title: no one here wants to fight me like you do
author:
nalakaori_chanrecipient:
shiplessheathenpairing: jo/ruby
rating: r
short summary: jo and ruby go on a mission to get dean out of his crossroads deal.
warnings: explicit language and sexual content.
disclaimer: i don't own supernatural or any related media.
notes: sorry for the lateness; it has been one heck of a month for me. lyrics in the title from combat baby by metric. i'm really not very happy with this, but...i hope you enjoy!
“You know I don’t trust you,” Jo says matter-of-factly. She’s sitting in some ratty old chair in some ratty old motel room, stocking feet resting on the table in front of her. Her hair is slung messily into a ponytail and she’s absent-mindedly rattling the beer in her hand, letting it slosh around. If it wasn’t for the tension in her shoulders, the crinkling between her eyebrows (and, of course, the gun she’s dangling in one hand), she would have seemed to be the picture of relaxation.
But Ruby knows better.
Ruby knows humans. Really, Ruby knows hunters. And Ruby knows hunters don’t relax when there’s a demon in the room.
“I know,” she says mildly. “I’m surprised you let me in at all, really. I know what your people think of my…people.” There’s obvious amusement in her voice; despite the gun in Jo’s hands, Ruby holds the cards here and she knows it.
“You aren’t people,” Jo hisses. “Don’t even…say that.”
At this, Ruby lets out a little laugh, too low to be a cackle and too nasty-sounding to be a giggle.
“I’ll say whatever I want, honey, because we both know what’s gonna happen here today.” A black film slides across her eyes, dark and sinister: the physical proof of her damnation. Jo flinches unconsciously. “I hold all of the cards, and the cards are as follows: one, Dean Winchester is going to Hell in about a month. Two, he and his precious Sammy have tried everything they can think of to save him and - what do you know? - nothing worked! Which is bizarre, if you ask me - I mean, why wouldn’t he be able to get out of a deal with a Crossroads demon? Not as if they’re impossible to break or anything.” Ruby snorts and runs a hand through her hair. “Ass didn’t know what he was getting into.”
She looks up at Jo and can’t help the little grin that flits across her face. Jo’s eyes are squeezed shut, fingers tightening on the trigger of her pistol. She looks as if she’s torn between shooting Ruby, shooting herself, and shooting the television in the corner of the motel room. She still manages to grunt out, “And what are you going to do about that, you little demon bitch?”
“Ooh, somebody’s testy!” Ruby exclaims, sidling over the coffee table in front of Jo and sitting down on it. “Here’s something you should know, sweetie: you and him? Never a chance. He’s too busy getting a little…brotherly lovin’, if you know what I mean.” She winks and lightly strokes Jo’s chin with one pale finger. For a moment Jo is eerily still; then, she grabs Ruby’s hand and jerks it off of her face, breaking the knuckles in one fell swoop.
“Don’t touch me, you whore!” Jo yells, cocking the gun and pointing it right at Ruby’s temple. Her body is trembling but her grip is firm. Ruby looks at her from under her eyelashes and absentmindedly rubs her hand.
“Oh, nooo. A big…” She pops one of her knuckles back into place. “scary…” The second knuckle goes; her face contorts in…is that pleasure? Jo shudders. “powerful…” A crack. “gun.” She snaps the fourth back into place, leaving only her middle finger. “Oh, I forgot an adjective there: try ‘worthless’.” Ruby smirks and fixes her last knuckle, holding the finger up in the universal gesture for ‘fuck you’; Jo seethes with rage. Before she can grunt out a response, Ruby continues.
“Now, honey. You didn’t let me finish! You haven’t let me talk about the third card yet.”
Jo snorts.
“You expect me to believe whatever you have to say? Bullshit.” But Ruby just grins, looking for all the world like the cat that got the canary.
“Actually, I do,” she says with a smirk. “I know you trust little Deanie with your life. And Deanie, well…he trusts me. Isn’t there some mathematical principle that should tell you where to go with that reasoning?”
“Dean wouldn’t trust you to wipe his ass,” Jo says. “Sam might be deluded by you, but Dean…no. Never.” Ruby dismisses her with a wave of her hand.
“Nonetheless,” she continues, “I think I may have found a…solution to Dean’s Crossroads problem.”
Jo is silent. So is Ruby. The silence stretches, expands, seems to fill the room in its completeness. Finally Jo looks up, grimaces, loosens her grip on her gun. Swigs the last of her beer.
“What kind of solution?”
-
It turns out that the solution involves an age-old spell that in turn involves an amulet currently being kept in a witch doctor’s house in the middle of fuck-nowhere, Michigan. Ruby offers to accompany Jo on the ride there, but Jo firmly squashes that idea with a couple of very well-chosen curse words.
