Reverse Bang Fic: From Duluth to Cold Oaks, Ava/Jo, NC-17
Title: From Duluth to Cold Oaks
Art Masterlist
Author: falling_dominos
Character/Pairing: Ava/Jo, Ava/Azazel
Genre: Femslash
Rating: NC-17 (Over-rating, probably, but just to be sure)
Disclaimer: These character's don't belong to me, but to the CW. :) Promise I'll put them back when I'm done!
Word Count: 10,004
Summary: Ava gets another vision, and of course she has to save the girl.
Author's Notes: I want to give a huge thank you to my lovely artist, astralavator, without whom none of this would have been possible. She gave me such lovely art prompts and was a dream to work with. Also, another thank you to my real life friend Amanda, who beta'ed all sixteen pages for me over this last weekend.
Run girl, Run|| Stay, please stay|| Scenes from the cutting room floor(Coming soon!)
“Hey, this is Jo. I'm probably working at the moment. So leave a message after the beep, I'll get back to you.”
“Hey girl, this is Ash, callin' from the Roadhouse. Your mom's worried about you. Gimme a call when you can.”
As Jo smiled at the familiar voice on the phone, she hit 'save' and flicked her phone closed. She missed home, sometimes. It was good to know that they still cared, even if she couldn't live in the same house with her mother anymore. It was time for her to strike out on her own. Jo’s mother wouldn’t allow Jo to go her own way so long as Jo lived under her roof.
Jo slid into the silver Mitsubishi Lancer that she'd managed to get used a few weeks back and headed for her small one bedroom apartment about ten minutes away. She could have walked. The neighborhood wasn't exactly safe, though; even if the bar was pretty popular. After close, women didn't walk the streets alone unless they were looking for Johns or trouble. Jo was looking for neither.
*~*~*~*~*~*
A little over 500 miles away, a woman's life was ripped apart the moment she saw her husband lying in a pool of his own blood, his neck shredded so deeply that white bone was visible in a few places. She didn't notice the sulfur on the windowsill as she packed her bags while she waited for the police to get there. The police kept her for a few hours, and then told her she was free to go, since she'd been out of town while her husband had been murdered. (Witness reports, credit card receipts, and cell phone records all proved it. The cops were going to pull video footage from Lafayette, she was certain of it, just to make sure that she wasn't one of the 'wives who kill their husbands'.)
Ava Wilson then proceeded to run like hell to her sister's in Milwaukee.
She collapsed into Sara's arms and cried for what felt like too long and not long enough. Brady was dead...she'd just been gone for a little while...she just wanted to come home to her loving fiance and address wedding invitations. Instead she came home to blood on the mattress and her life in pieces to be bagged and cataloged by the police in Peoria.
Her phone had rang for hours but she never picked up. She was too angry with herself. While she'd been out gallivanting and saving someone she had never met before in her life, her husband had been bleeding to death. She was angry with herself that he had died alone.
Why hadn't her stupid visions told her that was going to happen? Why did Sam Winchester get saved but not her sweet, loving Brady?
So as far as she was concerned, Sam Winchester could rot in Hell for all her pain.
Eventually she threw her phone away, picking up a disposable cell phone instead. Sara had offered to put a line on her plan, but Ava felt like enough of a drag on her as it was. No. A disposable cell phone would be just fine.
Sleeping proved to be the most difficult thing for Ava to convince herself to do. For the first few days she didn't, until eventually she passed out from sheer exhaustion. Of course the first dream she had was a vision, splitting her head open as she watches a blond girl get her neck broken with the flick of a wrist. It was so simply done, like breaking a birds neck, so delicate. In the background there wass a clock with a date, two weeks away.
When she woke up she grabbed a pad of paper and wrote it down, trying to focus on the girl. 'Petite, dark eyes, cocky smirk, wavy blond hair a few inches past the shoulders, tank top (blue-gray), jeans with holes on the knees and thighs, heavy boots.' Once she had that part down, the vision started to fade, though from the date she had two weeks to find...
Wait. What was she thinking?!? Helping someone else, who she didn't know, when Brady had just been murdered, and the cops probably thought she did it, and she would probably get in even more trouble if the cops found out she'd crossed state lines to go and stay with her sister. (The cops did give her the 'don't go too far' speech when they agreed to let her go; not that Ava had listened.)
Ava sighed and put the pad of paper down, lying down to try to get some more sleep, but dark eyes, blond curls and a quirky smile plagued her for the rest of the night.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Jo's apartment left a lot to be desired. The wallpaper was peeling in places and the stove only half worked. The back two burners of the electric stove didn't work very well, if at all. Still it was hers and she was happy to have a place to call her own in a part of town where having contraband materials such as guns was commonplace. Jo liked that no one asked questions and when they saw her lugging boxes and such up to her apartment. No one asked to help, and no one asked what she had in her bags.
