fic: There's Never Time to Save, You're Paying By the Hour (SPN; Sam, Dean; gen)
There's Never Time to Save, You're Paying By the Hour
Supernatural; Sam, Dean; pg; spoilers through AHBL2; 6,710 words
"What are the odds we pull into a freaking haunted motel? I swear, it's like the only karma we have is bad."
Thanks to devildoll for the beta, and to luzdeestrellas for the handholding.
~*~
There's Never Time to Save, You're Paying By the Hour
Dean cuts the engine, and Sam's ears ring with the sudden silence. Dean gets out, stalks to the office to get a room, and after the creak and slam of the door subsides, and the lingering echo of Black Sabbath fades, Sam hears the low whine of the EMF meter. He reaches into the duffel on the floor of the backseat, frowning. Batteries are expensive, and the thing goes through them like water, even when they don't forget to turn it off.
For a second, he wonders if he's what's setting it off--demon spawn or reanimated corpse or whatever the hell he is now--but there's no change when he holds it close; it continues to hum low and steady. Sam switches it off and shoves it back into the bag when he sees Dean exit the manager's office. The flickering red of the neon Vacancy sign fills in the word No as Dean walks past, keys and receipt in hand. It's bright and familiar in the darkness.
"Popular place," Dean says, mouth twisting in irritation as he climbs back into the car. "We got the last available room. I hope the neighbors aren't noisy."
As if on cue, the sound of a baby crying wafts through Dean's open window. Sam hopes their room is far, far away from it.
*
The sirens jolt Sam out of the first sound sleep he's had in weeks, since he woke up in South Dakota with a scar on his back and too many questions no one can answer on his tongue, and he sits up with a jerk, bile climbing the back of his throat.
Dean's already at the window, side of his head pressed to the wall so he doesn't have to shift the drapes to look out. The red and white lights of the squad car wash over his face, startling in the darkness. Sam presses in behind him, trying to get a good look--one of the advantages of being taller--and Dean shifts to make room for him. He can smell dust and cheap floral air freshener in the drapes, and sweat and soap on Dean's skin, and the oddly sweet scent of his hair gel.
The building is U-shaped, and Sam can see curtains twitching on the rooms across the parking lot. The disturbance is caused by a lone cop car accompanying an ambulance; both vehicles head to a room at the other end of the motel. Sam can feel Dean exhale in relief, the tension easing from his shoulders.
"They're not here for us."
Sam glances down at him, lips pressed into a thin line. "They're still gonna make life difficult. If it's some sort of criminal investigation, they're gonna wanna question everyone, and leaving now would make us look suspicious."
Dean turns, and Sam eases back out of his way. Dean paces the four steps from his bed to the door slowly, deliberately. He's thinking, has always thought better in motion, and Sam doesn't want to interrupt.
"I paid cash, and we're far enough off the beaten track here that I think we should be okay. We just smile and cooperate and get the hell out before they can identify us."
Sam wants to yell at him, ask him how he can be so calm, but he can tell by the way Dean scrubs a hand over his mouth that he's not nearly as calm as he looks. Dean grabs his jeans from where they're slung over the desk chair and pulls them on, then runs a hand through his hair, making it even more of a mess than it was. He looks absurdly young like that, his freckles standing out and the circles under his eyes finally starting to fade. He actually looks better than he has in a long time, not just resigned to his fate, but fucking happy about it. Sam feels sick when he thinks about it, about how time is passing them by, and how little he's done so far to save Dean.
Dean's got the chain off the door already when Sam shakes himself out of his reverie and says, "What? Wait. Where are you going?"
"You said they're gonna question us, so we might as well go out and gawk with everyone else. Makes us look less like we've got something to hide, right?"
Sam doesn't like it, but a quick glance through the drapes shows Dean is right--the denizens of the Blue Moon Motel are slipping out their doors to watch the show.
With an annoyed huff, he yanks his jeans on, shoves his feet into his boots, and follows Dean out the door.
*
The cops are marking off room one-oh-six with yellow crime scene tape. They send the ambulance away empty, call in for a coroner's van and a homicide detective, and announce that nobody can leave until the detective arrives. Then they all stand around for half an hour, waiting. Dean finds a girl to chat up, of course, a tiny Asian woman in a silky bathrobe, her black hair streaked with bright pink that matches her robe. Her dangly earrings flash silver in the light of the squad car, and her hands flutter when she talks.
Sam shoves his hands into his pockets and drifts closer to the cops, listens to them chatter, catching fragments and phrases--regular customer and poor bastard hanged himself. One uniform says, remember that case back in ninety-six? and the other laughs and answers, they never did find the other boot.
The detectives--there are two, a young white guy and an older black guy--finally arrive, and all the guests shuffle; nobody wants to be questioned first. Dean eases back to Sam's side, is there when the black guy--Detective Roberts, he says--comes over to get their statement. Dean's hand is warm and steady on the small of Sam's back, warning and support and reminder all in one casual touch.
"You boys got anything to share?" Roberts asks, like he already knows their answer.
"We were sleeping," Sam says before Dean can say anything. "D-Dan and I were both asleep until the sirens woke us."
"And you two are staying at this fine establishment because?"
"My family doesn't understand," Sam says, grabbing Dean's hand and squeezing it to keep him quiet. Dean throws him a glare that promises trouble later. "So we--"
Detective Roberts looks like he wants to laugh, but doesn't. "I see." He writes something down in his notebook, but Sam can't make it out in the darkness. "You were both asleep until the police arrived."
Dean smirks, tilts his head at Sam. "Steve here could sleep through World War Three, you know?"
"And did you know Mr. Vargas at all?"
"Who?" They speak in unison, and Sam bites back a grimace.
"The deceased: Elliott Vargas."
"No, sir," Sam says.
"Can you tell us what happened?" Dean asks, eyes wide and head tilted in a decent attempt at innocent curiosity.
Roberts sighs. "Mr. Vargas walked into that room alive, and was carried out dead. It's my job to find out what happened. Anything you can tell me would help."
"He--he hanged himself?" Sam says.
"That's what it looks like. You're sure you didn't see or hear anything?" Sam and Dean both shake their heads, for once telling the truth, and Roberts shakes his head in response. "Of course you didn't. Nobody ever does," he says, more to himself than to them. "Please don't leave the premises until we tell you it's okay to go."
"Of course, detective," Sam says.
Roberts is three or four steps towards the next motel guest when he turns back and says, "That Chevy yours?"
"Yeah," Dean answers, chin up, and Sam wants to groan at the challenge in it.
"Don't see many of them on the road these days, 'specially the price of gas being what it is. She's a beauty."
"She sure is." Dean smiles pride and defiance both, and Roberts keeps moving, Columbo act done for the moment.
"We are so screwed," Sam mutters when they're back in their room with the door shut. "And I hate the name Steve." Steve had been Jess's ex-boyfriend's name. The guy had been a real asshole, and Sam had hated him on sight.
"All gay men are named Mark, Rick or Steve," Dean says. "And since you decided that we were playing for the other team on this one..."
"The cops are looking for two brothers. It seemed like the smartest way to throw suspicion off us," he answers automatically. Then what Dean said finally penetrates, and Sam shakes his head, thinking he couldn't have heard right. "And what? What?"
"Your lack of pop culture knowledge breaks my heart. Sometimes I wonder where I went wrong with you." Dean shakes his head, mouth pursed in mock sadness. "It's from Steel Magnolias."
"Okay, you know that, and you wonder why people think we're gay? You've spent way too much time watching chick flicks for a guy who claims to hate them."
Dean flushes. "Dolly Parton's in it."
"I--" Sam shakes his head, trying not to laugh. "I cannot believe you're still nursing that sick crush on--"
"Don't you even say anything. Dolly Parton is awesome." Sam opens his mouth and Dean says, "Shut up. Just shut up." Like he knows he's going to be hearing about his weird thing for Dolly Parton for the rest of his life. He goes into the bathroom and slams the door.
Sam collapses onto the bed, laughing. He can hear the hysterical edge to it, how close he is to finally breaking, and forces himself to calm down. There'll be time enough later, hopefully, to drive Dean crazy with this new knowledge. He just has to make sure they get out of this without getting arrested. And find a loophole in Dean's deal with the crossroads demon.
