fic: The Waiting Unknown
title: The Waiting Unknown
pairing: Dean/Ruby, Sam/Ruby peripherally
rating: NC-17
warnings: knife play, blood play, mentions of hell, sex, violence, etc etc.
summary: Dean Winchester is a man a demon should be afraid of, not one a demon should comfort. But you try anyway.
notes: ~4000 words. Written for jacyevans over at spn_rambleon, who requested "Write me Dean/Ruby. Anything. Really." And so I did. Set between 4.16 and 4.17. Title/cut-text from Green Day, bwahaha.
Hospitals annoy you. You don't like them, with the beeping and the smell, and the idea they perpetuate that lives can be saved, be made to last a little bit longer, that death isn't just right around the corner every minute of every day. You think maybe you also don't like hospitals because this meatsuit of yours spent the last few months of her life in one, some residual feeling left over from before you occupied the body. It's unsettling. Therefore, hospitals annoy you.
The room you're visiting is at the end of the hallway and all the other rooms around it appear empty, almost like quarantine, like no one wants to be around, no one wants to see. It's bright when you walk in, too bright, and it makes the bruises on Dean's face stand out all the more. Sam had told you to watch out for him, said he had some things to take care of, and you do what Sam says, you always do what Sam says, but you think maybe Dean's past the point of needing someone to watch out for him. But you sit in the chair at his bedside nevertheless, watch as his chest rises and falls slowly in his sleep, listen to the slow beeping of his heartbeat through the machine, the only two signs that the man on the bed is still a living thing, that the hospital has succeeded in its duty to save lives.
Dean isn't a mess of tubes anymore, but you're not certain his is a life that can be saved, either.
~
You like Sam Winchester, the way his hair falls over his eyes, how he always says please and thank you to every person, those eyes of his that are far too open and honest for a man in his line of work, the smile he gives you when you do something that surprises him. Some days you find yourself growing uncomfortable for this position Lilith has put you in, devil's right hand man and no one there to tell it. You can't stop the plan, too far in motion, and you don't want to, like the way Sam feels when he's drinking down your blood, how strong and demanding he is after he's had his fill. But you don't want these moments to end, either, don't want it to continue. Instead you just want to stay here in this moment, Sam with hell at his back and you at his side. You'll do what you can to make it last as long as possible, including babysitting his brother.
An empty bottle of whiskey sails through the air at you the moment you open the door, hitting the wall to your left and shattering all over the floor. You can feel one of your knuckles split open where a piece of glass bounces into them. "Guess you were expecting me?"
Dean glares darkly. "Actually I thought you were Sam."
"Oh." Trust really hasn't been a thing between them lately but you didn't realize they'd reached the bodily harm portion of events just yet.
Dean looks better than he did in the hospital a few days ago, face less sunken and bruises less pronounced. There's still a hollow look to his eyes, but you're not certain that's something new. It's obvious he isn't fully recovered though, his breathing a little labored from the exertion of throwing the bottle clear across the room. "He tell you to come check on me, like I'm an invalid? Off 'taking care of the hunt' or what the fuck ever he does these days? I actually thought he'd be off sneaking around with you."
"Not today." You approach the bed and Dean gives you a cautious look, tracking you like a hawk as you make your way around to the empty side of the bed he's buried in, sheets a rumpled mess around his thighs, bedspread pushed off into the floor.
"Don't," he says.
"Don't what?" you respond innocently, then flop down on the bed next to him. He sighs but doesn't say anything else, just shifts a little and turns up the TV. Dean's watching a Harry Potter marathon on ABC Family and you can tell he's seen it before, the way he rolls his eyes when certain characters appear on screen and focuses more intently during others. "I wish magic was more like they show it in these things," you say at one point, and the look he gives you in response could not be clearer: 'Shut the fuck up' it says, and so you do. There's silence for a bit, the sound of Snape's smooth voice and Dean's ragged breathing filling the room. When the commercial comes, you say gently, “He’s worried about you."
"That seems to be the general consensus. I don't give a shit," he bites back.
"He wants to help."
"I just want to be left alone."
"And then what, Dean? What would you do?"
"I'd... rest. Be still." From the look on his face, you surmise his own answer confuses him, like it's something he's never really thought about but now that he has there's only the one answer.
"And how long would that work for you? You're a man of action, Dean Winchester. I knew that before I met you." He turns away from you, focuses back on the television and the way Harry Potter's looking at his friends like they're the only things he needs in the world. You can understand that feeling on days like today. You push on. "You remember doing that in hell? The waiting, resting."
