[ second go around, same damn story ]
by kHo

Dean finds Jo in a bar in Crystal Springs, Mississippi. He's not trying to, he's on the trail of a pack of vampires. And that's annoying because he keeps hearing how vampires are extinct, a dying breed, and yet here they are, popping up everywhere. Like damned cockroaches.

He cuts a few heads off and burns the rest and then he heads to the nearest watering hole for what's become a nightly habit of drinking himself to sleep.

He spots her right off the bat, though he just sees Hot Blonde, not Hot Blonde That I Know. He's checking out her ass when she turns around and when he looks up the smirk directed his way is none other than Jo Harvelle's.

"Dean," she says, smirk turning into a full-blown grin as she cocks her hip against the bar. "Funny seeing you here."

"Jo," he says, smirking right back. "Funny seeing you in a bar. No. Wait a minute. You're always in a bar."

Her smile fades a bit and then she turns around. "I heard you died."

"Yeah," he says, sitting in the stool next to her as she starts wiping the bar. "Didn't take."

"Heard that too," she says, eyes flicking towards him and then back to the bar. "So where's Sam?"

Dean grinds his teeth and his fists clench by his sides. "Off on some demon catch-and-release retreat with Ruby."

Jo turns to face him. "Ruby?"

He snorts. "Don't ask. It doesn't make enough sense for me even try to explain it."

She watches him and he looks away because it seems like she sees something he probably doesn't want her to. Women are like that sometimes. "And without you."

"Yep," he says, and he couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice if he tried so he didn't even attempt to. "Took off about a month ago. Checks in though, every other day. Good boy, Sammy." He quirks an eyebrow at Jo. "See, he knows I worry, so he's being considerate."

"Right," she says, and then proves that she does see more in his eyes than he wants her to by changing the subject. "So what'll it be? Beer? Whiskey?"

He looks her up and down, slow, deliberate, and then smiles. "You."

She laughs, rolling her eyes. "Pervert."

"Yeah, well," he says, stepping closer to her and pinning her to the bar, so close he can smell the stench of cigarette smoke over Purell in her hair. "I was in hell for three months. I'm done with doing everything for everyone else. This time I'm out for number one."

She looks at him and he knows, has known for a while, since he first met her in fact, that she wants him right back. "I get off in two hours. Get back to me if you're still feeling bold."

"Blow it off," he says, lowering his voice and speaking right into her ear. "Say you're sick. Flu must be going around."

She takes a deep breath and there's some sort of mixture of fear and anticipation in her eyes that makes him go into overdrive and what started out as reckless want turns into need. "Thought you were scared of my Mom. You know she'd kill you, right?"

He makes a show of looking around. "I don't see her here. Do you?"

She swallows when he puts his hand on her hip. "Dean."

He stares at her lips and licks his own. "Want you."

He catches her eye and holds it until she finally blinks and then nods. She rests the towel on the bar and turns around, craning her neck. "Candice?"

"Yeah, go ahead," the girl at the other end of the bar says, grinning. "We're dead here anyway."

She turns back around to look at Dean. "You're really asking me right? We're not gonna get back to my place and you all of a sudden have an attack of conscience right?"

"Guess we'll see when we get there, huh," he says, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the door.

He guides her out into the parking lot and to his car. When they reach it he turns her around and leans her up against the passenger side and leans over and kisses her. A wet, hot, sloppy kiss that leaves him hard in his jeans after five seconds.

"I uh," she says, licking her lips and looking at him. "I live just around the corner."

When they reach the place he barely gives her time to throw her keys on the coffee table before his lips are on hers again, all the times he'd held himself back with her making him a little more harsh than he normally would have been, a little more sloppy. A little more rough.

It's also more than a little bit about Sam and how somewhere along the line Sam had stopped listening to him, had stopped hearing his advice, had stopped needing him altogether.

Dean had died and Dad had sold his soul to the demon that killed their mother. Sam had died and Dean had sold his soul to the crossroads demon. Dean had died again and Sam had... well. Sam had moved on.

"Ow," Jo says, bringing him back to the preset with a swift smack to the back of his head. "Not that I don't appreciate it a little rough sometimes, but if you could not make my head bleed, that'd be okay too."

He grins because this is why he likes Jo, this is why he wants her. She's a pistol, she doesn't take shit, not from him and not from anyone, and she gets in over her head and she comes out swinging, but she'll never go out without a fight.

He kisses her again and this time it's slow, slow enough to breathe her in, taste her, taste the hopps on her breath and the spearmint gum she'd spat out in the parking lot before he'd kissed her.

He winds his fingers in her hair and tilts her head back and kisses her with every part of him that's ever yearned for a house to call his home, a woman to call his own, kisses her until she's moaning and writhing beneath him.

"Bed," she gasps, pointing off to her left, and when he doesn't move she swats at him, making him laugh. "Damnit, Dean, bed, now."

He lifts her by her ass, her legs wrapping around him and she sucks and bites his neck as he carries her. It's distracting enough, good enough, to make it more than a little difficult to maneuver his way into the bedroom, and when he finally gets there he tosses her on the bed and pounces on top of her. Her giggle is the sweetest sound he's ever heard.

She shimmies out of her pants when he rolls over to get his own off and she's naked by the time he rolls back on top of her. Her breasts are small and perfect in his hands and he rubs his thumb over the pert little nipples before lowering his mouth to them, one by one, and bringing them to a hard point as she gasps beneath him.

He fingers her to her first orgasm, grinning and licking as her nails dig into his back and her hips buck underneath him. She comes loud and uninhibited, crying out his name in a way that sounds just as desperate as he's felt for the past month, alone and angry and yearning for something, anything, to make this life worth it.

When he fucks her it's slow and he lets himself imagine that it's not just the first time, that it's one of many, and that there's many more to come. Lets himself imagine that this could his home, that she is his partner, that this is his life this time around, that this rebirth is about this, about finding a home and sticking to it, no matter what any God damned angel has to say about it.

When it's over he holds her in his arms and smells her hair and instead of smiling feels a tear roll down his cheek. She notices it too, because she reaches up and wipes it away, watching him in the darkness and not saying a word.

"You could stay ya know," she says a little later, when Dean is almost asleep. "There's a nest of vampires somewhere around here. I just can't find it."

He strokes her hair and stares up at the ceiling. "Over on that gravel road, past the bridge. I already did it. It's why I was here."

"Oh," she says, fingers tracing some sort of pattern just over his heart. "You could stay anyway."

He wants to say yes, and that scares the shit out of him. "Can't. Got a job to do."

She kisses his chest and snuggles up closer to him. "I could go with you," she ventures after a few moments, quiet and soft, like she's not saying it at all.

And he thinks... fuck it. He's lived his life for other people too long, and now's his God damned turn.

He pulls on her hair until she's looking at him.

"Okay."