notes: oh look, another thing that literally no one asked for ever. i don't think this has been done yet either? so how about that.
summary: "We hunt things that want to kill us for a living. We're nothing near normal." Blossom's missing, Buttercup is sick of all this Manpain, Brick has made a deal with the actual devil, Butch is just along for the ride and gets to kill things for a living, Boomer keeps getting doused in holy water, and Bubbles misses being a waitress. Or, the Supernatural au no one knew about.
disclaimer: well would you look at that. it's another thing i don't own.
and in addition: major characters (i.e. the boys and girls) are about twenty-three in present time.

x

{guess who just got back today? those wild-eyed boys that had been away}

x

Townsville, Kansas
1998

Buttercup sneers at the boy quavering beneath her. There's already a nasty bruise forming under and around his left eye, and a tooth lying on the ground nearby. She'd knocked him one so hard, the loose thing had just come out for good. She cracks her knuckles, electric green eyes just daring him to get up. She's quite the sight for a five-year-old—wicked scowl, pretty green dress covered in dirt stains from rolling around during the scuffle, skinned knees, and scuffed Mary Janes glinting in the early afternoon sunlight.

There's a crowd of kindergartners gathered surrounding the scene, all oohing at the little girl who just beat up the toughest bully on the playground.

"You don't pick on people smaller than you," the dark-haired terror seethes. "It's not fair."

He huffs up at her, then sniffles, quickly brushing away any tears threatening to fall. There's grime all over his face from when she pushed him into the dirt, and he holds his stinging eye with a deep frown. "I'm telling!"

Buttercup's smile is something awful, truly a sight to behold. "Go ahead. Whaddya think Ms. Keane's gonna say when I tell her you were taking Elmer's money? Huh? And are you really gonna tell the teacher you got beat up by a girl?"

Several of the other kids start laughing, and whispered shouts of 'Mitch got beat up by a girl' ripple through the crowd. Her smile is ferocious, more of a smirk than anything. She's already making a name for herself on the playground—a living legend that will beat the living tar out of people.

Mitch glowers, bottom lip trembling.

"Aw, what's wrong? Is little Mitch going to cry?" some kid taunts from behind them.

"Buttercup!" a little redhead whispers sternly, pushing her way through the crowd, marching up as serious as she could be. Her pink dress matches her sister's, though it's pristine, no dirt stains on the fabric. "Leave Mitch alone."

A chorus of giggled behind them. A kid named Pablo chortles. "And now he's got a girl standing up for her!" More laughter ensues.

"Go back to playing tea party with your stupid sisters!" Mitch shouts to Buttercup, humiliated. Tears are streaming down his grimy face, and he looks absolutely miserable.

Buttercup pushes the other girl back, a little unkindly. "Go away, Bossy Blossy, and don't tell me what to do. You're not dad! Mitch, stand up here and face me like a man!"

Blossom back away, arms dropping to her sides. She clutches the messily braided pink friendship bracelet around her wrist, Buttercup's name right next to hers, looking hurt. Her dark-haired sister presses her lips together in a thin line and quickly looks away, not wanting to see the pain she's caused.

"BUTTERCUP ALICE UTONIUM!" said girl's face pales, and everyone scatters at the shrill voice of their teacher. She was especially livid, now, and heading straight for the guilty little girl in green, whose fist is still raised in preparation for a fight.

Sandra Keane narrows her eyes at the girl. "What on earth do you think you're doing, young lady?"

x

i—the boys are back in town

Present

Buttercup sucks on the back of her teeth as she fingers the knob on the radio of the old 1970 Camaro she's driving. Though not entirely her car, it's still her baby, she thinks lovingly—one that she's taken care of all these years. The familiar dust of her childhood home's county roads flies past, strips of dirt she hasn't traveled in at least four years. But nothing has changed, and everything's stayed the same regardless of time. September is dry grass crunching beneath her boots, a clear night sky full of stars visible from freshly harvested wheat fields, and golden-kissed grass dancing in the autumn wind. It's Kansas, and Kansas is always dependable.

The town is the same, too, she notes as the car rumbles through unnoticed. A diner that's been there for more than sixty years, a grocery store, Town Hall, the county police department, it's all there just as she knew it would be. She wonders, briefly, if anyone would recognize the seventeen-year-old girl in her. Does she only look different to herself, or is there more?

