Love Is Suicide
Love is evil; is version of perversion that is only for the lucky people.
Adam liked to think that he could charm any girl, any time. Well, he had those baby blue eyes and the perfect crooked smile, after all. However, he couldn't charm Joanna.
She had blonde-princess hair and the dirty mouth of a sailor. The woman looked at him as if he was nothing, but a stupid teenager and it made Adam's blood boil.
So he followed her around the college. She was asking questions to the dean, but he followed anyway and tried to keep a conversation. "If you don't get the fuck out of my view in ten seconds, I'm gonna castrate you, Milligan." The blonde spat. Cold eyes, dangerous smirk. He knew he had fell for her right there.
Jo was a newbie at the Illinois 13º District and was doing camp work at the Wisconsin 02º District to impress her boss. Or so she said.
Adam was a freshman at the University of Wisconsin, full of arrogance and desire to out beat everyone. He had drank her words as she explained (he eavesdropped it) that she was the official responsible by the re-opening of the case 1-78. The case 1-78 was known by every student of the University and probably by every citizen of the city. Was a ghost story, originated by the deaths of four girls in the same elevator: One in which year, different dates but same hour.
Everybody knew it was just a coincidence, but it never stopped them of talking about it late in night.
He had rolled his eyes. Was a dead-end, no cop wanted to reopen the case because of it. And there was Joanna, smart and young, trying to solve a mystery that had three years.
Adam wanted to tell her to stop. Stop looking for answers when there was none. So he did.
The man found her sitting at the Sammie's Bar, looking lost to the bottom of her glass. He sat by her side without being invited and smiled. "Heard you are reopening the 1-78…"
"I think I told you to stay away, Milligan. You already caused me problems with the dean, following me like a lost puppy."
"Dean Paul will forget. He's old." His smile grew as a little humor tilted the corners of her mouth. "Now, about the 1-78…"
"You have any information about the case?" now she was looking him in the eyes. Cold brown meeting flirty blue. "You do know holding information about a suspect death is illegal, right?"
"I don't know anything." Adam made a sign to the waiter for a beer. "But so do you, Joanna."
"Excuse me?"
"It's a blind alley. No one ever found out anything about this case."
"And you know it because…"
"Because I hear people talking." An eyebrow rose in challenge. He sat closer to her and continued "Look, I would hate for a pretty chick like you to lose her job. So stop searching when there's nothing and go look for another case." He was being honest. Joanna frowned.
"Milligan, I know you just want to help, ok? But I also know there's something about this case, so you can piss off already." But there was a smile in the end of it. Adam let it go. If she wanted to lose her job, that was her problem.
"Well, let me at least enjoy your company tonight." And now he was back to his shitty flirt. Jo rolled her eyes, but didn't try to shoo him away. Adam took it as an invitation to start talking non-stopping. He told her about being a pre-med student, about his friends and how he thought she was gorgeous.
"I'm lesbian" she blustered out, looking annoyed. There was no blush in her cheeks and Adam turned red.
"Shit… I'm sorry."
"Yeah, but what if I wasn't? You would continue to harass me all night! You see, that's why I wouldn't ever fall for your charms. You're just another sexist jerk." Joanna stood up, now looking angry. He bit his lower lip in shame because she was right. No woman had ever stood up against his ways of flirting and well, he did slept with everyone he tried…
The boy let her walk away, be lost in the night. And he felt the world biggest jerk.
Jo didn't saw him for another couple of days. No more pestering, no more following her around. The dean made no comment about Milligan missing presence.
She was proud of how she handled jerks like Adam. Truth was Jo wasn't lesbian, just needed respect, what no man seemed to give her those days. She was also proud about the case, having found the reports of the first death. Sarah Gallagher, A+ student, golden daughter. The girl wasn't depressed, she never gave any sign for them suspect she was suicidal. Yet, Sarah had jumped in the middle of surfing at the elevator.
Surfing in the elevator was very common. Stupid students would open the emergency exit on the ceiling and go to the roof of the elevator. There, they would jump between the two moving machines. Every once in awhile occurred and accident, but four deaths in four years? All at three pm? C'mon, what kind of student surfed at the elevators three pm?
