Work Text:
The bathroom of room 202 of the Hotel Libertad is lit, dimly, from without: faint neon, streetlights, and the far distant moon, filtering through a small high window. Bassy thump of club music and a crowd in the streets outside that's somehow growing in noise and size. New Year's Eve in Juárez is a party, apparently. Dean's sitting on the closed toilet, ass ten ways to numb. He stands. The bathroom accommodates himself, Sam, and about one and a half paces of movement, but he can adapt. He squeezes two in. Back and forth. At the sink, he turns the taps. Hot, cold. Good water pressure. He turns them off. Wipes his hand on his thigh and drums his fingers.
He opens his mouth.
“Don't ask me again,” Sam says. He's reading on his phone, crammed into the shower alcove, still not looking at Dean, still over him; he's been over Dean since they crossed the bridge from El Paso at dusk, in the teeming riptide crowds, and it became terribly clear that the night would be a long one; in fact, he's been over Dean since this afternoon when Dean, trying to lighten the mood, had leered at his frontal dick region and said to him, Maybe after we smoke the bitch I can show you a real happy new year, little brother, unfortunately in front of the lady at the horchata stand. Dean pauses his pacing, back at the toilet, and considers him a moment.
"I never raised you to hold grudges," he says, disappointed, and Sam sighs, long long long. Looks up. The light from his phone turns him into a white and black shadow, pinpoint gleam in his eyes. Dean holds up his hand and ticks the dangers off on his fingers. “Fireworks. Drunk people. Kids. Vomit. Dogs. Spilled drinks. Criminals. Tow-happy meter maids.”
“It's a dentist's lot half a mile out from downtown, Dean,” he says, edge to his voice. “Yes. I think the car will be fine. Can you record me saying this, or something, so you can just play it back to yourself in ten minutes.”
“We should have brought her.”
“Yeah, we should have crossed the US-Mexican border in our highly distinctive classic car full of guns and knives, with an hour's prep time. Why didn't I think of that?”
“We could have done it, you just have no faith. Could have gone on a little road trip, you and me. Tijuana.”
“Not even you could charm your way through that one.”
“I can charm my way through anything,” Dean says, and Sam raises his eyebrow, not even looking up.
“The last stranger you tried to charm fled the country, Dean.”
“Oh, now it’s my fault the guy’s a paranoid shut-in.” No reaction. Dean huffs, cracks open the bathroom door. The room looks the same. Bland Hoteleria in the dark. Curtains drawn against the night. Mexican-style pictures on the walls, ladies in big skirts.
Behind him, Sam says, huh, to himself, like he just read something interesting. He doesn’t expand and Dean has too much self-respect to ask.
“Maybe he's not coming back,” Dean says. “Two hours hiding in a bathroom for jack.”
“Half an hour, if that,” Sam says, distracted. He doesn't care. “He'll come.”
“He might have joined the party.”
“He’ll come back before midnight,” Sam says. “Wouldn’t you?”
Dean shrugs, pushes open the door with a finger, and waits for something to happen, like Marvin bursting into the room and mowing him down with an ex-cartel semi-automatic rifle. “I would have done what I was told instead of book it to Mexico.”
Sam snorts, with an offensive level of derision that Dean chooses to ignore. Nothing happens, so he heads for the minibar. Glass rattles as he opens the door. Corona, Corona, Corona, Corona. Tourist hotel.
“You want a Corona?” he says.
“Jesus, Dean,” Sam bitches at him, from behind. “He’s gonna see you the second he gets--”
The door opens, a wedge of yellow sweeping the carpet. Marvin kicks the door shut with his heel and flips on the main light and yelps as it catches Dean, frozen, bent down to the beer. They gape at each other for a fairly long time.
“That's my mini bar,” Marvin says, eventually, strangled with surprise, and Dean straightens, bottle in hand.
“Uh, yes,” he says.
“That’s like, 40 pesos.”
Dean frowns at him. “Don’t be cheap, Marvin.”
“How did you--” He turns to look at the door; shut, it seems to give him no answers. “You’re the guy from-- How did you find me?”
“We do this for a living,” Sam says, stepping in from the bathroom, hands raised, placating. Marvin jumps, edges backwards, groping behind for the doorhandle.
