He Who Wins You Over, part two
Part one
- Second Night -
Light and music were coming from Budd’s bar, door open to the evening’s cooling air. The group of people who had gathered across the street when Sam had swung by earlier were gone at present, but when Sam and Dean entered the bar there were not as many people inside as Sam could have expected. The atmosphere was tense too, the few people drinking at the bar or at the booths talking in hushed tones, as if afraid of being heard badmouthing the owner.
“Well, if it isn’t my new friends!” Budd himself was behind the bar, cowboy hat fixed on his head, and he welcomed Sam and Dean with literal open arms, beaming at them like they were old friends or long lost relatives. “Have you come to take your revenge?”
Sam was acutely aware that everyone in the room was watching them. Budd’s bar was bigger than Maria’s was, but had the same kind of old-fashioned, Route 66 Americana vibe to it. There were several pool tables at the back of the room but no one was playing; maybe it was just too early for that. The walls were covered with neatly framed pictures, and when Sam took a closer look at them he saw that they were all pictures of Budd with various people: in all of them Budd had passed a friendly arm around the person’s shoulders, but while Budd invariably shot the camera the same radiant smile, his companions’ expressions ranged from mulish to sour to outright frightened.
Dean’s eyes had followed the same path. “You have many friends,” he drawled.
“Everyone in Broadhouse is my friend,” Budd said, somewhat grandiloquently. Someone on Sam’s right choked on their drink. “Fancy a game of pool tonight? Or would you rather play something else? I play a mean game of poker.”
It didn’t seem to occur to Budd that maybe they hadn’t come here to play any game or get back at him and there was, Sam sensed, some sort of inevitability about what was going to happen. Going against Budd would be like going against the tide, pointless and even dangerous.
“My brother and me aren’t so bad ourselves,” Dean said with wary defiance.
Budd’s smile turned shark-like. “I look forward to witnessing that. Well, if you’ll follow me.” Budd left his spot behind the bar to push open a door, and signaled them to enter. “We’ll be more comfortable in a private room.”
Sam spared a thought to wonder who was going to take care of the bar, but a man rose from the table he’d been sitting at and seamlessly took Budd’s place.
The private room was small, most of the space occupied by the round table at its center, and the walls were bare. There were no windows, and it was stifling inside. All the lighting came from the single naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling with its wires apparent. The three of them sat at the table so to form an equidistant triangle and Budd materialized a deck of cards, seemingly out of nowhere.
“Five-card stud,” he said. “You mind if I deal?”
He didn’t wait for their input before he started shuffling the deck, then dealing the cards, one face up, one face down for each player. Sam’s face-up card was the lowest in the bunch and he was the first one to place a bet. He parted himself from a crumpled ten-dollar bill with almost physical pain: they were getting very low on funds, and even considering their ongoing credit card fraud it was soon going to be a problem. They shouldn’t be playing for money, but this time Budd hadn’t even pretended to give them a choice.
The rounds of betting succeeded to each other, each bringing a new card to the players’ hands. Sam’s own hand was pretty disastrous, and he couldn’t see any winning hand forming out of it, even if his last dealt card was a face card or an ace. He kept his expression smooth and bored, though, and was careful to keep his hands still, one of his most obvious tells. He looked at the other players and tried to gauge their chances. From what Sam could see of it, Dean’s hand was shaping up nicely: all hearts, one King, so maybe a Flush or even a Royal Flush. Dean had the usual cocky expression he wore during poker games, but the total relaxation in his posture - the way he leaned against the back of his chair, the line of his shoulders - told Sam that the confidence he flaunted was probably genuine.
Budd, on the other hand, was a complete mystery. It wasn’t just that Sam didn’t know him as well as he knew his brother. He flattered himself on being good at reading people, after a lifetime of honing this skill, but Budd’s content, self-satisfied expression never varied and every single one of his movements were perfectly controlled. Sam couldn’t read anything in his body language or his eyes: he was a wall, a smooth, glossy surface that gave away nothing.
“Last round,” Budd announced, and dealt three face-down cards, before placing another bill in the center of the table.
Sam fetched his last bill from a crease deep inside his jeans pocket, and cringe inwardly. He could only hope that Dean would win the game. Just as he had that thought he saw Dean, burrowing his hand into his own pocket, still in his movement and wince. From the bulge in his pocket, his hand had closed on something, but he didn’t take it out.
“I don’t think I have anything left to bet,” he said with a grimace. “Sammy?”
“Sorry, man, I’m all dried up too.”
“Just bet whatever you have in your pocket,” Budd said.
“I told you, I don’t have any more money.”
“What’s in your pocket, Dean?”
“It’s just…” Dean took out his hand and dropped the key to the Impala on the edge of the table. “Just my car key.”
Muffled conversation reached them from outside of the room. Sam felt a drop of sweat trickle down between his shoulder blades.
Budd said, “Fine by me.”
“What do you mean by ‘fine’? What about my bet? Hey!”
Budd ignored Dean and said, “Let’s show our hands,” before turning his face-down cards: a five, a six, a seven, an eight, and a nine of spades were nicely lined up. Straight flush, goddamn it.
Dean was livid, looking at the cards spread in front of him like they had personally betrayed him: and indeed, his sequence of hearts had been ruined by a two of spades.
“Now that’s what I call a night well spent,” Budd said with obscene satisfaction. “Sorry, Dean. Maybe tomorrow night you’ll get luckier. Key to your car?”
Sam thought his brother was going to have a stroke: his face turned crimson and bulging veins pulsated on his forehead. “My- No! You’re not getting my car!”
“It was on the table, Dean. Come on, no one likes a sore player.”
Dean hammered his fist on the table, making the cards jump, and Sam thought for a moment that he was going to attack Budd. He kicked back his chair, ready to stop his brother before it went too far, but Dean only leaned forward, propped on his fists, and said, “Christo.”
Budd smiled, the brown of his eyes unchanged. “I’m not a demon,” he said. “The holy water in your jacket won’t be of any use to you. You also can let go of the gun at your back, Sam.”
Sam only realized then that his hand had flown to his back and his fingers had closed over the grip of his gun. He let go of it when Budd told him to, barely aware that he was moving.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night, gentlemen,” Budd said, touching the rim of his hat in a two-finger salute. “I suggest you go get some sleep now.”
And the damnedest thing was, they didn’t think to protest before they were already back at the motel.
---
Sam woke up sucking in a breath, his heart jackhammering inside his chest. Eyes still shut tight he gave himself the time to breathe deeply and calm down, listening for whatever had broken his sleep, but the only thing he could hear was Dean’s low, rhythmic breathing. He opened his eyes and slipped out of bed, feet soundlessly meeting the floor, and padded to the window. He spread apart two of the blinds’ slats with his fingers to glance outside and caught two shadows scuttling away: wings fluttering upward, and the shadow of a dog-like creature that scampered behind bushes.
Sam waited for a few long seconds, holding his breath and straining to hear something, but the silence was so absolute it was deafening.
Then, from deep in the dark of the night: yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yeow! The shrill, quivering cry drew out in rippling echoes for what felt like several minutes, and the silence after it ended felt all the more crushing by contrast.
---
“A coyote?” Dean took a sip from the coffee Sam had brought him. “Is it unusual around here?”
“I asked at Penny’s and the owner says it’s not rare to see one of them foray into town. It’s just…” Sam fingered the lid on his coffee cup. “I have a feeling about it. It felt like we were being spied on.”
“By a coyote?”
“And some kind of bird. Big bird.”
“Ooo-kay. That sounds a little bit crazy. What am I saying? This whole town is crazy, so why not, after all? All the more incentive to get the hell out of here.”
“Any progress with the car?”
Dean heaved a sigh that sounded like it was dredged up from deep inside him. “No change,” he said, his voice strained with real distress, looking down on his dirty hands and scraped fingernails. “I think we might have to-” He swallowed, looking pained. “We might have to leave the Impala here and try our luck on foot. Temporarily, of course!” His eyes flew over to the approximate direction the Impala was parked, like he was afraid the car might take offense. “We’ll come back for her, even if I have to strangle Budd with my own two hands to get her back. But we need to regroup, gather intel about this place and about whatever Budd is.”
They both lapsed into silence, the memory of last night’s humiliation all too vivid in their minds. There was no doubt left that Budd was something otherworldly, if not a demon then something else - Sam was leaning toward some kind of demi-god, remembering the Trickster from Ohio. Dean was right, they did need to get out of this town. There was just a tiny little problem with this plan.
“Thing is, we’re in the middle of the desert,” Sam said. “People die out there when they don’t know where they’re going, and we don’t even know where we are.”
“We load up with water and we follow the road. We’ll get somewhere, we have to, somewhere other than here, and wherever it’ll be can only be a good place in my book. At the very least we need to get where we can have phone reception, and then we can call Bobby and get some backup.”
This was starting to sound more and more appealing, even though Sam knew that it was a very poorly thought out plan, likely to end with both of them dying of thirst and their bones being bleached by the desert wind. But the need to leave, to just go and not turn back, forget this place even existed, was so strong that Sam could almost taste it. It pulsated in his veins with each of his heartbeats.
“The question is, do we go the same way we came from, or do we follow the road through the town and up to wherever?” It hadn’t taken Sam long to figure the general geography of the town: it was tacked on the road - probably a state road - they took to get here, an excrescence made out of a few interconnected streets. Obviously, the road had to lead somewhere eventually, they just didn’t know how long it would take them to get there.
Dean went to get their map of New Mexico out of the car, and they unfolded it on the writing desk, bent their heads together over it and tried to make sense of where they were.
“What’s the last town you remember before Broadhouse?” Sam asked his brother.
“Hmm, I think…” Dean squinted at the map. “Crownpoint. Here.”
“And you were aiming for Chaco Canyon. Right.” Sam tapped a fingernail under the green smudge marking the National Park. “You said at one point you were on 57. Why did you ever leave that road? It would’ve led us right into Chaco National Park.”
