Down the Rabbit Hole

The Outsider Part 1

Lacey was awoken by the sound of thrashing, quite close to her. She rolled over. It was Dean, having another nightmare. She reached out and gently shook his shoulder, he woke with a start.
"Hey." She said softly as she sat up, noticing the bed across from them was empty.
"Hey." Dean replied, sitting up too. He reached out for the beer bottle on the bedside table, but found it was empty. Lacey smiled at him.
"Want me to see what I've got for breakfast?"
"Sure." Dean said as he got out of bed and padded over to the table. Lacey followed suit and began to dig through her bag until she found a pack of peanut butter cups. She waved them at Dean, he nodded and she chucked a couple over to him.
"Thanks." He muttered as he poured himself a whiskey before taking a bite of one. He opened Sam's laptop, which was sitting on top of the table and began to search for cases. Lacey continued reading Mansfield Park and only looked up when Sam came through the door, looking sweaty and out of breath.
"Somebody better be chasing you." Dean told him.
"It's good for you." Sam countered.
"No, no, it's not good for you. Look at you, you're a mess and you stink. Well while you were out being Lance Armstrong..."

"That would be biking." Sam corrected as he grabbed a sports drink from the fridge.
"...I was working," Dean continued. "You ever heard of a town called Prosperity, Indiana?"
"Has anybody?"
"Two of their fine citizens have died in the past two weeks, Uh, this one chick, she roasted underneath one of those beehive hair dryers at the hair salon." Lacey wrinkled her nose. "this other guy boiled in a hot tub."

"It's worth checking out." Sam nodded.
"Yeah."
"You know, one more thing, what's going on with you?" Lacey looked up from her book at this comment.
"We have had this conversation, Sam." Dean drawled.
"No, we haven't. See to do that, you'd have to sort of... speak." Dean sighed and finally looked up from the laptop.
"Okay, let's see if you can get this straight. See you're new Sam, right, Lance Armstrong."
"Biking." Sam corrected again.
"And, I'm still me, okay? All right, so you might see things different now, call it a runners high, or some crap. But that doesn't mean that something's going on with me. Okay?"
"Yeah, okay." Sam shrugged as he headed to the bathroom.
"No, don't say "yeah, okay" like "yeah, okay"." Dean grumbled.
"Yeah, okay." Sam called over his shoulder. Lacey smirked at Dean before going back to her book.

Later that day they made their way to Prosperity, Indiana. Sam went to question the victim's sister while Dean and Lacey headed to the hair salon where it had happened.
"And nobody was back here but Wendy?" Dean asked as one of the stylists showed them around the salon.
"No, but I was only gone for a minute." He told them.
"You can't even crank these things past a certain temperature, am I wrong?" Dean asked as he examined the hair dryer.
"If it started to blow a fuse or something, it would have shut down. He replied, perplexed.
"Oh. Basically you're saying this couldn't have happened."
"Basically I'm saying it couldn't have happened." The stylist nodded. Dean and Lacey shared a look. Dean bent down to examine the back of the machine.
"The insurance adjusters already did that."
"Thanks for the heads up." Dean got up and handed something to Lacey. When she looked down she found a weird coin in her hand.

Dean dialled Sam's number as they exited the hair salon and wandered down the high street.
"Hey, so place was clean, apart from this weird coin." Dean told him
"What kind of coin?" Dean held out his hand and Lacey flipped it to him.
"Well, it's not American. I don't know where it's from. It was wedged back behind one of those machines. Somebody could have dropped it. Of course they don't have pockets in those robe thingies they make you wear."
"I didn't realise you were such a spa expert." Sam laughed. Dean put out a hand to stop Lacey going any further and nodded at the bench on the other side of the street. It was plastered with an advertisement for Wendy Goodson Real Estate. There were a bunch of potted plants surrounding it and every one of them was withered and rotting. Lacey raised an eyebrow at Dean.
"Shut up, I observe with my eyes." Dean replied to Sam.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever you say. So, you thinking it must be some kind of hex talisman?"
"Uh, maybe." Dean said, eyeing the bench.
"All right. Pick me up."
"Why don't you just run home, Lance?" Dean replied.
"Dean.." Sam started.
"Yeah, I'll be there in a bit." Dean hung up the phone, his eyes travelling from the bench to the liquor store behind it. He fished the car keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Lacey.
"Meet you at the car? Just gonna pick something up." He headed across the street.
"Yeah, sure." Lacey said softly as she watched him go.