Bliss In Emptiness - Chapter 2 (soulless!Sam/Ruby, NC-17)

[blood_and_pie]

They found a routine, moving from one hunt to the next, stopping only to clean themselves and their weapons. Sam didn't need to sleep, but he had to eat, and piss and do everything else a human had to. His physical needs hadn't gone away. They were all he had left. In most cases he treated them with detached practicality: food was sustenance not pleasure, exercise was a necessity if he wanted to stay at the top of his game-even though Ruby's blood was already making him stronger than he'd ever be on his own. But he had other needs, and they grew stronger the longer they were together.

The regular intake of blood was changing him, just like it had last time. It went from a supplement to a vitamin to a daily requirement. She could see it in the set of his shoulders, the way he squinted in the light, the small flickers of unease running through every inch of him when he waited a little longer than usual. He could tell himself the blood didn't control him all he wanted, and she had no doubt he could ignore the psychological longings it caused in him (assuming he even felt them), but there was a physical aspect to it too. Sam had always hated feeling weak, and even without his soul that was still true. Maybe even more so. He could have cut out the blood altogether, but considering the frequency of their hunts nowadays, his chances of survival would be drastically lower, even with her looking out for him. If he wanted to remain the hunter and not the prey, then he had no choice but to live up to his full demonically fueled potential.

Without his soul, Sam was ruthless. He used his powers without hesitation on anything and everything, wielding them like he'd been born to. She'd thought at first, that he couldn't feel anymore without his soul, but she was wrong. If anything, he seemed to take more pleasure in some things: a hunt that went well, the near-constant strengthening of his abilities. He might not understand the finer points of human emotion anymore, but that didn't mean he couldn't feel pleasure. This Sam was all about sating his hungers as quickly and efficiently as he could. More often than not, they left the motel beds untouched. Neither of them slept, and Sam had taken to fucking her right next to his latest kill. She complained about how hard it was to get blood and ichor out of her hair and clothes, but really more than anything else, she was fascinated. She'd seen demons that took less pleasure in a kill than Sam did.

*******

With the steady rate at which they'd been tracking down things to kill, Ruby thought she'd start to see a decline in the monster population, but instead they were seeing the opposite. There were more monsters than ever, and they were all acting strange. The werewolf shifting out of cycle had been the first sign that the rules were changing, but there were others. Vampires had started killing in broad daylight, and there were nests of them popping up everywhere.

As happy as Sam was about the endless supply of things to kill, she could tell he was confused, too. Something was definitely different. It was like the monsters were all upping their numbers-like they'd had an all-monster convention and come to the unanimous decision to have a population explosion.

One week, Sam and Ruby went through three vampire nests, all within 20 miles of each other. The last one housed eighteen vampires altogether. Sam had kept the last two alive, pinned against the wall, about ten feet apart.

"Your kind was nearly extinct a few years ago," Sam said, as he moved closer to the male vampire. "What changed?"

The vampire laughed bitterly and bared his fangs at Sam, but didn't answer. Blood dripped from his mouth onto his ragged t-shirt, and the cut Ruby had given him across his midsection earlier oozed sluggishly.

"Maybe I should rephrase the question." Sam lifted his hand and brought his fingers together in a fist.

Ruby could hear the vampire's ribs snap one by one as Sam crushed them with his mind.

The vampire's fangs retracted and he panted. "You think I can't take a little pain?"

"I'm sure you can," Sam said, nodding. "In fact, I bet you can take a whole lot." He picked up the small blowtorch Ruby had packed and held it up in front of the vampire's face. With the push of a button, a small blue flame appeared. Sam lowered it towards the vampire's bleeding stomach. The flames took hold of the edges of the torn cotton of the t-shirt, growing larger as the vampire began to scream.

"Tell me what you're planning," Sam repeated.

"Fuck you!" The vampire yelled as the fire reached higher, working its way up his chest.

Sam narrowed his eyes. "Tell me."

His voice was quiet, but heavy with power. Ruby shuddered with it, turning away from Sam to look at the other surviving vampire. She was young, and her blonde hair was streaked with blood. If Ruby was right, she hadn't been a vampire for long at all. She still smelled mostly human.

"You should tell us what you know," Ruby said to her, holding up the Bowie knife she'd borrowed from Sam. She still didn't have her own blade back. Dean had it, according to Sam-quite possibly the only reason she did want to meet up with him again sometime soon. It wasn't just a useful tool, that blade had been a gift to her. It had sentimental value. And it killed like nobody's business. "Sam's not real patient these days."

The smell of burning flesh got stronger and the male vampire's screams got louder, then died out completely. When Ruby turned to look over her shoulder she saw why. He no longer had a head.

Sam was cleaning his bloodied machete. She didn't have a lot of time left with the last survivor.

"Tell us what you know. Anything-even if it doesn't seem important," Ruby said to the frightened monster.