“I don’t know, okay!” Dean tugged at his short hair in frustration. “I remember… miles and miles of dull road. Did I make a turn at some point? Did I miss a turn? I just don’t know, it’s all a blur. I just-”
“Okay, fine,” Sam said, seeing his brother was getting worked up. It was no use fighting over it, now. “We know we’re somewhere in that area.”
He made a circle on the map with a pen, and they looked intently at the spot, like they could conjure up their location by sheer strength of will. But the name ‘Broadhouse’ was still missing from the map; in fact, there was no town in the delimited area at all, only a web of backwater roads and a few blue spots symbolizing stretches of water. Other than that, only miles and miles of deserted land.
“If we backtrack,” Sam said, tapping thoughtfully the tip of his finger against the map, “at least we’re sure to find Crownpoint at some point, whereas if we go forward there doesn’t seem to be anything until the National Park.”
“We’ll find a Visitor Center or something there, I imagine.”
“Yeah, but we don’t know how far we are from it. It took us at least a couple of hours to go from Crownpoint to Broadhouse, so it’d be…” He made a quick calculation. “A day’s walk, minimum.”
“Sounds doable, if we do it by night. Then we don’t have to worry about getting fried.”
“Good point.”
The rest of the day was spent getting supplies from the general store on Main Street. The locals, disturbingly, had started treating them like they were new fixtures in town, greeting them with warm friendly smiles and calling them Sam and Dean and how are you today? Sam and Dean responded in kind, not wanting to tip anyone off on their escape plan. At one point during the afternoon, Budd came to the motel and asked them to empty the Impala of their stuff so he could take her away.
“That’s a lot of weapons,” he commented sunnily as Sam and Dean opened the false bottom in their trunk and started to unload it.
“Do you want me to shoot you in the face?” Dean growled. “Anyway, I haven’t been able to start the car, so good luck with that.”
“Really? That’s a shame. Maybe you just don’t have the right touch with that beauty.”
Sam had to wrap his arms around his brother’s torso to stop him from jumping Budd. It was hard to resist the temptation to punch the smug expression off the man’s face himself, though, and maybe he would’ve thrown caution out of the window and done it anyway if he hadn’t noticed clusters of people appearing at the end of the parking lot. He still wasn’t sure what people’s feelings were about Budd’s doings, but Sam didn’t want to test the handle Budd appeared to have on them. Against a crowd, Dean and he had no chance.
“Calm the fuck down,” he murmured to his brother’s ear, feeling him tremble with rage. “There’s nothing we can do now.”
Sam felt Dean’s chest expand with the breath he took in, then deflate as he exhaled noisily. “You better treat her good, Budd,” Dean said, in a tight controlled voice that cracked just a little bit at the edges.
“Don’t you worry about that,” said Budd, shutting down the now empty trunk. He ran a hand over the shiny black roof up to the driver’s door, then got behind the wheel. A few seconds later, the engine purred and the Impala slithered away down Cedar Street.
“Son of a bitch,” said Dean, sounding more dumbfounded than pissed off, now. “I hate that guy.”
- Third night -
At 7pm, just like the night before, they went to Budd’s bar for another game. They’d agreed that in the eventuality that Budd might try to look for them if they left town, it was better if he was alerted about their disappearance as late as possible. Sam also thought that Dean held onto the hope that he would have a chance to get the Impala back.
Budd led them to the same room where they’d played poker, but this time it wasn’t a deck of card that he conjured out of thin air.
“How do you feel about dice games?” he asked, tipping the cup he held in his hand so that five red dice rolled out of it and on the table. “Have you ever played ‘Tripps’?”
Sam shook his head and Dean said, “Once or twice.”
“I’ll explain for your brother’s sake: five dice, the purpose is to have the lowest possible score at the end of the round. All numbers on the dice count as their face values except threes, which count for zero points each.”
“So I imagine that if you roll five threes, you win the game?”
“Exactly.” Budd grinned at him like… Sam would’ve said like a fond father, but his own father had never come even close to that expression. “You can also win by ‘shooting the moon,’ meaning that you roll five sixes. Then you win all standing bets and the round immediately ends. Are you clear on the rules?”
“Yeah, that doesn’t sound too complicated,” Sam said. It also relied heavily on chance, and Sam doubted very much it would go in their favor when Budd was involved.
“Before we start playing, we all must post an ante.”
“Dude,” Dean said, “you already completely ripped us off. What do we have left to bet?”
“Oh, there’s always something.” Budd’s voice didn’t depart from his usual warmth, but Sam thought he could detect something cold underneath. “But I should go easy on you guys. This is supposed to be fun, right?” Dean hissed, ‘Fun, my ass’ between his teeth; either Budd didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him. “Sam, you can bet a button from your shirt. And Dean, how about a lace from your boots?”
“Are we in kindergarten?” Dean grumbled, but still bent to unlace one of his boots.
“As for me…” Budd trailed off, like he wanted to let anticipation build up. “I’ll post this.” And he put the key to the Impala in the center of the table.
Dean’s eyes widened and his fingers curled into fists. Sam, on the other hand, felt his skin crawl with unease: Budd putting the car back into play could only be some bait-and-switch move on his part; he had to be sure he would win, to do that.
The game started and that notion didn’t get disproved: although he didn’t make one of the winning rolls, he always had the lowest score and won the collective pots - though Sam wasn’t sure what he got out of bits and pieces of their clothing. They had to bet more shirt buttons and laces, their belts, the silver ring on Dean’s finger, Sam’s watch. Eventually, Budd started to look appreciatively at the amulet around Dean’s neck.
“No.” Dean’s fingers closed protectively around the golden pendant. “You’re not getting that. You want my pants? Fine by me! I’ll strip naked before I give you this.”
“Aren’t you protective of that piece of junk?” This was the first harsh word Sam had heard Budd say, and even then he spoke as evenly as ever. It was startling, like being pricked by a hidden thorn in a beautiful bunch of flowers. “Well, I would feel bad about forcing your hand, Dean. I think it’s time to up the ante.”
Dean eyed him wearily. “What do you mean?”
Budd interlaced his fingers on the table and his smile grew larger, his teeth gleaming under the electric light. “What about yourselves?”
“What?”
“Maybe not both of you, I don’t want to get too greedy. I’ll let you choose: which one of you will be on the table?”
“Are you crazy? No, don’t answer that. Listen, pal, my car was one thing but if you think for one moment-”
“I’m on the table,” Sam said, effectively cutting off his brother in his rant.
“Sam?” Dean grabbed Sam’s wrist and leaned into him, whispering forcefully, “What the hell are you doing?”
Dean’s panic and incomprehension were palpable, but Sam himself felt very calm and lucid. As soon as Budd had talked about them putting themselves on the table he’d flashed to their first night in Broadhouse, to Dean’s quip about selling his soul and Budd’s reply to that. He knew that Budd was serious about this, and thought he was finally starting to understand what was going on in Broadhouse. He also knew he couldn’t let Dean sell himself again.
“I’m on the table,” he repeated. “Let’s keep playing.”
“Sam.” Dean’s grip became painful and Sam had to shake him off.
“Wonderful,” Budd said; to look at him, one would think that what had just taken place were perfectly normal game dealings. He took the cup and dropped the dice inside one by one, looking at Dean with an unvarying smile. He shook the cup, probably a little longer than warranted, and the dice jumping up and down inside sounded like thunder.
Budd then rolled the dice on the table and, unsurprisingly, they all showed sixes when they settled.
“No,” Dean said, and before Sam had the time to do anything he’d hopped onto the table and grabbed Budd’s collar, one fist up in the air. “No, you bastard.”
“Dean, don’t-”
Sam didn’t know what happened then, but when it looked like Dean’s fist was going to connect with Budd’s face, Dean suddenly found himself on the floor, cradling his head and grunting in pain, while Budd stood up and smoothed over the wrinkles on his shirt.
“Don’t worry, your brother’s fine,” he told Sam, who’d jumped from his chair to run to Dean’s side. Dean was blinking dazedly but he didn’t seem to be bleeding from anywhere, so Sam took him by the arm and hoisted him up.
“So I belong to you, now,” he said to Budd. He was careful to put himself between the man and Dean. “What does that entail?”
“Not much,” Budd said with an irritating smirk. “You should take your brother back to your room and get him some rest.”
“Yeah,” Sam murmured. “Come on, Dean.”
---
Once they were back to their motel room, Dean didn’t seem any worse for the wear and they decided not to change their plans of nightly escape. They waited until 2am; they didn’t check out, of course, and folded themselves in two when they passed the lit-up windows of the lobby. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Sam would have felt a little bit silly to be sneaking out like a teenager.
They went back the way they’d arrived two days ago, walking in long strides through the dark streets. There were very few streetlights, only a few pockets of stale yellow light strewn along their way, and no other lightened window than the ones from the motel lobby. Dean was walking ahead of Sam, as fast as possible without actually breaking into a run, and even though Sam was the one with the longer legs, he had trouble keeping up.
“Dean, wait up!” he hissed. Dean’s pace slowed down minutely and Sam caught up with him so that they were shoulder to shoulder. “What’s the hurry, man?”
“We need to get out of here.”
“I know, that’s the plan but… Relax, okay?”
“How?” Dean stopped so abruptly that Sam staggered into a stop. “Sam, this… man, this thing, owns you. This is fucked up. We can’t stay here one more minute.”
There was true anguish in Dean’s voice, and probably guilt too from not having been able to protect Sam from this turn of events, and Sam thought, his stomach clenching with the reminder, of what Dean had done the last time something serious had happened to Sam. So yeah, Sam agreed, they couldn’t stay here - he didn’t want to wait and see what sort of insanity Dean would come up with this time.
“I’m gonna be okay,” Sam said, cupping his brother’s shoulder then giving it a pat. “Let’s try not to draw attention on ourselves, okay?”
