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The inn is the sort of thing that breathes on its own, like the waves and the salt on the air coaxed it over time into never standing still, and even from inside, the slight sway of the walls makes Sam feel nauseous; it’s as if they’re on a sinking ship. They are staring at the ceiling from a hard bed with stained sheets while cockroaches scuttle listlessly in the corner. Outside, the rain falls like it will never stop.
There is a gentle knock at the door and they sit up with a start, their heartbeat quickening, but then the door opens and it’s her — of course it’s her. Sam closes their eyes and exhales, only slightly irritated at the relief that sweeps through them, and hears as the storm kicks up.
“You didn’t tell you booked a beachside resort,” comes Ruby’s voice, light and teasing. “I would’ve packed my swimming things. Always knew you were a romantic.”
Sam opens their eyes and looks at her, a hollow and pleading expression that quickly wipes the smile from her face. She looks at him with concern.
“Hey. Hey, Sam.” She shuts the door behind her and sets her bag on an ancient-looking vanity, the glass of the mirror so clouded it reflects nearly nothing beyond silhouettes. She sits on the bed beside them and places a tentative hand on their shoulder. “Is everything okay? I mean, stupid question. But…” she trails off. You know.
“I…” Sam searches for the words, but comes up empty. They curse under their breath. They haven’t been speaking much the past few months. They’re picking at the dark polish on their nails, and Ruby bumps their hand gently.
“It lasts longer if you don’t peel it all off, you know.” She’s searching his face, like she’ll find something hidden there. Sam knows there are bags beneath his eyes, a sheen of clammy sweat along his skin despite the cold; it makes it all the stranger that she looks at him like something holy.
“It’s been hard recently,” he finally settles on.
Ruby nods in understanding. She threads her fingers though Sam’s and squeezes gently. They aren’t her hands, not really. Sam squeezes back anyway. They’re the closest things to hold onto.
“Do you need-”
“Yes. Please.”
Ruby runs a hand through their hair, begins to lean into them as she reaches for the knife strapped to her leg. Sam puts a hand on her knee to stop her, shaking their head.
“No, I- not like that. Not right now. Sorry.”
Ruby draws back, nodding in understanding and pulling her hand away. She fixes him with a look of sympathy. “You know, you don’t have to apologize, Sam. It’s okay.” Instead of the knife, she pulls out a small bottle from the inside pocket of her jacket and hands it to them.
Sam takes it, weighs it for a moment in their hand like they’re going to throw it, break it, do anything other than what they always do. Instead, he opens it, knocks the blood inside back like he’s trying not to taste it.
Ruby watches, head tilted to one side. When Sam hands the bottle back the expression lingers on her, half fascination, half something else — a hungry look he doesn't quite understand.
The two of them stay like that for a moment, studying one another. Then, after a moment, Sam mutters, “Thanks.” Gratitude so quiet it is almost inaudible.
Ruby nods again and pockets the bottle. She opens her mouth as if to speak, then seems to decide against it.
“What?”
“It’s just…” She laughs, shaking her head. “Makes me wonder when you’ll call me just to see me.” She says it like a joke, but something about it makes Sam’s heart catch in their throat.
“I do,” they say, a little too quickly.
She looks at them. “What?”
“I do. Want to see you. It’s just…” Searching for the words again. Quiet again, and then the mutual observation.
There’s a rare sense of ease, Sam thinks, sitting in silence with her. Like they don’t need to speak to know what the other is thinking. A sort of innate telepathy. Sam almost laughs. Just another bonus for the whole freak-with-mind-powers complex.
“Strange,” Ruby finishes.
“Yeah. Strange.”
Ruby turns to look out the window, where the rain is tapping at the glass like it wants more than anything to be let in. She’s pursing her lips, thinking. She’s warm; with the chill that’s set into the bones of this place, even being near her feels like divinity.
She looks back at him suddenly, a new light dancing in her eyes. “I have an idea,” she says.
“An idea?” Sam repeats warily, but Ruby’s already across the room, digging in her bag. Sam stares at the back of her head in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Let’s learn magic tricks,” Ruby says, still rummaging.
Something clenches in Sam’s chest. “You mean, exorcising demons,” he says.
“Nope.”
