tw: suicide mention, talk of death & kidnapping
summary: Dean starts to collect information about the missing counselor from a close friend of hers and the phone he found by the creek.
word count: 3,349
After breakfast, they were split up to be introduced to their activities shifts. Dean was assigned to help kids with their gear at the bottom of the zipline, which he wasn't exactly hyped about, but could have been a lot worse, all things considered. He had a good vantage point of both the boathouse and the camp store, and watches the masses of small humans crowd the Crew working at those two locations made him grateful he only had one at a time to deal with.
He was introduced to Rylyn, the counselor he'd be working with, who was "catching" the kids as they came down the zipline and pulling them in so they could get their footing and Dean could help them out of the harness, and who Dean recognized as the one who'd first noticed his car the day before.
As much as he wanted to hold that against him, he knew it was literally their job to be insufferably enthusiastic, especially at "spirit tunnel", as Cade called it, and based on his much calmer persona today, it seemed he'd been correct about the heart of the issue being intense caffeine consumption.
He wondered if it would be rude to ask him exactly how many mgs of the energizing substance he'd been on the afternoon before.
The guy was nice, but the longer they worked together, the larger disparity he noticed between this person and the one Rylyn had been while hyping up his ride the day before.
He was kind, friendly, and encouraging, but quiet in a way that didn't seem normal–for him or for anyone–with a far-off look in his eyes and a way of smiling that always seemed a little forced.
They'd been working together for around half an hour when there was a longer than usual pause in between the time when they caught and unhooked the last camper and when their readiness for the next one was confirmed via walkie from the counselors working at the top of the line.
Dean hesitated uncertainly, looking up the line, at the tiny figures on the sending platform, then at the silent walkie clipped to a nearby fence, then at Rylyn.
"Should we be worried?"
"What? Oh." Another one of those quick, utterly forced smiles. "No. I'm sure they're just trying to talk down a scared kid. Happens all the time. It's pretty rare to go as long as we did just now without a gap."
Dean nodded a little, and they fell back into silence. The older man broke it again after a moment.
"So, uh, how are you liking Crew so far?" It was clear he felt like he should be engaging with him, despite not really feeling capable of doing so, and Dean wanted to tell him it wasn't necessary, but didn't know how to do so without being rude.
"Yeah, it's–ah–it's okay," he said instead, shrugging a little. "Not really my scene, I guess. Kinda a lot to get used to."
A weak laugh escaped Rylyn's lips. "Yeah. It's certainly that."
"How long have you been here?" the boy asked.
It was a long shot, but the dude's demeanor was certainly weird, and it was a possibility he might know something useful. If nothing else, questioning him was keeping the attention off of Dean.
"This is actually my first week at Thunder Lake," he replied, that far-off expression from his eyes entering his voice as well. "And last week I wasn't on the mountain. But before that, I'd been at the sister property, Camp Sparrowhead, since the beginning of the season. Works similarly, just with shorter sessions."
"Wait," Dean said, forcing his stone casually curious rather than triumphant at indeed finding a potential insister, "Sparrowhead is the one where…"
He didn't quite know how to sensitively phrase it, but a tight little nod from Rylyn indicated understanding so he didn't have to.
"Wow," the boy breathed. "Did you–uh–did you know the people who–who disappeared?"
"I'd only met the kids a couple times," the twenty-year-old sighed, "but the counselor? Yeah. Yeah, she was one of my best friends up here."
"I'm sorry, Man." For once, he didn't have to force the sentiment behind the words. He could see the guilt and conflict behind the counselor's eyes, see him grappling to understand something he had no means of understanding because he didn't know these things were real, and those were things he wouldn't wish on anyone. "I can't imagine."
He could, but he was still sorry.
Rylyn nodded a little with another shaky attempt at a smile, taking a breath to reply, but before he could, a voice from the walkie spoke up once more.
"Sender ready."
Rylyn straightened quickly, reaching over to press the button to respond. "Catcher ready."
"Sending."
"Send on."
