Spoilers: Series. Season 4.

Notes: Eii! Hi. I have this vaguely planned. In a 'we will go this direction because it's pretty' kind of way. *shifty* This is so not beta'd. I don't know. I give up. *shame* Also! Reviewers? You are shiny and pretty. Shiny and pretty and I love you.

…

Ruby breathes herself back in and rolls away from his hand before he gets over whatever the hell is wrong with him. Three, maybe four ribs twist beside her lungs, but it's bearable. Imminent death makes it bearable.

There's not even a chance to settle, to wrap back around the bones of her body, before Castiel's just suddenly there, leaning into her side and that ashy, sticky dust is kicking up into her eyes and mouth.

"Go-"he barks out, rough. Ruby stumbles back, thinking runrunrun and the knife get the knife and can't leave him he's the only one left. Once upon a time, running would have won out in a borrowed heartbeat, but Castiel's not interested in her newfound allegiance.

He shoves her away, managing to convey with one frenetic expression get the fuck out of here. Her entire body pings in one long flare of agony so swift that she can't strangle the hoarse rasp. It's surprising that anything hurts anymore. But it's not like Hell makes you immune to pain.

"…" Ruby's aware enough to know that putting your back to the bad guy is a death worthy sin…except that a white hot heat is ebbing around her ankles. "Castiel…"

Back and forth, like a tide or a heartbeat.

Zachariah, slipping to his knees with his head lowering and hand clenching at the dirt. He's laughing. Clogged. Wracking. Strings of blood and spit threading from his chin, and there's her knife, the familiar old bone colored hilt spiking up from his back.

There's a kind of dread coiling heavy in Ruby's gut, a punched sensation that's pulling her down. Angels. It should have worked. It should have- Her legs just give out at that, she folds to the ground and drags her fingers through the grit and hothothot light washes out around her, burning up the edges of her arms and knees and thighs and it feels a lot like falling forward with her thoughts scattering up like birds in all directions.

She's already died once. It should be easy a second time. Old hat. She's watching Zachariah twisting rabidly to pull out the knife again, watching without realizing anything but the helpless drifting numbness. He's going to smile when he brings the blade across her throat. He's going to laugh again and go after Castiel.

He's going to.

The light is killing her.

Black spots dance in her vision when a rough hand slaps across her eyes, an arm catches her around the stomach and there's not a hint of warning when Castiel grabs her and goes.

It's like being throw into water, a slight resistance, then just remembered starbright fire still warm on her skin. Castiel lets her go almost as soon as they arrive at wherever it was. Keeps walking and makes it maybe two steps until he just drops suddenly to his knees and drags in a gasp of air that sounds so sharp it hurts Ruby just to hear it.

She lays there in the cool dirt, tears drying unnoticed on her cheeks and just breathes. Takes it all in. They're alive. It's a good start.

It's the only start.

"Uhm," Feels like she's swallowing her tongue. Castiel jerks at the sound, but he won't look at her. It's dark, wherever they are now. The steady drip drip drip of water and mildew scent of underground places. Subway tunnel. Sewer. Somewhere. Some city. Didn't matter.

"We must go."

"What happened?" 'cause really? She doesn't want to move, let alone start that cryptic 'I will tell you what you need to know at the last possible minute' head game crap. So no. And then something throws itself in front of her train of thought there and Ruby kicks upright. "The knife-!"

Panic goes thrumming through her when she sees the set of his shoulders, the way he won't look at her, the slow careful words that come to her through the gloom. "I am…not certain." Maybe he can hear her screaming incoherently in her head because he slouches down further and just sort of slumps against the curve of a mossy wall.

Ruby can't say anything because it wouldn't possibly be loud enough to satisfy her. She wants to break things. Hit something. Stab it. So she inhales deeply, holds it even though she doesn't really need to but it makes her feel better, a bit more human and that was something to hold onto. "Okay."

Castiel turned to look at her then, like he's trying to gauge the hundred things okay could mean. Okay, I hate you. Okay, that's fine. Okay, hold still while I tie your intestines into decorative bows. He's got that Look. The narrowed searching one with the furrowed brow. There's blood drying along his jaw and temple, and if she wants he's close enough to reach out and touch.

"So okay." Ruby says, remembering that raw and wrecked sound he had made after Zachariah had just dismissed the Winchesters like gutter trash. Her chest feels tight. Says again softly, "Okay."

They should be going. Be anywhere but there 'cause fuck knew when Zachariah or someone bigger and less incline to chat would home in on Castiel. They shouldn't be sitting in a sewer in Nowhere, USA when he has blood in his hair and eyes and she's the color of bruise.

They shouldn't.

"I wasn't fast enough." Castiel says very, very quietly. "I'm not strong enough."

