Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Allison didn’t look too great when she answered her front door. Well, really, she looked the same as she always did—obnoxiously pretty and generally well-put-together—but she didn’t have the same warm smile on her face that she usually did when she greeted Stiles. Instead she looked kind of grim, a frown on her lips and a little crease of worry between her eyebrows.

“Hey, Stiles,” she said. “Thanks for coming.”

“Anytime. What’s up? Your text sounded kind of urgent.”

She stepped back to let him through the door and closed it behind him, ushering him into the apartment.

“I might have a tiny situation,” she admitted. “Or potentially not-so-tiny, I don’t know yet.”

“Okay,” Stiles said slowly, following her down the short hallway to a home office type room. He leaned into the doorway, hands in his pockets and watched curiously as she came to a hover in the middle of the room. “And you call me for this situation? Just me? Seems more like a Scott thing. He’s usually the one everyone goes to for situations.”

“He’s busy with alpha things,” Allison said distractedly. Her hands flitted over the back of her dad’s desk chair for a moment, then skipped over to the nearest shelf to run along the spines of the books there. Her eyes were just as restless, darting around the room on a loop without ever settling on anything. “And anyway, I don’t think his help is the kind I need. This is more up your alley.”

“Feel free to tell me what ‘this’ is anytime,” Stiles said mildly.

He couldn’t think what kind of thing would be up his alley but not Scott’s, unless it was specifically a magical problem. But even then, most people would go to Deaton before him, which was understandable. As strong as his spark was and as much progress as he’d made so far, he still wasn’t up to Emissary level yet. He was still an apprentice, at least technically speaking. And besides, he felt like Allison would’ve said magic right off the bat if that had been the case.

No reason for her to be this cagey if it was magic. It was kind of making him jumpy. He wasn’t nervous yet, per se. He wasn’t getting any overwhelming sense of impending doom like he did with a lot of the situations the pack had found itself in over the years, but the way Allison was biting her lip and twisting her fingers around each other wasn’t particularly reassuring either.

Abruptly, Allison turned to face him fully and let out a quick breath.

“Dad went on a hunting trip,” she said bluntly. “And he hasn’t come back yet.”

Stiles waited for further elaboration, but none seemed to be forthcoming.

“So...when you say a ‘hunting’ trip, do you mean, like, hunting hunting?” he asked.

“Yes,” Allison said. “And he was supposed to be back yesterday. He hasn’t called me, or even texted. He’s never been late getting back from a hunt without at least calling to let me know he’d been delayed.”

“Yeah, that’s not like him,” Stiles muttered, the first twinges of worry cropping up in his chest.

Chris was the diligent type, always very punctual and always very conscious of his responsibility to the only family he had left. He would never just lose track of time or forget to tell his daughter what was going on. If he hadn’t called, it was because he couldn’t.

“Do you know where he was going? What he was hunting?” Stiles asked.

Allison sighed, dropping heavily into the ergonomic chair in front of the surprisingly disordered writing desk.

“No,” she said. “You know how my dad is. He’s been so adamant about keeping me out of the hunting scene, at least on a large scale. He’s fine with me keeping up my skills and protecting the town when necessary, but anything past the county line and suddenly it’s none of my business anymore.”

She rolled her eyes and Stiles snorted at how thoroughly petulant she sounded. It was very teenager-y. She smiled at him, then bit her lip again.

“That’s where you come in,” she said, sounding hopeful. “I figured, if anyone could track him down, it would be you. He takes a lot of notes, does a lot of research, and it’s all here. It’s just that I don’t know what’s relevant to right now and what’s not. But you’re so good with patterns and putting puzzle pieces together! I thought maybe you could do some sleuthing for me?”

“You—you’re giving me permission to poke around in Chris' personal office?” Stiles asked, shocked and maybe a little bit honored at being given that level of trust by a usually very cautious person.

Allison gave him a look that was as much amusement as reproach.

“I’m asking you to help me find my dad,” she reiterated. “And if you have to invade his privacy to do it, then he’ll just have to deal with it when we get him back.”

Stiles took a moment to scan the stacks of papers and manila folders and reference books piled up on the desk, studded with dull yellow post-it notes. It was a hell of a lot of shit, half of it in Chris' spiky scrawl, and at least one drawer was stuffed too full to close all the way. The other drawers looked like they might be locked, but that had never stopped Stiles before.

He pushed himself off the doorjamb and cracked his knuckles, a thrill of anticipation putting a smile on his face.

“Well, what’re we waiting for?” he asked. “Time’s a-wasting and we’ve got a wayward Argent to find.”

Dean pulled his sleeve down over his hand before opening the motel room door, the better to avoid getting blood and other unidentifiable substances all over the handle that they would just have to clean up later. He was barely inside before he was stripping off, tossing his mostly-clean jacket onto the rickety table and wondering if he would have to burn everything under it because there was no way those stains were coming out.

“It’s official,” he said, dragging his ruined t-shirt over his hair to get the worst of the muck out. “I hate rugarus.”

Sam snorted as he kicked the door shut behind them, transferring the duffel bag from his shoulder to the floor. Its contents let out a loud, metallic clank. Dean hoped nothing was broken; good flamethrowers like that weren’t cheap.

“Did you not hate them before?” Sam asked. “Or was it just an informal hatred that has now been upgraded?”

“Oh, I hated ‘em,” Dean assured him, kicking his boots off. “Always hated ‘em. Just hate ‘em double now. Extra special double helping of burning hatred.”

Sam stopped halfway through peeling off his blood-soaked jeans specifically to raise an unimpressed eyebrow at him.

“Burning, Dean? Really? That’s what you go for?”

Dean grinned at him.

“Aw, c’mon, Sammy,” he said. “Don’t tell me you don’t appreciate a good pun once in a while.”

Sam rolled his eyes and said: “I do. That just wasn’t a good one.”

Dean threw his shirt in Sam’s face and headed for the bathroom, intent on claiming the shower before Sam could try and steal it out from under him. He’d been the one to make the kill, and that meant he got the first shower. Them’s were the rules.

The shrill beeping of a phone sounded from somewhere behind him. It was muffled, though, which meant it was one of the backup cells. They didn’t get a whole lot of calls on those, at least not non-emergency ones.

Dean backtracked to his bed, unzipping his own duffel and rooting around in it until he found the device making that god-awful noise. Man, he hated default ringtones.

It was an unknown number but, considering there were only three numbers actually programmed into this particular backup, that didn’t mean much. When Dean looked his way, Sam shrugged, so Dean shrugged back and accepted the call.

“Hello?”

“Winchester?”

It was a woman’s voice, and not one that Dean recognized, or at least not immediately.

“Maybe,” he allowed. “Who are you and how’d you get this number?”

“We have a mutual friend," the woman said, which was much too unspecific for Dean’s taste.

“Do we?” he asked dryly.

“Yes, we do. Now I need your help.”

And hell if that didn’t sound more like a demand than a request. Dean made a face, mildly offended by the lady’s tone, and Sam made an exaggerated questioning face back at him. Dean put the call on speaker and held the phone out so he could hear it too.

“Honestly, I’m not really seeing a connection between points A and B there,” he said. “At least, not one that makes me care. And you still haven’t told me who you are.”

Static came crackling through the burner phone’s shitty speaker and there was a mutter of voices on the other end of the line, too far away from the receiver to hear well. So more than one person on that end too. Whatever argument the speaker and her companion were having only lasted a moment, and then she was back.

“I’m a hunter,” she said definitively. “And so is our mutual friend. That makes us allies, does it not? Hunters are a community. We’re supposed to have each other’s backs.”

“How about you give me a name for you and our friend,” Dean countered. “You see, allies aren’t usually anonymous.”

There was another bout of muttering that Dean couldn’t make out. And then—

“Argent,” she said. “My name is Allison Argent. And I need you to help me find my father, Chris Argent.”

“Chris Argent,” Dean repeated, rolling the name around in his head. It did sound kind of familiar. He looked to his brother, who nodded.

“We worked with some Argents in Nevada a few years back,” Sam said. “Rawhead, I think. It was a clean hunt. There was no Allison there, though.”

That wasn’t exactly a red flag. This Allison hadn’t claimed to know them personally and, if Dean was remembering his dad’s old stories correctly, the Argents were a decent sized family full of people in the trade. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that this was just one they hadn’t come across before. Still.

“Where’d you get the number?”

“From my dad’s files,” Allison said, sounding impatient. “Will you help me or not?”

“What the hell’s the rush?” Dean asked. “And why are you calling us anyway? You don’t even know us!”

There was a moment of silence, on both ends of the line for once.

“My dad went out on a hunt,” Allison finally said, and for the first time she sounded less than completely confident. “And he hasn’t been home in a few days. I didn’t know who else to call.”

Dean’s heart sank. Fuck, it had to be that, didn’t it? If there was one thing he couldn’t resist, it was this. When his dad had gone missing, he’d had Sam to fall back on, even if Sam had been wholly reluctant to get involved again. If this girl was calling up distant business acquaintances of her missing father on the off-chance they would be willing to help, she must really be desperate.

As if she’d read his mind, Allison said, “Please. I can’t find him on my own.”

Dean sighed, already wondering just how much he was going to regret this, but Sam had the same look of resignation on his face so at least he wasn’t alone in being a pushover in this particular circumstance.

“Where are you now?”

“Do you have any idea how much freaky shit has gone down in this town?”

Dean glanced over at Sam in the passenger seat. He had his phone in hand, scrolling through an internet search. How he had the service for that in the middle of nowhere, Dean would never know, but Sammy just always had service. Always. It was downright eerie, but also convenient so he had learned not to question it.

“What kind of freaky shit?”

“The kind that raises alarm bells six ways to Sunday,” Sam said, frowning. “This place is a cesspit of supernatural activity. Or at least it has been for the last couple of years. It wasn’t too bad before then, but recently...” He huffed out a laugh, more morbidly impressed than amused.

“Then why haven’t we come this way before?” Dean asked. Usually they followed the signs and tracked things back to the source. If there was so much weirdness here, they should’ve at least made a few pit stops.

“It’s sort of Argent territory,” Sam said with a shrug. “Most of the big, established hunting families have a region they’re centered in, and they usually keep it pretty well in hand. The Argents have kind of been decimated in the last few years, but according to Bobby they still have the area relatively under control. They never sent out a distress call or anything, so everyone let’s them handle things around here.”

“No distress call until now, you mean,” Dean pointed out. “Allison called us.”

“Bobby said he thought Allison wasn’t a hunter at all,” Sam told him, tucking his phone away. “He’s worked with Chris a few times before, and he was under the impression that Chris wanted to raise his daughter outside of the hunter lifestyle.”

“Easier said than done,” Dean said grimly.

“Yeah, especially considering the girl’s mother, aunt, and grandfather were all killed within a year of each other. And all through suspicious means.”

“You mean, through supernatural means.”

“Bingo. And now she’s introducing herself as a hunter.” Sam shook his head. “My guess is she took up the life so she could watch her father’s back because everyone who used to is dead.”

“And now her father goes missing from under her nose,” Dean finished. “Poor kid.”

A sign flashed past the window, weathered and dull, that read Welcome to Beacon Hills. Considering what Sam had said about the rate of supernatural attacks in this place, Dean was surprised the sign didn’t have a postscript that read it has been ___ days since our last monster-related death.

“Hopefully we can help her out,” Sam said, eyes already scanning the trees on either side of the road like clues might start popping out at him.

“Course we can,” Dean said bracingly. “We found our dad, didn’t we? We can find hers, no problem.”

The town was really no different than any of the other medium-sized towns they had crawled through across the country. It had all the same down-home charm to it, and all the same slightly suspicious stares from the locals. Dean manfully resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at a little girl when she pulled on her mom’s hand and pointed at them as they drove past.

They followed the GPS instructions to the address Allison had given them and pulled into the parking lot of an upper-scale apartment complex. They didn’t need to go inside though, which was good because she hadn’t given them a unit number.

Allison Argent was waiting for them outside the complex’s main building, stance wide and arms crossed over her chest. Long dark hair curled over one shoulder, the front pinned back to keep it out of her face. She had on a short skirt with leggings underneath and decent boots. All in all, she looked very much like every other fashion-forward teenager, except for the fact that there was a very expensive-looking composite bow slung across her back and a quiver of arrows poking out over her shoulder.

She didn’t smile as they got out of the car to approach, but the guy leaning casually on the wall behind her did. Dean didn’t know who he was—Allison hadn’t deigned to give them any information beyond the bare basics of how to find her before she’d hung up on him, which was rude but he would forgive her under the circumstances—but the guy obviously knew who they were. He looked Dean up and down with narrowed eyes even as the grin stayed on his face, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his skinny jeans.

Something about that look made Dean want to fidget. He cleared his throat instead.

“You Allison?” he asked, and the girl nodded.

“Thank you. For coming,” she said with what was probably supposed to be a smile but was too tight and anxious to be welcoming. She held out a hand and Dean shook it, then Sam. She had a firm grip; that was a good sign.

“And who’s this?” Sam asked lightly, pointing over her shoulder.

The guy didn’t even bother kicking off the wall to stand straight, much less shake their hands. Nor did he offer up a name like a civilized human being. He just said, “Her backup.”

Dean clenched his teeth; he did not appreciate being given the runaround and, judging by the way Sam shifted on his feet next to him, neither did his brother.

“You a hunter too?” Sam asked, his friendly tone a little less friendly.

The guy’s shit-eating grin just widened like he knew exactly how frustrating he was being and got off on it.

“Not exactly,” he said. “But sure, let’s go with that.”

“How about we go with who the hell you are and what you’re doing here,” Dean snapped, “because I ain’t letting some punk kid who won’t even tell us his name watch my back on a hunt.”

The guy just cocked his head, peering critically at Dean like he was an interesting puzzle, and Dean seriously considered punching him. Or just getting back in the car and driving away because, seriously, they were here to help. They were doing this chick a favor. The least her scrawny little asshole of a guard dog could do was play nice.

The standoff lasted all of two seconds before Allison sighed and turned back to give the guy a look. Finally he pushed himself up off the wall to face them, crossing his arms to mirror Allison’s pose.

