[JP] Brothers in Arms quote
[Set in wayward_au. jstliketherifle and hitchhiker_girl used with permission. Sam = likely_evil, Lindsey = evilhandissue.]
“The man who assumes everything is a lie is at least as mistaken as the one who assumes everything is true.”
Getting the hotel room hadn’t been hard. Getting to the hotel room-that had been a whole other story. With the bum shoulder, Dean couldn’t really drive, Ruby didn’t know how, and Anna did, but didn’t want Dean to shoot her later because she crashed his car five minutes after getting behind the wheel. Ruby wasn’t sure of Dean was capable of showing the girl any more animosity than he already was, but if Anna managed to total the Impala, she knew that both of them would definitely find out.
They managed to work out a weird setup, with Dean maneuvering the wheel while Anna worked everything he couldn’t do with his bad arm. It was awkward and somewhat slow going, but they managed to make it to the hotel without incident. After that, things started to run a lot smoother. Turns out the concierge happened to be the friend of a friend of a guy Anna met on the road once, he and Anna had hit it off rather well, and he was more than happy to comp them a room with two twin beds, and toss them a first aid kit as they were heading up.
The job of patching Dean up went to Anna again, as she seemed to have the most experience in that department. It wasn’t exactly the easiest job in the world, considering that way Dean was treating her, but surprisingly she was taking it in stride for the most part. Probably because she was too worn out to really fight back, and that certainly didn’t mean she liked it, but she was taking it, and that was all that mattered.
“Need you to take your shirt off.”
Anna was standing over the sink, spreading out the contents of the first aid kit in front of her to see what she had. Dean was sitting on the toilet, while Ruby was perched on the edge of the tub, legs crossing in front of her. She was mostly there to make sure Dean behaved, but also to play guard dog in case Sam and Lindsey failed and Meg’s army was headed here next. She could see just in the way that Anna was holding herself that she wasn’t going to be up for another battle until she got some sleep under her belt. That left Ruby as the one person who could actually do some damage. True, they had the salt lines up, not only on the windows and the main door of the room, but also right across the edge of the bathroom as well-trapping Anna and Ruby inside, but keeping everyone else out, but demons were tricky, and salt wasn’t exactly the heaviest substance in the world.
Mostly, however, she was there to keep Dean in line, which was always a chore in itself, whether he was injured or not. She watched as Dean gave Anna a sarcastic smirk before responding.
“Sorry, sweetheart-I don’t do demon.” Ruby rolled her eyes, before shooting her foot forward and kicking him in the shin. Hart. “Sonuva-” Dean muttered before shooting Ruby a glare. Ruby just gave him a cool look back.
“Your shirt. Take it off.”
Dean grumbled slightly before starting to peel the shirt over his head, wincing slightly as the fabric pulled away from the bullet hole. It was an ugly looking thing, rough and jagged, and Ruby wasn’t sure how much Anna was going to be able to do for him, but he was pretty sure that she couldn’t make things worse.
Anna turned away from the sink and leaned forward to take a look at the wound. “You’re lucky. It’s a through and through.”
Dean’s eyes narrowed slightly. “That’s a good thing?”
“Well, it’s harder to patch up,” Anna said, starting to go to work. “But at least it means I don’t have to go digging for a bullet.”
Dean seemed to accept that for an answer, and aside from the occasional wince and groan that came with the territory of dealing with a wound like that one, he was pretty much silent. Up until the part where she actually started to dress the wound, and he started to finally relax a little more.
“I’m so breaking into the mini-bar.”
This got an eye roll from Ruby. “Yeah-because drinking is really what you need to be doing right now.” A drunk Dean was a useless Dean and she wasn’t really in the mood to lug around a useless Winchester at the moment. “When we hear back from Sam and Lindsey that this is over? Then you can booze up to your heart’s content, but until then-you get to be stone sober.”
Dean sent Ruby a glare that faltered slightly when he winced at Anna’s hand smoothing down the bandages. “You just have to suck the fun out of everything, don’t you?” When Anna pulled away, he turned back to her with a heavy look-it was still pretty hate-filled, but at least it was better than it had been when they put him in the car an hour or so ago. “We done?”
