Highway to Hell {flashbacks} *WARNING: R18*

[ZZZ - Dean - RETIRED]

"Ruby?"

Dean blinked several times, half expecting Ruby to disappear, like she was some kind of hallucination or something and he had to wonder how desperate he was getting if it was Ruby he was imagining seeing right now.

"W-what? H-how?" He stammered in disbelief, as she limped closer. The only reason he recognised her was because of his last day on earth. As the end of his time got closer, he began seeing things through the veil between the real world and the supernatural world and Ruby's true face had been one of the first things he'd witnessed.

"That really you?"

The last he knew of Ruby, Lilith had claimed to have sent her far, far away. Had she meant sent her to Hell then? He didn't know if Ruby could come and go from here if she pleased, she was a demon after all, but from conversations he'd had with her in the past, Dean got the impression that she would not be in Hell unless she had no choice.

All kinds of possibilities started running through his mind then. Had Ruby been banished to Hell by Lilith and tortured just like Dean? She didn't exactly look the picture of health, but it wasn't like he could really tell when her true form wasn't a poster child for health in the first place.

In the very deepest parts of Dean's heart he almost allowed himself to hope that she had come to set him free, that Sam had found some way to spring him outta the pit. After all, it wasn't like Sam could come marching through the gates of Hell himself, psychic powers or not. However he could in theory send Ruby in his place. Okay so they didn't always see eye to eye but she had saved his life more than once, it stood to reason that she might want to save it one last time now.