He glances at you, harsh, like a warning - 'don't push it,' it says - but he answers anyway. "Always something worse coming."
"Exactly."
Dean sighs, and you watch his chest shake with the unsteady breath he takes back in. "Why does it have to be that way, though? Why can't it all just stop?"
Sam was probably right in sending you here to check on Dean. "I'd figured you'd learned by now that life doesn't work that way."
When the movie ends, he switches off the TV and the room grows dim, soft light of sunset passing filtering in through the thin curtains. You were a bit worried you'd have to endure the next movie in the marathon, but Dean seems content to sit in silence and stare at nothing for the remainder of the evening. It's not really your cup of tea, but you're not sure when Sam will be back and you're not certain leaving Dean alone would be a good thing despite how much he protests that's exactly what he wants. So you sit in silence and stare at him. After a while, he sighs and stands up, points himself to the bathroom and limps exactly three steps around the bed before his left leg gives out and he stumbles down, grabbing the bed (and by extension, you on it) to steady himself. His ass lands on your knee and his elbow in your stomach and if he weren't still struggling through the pain and confusion of what just happened you think he'd be taking some pleasure in causing you discomfort. Instead he rolls off you as quickly as he can and mumbles, "sorry," before tentatively trying to stand again. He winces with every limp across the room but he makes his destination this time. He's in the bathroom for a long time.
The light through the curtains eventually recedes and you're left with nothing but shadows and the little bit of light creeping out the crack underneath the bathroom door. The darkness makes you uncomfortable and you're afraid Dean won't ever come out of the bathroom into blackness, so you stretch across the bed to flip on the light. It's not very bright but you can at least see your hand in front of your face and the faint outline of everything in the room. Dean steps out of the bathroom a few minutes later and leaves the light on behind him.
"Why are you really here, Ruby?" You're as tired of hearing him ask the question as he sounds asking it. It's eleven unsteady steps from the bathroom to the bed for him, and he stops in front of you. He towers over you as you lay on the bed, but you're not the least bit intimidated. He mumbles, "I don't want to keep going," and you're not sure if he means walking the rest of the way around the bed or life in general but you sit up nevertheless and make room so he can sit down on the edge of the bed.
His shoulder rests against yours and the warmth radiating from him is comforting to you in an odd way, like a fever being passed from one person to the next, but he doesn't move, if anything sinking a little further into you. There are goosebumps on his arms and then you start to wonder when the last time he felt comfortable in his own skin was. "So don't," you say. "Don't keep going. Don't stop, either. Just be still. Be here." Tentatively you reach over for his chest and place a hand over his heart, feel the slow and steady beat of it, the hitch of his breathing when you touch him. He looks down at your hand and then up to your face, and you can't really read what emotion passes across his own face but any emotion is better than the blank stare he'd sunk into earlier so you'll take it.
"I'd like to lie back down now," he says, and you scoot backward for him, letting him lay in the place you were occupying before. He curls onto his side, facing the door, facing you, eyes closed. It makes him look like a large scared child and the image unsettles you. Dean Winchester is a man a demon should be afraid of, not one a demon should comfort. But you try anyway.
You say, "Dean," and he opens his eyes. He doesn't speak, just waits, so you reach for his face, run your hand over the cuts still healing across his brow.
He watches you but he doesn't move. "Tell me to stop and I will." He does nothing.
Kissing Dean Winchester is a lot like kissing Sam. You don't want to compare the two but you can't seem to help it, his lips soft against yours, much softer than you would expect from lives led as raggedly as theirs. Dean's lips are fuller than Sam's, softer even, but they move in similar ways. You roll Dean over and straddle his body, one leg on each side, gently kissing him all the while. You expect he'd be a little more active were it any other day but this one, any other year but the one he's got going for him so far, and you're used to more aggressiveness in bed, (Sam would've already had you on your back and half your clothes off, your mouth raw from his teeth) but you don't mind Dean pliant underneath you for the time being. It's a nice change.
