Post-apocalyptic setting

[miltia]

Your character's world has ended and purgatory awaits them, a wasteland full of ruined buildings. The surrounding desert constantly wears down the buildings with a neverending wind. There aren't any monsters to worry about, no zombies or demons, but your characters are haunted by the ghosts of people they once knew and there's only one escape from

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[allroadslead]

Sam shrugged, arms folded loosely across his chest. That was a good point. He didn't know what he was looking for. Something. Something to change. At this point, he was fairly certain he didn't care if it changed for the worse or the better because this. This steady pace of nothing, a complete lack of a goal, was going to drive him insane. He didn't even have the job of looking after or saving Dean anymore. That part was over. He'd already screwed it up. Three strikes.

"You came back," he said. He didn't move closer because Ruby would do it for the both of them eventually. She always did have a thing for personal space. "That was almost news."

Kind of.

His eyes drifted down to the thin line of skin along her stomach and he wasn't sure if he was more attracted to that or the knife that promised something else entirely. Both, possibly. He probably shouldn't stop to consider these things too much. Did it matter? Dean was disappointed in him once. Dean wasn't disappointed in much anymore, gave up his blood pretty damn willingly, and if Sam missed that as much as he was glad it was one less thing he had to deal with, he was never going to admit it.

He'd thought about telling Dean about Ruby, see if he could find a reaction in there somewhere, but he was almost afraid to in case he wouldn't. He'd stopped caring about a lot, but he'd at least managed to care about what Dean thought, so where did it leave him when Dean stopped having an opinion on anything? And this wasn't the way demons were supposed to be-Ruby and all the others were proof enough of that-but Dean wasn't really a demon. He was trapped somewhere in limbo. The same way Sam was.

He flicked his gaze back up to her face. "No, I don't." You already know hung unsaid between them.

Why he came back to her, he still couldn't decide. He could get what he wanted (needed) from Dean. But Dean carried too much baggage, too many memories and things unspoken, because this was about more than getting a fix. It always had been. Ruby came with a way to drown out the noise for a little while and he owed her nothing after. No allegiance, no loyalty, and she owed him nothing, either, for her part. If how he felt about it wasn't simple, at least the arrangement was. God knew he could use some simplicity in his life. Whatever was left of it, anyway.

[thatmaskedchick]

"Yeah," Ruby agreed noncommittally, "but I think Dean would rather I stayed gone." The guy had never exactly been in her fan club to begin with, and now that he was a demon too, sort of, there was even less love lost between them. If that were even possible.

She sat up, sliding the knife's edge along her bare stomach. Just teasing with it, really; she wasn't pushing down hard enough to break the skin or even scrape it. Sam was usually in the mood for something else when he came looking for her, something else that usually left a few more marks than "innocent" knifeplay. Might as well give him a free show while she was at it.

It wasn't as if she didn't enjoy their little trysts as much as he did. Sure, this wasn't exactly her body in the strictest sense, but it wasn't as if Jane Doe's other organs were as damaged as her brain. It felt good, and it was fun, and God knew that they both needed to get rid of a little stress, so why the hell not?

A flick of the wrist and she was holding the knife, handle first, out to Sam. There wasn't room enough for the two of them on the deck chair, not really, but the next most comfortable place in the immediate area was the floor, and even demons had standards some of the time. "Mm, yeah, you didn't."

[allroadslead]

Dean would've rather she not been there at all in the first place. It was hardly unexpected when Dean's dislike only grew after he became...what he was. Sam didn't know why; there were the obvious reasons like, she's a demon, but that didn't stand anymore with what'd happened and he knew it ran deeper than that. Maybe, like Sam, Dean was just trying to hang onto the only thing he had left. Nobody liked sharing much of anything these days.

Maybe that was another reason why Sam couldn't say he minded Ruby being here. She was familiar. And they sure as hell had a history, even if it was one he wouldn't even know where to start explaining. But when people kept disappearing or dying on you permanently, it made you less inclined to turn away the rare few that stuck around, for one reason or another.

He'd never quite asked why Ruby had stayed, not in any way that suggested he wanted a real answer, and then it wasn't important to know anymore.

There was a quiet moment as he didn't answer, just followed the track of the glinting blade until he finally crossed the room in two quick strides. No way they were gonna stay on that flimsy deck chair; it barely held Ruby as it was. He was pretty sure the two of them together was gonna crack the stupid thing in minutes, if not sooner.

He swung his leg over the chair, anyway, straddling her without bothering to ease some of his weight off. It wasn't like it'd be a problem with her. No need for delicacy when it came to Ruby. It made things easier.

The deck chair creaked, precarious. Yeah, the thing was definitely gonna break. There would be bruises and cuts and splinters and if he was really lucky, he might even pop the stitches holding together the wound where the bullet had struck his arm just the other day, the flesh barely healing even now. Rusted nails and broken glass broken glass scattered the floors along with God knew what else. He could die of tetanus. Step on a hypodermic needle.

