Chapter Text
As they followed the directions the vamp gave Dean began to wonder if he'd lied about where to find Benny. Just then though he caught a glimpse of metal and saw the head of a leviathan rolling towards them. He and Jo looked at each other and then back in the direction the head came from. The Cajun man sauntered towards them intending to wash his blade in the stream when he saw them and stopped short "Well I'll be a son of a bitch".
He and Dean chuckled at the same time and walked towards each other and clasped each other in a manful embrace. "Man it is good to see you" Dean exclaimed.
"You too brother, but what brings ya here?" Benny asked, eyes sliding over to Jo "...and with a lady" He cast a judgmental eye towards Dean for the unchivalrous act of bringing a date to a death trap.
Dean chuckled "Oh, sorry, yeah that's Jo. She's a hunter too."
Understanding dawned on Benny and he smiled and made his introductions "Well hello there darlin, I'm Benny, nice to meet you" he said going to shake her hand. He did register the visible flinch from Dean when he called her 'darlin'.
"Nice to meet you too" Jo responded with a friendly smile.
"So...what's the spell for?"
"Long story, I'll explain on the way"
"On the way where exactly"
Dean explained about the blossom and Benny led them to the site of a bunch of them, as they walked up Charlie and Cas came into view.
"Huh, they must've found it too" Dean shrugged before spotting the leviathan that was leading them and the angel trap. At which point he put his arm out to stop Jo from going any further into the trap and made eye contact with Benny for the same reason. They all ducked behind some bushes to get cover while they took a look at the situation from where they were on the ridge. There were 3 leviathan and Cas was trapped, the one that had been leading him and Charlie said Eve had beef with Cas. Cas screamed at Charlie to run and she did unhindered as they were only interested in Cas. He noted how terrified he was for his best friend, he had every right to be angry with him for not telling him about Jack, not warning him, he'd robbed him of an opportunity to do something. Even if there was nothing that could've stopped what happened to his mom he at least could've tried instead of being caught with his pants down, and maybe just maybe he could've kept his mom safe. Still, Cas couldn't possibly have known, he thought he could fix the problem before it was a problem. He didn't like it, it was the wrong call, but he'd kept things from people to protect them before. Never worked out well, but he understood the impulse. Even with how bad it turned out, how angry he had every right to be.....Cas was his best friend and he wouldn't let anybody hurt him. "Where would they be taking him?" Dean asked Benny in a hushed tone.
He pointed "That way, past the stream, to the caves. We go down and around we can head them off, maybe surprise em" Dean nodded tightly.
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Jo caught Charlie and redirected her to the path Dean and Benny were taking, before long they'd overtaken the group of Levitation. Dean and Benny got into position for a surprise assault, Jo crouched near where Dean had to which he said "Hang back a bit, pick up the stragglers"
She rolled her eyes dramatically "It'll be more effective to jump em all at once and you know it" she said hypocritically since she'd just given Charlie the same protective directions, and punctuated with a shh gesture and a point in the direction of the approaching group now too close for them to speak without being heard. Convenient.
Dean gave a terse nod to Benny and Jo and opened fire with the borax shelled shotgun (along with Charlie from further back). They managed to hit 3 of the 4 before they were any the wiser, the last caught on just in time to use Cas as a shield. Before the one furthest in front had time to recover from the borax Dean had cut his head off, Benny did the same to the second one, Jo to the one closet to Cas excepting the one behind him. If the last one had been smart, he'd have used the Chaos to run. He wasn't smart. He pushed Cas' into the chaos of Benny and Dean killing the two up front and moved to run Jo through with Cas' angel blade as she was coming down from the swing of chopping the other ones head off. Impressively she managed to incorporate a dodge into the smooth motion of the beheading, but it wasn't enough and she was stabbed in the abdomen rather than the heart. Her pain tolerance being what it was she recovered quickly enough to flip the blade in her hand and swing back up and knocking his head off too.
Dean looked up from the black blooded mess and saw Jo run through with a blade and screamed "JO!" which got everyone else's attention.
"I'm fine" she said calmly
"Yeah not really" Charlie huffed as she inspected the wound.
