Women of Supernatural Gen Flashfic Challenge #12: Skulking in the hills
Jo thought she hated college, but that’s nothing to how she loathes the Roadhouse.
“You dropped out,” Mom says. “What the fuck for? You were doin’ good!”
Jo shrugs, shifts from foot to foot, ankles knocking against her luggage, piled on either side of her. “I - I wasn’t doing bad,” she says.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Mom demands, harsh and angry.
“I just didn’t - I mean, I wasn’t failing or anything, but it all -“
“Joanna Beth, if you can’t be more articulate than that!”
“I didn’t fit in! OK? I didn’t fit! It was all wrong, Mom. All wrong. I can shoot straight and throw punches and use a knife and recite an exorcism. That’s what I’m good at. I don’t know how to go to school and keep quiet and get good grades and go drinking with my roommate and - I don’t know to be normal.”
Unspoken the words, I don’t want to be normal. Normal isn’t enough anymore, not when I know what’s out there.
Mom sighs. “Well. Don’t suppose you’ve forgotten where your room is.” And she turns away, goes back to unpacking the crate of beer bottles, disappointment in every line of her body.
Jo goes back to pouring drinks and carrying trays and laughing at dumb jokes and playing poker with tablefuls of drunken redneck morons, and always the words this isn’t enough in the back of her mind, like a mantra, the hum of music too quiet to make out the words or even the tune. It’s torturous.
So’s Dean Winchester, but in different ways.
He wakes her up. He makes her sit up and take notice, pay attention, shake off the numbness blanketing her thoughts to block out the disappointment, the frustration. He explodes into her life like some kind of human grenade made of anger and crippling pain and bone-deep weariness, and for the first time in her life, she’s fascinated by another person, a human being rather than one of the creatures that lives in the dark.
Dean is an excellent hunter afraid of her mother, a womanizer who won’t flirt with her, an arrogant bastard who trusts her intel, a hardened, uncaring man who feels responsible for her.
Little glimpses of who he truly is under his armour that leave her wanting more in ways she doesn’t really understand and can’t articulate. All Jo’s sure of is that he’s alluring, and no, she doesn’t mean that the way it sounds. Everything about him captivates her.
Dean is a mystery to be unraveled, an enigma code to be cracked, a labyrinth to be negotiated, a riddle to be understood, a flame, a flickering, dancing, ever-elusive symbol of freedom and independence and… and action, and she’s the moth drawn to it, to him, longing to understand, to see, to share.
Dean is her ticket out of this life. Away from this mind-numbing boredom. Into a better world, harder perhaps, but worth it. He’s her saviour.
What do you fear, my lady?
A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.
It’s not until after he’s gone, after she’s in bed that night with every bone in her body aching and her mind full of Mom’s face and voice and hands clutching at her shoulders, shaking her angrily - John Winchester killed your father! - that Jo remembers, with an almost hysterical laugh, that Aragorn never did take Eowyn along on his journey to Dunharrow.