I wanted to write something a little light and fluffy after GS.

This is the best I could do. Horror romance. Easy on the horror. (but seriously, what kind of a category is that?)

Mostly it's just an excuse to write something short and simple. It keeps me distracted until school starts next month.

also, I've got like 5 more chapters of this story living on my computer. I'm already almost done writing it. So it should super fast.

wootwoot

"We're not the FBI, Sam. This isn't our job." Dean felt a little ill, tucking the photos back into the manila folder.

Sam took the folder, setting it on the little table without opening it- obviously not wanting to look at the images again any more than his brother. "You don't know that."

"It's in the file. There's nothing supernatural about these deaths- because they aren't deaths." Dean sat down on the edge of the little couch, perching on the arm because his body wasn't willing to settle. Dean looked away, clenching his jaw, doing his best to think of things that weren't those crime scene photos. The grey and pink wallpaper gave him no help. "Grave robbing is wrong- but we don't really have room to judge."

"Grave robbing is about stealing possessions, Dean- this thing is taking their hair and nails. It's … different." Sam sounded strained. He had that tense timber to his voice, to his whole stance since they had left the local police station with the files in hand.

They had come to Millington Illinois on what had originally looked like a ghoul case- rumors in the local news about bodies dug up, bits missing. But ghouls ate the dead, these bodies, all six of them, had been mutilated… it was a slight, but important difference.

"This could still be ours." Sam quietly insisted. "There are lots of things that take parts of corpses."

"Yeah? Name one."

Sam, being the super nerd that he was, quickly rattled off a list of monsters who might steal bits of dead bodies.

But Dean had seen the files. Those bodies had been taken apart with tools. The ground had been dug up with a backhoe. Monsters didn't use backhoes. At least none that Dean had ever come across.

He let his eyes drift to his brother, skipping the table and its contents all together. "You're making those up."

"I am not." Sam dug out their dad's journal, looking for some kind of proof to convince Dean that this case was every bit up their ally and something that they should stay in this podunk little town for.

Dean couldn't really blame his brother for wanting this to be one of their jobs. The alternative wasn't pretty. The alternative was the reason that people locked their doors and told children not to talk to strangers- the reason that Dean didn't trust people who drove vans with tinted windows. Because honestly it's easier to believe in monsters than in the kind of cold blooded, human that could prey on the living and scavenge from the dead.

He watched that intense look on his kid brother's face, that unspoken pleading. Sam held out John's battered old journal, open to a page with a yellowed Polaroid framed by their dad's heavy script.

Dean dutifully took the journal and almost smiled when Sam visibly relaxed.

And Dean knew that they would stay here until it was done. They would look into this, this… this creep who was digging up and defiling cadavers, just so Sammy cold sleep at night knowing that they were still the good guys and that there was one less baddie in the world.

Dean didn't like killing humans- just sort of on principle. So he hoped that Sam was right, and maybe Dean just missed something.

Or maybe they would get lucky and it would be a witch.

Very few things were as satisfying to Dean as ganking witches. Dean was always willing to make an exception for witches because they didn't count as humans anymore. They lost that right.

Ten days later and they hadn't found anything that made the mutilations look anymore like the work of a monster and not just some sicko human working on one of the world's creepiest collections. No new bodies were found dug up- whatever was done was done- and Dean felt like they were wasting their time, but Sam wouldn't listen to him.

Dean was feeling frustrated.

Sam was tireless.

"Maybe there's just nothing to find." Dean peered down at the library's microfiche of old newspapers, looming darkly over Sam's shoulders. The date in the corner read 1938, they had gone back over half a century and still found nothing. Nothing to connect the bodies to each other except that they were some of freshest in the cemetery. Heart attacks, drunk driver, cancer, spanning two years with nothing in common except the dirt in which they were buried.

The brothers could find no pattern, no record of this having happened before, here or in any of the neighboring cities. They were running out strings to pull and it had started to make Sam a little desperate, which is why they were sitting in the town's library… again. Dean swore he had spent some much time in this library that it felt more familiar to him than their hotel room. Dean found this wrong on a fundamental level.

"We just haven't looked in the right place yet. There has to be something." Few people were as stubborn as Sam.

"Yeah, well- whatever it was, it's gone now." Dean rubbed at his eyes, tired of the florescent lights. "And so am I. I'll meet you back at the motel tonight. I need some air."

Sam grunted and kept on scrolling through the black and white films.

The heat outside hit Dean like a hammer and he staggered down the steps towards his car. The Impala was broiled to roughly the same temperature as the surface of the sun, and Dean opted to walk the two blocks to the diner that he had been scoping out for the past week. He could see the fresh pie display from the street, and it was calling to him.

By the time he pulled open the heavy glass doors the back of his shirt was soaked with sweat, plastering it to him like a second skin. He took a booth where he could see the doors and the little wall mounted tv alike. The red vinyl seat squeaked against his back and he smile to himself.

"What can I get you, darlin'?" The waitress, old enough to be his grandmother, set a tall glass of water at his elbow.

