Supernatural Reverse-Bang Fill- "Take Two" (2/5)
Art Prompt Title: Untitled
Art link: Art Masterlist
Prompt Number: 1016
Artist: Farfadine
Fic Title: Take Two
Author: crazybeagle
Fandom/Genre: Supernatural Humor/Angst/Hurt-comfort
Pairing(s): Gen, none (Characters: Castiel, Ruby, Dean, Sam, Bobby)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 13,750
Warnings: Language, allusions to torture and violence, psychological trauma
Summary: AU of 7.02. The Leviathans and the souls destroyed each other. But Dean, Sam, and Bobby know that things are never that simple. They know it for a fact when they find two dark-haired children, one wearing face of a former friend and one wearing the face of a former enemy, lying on the panic room floor....
Take Two
Chapter 2
They were both human, as far as they could tell. Bobby put them through every test he could think of, salt, iron, and holy water for Ruby, and some Enochian sigils and jargon that they'd found from some of Bobby's books to test for the presence of angels for Cas. Everything checked out.
And even looking at them, now, sitting at Bobby's kitchen table while their legs dangled off chairs that were too tall for them, faded old concert t-shirts of Dean's hanging off of them like big burlap sacks and overly large socks hanging off their feet and bunching around their ankles while they both ravenously dug into bowls of macaroni and cheese and mugs of hot chocolate that Bobby had hastily made for them, they honest-to-God seemed like kids. Nothing abnormal-or paranormal-about them.
Except that their eyes betrayed them-Ruby's hard, hateful, and flinty, Cas's calculating and remorseful-countenances that no child any of them could think of could have. It was that lack of innocence visible there that gave them away.
Cas had explained, and while it sounded pretty damn spectacular, they couldn't not believe it, because it wasn't like they had any better explanation to go off of here. An angel's grace, even one as corroded as Cas's had become from having the souls and leviathans inside of him, was still potent enough, even disembodied, to command one or two of the souls that were drifting around before they got caught in the fray with the Leviathans. Disembodied, Cas said, his Grace was automatically inclined to try and find an anchor to this plane-a vessel-or else he'd dissipate, go wherever angels went when they died ("although I do not know where that might be, that was revelation to which I was never privy"). He had only the destroyed body of his vessel to work with, and even with the great raw power from the souls, which he could essentially command to do whatever he wished, there was still only so much one could do with dead matter. An anchor was still an anchor, though, and Jimmy Novak's body had held him for long enough that he was inclined to try anyhow. And shaping the body into a smaller one he could animate and occupy had been easier than attempting to resurrect Jimmy and get his consent to possess him again. Humans died slowly, too, and in phases-the body might have been dead, but not all the cells or tissues died at the same time, and there was still enough living matter to work with that utilizing the living matter and re-animating only a portion of the dead matter had been easier than, as Dean said, "zombiefying" Jimmy's body. Not that any of this had consciously occurred to Cas until after he had done it-it had been a near-automatic reflex of his Grace to preserve itself, and one that he could never have accomplished without the souls. That done, the power of the souls spent and his Grace cut off from heaven now that he was locked inside a human body, here Cas was. For all intents and purposes, human.
"Well what about her?" Dean jerked a thumb at Ruby. Ruby glowered at him. "Where did she even come from?"
"She was one of the souls I consumed," Cas said.
"She was in Purgatory?" Bobby asked, frowning over his coffee. "How the hell'd she get there? I thought she-"
Ruby snorted. "Do you really think we just go poof out of existence when you kill us, dumbass?" Everybody just looked at her. She sighed melodramatically, narrow shoulders rising and falling, and speared her fork around her mostly empty plate. "Obviously I have some explaining to do, because you're all too dense to understand the most basic of metaphysical concepts. But first," she brandished her fork at them. "More mac and cheese or I'm not saying a word. I'd get it myself, but," she wiggled around a bit, expression agitated, "you tied me to the chair, remember?"
"Fine," Bobby groused, getting up and crossing to the stove. He spooned a gluey pile of macaroni onto Ruby's plate. "Talk. And you ain't gettin' up until you do."
