Chapter Text
Sapphire was the most stubborn, suspicious, and ill tempered human being Ruby had ever met. Unfortunately, she was in the right this time and she was hell bent on having everyone in hearing distance know it too. Ruby shifted uncomfortably and scratched at the nape of their neck. A small crowd was starting to gather, but Sapphire continued to harangue the shopkeeper for his exorbitant prices. If it had been left up to them, Ruby would have paid the price rather than be confrontational over something as trivial as money, but Sapphire wasn’t the type to be happy until she’d grabbed the bull by the horns and wrestled it into submission at her feet.
The interior of the general store had been open and brightly lit when they had walked in to purchase supplies, but all too soon Ruby had seen the shadows of an oncoming storm in Sapphire’s expression. Now they were finding it easier to study the grain of the well-swept floorboards. After weeks in isolation, with no other company than their horse and a taciturn criminal who held her personal space as sacrosanct, the sounds of humanity and the press of bodies made Ruby feel like they could barely breathe or even think clearly. But they could hear perfectly well and the whispers were as venomous as anything Sapphire had ever said to them.
A quick glance up and around told them it was as bad as they feared. The pinched lips and upturned noses of some of the women spoke all the words they self righteously wouldn't say to her face. No, instead they would whisper behind their hands and stare at the worn but clean linen shirt and trousers as if Sapphire were wearing nothing but undergarments of the most tawdry variety. In fact, they might have found that less scandalous than this blatant disregard for female propriety. Disgraceful and shameless display. Uneducated and unmannered. No better than she ought to be. Heathen. People never took kindly to a person who didn't know their place in the world. The place they were born in and where most would die in, having never stepped outside the prescribed boundaries and definitions.
Ruby pulled their jacket closed a little tighter. If Sapphire heard or cared, she didn’t show it, but their cheeks felt hot enough to fry bacon. They tugged at her elbow insistently. She was attracting too much attention like this and the last thing they needed was to leave behind an entire town that was talking about a pair of their description. Ruby didn’t want a single track left behind in case someone became suspicious of the former deputy’s story. This was personal too.They’d lived wearing the clothes they’d wanted and acting as they pleased, allowing others to reach their own conclusions. They’d been protected, in a sense, by an acceptance based on ignorance and the way Ruby saw people treating Sapphire made them feel ill. Her indifference didn’t matter as much as the inescapable truth. That could be them. Easily.
But then absolute silence fell and, startled, Ruby looked around for Sapphire. She had turned towards the crowd and the look in her eyes would have chilled the blood of anyone who knew her for what she was. As it was, the townsfolk drew aside much like Ruby imagined the Red Sea had parted for Moses. She strode out the door with her head held as high and proud as a queen. Ruby found themselves almost left behind and was forced to make an undignified scramble after her before the human tide closed in around them again.
They walked down the street in silence for a few minutes before Sapphire, without any warnings or explanations, dragged them into the relative privacy of the shadows between two buildings. Possibilities flashed through their mind, filling the single space between one heartbeat and the next with confused terror. Had someone seen through their ruse and Sapphire was trying to evade capture? Had someone simply taken such offense to her state of dress that they were being chased? Maybe being surrounded by society again had weighed too heavily on the fractures in Sapphire’s mind and this was the breaking point. She put her body between them and anyone walking by on the street, pressing a cool palm to the fading bruises on their cheek.
“I'm sorry, Ruby. We're trying not to attract attention and I end up drawing a crowd. And you look like a mule dragged you facedown through main street, which really isn't a bad metaphor for our day,” she said. Ruby hesitated. It was one thing for Sapphire to say something, but she might not appreciate hearing agreement. The intimidating scowl on her face softened to something almost remorseful. “Go back to the hotel and let the mule handle this.”
There were several very pressing reasons why Ruby should have been reluctant to allow a supposedly reformed murder to roam loose through a town she was already on her way to turning upside down. They didn’t argue. If they were going to trust Sapphire, then they had to give her a chance to demonstrate her reliability. Above and beyond that, the truth was Ruby felt tired enough to curl up in the dirt and sleep in the alley. Sapphire took their elbow and led them back to the hotel without any further conversation.