The land lord expected the rent to be paid on time, and didn't want anything too shady going on, which meant no prostitution in the building. Her neighbors hit each other and had loud raucous fights almost every other night. Jo didn't pay them any mind, having grown up with people who fought when they were sober, when they were drunk, when they thought someone looked at them wrong. Hunters weren't the most stable group of people by far and large, so Jo was used to it. Well, perhaps she wasn't used to things hitting the wall above her bed so hard that it would rattle her awake.
When she lay down it was in her own bed, on her own terms, and she was free. Freedom was worth it.
*~*~*~*~*~*
A few weeks after Ava woke up feeling troubled by the dream that plagued her the first night at her sister's, she had a few more things written on her little note pad, though nothing quite concrete enough to go looking. Ava still wasn't sure she even was going to look for the girl yet. Her heart had won the battle so far, going to Brady's funeral, and hearing how stumped the cops were on the crime.
Brady's funeral had been paid for by the wedding money that she no longer needed. The plot and tombstone were paid for with honeymoon money to Hawaii; the money she would never use to fly there and see the volcano's with her brand new husband. This had happened after the autopsy of her husband’s body and the Peoria police had taken their time with releasing her fiancee's body so that he could be buried.
Ava ended up shutting the house she would have shared for the first few years of her married life down, she had the bills cut off and was planning on staying with her sister while she grieved and worked on finding another job near Sara that she could take so she could be near family.
Ava couldn't bring herself to go and look for the girl even when the dreams started to get a little more intense, Ava would wake up with the smell of the bar in her nostrils or the strange scent of the man who wasn't a man. They didn't happen all of the time. So she tried to keep it out of her head as best she could, keeping up her sister’s house while Sara worked and Ava looked for a job via Monster.
The spare bedroom had been turned into Ava’s own room for now. Her sister was so sweet and kind. Ava felt like just by being there something bad was going to happen to her sister eventually. That was one of the check marks in the 'go look for the girl' column. Ava climbed into bed that night feeling conflicted and unsure of what she was going to do, comforter pulled tight around her body, staving off a strange cold feeling that had nothing to do with the temperature.
The blond girl set a tray of fried fish and fries in front of the man with a soul less grin. The tray hit the table with a loud SNAP.
Hands trailing along the hem of Ava's shirt, small fingertips along the small of her back. An echoing GASP as lips brushed over the pulse point in her neck and nails bit into her skin.
The man thanks the blond girl by name, “Thanks Jo, looks good.” His eyes flick to yellow for a moment. Blink. Blue eyes again, Jo doesn't notice because she's looking down. A CRASH of bottles being dropped causes Jo to turn and curse.
Ava's hands thread through soft blond waves, like silk winding around her fingers. Ava’s presses her lips against Jo's with a tentative softness, unsure of exactly what to do with her extra two inches of height. Jo sighs slightly and presses closer, boldly sliding her hands up the back of Ava's shirt, easily retaking control of the situation. “Just relax,” Jo murmurs against her lips, taking away her breath.
The man drank, but didn't get inebriated. He was at the bar from sunset until it was empty. He stalks up behind Jo and smirks when she comes up with a rifle and shoots him with rock salt. “Let me show you what I can do, Joanna.” She only looks scared for a moment. The man’s hands come up. With that same grin he flicks his hands and SNAP, she drops to the floor. Her brown eyes are unseeing and still.
Soft lips are at Ava's hip. Ava’s hands grip the sheets as Jo's mouth nips at the old scars faded to smooth and slick lines the same color as her pale skin. The feeling along the scars is like electricity. Jo traces each scar with both the tip of her tongue and follows with a bold swipe over the whole scar.
Really, that was what decided that Ava was going to find that girl. The dream-visions had been getting more and more confused and vivid. She could feel the lines where Jo's nails scratched at her. Ava was nearly shaking with desire...which only half scared her. She'd never been one to be attracted to females, but that wasn't what really bothered her about the vision. What bothered her was the fact that she was having sex dreams only a little while after Brady was murdered. Ava found that rather troubling, since tonight it seemed she was being honest with herself.
She headed into the bathroom and splashed some cool water on her face, her skin felt like it was buzzing. She looked at herself in the mirror and shook her head. She looked terrible; the dark circles only one of the hallmarks of her exhaustion, along with the pallor of her skin and her slight weight loss. All these added up to make her look like one of the living dead.
“So, heading to find that girl and save her. Then perhaps I'll be able to get some sleep at night.” She muttered to her pale reflection before turning and heading back to bed so she could write down some more information from her dream to help her in finding Jo.
