Chapter Text
They say that the friends you make in college are the friends you’ll have for life.
Dean used to consider that one of those schmaltzy, Hallmark-type sentiments that romanticized relationships forged through a college roommate algorithm and a shared passion for destroying your liver in the most creative ways.
But now? Now he knows differently.
Every year, Dean, Benny, Charlie, Garth, and Cas meet up for a week and do something fun. Last year was Benny’s pick, and he took them on a voodoo tour of New Orleans. The year before that was Charlie’s, and she managed to score them general-admittance tickets to E3 in LA.
This year is Garth’s pick, and instead of doing something really cool like literally anything other than driving them into a terrifyingly isolated place in the goddamn mountains, he’s driving them into a terrifyingly isolated place in the goddamn mountains.
The main highway is a good few miles back and down, no longer visible, lost to the density of the surrounding tree canopy, and Dean’s not at all concerned that none of them would be able to pick their way back through the matted undergrowth and thick branches. Sprawling eastward, the whole area is likely thousands of square miles of wooded hill and jagged escarpment. It really wouldn’t be difficult for them to disappear up here.
So, yeah. Seems as though they really will be friends for life. Right up until their deaths in a cabin in the woods.
At least they’re not going to an abandoned camp by a clear lake.
There’s a reason why horror tropes are a thing. They set up the expectations for the audience, giving them something to rely on. If it's a really good horror story, those expectations will be subverted without veering into the ridiculous.
See: The Drew Barrymore death in Scream, the twist at the end of the first Saw movie, the Candyman ending. Psycho.
Of course, stories told without subverting the genre tropes can be just as effective. Some of the very best horror stories rely heavily on the staples.
See: Friday the 13th, The Blair Witch Project, The Amityville Horror. The Thing.
Dean's always been a big fan of the classics. The ones where dumbasses get their vacuous selves murderized and everyone in the theater groans in frustration, because why did she run up the freakin' stairs?! The door was right there!
He never considered himself that kind of dumbass. But today is a day for unfortunate revelations apparently, because a group of five friends driving through the middle of the woods is right up there with death by sex and chainsaws in the pantheon of horror cliches.
He’s officially a willing participant in one of the most well-trodden horror movie tropes of all time.
Dean already knows what's gonna happen. They're gonna break down on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere and without cell service. Or, they'll reach their cabin in the woods and slowly get killed off one by one by a maniac with a machete and no social skills.
Only dumbasses would allow themselves to end up as a Texas Chainsaw ripoff, right?
Right.
Yet here they are, tempting fate (and Jason, and hillbilly cannibals, and zombies).
“Where are we goin’?” Benny asks, watching the lush greenery of the forest pass by outside the car windows, the sun still high in the clear sky. “Grandma’s house?”
Garth, behind the steering wheel of the rented Grand Cherokee, grins over his shoulder like the messy-haired maniac he is and sing-songs, “To Grandma's house we go. Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, heigh-ho. We're on our way with horse and sleigh…”
Dean trades glances with Charlie, who’s wedged in the backseat between him and Benny.
“Ooh, I wonder if we’ll run into the Big Bad Wolf,” she grins, waggling her eyebrows suggestively at Dean.
“Dean would probably like that,” Cas mutters from the front seat, all derision and snark.
Dick.
“Nah,” Dean says, “I’m more into bears these days.”
The whole car breaks out into hoots and hollers, and Dean meets Cas’ ice-blue glare in the rearview mirror. He winks with as much over-the-top sleaze as he can muster. Cas scowls in return before he turns to stare out the window, chin on his palm, the perfect picture of a sulky teenager. Except they’re in their thirties now, all grown up and responsible and shit. Which is what makes this trip more than a little suspect.
What kind of self-respecting thirty-somethings all agree to traipse off into the woods for a week without so much as making sure there’s a spa and no axe murderers?
The key to answering that question lies with the ‘self-respecting’ part.
“If we’re staying at a hotel or somethin’,” Benny says, “why are we bringin’ sleepin’ bags?”
