So, I had two chappies written, one with Sam and this one with Dean...I decided to post this one first, don't ask me why cause i'll be darned if I know...thanks for reading and for all the wonderful reviews!! bambers;)
Chapter Forty-Six
From her seat at the bar, Marianna noticed the younger man the moment he stepped into the bar. The bearded man stood at the entrance for several very long moments, looking around the room as if trying to find someone, but then took a seat by himself at the far corner of the establishment. Through veiled eyes, she watched as he lowered his head to rest against laced fingers. A deep and unsettling sadness exuded from him, and even from where she sat, she could tell he was trembling as if in pain.
Gaining the bartender's attention, she tapped her mug then raised two fingers, and he winked in response. Within a moment, the dark-haired bartender placed two beers in front of her, and as she went to hand him some money to pay for them he gave a quick shake of his head.
"It's on the house," he said with a smile before returning his attention to the other bar patrons.
Marianna slipped off her barstool, and carrying the two drinks in hand, she headed over to the desolate looking man she had been watching. Clearing her throat to gain his attention, she set one of the glass mugs down in front of him. "Here, I thought you looked as if you could use a drink."
The young, green-eyed man glanced up at her, and a brief smile lit across his haggard features. "Actually, I probably look like I could use several drinks." He let out a short mirthless laugh. "But this'll get me started. Thanks."
Without waiting for him to offer her a seat, she slid onto the bench seat across from him. "You also look as if you could use someone to talk to, an' I've always been told that I'm a good listener."
Dean eyed the older woman for a moment, and for some strange reason he found it comforting to stare into her kindly bluish-gray eyes. Just a hint of gray touched her long, wavy chestnut hair, and from that he surmised that she must have been in her late forties. From the small creases in the corners of her eyes, he gathered that she had laughed often in her life. And there was a gentleness in her smile that immediately set him at ease.
"Look, I'm not lookin' for . . . ." his voice trailed off, suddenly feeling awkward that the older woman was trying to pick him up, and he was about to turn her down.
"Whoa, easy there tiger," she chuckled, "I mean you're cute an' all, but you're young enough to be my son." She laughed heartily when the heat rose to flush Dean's face. "In fact, you're probably just about the same age as my oldest boy."
If it were even possible, Dean's cheeks grew even warmer in embarrassment. He licked his suddenly dry lips as he thought of what to say. "I'm sorry, I jus' . . . ." his voice trailed off as he scratched at the back of his head. "I'm jus' not in the mood for company."
"Oh, alright," she uttered, clear disappointment in her tone as she moved to stand, but then stopped short. "You know, sometimes it helps to talk to strangers. They can't judge you cause they don't know you. An' if you don't mind me saying, you look as if the weight of the world is dragging you down."
"I look that bad, do I?" Another wry laugh issued past Dean's lips. "Damn, an' here I thought I was hiding it pretty well, too."
"Naww . . . not that bad." She smiled as she held out her hand to shake his, "I'm Marianna McLane, by the way."
He took her hand in his, and held it for a moment longer than necessary, before letting go. "I'm . . . Dean . . . Dean Winchester," he had thought to lie to her, but his real name slipped from his lips before he could stop himself.
"So, Dean, do you have any family living around here?" She quirked a delicate brow as she waited intently for his response.
For a moment, he thought to mention Sam to her, but then shook his head. "I don't have any family left." A sad smile lingered on his lips as he said this. Swallowing hard against the painful lump forming in his throat, he took a long drink of his beer.
"I'm sorry." She took hold of his hand, and gently squeezed it in a reassuring manner. "I have two sons, but they don't live around here. An' my husband's . . . well, he' been gone for a while now. So I'm pretty much on my own, too." Marianna met and held his gaze as she went on to say, "I just moved here not too long ago. I bought the Simmon's place out on Cold Creek Road." She hitched her free hand over her shoulder as if gesturing toward the direction of her home.
"The Simmon's place?" Dean's posture instantly stiffened, recalling the home with startling clarity. The last time he had passed through Elmira, New York with Sam, they'd come across several nasty spirits living in the old farm home where she now resided. Although they had finally dispelled them all, Sam had been badly injured, and Dean had ended up rushing him to the hospital. "I thought that home was condemned?"
