Miles From Here (Sam/Jo) PG-13
Title: Miles From Here
Author: Brinny
Pairing: Sam/Jo
Rating: PG-13 (For some mild sexing and language.)
Wordcount: 3,569
Warnings/Spoilers: None.
Summary: Sam grins and moves even closer to her. “How do you feel about a road trip?”
I.
Guthrie, Oklahoma.
He finds her in a rundown bar. It smells vaguely of vomit and the paint is chipped and peeling.
Sam wasn’t even looking for her. Wasn’t looking for anyone, really. But it’s nice to see a familiar face.
She’s sitting at one of the tables in the back, legs tucked underneath her, and reading a worn paperback. With every quick flip of the page, Jo also pushes at the piece of hair that keeps straying from her messy ponytail.
He walks over to her, hands held in his pockets, and lightly kicks at the leg of her chair. Jo doesn’t look back up, just dog-ears the page she was on and dips a hand past her jacket and into the waistband of her jeans.
Sam catches the glint of a blade the same time she lifts her eyes up to his. She leaves the knife where it is.
“Hi,” she says. She’s looks kind of startled and confused, maybe even nervous. Bringing her hand back up to the table, she plays with the edge of the book, fingertips rubbing over the cracked spine.
“Hey,” he returns, smiling.
A hint of a smile tugs at her own lips, almost shy, and she gives the chair next to her a rough shove with the tip of her boot. “Sit.”
Sam does as he’s told and there’s a quiet, awkward sort of silence and he’s pretty sure he’s staring at her, because she clears her throat and glances away. He tries not to blush, instead running his hands along the impressions left in the wood from discarded beer caps.
“You running?” Jo asks. She’s opened the book back up and Sam can see the faded words, To Kill a Mockingbird on the cover.
Sam thinks about her question, bites his lip a bit, and nods. “Yeah.”
Jo taps her fingers thoughtfully on the page, then looks back at him. “Me too.”
“Yeah,” he repeats. He shifts, leaning forward on his elbows, chair legs scraping loudly over the floorboards. “Where you headed?”
She shrugs. “Nowhere, really.” Pausing, she ducks her head and pushes at the persistent strand of hair. “Just stopped in here ‘cause it kind of reminded me of home, you know?”
Sam nods. He’s never had a home, not really. Stanford feels so long ago and before that, home’s mostly just been where Dean is.
“You got a car?” he asks.
“It has four wheels and runs,” Jo smiles. “Not the prettiest thing to look at, though. Why?”
Sam grins and moves even closer to her. “How do you feel about a road trip?”
II.
Hanksville, Utah.
She reads when he drives.
Sometimes she’ll say a few sentences out loud, rolling the words around in her mouth and off her tongue. She was a freak with a knife collection at college, sure, but Jo still liked it fine. It just wasn’t hunting.
And now she’s not doing either.
“Ending is better than mending. The more stitches, the less riches.”
This week it’s Brave New World, because she only picks classics. Sam thinks it’s pretty pretentious, especially for somebody who only seems to watch ancient black and white horror movies so bad they’d make Dean cringe. Sometimes, though, she leaves the channel on scrambled porn and Sam still hasn’t figured out if it’s to piss him off or if she thinks she’s doing him a favor.
“Frankenstein,” Sam answers. He grins at her, fingers tapping on the steering wheel.
Jo creases her brow, tongue stuck out of the side of her mouth. “What?”
“Next book,” he says, shrugging. “That’s what you should pick.”
She squirms and grabs the pen that she tucked behind her ear, underlining a passage. “Too girly.”
“Really? A resurrected corpse is too girly?”
“Yeah,” Jo answers. She leaves the pen as a bookmarker and pulls her legs up onto the seat; arms wrapped around them and chin resting on her knees. “Where’re we stopping?”
Sam reads the map when she drives; plays careful navigator, marking out crisscrossing routes all over the country. Jo’s tried, but she usually just gets them lost.
“There’s a motel about forty miles from here.” Sam leans over to pop the glove box, fingers brushing over her legs as he retrieves the map. She gasps as if he’s done something scandalous and Sam lets out a loud laugh. He flings the misfolded map onto her lap. “Cross off Hanksville.”
Jo takes the blue ballpoint pen out of her book and makes a hard ‘X’ over Hanksville.
“Think they’ll have porn at the motel room?” she asks, voice casual. She smirks and rips off the corner of the map, rolling it into a tiny ball.
“What is it with you and porn?” Sam shakes his head.
Jo takes aim and lobs the ball of paper at him. It bounces off his cheek and falls onto the dashboard, then rolls onto the seat.
“Don’t distract the driver,” he says, smiling.
She snorts. “Right, ‘cause singing The Locomotion at the top of your lungs is totally not distracting.”
