Ch.5 A Day in the Winchester Life
As Sam Winchester loaded his Winchester rifle, leaning out the side of his brother's Impala, against the ajar door, he thought about the famous Winchester mansion in San Jose, California.
Looking over at Dean, he laughed, "How many miles do you think this thing can take in a day? What if we took her down to Northern California to see Mary Winchester's old mansion? It's a haunted attraction now, heard they made it into a museum with like all its paranormal passage ways and doors and windows to nowhere lore."
Dean sipped from a can of beer, standing just outside the passenger side of his car where Sam was leaning out loading his gun.
He shifted uncomfortably, his shoes scuffing against the hard dry dirt ground, the sound of crunching afoot.
"In one go only stopping for gas? She's already going through a lot taking us across the U.S. let's not take her to the hugest chunk of land the U.S. has to offer. That's like 5 small states we drive across in one state.
Their cities are like miles apart it'd be like driving around the ring of Saturn in a day. No can do, no way Jose, noooo thank you. We can leave the mansion up to the tourists. I'll take her husband's rifle over a museum tour any day."
The frothy warm foam of the beer Dean had been saving in the back of his Impala's trunk had rattled faithfully along on the interstate and was now fizzing up in his mouth to his long awaiting liver.
He chugged the rest of it in soft glugs like Homer Simpson chugging a Duff beer, at least that's what he imagined it sounded like, then crushing the empty can and tossing it behind him, he reached into his open trunk at the case of beer for another can.
Sam squinted down the now intact and loaded rifle's barrel into the barren desert afternoon horizon. He felt like that one scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas where the characters are driving through endless roads through empty desert, once in a while bumping into surreal characters also out in the middle of nowhere along their weird and twisted drugged up journey.
Except Sam was stone cold sober while Dean was taking a road side stop to get his buzz going with warm cans of beer from his trunk.
The afternoon sun shone down on them, dry heat moistening their grime covered flesh with sweat and caking them with gusts of dirt gathered up from their dry environment.
Sam swept his long bangs back on top of his head and looked down at the dry hard ground beneath his feet.
He checked the watch on his wrist, tapping his toes impatiently against the ground.
He was supposed to meet Ruby at a local diner in the deep south they were driving through, it was the last meeting point they had decided on during their last meeting together.
Sam worriedly looked over at Dean who was smiling and staring off into the sun while gulping down his beer as if it were the most refreshing beverage in the world.
He was nodding and grinning at the empty warm desert highway lands as the warm beer settled in.
Sam was worried about how to break the news to Dean about his new arrangement with Ruby. He knew Dean would eventually be okay with it as he was always with Sam's decisions, but it was still a jolt to their monotonous albeit horror filled existence on the road together.
Ruby didn't exactly indicate that she had a cell phone or any means of formal conventional modern contact, and Sam had not bothered to ask, not being the best of communicators.
Dean drained the rest of his beer can and tossed it aside, "Alright lets get this show back on the road before I lose it and finish the case. Let's find me a bar and you can fuck off and do whatever it is you do in your spare time."
Sam nodded, "Uh, sure. We'll go to that town we're headed towards. Might be a job, lots of southern voo doo and all that."
They loaded themselves back into Dean's prized and familiar Impala.
Sam offered to drive even though Dean assured he was good, and that he didn't want anyone else driving his baby, but Sam assured him it was safer in his sober beerless hands.
Truthfully, the dark haired Sam wanted to get to the next town as fast as possible, eager for his next sighting or meeting with Ruby.
He sped down the straightforward and asphalt smoothed over interstate road, rattling Dean around in his metal car.
He could practically feel the little car hopping up over each hill and bump as Sam drove like a mad man fiending for his next fix.
Dean nervously looked around and screamed, "Easy there on the wheels my man."
By dusk, they reached the next settlement and Sam creaked the Impala forward toward a local pub, promising Dean he would be off to the gas station first thing to fill the Impala back up with gas.
Dean staggered out and into a rowdy ruckus filled pub that seemed to be filled with hefty guys with dark brown beards and hair in white cowboy hats and blue plaid shirts and jeans and cowboy boots.
Sam yelled out into the night's darkening sky, "Try not to get into any bar brawls!"
Dean waved his hand lazily behind him as he shuffled through the door.
Flipping excitedly through the map book of the U.S. highways and interstates that lay wrinkled, fat and constantly used on the bottom of the passenger seat floor, Sam located a diner establishment with his finger and squinted as he drove the vintage car forward on the dusty dirt country road for any road signs.
Maneuvering his way carefully with the map book on his jean covered lap, Sam urged his way to the local diner.
Ruby was already waiting by the window in a booth with a country fried steak before her when Sam pulled up into the dusty almost empty parking lot.
He turned his headlights off before quickly checking his reflection in the rearview mirror and flopping his thick dark bangs back on his head with a hurried hand, palms greased from the worn down leather steering wheel of the much driven Impala.
He heard the door crunch shut with a clang as he threw it closed and walked out, his boots crunching on the hard dry dirt ground.