It took Joanna a week more before she solved it. Harvelle fest awful, all this work and in the end was just the dean. Paul had a master key that could top the elevator, it could only be used in cases of emergency. He had pushed all those girls in the elevator shaft, after he abused of them. Sarah, Jenny, Lucy and Pamela were all called to his room hours before; 11am, 12pm, 10:30am and 13pm.
Jo didn't know what to do. She had solved the case, but she wasn't a cop for real and shouldn't even be "reopening" it to begin. An anonymous call to the police, all the evidences in a locket she paid in money and she was ready to leave town.
Wasn't it by the fact she hadn't seen Adam in days. The boy had completely disappeared. Jo understood that he was probably ashamed of his actions, but something felt off. So, going against all her instincts she stayed.
"When was him last seen?" asked for his roommate and apparently, bestfriend.
"He went after a girl… some chick he was pestering for the last three days…" the boy answered.
"When was it?"
"A week ago."
It was her. The last one to talk to him was her. "Do his parents live nearby?"
"Well, just his mother. She's a nurse at Windom, Minnesota."
"What about his dad?"
"The dude fled ages ago…"
"Adam still talks to him?" Joanna rose an eyebrow in suspicious and she knew the kid was starting to feel uncomfortable.
"No, he stopped talking to the man has been three or two years… Is he in trouble?" the boy questioned, clearly worried.
"I'm not sure, Justin. He has been gone for a week, he left no note, the direction of the college hasn't heard of him… I'm just speculating here." Jo saw the worry grow in the boy green eyes and quickly opened a warm smile. "I'm sure he's fine."
"No, he… Look, Adam's family is just him and his mother. I'm his bestfriend for what? Eight years? Nine? And he never acted like this. He knows his mom would have a heart attack." Justin shook his head. "If I can help with anything, I will."
Harvelle was touched by that exposure of care.
She reaped his entire life apart in the next two days. Every night, before sleeping over a file, she would think that maybe the real cops were the best option. They would know what to do. But she never called the police, because something still felt off. Something about the boy disappearing in the middle of the night wasn't right. Was not just a case of kidnap or, who knows, rape followed by death. No, it was different.
So Jo just searched everything she could put her hands in. Adam was a golden student, best grades of the college, best grades of high school. He had a handful of friends in his hometown. Jo called his mother on day eleven after his vanishing. Kate cried in the phone. He was a beloved son, too.
Justin drove Jo to Windom, where she met Adam's mother. The woman was a mess of puffy red eyes and husky voice.
Ellen called her in the thirteenth night after the disappearance. Joanna's eyes were watering over the phone, as she heard her mother plead for her to come back home. "No, this boy… he needs me, mom. I can't go back now." She said quietly, before hanging up.
Kate showed her a photo of his father and Jo's breath stopped.
John Winchester smiled in the picture like she had never seen him do. He had an arm around Adam's shoulders and a beer in the free hand. Baseball caps in their heads.
The indirect murder of her father was Adam Milligan's dad.
And she knew it had to be supernatural.
She called the Winchesters. No phone would answer.
It was late and Justin was sitting across the room, looking lost between the pictures of Adam. Was a warm, sticky June night. Kate had fallen asleep, head resting in the kid' shoulder. And then the phone she didn't tried yet had answered.
"Hello?" husky voice, dead and flat.
"Sam? Sam, thanks god… I… I need to talk to Dean, Sam. Both of you, actually." Her voice was filled up with relieve, because there's nothing the Winchester couldn't solve.
"Dean's… He's dead, Jo."
Her heart skipped a beat and Joanna saw a collection of black spots emerging in her view. Dean Winchester was dead. The man she had huge crush back then was fucking dead. It wasn't possible. Dean couldn't be dead. Not after she had lost Ash… Not another hunter… everybody was dying like flies now.
"When? How?"
"Two months ago… hellhound." Sam wasn't copying with this. She could feel it under her skin, the ache walking through her body. Dean Winchester was dead and Sam was a mess and Ash was dead, and so was her dad… And Adam's dad, John. But he didn't know about that. And Adam could be dead too…
"I… I gotta go…" and then she hang up, closing her eyes against the tears as she stood up and left the room before Justin could understand what was happening. She locked herself in the Milligan's bathroom and fell sit by the bathtub and cried. Sharp sobs shaking her entire body and darkness threatening to swallow her. She would die. Jo knew right then that, as a hunter, she wouldn't last much. Ellen was right.