"And you'll let me go?" she asked, hopefully.

"No. But it'll hurt less before you die," Ruby promised.

"I don't- I don't know much. Ron-" The blonde strained against the invisible hold on her body, her head slowly turning to the headless corpse. Her face crumpled. "We met three days ago, and then he told me he could make me live forever. Stay young forever. It sounded like a good idea, I guess."

"There were a lot of others with you."

She nodded. "We're supposed to turn two a week. That's what Ron told us."

Two a week. That wasn't normal behavior for vampires at all. If they followed that plan, they'd be out of food in a matter of months. "Why so many?"

"Because that's what He wants us to do."

"Ron?" Ruby asked.

"No," Sam said, walking up next to her. "Somebody higher up." He stuck his machete into the floor beside him, crouched down and looked the vampire in the eyes. "Tell me about him. Who is he?"

The woman swallowed and kept her mouth closed. Tears started to form in her eyes but she wasn't going to speak.

Ruby let out a sigh. She'd done her good deed for the day. If the vampire was too dumb to take her advice, it wasn't her fault. As expected, Sam pulled out the small torch again. "You know, I got that so we could make Crème Brûlée," Ruby said.

Sam pushed the button on the torch and brought the flame closer and closer to the vampire's cheek. Her skin started to blister, and she opened her mouth to cry out in pain before Sam let go of the button.

"Our- our father. The father of all vampires. He talks to us. Right into our brains."

"What does he tell you?" Sam asked. He started playing with the small torch, turning the grip around in his fingers and never once took his eyes off his target.

"That- that we're at war. That we need to- to multiply." She looked up at Sam. "Please don't kill me. I haven't even-I haven't even hurt anybody, I haven't even had any human blood, just- just Ron's. Please-"

"Tell me where to find your father," Sam said.

She shook her head. "I don't know where…when he talks to us, he's in our heads." She let out a shaky breath. "That's all I know."

"Thank you." Sam picked up his machete again, and stood.

Ruby turned to Sam curiously. She'd expected him to try to pull more information out of the girl by motivating her with pain.

Sam turned, as if to leave, and then swung back around, lopping off the vampire's head. It rolled across the floor and landed by Ruby's boot. "Let's go."

Ruby ran her finger over the stump of the vampire's neck and stared at it thoughtfully.



Sam wasn't happy that night after that hunt, despite the fact that the two of them had taken down eighteen vampires. The little information he'd gotten about the vampire 'father,' was all he was thinking about. Ruby could see it in the set of his jaw. He'd driven in silence for the first five miles.

"Did you get anything from her? Any idea about where we should start looking?" she asked, not sure if Sam had tried to get inside the vampires' heads at all.

"No," Sam snapped as he shifted lanes. "Nothing useful. Glimpses of a face-the father-vamp's face, but that's it." His fingers curled tightly around the steering wheel. "I want to find him, Ruby. If he's who they say, then he's the strongest vampire there is. The oldest." He glanced over to her and his eyes were eager. "We track down every nest, every fang until somebody tells us where he is."

"Okay," Ruby said. "Or…you could find us a motel or an empty shack somewhere, give me a few minutes and I can find him for you. But you know, I don't want to spoil your fun."

Sam stared at her. "You can track him? How?"

"I took some of the vamps' blood. Got a little bit from all eighteen of them. Should be enough to do a pretty good trace on their maker, and his maker, and so forth."

"That's awesome," Sam took the next exit, and threw her what counted for a smile these days. "Really. Good work."

"It's blood-magic, Sam. It's what I do," she said matter-of-factly.

*******

"Vim sanguinis est, sanguis est vita" Ruby said, as she did what the demon had told her to do. She ran her thumb across her father's sweat-slicked forehead, leaving a broad steak of her own blood behind.

Her father groaned softly in his sleep, shifting under the thin blanket. His eyes fluttered a bit, but never opened all the way.

"Sanguis meus ad te, mea vita tua, revenio. Revenio," Ruby said, finishing the mark exactly the way the demon had shown her.

Demon. She'd met a demon today. She'd met a demon and she'd pledged herself to it and to the Devil.

Her father opened his eyes, and smiled at her as the open sores covering his arms and legs all began to close.

*******

Ruby's spell worked just as well as she knew it would, and they hit the road right after Sam finished drinking from her-three times what he normally took. By the time he let go of her arm, his eyes had shifted from hazel to solid black.

The father vampire was in Lansing, Michigan, so they had to drive for fourteen hours. Sam drove nearly the whole stretch, but when they were only three miles away he pulled over and flipped open his pocket knife. "This thing is ancient. I need to be as strong as I can. As strong as I was with Lilith, maybe."

"Help yourself, but it might be smarter to hit the backup supply, don't you think?" She wasn't surprised by his decision, but she was damn curious to see how he'd deal with the after-effects. Coming down was going to a bitch, no matter how stoic he was. "Quicker too, drinking what we've got back there. I've seen you chug whiskey."

