He Who Fights Monsters - Chapter One
CHAPTER ONE
Ruby finds Sam in a dive bar off the corner of Mill Street in Pontiac. Six hours ago, she'd left him deep asleep in the abandoned cabin they'd been squatting in, covered by a dusty blanket and surrounded by empty bottles of beer and whiskey. She'd had an errand to take care of, one that couldn't wait. And when she'd come back, he'd been gone.
Three men lie unconscious on the floor and Sam’s facing off against a fourth. Sam's staggering, fading; throwing sloppy punches, right hook after right hook, not bothering to switch to his left. Drunk as a skunk. Fantastic, Ruby thinks. The other guy gets lucky with a hard cross to the ribs and a swift uppercut that catches Sam on the side of his face and drops him like a stone. The small crowd of onlookers gathered around them drifts apart, bored now that the violence is over.
"Dammit, Sam," Ruby hisses under her breath. Sam’s opponent catches a glimpse of her and his eyes flicker black for the barest of instances before he shoves past her, making tracks before the cops are called. “Lilith says hi,” he whispers, just loud enough for her to hear.
The floor is tacky and sticks to Ruby's jeans as she kneels next to Sam. The show over, the crowd disperses, trickling out the door in a silent stream, some of them lugging unconscious buddies. The bartender stops wiping down the counter long enough to peer over to her. "Get him outta here. Bar’s closed," he grumbles as he turns away from them to resume wiping down the far side of the counter.
Ruby ignores the older man’s watchful gaze as she nudges Sam’s shoulder with her foot. A pained moan escapes Sam’s lips. He blinks up at her through bloodshot eyes and brings his hand to the purpling bruise spanning the right side of his face.
"C’mon,” Ruby says, crouching. “Up and at ‘em.” She hooks her hands into his armpits, pulls him to sitting. He doesn't help at all, his tall frame all but a dead weight in her grip. Not that it actually matters. Annoyed, she stands, dragging him to his feet. He sways unsteadily, her small body too low down to lean against. But he's standing at least.
Ruby leaves him teetering, and walks back to the bar. It smells of onions and ammonia. She slips a twenty out of her pocket and onto the counter. The bartender gives her a steady look and doesn’t say anything as he pauses in his motions, reaches out and takes the money without sparing her another glance, and resumes mopping the bar.
“Thanks for babysitting," Ruby pushes away from the counter and crosses the room, the soles of her boots sticking to the floor with every other step. “C’mon,” she says to Sam, not looking back. She hears Sam follow her out, and it's not until they round the corner that he grits out, "It was a demon. He said he saw Dean in Hell. Said he heard him scream."
"He's a liar," Ruby says, not breaking stride.
"You don't even know who it was."
Ruby fights back a smile. She might not have known whom Lilith was sending, but she'd dropped the hint about the younger Winchester's whereabouts herself after tracking him with a chant and a map. Of course, she wasn't about to tell Sam that. She stops and meets his gaze. “Dean’s not exactly in Cell Block D, Sam.” She doesn’t look to see if he’s understood, shouldering past him.
Sam follows in sullen silence until she hears him stumble on the uneven asphalt of the alley and fall with a sharp grunt. She doesn’t hear him get back up and when she turns back, he doesn't make any effort to move from where he's landed, curling on himself, his shoulder in a puddle.
He's given up. And that can't happen.
“Get up,” Ruby snarls. “Get the fuck up!” She gets the toe of her black leather boot under Sam's shoulder and kicks hard. The trajectory sends him into the nearest building, and he lands against the wall in a crooked slump.
He blinks at her.
She reaches down, grabs the front of his jacket and hauls, lifting him high over her head and pushing him against the wall. She’s disgusted his feet don’t even leave the ground and he just kind of sags partly upright. She really hates how short her meatsuit is, sometimes. Sam looks at her dumbly; his breath on her face is rank with alcohol. Momentarily, she's thankful for her muted sense of smell. Of course that doesn't do a thing about Sam's soul, which stinks of desperation and festering pain. She slams him against the brick and there’s a flicker of startled pain. Good. You’re not completely useless, she thinks at him. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Do you think Dean would’ve wanted this?” She doesn’t waste time or words, going instantly for the jugular.
“I couldn’t save him,” Sam says, voice cracking with grief and regret. “I tried- tried the crossroads and they wouldn't-" He wipes the back of his dirt-and-blood-caked hand across his mouth and meets her eyes through his overgrown hair. "They wouldn’t take me.” And in the dull red of the neon BUDWEISER logo, she can see tears.
