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tigriswolfTitle: what a little girl’s made of
Fandom: “Supernatural”
Disclaimer: not my characters; just for fun. Title from “Gunpowder and Lead” by Miranda Lambert.
Warnings: spoilers for everything aired
Pairings: none
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 1225
Point of view: third
She’s not the girl she was when they first broke into Mama’s saloon. She’s not that wide-eyed innocent, charmed by a roguish grin and huge hazel eyes. She’s not young and naïve anymore, out to prove herself to the world in general, and that man in particular.
She thinks she might have loved him. Now… now, though, she knows what she has to do.
-
Dean changed, after. Sam died in that ghost town, and everyone knows it. Knew it. Whatever. And what Dean brought back… it wasn’t his brother.
She figures she understands, though. From the moment she first saw Dean Winchester, she knew he’d light the world afire and watch it burn for his brother.
She just never thought it’d really come to pass.
-
But Sam died, and then wasn’t Sam anymore. Dean changed slowly, so slowly no one even noticed.
Sam—NotSam—played the game well. Perfectly. Until Dean killed Bobby, not a single person knew.
Until Dean killed Bobby in front of a room packed to the gills with hunters, and Sam—NotSam—smiled, not a single person in the world had a fucking clue.
-
The hunters became the hunted that day, with Dean—NotDean?—and NotSam cutting a swath from one ocean to the other.
Mom practically grabbed her and ran, heading for a cabin high up in the mountains. “No one knows about this place,” Mom told her, digging guns out of the closet. “Not even your daddy did.”
And Mom added, “Stay here,” with a kiss to her forehead as she left.
-
Jo hasn’t heard from Mama since. It’s been over four months. There’s no news from the outside world, but from the highest peak, she sees smoke.
Sometimes, she thinks she’s the only one left. It terrifies her. Being alone in the world… it’s a lonesome thing, and Jo’s never done well by herself.
-
She thinks it’s a Thursday when she leaves the cabin, with five knives and three guns. She walks down the mountain, staring at the ground and sky in equal measure, searching for any sign of life.
There’s nothing.
-
The town is deserted. Jo remembers when it brimmed with life, with families and dogs, with kids laughing.
There are abandoned cars and bones everywhere. The buildings are gutted and blackened. There’s not a single sound beyond the wind in the trees; only the plants have flourished in this new world.
It makes Jo want to break down and sob.
-
She wanders the country, always on the look-out for survivors. There are feral animals, every now and then, but apparently not even creatures escaped the purge. Nothing that breathed and moved made it past the NotWinchester’s attack. Jo wonders why.
Half a year after she left Mama’s sanctuary, Jo finds a puppy. She thinks it might be a mix of Burmese mountain dog and Husky, but she’s just not sure. Bobby would’ve known.
She names the dog Ares.
-
Ares grows in leaps and bounds over the next year. He’s huge, shoulder reaching her hip, and she feels safe with him at her side.
It isn’t hard to scrounge up food in this new world; it sits in all the houses, in the stores, waiting for scavengers that never come.
They all died, too.
-
Mom told her once that John Winchester was basically the best that’d ever been. Smart and brave, stubborn enough to move mountains. A marine, years ago, and yet still untamable as the sea.
Jo always thought she was exaggerating, until John’s boys broke into the Roadhouse. After that, she figured Mom hadn’t been telling everything.
And John’s boys surpassed John with ease.
-
No one saw it coming. Totally out of left-field, completely out of the blue. From nowhere.
The perfect surgical strike to take out the hunters came from the best hunters there’d ever been.
Irony at its most beautiful.
-
Jo finds a little boy when Ares is one-and-a-half. The kid can’t be more than five or six, as feral as a wildcat. It takes her the better part of a month to convince him she’s safe, won’t hurt him.
Even after he quits shying away from her, he won’t speak. She names him Cade.
He’s the first living person she’s seen since Mama left her behind.
-
She doesn’t know where to start searching for the NotWinchesters or what she’ll do if she finds them. What can she do? No weapons hurt them—no weapon can even get close enough.
Hunters tried.
Maybe that Colt… but Mama said the last bullet had been used.
