Notes:
My apologies to the people of Owl's Head and Malone. I visited once and it was awesome, so I picked it as my small town for a case fic. I may have abused it some in the process. Standard disclaimers apply, no real people were used. :)
But we should all write Supernatural case fic about real places.
Also! For those who know me, be reassured! I have in fact completed this entire fic! I'm just editing right now and will have chapters up regularly.
Special thank you to Black-Haired Girl (found here on ) for being an amazing cheerleader, my X-Files pro and a great beta!
It was a little after 10 o'clock in a small dinner off of I-81 in the southern portion of Virginia. A waitress had just dropped off a couple of morning specials – eggs, toast, shredded hashbrowns and limp bacon. It was late in the morning rush, and the eggs were the only thing still warm. But that's what you got when you didn't bother to stumble in for breakfast until nearly noon on a weekday. She topped off the coffee again before she left and ignored the greenish look one of the two boys had.
There was a moment of silence as they both stared at their options.
"I don't think I can do it, Sammy."
"It's food. You love food."
"Not today."
Sam Winchester gamely picked up his fork and set about cutting everything up into bite size pieces. Focusing on making each piece even made it easier to ignore the smell. Fried eggs weren't the strongest smell, but it wouldn't take much after the night they had had. His brother still refused to move, staring at his plate as if he expected it to come to life and try to choke him to death. Which, considering their line of work, was maybe not too far out of the realm of possibility. But it felt like a dare pushing past something that had his older brother quaking in his boots, so Sam speared a chunk of runny over-easy eggs and lifted it off of the plate.
Yellow yolk dribbled off, a bright cheerful color.
"I think I'm going to be sick."
"They're fine," Sam insisted, still holding it aloft. "Fully cooked. No – no rotting."
Dean groaned. "Don't. Don't say that word."
Sam squared his shoulders and shoved the whole thing in his mouth. And okay, it did kind of taste like rubber and sulfur and grease, but it was diner eggs – the same thing it had been his whole life and not a bit different from what it was 24 hours ago when they had last had breakfast.
That had been before their latest hunt – a job that had included a satanic coven of witches with delusions of grandeur, a complex ritual requiring an unnatural amount of chicken blood and a cursed chicken farm that looked more like something out of a zombie movie than the Virginia countryside.
There'd been a lot of blood and guts – thankfully not human this time – but the rotten eggs were what had truly made the night one both brothers wished to never remember or smell ever again.
"Eat your eggs, Dean," Sam said before doggedly alternating bites of slimy egg with anything else on the plate.
"You eat eggs," Dean grumbled back before diving in for the poor quality bacon like it was filet mignon.
It was easier once they both got started. Neither had a particularly weak stomach. After all, you learned quick to eat when and what you could as a hunter. And a little half-rotten, festering, avian adventure was not the worst thing they had experienced. Eventually Dean got the idea of covering his in ketchup and plowed through them as fast as humanly possible. It wasn't a pretty sight.
"Dude, gross."
"Whatever." It wasn't like this was a classy joint. The town had three gas stations, three fast food joints and the one diner. It was the usual crowd at such places. One family passing through. One family clearly not and not happy about it. A few professional drivers and one couple in suits. Dean kept glancing over that way. Sam couldn't remember them clearly, but he had a vague notion of business wear a little too nice for this part of the country. Dean sure was interested. There'd been a lady, but Dean didn't usually go for the librarian or secretary type unless they were featured in a porno.
"We got admirers," Dean muttered into his coffee.
Sam didn't even twitch. "Where?" he asked, even though he had a fairly good idea. He was used to reacting to his brother's cues.
"Your 5 o'clock."
"Just the two?" Sam asked back, keeping it calm and casual and steady, like any other couple of guys talking about the weather.
"Only see the two." Dean made it a point to look the opposite way. Didn't want to risk staring while he described them. "Suits. Fancy. Man and a woman. A bit too stand-offish to be locals. He's carrying. And staring like he wants me to ask him to dance."
