Work Text:
rubatosis - the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat
Picture this: South Dakota, a chilly winter night. Full moon, of course, projecting its crude light on the empty fields, embracing the few bare oak trees that jut out from the landscape like gravestones. Their shadows stretch out, grasping at god-knows-what with their curled, bony fingers. Unlike Jessica’s, they do not shake.
Nothing lives to disturb the inert peace of the land – no birds, no wind, no heat. Wisps of steam billow through Jessica’s barely-open lips. They quickly dissipate into the dark – remind her this sign of life is not welcome in the picture of desolate wilderness. She does not make a sound; hasn’t spoken a word since Sam sank to his knees two days ago, Jake’s knife buried in his spine. Her silence, unlike the steam, slots snugly in the picture, and so the crossroads lets her be.
She sits there, staring blankly at the windscreen, listening to the night. The hair on her arm rises, but she does not shiver. The cold is a comfort.
By now, Dean has probably noticed she has gone. She doesn’t know if he’s looking for her, doesn’t know if he’s taken his eyes off of Sam’s corpse long enough to do so. Perhaps he even came to the same conclusions as she did, packing up his own bag, only to discover the Impala is missing. Dean, Bobby, Cold Oak – none of it feels real right now. There is only the night, the car, the crossroads, and Jessica.
And the box, of course.
The little birch locket sits between her cupped palms, weighing them down and stilling her fingers’ incessant trembling. It is far too pretty to be buried, with intricate carvings swirling across the lid. The red paint makes them look like streams of blood.
She takes a deep, forbidden, steamy breath and opens the door to the Impala.
When she slams it shut, it sounds like a gunshot. And yet, no startled birds crow out of the way, and no one is living to receive the wound.
Her feet crunch on the gravel. Her coat billows around her, merging with the unreal clouds of her breath, bathed in the pale and empty moonlight.
She reaches the centre of the cross, and feels nothing like Jesus.
Her joints ache as she crouches down, and she realises it’s been more than forty-eight hours since she last slept properly. The dirt lodges itself under her nails where she digs, etching little scratches across her skin.
On a whim, she opens the box one last time. Her college ID smiles up at her, all teeth and glowing, moisturized lips, golden hair cascading down her shoulders. Next to her, a vertebra of some poor cat’s corpse, and a handful of dirt from the graveyard that sits at the top of the hill, casting its shadow over the crossroads. She stares at the smiling stranger in her hands, replaces the picture face down, and lowers the box to the ground.
Her hands have stopped shaking.
She’s getting him back.
She stands up, and closes her eyes to not see the smoke of her breath. The night does not stir, and yet she feels a thousand pinpricks in her fingers, in her toes, around her chest. The cold prods at her, samples her, wondering what she will taste of when she joins it in its death.
She hears nothing, except for her heartbeat.
Until, smooth as a dove –
“Huh. You weren’t who I was expecting, princess.”
Her eyelids shoot open, and she whirls towards the voice that broke the sacred silence. A petite woman observes her, lips tugging upwards in a side smirk, eyes hooded by the shadows of the moon. Her black hair blends into the dark background, and she crosses her arms, hip to the side, like Jessica’s an amusing little dog barking for attention.
Jessica bites her lip. “Neither are you. I was expecting…”
She doesn’t know the name of the crossroads demon they encountered before, so she lets the sentence trail off on its own.
The woman lets out a puff of a breath, and Jess secretly thanks her for sharing the weight of the living in the indifferent scenery. Well – not exactly living, she supposes. But moving, talking. Reality.
“Call it a special order. Last driver has worse reviews than I do, by the way.”
She takes two steps towards her, and Jess takes two steps back. The demon raises an eyebrow.
“You called me here, sweetheart,” she says. “Getting second thoughts already?”
The amusement in her voice wakes Jessica’s blood. She’s always risen to the bait of condescension, and this time is no different.
“No,” she spits, and raises her chin. The demon looks up at her, and for once, she thanks her parents for their five-foot-ten genes. “I want to make a deal.”
The words hang between them, and their weight both crushes her lungs and releases her breath.
The demon walks closer, and this time, Jessica stays where she is. She sees her face in the pale light – the demon is breath-taking, really. Thinly-chiselled features, thick eyelashes, and lips that settle into a sharp sort of smile which almost carves dimples on her cheeks. Almost.
Jessica has to remind herself she’s looking at a corpse.
“Ah, yes,” she croons. “Your boyfriend, right?”
As if she’s taking a wild guess. As if the pain, a sidenote, doesn’t encompass Jess’ every waking hour. As if Sam’s death belongs to the landscape, another lifeless detail of the scenery. Her fingers start shaking again, but this time, it’s anger that boils inside her beating heart.
“I should send you back to Hell.”
The demon whistles. “Kitten’s feisty. I can see why he likes you.” She shrugs. “Or, well – liked.”
Her eyes flash black, as if to startle Jess away from the strange tone her voice took when she started speaking of Sam.
Jess does her best not to react to the bait, this time. “I want you to bring him back.”
