OOC
Hey everybody! I’ve probably already told you all but just to make sure - visiting family this weekend, so I’ll be back on Sunday. :) This covers Bobby, Crowley, Kathryn. Have a lovely weekend!
Hey everybody! I’ve probably already told you all but just to make sure - visiting family this weekend, so I’ll be back on Sunday. :) This covers Bobby, Crowley, Kathryn. Have a lovely weekend!
It was a little amusing watching Bobby fidget and flounder as he tried to find something to talk about, and Jo purposely refrained from offering up small talk for a few minutes just to see how long he’d sit there and count the holes in the threadbare curtains above the dresser. He’d never been particularly skilled at eloquence, which Jo appreciated more than she’d ever let on. Bobby was no bullshitter, and she’d come to the conclusion long ago that it was one of the things she liked best about him. He told it like it was, straight up and with no fluff.Finally after a lengthy silence she spoke. “I’m thinking about taking a supply run up to the city in a day or two. I don’t want mom to know what I’ve got planned before I go.” She could see the argument starting to build in his expression and she shook her head to stall him. “We need these supplies desperately, Bobby, and I volunteered to lead the team.”
She didn’t mention her reasons for doing so, just glossing over that part for the sake of her own sanity more than anything. But she could tell that he knew more than he was letting on. Hell, after the altercation at Dean’s she’d be surprised if everybody in camp didn’t know about her stupidity. The thought brought another wave of hurt with it and she took a long pull from the bottle to wash the bitterness down.
“I’m not asking for your permission, I just wanted you to know I’m going so if anything…well, you’ll know what’s going on and can deal with mom.” She met his gaze and saw the concern there, giving him a weak smile. “I’m not going to do anything particularly stupid, but you know the risks involved in a trip like this. There’s always a chance…”
And if she didn’t come back from this trip, it was comforting to know that her mom would have Bobby to lean on, to help her through the loss. It was the best she could hope for under the circumstances.
She broke the silence with her idea, and his gaze snapped back to her immediately, concern building. She anticipated it of course, and responded before he even had anything to say, and he just let out a breath, wiping his chin again. Damn fool girl. Leading it? It was bad enough she just went on them. Yes, they all needed supplies, and there was no getting around it, but…damn. She was making this hard to swallow. She went on and he just regarded her a bit sadly. His first instinct was to say no, she wasn’t allowed, and he wouldn’t let her. (Not that he could stop her. Not really.) His second was to say she shouldn’t, because of the dangers out there inherent. (She’d already done so many raids though.) His third was to say…well. This. “Just…just be careful,” in a resigned tone. There was no use fighting her on this. Along with that youthful energy came a stubborn streak a mile wide and a chip on the shoulder, and they’d just finished one semi-heated discussion. He was tired of being the enemy in the camp. Both Nicolette and Mack weren’t so pleased with him and he didn’t need Jo on that side either.
Or maybe they should be.
It was so hard to tell if that would be the right thing to do. Sacrifice part of their relationship on the alter of what he believed to be practicality? Or let her go and potentially get killed on the field because she believed she was the best option to lead this? Her sad smile wasn’t helping and his face tightened just a bit, and he looked away, and then down. He didn’t want to lose her. He didn’t want to lose anybody else here, really. They were pretty much all that was left of any significant opposition to Lucifer and they were still around. But supplies didn’t just materialize out of thin air, either. They had to be fought for, every step of the way.
Someone, anyone, but her though. Ellen would just be broken if Jo never came back from this. She tensed up at the mere thought of Jo leaving camp and that was hard enough for Bobby to bear himself. He wasn’t Jo’s father though, and he reminded himself of that sharply. She wouldn’t listen to him even if he was. So. There you go. “Hand me that whiskey again,” he said, gesturing towards her. “I could use another sip.”