"Much quicker." His jaw twitched and he nodded to himself. "And that way I've got you if I need more after we head in." The door swung open as he climbed out and made his way back to the trunk.

Ruby slid into the driver's seat, angled the side mirror so she could see him, and watched him down half a gallon, then the other half. She could feel his power grow, see it undulating under his skin, glowing yellow and black in his veins. When he brought the jug back down, his chest was heaving, he was panting from the rush of the blood, his body temperature and pulse all climbing as they adjusted to the sudden influx. Even without the blinding white glow of his soul, he was beautiful. She'd always thought so, and not just because of the pleasant packaging. Underneath his skin he was something else entirely.

As a demon, she could see Hell and Heaven in others. She could see when someone else was possessed, the demonic soul and human soul both inhabiting the same bodily space. It was always an interesting thing to see how the human souls reacted. Some demons killed the human inside the instant they took over. It was easier that way, certainly, but not recommended. For one thing, in a lot of cases the soul would go straight to Heaven, and giving the Host more power was never advisable. In some cases, the souls were already Hell-bound, and then you'd run the risk of seeing them again at some point. Demons didn't typically forget how they'd died or why, and they never forgave. The human souls nearly always fought back at first. Depending on the strength of the demon it was either a piece of cake to subdue them, or an effort in futility. Some human souls were insanely tenacious.

Sam's soul had been one of the latter. Ruby had heard Meg's stories about when she'd possessed him. She hadn't just put on the binding lock to keep herself in Sam's body, she'd needed it to keep him under.

When Ruby had first met Sam, his soul had been as bright as any human's, brighter even, matched only by Dean's own. The more of her blood Sam drank, the more his soul began to change, the few streaks of yellow from Azazel's blood turning darker and more pronounced as her blood fed his gifts. Now, Sam was empty; he held none of the light he used to, but when he drank from her he still lit up on the inside in all the same places, like his body remembered the contours of its now missing soul and was trying to recreate it. The yellow streaks were still there, and traces of Lucifer's own grace were burnt into him-metaphysical scars that drank in her power and glowed with it-a second network of veins and nerves tailor-made for the Devil's vessel.

When Sam sat back down next to her, this time in the passenger seat, he barely looked human. His eyes were solid black on the outside, and underneath they glowed with dark light, the power spreading through his whole body, pulsing in his veins like a living thing. She pulled back out onto the road, trying her best not to keep looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

It was a good thing Ruby was driving, she decided, when she realized Sam hadn't stopped staring at his hand since he'd gotten back into the car.

"Need a manicure?" she asked.

"I remember this. Having this much power. I used to…it used to make me feel incredible. It made me feel invincible. Like a god."

"What do you feel now?"

"Strong. Really strong. I'll be able to rip that vampire to pieces."

"That's it? It doesn't make you feel good?" she asked curiously. "Or guilty?"

"Why should I feel guilty?"

"You shouldn't. You just- you used to get all kinds of mixed-up from this. Happy, guilty, angry and horny all at the same time."

He shrugged, and smirked. "Maybe a little horny." He rolled down the window and stuck his hand out, playing with the air. "But first we've got the hunt of the year."

Ruby pulled the car further down the dirt road and slowed, shutting off the engine well before they got to their goal.

They took the rest of the stretch by foot and stopped just outside of a large old Victorian house. Sam had his machete, she had her axe.

Ruby could smell the blood the second they got to the front gate. Vampire blood. She held her arm out to hold Sam back. "Somebody beat us here."

"What? Who?" Sam sounded genuinely upset. Likely because whoever it was had picked the same hunt.

"If you shut up maybe we'll find out," she snapped. Remember, Sam, radio silence. She wanted to keep him out of her head as much as possible, but with this kind of prey, silence was a necessity.

Sam pointed towards the side of the house, and Ruby nodded. It was a good idea to scope out the yard anyway, but they'd be much better off finding a side entrance or a window to slip in through. They walked quietly over the beautifully kept lawn but saw no one. Sam crouched by the corner of the house and waited for Ruby to join him. There was a sound to their left, a branch snapping just on the other side of the house. They stood, Sam's hand gripping his machete tightly. Ruby nodded to Sam and they both turned, ready to take down a whole army of vamps if they had to. But instead they saw a small, dark-haired human woman climbing up the rear stairs to the house. She was holding a slim short, blood-stained sword.

"Hunter," Sam whispered.

Captain Obvious, Ruby thought. Let's follow her in. There wasn't any risk if the woman spotted them. Plus she could see by the slight twitch in Sam's lips how badly he wanted to get to the father vampire before anyone else had a chance.

They moved, jogging over to the rear door when suddenly, something leapt down from above them. It moved fast enough to look like a blur, but Ruby spotted the mouthful of shark teeth instantly. The vamp landed between her and Sam, and immediately lunged, its fangs bared at Ruby. She knocked it off course with a blast of energy and looked over to Sam just in time to see two more vamps jump on top of him. Perfect.

