Chapter Text
The corner of Wyoming wasn’t exactly Dean’s idea of a fun and adventurous place, but it did do the trick for a fuel-up and dinner. They’d gotten a late start that morning, though, making nowhere near the time they usually did. Dean wasn’t feeling a hundred percent after his overdose, and there was no way Sam was feeling anything close to human. Emergency surgery to repair the damage from the gunshot wasn’t even the worst part; missing oxygen from being choked out and losing a crap ton of blood was no picnic, either.
So yeah, they’d crashed on the west side of Wyoming and stayed there for a few days. But both of them had been itching for home, ready for their own beds and the safety of the bunker. Especially with Lucifer still out there, wearing Castiel’s face.
It made Dean burn. You stupid ass, he thought furiously again. Dammit Cas, don’t you know you’re worth something just on your own? Why the hell did you let him take over?
The return of Sam to their table pulled him from his thoughts. Sam was moving decently well—not that he’d give away any weakness in public, even if the diner wasn’t particularly full—but Dean could see the tight lines in his face, the grimace at the corner of his mouth. His face had some color, but nowhere near what it usually was. Sam was definitely in pain. “What do you want?” Dean asked him to try and distract him. “Pancakes, eggs?”
“For dinner?” Sam asked, gingerly sitting down on the worn vinyl seats. The red seat only made him look paler, and Dean internally winced.
“Yeah, why not? It’s good at all times.” And one of the few things Sam would eat when he felt sick or run down.
Sam just snorted but didn’t reach for the menu. Point for Dean. Maybe they actually had a version with fruit on the top. Sam had yet to turn down fruit.
Something slid across the table to him: a local paper, from the looks at it. The front page depicted an emergency crew by the side of a dusty sidewalk. ‘HAUNTED’ BUILDING CLAIMS ANOTHER LIFE read the headline.
Dean raised an eyebrow. “Apparently it’s a hotel that burned down in the 70’s,” Sam said. “Local legend says it’s been haunted by a beast or a deadly apparition ever since.”
“You’re joking,” Dean said.
“Nope.”
For once, this was a no-brainer. “We’re not doing it. At all.” A haunted hotel that was who knew how big—no picture of it existed in the paper from the looks of it—that had burned. They were barely alive as it was.
It sucked that someone had died. Dean was never going to be okay with that. But at the moment, his priority consisted of getting Sam back to the bunker and locking the damn door for weeks. The person wasn’t going to come back to life. The news article would keep other people away for quite some time.
Not their problem. Not this time.
Sam gave him a small grin. “Yeah, I figured that’s what you’d say.”
“Do you disagree with me?” Dean asked incredulously. “You want us to go in there and deal with a haunted hotel right now?”
“Not in the slightest.” Sam gave him a look like he’d lost his marbles. “Are you kidding me? I just want to go home. They can keep people out of the house.”
“Thank god.” If Sam had wanted to stay, Dean would’ve checked him into a nearby hospital for a sanity check. As it was, Sam’s color made him want to shove the kid at the local emergency room and tell them to give him a pint or four of the good red stuff. Maybe he could convince Sam to have some sausage with his pancakes.
Actually, Sam looked really piqued, color fading. “What’s wrong?” Dean asked immediately.
Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. “How far are we from home?”
It never ceased to warm Dean, to hear the kid refer to the bunker as ‘home’. Still, that didn’t answer the larger question. “Six, seven hours. Why?”
His brother winced and Dean suddenly got it. “Plenty of places to stay here,” he said immediately. They weren’t hurting for money anymore, those credit cards were a godsend, and honestly, Dean could use some shut-eye. That overdose come down…wasn’t pretty. He had no idea how the hell people thought doing drugs was fun. It was an experience he never wanted to repeat.
Especially if it meant Sam’s life wasn’t on the line, the whole reason he’d OD’d in the first place. Given what Billie had said, it looked like the next time either Winchester crossed into the realm of the dead, the reaper was going to make it the last.
“Can we?” Sam asked, voice quiet and almost small, and hell yes they were finding somewhere. Even with only six hours between them and the bunker, getting Sam rest was ten times more important than booking it back. His little brother hadn’t so much as made a peep about being tired or in pain, but it was clear in the way he carried himself, the way he slouched over the table now, that the kid was hurting.
“Laramie’s got a lot of hotels. Ones that aren’t haunted, because I’m not clearing out a haunted hotel tonight,” Dean told him, and Sam’s lips turned up. The urge to get the food to go grew. They could eat at the hotel and then pass out.
