Fic: Snow White, Blood Red (S&S Prompt fic)
Title: Snow White, Blood Red
Author: lost_spook
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1142
Characters/Pairings: Steel, Ruby (slight Steel/Ruby)
Warnings Possibly for some mentions of blood and death.
Summary: Ruby and Steel, snowed in with something malevolent and hidden. Pre-canon, 1840s.
(Prompt 2: ruby & steel - Mindgames & Snowed in. Ruby is an OC, not the Big Finish version. I didn’t mean for that to happen, she just turned up.)
***
“What’s that?” Ruby is immediately at Steel’s side, clutching at his arm.
Steel glares at her. “The wind, probably. Something outside. You know that.”
“Oh, well,” says Ruby and perches herself on the bare wooden table, giving a pout. Then she tilts her head and looks back up at him. She matches her surroundings in her own way, wearing a deep red skirt, white apron and embroidered black bodice. There’s even a red rose in her long brown hair. She raises an eyebrow at him, sensing that he’s watching her for once.
“It’s winter,” he says with a nod at the flower. Any vegetation of that sort will be dead or lost under the snow that continues to fall outside.
Ruby pulls the rose out and twists it around in her hand before it vanishes. “It’s only us, Steel. You can be tiresome, you know.”
She’s here in this cottage, deliberately trying to be rustic in an idealised, artistic way that no one who’s lived here has ever been. And, as she smiles back at him now, he catches the amusement in her expression and knows the outfit is in part a mockery.
“Only us,” she repeats, more hopefully. “For five hours, twenty-three minutes and six seconds.”
He runs a hand over the walls: wood and plaster still, nothing more. “Then keep looking.” They came here to deal with the threat of a time break, something that had turned out to be dark memories - ghosts perhaps - lurking in five objects. They’ve dealt with them all, but there must be one remaining or they would be able to leave. It’s not the snow that’s keeping them here; it’s something worse.
“There’s nowhere else to search,” she says. “Steel. If we stop, maybe it will make a move. And in the meantime, there are more interesting things we could do.”
Steel only gives her a look. She should know him well enough by now to know that he isn’t going to cease or rest until the assignment is finished.
Besides, it’s hard to explain, but Ruby and Jet have a disconcerting manner of behaving as if there’s some secret joke going on between them. Even when - as far as he knows - they can’t have spoken in months, years even. He pulls a brief grimace as he examines a roughly-made wooden chair.
“The snow,” says Ruby, walking across to the window. She looks back at him. “Steel, you mustn’t get too cold. Think what might happen.” She’s instantly next to him again, giving him a concerned look as she puts her hand to his arm.
“I’m fully in control of my body temperature,” he says, moving away.
Ruby sits on the table again and swings her legs. “Well, Jet said -”
“You can’t have seen Jet,” he says in frustration.
Her mouth curves into a slightly crooked smile, as she shakes dark hair back from her face. We don’t need to see each other.
“You’ve checked everything?” he asks yet again.
Ruby leans back. “Yes. Everything. There’s nothing here, Steel. Not even a crumb of dry bread in the cupboards. In the time we’ve been here, I’ve examined every object, all the walls, the floor. Everything. I even checked you and I hardly -”
They both see it at the same moment - the one thing that’s missing from her list. She gasps out and slips off the table, into his hold.
It’s in me? She bites her lip and closes her eyes. “Steel, it is. It has to be. That’s why I couldn’t see it.”
He experiences a rare sense of helplessness. She’s the one who can find these things and in any case he’s not sure how it could be extracted from her. He could probably destroy her, but that’s hardly an ideal solution.
Ruby smiles at him then, a dangerous smile this time. “Don’t worry, Steel. I can deal with it. Only -” She hesitates and gives him a wary look.
“What?”
“Keep holding onto me,” she says. “Steel. Keep me here.”
Steel pauses. “Ruby. If this is one of your games -”
“I’m serious,” she says. He can feel the deep sense of alarm within her and doesn’t need to ask again. “If you don’t, I won’t be able to come back.”
