(no subject)
Title: Horse to Water
Fandom: Supernatural
Character: Jo
Rating: PG
Summary: "People talked to bartenders. People talked more to cute, blonde, petite bartenders, which made it easy to gather all the rumours about the lake murders."
Notes: For Mary, because she is awesome and Jo is awesome, so they match! Thanks to brown_betty for spotting stray Briticisms and things that made no sense.
Spoilers: Mildly spoilerish for 2x14.
Jo counted her money, calculated the cost of ammunition, then headed into the bar.
Two hours later, she had an apron wrapped round her waist and was serving beer to over-enthusiastic tourists who called her sweet-cheeks and honey-pie. Knowing she had Dad's knife inside her boot made it a lot easier to smile back at them. And when a hand landed on her ass, she applied a little pressure in just the right place and didn't have to worry about it again.
People talked to bartenders. People talked more to cute, blonde, petite bartenders, which made it easy to gather all the rumours about the lake murders.
"Three of 'em now," Bob said on Jo's fourth night, as he leaned against his familiar spot at the bar. "Never found anything but the livers and they never will."
"Why's that?" Jo asked.
"Eats 'em," Bob said, with a certain gruesome pleasure. "Whoever it is, he eats 'em all up, 'cept for the livers."
"Nonsense," Eric interrupted. "It's just tourists drowning themselves."
"They drown but their livers float?"
Eric ignored it. "No responsible charter company would send them out without a skipper," he said, with a self-righteous sniff.
It was always difficult to get them back to the lake murders once they lost themselves in bickering over rival business practices, so Jo went back to clearing tables.
"I swear," one tourist was saying, "it was a horse! Right there on the jetty."
His companions laughed. "So, Paul, did it have a silver coat and stars in its tail?" one of them asked.
Paul gave the speaker a friendly thump. "It was just a horse, okay? A ginger one."
Jo leaned over and plucked the empty bottles off the table. "Been seeing horses? I probably shouldn't let you have any more of these!"
Paul twisted round to grin up at her. "If a man's hallucinating horses, I think he deserves a beer to get over the shock."
Jo rested a fist on her hip, cocked her head and considered him. "Let the nice bartender decide that. Where and when did you see this horse?"
"Masterson's Bait and Tackle," Paul said promptly. "Dawn this morning."
"That's the one just down the shore from here?"
"About half a mile away," Paul agreed.
"And it's just horses you're seeing? No mermaids, phantom ships, glowing lobsters?"
Paul laughed. "Just the horse, I swear."
"Okay," Jo said with a sharp nod. "You can have more beer."
***
That night, when the bar was finally locked up, Jo slipped through to the jetty behind it, carrying a cheap cut of mutton, her compound bow and a duffel. The lake stretched out smooth and black, and she shivered a little before concentrating on her work. It took a few minutes to get a fire going at the top of the concrete ramp that served as a boatslip and while she was waiting for the flames to die down to something that wouldn't instantly char the meat, she checked her planned hiding spot.
Good visibility, good shelter, good escape routes. It couldn't have been better, so she took tonight's arrows out of her quiver and laid them on the ground. The shafts were sturdy, the barbs solid, heavy and sharp, the lines attached to each of them thin and strong. She checked the lines' joins with the arrowheads, then tied the other ends to a mooring bollard.
Knots are important, Dad had once said, handing her a piece of cord. Can hold everything together. She'd practised determinedly until she could tie every knot he taught her, in less than three seconds. In the dark, with her hands behind her back.
She carefully placed her rifle in easy reach and then all she had to do was put the meat on the fire and get her ass out of view.
Ten minutes later, she drew a sharp breath. There, at the foot of the boatslip. It could be weed or it could be a horse's mane. Impossible to tell the colour in this light but she adjusted her position, resettled the first arrow on the string, double-checked that the line would run free.
A few minutes more and the horse's head eased above the water. Its ears were pricked, nostrils flaring, then it surged out of the water, muscles coiling and bunching under its coat until it stood dripping on the boatslip. It lifted its head, looked around and Jo had the uncomfortable feeling that it knew she was there. But if it did, it didn't judge her much of a threat because it stepped forward to sniff at the mutton.
And Jo loosed her first arrow.
It buried itself in the horse's neck. The horse screamed, reared, hooves scrabbling on concrete, and hurled itself away but the arrow held, the rope held.