Sam’s smile widens. “Hey, you got a problem with The Funk, then you’ll have to walk.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she accuses.
He shrugs, like maybe he would, and Jo twists around in the seat until she’s pressed up against him. She lies her head down on his shoulder, arms tangled around his waist.
“Wake you up when we get there?” he asks.
Jo gives a sleepy yawn, hands grabbing at his shirt. “Yeah.”
III.
Fort Dodge, Iowa.
Jo packs a picnic basket for the two of them at the last motel.
Of course, she can’t cook, so it’s filled with gas station goodies and stuff from the vending machine outside their room. And she couldn’t find a basket, so it’s all just thrown in a plastic bag from Seven Eleven. There’s Twinkies, Red Vines, day old sandwiches, warm cans of soda, Cheetos and a bag of cookies.
They end up eating it in the car, anyway; parked somewhere off the side of the road.
“Last time you had sex,” Sam says through a mouthful of Twinkie.
Jo bites off the end of a Red Vine. “Two months, six days.” She stuffs both the candy and a handful of Cheetos into her mouth.
“Wait, we were in Lexington two months ago.”
She lifts the sunglasses from her face and perches her feet on top of the dashboard. Her toenails are bright pink, striped with purple. “So?”
“So you had sex!” he says, bits of yellow sponge cake flying everywhere.
“Is that a problem?” Jo asks.
“No,” Sam shakes his head. “Course not, it’s just, I can’t remember the last time I got laid. And you’re what, doing guys in bathrooms?”
“I’m classier than that.” She puts her sunglasses back over her eyes, but only after Sam can see her wink long and slow. “It’s usually in their cars.”
“Nice,” he snorts.
“Last time you-” She stops and gives a vague wave of her hand, Red Vine swinging, “You know, pleasured yourself.”
“I’m starting to really not like this game,” Sam mutters. He reaches over and grabs a sandwich out of the bag.
“You just don’t like it because you know that I heard you last night,” Jo smiles.
“What? You did not!” This time pieces of ham, cheese, and bread spray from his mouth.
“Perv,” she teases.
“Says the chick that left the porn on.” He wipes crumbs from his shirt and Jo leans over and brushes the rest off of his pants.
“Hey, maybe I felt like watching Ejacula, okay?” She lifts a brow, head cocked to the side, and Sam tries to remember if he had this exact conversation with his brother.
He ignores her comment instead, swats at her hands, and takes another bite of the sandwich. “Last time you went down on a guy.”
“Two months, six days,” Jo answers. “Same dude.”
Sam nods, stealing a sip of her soda. He swishes the flat cola around in his mouth, wondering if he should be jealous.
“Last time you thought about going back,” she says, voice low.
“Eight minutes and thirty-two seconds ago,” Sam tells her.
“Ha.” She grins, but it’s more sad than happy. “Six minutes and four seconds.”
“You win.”
“Nah,” Jo shakes her head. “You’re the one who hasn’t been laid in forever. Probably not a decent blowjob, either. I’d say you win.”
She hands him a cookie as the prize.
He turns it over in his hand a couple of times and then smirks. “Can remedy both of those things tonight, you know. Just need a willing participant.” Sam looks over at her and smirks wider.
“Sure,” she nods. “We can totally get you a hooker, Sam.”
IV.
Spooner, Wisconsin.
It’s snowing, actually snowing. A lot.
Jo’s shitty excuse for a car won’t make it through a snowstorm, so they’re stuck in a ratty, old Motel 6 and have been for the past three days.
Jo’s sitting on one of the beds, pillow on her lap, and reading The Grapes of Wrath. Sam’s trying to get a decent signal on the television, for something other than porn, this time.
“Dude, this book sucks.” She throws it down on the floor, where it lands with a semi-loud thump, and hugs the pillow to her chest. “I need TV. I think Ron Popeil misses me. Like physically, he hurts because I’m not watching him slow roast a chicken.”
Sam shakes his head.
“Get anything yet?” she asks.
“Nope.” He smacks the set hard with his palm. Dean’s done it and it’s worked and so has the Fonz, so he almost expects the picture to right itself and is kind of disappointed when it doesn’t. “Snow outside and snow on the TV.”
“You keep making crappy jokes like that and I’ll be forced to go Jack Torrance on your ass.”
Sam grins and gives up, joining her on the bed. He props his head up against the headboard, long legs crossed at the ankle. “Good thing we don’t have any weapons, then.”
“D’you miss it?” she asks.
He shrugs. “Yeah, sometimes.”
They’re quiet for a minute and Sam throws an arm over her shoulders, fingers tugging through her hair.
“And speak for yourself,” Jo smiles. “Just ‘cause you only carry a container of salt and prayer, doesn’t mean that’s all I have.”
“True,” Sam agrees with a nod, like he’s proud or something. His fingers hit a tangle and it takes a moment to pull them through. “You always want to be a hunter?”