“Name’s Stiles,” he said. “And what I’m doing here is going with you. Call me paranoid, call me overprotective of my friends, call me nosy as fuck and a thrill-seeker to boot, but I’m not letting Allison ride off into the mist with two strange and undoubtedly dangerous men without someone she trusts to watch her back.”

“Well, Stiles—” And what the hell kind of name was that, anyway? “—what makes you qualified to watch her back if you’re not a hunter?” Dean demanded, unaccountably stung by the insinuation that they weren’t trustworthy, that they would turn on the lady after posing as her allies.

“I have my ways,” Stiles said, though he didn’t seem inclined toward divulging what those ways were.

“Look,” Allison butted in. “I just want to find my dad and get him home safely. Stiles is my friend and he wants that too. Can we all work together on this?”

Dean chewed on his tongue, biting back any number of snarky-ass comments because Allison had dark circles under her eyes and even Stiles was looking the tiniest bit abashed at the reminder that there might be a man’s life on the line here.

Beside him, Sam was pinching the bridge of his nose and looking like he was already regretting every life choice that brought him to this moment. Then he dropped his hand with a sigh.

“How can we help?”

Chapter Text

The Winchesters were the real deal. Not that the Argents weren’t, it was just that the Argents that Stiles had the most contact with already had one foot in the metaphorical retirement home, or had otherwise been out of their freaking minds. Allison had certainly never hunted in earnest and while Chris was very badass and knowledgeable, he was also kind of a soccer dad who spent as much time in PTA meetings as he did with a gun in hand nowadays.

For Dean and Sam though, this was their entire life. They lived out of their car—the awesome car with the enormous stockpile of weapons in the trunk—and spent their days on the road, going case to case and monster to monster without pause, and they knew how to kill freaking everything. It was pretty damn impressive, not that Stiles was gonna say that out loud.

And their knowledge base was far from the only impressive thing, if he was being honest: their bestiary, in the form of their dad’s old journal; Sam’s ability to connect to wifi even in verified dead spots; Dean’s ass; their collection of fake IDs, credit cards, and various law enforcement and government issue badges.

Lots of impressive things.

None of that made Stiles any more inclined to trust them blindly, though.

They hadn’t done anything to raise red flags, nothing beyond the basic shadiness that came with their chosen profession. It was more that Stiles was a naturally suspicious person whose experiences had only fostered that trait in him. After all, four out of the five hunters he had ever known personally had tried to kill either him or his friends and family, so he was bound to be a little bit wary around that particular demographic.

He had tried to talk Allison out of calling them, to convince her that it was a bad idea bringing unknown hunters into a town like theirs, but by then they had already gone through all of Chris' junk twice and were really no closer to tracking him down. When her bottom lip had started wobbling, signaling incoming tears of hopelessness and frustration, he had caved.

The number had been on a business card, plain flimsy cardstock with literally only the phone number printed on it, that Stiles had found tucked away in a file with a bunch of news clippings on missing children in Nevada from a few years ago. Winchester had been handwritten above the number itself in pen, and not by Chris.

Allison had recognized the name. According to her, they were a small family of well-known hunters with a reputation for getting the job done no matter the odds, but she didn’t know anything past that, not even first names. They’d put the card away and only come back to it when they had exhausted all other avenues of investigation and admitted defeat. Chris hadn’t left a memo on where he’d gone or why, and the two of them simply didn’t have the knowledge or experience necessary to figure it out on their own.

Now Sam was sitting at Chris' desk, shuffling through papers, and Dean was alternating between squinting at the bookcase on the far wall and perusing the four-day-old newspaper he had asked Allison to dig up for him. Every few seconds Dean would make a thoughtful humming noise before turning the page and Sam was tapping a pen against the desk in a staccato rhythm that made Stiles wonder if it was equally annoying when he did that himself.

He and Allison leaned in the doorway, one on each jamb, and watched them with growing impatience.

“Sammy,” Dean said, holding the newspaper out and thwacking it into the back of his brother’s head until the man turned around to grab it. “Page three, bottom left.”

Sam scanned the article in question and nodded to himself like it made sense, then turned back to the desk and rummaged around some more. Dean went back to the paper.

Not two minutes later, Sam spun the desk chair around and said, “We think he was after a Djinn making trouble up in Sutter Creek.”

Stiles and Allison exchange a look, nonplussed.

“A what?” Allison asked.

“A Djinn,” Dean echoed, tossing the newspaper aside and leaning up against the bookcase. “A creature from Arab folklore, also sometimes known as a genie, though not half as cutesy as the Disney portrayal. They’re humanoid monsters who supposedly grant you your deepest wish, but in reality they’re trapping you in one long, elaborate, very pleasant hallucination while they feast on your blood. Victims can feel like they live out a whole lifetime in the time it takes to drain them dry.”

A shiver ran down Stiles’ spine; elaborate hallucinations were something he had plenty of experience with, though admittedly he’d managed to avoid having any pleasant ones. Nogitsunes weren’t half as conscientious of their victims’ comfort as Djinn seemed to be.

“You think it got my dad?” Allison didn’t sound at all happy about the prospect, not that Stiles could say he blamed her. “He went after it and it...trapped him, has him strung up somewhere so it can feed off him?”

“Probably in an abandoned warehouse somewhere,” Sam said by way of agreement. “They like big ruins, but there aren’t a lot of those in California so that’s probably the next best place to find it. Your dad’s got a few listings here, so I’m guessing he narrowed it down to those before he left.”

“That was days ago,” Stiles said lowly, and he felt Allison go tense beside him. He wished he didn’t have to say this, or that she didn’t have to hear it, but somebody had to ask the important question here. “How long does it take for these things to drain their victims?”

How likely was it that Chris was already dead?

Dean gave him a sidelong look, the clench of his jaw and the way his eyes flicked briefly to Allison saying that he knew exactly what Stiles was really asking.

“We’ve got some time,” he said gruffly. “But we should get moving.”

“Sutter Creek’s only eight hours away,” Sam said, hauling his lanky form out of the chair to put a hand on Allison’s shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t worry. We’ll get him back.”

Stiles could see the change as Allison consciously shook off her fear and pulled on that mask of professionalism she always wore when there was danger to be dealt with. In the next second, she was standing tall with her head held high, every bit the leader she was raised to be.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “We will.”

Stiles clapped his hands together, making everyone in the room jump with the volume of it and turn to glare at him.

“Great!” he said. “So whose car are we taking, yours or mine?”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me!” Dean cried. “There is no way we’re taking that!”

“I’m just saying, it’s got more leg room,” Stiles insisted, leaning back against the bumper of a powder blue jeep and kicking his feet out in front of him. “If we’re trying to take four people and a bunch of weapons on this road trip, we’ll fit better in this sensible vehicle than in your little hot-rod over there.”

“Or we could just leave your ass here and then we’d only need to fit three people,” Dean suggested, quite reasonably in his opinion, but Allison sent him a withering look from where she was packing her bow into its travel case. “Why are we even riding in one, anyway? We’ve got two cars; we should take two cars.”

“Because,” Stiles said blithely, “I’m 86% sure that if we take separate cars, you two will give us the slip so you can take care of this yourselves without involving us.”

Dean mouthed at him soundlessly for a minute because, damn it, the kid was right. Even Sam was grimacing, which meant he’d been thinking the same thing.

At a loss, what came out of Dean’s mouth was an accusatory and shamefully childish: “You made that statistic up.”

Stiles’ snorted.

“I’m 100% sure I don’t care. We’re still riding together, pal. And if we take the jeep then—”

“Oh my god, Stiles,” Allison groaned. “Which vehicle already has an arsenal in the trunk? Theirs. So get in the car and let’s go. We’ve wasted enough time already.”

Dean took some measure of petty satisfaction from the look that put on Stiles’ face, like he was sucking on a lemon, but any triumphant feelings disappeared when Stiles shrugged his loss off and said, “Fine, but I get shotgun.”

“Like hell you do!”

Stiles got shotgun. Dean had no idea how the little bastard had managed to convince Sam to squeeze himself into the backseat with Allison, but by the time they were pulling out onto the road, there Stiles was in the passenger seat with a state map spread out on his lap and one sneaker-clad foot wedged up against Baby’s console like that wasn’t treason.

“Shouldn’t be hard to find,” Stiles was saying, completely ignoring the way Dean was seething with indignation. “Take I-5 north for a few hours, eventual east turn on 88, and GPS can take us anywhere we need to go from there.”

Dean unclenched one hand from the steering wheel to shove at Stiles’ leg.

“Feet off the dash, you damn heathen.”

Stiles rolled his eyes but obliged, shifting around so he could perch that foot on the edge of his seat instead, the other tucked sideways underneath him, which left his legs spread so obscenely wide that the seam of his jeans was pulled taut along his inner thigh. It was downright indecent and, as he turned back to the road, Dean had to wonder if this position was better than feet on the dash or worse.

“It’ll be dark long before we get there,” Sam spoke up, leaning forward a bit from his place behind Stiles with his phone in hand again. “There’s a motel about a mile out. We should stop there for the night.”

“We won’t have time for that,” Allison said immediately. “We have to find my dad as soon as possible.”

“Look, Allison,” Sam said in that gentle voice he always used with victims’ loved ones—gentle enough to come across condescending, apparently, judging by the dangerous look Stiles sent over his shoulder. Sam didn’t stop talking, but he did modulate his tone to something less mollifying and more matter of fact. “I know you want to find your dad. We all do. But trust me when I say you don’t want to try fighting Djinn in the dark. You’re no help to your dad if you get killed before you can find him.”

A quick glance in the rearview showed Allison tight-lipped and pale, stubborn as anything. But a minute later she was slumping back in her seat, which Dean took as grudging acceptance of the motel plan.

He felt for her, really, he did. He was all too familiar with the particular brand of agony that came with the hurry-up-and-wait plan, especially when someone he cared about was in the line of fire. But that was why the person with the most to lose was never supposed to be the one who made the calls. That made people reckless, and then they ended up dead. As much as it sucked in this circumstance, it was better for them to get some sleep and wait for sunrise before they went searching.

The tense silence that followed that decision was broken when Stiles took it upon himself to start futzing around with the radio. Dean slapped his hand away, earning a squawk of protest.

“Driver picks the music,” he said. “Shotgun shuts his cakehole.”

“How about driver drives and shotgun does whatever he wants?” Stiles threw back at him. “Focus on the road, will you? Before my dad has to ticket you for reckless driving.”

“Your dad a cop?” Sam asked.

“Sheriff,” Stiles informed him, going right back to messing with the dials as if Dean had never protested.

“Did you, uh...tell him where you were going?” Sam asked, wincing as Stiles hit a station full of white noise. “He’s not gonna be worried or anything, is he?”

“Worried?” Stiles scoffed. “Please! It’s just a monster-hunting rescue mission with my best friend’s ex-girlfriend and two fugitives from justice. What’s there for him to be worried about?”

Oh Jesus, Dean really hoped they weren’t going to end up fleeing the long arm of the law again just because this obnoxious kid couldn’t keep his mouth shut around his cop dad. They’d had too many close calls already, and Dean was far too pretty for prison.

“Don’t look so alarmed,” Stiles said, smirking at Dean like his entirely justified reaction was hilarious. “He gets how the hunter thing goes by now. And even if he didn’t, I once hid a murder suspect in my bedroom for a day or two while dad was out searching for him, so you wouldn’t be the first I’ve run interference for.”

“You did what now?” Dean demanded, no less alarmed than he was before.

Stiles just paused in his incessant radio surfing to say, “Good times, good times,” with this nostalgic look on his face, yet again ignoring Dean entirely.

“He was a wrongly accused murder suspect,” Allison clarified. “And I really doubt Derek would’ve called it a good time.”

“Yeah, well, Derek was a stick in the mud back then,” Stiles said, shrugging. With one more twist of the dial, the radio came to life with an actual song and Dean almost swerved off the road in his haste to change it.

“No!” he yelled. “No way! We are not listening to that sappy chick music all the way to Sutter Creek!”

Stiles intercepted his efforts, blocking the dashboard with both his hands and slapping at Dean’s to keep him from making any changes.

“That’s totally sexist, Dean,” he said loftily, fumbling with the volume knob to turn the music up while still holding Dean at bay. “Besides, teen heartbreak is universal. T-Swift knows what’s up and she will not be silenced!”

“Boys!”

Allison’s shout had them both firmly in their seats, hands to themselves like scolded children, in a heartbeat.

“Will you two please control yourselves?” she asked. “The song will be over in a minute and a half anyway.”

“And besides,” Sam said innocently, “it’s not like this is the first time you’ve had Taylor Swift on in this car.”

Fucking traitor.

Stiles laughed uproariously, Dean ground his teeth until they squeaked, and Taylor crooned on in the background uninterrupted.

Eight hours in a car was never particularly pleasant, no matter how many times Dean had done it before. By two hours in his ass was numb, by four his eyes were getting tired. They had to stop for gas at around the five hour mark, everyone taking the opportunity to stretch their legs and grab something out of the vending machine before getting back on the road for the rest of the interminable journey.

Time always seemed to move strangely on the highway, the monotony making it hard to tell if things were moving too fast or too slow or both at once. It was almost hypnotizing, but not in a bad way, at least in Dean’s opinion. On some days, it could be boring as fuck but on others, on the hardest days, letting the endless pavement dull his mind was the only way he could really relax and unwind.

This trip wasn’t quite like that. Sure, the miles of asphalt and the purr of the engine were the same as always, but it was hard to be bored with four people in the car, especially when one of them was Stiles.

The kid rarely sat still, for one thing. When it was just Dean and Sam, one of them usually ended up sleeping, but Stiles was wide awake and radiating a restless sort of energy. He always had something moving, whether it was a tapping foot or a jiggling knee or air-drumming to whatever song was playing—Stiles had surrendered the radio after half an hour, having had his fill of tormenting Dean with that pop crap, and switched to classic rock instead, which was a blessing at least.

For another thing, Stiles had apparently jacked some of Chris' reference books, which had Allison leaning around his seat to flick him hard in the ear. He’d pulled one of them out of his jacket pocket an hour into the drive and that distraction had earned Dean forty-five minutes of the kind of peace he was used to.

