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: ??? ]

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"And this angel, who apparently has problems with morals and picking sides, is going to think my falling through the world is important." That's a line of logic she's not even well into following. She got the whole, if she breathes through the tension the threatens to still spider-crack her ribs, brought him back. From. You know. And is friend. But wanted him in some crazy Heavenly fight.

"He might have." Is almost obviously evasive. Leaning her back on the car. "I don't exactly keep track of his log sheets."
There were some things she couldn't get her hands on. And some she could. Stories from both sides of the pond.

But there are honestly some things she doesn't do. Some steps she knows would be too far to go forward.

"Well, you did fall through a hole in the universe. Knowing how that happened and if it can be repeated might be nice for him," Dean points out. "Helps prevent being taken by surprise by another occurrence."

Not to mention, Jo's important to Dean, which makes her important to Castiel.

She looks over, faintly pointed, but not cruelly so. The last of her words still sticking just a little too sharply. "Helps with getting you this door that you want, too, maybe." She pulled her hand back from his shirt. Both. The one in between them instead swinging the way a door might instead. "To make it possible to come and go."

The idea of which was...confusing to consider with him this close. With the thing he'd said.
The one that was going to be buried in the coldest, furthest, box in her head she could ever make.

"Even if it might not be smart at all. You're lucky you go me, and not one of the people who was chasing me."

"If I got one of them instead, I wouldn't have hesitated with that wrench," Dean points out with a raised eyebrow. "If we can figure out how to make those doors or whatever and control where they go, we can try to keep them from opening into... sensitive locations."

"You didn't hesitate with the wrench, to begin with. Given the aim at my face, which-" The word is superbly airy. "-I'm really rather attached to." Though she supposed that was his point, too. Even if she hadn't really had any marker for comparison in that second. She wasn't out for blood. Well, not his, at least, in the middle of Ministry firefight.

Not ever, if she was being honest. She'd left him, but she toed a dangerous line and made her colleagues see him as untouchable, too. Unless they wanted to suddenly see themselves on the opposite of the line with her in that same second. She didn't care about the reasons or the responsibilities or the rules she'd broken. For him. Even after. Even now.

"Actually, I did. Not for long, since I came to the only reasonable conclusion about what you were fairly quickly, but I did. I just didn't let it slow me down too much," Dean tells her candidly. Given the job, too long a hesitation could get him killed. He couldn't afford to do so too long.

She doesn't blink. There's nothing in her made or left that might. She's been being trained for this world in some way, almost since she was born, the ways of monsters and magic. She'd expect nothing less from every one of her contemporaries. She's been in fights she's won and lost by the skin of her teeth all year, near every year, since her graduation at seventeen. She's nearly died only twice. Only. And both times she was saved by the same man.

This one, but not this one. Hers, but not hers, and never hers again.

The last time he hadn't stayed long enough to see if she even woke up. It was a clear enough message.
About his ownership of the globe, and his feelings about how everything had gone down with her choices.

"I'll make you a deal, if-" There's a second, curse Godrick, that she nearly reaches out to touch him -- tug on his shirt, pull his belt loop, something deceptively simple and absolutely beyond the bounds of something to even consider -- when she decides to say those words. Something coy and casual, just enough frank that the twist is like a dash of spice. But he isn't hers to touch, moment of weakness and stupid (and his curling down around her) aside.

She pushes off the car instead, sliding away from between it and him. "If you are game."

Edited 2016-10-15 02:54 (UTC)

"Should I start being concerned?" Dean asks, eyebrows going up as he starts trying to figure out what she might want. Because her wanting some sort of deal wasn't ominous at all.

If it involves talking about all the other bad shit in his past, he would like to wait until they were home, so he'd have access to his alcohol and be free of the need to drive for a good long while.

She's not surprised he tenses. Or that she can hear it in his voice. She does let herself reach out and run her fingers along the war as she walks back the way she came. It says a lot about the both of them. He never liked uncertainties or games he didn't know every step in before he played them. Neither of them did.

It made their first year bumpy to say the least.

That it was tangled in their jobs, and breaking rules hadn't helped.