Sam let out a snarl and stood right back up, throwing off the two vamps like no human could have. He'd dropped his machete, but didn't seem to care, turning towards the one closest to him with a wicked smile on his face. He flung his arm forward, holding his palm out towards the vampire. It started to choke, clutching weakly at its throat, and for a stunned half-second Ruby thought Sam had figured out how to pull a monster's soul from its body too. And then it's head just popped right off, showering the lawn in blood.

The other vampire took a few shocked steps backwards as Sam turned towards it.

Ruby had nearly forgotten about the third until she saw him running past her, eager to get away-clearly the smartest of the three. But Ruby knew how much Sam hated it when they got away, so she took aim and threw her axe, sinking it into the vampire's shoulder. He slowed but kept limping ahead as she followed him. She was less than a foot away when a shot rang out, followed by another.

The vampire fell to the ground and twitched in pain. He didn't look like he was doing so well. In fact he looked exactly like a vampire dosed with dead-man's blood. The bullets must have been filled with it.

The gun fired again, and Ruby turned towards the sound to see Dean Winchester holding a shotgun. He aimed the gun at her and fired again before she could even react. She stumbled back a few steps from the impact.

"Can't shoot a demon with just any old gun," she said. "Thought you knew better, Dean." She stuck her finger through the hole in her shirt, annoyed. The fabric was warm to the touch.

"Thought you were dead." Dean fired the shotgun again, his face contorted in pure rage.

"Ow!" Ruby yelled. She turned back to see what the hell was keeping Sam, just in time to see him drop the vampire he'd killed. Or rather-the vampire he'd suspended in mid-air and torn into five bloody chunks. It hit the grass in a messy series of thumps as Sam turned to look at her, and then his brother.

"Dean?" Sam's voice was surprised. He walked up next to Ruby and stared at the bullet holes in her shirt, cocking his head to the side. "You okay?"

"Stings a little," she muttered.

Sam turned back to Dean and looked like he was about to say something.

"How'd you get out of your cage, huh?" Dean asked, venom dripping from his voice. "Was it her?"

"I'm not Lucifer," Sam said, taking another step forward.

"Sure you're not." Dean raised his shotgun and aimed it at Sam's face. "I know this won't kill you either, but hopefully it'll get you to shut up."

"Dean, really. It's me- it's Sam."

The older Winchester looked at Sam with cold fury. "Last time I checked, my brother was stuck in the Devil's time-out box." He pulled the pump back on his shotgun, loading another shell. "You're not my brother. My brother would have told me if he'd come back from the dead." He took a few steps closer to Sam but never lowered his gun. "My brother wouldn't have left me thinking his soul was rotting in Hell, if he was really out here on a reunion tour with his demon groupie." Dean threw a glare at Ruby and then focused again immediately on Sam. "Oh yeah, and my brother kills vampires with a sword, not some kinda psychic hacksaw."

"Dean-" Sam said again, raising his hands up in what was probably supposed to be a placating gesture.

The problem of course, was that Dean was right. This Sam wasn't his brother. He didn't even have the emotional depth to placate. "It's complicated," Ruby said.

"You shut your mouth," Dean snarled.

"What the hell's all this?" said an unfamiliar voice from behind them.

Ruby turned around and saw a tall, older, bald man walking towards them holding a machete wet with blood. There were two others trailing behind him. The dark-haired woman from earlier and a blond man. All of them were glaring at her and Sam. Hunters: such a welcoming group.

"Nothing I can't handle," Dean said, never taking his eyes off of Sam.

The older man walked around them, until he was standing next to Dean. He looked from Ruby to Sam, squinted a bit and said, "Call me crazy, but that sure looks a whole lot like the picture of your brother you showed me."

"Well it ain't him," Dean said. "Just haven't figured out what's wearing his face."

Sam rolled his eyes. "You know what, fine? You don't believe me, let me prove it to you. Got some holy water?"

"Holy water wouldn't do a damn thing to the Devil. Pretty sure none of our other tests would work either. So why don't you do us both a favor and shut the hell up while I figure out what to do with you."

Sam looked vaguely offended for a second and then suddenly, purposefully, dropped to his knees and brought his hands up behind his head.

What are you doing? Ruby asked Sam, wondering if he'd lost his sense of judgement along with soul.

Trust me.

Trust you to what? Get us captured?

Exactly.

Awesome. She considered taking down Dean and all the others but then thought better of it. If Sam wanted his little reunion, he could have it. With a resigned sigh she closed her eyes and dropped to her knees in the muddy earth, next to Sam.