Then Stiles had started talking. He read out the bits he found most interesting, just in case the rest of them hadn’t heard whatever fascinating fact he’d stumbled across. He asked questions—a lot of questions—on monsters and the lore behind them, turning all the way around to kneel on the seat so he could converse with Sam properly. And when he finished going through one book, he pulled out another and did it all again.

The kid was no slouch, that much was obvious. He and Allison both had a pretty decent knowledge base when it came to the uglies that went bump in the night, even if their education seemed confined more to certain areas than others. They asked intelligent questions, listened attentively to the answers, and offered up their own tidbits and anecdotal evidence where possible.

All in all, Dean found that he didn’t mind having Stiles in the car, once the radio issue was put to rest. He was bright, clever, and quick with a joke. He wasn’t out of tune when he hummed along to the radio like Sam always was. His steady stream of chatter was even interesting most of the time instead of annoying like Dean would’ve expected it to be. The only annoying thing was that at some point, Stiles had stopped being annoying.

Well, the really annoying part was that Stiles had only stopped being annoying when he started bonding with Sam. Evidently it was only Dean that Stiles felt the need to be a dick to. Dean didn’t know why the hell that was, but he was pretty sure it shouldn’t bother him as much as it did.

Chapter Text

The sun had long since set by the time they reached the motel off Route 88 and Stiles was more than ready to get out of the damn car and stretch his legs. The backseat was definitely more cramped than the front, he had discovered upon trading seats with Sam at that pit stop a ways back, and Stiles was kind of regretting that he had made the considerably taller man suffer through the confinement for so long.

They were only an hour away from their ultimate destination, but Stiles’ phone display told him it was almost 2am and Allison was practically nodding off on his shoulder. She was exhausted, strung out on worry and quiet panic. At a guess, Stiles would say she hadn’t slept a wink the night before, and if he hadn’t agreed with the Winchester’s gameplan before, he would now. She definitely needed a few hours of sleep before doing anything risky, and he could use them too.

He nudged Allison fully awake as Dean pulled into a parking space in front of the main building.

“Hey,” he said softly. “We’re at the motel. I’m gonna go rent us a room, okay? Don’t fall asleep before I get back.”

She nodded blearily at him, rubbing at her eyes, and Stiles smiled as he slipped out the door and made for the office. Dean was already there, halfway through booking two rooms with two beds each, apparently having taken it upon himself to make the arrangements.

Stiles cleared his throat pointedly before the old lady at the counter could finish entering the information. Dean turned around at the interruption and Stiles waved his wallet in the man’s face.

“I can pay for my own room, you know,” he said. “I’m a strong, independent woman and I’m not afraid of going Dutch on dinner.”

Dean snorted, but he tucked his fake credit card back into his wallet anyway.

“Of course you are, kid,” he said, condescension personified. “You sure you’re old enough to rent a hotel room? How old even are you?”

“Old enough not to be jailbait, if that’s what you mean.”

Dean made a noise like he’d swallowed his tongue and Stiles had to bite his lip to keep from crowing over his victory. What was twice as satisfying was that Dean’s eyes followed the motion, even as the man turned red and stammered out some kind of denial that was only half coherent.

Stiles ignored him, turning instead to the clerk with his most charming smile and saying, “One room for two, if you would, ma’am. Thanks.”

He handed over his card and his ID for her to verify and took them and his room key back from her with a wink. Then he tossed another wink Dean’s way just to see the affronted look on his face before strolling out the door with all the swagger he could muster up.

Allison was leaning against the car with Sam, both her overnight bag and Stiles’ at her feet, but she pushed off to follow Stiles when he gave her a wave.

The motel room was as generic as any other. Ratty wallpaper with dull, inoffensive patterns and a few bland landscape paintings scattered around. Plasticky comforters on the two twin beds. A desk, one chair, and an ancient television atop a set of drawers that probably didn’t open.

Allison tossed her bag onto the rickety table and handed Stiles’ his own before she threw herself face down on one of the beds. Stiles took the time to kick his shoes off and shed his jacket, though he didn’t blame her for collapsing first thing. He was damn tired considering they hadn’t done anything but sit in a car all day, and he was feeling sweaty and sticky and all-around kind of gross. Personally, his desire for a shower outweighed his need for sleep, but he was more used to late nights than Allison was just as general rule.

He nudged her shoulder, a little concerned that she hadn’t come up for air yet.

“May not want to rub your face all over that,” he said mildly. “Might get herpes or something.”

Allison rolled over to make a judgmental face at him. Stiles held up his hands in surrender, peeling off his flannel and tossing it onto his bed.

“I’m just saying! Motel rooms, you know,” he said meaningfully. “Wouldn’t want to look around with a blacklight, is all. I’m surprised the Winchester bros haven’t caught something nasty with all the time they spend in these things. Although, I guess, they could’ve and we just wouldn’t know. I mean, Sam not so much, but that Dean guy, wouldn’t put it past him—”

“Why were you such a jerk to him?” Allison asked.

“Who, Sam?” Stiles asked, rummaging around in his bag for his sleep pants, shoving books out of the way to get to the clothes underneath.

“Don’t be a dumbass.” She pushed herself up to sit cross-legged, leaning back on her hands and watching Stiles closely. It was probably meant to be her no-nonsense, you-can’t-fool-me laser stare, but she was too tired for it to have its usual intensity.

“I meant Dean,” she told him. “Sam too, I guess, but mostly Dean. Why were you so determined to piss him off? Is it a trust thing? Do you think they’re bad news or something?”

Stiles sighed. He shoved his bag aside and plopped down on the side of his bed closest to hers.

“Nah, it’s not— It’s nothing like that,” he said. “I don’t think they’re bad guys or anything. They seem pretty legit, and they’re helping us out when they don’t have to. But Dean’s just such a hardass, you know? He’s uptight. It’s so easy to get a rise out of him.”

“Well, that’s great, but could you maybe pull it back a little on the antagonism?” Allison asked, pulling her knees up to her chest. She wrapped her arms around them tightly, and she sounded every bit as tired now as she looked. “We kind of need them. My dad can’t afford for you to run them off just because riling Dean up is fun.”

At the first hint of tears in her eyes, Stiles was off his bed and on hers, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and squeezing.

“Hey, don’t think like that,” he said. “Your dad’s gonna be fine.”

Allison nodded quickly, sniffing and blinking away the wetness.

“No, I know,” she said. “Everything’s gonna be okay. It has to be. It’s just— I’m just scared. I’m really scared, Stiles. I mean, he’s all I’ve got left, a-and we don’t even know that he’s not already—”

Her voice broke and Stiles pulled her that much closer, tugging her head down onto his shoulder.

“He’s not, Alli,” he murmured into her hair. “He’s holding on for you, you know that. And Sam and Dean? They’re legit. They know what they’re doing and if anyone can get us to your dad, it’ll be them. And besides, this is Chris Argent we’re talking about! He’s hella strong. It’ll take more than one measly Djinn to take him down for good, you know that.”

Allison let out a watery laugh.

“Did you seriously just say ‘hella’?” she asked. “Like, out loud and unironically?”

“Damn right I did.”

Stiles pulled back, brushing Allison’s hair behind her ear and wiping away a tear track on her cheek with his thumb. She scrubbed away the rest of the wetness with her sleeve and gave him a weak smile.

“Now here’s how I’m gonna cheer you up,” Stiles said. “I’m gonna take a two minute cold shower and leave all the hot water to you so you can take as long as you want. How’s that sound?”

“You’d do that for me?” Allison asked, actually looking a bit touched by the offer.

“Just this once,” Stiles said sternly. “And don’t say I never did anything for you.”

Allison laughed again, smiling that sunshiny smile that Scott had always been so enamored with. Honestly, Stiles couldn’t blame him. It was a damn good smile. She made a noise of protest when Stiles ruffled her hair, half-heartedly batting at his hand, but Stiles ignored it in favor of snatching up his discarded pajama bottoms and heading for the bathroom.

“Stiles.”

He turned in the doorway, humming in question. Allison propped her chin on her knees and shrugged just a little bit, a fond half-grin still lingering on her face.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For coming with me.”

Stiles smiled back.

“Anything for you, Alli. You know that.”

He held up two fingers, mouthed “two minutes” at her, and closed the door. He strongly suspected she’d be asleep by the time he got out and he’d have to wake her up again, but it would be worth it anyway.

Dean probably should have knocked. That would’ve been the polite thing to do but, honestly, Dean hadn’t really been raised in a polite environment where everybody had doors and privacy and crap like that. So when he went to Stiles’ and Allison’s motel room to let them know they would all be leaving first thing in the morning and to be ready quick, he didn’t think twice about just pushing the door open, already halfway through his sentence.

He had really thought Stiles was scrawnier than this.

Not that he had been thinking about what Stiles would look like shirtless. Because he hadn’t been, at all. It was just that if someone had asked him to think about, he would not have told them that Stiles was this broad-chested. He just hadn’t expected so many muscles, that was all. Abs didn’t translate well through the kind of layers the kid wore, so Dean could be forgiven for assuming there wouldn’t be any.

He also hadn’t expected tattoos, but there they were. A swirling pattern of black and red lines gracefully sprawling over pale skin. The densest part of it was centered over Stiles’ sternum, high enough to sit just under the junction of his collarbones, and the rest spread out in a thick horizontal band before trailing off into more delicate strokes as it dripped down his torso to pool around his navel in a sunburst symbol that Dean was intimately familiar with.

There were more on his arms, too, other symbols wrapped around his biceps and spreading over the expanse of his inner forearms. Dean thought he could make out words hidden in the patterns, or maybe the whole lot of them were made up of elaborately transcribed words, but before he could get closer—close enough to look more carefully, to pick out the details on Stiles’ skin, to maybe run his fingers over the designs—the harsh sound of a throat clearing made him jump.

Stiles was watching him, one eyebrow raised and the corner of his mouth hitched up just a little bit. An itchy flush climbed up Dean’s neck as he realized that he’d been staring for more than a few seconds, which was...rude. Yeah, he was being rude, and that’s why Stiles was giving him that expectant look.

“Nice, uh, ink.”

Dean’s voice came out rough and he had to stop and clear his throat.

“Uh huh,” Stiles said dryly. He made no move to put on the t-shirt he was holding in one hand, a damp towel hanging from his other. His hair was messy and damp, sticking up in spikes and sending drops of water chasing each other down his neck.

The skepticism in his tone, like he thought there was something else Dean might have been looking at, made the flush on Dean’s neck creep up to his face. He had just opened his mouth to defend himself—what the accusation was exactly, he wasn’t sure, but he was definitely feeling attacked—when a hand fell on his shoulder.

“What’s taking you so long?” Sam asked. He leaned curiously around Dean through the still open door until he caught sight of Stiles. Sam didn’t seem at all phased by him standing there by the bed in just a pair of sweats that hung low enough on his hips that they were threatening to fall off. He just said, “Wow! That’s a nice piece. Is that Ogham?”

It took another long second for Stiles to look away from Dean, blinking down at his own chest as if he’d forgotten what was there.

“Yeah, some of it,” he said, abandoning both shirt and towel on the bed so he could point out some places. “Some is Sanskrit. A lot of it is archaic Latin, but most of it is actually Japanese.”

Sam nodded appreciatively. “And is that an anti-possession ward?”

Stiles traced his fingers over the pentagram and flame symbol around his belly button and Dean could have sworn his knuckles lingered longer than than they needed to against the trail of dark hair underneath. Stiles was looking at him again, eyes narrowed, when he answered Sam’s question with: “Yeah, it is.”

“Neat,” Sam said. “Us too!” He tugged down the neck of his t-shirt, baring the matching mark on his own chest.

Dean had one too, his last and strongest line of defense against being invaded and controlled like Sam had been not too long ago. He and Sam had gotten the tats together a while back, at some sketchy parlour in New Jersey between jobs, and it had felt good. Not just the being proactive, but having that tangible bond between them. It had sort of felt like a tether, like it meant that Sam was in this for the long haul and wouldn’t run off for a simpler life at the drop of a hat.

Seeing it on Stiles was a little jarring, all things told. Like looking in a funhouse mirror, only strangely more intimate. His navel tingled, right where the mark sat on Stiles, and the muscles there clenched against the sensation.

“Sounds like there might be a story there,” Dean said. It wasn’t what he wanted to say, but he really wasn’t sure what was. Mostly he just wanted the kid to stop looking at him like that.

“Everyone with even a toe in this business has got a story,” Stiles said, which answered nothing of Dean’s question but raised about a dozen more. “Sam, did you need something?”

“No, no, but I brought you this.” Sam pulled out a few pieces of paper, xerox copies that were old and crinkly from being shoved into dad’s journal for half a decade at least, and held them out for Stiles to take. “Info on Djinn. You seem to like having solid references, so I thought I’d pass these on in case you wanted to read up before we set off in the morning.”

“Oh yeah,” Stiles said easily. “Dean was just telling me. Bright and early, right?”

Dean hadn’t told him any such thing, but he wasn’t gonna admit to Sam that he had wasted several minutes getting into a staring contest with Stiles’ chest. He just said, “Yes. Yes, first thing.”

“Let Allison know,” Sam said.

“‘Course. She’s just in the shower,” Stiles told them, thumbing over his shoulder toward the closed bathroom door. “She’ll probably be a while, and she’ll crash hard once she’s out, but she’ll be on her game tomorrow. I’ll set an alarm for 7:30.”

“Sounds good.”

Sam rapped his knuckles on the door and then disappeared, leaving Dean once again alone with a half-clothed Stiles. Dean bit his tongue and rocked back on his heels, feeling like maybe he was supposed to say something but unsure as to what that would be.

As usual, Stiles had no trouble finding his words.

“You angling for an invitation?”

Dean blinked at him. “What?”

“Well, not for nothing, but the last time someone showed up in my room and hovered like this, I got laid.”

“What? No! No, I was just—”

Dean had no explanation though, no reason to be lingering in the doorway like this. What the hell was he doing? There was nothing for it but to cut his losses and get the hell out of dodge before he could dig himself a deeper hole.

He would’ve said goodnight or something, but his tongue felt like it was lodged up in the back of his throat, and Stiles was still fucking watching him like he knew something Dean didn’t. It was infuriating. He sort of wanted to punch the smug look off the little bastard’s face. But he also sort of didn’t.

In the end, he shut the door without saying anything at all.

