A Twisting Line, Part Two
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From that point forward, Ruby keeps Dean under a notably closer watch. Dean ignores her, spending his days as far from Sam as possible. He carefully navigates the empty streets with no set destination in mind and Ruby follows, expression unreadable and almost apologetic. Dean meets every attempt at conversation with a baleful glare and silence dripping with contempt.
“You know, the silent treatment is for twelve-year-old brats who stomp their feet when they don’t get their way,” she says, arching her eyebrows. Dean smirks, ducking under a fallen fencepost to cross the approaching bridge.
Eventually, she resorts to low blows.
“I did warn you,” she tells him, voice maddeningly smug, so different from her quiet, hesitant words of the last few days. She taps her fingers along the doors of a subway car permanently stopped on the bridge and peers through the windows. Dean doesn’t dare follow her example.
“You think you know him so well,” he snaps, unable to take the silent weight of his thoughts any longer.
Ruby shrugs, shockingly somber. She walks the third rail like a balance beam, dragging her feet through the dust on the tracks. He wonders if all demons have the same irritating mood swings, or if Ruby simply knows all of the right ways to push his buttons.
“Sometimes better than you,” she says, faking disinterest.
He snorts, “In your dreams, sweetheart,” and she sighs, pushing back a section of the chain link fence to pull herself back up onto the platform.
“This isn’t a war, Dean.” She brushes her hands together, voice sad and nostalgic, almost disappointed.
Dean’s eyes narrow. “Why do I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me?”
“Paranoia?” Ruby tips her head to the side.
Dean grabs her arms, slamming her into the fence at her back. The links creak and groan against the pressure, and he resists the urge to push just that much harder and watch her tumble into the river below.
Not that it would do much damage, of course. Ruby would probably be back at camp in under an hour, bitching about broken ribs and the atrocious state of her clothing.
Ruby smirks, as if she knows exactly what he’s thinking. The fact that she can read him so well has gone from worrying to ridiculously annoying.
“Gonna throw me over, Dean?” She grins as his fingers twitch. “Come on, baby, you know better than that.”
“What are you hiding from me, Ruby?”
She purses her lips. “Nothing.”
Dean’s fist collides with her cheek, resulting in a satisfying crack. Ruby laughs, rolling her head back, the whites of her eyes bright against her eyelids and she reminds him enough of Lilith on that last, fateful night that he almost loses his breath.
Instead, he punches her twice, her blood bright beneath her nose, along her cheek and on his knuckles. He lets her drop, sliding the knife from its sheath at her hip. The hilt fits comfortably in his palm, like an old friend.
Ruby stares, laughter tapering off into silence. Dean holds her gaze, chest heaving.
He throws the knife down; it skids along the ground, landing precariously along the edge of the bridge. He fights the urge to pick it back up - or kick it over into the river.
Ruby pushes herself to her feet, leaving the knife where it lies. Her eyes darken slowly, dark clouds rolling over a darker sky. She rubs the back of her hand against her lip, smearing blood along her skin.
Ruby glances upwards; the wind blows her hair across her face. “Sam didn’t believe he could save you,” she says, closing her eyes in resignation.
“Bullshit,” Dean spits out instantly. Sam is like a dog with a bone when he sets his mind to something. God help anyone who attempts to pull the bone from his worrying grip - better to avoid his teeth and wait until he drops it altogether.
Ruby rolls her eyes, and Dean smirks; he can be insufferable, too. In fact, he probably has more experience than she does. He spent the better part of twenty years annoying Sam. It was his given right as the older brother to get a rise out of his little brother at all opportunities.
Dean wonders if he’ll ever get an opportunity to annoy Sam again without running the risk of getting his neck broken. He fights back the ominous shiver along his spine.
“Sam can’t just walk into hell, Dean,” Ruby explains patiently, as if Dean is a small child, “Contrary to popular belief. He tried bargaining with crossroads demons and opening the Devil’s Gate, but he isn’t a demon.”
“Seems pretty demonic to me,” he grumbles.