Well, crying a river about it isn’t going to help shit, she thinks, but she gentles, unwinds her fists, knowing that this is what he needs right now. She rests her palms against his pectorals, rises up on her toes, and leans her mouth as close to his ear as her height will allow.
“What if I told you there was a way to bust Dean out?” She pulls back, sees the spark of interest in his eyes, and allows her own to flip black to remind him what she really is. “You won't like it. It's dangerous, it'll hurt and it'll probably kill you in the end." She smiles, takes his hand into hers, entwining their fingers, bringing it close to her breast. “But what've you got to lose, right?”
Sam lets out a breath, pushes away from the wall, disengaging himself from her, and straightens to his full height. He inhales deeply, letting out one last shuddering breath. She almost wants to scoff but doesn’t, stopping herself at the last minute, and she’s rewarded when his gaze hardens and bores into her. “Tell. Me.”
"Not like this. Sober up first," Ruby says, turning to look over her shoulder at the one-star hotel nearby. “Then we’ll talk.” She walks towards the door, and Sam's protests follow her like sweet music.
::: ::: :::
Sam's head hurts too much to sleep and his mouth is cottony from whiskey. He regrets sitting up as soon as he attempts it and leans back against the chapped plaster of the wall in their dingy motel room.
There's a glossy piece of paper on the nightstand, and he reaches out for it, long fingers just brushing the edge. He stretches, just enough for him to grab hold of the corner and pulls the sheet towards him, just for something to focus on besides the pain of his ill fated bar adventure.
"The Abyss," Sam mouths as he reads the bold lettering at the top of the flyer. There's a large arena pictured with an MMA-style octagon in the middle. Poorly drawn flames surround the outside of it. Win all, win one. One of the demons that had socked him said something about The Abyss.
Sam licks his lips, and wishes he had some water.
The door opens and Ruby arrives like a junk-food-laden genie. She's got two bags that stink of oil and salt. But more importantly she's holding a beverage tray bearing two giant cups of something in it. "You're awake," she says by way of greeting, and carries the food over to the coffee table by the ragged couch.
"I'm thirsty," Sam says.
She raises an eyebrow. "Then come over here. I don't want any more crumbs on the bed."
He stifles a moan as he shifts his legs over the side of the bed. His bruised ribs don't want him to move ever again, and his nose feels swollen and fat.
Ruby ignores his suffering, and plops down on the couch, scarfing down a handful of fries.
Sam's fingers crinkle the flyer in his hand while he tries to work up the energy to head towards sustenance. "Doesn't that hurt?" he asks, as he watches Ruby eat.
"The salt?" she smiles. "Yeah, but in a good way. Makes my tongue tingle."
"You’re eating something that's anathema to you."
"Doesn't change the fact that they’re delicious."
He's still stalling, delaying getting up for no reason other than to avoid more pain. "You can taste?"
"One of my favorite senses. Takes focus, but it's worth the effort."
They don't talk about this. Not ever. And maybe it's the liquor from earlier, or Sam's rattled brain, but before he can stop himself he asks. "When we... Do you...” He pauses, blurts, “Do you feel anything?"
"You're not exactly easy to miss, Sam."
"No I mean- Is it- Never mind." His cheeks flush and he stands, the need for some kind of cold liquid overriding the pain.
"Don't be a prude. Yes, I enjoy sex. Mostly I like the noises you make and the way you pull on my hair like you're gonna rip it out." She grabs her own soda and sucks on the straw. "You have a few times, you know. Torn out my hair. Luckily I've got plenty."
Sam swallows, cheeks flushing a deeper red. He grabs for his own drink and gulps down too-syrupy Coca-Cola.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I’m not. Everybody needs release sometimes." She smirks at him as she empties a packet of ketchup onto a torn off piece of the bag. "Obviously last night you needed something more."
Sam reaches into the other bag and finds a soggy burger. His nose wrinkles and there’s a spike of sadness when he unwraps it, but his stomach growls, too hungry to care. "I didn't go looking for a fight." He takes a bite of the burger and it's even worse than he expected, dry and burnt at the same time.
"Bullshit."
Eager to change the subject, Sam peers back towards the bed, at the flyer lying on the wrinkled sheets. "What's The Abyss?"
"Hm?" Ruby asks, sucking salt off her fingertips.
Sam gestures in the direction of the flyer with his empty hand. "What's The Abyss? The demon at the bar, he said, Want me to win Dean back for you at The Abyss?"
Ruby narrows her eyes. "It's a place. For demons."
Sam's jaw tenses and he snatches the flyer off the bed, waving it at Ruby. The motion makes his shoulder and ribcage scream in protest, but he grits out, "Looks more like a competition to me. Win all, win one, what does that even mean?"
