[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]

"Plenty," Waverly promises. "Table salt and road salt, both."

She glances in the rearview, worried, as they leave the Blacksmith's shop behind. "Guys, do you think she'll be okay?"

[gavemea_45]

Sam trades a look with Dean, who looks grimly back at him. "Depends on how fast she gets the salt set up," is Dean's opinion. "Seems clear we wouldn't be doin' her any favors by sticking around, though."

[totalitarstupetballs]

"I guess."

She sounds unconvinced, but grips the wheel a little more firmly and accelerates the old truck towards town. "But we can make Shorty's pretty safe. And I can hole up at the homestead later."

[gavemea_45]

Sam eyes the skull in its box, then glances back at Waverly. "Sure you don't want to burn that thing?"

[totalitarstupetballs]

"Somehow I think it's even more important I keep it safe, now," she says, almost apologetically.

He's just trying to protect her. "At least until I know more."

[gavemea_45]

"Okay," Sam says, a little dubiously. Her world, her rules. He catches Dean's slight shrug and is pretty sure he knows what his brother's thinking.

"We'll help you get the bar set up with salt lines, though. At the very least."

[totalitarstupetballs]

Waverly smiles at him, trying to put as much comfort into it as she can. "Thanks."

There's still a smudge of ash on the back of her hand. She rubs it on her jeans, trying to clean it off. "Sounds like all this is old hat to you two."

[gavemea_45]

"Pretty much," Dean tells her. "All part of the family business, right Sammy?"

"Right," Sam murmurs. "It can take some getting used to, I know."

[totalitarstupetballs]

"No, it's...

She pauses, trying to figure out how to put what she's feeling into words. "It's nice. I told you about the curse and neither of you called me crazy. They locked Wynonna away for talking about it."

[gavemea_45]

"Civilians'll do that," Dean says. "We're hunters. It's different."

Sam glances at him and then back at Waverly. "Yeah. I mean, it sounds like there's not a lot of people around here who are willing to accept the truth. Most people don't want to, if they don't have to, and will come up with all kinds of reasons and excuses to explain stuff that doesn't make sense to them," he says, gently. "For us ... I guess it'd be a little like if you'd gotten involved with Black Badge from the beginning. Only, you know, unofficial."

He glances back at Dean. "Supernatural FBI. Like the X-Files, only hunter-style. So it seems."

Dean stares at him, gobsmacked. "No shit?"

[totalitarstupetballs]

"Wynonna couldn't believe it that Dolls used the d-word out loud," Waverly says. "You know. Demons."

All those years they'd taken Wynonna away, called her crazy. "Even Aunt Gus wouldn't say it, and revenants killed Uncle Curtis."

[gavemea_45]

He nods to Dean and looks back at Waverly. "That's some pretty impressive denial."

[totalitarstupetballs]

"How else do you think people have lived here over the last hundred and fifty years?"

She turns them off the prairie road and towards the dark hump of Purgatory, just visible now over the snowy fields. "Even Wynonna half started believing she really was crazy and there was no such thing as the curse."

She can still hear her sister's desperate, angry voice. You're supposed to be normal, Waverly.

[gavemea_45]

"I mean, she's got a point." Dean scowls. "I wouldn't want to live in a town full of revenants either, if I believed they were there."

Sam can't really argue. "What changed her mind?"

[totalitarstupetballs]

"They took me."

She knows it's not quite that simple. Curtis had sent her that note. Dolls had said demons. But in the end, she thinks it boiled down to that standoff at the homestead. "When she saved me at the homestead, she put one of them down with Peacemaker. The first one."

Waverly glances over at Sam. "Watching him get dragged down into hell had a way of convincing her it was real."

[gavemea_45]

"I guess it would," he murmurs. "Sorry you had to go through that."

[totalitarstupetballs]

That's why they call it a curse, Wynonna mutters in her memory. "She didn't deserve anything this town put her through," she says, a little surprised to hear the anger in her own voice.

"What happened to Daddy was an accident. And she was right about the demons."

[gavemea_45]

"Nobody believed our Dad either," Dean tells her. "Not any of the civilians, that is. It wasn't until he found other hunters that things changed."

Sam nearly wrenches something trying not to snap his head sideways and look at his brother in surprise.

[totalitarstupetballs]

"I'm sorry," Waverly tells them, sympathetic. "Did he get put in an institution, too?"

[gavemea_45]

“An — no. Jesus.” Dean looks sick at the thought. “That happened to your sister?”

[totalitarstupetballs]

Waverly's glance flicks to him in the rearview, and she nods. "Mmhm."

She'd been so young then, but not young enough not to know she'd lost her whole family in a single night. "A few years at St. Victoria's, here in the Triangle. From there to juvie, from juvie to a string of foster homes..."

Waverly takes a breath and turns them in towards the center of town. "And then she skipped town as soon as she could."

[gavemea_45]

“Pretty rough,” Sam murmurs. “And your aunt knew all this was true? And your uncle, too?”

[totalitarstupetballs]

"Uncle Curtis believed in the curse," Waverly says, soft. "I don't know if Aunt Gus did and just didn't want to, or if she really thought wolves got Willa."

[gavemea_45]

“Why’d he let her get locked up, then?” Dean asks.

[totalitarstupetballs]

She shakes her head, very slightly. "I don't think he had a choice, after what happened to Daddy."