“No.” She jerks her head back and forth and Sam can feel her nose and chin bump along his chest. “When I was about four, I wanted to be Miss Nebraska.”
He laughs and she glares at him. “You serious?”
“Yes. Not all of us wanted to be lawyers.” Jo pushes closer to him, purposefully twining their legs together. Her feet barely go past his knees.
“What would your talent have been?”
“I can sing, I guess,” she shrugs. “Or maybe I would’ve juggled knives or whatever.”
“Miss Nebraska juggling knives?” Sam laughs again. “That’d be pretty awesome. I’d watch for that.”
Jo rolls her eyes. “Oh, like you don’t watch for the bathing suit portion, anyway.”
“It’s objectifying to women,” he tells her with a rehearsed nod. She’s not buying it, so he just says instead, “You’d look hot in a bathing suit, Jo.”
“I would,” she agrees.
V.
Richfield, Idaho.
Jo’s hasn’t been home in well over a year and Sam hasn’t seen Dean in about five months. He’s called his brother a few times, telling him not to worry. And Sam and Jo haven’t been exactly careful about not leaving a trail, so Sam thinks that if Dean wanted to find him, he would.
Today is a roadside diner, scrambled eggs piled high on their plates.
“Dean called me yesterday,” Jo says, fork digging through eggs.
Sam’s in mid-sip of his coffee and he gulps it down, hard and fast. “Yeah?”
“Wanted to make sure I was taking care of his little brother.” She looks up at him and smiles.
“And?”
Jo shrugs, squirting a blob of ketchup onto her plate. “I told him I was.”
“Good,” Sam nods. “That’s good.”
“He also seems to think that I’m providing you with, uh, certain services.” She blushes a little as she picks up her glass and smirks into her orange juice.
Sam snorts. “Really? What’d you say to that?”
The smirk grows a bit and she puts her glass back down. She shrugs again. “I told him I was.”
“Jo,” he shakes his head. “Great, so Dean thinks that I’m doing all this for some head and a couple of cheap fucks.”
“Could be worse,” she says.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Well, I mean, it is kind of worse actually, ‘cause really you’re gettin’ neither.” She grins through her eggs, chewed up bits sticking to her teeth.
“Thanks for reminding me,” he mutters.
“No problem.” She points her fork at him, eyes narrowed, “And I’m not a cheap fuck.”
Sam holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Right. Sorry.”
“Takes at least a six-pack,” Jo teases.
He grins and unfolds himself from the booth, throwing a few crumpled up bills onto the chipped formica table top.
Jo eyes his still full plate and cup of coffee. “Where’re you going?”
“See if the liquor store’s open yet. Gonna get me a six-pack.”
She rolls her eyes and chucks a half-eaten piece of toast at his head.
VI.
Blackstone, Virginia.
Sam leans across the seat, body heavy weight on top of hers. His mouth brushes against the cool glass of the window and he exhales a low breath. A wet patch of fog appears and Sam presses his fingers to it, making careful lines and circles.
Jo looks up at him, book in her hands, The Great Gatsby, this time.
“Protection,” he says. He crawls back down, wedging his long body between her and the backseat of the car.
She lifts an eyebrow. “From what?”
“Whatever,” he shrugs. His palm covers her hip, nose buried in her shoulder, trying to read along with her.
“So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight,” Jo says, lowly.
Sam pushes into her neck. “Keep going.”
Turning slightly, she raises both eyebrows this time. “You want me to read to you?”
“Yeah, sure. Stuck here until the tow truck comes and it’s pouring rain. And I’m bored.” He tugs her closer to him.
Jo closes the book, letting it lay on top of her stomach. She drums her fingers on the back of Sam’s hand, but she’s not looking at him, instead she’s staring at the roof of the car. “Those symbols that you drew on the window, what do they mean?”
“Told you, they’re for protection.”
“Yeah, but from what?” she asks.
He sighs. “Just protection, Jo.”
Jo knows enough to let it go, so she just nods. “Yeah, okay.”
Sam holds her a bit tighter, rain pounding down around them and Jo tilts her head, slowly brushing her lips over his. He kisses her back, softly, and his hands grip lightly at her hips, pulling her towards him.
“This isn’t a good idea,” he murmurs. His lips bump along the side of her face as he talks, breath hot on her cheek.
“No, it’s not,” Jo says.
She grins and kisses him again, this time with teeth and tongue and her small hands wandering underneath the fabric of his shirt. Sam’s hard already, because it’s been so long, and he’s pretty sure that if he doesn’t stop her from pulling down his zipper, the tow truck driver is going to be in for one hell of a free show.
“Jo, I-” Sam smiles apologetically, zipping his jeans back up and groaning as both of their hands sweep across his cock. “Not here, you know?”
