Housekeeping
word count: 1417
rating: PG
warnings: mention of blood (set in later seasons but there are no spoilers)
characters/pairing: gen, Sam, Dean
summary: Sam sometimes feels bad about leaving a mess for the staff at motels.
He has no idea there are people waiting for him to leave a mess.
Also on AO3
The door marked "Employees Only" was halfway open, and a person's back was visible through the gap.
However, the dryer apparently masked the sound of his approach, because when Sam knocked on the door and pushed it further open, the young woman screeched in surprise and a textbook went flying.
"Sorry! Sorry." He apologized, holding his hands out in what he hoped was a non-threatening manner. "I didn't mean to startle you."
"I just, um, yeah." She stammered, looking up at Sam with a hand against her heaving chest. "You scared the crap out of me."
"Sorry." He repeated as he bent down and picked up her book, holding it out to her as he straightened. "Art History, huh?"
"Yeah." She nodded. "I have no idea why anyone thinks I need it when I'm majoring in pharmacology, but it's a required class at my school."
Sam made a face. "Yeah, mine too. I was a pre-law major and had to take it. It wasn't one of my favorites."
"So what can I do for you?" The woman asked.
"My brother and I were going to get in the pool and I wondered if we could get some extra towels?" Sam asked.
She looked around Sam to see if anyone was outside the door. "Technically, you're supposed to bring me the dirty ones for me to give you clean ones, but if you come down here dripping wet, I'm the one who's going to have to clean it up." She grabbed several towels from the shelf beside her and held them out to him.
"Thanks, uh, Delila." He said, dipping his head to read her name tag.
"No, I have no idea what it's like in New York City." She replied, making a face.
Sam chuckled. "You've heard that one before, I guess."
"Every day of high school." She said, rolling her eyes.
"I was called Sam I Am through most of elementary school." Sam nodded in sympathy. "Thanks again."
He left the laundry room with the towels, and made his way back to their room, where Dean was waiting for him with the door wide open.
"Did you have to wash them yourself?" Dean asked.
"No, I was just talking to the housekeeper." Sam shrugged. "She's nice. She's going to college."
"That's if this monster doesn't eat her first." Dean grumbled. "Come on, we need to get going."
Sam looked around the room, noting the salt lines, the papers pinned to the wall, and the beer bottles and pizza box that didn't fit in the trash can.
"Yeah, give me a second." Sam retrieved the note pad from beside the phone, and scrawled a note. "Do you have any cash?"
"What's that for?" Dean asked.
"I mean, somebody's gotta clean this up." Sam shrugged. "That year you were in Purgatory, I worked for a while at a motel, and we're bad enough, but the messes some people leave ... "
"Yeah, okay, great." Dean grumbled, gesturing toward the door. "We'll come back after we take care of the monster. You can leave her a tip then."
The next day, Delila opened the door of room 11 and almost fainted.
There were lines of something that looked like salt poured on the window sill and the threshold of the room door. Newspaper articles and pictures of two of the missing women were tacked on the wall. Dark footprints, probably blood, made their way from the door to the bathroom. She followed them, careful to walk beside them and not on them, to see what appeared to be watery remnants of more blood in the sink. A quick look in the bathroom told her that the extra towels she had given them were gone, and one of the ones left had something all over it that she couldn't identify.
As she turned to go back to the door, the money on the nightstand caught her eye.
She picked it up and read the note with it.
No one had mentioned a note or a tip.
She hesitated for a moment, but in the end, finals were coming and she could use a couple days off to study.
She went back down to the laundry room and called the phone number on the business card pinned next to the washer.
Four hours later, a uniformed police officer led her past the crime scene tape into the room.
The beds had been stripped. The newspaper clippings were gone. Chunks of the carpet had been cut away where the footprints had been.
Raj was going to have a stroke when he saw that, even though the carpet was two years past needing to be replaced.
"Agent, here's the witness." the cop said, thumbing at her and then turning away.
"Well hey there Delila, what's it like in New York City?" the man in the suit asked.
"Really?" Delila asked, folding her arms and rolling her eyes.
"Sorry," the man muttered, although he obviously wasn't. "I'm Special Agent Rafferty. You're the one who called this in, right?"
"Yes." she nodded.
"We appreciate the tip." He smiled, but it didn't look right on him. "Now, during the time the two men were here, did you have any interaction with them?"
"The taller one came to the laundry room and asked for extra towels yesterday." She offered.
"He asked for extra towels." The agent repeated. "Did he say anything else?"
"No." Delila shook her head. "He just asked for a couple extra towels so he and his brother could go to the pool. I gave them to him and that was it."
"He didn't ask you any other questions? Did he ask you about the missing women?"
"No, just towels." Delila said.
"Did he give you any towels or sheets or anything to wash? There are only two towels in here now." The agent asked.
"No, he didn't give me any laundry." Delila shook her head. "He must have taken the other towels with him."
"Did you notice anything else missing in the room?" The agent pressed. "Anything, no matter how small?"
"I didn't take inventory, but the bedding appeared to all be there." Delila said. "We do leave a notepad and pen on the nightstand and I don't see those."
The agent turned to a man standing closer to the bathroom. "Pen and pad are gone. Make a note of that. Kominski!" he called out.
Another man in a suit appeared in the doorway. "Yeah?"
Rafferty gestured to the agent. "Miss Williams, if you would be so kind as to accompany Special Agent Kominski here, he's going to get your full statement and get that $500 reward for you. There's pretty much no chance these guys will ever stay here again, but in the future, if you happen to see them, there's a $50,000 reward for information leading to their capture."
"What did they do?" Delila asked.
"I can't tell you," Rafferty shrugged. "But these are two of the most dangerous men in the world."
Delila allowed herself to be led away by Special Agent Kominski.
"Did we get anything useful?" Rafferty asked the man in the corner.
"Pretty much like every other motel they've stayed in." the other agent shrugged. "It was definitely the Winchesters. Fingerprints match 100%. We should be able to pull DNA from the sheets, maybe the footprints and the blood in the sink. We don't know what's on the towel. We can verify their whereabouts a thousand miles away on the dates that at least two of the victims went missing. But no, nothing to tell us how these guys aren't dead, or where they're going next."
"One day maybe a maid will call us before they leave the motel." Raffery snorted.
"They haven't in all of these years." The other agent answered. "I wouldn't hold my breath."
Three days later, when she was sure all the federal agents were gone, Delila fished out the note pad and pen from under the dryer.
"Sorry about the mess. Good luck with finals."
She read the note over again, and though about how Sam I Am with the dimples who picked up her book for her and left the only $50 tip she'd ever gotten in her life didn't seem dangerous at all.
She put the pad and the pen in the trashbag, tossed in more trash on top, and tied it closed. She took the bags around back and tossed them in the dumpster, which would be emptied in the morning.