Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, nerds!

Maelstrom

Chapter Seven

It's quiet. The rapid, dangerously frantic thumpthumpthump of Sam's heart slows and calms in a wonderful respite from the otherwise inescapable thunder of rushing blood and revolving emotion and whirling thought and a decidedly frustrating inability to distinguish which is his and which is his brother's. But right now, finally, silence.

Breath.

Peace.

It's mercifully, miraculously quiet, and Sam calms down a bit, stops the mechanical movement of his legs pushing forward and away, falls to the side and slumps against a wall all the way to floor. He lays his head back and closes his eyes and just breathes, coming back to himself enough to know that he's done something incredibly, perhaps irreparably, stupid.

But there's no time to put any kind of plan in place to fully understand what that is or how to begin to attempt to repair it, because the lull doesn't last, not nearly as long as he needs it to.

Pain, confusion, paranoia, frustration, alarm…they swirl like watercolor paints on the palette of Sam's mind until there is only a dark, murky mix in which no single emotion can be pulled out and properly dealt with. Spots dance across his field of vision as he struggles to draw a deep breath, to clear away some of the confusion.

Sam's cell phone rings as he's dragging himself back to his feet but he drops it in the moment as he's thrown without any sort of warning or ceremony back into a raging cacophony of indistinguishable HELL within his skull.

Pain.

It's pain that comes roaring to the front of the line, of all intensities along a spectrum with which he is intimately familiar already. Nothing specific fights to take precedence, just an all-encompassing body blast of stiffness and soreness and muted flares of sharper aches flooding his nerve endings as Sam stumbles through the halls, arm shooting rigidly out at his right side in an instinctive attempt for balance. His cold fingers graze slimy, rotted plaster, and the wall falls away beneath them, seemingly disintegrating merely from his touch.

The whole place is crumbling, the walls coming down. There is only rot and death to be found, all around him. This is where he belongs, what he deserves. This is all that is waiting for him.

It feels horrible and inevitable and true down to the very darkest parts of himself, but it's still not…it's not his thought. Sam knows that.

"Sam! Dean!"

Sam knows the voice and recognizes the concern in the distant shout, and knows he should be turning toward the promise of comfort there, should be concerned himself that there even is cause to shout, because they've been attempting stealth. There's a…there's more here than just them. There's Sam, Dean, the pain, the panic…and then there's someone else, the shouting someone else. And there's something else. Something they're hunting. Or, something they're supposed to be.

But he can't worry about that right now, because all he can focus on is finding a way to escape the roar of pain within his skull. It's the only thing that matters, just finding a way out. Away. He shakes his right arm out, his elbow feeling large and sore and disconnected from the rest of him.

Pain spikes randomly through Sam's body, ebbing and flowing but always there. A dull but insistent soreness in his arms and a fiery lance through the side of his head. A steady thrum in the back of his skull. Sam wants away, clear from this and free of his own body, and so he just keeps moving. Just keeps pushing forward, fingertips grazing the wall as he moves.

Water drips from the ceiling, falling all around him. It feels eerily familiar, sort of like the asylum back in Rockford, and a similar mix of anger and fear swirls in his head like water funneling down a shower drain. He can't distinguish one from the other and can't bothered to try anymore. He just wants it to be quiet again.

It feels like Rockford, but this isn't Rockford, because he hurt Dean there, in every way imaginable. With weapons and with words and there's really no telling which left a deeper mark. He doesn't want to hurt Dean, not again. Not ever. Not with everything his brother has done for him.

Sam comes to an abrupt stop, thinking that he maybe already has hurt him.

It comes back in pieces as he remembers; he didn't find silence before, he created it. Forced it from his brother.

Oh, God.

"Sam!"

The call is closer but still some ways away in the hotel. Not the asylum, Sam tells himself, the hotel. But this place is haunted all the same, still a danger, and that really should mean more than it does.

Bobby. Whatever whammy's been put on Sam and his brother, it hasn't affected Bobby. It will be quiet in Bobby's head, and Sam whirls in the direction of his voice, making his shaky way back the way he's just come.

He stumbles up a narrow staircase that materializes in his path, hips and knees and elbows knocking into walls and railings as he fights for balance of body and mind and can't seem to get a firm enough grasp on either. He turns right at the top of the stairwell, slams face-first into a solid wall and lurches back, spinning and heading in the other direction. There's a throb in the center of Sam's face and that's something that's his alone, he thinks, and he focuses his attention on the fire in his nose, the warm tickle above his upper lip.

