Fic: You've Escaped (Adam/Ruby, Supernatural)
Title: You've Escaped
Author: mad_teagirl
Fandom: Supernatural
Character/Pairing: Adam/Ruby
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A while back suchaprince and myself came up with this concept of Adam/Ruby, and Ruby springing him out of Hell ... because I mean, doesn't anyone else wonder why everyone seems to just have forgotten/doesn't care about Adam? And then it was HER BIRTHDAY. so I wrote it... and I totally MADE A MIX to go with it too.Also, I should mention, the title comes from the Aloha song of the same name
Beta: NONE, GOD HELP US! SALT YOUR BLOODY WINDOWS
Disclaimer: I pretty much don't own anything here, except for my own wording ... also it's a bit bloody, so yeah, there's that. I should probably add that I wrote most of this pretty early into Season 6, so a few parts of it aren't as canon as they could be now
You've Escaped
**
“I will walk in the garden with my fair, angelic, Eve. I will be Adam, she will be Eve. And all the memory of Hell will melt from me like snow.”
- Danny Boyle’s ‘Frankenstein’
**
He hadn’t understood how this had come to be, how he’d ended up in the chamber, but the other figures locked inside it with him had been barely in focus, glowing, shivering, malevolent. There had been three others, and then there had suddenly been only two, and there had been a tear in the wall of their cell, just wide enough to wedge through.
Beyond the chamber was no more coherent than it had been inside. Everything had been too bright almost to see, and hot, and vibrating under the very fibers of his skin, or what must have passed for skin, for he had long ago come to doubt that he was inside any real sort of a body.
He wandered in the outside for what felt like centuries, there were other entities, and the howling, the howling he thought could drive him mad, and if his eyes could distinguish the figures that made those sounds, then he knew he would. But he’d somehow had a sense of what was up and what was down, and the spiraling chasms led, gradually upward.
He didn’t know how many years it might have been when he saw her, the first of the entities he could put any sort of a face or figure to. She had been just ahead of him, one hand pressed into the wall beside her for support, her wrists raw from the shackles on them, the snapped chain of one still dragging behind her from her right hand.
“Hello?” He’d whispered, even though it had been the loudest he could make his voice, and she had turned around, slowly, painfully. She was scarred, and burned, and her right arm that pulled the chain along had obviously been broken in multiple places.
Even slightly out of focus, with her edges pulsing and shivering, she was all at one the most beautiful and terrifying thing he’d ever seen.
“Who are you?” She said in a voice that sounded like it hadn’t been used in decades.
He had shook his head, and at once felt a sort of wonderment that he did, indeed, have one.
“I don’t know.” He told her. “I can’t remember.”
She’d considered this somberly and nodded.
“That’s what this place does to you. Especially the first time.”
“The first time? How can anyone have been here more than once?”
She’d made a sound that almost would have passed for a laugh if didn’t sound so painful.
“I have … I’ve been here more than anywhere else.” Then she’d looked at him through the odd haze surrounding her and extended her non-broken, but all the same blood stained hand to him “I’m getting out. Come with me.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I don’t care.” She’d said, and it’d been enough somehow.
**
When he opened his eyes it was into pitch blackness, the air around him was thick, suffocating and he couldn’t move. He’d only just become aware of his corporeal body when the horrible fear that he was going to die and be pulled from it once again began to beat in his chest.
But then there had come a cracking noise, and pounds and pounds of soft, moist darkness fell onto him, pressing him further and further down until he felt a hand close around his wrist and pull him upward for what felt like miles.
The awareness of fresh air around him and the feeling of dirt and grass under his palms was all at once foreign and familiar, and after several minutes he finally managed to wipe enough of the dirt cakes on his face away from his eyes to open them.
She looked different now, sitting on the ground next to him, no longer strange and ethereal, shuddering in and out of focus. Now she, for all looks and appearances, was just a girl, and not something made of fire and death. Torn clothes and mud caked in her long blond hair, she wasn’t as broken as she had been before. Though, she was still covered in bruises, or as far as he could tell from all the dirt streaked on her skin.
“Are you all right?” She finally asked, even her voice was different now. “I would have been here sooner, I’m sorry, but I had to dig myself. out, which was two states over, mind you, and then I had to find where the Hell they’d even planted you. Which wasn’t easy since I have no idea where you were…”
“And where am I?” He asked in return, taking stock of the field they were sitting in, nothing but flatness and grass; with the exception of a deep, freshly dug hole - which he realized he’d been inside of. The girl looked around them, attempting to pull her hand absently through the dirt and tangles in her hair.
“Not exactly sure … Kansas? I think?”
For the life of him he couldn’t think of a single reason why he would have been in Kansas, though, he couldn’t remember much at the moment. Everything was a bit blurry in his head. But she hadn’t asked.
She got up, making a futile gesture of brushing dirt off her clothes, and he found himself thinking that if she was that gorgeous looking like death warmed over, he might not be able to even be in the same room with her once she’d had a shower and a clean change of clothes.
But he’d remembered enough to know that this was not the sort of thing you said to someone you’d just met, and she had been looking at him a little expectantly then. So he’d clambered to his feet and offered her his hand.
