A/N n°1: I'm adding a warning to this chapter because it gets dark for Dean with a short trip down memory lane. There's nothing explicit or graphic, but the implication is more than evident, and although it was consensual (but not really because if he didn't do it, then he and Sam would have gone hungry) Dean experiences it as he would if it were rape. The dark thoughts start up when someone walks up to him on the street, right after his conversation with Rowena, so feel free to skip that part and go straight to the next chapter.
Chapter Seven:
Defender of Libraries
Joyce Delaney—the local umbrella-wielding defender of libraries—lived on the outskirts of Eufaula in a one-story bungalow that could rival Sophie's apartment in terms of size and organisation. There was barely any room to move, but it was so impeccably clean that Dean didn't feel comfortable touching anything. Beyond that, the two women weren't comparable in the least unless you wanted to describe polar opposites.
"I don't understand why the FBI would be interested in James's death," Joyce said, a polite smile gracing her lips even as a slight frown creased her forehead.
Dean shifted in his seat and set his glass of homemade lemonade down on the coffee table on top of a coaster.
Joyce's living room looked like it came right out of a 1920's edition of Better Homes and Gardens, complete with a crochet set, a rocking chair, and an old gramophone that crooned softly in the background. Between that and the cardigan and tweed pants she wore, Dean wouldn't have pegged her as James Aaron's type. Yet according to photographs tucked away in Aaron's nightstand, Joyce was the only person he cared about.
Going back to Aaron's apartment hadn't been on Dean's bucket list, but he'd soldiered through it. He'd parked the Impala a block away and, once in the building, had held his breath for as long as he could manage. Neither were full-proof solutions, but at least he hadn't come out empty-handed.
Now, though, the smell seemed to cling to him like a putrid second skin. Joyce didn't mention it, but Dean was giving more and more thought to bathing in Purell the moment he got home.
"You might have noticed," said Dean, "that things have been a little odd around here over the past few days. It's possible that Mr Aaron had something to do with it."
Joyce's smile faltered, no longer reaching her eyes as her gaze flicked to the window. "It's hard to miss. I've had to close down the library and barricade it to stop vandals from breaking in." She glanced back at Dean. "But I don't see how James could have been involved."
"It could be nothing, but I want to investigate every lead." Dean pulled open a folder that he'd fashioned together in the car. It only contained James Aaron's rap sheet and death certificate, as well as some photos of him and Joyce, but it at least looked the part. "You and Mr Aaron worked together at a soup kitchen?"
She nodded. "We volunteered on weekends."
State-imposed volunteer work in Aaron's case, closely monitored by his parole officer. "And you were the last person to see him alive?"
"I think so. We went out after the kitchen closed on Sunday. It was my birthday, and he wanted to buy me a drink, so we went to the bar next to the library. Not my usual scene, but he was so excited that I couldn't say no. We had a drink, talked for a bit, and that was it."
Dean watched as Joyce's gaze darted away from him at that last sentence, and he leaned forward. "Really? That's all that happened?"
Joyce ran her hands over her thighs, smoothing out invisible creases in her trousers. "I cut the evening short."
"Why?"
"He asked me a question, and I couldn't give him the answer he wanted to hear." She clasped her hands together, and a watery sheen fell over her eyes as a slight tremble overcame her bottom lip. "And now he's—"
Her voice broke off in a hiccoughing sob. Dean reached for the box of tissues sitting in the middle of the coffee table and handed it to her. She took it with a smile—she was still smiling—and dabbed at her wet cheeks and runny nose.
So James Aaron had taken Joyce to a bar, bought her a drink, dosed it with Sophie's potion, and popped the question. But dosed up or not, it seemed that Aaron sat firmly in Joyce's friend zone with no chance of escape, and, unfortunately for him, having taken the potion as well, the rejection drove him off the deep end.
Except none of that explained why the rest of the town was acting like college students on spring break.
Joyce sniffled one last time before straightening out her posture. She ignored the tears still welling in her eyes, her lips pressed tight in a strained smile.
Now that she'd calmed down enough to hear him, Dean caught her eye and said, "Listen to me. What happened to James Aaron wasn't your fault. He wasn't your responsibility, and you didn't owe him a lie. We clear?"
Tears spilt out as she nodded, the motion shaky and uncertain, but the tightness fell from her lips, her smile turning more genuine. "I know. I just never imagined that he would…" Her hands dropped back to her lap, clutching the tissue between them. "And I'd been having such an amazing night. I can't remember the last time I'd felt so carefree, like I could do anything at all, whatever I wanted."
Good to know that Sophie's background-meddling had at least been good for something.
Dean rose to his feet and grabbed his coat from the back of the couch, slipping it on as he said, "Thank you for your time, Miss Delaney. If you think of anything else that could help with this case, please call."