They resumed their walk in silence. With the lack of conversation and the need to stay aware of his surroundings, Sam gradually became aware that the nightly silence was actually rustling with small noises. There was the wind, rising up and piercing through Sam’s shirt and making him shiver: the swish of the wind in the bushes; the wind whishing in Sam’s ears. A faint chirping in the background. Now and then, scurrying sounds at ground-level. They passed the gas station where they’d stopped the first night, then the entrance sign, and the wind started to get blustery and blow sand across the road.
They both got their jackets out of their duffle bags and they shuffled closer for protection against the wind.
“What do we do if it gets worse?” Sam asked, raising his voice to be heard.
A hand above his eyes to shield them, Dean marched forward, leaning in to push against the wind. “We keep going!” he yelled.
Thunder roared above their heads. The sky had changed colors, and a bolt of lightning formed a web of cracks over the charcoal-gray lid of clouds. Wind-borne sand whipped Sam in the face, burning his eyes, and he couldn’t see very well but it looked like there were two dark figures barring the road at a distance: one was a short, crouching form leveled with Sam’s waist, and the other a dark blur floating over the first. Sam stopped, cupped a hand over his brow and squinted his eyes to better see.
“Dean!” he shouted.
His brother grounded to a halt, realized that Sam wasn’t following him and twirled around. “Come on, Sam!”
“Dean, look!’
Dean looked, and when his whole body went taut Sam knew that he was seeing it too: a few yards ahead of them on the road was a coyote, with a tawny-colored fur and a black-tipped tail, and a triangular face where gleamed two amber eyes; landing next to it was a large owl, with a big head and a white heart-shaped face, and black, unnerving button-like eyes. They stayed still, not moving to attack - the coyote even yawned widely at one point, revealing its sharp teeth - but Sam was suddenly reminded of the coyote and the owl painted on Budd’s bar, and of the noises that had woken him up the night before.
“We’re going back!”
“What? No!” Dean got his gun from inside his jacket and pointed it at the coyote.
“Dean, no!”
Sam took a step toward his brother, but the owl had already opened its wings wide and taken off. It swiftly swooped upon Dean and Sam heard him scream and saw him fold his arms over his head to protect himself.
“Dean!” In two strides Sam was at Dean’s side and pulled his brother to him, a hand on his back to keep him hunched over. The owl’s large wings fluttered rapidly in Sam’s face and a few feathers flitted about.
“We’re going back, okay!” Sam raised a hand in front of his face and one of the bird’s claws caught to the fabric of his jacket. “We’re going, so leave him alone!” It was a bit of bet to assume that the bird could understand him, but at his words the owl stopped attacking and flew over in a twirl.
“Are you okay?” Sam spun his brother around, both of them breathing loud; in the dark, he could only see that there was blood on Dean’s face.
“I’m fine. Fucking bird.”
As Sam and Dean backtracked toward the town, the wind calmed down a little. When they passed the entrance sign, Sam read, “Broadhouse, population: 269.” He swallowed; he was pretty sure the number had finished with an ‘8’ before, but he didn’t point it out to Dean.
He held his brother’s arm all the way back to the motel. Dean was locked into silence, upset or hurting, Sam couldn’t tell. The light was still on in the motel lobby; they made a stop there. Laure was behind the counter, a magazine in her hands, but when she looked up at their entrance Sam had the very strong feeling she’d been waiting for them.
“I could have told you it wouldn’t work,” she said.
“You lost too,” Sam said. “Didn’t you? Everyone in this town gambled against Budd and lost.”
“And now we all belong to him. Believe me, you’re not the first to try running away.”
“Then what can we do?” Dean groaned. Sam looked sharply at him: now that he had some light he could see the red scratches on his brother’s forehead and around his eyes, but fortunately the eyes themselves looked intact. “What can we do?” Dean repeated, tearing himself away from Sam’s grasp. “We lie down and wait for the end? Huh? Is that it?”
“Nothing,” Laure said with flat, weary resignation. “We do nothing.”
---
When Sam woke up the next morning he found Dean sitting on the other bed, angrily scrubbing a disassembled gun. The red claw marks around his eyes looked even worse in the daylight and made him look like he’d lost an argument with a wildcat. Next to him on the bed was lined up an arsenal of shotguns, handguns, flare guns, knives (one of which was obviously silver), at least three different kinds of rounds, and a wooden stake sharpened to a point.
Sam scrunched up his nose against the pungent smell of cleaning detergent. “Are you going to war?”
“What do you think?” Dean glanced inside the barrel he was holding. “If we can’t get away, then we fight back. Since we don’t know exactly what he is, I’m getting ready for everything.”
Sam sighed, sitting up in his bed. “And how do you plan to hide all this on yourself?”
Dean gave a frowning, sweeping glance at his weapons. “I’ll find a way.”
“Well, have fun with it. I’m going out to get us some breakfast.”
But once he was dressed and out, free from the warlike atmosphere of the motel room, he found himself wandering around. People nodded or waved at him casually, greeting him like he was one of them and - hell, he was. He tried to wrap his mind around the idea, and weirdly enough, some part of him started to think that it might not be so bad: it was a quiet place, the people seemed nice enough once he’d lost the label of ‘stranger’, and it didn’t look like Budd was torturing them or anything. There were certainly worse fates for a hunter.
Yeah, dumbass. Like Hell, for starters.
And just like that, any shred of optimistic resignation vanished from Sam’s mind. He couldn’t be stuck in Broadhouse, because who would save Dean from Hell then? Sam combed through his hair with his fingers, and had a look around him: his steps had taken him once more past the gas station at the entrance of town. Sam could see the back of the entrance sign, and the road leading out of town that shimmered from the heat. After a moment of hesitation - he didn’t want to risk another attack from the owl or the coyote - he headed toward it.
Broadhouse, population: 269.
He hoped he was misremembering it, but he couldn’t shake the very clear memory of that same sign under the light of the Impala, saying 268. It implied Budd had a great deal of power to be able to control every aspect of the town like that; unless the town itself was under some sort of curse.
Hands in his pockets, Sam turned back into the town, unwilling to risk that standing at the border of the town be considered as another escape attempt. He walked until he reached Maria’s bar. He thought at first that the bar was closed, but then saw movement behind the curtain at the window. The front door opened and a man walked out.
“’Morning,” the man said.
“Uh, yeah. Good morning.”
Sam stopped the door from closing with his foot and entered the bar. Sitting at the counter was the same old man with the baseball cap as had been there the night they’d gotten into town, and no one else, save for Maria herself.
“Hey,” Sam said, perching himself on one of the hardwood stools. “Do you serve breakfast?”
Maria gave him a long look, like she was trying to decide if ‘breakfast’ was a code word for something. “No. You need to go…”
“To Penny’s diner, yeah. I know the place. I was just passing by and… Never mind.”
“Do you want to drink something?”
“No, I should go back to my brother.” Dean was so wrung up right now, he was liable to do anything if Sam was gone for too long.
Sam slid off his stool, made as if he was leaving, then changed his mind and turned around. “Maria, tell me - what is he?”
There shouldn’t be any need to specify which he Sam was talking about, but for a moment Sam thought she was going to make him say it. Her dark, bushy brows knitted together to form one twisted line.
“I don’t know,” she finally said.
“He’s the Devil!” the old man at the bar exclaimed; Sam had almost forgotten he was there.
“What?”
“Shut up, Earl,” Maria snapped.
“What else can he be? You never win when you gamble against the Devil; every deal with him is rigged. How can you deny that it’s what happened to every single one of us?”
A deal with the Devil. Sam’s breath got caught in his throat. Deals, he knew about deals, of course, and Earl was right, what you get is never worth the price you pay. Who did he know who made a deal with the Devil in recent days?
“Thanks,” Sam blurted out. “Good day to you. I-”
“Don’t listen to Earl’s drunken ramblings,” Maria said. “Budd isn’t the Devil. He’s… he’s…” But she couldn’t come up with anything and her usual severe expression softened into helplessness.
“It’s okay,” Sam said. “Maria, it’s going to be fine.”
He left the bar buzzing with excitement, his heart fluttering in his chest like a nervous hummingbird, his hands shaking with it. He had an idea, but it was kind of insane, which meant that he couldn’t tell Dean about it even if Dean had no room to complain whatsoever on the subject. But Sam needed the Colt, so he had to get back to their room, and since he’d promised to bring them breakfast he swung by the general store to buy them bread and cheese.
He found Dean still obsessively cleaning their weapons.
“You hungry?” Sam asked. “I got caught up talking with people so I just have bread and cheese…”
“It’s fine, I’m starving,” Dean said, making a grabby motion for the food.
While Dean wolfed down his share of bread and cheese like he’d never wanted to eat anything else, Sam gave the room a sweeping glance, looking for the Colt. He found it on the bed, between a shotgun and a silver knife, its long, thin barrel making it stand out.
“Did you learn anything new?”
“What?” Sam tore his eyes away from the Colt. “Uh, not really. I don’t think the people know more than we do about Budd. They just know that he owns them, and that they can’t leave.”
“Well, someone has to do something about it. If we share the load, I think we might be able to carry most of the weapons on ourselves.”
“But, remember that second night? Budd seemed to know we were armed. We won’t be able to surprise him.”
“Yeah, but we didn’t try to hurt him with them. He could’ve been bluffing - acting like he was invulnerable and shit. He’s a gambler, after all.”
“It didn’t go so well when you tried to punch him last night,” Sam pointed out.
Dean took a blade from the bed and twirled it between his fingers. “I don’t plan to hit him with my fist this time.”
Sam shook his head and let it go. If his plan worked out the way he wanted to, anyway, it wouldn’t matter whether Budd was permeable to bullets or not.
- Fourth Night-
Sam was feeling the weight of the weapons Dean had made him carry as they made their way to Budd’s bar: gun at his back, blades at his ankle and wrist, holy water weighing down his jacket pocket. Dean was similarly armed with added wrist dart launcher, a device that he’d manufactured himself. At the bar, they found a lot more people than the nights before, so many that the building couldn’t contain them and some had spilled over to the front steps and the sidewalk. Obviously they knew that tonight’s game was crucial, and the anticipation ran like a shiver among the crowd.