O

Chapter Text

The information Sam left him about Djinn was very interesting. There were several entries out of various old reference books and a number of illustrations to go with them. A lot of the text was highlighted or crossed out or edited for accuracy, and annotations littered the margins warning against misconceptions, but even the fanciful hyperbolized accounts of old Arabic genies were fun to read.

It boiled down to a few pertinent things: very fast and strong; do not let them make physical contact; can change appearance at will to blend in with humans; can only be killed by silver knife dipped in lamb’s blood.

Allison read over the sheets while Stiles dumped their overnight bags into the backseat of the Impala, frowning thoughtfully and tapping a ring dagger idly against her bottom lip.

“Does it have to be a knife?” she asked.

Dean’s head popped up over the top of the car. “Does what have to be a knife?”

“To kill the Djinn,” she clarified. “It says we need a silver knife dipped in lamb’s blood. Does it have to be a knife or would anything silver do?”

“Those daggers wouldn’t work, if that’s what you mean,” Sam said, leaning on the open passenger door. “Too many other metals included in the alloy.”

“She means her arrowheads,” Stiles told him. “She always carries a few silver-tipped arrows after that one time with the thing a while back.”

“They’re pure silver,” Allison assured him. “If I treated them with the blood, would they work too?”

Sam made a thinking face, his head nodding back and forth for a moment as he deliberated. “Yeah, I don’t see why not,” he said. “Should be functionally the same.”

“Great!” Allison said brightly. She tucked the ring dagger back in its sheathe on her forearm, tugging down the sleeve of her jacket. It was one of those fitted ones that had to be special ordered, but it wasn’t restrictive, just like the rest of her outfit: stylish enough for any occasion, but comfortable enough to hunt monsters in. It was honestly impressive how she managed to dress like that all the time.

“So how are we doing this?” Stiles asked, leaning his forearms on the car’s roof and looking expectantly at the brothers.

Sam pulled out a folded sheet of paper: the warehouse listings he’d gotten off of Chris' computer.

“These give us his most likely locations,” he said, “but the problem is that there’s no way to narrow them down from just this. These are the ones Chris considered probable, but he would’ve had to track the Djinn once he got here.”

“How many are on the list?” Allison asked.

“Seven.”

Allison’s jaw clenched, but she showed no other outward sign of distress when she said, “Too many to just check arbitrarily. We don’t have time to go running around the city on a scavenger hunt, and splitting up to cover more ground is a bad idea with a creature this strong. We need another way to tighten our focus.”

“That’s why we’re getting breakfast,” Dean said with a grin.

“Excuse me?” Allison asked, eyes narrowed in the way that usually made Stiles duck for cover. Dean didn’t flinch though.

“Breakfast,” he repeated blithely. “Can’t hunt on an empty stomach. And the best place in a town like this to pump the locals for information is the local diner. We go in, have a casual chat about the weird disappearances we’ve been hearing about, and see what we come up with. Chances are someone will be able to point us in the right direction, whether they realize it or not.”

“It’s the best chance we’ve got,” Sam told her. “Most of our hunts start like this, and it’s probably where your dad went first too.”

Allison still didn’t look happy about the plan—as sweet a girl as she was by nature, she much preferred the hands-on aspect of hunting over talking and gathering intel—but she caved after only a few seconds and slid into the back passenger seat without further protest. Stiles climbed in the back with her, patting her knee. She shot him a grateful smile.

When the brothers were both in the car, Stiles leaned forward to prop his chin on the back of Dean’s seat, right over his shoulder.

“So where we going?”

Dean startled visibly at hearing Stiles’ voice almost directly in his ear, which made Sam laugh. Dean shot him a dirty look and then tossed one back for Stiles too. Stiles was almost certain there was a blush on his cheeks and he couldn’t suppress a grin at the knowledge that he’d put it there.

“Third diner in the google search,” Dean said gruffly, focusing back on the road, probably so he didn’t have to acknowledge that Stiles was still up in his space. “First two are usually tourist traps. Third one’s where the locals go.”

“Cool, cool,” Stiles said easily. “Sounds like a good plan.”

He stayed where he was a moment longer, long enough for Dean to dart another shifty glance back at him, then relented and collapsed back into his seat with a grin. Allison shot him a sidelong look but Stiles just shook his head.

The diner they’d chosen was open and colorful, the floor scattered with tables and lined with well-maintained linoleum booths. Delicious food smells wafted out from the window to the kitchen, plates being passed out every minute or so. The servers in their white aprons were smiling and chatting with the people at the long counter as they went about their work.

All around, it was pretty a cheerful place. Which meant the Winchesters stuck out like sore thumbs, all dingy colors and an aura of danger.

When it looked like the two of them were about to go traipsing on in anyway, Stiles stopped them with a hand on Sam’s arm.

“Hey, how about you let me and Allison handle this?”

Sam frowned, but Dean looked personally offended by the suggestion.

“Why?” Dean demanded. “What’s wrong with me and Sam?”

“You don’t really fit in, is all,” Stiles said with a shrug. “You’re not in your suits, so you can’t do the FBI gig. And you just don’t look like reporters, fake creds or no.”

“Yeah, well, what angle do you have?”

Stiles slid an arm around Allison’s waist, pulling her close against his side, and said, “Hey, Alli, baby. Marry me?”

She put on an exaggeratedly excited face and leaned up to kiss his cheek. "Gladly!”

“There you go,” Stiles said, satisfied. “We’re officially honeymooners! Now, you two go sit somewhere inconspicuous and try to look less inherently threatening. Don’t worry, guys, my dad’s a cop. I know lots of very efficient interrogation techniques.”

He didn’t wait for the brothers to protest. He just steered a giggling Allison through the tables, preening with the absolute certainty that Dean was watching him go.

 Dean watched them go, fighting down the urge to call them back and demand they stop the charade. But Sam was already sitting down at a random table and Dean had no reason not to follow him. After all, it wasn’t like this was the dangerous part of the hunt. It was sort of hard to screw up casual conversation and, while some people might have managed to blow it, he was reasonably confident that Stiles and Allison were smart enough to get the kind of results they needed.

He made sure to sit where he had line of sight on them though, just in case. He watched over Sam’s shoulder as the two of them somehow finagled an invitation into an occupied booth, sitting down opposite an older couple who smiled at them and shook their hands.

A waitress came over to take their orders and by the time Dean looked back, Stiles had his arm around Allison again and they were all cuddled together. She was practically sitting in his lap. Dean couldn’t hold in his snort of disdain.

Sam looked over at them too, and he turned back looking confused.

“What?” he asked.

Dean waved a hand at the direction of the happy couple, who were holding hands on the table now.

“Just—what even is that, anyway?” he asked.

“The honeymooner act,” Sam said slowly. “It’s not exactly a new technique. Pretty sure you’ve used it before.”

“Yeah, but…” Dean trailed off, distracted by the way Allison laid her head on Stiles’ shoulder and he kissed the top of her head. “They’re just—they’re overdoing it!”

Sam looked back at them again.

“You think so?” he asked, clearly skeptical. As if the way Stiles laughed at something Allison said wasn’t so obviously fake. Nobody laughed that brightly if they weren’t trying to sell something.

“Look at them!” Dean cried. “They’re doing the freaking nose-rubbing thing! I mean, for god’s sake, who even does that in real life?”

Sam didn’t bother to look back at the others this time. He just looked at Dean, head cocked to the side, as Dean watched Stiles kiss Allison on the lips. It was disgusting is what it was! Shameful, and utterly unrealistic. This whole plan was stupid and pointless and they should’ve just done the reporter thing instead.

“Dean, do you have a little crush on Stiles?”

A splutter of horror and indignation made its way out of Dean’s mouth before any words could form. He tore his eyes away from the booth, finding that the waitress had apparently come back with their food at some point while he hadn’t been paying attention. He couldn’t be blamed for being distracted though, not with Stiles’ and Allison’s wanton display right there!

“What?” he choked out. “No! God, no, that’s—that’s ridiculous! Jeez, man, why the hell would you even think—I mean, Stiles, really? I can’t stand that kid!”

Sam just tilted his head the other way and took a sip of his drink.

Dean scoffed again, trying to infuse it with all the disgust he felt at the mere idea of him liking Stiles.

“Psh! Dude, no. No, definitely not. No way.”

“Sure, Dean,” Sam said lightly. “Whatever you say.”

Dean shoved half a waffle in his mouth to make absolutely sure that nothing else stupid came out of it, even though Stiles was letting Allison swipe whipped cream off his bottom lip with her thumb.

When their breakfast companions finally took their leave, Stiles resisted the urge to pat himself on the back for a job well done. Before he could leave the booth though, Allison turned toward him and propped her chin on her hand.

“Stiles,” she said seriously. “Are you hitting on Dean?”

“Allison,” Stiles responded with just as much gravity. “Have you seen his biceps?”

She hummed. “That’s fair,” she said. “Carry on.”

“So did you get anything out of that little charade of yours?” Dean asked when Stiles dragged a chair over from another table and plopped down at his and Sam’s. The kid immediately reached over and snagged a piece of waffle off Dean’s plate with his fingers to stuff in his mouth. There was a smudge of Allison’s lipgloss on his top lip, highlighting that goddamn smirk that seemed to live there.

“Yeah, totally,” Stiles said around his food—Dean’s food.

Allison pulled up a chair of her own and sat down with much more grace than her erstwhile husband, and without stealing anyone’s meal out from under them because she wasn’t a savage.

“I think we can eliminate any of the warehouses on the east side,” she said. “Where the victims lived and worked was fairly spread out, which is why my dad made the wide selection he did, but where the victims spent most of their recreational time is much more clustered in the western part of town. If they were all attacked in the evening hours, which seems most likely, then that’s where they were more likely to be.”

“Okay. That narrows it down to—” Sam pulled out the listings and ran a finger down it. “—four options.”

“And that is a workable number,” Stiles said, drumming obnoxiously on the table. “So let’s get a move on, compadres.”

He led the way out of the diner, Sam and Allison close on his heels. That left Dean to toss a few bills on the table with a curse, not bothering to wait for the check, and chase after them.

The others were already clustered around the car—Dean’s car that they would probably have driven off in without him, even if he was the one with the keys, because apparently Stiles was the one leading this hunt now—by the time he got there. Sam and Allison were standing like normal people, but Stiles had practically plastered himself to his door, his whole front rubbing up all over Baby’s paint job. That was just downright disrespectful, okay, it was sacrilegious, but he didn’t get the chance to protest.

“Should swing by the butcher shop first,” Sam was saying. “We used up the last of our lamb’s blood a few weeks ago. Gotta get some fresh.”

“We can still do some light reconnaissance in the meantime, right?” Stiles said.

“Hey, here’s an idea,” Allison piped up with a look on her face that made Dean unaccountably nervous. “How about we go in pairs? Two warehouses each for surveillance, one pair stops off at the butcher’s first?”

“You know, I think that sounds like a great idea,” Sam said, and the look on his face was downright alarming because Dean had seen it a million times before. Usually right before he found out his hand had been superglued to his beer bottle.

“Is splitting up the best plan?” Stiles asked, calmly enough that he probably wasn’t reading the warning signs the way Dean was. “The safest plan, I mean. Alli and I have never faced off with something like this.”

“Which is why we split the other way,” Sam said earnestly. “I’ll take Allison with me, and you can go with Dean!”

“Whoa, whoa!” Dean cried, holding out both hands in vehement protest. “Let’s not be too hasty here. How about we—”

“No, that’s perfect!” Allison broke in. “That way there’s one experienced hunter in each pair and you’ve both still got someone to watch your backs.”

Sam nodded agreeably. “Exactly. So Allison and I will swing by the butcher’s and then take the northwest warehouses—”

“—and you and Stiles can take the southwest,” Allison finished for him.

“Okay, when the hell did you two get so buddy-buddy?” Dean snapped, as irritated by those two hijacking the mission as by the fact that Stiles wasn’t saying a word to put a stop to it. “Come on, I mean, you’re finishing each other’s sentences now?”

With no other recourse, he looked to Stiles for backup, gesturing widely to Sam and Allison and all their meddling, traitorous ways. Stiles just stayed as he was, elbows perched on the car roof as he looked back and forth amongst the three of them like he was watching a particularly fascinating game of pong, and offered him absolutely no help at all.

No one even bothered to respond. Sam just said, “Okay, so we’ve got our plan! C’mon, we’ll drop you two off first.” Then everyone was getting in the car and peering through the windows at Dean expectantly. He barely resisted the urge to aim a kick at the nearest tire, and even that was just because Baby was the only one who hadn’t betrayed him so far.

Dean got in the damn car without any violence, muttering curses under his breath that would’ve made his dad blush. Considering he was gonna have to spend what might be hours alone with Stiles and his infuriating smirks, he figured they were plenty justified.

Chapter Text

Dean kept a tight hold on the knife in his pocket, hand clenching and unclenching around the hilt as he paced down the mostly empty street. It wouldn’t do him a whole lot of good on the off-chance they did run into the Djinn, which they were hoping to avoid, but the familiar texture of the grip helped soothe his nerves anyway.

He shouldn’t have been nervous. This was a fairly standard hunt, if he didn’t account for the time limit on the search and rescue aspect of it, just like dozens of others he had gone on in the past. They were gonna track down the Djinn, tussle with it for a few minutes, gank the sonofabitch, get Chris back to his daughter, and be on their way to the next case in a day or two. No reason whatsoever for him to feel so jumpy and unsettled.

The clatter of a rock skidding across pavement echoed loudly off the concrete and corrugated steel all around them and Dean turned to see Stiles grimacing down at his own foot.

“Sorry,” the kid whispered. “It’s fine. Keep going.”

Dean faced forward again with a growl of frustration. He was uncomfortably aware of it when Stiles sped up to walk alongside him, almost close enough for their arms to brush together. Stiles’ hands were shoved deep in the pockets of his jeans, which was not smart when the only weapon he had on him was tucked into the back of his belt where he wouldn’t be able to reach it quickly. He was staring around the dingy walkway with all the attention of a goldfish. Honestly, he looked half a second away from whistling the Jeopardy theme song to himself out of boredom.

And he kept scuffing his feet along the ground with every other step. The shushing noise was seriously grating on Dean’s last nerve.

“I’m twenty, by the way,” Stiles said.