“Sure,” she says easily and kissing him lightly.
She flops back around and searches for her book. Finding it on the floor, she picks it up and continues reading. Sam lets out another throaty groan beside her, hands covering his face.
“Unscrew the barrel nut,” he mutters, hands muffling the sound of his voice. “Barrel, bolt, uh, trigger unit and, uh.”
Jo laughs and pushes against his side, fingers wrapping around his wrists and pulling them from his face. “You at least deserve some boob for that, Winchester.”
He looks at her, confused. “What?”
She grins and teasingly lifts up her shirt, just above her breasts. She’s not wearing a bra and Sam’s cock gives a small twitch. She just laughs again, and tugs her shirt back down, tongue and mouth trailing along his chin. Sam struggles to breathe.
“You’re tying to kill me, is that it?” he asks.
Jo shrugs. “Maybe.”
VII.
Fairview, Michigan.
They start fucking after what happened in Virginia; motel rooms with one bed and fake detours that take them to the side of the road and the occasional bathroom in diners and bars.
Sam hasn’t fucked a blonde since Jess and there’s a part of him that still feels vaguely guilty. He’s pretty sure that Jo knows it too, and that just makes it worse.
“You should go back,” she says.
Sam looks down at her. She’s curled up against him, cheek resting on his stomach and fingers loosely holding onto his hips.
“Go back where?” he asks.
Jo moves her hand up and down his side and then along his arm, fingertips pressing at his wrist. His pulse jumps at the contact, thumping lightly under her touch.
“To Dean, you should go back.”
He runs his hand down her spine, feeling the dips and curves, knobs hard under his fingers. He passes over a scar on her back, flesh tough and raised, and keeps his hand there.
“He call you again?” Sam rubs his thumb over the scar, then down to her waist.
“Yeah, in Missouri,” she says. Jo shifts and Sam pulls her closer, both arms wrapped around her small body.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He can feel Jo shrug against him, shoulder and elbow digging into his chest. She brings a hand up to her face, wiping at her eyes and tears leak past her fingers and down her cheeks.
“Hey,” he says softly, hands suddenly cupping her chin and stroking her hair. “What’s wrong?”
“I want to go back,” she tells him.
He kisses her forehead lightly. “You want to go back?”
“I miss her, Sam,” Jo whispers. She sucks in a shaky breath, eyes still wet. “I’m sick of running. We’re not getting anywhere.”
“Saw the world’s largest bat in Louisville,” he jokes.
“Sam.” She pushes at his chest, angry and annoyed.
“Yeah, alright,” he says. He kisses her again, lips pressed to her cheek. “We’ll go back. Both of us, okay?”
Jo smiles and pushes her mouth to the underside of his chin, over his throat. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he repeats.
VIII.
Lawrence County, South Dakota
They pull up to Bobby’s junkyard, both Ellen and Dean waiting inside the house. Jo’s beat up car looks right at home with the abandoned pick-ups and piles of scrap metal.
“You ready?” Sam asks.
Jo shrugs. “Sure, why not?” She tucks a tattered copy of Catch-22 into the glove box.
He turns off the engine and pockets the keys, grinning as they step out of the car. It’s cloudy, light wind blowing, and Jo gathers her hair atop her head, tying it into a knot.
Sam walks beside her and takes her hand as they walk through the side door, and it creaks just like the Roadhouse and pretty much every motel that Sam’s ever stayed in. They both smile.
Ellen’s up on her feet and pulling Jo into her arms before she even has a chance to let go of Sam. He laughs and untangles their hands, letting his fingers fall down to her back and stroking lightly through the soft material.
“Joanna Beth, you’re never getting out of my sight again. You hear me?” Ellen asks, holding tight onto her arms.
“Mom.” Jo rolls her eyes, but then takes in the stern, worried look on her mother’s face. “Yeah, sure. I’ll stick close by.”
Dean roughly grabs the back of Sam’s shirt and raises his fist, ready to clock him one. Sam just braces himself for the blow, but it never comes.
“One of these days, I’m gonna kill you Sammy,” Dean says. He picks up his beer that was resting on a nearby stack of books and takes a long, hard pull.
Sam scratches the back of his neck and shrugs. “You’re such a jerk, Dean.”
“Yeah, whatever, bitch.”
“You kids have a good time?” Bobby asks, his mouth cracked up in smile. He wasn’t on the worrying end; he gets to rib them as much as he wants.
“Great time,” Sam answers.
“Fantastic,” Jo agrees, bobbing her head.
They share a look and a laugh, like they haven’t been gone for the better part of the year. Ellen tugs at Jo’s hand and drags them both into a chair, pulling her onto her lap, like she’s still a little girl.
Dean elbows Sam in side. “Find what you were looking for out there?”
Sam watches Jo hug her mother, pressing a light kiss to her cheek. He smiles. “Yeah, I think I did.”
