Supernatural birthday fic: Half-Baked, Romantic Notions (PG, Sam-Dean-Jo, gen)

Title: Half-Baked, Romantic Notions
Author:

krisomniac
Rating, warning, pairing: PG, blood, gen
Disclaimer: Not mine. Sadly.
Author's note: Written for

amchara MONTHS ago, and finished for the occasion of her birthday. Hope you enjoy it, love, even though it's not as porny as originally intended. Happy day!

Summary: Jo learns how to be a hunter, ~1500 words.

~

“There’s always walking dead this time of year,” Sam says as they pull into Frostberg, Maryland. “Zombies, spirits, ghosts, devils."

He smiles wryly. "They always seem to want your blood or your heart, brain or spleen-- don't laugh. The people who raise them don't know what they're getting into.” He pauses so long that Jo isn’t sure whether he’s done. The only sound is the deep rumble of the motor as the tires slide over the icy pavement.

Dean stares straight ahead, keeping the car safely on the road.

“I think it’s the season,” Sam finally says. “They don’t want to be alone.” He’s talking to Jo but the entire time, he doesn’t take his eyes off Dean.

She sits in the back seat, her legs curled up under her, head on the window. The glass is cold beneath her cheek. She feels like she’s intruding on something private, some moment she wasn’t meant to see, and turns away to watch the dark trees rush past.

Something in the woods. By the cemetery. Stealing people's heads.

Silently, she reviews their research, their weapons store, the things she's learned over the last few weeks on the road. And she wonders whether she's ready.

~

They tell you there’s satisfaction in a good, clean kill. They tell you to keep your weapons sharp, your friends close. They warn you about the pulse-pounding fear, overwhelming gratitude, thrill of the chase. The thing they never talk about, the old guys with grizzly beards and scarred faces or the young guys with old eyes nursing their beers in the corner, is that it’s also one hell of a rush.

Christmas lights glow in the windows, snow is on the horizon, and the barrel of the rifle is still warm against her arm. The scent of gunpowder and charred flesh lingers in the air. There’s a smoldering mound of headless horsemen in the middle of the road.

“Nice work, Jo,” Sam says, thumping her on the back, and she has to step forward to steady herself. Dean tosses him the well-used blowtorch before climbing into the driver’s seat and starting the car. His face is smudged with soot from the fire.

Jo stands in the middle of the road. Her heart is still lodged somewhere between her throat and shoulders and she feels like a stiff breeze could topple her. But under that, there’s another sensation. It’s hot in her blood, the almost-heady thrill of having fought something evil, something wrong, with missing body parts and bloodthirsty ambitions, and having won.

~

"You comin'?" Dean stomps his feet to keep warm.

Jo fumbles with her bags over one arm, trying to conceal her gun under the other, while she digs for the room key in her pocket and shuts the car door. "Yeah," she says. Her breath steams in the neon light. The door shuts with a loud click that sounds hollow across the frozen lot.

She tosses Dean the key.

"Sam'll be back with dinner soon," he says once they're safely inside.

"Not hungry," she tells him, leaning against the cold, closed door. And it's only partly a lie.

He stares at her, like he's trying to figure out whether to pull her hair, or crack a joke, or ask her why. Instead, he fumbles with the heater which reluctantly sputters to life.

She forces a smile and drops her back of spent shells and sooty weapons, still caked with whatever was pumping through those creatures' reanimated veins. Her heart hasn't stopped pounding since the chase through the woods. She can still see Dean's back disappearing between the trees, feel the ground shake under the horses' hooves behind her.

"I thought you were going to leave me."

"Leave you?" He sounds surprised.

She can smell the smoke on his clothes. She looks away from the rough stubble along his jaw, eyes ringed by too-long lashes, freckles standing out against the dirt and grime.

"Why the hell would we leave you?"

"I… dunno." Suddenly her fear seems childish, foolish and unfounded.

"Look if you don't trust--"

"I do." She turns away.

"I figured you could handle them."

"I could."