Ruby ignores the comment entirely. “Something is still tying Sam topside. Something that won’t let him break through." She stares at Dean, driving her point home. "No matter what he does, as long as he holds on to that small, fragile piece of his humanity...unless he dies - which is highly unlikely, I might add - he isn’t going to hell.”
Dean remains silent, unable to respond even with a simple wisecrack.
Ruby turns her back and stares at the horizon, fingers wrapping around the fence. "You were supposed to end the world," she tells him slowly, "You and Sam. Saying yes to Alastair was step one of sixty-six.”
Dean watches her coolly, letting the breeze off of the water wash some of his fury away.
"I taught him how to use his powers. Killing Lilith was supposed to be the goal, the final step towards my endgame. Checkmate.” Her voice drops, taking on a hard edge. “But I underestimated his devotion, his all-consuming need to save you. When he couldn't get you out of hell, he just... exploded." She shivers, reaching her other hand up to tightly grip the fence in front of her face. "And the entire world exploded with him."
Dean swallows because he remembers that explosive, all-consuming grief. He hoped his younger brother would overcome it after a year of coming to terms with his death. He should have known better.
"It wasn't supposed to be this way," she whispers.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions, baby," Dean says with no ounce of remorse.
Ruby turns, but there’s no mockery in her eyes this time, just a quiet, unspoken understanding. Dean doesn’t want her pity; he would rather the derision.
The fence shakes as she lets go. "You would know."
Ruby walks towards the edge of the platform, feet dangling over the tracks when Dean calls her back. Sam isn't the only one who doesn't know how to let things go.
“So how did you get me out?” Dean asks, and Ruby's back stiffens.
“Hell is empty and all of the devils are here.” Her jaw tightens, lips pulled into a thin line despite her blithe sarcasm.
“You know one day, you’re gonna give me a straight answer.” He lets the threat hang in the air, perilous as a knife’s edge.
Ruby smirks, tossing him a glance over her shoulder. “Maybe,” she says, eyes dark and unfathomable.
She slips through the hole in the fence back onto the tracks and follows them downhill. Dean turns his gaze to the river and doesn't follow.
-
Dean dreams of blood and darkness.
He wakes to more of the same.
-
Dean isn’t expecting the attack, though he supposes he should have been. Despite Ruby’s bland assurance to the contrary, the chance of not even a single soul surviving Sam’s destructive release of power is unlikely. Beyond that, Dean has grown frighteningly used to Sam’s righteous fury. No one would dare attempt to kill him or one of his reluctantly loyal followers.
They should probably count themselves lucky that Sam isn’t around, off on one of his unexplained “business trips.” Considering Sam’s dark mood and Ruby’s attempts to stay far out of his reach, Dean is beginning to suspect business trip is code for keeping unruly demons in line.
The hunter is young, skilled - and suicidal. The presence of another human being is so shocking, Dean doesn’t react, at first.
He slips through the demonic ranks with brute effort and sheer nerve. Exorcisms roll of his tongue, quick and efficient; a small variation in the Latin leaves the demons writhing in pain on the ground, some clawing at their throats breathlessly. They fall like dominoes, black smoke filling the sky in twisting clouds before disappearing into the ground.
Ruby falls to her knees, eyes rolling back in her head; she screams.
Dean’s brain finally kicks into gear. He snaps his arm straight out, using the hunter’s forward momentum and surprise at the maneuver to take him down and stop the flow of words. Ruby gasps, bending at the waist to press her hands to her thighs with her head bowed.
“Traitor,” the hunter hisses through bared, bloody teeth. Dean shoves him hard as he attempts to push himself up; the back of his head smacks against the ground, knocking him out instantly. The gun in his hand slips out of his limp grip.
“Everybody’s a critic,” Dean mutters.
Ruby approaches slowly, listing slightly but growing stronger with every step. She stumbles, and her hand shoots out then drops to her side in an aborted attempt to grasp Dean’s shoulder for support.
Dean grunts, swallowing back the joke he would usually make at her expense. “So, what do we do with McStupid?”
