" there's no line i wouldn't cross for you. don't you realize that? "
she feels like she has said this before to dean until she's blue in the face: i'm a big girl, dean. i don't need protecting. each time she says it, there's flashes of memories that clambers in her head. the hellhounds and the claws digging into her abdomen, the explosion that was meant to help save the world, her brother selling his soul, her climbing out of her casket. she never quite understood what it was back then that made dean ensure that there was distance between them, especially after he visited hell; like a soldier who went to war and brought the nightmares home with him. a tether that calls to him, whether he knows the tune of the siren or not.
the harvelle woman understands hell now, more intimately than she did before. the hunt tonight was a close call, an unknown second werewolf jumping from the shadows of their fight and pounced joanna down to the ground, knocking away her readied rifle loaded with a silver bullet with the same claws that looked as though it was going to come slashing down on her. it felt all too familiar, the sound of her rolling limbs, the snarls that huffs in her face, but this time she can see the monster. it's not this invisible, unknown thing; it was pinning her to the ground that night, and she used her father's knife to slice into the sensitive spot between the monster's ladder of ribs.
the hunt feels more like a warning cry than it did a regular case that they can seal close, and move on. it feels like a haunting reminder of where they have been before, and how close it can be for them to end up in the same spot. memories of her warm blood seeping between her fingers press to the forefront of the harvelle's mind, but when she puts a hand to her stomach now, she's greeted with the cool touch of cotton from her shirt. she's safe, she's alive; they won their fights, and they got to lick their wounds about it and drink in silence until one of them cracked. tonight it was dean. "yeah i know," she whispers, almost seldom before she brings the glass bottle of beer to her lips and takes a swig. there's something unspoken that hangs to the air now, thick like an tangible thing to hold, that remains tucked in the cave of her mouth: there's no line i wouldn't cross for you, dean winchester. not even death itself.