It’s a fair thing to ask.
Wrinkling her nose, Charlie leans forward, bracing her forearms against the front seats and peeks between them to look at Garth. “This sure does have all the earmarks of a camping trip.”
“You just never know,” Garth offers mysteriously, sounding far too pleased with himself.
“Oh God,” Cas grouses, like the fucking stick-in-the-mud he’s become in the last few years, and Dean barely refrains from rolling his eyes.
“Either way, it’s an adventure, right?” Dean says. “That’s what we signed up for, ain’t it?” He nudges his knees up against the back of Cas’ seat, knowing that it’ll annoy the hell outta him. “Maybe it’s time you remembered how to have fun, Cas.”
Cas doesn’t say anything. A week in the wilds isn’t exactly Dean’s idea of a good time either, but this is Garth’s choice, and he’s had a rough go of it recently, what with his marital troubles, so the least Cas could do is pretend that he actually wants to be here.
“I know where we’re goin’,” Benny announces, and everyone waits with bated breath to hear what he’s gonna say. “The Pet Sematary.”
Charlie throws her head back on a filthy witch-cackle. “Let’s do some dead raising!”
“I knew it wasn’t exactly gonna be the Bellagio,” Dean jokes, “but I at least figured we’d be able to get a shower without accidentally raising somebody’s pet labradoodle, or take a shit without having to dig a hole through layers of mud and twigs first.”
The bar of expectations was not set high.
“But bears do that, and you love bears, right, Dean?” Cas smarts, deliberately obtuse, and Dean opens his mouth to make an undoubtedly witty retort—something along the lines of ‘maybe if we remove that stick from your ass, we can use it as kindling for the campfire’—when he’s interrupted by Garth stopping the car.
“Here we are!”
They all turn to look out the windows. There’s a narrow dirt path slanting up the hillside to the right, trees on either side of the road bending in toward each other the whole way.
“Oh, that isn’t ominous at all,” Dean says, feeling as though he’s staring death right in the hollow-eyed, gaunt face.
“Yeah,” Garth agrees. “Does look kinda creepy, right?”
“What’s up there, Garth?” Charlie asks, peering out Dean’s window too.
“Hopefully the Ennis Hill Inn.”
“Wait wait wait,” Dean interjects. “‘Hopefully’? You mean you don’t know?”
“Well, I haven’t actually been here before. I read about this place on the internet.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake—” Benny mutters, at the same time Charlie starts laughing, Cas grumbles something under his breath, and Dean tries to remember why he’s friends with any of these people.
Willfully ignorant of the air of pessimism in the car, Garth begins weaving his Are You Afraid of the Dark? tale with a comically hushed voice. “So legend has it that this place was a pretty decent hotel back in the ‘70s, but then business started to decline in the ‘80s. The wife went mad, so the husband dropped her off at the psychiatric ward and shut the hotel down, leaving everything exactly as it was. Apparently, the only visitor this place gets is a fog that descends every once in a while.”
There’s silence in the car for a couple of beats until they all start talking over each other again, Dean saying, “We’re a bit high up in the mountains for fucking mariners to put in an appearance, ain’t we?” At the same time Cas reasons, “I mean, we’re in the mountains, so it’s completely natural that the area will see regular fog formation.” Benny is ranting about Garth’s inability to craft a truly scary story and Charlie is busy wondering aloud why the dude would abandon the place just ‘cause his wife lost her shit. "Like, did they not have a manager?"
“Maybe it’s a Shining kinda deal? Why she went mad, I mean,” Dean shrugs. “Blood in the elevators and stuff.”
“Terrific,” Cas deadpans, “And I only brought two clean shirts.”
Dean snorts a laugh, and their eyes meet and catch in the rearview mirror again.
Don't go there, Winchester.
“Let’s just get this shit over with,” Benny says, ever the pragmatist, waving a hand in a loose gesture of ‘hurry up.’
Garth restarts the engine and steers the car up the narrow road. The further up the mountain they go, the thicker the trees get, until they damn near block out the sun entirely, small beams of light dappling through here and there.