He doesn't speak when you pull off your shirt and unsnap your bra, but his eyes are a little wider, more engaged. The room is cold and when the air hits your nipples it makes you shiver and pull yourself back down into Dean's warmth, planting a few kisses along his jaw over the cuts there, before sitting back up into the cold. "Off," you say, tugging at the edges of his shirt. It's ripped at the bottom and you can hear it tear a little as he struggles to sit up and pull it off. You help as best you can. His torso is still a myriad of bruises, sickly yellow and purple spots marring the skin. "Bruises fade," you mumble, bending down to lightly kiss a few of the worst. He inhales sharply as your lips drift across one slightly below his right nipple and you smile into his skin at the reaction (finally a reaction). You linger at that spot, teasing the skin a bit before trailing up to the nipple and circling it with your tongue. He says your name once, quietly, and you stop and look up at him. There's lust in his face now at least, you're certain, and you're thrilled at the sight, but there's also fear and uncertainty boiling just under the surface. "Don't think," you say. "Just be here." He nods slowly.
You don't have to prompt him to take off his pants, he manages on his own while you struggle with your boots and your own pants, tight and slick on your meatsuit's body, your body now. You're suddenly nervous, your hand shaking momentarily like a virgin schoolgirl's, afraid you're going to screw this up, ruin the moment in some way. It's silly and ridiculously and so unlike you, you want to smack yourself in the face, but Dean Winchester is practically baring heart and soul in front of a demon and your momentary weakness pales in comparison. You get over it quick. Warmth radiates off him and you shiver, leaning over him completely naked. One of his hands finally moves from his side, off the bed and up to you, gently tracing a scar on your hip you didn't know you had before pulling you down closer to him. His other hand touches one of your nipples, startling you, and you gasp softly. You hadn't seen him move. He chuckles at you and it's the first moment you're positive this was a good idea. He's hard under you, thankfully, so you shift slightly in reply, his dick rubbing a wet line across the inside of your thigh and it's his turn to gasp in response and your turn to chuckle. You shift down the bed, so your legs are straddling his knees, careful not to put too much pressure on the injured leg. Resting your head on his hip for a moment, you watch as his skin flushes and his body twitches as you lightly run your fingers over his dick. You squeeze once, hard, and he moans softly. You smile.
"What was your favorite part of hell?" you ask quietly, pausing your movements until he answers. The question surprises him, you can tell, and for a moment you think he'll finally snap out of it, that he'll get angry and knock you off the bed, throw you out of the room. He doesn't. Instead his body relaxes more against you and he exhales sharply. You can almost feel him carefully considering the question.
"The knives," he says, after a bit. "Alastair had this one knife, serrated, like a steak knife almost, only... worse. I hated it, which meant he loved it all the more, of course." He shifts a bit under you, bucks up ever so slightly. His right hand slides up your thigh, tentatively, before moving to his own. "The day I said yes, he'd buried that knife here and left it. I could feel my balls knock against it every time I moved, and he kept saying he'd just stick it in one of them if I didn't stop moving. It wouldn't have been the first time but something about that particular time got to me. So I said yes." You bend over to kiss the spot, suck a bruise on it maybe, a positive mark when his body is covered in so many negative ones. When he starts talking again you slide your mouth down closer to his balls, licking at the underside and watching how he jerks in reaction. "After he let me down off the rack, he gave me that knife. A reward or whatever I guess. I didn't want it. So he gave me another, long, lean, straight-edged. I liked precision as much as he did, but he was about making a mess. I was far more... neat."
"Do you miss it? The knife?" Before he responds you take him into your mouth as far as you can, hot and heavy and salty assaulting your senses all at once, rubbing at the back of your throat. His dick isn't as wide as Sam's but it's longer, and taking him all in makes your eyes water.
"Shit," he bites out. "Goddamn, Ruby," he says, and tangles a hand into your hair.
You pull off him with a popping sound. "Do you?" You hadn't really meant to ask the question, but you have a fascination with knives as well and now you're curious.
He reaches up and under the pillow, pulls out the knife he hides under there that anymore fails to keep his fears away. "I have this one, but it's not the same. It's not the right weight, the blade doesn't stay as sharp, the grip doesn't fit my fingers as perfect. There was this one girl, right after he gave me the knife, she bled all over it, but I never lost my grip." The only sound louder in the room as he slowly pulls the knife out of its sheath is your ragged breathing. And here you thought knife play was a kink only you and Sam shared. "So in answer to your question, I suppose I do miss it. I've never really thought about it."
He stares at the knife, lost in his own thoughts until you speak. "Maybe that's part of the problem. You spend so much time not thinking about hell that the moment you accidentally do think about it, it terrifies you. Maybe sometimes, I'm not saying make it your best friend or anything, but maybe sometimes you need to embrace it." He looks at you blankly for a minute and you're afraid maybe you've pushed too far, but then you see when it registers what you're saying. He tilts his head to the side, asking, and you wrap one of your hands around his, move the knife closer to your skin.
