Title:
Strawberry Lollipops
Theme:
#23, candy.
Disclaimer:
Not mine :)
Rating: PG-13 for
language and sexiness
Can it be? Have I written something over 2000 words? With plot?
I know. I'm kind of surprised as well.
Jo thought she knew Dean. She didn't know him, know him; not the way his brother knew him—backwards and forwards and inside out—but Jo thought she had a handle on the way his mind worked. He loved three things: his brother, the Impala and killing evil things ("sons of bitches," he called them and Jo had to smile). He loved Sam and his car and his job, but he didn't love Jo and she had made her peace with that.
Jo thought she would never be surprised by Dean until the night he showed up in her bar in her city. She was perched on a bar stool, eating a lollipop and taking a break from pouring drinks and fetching beers. Dean walked in and Jo smiled. He smirked and her heart skipped a beat. He sauntered up to her and pulled the lollipop out of her mouth.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Jo's voice was sharper than she intended, but he had caught her off-guard.
Dean shrugged, refusing to let her annoyance faze him, and ordered a beer from the bartender on duty. "Sammy and I are on a job," he told Jo, grinning like he knew how he was affecting her. "Why'd you think I was here?"
The problem was that Jo didn't know what she thought anymore. She had a job, a room-and-a-half apartment that was only mildly claustrophobic and she wasn't under her mother's thumb anymore. She was getting better at hunting, too—she hadn't had a near-death experience in almost a month, which was a personal record. She had just gotten herself to completely forget about Dean (well, mostly forget about him). Why did he have to walk into her life again? She wondered if he enjoyed torturing her—she certainly wouldn't put it past him.
"Who knows?" Jo snatched the lollipop from Dean's hands and wrapped her lips around it, raising an eyebrow. When she pulled the lollipop out to speak, her voice was cold. "I'm done trying to understand you."
Dean shrugged again and took a swig from his beer. Jo instinctively knew that he was trying to piss her off. She resisted the urge to spit into his beer bottle when he wasn't looking. "Sam an' me are tracking a werewolf. Have you heard anything?"
"Have I heard anything?" Jo narrowed her eyes. "If anyone's tracking this werewolf, Dean, it's me. Do yourself a favor and get off my turf."
"Did you really just use the word 'turf'?"
"Dean…"
He sighed, "Remember that discussion we had last year? About amateurs?"
He was taunting her—rubbing her inexperience in her face the way he always did. Jo hopped off the stool and drew herself up to her full height. Dean was taller than her by a good six inches, but she set her jaw and stared him down. He felt something stir in his gut—that familiar feeling of arousal—and he wondered whether Jo would slap him if he tried to kiss her. She spoke before he could make up his mind.
"I'm not an amateur. Not anymore, anyway. I've been doing this for almost a year." Dean raised his eyebrows and she flushed. "Fine, I've been doing this for seven months. But I'm getting good at it—I can handle myself."
Dean shook his head. "Not against a werewolf. One wrong move—one bite—and you're gone. There's no coming back from lycanthrope, Jo. Ask Sam about it sometime."
"Where is Sam, by the way?" Jo looked around the crowded bar, "why isn't he with you?"
"He's back at the hotel, doing research."
Jo smirked, "researching werewolves? Even I know how to kill a werewolf, Dean, and I'm an amateur, remember?"
"Yeah, you're real funny. He's researching something else. He doesn't feel up to hunting down the Wolf Man right now. It hits too close to home."
Jo opened her mouth to ask Dean why, but the look on his face warned her that this was Sam's business—a family thing—and that even if she asked he would never tell her. "I guess you'll need a partner on this hunt," she remarked.
Dean saw the direction her mind was taking and spoke quickly. "No," he said firmly, gently placing his beer bottle on the bar. "You're not coming with me. I don't care if you're more experienced than you were back in Philly—you can't face down a werewolf."
"But—"
"No," he said again. "Your mother would kill me if anything happened to you. Seriously, Jo, they'd never find my body." Dean grinned in an attempt to lighten the situation. "And I don't want that on your conscience."
"If I get bitten by the werewolf then I won't care what my conscience has to say."
