SPN Fic - If this is the End (We'll Go Down Swinging) - Ellen, Jo (R)
IF THIS IS THE END (WE’LL GO DOWN SWINGING)
Characters/Pairings: Jo, Ellen, (very) brief mentions of Sam and Dean
Rating: R
Word Count: 450
Disclaimer They don’t belong to me, a fact which I still mourn occasionally in my spare time.
Warnings: SPOILERS FOR 5x10!! (Which, quite frankly, should be all the warning you need if you’ve seen the episode)
Summary: War is cruel.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Red. You feel it coating your hands, drying tacky and obscene across your skin. It’s not yours, but that doesn’t matter. Doesn’t even damn come close to mattering.
Or maybe, it makes it matter more.
You could wash your hands for days after this, and still see the blood, scrub until your skin was chapped and dry, submerge your hands in lye and still the blood would be drying gritty and dark under your fingernails and settling like death in the lines on your hands.
There are some stains that don’t ever fade.
And you feel numb, but there are hellhounds slashing at the door and demons prowling in the streets, and all you want is to cradle your daughter to your chest and stroke her hair and promise everything will be alright, even when you know it won’t.
You never wanted this life for her. Never wanted to teach her to run from shadows and shoot at nightmares.
But hell, if your daughter was dead set on being a hunter, you were going to make damn certain she was well-equipped and better-trained.
And maybe that makes this your fault, for telling her no then telling her yes, for bragging about how well she could throw a knife, shoot a gun, spill a monster’s guts bloody across the ground.
Better than all the boys, your Jo.
You kneel down next to her, your daughter’s blood slowly seeping through the stiff fabric of your jeans, little grains of rock salt digging and stinging at your skin.
It’s the little details you notice now, the hot slip-slide of your daughter’s intestines against your fingers (oh God, she’s not ever gonna be okay) instead of the flurry of movement as the Winchester boys build a bomb around your daughter’s (still breathing) body.
Rock salt spiked with iron surrounds tanks of gasoline with lethal precision, crystal and steel and death glittering like jewels, and it hits you suddenly, that that’s how your little girl is going to die, fire and spiked nails ripping her body apart.
She wants you to let her be brave, and you never wanted this life for her, but you don’t think you’ve ever been prouder of her than you are now.
But if she thinks you are ever going to leave her here to die alone, surrounded by monsters and evil, with her death contained neatly in metal buckets along the floor, she is oh so very fucking wrong.
You settle down on the floor next to her, and minutes later your daughter dies quietly on your shoulder, with a little huff of exhaled breath and then nothing, and it’s the saddest day of your life.
When you detonate the bomb, you can feel tears running down your face.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Characters/Pairings: Jo, Ellen, (very) brief mentions of Sam and Dean
Rating: R
Word Count: 450
Disclaimer They don’t belong to me, a fact which I still mourn occasionally in my spare time.
Warnings: SPOILERS FOR 5x10!! (Which, quite frankly, should be all the warning you need if you’ve seen the episode)
Summary: War is cruel.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Red. You feel it coating your hands, drying tacky and obscene across your skin. It’s not yours, but that doesn’t matter. Doesn’t even damn come close to mattering.
Or maybe, it makes it matter more.
You could wash your hands for days after this, and still see the blood, scrub until your skin was chapped and dry, submerge your hands in lye and still the blood would be drying gritty and dark under your fingernails and settling like death in the lines on your hands.
There are some stains that don’t ever fade.
And you feel numb, but there are hellhounds slashing at the door and demons prowling in the streets, and all you want is to cradle your daughter to your chest and stroke her hair and promise everything will be alright, even when you know it won’t.
You never wanted this life for her. Never wanted to teach her to run from shadows and shoot at nightmares.
But hell, if your daughter was dead set on being a hunter, you were going to make damn certain she was well-equipped and better-trained.
And maybe that makes this your fault, for telling her no then telling her yes, for bragging about how well she could throw a knife, shoot a gun, spill a monster’s guts bloody across the ground.
Better than all the boys, your Jo.
You kneel down next to her, your daughter’s blood slowly seeping through the stiff fabric of your jeans, little grains of rock salt digging and stinging at your skin.
It’s the little details you notice now, the hot slip-slide of your daughter’s intestines against your fingers (oh God, she’s not ever gonna be okay) instead of the flurry of movement as the Winchester boys build a bomb around your daughter’s (still breathing) body.
Rock salt spiked with iron surrounds tanks of gasoline with lethal precision, crystal and steel and death glittering like jewels, and it hits you suddenly, that that’s how your little girl is going to die, fire and spiked nails ripping her body apart.
She wants you to let her be brave, and you never wanted this life for her, but you don’t think you’ve ever been prouder of her than you are now.
But if she thinks you are ever going to leave her here to die alone, surrounded by monsters and evil, with her death contained neatly in metal buckets along the floor, she is oh so very fucking wrong.
You settle down on the floor next to her, and minutes later your daughter dies quietly on your shoulder, with a little huff of exhaled breath and then nothing, and it’s the saddest day of your life.
When you detonate the bomb, you can feel tears running down your face.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*