SPN Fanfic: When the Fiddler Stops - 3/3 (Rated R)
Title: When the Fiddler Stops 3/3 - Complete!
Characters: Ash, Ellen, random Roadhouse OC's
Rating: GEN, R (Language!!! Violence!!! And a lot of death now-ish!!)
Warnings: Still spoilers for AHBL 1+2. Ya know that death, violence and egregious abuse of bar equipment I mentioned before? It's all here. And of course loads more swearing, and it's not solely from Ash.
Word Count: Exactly 8927 words in total - 3025 this part.
Disclaimer: Ash, Ellen, the Winchesters, the world, the bar, all Kripke's. OC's are based on background extras, mostly, so Kripke probably owns them too.
Summary: All Hell breaks loose at the Roadhouse. An alternate missing scene for AHBL 1. Non-canon. NOT HUMOR. (A/N after cut)
Special Thanks Again To: wynterwolf47 for pouncing on a wandering head wound.
Missed Part 1?
Or Part 2?
A/N: And now comes the body count... Lots and lots of combat and death. POV Mixed. Mostly Ash as usual, some Ellen, and some OC. Which, looking back on it, is weird because I like Ellen way more than Ash, it's just that Ash has a bigger mouth. As you'll see. This is the end, my friend, so buckle up. (More notes at the end, because I apparently have a bigger mouth than Ash and just can't shut up.)
-
When the Fiddler Stops
Part 3
by CaffieneKitty
- - -
At Ellen's bellow, the rest of the bar erupted. Gunshots and cursing rang out, grating and crashing as furniture was shoved aside. A cloud of steam and shriek from the pool area was twinned by a deeper shriek from the back corner table. Chanting in melodic Chinese began to lilt over the chaos. Water was spraying all over the front of the bar like some kind of sick water park. Screaming, and steam that stank of sulfurous rotten meat.
Ellen was snarling, spraying her possessed bartender, down behind the bar, reaching around under the counter for something. Beside Ellen, Lucy blasted Spence McCall and his friends at the bar with the second soda gun, wide-eyed and shaking. Spence stumbled backwards, screaming and steaming, while Nick and Gary coughed and spluttered, glaring at the women behind the bar, reaching into their jackets for weapons.
Ken launched from the poker table behind them like a breaching whale, catching a hunter in each arm and slamming them against the edge of the bar. As Nick went down, gasping for air, Ken reared back and punched Gary in the face, sending the knife Gary'd been drawing spinning across the floor.
The guy in the cowboy hat started towards the poker table. Ash stood, pushing back his chair, but god damn if that wasn't old Terry up and striding toward the fucker, glass of holy water and all. The two guys at the table by the jukebox were on their feet too before the water was even thrown, looking happy for any excuse to start some shit with the guy in the cowboy hat.
"Stay down," Claudia shouted at Ash, shoving past him to intercept Spence, who was half-blinded from the water spray and staggering in their direction. Ted grabbed his black book and slid under the poker table.
Up at the bar, Ken had Gary held up by the collar, blood streaming from the smaller man's nose. A blonde woman in a jean jacket stumbled backwards down the steps from the pool enclosure, crashed into Ken and Gary, knocking them over like bowling pins. Latin intonations from near the front door had joined the Chinese chanting from the back corner.
"Stay down," echoed Ted, snagging Ash's arm and yanking him halfway under the poker table. "If they're after you and Ellen, you need to stay under cover until there's a clear-"
Ash jerked his arm away. "Fuck that shit, Ellen's not under cover!" He turned to the bar in time to see Nick Petroski, back on his feet, drawing a gun and pointing it at Ellen and Lucy. He fired, and both women dropped out of view behind the bar.
-
That's when things got floaty and red for Ash. Next thing Ash knew he had his legs wrapped around Nick's torso, clinging to his back, hollering and cursing himself hoarse, squeezing Nick's head with both arms. Just like that once at MIT. Ash felt Nick's nose shift with a wet scrunch. Nick dropped the gun and blindly tried to pry Ash's arms off his face.
Ken staggered back to his feet and landed a solid right hook square to Nick's sternum. Ash felt the crack of bone through his legs and fell down in a tangle with the brokenly wheezing hunter. The fall knocked Nick the rest of the way out cold, and Ash swore vilely as he tried to thrash out from under Nick's limp weight.
"Ellen! Lucy!" Ken shouted, rushing to the bar. There was another shot and Ken landed hard against the bar top, sliding down sideways in a clatter of bar stools, back a spray of red. Gary stood, bleeding from his mouth and nose, holding Nick's gun pointed at Ken's dead body, shaking.