"It doesn't matter, because you're not coming." Dean drained the rest of his beer, thumped the bottle back onto the bar and turned to leave.With a sinking feeling, Jo realized that he was going to walk out on her again. He'd hunt down her werewolf, climb into his shiny black car and drive off into the sunset like the valiant knight he wasn't. She couldn't allow Dean to leave like that—thinking that he'd won.
"I'm not a child," Jo said, desperate to stop him from walking away. "You can't protect me forever."
Later, when the hunt was over and they were back in the motel room patching themselves up, Dean claimed that he made his move because Jo had been teasing him with the lollipop. Jo retorted that she was eating candy—it wasn't like she was trying to turn him on. "It's just a lollipop for God's sake," she had snapped. "Don't you ever take a break from thinking about sex?"
Sam had stifled a laugh at that, but when his brother shot him an evil look he returned to stitching up Jo's forehead. "Of course I do," Dean had protested. Jo resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
The only thing anyone knew for sure was that one moment Jo and Dean were separate beings holding a staring contest and the next they were one person, attached at the hips and at the mouth. Their hands were everywhere at once and their lips moved with a strange and fierce hunger.
Dean knew that he was being irresponsible, but the only thing that went through his mind was "want," and "now." He forgot that this was Jo. He forgot that Jo was too young, too innocent, too sweet. Dean forgot that he had stepped on her heart more than once and that he had a tendency to leave her in the dust. He even forgot, for a moment, that he had less than a year left before he got sucked down to Hell.
All Dean knew was that Jo tasted like a strawberry lollipop and that her hips jutted out just enough that he could feel the hard curve of bone. Her hair was soft and her breath was coming hard and fast and as long as they were trying to devour each other Dean could forget his crazy, fucked up life.
When the catcalls from the bar's patrons broke through the thick haze Dean created Jo reluctantly pulled away from him. "I'm sorry," she whispered, pushing out of his arms. Dean tried to grab her, but she ducked around him and disappeared into the back room of the bar.
He exhaled, "that went... well."
"You sure you don't want to come with me?" Dean was loading his gun with silver bullets, pretending not to notice Sam's pained silence. Sam was typing on his laptop, pretending not to notice Dean. The older Winchester had found the werewolf's hunting grounds earlier that day. Usually he'd be jumping out of his pants with excitement, but since Madison's death the idea of killing a werewolf just didn't hold the same thrill. All he could remember was the look on her face when she asked Sam to kill her and the tears in his brother's eyes just before he fulfilled her wish.
"Yeah, I'm sure." Sam didn't even look up from his computer.
Dean nodded once, deciding not to press the issue. "See ya, Sammy. Don't stay up too late, now," Dean winked, walking out of the motel room. The sun was setting and the intensity of the light made him squint. He stopped short when he saw small blonde leaning against the passenger side of his car. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Without preamble, Jo handed Dean a folder. "I've been tracking this werewolf for two months—unlike you, I know this thing backwards and forwards. I can help."
Dean shook his head and walked around the side of the car. "Like you helped us in Philadelphia? I don't think so. I can handle this, Jo, so just back off."
"Would it kill you to give me a chance?"
Dean paused to think. "Mm, probably. Go hang out with Sammy. Help him do his research or something—I can handle this."
Jo set her jaw and climbed into the Impala's passenger side. Dean swore loudly and banged on the window. When she refused to budge, he gave up and slammed into his car. "If you get bitten, I won't hesitate, understand?" His voice was low and Jo shivered at the raw fury. "I will put a bullet in your chest-plate and I'll tell your mother it was because you were stupid enough to go up against a werewolf. Understand?" Jo nodded silently. Dean sighed and glared at her for a moment before he started the ignition.
"We're going to—"
"I know where we're going."
Jo summed up the case for Dean as they drove toward a gated community in the suburbs—the creature's hunting grounds. "His name is Eric Collier and he runs a car dealership in the suburbs," she said, digging through the folder in her lap. "He lives in Briarwood Village, a gated community outside Duluth. About three months ago he reported a dog bite. Animal Control searched for the stray, but it was never found."
