Bliss In Emptiness - Chapter 4 (soulless!Sam/Ruby, NC-17)
CHAPTER 4
By the time Eve pulled back, the sheer over-bleed of power in the room was stifling. With one last look at Ruby, she said. Stop worrying about what Lucifer wants, and start figuring out what you want. Sam needs guidance. He has no compass without his soul. So, guide him.
The vampires in the room, including the alpha, all turned to Eve right before she vanished. Then their focus shifted entirely to Ruby and Sam.
Sam took a shaky step towards Ruby, his eyes still glazed as his mind and body tried to process what had happened. He looked from Ruby to the vampires and made a growling noise that could've been amusement or a warning.
"They're free to go," the alpha said, as he took his seat at the head of the table again.
The other vampires complied, stepping back closer against the wall until Ruby and Sam had clear passage.
Right before they reached the large pine door that led out of the dining room, the father vampire added, "Understand, Sam, that we are not lambs awaiting slaughter. If mother says you hunt, then you hunt, but we will not make it easy on you."
******
Sam spent the drive away from the alpha's manor, looking for all intents and purposes like he was sleeping. His eyes were closed, but his eyelids moved, like he was dreaming. His breathing was shallow, and when Ruby turned off the interstate onto another highway headed south just a little too quickly, he jerked upright.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"To get some food and a room for the night. I wanted to get a few hundred miles between us and the alpha's nest first, though."
"I'm starving," Sam said.
"I figured." Her eyes flicked up to the exit signs ahead. "Denny's, Burger King or Texaco?"
Sam said nothing for a few seconds and turned to look out the window. "Take the next exit. "
"Planning on it." Ruby reached out with her mind tentatively, trying to figure out what Sam was thinking, but felt nothing. Whatever Eve had done had effectively locked Ruby out. Temporarily, if she had anything to say about it. She pulled onto the local roads and repeated her question. "Denny's, Burger King-"
"There," Sam said, pointing at a sign up ahead.
"The Sports Authority?"
"There's a shifter working security there."
"How do you know that?" Ruby asked, even though she already knew the answer.
"I can see them. I can see all of them. Little pinpricks all over the map."
"Eve gave you monster-GPS?" Ruby asked as she pulled into the parking lot.
"I think she's letting me see through her. I can see through their eyes, if I'm close. Let me out." Sam reached for the door handle before Ruby had even stopped the car.
"A couple more seconds won't kill you. You need to fill me in on the plan first, Rambo." Ruby watched the back door to the store. It wouldn't be too populated this time of day.
"I go in, corner him in a back room and snap his neck," Sam thought for a second and added, "Maybe I'll slit his throat instead, get a taste of his blood first."
Ruby blinked. "Or, you could wait for him to come outside."
"Don't feel like waiting," Sam said and threw open the door to the car with finality.
"It'll take me five minutes, tops," Ruby said.
"You think you can mind-whammy him?"
"Can you?"
Sam shook his head. "Not sure, but if I can't and I try, that'll tip him off."
Ruby walked past Sam and patted him on the shoulder. "Five minutes, okay?" She unzipped her jacket, pulled it off on her way into the store and came out with the shifter following her four minutes later.
He was just a kid, seventeen at most-as old as the skin he'd chosen, and Ruby almost felt bad leading him out to Sam. Almost. Shifters were born monsters, like rougarous, like djinn, like a myriad of other things. He never chose to be what he was, he just was.
She'd tried to send Sam a message once she was close to the back door, and was pretty sure he'd heard her, even though she couldn't pick up on his thoughts since Eve's little upgrade. She brought the shifter past the dumpster out back and he offered her a cigarette. She accepted and waited for him to light it for her.
"So yeah, the hours are okay, I bet I can get you an interview later today," he said, smiling.
"That'd be great." Ruby stood upright, tasting the bitter smoke in the air, just in time to see Sam come around the corner, grab the kid in a headlock and bring his silver knife to his throat.
The shifter grimaced in pain, but he couldn't scream, Sam's arm holding his head firmly in place.
Swiftly, Sam cut the base of the shifter's neck and leaned down over the wound.
The kid thrashed in Sam's grip, trying to break free, but he wasn't nearly strong enough and soon his legs stopped kicking and his face turned from shock and anger to terror. Then there was a crack and a strange squishing sound, and suddenly Sam was left holding nothing but a chunk of the shifter's flesh.
The shifter had altered his skeleton from one second to the next, slipping out of Sam's hold as he shed his skin. He was raw looking underneath-muscle tissue over an impossibly slim frame, with wide, shining eyes and a hole for a mouth. The sad-looking thing gave Ruby one last, hurt look and then ran.
Sam shook off his temporary confusion, took aim with his knife and threw, hitting the shifter in the back. It staggered, reached a spindly arm behind itself and pulled the dagger out, then kept running.
Ruby expected Sam to take off after it, or curse the fact that it was getting away. What she didn't expect was for Sam to turn his attention back to the strip of shifter flesh in his hand, bring it up to his mouth and start eating it like it was jerky. She stared at him in disgust for a few seconds.
Sam finished off the strip he'd been holding within seconds, then eyed the pile of already dissolving flesh at their feet.
"Sam, no. Gross," Ruby positioned herself in between the pile and Sam. "I thought you were supposed to taste its blood, not…eat it."
Sam licked his lips, eyes dilated as he looked down at her. "I want more."
"Shifter? Or can we find something less disgusting?"
Sam was looking at her, but he hadn't heard a word she'd said. He put his hand on the side of her face and his fingers felt prickly. She almost backed away, but then she saw the skin of his face start to ripple. For just a moment, his skin became blotchier and his face changed-his eyes growing rounder and further apart, and his lips thinning. He had a mustache and a beard and he looked just like…
"Who's Mr. Henry?" Sam asked, as his appearance returned to normal.
Ruby repressed a shudder and turned away from Sam. "Nobody."
"Really?" Sam scoffed. "Because you still think about tearing him apart."
