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Ruby pops Sam’s shoulder back in with a groan and a wince. She’s got a cut over her eyebrow and a split lip. Her blood’s leaking all over the floor―one of Lilith’s goons must’ve had a knife or something. Sam watches her as she pulls off her shirt, threads up a needle, and sews the angry wound there shut. She’s bad at it. Her sutures are uneven and messy, and she doesn’t do the stitch right.
Sam heaves himself up and kneels between her legs, wordlessly holding out his hands. Ruby’s hands linger in his, when she passes him the needle and dental floss. Her fingers are over-warm and blood-slick.
“This isn’t working,” Sam says, low, as he makes his first stitch. “It’s been months, and I haven’t gotten any better.”
Ruby sighs, and leans back on her hands. She leaves two bloody smears on the cheap hotel bedspread, which Sam will inevitably end up washing later. “It’s been six weeks, Sam,” she replies. “You gotta give it time.”
“And how many more people will die if I do? We keep finding new bodies every day. It’s like she’s on a fucking killing spree. And I―” Sam’s voice cracks, and he swallows, hard. “I can’t let more people die because I couldn’t learn how to use my own goddamn powers fast enough.”
Ruby goes still, and gives Sam this soft look that makes his skin crawl. “You know what happened to Dean isn’t you fault, right?” She says it gentle, and Sam hates it.
He starts the next stitch, but fucks it up. The needle goes too deep. Ruby doesn’t even flinch, and why would she? This isn’t even her body. She probably didn’t even feel it. She rubs at a cut on his eyebrow, even though he’s being rough right now, and that just makes him feel worse.
He finishes her stitches in silence. When it’s done, he won’t look at her, and pulls away when she tries to clean the cuts on his knuckles. Sam pours isopropyl over the back of his hand, and relishes the sting as it dries.
Ruby rummages in her bag for a new shirt, and pulls it over her head. It’s gray, nondescript. Just like the bloody shirt she tossed on the floor. And Sam doesn’t quite know how he feels about Ruby; about the bag of spare clothes she keeps in his motel rooms, or the pack of cigarettes she stashes in the Impala’s glovebox, or the bottle of tequila she set on the nightstand, next to Dean’s―next to Sam’s whiskey. Half the time, he looks at her things and wonders when they’ll be gone, too. When she’s going to disappear, disappointed with Sam and tired of his inescapable, overwhelming grief.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone there,” Ruby says. Sam grunts. “And…” she sighs. “I might know something that could help speed up the process.”
Sam clenches his jaw, and takes a breath. Nice and easy. He doesn’t―he doesn’t want to yell. Not now. “Why didn’t you just tell me when I asked?” he asks; calm, level.
“I knew you wouldn’t like it.” Ruby sits on the edge of her bed, directly opposite Sam, and fiddles with her hands. Sam raises his eyebrows, and stares until Ruby looks away.
“It’s my blood, Sam,” She says, eventually. The words tumble out like Ruby’s been holding them in for a long time, like finally saying it excites her somehow. “You have to drink my blood. You’ve already progressed so much, and that was with just a couple stale drops of demon blood lingering in your system! If you drank more, killing Lilith would be as easy as stepping on an ant. Hell, if you drank enough, you could make Lucifer himself shit his goddamn pants.”
Sam opens his mouth to say something. He doesn’t know what. But Ruby leans forward, her eyes manic, and interrupts him before he can. “Look,” she says. “I know this is a lot to process. So, go. Find a quiet spot and think about it. I mean really think about it. When you figure it out, I’ll be right here.”
And then she reaches out, like she’s going to put her hand on Sam’s knee, or take his hand in hers. He moves away before she can, and Ruby just looks at him, slow and steady. “And I’ll stay here, Sam,” she says. “No matter what you choose.”
_____
Holy Saint Paul Catholic Church is a tiny, red-brick building on the corner of Main Street and County Highway 2. It’s a little careworn, a little dusty. The windows look like they haven’t been cleaned in years, the stumpy-looking steeple has seen better days, and the yellowed, theater-style sign out front says GOD FORGIVES ALL THINGS in bold black letters. And, most important of all, Holy Saint Paul’s is also right down the street from the only bar in town.
It's late. The bartender kicked him out at close. And Sam is stumbling-drunk, but it’s not too bad. He could make it to the Impala if he wanted. But he hates it there. It’s like sleeping in a fucking shrine. He never bothered to clean it out, and all Dean’s stuff is still scattered inside―his clothes, his guns, his beat-up tapes and boxes of photos and the almost-empty box of condoms Sam isn’t supposed to know about; the half-empty whiskey bottle and the porno mags stashed in the glovebox. Hell, the inside still smells like his fucking hair gel and axe body spray.
Sometimes, Sam is scared to touch the car at all. He drives with the radio off, because he can’t bring himself change the station, and the silence is better than listening to all Dean’s favorites play without hearing Dean belt out the lyrics. He hasn’t moved the seat, even though he’s got half a foot on Dean, and his knees end up jammed into the steering wheel every time he drives. He’s afraid to drive with the windows down or the A/C on, because despite how awful Dean’s axe body spray was, Sam’s terrified of forgetting how it smelled. And it’s unhealthy, he knows. If he’s gonna heal and move on, he should drop the car off at Bobby’s and hijack some suburbanite’s Honda Civic. But that’s the thing. Sam doesn’t want to move on. He doesn’t even know if he can.