"Alright, fine," she said, spearing macaroni and cramming some into her mouth. "So Castiel already said souls can't be destroyed, right? They're all energy. Can't destroy energy." She paused, chewing. "So what," she said, "do you think happens to a demon's soul when, say, a couple of dim-witted traitors run a knife through her gut?" Her eyes landed on Sam. He glared right back at her, evenly. "Well we don't go to Hell, otherwise we could just come back. Which believe me, I'd have done a long time ago, and ran that same damn knife through all your asses."
"You know, you ain't helpin' your case, here," Bobby said, raising an eyebrow.
She shrugged. "Well it's the truth. And you can't keep me tied to this chair forever."
"You wanna try us?" Dean smirked at her.
"Anyway," she said, ignoring him, "there aren't many dead demons in the world, and most of them that are are thanks to you four. But when a demon dies, and they don't go to Hell, and they don't go to Heaven, where do you think they go? A place for souls that don't belong anywhere."
"Purgatory," Cas supplied quietly.
"I think they got that, thanks," Ruby snapped. "So I was hanging out down in that charming place thanks to each and every one of you," she gestured around with the fork clenched in her tiny fist, "nice and warm and toasty with some old friends of mine, Alistair, Azazel, Lilith, you know, just like old times, those charming Leviathans riding all of our asses, when one day, right next to my own little niche of paradise, a big old hole is ripped right through the fabric of Purgatory. And so I took it, obviously, anything to get the hell out. Only to find," she shot an annoyed look at Cas here, who stared impassively back, "myself get sucked right down Castiel's gullet." She shuddered. "Not that it was very cozy in there or anything. But let me tell you," she flashed a grin here, "Oh, the interesting things I heard in that brain of yours, Cas. Sounds like you all have had an interesting four years. Beating Lucifer and all." She now regarded them all coldly. "Yeah, congratulations on that one, Sam."
"Thanks," Sam said tersely.
She rolled her eyes. "So how'd I get stuck in this pathetic little meatsuit then? Really, I just followed Cas's lead. If he could do it, so could I. After all, I had an anchor." She smiled sweetly at Sam.
"The blood," he muttered.
"Yup," she said, twirling the fork. "All of it mine, still crawling along through your veins. God, I forgot what a greedy bloodsucking bastard you were back then."
Sam's eyes cut away, down at his own coffee mug. "Shut up," Dean snapped.
"Thought you didn't want me to," she said smugly. "Anyway, a demon soul is a hell of a lot more powerful than some pathetic angel's grace, and really, all that ashes to ashes, dust to dust thing is more accurate than people think, and it wasn't like there was any shortage of dust in that basement. That plus the power that was already in the blood, and the couple souls I managed to wrangle into being my bitches, and I came up with this little number," she said, looking down at her hands and arms. "Though she's a plain little thing, in my opinion."
"But you're not a demon anymore," Bobby pointed out. "How?"
She looked a little miffed at that. "Yes, I am," she said primly. "Just inconveniently landlocked. For the time being."
"I'm not so sure," Cas said. He stifled a yawn. Both he and Ruby looked utterly exhausted, bags under their eyes marring smooth little faces-the toll of being reborn coupled with the sedating effect of comfort food, probably. All in all he just looked like a kid up past his bedtime, and it was honestly becoming a little difficult for Dean to be able to remind himself that no, this isn't a kid, this is Cas, Castiel, Castiel who betrayed us, Castiel who broke my brother's mind….
"What do you mean?" Ruby's dark eyes flashed towards him, burning with defiance.
"Because purgatory is aptly named," Cas said. "A place to purge one of impurities, among other things. It is not merely the realm of monsters. Many monsters were, after all, once human. As were all demons. A certain amount of time spent there would purge the soul of those…impurities, and make the soul fit for either heaven or hell. For those souls, purgatory is a temporary holding place."
"So?" Ruby said, definitely seething now. "I never got to leave."
"You may be more demon than human," Cas said coldly, "but if you were fully a demon still, you would not be locked into your body. The salt and holy water would have hurt you. For practical purposes, your soul is now-"
"Human," Dean finished, now grinning. "Payback's a bitch, huh?"
Cas nodded. Ruby glowered down at her macaroni. "And time will tell," Cas added, "whether this state of being will continue to instill you with humanity."
