Disclaimer: I don't own the boys—or a buffalo nickel—and the concept of this story will be credited in the end.
-
Ico: (Latin) (1) to wound; (2) to strike a bargain
-
So Sammy said, "I'm going to save you, man." And no matter how much Sam insisted he wasn't like their father, Dean could practically see the stubborn bastard staring back at him.
-
Technically, Dean wasn't allowed to know. Because that would mean he knew Sam was trying to get him out of the deal without doing anything to stop it and that was like compliancy (or whatever law-book jargon Sam babbled on about), and that, Sam warned, the crossroad demon might take it as a form of weaseling.
So Dean turned a blind eye whenever Sam pulled out the non-job related material and loudly protested everything that had anything to do with getting him out of the deal. Y'know, just to be safe.
-
They hunted same as always, except maybe Dean was a little more mindful of what Sam was doing and what could possibly hurt his brother. Which, seeing how things were before—before dying and selling and lying and killing—meant something.
And while Sam didn't exactly complain, the line "I didn't sell my soul so you could…" got old really quickly. Not that it was ever really funny.
-
Not that they ever talked about it, but Sam kept a calendar, muttered things under his breath as he crossed off another day whenever he thought Dean wasn't looking. Sometimes Latin, sometimes law, sometimes just a stream of profanity, while he worked his fingers over a buffalo nickel that seen better days.
But they didn't talk about the new nervous habit anymore than they did about anything else.
-
It was kinda anti-climatic, as far as last days on earth went.
Most of the day was spent driving from point A to point B and Sam rambled on about the Jersey Devil and Nietzsche for most of it while Dean tuned him out and hummed along to Ozzie.
He hadn't been nervous. It had been a long year—a good year really, spending time with his brother and sending evil things back to hell, enjoying the hunt again—and there wasn't anything to regret. Maybe a few too many chick-flick moments behind him, but Sam was alive and everything else was playing Rhoda to that.
So he drove and figured that if his brother got him out of the deal; great, and if not, well, it wasn't like he was going anywhere he wasn't bound to go to anyway.
-
The sun set and they were sitting on their respective beds—because Sam had insisted on two despite Dean's half-teasing remark it might be a waste of money—waiting.
They weren't talking, because neither wanted make with the 'just in case' speeches, so their waiting was accompanied only by Sam's fiddling hands and Dean's intense listening.
They were half surprised when the clock struck the appropriate time and they found themselves in the company of a young woman dressed in khakis and a polo. Dean was pretty sure he'd seen her in the parking lot when they checked in.
"What, no hellhounds? Or am I just special enough to get a personal escort?"
The woman's eyes flashed red as she smiled, and Dean fought the urge to roll his because that routine got old too. Besides, it lost some of its zing when Soccer-Mom Barbie was doing it.
Sam's hands stopped worrying and he stood, shoulders back, chest out, pulled himself straighter than Dean could ever remember him standing until he was towering over the petite brunette in their quarters.
The demon's eyes faded back to a normal shade of brown and her smile turned sticky-sweet as she turned to Sam. "I'm glad to see death didn't affect your posture. It would be a shame for a frame like that to go to waste. Wouldn't you say, Deano?"
Dean stood too, shoulder-to-shoulder with Sam (well, shoulder-to-bicep, but point taken). "You know Sam, just once I'd like to meet a demon that didn't try to get into your pants."
"Whatever, I'm not the one who played tongue hockey with her."
"You know boys, it's touching, really. But you've had your year and now I want my soul so if you don't mind—"
"Actually," Sam said, and Dean held his breath for a second, wishing he knew what was up his brother's many sleeves. "It's not your soul."
"I don't think you understood the bargain Sammy. You live. Dean gets a year, then I get Dean. If he tries to get out of it, you go back to worm food." The sweet smile turned sharp and the eyes were red again.
"Oh, I understood the bargain," Sam said, and he was using the voice he usually reserved for cops and lawyers, the voice Dean believed would have gotten Sam through any courtroom. "But it still isn't your soul."
Then he held up a buffalo nickel and Dean was half sure he was screwed.
-
In reality, it wasn't really anything more than two green plates that happened to light up whenever they rolled down the string. But to Dean it was the most fascinating prize his eight year old eyes had ever seen come out a cereal box.
And it just wasn't fair that Sam had gotten it just because Dad decreed that whoever ate the last bowl got to keep the prize, because Sam was the kind of weirdo who woke up at five to watch infomercials while chowing down on wheat-kernels and marshmallow bits of heaven. And it wasn't like Dean hadn't let Sammy keep a million other prizes.
And it wasn't like Sam even knew how to do that yo-yo justice. He couldn't walk the dog or rock the cradle or go around the world. Not without breaking something or hurting himself. So really, Dean was doing his job of watching out for Sammy when he decided he was gonna get that yo-yo.
"Hey Sammy, I'll trade you for the yo-yo."
Sam threw his hand out and clumsily drew the toy back up. "Like what?"
"I'll give you the buffalo nickel I found the other day." Sam flicked the toy down again and it lit up.
