Shadows of the Night - 15/15 - AU - SPN fic
Title: Shadows of the Night
Author: starpixie16
Chapters: 15/15
Rating: NC-17 [mild language, explicit sexual content (chapter 9)]
Characters/Pairing: Sam, Dean/OFC
Warning/Spoilers: AU, sexual situations; vague allusions to events from season one.
Summary: In September 1932, Sam and Dean Winchester receive a telegram leading them to California. On their last night there, Sam suddenly has a nightmare of a man's death at the hands of a mysterious woman. The brothers investigate, and in the process, Sam learns a few secrets about Dean's past.
Author's Notes: Many huge thanks to elanurel for being my beta. This story also serves as my response to challenge #8 at spn_het_love: Then She Appeared.
<< Previous Chapter
Shadows of the Night
______________________________
Chapter Fifteen
For looking so fragile, Sidney held herself together impressively. Taking a sip of whiskey to ease her nerves, she shifted from fear to concern as she noticed the bruise on Dean's cheek.
"You should get some ice on that." Sidney gently brushed her fingers over the abrasion.
Dean suppressed the urge to wince; the bruise was rather tender even though it wasn't as bad as others he'd received in his lifetime. Shaking his head, he declined. "Nah, I'm okay."
"I insist," Sidney returned. Her deep blue eyes were pleading. "It's going to puff up something awful otherwise."
"All right," Dean slowly agreed. "Thanks."
Sidney's smile was filled with gratitude. "I should be thanking you." She looked to Sam. "I don't know why, but I do know Helena was trying to kill me and you stopped her. I owe you my life."
"It's our job," Sam answered modestly.
"Well, please, come into the living room," Sidney invited, gesturing toward the hall. "I'll get some ice. Then perhaps you could explain exactly what happened here." She expressed a tense laugh.
"Sure, we could do that," Sam replied with a light grin.
Sidney slipped on an emerald green silk dressing gown with long, flowing sleeves, leading the brothers out of her bedroom. When they got into the hall, a woman could be seen standing just inside the door of Miss Sheridan's apartment, an irate expression upon her face. She was wearing a robe and strands of her graying hair peeked out from beneath a nightcap on her head.
"Mrs. Brewer," Sidney gasped, putting a hand to her heart as if to stop it from beating wildly at the unexpected sight of the woman inside her apartment. "What ... what are you doing here?"
"What are you doing? That's what I should be asking," Mrs. Brewer snapped, hands perched impatiently on her wide hips. "First I hear a sound like someone's breaking the door down," she glanced behind her at the damaged latch and deadbolt, "Which I see wasn't too far from accurate. Then I hear all sorts of thuds and screams. What on earth is happening up here?"
Sidney stammered. "Uh, well ... you see ...."
Noticing that the girl wasn't going to produce a very coherent alibi, Dean stepped forward. Extending a hand, he turned on the charm. "Detective Cagney, ma'am." Nodding toward Sam, he continued, "That's my partner, Detective Robinson."
Mrs. Brewer shook his hand, but her posture remained stiff. "Detectives? What are you doing here?"
"Well, see, ma'am," Dean began with a polite smile, "My partner and I were just passing by when we happened to see a suspicious-looking character break into the building. Looked a lot like the man we've been tracking for a month or two now. He's been attacking young women."
"Oh my," Mrs. Brewer breathed, her angry expression softening with mild concern.
"So we followed him inside. He'd locked himself in here with Miss Sheridan." Dean casually raised a hand to adjust his fedora. "We had no choice but to kick the door in. It certainly wasn't our best option, I suppose, but when there's a dire emergency such as this -- "
"Of course, yes." Mrs. Brewer nodded emphatically. "Did you catch the rascal?"
Dean's face was serious. Even Sam himself would have believed the lie he was spinning if he hadn't been there to witness the truth. "No, he socked us both and fled through the window. Climbed the ledge over to the fire escape." He touched the bruise on his cheek. "Dirty mug got me good too."
Mrs. Brewer turned to Sidney. "Are you okay, dear?"
Sidney exhaled. "Oh, I'm fine. Thanks to the detectives." She directed grateful smiles to Sam and Dean.
"That's a relief. What about those marks on your neck?" Mrs. Brewer peered at her curiously.
Sidney clutched the collar of her dressing gown tightly. "Oh, well, the rat had his hands on my throat when the detectives came in. My skin's so sensitive -- I suppose it must have bruised."