“... What?”
“I said, nope. Aha!” Ruby finally turns around, pulling a spoon out of her bag and brandishing it proudly. “Let’s bend spoons.”
Sam struggles to follow the conversation. “Why do you even have that?”
“In case of unexpected soup. Come on, with all the shit you have to go through, you know you deserve a break. Haven’t you ever wondered about the other things you can do?"
“Like… telekinesis?”
“Hell yeah. You’ve done it before, haven’t you?”
Sam thinks back to a blocked closet door in a moment of desperation, to pushing against the sides of their mind until the world outside shifted. “I guess. I don’t know, it just didn’t seem-”
“Important?” Ruby leans back against the vanity and sighs in exasperation. “Jesus, the life you live. Moving things with your mind being an afterthought. ”
“Well, what’s it gonna help?” Sam asks with a twinge of defensiveness. “If anything, we should be focusing on the thing that’s actually useful.”
“Right. Pulling demons out of people. Saving the world.” She gives him a critical look. “And how does that actually make you feel, Sam?”
That makes them pause. They flex their hands, start picking at their nails again, looking away. “It scares the hell out of me. I don’t pretend it doesn’t. But I have to do it. So it doesn’t matter.”
Sam hears a clink as Ruby sets the spoon back down on the vanity, feels as she draws close to him again. She kneels in front of them, brings a hand up to their face so that their gaze meets hers.
“Not every part of you is for other people,” she says. “That’s for them. This can be for you.” She has that strange look on her face again, something like an untapped desire, and Sam gets the sense that she’s not just talking about them — she’s talking about herself, too. Softly, she says, “You haven’t felt like yourself lately, have you?”
Sam laughs like it hurts, shutting their eyes. "Not in a long time. Not since — no, before Dean. Even before Jess. God, I don’t know if I ever have.”
“What’s it like?”
“Like hell. Sometimes it makes me wanna break everything around me.”
Sam opens their eyes again to look at her and there’s an understanding in her eyes, deep and aching. She was human once . Sam forgets that, sometimes.
But before they can say anything else, Ruby lowers her hand from their face, gestures over at the vanity with a look of mischief in her eyes. “Break that.”
“What?”
“Wanna break something? Break the mirror.”
Sam looks at her, confused, and starts to laugh. But the look on Ruby’s face is sincere. Mostly to humor her, Sam moves to stand. She grabs their wrist, shaking her head.
“Without touching it.”
Suddenly, Sam understands. They almost protest, knowing they’ll look stupid — they don’t even know if it’s possible — but here, looking at her, they catch her with that look of reverence again, and they know she won’t judge them, would never think of them as anything less than what they are. Sam is transfixed by the look of her for a moment, then pulls their gaze away to look at the mirror. He stares at it hard, breathes slow, latches onto the dull ache somewhere inside him that makes it seem impossible to get out of bed most days, to picture any version of himself to be proud of, to picture any peace with whatever normalcy is left for him — thrusts his hand forward.
The mirror shatters.
Glass litters the floor, and even the storm falls silent.
Sam stares at it in disbelief, then slowly looks back to Ruby. She’s staring at the wreckage in awe, her eyes tracing the shards that glimmer all across the old carpet. She meets their gaze, smiling.
“How was that?” she asks.
Sam responds with a small exhale of disbelief. “I… good,” they say. “It was- it was good.”
“Good.” She searches the room, then points at the flickering lamp on Sam’s bedside table. “Break that, then.”
Sam turns, arm extended like he’s reaching for the light, and it’s easier this time; the lamp floating slightly, then the bulb bursting, the lampshade tipping over and tearing itself in half and the base toppling to the ground. Ruby exclaims in delight and points to the curtains, the alarm clock, and Sam obliges, and they’re both laughing as the world shatters around them, giddy as the hangers fly out of the closet and the drawers of the dresser fall to the floor and splinter and the Bible inside starts tearing out its own pages.
Ruby crawls up beside him again, clinging to his arm as the room dismantles itself and watching the destruction wide-eyed as though she could eat it whole. Soon they both fall on their backs, exhausted, their chests hurting and their breathing rapid from laughing though they don’t even know what’s so funny anymore, but God, Sam thinks, it feels good to be smiling at something.
