99 [SPN ff, 1/1] (original) (raw)

Title: Ninety-nine
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Castiel/Ruby
Rating: NC-17, for smut. Some off-screen violence and dying women, just to make it SPN-consistent. Vaginal, anal and oral sex. There is some plot, but it is mostly a smutty sequel to girlupnorth's Season of Mists and my Psyche, and a prequel to the upcoming novel(la?)-length Small Graces (plotty! character-driven! and yet also with smut!) by girlupnorth.
Length: 3420. Don't make me check how much of that is smut.
Dedicated to girlupnorth, who made sure that baths in the text don't suddenly turn into showers mid-sex. This was actually written quite a long while ago, but I only now got along to posting it. You can consider it my Christmas gift, if you're into hot angel/demon action. Or something.

If you don't remember, Psyche ended with Ruby going off on a mission to kill Anna, a new and dangerous hellish power. Also, Castiel and Ruby are kind of an item by now, I suppose.

Ninety-nine

If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.
Matthew 18.12-13.

Ruby runs as fast as her legs will take her. (There’s no way she’ll be fast enough, but this was never intended as a suicide mission.)

They haven’t noticed her, yet. The house is silent, but for some voices in the kitchen, and the sound her heels make as she takes the stairs down, lower and lower, one flight after another.

Anna is dead. Angel-demon blood on her hands, scorching her skin. The body is hurting – and it is hurting her, like a maladjusted shoe.

They’ll have noticed by now. The blood must have seeped through the floor, to the library below.

She crosses the threshold and runs on, air filling her lungs like liquid pain, Anna’s face as she lay dying burnt on the inside of her eyelids.

She is clutching on the knife he gave her and silently calling out his name, hoping the bastard is listening.

Victory, you arrogant prick. I killed her for you.

They get her right before she reaches safety.

The fall is longer than she remembered.

*~*~*

She awakens in bed, sunlight warm on her skin. She shivers, her teeth chattering.

“Drink this,” Castiel says, and she takes the cup into her hands and drinks, slowly.

She remembers pain. She remembers the pain ending.

“I burnt,” she says. “Hell claimed me.”

His eyes flash with anger, but it is not directed at her.

“I claim you for my own, Ruby,” he says. “I walked through the flames and tore you out of the pit.”

She falls asleep, his hand touching her brow.

*~*~*

Castiel prays for her; for her sleep to be restful and free of nightmares, and for her soul’s salvation. There is little rest, neither for the wicked, nor for the righteous, in the days before the end, but she deserves as much after her sacrifice.

He followed her through the darkness and fire as she was falling. His wings shielded her, and he brought her out, back into the light, and he knew that it was a good thing to do, to save a being who fought for the good side out of her own free will, putting herself in danger’s path.

With her lying on her back, he can’t see the imprint of his palm, burnt on her skin where he held her. He can still feel it, though, sharp and distinct, dark on her pale back, bright in the darkness when he closes his eyes.

*~*~*

Her second awakening is peaceful. The flat is empty, and she gets dressed in clean clothes he left for her. She takes a long while in front of the mirror, looking at the mark of the angel’s hand on her back, a bull’s eye for any demon. She laughs at the thought that she’d borne this precise handprint before, though in a far less lasting form.

She thinks about what he did for her, and she feels grateful and indebted, and hates that she does. She buttons up her shirt and opens the fridge. She might not need food, but she’s used to it.

She killed Anna, an angel turned evil, a creature of power far exceeding her own, perhaps equal to Castiel’s. She’s a little bit drunk on that thought, has a little dance in her step, pride, boastfulness.

She takes a long bath, enjoying the water and the warmth, and the body, somehow the very same body she’s grown so fond of. Her hands, and her small, sensitive breasts, and her legs, and her cunt. She is surprised how possessive she feels of the body, like a human might of a flat they associate many good memories with. This body has gone through a lot with her, and some of that was terrible, but some was wonderful.

She fills the bath with more hot water, to keep the temperature up, and touches her own breasts and stomach, at first avoiding the nipples completely, and then just grazing them with her fingers, before pinching them lightly.

She closes her eyes and the image of his face appears almost instantly, and through pure stubbornness she considers substituting it with another, a woman’s, a demon’s, an anonymous stranger’s, but there’s no denying that it’s him that she desires right now. She feels tingling between her legs at the thought of his fingers on her breasts; she moves her hands lower, to stroke her thighs, and then she spreads her legs as wide as the bathtub allows, and touches herself.

Her strokes are slow and steady. She’s slick and hot, and she imagines that it is him pushing his fingers up her cunt, moving them in and out, fucking her with just the right speed and pressure. She moans low in her throat.

She’s not even that surprised when he touches her arm, silently urging her to lean forward, and one of his hands moves to the scar on her arm, while the other covers her left breast, rolling the nipple between his fingers.

“Go on,” he says, and she gasps, and pushes her fingers in, and takes them out, her strokes increasing in speed and urgency, her thumb moving over her clit.

“What were you thinking about?” he asks, his voice almost in her ear.

“I was thinking about you,” she says, gasping, “fucking me with your fingers.”

“Good girl,” he replies, his hand massaging her breast, his fingers suddenly pinching her nipple. “Did you like it?”

“Yes,” she answers, almost breathless, never slowing down.

“I’ll fuck you with more than my fingers soon,” he promises, and she comes, so hard that her legs shake and twitch, splashing the water around.

*~*~*

Weariness lies deep in his bones, and he cannot seem to shake it. Castiel would welcome divine guidance, but does not presume to expect it; the Winchesters might see themselves as major players in the conflict of the Light and the Dark, but there are many battle lines and the frontier he is sent to hold is far from the most essential.

Free will of an angel might be different from that of a human, but he is left to his own devices in interpreting and differentiating between good and evil.

Uriel’s betrayal has been made known to the fold. A demon, Ruby, waits for him in the place where he rests his head, and this demon remains his ally. All the prophets pronouncing the end days have no idea how close their words are to coming to pass.

Ruby steps out of the bath, and he hands her a towel. She smiles.

“How’s your day?” she asks, drying her hair.

He finds himself with no words to give her.

*~*~*

She loves this feeling. She’s warm from the bath, smelling of shampoo and soap, tangible reminders of why she risks eternal torture by opposing powers that claim the rights to her soul. Her skin is humming from the orgasm she just had, and she wants more.

She steps closer and brushes her fingers against his collar before nuzzling at his jaw. He looks striking in this light, and she is momentarily grateful for his choice of a vessel, though it is his forcefulness, the very essence of him, his being an angel – the polar opposite, the sworn enemy, the dangerous other – that makes her feel warmth between her legs at the sight of him.

“I’ll make it better,” she says, taking in his silence at her question. “I know just the way,” she adds, running her hands down his chest.

They go to his bedroom. As soon as they enter, he pushes her against the wall and puts his knee between her legs before kissing her thoroughly.

She moans into his mouth, grinding her pelvis against him; he holds her still, his mouth moving to her neck and then to her naked breasts.

She buckles when his tongue flicks rapidly over her nipple. His hands hold and massage her buttocks and the pressure makes her moan again, louder this time. He moves his hand; she feels his fingers ghost against her perineum.

“Oh please,” she whispers, and then his hands disappear completely; he takes a step back and fixes her with a careful look.

“Fuck me,” she asks, and he smiles a little.

“I most certainly will.”

He undresses completely, putting his clothes on a nearby chair; she watches him impatiently, but knows better than to complain at that moment. It cannot take more than a minute, but to her, it feels like an hour.

She reaches out when he steps closer again, but he bats her hand away, grabs her by the arm and turns her around, so that she feels his erection on the small of her back. She gasps and pushes against him.

He takes a step back, and his hands return to her buttocks. He strokes her back and her ass before pushing his fingers between her legs.

“You’re very wet, Ruby.”

She rocks against his fingers, and he slides them a little bit further up her cunt, perhaps up to the first knuckle, before swirling them a little and taking them out completely.

“I won’t fuck your up there, Ruby,” he says, moving his hand back further and further. “You’re going to take it up the ass.”

With that, he pushes one of his fingers against her opening, and it is slick from when he touched her cunt, slick enough to slide right in with hardly any resistance. She moans at that, pushing down to take him in quicker.

“Please, do,” she chokes out between her shallow breaths, and he moves his finger in and out a little, sending sparks of pleasure deep inside her. “More.”

“You like it this way, don’t you?” he asks her, adding another finger. She nods and rocks against him.

His breaths are coming quickly now, and Ruby wants more. She tightens her muscles around his fingers once and twice, and moans again, low in her throat.

His fingers slip out. He leads her to the bed, and they both climb it.

“Kneel down on all fours,” he tells her, and she follows obediently. He kneels behind her and slides his fingers in again, curling them inside her in a way that makes her gasp.

“Stop… teasing me,” she asks, finally; he places his right hand on her hip and enters her in one stroke.

There is pain, but less than she would have expected, and she makes a little sound deep in her throat when he starts moving, at first slowly, and then faster and harder, waves of pleasure flowing through her entire body as she moves with him.

He comes first, holding onto her hip hard enough to leave a mark; she moments later, saying his name.

*~*~*

He informs Ruby that they need to change locations; Uriel might have been discovered in his deception, but there are no grounds to believe him the sole perpetrator of the treachery rotting the heavenly fold. They move to another hotel in another city, and he tells her to lie low until he returns from his mission; no one knows about her return from Hell, and he would prefer it to stay as such.

She promises to behave; he reminds her of her debt to him before giving her a mutually satisfactory smiting, just to make sure she remembers it well.

*~*~*

She watches cable reruns and waits impatiently for Castiel’s return, bored out of her mind, anxious and horny again, unsurprisingly.

He arrives straight in the room where she is sitting on the couch; lights flicker and dim, and the TV makes a dying sound before the screen cracks in a fountain of sparks.

“Look what you did,” she says, accusingly. “Now I won’t have anything to do while you keep me here.”

He raises his eyebrows, disbelief apparent on his face. He looks different somehow. Brighter, stronger, more self-confident.

“I need to apologize to you, Ruby,” he begins, with a cold, ominous calmness. She feels a shiver run down her spine and blood pool low in her stomach; his anger never fails to arouse her. “I have been remiss in keeping your mind applied to what matters. I have let you forget the importance of your seeking salvation.”

She can almost feel her knees humming in response, her legs spreading ever so slightly.

“I brought you out of the Pit. I bear responsibility for your soul.”

She takes in a shallow breath. He smiles.

“Close your eyes, Ruby, if you know what’s good for you.”

*~*~*

He tells her to stay still as he undresses her, his wings outstretched, filling the room with more light than usual. His return from Heaven left him with more power and less uncertainty.

His patience is short. She tangles her fingers in his wings, stroking him, making his erection even more uncomfortable.

“Stop that,” he orders, prompting her to run her fingers contrary to the direction his feathers follow, making him suck air in as a spark of desire shoots straight into his cock.

“As you wish,” he mutters, before using his tie to bind the demon’s hands. She is wearing a blindfold, just to make sure she doesn’t glance at him even accidentally. “I don’t believe you’ve ever properly thanked me for saving you,” he adds, circling her slowly.

“I’m very grateful,” she replies. “Awfully. What with my Hell-situation not being in any way related to helping you, or whatever.”

“Do you want me to smite you?”

“Do you want to smite me? It’s not like I can stop you.”

He runs his wing up and down her naked back, drawing a gasp from her.

“I think you do want my wrath, Ruby. I think you’re asking for it.”

She smiles.

“Give it to me, angel.”

He runs his wing across the mark he left on her back when he was bringing her out of Hell. She moans.

He raises his arm and strikes her twice, once on each buttock, and then watches her skin as it turns pink.

“Oh God,” Ruby whispers, as he uses his wings to caress the sides of her breasts, ghosting across her nipples. She is helpless, and she enjoys it completely; she takes it all in, pain and pleasure, with equal abandon and desire.

He wants her; he wants her soul, her body and her need. He wants to make her come, knowing that she welcomes with passion everything he does to her.

He tells her to lie down on the bed, her tied wrists raised above her head. She moans and rocks her hips as his wings run up and down her stomach, before he finally penetrates her, and they both gasp. He’s almost certain that her eyes flicker open under the blindfold for a split second, making her take in the shadow of the glory and the power of his true visage. If it hurts her, she doesn’t seem to mind.

She moves with him, her little hungry sounds filling his ears, her legs hugging his hips closer to her and touching his still outstretched wings.

She comes first, long and hard, and he after her, waves of pleasure going through him right to the tips of his feathers, experience of closeness and affirmation, knowledge that his work is a good work. That it was right to deliver her from Hell, and that he is right to believe in the possibility of her salvation.

He kisses her neck while his wings disappear, and he takes off her blindfold and unbinds her wrists. She falls asleep with a contented sigh, her hand on his, splayed on her stomach. He listens to her rhythmic breathing, as she sleeps without dreams.

*~*~*

He arms her with the angel-killing knife the next time he leaves the apartment. Out of habit, she considers all her options, ranging from taking off and finding a nice place to live the rest of the days the planet has left in relative peace and quiet (perhaps as a stripper; she could enjoy that gig) right up to setting up a trap to kill the psychopathic bastard for the sole reason of being indebted to him.

It’s with a sad surprise that she discovers how unreal that thought sounds to her. She looks forward to seeing him; she gets a little bit wet when he looks at her in this stern manner of his, with so much focus, his eyes dark with desire.

She doesn’t get up when the walls shake and an angelic presence enters the building; it’s, of course, a mistake.

It’s not him.

*~*~*

He arrives to debris and smoke, and the human heart in his chest beats loud and fast, adrenaline pumping in his veins. The corridors are dark as he walks to the rooms where he left her, and suddenly something collides with him and he misses the blade by mere centimeters; he has to stop himself from immediately switching into full winged glory.

“Ruby?” he asks, and she launches herself at him again, kissing him fiercely, jumping his hips and hugging him. He notices now that her shirt is torn, and there’s blood on her hands and arms, and Zachariah’s dead body lies on the floor.

“Thank God it’s you,” she says.

“Let’s get you out of here,” he replies.

*~*~*

He has a number of chosen locations to go to in situations like that, he told her once. They go to none of these; he no longer trusts that any of his contacts and previous places of residence are safe. They arrive at a quiet motel like one of those Winchesters might frequent, and go up to a suite with its own bathroom.

They take off her clothes and she stands in a surprisingly clean shower, letting warm water wash off the blood. Most of it, but not all, the angel’s.

“He told me Anna was never supposed to die like that; that she was to take care of some seals for them,” she tells him, leaning back, letting him wash her hair, water still running down the colour of rust.

“There’s more of them then anyone might have suspected,” he replies, massaging her head.

“They’re all out to free Lucifer. Bring about the end days.”

“I know.”

His hands go lower, exacting pressure on her arms and neck, releasing tension from her tendons and bones. She is still shivering.

“He – the angel – came to kill me. I had to protect myself,” she says.

“I left you the knife for a reason,” he tells her, reassuringly, and she turns around to face him then.

“He was your fellow angel-buddy,” she begins, “and I, a demon, killed him.”

“He was no ally of mine. You are.”

“Come into the shower with me.”

He takes off his shoes and his clothes and joins her; his fingers skim her scrapes and bruises, healing them as he touches her. She guides them to her breasts, where he lingers, circling her nipples with his fingers before taking one of them into his mouth and alternately licking it and sucking on it.

Her fingers tangle in his hair and she pushes his head lower. He licks a path down her stomach, his wet hand between her legs, one finger entering her vagina and another her anus, and she moans quite loudly.

“You’ve been good, Ruby,” he says, calmly. “Your deeds will not be without prize.”

“Please,” she replies, and he dives in, licking at her clit, circling it with his tongue, sucking on it while his fingers move in and out of her, driving her crazy with stimulation.

She comes so hard and long she almost can’t believe when it’s over, and spasms quiet down.

He kisses her mouth and her neck, and they step out of the shower, where they help each other dry up with towels.

“We’re safe here,” he answers her unasked question, and she falls asleep the moment her head hits the pillow, his fingers closing her eyes.

When she wakes up the next day, he has ordered breakfast for the both of them, and he announces to her that he has a plan.

“Tell me,” she says.