Mrs. Brewer looked back at the door again. "I just had those locks put in less than a year ago."
"I'll take care of it, Mrs. Brewer," Sidney offered. "Don't you worry about it." She came forward, putting a hand on the woman's shoulder. "You should get back to bed. It's terribly late."
Mrs. Brewer allowed Sidney to guide her to the door. "Latch is broken too. You won't be able to close the door tonight."
"I'll lock my bedroom. And the detectives are going to stay a while longer to make sure he doesn't come back." Sidney smiled reassuringly. "I'll have someone see to it tomorrow."
"I'll get Jimmy to fix it early in the morning," Mrs. Brewer promised. "Can't have broken locks and doors when there's devils like that skulking about." She nodded, stepping into the hallway. "Get some sleep, dear. And be careful."
"Thank you, Mrs. Brewer. Good night." Sidney pushed the door closed, but as Mrs. Brewer had observed, the latch was too damaged to keep it that way, and the door creaked inward several inches.
"Awfully sorry about the door," Dean apologized as Sidney walked over to them. "I didn't really have time to pick the lock."
"That's quite all right, uh ..." She hesitated then laughed. "Goodness, you two just saved my life and I'm afraid I don't even know your names!"
Dean laughed. "I'm Dean. That's my brother, Sam."
"Wonderful to meet you." She shook their hands. "I'm Sidney Sheridan. Most people call me Sid. My family calls me Ruth. You're perfectly welcome to call me whatever you like out of the three."
Sam's mouth quirked bemusedly. "Did you say Ruth?"
Sidney grinned. "Sidney is my mother's maiden name. I took it for the stage. My actual name is Ruth Sheridan. I just thought it too ordinary if I had any hopes for show business, that's all."
"Well, I think Ruth's a rather lovely name," Sam remarked with a kind smile.
A flush of pink colored Sidney's porcelain skin. "Why, thank you."
Dean pointed toward the door. "And the broad with the delightful personality was who?"
"That's my landlady. She's quite a nosy old thing, but she cares a lot about all us girls that live here." Sidney stepped back. "I'd better get that ice. Please, have a seat."
Dean sat on the sofa while Sam took a chair. "What do you mean by 'all us girls'?" Dean piped up so that Sidney could hear him from where she was poking around in the kitchen.
"This is an apartment for young, single women," came Sidney's reply. "Mrs. Brewer gets awfully uptight about men being around. Except for Jimmy. He's our maintenance man." She suddenly appeared from the kitchen, walking over to sit next to Dean. In her hand was a chunk of ice wrapped in a cloth. "Let me see your face."
Dean turned his bruised cheek toward her, trying not to flinch at the sharp cold of the ice as it touched the sensitive patch of skin.
"Let me guess," Sidney continued, attention focused on Dean's wound. "You two aren't really detectives?"
Sam chuckled. "No, not really."
"But you're brothers?" Sidney's gaze darted between them as if searching for a resemblance, and Sam nodded.
"My last name's not Cagney either," Dean revealed openly.
"I could have guessed that." Sidney gently pressed the ice to his cheek. "Would it happen to be Winchester?"
"That's right," Dean confirmed, smiling.
"I thought so. I do remember Helena saying that." Sidney lowered the makeshift ice pack, droplets of water darkening her green robe. "What -- I knew her ... she seemed so nice. I don't understand what happened."
Sam sighed. "You aren't going to believe it."
"After what I saw tonight, I think I'm likely to believe anything." Sidney looked each of them in the eye. "Tell me what's going on."
Dean began explaining everything from the beginning: Sam's nightmares, the marks he'd received on his chest and throat, right up to how they had followed her home to prevent her from being the mara's next victim. Sidney's face flickered between reactions of confusion, shock, and fear. She listened calmly as Sam filled in the gaps, telling her about how they hunt things like Helena for a living, how the monsters you often hear about actually exist in the world.
Sidney seemed to accept their story with hardly a doubt. Considering she had almost died at the hands of a supernatural creature that night, it likely took little to convince her that the Winchesters were speaking the truth.
She inquired with interest about the hunts they went on; what sort of creatures really existed and which had they killed personally. Sam gladly let Dean answer those queries since he seemed to take a lot of enjoyment from recounting all the times he'd laid waste to a werewolf or burned the bones of a vengeful spirit. Sidney was intrigued by what she considered to be a rather exotic and adventurous lifestyle.
