Welcome to Bridgewater, 1/2, for coyotesuspect
Title: Welcome to Bridgewater
Author: tiptoethrough
Recipient: coyotesuspect
Rating: Teen and up
Wordcount: ~12,800
Warnings: Allusions to violence, and a couple of brief dangerous moments. Some basic description of injuries (blood, etc.) but no serious gore.
Author's Notes: Hello recipient! I could tell from your request that you are very into lady-heavy fics, but I have not written a lot for the SPN fandom and felt nervous straying too far from the main characters, so I tried to combine multiple of your requests in order to get a fic I hope you like!
Summary: Sam exists between two principles: hunting and being a kid. He wonders which one his mother would want for him, or if he’ll ever be good at either.
“Welcome to Bridgewater!”
Sam awoke, his head cracking roughly against the window as his body jolted out of slumber. He swiped at his face, digging the heel of his palm in hard against an itch at his eyebrow.
Outside the window, Bridgewater Maine’s central street dragged by, empty and desolate. God, thought Sam, another barren town overrun with dead bodies. He peered through the dirty glass of the Impala’s window up at the sky. Grey, just like the town.
“Sammy?”
“I heard you, Dean. Welcome to Bridgewater. Where’s the school?”
“The school’s actually in Mars Hill. That’s where we’re stayin’,” grumbled Dad. The car slowed as they drove past a small cluster of buildings; a post office that looked all but deserted, one house, and some dreary store fronts. Looked like this was the heart of downtown.
“Then what are we doing here?”
Dean passed a map back over his shoulder, and Sam took it from him tiredly. Red marks- more than he expected- slashed into the page indicated the dead and missing. All arranged roughly in a ring around Bridgewater.
“So, whatever we’re hunting, this is homebase?” Sam asked, looking out the back window at the post office fading in the distance.
“Whatever I’m hunting,” their father reiterated. “You’re going to school.”
The back of Sam’s neck felt hot. As if he wanted to hunt, or to drag themselves across the goddamned country in this rattling hunk of metal. Sam went back to his perusal of the map.
“Do the ‘x’s and the slashes mean anything different?”
“Time,” Dean mumbled around a hunk of chocolate, extending his hand to Sam in offer. Sam shook his head mutely. Dean swallowed hard, and Sam wondered if he might choke.
“Chew your food,” he muttered.
Dean ignored him. “The crosses are within the last 10 years. The slashes are late 60s.”
“What’s the, uh, MO?”
“None,” Dad said, turning the car onto what looked like a highway.
“None?”
“There’s no bodies,” Dad muttered, “Only missing persons, but- Well, all the missing are women.”
“Hookers,” Dean interjected with a grin.
“Why are you grinning?” Sam muttered sullenly.
“Relax, Sammy. There’s no wonder no one went looking for them s’all. I told Dad it probably wasn’t even our kind of thing.” Dean turned around in his seat and ruffled through the pages on his lap. “Still not sure it is.”
“I just have- a feeling. There’s a gap in the killings spanning decades.”
“Could be two different pervs- er, perps,” Dean suggested.
“Could be,” echoed Dad, but something in his voice told Sam that he wasn’t even entertaining the thought. Sam breathed in deep, his lungs expanding too fast at the edges, pain squeezing his chest. Outside the window the fields rolled past, not yet green with the late April promise of new life. In the distance Sam could see a crumbling old barn, abandoned to the weather a decade ago. The Impala skimmed through a puddle, and Sam’s view dissolved into water droplets.
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Mary’s charm bracelet caught on the edges of the page she was running her fingers over. She shook her wrist, pulling away, and stared into the depthless eyes peering at her in black and white.
“How long do you think the hunt in Wisconsin will be?” she asked.
“I dunno,” Leanne muttered. Mary scarcely heard her over the staccato pounding against the car roof and windows. “Damn this rain.”
“Well,” Mary said, “I hope it’s a good week, because it won’t take them long to find us now we’ve run into Derek at that truck stop.”
“By the time they drag their asses to Maine, we’ll have proof that this is our deal. I’m telling you Mary, something, not someone, is taking these women. And if no men are gonna do something about it, well, it’s up to the real hunters.”
Mary laughed, but it sounded hollow to her own ears. Leanne was older than her, and when she’d asked Mary to come, she’d sounded so sure that this was their kind of thing. What if their fathers were right, and this hunt wasn’t a hunt at all. Mary knew that her dad wouldn’t be pleased when he found her gone. She was sure he wouldn’t think that two girls their age could handle this. Most men wouldn’t. “Derek’s gonna call Dad for sure. Most hunters don’t really think a couple of teenaged girls count as being... one of them.”
“Jesus, Mary, who cares what Derek thinks. A real hunter- does this, just what we’re doing. Saving people, hunting things. It’s what Dad and Uncle Sam always say. The only reason we’re taking this alone is because- because men are dumb, and these missing women-” Leanne reached over and smacked the pages in Mary’s hands. “They’ve put them in the second category instead of the first. Hey- here we are.”
Mary couldn’t read the sign until they were close enough that the car’s headlights slashed through the rain, illuminating the tin words. She squinted through the rain sluicing down the window as the car rolled through a deep puddle. Welcome to Bridgewater.
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“I can’t believe we’re living in an actual apartment!” Sam said, loudly enough that he was sure Dean could hear him in the living room. He was standing in his own room, small though it was. There were probably rich people with closets bigger than this. There were probably middle class people with closets bigger than this, Sam thought with a wry grin. But it was his. His own room. Sometimes Sam wondered what his room would be like in their house in Lawrence, but as the years passed he had learned it was one of those things best left alone.
He wandered into the tiny main room, with its counter, fridge and stove against one wall, and a television and a long, comfy sofa against the other, its hideous floral pattern faded from the sun streaming in through the window behind it. A small round table with two chairs sat in the middle of the room. Sam flung himself onto the sofa next to Dean. “Where’s Dad?”
Dean was watching the TV. Sam had to repeat the question for him to hear. “Kaleb called... Hunt in Illinois. Urgent. Three dead in four days. I’ll take you to register for school tomorrow.”
“Aren’t you going to school?” Sam asked. Dean was supposed to be graduating this year, but Sam didn’t know if it was actually going to happen.
“No, I’m getting a part time down the street. I’m, uh... I got more important things to do than school.” Dean sighed and got up to flick the television off. He leaned against it, facing Sam. His face was dark. “We’ve never really done a case like this, no evidence that it’s even a monster. Just Dad’s gut feeling. Dad needs help with research and stuff.”
“So what, you’re gonna do research? You suck at it. I’m good at research,” Sam muttered.
“Sam.” Sam heard the warning in his brother’s voice. “Stay out of this case. You know how Dad feels-”
“Come on, Dean! It’s not like I’m strapping up with a machete, I’m just saying I can help with the research; I’m good at it.”
“You’re not hunting, Sam. Not at all, not yet. That’s all there is to it.”