Jo sighed. “Yes, we’re family, damn it Bobby.” She rubbed a hand over her face, suddenly feeling so much older than she was. He had some good points to his argument, and she felt like a jerk for throwing all of his kindness and patience back in his face. He’d been there for her, certainly more than any other male in her life, and she hadn’t been very grateful lately for any of it.But tonight she wasn’t in a consoling mood, she was bitter and angry and more than a little drunk, and Bobby was the closest thing she had to an outlet for her frustrations. He was here.
“Being family doesn’t mean you have the right to judge me, though. God knows I’ve seen you worse off than me,” she reminded him, narrowing her eyes at him despite her complete lack of coordination. She took another drink and sighed. “I got things I don’t want to think about, I’m taking care of them. As soon as I don’t hold up my end of the deal on missions or screw up ‘cause of my issues, you can lecture. Until then, back the hell off, ok?”
It looked like he was building up a good head of steam, his face turning a little red as he stared her down, and Jo shook her head. “I don’t want to go down this road anymore tonight. Just let me drink myself stupid and pretend things don’t suck like a Hoover. Tomorrow I’ll be good old responsible Jo.” She held out the bottle by the neck and nodded at him. “You want to help me? Don’t let me drink alone.”
He’d pressed a few buttons with her, and he could see she was getting increasingly upset with him. Wiping his chin in thought he held up his hands. She was upset but he’d made his points, and she understood. Defensiveness was natural. “Yeah, sure, fine. I just wanted to make sure you got me. That’s all.” He nodded halfway and when she pleaded with him to drink with her he walked over and accepted the bottle she offered. “Can’t let a good drink go to waste here,” he said, gruffly, and took a nice long drag, holding the bottle out and staring at it in appreciation, and then looking back to her. “You’re a helluva girl, Jo,” he said, smiling gently for the first time since he’d arrived, and feeling slightly more paternal. Being ‘papa bear’ was fun and all (not really) but in reality he’d much prefer to just sit there and relax. Get drunk a little. Talk about whatever. That didn’t happen often enough and he tried to take every opportunity he could get now, because it might not happen tomorrow. Or ever again.
Glancing around he took the nearest available seat and let out a breath, almost a sigh, as he relaxed some, now that the tensions were fading. He took another drag of the whiskey and passed the bottle back to her, enjoying that comfortable burn down his throat. Whiskey had always been something both utilitarian to him and an enjoyment, and that kind of a thing was worth its weight in gold these days. He looked at Jo and wondered, for a moment, what to talk about now. Small talk was in short supply and he’d never been an expert at it anyway. Mostly when he’d played pretend as a FBI agent or police officer or whatnot, those kinds of people had stupid conversations all the time. Useless. But now that he didn’t have to worry about that, he’d let that skillset fade away for the most part. Sometimes, you didn’t need to talk. Or the other person could start it.
Or whatever.
He looked up and around idly and rubbed his hands, deciding that he missed radio stations. It was handy to have something in the background at times, even just barely, when you didn’t know what to talk about or what to do. No emergencies at the moment. Nothing to worry about. Just two people having a drink together and waiting for tomorrow. They were all searching for reasons to keep going on and Bobby found this - what they did right now - as good a reason as any. God help him if he lost Jo, one of the few people left he could just sit comfortably with and not worry about anything. At least, not overtly.
The disapproval in his eyes was easy to read, even in her current state, and Jo frowned at Bobby. He was judging her, really? After all they’d been through, after all the times she’d helped pick him up and dust him off when they got dealt a crap hand, he was going to play the ‘papa bear’ concerned adult card now? To hell with that. She was almost 30 years old, she didn’t need his half-assed attempt at being the grown-up now.
“I don’t recall asking you to be my shrink, Bobby,” she said with a little more venom than she’d intended. “It’s the end of the world. Did you get the memo? I got a million reasons to want to forget every damn thing in the universe right now, and no reason not to. So if you wanna drink, then drink. If not, I’m sure mom could use some company right now.”
She picked up her glass and drained it, welcoming the burn. At least it was a feeling other than pain and misery, which seemed to be the near-constant companions in this camp. She’d had her fill of feeling bad, now she just wanted it to go away.