The laughter goes out of him at that, and Sam lies back and tries to get back to sleep.
*
"Elaine said this Vargas guy was a regular."
"What?" Sam is lying in bed, failing to sleep, his whole body waiting for the cops to come busting through the door to arrest them, when Dean comes out of the bathroom a few minutes later. "Who?"
"Elaine. The hooker--excuse me, massage specialist--in one-thirty-three." Dean starts sorting the laundry--even he isn't crazy enough to break out the weapons for cleaning with the cops poking around, though Sam knows that's his preferred method of dealing with this kind of tension. "She said he was here once a week, always a Tuesday, always took the same room. He worked a night shift, always came during the day. New job, new shift. This was his first, and--unfortunately for him, poor bastard--last, night session."
"He was a... customer?"
Dean shrugs a shoulder. "Yeah, I guess. She said he wasn't the type."
Sam sits up, gives up even trying to pretend he's going to go back to sleep. "The type to... what? Visit a hooker every week?" Even he can hear the distaste in his voice, but Dean ignores it.
"Off himself. Said he was squeamish. Also, he'd just started a new job, was planning to put a down payment on a new car with his first paycheck." Dean makes a face at the large pile of clothes that need washing, starts shoving them into the laundry bag.
"So you think somebody really did kill him?"
Dean shrugs, shoulders the laundry bag. "I don't know. But there's something hinky about it. As long as we're stuck here, I think we should poke around a little more. Make sure it's not our kinda thing."
As much as Sam hates to admit it, Dean has excellent instincts for the supernatural; a lifetime of training has given him a knack for knowing when something's off that Sam can't quite match, demon blood or not.
"Where are you going?"
Dean grins. "I'm gonna do some laundry, maybe see what else Elaine has to say."
Sam gets up, shoves his feet back into his boots, and buttons up his shirt.
"What are you doing?"
"Coming with you. What does it look like? Gotta make sure you don't shrink my jeans again." He can't admit he doesn't want to let Dean out of his sight, afraid the cops will take him away and he'll never see him again. He wonders if this is how Dean feels every day, has felt every day for the past twenty-three years. If it is, he doesn't know how Dean stands it.
Dean's mouth twists and he flips Sam off, but Sam ignores it. As they leave the room, he snags the EMF meter from the duffel, and tucks it into his pocket.
*
The laundry room is dim and gray and smells of bleach and old socks, and it's exactly like a thousand other laundry rooms in a thousand other motels they've been in over the years--three ugly yellow washers and three dryers, one of which wears a hand-lettered out-of-order sign.
Out of all the chores he's had to do over the years, Sam likes laundry the best; it feels productive-dirty, smelly clothes in, clean, nice-smelling clothes out--even though it's an endless task, because there are always more clothes that need washing, even when they're not spattered with blood or grave dirt or zombie guts. There's an order to it, a method that never changes, and Sam finds that calming, even comforting, at times like this.
Dean shoves the whites into one washer and the rest of their stuff into the other, and turns to Sam, ready to open negotiations. Sam settles into one of the molded plastic orange chairs that sit across from the machines, prepared to extort some kind of favor out of Dean, even though he's perfectly willing to sit there the rest of the night and watch the clothes spin, if it keeps them out of the cops' way.
But Dean is interrupted by the sound of whispers coming from behind the counter. If Dean were a dog, Sam thinks, his ears would be pricking, but as it is, he reaches for a gun he's not carrying, scowls and jerks his head in the direction of the counter. Sam unfolds himself and moves behind him, ready at his back. They move silently, in unison, towards the counter.
"Oh for--" Dean says on a relieved, annoyed exhale, and Sam peers over his shoulder to see two kids, probably six or eight years old, huddled behind it.
"Abuela said to wait here," the older one, a girl, says.
"Okay," Dean says, squatting down so he's eye level with them. "We're just gonna do some laundry, okay? You can come out of there if you want. Or not. It's totally up to you."
"We're not supposed to talk to strangers," the boy says, looking up at them with wide, dark eyes, and Sam thinks he knows exactly how this kid feels, remembers hiding in similar places, Dean's arm wrapped around his shoulders and Dean's voice soft and calm in his ear, Dad's orders to be quiet and avoid strangers always hovering over them.
"Fair enough," Dean says. "I'm Dean, and this is my brother, Sam."
"Dean," Sam hisses, not trusting the kids to keep their names a secret.
Dean ignores him, of course. "We're hiding from the cops, too. This is a pretty good hiding place, huh?"
The boy nods, and the girl says, "Abuela says if they send us back, it will kill her. But I miss my friends."
The door swings open and the housekeeper rushes in, babbling at them in frantic Spanish, eyes wide with panic. Dean rises easily, holds his hands up to show he doesn't intend any trouble.
"It's okay," he says. "We're just doing some laundry, and wanted to make sure the kids were okay."
"We can't go back," she says, "you can't send us back."
"We're not cops," Sam says. "We're staying in room one-twenty-four. We're just doing laundry."
The girl comes out from behind the counter, wraps her arms around the woman's waist. "It's okay, Abuela," she says, and then a brief stream of Spanish, too quick for Sam to follow. The woman pets her granddaughter's sleek, dark hair, and visibly relaxes. She holds out her arm and the boy slips into the circle of it, hugging her back. Sometimes Sam misses being small enough to do that, before he remembers that Dad is gone, anyway.
"This has been a crazy night, you know? Poor Mr. Vargas." She shudders.
"You found him?" Dean says, smiling a little to hide the sudden intensity of his gaze. Sam wonders if the switch from at ease to on alert is as visible to anyone else, or if he's just so used to seeing Dean snap from one state to the other that it's obvious to him now.
"Sí. He called for extra towels. He always did after he had his session," her mouth twists as if the word tastes bad, "with Elaine." She shakes her head. "I can't believe Mr. Vargas would kill himself. He would never cause so much trouble. A nice man, even if he was a little strange."
Sam bites back a laugh; he should be used to the way women open up to Dean, but sometimes it still surprises him. In another life, Dean would have made an excellent cop, or priest, or bartender. People like to tell him things, the combination of awkwardness and charm inexplicably irresistible to women and kids and people who are down on their luck. The kind of people they've spent their lives helping. Maybe not so inexplicable after all.
"Well, I'm sure this will all be cleared up soon," Dean says, his tone reassuring, professional, even. "Has there ever been anything else weird in that room? Cold spots, or things going missing, or something?"
The housekeeper shakes her head. "They say there was a murder there years ago, but Mr. Doakes told me that was just a story, and I shouldn't listen to what anybody says."
"Mr. Doakes?" Sam asks.
"The owner."
The boy yawns, mouth and arms stretching wide, and Sam feels like doing the same.
"Why don't you get the kids to bed?" Dean says. Now his smile is warm and genuine, and both the kids and the housekeeper spark to it. "It's been a long night."
"Sí." She herds the kids out into the night, and they cling to her, tired and trusting.
"I knew something was off about this," Dean says. "I mean, why call housekeeping for more towels if you're planning to hang yourself before they even arrive?" He rubs his mouth, shakes his head. "What are the odds we pull into a freaking haunted motel? I swear, it's like the only karma we have is bad."
Sam laughs, and stops abruptly when he remembers. "Dammit. While you were getting the room, the EMF meter started to hum. I thought--" He breaks off, not willing to verbalize what he'd thought.
Dean cocks his head curiously, and then he gets it, and a look of irritation slides across his face. "And you thought, I'm a giant undead freak. I'll just keep this to myself."
"Dean." Sam wants to say it wasn't like that, but since it totally was, he can't get the words out. Had Dean felt the same way after their visit to Roy LeGrange? After Dad? Dean doesn't give him time to think about that, to wonder why he hadn't thought of it before.
"Shut up. Just shut up. Tell me what happened."
Sam decides not to point out that he can't tell Dean what happened if he shuts up. He knows Dean won't find it amusing. "Nothing. It was a low-level hum, nothing big. I turned it off and forgot about it."
"You forgot. Okay. Fine. Just. Don't do it again, all right?"
"All right."
"Good."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"You always have to get the last word, don't you."