“Good luck!” Sam heard someone say. As if luck had a single thing to do with it.
Dean looked like the picture of calm and collectedness, far from the ball of nerves he’d been all day. He smiled at a pretty redhead who was leaning against the doorframe, and she smiled in response as she moved to let them through.
“You’ll see,” she said. “Things aren’t so bad around here.”
“Well, if you’re part of those things then I’m inclined to believe you,” Dean replied smoothly, in the low flirtatious purr he used on good-looking women. Only the way he held his arms slightly apart from his body, ready to grab a weapon at any given moment, betrayed his state of mind, at least to Sam’s practiced eyes.
Inside the bar, all the tables were occupied and the counter was lined up with drinkers. They turned at Sam and Dean’s entrance as one, and Budd clapped his hands like the night’s main attraction had finally showed up.
“Sam and Dean!” Budd exclaimed and, absurdly, some people in the crowd started to applaud; they were elbowed to silence by their neighbors. “You’re right on time.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Dean said, with a cynical little quirk of the mouth.
He took the lead and weaved his way among people, heading toward Budd. Sam saw his fingers flex by his side and he hurriedly caught his brother’s arm to murmur frantically to his ear, “Don’t do anything. Please, stay put.”
Dean twisted to look at him, his eyes flicking left and right, up and down, searching Sam for a clue. “What….?”
“Trust me. I got it. Trust me.”
Dean detached Sam’s fingers from his arm. “Okay.”
He went to the bar and slapped his open hand on the counter. “Barkeep!” he shouted. “A whisky.”
Budd chuckled and served Dean a glass. He gave it a little shove so it slid up to Dean, who caught it and drank it all in one shot. “Anything for you, Sam?” Budd asked.
“No, thanks.” Everyone’s surface calm was starting to make him singularly nervous. All of a sudden he doubted his plan, his brain coming up with a thousand ways it could go wrong. Of course it was going to go wrong, what the hell had he been thinking? What-
“Ready?” said Budd, breaking the train of Sam’s fevered thoughts. He quickly realized Budd was addressing Dean, though. It made sense: Sam had already lost all he had to give. “I thought we’d keep things simple tonight, Dean, if you don’t mind. I imagine you know rock-paper-scissors.”
Dean flinched a little, and Sam did too. It didn’t seem to matter when they played Budd whether they were good at the game or not, but Dean was just stupid at rock-paper-scissors.
“What are we playing for?” Dean asked, even though to all people present it was a matter of course.
Budd smiled indulgently. “For you, Dean. What else?”
“But what about you?” Sam asked, drawing all the eyes in the room to himself. “What are you playing?”
“You, I guess. What do you say, Dean? Do you want to play to get your brother back?”
Dean opened his mouth to answer but Sam overrode him. “No, that won’t do. You’re asking to put all of himself on the table, but what am I to you? You own everybody in this town. The risks aren’t even.”
“So what do you suggest?” Budd’s expression had shifted from his usual good-naturedness to something Sam had trouble deciphering. “I’m sure you have something in mind.”
Sam’s heart pounded against his ribs. “I’m suggesting you make the risks even: my brother against you.”
A murmur went through the crowd and Sam’s eyes locked with Budd’s. He hadn’t wanted to sound too eager to make Budd risk himself, in case it clued him in about the fact that Sam had a plan to win, but looking into the man’s - or whatever he was - eyes, he saw that it didn’t matter if Budd saw right through him. He understood then, with a flash of insight that floored him, that gambling wasn’t a means to an end to Budd. Maybe Budd didn’t even mean to win all the time, although he sure seemed to enjoy it. Gambling was what Budd was, and gambling was about taking risks and then coming out on top. He was utterly unable to resist Sam’s suggestion.
“Alright,” Budd said softly after a long moment of silence. “Everyone bears witness: I’m playing myself against Dean Winchester.”
Sam registered a faint surprise at the fact that Budd knew their name, but it got smothered under everything else: anticipation, fear, and a fair amount of excitement. He saw Dean give him a look, are you sure? and smiled reassuringly at him.
“Shall we start, then?” Budd said.
Dean rolled his sleeve up his right arm. “I guess we shall.”
“We’ll play in three rounds.”
Dean said it was fine by him, and Budd counted to three. First round: Dean put out the scissors, and Budd the stone. Even if it didn’t really matter what Dean did, Sam couldn’t help but think: Stop it with the scissors, Dean!
Second round: Dean played the scissors again, and winced at the sight of his hand, like it hadn’t been a conscious decision, but Budd played paper. An excited aaaah! rippled through the crowd. Budd didn’t look in the least bit worried.
“Last round,” he called with a cocky smile.
“Just get on with it,” Dean grumbled.
“One,” counted Budd, “two-”
Sam searched the crowd with his eyes, going through every single face, recognizing Maria, Laure, the woman from Penny’s diner, the old man with a baseball cap, the married man whose wife was in New Orleans, and the black kid from the first night, when they’d played pool. The expressions ranged from excited, to focused, to resigned, but they were all there, all waiting for the outcome, and there was a little hope mixed up with even the most jaded look. But Sam couldn’t see what he was hoping for and his heart now threatened to jump through his throat. It hadn’t worked. He’d made a mistake and now Dean was going to pay for it. He was getting ready to grab one his weapons and fight for it, when Dean’s whole body shivered violently.
“Dean?”
Dean’s head was bowed low and he had a hand over his eyes.
“Are you okay to keep playing?” Budd asked warily. “Dean?”
“I’m fine,” Dean said, his voice low and a little muffled from his position. “Counting up to three: one-”
“Two,” Budd said at the same time Dean said it.
“Three!” they chorused.
A deep silence followed, the crowd holding their collective breath, and then a rumble started from the back of the room and outside in the street, where the people who couldn’t see Dean and Budd were asking in frantic whispers about the outcome.
“This can’t be,” Budd whispered. His eyes were fixed on his closed fist, and Dean’s flat extended hand.
“Paper beats the stone,” Dean said, but his voice had a strange, oily quality to it. He raised his head and Sam saw Budd’s movement of recoil before he saw the ruby-like glint in his brother’s eyes.
Oh God.
“Are you satisfied, boss?” said red-eyed Dean.
“I didn’t know you’d- You didn’t have to possess him!” Sam choked out.
“Wasn’t mentioned anywhere in our deal, and you can’t argue with the results.”
“Yes, but-”
“What’s this trickery!” roared Budd, seeming to recover from his shock.
“Hey, buddy,” the crossroads demon said with Dean’s voice. “We won fair and square, so now you need to be good to your word. Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly fair… But then you’re not always fair yourself, are you? That’s the way of the game, pal: you win some, and you lose some.”
“I-” Budd turned to Sam. “You tricked me.”
“You tried to gamble for something you couldn’t claim: my brother’s soul is already accounted for.” The words tasted very bitter in Sam’s mouth.
“So now, I’m yours,” Budd said, and opened his arms. “What are you going to do?”
Sam hadn’t really thought that far. What could he do, kill Budd? He’d killed his fair share of supernatural beings before, but there was something despicable in the concept of owning a life and using that power to end it.
“Free everyone,” he said, “and go away. Never gamble for another life again.”
The crossroads demon said, “You heard the man?” He snapped his fingers under Budd’s nose and, without a sound, without even a quiver in the air, Budd disappeared.
The crowd burst into a chaos of exclamations and screams and high-pitched conversations with a lot of arms waving around. Sam took advantage of the confusion to sidle up to his possessed brother. He grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him outside. “Now, release my brother.”
“You wish is my command,” the demon said sardonically. “You know you’ve only gained a few months by doing this, right? Your brother’s a goner anyway.”
“Shut up and let him go!”
Dean’s head snapped backward and a billow of dark smoke rushed out of his mouth. Sam heard someone gasp, but fortunately no one came to them to demand an explanation.
“Dean?” Sam called in a gentle voice, cautiously touching his brother’s elbow. “You in there?”
“Sammy?” Dean slowly blinked. “What…” He seemed to wake up with a jolt. “What was that thing? What did you do? The- It- it talked about a deal. Tell me you didn’t-”
“No, I didn’t sell my soul, Dean.” Now wasn’t the moment to comment on the hypocrisy of Dean’s reaction. “I just had a little chat with the crossroads demon, and since it had a vested interest in you not being claimed by another entity, it wasn’t hard to convince it to help you. I had to do a little Colt waving to convince it to get more involved than that, though.” From inside the bar he heard laughter and whoops of joy. “And now, I think it’s the right moment to get the hell out of dodge.”
“Hey, wait!” It was Laure, running up to them. “Hey.” Out of breath, she folded in two with her hands on her knees. “What happened?”
“What happened is that Budd’s gone,” Sam said. “You’re free.”
Laure’s mouth opened and closed, like she was so overwhelmed she couldn’t find her words in English. “Alors je peux… It means we can leave? I can go back home?”
“Yes, you can.”
“Thank you,” she said fervently. “Thank God.”
“God didn’t have a whole lot to do with it,” mumbled Dean, and Sam nudged him in the ribs.
Laure thanked them again, and again, until it became embarrassing and they had to excuse themselves more or less gracefully. They went back to the motel; there, they found the Impala and Dean addressed payers of thanks to the heavens.
“I thought God didn’t have anything to do with it,” Sam said, earning himself a glare.
“You shouldn’t have done this,” Dean said. “Summoning a crossroads demon to do your bidding? That’s-”
“You don’t get to lecture me on this,” Sam said, startling even himself with how cold he sounded.
Dean ducked his head. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “Fair enough.”
They left Broadhouse just as the sun dropped down behind the far away mountains, driving into the shadowed emptiness of the desert, followed by the eerie sound of a coyote’s wailing.
A/N2: The prompt was: “Sam and Dean, waylaid for a week in a strange and tiny town in the middle of the desert. Bonus points for Southwestern Native American mythology,” so I took my inspiration from a Southwestern Native American myth about a divine gambler named Noqoìlpi by the Navajos and Hasoqata by the Hopi - you can find accounts of this legend here and here.