“Adam” he’d said quietly, and she’s smiled. Instead of shaking his hand she’d laced her fingers through his like she’d known him all her life.
“Ruby” She answered.
**
He stared nervously at her back as she pressed her hand flat against the lock of the motel door.
“Ruby … so… do you have a last name?”
“What?” She snapped, green eyes opening, breaking her concentration. “No. Well, maybe, I don’t know. I don’t remember.” She admitted with a small shrug before squeezing her eyes shut again and pressing her hand harder against the lock.
“You … don’t … remember?” Adam asked incredulously, earning him a vague motion with her free hand.
“It was a long time ago. It isn’t important. I’m trying to concentrate.” Adam knew that in the span of his life he hadn’t been a saint, or anything, but he was still more than reasonably sure that this had to fall under breaking and entering. But then there was the soft click of mechanisms falling into place, and the green light illuminated over the lock. “Are you going to come in or are you going to stand outside with your mouth open.” Ruby said flatly as she cranked the handle and stepped inside.
“Not to come off as a total prude or anything, but there’s only one bed.” Adam mumbled, Ruby rolled her eyes at him.
“What are you twelve? Just don’t hog all the covers and we’ll be fine. I’m having a shower.”
He watched her go, dropping her jacket on the ground en route to the bathroom, and he perched on the end of the bed. Adam had barely realized that he had fallen back onto the bed, or had any idea of how long he’d been asleep before he startled awake to the feeling of something cold and wet brushing against his forearm.
Adam jolted, eyes opening in the dark room.
“Calm down.” Ruby whispered. “I’m cold.” As she snuggled against him and he identified the strange feeling that had awakened him as her still wet hair. He idly wondered if she would completely look down on him if he admitted he’d never slept in the same bed as a girl before. After coming to the conclusion he ought not to risk it he relaxed and fell back asleep with his chin on the top of her head.
**
Despite how much shorter than him Ruby was, Adam still found it more than slightly difficult to keep up with her as she dragged him along behind her. He would have thought her need to constantly be holding his hand was more endearing if it didn’t more often that not feel like his shoulder was being dislocated.
“Where are we going?” He grumbled. It was a few hours before dawn, and he was cold, hungry, and irritable.
“Umm… I need to make a call.” She said distractedly, letting go of his hand as the came to a clearing in the woods.
“What are you doing?” Adam asked as he watched her trace symbols in the dirt.
“I told you. Now hush, I need to concentrate.” Ruby snapped, straightening up and wiping dirt off on her jeans. She closed her eyes, murmuring under her breath in a language that had to be at least a few centuries dead at this point.
“But you haven’t got a phone-“
“Would you hush!” The words are barely out of her mouth before there is a flash of light and a man standing in the center of her ornate symbol work.
“Oh what in the seven hells? Wait… Poodle?” He looked to be middle aged, expensively dressed, and obviously familiar with Ruby. Even if the nuance of that particular nickname struck Adam as incredibly odd.
“Hello Darling.” Ruby replied with the smallest quirk of a smile. The man stepped out of the circle of symbols, brushing absently at his suit as he did so before pulling Ruby into his arms.
“Christ, it’s been years. Where have you been? Wait… no I know where you’ve been. How did you get out?”
“Because the boys downstairs have done such a bang up job keeping me down there in the past.” She said.
“It’s different now love, do you have any idea what’s happened in the past couple of years while you were down there? Big, cataclysmic stuff. Apocalypse and what have you. Oh, and have I mentioned that your boyfriend and his charming duck-lipped brother tried to kill me? I am currently having to be on the down low, because as long as they think they actually did me in I don’t have to worry about them turning up. You really have the worst taste in men, do you know that? It makes me miss that solider bloke you were dating in the forties… had a stick up his ass, but was perfectly lovable in his own right and never once tried to light me on fire.”
“Your boyfriend?” Adam finally made himself say and Ruby looked over at him with a frown.
“Most definitely not my boyfriend.” She told him emphatically. The man looked at Adam as though seeing him for the first.
“Wait… wait… is this?”
“Crowley, this is Adam, Adam this is Crowley. Now you’ve met.”
“I know who he is Cupcake. This little dreamboat is part of why your boy was trying to light me on fire. Never mind how you got out, how the hell did you get him out?”
“By the hand, well, I more or less dragged him …there may have been digging involved. Why, what do you know about him? What has he got to do with the Winchesters?”
“He was in a box with Michael and Lucifer last I heard, what did you do?” Ruby turned suddenly at that, fixing Adam with a scowl.
“The Winchesters? Michael and Lucifer? What haven’t you been telling me? Who are you?”
“I…” He started, Crowley waved a dismissive hand at him.
“Poodle, please concentrate, you can interrogate the kid later. There’s already been people out for you on both sides, and now that you’re out of the box, doubly so. You’re going to have Heaven and Hell on your tail, and with him, well … it’ll be even worse.”
