Chapter 3

Fire crackled and spit. And Dean's newly aged eyes watched it with fixed interest. He was trying to see how exactly he could have missed something as vital as that woman in the diner being a witch or a demon. He already had a sneaky suspicion that it was a mind trick, but what if it wasn't? What if Dean's upstairs brain had been overridden by his downstairs brain and he had just really wanted her touch and boy had he gotten it.

As he tried to remember he realized that he didn't have any recollection of the events leading to the kiss or the events after the kiss. What he did remember was fully coming back to himself in the car. It was like waking up from a daydream that left you feeling all good and tingly inside, but with no recollection of what exactly had taken place while you were enjoying the dream.

The rest of that fateful day had passed without event. Dean had met Sam at the motel several hours later and they had traded information and then watched a cheesy movie. It was one of those movies that everyone and their brother has seen like ten times, but can't remember for the life of them what it was about or why they had seen it.

The next day, however, had been fraught with changes. He was doing his morning ablutions when he noticed something strange in the mirror. He had just started to brush his teeth and had looked up into the mirror. The image that appeared in front of him looked like him but there were changes to the features and there was something definitely wrong with his hair. He leaned in closer to look at the mirror and noted that there were slivers of white running through the normally dark hair.

"Sam!" he yelled and grabbed his bottle of shampoo and went into the main area of the hotel room. "Sam!" he yelled again and smacked the back of Sam's head. Sam woke with a start.

"What? Something wrong?" he asked, shielding his eyes from the light that Dean had turned on.

"Yeah, something's wrong all right. What did you put in my shampoo?"

"What? Nothing?" Sam said sitting up. He looked up at his brother and noticed the white streaks in his hair.

"Trying a new look?" he asked.

"No ass hat." Dean threw the bottle of shampoo at him and Sam's reflexes weren't awake yet and the bottle nailed him square in the chest. "I'm going to ask one more time, what did you put in my shampoo?"

"Nothing. Dean. I swear. I didn't do anything like that. We called a truce," he said disentangling himself from the sheets and standing up.

"Then what the hell is this in my hair?" Dean demanded. Heart beating faster than was normal, his face was red with anger and fear. What was going on? If Sammy hadn't done something to his shampoo, then the only sane conclusion left was that his hair had gone white over night. Sam used his height to his advantage and looked down at the top of his brother's head and pulled out one of the white strands.

"Hey dude! That hurts," Dean exclaimed as he rubbed the spot on his head.

"Sorry." Sam went to his bag and began to rummage through it.

"What? Do you have Gill Grissom's laboratory in there? Gonna do a DNA comparison? Want to make sure I'm your real brother?" Dean was throwing wise cracks as fast as he could. He was scared to death and he hoped that Sam didn't pick up on it.

"I'm looking for my magnifying glass."

"What do you need with that?" Sam located the glass and went to the lamp and held the glass and the hair underneath it and began to examine it.

"I'm checking to see if it goes to the root."

"What do you know about hair color Sam?"

"I took a biology class and we examined human hair and color. It was really cool."

"Did you take any classes there that had anything to do with law?"

"Sure, I took a lot of them. But I had time to kill before I met Jessica."

"So you took classes on looking at hair? Geek much?"

"Well my geek moment in college…may…." Sam stopped. He looked up at his brother. "I think that this is just the natural color of your hair Dean. It doesn't look like paint or white out or anything. Your hair is just white in spots."

"Oh com on Sam! I went to bed last night with a head full of dark hair. How in the hell do I wake up the next morning with white streaks in my hair? Huh? How does that happen?"

"I don't know Dean. What happened yesterday that you aren't telling me?"

"Nothing. I didn't…" he stopped. "The girl."

"What girl?"

"The girl at the diner."

Dean had recounted the events to Sam. Even the missing time element. Both brothers realized that this was indeed more serious than they thought. Fear coursed through both brother's bodies as they realized the implications of this new development.

"Development indeed." Dean thought as he tried to analyze that particular event. His mind was brought back to Bobby's living room when the older man walked in carrying what appeared to be lunch.

"Come on Dean you need to sit up and eat something."

"I told you I'm not hungry Bobby."

"I don't care what your stubborn ass told me. You need to eat. Now let's get you sat up." Dean didn't have much of a choice other than to comply. Bobby sat him up, arranged pillows around him to prop up his back and arms. He put the TV tray on Dean's lap and sat beside him ready to help him eat. Dean looked down at the soup and sighed. Two days ago his teeth had become too sensitive to eat more solid foods, so what he had managed to get down in the last couple of days had constituted of Ensure and soup. It seriously wasn't a good mix. Dean sighed as he raised the spoon to his lips and took a swallow. Man, this getting old thing sucked out loud!