- Second Night -
Light and music were coming from Budd’s bar, door open to the evening’s cooling air. The group of people who had gathered across the street when Sam had swung by earlier were gone at present, but when Sam and Dean entered the bar there were not as many people inside as Sam could have expected. The atmosphere was tense too, the few people drinking at the bar or at the booths talking in hushed tones, as if afraid of being heard badmouthing the owner.
“Well, if it isn’t my new friends!” Budd himself was behind the bar, cowboy hat fixed on his head, and he welcomed Sam and Dean with literal open arms, beaming at them like they were old friends or long lost relatives. “Have you come to take your revenge?”
Sam was acutely aware that everyone in the room was watching them. Budd’s bar was bigger than Maria’s was, but had the same kind of old-fashioned, Route 66 Americana vibe to it. There were several pool tables at the back of the room but no one was playing; maybe it was just too early for that. The walls were covered with neatly framed pictures, and when Sam took a closer look at them he saw that they were all pictures of Budd with various people: in all of them Budd had passed a friendly arm around the person’s shoulders, but while Budd invariably shot the camera the same radiant smile, his companions’ expressions ranged from mulish to sour to outright frightened.
Dean’s eyes had followed the same path. “You have many friends,” he drawled.
“Everyone in Broadhouse is my friend,” Budd said, somewhat grandiloquently. Someone on Sam’s right choked on their drink. “Fancy a game of pool tonight? Or would you rather play something else? I play a mean game of poker.”
It didn’t seem to occur to Budd that maybe they hadn’t come here to play any game or get back at him and there was, Sam sensed, some sort of inevitability about what was going to happen. Going against Budd would be like going against the tide, pointless and even dangerous.
“My brother and me aren’t so bad ourselves,” Dean said with wary defiance.
Budd’s smile turned shark-like. “I look forward to witnessing that. Well, if you’ll follow me.” Budd left his spot behind the bar to push open a door, and signaled them to enter. “We’ll be more comfortable in a private room.”
Sam spared a thought to wonder who was going to take care of the bar, but a man rose from the table he’d been sitting at and seamlessly took Budd’s place.
The private room was small, most of the space occupied by the round table at its center, and the walls were bare. There were no windows, and it was stifling inside. All the lighting came from the single naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling with its wires apparent. The three of them sat at the table so to form an equidistant triangle and Budd materialized a deck of cards, seemingly out of nowhere.
“Five-card stud,” he said. “You mind if I deal?”
He didn’t wait for their input before he started shuffling the deck, then dealing the cards, one face up, one face down for each player. Sam’s face-up card was the lowest in the bunch and he was the first one to place a bet. He parted himself from a crumpled ten-dollar bill with almost physical pain: they were getting very low on funds, and even considering their ongoing credit card fraud it was soon going to be a problem. They shouldn’t be playing for money, but this time Budd hadn’t even pretended to give them a choice.
The rounds of betting succeeded to each other, each bringing a new card to the players’ hands. Sam’s own hand was pretty disastrous, and he couldn’t see any winning hand forming out of it, even if his last dealt card was a face card or an ace. He kept his expression smooth and bored, though, and was careful to keep his hands still, one of his most obvious tells. He looked at the other players and tried to gauge their chances. From what Sam could see of it, Dean’s hand was shaping up nicely: all hearts, one King, so maybe a Flush or even a Royal Flush. Dean had the usual cocky expression he wore during poker games, but the total relaxation in his posture - the way he leaned against the back of his chair, the line of his shoulders - told Sam that the confidence he flaunted was probably genuine.
Budd, on the other hand, was a complete mystery. It wasn’t just that Sam didn’t know him as well as he knew his brother. He flattered himself on being good at reading people, after a lifetime of honing this skill, but Budd’s content, self-satisfied expression never varied and every single one of his movements were perfectly controlled. Sam couldn’t read anything in his body language or his eyes: he was a wall, a smooth, glossy surface that gave away nothing.
“Last round,” Budd announced, and dealt three face-down cards, before placing another bill in the center of the table.
Sam fetched his last bill from a crease deep inside his jeans pocket, and cringe inwardly. He could only hope that Dean would win the game. Just as he had that thought he saw Dean, burrowing his hand into his own pocket, still in his movement and wince. From the bulge in his pocket, his hand had closed on something, but he didn’t take it out.
“I don’t think I have anything left to bet,” he said with a grimace. “Sammy?”
“Sorry, man, I’m all dried up too.”
“Just bet whatever you have in your pocket,” Budd said.
“I told you, I don’t have any more money.”
“What’s in your pocket, Dean?”
“It’s just…” Dean took out his hand and dropped the key to the Impala on the edge of the table. “Just my car key.”
Muffled conversation reached them from outside of the room. Sam felt a drop of sweat trickle down between his shoulder blades.
Budd said, “Fine by me.”
“What do you mean by ‘fine’? What about my bet? Hey!”
Budd ignored Dean and said, “Let’s show our hands,” before turning his face-down cards: a five, a six, a seven, an eight, and a nine of spades were nicely lined up. Straight flush, goddamn it.
Dean was livid, looking at the cards spread in front of him like they had personally betrayed him: and indeed, his sequence of hearts had been ruined by a two of spades.
“Now that’s what I call a night well spent,” Budd said with obscene satisfaction. “Sorry, Dean. Maybe tomorrow night you’ll get luckier. Key to your car?”
Sam thought his brother was going to have a stroke: his face turned crimson and bulging veins pulsated on his forehead. “My- No! You’re not getting my car!”
“It was on the table, Dean. Come on, no one likes a sore player.”
Dean hammered his fist on the table, making the cards jump, and Sam thought for a moment that he was going to attack Budd. He kicked back his chair, ready to stop his brother before it went too far, but Dean only leaned forward, propped on his fists, and said, “Christo.”
Budd smiled, the brown of his eyes unchanged. “I’m not a demon,” he said. “The holy water in your jacket won’t be of any use to you. You also can let go of the gun at your back, Sam.”
Sam only realized then that his hand had flown to his back and his fingers had closed over the grip of his gun. He let go of it when Budd told him to, barely aware that he was moving.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night, gentlemen,” Budd said, touching the rim of his hat in a two-finger salute. “I suggest you go get some sleep now.”
And the damnedest thing was, they didn’t think to protest before they were already back at the motel.
---
Sam woke up sucking in a breath, his heart jackhammering inside his chest. Eyes still shut tight he gave himself the time to breathe deeply and calm down, listening for whatever had broken his sleep, but the only thing he could hear was Dean’s low, rhythmic breathing. He opened his eyes and slipped out of bed, feet soundlessly meeting the floor, and padded to the window. He spread apart two of the blinds’ slats with his fingers to glance outside and caught two shadows scuttling away: wings fluttering upward, and the shadow of a dog-like creature that scampered behind bushes.
Sam waited for a few long seconds, holding his breath and straining to hear something, but the silence was so absolute it was deafening.
Then, from deep in the dark of the night: yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yeow! The shrill, quivering cry drew out in rippling echoes for what felt like several minutes, and the silence after it ended felt all the more crushing by contrast.
---
“A coyote?” Dean took a sip from the coffee Sam had brought him. “Is it unusual around here?”
“I asked at Penny’s and the owner says it’s not rare to see one of them foray into town. It’s just…” Sam fingered the lid on his coffee cup. “I have a feeling about it. It felt like we were being spied on.”
“By a coyote?”
“And some kind of bird. Big bird.”
“Ooo-kay. That sounds a little bit crazy. What am I saying? This whole town is crazy, so why not, after all? All the more incentive to get the hell out of here.”
“Any progress with the car?”
Dean heaved a sigh that sounded like it was dredged up from deep inside him. “No change,” he said, his voice strained with real distress, looking down on his dirty hands and scraped fingernails. “I think we might have to-” He swallowed, looking pained. “We might have to leave the Impala here and try our luck on foot. Temporarily, of course!” His eyes flew over to the approximate direction the Impala was parked, like he was afraid the car might take offense. “We’ll come back for her, even if I have to strangle Budd with my own two hands to get her back. But we need to regroup, gather intel about this place and about whatever Budd is.”
They both lapsed into silence, the memory of last night’s humiliation all too vivid in their minds. There was no doubt left that Budd was something otherworldly, if not a demon then something else - Sam was leaning toward some kind of demi-god, remembering the Trickster from Ohio. Dean was right, they did need to get out of this town. There was just a tiny little problem with this plan.
“Thing is, we’re in the middle of the desert,” Sam said. “People die out there when they don’t know where they’re going, and we don’t even know where we are.”
“We load up with water and we follow the road. We’ll get somewhere, we have to, somewhere other than here, and wherever it’ll be can only be a good place in my book. At the very least we need to get where we can have phone reception, and then we can call Bobby and get some backup.”
This was starting to sound more and more appealing, even though Sam knew that it was a very poorly thought out plan, likely to end with both of them dying of thirst and their bones being bleached by the desert wind. But the need to leave, to just go and not turn back, forget this place even existed, was so strong that Sam could almost taste it. It pulsated in his veins with each of his heartbeats.
“The question is, do we go the same way we came from, or do we follow the road through the town and up to wherever?” It hadn’t taken Sam long to figure the general geography of the town: it was tacked on the road - probably a state road - they took to get here, an excrescence made out of a few interconnected streets. Obviously, the road had to lead somewhere eventually, they just didn’t know how long it would take them to get there.
Dean went to get their map of New Mexico out of the car, and they unfolded it on the writing desk, bent their heads together over it and tried to make sense of where they were.
“What’s the last town you remember before Broadhouse?” Sam asked his brother.
“Hmm, I think…” Dean squinted at the map. “Crownpoint. Here.”
“And you were aiming for Chaco Canyon. Right.” Sam tapped a fingernail under the green smudge marking the National Park. “You said at one point you were on 57. Why did you ever leave that road? It would’ve led us right into Chaco National Park.”
