[AU] two worlds, a lot of demons, and a new set of problems

[gavemea_45]

It's still hard to believe it's over; that the yellow-eyed demonic bastard they'd spent their whole lives hunting is finally dead.

Sam figures it'll sink in eventually. Given everything else -- right now he's still pretty numb.

He's also desperately tired, but that doesn't matter. There's something he needs to do, and he can't afford to delay.

He waits until they've settled in for the night, and then waits still longer. Once Dean's been asleep for half an hour, Sam picks up his messenger bag -- already stuffed with books and his computer -- and heads straight for the bar.

He orders black coffee and snags a table with a good view of both doors and the stairs, then pulls out the first of the old texts and starts to search through it.

There's work to do.

Comments

[totalitarstupetballs]

She makes a face at the endearment, then goes through the door once Sam opens it. Waverly waits until both brothers are through and the door is closed, then reaches for the handle once more.

It opens onto another bar, this one closed for the daytime, stools stacked upside down on the counter, pool table empty. The large room is warm with dark wood and old glass; a cattle skull hangs about the register. On the wall is a carved wooden sign proclaiming: "Drink where Wyatt Earp did!"

Waverly holds the door open for the brothers, gesturing them inside. "Gentlemen, welcome to Purgatory."

[gavemea_45]

“Hell of a place,” Dean drawls. He studies the bar with interest before glancing at Sam. “So to speak.”

Sam scowls at him. “Seriously?”

[totalitarstupetballs]

Waverly gives him a flat glance, then leads the way into Shorty's. "So this..."

She heads over to the old piano and plays a few notes before turning back to Sam. "Is where I found our friend, here."

[gavemea_45]

"Right." Sam glances at Dean. "Waverly found Yorick here with a note from - you said your uncle, right? - her uncle calling her 'the keeper of the bones.'"

"What the fuck," is Dean's opinion. "Yeah, I know," Sam says. "Figure that means there's more around here somewhere, and it'd be a good idea to figure out why before anything goes wrong."

For a moment, mischief flickers in Dean's eyes as he turns to Waverly. "Sounds like your family's as interesting as ours."

[totalitarstupetballs]

"That's one word for it," Waverly agrees, though a loyal streak in her wants to argue the way he says it, like interesting is just another word for screwed.

Which might be what Wynonna thinks, but she knows they're so much more.

She heads to the table where she'd worked out the poem earlier and picks up the note that had been left in the skull, then returns to hand it to Sam. Waverly, darling, it begins:

You are now the Keeper of the Bones.
Guard this and tell no one but the Blacksmith.
You're the only one I can trust.
Love, Uncle Curtis.

[gavemea_45]

"Huh." Sam studies it carefully, then hands it over to Dean so he can read it too.

"Any idea when he would have written this?"

[totalitarstupetballs]

She shakes her head. "He was getting worried, a few weeks before he was killed," she tells them. "It was getting closer to Wynonna's birthday. He knew it was all going to start happening again. So, maybe then?"

[gavemea_45]

"And there's no one else you're supposed to trust around here?" Dean wants to know. It's a good question, Sam thinks. "Why not?"

[totalitarstupetballs]

She gazes at the note, the familiar writing. "Uncle Curtis was the only one who believed in the curse," she murmurs, almost more to herself than to them.

"He was the one who encouraged me to research, he paid for all of my online classes to learn dead languages. He knew as much about the curse as anyone, but even he didn't know who might be a revenant and who wasn't."

[gavemea_45]

"You guys have that many revenants runnin' around?" Disbelief rings through Dean's words. Sam can't say he blames him.

"Look, we didn't have much of a chance to explain," he starts, a little defensive. "Waverly, I'll scan the piano and the skull, just in case. Set it on the top of the piano, there. Maybe you can bring Dean up to speed?"

[totalitarstupetballs]

"Daddy didn't kill many when he was the heir," Waverly says, a little defensive and a lot wry. "Most of the seventy-seven were still here, even before Wynonna came of age."

She sets the skull on top of the piano as requested and turns back to Dean. "Do you know anything about the Earp curse?"

[gavemea_45]

Sam digs in the kit and comes up with an EMF meter, which he activates and starts tuning while Dean stares at Waverly.

"You have seventy-seven revenants here?"

[totalitarstupetballs]

"It's the curse," she explains. "The seventy-seven revenants were outlaws killed by Wyatt Earp. The curse brings them back as revenants. If an heir doesn't manage to kill all seventy-seven again with Peacemaker before they die, then when the next heir comes of age all the previous revenants that were killed resurrect again. And again, until the curse is broken."

[gavemea_45]

"Jesus," Dean breathes. "Sam, how long ago--?"

"Four or five generations, I think. A long time to go through the cursed version of Groundhog Day." Sam gives the meter a final check and carries it over to the piano, where he starts with scanning the skull.

[totalitarstupetballs]

"Wynonna's the fifth heir," Waverly tells them, before her mouth presses. "Sixth, I guess. If you count Willa."

[gavemea_45]

Dean glances at Sam, who says, succinctly, "Older sister. There was an attack. She--"

That's as far as he gets before the EMF meter starts to wail, and Sam jerks back from the skull like it's burned him.

[totalitarstupetballs]

Waverly's head turns, and she comes over to peer at the skull, the EMF shrieking nearby.

"I knew there was something fishy about that skull!"

[gavemea_45]

"I'll say," Dean drawls. He comes to join Sam, who hastily switches the meter to silent and gives the skull a closer look. "I didn't find any marks on it," he says. "But there's something, no question."

"Better check the piano," his brother advises. "In case we need to burn it too."

[totalitarstupetballs]

Waverly turns a disbelieving stare on him. "You're not burning this skull. Or the piano!"

[gavemea_45]

"What Dean means to say," Sam hastily interjects, "is that if these bones turn out to be something bad, salting and burning them's a pretty sure way to deal with the problem."

[totalitarstupetballs]

She gives Dean a wary glance and reaches out for the skull, opting to keep it in her hand and away from him. "Well, you can check the piano," she tells him. "But I'm pretty sure it's just a piano."

[gavemea_45]

"Why don't I make a quick circuit of the room," Sam suggests. "Waverly, where else do you think your uncle might have hidden other bones?"

[totalitarstupetballs]

She looks around the saloon and shrugs. "Maybe in the basement?" she hazards.

"If not here... they could be at the homestead. Although that wasn't the safest place to be for a long time."

[gavemea_45]

"Is it now?" Dean wants to know. "Sounds to me like there isn't a lot you'd call 'safe' around here, with that many revenants running around."

Sam busies himself with scanning the piano - no reaction - and begins quartering the room.

[totalitarstupetballs]

"It is now. From revenants, anyway."

She thinks of digging up the talisman; of being convinced to bury it in the first place. "The homestead's built on ammolite. The revenants can't come onto it."