Ash got himself loose of Nick's unconscious limbs and started for Gary, but the wiry hunter swung the gun at Ash, eyes glassy, mouth half-open, reddened teeth bared. Ash stopped, lowered his chin and half-raised his hands. Fuck.
"Spence! I got him!" Gary shouted over his shoulder, over the sounds of struggle throughout the bar. "We supposed to kill him or what?"
"Spence is busy getting his ass exorcised, shithead!" Claudia shouted fiercely, landing another punch to the chin of the screaming, struggling man pinned underneath her. From beneath the poker table, Ted read something complex and holy-sounding in Greek from his little black book, passing a glass of water into Claudia's reaching hand.
"Your buddy's a fucking demon!" Ash gritted at Gary, eyes wide, breathing tight, moving slowly sideways toward the bar. Ethan hadn't popped up like a tin duck at the county fair yet, so there was hope Ellen and Lucy were fine, just staying down and keeping the demonic bartender subdued or exorcising him. "You're on the wrong side, fucknut!" Ash shouted at Gary.
Gary grinned and rubbed blood away from his mouth with his left hand. "I'm on the winning side. The winning side is never wrong."
"Bullshit." Across the room in the corner where there had been gunshots and chanting in Chinese, a black spume of demon smoke erupted and shot out a side window. One down. "You think that you're anything to them? You're fighting for Hell. Hell don't care if you helped 'em win or not, you're a fucking pawn. Human shield. Walking meat."
"Shut up."
Closer to the bar now, Ash thought he heard something from behind the counter, but in the general ruckus it was impossible to tell what was going on. A hideous gargling scream came from across the room in the pool enclosure. No demon-smoke. Not good. "You're a sacrifice. You're fucking nothing to them."
Gary raised his left hand to steady his grip on the automatic. "I don't know whether they want you alive or not, but if you don't shut your mouth right now, I'll-"
"You'll what?" snapped Ash, wondering when the hell he'd developed himself such a fucking impressive set of stones. Probably right around the time this asshole's buddy shot at his friends. Ash didn't have many actual friends, mainly people that needed to use him for information, so he was kind of set on keeping the few he had. "What are you gonna fucking do, Gary?"
"I'll shoot you dead, you mouthy little freak!"
"Aw. You think the fucking demons you're working for are gonna just pat you on the head if it turns out they wanted me alive?" Near the jukebox, someone shrieked, and another black spume streamed out a side window. Two down. Shouts from outside, probably not good either. "Think they'll say 'Well, fuck, Gary, ya did the best you could and here's a gold fucking star for using your initiative?' Fuck that! Whatever they might've had planned for me's gonna be ten times worse for you. They'll turn you into a fucking amusement park in Hell. You're worthless to them, alive or dead."
Gary's eyes flashed, and he raised the gun. Shit, me and my fucking mouth. Ash closed his eyes and clenched his fists.
The shot echoed, almost, and Ash felt a breeze as the bullet passed his head. He dropped to the floor, eyes still closed. When he opened them again he saw Gary on the floor in front of him, blank-eyed and gasping like a fish out of water, shot in the side of his ribcage.
Ash looked around the room. The shooter, one of the two guys from the jukebox table, touched the brim of his ball cap at Ash. He skirted Claudia, who nodded grimly at him before he charged up into the melee in the pool enclosure. At the door, the other one was adding a table to the makeshift barricade primarily composed of the very dead jukebox, unceremoniously shoved in front of the door. Terry was dumping saltshakers in a line across the front windowsill, glancing back at the bar.
A steady stream of Greek still came from under the poker table, and Claudia was still keeping Spencer subdued with punches and the occasional holy water shot. "That was actually kind of impressive, Ash," Claudia called out as Ash scrambled to his feet.
"Yeah," Ash said, voice shaking, "remind me to puke later, okay?" He stepped carefully past Ken's corpse, ducked a flying billiard ball and, scared shitless of what he might see, vaulted onto the bartop.
The first thing he saw was Lucy, on her back, a hole in her chest, staring at the ceiling with sightless and horrified eyes. Fucking hell. Fucking Hell.
The second thing he saw was Ellen. She had Ethan pinned to the floor, using the shotgun from on top of the mini-fridge as a bar across his chest and arms. A holy-water soaked bar rag was stuffed in his mouth, and Ellen had one of the soda guns at the end of its reach, spraying carbonated holy water up the possessed man's nose. Or at least that's what it looked like to Ash. Damn the woman could curse.
