Chapter Text
True to form, Jesse fails to die.
Instead, he wakes up to the sound of wingbeats. There are voices. He appears to be lying on dirt, but it's warm and no one is hurting him, so he keeps his eyes firmly shut even as he hears the angel say, "I returned as soon as I could. The banishing sigil was surprisingly powerful."
"But can you heal her!" That's Ben. Jesse is pleased to find he can remember details like this. He's pretty sure he knows who her is, too, if he was just given a moment to think.
"I made a promise," the angel says, and then Jesse remembers: Claire.
He opens his eyes. When nothing catastrophic happens, he risks sitting up. Ben's dad and the tall one are a little way off, talking to a woman who is not Claire. Ben hovers outside the black car, leaning on the open door, and from this angle Jesse can just barely see the unmoving blonde figure inside. The angel—Castiel—reaches in to touch her forehead. Jesse holds his breath. Slowly, the blood on Claire's legs disappears, like water seeping back into the ground. Her eyes drift open. Then she sees Castiel.
Whatever she says, it's too quiet for Jesse to hear. From the shape of her mouth, though, it might have been Dad.
Castiel bows his head. "I'm glad you're all right." Then he backs away and lets Ben help Claire out of the car. Her movements lack their usual certainty, and when she's gotten to her feet she just stares at Castiel—not like she's going to punch him again, but like she doesn't have any better ideas either.
After a moment Ben puts away the blatant adoration on his face and clears his throat. "Now Jesse."
Castiel straightens. "Grace won't heal a cambion. In fact, had he not discharged so much of his power into the gate, it would be dangerous for me to be so close to him."
"Then how are we supposed to wake him up?" Ben demands.
"No need," says Claire quietly, and her eyes meet Jesse's across the field.
Jesse scrambles to his feet. Should he start running? Claire's thoughts are impossible to guess as always. Sam and Dean focus on him laser-sharp, waiting for his move, though Sam keeps rubbing soothing circles on Emily's back. Emily only stares at the ground.
Ben comes toward Jesse, walking just a little too slowly to be entirely casual. "How you feeling?"
Jesse considers this question. All body parts appear to be present. Nothing actively pains him. If he dips below the surface, though, he finds a well of molten power that runs a lot deeper than he remembers. Everything he stole from Meg—it's still here. The memory of cutting their bond feels like a fever dream, but it brings a terribly solid realization: Jesse can never give this power away. He's ruined any chance of ever becoming human, just as surely as Meg will never be Queen of Hell again.
At least now she doesn’t have the chance to hurt anyone else.
Jesse says, "I could really go for a burger right now."
Ben grins, and the tension in the air drops considerably. "Well, we'll have to see what we can do about that."
"Just like that?"
Dean gets up and comes closer, squinting at Jesse. Jesse's powers leap, eagerly reminding him just how much he has at his disposal, but he stuffs them back down. It doesn't work as well as it used to.
"He saved your life," says Claire, before Dean can speak. "Sam's too."
"Plus let loose every monster we've ever killed, nearly blew up this entire town, and let the Queen of Hell escape." Dean doesn't look away from Jesse. "I didn't kill you when you were a kid," he says, and Jesse's heart nearly stops. But then he continues with, "And I'm not gonna kill you now. But you better learn how to shut that power down, because if you ever put Ben in danger like that again?" The threat doesn't need finishing.
"Leave him alone, Dean," Sam says, as Jesse quietly debates leaving and never coming back. "Saving the world is harder than it looks."
"Even when you're the one who broke it in the first place?" Dean retorts.
Sam gives him a look. "Yeah," he says. "Especially then." And whatever part of their silent conversation Jesse's missing, it makes Dean grumble and back off.
"I suppose I owe you thanks," says Castiel stiffly after a few moments. As though Jesse wasn't already halfway to a panic attack, he'd forgotten the angel. His expression must convey some measure of confusion amid the bubbling fear because Castiel elaborates: "For rescuing Sam and Dean. Fifty years is a tiny fraction of my existence, but I find the perception of time through human senses to be frustratingly irrational. To wait that long for another opportunity to open the gate..." He trails off, looking toward the Winchesters. All three of them stare at each other for a very long time.