Sam opened his mouth to argue, but his throat felt as if it were stuck closed. The back of his neck burned with embarrassment. It occurred to him that he could storm off to his own room if he wanted. He did just that, and he slammed the door twice to make sure Dean got the picture. He threw himself down on his bed, breathing deeply. The air filtered through the old pillow was musty. Sam squeezed his eyes shut. He pictured the face he’d come to know through faded photographs, eternally smiling. Mom was never angry at Sam when he thought of her... he’d never seen pictures of what she’d look like angry, and Sam didn’t know her face well enough to imagine what she’d look like. Sometimes it was hard just to picture her, and he couldn’t conjure up her features no matter how hard he tried. Lying on the bed in his tiny room, all Sam could picture was a set of dark eyes above a gaping maw with sharp teeth, getting closer...
Sam wished Denver had never happened. He couldn’t imagine it going worse than it had. Dean’s first hunt, he’d come home with blood spattered across his face, breathing heavy with the exhilaration of his triumph. It hadn’t been his own blood. He was 14.
“Well,” Dean had murmured as he pressed a wad of cloth into Sam’s neck in their room at the motel that had wrongly advertised itself Colorado’s Finest, “You aren’t 14. You’re 13.”
“Big difference that is,” Sam had muttered, eyes downcast, directed away from Dean’s face.
Sam remembered the sound of Dean’s sigh. When Sam’s eyes involuntarily were pulled to his face, he saw Dean lick his bottom lip in that way he did when he didn’t know what to say next. Sam felt the pressure on his neck ease up. When blood began to snake a hot trail into the divet between his collarbones, Dean resumed the pressure, bearing the cloth against Sam’s neck so hard it hurt.
“Sammy,” Dean began, faltering at whatever he saw returned in Sam’s face.
“Don’t call me Sammy,” Sam had told him, voice tight, hating the childish nickname though he had never felt more like a helpless kid.
“Alright, here we go.” Their father’s voice had made Sam jump, he remembered, and he stared stubbornly at the carpet when the bed beside him sank beneath Dad’s weight. Dean lifted the cloth away, rested his hands against Sam’s knees. “This is gonna hurt, Sam,” Dad told him.
“Yeah,” Sam said with a shrug.
“You sure you wanna do this here? We can go to the hospital.” Dad’s voice was surprisingly gentle. Sam’s throat had felt tight.
“No, it’s fine.” Dad hadn’t lied, and other than getting his neck torn open, having it put back together was the worst feeling Sam had ever experienced. When the stitches were finished, Sam collapsed against the pillows, exhausted. His father’s face had swam in front of his eyes, seemingly in constant motion from side to side. “You aren’t mad?” Sam had asked. “You seemed awful mad back there.”
“Sammy,” Dad had sighed. “I was scared. I thought I was gonna lose you.” Sam had fallen asleep that night with his father sitting on the bed next to him in their shared motel room. Curled up on his side in his own room, Sam told himself he was much happier this way.
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“So,” Dean started awkwardly the next morning as he walked Sam to his homeroom. Registration had been difficult- the principal wanted to speak to their dad, and Dean had needed to lie through his teeth about him getting settled in at work before they’d let him sign Sam’s papers.
“What?” Sam asked sullenly.
“Dad, uh, Dad thinks you should join a club. You liked the, uh- mathletes thing back in Wisconsin, right? Maybe they have one here.”
“Dad wants to keep me distracted,” Sam said in a deadpan, “So I don’t get my head torn off?”
“Come on, Sam. Jesus. Just fucking do what your told for once.”
Dean stormed out, and Sam slunk into his homeroom. He knew that going through the school day with a scowl wasn’t a great way to make friends, but nothing could lift his mood. At the end of the day, Sam dragged himself to the guidance office. There was a sign up sheet for a sports team hanging in the window. Sam dug through his bag, reading the surprisingly short list of his future teammates’ names. At the bottom of the list, his own name was written in red ink. Dean, Sam knew. He wanted to scratch his name out in protest. Why couldn’t they just let him choose, for once, what he wanted to do? Sam stared at the page for a long time, rolling his pen between his fingers. In the end, it was easier to walk away. Sports were supposed to be good for getting out frustration, anyway.
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Dean did get a job down the street, washing dishes at a bar, and by the time Dad returned from his hunt- “A fucking Abarimon, if you’ll believe it”- things were mostly settled. Sam’s first soccer practice was at the end of the school the day after Dad returned, and as the week had passed he’d realized he was actually looking forward to it, despite his resentment toward Dean for signing him up.
Sam sat on the bench next to a boy from his English class- David. He chattered in Sam’s ear about the upcoming soccer season, saying it was lucky Sam had moved in time to join the team. They worked on half seasons, and they only had empty spots because a few others had dropped out of school this semester. Now, with only a little over a month left of school... Sam wondered if he’d finish the school year here, if he’d play the final game at the end of the season. Sam was glad that David was the type to look past Sam’s grumpy behaviour his first day. He hoped that others would, too, in time.
Sam wiggled his toes in the ends of his cheap canvas sneakers. Through the thin material he could see he distinct bulge of his individual toes as they pressed against the tops of his shoes. He looked down the line of the bench at the other boys’ feet. Sam felt his stomach twinge in jealousy. He’d never be able to afford a pair of cleats. He was glad the jersey and socks were provided by the school.
By the time they were on the field running drills, Sam felt his reservations begin to slip away. He wasn’t coordinated enough to take out a fachen without getting his neck torn open, but he could get the ball into the net, and he could dribble and pass with precision. He liked the feel of the wind in his hair and the sight of grass blades blurring into each other beneath the ball as he made his way down the field. Sam wasn’t as fast as Dean, but he was fast- faster than most of his teammates, even though he was smaller than a lot of them, and one of the youngest on the team.
As practice wound down and the boys finishing their finally lap, many continuing their run straight on to the parking lot where their parents waited, Sam got a slap on the back from one of the boys a couple years older than him.
“Welcome to the team, man, I can tell you’re gonna be great.”
Sam grinned in return. He opened his mouth to say something but the coach called his name. He waved vaguely at his teammates and trudged over.
“Yeah?” he asked, shuffling his feet.
“You did well today, Sam. You should get some cleats.”
“Yeah, I meant to... We, uh, just moved in. Haven’t really had time to go out and pick things up.” It was only half a lie, and he could probably make it work until the end of the season.
“Of course,” Coach Turner said. “See you next week, Sam.”
Dean was waiting for him at the front gate. They walked home together slowly, Dean bitching about his new boss with Sam only mostly listening.
“Where’s Dad today?” Sam asked during a moment of silence.
“Presque Isle. Talking to the police about the missing women.”
Presque Isle was a small city under a half hour away. Sam wished for a moment that they’d been able to go with Dad. Maybe there was a thrift shop there. He could have looked for soccer shoes. He sighed, feeling his shoulders slump. He wished that their life could be- easier. He understood that Dad was obsessed with the hunt, that he wanted revenge for their mother. Everything would be so different if she were still here. Would she have wanted Dean to have almost 10 kills under his belt by the time he was 15, and probably more than a hundred by the time he was legally an adult? Would she have wanted that for Sam? Would she come to his soccer games and cheer him on?
“Hey.” Dean’s voice drew him out of his thoughts. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “Just thinking.”
Dean unlocked the front door in silence, and shuffled over to the small kitchenette. He flicked on the stove, pulling a pot from the cupboards at the same time as he let out a jaw-cracking yawn.