But that was the point.

He took the knife from her, fingers of his other hand splayed out over her stomach where her shirt had hitched up just the slightest. He didn't know if he hated her or not for feeling so damn warm when she was supposed to be dead because it made it too easy to forget just what she was, and that-

He wasn't here for illusions. Not about her, anyway.

Catching her wrist, he slid the blade neatly across her palm. Blood welled from the thin cut, not much, but they weren't on a schedule. He didn't need it the way he had when Ruby had disappeared and he hadn't known yet how to tell Dean that the reason why he kept blacking out was because-because, what? Christ, you couldn't put a mess like this in words. He hadn't even tried. Dean somehow knew eventually-he always knew-and there'd been no need to say anything about it.

The blood was starting to drip, sliding down her wrist. He didn't hesitate, ran his tongue up and over the palm of her hand. The coppery taste didn't even register, only the slow hum beneath his skin. The first time he'd done this, the first time-it wasn't about a rush or something so simple. It was different, and he didn't know how else to explain it, explain how all of this just fit as if it was what he'd been missing this whole time, other than to trace it back to Azazel.

A rat scurried by somewhere in the darkness. Sam slid up her shirt further, slow and using the hand that held the knife so that the flat of the blade glided along her stomach. He wasn't going to deny it, he wanted her as much as he wanted her blood. Not a lot of things to lose yourself in anymore, and possessed or not, she was a body. A shade of one only, maybe, but since when did any of them manage to be anything more?

The tip of the blade rested lightly in the center of her chest, a few inches above her belly button.

"We're not discussing Dean right now," he said, quiet.

[thatmaskedchick]

Ruby just smiled as Sam settled over her. The chair was not doing well at all; she could already feel it starting to buckle under their combined weight. Ironically enough, it was the quality of its construction that was to be its undoing. It had probably been quite nice at one time, oiled teak with canvas cushions. Very high-end. Too bad for it that cheap plastic was faring a lot better than wood these days. It withstood the wind and sand quite a bit better.

Not that she cared or anything. It wasn't like anything could happen to her either way. The only person left alive who could kill her didn't seem terribly inclined to do so at the moment.

She never took her eyes off Sam as the knife slid across her palm or when he began to drink. It was probably supposed to be sensual, what they were doing (God knew that it sounded like something out of a bad vampire romance novel written for sexually frustrated housewives), but they'd done it so many times it was just another motion to go through. She leaned back as far as she could, stretching to allow the knife better access. It didn't matter if they ruined the shirt; the hotel had been pretty full when everything happened, and there was a lot of nice luggage to choose from. A slat creaked dangerously, and she smiled. Perfect.

"That's fine by me," she murmured, raising her non-bloodied hand above her head. She wanted Sam to feel her, feel how warm and responsive and unlike Dean she was. How human she felt.

[allroadslead]

There was no such thing as seclusion when an entire planet was brought down to pieces; they might've been technically inside, but they weren't really, and Sam should've cared more that someone could walk in on them than he did. He should've cared about Dean stumbling in.

In truth, he was kind of waiting for it, waiting for Dean to find him here, slicing another thin line across Ruby's wrist this time, his good arm braced against the dangerously creaking chair as he took his fill. Not that he wanted this to be-but Dean had let so much go, hadn't said a goddamn word about anything Sam had done and a part of him wanted to find that line. That line where Dean would finally get up and walk away. Sam couldn't bring himself to tell his brother, you're better off without me because making Dean leave, he couldn't-he just couldn't do it. But Dean shouldn't be here, either. Dean shouldn't be making his existence seemingly about nothing but watching over what was left of his brother. Sam knew that, at the same time he was pretty sure if it came down to it, he'd never be able to let Dean go. It was why Dean had to be the one to do it.

The Trickster had been right, and Sam had known it then, too. No ifs and maybes about it.

He let the knife clatter to the concrete, wanting something else from Ruby now. There was blood on her arm, and he could still taste it on his lips, feel it on his fingers where he'd held her wrist. He paid no attention as he pushed her shirt up entirely, his other hand already reaching to find the clasp of her bra. Which she was actually wearing, this time. Ruby alternated, apparently; she seemed to bother with or disregard undergarments like mood swings.

If she'd accumulated any injuries, he couldn't see them now, the skin smooth beneath his hand as he leaned forward and caught her lower lip hard between his teeth. Not a single scar or healing scratch, not even from the cuts and bruises he'd made on her the last time they'd met. Dean healed bruises and surface injuries fast, but the deeper wounds, they took longer. The ones made by the hell hounds never went away at all. It didn't matter, usually-why should it when everything, everyone, else around them was just as broken?-but sometimes.

Sometimes he just wanted what he'd given up a long time ago. For awhile, anyway. Sometimes the crash of reality afterward was almost worth it.

So much for no illusions.

A wisp of white fluttered near the corner of his vision. He heard Jess say, you're really kind of pathetic, you know that?, and he thought, Yeah,, and kissed Ruby harder.