-
When Nick fired the shot, Ellen had reflexively dropped, but saw Lucy flung backwards by the impact, and known the girl was hit. In a split second of confusion as Lucy fell, Ellen's mind's eye had painted the young woman's dark hair bright gold. At the same time, Ethan had taken the opportunity to attack. Struggling with her possessed bartender while listening to her employee dying, the thought crossed Ellen's mind that if her daughter had stayed...
A wash of intense guilt for feeling glad, even for a second, that the woman choking on her last breath beside her wasn't Jo had flooded through Ellen, and she'd suddenly been thankful for something evil to pound on.
She had Ethan mostly under control by the time Ash hopped the bar. Ethan thrashed and choked, steam coming from him like an over-heated radiator.
"What took you all so long?" Ellen growled.
Ash grabbed the dangling soda gun and kept watch for inbound demons. "We gotta get gone, Ellen."
Terry came running towards the bar and Ash sprayed him with the soda gun just to be sure. The older man didn't steam as he came around the corner of the bar.
"Oh, damn," Terry sighed on seeing Lucy's body.
"Get going then," said Ellen, keeping the soda gun spray on Ethan, "Take Terry with you."
Quan's voice rose louder with the Chinese incantation and Phil ran up to the bar, pausing to get sprayed with holy water by Ash. "Quan's got our second guy done like dinner. Need a hand here?"
"Phil!" Ellen called, "Both of you, go with Ash and-"
The soda gun in Ellen's hand hissed, spurted and died. Suddenly Ellen was flying backwards. She slammed into the opposite side of the bar enclosure, head rebounding off the brass beer taps. Terry went to her, Phil aimed a gun down over the bartop at the possessed bartender.
"Either of you guys got an exorcism handy?" Ash yelled, grabbing the monkey statue from the bar and holding it in a threatening way.
Ethan rolled onto his side, spat out the rag, inhaled a deep gurgling breath and gacked up about a gallon of steaming black foam, followed by a weak trickle of demon smoke. His body collapsed, blood rapidly staining the side of his shirt. Black wisps started to stream up to the ceiling from the foam and drift out through cracks between the boards.
"Okay," said Phil, lowering his gun, "That works." Ash dropped the monkey and turned to Ellen.
Terry held a reddening bar rag to a gash on her forehead. Her head lolled and her eyes were unfocused but open. "Just a bit of a knock," said Terry. "She'll be all right."
The front door shuddered as something outside hit it hard, shaking the makeshift barricade of jukebox and tables. That wouldn't last. There was a lot of thumping and scuffling going on up by the pool table but Ash couldn't tell who or what had the upper hand there. Chinese still drifted from the far corner, but it sounded almost relaxed now.
"We've got this one!" shouted Claudia, still holding down Spence. "The rest'll be cake. Go!"
Terry called over the bar towards the underside of the poker table, "I warned you about those Greek exorcisms, Ted. They do take a lot longer, don't they?"
Ted's voice kept chanting, but his hand raised from underneath the table, middle finger extended.
Ash slung Ellen's arm over his shoulder and they followed Terry, Phil trailing them with guns out and watching every corner, out through the kitchen, out the side door and through Ellen's RV to the parking lot.
-
"Keep it up, Ted, he's weakening!" Claudia called over her shoulder, grinning as she watched Ash and Ellen head out through the kitchen. Ted nodded and kept reading. Neither of them saw the eyes of the possessed man flicker from black for a moment. As Claudia turned back to her captive, a spume of demon-smoke erupted from Spence's mouth and engulfed her head.
Ted pushed his glasses up and looked up from the small black book, puzzled.
The black cloud whirled, becoming smaller until it disappeared. Spence lay bleeding, skull half-collapsed from a gunshot wound he hadn't had before.
"I don't understand, where did it go?" said Ted, edging out from under the table towards Claudia, who was slowly sitting upright on the cooling corpse, looking at her hands. He crawled up to examine the body. "I wasn't finished yet, it shouldn't have-"
Claudia grabbed Ted by the shoulders and spun him to face her coal-black eyes. "Worked just fine, Teddy Bear."
"No," Ted whispered, as Claudia put one hand on each of Ted's ears and snapped his neck.
-
Phil held a hand up and grimly watched the two people who'd been hammering at the front door finally shove their way through, then he motioned for Ash and Terry, who supported a groggy Ellen between them, to move across the parking lot to Ted's red Yugo. Phil brought up the rear, keeping his guns trained on the Roadhouse.
"Wait, wait," said Ellen, half-aware, as Terry and Ash awkwardly slid her into the passenger seat. "Dean and Bobby."