“I’m still waiting for the why.” She said evenly, hands on hips, Crowley sighed, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“How many times have I told you about this need to take in strays without thinking about where they might have been before? You have no idea who your new toy is at all. This kid, love, not only was he Michael’s vessel, but that’s the youngest Winchester.”
“what.” It was a flat single word, without even the inflection to make it a question as Ruby looked back at Adam her mouth slightly open. “That’s impossible. How could…”
“We’ve got bigger problems than the kid right now darling.” Crowley inclined his head slightly, indicating behind her. They had come from deeper in the woods, five of them, demons; dark eyed and grinning.
“You said there’s a price on you?” Ruby whispered regarding the interlopers and Crowley nodded, raking a hand through his hair. “As soon as I go for them, you make a break for it.”
“Poodle…”
“Go, I’ve got this.” He nodded gratefully, stepping backwards into the conjuring circle and vanishing. Ruby swiped at Adam’s arm. “You stay behind me, and whatever happens, however weird this is, don’t do anything.”
Adam opened his mouth to protest, but before he could she had already given him a hard shove and dropped into a crouch. The other demons likewise braced themselves, and then she was the same terrifying, beautiful creature he had first met. Shivering and shimmering, her eyes jet black before she sprang.
It was the most horrible thing he had ever seen.
There had been five of them, and she obliterated them. A few managed a good hit in before she ripped them limb from limb, but most of the blood that soaked every inch of her was not her own.
Then she was, more or less, normal again; walking back to him, snapping her shoulder back into the socket and wiping the blood from her eyes.
“We need to move. There’ll be others.” She held out her hand to him again, and this time Adam hesitated.
“What are you?”
“I’ll explain everything later, I promise. Please, we need to go now.” He took a deep breath before sliding his hand into hers, she squeezed tightly. “Hold your breath, this might make you a bit sick.”
They simply were. And then they weren’t. And then they were again.
And once they were, Ruby had been right and Adam felt sick. But he’d managed to keep his insides inside.
They were in another tiny motel room, not too dissimilar from the last one, and when she let go of his hand Adam sat down on the bed, hard.
“How do you feel? I know it can be pretty jarring.” She asked, spreading the window blinds with her fingers and peering through.
“Fine.” He lied, his head still swam a bit. “Ruby…” she glanced back at him “What are you?”
“Do we think we could maybe find a less offensive way to say that?”
“I’m sorry.” He mumbled. “What were they?”
“Demons, and, so am I, essentially. There’s more to it than that, but it’s a long story.”
“How long?”
“About a thousand years … and some change. But here’s the thing, Adam. When someone crawls out of Hell… you can’t, well. How should I put this? You can’t just come back out the same as you were when you went in.”
“But Sam and Dean both came back, and they aren’t like them.”
“I know Pumpkin.” Ruby said patiently, sitting next to him on the bed and putting a hand on his arm, he flinched back from it slightly and she bit her bottom lip, before nodding and continuing. “They had help though. Divine intervention and whatever, not everyone does. Most people who come out don’t … you didn’t. All you had was me, and I’m not an angel.”
“So then I’m…”
“I’m sorry.” She said quietly. “It was the only way to get you out…”
He’d had his eyes trained on the floor the whole time she’d been speaking and he finally looked up at her.
“You made me like them.”
“Yes.”
“You made me like them and you didn’t even ask if that’s what I wanted. They’re monsters.”
“Well then I guess we’re all monsters here, Sweetheart.” She said, tersely. “You can hate me if you like, but this is what I am, Adam, I’m a monster. But I’m the monster that dragged you out of Hell. Or would you rather be down there still? Do you really want to tell me that this is worse? Because I could have left you in there.”
At some point she had stopped calmly sitting next to him and had ended up standing and shouting, fists clenching and un-clenching at her sides.
“I need to go for a walk of something, I need to think.” He said, clambering to his feet and heading for the door.
“Of course you do.” She said under her breath.
**
The town Adam found himself in was entirely foreign to him. Before she had transported them they had been in a heavily wooded area, most likely in the Pacific Northwest.
It had to be the South. Adam had never been to the south, but he’d gotten postcards in High School, friends vacationing in Lousiana, wish you were here.
It was humid, swampy, and utterly covered in Spanish moss. Beyond that he didn’t recognize anything, but he wandered through the small, unnamed city for two hours; even if after half an hour he had already stopped being angry.
It had shocked him more than anything else - he’d known about the angels and the demons, at least a little, from Sam and Dean. But Hell had been an abstract concept when they’d told him about it, and Ruby had been the one who had actually appeared and saved him. Like some sort of Greek goddess, full of wrath and beauty.
And if it had changed him… she’d been right. There was no way it could be worse then the small room with the unidentifiable, angry, entities.
She’s saved him, and he thanked her by stalking off like a pouting child.
So he’d found himself shuffling back to the motel room, the apology half out of his mouth as he opened the door to find the room empty.
It gave him a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach, but he wasn’t all together surprised. He’d been horrible, called her a monster. So of course she was gone.
She probably had civilizations to create and destroy or whatever it was beautiful, terrible, creatures like her did.