She was up most of the night looking for that bar and was thankful when she found it. It was only 6 hours away, in Duluth, Michigan, and so perhaps she could make it and find a place to sleep before noon. Ava put the morning coffee on to brew a bit early and left a thank you note for Sara to find when she got up for work later that morning.
Sara,
Thanks for everything hun, just getting out of town for a little while to clear my head and not be such a burden on you. I'll call when I finally get settled on where I'm going. Enjoy the coffee.
Love,
Ava
After leaving the note by the coffee pot and filling a travel mug, Ava grabbed her meager belongings and headed out to her trusty little beetle. It looked like she was in for a long drive on little sleep.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Jo woke up and started her day, just like every other. She picked up the various newspapers and checked her email subscriptions to several others. Since she headed in to work well after dark, it gave her plenty of time to look for cases. Then, she’d either forward them to Ash at the Roadhouse, or perhaps to another hunter that she had contact information for. If they were in the area she would call in for a few days and go and take care of it herself.
She hadn't found herself in the middle of anything overly difficult as of yet. After that incident with Winchester brothers that had nearly gotten her killed, she did more research and looked into things more before just riding out into the sunset to kill monsters. The research had saved her ass several times since then.
There were a few cases out of state that Jo called in to a couple of hunters who might be in the area so they could take care of the poltergeist and the strange case of a man being in two places at once, more than likely a shape shifter. She attached a few files and sent them off, then turned to the local paper. It seemed there was a little bit of demon sign showing up around the outsides of Duluth. She wasn't sure she was up to a full on demon yet.
She thought about calling in another hunter, but first she needed to get some things together to make sure she was prepared for when she did call them in. A lot of older hunters especially were 'lone wolves' and being called in by a girl as young as Jo made them look down on her a little, or treat her like she wasn't a hunter. Jo compensated for that by making sure that she had all the info she could gather on the so it was a 'get in and get out' type of job.
More than once she'd been met with an impressed 'hmm' noise from hunters when she lay out the plan for them when they arrived. After the job was done she would share a beer with them and appreciate the compliments they gave her in small words and actions; like paying for her beer, or saying something as simple as 'You did good, Jo.'
There had been one case with a man who had helped her dad once upon a time, an old hunter by the name of Avery Michael Wilson, and he'd said something that had nearly made her cry. He'd smirked a little over his scotch at her and said, “Bill couldn't have done it better. You'd make him proud.” She'd taken a quick trip to the head to make sure she didn't start bawling in front of the older hunter. She wasn't a child anymore and didn't need to be breaking down in front of her peers. Avery had seemed to understand and didn't mention Bill again after that, nor the fact that her eyes had still been a little damp at the corners.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Ava pulled up in front of the motel and got a room. It was cheap and she knew that she'd be getting what she paid for, but the manager didn't ask her any questions or give her any small talk. Ava was so thankful for that silence. Truth be told, she didn't know what she was even doing in Duluth, having just driven six hours on little sleep. At the time she sat behind the wheel of her little old Bug and started driving her purpose had been so clear, so sure.
Now that she was finally here, though? Things looked a little bit different.
Now she seemed like she was crazier than when she had gone looking for the tall man in the house explosion. That had only been a little bit of a drive from Peoria. Now here she was over eight hours away from where her husband lay fresh in his grave in Duluth, Michigan hunting down a bartender who was about to get her neck broken by a man with yellow eyes.
Why did she care so much for someone she'd never met? Well, why are you vision-dreaming about having sex with her? Your visions come true, and you know what that means. Perhaps that explains why you care about her so much, you're supposed to be with her. Even Ava's thoughts were turning against her now. Perhaps there was a reason she was going to save this girl, Jo. Ava figured she'd at least try her best to save the girl, if the sex happened, then it happened...she could perhaps stop it, but since that part of her vision hadn't been very clear on the surroundings...it would be more difficult to stop.
So she flicked on the light inside her room, dropped her stuff and locked up her room again, before lying down on the scratchy comforter on the painful mattress and slept like the dead. She had some half-remembered dreams of blond curls and skin so soft pressed tight against her.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Jo didn't pay the girl at the bar any real mind for several hours. She was quiet and seemed to be pretty far out of her element. She looked like what her mother would call, 'what the cat dragged in'. She had the look of several long hours on the road and only a precious few hours on a crappy hotel mattress. One of the other servers had taken care of her food and drink order, but the brunette was still there when the kitchen closed at ten.
Jo noticed that she'd gone from drinking coffee to drinking Irish Coffee as soon as the kitchen had closed. Whenever the girl needed a refill Jo would walk down the bar to her and ask “Hey, do you want another?” The new girl nodded and didn't meet her eyes. Jo was used to people who wanted to be left alone, and so she obliged, watching the girl slowly over the course of the night drain that coffee cup dry more than three times.