"Naw, I saw that already."
"Aw, c'mon Sammy. It's a sweet deal." The yo-yo came up.
"No it isn't. Dad says that a half dollar is more than a buffalo nickel." The yo-yo went down and flickered bits of green light on the carpet.
"Nah, Dad was just saying that so you wouldn't cry. Everyone knows that buffalo nickels are better because buffalos are all, like, extinct and stuff. Besides you already spent your quarter on candy—"
"So what. My yo-yo is going to last forever." The plastic made a thudding noise when it smacked into the carpet.
Dean closed his fingers around the coin in his hand and thought for minute. What would Sam really want? He couldn't offer him his pocket knife because Dad would kill him, and he couldn't put his comic book on the plate because Sammy already "read" it every night. Sam wouldn't want his blessed rosary because Pastor Jim had already given…
"I can give you something that will last longer that your yo-yo, Sammy."
Sam stopped moving the yo-yo and looked up with interest. "Like what."
"I'll trade you my soul." Dean grinned when Sam's eyes went wide. His brother had hung on to every word Pastor Jim had said about the human soul and how it lived forever through God, blah, blah, blah.
"That goes on forever." His brother's voice was dripping with awe.
"Yep."
"So your soul for my yo-yo?" Dean nodded. "Can I have the nickel too?"
Dean heaved a put upon sigh. "Alright, but only because I like you. Sometimes."
Sam rolled up the string and held the yo-yo out to Dean. Dean took it in silent victory and flicked his wrist until the toy was walking along the floor, then he handed over the nickel without a glance.
"Wait," Sam said as Dean turned to walk out the room. "How will I know when I have your soul?"
"Uh, you've already got it." Dean replied, "It's with the nickel."
-
"That yo-yo was sweet." Dean nodded at the fond memories of the toy. The lights had stopped working after Dean tried to make up a new move involving the tub. Then the string got tangled to hell and it made a better projectile than anything else.
"So you see," Sam said, law-boy to the nth power, "Dean's soul wasn't his property to bargain with. Henceforth, you have no claim to it."
The demon's eyes were shining crimson, her mouth fixed in a solid line. She rounded on Dean. "You," she started, pointing a finger that was more matron than demonic, "backed out of your end. I don't have to hold up mine—"
"He didn't back out of anything. He didn't break the conditions you set forth when the deal was struck. He can't be held liable just because you didn't bother to make sure you were making a valid bargain in the beginning. It was your screw up, not his. I mean, he wasn't in a right state of mind to begin with. You took advantage of his emotional, mental and physical distress."
"Yeah," the demon clicked her tongue, "that part comes with the territory—"
"Along with adhering to the conditions agreed upon by you and the deal maker. I'm alive, that was your half. Dean agreed to put his soul on the plate, which was his. If he tried to get out of it, I died again. But he didn't try anything, so his end of the bargain wasn't violated. Now, as owner of Dean's soul via this buffalo nickel, I'm telling you I was not aware of this contract, I played no part its drafting and henceforth, I am not bound in anyway to relinquish ownership of anything."
And suddenly it was like breathing again after your head's been held under water too long. There was a weight lifted from Dean's chest, a weight he'd never acknowledged until it was gone and he could breathe, like really frickin' breathe without worrying it might be his last breath that wasn't laced with brimstone.
The demon must have sense it too—well maybe not the brimstone part because that was probably as regular for her as gasoline fumes were for him—because her mouth twisted into snarl.
"I could skin you both. I could—"
"You won't." Sam said, reaching out one of his freakishly long arms and flicking off the lights.
"So that's what you were doing while I was in the shower." There on the ceiling, aglow in what Dean assumed were the glow-in-the-dark finger paints Sam had bought a week ago, a perfect Key of Solomon.
-
"Well, that was interesting."
They were loading up the car in the dark, trying to get the hell out of dodge before the woman the demon had been possessing came to on the floor of their previously occupied motel room.
"Yeah, tell me about it. I mean, threatening to never make a deal with one of us again. Kinda bush league."
"What? Too melodramatic for your taste, Sammy?"
They slid into the car. The engine came to life with a content purr.
"Maybe we should have left a note."
"What?" Dean turned out of the parking lot.
"With that woman. I mean, she fainted and we kinda just left her there. Maybe we should have left a note and explained everything."
"What we should have left was one those medals Bobby gave us and a note advising her never to buy a black dress."
They were on the high way in less than five and Dean didn't say anything when Sam threw his calendar out the window.
-
"Uh, Sam?"
"Yeah Dean."
"That whole deal with my soul…"
"What about it?"
"Do you want to, like, trade me yours for like a piece of gum, you know, just to be safe?"
"Just drive Dean."
A beat.
"Man, I wouldn't trade my soul for gum."
"What about cheetos?"
-
End
A/N: Y'know that episode of the Simpsons when Homer sells his soul for a donut and he only gets out of when its revealed he'd already given his soul to Marge and the deal wasn't valid? Well, yeah, it spawned this crack bunny. Hope you enjoyed, let me know what you think.