Chapter Text
Dean Winchester has never especially believed in the supernatural. Lately, though, he finds himself hoping that ghosts are real. Because the alternatives to his apartment being haunted are worse. Much worse.
Either he’s losing his damn mind.
Or someone else is in there when he’s out.
The thought alone is enough to make him want to throw up. And until now he’s done an admirable job of avoiding entertaining the possibility.
Unfortunately, denial will only get you so far.
The weird thing is that he’s reasonably sure that it isn’t the feds. It’s not their style. Not that it even matters; he has fucked up the job he’s here to do, so he’s not involved in anything that would get their rocks off. He’s just bumming around, waiting for his dad to come get him so he can get the hell out of Lawrence.
But until that happens, he has no choice but to stay put. And he’s not going to just be a sitting duck for whoever is terrorizing him.
His options are pretty damn limited, though.
Which is why he’s currently at his local police station. Yeah, he’s going to the goddamn pigs.
There’s no reason why it wouldn’t be fine. For the first time in years he’s even using his real name – it had been necessary for the college enrollment that’s his cover – so he doesn’t even have to worry about an alias holding up under scrutiny. And they’re always careful not to leave a trail. Someone would literally have to recognize him across state lines from his face alone. He’s just your everyday white, male college student reporting a messed up crime.
Should be fine.
He’s still sweating like a sinner in church while he’s standing in the insufferably long queue. And it’s not due to the leather jacket he’s wearing, because it’s freezing in here even though it’s only October.
He taps his fingers against the worn denim of his jeans, humming Metallica under his breath. He stops shifting his boots against the ill-chosen carpet once the elderly lady in front of him turns around to give him the evil eye.
After what feels like hours he steps up to the dark-haired woman manning the counter. He plasters a smile over his frayed nerves, ”Hi there, I would like to report a crime.”
She sends him a thoroughly unimpressed look and slides a clipboard across the counter, ”Fill this out,” she tells him in a monotonous voice.
Dean stares at the boxes after boxes on the paper. It suddenly makes sense why everyone in front of him had taken a seat immediately after getting their clipboard. He shuffles out of the way of the guy behind him, who’s already in conversation with the paper pusher.
He sits in one of the few empty plastic chairs, digs around in his backpack until he finds half a pencil at the bottom, and then gets started on filling out what turns out to be several pages of questions. It feels distinctly like something he could have done while waiting in line the first time around.
Once he’s done, he looks around and realizes that he’ll have to get back in line to turn in the papers. This whole exercise increasingly feels like a way to decrease the number of reported crimes. Especially once he sees a balding man turn in his clipboard only to be instructed to once again take a seat and realizes that everyone sitting down without a clipboard are just waiting.
He bites the inside of his cheek to avoid screaming. Surely they’re going to have a different procedure for dangerous crimes.
He digs out another smile once it’s his turn, dialing up the charm. It’s wasted on the lady, though, because her gaze is fixed on a point to Dean’s left. For the first time her expression is warm.
Dean barely has time to turn towards the source of rare pleasure before there’s a looming, uniformed presence at his shoulder. Every muscle in his body seizes up until he manages to get them back under control. He turns towards the cop, discreetly putting an extra inch of space between them.
The man has messy dark hair and stubble on his face, contrasting his lighter skin. His name tag reads C. Novak. There’s something vaguely familiar about his face, but there’s a real possibility that it’s just the bi part of Dean’s brain that has decided to take a vested interest in blue eyes and a strong jaw, with no regard to the uniform below.
”I’ll take this one from here, Mindy,” the voice is far too deep for the man’s age. He’s older than Dean by a fair bit, probably late thirties, but definitely too young for the whiskey over gravel thing he has going.
Mindy blushes, ”Of course, Officer. Let me just,” she reaches for the clipboard in Dean’s hand, but the cop beats her to it.
”Allow me, I know you have plenty of paperwork already.”