“Why’d you run, Marvin?” Dean twists the cap off a beer, offers it to Sam, who shoots him a tight impatient look. He shrugs, keeps it for himself. “Me and my brother could have spent the night getting drunk and watching the ball drop, but you had to run.”
“You got the wrong guy,” he says, eyes darting between them. His glasses are slipping down his nose and he pushes them up. “That’s not even my name. Check my license. I can show you, I--” He points back towards the door, like he left his wallet in the hall.
“Come on,” Dean says. “That’s pretty weak."
“Why don’t you sit down.” Sam gestures towards the little desk, with its little chair. “We just wanna talk.”
“And steal my stuff!”
Sam pauses. “That too.”
“Not steal,” Dean clarifies. “Destroy.”
“Well I don’t have it any more,” Marvin says, crossing his arms. Sam tilts his head, skeptical. “I sold it, just now. Out there.”
“Why don’t I believe you,” says Dean.
“Believe what you want. But get out of my hotel room. Or,” he takes out his phone and waves it, like a threat. “I’m gonna call the cops.”
Sam reaches over and plucks it from his hand, slips it inside his jacket.
“Hey,” Marvin says, hurt. “That’s my phone.”
“I’ll trade it for the charm,” Sam says, and Marvin tilts his chin up, a familiar stubborn gesture, two mules looking at each other over the corner of a green cactus bedspread. Dean takes a deep, deep drink. He’s getting too old for this.
“Okay, cards on the table Marvin.” He points with his beer hand towards the window, which is where he guesses the river is. “I had plans for tonight. Instead my car is getting ripped off for spare parts by some drunk dude in a party hat so I can come here and save your life. We’re not going until you give us the goddamn charm.”
Marvin transfers his gaze to Dean, sullen, resentful. “She loves me.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Dean says, extremely calmly. “She's a succubus--”
Sam clears his throat. “It's not a succubus.”
“She's a killer sex ghost thing, Marvin--”
“That’s not my name, my name's Melvin.”
“And she's gonna sex you to death at midnight--” he pauses to look at Sam, but Sam has no corrections for this “--unless you destroy the charm.”
“I sold the charm, I told you.”
Dean draws himself up, hears himself get testy. “Listen Mervin--”
“Man, it's MELVIN,” he snaps, worked up enough that Dean stops, takes a step back. His eyes bright with anger, sheen of sweat on his dark skin. Out of his depth, end of his rope. He’s just a kid, really. Skinny, patchy beard. Lives with his grandparents. IT job. Polo shirt. No friends. Bolted the second he thought they were gonna take his girlfriend away.
Son of a bitch.
Dean breathes in deep, puts the beer down on top of the fridge, and folds his hands. “All right, okay. I’m sorry. Melvin, that’s my bad. I’m Dean, you remember, this is my brother Sam. We do this sort of thing, we know what we’re doing, we’re trying to help.”
“I don’t care,” Melvin says. “I want you to go away.”
“This chick killed ten people already. You want to hear about it? Sam’ll talk until you wish you were dead.” He nods at Sam, who twitches a frown at him. Doesn’t matter, Melvin’s not buying. “Jesus, just hand it over.”
Melvin narrows his eyes. “Why, so you can get her for yourself?”
Dean hesitates. “That's a good point.”
“No,” Sam says. “The curse only latches on to people who aren't sexually active.”
“I'm safe.” Dean flicks Sam a smug look.
“You won't be,” Sam mutters.
“Then I'm safe too,” says Melvin. Dean stares at him, flat, and he smooths the back of his neck, defensive. “What? I am.”
“Good for you, you’re safe. Give it over.”
“What are you gonna do? Shoot me?”
“That’s starting to sound like a good idea,” Dean says, but Melvin has his measure now, and maybe did the logic on them secreting guns across the border. He sets his mouth in a bullish line and sits on the bed. Dean groans, throws up his hands. “Man, don’t make me search you.”
“You’ll never find it.”
Sam looks at his watch. “You’ve got less than an hour, Melvin. Think about this.”
He turns his head to the side. “Just leave us alone.”
“We can’t do that.”
“You’ll see when Juanita gets here. You’ll see, she wouldn’t hurt me.”
“She will,” Sam says, so impassive and sure that Dean can see the doubt seeding in the kid. Sam pulls out the chair from the desk and plops himself down, all put out. It wasn’t the night he wanted either.