Dean grins. "Yeah. Privilege of being the oldest."
Sam grunts in exasperation and gives up.
*
They've just shifted both loads into the dryers--Dean is playing Sudoku and Sam is trying not to doze, mesmerized by the low hum of the machines--when there's a lot of shouting outside, and then the sound of gunfire rips through the night.
Both of them dive for cover, and then Sam sees two cops leading a man out of one of the rooms. They slam him against the side of the police cruiser and cuff him.
"It's okay," one of the uniforms announces. "Everything is okay."
"Nothing to see here," Dean mutters, and Sam wonders if they're going to have trouble with the cops, if Dean's going to be able to restrain himself from making trouble with the cops for the next few hours. Sam's never been too impressed with Dean's self-restraint.
Sam leaves Dean to gather their clothes and heads back out into the parking lot to see what's going on. He sidles over to Elaine the massage therapist as the cops lead a small, barefoot woman with stringy blonde hair to the second squad car, hands cuffed behind her back, her curses ringing in the air like sirens.
"The McGanns," Elaine says, pointing with her cigarette. "They run a meth lab out of room one-oh-four."
She turns and walks away from the commotion. Sam follows. "You seem to know a lot about what goes on here."
She shrugs. "People tell me things."
"Been here long?"
"About a year now." She leads him to the pool, which is set in concrete and illuminated from under the water--fancier than he'd have expected from a place like this. "You sure ask a lot of questions. You and your, uh, brother was it? Or boyfriend?" She shoots him a sly look over her shoulder, lips painted pink like the streaks in her hair. Before he can answer, she hands him her cigarette--slides it right between his fingers and says, "Hey, I'm not one to judge, you know? Hold that for me, would you?" She unties her robe and lets it slip to the ground. She's not wearing anything underneath it, but Sam doesn't really get a chance to admire the view--she dives into the deep end of the pool, barely making a splash, and swims the length of it in silence.
Sam picks up her robe, drapes it over one of the rusty chaise lounges lining the edge of the pool, and sits in another one, watching, the lit cigarette with pink lipstick staining the white paper burning to ash in his hand.
After she's done a few laps--he's too busy watching to actually count, the light making her pale skin glow blue in the darkness--she swims to the edge of the pool by where he's sitting and says, "You don't swim?"
"No trunks," he says helplessly, shrugging. He's pretty sure Dean wouldn't have let that stop him.
She raises an eyebrow, and he's grateful for the darkness, because he can feel the tips of his ears burning in embarrassment. She lets him off the hook, though, lifts herself up out of the water easily. He jumps up, holds her robe out so she can slip it on, while averting his eyes.
"So you knew this Vargas guy?"
She takes the cigarette from his hand and takes one last drag before stubbing it out on the concrete. She lies back on the chaise next to the one he'd been sitting on, robe drawn tight around her waist, pink polyester clinging wetly to her curves. "Elliott? Yeah. He was a regular."
"The housekeeper said he was a little strange." Sam lets his voice rise at the end, a question but not a question.
Elaine shakes her head. "He liked to be punished, if that's what you mean. A lot of guys do. I told you, I don't judge. Though I have a nice black robe if you like to play dress-up."
"And Vargas did?"
"I don't generally discuss clients with... potential clients." She tilts her head. "But you're not, are you?" Her eyes narrow. "Not a cop, either."
"No. I was heading for law school, though, before--" He looks away. "It's a long story."
"It always is." Her mouth quirks into a half-grin; a rivulet of water from her hair trickles down her cheek and is diverted into the curve of her lip. She waits, gives him a chance to tell it, but he doesn't.
He remembers something Dean said once, or maybe he heard it on Law & Order, about hookers being a cheap form of therapy, and he's willing to bet Elaine's heard her share of sob stories. He's not going to add his to it.
He lets the silence stretch, hoping she'll feel a need to fill it, and after a minute or so, she does.
"Vargas was a security guard, just started a new job at one of the big pharmaceuticals. He was excited about it, asked me to marry him." She laughs at the surprise on his face. "He wanted to rescue me." She shakes her head, not laughing now. "Poor guy."
"Do you need rescuing?"
"No. Yes? As much as anybody ever does, I guess." She shrugs a shoulder. "It's not like I planned to end up here, you know? I wasn't voted most likely to become a hooker by my graduating class or anything."
It's Sam's turn to laugh. "Me neither."
"You two having fun?" Dean's got the laundry bag slung over his shoulder and a smirk on his face.
"Elaine was just telling me about Vargas."
Dean nods, sits down next to Elaine's feet, facing Sam's chair. "You know anything about a murder here a few years ago?"
Elaine wrings her wet hair out gracefully, purses her lips for a moment, then says, "You mean the Sewell girl?"
"Yeah," Dean says, as if they already know all about it. "I heard it wasn't true."
She presses her foot against Dean's thigh, points her toes. Her toenails are painted red. Dean strokes her instep absently with his thumb, the way he'd pet a cat, and she smiles, arching her back sinuously, nipples visible through the wet material of her robe. "Doakes wants people to forget about it, but it was a pretty big deal around these parts ten, twelve years ago--young girl runs away from home with her boyfriend, and eight months later, she hangs herself in a motel room off the interstate, and her newborn baby is found dead in the trash, the boyfriend nowhere to be found." She shakes her head. "They think she killed the baby, then herself, but nobody knows for sure. Doakes changed the name of the place after that--it used to be the Shangri-la." She pats the pockets of her robe like she's looking for something and frowns when she doesn't find it. "They say you can still hear the baby crying on quiet nights."
"Shit," Dean says, glancing at him. "You ever hear it?"
She laughs. "I've seen a lot of crazy shit since I ended up here, but no ghost babies."
Dean smiles encouragingly. "Sad story, though."
"Yeah." She shrugs. "Everybody's got one."
It's an invitation, and Sam thinks Dean might take it (Sam thinks about the one he just passed up), but Dean's in hunting mode now, and even hot chicks can't compete with that. Especially hot chicks who expect to be paid for the privilege of their company. He taps Sam's knee and stands. "Come on, Sammy. The laundry's not gonna fold itself."
"Have a good night," she says, crossing her ankles and folding her arms behind her head. Her wet robe hides nothing. "I'm in one-thirty-three if the boyfriend thing doesn't work out."
Dean snorts, but for once he doesn't say anything embarrassing. Oddly enough, Sam finds himself wishing he had.
*
They take the scenic route back to their room, easing past room one-oh-six with the EMF meter on, one of the earbuds in Sam's ear, the other in Dean's. It should be awkward, but they fall into step with an ease that once would have made Sam resentful, but doesn't anymore.
The hum is low and steady as they approach the room, yellow crime scene tape bright in the darkness, two uniforms standing outside the room. The cops nod at them and they nod back. Sam tries not to wince when the EMF meter whines loud and shrill in his ear.
"Yahtzee," Dean mutters, and pulls the bud out of his ear. Sam switches the thing off and does the same, ear still ringing.
They have to pass the office again on the way, and Dean pushes the door open, flashes his grin at the girl behind the counter. She lights up, tucks a hank of pale red hair behind a freckled ear, and closes her book carefully, index finger marking her place and her other hand covering part of the title, so all Sam can see is Ariosto on one line and Furioso beneath it.
She doesn't look at all upset at having her reading interrupted. In fact, she looks happy to see them--or Dean, anyway--and kind of eager to talk.
"Hi," she says, smiling back, starry-eyed. She's Sam's age, maybe a couple years younger, with the shabby stylish look grad students have sometimes. "Can I help you?"
"We just heard that Vargas wasn't the first person who died here," Dean says, and the girl's eyes widen.
She glances at Sam, as if for help, and he says, "Did the Sewell girl die in room one-oh-six, too?"
"We're not supposed to talk about that," she says, looking back at Dean, who leans on the counter and smiles in encouragement. The girl leans forward in response; she smells like fabric softener and Twizzlers. "Mr. Doakes says it happened a long time ago. Has nothing to do with anything now. Marvin--he's the daytime manager--says we should advertise the motel as haunted, that it would bring more people in, but I think that's awful. That poor girl, you know?"
Dean nods solemnly. "I know."