"Shit!" Ash said, looking back to the bar. "Bobby Singer and Dean Winchester. They're on the way, they're just gonna walk right into that." Aside from a broken window, it looked about the same as always. Faint noises of combat still came from within. "Any fucking demons left might set up a trap, catch them and any other hunters stoppin' by unaware."
"There's almost certain to be demons left," Terry said sourly despite Claudia's assurance, "and if there isn't, more could be coming. That may have been their plan all along, to set up a trap for hunters here."
"So, what do we do?" asked Phil, re-loading a .38 and looking uncomfortably between Ellen and the Roadhouse. "We've lost a lot of people, can't take 'em all down."
"Can't turn it into a trap if it's not there," Ash said.
Ellen nodded gingerly, "Not safe anymore, bastards."
"What, burn it down?" asked Terry.
"Or blow it up," Ash stated, gesturing at the parking lot. "I bet there's enough firepower stashed in these vehicles to launch the fucking Space Shuttle."
"Gas," Ellen muttered, sitting up straighter in the car, hand pressing the bar rag to the still bleeding gash on her forehead. "Kitchen, gas stove. Load it with anything you can find."
"Ken was rather fond of grenades," Terry observed soberly.
Phil nodded, "I just brought him a new batch today." He turned and ran toward a pickup truck that was half camouflage paint and half rust.
Ellen smeared a trickle of blood away from her eye. "If you're gonna blow up my bar, you better blow it up right. Get everyone out first."
"I'm sorry, Ellen," said Terry, holding Ellen's door as Ash went around to the driver's side and got behind the wheel.
"Sorry never got anything done. Go blow up my bar, asshole."
Terry grinned and shut the passenger door. He trotted over to his Cherokee and retrieved a handgun and a canvas bag. Ash pulled Ted's boxy red Yugo out of the parking lot and onto the dirt road, turning towards the Interstate.
-
Phil and Terry clambered through the RV and back into the Roadhouse through the side door to the kitchen. Phil ran ahead to check the main bar room, which was far too quiet.
Terry went straight to the oven, leaned in and blew out the pilot light, shoving in the bag of Ken's grenades and other ammunition. "How long does Ken have you set his grenade delays for, Phillip?" he said, turning the gas knob on the stove to maximum. "Phil?"
Behind Terry there was the clatter of a gun hitting linoleum, and a wet crunch followed by a gargling noise. Terry turned in time to see Claudia, eyes black, drop the body of the dying arms dealer. The scarred woman who appeared to be skewered on half of a pool cue slinked through the kitchen door behind her.
Terry bent to retrieve Phil's gun, neither possessed woman stopped him. The one with the scar pulled the cue out through her chest, grinning.
Claudia smiled broadly at him. "Hey there, Terry, you old Limey prick," she said, black eyes glinting. "Thought you might have run away."
The gas was on full, the sulfur stink of wet demon mixing with the rotten-egg smell of the gas. The grenades were ready, the oven door was ajar. Weighing the gun in his hand, Terry took a step back towards the stove.
Casually, Claudia called back over her shoulder, never breaking eye contact with Terry. "He's all yours."
A black cloud rushed out of the scarred woman's mouth towards Terry. He winced, held his breath and fired a shot into the oven.
-
When the explosion came, Ash tweaked the steering and nearly put the rally-sprung red Yugo in the ditch at fifty miles an hour. Ellen flinched, but watched the fireball rise in the mirror, steady-eyed.
"The others would've got out, before they set it off," Ash said, half a question in his voice. "They would've got everyone out."
Ellen said nothing, just stared hollowly at the smoke cloud rising where her bar used to be, blood-soaked bar rag forgotten in her lap. After a long moment she looked back out the front window.
"Head north when you get to the Interstate. We're going to Bobby's."
- - -
(that's all, thanks for sticking around!)
End Notes:
The range of a standard bar-issue soda gun was kindly reality-checked for me by an offline friend who works in a bar which *koff* shall remain nameless on the miniscule chance her boss reads SPN Fanfic. Ahem. Maximum distance about 20 feet, distance with decent force still in it, 10 feet. Just in case anyone really wanted to know.
The guys by the jukebox were in one of the episodes, by the jukebox, but I cannot find a single screencap of them. The smaller of the two is the shooter. I have tried to beat the Mary-Sue out of every single one of the OC's, and confiscated a sword-cane, and a smidgen of psychic ability in the process, so I hope it worked. :-P
Any out-of-character stupid hero-type actions by canon characters can all be blamed on "Final Countdown" and the T2 and Mortal Kombat soundtracks ending up on my "fight music" playlist.
Even though this hasn't been getting a lot of response, I'm still glad to have this posted and out of my head. :-P Like I said, this is all based off a series of wrong perceptions, and totally isn't at all what happened.