Ruby walked back to the car in silence.
*******
They did end up going to a Burger King. Ruby needed to see Sam eating something less off-putting, and Burger King still had damn good fries. Sam ate his chicken sandwich methodically, and quickly, like he was expecting to leave the minute he was done.
"I can't see into your head anymore," Ruby said, swirling a fry through her ring of ketchup.
"Eve did something. Probably so I can keep Crowley out, and Castiel."
"Handy." Her Pepsi was flat and weak on the syrup. "What else did you see? When you looked."
Sam's lips quirked. "I think I saw your life as a human, or…a witch I guess. You were pretty pissed off."
"Story of my life. People keep pissing me off."
"Let's go," Sam said standing.
Ruby pointed at her fries.
"Take them with you."
"Seriously? You can't wait another three goddamn minutes?"
She could practically hear Sam's teeth grinding as he sat back down.
"There's a skinwalker pack in Greenville, a rougarou ten miles away, a werewolf in Fairview, and a wendigo in the park up the highway."
"Which one do you want?" Ruby deliberately took the tiniest bite she possibly could off of her fry, watching Sam's frustration rise.
"All of them."
"Four hunts, in one day?"
"Why not? The faster we do this, the sooner we can stop Crowley." Sam stuffed his sandwich wrapper into his cup and crushed the whole thing into a little ball.
"It'd be nice to rest up, shower, break some mattress springs." She ate her last two fries in one mouthful. "Fine. Let's go to Greensville."
*******
By the time they finally pulled into a motel parking lot, it was early the next morning.
They'd taken out the wendigo first, the rougarou second, the werewolf third and the whole skinwalker pack fourth. Sam had taken a sampling of each one, which had infuriated the wendigo and confused the rougarou.
The sheer speed at which they'd torn through the skinwalkers had been impressive. They didn't get knocked down once, and not a single dog got the chance to run away. The speed and strength Sam had picked up from the wendigo had given him a major advantage against the pack.
Sam fell into the car, practically high from the rush of the skinwalkers' power. He'd taken flesh and blood from all eight of them. "There's an arachne twenty miles that way," he said, pointing out his window to the right.
"That's nice. We're going to go get cleaned up first though." Ruby expected a protest, or at the very least a displeased grunt, but when she looked over to Sam he was sleeping.
"What did she do to you, Sam?" Ruby asked our loud.
"What did you do?" asked Eleanor Jacobs, wringing her hands together.
"I did what you asked me to do," Ruby said. It was a new name for her, Ruby, but it was one she liked, one that fit her new life. She touched the red gem hanging in the hollow of her throat-a gift from the demon that had given her power.
Eleanor looked up and wiped at her nose, nervously. "No, no I said I wanted him to forget about her. I wanted him to be loyal to me." Her blue eyes were rimmed with red, but not in anger anymore. This time she looked petrified.
"And is that not exactly what has happened?" Ruby looked out the window at the pallid sun. It was going to rain again today. Third day in a row.
"I wanted him to love me again." Eleanor put her hands down on Ruby's small table. "Like he used to."
"You made that very clear. Has he not been showering you with attention?"
"He won't stop. I had to get him drunk just to get away for a few minutes."
Ruby laughed. "So what's the problem?"
"He's forgotten. So much. Not just about Natalie, but her family, our neighbors, his father- he can't remember his own father." Her eyes got wider. "He doesn't remember any of them."
"I told you there was a price," Ruby said, standing up. "And I warned you not to do this."
Eleanor said nothing but nodded miserably as a tear ran down her ruddy cheek.
"You should get back home before he wakes up."
The clouds had grown thicker and a faint rumble of thunder rolled along with the first few sounds of the church bells.
After paying for a room, Ruby carried Sam onto the bed, and pulled off his shoes. He needed to shower. They needed to shower.
Ruby thought about heading right into the bathroom and using up all the hot water. It sounded like a wonderful plan, and she found herself pulling a change of clothes out of her bag.
From the bed, Sam made a noise. Something so soft it could only have come from a dream.
Ruby laid down next to him and watched his eyeballs move underneath the lids. He was filthy, his face still streaked with monster-blood. There was still a smudge of blood on his throat from where the rougarou had bitten Sam back. Sam had healed within three seconds flat. After another few days on this type of schedule he'd probably be completely impenetrable.
She licked the tip of her thumb and moved it across the dried blood, cleaning it off as gently as she could.
His breathing stayed just as even, but his heart sped up infinitesimally and the left side of his mouth curved slowly into a smile.
Ruby found herself pinned underneath Sam less than half a second later. His eyes were open and shining-literally. She could see his irises flick between options: the vertically contracting, pale eyes of a shifter; the amber, lupine eyes of a werewolf and the bloodshot hunger of the rougarou all offering themselves, a whole new set of tools for him to use.
"You were dreaming," Ruby said.
"I don't sleep," Sam said, blinking his eyes from wolf to human to solid black.
"You did. Just now. You have been, ever since-"
"How long?" Sam asked, his heart beating faster. His oil-slick black eyes searched hers. "A few minutes, at most. Maybe I need to rest after taking in that much. I feel good. Really good."
"Fine by me. I like a break every now and then, too. Plus. Showers."
Sam chuckled deep in his throat and slid down the length of Ruby's torso, stopping right by her belly-button to nip at the skin below it.
"Shower," she repeated.
His long fingers worked open her belt-buckle and popped open the button beneath.
"Soap and water."
Sam slid down lower, opening the zipper of her pants with a thought and pulled at the pant-legs.
"Fine. You want to play? Play by my rules," Ruby said before vanishing and reappearing in said shower. She left her pants behind and heard Sam fall on his ass with a curse, holding onto nothing but denim.
She had just enough time to strip off the rest of her clothes, turn on the shower and climb in before a very naked and very insistent Sam climbed in behind her.
******
Three days later, right after they took down a wraith, Meg appeared, wearing a dark blue leather jacket and a sour expression.
