Bad Ideas, Good Intentions by lady_simoriah for <user site="liv

[springflingmod.livejournal.com]

Title: Bad Ideas, Good Intentions
Pairing: Charlie/Jo
Rating: R
Any warnings: angst, femslash, canon character deaths



The searing pain of the knife slicing into Charlie's body seemed so distant and though it pained her, she hadn't given following the reaper that had come to take her away a second thought. She knew she'd done her best, that her job of helping the Winchesters was done and that Dean would be okay now that she'd broken the code and sent it off to Sam so that he could get rid of the Mark of Cain.

Boy, was she ever wrong.

She wasn't sure exactly how time passed in heaven nor was she sure why her particular heaven kept oscillating between her childhood home, Bag End, her tent from when she was Queen of Moondor, Oz, and lastly of all, the Winchesters Bunker. Lately that had been where it was staying the most often which had her feeling rather melancholy as she wandered the multitude of seemingly never-ending halls. It felt so empty without the familiar sounds of Dean and Sam bumbling around between the various rooms as they went about their lives. She even found herself missing Dorothy when she wandered into the garage and saw her motorcycle still parked down at the far end. She had finally settled in the library, sitting at the long wood table and picturing Sam among his stacks of old books researching when she felt the first big disturbance. She couldn't put a finger on what it was, just that the force of it had the heavenly created bunker shaking hard enough to make the fake alarms sound off. She jumped up and ran to the other room to shut the alarms off wondering what had just happened. When nothing dark and dastardly manifested itself Charlie went back to her wandering and bumming around the bunker and her other heaven manifestations until she felt that strange heaven quaking disturbance again. This time it was far worse and the shaking seemed to go on for so long that by the time things finally settled down she half expected that the entire library would be on the floor.

"Sam would be so pissed by this," she muttered to herself, picking up after the quake.

The books in her arms soon wound up back on the floor when she heard something or someone start banging at the door. She felt a bit like Bilbo Baggins as she crept from the library into the communications room and up the rickety metal stairs as the thing outside continued to knock at her door. A multitude of possibilities as to who would know to find her here ran through her head, from Castiel and the Winchesters to Bobby or one of the other friends Dean and Sam had lost throughout the years. She bit at her lip nervously as she put her ear to the door, hoping to hear something reassuring or at the very least familiar on the other side.

"Who...who is it?"

She was met with complete and total silence not an answer which had her feeling really nervous as she reached for the door knob.

"Please don't be a demon...or a bad angel...or..."

"Definitely not a demon and the only bad anything I am is badass, Dr. Badass at your service," said the mullet haired man on the other side.

"You're...you're Ash...you died in the fire at the Roadhouse," responded Charlie, amazed to come face to face with one of the Winchester's oldest friends.

"The one and only...and I'm here to bust you out," said Ash with a big grin, "Need your help tracking down and getting a little heavenly militia going just in case..."

Charlie's initial smile at the fact that she finally had someone to talk to quickly faded at Ash's words, especially his remark of 'just in case'.

"Just in case of what, Ash? What...what caused those quakes?"

"Bad stuff, kiddo, bad stuff...I've been tuning into angel radio a lot lately and the news is not good downstairs. Two big evils are loose and the angels are going batshit trying to find a way to stop them."

Charlie gawked at Ash and it took awhile for his bad news to fully sink in. There was only one thing she knew to do when it came to danger and that was why she opened the bunker door further and motioned Ash inside.

"Tell me everything."

***

By the time Ash was done relating to Charlie everything he'd learned about the quakes that'd shaken heaven, her head was spinning and she found herself longing to be back on Earth where she could actually be of some use to Dean and Sam.

"God's Sister and Lucifer..." she mused, shaking her head.”And your plan to help defend heaven is to round-up everyone willing to fight in case one or both of them decide to come stomping up here for a hostile takeover."

"Pretty much."

"And what makes you think we have any better odds of defending heaven than the angels?"

"Nothin', but if there's one thing I've learned with being up here and dealing with the Winchesters it's that you can't just sit back and hope things will be okay."