“You don’t know as much about me as you think you do, Bobby. Don’t try analyzing my motives, ok?” she said, pouring another glass of whiskey and taking a sip. “You don’t know a damn thing about it.” She was playing with fire, risking Bobby’s infamous temper, but Jo was far enough gone that she didn’t even care anymore. Let him blow up – it might make her forget the other shit for a while.
He sniffed, putting his hands on his hips, and giving her a not-amused look. “I ain’t your shrink. If you want that, you’re just plum out of luck. Unless we got one runnin’ around here. I can’t really tell anymore.” He gestured between the two of them. “What we got here, it’s more’n just friendship. Or at least that’s what I thought of it. Now maybe I’m wrong but I’ve thought of you as family lately, due to all those times you saved my ass from the fire, and all those times I helped save you. What we’ve got here, Jo, that’s called respect, and that’s how I’m tryin’ to talk to you.” He paused, glancing off to the side in thought for a minute, and then looked back to her. She was being rather petulant, but in that youthful way, and he wiped his chin as he thought that he couldn’t blame her for that, either. He was staying remarkably calm and even for the venom she’d thrown at him.
“Normally I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about your motives as long as you got shit done, but right here, right now, your motives are keeping all of us alive. Yours and everyone else’s. We’re all here for different reasons but we’re still here, Jo, and you’re not stupid. You know that too.” He’d been doing so much talking lately. Maybe he was, de facto, becoming the camp’s therapist. Heh. Imagine that. After all these years hunting he’d just found a new role to play. Maybe that’s why he’d stuck around so long - so that he could smack some sense into the damn kids still alive and running around camp. Somebody needed to, and nobody else had taken the job. Everyone was too busy staying alive. So was he, but then, when you had a lot of time, even at the end…
“We need you at your best. Obviously not all the time, but come on,” he said, not quite a plead. “Now isn’t the time to be stupid about this. Now’s the time to put on your big girl panties, stop cryin’ about shit, and get out there to do stuff.” He jabbed a finger back to the door, indicating the ‘outside’. “Now can y’do that, or do I have to ask Dean to take you off the ‘active’ list until you get your shit together?” he asked, staring right at her. Yeah, okay. Maybe now was the time for some hypocritical judgement. And Dean would listen to him about things like this.
Things were amusingly hazy when Jo heard the knock, and she rose unsteadily and walked a slightly meandering path to the door to find Bobby standing there looking a little uncomfortable. Jo focused her otherwise uncooperative eyes on him and arched a brow in question. “What’s up, Bobby?”
She knew, of course, what he was there for. The same anesthetic that she was currently embalming herself with – her mom and Bobby had both become almost disturbingly dependent on the numbing qualities of the Golden Elixir, and she couldn’t say she blamed them. Especially not when she was feeling as painless as she was now. Tomorrow would be another story, with the granddaddy of all hangovers in the making, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it. They were all living on borrowed time, and if the whiskey helped forget that the end was near, well, who wouldn’t indulge?
“Wanna come in for a drink?” she asked, stepping aside to let him in. “I got enough to share.”
He eyed her for a minute.
“I can smell it. You’re not just drunk, you’re plastered. More’n I’ve been in a while,” he said, giving her a doubtful look but shrugging a bit as he accepted her invitation. He walked in a few steps, and turned back around to face her. It was hypocritical to be sure, and he wouldn’t deny it, but for some reason he found himself disapproving of her current state. Maybe it was the fact she was so much younger than him, and the fact that hope still hovered there somewhere in their lives…he might be well past his time but if they ever managed to beat Lucifer, she still had a chance. She was young, beautiful, and fiercely intelligent, so why was she in the same state as him?