"Oh my god, oh my god…" her voice was broken in the hollow room and she rested her head against the cold porcelain. They were all dead and so was she.
Adam knew he was fucked the second he left the bar, to try and catch Joanna and apologize, and his ex-girlfriend from school showed up. Bridget was wearing a too tight red dress that left nothing for imagination and she had walked towards him as if he was prey.
He was.
She had spiked his drink, because the next hours were a blur. They had kissed. She had looked like the devil in disguise as they fucked in the backseat of her car and then she had bitten him. Not a gentle, sexy bite. Nope. She had fucking bitten him, and her teeth was pink with his blood and there was fucking meat between it. Adam opened his mouth to scream and next thing, it was all black.
He had woken up alone. Cold was trying to break his bones and he was trembling like jell-oh. There was a spot in his right shoulder that showed the fat under the muscle and it made his stomach churn. A noise and he stopped in the middle of almost puking, suddenly alert.
Bridget had changed her clothes and she sat across him. He asked what was happening, what was she, and the girl had opened a smile that showed too much teeth. "I'm not going to kill you, yet." And she licked her lower lip. "Even thought you are a half-ass one, the taste of Winchester is all over you…" the compliment made his eyes widen. Winchester. As he father who didn't answered his phone in the last two years.
"You killed my dad."
"Nope, toy-boy." Her lascivious red lips turned into a grin of disgust. "Your daddy, killed my daddy."
His head was turning over and over. "My dad isn't a murderer…"
"Oh, he is. A hunter. Guess what he hunts? Not Bambi, but my family." Bridget rolled her eyes. "Hunters are so pretentious… But relax, toy-boy, I'm gonna teach him a lesson…" and then he blacked out again.
The next days were nothing but a mess. Food, that was not food, was shoved into his mouth one day or another and sometimes there was water. The nausea was forever present; making him feel like nothing was going to stay down. But he was out cold before he could puke, every time. The missing spot in his shoulder had turned yellow and there was pus that only made him sicker. Adam was so dead. He tried to stop breathing, but discovered that your body passes out before you can kill yourself in such ridiculous way.
Bridget showed up once in his blurred vision, but most of the time it was other two men that fed him. One was ginger and the other brunet.
it was a lifetime after he had been caught, when the ginger was entering his room, that the monster's head fell. Just like that. Adam blinked, panic bubbling inside of him, and asked himself if he was finally delirious. The monster's head had fallen… and Joanna Harvelle stood before him. He couldn't see much of her face, but she had a knife and was cutting the ropes that kept him in the chair.
Black again.
Emergency room.
Blackness…
His mother's voice… Justin's?
It was with a moan that he opened his eyes, sixteen days after his kidnap, to a white ceiling. Joanna was across the room, pale face resting in Justin's shoulders. His mother was right beside him, asleep. His bestfriend blinked hearing his moan and a huge smile spread across his face.
"Dude…" his voice was a whisper, as he gently unwrapped Joanna's arms around his and stood up. "I'm so glad you're awake."
"What happened, Justin?"
"I'm not sure. Joanna said you were kidnapped by a ginger fella… she killed him. Showed the body to the others cops and shit. It was a mess, you were a mess… You've been gone for fourteen days when she found you."
Adam couldn't stop a smile from opening. "I knew she liked me."
"Yeah, I think she does… But I also think she's going to kill you if you try anything. She scares the shit out of me, man."
Milligan was sure she did. Because even asleep, Joanna still looked like she owned the world.
Ellen asked twice why Jo didn't come back home already. She wasn't hunting. She was doing nothing. Still, Jo stayed.
Adam's recuperation was slow, because he had been starving and dehydrated when she found him. Blood infection.
He had waited for his mother and Justin to leave them alone, before asking about "hunters" and "demons" and Winchester. She had answered it all: had told Adam that she was a hunter, told about John putting Will out o his misery.
And he had smiled and thanked her. The first "thank you" Jo ever received for being a hunter. And he had asked if she would stick around.