"You're timing's impeccable," Ruby said as she snapped off the wraith's right spike and tossed it to Sam, who was busy snacking on the left. He caught it without looking, his eyes still tracking the wraith's corpse, looking for other concentrations of power.
"That's gross," Meg said, watching Sam.
"That's nothing. You should have seen what he did with the rougarou." Ruby walked Meg towards the car as she heard the unmistakable sound of Sam cracking open the wraith's skull. Four brains in a week then. That had to be some kind of record. "So, learn something?" she asked the other demon.
Meg scoffed. "Dean's still a dick, Castiel's still annoying and the Campbells are all a bunch of gorillas. Grandpappy Samuel there, he's got the whole group under his thumb. And guess who he's working for?"
It wasn't that big a surprise really. "Crowley."
"Give that lady a cigar," Meg chewed on her lip. "Not just him. Three of their crew were possessed. Dean killed two of them."
"And Castiel?" Ruby asked.
"It's not exactly easy to follow an angel," Meg said glowering. "But then, he's not the brightest tree-topper." She smirked. "He's definitely hiding something. Dean knows it too."
"Did they try to kill you?"
"Only twice so far. And once was totally my bad. I may have said something less than flattering about the old Sam." Meg looked over to the wraith-corpse. "He didn't used to be such a messy eater."
Ruby laughed. "Yeah he did. He's always had a problem controlling his appetite." She smiled. "That's why he's perfect for this. That's why we're gonna win."
"Lucifer made him a monster-eater?"
"No. Eve did."
"Who's Eve?" Meg asked.
Ruby showed her with a quick replay of images. The alpha vampire and Eve shifting from one mother's form to the next.
"Echidna…" Meg said, in wonder, "…she's here?"
"Yup. And she wants Crowley dead as much as we do."
"That explains the dragons." Meg's lips quirked.
"Dragons?" Ruby repeated incredulously.
Sam eyes lit up and he grinned at them, wiping bits of grey matter from his chin. "Dragons?"
*******
Crocatta, more vampires, more dragons, changelings, kitsune, every damn monster in existence was on the menu over the course of the next few weeks. The more Sam fed, the stronger he got. He'd thrown a car after a dragon that tried to fly away, knocking it out of the air. He spent the rest of the night pissed that he couldn't fly.
Sam also slept more. He was back up to four hours a night by the end of the month, and Ruby started to get used to having time by herself again. She used her spare hours to practice her spell-work, trying every few nights to get back into Sam's head.
When she finally got in, it was through a scrying bowl. She'd focused it on Sam's thoughts, swishing a few loose strands of his hair around until she finally started to see the images he was seeing: a forest, dark and thick. He ran on all fours, chasing something, everything around him-strange animals-things Ruby had never seen before, scaled and feathered and large as rhinos, and Sam took them down, one by one, never tiring.
She shifted her eyes to where he lay sleeping and thought she could see something shifting inside his skin, huge and heavily muscled, with two curving horns on the sides of its head.
Her scrying bowl flickered and the forest image was replaced with Meg's lopsided grin.
Knock, knock, she said, her voice echoing as it reverberated through her bowl of blood to Ruby's bowl of water. Want to tell me where you two are holed up? I've got news.
Sam sat up at the sound of Meg's voice, his eyes a dark amber, stuck somewhere between wolf and lion. He blinked and looked at Ruby questioningly.
"420 Independence Freeway, Room 5H," Ruby said to the bowl.
Sam turned towards the door a second before the air there flickered.
"Awww…did I interrupt your beauty nap?" Meg asked, from just inside the door.
"You could knock," Ruby said.
"I did." Meg nodded towards Ruby's bowl, walked over to the bed and plopped down next to Sam. "Crowley and Castiel are in cahoots. It's official."
"Is that so?" Sam asked. "What did you see?"
"Crowley's been funding Cas's war-fund. There's 15,000 souls missing from Hell. One guess where they went?" Meg cocked an eyebrow.
"No kidding," Ruby let out a huff. "So the rumors are true? There's a civil war up there again?" She looked up towards the ceiling, trying to imagine what the angel war of today looked like.
"Raphael vs. Castiel," Meg held out her hands and wiggled her fingers. "The archangel of the East and the angel who likes Columbo a little too much. The ultimate showdown!"
"How's Castiel going to hold his own against an archangel?" Sam asked.
"Pay attention," Meg said. "Souls, Sam."
"Castiel's using the souls against Raphael?" Sam asked. "They can do that?"
"Sure. Angels use souls for all kinds of ammunition. We're more into arts and crafts downstairs." Meg looked over to the table Ruby was sitting at. "Got any coffee?"
"No." Ruby thought for a second. "Is Castiel up there now?"
"Yup," watched him poof away when Dean was starting to ask the right questions. Meg looked down at her fingernails. "He'll be back in a few days though. Always is."
Ruby turned to Sam, who nodded at her and climbed out of the bed. She picked up her scrying bowl, dumped the water out into the sink and set it back onto the table. Then she brought out her knife, pricked the tip of her thumb with it and dribbled a few drops into the bowl.
Sam came closer, his eyes temporarily sticking to her thumb before looking back up at her eyes. He reached down to grab a box from the floor and flipped open the lid, pulling two containers out and pouring their contents into the bowl.
Ruby started chanting. "Ad construgendum ad ligandum-"
"What the hell are you doing?" Meg said, her eyebrows creeping up.
"-eos pariter et solvendum et ad congregantum eos coram me," Ruby's eyes flipped to black as she willed the contents of the bowl to burst into flame.
The light above them flickered, and Meg backed away a few steps just before Crowley appeared right in front of the table.
"Oh for fuck's sake," he said, glaring from Ruby to Sam. "Do you really think you can-"
Before the demon-king could even finish his sentence, he started to light up on the inside. Crowley clutched at his throat futilely, as Sam brought his fingers together into a fist, extinguishing Crowley's soul.