Charlie couldn't help smiling fondly at that thought, thinking back to the determination she'd seen on Sam's face when he'd come up with a plan to save Dean. Now she knew that Sam's plan had succeeded but the dire consequences that the Book of the Damned had spoken of had also come to pass by unleashing the Darkness on the world. And in another misguided attempt to fix that, the boys had given Lucifer the means to get out of his cage once again. Well intentioned plans with disastrous consequences seemed to be the Winchester's forte' and as she looked around the empty bunker she realized the message her subconscious had been sending her via the heaven it'd picked for her to roam around in.

"Well...to quote Gimli, certainty of death...small chance of success...what are we waiting for?"

***

What Charlie hadn't allowed for as she wandered through the various heavens searching for allies was the punch to the gut she would feel when they finally found the one person she'd been sort of kind of harboring a crush on since she'd discovered Chuck's Supernatural books. She found herself ducking her head and avoiding the blonde woman's gaze even though she could feel her studying her.

'She's probably wondering why Ash bothered getting someone like me for this thing,' she thought, glancing sideways through the fringe of bangs at the woman Ash was talking to like an old friend. 'Not to mention she doesn't swing my way, at least not if Chuck's books are anything to go by.'

She was tempted to tell Ash to forget it and go running back to her silent, empty, lonely heaven when she felt the other woman's presence and wound up studying the boots on her feet even as the blonde studied her more closely.

"So is it Charlie or Celeste?" the woman inquired.

"Charlie, you can call me Charlie."

She grimaced inwardly, hating how she sounded like that cute little skunk from Bambi talking to the one and only Jo Harvelle like that. She was so lost in inwardly berating herself that the brush of Jo's fingers nudging her bangs aside had her jerking her head up and staring at the other woman like a deer in headlights. The look on Jo's face was blank, inscrutable and had Charlie nervous and wondering if the hunter would join in their campaign or not. She glanced toward Ash then back to Jo, her feet shifting as she waited for Jo to pass judgment on her as a fellow hunter.

"Count me in," said Jo, nodding, "And I want to see this bunker thing, I have a feeling it'd make a safer base of operations than the Roadhouse even in heaven."

"Awesome, you and Charlie can head over to her heaven and start making plans while I keep collecting people," said Ash, his grin wide and plain in his voice as well as on his face.

Charlie nodded nervously and moved to make the sigil that Ash had taught her that would allow the Roadhouse door to lead them from Jo's version of heaven to Charlie's. She opened the door and glanced back at Jo, watching her eyes just about bug out when she got her first look at the bunker before they'd even walked into it. Charlie was just glad that it had been the bunker version of her heaven that'd shown up on the other side as she led Jo through and down the metal stairs into the nerve center and the library beyond.

"This...this is amazing, how could we not know this existed," mused Jo, looking around and taking everything in.

"Well from what Sam said, the Men of Letters didn't exactly broadcast their existence to begin with and then when they went extinct back in the fifties..."

Charlie's voice trailed off as she watched Jo walk through the bunker, through the spaces that were so painfully familiar to her, with awestruck and admiring eyes. She was tempted to walk away, to just leave Jo to enjoy and explore on her own when Jo turned back toward her, the look in her eyes reminding her of the one she always saw reflected in her own.

"I miss them too," she admitted softly, not caring how weak it made her look in front of the fellow hunter, "I love this place but I hate it because I miss Dean rattling the pots in the kitchen and the heavy tread of his boots. I miss Sam sitting at this table with a ton of books with a cup of coffee in one hand and a pen in the other."

"Yeah...yeah, they're...they're something alright," murmured Jo, "There's times when I still can feel the way Dean kissed me right before..."

Charlie wasn't sure why but that thought, those words had her crossing the floor to pull Jo into a tight hug the way the boys had always hugged her. Her lips twisted in a wry smile as she inhaled the scent of smoke that clung to Jo's hair, knowing how it had got there and feeling sad at how it reminded her so much of the guy that she knew Jo was smitten with. She expected Jo to push her away, to shake her loose but instead it felt like the hunter tightened her hold and she tried to fight down the shiver that went through her when she felt Jo's breath ghost against her throat.