“What?” Dean said, thrown by the abruptness of that completely random statement.

“My age,” Stiles said. “You asked last night how old I was. It was probably rhetorical, but I figured I’d give you a real answer anyway. I’m twenty, almost twenty-one.”

“Good for you,” Dean grunted, hoping that would be standoffish enough to put an end to the conversation for a while.

He didn’t care how old Stiles was. That he could still hear Stiles’ voice in his head saying “old enough not to be jailbait, if that’s what you mean” was irrelevant because that hadn’t been what he had meant. Really, that information meant nothing to him at all and Stiles was delusional for thinking it might.

They rounded the corner of an old industrial building and there was the first of their warehouses. The huge metal doors were rusted and warped so that, even closed and padlocked, there was still at least a considerable gap between them at the bottom edge. Most of the windows were boarded up and the whole place looked suitably abandoned, but they weren’t here to accept that at face value.

Dean slid his knife out of his pocket, letting it settle at his side in a ready stance. He led the way around the building, giving it a wide berth and sticking to the shadows as best he could. There was something very strange about doing this kind of skulking in the middle of the day instead of under cover of night, but he could make do. He was trying to get a look in one of the more open windows when Stiles’ voice sounded right in his ear, just as close as that morning in the car.

“So how about you, old man?”

Dean very nearly rammed his head back into Stiles’ face just on instinct. Instead he stumbled forward a bit, out of Stiles’ reach, and turned back to scowl at him.

“Dude, you sneak up on me like that again and you’re gonna get stabbed,” he hissed, brandishing the knife in his hand, the one that could’ve very easily found its way into Stiles’ something or other if Dean’s startle reflex had been even slightly less refined than it was. “And I’m not old. ”

Stiles just shrugged, apparently unaware of or unconcerned by how close he had just come to death.

“I don’t know, dude,” he drawled. “You’re giving off an old man vibe right about now. Like you’re gonna call me a hooligan and tell me to get off your lawn.”

“That’s because you’re an obnoxious kid,” Dean said shortly. “And I’m twenty-seven. Not that it matters.”

“See, now was that so hard?” Stiles asked, raising both eyebrows at him in a way that was wholly patronizing. “Achievement unlocked: two-way conversation. Congrats, you’re making progress towards being a social creature like the rest of us.”

“Do you ever shut up?” Dean snapped at him. “We’ve got a job to do here, you  know. It would be nice if you could maybe take it seriously for just a few minutes.”

Stiles’ expression soured a bit, that ever present half-grin of his finally collapsing into something that almost approached a frown. Dean expected him to argue, to snark back or defend himself somehow, but he just held out a hand for Dean to lead the way.

He did, creeping forward down the pathway between the two buildings, but the easy capitulation threw him off. He had only known Stiles for less than two days, and already the guy not arguing with him felt like missing a step going down stairs. Maybe that particular jibe, accusing him of not caring about what they were doing, had hit a nerve or something. He’d almost looked a bit hurt by it, even. That thought probably shouldn’t have made Dean feel guilty, but it sort of did.

If he hadn’t been so distracted by his own thoughts, he probably would’ve seen it coming.

The Djinn—or at least, the form the Djinn was in right now—was a teenage boy, on the small side of average, dressed inconspicuously in jeans and a graphic t-shirt. The only things that marked him as not human were the glowing eyes and the blue tattoos lit up on his skin.

He came bursting out of one of the warehouse’s windows, sending bits of broken wood flying in all directions, and crashed right into Dean. They both went sprawling across the pavement and all the air in Dean’s lungs left him in a painful rush. He rolled away, coming to his feet gasping and coughing as he heard Stiles call his name. If he’d had the breath, Dean would have yelled at him to run the other way, to call Sam and Allison, to get out of dodge while he could.

He didn’t have the chance anyway. The Djinn was there again, pouncing on him with hands outstretched, reaching for any bare skin. Dean threw up an arm, letting the Djinn latch onto something covered in layers of clothing instead of his neck. He let himself be pushed until his back hit a wall, then braced his foot against the solid surface to get the leverage he needed. With a heave, he sent the Djinn stumbling backwards, away from him.

Away from him, but towards Stiles.

Stiles ducked as the Djinn redirected its attention to the closer target, sliding under the boy’s tattooed arm to come up behind him. He kicked out at the back of the Djinn’s knees. The Djinn went to the ground and came back snarling, lunging up to wrap arms around Stiles’ legs and take him down.

“Stiles!”

Dean scrambled for his knife, lost during the initial attack, and snatched it up from underneath half a rotted two-by-four. He didn’t know how much good it would really do without the lamb’s blood, but it was still silver and that had to mean something. Even if it just stung the damn thing, that would still be better than nothing and it would give them some time to run. Hopefully.

The Djinn had Stiles pinned, struggling to reach skin. But Stiles had a longer arm span than the boyish form on top of him and he had both hands planted firmly on the Djinn’s shoulders, barely holding the snarling thing at bay.

Dean brought the knife down hard, imbedding it high in the creature’s back, and the boy screamed in pain. There was a moment where Dean almost allowed himself to think he had won, that the silver knife had been enough on its own and they were both gonna get out of this unscathed, and then he was slamming into concrete hard enough to stun him and leave him breathless again.

A hand hovered over his face, luminescent blue like the wide eyes that stared down at him above a grinning mouth, but Dean’s head was spinning and his limbs weren’t quite responding the way he needed them to. He spared a second to hope that Stiles was smart enough to save himself before the hand was coming down.

It didn’t connect.

Before the Djinn could touch him, another hand came down, this one pale and plain, to land on the top of the boy’s head. Immediately the Djinn stiffened like an electric current had gone through him. His mouth opened in a silent cry, body twitching violently as the glow of his eyes grew brighter and brighter until Dean had to close his. A smell like ozone and charcoal hit his nose and then the weight of the body on top of him was falling away.

When Dean opened his eyes again, Stiles was standing over him, hand outstretched, and the Djinn was laid out on the pavement, still and limp and smoking faintly.

Dean stared, uncomprehending. Stiles stared back.

Finally, Stiles pulled his phone out of his back pocket, pushed a few buttons, and brought it to his ear.

“Hey, Alli,” he said, sounding remarkably composed when Dean sort of felt like the whole world had turned sideways and decided to stay that way for a while. “We had a bit of a situation. We’re fine; it’s handled. But we’re gonna have to have a conversation. I think I’ve got some things to explain.”

Stiles was pacing, which was not unusual for him in stressful situations. And having Sam and Dean Winchester, hunters extraordinaire, both staring at him like this definitely qualified as stressful.

They were back at the motel, all four of them in Stiles’ and Allison’s room. Chris hadn’t been in the warehouse. Stiles and Dean had searched the place from top to bottom in the time it took for the others to get to them, but there had been no evidence of Chris or any of the other victims having been kept there in the recent past, so they were forced into an uncomfortable conclusion: there was more than one Djinn, and the other one was keeping Chris at another location.

At least they now had one less Djinn to worry about. That was a good thing, even if in killing it Stiles had outed himself for what he was.

“A spark?” Dean repeated flatly, his face hard to read. He had been like that ever since the attack, closed off in a way that Stiles didn’t like at all. Not just because it made it hard for Stiles to get a read on what he was thinking and therefore how much danger he might be in, but also because it just wasn’t right on him. Dean was an expressive person; seeing him shut down like that made something low in Stiles’ belly squirm miserably.

“Yeah,” Stiles said. It wasn’t like he could deny it now, even if he had wanted to, not with what Dean had witnessed.

He didn’t have anything else to say to appease them anyway. He had already given them the basic rundown of what a spark was, what it could do. They had kept quiet through his explanation, the brothers listening with grim focus and Allison sharpening her ring daggers in the far corner of the room, watching them closely for any sign that they had come to the conclusion that Stiles was something they needed to hunt.

“So let me get this straight,” Dean said slowly. “You used magic to fry the Djinn’s brain?”

“Not directly, not really.” Stiles ran a hand through his hair, pulling a bit as he searched for the right words to convey exactly what he had done. “I used magic to put up a kind of shield between the Djinn’s brain and the outside world. I stopped his hallucinatory magic from going anywhere and, in doing so, I turned it back on him. And it built up to the point where he sort of overloaded. That’s what fried him.”

“Right, right,” Dean said, nodding. “And how is that not witchcraft?”

“No!” Stiles said immediately. “No, it’s not—I mean, it’s magic, but it’s not—I’m not a witch! I’m a spark; it’s different.”

Witches made demon deals and appealed to higher, darker powers to grant them their abilities. Witches tended to go the way of hurting people for their own selfish gain. Witches usually ended up getting their asses killed, either by the demonic masters they inevitably displeased or by hunters protecting innocents. Stiles wasn’t interested in any of that, especially the last bit with the being killed by the two very capable and very determined hunters in the room with him right now.

This situation here was why he hadn’t wanted them to know about his powers at all. He liked the Winchesters, he really did, and on most levels he thought he might even trust them, but this was something else entirely. He’d really intended to go this whole trip without tipping his hand, ideally only using magic when absolutely necessary and only when it was just him and Allison.

But then Dean had been in danger. And with Dean in danger, keeping the secret hadn’t seemed so important anymore.

Now Dean was tense and hostile, openly mistrustful even though Stiles had saved his life, just because he’d used magic to do it. Stiles didn’t regret it, of course, but Dean’s reaction had him hunching his shoulders and wrapping his arms defensively around his stomach, unable to make eye contact.

“Witch, spark, it’s the same thing!” Dean scoffed.

Stiles opened his mouth to argue, but Sam beat him to it.

“I don’t think so,” he said, his careful tone cutting his brother’s dismissiveness off at the knees.

“What do you mean, you don’t think so?” Dean asked incredulously. “You believe him on this?”

“The term ‘spark’ sounds really familiar,” Sam said, tapping a thumb on his knee in an uneven rhythm as he thought. “Yeah. Yeah, it was in one of Bobby’s books.”

“Lots of things are in Bobby’s books, Sam. That don’t mean they’re not dangerous,” Dean argued and Stiles bit his tongue to keep from protesting that he wasn’t a thing, a creature, a monster they had to fight. He was almost their friend, or at least he had hoped to be.

“Sparks weren’t categorized with witches, though,” Sam told him, picking up speed and confidence the longer he thought about it. “The book I looked through seemed to think they were more along the lines of psychics, like Missouri. Their brand of magic is more like psychic power brought into the physical world by force of will.”

“Belief,” Stiles put in, drawing both their attention back to him. “It’s all about belief. If I believe in something hard enough—within reason—I can make it true. That’s all my power is when it comes right down to it.”

Dean still didn’t look convinced, but the skepticism had cleared from Sam’s face.

“Your tattoos,” Sam said. “Do those have anything to do with your...your spark?”

“Some of them do, yeah,” Stiles admitted, fiddling with the hem of his shirt, tugging it down more securely in a fit of self-consciousness. “They help channel it, control it, enhance it when necessary. I doubt I could’ve done what I did earlier without them.”

It had taken him weeks to have the full piece inked, and months before that to plan it out to his own satisfaction. He had designed the whole thing himself, with some input from Deaton and Lydia and Noshiko, and a little help on the artistry aspect from Derek because he wanted it to be as visually pleasing as it was useful if it was going to be on his skin for the rest of his life.

It might have taken him egregious overuse of his anti-anxiety medication to get him through the actual tattooing process without losing consciousness, but the end result had definitely been worth it. The minute the last line had been put in place, Stiles had felt more settled than he had in years. The carefully chosen symbols he’d covered himself with had given him a kind of mastery over himself and his abilities that he would never have dreamed of when he’d first been dragged into the whole supernatural mess. He still had a lot to learn; he wasn’t afraid to admit that, but he could also admit that he was pretty damn powerful as he was.

That probably wasn’t something he needed to bring up just now, though. Not when Dean was still looking like he might bolt if Stiles made any sudden movements.

Feeling suddenly exhausted, Stiles ran both hands over his face.

“Look,” he sighed. “If you guys aren’t gonna put me down on the spot, then we’ve got other things to do. Chris is still depending on us.”

He didn’t say that they were running out of time, but they all heard it anyway. It was enough to get them moving again and the four of them gathered around the table to plan out their next move. If Dean stayed as far away from him as he possibly could, Stiles tried not to let it distract him. There were more important things for him to worry about than how much the loss of Dean’s trust stung.

Chapter Text

They eliminated two of the three remaining warehouses with a few drive-bys and a peek in the windows, which left them with one final possibility. It was smaller than the others, which was why it had been their last choice; Djinn tended to prefer larger, more open spaces, but apparently this one had more conservative tastes. Or, Dean thought, it was just smart enough to know not to conform to the stereotypes when it had hunters on its ass.

The sun was just starting to set, rays slanting down over the rooftops to cast the walkways between buildings in steadily growing shade. The Impala was already in shadow, tucked between another warehouse and an empty dumpster across an open loading area from their mark and with a clear view of the front entrance.

Stiles was in the passenger seat, still for once where he was usually full of restless energy. He had been staring through the windshield for a solid half hour, knuckle of his right index finger caught between his teeth.

He hadn’t said anything to Dean since they’d dropped Sam and Allison off on the other side of the complex, hadn’t teased or needled at him or even tried to start a conversation. He’d hardly said anything at all since the talk they’d had back at the motel, looking pale and drawn all the way through the strategy session. As they were heading out to scout the other locations, Sam had stopped him with a hand on the shoulder and asked if he was feeling okay.

Stiles had faked a smile and said, “Fine. Headache is all. Just worn out from earlier. Something of that scale can really take it out of you.”

He had still looked a little peaky when they’d all split up to go to their various positions, but he hadn’t complained, not even playfully so. He was all business, very professional, and honestly it was kind of weirding Dean out.

Now Dean was the one feeling restless. He’d never had trouble staying still on a stakeout before, but his knee was jiggling and there was a prickle on the back of his neck that he couldn’t seem to shake. The warehouse wasn’t holding his attention the way it should, his eyes skating sideways every few seconds to scan Stiles’ profile.

He shouldn’t be this comfortable with the guy. Well, no, not comfortable, per se. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been more uncomfortable in his life, but that was all it was. He was pretty sure he should be concerned by the...the spark alone in the car with him. He shouldn’t be willing to put his back to Stiles with what he knew about the guy.