Within minutes, they'd been unceremoniously manhandled towards waiting vehicles. Vans, probably. She assumed that's what they were, but wasn't actually sure since they'd been kind enough to cover her head with some kind of demon-binding enchanted sack, so she couldn't disappear or smoke away. Or see. She could still listen, though, and she could still talk to Sam.

By her guess, they were traveling north at around 85 miles an hour. They'd taken Sam to a separate van, and chained him in the back, just like her. Sam was pissed, mostly because he was convinced they'd captured the father vampire, an alpha from what Dean was saying, and were bringing him somewhere else. Three vehicles left the vampires' hideout, but only two were still on the road together now.

Want to blow this moving Popsicle stand? Ruby asked, wondering how big a dent Sam would make in the truck by hurtling one of his captors against it.

No. I want to follow the alpha. They took him, and I want to know where.

You don't think they killed him?

No. I saw them walking him past us to the third van, dosed to the gills with dead man's blood. If they'd wanted him dead they would've done it already.

Unless he can't be killed.

Everything can be killed.

Ruby laughed to herself. Coming from you, that's pretty funny. Especially considering how often you've come back. One of the guards sitting near her must have disliked the motion because he rapped her on the knee with his rifle.

"Aww come on, that was funny," she said.

"Quiet, demon," said a male voice. Possibly the blond one from earlier.

"Are we there yet?" Ruby asked, deciding she was bored. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"None of your business," said the same voice. "Quiet, or I'll give you a holy water bath."

Ruby sighed theatrically and started whistling instead, happy to be getting under their skin. Let them douse her. She'd gone through so much worse, so many times, it might actually feel invigorating.



The water was colder than she'd expected. It was spring, nearly summer and when she did her wash the water always felt warm. Even when she bathed, which she usually did early in the evening, just before the sun went down, the water had been warm. But today it was cold.

"If you float, then you're guilty," the judge had said.

"She's the Devil's bride, 'course she's guilty." Mr. Price said, spitting at her feet as he helped lift her up. They'd tied her hands firmly behind her back, with rough rope that cut into her wrists. She could feel a trickle of blood running into her palm, and thought of eight different spells she could cast of them, all of them backed by the power of her own life-force. She could kill them all without ever moving a muscle.

Instead, she let them throw her into the water. And it was cold.

She sank straight down, pulling herself down towards the rocky floor of the lake with her will. I'd like to see Mr. Price stand trial, she thought to herself. He was more buoyant than the whole rest of the group of her accusers put together.

She studied the rocks on the floor and wondered how long she should stay down. She'd cast a breathing spell on herself hours ago and the water turned to air around her, a tightly wound bubble, encompassing just her head, but enough to keep her safe for hours more. She turned and looked up at the surface, trying to see what the men were doing.

'Bride of the Devil,' she thought. 'Maybe someday.' The demon had taught her a great deal of their god, Lucifer, and she'd taken to praying to him, as her demon did. The prayers were very similar to the ones her father had taught her-the prayers to the god above, who never answered. The difference was that Lucifer answered her. Not always, but enough. She knew his voice and it was beautiful-harp strings and church bells and glass breaking all mixed together. He didn't speak with words, but she understood them nonetheless.

'How long do I wait, father?' she asked. 'And where do I go now? I've overstayed my welcome again.'

There was no answer this time, so either her question wasn't interesting enough for her God, or he was busy with something else.

She started to turn lazily in the water, swimming along the bottom, to cross the floor of the lake. If they were going to make sure she was dead, they'd have already done so by now. Her things were buried on the far side, just inside of the forest, by a thick pine tree. Her strokes were steady and slow, barely moving the water. She didn't want to attract any attention, in case anyone was still watching the lake for signs of her inevitable floating.

The center of the lake was even colder. It felt like ice, and the floor dropped off deeply, so deeply, she decided to stay where she was. She swam faster, suddenly filled with unease. The water beneath her was heavy with silt, and she couldn't see anything past her feet. For just a moment, she thought she saw something move-something long and thin, and impossibly fast.

She blinked, trying to clear her eyes as her hand moved up to her breastbone, searching for the red gem her mother had given her, but of course it wasn't there. She'd buried it, along with the rest of her belongings. Her feet moved faster and kicked as hard as she could, eager to get past the icy center of the lake.

Whatever it was didn't chase her. In fact, after she'd gotten away from the center of the lake she was pretty sure it had never been there at all, not really. She'd caught another glimpse of that other place. It was real, but it wasn't here, it wasn't now.

*******

By the time the van she was in pulled over, her shirt and pants were soaked. They didn't pull the sigil-covered bag off of her head until they were deep inside whatever building they'd gone into. She heard Sam's voice as they pushed her further forward, still calmly trying to reason with Dean, who was well past that point.

They took her to a room far enough away that she couldn't hear Sam anymore, and courtesy of the wards on the walls, she couldn't talk to him with her mind, either. Perfect. She walked to the one lone chair sitting in the center of the room and sat down, turning to smile at her guards-the black haired woman still busy spray-painting a devil's trap around her chair, and the blond man who'd taken position by the side of the door and was watching her like she'd make a break for it at any second.

