BUGS PART 1

Sam and Alice were both laying on the Impala beside each other. They were parked outside, in the twilight, of an Oklahoma bar and waiting for Dean to get done hustling people at a game of pool. He's been in there for at least two. They've been tracking John for a while now and all they got was nothing so far, so Alice suggested that they worked on something else for a change of pace.

She held a small flashlight in her hand and was scanning over her map that was covered with cases and red X's. Some were crossed out and others unworked. Sam laid beside her and used the brightness of Alice's flashlight to look at a picture in his hand. It was a picture of a man with his arm wrapped around a smiling Alice who looked three years younger. He had dark blonde, slightly curly hair in a pulled-back style. It also looked like his lips wanted to naturally curve up into a goofy-grin, too. His eyes were also very distinctly blue with brown flecks mixed in, giving him a very lively and young appearance, despite being the oldest.

"So this is Aiden," Sam said, leaning in close to Alice to get a better look with the light. "You guys kinda look alike. In the eyes, I mean."

Alice ran her light over the old picture of her brother. "I guess we do." She smiled softly at the photo before her lips curled up into a sudden smirk. "You know, you and Dean don't look anything alike."

Sam frowned and sat up. "Really?" he questioned and handed the picture back.

Alice shook her head and began to reach for her wallet. "Yeah, not to mention you both act differently too. Dean always seemed more eager to go on hunts, while you're kinda reluctant." She saw Sam avert his eyes when she mentioned that. "Sammy, it ain't a bad thing." she nudged him with her leg. "I understand that it's a hard thing to get into. You see, Aiden...actually didn't really like me going on solo hunts, so he took every chance he got to go with me."

The corner of Sam's mouth threatened to move up into a smile at her attempt to cheer him up. "It's 'Sam'," he reminded and noticed Alice's lips turn up into a smirk, a bit similar to Aiden's now that she thinks about it.

"Do you want me to start calling you Samantha instead?" Alice smiled and went back to the map in her lap. She trailed the paper roads with her finger until she came across the word 'Hunt' in big red letters. "There's a hunt in this state that's probably worth checking out," she said.

Sam moved up to get a better look. "How long ago did you mark it down?"

"Not long. It's only been a week since the death. So it's still fresh." Alice cut off her light and began to fold the map back up just when Dean walked out of the bar, grinning ear to ear with a wad of cash in his hand.

Sam rolled his eyes when he saw his brother's goofy grin. "You know, we could get day jobs once in a while." He heard Alice snort at his comment.

"Hunting is our day job." Dean defended and counted up his wad. "And the pay is crap."

"The pay is always crap." Alice chimed in and hopped off the Impala. She snatched the cash out of his hand and began to go through it. Dean looked like he was going to argue but decided not to when she gave him a look that screamed 'don't touch'. Alice divided the cash up between the three of them and handed out their share. "Spending money. Don't waste it."

Dean grumbled and looked at his now smaller wad of money. "Yes, dear," he muttered under his breath.

Sam flipped through his small stack. "Yeah, but hustling pool? Credit card scams? it's not the most honest thing in the world, guys."

"Well, let's see. Honesty." Dean held out one hand. "Fun and easy." He made a gesture that 'fun and easy' outweighed 'honesty'. "It's not a contest. Besides, we're good at it. It's what we were raised to do."

"Yeah, well, how we were raised was jacked." Sam insisted but Dean waved him off.

"Yeah, says you. We got a new gig or what?" He watched Alice walk over to her bike and fumbled through her bag. She pulled out a thick folder full of newspaper clippings and strolled back over to them.

"Yeah, maybe." She scanned through the clippings until she found the one she was looking for. "Oasis Plains, Oklahoma. It ain't far from here. A gas company employee, Dustin Burwash, supposedly die from Crutzfeldt-Jakob."

Dean cocked a brow. "What?"

Alice and Sam spoke at the same time. "Human mad cow disease."

"Mad cow," Dean repeated that name like he heard it before. "Wasn't that on Oprah?"

Alice paused for a moment and frowned. She looked away from the article and gave Dean a perplexed look. "You watch Oprah?"