The room they’d rented was small and sparsely furnished, but it had been scrubbed clean with near religious fervor. Sapphire had been pleased and paid in cash for three nights. Ruby had only cared that it had a bed and that the room was on the second floor at the back of the building. Because of that, the single window looked out on the peace of the prairie and it offered some distance from the street noise. The only view Ruby was interested in at the moment was the back of their eyelids and they barely paused between kicking off their boots and falling face first into the faded quilt on the bed.
At some point they cracked open eyelids weighed down with exhaustion, not entirely free from the grip of sleep, to find the quilt had been pulled over them. The room fell out of focus as Ruby blinked slowly, sinking back into the warm, dark embrace of sleep. Another blink. Sapphire stood by the window with a steaming copper kettle, filling the basin on the washstand. Her clothing was thrown over the chair and the ragged fringe of her hair had been neatly trimmed.Their eyes followed the downward sweep of protruding backbones and the movement of the soft rag she was using to bathe over ribs that stood out pitifully under fragile skin. Blink.
When Ruby truly woke up, it was to the soft glow of the kerosene lamp. Sapphire was sitting at the foot of the bed with a tray in her lap. She'd pulled her hair back into a tight bun and exchanged the second hand shirt and trousers for a high collared brown calico dress The effect was plain and practical to the point of being austere, further distancing her from the elaborately gowned and groomed woman she'd been before. Ruby found themselves idly wondering if they could buy her a nice broach or cameo and something for her hair.
“You left the door unlocked, you know. Heaven alone knows who might come in if you keep doing that,” Sapphire said, one corner of her mouth quirking up into a crooked smile, “A robber or perhaps even a murderer.”
In the last two weeks, Ruby had discovered many unexpected things about Sapphire. She could be playful in her own way and had a wry sense of humor. She could be protective. She cared. Inexplicably, against her own selfish nature and paranoid thinking, Sapphire cared. Ruby rubbed the sleep from their eyes and smiled back. It was strange and new, this feeling, these actions, but just because something was new didn’t mean it was bad. Sapphire was a woman who did nothing in half measures, throwing all that she was into her choices in life, and that made Ruby feel as if they might have found a kindred spirit, despite all their differences.
She helped them into a sitting position and laid the tray on the mattress between them. It was very simple fare, a pitcher of milk and two bowls of honey sweetened porridge, but the doctor in the last town had been very firm with his warnings about food. Their bodies had been starved for too long to handle anything difficult to digest and they would need to build up to more solid meals. Teasingly, Ruby waved a spoon in her direction and asked, “How do I know I didn’t lock the door and picking locks isn’t one of your many talents?”
“You don’t,” Sapphire answered. No trace of emotion marred the smooth neutrality of her expression, no hint of her intentions. Ruby laughed awkwardly to cover their anxiety. They never knew exactly where to draw the line with Sapphire; what she would be amused by and what would offend her. And what just made her think they were a fool. A touch, her hand pressing lightly on the back of theirs, redirected their wandering focus. Ruby caught the almost imperceptible curve of her lips, the slight crease at the corner of her eyes, and knew then that she was teasing too. When they laughed again, this time genuinely, she laughed with them before pressing a bowl into their hands.
Eating was done in companionable silence at first, passing the pitcher of milk back and forth between them. Ruby was ill at ease being quiet for long, but Sapphire was not given to idle conversation and they were trying to be considerate. She cleared her throat and, much to their surprise, filled the spaces between them with words. “I can’t pick locks, in case it ever truly comes up. Except for safes, most locks are easier and faster to break than pick, but even that's missing the bigger picture. A lock might be sturdy, but a door is only as strong as the wood it's made of, the hinges it's on, and the person that guards it. You don't attack the strongest point of a problem, you exploit the flaws. It's like when you kicked down the cellar door instead of wasting time.”
“Hah… yeah.” Ruby knew they were strong. They were grateful to be good at one thing, at least, but it was hard when they compared strength against the more refined and varied skills of others. “Brawn over brains saved the day, I guess.”
“No, that was you thinking quickly. It involved the proper application of force because that was the best choice for the situation.” She was studying them now, staring with narrowed eyes over the hand that Ruby didn’t think Sapphire was even aware she’d raised. She habitually covered her mouth and obscured her expression in various ways. The more emotional she became, the more she hid, or so they assumed. They jumped and almost dropped the pitcher of milk when she said, sharply, “You aren't stupid, Ruby. Don't vex me by disagreeing, because I know I'm right.”
