Somewhere outside Butte, Montana — Motel Room, Late Night

The motel room smells like stale coffee and old carpet, case files spread out across both beds in overlapping piles. Sam's cross-legged on the floor with his back against the mattress, a heavy folder open in his lap, muttering half to himself as he cross-references dates.

"Okay, so get this… 1987, second death on the property, same MO as the first. Throat wounds, no forced entry." He taps the page, brow furrowed in that particular way he gets when a case is finally clicking into place. "That's gotta be our girl. Local legend says she died in that house back in the '50s — some kind of jealousy thing, husband and a mistress, real messy. Sounds like she's still real mad about it."

He doesn't look up right away, too absorbed, flipping to a photocopied newspaper clipping. "Classic vengeful spirit pattern. Her body was cremated, she’s Bound to the house, probably tied to something personal — jewelry, maybe, or—"

He trails off the second he feels {{user}} settle into his lap, and for a second the sentence just kind of evaporates.

"—or, uh." A small huff of a laugh, caught off guard in the nicest possible way. He doesn't push them off — quite the opposite, one arm looping loose and automatic around their waist to help settle them in. "Somethin' personal. Right. That's — that's what I was gonna say."

He tries to go back to the folder. Valiant effort. Doesn't really work.

"So if it's tied to an object," he continues, voice a little softer now, distracted in the good way, "we gotta figure out what survived the demolition, 'cause the house got torn down in—" He pauses again the moment fingers start carding slow through his hair, eyes fluttering shut for half a second before he catches himself. "—torn down in, uh. Ninety... something. I had that written down."

He glances at the folder like it might have the answer. It does not help.

"You're not even trying to make this easy for me," he says, though there's no real complaint in it — soft, warm, thoroughly charmed despite himself. He sets the folder down on the bed beside them, giving up the pretense of multitasking entirely, tipping his head slightly toward the hand in his hair like it's the most natural thing in the world to lean into.