“I don’t know, okay!” Dean tugged at his short hair in frustration. “I remember… miles and miles of dull road. Did I make a turn at some point? Did I miss a turn? I just don’t know, it’s all a blur. I just-”
“Okay, fine,” Sam said, seeing his brother was getting worked up. It was no use fighting over it, now. “We know we’re somewhere in that area.”
He made a circle on the map with a pen, and they looked intently at the spot, like they could conjure up their location by sheer strength of will. But the name ‘Broadhouse’ was still missing from the map; in fact, there was no town in the delimited area at all, only a web of backwater roads and a few blue spots symbolizing stretches of water. Other than that, only miles and miles of deserted land.
“If we backtrack,” Sam said, tapping thoughtfully the tip of his finger against the map, “at least we’re sure to find Crownpoint at some point, whereas if we go forward there doesn’t seem to be anything until the National Park.”
“We’ll find a Visitor Center or something there, I imagine.”
“Yeah, but we don’t know how far we are from it. It took us at least a couple of hours to go from Crownpoint to Broadhouse, so it’d be…” He made a quick calculation. “A day’s walk, minimum.”
“Sounds doable, if we do it by night. Then we don’t have to worry about getting fried.”
“Good point.”
The rest of the day was spent getting supplies from the general store on Main Street. The locals, disturbingly, had started treating them like they were new fixtures in town, greeting them with warm friendly smiles and calling them Sam and Dean and how are you today? Sam and Dean responded in kind, not wanting to tip anyone off on their escape plan. At one point during the afternoon, Budd came to the motel and asked them to empty the Impala of their stuff so he could take her away.
“That’s a lot of weapons,” he commented sunnily as Sam and Dean opened the false bottom in their trunk and started to unload it.
“Do you want me to shoot you in the face?” Dean growled. “Anyway, I haven’t been able to start the car, so good luck with that.”
“Really? That’s a shame. Maybe you just don’t have the right touch with that beauty.”
Sam had to wrap his arms around his brother’s torso to stop him from jumping Budd. It was hard to resist the temptation to punch the smug expression off the man’s face himself, though, and maybe he would’ve thrown caution out of the window and done it anyway if he hadn’t noticed clusters of people appearing at the end of the parking lot. He still wasn’t sure what people’s feelings were about Budd’s doings, but Sam didn’t want to test the handle Budd appeared to have on them. Against a crowd, Dean and he had no chance.
“Calm the fuck down,” he murmured to his brother’s ear, feeling him tremble with rage. “There’s nothing we can do now.”
Sam felt Dean’s chest expand with the breath he took in, then deflate as he exhaled noisily. “You better treat her good, Budd,” Dean said, in a tight controlled voice that cracked just a little bit at the edges.
“Don’t you worry about that,” said Budd, shutting down the now empty trunk. He ran a hand over the shiny black roof up to the driver’s door, then got behind the wheel. A few seconds later, the engine purred and the Impala slithered away down Cedar Street.
“Son of a bitch,” said Dean, sounding more dumbfounded than pissed off, now. “I hate that guy.”
- Third night -
At 7pm, just like the night before, they went to Budd’s bar for another game. They’d agreed that in the eventuality that Budd might try to look for them if they left town, it was better if he was alerted about their disappearance as late as possible. Sam also thought that Dean held onto the hope that he would have a chance to get the Impala back.
Budd led them to the same room where they’d played poker, but this time it wasn’t a deck of card that he conjured out of thin air.
“How do you feel about dice games?” he asked, tipping the cup he held in his hand so that five red dice rolled out of it and on the table. “Have you ever played ‘Tripps’?”
Sam shook his head and Dean said, “Once or twice.”
“I’ll explain for your brother’s sake: five dice, the purpose is to have the lowest possible score at the end of the round. All numbers on the dice count as their face values except threes, which count for zero points each.”
“So I imagine that if you roll five threes, you win the game?”
“Exactly.” Budd grinned at him like… Sam would’ve said like a fond father, but his own father had never come even close to that expression. “You can also win by ‘shooting the moon,’ meaning that you roll five sixes. Then you win all standing bets and the round immediately ends. Are you clear on the rules?”
“Yeah, that doesn’t sound too complicated,” Sam said. It also relied heavily on chance, and Sam doubted very much it would go in their favor when Budd was involved.
“Before we start playing, we all must post an ante.”
“Dude,” Dean said, “you already completely ripped us off. What do we have left to bet?”
“Oh, there’s always something.” Budd’s voice didn’t depart from his usual warmth, but Sam thought he could detect something cold underneath. “But I should go easy on you guys. This is supposed to be fun, right?” Dean hissed, ‘Fun, my ass’ between his teeth; either Budd didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him. “Sam, you can bet a button from your shirt. And Dean, how about a lace from your boots?”
“Are we in kindergarten?” Dean grumbled, but still bent to unlace one of his boots.
“As for me…” Budd trailed off, like he wanted to let anticipation build up. “I’ll post this.” And he put the key to the Impala in the center of the table.
Dean’s eyes widened and his fingers curled into fists. Sam, on the other hand, felt his skin crawl with unease: Budd putting the car back into play could only be some bait-and-switch move on his part; he had to be sure he would win, to do that.
The game started and that notion didn’t get disproved: although he didn’t make one of the winning rolls, he always had the lowest score and won the collective pots - though Sam wasn’t sure what he got out of bits and pieces of their clothing. They had to bet more shirt buttons and laces, their belts, the silver ring on Dean’s finger, Sam’s watch. Eventually, Budd started to look appreciatively at the amulet around Dean’s neck.
“No.” Dean’s fingers closed protectively around the golden pendant. “You’re not getting that. You want my pants? Fine by me! I’ll strip naked before I give you this.”
“Aren’t you protective of that piece of junk?” This was the first harsh word Sam had heard Budd say, and even then he spoke as evenly as ever. It was startling, like being pricked by a hidden thorn in a beautiful bunch of flowers. “Well, I would feel bad about forcing your hand, Dean. I think it’s time to up the ante.”
Dean eyed him wearily. “What do you mean?”
Budd interlaced his fingers on the table and his smile grew larger, his teeth gleaming under the electric light. “What about yourselves?”
“What?”
“Maybe not both of you, I don’t want to get too greedy. I’ll let you choose: which one of you will be on the table?”
“Are you crazy? No, don’t answer that. Listen, pal, my car was one thing but if you think for one moment-”
“I’m on the table,” Sam said, effectively cutting off his brother in his rant.
“Sam?” Dean grabbed Sam’s wrist and leaned into him, whispering forcefully, “What the hell are you doing?”
Dean’s panic and incomprehension were palpable, but Sam himself felt very calm and lucid. As soon as Budd had talked about them putting themselves on the table he’d flashed to their first night in Broadhouse, to Dean’s quip about selling his soul and Budd’s reply to that. He knew that Budd was serious about this, and thought he was finally starting to understand what was going on in Broadhouse. He also knew he couldn’t let Dean sell himself again.
“I’m on the table,” he repeated. “Let’s keep playing.”
“Sam.” Dean’s grip became painful and Sam had to shake him off.
“Wonderful,” Budd said; to look at him, one would think that what had just taken place were perfectly normal game dealings. He took the cup and dropped the dice inside one by one, looking at Dean with an unvarying smile. He shook the cup, probably a little longer than warranted, and the dice jumping up and down inside sounded like thunder.
Budd then rolled the dice on the table and, unsurprisingly, they all showed sixes when they settled.
“No,” Dean said, and before Sam had the time to do anything he’d hopped onto the table and grabbed Budd’s collar, one fist up in the air. “No, you bastard.”
“Dean, don’t-”
Sam didn’t know what happened then, but when it looked like Dean’s fist was going to connect with Budd’s face, Dean suddenly found himself on the floor, cradling his head and grunting in pain, while Budd stood up and smoothed over the wrinkles on his shirt.
“Don’t worry, your brother’s fine,” he told Sam, who’d jumped from his chair to run to Dean’s side. Dean was blinking dazedly but he didn’t seem to be bleeding from anywhere, so Sam took him by the arm and hoisted him up.
“So I belong to you, now,” he said to Budd. He was careful to put himself between the man and Dean. “What does that entail?”
“Not much,” Budd said with an irritating smirk. “You should take your brother back to your room and get him some rest.”
“Yeah,” Sam murmured. “Come on, Dean.”
---
Once they were back to their motel room, Dean didn’t seem any worse for the wear and they decided not to change their plans of nightly escape. They waited until 2am; they didn’t check out, of course, and folded themselves in two when they passed the lit-up windows of the lobby. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Sam would have felt a little bit silly to be sneaking out like a teenager.
They went back the way they’d arrived two days ago, walking in long strides through the dark streets. There were very few streetlights, only a few pockets of stale yellow light strewn along their way, and no other lightened window than the ones from the motel lobby. Dean was walking ahead of Sam, as fast as possible without actually breaking into a run, and even though Sam was the one with the longer legs, he had trouble keeping up.
“Dean, wait up!” he hissed. Dean’s pace slowed down minutely and Sam caught up with him so that they were shoulder to shoulder. “What’s the hurry, man?”
“We need to get out of here.”
“I know, that’s the plan but… Relax, okay?”
“How?” Dean stopped so abruptly that Sam staggered into a stop. “Sam, this… man, this thing, owns you. This is fucked up. We can’t stay here one more minute.”
There was true anguish in Dean’s voice, and probably guilt too from not having been able to protect Sam from this turn of events, and Sam thought, his stomach clenching with the reminder, of what Dean had done the last time something serious had happened to Sam. So yeah, Sam agreed, they couldn’t stay here - he didn’t want to wait and see what sort of insanity Dean would come up with this time.
“I’m gonna be okay,” Sam said, cupping his brother’s shoulder then giving it a pat. “Let’s try not to draw attention on ourselves, okay?”