In return, Sidney shared a few details about herself. She told how she'd come all the way from New York to pursue the chance of getting into Hollywood and the many setbacks that followed. The auditions she'd had at the movie studios were always pointless as the casting men repeatedly turned her away for a myriad of trivial reasons. She'd had it with the lot of them, she declared. Singing brought her far less headaches, and she preferred the thrill of being in front of a live audience.
Dawn was preparing to break as Sidney escorted the brothers down to the lobby.
"I can't thank you enough," she said, giving them each an appreciative embrace. "If you ever need a single thing, I'd be more than happy to help in any way I can."
"Thanks," Sam said, placing his hat on his head. "Same to you."
"If I should ever need to reach you," Sidney began, looking at Sam with a glint of worry in her eyes, "Who should I write to? Who should I phone?"
Sam exchanged a look with his brother who shrugged. "We have a few post office boxes around the states ..." he offered uncertainly.
"If you need us, telephone Brunswick 0899," Dean suddenly spoke up. "Guy named Matt will answer. Tell him who you are and leave him your number. We'll check in as much as we can. Hopefully if it's something big we'll be able to get to you in time."
"Brunswick 0899," Sidney repeated. When Dean nodded, she went on. "You know, you two make yourselves horribly difficult to pin down."
Dean displayed a sly smile. "That's kind of the point, sweetheart."
One last goodbye later, the brothers were in Dean's Chevy, heading back toward the Bienvenidos Tourist Court to pack.
* * *
Dean strode up to the table, a grin on his face as he sat down. "Can you beat that?"
Sam looked up from the crossword puzzle he'd been working on, moving his empty plate farther to the side to avoid bumping into it while he wrote. "What is it?"
"I called up the number Matt gave us. Remember, the message he took for Dad?" Dean took a drink from his coffee cup. The bruise on his cheekbone had darkened since its debut, but thanks to Sidney it hadn't swollen much at all.
"And?"
"Turns out I know him. His name's Pat Barlow. Me and Dad helped him out a while back when you were at school." Dean rested his elbows along the edge of the table. "I told him we'd head his way soon as we left here."
"Is it anything serious?" Sam laid his pencil down, abandoning the puzzle for the moment.
"Nah, just a spirit. We could take it with our eyes closed." Dean smiled brightly. "Might not even take us more than a day."
"You tell Matt that you gave Sidney his number?" Sam turned the newspaper's pages back to the front, folding it in half.
"First call I made," Dean responded, finishing the last of his coffee. "Said all we need to do is phone in every once in a while and he'll let us know if she's been asking for us."
"Does the same go for anybody else who needs a place to reach us?" Sam inquired, arching an eyebrow.
Dean nodded. "Yup." He looked down at the newspaper. "Any good news?"
Sam smiled. "Actually, there's something of interest to us." He turned the paper toward his brother. "Alice Metz is officially no longer a suspect in Donald's death. There's not enough evidence to pin anything on her, so they let up."
"That is good news," Dean agreed. "I'd hate to think of the dame being locked up just 'cause a few coppers can't do their job right." He returned the paper to Sam, picking up his hat. "You ready to hit the road?"
Sam laughed. "And how." He rose to his feet. "I certainly won't mind putting this burg behind me for a while."
Dean joined with a laugh of his own. "Me neither." He walked with Sam to the door of the diner, pulling out a cigarette from his pocket as they stepped outside.
The sun burned brightly overhead as the Winchesters breezed out of Colemont. They knew returning would inevitably be in their future -- the place seemed to have its fair share of occult activity gumming up the works -- but until then they'd keep traveling elsewhere, saving the innocent and destroying the evil.
Sam's bruises had faded to a pale gray, leaving him with only a bad memory as he sat back in the passenger seat, watching the town pass by his window. Sunshine warmed his face and as the rattling of the engine lulled him to sleep, he didn't fight it. After three solid nights of nightmares, he was far too tired to try.
THE END
___________________________
FOOTNOTES:
Dean and Sam's aliases are my obvious reference to actors James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, popular in gangster films of the time.
During the 1920s, crossword puzzles had become somewhat of a phenomenon. Although many newspapers refused to publish them, others began adding them to increase circulation, and crossword books sold incredibly well. In the mid-'20s the craze hit a fever pitch, but by the late 1930s, the interest in crossword puzzles had died down, not to be revived until The New York Times ran their first crossword in 1942.