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh as she started to put things away. “You know, you should really have a doctor or healer or something look at that. You wouldn’t want it to get infected or anything.”
“I’m fine,” Dean replied, getting up from the chair and picking up the shirt he had discarded to the floor. He studied the bloodstains and the large rip in it before continuing. “I need a new shirt, but I’m fine.” Then came the damn Winchester grin. “You ladies don’t mind if I go around topless, do you? I’d say that I’m all for you girls doing the same, just to make everything fair, but I have a feeling that might get me shot again.”
Ruby watched Anna’s reaction carefully. The sexist comment rolled off her back like water, and she just turned back to him, concern on her face, too tired to care about anything else. “I just-I know a healer. He could fix that like new-no scar, nothing.”
Dean continued to walk away from her, breaking the salt line as he stepped out of the bathroom. “And then what happens afterwards? What’s the backlash for me, what-do I lose ten years or something?”
“Well, no-not exactly, but-”
“I know how that magic shit works, alright?” Dean said, shooting Anna a glare. “I’m fine-I’ll heal. Not like the damn bitch hadn’t ever shot me before.”
Anna looked like she was going to say something else, but Ruby cut her off, going to Dean’s jacket that they had brought in with them from the Impala. “Could always call Kutner. Have him come out and have a look at you-just to put everyone’s mind at ease.”
Dean’s glare turned on Ruby at this point, before crossing his arms in front of his chest. “You won’t let me get drunk because we’re in the middle of a war zone, but you want to drag a civilian into this? You’re shitting me, right?”
“He’s not so civilian, or did you never bother to have a look at the anti-possession charms he has hanging around his neck?”
She watched as Dean’s face switched from anger, to confusion, pensive to acceptance, before moving to where she was standing to go for his phone. “I’ll call him, see if he can come out.”
“No,” Ruby replied, before, grabbing the phone out of his pocket before tossing it to Anna, who caught it easily. “She’ll do it.” Anna started to ask what the hell was she supposed to say to this guy she never met, before Ruby cut her off. “Just tell her that Dean Winchester was shot. He’ll know where to go from there.”
Anna nodded, before reaching for one of the shotguns she had dropped near the dresser. Using the but of the gun, she made a slight line in the salt sitting in front of the balcony and opened the door to get outside for a while, and away from Ruby and Dean. Ruby knew that this was the last place she wanted to be, and frankly, Ruby didn’t blame her. This was just one big shitfest, and she had a feeling that things were only going to get worse. Dean followed behind her, shutting the sliding door before reforming the salt line, watching her carefully for a moment before turning back to Ruby.
“Always knew something wasn’t quite right with her,” he muttered, before moving to sit down on the edge of the bed.
“You know, you could actually be a decent human being and thank the girl,” Ruby sighed, crossing her arms in front of her chest. Dean shot her a glare over his shoulder, clearly not impressed. Ruby just rolled her eyes.
“She’s a demon, Ruby-as I’m sure you already know. And she’s been lying about it for quite a while now. And you know, if she had been a demon all this time, why didn’t she just say something about Ben being Meg when she met up with us in Clarence?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe for the same reason that Alec didn’t pick up on it once he got his nose back?” She crossed over to where Dean was sitting, a clear snarl on her face, getting in his face and her voice dropping low. “She saved your ass, Dean. And she’s a lot more complicated than you think. So why don’t you give her a bit of a break and give her the gratitude she’s due for not letting Meg kill you. Well, that and not letting you bleed to death while you continued to treat her like shit.”
Dean’s eyes glanced out to where the girl was talking on the phone, and he ran a hand over his face slowly. “So uncomplicate it for me. What’s her deal?”
Ruby leaned back at that point, before shaking her head. “Not my story to tell.”
“Well, do you have a story to tell? Because Anna isn’t the only demonic bitch around here who has some explaining to do,” he said, eyes staying on Ruby this time, giving her a look as if to say ‘What are you waiting for?’