God knows why, Jo had answered "yeah, looser. You might die if I go away, with your luck".
His mischievous grin grew and Harvelle knew she had fallen.
Later, tossing in the bed of the Milligan's guest room, she would think that maybe it wasn't so bad. Jo was going to die, that was right. What was the problem if she enjoyed his annoying company? If she was starting to judge Justin the way she judged Ash back then? What was the problem in wishing to lick Adam's freaking abs? None.
So she had gone for it. Found a great job in Wisconsin, close to his University. Joanna had visited him and Justin at their dorms every night. She had watched movies with the boys. And when Ellen called? Jo told her she had stopped hunting. Because she had, really. Dean Winchester was dead and Jo had no wish to imitate him.
Joanna ate an honest meal with Adam, paid with her honest money. And god forbid if she said she didn't like it. He made questions about hunting, about guns and all her lies. And she was honest, completely and utterly honest. It felt so good it ached her bones. She rented an apartment, small, but cute and clean. And hers. There was a devils-trap under the "welcome" rug. There were symbols craved in the insides of her wardrobe and guns between her lacy panties in the drawer. It was hers and was home and safe.
Adam and Justin would hang around there once in awhile. Do University homework and talk non-stopping about the chicks of the college. At least, Justin would. The boy had grew on her and Jo would smile and be glad he wasn't a jerk with the girls like Milligan had once been.
Harvelle painted the walls of the house in yellow and light orange. It was warm and reminded her of her grandpa's house. The old man had been dead for a long time, but she still could remember the yellow walls and the food. Ellen would drop her there when she was fighting with William, so Jo wouldn't have to watch.
Adam helped her paint the walls and he would grimace here and there because of his shoulder. And Jo would put her hand on it and rub the now-scar. And they would blush with the sudden contact and Jo would take her hand off him like it burned. It all was normal.
Justin rolled his eyes when he opened the door of his dorm, just to find Jo sitting in Adam's lap, kissing him like there was no tomorrow. Jo acted like there was no tomorrow.
Kate wasn't surprised in the phone, when Adam told her about the relationship, but she was happy. Kate liked his son' savior.
Harvelle closed her eyes and smiled, because she could get used to it. She could get used to the way Adam kissed her body like she was a goddess. Or how he eyed every scar and wanted the story behind it. She could get used about how secure and freaking arrogant he was and how Adam wrapped his fingers around hers and whispered a tiny "I love you" in her ear, that sent shivers through her spine.
When Jo told him about the Winchesters, about his half-brothers, he didn't even blink. And Sam and Dean were dead to Adam. His family, as he would say so gravely was his mother.
"And you." It was a silly nothing he whispered against her hair during a hot September night.
"What?" she didn't turn to look him in the eye, because it would melt the moment. Adam kissed the crown of her head, arms around her waist and a blonde head resting in his chest.
"Would you be my family? Would you be my wife?" and it was cliché and overused and Jo hated the idea of marriage. So what? She was going to die tomorrow and it would make him happy. So she agreed with a tiny yes and they didn't talk about it anymore.
He moved in with her in October. Justin was talking about being the best-man and Jo tried to don't look uncomfortable with the idea of being married. Adam hugged her from behind and "Shush, Jo… We have all the time of the world, it doesn't have to be now." And she didn't have all the time of world, but the words comforted her.
Ellen would call and wouldn't ask her to come back. The woman could hear the happiness in Jo's voice and the girl looked so calm now…
Adam did even talk to Ellen once, in November. Quick, polite and nothing like Jo was used to see him. She laughed eyeing his nervous face and took the phone away, telling her mom to stop scaring her fiancée. Ellen murmured a tiny "fiancée?" under her breath and Jo knew her mother was holding back tears.
Because Ellen Harvelle never thought her daughter would get married. She was waiting, fighting against the felling that her baby girl would end up dead just like her father. And now it was all over. Years and years of worry melting because Jo had saved a stupid boy, who Ellen never met, and fell in love with him.
Jo hung up and hugged Adam, whispering silly nothings against his back and already taking off his shirt.
She woke up with cold sweat under her palms and breathing erratically. Adam was sat beside her, head in hands.