Ruby smiled in spite of themselves, huffing a soft laugh and raising their hands in surrender. Trust Sapphire to try and be comforting in a way that was domineering. Yet it was that very fact that made Ruby certain it was sincerity. This was purely, irritatingly, endearingly Sapphire. It was also a small step forward. She’d admitted to something she could not do. In small ways, Sapphire had been offering details about herself and her life since the day they’d found her in the ghost town. She had chosen to set the mask aside.
What they would find under the facade didn’t concern Ruby, what was there was there, regardless of if they knew it or not, but Sapphire’s trust was a fragile thing and giving any part of herself was too new. Their desire to know more about their companion had to be weighed against the risk of digging too fast or too far. Ruby felt it would have been better in less clumsy hands. Still, was it really trust if they were too afraid to test it? Sapphire seemed willing to talk for the moment, so Ruby asked what they hoped was a simple question. “May I ask another question? Why did you always use a knife?”
“Guns make too much noise, poison isn't always available and buying it leaves a record behind, and you can't always count on having a cliff.” The matter-of-fact tone left them feeling nonplussed, but Ruby couldn’t dispute her logic. If they didn’t know how to feel, then Sapphire seemed for the moment even more uncertain. Fascinated to see any clear emotion, they watched lines break the smoothness of her face, following the downward arcs of her mouth and eyebrows, and then change direction as she abruptly smirked. “And you proved the cliff method doesn't always work, even when you have one.”
“There's also this,” she continued. The smile fell away as she touched just below the eye that was clouded and blind. “Even if a gun didn't make enough noise to bring to bring a crowd running, I … my aim improved once I adjusted to the change, but back then I couldn't have hit a target reliably. When all you have is speed and surprise, when you have one chance to kill before it becomes your last chance, you can't gamble on missing a mark. I didn’t always use a knife, though. Not every time.”
The temptation to ask her to continue that thought was almost overwhelming, but Ruby felt that how she killed was less important than another question that had nearly burnt a hole on their mind. Ruby offered up a silent prayer that they weren’t making a terrible mistake and asked, “Sapphire… what did you think would happen? Was … how many was going to be enough? When was it going to end?”
Instead of immediately answering, Sapphire picked up the empty tray, stacked the bowls on it, and carried it to the small table by the window. With her back to them, Sapphire said, “It was going to end when I died. I knew that someday I would make a mistake or my luck would simply run out. It was inevitable.”
Goose flesh broke out on Ruby’s arms and the back of their neck. They prayed the adjoining rooms were vacant, because their voice broke badly as they tried not to scream at her. “How can you say that so calmly? How could you just accept death like that?”
The room was instantly plunged into darkness as Sapphire turned the key-like wick raiser on the lamp. In a world without light, she was only one shadow moving among other shadows, silent and barely distinguishable from the rest. Her voice seemed to come from no particular direction, sliding down their skin and sinking into their heart like cold steel. “What was I living for then, Ruby? To kill again and nothing more. It wasn’t much of a reason to embrace life, mine or anyone else’s.”
Here were the depths that Ruby had hesitated to uncover, but their eyes were adjusting to the dark and Sapphire was becoming easier to see. It was these parts of her, the fatalistic apathy, that worried them most. That she wouldn’t kill them, Ruby accepted, and that she wouldn’t go on killing, they were willing to take on faith, but, as strong as they were, they were afraid they didn’t have the strength to pull her up from a state of mind they couldn’t begin to understand. They felt just as lost as they had in the wilderness, in some ways, which is why Ruby reached for one of the few pieces of hope they felt was in reach. She had spoken of that reason as something in the past. “What is the reason now, Sapphire?”
“Different,” was the brief answer. Ruby didn’t appreciate that she’d turned off the lights after giving them a hair-raising explanation of her preferred method of murder, but they put it down to her constant need to conceal her feelings… and her theatrical side showing through. In compensation, it seemed as if being deprived of sight made their hearing that much sharper. Ruby heard it when she swallowed nervously, heard the catch of breath and the hint of vulnerability when Sapphire added, “Better. I think this will be much better… but I’m tired now. Please turn around so I can get undressed and into my nightgown.”
