A Race Around the Earth, Sam and Ruby gen, R
A Race Around the Earth
Sam, Ruby, gen. Mild 4x01 spoilers. 2200 words, R.
Title from the Peter and the Wolf song of the same name.
"Hey," Sam says. "Strike a pose."
Ruby tries to glare around the gag. It's hard, with the way the blood is running into her eyes. The camera, an old-style Polaroid, flashes and then clicks. Sam drops the picture on the floor, careless of the way it's crushed under his boot when he steps forward.
He tugs the holy-water soaked rag out of her mouth until it dangles around her neck, tied at the back.
"You've got some new tricks, Sam," Ruby says, tongue and gums scalded from the burn of the holy water. "Been busy, I guess." He's starting to look angry, lips tightening, and she talks faster. "Not much else to do since your brother is off being-"
That's as far as she gets before he backhands her across the face. She stays to that side, neck strained at an uncomfortable angle, looking up at him from under bloody lashes.
He meets her eyes for a moment, then brings the camera up and takes another picture of her face, not bothering to look through the hole. It drops down to the floor with the others.
"This why you brought me back?" Ruby says, "A little modeling session? Taking up photography in your retirement?"
"I found it in the trunk," Sam says. He tosses it against a wall, doesn't flinch at the way it cracks into pieces.
Ruby meets his eyes, and doesn't look away.
"Let's go," he says, scuffing out the marks trapping her inside the circle in which he had summoned her back from where she'd been enjoying Lilith's hospitality- that is to say, having her eyeballs pierced.
"It's not the same body," she says, rolling her shoulders, getting comfortable as she follows him out.
"It's close."
"Just saying."
---
When she gets a chance to look at a newspaper, she realizes it's only sixteen days that Sam's been without his brother. The follow-up story about the fires still burning in New Harmony, Indiana, is buried on page five.
Ruby folds the paper so that the story is clearly showing, then shoves it towards Sam. He's staring down at his plate, chewing methodically. She's pretty sure he's forgotten she's there.
"So," she starts, tripping the passing waitress just for kicks. Her stupid paisley apron flies up. "You've picked up more than a few tricks, I see. This doesn't really look like a gas-and-match job."
"I haven't been able to do it again," Sam says. "You have to teach me."
"Oh no. I'm done with Winchesters." Ruby throws her hands in the air. "I've learned my lesson. Don't meddle in the affairs of giants and all."
Sam puts down his fork, ignoring the small clink as he rests it against his plate. "You're going to teach me."
"Right," Ruby says. She stands, takes the knife from the side of her plate, and jams it through the top of Sam's hand, pinning it to the table. The waitress, still picking shards of glass off the floor, drops them all and jerks backwards, silently scrabbling to get away. Ruby walks out as the screaming starts.
She's almost to the state border, driving a sedan she borrowed from a man she left hogtied by the side of the road, when she doubles over in pain, slamming her head into the steering wheel. The thing is, it's not her physical body that's hurting- no demon really notices that shit. It's more, it's her, fuck- she runs off the road.
When it eases up four hours later, she's face first in a pile of dry leaves and Sam is standing over her. He's got strips of paisley bound around his hand, bloody in a dark patch in the middle.
"Ready?" Sam asks.
"You missed your chance," Ruby says, spitting blood. "He's already gone, Sam, and you're never gonna get him back while Hell's got its hands on him."
The agony comes back with a vengeance, so much that she hardly feels his boot on her face.
When it stops, she drags herself to her feet, and lands a solid punch right into his jaw.
His head snaps back, looking down at her, blankly unemotional. "Ready?" Sam asks, fingering the spot where he'll have a bruise tomorrow.
Ruby can feel her shoulders slump. "Yeah," she says. "So, nine deaths in Indiana."
"They were already dead," Sam starts towards the road, leaving behind the mangled wreck of the car she'd stolen.
"You sure?" Ruby says. "Because people have lived through demonic possessions before, you know. Remember? You used to save them?"
"They were dead," Sam says, and keeps walking.
---
It wasn't like Sam was exactly chatty before, but now it's just monosyllables and grunts. Ruby spends most of her time being extremely petty to the people Sam lets her around- hotel clerks and bookstore owners and lots of waitresses.
The first time she thinks to take her clothes off, she discovers a giant, gaping wound where her heart should be, claw marks across this body's belly and thighs.
She pokes her head out of the bathroom, still naked. "Where did you say you got this body, again?" Ruby shouts to Sam, buried in a newspaper. She has to ask twice more before he looks up.