"Feds?" Sammy asked, his voice going a little tight now. God, the last thing they needed was to be entangled in the FBI again. As terrible as everything that went down with Henrickson was, at least the brothers were once more officially declared dead. At the time, Sam had been too desperate trying to save his brother from his demon deal to fully appreciate being nothing more than a ghost to official channels. After Dean went to Hell, during that time when Sam thought he'd never get him back, - well, the law hadn't been of much concern to Sam.
Things were different now, of course. Sam had to think long term for the two of them, since Dean certainly didn't seem too. Dean literally had a second chance at life and yet seemed determined to take risks every opportunity he got. Sam shouldn't be surprised, but it made his blood pressure spike each time. And they certainly didn't need any added complications right now. Lilith was as dangerous as ever, and despite the help of angels and Ruby, the Winchesters were still struggling to keep her from starting the apocalypse - the actual apocalypse! It had the two brothers running all over the country trying to stop the demons from unlocking seals.
And here they were, just trying to get a bite to eat and relax for a moment, and they pick the one diner with feds.
"Maybe he won't recognize us?" Sam asked hopefully. After all, surely not every FBI agent could memorize the face of every wanted murder/bank robber. And Dean had been declared dead. Twice now. Surely, even they couldn't be that unlucky.
Sam met his brother's eyes and they both knew better.
"Goddamnit."
10:17 am
Raphine, Virginia
Special Agent Fox Mulder stabbed his overcooked eggs. He squashed at his hash-browns with his fork until they better resembled mashed potatoes. He tore his toast into little pieces and flopped his half cooked piece of bacon about like it was a piece of string.
Special Agent Dana Scully ignored him. She continued reading her paper, spreading it out on the table so as not to be rude. She ate her lukewarm oatmeal and the excellent cup of fresh fruit and considered it not one of the worst breakfasts she had ever had and certainly not bad for a pit stop on their way back to northern Virginia.
She waited until she finished with the editorials before commenting. "I don't know why you are so upset, Mulder," she chided.
There was a potent silence from across the table.
She tsked. "We did find out who was responsible for the mutilated bodies," she reminded him. "Which is exactly what we were tasked to do, Mulder. Just because it was a human – though a clearly psychotic individual – does not make it any less of an achievement."
The uneaten plate of food was shoved aside and there was a loud huff as Mulder settled himself more comfortably in a petulant sprawl.
She sighed, shaking her head at his antics but still trying to get through to him that this work still mattered. That maybe they didn't find what he had been hoping for, but they should still be proud of themselves for having done a good job and saving lives. And while she knew those things were just as important to Mulder as they were to her, she was also well aware that his ambitions were of a different, more unworldly sort. "We also discovered exactly how he removed the lungs without performing an evisceration," she added cheerfully. Certainly that was odd enough for him. "That was interesting, wasn't it, Mulder?"
Finally he met her eyes with a scowl, wrinkling up his nose. "Gross," he pronounced. "Scully, that was gross. Don't go forgetting on me which medical things are 'a bit nauseating but still very interesting' and which ones are just plain nasty." He said it petulantly, but she could see the hint of smile. He might not want to know everything about the more visceral part of her job, but he still often appreciated it.
She smiled back. "You have to give him credit for coming up with a new method for tissue removal."
"The Egyptians were doing that long before. Though where they learned it from would be a much more interesting question."
"I think you're confusing certain organs."
He gave her the look that made it clear he thought she was the one confused and uninformed. But before he could get warmed up to the topic of ancient mummies and associated theories, something else caught his eye and he got that distant look she was used to. She decided to wait five minutes and if he didn't start sharing, then she would pry it out of him. It gave her enough time to finish her food and the entertainment section.
"Should I turn around, Mulder, or will whatever it is disappear if I try to look at it directly?"
"Probably," he muttered back, as distracted as ever. "Ever see someone and swear you know who they are, except that person's supposed to be dead?"
"Lately?" Scully countered. "Far too often."
"Hmm," was the only answer she got. He was still staring and now it was becoming harder to resist the urge to turn around and look herself. Mulder did have a talent for finding the more – interesting – things in life. But Scully was also a professional and knew better than to rubber-neck.
Unfortunately, she also still made professional assumptions, like that Mulder wouldn't get it into his head to bounce to his feet and walk over to casually say good morning.