let them dress her when it was not for undercover. It was such a bad idea. Tiny nerd witches cooing over her like she had given them the fourth coming in agreeing to this one night. But her brain isn't helping.

"They potioned everyone. It was in the drinks. It had to be." He's talking about showers, and Jo shook her head, trying to push up toward sitting. Gil. The Ministry. "So that they'd have the upper hands, while the greater portion of people were suddenly spelled against being able to be helped after the first attacks."

It was even more reason why she couldn't stay there.

"Lay down or I will tie you down," he says firmly, seeing her trying to sit up when he turns to return with something nice and damp to clean the worst of the blood off her with. "Do you have any idea how you got here? If you don't, it might be awhile before you can get back home."

Not that he entirely wants her to leave. Yeah, risks of the job, nothing's more important, yadda, yadda, but considering...

Her eyebrows go up, but the problem keeps being he's so very...himself. It sounds right. It looks right. She believes the threat is there. Even when she wants to scoff. Even when she already unhanded him with a disarming spell, that wasn't near anything in offensive magic really.

But even for saying, "You could try," she's frowning faintly, dropping back to her elbows and then her back.

Not because of the pain, or maybe a little because of the pain, but mostly because of the rest of his words. Stuck here? After leaving Gil at their mercy? After leaving the whole party that way? Not that she was going to single-handedly save hundreds. There were dozens of them, her group and several others, in those mandatory dinner crowds. She wasn't even usually assigned anywhere near homeland ususally. But do nothing?

How had she even gotten here? Via verdant drapery? One that had not been anywhere in the garage once she'd gotten upright.

"I'm pretty sure you got knocked sideways enough for me to have a decent shot," Dean says with a snort as he works on mopping the blood off her, trying not to react to the amount, mentally reminding himself that she was--maybe not okay--but nowhere near dying. "Think you're gonna need to wait until tomorrow after you've gotten some food, sleep, and a change of clothes, to start working on it. I know it sucks not knowing how the fight's going; if it were me, I'd be going insane but..."

If she has no idea how she got there and almost passes out from doing magic, how is she any good to anyone.

Far from it, actually, when there are no open wounds under that blood.
There’s nothing on her skin except the knotted scar on her shoulder now.

But she can’t miss the look on his face, when he’s working at the blood left. This expression that is almost like a flinch that isn’t. It’s inside his eyes and the hold of his jaw. These little things she thinks the whole world misses, but she knew them so well. She’d wanted to memorize him completely during those years. And she’d seen this face enough times.

Which makes two other faces blend into it, suddenly, without a pause. The face she'd last seen on the floor of The Roadhouse, the mix of fear and shame that twisted into horror right as she vanished, and his face when she'd first caught up after landing in that garage. That combination of dark pain and dangerous fury. None of those here now, as he dabbed at her blood and she refused to look away from his face. Banged up, scratches and blooming bruises.

Focused, words trying to help as much as his hands, and her head tilted. It's less a choice than she'd like if she looked back.

"Sorry," is soft and entirely sincere, before three things happened all at once.

She raised a hand inside to graze her fingers down his right cheek, along his jaw, and she flinched, like someone had suddenly shined a bright light in her eyes, against a pain that wasn't like slamming a mountain but more like stubbing her toe, and warmth should have suffused Dean's skin like sunshine on it suddenly, quick but true.

As the fourth, and entirely unspoken part of it, Episkey, was barely even a whisper in her thoughts.

Suddenly, there's warmth that feels like it's coming from right below his skin on both is face and arms. A glance glance at an arm confirms that it's good as new, making him realize that he would see the same with his face once he looks in a mirror.

"Do I need to add 'no magic' to stay put," he admonishes, although with no real heat behind it. Even so, "Thanks."

Right, cloth has as much blood as it's going to hold and he gets up to clean it out at the sink, watching it turn the water first turn red, then pink, then finally clear as he gets as much as he could out.

"There's several bedrooms in the place, so you pretty much have your pick, provided it's not one someone's already claimed." Talking so he's not paying too much attention to the blood, yep.

"You can ask," Jo says, with a long sigh of breath. Her fingertips are still tingling, even though she hadn't touched his cheek for longer than those few seconds. "But it'll only work about as much as the threats ever do." She dropped them over the necklace this time, looking at the ceiling. "I'm not infirm. It's passing."

At least a good portion of it was. Feeling far away, which she had to do the math on.
Real was always twice what she could actually feel, and the mess of what was left on her.

Her brow wrinkled at that though. Staying here. Staying with him. "What is this place even?"

"A bunker belonging to the Men of Letters. Hadn't been occupied since a knight of hell wiped them out in '58. Turns out there was a reason Dad's dad up and disappeared on him," he says, wringing out the cloth and hanging it up to dry before turning to lean back against the sink with his arms crossed across his chest. "Anyway, Henry did a little magic trying to find Dad as an adult, who he assumed would have been in the club with the secret handshake and found us instead. He had the key to the place, since nobody wanted Abaddon getting in here. Got the coordinates of the place from somebody who managed to survive since she was busy chasing our grandfather, we came here to see if it was still standing, and moved in."

"Place is completely off the grid. 'Bout an hour outside Lebanon, Kansas, generates its own electricity, gets its water from the lake, outside looks like it could be any sort of utility-type place so no one bothers to look too close."