""Oh," Sam says. "Yeah, she got mauled, or something. I don't know."
"What, did you steal her from a morgue?"
Sam looks cold, blank, bored, like he can't understand why she'd be asking these things.
"You know most, like, mountain lions or whatever don't actually aim neatly for the heart, right?" Ruby says pointedly.
"I know."
"So did you finish the case?"
Sam just keeps on staring ahead, then goes back to his newspaper. Ruby guesses that means the conversation's over.
---
"Open your eyes."
"Why?" asks Sam, blinking.
"You think kickstarting your demon powers is about focusing on your inner self?" Ruby says, absently chopping off bits of this body's long, brown hair with one of Sam's knives.
"So it's-"
"Straightening out your chi?" Ruby cuts him off, amused. "All that New Agey bullshit? I thought you knew more than that, Sam."
She stops laughing, at least outwardly, before his frown turns into something more serious. Sam's got a quick temper these days, and even if she pretends she can piss him off all she wants, Ruby can feel the leash around her neck.
"Okay," Sam says, fighting for patience. "My eyes are open. Now what?"
Now what is a good question- fuck if Ruby knows what to do. Does she look like some kid poisoned with demon blood? She was just kind of hoping to distract Sam long enough to let his brother go without some stupid, last-stand martyr cowboy crap.
Dean was always a lost cause. She just needed Sam in the game long enough for him to figure it out for himself.
"Now tell me what you did to Lilith," Ruby says.
Sam jerks back a little, like he's still got enough naiveity in him to be surprised by anything she throws at him. Two days ago, he had walked right past a mugging, buried in a book- the guy's muffled, choked whimpers not loud enough to draw Sam's attention.
Sam's still got a few lines to cross, but not that many.
"I don't know," Sam says, looking out the motel room window and onto the dark street.
"'Cause I have to say, I was a little surprised to see your face around. And still- you know, a face."
"I don't know," Sam insists, looking grim.
"Fine," Ruby says, and starts making up things. If he believes she can teach him jack shit, he's an idiot, but he's got enough faith in her. He'll figure it out himself. Just has to pull enough switches in his brain.
---
"You know what," Ruby says, one night when she's trapped in yet another hotel room, playing with a tattered deck of cards she found in the nightstand. It's missing half the cards.
"If you're waiting for me to ask-" Sam warns, almost smiling, eyes still blank.
"You know what? I really thought you'd just go with the old Winchester standby."
Sam closes his book, leaving his index finger in to mark his place, but stays silent.
"You know, crossroads, picture, some mumbo jumbo. That whole shebang." He's staring out at the street, face lit up in flashes by the passing cars.
"I mean- I don't want to pick between you two crazy kids, but he did throw his soul on the line for you, right?"
"I couldn't-" Sam interrupts, hand pressing through his thin shirt onto on the amulet he's started wearing. Dean's amulet.
Ruby kicks her feet up as she shuffles. "Ah. They wouldn't take your calls."
"No," Sam says, cold, and turns back to his book.
"Not a bad decision on their part," she says, dealing out another game of solitaire. "You Winchesters aren't really known for keeping your deals." He doesn't reply, copying a symbol out into his father's notebook.
He may be able to keep her trapped, but that doesn't mean she can't have herself a little fun picking at all those big, gaping wounds, getting older but still not scabbing over.
"Still, it's kind of sad, thinking about his little puppy-dog face waiting for you to swoop in and save the day. Those big eyes, full of trust and love-"
"You want to know why I brought you back?" Sam says, hand on her throat, choking off her final words. He moves fast, these days.
He pulls back far enough to let her scrape out a few words, past this body's bruised larynx, painful vocal cords. "Why, Sam?" Ruby says, tilting as far as he'll let her go, a sad pastiche of curiosity.
"Because I-"
"No, wait, I understand-"
"Ruby-"
"You needed a sidekick, someone to jump-"
"I needed help-"
"-when you said jump, a new puppy to follow you around and lick your boots, because you didn't treat your last one so good and now he's-"
Sam's hand around her throat again cuts her off. "SHUT UP," he says, breath hot in her face, fingers tightening. "Just- stop fucking talking-"
She wants to snap back, wants to rub his face in his brother's death, throw his guilt back at him, but she can't talk through the crushing pressure.
"Glare at me all you like, princess," and the way he spits it out around a sneer makes the word sound just like his brother's low, "bitch."
"Let go of me," she bites out, and he does, hesitating another minute. She can practically feel the way he's enjoying the feel of her neck in his palm.