Sam settled at the table with his books and worked on his homework as Dean cooked. Dean’s presence as he cooked, and the smell of the melting cheese and macaroni was relaxing. Dad came in just as Dean was setting Sam’s plate in front of him.
“How’d it go?”
John grunted and sat down across from Sam, accepting a plate from Dean as well.
“You’d think they hadn’t noticed there were any women missing at all,” John said, stabbing angrily at the food in front of him. “This is gonna be a tough one to crack. I did find out one thing, though. The woman who went missing last week had a couple of kids.”
“The hooker had kids?” Dean asked through a mouthful of macaroni. Their table only had two chairs, so he was leaning against their counter, supporting his plate on the palm of his hand.
Sam frowned. “Dean, it’s estimated that 50% of sex workers have children.”
Dean swallowed a mouthful of macaroni that was far too large- Sam could see the lump in his throat as it worked its way down his esophagus.
“How the hell do you know this shit, Sam?” Dean asked. “And who cares?”
“I read it in a- a pamphlet I found, sitting at the bus stop when we were in Denver.”
Dean stared at him in silence for a moment while their father picked at his macaroni, not seeming to pay attention to their bickering. Dean scoffed eventually, piling food onto his fork.
“You picked up one of those free feminist hippy mags people leave lying around like propaganda, didn’t you?”
Sam turned back to his food. “It wasn’t a hippy mag,” he muttered.
“So,” Dean ventured, loudly enough that Dad looked up at him. “Where’re the kids at now?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” John said. “The kids are missing. But some of the other missing women had children as well, and they were always the ones who reported their mom gone to begin with, or went to their neighbours or someone they knew to report it. Said they just woke up and she wasn’t there.
“So maybe a friend took them in,” he went on. “I’m gonna head over to the district where she worked tomorrow night, find out where her kids are at and see if I can talk to them. Maybe they saw something.” Dad breathed deep, pushing his plate away. “How was your first practice?”
“Good,” Sam said. He thought of asking if there would be any money for cleats, but only briefly. He didn’t even know if he’d be around long enough to play a single game.
“Better than good,” Dean added. “Sammy was the best one on the team.”
“You weren’t even watching,” Sam said with a roll of his eyes.
“I was! I was there half the practice. Jeez, Sam, your observation skills could use a bit more work.”
Sam didn’t know what to say to that. He cleared his plate and Dad’s, and washed the dishes as Dean put away the leftovers. When Sam slipped into bed that night, he wondered if better observation skills would have helped in Denver.
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Mary’s breath formed a visible mist in the cold. She shoved her hands deep in her pocket, scanning the streets around her. They were mostly empty, with a few groupings of people hanging out under the porch of a house nearby. At this time of night, in this part of the city, a girl her age should have been nervous- and Leanne was only 2 years older than her, their combined ages barely over 30. Together they must have looked like the most vulnerable set on the street.
Mary’s knife sheath felt warm against her ribs. She walked with her chin up.
Leanne nudged her in the side, and jerked her head toward a building not far ahead. A dark-skinned woman with long, straight black hair leaned against the grey brick wall, one knee bent with her foot resting on the building’s side. They had come across more than one prostitute out in this small town district, but the others had refused to speak to them, shaking their heads, lips pursed in a promise of silence.
They approached her slowly. She watched every step they took.
“Hi,” Leanne said when they were about 10 feet away. She pulled a folded page from her pocket and shook it out, holding it up for the woman to see. “You recognize her?”
The woman glared at the photo and then at them, but eventually her look subsided into a wary scowl.
“I knew her. She’s gone now, so it don’t matter.”
“Could we.... ask a few questions?” Mary ventured.
The woman sighed. “I’m working, girls, I gotta make money sometime.” She gestured to the moon, still low in the sky, and the darkened street around them. “Now’s it.”
“We’ll pay you for your time,” Leanne assured her. The woman sighed and looked skyward. Finally, she nodded.
Her name was Sandra, and she ushered them into a dirty 24 hour diner nearby. As they settled into the booth, the waitress glared in their direction.
“Can’t stay here if you aren’t ordering,” she groused.
“I’ll have a milkshake,” Mary said, rolling her eyes.
Sandra ordered a burger, and raised an eyebrow at the two girls sitting across from her. “You’re paying.”
“Sure,” Leanne agreed easily. She slid the photo across the table. “So, you knew Ms. Raintree?”
Sandra pressed her fingers to the page on either side of the smiling face in the photo. She pursed her lips together, and the three sat in silence until the waitress had plunked Mary’s milkshake gracelessly in front of her. Mary whipped her hand out to prevent it from toppling over and spilling.
“What a case,” she muttered to Leanne as the waitress walked away.
Sandra scoffed. “Every one in this place is a case, sweetheart.”
“So we heard,” Leanne prompted smoothly. “We also heard some people saying that was why so many women were going missing- that they were leaving on their own. Because of the way things are here.”
Sandra nodded. “Some of them, I reckon. But not Amy. She never woulda left her kids. She loved them more than anything else.”
“And the other missing women?” Mary asked. “Did they have any reason to stay here?”
“Not overly much.”
Sandra sighed loudly and rubbed her forehead. In the light of the diner, it was clear to Mary that she wasn’t healthy; the dark bags under her eyes indicated a life with far too many waking hours that could have passed for a nightmare. Her long, straight hair looked brittle and limp. Mary fiddled with the straw in her milkshake, not drinking. She looked over at her cousin, caught her eye. Leanne shook her head minutely, and fixed her attention on the woman in front of them. They waited.
“No one got much to stick around for here, ‘cept those of us with family...” Sandra finally told them. “But we haven’t got a way out either. All girls like me n’ Amy can do is work as hard as we can, and hope it pays off, so our daughters never have to do the same thing. I dunno how half of the girls that gone missing could have just walked away. Most of us are from the reserves nearby. Amy was from Canada... She came over here ‘cause there was nowhere nearby in her country she could make any money.” Sandra scoffed. “Nowhere to make any money here either.”
“So... no one’s left by choice, is that what you’re saying,” Mary said, trying to keep her voice neutral.
Sandra bit her lip, and glanced at the window where the waitress was chatting with the cook. Mary glanced over, but noticed nothing amiss. When she returned her gaze to Sandra, she saw the raw hunger in her face and realized she just wanted her food. Mary wondered if she held off on eating in order to feed someone else, a daughter or son maybe. Mary shoved her milkshake across the table. The returning smile was faint, but Sandra pulled the shake to her and drank deeply.
“I’d say I don’t need charity,” Sandra muttered when she was done drinking. “But I do. We all do. There’s no place for women like us in this world.” She looked Leanne square in the eye. “I’ll tell you what, though. Amy was doing well for herself, the last couple a weeks before she went missing. Some customer was giving her big bucks. She said he was just some guy, didn’t tell me a name. But sometimes... she’d have marks on her, like she’d been bitten. Not like a person’s mouth though, like an animal’s, you know? Couple a real deep canines on those bite marks. And Tara- she went missing a couple of months ago, too- she was also doing real well before she went.”
Mary leaned back in her seat, narrowing her eyes.
“And the other girls? When they went missing, had they been... bitten? Were they making more money than usual?”