She taps her fingers on the steering wheel and shakes her head. Her destination isn't Townsville exactly, but a house just a bit outside of it. White siding, no picket fence, red shutters, a garden full of flowers—she almost needs it to be the same as she remembers.

The Camaro's motor groans she pulls into the drive, passing by a black mailbox that looks like it's seen better days. The car rolls to a stop, and she shifts into park before opening the door and standing. The house is still white, the shutters still red, but the paint is faded. The garden is dying, which she attributes to the season. There's still no white picket fence. There probably never will be. She steps out of the car completely and shuts the door behind her. The middle Utonium sister wonders if anything inside has changed, if her part of their room is still the same way she left it when she walked out that screen door almost six years ago. She's come a long way since then, and wonders if her younger sister has, too.

Buttercup walks up the cracked cement path and doesn't stop until she's at the front door. She pulls the old screen door open, and her fingers wrap around the knob, already turning it. It creaks, something she'd come to expect after so many years of living here, and she steps inside.

Not a thing is different. They'd been lucky, her father used to say on nights when the stars were all out and they weren't cooped up in some shoddy motel room. They had a home to return to after the job was over, after everything was said and done. They had each other. Most hunters didn't have a home or a family.

She sighs, and the sound of it echoes through the old house. Buttercup drops her keys on the side table and walks inside, taking a deep breath and fingering the worn leather journal in her jacket. The rough material is cool under her fingertips, the pages full of hours upon hours of research and studying, notes on the supernatural all carefully taken down by her older sister.

No one's home, maybe the place has been empty for a while, though the date on the half-full milk carton in the fridge suggests otherwise. It was bought recently, so someone must be pretty close to home. She wonders if Bubbles will be surprised to see her, here in the house they grew up together in, after so long apart. She's not so great at keeping in touch, never has been. But every time her fingertips ghost over a pay phone, or a crappy line in an even crappier motel room, or when she fishes her cell out of her pocket, she thinks about it. She thinks about picking the phone up and calling, about talking for hours, about coming home for good.

But this is what it is, and that is what can never be. She lives in between the lines, in shoddy, pay-by-the-hour motels and her older sister's car for a reason. There compartment in the trunk of her older sister's car doesn't carry a spare tire, but bags of salt, a sawed off shotgun, and a menagerie of other weapons. Instead of lip gloss and a dozen old receipts in her console, there's a vial of holy water and a dozen or more old receipts mixed in with a fake FBI badge and other credentials. She's doing this so her little sister doesn't have to, and this time, just this time, it's by luck of the draw that she's home because a case brought her here.

She stretches, a yawn slipping through the cracks of her tough exterior. Buttercup rubs her eyes with a back on her hand wearily. She's been running on about four hours of sleep for the past two days, and it's starting to wear on her again. The dark-haired girl pulls a glass out of the cupboard, turns on the tap, and pours herself some water. Downing it in one go, she places the cup in the sink and heads down the hall to her old shared bedroom.

A set of bunk beds and a twin, old posters, and a desk. Two thirds of the room don't look as if they've been touched in years. The bunkbed, which she and Blossom had shared, isn't any different aside from the fact that her top bunk is made instead of hastily thrown back. Blossom's books still line the shelf, and there are still college application forms on the desk. She hoists herself up onto her old bed and falls back onto it, wondering if she'll even be able to sleep.

This is where Bubbles finds her a few hours later, letter open clasped tightly in one hand. The blonde had been instantly recognized the car in the drive, and had seen the glass in the sink. But it was always best to take precautions. The letter opener falls out of her hand and she feels a sinking in her stomach.

"Buttercup?"

The girl staring back at her is different from before. Same vivid green eyes, same almost smile, but a different girl. Her hair is chopped off, barely dusting her shoulders and falling into her eyes. There's a leather jacket hanging off the bedpost that wasn't there when she left this morning, and combat boots on the floor. A plaid shirt over an old rock band tee, and jeans with a hole in the knee. It's her older sister alright, but not the way she remembers her.

Buttercup swings her legs over the side of the bed and pushes off the mattress with her palms. She looks at Bubbles, with her low blonde pigtails and waitress uniform, that worried glint in her eyes, and the smile drops. "Bubbles, listen. Blossom's on a hunting trip, and she hasn't been home for a few days."

