Drinkin the Pain Away {open}

[Deleted]

Damn it all to hell.

The last thing Jessie wanted to do was get her ass kicked by Chey when the younger woman heard about this night. It wasn't a matter of if the sister found out but a when. However, from where Jess was sitting, it was obvious that Ryder was walking that fine line between stupid and stupider. The sad part? Jessie could completely understand the hows and whys of it. Did she know all the gory details of what had gone down for the younger man? Nope. But she figured she knew enough of them to get the broad picture. It wasn't exactly a secret in their small knitted community and Jess had heard enough to feel kinship to the younger hunter.

Sort of, at least. 

Vampires, demons. It was all the same when they cost you the life of someone you loved right? Or made it seem that way when you had to be the one pulling the trigger or doing a quick slice and dice maneuver.

"All right, Crowe.. You want a hunt? We'll hunt. But, fair warning, you go off half cocked and do something stupider than normal.. And you aren't going to have to worry about something else getting to you. I'll put you in a full body cast so that you CAN'T pull anything for awhile. Understood? I love ya, man, but I am NOT going to be the one carrying your obituary notice to your family. Got it?  You want to kill something? You want to beat the shit out of something that needs it? I'm game for that. That is our sacred purpose after all and its what we do. Eventually, we'll meet whatever makers on the other side but lets make a good show before we do it, all right?"

Casting a glance sideways, Jessie eyed her companion before she shook her head. The "kid", yes she could call him that since he was five years younger,  looked haggard and worn and smelled like a brewery. She'd bet a few greenbacks that he hadn't eaten anything in days and slept in longer. Which was gonna have to change. If she had to knock him on the back of the head herself. Sympathy filled her but she hid it behind a sigh. Turning her blue gaze out the front windshield once more, she wasn't surprised to find a slow rain starting to come down. Didn't that just fit the suddenly dreary mood.

"I know, Ry.. I know. Wish I could say it gets easier but fuck if I know. All I know is that if I don't keep moving forward, keep killing the things that hunt us.. Then I'm just playing straight into their hands. Because that is what they want.. They want us to wallow in our grief. To get so lost in it that nothing matters anymore. That we forget the whole reason we fight to begin with and then.. They win. They are winning every time we pick up a bottle.. Every time we jump into a fray without thought for what might happen.. I won't give them that satisfaction. Someday, I'll be laying in that pine box but not without taking as many of the asshats with me as possible. THAT is my purpose now. "

[Ryder James Crowe]

Jessie's words rang with utter truth somewhere in the drunk young man's head but damned if he wanted to hear or heed them. Like her, and many others of their sort, he was born with a gun loaded with rock salt in his hand. A borne hunter. Ryder had known all along that the evil he hunted loved to wound emotionally as well as physically, but at this point he was so far gone he couldn't see his own actions for what they were. A cry for help. A plea for the pain to end. The hunter believed he was doing what he was doing because it was his job. To take out as much evil as he could while he was alive. And no, he wasn't sacrificing himself because he was sad , but because it was his fault things had ended up the way they had and damnit, he had to take the punishment like a man.  It was a good thing Jess had agreed to take him on the hunt or else all that sappy BS would have sent him straight out the window. Literally, not figuratively.  Damn good thing she'd covered up all the 'safety first, I'll kick your ass' bull shit with familiar sarcasm too or else Ry would have just backed out. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Ryder blew her off with another eye roll and took another pull from the bottle. "Listen, I may be drunk but there's no way I can get any stupider...I mean... no way I'm gonna' ...I mean... my cock ain't half nothin'..." The hunter shook his head and sighed in frustration. "Forget it. I've been drunker than this and taken out a whole nest of vampires. By myself. WITH my hands behind my back." Yeah Right. "Just take me to the fuckers and I'll slay 'em. Dragons...vampires....witches...whatever." The bottle he'd been holding up in silent salute came back to his lips for another swallow. "And you can help if you want." Ry had to drag his gaze from a drip on the windshield that had caught his eye and taken it prisoner, twisting in the bucket seat to face Jessie and forcing as serious a look as could be accomplished on the too-youthful visage. "But you can't tell Chey about this. Or Sam. You gotta' promise me you won't dime me out. You never saw me tonight. I'm trying to stay incog...incog....I'm tryin' to just lay low if you know what I mean."