Burnt

Butt-ket

"I think I found something." Sam was taking a break from scanning Men of Letters files and was browsing online news articles. Not that it counted as a break to Dean, who was playing with a sword off the wall of the bunker library again.

"What'd you find?" Dean lunged forward with the scimitar like he was fencing his shadow, not caring the curved blade was not a rapier. "Midget wrestling videos?"

Sam rolled his eyes, not bothering to reply to his brother's comment. "A possible case in Charleston, South Carolina."

"Haven't been there since you were, what? Twelve?" The sword sliced through the air and was followed up with a sloppy passé.

"So get this. There was a string of church fires for a few weeks, each starting behind the altar with a slow burning accelerant so he could get away. They caught the guy in the act three weeks ago." Sam ran a hand through his mane of hair.

Dean snorted as he lowered the blade and planted his hands on his hips as he turned toward his younger brother. "Then how is it a case if they caught the dude?"

Sam scowled before continuing. "The article says there's a copycat arsonist, but it doesn't match up. There's been two fires a week ever since, but they're random places. People's sheds, back porches, even one inside a fire station. Some were small incidents. Some gutted buildings. The signature is all over the place."

Dean turned back to his original position to continue lunging with the sword not designed for lunges and piercing. "Again, not a case."

"Would you let me finish?" Tones of frustration and annoyances laced Sam's words. "There was a witness to a shed fire, an old lady who is being slightly ridiculed. She says, 'It was spontaneous combustion, or it was a ghost.' And," Sam clicked over to another tab on the internet browser, "all these new fires always start at the same time at night. Eleven minutes to nine. Something isn't right. I think it's our type of thing." He crossed his arms and sat back in the armed chair at the library table, silently communicating with Dean to show how serious he was.

Dean sighed, resigning. He put the sword back on the wall rack, giving Sam his full attention. "Well, it's not like we have anything better to do. Cas is still looking for his grace, and Crowley's been quiet, other than to hang out." Even Sam couldn't ignore the personality change in the King of Hell. "Alright. Let's pack up and head out."

A few more keystrokes were heard before Sam piped up again. "Hey Dean," he called out before Dean could disappear past the threshold of the room.

"Yeah, Sammy?"

"Looks like we have a couple of cousins in town too."

-The Next Day-

The Impala rumbled along the residential roads of North Charleston. It had clocked roughly twenty more hours of drive time and 1,400 miles under its tires through six different states since they departed the bunker in Kansas. Even though the black four door car wasn't a sentient character in the adventures of the Winchester Bros., it did appreciate the fact that Dean bothered to change the oil and rotate the tires before the lengthy drive.

Dean was behind the wheel again as he navigated the streets from their motel room. Out of his peripheral vision, he noticed his younger brother completely focused on a cell phone. Always slave to his curiosity, which he admitted has probably gotten him killed like a cat on a couple of occasions, he leaned over to sneak a peek at the screen. What could possibly be that interesting to have Sam so engrossed in a tiny screen?

He leaned too far and took the wheel with him. The car lurched toward the curb, nearly sending Sam's head into the window. Dean quickly straightened both himself and the car back into the lane before checking all the mirrors to make sure a cop did not suddenly poof into existence to witness the little debacle.