Seriously though... Pretzels???
Characters: Ash, Ellen, random Roadhouse OC's
Rating: GEN, R (Language!!! Violence!!! And a lot of death now-ish!!)
Warnings: Still spoilers for AHBL 1+2. Ya know that death, violence and egregious abuse of bar equipment I mentioned before? It's all here. And of course loads more swearing, and it's not solely from Ash.
Word Count: Exactly 8927 words in total - 3025 this part.
Disclaimer: Ash, Ellen, the Winchesters, the world, the bar, all Kripke's. OC's are based on background extras, mostly, so Kripke probably owns them too.
Summary: All Hell breaks loose at the Roadhouse. An alternate missing scene for AHBL 1. Non-canon. NOT HUMOR. (A/N after cut)
Special Thanks Again To: wynterwolf47 for pouncing on a wandering head wound.
Missed Part 1?
Or Part 2?
A/N: And now comes the body count... Lots and lots of combat and death. POV Mixed. Mostly Ash as usual, some Ellen, and some OC. Which, looking back on it, is weird because I like Ellen way more than Ash, it's just that Ash has a bigger mouth. As you'll see. This is the end, my friend, so buckle up. (More notes at the end, because I apparently have a bigger mouth than Ash and just can't shut up.)
-
When the Fiddler Stops
Part 3
by CaffieneKitty
- - -
At Ellen's bellow, the rest of the bar erupted. Gunshots and cursing rang out, grating and crashing as furniture was shoved aside. A cloud of steam and shriek from the pool area was twinned by a deeper shriek from the back corner table. Chanting in melodic Chinese began to lilt over the chaos. Water was spraying all over the front of the bar like some kind of sick water park. Screaming, and steam that stank of sulfurous rotten meat.
Ellen was snarling, spraying her possessed bartender, down behind the bar, reaching around under the counter for something. Beside Ellen, Lucy blasted Spence McCall and his friends at the bar with the second soda gun, wide-eyed and shaking. Spence stumbled backwards, screaming and steaming, while Nick and Gary coughed and spluttered, glaring at the women behind the bar, reaching into their jackets for weapons.
Ken launched from the poker table behind them like a breaching whale, catching a hunter in each arm and slamming them against the edge of the bar. As Nick went down, gasping for air, Ken reared back and punched Gary in the face, sending the knife Gary'd been drawing spinning across the floor.
The guy in the cowboy hat started towards the poker table. Ash stood, pushing back his chair, but god damn if that wasn't old Terry up and striding toward the fucker, glass of holy water and all. The two guys at the table by the jukebox were on their feet too before the water was even thrown, looking happy for any excuse to start some shit with the guy in the cowboy hat.
"Stay down," Claudia shouted at Ash, shoving past him to intercept Spence, who was half-blinded from the water spray and staggering in their direction. Ted grabbed his black book and slid under the poker table.
Up at the bar, Ken had Gary held up by the collar, blood streaming from the smaller man's nose. A blonde woman in a jean jacket stumbled backwards down the steps from the pool enclosure, crashed into Ken and Gary, knocking them over like bowling pins. Latin intonations from near the front door had joined the Chinese chanting from the back corner.
"Stay down," echoed Ted, snagging Ash's arm and yanking him halfway under the poker table. "If they're after you and Ellen, you need to stay under cover until there's a clear-"
Ash jerked his arm away. "Fuck that shit, Ellen's not under cover!" He turned to the bar in time to see Nick Petroski, back on his feet, drawing a gun and pointing it at Ellen and Lucy. He fired, and both women dropped out of view behind the bar.
-
That's when things got floaty and red for Ash. Next thing Ash knew he had his legs wrapped around Nick's torso, clinging to his back, hollering and cursing himself hoarse, squeezing Nick's head with both arms. Just like that once at MIT. Ash felt Nick's nose shift with a wet scrunch. Nick dropped the gun and blindly tried to pry Ash's arms off his face.
Ken staggered back to his feet and landed a solid right hook square to Nick's sternum. Ash felt the crack of bone through his legs and fell down in a tangle with the brokenly wheezing hunter. The fall knocked Nick the rest of the way out cold, and Ash swore vilely as he tried to thrash out from under Nick's limp weight.
"Ellen! Lucy!" Ken shouted, rushing to the bar. There was another shot and Ken landed hard against the bar top, sliding down sideways in a clatter of bar stools, back a spray of red. Gary stood, bleeding from his mouth and nose, holding Nick's gun pointed at Ken's dead body, shaking.
