apocalypsos: (awww)
tatty bojangles ([personal profile] apocalypsos) wrote2006-07-02 04:21 am
Entry tags:

Fic: Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch (Supernatural)

Title: Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch
Author: Troll Princess
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,650 words
Spoilers: "Devil's Trap"
Pairing: None (Gen)
Warnings: Bad language
Disclaimer: Look, Kripke, the world's largest ball of twine! *grabs onto Winchester family and runs off with them to make them amuse me*
Summary: For the record, everybody dies in the end.

*****

Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch

*****


1.


For the record, everybody dies in the end.

I'm sorry. Did I ruin the story for you?

2.


Sam and Dean and John look good dead, broken but beautiful. You wouldn't think three guys could look beautiful all lifeless and soaked in their own blood, but they do a good job of it. They dirty up handsome, that's for damn sure. Bones not where they're supposed to be, dark red spilling from tears in their flesh, dirt and sweat and grime coming together on their skin. It's a sick sort of beauty, but there it is.

It's almost a shame that it's not real.

Of course, you try telling four paramedics and a bunch of cops that what they're seeing is a big old fake. They're too busy loading bodies into a couple of ambulances and scouring the old warehouse for evidence to worry about what's real and what isn't.

And really, who the hell bothers to see if their patient's just a figment of their imagination? That would just be stupid.

Sure, it's true in this case, but still.

3.


So, yeah, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "So if that wasn't the Winchesters lying dead on that warehouse floor, then where the hell were they?"

Hold your horses, bucko. I'm getting there.

See, the thing is that you don't just go back to a normal life if you've never actually had one. Doesn't matter if you got four years of perfectly happy and Mommy and Daddy and Saturday morning cartoons and cereal with prizes inside. Doesn't even matter if you had a good twenty or thirty years of vaguely normal before everything went to Hell.

Oh, sure, you earn a normal life after twenty years of fighting evil, but that doesn't mean you get one.

I mean, you can get a job and date a nice girl and buy a house with a white picket fence out front. You can even get a yappy golden retriever who gets so excited to see you that he pees all over the rug in the front hallway every damn day. But that doesn't make you normal. We'll talk about normal after you get rid of the shotgun in the front closet and the salt line around the property and stop making every holy man in the county come over to bless your house once a month.

It also might help if you stop rearranging the furniture with your mind.

No, I don't care if it's easier than picking it up and moving it from place to place. You're not helping.

All of that? Yeah, that still makes you a big old freak.

What do you mean, where are the Winchesters? They're in a morgue somewhere. Look, that's not important right now. The important thing is that they all need to collectively take their heads out of their asses, and --

Okay, fine, I'll get back to the guys.

Spoilsport.

4.


Before you have a fit, the fact that the Winchesters are in a morgue does not actually mean they're dead.

What it means is that they're working. Again.

You know all that bitching I was just doing about people wanting to have normal lives and then throwing it all away out of some weird sense of obligation? Yeah, this would be why I was doing that.

"Dude, grab the feet."

"You grab the feet."

"Hey, it's not like we've got to carry this guy all the way down to the incinerator, Sam."

"Yeah, well, if he weren't haunting the damn hospital already, we wouldn't have to carry him anywhere --"

"Boys."

"... sorry, Dad."

5.


In case you're wondering, the yappy golden retriever with the bladder control problem only answers to Angus Young. Not Angus, but like it's one long word. Angusyoung. Just like that.

Sam's still mad at Dean about that one, but Dean still figures that if he was going to be the one to buy Sam the dog, he was perfectly within his rights to name it.

Don't tell Dean, but this Christmas Sam's buying Dean a poodle.

And he's going to make damn sure the little fucker only answers to Fifi before he hands it over, too.

I really like that kid. Probably more than I should, considering.

6.


So, anyway, the deal.

I don't make a lot of deals. People like to think I do, but then again people like to think I have hooves and horns and a tail with a little point at the end of it. Oh, and let's not forget the severe sunburn. I'm a little liberal with the sunscreen, but who isn't these days?

I wouldn't even have made the deal with the Winchesters if it weren't for that fucking demon. I really hated that guy.

