Hey guys!
Thank you for all the reads. This is fucking CRAZY. Thank you so, so much. Please keep commenting and voting!
This story is totally not over either. I've just been going through some shit right now that's been making it really hard to pull up the energy to write. I wanted to get in to the hunt in this chapter, but I didn't want to keep you all waiting any longer. Thank you for your patience!
This is mainly just a transitional chapter, so bear with me. I'm honestly kind of excited about writing this hunt! I've never done anything like it before so it might take a little while, but it's coming.
As always, if you need somebody to text because you're in crisis (about literally anything) text GO to 741741. The volunteers are amazing people!
Thank you again!
Unlike any other time they were on a break, a case didn't pop up right away and crash the party. They'd been reading articles online and newspapers in diners within a hundred mile radius for a week and there still wasn't anything that looked even remotely like a case. They'd gone on hunts where there was hardly a clue of something going on and come out battered and bruised because of a vicious monster they hadn't even expected. But now there wasn't any, and Casey's patience was growing thin.
Casey was laying on the floor in Sam's room while he was supposedly searching for a case on his laptop, although she was pretty sure that he was catching up on other lore. She had suspicions that he was avoiding taking her on a hunt because he was still nervous there'd be repercussions. She let out an exaggerated sigh and rolled onto her stomach. The ground wasn't particularly comfortable, but the drama of an exhausted woman lying on the floor in perpetual impatience was too thick for her to pass up. She knew that it probably wouldn't help her cause, but there was no shame in trying. When Sam didn't respond to her sigh she huffed again. There was the quiet click of his laptop being shut.
"Yes, Casey?" he asked, unamused.
She rolled back over. "Sam, I am so bored. How is there no hunt anywhere remotely nearby? There's always something that needs to be hunted. It's why hunters are necessary. Supply and demand, or whatever."
Sam actually had been searching for hunts. He was worried about Casey. Staying stationary was what had let her to relapse before and he was worried that it might again, even though this time they weren't holed up because they were waiting on her progress. This time they were waiting for a reason to leave. She hadn't slipped again and had been honest when she was feeling sad or bad about herself, but people only had patience for so long. And everybody knew that the patience of a Winchester was about one thirtieth of the average human.
"There's nothing close. There's not anything within three hours of here," Sam said apologetically. He could see how hard staying still was for her. The restlessness in her face grew more and more prominent daily. She'd even gone on a few runs with him because she couldn't keep going how they'd been going for two weeks. She'd been caught in the library with a copy of Busty Asian Beauties, to which she replied, with a shrug, "I was curious" to Sam's horrified face. He couldn't begin to imagine the incognito search history on his laptop after he went to bed for the night without feeling nauseated.
"Why can't we go to another state or something then? We do any other time," she suggested, even though she already knew the answer.
"In case if, for whatever reason, we need to stop the hunt and go home, we won't have too far to drive." For whatever reason was his polite way of saying if you can't handle the hunt or have another mental breakdown then they could quarantine her in the bunker again in a moment's notice.
"Sam, I'm not going to freak out. We'll be fine away from here for a couple of days," she insisted. She wasn't some basket case. Casey was pretty impressed with how well she'd been handling being treated like a glass doll the past few weeks. She was even more impressed that she hadn't snapped after they added daily body checks to The Rules after her accident. It was part of the agreement for going on a hunt, though, and she was in no place to try to debate her only chance at getting out and actually doing something.
Sam frowned, but considered her words. "Fine. We aren't going past Kansas City, though."
Casey shot up. "Really?" Kansas City wasn't exactly far, but it definitely wasn't in the tiny ring they'd previously been combing through. She searched in Sam's face for any sign of taunting, but all she could find in it was exhaustion, a promising expression for once. "I'll go tell Dean!" With an energy she hadn't felt since she'd ran away from Sam the first time, she shot out of the room in search of Dean. As usual, he was in the garage. He was staring into the hood of a red 1952 Aston Martin. She wasn't sure why, he'd already memorized the guts of each car in there, but she was beyond asking her brothers about their motivations for ninety percent of the things they did anymore. She could care less about the DB2. It could have been a unicorn and it wouldn't have mattered. The only thing that mattered was Kansas City, Kansas.