“Drag his suicidal ass to the farthest corner of the city before Sam gets back and makes him wish he was dead,” Ruby pants, holding a hand to her side.
Dean snorts, “Sam will kill him either way.” He’s shocked to find the thought doesn’t bother him as much as it probably should. He frowns.
Ruby opens her mouth, no doubt about to brush off his comment with her usual biting sarcasm, then freezes. “Dean,” she says, grasping the sleeve of his jacket. The unhidden terror in her voice snaps him to attention.
The hunter moves swiftly, knife clutched in his fist - directly towards Sam’s back. His brother either didn’t notice that anything was amiss on his return, or is doing a fantastic job of psyching the hunter out before he strikes.
Dean doesn’t wait to find out; he sprints across the grass without thought, the hunter’s gun a reassuring weight in his hand.
Sam turns; Dean fires.
The hunter falls to the ground in a heap, limbs sprawled. The blade of his knife gleams, beautiful and tempting. Dean wants to kill him slowly, the remembered feel of knives carefully cutting through fragile flesh almost too much to resist.
Dean fires off a shot, directly between the hunter’s eyes. He unloads the clip, tosses the gun to the side, and stares at the blood soaking the ground.
Sam watches him with wide, inquisitive eyes. Dean walks off, the smell of fire reaching him as soon as he turns his back.
-
He doesn’t go far - Dean makes it to the street before his trembling legs force him to sit down on the hood of an abandoned taxi.
A dark, sinister part of him borne of forty years in Alastair's manaical hands is unhappy that the hunter is dead. It whispers his death was too easy. Dean wishes he flayed the skin from his bones while he was still breathing.
“That felt good, didn’t it?”
Dean grits his teeth, hands fisted at his sides. He so does not need her twisted demon Dr. Phil bullshit right now. “Go away, Ruby,” he grinds out.
Ruby sidles up to him, heedless of his terrible mood, glass crunching beneath her boots. “Killing that hunter... the feel of a weapon at your fingertips... You enjoyed yourself.”
“Bite me,” Dean snarls, and Ruby’s eyebrows rise as she leans against the hood beside him.
“I’ve been there, you know. The high, that heady rush of power... there’s nothing like it.”
“If this is another pep talk about how we’re the same and you remember what it’s like being human, spare me. I can see straight through your bullshit, Ruby, and I’m not buying it.”
“Then why did you save me tonight?”
That’s the million dollar question, the one pressing insistently at the back of his mind behind the urge to kill everything in sight, an itch he can’t scratch. He has no ties to Ruby. He feels no bond or empathy towards her. She is a demon, after all.
Why didn’t he let her die?
“Dean-” Ruby starts.
“Ruby,” Sam’s voice suddenly rumbling through the quiet makes both of them jump. Ruby steps away from Dean, arms held stiffly at her sides, eyes on the ground. Dean half-expects her to bow.
“Leave,” Sam orders; Ruby hesitates, but an arch of Sam’s eyebrow sends her turning on her heel. She throws one last glance over her shoulder at both of them before disappearing into the night.
Dean shifts uncomfortably against the hood, arms crossed tightly over his chest. He stares out at the blank, dark sky, refusing to meet Sam’s gaze.
Sam mimics his stance. He stares at Dean, flipping his hair out of his face. Even as the supreme leader of his own wretched little kingdom, he still has the same stupid, floppy haircut. Dean doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Why did you save me?” Sam asks, cutting through the silence.
Dean shrugs a single shoulder, finally raising his eyes from the ground to meet Sam’s eyes. “Because you’re my brother,” he says gruffly.
Sam shakes his head. “I’m not him, Dean.”
“Then kill me.” Dean throws his arms open wide, inviting Sam to try. He knows if his brother were insistent, there wouldn’t be a damn thing Dean could do to stop him.
The crackle of power on the air almost sends Dean to his knees. He grabs onto the hood of the car for support against the pressure pushing him down. His lungs feel constricted, collapsed, but he stands his ground.
The pressure dissipates, and Dean wheezes, bending at the middle trying to catch his breath. Sam’s fingers squeeze his shoulder to the point of pain, and he looks back into black, narrowed eyes.
