AN: Hello, lovelies! For quite a while now, I've had a few Jo/Dean prompts thrown my way and stashed in the back of my mind. Recently, they've been surfacing in my imagination, and I've decided to go ahead and just write them! Some are angst, some are crack… there should be a little of everything. I hope you enjoy! Hit me up with a suggestion or two if you've got them! More prompts are always welcome. Love always, Lorelai.

Disclaimer: Any and all recognizable characters, quotes, and storylines belong to Eric Kripke and all of the phenomenal writers and producers of Supernatural.

The Coward in Her

In. Out. Pull.

The hunt had started off easy enough. Local cow mutilations reported in Junction, Texas. Crops in the area suddenly and inexplicably dying off. Electric storms that the local weathermen had somehow failed to predict. The signs were there. Demons.

In. Out. Pull.

Jo'd spun her beat-up Jeep Wrangler as soon as she'd got the call and hightailed it down to the Lone Star State. Not even a day into the hunt, and she'd already located the demon after a single conversation with the Junction PD. It'd almost been too disappointingly easy. But she'd learned long ago not to wish for a challenge when dealing with monsters; given the chance, they always upped the ante.

In. Out. Pull.

How she'd missed the fact that her prey consisted of not one demon, but two, she wasn't sure. Looking back, she may have burst in a little too confidently, but it wasn't often that she ran across two demons in the same city, let alone working together. It wasn't in their makeup. Then again, ever since the Winchesters had broken the world, more and more demons were roaming the planet. It wasn't safe to rely on her father's journal and old hunters' lore anymore, not when the world was changing so quickly, so dangerously.

In. Out. Pull.

And so, while she'd taken the first demon down without a hitch (a mouthful of holy water and a recorded exorcism always did the trick), the second one had the advantage of a surprise attack. She'd held her own, she was proud to say, but the damn thing had managed to shove her into one of the cabin's windows before screaming its way out of its host body. She could do nothing but glare as the black, smoky mass ghosted its way into the vents and out of sight. She'd let loose every swear word she'd learned in her years growing up among hunters, but the curses neither brought the demon back, nor did it numb the pain brought on by the glass jutting from her arm.

In. Out. Pull.

Luckily, the two host bodies were alive and well. A teenage brother and sister duo, as it turned out, who'd gone missing two weeks earlier in a town not two hours from Junction. At least the night hadn't ended in a total loss. She'd dropped the kids off at the Junction PD station, sworn them to secrecy, then taken off.

And here she sat, stitching up the damn wound from the damn hunt that should have been damn easy but hadn't been.

It could've been, a small, traitorous voice in the back of her head argued.

She shoved the voice away, tying off the threaded stitches a bit more angrily than her sensitive skin would've liked.

She stood up from the motel bed and carefully stripped her blood-soaked shirt from her body, careful to avoid the newly-stitched patch of skin. She grabbed the recently opened bottle of whiskey and carried it into the bathroom, where she immediately turned the shower on. She didn't immediately step inside, instead becoming fascinated by the steam that fogged up the mirror and in doing so thankfully head the reflection of her battered and scarred body.

It wasn't the first time she realized just how alone she was. Demons were hardly the worst creatures out there, and even two demons shouldn't have presented her with much of a problem, but hunting alone had its drawbacks, most notably that there was no one watching her back. Oh, she'd had plenty of offers – most from perverts who liked the idea of having a pretty face around, though a handful had been earnest proposals of partnerships from seemingly good people – but she'd never been brave enough to accept any of them.

And, damn it, she hated admitting that it was fear holding her back. She was Joanna Beth Harvelle, daughter of two of the fiercest, bravest people she knew. And yet… her father had died at the hands of his partner.

Sam Winchester's words flooded her thoughts.

"Bill was all clawed up. He was holding his insides in his hands. He was gargling and praying to see you and Ellen one more time. So my dad killed him. He put him out of his misery like a sick dog. My daddy shot your daddy in the head."

He'd been possessed when he'd so cruelly taunted her, she'd later found out, but the words were still seared into her memory. She'd never had the guts to ask her mother the truth – another show of cowardice – nor to bring it up with Dean because… well, Dean was Dean.

The only two people she might ever consider having at her back, Dean and her mother, and she was too scared to call either one of them up. She sent her mother postcards. She bought more than she sent because her pride wouldn't let her reveal her homesickness to her mother. But Dean…

The last time she'd seen him had been that fateful night that Sam had been possessed. He'd taken off, still under the sadistic influence of the demon, but Dean had stayed long enough to get patched up. They'd both fallen back into old habits, her usual bitching and his macho chauvinism, despite the fact that they'd both matured so much since last having seen each other. Adrenaline and emotions did that, she supposed. He'd promised to call, but she knew he wouldn't. She'd moved on, changed states, names, jobs… but never her phone number. She told herself it was because her mother always needed a way to contact her in case of emergency, but even she didn't believe that lie. It was Dean; it was always Dean.

She sighed, took a swig of whiskey, and turned the shower off. She was no longer in the mood, and she knew she shouldn't be showering right after stitching up her wound anyway. Her thoughts lately had been so jumbled…

With the alcohol in hand, she sat back down on the bed, ignoring the groan of springs under the mattress, and checked her phone. No, she wasn't checking her phone. She was looking for a voicemail, one she should have deleted ages ago…

It had been a shock when he actually had called her as promised. It was several weeks after that horrible night in Duluth, in the middle of a hunt for a shapeshifter. Luckily, she hadn't seen the missed call and voicemail until several hours later, once she'd made it back to her hotel. She didn't know what she would've done had she actually noticed it ringing. The message was simple, short, and to the point.

"Hey, it's me. Just calling to check in. Sam's fine. Got that whole demon mess cleared up. Don't know if this is still your number or you've changed it, but thought I'd try it anyway. Give me a call."

She hadn't called him back. She knew she never would. Her… feelings for him were obvious to anyone and everyone, apparently, no matter how much she denied them. Her mother had torn her a new one, Bobby had warned her about Dean's flightiness, and even possessed-Sam had sadistically taunted her about her one-sided adoration of the man. She didn't know how much he was aware of, but she was damn certain she would do absolutely everything in her power to keep the truth from him. He didn't feel anything for her beyond irritation and protectiveness and maybe brotherly affection, and she'd long ago come to terms with it. So, no, she hadn't called him back.

But that didn't keep her from replaying the message.

She turned off the lamp, curled up on her uninjured side, and brought the phone to her ear, closing her eyes as soon as the familiar message began, already half-lulled to sleep by his baritone voice.

She was a coward, but where Dean Winchester was concerned, she'd take what she could get.