"Well, it probably should've been," she admitted rather reluctantly. "It needs a lot of work before I can get the farm up and running, but I just fell in love with the place the moment I saw it."
"How is the house . . . I mean, do you ever see or feel as if something is off about it?" he asked, then mentally kicked himself for bringing the topic of hunting into their conversation.
"Oh, you must've heard from the locals that it's haunted, right?" Her eyes widened a bit in clear surprise that Dean would believe in ghosts. "If you wanna call having a bad electrical system and the sounds of the house settling being haunted, then I guess it is, but I don't believe in ghosts."
"So your lights flicker?" Dean lifted a brow in interest. He had been certain at the time that they had gotten rid of all the evil spirits in her home, but now he wasn't so sure anymore. "Do you ever feel unnatural cold spots anywhere in your home?" he asked, and cringed when she cast a quizzical glance in his direction.
"I feel breezes if that's what you mean." She took a sip of her beer and then set the glass down. "But I blame that on bad windows and not other earthly beings."
"Any weird scratching noises?"
"Are you asking if I have mice in my house, Dean?" She chuckled.
"Yeah," he laughed awkwardly, "sorry about that." There was no point in getting her upset if nothing strange was happening in her home. It was an old home after all, and everything he had asked her could happen in a turn-of-the century dwelling.
"Yeah, well, I probably do," she conceded with a troubled frown. "But the problem is, no one will come out an' give me a hand to fix anything because apparently a few years ago some kids were murdered there." She heaved a sigh as she grabbed for her drink again. After taking a long swallow, she added, "So, I've been basically doing everything I can on my my own."
"An' it doesn't bother you that kids died in your house?"
"Well, if they actually died there, it would definitely bother me." Marianna brushed her fingertips through her hair as her smiled waned. "But from everything I researched before actually buying the house, there's no proof that anyone ever died there."
From everything Dean and Sam had researched, she was right to a certain extent. Five teenagers had gone to the old abandon home to camp out for the night, but by morning they had all vanished without a trace. After an extensive search turned up nothing, the people of the town had the home boarded up, and for the most part everyone stayed away as the murmured whispers of evil spirits residing within the home grew. Now with Marianna living there, Dean couldn't help but worry if he and Sam had taken care of all the evil beings living in the dwelling.
"You play pool, Dean?" Marianna asked in an obvious attempt to change the subject.
"I'm pretty good at it," Dean admitted, although he really wasn't in the mood for a game.
"I'll bet ya twenty bucks I can beat you," She challenged with a saucy grin. Leaning forward in her seat, she rested her forearms on the table. "So what'd ya say?"
"Sure, I'll play a game or two." Dean didn't like the idea of hustling money from the older woman who had been so nice to him, but he really needed the money. He slid out of his seat and followed her to the pool tables. After racking up the balls, he tossed a twenty dollar bill down on the ledge of the table and gestured for her to go first.
Although, admittedly, she wasn't that bad at the game, and had a few really lucky shots, she was no match for Dean's skill. From years of experience, he missed just enough shots to make her believe she had a chance to win big if she kept playing.
"Nice shot," he commented when she sunk the eight ball, winning the second game, "Wanna play again?"
"Sure." she smiled as she pulled forty dollars out of her wallet and set it on the table. "My husband taught me how to play pool. Of course I never won, but he really enjoyed to play, an' so I learned to really love the game."
"My Dad played pool, too," Dean found himself saying without a given thought. "He taught me everything he knew." A small smile crept across his face as he recalled his father showing him how to line up a shot. His smile grew remembering the exhilaration he felt the first time he sunk a ball in the pocket. That a boy, Dean, won't be too long before you're beatin' your old man at the game. His father hefted him up in his arms, and wrapping his them firmly around him, he hugged him tightly. "My brother, Sammy, he never really liked the game much, so it was something jus' me an' my Did for fun."
"You're smilin'." She gestured toward his face before leaning over the table to take her shot. "It must've been a really nice memory," she added as she took her shot and missed.