He runs into Bobby before he sees him, literally, which doesn't bode well for a lot of things, because the man was shouting and stomping and waving around a giant-ass flashlight. Sam's chin knocks the top of Bobby's head and he bites his tongue as he send the older hunter staggering back, shotgun slipping from his grasp.

Bobby puts the flat of his hand against his forehead and frowns deeply. "The hell! Sam? I've been callin' you, boy. Dean, too. Where's – "

Bobby equals calm and peace and quiet, and Sam grips him by the shoulders, silences his questioning with fingers digging painfully into the meat of the older man's arms. He squints, staring into Bobby's dark, suddenly wide eyes. There's nothing there; at least, nothing he can feel for himself. He wants to draw all of that into his own mind, wants the dark and the quiet back.

Bobby suddenly brings his arms up and knocks away Sam's grip on his shoulders. His large, cool hands go to frame Sam's face, forcing him to be steady. Something about the sight of Sam has him panicking, and Sam doesn't need any sort of Vulcan mind meld to pick up on that. "Dammit," he spits, almost as though he's cursing himself. "What the…where's your brother? Sam, where's Dean?"

The mention of his brother starts all sorts of dials turning in Sam's head. He tries to think about Dean in a detached way that doesn't involve living inside the guy's head. Tries to see him without having to see him.

"I just needed it to be quiet, Bobby," Sam finds himself saying. There's blood in his mouth and running from his nose and he doesn't know if he's explaining or apologizing. Probably a little bit of both. Probably a lot more of both still to come.

Bobby's eyes twitch an acknowledgement and his calloused thumb moves, swipes the bit of blood away from under Sam's nose, the trickle that's spilled from his lips.

Blood.

There'd been blood, before, with Dean. In the hall when Sam had…when he'd hit him, and in the pool where he'd left him.

"Oh, God, Bobby." Something in Sam snaps back into place, like a stretched rubber band that had finally found its limit and Sam can make sense of some things. He had left his brother. They're in this hotel hunting a spirit. There's a ghost and he'd hit his brother, knocked him out. And then he'd left Dean in the fucking pool, freezing and hurt and alone.

"Focus, Sam." Bobby shakes him, the grip he's got on either side of Sam's head bone-snapping firm. The man's got instincts and experience that far transcend anything Sam or his brother have been through, and he's rougher in ways and at times that very rarely come to light. And he plays favorites, and Sam has an unfortunate habit of hurting Dean when Bobby's there to see it. "Where's your brother? Is he okay?"

Sam forces his chin to drop, bobs a pathetic nod that feels like a lie. He says the only thing he knows to be true. "Bobby, he's…he's afraid." His statement is lame and a little general, but he doesn't have it in him to verbalize much more, not when he's barely clinging to this window of clarity and he's white-knuckling to keep from losing it again. He's afraid of dying, afraid of Hell, afraid of me. Afraid of where he's been and where he's going. Afraid of what he's done and what he can't control. Afraid of everything that's happened and all the things that never will.

Afraid of leaving me alone.

"Okay, well, we can handle that. One problem at a time, kid." Bobby claps his cheek with a play at a comforting smile that looks more like a grimace. "Where is he?"

"I think…" Sam swallows. "I think I put him in the pool."

Sam knows that any one of a handful of those words could have been the one to raise Bobby's eyebrows, to bring the man to suck in a breath and pull his hands away. Probably to eliminate the temptation to strangle him.

"He's okay, I…" Sam shakes his head, looks up at the other man with that bit of brilliant, wonderful clarity. He holds it tight, grips it with everything he's got, like a child with a balloon on a windy day. "I just wanted it to be quiet."

Bobby nods, but his eyes are wide and Dean-afraid. "So you put 'im in the pool?"

Sam lifts a shoulder, doesn't quite know that he can find the words to properly describe how muddy his thoughts have been the past few hours. Despite this window of lucidity, he's still not exactly a pillar for mental health and stability. Even in this moment, he's not at all a poster child for grand decision-making.

"Did you…"

"No," Sam snaps, with enough force to send Bobby reeling back. No special mind-reading powers are necessary to discern where Bobby was headed with that line of thinking. And Sam might have smacked Dean around a little bit, but it'd take a hell of a lot more than a little curse-induced confusion to make him seriously hurt his brother. He thinks.