"Are you going to help Emily or not?"
Claire folds her arms and doesn't flinch when Castiel remembers her existence. Still, she lacks the single-minded rage she'd shown earlier; Jesse wonders whether the anger burnt itself out while she was nearly dying or if she's just hiding it better now.
There's a strange tone in Castiel's voice when he says to her, "My powers are not infinite." Jesse thinks, that must be nice. Still, after a pointed look at Claire that Jesse doesn't understand, Castiel goes to Emily and touches her forehead.
Emily blinks.
Castiel tilts his head toward an unheard voice. Then he sighs. "I will see both of you very soon," he says to the Winchesters, and disappears. For the first time Emily shows a reaction, turning toward the place he used to be.
Dean moves into her field of vision. "Hey," he says. "You okay?"
After a long moment, Emily twitches her head back and forth. No. The thought strikes Jesse that it was Emily's body he was choking, her neck that's now forming bruises. What if she can't speak?
Dean looks up at Sam, then back to Emily. "Fair enough." He coughs. "You got somewhere you can go?"
Another head-shake. Then she seems to wake up a little more, and says: "Katie."
"Katie?"
"Emily is Katie's girlfriend," Ben explains. "She's probably losing her shit by now." He puts a comforting hand on Emily’s shoulder. “We’ll get you back to Colorado, okay?”
Jesse decides that yes, now is the time to leave. He's not about to go back to that hunter's bar, especially not after this fiasco, double especially not with Emily still looking shellshocked and Katie just as glad for an excuse to shoot him.
"Why don't we let Dean and Sam do that," Claire says. When Ben looks at her in confusion, she widens her eyes a little and flicks them toward Jesse. Emily looks at Jesse too, and her muscles visibly tighten. She doesn't want to be anywhere near him.
"Oh," Ben says. "Are y—" He looks from Jesse to Claire. "Are—" He shuts his mouth abruptly.
"What?" says Claire.
But instead Ben turns to Dean. "You know what, yeah, can you take her?" And to Emily, "That be okay by you?"
Emily's response takes a few seconds, but she nods. "I know them," she says. Her voice is hoarse. "Not because—I mean I met you before," she says to Dean. "Back when I lived in Burkittsville."
"Burkittsville?" says Sam, baffled, but Dean snaps and points at Emily, saying, "Apple girl!"
"That's me," she says, and even manages a tiny smile.
Dean rubs his chin. "Yeah, I never forget a face I was tied to a tree to be sacrificed with. We can take you home, don't worry about it. Maybe stop for some pie on the way."
"Thank you," she says, and then her expression finally crumbles and she starts quietly crying. Sam pats her back.
Ben clears his throat awkwardly. "I'll call you, then? We can meet up?"
"Yeah," Dean says, watching as Sam offers Emily a tissue and leads her back to the car. He starts to walk away himself, then seems to remember who he's talking to. "You stay out of trouble, okay?" Jesse cringes.
"I will." Ben wavers for a minute, then runs forward and grabs Dean in a hug. Dean, taken aback, rests one hand on Ben's shoulderblades, but he seems pleased. After a few seconds Ben steps away, red in the face. "I'm glad you're back."
Dean huffs, not quite a laugh. "Good to see you too, kid." He tosses his keys in the air, gives them all a little salute, and climbs in the car with his brother. Jesse breathes much easier after the engine rumbles to life and they drive off.
Not too easy, though; he still doesn't know what Ben and Claire plan to do about him. But when he stops watching the hole the black car left in the fog, he finds that Ben's not actually paying attention to him at all.
"Check that off the to-do list, huh?" Ben says to Claire. His voice is a little too loud. "Rescuing the Winchesters, just like you pictured it."
"It could have gone worse," Claire agrees. Unconsciously she picks at the wide holes in her jeans over her thighs.
"And you met Castiel," Ben says. "And nothing bad really happened, right?"
Claire looks up sharply. What on earth is Ben doing? He of all people should know how touchy Claire can be, and even Jesse—who hasn't properly interacted with humans in years—can tell that now is a worse time than most. But all Claire does is say, slowly, "I suppose."