He sat down on the bed and regarded the empty room. There’d been so much of angels and demons, and when Ruby had been there to take care of what was happening, it had still been terrifying - but he’d had a goddess of death and war to destroy whatever came after them.
And now … now there was just him. In a motel room, in a city somewhere in the southern region of the United States. He laid back on the bed and almost instantly fell into the absorbing, dreamless, sleep of the completely exhausted.
**
Adam woke up because it was cold, and damp; and there was a foot on his neck.
Waking up in an abandoned warehouse didn’t even rank within the top five strangest things to have happened in the past forty eight hours.
Waking up because the person half standing on him, along with his five large companions, all were leering down at him with their jet black eyes ranked somewhat higher.
“Look Irv, the baby Winchester is awake.” Said the one whose boot was digging hard against Adam’s collarbone.
“So he is.” Said the one standing just to the left of the first.
“You’re bad for business, kid.” A third, whippet thin one, told him.
“I’m sorry?” Adam managed to choke despite the pressure.
“If you’re back it stands to reason the high roller that was wearing you like a cheap pantsuit might come tearing in at moment. And that wouldn’t be good for anybody, you see? So we figure it’s best to just nip this thing in the bud… that and you’re a Winchester; which means we need to kill you just on principal.”
Adam went cold and attempted to wriggle out from underneath the boot on him.
“Here’s the thing-” The one with the boot began to say; before his head exploded like a ripe watermelon. Adam was only glad he’d had the dumb luck to have had his mouth closed at his moment. The thin one had not been nearly so lucky.
She came out of the darkness, heels of her boots making a resounding clack against the concrete floor. Adam looked up at from his position the ground.
“You came.” He said, incredulously. Ruby regarded him for a moment, a look of fierce irritation on her face.
“Just because I’m mad at you doesn’t mean that I was about to let them kill you.” She snapped, before returning her attention to his captors. “I think you’ll find that you this belongs to me.” Ruby said, making a vague gesture in Adam’s direction.
“When did they let you out?” One of them growled, whipping the bits of his friend from his face with the back of his hand.
“Oh. No one ever let’s me do things. I wanted out. I got out. I wanted him. I got him. And if you think you’re going to keep him from me then you’re going to wind up worse then your little friend there.” She replied in an almost pitying tone. “Adam, get up.” Ruby gave the collapsed body of the demon off of Adam’s chest and made a slight jerking motion with her head indicating to get behind her.
“Do you know who he is.” The thin one hissed, moving forward in a slight crouch, obviously readying himself for a fight. And she laughed, a bitter almost evil sounding thing.
“Do you know who I am?” Ruby countered. “Now this can go two ways. Either you let us walk out of here, un-harassed, and then go back to whatever the hell it is you do. Or I rip your spines out through your mouths. Your choice gentlemen.”
“We’re not afraid of you, Ruby.” The thin one sneered and Ruby sighed heavily.
“Well that’s just ignorant.” Adam had barely registered that anyone had moved before the first demon had sprung at them. Watching Ruby fight the second time around really wasn’t any less disturbing. And to his dismay, she killed the tall one exactly like she said she would. It was the most terrifying thing Adam had ever seen. It was a little over two minutes of the horrible sound of bones snapping and flesh hitting the ground before Ruby came limping back to him; drenched in blood and exhausted.
“Hey, are you all right?” Adam managed to say as she all but collapsed into his arms, smelling of burning, and dust, and copper.
“I’m amazing.” She mumbled against his chest “I just need to sleep and I’ll be golden.” She was already asleep even before Adam picked her up and briefly marveled that something so dark and powerful weighed so little
**
He had walked for what seemed like years before he had somehow found his way back to the motel. She didn’t wake up or even stir when he placed he in the center of the bed, and after moment’s consideration crawled onto it next to her and fell asleep with his face buried in her hair, not caring in the slightest about the blood and debris she was covered in.
**
Adam woke up in a slight panic - the room was dark and the bed was empty. He was temporarily terrified that she had left again, before his eyes focused and he made out her silhouette standing in front of the window with her back turned to him.
“Ruby?” He said into the dark and she looked back at him. “I’m sorry, what I said it was horrible.” Adam barely even was conscious of the fact that he had gotten up and walked over to her, grabbing onto her arm. “God I’m just, I’m so, so sorry. You aren’t a monster, you aren’t. You’re prefect. And you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Please just forgive me.” Even in the dark he could tell she looked completely shocked.
“Perfect…” She murmured with a wry sort of smile that made him actually see for the first time the hundreds upon hundreds of years she’d survived. “That’s new.” Adam reached forward, his hand coming to rest on her cheek and turning her face up to him.
“Just, please don’t go. If I’m like you now, then that means that I have God only knows how many centuries ahead of me; and I don’t think I would want to spend them with anybody else.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, I mean, chances are you’re going to get bored a few decades in and run like Hell, but I’m more then happy for you to stick around until then.”
“I won’t. I want this, forever if at all possible.” Ruby pursed her lips.
“Forever is an awfully long time.”
“I know.” Adam replied with a small nod and Ruby grinned like a Cheshire cat. Even after he leaned into to press his lips against hers, she was still smiling.