"She was only sixteen. I can kind of understand, I guess." She looks down at her book now, bites her bottom lip. Her voice is low, hard to hear over the hum of the air conditioner and the fluorescent lights. "I had an abortion last year. I didn't even tell my boyfriend. The timing, with school and everything--It's just hard, you know?"
"I know," Dean says again, his mouth tight, the lines around it suddenly prominent, but his voice is gentle, not condemning, and Sam can see his hand twitch, like he's going to reach out and touch her, before he stops himself.
"Thanks," Sam says awkwardly. She gives him a sad smile.
They leave her there with her sad eyes and her epic poetry, push back out into the humid night, and head back to the room.
Sam swallows hard, remembering the anticipation of waiting, the small quiver of fear in his gut overwhelmed by the sudden hope for a little blue plus sign, making it hard to breathe, his arm wrapped around Jess's shoulders and her hair soft against his cheek, and the disappointment in her voice when the test turned out negative, even though they both knew it was for the best--they'd only been together a few months, then, still had two years of school to go.
"Jess--" he starts, pushing the words past the tightness in his throat, and Dean looks at him sharply, unlocking the door to their room by feel alone. "She wasn't--This one time, we thought, I kinda hoped, but she wasn't." He holds his breath, not sure how Dean will respond.
"Oh," is all Dean says.
Sam wonders if Dean's ever had to take a girl to a clinic; it's possible, but given the way they move around, it's likely Dean was long gone by that time. He knows Dean well enough to know that if he'd known about the need, he'd have gone with her, whoever she was, held her hand before and after, instead of just shoving a wad of cash in her hands and telling her to take care of it, the way some guys he'd known at Stanford had.
He decides for once not to ask a question he doesn't want to know the answer to. He's heard that's the essence of being a lawyer, but he's never been very good at it. Maybe he's finally starting to learn.
Dean drops the laundry bag on the floor next to the bed and stretches, scratching his belly. "I'm gonna go find a vending machine, see if I can't scrape up something to eat. You--"
"I'm good," Sam says, though now that Dean's brought it up, he does feel kind of hungry. "I'm gonna get online, see if I can't find out more about this Sewell girl, what would make her act up after twelve years of silence."
Dean nods. "Yeah, okay. See if she was the first violent death here or if she and the baby were the victims of some older spook." The door closes behind him and Sam exhales, letting his shoulders slump.
He's got a screen full of tabs by the time Dean comes back, the whole sordid story splashing itself across the news in black and white. Dean closes the door behind him with a quiet click and slides the chain home like it can actually keep anything out.
"Here," Dean says. Sam turns and instinctively snags the bag of M&Ms Dean tosses at him out of the air.
"Thanks."
Dean shrugs a shoulder, fishes his flask out of his jacket pocket, and takes a swig. He wipes his mouth on his sleeve, and he sits on the edge of the bed across from Sam, face unreadable. He offers the flask to Sam with all the solemnity of a priest offering sacramental wine, a strange communion only the two of them will ever share.
There was a time Sam would have refused--the words would have been out before he'd even thought about it--but now, he takes it and drinks, the whiskey rich and sharp on his tongue over the chocolate, completing the ritual.
He swallows, the burn of the alcohol warming him from the inside out, clearing his sinuses, and hands the flask back to Dean, who tucks it away, and then looks up, curious.
"What do we know, Sammy?"
"Elaine had the story right, though some important details were missing. Erica Sewell was sixteen when she ran off with her much older boyfriend. They were gone for eight months, no contact with either her family or his, and then she called her mother from here, room one-oh-six. The boyfriend was gone, and Erica said she was in trouble and needed help. The mother was about an hour away, somewhere outside of Philly, and by the time she arrived, the girl was dead and so was the baby. Coroner said the baby was born alive and died of suffocation, probably from being smothered. Erica hanged herself from the ceiling fan with the sheet." He clicks through several tabs, swallows again, and takes a sip of water from the glass on the night table before he tells Dean the one thing no one else seems to have remembered. "The boyfriend's name was Elliott Vargas."
"Son of a bitch."
*
Two hours later, the cops clear out with one last warning not to skip town before the investigation is through, even though it looks like a clear case of suicide.
Twenty minutes after that, Dean is easing the Impala out of the parking lot of the Blue Moon Motel. Elaine is still lying by the pool, the lit end of her cigarette glowing like a firefly as she waves goodbye. Sam can see the night manager's red hair gleaming under the unforgiving fluorescent lights of the office, turning her pale skin slightly greenish, head still bowed over her book. The housekeeper is wheeling her cart past room one-fifteen, weariness written in every line of her heavy body. Sam hopes her grandkids are in bed, young minds already erasing the trauma of the night and leaving behind only the memory of excitement, a story to tell years later to disbelieving friends in the high school cafeteria, the truth a secret they'll share only with each other.
Dean leaves the radio off, fingers drumming arrhythmically on the steering wheel, driving north towards Erica Sewell's grave.
"Just to be sure," he says, though Sam's pretty certain she's at rest now.
Sam's dozing, steady sound of tire on asphalt lulling him the way it always does, when Dean says, "You don't think he killed her?"
"He told the cops they'd split before he even knew about the baby. He was shacked up in Cherry Hill with his new girlfriend by the time the story hit the news," Sam answers, not even opening his eyes, the headlines blurring across the backs of his eyelids. "He knocked her up and abandoned her. It's reason enough, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
Sam remembers what Elaine had said, about how Vargas had wanted to be punished. About his desire to rescue her. Elliot Vargas hadn't been able to save her, if she even needed saving. He hadn't even managed to save himself.
*
When they're done, and Erica Sewell's body is nothing more than ash mixed with the dirt of her grave, Dean offers Sam another slug from the flask, and Sam takes it, then pours a little on the ground over her grave, another ritual only he and Dean perform in the course of their lonely sacrament.
The headstone says Beloved Daughter, and Sam shivers, thinking about what it must have been like for Erica's mother to find her daughter and grandchild in that motel room. He thinks about Elliott Vargas, getting the news from his television, the guilt sharp as razors under his skin, bright as copper in his mouth, knowing he could have saved her, and hadn't. Sam wonders who else besides Elaine he'd tried to save, in the misguided belief that saving other people could somehow make up for losing the ones who counted most.
The story's a little too familiar for Sam's liking, and he vows again to break the circle of guilt and loss that's held his family in its grip for so many years. He glances at Dean, whose eyes, deep and green in the early light, have gone shadowed, faraway.
They sit in the silence of the car for a few minutes, the early morning air already full of humidity, promising another hot August day, and then Dean reaches for his tape collection, sadly (or not, from Sam's point of view) reduced after the accident, and occasionally supplemented by purchases at flea markets and secondhand record shops.
He finds what he's looking for, shoves the tape in, and starts doing that rewind/fast forward thing to find the beginning of the song, a skill Sam's had to relearn in the past two years, even though no one else anywhere still uses a tape deck.
As they pull out of the cemetery parking lot, the opening chords of "Stairway to Heaven" fill the car, but it's not the version Sam is familiar with from a lifetime of listening to Led Zeppelin. He glances over, surprised, because Dean tends to think covers of Zeppelin are works of the devil.
The vocals kick in and Sam blinks, shocked. "Dude, no," he whispers, sure he's hearing wrong. "It can't be."
"Shut up and listen," Dean says, tapping the tape deck, trying not to laugh and failing. "Dolly Parton does a pretty decent version."
Sam looks over at Dean's sweaty, laughing face, and feels a tight ache in his chest. He's going to save Dean, he thinks. He's not going to abandon him, and he's not going to fail. He still has nine months to figure it all out, and he's always done his best work with a deadline looming. But he only says, "You are one sick bastard," and laughs when Dean turns up the volume.
end
~*~
September 1, 2007
*
Notes: This story is heavily inspired by the Homicide episode "Full Moon," and the thing about the cops never finding the other boot is actually from that episode, though this story takes place in either Delaware or South Jersey, rather than Baltimore.
Title comes from "Falling Awake" by Gary Jules, which is totally about Dean in my head.
Dolly Parton really has recorded Stairway to Heaven, and it is a pretty kickass cover, imo, though some disagree. *eyes luzdeestrellas*. And the original, for the one person reading this who doesn't already own it: Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin
~*~
Feedback would be awesome.