Author: Brinny
Pairing: Sam/Jo
Rating: PG-13 (For some mild sexing and language.)
Wordcount: 3,569
Warnings/Spoilers: None.
Summary: Sam grins and moves even closer to her. “How do you feel about a road trip?”
I.
Guthrie, Oklahoma.
He finds her in a rundown bar. It smells vaguely of vomit and the paint is chipped and peeling.
Sam wasn’t even looking for her. Wasn’t looking for anyone, really. But it’s nice to see a familiar face.
She’s sitting at one of the tables in the back, legs tucked underneath her, and reading a worn paperback. With every quick flip of the page, Jo also pushes at the piece of hair that keeps straying from her messy ponytail.
He walks over to her, hands held in his pockets, and lightly kicks at the leg of her chair. Jo doesn’t look back up, just dog-ears the page she was on and dips a hand past her jacket and into the waistband of her jeans.
Sam catches the glint of a blade the same time she lifts her eyes up to his. She leaves the knife where it is.
“Hi,” she says. She’s looks kind of startled and confused, maybe even nervous. Bringing her hand back up to the table, she plays with the edge of the book, fingertips rubbing over the cracked spine.
“Hey,” he returns, smiling.
A hint of a smile tugs at her own lips, almost shy, and she gives the chair next to her a rough shove with the tip of her boot. “Sit.”
Sam does as he’s told and there’s a quiet, awkward sort of silence and he’s pretty sure he’s staring at her, because she clears her throat and glances away. He tries not to blush, instead running his hands along the impressions left in the wood from discarded beer caps.
“You running?” Jo asks. She’s opened the book back up and Sam can see the faded words, To Kill a Mockingbird on the cover.
Sam thinks about her question, bites his lip a bit, and nods. “Yeah.”
Jo taps her fingers thoughtfully on the page, then looks back at him. “Me too.”
“Yeah,” he repeats. He shifts, leaning forward on his elbows, chair legs scraping loudly over the floorboards. “Where you headed?”
She shrugs. “Nowhere, really.” Pausing, she ducks her head and pushes at the persistent strand of hair. “Just stopped in here ‘cause it kind of reminded me of home, you know?”
Sam nods. He’s never had a home, not really. Stanford feels so long ago and before that, home’s mostly just been where Dean is.
“You got a car?” he asks.
“It has four wheels and runs,” Jo smiles. “Not the prettiest thing to look at, though. Why?”
Sam grins and moves even closer to her. “How do you feel about a road trip?”
II.
Hanksville, Utah.
She reads when he drives.
Sometimes she’ll say a few sentences out loud, rolling the words around in her mouth and off her tongue. She was a freak with a knife collection at college, sure, but Jo still liked it fine. It just wasn’t hunting.
And now she’s not doing either.
“Ending is better than mending. The more stitches, the less riches.”
This week it’s Brave New World, because she only picks classics. Sam thinks it’s pretty pretentious, especially for somebody who only seems to watch ancient black and white horror movies so bad they’d make Dean cringe. Sometimes, though, she leaves the channel on scrambled porn and Sam still hasn’t figured out if it’s to piss him off or if she thinks she’s doing him a favor.
“Frankenstein,” Sam answers. He grins at her, fingers tapping on the steering wheel.
Jo creases her brow, tongue stuck out of the side of her mouth. “What?”
“Next book,” he says, shrugging. “That’s what you should pick.”
She squirms and grabs the pen that she tucked behind her ear, underlining a passage. “Too girly.”
“Really? A resurrected corpse is too girly?”
“Yeah,” Jo answers. She leaves the pen as a bookmarker and pulls her legs up onto the seat; arms wrapped around them and chin resting on her knees. “Where’re we stopping?”
Sam reads the map when she drives; plays careful navigator, marking out crisscrossing routes all over the country. Jo’s tried, but she usually just gets them lost.
“There’s a motel about forty miles from here.” Sam leans over to pop the glove box, fingers brushing over her legs as he retrieves the map. She gasps as if he’s done something scandalous and Sam lets out a loud laugh. He flings the misfolded map onto her lap. “Cross off Hanksville.”
Jo takes the blue ballpoint pen out of her book and makes a hard ‘X’ over Hanksville.
“Think they’ll have porn at the motel room?” she asks, voice casual. She smirks and rips off the corner of the map, rolling it into a tiny ball.
“What is it with you and porn?” Sam shakes his head.
Jo takes aim and lobs the ball of paper at him. It bounces off his cheek and falls onto the dashboard, then rolls onto the seat.
“Don’t distract the driver,” he says, smiling.
She snorts. “Right, ‘cause singing The Locomotion at the top of your lungs is totally not distracting.”
Sam’s smile widens. “Hey, you got a problem with The Funk, then you’ll have to walk.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she accuses.