"You know," whispered Jo, "My biggest regret...was not taking that idiot up on his offer when he gave me that last night on Earth bit. If I'd known..."

Charlie felt Jo sigh against her skin and it had her biting back an indecent sound that she was terrified would send the blonde hunter running far and fast. She swallowed hard and waited until Jo lifted her head to turn slightly so that she could meet her eyes.

"What about you?" inquired Jo, "What's your biggest regret?"

"I...I dunno," murmured Charlie, "Uh...maybe not being there to see Dean get the Mark of Cain taken away despite what it did, to see him back to being the awesome guy that he should be."

She felt something in her warm when she saw Jo smile and shake her head, then realized that the hunter's arms still hadn't retreated from where they'd wrapped around her in return.

"So you guys never...y'know...either?"

"Uh...definitely not, I mean, it's not that they weren't good-looking and smart and nice but I...uh..."

This time Charlie definitely braced for Jo to pull away, waiting for the puzzle pieces to fall into place which would give Jo a picture of someone she definitely didn't think about the same way. She could see when Jo connected the dots and when the hunter didn't pull away completely, Charlie went ahead and did the smart thing by pulling back and giving Jo room to think about it.

"If...if you need anything, just...yeah," she mumbled, "I'll be around."

On that note, Charlie headed off to find her way to what she remembered was Sam's room from when she spent the night watching Game of Thrones with the boys. She shut the door behind her and locked it even though she knew Jo could pick the lock. She could already feel tears rolling down her cheeks as she moved to curl up on the bed even though she knew it wouldn't smell like either Winchester but just the clean, sterile smell that her fake heavens all tended to have. She knew she didn't really need to sleep anymore but she closed her eyes and tried to pretend even though she still ended up miserable thanks to the visions of Jo that were dancing in her head.

***

Charlie kept her distance from that point on which became a lot easier once Ash started bringing other people back to her heaven. She was excited to meet a lot of them, having read about some of them and their adventures with the Winchesters via Chuck's books. They'd accumulated a good little group with Bobby and Rufus and Jimmy and Amelia Novak. Meeting Jimmy had been weird since she was used to thinking of him as Castiel but the more she got to know the guy the more she understood about how Cas had come into the Winchester's lives to begin with. The person she found herself spending the most time with was Pamela Barnes who didn't seem at all thrown by Charlie's sexuality. If she hadn't already had such a big crush on Jo, Pamela would've been great to get to know a lot more intimately but though Charlie had a feeling the interest could be there, she couldn't bring herself to do that despite not knowing how Jo felt about her after that first night. She caught Jo looking at her every so often but the other woman rarely made an effort to interact with her.

It wasn't until the night Ash said that he'd heard that Lucifer was going to make an attack on heaven that everything changed. As usual, Charlie retreated to Sam's room, something nobody had argued with her on, and locked the door behind her, figuring she was going to need to prepare for the fact that with Lucifer on the horizon that her little corner of heaven and possibly even her soul was about to be destroyed. She was curled up on the bed, lost in thought when she heard the sound of someone picking her lock. She rolled over to face away from the door, hoping that whoever thought they could intrude on her peace and quiet would take the hint and go away. Instead she was amazed when not only did she hear the door open and close behind the lock picker, but also footsteps as the person slowly crossed the floor and the creak of the mattress as it gave under the extra weight. She tensed as she felt a slender body move to spoon against her back as well as a pale arm move to drape around her middle. For a moment she wondered if Jo was just looking for somewhere she wouldn't be alone considering what they were facing tomorrow but the moment Charlie felt the other woman's lips brush against the curve of her ear lobe she knew this was something different.

"So, dangerous mission tomorrow," murmured Jo, knowing full well whose words she was using, "Guess it's time to eat, drink, and...y'know, make merry."

Charlie swallowed hard and found herself wishing that Jo was drunk, that any of them were able to be drunk but heaven didn't really allow that. You could drink till you would've been shit faced on Earth and you still wouldn't really even have a buzz. It would make it easier to explain why the hunter was whispering Dean's last night on Earth speech in her ear rather than the only other alternative.

