[AU] dark gonna catch me here

[gavemea_45]

Not two seconds after the door closed, Dean started demanding answers. Sam explained pretty much everything, although he glossed over the part where Wynonna'd threatened to shoot him, and for the most part Dean took it pretty well.

Until he made the suggestion of bringing Wynonna - and Peacemaker - to a crossroads and forcing the demon there to give up Dean's contract.

By the time the fight's over, Sam's certain of two things. First, that Dean's not willing to listen to reason because he doesn't want to risk Sam. And second, that he's not going to let his brother go to hell.

He makes sure Dean thinks he's asleep first, and waits until he hears his brother start snoring... then waits another half hour to make sure. Once he's certain Dean's not faking, Sam sneaks out and borrows the Impala.

There's a crossroads three miles north, an isolated one with an abandoned gas station nearby that he can use to get to the bar.

It'll do.

Comments

[gavemea_45]

She laughs in their faces. "Guess again."

"What's so funny?" Sam demands. The demon shrugs. "Listen, Sam, I'm just a saleswoman. I got a boss like everybody. That's who holds the contract, not me. And honey, my boss really wants Dean's soul. Your brother's not going anywhere but hell."

He can feel the blood drain from his face at the confidence in her voice. "You're bluffing."

She has to be. Doesn't she?

[pacificator]

"Am I?" The demon steps a little closer to Wynonna, staring down Peacemaker's barrel, fearless and smug. "Shoot me, if it'll get you off. But the deal still holds, and when Dean's time is up, he's getting dragged into the pit."

"Then I guess we don't need you either way," Wynonna mutters, but she holds off on shifting her finger to the trigger. For now.

[gavemea_45]

It's hard for him to hear over the sudden ringing in his ears. He'd been so sure this would work, but what if she's not lying? "Who's your boss? Who holds the contract?"

She shrugs again, deliberately drawing attention to her figure. "No one as cuddly as me, I can tell you that."

"Who is it?" The question cracks through the air like a whip, edged with all the agony and desperation he's feeling. For a second as it hangs there between them, Sam could almost swear he sees a flicker of sympathy in the demon's eyes. She drops her insouciant attitude and shakes her head.

"I can't tell you. I'm sorry, Sam, I really am. But you're going to have to accept that there's no way out. Not this time."

Ice chills his blood, even as his voice hardens. "Then I guess we don't need you."

[pacificator]

The finality in his voice is all she needs. Wynonna shifts, bringing Peacemaker up even with the demon's forehead as she curls her finger lovingly against the trigger.

"I'd tell you to make your peace," she says, as the gun's muzzle begins to glow, orange and molten. The demon's eyes narrow, then widen, as strange sigils illuminate along the barrel like they've been seared into it. "But I don't think that's going to be an option for you."

The crack of Peacemaker's shot breaks through the air like thunder, and a tiny hole appears in the demon's head. She shudders, light flaring through her skin, then falls back. No portal to the pit opens up, flames licking at her feet to drag her to Hell – she just drops. A thin plume of smoke rises from her forehead.

The silence around them feels almost like a scream.

[gavemea_45]

The crackle and flash of Peacemaker's power burns under the demon's skin the same way he's seen with the Colt both he and Dean know, then winks out along with the demon's existence... and the life of the woman she'd been riding.

Sam stares down at the body in grim silence, shoving his guilt away. They'd had to be sure. He'd had to be sure. She was probably damaged enough not to live through it anyway, the same way Meg had been, and half of the people the Sins had possessed. Probably.

After a second or two longer, he glances at Wynonna. "I've got salt and gasoline in the car." Low and a little unsteady, but determined. "You can wait there while I take care of the body."

[pacificator]

She stares down at the shell that's left, thinking not of this demon, but of the rev that had possessed Shorty, trying like hell to get out of the Triangle.

There's no way of knowing if the woman she'd killed was bad, or good, or dying, or begging to be released. A dull knot tightens in the pit of her stomach, but she shakes her head. "I'll help."

[gavemea_45]

He searches her face to be sure she means it, then nods. Sam pulls out the keys to the Impala and passes them over. "Gas can strapped to one side," he says, succinctly. "Bag of salt on the other. Bring it to the far end of the building. I'll meet you there."

Not waiting for an answer, he crouches down to pick up the dead woman's body.

[pacificator]

She wonders what Dolls would think. She knows what Waverly would think. Wynonna slides Peacemaker back into her boot and heads back to the car.

The trunk opens with a creak, and she braces it with one hand while retrieving first the gas, then the bag of salt. Closing and locking it back up again, she hauls both to the spot where Sam's waiting.