With a heavy thump, Crowley's empty shell fell onto the motel's thin carpet. Sam took a deep, satisfied breath. Ruby smiled at him proudly.
"That was anticlimactic," Meg said.
"Now all we have to worry about is Castiel," Ruby said.
"Ding dong the dick is dead," Meg nudged Crowley's dead host body with her boot, and then looked up to Sam. "Throne of Hell: going once…"
"I don't want to be king," Sam said, annoyed.
"Going twice?" Meg took another few steps back and then vanished as she pointed to herself and said, "Sold."
*******
The air had barely cleared of smoke-scent from the summoning herbs before Eve appeared, still wearing Mary Winchester's face.
"Thank you," she said, smiling first at Sam, then at Ruby. "Hell is better off without him anyway."
"Meg's planning on taking the crown," Ruby said. "Until Lucifer's free again."
Eve nodded. "Fine. As long as she doesn't try to follow through with Crowley's misguided plans, we won't have a problem." She turned to Sam and looked him over. "You look good, Sam."
Ruby watched the shadowy beast inside of Sam shift in response to Eve's voice-puffing out its chest and smiling with a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth.
"I feel good," Sam said. "Stronger. A lot stronger."
"You took down three of my dragons," Eve said flatly.
Ruby tensed, waiting for a reprimand.
"That's impressive, and it'll help you with the angels more than you know." Eve continued, "Just because Crowley's dead, doesn't mean the plan is." She walked closer to Sam. "You'll stop the angels too, won't you?"
Sam's jaw twitched in annoyance. "I've never killed an angel. I don't know if I can."
"You won't know until you try," Eve patted his shoulder. "They can be tough…and ornery, but stick with your training routine and you'll be able to take them down easy."
"It's Castiel, but that's not the real problem" Ruby said, wanting to make sure Eve understood what they were up against. "He's warring against Raphael, and Raphael's the strongest angel left up there."
Eve nodded. "You think he'll try to make a grab for the souls too."
"Why wouldn't he?" Sam asked. "It's a power struggle. If the souls from purgatory are the ammo, then he'd be stupid not to try."
"They're all stupid," Eve said bitterly. "They don't have the stomach for my kind, but they're too arrogant to see it." Her gaze turned distant. "I've seen it." She blinked and faced Sam and Ruby again with another smile firmly in place. "It doesn't matter. You'll stop them."
"You have a lot of faith in us," Ruby said.
"Faith has nothing to do with it," Eve said, chuckling. She was hiding something, and it was starting to bug Ruby. A lot.
"How many more do I need to hunt before I can take on an archangel?" Sam asked, cracking the knuckles in his right hand. He was ready to get going, itchy under his skin for another fight.
"Go for quality, not quantity," Eve said, right before she vanished. No good-bye, no farewell.
Ruby looked down at Crowley's corpse and then back up at Sam. "Ready to check out?"
******
They averaged five hunts a day-on one occasion tracking down and killing a total of twenty-eight monsters on one day. Technically the last three vampires fell at two minutes past midnight, but Sam had been holding them since 11:58; suspended in midair while he dealt with the rest. That day he'd challenged himself to kill and feed without ever touching any of them with his hands. He'd kept that up until three in the afternoon, when a sea undine knocked him off balance and pulled him underwater.
Reacting on instinct and completely lacking in common sense, Sam lashed out with the last power he'd absorbed and mastered earlier that day when they'd killed the storm elemental. The lake was struck by a lightning bolt so thick it could never occur naturally, and the whole body of water bubbled and steamed. One fish after the other floated to the surface, followed by six undines.
Ruby had just started to consider panicking when Sam's head bobbed up out of the water. He swam over to her with a few quick strokes, stripped out of his wet shirt, shook his hair like a dog and said, "This totally counts as a bath."
When they got back to the car, Sam's cellphone was flashing '1 new message.' Sam picked it up, curious. "The only one who has this number is you," he said, his eyes meeting Ruby's, as he brought the phone to his ear.
"Not anymore," Ruby said. She knew whose voice would be on the recording.
"Dean," Sam said. As if there'd been any other possibility.
Ruby could only pick up word fragments from the phone message, the speaker covered nearly entirely by Sam's hair. Last time around, she could've filled in the blanks with what echoed in Sam's mind, or his expression. She still remembered the way his whole body posture had crumpled after hearing Dean's message the night he killed Lilith. She'd never thanked the angels for that particular piece of assistance. She probably never would.
"What'd he have to say?" she asked, when Sam hung up.
"That we were right about Castiel-that he was working with Crowley. Meg told him everything, but he didn't believe it until he saw Castiel kill an angel, one of his own soldiers, when he called him out on it." Sam's brow furrowed. "He wants to see me. Says he needs my help to stop him"
Ruby nodded as she shifted lanes. "You know it's a trap, right?"
"Yup."
"But we're gonna go anyway."
"I'm going. Not you. He was very specific."
Ruby scoffed. "Of course he was. Sam, I'm not letting you do this alone you want me to stay invisible, fine, but I'm not staying behind."
"No, you are. I'll lock you in a devil's trap if I have to. If Dean sees you again, he'll kill you."
Despite the shitty situation, Ruby couldn't help but smile a little at that. "You trying to protect me?"
"You're a good ally."
"Mm-hmm, and I taste good too, don't I?" Ruby pushed the pedal down a little further as she turned onto the main highway. She wanted to get to a bed fast. If Sam was about to head off to see Dean, she wanted…
She wanted.
******
Sam drank from her the second they got to their new motel room and didn't even stop to take off her clothes or his, tearing at the fabric of her pants instead as he pushed her onto the bed. The corduroy came apart easily, and Ruby pulled apart his shirt eager to feel the heat radiating off him.
When he pushed up into her, his eyes met hers and they flickered from his own shade of hazel-green to black. She could see herself reflected in them until he pulled her in tight to drink from the soft skin just below her shoulder. His teeth were sharper now, when he wanted them to be, and he parted her flesh easily.