“I didn’t notice. I didn’t know all of ‘em.... But Selma went missing last year, and she was as dirt poor as I am.”
“You didn’t get a look at this... rich guy?” Leanne asked.
“No, sorry.”
“Alright, well... I think that’s all we needed to know,” Leanne told her, and smiled wide. She reached into her wallet and pulled out a ten, laying it down on the table. “Enjoy your meal.”
Mary slid out of the booth, but was stopped by a warm hand on her wrist. Sandra was looking at her with wide eyes.
“I don’t think you girls understand what you’re digging into. Be careful.”
Mary grinned. “Don’t worry about us.”
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The weeks passed, and Sam played his first game. They didn’t win, but it wasn’t a horrible loss, and Sam had even scored a goal. He did his homework. He went to practices. And he stayed out of the case, even though he heard Dad raging to Dean on multiple occasions about the lack of leads. Another woman had gone missing, and still all he knew was that something- or someone, Dean theorized- was taking them. On occasion Dad would leave to take on a smaller hunt nearby, something he could do on his own in a couple of nights, or sometimes with a friend passing through Maine. Sam thought it must have made him feel better, to know he was still helping people.
One such day, when Dad’s friend Bill had picked him up the evening before as they headed off to tackle a nest of vamps, Sam saw Dean tucking a gun into the back of his pants before he left. He grabbed his shoes and raced out after him.
“Where are you going?” he asked, panting after running down the two flights of stairs.
Dean turned around, not having heard him follow. “Into Bridgewater. Dad wants me to drive around, just- keep an eye out, I guess.”
“Can I come?” Sam asked.
“No, Sam, you know you can’t hunt. Dad’s rules.”
“But you aren’t hunting, right? You aren’t even gonna get out of the car. Come on, please?”
Dean glared, but relented.
“Get in.”
The drive into Bridgewater was quiet, just like the town. The sun was bright, and Sam squinted his eyes against the glare coming off the metal welcome sign as they entered town. With the windows rolled down, even the breeze coming into the car was warm. The nice weather hadn’t made Bridgewater any more lively, though. A single woman entering the post office, clutching the hand of a little boy, was the only sign that the town was populated at all.
“This is a waste of fucking time,” Dean muttered.
“Pull into the post office,” Sam said, watching the door swing shut behind the woman who’d just entered.
“Why? You think we’re looking for a wayward mailman?”
“No, Dean, don’t be such a dick.”
Dean yanked the wheel around, turning the car into the post office parking lot last minute, and Sam cracked his head against the window with the momentum of the turn. They trudged up the tiny ramp leading into the building together. A cheery bell went off overhead as they entered. The woman Sam had seen was waiting at the desk. The boy, her son probably, was seated on a single chair at the side, playing with a toy car. She watched him with a look of intense affection. Sam tried to picture his mother looking at him like that, but couldn’t.
Sam cleared his throat. She turned and smiled. Her eyes were a bright blue, and her face was pretty.
“Sorry, do you think you could give us directions to Presque Isle? We seem to’ve gone the wrong way.”
“Oh of course,” she said. “It’s not hard. Turn left, take the road straight outta town. You’ll come to a gas stop. Head west from there, and when you get to Mars Hill, there’ll be a sign in the town center, past the theater, directing you to Presque Isle.”
“Thanks a lot,” Dean said warmly. “The signage here isn’t great. Small place, huh?”
“Oh, it is, but sometimes that’s the best way. The people all know each other, and things don’t change too often. Why this post office has been owned by the same family for a hundred years.”
“Huh, looks newer than that,” Sam said, looking around.
“Well, the old building caved in to the basement one night in ‘71. There were people inside and everything, or a woman at least. They had to rebuild. Didn’t get it finished ‘til ‘82. Money problems.”
Sam hummed.
“Well, thanks again for the directions,” Dean said, gripping Sam’s shoulder. They left in silence. As Sam pulled the creaking door of the Impala shut, he saw Dean tapping the steering wheel with his index and middle fingers, face twisted.
“What was the point of that?”
“I dunno,” Sam said. “Just thought it’d be good to talk to someone from around here, you know? And-”
“Did we actually learn anything though? And how the hell does a family own a post office? Isn’t that a government thing?”
Sam bit his lip. “I’m more interested in the fact that it caved in the same time our disappearances in the 60s and 70s stopped.”
“It’s a post office, Sam.”
“It’s a post office in the town surrounded by a ring of missing women, Dean. And when it caved in, women stopped going missing.”
Dean looked out the window. He cranked the ignition, and the Impala rumbled to life.
“Until now,” he muttered.
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“The post offiice,” Dad repeated in a deadpan. “We thinkin’ the mailman’s taking revenge? Why’d you bother goin’ in anyway, Dean?”
Sam snorted and bent over his homework. Leave it to both Dean and Dad to come up with something like that.
Dean kept a straight face.
“Just- she was the only person I saw at all around Bridgewater. It’s the center of all this activity, so it didn’t make sense not to talk to her. But the post office- It caved in, in ‘71. That’s when the disappearances stopped.”
“True,” Dad agreed. “And it is in Bridgewater. Not much else is.”
“Right, and the woman- the woman I talked to, said there was a woman inside during the cave in. Well... Some sort of struggle could have caused the collapse of a support column and lead to the cave in.”
“Caved in at night, too, she said,” Sam mused, not looking up from his homework. “That’s weird, right? People inside a post office at night?”
Dad or Dean responded with silence. Sam lifted his head to regard them. Dean’s eyes were wide, and he licked his bottom lip as he stared at Sam.
“Sam,” Dad finally said. “You didn’t go with Dean, did you?”
“I-”
Dad slammed his fist on the table.
“Goddamnit, Dean! You’re supposed to be keeping him safe while I’m not here.”
“We just drove down Main street, Dad-”
“Sammy, be quiet. Stay out of this.”
“- the only thing that possibly could have gone wrong was if I got blinded by the sun bouncing off that fucking Welcome to Bridgewater sign, and I’m pretty sure it’s too rusted for that!”
“Sam, for God’s sake. Stay out of this. You blundering your way into something’s lair doesn’t help me or those missing women.”
Sam huffed a breath out through his nose. Was he too incompetent to even sit in the passenger seat of the Impala now? He tried to think of something to say but couldn’t. He flipped his textbook onto the floor and threw his pencil down on the table as he left. Inside his bedroom, behind the closed door, he could hear Dad’s voice.
“What were you thinking, Dean? How many times does Sam have to get hurt before you learn your lesson?”
One little mistake in Denver. Would Dad ever trust him? Sam laid down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. When he couldn’t listen any longer, he covered his face with his pillow. He could still hear Dad’s voice, raised and angry even if he couldn’t make out the words. It’s not like anything had gone wrong in Bridgewater. It’s not like anything could have gone wrong. They were just driving through. And Denver- They hadn’t even been expecting a fachen, and they’d all been caught by surprise. Dean’s voice was much lower than Dad’s. Even when Sam moved the pillow and strained to hear, he couldn’t make out the words. Eventually he heard the door to the other bedroom close, and heard the bedframe settling as Dean crawled in. Dad was sleeping on the sofa, and Sam could hear the sound of the television, muted by the wooden door between them, well into the night.