**
Author: mad_teagirl
Fandom: Supernatural
Character/Pairing: Adam/Ruby
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A while back suchaprince and myself came up with this concept of Adam/Ruby, and Ruby springing him out of Hell ... because I mean, doesn't anyone else wonder why everyone seems to just have forgotten/doesn't care about Adam? And then it was HER BIRTHDAY. so I wrote it... and I totally MADE A MIX to go with it too.Also, I should mention, the title comes from the Aloha song of the same name
Beta: NONE, GOD HELP US! SALT YOUR BLOODY WINDOWS
Disclaimer: I pretty much don't own anything here, except for my own wording ... also it's a bit bloody, so yeah, there's that. I should probably add that I wrote most of this pretty early into Season 6, so a few parts of it aren't as canon as they could be now
You've Escaped
**
“I will walk in the garden with my fair, angelic, Eve. I will be Adam, she will be Eve. And all the memory of Hell will melt from me like snow.”
- Danny Boyle’s ‘Frankenstein’
**
He hadn’t understood how this had come to be, how he’d ended up in the chamber, but the other figures locked inside it with him had been barely in focus, glowing, shivering, malevolent. There had been three others, and then there had suddenly been only two, and there had been a tear in the wall of their cell, just wide enough to wedge through.
Beyond the chamber was no more coherent than it had been inside. Everything had been too bright almost to see, and hot, and vibrating under the very fibers of his skin, or what must have passed for skin, for he had long ago come to doubt that he was inside any real sort of a body.
He wandered in the outside for what felt like centuries, there were other entities, and the howling, the howling he thought could drive him mad, and if his eyes could distinguish the figures that made those sounds, then he knew he would. But he’d somehow had a sense of what was up and what was down, and the spiraling chasms led, gradually upward.
He didn’t know how many years it might have been when he saw her, the first of the entities he could put any sort of a face or figure to. She had been just ahead of him, one hand pressed into the wall beside her for support, her wrists raw from the shackles on them, the snapped chain of one still dragging behind her from her right hand.
“Hello?” He’d whispered, even though it had been the loudest he could make his voice, and she had turned around, slowly, painfully. She was scarred, and burned, and her right arm that pulled the chain along had obviously been broken in multiple places.
Even slightly out of focus, with her edges pulsing and shivering, she was all at one the most beautiful and terrifying thing he’d ever seen.
“Who are you?” She said in a voice that sounded like it hadn’t been used in decades.
He had shook his head, and at once felt a sort of wonderment that he did, indeed, have one.
“I don’t know.” He told her. “I can’t remember.”
She’d considered this somberly and nodded.
“That’s what this place does to you. Especially the first time.”
“The first time? How can anyone have been here more than once?”
She’d made a sound that almost would have passed for a laugh if didn’t sound so painful.
“I have … I’ve been here more than anywhere else.” Then she’d looked at him through the odd haze surrounding her and extended her non-broken, but all the same blood stained hand to him “I’m getting out. Come with me.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I don’t care.” She’d said, and it’d been enough somehow.
**
When he opened his eyes it was into pitch blackness, the air around him was thick, suffocating and he couldn’t move. He’d only just become aware of his corporeal body when the horrible fear that he was going to die and be pulled from it once again began to beat in his chest.
But then there had come a cracking noise, and pounds and pounds of soft, moist darkness fell onto him, pressing him further and further down until he felt a hand close around his wrist and pull him upward for what felt like miles.
The awareness of fresh air around him and the feeling of dirt and grass under his palms was all at once foreign and familiar, and after several minutes he finally managed to wipe enough of the dirt cakes on his face away from his eyes to open them.
She looked different now, sitting on the ground next to him, no longer strange and ethereal, shuddering in and out of focus. Now she, for all looks and appearances, was just a girl, and not something made of fire and death. Torn clothes and mud caked in her long blond hair, she wasn’t as broken as she had been before. Though, she was still covered in bruises, or as far as he could tell from all the dirt streaked on her skin.
“Are you all right?” She finally asked, even her voice was different now. “I would have been here sooner, I’m sorry, but I had to dig myself. out, which was two states over, mind you, and then I had to find where the Hell they’d even planted you. Which wasn’t easy since I have no idea where you were…”
“And where am I?” He asked in return, taking stock of the field they were sitting in, nothing but flatness and grass; with the exception of a deep, freshly dug hole - which he realized he’d been inside of. The girl looked around them, attempting to pull her hand absently through the dirt and tangles in her hair.
“Not exactly sure … Kansas? I think?”
For the life of him he couldn’t think of a single reason why he would have been in Kansas, though, he couldn’t remember much at the moment. Everything was a bit blurry in his head. But she hadn’t asked.
She got up, making a futile gesture of brushing dirt off her clothes, and he found himself thinking that if she was that gorgeous looking like death warmed over, he might not be able to even be in the same room with her once she’d had a shower and a clean change of clothes.
But he’d remembered enough to know that this was not the sort of thing you said to someone you’d just met, and she had been looking at him a little expectantly then. So he’d clambered to his feet and offered her his hand.