"Sam will see them," he whispers. In Dean's mind it's always about Sam, you get that now.
"Sam won't care, Dean." Together you move the knife across your thigh, up your sides and across your stomach. You shiver when he circles it around your breasts, little rivulets of blood following in its wake, a near perfect bodice of blood. He sits up underneath of you, wincing through the pain of his own cuts and bruises, and takes control of the knife, pressing a hard cut into your throat.
"I could kill this body right now. You'd have to find another empty shell before Sam chose to fuck you again." There's the Dean Winchester fire everyone's been looking for lately. You laugh.
"If you want, you could. But then, who would you find to do this?" You push against him, closer to him, the knife pushing into your throat even harder as you sink yourself down onto his cock in one fell swoop. He fills you up, stretches you out, this tiny fragile body of yours, and it takes you a moment to adjust, panting through the pain as he groans through the pleasure. The knife at your throat loosens, gets tossed away and replaced by his mouth, sucking at the wound and cleaning up the blood dripping down your neck. You move together, his hips thrusting up into you and your body sliding down onto him and it's glorious, every nerve ending hyper-aware and tingling every place his skin connects with yours. But you can tell the movement is taxing him, body still only operating at half-strength, so you kiss him fiercely, grab his wrists and push him back down to the bed. His body is wide and your legs burn as you ride him harder and faster, but the sensation of him filling you up so fully outweighs any discomfort. His body weakly thrusts up off the bed to meet yours but his movement and breathing are erratic, a long series of groans mixed in with your name and the occasional 'fuck' coming out of his mouth. You aren't ready to come yet but you can tell he's close so you shift most of your weight down onto one arm, sliding your hips around in tight controlled circles with him inside you.
"Holy shit," he groans out, and reaches up to cup both your breasts. His face is flushed and his eyes shine with lust and it's more animated than you've seen him since he came back from hell. And you did that. You realize maybe you like Dean Winchester too, the way his freckles stand out more when he's aroused, how red his lips get after being kissed, how he looks at you when he's about to come. One of his hands works its way in between your legs, rubbing and teasing at you in a changing pattern, figure eights to little x's to solid presses in dashes and dots and it's not long before you're shaking on top of him, thrusting and moving at an uneven rate, your thighs shaking with exertion and sweat rolling down between your breasts and puddling with the sweat low on his stomach. He latches on to your hips and thrusts up hard a few more times, and you can tell the movement hurts him, and you worry, but then there's warm liquid heat inside you and his hand back in between your legs and you're falling over the edge too, a startled scream escaping you as you orgasm in waves. Once it passes, you collapse down against his chest and he oomphs, a bit in pain and a bit in surprise, but you can't move, content to stay there for just a moment. He stills and you think this might qualify as cuddling to him, but after a few seconds pass he wraps his arms around you and draws you even closer, kisses you gently on the neck where you're probably still bleeding slightly. It's probably the only thanks you'll ever get from him.
~
Morning comes and finds you still in bed with Dean, one arm wrapped around you and his head tucked into your shoulder. It's the first time you've ever woken up next to anyone other than Sam, and you really don't know what to do. Sam usually kicks you out the moment he rouses and you imagine Dean will probably be similar to his brother in that regard as well, but when he finally does start to wake up he doesn't acknowledge you at all, just pulls his hands away from you and rolls over and tucks himself back into that little ball. So you get up and get dressed in the silence, your legs stiff and your neck aching. You go to the bathroom to clean up the rest of the dried blood and you can't look at yourself in the mirror. For the first time you wonder if Sam would consider this a betrayal, or if he would simply thank you for pulling his brother out of his shell, if only for a few minutes. You're finding you know Sam's responses to things less and less and it both thrills you and worries you at the same time.
Dean's still curled on the bed when you open the bathroom door, but he's taken the time to pull his boxers back on and pull the covers up. His eyes are open and he watches you move intently.
"So what was your favorite part of hell?" he asks quietly as you're pulling on your boots. The fact that he's not ignoring you tickles some part deep in your chest that you don't want to think about. You've never actually thought about the best and worst parts of hell, choosing to simply accept hell for what it is and not dwell, but the answer comes easily.
"The waiting," you respond. You can hear him scoff as the door slams behind you when you leave.