Ash got himself loose of Nick's unconscious limbs and started for Gary, but the wiry hunter swung the gun at Ash, eyes glassy, mouth half-open, reddened teeth bared. Ash stopped, lowered his chin and half-raised his hands. Fuck.
"Spence! I got him!" Gary shouted over his shoulder, over the sounds of struggle throughout the bar. "We supposed to kill him or what?"
"Spence is busy getting his ass exorcised, shithead!" Claudia shouted fiercely, landing another punch to the chin of the screaming, struggling man pinned underneath her. From beneath the poker table, Ted read something complex and holy-sounding in Greek from his little black book, passing a glass of water into Claudia's reaching hand.
"Your buddy's a fucking demon!" Ash gritted at Gary, eyes wide, breathing tight, moving slowly sideways toward the bar. Ethan hadn't popped up like a tin duck at the county fair yet, so there was hope Ellen and Lucy were fine, just staying down and keeping the demonic bartender subdued or exorcising him. "You're on the wrong side, fucknut!" Ash shouted at Gary.
Gary grinned and rubbed blood away from his mouth with his left hand. "I'm on the winning side. The winning side is never wrong."
"Bullshit." Across the room in the corner where there had been gunshots and chanting in Chinese, a black spume of demon smoke erupted and shot out a side window. One down. "You think that you're anything to them? You're fighting for Hell. Hell don't care if you helped 'em win or not, you're a fucking pawn. Human shield. Walking meat."
"Shut up."
Closer to the bar now, Ash thought he heard something from behind the counter, but in the general ruckus it was impossible to tell what was going on. A hideous gargling scream came from across the room in the pool enclosure. No demon-smoke. Not good. "You're a sacrifice. You're fucking nothing to them."
Gary raised his left hand to steady his grip on the automatic. "I don't know whether they want you alive or not, but if you don't shut your mouth right now, I'll-"
"You'll what?" snapped Ash, wondering when the hell he'd developed himself such a fucking impressive set of stones. Probably right around the time this asshole's buddy shot at his friends. Ash didn't have many actual friends, mainly people that needed to use him for information, so he was kind of set on keeping the few he had. "What are you gonna fucking do, Gary?"
"I'll shoot you dead, you mouthy little freak!"
"Aw. You think the fucking demons you're working for are gonna just pat you on the head if it turns out they wanted me alive?" Near the jukebox, someone shrieked, and another black spume streamed out a side window. Two down. Shouts from outside, probably not good either. "Think they'll say 'Well, fuck, Gary, ya did the best you could and here's a gold fucking star for using your initiative?' Fuck that! Whatever they might've had planned for me's gonna be ten times worse for you. They'll turn you into a fucking amusement park in Hell. You're worthless to them, alive or dead."
Gary's eyes flashed, and he raised the gun. Shit, me and my fucking mouth. Ash closed his eyes and clenched his fists.
The shot echoed, almost, and Ash felt a breeze as the bullet passed his head. He dropped to the floor, eyes still closed. When he opened them again he saw Gary on the floor in front of him, blank-eyed and gasping like a fish out of water, shot in the side of his ribcage.
Ash looked around the room. The shooter, one of the two guys from the jukebox table, touched the brim of his ball cap at Ash. He skirted Claudia, who nodded grimly at him before he charged up into the melee in the pool enclosure. At the door, the other one was adding a table to the makeshift barricade primarily composed of the very dead jukebox, unceremoniously shoved in front of the door. Terry was dumping saltshakers in a line across the front windowsill, glancing back at the bar.
A steady stream of Greek still came from under the poker table, and Claudia was still keeping Spencer subdued with punches and the occasional holy water shot. "That was actually kind of impressive, Ash," Claudia called out as Ash scrambled to his feet.
"Yeah," Ash said, voice shaking, "remind me to puke later, okay?" He stepped carefully past Ken's corpse, ducked a flying billiard ball and, scared shitless of what he might see, vaulted onto the bartop.
The first thing he saw was Lucy, on her back, a hole in her chest, staring at the ceiling with sightless and horrified eyes. Fucking hell. Fucking Hell.
The second thing he saw was Ellen. She had Ethan pinned to the floor, using the shotgun from on top of the mini-fridge as a bar across his chest and arms. A holy-water soaked bar rag was stuffed in his mouth, and Ellen had one of the soda guns at the end of its reach, spraying carbonated holy water up the possessed man's nose. Or at least that's what it looked like to Ash. Damn the woman could curse.
-
When Nick fired the shot, Ellen had reflexively dropped, but saw Lucy flung backwards by the impact, and known the girl was hit. In a split second of confusion as Lucy fell, Ellen's mind's eye had painted the young woman's dark hair bright gold. At the same time, Ethan had taken the opportunity to attack. Struggling with her possessed bartender while listening to her employee dying, the thought crossed Ellen's mind that if her daughter had stayed...