(To Part Two)
Author: tiptoethrough
Recipient: coyotesuspect
Rating: Teen and up
Wordcount: ~12,800
Warnings: Allusions to violence, and a couple of brief dangerous moments. Some basic description of injuries (blood, etc.) but no serious gore.
Author's Notes: Hello recipient! I could tell from your request that you are very into lady-heavy fics, but I have not written a lot for the SPN fandom and felt nervous straying too far from the main characters, so I tried to combine multiple of your requests in order to get a fic I hope you like!
Summary: Sam exists between two principles: hunting and being a kid. He wonders which one his mother would want for him, or if he’ll ever be good at either.
“Welcome to Bridgewater!”
Sam awoke, his head cracking roughly against the window as his body jolted out of slumber. He swiped at his face, digging the heel of his palm in hard against an itch at his eyebrow.
Outside the window, Bridgewater Maine’s central street dragged by, empty and desolate. God, thought Sam, another barren town overrun with dead bodies. He peered through the dirty glass of the Impala’s window up at the sky. Grey, just like the town.
“Sammy?”
“I heard you, Dean. Welcome to Bridgewater. Where’s the school?”
“The school’s actually in Mars Hill. That’s where we’re stayin’,” grumbled Dad. The car slowed as they drove past a small cluster of buildings; a post office that looked all but deserted, one house, and some dreary store fronts. Looked like this was the heart of downtown.
“Then what are we doing here?”
Dean passed a map back over his shoulder, and Sam took it from him tiredly. Red marks- more than he expected- slashed into the page indicated the dead and missing. All arranged roughly in a ring around Bridgewater.
“So, whatever we’re hunting, this is homebase?” Sam asked, looking out the back window at the post office fading in the distance.
“Whatever I’m hunting,” their father reiterated. “You’re going to school.”
The back of Sam’s neck felt hot. As if he wanted to hunt, or to drag themselves across the goddamned country in this rattling hunk of metal. Sam went back to his perusal of the map.
“Do the ‘x’s and the slashes mean anything different?”
“Time,” Dean mumbled around a hunk of chocolate, extending his hand to Sam in offer. Sam shook his head mutely. Dean swallowed hard, and Sam wondered if he might choke.
“Chew your food,” he muttered.
Dean ignored him. “The crosses are within the last 10 years. The slashes are late 60s.”
“What’s the, uh, MO?”
“None,” Dad said, turning the car onto what looked like a highway.
“None?”
“There’s no bodies,” Dad muttered, “Only missing persons, but- Well, all the missing are women.”
“Hookers,” Dean interjected with a grin.
“Why are you grinning?” Sam muttered sullenly.
“Relax, Sammy. There’s no wonder no one went looking for them s’all. I told Dad it probably wasn’t even our kind of thing.” Dean turned around in his seat and ruffled through the pages on his lap. “Still not sure it is.”
“I just have- a feeling. There’s a gap in the killings spanning decades.”
“Could be two different pervs- er, perps,” Dean suggested.
“Could be,” echoed Dad, but something in his voice told Sam that he wasn’t even entertaining the thought. Sam breathed in deep, his lungs expanding too fast at the edges, pain squeezing his chest. Outside the window the fields rolled past, not yet green with the late April promise of new life. In the distance Sam could see a crumbling old barn, abandoned to the weather a decade ago. The Impala skimmed through a puddle, and Sam’s view dissolved into water droplets.
------------------
Mary’s charm bracelet caught on the edges of the page she was running her fingers over. She shook her wrist, pulling away, and stared into the depthless eyes peering at her in black and white.
“How long do you think the hunt in Wisconsin will be?” she asked.
“I dunno,” Leanne muttered. Mary scarcely heard her over the staccato pounding against the car roof and windows. “Damn this rain.”
“Well,” Mary said, “I hope it’s a good week, because it won’t take them long to find us now we’ve run into Derek at that truck stop.”
“By the time they drag their asses to Maine, we’ll have proof that this is our deal. I’m telling you Mary, something, not someone, is taking these women. And if no men are gonna do something about it, well, it’s up to the real hunters.”
Mary laughed, but it sounded hollow to her own ears. Leanne was older than her, and when she’d asked Mary to come, she’d sounded so sure that this was their kind of thing. What if their fathers were right, and this hunt wasn’t a hunt at all. Mary knew that her dad wouldn’t be pleased when he found her gone. She was sure he wouldn’t think that two girls their age could handle this. Most men wouldn’t. “Derek’s gonna call Dad for sure. Most hunters don’t really think a couple of teenaged girls count as being... one of them.”
“Jesus, Mary, who cares what Derek thinks. A real hunter- does this, just what we’re doing. Saving people, hunting things. It’s what Dad and Uncle Sam always say. The only reason we’re taking this alone is because- because men are dumb, and these missing women-” Leanne reached over and smacked the pages in Mary’s hands. “They’ve put them in the second category instead of the first. Hey- here we are.”
Mary couldn’t read the sign until they were close enough that the car’s headlights slashed through the rain, illuminating the tin words. She squinted through the rain sluicing down the window as the car rolled through a deep puddle. Welcome to Bridgewater.
------------------
“I can’t believe we’re living in an actual apartment!” Sam said, loudly enough that he was sure Dean could hear him in the living room. He was standing in his own room, small though it was. There were probably rich people with closets bigger than this. There were probably middle class people with closets bigger than this, Sam thought with a wry grin. But it was his. His own room. Sometimes Sam wondered what his room would be like in their house in Lawrence, but as the years passed he had learned it was one of those things best left alone.
He wandered into the tiny main room, with its counter, fridge and stove against one wall, and a television and a long, comfy sofa against the other, its hideous floral pattern faded from the sun streaming in through the window behind it. A small round table with two chairs sat in the middle of the room. Sam flung himself onto the sofa next to Dean. “Where’s Dad?”
Dean was watching the TV. Sam had to repeat the question for him to hear. “Kaleb called... Hunt in Illinois. Urgent. Three dead in four days. I’ll take you to register for school tomorrow.”
“Aren’t you going to school?” Sam asked. Dean was supposed to be graduating this year, but Sam didn’t know if it was actually going to happen.
“No, I’m getting a part time down the street. I’m, uh... I got more important things to do than school.” Dean sighed and got up to flick the television off. He leaned against it, facing Sam. His face was dark. “We’ve never really done a case like this, no evidence that it’s even a monster. Just Dad’s gut feeling. Dad needs help with research and stuff.”
“So what, you’re gonna do research? You suck at it. I’m good at research,” Sam muttered.
“Sam.” Sam heard the warning in his brother’s voice. “Stay out of this case. You know how Dad feels-”
“Come on, Dean! It’s not like I’m strapping up with a machete, I’m just saying I can help with the research; I’m good at it.”
“You’re not hunting, Sam. Not at all, not yet. That’s all there is to it.”