“Don’t underestimate me, Dean,” Sam hisses, releasing Dean’s shoulder roughly. His back slams against the bumper. Dean’s knees buckle as soon as Sam’s back is turned. He doesn’t bother trying to hold himself up.
-
Dean stays on the ground where he falls, pushing himself to a sitting position. He isn’t comfortable - his shoulders are tense to the point of pain and a piece of debris digs into his ass, but Dean can’t dredge up the energy to move, much less care. He feels like a ship left unmoored at sea, coasting directionless along the waves. All of the wind has been blown from his sails, leaving him lost.
The clicking of heels against the asphalt signals Ruby’s approach. The fact that he hears her at all means she’s giving him the opportunity to leave.
He leans his head back against the cool metal of the bumper and stares up at the grim, cloudy sky.
Ruby stands over him, close enough for him to feel her body heat. He smells dust, grass and the sulfur that seems to permeate everything. He meets her eyes - brown, not black, curious, and something else, something he can’t quite identify but makes his heart pump faster with a rush of adrenaline. He wants to run in the other direction as fast as his legs can carry him, but once the burst of energy fades, he feels even more exhausted than before, empty and numb.
“You still haven’t told me why you saved me,” she says quietly; he swallows.
“You still haven’t told me why you brought me back.” He wants an answer this time, needs an answer.
Ruby crouches down, knees hitting the ground between his thighs. She holds his gaze, giving him time to pull away as she wraps a hand around his neck and kisses him instead.
-
Dean stands, lifting Ruby up around his waist. Her knees dig into his hip, arms tight around his neck.
“Why did you bring me back?” He whispers; the image of her bloody and fearless flashes across his mind, a blood-soaked snapshot he can’t place. He remembers the smell of fire and brimstone and tastes it faintly against her lips.
“Because,” she stutters, nails digging into his shoulders as he sucks a bruise against her neck. “Because-“ She grinds her hips against his and bites her lip as he lays her back against the backseat of the car. This is a war she’s determined to win.
“Dean.” His name is a breathless whisper on her lips as she tips her head back, closes her eyes and surrenders.
-
They lie facing away from each other, no space between them. Dean watches his breath fog on the night air.
“You let the world burn,” he says, feeling the chill down to his bones. You let him burn.
He hears the crackle of leather under Ruby's body as she rolls over. “I didn’t have a choice,” she says quietly, fingers a hairsbreadth away from his shoulder, barely brushing his skin.
Dean turns to face her, still careful not to touch. He remembers thirty years on the rack under Alastair’s capable hands and ten years off under his careful tutelage.
His voice is a warm breath against her lips. “There is always a choice.”
-
Dean couldn’t save the world, but maybe, just maybe, he can still save Sam. That has always been enough.
-
Dark clouds roll across the sky, bringing with them the press of a storm. The air is too warm, thick and heavy with the smell of grass and smoke, and Dean has trouble breathing. He shoves his feet back into his shoes, leaving Ruby still asleep on the backseat. Her knife feels heavy in his fist, warm against his chilled skin.
He waits for Ruby to wake and save him from his own stupidity; waits for Sam to catch his approach, even from over a mile away.
Neither happens, and Dean wants to sigh with relief, but an ominous trickle of fear settles in the pit of his stomach.
Dean’s feet pound the pavement in time with his heartbeat. The rain begins to fall in sheets, soaking him to the skin; every growl of thunder and flash of lightning makes his stomach clench tighter as his monumental idiocy smacks him square in the face.
He doesn’t bother masking his footsteps; the crackle of branches and leaves beneath his feet heralds his approach. He waits for Sam to acknowledge his arrival with his ever-present devil-may-care expression.
Then, he sticks the knife into the nearest demon’s side - the bitchy female from his first day out of the pit. He never bothered to find out her name. Her mouth opens in a silent scream as she flashes out of existence. He holds Sam’s gaze as the body drops.
Sam’s eyes are dark and heavy like the coming storm. Dean swallows, taking a step backwards.