The circle closed around Ruby. She felt its energies snap shut, circuit completed. The dark-haired hunter stood up and put the cap back on her spray paint can. "You comfy?"

Ruby leaned back in the chair a bit and looked into the woman's eyes, sifting through her thoughts until she found what she was looking for. "Gwen…Campbell, is that right? As in Mary Campbell?"

The woman's face paled. "How'd you know my name?"

"Demons can get into your head, Gwen," said the blond man, still focused entirely on Ruby.

Mark Campbell, Ruby thought. Interesting. "Is everybody here related?"

"None of your business," Gwen said, her fingers curling around the hilt of the knife in her belt-sheath.

"Actually, it kinda is. See, you kidnapped Sam and me, and I want to know why. So either you tell me, or I find out anyway."

"Dean says that's not Sam," Mark said, meeting Ruby's eyes, steadily. Not as much fear in this one, but maybe he just wasn't as smart as Gwen.

"And Dean's never wrong?" Ruby scoffed. "I could tell you stories."

"Or you could shut it," Mark said.

"Or you could get some vocabulary lessons." She crossed her ankles and leaned back further, until the chair tilted back onto its rear legs. She rocked back and forth a few times, tapping the front legs against the floor as loudly as she could.

Even through the devil's trap she felt the subtle shift in the air-the unmistakable, absolute zero of an angel's grace. Castiel was close. She could see the edges of his light from rooms away, brighter than she remembered, but still nowhere near as blinding as Lucifer.

Gwen and Mark hadn't noticed a damn thing. They stood there in silence for minutes that felt like hours.

"You're not gonna ask me any questions? Just gonna stand there and stare? That's lame."

Gwen's brow furrowed like she was considering it. She looked flustered for a second, then met Ruby's eyes again. "I thought Sam was dead."

"He's not."

"So if that's Sam…" Gwen shook her head in confusion. "…then why isn't Dean happy to see him? Sam's all he talks about. He misses him, you can tell."

Ruby considered her words carefully. "Dean doesn't think Sam's himself."

"Is he?" Mark asked.

"If you ask me, he's more himself than he ever was."

There was a sound from outside the door, from far down the hall-somebody yelling, a door slamming.

"One…two…three…" Ruby counted.

The door flew open and Dean walked inside.

Gwen and Mark both turned to him, like they they were awaiting instructions.

"Five minutes," Dean said, his voice low.

Gwen scoffed. "We're not leaving you alone in here. She's-"

"I know what she is," Dean pulled the knife-Ruby's knife-out from his hip-sheath. "I know who she is, and we need to have a nice private chat. Don't we, Ruby?"

Ruby smiled sweetly, eyeing her knife. "Aww...you even saved my stuff. What a prince."

Mark threw Gwen a look, and they stepped out of the room.

Dean walked across the floor until he was standing right in front of her chair, his feet less than an inch from the tips of her boots. He smiled down at her for a few seconds. The coldness and sheer hatred in his eyes would probably have scared most people. Then again, she wasn't people. "How'd you do it?" he asked.

"Do what?"

"You know what. How'd you get Sam out of the cage without his soul?"

"Is that what Castiel told you?" she asked. "Weird. That might be the first time a demon and an angel came to the same conclusion."

"You gonna tell me, or do I have to get creative?"

She shrugged. "All I did was stop his fall."

"Yeah? How? You were dead. I ran you through." He held up her knife. "With this- which last time I checked, kills demons dead. Or let me guess- you lied about being a regular demon, too."

"You killed me. You ran me through, with my own knife, right after Sam freed Lucifer. I died." She bit her lip, trying to decide how much to tell him. "But Lucifer brought me back."

Dean's face twisted in fury. "Little reward for being his number one bitch?"

"Something like that."

"Yeah? And then what- you just hung around for a year with your thumb up your ass while Sam and I fought with the angels and Crowley and the friggin' Horsemen of the Apocalypse?"

"You almost sound pissed that I didn't help you. Thought you wanted me dead," Ruby said, meeting Dean's eyes. "Make up your mind."

Quick as a human could move, Dean was on her, enchanted blade pressed right into her throat. He pushed forward, just enough to draw a few drops of blood. "I want you to stay dead."


"We all have a problem with that part, don't we Dean?" She smirked. "I mean between you, me and Sam...we should start a club."

Dean made a noise back deep in his throat. Not quite a growl, but angry enough to feel like one. "What do you want with Sam? What did you do to him? And so help me if you say 'nothing,' I will push this all the way through your scrawny little neck."

Well then. She took a breath and answered quietly. "Blame me all you want, but I only want what's best for him."