"Oh, screw you all," Ruby said, pushing her pasta away. A moment of seething silence, during which she was fixing the tabletop with a glare that could have stripped its varnish clear off, and then lifted her gaze towards Sam, a little smile playing on her lips. Sam caught her eye briefly, then looked away. Dean had been watching Sam out of the corner of his eye this whole time-he'd spent most of this time gripping his mug so tightly that Dean thought it was a wonder it didn't crumble to dust beneath his hands, his jaw clenched, forcing his breathing to remain steady and trying not to let his gaze wander around the room. He didn't look like he was holding it together very well, to say the least. God, if Cas wasn't freaking eight years old and human he'd so be killing his ass six ways from Sunday for this right about now…
Ruby dropped the fork and laced her fingers together, leaning forward on her elbows toward Sam. "So," she said, her high voice light, conversational. "How are you doing these days, Sam?"
"Fuck off," Sam muttered, still not looking at her.
She clucked her tongue. "Language, Sam," she said, then grinned, sickly-sweet. "I'm five, remember?" Sam didn't respond. Ruby's smile curled into a sneer. "So how's it feel, huh? Having a soul that's skinned alive and all?"
Sam's eyes flashed toward her, startled.
"Oh yeah, I know all about that, remember?" She tapped her forehead. "I've seen it. Because Cas has seen it. And I also know," she said, leaning closer towards him over the tabletop, "that that little wall in your noggin was the one thing standing between you and a world of hurt. And you know who else knew that?" She turned her head towards Cas, who had been watching her, expression stony. She snorted. "And let me tell you, even before he changed his mind about fixing you, it wasn't like he had any sort of plan. He was just hoping the souls would give him enough juice to pull the world's biggest psycho-band-aid out of his ass. And if not?" She shrugged. "Well I guess it doesn't matter now, does it?"
Sam lifted his chin a bit, obviously trying for defiance but not quite managing it. "Guess not," he said.
Dean's eyes flicked to Cas, whose gaze had fallen, shoulders slumped, and then back to Ruby, and had to bite back the urge to reach over the table and strangle them both. Kids or no, the taunting look that morphed Ruby's little face into something cruel, and the sheer heaviness of obvious guilt that darkened Cas's features, would've made it perfectly damn clear to anybody that these weren't just kids, these were never the kinds of faces that just kids could ever possess.
Ruby fixed Sam with a patronizing smile. "Tough guy, huh. That's cute, Sam. Really."
"Leave him alone," Dean growled.
"Make me." Her eyes never left Sam.
"Dean," Bobby said, warningly, before Dean ever made it out of his chair. Dean complied, anger burning in his gut but staying put. Seriously, though, why couldn't they at least gag her or something?
"I'd love to know what kind of twisted crap is bouncing around that brain of yours, Sam. I really would." Her eyes twinkled with obvious delight. "Cas saw a little bit of it, when he touched the wall, you know, but he barely scratched the surface. And after what you did to Lucifer? I know he fried you up extra crispy. Gave you a lot to…you know, remember."
"And what's that got to do with you?" Sam looked her full in the face, but Dean saw him suppress a flinch when he met her eyes.
"Nothing," she shrugged. "I just love watching you squirm, is all. And that's just what you've been doing, since I showed up, is squirm. Gotta be tough, huh, keeping your realities sorted, right? After all…" She gestured down at herself, unable to mask a slight grimace of distaste as she did so. "This isn't supposed to be possible, is it? I'm not supposed to be here. So what's really more fucked up right now: reality, or your brain?"
"You're real," Sam said, without much conviction.
"Whatever you say, champ," she said, amused. "And I'm guessing my little blood trick didn't help you much either, huh?"
Sam glanced down at his hands, sitting on the tabletop. Dean saw him wince, and wondered whether or not he was still seeing blood on them. His fingers twitched.
Ruby giggled. "Drip," she muttered. "Drip, drip, drip…"
"That's enough," Bobby barked, but Sam had half-risen from his chair. A second later, so had Dean.
Sam just stood there for a moment, breaths shallow and rapid, eyes flicking between his hands, Ruby, and Cas. Eventually he wheeled around to face Dean. "I don't-" he began. "I n-need to-" Without finishing his words, he turned towards the doorway and stumbled out of the room.
"Sam, wait-" Dean took a few steps after him, stopped, scrubbed a tired hand through his hair, and muttered, "Shit…."
"What're you standin' there for, go after him!" Bobby waved Dean off. "See if you can talk him down."
