Disclaimer: I do not own either Supernatural of the Vampire Diaries. So, now you know...

Chapter One: Mystic –What?

Dean Winchester was bored.

He and his younger brother Sam had been stranded at this crappy motel in the middle of nowhere for about two weeks now.

Taking a sip from his half-empty bottle of beer, propped up against the headboard of his bed, he took in the same furnishings he had been staring at for what seemed like months, if not years now. The dirty yellow paint was peeling off of the walls and the ceiling was leaking over in the corner by the door which was covered in scratch marks and had a handle so loose it was about to fall off. The desk his brother was sitting at sported more burn marks than he cared to count, while the windows were covered in so many fingerprints it was a miracle the outside was even visible at all anymore. There were suspicious-looking spots all over the worn carpet – but he honestly felt he could live a perfectly happy life without ever learning what had been spilled on it - and the lamp by his bed wasn't working.

He didn't even bother to think about the bathroom.

The two hunters hadn't had a job in over a month. Well, not a real job to any stretch of the imagination. There had been a couple of false alarms, like nearly three weeks ago when a middle aged man ran around screeching about demons. Turned out it had less to do with the supernatural than mental instability and a few drinks too many.

"What's Mystic Falls?" Sam's voice cut through the pressing silence, removing his nose from their dad's old journal which he'd scanned from cover to cover several times in search of clues to, well, anything really.

"Mystic -what?" Dean asked with a slightly raised brow, eager to finally have anything breaking through his incessant boredom, even if it was just for a short moment.

"Mystic Falls," the younger man repeated slowly and clearly – hoping he wouldn't have to repeat himself once again – tapping his right index finger against one of the delicate pages towards the middle of the worn book. "It says so right here."

"Sounds like a lame-ass name made up by some bastard who needs to get a life, to me," the older one proclaimed, sounding bored to death as he brought the bottle to his lips once more for another mouthful of the bitter liquid.

"I sincerely doubt dad would have put it in his journal just for laughs," Sam responded dryly, irritated by the other hunter's lack of interest in the current subject.

"Well, what does it say, then?" he questioned, infusing a tiny amount of curiosity in his tone of voice, because frankly he felt too lazy to start an unnecessary fight with his brother at the moment.

"That's just it," his brother exclaimed in frustration, hitting the desk to emphasize his point. "It says 'Mystic Falls' with a question mark following it, nothing more to it."

Silence descended once again over their lousy living area as both men contemplated the various possibilities of the new and unexpected situation.

"Okay, you put your geekiness to some use and figure it all out," Dean decided with a smirk, getting up from the creaky bed, grabbing his car keys and leather jacket before approaching the door. "I'm gonna go get some pie."

And with that he was out and Sam could hear the roar of the Impala's engine as it started up and drove away. With a sigh he hooked up his beloved laptop, fetched a semi-cold beer from the broken fridge and made himself comfortable at the desk to do what he did best: research.

A couple of hours later – way too long for a simple food stop - Dean finally returned to the motel room, carrying two brown bags of food and a packet of cheap beer.

Sam quirked a lightly inquiring eyebrow at his late entrance. "What took you so long?"

"Hey," the just arrived man began, bringing his fully occupied hands up in defence. "They were all out of pie, I had to drive all the way to the next one!"

Dean put his purchases down on the desk beside the laptop. The younger man just gave him a pointed stare until he gave in.

"Okay, okay, I had to chat up this hot chick," he offered in defeat, producing a scrap of paper from his pocket, gingerly holding it up in the air with a poorly masked grin of victory.

Sam presumed the piece of paper contained some random chick's cell phone number, but he didn't let the thought linger – it was nothing he hadn't seen before.

Dean grabbed his bag of food – the one not containing the awful 'rabbit-food' his brother insisted on eating – then threw himself on the bed, causing it to creak ominously, threatening to break down soon if it wasn't treated better.

"Did you find anything?" he asked distractedly, finding more interest in unpacking his highly anticipated pie.

"Mystic Falls is a small town in Virginia," the younger Winchester began, looking over the information he'd aquired over the last few hours. "The town's history go all the way back to the 1860s. Most of the founding families still live there today, and they frequently arrange celebrations-"

"What's with the history lesson?" Dean exclaimed incredulously, but slightly muffled by the food he'd been devouring. "Get on with it!"

Sam gave him a dark look, not liking being so rudely interrupted in his well-prepared speech. "This particular town has had a suspiciously large amount of deaths the last few years alone," he continued, determined to be the more mature of the two of them. "Most of them are very vague on the details..." he trailed off, distracted by his brother's disgusting display of what was supposed to be eating, but looked more like a ravenous beast that somehow had gotten its dirty paws on a plate of – more or less – human food. "Dude, seriously?"

"Wha-?" the 'ravenous beast' wondered obliviously, mouth full of half-chewed food.

The – in his own opinion – only decent brother released a weary sigh before picking up where he left off. "Like I said, most of the deaths are vague on the details, but most of them are deemed animal attacks. The website to the local newspaper is pretty low standard, so if we take on the case we should check out the local library at some point."

Dean watched as his baby brother flipped a lock of his too long hair out of his eyes. He thought he looked ridiculously girly, and would most definitely have made some flippant remark about it had his mouth been available for anything other than chewing at the time.

"From what I could gather, there don't seem to be any pattern to the victims," the long-haired man continued, unaware of the other's inattention. "Strangers driving through town, school teachers, students, joggers, campers. One at the time, two, a whole group. The only thing these 'animal attacks' seem to have in common is the mutilated bodies and that they all happen during the night, or rather when it's dark outside."

"Werewolf?" Dean perked up, the conversation having finally caught his attention.

"It doesn't fit with the lunar cycle," Sam informed in his usual severe tone of voice, he had of course already ruled out that possibility.

"Vampires, then?" Dean suggested with a frown, he really didn't like those bloodsuckers.

"Might be," Sam agreed, shutting his laptop with a snap and finally picking up his own bag of food for some much needed nutrition. "But then again it could just be a normal, non-supernatural animal."

"Well, there have to be something for dad to put it in the journal," Dean stated with conviction, because why else would John Winchester have any interest in some small, insignificant town? "Mystic Falls it is, then. It's not like we have anything better to do."

And with that decision some people's lives were about to be irrevocably turned upside down.

AN: Leave me a review before you go? Pretty please?

12.12.12