With everything he knew about supernatural creatures and their abilities, he was certain that he shouldn’t trust Stiles. But he did. And that was what bothered him.

He’d known the guy for less than two days, for god’s sake, and Dean was already willing to overlook the fact that he could fry brains with his mind. That wasn’t logical, wasn’t wise, wasn’t the way his dad had raised him. Caution was always best when dealing with things that could potentially kill you, that was what he had been taught and that was how he strove to live his life. The vast majority of times, those people who practiced magic were dangerous.

But Stiles had saved him. Stiles had had his back when Dean had needed him to, had used those otherworldly abilities of his to keep Dean from being a Djinn’s blood smoothie. And he had done so openly, even though he knew doing that could put him in Dean’s crosshairs later on.

It didn’t fit with anything Dean had seen or been taught. In his experience, people didn’t just do that kind of thing unless there was something in it for them. All Stiles had done was protect him, risking his own safety in the process, and Dean didn’t know what to do about that. Or about the magic. Everything was mixed up in his brain and nothing quite made sense and there were too many questions without answers.

And none of that changed the fact that his lunch sat like a heavy lump in his stomach just because Stiles hadn’t smirked at him once in hours.

Dean cleared his throat for probably the fourth time since they’d parked here, shifting lower in his seat. Stiles didn’t react, like the last four times. He just stared dully out the windshield and Dean hated it.

“So why Japanese?”

Dean flinched when his voice came out much louder in the silence than he’d anticipated. It took a minute for Stiles to pull himself out of whatever stake-out-haze he’d fallen into and process the question.

“What?” he asked, confused.

Dean waved a hand in Stiles’ general direction; he already regretted asking, but it was better than the strained silence.

“The tattoos,” he said. “You told us most of it was in Japanese. I’m pretty sure you’re not Japanese, and when I talked to Bobby he said sparks weren’t a culturally specific thing, so why’d you use so much of it?”

Stiles didn’t answer immediately. He looked sidelong at Dean for a long time, long enough that Dean wasn’t sure he was gonna answer at all, and there was no hint of his usual smugness or good humor on his face. Dean didn’t meet his eye, just kept his own on the warehouse they were supposed to be monitoring, waiting to see if the Djinn left to hunt for the new victim it would need to replace Chris when he was sucked dry.

“You said before that there was probably a story behind a piece like mine,” Stiles said eventually, his voice a low grumble in the quiet of the evening. “You were right. It’s a hell of a story, though. You sure you wanna hear it?”

Dean licked his lips, hands tightening on the steering wheel even though the car wasn’t even turned on. Flames leapt up in his memory, baby Sam’s wailing in his ears as his dad screamed his mother’s name. He swallowed hard against the tightness in his throat, the dark feeling in his chest that made it a little hard to breathe.

He said: “Everybody’s got a story.”

Silence reined again for long enough that the last rays of evening sun petered out, the shadows darkening around them until Dean could hardly make out Stiles’ features. His voice came across loud and clear though, low as it was when he spoke again.

“Demons aren’t only of the Christian persuasion,” he said. “Every culture, every religion has them, and they’re not too picky about their hosts. I had the great misfortune of attracting a Japanese chaos demon.”

“Let me guess,” Dean said. “It wore your meatsuit to the prom?”

Stiles huffed out a weak laugh.

“That’s a colorful way of putting it,” he said wryly. “It took my body for a joyride that decimated a good percentage of the town’s population is what it did. I’ve seen a lot of things I can never unsee, done a lot of shit that can’t be undone. There’s more blood on my hands than will ever wash off, and it’s no less red for the fact that I didn’t put it there through my own choice.”

Dean shivered hard, chilled through and through by how haunted he sounded, how hollow his tone was. He had seen his fair share of demons of late, though almost all of them had been of the black-eyed, Hell-bound variety, so he knew well how much destruction they were capable of. He’d seen the hosts too, the empty shells they left behind when the sons of bitches smoked out, and the picture they painted was rarely pretty.

“You’re right,” he said hoarsely. “That’s a doozy of a story. At least you came out the other side alive.”

“Very nearly didn’t,” Stiles told him. “The whole ordeal almost killed me. Almost killed Allison too, actually. She’s got a hell of a scar from it. Won’t wear bikinis in public anymore.”

“Shame,” Dean said, and Stiles huffed again. “So those tattoos. The symbols, they’re all to guard against possession then? To keep it from happening again?”

Stiles’ silhouette nodded. “Call me paranoid if you want,” he said, “but nothing’s getting inside me that I don’t want there.”

Dean was very glad for the dark when his face went red and hot. He would’ve wondered if Stiles realized exactly how suggestive that sentence was if not for the low chuckle that reached his ears. Dean shifted in his seat, cleared his throat again.

“And all the rest of them,” he went on, manfully choosing to ignore the innuendo and his own completely ridiculous reaction to it. “Those are for the spark thing? Do they really...you know, help?”

“Yeah, they do,” Stiles said simply.

He didn’t elaborate or offer up anything else, and Dean found himself disappointed. He’d never encountered someone like Stiles before and on some level, despite his many misgivings, he was curious. He couldn’t bring himself to own up to it though, not just yet. This whole thing was still too weird to him, too foreign to wrap his head around.

As the silence stretched, he cast around for something else to say and came up empty. He chewed on his tongue a bit, tapped out a rhythm on the steering wheel, and tried to keep his eyes from straying back to Stiles every time they failed to focus properly on their mark.

“I’m not a thing, you know,” Stiles said suddenly, moving for the first time in ages. He ran his palms down his thighs, shifting his feet in the wheelwell, but he still didn’t look at Dean. “I’m not a creature, o-or a monster. I’m still human.”

He didn’t just sound human. He sounded young and small and a little bit hurt. He sounded like a kid who was playing at being brave and something in Dean’s chest loosened and gave way, the tension in his shoulders falling away just a bit.

It was back in an instant when Stiles straightened up abruptly, leaning forward to peer more intently through the windshield. Dean hurriedly scanned the warehouse’s front to see what had caught the kid’s notice, cursing himself for getting so damn distracted when he had a job to do. He almost missed the woman just slipping around the edge of the building, hands deep in her pockets and a blue hood pulled up over her head to hide her face.

Dean shot off a text to Sam—hidden around the back in case the Djinn left that way, all set to trail the thing and intervene if it looked set to target someone new—and to Allison, perched on a nearby roof to provide cover fire if they needed to run. It was Dean and Stiles’ job to get in, find Chris, and get him out of there. Chris’ safety was paramount right now, which was why they had waited for the Djinn to leave the building before making their move.

Stiles fell in step behind him as Dean slid out of the car and made for the warehouse’s front entrance. The heavy metal door was knocked askew, roller wheels out of their track and wedged at an angle to leave a sizeable gap at the bottom. Dean exchanged a quick cautioning look with a grim-faced Stiles, made sure he had his silver knife firmly in hand, and squeezed himself through.

It was dark in the interior, but not as dark as Dean had anticipated. There was a bare bulb casting a weak glow over the middle of the cavernous chamber, throwing shadows from every crate and box left over from whenever the place had last been used. They were stacked up over his head in some places, high enough to block his view, but there were no other obstacles that he could see from where he was.

Stiles tripped on something on his way through and knocked into Dean from behind, muttering curses and apologies as he tried to steady them both by latching onto Dean as if that would help. Dean shushed him, batting Stiles’ hands off his shoulders when they threatened to just pull him over instead. Stiles held the hands up in surrender as he stabilized himself, grimacing, and Dean rolled his eyes.

“Get your knife!” he mouthed at the clumsy idiot, a little professionally offended that anyone could get this far into a mission unarmed.

Stiles fumbled for the knife he’d had tucked down into the side of his boot, but he once he got it out he hefted it with the familiarity of someone who’d wielded one plenty of times before. He nodded when Dean signaled for him to go around the far side of the nearest row of crates and his steps were light as he disappeared from sight.

Dean took a moment to breathe, deep and slow, and get his head on straight. Even though they’d seen the Djinn leave—or at least a person they assumed to be the Djinn they were looking for—the warehouse still felt like a scene out of a horror movie. To be honest though, a good two thirds of Dean’s life felt that way, whether there were any actual monsters present or not, so that wasn’t an unusual feeling. It still made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end to be in the metaphorical lion’s den, always had and always would, and he wanted all his wits about him. Just in case.

He kept his weapon at the ready as he crept through the stacks, knees bent and eyes scanning for any movement. There was nothing but dimness and dust, the occasional soft sound of Stiles moving around on the other side of the space. So far, so good.

Then he rounded a corner and found himself at the edge of a large open space, cleared of boxes. And there in the middle, strung up with rope to a low-hanging support beam, was a man.

He was a well-aged forty-something, a full head of salt-and-pepper hair and the kind of wrinkles that come as much from laughter as from frowning. He wasn’t looking so good at the moment, pallid and limp and thin enough that his thick canvas jacket hung off his shoulders like a burlap sack. He was also unconscious, or at least so deep in his venom-induced fantasy world that he might as well have been.

Dean heaved a sigh of relief; all reassurances to Allison aside, he had been braced to find a body. A weaker man would never have lasted this long, but even now they were cutting it close. They needed to get Chris out of here and fast.

Dean had just left the shadow of the crates, his only goal cutting Chris down and making a break for the exit, when something came down hard on the back of his head and everything went black.

Chapter Text

The warehouse with its maze of precariously piled shit made Stiles exceedingly nervous. The whole thing gave him a bad vibe, alarm bells going off in the back of his mind even if he couldn’t pinpoint why. As far as they knew, the place was empty of hostile parties, and they’d yet to hear or see anything to disprove that theory. There was just the pat-pat of his own boot soles on the concrete, the whisper of Dean’s from across the way, and the occasional buzz of the singular light bulb as it flickered.

Stiles kept low as he crept forward along the wall, straining not only his eyes and ears but also that subtle sixth sense that was his magic. He let it seep out of him just a bit to radiate around him, reaching for things he wouldn’t be able to feel otherwise.

It didn’t yield him much in this instance, but he hadn’t expected it to. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Sam that the fight earlier had worn him out. There were definite limits to his power, and what he’d managed with that other Djinn had been a pretty big feat. He thought even Deaton might be impressed to hear about it. But that meant that he was left feeling drained, exhausted, and there was still the dull throb of a headache resting behind his eyes hours later.

It meant he didn’t have a lot of energy to spare for extrasensory reconnaissance. He could reach out a foot or two in every direction, which wasn’t worth much, and all it really told him was that something with seriously bad mojo had been nearby recently. He’d already known that, so he reined it back in, falling back on the traditional senses instead.

He couldn’t hear much beyond the beat of his own heart in his ears, but at least the light got a little better the closer he came to the center of the warehouse. And right underneath the source of it, smack dab in the middle of the giant room, was Chris.

He was strung up like a dead cow on a meat hook and he looked about half dead. Stiles just barely stopped himself from calling out Chris’ name, some instinct keeping him quiet even as he broke cover to jog across the empty space to the man’s side.

He was breathing. His eyes were closed, twitching back and forth beneath their lids like he was dreaming, but he was slumped over in a way that was probably hell on his shoulders where they were wrenched back and up toward the pipe he was tied to. He looked like hell, but he was alive and that was what ultimately mattered.

Stiles was looking for a chair or maybe a smaller crate he could climb up on to cut through Chris’ bonds when a chill ran through him, goosebumps breaking out all over. He knew that particular feeling all too well and he threw himself sideways without hesitation, right as a flaming hand went whistling through the air where he had been.

All at once Stiles realized what it was that had been bothering him about the situation: the direction the Djinn had gone upon leaving. She had come out the front of the building and walked toward the back. The problem was there was nothing in that direction except more abandoned buildings. There had been no reason for her to go to any of those. If she had been trolling for new victims, she would have headed the other way, back towards town. She had only left that way because she had always intended to come back and outflank them.

The Djinn had pushed back her hood now. She was pretty and blonde, hair pulled back in a sensible ponytail, and blue tattoos crawled over every bit of her that wasn’t covered by her nondescript clothes. As Stiles regained his balance, she locked glowing blue eyes on him and gave a snarl that would’ve made even Derek jealous.

Her next attack had Stiles jerking backward out of her reach. He lashed out with his bloodstained silver knife, but it went wide and she pulled back to circle around him again.

“Dean!” Stiles shouted. He tried to sound less panicked than he was, but his heart was pounding in his throat and honestly, in the four years he’d been involved in the supernatural world, he had never made that much progress in the hand-to-hand combat area. “Dean!”

“Save your breath,” the Djinn said, far too sweetly for someone who still had blood stains on their teeth. “Your little hunter friend won’t be any help to you now.”

A thrill of fear ran through Stiles, somehow deeper than the fight or flight that had struck him before. He sent up a fervent prayer to whoever might be listening for that kind of thing that Dean wasn’t dead, but he didn’t have time to check when the Djinn was throwing herself forward again.

Stiles dove out of the way, hitting the ground hard on his side and skidding to rest at Chris’ feet. At least he kept hold of his knife, brandishing it as he pulled himself up into a crouch. From his new vantage point he caught a glimpse of a crumpled form half-hidden at the edge of the crate maze, the familiar khaki green jacket marking it as Dean. As Stiles watched, though, the sprawl of limbs moved, twitching as Dean began to stir.

He wasn’t dead. Thank all that was holy that Dean wasn’t dead. But as much as a relief as that was—far more than Stiles would have expected, enough that he could have collapsed then and there—it didn’t help Stiles in the moment.

The Djinn advanced on him, bioluminescent hands outstretched, and Stiles swiped at her with the knife. The tip of it caught her across the palm, slicing just deep enough to draw a thin line of blood, and she withdrew the appendage with a hiss of pain. Stiles took the opportunity to get his feet under him properly and edge sideways, away from Chris so he wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire.

Dean was still out of commission for another minute or two, the Djinn was gearing up to fly at him again, and Stiles had zero confidence in his knifing abilities. But then again, that was never really what he had relied upon, was it?