But he shouldn't be insulted, not really. It's not like he hasn't pushed those boundaries before.

"You seem to be back in control now," Bobby comments coolly.

It's true; while he's still sensing the full catalog of Dean's emotions as he's feeling them, it's not sending Sam tail-spinning out of control. His head is pounding, sure, and his heart, too, but he's got a handle on it, for the time being. Something about knowing the pain he's feeling is pain he'd caused. But he's not about to tell that to Bobby. "Yeah, I don't know why," Sam lies.

He should know better than to try to get one past Bobby. The man narrows his eyes at Sam. "Sure you don't." And after that veiled accusation, his priorities shift immediately. "Try his cell."

Sam scrambles to search for his phone and doesn't find it within his pockets, remembers having it in hand last when the roar picked up in his head. "I, uh…" He spins in the hall, his sudden movements bringing Bobby to take a cautious step away. And he can't fault the man for that.

Bobby withdraws his own phone, something far clunkier than Sam's sleek flip phone, but after he's pressed the necessary buttons Sam reaches out. "Let me."

Bobby hands over the cell but Sam is left shaking his head as Dean's voicemail picks up. He's awake now – or, conscious now – he can tell that much, but clearly not in a position to get to his cell phone. Sam's been out of it, but instinct and training cling hard when everything else is a blur, and it makes sense that he would have restrained Dean in some way, seeing as he was hell-bent and singularly-focused on keeping him far away and quiet.

Dean's got all manner of shit in his seemingly endless supply of cargo pockets; there's no doubt in Sam's mind that he'd found something there to sufficiently restrain his brother. Zip ties, or handcuffs. But for the life of him Sam can't figure out which of the two would have left Dean more pissed off. Surely, Sam would have had a little self-preservation left to guide him as he was dragging his unconscious burden through the haunted hotel. Oh, God. Dean's gonna kick his ass. Sam can feel it.

Bobby's dark eyes squint even further as he takes in Sam's words. "Let's go get your brother. Bet he's full of piss and vinegar by now."

Bobby waits for Sam to nod a tight confirmation before bending to collect his fallen firearm, then lets him lead the way to the Natatorium.

Sam doesn't need any kind of supernatural assist to know Bobby's got a cautious bead drawn on him the whole damn way.

"Well," Dean mutters aloud against a soundtrack of his own relentlessly chattering teeth, the dripping pipes, the creaking, shifting beams overhead and the swirling, howling winds of the raging snowstorm outside. His voice echoes and carries in the pit, the sound of it coming back to his ears deep and not a little hopeless. "Happy birthday to me."

He wriggles his nose against a persistent tickle there between his left nostril and upper lip, and the phantom throb that matches. He licks dry lips, certainly doesn't taste blood there but can feel it all the same. He huffs out a small grunt of satisfaction as he figures out the throbbing nose belongs mostly to Sam. Serves you right, you little shit.

Suddenly, his cell phone rings, the tone muffled through the denim of his jeans and the weight of his mostly overturned body. Sam. Dean jerks against the beach chair pressing down on him, but it's a lost cause as his hands writhe uselessly against the frigid, unrelenting constraint of the cuffs. The ringtone cuts out, gives way once more to oppressive silence. But Sam's got his head back in the game, or somewhat, at least, and that's not nothing.

Dean runs quickly through the catalog once more, the feelings invading his mind and body that aren't actually his. The panic is concerning, the fear understandable, and the heavy remorse and guilt that wash over his mind as little brother starts to figure out everything that's transpired over the past…well, he might need to see his watch for those specifics, because he's clearly missing some time here. But it's a welcome change to be feeling a passive emotion, and much better than that pervasive anger of Sam's.

Good, Dean thinks to himself, unable to corral the shiver that wracks his body. It's getting damn cold. Get ready, Sammy, because you're not HALF as sorry now as you're gonna be.

And that's when, because this cruel bitch of a world never seems to be quite satisfied with how monumentally screwed Dean Winchester is, he catches a flash of a feathery ghostly bullshit in his periphery.

He groans as the ethereal figure floats closer. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me." But it doesn't seem to be moving towards him in any sort of aggressive manner. More like it's studying him. And, yeah, that makes sense, because Dean figures he can't appear as much of a threat, fucking upside-down and shackled to a dilapidated beach chair.

