Everyone's soaked in seawater, and it's hard enough going helping the newly freed captives get to the surface, keep their heads over, keep them pushing (or being dragged) toward the weirdest of returning creatures. That turtle from out on the boat all those months and months ago. With their ship crashed, capsized, splintered apart, she'll take fucking weird as a goddamn godsend at the moment.
Jo keeps moving—at the edge of the shell, pulling the people Dean hoists to them up with Sam by force of will and determination—because it is the only way at this point. Nothing is over until they've got all these people back to Nowhich and the hands of those who can help them far more than anything here could. (Until all the heads that are missing are accounted for, in whichever way that goes in the ledger that's never been kind here or at home.)
Once everyone's on board, Dean's last up, because there isn't anyone left to leverage. She's just starting to let herself take a breath when Dean whips in their direction and is suddenly lunging, and Jo only has the time to think not again before hands, along with a body, barrel into her, and then it's the ground. But she slams the deck, without a second impact coming, and the first thing she sees when her eyes squint open is Sam down with her, and a panicked look up catches it too close.
Too fucking close.
Now you see it --
Dean; Dean's back;
standing above them; at the edge;
then the shattering, ripping suddenness;
the blood-covered tooth stabbing out his back, above her;
(and only then; the massive behemoth blocking out everything else)
-- now you don't.
The space is empty before she's gotten to one breath, and there's screaming. Cas screaming Dean's name. A flailing, breaking, bottom of the barrel was broken further than the ground, scrapped thing, worse than anything he's tried to cover in his messages, in his words since they found him. Her entire body feels like it's a deafening frequency she knows better than her heartbeat, and she's trying to scramble up as Cas throws himself into the water.
(Now you see it --)
She's at the edge before she remembers getting her feet under her, shouting Cas' name first.
She can't process the first (it's a triptych alarm screaming through every cell; denial, horror, refusal, and something so much bigger it kept slamming her harder than that fist ever could, than bleeding out on a floor ever had, she's choking on her self-immolated bone-deep training not to scream), and so she can't reach the second (not again, not again; not both; not now that they'd finally found). Jo looks back to Sam, and there's the first full-blown panic Jo's face has allowed to break free since the moment he skittered up to her, beaten and broken and bleeding on the sand after he pulled Dean off.
It's all there is. Desperation. Not a question. Not a flicker of apology. Jo turns, diving after the blur of Cas already bleeding into that dark sea.
ғ
Jo keeps moving—at the edge of the shell, pulling the people Dean hoists to them up with Sam by force of will and determination—because it is the only way at this point. Nothing is over until they've got all these people back to Nowhich and the hands of those who can help them far more than anything here could. (Until all the heads that are missing are accounted for, in whichever way that goes in the ledger that's never been kind here or at home.)
Once everyone's on board, Dean's last up, because there isn't anyone left to leverage. She's just starting to let herself take a breath when Dean whips in their direction and is suddenly lunging, and Jo only has the time to think not again before hands, along with a body, barrel into her, and then it's the ground. But she slams the deck, without a second impact coming, and the first thing she sees when her eyes squint open is Sam down with her, and a panicked look up catches it too close.
Too fucking close.
Now you see it --
standing above them; at the edge;
then the shattering, ripping suddenness;
the blood-covered tooth stabbing out his back, above her;
(and only then; the massive behemoth blocking out everything else)
The space is empty before she's gotten to one breath, and there's screaming. Cas screaming Dean's name. A flailing, breaking, bottom of the barrel was broken further than the ground, scrapped thing, worse than anything he's tried to cover in his messages, in his words since they found him. Her entire body feels like it's a deafening frequency she knows better than her heartbeat, and she's trying to scramble up as Cas throws himself into the water.
(Now you see it --)
She's at the edge before she remembers getting her feet under her, shouting Cas' name first.
She can't process the first (it's a triptych alarm screaming through every cell; denial, horror, refusal, and something so much bigger it kept slamming her harder than that fist ever could, than bleeding out on a floor ever had, she's choking on her self-immolated bone-deep training not to scream), and so she can't reach the second (not again, not again; not both; not now that they'd finally found). Jo looks back to Sam, and there's the first full-blown panic Jo's face has allowed to break free since the moment he skittered up to her, beaten and broken and bleeding on the sand after he pulled Dean off.
It's all there is. Desperation. Not a question. Not a flicker of apology.
Jo turns, diving after the blur of Cas already bleeding into that dark sea.