The reply is a peal of laughter, followed by a ”Ain’t that the truth.” Though at that point the cop has moved all of his attention to Dean instead.
The intense focus in his blue eyes is slightly unnerving, until it dials back to a pleasant interest, ”If you’ll follow me, Mr. Winchester.”
The use of his name catches Dean off-guard, even though he’s written it in his perpetually caps-locked scrawl at the top of the clipboard in the cop’s hand. He manages to pull himself together fast enough that he hopes he avoids looking like an idiot, ”Um, sure,” he gets out. He does his best to ignore the hostile looks he’s drawing from the rest of the people waiting as he follows Novak’s broad back.
The fluorescent light and ugly blue carpet continues in the hallway and all the way into a shared office space. The desks are close together, the place is practically crawling with large, uniformed cops, and an intense claustrophobia is crawling up on Dean.
Reality starts to feel fuzzy around the edges, and his nose burns with a phantom smell of pepper. Crap. He can’t afford for this to happen right now.
”Officer,” Dean forces out, immediately feeling like an idiot, as every single person in this space probably responds to that title. But Novak turns to look at him with an inquiring expression, ”Can we do this someplace else? My issue is… kind of sensitive,” Dean lamely finishes. It’s a solid excuse. And it’s not a lie either.
He hones in on the embarrassment, using it to override everything else he’s feeling. His face likely takes an alarming turn from grey to red, but Novak is just studying him with mild interest.
”Of course,” Novak guides him out of the room, into another hallway. This one doesn’t have carpet, instead the floor is raw concrete, making the fluorescent lighting seem harsher.
Things get exponentially worse once Novak opens the door to an interrogation room. Dean stops abruptly.
Novak tilts his head at him, a line appearing between his eyebrows as he clocks Dean’s aggressively obvious discomfort, ”I’m afraid this is our only option if you want privacy. We can go back to my desk if you’d prefer?” He offers.
”No, no, this is fine,” Dean rushes to say in an impersonation of a guy that doesn’t have any reason to have an adverse reaction to this room.
Novak hesitates, clearly giving him time to change his mind. So Dean steps into the room, throwing a reassuring smile over his shoulder. Novak nods, ”Okay. I’m getting a cup of coffee. Can I get you anything?”
”Coffee sounds good,” Dean says, stomping down his panic at realizing that Novak is going to leave him in here alone. Which is absurd. The uniform leaving should improve his emotional state, not worsen it.
”Perfect. I’ll be back in a minute. Make yourself at home.”
The irony of the sentiment is hammered home by the door closing behind Novak, leaving Dean entombed in the bleak room. The door probably isn’t locked, but it’s not like Dean is going to embarrass himself by checking. And from the feeling settling in his stomach it might as well be.
Dean pushes past the sensation of not being able to breathe properly. Instead he focuses on mechanical tasks. Take off the bag. Set it on the floor. Remove jacket. Drape it over the back of the chair. Sit down.
Sit down dammit.
He can’t wrench his eyes from the metal cuff bar integrated into the table.
It isn’t until the door opens behind him that he’s pulled out of it. Novak is carrying two cups of coffee. It’s ceramic cups, not single-use, which helps Dean claw his way back to reality. Novak tilts his head at him, ”Are you okay?”
”Yeah, yeah, sorry. Just the whole atmosphere in here,” Dean says with a laugh he hopes comes across as disarming. He sits down to avoid looking unhinged before they even start.
Novak smiles tightly at him, ”It’s completely normal to have that reaction to these rooms,” he tells him while putting the cups down. It’s all very Civilian Handling 101. He takes the notebook he has tucked under an arm and places it in front of the seat he takes, ”So, Dean, what can I do for you?”
”Um,” Dean can feel his blush creeping back in. He reaches for his cup for something to do with his hands, ”This is going to sound a bit… but I’m pretty sure someone is in my apartment when I’m not there?”
”Like squatters?”
”No, not exactly,” Dean bites his lip, ”Lately stuff has started going missing?”