"You don't...you don't have to do this...be here," she responded, "I know that you're not like me, that you're not interested in me, not like Dean was in you that night."

"I know and you're right, I wasn't, not at first but..."

Jo's voice trailed off and she replaced words with deeds as she pressed a trail of feather soft kisses down along Charlie's throat that had her shivering with a mix of nerves and want.

"You've grown on me, Charlie," she said softly, her breath ghosting across slightly spit slick skin. "You're smart as a whip and funny and it reminds me of the good old days."

Jo's arm around Charlie's waist tightened and Charlie could feel the brush of the other woman's fingers as she nudged the hem of her shirt up.

"I want you, Charlie, tonight, tomorrow, till heaven ceases to exist," she added, "I don't...I don't want to die with any regrets this time."

Charlie hesitated a moment, letting Jo's words sink deep into her head and heart before she finally turned over in Jo's arms to face her. She allowed herself to reach out, to run her fingers through the spun gold of Jo's hair that made her look like a fairy tale come to life. As the last tendrils fell from her fingertips, she gathered enough courage to lean in and finally slant her lips against Jo's, kissing her tenderly at first then more eagerly as she felt Jo responding. Clothes were quickly shed, lips traveled what seemed like miles of skin until both Charlie and Jo were clinging to each other, sweat matting their hair to cheeks and brows and necks and drying along with the spit and other slickness from how they'd gotten each other off. The first round was fast and frantic like heaven was going to fall apart around them, the next round found them rolling around in the bed that Charlie remembered from the tent where the fairy Gilda had been held hostage. When both of them were finally sated and exhausted, Charlie found herself slipping into a light doze with Jo's golden hair spread across her arm and tickling her bare breast thanks to the way the beautiful hunter was resting her head on her shoulder. She stroked her fingers along the slender arm draped across her middle and found herself smiling for the first time in a long time as she noted the hickies that decorated the curves of her breasts.

"If we survive tomorrow," she murmured, "Will you stay here with me, Jo? I don't...I know this is heaven but I can't stand being alone."

Jo lifted her head slowly and Charlie felt her whole body melt inside at the warmth in those chocolate brown eyes that gazed down at her.

"Always," she responded, dipping her head to give Charlie a deep kiss.

Charlie smiled against Jo's lips and wrapped her arms more tightly around Jo, loving the way the hunter's words resonated in her heart and finally made her heaven whole in spite of the danger ahead of them.

Comments

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely on board with this pairing but your Charlie is cute, and I love the idea of her heaven having the Bunker in it. I also like stories that explore what the likes of Ash and co might be doing in heaven because that's so neglected in canon, and has so much potential! Having Ash mustering up a kind of resistance makes so much sense!

[lady-simoriah.livejournal.com]

Awwwwwwww, I'm glad you like my Charlie even if the pairing isn't your thing which makes it even more awesome that you read and commented. And yeah, the idea of Ash and his wayward band of friends in heaven was what kinda bashed me over the head the minute I read the profile for my giftee. I love being able to revisit characters like that and it worked as a great way to bring Charlie and Jo together since their canon lives were so divergent from each other.

[frozen_delight]

I like the idea of Charlie and Jo meeting in heaven. Cute fic.

[lady-simoriah.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for reading and commenting! I had a lot of fun writing this story and Charlie is definitely one of my favorite people to write now whether with Jo or otherwise. Somehow I have a feeling if those two had met in canon they would've been an interesting duo.

[majestic-duxk.livejournal.com]

What an interesting exploration of heaven! I really liked the way they all end up at the bunker, and seeing old friends again (Pamela! Pamela was there!) There is so much that could happen up there, and I liked the way the Charlie's heaven shifted, and ash! of course Ash is there doing his stuff! Charlie/Jo is not something I'd thought about before... but I did like the way you quoted from abandon all hope!