After a few minutes, Ruby props herself up on one elbow, studies him. “See, Sam? That was for you, not anyone else. Don’t forget that.”
Sam nods, relishing in the buzzing, reckless feeling that had overtaken them. “Yeah. Yeah, okay," they say with a slight laugh. But then they sit up, and reality begins to set in again, cold and unwelcoming. They frown at the mess. “We should clean this up.”
He can feel the sense of disappointment from Ruby beside him, but she squeezes his hand and says, “Sure.”
Sam hops off the bed, then carefully kneels and begins to collect the larger shards of glass as Ruby searches the closet for a broom and dustpan.
They slowly start to put the room back together. As much as is possible, anyway. Then, as Sam is gathering the broken remnants of the vanity, they feel a sharp, sudden pain across their palm, and swear under their breath when they see that one of the shards has sliced through their skin. They toss the glass in the trash and fall back to their knees to inspect the cut, then pause at a sharp intake of breath from across the room.
Ruby is staring at Sam’s hand, a familiar desperation in her eyes. Sam looks at her with a question in his. For a moment, they are both still. Ruby looks away. She gets back to cleaning.
“Wait,” Sam says, and Ruby looks up. They study her. They raise their hand, as if in offering. They don’t speak.
After a moment of hesitation, Ruby makes her way over to Sam slowly. She likewise comes to her knees on the floor in front of him, searching his eyes, asking permission, receiving it. She takes his hand in hers. She brings it to her mouth.
Mutual reverence. It feels strange. Sam holds onto the strangeness like a lifeline.
Later, the room is mostly back in order again, and they’ve both lost track of the time of night but at least the winds outside have settled. There is a bandage around Sam’s hand. Ruby is leaning against the closed door, looking thoughtful as Sam screws a new lightbulb into place. Sam glances up at her. She’s never stayed this long before. She usually leaves after the chaos, or in the midst of it— she doesn’t stay for the reparations. Even now, she looks unsure as to whether or not she should vanish.
“Ruby?” They ask, gently as they can, and she looks at them like it was a name she had forgotten.
“Yeah?”
“What was that, earlier?”
A smile plays on her lips. “A break, I told you. We can get back to the real stuff next time.”
“You know that's not what I mean.”
She looks away, fiddles with her hands. The vessel’s hands. What did she look like, before? What were her hands like?
“Ruby, how long has it been since you’ve felt like yourself?”
That catches her off guard. She opens her mouth, closes it again, bites her lip. Then she laughs. “Taste of my own medicine, huh?”
“I just mean-”
“A long, long time. Longer than I can even start to explain. But you knew that already.” She takes a breath and crosses her arms. “I was myself when I was human, even when I was a witch. I was tethered to something, yeah, but I was acting for myself. Doing anything that isn’t a direct order from Hell, now, Sam, it’s… it’s like with every step I’m clawing my way out of my own skin. Fuck, it’s not even my skin. I just want to feel like I belong to myself again. And you, you’re… grounding, Sam.” She looks back at him and there are tears in her eyes. He’s never seen that before. “You make me remember… what it’s like. Being human. You’re so, so human, Sam. Even if you don’t think you are. And remembering — it hurts. But I want it. I want to remember. Even just being around you, I…” she trails off. She’s speaking in a voice that isn’t hers. She takes a deep breath. “I wanted more.”
The sentence hangs in the air like electricity, and around them the walls of the room shift and settle.
Sam stands, makes their way across the room to her. Puts their hands over hers.
“I’m sorry,” they say, because it’s all they can think to.
“Don’t be,” Ruby says. “Be what you are.”
There are the smallest shards of glass in her hair — Sam imagines they are in his, too. They make every movement throw lamplight around her, a makeshift halo.
Sam leans in, and then they are kissing, soft and sincere, Ruby’s breath hot in his mouth, her lips gentle, and though it isn’t bourne of a demon deal it still feels like a promise — an exchange. Unholy for human. Sam isn’t sure which of them is which anymore, but the closeness is sacred enough that it doesn’t seem to matter.
When they break away, they just breathe.
Sam asks whether she wants to stay the night, and Ruby says yes. Neither of them say it out loud.