"It was pretty--"

"Fucking awesome, yeah." And then the feeling is back, pounding and eager in her veins. She can hear the horses behind her, stomping feet and whuffling breath, the soundless screams of their headless riders. She shivers despite the memory of a funeral pyre so hot it sucked the air from her lungs and she had to step away.

"Took the words out of my mouth."

~

The snows melt over the prairie, and little green shoots poke their heads from the soft ground.

Jo's wasted two ghosts, sweating and cursing as she dug through six feet of icy mud to their graves. She's suffered three concussions-- though the last one hardly counted-- busted Sam from a warlock's cage, and learned how to use a crossbow with deadly accuracy. She records the details of each hunt in a leather bound journal Dean gave her one day, pressing it into her hands and smiling awkwardly. He's never asked to look in it since, but sometimes she catches him watching her write, then he and Sam will exchange a look she doesn't even try to understand.

She locks the motel room door behind her and tosses her bag into the back seat of the car where Sam and Dean are already waiting. Her weapons clang and clank when it lands. As they drive away, she stretches out across the back seat, flicks her sandals off, and rests her still-tired feet on the cool glass.

Sam and Dean are talking in low voices up front, but she's long given up asking them to speak so she can hear. Instead she closes her eyes and thinks about the road, moving her feet from the window when she feels Dean glare at them.

They're on their way to see about a nest of chupacabras that's wandered as far north as the Sierras. Jo's looking forward to it. She hasn't spent much time in California. Maybe she can convince Dean to take a few days off after this hunt is done, unwind on a sun-drenched beach. Then again--

She remembers his birthday, spent in the emergency room after a revenant nearly eviscerated him in the woods. She'd never seen Sam so worried, pacing the corridors like a caged tiger until the doctors came out to say Dean would be fine.

Pale and shaky, Dean spent the rest of the night grumbling that they wouldn't let him eat his cake. He killed the bastard three days later and put Maine in their rearview the night after that.

--Maybe not.

~

Sam is in the bathroom, washing the blood from his arm. Fluorescent light pours through the open door, and she hears him hiss as he passes the bite wounds under running water.

"Alright there, Sammy?" Dean asks, and Jo tries not to be jealous of the affection in his voice.

She sits on a bed and unlaces her boots, wincing with every movement. She gingerly inspects the bruises beginning to darken on her skin, and rolls her ankle, flexes her knee, checking for broken bones. Sucker was heavy, leaping at her legs, hauling her down.

Her heart still pounds with the memory of its foul breath, the knowledge that Sam and Dean were off in the other direction, wouldn't hear her scream as they took on the rest of the pack.

She killed it before they hit they ground, landing in a tangle of sweaty limbs and rushing blood.

"I'll survive," Sam says from the bathroom. A moment later, the water shuts off and he wanders in. The cuts are bad, but in the last few months, she's seen worse.

Dean is by his side in a moment, ushering him to a chair, breaking out the first aid kit.

Jo leans on the bed and pushes herself up to standing. Her boots are still open as she shoulders her bag.

"Where're you going?" Sam asks over his shoulder.

"Gonna take a room." She opens the door.

"Back at eight am, sharp," Dean says without taking his eyes off his work. "You want to see the beach? There's something eating surfers off Malibu, and it ain't a shark."

Jo doesn't bother to explain that that isn't what she had meant by a few days' detour to the shore. Besides, the mountains are chupacabra-free and right outside their door. "You know," she says, more to the door frame than the Winchesters. "I think I might sit this one out."

They both look up sharply.

"But--" Sam says.

"You did good out there," Dean adds.

The thing is, she knows it, knows that she's good.

The thing is that neither of them wants her to stay because they need her.

"How're you going to catch up?" Sam asks, but the look on his face says he already knows.

"I'll manage." Jo's smile is halfhearted. She closes her hand around the knife in her pocket, adjusts the bag on her shoulder, and looks out to where the whole world is waiting. "Thanks, though, for everything."

She hears the drip of the faucet in the silence that descends on the room. In some ways, it's harder than leaving home was. "I'll call you later, okay?"

Dean smiles. "Yeah," he says quietly. "Okay."

She turns and closes the door behind her.