Sometimes bonding with humans is a funny thing

[peaceonearth]

Roaming the bunker halls in the middle of the night is a fairly common occurrence for Ruby. It’s also pretty common for Ruby to run into Dean or Castiel during their own midnight ramblings, but it’s not often she runs across John while roaming the bunker halls. Yet, that’s exactly who she finds when she steps into the library. He’s got a glass with a couple of fingers of scotch in it and a bottle to the side.

“I--didn’t mean to interrupt,” Ruby starts as she edges toward one of the bookcases. “I finished my book and I was going to grab another one.”

“You’re not,” John assures her. He’s got a couple of volumes spread out on the table along with the scotch, but he doesn’t seem to be dedicated to any of them. “Couldn’t sleep? Or you don’t?” There’s no judgement in his tone, but there is curiosity and that’s not something she often hears from John.

Ruby hesitates then moves to sit down in one of the wingback chairs in John’s sight. It’s not as close as the chair across the table from him, but it’s not an uncomfortable distance away. “Not much, but some.” She’d slept a great deal in fits and starts, interrupted by nightmares for the first few days after Tammy.

John nods and takes a sip of his drink. “I don’t blame you. For the whole…” he gestures with the glass in his hand. “Winchesters have been getting in trouble without help for decades. And if we don’t, we go looking for it.”

Despite the facade Ruby has been trying to put up, she feels a little bit of relief slip over her at John’s words. She waffles for a moment then stands up and gestures to John’s bottle. “Can I--” it’ll give her something to do with her hands anyway. He nods, a little surprised and she picks up the bottle swigging from it before she sets it back down, focusing on the way the liquor burns through her. The problem is that she blames herself and she’s not comfortable enough to be vulnerable with John and tell him that. Fortunately, John is quite skilled in things unspoken.

“Yeah...well, I’ll make sure that he’s more careful in the future.” Does she sound a little bossy and very overprotective? Yeah, she kind of is both of those things. She takes another swig of the liquor.

“Does that...affect you?” John asks, gesturing toward the bottle.

“No,” Ruby admits, “but it gives me something to do with my hands.”

John scowls at Ruby and reaches for the bottle. “Go get a glass of milk then. This is the good stuff.”

That, of all things, breaks the ice in the room. Ruby smirks and sits down in the chair across from the table. “I know I’m probably not what or who you imagined Sam dating when he was...whatever age parents imagine their kids dating, but I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Sam.”

John chucjkles a little then shakes his head. “I don’t think you imagine one particular person for your kids or--” he sighs. “You want your kids to grow up happy. To be better people than you are. To make the world a better place. Sam is. He does and...I’m not blind. He’s happy with you. He looks at you the way I look at Mary.” He pauses a moment, “and you look at him the way she looks at me. I don’t get it, but I don’t have to. He does. You do.”

It might not be quite the blessing that some parents give their potential (future) daughter and son in laws, but it makes Ruby smile brightly, in a way that she rarely smiles at anyone except Sam. She shifts a little, awkward about what comes next in this conversation then stands up abruptly, the chair making a screeching noise against the floor. “I’m--I’m going to get some chocolate milk and I--Sam’s probably going to wake up soon.”