"Don't die," she said, as she clawed into his lower back, making him arch.
"I don't want to die." Sam shifted his hands down and slid them under her, picking her up off the bed as he sat up. "I'm not scared of things like I should be, I know that. When I hunt I never worry about dying because I know I have the advantage. I'm better than them. I'm stronger, and faster, and most of them can't even hurt me anymore." He swung one of his long legs off the bed and stood up, pulling Ruby tightly against him.
Ruby hooked her feet behind his back and locked her mouth around the side of his neck, making him growl low.
"But I think I might die this time. And…I don't want to." He walked them over to the wall and propped her back up against the cool surface. His eyes looked pale white in the darkness, and she thought of Lilith of Alistair. She'd always wondered how much of a boost he would have gotten from their blood.
"I'm strong Ruby, I'm so damn strong, but Dean- he's not gonna stop until he- "
Ruby pushed down on top of him, and pulled him closer to the wall, closer against her.
"He's not gonna stop," Sam said. "He wants his brother back, and I'm not him."
"But you are. You are a part of him. You're what he is underneath all the guilt and fear. You're the best of him." She wrapped her arms tighter around Sam's neck and pulled herself up until she could reach the salty-sweaty skin at the base of his neck.
"Dean doesn't care. He's going to do whatever it takes to get his brother's soul back, and I think if he does, then I-"
She ran her tongue up the side of his throat and then bit down harder, right over his carotid.
Sam cried out and grabbed her by the hair trying to pull her off.
She fought him until she tasted his blood. Then she let him pull her back and smiled, feeling the salty drops coating her lips.
"If Dean gets Sammy's soul back in my body, then whatever I am-I'm going to die. And I don't want to. I like this life. I like hunting. I like you. You make me feel…"
"Sanguis sanguinis mei," Ruby ran her finger over the blood on her lips and cleaned it off with her tongue.
Sam pressed his mouth against hers, and groaned as Ruby released the power she'd been building, sending everything she could into him, his blood in her forming a link between them, letting her blood amplify everything he could do. Every skill he'd picked up from Eve's children finding a demonic complement.
His eyes rolled back in pleasure and his power crested as he did, setting the room alight with pure energy. It spread out from him like golden lightning, arcing out until it reached the walls. Ruby cried out, holding herself against him tightly while her own power joined his, shattering the light fixture above them and the small mirror in the bathroom.
Sam managed to maneuver them back towards the bed and then collapsed on top of Ruby.
"Oof," she said, pushing him off until he rolled over on his back. "I'm going with you."
"No you're not." She didn't even feel his power reach for her. It was just suddenly there, holding her flat against the bed-a dozen hands, solid metal grips with absolutely no give.
"Sam, let me up. I'm going with you."
"No. I have to do this alone."
"No you don't!" She tried frantically to think of something that would persuade him. "You need my help."
"I'm not him. If Dean- if he gets Sam's soul back, he might come back to you. He has to, after what I've done to this body, he won't be able to survive without you."
"I don't want him. I want you." She reached out with him with her mind, trying to get him to turn around. "I made you."
"I'm sorry," he said, but his back was still turned to her.
"No, you're not. You don't know how to be sorry," Ruby said, still testing his hold.
"I'll be fine." He scoffed. "After what you just gave me, I think I really can take down an archangel. You know how strong I am."
"Yeah, and I know your brother. He wants you back the way you were, and he's not going to stop until he figures out a way." She stopped fighting and closed her eyes. "Sam, you're not coming back from this. Not the way you are now."
His head turned just enough for her to see the side of his face. His jaw twitched once, and then he opened the door and left.
Ruby waited until the count of one hundred and twenty and then started chanting, slowly and steadily. Mater monstrum exaudi me, mater monstrum…
"I'm not normally one for house calls," said her mother's voice. "And yet with you it seems to be becoming a habit."
Ruby turned her eyes as far as she could and saw Eve, wearing her mother's face once again. She was wearing a simple white cotton dress and her black hair hung loose around her shoulders.
"He's already headed onto the interstate," Eve said walking closer to where Ruby lay. "Thats a pretty good range."
"Yeah," Ruby scoffed. "You gonna let me up?"
The room filled with soft peals of laughter. "You just summoned me here, you presumptuous dirt-speck. No tribute, no ritual, nothing but a plea. You really think you're in any position to be making demands?"
"No. But you could've ignored me, and you didn't. Which means you want to help me. You want to help Sam."
Eve snapped her fingers and the invisible binds holding Ruby simply vanished. "I made a significant investment in Sam's evolution," said the goddess of Purgatory. "I gave him access to more power than any of my other children. I've helped you plenty."
"Have you?" Ruby asked, rolling her head to work out the crick in her neck. She brought her hand up to the wound in her flesh. It had closed already, but she could still feel Sam's teeth-marks.
"You're questioning my methods?" Eve asked, her eyes narrowed.
"No, I'm questioning the validity of your statement." Ruby stood up and walked to the sink to get some water. "Want a drink?"
Eve said nothing, but when Ruby turned back, her eyes were amused. "Tell me why you think I'm lying, little witch."
"Sam is Lucifer's vessel. That's the only reason you could change him the way you did. Anybody else would've imploded already."
A small smile spread across Eve's lips.
"But Sam…he's meant to hold an archangel's power, and more. Lucifer designed him to be the end game." Ruby sat down across from her at the small table. "So you figured you'd give Sam a whole different menu. Just to see what happens."
"He's powerful." Eve's smile spread into a grin. "Stronger than any demon, stronger than any one angel and stronger than my first born."
"Yup. He took down Crowley easy and Castiel won't be a problem. It's Dean I'm worried about."
"Sam's brother?"
Ruby nodded.
"You're wise for your young age. Love is always the most dangerous force. Dean wants his brother back in one piece. You think he'll succeed?"
"I think he'll do anything it takes."
"Sam fed from you before he left," Eve tilted her head and looked at the bed. "In more ways than one." She nodded approvingly. "You gave him a boost."