“You can take the Hell Railroad or however you demons get around,” she informs Ruby as she tucks the last of her belongings into her duffel. Ruby spots a pair of lacy panties and smirks, mentally filing the information away. Hunter girl likes slutty undies.
“Alright, then. Hope you know how to use MapQuest, hon.” Jo frowns at the nickname but chooses to stay quiet. I’m doing this for Dean. I’m only doing this for Dean. If she’s bullshitting me I’ll be out of there before she can blink, Jo tells herself. She’s not entirely sure if it’s the truth or not. She comforts herself with the knowledge that her profession doesn’t really place much merit in the truth; a hunter’s Bible is made of guns, rock salt, beer, and old leather. Jo wouldn’t have it any other way.
She tries not to think about Ruby much on the ride there; instead she rolls all of the windows down, turns the volume up as high as it’ll go, and puts on her Blue Öyster Cult Greatest Hits CD. It reminds her of Dean and as much as it hurts, it’s also a kind of comfort. So is inhaling the dirt of the country roads, letting it permeate her nostrils and get in her hair. This is the life she was made for, no matter what her mother says. She can feel it in her bones, as corny as that sounds.
When she stops at a diner just outside of Lansing for a cheeseburger, she’s only half surprised to see Ruby already sitting at the table by the door.
“Fancy seeing you here,” says Ruby with a smile that would seem sweet to anyone looking on but Jo knows to be completely devilish.
“Look what the hellhound dragged in,” Jo responds dryly, sitting down and digging around in her pocket for a twenty. She busies herself with jotting a few notes down on the back of an old receipt and then placing her order, but as the waitress walks away she casts the full heat of her angry gaze on Ruby.
“Look. I don’t know why you hang out with the Winchesters, I don’t know why you’re so set on saving Dean, and I sure as hell don’t know why you came to me of all people for help,” Jo hisses. “But you have to get one thing straight: if you cross me, I will not hesitate to send your ass right back to the fiery pit you came from, you worthless little hell-bitch. The only reason you’re still walking this Earth is because you might have a way to save Dean.” Ruby, who has been watching Jo’s diatribe with what looks like mild amusement on her face, pauses in the middle of dipping one of her fries into ketchup.
“Oh, I have a way to save Dean,” she says. “If you don’t fuck it up, that is. But go on.” She munches her fry happily.
“You know what?” Jo asks softly, a dangerous glint coming into her eyes. “Even saving Dean isn’t gonna put you on the safe list, Ruby.” Jo spits her name out like a curse, hatred lacing every syllable. “I’d appreciate the time you’ve got left in that body. I don’t know how long it’s gonna be around, if you know what I mean.”
At this, Ruby grins widely. “Oh, I have been…appreciating my time in this body. Don’t you worry, little hunter.” One of her hands - Jo thinks it’s the one she broke yesterday - comes up to rest between her breasts, idly drawing circles on the skin. “Human females are really quite…delicious. Supple. Sensitive.” She smacks her lips. “Fragile. Oh, yes, I’ve had quite a nice time with this body. Nice, indeed.”
Jo stares at Ruby for a moment, then abruptly stands up and pushes her chair in. She slams the twenty down on the table and turns on her heel. She is pale and trembling. She feels nauseated and dirty just from hearing that little speech of Ruby’s and, for some reason, ashamed, too. She can’t figure out why, but there it is - shame making her pulse thrum in the space under her chin.
She doesn’t see Ruby’s grin, but Jo hears what she calls after her on her way out the door.
“You’ve got a nice ass on you, Jo.”
The door slams.
-
For some reason, Ruby isn’t lounging on the hotel bed like she owns the place when Jo trudges in at midnight.
“Thank God,” Jo mutters, then pauses, unsure if that was the right thing to say. She really doubts God has anything to do with this.
It’s one of those cheap-ass motels where the gaudy floral print on the wallpaper mixes with the dirt and mud to form a kind of dark pastel grime. There’s a tiny black-and-white television in the corner (who the hell even sells those anymore? Jo wonders) and a lamp on the bedside table that looks like it came straight out of some fifties’ home décor catalogue.
Jo shrugs her jacket off her shoulders and kicks her duffel into the corner of the room, pausing to unzip it and pull out a dirty old tank top and some sweatpants. She contemplates brushing her teeth but decides against it. Why the hell bother? She doesn’t trust the quality of the water coming out of that sink, anyway.