Bubbles aggressively wipes down a mug and pours hot coffee into it before sliding it down the counter. Buttercup watches her from her seat on a barstool, hands wrapped around her own cup of joe. The blonde lightly slams a palm down on the counter, pretty face deadly serious, startling the rest of her usual patrons. "Tell me everything you know."

"Well," Buttercup begins, not really sure where the story stops and if it ever ends, "we were in Nebraska and got wind of this weird tall tale about people disappearing off highway 183 about a hundred miles from here, and…you know the rest, since we specialize in the unbelievable. We staked it out and never saw a damn thing. But then, one night she just decides to go off on her own, and she didn't come back. So I hiked it up to the spot where we'd been, and found the Camaro deserted a few miles from there."

She pinches the bridge of her nose and heaves a sigh. "I searched that strip of asphalt for hours, and there wasn't a sign of her anywhere aside from the empty car. She's out there somewhere, Bubbles. Blossom is out there and she's in trouble, but I don't know where the hell to begin looking."

The bell above the door dings, signaling that someone's stepped in for a bite, but neither of the girls pay it any attention. Buttercup takes a swallow of her bitter (just black, this morning) coffee and clenches her jaw, focusing on the strains of Foreigner's 'Hot Blooded' pouring through the radio behind the bar. Bubbles leans on the counter and props her chin in her palms, worried look in her eyes.

This is exactly why Buttercup hadn't wanted to drop in on her baby sister, but she needed the help, and Bubbles deserved to know.

Last night there'd been mutual exchanges of "I don't want to lose Blossom like we lost Dad" and the girls had decided to work together to find their missing sister. But a fitful night's rest, one early shift at the diner, and two black cups of coffee later, they were still up a creek without a paddle. Hell, they were up a creek without a creek.

Bubbles shakes her head. "I haven't heard anything about people just up and disappearing off the highway close to here," a pause. "And trust me, I listen."

"We're getting nowhere fast," Buttercup groans, rubbing her face. "Which is where we were to start with. We're even more lost than when we began."

Someone slides onto the stool next to her, and she raises her head, eyes already burning with a glare.

"'Scuse me, ladies," comes a disturbingly familiar, shit-talking drawl, and both girls freeze. "But I was wondering if you could stop talkin' for a moment so I can put in an order."

Buttercup slowly, painfully turns her gaze to the body next to hers. Oh, of course. Of fucking course. Six years, and here they were again. The one time she decides to come back, and apparently the sentiment had been shared. She's going to gag. Oh god, she's going to throw up.

Amused deep green eyes stare back at her, a contented smirk to match. He taps his fingers on the counter to the beat of the song playing, and grins, a whistle slipping through his teeth. "We-he-ell," drawls the second bane of her existence, right after supernatural creatures that want to fuck up everyone's life. He likes to do that too, but to her in particular. "Lookit what we have here. The Utonium sisters, all grown up."

Bubbles stares, blue eyes wide. "…Butch?"

He grins. "In the flesh, blondie."

"We don't want your business," Buttercup says suddenly, and attempts to shove him off the stool. God, he's gotten stronger over the years. "Get out."

Butch looks down at her in amusement. "Really, sweetheart? Rumor has it you just got back in town. Maybe I wanted to come see my favorite girl. Did you ever think of that?"

She's starting to look ill. "No. The thought has never once in all my life crossed my mind."

Bubbles is still looking at him in disbelief. It's been such a long time, even longer than she's seen Buttercup. "Butch? What are you doing here? Last time I heard…well, when I…there was some talk that you were in Louisiana."

"Keeping tabs on your golden boy?" Butch laughs, like there's a secret between all of them that no one else in the diner knows. There are—several, in fact. "Well, that'd probably be Brick if we're gonna be all technical and shit. Your boy blue, then."

He points over his shoulder with his thumb, right out the window to the parking lot, where sits an all too familiar car. "You're in luck, honey," his grin is wide, like he's keeping a secret even they don't know and he's about to let the cat out of the bag. "The boys are back in town."

x

end notes: the summary is a bit misleading because blossom isn't missing the entire story. she's coming back, pinky promise. and it's going to be soon.
scenes from next episodes: "oh, my gosh. this feels just like old times again."/"yeah, except back then our older siblings weren't getting kidnapped by homicidal vengeful highway spirits that plan to murder them."/"so like i said."