Dean opens the minibar and pulls another bottle.
“You know what we got here?” he says, and Sam frowns at him. Melvin looks over, guarded. He grins at them. “Mexican standoff.”
Sam rolls his eyes, holds out his hand. There’s a smile in there somewhere, Dean’s pretty sure. He tosses Sam the beer, and offers one to Melvin and is ignored, and they standoff in silence a while, horns and music and the ebb and flow of a party outside, all these people, enjoying each other, heading down towards the Plaza. And here, Dean with Melvin sitting tense on the bed still, rigid. Waiting for his ghost girl to come. Never had a girlfriend in his life, Dean would guess.
He drinks, tries not to think about his car, wanders around the room a couple times. Opens the bedside drawers, lifts a cushion or two, peeks inside the gratuities envelope in case Melvin’s made it that easy for him. No luck; the whole goddamn case has been luckless and unfair to Dean.
He looks at Sam, finishing off his beer, back on his phone, impatient but trying to keep it under wraps. Dean really had been looking forward to tonight. They’d had a decent motel in Las Cruces, and he’d figured they could wrap this ghost shit up quick and then he could buckle down to the real work, getting Sam drunk and having a little fun. It was always kinda looser and stickier and wrestle-y when Sam had had a few. It would have been a good time.
“Hey Sammy,” he says, quiet, and Sam looks up from his phone. “Maybe we can still get a room after this.”
Sam glances at Melvin, sitting miserable now with his head bowed, unfolds himself purposefully from the little office chair and steps over, leans into Dean’s space, broad and undeniable.
“Maybe,” he says, voice so low it’s underground, “you could stop propositioning me in front of strangers.”
“Maybe you could make me,” Dean says, chubbing up despite himself, and he shifts, and Sam’s eyes widen, knowing and alarmed, heat in there too.
“Keep it in your pants, you lunatic,” he hisses, swaying in anyway, and there’s movement over his shoulder, Melvin on his feet and edging away towards the door again, and Dean twists out from behind Sam and says Nuh nuh nuh, come on, waving his hand, wishing he had a gun to fill it with. Just for security.
Melvin freezes.
Still got it, Dean thinks, pleased, and then Melvin says, tentative: “She’s here.” Dean glances at Sam, looks at his watch.
“Ten to midnight,” Sam says.
“Juanita?” Melvin calls.
“Mi amaaaado,” says a woman’s voice, in that sighing ghosty way, like there’s a wind in here, or halls to waft sound down. Something tugs at Melvin’s jacket, pushes it down his shoulders. He falls back on the bed; or maybe she pushes him. His shoes come off; one, then the other, slowly, under loving invisible hands. His socks draw off into thin air, stretching with a pop. “So far you’ve travelled. Are your poor feet sore?”
“Oh, no,” Sam says, horrified.
“That tickles,” Melvin says, awkward, rising up on his elbows, his toes curling, stretching weirdly. “Maybe...Juanita, maybe not now?”
“Mi amado,” says the ghost again, with her mouth full. Dean grimaces.
“Juanita!” Melvin darts a look at them, tries to pull his foot away and fails. She’s strong. Edge of fear in his voice, now. “Is this.... Are you telling the truth?”
“She’ll kill you,” Sam says, tired and direct. “Give us the charm.”
“It’s in my--” His eyes bug, and his mouth flattens, lips smearing underneath a nothing hand.
“Ah, crap,” Dean says. “Can you see her?”
Melvin nods, frantic. His hands swipe through the air over his chest.
“She’s on top of you?”
Another rapid nod. His eyes cross: she’s doing something to him, his shirt rucking up, a general rocking motion setting in that Dean doesn’t want to think about too hard. He jogs back into the bathroom, grabs the thin little plastic bag off the door handle, weight at the bottom swinging it wide as he pivots back. In the room Melvin squirms under an unseeable weight, one hand digging in his jeans pocket. He tosses something, a flash in the air towards Sam. A bad throw. Sam scrambles to catch it, arms and legs everywhere, and misses, hits the TV with a crunch. Helped along by Juanita, maybe, from the dazed way he’s shaking his head, feeling about for the charm.