“Jesus,” Dean mutters. “Of all the ways I thought I was gonna die, I did not imagine it was gonna be up a freakin’ mountain with my leg gnawed off by hill people.”
Abruptly, they find themselves in the daylight again as the car exits the thick copse of trees. Directly up in front of them, the path curves to the right, thinning into a gravel driveway-slash-access-road. Some interesting (but also kinda eerie) totem poles frame the entrance on either side. The old wooden columns depict forest creatures, beasts and demons. One of the poles is tilted at a sharp angle, ready to fall at any moment. At one point, they were probably brightly decorated, but now they just look like pieces of ornate driftwood. Or dirty gray bone.
Fantastic.
They couldn’t have gone to Atlantic City or some shit? Maybe hung out with some alligators in the Everglades?
A metal sign, bent and rusted—and reading KEEP OUT—is nailed at eye level to the upright pole.
“Well,” Dean declares, “I’m all for civil disobedience, but I say we do what the sign says.”
“It’s just ‘cause it’s closed to the public, that’s all,” Garth informs them, but doesn’t sound entirely convinced himself.
As they drive through, they spot initials and various obscenities carved into the poles, some of them pretty near the top, which may explain why one of them is at that sixty-degree angle.
The car noses upward and Benny asks, “So, just who is this place open to?”
“Ghosts,” Charlie answers, staring out the windshield as the road levels out. The hood of the car lowers, revealing the view ahead.
Yeahhh, she’s probably not wrong.
The inn is a broad, multi-story structure with walls of gray stone. The roof is made of steep shake shingles, and sags in various places. There’s a sort of cloister near the front that definitely, absolutely isn’t housing any serial killers or a million things that thrive in dark mountainous places.
All in all, the whole place has gotta be a couple hundred thousand square feet.
It looks like a fucking asylum.
Which is strangely appropriate.
Dean’s relieved to see that, at least, none of the hundreds of windows have institution-style bars. But most of the shutters hang open or are damaged or crooked, or are just gone entirely. Some of the windows are broken.
The Four Seasons, this place ain’t.
The somewhat crumbling architecture doesn’t really inspire confidence. But hey, on the bright side, the building might kill them instead of some psycho.
As they get closer, Dean can see that the roof of the main porch has partially caved in due to a fallen tree branch, its jagged stub protruding from the mess of broken and smashed tiles.
At the center of the porch, straight ahead, the inn’s main door stands open.
“My God,” Cas mutters, mostly under his breath, but Dean catches it anyway.
“Don’t think God is gonna help us now, Cas.”
Garth pulls the Grand Cherokee into the lot and cuts the engine. Benny immediately swings his door open, and everyone else follows suit, glad to be out of the claustrophobic space after such a long drive.
“Everybody remember where we parked!” Charlie quips to a round of low groans.
Dean stretches as soon as his feet touch solid ground, peeling his moist shirt away from his sweaty back. It smells pretty good out here, nice and crisp and woodsy. It’s a shame that Garth has chosen to let them all be murdered at the fucking Overlook Hotel, ‘cause otherwise it would be a kinda cool area to explore.
In front of him, Cas stretches as well, band t-shirt riding up, revealing a tanned strip of skin that Dean can still remember the taste of.
Nope. Definitely not going there.
They all meet at the hood of the car, the five of them staring at what is going to be their new home for the next few days.
“Garth, are you sure about this?” Charlie asks, squinting up at the windows, sunlight prisming off her bright red hair. “You sure you can’t be persuaded to let us stay somewhere without the creep factor? I’ve heard the Lizzie Borden hotel has vacancies.”
Garth looks around at all their faces in turn, and apparently doesn’t like what he sees. “Aww, come on, guys, it can’t be that bad? We all bonded over our love of horror, so I thought it’d be fun to do something a bit different. Something that reminds us of our college days.”
Aw, fuck.
With a broken, guilt-tripping sigh that he perfected senior year, Garth trudges on ahead toward the inn, and the remaining four exchange glances.
