A.N.: Hello my fellow Fanfic writers! A special shout out to Sharlot for giving me an idea for the monster of the week, I had no idea what creature to have them hunt this chapter and her latest story 'Killing me softly.' gave me an idea. So thanks! *shameless plug for an amazing story :)* Also another shout out to Dorothy for fixing this one up and being a constant source of inspiration for me to write Ellen/Jo, you are a doll hon! And what's left of my voice to shout out to the rest of you who have reviewed, subscribed and favorited this story. YOU GUYS ROCK! Without further adeu onto the chapter, spoilers up to 6x16. Disclaimer:Not mine.
He stares at the ground until he can't remember what is he is doing there, until the soft drizzle that was just a slight dampness clinging to his clothes has soak him to the bone. And he feels cold and numb and dead. But he's not dead. He just wishes he was. He has just spent every waking moment since he woke up leaking some God awful black ooze from all of his orifices wishing, praying, pleading to be dead. Because he buried a knife in his ex best friends chest. He had already taken enough from the man; to take his life just seemed to add insult to injury.
Sure, it wasn't so much him as it was that yeerk like slug that had shimmied up in his cranium, but it was still his hands that held the blade, his mouth that tweaked up in the grin full of malice, his body that betrayed him. He couldn't just get over that.
Sam and Dean had left him there holding the bottle of Johnny Walker Blue and he just let it leak out onto the grave like little bits of his soul.
He remembers hunting with Rufus like it was yesterday. Back when he was brand new and didn't know holy water from wolfs bane and spent every waking moment terrified of a faceless evil that he couldn't even put a name to. He remembers when they sang along to songs on the radio, off key of course, and made up stupid dares to see who would be doing laundry this week;when wives were forbidden subjects, and a good night was measured by the amount of monster blood you had to wash out your clothes. Long before Bobby could remember an exorcism rite when he couldn't even recall the vows of his first marriage.
Rufus and he went where they wanted and did what they pleased. He was as close to a person he had ever been without taking up residence in their sheets. Rufus had teased him endlessly since more often than not Bobby spent his nights alone in their motel room nursing a beer bottle and watching stupid programs on the television, while Rufus came home in the morning with the lipstick stains sticking out almost as much as his war wounds.
Bobby trudges back to the car, his gait slow and clumsy and his heart so heavy it's in his feet. The door of his car creaks open and he puts the now empty bottle into the seat. The car engines rolls over with a low growl and Bobby stares at the rain creating zig zag patterns on his windshield.
Rufus hated driving in the rain, he felt like the world was already gloomy enough and since they were hunters it was the least the universe could do to keep the god damn sun shining. Bobby used to tease him that he should put in an order for birds singing while he was at it, which usually earned him a punch to the side.
That was before. Before everything. Before Omaha.
He wasn't expecting the boys to be waiting for him at the house when he pulls up, both of them standing on his porch like some sort of flesh gargoyles. Neither of them moves as he gets out of the car, the bottle swinging in his hand at his side.
Sam's eyes flood with concern and Bobby wonders idly if he should attach a collar and leash to make that puppy dog stare official. Damn, he hadn't had a drop of the alcohol and his brain was still unraveling.
"Bobby." Dean greets him with a tilt of his head.
"What are you doing here?" His voice sounds like gravel is raking his windpipe.
"I know what you think, but Sam and I aren't here to babysit you."
"Yeah Bobby, you went through quite a physical ordeal in the last couple of days, we just want to make sure you are okay."
Bobby chokes on a bitter laugh burbling up in his diaphragm.
Okay. Okay? He is about six continents away from okay. Try absolutely hopeless, utterly depleted of any sort of good feeling in his heart, even the shit he has tucked away for just such an occasion is dim and frayed at the edges.
"I mean I know you aren't okay," Dean pauses and runs a hand along the base of his neck with a tiny laugh. "None of us are okay. But we survive. We keep going because we have to. The world needs us to."
"Screw the world." Bobby growls and it surprises him that those hateful, jaded words make it past his lips.
Sam takes one step down off the porch and towards him. "Bobby,"
"Don't 'Bobby' me boy. What the hell has this world done for you? Taught you how to hold a gun before you knew your ABCs, left you both twisted and ruined before you even knew what it meant! We save people, but do we save the people that matter?" He flings the bottle from him in disgust as Sam freezes on the stairs and Dean's posture tightens up.
"I know sometimes it feels that way but," Sam tries to sooth him, always being the heart of the group. And dammit if it doesn't pisses him off.
"Feels that way? It is that way. You lost your girl and your mom and your,"
Dean comes charging down the steps. "You will want to stop right there, before you say something you can't take back." His voice is lethal and dangerous and clearly a warning.
Just like that the frenzy of bluster and wrath that is gnawing at his insides comes to deafening, screeching halt and he remembers that he loves these two. Loves them like his own.
"You're right, I do want to stop," Bobby sighs and Dean pats him solidly on the shoulder.