Novak’s confusion clears, ”Oh, you’re reporting a break-in?”
”In a way,” Jesus, why is this so hard? Dean swallows heavily, ”They haven’t taken anything valuable.”
”I’m not following,” Novak says. Dean wants to make a snide remark about the intelligence of cops, but in this case the confusion is definitely warranted. ”Can you start at the beginning?”
”Good idea,” Dean laughs, it’s obnoxious and nervous, ”Okay, so it started like, I don’t know, a couple months ago? For a long time it was mainly just stuff being moved. And I thought I was maybe just remembering wrong, you know?”
Novak flips open his notebook and clicks his pen, ”Can you give an example?”
”Sure. At first it would be like a stack of paper slightly shifted. But then it increasingly would be things like a cup I knew I had used that morning sitting clean in my cupboard when I got home later,” Novak is looking at him like he might be pulling his chain, so Dean rushes to add, ”I live on like 300 square feet, I only own the one cup.”
Novak is still looking skeptical, but he still prompts, ”And then something else happened?”
”Yes. When I got home from class this morning a pair of my boxers was missing.” As well as his carefully hidden .45, which was the part that tipped Dean all the way into panic. But that one is ten kinds of illegal, so there’s no way he’s about to mention it to a cop.
”A pair of… boxers?” Novak asks, ”And they’re identifiable enough that you feel certain?”
”Um, they’re just black boxers,” Dean’s cheeks are hot.
Novak puts down his pen and sits back in his chair, ”What is this, Dean? Is this some kind of college hazing ritual?”
Dean’s eyes widen, ”No, no. It’s not, I promise.” Not least because he’s twenty-three and too old for that shit.
Novak doesn’t look convinced at all. Even though he’s by some sort of miracle still looking exasperated rather than angry or on the verge or charging Dean with wasting police resources.
”I’m just embarrassed, I’m sorry,” Dean fixes his gaze on the cup of coffee he still hasn’t taken a single sip from, ”I, um, I came in them, alright?”
That gains him Novak’s interest, but the officer merely prompts him to continue.
”I jerked off this morning, used the boxers to clean up and then dumped them on the floor to deal with later because I was about to be late for class,” Dean rattles off. He chances a look at Novak, who’s looking intrigued.
”And when you got home your come-soaked boxers were gone?” Novak asks, attention fully on Dean’s face.
Dean blinks at the coarse phrasing, but at least they’re getting somewhere. He slowly nods, ”Exactly.”
”Was the door locked?”
”Yes. Locked door. Closed window as well for that matter, though I live on the third floor, so, you know. No signs of anyone breaking in at all.”
”Does anyone apart from yourself have a key to your apartment?”
Dean shakes his head, ”No.”
”Huh,” Novak simply says.
”Yeah, it’s pretty freaky, right?”
Novak tilts his head while he looks at the meager notes he’s jotted down, ”Sounds like you might have a stalker.”
”I… what?” It’s not like Dean hasn’t entertained the possibility. But it feels very different to get the message delivered by a uniformed police officer, ”Who would want to stalk me?”
”It’s usually a sexual or romantic partner,” Novak tells him.
”Don’t have any of those.”
”Former?”
”Er, no. I have an ex-girlfriend, Lisa, but she has blocked my number. So it’s probably not her,” Dean says with an uncomfortable laugh.
”Yes, that does sound unlikely. Anyone else?”
”No.”
”When I arrested you for public intoxication a while back, you used your phone call on a young woman that refused to speak to you. Was that Lisa or was it someone else?”
Fuck. That’s why Novak seems familiar. That entire night is a blur of terrible decisions, and frankly Dean has a hard time recalling using his call on Lisa. It definitely sounds like him, though, ”That was Lisa,” Dean mumbles, shame coating the words like it always does when he thinks of how desperate he got after she got tired of his bullshit and dumped him.
Novak nods and blessedly chooses to move on, ”Okay. What does your network look like?”
Dean stares into his cup, ”Well, uh, I have a friend; Benny.”