"So maybe he just got on the wrong side of a mean dog."
Jo shook her head. "I swiped the medical report and it turns out the bite was significantly larger than an ordinary dog bite. The doctor questioned whether it was actually a dog or if a wolf escaped from a wildlife preserve or something."
"How many people has he killed?"
"Three people, four cats and a dog." Jo answered promptly. "They all live in Collier's gated community and they were all attacked in or around the property. Nobody's reported any animal bites since Collier, so I think he's working alone."
"What was his connection to the three human victims?"
"None, besides the fact that they all lived in the same neighborhood. I mean… they weren't his family or his friends or anything."
"How do you know all this?"
Jo grinned, "Because I'm Joanna Cronin, Eric Collier's new personal assistant."
Dean groaned, "Jo, when are you going to learn not to involve yourself with the creatures you're hunting?"
"I… I wasn't. I had to get close enough to see whether he was the werewolf… I mean, after the dog bite and the attacks in his neighborhood I was pretty sure it was him, but I wanted to be positive."
"So you follow him or set up a stakeout. God, Jo, you can't just walk up and introduce yourself!" Dean shook his head, "why don't you just stand in the middle of the street and shout 'here I am, wolfie! Eat me, eat me!'"
"That's not—I didn't—" Tears pricked in the back of Jo's eyes and she hated herself for them. "Dean…"
"Just forget it, we're here."
Jo nodded silently and took a deep breath. They climbed out of the car and Jo continued her debriefing in a whisper. "The consensus of the community is that wolves or mountain lions have escaped from a zoo or something. So far there haven't been any overexcited teenagers to cry werewolf."
Dean smirked, "no one except for us," he whispered. "So what's the plan? Stakeout Collier's house until he starts his killing spree? Or would you rather ring his doorbell and get invited in for tea and cookies?"
"Look, I got the information we needed, didn't I?" Jo whispered fiercely, narrowing her eyes. "I figured why do I need to sneak around when I can just talk to him directly?"
"Because that's how amateurs get killed, Jo. He knows your name, he knows what you look like and he knows your scent. You might even be his next target. Did you ever think about that?" He shook his head—her silence was enough. "Forget it. I knew this was a bad idea."
Jo heaved a sigh and started to argue her point (again) when a sharp howl pierced the night. "Shit," Jo whispered as her heart started to race. "Shit, why didn't we hear the window glass break?"
Dean gestured for her to stay behind him. "Maybe he left one open," he suggested in a low voice. "It is pretty warm outside. Stay quiet or we'll attract his attention." He turned to face her. "Are you ready? It's now or never. You can sit this one out if you want—you can wait in the car."
Jo nodded and gulped and silently took out her gun. "I'm ready," she told him quietly. Her voice trembled, but her eyes glowed with resolve and Dean believed her.
Three hours later Jo and Dean rolled into the motel room, bloody, dirty and victorious. Jo sported a cut—deep enough for stitches—over one eye and Dean's parting gifts were a dislocated shoulder and a gash across his leg. Both of them looked like they had come off badly from a fight with a muddy pig in a briar patch. Sam shook his head and gestured his older brother over to sit next to him.
"Want me to fix your shoulder?" Dean stifled his grunt of pain as Sam popped his shoulder back in place with practiced ease. Jo, dabbing at the bleeding cut on her forehead, asked the boys whether they had any sutures. As he rummaged through their dad's old first aid kit, looking for stitches, antiseptic and bandages, Sam asked how the hunt went.
Jo grinned, "We got the bastard," she cried in delight, flopping on the bed, head wound forgotten.
"Don't bleed on the goddamn sheets." Dean's voice was tired as he clutched his newly relocated shoulder.
Jo scowled, "Dean's just pissed because I was the one who shoot the werewolf." Closing her eyes, she raised her eyebrows and winced as the movement stretched her cut. "Not bad for an amateur, huh?"She could hear the grin in Dean's voice as he replied. "No, I guess it's not bad for an amateur." Jo felt rough, calloused fingers slide through hers, gripping her hand tightly. "Come on, demon slayer; let's get you fixed up."
