Spreading Roots

Before driving back to the motel, Dean made sure to make a pit stop at a local liquor store. As soon as he made the decision to do so, his night was basically planned out for him. He didn’t want to think about it. He just wanted to drink… and that meant he had a long night ahead of him.

If Sammy was there with him, he would have been prodding Dean to get off his ass and do this job and get some research in or something. If Sammy was there. He was barely aware as he parked the Impala in what he deemed as his new ‘usual’ parking space and headed back to his room, flicking the light switch while he shuffled throughout the room.

At night, without any sunlight seeping in through the small window by the door the place reminded him of a hospital room. He shuddered at the memories that passed through his mind, severing the distinct feeling of déjà vu before it started. And the fermented cheeseburger sat on the nightstand didn’t do much for the joint in regards to smell, either.

He sat down on the bed after several minutes of pacing, of putting this off. In one hand was the bottle of whiskey he’d been longing for all day and in the other was a bottle of coke. On the night stand—right next to the putrefying cheeseburger, of course—were a couple of shot glasses. He decided to go old school tonight.

And that was all he needed, he thought.

The one thing he didn’t need, however, were the thoughts lingering in his head, left over from the past thirty six hours. Sammy wouldn’t have wanted this for you. Sammy wanted you to go to Lisa. You didn’t. The one and only simple request he had for you, and you screwed it up.

Try as he might Dean couldn’t forget that, and he doubted he would be able to for a long, long time.

Robotically he mixed his drink and raised it to his lips, never realizing what he was doing; numbing himself before he even knew he was numb. The drink soothed him, but not in the way he had earlier hoped. He still felt the pain, but then he felt even less of a flicker of hope than he did before.

This was all he had. Drinking himself to sleep… Sammy should have been there to tell him how pathetic he was. But guaranteed, he would drag himself out of bed the next morning and wander around town until he could find something to do—hopefully he’d get closer to finishing the job at hand while he was at it, too.

Go to Lisa, dammit. It would solve everything he was sure, but tempting as it was he just couldn’t bring himself to. Not when he was already there, not when he had one foot in the door. He didn’t have any qualms with leaving Marilyn in the dust, Devon on the other hand… he felt determined to get to the bottom of it, whatever ‘it’ was. Even if it was just Marilyn’s usual crazy self.

At the end of the night, he decided that he had to do what he had to do. He could worry about Lisa and his promise to Sammy later; meanwhile he had every right to feel guilty.

Conflicted.

That was how he went to sleep feeling.

***

The next morning, he—quite literally—rolled out of bed. Of course the first thing he did was torture himself remembering the hangover remedy he’d teasingly recommended to Sam: a greasy pork sandwich served up on a dirty ashtray. Then he gagged at the thought. That was back when things were easier. All he wanted to do was lie in bed and wallow in his relentless self-pity for the rest of the day (perhaps eternity if he could get away with it), but duty calls.

An aspirin and a pitch black coffee later Dean was out the door, once again in his beloved Impala and wondering where the hell he’d start. What Marilyn told him was vague at best, and the window for the possible crap going on in her house was huge. With nothing else springing to mind he figured the library wasn’t the worst place to start—and it would have been Sam’s go to place.

Somewhere in the ballpark of two thousand people living within its limits, Lake Crystal wasn’t the biggest town around. Its library certainly reflected that, Dean didn’t care as long as they had a computer (however ancient) and a town archive. That was all he needed to do his research.

Neither did he care about the librarian, a petite blonde that licked her lips upon his entering the lobby. His mind was elsewhere, focused on the fact that he was there without his nerdy researching sidekick to do the brunt of the work.

Or maybe he just wanted Sammy there, period.

For a moment Dean’s heart raced as he sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair and stared at the blank computer screen. What the hell was he doing here? How could he just up and leave after Sammy’s fall into the pit and go straight into a hunt? He gripped the computer desk and leaned forward, trying his hardest to calm himself down and focus on what was here, presenting itself in front of him.

Minutes later he drew in a deep breath and let it out in a hurry, his eyes skimming over everything in the room before concentrating on the computer monitor once again. “Let’s do this.”

Three hours later, Dean’s search so far had come up empty. Not a single ‘interesting’ thing about this town or its history. For once it was just a normal town. He even reverted to researching ways to get his little brother out of Hell, but there really wasn’t a how-to article for that sort of thing on the internet. “This is stupid,” He muttered, ignoring any strange looks he might have received for talking to himself. “I don’t even know what I’m looking for.”

He leaned backward using one foot on the edge of the desk to steady the chair on its back legs and almost toppled over in the process. Recovering quickly, he couldn’t help but shoot a look at the librarian, who had a bird’s eye view of that little incident. She was watching him, whether or not it was because he enjoyed mumbling or making an idiot out of himself was anybody’s guess. Hell, maybe she just thought he was cute.

Quite simply, she was what he would normally define as ‘hot.’ The smile that played at the corners of her lips and the way she fluttered her eyelashes while she glanced down at him and back to the computer had no effect on him; not like it used to. He didn’t smile back.

He almost felt uncomfortable, like he didn’t belong here in a random ass library in some random ass town with a librarian undressing him with her eyes. He left the library and didn’t look back. Nothing stored in that computer was of any help to him, and he hoped he wouldn’t have to go back.

Basically, there were only were two things left to do. The first and the lesser appealing of the two evils was to spend a little quality time with Marilyn and see if she had anything else (made up or otherwise) to tell him. Right. Or, slightly more appealing but not exactly a walk in the park, he could swing by Frank’s place and see if they were any more cooperative today. Fat chance there, he was aware, but it was all he had left to try.

If anyone knew anything about what was going on in that house, it would be Devon. Dean couldn’t figure out why, he just had a feeling.

“Freakin’ great.” He huffed, pissy with just about everything as he started up the Impala again and spat gravel while turning onto the main highway.

On the way to Frank’s house he passed Marilyn’s. Her car was there, and it was almost tempting. But he continued on, feeling sure he might get a little further if he tried talking with Devon today. He circled Frank’s block twice, not quite able to believe his luck. Frank’s monster of a truck was missing from his driveway indicating that Frank wasn’t home. Woo-freakin’-hoo.

He had a good feeling Frank had a heavy influence over Devon’s opinion of other people. And Frank—for reasons he still couldn’t remember—seemed to hate him.

So—of course, Devon did too. “It must be my lucky day,” he said, still somewhat sour about the situation as a whole. If only he had the brains of the operation around to help him along a little, but any hope he held there was obviously pointless. At some point he would have to learn to get by with just himself and no one else to depend on.

Today was going to have to be the start.