The Miners Rest
Rating: T (R- for language, innuendo, and the Brothers Grimm)
Characters: Sam and Dean, OCs Possible Sam or Dean/OC later
Disclaimer I don't own them, I'm just wishing in one hand.
Summary The brothers investigate weird happenings in a western ghost town. Dean inadvertently reads naughty stories, Sam is embarrassed.
Notes This is Not beta'd, although it probably should be . (Concrit is very welcome!:) I messed up posting the first time around, so this is now fixed, I think I caught it before many people saw it. Much less unwieldy now!
The Drift Inn, Macungie, Pennsylvania
Sam was flipping through windows on his laptop when a wadded napkin bounced off his head. He looked up to see Dean giving him a thumbs up that turned into a moneymoney sign.
"Got one, " he mouthed, and went on scribbling on another napkin. Sam squinted at his notes.
Kdh? was crossed out, replaced by "not yet" and other useful details. Sam sprawled across the bed, carefully insinuated one long finger between his brother's cheek and the phone to flip the switch that turned it into a speakerphone. Dean yanked the thing away from his ear with a what the fuck grimace at Sam. Sam rolled his eyes and dragged the phone-still attached to Dean's arm- closer to the mike on his laptop. The dude on the other end kept talking in his plummy used-car salesman voice, oblivious to the silent wrestling match going on.
The job was a haunting in a renovated ghost town. Some resort company cleaning the place up for tourists had disturbed something vicious and inventive. Trucks lost their brakes on the hill and rolled right through the old buildings. Elevators broke down and then ventilation pumps, always while somebody was down in the old mine shafts. A tunnel had collapsed, where no tunnel should have been, according to the old mine records People were dying, and the corporation didn't want to talk about it, but somebody there who knew somebody who knew somebody had managed to get Dean's cell number. Maybe from Ellen. Or John's voicemail. Who knew?
The TT Resort company already had full bookings for their Wild West town. They were willing to provide room and meals, pay expenses and a retainer that even Sam thought sounded reasonable, to the "experts" who could solve their embarrassing problem before the holiday weekend turned into a front-page murder mystery. Dean and Sam tag-teamed their source, asking questions on the speaker phone, Dean flipping through Dad's journal and scribbling notes while Sam surfed the information highway. Their contact guy told him what he knew, which wasn't much.
Sam mouthed "Tommyknockers?" but Dean shook his head. Nobody'd heard the tapping, and some of the "accidents" happened entirely aboveground. Sounded more like a straight up angry spirit. The guy promised them a hefty advance if they could get there the next day, and a bonus for getting the problem taken care of before the weekend. Sam shook his head furiously, even stood up to loom over him threateningly, pointing to his dirty laundry, their half- finished pizza and the clock, flipped the screen around to point to Mapquest's estimate of the driving time, and made go-to-sleep signs with his cheek on folded hands that made him look about five years old. It was cute as hell.
So Dean told the guy no sweat, they could be there late the next day, as Sam flopped back on the motel bed and groaned. Half an hour later they were packed and on the road, with the pizza in its box between them. Sam bitched till after midnight, mostly about the fact he had no jeans that weren't stiff with mud or dried blood. Dean pointed out he had thirty bucks in cash and a sprained wrist. Since Sam didn't have any better solution to the cash-flow problem, he switched to bitching about how his long ass legs didn't fit in the front seat or the back seat. Dean had to turn the music up twice before Sam finally shut up and went to sleep with his knees crammed up against the dashboard .
They rolled through five states on I-70, barreling toward Colorado, stopped once in the early morning for coffee and donuts. With just enough soft light to see the trees across the road , they stood for a minute under the gas stations's harsh fluorescents, sipped their coffee listening to the bug zapper whine and crackle, watching the night pull back as columns of mist rose to meet the sun . They stopped again when the sun was beating down hot and harsh, long enough to walk around the Car and stretch the kinks out, water the borrow pit with the used coffee. Sam had a theory the practice was environmentally sound, and Dean disagreed, mostly because he discovered that while he was explaining roadside biology to prove his point Sam forgot to complain about everything else.