Ruby snorted slightly, before shaking her head, and making her way back to the back of the room. “No.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.” Dean was pissed at this point. “You take off to God knows where when we really could have used some help, only to come running back and don’t want to give me a reason as to what or why? I think I’m pretty much done with people lying to me at this point, Ruby-tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“Why should I tell you?” Ruby replied, turning to face him and raising an eyebrow. “You probably won’t believe me anyway, so why should I play show and tell? Because you think you deserve answers? You’ll get them when you’re ready to hear them.”
Dean was very much not happy with that answer, but Ruby was really starting to find that she didn’t care. As long as Sam made it out of this alive, pissing off Dean Winchester was a perfectly acceptable thing to stay on her agenda. She shook her head, before moving towards the door. “Let me out.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to go make sure there’s no undesirables lurking around,” she said, waiting somewhat patiently as Dean made is way over and broke the salt line. “I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes. Make sure you let Anna back in-she’s a sitting duck if she falls asleep out there.”
That got him confused. “Falls asleep?” he started to frown, but Ruby was already out the door and down the hall. He shook it off slightly, reforming the salt line, before moving back to the sliding door and breaking the line to let Anna in. She gave him a small smile as she did, before watching him as he closed the line behind her.
“Kutner’s about a half hour away,” she said with a nod, handing him back his phone. “Where’s Ruby?”
“Went to do a patrol,” he replied.
“Oh.” She paused for a minute, before glancing over at one of the beds behind them. She fought back a heavy yawn, before jerking her thumb back over her shoulder. “Look, I’m exhausted. You don’t mind if I-”
“Go ahead,” Dean replied with a nod, and she gave him the same small, thank you smile that she had earlier. He was quiet for a minute, before turning back to her with a nod. “Hey, Anna-I know I didn’t say it earlier, but-thanks.”
Her head snapped up in surprise, and he got a bit of a wider smile, before she nodded again. “You’re welcome.” She kicked off her shoes before curling up into a fetal position on the bed, and closing her eyes. “Night, Dean.”
“Night,” Dean replied, before sitting down on the edge of the opposite bed, wondering what exactly he was going to do now.
He really, really hated waiting.
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“The man who assumes everything is a lie is at least as mistaken as the one who assumes everything is true.”
Getting the hotel room hadn’t been hard. Getting to the hotel room-that had been a whole other story. With the bum shoulder, Dean couldn’t really drive, Ruby didn’t know how, and Anna did, but didn’t want Dean to shoot her later because she crashed his car five minutes after getting behind the wheel. Ruby wasn’t sure of Dean was capable of showing the girl any more animosity than he already was, but if Anna managed to total the Impala, she knew that both of them would definitely find out.
They managed to work out a weird setup, with Dean maneuvering the wheel while Anna worked everything he couldn’t do with his bad arm. It was awkward and somewhat slow going, but they managed to make it to the hotel without incident. After that, things started to run a lot smoother. Turns out the concierge happened to be the friend of a friend of a guy Anna met on the road once, he and Anna had hit it off rather well, and he was more than happy to comp them a room with two twin beds, and toss them a first aid kit as they were heading up.
The job of patching Dean up went to Anna again, as she seemed to have the most experience in that department. It wasn’t exactly the easiest job in the world, considering that way Dean was treating her, but surprisingly she was taking it in stride for the most part. Probably because she was too worn out to really fight back, and that certainly didn’t mean she liked it, but she was taking it, and that was all that mattered.
“Need you to take your shirt off.”
Anna was standing over the sink, spreading out the contents of the first aid kit in front of her to see what she had. Dean was sitting on the toilet, while Ruby was perched on the edge of the tub, legs crossing in front of her. She was mostly there to make sure Dean behaved, but also to play guard dog in case Sam and Lindsey failed and Meg’s army was headed here next. She could see just in the way that Anna was holding herself that she wasn’t going to be up for another battle until she got some sleep under her belt. That left Ruby as the one person who could actually do some damage. True, they had the salt lines up, not only on the windows and the main door of the room, but also right across the edge of the bathroom as well-trapping Anna and Ruby inside, but keeping everyone else out, but demons were tricky, and salt wasn’t exactly the heaviest substance in the world.