As she drank more she did start to look up at Jo more often. Well, more like she stared at Jo. There was a look that Jo couldn't place on her face, almost as if the brunette had seen a ghost. Who knew? Perhaps she had. The girl looked slightly familiar, but Jo couldn't tell where she'd seen her face before. She put it out of her mind for the time being, focusing instead on her work.
The brunette just stuck around, drinking Irish Coffee and watching Jo. She didn't stop looking at her even when Jo caught her several times as the night progressed. Jo eventually just took a break, and walked around to the other side of the bar and sat down next to Ava. “Hey, I'm Jo. You've been looking at me like you've seen a ghost for most of the night.” All behold Joanna Beth Harvelle, mistress of words and social tact.
Ava looked a little bit startled. At least, her cheeks turned slightly red as she looked down at her cup bashfully. “Hey, I'm Ava.” Her voice was only slightly slurred, though she was still very intoxicated. She didn't say anything else, preferring instead to play with her cup.
Jo arched an eyebrow at the response from Ava, not willing to buy just that answer from the new arrival to her bar. So, she gently reached out and pulled the cup out of her hands, setting it down behind the bar. “Well, Ava, I think you've had enough, and as the bartender I'm cutting you off.” Her voice was still kind, but firmer than it had been since she was acting in her official capacity as a bar tender. Ava still didn't seem to want to look up, her eyes now glued to the lacquered top of the bar.
“I just need to save you.” She said on the verge of silence. Jo had to lean in slightly to even hear Ava speak. Again, there was a sneaking suspicion that Jo had heard the name Ava and still the girl looked so familiar. Something just wasn't locking into place in Jo's mind. She was sure that she knew this girl from somewhere.
“Save me from who?” Jo asked, looking around as her hunter instinct went off. Granted, this whole situation still seemed so strange, but then again...what about a hunter's life is ever normal?
“From the man with the yellow eyes.” Ava said just as quietly, though now with a hint of disbelief in her voice. She couldn't believe she was telling a total stranger, who she'd dreamed about sleeping with several times now, about how she was supposed to save her from a monster. If she didn't save Jo, the man with the yellow eyes was going to kill her.
Jo couldn't help but stiffen. She remembered Sam and Dean coming into the Roadhouse asking for help from Ash to try to find other 'Special kids', the ones that the demon with the yellow eyes was interested in. She didn't know exactly who Ava was, but she would need to place a call back to Ash soon, to have him check her findings around the area to see what kind of demon she might be dealing with. Also to have him check for this Ava girl, see who she was. She didn't say anything for the time being, but did excuse herself to go get ready to get back to work, which left her just enough time to make a phone call.
The bathroom was at least quiet enough that she could hear the phone ringing on the other side. “You've reached the desk of Dr. Badass, you know what to do.” Beep.
“Ash, this is Jo, I've got what looks to be Demon sign up near Duluth, and I need you to take a look into it for me. See what exactly might be coming into town, and also...there's this girl named Ava Wilson up here, I think that's the last name on her I.D. She's saying some weird things about the Yellow-eyed demon being on his way to kill me...so any help would be appreciated. Don't tell Mom. All my love.” She flipped the phone shut, hurried to wash her hands and get back to the bar, hoping to get to talk a little bit more to Ava. When she got out of the bathroom, Ava had left money on the bar and vanished.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Jo flipped open her phone when she woke up with a message from the Roadhouse, listening closely to Ash's voice on the machine. As he talked, Jo could feel the color drain from her face.
“Hey, girl. Here's an update for you. You've got something nasty up that way. It's not something small either. I've sent you a banishing ritual that should work, and a hex bag recipe that should work to keep you hidden from it should it get your scent or someone else's. I'd say call in some help. Also, Ava Wilson has been missing from Peoria, IL for some time. Sam said that she was a special kid with visions, like him. That's all I've got for now, girl. Good luck.”
After she clicked her phone closed, she opened her laptop and logged into her email. Pulling up the information that Ash had sent, Jo started writing out what she'd need to work both the ritual to banish the demon and the materials/rituals to make the hex bags as well. She really tried to keep her hand from shaking as she wrote. This was a lot bigger than she was used to...and if Ava was to be believed, it was coming for her.
This was the yellow-eyed demon that had ruled the Winchester's lives for as long as they could remember, what had gotten John into hunting. This thing was close to Duluth if not actually in town. She put down her pen for a moment and lay her head in her hands, running fingers back through her blonde waves, trying in vain to relieve the stress that seemed to be coiling up inside her like a snake waiting to strike.