Sam opened his mouth to argue, but his throat felt as if it were stuck closed. The back of his neck burned with embarrassment. It occurred to him that he could storm off to his own room if he wanted. He did just that, and he slammed the door twice to make sure Dean got the picture. He threw himself down on his bed, breathing deeply. The air filtered through the old pillow was musty. Sam squeezed his eyes shut. He pictured the face he’d come to know through faded photographs, eternally smiling. Mom was never angry at Sam when he thought of her... he’d never seen pictures of what she’d look like angry, and Sam didn’t know her face well enough to imagine what she’d look like. Sometimes it was hard just to picture her, and he couldn’t conjure up her features no matter how hard he tried. Lying on the bed in his tiny room, all Sam could picture was a set of dark eyes above a gaping maw with sharp teeth, getting closer...
Sam wished Denver had never happened. He couldn’t imagine it going worse than it had. Dean’s first hunt, he’d come home with blood spattered across his face, breathing heavy with the exhilaration of his triumph. It hadn’t been his own blood. He was 14.
“Well,” Dean had murmured as he pressed a wad of cloth into Sam’s neck in their room at the motel that had wrongly advertised itself Colorado’s Finest, “You aren’t 14. You’re 13.”
“Big difference that is,” Sam had muttered, eyes downcast, directed away from Dean’s face.
Sam remembered the sound of Dean’s sigh. When Sam’s eyes involuntarily were pulled to his face, he saw Dean lick his bottom lip in that way he did when he didn’t know what to say next. Sam felt the pressure on his neck ease up. When blood began to snake a hot trail into the divet between his collarbones, Dean resumed the pressure, bearing the cloth against Sam’s neck so hard it hurt.
“Sammy,” Dean began, faltering at whatever he saw returned in Sam’s face.
“Don’t call me Sammy,” Sam had told him, voice tight, hating the childish nickname though he had never felt more like a helpless kid.
“Alright, here we go.” Their father’s voice had made Sam jump, he remembered, and he stared stubbornly at the carpet when the bed beside him sank beneath Dad’s weight. Dean lifted the cloth away, rested his hands against Sam’s knees. “This is gonna hurt, Sam,” Dad told him.
“Yeah,” Sam said with a shrug.
“You sure you wanna do this here? We can go to the hospital.” Dad’s voice was surprisingly gentle. Sam’s throat had felt tight.
“No, it’s fine.” Dad hadn’t lied, and other than getting his neck torn open, having it put back together was the worst feeling Sam had ever experienced. When the stitches were finished, Sam collapsed against the pillows, exhausted. His father’s face had swam in front of his eyes, seemingly in constant motion from side to side. “You aren’t mad?” Sam had asked. “You seemed awful mad back there.”
“Sammy,” Dad had sighed. “I was scared. I thought I was gonna lose you.” Sam had fallen asleep that night with his father sitting on the bed next to him in their shared motel room. Curled up on his side in his own room, Sam told himself he was much happier this way.
------------------
“So,” Dean started awkwardly the next morning as he walked Sam to his homeroom. Registration had been difficult- the principal wanted to speak to their dad, and Dean had needed to lie through his teeth about him getting settled in at work before they’d let him sign Sam’s papers.
“What?” Sam asked sullenly.
“Dad, uh, Dad thinks you should join a club. You liked the, uh- mathletes thing back in Wisconsin, right? Maybe they have one here.”
“Dad wants to keep me distracted,” Sam said in a deadpan, “So I don’t get my head torn off?”
“Come on, Sam. Jesus. Just fucking do what your told for once.”
Dean stormed out, and Sam slunk into his homeroom. He knew that going through the school day with a scowl wasn’t a great way to make friends, but nothing could lift his mood. At the end of the day, Sam dragged himself to the guidance office. There was a sign up sheet for a sports team hanging in the window. Sam dug through his bag, reading the surprisingly short list of his future teammates’ names. At the bottom of the list, his own name was written in red ink. Dean, Sam knew. He wanted to scratch his name out in protest. Why couldn’t they just let him choose, for once, what he wanted to do? Sam stared at the page for a long time, rolling his pen between his fingers. In the end, it was easier to walk away. Sports were supposed to be good for getting out frustration, anyway.
------------------
Dean did get a job down the street, washing dishes at a bar, and by the time Dad returned from his hunt- “A fucking Abarimon, if you’ll believe it”- things were mostly settled. Sam’s first soccer practice was at the end of the school the day after Dad returned, and as the week had passed he’d realized he was actually looking forward to it, despite his resentment toward Dean for signing him up.
Sam sat on the bench next to a boy from his English class- David. He chattered in Sam’s ear about the upcoming soccer season, saying it was lucky Sam had moved in time to join the team. They worked on half seasons, and they only had empty spots because a few others had dropped out of school this semester. Now, with only a little over a month left of school... Sam wondered if he’d finish the school year here, if he’d play the final game at the end of the season. Sam was glad that David was the type to look past Sam’s grumpy behaviour his first day. He hoped that others would, too, in time.
Sam wiggled his toes in the ends of his cheap canvas sneakers. Through the thin material he could see he distinct bulge of his individual toes as they pressed against the tops of his shoes. He looked down the line of the bench at the other boys’ feet. Sam felt his stomach twinge in jealousy. He’d never be able to afford a pair of cleats. He was glad the jersey and socks were provided by the school.
By the time they were on the field running drills, Sam felt his reservations begin to slip away. He wasn’t coordinated enough to take out a fachen without getting his neck torn open, but he could get the ball into the net, and he could dribble and pass with precision. He liked the feel of the wind in his hair and the sight of grass blades blurring into each other beneath the ball as he made his way down the field. Sam wasn’t as fast as Dean, but he was fast- faster than most of his teammates, even though he was smaller than a lot of them, and one of the youngest on the team.
As practice wound down and the boys finishing their finally lap, many continuing their run straight on to the parking lot where their parents waited, Sam got a slap on the back from one of the boys a couple years older than him.
“Welcome to the team, man, I can tell you’re gonna be great.”
Sam grinned in return. He opened his mouth to say something but the coach called his name. He waved vaguely at his teammates and trudged over.
“Yeah?” he asked, shuffling his feet.
“You did well today, Sam. You should get some cleats.”
“Yeah, I meant to... We, uh, just moved in. Haven’t really had time to go out and pick things up.” It was only half a lie, and he could probably make it work until the end of the season.
“Of course,” Coach Turner said. “See you next week, Sam.”
Dean was waiting for him at the front gate. They walked home together slowly, Dean bitching about his new boss with Sam only mostly listening.
“Where’s Dad today?” Sam asked during a moment of silence.
“Presque Isle. Talking to the police about the missing women.”
Presque Isle was a small city under a half hour away. Sam wished for a moment that they’d been able to go with Dad. Maybe there was a thrift shop there. He could have looked for soccer shoes. He sighed, feeling his shoulders slump. He wished that their life could be- easier. He understood that Dad was obsessed with the hunt, that he wanted revenge for their mother. Everything would be so different if she were still here. Would she have wanted Dean to have almost 10 kills under his belt by the time he was 15, and probably more than a hundred by the time he was legally an adult? Would she have wanted that for Sam? Would she come to his soccer games and cheer him on?
“Hey.” Dean’s voice drew him out of his thoughts. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “Just thinking.”
Dean unlocked the front door in silence, and shuffled over to the small kitchenette. He flicked on the stove, pulling a pot from the cupboards at the same time as he let out a jaw-cracking yawn.