Dean actually felt a bit embarrassed, now that he said that in front of her. He looked away and quickly got back on topic. "So this guy eats a bad burger. Why is it our kind of thing?"

"Mad cow disease causes massive brain degeneration. It takes months, even years, for the damage to appear. But this guy... it only took an hour. Maybe less."

Dean shrugged. "Okay, that's weird," he'll admit.

Alice began to head back over to her bike to put the folder clippings away. "It could just be a disease...or something nastier. Either way, it won't hurt to check it out." She jolted her keys between her hands and waited for Dean to make up his mind.

"All right. Oklahoma." He began to get inside the car. "Man. Work, work, work. No time to spend my money." Dean grinned and got in.

They took the long drive up to the Oklahoma Gas and Power Company building and pulled into the parking lot. Alice pulled into a spot beside the Impala and took her helmet off to look around. She made a gesture to Dean and pointed out to the eye witness, Travis Weaver standing by his truck on the other side of the lot. Dean and Sam got out of their car and followed Alice over to the witness.

"Travis Weaver?" Sam called out.

Travis looked up and nodded his head. "Yeah, that's right.

Dean immediately came up with a lie that would work. "Are you the Travis who worked with Uncle Dusty?"

Travis furrowed his brow. "Dustin never mentioned nephews or a niece."

Alice quickly followed up Dean's lie to make it sound more concrete. "Really? Well, he sure mentioned you. He said you were the greatest."

That caused Travis to smile fondly. "Oh, he did?"

Alice nodded. "Oh Yeah. But we wanted to ask you...what exactly happened out there?" she asked.

Travis cast his eyes to the ground somberly as the cruel memories returned. "I'm not sure. he fell in a sinkhole, I went to the truck to get some rope, and, uh..by the time I got back..."

"What did you see?" Dean asked.

"Nothing. Just Dustin."

Sam spoke up. "No wounds or anything?"

"Well, he was bleeding...from his eyes and his ears, and his nose. But that's it." Travis answered, looking just as confused as Alice was at the moment.

Dean looked at Alice before talking. "So you think it could be this whole mad cow thing?" he asked. Usually Alice was pretty good with guessing what the creature was by the statement, but obviously, by her silence, she was drawing a blank.

Travis shrugged. "I don't know. That's what the doctors are saying."

"But if it was, he would've been acting strange beforehand," Sam said. "Like dementia, loss of motor control. You ever notice anything like that?"

"No. No way. But then again, if it wasn't some disease, what the hell was it?"

"That's a good question," Dean says.

Alice finally spoke up. "Where did this happen? can you tell us?'

Travis nodded. "Yeah."

Alice drove ahead of the Impala and slowly rolled down the empty public road of Oasis Plains, a new neighborhood that was still under construction. It didn't even look like anyone lived in the houses, judging by all the unfinished buildings and equipment laying around. They came to a stop right beside the sinkhole where Dustin died. It was still surrounded by police tape. Alice yanked her keys out and headed over to the hole with the boys on each of her sides.

"What do you think?" Dean asked Alice.

She shrugged. "Ain't sure. But if Travis has his facts straight, then it happened pretty damn fast."

They ducked under the police tape and looked over the edge of the sinkhole. It was surrounded by protruding roots and it was way too dark. Alice honestly couldn't see a dang thing down there.

Dean shined a flashlight down but it still couldn't penetrate the darkness. "So, some sort of creature chewed on his brain?"

"Nah, no entry wound." Alice debunked the theory and kneeled beside the hole, still trying to get a better look down there. "Whatever it was. It would've had to of been an inside job." She looked up and searched around for anything that could help her get down there. She spotted a nearby coil of rope and went over to pick it up.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked when he saw Alice pick up the rope and walk back over. "You're not thinking of going down there, right?"

"I can't see a damn thing. I need to get in there and look around," she wasn't hesitating at all.

Sam stared at her like she was crazy. "We don't know what's down there."

"That's the point. Do you want to go instead?" She cocked a brow and waited for his response. She was then taken back when he held his hand out like he was playing rock-paper-scissors. "You can't be serious." Her mouth dropped open.

Sam shrugged. "One way to settle it. Come on."