Ruby huffs. "You got me. It's a demon fight club. They sign up and they fight other demons and if they make it all the way through - all seven levels - they can ask for a favor from Hell."
Sam's voice gets stuck in his throat. "Any favor?"
"Yup. A title, a free pass to stay on Earth, or..." she locks eyes with him, "a soul."
::: ::: :::
"You're joking," says the old man, narrowing his eyes as he peers up at Sam through the cloudy Plexiglas of his windowed booth. He looks back to Ruby. "There're quicker ways to kill a man."
"Just sign him up, Lars," Ruby says. "Need me to fill out a waiver?"
Lars blinks at her and then bursts out laughing, full-bellied, his wrinkled skin crinkling around his pale blue eyes. "That's funny. You're a funny girl."
"Yeah, I'm hilarious," Ruby deadpans.
Still chortling to himself, Lars punches a few more keys on the tobacco-stained laptop by his left and then hands her a slip of yellow paper and a key. "Locker 66, he'll get assigned a round in a few hours. Listen for his stage name."
Ruby nods. "Thanks, Lars."
"Don't mention it, Funny Girl," he says as he settles back down in his lopsided rolling chair.
She walks over to the wall, where Sam's glaring down at the floor.
"What crawled up your ass?" She holds the slip of paper out to him.
"Nothing," Sam snaps as he grabs the paper. "The Hunter," Sam reads. "What'd they need? My occupation?" He snorts. "Anyway, I'm retired."
"Not your occupation. Your stage name.” Ruby sets off for the locker rooms, hearing Sam mutter low protests as he trails her into the men's.
::: ::: :::
They sit in the waiting room, watching the fight on the closed-circuit television. Or rather Sam does, while Ruby looks up periodically from one of the six-month-old fashion magazines lying on the endtable. The airbrushed models look even less human than her.
The two fighters in the ring are evenly matched, or they were when they started. The taller one in the red shorts is starting to stumble though, exhaustion making his hooks weaken. He delivers a jab and a cross but misses his opponent's jaw by a hair. The other man, clad in pale blue, takes advantage and brings his knee up swiftly, knocking the air out of Red-Shorts.
Sam assesses every move, and Ruby knows he’s evaluating how he'd respond. He's never been in a fight like this, with an audience watching for sport, but he’s versed enough in combat to feel every punch, every kick. Years of sparring with Dean, his father, and every inhuman thing on Earth are all the training he'll ever need. Technically. Strength and stamina are something else entirely.
Sam’s nervous even though he insists he isn’t. He bounces on the balls of his feet, shifting from foot to foot.
“You want some Red Bull?” she says, setting down her magazine. “It’s not too late, you know…” She reaches slowly for the knife embedded in the top of her boot.
“No.” Sam’s answer is too sharp, abrupt.
“Then you're going to lose,” she says, settling back against the couch and drawing up her legs. “You don't know what you're getting yourself into, Butterfly.”
“I can handle it,” he all but growls at her. "And stop calling me that."
The cage on the television shimmers and Ruby narrows her eyes. She’d love to wrap her hands around the metal, to deconstruct the magic that makes up its structure. It smacks of her mentor’s work and she longs to feel the electric hum of the older demon’s power. The fencing, mat, the cage itself - they're all enchanted to make demons inside vulnerable in ways that matter. They don't care about the meat they wear, but their souls… their souls are all that's left of them. Inside the cage a punch doesn't just shatter bone, it cracks their very essence.
Red-Shorts goes down three minutes later, a tooth flying through the air as Pale-Blue rams Red-Shorts’ face into the cage, and Ruby is disappointed the television's muted. She’d have liked to hear him howl.
“C’mon,” she says, shutting off the television with the remote. “Let’s get you suited up.” She guides Sam out of the anteroom and into the tunnel just as the buzzer blares, a flat raspberry of a sound. The gate opens to a rumble of half-hearted cheers. Medical personnel in navy-blue scrubs swarm out, bearing an unconscious Red-Shorts on a stretcher.
“Ladies and gentlemen…” the disembodied, overdramatic public-address voice booms. “I give you…” another dramatic pause that makes Ruby roll her eyes. “The Hunter.”
The silence that follows is anticlimactic and there is a burble of sound, curiosity and grunts of amusement. Only the human contenders here have stage names. And when they get paired against demons the match doesn’t last very long. Thanks to the cage’s magic, humans can actually hurt their demonic opponents, but the demons are still four times as strong and nearly as fast. When there’s a human-demon fight, it's usually done for the sheer entertainment value than actual competition.
The buzzer blares again and Ruby stands on her tiptoes, pushes her lips against his cheek.