Author: starpixie16
Chapters: 15/15
Rating: NC-17 [mild language, explicit sexual content (chapter 9)]
Characters/Pairing: Sam, Dean/OFC
Warning/Spoilers: AU, sexual situations; vague allusions to events from season one.
Summary: In September 1932, Sam and Dean Winchester receive a telegram leading them to California. On their last night there, Sam suddenly has a nightmare of a man's death at the hands of a mysterious woman. The brothers investigate, and in the process, Sam learns a few secrets about Dean's past.
Author's Notes: Many huge thanks to elanurel for being my beta. This story also serves as my response to challenge #8 at spn_het_love: Then She Appeared.
<< Previous Chapter
Shadows of the Night
______________________________
Chapter Fifteen
For looking so fragile, Sidney held herself together impressively. Taking a sip of whiskey to ease her nerves, she shifted from fear to concern as she noticed the bruise on Dean's cheek.
"You should get some ice on that." Sidney gently brushed her fingers over the abrasion.
Dean suppressed the urge to wince; the bruise was rather tender even though it wasn't as bad as others he'd received in his lifetime. Shaking his head, he declined. "Nah, I'm okay."
"I insist," Sidney returned. Her deep blue eyes were pleading. "It's going to puff up something awful otherwise."
"All right," Dean slowly agreed. "Thanks."
Sidney's smile was filled with gratitude. "I should be thanking you." She looked to Sam. "I don't know why, but I do know Helena was trying to kill me and you stopped her. I owe you my life."
"It's our job," Sam answered modestly.
"Well, please, come into the living room," Sidney invited, gesturing toward the hall. "I'll get some ice. Then perhaps you could explain exactly what happened here." She expressed a tense laugh.
"Sure, we could do that," Sam replied with a light grin.
Sidney slipped on an emerald green silk dressing gown with long, flowing sleeves, leading the brothers out of her bedroom. When they got into the hall, a woman could be seen standing just inside the door of Miss Sheridan's apartment, an irate expression upon her face. She was wearing a robe and strands of her graying hair peeked out from beneath a nightcap on her head.
"Mrs. Brewer," Sidney gasped, putting a hand to her heart as if to stop it from beating wildly at the unexpected sight of the woman inside her apartment. "What ... what are you doing here?"
"What are you doing? That's what I should be asking," Mrs. Brewer snapped, hands perched impatiently on her wide hips. "First I hear a sound like someone's breaking the door down," she glanced behind her at the damaged latch and deadbolt, "Which I see wasn't too far from accurate. Then I hear all sorts of thuds and screams. What on earth is happening up here?"
Sidney stammered. "Uh, well ... you see ...."
Noticing that the girl wasn't going to produce a very coherent alibi, Dean stepped forward. Extending a hand, he turned on the charm. "Detective Cagney, ma'am." Nodding toward Sam, he continued, "That's my partner, Detective Robinson."
Mrs. Brewer shook his hand, but her posture remained stiff. "Detectives? What are you doing here?"
"Well, see, ma'am," Dean began with a polite smile, "My partner and I were just passing by when we happened to see a suspicious-looking character break into the building. Looked a lot like the man we've been tracking for a month or two now. He's been attacking young women."
"Oh my," Mrs. Brewer breathed, her angry expression softening with mild concern.
"So we followed him inside. He'd locked himself in here with Miss Sheridan." Dean casually raised a hand to adjust his fedora. "We had no choice but to kick the door in. It certainly wasn't our best option, I suppose, but when there's a dire emergency such as this -- "
"Of course, yes." Mrs. Brewer nodded emphatically. "Did you catch the rascal?"
Dean's face was serious. Even Sam himself would have believed the lie he was spinning if he hadn't been there to witness the truth. "No, he socked us both and fled through the window. Climbed the ledge over to the fire escape." He touched the bruise on his cheek. "Dirty mug got me good too."
Mrs. Brewer turned to Sidney. "Are you okay, dear?"
Sidney exhaled. "Oh, I'm fine. Thanks to the detectives." She directed grateful smiles to Sam and Dean.
"That's a relief. What about those marks on your neck?" Mrs. Brewer peered at her curiously.
Sidney clutched the collar of her dressing gown tightly. "Oh, well, the rat had his hands on my throat when the detectives came in. My skin's so sensitive -- I suppose it must have bruised."