He retreats back to his chair by the window, pulling the book onto his lap. Ruby rubs at her neck.
"You know what I haven't asked you, though?"
Sam huffs out a sigh, like he's tired of her questions, irritated now instead of furious.
"How do you keep me on this leash?"
"Hah," he says pointedly, and goes outside, probably to try another contact.
---
"It's going to work," Sam says, stony, and Ruby just crosses her arms and keeps back. Who knows, maybe he'll make this Hail Mary pass. It's not like the Winchesters haven't pulled last minute saves out of their asses before.
Nobody's got real far underestimating them yet, at least.
Sam's chanting now, bare-chested, as Ruby picks at her nails. Ugh, waitress blood. Sam's gotten so sloppy lately, barely watching her. Whatever, she'd left her alive, anyway.
"Okay," he says, standing back. "Now do it."
When he holds out the knife, his hand stays on the handle a little too long.
"C'mon, Sam, you can trust me," Ruby says. And he probably can. She's pretty much stuck on his side, at this point.
He's barely starting nodding, eyes closed, ready and waiting, before she slices the cross right over his heart, a little deeper than necessary.
---
Sam's screaming, kicking at the walls of the church, blood still dripping down his chest. Ruby's more interested in what he did with that demon, but she does take a minute to enjoy the way he's grieving.
"Sam," Ruby calls, shaking on a concerned face, pulling him toward her, going down with him as he drops to his knees. "C'mon, Sam, it's fine-"
"It's like those all those months back with him were just a dream, you know? And now I'm back to-" It's the longest sentence she's heard him say since he brought her back, like he can't keep it trapped any more. He's staring off, away from her.
"Hell," Ruby finishes for him.
"Yeah," Sam says, choked. "Yeah."
Ruby slips her knife back into her boot. There's plenty of time. He's pathetic.
Sam says, tears starting to roll, "I just can't be without- and I don't know what else to do-"
"It's okay," Ruby says.
Sam covers his face with one big, human hand.
"Sam," she says, pulls his hand away, looks him straight in the eyes, and lies, "It's going to be okay. You're going to get your brother back."
"I am," he says, almost a question.
"You are," Ruby affirms, smiling wide, letting all her teeth show. "And I'm going to be here to help, Sam."
Sam, Ruby, gen. Mild 4x01 spoilers. 2200 words, R.
Title from the Peter and the Wolf song of the same name.
"Hey," Sam says. "Strike a pose."
Ruby tries to glare around the gag. It's hard, with the way the blood is running into her eyes. The camera, an old-style Polaroid, flashes and then clicks. Sam drops the picture on the floor, careless of the way it's crushed under his boot when he steps forward.
He tugs the holy-water soaked rag out of her mouth until it dangles around her neck, tied at the back.
"You've got some new tricks, Sam," Ruby says, tongue and gums scalded from the burn of the holy water. "Been busy, I guess." He's starting to look angry, lips tightening, and she talks faster. "Not much else to do since your brother is off being-"
That's as far as she gets before he backhands her across the face. She stays to that side, neck strained at an uncomfortable angle, looking up at him from under bloody lashes.
He meets her eyes for a moment, then brings the camera up and takes another picture of her face, not bothering to look through the hole. It drops down to the floor with the others.
"This why you brought me back?" Ruby says, "A little modeling session? Taking up photography in your retirement?"
"I found it in the trunk," Sam says. He tosses it against a wall, doesn't flinch at the way it cracks into pieces.
Ruby meets his eyes, and doesn't look away.
"Let's go," he says, scuffing out the marks trapping her inside the circle in which he had summoned her back from where she'd been enjoying Lilith's hospitality- that is to say, having her eyeballs pierced.
"It's not the same body," she says, rolling her shoulders, getting comfortable as she follows him out.
"It's close."
"Just saying."
---
When she gets a chance to look at a newspaper, she realizes it's only sixteen days that Sam's been without his brother. The follow-up story about the fires still burning in New Harmony, Indiana, is buried on page five.
Ruby folds the paper so that the story is clearly showing, then shoves it towards Sam. He's staring down at his plate, chewing methodically. She's pretty sure he's forgotten she's there.
"So," she starts, tripping the passing waitress just for kicks. Her stupid paisley apron flies up. "You've picked up more than a few tricks, I see. This doesn't really look like a gas-and-match job."
"I haven't been able to do it again," Sam says. "You have to teach me."