They resumed their walk in silence. With the lack of conversation and the need to stay aware of his surroundings, Sam gradually became aware that the nightly silence was actually rustling with small noises. There was the wind, rising up and piercing through Sam’s shirt and making him shiver: the swish of the wind in the bushes; the wind whishing in Sam’s ears. A faint chirping in the background. Now and then, scurrying sounds at ground-level. They passed the gas station where they’d stopped the first night, then the entrance sign, and the wind started to get blustery and blow sand across the road.
They both got their jackets out of their duffle bags and they shuffled closer for protection against the wind.
“What do we do if it gets worse?” Sam asked, raising his voice to be heard.
A hand above his eyes to shield them, Dean marched forward, leaning in to push against the wind. “We keep going!” he yelled.
Thunder roared above their heads. The sky had changed colors, and a bolt of lightning formed a web of cracks over the charcoal-gray lid of clouds. Wind-borne sand whipped Sam in the face, burning his eyes, and he couldn’t see very well but it looked like there were two dark figures barring the road at a distance: one was a short, crouching form leveled with Sam’s waist, and the other a dark blur floating over the first. Sam stopped, cupped a hand over his brow and squinted his eyes to better see.
“Dean!” he shouted.
His brother grounded to a halt, realized that Sam wasn’t following him and twirled around. “Come on, Sam!”
“Dean, look!’
Dean looked, and when his whole body went taut Sam knew that he was seeing it too: a few yards ahead of them on the road was a coyote, with a tawny-colored fur and a black-tipped tail, and a triangular face where gleamed two amber eyes; landing next to it was a large owl, with a big head and a white heart-shaped face, and black, unnerving button-like eyes. They stayed still, not moving to attack - the coyote even yawned widely at one point, revealing its sharp teeth - but Sam was suddenly reminded of the coyote and the owl painted on Budd’s bar, and of the noises that had woken him up the night before.
“We’re going back!”
“What? No!” Dean got his gun from inside his jacket and pointed it at the coyote.
“Dean, no!”
Sam took a step toward his brother, but the owl had already opened its wings wide and taken off. It swiftly swooped upon Dean and Sam heard him scream and saw him fold his arms over his head to protect himself.
“Dean!” In two strides Sam was at Dean’s side and pulled his brother to him, a hand on his back to keep him hunched over. The owl’s large wings fluttered rapidly in Sam’s face and a few feathers flitted about.
“We’re going back, okay!” Sam raised a hand in front of his face and one of the bird’s claws caught to the fabric of his jacket. “We’re going, so leave him alone!” It was a bit of bet to assume that the bird could understand him, but at his words the owl stopped attacking and flew over in a twirl.
“Are you okay?” Sam spun his brother around, both of them breathing loud; in the dark, he could only see that there was blood on Dean’s face.
“I’m fine. Fucking bird.”
As Sam and Dean backtracked toward the town, the wind calmed down a little. When they passed the entrance sign, Sam read, “Broadhouse, population: 269.” He swallowed; he was pretty sure the number had finished with an ‘8’ before, but he didn’t point it out to Dean.
He held his brother’s arm all the way back to the motel. Dean was locked into silence, upset or hurting, Sam couldn’t tell. The light was still on in the motel lobby; they made a stop there. Laure was behind the counter, a magazine in her hands, but when she looked up at their entrance Sam had the very strong feeling she’d been waiting for them.
“I could have told you it wouldn’t work,” she said.
“You lost too,” Sam said. “Didn’t you? Everyone in this town gambled against Budd and lost.”
“And now we all belong to him. Believe me, you’re not the first to try running away.”
“Then what can we do?” Dean groaned. Sam looked sharply at him: now that he had some light he could see the red scratches on his brother’s forehead and around his eyes, but fortunately the eyes themselves looked intact. “What can we do?” Dean repeated, tearing himself away from Sam’s grasp. “We lie down and wait for the end? Huh? Is that it?”
“Nothing,” Laure said with flat, weary resignation. “We do nothing.”
---
When Sam woke up the next morning he found Dean sitting on the other bed, angrily scrubbing a disassembled gun. The red claw marks around his eyes looked even worse in the daylight and made him look like he’d lost an argument with a wildcat. Next to him on the bed was lined up an arsenal of shotguns, handguns, flare guns, knives (one of which was obviously silver), at least three different kinds of rounds, and a wooden stake sharpened to a point.
Sam scrunched up his nose against the pungent smell of cleaning detergent. “Are you going to war?”
“What do you think?” Dean glanced inside the barrel he was holding. “If we can’t get away, then we fight back. Since we don’t know exactly what he is, I’m getting ready for everything.”
Sam sighed, sitting up in his bed. “And how do you plan to hide all this on yourself?”
Dean gave a frowning, sweeping glance at his weapons. “I’ll find a way.”
“Well, have fun with it. I’m going out to get us some breakfast.”
But once he was dressed and out, free from the warlike atmosphere of the motel room, he found himself wandering around. People nodded or waved at him casually, greeting him like he was one of them and - hell, he was. He tried to wrap his mind around the idea, and weirdly enough, some part of him started to think that it might not be so bad: it was a quiet place, the people seemed nice enough once he’d lost the label of ‘stranger’, and it didn’t look like Budd was torturing them or anything. There were certainly worse fates for a hunter.
Yeah, dumbass. Like Hell, for starters.
And just like that, any shred of optimistic resignation vanished from Sam’s mind. He couldn’t be stuck in Broadhouse, because who would save Dean from Hell then? Sam combed through his hair with his fingers, and had a look around him: his steps had taken him once more past the gas station at the entrance of town. Sam could see the back of the entrance sign, and the road leading out of town that shimmered from the heat. After a moment of hesitation - he didn’t want to risk another attack from the owl or the coyote - he headed toward it.
Broadhouse, population: 269.
He hoped he was misremembering it, but he couldn’t shake the very clear memory of that same sign under the light of the Impala, saying 268. It implied Budd had a great deal of power to be able to control every aspect of the town like that; unless the town itself was under some sort of curse.
Hands in his pockets, Sam turned back into the town, unwilling to risk that standing at the border of the town be considered as another escape attempt. He walked until he reached Maria’s bar. He thought at first that the bar was closed, but then saw movement behind the curtain at the window. The front door opened and a man walked out.
“’Morning,” the man said.
“Uh, yeah. Good morning.”
Sam stopped the door from closing with his foot and entered the bar. Sitting at the counter was the same old man with the baseball cap as had been there the night they’d gotten into town, and no one else, save for Maria herself.
“Hey,” Sam said, perching himself on one of the hardwood stools. “Do you serve breakfast?”
Maria gave him a long look, like she was trying to decide if ‘breakfast’ was a code word for something. “No. You need to go…”
“To Penny’s diner, yeah. I know the place. I was just passing by and… Never mind.”
“Do you want to drink something?”
“No, I should go back to my brother.” Dean was so wrung up right now, he was liable to do anything if Sam was gone for too long.
Sam slid off his stool, made as if he was leaving, then changed his mind and turned around. “Maria, tell me - what is he?”
There shouldn’t be any need to specify which he Sam was talking about, but for a moment Sam thought she was going to make him say it. Her dark, bushy brows knitted together to form one twisted line.
“I don’t know,” she finally said.
“He’s the Devil!” the old man at the bar exclaimed; Sam had almost forgotten he was there.
“What?”
“Shut up, Earl,” Maria snapped.
“What else can he be? You never win when you gamble against the Devil; every deal with him is rigged. How can you deny that it’s what happened to every single one of us?”
A deal with the Devil. Sam’s breath got caught in his throat. Deals, he knew about deals, of course, and Earl was right, what you get is never worth the price you pay. Who did he know who made a deal with the Devil in recent days?
“Thanks,” Sam blurted out. “Good day to you. I-”
“Don’t listen to Earl’s drunken ramblings,” Maria said. “Budd isn’t the Devil. He’s… he’s…” But she couldn’t come up with anything and her usual severe expression softened into helplessness.
“It’s okay,” Sam said. “Maria, it’s going to be fine.”
He left the bar buzzing with excitement, his heart fluttering in his chest like a nervous hummingbird, his hands shaking with it. He had an idea, but it was kind of insane, which meant that he couldn’t tell Dean about it even if Dean had no room to complain whatsoever on the subject. But Sam needed the Colt, so he had to get back to their room, and since he’d promised to bring them breakfast he swung by the general store to buy them bread and cheese.
He found Dean still obsessively cleaning their weapons.
“You hungry?” Sam asked. “I got caught up talking with people so I just have bread and cheese…”
“It’s fine, I’m starving,” Dean said, making a grabby motion for the food.
While Dean wolfed down his share of bread and cheese like he’d never wanted to eat anything else, Sam gave the room a sweeping glance, looking for the Colt. He found it on the bed, between a shotgun and a silver knife, its long, thin barrel making it stand out.
“Did you learn anything new?”
“What?” Sam tore his eyes away from the Colt. “Uh, not really. I don’t think the people know more than we do about Budd. They just know that he owns them, and that they can’t leave.”
“Well, someone has to do something about it. If we share the load, I think we might be able to carry most of the weapons on ourselves.”
“But, remember that second night? Budd seemed to know we were armed. We won’t be able to surprise him.”
“Yeah, but we didn’t try to hurt him with them. He could’ve been bluffing - acting like he was invulnerable and shit. He’s a gambler, after all.”
“It didn’t go so well when you tried to punch him last night,” Sam pointed out.
Dean took a blade from the bed and twirled it between his fingers. “I don’t plan to hit him with my fist this time.”
Sam shook his head and let it go. If his plan worked out the way he wanted to, anyway, it wouldn’t matter whether Budd was permeable to bullets or not.
- Fourth Night-
Sam was feeling the weight of the weapons Dean had made him carry as they made their way to Budd’s bar: gun at his back, blades at his ankle and wrist, holy water weighing down his jacket pocket. Dean was similarly armed with added wrist dart launcher, a device that he’d manufactured himself. At the bar, they found a lot more people than the nights before, so many that the building couldn’t contain them and some had spilled over to the front steps and the sidewalk. Obviously they knew that tonight’s game was crucial, and the anticipation ran like a shiver among the crowd.