The blade pushed deeper into her skin and she felt a trickle of blood run down the left side of her neck, pooling in her collarbone. Dean leaned closer, his breath hot against the side of her face. "You are poison. You are the first thing that has ever come between us, and I'm not gonna let that happen again. So, before I cut through your vocal chords, I'm gonna ask you one last time: What did you do to him?"

"I stopped him from falling. Literally. He was falling into the cage and-"

"You weren't anywhere near Stull! I was there. I was right there until the last damn second, not you. You were dead."

"I wasn't in Stull, Dean. I was in Hell. Right above the cage. The first thing I saw after 120 years of solitary was Sam falling towards me. I grabbed him, I pulled us to safety, and here we are."

"No. That's not Sam. Maybe you grabbed his body, maybe you're keeping it going somehow, but that is not Sam. His soul is still down there, isn't it?" Dean looked exhausted with the last question, the anger in him wilting in the face of the truth.

As much as she liked to tease Dean when he was pissing her off, he was actually damn perceptive when it came to All Things Sam. "Did you really think he'd be able to throw Lucifer back in the cage without paying a price?"

"You've got five more seconds to tell me what you know." Dean pulled the knife back away from her throat and brought the blood-stained tip to the palm of his other hand. "Or I'll see if I can make death stick this time. I doubt Lucifer can bring you back again when he's locked up tight."

Ruby considered that for a moment. Dean would kill her without hesitation once he decided he was done with her. Sam wouldn't care if she died. Well, he'd be annoyed at the loss of his conveniently self-replenishing blood supply. Maybe. The worst part was that Dean was right. Lucifer couldn't bring her back. Even His power couldn't help her from within the cage.

"Sam's here and Sam's in the cage with Lucifer," she said, finally. Even if Dean knew the truth, it wasn't like he could do anything about it. No angel was strong enough or stupid enough to try to break into Lucifer's cage, and just trying to get Sam out would risk releasing Lucifer. "He split in two."

"Excuse you?"

"He split. In two. I caught Sam when he fell, but Lucifer was holding onto Sam's soul."

"So Sam's still in Hell? In the cage?" Dean's jaw twitched, and he swallowed, trying to bury his sorrow behind his anger.

"And…he's here. Not the Sam you grew up with maybe, but this is him, too. I know Sam, I know what-" Her hand flew up just in time to grab Dean's wrist and keep the blade from plunging into her throat.

"You don't know him," Dean growled out as she pushed him back, using her demonic strength. He staggered back, foot sliding across the still wet border of the devil's trap. The outer ring smudged and Ruby could feel the prickly energy of the circle disappear.

Using the raw power of her mind, Ruby slammed Dean against the wall, hard enough that he dropped her knife. She crossed the room and crouched down to pick it up. Her fingers closed around the familiar handle and she smiled as she brought its tip right to Dean's belly. "I missed this knife. You know what I had to do to get this made?"

"Something horrible, hopefully."

"Only one other person ever had the balls to take it from me before you. Want to guess who?"

The door slammed open and Gwen stuck her head in. "Dean, he--" She caught sight of Ruby and where her knife was and rushed towards her.

Ruby dodged Gwen's attack, moving away from Dean towards the center of the room, the familiar weight of the magical dagger in her hand making her eager for more bloodshed. Gwen looked like she could handle herself, but it wasn't exactly a fair fight.

"How's Sam?" Ruby asked, as she lunged towards Gwen's side, wrapping her arm quickly around the other woman's neck.

"Little thirsty," Sam said from the door. He looked from Gwen and Ruby to where Dean was pinned against the wall and scoffed. "I thought I was in the fun room." His lip bled when he smiled, and his right eye looked noticeably swollen.

"Samuel!" Dean yelled out, pulling against Ruby's invisible hold hard enough to lift his arm an inch from the wall. "Christian!"

"You okay?" Ruby asked Sam, while Gwen twisted against her hold.

"Fine." Sam's eyes fell on Ruby's neck, still streaked with blood. Let my brother go.

Dean dropped from the wall and landed on the floor like only someone who'd had a lot of practice with being telekinetically pinned could have.

Sam tore his eyes away from Ruby's bleeding throat and turned to Dean, closing the distance between them in three long-legged strides. "Our grandfather's got a hell of a right hook."

Dean looked up at Sam's eye and a flash of worry crossed his face. Ruby could see him reminding himself that he wasn't looking at Sam as his lips curved back into that pissy little smirk he had when he was trying to hide his other emotions. "So does Christian."

"Christian," Sam said, nodding. "He's a relative too, right?"

"Cousin. Like Gwen." Dean's eyes flicked over to her. "Let her go, Ruby."

"Huh," Sam looked over his shoulder at Ruby, who shrugged and let go of Gwen.

Gwen stood still for a moment and then ran out of the door, probably to go check on the others.

Sam watched her leave, and turned back to Dean. "Didn't know we let our cousins get possessed."

"What?" Dean's brow furrowed and he looked at the door. "You mean Gwen?"