A mildly disturbed look made a brief appearance on his face but he sighed, dismissing his thoughts away. What did he wanna do, start a fight? He had no ground here. Nobody had figured out how to defeat Lucifer yet, and for some goddamned reason Lucifer was taking his time wiping the floor with them. Picking them off one by one instead of just laying down the holy fire and ending it all. Maybe that was the whole point. Giving them an extended torture, Dean perhaps most of all, because he had Sam as leverage, and for Dean, that was the ultimate lever.
He stared at her whiskey bottle and sighed, his thoughts coming back in an instant. Self-medication was useful, up to a point, and he’d already drunk enough to float a battleship, and he was still miserable. How did Jo feel, Jo who was so young and so smart and who had hope, that was getting just as drunk as he got? It was getting harder and harder to reconcile his existence but one look in the young woman’s face told him that there was still hope. It was in her, and all the younger ones of the camp. They were, and had been before the end had come, the next ones to be in charge. The younger generation, so full of vim and vigour. He’d always admired Sam and Dean for just that. That sheer energy, enough to plow through every single thing that came their way. Jo as well.
“Look, Jo,” he said, with a resigned sigh, and a futile gesture at her. “It’s all gone to hell here. There’s no denyin’ that. We could all die any minute here. Me, I’m past my prime here, but you…you’re the reason I keep goin’ on. You an’ Dean an’ the rest of you. I’m not one t’talk. I really am not. I’ve got no ground here. But…you’re drinkin’ almost as much as I am here. And that’s not right. You shouldn’t.” There was no anger in his voice, no disagreement, just…a sadness. “We’re all dependin’ on you here. I’m not sayin’ you shouldn’t get drunk. Life’s hard enough. But checkin’ out at a time like this,” he said, breaking off, and shaking his head a little.
The whiskey had burned at first, unaccustomed to the taste as she had become, and Jo cringed when the fire settled in the pit of her empty stomach. It made her queasy for a few moments and she contemplated putting it away and just going to bed. But then the fire turned to a pleasant warmth and she sighed, taking another swallow of the amber liquid. The whiskey didn’t judge, it didn’t place unreasonable expectations on her, it didn’t make lame-ass excuses for why it didn’t want her… she pushed that thought away and filled her glass again. That kind of thinking would get her nowhere fast.
Two or three drinks later it was going down like water, the sweet oblivion she was looking for lingering just at the bottom of that next glass…and then the next…ok, maybe just one more.
She sprawled on the low couch in her cabin, barefoot and hair pulled up in a messy ponytail, a half-full bottle of Hunter’s Helper on the end table beside her. She tried to feel guilty for wanting to drown herself in liquor tonight, but she just couldn’t be bothered. It was all going to hell anyway, why not take a page from the camp’s resident lush and wallow in the comfort of a good drunken stupor? Not like it mattered in the end anyway – she wasn’t gonna live long enough to see the effect it had on her liver.
For the first time in a long time, Jo wondered what the hell they were doing, why they were even bothering. They couldn’t win. Nothing was going to change their situation. It was over, but the fat lady was already dead so there was no one to sing.
He’d been looking for Jo.
Jo was a regular on the expeditions ‘outside’ and Bobby needed more whiskey, both for himself and for Ellen. Since Dean and Castiel had both appeared to be busy or elsewhere, Bobby had begun to look for Jo instead - she’d listen, and Dean would listen to her. As the camp was not a large place, and those with blonde hair easy to see, he was able to determine that she was currently in her cabin. Doing what? Who knew?
She was like most others by now - either preparing for…whatever, or getting drunk, he’d bet. Ellen’s daughter had always been strong but even she was not immune from what everyone else went through. The end of the world had taken its toll on everyone, and with few methods of escape available, it was either get drunk or shoot things. Or both.
A couple of knocks on her cabin door heralded Bobby’s arrival. “Jo, you in there?” he asked, gruffly. He wouldn’t blame her. He couldn’t, since he did it himself. Getting drunk was…well maybe at one time it’d been a sin but now it wasn’t. Now the clock was running down and they were on the last few figurative seconds and getting drunk was not something you blamed another person.