Sam settled at the table with his books and worked on his homework as Dean cooked. Dean’s presence as he cooked, and the smell of the melting cheese and macaroni was relaxing. Dad came in just as Dean was setting Sam’s plate in front of him.
“How’d it go?”
John grunted and sat down across from Sam, accepting a plate from Dean as well.
“You’d think they hadn’t noticed there were any women missing at all,” John said, stabbing angrily at the food in front of him. “This is gonna be a tough one to crack. I did find out one thing, though. The woman who went missing last week had a couple of kids.”
“The hooker had kids?” Dean asked through a mouthful of macaroni. Their table only had two chairs, so he was leaning against their counter, supporting his plate on the palm of his hand.
Sam frowned. “Dean, it’s estimated that 50% of sex workers have children.”
Dean swallowed a mouthful of macaroni that was far too large- Sam could see the lump in his throat as it worked its way down his esophagus.
“How the hell do you know this shit, Sam?” Dean asked. “And who cares?”
“I read it in a- a pamphlet I found, sitting at the bus stop when we were in Denver.”
Dean stared at him in silence for a moment while their father picked at his macaroni, not seeming to pay attention to their bickering. Dean scoffed eventually, piling food onto his fork.
“You picked up one of those free feminist hippy mags people leave lying around like propaganda, didn’t you?”
Sam turned back to his food. “It wasn’t a hippy mag,” he muttered.
“So,” Dean ventured, loudly enough that Dad looked up at him. “Where’re the kids at now?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” John said. “The kids are missing. But some of the other missing women had children as well, and they were always the ones who reported their mom gone to begin with, or went to their neighbours or someone they knew to report it. Said they just woke up and she wasn’t there.
“So maybe a friend took them in,” he went on. “I’m gonna head over to the district where she worked tomorrow night, find out where her kids are at and see if I can talk to them. Maybe they saw something.” Dad breathed deep, pushing his plate away. “How was your first practice?”
“Good,” Sam said. He thought of asking if there would be any money for cleats, but only briefly. He didn’t even know if he’d be around long enough to play a single game.
“Better than good,” Dean added. “Sammy was the best one on the team.”
“You weren’t even watching,” Sam said with a roll of his eyes.
“I was! I was there half the practice. Jeez, Sam, your observation skills could use a bit more work.”
Sam didn’t know what to say to that. He cleared his plate and Dad’s, and washed the dishes as Dean put away the leftovers. When Sam slipped into bed that night, he wondered if better observation skills would have helped in Denver.
------------------
Mary’s breath formed a visible mist in the cold. She shoved her hands deep in her pocket, scanning the streets around her. They were mostly empty, with a few groupings of people hanging out under the porch of a house nearby. At this time of night, in this part of the city, a girl her age should have been nervous- and Leanne was only 2 years older than her, their combined ages barely over 30. Together they must have looked like the most vulnerable set on the street.
Mary’s knife sheath felt warm against her ribs. She walked with her chin up.
Leanne nudged her in the side, and jerked her head toward a building not far ahead. A dark-skinned woman with long, straight black hair leaned against the grey brick wall, one knee bent with her foot resting on the building’s side. They had come across more than one prostitute out in this small town district, but the others had refused to speak to them, shaking their heads, lips pursed in a promise of silence.
They approached her slowly. She watched every step they took.
“Hi,” Leanne said when they were about 10 feet away. She pulled a folded page from her pocket and shook it out, holding it up for the woman to see. “You recognize her?”
The woman glared at the photo and then at them, but eventually her look subsided into a wary scowl.
“I knew her. She’s gone now, so it don’t matter.”
“Could we.... ask a few questions?” Mary ventured.
The woman sighed. “I’m working, girls, I gotta make money sometime.” She gestured to the moon, still low in the sky, and the darkened street around them. “Now’s it.”
“We’ll pay you for your time,” Leanne assured her. The woman sighed and looked skyward. Finally, she nodded.
Her name was Sandra, and she ushered them into a dirty 24 hour diner nearby. As they settled into the booth, the waitress glared in their direction.
“Can’t stay here if you aren’t ordering,” she groused.
“I’ll have a milkshake,” Mary said, rolling her eyes.
Sandra ordered a burger, and raised an eyebrow at the two girls sitting across from her. “You’re paying.”
“Sure,” Leanne agreed easily. She slid the photo across the table. “So, you knew Ms. Raintree?”
Sandra pressed her fingers to the page on either side of the smiling face in the photo. She pursed her lips together, and the three sat in silence until the waitress had plunked Mary’s milkshake gracelessly in front of her. Mary whipped her hand out to prevent it from toppling over and spilling.
“What a case,” she muttered to Leanne as the waitress walked away.
Sandra scoffed. “Every one in this place is a case, sweetheart.”
“So we heard,” Leanne prompted smoothly. “We also heard some people saying that was why so many women were going missing- that they were leaving on their own. Because of the way things are here.”
Sandra nodded. “Some of them, I reckon. But not Amy. She never woulda left her kids. She loved them more than anything else.”
“And the other missing women?” Mary asked. “Did they have any reason to stay here?”
“Not overly much.”
Sandra sighed loudly and rubbed her forehead. In the light of the diner, it was clear to Mary that she wasn’t healthy; the dark bags under her eyes indicated a life with far too many waking hours that could have passed for a nightmare. Her long, straight hair looked brittle and limp. Mary fiddled with the straw in her milkshake, not drinking. She looked over at her cousin, caught her eye. Leanne shook her head minutely, and fixed her attention on the woman in front of them. They waited.
“No one got much to stick around for here, ‘cept those of us with family...” Sandra finally told them. “But we haven’t got a way out either. All girls like me n’ Amy can do is work as hard as we can, and hope it pays off, so our daughters never have to do the same thing. I dunno how half of the girls that gone missing could have just walked away. Most of us are from the reserves nearby. Amy was from Canada... She came over here ‘cause there was nowhere nearby in her country she could make any money.” Sandra scoffed. “Nowhere to make any money here either.”
“So... no one’s left by choice, is that what you’re saying,” Mary said, trying to keep her voice neutral.
Sandra bit her lip, and glanced at the window where the waitress was chatting with the cook. Mary glanced over, but noticed nothing amiss. When she returned her gaze to Sandra, she saw the raw hunger in her face and realized she just wanted her food. Mary wondered if she held off on eating in order to feed someone else, a daughter or son maybe. Mary shoved her milkshake across the table. The returning smile was faint, but Sandra pulled the shake to her and drank deeply.
“I’d say I don’t need charity,” Sandra muttered when she was done drinking. “But I do. We all do. There’s no place for women like us in this world.” She looked Leanne square in the eye. “I’ll tell you what, though. Amy was doing well for herself, the last couple a weeks before she went missing. Some customer was giving her big bucks. She said he was just some guy, didn’t tell me a name. But sometimes... she’d have marks on her, like she’d been bitten. Not like a person’s mouth though, like an animal’s, you know? Couple a real deep canines on those bite marks. And Tara- she went missing a couple of months ago, too- she was also doing real well before she went.”
Mary leaned back in her seat, narrowing her eyes.
“And the other girls? When they went missing, had they been... bitten? Were they making more money than usual?”
