Title: All the Pieces Don't Fall into Place
Author: OpheliacAngel
Pairings: Bela/Ruby
Genres: Romance/Angst
Rating: Teen
Summary: She remembers how she used to be before all the mess: young, naive, alive. Now she's living in a sedated world, pushing past the next sunset too soon after the last sunrise burned her eyes. Then she meets a girl who eats fries that singe her lips and has eyes darker than Bela's hair and wants to take pity on her but can't.
A/N: Written for femslashficlets for prompt #024 - kiss. I figure that if Bela can't run across Ruby in Season 3 then they certainly could have met before then.
Bela waits as the day continues to tick down. Her mother will call her inside for dinner soon, finely crafted as she did her daughter, and her father will stare at her from across the table, watching every mouthful she takes as if counting down to her last. So Bela waits and hopes she will have five minutes more to wait.
She is waiting for Ruby. Or, at least, that's what she calls herself.
It fits somehow. The name. Ruby in Bela's life. Bela has waited outside for her nearly all day and if Ruby is standing her up then she has the power and the will to. Bela vows it not to hurt, there's too many things that hurt already.
"Hey, sugar cakes." Bela smiles and turns around, side of her finger hastily wiping away a fallen tear. Ruby puffs her lips out and blows Bela a kiss. "Not a crossroads demon, so I don't have to be on time. Course, I never mind being on time for you."
Bela is not old enough to want, not yet. She is old enough to know life, to know the horrors of it and how they always outweigh the good. She knows that Ruby is most likely boosting her importance, using Bela for some purpose. Maybe Bela just needs to feel used, at least for some higher purpose. Ruby's in a good mood today: she breathes kisses into Bela's hair and pushes her on the swing and takes sharp glances over at the door with her eyes as black as pitch. They're so dark that Bela could drown in their dark waters, and maybe that's what she's waiting for.
She's too young to dwell on consequences. Ruby knows this and will play on it soon.
Still, the demon never speaks of time or urgency or what she has been enlisted to accomplish. Maybe it will be years and years; Bela hopes it will be days and days.
"It's almost dinner time," Bela almost whispers. Her voice isn't quite hoarse but she wishes it was, she wants so much to be able to show her emotions, but it's another piece of her that has long since died. At least she can still feel the last sunrise burning her eyes, the next sunset a siren's call for what was always made for her.
She's too young to be living in a sedated world.
Ruby is immune to Bela's tears, Bela's words, Bela's suffering. Yet she is not immune to Bela, not yet, especially not when Bela drags a hand to the base of Ruby's neck, curling underneath her hair.
The demon cringes away, a pathetic little cringe, hidden. Like they are both hidden away from all light.
"Not you yet, shortbus."
She knows the nickname was made for her. Feels her heartbeat drumming along: enough.
It's a hurried love but Bela doesn't mind, all else in her life is slow and suffering and repetition and Ruby is always different. Sometimes she even shows up in a different body but Bela knows it's her.
Bela supposes she could blame Ruby, for introducing her to demons, for telling her all about hell and deals and souls, for making Bela want it. If she hadn't known then she wouldn't have craved, would not have slept so soundly knowing the end was near. She supposes she could blame Ruby for a lot of things, but what would quite be the sense in that?
Sometimes Ruby comes back bloody and dirty and filthy. So young but Bela knows she is hundreds if not thousands of years old. She comes from hellfire and promises and a thousand hearts beating in the night like Bela's own. Bela can expect nothing yet Ruby always comes. If she misses a day then she comes the next and asks 'miss me, sweetheart?' and Bela never answers for fear of losing her, for fear of losing more precious time.
She sneaks into Bela's back yard, sometimes pushing her on the swing, sometimes pushing Bela off so she can have a go. Sometimes she shares her fries and sometimes she doesn't, but she always has them, tucked into one of her pockets. It must be the salt from the fries that singe her lips and burn her tongue and has Bela's noise wrinkling at the distinct smell of smoke. Her eyes are darker than Bela's hair when Ruby shows off and Ruby wants to take pity on her, it's clear in everything she does, but she can't. There's nothing in Ruby left, to cause her to take pity on someone else, even on herself.
Bela envies that more than she hates it.
It's a hurried love, even after she's made her deal with Lilith and what with Ruby always saying she has better things to do now that Bela's older, practically a teenager, and Ruby has expanded her calling.
Bela loves everything about this love - hers.
About her.
Then it's years and years later and the Winchesters are chasing her, the road is flying away beneath her and if Ruby was an angel then she could appear right now, right beside her. Salt on her lips and fire on her tongue and long, blonde hair that Bela can mistake for a streak of lightning.
The kiss was sharp, biting, but it was not devoid of all feeling, nor was it clingy or betraying much of the loss of Bela's sanity. That kiss was nine years ago, the last time Bela would see Ruby's blonde hair as belonging to Ruby and not someone else: enough.
Time is slipping away and slipping away is time - time slipping away….
Ruby doesn't show up this time.
Not enough.
FIN