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” Stiles said, going for casual and unconcerned because that always seemed to throw his opponents for a loop, whether they were werewolves or wendigos or humans or genies. “Do we need all this fighting? I mean, is it really necessary? You want to live, I want to live, and the whole ‘fighting each other’ thing is sort of counterproductive if we want both our goals to be met. How about you let me take my friend there, I can come back with a few pints of O neg for you to snack on, and we both go home happy? How’s that sound?”

The Djinn’s eyes flared brighter, far brighter and more vibrant than any werewolf eyes he had ever seen, and she growled out, “You killed my son.”

Fuck, there went any hope of a peaceful reconciliation. He really should’ve expected that. The research Sam had provided him with seemed to indicate that Djinn worked alone for the most part. It stood to reason that, if there were two Djinn in close proximity to each other, they were kin. Mommy Djinn had probably been still teaching Baby Djinn how to hunt and feed and avoid capture.

And Stiles had come crashing in to kill the cub and poke the fucking mama bear. Yeah, there was every chance he was going to die here.

“Okay,” he said through a dry mouth. “Okay, I see why you would be upset by that. This—this right now is a valid reaction and I understand where you’re coming from, but—”

The Djinn threw herself forward with another impressive snarl, catching Stiles in the side and sending them both tumbling to the ground. Stiles tried to pull away from her before they landed, but she had a hold of his shoulders and was digging her fingers in to keep from being thrown off. In a move Allison had taught him a while back, he hooked his ankles around the Djinn’s legs and pulled them toward him, forcing her knees to buckle.

He used her sudden instability to knock her free of her perch and rolled them until he was the one on top. Then he had a problem: he was severely limited in what he could do if he couldn’t touch her. One brush of skin against skin was all the Djinn needed to dose him with her venom and send him careening off into an inescapable lala land, which meant that trying to lay hands on her anywhere was a risk, even if he aimed for clothed areas. He should’ve worn gloves or something, and why hadn’t they thought to do that in the first place?

His moment of indecision cost him. He was back on his ass in a heartbeat, arms pinned, knife skittering across the concrete and out of reach. This was it, the end of him, he was sure of it. He hoped Dean was recovered enough to get Chris out of there while the Djinn was distracted with tearing Stiles limb from limb.

Fuck, he wasn’t going out like this. As the glowing hand raised up over him, Stiles delved inward, gathering up what he could of his magic. It didn’t feel like nearly enough, the dregs of it sluggish to come to his aid when he’d already used so much in one day, but there was nothing else for it. He—

A dark blur came careening out of nowhere to ram into the Djinn’s side. She let out a shriek of surprise as she was knocked over and Stiles was left staring up at the afterglow she left behind in his vision, too stunned by the sudden save to comprehend it. Then he heard Dean grunt in pain and he was scrambling to his feet in a heartbeat.

Dean was trying to hold her down, but the Djinn wasn’t interested in engaging him. All her focus was on Stiles, the one responsible for killing her son, and Dean was just an obstacle toward her getting her revenge. Dean was a damn good hunter, but he was also clearly still rattled from his bout of unconsciousness. It was a matter of seconds for the Djinn to toss him off and come for Stiles once more.

Stiles managed to land a kick to her face before she could get a hold of him. He used the few seconds that earned him to cast around wildly for his knife, but it wasn’t in sight and neither was Dean’s. Fuck.

The Djinn grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, yanking him backwards until he almost tripped over his own feet. His flailing arm caught her across the stomach, giving him a bit of time to get out of her reach and also knocking the breath out of her. That didn’t slow her down much, but Dean surging up to wrap both arms around her legs certainly gave her pause. That was, until she elbowed him in the side of the head.

As soon as his grip loosened, she was hauling him up by the shirt and throwing him. He hit the ground hard two meters away, the impact of it enough to rattle Stiles’ teeth even from a distance, and he didn’t bounce back up.

The Djinn advanced on him, hand raised, as she said, “I was going to let you live, hunter, but your interference is getting tiresome.”

There wasn’t time to look for a knife. Dean was curled around himself, gasping for air as she bore down on him. Allison and her arrows were outside, expecting to catch the Djinn on her way in or out and much too far away to help him now. The lady had to have given Sam the slip if she’d made it back here without him, so who knew where he was.

And now she was crouching down over Dean with blue fire lighting up her features into something unearthly and chilling, and there just wasn’t time for anything else.

“Hey!” Stiles yelled, closing the distance with a few long strides. “I’m the one you want, not him. Well, you can have me.”

He offered up his hands, ignoring the painful thump of his pulse and the way Dean groaned his name. The Djinn abandoned her quarry and rose to meet him, a vicious smile on her face. She reached for his hands, but he didn’t give her the chance to take them. Instead, he lunged forward to wrap them around her throat instead.

He reached as deep within himself as he ever had, and pushed.

Coming out of unconsciousness was never a pleasant experience, but it was never worse than when it was accompanied by the nagging panic of knowing he’d crapped out in the middle of a crisis. Or in this case, at the beginning of one.

The first thing Dean was really aware of was pain, a sharp throb in the back of his head, but the next was a voice—Stiles’ voice, distant and thin and calling his name. It tugged at him, a reminder that he was missing something important.

His first attempt at moving sent shocks through his whole body, the stabbing kind that made him want to curl up and never move again. His muscles cramped involuntarily and the coating of dirt on the warehouse floor made him cough when he gasped it in. He pushed through it; this was far from the first time he’d been knocked out in the middle of a fight, so he had more than enough practice in ignoring injuries until he had the time to worry about them.

The sound of feet on concrete echoed all around, the grunts and pants of a scuffle just out of sight. Dean gritted his teeth and rocked his uncooperative body sideways until he could get his knees under him, shoving himself half-upright.

Stiles was talking, a lot for someone in the middle of a tussle with a monster, but Dean couldn’t focus on the words as his head pounded and his stomach rolled. The words didn’t matter anyway; the tone was more than enough to spur Dean on, falsely bright and too high and just shy of panicked.

Stiles was trying to talk his way out of a knife fight.

The dumb kid was gonna get himself killed.

One more heave got Dean on his feet, swaying and teetering but decidedly upright. It took an excruciatingly long second for his vision to clear enough for him to take in the scene. Chris was exactly where he had been, bound and unaware in the center of the open space. There was a blood-tipped knife, probably Stiles’, on the ground near his feet, too far away for it to be of any use.

Stiles was flat on his back on the dirty concrete floor. Straddling him was the Djinn they’d watched leave the building, the one that had circled back around so she could sucker punch Dean in the back of the freaking head. Even at a glance it was obvious that she had Stiles thoroughly pinned. He would never be able to get enough leverage to break free from there.

The Djinn reared back with a glowing hand and Dean didn’t hesitate. He overrode his protesting muscles and threw himself bodily at the creature, crashing into her and the ground in quick succession. He tucked and rolled, pulling the Djinn along with him until they came to a stop with him on top. She let out a furious shout, struggling against the grip he had on her forearms, but he pressed his full weight down on her to keep her from pulling free.

It didn’t hold for long. Djinn were damn strong, and this one was particularly single-minded. She was so fixated on getting back to Stiles that when she knocked Dean on his ass, she didn’t even spare him a second glance. She latched onto the back of Stiles’ jacket. The kid fell back, away from the knife he’d been lunging toward, and managed to whack her good across the middle.

It stunned her. Dean took advantage of the moment to scramble forward on his knees and throw his arms around her legs, hoping to knock her off balance. He got an elbow to the head for his trouble, the impact to his already battered skull making him see fucking stars in the worst way possible. Before he could fight past his way past the pain, he was airborne. And as soon as he’d realized that distressing fact, he was crashing.

It rattled his bones until he felt like they might fall out. There wasn’t enough air in him to cry out and his lungs spasmed as they fought to bring in more. It forced gut-wrenching coughs out of him, jarring his bruised ribs. Everything hurt and it was all he could do to curl in on himself, instinctively protecting his core from further attack. Not that the fetal position would help against a Djinn.

He thought maybe she was talking, but it didn’t matter. The harsh blue glow of Djinn fire burned through his closed eyelids, growing brighter the closer it got. He wasn’t sure what he was more afraid of, death or being sucked into another hellishly mundane Stepford world, but either way he tried his damnedest to jerk back out of the way. He didn’t get far, but a shout stopped the Djinn from closing the last few centimeters between them.

Through the ringing in his ears, Dean heard Stiles say “it’s me you want” and his blood ran cold.  Then came his “you can have me” and the chill turned into a fear that wrapped around his chest like a vise.

Dean choked out Stiles’ name, reaching out like maybe he could grab hold of the Djinn and pull her back, keep her from taking Stiles up on his offer. He forced his stinging eyes open to see Stiles with his arms outstretched, both hands empty of knives and held palm up. Like this—no weapons, ratty jacket covered in dust, a smear of blood on his temple, eyes wide and scared—the kid looked so goddamn young, younger than he’d seemed since this trip had started.

He wasn’t backing down though. His hands were steady as the Djinn approached, just waiting for her to touch him, to take him down one way or another.

No. No, no, no, this couldn’t happen.

There was no way Dean could let Stiles sacrifice his life for him. The very thought of it sent panic roaring through him, a jolt of adrenaline strong enough to get him to his knees despite the way his every muscle screamed, because Stiles had to live. He had to get out of here, go back to Allison and his dad, find someone else to tease and smirk at, live his goddamn life. Dean wasn’t worth giving all that up.

He would never make it. Even if he were in peak condition there wouldn’t be enough time for him to intervene, to push Stiles out of the way or tackle the Djinn or anything to put a stop to this. There was nothing he could do but watch Stiles die.

Right before the Djinn made contact, Stiles looked over her shoulder at him. He made eye contact, just for a split-second, and it hit Dean all at once what Stiles was about to do. It should have been a relief, but all Dean could think about was how haggard Stiles had looked after the last fight, how tired he had been even hours later. That had been an adolescent Djinn, a child, and Stiles still wasn’t recovered from putting that one down. Not enough to do it again, only bigger.

This wasn’t just a trade of one life for another; it was kamikaze.

When Stiles wrapped his hands around the Djinn’s neck, he went stiff, his entire body arching like a taut bowstring. The Djinn seized up too, limbs jerking and flailing as she fought to rid herself of Stiles’ power. Her blue-gilded hands clamped down on Stiles’ wrists but it didn’t do her any good; his grip was strong and steady and no amount of tugging on her part could move him.

Stiles’ face was lit up in blue, the glow of the Djinn’s eyes reflecting in his own until he looked like he could’ve been one himself. There was something wild in his expression, something fierce and frightening in its intensity, and Dean felt strangely small in the face of it. There was a thrum in the air, subtle but growing, as the Djinn’s struggles grew more frantic. Her flames flared higher, pulsing like a heartbeat, and while they licked their way up Stiles’ arms, they didn’t seem to burn.

As Dean watched, breathless and paralyzed, the Djinn’s eyes began to grow brighter, just like the last one’s had done. This one didn’t stop, the hue ratcheting up by the second until it was almost white, the light bright enough to hurt Dean’s eyes even after he was forced to turn his head away.

The Djinn screamed. There was a crackle and a boom like thunder. Then a soft thump and silence.

The moment between the last sound and when Dean forced his eyes to open seemed to stretch for an hour. The sick, hollow feeling in his chest insisted that he would find two bodies, that Stiles’ pale skin would be blackened and smoking just like the Djinn’s, and he wasn’t convinced that he could live with the sight. But he owed the kid that much. If Stiles had been brave enough to sacrifice himself, then Dean could damn well show him the respect he’d more than earned.

But there was only one body. The Djinn was laid out on the cold concrete, blonde hair splayed around her like some kind of perverse, singed halo.

Stiles was still standing, but only just. He was shockingly pale in the bare light bulb’s watery light and his hands hovered in front of him, shaking now without the Djinn’s neck to steady them. He swayed worryingly.

Dean made it to his feet through sheer force of will and caught him before he could tip over entirely. Stiles slumped against his chest like a marionette and Dean wrapped arms tight around the kid’s waist to keep them both as upright as possible. Alarmed, he said Stiles’ name, trying to jostle him back into wakefulness.

Stiles stirred, hands grasping weakly at Dean’s biceps, and raised his head enough to look at Dean with wide brown eyes that were too glazed to focus on him properly.

“Are you okay?” he asked, like Dean was the one about to collapse. Like Dean had been the one to risk his life killing a Djinn with his freaking mind. Like it mattered to him that Dean was safe.

Dean had to swallow twice before he could get any sound past his dry mouth.

“I’m pretty sure I should be asking you that.”

Stiles’ eyes fluttered half-closed, but the corner of his mouth quirked up in a ghost of his usual smirk.

“Been better,” he admitted, barely a whisper. “Worth it.”

Dean’s heart clenched in his chest, skipping a beat or two in what might have been the most cliche thing to ever happen to him, and he swore.

Before he could think better or talk himself out of it, he kissed Stiles. The kid’s lips were soft and opened easily under his, the glide of them sweeter than anything Dean had ever tasted. It only lasted a minute but it settled something in him, that part of him that needed to know beyond doubt that Stiles was real and here and alive like he almost wasn’t anymore.

He felt Stiles’ shaky exhale on his cheek when they broke apart. It sent a shiver through him, the good kind that made him want to chase after that breath and breathe it in himself. Instead he leaned his forehead against Stiles’ and let out a sigh of his own.

“You ever do anything like that again,” he said, “and I’ll kill you myself.”

Stiles wheezed out a laugh and said, “I’ll...keep that in mind...next time.”

Dean pulled back, concerned by how haltingly the words had come out of him. The concern was swiftly followed by alarm when he saw blood beginning to drip from Stiles’ nose, the bright red of it stark against his pallor. Before he could say anything, Stiles was patting his arm in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring.

“Not dying,” he said, which wasn’t very convincing considering he was leaning more heavily on Dean than ever and he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes open anymore. “Promise. I’m just—”

He went limp.

Chapter Text

Stiles’ tattoos were sore to the touch. It was a very strange sensation and not one he had ever experienced before, but then he had never overextended his magic to that extent either.

Thankfully the initial fainting spell had only lasted a few minutes. He’d come to in the back of the Impala, wedged into the much too small space between Allison and the door and with Chris on her other side, still unresponsive. Allison had let go of her father’s hand just long enough to hug Stiles and call him many colorful names for daring to almost die when she wasn’t near enough to have his back.

