Spreading Roots

After hearing Marilyn's side of the story, Dean thought it was safe to assume she jumped the gun. Or, at the very least exaggerated significantly. Yes, by the sounds of if there probably was a spirit taking up residence in her house. Flickering lights, scratching in the walls.

The usual.

It was the stuff people didn't really notice, or at least if they didn't know any better. In this case, Marilyn did. And perhaps this job did merit a ten hour drive, but from how she sounded the night before on the phone, Dean had been ready to jump in there his shot-gun loaded and ready with rock salt filled buckshots.

Hell, he'd almost been looking forward to it. Some action out on his field would have been a perfect distraction from the things he was trying not think about.

From Sammy.

Biting back a shudder, Dean shot her a small, almost sardonic smile. "Well, Miss Baker, sounds like you got a ghost on your hands."

Marilyn looked at him blankly, as if to say 'duh'. Then the cheery smile replaced the patronizing look she'd been wearing, and all was well once again. She could have just been crazy. If ghosts and demons were plausible, then this certainly was too. He noticed the kid, or Devon, nearly going blue in the face. And how her mother appeared not to even notice or have any concern for her daughter.

That, he deemed, was crazy. A blind man could have heard how Devon wheezed out her words, like she was on her last breath of air. From the looks of it, she had been.

And that, well… that pissed him off. To be honest, he really didn't even want to do this job any more. Marilyn seemed to have enough knowledge to take care of it on her own. Her family had been dealing with the paranormal themselves, albeit quietly, over the past twenty years. This time shouldn't have been any different. Unless she wasn't giving him the full story, of course.

Crazy people weren't the best with providing all the details, he guessed.

But Devon. If the kid hadn't been involved, he would have left right after the show Marilyn unwittingly put on for him. Ever since he met Ben he developed a sort-of soft spot for children, and he just couldn't leave her hanging. He kept picturing Ben there, hearing the scratching sounds, seeing the lights flicker. It was the last thing he'd want for him, and the same then went for Devon. Besides, she didn't exactly have the best person caring for her. Anything would help.

"I was in my bed, the other night," Marilyn launched back into her ghost stories and Dean gave an exasperated smile. Maybe he just didn't like her, but he heard enough. He got it. Her house was haunted. Big whoop.

He doubted Sam would think the same, but he squished such a thought before it could lead him on any further.

"I'll do everything I possibly can, Marilyn," he interrupted, ignoring the sour look that came over Marilyn's features as soon as he did so. Again, though, the smile was plastered back on. If anything, he would have liked to add 'for Devon, anyway' but that would have opened a whole 'nother can of worms, and he'd be stuck there on the loveseat that much longer.

With each second that passed, Dean just wanted to leave more and more.

He'd been so close, too.

So close yet so far, unfortunately.

The front door opened with excessive force, and he listened with a frown as someone could be heard hastily kicking off their boots. Through her damn transparent mask, he could tell Marilyn was irritated at yet another interruption… and for not knocking, either.

A man in his early to mid-thirties rounded the corner, a deep frown set into his slightly-aged features. Dean was almost sure he didn't know him, but something about the man seemed oddly familiar.

"Frank!" Marilyn greeted. Her smile began to look more and more like a grimace. "I wasn't expecting you today. I thought you were heading down to Foley's… again."

Something inside Dean clicked at the mentioning of the name, but he still couldn't put his finger on who this person was, or how he even knew him.

Frank ignored Marilyn's half-assed greeting, set his glare straight on Dean, and held it steady when Dean met him with a questioning look. So far, he didn’t like the vibes he got from this guy at all or the look he was getting. It was all way too confrontational for his taste. Shortly after, a small bump sounded from where Frank just came from. The front door. In spite of everything, Dean smirked. Call it intuition or whatever floats your boat, but he just knew someone was eavesdropping on them.

That someone, in all likelihood, was Devon.

"So Devon was telling the truth," Frank stated, tearing his gaze away from Dean only to replace its victim with Marilyn. Dean didn't feel so bad for her.

Upon hearing her daughter's name, Marilyn stood from the sofa and threw her hands up in the air, as if she was fed up. "Oh, I can only imagine what she told you!"

I guess she threw her mask out the window, Dean thought with a groan. Even if it was fake, he'd have been more willing to deal with that then this train wreck. Both he and Frank stiffened at the Marilyn's accusation, and he couldn't help but notice that. He was growing attached to the tough-faced, sort of weird kid already. That probably wasn't good.

He grew to dislike Marilyn more when she brought her daughter up in such a sentence, not exactly feeling the love within the more than slightly messed up family. She really hadn't changed at all through the years.

It was silent for another moment, it consisting of Dean with his eyes glued to Frank, who was still stumped on how he knew him, and Frank looking ready to kill Marilyn.

Maybe that cocoa wasn't such a bad idea… spiked with a little bourbon, maybe.