He shrugs, like maybe he would, and Jo twists around in the seat until she’s pressed up against him. She lies her head down on his shoulder, arms tangled around his waist.
“Wake you up when we get there?” he asks.
Jo gives a sleepy yawn, hands grabbing at his shirt. “Yeah.”
III.
Fort Dodge, Iowa.
Jo packs a picnic basket for the two of them at the last motel.
Of course, she can’t cook, so it’s filled with gas station goodies and stuff from the vending machine outside their room. And she couldn’t find a basket, so it’s all just thrown in a plastic bag from Seven Eleven. There’s Twinkies, Red Vines, day old sandwiches, warm cans of soda, Cheetos and a bag of cookies.
They end up eating it in the car, anyway; parked somewhere off the side of the road.
“Last time you had sex,” Sam says through a mouthful of Twinkie.
Jo bites off the end of a Red Vine. “Two months, six days.” She stuffs both the candy and a handful of Cheetos into her mouth.
“Wait, we were in Lexington two months ago.”
She lifts the sunglasses from her face and perches her feet on top of the dashboard. Her toenails are bright pink, striped with purple. “So?”
“So you had sex!” he says, bits of yellow sponge cake flying everywhere.
“Is that a problem?” Jo asks.
“No,” Sam shakes his head. “Course not, it’s just, I can’t remember the last time I got laid. And you’re what, doing guys in bathrooms?”
“I’m classier than that.” She puts her sunglasses back over her eyes, but only after Sam can see her wink long and slow. “It’s usually in their cars.”
“Nice,” he snorts.
“Last time you-” She stops and gives a vague wave of her hand, Red Vine swinging, “You know, pleasured yourself.”
“I’m starting to really not like this game,” Sam mutters. He reaches over and grabs a sandwich out of the bag.
“You just don’t like it because you know that I heard you last night,” Jo smiles.
“What? You did not!” This time pieces of ham, cheese, and bread spray from his mouth.
“Perv,” she teases.
“Says the chick that left the porn on.” He wipes crumbs from his shirt and Jo leans over and brushes the rest off of his pants.
“Hey, maybe I felt like watching Ejacula, okay?” She lifts a brow, head cocked to the side, and Sam tries to remember if he had this exact conversation with his brother.
He ignores her comment instead, swats at her hands, and takes another bite of the sandwich. “Last time you went down on a guy.”
“Two months, six days,” Jo answers. “Same dude.”
Sam nods, stealing a sip of her soda. He swishes the flat cola around in his mouth, wondering if he should be jealous.
“Last time you thought about going back,” she says, voice low.
“Eight minutes and thirty-two seconds ago,” Sam tells her.
“Ha.” She grins, but it’s more sad than happy. “Six minutes and four seconds.”
“You win.”
“Nah,” Jo shakes her head. “You’re the one who hasn’t been laid in forever. Probably not a decent blowjob, either. I’d say you win.”
She hands him a cookie as the prize.
He turns it over in his hand a couple of times and then smirks. “Can remedy both of those things tonight, you know. Just need a willing participant.” Sam looks over at her and smirks wider.
“Sure,” she nods. “We can totally get you a hooker, Sam.”
IV.
Spooner, Wisconsin.
It’s snowing, actually snowing. A lot.
Jo’s shitty excuse for a car won’t make it through a snowstorm, so they’re stuck in a ratty, old Motel 6 and have been for the past three days.
Jo’s sitting on one of the beds, pillow on her lap, and reading The Grapes of Wrath. Sam’s trying to get a decent signal on the television, for something other than porn, this time.
“Dude, this book sucks.” She throws it down on the floor, where it lands with a semi-loud thump, and hugs the pillow to her chest. “I need TV. I think Ron Popeil misses me. Like physically, he hurts because I’m not watching him slow roast a chicken.”
Sam shakes his head.
“Get anything yet?” she asks.
“Nope.” He smacks the set hard with his palm. Dean’s done it and it’s worked and so has the Fonz, so he almost expects the picture to right itself and is kind of disappointed when it doesn’t. “Snow outside and snow on the TV.”
“You keep making crappy jokes like that and I’ll be forced to go Jack Torrance on your ass.”
Sam grins and gives up, joining her on the bed. He props his head up against the headboard, long legs crossed at the ankle. “Good thing we don’t have any weapons, then.”
“D’you miss it?” she asks.
He shrugs. “Yeah, sometimes.”
They’re quiet for a minute and Sam throws an arm over her shoulders, fingers tugging through her hair.
“And speak for yourself,” Jo smiles. “Just ‘cause you only carry a container of salt and prayer, doesn’t mean that’s all I have.”
“True,” Sam agrees with a nod, like he’s proud or something. His fingers hit a tangle and it takes a moment to pull them through. “You always want to be a hunter?”