It was working.
She loosed the second arrow, got a solid hit on the horse's shoulder, and it flung itself against the ropes again.
They held. For now, they held. Now she just had to finish it off. She shouldered her rifle, aimed and fired.
She hit, she knew she hit, but the damn horse gave a final, desperate surge and it was enough for the arrows to give.
"No!" Another shot, another hit, and the damn thing was gone. "No, no, no!" She followed it a few feet down the boatslip but she wasn't going to get too close to the water. It might have got away but it wasn't going to get her in the process.
"Hey." The voice from the other end of the jetty was surprisingly quiet and she whipped round. "You having trouble?"
Jo squinted into the darkness. Was that-? "Dean?" It shouldn't really be a surprise. They hunted the same things, were bound to cross paths at some point. She just wished it hadn't been now.
"Don't know who he is," the speaker said, moving to where she could see him, "but I'm not him." And, no, he wasn't. There was a look of Dean in his nose and the shape of his face but this was some other stupidly attractive man. How perfect. "I heard screaming. Are you hurt?"
Jo shook her head. "I'm fine. The screaming was somebody else."
He held his left hand out. "Even so, this isn't a safe place at this time of night."
She backed away, rifle at the ready. "Damn right it isn't safe. I'm not trusting some stranger."
He laughed, soft and gentle. "Very sensible. But I'm safe, I promise."
"Yeah?" She let a smile creep into her voice. "Prove it. Turn around so I can see you're not armed."
A moment of hesitation and then he said, "Sure."
As soon as she saw his right shoulder and the side of his neck, she grinned. "You might be safe," she said. "But I'm dangerous." And she shot him.
He staggered back a few steps, eyes wide. "What?" he managed to gasp before his legs gave way and he sprawled on the jetty.
Jo didn't move any closer. "I'm not stupid," she said, and shot it in the head for good measure. And, hell, why not another chest shot?
She waited long enough to be sure it was well and truly dead before cautiously making her way over and using her rifle barrel to nudge its head to one side. The blood from the arrow wound in its neck showed black in the moonlight. "Honestly," she muttered. "Each Uisge, appears as horse and/or man. What kind of half-assed hunter doesn't know that?"
Fandom: Supernatural
Character: Jo
Rating: PG
Summary: "People talked to bartenders. People talked more to cute, blonde, petite bartenders, which made it easy to gather all the rumours about the lake murders."
Notes: For Mary, because she is awesome and Jo is awesome, so they match! Thanks to brown_betty for spotting stray Briticisms and things that made no sense.
Spoilers: Mildly spoilerish for 2x14.
Jo counted her money, calculated the cost of ammunition, then headed into the bar.
Two hours later, she had an apron wrapped round her waist and was serving beer to over-enthusiastic tourists who called her sweet-cheeks and honey-pie. Knowing she had Dad's knife inside her boot made it a lot easier to smile back at them. And when a hand landed on her ass, she applied a little pressure in just the right place and didn't have to worry about it again.
People talked to bartenders. People talked more to cute, blonde, petite bartenders, which made it easy to gather all the rumours about the lake murders.
"Three of 'em now," Bob said on Jo's fourth night, as he leaned against his familiar spot at the bar. "Never found anything but the livers and they never will."
"Why's that?" Jo asked.
"Eats 'em," Bob said, with a certain gruesome pleasure. "Whoever it is, he eats 'em all up, 'cept for the livers."
"Nonsense," Eric interrupted. "It's just tourists drowning themselves."
"They drown but their livers float?"
Eric ignored it. "No responsible charter company would send them out without a skipper," he said, with a self-righteous sniff.
It was always difficult to get them back to the lake murders once they lost themselves in bickering over rival business practices, so Jo went back to clearing tables.
"I swear," one tourist was saying, "it was a horse! Right there on the jetty."
His companions laughed. "So, Paul, did it have a silver coat and stars in its tail?" one of them asked.
Paul gave the speaker a friendly thump. "It was just a horse, okay? A ginger one."
Jo leaned over and plucked the empty bottles off the table. "Been seeing horses? I probably shouldn't let you have any more of these!"
Paul twisted round to grin up at her. "If a man's hallucinating horses, I think he deserves a beer to get over the shock."
Jo rested a fist on her hip, cocked her head and considered him. "Let the nice bartender decide that. Where and when did you see this horse?"