“Sure can do, sweetie.” She moves forwards, until her lips are only a few inches away. Then, as Jessica opens hers to speak, her mouth retreats, and she is left with nothing but air. “It’ll cost a few dollars, though,” the demon says, and smirks. “Plus tips.”
Jess swallows. This is it. Deal with the devil. Jesus, her mother would kill her.
Instead she glares. “What do you want? My soul?”
“Well, that’s a no brainer,” the demon answers right away. “But the way you give your soul – that’s the interesting bit, baby .”
And the way she sneers out Jessica’s pet name for Sam, with contempt and something else she can’t quite place, sends shivers running down. What does she want ?
“I know I’ll have to die. I just need him back.”
The demon looks at her, up and down, seeming to reassess her. Her eyes seem to swirl with some unknown emotion – hurt, anger, derision. Jealousy?
“How cute.”
Jess shakes her head. “Stop playing games with me. Are you going to make the deal or not?”
The demon smirks again, that thin, mean, assessing little thing. “If you ask so nicely.”
And she starts inching towards Jess again. “I’ll pull your darling Sam out,” she says, almost in a whisper, and Jess can feel the steam from her lips settle on her cheeks. “And in exchange, you’ll help me with something.”
Jess recoils at the vague phrasing. Her cheeks start to sting with cold again, already missing the body heat. “That’s barely a deal. Be specific, or this whole thing is off.”
“You weren’t supposed to live, Jess.”
The tone is sharp, unapologetic. Perhaps even a little vindictive. Jessica processes the words.
“What?”
“The higher-ups down there,” she tilts her chin to the earth beneath, “had a nice little plan for things to come. And that plan involved your pretty little face out of the way.” She raises an eyebrow. “Clearly someone failed with that.”
“You wanted to kill me?” She thinks her voice is pretty steady for such a revelation. She isn’t that surprised, really. But to have it confirmed – that the incident at Stanford wasn’t just a bad dream, that it wasn’t a bad place, bad time situation, that it was premeditated and planned by demons – serves to ground her thoughts much more than any engraved box could.
“Things worked out pretty well, all things considered. But they won’t if you continue to be a thorn in these specific animals’ side. I want you – ” she juts a finger against Jessica’s chest – “to lay low and do just as I say when the time comes.”
Jess tries to parse through the demon’s speech, to understand the cogs behind the ticking clock of her façade, but there’s only so much she is willing to show.
The terms are… bad, of course, but not as bad as she thought it would be, if she’s honest. “How long will I have with him?”
“Oh, a good year at least. Wouldn’t want to deprive you of your sweet love,” she adds with the start of an eyeroll.
Jess nods. “And then – I go with you?”
“So forward. At least wait until the first date.” At Jessica’s insistent stare, she relents. “You can, if it makes you feel better. As long as you don’t interfere, the big guys don’t care what you do.”
Jess breathes out. The demon’s eyes are mesmerising – darker than Sam’s, but with the same intensity. She finds herself unable to look away.
“Of course,” the demon adds, “no trying to weasel your way out of the deal. Or Sammy dear goes straight back to where he came from. And no consorting with the Winchesters about it, either. These are the terms, take it or leave it.”
Jess tears her gaze off the demon’s face, and it lands on the shrivelled blades of grass behind her slim body. Travels toward the night sky, the cold, cold stars that glimmer down in apathy. Settles on the graveyard at the top of the hill. She thinks of Sam, his toothy grin, the dimples on his cheeks, the stupid bangs he refuses to cut. His shocked, pain-brimmed eyes flash across her brain; his last breath, broken and raspy, as he chokes something that might be Jess, might be okay, might be nothing at all, and collapses in Dean’s arms.
She clenches her jaw. “Okay,” she says. “Deal.”
Two puffs of smoke that swirl in the air. And land.
The demon grins. “Thank you, Jess.” And maybe Jessica’s too tired, maybe her mind is playing tricks, maybe she’s still shaken by the memory of Sam’s death, but she thinks there might be genuine gratitude in her voice.
Jess nods.
“So,” the demon says then, and takes back the sultry tones she’s used to. “I suppose you already know how this goes.”
Jess nods again. As she’s about to move forward, she thinks of something, and pauses. The demon raises her brows.
“Before we do this –” Jess licks her lips. “I want to know your name, first.”
The demon stops, considers, and tilts her head. “Fair enough.”
She takes a step forward, and leans towards the taller woman. She has to stand on her tip toes, and had the circumstances been literally anything else Jessica would have found it cute. The ghost of her breath tickles her chin. “My name,” she whispers, and her lips are so infinitely close. Their every movement sends shards of lightning through her body, and Jess has never been more aware of her own heartbeat. And then, smooth as a lamb, she sighs – “is Ruby.”
And then her lips crash onto Jessica’s own, hungry and powerful and demanding. They taste of ash and death and cold, but they feel alive in a way she hasn’t felt in over forty-eight hours.
And Jessica welcomes them in.
The moon is nowhere to be found, swallowed by a darkening cloud. There is no light to soothe the death that claims the South Dakota winter night.