Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Kripke. If he doesn’t kill Ruby, however, there will be a throwdown.

A/N: Spoilers for Season 4 Episode 1, “Lazarus Rising”. Follows ‘While The Cat’s Away’. This chapter rated M for mature themes.

Summary: She’s the Miss Universe of lying skanks. Sam will never know how proud she is of it.

THE MICE WILL PLAY

It’s a week after Lillith casts her from her host before she can find her way back to Sam again. It doesn’t matter how far or long she’s been sent – the creature who calls herself Ruby has more tricks up her metaphorical sleeves than she's ever let on.

Lillith always was a little full of herself.

It’s two more weeks before she starts looking for a permanent host. Long enough to shimmy through a gaggle of passersby in Sam’s life; long enough to see the mounting desperation as he has no one to turn to, no recourse to take to save his brother. As he realizes that he’s completely alone, for good.

Long enough that he’ll be so glad to see her, a demon, that he’ll listen to whatever she has to say, no matter what initial resistance he manages to muster up.

She loves the slick smell of desperation; she doesn’t even need a host to taste it.

When she finally slips between skin and soul to set up house, she makes the choice carefully. Her first host was blonde, and with a little spitfire, independence, and contrary obstinacy she could evoke his first memories of Jess without stirring anything deeper. This time, though, she wants something different. She’s already got the grudging trust that will get her in the door. Now, she needs to sweeten it, soften it, make him forget his damned brother’s warnings.

So she chooses a soft little brunette, all kindness and caring and innocent allure. The girl screams a little when she realizes she can’t control her limbs, and Ruby lashes back immediately. There’s no time for her to fight this body’s original owner. She leaves just enough of the girl that she won’t have to worry about full-time animation of the body. And working with a corpse might introduce some problems in the later stages of her plan.

It’s a month before she knocks on Sam’s door.

He needs more sleep, she notices immediately, and smugness rises up within her; she chose the perfect host to get that accomplished. But it’ll need some time before she’ll be able to lead him that far down her path.

Recounting her previous encounters with the brothers Winchester, together and separately, gets her through that door and a lessening of the tightness around his eyes. Not a smile, not yet, but trust. Gratitude.

Even better.

It’s another week before she convinces Sam to open the lockbox in his skull, but once he does all it takes is a few soft words of encouragement, a little soothing of the conscience he’s almost eradicated even without her help; he barely needs instruction. A few hunts together, a few close calls that were closer on her part than they needed to be, and she’s pleasantly surprised when desperation and adrenaline have Sam tumbling her host body into bed faster than she’d anticipated.

She lets what’s left of the girl out for that, just enough to get a glimpse of the man her host doesn’t know learning the body in every intimate way the girl had ever fantasized, but never had the courage to do. Ruby listens to the screaming and sobbing, and curves the girl’s lips in a smile at Sam.

He never asks about the person the body he’s screwing belonged to.

Lillith might have power, but she’s an old breed. A dying breed, as the Winchesters and others like them do their work. Azaz’el did have that right; what better place to be, after all, than the right hand of the King, ushering in a new era? If she makes herself indispensable to him, any way possible, then all the better for her.

It’s four months, four glorious months, before it all goes to hell.

But now, she’s the one with the upper hand, the immediacy, trust, and love Sam had for his brother, all transferred to her.

And she’s damned if she’s going to let Dean Winchester spoil her plans.

Fin