So there’s nothing. Nothing at all. Just her and a dog and a boy, nowhere to go, no end in sight.
-
Cade says his first word a year after she finds him. He calls her “Mommy.” Jo buries her face in his long, dark hair and weeps.
-
She comes across the Colt—Mama had showed it to her, after Dean used it that final time, before hiding it away and not telling her where—in a graveyard two months after Cade speaks. There aren’t any bullets, but maybe she has chance.
Jo scoffs and tucks the Colt into the back of her jeans. There are no chances, not anymore.
-
It’s when she’s not actively looking for them that she finds them. Turns a corner in the shell Atlanta’s become and there he is—Dean Winchester. NotDean. Monster and killer, and still so fucking gorgeous it aches.
He grins at her, that same grin she remembers, and says, “Hey, Jo.”
Jo pushes Cade behind her; Ares slinks up besides her, edging slightly in front, and snarls, baring his teeth. She’d known he could look intimidating, but, wow—even she’s slightly frightened, and Ares has never given her a cross look.
NotDean’s grin shifts into a smirk. “Thought we’d killed everyone—can’t say, though, that I’m surprised you made it.” He laughs and steps closer. “Your mom sure was a fighter.”
Fury wells up in her, along with hate. She used to love this man, she’s sure of that now. “Cade,” she whispers. “Run.”
Her boy takes off; Jo tells Ares, “Go with him.”
Ares hesitates, flicking an ear, then whirls around and follows Cade. Jo doesn’t move her gaze from Dean, but his eyes shift towards her only living family. “Think they’ll get that far, sweetheart?” he asks, then chuckles, “Think again.”
The Colt is loaded with silver bullets. They won’t do a thing to Dean, NotDean, what the fuck ever he is. But she’s got to try.
He laughs when the first bullet hits him in the heart.
-
Jo runs. She can’t find Ares or Cade, hasn’t seen NotSam, so she stretches her legs and runs. She doesn’t stop for miles, the Colt—useless fucking gun—clenched in her grip. She wants to throw it away, to break it, to punish it for failing… but it’s the only chance she has, at all. To avenge Mama. Bobby.
Ares and Cade.
-
She waits, by the Pacific coast. Eventually, one of them will come for her.
She doesn’t have the right bullets, just blessed silver with runes etched into the metal, but maybe… maybe it’ll be enough.
There’s thunder in the distance and lightning splits the sky in two. She cocks the gun and waits.
She thinks she might have loved him. Now… now, though, she knows what she has to do.
-
Dean changed, after. Sam died in that ghost town, and everyone knows it. Knew it. Whatever. And what Dean brought back… it wasn’t his brother.
She figures she understands, though. From the moment she first saw Dean Winchester, she knew he’d light the world afire and watch it burn for his brother.
She just never thought it’d really come to pass.
-
But Sam died, and then wasn’t Sam anymore. Dean changed slowly, so slowly no one even noticed.
Sam—NotSam—played the game well. Perfectly. Until Dean killed Bobby, not a single person knew.
Until Dean killed Bobby in front of a room packed to the gills with hunters, and Sam—NotSam—smiled, not a single person in the world had a fucking clue.
-
The hunters became the hunted that day, with Dean—NotDean?—and NotSam cutting a swath from one ocean to the other.
Mom practically grabbed her and ran, heading for a cabin high up in the mountains. “No one knows about this place,” Mom told her, digging guns out of the closet. “Not even your daddy did.”
And Mom added, “Stay here,” with a kiss to her forehead as she left.
-
Jo hasn’t heard from Mama since. It’s been over four months. There’s no news from the outside world, but from the highest peak, she sees smoke.
Sometimes, she thinks she’s the only one left. It terrifies her. Being alone in the world… it’s a lonesome thing, and Jo’s never done well by herself.
-
She thinks it’s a Thursday when she leaves the cabin, with five knives and three guns. She walks down the mountain, staring at the ground and sky in equal measure, searching for any sign of life.
There’s nothing.
-
The town is deserted. Jo remembers when it brimmed with life, with families and dogs, with kids laughing.