Sam looks at her curiously.
“For luck. Remember - you punch them in there, it'll hurt 'em deep,” she doesn’t elaborate as she shoves Sam towards the gate. The horn sounds as the gate rattles open. She sees Sam hesitate before going in. Her fingertips brush against the warded metal frame and she gasps at the spike of pain that tears at her insides, jerking back her hand.
“Packs a sting, doesn’t it?” there’s a low laugh and the burly Scandinavian steps from the shadows. “I take it your boy doesn’t know about the side effects.” There’s another chuckle. “This could be interesting.”
Something about Lars’ gap-toothed, tobacco-stained smile makes Ruby wonder if she really should’ve warned Sam about what the cage would do to him. But he was being difficult already, stubbornly hanging on to his flimsy archaic moral constructs, so she’d decided against it. It’d serve him right if he lost.
She turns back to the ring in time to see Pale-Blue pound his fist into the cupped palm of his other hand and give Sam a half-smirk as the mesh gate slams closed behind him. Pale-Blue is three inches shorter, but a good twenty pounds heavier than Sam. He's a southpaw, his right knee's swollen where Red-Shorts’d kicked him, and he's favoring his left foot.
The buzzer sounds for the final time, and Pale-Blue moves towards Sam. His legs are slow, but his arms are Bruce-Lee-fast. Sam can't quite dodge the first cross and knuckles graze the side of his cheek, the bottom of his ear. Sam’s jaw blooms red as he counters with an uppercut to the jaw.
Pale-Blue's head is knocked back hard enough that Ruby can hear teeth clack even from her distance. He stumbles a few feet, but catches himself, clenching his eyes shut for a breath before he refocuses on Sam.
Sam's focus doesn't waver; his eyes never leaving his opponent's. He fights well, but Pale Blue's got a few decades of Hell under his belt, and gets in hit after hit. He's toying with Sam, that much is obvious to every demonic soul watching - the punches are too light, a fraction of the force a demon is capable of. The crowd is mocking Sam already, chanting his stage name in a singsong rhythm.
After a slightly more authentic punch, Sam staggers, but stays upright, fights like a man with nothing to lose, punches growing sloppier as he tires.
Wouldn't be so tuckered out if you'd listened to me, Ruby thinks, crossing her arms over her chest.
The next time Pale-Blue lashes out with his left fist, it catches Sam in the ribs hard enough to break a few.
Bright white motes - visible only to those who have the means to see them - drift up into the air as Sam drops to the mat and then fade to grey, settling down on his naked back like ash as he struggles to push himself upright again.
He teeters on his feet, grim determination in his eyes, but it's a surprise to no one when Pale-Blue takes him down again seconds later with one well-aimed kick to the head.
Sam's slower to get up after that one, and he sheds twice as many flecks of light as he crawls. Ruby's impressed that he can get back up at all, though he doesn't make it quite back onto all fours before Pale-Blue grabs him by the hair, pulls up his head, and rams his knee into Sam's jaw.
Sam is unconscious before he even hits the mat and the ref pulls up Pale-Blue’s arm in victory.
The last blow takes another good chunk out of Sam, making his soul sputter, little bits of hopes and memories fragmenting under the impact of the blow. It's fascinating to watch, so different from when a demon's soul is shattered. Sam isn't gradually disintegrating like they do. Azazel's blessing starts to fill in the microscopic pockmarks as quickly as they're formed, a sallow tone muting the light where Sam was struck. He's being patched together again. And Sam doesn't have a clue. Sure, he knows he's hurt - physically at least - but he has no idea how the cage is already starting to corrode his soul.
::: ::: :::
“You got coldcocked there, Butterfly.” Ruby moistens her lips with her tongue and grins. “It was awesome.” It shouldn't come as a surprise that she's smiling down at him without a hint of sympathy. "Went down like a sack of cement."
"Yeah," Sam snaps as he pushes himself to sitting. It’s a mistake. He leans forward, bunching the sheets in his fists as he pants slowly, swallowing down nausea. They're in the motel room, just a few blocks away from the arena. "How'd we get here?" He mutters, jaw aching too much to remember if they walked. Considering the way the room won't stop spinning, he's fairly certain they didn't walk, or at least, he didn't. Abstractly, he wonders if she’d carried him or if she’d had help.
"So how'd that whole 'I don't need a boost' plan work out?" Ruby asks as she turns her back on Sam and heads for the shabby loveseat on the other side of the room.
Sam gives her the finger, or intends to, but his temples throb anew and he winces instead, clenching his eyes shut against the wan light.