This was not going to be good. Jo didn't have to be a psychic to see that. She scribbled down the rest of the ingredients and grabbed her bag, jacket, and keys before heading downstairs to get her car. She had a lot of things to acquire. Where was she going to pick up part of a hanged man, in modern day Duluth? That was going to be interesting and would probably require some digging, which meant buying a shovel was also on today's to do list.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Stay, please stay
Art Masterlist
Author: falling_dominos
Character/Pairing: Ava/Jo, Ava/Azazel
Genre: Femslash
Rating: NC-17 (Over-rating, probably, but just to be sure)
Disclaimer: These character's don't belong to me, but to the CW. :) Promise I'll put them back when I'm done!
Word Count: 10,004
Summary: Ava gets another vision, and of course she has to save the girl.
Author's Notes: I want to give a huge thank you to my lovely artist, astralavator, without whom none of this would have been possible. She gave me such lovely art prompts and was a dream to work with. Also, another thank you to my real life friend Amanda, who beta'ed all sixteen pages for me over this last weekend.
Run girl, Run|| Stay, please stay|| Scenes from the cutting room floor(Coming soon!)
“Hey, this is Jo. I'm probably working at the moment. So leave a message after the beep, I'll get back to you.”
“Hey girl, this is Ash, callin' from the Roadhouse. Your mom's worried about you. Gimme a call when you can.”
As Jo smiled at the familiar voice on the phone, she hit 'save' and flicked her phone closed. She missed home, sometimes. It was good to know that they still cared, even if she couldn't live in the same house with her mother anymore. It was time for her to strike out on her own. Jo’s mother wouldn’t allow Jo to go her own way so long as Jo lived under her roof.
Jo slid into the silver Mitsubishi Lancer that she'd managed to get used a few weeks back and headed for her small one bedroom apartment about ten minutes away. She could have walked. The neighborhood wasn't exactly safe, though; even if the bar was pretty popular. After close, women didn't walk the streets alone unless they were looking for Johns or trouble. Jo was looking for neither.
*~*~*~*~*~*
A little over 500 miles away, a woman's life was ripped apart the moment she saw her husband lying in a pool of his own blood, his neck shredded so deeply that white bone was visible in a few places. She didn't notice the sulfur on the windowsill as she packed her bags while she waited for the police to get there. The police kept her for a few hours, and then told her she was free to go, since she'd been out of town while her husband had been murdered. (Witness reports, credit card receipts, and cell phone records all proved it. The cops were going to pull video footage from Lafayette, she was certain of it, just to make sure that she wasn't one of the 'wives who kill their husbands'.)
Ava Wilson then proceeded to run like hell to her sister's in Milwaukee.
She collapsed into Sara's arms and cried for what felt like too long and not long enough. Brady was dead...she'd just been gone for a little while...she just wanted to come home to her loving fiance and address wedding invitations. Instead she came home to blood on the mattress and her life in pieces to be bagged and cataloged by the police in Peoria.
Her phone had rang for hours but she never picked up. She was too angry with herself. While she'd been out gallivanting and saving someone she had never met before in her life, her husband had been bleeding to death. She was angry with herself that he had died alone.
Why hadn't her stupid visions told her that was going to happen? Why did Sam Winchester get saved but not her sweet, loving Brady?
So as far as she was concerned, Sam Winchester could rot in Hell for all her pain.
Eventually she threw her phone away, picking up a disposable cell phone instead. Sara had offered to put a line on her plan, but Ava felt like enough of a drag on her as it was. No. A disposable cell phone would be just fine.
Sleeping proved to be the most difficult thing for Ava to convince herself to do. For the first few days she didn't, until eventually she passed out from sheer exhaustion. Of course the first dream she had was a vision, splitting her head open as she watches a blond girl get her neck broken with the flick of a wrist. It was so simply done, like breaking a birds neck, so delicate. In the background there wass a clock with a date, two weeks away.
When she woke up she grabbed a pad of paper and wrote it down, trying to focus on the girl. 'Petite, dark eyes, cocky smirk, wavy blond hair a few inches past the shoulders, tank top (blue-gray), jeans with holes on the knees and thighs, heavy boots.' Once she had that part down, the vision started to fade, though from the date she had two weeks to find...
Wait. What was she thinking?!? Helping someone else, who she didn't know, when Brady had just been murdered, and the cops probably thought she did it, and she would probably get in even more trouble if the cops found out she'd crossed state lines to go and stay with her sister. (The cops did give her the 'don't go too far' speech when they agreed to let her go; not that Ava had listened.)
Ava sighed and put the pad of paper down, lying down to try to get some more sleep, but dark eyes, blond curls and a quirky smile plagued her for the rest of the night.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Jo's apartment left a lot to be desired. The wallpaper was peeling in places and the stove only half worked. The back two burners of the electric stove didn't work very well, if at all. Still it was hers and she was happy to have a place to call her own in a part of town where having contraband materials such as guns was commonplace. Jo liked that no one asked questions and when they saw her lugging boxes and such up to her apartment. No one asked to help, and no one asked what she had in her bags.