Dean let Sam drive the next stretch, miles of endless flat wheatfields as far as he could see, while he put on his sunglasses and napped in Sam's seat. He made Sam swear to wake him up as soon as the Rockies blocked the horizon all the way from north to south. He took the wheel again then, with a giant cup of coffee on the dash, and sent Sam back into the Kwikmart to pay for the corn dogs and gas. Midafternoon they swept around the cloverleaf at the edge of an industrial park, and then the Impala was rolling down I-25, 75 mph bumper to bumper all the way through Denver and almost to Colorado Springs.
Dean's elbow hung comfortably half out the window, restless fingers tapping out the rhythm on the door while the noise of the wind almost drowned out "Stairway to Heaven." Sam huddled in the passenger seat, shivering a little and wincing every time Dean tried and failed to hit the high notes. Dad's journal lay between them, multi-colored sticky notes fluttering along the top.
Sam had his laptop open on his knees, eyes narrowed against the gale blasting through the car as he flicked through screen after screen. The first colors of sunset lit the window behind him, wisps of fire high over the dark bulk of the mountains. Dean reached over and thumped Sam on the shoulder.
"You know what I really like about having you along, Sammy?" he shouted.
Sam looked up to see his brother grinning at him.
"What?' he yelled, grinning back in spite of the cold wind snapping his hair into his eyes. It felt good to hear it, made him glad his brother was so happy to be hunting with him again.
"I get to use the car pool lanes."
When the last slanting sunlight set the aspens on the lower slopes blazing gold over white, turned every window opaque with glare and backlit every golden blade of tall grass, they turned west again, rolling up under the sunset straight into night. Twilight fell on the plains below them, blue and shimmering under purple dusk clouds, painted with flaming streamers of lemon and rose, but with every curve the colors faded around them, the shadows grew longer and deeper. The Impala's purr shifted lower, became a growl as she climbed. Her headlights swept over rock walls and trees that fell away into dark, impossible depths beneath them.
Sam leaned over to switch on the heater, and sighed, stretching out his long legs as another mile marker rolled past in the dark. His sharp face turned toward Dean, unmistakable smirk lit by the computer screen.
"Told ya you should have said we'd meet him tomorrow. We're never gonna make it now."
Dean scoffed. "We'll make it. We're almost there. Night falls faster in the mountains, college boy. Where are we meeting this guy again?"
"The Windsor Hotel, manager's office. In Placerville." Smug tap-tap-tap of keys. "That's approximately 78 miles from here, and you're doing what- 40 now?"
"55" Dean said shortly. The Impala growled a little louder.
"S'poseta keep it under 30 on the switchbacks, Dean." Dean growled, just a little louder than the Impala. Sam smiled into the night. "We're not gonna make it."
"Dude, the hotel manager is gonna be there. For one thing, he runs a hotel, not a bank, so this is his busy time, and he also knows we're coming. He's the one in the big hurry, remember?"
Sam's teeth flash in the light from the dash. He slouched a little deeper into his seat, tilted his head back like he was planning on a nap.
"We're like, still two hours away, Dean. He's the manager, he'll be long gone before we get there, and we're not gonna get our advance that we just drove all night and all day for".
Yes, we will," Dean muttered through gritted teeth. "We are not 2 hours away."
Sam grinned. "Wanna bet? Tell ya what. If he's there when we get there, I'll buy pizza. He's not there, I'll kick back and do research while you do the laundry."
"You're on,." The Impala surged forward, a hint of whine below the deep growl of the engine.
Sam patted the dash. "Don't hurt yourself, girl. Altitude's tough on your engine. Won't hurt Dean to do my laundry, and better him than you if it did."
"Not fair, Sam. "
A little more than 2 hours later, the Impala was still crawling over the last few miles. Dean gripped the steering wheel and cursed every rut and pothole big enough to swallow a tire, in between swearing at the cell phone for getting no signal and the map for daring to call this an "improved" road.. Sam sprawled loose in his seat to absorb the vibration, bouncing and chuckling at his brother's helpless ire. Dean had been swearing steadily for a while.
