A/N: Oh. Hey, Supernatural fandom. Uh, I really don't know what to say about this one, except that it kind of got out of hand and took on a life of its own after the first scene refused to stop growing. So if you've read this far, beware, there are SPOILERS as the pairing here is Lucifer-possessed Sam/Ruby. I was just so excited to jump back on this train, because I loved these two and was upset when she bit it last season.
However, if she hadn't, then this story wouldn't have been possible, so thanks for the last-minute twist, Kripke. I'm starting to appreciate it. Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, the CW, et. al, a.k.a. not me.
Oh, and this is also my first story in the SPN fandom, and therefore concrit would be especially appreciated :D
Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face.
---
Nelson DeMille
revelation
The first breath of oxygen is both elevating and painful.
The last thing she remembers is Sam's thick arms pinning hers behind her back, and Dean's sour face as he sent her knife straight through her heart.
She looks around to see the world a wreck around her. The apocalypse has come and gone, with mazes of cement walls and burnt trash cans building up to the sky without a sun. She wonders if this is what the after-afterlife is: complete and utter emptiness, without a hope in sight.
"Glorious, isn't it? A deconstructionist masterpiece."
It is Sam's voice, and not Sam's voice.
But it certainly looks like Sam, in a spotless white suit, an unnaturally wide smile on his lips.
"How's it feel to be back, Ruby?" he asks. "You deserve it. In return for all that you've done for me."
The hairs stand on her neck, and she knows something's wrong. That doesn't sound like Sam, not the one she remembers, not the one who was frightened to have Lilith's blood on his hands and sent her to her death.
"Who are you?"
"Whatever happened to your unshakeable faith?" He seems horrified, hurt.
"Ruby, Ruby, Ruby. After all this time, after all the blood you've spilt, after all the lives you've taken, how could you forget me? How could you forget your messiah?"
Her eyes widen and she falls quickly to her knees, her lips close to the broken earth. Her eyelashes brush the dirt, dust settling in her long brown hair.
"Lucifer," she whispers reverently, hardly daring to look at him head-on without his permission.
"Rise up," Lucifer says in Sam's voice. "There is no need for that. Such actions are beneath you."
She stumbles awkwardly on her way back up, trying to see Lucifer behind Sammy's eyes. It takes her longer than she'd like.
"I can't believe that," she says breathlessly, alight in the attention of her savior. "I am and will always be your humble servant."
"I know you are," Lucifer says, a note of pride in his voice. "That is why I have brought you back. I have…need of you."
Ruby looks up in awe at her master. "Name what you wish," she says eagerly, "and it will be done."
"I have chosen you to be my consort," Lucifer says, running Sam's hand along her cheek, lips slightly curved upwards. He is in need of another one after the destruction of Lilith, pity as it was.
"You shall sit forever at my feet while I rule over this world."
Such a blessing is something beyond Ruby's wildest dreams. She falls again to her knees, eyes wet with grateful tears.
"My master…I would be honored," she says, grasping his hand in hers and pledging her loyalty to him with a kiss.
*
He takes her through the death and dust until they reach his stronghold, a lavish mansion that has crammed all the riches of the earth within its marble walls. The ceilings are tall and domed, and every room has many windows.
The ruined world that belongs to them can be seen from any of them, from horizon to horizon.
Lucifer tells Ruby that as his consort, she shall never want for anything. All the riches of the world are at her beck and call; only the finest food and wine shall sit at her table.
She smiles and says as long as that fine food definition includes French fries, that's all she'll ever desire.
*
When night falls and her eyelids start to droop, he places her onto a bed with sheets of red satin, offering a smooth nightgown as red as her name.
Before she can even turn around, his nimble fingers are already working on her zippers, her layers of clothing above her skin. As she sheds her second skin, she notices that any damage that her host's body had suffered is gone. She is smooth, unblemished, and Lucifer says she is the finest Grecian marble come to life.
"Ruby, you are to bear my son," he whispers to her.
His line must continue, after all, he tells her, and she must be rewarded for her loyalty to him.
She agrees completely with this, not out of desire for a son but because she has no choice.
But, she thinks as his mouth descends from her neck to her breasts, why would she need a choice?
She is to be the queen of all demons, to be rewarded for letting precious Sammy drink enough blood to be suitable for Lucifer. It is a position nobody ever thought would go to a nobody like her, and she will not question the benevolence of her master, who used to light the morning sky.