Dean nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, but-" He gestured vaguely towards Ruby and Cas.
"Don't worry. I got these two knuckleheads under control."
"We promise to leave him in one piece," Ruby said, with a look at Bobby that suggested she'd rather do anything but.
"She won't hurt anyone," Cas said firmly.
"Oh yeah, like you're one to talk about not hurting people." She looked pointedly at the doorway. Cas looked away.
Dean swore under his breath and took off after Sam.
"Are you gonna untie me anytime soon?" Ruby asked, maybe fifteen minutes later. She'd folded her arms on the tabletop and rested her chin on them, yawning. Her short legs were swinging idly under the table.
"No," Bobby said flatly. Sam and Dean hadn't returned, but about five minutes ago he'd heard something that sounded like panicked yelling coming from one of the bedrooms overhead.
"Fine," she said. "'M going to sleep anyway." And within the space of maybe two more minutes, she had, slumped over on the table. Little snores punctuated the silence.
Cas looked like he wanted to say something, but was not quite sure how to articulate it. He took intermittent sips out of what was now cold hot chocolate.
Bobby rolled his eyes, thinking about elephants in the room, shook his head, stood, and began clearing the table. Cas looked at the doorway through which Dean had disappeared, looking uncertain.
"I wouldn't follow him if I were you," Bobby muttered. "Whatever's goin' on in Sam's head right now is all on you, so unless you want your ass kicked…"
Cas nodded; he'd expected this, obviously. "He doesn't trust me."
"Well I sure as hell don't either." Bobby piled the dishes into the sink.
Cas was silent. When Bobby came back to the table, fresh cup of coffee in his hands, he was staring down at his hands laying limp in his lap. He really did look exhausted, and he could've used a bath, too-his short hair was tousled and greasy, and there were black smudges left from the goo on the panic room floor smudged on his face, arms, and neck. "I don't trust myself," he murmured.
"Well that's good," Bobby said, easing himself down into a chair. "It's a start, I guess."
"I guess," Cas echoed. Next to him, her nose smudged with dirt, Ruby snored on.
Looking at the two of them, Bobby knew they had their work cut out for them. He almost wondered if he'd prefer hedging his bets with the Leviathans.
Well, they'd find out.
TBC here
Previous Chapter
Art link: Art Masterlist
Prompt Number: 1016
Artist: Farfadine
Fic Title: Take Two
Author: crazybeagle
Fandom/Genre: Supernatural Humor/Angst/Hurt-comfort
Pairing(s): Gen, none (Characters: Castiel, Ruby, Dean, Sam, Bobby)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 13,750
Warnings: Language, allusions to torture and violence, psychological trauma
Summary: AU of 7.02. The Leviathans and the souls destroyed each other. But Dean, Sam, and Bobby know that things are never that simple. They know it for a fact when they find two dark-haired children, one wearing face of a former friend and one wearing the face of a former enemy, lying on the panic room floor....
Take Two
Chapter 2
They were both human, as far as they could tell. Bobby put them through every test he could think of, salt, iron, and holy water for Ruby, and some Enochian sigils and jargon that they'd found from some of Bobby's books to test for the presence of angels for Cas. Everything checked out.
And even looking at them, now, sitting at Bobby's kitchen table while their legs dangled off chairs that were too tall for them, faded old concert t-shirts of Dean's hanging off of them like big burlap sacks and overly large socks hanging off their feet and bunching around their ankles while they both ravenously dug into bowls of macaroni and cheese and mugs of hot chocolate that Bobby had hastily made for them, they honest-to-God seemed like kids. Nothing abnormal-or paranormal-about them.
Except that their eyes betrayed them-Ruby's hard, hateful, and flinty, Cas's calculating and remorseful-countenances that no child any of them could think of could have. It was that lack of innocence visible there that gave them away.