Alice glanced over to Dean to get some help but found no such thing. He was grinning ear to ear and was snickering under his breath. She then proceeds to give the biggest eye roll and drop the rope. "Fine," she groaned and held her hands out.

They hit their fists on the palm of their hands three times before unleashing their choice. Sam pulled out rock and Alice...gave scissors. An instant loss on her part. The looked on Alice's face was that of absolute betrayal when Sam suddenly broke out into a full-body laugh at her defeat on the first try.

Sam actually had to take a step back to catch his breath, his chest was hurting so much. "Ali- Are you serious? You do the same thing Dean does."

Alice's face burned red. "Shut up, Sam." She then threw the coil of rope violently at him and backed up.

Sam was still snickering to himself when Alice and Dean lowered him into the sinkhole. He was honestly surprised that she didn't drop him out of spite.

Needless to say, Dean and Alice were a little disappointed with the great discovery that Sam believed it was. He really didn't find much of anything down there, aside from a couple of beetles.

"I don't know what Alice was expecting." Sam sighed and moved around a dead beetle in his hand. "It's a hole, of course, there would be bugs. I think she would have been a lot more excited if the hole was covered with blood or had bones in it instead."

Dean rolled his eyes and gripped the steering wheel. "Because that's a lot more exciting. Sorry, but I'm with Alice on this one. So you found some beetles. In a hole, in the ground. That's shocking, Sam."

"There were no tunnels, no tacks. No evidence of any kind of creature down there. You know, some beetles do eat meat. Now, it's usually dead meat, but-"

"How many did you find down there?" Dean cut in, not wanting to hear the boring details about a beetles diet.

"Ten."

"It'd take a whole lot more than that to eat out some dude's brain."

"Well, maybe there were more."

Dean shook his head and still wasn't convinced that the beetles had a buffet on a man's brain. "I don't know, it sounds like a stretch to me-" he stopped himself when he saw Alice ahead of them slow down. "She's stopping," he announced

Alice stopped completely and looked back at the boys, pointing to her right. Sam and Dean followed where her finger went and saw a sign outside a house reading: 'Model Open. New Buyers' BBQ Today!'. It looked like a house party happening inside.

Sam shrugged. "She probably thought it was a good place to start and grab information." He frowned and glanced over to Dean. Sam eyed his brother, already seeing where his mind was going. "I'm sure she didn't mean free food."

"Of course not." Dean protested. "I'm a professional."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Right."

Dean parked the Impala right outside the house and got out. Alice parked on the opposite side of the road to get the chance and look at the home. It had obvious signs of a family living in it.

Alice scoffed. "Freaking cookiecutter houses," she said and cut the bike off and pulled off her helmet.

The boys walked on ahead and knocked on the front door. A second later a middle-aged man answered it, plastering on a professional smile once facing the boys. "Welcome," he said.

"This the barbeque?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, not the best weather, but..." He offered his hand out. "I'm Larry Pike, the developer here. And you are...?"

"Dean. This is Sam."

"Sam, Dean, good to meet you. So, you two are interested in Oasis Plains?" Larry asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Let me just say...we accept homeowners of any race, religion, color, or...sexua-" Larry stopped himself when he saw Alice strolling up beside Dean. "Oh. I see now," he said, a bit embarrassed and quickly corrected himself. "Newlyweds?"

Alice blinked and stood there confused at what she just walked in on. "Huh-"

"Yes." Dean cut in rather quickly, grinning ear to ear. "Yup, that's exactly what we are." He even went as far as to drape an arm around the puzzled lady.

Alice's eyes went so wide at what he just said. Her mouth fell open but she couldn't bring herself to say a single word with how fast the whole situation came and went, sticking her in this stupid lie without backtracking away.

"We were actually looking for our first place." Dean glanced down at Alice and saw her frozen stiff, eyes wide and utterly silent. "Ain't that right, honey?"

He saw Alice's eyes twitched with boiling irritation. She couldn't even say anything without fearing that all hell was going to break loose that moment she would open her mouth. Given the chance, she would rip him a new one if she could.

Larry smiled. "Great, great. Well, come on in." he moved aside and let the three into the house.