Ruby looked up, mouth full of food and grinned mischeviously at Sam with her gleaming eyes.
Sam cleared his throat and sat down before her, and signaled for a server.
Soon he was waiting for a dinner of pancakes and bacon, while staring down Ruby who cut into her country fried steak with an impatience unlike any human girl he had ever seen.
He watched as creamy cream gravy spilled off the chunk of fried steak she was working on, splotching on to the large white diner plate like a white on white Jackson Pollack splatter art work.
He grinned at her unable to help himself, "You're a true artist. A real Pollack original." He said, gesturing toward the splotched plate.
She chewed and grinned at him with dark eyes.
A server set down a small metal pitcher of hot oozing maple syrup and his platter of breakfast foods before him.
Before he could take a bite, Ruby's hand reached over and grabbed a steaming hot thick stack of pancakes from his stack and threw it down on her own plate, fingers quick to let go before they got burnt.
She knocked the butter out of a ridged glass mini cup and poured it full of hot maple syrup.
She smiled dangerously, "Maple syrup shots."
She threw her shiny blonde tresses back as she knocked back a shot glass of the warm oozing liquid clear amber sticky sauce.
Sam merely raised a brow and gave her a questioning and skeptical look.
Sam said, "You still want more food after all that? Help yourself. We both got plenty to go around." He grinned, and ate up. It seemed that Ruby's healthy appetite and her rather commanding presence was a good influence on his own often waning appetite.
Sam's deep voice broke through the companionable silence of chewing and cutlery scraping against porcelain, "So what's it like being a demon? Being...a Ruby."
Ruby chuckled, "A Ruby? You know I still was human once even if you see me as some garbage monster. I can see right through your faux disdain. We had social interactions and cues even in the plague times, m'boy."
Sam furrowed his brows at her but was silenced by her own withering stare and sinister smile.
"To be honest, I'd like to get to know more about those times. If it's not too sensitive a subject to talk about..." He awkwardly stated.
Ruby giggled out loud to his face, "Sensitive? Since when were you sensitive to me ever? I seem to recall a more violent and abusive little Sammy when it comes to little old Ruby."
She smiled, "You're wondering who I am, who I was back then when I was the 'real me'. You still don't get it huh? This is the real me. Seriously, this is the closest thing I could find in the modern day to who I used to be. You'll have to take me to the local bibliotech or something to verify history, she's probably related to the real me. This Ruby's body I mean, or whatever you call it, Sam. Honestly I'm tired of you separating the being from the human host body. This is my body, this is the real me, this is what I looked like when I was still alive and human. It feels right to be her, in this body, like this human host was waiting for me to fill in and be her for her all along, like this body was mine to take because it is mine. It looked familiar to me because it is what I looked like as a living girl before becoming demon."
Sam gaped skeptically at her and stuttered, "I-I had no idea... I'm sorry, Ruby."
She smiled her glittering white teeth at him, her sharp canines bared widely, "I'll get over it. Now, how about we get out of here and find a watering hole to get better acqauinted over some drinks now that you've finally accepted this is who Ruby is."
Sam laughed, relieved, almost wondering if he had been afraid he had offended her for once and that she was going to stop meeting with him.
He left enough bills down to cover the tip and proceeded smugly out of the diner with a newfound swagger to his walk, imitating his older brother and hero Dean and somewhat Ruby's own jaunty stride. He opened the door for Ruby and watched as she walked out in front of him, with a smug smile on his face albeit wholesome as could be.
Sam opened the car door for Ruby who giddily got into the Impala. "Car to yourself for the night?"
Sam laughed, "Dean's getting drunk somewhere, he'll probably end up getting laid and going home with some chick. He always does especially lately like he's on a spree, with the whole expiration date and everything coming up."
Ruby laughed appreciatively at Sam's new side of humor.
They departed into the night, exploring the unfamiliar small rural town. "I definitely don't want to go to the same bar as Dean, I don't need to see my brother all over some girls thank you very much."
Ruby flipped through his almanac booklet as Sam drove around, lighting the dark dusty dirt roads with the headlights, looking around the town's main street for signs of a pub.
Dean's old metal rock cassette played amiably into the canned interior of the night, thrashing roughly from his metal chainmail filtered speakers.
Sam felt like Steve McQueen, driving this thing. Or like Dean. And for once, he had some pretty girl in the passenger seat and he was in the driver's seat like Dean.
His thoughts did not enter into lewd temptation but he still felt confidence he felt was more like Dean's perpetual state.
Maybe it was Ruby's own confidence rubbing off on him, she was the cockiest girl he had ever met.
They finally found a small neon sign lighting up the dark dusty dim road, a single street light lit up outside of it.
It simply read BAR in neon green thin linear letters, so they settled on that and got out after parking in front of it on the road side.
Sam opened the door for Ruby, taking note of the fact that this felt more human between them, and that he had been treating her like some animal and demon not like he would a normal human girl at all.
A.N.: What will happen? Any ideas?