~*~
Supernatural; Sam, Dean; pg; spoilers through AHBL2; 6,710 words
"What are the odds we pull into a freaking haunted motel? I swear, it's like the only karma we have is bad."
Thanks to devildoll for the beta, and to luzdeestrellas for the handholding.
~*~
There's Never Time to Save, You're Paying By the Hour
Dean cuts the engine, and Sam's ears ring with the sudden silence. Dean gets out, stalks to the office to get a room, and after the creak and slam of the door subsides, and the lingering echo of Black Sabbath fades, Sam hears the low whine of the EMF meter. He reaches into the duffel on the floor of the backseat, frowning. Batteries are expensive, and the thing goes through them like water, even when they don't forget to turn it off.
For a second, he wonders if he's what's setting it off--demon spawn or reanimated corpse or whatever the hell he is now--but there's no change when he holds it close; it continues to hum low and steady. Sam switches it off and shoves it back into the bag when he sees Dean exit the manager's office. The flickering red of the neon Vacancy sign fills in the word No as Dean walks past, keys and receipt in hand. It's bright and familiar in the darkness.
"Popular place," Dean says, mouth twisting in irritation as he climbs back into the car. "We got the last available room. I hope the neighbors aren't noisy."
As if on cue, the sound of a baby crying wafts through Dean's open window. Sam hopes their room is far, far away from it.
*
The sirens jolt Sam out of the first sound sleep he's had in weeks, since he woke up in South Dakota with a scar on his back and too many questions no one can answer on his tongue, and he sits up with a jerk, bile climbing the back of his throat.
Dean's already at the window, side of his head pressed to the wall so he doesn't have to shift the drapes to look out. The red and white lights of the squad car wash over his face, startling in the darkness. Sam presses in behind him, trying to get a good look--one of the advantages of being taller--and Dean shifts to make room for him. He can smell dust and cheap floral air freshener in the drapes, and sweat and soap on Dean's skin, and the oddly sweet scent of his hair gel.
The building is U-shaped, and Sam can see curtains twitching on the rooms across the parking lot. The disturbance is caused by a lone cop car accompanying an ambulance; both vehicles head to a room at the other end of the motel. Sam can feel Dean exhale in relief, the tension easing from his shoulders.
"They're not here for us."
Sam glances down at him, lips pressed into a thin line. "They're still gonna make life difficult. If it's some sort of criminal investigation, they're gonna wanna question everyone, and leaving now would make us look suspicious."
Dean turns, and Sam eases back out of his way. Dean paces the four steps from his bed to the door slowly, deliberately. He's thinking, has always thought better in motion, and Sam doesn't want to interrupt.
"I paid cash, and we're far enough off the beaten track here that I think we should be okay. We just smile and cooperate and get the hell out before they can identify us."
Sam wants to yell at him, ask him how he can be so calm, but he can tell by the way Dean scrubs a hand over his mouth that he's not nearly as calm as he looks. Dean grabs his jeans from where they're slung over the desk chair and pulls them on, then runs a hand through his hair, making it even more of a mess than it was. He looks absurdly young like that, his freckles standing out and the circles under his eyes finally starting to fade. He actually looks better than he has in a long time, not just resigned to his fate, but fucking happy about it. Sam feels sick when he thinks about it, about how time is passing them by, and how little he's done so far to save Dean.
Dean's got the chain off the door already when Sam shakes himself out of his reverie and says, "What? Wait. Where are you going?"
"You said they're gonna question us, so we might as well go out and gawk with everyone else. Makes us look less like we've got something to hide, right?"
Sam doesn't like it, but a quick glance through the drapes shows Dean is right--the denizens of the Blue Moon Motel are slipping out their doors to watch the show.
With an annoyed huff, he yanks his jeans on, shoves his feet into his boots, and follows Dean out the door.
*
The cops are marking off room one-oh-six with yellow crime scene tape. They send the ambulance away empty, call in for a coroner's van and a homicide detective, and announce that nobody can leave until the detective arrives. Then they all stand around for half an hour, waiting. Dean finds a girl to chat up, of course, a tiny Asian woman in a silky bathrobe, her black hair streaked with bright pink that matches her robe. Her dangly earrings flash silver in the light of the squad car, and her hands flutter when she talks.
Sam shoves his hands into his pockets and drifts closer to the cops, listens to them chatter, catching fragments and phrases--regular customer and poor bastard hanged himself. One uniform says, remember that case back in ninety-six? and the other laughs and answers, they never did find the other boot.
The detectives--there are two, a young white guy and an older black guy--finally arrive, and all the guests shuffle; nobody wants to be questioned first. Dean eases back to Sam's side, is there when the black guy--Detective Roberts, he says--comes over to get their statement. Dean's hand is warm and steady on the small of Sam's back, warning and support and reminder all in one casual touch.
"You boys got anything to share?" Roberts asks, like he already knows their answer.
"We were sleeping," Sam says before Dean can say anything. "D-Dan and I were both asleep until the sirens woke us."
"And you two are staying at this fine establishment because?"
"My family doesn't understand," Sam says, grabbing Dean's hand and squeezing it to keep him quiet. Dean throws him a glare that promises trouble later. "So we--"
Detective Roberts looks like he wants to laugh, but doesn't. "I see." He writes something down in his notebook, but Sam can't make it out in the darkness. "You were both asleep until the police arrived."
Dean smirks, tilts his head at Sam. "Steve here could sleep through World War Three, you know?"
"And did you know Mr. Vargas at all?"
"Who?" They speak in unison, and Sam bites back a grimace.
"The deceased: Elliott Vargas."
"No, sir," Sam says.
"Can you tell us what happened?" Dean asks, eyes wide and head tilted in a decent attempt at innocent curiosity.
Roberts sighs. "Mr. Vargas walked into that room alive, and was carried out dead. It's my job to find out what happened. Anything you can tell me would help."
"He--he hanged himself?" Sam says.
"That's what it looks like. You're sure you didn't see or hear anything?" Sam and Dean both shake their heads, for once telling the truth, and Roberts shakes his head in response. "Of course you didn't. Nobody ever does," he says, more to himself than to them. "Please don't leave the premises until we tell you it's okay to go."
"Of course, detective," Sam says.
Roberts is three or four steps towards the next motel guest when he turns back and says, "That Chevy yours?"
"Yeah," Dean answers, chin up, and Sam wants to groan at the challenge in it.
"Don't see many of them on the road these days, 'specially the price of gas being what it is. She's a beauty."
"She sure is." Dean smiles pride and defiance both, and Roberts keeps moving, Columbo act done for the moment.
"We are so screwed," Sam mutters when they're back in their room with the door shut. "And I hate the name Steve." Steve had been Jess's ex-boyfriend's name. The guy had been a real asshole, and Sam had hated him on sight.
"All gay men are named Mark, Rick or Steve," Dean says. "And since you decided that we were playing for the other team on this one..."
"The cops are looking for two brothers. It seemed like the smartest way to throw suspicion off us," he answers automatically. Then what Dean said finally penetrates, and Sam shakes his head, thinking he couldn't have heard right. "And what? What?"
"Your lack of pop culture knowledge breaks my heart. Sometimes I wonder where I went wrong with you." Dean shakes his head, mouth pursed in mock sadness. "It's from Steel Magnolias."
"Okay, you know that, and you wonder why people think we're gay? You've spent way too much time watching chick flicks for a guy who claims to hate them."
Dean flushes. "Dolly Parton's in it."
"I--" Sam shakes his head, trying not to laugh. "I cannot believe you're still nursing that sick crush on--"
"Don't you even say anything. Dolly Parton is awesome." Sam opens his mouth and Dean says, "Shut up. Just shut up." Like he knows he's going to be hearing about his weird thing for Dolly Parton for the rest of his life. He goes into the bathroom and slams the door.
Sam collapses onto the bed, laughing. He can hear the hysterical edge to it, how close he is to finally breaking, and forces himself to calm down. There'll be time enough later, hopefully, to drive Dean crazy with this new knowledge. He just has to make sure they get out of this without getting arrested. And find a loophole in Dean's deal with the crossroads demon.