Not unless it affected them on a raid, anyway, and sometimes not even then, even if getting drunk could get you killed. You could get killed anyway, after all. Getting drunk would probably just take some of the edge off. It wasn’t something he’d encourage though. In a time when they were all questioning why they kept motoring on, being drunk on a raid wouldn’t help anything, just put off the pain a bit longer.
Pain was hard to swallow, but, as Bobby knew, sometimes a necessary thing to keep living. Something to examine. Dissect. Get past, somehow. Impossible, it would seem, at times to get past, but a worthy challenge nonetheless.
Hey everyone.
I’d like to apologize profusely for my terrible, terrible, neglect of this journal. It’s no excuse but I’ve been sick the past week or so, and busy so much, that between those two things I’ve had literally no time to myself. Things do seem to be slowing down just a little though, so I should be more available if anyone wants or needs Bobby, Crowley, or my original girl Kathryn.
Again, I’m sorry. :(
Nicolette groaned listening to Bobby. “I understand, Bobby. I’m not being cocky, far from it. It was suppose to take five minutes. They scoped it out and I was just gonna run in and run out. I’ll follow it, I’ll follow it.” She held up her hands as Bobby continued to scold her. She wasn’t a fool. She knew that she shouldn’t of taken that risk. Hadn’t she already said that? What was with all her apologizing on her end? She fucked up. It happens. Her willing to fight with all the members of the camp about how stupid she was that day was really wearing her out. It just wasn’t something to move past at this point. She had to be scolded like a small child about her mistake because her mistake could of cost her, her life and maybe some others. So in the end, she deserved this. She tried to reason with herself as the other part of her was arguing that she understood her mistake.
Her mouth opened to reply to Bobby and fell shut again. Fine. She couldn’t just shut herself off, though it would be very easy to. Not many people talked to her at this point and she was definitely on the outs with Cas. Her only real friend at the moment. There was Mack, a brand new friend that could possible care if Nicolette held up in her room when she wasn’t working. Someone that could possibly make her feel a bit better about everything. “I’ll try.” It was a pathetic reply to Bobby’s long explanation of what she can’t do. She knew that she couldn’t just leave again. Without either of her mentors or her sister, Nicolette wouldn’t last a day out there again. She barely made it by on her own without them before and she wasn’t about to try again. So she was stuck with the idiot, rude leaders.
“Hey.” Nicolette suddenly stood up looking at Bobby. “You don’t know what I’ve been doing out there, Bobby. You haven’t watched me take care of all the people that just live here. Just because I haven’t saved the leaders yet, I don’t get their respect? I’ve taken care of all of their causalities. I get some damn respect for being one of the only real trained medics at this camp. I may be young, but I paid my dues in these last few months. Just because the idiots that run this place haven’t put themselves in mortal danger doesn’t mean I haven’t done anything. I paid my way through here.” She didn’t mean to snap, but Nicolette felt that she had paid her dues for this camp. She trained other people and struggled for months while people didn’t like being taken care by someone so young. “I don’t mean to go off on you, but I struggled to get anyone to even cooperate with me for awhile and now they respect me. Our fearless leaders and you, Mr. Grumpy Pants, should at least see the amount of respect in that.”
She seemed willing to listen to him, which was a start. Bobby had never demanded that people did or not. If they chose to come to him for advice, he gave it, freely and as often as they wanted, but whether they listened or acted on it was their problem. It was easier to be headstrong and pay for your own mistakes than it was to listen to another’s experience, and Bobby had come to terms with that a long, long, time ago. It was the human condition and one stupid little apocalypse hadn’t changed that. That he’d gotten this far with Nicolette was a good thing but Bobby wasn’t about to start counting all his chickens yet either. Everyone was so headstrong in this camp that he wouldn’t be surprised if she chose to go it alone anyway. For Bobby it had always been a fine balancing act of caring and not caring about the survivors he shared his space with. At once he wanted them all to survive, not only to give Lucifer the middle finger but because everyone deserved their chance, and he also tried not to get too invested with every face he saw because tomorrow they might all be dead and he’d already lost so much that he didn’t know if he could bear the pain of it.
