ficlet: as yet no mark to stop me
Feb. 3rd, 2014 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayachainTitle: as yet no mark to stop me
Author: mayachain
Characters: Jo Harvelle
Genre: gen
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~520
Summary: Unlike most Hunters she knows, Jo Harvelle has health insurance.
Notes: for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
14valentines "Women's Physical and Mental Health" topic.
Unlike most Hunters she knows, Jo Harvelle has health insurance. Real world, paid up on schedule, legitimate health insurance. Ellen had fought tooth and nail to make sure she had it. Now that Jo is rarely working at bars anymore, the premium is scraped together from money from the Roadhouse, the last vestiges from Dad and a pair of grandparents, the rare reward a grateful victim of the supernatural gives her and, yes, money that Ash directs her way without anyone looking too closely at his method of procurement.
Still, she tries to limit how often she makes use of it. There are many times during and after hunts when it’s just easier to patch up various bumps and scrapes herself, because having her care paid for or not, going on the doctors’ records would draw attention she doesn’t want to draw. And while she knows the system doesn’t exactly function that way, she always has this notion that this way the insurance company will argue less over the bill the day she really needs it.
She has fake identities. Not as many as she suspects the Winchesters and others she has seen drifting in and out of the Roadhouse her whole life tend to use, but there are four different personas Ash has provided with an iron clad backstory and whom Jo can use in situations where just being ‘herself’ – sassy white All American country gal with a shotgun – isn’t enough. These four would have little trouble in case of a stay at a hospital, too. But Jo is paranoid, has been around Hunters like Gordon and Rufus for far too long, and more importantly she has an actual home zealous authorities could trace her back to, even if for now she is content to travel on hunts that take her far away from it… Every time she signs a name not her own the risk increases that one of these days, for all of Ash’s skill, she will get caught.
So she stays under the radar, seeks professional help only for broken bones and infections and large amounts of blood. She is less callous with her own body than Sam and Dean because she has an option they don’t, but she knows that if she were to ask her mother, she’d get dragged back to the Roadhouse and yelled at for not being careful enough.
The people she meets, however… women and men and children all across the country who have become victims of monsters… Once the threat has been dealt with, she drives and/or marches the reluctant ones toward the nearest hospital and lets no argument divert her feet from her path to the emergency room. Gets Ash to put them on Jo Harvelle’s insurance if there is no other way. And makes sure to give out contact information to people in similar situations they can talk to, since 98% of the time mainstream therapy is out of the question. Because saving people while hunting things and then leaving said people to succumb to injuries or go out of their minds… That’s no victory at all.
.
Author: mayachain
Characters: Jo Harvelle
Genre: gen
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~520
Summary: Unlike most Hunters she knows, Jo Harvelle has health insurance.
Notes: for
14valentines "Women's Physical and Mental Health" topic.Unlike most Hunters she knows, Jo Harvelle has health insurance. Real world, paid up on schedule, legitimate health insurance. Ellen had fought tooth and nail to make sure she had it. Now that Jo is rarely working at bars anymore, the premium is scraped together from money from the Roadhouse, the last vestiges from Dad and a pair of grandparents, the rare reward a grateful victim of the supernatural gives her and, yes, money that Ash directs her way without anyone looking too closely at his method of procurement.
Still, she tries to limit how often she makes use of it. There are many times during and after hunts when it’s just easier to patch up various bumps and scrapes herself, because having her care paid for or not, going on the doctors’ records would draw attention she doesn’t want to draw. And while she knows the system doesn’t exactly function that way, she always has this notion that this way the insurance company will argue less over the bill the day she really needs it.
She has fake identities. Not as many as she suspects the Winchesters and others she has seen drifting in and out of the Roadhouse her whole life tend to use, but there are four different personas Ash has provided with an iron clad backstory and whom Jo can use in situations where just being ‘herself’ – sassy white All American country gal with a shotgun – isn’t enough. These four would have little trouble in case of a stay at a hospital, too. But Jo is paranoid, has been around Hunters like Gordon and Rufus for far too long, and more importantly she has an actual home zealous authorities could trace her back to, even if for now she is content to travel on hunts that take her far away from it… Every time she signs a name not her own the risk increases that one of these days, for all of Ash’s skill, she will get caught.
So she stays under the radar, seeks professional help only for broken bones and infections and large amounts of blood. She is less callous with her own body than Sam and Dean because she has an option they don’t, but she knows that if she were to ask her mother, she’d get dragged back to the Roadhouse and yelled at for not being careful enough.
The people she meets, however… women and men and children all across the country who have become victims of monsters… Once the threat has been dealt with, she drives and/or marches the reluctant ones toward the nearest hospital and lets no argument divert her feet from her path to the emergency room. Gets Ash to put them on Jo Harvelle’s insurance if there is no other way. And makes sure to give out contact information to people in similar situations they can talk to, since 98% of the time mainstream therapy is out of the question. Because saving people while hunting things and then leaving said people to succumb to injuries or go out of their minds… That’s no victory at all.
.
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no subject
Date: 2014-02-03 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-03 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-04 03:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-20 04:44 am (UTC)For years, I got health insurance through my job, and then through my husband's job, and we just took it for granted. Good for Jo for looking ahead and being prepared!
This is a beautifully written piece, a snapshot that uses light and dark to great effect. Wonderfully concise, and with a closing statement that's moving and memorable. Thank you!