He handed her a card with his number, and she clutched it tightly between both hands. Nodding and smiling as she led him through the house, showing him out onto the front porch where rows of flower pots eagerly waited for spring. She wrapped her cardigan tightly around herself as the cold wind blew past, and her gaze darted down the street to where a group of men and women were messing around on a bench—jumping on it and over it while shouting and laughing.
"You will fix this, won't you, Agent?" she asked, her smile trembling, her eyes filled with both fear and hope.
Dean nodded and fixed on a self-assured grin, ducking his head and dropping his shoulders so that he didn't tower over her so much. "That's my job. Everything'll be back to normal before you know it."
Her smile reached her eyes, crinkling them at the sides and lighting them up, but it only lasted a moment before a loud whoop rang out from the crowd by the bench, drawing her attention to them, and forcing the tension to return.
"Is there somewhere you can go?" Dean asked, eyeing the group as their jostling got rougher, playful nudges turning into harder shoves. "Only for a few days while I sort this out. D'you have a friend or family who lives out of town maybe?"
Joyce nodded, hugging herself tightly. "My parents live over by the state park. I can stay with them."
"Good." The bench-dwellers' shoves turned into a wrestling match. One pair teetered on the edge of the sidewalk, one wrong move away from rolling onto the road. "D'you want me to stay while you pack a bag?"
"I'll be fine," she said with a small shake of her head. "Good luck with your case."
Joyce shot Dean one last smile before hurrying back inside and double-locking the door behind her.
Dean eyed the group by the bench, happy that he'd had the foresight to park the Impala at the motel and leave her there. The rest of the street was deserted, with only a few curtains rustling in the nearby houses as people peered through their windows.
Walking down the porch steps and over the small front yard, Dean grabbed his cell from his pocket and took a right toward the town centre, dialling as he went. It took a few rings, but the line eventually connected, and a loud sigh echoed through his phone.
"I'm in the middle of an excellent Shiatsu, Dean," said Rowena, her accent coming out all the stronger over the phone. "This had better be important."
Dean turned a corner and found himself on a street entirely devoid of life. "I'll make it quick," he said, even as the hairs on the back of his neck tingled.
This was what made ghost towns such a popular tourist attraction—the unnaturalness of seeing a place designed to accommodate people looking so empty. It felt wrong. Its familiarity made it more disturbing and frightening than any graveyard or haunted asylum could ever hope to be because it made the unease personal, digging in close to home, a place that was meant to be safe yet somehow no longer was.
"Do you know a witch named Sophie Greenaway?" Dean asked, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. "She looks like she's in her early to mid-twenties, lives in Oklahoma, and runs a sex shop?"
Rowena made a sound like the purring of a cat. "She sounds interesting. I can't say I've ever heard of her before now, but I would certainly like to meet her. I long for the company of my own kind, but Coven witches can be such traditionalists; they get oh so tedious after a while."
Thoughts of what might happen if Rowena got it in her head to start a Coven of her own again passed through Dean's mind, but they didn't cause so much as a flicker of concern. "Good thing the Coven blacklisted you centuries ago then, isn't it?"
"I wouldn't call it 'blacklisted'," she said with a tut. "I was merely invited to leave."
Dean scoffed. If the Coven's way of inviting one of their own to leave the club was to strip them of half their powers and exile them, he didn't want to think what they'd do to a witch they kicked out.
Rowena ignored his scoff and carried on. "What has this Miss Greenaway done to provoke the patented Winchester ire?" She paused for a second then came back on, her tone a little chillier and more disapproving. "This had better not be another case of you boys blaming a witch simply because she practices magic. I do hope you've gotten past that prejudice."
Dean's eyes rolled at Rowena's social justice rhetoric, and he said, "She sold some guy a potion that lowers inhibitions, but he used his five-finger discount to take a little extra from her stocks. Now there's an entire town suffering from low impulse control."
"I see"—the line crackled as Rowena shifted—"and is Miss Greenaway working on a reversal?"
"Yeah, Cas is driving down with the ingredients." Dean turned onto the main street where the sidewalk widened and trees lined the road. Barbershops, florists, and restaurants all sat empty and forlorn as silence sat heavily on the abandoned street. "We still don't know how the effects spread to so many people, though. Don't suppose you have any ideas?"
"Oh, pet, if this were a spell, widening the range wouldn't be a problem, but a potion is more delicate. It will only infect those who ingest it."
"Super. So James Aaron is roofying an entire town from beyond the grave." He pinched the bridge of his nose as a pounding started up behind his eyeballs. "All right. Thanks, Rowena."
A car sped past, swerving from one lane to the other, and Dean kept a wary eye on it until it disappeared down a side road.
He sighed and turned his focus back to Rowena, asking hesitantly, "By the way, how're you doing?"
