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apocalypsos) wrote2007-02-26 01:33 am
apocalypsos) wrote2007-02-26 01:33 am
Entry tags:
Fic: Welcome to the Zoo (Supernatural)
So I was going to do a Claire-centric fic as if that were her in my icon (except it's me when I was little with my uncle's pet raccoon), but instead I'm writing Jo fic. Yes, I KNOW.
*****
You can't really explain health inspection guidelines to a six-year-old.
Oh, Ellen tries. Well, not about the health inspectors showing up if anybody gets it into their thick skull to call in a report about rats scampering through the roadhouse. She does kind of impress upon the kid that maybe she might want to keep an eye on her pets, especially after that incident with the gerbils.
"Jo, sweetie, you've got to think about the people who come here," Ellen says as she kneels in front of her little girl. "Would you want to see a rabbit hopping through a restaurant you went to for dinner?"
Ellen had been hoping Jo would make a face at the thought of the trail of rabbit pellets left in its wake.
But her beautiful wide-eyed little girl just beams and says, "He could eat my broccoli!"
Perhaps, Ellen thinks sometimes, she should have outlawed pets right from the start.
The problem was that marrying Bill had meant taking in his mangy old dog Rusty, who'd still managed to hang onto life even after Bill had lost his. And once she'd finally had to pry Jo's chubby arms from around his neck and put him to sleep, she'd had to get Tabitha the calico just to keep Jo from crying herself to sleep for one more week.
After Tabitha goes and runs into the path of a passing eighteen-wheeler, though, things go from bad to worse.
Garter snakes, baby possums, birds who'd fallen from their nests and goldfish in plastic bags won at the shooting games of every carnival that passed through ... Jo brings every tiny creature home with a smile on her face that Ellen can't say no to. Shame, that, since Jo can't manage to bring home anything she won't find dead in its cage within a month's time.
"There goes Doctor Death," one frequent customer mutters after Jo heads into the roadhouse's kitchen just shy of her tenth birthday, carting in a plastic carrier holding a rather sickly-looking chameleon.
He doesn't call her that again after Ellen calls in his tab, but the name sticks, at least behind Jo's back.
By the time Jo storms out into the world with her car full of weapons and her defiant declarations still ringing in her mother's ears, Jo has owned a dog, two cats, three gerbils, a ferret, five turtles, two parakeets, lizards, rodents, hermit crabs, and enough fish for Ellen to start up a sushi menu. She'd even tried her hand once at obtaining a monkey.
Ellen stalks into her room with a garbage bag clutched in her hand, fully intending to throw out everything not tied down in retaliation for Jo running off to ruin her life.
She freezes when she sees the empty plastic pet carriers, the vacant aquariums, the frayed old dog leash tacked to the wall. Where most girls have photos of themselves mugging for the cameras with their friends Jo's got dozens of pictures of every measly little beast she's brought into the damn roadhouse.
"Aw, hell," Ellen mutters, and her grip on the plastic bag loosens.
When Ash walks up behind her and says, "We ain't going to go bury anything in a pet cemetery, are we?", Ellen forces a smile and hands him the only occupied carrier in the room.
"Congratulations," she says, "you're a father."
Ash looks down at the carrier in his hand.
The tarantula inside, he likes to imagine, looks back at him and grins.
*****
You can't really explain health inspection guidelines to a six-year-old.
Oh, Ellen tries. Well, not about the health inspectors showing up if anybody gets it into their thick skull to call in a report about rats scampering through the roadhouse. She does kind of impress upon the kid that maybe she might want to keep an eye on her pets, especially after that incident with the gerbils.
"Jo, sweetie, you've got to think about the people who come here," Ellen says as she kneels in front of her little girl. "Would you want to see a rabbit hopping through a restaurant you went to for dinner?"
Ellen had been hoping Jo would make a face at the thought of the trail of rabbit pellets left in its wake.
But her beautiful wide-eyed little girl just beams and says, "He could eat my broccoli!"
Perhaps, Ellen thinks sometimes, she should have outlawed pets right from the start.
The problem was that marrying Bill had meant taking in his mangy old dog Rusty, who'd still managed to hang onto life even after Bill had lost his. And once she'd finally had to pry Jo's chubby arms from around his neck and put him to sleep, she'd had to get Tabitha the calico just to keep Jo from crying herself to sleep for one more week.
After Tabitha goes and runs into the path of a passing eighteen-wheeler, though, things go from bad to worse.
Garter snakes, baby possums, birds who'd fallen from their nests and goldfish in plastic bags won at the shooting games of every carnival that passed through ... Jo brings every tiny creature home with a smile on her face that Ellen can't say no to. Shame, that, since Jo can't manage to bring home anything she won't find dead in its cage within a month's time.
"There goes Doctor Death," one frequent customer mutters after Jo heads into the roadhouse's kitchen just shy of her tenth birthday, carting in a plastic carrier holding a rather sickly-looking chameleon.
He doesn't call her that again after Ellen calls in his tab, but the name sticks, at least behind Jo's back.
By the time Jo storms out into the world with her car full of weapons and her defiant declarations still ringing in her mother's ears, Jo has owned a dog, two cats, three gerbils, a ferret, five turtles, two parakeets, lizards, rodents, hermit crabs, and enough fish for Ellen to start up a sushi menu. She'd even tried her hand once at obtaining a monkey.
Ellen stalks into her room with a garbage bag clutched in her hand, fully intending to throw out everything not tied down in retaliation for Jo running off to ruin her life.
She freezes when she sees the empty plastic pet carriers, the vacant aquariums, the frayed old dog leash tacked to the wall. Where most girls have photos of themselves mugging for the cameras with their friends Jo's got dozens of pictures of every measly little beast she's brought into the damn roadhouse.
"Aw, hell," Ellen mutters, and her grip on the plastic bag loosens.
When Ash walks up behind her and says, "We ain't going to go bury anything in a pet cemetery, are we?", Ellen forces a smile and hands him the only occupied carrier in the room.
"Congratulations," she says, "you're a father."
Ash looks down at the carrier in his hand.
The tarantula inside, he likes to imagine, looks back at him and grins.
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HAHAHA, Ellen is *awesome*.
This is wonderful and funny, with a gorgeous, hard emotional kicker. Oh, Ellen.
(I'd say Oh Ash, but he's gonna have too much fun with that tarantula ;)
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okay, i might be feeling overly emotional this morning, but that got me right in the chest.
*SNIFF*
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Awww Jo! I wasn't that bad, but damn I wasn't far off of it either. (with the bringing home at least) The mementos of her pets...*melts*
and the spider? *Snerk*
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