Arguing that they could see nothing in the dark was pointless and Ruby respected her need for privacy, so they obligingly turned to face the wall. They must have nodded off waiting, because the next thing Ruby became aware of was someone gently shaking their shoulder. They were lying curled on their side and the quilt stuck to the side of their face as they struggled to sit, but the hands that helped them up were as patient as they were persistent.
By the time they’d wrestled off their clothing and put on the loose shirt that had been tossed over their head, Ruby was awake enough to be anxious again. This would be their first night spent indoors since the dugout. Sharing a hotel room and a proper bed felt more significant than sharing box of grass or sleeping under the stars, but even bringing up their discomfort seemed inappropriate. Sapphire was the one who hated being touched, except after the bandits Ruby didn’t know how to feel about it either. And Sapphire was the one who, without being asked, had decided to spend every night since… since that had happened… holding them.
Nothing stopped the nightmares completely, and for the first time in their life, Ruby wasn’t sleeping well. Dreaming took them back to a place where they were helpless and trapped and screaming. They pressed a hand to the ache in their jaw and for the thousandth time explored the empty socket where they’d once had a molar. They’d seen more in one night than sometimes they knew how to live with, things they alternately tried not to think about and couldn’t avoid thinking.
When they would wake up to Sapphire stroking their hair and holding them tightly, murmuring reassurances to them, Ruby felt safer and yet couldn’t forget Sapphire’s face when she killed the bandits. She killed without hesitation or remorse. Having Sapphire beside them was like keeping a feral animal of unstable temperament; they were grateful for the protection, but concerned for the general population. Just as frightening was that they couldn’t find any mercy in their own heart. That was not a trait they wanted to have in common with her, but… was it so wrong? It was wrong to want anyone to die, to take the law into their own hands, but they couldn’t help it. Part of Ruby was glad the men had fallen to Sapphire’s judgement instead of the law.
Ruby tried to push away the confusion. They were too tired and nothing made sense anymore, except maybe Sapphire. Which told them more than anything else that their world had changed. There was a braided rug beside the bed and that was where Ruby finally decided it would be the most considerate place to sleep. It turned out to be the least comfortable as well. They hadn’t realized how the ridges in the braid would dig into their skin or how insecure they would feel without Sapphire’s arms around them. Ruby rolled over onto their back and stared at the ceiling, wondering -
“What are you doing?”
Ruby squawked in alarm and sat bolt upright. A shadow was leaning over the edge of the mattress and they could feel the intensity of Sapphire’s stare despite not being able to see it. They shivered and prayed they hadn’t spoken aloud, or worse, that she had learned to read their mind, as they half feared she someday might. If she did, she might find they weren't worth the peculiar devotion they sometimes thought they could see in her eyes. They were trying so hard, though. “I’m… I was trying to… I thought that you-”
“Would not want to see you laying on the floor when there’s a perfectly serviceable bed in the room? Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking too,” she snapped. “Do you want to spend the night on the floor? Are you comfortable down there?”
“No.” It was embarrassing how relieved they felt to be given a question they knew the answer to. They didn’t even need to think about it. Ruby listened to Sapphire growl and the creak of the metal bedframe as she got out of the bed. A foot nudged their stomach.
“Then this is my suggestion to you. Get up off the rug and into that bed before I change my mind.” Her voice was low and soft, but Sapphire’s patience was as alarming as her threats - possibly because there was very little distinguishable difference between the two. Still, Ruby hesitated. They couldn’t even say why, because they desperately wanted to lay down somewhere warm and go back to sleep. Sapphire made the choice easier with a single, grating syllable. “Now.”
The bed was everything they could have wanted. Ruby burrowed under the quilt and into the warmth where Sapphire had been laying. She must have grabbed the comforter from the foot of the bed, because an extra weight settled over them. Bliss. Their last thought before sleep claimed them was how normal it felt when Sapphire stretched out beside them and wrapped an arm over their ribs. It was unmistakably possessive, which was another new thing in their world, but Ruby was happy to belong somewhere at least. Even if it was to a murderer.