"Well," Ruby replies and hugs her knees to her chest. "Then we're both screwed."

…

Three days after the last Seal broke and Hell rose on Earth, Ruby salted and burned Sam and Dean Winchester.

The salt scoured the skin on her hands raw and red until it felt like the muscle was trying to pull away from the bone but she kept going until it was gone because she wanted them to rest and be still.

(the one on the left was dean and there was blood stained through the dropcloth she had covered him in)

She didn't pray. She didn't say she was sorry. She didn't think anyone would hear it, anyway.

(the one on the right was sam and-)

…

The landscape is dusty and dead. It smells like grave dirt and smoke. Ruby's bored with it, been there and seen it. It's all one foot in front of the other, relentlessly moving forward.

"Wanna talk about it?"

Castiel didn't have to say anything to make you feel rock stupid. It was a talent he had.

"Wanna play I Spy?"

They're walking down the middle line of an asphalt road that's gone soft with the heat. Castiel's staring determinedly at the horizon line like he's pinning it in place and Ruby's had a song stuck in her head since that morning. Or…evening. Whatever. They didn't exactly need to sleep and it wasn't like the sky ever changed color. (Castiel said it did, and then launched into a complex explanation involving vibrating electromagnetic fields and visible light and sounded not happy but…pleased as he spoke and that just cemented her theory that Castiel was a massive geek.)

Which means she's off in her own hazy world where instead of throwing punches, Castiel just stuns things with intellect and Sam's just off getting pie for Dean and the lyrics then the door was open and the wind appeared the candles blew then disappeared the curtains flew then he appeared...saying don't be afraid are running loops in her head when Castiel says demons.

"What?" Ruby asks, intelligently, thinking for a very confused moment that it's just a really twisted angel version of I Spy. She blinks, looks at him looking at the dark twisting clouds.

Oh.

Oh shit. Oh fuck.

"Oh." She adds again. The pervasive stink of sulfur hits a second later.

They're going to smell him, catch that scent of purity and lightning and come running like the dinner bell's just been rung just so they can lick the blood off his bones or peel him open and see the light inside gutter out- or worse, far far worse- they'll bind and break him and take him away as a gift to Lilith or fucking Lucifer.

There's nowhere to run, not right out in the open, and they can't risk the angel mojo again. Not again, not when her kind is so close she can taste them like bile in her mouth.

Remembers and the one on the right was Sam and a burst of frantic knowing hits her. Ruby's never been one to shy away from what needs to be done. The knife's gone but she digs quickly in her pockets and uh…nail clippers. Jesus H. Christ.

She cuts an uneven line across her palm, squeezes until it wells up with blood, and that's what she smears on the shoulder of Castiel's coat.

The punched look he gives her is priceless. She'll have it to comfort her while her on the rack while her insides are being alphabetized.

She wipes her freely bleeding palm down his front, squeezes her hand fiercely to draw out more and thinks crazily that she should have opened up her wrist instead, that they're going to grab the last real angel in the world just because she couldn't bleed fast enough…

'Please,' she thinks, not knowing what she was praying to or even if she should be, because it's never worked anyway. 'Just go away.'

Ruby looks over her shoulder at the darkening sky and clutches the dirty fabric of Castiel's coat until gentle pressure folds around her wrist. Shadows fall over her shoulders while a hungry, throaty noise brings with it the sky horde, a vast bodiless roil of smoke. But Castiel has her wrist and he's not letting go, so when she finally dares to look an angel square in the eyes it's nothing more than weary blue, inhumanly curious and searching. And wonder of wonder, she's not rolling around blind.

"Hold that urge to smite," she tells him, "Unless they can smell accountants. Then y'know, go for it."

He nods, slowly, frowning at the bitter tang of demon blood on his coat, at the sky, which goes dark with a muted roar.

Maybe they smelled him before, untouched angelmeat and a lone demonic presence. Maybe she's got the Winchester curse so bad that she's willing to cover for an angel just so she's not alone.

The smoke above boils in place, searching. Castiel stands, quietly, either because he thinks it's God's will or for once he's going to trust her and not get them horribly killed. He hasn't let go of her arm.

She thinks he's going to open his pious mouth and ruin it, ruin them, but Castiel tilts his head and stares unflinchingly up at the cancerous sky until the wandering demonsmoke arrows away.

"Whoa," she says appreciatively. "Spook glare, warp ten."

Castiel does not look impressed. In fact, she's seen the expression he's using before, picture perfect, on Dean Winchester.

"Thank you," he says, closes his eyes and lets her go. Ruby swallows, pulls her palm to her chest and wraps her other hand around the place he had touched and feels something twist in her heart, borrowed that it may be, that she doesn't care for at all.

"Let's get the hell outta here."

…