And then Dean knows Sam is there, somewhere. He feels Sam approaching before he sees him, and just in time, too.

He smirks in the direction of the spirit. Oh, you are so screwed, buddy. Because Sam isn't fucking around anymore, thank God. Sam is a refreshingly determined kind of pissed, the kind that lets Dean know the cavalry's here, and not so much in the way of knocking him even further the fuck out.

Even so, the shotgun blast takes him enough by surprise that he tucks his head in instinctively, knocking his forehead against cold tile, bringing forward an explosion of stars. Okay, ow. But what's another bump or bruise at this rate, really?

There's a faint pitter of salt pellets falling to tile and concrete, and then a moment of uncertain, heavy breathing.

"Dean?"

Dean's head snaps up at the sound of Sam's voice, and he renews his struggles against the cuffs. He feels exhaustion coming off of Sam in waves now, and some degree of hesitance thrown into the emotional cocktail, but none of it is quite benign enough to cause him to sit still and wait for his brother come to him. Metal bites into the tender flesh of his wrists as Sam's shadow falls long and ominous across the tiles of the pool.

The shadow stops its approach and raises its hands in a non-threatening manner, and Dean's eyes whip upward, squinting in an effort to decipher the look on his brother's face, because it's such a shit show in his head, he doesn't know what to trust. And that's a scary thought, because the only reason he doesn't know has to be because Sam doesn't know, either.

"Hey," Sam says, voice deep and echoing through the cavernous Natatorium. "It's just me."

"Yeah, no shit," Dean snarls, despite his relief. "And just you is how I ended up down here in the first place."

Sam keeps his gun in hand as he trots around the pool to the shallow end, boots splashing in the shallow puddles that mark the floor. He makes his way down the short steps there with nothing less than the expected caution of someone who'd made this trek across slick tiles once already, and Dean is happy to note a faded smear of blood above his brother's upper lip. "Okay, I know I deserve that, and probably a lot worse – "

"And probably a lot worse?"

"Dean, if you don't calm down, I'm going to tie you up even more." Sam shifts his weight, and Dean knows that whatever he says next is solely to cover his weepy guilt, which is weeping its way all through Dean's own head. "And as it is, I'm kind of embarrassed for you that you haven't gotten out already."

Dean cocks an eyebrow. "You're gonna make jokes now? Now? Sam, do you have any idea how bad I have to piss?"

"Actually, I kinda do."

He'd had a hell of a head start on Bobby, who just now thunders into the room above Dean's head and well out of his eye line, blowing like a racehorse. "Dean?"

"Present," Dean snipes, tugging on the cuffs, bringing about a harsh jangle of metal on metal. "Anytime, Sam."

Sam fumbles through his pockets to locate the picks, and while he's acting like a bumbling idiot, Dean blows out an angry breath between clenched teeth. "You owe me for this, Sam. You owe me BIG."

Sam withdraws the pick and steps forward, then hesitates. "How big we talkin'?"

Dean considers a moment, then responds honestly, "I want to hit you."

"Oh, good Lord," Bobby exclaims from above them, exasperated.

Sam winces, and Dean nods as he feels his brother's acceptance fall like a curtain over his own weary body. "I see no way of stopping you."

"And I want the gray hoodie," Dean adds. The article of clothing has always been an object of contention between them. While technically Sam's, the sweatshirt has still managed to remain one of Dean's favorite possessions, and if Sam doesn't play his cards right he'll take that fucker to the damn grave with him.

"Dude."

Dean raises his eyebrows and jiggles his bound hands.

"Sam," Bobby prods, in an even tone not dissimilar from one of their father's.

"Yeah, okay." Sam crouches and unlocks the cuff on Dean's right wrist first, and gravity pulls his sore arm to slide under the slick, mucky rope binding it and the back of his hand smacks dully against the tile beneath him. Ice and pain and pins and needles flood the limb like he'd fallen asleep with it under his head, an over-stimulated feeling that leaves Dean unable to move his arm for a long moment.

But by the time Sam's freeing his left hand Dean's rolling the chair with some degree of success back to its rightful position and sliding underneath the rope around his chest. Sam straightens, taking baby steps backward and Dean pops up immediately onto frozen, unsteady legs, bringing his tingling right hand around to land knuckles squarely against his brother's cheekbone. He barely registers the hit against his numb fingers, but shakes the hand out anyway, feeling an odd thrum resonate all the way up to his elbow.