He wants to stop. Needs to stop. But he can't stop. His head feels like it is screwed on backwards and his heart is rattling in pieces in his ribcage. He hasn't felt like this in so long that he can't even remember what he did to fix it before.
"You need to go." He states wearily, as he first passes past Dean, and then Sam, unable to meet either sets of their eyes.
"Bobby,"
"Look, you mean well and we could sit here and talk out our feelings, but this ain't Oprah and I'm not feeling particularly in the sharing in caring mood. So do us both a favor, and get in your car and help someone who wants to be helped."
They look like kids that have been scolded when he closes the door on them.
In the morning he finds them both sitting on the hood of their car, coffees in hand. He should have known they wouldn't leave, when the hell had his boys ever listened to him.
Bobby takes the cup from Dean's hand, squinting at the sun that breaks over the horizon and lights his scrap yard up. The metal glints like seashells at the bottom of an ocean wave and Bobby thinks it is way too early to be waxing poetic as he gulps his drink.
"Dark and bitter just like you." Dean teases and Bobby can't think of something snarky to say back.
He always has something snarky to say back.
"It was just a joke dude, crack a smile." Bobby pulls a hand along his hung over face.
Dean hangs his head. "Too soon? Sorry I'm inappropriate and have bad timing."
Sam bites into a muffin and mumbles. "The worst."
"Have you called Ellen yet?" Dean asks around his mouthful of food.
Bobby doesn't answer.
"Yeah, that's what we thought. So we called her." Dean says taking a sip from the top of his cup.
"You did what? What gives you the right?" Bobby turns towards Dean with the intent to kick his ass and is met with a solid wall of Sam.
"We have the right because we care about you Bobby. And if being Dean's brother has taught me anything it's that caring about someone trumps everything."
Dean pretends to look disgusted and secretly smiles into his food.
"Everything. Personal space, boundaries, any semblance of control, the need to go to the bathroom without your own personal body guard,"
Dean sighs and thumps the top of his brother's head before sliding off the hood.
"Point is we called her. I ain't going to apologize for it, what I am going to do is force some crappy breakfast bagel down your throat and maybe hose you down in the front yard so you are presentable to your wife when she gets down here." Dean tries to grip onto the older man's elbow and he side steps him.
He rushes past them and back into the safety of his house. The phone rings and the sound pulls him from the whirlwind of his desolation and back to reality.
"Hello?"
"Bobby?"
"Ellen."
Her voice carries across the phone and wraps around him like an embrace. "I'm so sorry."
He bends into the receiver and weeps. He's forgotten that no matter how many layers of power and skill and savior complex you bury yourself under, you are still a fragile, damaged human somewhere deep down.
She's still half asleep when she rolls over to curl around the body next to her. She lays one hand over their chest and realizes with a jolt that it is not her husband. She pushes back on her forearms and shimmies as far away from the foreign person as she can manage in her half aware state.
A deep sigh is expelled into the air as a female voice says. "Keep it down would ya?" and all of the memories from the past week slam back into her cranium.
"Jo?" She squints into the darkness as her daughter shifts towards her.
"Yes?"
"Jesus, you scared the crap out of me!" she hisses.
"Sorry, guess I should just be glad that you don't sleep with a knife under your pillow." she chuckles and Ellen has to resist the urge to shove her off the bed.
"Very funny Joanna Beth. What in the hell are you doing in my bed anyway?"
Jo slides her feet to the ground and clicks on the light by the side of the bed.
"I couldn't sleep and I wanted the company." she whispers as Ellen pulls out of the bed and slides her robe on over her pajamas.
"You haven't needed to sleep in my bed since you were ten. What's going on?"
Her daughter has the sense to look embarrassed as she faces her mother.
"Everything okay Jo?"
"My bed is gross."
Ellen looks at the slightly rumpled bed to the right of her.
"I know this ain't exactly the ritz pumpkin, but,"
Jo shakes her head. "No, its gross. Like covered in ick, and has a weird smell, gross."
Ellen watches her daughter as she clenches her hands.
Her eyes are downcast and Ellen knows, she just knows, that she is thinking about the hunt. Thinking about the fact that they had tracked a succubus through Baker, Montana that left young dead blondes behind everywhere they went. She was thinking about the fact that she had been trapped in his thrall for just a moment, completely lost control of her body for just a single, solitary moment. A moment when she had leveled a gun at Ellen, a moment when the thing that went bump in the night had almost bumped her right off the playing board. Before his control had wavered for just a moment and Jo had swung the weapon around and shot him point blank in the face, silent tears cascading down her outraged face.
Her eyes lifted back up from the floor as Ellen moves back into the bed. Wordlessly Jo sits on the edge and waits for the okay.
"Tomorrow is going to be here before either of us is ready for it, let's get some shut eye."
"Mom, I'm." Jo bites into her lip to stop the sob she has trapped from tumbling out.
"Tired?" Ellen states as she pulls her daughter's form back onto the bed. "Me too baby." She brushes a kiss over her bruised temple. "Me too."