Cas had explained, and while it sounded pretty damn spectacular, they couldn't not believe it, because it wasn't like they had any better explanation to go off of here. An angel's grace, even one as corroded as Cas's had become from having the souls and leviathans inside of him, was still potent enough, even disembodied, to command one or two of the souls that were drifting around before they got caught in the fray with the Leviathans. Disembodied, Cas said, his Grace was automatically inclined to try and find an anchor to this plane-a vessel-or else he'd dissipate, go wherever angels went when they died ("although I do not know where that might be, that was revelation to which I was never privy"). He had only the destroyed body of his vessel to work with, and even with the great raw power from the souls, which he could essentially command to do whatever he wished, there was still only so much one could do with dead matter. An anchor was still an anchor, though, and Jimmy Novak's body had held him for long enough that he was inclined to try anyhow. And shaping the body into a smaller one he could animate and occupy had been easier than attempting to resurrect Jimmy and get his consent to possess him again. Humans died slowly, too, and in phases-the body might have been dead, but not all the cells or tissues died at the same time, and there was still enough living matter to work with that utilizing the living matter and re-animating only a portion of the dead matter had been easier than, as Dean said, "zombiefying" Jimmy's body. Not that any of this had consciously occurred to Cas until after he had done it-it had been a near-automatic reflex of his Grace to preserve itself, and one that he could never have accomplished without the souls. That done, the power of the souls spent and his Grace cut off from heaven now that he was locked inside a human body, here Cas was. For all intents and purposes, human.
"Well what about her?" Dean jerked a thumb at Ruby. Ruby glowered at him. "Where did she even come from?"
"She was one of the souls I consumed," Cas said.
"She was in Purgatory?" Bobby asked, frowning over his coffee. "How the hell'd she get there? I thought she-"
Ruby snorted. "Do you really think we just go poof out of existence when you kill us, dumbass?" Everybody just looked at her. She sighed melodramatically, narrow shoulders rising and falling, and speared her fork around her mostly empty plate. "Obviously I have some explaining to do, because you're all too dense to understand the most basic of metaphysical concepts. But first," she brandished her fork at them. "More mac and cheese or I'm not saying a word. I'd get it myself, but," she wiggled around a bit, expression agitated, "you tied me to the chair, remember?"
"Fine," Bobby groused, getting up and crossing to the stove. He spooned a gluey pile of macaroni onto Ruby's plate. "Talk. And you ain't gettin' up until you do."
"Alright, fine," she said, spearing macaroni and cramming some into her mouth. "So Castiel already said souls can't be destroyed, right? They're all energy. Can't destroy energy." She paused, chewing. "So what," she said, "do you think happens to a demon's soul when, say, a couple of dim-witted traitors run a knife through her gut?" Her eyes landed on Sam. He glared right back at her, evenly. "Well we don't go to Hell, otherwise we could just come back. Which believe me, I'd have done a long time ago, and ran that same damn knife through all your asses."
"You know, you ain't helpin' your case, here," Bobby said, raising an eyebrow.
She shrugged. "Well it's the truth. And you can't keep me tied to this chair forever."
"You wanna try us?" Dean smirked at her.
"Anyway," she said, ignoring him, "there aren't many dead demons in the world, and most of them that are are thanks to you four. But when a demon dies, and they don't go to Hell, and they don't go to Heaven, where do you think they go? A place for souls that don't belong anywhere."
"Purgatory," Cas supplied quietly.
"I think they got that, thanks," Ruby snapped. "So I was hanging out down in that charming place thanks to each and every one of you," she gestured around with the fork clenched in her tiny fist, "nice and warm and toasty with some old friends of mine, Alistair, Azazel, Lilith, you know, just like old times, those charming Leviathans riding all of our asses, when one day, right next to my own little niche of paradise, a big old hole is ripped right through the fabric of Purgatory. And so I took it, obviously, anything to get the hell out. Only to find," she shot an annoyed look at Cas here, who stared impassively back, "myself get sucked right down Castiel's gullet." She shuddered. "Not that it was very cozy in there or anything. But let me tell you," she flashed a grin here, "Oh, the interesting things I heard in that brain of yours, Cas. Sounds like you all have had an interesting four years. Beating Lucifer and all." She now regarded them all coldly. "Yeah, congratulations on that one, Sam."
"Thanks," Sam said tersely.
She rolled her eyes. "So how'd I get stuck in this pathetic little meatsuit then? Really, I just followed Cas's lead. If he could do it, so could I. After all, I had an anchor." She smiled sweetly at Sam.
"The blood," he muttered.
"Yup," she said, twirling the fork. "All of it mine, still crawling along through your veins. God, I forgot what a greedy bloodsucking bastard you were back then."
Sam's eyes cut away, down at his own coffee mug. "Shut up," Dean snapped.