The church door doesn’t even have a real lock―just a chain looped through the door handles and a skinny silver padlock. Sam picks it, easy as anything. The inside is unremarkable. A dozen pews lined up in rows, whitewashed walls, high ceilings. The altar is simple, for a Catholic church. Moonlight pours through the windows periodically studded along the walls.
Sam stumbles over to the closest pew and sits. It’s uncomfortable and nearly identical to the hundreds of other hard wooden pews he’s temporarily occupied―because John wanted to get drunk on a Sunday morning; because he and Dean needed the food from the potluck after the service; because Dean slept in late after a Saturday-night binge, and Sam wanted to feel witnessed. He slips off the pew, to his knees, and runs his hands through his hair. Pats at his pockets and comes up empty.
He uses his fingers instead of a rosary. He prays by rote; ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. And God, he hasn’t prayed the rosary like this since he was a teenager, up late, waiting for Dad and Dean to come home; so afraid they wouldn’t he could hardly speak. Now, Sam still stumbles over the words, but with every Hail Mary, it gets a little easier.
When he’s done, Sam loosely clasps his hands. Instead of bowing his head, like he knows he should, he stares up at the whitewashed ceiling, like he could find God up in the rafters if he just looked hard enough. “Hey, God,” Sam whispers. “I uh. I need help. I need to know if killing Lilith is worth whatever it does to me.”
“Ruby never said, but I think it’s gonna kill me,” he confesses. “Or it’ll just―burn out every good thing inside me. Or turn me into a demon. But whatever happens, I don’t think I’m making it out of this alive. And I need someone to tell me that this is worth dying for.”
Sam ducks his head and rubs at the back of his neck. “I know Lilith needs to die. I know she does. But Dean died for me. He’s in Hell, so I can be―so I can―” he sniffs, and angrily scrubs at his eyes. “I shouldn’t throw my life away. I know that. Dean―he wouldn’t want me to. But I don’t know how to just carry on living when I know the demon that killed my brother is out there, and I could stop her. So uh,” Sam says, his voice wobbling, “if anyone’s out there―if anyone can hear me―”
“I don’t know what to do, Dean,” Sam cries. “I shouldn’t trust her. I don’t trust her. But I―” Sam bites at his lip. “I think I want to. Sometimes I look at her, and she makes me feel like there could be something good on the other side of all this. Or maybe it could feel good. Like she could lead me down to Hell and I’d enjoy every single step. And that scares the shit outta me, man. So I―” Sam’s breath hitches in his chest, and he sobs, just once. “Dean, please,” he says. “I need you to tell me what to do.”
And he waits, desperate for some sort of divine miracle. And if Sam were more devout, more faithful, God would give him one. He’d part the heavens and speak through the divide; deliver Dean’s holy ghost straight into Sam’s hands, just so he can hear Dean boss him around one last time.
But Sam isn’t devout, and he’s never been a very good Catholic. The church remains silent and dark and dead as the night air outside. The altar looms, draped in green and horribly empty. The crucifix stares down at Sam, acrylic tears glinting dully on its face.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “That’s what I thought.”
_____
Ruby’s laying on one of the beds watching I Love Lucy reruns when Sam comes back. The room looks trashed―pizza boxes and fast-food wrappers piled at the foot of the bed, dirty clothes thrown all over the floor. Ruby jumps up and gets in close before Sam even finishes closing the door. She looks happy to see him. She’s got that manic look in her eye again, and Sam can tell she’s trying not to smile.
“So,” Sam says, crossing his arms. “How do we do this.”
Ruby bites her lip, and steps in even closer. She narrows her eyes, peering up at Sam’s face, and reaches out. This time, Sam lets her touch. Her hand goes to his forearm, gentle; barely there at all. “You’re sure this is what you want?”
“Yeah. Lilith needs to die. If this,” Sam gestures between them, “is what it takes, so be it.”
“In that case, we start small,” Ruby says, and reaches for Sam’s jacket pocket. Sam lets her stick her hand inside and root around, until she pulls out the demon knife.
She holds the point of the blade to the tip of her index finger. And Sam watches as Ruby pushes the knife in, slowly, like she’s savoring the moment. He watches that tiny patch of skin go white and bloodless, watches the knife slide in easy as you please, watches one tiny bead of blood well up from the cut. Ruby squeezes her finger, makes the drop grow bigger and bigger. When it looks like the blood is about to spill over and run down her finger, Ruby holds it out to Sam.
And he takes it. He grabs her wrist and pulls, until Ruby stumbles into his chest. He opens his mouth, and pulls Ruby’s finger inside. Sucks at it, hard; hungry for everything Ruby gives him. And then the blood hits his system, and Sam’s eyes slide shut. It’s―god, it’s the best thing he’s ever felt; burning better than whiskey and brighter than ecstasy. All the―the grief, the pain―it all falls away, and Sam almost cries with relief. When Ruby pulls her finger from his mouth, he chases after it, already desperate for more.
“How does that feel, Sam?” Ruby asks, playful. She leans into his chest and looks up at him with a sly smile on her face.
“Good,” Sam says. He rolls her blood on his tongue, savoring the taste. He feels fucking untouchable. He feels normal. “It feels really, really good.” And then Sam leans down and kisses Ruby, wet and sloppy, and oh. That feels even better.