Ben bounces on his feet a little and then shoves his hands in his pockets. "So, you know, now that that's over," he says. "Um. You know. What're you gonna do next?"
Claire narrows her eyes. "Hunt." Jesse can't help the frisson of fear that one word gives him.
"Right, yeah," Ben says, and gives a laugh like he's forgotten how to do it. "I mean of course, right? Uh." He scratches the back of his head. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, and Claire raises an eyebrow at Jesse. Jesse shrugs, equally baffled. Ben shrugs too, and in a voice that is not nonchalant at all, asks Claire, "With...me?"
Claire's hands drop away from her thighs. "Is that what you're worried about?"
"I dunno, should I be?" Ben says, defensive. "I mean you said when we got started that you were gonna help me find them and now we did, so—"
"Ben, that was three years ago," says Claire, and Jesse is surprised again at how insecure Ben is about her. Maybe she doesn't want to date him, fine, but she clearly cares more about him than one years-old agreement would warrant. Ben is funny and kind and he's perfectly normal; there's no reason for her not to like him. But Claire's got her blind spots, too, because she folds her arms and says, "Were you planning to do something else?"
"I'm not leaving," Ben retorts. A moment later he says, quieter, "Claire. I'm not leaving."
A muscle in Claire's jaw jumps, and her whole body shivers so faintly that Jesse isn't sure if he imagined it. Her eyes drop. "Well," she says to the ground, "neither am I."
The joyous relief from Ben is so palpable that it feels like the sun just came out.
Jesse doesn't belong here. Clearly, they're happy with each other—three years is a long time to build up a dynamic, especially when you're saving each other's lives. They're not gonna want someone else tagging along like a third wheel and complicating everything. And Jesse makes things exceedingly complicated.
So just go, he tells himself. After a few more seconds of the look on Ben's face—God, if they start kissing, he is really just not going to be able to handle it—Jesse is even able to convince himself to reach for his powers, intending to jump.
Nothing happens.
This isn't like what happened at the Salt Round—Jesse can feel all his powers still there, plus all of Meg's. It's just that when he tries to make them take him away, they slip out of his mind's grasp. They're fucking with him.
Okay. He was looking at Claire that time, he wasn't really concentrating. Jesse tries again. The same thing happens, like trying to take a step that isn't there. In frustration he mutters "oh, come on," and a ball of fire bursts out of his left hand.
Claire and Ben both turn to stare at him. "Um," Jesse says. "That wasn't on purpose."
Ben starts laughing, a real laugh this time, and he doesn't stop for several minutes.
"It's not funny," Jesse tries to say, but Ben's good mood is infectious and he finds himself smiling too, despite all the things that are soon to make his life very unpleasant.
"You are," Ben says, "the worst Antichrist I have ever met. C'mere."
"Wh," says Jesse, and then Ben is wrapping his arms around Jesse's torso and squeezing. Part of his mind panics and yells is this a fight? Are we in a fight? But a much larger part has gone sort of soft around the edges thinking, oh. This is—oh.
Claire catches Jesse's eye over Ben's shoulder and stage-whispers, "Better you than me." But she's smiling now too, and Ben doesn't seem to take any offense as he pulls away. (Just as well. It wouldn't do for him to stay long enough to notice how loud Jesse's heart is beating.)
"Shut up," says Ben. "We came out of this with more people alive than we started with, I'm allowed to be happy." He punches Jesse on the shoulder. "There. Masculinity restored. Now let's go get some burgers."
Jesse almost doesn't want to risk it, but he has to ask. "All of us?"
Ben's smile softens. After all, he just asked this question himself. "Yeah." A beat. "And you're picking up the bill."
"Oh, come off it," says Jesse, and in their good-natured bickering he forgets to be nervous about following the both of them back to the truck. Ben hops in the driver's seat and pats the dash fondly, arguing all the while, as Jesse climbs in and finds himself squished between these two hunters that somehow managed to become his friends.
"Seriously," Claire says in an undertone, as Jesse's silence prompts Ben to begin a monologue about cheeseburgers he has known and loved. "For as long as you want. Stay."
And that, Jesse finds, will be a very long time.