Mrs. Brewer looked back at the door again. "I just had those locks put in less than a year ago."
"I'll take care of it, Mrs. Brewer," Sidney offered. "Don't you worry about it." She came forward, putting a hand on the woman's shoulder. "You should get back to bed. It's terribly late."
Mrs. Brewer allowed Sidney to guide her to the door. "Latch is broken too. You won't be able to close the door tonight."
"I'll lock my bedroom. And the detectives are going to stay a while longer to make sure he doesn't come back." Sidney smiled reassuringly. "I'll have someone see to it tomorrow."
"I'll get Jimmy to fix it early in the morning," Mrs. Brewer promised. "Can't have broken locks and doors when there's devils like that skulking about." She nodded, stepping into the hallway. "Get some sleep, dear. And be careful."
"Thank you, Mrs. Brewer. Good night." Sidney pushed the door closed, but as Mrs. Brewer had observed, the latch was too damaged to keep it that way, and the door creaked inward several inches.
"Awfully sorry about the door," Dean apologized as Sidney walked over to them. "I didn't really have time to pick the lock."
"That's quite all right, uh ..." She hesitated then laughed. "Goodness, you two just saved my life and I'm afraid I don't even know your names!"
Dean laughed. "I'm Dean. That's my brother, Sam."
"Wonderful to meet you." She shook their hands. "I'm Sidney Sheridan. Most people call me Sid. My family calls me Ruth. You're perfectly welcome to call me whatever you like out of the three."
Sam's mouth quirked bemusedly. "Did you say Ruth?"
Sidney grinned. "Sidney is my mother's maiden name. I took it for the stage. My actual name is Ruth Sheridan. I just thought it too ordinary if I had any hopes for show business, that's all."
"Well, I think Ruth's a rather lovely name," Sam remarked with a kind smile.
A flush of pink colored Sidney's porcelain skin. "Why, thank you."
Dean pointed toward the door. "And the broad with the delightful personality was who?"
"That's my landlady. She's quite a nosy old thing, but she cares a lot about all us girls that live here." Sidney stepped back. "I'd better get that ice. Please, have a seat."
Dean sat on the sofa while Sam took a chair. "What do you mean by 'all us girls'?" Dean piped up so that Sidney could hear him from where she was poking around in the kitchen.
"This is an apartment for young, single women," came Sidney's reply. "Mrs. Brewer gets awfully uptight about men being around. Except for Jimmy. He's our maintenance man." She suddenly appeared from the kitchen, walking over to sit next to Dean. In her hand was a chunk of ice wrapped in a cloth. "Let me see your face."
Dean turned his bruised cheek toward her, trying not to flinch at the sharp cold of the ice as it touched the sensitive patch of skin.
"Let me guess," Sidney continued, attention focused on Dean's wound. "You two aren't really detectives?"
Sam chuckled. "No, not really."
"But you're brothers?" Sidney's gaze darted between them as if searching for a resemblance, and Sam nodded.
"My last name's not Cagney either," Dean revealed openly.
"I could have guessed that." Sidney gently pressed the ice to his cheek. "Would it happen to be Winchester?"
"That's right," Dean confirmed, smiling.
"I thought so. I do remember Helena saying that." Sidney lowered the makeshift ice pack, droplets of water darkening her green robe. "What -- I knew her ... she seemed so nice. I don't understand what happened."
Sam sighed. "You aren't going to believe it."
"After what I saw tonight, I think I'm likely to believe anything." Sidney looked each of them in the eye. "Tell me what's going on."
Dean began explaining everything from the beginning: Sam's nightmares, the marks he'd received on his chest and throat, right up to how they had followed her home to prevent her from being the mara's next victim. Sidney's face flickered between reactions of confusion, shock, and fear. She listened calmly as Sam filled in the gaps, telling her about how they hunt things like Helena for a living, how the monsters you often hear about actually exist in the world.
Sidney seemed to accept their story with hardly a doubt. Considering she had almost died at the hands of a supernatural creature that night, it likely took little to convince her that the Winchesters were speaking the truth.
She inquired with interest about the hunts they went on; what sort of creatures really existed and which had they killed personally. Sam gladly let Dean answer those queries since he seemed to take a lot of enjoyment from recounting all the times he'd laid waste to a werewolf or burned the bones of a vengeful spirit. Sidney was intrigued by what she considered to be a rather exotic and adventurous lifestyle.