He supposed it was why he’d started to lean on Ellen a bit more as time had passed. “Good. We wouldn’t want to lose ya.” He hoped she followed up on that. And then she went on and he held his hands up in a resigned gesture. “I wasn’t sayin’ that you hadn’t, girl. You’ve done a whole helluva lot for us, and I appreciate that. Everyone does.” He let out a breath. “Just…don’t think that entitles ya’ to anythin’. That’s all I’m sayin’. There’s no free rides here, but you already knew that too. So forget it. Just…just go an’ do whatever you want. I don’t have anythin’ else to offer. You’re valuable, like everybody else here. Whatever else happens, just know that much, even if Dean might not tell you himself. Or Castiel. They’re hardasses, and idjits, but everyone knows that by now. If you can’t live with that than you should learn.” Meandering over to the nearest bottle of whiskey, he picked it up and took a long drag, and then offered her the bottle.
“Or not,” he said, with an easy shrug. He could only do so much. Say the same words over and over and hope they resonated. He drank some more whiskey and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he glanced outside. He was tired. So tired. He wasn’t sure if anything mattered anymore, and the days had started to drag, and the constant threat hanging over all their heads was enough to drive him insane. It hadn’t, yet, but sometimes he wondered if it was inevitable. If he should just go outside and start shooting everyone he saw, because what else was there to do? Who would care? Dean? Castiel? Nah. Ellen? Maybe. But they were all strong, and they’d be strong without him. This girl too, maybe. And everyone else. He crossed his arms and regarded Nicolette, seeing whether she had anything else to say or not.
He hadn’t come off as the most comforting, but there was nothing to be said for that. He couldn’t promise her Dean’s respect any more than he could promise her a rainbow or a unicorn or winning the fucking lottery. All he could do was give her some words and hope they were the right ones.
It’s the end of the world as we know it…: OOC
Good morning everyone,
I figured I’d make a real post rather than stating my OOC stuff in the tags because this might be a bit long.
First of all, thank you for being awesome. I love reading everyone’s story lines when I wake up, it starts my day quite nicely.
Second, I want to apologize if I…
I’m absolutely the same way - this is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this (unless you count a few ‘round robin’ style fics from way back when the X-Files was still popular…yeah, I’m that old!) But I’m relieved that I’m not the only one who’s a little shy about reaching out.
I’m US Central time but I pretty much live online so I’m ALWAYS here, and I also have an internet addiction and a smartphone. :)
I’m glad to read this. I was worried I was the only one who was THAT socially awkward! Lol
Also, The X-Files ruled my childhood!
HUGE X-Phile here. Love love love the show. Gillian Anderson is coming to Toronto for Fan Expo this year and I am so stupidly excited about that I could hyperventilate. :D
Nicolette stared up at Bobby biting the inside of her cheek. She didn’t want to snap at the older gentleman because she knew that he didn’t deserve it at all. She didn’t know why sudden anger boiled in her stomach, but she pushed it down and far away from her. If anyone was going to get it, it was going to be that stupid angel or their stupid fearless leader. She was going to tear those two apart if she saw them before she was ready. “I was just suppose to run in and run out. I’m sorry Bobby. I think I misled them into thinking I could do it alone.” Her eyes went down to her hands as she wrung them together. “I was trying not to inconvenience people. I thought it would take five minutes tops. I wasn’t expecting all those croats or that fucking demon.” Her voice was venom as she spat out the last part of her sentence. She wasn’t going to let the blame of her being on her own falling on anyone else’s shoulders.
Her eyes widened as he pointed in her direction. A small ghost of a smile spread across her lips as she looked at him. She loved the way the older man spoke to people and it almost seemed wrong for her to be smiling in their conversation. Feeling tired, she moved to sit down and continued to listen to him scold the other two men. “I don’t think I do regret it. I just regret having to ever talk to those two idiots. Now I’m stuck in a camp with them.” Her face dropped as she thought about how really small the camp actually was. There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t run into either of them. She would just have to spend her time working and in her cabin. No more time around the campfire at night or out on the weekends.