I didn't even expect them to take the deal. It probably helped that I didn't exactly tell them who I was.

Hey, I never claimed I was a nice guy.

How stupid would that be?

7.


You're really going to love this part.

The Winchesters go up against the demon, right, and they take him down so fast you'd think they came at him with a nuclear missile instead of an antique gun and a pissed-off psychic kid. Helps if you get a few nice and bloody practice rounds in for a few years before the final battle, I suppose.

Anyway, there they are, hurt and bleeding and falling apart at the seams, and that's when I show up. You'd be amazed how good I am at faking the heavenly messenger line. Congratulations, you've won our sweepstakes! Please collect your prize at the door. And then you smile a lot and hum something ridiculous like Beatles music. The occasional invasion of personal space doesn't hurt, either.

People will buy anything if you act stupid enough.

No, really. Even these guys.

So I offered them a new start. So what? If I hadn't done it, I'm sure those dopes upstairs would have gotten to it eventually.

On second thought, probably not. Which sucks on toast, if you ask me.

I never claimed to be a nice guy, yeah, but I never claimed to be all that bad either.

Seriously, you make one dumb mistake and everybody holds it over your head for all eternity.

8.


John wants to be a mechanic when he grows up.

After the battle is over, he goes off and gets a nice little place in the middle of nowhere and a job in this garage run by this former Marine who's pretty much John with twenty years of demon-fighting missing from his repertoire. He and John sit around when they're not fixing cars talking about guns and anecdotes from their military days and football.

The guy's got this sister, a pretty blonde with this off-kilter smile that John returns more often than he expects to.

I hate to be a matchmaker, but ...

Well, if I weren't a little twisted like that, I wouldn't have arranged for John to end up there in the first place.

9.


See, here's what makes me laugh.

John wanted Sam to go back to college and Dean to have a home. He didn't need to say it out loud, at least not to me. It was just the kind of thing that he thought about every time he looked at the both of them. He could be proud as hell at the way they stood beside him in battle, at their ease with a weapon or their lack of fear when confronted with some evil son of a bitch, but the whole time all he was thinking about was what could have been.

And then the battle ends, and the three of them go off to have the normal lives they're so goddamn desperate for.

Sam heads back to college, although not to Stanford obviously, and Dean gets this house not far from campus and lets Sam have the other bedroom.

Don't even ask Dean how the hell he managed to con his way into a house, for crying out loud. He wouldn't be able to tell you anyway.

And that's when all three of them get surprisingly, achingly, mind-numbingly bored.

Which, you know, explains the whole morgue thing.

Well, that, and an overdeveloped sense of heroics. Some things, they just don't have twelve-step programs for.

10.


Like I said, I don't make a lot of deals.

You'd think I would, but I don't. The last time I made a deal with someone was about thirty years ago, give or take, and I'm not even sure that counts. In theory, I'm not even supposed to make deals with angels, but this one was practically begging. She said a lot of bull about a human she'd fallen in love with, that she'd do anything to give up eternity just to be with him. How he was good and decent and strong, how I was her only hope and all that jazz.

Sweet kid, really. And hey, I'm up for anything that pisses off the big guy, but then again you know that.

So, yeah, I made a deal with her.

And then that jerk had to go and set her on fire on the ceiling over her infant son's crib.

To say I owed John Winchester and his sons the small favor of a normal life is understating it just a little.
stormcloude: peace (sn jensen tongue II)

[personal profile] stormcloude 2006-07-02 08:45 am (UTC)(link)
Wow, I really liked the twist at the end of this story. And you a great job with POV.

[identity profile] clex_monkie89.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 08:46 am (UTC)(link)
Dude. That rocked. Much love.

[identity profile] veronamay.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 08:58 am (UTC)(link)
Oh my Lord, this is amazing. Satan rules.

[identity profile] missyjack.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 09:02 am (UTC)(link)
WORD! Ok you pwning me and large geological parts of the planet with this. Love the idea, and tone and style.And the words and most of the punctuation. Just rocking.

*am filled with admiration and more than a little jealousy*

love this:

And that's when all three of them get surprisingly, achingly, mind-numbingly bored.

