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daemonprompts: Sticks and stones are hard on bones.
Armed with angry art,
Words can sting like anything.
But silence breaks the heart.
-Phyllis McGinley

It had been a dark night in the Roadhouse before, when tires rattled on gravel outside and John Winchester stepped out of that old black car. Jo was upstairs, heard the car coming up, the slam of the car door, and ignored it. It wasn't her dad's car, or Wyatt would have perked at the sound of the engine, and he was still sitting on the headboard of her bed, preening hawk feathers. It wasn't her dad, so she could afford to ignore it.

( And I've had my fill of sorrow anyway... )

Word Count: 497

justprompts: Write a letter to your future children.

Hunters don't have kids, mostly. A lot of them did, once, before they were hunters. A few of them still do but leave them with grandparents or aunts and uncles where they'll be safe, and hardly ever see them. But kids that hunters come home to every night - or every night they're not on the road - kids who grow up with parents being parents, hunters don't have those kinds of kids.

Except my dad did. And I will too.

If I ever have kids... I'm sure they'll find this journal some time. God knows I always wanted to sneak a look at my dad's. So I'm going to make some promises now.

You're going to grow up with a family. A real family, who loves you and lets you know that, just like I did. You're going to grow up knowing about your grandparents, who were brave and strong and everything you could ever want to be when you grow up.

You're going to grow up knowing the truth about what's out there, and you won't have to be scared of it, because there are people to protect you from it.

You're going to grow up learning how to protect yourself - just in case.

You don't have to be a hunter.

If you want to be, you're going to learn everything I know, so you don't make my mistakes.

You will be safe, and happy, and amazing. I guess that last one's a given - you're a Harvelle.

Muse: Jo Harvelle
Word Count: 251

justprompts: Counting sheep

The nights Jo can't sleep, these days, are more common than the ones where she can. She can't remember the last time that happened. Gordon used to tell her stories of his hunts when she was younger, to try to scare her. She'd imagine the monsters he talked about in shadows, until finally she gave up on sleep and ended up turning on the light and flipping through the scraps and notes she collected, the things hunters left behind. Eventually those stories stopped scaring her, and she can't remember when that was.

She's not scared of the dark now either. She has no reason to be, when she's seen what's out there first hand, she's faced it, salted and burned it. But she lies in bed awake, staring into the dark, listening to the wind or the creak of the building settling or the muted roar of traffic outside whatever motel she's found herself in this month. It's just the noise keeping her up, she tells herself. When she closes her eyes, she doesn't see the faces of the dead, hungry and malevolent, or just scared and angry. She doesn't see the jagged teeth of something not-quite human, lunging for her face in the half second before she pulled the trigger. She doesn't imagine the screams of the dying in a place that used to be home.

Jo ends up sitting cross-legged on her bed with the light on, just like when she was younger. The difference is, this time it's not scavenged notes of Roadhouse patrons she's flipping through, it's her own accounts in her own handwriting, rough sketches of symbols and battered newspaper clippings. Her daddy had a journal like this, that her mother never let her see. She's sure it's gone now, destroyed with the rest of her past, but she wonders if his would hold any more comfort than hers does.

Invariably, she ends up falling asleep curled on her side with the journal open beside her, on top of the covers and crooked on the bed, as the morning sunlight shines dimly through the cheap motel room curtains.

Muse: Jo Harvelle
Word Count: 353