Lucifer wastes no time with preparation. He tumbles over her and enters her swiftly, not the way Sam ever did, but rushed and hot, like the fires of the Pit run rampant in his veins.
She digs her fingernails into his back and he bites her neck so hard that he draws blood, her sweet black blood that settles in the crevices between his white teeth. He shudders during his release and then grasps her wrists, bringing her close to him.
He tells her that she will never be able to go anywhere without him.
"Even when I leave you," he says, "I will know where you are every moment, and you'll be damned if you're not here waiting for me when I return."
She whispers that she will never dream of disobeying him, even as his teeth continue to scar her neck, even as the sky grows ever darker, even as she begins to realize what she has agreed to.
*
She starts to calculate the differences between Sam, the old one who she was trying to wean off his heart, and Lucifer, who she once had the gall to believe was a story to trick demons into obedience.
Sam would never stay long after they fucked; she knew that sex with her came with a guilt he'd carry around on his shoulders like a good little Catholic boy.
Lucifer has no eye for guilt, not with the way he walks, not with the way he carries Sam's shoulders like there has never been weight on them. Lucifer knows only pride, and seems to delight in the way that he makes her scream, the way that she can see light in her eyes when they have finished.
Sam would never listen to her with an ear closed, the way his brother was so fond of doing. If she had information for him, he would listen, and jump where and when she told him to.
Lucifer has no need for her information and tells her that she should not burden herself with such common work. Instead, she hears what's going on in the ravaged world from lesser cronies of Lucifer's, either demons or humans who decided to ally themselves with him.
Sam would never go out with her alone, trusted her inside knowledge of the Pit and the demons who burnt alongside her. He recognized her value as an individual and never once tried to force her to do anything she didn't want to do. Not successfully, anyway.
Lucifer tosses Ruby a spare human or so to torture, at least when he thinks of her amusement. He knows that she shall not want anything but being his consort, and she knows it, too. But even driving a knife through the arms of innocent is nothing without reason for it. She tells him that there is very little pleasure in it when they are not keeping secrets from her.
He looks at her like she's sprouted a third eye.
It is the last time that she speaks to him without being spoken to.
*
Lucifer's desire for a son becomes fact very quickly, when Ruby wakes up one morning and finds herself vomiting not a minute later.
The weight in her abdomen starts to become more burden than blessing. She feels dense, large, after seven lifetimes of remaining in petite hosts. She starts wearing long dresses of rich fabrics that emphasize her quickly growing stomach, which feels like a ball of lead in her center. Her breasts swell and her back feels like it will break beneath the weight of her master's son.
She does not think about things other mothers do, like where the baby will sleep or what name she will give to him. She has a feeling that Lucifer has already set these details in place.
She does not leave her bed for days at a time, hair sweaty and slick, her body warm with anxiety.
She has waking nightmares of an approaching figure in the brightest light she's ever seen, with a terrible sword and no way to burn his light away.
She tells Lucifer, and all he says is that she is imagining their son as a grown man.
But she knows it is not him; the aura is entirely different. It is that of a warrior, a man specifically born to seek and destroy his enemies.
"Our son will be that, and more than you could ever dream," Lucifer assures her.
And he returns to surveying the world lucky enough to call him its king.
*
The weight on Ruby's hips is starting to become entirely unbearable, and Lucifer escorts her to a room where midwives await her. Even the most advanced technology does not stop the pain, and the midwives begin to discuss other options should the baby destroy Ruby, or the other way around.
But they do not get very far.
Silence is shattered by a loud cry, something like a mix between a bird and a radio signal, all the windows in Lucifer's stronghold cracking beneath the pressure. The prince of darkness himself comes to seek shelter with his consort, a hand resting on the heartbeat of his future child.
The next thing they hear turns their blood, turns their future, cold.
"I am the archangel Michael," comes a voice that makes her hair stand on end, comes the voice of Dean Winchester, "and I have come to do battle with thee, Lucifer."
Lucifer's eyes are white, frightening. "I have awaited this day a long time, Michael."
She then sees a terrible, blinding light framing the figure she had dreamed of.
It is Michael within Dean, Michael who has come to exterminate her, the concubine of a traitor of the Lord.
She thinks she hears crying.
My son's?
She makes a concerned cry, a small whimper that mirrors it.
And then falls into a blackness as deep as her eyes.
The last breath of oxygen is both elevating and painful.
*