The laughter goes out of him at that, and Sam lies back and tries to get back to sleep.
*
"Elaine said this Vargas guy was a regular."
"What?" Sam is lying in bed, failing to sleep, his whole body waiting for the cops to come busting through the door to arrest them, when Dean comes out of the bathroom a few minutes later. "Who?"
"Elaine. The hooker--excuse me, massage specialist--in one-thirty-three." Dean starts sorting the laundry--even he isn't crazy enough to break out the weapons for cleaning with the cops poking around, though Sam knows that's his preferred method of dealing with this kind of tension. "She said he was here once a week, always a Tuesday, always took the same room. He worked a night shift, always came during the day. New job, new shift. This was his first, and--unfortunately for him, poor bastard--last, night session."
"He was a... customer?"
Dean shrugs a shoulder. "Yeah, I guess. She said he wasn't the type."
Sam sits up, gives up even trying to pretend he's going to go back to sleep. "The type to... what? Visit a hooker every week?" Even he can hear the distaste in his voice, but Dean ignores it.
"Off himself. Said he was squeamish. Also, he'd just started a new job, was planning to put a down payment on a new car with his first paycheck." Dean makes a face at the large pile of clothes that need washing, starts shoving them into the laundry bag.
"So you think somebody really did kill him?"
Dean shrugs, shoulders the laundry bag. "I don't know. But there's something hinky about it. As long as we're stuck here, I think we should poke around a little more. Make sure it's not our kinda thing."
As much as Sam hates to admit it, Dean has excellent instincts for the supernatural; a lifetime of training has given him a knack for knowing when something's off that Sam can't quite match, demon blood or not.
"Where are you going?"
Dean grins. "I'm gonna do some laundry, maybe see what else Elaine has to say."
Sam gets up, shoves his feet back into his boots, and buttons up his shirt.
"What are you doing?"
"Coming with you. What does it look like? Gotta make sure you don't shrink my jeans again." He can't admit he doesn't want to let Dean out of his sight, afraid the cops will take him away and he'll never see him again. He wonders if this is how Dean feels every day, has felt every day for the past twenty-three years. If it is, he doesn't know how Dean stands it.
Dean's mouth twists and he flips Sam off, but Sam ignores it. As they leave the room, he snags the EMF meter from the duffel, and tucks it into his pocket.
*
The laundry room is dim and gray and smells of bleach and old socks, and it's exactly like a thousand other laundry rooms in a thousand other motels they've been in over the years--three ugly yellow washers and three dryers, one of which wears a hand-lettered out-of-order sign.
Out of all the chores he's had to do over the years, Sam likes laundry the best; it feels productive-dirty, smelly clothes in, clean, nice-smelling clothes out--even though it's an endless task, because there are always more clothes that need washing, even when they're not spattered with blood or grave dirt or zombie guts. There's an order to it, a method that never changes, and Sam finds that calming, even comforting, at times like this.
Dean shoves the whites into one washer and the rest of their stuff into the other, and turns to Sam, ready to open negotiations. Sam settles into one of the molded plastic orange chairs that sit across from the machines, prepared to extort some kind of favor out of Dean, even though he's perfectly willing to sit there the rest of the night and watch the clothes spin, if it keeps them out of the cops' way.
But Dean is interrupted by the sound of whispers coming from behind the counter. If Dean were a dog, Sam thinks, his ears would be pricking, but as it is, he reaches for a gun he's not carrying, scowls and jerks his head in the direction of the counter. Sam unfolds himself and moves behind him, ready at his back. They move silently, in unison, towards the counter.
"Oh for--" Dean says on a relieved, annoyed exhale, and Sam peers over his shoulder to see two kids, probably six or eight years old, huddled behind it.
"Abuela said to wait here," the older one, a girl, says.
"Okay," Dean says, squatting down so he's eye level with them. "We're just gonna do some laundry, okay? You can come out of there if you want. Or not. It's totally up to you."
"We're not supposed to talk to strangers," the boy says, looking up at them with wide, dark eyes, and Sam thinks he knows exactly how this kid feels, remembers hiding in similar places, Dean's arm wrapped around his shoulders and Dean's voice soft and calm in his ear, Dad's orders to be quiet and avoid strangers always hovering over them.
"Fair enough," Dean says. "I'm Dean, and this is my brother, Sam."
"Dean," Sam hisses, not trusting the kids to keep their names a secret.
Dean ignores him, of course. "We're hiding from the cops, too. This is a pretty good hiding place, huh?"
The boy nods, and the girl says, "Abuela says if they send us back, it will kill her. But I miss my friends."
The door swings open and the housekeeper rushes in, babbling at them in frantic Spanish, eyes wide with panic. Dean rises easily, holds his hands up to show he doesn't intend any trouble.
"It's okay," he says. "We're just doing some laundry, and wanted to make sure the kids were okay."
"We can't go back," she says, "you can't send us back."
"We're not cops," Sam says. "We're staying in room one-twenty-four. We're just doing laundry."
The girl comes out from behind the counter, wraps her arms around the woman's waist. "It's okay, Abuela," she says, and then a brief stream of Spanish, too quick for Sam to follow. The woman pets her granddaughter's sleek, dark hair, and visibly relaxes. She holds out her arm and the boy slips into the circle of it, hugging her back. Sometimes Sam misses being small enough to do that, before he remembers that Dad is gone, anyway.
"This has been a crazy night, you know? Poor Mr. Vargas." She shudders.
"You found him?" Dean says, smiling a little to hide the sudden intensity of his gaze. Sam wonders if the switch from at ease to on alert is as visible to anyone else, or if he's just so used to seeing Dean snap from one state to the other that it's obvious to him now.
"Sí. He called for extra towels. He always did after he had his session," her mouth twists as if the word tastes bad, "with Elaine." She shakes her head. "I can't believe Mr. Vargas would kill himself. He would never cause so much trouble. A nice man, even if he was a little strange."
Sam bites back a laugh; he should be used to the way women open up to Dean, but sometimes it still surprises him. In another life, Dean would have made an excellent cop, or priest, or bartender. People like to tell him things, the combination of awkwardness and charm inexplicably irresistible to women and kids and people who are down on their luck. The kind of people they've spent their lives helping. Maybe not so inexplicable after all.
"Well, I'm sure this will all be cleared up soon," Dean says, his tone reassuring, professional, even. "Has there ever been anything else weird in that room? Cold spots, or things going missing, or something?"
The housekeeper shakes her head. "They say there was a murder there years ago, but Mr. Doakes told me that was just a story, and I shouldn't listen to what anybody says."
"Mr. Doakes?" Sam asks.
"The owner."
The boy yawns, mouth and arms stretching wide, and Sam feels like doing the same.
"Why don't you get the kids to bed?" Dean says. Now his smile is warm and genuine, and both the kids and the housekeeper spark to it. "It's been a long night."
"Sí." She herds the kids out into the night, and they cling to her, tired and trusting.
"I knew something was off about this," Dean says. "I mean, why call housekeeping for more towels if you're planning to hang yourself before they even arrive?" He rubs his mouth, shakes his head. "What are the odds we pull into a freaking haunted motel? I swear, it's like the only karma we have is bad."
Sam laughs, and stops abruptly when he remembers. "Dammit. While you were getting the room, the EMF meter started to hum. I thought--" He breaks off, not willing to verbalize what he'd thought.
Dean cocks his head curiously, and then he gets it, and a look of irritation slides across his face. "And you thought, I'm a giant undead freak. I'll just keep this to myself."
"Dean." Sam wants to say it wasn't like that, but since it totally was, he can't get the words out. Had Dean felt the same way after their visit to Roy LeGrange? After Dad? Dean doesn't give him time to think about that, to wonder why he hadn't thought of it before.
"Shut up. Just shut up. Tell me what happened."
Sam decides not to point out that he can't tell Dean what happened if he shuts up. He knows Dean won't find it amusing. "Nothing. It was a low-level hum, nothing big. I turned it off and forgot about it."
"You forgot. Okay. Fine. Just. Don't do it again, all right?"
"All right."
"Good."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"You always have to get the last word, don't you."
Dean grins. "Yeah. Privilege of being the oldest."