In return, Sidney shared a few details about herself. She told how she'd come all the way from New York to pursue the chance of getting into Hollywood and the many setbacks that followed. The auditions she'd had at the movie studios were always pointless as the casting men repeatedly turned her away for a myriad of trivial reasons. She'd had it with the lot of them, she declared. Singing brought her far less headaches, and she preferred the thrill of being in front of a live audience.
Dawn was preparing to break as Sidney escorted the brothers down to the lobby.
"I can't thank you enough," she said, giving them each an appreciative embrace. "If you ever need a single thing, I'd be more than happy to help in any way I can."
"Thanks," Sam said, placing his hat on his head. "Same to you."
"If I should ever need to reach you," Sidney began, looking at Sam with a glint of worry in her eyes, "Who should I write to? Who should I phone?"
Sam exchanged a look with his brother who shrugged. "We have a few post office boxes around the states ..." he offered uncertainly.
"If you need us, telephone Brunswick 0899," Dean suddenly spoke up. "Guy named Matt will answer. Tell him who you are and leave him your number. We'll check in as much as we can. Hopefully if it's something big we'll be able to get to you in time."
"Brunswick 0899," Sidney repeated. When Dean nodded, she went on. "You know, you two make yourselves horribly difficult to pin down."
Dean displayed a sly smile. "That's kind of the point, sweetheart."
One last goodbye later, the brothers were in Dean's Chevy, heading back toward the Bienvenidos Tourist Court to pack.
* * *
Dean strode up to the table, a grin on his face as he sat down. "Can you beat that?"
Sam looked up from the crossword puzzle he'd been working on, moving his empty plate farther to the side to avoid bumping into it while he wrote. "What is it?"
"I called up the number Matt gave us. Remember, the message he took for Dad?" Dean took a drink from his coffee cup. The bruise on his cheekbone had darkened since its debut, but thanks to Sidney it hadn't swollen much at all.
"And?"
"Turns out I know him. His name's Pat Barlow. Me and Dad helped him out a while back when you were at school." Dean rested his elbows along the edge of the table. "I told him we'd head his way soon as we left here."
"Is it anything serious?" Sam laid his pencil down, abandoning the puzzle for the moment.
"Nah, just a spirit. We could take it with our eyes closed." Dean smiled brightly. "Might not even take us more than a day."
"You tell Matt that you gave Sidney his number?" Sam turned the newspaper's pages back to the front, folding it in half.
"First call I made," Dean responded, finishing the last of his coffee. "Said all we need to do is phone in every once in a while and he'll let us know if she's been asking for us."
"Does the same go for anybody else who needs a place to reach us?" Sam inquired, arching an eyebrow.
Dean nodded. "Yup." He looked down at the newspaper. "Any good news?"
Sam smiled. "Actually, there's something of interest to us." He turned the paper toward his brother. "Alice Metz is officially no longer a suspect in Donald's death. There's not enough evidence to pin anything on her, so they let up."
"That is good news," Dean agreed. "I'd hate to think of the dame being locked up just 'cause a few coppers can't do their job right." He returned the paper to Sam, picking up his hat. "You ready to hit the road?"
Sam laughed. "And how." He rose to his feet. "I certainly won't mind putting this burg behind me for a while."
Dean joined with a laugh of his own. "Me neither." He walked with Sam to the door of the diner, pulling out a cigarette from his pocket as they stepped outside.
The sun burned brightly overhead as the Winchesters breezed out of Colemont. They knew returning would inevitably be in their future -- the place seemed to have its fair share of occult activity gumming up the works -- but until then they'd keep traveling elsewhere, saving the innocent and destroying the evil.
Sam's bruises had faded to a pale gray, leaving him with only a bad memory as he sat back in the passenger seat, watching the town pass by his window. Sunshine warmed his face and as the rattling of the engine lulled him to sleep, he didn't fight it. After three solid nights of nightmares, he was far too tired to try.
THE END
___________________________
FOOTNOTES:
Dean and Sam's aliases are my obvious reference to actors James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, popular in gangster films of the time.
During the 1920s, crossword puzzles had become somewhat of a phenomenon. Although many newspapers refused to publish them, others began adding them to increase circulation, and crossword books sold incredibly well. In the mid-'20s the craze hit a fever pitch, but by the late 1930s, the interest in crossword puzzles had died down, not to be revived until The New York Times ran their first crossword in 1942.