The land lord expected the rent to be paid on time, and didn't want anything too shady going on, which meant no prostitution in the building. Her neighbors hit each other and had loud raucous fights almost every other night. Jo didn't pay them any mind, having grown up with people who fought when they were sober, when they were drunk, when they thought someone looked at them wrong. Hunters weren't the most stable group of people by far and large, so Jo was used to it. Well, perhaps she wasn't used to things hitting the wall above her bed so hard that it would rattle her awake.
When she lay down it was in her own bed, on her own terms, and she was free. Freedom was worth it.
*~*~*~*~*~*
A few weeks after Ava woke up feeling troubled by the dream that plagued her the first night at her sister's, she had a few more things written on her little note pad, though nothing quite concrete enough to go looking. Ava still wasn't sure she even was going to look for the girl yet. Her heart had won the battle so far, going to Brady's funeral, and hearing how stumped the cops were on the crime.
Brady's funeral had been paid for by the wedding money that she no longer needed. The plot and tombstone were paid for with honeymoon money to Hawaii; the money she would never use to fly there and see the volcano's with her brand new husband. This had happened after the autopsy of her husband’s body and the Peoria police had taken their time with releasing her fiancee's body so that he could be buried.
Ava ended up shutting the house she would have shared for the first few years of her married life down, she had the bills cut off and was planning on staying with her sister while she grieved and worked on finding another job near Sara that she could take so she could be near family.
Ava couldn't bring herself to go and look for the girl even when the dreams started to get a little more intense, Ava would wake up with the smell of the bar in her nostrils or the strange scent of the man who wasn't a man. They didn't happen all of the time. So she tried to keep it out of her head as best she could, keeping up her sister’s house while Sara worked and Ava looked for a job via Monster.
The spare bedroom had been turned into Ava’s own room for now. Her sister was so sweet and kind. Ava felt like just by being there something bad was going to happen to her sister eventually. That was one of the check marks in the 'go look for the girl' column. Ava climbed into bed that night feeling conflicted and unsure of what she was going to do, comforter pulled tight around her body, staving off a strange cold feeling that had nothing to do with the temperature.
The blond girl set a tray of fried fish and fries in front of the man with a soul less grin. The tray hit the table with a loud SNAP.
Hands trailing along the hem of Ava's shirt, small fingertips along the small of her back. An echoing GASP as lips brushed over the pulse point in her neck and nails bit into her skin.
The man thanks the blond girl by name, “Thanks Jo, looks good.” His eyes flick to yellow for a moment. Blink. Blue eyes again, Jo doesn't notice because she's looking down. A CRASH of bottles being dropped causes Jo to turn and curse.
Ava's hands thread through soft blond waves, like silk winding around her fingers. Ava’s presses her lips against Jo's with a tentative softness, unsure of exactly what to do with her extra two inches of height. Jo sighs slightly and presses closer, boldly sliding her hands up the back of Ava's shirt, easily retaking control of the situation. “Just relax,” Jo murmurs against her lips, taking away her breath.
The man drank, but didn't get inebriated. He was at the bar from sunset until it was empty. He stalks up behind Jo and smirks when she comes up with a rifle and shoots him with rock salt. “Let me show you what I can do, Joanna.” She only looks scared for a moment. The man’s hands come up. With that same grin he flicks his hands and SNAP, she drops to the floor. Her brown eyes are unseeing and still.
Soft lips are at Ava's hip. Ava’s hands grip the sheets as Jo's mouth nips at the old scars faded to smooth and slick lines the same color as her pale skin. The feeling along the scars is like electricity. Jo traces each scar with both the tip of her tongue and follows with a bold swipe over the whole scar.
Really, that was what decided that Ava was going to find that girl. The dream-visions had been getting more and more confused and vivid. She could feel the lines where Jo's nails scratched at her. Ava was nearly shaking with desire...which only half scared her. She'd never been one to be attracted to females, but that wasn't what really bothered her about the vision. What bothered her was the fact that she was having sex dreams only a little while after Brady was murdered. Ava found that rather troubling, since tonight it seemed she was being honest with herself.
She headed into the bathroom and splashed some cool water on her face, her skin felt like it was buzzing. She looked at herself in the mirror and shook her head. She looked terrible; the dark circles only one of the hallmarks of her exhaustion, along with the pallor of her skin and her slight weight loss. All these added up to make her look like one of the living dead.
“So, heading to find that girl and save her. Then perhaps I'll be able to get some sleep at night.” She muttered to her pale reflection before turning and heading back to bed so she could write down some more information from her dream to help her in finding Jo.
She was up most of the night looking for that bar and was thankful when she found it. It was only 6 hours away, in Duluth, Michigan, and so perhaps she could make it and find a place to sleep before noon. Ava put the morning coffee on to brew a bit early and left a thank you note for Sara to find when she got up for work later that morning.