"No. Christian." Sam said, running his thumb over the cut in his lip.

"Christian's just a dick sometimes," Dean snapped. "Doesn't mean he's possessed."

"Not anymore. I took care of it." Sam cocked his head to the side, studying Dean. "You're serious, you didn't know?"

The tips of Dean's ears turned pink with anger, but he said nothing, just clenched his left fist while glaring at Ruby.

"Have you ever seen him cross a devil's trap?" Ruby asked. "You know, I was wondering why the wards you had on your thresholds here were so shitty, especially with this many hunters under one roof, but now it all makes sense." She had a thought then, but it was nearly too ludicrous to voice. "Castiel was here..."

Sam nodded. "Have to say that was the first time I've ever had an angel stick his hand into me without permission."

Ruby snorted.

Sam turned back to Dean. "But he found what he was looking for, didn't he?"

"No, what he didn't find was your soul. Which means you don't have one, which means my brother is still in Hell. So why am I still talking to you?" Dean said, his voice starting to shift from anger to resignation.

"Because I'm him, too. Whether you like it or not." Sam said simply.

"You're nothing like him," Dean said. He turned and started to head for the door.

"That's it? you're just gonna let me go?" Sam asked. He sounded genuinely surprised.

"You're working with a demon," Dean said, his back still turned to them.

"So were you," Ruby said, watching Dean leave the room.

He still is, he just doesn't know it, Sam told her as they followed him out the door and stopped to look left and right, trying to find the closest exit. I took out the demon that was possessing Christian, but I squeezed him a little first.

Anything good ? Ruby led the way down the hall to the left, listening for the voices of the remaining hunters. From the sound of it, they'd all gathered together in one of the bigger rooms now far behind them.

I made him show me where they took the alpha vamp.

You saw where? Ruby grinned at him.The exact location?

Evergreen, Montana. They've been bringing all kinds of monsters there. At least a dozen have been alphas.

"Damn," Ruby said as they stepped outside. " Nicely done. Don't suppose you got him to tell you who's on the receiving end? Whose orchestrating all this?"

Sam smirked at her. "You get three guesses."

*******

"Crowley?" the trapped demon said, incredulously.

"You got wax in your ears, Meg?" Ruby asked, locking eyes with the demon across from her. "Thought you were one of the smarter ones."

"Well, compared to you two...that's not hard," Meg said, rolling her eyes.

"What makes you think I want to go anywhere near him?" Meg asked, her eyes shifting nervously to Sam. "I'm high enough on his hit-list already."

"Why?" Sam asked. "For trying to kill my brother and me? For killing Ellen & Jo?"

"For serving Lucifer, genius," Meg snapped. "Crowley's not a big fan of us loyalists."

Sam laughed.

"What's so funny?" Meg's eyes narrowed. "And what the hell's going on with you anyway? Where is your brother. He just let you run off with this bitch?"

"Watch it, sister," Ruby said, her voice tinged with amusement.

"I'm not your sister. Bitch." Meg said, smiling through her teeth. "How'd you get back on the marble anyway? Thought Dean killed you."

"He did. Lucifer brought me back," Ruby said.

Meg paled, just a little, and her mouth pursed. "Is that a fact?"

"Lucifer wants me by Sam's side, wants me to make sure I keep him on the right path until he's free again. So…help us. Help us take down Crowley. Help us take the usurper off the throne."

Meg swallowed, her mask of ambivalence starting to crack. "How are you going to break the seals again? Lilith is dead."

Ruby had been wondering the same thing for weeks now. "There's always a way." She thought about how strong Sam had gotten last time around, when his morals were still clashing with his powers every step of the way, thought about how easily he was wielding them now, and about how she barely had to talk him into stepping up his game. "If we can't unlock the door, we'll just have to blast it open."

Meg cocked an eyebrow. "How are we gonna do that?

"We aren't doing anything," Sam said, taking a few steps closer. "I know you, what you are, how you turn two-timing into a sport."

"Really? You're gonna lecture me? And Ruby's what-mother Teresa?" Meg scoffed.

"Ruby's loyal. She did everything she had to do to free her god, and that's exactly what she's doing now." Sam glanced at Ruby and nodded. "She does whatever she has to to reach her goal. I can respect that."

If she hadn't had weeks of acclimation behind her, Ruby would have choked on her own spit. Having Sam by her side again was one thing, but to hear him support her out loud was another.

"Of course, there's no way I'll let Lucifer in again, and if it comes down to it, I'll kill Ruby to keep that from happening," Sam added.

That was more like what she'd expected. "Thanks."

"But you're okay with us setting him free again?" Meg asked incredulously.

"I don't like Crowley." Sam smirked. "I want to know why he's been collecting monsters, and then I want him gone."

"And then?" Meg asked.

"Then you can do whatever you want with Hell," Sam said, meeting Meg's eyes.

*******