The demons are on him before he has a chance to even think about fleeing. He doesn’t bother fighting beyond trying fruitlessly to yank his arms from their grasp. He drags his feet, slipping and sliding on the mud-soaked ground, forcing them to half-carry him.
They drop him on the ground mere inches from his brother’s feet. Sam is more furious than Dean has ever seen him.
One of the demons hands Sam the knife. He examines it, then eyes Ruby over his shoulder. She stands stoic and expressionless but underneath that, terrified.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t catch you?” Sam asks as he twirls the knife in his fingers, staring down at the blade.
Dean smirks, masking the fact that he’s scared shitless. “Actually, I was counting on it.”
Sam twists his fingers around the knife blade, and Dean’s voice cuts off with a gasp. He feels like a fire is burning him from the inside out, scorching his insides and boiling his blood. He tears at his jacket, trying desperately to breathe.
Sam drops the knife and hauls him up by his collar, half-strangling him. He slams his fist into Dean’s face. Dean’s arms fall, limp and heavy at his sides. He couldn’t fight back, even if he wanted to. He doesn’t try.
A blow glances off of his ribs, and Dean almost screams. Instead, he starts up a litany of comforting nonsense, mostly repetition of Sammy, Sammy, Sammy, which only seems to infuriate Sam more.
“I am not Sammy,” he growls. The blows come faster; Dean’s head swims.
He is going to die, Dean realizes with a sickening jolt of irony. Sam is finally going to kill him.
Suddenly, Sam releases him, breathing heavily. He stares at Dean, eyes narrowed, reflecting the sky above. Blood and rain runs into his eyes. Dean groans as his head cracks against the unforgiving ground, world spinning before it disappears completely.
-
He wakes to the feel of gentle hands prodding his ribs and fingers winding bandages around his chest. Ruby leans over his face, pressing light fingers against the bruises and cuts along his cheek.
“You are such an idiot,” Ruby tells him, but with a hushed admiration he thinks might be thanks. Dean lets his eyes close, sleeping deeply.
-
As consciousness returns, the whispers of voices surround him, too fuzzy to make out. Dean licks his lips, struggling to make sense of the words.
He catches snatches of conversation - his name in Sam’s voice, shockingly soft but still thrumming with command, and a litany of injuries from Ruby. The falling rain thumps quietly, continuous in time with the throbbing pain in his head.
“He’ll live,” she states, the barely left unsaid yet somehow still steeped in sarcasm. Dean can barely contain his own shock at the blatant show of disrespect.
Sam doesn’t comment or criticize her tone. “Why did you bring him back?” he asks, sounding exhausted and confused, like he's hanging onto his sanity by a thread. Dean keeps his breathing level, face turned towards the wall. His vision is hazy through half-closed eyelids, and he wonders if she’ll drop the blind obedience as far as to deny Sam an answer.
“You already know the answer to that, Sam,” Ruby says quietly. Dean realizes belatedly that this is the first time he’s heard her address Sam by his name before he passes out again.
-
Dean doesn’t move right away when he finally awakens fully. He blinks his eyes open slowly, adjusting to the light. A small fire burns at the center of the room, throwing shadows across the walls of what he now recognizes as his borrowed apartment. He shifts, turning his head and stills when he notices Sam sitting cross-legged, back against the wall on the floor at his feet.
“I didn’t want to end the world, you know,” Sam says quietly, staring down at his hands twisting in his lap. He looks more like the brother Dean went to hell for than at any other moment in the past few months. Dean holds his breath, not wanting to break the spell. “I just wanted to save you.” He catches Dean’s eye, and Dean’s breath shudders out.
Sam leans his head back. “Killing Lilith wasn’t the grand showdown everyone makes it out to be.” His lips quirk into a wry half-smile as he turns his head back towards his brother. “Demons can be so… dramatic.”
Dean doesn’t respond. Sam sighs, gazing out into the room.
“Ruby turned up on one of my worst days. She forced me to sober up and was teaching me to use my powers, dangling Lilith in my face. I should have known she was just using me for her own personal gain.”