She ran until she slammed into Dean. "Dean!" she cried out excitedly.
"Casey, what the hell?" He detached himself from his little sister, looking moderately annoyed. The lack of a hunt had been eating at his nerves more than he'd been letting on.
"Kansas City! Sam said we could extend the search to Kansas City, Kansas! And the City is a big spot. Well, as far as big can get in this cornfield. But that's not the point. The point is, the bigger the town...," she hinted.
"The bigger the monsters," Dean finished. A mischievous grin spread across his face. He removed the prop from the hood and let it slam ungracefully. It was a beautiful car, but it wasn't important anymore to him then. He needed to get his hands on some Kansas City newspapers.
Casey followed Dean out off the garage and sat beside him in the study as he opened up Sam's iPad and googled "mysterious current events". He always started his search with "mysterious current events". It'd led them to fascinating cases before, so it was almost a tradition at this point. There was the usual disappearances, but no patterns between any of them, and an escaped convict or house fire, but nothing out of the ordinary. Two hours into the search, Casey began to lose hope. They'd extended their search limit, but apparently it hadn't been enough. Dean's search bar was reaching for hunts and read "creepy ghost murders Kansas monsters", showing the level of desperation he was hitting.
"I think I got something!" Sam called from his room. Casey silently sent a thank you to whoever might be listening before bolting to Sam's room. The look of fatigue had vanished from his face and he wore pure excitement. She leaped next to Sam on the bed and saw he had well over ten tabs open, but the tab he was on read quite possibly one of the most beautiful headlines she'd ever seen in her life.
Six Mysterious Deaths In Three Weeks At Local College!
"Holy crap," Casey breathed. "That's a lot of deaths." She knew she really shouldn't be excited about anybody dying, but the obvious hunt in front of her made it feel like her heart was going to burst from her chest.
"Yeah, it is," Sam agreed. She could hear the eagerness in his voice as well and didn't feel as ashamed of her own anymore. "What do you think it is? Vengeful spirit?"
"Probably. They're all at the same college and the pattern is couples, obviously," Casey agreed. She was getting goosebumps
"Share with the class, come on," Dean urged.
Sam rolled his eyes at Casey and she grinned before they both turned to Dean, who was hovering only a foot away. "There were six murders, three couples, in a college. It doesn't say how they were murdered. Only that it was gruesome, and that each one happened exactly a week apart from each other, right down to the time. One-thirty in the afternoon," Sam reported. The anticipation in his voice was strong, and Dean's expression matched the excitement exactly.
"Sounds like a vengeful spirit." He nodded silently before glancing at Casey. She watched his face fall before he spoke again. "Six deaths. Do you think maybe that's a little... heavy?" he tried to hint, although he was hardly subtle about it.
Casey huffed. "Dean, I'll be fine. Besides, we'll only be like three hours away. So even if I do have a meltdown we can just come home and sic another hunter on it."
"Actually," Sam cut in, "This hunt is in Branson. I couldn't find anything closer." He put up defensive hands as Dean glared at him.
"I thought we were staying close to the bunker?" he mimicked Sam's earlier decision in a high, nasally voice.
"I couldn't find anything near the bunker. We've been looking for a week, Dean, I think-,"
"Can you two just shut up for a second?" Casey barked. She wasn't going to let their arguing ruin her mood, so she was just going to nip it in the bud. They'd found a hunt. Nothing was going to ruin that for her. "You guys sound like the parents in Mrs. Doubtfire. Dean, do you want to go on a hunt or not?" She, stood, put her hands on her hips and stared him down, green eyes to green eyes, with an intensity that, if focused through a magnifying glass, could start an anthill on fire.
Dean paused for a second, then spoke with a complete resolution in his voice. "Alright. Six mysterious deaths in Kansas City, Kansas, here we come. Let's kick it in the ass, kiddo."