A wash of intense guilt for feeling glad, even for a second, that the woman choking on her last breath beside her wasn't Jo had flooded through Ellen, and she'd suddenly been thankful for something evil to pound on.
She had Ethan mostly under control by the time Ash hopped the bar. Ethan thrashed and choked, steam coming from him like an over-heated radiator.
"What took you all so long?" Ellen growled.
Ash grabbed the dangling soda gun and kept watch for inbound demons. "We gotta get gone, Ellen."
Terry came running towards the bar and Ash sprayed him with the soda gun just to be sure. The older man didn't steam as he came around the corner of the bar.
"Oh, damn," Terry sighed on seeing Lucy's body.
"Get going then," said Ellen, keeping the soda gun spray on Ethan, "Take Terry with you."
Quan's voice rose louder with the Chinese incantation and Phil ran up to the bar, pausing to get sprayed with holy water by Ash. "Quan's got our second guy done like dinner. Need a hand here?"
"Phil!" Ellen called, "Both of you, go with Ash and-"
The soda gun in Ellen's hand hissed, spurted and died. Suddenly Ellen was flying backwards. She slammed into the opposite side of the bar enclosure, head rebounding off the brass beer taps. Terry went to her, Phil aimed a gun down over the bartop at the possessed bartender.
"Either of you guys got an exorcism handy?" Ash yelled, grabbing the monkey statue from the bar and holding it in a threatening way.
Ethan rolled onto his side, spat out the rag, inhaled a deep gurgling breath and gacked up about a gallon of steaming black foam, followed by a weak trickle of demon smoke. His body collapsed, blood rapidly staining the side of his shirt. Black wisps started to stream up to the ceiling from the foam and drift out through cracks between the boards.
"Okay," said Phil, lowering his gun, "That works." Ash dropped the monkey and turned to Ellen.
Terry held a reddening bar rag to a gash on her forehead. Her head lolled and her eyes were unfocused but open. "Just a bit of a knock," said Terry. "She'll be all right."
The front door shuddered as something outside hit it hard, shaking the makeshift barricade of jukebox and tables. That wouldn't last. There was a lot of thumping and scuffling going on up by the pool table but Ash couldn't tell who or what had the upper hand there. Chinese still drifted from the far corner, but it sounded almost relaxed now.
"We've got this one!" shouted Claudia, still holding down Spence. "The rest'll be cake. Go!"
Terry called over the bar towards the underside of the poker table, "I warned you about those Greek exorcisms, Ted. They do take a lot longer, don't they?"
Ted's voice kept chanting, but his hand raised from underneath the table, middle finger extended.
Ash slung Ellen's arm over his shoulder and they followed Terry, Phil trailing them with guns out and watching every corner, out through the kitchen, out the side door and through Ellen's RV to the parking lot.
-
"Keep it up, Ted, he's weakening!" Claudia called over her shoulder, grinning as she watched Ash and Ellen head out through the kitchen. Ted nodded and kept reading. Neither of them saw the eyes of the possessed man flicker from black for a moment. As Claudia turned back to her captive, a spume of demon-smoke erupted from Spence's mouth and engulfed her head.
Ted pushed his glasses up and looked up from the small black book, puzzled.
The black cloud whirled, becoming smaller until it disappeared. Spence lay bleeding, skull half-collapsed from a gunshot wound he hadn't had before.
"I don't understand, where did it go?" said Ted, edging out from under the table towards Claudia, who was slowly sitting upright on the cooling corpse, looking at her hands. He crawled up to examine the body. "I wasn't finished yet, it shouldn't have-"
Claudia grabbed Ted by the shoulders and spun him to face her coal-black eyes. "Worked just fine, Teddy Bear."
"No," Ted whispered, as Claudia put one hand on each of Ted's ears and snapped his neck.
-
Phil held a hand up and grimly watched the two people who'd been hammering at the front door finally shove their way through, then he motioned for Ash and Terry, who supported a groggy Ellen between them, to move across the parking lot to Ted's red Yugo. Phil brought up the rear, keeping his guns trained on the Roadhouse.
"Wait, wait," said Ellen, half-aware, as Terry and Ash awkwardly slid her into the passenger seat. "Dean and Bobby."
"Shit!" Ash said, looking back to the bar. "Bobby Singer and Dean Winchester. They're on the way, they're just gonna walk right into that." Aside from a broken window, it looked about the same as always. Faint noises of combat still came from within. "Any fucking demons left might set up a trap, catch them and any other hunters stoppin' by unaware."