“I don’t know if that is what I want either.” Her eyes held confusion as she looked up at Bobby again. “Bobby, I honestly don’t know if I can trust them. You have such a different relationship with them. I love watching the three of you together, but it isn’t the same for me. I came into this camp terrified and alone. I put my trust in two people and they resulted to physical altercations to get through to me? No matter what is going on out there, you don’t lay a hand on your friends.” Her voice was quiet as she finished her sentence. “I’ll just stay away from them for now. Unless they come to me, I’m not going to them. But how long can it go on like this, Bobby? I’m their doctor. What if they get injured? All I can see when I look at them are the two guys that took the news so badly, they couldn’t even respect me anymore as a person. I don’t know. I’m just all confused and I just know you know them better than anyone else.”
He rubbed his face tiredly. “You damn fool. First mission out and y’run off like that,” he said, more annoyed than angry at her. “Getting cocky’s what’ll get you killed these days. Bein’ brave is one thing but bein’ stupid’s another. Take it from me, y’never wanna do that again. Not while you’re stayin’ here. You wanna get more medication? Fine. Just make sure you’re not alone. Simple rule. Please tell me you’ll follow it,” he said, still staring at her. It was hard to stay angry at mistakes like that these days. Getting angry was a luxury. If they’d lost her the camp would’ve gone on, one less medic to their advantage, but they would’ve muddled through. She was a valuable commodity but they’d lost so many people by this point they might not have missed her too much. Like he’d felt with Mack he felt with Nicolette - everybody was a potential advantage but every loss was not unique. You mourned, you went on. That was life, and there was no getting around that.
He sighed. “You can’t shut yourself off like that,” he said, seeing in her the beginning of what he’d already given himself into these days. “There’s so few of us left that we can’t go around ignorin’ everybody, even if they are full-blown idjits. You’re allowed t’feel like you do but the key’s cooperation now and y’won’t get that by lookin’ away from everybody that’s pissed you off. They’re leading us whether you, me, or anyone, likes it or not. That demon got into your head with this one. They knew they’d piss Dean and Cas off with what they did to ya’ and that it’d worm its way into your head. A person lost in doubt’s no good to us. You go on second guessin’ every move you make, everybody you talk to, and pretty soon you’ll lock the door an’ never come out again. Doubtin’s easy, trust’s hard.” He tapped the side of his head. “Don’t stop doubtin’, but try trustin’ a little too. Pretty soon, Dean or Cas’ll give you a reason to trust ‘em personally, and when that time comes, you’ll know why you stayed here instead of tryin’ it yourself out there.” This was more talking than Bobby had done in a long time, but it was necessary for the moment, and he watched her evenly as she spoke.
“They’re gonna get injured out there. It’s not a matter of if but a matter of when, and when they get back here, leg broken or stabbed through the stomach, they’ll need to know you’re gonna take care of ‘em. I do too.” He wiped his chin and glanced away briefly, looking at the rest of the camp, and then back to the doubting medic. “And just like I said they’ll give you a reason to trust ‘em, you’ve gotta give ‘em a reason to respect you. You’re new here. They don’t know you. Hell, I don’t know you. Sure you’ve helped a lot of people here but so what? We’ve all helped each other. Until you stand out from the crowd you’re just another face to feed, another body needin’ a bed,” he paused so he could lean in and meet her eyes with his own. “Do your part to the best of your ability. Prove you’re as good at your job as Dean an’ Cas are at theirs. Save somebody from certain death. Save them - our two fearless leaders - from death. Dance a jig. Draw somethin’. Write a novel. I don’t give a rat’s ass what it is you do, as long as you do it. You hear me?” he asked her, entirely serious.
“Jus’ do somethin’.”