She hadn’t cried though, not even when Stiles had been too exhausted and woozy to contribute to the re-telling of events. She hadn’t cried when they got Chris to the hospital and bullshitted through some story that wouldn’t get the cops called on them.  She hadn’t cried as they hooked Chris up to a half a dozen IVs, treating him for dehydration and malnutrition. She hadn’t cried when a nurse insisted on treating Stiles for the same, even though he knew his own condition was of a different nature.

It wasn’t until Chris had woken up—when Allison’s name was the first off his lips, followed immediately by Victoria’s because, in his perfect world, his wife was still alive—that she finally broke. Stiles had held her after Chris had fallen into a healthy sleep, petting her hair and hoping she wouldn’t notice how heavily he was leaning on her to stay upright.

Stiles had managed to hold onto consciousness until he got back to the motel, he and the brothers leaving Allison at the hospital with her dad. He’d barely kicked off his boots and shucked out of his jeans before he’d collapsed into bed and slept for nineteen hours straight.

He had a vague memory of waking up after that, even being upright long enough to pee, down a granola bar and a gatorade, and be shepherded outside. He thought he remembered Dean’s voice, close and sounding very concerned, but he might have dreamed that part.

Now he was awake again, but for real this time. He felt like he’d barely slept at all, still wiped and completely out of magic for at least another day or two, and the tattooed sigils that were there to enhance his spark felt like they’d been rubbed raw by what he’d done. He’d have to ask Deaton why that was when he got back.

He was once again in the Impala, laid out in the backseat that felt positively spacious now that he had it all to himself. Someone must have manhandled him out to the car in that brief period of almost-lucidity. A quick glimpse of a road sign as it flew past the window at 80mph told Stiles they were just a few miles outside of Beacon Hills, which meant he had slept for another seven and a half hours, which made for a total of twenty-six and a half. That explained why he was so damn hungry, but that could wait.

He didn’t bother to sit up properly until they were passing the city line, using that time to order his thoughts and get himself running at full capacity again. After everything that had gone down in Sutter Creek, during the final boss battle and especially after it, he had plenty to think about.

Stiles waited until they were pulling into the Argent’s apartment complex parking lot before he sat up to prop his chin on the back of Dean’s seat and say, “Heya, fellas! How’s it going?”

Dean seemed to be very easily startled for a hunter, or maybe it was only Stiles that could catch him off guard like this. Either way he cursed up a storm as he threw the car in park, then shoved his way out the door with a huff.

Stiles followed him out, every underused muscle creaking as he stretched hard enough to make himself a little lightheaded. It felt good though, and it felt even better opening his eyes to find Dean’s focused on where his shirt had ridden up with the motion. Stiles tugged his shirt back down, blocking Dean’s view, and leaned back against the trunk as Sam came around the other side to clap him on the shoulder.

“You’re alright!” Sam said with a huge grin. “I mean, sure, Allison told us you’d sleep it off eventually, but you really gave us a scare back there.”

Stiles waved a hand, dismissing his concern.

“Nah, I’m fine,” he said. “Starving though. I’ll probably eat my dad out of house and home later today, maybe take another eight hour nap before bedtime, but I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”

“I’m glad.” Sam squeezed his shoulder, giving him a little shake, and the look on his face was downright fond. “That was a hell of a thing you did back there, Stiles. I had no idea sparks were so powerful.”

“Well, ‘modesty’ is my middle name,” Stiles said, as if he’d had any idea that he was actually capable of something like that. Deaton had always said he was strong, true, but Stiles had sort of taken that as a pat on the head, just reassurance to keep him from giving up on his training every time he got frustrated. Apparently the vet had actually been serious about it.

“Is it?” Dean asked, looking innocently surprised. “I would've thought ‘reckless’ or maybe ‘has no self preservation instinct.’”

A slow smile crept up on Stiles’ face.

“Aw, Dean, sweetheart,” he said, enjoying the way Dean made a noise of indignant protest at the pet name. “Do I detect a hint of concern?”

“You know what?” Sam said quickly. “I’m gonna go...call Bobby.” He pulled out his phone and gave it a little shake, thumbing over his shoulder toward the other side of the empty parking lot. “See if he...has a job for us, or...something.”

Sam turned on a dime and walked away, more quickly than was probably warranted, and left the two of them behind. Dean watched him go with a tightly clenched jaw, like he was considering calling his brother out on what he was doing. Stiles just let him go; he couldn’t say he didn’t appreciate the opportunity to talk to Dean alone. He didn’t break the silence himself though, just waited to see what it was that Dean had to say to him.

“Did you really think you could do it?” is what Dean came out with, his voice gruff and quiet after the long, silent moment. Stiles didn’t need to ask what he meant.

“‘Course I did,” he said easily. “Wouldn’t’ve done it otherwise.”

Dean shook his head, narrowed eyes never leaving Stiles’ face. His expression was hard to read, something caught between anger and what almost seemed like disappointment. It made Stiles want to squirm and fidget, made him feel naked in a way he hadn’t even back in the motel room with two pairs of eyes on his bare chest.

“Not what I meant,” Dean said. “Let me rephrase: did you really think you would survive it?”

Stiles licked his lips, but his mouth was dry so it didn’t do much. Suddenly he was glad there were no werewolves around because his heartbeat was going crazy and he wasn’t even sure why. He was fairly certain it wasn’t over the reminder of his near-death experience though, which just left the way that Dean’s voice rumbled through his chest to take up residence there.

“Maybe not,” Stiles said into the heavy silence that had fallen between them, heavy with something he didn’t know how to name.

He felt like maybe it should’ve cost him to admit that, but Dean already knew. He had known as soon as Stiles had held out his hands in that warehouse; it had been there in his eyes when he’d called Stiles’ name. There was nothing to lose here by being honest, not when his feelings had already been made pretty damn clear.

“Maybe I didn’t expect to come out the other side,” Stiles said with a shrug that was probably more cavalier than the statement warranted, but it was far from the first time he’d had that thought anyway. “But you would have.”

Dean was already shaking his head again, frowning like he didn’t understand, like it wasn’t obvious what Stiles wasn’t saying here. He opened his mouth, probably to say something noble and self-effacing, but Stiles cut him off.

“Don’t say you’re not worth it. Pretty sure I get to decide that.”

“You don’t get to decide my worth,” Dean said, almost indignant, and Stiles chuckled.

“Not objectively, no,” he allowed. “But I do get to decide what you’re worth to me.”

Stiles could see it when the words clicked in Dean’s head, when he really heard them and understood what they meant: that Stiles thought Dean was worth dying for. Dean’s eyes widened and his throat worked around a swallow. He shifted on his feet. His hands flexed at his sides, twitching open and closed before dragging open palms up his thighs.

“You, uh—” He stopped to clear his throat. “You barely know me. Why would you—”

“Eight hours trapped in a car with someone is rarely a pleasant endeavor,” Stiles said, giving the Impala at his back and affectionate pat, “but it is a pretty good way to get the measure of a man, I’d say. And by the same token, why do you care so much if I live or die?”

Dean’s open mouth snapped closed and, honestly, his lack of a comeback was practically a return confession. Stiles pushed himself off the car and moved closer. Dean didn’t step back, just watched Stiles cautiously. He stayed perfectly still even as Stiles moved closer yet, right up into Dean’s space until they were mere inches apart. This near, Stiles could smell Dean’s aftershave, a hint of spice that lingered on his skin long past the point when smooth cheek gave way to stubble.

Dean licked his lips, leaving them wet and glistening, and that was all it took to cut through Stiles’ half-thought out plan to entice Dean into making the first move. It wasn’t some dramatic, passionate kiss right off a movie screen or anything, but it still sent tingles down Stiles’ spine when Dean gasped against his mouth and opened up for him.

When he pulled back, Dean’s eyes were still closed, his lips red and kiss-swollen. Before Stiles had a chance to feel too smug about it, he caught a glimpse of movement over Dean’s shoulder and looked back to see Sam watching them from across the parking lot. He was punching the air in triumph, talking excitedly on the phone, and Stiles was willing to bet it was Allison on the other end of the line.

As much as he appreciated Sam’s stamp of approval on this, Dean’s brother was a sobering reminder of who Dean was, what he did. He was a hunter. His life was a nomadic one, always on the road, always searching for the next case, the next hunt, the next monster. And yeah, maybe Stiles didn’t know Dean all that well, but he knew Dean would never be satisfied with anything less.

Stiles stepped back to lean on the car again, hands shoved in his pockets. It took Dean a moment to rejoin the world, which had Stiles smirking and mentally patting himself on the back for a man well kissed, but when he did he gave himself a shake and cleared his throat again.

“Well,” he said, but he was apparently too flustered to follow it up with anything.

How a grown man strong and fierce enough to take a vamp’s head off its shoulders with one swing could look so cute was a mystery, but apparently it was Stiles’ new kink. He sort of wanted to see it every day, but he knew better. Sam was still hovering on the far side of the lot, pretending to be occupied but really just waiting for their private conversation to be over.

Stiles didn’t want it to be over, not when it was such a moment—the kind they weren’t guaranteed to have again—but it couldn’t last. And he should probably put Dean out of his awkwardness-induced misery.

“So, you and Sam,” he said finally. “You’ll be hitting the road now, right?”

Dean looked surprised, like he’d somehow forgotten that he lived out of his car with his little brother. He even looked over his shoulder at Sam, and when he turned back, that pretty mouth of his was turned down at the corners.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I guess we will.”

Stiles nodded. Idly, he scuffed the toe of his boot across the asphalt. A pebble went skittering in its wake, coming to rest at Dean’s feet instead.

“My classes start back up in a week or two,” Stiles said abruptly. “But winter break isn’t too far off. And it’s not like I’m overbooked on weekends either.”

Dean gave him a blank look, obviously confused by the non sequitur. “For what?”

“For when you come back and visit me,” Stiles told him, eyebrows raised. “Duh.”

“Oh, right, of course,” Dean said obediently. He was fighting a smile though, Stiles was sure of it, and as he sauntered forward, the uncertainty had disappeared from his movements. “You’ll be waiting for me, will you?”

“I might could be persuaded to pencil you in once in a while,” Stiles said, reaching out to hook his fingers through Dean’s belt loops and tug him in further. Dean came willingly, smirking down at him. “And you know,” Stiles went on, “there’s always spring break. Who knows? Maybe I’ll ride with you for a while, offer up my skills for a case or two.”

“You mean your spark skills or your tripping-over-air-in-the-middle-of-a-mission skills?” Dean asked, all faux innocence and curiosity. He yelped with Stiles pinched his side in retaliation, but he was laughing anyway.

“Hey, we both know who carried that mission,” Stiles protested. “And it was me, thank you very much. I was the real hero there.”

“I don’t know about that,” Dean said. Then his face went suddenly stern. “But Stiles, I swear to god: you try to pull a stunt a like that again and even if you don’t die, I will kill you myself.”

“That is unreasonable and ultimately counterproductive,” Stiles felt compelled to point out. “But if you can keep yourself out of immediate danger, then I can promise I won’t need to resort to drastic measures.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “That’s as good as I’m gonna get from you, isn’t it?”

“Oh, you wanna get something good?” Stiles asked, quirking an eyebrow at him and manfully resisting the urge to squeeze his ass. “I can give it to you real good.”

He was rewarded with another of those beautiful flushes of color on Dean’s cheeks. It was immensely gratifying, and Stiles was just about to keep teasing, or maybe go for that ass squeeze after all, when a cleared throat sounded. Sam was approaching with a grimace on his face and his phone held up in the air.

“Hate to interrupt your moment,” he said to Dean, “but it turns out Bobby does actually have a case for us. Nearby and sort of urgent.”

Dean turned back to Stiles with a sigh, an apology written all over his face, but Stiles didn’t need to hear it. He just waved a hand.

“Go on,” he said. “Go save lives and gank things and whatever. Do your thing.”

Dean cocked his head to the side.

“Just like that, huh?” he asked. “No weeping and wailing? No lamenting our star-crossed circumstances? No being offended that the job takes top billing?”

Stiles had to laugh at that.

“I try to keep my weeping and wailing to a minimum, and the lamenting stays behind closed doors,” he assured him. “Besides, I’m aware of my own brand of animal magnetism. I know you’ll be back.”

“God help me,” Dean muttered, “but I think I will.”

Sam, around the other side of the car now and supposedly pretending not to listen in, coughed in a way that was either a hint that they needed to finish this up or a way of hiding a laugh. Either way, Dean finally stepped back. Stiles kept a hold of his belt loops until the last minute, finally releasing him a sigh. He pushed off the Impala, throwing a nod to Sam, and turned back to Dean one more time.

“Time for you to go,” he said plainly, ignoring the sad ache in his chest. It wasn’t the worst feeling, honestly, not when he knew this wasn’t the end of it. “How ‘bout a kiss for the road?”

Smiling, Dean leaned in to press their lips together, one hand warm and wide on Stiles’ waist and the other cupping his cheek. Stiles hummed into it contentedly. Dean’s thumb trailed across his jaw as he pulled back, a gentle touch that made Stiles’ shiver.

“See you around, kid,” Dean said.

He got as far as opening the Impala’s driver-side door before Stiles was reeling him back in, pressing him up against the car and kissing the everloving daylights out of him. He made a noise of protest when Stiles finally came up for air, looking nothing short of stunned.

“Okay, two for the road then,” he said, breathless and agreeable.

Stiles bumped their noses together and couldn’t fight the urge to nip at Dean’s upper lip.

“The first one was for the road,” he said. “This one was just for me.”

All Dean could do was nod. When Stiles released him, falling back to give him room to breathe, Dean collapsed into his seat and started the car up. Neither of them said anything else; they’d said more than enough already, and anything else they might have wanted each other to know didn’t need words anyway. There’d be time for all that later.

Stiles watched them drive away, a smile on his face. And when he made for the jeep, ready to go home for some well-earned rest and relaxation, there was a definite spring in his step. As he climbed in behind the wheel, he pulled out his phone to find two text messages from Allison, timestamped a few minutes ago.

[Sam says you got some tongue, congrats XD]

[so when do you get to touch the butt?]

Stiles snorted, shaking his head as he tucked the phone away. He didn’t have an answer for her just yet, but he didn’t think he’d be wrong in saying it wouldn’t be too long.