"There's almost certain to be demons left," Terry said sourly despite Claudia's assurance, "and if there isn't, more could be coming. That may have been their plan all along, to set up a trap for hunters here."
"So, what do we do?" asked Phil, re-loading a .38 and looking uncomfortably between Ellen and the Roadhouse. "We've lost a lot of people, can't take 'em all down."
"Can't turn it into a trap if it's not there," Ash said.
Ellen nodded gingerly, "Not safe anymore, bastards."
"What, burn it down?" asked Terry.
"Or blow it up," Ash stated, gesturing at the parking lot. "I bet there's enough firepower stashed in these vehicles to launch the fucking Space Shuttle."
"Gas," Ellen muttered, sitting up straighter in the car, hand pressing the bar rag to the still bleeding gash on her forehead. "Kitchen, gas stove. Load it with anything you can find."
"Ken was rather fond of grenades," Terry observed soberly.
Phil nodded, "I just brought him a new batch today." He turned and ran toward a pickup truck that was half camouflage paint and half rust.
Ellen smeared a trickle of blood away from her eye. "If you're gonna blow up my bar, you better blow it up right. Get everyone out first."
"I'm sorry, Ellen," said Terry, holding Ellen's door as Ash went around to the driver's side and got behind the wheel.
"Sorry never got anything done. Go blow up my bar, asshole."
Terry grinned and shut the passenger door. He trotted over to his Cherokee and retrieved a handgun and a canvas bag. Ash pulled Ted's boxy red Yugo out of the parking lot and onto the dirt road, turning towards the Interstate.
-
Phil and Terry clambered through the RV and back into the Roadhouse through the side door to the kitchen. Phil ran ahead to check the main bar room, which was far too quiet.
Terry went straight to the oven, leaned in and blew out the pilot light, shoving in the bag of Ken's grenades and other ammunition. "How long does Ken have you set his grenade delays for, Phillip?" he said, turning the gas knob on the stove to maximum. "Phil?"
Behind Terry there was the clatter of a gun hitting linoleum, and a wet crunch followed by a gargling noise. Terry turned in time to see Claudia, eyes black, drop the body of the dying arms dealer. The scarred woman who appeared to be skewered on half of a pool cue slinked through the kitchen door behind her.
Terry bent to retrieve Phil's gun, neither possessed woman stopped him. The one with the scar pulled the cue out through her chest, grinning.
Claudia smiled broadly at him. "Hey there, Terry, you old Limey prick," she said, black eyes glinting. "Thought you might have run away."
The gas was on full, the sulfur stink of wet demon mixing with the rotten-egg smell of the gas. The grenades were ready, the oven door was ajar. Weighing the gun in his hand, Terry took a step back towards the stove.
Casually, Claudia called back over her shoulder, never breaking eye contact with Terry. "He's all yours."
A black cloud rushed out of the scarred woman's mouth towards Terry. He winced, held his breath and fired a shot into the oven.
-
When the explosion came, Ash tweaked the steering and nearly put the rally-sprung red Yugo in the ditch at fifty miles an hour. Ellen flinched, but watched the fireball rise in the mirror, steady-eyed.
"The others would've got out, before they set it off," Ash said, half a question in his voice. "They would've got everyone out."
Ellen said nothing, just stared hollowly at the smoke cloud rising where her bar used to be, blood-soaked bar rag forgotten in her lap. After a long moment she looked back out the front window.
"Head north when you get to the Interstate. We're going to Bobby's."
- - -
(that's all, thanks for sticking around!)
End Notes:
The range of a standard bar-issue soda gun was kindly reality-checked for me by an offline friend who works in a bar which *koff* shall remain nameless on the miniscule chance her boss reads SPN Fanfic. Ahem. Maximum distance about 20 feet, distance with decent force still in it, 10 feet. Just in case anyone really wanted to know.
The guys by the jukebox were in one of the episodes, by the jukebox, but I cannot find a single screencap of them. The smaller of the two is the shooter. I have tried to beat the Mary-Sue out of every single one of the OC's, and confiscated a sword-cane, and a smidgen of psychic ability in the process, so I hope it worked. :-P
Any out-of-character stupid hero-type actions by canon characters can all be blamed on "Final Countdown" and the T2 and Mortal Kombat soundtracks ending up on my "fight music" playlist.
Even though this hasn't been getting a lot of response, I'm still glad to have this posted and out of my head. :-P Like I said, this is all based off a series of wrong perceptions, and totally isn't at all what happened.
Seriously though... Pretzels???