There are abandoned cars and bones everywhere. The buildings are gutted and blackened. There’s not a single sound beyond the wind in the trees; only the plants have flourished in this new world.
It makes Jo want to break down and sob.
-
She wanders the country, always on the look-out for survivors. There are feral animals, every now and then, but apparently not even creatures escaped the purge. Nothing that breathed and moved made it past the NotWinchester’s attack. Jo wonders why.
Half a year after she left Mama’s sanctuary, Jo finds a puppy. She thinks it might be a mix of Burmese mountain dog and Husky, but she’s just not sure. Bobby would’ve known.
She names the dog Ares.
-
Ares grows in leaps and bounds over the next year. He’s huge, shoulder reaching her hip, and she feels safe with him at her side.
It isn’t hard to scrounge up food in this new world; it sits in all the houses, in the stores, waiting for scavengers that never come.
They all died, too.
-
Mom told her once that John Winchester was basically the best that’d ever been. Smart and brave, stubborn enough to move mountains. A marine, years ago, and yet still untamable as the sea.
Jo always thought she was exaggerating, until John’s boys broke into the Roadhouse. After that, she figured Mom hadn’t been telling everything.
And John’s boys surpassed John with ease.
-
No one saw it coming. Totally out of left-field, completely out of the blue. From nowhere.
The perfect surgical strike to take out the hunters came from the best hunters there’d ever been.
Irony at its most beautiful.
-
Jo finds a little boy when Ares is one-and-a-half. The kid can’t be more than five or six, as feral as a wildcat. It takes her the better part of a month to convince him she’s safe, won’t hurt him.
Even after he quits shying away from her, he won’t speak. She names him Cade.
He’s the first living person she’s seen since Mama left her behind.
-
She doesn’t know where to start searching for the NotWinchesters or what she’ll do if she finds them. What can she do? No weapons hurt them—no weapon can even get close enough.
Hunters tried.
Maybe that Colt… but Mama said the last bullet had been used.
So there’s nothing. Nothing at all. Just her and a dog and a boy, nowhere to go, no end in sight.
-
Cade says his first word a year after she finds him. He calls her “Mommy.” Jo buries her face in his long, dark hair and weeps.
-
She comes across the Colt—Mama had showed it to her, after Dean used it that final time, before hiding it away and not telling her where—in a graveyard two months after Cade speaks. There aren’t any bullets, but maybe she has chance.
Jo scoffs and tucks the Colt into the back of her jeans. There are no chances, not anymore.
-
It’s when she’s not actively looking for them that she finds them. Turns a corner in the shell Atlanta’s become and there he is—Dean Winchester. NotDean. Monster and killer, and still so fucking gorgeous it aches.
He grins at her, that same grin she remembers, and says, “Hey, Jo.”
Jo pushes Cade behind her; Ares slinks up besides her, edging slightly in front, and snarls, baring his teeth. She’d known he could look intimidating, but, wow—even she’s slightly frightened, and Ares has never given her a cross look.
NotDean’s grin shifts into a smirk. “Thought we’d killed everyone—can’t say, though, that I’m surprised you made it.” He laughs and steps closer. “Your mom sure was a fighter.”
Fury wells up in her, along with hate. She used to love this man, she’s sure of that now. “Cade,” she whispers. “Run.”
Her boy takes off; Jo tells Ares, “Go with him.”
Ares hesitates, flicking an ear, then whirls around and follows Cade. Jo doesn’t move her gaze from Dean, but his eyes shift towards her only living family. “Think they’ll get that far, sweetheart?” he asks, then chuckles, “Think again.”
The Colt is loaded with silver bullets. They won’t do a thing to Dean, NotDean, what the fuck ever he is. But she’s got to try.
He laughs when the first bullet hits him in the heart.
-
Jo runs. She can’t find Ares or Cade, hasn’t seen NotSam, so she stretches her legs and runs. She doesn’t stop for miles, the Colt—useless fucking gun—clenched in her grip. She wants to throw it away, to break it, to punish it for failing… but it’s the only chance she has, at all. To avenge Mama. Bobby.
Ares and Cade.
-
She waits, by the Pacific coast. Eventually, one of them will come for her.