"It's fine, I'm vertical, can't be that bad" Jo said moving to pull the blade out
"No!" Cas exclaimed. Everyone looked at him questioningly "Given the location of the stabbing I suspect the blade is tamponading the wound"
Frustrated Dean growled "English Cas'"
"The blade is stopping the bleeding, it's lacerated her liver and if we were to pull it out she would bleed to death in approximately 3 minutes. We need to leave it where it is until we can cauterize the wound"
Jo sighed in frustration rather than pain "Well we can't exactly build a fire out here, it would be a monster beacon and besides we don't have the time."
"Unfortunately that is correct" Cas' agreed
"Well what then?" Dean demanded, but Cas' just looked around helpless and defeated, no particular ideas coming to mind for how to deal with a life threatening injury with almost no angelic powers left to him, no medical supplies, and in the worst possible environment.
Resolutely and calmly as in that hardware store Jo said simply "Not rocket science boys, we go back to the bunker, deal with it there. Rift's less than a half mile, I just...." she chuckled "Try not to bend too much I guess" and with that she started walking.
Dean and Charlie were dumbfounded but Cas' thought to ask "wait, do we even have the blossom"
"You really think that matters right now?!?!" Dean barked.
"Yep 3" Charlie said proudly, opening her backpack.
"Why 3" Dean questioned.
"Redundancy" she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, which if you work in IT, it kinda is. "two is one, one is none. You gotta plan for failure. With something this important I figured I'd plan to fail twice" she said with a shrug.
"Smart"
"Thanks"
"Losin daylight folks" Jo shouted from a good ways ahead and they jogged to catch up. Dean didn't fail to notice that her wound had bled more already. He'd almost lost his best friend today. While they were in a fight and he wouldn't have ever known that he was forgiven. It made him think twice about what he'd want Jo to know before she died again. God forbid, no, somebody who cares forbid. But how do you even begin to formulate what he was feeling into a coherent sentence. It was too complicated. He thought, before she died that she could've been someone he loved given a chance to try, well.....a chance he'd had the stones to take. She gave him every chance. But what does that mean for now? They were really only getting to know each other again, after all this time they were both different people. How do you communicate that you really hope somebody doesn't die because you were starting to have feelings for them 10 years ago before they died the first time and it would be a real bummer if it happened again. Not because you were sure you wanted to try for something because you don't know yet if you're still as compatible as you were 10 years ago given how much has happened, but just because you wanted a chance to find out. Yeah that one was too hard to explain. Probably simpler just to keep quiet.
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They were almost to the rift and while the blood from Jo's wound had seeped down her shirt, to her jeans, all the way down to her knees and she was starting to look pale. She kept moving.
With the rift juuust coming into sight she tripped and caught onto Charlie's arm "You okay?"
She nodded weakly, sweat beading on her upper lip "Yeah, just a little dizzy"
Dean reached out to just pick her up already but Cas' stopped him, no, you'll shift the blade too much if you pick her up, keep her torso as straight as possible"
So Dean carefully laced his arm under the blade on her back "Lean on me" he instructed gruffly. and she looped her arm around his waist and did just that. And so, they managed to hobble to the rift. He looked at Benny on the last little bit, "If you wanna tag along out of here just let me know, I'll haul my ass up to Maine as soon as Jo's patched"
:"Thank ya brother, I do believe I'll take you up on that"
"Really?" Dean answered startled
"I will admit, having had time to reflect, I do believe my prior decision to stay to have been a bit rash. 'sides if I end up wanting to come back here it's a lot easier than getting back there." He paused and looked over to him half dragging Jo "Though you do appear to have your hands full at the moment"
Dean smiled and handed Benny a blade "Just the one" he said nonchalantly as he extended his free arm for Benny to cut. The performed the spell without slowing down at all, and reached the portal shortly after.
"We made it" Charlie said relieved going through, followed by Dean and Jo, with Cas' bringing up the rear.
Sam was waiting on the other side to greet them, his face falling as soon as he saw Jo. "We need a cautery and stretcher, now!" Dean shouted to Sam who ran to fetch the items. "You're gonna be fine" he whispered to Jo, who then promptly passed out. Shifting the blade.