“No.” She jerks her head back and forth and Sam can feel her nose and chin bump along his chest. “When I was about four, I wanted to be Miss Nebraska.”
He laughs and she glares at him. “You serious?”
“Yes. Not all of us wanted to be lawyers.” Jo pushes closer to him, purposefully twining their legs together. Her feet barely go past his knees.
“What would your talent have been?”
“I can sing, I guess,” she shrugs. “Or maybe I would’ve juggled knives or whatever.”
“Miss Nebraska juggling knives?” Sam laughs again. “That’d be pretty awesome. I’d watch for that.”
Jo rolls her eyes. “Oh, like you don’t watch for the bathing suit portion, anyway.”
“It’s objectifying to women,” he tells her with a rehearsed nod. She’s not buying it, so he just says instead, “You’d look hot in a bathing suit, Jo.”
“I would,” she agrees.
V.
Richfield, Idaho.
Jo’s hasn’t been home in well over a year and Sam hasn’t seen Dean in about five months. He’s called his brother a few times, telling him not to worry. And Sam and Jo haven’t been exactly careful about not leaving a trail, so Sam thinks that if Dean wanted to find him, he would.
Today is a roadside diner, scrambled eggs piled high on their plates.
“Dean called me yesterday,” Jo says, fork digging through eggs.
Sam’s in mid-sip of his coffee and he gulps it down, hard and fast. “Yeah?”
“Wanted to make sure I was taking care of his little brother.” She looks up at him and smiles.
“And?”
Jo shrugs, squirting a blob of ketchup onto her plate. “I told him I was.”
“Good,” Sam nods. “That’s good.”
“He also seems to think that I’m providing you with, uh, certain services.” She blushes a little as she picks up her glass and smirks into her orange juice.
Sam snorts. “Really? What’d you say to that?”
The smirk grows a bit and she puts her glass back down. She shrugs again. “I told him I was.”
“Jo,” he shakes his head. “Great, so Dean thinks that I’m doing all this for some head and a couple of cheap fucks.”
“Could be worse,” she says.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Well, I mean, it is kind of worse actually, ‘cause really you’re gettin’ neither.” She grins through her eggs, chewed up bits sticking to her teeth.
“Thanks for reminding me,” he mutters.
“No problem.” She points her fork at him, eyes narrowed, “And I’m not a cheap fuck.”
Sam holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Right. Sorry.”
“Takes at least a six-pack,” Jo teases.
He grins and unfolds himself from the booth, throwing a few crumpled up bills onto the chipped formica table top.
Jo eyes his still full plate and cup of coffee. “Where’re you going?”
“See if the liquor store’s open yet. Gonna get me a six-pack.”
She rolls her eyes and chucks a half-eaten piece of toast at his head.
VI.
Blackstone, Virginia.
Sam leans across the seat, body heavy weight on top of hers. His mouth brushes against the cool glass of the window and he exhales a low breath. A wet patch of fog appears and Sam presses his fingers to it, making careful lines and circles.
Jo looks up at him, book in her hands, The Great Gatsby, this time.
“Protection,” he says. He crawls back down, wedging his long body between her and the backseat of the car.
She lifts an eyebrow. “From what?”
“Whatever,” he shrugs. His palm covers her hip, nose buried in her shoulder, trying to read along with her.
“So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight,” Jo says, lowly.
Sam pushes into her neck. “Keep going.”
Turning slightly, she raises both eyebrows this time. “You want me to read to you?”
“Yeah, sure. Stuck here until the tow truck comes and it’s pouring rain. And I’m bored.” He tugs her closer to him.
Jo closes the book, letting it lay on top of her stomach. She drums her fingers on the back of Sam’s hand, but she’s not looking at him, instead she’s staring at the roof of the car. “Those symbols that you drew on the window, what do they mean?”
“Told you, they’re for protection.”
“Yeah, but from what?” she asks.
He sighs. “Just protection, Jo.”
Jo knows enough to let it go, so she just nods. “Yeah, okay.”
Sam holds her a bit tighter, rain pounding down around them and Jo tilts her head, slowly brushing her lips over his. He kisses her back, softly, and his hands grip lightly at her hips, pulling her towards him.
“This isn’t a good idea,” he murmurs. His lips bump along the side of her face as he talks, breath hot on her cheek.
“No, it’s not,” Jo says.
She grins and kisses him again, this time with teeth and tongue and her small hands wandering underneath the fabric of his shirt. Sam’s hard already, because it’s been so long, and he’s pretty sure that if he doesn’t stop her from pulling down his zipper, the tow truck driver is going to be in for one hell of a free show.
“Jo, I-” Sam smiles apologetically, zipping his jeans back up and groaning as both of their hands sweep across his cock. “Not here, you know?”
“Sure,” she says easily and kissing him lightly.
