Title: All Sales Final
Summary: Written for spn_las. It's never a fair exchange, no matter what Sam thinks.
Characters: Sam, demon OMC
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 938
Disclaimer: If they belonged to me, the boys would hug more. Also, Sam would totally have hugged Cas in that last episode, because it would not have been awkward at all. Or it might have been awkward and I still would have made them hug.
Warnings: mild swearing, show-levels of violence.
Neurotic Author's Note #1: So this is it! The last round of spn_las, which was won by the fabulous and talented glasslogic. Seriously, her story is funny and awesome, go read it if you haven't already. I am very pleased to be runner-up in this. This was a big challenge that forced me to think outside the box a lot, given the nature of the prompts, pushed me outside my comfort zone a couple of times, and now it's over and I never ever have to do it again. Yay!
Neurotic Author's Note #2: As usual, I struggled with the prompt, and I think it showed this time. So the story is unbeta'd, as per comm rules, and more than a little rough around the edges.
Sam doesn't get drunk the third time he decides to go to the crossroads. Maybe this time, if he does it all in cold blood, it will work. The cat he snatches out of an alley is a sad thing, all skin and bones and patches of mange, but it's a black cat. It reminds him a little of the stray he adopted that summer they stayed in Laramie while Dad was looking into a string of disappearances in the area. That cat had been just as skinny, with big yellow-green eyes, far friendlier than a stray had any right to be, and Sam had named it Sooty, with all the imagination his ten-year-old mind could muster. Sooty is probably long dead, he thinks as this nameless cat squirms and hisses in his grip, and he tries to make its death quick and painless. It doesn't help.
The crossroads demon is possessing a Cajun man, this time, and Sam thinks that the demon has gone out of his way to mess up this particular meatsuit, maybe taking a sort of perverse pleasure in forcing the desperate people who come to make deals to embrace him. The filth on the man looks recent, even if it is pervasive: there is no evidence of long-term neglect, only continuous and recent abuse. When the demon smiles, he reveals a row of broken teeth, two of which are already turning black at the edges.
"Sam!" he exclaims, throwing his arms wide as though welcoming a long-lost friend. "Comment ça va? Let me guess, you are here to pass the time. Chew the fat, as they say. Maybe you got the envies for a different kind of demon than that traitorous putain you are whoring around with. Maybe she sent you, hein? She thinks she can make amends, maybe."
The night is cool, the deserted road glowing under a waxing gibbous moon. The air is filled with the dank smell of moss, a faint aura of decay and death. Sam doesn't know why he's come back here, to the same crossroads where Dean sold his own soul. It's not as though the crossroads themselves matter, only the circumstances surrounding the ritual, and there are plenty of other crossroads in America, if you know where to look. Sam looked, and the numbers made his stomach roil, bile burning at the back of his throat. He shifts his weight from one leg to the other, the ground soft beneath his feet. It feels as though it's trying to suck him down, swallow him whole; he takes it for a sign, hopefully a good one, then clenches his teeth at the demon's words.
"Ruby has nothing to do with this. I just want to make a deal. The same one I offered before."
"You can't possibly think that I will be giving you a different answer than my colleagues? So I think there is no other reason for you to come, except that you have developed a taste for something more than this normal life you always think you wanted."
"Come on. It's an even trade. Me for him. I'm the one you've always wanted, and I'm offering myself up. No tricks, nothing."
The demon leers at him. "Come now, mon cher. You flatter yourself. Or perhaps you don't give your brother enough credit. Who says we don't want him? We like him where he is in hell, hot hot."
Anger flares up in him, bright and hot. "Don't talk about him."
The demon smirks, folds his arms over the tattered lambskin jacket the meatsuit is wearing. "What, suddenly you are trying to protect the honour of grand frère? He never needed you before, he doesn't need you now." He snorts, jerks his head dismissively. "Go back to your traitor bitch, and let the rest of us get back to what it is we do."
"I'm not leaving until you deal." Sam keeps his tone level, and he doesn't think he imagines the sudden flicker of uncertainty in the demon's black eyes.
The demon shakes his head. "No."
"Why not?"
The leer is back, broken teeth glinting in the moonlight. "Maybe I just don't like you. Don't take it personal, cher. As they say: it's not you, it's me."
Sam ignores the sudden stabbing feeling in his chest, the way his breath suddenly hitches. Ruby is waiting, back at the motel, and she'll have only four words for him when he goes crawling back: I told you so.
"Nothing I can do to change your mind?" he asks mildly. He can feel the blood coursing hot through his veins, fingertips tingling with anticipation.
"No." The demon lifts his chin defiantly.
"All right, then," he says softly.
Sam brings his hand up, feeling his blood run hotter and hotter as he concentrates, power flowing through him, pain sparking behind his forehead. The demon lets out a gurgling moan, drops to his knees as tendrils of smoke begin to pour from his mouth and nostrils. Sam clenches his fingers into a fist and pulls, harder and harder until the demon is choking and retching. The smoke sinks into the ground, and the demon's meatsuit collapses into the smouldering ring left behind, dead long before it ever hit the ground.
Breathing hard, Sam leans over, resting his hands on his knees. "It's okay," he tells the rotting corpse. "I don't like any of you either."
He straightens, dusts himself off. Walks back to where Ruby is waiting without looking back once.