[lady-simoriah.livejournal.com]

LOL Oh lordy, yeah, if there's another female character I adore almost as much as Charlie it's Pamela and after seeing her in heaven, whether she was being manipulated by Zachariah or not, I couldn't not include her in Ash's roundup. And after seeing how Bobby's heaven seemed to manifest itself by comparison to the Roadhouse or the memory lane road trip the boys went through I could easily picture Charlie's heaven shifting to fit her thoughts and personality from time to time rather than being too settled. I love the fact that going outside my comfort zone with this pairing seems to have brought it out into a lot of other people's attention and yeah, there was no way I could resist Jo echoing Dean with that line, she reminds me enough of him that I could see her falling back on that to coax Charlie into her arms. Thanks so much for reading and commenting!

[anactoria.livejournal.com]

This was very cute. SPN heavens seem like they can be very lonely, and I'm glad Charlie found someone to share hers. :)

[lady-simoriah.livejournal.com]

Awwwww, thanks! And yeah, after seeing that hall of heavens when we managed to revisit Bobby definitely made things seem painfully isolationist up there. Leave it to Ash to help remedy that though. LOL Thanks for reading and commenting!

[lyryk.livejournal.com]

You had me from the pairing, and there's so much else to love about this! The LotR references, Bag End being one of Charlie's heavens, the fact that the books remind her of Sam. <3 The comfort that Charlie and Jo find in each other is just lovely, and I really like the idea that Sam and Dean's friends in heaven are participating in the fight against Lucifer and the Darkness.

[lady-simoriah.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I totally surprised myself when I got my giftee's profile and this story just unfolded in my head considering I don't think I've ever written SPN femslash in my entire posting history until now. I just couldn't resist though because I absolutely love Charlie for all the reasons that you point out in your comment, how adorably geeky she is and how much she became that little sister that the boys never knew they wanted and I could definitely see that being reflected in her version of heaven. I loved being able to pair her up with Jo who in so many ways is kinda the Dean to Charlie's Sam-ness and of course with being in the thick of Season 11 what immediately came to mind was Ash and company preparing for a potential heaven under siege considering the amount of power Lucifer and Amara are packing and how the angels have already tried and failed at taking both of them out. Thank you so much for reading and your awesome comment!

[firefly124.livejournal.com]

Oh my Gods this is so awesome! Charvelle is awesome in any case, but Charvelle heaven!fic is my favorite flavor. Charlie's heaven, Pamela being interested, Ash coordinating the heavenly resistance, all of it uggs great. Jo giving Charlie Dean's last night on earth speech, in particular, (not to mention much more successfully) is made of absolute win. Thank you so much, anon!

[lady-simoriah.livejournal.com]

You are so incredibly welcome! You have no idea how thrilled to pieces I was when I saw you comment when this was still all anonymous. Your gifting profile drove me outside my comfort zone in so many ways and I was scared to bits as to how it would be received by you and anyone else perusing springfling this year. Needless to say I was beyond happy and reassured when you and the others left your comments praising my take on Charlie and interpretation of the Charvelle pairing. I had so much fun writing this fic and I absolutely adored getting to write Charlie for the first time ever. I would've loved to be able to go further and get more detailed but it was already over the word count and too close to the deadline. LOL Thank you so much for loving this fic and for giving me a reason to venture out and notch another awesome rare pair on my belt. *hugs*

[marciaelena.livejournal.com]

I'd never thought of Charlie/Jo before, but this was lovely. Also love the premise that Sam & Dean's dead friends would work together to help fight Lucifer and the Darkness in any way they could.

[lady-simoriah.livejournal.com]

I hadn't really either and I ended up hitting up the inter-webs for more details on where other authors had gone with it as well as running wild with my own ideas that popped up after I got my giftee's profile. And yeah, after knowing how Ash was able to hop between heavens and Bobby's willingness to help Sam and Cas in that one episode, banding everyone together in the hopes of doing what the angels failed to do seemed like a fun albeit somewhat suicidal idea but then when everything in your afterlife is so picture perfect or seemingly so I guess anything is better than endless monotony. I'm glad that you enjoyed reading it and thank you so much for your awesome comment, it means a lot to me to know that even as outside the box as this was that it was well received and well liked by so many folks.