“Shit,” Benny growls. “Looks like we’re gonna have to suck it up.”
“Yeah,” Dean and Charlie agree, whilst Cas just nods, something passing across the clear blue of his eyes, some veil of disquiet that he chooses not to give voice to.
None of them make to move for a long few moments, all holding out for someone else to go.
Losing the game of haunted hotel chicken, and with a faintly hissed “Dammit,” Charlie starts after Garth. “Wait up, we’re coming!”
Benny follows after her, leaving Cas and Dean standing shoulder to shoulder. Dean’s the first one to voice what they’re both thinking. “So, this is gonna be fun.”
On a world-weary exhale, Cas says, “Yes.” He glances at Dean, earnest expression sinking down into their years-long connection. “I suppose we’d better go too.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, not breaking eye contact.
Goddammit, this is harder than it usually is. Every other year they’ve done this, the five of them have flown in from their various states, met up at whatever hotel they’re staying at, and Dean and Cas have been able to pretty much avoid each other for the entire week. Now, though? Now, they have no choice but to actually interact, and judging by the mutual sniping in the car, it’s gonna be a laugh riot.
On the upside, there’s a high likelihood that they’ll all be dead by the end of the week, so there’s that.
“C’mon.” Dean starts walking toward the inn. Cas joins him. Twigs and leaves crackle and crunch beneath their shoes, loud in the otherwise quiet lot.
Although the road is littered with debris from the surrounding forest, enough areas have been swept clear by the wind that Dean can see patches of gray, cracked pavement. Weeds, wild grass, and even a few saplings are growing in the fissures.
He spots a broken sapling and drops down onto his haunches, crouching over it. “Look at this.”
Cas’ shadow falls over him, “It’s broken. Do you think somebody’s been here?”
“Yeah. Recently, too.” Dean folds a silky leaf between his thumb and forefinger. There’s a little give in it before it splits. “The leaves are still green. Probably hasn’t been dead longer than a week.”
“Could have been one of your bears,” Cas suggests wryly as Dean pushes to his feet.
He magnanimously ignores the dig. “Or maybe this place ain’t as deserted as it looks.”
Cas tilts his head, squints. It’s a habit that Dean’s always found quietly adorable. It reminds him of better times, ones that revolved around the two of them panting and laughing, curled up in each other in the pushed-together narrow width of their dorm beds, sheets rucked up and stinking of the minutes, hours, days spent mindlessly fucking.
Still not going there.
Yeah, now really isn’t the time for an NC-17 highlight reel of their relationship, not when there’s probably a bloodthirsty killer in a hockey mask waiting to jump out from somewhere. Pissed at himself for allowing his thoughts to stray to that filmy, heartsick place he doesn’t often revisit, Dean brushes off his hands and continues toward the inn, trusting that Cas will follow.
Directly in front of the porch, the road flares out into two lanes. The one going right runs the full length of the inn, leading to a ramshackle sort of shed. The one going left winds around the rear of the hotel.
Charlie has stopped at the foot of the porch steps, and she’s digging around in her backpack for what Dean already knows is gonna be her camera.
By the time Dean and Cas have caught up, Charlie is busy ushering Garth and Benny into poses, facing away from the hotel. She shoves Dean and Cas into position and tells them, “Pretend that you still like each other and that a single touch won’t have you collapsing into each other’s arms like old times.”
Dean gives her the finger and Garth snort-laughs. Cas is stiff next to him as Dean throws an arm around his shoulders. Between Dean and Garth, Benny places his palms on their lower backs.
“What a handsome bunch of guys!” Charlie grins as she backs up to get them and the creepy-ass hotel in the frame. "Say, 'Let's all get murdered'!"
Right before the flash goes off, the back of Dean’s neck prickles.
Obligatory photo for their ‘supposedly intelligent adults go missing on ill-advised vacation to haunted hotel’ segment on CNN taken, Dean turns his head to stare at the open door. All he can see beyond it is shadowy gloom.
Yep. This is a bad fucking idea.