She doesn't ask if the woman could have been saved. What good would it do either of them for him to answer?

[gavemea_45]

She's heavier than she looks - or she is now, at least. There's a reason they call it 'dead weight', after all.

Sam lays her down carefully on the concrete pad, arranging her arms and legs with as much dignity as possible and sweeping his hand down over her eyes to make sure they're all the way closed. He doesn't even know for sure what color they were when not red. Brown, he thinks, but he doesn't check.

He nods thanks to Wynonna when she reaches him and takes the salt first. It scatters over the body like a strange snowfall.

[pacificator]

She stands back as Sam coats the body with salt, then unscrews the cap from the gasoline and hands it to him, holding her hand out for the salt in return. Guilt coils thick and sour in her gut, but it's a familiar feeling. She can live with it.

[gavemea_45]

He trades salt for gasoline and carefully drenches the body and a bit of the surroundings with it, making sure to be thorough. There's not much else in the way of fuel around to add to the fire, but it shouldn't be a problem.

Sam sets the can down and reaches into his pocket for matches. The scent of sulfur wisps through the air as he strikes one alight with a scratchy hiss, and is gone in the next second as Sam drops the match onto the makeshift pyre.

[pacificator]

There's the fire. It licks up around the body, eating hungrily at dress and hair and skin. Make your peace, she tells the unknown woman, silently.

In the end, they'll all burn. No Heaven waits at the end of the line for the heir. Of that much, she's certain.

Finally, after the fire's caught enough to almost hide the thing it's burning, she opens her mouth. "What she said."

Wynonna glances at Sam. "About the deal. Think it's true?"

[gavemea_45]

"I don't know." But he's deathly afraid it is. "When we ran into her on a job before ... she didn't refuse to bargain like that, though."

Sam takes a shuddering breath and blows it out in a harsh rush. "There's got to be a way. I'm just gonna have to look harder to find it."

[pacificator]

"Everybody's got a price."

She pushes more certainty into it than she feels. "Even demonic... middle management, or whatever her boss is. Hey."

Wynonna looks over at him, her brows drawn together but her eyes clear. "We'll help. Me and Waves. However we can. Okay?"

[gavemea_45]

Sam nods, and finally looks away from the flames. "Thanks. I mean it," he says, softly. "And ... same goes. Whatever you need, or Waverly, any kind of help - just say the word. I mean that, too."

[pacificator]

She nods, meeting his glance.

When he first told her about this, she'd thought about it only in terms of what she'd do, if Waverly were in trouble. How far she'd go to save her sister.

She'd never thought – what if there were some benefit to her being out of the picture? The screw-up. The psycho. The one who never should have been the heir. The black sheep.

Any one of the revs could toss the same damn argument at Waverly's head as the demon had at Sam tonight. And they wouldn't be totally wrong. "Thanks."

[gavemea_45]

He nods again and looks back at the fire, checking on its progress.



"I need you to know," he says, abruptly. "What she said. Dean's not like that. Okay? He's not."

[pacificator]

She shrugs, slight. "Even if he were, you're not gonna let him burn."

There's a heavy weight of certainty behind the words. "Because I am like that. And Waverly wouldn't stop at anything to save me anyway."

[gavemea_45]

"He's my brother." Sam looks back over at her. "And I doubt that, by the way. Not about Waverly, about you."

[pacificator]

"You shouldn't."

Low, as she looks back down into the flames. "You don't know the worst things I've done."

[gavemea_45]

"I know that you're dealing with a hell of a mess back home, and you still dropped everything to come to another world to try to save someone you don't yet know, for the sake of someone you'd basically just met."

Each word is steady and absolutely certain. "That's the kind of person you are, Wynonna."

[pacificator]

"Yeah, well."

She smacks the back of her hand against his chest, uncomfortable with his sincerity. "It's not like I had big plans tonight, anyway."

[gavemea_45]

She really is a lot like Dean. It makes him even more inclined to think well of her.

"Uh-huh. Be that as it may, I'm buying when we get back to the bar."

[pacificator]

"Not gonna say no to that."

She looks back down at the fire. By now, the body inside is more a suggestion of a person than anything else. "Sorry, lady," she murmurs. "Nothing personal."

[gavemea_45]

"At least she's free of it now. There's that." It's pretty damn cold comfort, but it's all he's got to offer. Wynonna may have been the one to pull the trigger, but Sam's just as responsible. He'd have taken the shot himself if he could.

"I wonder who the demon thought you were. That was just weird."