"You wanna tell me why you brought him here, Marilyn? Bringing him here, after what happened," Frank demanded to know, his jaw clenched and a less than appealing vein popped out beneath his hairline, right above his left eye.

After what happened… after what happened…

He came up short, but knew that bad things sometimes happened while on jobs, and something probably did happen when he'd spent his… spare time, with Kara. He just couldn't remember the exact details.

To try and ease up the tension, which was thick enough as it was before Frank made his appearance, Dean let out an uncomfortable laugh. It nearly shattered the room's silence, but as always Dean took the awkward moment in stride as he usually would with Sam by his side. "Well if it isn't little Frankie Thompson," he piped up after realizing his laughing did nothing to break the ice. That and he finally figured out who the hell this guy was, and he couldn't hold it in any longer. "In the flesh. Looks like you lost all your baby fat, too."

Judging from the murderous look on Frank's face, Dean almost thought he said the wrong thing. But hey, Dean Winchester never says the wrong thing… right?

He wished Sammy was there to disagree with him.

With nothing left to try, Dean chose to ignore the tense silence. Briefly, he wondered if Marilyn would want her kid listening in on all of this, especially if she wasn't aware of the things that went bump in the night. But on a second thought, he concluded that Marilyn wouldn't care, and if she did, he wouldn't. If Devon wanted to know what was really going on, he wasn't going to stop her.

Devon was doing a decent job with staying quiet, too, except for when it sounded like she tripped earlier. A klutz like Kara had been, probably.

"Frank, dear," Marilyn said, speaking the should-have-been sweet words through her teeth. "We have some things to discuss. In the kitchen, privately."

They left then, presumably for the kitchen, and Dean waited until he could just barely hear the whispers of their hushed argument before cracking a half smile, leaning forward to see if he could somehow catch a glimpse of Devon hiding. "You can come out now, you know. I assume you were trying to hide."

His smirk widened when she swore—somewhat loudly—to herself, and then she stalked out from behind the wall that separated the living room from the foyer. There was no denying she had a phenomenal poker face, but as she crashed onto a recliner on the other side of the living room, it was obvious she was surprised by what she just heard from Frank and Marilyn. He would have been too, if he were in such a situation.

Barely any of it made sense to him, and he doubted she was able to piece much more together either. Relaxing, she sunk down further onto the recliner and made herself comfortable. They both looked at each other, silent. While she'd been almost neutral toward his presence when they met earlier, her eyes held judgment then and Dean almost released a groan. He guessed she was biased from what she heard Frank say about him.

Not knowing what else he could do, Dean decided on a whim to try and make conversation. “So… how ya feelin’?”

She gave him an odd disbelieving look and then quickly averted her gaze to trace the recliner's floral pattern. Of course he was referring to earlier when it looked like she couldn’t quite catch her breath. Dean could tell that she was even more so surprised; her mom may not have noticed much but he sure as hell did. Before she could give him a snarky reply like he expected, however, Frank waltzed back into the room with Marilyn in tow.

Devon sunk down in her seat further at the sight of the two, but managed a small smirk. One that was very familiar to Dean, too. He wore the same one many times to mask his emotions.

“Listen,” Dean started, just wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible. “Miss Baker, if you think it's a polter—”

“Devon's going to stay with me until I leave,” Frank snapped, interrupting Dean and completely ignoring him. Still lazing on the recliner Devon perked up upon hearing that, and she grinned from ear to ear.

That was what Dean was about to suggest, anyway. Marilyn swore up and down that—for some reason unbeknownst to him—a spirit was latching onto Devon. She didn’t give him much more details to go on than that, and for the life of him Dean couldn't figure out why she would think any of this was related to Devon.

No, he didn't have the whole story. Not even half it from the looks of things. He'd have to do some digging on the family's history whenever he felt brave enough to go to a library without his trusty sidekick to do the majority of the research.

“I'd really love to stay and chat,” he said and hastily stood from the loveseat. Marilyn got exactly what she wanted and neither Frank nor Devon knew it. “But uh, I'll leave you guys to it. Marilyn, I'll give you a call.”

He wasn't expecting a goodbye from anyone, and Marilyn only muttered out a small, meaningless 'thank you' before he showed himself out. He'd been in a number of awkward situations, sure, but that one really took the cake. He breathed a sigh of relief when he finally got out of the cold air and into the Impala.

The drive across town to the motel he'd be staying at was a (thankfully) silent one, and it was spent wondering exactly how crazy Marilyn was, why Frank seemed to hate his guts, and what role Devon played in all of this.

Rainbow Motel, despite its colorful name, was anything but. His room—which consisted of a double bed in the center of the room with just enough leg room to get around it and a crappy nightstand off to the side—was bland, and that was putting it lightly. The walls were white, and the bedding would have been too if they weren't darkened to a yellowed gray from age.

But it was better than the usual dives he stayed at, and he merely shrugged off the indistinctive decoration and collapsed onto the bed. He expected a long night ahead of him.

“Home sweet home.”