And that’s it.
At least the part he’s willing to share with a cop. He has a little brother who has ditched him to get a fancy Stanford degree, as well as a dad he hasn’t as much as heard from in months. So the pathetic picture he’s painting for Novak isn’t really that far off.
”Tell me about Benny.”
”I… er… Are you sure that’s relevant?” Dean asks. Novak nods, so he continues, ”Okay, sure. We met at uni when I started last year. Became friends. He’s graduated now, teaches history at a high school. And, I don’t know. There’s not much to tell.”
”Have you ever had sex with him?” Novak bluntly asks.
Dean laughs uncomfortably, ”Depends how you define sex,” that earns him a dark, unamused glower from Novak, so he sobers up, ”There has been a single incident of some drunk fooling around. Just, you know, college experimentation.”
”I’m going to need more details than that.”
Christ, ”Er… It was a couple months back I think, at his house. Just mutual handjobs,” Dean shrugs.
”Who initiated it?” Novak asks.
”I don’t remember. I was pretty drunk at the time. Does it matter?”
”Yes.”
”Wait, you think it’s Benny?” Dean asks, suddenly clued in by Novak’s dog-with-a-bone demeanor, ”It’s not Benny.”
”Males with a current or former intimate relation to the victim are some of the most common perpetrators of these kinds of crimes,” Novak tells him, full profiling mode.
”I don’t know about statistics, but I can assure you it’s not Benny. We’re friends. We’re both straight,” well, some more than others, but he’s not about to tell a cop that he’s queer, ”And he’s just not the type. He hasn’t expressed interest in me either for that matter. Wouldn’t that be the obvious place to start before, y’know, the stalking?”
”That’s not how these people’s minds work,” Novak says with the dark look of a man who has seen some shit. Dean suppresses a shudder at the thought.
”Well…” Dean says, ”It’s not Benny, alright?”
There’s a long moment where it seems like Novak might continue to pursue the matter. Then he drops it, ”Okay. Have you noticed anything else strange?”
Dean searches his memory before coming up with ”No.”
”Any strangers? Anything at school?”
”No.”
Novak makes a couple of notes, scans over the page and nods slowly, ”I’ll file this, but I have to warn you that it’s unlikely to lead to further action.”
”You’re not going to do anything?” Dean asks, alarm creeping into his tone.
Novak’s expression slides into pity, ”I understand that this situation is unpleasant for you. But we have very limited resources, so without concrete evidence, no suspects…”
The bottom has dropped out of his stomach and his eyes are hot, but Dean’s voice is flat when he replies, ”Right.”
”Please don’t hesitate to contact us again if the situation escalates,” Novak says, clearly gearing up to end the conversation.
To Dean’s horror he feels tears start to slip down his face, ”Oh God,” he rubs the sleeve of his flannel across his face in rough swipes.
He shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not like he doesn’t already know that cops are dangerous at worst, and fucking useless at best. His dad would tear him a new one if he discovered that Dean had tried to get help from fucking five-o. It’s goddamn embarrassing.
”Hey, hey,” Novak reaches across the table to cover his hand with his own, ”It’s okay to be scared,” he says, then stops to consider something, indecision warring on his face, ”Tell you what, you can have my number,” he removes his hand to write in the corner of his notebook. He rips it off when he’s done and slides the slip to Dean, ”Call me if anything happens and I’ll see what I can do, alright?”
Dean wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, fighting against the impulse to scrub it against his jeans to remove the lingering sense of a cop touching him. There’s no way he’s using the number written below the ’Cas Novak’ on the slip of paper. This is already humiliating enough as is, but he pockets the paper with a ”Thank you,” and a smile he hopes doesn’t look too forced.
----
The urge to say fuck it all, hot-wire a car and get out of here is strong enough to make the idea seem almost viable. But it’s not. Even if he succeeded in tracking his dad down he could ruin months’ work and compromise the entire operation. He can’t jeopardize it all just because he’s chickenshit. He has to follow orders. And that means putting on his big-boy pants and stay in Lawrence, as well as dealing with his shit himself.