"A piece of your finest pie, mam." He fell into a good ol' boy smile as easily as taking a breath.

"Apple, cherry, or peach?" Her eyes looked pale behind her square glasses, but they crinkled just right while she smiled back, sweeter than honey.

"Surprise me." He found himself grinning, his spirits immediately being lifted by the bright atmosphere and the promise of pastries.

She winked one of those grey eyes at him and left.

He slouched down into the booth, sipping at the water, feeling the icy cold sliding all the way down his throat. It was late afternoon, too late for the lunch crowd, a bit too early for the dinner crowd and Dean almost had the whole place to himself. There was a young couple, probably ditching whatever high school class they should be in right now, sharing a chocolate shake and holding hands.

His pie arrived, cherry, and it was sticky sweet and perfect. He opted not to watch the kids in the corner, and looked up at the tv between bites. It was some news show, the volume too low to even hear in the quiet of the diner- but Dean could read the heavily made up newscasters and their heavily made up smiles.

It was damn good pie.

The news cast shifted and a serious looking woman with serious hair and a down turned mouth came on, the word 'live' in the top right of the screen. There was an obscured crime scene some distance behind her, draped in yellow and black like tickertape, gleaming plastic under the high sun.

The fork slid from Dean's hand as he stood. "Hey, can we get some volume on the set?"

But his waitress must have been on break, because he seemed to be the only one of the floor other than the teens who looked at him with mild interest, before glancing at the screen, then back to each other.

Dean turned the volume up all by himself, since no one was interested in helping him, and he felt a wrinkle forming between his eyes, the taste of cherries turning to ash on his tongue.

"-found this afternoon in an empty lot behind the Ralph's. Police still do not know the identity of the young woman. Local law enforcement have not yet linked the incident here to the one two weeks ago off of Sandhill Road, and no suspect has been taken into custody. Residents are asked to report any suspicious activity to the local sheriff's department. More news as follows."

And just like that, the news cast cut back to the main station where two reporters sat at their table, with small frowns, expressing their grief over the death of the young girl.

Such a tragedy.

Very upsetting.

Dean tossed a ten down on the table and practically ran back to the library.

He found Sam right where he left him, up to his eyes in microfiche, looking drawn.

"They found another body."

"Really?" Sam looked up immediately.

"Dude, don't sound so happy about it." Dean said with mild horror. This wasn't the kind of thing you were allowed to get excited about.

Sam was already grabbing his stuff, getting ready to follow Dean. "Was it in the same cemetery?"

"No. This one's fresh."

And Sam went from weirdly exhilarated to stone cold in a heartbeat. "Where?"

They got the crime scene in under an hour, and the heat combined with their suits was almost enough to lapse Dean into heatstroke.

Sam was melting too, but he hid it better, despite his long hair wet and dark against his neck.

They were lucky enough to have one of the police officers they met their first day in town be present at the scene, and he was more than happy to take Agents 'Coverdale' and 'Sykes' to look at the body.

The girl couldn't have been more than fourteen. She was lying face down in the dry scrub brush, naked except for the pale brown dirt smeared on her thin, tan body. Scratches, bruises, and she must have been dumped out there the night before. Her body hadn't fared well in the heat of the afternoon.

Dean made himself look at her, because he needed to have a reason for the rage building in his chest. What kind of monster could do this to a little girl? To someone's daughter?

Sam had already walked away, turned his back on the body.

But you can't expect anyone to look at something like that for too long.

It wasn't healthy.

Dean had to turn away too.

"This isn't right." He said quietly to his brother, standing side by side, watching traffic moving slowly out on the street.

"Why would it take just her nails and hair?" Sam didn't seem to hear him, lost in his own little nightmare.

"You think it's the same guy?" Dean tried to draw him out, he didn't want to have this conversation by himself.

"Pretty fucking awful coincidence otherwise, don't you think?" Sam glanced down at him. Sweat had run into his eyes, rimming them in red.

"But why escalate from corpses to this kid?" He tugged his tie loose, unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt.

"I think we've been looking at this wrong." Sam sounded rough as he didn't answer the question.

"You think it's human now?" It didn't matter so much to Dean anymore, because he was going to find who did this. He would. And when he did, it wouldn't matter if they were human, monster, or something in between. He was going to break it.

"I think we won't find it on our own."

"You think we should call Bobby?" Dean frowned a little harder, not understanding where Sam was going with this.

"I think you should call your boyfriend." Sam probably meant it as a joke, but Dean didn't smile. It wasn't funny.

But he didn't try to defend himself; any objection would just come off like some kind of guilt. "Shut up." He almost got his keys out and left. He didn't have to put up with this.

"I just think he might be able to tell… if it's human or not. He sees things different than we do."

"So call him. You've got his number." Dean pulled off his jacket, feeling sick from the heat.

"You know he doesn't pick up when I call." And Sam got a smile, just a small, negligible curve of his lips. "Cas only answers when it's you."

"Bite me." But he was already getting his phone out.