"Best I could do on short notice." Ruby thought of the tidal wave of power she'd sent into Sam. "Castiel has allies. And they'll be there. I'm sure Sam can hold his own against two, but three angels, four? However many they bring? Not to mention Raphael and whoever he brings along. And Dean- Sam might not think he has soft spots anymore, but if he does…" She paused, running her fingers over the last fading cut on her arm. "Sam needs me there."
"Is that what this is? You're asking me to give you a ride?" Eve stood up and turned to look out the window.
"Maybe. Yes." Ruby followed Eve but kept her distance, standing a few feet behind her. "You want us to keep the angels from getting their hands on Purgatory's souls. I want that too, and I'll do everything I can to make sure that happens, but I'm not going to be able to get to where it's all going down without help. Not with angels and Dean Winchester there. They'll kill me."
"You fear your own death?" Eve said. "That's only natural. But sometimes death is just the next step. It's not always the end. You know that better than anyone."
Ruby nodded. "If you don't want to help, fine. Sorry I bothered you."
"I can't be there. Not yet. Just like with Crowley-I kill an archangel, I'll be calling Heaven to war against me. But what I can give you is protection." Eve held out her hand, and Ruby stepped forward to meet her, understanding spreading through her limbs and then her mind. Eve laid her hand gently against her cheek. When Eve's skin touched hers the circuit completed, and a current ran through Ruby. Gentle at first, a soft echo of the power she'd raised with Sam only minutes earlier. Eve pressed her fingertips tighter against Ruby's skin and the energy doubled, causing Ruby's eyes to fly open as she gasped for air. She couldn't see a thing past the haze of power thick in her mind, but images flickered through her thoughts-familiar ones from long ago of the dark woods, and a beast that lapped at her blood.
"We're not so different, you and I," Eve said as she clasped her fingers tight around Ruby's and pulled her in close. "We just want what's best for our blood. That's what Sam is to you, I understand. And he's mine now too. But you're not. You serve a different god. All I can do is give you my blessing. I can't change what you are at your core. I wouldn't have been able to change Sam either if it weren't for that hungry void inside of him." Her smile was soft and her voice dropped to almost a whisper as she added. "He was so empty without a soul. Just waiting to be filled."
Whatever artificial calm she'd been feeling disappeared instantly. Ruby pulled back from Eve. "What did you do to him? Really?"
Eve laughed. "What you should be asking is, what did I do to you?"
Ruby opened her mouth to answer and then slammed it shut as a short, triple edged silver sword flew right at her head. She ducked just in time to avoid its sharp tip. The motel room had disappeared. She was in another, even larger operating room-at Crowley's prison.
"You were most definitely not on the guest list either," said a low voice. Ruby turned and saw a woman looking at her with amused eyes. Not a woman, an angel. Based on her power alone, Ruby knew she was looking at an archangel. It couldn't be Lucifer or Michael, and Gabriel had been MIA for as long as she could remember, so that left only one option. "Raphael."
"A demon that knows her angels. How quaint," said Raphael, raising an arm out, fingers spread wide. Ruby squeezed her eyes in reflex, waiting for the inevitable burn of holy fire.
Nothing happened.
"Ruby!" Sam's voice called out from the other side of the room.
She opened her eyes again, searching for him. He ran across the room, long legs carrying him quickly, but with a flick from Raphael's hand, he was sent crashing into the wall, hard enough to crack several of the bricks.
Raphael's dark eyes focused on Ruby and narrowed.
The oddest sensation blossomed in Ruby's chest and spread through her limbs as the archangel's power crashed into her and did nothing.
"Who is protecting you?" The archangel's eyes narrowed
"Look out!" Sam yelled, as he pushed himself back up off the floor.
Less than a second later, Dean crashed into Ruby, and pinned her to the floor. "This day's starting to look up after all," he said, holding a gun to her head. The Colt.
Ruby could feel its magic just from the touch of the cool metal against her skin.
Dean cocked the gun. "Stay dead this time."
A burst of power knocked the Colt from Dean's hand.
Ruby and Dean both turned to find Sam standing a few feet away from the wall he'd collided with. His hand was stretched out towards them.
"After everything she did to you, you're still gonna choose her over me?" Dean snarled at him. "Sam would never do that. My brother would never do that!"
"Your brother would never do this either," Sam said, as he pulled his fingers into a fist.
Dean's eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed, asleep.
Sam rushed to Ruby's side and held his hand down to her.
She tried to glare at him, but her mouth was curved the other way. "I'm fine."
"When did it wear off?" Sam cocked his head to the side. "I thought I could keep a hold on you from here."
"About two minutes after you left," she lied. "Maybe it's the wards in this place."
Maybe, Sam slipped into her thoughts. Or maybe you had help.
Shut up or this won't work. We need to take the archangel down.
Archangel? That explains it, Sam said. I can't touch her.
"Honestly…" Raphael said with an amused expression. "You really think I can't hear every little thought you two are having? You might be the heavy-weight champs in your anthill, but you're still ants."
"You are all ants," said a new voice. "And such talkative ones, too."
Sam's face shifted to surprise and paled just a tinge. "Death."
"In the flesh, so to speak." said the Horseman. He walked over to Dean and looked down at him.
Dean woke up and rubbed his head, then froze when he saw Death smiling down at him.
"You were right about the Belgian fries," said the horseman, as Dean pushed himself to his feet. "Twenty-six different dipping sauces. Absolutely marvelous."
"Right?" Dean shrugged. "For a place that serves nothing but fries-totally worth it."
"There's a restaurant that serves nothing but french fries?" Ruby said, completely intrigued.
Dean nodded, still almost-smiling and then glared at her.
"Yes," said Death. "I'm partial to the rosemary garlic sauce myself." He turned to survey the others in the room.
Raphael's mask of calm started to crack.
"Have any of you wondered what your friend Castiel has been doing these last ten minutes?" Death asked.
"He is not a friend," Raphael said. "He is my brother and very misguided."