She flops back around and searches for her book. Finding it on the floor, she picks it up and continues reading. Sam lets out another throaty groan beside her, hands covering his face.
“Unscrew the barrel nut,” he mutters, hands muffling the sound of his voice. “Barrel, bolt, uh, trigger unit and, uh.”
Jo laughs and pushes against his side, fingers wrapping around his wrists and pulling them from his face. “You at least deserve some boob for that, Winchester.”
He looks at her, confused. “What?”
She grins and teasingly lifts up her shirt, just above her breasts. She’s not wearing a bra and Sam’s cock gives a small twitch. She just laughs again, and tugs her shirt back down, tongue and mouth trailing along his chin. Sam struggles to breathe.
“You’re tying to kill me, is that it?” he asks.
Jo shrugs. “Maybe.”
VII.
Fairview, Michigan.
They start fucking after what happened in Virginia; motel rooms with one bed and fake detours that take them to the side of the road and the occasional bathroom in diners and bars.
Sam hasn’t fucked a blonde since Jess and there’s a part of him that still feels vaguely guilty. He’s pretty sure that Jo knows it too, and that just makes it worse.
“You should go back,” she says.
Sam looks down at her. She’s curled up against him, cheek resting on his stomach and fingers loosely holding onto his hips.
“Go back where?” he asks.
Jo moves her hand up and down his side and then along his arm, fingertips pressing at his wrist. His pulse jumps at the contact, thumping lightly under her touch.
“To Dean, you should go back.”
He runs his hand down her spine, feeling the dips and curves, knobs hard under his fingers. He passes over a scar on her back, flesh tough and raised, and keeps his hand there.
“He call you again?” Sam rubs his thumb over the scar, then down to her waist.
“Yeah, in Missouri,” she says. Jo shifts and Sam pulls her closer, both arms wrapped around her small body.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He can feel Jo shrug against him, shoulder and elbow digging into his chest. She brings a hand up to her face, wiping at her eyes and tears leak past her fingers and down her cheeks.
“Hey,” he says softly, hands suddenly cupping her chin and stroking her hair. “What’s wrong?”
“I want to go back,” she tells him.
He kisses her forehead lightly. “You want to go back?”
“I miss her, Sam,” Jo whispers. She sucks in a shaky breath, eyes still wet. “I’m sick of running. We’re not getting anywhere.”
“Saw the world’s largest bat in Louisville,” he jokes.
“Sam.” She pushes at his chest, angry and annoyed.
“Yeah, alright,” he says. He kisses her again, lips pressed to her cheek. “We’ll go back. Both of us, okay?”
Jo smiles and pushes her mouth to the underside of his chin, over his throat. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he repeats.
VIII.
Lawrence County, South Dakota
They pull up to Bobby’s junkyard, both Ellen and Dean waiting inside the house. Jo’s beat up car looks right at home with the abandoned pick-ups and piles of scrap metal.
“You ready?” Sam asks.
Jo shrugs. “Sure, why not?” She tucks a tattered copy of Catch-22 into the glove box.
He turns off the engine and pockets the keys, grinning as they step out of the car. It’s cloudy, light wind blowing, and Jo gathers her hair atop her head, tying it into a knot.
Sam walks beside her and takes her hand as they walk through the side door, and it creaks just like the Roadhouse and pretty much every motel that Sam’s ever stayed in. They both smile.
Ellen’s up on her feet and pulling Jo into her arms before she even has a chance to let go of Sam. He laughs and untangles their hands, letting his fingers fall down to her back and stroking lightly through the soft material.
“Joanna Beth, you’re never getting out of my sight again. You hear me?” Ellen asks, holding tight onto her arms.
“Mom.” Jo rolls her eyes, but then takes in the stern, worried look on her mother’s face. “Yeah, sure. I’ll stick close by.”
Dean roughly grabs the back of Sam’s shirt and raises his fist, ready to clock him one. Sam just braces himself for the blow, but it never comes.
“One of these days, I’m gonna kill you Sammy,” Dean says. He picks up his beer that was resting on a nearby stack of books and takes a long, hard pull.
Sam scratches the back of his neck and shrugs. “You’re such a jerk, Dean.”
“Yeah, whatever, bitch.”
“You kids have a good time?” Bobby asks, his mouth cracked up in smile. He wasn’t on the worrying end; he gets to rib them as much as he wants.
“Great time,” Sam answers.
“Fantastic,” Jo agrees, bobbing her head.
They share a look and a laugh, like they haven’t been gone for the better part of the year. Ellen tugs at Jo’s hand and drags them both into a chair, pulling her onto her lap, like she’s still a little girl.
Dean elbows Sam in side. “Find what you were looking for out there?”
Sam watches Jo hug her mother, pressing a light kiss to her cheek. He smiles. “Yeah, I think I did.”