Everything inside of Dean rebels against the thought of opening the door to his apartment. He’s gonna have to do it eventually, though, so he pushes past the trepidation and does it anyway.
He does a quick sweep of the cramped space.
No boogeymen. Nothing out of place.
His heart is still hammering at full force in his chest, but he steps inside, closing and locking the door behind him. He slides the door chain into place. The flimsy chain isn’t going to do much if someone tries to force entry, but he’s going to take as many precautions as possible. He’s sorely tempted to barricade the door as well, but decides against it. It’s the wrong side of paranoid and won’t do anything to get his building anxiety under control.
With shaking hands he takes off his shoes. He puts down his bag and removes his jacket.
He’s too worked up to study or relax and he’s definitely too nauseous to eat anything. He needs to do something other than frantically checking and double checking for danger, though.
A shower. It’s somewhat productive and might even help calm him down.
He closes the blinds and sheds his clothes, working fast in an attempt to outrun the fear. The only thing it accomplishes is leaving him naked as well as afraid.
His eyes go to the drawer where he keeps his kitchen knives. He discards the thought. Leaving a knife in the bathroom sink while he showers is practically begging to get stabbed. And, again, too paranoid. Not helping.
In the bathroom he closes the door behind him. Limiting the space makes him feel safer. He turns on the shower, instantly disliking the way the sound of the water limits his ability to hear anything else. He gets in without waiting for it to heat up.
The shower isn’t relaxing at all. His heart is beating just as fast as before, and he can’t stop himself from pulling the shower curtain back every other second to check that the door is still closed. Eventually he just leaves the curtain open, accepting the fact that his entire bathroom is getting soaked.
When the phantom sounds become too much, he shuts off the water and gets out. He’s feeling untethered while he towels off, like he’s hovering outside of his trembling body.
Looking for a weapon is second nature, but his gaze skips uselessly over bare tiles. Nothing usable. It’s just as well. He doesn’t need at weapon. He needs to calm the fuck down.
He wraps the towel around his hips and puts his hand on the door handle.
He can’t open it.
He doesn’t want to.
The bathroom feels like the only safe space. He knows that he’s alone in here. He doesn’t know what’s going to meet him once he opens the door.
Most likely nothing. Right?
He argues with himself.
Bargains.
But the alarm bells going off in his head are blaring at top volume, overpowering any sense of reason.
The sense of being outside his own body gets stronger. The hand he’s looking down at doesn’t seem as if it’s his own. The tan skin, bitten nails, white scars. It all seems like it belongs to someone else. Like this is all happening to someone else.
1 – 2 – 3
The hand pushes the handle down and shoves the door open.
The rest of the apartment is empty.
Everything is exactly like he left it.
He takes a breath, the sound loud and uneven and not even close to reaching his lungs. He tries again. And again.
Then his eyes go to the front door.
His mind goes completely blank.
And the panic hits like an explosive blast slamming into him.
The chain lock is gone.
Not unlocked.
Gone.
The only sign it was ever there, not just a figment of his imagination, are the holes from the screws.
No.
Nonono.
He scans over the apartment. No one is in here right now except for him.
He lunges for his clothes, blindly pulling them on without taking his eyes off the front door. He grabs his backpack and starts shoving things into it. He hits the back of his thigh hard on the edge of his dresser as he moves through his space with his front facing the door. He curses, gripping the area but still not daring to look away from the door.
He gets his sneakers on, backpack slung over his shoulder and jacket gripped in his hand. Then he dials a number before opening the door.
The phone rings for long seconds while Dean is alone in the hallway. He barely has the presence of mind to lock the door behind him. Then the phone gets picked up, ”Dean?”
”Hi, Benny,” his voice breaks on Benny’s name. Benny’s alarmed reply is instant, but Dean is feeling too much relief for there to be room for embarrassment.