“I didn’t notice. I didn’t know all of ‘em.... But Selma went missing last year, and she was as dirt poor as I am.”
“You didn’t get a look at this... rich guy?” Leanne asked.
“No, sorry.”
“Alright, well... I think that’s all we needed to know,” Leanne told her, and smiled wide. She reached into her wallet and pulled out a ten, laying it down on the table. “Enjoy your meal.”
Mary slid out of the booth, but was stopped by a warm hand on her wrist. Sandra was looking at her with wide eyes.
“I don’t think you girls understand what you’re digging into. Be careful.”
Mary grinned. “Don’t worry about us.”
------------------
The weeks passed, and Sam played his first game. They didn’t win, but it wasn’t a horrible loss, and Sam had even scored a goal. He did his homework. He went to practices. And he stayed out of the case, even though he heard Dad raging to Dean on multiple occasions about the lack of leads. Another woman had gone missing, and still all he knew was that something- or someone, Dean theorized- was taking them. On occasion Dad would leave to take on a smaller hunt nearby, something he could do on his own in a couple of nights, or sometimes with a friend passing through Maine. Sam thought it must have made him feel better, to know he was still helping people.
One such day, when Dad’s friend Bill had picked him up the evening before as they headed off to tackle a nest of vamps, Sam saw Dean tucking a gun into the back of his pants before he left. He grabbed his shoes and raced out after him.
“Where are you going?” he asked, panting after running down the two flights of stairs.
Dean turned around, not having heard him follow. “Into Bridgewater. Dad wants me to drive around, just- keep an eye out, I guess.”
“Can I come?” Sam asked.
“No, Sam, you know you can’t hunt. Dad’s rules.”
“But you aren’t hunting, right? You aren’t even gonna get out of the car. Come on, please?”
Dean glared, but relented.
“Get in.”
The drive into Bridgewater was quiet, just like the town. The sun was bright, and Sam squinted his eyes against the glare coming off the metal welcome sign as they entered town. With the windows rolled down, even the breeze coming into the car was warm. The nice weather hadn’t made Bridgewater any more lively, though. A single woman entering the post office, clutching the hand of a little boy, was the only sign that the town was populated at all.
“This is a waste of fucking time,” Dean muttered.
“Pull into the post office,” Sam said, watching the door swing shut behind the woman who’d just entered.
“Why? You think we’re looking for a wayward mailman?”
“No, Dean, don’t be such a dick.”
Dean yanked the wheel around, turning the car into the post office parking lot last minute, and Sam cracked his head against the window with the momentum of the turn. They trudged up the tiny ramp leading into the building together. A cheery bell went off overhead as they entered. The woman Sam had seen was waiting at the desk. The boy, her son probably, was seated on a single chair at the side, playing with a toy car. She watched him with a look of intense affection. Sam tried to picture his mother looking at him like that, but couldn’t.
Sam cleared his throat. She turned and smiled. Her eyes were a bright blue, and her face was pretty.
“Sorry, do you think you could give us directions to Presque Isle? We seem to’ve gone the wrong way.”
“Oh of course,” she said. “It’s not hard. Turn left, take the road straight outta town. You’ll come to a gas stop. Head west from there, and when you get to Mars Hill, there’ll be a sign in the town center, past the theater, directing you to Presque Isle.”
“Thanks a lot,” Dean said warmly. “The signage here isn’t great. Small place, huh?”
“Oh, it is, but sometimes that’s the best way. The people all know each other, and things don’t change too often. Why this post office has been owned by the same family for a hundred years.”
“Huh, looks newer than that,” Sam said, looking around.
“Well, the old building caved in to the basement one night in ‘71. There were people inside and everything, or a woman at least. They had to rebuild. Didn’t get it finished ‘til ‘82. Money problems.”
Sam hummed.
“Well, thanks again for the directions,” Dean said, gripping Sam’s shoulder. They left in silence. As Sam pulled the creaking door of the Impala shut, he saw Dean tapping the steering wheel with his index and middle fingers, face twisted.
“What was the point of that?”
“I dunno,” Sam said. “Just thought it’d be good to talk to someone from around here, you know? And-”
“Did we actually learn anything though? And how the hell does a family own a post office? Isn’t that a government thing?”
Sam bit his lip. “I’m more interested in the fact that it caved in the same time our disappearances in the 60s and 70s stopped.”
“It’s a post office, Sam.”
“It’s a post office in the town surrounded by a ring of missing women, Dean. And when it caved in, women stopped going missing.”
Dean looked out the window. He cranked the ignition, and the Impala rumbled to life.
“Until now,” he muttered.
------------------
“The post offiice,” Dad repeated in a deadpan. “We thinkin’ the mailman’s taking revenge? Why’d you bother goin’ in anyway, Dean?”
Sam snorted and bent over his homework. Leave it to both Dean and Dad to come up with something like that.
Dean kept a straight face.
“Just- she was the only person I saw at all around Bridgewater. It’s the center of all this activity, so it didn’t make sense not to talk to her. But the post office- It caved in, in ‘71. That’s when the disappearances stopped.”
“True,” Dad agreed. “And it is in Bridgewater. Not much else is.”
“Right, and the woman- the woman I talked to, said there was a woman inside during the cave in. Well... Some sort of struggle could have caused the collapse of a support column and lead to the cave in.”
“Caved in at night, too, she said,” Sam mused, not looking up from his homework. “That’s weird, right? People inside a post office at night?”
Dad or Dean responded with silence. Sam lifted his head to regard them. Dean’s eyes were wide, and he licked his bottom lip as he stared at Sam.
“Sam,” Dad finally said. “You didn’t go with Dean, did you?”
“I-”
Dad slammed his fist on the table.
“Goddamnit, Dean! You’re supposed to be keeping him safe while I’m not here.”
“We just drove down Main street, Dad-”
“Sammy, be quiet. Stay out of this.”
“- the only thing that possibly could have gone wrong was if I got blinded by the sun bouncing off that fucking Welcome to Bridgewater sign, and I’m pretty sure it’s too rusted for that!”
“Sam, for God’s sake. Stay out of this. You blundering your way into something’s lair doesn’t help me or those missing women.”
Sam huffed a breath out through his nose. Was he too incompetent to even sit in the passenger seat of the Impala now? He tried to think of something to say but couldn’t. He flipped his textbook onto the floor and threw his pencil down on the table as he left. Inside his bedroom, behind the closed door, he could hear Dad’s voice.
“What were you thinking, Dean? How many times does Sam have to get hurt before you learn your lesson?”
One little mistake in Denver. Would Dad ever trust him? Sam laid down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. When he couldn’t listen any longer, he covered his face with his pillow. He could still hear Dad’s voice, raised and angry even if he couldn’t make out the words. It’s not like anything had gone wrong in Bridgewater. It’s not like anything could have gone wrong. They were just driving through. And Denver- They hadn’t even been expecting a fachen, and they’d all been caught by surprise. Dean’s voice was much lower than Dad’s. Even when Sam moved the pillow and strained to hear, he couldn’t make out the words. Eventually he heard the door to the other bedroom close, and heard the bedframe settling as Dean crawled in. Dad was sleeping on the sofa, and Sam could hear the sound of the television, muted by the wooden door between them, well into the night.
(To Part Two)