Tell me, what makes you so special.

[Set in pushedtoedges. Ruby is sent_farfaraway and Sam is wentdwnthatroad. Creative Writing class prompt: Describe how you were caught, or not.]

In the back of his mind, he knew that he wanted to.

He knew that he needed to be. He was sick of the secrets. It had been nice, for the first couple weeks before his brother had arrived, where he didn’t have to hide anything from anyone. Because no one cared that Ruby was a demon, or more to the point, that Ruby was Ruby. No one knew what she had done, and he had somehow negotiated that to being a non-issue. Sam wasn’t there to find out and if Dean wanted to hang out with her—and on occasion more than hang out with her, of all people and not waste energy on hating her for things she can’t change, then he wouldn’t. That was just the way things could be.

Problem was, once Sam did show up, he should have stopped. He should have ended whatever semblance of a relationship they had because Sam was his brother and Sam mattered more than she did. And yeah, maybe he was a crappy brother for even going there with the girl who screwed his brother in the first place, but now he had a chance to fix it. To end it before Sam even had the chance to find out, to just pull the plug without causing anyone any extra anguish. The damage would be done, and Ruby might get pissed at him for it, but he needed to walk away. He should be walking away.

But he didn’t.

( *** )

604 words

[Ruby = ilove_atallman, Uriel = a_specialist, Castiel is an NPC. Set after THIS.]

“Have you ever been in a place where hope was gone? Where all that's left is patience?”

He couldn’t win.

“You’re not my brother.”

Sam’s words resonated in the back of his mind as dry wall cracked and shattered in front of him, his fists pounding into the wall of the motel room searching for some kind of rhythm, the sound hoping to drown out his brother’s words that echoed in the back of his head over and over again.

“You’re not my brother.”

“You’re not my brother.”

“You’re not my brother.”

He just hit harder as the words got louder, and soon there was nothing left to punch on the wall. He gasped in pain as his hand went through and hit brick, before his body collapsed against what was left of the wall face first.

The wall hadn’t been his first victim. He’d started with the television and the lamps and the tables, before he’d made his way around to the walls, his motions not exact or precise—just to looking to cause as much damage as he could for as long as he could. He wanted to make the anger stop, the roaring behind his ears that threatened to take over completely. Destroying the wall still wasn’t enough. He wanted blood between his fingers. He wanted someone to hurt. He wanted to go find a demon he could tear apart with his bare hands and fight for some kind of control in a world that was slipping out from under him.

( *** )

1350 words

[Ruby = ilove_atallman. Set in the new Sam/99 verse, and takes place somewhere in the middle of THIS. Have to read that first (for which I apologize because it’s epically long) or else this’ll be kinda confusing.]

“We will all at some time in our lives, fall. Life is so very fragile, we are all vulnerable, and we will all at some point in our lives, fall, we will all fall. We must carry this in our hearts, that what we have is special, that it can be taken from us, and that when it is taken from us, we will be tested. We will be tested to our very souls. We will all be tested.”

He hadn’t meant to doze off in the car, but he did. He was just so tired. They never rested, they were just always running, always trying to stay two steps ahead of the demons that were trying to kill him, trying to reclaim him, send him back where he belonged. Ruby wasn’t going to let that happen, for some strange reason Dean couldn’t explain, and it was fear that kept him from doing things himself. Fear of going back there, fear of what he was becoming, fear of everything around him.

He didn’t deserve this newfound life. He knew he didn’t, and that was what made it scary. He felt it all, the weight of every day of those two hundred forty years, and he wasn’t strong enough to take it. Every time he closed his eyes, the feel of Hell in all it’s power and oppression, closing in around him. He couldn’t think or breathe, as the weight sat down on his chest, crushing him, every day. Even when he wasn’t sleeping he felt the weight of it. When he closed his eyes, though, he could hear them scream, remember the sensations of the hook digging into the flesh, remember the pleasure he got from it. All of Hell was pain and suffering, twisting and torture, but when he had a soul in front of him, when he got off the rack and was the one taking control and digging in and hearing them scream. The screams were like music, a twisted chorus that echoed off the walls and now rattled him to the core, pushing him onto himself even more.

Most of the time, his nightmares had no faces, just another soul on the other end, a shapeless body that he couldn’t put a name to. He could see everything about them, all their hopes and memories, dreams and fears. As he got better at what he did, he started to use them, twisting them to his own ends, using them to make them scream louder, to make them feel the pain of what he was doing to them.

What they’d earned.

( *** )

1420 words