"It was," Dean mumbled. He fell silent as he took his shot and easily sunk the striped ball in the corner pocket.
Dean won the third game they played, but allowed her to win the forth and fifth. As he mentally calculated the money sitting on the ledge of the table, and realized there was about three hundred dollars there, he knew it was time to go in for the kill. "Last game, double or nothing?" He felt a little bad for suggesting it at first, but from what information he had gleaned from her as they played, she had just come into a sizable inheritance and that was how she was able to afford the farm house where she now lived.
"Alright," she said with a slight shrug, "Are you sure you can afford it? I don't wanna take money from you if it's all you have."
"Yeah, I got it covered," Dean lied, knowing that every cent he had to his name was now sitting on the pool table. But as he didn't plan on losing, he wasn't worried. "You can go first."
Marianna leaned over the table, sized up her shot, and broke. "Damn," she cursed when not one ball went into a pocket. "Your turn." She stepped aside to allow Dean to take his shot.
Dean sunk three balls before he purposely missed, not wanting her to realize that he had just conned her into losing all her money.
Marianna crouched to eye the balls on the table, then pointed at the seven ball with her pool cue. "Seven ball off the cushion, corner pocket," she said right before sinking the shot. Moving around the table, she lined up her next shot. She stretched out the cue to gesture her next shot. "Four ball off the bumper, side pocket." With practiced ease, she sunk the shot. As she moved around to the front of the table, she called out her next shot. "Five ball off the cushion." She pointed toward the far end of the table, then pointed to the pocket beside her on the table. "Corner pocket." Again she made the shot with the slightest of ease.
She continued around the table calling off her shots, and making them all until there was only the eight ball left. "I don't like being conned, Dean," she uttered as she took the shot and sunk the ball, winning the game.
"You – you conned me," Dean uttered in stunned disbelief, stomach churning as he realized he didn't have enough money to pay the bet.
"Well, you planned on conning me, so I thought it was only fair." She held out her hand expectantly, and waved it in front of Dean. "You owe me six hundred dollars, so pay up."
"I don't have it," Dean muttered after a long pause, and splaying his arms out to the sides, he gestured toward the money on the table in a defeated manner. "Everything I have is on that table."
"Which you bet cause you didn't think you would lose," she knowingly replied. "Never bet more than you can afford to lose, cause there's always gonna be someone better at the game than you, Dean."
"Look, I'm really sorry." He scrubbed his hand through his scruffy beard as he thought of way he could get out of the bar without having to pay her. "I don't have the money," he finally said, hoping she would understand, but deep down knowing she wouldn't.
Marianna chewed at her lower lip as she studied Dean for a moment, and then gave a curt nod. "Alright, Dean," she took the money off the table and handed it back to Dean. "You need the money, an' I need someone to help me get my farm up and running. So you work for me until all the money's paid off, and we're even."
"I don't know anything about running a farm," Dean reluctantly admitted as he pocketed the money she gave him.
"That's okay, neither do I." She cast a winsome smile in his direction. "So, maybe we can learn together. Besides it seems to me as if you don't really have anywhere else to go at the moment, an' it gets kinda lonely livin' in that big old house by myself." She chuckled as she headed toward the door with Dean following closely behind her. "An' maybe while you're there, you can do something about all the field mice I've been hearing in the walls at night."
Hearing this, Dean wondered again if he and Sam had rid the house of every evil presence that dwelled within the walls and rafters. If they hadn't, it would be a perfect opportunity to make sure Marianna was safe inside her own home. "So for how long are we talkin' about here?"
Marianna paused in her steps and turned to look at Dean. "Well, there's the six hundred you lost," she tapped on her hand with one finger, "then there's the three hundred I just gave you back," she tapped a second finger on her hand, "Which is nine hundred dollars you owe me. If I include room and board as part of your pay, I'm thinkin' three weeks should pretty much cover it."
"Alright, three weeks sounds fair." He extended his hand, and she took hold of it, shaking it to seal their deal.
"I promise you, you're not gonna regret this decision, Dean," she called back over her shoulder as she headed out the door. "I think it's exactly what you need to bring back a smile to your face."