A/N: Don't know when this story takes place doesn't really matter. On second thought, I think I'll place it in Season 2. I referenced monsters that happened in Season 6 but that doesn't mean that they didn't run across similar situations earlier on.
A/N 2: I haven't forgotten about "Ophan", I'm still working on it. I just thought I'd give it a little break because I kept thinking up stuff to write for this story :)
Rating: T for mild language
Summary: There are some people you just don't tangle with. Dean would rather deal with a pissed off ghost, at least he could shoot at a ghost.
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Sometimes you didn't have the time to say goodbye. Sometimes you just had to put the town in your review mirror and never look back. It was just the nature of the beast. Sometimes when you finished with a town you left the place in a bigger mess than when you came- albeit, a safer mess, but people rarely saw it that way.
People didn't usually feel safer after you dug up the grave and burned the bones of dearly beloved Grandma Matilda, they didn't feel safer after you shot the family dog with a silver bullet to the heart, and they definitely didn't feel safer after you impersonated a state marshal and killed their next-door neighbor.
Perhaps they wouldn't be so pissed if they knew that dear old departed Granny still lingered and had made it a practice to push unfaithful husbands out of windows, or that Rover was in actuality a skin walker who had orders to tear the family to shreds, and the next-door neighbor who always lent you a cup of sugar had been infected with a deadly demon virus.
But those were things that you could not speak of without finding yourself institutionalized and so they were secrets that you kept.
And that was something Dean had known since he was merely a child. That was Dean Winchester's life. Not a life he had chosen for himself but which had been chosen for him. A life from which he could not escape.
Dean was sure that he had pissed off a lot of people in his life.
Sometimes when he put a town in his rear view mirror the town was not all that he was leaving behind him. Dean was an expert at loving and leaving. He never gave women any reason to think that he'd stick around for longer than one night. Heck, he never even promised to stick around for breakfast.
They say that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Dean supposed he had left behind a few women like that. But he didn't think about it often. Definitely didn't feel guilty about it. It wasn't his problem if they read more into their relationship than he had intended. If they were going to be like that then they should have waited to let him in their bed till at least the third date.
He had learned early on not to say goodbye. There was one girl. Once. One date. The next day he found that he was leaving town sooner than expected and he thought he should at least say goodbye. She had laughed at him. She had never expected to see him again, much less get a goodbye. He had been cool with that, other than being a little embarrassed.
Of course he never thought that one day he'd piss off the wrong woman. There are some women that you just don't tangle with.
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Jenna had been a virgin. Dean had had no idea. And he had to admit it freaked him out. A lot. She hadn't said anything, hadn't told him, he kind of figured it out.
Why would she do that? Give her virginity away to a guy she'd just met in a bar? She had been a little bit tipsy but not when he had first introduced himself earlier that evening. She had been all over him from the moment he had said he was with the FBI, looking into her friend's recent death. So even though she'd had maybe one drink too many when he had first suggested going back to her apartment he had assumed that her consent had been implied long before then. And hell, he'd been a little bit drunk too.
He'd stayed for breakfast and even said goodbye. He hadn't thought it would be necessary to tell her that he wasn't sticking around. What did she expect when she hooked up with a stranger from out of town? Apparently she'd been expecting more than just one night.
She had freaked out on him. He was surprised at how many dishes that girl owned. Hadn't even thought about it until they started flying at him. Just when he thought that has got to be the last of them she would open another cupboard and find more. If he hadn't felt so damn guilty he'd have run from there like hell. Which he did when he realized she wasn't going to be calming down anytime soon. Or running out of dishes.
He'd driven away. Shoved the incident into the back of his mind where he stored all of his other "You'll never believe this girl I slept with" stories which he would pull out someday and laugh about with Sam. That is, after the multiple cuts and bruises on his body healed.
And he tried not to think about the occultic herbs that were growing in a pot on her porch that he had caught a glimpse of as he fled.
"Damn." he thought "I'd rather deal with a pissed off ghost." At least you could shoot at ghosts.
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One Week Later
Dean had little patience for stupidity and little patience for witches. Stupid witches even less patience. And that was on a good day. Today was not a good day.
Bizarre animal sacrifices and then the gruesome death of a young child. They suspected the work of a witch. They were in Salem, Massachusetts. And no, the irony had not been lost on either of them.
Posing as FBI agents they had been interviewing a suspect that morning but Sam had called the meeting short due to Dean's hostility and "extreme un-professionalism" during the interview. Or "interrogation" as Dean seemed to view it as.
"Sam, she's a monster! She murdered an innocent child and God knows how many other innocent children!" Dean hissed at Sam as they had left.
"We don't even know if she's who we're looking for! Personally, I don't think she did it!" Sam had hissed back, then continued, "Dude, what's wrong with you?"
Dean had ignored the question and stalked back to the car.
Not enough sleep was the story of Dean's life, he was used to running on limited sleep but lately he hadn't been sleeping at all. For like the past week. It made him on edge. Nerves frayed.
Dean hummed quietly to himself as he sat in the passenger seat of the Impala, tapping his fingers on his thigh, eyes shut and head leaning back on the headrest. Sam was refueling the car.
Sam had been itching to drive for quite a while so when Dean complained of being tired Sam had jumped at the opportunity to insist on driving. Dean hadn't put up much of a fight. He had been exhausted and unable to sleep for way too long. Insomnia. He'd always dealt with limited sleep but he had not gone for such an extended amount of time with absolutely none.
Sam popped his head in the car while he waited for the tank to fill up, "So Dean, no sleep again?"
Dean grunted, "No. Leave me alone Sam."
Sam went back to fueling the car.
Several moments later popped his head back in, "So how long has it been?"
"How long has what been?"
"Since you've had any sleep?"
Dean shrugged, "Huh. 'bout a week." Around the time of the Jenna incident he remembered silently.
Then he remembered the herbs. Nah, it was before Jenna… right? I was feeling crappy waay before Jenna… Wasn't I?
The Ouija board sitting on her coffee table. Oh good grief, stop being so freakin' paranoid! So the girl had a Ouija board. As did millions of other harmless idiots who thought Ouija boards were just a game… so what?
Well it definitely didn't help that he had witches on his mind anyway.
Dean shoved these thoughts aside and tried to sleep. But that wasn't going to happen. Sam would see to that.
Sam climbed back into the car, glanced over at Dean, "You're flushed." He said, putting a hand on Dean's forehead, "Geez man, you're really hot!"
Mock horror, "Whoa, Sammy! I had no idea you felt that way!" Dean exclaimed recoiling from Sam's touch.
Sam rolled his eyes, "Shut up, bitch. I meant, I think you're running a fever. You're burning up."
"Yeah, well, that's what she said." He tried to change the subject, "So what's our next stop?"
"Well I'm taking you back to the hotel room. Unless you'd rather stop by the hospital."
"No, I'm perfectly fine. We're going to finish interviewing the suspects and then I will rest." He snapped.
"No, you're not going to be interviewing anyone. You're going back to our room and I will interview the suspects."
"Not happening Sammy. I'm not going to be sleeping while you go talking to some crazed bitch who likes to snack on small children!"
Sam was driving the car so Dean lost this argument.