They worked for another twenty or so minutes without talking other than necessary communication for the work they were doing, and as another pause broke the rhythm of catching one kid and preparing for the next one, they fell into silence once more.
"Look." Rylyn's voice broke it suddenly, making Dean start a little as he looked up at him. "I don't know what everyone's saying," the counselor continued a little desperately. "I… I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the news or–or anything, but I just… Alicia loved her kids more than any of us. I'm not saying I know what happened–God, I wish I did–but she would never, ever hurt them. Whatever happened to them happened to her too, or else she went down protecting them and whatever it was…" He swallowed hard, clearly barely holding himself together. "Hid her body so we haven't found it yet."
He exhaled slowly, the breath trembling on its way out, his eyes meeting the dirt as Dean saw a few stalwart tears well in them.
"I just can't handle anyone thinking–thinking that she…"
He didn't finish, letting the sentence hang for a moment before pulling one hand down his face hard and shaking himself a little.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't dump any of that on you. I just don't know what people are saying."
"You're fine, Man," Dean told him simply. "I get it. She's your friend." He hesitated before timidly probing, "What do you think happened? An animal of some sort, or…"
But he was shaking his head. "They haven't found anything. If it was an animal, there would be some sort of trial or–" He swallowed again, like he was trying to keep himself from puking. "Or remains, or something. But there's nothing."
"Yeah, that wouldn't make sense," Dean confirmed quietly. "I guess sometimes people are the biggest monsters of all."
"Yeah," Rylyn scoffed haplessly. "You can say that again."
time-skip sponsored by the welcome death of that terrible new tumblr logo :)
He and Sammy met up during the boy's freetime, which he, luckily, had off as well, finding an inconspicuous enough little corner of the dining hall where they probably weren't supposed to be at the moment and getting to work rigging a battery pack for the phone.
It was nothing they hadn't done before, and they were able to talk as they worked, neither of them having to put their full focus into the project.
To Dean's relief, Sam was still having the time of his life. He was planning on being launched from the huge inflatable thing in the lake he referred to as the blob later that day, and had already gotten to play "archery tag", which he described as like dodgeball, but with padded arrows instead of balls, and do an obstacle course. Dean listened and smiled and nodded along, only focused on the stories with part of his brain, but genuine in his happiness for his brother.
This was one of those things he'd really never expected the kid to get to do, and it was pretty rare that a hunt actually worked out well for Sam. Sure, he wished it didn't involve dragging the kid closer to a kid-nabbing monster, but the childish excitement shining in Sammy's eyes as he spoke was something he'd seen less and less of lately.
"So is everybody being nice?" the older brother asked as he used some clear tape to careful set the wires they were rigging into place.
"Yeah. I mean…" Sammy shrugged a little, blowing in the charge port of the cell phone to remove any remaining dirt that hadn't been banished when Dean initially cleaned the thing off. "Mostly everyone."
That brought Dean's eyes snapping up with more attention. "What do you mean mostly?"
The boy shrugged once more, double checking the taped-up pack before gingerly slipping the two wires into the charge port. "There's jerks everywhere. You know that. Some of the guys in the cabin must've overheard me telling Lawrence that Mom died when I was a baby, cuz they keep making Little Orphan Sammy jokes and stuff. The other guys are nice, though."
Dean's could feel his eyes go dark, despite a slight light to the phone's touch screen telling them that they'd found success in getting it to charge.
"Point them out and I'll deal with it."
"No!" Sam argued quickly, going on before Dean could argue. "Really, it's fine. Like I said, the other guys are nice, and they tell them to knock it off when they hear, and they're not dumb enough to do it in front of Lawrence. And I don't want you to get sent home or anything."
Dean had to admit he couldn't see him breaking the nose of a twelve-year-old bully going over real well, but he didn't like standing by while the little brats ran their mouths about things they'd never understand, much less at Sam's expense.
"I thought this was supposed to be a church camp," he muttered dangerously.
"Doesn't mean everyone's perfect," Sam countered, offering up a small smirk. "They let you in, didn't they?"