“Adam” he’d said quietly, and she’s smiled. Instead of shaking his hand she’d laced her fingers through his like she’d known him all her life.
“Ruby” She answered.
**
He stared nervously at her back as she pressed her hand flat against the lock of the motel door.
“Ruby … so… do you have a last name?”
“What?” She snapped, green eyes opening, breaking her concentration. “No. Well, maybe, I don’t know. I don’t remember.” She admitted with a small shrug before squeezing her eyes shut again and pressing her hand harder against the lock.
“You … don’t … remember?” Adam asked incredulously, earning him a vague motion with her free hand.
“It was a long time ago. It isn’t important. I’m trying to concentrate.” Adam knew that in the span of his life he hadn’t been a saint, or anything, but he was still more than reasonably sure that this had to fall under breaking and entering. But then there was the soft click of mechanisms falling into place, and the green light illuminated over the lock. “Are you going to come in or are you going to stand outside with your mouth open.” Ruby said flatly as she cranked the handle and stepped inside.
“Not to come off as a total prude or anything, but there’s only one bed.” Adam mumbled, Ruby rolled her eyes at him.
“What are you twelve? Just don’t hog all the covers and we’ll be fine. I’m having a shower.”
He watched her go, dropping her jacket on the ground en route to the bathroom, and he perched on the end of the bed. Adam had barely realized that he had fallen back onto the bed, or had any idea of how long he’d been asleep before he startled awake to the feeling of something cold and wet brushing against his forearm.
Adam jolted, eyes opening in the dark room.
“Calm down.” Ruby whispered. “I’m cold.” As she snuggled against him and he identified the strange feeling that had awakened him as her still wet hair. He idly wondered if she would completely look down on him if he admitted he’d never slept in the same bed as a girl before. After coming to the conclusion he ought not to risk it he relaxed and fell back asleep with his chin on the top of her head.
**
Despite how much shorter than him Ruby was, Adam still found it more than slightly difficult to keep up with her as she dragged him along behind her. He would have thought her need to constantly be holding his hand was more endearing if it didn’t more often that not feel like his shoulder was being dislocated.
“Where are we going?” He grumbled. It was a few hours before dawn, and he was cold, hungry, and irritable.
“Umm… I need to make a call.” She said distractedly, letting go of his hand as the came to a clearing in the woods.
“What are you doing?” Adam asked as he watched her trace symbols in the dirt.
“I told you. Now hush, I need to concentrate.” Ruby snapped, straightening up and wiping dirt off on her jeans. She closed her eyes, murmuring under her breath in a language that had to be at least a few centuries dead at this point.
“But you haven’t got a phone-“
“Would you hush!” The words are barely out of her mouth before there is a flash of light and a man standing in the center of her ornate symbol work.
“Oh what in the seven hells? Wait… Poodle?” He looked to be middle aged, expensively dressed, and obviously familiar with Ruby. Even if the nuance of that particular nickname struck Adam as incredibly odd.
“Hello Darling.” Ruby replied with the smallest quirk of a smile. The man stepped out of the circle of symbols, brushing absently at his suit as he did so before pulling Ruby into his arms.
“Christ, it’s been years. Where have you been? Wait… no I know where you’ve been. How did you get out?”
“Because the boys downstairs have done such a bang up job keeping me down there in the past.” She said.
“It’s different now love, do you have any idea what’s happened in the past couple of years while you were down there? Big, cataclysmic stuff. Apocalypse and what have you. Oh, and have I mentioned that your boyfriend and his charming duck-lipped brother tried to kill me? I am currently having to be on the down low, because as long as they think they actually did me in I don’t have to worry about them turning up. You really have the worst taste in men, do you know that? It makes me miss that solider bloke you were dating in the forties… had a stick up his ass, but was perfectly lovable in his own right and never once tried to light me on fire.”
“Your boyfriend?” Adam finally made himself say and Ruby looked over at him with a frown.
“Most definitely not my boyfriend.” She told him emphatically. The man looked at Adam as though seeing him for the first.
“Wait… wait… is this?”
“Crowley, this is Adam, Adam this is Crowley. Now you’ve met.”
“I know who he is Cupcake. This little dreamboat is part of why your boy was trying to light me on fire. Never mind how you got out, how the hell did you get him out?”
“By the hand, well, I more or less dragged him …there may have been digging involved. Why, what do you know about him? What has he got to do with the Winchesters?”
“He was in a box with Michael and Lucifer last I heard, what did you do?” Ruby turned suddenly at that, fixing Adam with a scowl.
“The Winchesters? Michael and Lucifer? What haven’t you been telling me? Who are you?”
“I…” He started, Crowley waved a dismissive hand at him.
“Poodle, please concentrate, you can interrogate the kid later. There’s already been people out for you on both sides, and now that you’re out of the box, doubly so. You’re going to have Heaven and Hell on your tail, and with him, well … it’ll be even worse.”
“I’m still waiting for the why.” She said evenly, hands on hips, Crowley sighed, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“How many times have I told you about this need to take in strays without thinking about where they might have been before? You have no idea who your new toy is at all. This kid, love, not only was he Michael’s vessel, but that’s the youngest Winchester.”