"Misguided, yes." Death took a step closer to the archangel. "You tried the ritual yourself not more than five minutes ago, did you not?"
Raphael's eyes fell. "It failed. I said the words correctly, I had the right ingredients-"
"Are you quite sure about that?" Death asked, pointing to the bloody sigil on the wall.
Sam walked over to the wall and ran his finger through the still wet curve on the right. He brought his finger to his mouth and tasted it. "Dog."
"Dog?" Raphael repeated.
"Skinwalker?" Ruby asked, walking next to Sam to look at the blood-sigil.
"No, poodle," Sam said. "The spell called for poodle-blood?"
Raphael's brow furrowed. "It most certainly did not. The demon must have switched the jars."
"Demon?" Sam cocked his head to the side. "Crowley's dead. I killed him."
Dean raised his eyebrows.
"Not Crowley, the other one." Raphael frowned at Ruby, looking beneath her skin at her true form. "Looks like you only older, and she's got Lucifer's stench all over her, too."
"Meg," Ruby said. "She's helping Castiel?"
"Helping him tear a hole in the worlds," Death said. "Let's go have a look, shall we?"
Ruby felt the world shift around her again, as subtle and immediate as what Eve had done minutes earlier. They were somewhere else. An abandoned warehouse, dark except for the wan light from a streetlight up on the highway just outside of the windows, and another glowing light coming from the far wall. There were two figures standing in front of the wall: one wearing a trench-coat, the other smaller one wearing a leather jacket.
"Castiel?" Dean said, breaking out into a jog towards the light until he caught sight of a collapsed form lying in the middle of the warehouse floor. "Bobby?" He ran towards the fallen man and knelt by his side.
"Meg," Ruby said. "What do you want to bet she was planning this all along?"
"Makes sense strategically," Sam said. "There are plenty of demons stronger than her. How else is she gonna keep the throne?" Sam held his hand out towards Meg, and nothing happened.
Ruby's heart sank as she realized Death had blocked all of them, her own power not responding in the least.
Raphael had crossed the room and grabbed hold of Castiel's arm, pulling at him as the light pouring from the wall intensified. The portal was opening.
"Purgatory…Sam, that's Purgatory. It's open," Ruby said. "We have to stop them, now!"
They ran forward, passing Dean who looked up at them from Bobby's fallen form. Sam stopped next to him, looked down at Bobby and said, "He'll be fine."
Dean's eyes narrowed. "Just because he has a pulse, doesn't mean he's fine." Then he stood up and started to walk towards the portal.
Death hadn't moved from his spot in the center of the room. Ruby turned to him, curious about what he was going to do. Then a second force joined them, the already over-charged air growing even heavier. Eve appeared beside Death, wearing Mary Winchester's face once again.
"Lady Echidna," Death said, smiling softly. "We have a bit of a problem here, don't we?"
Eve smiled over at the horseman. "It's been a long time."
"It has."
They turned to watch Castiel, Raphael and Meg, while Ruby, Sam and Dean stared at them.
"Mom?" Dean asked, his voice shaky.
Eve shook her head, the long blond hair shifting to black as she took on another form-a young woman, with pale grey eyes.
Dean's face contorted in anger, and his hand clenched into a fist.
"That would be an extraordinarily bad idea," Death said.
Dean turned away from them and with one last look to Bobby, crossed the room to where the two angels and Meg stood by the portal.
"Sorry," Ruby heard herself say. "I tried- we tried to stop them, but-"
"I've seen all this before," Death said, without turning to face her. "We both have. And we decided, this time around, that things should play out differently."
"You time-traveled?" Sam asked.
Eve turned to smile indulgently at Sam. "Not exactly."
Death followed Eve's gaze and looked from Ruby to Sam. "The universe is made of millions upon millions of strands-interweaving in points, and separate in others. This particular knot has proven troublesome."
Eve's smile turned to sorrow when she looked at Ruby. "This is a deeply-worn path, difficult to redirect, but not impossible." She turned to Death. "If we let the pieces move as they have before, the death toll will be astronomical. There's too much chaos. Not just for my world, but for this one. For yours…" she pointed down, and then pointed up "…and for theirs. We need to add a new piece to the board."
"Agreed," Death said, his eyes on Sam.
"Let me kill Meg," Sam said. "I can do it easy, if you keep Raphael busy."
Eve walked up to Sam and took his hand. "You can kill them all. Easily. And then Heaven will scream for your head, and Hell will be yours. You'll be the new king"
Sam shook his head. "I don't want to be king."
"What you want doesn't matter. That's what'll happen. Demons respect power over all other things. Don't they, Ruby?"
Ruby nodded. "Hell is supposed to be- it's supposed to be Lucifer's, but Sam- he's the vessel."
"Was the vessel," Death said. "Excuse me one moment." The horseman vanished and reappeared by Castiel, Raphael and Meg. He spoke, and all of them backed away from the hole, leaving Ruby with a clear view of the portal.
It had stabilized in size and the light was even more intense than it had been moments earlier.
"What is that?" Sam asked as they walked slowly towards the wall. "The light?"
"Souls. Millions of monster-souls trying to bust out of Purgatory," Ruby said, her voice nearly a whisper.
"They're so bright," Sam said. "I thought they'd be more-"
"Monstrous?" Ruby asked. "Like demons?"
"Yeah."
"You don't understand," Castiel said to Death. "Raphael is a tyrant. I'm trying to save Heaven."
"You already have," Death said. "Would you like to see what your salvation brought them? What you did to set things right?"
Castiel's face brightened. "Yes."
"Then see," Death said.
Castiel's eyes glowed a soft blue and his face shifted from happiness to sorrow to absolute misery within seconds. When the light faded from his eyes, he said nothing and looked down at the floor.
"What'd you see?" Dean asked.
Castiel shook his head.
Dean turned the angel towards him. "Cas-"
"I won't make that mistake again," Castiel said quietly, not to Dean, or to anyone in particular.