"Funny." Dean gingerly reached forward and settled the phone in his hand while it continued to charge so that he could start to look through it as soon as it had enough power for him to do so. "Seriously, though," he added, "Tell me if it gets worse."
"Yeah, I will," the younger brother agreed, his tone distracted as Dean found success in getting the charging device to turn on. "Now what are we looking for in this thing, anyway?"
"Whatever we can find," Dean told him with a small shrug of his own. "I don't know, Sam, we just don't have much of anything on what we're actually dealing with here. I'll take whatever hints I can get."
"But all you're looking for is hints, right?" Sam pressed. "Dad is gonna come help you actually hunt it?"
"Yeah, of course he is," he replied without looking up. "Never hunt alone, you know that."
"Yeah, I know that," the boy mumbled, clearly unconvinced.
As the phone finished booting up, though, his attention was quickly the rest of the way captured by that instead of his mistrust of their father.
"That's so cool," he breathed softly as Dean started to use the touch screen to figure out how to navigate through the device controls.
Dean just nodded slightly as he started with the phone's call log.
As could be expected, there was a long line of missed calls starting the night of her disappearance and becoming less and less frequent until they finally tapered off that week. The same contacts largely repeated themselves in the lineup, including a Rylyn that was no doubt the counselor Dean had spoken to earlier. Monica, Andrew, and Lawrence were also common entries, as were a handful of others. He glanced over at Sam.
"Isn't Lawrence your counselor's name?"
"Yeah…" the boy confirmed softly. "I knew he came from the other camp, but I didn't know he knew her so well." He hesitated before asking, "Do you want me to ask him about it?"
"If you can be subtle about it, yeah."
"Yes, I can be subtle about it, Dean," the younger boy huffed a little. "I have helped you guys with this stuff before, you know."
"I know," Dean sighed in his own right. "I mostly just didn't want you to get in trouble or upset him or something."
"Oh. I guess that makes sense."
They fell back into silence as Dean continued to scroll through the long line of no-doubt panicked calls following the girl's disappearance.
"It's weird that there's no parents," Sam commented quietly, bringing Dean's eyes briefly back up to his pensive young face.
"What?"
"On the logs," the boy replied like it was obvious. "There's no Mom or Dad. I don't know, I guess, but I feel like I'd call my daughter's cell phone if I found out she was missing on a mountain, even if I knew she didn't have service. I mean, these people sure did."
"I didn't think of that," Dean mused softly. "But, yeah, you'd think." He hesitated before adding, "And the service is actually better than you'd think. Not everywhere, but if you find a high point. I mean, all of this had to come through sometime."
"Maybe one of these names is an older brother or sister," Sam offered after a moment. "Like you or Caleb."
Dean couldn't help a slight, fond smile at that. "Yeah. Maybe so." He took a breath to say something else, but forgot it as he clicked to the next page of calls. "Wait, there they are."
Sure enough, both Mom and Pops finally appeared on the log, but only now that they'd gone back to before the night of the disappearance. A ten-minute call to the mother, immediately followed by a thirty-minute one to Rylyn and preceded by an hour long conversation with a new name, Jeremy, and then a line of missed calls from him.
Several days before that, a call with the mother that had lasted over an hour and was immediately followed by a string of unanswered calls from her and the father.
"So they do exist," Sam said quietly.
Dean frowned as he considered it. "That's kinda worse."
"That they're out there somewhere, but they didn't even call when she disappeared?" the younger brother asked, his tone dark. "Yeah. Worse."
The saved log ended just a few calls before those ones, so Dean navigated away from the log and into the phone's saved voice pages.
He made a quick check around them to ensure they were still alone in the room and turned the volume on this thing all the way up before ordering the most recent one to play.
"Look, Alicia…"
He was almost positive the trembling voice was Rylyn's.
"I don't know what's going on. I know your kids are with you, so–so you must be in trouble, and I swear if you are, we'll find you, okay, but if–if that's not it, if your head's somewhere, like–like it's been, jus–just don't do anything stupid. Please." A pause, then the sound of him choking on a sob. "Please just pick up."