She wishes it could be one of those nights where she’s asleep before her head hits the pillow, but it’s not. She’s left tossing and turning until almost three in the morning; every time she closes her eyes she sees Ruby’s white teeth peeking out from that pale pink smile as she talks about appreciating her new body.
No, she tells herself. Those aren’t Ruby’s teeth, or Ruby’s stupid smile. They belong to some poor human girl Ruby robbed of her life. And that’s why she belongs in Hell.
Jo can see the knife she keeps under her pillow in her mind’s eye. It glints at her as if daring her to pick it up. Taunting. It seems to ask her what the hell she’s doing, working with a demon instead of killing it. Putting it back where it belongs. If she can’t do that, she might as well just give up being a hunter and run back to Mommy. Serve the real hunters their beers and let them do the hard work.
“Oh, shut up,” she says to the knife, then realizes how ridiculous she’s being. She grunts and rolls onto her stomach.
Jo finally falls asleep when she turns the shitty old television on and flips the dial to some channel that’s only static. The hum lulls her to sleep.
She dreams that she’s a barista at some trendy coffeeshop in Los Angeles. She lives in a tiny little apartment with her girlfriend. They watch reruns of Desperate Housewives and run a dog-walking service in their spare time and smoke weed in their pajamas after dinner. They’re making love in their king-sized bed, rolling around under the sheets all slick and sweaty. Her girlfriend’s licking her out and she’s a real pro, sucking and nipping and biting and soon Jo’s coming, coming hard.
“Ruby, oh, God, Ruby,” she moans.
Ruby reaches up and stabs her in the heart. The blood stains their sheets red. She dies mid-orgasm.
-
When Jo wakes up, Ruby’s hovering over her.
Naked.
She almost thinks she’s still in her dream until she realizes she’s not bleeding all over the bed. When it hits her, she yells something incoherent and immediately reaches for the knife under her bed.
Ruby grabs her hand.
“Shh, little hunter,” she murmurs, low and soft. It sounds like the voice of a mother soothing her child. It chills Jo to the bone. “Just relax.”
Jo glares at her. “What the hell do you want?”
At this, Ruby laughs and slides her knee between Jo’s thighs. Jo whimpers involuntarily.
“Has that not become somewhat obvious to you by now?” she asks.
“Unfortunately,” Jo replies, trying to ignore the heat Ruby’s gaze is generating in her belly. She’s unsuccessful and lets out a small moan.
“Come on,” Ruby purrs, trailing one finger down the side of Jo’s face and grasping a lock of blond hair in her fist. “Have a little fun. Let loose. Forget about that silly brother-fucker Dean/. You’ll save him tomorrow. Now…” she nips at Jo’s neck. “We dance.”
And God help her but Jo’s really thinking about it, really considering it. Ruby is really damn good-looking and she hasn’t had a good lay in forever and a day and she’s not going to be fucking a demon, really, not if you think about it - just the body it’s inhabiting.
(Jo convinces herself that makes it better, not worse. It works - for the time being.)
-
There’s not much stigma around being gay among hunters, maybe because lasting relationships are near impossible in their profession and so any chance for a good fuck is more than welcome. Jo knows her mom has had lovers of both genders and it’s common knowledge what John Winchester and Bobby Singer used to get up to back in the day.
Still - eating a girl out is one thing. Eating a demon out is another. Jo figures it’s going to call for a bit more violence than usual.
She’s right. As she digs her nails sharply into Ruby’s hips, Ruby mewls (mewls!) and shifts on top of her. (Figures - even when she’s the one getting fucked, Ruby has to be on top. Demons. Jo snorts.) Tiny droplets of blood slide down Ruby’s thighs. It’s almost grotesque, really, the bright red over the creamy white, and for a minute Jo thinks she’s going to puke, but she manages to clear her head.
“Sam and Dean will never hear about this, you got that?” she hisses, and when Ruby doesn’t immediately respond she bites down roughly on Ruby’s clit. “Got that?”
Despite her current predicament, Ruby smiles lazily at Jo. Jo’s got a little tattoo just above her ass, one of those black tribal designs, and Ruby grabs onto it as her hips ride Jo’s fingers. “Yep. Crystal clear, sweetheart. Now fuck me.”
Jo complies.
Ruby’s eyes turn black when she comes.
-
“Are we going to go get the amulet, then?” Jo sighs. She’s finally got her hair behaving something close to normal, although it still gives off a very thorough ‘I-just-got-fucked’ vibe. She wishes she had some concealer for her hickeys, but for the time being there’s really nothing she can do about those. She doesn’t really want to look Ruby in the eyes, but forces herself to do so anyway.
“No,” Ruby says simply.
Jo snorts.
“And why is that?”
Ruby grins.
“Because there is no amulet.”