"Oh no. I'm done with Winchesters." Ruby throws her hands in the air. "I've learned my lesson. Don't meddle in the affairs of giants and all."
Sam puts down his fork, ignoring the small clink as he rests it against his plate. "You're going to teach me."
"Right," Ruby says. She stands, takes the knife from the side of her plate, and jams it through the top of Sam's hand, pinning it to the table. The waitress, still picking shards of glass off the floor, drops them all and jerks backwards, silently scrabbling to get away. Ruby walks out as the screaming starts.
She's almost to the state border, driving a sedan she borrowed from a man she left hogtied by the side of the road, when she doubles over in pain, slamming her head into the steering wheel. The thing is, it's not her physical body that's hurting- no demon really notices that shit. It's more, it's her, fuck- she runs off the road.
When it eases up four hours later, she's face first in a pile of dry leaves and Sam is standing over her. He's got strips of paisley bound around his hand, bloody in a dark patch in the middle.
"Ready?" Sam asks.
"You missed your chance," Ruby says, spitting blood. "He's already gone, Sam, and you're never gonna get him back while Hell's got its hands on him."
The agony comes back with a vengeance, so much that she hardly feels his boot on her face.
When it stops, she drags herself to her feet, and lands a solid punch right into his jaw.
His head snaps back, looking down at her, blankly unemotional. "Ready?" Sam asks, fingering the spot where he'll have a bruise tomorrow.
Ruby can feel her shoulders slump. "Yeah," she says. "So, nine deaths in Indiana."
"They were already dead," Sam starts towards the road, leaving behind the mangled wreck of the car she'd stolen.
"You sure?" Ruby says. "Because people have lived through demonic possessions before, you know. Remember? You used to save them?"
"They were dead," Sam says, and keeps walking.
---
It wasn't like Sam was exactly chatty before, but now it's just monosyllables and grunts. Ruby spends most of her time being extremely petty to the people Sam lets her around- hotel clerks and bookstore owners and lots of waitresses.
The first time she thinks to take her clothes off, she discovers a giant, gaping wound where her heart should be, claw marks across this body's belly and thighs.
She pokes her head out of the bathroom, still naked. "Where did you say you got this body, again?" Ruby shouts to Sam, buried in a newspaper. She has to ask twice more before he looks up.
""Oh," Sam says. "Yeah, she got mauled, or something. I don't know."
"What, did you steal her from a morgue?"
Sam looks cold, blank, bored, like he can't understand why she'd be asking these things.
"You know most, like, mountain lions or whatever don't actually aim neatly for the heart, right?" Ruby says pointedly.
"I know."
"So did you finish the case?"
Sam just keeps on staring ahead, then goes back to his newspaper. Ruby guesses that means the conversation's over.
---
"Open your eyes."
"Why?" asks Sam, blinking.
"You think kickstarting your demon powers is about focusing on your inner self?" Ruby says, absently chopping off bits of this body's long, brown hair with one of Sam's knives.
"So it's-"
"Straightening out your chi?" Ruby cuts him off, amused. "All that New Agey bullshit? I thought you knew more than that, Sam."
She stops laughing, at least outwardly, before his frown turns into something more serious. Sam's got a quick temper these days, and even if she pretends she can piss him off all she wants, Ruby can feel the leash around her neck.
"Okay," Sam says, fighting for patience. "My eyes are open. Now what?"
Now what is a good question- fuck if Ruby knows what to do. Does she look like some kid poisoned with demon blood? She was just kind of hoping to distract Sam long enough to let his brother go without some stupid, last-stand martyr cowboy crap.
Dean was always a lost cause. She just needed Sam in the game long enough for him to figure it out for himself.
"Now tell me what you did to Lilith," Ruby says.
Sam jerks back a little, like he's still got enough naiveity in him to be surprised by anything she throws at him. Two days ago, he had walked right past a mugging, buried in a book- the guy's muffled, choked whimpers not loud enough to draw Sam's attention.
Sam's still got a few lines to cross, but not that many.
"I don't know," Sam says, looking out the motel room window and onto the dark street.
"'Cause I have to say, I was a little surprised to see your face around. And still- you know, a face."
"I don't know," Sam insists, looking grim.
"Fine," Ruby says, and starts making up things. If he believes she can teach him jack shit, he's an idiot, but he's got enough faith in her. He'll figure it out himself. Just has to pull enough switches in his brain.
---
"You know what," Ruby says, one night when she's trapped in yet another hotel room, playing with a tattered deck of cards she found in the nightstand. It's missing half the cards.