Steel would like to object - he has issues with Ruby’s recklessness and taste for the dramatic, but she knows what she’s doing here. Besides, best not to give the thing any more warning. “Yes. I’ll hold on.”
“Good,” she says and then instantly keels over in his arms. Her skin rapidly loses its colour, paling to grey-white. She breathes out and not in and her human form is a dead weight in his hold. Beneath her, on the packed-dirt floor, he realises there’s a small, growing pool of red blood. And as that continues to fall, everything that she is leaks out of her.
With that, with her essence, goes the last memory. He feels rather than sees it: there’s a snap around him, as if ice has suddenly melted and cracked somewhere and the barrier keeping them here is gone. The room seems lighter, indefinably more real. And colder, he notes. There’s a warmth in Ruby’s presence, but now there’s nothing here but winter.
He stays there with what’s left of her, counting out the minutes as snow continues to fall outside. He wonders if it might bury them both before it’s done. He holds on for an hour, two hours, three hours. Three hours, eight minutes and he’s still standing in an empty cottage with nothing more than a corpse in his arms. The coldness seems to be increasing.
Is there something he can do to help? he wonders. If she asked him to do this, then she must have left some vital part of herself in him. He can’t sense that or pass it back, but he considers that if that is so, then more contact might help, so he kisses her - awkwardly from this position, catching her on the corner of her forehead.
I win, says Ruby somewhere, faintly, but he’s not imagining it. Tell Jet, won’t you?
“Tell her yourself.”
And Ruby breathes in, the blood vanishes and the pallor leaves her face. Then she blinks and slowly gives a smile. “Yes. I will. Although I didn’t intend to go to such drastic lengths.” She lets him help her stand again. “Not even for you, Steel.”
“You stopped it,” he says. “It went hours ago - we’re free to leave this place.”
“Oh, Steel. When things were finally getting interesting…”
“Ruby -”
She gives a less certain smile than usual. “Oh, don’t worry. I don’t really want to stay here, either.”
“Not very appealing, is it?” he says.
Ruby looks over to the frosted pane of the window. “Too cold,” she agrees. “Let’s go somewhere warmer.”
***
Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there:
Author: lost_spook
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1142
Characters/Pairings: Steel, Ruby (slight Steel/Ruby)
Warnings Possibly for some mentions of blood and death.
Summary: Ruby and Steel, snowed in with something malevolent and hidden. Pre-canon, 1840s.
(Prompt 2: ruby & steel - Mindgames & Snowed in. Ruby is an OC, not the Big Finish version. I didn’t mean for that to happen, she just turned up.)
***
“What’s that?” Ruby is immediately at Steel’s side, clutching at his arm.
Steel glares at her. “The wind, probably. Something outside. You know that.”
“Oh, well,” says Ruby and perches herself on the bare wooden table, giving a pout. Then she tilts her head and looks back up at him. She matches her surroundings in her own way, wearing a deep red skirt, white apron and embroidered black bodice. There’s even a red rose in her long brown hair. She raises an eyebrow at him, sensing that he’s watching her for once.
“It’s winter,” he says with a nod at the flower. Any vegetation of that sort will be dead or lost under the snow that continues to fall outside.
Ruby pulls the rose out and twists it around in her hand before it vanishes. “It’s only us, Steel. You can be tiresome, you know.”
She’s here in this cottage, deliberately trying to be rustic in an idealised, artistic way that no one who’s lived here has ever been. And, as she smiles back at him now, he catches the amusement in her expression and knows the outfit is in part a mockery.
“Only us,” she repeats, more hopefully. “For five hours, twenty-three minutes and six seconds.”
He runs a hand over the walls: wood and plaster still, nothing more. “Then keep looking.” They came here to deal with the threat of a time break, something that had turned out to be dark memories - ghosts perhaps - lurking in five objects. They’ve dealt with them all, but there must be one remaining or they would be able to leave. It’s not the snow that’s keeping them here; it’s something worse.
“There’s nowhere else to search,” she says. “Steel. If we stop, maybe it will make a move. And in the meantime, there are more interesting things we could do.”