Sam falls back a step, grimacing as his hands land and slip on the grimy tile siding of the pool. "You feel better?"

"No," Dean says honestly. "I still want the hoodie, AND the hot chick knife." The only thing Sam owns that Dean's ever really envied. Well, despite the hoodie.

Dad had hooked up – but probably not literally – with a sexy little huntress half his age once when they were kids, when Dean was sixteen and already pushing six feet and therefore warranting a little attention. But it was chubby, awkward Sammy who stole the show, and Jen had ruffled the squirt's hair and given him a truly beautiful knife on her way out the door. Folded steel blade, full tang. Mmm, but he loves that knife. Sam's never appreciated it the way it deserves.

"Seriously, Dean?" There's a whine in Sam's voice, and the sentiment behind it echoes painfully through Dean's skull the same as whatever has his brother cupping that sore right elbow. "That was, like, forever ago."

"I know you still have it, Sam. I want it."

"Fine. The hoodie, and the knife, and you don't kick my ass." Sam winces, laying tentative fingertips against the rising, reddening welt on his cheek. "Or, any more than you already have."

"Deal."

Dean can't fault the kid for the step he quickly takes back, out of Dean's swinging range, no matter the deal they've struck. Then Sam seems to remember that he's on the owing side here, and his face softens as he moves aside but keeps his prying hands floating around in case Dean needs an assist up the stairs. Stairs, man.

"I like that knife," Sam complains.

"You two 'bout done?"

Dean grips the cold metal railing of the stairs and puts a boot on the lowermost step. They can hover and he can bitch about it, but damn if this isn't gonna suck. He's running on fumes already, his body stiff and coordination shot. "Relax, Sam, it's not like you're not gonna get it right back." He can't help the words from tumbling out, from going to his comfort zone of misplaced humor and desperate deflection. He feels the hit coming before he actually feels the hit.

Sam shoves him violently off of the step and into the slick tile lining the dry pool. Dean's shoulder blades smack against the hard surface, and the sound reverberates through the pit. The only thing keeping anywhere in the vicinity of upright is his grip on the frozen steel railing. He winces from the roaring anger that's reemerged, tearing through his own head, the sweat gathering on his palms. His pounding heart is almost as easily audible as his suddenly noisy breathing.

Sam's nostrils are flaring with all of the obvious anger that's going to work manipulating Dean's body. Hot and cold, that Sam. Like flipping a damn switch. Not to mention everything he's having to deal with from Dean, piling on. "That's not even a little bit funny, asshole," he seethes through clenched teeth.

Bobby's between them suddenly, wordlessly, with one hand around Dean's upper arm and the other firm against Sam's chest. Pushing him away or just holding him at bay, it's difficult to say which. "Dean," he says quietly. Telling him to fix it, because this is Dean's mess to fix, or maybe asking permission to put Sam down much the same as Sammy had done to him, see if it doesn't make this entire outing a bit easier. Dean's doing too much interpretation as it is to throw this tone of Bobby's into the mix.

Dean doesn't even look at the other man as he shrugs off the help and straightens from the wall, but is wary to make any sudden movements beyond that, lest he blink too long and wake tied up in some other random, decrepit part of this crumbling resort. "I know. I'm sorry."

Wide-eyed, Bobby steps away but Sam's not backing down, and Dean knows exactly what he's feeling. Hurt, betrayed, angry, pretty much always. Or at least, more often than Dean had ever thought. And at a complete loss. Standing at the edge of a cliff long before this hunt tipped them sideways over it.

"Dean," Bobby tries again, firmer this time. No interpretation necessary; this is the tone that means, boy, if you can't take care of this, I will.

Dean struggles to settle his pounding heart, which isn't going to happen, not on his own, because it isn't his to settle. He has to calm Sam down before they lose him again, and sets out to blank his own mind, to drain away any of his own feelings, so as not to complicate the fury happening inside his brother and echoing through his own body. "Sam, look at my face. Look at…" Look at me, Sammy. "I'm sorry. Okay?"

It's a long moment that feels like forever, that feels like all three of them won't be walking out of there, before Sam nods, and Dean knows it's for real.

"Yeah," Sam says finally. "Yeah, I know." He runs a hand down his face, blows out a long breath. "So, this sucks."

"Yeah, pretty much," Dean agrees, thankfully noting the steadier beat of his heart in his chest.