Just as lights appeared ahead, the wind slapped the car hard, scouring dust and gravel over the paint. Sam jerked away from the rattle of rock hitting his window, his startled "shit!" joining Dean's relentless litany. The EMF chimed in with a short squeal from the back seat, and they both looked back at it. It sat black and quiet on Dean's duffel bag.
A dog howled outside, and then another picked it up out in the dark. The boys looked out, then at each other and shrugged. The Impala rolled a little slower between the dark bulks of frame buildings onto a main street lit with gas lamps. One eye still on the EMF, Sam tapped Dean's arm and pointed, "That's it Dean, we're here."
They pulled up in front of the Windsor Hotel, Dean craning his neck at 4 stories of multicolored brick generously frosted with ornamental stonework. "Fuck me," he breathed. "What the hell is that?"
Sam glanced up. "Victorian neo-Gothic, I think." He slid out the door, unfolding his long body with a sigh, zipped up his jacket and pulled his duffel out of the back seat. "Looks like they're still open, at least" he smirked. "I'll go check in, meet you in the lobby?"
"Wait, we're staying here?"
Sam grinned at him, "The Windsor Hotel, 3 stars, historic monument, recently restored to its original glory, now open to special guests. And us. Yep. Parking's around the back. You gonna gawk or park the car?"
"You gotta be shitting me." but Dean shifted back into drive and pulled around to the parking lot.
Sam laughed at him, but he felt a little out of place himself walking across a carpet so plush that his boots sank soundlessly into it. Rows of brass keys hung over ranks of wooden pigeonholes on the wall behind the front desk. The night clerk leaned on the counter, flipping through an actual ledger by the light of a green shaded lamp. He was dressed to complement the decor, dirty blond hair slicked back, collarless striped shirt and garters on his arms. Sam had worn weirder outfits himself waiting tables in California, but still, it was a struggle not to smirk and the kid knew it.
He frowned a little when Sam slung his duffel to the floor and reached for the ledger. At Sam's raised eyebrow he flushed and flipped the book around, open to a clean page. As Sam flipped back a few pages in the ledger just to see what was written there the clerked flushed. He put down a fountain pen to write with, but kept his hand on it .
"We're open to pre-preregistered guests only."
Sam nodded. "Yeh, Thanks. Winchester, two." There must have been a laptop under the scarred wooden counter. The clerk's face was briefly underlit by the screen as he checked.
Sam slid the pen out from under his hand. A waft of cold air hitting his back and the jingling of keys announced Dean's arrival. Another thump as Deans duffel hit the floor beside Sam's. "We were meeting Tony Nelson," Sam commented as he wrote."he still around?" The clerk frowned again at both of them, and seemed pleased to say the manager had, in fact, gone home for the night.
He heard Dean groan behind him. Sam grinned and said "Awesome."
The kid blinked in surprise, almost grinned back.
Dean probably had smirked at the clerk's getup, served him right. Sam tapped the pen on the counter.
"My brother and I had reservations tonight, anyway, I think? Winchester."he reminded gently.
The kid straightened up. "Oh, yeah." He pulled a key off the wall behind him.
"You're the experts in subsidence, right, gonna take care of all the problems with the old tunnels?" Dean coughed.
"Right, that's us" Sam said, and shook the hand the kid offered.
"I'm Derek, Nice to meet you." Sam and Dean both reached for the key.
"Uh. Do you guys need two keys?" They nodded.
Derek turned back to the wall, talking over his shoulder. "Mr. Nelson was..expecting you, actually. He left some stuff for you-"
He wrestled a thick manila envelope out of its pigeonhole and shoved it across the counter. Dean reached past Sam to pick it up, pried it open. A thick sheaf of brochures and clippings fell out, and another, smaller envelope, with a note on Windsor hotel stationery clipped to the front. Sam leaned over his shoulder to snag the note while Dean shuffled through the rest.
"Cool. So, is there anyplace to eat around here?" Sam asked casually. Derek thought for a minute.
"The dining room and the Eating House is closed already- too bad, they have great pie, but the saloon is probably still serving." he leaned forward to look at the grandfather clock in the lobby."For maybe, 20 minutes."
Dean grunted something unintelligible, stuffing wads of paper back in the envelope.
