CMWIF 9/?
Title: Catch Me When I Fall (9/?)
Fandom: Supernatural/BTVS/ATS (it's not a crossover per se but I will borrow the mythology from M.E. and mention some characters)
Rating: M - changed to be on the safe side!
Setting: Post-Season 3 episode 12
Characters: Dean, Ruby & Sam
Pairings: Dean & Ruby
Word Count: 1,220
Lynchburg, Virginia
"Where's your first aid kit?" Ruby asked sharply.
Dean looked over at her and did a double-take; her right eye was swollen shut and her nose and lips were swollen, bloody and dirt-encrusted. There was evidence of the solitary tear she had shed in the barn as it was the only clean strip of skin on her face. There were also a multitude of tiny and not so tiny little cuts from when her face had come into contact with the windshield.
"Don't feel too sorry for me, you should see your own face too." Ruby snapped.
Dean looked at his face in his side-view mirror and raised a surprised eyebrow. His own lips were split and swollen, his nose bloody and puffy, definitely broken! His jaw was a patchwork of bruises and his left eye bore the very clear stamp of Ruby's fist. He also had a cut across the top of his right ear; it would definitely need stitches.
"Ahem… where is your first aid kit?"
Dean scowled at his reflection, turning to glower at her, "It's under the seat!"
"Okay! Thank you! Now pull over here, this is my motel, we'll get you cleaned up and then you can go back to the missus."
Dean clenched his jaw and pulled into the motel parking lot with a squeal of tires. Ruby threw him a caustic glare.
"Don't look at me like that Cyclops."
She shoved the door open, slamming it emphatically as she strode up to her motel room door. Dean winced at the rough treatment of the Impala. Ruby was a Grade A heartless demon. His body protested painfully as he stepped out of the car and after locking it, followed Ruby into her motel room.
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"Sit still!" Ruby hissed irritably.
"My body fucking hurts after you used it to panel-beat a truck!"
They were both comfortably buzzed after drinking half a bottle of whiskey while using the other half for treatment. Ruby had used it to clean the cuts and scrapes on her palms before helping Dean.
"Whose fault is that?"
Ruby was binding Dean's ribs, after she had rubbed her nasty smelling ointment on them. Two were definitely cracked. She had already set his broken nose back in place and stitched his ear, when he had gone to wash the dirt and broken glass off his face and upper body he had come back complaining about his ribs so she had insisted on him taking his shirt off so she could take a look.
Tucking in the last end of her ripped top sheet she thrust his shirt in his hands and turned away, stripping her dirt caked and ripped dark green t-shirt off as she headed for the bathroom. She slammed the door shut and Dean heard shower water running. Now why hadn't he thought of that?
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"You're still here." Ruby observed.
"Now who is Miss States the Obvious? Thought you could use my help getting some of that windshield out of your skull."
"It would have been a whole lot more helpful if you hadn't put my head through it in the first place."
Dean smirked, "Now where's the fun in that?"
Ruby limped over to the scarred table he was seated at, "Windshield head can wait, relocate my ankle first."
Dean patted his lap and Ruby sat down in the chair across from him, lifting her leg onto his lap, he looked up into her eyes, large capable hands resting on either side of her injured foot.
"On three, ready?"
Ruby nodded and Dean twisted it, she muffled a shriek of pain, closing her eyes momentarily.
When she opened them she gave him a begrudging smile of gratitude, "Where did you learn to count?"
"I didn't."
"I can tell."
Dean grinned, picking up a strip of her cover sheet and wrapping it expertly around her ankle. Ruby did not have the strength to remind him he should have rubbed her ointment on it first. She could do it herself in the morning.
"Okay do my head then get the Hell out of my room." Ruby said briskly.
"Do your head… that's a little too Clockwork Orange for me." Dean joked.
Ruby gave him an incredulous look. Dean sighed, then gently set her foot down and rising stiffly out of the chair, picked up the tweezers and started to pick out the embedded bits of glass out of her skull.
"So when you were fighting me was that at full Slayer strength?" Dean asked conversationally.
"Not even close Sho- uh- Shithead."
Dean bit back a chuckle, "The only word with an 's' you could think of calling me that wasn't a variation of Shortbus is Shithead?"
"Yeah, and?"
"Nothing sweetheart," Dean snorted.
Ruby rolled her eyes, but inside she felt a spark of warmth at his unconscious use of the endearment.
Dean dropped the eighth piece of glass he had found in the ashtray and winced inwardly. He couldn't believe he had done all that and hadn't killed her.
"So why didn't you use full Slayer strength or more magic?" Dean asked finally, his hands gently probing her skull for anymore shards of glass.
Ruby rigidly stopped herself from purring at the soothing contact, "The point of the exercise wasn't to kill you or maim you, it was to teach you a lesson."
"What lesson was that?"
"Lifetime fighting demons or not, you are physically no match for me."
"Oh you wanna go again Barbie?" Dean growled in mock threat.
Ruby swatted his hands away and turned to look up at him, "Please, don't embarrass yourself."
"Too late," the words came out tormented, seeping out of the cracked foundations of his self-control.
Ruby turned away from him and stood up, tightening the sash around her bathrobe she kept the majority of her weight on her good ankle. Dean silently handed her a gel ice-pack and she pressed it to her swollen eye.
"I better go, you can take care of the rest yourself."
Ruby nodded, "Sorry I didn't have anymore whiskey."
Dean shrugged his army jacket on, and gave her a small smile, "Yeah, I can barely feel that half-bottle we drank."
He walked up to the door and then stopped turning around to face her, "Why did you-"
"Stop us from getting pelvic?"
"Yeah."
"'Cause getting shards of glass out of my back would have ruined my night."
Dean opened his mouth to speak then shut it again.
"And also, it's not what you needed."
Dean frowned in puzzlement, "And what did I need?"
Ruby wanted to say a friend but was too scared to be rejected by him, "An outlet for your rage and your pain."
He looked at her in rare vulnerability before the wall came back up, "Thanks."
"Don't mention it."
He opened the door and this time he did not look back. If he had, he would have seen the fierce longing blazing in Ruby's eyes.
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Dean crept into his motel room and looked brokenly at Sam's sleeping form. Stripping down to his boxers he crept into his bed and wondered how he had gotten to a place where he nearly knowingly had sex with the very thing he had sold his soul to fight until his dying day.
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