Sara,
Thanks for everything hun, just getting out of town for a little while to clear my head and not be such a burden on you. I'll call when I finally get settled on where I'm going. Enjoy the coffee.
Love,
Ava
After leaving the note by the coffee pot and filling a travel mug, Ava grabbed her meager belongings and headed out to her trusty little beetle. It looked like she was in for a long drive on little sleep.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Jo woke up and started her day, just like every other. She picked up the various newspapers and checked her email subscriptions to several others. Since she headed in to work well after dark, it gave her plenty of time to look for cases. Then, she’d either forward them to Ash at the Roadhouse, or perhaps to another hunter that she had contact information for. If they were in the area she would call in for a few days and go and take care of it herself.
She hadn't found herself in the middle of anything overly difficult as of yet. After that incident with Winchester brothers that had nearly gotten her killed, she did more research and looked into things more before just riding out into the sunset to kill monsters. The research had saved her ass several times since then.
There were a few cases out of state that Jo called in to a couple of hunters who might be in the area so they could take care of the poltergeist and the strange case of a man being in two places at once, more than likely a shape shifter. She attached a few files and sent them off, then turned to the local paper. It seemed there was a little bit of demon sign showing up around the outsides of Duluth. She wasn't sure she was up to a full on demon yet.
She thought about calling in another hunter, but first she needed to get some things together to make sure she was prepared for when she did call them in. A lot of older hunters especially were 'lone wolves' and being called in by a girl as young as Jo made them look down on her a little, or treat her like she wasn't a hunter. Jo compensated for that by making sure that she had all the info she could gather on the so it was a 'get in and get out' type of job.
More than once she'd been met with an impressed 'hmm' noise from hunters when she lay out the plan for them when they arrived. After the job was done she would share a beer with them and appreciate the compliments they gave her in small words and actions; like paying for her beer, or saying something as simple as 'You did good, Jo.'
There had been one case with a man who had helped her dad once upon a time, an old hunter by the name of Avery Michael Wilson, and he'd said something that had nearly made her cry. He'd smirked a little over his scotch at her and said, “Bill couldn't have done it better. You'd make him proud.” She'd taken a quick trip to the head to make sure she didn't start bawling in front of the older hunter. She wasn't a child anymore and didn't need to be breaking down in front of her peers. Avery had seemed to understand and didn't mention Bill again after that, nor the fact that her eyes had still been a little damp at the corners.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Ava pulled up in front of the motel and got a room. It was cheap and she knew that she'd be getting what she paid for, but the manager didn't ask her any questions or give her any small talk. Ava was so thankful for that silence. Truth be told, she didn't know what she was even doing in Duluth, having just driven six hours on little sleep. At the time she sat behind the wheel of her little old Bug and started driving her purpose had been so clear, so sure.
Now that she was finally here, though? Things looked a little bit different.
Now she seemed like she was crazier than when she had gone looking for the tall man in the house explosion. That had only been a little bit of a drive from Peoria. Now here she was over eight hours away from where her husband lay fresh in his grave in Duluth, Michigan hunting down a bartender who was about to get her neck broken by a man with yellow eyes.
Why did she care so much for someone she'd never met? Well, why are you vision-dreaming about having sex with her? Your visions come true, and you know what that means. Perhaps that explains why you care about her so much, you're supposed to be with her. Even Ava's thoughts were turning against her now. Perhaps there was a reason she was going to save this girl, Jo. Ava figured she'd at least try her best to save the girl, if the sex happened, then it happened...she could perhaps stop it, but since that part of her vision hadn't been very clear on the surroundings...it would be more difficult to stop.
So she flicked on the light inside her room, dropped her stuff and locked up her room again, before lying down on the scratchy comforter on the painful mattress and slept like the dead. She had some half-remembered dreams of blond curls and skin so soft pressed tight against her.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Jo didn't pay the girl at the bar any real mind for several hours. She was quiet and seemed to be pretty far out of her element. She looked like what her mother would call, 'what the cat dragged in'. She had the look of several long hours on the road and only a precious few hours on a crappy hotel mattress. One of the other servers had taken care of her food and drink order, but the brunette was still there when the kitchen closed at ten.
Jo noticed that she'd gone from drinking coffee to drinking Irish Coffee as soon as the kitchen had closed. Whenever the girl needed a refill Jo would walk down the bar to her and ask “Hey, do you want another?” The new girl nodded and didn't meet her eyes. Jo was used to people who wanted to be left alone, and so she obliged, watching the girl slowly over the course of the night drain that coffee cup dry more than three times.