The clerk added, "And Mr. Nelson asked me to be sure and tell you where the staff meeting is tomorrow."
Dean looked up at that, rocked back on his heels. "Staff meeting?" he said it in the tone most people reserved for "Snakes?" and the kid's grin got a little wider.
"7:15. the restaurant doesn't open till 8, so it's quiet then. "He nodded toward a darkened area just off the lobby."Mr. Nelson wants to go over a few things with you first, so he'll be there at 7, then he'll introduce you to the rest of the staff."
Sam nodded. "We'll be there." Dean groaned again.
"At..Seven in the morning? Dude, there better be coffee"
Sam grinned. "Hey, that reminds me, Derek- you got a laundromat around here?"
"Not in town." Sam saw Dean start to smile out of the corner of his eye. "But, Mr. Nelson said you guys are gonna be working here, so you can use the washing machine downstairs anytime. Just pick up the key at the desk."
"Yeah? great- Dean'll wanna do that later.." Dean muttered darkly behind him.
"Thanks, Derek, you've been a lot of help." Sam swept up the two keys off the counter, dropped one in Dean's hand. "That's yours."
He hefted his duffel of dirty clothes and dropped it on Dean's shoulder. "I believe that one's yours, too, brother mine."
Dean glared, slapping a fan of colored paper slips against his chest.
" Not so fast, little brother. I believe we agreed.." he shoved one longer pastel strip out of the sheaf with his thumb, grinning. Sam took it and whistled.
"Dude, you're kidding."
"It's still today, we're here, and I'm not doing any laundry tonight. "
Gracefully he dipped one shoulder to let Sam's bag slide to the floor.
"But I won't make you buy pizza."
Smirking, he slid another, neon-pink slip from the sheaf and waved it as he walked away. Heading for the elevator, he tossed back over his shoulder,"'Cause this- is our voucher for dinner at the Miner's Rest."
Sam bent and slung his bag over his shoulder, followed his brother.
"Whatever, dude. The way I remember it, the terms were.."
The elevator slid shut on the rest.
The saloon was crowded, some locals, some tourists, some staff identified by the Olde West costumes they wore. The beer was not bad, and covered by the voucher as well, so that made it taste even better.
Dean flirted with the saloon girls, played a little pool, not hustling, he didn't win much more than fifty bucks and bought the losers a drink after.
Sam sat at the bar chatting to the girls and the bartender. who wore the same get-up as Derek back at the hotel, minus the visor, seemed just as friendly and enthusiastic as the kid. Tim had all the gossip or knew who did. One of the saloon girls was a local, knew something about the history of the town, her brother had worked with the construction crew, so she called him over too.
Accidents might be happening more frequently now, but the staff talked like things started long before the resort manager caught on. Construction and renovation crews had had unusually bad luck too. Pets had gone missing, although most of the locals attributed that to careless owners unused to the local wildlife running heavy to predators.
When Dean put up his pool cue and raised an eyebrow at Sam, Sam drained his beer and nodded goodnight to the bartender and the tall girl in green satin collecting a tray of drinks.
Thanks, guys, Fiona. See ya round?"
Tim dropped his empty bottle in the bin and swiped his rag over the bar. Smiled when the saloon girl promised, "We'll be here." Sam couldn't help grinning back.
Dean collared him near the door.
"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy." he chortled."Didja get her number?"
"She had information, Dean."
"Oh, is that what you college kids are calling it these days?" Sam rolled his eyes as the batwing doors swung shut behind them.
"Seems nobody's lived here for a while, but the accidents started as soon as construction did."
"Knew that already." Sam shrugged.
"So what did you get? Besides a little extra cash."
"Dude, they got off cheap. Players like that should totally pay me for teaching them the finer points of the game." The gaslights had gone off already, and their footsteps echoed in the dark, quiet street.
"You got nothin either, huh?"
The key to their room jingled as Dean tossed it from hand to hand.
"Lotsa mines, lotsa tunnels. The gas truck wasn't the first unexpected collapse, just the worst. There are maps, but nobody knows where all the tunnels are anyway. And the museum's not open yet. Bookstore might have some, though."
Sam sighed. "Hope the manager has more than he told us on the phone."
"Yeah."