“what.” It was a flat single word, without even the inflection to make it a question as Ruby looked back at Adam her mouth slightly open. “That’s impossible. How could…”
“We’ve got bigger problems than the kid right now darling.” Crowley inclined his head slightly, indicating behind her. They had come from deeper in the woods, five of them, demons; dark eyed and grinning.
“You said there’s a price on you?” Ruby whispered regarding the interlopers and Crowley nodded, raking a hand through his hair. “As soon as I go for them, you make a break for it.”
“Poodle…”
“Go, I’ve got this.” He nodded gratefully, stepping backwards into the conjuring circle and vanishing. Ruby swiped at Adam’s arm. “You stay behind me, and whatever happens, however weird this is, don’t do anything.”
Adam opened his mouth to protest, but before he could she had already given him a hard shove and dropped into a crouch. The other demons likewise braced themselves, and then she was the same terrifying, beautiful creature he had first met. Shivering and shimmering, her eyes jet black before she sprang.
It was the most horrible thing he had ever seen.
There had been five of them, and she obliterated them. A few managed a good hit in before she ripped them limb from limb, but most of the blood that soaked every inch of her was not her own.
Then she was, more or less, normal again; walking back to him, snapping her shoulder back into the socket and wiping the blood from her eyes.
“We need to move. There’ll be others.” She held out her hand to him again, and this time Adam hesitated.
“What are you?”
“I’ll explain everything later, I promise. Please, we need to go now.” He took a deep breath before sliding his hand into hers, she squeezed tightly. “Hold your breath, this might make you a bit sick.”
They simply were. And then they weren’t. And then they were again.
And once they were, Ruby had been right and Adam felt sick. But he’d managed to keep his insides inside.
They were in another tiny motel room, not too dissimilar from the last one, and when she let go of his hand Adam sat down on the bed, hard.
“How do you feel? I know it can be pretty jarring.” She asked, spreading the window blinds with her fingers and peering through.
“Fine.” He lied, his head still swam a bit. “Ruby…” she glanced back at him “What are you?”
“Do we think we could maybe find a less offensive way to say that?”
“I’m sorry.” He mumbled. “What were they?”
“Demons, and, so am I, essentially. There’s more to it than that, but it’s a long story.”
“How long?”
“About a thousand years … and some change. But here’s the thing, Adam. When someone crawls out of Hell… you can’t, well. How should I put this? You can’t just come back out the same as you were when you went in.”
“But Sam and Dean both came back, and they aren’t like them.”
“I know Pumpkin.” Ruby said patiently, sitting next to him on the bed and putting a hand on his arm, he flinched back from it slightly and she bit her bottom lip, before nodding and continuing. “They had help though. Divine intervention and whatever, not everyone does. Most people who come out don’t … you didn’t. All you had was me, and I’m not an angel.”
“So then I’m…”
“I’m sorry.” She said quietly. “It was the only way to get you out…”
He’d had his eyes trained on the floor the whole time she’d been speaking and he finally looked up at her.
“You made me like them.”
“Yes.”
“You made me like them and you didn’t even ask if that’s what I wanted. They’re monsters.”
“Well then I guess we’re all monsters here, Sweetheart.” She said, tersely. “You can hate me if you like, but this is what I am, Adam, I’m a monster. But I’m the monster that dragged you out of Hell. Or would you rather be down there still? Do you really want to tell me that this is worse? Because I could have left you in there.”
At some point she had stopped calmly sitting next to him and had ended up standing and shouting, fists clenching and un-clenching at her sides.
“I need to go for a walk of something, I need to think.” He said, clambering to his feet and heading for the door.
“Of course you do.” She said under her breath.
**
The town Adam found himself in was entirely foreign to him. Before she had transported them they had been in a heavily wooded area, most likely in the Pacific Northwest.
It had to be the South. Adam had never been to the south, but he’d gotten postcards in High School, friends vacationing in Lousiana, wish you were here.
It was humid, swampy, and utterly covered in Spanish moss. Beyond that he didn’t recognize anything, but he wandered through the small, unnamed city for two hours; even if after half an hour he had already stopped being angry.
It had shocked him more than anything else - he’d known about the angels and the demons, at least a little, from Sam and Dean. But Hell had been an abstract concept when they’d told him about it, and Ruby had been the one who had actually appeared and saved him. Like some sort of Greek goddess, full of wrath and beauty.
And if it had changed him… she’d been right. There was no way it could be worse then the small room with the unidentifiable, angry, entities.
She’s saved him, and he thanked her by stalking off like a pouting child.
So he’d found himself shuffling back to the motel room, the apology half out of his mouth as he opened the door to find the room empty.
It gave him a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach, but he wasn’t all together surprised. He’d been horrible, called her a monster. So of course she was gone.
She probably had civilizations to create and destroy or whatever it was beautiful, terrible, creatures like her did.