He shifts his legs, pulling his knees up. “Sending demons back to hell comes with a price - blinding headaches, bloody noses, a general feeling of absolute misery. All very unpleasant. Ruby kept insisting that I needed to be stronger. She offered me her blood.”
Dean’s breath catches; Ruby failed to mention that not-at-all minor detail.
“After a while, she didn’t have to insist. I went to her arms willingly. It was like a drug, Dean,” Sam says, voice hushed like he’s confessing a particularly pleasant secret. “All of that power rushing to the surface, boiling beneath my skin - I liked it. I craved it. You don’t know what that’s like.”
“I know more about it than you think,” Dean says hoarsely, finally finding his voice.
“No, you don’t,” Sam says harshly. “Your time with Alastair doesn’t even compare. He doesn’t hold a candle to what I can do.” His lips twist into a smile that sends shivers down Dean’s spine. “Lilith didn’t stand a chance. The demons are telling the truth about one thing - when I killed her, I enjoyed every single second of her screams.” He sighs. “Too much. When I finally came back to myself, I was standing in a wasteland.”
He gestures to the empty room. “I destroyed the world, Dean. You don’t know what I can do.”
Dean’s heart feels like it’s trying to jump out from behind his bruised ribs. He struggles to push himself to a sitting position, wincing slightly at the flare of pain around his chest. “Sammy-”
“I’m not Sammy anymore,” Sam snaps, eyes darkening to almost black - but not quite. “He died with the rest of the world. You keep looking for someone who doesn’t exist.”
“Yet, I’m still alive,” Dean says quietly, carefully. “You could have killed me without batting your goddamn eyelashes, but I’m still alive.” Sam presses his lips together. “I know you, Sammy,” he whispers urgently.
Sam tips his head back and squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m sorry,” he whispers brokenly and Dean isn’t sure if he’s apologizing for ending the world, not being able to save him, or not being the brother that Dean remembers - maybe all of the above. Probably for things Dean doesn’t even want to think about.
Sam stands and silently walks out the door. Dean pushes himself painfully to his feet, watching from the window as Sam steps out into the rain.
-
Dean doesn’t bother turning around at the sound of soft footsteps at his back.
“You did this to him,” he accuses. He watches Ruby’s reflection in the glass. She opens her mouth reflexively, no doubt scrounging around for a plausible denial.
She closes her lips and shakes her head. “He did this to himself; I did what I had to do.”
“Then you not only destroyed him, but you destroyed the world. Congratulations. I hope you’re satisfied.”
“Screw you, you self-righteous son of a-“ She closes her eyes, taking deep, grounding breaths.
Her eyes open - brown again - and she reaches up to remove the bandages on his face, clinical and stoic as she cleans and re-dresses his wounds. Dean doesn’t send her away as she pushes him down onto the sofa, tugging to lift his shirt over his head.
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Ruby shakes her head when Dean looks up, arching his eyebrows in faked misunderstanding.
“You’re hopeless,” she mutters.
-
Sam visits every day as Dean slowly heals, there from the moment Dean wakes up. Their conversation is halted, awkward, often lapsing into uneasy silence. Sam paces around the room, hands clasped behind his back. Dean eyes him warily.
When Sam finally sits down on the bed quietly humming under his breath, Dean lashes out in the only way he knows how.
"You're out of tune," he snaps.
Sam grins, because he knows, the fucker.
"Am I bothering you?" His smile turns mischievous. "Sorry."
Dean glares; he doesn't sound sorry in the least.
He would never say it aloud, but he cherishes these moments, his closest to the brother from his memories: an irritated teenager glaring each time his nickname was uttered.
Sam still refuses to allow Dean to call him Sammy, but his expression comes across more menacing than petulant.
Slowly, Dean’s definition of his younger brother reinvents itself around this dark, powerful person Sam has become. Old and new Sammy merge together, almost indistinguishable.