Steel only gives her a look. She should know him well enough by now to know that he isn’t going to cease or rest until the assignment is finished.
Besides, it’s hard to explain, but Ruby and Jet have a disconcerting manner of behaving as if there’s some secret joke going on between them. Even when - as far as he knows - they can’t have spoken in months, years even. He pulls a brief grimace as he examines a roughly-made wooden chair.
“The snow,” says Ruby, walking across to the window. She looks back at him. “Steel, you mustn’t get too cold. Think what might happen.” She’s instantly next to him again, giving him a concerned look as she puts her hand to his arm.
“I’m fully in control of my body temperature,” he says, moving away.
Ruby sits on the table again and swings her legs. “Well, Jet said -”
“You can’t have seen Jet,” he says in frustration.
Her mouth curves into a slightly crooked smile, as she shakes dark hair back from her face. We don’t need to see each other.
“You’ve checked everything?” he asks yet again.
Ruby leans back. “Yes. Everything. There’s nothing here, Steel. Not even a crumb of dry bread in the cupboards. In the time we’ve been here, I’ve examined every object, all the walls, the floor. Everything. I even checked you and I hardly -”
They both see it at the same moment - the one thing that’s missing from her list. She gasps out and slips off the table, into his hold.
It’s in me? She bites her lip and closes her eyes. “Steel, it is. It has to be. That’s why I couldn’t see it.”
He experiences a rare sense of helplessness. She’s the one who can find these things and in any case he’s not sure how it could be extracted from her. He could probably destroy her, but that’s hardly an ideal solution.
Ruby smiles at him then, a dangerous smile this time. “Don’t worry, Steel. I can deal with it. Only -” She hesitates and gives him a wary look.
“What?”
“Keep holding onto me,” she says. “Steel. Keep me here.”
Steel pauses. “Ruby. If this is one of your games -”
“I’m serious,” she says. He can feel the deep sense of alarm within her and doesn’t need to ask again. “If you don’t, I won’t be able to come back.”
Steel would like to object - he has issues with Ruby’s recklessness and taste for the dramatic, but she knows what she’s doing here. Besides, best not to give the thing any more warning. “Yes. I’ll hold on.”
“Good,” she says and then instantly keels over in his arms. Her skin rapidly loses its colour, paling to grey-white. She breathes out and not in and her human form is a dead weight in his hold. Beneath her, on the packed-dirt floor, he realises there’s a small, growing pool of red blood. And as that continues to fall, everything that she is leaks out of her.
With that, with her essence, goes the last memory. He feels rather than sees it: there’s a snap around him, as if ice has suddenly melted and cracked somewhere and the barrier keeping them here is gone. The room seems lighter, indefinably more real. And colder, he notes. There’s a warmth in Ruby’s presence, but now there’s nothing here but winter.
He stays there with what’s left of her, counting out the minutes as snow continues to fall outside. He wonders if it might bury them both before it’s done. He holds on for an hour, two hours, three hours. Three hours, eight minutes and he’s still standing in an empty cottage with nothing more than a corpse in his arms. The coldness seems to be increasing.
Is there something he can do to help? he wonders. If she asked him to do this, then she must have left some vital part of herself in him. He can’t sense that or pass it back, but he considers that if that is so, then more contact might help, so he kisses her - awkwardly from this position, catching her on the corner of her forehead.
I win, says Ruby somewhere, faintly, but he’s not imagining it. Tell Jet, won’t you?
“Tell her yourself.”
And Ruby breathes in, the blood vanishes and the pallor leaves her face. Then she blinks and slowly gives a smile. “Yes. I will. Although I didn’t intend to go to such drastic lengths.” She lets him help her stand again. “Not even for you, Steel.”
“You stopped it,” he says. “It went hours ago - we’re free to leave this place.”
“Oh, Steel. When things were finally getting interesting…”
“Ruby -”
She gives a less certain smile than usual. “Oh, don’t worry. I don’t really want to stay here, either.”
“Not very appealing, is it?” he says.
Ruby looks over to the frosted pane of the window. “Too cold,” she agrees. “Let’s go somewhere warmer.”
***
Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there: