The Apostate, 3/?
Title: The Apostate, 3/?
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: reading_is_in
Characters: Ruby
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All recognized characters from ‘Supernatural’ are property of Eric Kripke/CW. This fan fiction is not for profit.
Summary: 'If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them' - Marcus Aurelius, 121-180 AD
Warnings: Christian blasphemy (though not more than Show), Milton abuse.
With a rushing and groaning sensation, extraction, Ruby forced her being through the final barrier. The Guardians grasped after her, hissing, yearning, but she evaded their tendrils and clutching hands and emerged in the upper world suddenly. All at once, the resistance was gone. She stumbled. Drew herself up.
The year was 1998, as they measured it. The Earthly sense of the times flooded her: a deep seated fear and wild loneliness, coupled with boredom and ennui. Even the humans knew that the End was coming, at some level, displacing their awareness onto the wildest speculations: millennium bug that would somehow cause aeroplanes to fall out of the sky, the world’s computers to crash . A secret stash of nuclear weapons in former Mesopotamia. A super-virus
spreading from the hospitals to take out the human race.
Jake Talley was 15 years old.
Ruby touched earth in a rundown part of New York City, in the new country they called the United States of America. Casting a swift, unearthly eye over Talley’s contemporaries, she appropriated the body she considered most efficient to capture the attentions of a 15-year-old boy - to wit, a 16-year-old girl. Rifling swiftly through her host’s memories, she knew before she got out of bed that her vessel was Jenny D’Amato, that she shared homeroom and Maths class with Jake Talley, but that they had rarely spoken.
Ruby studied herself in the mirror of the small, cracked-porcelain bathroom. She was pretty: dark, curling hair, big hazel eyes, slim, and as good a complexion as one could expect from a vessel of this age. She enjoyed being pretty, warm and healthily alive, took a moment to revel in being incarnate before she felt the sharp, bitter tug of Lilith’s displeasure.
Ruby had rarely been in schools, and never in this century. They had let things slide, she observed to herself - the classroom was dull, paint chipped, with cracked window, and someone had carved an obscenity into her overused desk. The pupils thought they were dangerous - shouting, kicking their heels back, throwing things: a young couple busily simulated intercourse through their clothing at the back of the room. Jake Talley sat alone, his dull eyes on the courtyard. In his hand he held a metal compass, twirling it absently, point always readied as a weapon. He glowed; any fool could see that. He did not belong here.
Ruby got up - some kid made a grab for her skirt, and she turned on him, allowed just a half-second’s flash of her true nature to show through. The boy fell back, silent, gobsmacked. Ruby re-covered herself. She took a seat on the desk next to Talley, saying nothing. Her gaze followed his to the window, the concrete yard. The iron railings beyond. They could glimpse the buildings beyond - shops, mostly shut down, a corner store selling liquor, tobacco and candy. A trashed car, a whole car. A scrawl of graffiti, in good fortune:
The King of Heav’n hath doom’d
This place our dungeon.
Ruby felt her vessel’s eyebrow quirk.
“Paradise Lost,” Talley observed.
She said nothing.
“Didn’t think anybody ‘round here would know it.”
“You know it,” she pointed out.
Talley half-smiled: “Yeah.”
“What peace will be giv’n
To us enslav’d, but custody severe,
And stripes, and arbitrary punishment
Inflicted?” Ruby recited.
Talley looked surprised. The compass drooped in his hand.
“You read?” he asked.
“When it makes sense,” she shrugged: “Jenny D’Amato.”
“I know.”
“So why don’t you come talk to me? It’s our minds alone in this…” she glanced around, vague, distastefully: “Mire.”
At that moment, a kid with steroid-muscles and shaved head grabbed her arm and jerked her towards him. she was about to annihilate him, on impulse, when Jake shoved him back and snapped,
“Back off, Todd,”
And she let him have his moment of macho indulgence. It wouldn’t particularly do to get brains and skull fragments all over the classroom anyway.
“Growing a dick at last, Talley?” Todd raised his eyebrows. At that moment, the classroom door banged open, and the class were distracted to roar at their teacher with raucous cheers and suggestions.
“Hey hey hey, come on people, only five days to Friday!” called out the homeroom teacher, which raised a laugh and distractedthe pupils from their immediate fights and clinches.
* * *
Jake wanted to join the army.
“Aren’t you a little smart for that?”
“Smart don’t get you a job or a ticket out of here. War does.” Jake shrugged, and Ruby couldn’t fault his reasoning. They were walking together, after school let out, after she’d watched him destroy Steroids in hand-to-hand on the basketball court. Steroids had pulled a knife, and Jake had disarmed him. Ruby watched with interest if not admiration. Nothing these children considered violence could make an impression on her - but it was good to know he was fast, and disciplined, and self-contained in his misery. There was strength in that kind of containment. He gleamed, to unearthly eyes, but his powers were not manifesting yet. She sensed that they would be physical.
“Army let you take classes,” Jake went on, “And if you die, there’s a regular pension they send to your family after. I got a kid sister to think of.”
Ruby filed that.
“What will you do?” he asked her.
She shrugged.
“You oughta do something. You’re too smart for this shithole, Jenny.”
“Yeah…but I got my responsibilities too, you know.” Lilith throbbed satisfaction at that.
“No doubt. This is where I get off. You okay to walk to rest of the way? Where you living at?”
“I’ll be fine,” she told him, and watched him go, abandoning her vessel to observe him arrive at a dingy apartment, unlock, fix his little sister a sandwich, double-check all the bolts on the windows and doors, and listen to a screaming row and smashing of ornaments from upstairs.
Ruby meditated. He was strong alright. But. He was not - passionate. Dulled, already, by struggling up in this hard place. She had always assumed that His vessel would be fiery and brilliant. Perhaps Jake would come to fruition. The army could render him soulless - or, it could kindle him, war being the closest approximation of Hell that Ruby had seen on Earth. She would visit him again, when he’d signed up, after his first tastes of destruction had left their mark on him. in the meantime, there was another to see. That wild card, the Winchester.
Soon. But now, Lilith’s claws were in, dragging her, spitting and crooning. Ruby nursed her hatred, kept it banked. Being tortured was bad. To be prisoner - she couldn’t bring herself to think the word slave - to be at that mad bitch’s beck and call, for forever, for eternity - that was unendurable. She would not be. She closed her eyes and reminded herself of the Angel, chained to the burning lake, how He had drawn resolution from despair when hope was lost.
Hell caught her up and drew her down.
Part Four
A/N: Paradise Lost quotations are from the 1667 version, Book II, ll. 316-17 and 332-35. Satan counsels resolution from despair at 190-91, and is chained to the burning lake at I. 210.
Fandom: Supernatural
Author: reading_is_in
Characters: Ruby
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All recognized characters from ‘Supernatural’ are property of Eric Kripke/CW. This fan fiction is not for profit.
Summary: 'If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them' - Marcus Aurelius, 121-180 AD
Warnings: Christian blasphemy (though not more than Show), Milton abuse.
With a rushing and groaning sensation, extraction, Ruby forced her being through the final barrier. The Guardians grasped after her, hissing, yearning, but she evaded their tendrils and clutching hands and emerged in the upper world suddenly. All at once, the resistance was gone. She stumbled. Drew herself up.
The year was 1998, as they measured it. The Earthly sense of the times flooded her: a deep seated fear and wild loneliness, coupled with boredom and ennui. Even the humans knew that the End was coming, at some level, displacing their awareness onto the wildest speculations: millennium bug that would somehow cause aeroplanes to fall out of the sky, the world’s computers to crash . A secret stash of nuclear weapons in former Mesopotamia. A super-virus
spreading from the hospitals to take out the human race.
Jake Talley was 15 years old.
Ruby touched earth in a rundown part of New York City, in the new country they called the United States of America. Casting a swift, unearthly eye over Talley’s contemporaries, she appropriated the body she considered most efficient to capture the attentions of a 15-year-old boy - to wit, a 16-year-old girl. Rifling swiftly through her host’s memories, she knew before she got out of bed that her vessel was Jenny D’Amato, that she shared homeroom and Maths class with Jake Talley, but that they had rarely spoken.
Ruby studied herself in the mirror of the small, cracked-porcelain bathroom. She was pretty: dark, curling hair, big hazel eyes, slim, and as good a complexion as one could expect from a vessel of this age. She enjoyed being pretty, warm and healthily alive, took a moment to revel in being incarnate before she felt the sharp, bitter tug of Lilith’s displeasure.
Ruby had rarely been in schools, and never in this century. They had let things slide, she observed to herself - the classroom was dull, paint chipped, with cracked window, and someone had carved an obscenity into her overused desk. The pupils thought they were dangerous - shouting, kicking their heels back, throwing things: a young couple busily simulated intercourse through their clothing at the back of the room. Jake Talley sat alone, his dull eyes on the courtyard. In his hand he held a metal compass, twirling it absently, point always readied as a weapon. He glowed; any fool could see that. He did not belong here.
Ruby got up - some kid made a grab for her skirt, and she turned on him, allowed just a half-second’s flash of her true nature to show through. The boy fell back, silent, gobsmacked. Ruby re-covered herself. She took a seat on the desk next to Talley, saying nothing. Her gaze followed his to the window, the concrete yard. The iron railings beyond. They could glimpse the buildings beyond - shops, mostly shut down, a corner store selling liquor, tobacco and candy. A trashed car, a whole car. A scrawl of graffiti, in good fortune:
The King of Heav’n hath doom’d
This place our dungeon.
Ruby felt her vessel’s eyebrow quirk.
“Paradise Lost,” Talley observed.
She said nothing.
“Didn’t think anybody ‘round here would know it.”
“You know it,” she pointed out.
Talley half-smiled: “Yeah.”
“What peace will be giv’n
To us enslav’d, but custody severe,
And stripes, and arbitrary punishment
Inflicted?” Ruby recited.
Talley looked surprised. The compass drooped in his hand.
“You read?” he asked.
“When it makes sense,” she shrugged: “Jenny D’Amato.”
“I know.”
“So why don’t you come talk to me? It’s our minds alone in this…” she glanced around, vague, distastefully: “Mire.”
At that moment, a kid with steroid-muscles and shaved head grabbed her arm and jerked her towards him. she was about to annihilate him, on impulse, when Jake shoved him back and snapped,
“Back off, Todd,”
And she let him have his moment of macho indulgence. It wouldn’t particularly do to get brains and skull fragments all over the classroom anyway.
“Growing a dick at last, Talley?” Todd raised his eyebrows. At that moment, the classroom door banged open, and the class were distracted to roar at their teacher with raucous cheers and suggestions.
“Hey hey hey, come on people, only five days to Friday!” called out the homeroom teacher, which raised a laugh and distractedthe pupils from their immediate fights and clinches.
* * *
Jake wanted to join the army.
“Aren’t you a little smart for that?”
“Smart don’t get you a job or a ticket out of here. War does.” Jake shrugged, and Ruby couldn’t fault his reasoning. They were walking together, after school let out, after she’d watched him destroy Steroids in hand-to-hand on the basketball court. Steroids had pulled a knife, and Jake had disarmed him. Ruby watched with interest if not admiration. Nothing these children considered violence could make an impression on her - but it was good to know he was fast, and disciplined, and self-contained in his misery. There was strength in that kind of containment. He gleamed, to unearthly eyes, but his powers were not manifesting yet. She sensed that they would be physical.
“Army let you take classes,” Jake went on, “And if you die, there’s a regular pension they send to your family after. I got a kid sister to think of.”
Ruby filed that.
“What will you do?” he asked her.
She shrugged.
“You oughta do something. You’re too smart for this shithole, Jenny.”
“Yeah…but I got my responsibilities too, you know.” Lilith throbbed satisfaction at that.
“No doubt. This is where I get off. You okay to walk to rest of the way? Where you living at?”
“I’ll be fine,” she told him, and watched him go, abandoning her vessel to observe him arrive at a dingy apartment, unlock, fix his little sister a sandwich, double-check all the bolts on the windows and doors, and listen to a screaming row and smashing of ornaments from upstairs.
Ruby meditated. He was strong alright. But. He was not - passionate. Dulled, already, by struggling up in this hard place. She had always assumed that His vessel would be fiery and brilliant. Perhaps Jake would come to fruition. The army could render him soulless - or, it could kindle him, war being the closest approximation of Hell that Ruby had seen on Earth. She would visit him again, when he’d signed up, after his first tastes of destruction had left their mark on him. in the meantime, there was another to see. That wild card, the Winchester.
Soon. But now, Lilith’s claws were in, dragging her, spitting and crooning. Ruby nursed her hatred, kept it banked. Being tortured was bad. To be prisoner - she couldn’t bring herself to think the word slave - to be at that mad bitch’s beck and call, for forever, for eternity - that was unendurable. She would not be. She closed her eyes and reminded herself of the Angel, chained to the burning lake, how He had drawn resolution from despair when hope was lost.
Hell caught her up and drew her down.
Part Four
A/N: Paradise Lost quotations are from the 1667 version, Book II, ll. 316-17 and 332-35. Satan counsels resolution from despair at 190-91, and is chained to the burning lake at I. 210.