She doesn’t have the right bullets, just blessed silver with runes etched into the metal, but maybe… maybe it’ll be enough.
There’s thunder in the distance and lightning splits the sky in two. She cocks the gun and waits.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-22 08:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-22 04:25 pm (UTC)I doubt there'll be more, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-22 04:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-22 05:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-22 06:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-22 05:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-22 06:45 pm (UTC)Thank you for reading!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-22 06:35 pm (UTC)(though do me a favour and correct girl's to girls</i< in the title, it's driving me crazy! ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-22 06:45 pm (UTC)Thank you for reading!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-22 06:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-23 10:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-23 11:08 am (UTC)sorry!!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-23 12:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-24 12:16 am (UTC)All in good humor, of course, my dear. (big grin)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-22 09:01 pm (UTC)(though do me a favour and correct girl's to girls
And err - jumping into the grammer debate to say: 'girl's' in the title is a contraction of 'what a little girl is made of' - hence the need for the apostrophe. It's indicating the dropped letter. *slinks off back to her dark corner, tucking her English A-Level back into her pocket.*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-23 12:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-23 03:51 am (UTC)Favorite lines:
From the moment she first saw Dean Winchester, she knew he’d light the world afire and watch it burn for his brother.
Ooh, love this turn of phrase.
Cade says his first word a year after she finds him. He calls her “Mommy.” Jo buries her face in his long, dark hair and weeps.
Such a lovely, aching image.
NotDean’s grin shifts into a smirk. “Thought we’d killed everyone—can’t say, though, that I’m surprised you made it.” He laughs and steps closer. “Your mom sure was a fighter.”
A very creepy, chilling moment. *shudders*
There’s thunder in the distance and lightning splits the sky in two. She cocks the gun and waits.
Great ending. I really like how just these two sentences sets the mood for the impending showdown.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-23 01:11 pm (UTC)This is sorta my remix of another fic I wrote, though I think that one's better. You wouldn't like it, though--'tis wincest.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-23 07:13 pm (UTC)'Cause that rocked.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-23 09:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-23 10:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-23 01:14 pm (UTC)Thank you for reading!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-23 07:12 pm (UTC)I think I just fell in love with you all over again. Because this sentence? Rocks my boat so very, very much for some twisted, beatifully graphic reason.
She names the dog Ares.
'Ares' is a good name. Especially for a dog like that. *nods sagely*
He laughs when the first bullet hits him the heart.
Think you forgot 'in' in there?
You and your dark!Winchesters... And the creepiest part is that it's so very easy to imagine both of the boys like this...
And Jo. She'd kick ass if they could've been able to decide what way they wanted her to be played. Granted, she's nothing but an amateur compared with the boys, but with time...
Giving Cade and Ares to her and then taking them away is cruel, though.
*hugs pretty, disturbing ficlet closer*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-23 08:52 pm (UTC)Thank you for reading!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-25 06:43 am (UTC)Loved this line: Dean changed slowly, so slowly no one even noticed.
I loved this world even though it's so bleak and dark, but it's so troubling that it makes it engaging. Jo's POV was a perfect fit.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-25 06:46 am (UTC)I like your idea too about having the best hunters go after the rest of the hunters, take them down one by one.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-25 06:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-26 04:06 pm (UTC)I think this tops my favorites of yours. I love these dark, bleak settings with Sam and Dean turned evil in some way. Gah. This is just brilliant.
My absolute favorite line though: "From the moment she first saw Dean Winchester, she knew he’d light the world afire and watch it burn for his brother."
Just. Yes.
I can't say how much I enjoyed this. Really.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-26 04:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-13 03:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-14 01:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-21 02:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-21 02:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-02 09:33 am (UTC)Breaks my heart with Ares and Cade, but, you know, in an awesomely hurty way. :)
Poor, poor Jo... she never really had a chance.
Until Dean killed Bobby in front of a room packed to the gills with hunters, and Sam—NotSam—smiled, not a single person in the world had a fucking clue.
*shivers*
That's still one of my favourite sentences ever. And it sums up this ficlet perfectly.
*hugs*
Thank you, love. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-02 03:06 pm (UTC)