Where Do We Go From Here? ↳ Dean Winchester

Twenty- Eight

(Author's Note: riley^^)
*****

After I left the hospital, I went back to the motel. I saw the impala parked outside, but it was so late, so I figured the boys would be asleep by now.

My steps were silent as I opened the door and went inside. As predicted, the boys were both fast asleep in separate beds. I quietly took off my jacket and set it on the table in the kitchen area. The only food in here is an unopened bag of potato chips. I didn't want to wake them up, so I didn't eat any.

I took Sam's laptop from the night table and opened it up out at the kitchen. I probably shouldn't touch it, because Sam's basically married to it. Oh, well. It's not like I have my own.

When I opened it, a case popped up immediately. Must be Sam found this right before he went to sleep.

The case that popped up in front of me was in Alliance, Nebraska. As I read through the article, it says something like, 'something crawled through her skull'. Ugh.

____________________

Looking at her body the next morning at the morgue in Alliance wasn't too pleasant. Sam nearly winced from how terrible it looked.

"When they brought her in, we thought she was attacked by a wolf or something," the guy who works here says. "But we were wrong." He pulls a small, clear plastic bag out of his pocket, holding it up in front of us. In the bag was a press-on nail, with blood on it. "It's a press on nail. We found it in her temporal lobe."

"Is that even possible?" Sam asks.

"Wait, are you saying that she did this to herself?" Dean questions. The coroner nods.

"Uh-huh. She scratched her brains out. It'd take hours and it'd hurt like hell, but, sure, it's possible."

"How?"

"Pick your acronym. OCD, PCP, it all spells crazy. My guess? Some kind of phantom itch. I mean, an extreme case, but---"

"Phantom itch?" Sam asks.

"Yeah," the coroner says, as he slides her body back into the slot thing. "All it takes is someone talking about an itch, or thinking about one, and suddenly you can't stop scratching." We thank the coroner for the help as he walks back into an office. After leaving the morgue, we head over to the house that the victim, Amber, died in. She was babysitting. We had to go talk to the kid's parents, who found Amber dead on the couch when they got home.

Sam mostly does all the talking, since I don't really like talking to people and Dean is checking around the house a little for signs of demons or something.

So, there were no signs of demons, according to the parents. But when we left the house, Dean was carrying something.

"What's that?" I ask, curious. He holds it up. It reads 'Itching Powder'.

"Kid said he put this on the babysitter's hairbrush," he explains. Sam has an amused look on his face.

"Dean, there's no way itching powder made that girl scratch her brains out," he argues. "It's just ground up maple seeds."

"You have any theories, I'm open to them." Suddenly Sam's phone rang.

"Yeah," he answers. He gives Dean a look. "Yeah, we'll be right there." Okay, so someone died again?

Yep, someone got electrocuted.

"Any idea how?" Dean asks the coroner an hour later as they take the body away on a carrier.

"Maybe a loose wire or a piece of equipment shorted out. So far, we haven't found anything."

"Witnesses?"

"Yeah, guy in there. Mr. Stanley." He nods to the next room. I look in the room and see an old guy in a chair. "He says he saw it, but he's not making a lick of sense." We walk into the room, Sam leading.

"Mr. Stanley?" He asks. The man doesn't move.

"It was just a joke," he mumbles. "I didn't know it would really work." I can sense he's feeling extremely guilty.

"What would work?" Dean asks. The old man turns his head, looking at us.

"All I did was shake his hand," he says, sounding like he's about to cry. He held up his hand, a strange piece of silver sitting in it. I immediately recognized it as a kid's toy that is supposed to shock a person you shake hands with. Dylan and I used to play with them all the time. But they're not supposed to work.

Back in the motel room, Dean tries it out on some sort of raw meat, but I can't put a name on it. The toy fries it up good. "What the hell?" Sam asks. "That crap isn't supposed to work."

"This thing doesn't even have batteries," Dean says.

"So, what? Are we looking at cursed objects?"

"Sounds good." Dean starts cutting up the cooked piece of meat. "Maybe there's a powerful witch in town. Is there any link between the joy buzzer and the itching powder?"

"Uh, one was made in China, the other in Mexico, bought from the same store," Sam explains.

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Sam decided that Dean and I should check out the store. There has been this terrible tension between us since I confessed my feelings for him. But I cannot undo what I said. Well, I could with my angel powers, but I'm not going to do that to Dean.

"Well, I didn't notice anything off about that place," he mutters as we walk down the street back to the motel. The store and motel are right down the street from each other, so we decided not to drive.

I don't say anything to him, just nod a little and walk next to him, with my hands shoved into my sweater pockets. How can I hunt with them if I don't even feel comfortable talking to them?

"Can't you just forget what I said?" The questions leaves my mouth before I can stop myself. I keep my eyes away from him, staring at the sidewalk in front of me as I walk.

"What?" He asks. Okay, this just got awkward.

"All those things I said before—can you just forget about that? Every time we're near each other there's this unbearable tension. I can't stand it." We both stay quiet for a few minutes, the sound of our shoes hitting the pavement and cars passing by filling our ears. "You were right, anyways. There's more important stuff to worry about right now." I look up at him, but he keeps his eyes on the pavement. For a second it seems like he has a sad look on his face. "Right?" I question, eyebrows lowering a little.

"Yeah, of course." He seems hesitant in his answer, unsure of whether he is saying the right thing or not.

*****

Sorry I haven't updated in forever, but I've been so busy with school work and I sorta have writers block.

I hope you like this chapter :-)

—M