[Fic] subterrain: The Martingale Series
[ HET ]
Title: The Martingale Series
Writer: subterrain
Status of work: Complete
Characters and/or pairings: Jo/Dean, Jo/OMC, Jo/Sam, Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Warnings, kinks & contents: [Click to read]Off screen underage non-con, sexism, violence, modern western AU.
Length: 14,284
Summary: John died, and Mary lived to raise her boys. Bill and Ellen Harvelle invited her in when she had nowhere to go, and now their kids all run wild through scrub brush and dustbowl cattle land.
Story Links:Reccer's notes: Jo is stunning in this. And portrayal of how the power dynamics evolve between everyone in this mashed together family is nuanced and terrible and beautiful in turns. The writing is sparse and lyrical, perfect for capturing the hollowed out feel of the scrublands. But really, read it for Jo.
[Short excerpt]That winter, Dad and Aunt Mary are gone for a full two months. Jo knows how long it's been because they've been scratching a calendar in the wood frame under Dean's mattress. Every time her Ma turns out the lights, she slips across the planks to the boys' bunks, and Sammy scrabbles down from the top, and in the darkness by moonlight they scratch in another day, and Dean says, solemn, “Now that's sixty-eight.” And then mostly Sammy cries and if one or the other of them doesn't do something, he'll get loud enough to get Jo's ma back up. So most often, they all fall asleep together in a tangle on Dean's narrow mattress. When they're older, they'll never remember the reunions, only the absences.