“Good luck!” Sam heard someone say. As if luck had a single thing to do with it.
Dean looked like the picture of calm and collectedness, far from the ball of nerves he’d been all day. He smiled at a pretty redhead who was leaning against the doorframe, and she smiled in response as she moved to let them through.
“You’ll see,” she said. “Things aren’t so bad around here.”
“Well, if you’re part of those things then I’m inclined to believe you,” Dean replied smoothly, in the low flirtatious purr he used on good-looking women. Only the way he held his arms slightly apart from his body, ready to grab a weapon at any given moment, betrayed his state of mind, at least to Sam’s practiced eyes.
Inside the bar, all the tables were occupied and the counter was lined up with drinkers. They turned at Sam and Dean’s entrance as one, and Budd clapped his hands like the night’s main attraction had finally showed up.
“Sam and Dean!” Budd exclaimed and, absurdly, some people in the crowd started to applaud; they were elbowed to silence by their neighbors. “You’re right on time.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Dean said, with a cynical little quirk of the mouth.
He took the lead and weaved his way among people, heading toward Budd. Sam saw his fingers flex by his side and he hurriedly caught his brother’s arm to murmur frantically to his ear, “Don’t do anything. Please, stay put.”
Dean twisted to look at him, his eyes flicking left and right, up and down, searching Sam for a clue. “What….?”
“Trust me. I got it. Trust me.”
Dean detached Sam’s fingers from his arm. “Okay.”
He went to the bar and slapped his open hand on the counter. “Barkeep!” he shouted. “A whisky.”
Budd chuckled and served Dean a glass. He gave it a little shove so it slid up to Dean, who caught it and drank it all in one shot. “Anything for you, Sam?” Budd asked.
“No, thanks.” Everyone’s surface calm was starting to make him singularly nervous. All of a sudden he doubted his plan, his brain coming up with a thousand ways it could go wrong. Of course it was going to go wrong, what the hell had he been thinking? What-
“Ready?” said Budd, breaking the train of Sam’s fevered thoughts. He quickly realized Budd was addressing Dean, though. It made sense: Sam had already lost all he had to give. “I thought we’d keep things simple tonight, Dean, if you don’t mind. I imagine you know rock-paper-scissors.”
Dean flinched a little, and Sam did too. It didn’t seem to matter when they played Budd whether they were good at the game or not, but Dean was just stupid at rock-paper-scissors.
“What are we playing for?” Dean asked, even though to all people present it was a matter of course.
Budd smiled indulgently. “For you, Dean. What else?”
“But what about you?” Sam asked, drawing all the eyes in the room to himself. “What are you playing?”
“You, I guess. What do you say, Dean? Do you want to play to get your brother back?”
Dean opened his mouth to answer but Sam overrode him. “No, that won’t do. You’re asking to put all of himself on the table, but what am I to you? You own everybody in this town. The risks aren’t even.”
“So what do you suggest?” Budd’s expression had shifted from his usual good-naturedness to something Sam had trouble deciphering. “I’m sure you have something in mind.”
Sam’s heart pounded against his ribs. “I’m suggesting you make the risks even: my brother against you.”
A murmur went through the crowd and Sam’s eyes locked with Budd’s. He hadn’t wanted to sound too eager to make Budd risk himself, in case it clued him in about the fact that Sam had a plan to win, but looking into the man’s - or whatever he was - eyes, he saw that it didn’t matter if Budd saw right through him. He understood then, with a flash of insight that floored him, that gambling wasn’t a means to an end to Budd. Maybe Budd didn’t even mean to win all the time, although he sure seemed to enjoy it. Gambling was what Budd was, and gambling was about taking risks and then coming out on top. He was utterly unable to resist Sam’s suggestion.
“Alright,” Budd said softly after a long moment of silence. “Everyone bears witness: I’m playing myself against Dean Winchester.”
Sam registered a faint surprise at the fact that Budd knew their name, but it got smothered under everything else: anticipation, fear, and a fair amount of excitement. He saw Dean give him a look, are you sure? and smiled reassuringly at him.
“Shall we start, then?” Budd said.
Dean rolled his sleeve up his right arm. “I guess we shall.”
“We’ll play in three rounds.”
Dean said it was fine by him, and Budd counted to three. First round: Dean put out the scissors, and Budd the stone. Even if it didn’t really matter what Dean did, Sam couldn’t help but think: Stop it with the scissors, Dean!
Second round: Dean played the scissors again, and winced at the sight of his hand, like it hadn’t been a conscious decision, but Budd played paper. An excited aaaah! rippled through the crowd. Budd didn’t look in the least bit worried.
“Last round,” he called with a cocky smile.
“Just get on with it,” Dean grumbled.
“One,” counted Budd, “two-”
Sam searched the crowd with his eyes, going through every single face, recognizing Maria, Laure, the woman from Penny’s diner, the old man with a baseball cap, the married man whose wife was in New Orleans, and the black kid from the first night, when they’d played pool. The expressions ranged from excited, to focused, to resigned, but they were all there, all waiting for the outcome, and there was a little hope mixed up with even the most jaded look. But Sam couldn’t see what he was hoping for and his heart now threatened to jump through his throat. It hadn’t worked. He’d made a mistake and now Dean was going to pay for it. He was getting ready to grab one his weapons and fight for it, when Dean’s whole body shivered violently.
“Dean?”
Dean’s head was bowed low and he had a hand over his eyes.
“Are you okay to keep playing?” Budd asked warily. “Dean?”
“I’m fine,” Dean said, his voice low and a little muffled from his position. “Counting up to three: one-”
“Two,” Budd said at the same time Dean said it.
“Three!” they chorused.
A deep silence followed, the crowd holding their collective breath, and then a rumble started from the back of the room and outside in the street, where the people who couldn’t see Dean and Budd were asking in frantic whispers about the outcome.
“This can’t be,” Budd whispered. His eyes were fixed on his closed fist, and Dean’s flat extended hand.
“Paper beats the stone,” Dean said, but his voice had a strange, oily quality to it. He raised his head and Sam saw Budd’s movement of recoil before he saw the ruby-like glint in his brother’s eyes.
Oh God.
“Are you satisfied, boss?” said red-eyed Dean.
“I didn’t know you’d- You didn’t have to possess him!” Sam choked out.
“Wasn’t mentioned anywhere in our deal, and you can’t argue with the results.”
“Yes, but-”
“What’s this trickery!” roared Budd, seeming to recover from his shock.
“Hey, buddy,” the crossroads demon said with Dean’s voice. “We won fair and square, so now you need to be good to your word. Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly fair… But then you’re not always fair yourself, are you? That’s the way of the game, pal: you win some, and you lose some.”
“I-” Budd turned to Sam. “You tricked me.”
“You tried to gamble for something you couldn’t claim: my brother’s soul is already accounted for.” The words tasted very bitter in Sam’s mouth.
“So now, I’m yours,” Budd said, and opened his arms. “What are you going to do?”
Sam hadn’t really thought that far. What could he do, kill Budd? He’d killed his fair share of supernatural beings before, but there was something despicable in the concept of owning a life and using that power to end it.
“Free everyone,” he said, “and go away. Never gamble for another life again.”
The crossroads demon said, “You heard the man?” He snapped his fingers under Budd’s nose and, without a sound, without even a quiver in the air, Budd disappeared.
The crowd burst into a chaos of exclamations and screams and high-pitched conversations with a lot of arms waving around. Sam took advantage of the confusion to sidle up to his possessed brother. He grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him outside. “Now, release my brother.”
“You wish is my command,” the demon said sardonically. “You know you’ve only gained a few months by doing this, right? Your brother’s a goner anyway.”
“Shut up and let him go!”
Dean’s head snapped backward and a billow of dark smoke rushed out of his mouth. Sam heard someone gasp, but fortunately no one came to them to demand an explanation.
“Dean?” Sam called in a gentle voice, cautiously touching his brother’s elbow. “You in there?”
“Sammy?” Dean slowly blinked. “What…” He seemed to wake up with a jolt. “What was that thing? What did you do? The- It- it talked about a deal. Tell me you didn’t-”
“No, I didn’t sell my soul, Dean.” Now wasn’t the moment to comment on the hypocrisy of Dean’s reaction. “I just had a little chat with the crossroads demon, and since it had a vested interest in you not being claimed by another entity, it wasn’t hard to convince it to help you. I had to do a little Colt waving to convince it to get more involved than that, though.” From inside the bar he heard laughter and whoops of joy. “And now, I think it’s the right moment to get the hell out of dodge.”
“Hey, wait!” It was Laure, running up to them. “Hey.” Out of breath, she folded in two with her hands on her knees. “What happened?”
“What happened is that Budd’s gone,” Sam said. “You’re free.”
Laure’s mouth opened and closed, like she was so overwhelmed she couldn’t find her words in English. “Alors je peux… It means we can leave? I can go back home?”
“Yes, you can.”
“Thank you,” she said fervently. “Thank God.”
“God didn’t have a whole lot to do with it,” mumbled Dean, and Sam nudged him in the ribs.
Laure thanked them again, and again, until it became embarrassing and they had to excuse themselves more or less gracefully. They went back to the motel; there, they found the Impala and Dean addressed payers of thanks to the heavens.
“I thought God didn’t have anything to do with it,” Sam said, earning himself a glare.
“You shouldn’t have done this,” Dean said. “Summoning a crossroads demon to do your bidding? That’s-”
“You don’t get to lecture me on this,” Sam said, startling even himself with how cold he sounded.
Dean ducked his head. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “Fair enough.”
They left Broadhouse just as the sun dropped down behind the far away mountains, driving into the shadowed emptiness of the desert, followed by the eerie sound of a coyote’s wailing.
A/N2: The prompt was: “Sam and Dean, waylaid for a week in a strange and tiny town in the middle of the desert. Bonus points for Southwestern Native American mythology,” so I took my inspiration from a Southwestern Native American myth about a divine gambler named Noqoìlpi by the Navajos and Hasoqata by the Hopi - you can find accounts of this legend here and here.