"Adam?"
"They caught her." His voice was shaken with panic and she stood up.
"Who? What happened?" hands in shoulder, trying to look in his eyes.
"They… the monster who got me. They caught my mother…" his voice was getting rapid and anger was filling it. Jo knew he would flip.
They drove all night to Minnesota, Justin in the backseat because the boy denied staying behind when something so serious had happened.
Adam was wearing a steel mask, because he could still hear Bridget voice in his head, when he answered his cell "Mommy isn't going to last as much as you did, toy… She's smaller and tastes like heaven…"
It was a trap, Jo warned him. Still, he had walked right towards it, hand in gun (a gun he barely knew how worked) and heart pounding against his chest. Joanna was right behind him and Justin was waiting in the car, armed in case he could shoot from distance.
Harvelle knew it was a trap in the second Adam explained what had occurred. Call in the middle of the night, his mother's screams in the background, Bridget voice talking slowly… Jo had seen it once; she had been bait to a fucking trap once. Still, Adam wouldn't hear her. He caught a gun and ran to the trap before she could catch him. Jo had been fast, armed a plan with Justin and followed her fiancée. She knew Katie was doomed already.
After saving Adam, Jo had searched every little dirty about ghouls. They were revengeful. They eat human meat. They can assume their victims appearance and memories. Constituted family.
So she was there to kill the ghouls, keep Adam safe and, in the worst scenery, go down trying.
Jo never got the chance. In the second Adam entered the tomb he ran to his mother. And Jo watched, in horror, as the woman hugged him tight. "You're fine, you're fine…" he was whispering feverishly in her hair. His mother smiled and there were so many teeth… Jo felt a pang in her heart and made a move for him, but a hand was over her mouth and a man, a ghoul in her back, was trying to snap her arm.
Adam was so out of his mind that he saw nothing. Still lost in his mother embrace, he let a tiny, silly exclamation go when the woman thrust her teeth in the warm skin of his neck. He pushed her away and turned for Jo, still trapped in the arms of the ghoul, and his eyes filled up with "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…" and his mother snapped his neck.
Harvelle didn't scream. She felt the world darken around her and all she could see was Adam. Adam: dead in her feet. Adam… gone. How unfair was that he had gone before her, when she was the hunter of the relationship.
A gunshot and the ghoul let her go with a yell of pain. Justin's arms wrapped around her waist and he dragged her out. Pushed her in the car, the ghouls still behind them and drove… Jo rested her head in the cold window and didn't cry. She felt that little piece of undamaged soul of hers, die. And it was just sad.
Justin drove to the Singer Salvage. He had called her mother when she fell unconscious and asked for the address. Ellen was nothing but sadness. No "I told you" because this time, she hadn't. For the first time Ellen thought her daughter could be truly happy. What a sweet delusion.
The boy was a ghost around the house. Bobby would whisper with Ellen that the kid was also seriously damaged. He had, after all, seen his bestfriend die in front of Jo.
If Justin was a mess, Joanna was worst. She hadn't cried. She acted as if the last year of her life had never happened. But there was rage flowing in her blood. She would train shoot until the morning and during all day. Wouldn't stop even to eat, if they didn't forced her.
She didn't want to revenge Adam. She just wanted to go down fighting. Because Jo had lived the perfect apple pie life. And in the end? A hunter is going to be forever a hunter. No happiness, no family, just death following them around. So she hugged her inner hunter and killed every monster that appeared. And she shot Justin in the head when a vampire bit him.
One year later Joanna Harvelle died in the arms of her mother, bleeding guts in one hand and gun in the other. Ellen kissed the crown of her baby girl and whispered "I love you baby" and those were the last words Jo ever heard. The store they were in blew up in the air, taking all the ugly dogs of Satan back to hell.
Dean Winchester was alive and Joanna had no intentions to imitate him.
N/A: Well, I wrote this out of a sudden burst of inspirations while I was organizing my tumblr. Anyway, I hope you liked it and leave reviews! Good or bad let 'em come! Also, I'm always accepting prompts so yeah, PM me. The title is a song by Natalia Kills and the under title is part of "Hit Me Like a Man" by Pretty Reckless.