The line went quiet and stayed that way long enough that Dean turned his head to glance at the screen of his phone and make sure the call hadn't gone dead. It took a moment, but, eventually, Rowena answered, her voice quieter and softer than usual, "I'll be fine. We all must keep ticking on, mustn't we?"
Dean nodded and kicked through a pile of broken glass scattered beneath a streetlamp. "Seems like it."
"If you boys need help, let me know. But do try to get by without me, won't you? I can't always be around to hold your and your brother's hands."
"You got it. Call if you need anything."
He hung up and checked his cell for texts from Sam or Cas, glancing up only briefly when a guy crossed onto the same sidewalk as him. The man was about Dean's age and well built, with gelled up dark hair and an expensive watch.
As far as threat assessment went, he didn't even ping Dean's radar. Gym junkie or not, everything about the guy screamed 'sheltered upbringing'. So when his and Dean's paths crossed, Dean didn't pay him any mind, not until the guy grabbed hold of Dean's coat and slammed him against a tree.
Shock had Dean's mind stuttering long enough to delay his instincts, giving his assailant enough time to pin him hard to the tree. It only took a second before Dean's senses started coming back to him, but then lips met his.
Everything stopped. Mind and heart screeching to a halt as every inch of Dean tensed, his muscles winding so tight that it hurt.
He couldn't move.
Stop this.
Memories rushed back of rough hands leaving behind bruises, taking their due and throwing money at him afterwards.
Fight back.
He couldn't. Dad wasn't back yet. They needed the money. Sam was hungry.
Dad's dead. Fight.
Dean's eyes snapped open, and the memories cleared. He shifted, ready to send the guy flying, but before he could, the weight pushing against him eased. The man backed away, and Dean could breathe again. He gasped for air, inhaling fast and shallow as his heart tried to beat its way out of his chest.
Oxygen rushed to his brain, and his body finally made sense of the signals firing through his synapses. He threw a punch, slower than usual and way off the mark, giving the guy plenty of time to jump out of the way.
"Whoa, there," said the man, throwing his hands up and flashing a smile. "I take it that means you don't want to go out some time."
The smile set Dean off. Fire surged, and his vision clouded. He grabbed the stranger by the lapels of his coat and flipped their positions, slamming the guy against the tree.
"What the hell?" the man shouted.
Dean pushed him harder against the trunk and snarled, "Why did you do that?"
"Because you're hot." He didn't lower his hands, keeping them up like he was trying to stop a crazy person from going over the rails. "Would you relax?"
Dean's heart beat fast enough to hurt, and his throat burned as he struggled to force oxygen through his airways. But the worst part was the prickling of his eyes.
He pushed away, and the guy winced as it forced him harder against the tree. Dean stepped back, looking away and blinking hard as he snapped, "Get out of here."
The guy didn't need telling twice. He edged away, keeping Dean in his sight until he was a few feet away, at which point he turned and sped off but not before muttering, "Freak."
Dean squeezed his eyes shut, and a long breath shuddered out of him, shaking through him all the way to the tips of his fingers. He ran a hand down his face as the other clenched into a fist, blunt nails digging into skin.
The memories were gone, forced back to the darkest corner of his mind, yet the taste of them lingered at the surface. They were unclean—filthy and reeking and clinging to him in a way he knew would never wash off. Men, faceless and nameless, coming and going as Dean lay there like a cut of meat on the counter, waiting for the next butcher to take a stab at him. He couldn't fight; he'd invited them to do this to him, sometimes begged—God, the sick pleasure they'd gotten out of that, feeding off his desperation as they'd used him in any way they saw fit, knowing he wouldn't put up a fight.
The stinging in his eyes turned to burning tears, slipping out and running down his cheeks for anyone to see. No matter how hard he tried to force them back, no matter how hard he tried to forget, the tears fell, and it tore away at his insides.
He wanted to feel the warm, familiar embrace of anger, needed the comforting burn of wrath—anything to fill the pathetic well of murky, tainted waters that had been carved into him all those years ago. But the anger refused to rain down. It trickled in, but wouldn't wash away the feeling that made him want to claw at his own skin.
With a shaky exhale that was close to turning into a scream, Dean swung around hard and fast, slamming his fist into the tree. Pain throbbed up his arm, ringing through his bones all the way up to his shoulder. His knuckles cracked, and a couple of his fingers moved in ways they shouldn't, dislocating at the joints, but he didn't care.
His focus slipped to the physical discomfort and away from everything else.
It worked in a way—pushing the despair to the edges of his thoughts—but he could still feel it there, lurking, waiting for his head to clear enough for it to return and take root.
He needed a better solution, and he knew exactly where to find one.
A/N n°2: I didn't take as much time to edit this chapter as I would have liked, so I hope it isn't too bad. If you spot any mistakes or feel like I cheated Joyce out of more screentime, let me know and I'll fix it/see what I can do!