He sat down on the bed and regarded the empty room. There’d been so much of angels and demons, and when Ruby had been there to take care of what was happening, it had still been terrifying - but he’d had a goddess of death and war to destroy whatever came after them.
And now … now there was just him. In a motel room, in a city somewhere in the southern region of the United States. He laid back on the bed and almost instantly fell into the absorbing, dreamless, sleep of the completely exhausted.
**
Adam woke up because it was cold, and damp; and there was a foot on his neck.
Waking up in an abandoned warehouse didn’t even rank within the top five strangest things to have happened in the past forty eight hours.
Waking up because the person half standing on him, along with his five large companions, all were leering down at him with their jet black eyes ranked somewhat higher.
“Look Irv, the baby Winchester is awake.” Said the one whose boot was digging hard against Adam’s collarbone.
“So he is.” Said the one standing just to the left of the first.
“You’re bad for business, kid.” A third, whippet thin one, told him.
“I’m sorry?” Adam managed to choke despite the pressure.
“If you’re back it stands to reason the high roller that was wearing you like a cheap pantsuit might come tearing in at moment. And that wouldn’t be good for anybody, you see? So we figure it’s best to just nip this thing in the bud… that and you’re a Winchester; which means we need to kill you just on principal.”
Adam went cold and attempted to wriggle out from underneath the boot on him.
“Here’s the thing-” The one with the boot began to say; before his head exploded like a ripe watermelon. Adam was only glad he’d had the dumb luck to have had his mouth closed at his moment. The thin one had not been nearly so lucky.
She came out of the darkness, heels of her boots making a resounding clack against the concrete floor. Adam looked up at from his position the ground.
“You came.” He said, incredulously. Ruby regarded him for a moment, a look of fierce irritation on her face.
“Just because I’m mad at you doesn’t mean that I was about to let them kill you.” She snapped, before returning her attention to his captors. “I think you’ll find that you this belongs to me.” Ruby said, making a vague gesture in Adam’s direction.
“When did they let you out?” One of them growled, whipping the bits of his friend from his face with the back of his hand.
“Oh. No one ever let’s me do things. I wanted out. I got out. I wanted him. I got him. And if you think you’re going to keep him from me then you’re going to wind up worse then your little friend there.” She replied in an almost pitying tone. “Adam, get up.” Ruby gave the collapsed body of the demon off of Adam’s chest and made a slight jerking motion with her head indicating to get behind her.
“Do you know who he is.” The thin one hissed, moving forward in a slight crouch, obviously readying himself for a fight. And she laughed, a bitter almost evil sounding thing.
“Do you know who I am?” Ruby countered. “Now this can go two ways. Either you let us walk out of here, un-harassed, and then go back to whatever the hell it is you do. Or I rip your spines out through your mouths. Your choice gentlemen.”
“We’re not afraid of you, Ruby.” The thin one sneered and Ruby sighed heavily.
“Well that’s just ignorant.” Adam had barely registered that anyone had moved before the first demon had sprung at them. Watching Ruby fight the second time around really wasn’t any less disturbing. And to his dismay, she killed the tall one exactly like she said she would. It was the most terrifying thing Adam had ever seen. It was a little over two minutes of the horrible sound of bones snapping and flesh hitting the ground before Ruby came limping back to him; drenched in blood and exhausted.
“Hey, are you all right?” Adam managed to say as she all but collapsed into his arms, smelling of burning, and dust, and copper.
“I’m amazing.” She mumbled against his chest “I just need to sleep and I’ll be golden.” She was already asleep even before Adam picked her up and briefly marveled that something so dark and powerful weighed so little
**
He had walked for what seemed like years before he had somehow found his way back to the motel. She didn’t wake up or even stir when he placed he in the center of the bed, and after moment’s consideration crawled onto it next to her and fell asleep with his face buried in her hair, not caring in the slightest about the blood and debris she was covered in.
**
Adam woke up in a slight panic - the room was dark and the bed was empty. He was temporarily terrified that she had left again, before his eyes focused and he made out her silhouette standing in front of the window with her back turned to him.
“Ruby?” He said into the dark and she looked back at him. “I’m sorry, what I said it was horrible.” Adam barely even was conscious of the fact that he had gotten up and walked over to her, grabbing onto her arm. “God I’m just, I’m so, so sorry. You aren’t a monster, you aren’t. You’re prefect. And you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Please just forgive me.” Even in the dark he could tell she looked completely shocked.
“Perfect…” She murmured with a wry sort of smile that made him actually see for the first time the hundreds upon hundreds of years she’d survived. “That’s new.” Adam reached forward, his hand coming to rest on her cheek and turning her face up to him.
“Just, please don’t go. If I’m like you now, then that means that I have God only knows how many centuries ahead of me; and I don’t think I would want to spend them with anybody else.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, I mean, chances are you’re going to get bored a few decades in and run like Hell, but I’m more then happy for you to stick around until then.”
“I won’t. I want this, forever if at all possible.” Ruby pursed her lips.
“Forever is an awfully long time.”
“I know.” Adam replied with a small nod and Ruby grinned like a Cheshire cat. Even after he leaned into to press his lips against hers, she was still smiling.
**