They were let through into the backyard where people were walking around, chatting and eating.

"You said you were the developer?" Sam asked since Alice looked like she wasn't going to.

"Eighteen months ago, I was walking this valley with my survey team. There was nothing here but scrub brush and squirrels. And you know what, we built such a nice place to live that I actually bought into it myself. This is our house. We're the first family in Oasis Plains." Larry walked up to a woman and introduced her. "This is my wife, Joanie."

Joanie smiled and held her hand out. "Hi there."

"Hi." Dean took her hand.

Larry began to address them by name. "Sam, Dean and..." he stopped though when he recalled never hearing Alice's name yet.

"Alice." Dean chimed in. "Her name's Alice."

Larry patted his wife's shoulder. "Tell them how much you love the place, honey. And lie if you have to because I need to sell some houses," he muttered under his breath before walking off back to the house.

Joanie laughed. "Don't let his salesman routine scare you. This really is a great place to live," she insisted.

Just then, a very energetic woman walked up behind Joanie. She looked very professional in her form-fitting suit and had her black hair pulled back in a tight bun. She immediately pulled out her hand. "Hi, Lynda Bloome, head of sales."

"Lynda was second to move in," Joanie informed them. "She's a very noisy neighbor, though," she said before leaving to step inside the house.

Lynda laughed awkwardly. "She's kidding, of course. I take it you two are interested in becoming homeowners," she said, gesturing to Alice and Dean.

Dean grinned when the opportunity to pull out this lie longer appeared. He just loved to tease Alice and see her reaction. "Yeah, my wife and I are."

Alice finched under the stupid title. She dropped her head into her hand.

"Right. I'm gonna go talk to Larry." Dean said. "Okay, honey." He turned to leave and suddenly smacked Alice on the ass.

The mental string in Alice's mind finally snapped. She saw red and abruptly spun her body around. Using all her might and pent up frustration and embarrassment, she smacked Dean right on the ass, just like he did to her. The force almost knocked him over but he recovered quickly and managed to not fall. He looked over his shoulder and frowned at Alice before walking to the house, his backside now stinging a bit.

Alice rolled her eyes and looked away. "Dick..." she grumbled and saw Sam grinning from the corner of her eye. "Shut up, Sam."

Never in Alice's whole life or Sam's had they been forced to listen to the sales and ramblings of a woman who was so utterly tiresome to listen too. Just hearing her talk was making Alice want to sit down and sleep. She swore, the only thing she got from her was something about a steam shower...which honestly didn't sound so bad right now. It beats listening to this woman. Alice's attention was soon pulled away when her tired blue eyes landed on something with four hairy legs. A tarantula slowly crawling towards Lyndra's hand. Alice quickly embowed Sam and they both noticed what looked to be a teenager standing behind her with an excited grin on his face.

Alice lifted her arm up and gently moved past the still rambling woman and up to the tarantula. She wasn't remotely scared of spiders and easily swooped the thing up onto the knuckles of her fingers. Alice stared at the spider without worry and walked back over to the kid. "Nice try," she said and let the spider crawl back onto the owner's hand.

The kid rolled his eyes, a little surprised and disappointed that Alice wasn't scared to pick up the hairy creature. "You gonna tell my dad?" he asked.

Sam walked up to them. "Don't know. Who's your dad?"

The kid scoffed. "Yeah, Larry usually skips me in the family introductions."

The remark even burned Alice a bit. "First name basis, huh. That's pretty damn depressing if you ask me."

The teenager watched the spider move around on his hand. "Well, I'm not exactly brochure material."

"Well, hang in there. It gets better, all right? I promise. "Sam assured him, getting a puzzled look from Alice at the same time.

The kid gave Sam a look. "When?"

"Mathew." Larry's booming voice caught their attention and they saw the man storming over to them, Dean right behind them. "I'm so sorry about my son and his...pet," he said with disgust coming off the last word he spoke.

"Not a problem. "Alice said and shook her head.

"Excuse us," Larry walked away with Matt, definitely going to have a few choice words to say to him once they were out of earshot.