Bobby's head swivels back and forth between them. "We good here, fellas?"

"Yeah, we're good." Sam nods tightly. "Sorry, Bobby."

Bobby returns the nods. "Then for the love of all that's holy, can we get the hell out of the pool?"

"Yeah," Sam says. He lifts a shoulder. "'S too cold for a swim, anyway."

"And, you know, no water," Dean adds, thinking, funny's good. Hang on to funny. Let this ride as long as we can.

Bobby chuckles and climbs the steps back to higher ground.

Sam steps forward to follow and Dean stops him, throws his forearm across his brother's chest. "I'm still taking the hot chick knife," he says seriously.

Sam laughs. He's uneasy and frightened of the situation, and maybe of himself, but laughing nonetheless. "Shut up, jerk."

"Y'okay, kid?"

Dean sighs. Dammit.

Bobby's caught him rubbing the side of his sore head before he could stop himself, the reflexive nature of the motion trumping his desire to not fidget in the presence of the other two, and driven by the discomfort of the bump forming there, the itch of scabbing coming up over a small scrape in his hair. Knuckles like knives, Sam's got. Son of a bitch.

Dean rolls his eyes as he drops his arm, thumping it dramatically against his thigh. "Fantastic. Why wouldn't I be?"

Bobby raises his eyebrows. "Well, your fool head's basically been used as a damn volleyball the past coupla days."

"Yeah, I know. I was there."

It's because he's earmarked for Hell that Bobby doesn't call him any further on his bullshit, but the man's always-scrutinizing eyes stay focused on Dean a long moment before darting away to Sam, and, there it is. It was only a matter of time before Bobby started trying to use their newfound abilities – or whatever the hell – against them.

It's bad enough he's gonna die, but does he have to ride off into the sunset getting these pathetic looks from everyone the whole damn way? And from people who should know better. Dean glares his own daggers at his little brother, but knows it's not very likely Sam's going to give him up now. Besides, what's he going to say, really?

He's not fantastic, Bobby. His brain feels like it's leaking out of his ears and it's because I went fuckin' insane and smacked him upside the head, then left him tied up and freezing at the bottom of the goddamn pool.

Then Dean thinks, son of a bitch. Because, Sam would, the little do-gooder. He'd admit to his own faults for the sake of calling Dean out for his discomfort. Shut your piehole, Sammy, Dean finds himself silently begging his brother. Please, just this one time.

Sam ignores both of their looks, even if he can't ignore Dean's mental plea. A muscle in his jaw jumps, evidence that he's reading Dean, or at least his intent, loud and clear. "Let's just get this ghost dealt with," he says, eerily calm and reasonable, given everything they've been through and how bonkers he'd been just a few short hours before. He looks up, meets Dean's eyes. "Then the beers are on me."

"Sounds like a plan," Dean agrees quickly, eager to move the conversation away from the topic of his own well-being. He'd already made his feelings about that very clear – he hates to be the center of attention on his birthday.

"Yeah," Bobby concedes, weary and with some degree of frustration. Mostly likely equally divided between both of them. "Then we've gotta get you boys out of here."

"Agreed," Dean says, feeling the relief in stereo and catching Sam nodding out of the corner of his eye.

The map comes out once more from Bobby's pocket, the lines of the folds standing out in stark white, contrasting the deep blue of the paper. They gather around the plans, illuminated by flashlights and a camping lantern on the stone mantel, casting an oval-shaped wash of stark white light across the damp lobby floor.

Sam waves a hand around the surface of the map that hasn't been marred by Bobby's thick marker. A decently sized area, too much square footage left to cover. "There's gotta be a way we can eliminate some of these areas, Bobby." What he means to say is, we've spent more than enough time in this hellhole already. He's putting on a decent show for Bobby, but he's pale – hell, they all are, at this point – and his stress is nearly as evident in the lines of his face as it is in the pounding of Dean's own head.

Dean's wrists are ringed with red, worried skin from the cuffs but aren't bleeding. He frowns, looks up and catches Sam staring at the marks. Sighing, he tugs on the sleeves of his jacket and drops to his knees next to Bobby."Well, we've seen the son of a bitch here, here, and here." He taps out the spots on the map as he speaks, as he mentally amends, I'VE seen the son of a bitch.

Bobby dutifully marks off the area, adding, "Bodies were found here and here."

"Pretty tight grouping," Sam comments thoughtfully, the exhale of warm breath fogging in front of his face.

