[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

[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."

[gavemea_45]

Dean opens his mouth, glances at Sam, and closes it again.

“At least she’s back now,” Sam says. “Neither of you is alone.”

[totalitarstupetballs]

Her smile presses, small but real. "Yeah."

She pulls back up in front of Shorty's, then turns the truck off before reaching for the skull with a sigh. "Okay. Let's go find some salt."

[gavemea_45]

“A lot of it.” Sam slides from the truck with Dean hard on his heels and follows Waverly inside. “Do you have a wooden box? Or a metal one?”

[totalitarstupetballs]

"It's winter," Waverly points out. "There are bags and bags of de-icing salt in the basement."

She lets them in and closes the door behind them, then turns to Sam. "For what?"

[gavemea_45]

“To put the skull in.” Sam nods at it. “It’ll hold salt better.”

[totalitarstupetballs]

"Um – " Waverly looks around, as if something in the empty saloon might suddenly reveal itself as a skull-sized box. "No. But the cardboard one should be fine for now."

[gavemea_45]

“I’ll go down and get a bag,” Dean tells them. “Sam, you grab table salt and douse that thing.”

[totalitarstupetballs]

Waverly directs him to the basement door, then goes around behind the bar to dig out the box of iodized table salt. "Here, Sam."

[gavemea_45]

“Thanks.” He checks the corners of the box, then starts pouring salt over and around the skull.

“Salt across all points of entry,” he explains, “and over this to stop anything it might be emanating.”