"Remind you of somebody?" Sam suddenly asked, looking over to Larry yelling at his son. Dean looked confused. "Dad?"

"Dad never treated us like that," Dean said and Sam rolled his eyes.

"Well, Dad never treated you like that. You were perfect. He was all over my case." Sam grumbled. "You don't remember?"

"Well, maybe he had to raise his voice, but sometimes, you were out of line."

Sam scoffed. "Right. Right, like when I said I'd rather play soccer than learn bowhunting."

"Bowhunting's an important skill."

Alice sighed deeply. "It's really not." She knew a fight was going to happen if she didn't butt in, and she honestly didn't feel like listening to the ramblings of siblings. "So what do you think? You ready to buy?"

Dean laughed. "Oh yeah. Totally. So you might be onto something. Looks like Dustin Burwash wasn't the first strange death here."

Alice frowned. "What happened?"

"About a year ago, before they broke ground, one of Larry's surveyors dropped dead while on the job. Get this, severe allergic reaction to bee stings."

"More bugs."

"More bugs." Dean turned grim.

A hole began to form in Alice's stomach. She had never been squeamish around bugs, and actually had fond memories of her and Aiden playing with them when they were young, but something about this case was beginning to make her skin crawl like pissed off fire ants all over her body.

It felt like they were at the BBQ all day when the sun finally sank behind the unfinished buildings. The only light there was were the headlights from the Impala and the single light from Alice's bike driving through the neighborhood.

Sam was behind the wheel and Dean took the chance to look through the Cromwell journal, seeing that it had more information. He looked through this thing like twenty times already and found out something new each time.

Dean closed the Journal. "You know, I've heard of killer bees, but killer beetles. What is that could make different bugs attack?"

"Well, hauntings sometimes include bug manifestations." Sam reminded.

"Yeah, but I didn't see any evidence of ghost activity."

"Yeah, neither did Alice and me."

"Maybe they're being controlled somehow. You know, by something or someone."

Sam nodded his head. "Yeah, Alice said the same thing. She said it was like Willard."

Dean laughed, wishing he could have heard that. "Yeah, bugs instead of rats. It's kinda like the whole Timmy-Lassie thing." He paused for a moment and realized something. "Larry's kid. He got bugs for pets."

"Matt?" Sam said.

"Yeah."

He shrugged. "He did try to scare the realtor with a tarantula," Sam recalled.

"You think he's out Willard?"

"I don't know. Anything's possible, I guess."

Dean looked up just as they were about to pass one of the finished houses. "Ooh, hey. Pull here," he quickly said.

Sam gave his brother a look and flashed the Impala's headlights to grab Alice's attention. She stopped and looked back at them just as Sam pulled into one of the driveways of the houses.

Alice reached up and pulled her helmet off. "The hell are you doing?" she called out.

Dean quickly got out and walked over to the garage door. "It's too late to talk to anybody else," he said and pulled up the door.

She soon realized what he was doing. "We're going to squat in an empty house?"

"I wanna try the steam shower. Come on." Dean waited off to the side while Sam pulled into the garage. "Alice!"

"Yeah, yeah." Alice shook her head and quickly pulled in behind the Impala. "But I'm trying the steam shower first," she said while passing Dean.

"Can I join you?"

She gave him a devilish smirk. "No, but you can wait outside the bathroom until I get done."

Dean rolled his eyes and pulled the garage door shut behind them.

Author's Note:

Happy Halloween, my dears! I just now made the deadline because I really, really wanted to post this chapter on this holiday. Not only is it Alice's birthday, but it's mine as well! (I'm now 22 years old) This is my Halloween treat to you all and just a small thank you for liking my story. It honestly makes me so damn proud.

We all a teasing Dean, don't we. Give him an inch and he'll take a mile. I find it funny that Alice slapped his ass back just as hard. God...I really want them to get together, but we'll all just have to wait.

I'm also watching the last supernatural season right now...and also having a minor heart attack. I don't know about you guys, but I just have a strange feeling that something is going to happen to our boys. I'm scared to death over it and honestly not ready for what's going to happen.

That's all I have to say right now. Wish me and Alice a happy birthday, and I'll see you later.