"Simmer down, Winchester. I'm not going to ask you for your soul in a Walmart parking lot." Jo shook her head, walking around the other end to go toward her door. "It's easy. Simple. Tell me about her. This, not-me, other girl, you would have willingly killed me for. And for each of those, I'll answer some question you have about--"

Jo shrugged, resting her arms and chin briefly on the car over her window.

"--whatever. Magic. My world. Things that come up."

"I'm pretty sure Sam would beat me to within an inch of my life if I ever did that again." No more demon deals, nope. Having a hellhound coming after him to collect the bill was terrifying enough the first time.

Dean finally opens his own door to get in. "Well, that provides rather less need for alcohol than I was thinking."

Doesn't take it away entirely, but is better.

Jo slid him a look, before it's a half roll of his eyes. Because, the thing is, while she and Sam didn't always see eye to eye in those years, when and after he finally got to meet her, but they both agreed in most things Dean being an idiot. Or noble. All too often the two went hand in hand. No matter how stupid or brave the move, neither of them would have actually killed him. Or gotten that close. Even if Jo had screamed any number of ways he deserved to have bitten the dust.

But the other has to be asked, quizzically even. "What did you think I was going to ask you for?"

Was it something she should have asked for, or should be avoiding, or should dig toward.

"All the bad crap that's happened," Dean says promptly. "There's a lot of it to get through."

Including more deaths. Which he's not going to bring up until they're back at the bunker, otherwise, they'd never leave the parking lot.

She clicked her seatbelt and leaned her head back, looking out the passenger side window.

"That much is mutual." Not that she's agreeing they're going to get through it. In the time she's been here, she's alluded to much and admitted to far less than she's been told. She knows a good larger portion of that is her training, leaving no real artifacts of her life behind anyone could pin to her fleeting presence. But another part. Yeah, that's probably him.

What she offered is more than he knows what is. But he can realize that or not as he wants to.

Dean gets the car started so they could get going. "Maybe we can trade stories and drink. Make a not particularly happy party out of it. Want to swing by somewhere for something to eat, or are you good?"

He actually has slightly mixed feelings about food right now. He's sort of hungry, but the earlier conversation matter has kind of put a damper on his appetite.

Jo tilted her head, looking back toward the big brick box of a store a moment. More like a reminder.

"I haven't been in America in good while--" Clarification even while, her brows are up and she's making her way through a list. Places she would usually consider pop to. Or only appearing at and then leaving right from there back to her flat. Never staying. Not in the building, and not in the country. "--and I like a potato skin as good as the next girl, but America really does have the better handle on french fries. I always got fries while here."

Beat. "And skittles." She should have gotten those inside if she thought about it.

And rather shit faced tossed. Which might have happened in her mother's bar as much as one home.

She hadn't thought about much at all about being in America,
when all it was dwarfed by with Dean, in an Alternate Universe.

"All right, we can go somewhere with fries," Dean says amicably. Pulling out of the parking spot so they could leave the parking lot. "Is there a specific location you want to go, or just the diner in town?"

Jo shrugged, "McDonalds is fine, if you want to get home. You did mention drinks. Burgers and fries and drink is fine. It doesn't have to be a whole other reason to keep you out." Her fingers drummed twice.

Before. "You do actually still have McDonalds over here, right?"

She didn't need to end up with a craving for something simply because it didn't exist.

"Yes, we have McDonald's. And Burger King. And Wendy's. And probably all the other fast food chains in your universe's version of the States," Dean says, driving in the direction of the McDonald's. Which is more or less in the direction they need to take to get back out of town. Just with a turn down a street to deviate from the original route.

"Good." That's decisive, with a small nodded-sideways bobble of her head.

"Good, good. So." There's almost a note of cheek, lightly louder. "I think tomorrow, if we manage to make it through a whole second day and night without killing each other, there should be Frosty's, too. If it's not as long of a drive as this place. What is it about Kansas?"

The last question is really more to the window and the landscape passing them by.[ ]

"I think you meant what is it about the entire country," Dean points out. "Nebraska has a lot of driving to get anywhere too, remember?"

Although maybe not, if Jo's been living in Britain since she was around twelve.

At least it's only a couple minutes more until they're at the McDonald's and he pulls into a parking spot, killing the engine. "Ready for some nice hot fries and a chance to get your own drink refills?"