That's a whole lot of words, Dean. Super up front of him, even if Jo spent most of those sentences trying to parse any of it through things she knew. The history, that for just a little while, she'd known as well as her own. That hadn't been forgotten even if it had no application on her current life. Which just doesn't all match up at all.

"Huh. America." There was irony in that. The furthest edges of her mouth quirked, even if it didn't touch the rest of her face.

She dropped her hands, to push herself up, again, with something of a speculative look in his direction. About whether he was going to try launching himself at her again. At least in some part because it was easier to judge his reaction than to give too much appearance to the fact she was testing her own ability for it at the same time. "It's been way too long since I was here."

For a given definition of here. If she was home, she'd have to visit her mother. Or risk hell when it came out later.

She was going to see a good chunk of the rest of the bunker later. May as well go into it now so he's not being peppered with questions later. As it is, he may need to sit on her later.

Then he's giving her a calm look and digging out the restraints left behind by the original occupants meant for difficult patients. He warned her. She can't say he didn't.

"Don't make me throw you across the room again." Jo said the words, evenly, since sitting up hadn't made the room spot or swing this time. "You just asked me to stop doing magic for a while." She shook her head, as she stayed sitting, but hadn't made an effort to swing her feet over any edge. "And trying to keep me in your bed all night is not going to make that happen."

Jo raised her right hand, snapping, and then her left, snapping that hand as well.

On the right, she'd thought Colloportus at the restraints, which snapped closed even in his hands.
On the left, she'd followed a second later with Alohomora, and they unlocked right back open there still.

She'd braced for the pain of doing that, but nothing came except the normal wear of not having her wand to direct her magic. Then she frowned, before her mouth opened and her eyes shot to his. "Of course. That's why it didn't happen in the garage. It's only triggered by healing charms somehow." She rolled her eyes upward, a flash of anger flash bright and then dark. "Bastards."

The repercussions for that on both civilians and ministry trying to help themselves, or the civilians, would be vast with that.

Dean looks down at what was in his hands, back up at her, and rolls his eyes, putting them back where he got them from. So much for that.

Then she keeps talking so he looks back at her. "So you're saying any further healing you do is gonna need to be done the old-fashioned way."

"I don't know." Beat. "Maybe." There's annoyed semi-sneer.
She hated that idea, even all it needed was her handlers.

Beat. "I don't know what they used specifically."
Herb. Element. Charm. Artifact. Dark Magic.
"But it had to have been in the food."

The stuff passed around in the beginning, since no one had even gotten to dinner. What all had she even had. A champagne flute, during instructing Gil on blending, not personal preferences. One or two of the small snack things on silver trays that had been floating around by themselves. "I don't know if there was more to it, or to anything else. I am all but as literally in the dark as you on this right now."

Except that it would end. "Water. I need water." A lot of water.

"No." She looked at him suddenly, crazy smile breaking free. "Coffee. Coffee would be better."
"You can even dump the salt in it, if you still need to, and have coffee somewhere around this place."

"What did our coffee do to you to deserve salt dumped in it?" Dean demands. Actually, at this point, he's inclined to skip the holy water and salt. She's certainly been acting enough like Jo to have him convinced. "If you think you can manage to not stagger around like a drunk, first thing you're doing is take a shower. Next thing is putting on a change of clothes. Unless you want to look like Carrie at the prom when doing whatever you're planning to do that isn't sleeping?"

Jo's smile brightens the way dawn does. For a second wavering right at the horizon, like it was checking the time, like she was making sure she heard right, and then just a strobe of light getting itself golden and gooey over everything everywhere. She shouldn't be proud, or flushed warm with something like victorious success, that he's decided to forgo both attempting to chain her to a bed and making her prove she is herself. That he's going to trust her. With that much at least.

It shouldn't go to her head. It's not him. But it is, and she can't help it. Smiling.

Even when he starts dropping out orders like he's decided she's a soldier who is going to do anything he asked of her, or ordered her to do. When he hasn't yet gotten her to stay laying down, or to actually stop doing her magic. It's very him, and he's not angry. Oh, she'd known that face and that voice, if he was. Her own smile tilts toward a smirk, as she drops a mostly bare leg off the bed to let her toes touch the ground. "If I say, yes, sir, does that mean I'm allowed to try standing up and getting my wand back now?"

Dean rolls his eyes to the ceiling as if asking for patience. "It means 'yes, I won't freak out the kid of your brother's girlfriend when the lot of them get home from their outing'."

Just dropping that on her, like you do. She deserves it for being a pain in his behind.

Jo pushed up from the bed gingerly. Not so much because she wanted to take it slow as much as not wanting to take another header toward the floor. Or whatever that might involve again. But her weight holds and the pain, if there is pain, is ebbing away and away and away. Which could be away, or it could be the half-wards making it almost unnoticeable in the equation.

"Sam got himself a girl and a kid?" That sounds downright amazed. "Huh." Jo shook her head. "Good on him."

Someone needed to get a little normal up in these lives. Which. Well. She wasn't sure if their lives here were the same. Could be anything remotely like the same. Couldn't be the same exactly. No magic. She kept having to remind herself. No magic. No jobs. No flying across the world. Kid. House under the ground, and Sam with a girl and a kid. And Dean who was looking out for the lot of them. At least that last part never really changed it seemed.

Jo crossed the room, toward him, the sink, the counter. Where she'd been earlier, crouching down to find her wand even though she was only barely keeping herself from just calling it to herself through the air.

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