Sam grunts in exasperation and gives up.
*
They've just shifted both loads into the dryers--Dean is playing Sudoku and Sam is trying not to doze, mesmerized by the low hum of the machines--when there's a lot of shouting outside, and then the sound of gunfire rips through the night.
Both of them dive for cover, and then Sam sees two cops leading a man out of one of the rooms. They slam him against the side of the police cruiser and cuff him.
"It's okay," one of the uniforms announces. "Everything is okay."
"Nothing to see here," Dean mutters, and Sam wonders if they're going to have trouble with the cops, if Dean's going to be able to restrain himself from making trouble with the cops for the next few hours. Sam's never been too impressed with Dean's self-restraint.
Sam leaves Dean to gather their clothes and heads back out into the parking lot to see what's going on. He sidles over to Elaine the massage therapist as the cops lead a small, barefoot woman with stringy blonde hair to the second squad car, hands cuffed behind her back, her curses ringing in the air like sirens.
"The McGanns," Elaine says, pointing with her cigarette. "They run a meth lab out of room one-oh-four."
She turns and walks away from the commotion. Sam follows. "You seem to know a lot about what goes on here."
She shrugs. "People tell me things."
"Been here long?"
"About a year now." She leads him to the pool, which is set in concrete and illuminated from under the water--fancier than he'd have expected from a place like this. "You sure ask a lot of questions. You and your, uh, brother was it? Or boyfriend?" She shoots him a sly look over her shoulder, lips painted pink like the streaks in her hair. Before he can answer, she hands him her cigarette--slides it right between his fingers and says, "Hey, I'm not one to judge, you know? Hold that for me, would you?" She unties her robe and lets it slip to the ground. She's not wearing anything underneath it, but Sam doesn't really get a chance to admire the view--she dives into the deep end of the pool, barely making a splash, and swims the length of it in silence.
Sam picks up her robe, drapes it over one of the rusty chaise lounges lining the edge of the pool, and sits in another one, watching, the lit cigarette with pink lipstick staining the white paper burning to ash in his hand.
After she's done a few laps--he's too busy watching to actually count, the light making her pale skin glow blue in the darkness--she swims to the edge of the pool by where he's sitting and says, "You don't swim?"
"No trunks," he says helplessly, shrugging. He's pretty sure Dean wouldn't have let that stop him.
She raises an eyebrow, and he's grateful for the darkness, because he can feel the tips of his ears burning in embarrassment. She lets him off the hook, though, lifts herself up out of the water easily. He jumps up, holds her robe out so she can slip it on, while averting his eyes.
"So you knew this Vargas guy?"
She takes the cigarette from his hand and takes one last drag before stubbing it out on the concrete. She lies back on the chaise next to the one he'd been sitting on, robe drawn tight around her waist, pink polyester clinging wetly to her curves. "Elliott? Yeah. He was a regular."
"The housekeeper said he was a little strange." Sam lets his voice rise at the end, a question but not a question.
Elaine shakes her head. "He liked to be punished, if that's what you mean. A lot of guys do. I told you, I don't judge. Though I have a nice black robe if you like to play dress-up."
"And Vargas did?"
"I don't generally discuss clients with... potential clients." She tilts her head. "But you're not, are you?" Her eyes narrow. "Not a cop, either."
"No. I was heading for law school, though, before--" He looks away. "It's a long story."
"It always is." Her mouth quirks into a half-grin; a rivulet of water from her hair trickles down her cheek and is diverted into the curve of her lip. She waits, gives him a chance to tell it, but he doesn't.
He remembers something Dean said once, or maybe he heard it on Law & Order, about hookers being a cheap form of therapy, and he's willing to bet Elaine's heard her share of sob stories. He's not going to add his to it.
He lets the silence stretch, hoping she'll feel a need to fill it, and after a minute or so, she does.
"Vargas was a security guard, just started a new job at one of the big pharmaceuticals. He was excited about it, asked me to marry him." She laughs at the surprise on his face. "He wanted to rescue me." She shakes her head, not laughing now. "Poor guy."
"Do you need rescuing?"
"No. Yes? As much as anybody ever does, I guess." She shrugs a shoulder. "It's not like I planned to end up here, you know? I wasn't voted most likely to become a hooker by my graduating class or anything."
It's Sam's turn to laugh. "Me neither."
"You two having fun?" Dean's got the laundry bag slung over his shoulder and a smirk on his face.
"Elaine was just telling me about Vargas."
Dean nods, sits down next to Elaine's feet, facing Sam's chair. "You know anything about a murder here a few years ago?"
Elaine wrings her wet hair out gracefully, purses her lips for a moment, then says, "You mean the Sewell girl?"
"Yeah," Dean says, as if they already know all about it. "I heard it wasn't true."
She presses her foot against Dean's thigh, points her toes. Her toenails are painted red. Dean strokes her instep absently with his thumb, the way he'd pet a cat, and she smiles, arching her back sinuously, nipples visible through the wet material of her robe. "Doakes wants people to forget about it, but it was a pretty big deal around these parts ten, twelve years ago--young girl runs away from home with her boyfriend, and eight months later, she hangs herself in a motel room off the interstate, and her newborn baby is found dead in the trash, the boyfriend nowhere to be found." She shakes her head. "They think she killed the baby, then herself, but nobody knows for sure. Doakes changed the name of the place after that--it used to be the Shangri-la." She pats the pockets of her robe like she's looking for something and frowns when she doesn't find it. "They say you can still hear the baby crying on quiet nights."
"Shit," Dean says, glancing at him. "You ever hear it?"
She laughs. "I've seen a lot of crazy shit since I ended up here, but no ghost babies."
Dean smiles encouragingly. "Sad story, though."
"Yeah." She shrugs. "Everybody's got one."
It's an invitation, and Sam thinks Dean might take it (Sam thinks about the one he just passed up), but Dean's in hunting mode now, and even hot chicks can't compete with that. Especially hot chicks who expect to be paid for the privilege of their company. He taps Sam's knee and stands. "Come on, Sammy. The laundry's not gonna fold itself."
"Have a good night," she says, crossing her ankles and folding her arms behind her head. Her wet robe hides nothing. "I'm in one-thirty-three if the boyfriend thing doesn't work out."
Dean snorts, but for once he doesn't say anything embarrassing. Oddly enough, Sam finds himself wishing he had.
*
They take the scenic route back to their room, easing past room one-oh-six with the EMF meter on, one of the earbuds in Sam's ear, the other in Dean's. It should be awkward, but they fall into step with an ease that once would have made Sam resentful, but doesn't anymore.
The hum is low and steady as they approach the room, yellow crime scene tape bright in the darkness, two uniforms standing outside the room. The cops nod at them and they nod back. Sam tries not to wince when the EMF meter whines loud and shrill in his ear.
"Yahtzee," Dean mutters, and pulls the bud out of his ear. Sam switches the thing off and does the same, ear still ringing.
They have to pass the office again on the way, and Dean pushes the door open, flashes his grin at the girl behind the counter. She lights up, tucks a hank of pale red hair behind a freckled ear, and closes her book carefully, index finger marking her place and her other hand covering part of the title, so all Sam can see is Ariosto on one line and Furioso beneath it.
She doesn't look at all upset at having her reading interrupted. In fact, she looks happy to see them--or Dean, anyway--and kind of eager to talk.
"Hi," she says, smiling back, starry-eyed. She's Sam's age, maybe a couple years younger, with the shabby stylish look grad students have sometimes. "Can I help you?"
"We just heard that Vargas wasn't the first person who died here," Dean says, and the girl's eyes widen.
She glances at Sam, as if for help, and he says, "Did the Sewell girl die in room one-oh-six, too?"
"We're not supposed to talk about that," she says, looking back at Dean, who leans on the counter and smiles in encouragement. The girl leans forward in response; she smells like fabric softener and Twizzlers. "Mr. Doakes says it happened a long time ago. Has nothing to do with anything now. Marvin--he's the daytime manager--says we should advertise the motel as haunted, that it would bring more people in, but I think that's awful. That poor girl, you know?"
Dean nods solemnly. "I know."