"That well, huh?" Ruby plops down onto the corner of the sofa, tucking her legs under her and leaning on the arm as she picks up a dog-eared magazine from the coffee table.
"What do you want from me, Ruby?" Sam snarls, forcing his eyes open again so he can glare at her.
She ignores him, turning the pages of her magazine like she's skimming the articles.
"I tried. I did everything you told me and it wasn't enough. I'm not strong enough."
Ruby drops the magazine in her lap. "No, you're not. And you're never going to be."
"Then why-"
"Not until you yank that stick out of your ass and step up your game."
"Step up? You mean drink your blood."
"Yes."
"I can't do that. You can't ask me to do that."
"Fine. Then don't ask me to help you save Dean."
A pulse of anger makes Sam's cheeks flush. "I'm going to save him."
"You can't. Not on your own, anyway. You said it yourself - you're not strong enough."
Sam pushes himself to his feet. He's not even sure what he's intending to do, not really. His hands are balled into fists and he's shaking - exhaustion and fury making it hard to see, let alone move. But he crosses the room anyway, until he's looking down at Ruby
"I'll be out of here by tomorrow," Ruby says, standing. She gives him a withering look before turning on her heel. "And you can go back to drinking yourself into oblivion."
"No," Sam says, lunging for her before he can think better of it. He grabs for her arm, but the motion sends a spasm of agony through his broken ribs. His knees buckle and he falls, sprawled half over the edge of the couch, half on the floor.
Shame mixes with pain as he struggles to pull himself back up, but he can't. His body's drawn a line and flat-out refuses to cooperate any further.
There's a sigh from somewhere above him, a movement out of the corner of his eye. "It'll be okay, Sam," Ruby's voice says, as tapered fingers card through his hair, her small hand skimming over the massive bruise spanning the whole right side of his face up to his temple. It’s darkest where he’d been kneed in the jaw. He tries to turn away from her touch. Every inch of him aches and throbs, but he knows he deserves so much more.
With incongruous strength, Ruby loops her arm around his less injured left side and pulls Sam up onto the couch. He slumps back when she lets go of him, too shaky to do anything else. It's humiliating and he tries to protest, but manages little more than a pitiful groan.
"Shhh…" Ruby shushes even though he hasn’t said anything, sliding closer to him on the couch. "You need to take your medicine. Then you can sleep."
Sam shuts his eyes as he hears her butterfly knife snick open. He keeps them closed even when he hears her hiss as the tip of the sharp blade bites into her skin. She brings her wrist to his lips. Blindly, he tries turning away from her, feeling the warm tackiness smear on his cheek, but she follows, keeping her flesh pressed to his mouth and before he can stop himself, he’s licked and swallowed down the moistness on his lips. He latches onto the wound and drinks down the poison, feeling it burn its way down his throat. It should scald him from the inside, char his throat and his stomach and shrivel up his veins, arteries, stop his heart. But it doesn't. It won't let him die, as much as he deserves to.
He swallows and swallows. It tastes of ash and sulfur, but he can feel his broken ribs knit, mend, the swelling of his contusions recede. His ears are buzzing, and he can feel sparks running through his veins. Heat surges through him and he wants - needs - to release the building pressure inside of him. When he opens his eyes, the room seems to tilt, fold in on itself, and he grabs onto the rough fabric of the couch to keep himself steady. The walls glow cherry-red and melt into some kind of Dali painting, before vanishing completely.
Sam can't see anymore, but he can hear, and what he hears makes his skin crawl. It's a scream he’d know anywhere, wordless and agonized, and it's all around him.
The scream grows louder along with the pulsing heartbeat in Sam's ears and then cuts off completely. The silence only last a fraction of a second, and when it picks up again rising in pitch, the agonized voice cries out Sam's name. Dean is screaming his name.
Sam pulls away from Ruby with a gasp as bile rises in his throat. The room snaps back to normal - ugly tiger-striped walls, fake paneling, flimsy particleboard furniture - and Ruby’s leaning over him, an unreadable expression on her face.
"Ruby, I-" Sam tries to put into words what he heard, the horrible absurdity of it.
She looks at him, eyes solid black. "That's plenty for now. Get some rest; let the medicine do its thing. You'll feel better in the morning."
That last part is a lie. He won't feel better in the morning. He'll feel stronger and his body won't hurt anymore, that much is obvious - already, his ribs have faded to a dull ache and he feels better, stronger than he has in weeks. But Dean will still be in Hell - burning until Sam makes it all the way to Level Seven and wins.
He lies down, Ruby’s hand pushing gently on his shoulder, self-loathing and single-minded drive roiling in his gut.
::: ::: :::
on to chapter two