Mostly, however, she was there to keep Dean in line, which was always a chore in itself, whether he was injured or not. She watched as Dean gave Anna a sarcastic smirk before responding.
“Sorry, sweetheart-I don’t do demon.” Ruby rolled her eyes, before shooting her foot forward and kicking him in the shin. Hart. “Sonuva-” Dean muttered before shooting Ruby a glare. Ruby just gave him a cool look back.
“Your shirt. Take it off.”
Dean grumbled slightly before starting to peel the shirt over his head, wincing slightly as the fabric pulled away from the bullet hole. It was an ugly looking thing, rough and jagged, and Ruby wasn’t sure how much Anna was going to be able to do for him, but he was pretty sure that she couldn’t make things worse.
Anna turned away from the sink and leaned forward to take a look at the wound. “You’re lucky. It’s a through and through.”
Dean’s eyes narrowed slightly. “That’s a good thing?”
“Well, it’s harder to patch up,” Anna said, starting to go to work. “But at least it means I don’t have to go digging for a bullet.”
Dean seemed to accept that for an answer, and aside from the occasional wince and groan that came with the territory of dealing with a wound like that one, he was pretty much silent. Up until the part where she actually started to dress the wound, and he started to finally relax a little more.
“I’m so breaking into the mini-bar.”
This got an eye roll from Ruby. “Yeah-because drinking is really what you need to be doing right now.” A drunk Dean was a useless Dean and she wasn’t really in the mood to lug around a useless Winchester at the moment. “When we hear back from Sam and Lindsey that this is over? Then you can booze up to your heart’s content, but until then-you get to be stone sober.”
Dean sent Ruby a glare that faltered slightly when he winced at Anna’s hand smoothing down the bandages. “You just have to suck the fun out of everything, don’t you?” When Anna pulled away, he turned back to her with a heavy look-it was still pretty hate-filled, but at least it was better than it had been when they put him in the car an hour or so ago. “We done?”
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh as she started to put things away. “You know, you should really have a doctor or healer or something look at that. You wouldn’t want it to get infected or anything.”
“I’m fine,” Dean replied, getting up from the chair and picking up the shirt he had discarded to the floor. He studied the bloodstains and the large rip in it before continuing. “I need a new shirt, but I’m fine.” Then came the damn Winchester grin. “You ladies don’t mind if I go around topless, do you? I’d say that I’m all for you girls doing the same, just to make everything fair, but I have a feeling that might get me shot again.”
Ruby watched Anna’s reaction carefully. The sexist comment rolled off her back like water, and she just turned back to him, concern on her face, too tired to care about anything else. “I just-I know a healer. He could fix that like new-no scar, nothing.”
Dean continued to walk away from her, breaking the salt line as he stepped out of the bathroom. “And then what happens afterwards? What’s the backlash for me, what-do I lose ten years or something?”
“Well, no-not exactly, but-”
“I know how that magic shit works, alright?” Dean said, shooting Anna a glare. “I’m fine-I’ll heal. Not like the damn bitch hadn’t ever shot me before.”
Anna looked like she was going to say something else, but Ruby cut her off, going to Dean’s jacket that they had brought in with them from the Impala. “Could always call Kutner. Have him come out and have a look at you-just to put everyone’s mind at ease.”
Dean’s glare turned on Ruby at this point, before crossing his arms in front of his chest. “You won’t let me get drunk because we’re in the middle of a war zone, but you want to drag a civilian into this? You’re shitting me, right?”
“He’s not so civilian, or did you never bother to have a look at the anti-possession charms he has hanging around his neck?”
She watched as Dean’s face switched from anger, to confusion, pensive to acceptance, before moving to where she was standing to go for his phone. “I’ll call him, see if he can come out.”
“No,” Ruby replied, before, grabbing the phone out of his pocket before tossing it to Anna, who caught it easily. “She’ll do it.” Anna started to ask what the hell was she supposed to say to this guy she never met, before Ruby cut her off. “Just tell her that Dean Winchester was shot. He’ll know where to go from there.”