Dean shivers, the pervasive cold cutting through layer after of layer of shirt and jacket, and struggles to remember the last time he felt warm. The last time he saw anything aside from the rotted, moldy walls of this hotel and the snow falling beyond those few windows that offer an unobstructed view, piling steadily, entombing them. "What's left around there that we haven't hit yet?"

Bobby squints at the map, straightens for a moment and reaches for the lantern, dragging it down closer to assist his tired eyes. "Offices, looks like." He rubs at his beard, calloused fingertips scraping over the coarse hair at his chin. "Dining hall."

Dean hops a bit on the balls of his feet, then turns back to his pensive brother, who really needs to practice not thinking so damn much or so loud. "There something about that blowin' up your skirt, Sammy? What are you thinkin' over there?"

That's a question Dean can unwittingly answer for himself. Sam's thinking he's more than ready to blow this popsicle stand and move on to the next, but admittedly more serious, problem. He's thinking he's about as cold as Dean, himself is.

"We're looking for remains," is what Sam says, impressively business-like. "And this spirit is staying pretty close to this area here." He waves a hand around a small section of the map before dropping a few light fingertips to the paper. "So I'd say it's a safe bet if there're bones here, they're somewhere around that dining room."

Dean snorts, rocking back on his heels and rubbing his hands together to generate a little warmth. "What, like the poor son of a bitch choked on his dinner and they just left him there?"

Sam turns to him, still surprisingly calm. "I'm willing to settle for where, and not worrying so much about how."

Bobby's eyes dart between the two, then he shrugs and moves to gather up the map. "S'good enough for me."

Sam didn't think there could possibly be any room left in this hotel capable of striking him as even more bleak, more desolate, more insolated and hopeless than the scenes he's already seen here. He was wrong. The hole that's sunken in the middle of the expansive dining room creates a landscape that looks little more than post-apocalyptic against this silent and dark backdrop, looking like a yawning maw ready to swallow them all, broken wood framing the edges jutting like jagged teeth. He finds himself directing the beam of his flashlight into the bottom, just to assure himself there is a bottom. The stark circle of light falls on cracked concrete, exposed and broken piping and piles of warped, sodden wood rubble. More than enough reason to exercise caution as they search the room.

"Careful," Bobby warns in a low tone from a few feet away, echoing Sam's own sentiments as they gingerly traverse this veritable deathtrap of an ignored and crumbling building.

Dean shoots the older hunter a look across the dank, dripping dining room, from the other side of the gaping hole. The space is open, airy. Freezing, and each step brings about a creak underfoot that brings a stutter of panic to Sam's heartbeat. The room is trisected by square pillars three feet wide, a line of supports that seems endless in the weak beam of Sam's flashlight, though the walls have to end somewhere.

Dean, horribly but understandably pale, gestures dramatically upward in the direction of the creaking and dripping roof beams, and then down toward the enormous pit in the center of the room, where the floor has caved in, in spectacular fashion. The hole is nearly the width and length of the pool, but deeper than the deep end had been. He illuminates mildew-y, drafty corners as he swings his flashlight around with his emphatic gesticulating. "You don't think that kinda went without saying, Bobby?"

It should go without saying, but while Sam and Bobby have been giving the hole a wide berth, Dean is stepping lightly but a bit too close to the edge for comfort, inspecting the tops and bases of the pillars and testing the splintered plywood for weak spots. One foot in the fire, at all times, because he doesn't know any other way to be. Dean's not nervous or shaky or scared as he does little more than dare the floor to give out on him. Sam can tell he's tired, as should be more or less expected, but steady. Comfortable. Hunting, just like he'd wanted to, and trying to get a good look at what the cave-in has given way to.

Bobby's eyebrows jump as the beam of Dean's light sweeps across his face, as he verbalizes once again what Sam is basically thinking for himself. "Well, knowing the kind of luck you two have, I figured I should say it all the same. Would think you've had enough excitement to tide you over at least a few days."

"You're damn right about that," Dean says, testing a spot in the exposed plywood under short filthy carpet fibers with the toe of his boot, no more than a foot away from the hole. He flashes Bobby a wide, toothy grin. "Besides, careful might as well be my middle – "

It's almost cruel, the way the weight of Dean's boot splinters the floorboard with an awful, loud crack and drops him from sight right as he's saying it.

To be continued...