Her daughter is sleeping in the seat next to her by the time they pull into the gas station to fill up. Ellen goes inside to stock up on snacks and when she comes back to the car Jo is speaking into her phone.
"Who is it?" She questions as she passes a coke to her sleep addled offspring.
"Yeah, yeah she's right here." She covers the mouthpiece and says. "It's Dean."
"Dean?" Ellen reaches for the cell. "Hello?"
"Hey Ellen."
"Hey, what's up?"
There is silence from the other end of the phone.
"Dean?"
"Nothing, nothing is up."
Damn kid is transparent even over the phone.
"Really?" she switches the phone to her other ear. "So you're just calling to,"
"How are things going with you huh? Succubus all nice and dead?"
"Dean, what the hell is going on?"
"What? I can't call to say,"
Ellen wrenches open the car door as she slams into her seat. "Stop lying to me or I swear to God I will break your Pinocchio nose the next time I see you."
"Whoa, hostile much?" she can almost see him backing away with both hands held high.
"Is it Bobby? Is he okay?" Ellen hears her voice raise up a few octaves.
"No!" Dean cries out from the other end of the phone and it is the first thing he has said that doesn't sound like complete and utter bullshit.
Her fear punches out of her gut in the form of a heavy sigh. "What is it then Dean? What's wrong?"
"It's uh...It's Rufus."
And just like that her fear climbs back up in her body and latches onto her heart. "How bad is it?"
"It's bad Ellen," he pauses and she can hear him scrub a hand over his face. "He didn't make it."
Her emotions fly out of her in the form of breakfast.
Ten minutes later after she has reigned her emotions in she calls Bobby and the phone immediately goes to voice mail.
"Dammit!" she yells slamming her fist into the dash.
"Mom?" Jo glances sideways at her, concern lighting up her eyes.
"He's not picking up. The house phone, his cell, nothing."
"What does that mean?" Jo asks.
"It means he's drowning." she mutters.
The brakes squeal as Jo pulls the car over the shoulder.
"What are you doing?" Ellen looks up as her daughter gets out the car and starts to pull her belongings from the vehicle.
"Getting my stuff."
"I can see that Jo, why are you doing that?" Ellen joins her standing in the asphalt.
"Because I need to get going to the next hunt. People are dying mysteriously in groups in Fresno." she hefts her backpack up higher on her back.
"What are you saying honey?"
Jo turns and places the keys into her mother's hands. "I'm saying I need to go save people, you need to go save Bobby."
Ellen's fingers curl around the keys. "What are you going to do?"
Jo smiles at her. "I'm going to go kill some evil sons of bitches. Just like you taught me."
Ellen arms go around her daughter in an embrace. "I love you Joanna Beth."
"I love you too Mom. Now get out of here," she pushes her gently back towards the vehicle.
"Wait, what are you going to do?"
"I'll already called Carmen she's about two hours out she is going to come get me. There was a truck stop a couple of miles back, I'm going to walk there and then wait."
"Okay, call me as soon as she gets you."
Jo nods and gestures back towards the car. "I will. Call me as soon as you get home, tell Bobby," she swallows hard. "Tell him I'll kick his ass if he is still drowning when I see him again."
Ellen laughs.
Jo shrugs. "What? He's a Harvelle too, we may get knocked down, but we don't stay down." she grins and starts walking off in the opposite direction.
Ellen watches her back for just a minute, marveling at the subdued strength her daughter is oozing with. When the hell had she gone and grown up?
She guns the engine and tries to call him again.
"Dammit Bobby, turn your phone on." she growls and get back on the highway, on her way back to her husband.
She tries the house phone for the millionth time when a broken voices answers. "Hello?"
It sounds like the complete opposite of the gravelly, sarcastic, loving tone of her husband she has to ask to be sure. "Bobby?"
"Ellen."
She replies with the only thing she can think of, the only thing she would say to him if she could be there right now. "I'm so sorry."
She isn't expecting the complete break of the man she loves as he weeps on the other end, she is even more shocked by the fact that she can't see the road and she has to pull over to cry with him.
After he has apologized enough times to make Ellen mad she finally says. "Where are the boys?"
"Sitting on the porch." he breathes.
"Let them in damn house Bobby."
"I don't want them here." he argues.
"Well I'm still a couple of hours out...you could just sit all alone in that big, empty house."
"Fine, whatever, I'll let them in. But we aren't talking about,"
"Fine, put them to work."
"What work? We got nothing in the ways of cases on this end.
"I don't care, have them dust. Just...don't be alone right now okay. You don't have to promise me much, but promise me that." she sighs.
His answering sigh is long suffering as he says. "Okay Ellen, okay." and disconnects the call.
She pushes her foot the pedal a little bit harder and wishes with every fiber of her being that she could have spared him the pain.
She clicks on the radio to drown out her thoughts as she rolls down her window. The open air whips her hair around her face as she whispers. "Rest in peace Rufus." into the wind.
A.W.: FYI guys this is officially the longest story I have ever written! And that is all thanks to YOU!