Anna nodded, before reaching for one of the shotguns she had dropped near the dresser. Using the but of the gun, she made a slight line in the salt sitting in front of the balcony and opened the door to get outside for a while, and away from Ruby and Dean. Ruby knew that this was the last place she wanted to be, and frankly, Ruby didn’t blame her. This was just one big shitfest, and she had a feeling that things were only going to get worse. Dean followed behind her, shutting the sliding door before reforming the salt line, watching her carefully for a moment before turning back to Ruby.
“Always knew something wasn’t quite right with her,” he muttered, before moving to sit down on the edge of the bed.
“You know, you could actually be a decent human being and thank the girl,” Ruby sighed, crossing her arms in front of her chest. Dean shot her a glare over his shoulder, clearly not impressed. Ruby just rolled her eyes.
“She’s a demon, Ruby-as I’m sure you already know. And she’s been lying about it for quite a while now. And you know, if she had been a demon all this time, why didn’t she just say something about Ben being Meg when she met up with us in Clarence?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe for the same reason that Alec didn’t pick up on it once he got his nose back?” She crossed over to where Dean was sitting, a clear snarl on her face, getting in his face and her voice dropping low. “She saved your ass, Dean. And she’s a lot more complicated than you think. So why don’t you give her a bit of a break and give her the gratitude she’s due for not letting Meg kill you. Well, that and not letting you bleed to death while you continued to treat her like shit.”
Dean’s eyes glanced out to where the girl was talking on the phone, and he ran a hand over his face slowly. “So uncomplicate it for me. What’s her deal?”
Ruby leaned back at that point, before shaking her head. “Not my story to tell.”
“Well, do you have a story to tell? Because Anna isn’t the only demonic bitch around here who has some explaining to do,” he said, eyes staying on Ruby this time, giving her a look as if to say ‘What are you waiting for?’
Ruby snorted slightly, before shaking her head, and making her way back to the back of the room. “No.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.” Dean was pissed at this point. “You take off to God knows where when we really could have used some help, only to come running back and don’t want to give me a reason as to what or why? I think I’m pretty much done with people lying to me at this point, Ruby-tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“Why should I tell you?” Ruby replied, turning to face him and raising an eyebrow. “You probably won’t believe me anyway, so why should I play show and tell? Because you think you deserve answers? You’ll get them when you’re ready to hear them.”
Dean was very much not happy with that answer, but Ruby was really starting to find that she didn’t care. As long as Sam made it out of this alive, pissing off Dean Winchester was a perfectly acceptable thing to stay on her agenda. She shook her head, before moving towards the door. “Let me out.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to go make sure there’s no undesirables lurking around,” she said, waiting somewhat patiently as Dean made is way over and broke the salt line. “I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes. Make sure you let Anna back in-she’s a sitting duck if she falls asleep out there.”
That got him confused. “Falls asleep?” he started to frown, but Ruby was already out the door and down the hall. He shook it off slightly, reforming the salt line, before moving back to the sliding door and breaking the line to let Anna in. She gave him a small smile as she did, before watching him as he closed the line behind her.
“Kutner’s about a half hour away,” she said with a nod, handing him back his phone. “Where’s Ruby?”
“Went to do a patrol,” he replied.
“Oh.” She paused for a minute, before glancing over at one of the beds behind them. She fought back a heavy yawn, before jerking her thumb back over her shoulder. “Look, I’m exhausted. You don’t mind if I-”
“Go ahead,” Dean replied with a nod, and she gave him the same small, thank you smile that she had earlier. He was quiet for a minute, before turning back to her with a nod. “Hey, Anna-I know I didn’t say it earlier, but-thanks.”
Her head snapped up in surprise, and he got a bit of a wider smile, before she nodded again. “You’re welcome.” She kicked off her shoes before curling up into a fetal position on the bed, and closing her eyes. “Night, Dean.”
“Night,” Dean replied, before sitting down on the edge of the opposite bed, wondering what exactly he was going to do now.
He really, really hated waiting.
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