Jo looks over at him, at first confused, before she nods, an odd expression stealing on to her features. Half there, and half distant. Like it was uncertain where its feet belonged, in which emotion, maybe in which emotions of which decade even. It was almost easier to look at him than it was at that.

"I haven't spent a lot of time in Nebraska, or America for that matter, since I was twelve. Summer vacation, and winter mostly during school, and mostly when Sokka begged, and only until I was seventeen, too, before-" Jo has to sort of look at his hair, the roof of the car. Before she vanished. Name on the dotted line. Jo Harvelle, Gryffindor, reckless prankster with her own whole cabinet of files but perfect OWLS, perfect N.E.W.T.'s, graduated on one day, and on the next she never existed. At least not until three or four years later.

When she appeared officially on the bankroll of someone nobody as like the thirteenth nobody undersecretary to them.
Though she never once stepped foot into an office and really never even remember the names of anyone she didn't actually work for.

"I don't think I've driven more than two or three times in a year for a while." Not when apparating worked so well, when so far, required so little. Even flying was so much faster. But it does beg the question. "Did she stay in Nebraska?"

Dean shakes his head. "Nope. At some point when Sam was doing his own thing for a bit, he dropped by the Roadhouse. Found out Jo and Ellen had a fight about Jo hunting. Cue Jo packing up her bags and heading out to hunt, sending her Mom postcards every so often. She also took the occasional job in bars since only one of those options got her money for pesky little things like food and gas."

Jo pulled the door handle, face wrinkled, as she pushed up and out of her seat. Trying to picture it. America.

Her whole life in America. With her mom, and the Roadhouse. The way it was supposed to be before she got her letter, even though her mother was very much American, and not a witch. It didn't seem the people who knew what her Dad could do, and she had already been doing since early childhood, cared at all either about her rough and tumble, middle of nowhere, half-American-ness.

"All of you." She stepped back by him. "In only America." It sounds ludicrous on her tongue.

She grabbed the door to the place to slip inside it, odd puzzle pieces everywhere. "Why were they fighting?"

Edited 2016-10-16 05:31 (UTC)

Dean gets out his own side, smacking down the lock on his side without even needing to think about it before following her. "Ellen didn't want her hunting. She'd already lost your Dad to it, she didn't want to lose you too."

He's not even going to bother trying to keep pronouns straight. It's not worth the headache.

"Hmmh." There was a press of lips, and her arms crossed loose over her stomach as she walked at his side. "She wasn't in love with it when I got my letter either, but my Dad talked her down. More than once that summer right before First Year. But I was two years in before--" She thinks about saying, you know. "--he was killed."

She likes that word better than dead. It's an issue Dean wouldn't have liked. Hers.
Dead was easier, and Jo was not easy. Monsters. Memories. Mistakes.

Monsters and Uncle John, and really she wasn't any happier with both dead than she had been with one.
By the time she knew the real story she didn't have much anger left for or about either of them. Only Dean then.

And even anger was the wrong word. Anger only went so far. Anger, like fire, died at a point. What that did...wouldn't.

She shrugged. Shrugged it off, shrugged through it. She had years of experience with that. No one ever paraded through the days of her life like they knew them, but didn't. Made her do it. Only Dean once upon a time, and now again, Dean, but not, somewhere far, far away. "So, you know, she couldn't stop me by that point, and there was the bar." There was a snort. "Actually, that was the first time I took anyone home from school. His funeral."

It was where the cowboy hat started, and Josephine. It was one of the times she most appreciated what her father left her.
It changed everything. It made her who she was. The path she choose. The job. Even the nickname that became her label.

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Ack! I lined it up wrong hours ago!

That explains why you were apparently taking forever to tag. >_>

I EVEN LEFT IT THERE! So you can see it before I delete it. It was 3 hours ago! *facepalm* Sorriest.

Now I'm wondering if lack of tag for Gabe's tfln turned action is related. <_<

Shhh, you. At least you are getting some. It could be so much worse. :P

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I EVEN LEFT IT THERE! So you can see it before I delete it. It was 3 hours ago! facepalm Sorriest.