"Thought you didn't want me to," she said smugly. "Anyway, a demon soul is a hell of a lot more powerful than some pathetic angel's grace, and really, all that ashes to ashes, dust to dust thing is more accurate than people think, and it wasn't like there was any shortage of dust in that basement. That plus the power that was already in the blood, and the couple souls I managed to wrangle into being my bitches, and I came up with this little number," she said, looking down at her hands and arms. "Though she's a plain little thing, in my opinion."
"But you're not a demon anymore," Bobby pointed out. "How?"
She looked a little miffed at that. "Yes, I am," she said primly. "Just inconveniently landlocked. For the time being."
"I'm not so sure," Cas said. He stifled a yawn. Both he and Ruby looked utterly exhausted, bags under their eyes marring smooth little faces-the toll of being reborn coupled with the sedating effect of comfort food, probably. All in all he just looked like a kid up past his bedtime, and it was honestly becoming a little difficult for Dean to be able to remind himself that no, this isn't a kid, this is Cas, Castiel, Castiel who betrayed us, Castiel who broke my brother's mind….
"What do you mean?" Ruby's dark eyes flashed towards him, burning with defiance.
"Because purgatory is aptly named," Cas said. "A place to purge one of impurities, among other things. It is not merely the realm of monsters. Many monsters were, after all, once human. As were all demons. A certain amount of time spent there would purge the soul of those…impurities, and make the soul fit for either heaven or hell. For those souls, purgatory is a temporary holding place."
"So?" Ruby said, definitely seething now. "I never got to leave."
"You may be more demon than human," Cas said coldly, "but if you were fully a demon still, you would not be locked into your body. The salt and holy water would have hurt you. For practical purposes, your soul is now-"
"Human," Dean finished, now grinning. "Payback's a bitch, huh?"
Cas nodded. Ruby glowered down at her macaroni. "And time will tell," Cas added, "whether this state of being will continue to instill you with humanity."
"Oh, screw you all," Ruby said, pushing her pasta away. A moment of seething silence, during which she was fixing the tabletop with a glare that could have stripped its varnish clear off, and then lifted her gaze towards Sam, a little smile playing on her lips. Sam caught her eye briefly, then looked away. Dean had been watching Sam out of the corner of his eye this whole time-he'd spent most of this time gripping his mug so tightly that Dean thought it was a wonder it didn't crumble to dust beneath his hands, his jaw clenched, forcing his breathing to remain steady and trying not to let his gaze wander around the room. He didn't look like he was holding it together very well, to say the least. God, if Cas wasn't freaking eight years old and human he'd so be killing his ass six ways from Sunday for this right about now…
Ruby dropped the fork and laced her fingers together, leaning forward on her elbows toward Sam. "So," she said, her high voice light, conversational. "How are you doing these days, Sam?"
"Fuck off," Sam muttered, still not looking at her.
She clucked her tongue. "Language, Sam," she said, then grinned, sickly-sweet. "I'm five, remember?" Sam didn't respond. Ruby's smile curled into a sneer. "So how's it feel, huh? Having a soul that's skinned alive and all?"
Sam's eyes flashed toward her, startled.
"Oh yeah, I know all about that, remember?" She tapped her forehead. "I've seen it. Because Cas has seen it. And I also know," she said, leaning closer towards him over the tabletop, "that that little wall in your noggin was the one thing standing between you and a world of hurt. And you know who else knew that?" She turned her head towards Cas, who had been watching her, expression stony. She snorted. "And let me tell you, even before he changed his mind about fixing you, it wasn't like he had any sort of plan. He was just hoping the souls would give him enough juice to pull the world's biggest psycho-band-aid out of his ass. And if not?" She shrugged. "Well I guess it doesn't matter now, does it?"
Sam lifted his chin a bit, obviously trying for defiance but not quite managing it. "Guess not," he said.
Dean's eyes flicked to Cas, whose gaze had fallen, shoulders slumped, and then back to Ruby, and had to bite back the urge to reach over the table and strangle them both. Kids or no, the taunting look that morphed Ruby's little face into something cruel, and the sheer heaviness of obvious guilt that darkened Cas's features, would've made it perfectly damn clear to anybody that these weren't just kids, these were never the kinds of faces that just kids could ever possess.
Ruby fixed Sam with a patronizing smile. "Tough guy, huh. That's cute, Sam. Really."