"No, you won't." Death turned from Castiel to Raphael. "You've had things go your way, too. Many times. Would you like to see your Heaven?"
Raphael nodded and her eyes glowed softly. She staggered back a few steps and brought her hand to her mouth. When the light faded, she didn't say a word.
"I am giving you one more chance here. I'm tired of cleaning up after you and your petty squabbles, but it's a different matter entirely when you go from throwing pebbles to nuclear warheads." Death held his hand out, and his cane appeared. "I'm sending you both home. You will stay there until you reach an agreement. This is not a request, you understand, it's a statement of fact."
Death tapped his cane on the hard floor of the warehouse, and with a yellow-white pull of light, Castiel and Raphael vanished.
Meg had stepped back further and further away from the wall.
"If you're gonna run, now would probably be a good time," Ruby said.
Meg looked from Ruby to Eve to Death uncertainly. Tried. Can't.
Try again, Ruby thought back at her. She'd felt her own power resurface moments ago. Whatever lesson Death was teaching them, it was drawing to a close.
A moment later Meg was gone.
"Now, Dean," Death said, "…there's still the matter of your brother."
"You gonna put him back together?" Dean asked. His face was carefully calm, but underneath, Ruby could see that he was terrified.
So was she. If anyone could get Sam's soul out of the cage, it was Death. But Sam's soul had been trapped with Lucifer and Michael for so long, there was no telling what had happened to it.
"You can't-" she said, before she could stop herself.
Eve chuckled. "She's not wrong."
"What do you mean?" Dean asked. He turned to Death, "You said you could."
Death's eyes narrowed. "I told you I would restore your brother's soul, but that it would not be as you remembered."
"You said you'd fix him," Dean's jaw quivered but he kept his voice calm. "This isn't my brother," Dean said, pointing to Sam, "He's got no right to wear his skin."
Sam stepped closer to Dean, but kept a good three feet of space between them. "I'm not who you remember. But I am him. A part of him, anyway."
"And therein lies the problem," Death looked from Dean to Sam. "I can get Sam's soul for you, and I can put it back in Sam's body, but you have to understand something. This-" he pointed at Sam, "-is not an empty vessel."
"He doesn't have a soul," Dean said, and his confusion tilted to anger.
"He didn't," Death said. "He was an anomaly. In all my time…" he paused. "I have seen only eight human beings without a soul. But this is the first who was given the ability to grow his own." The horseman turned to Eve. "And you knew exactly what you were doing."
"I wasn't sure it would work." Eve looked at Sam and winked, "I was hoping it would."
"For purely selfless reasons, of course," Death said, with barely hidden sarcasm.
"We need a new guardian. If we'd had one in place, things would never have gone this far," Eve said.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Dean said, looking suspiciously from Eve to Death.
Sam shook his head as a small smile spread across his lips, "I already have a soul."
"No, you don't-it's stuck in a cage-that's kinda the whole problem." Dean snapped, stepping closer to Sam. He was angry, but there was panic underneath his voice.
"I didn't have one before..." Sam said. "…but Death just said it himself: I grew one. Maybe because of what Eve did, I don't know, but I- I've been dreaming."
Ruby watched Sam's eyes as they grew brighter while he talked.
"I have these intense dreams, and I'm sleeping again-that's why, because I have a soul. My own soul. So you can't have your brother back the way he was."
Dean moved quickly, like he was about to throw a punch, but Ruby positioned herself in between them. She thought of the beast and its hungry eyes. That was Sam, now. This Sam. His wants were simple, and he didn't want to lose his hunting ground.
"This body is mine," Sam said, his voice lower. "Every cell is mine. You really want to put Sammy's soul back in here after everything I've done to it?" He watched Dean's eyes for a reaction. "It's barely even human."
Dean's nostrils flared but he turned away from Sam and focused on Death. "Is he telling the truth?"
"As he understands it, yes," Death said. "But that's irrelevant." He reached for Sam, and his hand passed through Sam's skin, grabbing hold of the soul underneath. He pulled hard, holding onto the horns curling at the top of Sam's head until what Sam had become started to manifest outside of his body.
Dean caught Sam's empty body as it collapsed, looking up at Death, and what he'd extracted from Sam's body, with wide eyes.
Ruby had caught glimpses in Sam's dreams, but seeing it here was something else entirely. His body was huge-ten feet of solid grey muscle, a powerful jaw with long sharp teeth, and dark yellow eyes darting around furiously as it struggled in Death's grip.
Death's appearance was that of an old, frail man, but he dragged Sam's monstrous soul behind him without the slightest sign of effort, bringing him closer and closer to the portal. It would have been almost funny if Ruby hadn't been scared enough to feel her throat tightening up.
Sam's struggles had ceased, though not voluntarily. Ruby could see it in his eyes. He called out to her with his mind desperately, unable to make a sound, or move. Help me!
"Stop! Please!" Ruby said to Death, grabbing a hold of his arm in what she knew was an act of futility.
Death didn't even spare her a glance, as he stopped a few feet from the wall, turned quickly, and threw Sam's huge form through the portal.
"No!" Ruby yelled, running forward. Sam's form disappeared in the mass of light, and the hole between the worlds began to close.
She turned to Eve, who looked once again like her own mother. "Why? He had a right to live. That's all he wanted."
"And Death has just sent him to an eternal hunting ground. He's meant to be there. What he is now, what he made himself into-this world isn't enough for him. But mine is." Eve gave Death a polite nod and touched her hand to the closing portal. The strands of light seemed to wrap around her fingers. She flung her fingers wide and the light, millions of purgatory souls, retracted. Behind them was somewhere else-liquid through the distortion, but clear enough that Ruby could make out bits and pieces: pale sky, dark earth, rocks and trees. "We always have room for one more," Eve said over her shoulder, and then she stepped through.
Ruby looked from Dean, still clutching his brother's empty body, to Death, and made a decision. She ran forward, flinging herself through the small hole in the wall just before it closed.