Dean frowned. Was he saying what it sounded like he was saying? He moved to the next one, marked with the same date as the girl's parents had first made an appearance on her call log.
"You can't just cut things off like that. What happened up there wasn't me, alright? I felt weird about it too, but I thought–I don't know, but we just need to talk. You have to let me talk to you. Pick up."
Then, from the date of that long call with her mother.
"Take a deep breath." That was Rylyn again. "I'm walking your way now. I don't know what she said, but I'm on my way, just don't–don't do anything before I get over there, alright? Please. Screw her. God's got you. I'll be there in, like, two minutes."
Again, was that what it sounded like?
Another from that same date.
"This is exactly why we didn't want you going up there in the first place, Alicia. I don't know what's gotten into you, but we will get it out the second you come home, which you are going to do. Now. Come home, Alcia."
"Gotta be Mommy Dearest," Dean mused softly.
"She sounds pleasant," Sam put in with a small scoff. "Guess I can see why she didn't call now."
That was the last page the device had saved, and there was little else of interest recorded in the phone's memory. Dean couldn't help but be a little relieved by the fact. He knew why they were doing it and stood by it, but he couldn't help but feel like they were just digging through the girl's personal life.
Which seemed to be a bit of a mess.
"Does any of that help?" Sam asked as they unplugged the phone from the makeshift battery and set it aside.
"I don't know," his older brother sighed. "I guess it could. I just don't know how yet." He glanced at the clock on the wall and made a small motion of his head in the direction of the door. "You should probably get back out there before someone notices you're gone."
The boy nodded and started to his feet, but he was still frowning a little. "I wonder if her dad's that mean, too." Then, he ran off, calling over his shoulder, "See you later, Dean!"
Dean watched him go with a small smile, but immediately felt his own frown replace it again as his mind centered back on the case.
If he was understanding things correctly, the girl was a bit unstable. Whatever Rylyn's pages had been referring to, even if it wasn't so severe as thinking she'd attempt, he clearly had reason to believe she posed some sort of a danger to herself when upset or in a particularly dark place.
Then there was the fact that, as Sam had noted, she seemed to have a pretty terrible relationship with her parents, and seemed to have been on the mountain against their express wishes. Then, there was the other guy.
From what he'd said on the page, as well as one long call followed by a lot of unanswered ones, it seemed the two of them had been in some sort of relationship, he'd screwed up, and she'd cut it off, which he was not happy about.
But once again, all of that really just felt like personal details he probably shouldn't know, and utterly unhelpful to his case.
Except that monsters sometimes had motivations.
If it mostly preyed on children, the rocky relationship with her parents could play into it. A lot of boogeyman-type legends focused on disobedient children.
The relationship drama was less likely to be a monster's motivation, but he remembered his parting comment to Rylyn that afternoon and realized he had to consider the possibility of a human monster doing this, not a supernatural one.
Or, she could have taken out herself.
Counselor commits suicide in the middle of the night, two of the kids she was in charge of wander off and get lost.
But based on what Rylyn had said that morning, it wouldn't be like her to abandon them, and in any case, it would be hard to believe the authorities would have found nothing in two weeks.
And there was all that EMF he'd found by the shower house the day before.
No, there was definitely something supernatural going on there.
Dad was supposed to pass on anything he heard from Bobby or Mac, but Dean had the sinking feeling he wasn't going to be able to count on that.
He checked the time again and sighed heavily. At the moment, he was supposed to be reporting to help serve lunch, so he'd have to put a pin in this.
He needed to call Jim sometime that day to check in from New Mexico, so he'd try for his dad at the same time. Maybe he'd actually pick up given the fact that Dean was trying to hunt.
Maybe.
notes: Please let me know all of your thoughts and predictions. Like a broken record, I live and breathe off of feedback. Love you all.
Shazza19: Thank you so much for all of the comments! Dean's definitely in a weird head-space right now and who can blame him-church camp isn't exactly his scene and he's struggling a bit. I'm loving all your thoughts and predictions!
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