"If you're waiting for me to ask-" Sam warns, almost smiling, eyes still blank.
"You know what? I really thought you'd just go with the old Winchester standby."
Sam closes his book, leaving his index finger in to mark his place, but stays silent.
"You know, crossroads, picture, some mumbo jumbo. That whole shebang." He's staring out at the street, face lit up in flashes by the passing cars.
"I mean- I don't want to pick between you two crazy kids, but he did throw his soul on the line for you, right?"
"I couldn't-" Sam interrupts, hand pressing through his thin shirt onto on the amulet he's started wearing. Dean's amulet.
Ruby kicks her feet up as she shuffles. "Ah. They wouldn't take your calls."
"No," Sam says, cold, and turns back to his book.
"Not a bad decision on their part," she says, dealing out another game of solitaire. "You Winchesters aren't really known for keeping your deals." He doesn't reply, copying a symbol out into his father's notebook.
He may be able to keep her trapped, but that doesn't mean she can't have herself a little fun picking at all those big, gaping wounds, getting older but still not scabbing over.
"Still, it's kind of sad, thinking about his little puppy-dog face waiting for you to swoop in and save the day. Those big eyes, full of trust and love-"
"You want to know why I brought you back?" Sam says, hand on her throat, choking off her final words. He moves fast, these days.
He pulls back far enough to let her scrape out a few words, past this body's bruised larynx, painful vocal cords. "Why, Sam?" Ruby says, tilting as far as he'll let her go, a sad pastiche of curiosity.
"Because I-"
"No, wait, I understand-"
"Ruby-"
"You needed a sidekick, someone to jump-"
"I needed help-"
"-when you said jump, a new puppy to follow you around and lick your boots, because you didn't treat your last one so good and now he's-"
Sam's hand around her throat again cuts her off. "SHUT UP," he says, breath hot in her face, fingers tightening. "Just- stop fucking talking-"
She wants to snap back, wants to rub his face in his brother's death, throw his guilt back at him, but she can't talk through the crushing pressure.
"Glare at me all you like, princess," and the way he spits it out around a sneer makes the word sound just like his brother's low, "bitch."
"Let go of me," she bites out, and he does, hesitating another minute. She can practically feel the way he's enjoying the feel of her neck in his palm.
He retreats back to his chair by the window, pulling the book onto his lap. Ruby rubs at her neck.
"You know what I haven't asked you, though?"
Sam huffs out a sigh, like he's tired of her questions, irritated now instead of furious.
"How do you keep me on this leash?"
"Hah," he says pointedly, and goes outside, probably to try another contact.
---
"It's going to work," Sam says, stony, and Ruby just crosses her arms and keeps back. Who knows, maybe he'll make this Hail Mary pass. It's not like the Winchesters haven't pulled last minute saves out of their asses before.
Nobody's got real far underestimating them yet, at least.
Sam's chanting now, bare-chested, as Ruby picks at her nails. Ugh, waitress blood. Sam's gotten so sloppy lately, barely watching her. Whatever, she'd left her alive, anyway.
"Okay," he says, standing back. "Now do it."
When he holds out the knife, his hand stays on the handle a little too long.
"C'mon, Sam, you can trust me," Ruby says. And he probably can. She's pretty much stuck on his side, at this point.
He's barely starting nodding, eyes closed, ready and waiting, before she slices the cross right over his heart, a little deeper than necessary.
---
Sam's screaming, kicking at the walls of the church, blood still dripping down his chest. Ruby's more interested in what he did with that demon, but she does take a minute to enjoy the way he's grieving.
"Sam," Ruby calls, shaking on a concerned face, pulling him toward her, going down with him as he drops to his knees. "C'mon, Sam, it's fine-"
"It's like those all those months back with him were just a dream, you know? And now I'm back to-" It's the longest sentence she's heard him say since he brought her back, like he can't keep it trapped any more. He's staring off, away from her.
"Hell," Ruby finishes for him.
"Yeah," Sam says, choked. "Yeah."
Ruby slips her knife back into her boot. There's plenty of time. He's pathetic.
Sam says, tears starting to roll, "I just can't be without- and I don't know what else to do-"
"It's okay," Ruby says.
Sam covers his face with one big, human hand.
"Sam," she says, pulls his hand away, looks him straight in the eyes, and lies, "It's going to be okay. You're going to get your brother back."
"I am," he says, almost a question.
"You are," Ruby affirms, smiling wide, letting all her teeth show. "And I'm going to be here to help, Sam."