Which, you know, explains the whole morgue thing.

Well, that, and an overdeveloped sense of heroics. Some things, they just don't have twelve-step programs for.

[identity profile] lemmealone.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 09:06 am (UTC)(link)
This is fantastic! Love the Satan voice, and you know what? I think they would all go nuts from boredom, given the chance for a normal life.

Angusyoung

*snerk*

[identity profile] budclare.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 09:17 am (UTC)(link)
:)

[identity profile] thenetwork.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 09:28 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, yeah. Please write a novel. Several novels. :)

[identity profile] eloise-bright.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 11:05 am (UTC)(link)
Glorious.

I'm wondering if it's a compliment or an insult to tell you that you've got Satan's voice down.

Loved every line of this. But the first one slayed me dead.

[identity profile] witchofthedogs.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 11:06 am (UTC)(link)
Loved it! Loved it!

Awesome way to wake up on a Sunday.

[identity profile] immoralilly.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 11:08 am (UTC)(link)
Loved the twist at the end. You always have something in your fics that really makes them stand out.

(I friended you, by the way. Hope you don't mind.)

[identity profile] pheebs1.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 12:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Loved the twist at the end.

Very atmospheric, loved the mood of this that you set, right from the start. Great!

tigriswolf: (Default)

[personal profile] tigriswolf 2006-07-02 01:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, this is awesome! I love _love_ the narrator.
ext_5650: Six of my favourite characters (Default)

[identity profile] phantomas.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 01:39 pm (UTC)(link)
what can I say...Satan rocks? somehow I don't think that's the point *G*

You made it work so well, Mary being an(ex)angel, and the Winchesters being..well. The Winchesters.
Love your Satan :)

[identity profile] miladygrey.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 02:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Sam's getting Dean a poodle? LOVE! And loved all the rest of it, too.

[identity profile] sweill.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 02:54 pm (UTC)(link)
You SO need to stop writing this amazing shit or YOU will have FANGIRLS. Yes, its a threat. And I'll make the t-shirts. As it is, you've got icons from this one...
ext_16765: (Winchesters Feelin' Good)

[identity profile] arabella-hope.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 03:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, this is ten kinds of fabulous!

The way your fics flow always blows me away. And who can resist the devil's POV? ;)
meredevachon: (leave it all behind)

[personal profile] meredevachon 2006-07-02 03:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Sam and Dean and John look good dead, broken but beautiful. You wouldn't think three guys could look beautiful all lifeless and soaked in thier own blood, but they do a good job of it. They dirty up handsome, that's for damn sure. Bones not where they're supposed to be, dark red spilling from tears in their flesh, dirt and sweat and grime coming together on their skin. It's a sick sort of beauty, but there it is.

I really liked this. It's just so true.

Seriously, you make one dumb mistake and everybody holds it over your head for all eternity.

This cracked me up. You've really got his voice down (not just here); it's amazing.

John wants to be a mechanic when he grows up.

Hee!

Okay, I was going to quote all my favorite lines, but just assume the whole fic's here. Brilliant!

Many thanks!

[identity profile] geminigrl11.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 04:52 pm (UTC)(link)
"You're really going to love this part."

If you mean, oh . . . let's say the entire thing? The you would be right. Rock my world, baby. You Rock. My. World.
tabaqui: (deangman)

[personal profile] tabaqui 2006-07-02 05:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Wheee!
Oh, that was fun, i liked that!

I love the storyteller style, and gleeful recounting of things...
Very cool, very fun!
mellaithwen: (Default)

[personal profile] mellaithwen 2006-07-02 06:24 pm (UTC)(link)
I feel bad if I only review with a simple "Dude," but it kinda explains it all.

What do you mean, where are the Winchesters? They're in a morgue somewhere. Look, that's not important right now. The important thing is that they all need to collectively take their heads out of their asses, and --

that made me laugh, and the end made me go "Oooh," so it's all good.

[identity profile] lady-octavia.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 06:46 pm (UTC)(link)
OMG! Love the twist ending. Love the style.