A voice cleared from behind him, and Dean turned to find an older woman there, pad of paper waiting to take their order. “Sorry,” Dean said, giving her his best smile. “We’re ready to order, uh, Mandy.”
Mandy didn’t seem to care for his flattery or his ability to read her nametag, just kept giving him the same stony glare. “Whenever you’re ready,” she said shortly.
Well, she’d clearly had a bad day. “Your bison burger for me, and he’ll have the pancakes with sausage. Thank you,” he added with another large smile, teeth and all. Mandy just nodded and left, taking the two menus with her.
“You must be as tired as I am,” Sam muttered. “That always works.”
“Shut up,” Dean said, giving his ankle a quick kick. Sam actually chuckled and took a sip of his water, and Dean felt something inside of him relax. The newspaper sat between them, and with a single sweep of his hand he knocked it off onto the bench beside him. They were eating, sleeping, and heading home for some serious rest.
Neither of them noticed Mandy on the phone, staring at them and fervently speaking to the person on the other end.
They were checked in, bellies full and eyes hanging, when Sam went digging into the medicine bag. “Need something?” Dean asked, fighting to keep his eyes open. That burger had been amazing but the biggest meal he’d put in his stomach yet since the overdose. Sam had had the right idea to just crash.
“Just the ibuprofen,” Sam assured him. “I was hoping to not need the higher stuff they gave me. I’m pretty tired.”
“Should be in there. If not, check the car,” Dean mumbled. He sprawled out onto the bed, kicked his shoes off, and found the pillow on the first try. Oh, that felt amazing.
Sam gave a snort of amusement somewhere off to his right. “I’ll go check there next. There’s a vending machine not too far down: want anything?”
“Grab me something for t’morrow. Don’ care what.” Anything would be fine with him.
“Be right back,” Sam promised, and Dean gave a grunt of agreement. The door swung open, then carefully shut.
The phone rang.
Dean groggily opened his eyes. The room was quiet and still, and somehow darker than when they’d checked in. He pushed himself up and realized suddenly that it was two hours later, and Sam wasn’t in the other bed. Sam wasn’t anywhere in the room.
The phone kept ringing. He fumbled for it on the nightstand and saw Sam’s face on the screen. “Where the hell are you?” he asked in lieu of a greeting.
“I presume this is Dean?”
Cold water rushed down his back. “Who is this,” he said lowly.
“The person who’d like to talk to you and Sam a bit more about that haunted place on the outskirts of town. I heard you boys are the sort to handle that kind of thing. And we’re in need of it being handled.”
A few things flew out at Dean at once. One, they had Sam. Two, if they’d known that they were hunters, they’d known that prior to grabbing his little brother; that wasn’t the sort of information they just handed out to random people at random places.
“Let’s cut to the chase then. Get down to the 1300 block of Johnson Avenue, the southwest part of Laramie, and we can chat more friendly-like face to face.”
“The only thing I’m likely to do with your face is beat it to a pulp,” Dean growled. “If you’ve hurt Sam, I’ll do a hell of a lot more than that.”
“Probably not your wisest choice, given that I’ve got the young man right here. Pretty sure that gives me the upper hand.”
“Oh, I’ll show,” Dean told him. There wasn’t anything that was going to keep him from getting to Sam. “I’ll make sure the Sheriff shows up, too. I’m sure that kidnapping isn’t exactly approved in these parts.”
There was a chuckle that set Dean’s teeth on edge. “Don’t you worry none, son. I’ll show, your partner in the back of my cruiser.” A definitive click ended the call.
Dean shut his eyes tight. So, this involved the local cops, too. “Great,” he muttered. “You stepped outside for five minutes, Sam.” Trouble magnet, that was his little brother.
A little brother who was injured and recovering and had managed to get grabbed without Dean hearing a thing. Maybe there’d been something in his burger.
He froze. Burger. The waitress, Mandy. “Dammit,” he cursed. She’d been icy cold and he hadn’t understood why. Who knew how long she’d been standing there, listening to them.
It was weird, having a civilian understand that their talk about ghosts and spirits and haunted places wasn’t just some fanatical talk. The locals knew their haunted hotel was honestly haunted. And they wanted their help, bad enough to kidnap Sam to get their attention.
The exhaustion and urge to go back to bed lingered, but Dean shook it off. He wasn’t leaving Sam in the hands of the local constable. Even if that did mean that, somehow, they were dealing with a haunted hotel.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, and he turned for the laptop bag. They were not going in with their pants around their ankles this time, and while he wasn’t their best researcher, he could hold his own. He’d have to, in order to face whatever was coming for them.
And he was making a phone call first while he was at it.