Told That Devil to Take You Back
is a crossover series between Supernatural and Wynonna Earp, starting after the arrival of the British Men of Letters for Supernatural and as Wynonna is on her way back to Purgatory. While trying to escape Toni in the Bunker, Sam finds himself on the bus to Purgatory alongside Wynonna with the Colt in his hands, joining Wynonna in her efforts to break the curse on Purgatory. Meanwhile, back in the Kansas bunker, Dean finds that Mary Winchester wasn’t the only person Chuck and Amara brought back to life, leaving him to face some of his past mistakes as he tries to find Sam.
The series has since been removed from Ao3.
Told That Devil to Take You Back provides examples of:
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Ellie comes to accept the idea that a Nazi occult organisation want her to resurrect Hitler, but is still disbelieving when Jo reveals that she knows someone who would have been used to resurrect Lucifer.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Dean and Castiel each deliver one to Ida Marie, the representative of the British Men of Letters ‘assigned’ to them, Dean asking how the Men of Letters can have such faith in their ability to protect Britain when a crossroads demon managed to approach Bela Talbot when she was a teenager and Castiel asking exactly how the Men of Letters justify killing psychics just because of what they are.
- Asshole Victim: A few characters in Purgatory are targeted by a Revenant for their dirty secrets, and even the heroes have some trouble ‘forgiving’ the victims after learning why they were targeted.
- Back from the Dead: Mary marks only the first of Dean’s lost relatives to come back to life, with others including his Amazon daughter Emma, Adam Milligan, Henry Winchester, old ‘adversaries’ Bela Talbot and Amelia Pond, and even allies like Andy Gallagher, Jo Harvelle and Charlie Bradbury.
- BFG: The Peacemaker and the Colt serve as this, particularly since they are the only weapons able to kill the Revenants.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Dean obviously has trouble dealing with Emma’s resurrection, but the Winchesters eventually adjust to the expanding family dynamic, to the extent that Dean gives Emma a middle name. Mary even accepts Adam as part of the group, assuring him that she recognises that she was dead when John met Adam’s mother and therefore he had every right to try and move on.
- Blood Magic: Obviously the Earp family curse is tied to the bloodline, but Ellie also has to deal with the fact that the Thule Society want her blood to use in a ritual to resurrect Hitler.
- Broken Pedestal:
- Mary is so disgusted at the revelation that her father was willing to sell out his grandsons to bring her back to life that she contemplated changing Sam’s name just to remove any association between her sons and her father.
- Emma is devastated when she learns of Dean’s role in the death of Amelia Pond, but they rebuild their relationship later.
- Composite Character: Sam basically fills the role of Marshall Dolls from the original series, to the extent that his current alias of a U.S. Marshall uses ‘Dolls’ as a surname.
- Closest Thing We Got: When Sam is trapped in his nightmares by a revenant, Wynonna has to accept Waverly volunteering to dream-walk into Sam’s mind to bring him out as Wynonna is needed to kill the Revenant responsible and the only other option is the just-resurrected Charlie, who was already part of Sam’s hallucinations.
- Demoted to Extra: While Doc still plays a part in the Earps’ actions, he is more distant than he was in canon as Wynonna and Waverly trust Sam as their ‘guide’ to the supernatural.
- Deus ex Machina: The fic opens with all evidence suggesting that not only was God/Chuck the one to put Sam in a position to meet Wynonna, but he was also responsible for giving Sam back the Colt, which is basically the only other weapon shown so far that can put the Revenants down for good.
- Didn't Think This Through: Basically Amara’s justification for bringing Samuel Campbell back to life, as she was only thinking in terms of bringing the Winchesters’ family back together and didn’t ask Chuck for details of what the brothers’ relationship with Samuel was actually like.
- Exact Words: Toni attempts to use this at first when telling Emma about the people Dean has killed, such as the Harvelles and Charlie, but by that point Emma was distrustful enough of Toni’s agenda that she soon began to suspect that Toni was lying, bending the truth, or had only learned enough to justify her own views of the American hunters.
- Family of Choice: Part of it can be attributed to Sam believing that Dean is dead, but he soon forms a close bond with the Earps, comparing Waverly to a little sister as he and Wynonna become romantically involved.
- Fantastic Racism: Castiel confronts Ida Marie with the fact that the British Men of Letters are willing to immediately kill psychics just because they’re not normal even though they may not have actually done anything to anybody.
- Ghostapo: Mary and Jo Harvelle, along with a group of female hunters, join Dean in hunting the Thule Society as they try to resurrect Hitler.
- Jerkass Realization:
- When Amelia Pond returns from the dead, Dean is forced to acknowledge that, despite his claims that he killed Amelia because she was a monster who would inevitably kill more people, he only did it because he had lost so much recently and just wanted to be able to kill something.
- Dean experiences a lesser version of this when Bela reveals why she made a deal to kill her parents as a teenager, with Bela quickly assuring him that she forgives his past harsh words.
- Loophole Abuse: When Dean makes a deal with Toni that she’ll give Emma back in exchange for information about the hunters in America, Dean only tells her about either hunters he knows are dead or hunters he doesn’t like that much.
- Meaningful Rename: In a sense; Emma is given the middle name ‘Grace’ to reflect how she’s a gift from God that Dean still isn’t sure he deserves.
- No Periods, Period: Defied; a couple of chapters focus on Mary helping Emma deal with her first period, which Emma finds awkward because she worries about her future.
- A Rare Sentence: During the confrontation with the Thule Society, Dean and his allies make various comments that they explicitly acknowledge are sentences they never thought they’d say, including “What did your dad do to Hitler?”, “The watch holds Hitler’s soul”, and “Yay, commies”.
- Riddle for the Ages: A brief example when Charlie notes that nobody seems to know what happened to the Winchesters’ paternal grandmother beyond that she wasn’t there.
- Royal Inbreeding: Castiel learns that the British Men of Letters basically resort to this to keep their knowledge ‘in the family’.
- Ship Tease: After spending time getting to know each other all over again after her return from Hell, Dean and Bela kiss while preparing for Thanksgiving, but decide not to take it further at the moment even if they accept their new feelings for each other.
- Soul Jar: As in canon, Dean and his allies discover that a group of Nazis saved Hitler’s soul in a watch.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Sam spends some of this series essentially viewing Waverly as one of these for Charlie, but he tries to appreciate her as her own person even before Charlie is brought back to life.
- Thanksgiving Episode: “Thanksgiving” (as expected from the title) focuses on Dean and Sam organising Thanksgiving meals for their respective groups, with Charlie confronting Wynonna about how she nearly ruined the meal when Sam’s trying to give himself a proper family experience.
- Token Non-Human: At one point a shapeshifter tries to infiltrate the Winchesters by posing as Henry Winchester, claiming that it was raised by the British Men of Letters after its father impregnated its mother in disguise (although the organisation denies all official knowledge of the creature’s actions).
- Unskilled, but Strong: While Emma has Amazon potential in terms of her possible strength, her lack of practical experience can be an issue.
- Younger Than They Look: Emma is officially down on paper as being in her teens, but while she looks that age she’s actually not even a year old in terms of life experience.
- Your Magic's No Good Here: Sam sometimes wonders if killing Revenants with the Colt will have some negative effect on the Earp curse, considering that the curse states the Earp heir has to put the Revenants down, but so far his allies all prioritise stopping the Revenants immediately rather than worrying about such a detail when the choice is Sam taking a shot or the Revenant killing someone.
