Dis: I own nothing, nor do I claim to; all right to their respective owners!

TheShack

Jo was staring into the dark, her heart beating slowly as she waited for a full moon to emerge from behind a cloud that had gone on forever. Or so she thought, having been sitting in the exact spot she was in for as long time now. There was something about the dark little shack she had been occupying that made her feel a little more at ease; and a lot scared. Whenever the moon shone down on her, the cobwebs in the corners of the room shone white. The roof of the place had been gone for, well, a long time she assumed, and she didn't think much of it anymore. It was kind of nice, staring up at the night sky from a chair inside a shack, the windows pointing right into dense forest, but the roof open to the whole night sky. She smiled to herself, sighing a little as she heard the sounds of the forest.

And how it grew increasingly quiet.

She pulled her legs up to her chest, her shotgun in her hand as she closed her eyes and really listened. She could hear something moving through the shrubs behind the shack, and her stomach twisted together in a tight knot as she waited for something to break the silence that seemed to stretch out in front of her, not unlike the tension of water in a glass that was about to spill over the edge. Each second that ticked by was another drop of water poured into a glass already past its limit. Her heart beat another furious beat, her mind wondering what monster was lurking in the dark, what sinister little creature that had found her and had the urge to swallow her whole…

She slid her phone from her pocket; no reception, still. She still opened it, soundlessly as possible, and flipped through it, just to look at the contact she had open. It was a little bit of a security thing to open his contact, to see the smiling face of Alcide Herveaux look back at her. His deep brown eyes, the rough beard on his chin and the unruly mess of dark curls around his forehead. She wondered what he was doing, home in Shreveport, if he was out with the pack running himself tired and chasing bunnies, or if he was somewhere else, with someone else. A little bit jealous of Sookie Stackhouse still, Jo knew there were far worse things hiding in the forest she was in and that Sookie didn't really pose a direct threat to her. Not like, say, the thing making its way closer to the shack. She could practically hear it sniff the wooden walls.

She wondered what it could be, sitting stock still in her chair, barely able to breathe at all. Halloween night being the quietest night of the year was a myth – one she didn't care for anymore. And right now, with whatever that was sniffing her out, she would have preferred maybe having a castle of some kind to sit and look for evil in, as opposed to an open-roofed shack that would fall over if you slammed the door too hard.

She heard the door to the shack, which never did stay shut for long if the wind was blowing, open in a creaking manner. She looked around her, her heart beating furiously in her chest as she turned, fully prepared to look something awful in the face. Whatever evil it was that had found her, she would finish it. Most likely…

She gasped in surprise at the naked man standing before her.

"Hey, babe," he grinned, and she dropped her gun to the chair, launching herself off of it and towards him. She didn't feel like Jo Harvelle, supernatural hunter, today. She felt like a girl who wanted to spend Halloween in the arms of her boyfriend, watching bad horror movies and mocking the Frankensteins and the badly made werewolves.

His skin was hot to the touch, and she revelled in the feeling of his strong arms closing around her. For a moment she forgot that she was far from Shreveport, far from just about everything she knew, and just loved being off the ground and in his arms. But slowly, as he was putting her down, the world returned and Jo was left wondering why he had come to find her.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice a little too rushed, making her sound a bit more demanding that she intended. He smiled at her.

"Dean told me you'd be here, waiting for- Frankenstein?" His forehead wrinkled and she shook her head.

"Not quite. He's this doctor who finds dead bodies and- You know what, it's a pretty ghoulish story and I am not in the mood right now. I have been sitting out here almost all night waiting for him, and nothing. Nothing but you," she smiled in the dark. He smelled like wet grass and earth, like rain and sunshine and, what she had learned was magic. And under it all was his cologne, a distant remain from his normal life as a contractor. And a good one at that.

"Ghoulish story to tell your monster boyfriend on Halloween, sounds like a night to me," he smirked, but Jo narrowed her eyes at him.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Something must have happened; she should have thought to ask before.

"I- nothing." He stepped back from her, reaching her the gun from the chair. She took it, happily – she didn't like guns with silver bullets in them around Alcide – and watched him as he sat down, heavily, in the chair. He sunk down a little into the red velvet cushion, and she grinned as he made a face. "This is not comfortable," he said.

"I know, my butt is asleep."

A spark lit his eyes, and he looked at her with slightly raised eyebrows. "Oh, is it now? Come here," he said, pulling on the relatively safe end of the gun, to inch her closer.

She stood, his head leaning against her stomach, and his hands roamed up the backside of her legs, and she let out a tiny sigh of happiness when she remembered what he had said. "Had a bad day, honey?" she asked, her voice void of all sarcasm there usually was when playing the good girlfriend card. He pressed his nose further into her stomach, burying it in the softness of her shirt. He slowly inhaled and nodded against her, as her hand ran through the dark locks she had been missing only a few minutes earlier. "Why did you call yourself a monster just now?" Her hand slid down the back of his neck, yanking on the hair a little roughly to angle his head so he looked at her. "You are not a monster Alcide Herveaux, and I will beat you if you ever say that again."

He twitched in her hands, and she couldn't really ever understand the amount of self-control it was taking him to stay human on the night of the full moon. But she admired him so much for it, her heart just ached a little at the thought of him fighting his nature for her. She sat down on his lap, feeling the warm tingle of his skin against her clothes at every contact point. "Tell me," she asked, softly, and he kissed her cheek, just as softly.

"I just had a talk with Sookie, and it didn't go over very well," he said, and then Jo could pretty much guess the rest. She nodded, and smiled against his cheek as she kissed it. "And then I talked to Dean-"

She stopped short in her actions; talk about a scary Halloween. "Why?"

"To find you."

"But he didn't know-"

"He knew exactly where you were," Alcide said, and his eyes flashed to her face. "And you didn't know that did you?"

She shook her head. "Not a clue."

"Okay then." His voice seemed a little sad, then he seemed to think better of it and looked up at her, mischief in his eyes. "Wanna make it a happy Halloween?"

"Here?" she asked, looking around them.

He wagged his eyebrows, and she laughed, nodding. The thing with Alcide was that he seemed to take the sinister out of everything – and soon the little shack seemed more homey than ever before. The sun saw rising slowly in the horizon, but she could still feel the animal need in Alcide. And you won't hear me complaining, Jo thought, and another Halloween had passed, seemingly uneventful.