[identity profile] varity.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 08:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Hee, I love the title, but the story is even better. Really clever!!!:D

[identity profile] your-hero-died.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 09:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Before you have a fit, the fact that the Winchesters are in a morgue does not actually mean they're dead.

Dude, you absolutely rule. Loved the POV.

[identity profile] squee1123.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 09:31 pm (UTC)(link)
WHEE! I love this. Especially the ending. *does a happy jig*
ext_2984: Dean reads Supernatural (Default)

[identity profile] jellicle.livejournal.com 2006-07-02 09:35 pm (UTC)(link)
That was insanely great, if that makes sense.

[identity profile] alieneyes.livejournal.com 2006-07-03 01:36 am (UTC)(link)
Dude.

Great idea. Lucifer is a funny non-human. I like that he doesn't like making deals; things like that are the things I love.

The mechanic is like john minus the twenty years of hunting...that made me smirk.

Thank you for writing this; I had a good time reading it.

[identity profile] emella.livejournal.com 2006-07-03 04:30 am (UTC)(link)
*jaw drop*

So did they kill God?

Dude!

[identity profile] quietdiscerning.livejournal.com 2006-07-03 04:32 am (UTC)(link)
GREAT story. i loved it so much. you are simply amazing sometimes, you know that?

[identity profile] grey-bard.livejournal.com 2006-07-03 09:12 am (UTC)(link)
Heh heh heh... Tasty, yet evil. I like it!

[identity profile] iamstealthyone.livejournal.com 2006-07-03 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Ooh, nice. Very, very nice. As others have said, great twist at the end, and the narrator's voice (which was wonderfully sarcastic) was extremely well written.

Favorite lines:

We'll talk about normal after you get rid of the shotgun in the front closet and the salt line around the property and stop making every holy man in the county come over to bless your house once a month.

It also might help if you stop rearranging the furniture with your mind.


ROTFLOL! Oh, those Winchesters. *g*

Don't tell Dean, but this Christmas Sam's buying Dean a poodle.

And he's going to make damn sure the little fucker only answers to Fifi before he hands it over, too.


ROTFLOL again! Priceless.

Thanks for a great read. :)

[identity profile] faryfly.livejournal.com 2006-07-04 04:23 am (UTC)(link)
Laughs and chills. Kid, I like your style.

[identity profile] porntestpilot.livejournal.com 2006-07-04 04:49 am (UTC)(link)
You are so fucking cool.

[identity profile] copernica3.livejournal.com 2006-07-05 07:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow. I love the structure. Really smooth, in character and well done. And I love Fifi.

[identity profile] copernica3.livejournal.com 2006-07-05 07:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow. I love the structure. Really smooth read, believable and great writing. Also, I love Fifi.

[identity profile] chocolaticida.livejournal.com 2006-07-24 12:32 pm (UTC)(link)
This is too good. I use that expressión a lot, but I really mean it now. Like, really. Wow. The end is perfect.
You rock x)

[identity profile] palebluebell.livejournal.com 2006-08-01 10:20 am (UTC)(link)
I enjoyed this very much. The chatty tone was a delight, and I really liked the twist at the end.
lark_ascends: Blue and purple dragonfly, green background (Dean cute SN by kaleidoscopeday)

[personal profile] lark_ascends 2006-09-03 11:19 am (UTC)(link)
Wow.

Just, holy shit.

[identity profile] fae-calumnae.livejournal.com 2006-10-11 02:08 am (UTC)(link)
Whoo. The narration was awesome. The whole style just flowed and was really great...yeees...

[identity profile] buffyaddict13.livejournal.com 2007-01-07 08:39 pm (UTC)(link)
this was excellent. i listened to this on my mp3 player while home sick. it really made my day. i loved the whole premise. just hilarious!

a truly wonderful fic. this is going in my favs.

thank you!
ext_14845: betta fish (Default)

[identity profile] fish-echo.livejournal.com 2009-08-23 02:30 am (UTC)(link)
I have recced this on my journal [on LJ (http://fish-echo.livejournal.com/28015.html)]//[on DW (http://fish-echo.dreamwidth.org/26641.html?format=light)].