"Leave him alone," Dean growled.
"Make me." Her eyes never left Sam.
"Dean," Bobby said, warningly, before Dean ever made it out of his chair. Dean complied, anger burning in his gut but staying put. Seriously, though, why couldn't they at least gag her or something?
"I'd love to know what kind of twisted crap is bouncing around that brain of yours, Sam. I really would." Her eyes twinkled with obvious delight. "Cas saw a little bit of it, when he touched the wall, you know, but he barely scratched the surface. And after what you did to Lucifer? I know he fried you up extra crispy. Gave you a lot to…you know, remember."
"And what's that got to do with you?" Sam looked her full in the face, but Dean saw him suppress a flinch when he met her eyes.
"Nothing," she shrugged. "I just love watching you squirm, is all. And that's just what you've been doing, since I showed up, is squirm. Gotta be tough, huh, keeping your realities sorted, right? After all…" She gestured down at herself, unable to mask a slight grimace of distaste as she did so. "This isn't supposed to be possible, is it? I'm not supposed to be here. So what's really more fucked up right now: reality, or your brain?"
"You're real," Sam said, without much conviction.
"Whatever you say, champ," she said, amused. "And I'm guessing my little blood trick didn't help you much either, huh?"
Sam glanced down at his hands, sitting on the tabletop. Dean saw him wince, and wondered whether or not he was still seeing blood on them. His fingers twitched.
Ruby giggled. "Drip," she muttered. "Drip, drip, drip…"
"That's enough," Bobby barked, but Sam had half-risen from his chair. A second later, so had Dean.
Sam just stood there for a moment, breaths shallow and rapid, eyes flicking between his hands, Ruby, and Cas. Eventually he wheeled around to face Dean. "I don't-" he began. "I n-need to-" Without finishing his words, he turned towards the doorway and stumbled out of the room.
"Sam, wait-" Dean took a few steps after him, stopped, scrubbed a tired hand through his hair, and muttered, "Shit…."
"What're you standin' there for, go after him!" Bobby waved Dean off. "See if you can talk him down."
Dean nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, but-" He gestured vaguely towards Ruby and Cas.
"Don't worry. I got these two knuckleheads under control."
"We promise to leave him in one piece," Ruby said, with a look at Bobby that suggested she'd rather do anything but.
"She won't hurt anyone," Cas said firmly.
"Oh yeah, like you're one to talk about not hurting people." She looked pointedly at the doorway. Cas looked away.
Dean swore under his breath and took off after Sam.
"Are you gonna untie me anytime soon?" Ruby asked, maybe fifteen minutes later. She'd folded her arms on the tabletop and rested her chin on them, yawning. Her short legs were swinging idly under the table.
"No," Bobby said flatly. Sam and Dean hadn't returned, but about five minutes ago he'd heard something that sounded like panicked yelling coming from one of the bedrooms overhead.
"Fine," she said. "'M going to sleep anyway." And within the space of maybe two more minutes, she had, slumped over on the table. Little snores punctuated the silence.
Cas looked like he wanted to say something, but was not quite sure how to articulate it. He took intermittent sips out of what was now cold hot chocolate.
Bobby rolled his eyes, thinking about elephants in the room, shook his head, stood, and began clearing the table. Cas looked at the doorway through which Dean had disappeared, looking uncertain.
"I wouldn't follow him if I were you," Bobby muttered. "Whatever's goin' on in Sam's head right now is all on you, so unless you want your ass kicked…"
Cas nodded; he'd expected this, obviously. "He doesn't trust me."
"Well I sure as hell don't either." Bobby piled the dishes into the sink.
Cas was silent. When Bobby came back to the table, fresh cup of coffee in his hands, he was staring down at his hands laying limp in his lap. He really did look exhausted, and he could've used a bath, too-his short hair was tousled and greasy, and there were black smudges left from the goo on the panic room floor smudged on his face, arms, and neck. "I don't trust myself," he murmured.
"Well that's good," Bobby said, easing himself down into a chair. "It's a start, I guess."
"I guess," Cas echoed. Next to him, her nose smudged with dirt, Ruby snored on.
Looking at the two of them, Bobby knew they had their work cut out for them. He almost wondered if he'd prefer hedging his bets with the Leviathans.
Well, they'd find out.
TBC here
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