"She was only sixteen. I can kind of understand, I guess." She looks down at her book now, bites her bottom lip. Her voice is low, hard to hear over the hum of the air conditioner and the fluorescent lights. "I had an abortion last year. I didn't even tell my boyfriend. The timing, with school and everything--It's just hard, you know?"
"I know," Dean says again, his mouth tight, the lines around it suddenly prominent, but his voice is gentle, not condemning, and Sam can see his hand twitch, like he's going to reach out and touch her, before he stops himself.
"Thanks," Sam says awkwardly. She gives him a sad smile.
They leave her there with her sad eyes and her epic poetry, push back out into the humid night, and head back to the room.
Sam swallows hard, remembering the anticipation of waiting, the small quiver of fear in his gut overwhelmed by the sudden hope for a little blue plus sign, making it hard to breathe, his arm wrapped around Jess's shoulders and her hair soft against his cheek, and the disappointment in her voice when the test turned out negative, even though they both knew it was for the best--they'd only been together a few months, then, still had two years of school to go.
"Jess--" he starts, pushing the words past the tightness in his throat, and Dean looks at him sharply, unlocking the door to their room by feel alone. "She wasn't--This one time, we thought, I kinda hoped, but she wasn't." He holds his breath, not sure how Dean will respond.
"Oh," is all Dean says.
Sam wonders if Dean's ever had to take a girl to a clinic; it's possible, but given the way they move around, it's likely Dean was long gone by that time. He knows Dean well enough to know that if he'd known about the need, he'd have gone with her, whoever she was, held her hand before and after, instead of just shoving a wad of cash in her hands and telling her to take care of it, the way some guys he'd known at Stanford had.
He decides for once not to ask a question he doesn't want to know the answer to. He's heard that's the essence of being a lawyer, but he's never been very good at it. Maybe he's finally starting to learn.
Dean drops the laundry bag on the floor next to the bed and stretches, scratching his belly. "I'm gonna go find a vending machine, see if I can't scrape up something to eat. You--"
"I'm good," Sam says, though now that Dean's brought it up, he does feel kind of hungry. "I'm gonna get online, see if I can't find out more about this Sewell girl, what would make her act up after twelve years of silence."
Dean nods. "Yeah, okay. See if she was the first violent death here or if she and the baby were the victims of some older spook." The door closes behind him and Sam exhales, letting his shoulders slump.
He's got a screen full of tabs by the time Dean comes back, the whole sordid story splashing itself across the news in black and white. Dean closes the door behind him with a quiet click and slides the chain home like it can actually keep anything out.
"Here," Dean says. Sam turns and instinctively snags the bag of M&Ms Dean tosses at him out of the air.
"Thanks."
Dean shrugs a shoulder, fishes his flask out of his jacket pocket, and takes a swig. He wipes his mouth on his sleeve, and he sits on the edge of the bed across from Sam, face unreadable. He offers the flask to Sam with all the solemnity of a priest offering sacramental wine, a strange communion only the two of them will ever share.
There was a time Sam would have refused--the words would have been out before he'd even thought about it--but now, he takes it and drinks, the whiskey rich and sharp on his tongue over the chocolate, completing the ritual.
He swallows, the burn of the alcohol warming him from the inside out, clearing his sinuses, and hands the flask back to Dean, who tucks it away, and then looks up, curious.
"What do we know, Sammy?"
"Elaine had the story right, though some important details were missing. Erica Sewell was sixteen when she ran off with her much older boyfriend. They were gone for eight months, no contact with either her family or his, and then she called her mother from here, room one-oh-six. The boyfriend was gone, and Erica said she was in trouble and needed help. The mother was about an hour away, somewhere outside of Philly, and by the time she arrived, the girl was dead and so was the baby. Coroner said the baby was born alive and died of suffocation, probably from being smothered. Erica hanged herself from the ceiling fan with the sheet." He clicks through several tabs, swallows again, and takes a sip of water from the glass on the night table before he tells Dean the one thing no one else seems to have remembered. "The boyfriend's name was Elliott Vargas."
"Son of a bitch."
*
Two hours later, the cops clear out with one last warning not to skip town before the investigation is through, even though it looks like a clear case of suicide.
Twenty minutes after that, Dean is easing the Impala out of the parking lot of the Blue Moon Motel. Elaine is still lying by the pool, the lit end of her cigarette glowing like a firefly as she waves goodbye. Sam can see the night manager's red hair gleaming under the unforgiving fluorescent lights of the office, turning her pale skin slightly greenish, head still bowed over her book. The housekeeper is wheeling her cart past room one-fifteen, weariness written in every line of her heavy body. Sam hopes her grandkids are in bed, young minds already erasing the trauma of the night and leaving behind only the memory of excitement, a story to tell years later to disbelieving friends in the high school cafeteria, the truth a secret they'll share only with each other.
Dean leaves the radio off, fingers drumming arrhythmically on the steering wheel, driving north towards Erica Sewell's grave.
"Just to be sure," he says, though Sam's pretty certain she's at rest now.
Sam's dozing, steady sound of tire on asphalt lulling him the way it always does, when Dean says, "You don't think he killed her?"
"He told the cops they'd split before he even knew about the baby. He was shacked up in Cherry Hill with his new girlfriend by the time the story hit the news," Sam answers, not even opening his eyes, the headlines blurring across the backs of his eyelids. "He knocked her up and abandoned her. It's reason enough, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
Sam remembers what Elaine had said, about how Vargas had wanted to be punished. About his desire to rescue her. Elliot Vargas hadn't been able to save her, if she even needed saving. He hadn't even managed to save himself.
*
When they're done, and Erica Sewell's body is nothing more than ash mixed with the dirt of her grave, Dean offers Sam another slug from the flask, and Sam takes it, then pours a little on the ground over her grave, another ritual only he and Dean perform in the course of their lonely sacrament.
The headstone says Beloved Daughter, and Sam shivers, thinking about what it must have been like for Erica's mother to find her daughter and grandchild in that motel room. He thinks about Elliott Vargas, getting the news from his television, the guilt sharp as razors under his skin, bright as copper in his mouth, knowing he could have saved her, and hadn't. Sam wonders who else besides Elaine he'd tried to save, in the misguided belief that saving other people could somehow make up for losing the ones who counted most.
The story's a little too familiar for Sam's liking, and he vows again to break the circle of guilt and loss that's held his family in its grip for so many years. He glances at Dean, whose eyes, deep and green in the early light, have gone shadowed, faraway.
They sit in the silence of the car for a few minutes, the early morning air already full of humidity, promising another hot August day, and then Dean reaches for his tape collection, sadly (or not, from Sam's point of view) reduced after the accident, and occasionally supplemented by purchases at flea markets and secondhand record shops.
He finds what he's looking for, shoves the tape in, and starts doing that rewind/fast forward thing to find the beginning of the song, a skill Sam's had to relearn in the past two years, even though no one else anywhere still uses a tape deck.
As they pull out of the cemetery parking lot, the opening chords of "Stairway to Heaven" fill the car, but it's not the version Sam is familiar with from a lifetime of listening to Led Zeppelin. He glances over, surprised, because Dean tends to think covers of Zeppelin are works of the devil.
The vocals kick in and Sam blinks, shocked. "Dude, no," he whispers, sure he's hearing wrong. "It can't be."
"Shut up and listen," Dean says, tapping the tape deck, trying not to laugh and failing. "Dolly Parton does a pretty decent version."
Sam looks over at Dean's sweaty, laughing face, and feels a tight ache in his chest. He's going to save Dean, he thinks. He's not going to abandon him, and he's not going to fail. He still has nine months to figure it all out, and he's always done his best work with a deadline looming. But he only says, "You are one sick bastard," and laughs when Dean turns up the volume.
end
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September 1, 2007
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Notes: This story is heavily inspired by the Homicide episode "Full Moon," and the thing about the cops never finding the other boot is actually from that episode, though this story takes place in either Delaware or South Jersey, rather than Baltimore.
Title comes from "Falling Awake" by Gary Jules, which is totally about Dean in my head.
Dolly Parton really has recorded Stairway to Heaven, and it is a pretty kickass cover, imo, though some disagree. *eyes luzdeestrellas*. And the original, for the one person reading this who doesn't already own it: Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin
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Feedback would be awesome.
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