"Masterson's Bait and Tackle," Paul said promptly. "Dawn this morning."
"That's the one just down the shore from here?"
"About half a mile away," Paul agreed.
"And it's just horses you're seeing? No mermaids, phantom ships, glowing lobsters?"
Paul laughed. "Just the horse, I swear."
"Okay," Jo said with a sharp nod. "You can have more beer."
***
That night, when the bar was finally locked up, Jo slipped through to the jetty behind it, carrying a cheap cut of mutton, her compound bow and a duffel. The lake stretched out smooth and black, and she shivered a little before concentrating on her work. It took a few minutes to get a fire going at the top of the concrete ramp that served as a boatslip and while she was waiting for the flames to die down to something that wouldn't instantly char the meat, she checked her planned hiding spot.
Good visibility, good shelter, good escape routes. It couldn't have been better, so she took tonight's arrows out of her quiver and laid them on the ground. The shafts were sturdy, the barbs solid, heavy and sharp, the lines attached to each of them thin and strong. She checked the lines' joins with the arrowheads, then tied the other ends to a mooring bollard.
Knots are important, Dad had once said, handing her a piece of cord. Can hold everything together. She'd practised determinedly until she could tie every knot he taught her, in less than three seconds. In the dark, with her hands behind her back.
She carefully placed her rifle in easy reach and then all she had to do was put the meat on the fire and get her ass out of view.
Ten minutes later, she drew a sharp breath. There, at the foot of the boatslip. It could be weed or it could be a horse's mane. Impossible to tell the colour in this light but she adjusted her position, resettled the first arrow on the string, double-checked that the line would run free.
A few minutes more and the horse's head eased above the water. Its ears were pricked, nostrils flaring, then it surged out of the water, muscles coiling and bunching under its coat until it stood dripping on the boatslip. It lifted its head, looked around and Jo had the uncomfortable feeling that it knew she was there. But if it did, it didn't judge her much of a threat because it stepped forward to sniff at the mutton.
And Jo loosed her first arrow.
It buried itself in the horse's neck. The horse screamed, reared, hooves scrabbling on concrete, and hurled itself away but the arrow held, the rope held.
It was working.
She loosed the second arrow, got a solid hit on the horse's shoulder, and it flung itself against the ropes again.
They held. For now, they held. Now she just had to finish it off. She shouldered her rifle, aimed and fired.
She hit, she knew she hit, but the damn horse gave a final, desperate surge and it was enough for the arrows to give.
"No!" Another shot, another hit, and the damn thing was gone. "No, no, no!" She followed it a few feet down the boatslip but she wasn't going to get too close to the water. It might have got away but it wasn't going to get her in the process.
"Hey." The voice from the other end of the jetty was surprisingly quiet and she whipped round. "You having trouble?"
Jo squinted into the darkness. Was that-? "Dean?" It shouldn't really be a surprise. They hunted the same things, were bound to cross paths at some point. She just wished it hadn't been now.
"Don't know who he is," the speaker said, moving to where she could see him, "but I'm not him." And, no, he wasn't. There was a look of Dean in his nose and the shape of his face but this was some other stupidly attractive man. How perfect. "I heard screaming. Are you hurt?"
Jo shook her head. "I'm fine. The screaming was somebody else."
He held his left hand out. "Even so, this isn't a safe place at this time of night."
She backed away, rifle at the ready. "Damn right it isn't safe. I'm not trusting some stranger."
He laughed, soft and gentle. "Very sensible. But I'm safe, I promise."
"Yeah?" She let a smile creep into her voice. "Prove it. Turn around so I can see you're not armed."
A moment of hesitation and then he said, "Sure."
As soon as she saw his right shoulder and the side of his neck, she grinned. "You might be safe," she said. "But I'm dangerous." And she shot him.
He staggered back a few steps, eyes wide. "What?" he managed to gasp before his legs gave way and he sprawled on the jetty.
Jo didn't move any closer. "I'm not stupid," she said, and shot it in the head for good measure. And, hell, why not another chest shot?
She waited long enough to be sure it was well and truly dead before cautiously making her way over and using her rifle barrel to nudge its head to one side. The blood from the arrow wound in its neck showed black in the moonlight. "Honestly," she muttered. "Each Uisge, appears as horse and/or man. What kind of half-assed hunter doesn't know that?"