As she drank more she did start to look up at Jo more often. Well, more like she stared at Jo. There was a look that Jo couldn't place on her face, almost as if the brunette had seen a ghost. Who knew? Perhaps she had. The girl looked slightly familiar, but Jo couldn't tell where she'd seen her face before. She put it out of her mind for the time being, focusing instead on her work.
The brunette just stuck around, drinking Irish Coffee and watching Jo. She didn't stop looking at her even when Jo caught her several times as the night progressed. Jo eventually just took a break, and walked around to the other side of the bar and sat down next to Ava. “Hey, I'm Jo. You've been looking at me like you've seen a ghost for most of the night.” All behold Joanna Beth Harvelle, mistress of words and social tact.
Ava looked a little bit startled. At least, her cheeks turned slightly red as she looked down at her cup bashfully. “Hey, I'm Ava.” Her voice was only slightly slurred, though she was still very intoxicated. She didn't say anything else, preferring instead to play with her cup.
Jo arched an eyebrow at the response from Ava, not willing to buy just that answer from the new arrival to her bar. So, she gently reached out and pulled the cup out of her hands, setting it down behind the bar. “Well, Ava, I think you've had enough, and as the bartender I'm cutting you off.” Her voice was still kind, but firmer than it had been since she was acting in her official capacity as a bar tender. Ava still didn't seem to want to look up, her eyes now glued to the lacquered top of the bar.
“I just need to save you.” She said on the verge of silence. Jo had to lean in slightly to even hear Ava speak. Again, there was a sneaking suspicion that Jo had heard the name Ava and still the girl looked so familiar. Something just wasn't locking into place in Jo's mind. She was sure that she knew this girl from somewhere.
“Save me from who?” Jo asked, looking around as her hunter instinct went off. Granted, this whole situation still seemed so strange, but then again...what about a hunter's life is ever normal?
“From the man with the yellow eyes.” Ava said just as quietly, though now with a hint of disbelief in her voice. She couldn't believe she was telling a total stranger, who she'd dreamed about sleeping with several times now, about how she was supposed to save her from a monster. If she didn't save Jo, the man with the yellow eyes was going to kill her.
Jo couldn't help but stiffen. She remembered Sam and Dean coming into the Roadhouse asking for help from Ash to try to find other 'Special kids', the ones that the demon with the yellow eyes was interested in. She didn't know exactly who Ava was, but she would need to place a call back to Ash soon, to have him check her findings around the area to see what kind of demon she might be dealing with. Also to have him check for this Ava girl, see who she was. She didn't say anything for the time being, but did excuse herself to go get ready to get back to work, which left her just enough time to make a phone call.
The bathroom was at least quiet enough that she could hear the phone ringing on the other side. “You've reached the desk of Dr. Badass, you know what to do.” Beep.
“Ash, this is Jo, I've got what looks to be Demon sign up near Duluth, and I need you to take a look into it for me. See what exactly might be coming into town, and also...there's this girl named Ava Wilson up here, I think that's the last name on her I.D. She's saying some weird things about the Yellow-eyed demon being on his way to kill me...so any help would be appreciated. Don't tell Mom. All my love.” She flipped the phone shut, hurried to wash her hands and get back to the bar, hoping to get to talk a little bit more to Ava. When she got out of the bathroom, Ava had left money on the bar and vanished.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Jo flipped open her phone when she woke up with a message from the Roadhouse, listening closely to Ash's voice on the machine. As he talked, Jo could feel the color drain from her face.
“Hey, girl. Here's an update for you. You've got something nasty up that way. It's not something small either. I've sent you a banishing ritual that should work, and a hex bag recipe that should work to keep you hidden from it should it get your scent or someone else's. I'd say call in some help. Also, Ava Wilson has been missing from Peoria, IL for some time. Sam said that she was a special kid with visions, like him. That's all I've got for now, girl. Good luck.”
After she clicked her phone closed, she opened her laptop and logged into her email. Pulling up the information that Ash had sent, Jo started writing out what she'd need to work both the ritual to banish the demon and the materials/rituals to make the hex bags as well. She really tried to keep her hand from shaking as she wrote. This was a lot bigger than she was used to...and if Ava was to be believed, it was coming for her.
This was the yellow-eyed demon that had ruled the Winchester's lives for as long as they could remember, what had gotten John into hunting. This thing was close to Duluth if not actually in town. She put down her pen for a moment and lay her head in her hands, running fingers back through her blonde waves, trying in vain to relieve the stress that seemed to be coiling up inside her like a snake waiting to strike.
This was not going to be good. Jo didn't have to be a psychic to see that. She scribbled down the rest of the ingredients and grabbed her bag, jacket, and keys before heading downstairs to get her car. She had a lot of things to acquire. Where was she going to pick up part of a hanged man, in modern day Duluth? That was going to be interesting and would probably require some digging, which meant buying a shovel was also on today's to do list.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Stay, please stay