Ruby stays away, leaving them to their devices. She returns when Sam is gone, staying to check his wounds and barely a moment longer, even less when he heals enough to change the bandages himself. Their comfortable repartee is gone; it evaporated with the full knowledge of her part in Sam’s downfall like it wasn’t there at all.
-
When Dean wakes up one morning and finds himself alone, he peers around the room, as if expecting Sam to appear out of thin air.
He doesn’t doubt Sam could manage such a feat, either.
“The natives were getting restless.” Dean whips his head around and finds Ruby staring out the windows, fingers pressed against the glass. He didn’t hear her come in.
She watches as he carefully winds new bandages around his ribs, shifting her feet to stop herself from stepping in.
Dean raises his head, making a poor attempt to leer. “See something you like?”
The joke falls flat. Ruby still rolls her eyes.
As he pulls his shirt over his head, Ruby walks towards the door, then turns and smirks, a ghost of her old self rising to the surface. She quirks her finger and arches an eyebrow in a deliberate parallel to his first day out of the pit.
“Aren’t you coming?”
-
Dean follows Ruby slowly, carefully picking his way through the perilous streets and overgrown paths. Every step jostles his body, reminding him of his barely-healed ribs. He should be lying down, resting.
He keeps walking.
Every once in a while, Ruby glances back, looking torn between wanting to help him and leaving him alone.
Dean grits his teeth against the pain, glaring. “Don’t even think about it. I’m not a cripple.”
Ruby sighs as Dean trips, reaching out a hand to catch him. He slaps her away.
She huffs, making her annoyance at his stubbornness blindingly clear. “Fine, jackass. Don’t blame me when you and your pride fall flat on your face.”
Once they start, the bickering comes easier, though still hesitant and wrapped up in indiscretions - and not all of them Ruby’s.
Sam quickly covers his shock at their approach, schooling his features into an emotionless mask. Dean sees right through the disguise and walks towards him, calm and unhurried.
The demons depart; Ruby steps backwards into the shadows, before disappearing altogether. Dean ignores them all, observing his brother in silence.
Sam’s eyes are black. He stares at the dark sky, and Dean hides his surprise as he sights the first sign of stars in weeks, months - probably longer than he has been alive. The air is warm, but not stiflingly so, bearable.
Dean turns his gaze to the side. “You’re still my brother, Sam,” he says quietly, waiting for Sam to catch his eye. A million emotions chase across his brother’s face before he settles on a barely-there smile.
Sam doesn’t respond; he doesn’t have to.
The silence between them holds no heavy weight; it simply lapses on, comfortable and almost familiar.
-
He finds Ruby standing alone in the middle of a copse of trees, her body language relaxed. She doesn’t respond to his approach.
Dean wants to leave her to her thoughts, but the question still nags at the back of his mind like a hangnail - annoying but relentless.
In the end, it doesn’t matter, and yet...
"Why did you bring me back?"
Ruby turns, arms crossed, a clever smile quirking her lips. Her eyes slide to black, a challenge; the sky is on fire at her back. She steps forward, the toes of her boots butting against his.
"Because you were needed," she whispers.
It still isn’t an answer; it’s all the explanation he needs.
Author's Notes:
This fic was started in the middle of the night in July when I couldn't sleep (ironically, I was at a Harry Potter convention. Go figure.) I typed two lines: Dean wakes to a world gone black with death and Sam's eyes are as black as the sky.
It sort of spiraled from there. I wanted to write a fic where Ruby brings Dean back from hell to save Sam. I also knew I wanted it to take place in NY, as the very first image I had was of Dean standing in a barren Central Park staring at Sam, whose eyes are black.
When the song "Hell On The Throat" by Dashboard Confessional popped up on my iPod and gave me a title, it was all over, folks.
The final result is a labor of love and one of my favorite fics to date.
Acknowledgments:
All first born children, showers of gifts, and heaps of thanks should be directed to dream_mancer, who has listened to me bitch and moan and squee and freak out over this fic for months. Without her, I would never have finished. She helped make this fic, and I cannot thank her enough ♥ ♥ ♥
Finally, thank you to the mods at apocabigbang for putting together a fantastic challenge :D