Dean barks, “Hey, lady!” and waves, a distraction. He hopes. Digs in the bag and draws his arm back.
JUÁREZ. A magnet with a picture of the cathedral. It hits the wall above where Melvin’s belt is undoing itself. Something hisses, flickers, vaguely girl-shaped.
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, old fashioned, underneath a pair of flamenco dancers. It bounces off Melvin’s chin, and he yelps, but besides that, nothing. Maybe a shimmer in the air.
¡BIENVENIDOS A JUÁREZ! puffy red letters, atop a giant smiling cartoon margarita. Dean frisbees it straight through the coalescing smokey centre of her, and she turns her awful face towards him and screeches, harsh and malevolent. The room dims like she’s sucking the light to her, and any good feeling, and any bad, a numb twining grip around his chest. It squeezes. Dean grunts in pain, feet leaving the carpet, arms dead at his sides; he can’t draw breath, clutched, compressed; her eyes looming into his face, his vision spotting. Behind her, through her, he sees Marvin rolling, hitting the ground with a heavy thud, arms up to protect his head.
“Sam,” Dean croaks, craning; his brother is back at the desk, hair wild, raising a lamp and bringing the solid base down with a crash; something pings from underneath and bounces off the wall. Sam swears, sharp, throws an apologetic glance Dean’s way, dives forward and smashes the lamp down again.
Juanita screams, squeezes Dean again so hard he whimpers, past the point he can bear it; and then she’s gone, flaring up around him in a cutting, cold bright flame.
Dean, being in the air, and half dead, hits the ground hard. After a second his lungs kick in and he wheezes in a huge gasp of air and clutches his chest and says,” Fuck,” very loudly. Sam’s on him by then. Worry turning his eyebrows up and his broad hands pressed against Dean’s ribs, travelling, firm and assessing. “I’m okay,” Dean says, more normally. Breathes a few more times just to enjoy the feeling of it, and lets his head sink into the carpet, and pats the back of Sam’s hand. “I’m okay.”
Sam blows out his own breath and rocks back on his heels. Rubs his hand over his face, reorganises his hair. Together, they look to Melvin. He’s on the floor too, sitting propped against the bed, elbows on his knees. A picture of dejection.
“Should have figured, huh?” he says to the carpet, low. His lips twist in a way that threatens tears. Outside, the fireworks hit; colour glowing from behind the curtains, a general cheer rising. Dean lets it wash over him. It’s nice to breathe, it’s nice to hear; people happy.
Sam kicks his boot. “Happy New Year, Dean,” he says, quiet. Gaze soft, unwavering. Dean’s ribs hurt, for all sorts of reasons. He kicks back.
“Feliz anus, Sammy,” he says, and Sam huffs a small, reluctant laugh, tips his head back and mutters Jesus to himself, as Dean rolls over and pushes himself up to sitting with a groan, and then standing, looks around. Not too much destruction, beyond Dean’s entire chest and the lamp that Sam slightly destroyed.
Melvin’s got his lip between his teeth, dragging his fingers through the carpet, still feeling sorry for himself.
“You okay?” Dean says, and Melvin sends him a sulky look; flicks, listless, at the magnet next to him.
“You threw a magnet at me,” he says.
“Iron,” Dean says. Melvin bends the puffy margarita in half. “Sort of.”
“I told you they wouldn’t work,” Sam says.
“They did work,” Dean says, offended. “You saw it work.”
“You just pissed her off.”
“Because of the iron,” Dean says, although privately he is putting an x next to this one in his mental table of improvisations, with a little note next to it that says salt easy to find in Mexico.
“Sorry she hurt you,” Melvin says, chin trembling again. He sniffs. “I really thought--maybe she--”
Dean looks at Sam, and Sam shakes his head, and says something dark and heavy with his eyes along the lines of, what happened to getting a room, and Dean looks at him some more, and shrugs, helpless, in the direction of Melvin. Sam sighs, long, long, long.
“Hey, Melvin,” he says, a bad actor but making a go of it. “Guess we owe you a couple of beers, huh?”
Melvin takes off his glasses, wipes his eyes, and puts them back on, blinks at Sam.
“Come on, kid,” Dean says, and steps over, pulls him up by the hand, wincing, and drapes an arm over his shoulder. “Let’s go join the fiesta.”
::
The end.