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"Stop making out against my car!" Dean yelled as he carried his duffel bag out of the hotel room.
"Leave them, alone, you big jerk," Buffy, his girlfriend/nemesis scolded. "It's their anniversary."
"The anniversary of when they met, when they kissed or when they...." Dean just wiggled his eyebrows. "Wait. No. That's all the same day!"
"Well, it wasn't to them. It was seven hours for us, seven days for them. We already explained it to you, Dean."
"Yeah? Well, it was weird."
“I can't argue with you.”
“You can't argue with me? Have we entered an alternate dimension? Are WE in a fairy realm?”
“Do you have to be such an ass?”
“Babe, I'm charming, you're sassy, we're adorable.” He gestured to Sam and Dawn who were giggling and making moon eyes at each other. “But thankfully, we aren't...” he gestured broadly... “that.”
A year earlier......
Sam Winchester honestly didn’t know whether to be amused or annoyed.
His brother, Dean, was squirming in his chair, tapping his foot, and pretty much behaving in a manner that could only be described as ADD. During a sugar rush. After six espressos.
“Well?” Dean asked Sam. “Do you see recognize anybody?”
“No,” Sam sighed, “I told you…”
“Oh hello!” Dean hit Sam on the shoulder. “Please tell me that she’s the girl from your vision. I’d love to rescue that damsel in distress.”
“Dean,” Sam sighed (again), “I told you, it wasn’t exactly a vision.”
And Dean wasn’t exactly listening.
Sam followed Dean’s gaze, or perhaps it was more of a leer. Whatever it was, Sam followed it to the girl at the bar. She had long chestnut hair and a nice figure, but with her back turned to him, that’s all Sam could tell.
Another girl joined her at the bar. This one was very pretty, petite, and blonde.
Sam braced himself because any minute now…
“Day-amn!” Dean smacked him again. “Baby’s got a friend. Was she in your vision?”
“Dean, I told you. It wasn’t a vision. It’s more like a pull.”
“A pull? What the hell is that supposed to mean? A pull?”
“I don’t know. It’s just this feeling that I’m supposed to be here.”
Dean looked annoyed. But at least he had stopped smacking Sam’s poor shoulder.
“We’re chasing your feelings now? Jeez, Sam. Next thing I know we’ll be trusting your woman’s intuition. You’ll be having hot flashes.”
“Shut up.” Not Sam’s best or most clever retort. But…
“What do your ‘feelings’ say about sending those girls a drink?”
“Buffy,” Dawn Summers pleaded. “Could you please stop making that face?”
“I’m not making a face.”
Buffy’s usually lovely face was screwed up like she had been sucking a lemon. With salt on it. While being stuck by a straight pin.
But it was a waste of time to argue.
“You’re totally making a face.”
So it had been a waste of time. Dawn didn’t care.
"Why are we here again, Dawnie?"
"I'm not sure. It was just... a feeling, I guess."
"A feeling, you guess?" Buffy asked. "A feeling that you wanted greasy bar food? A feeling that you might meet a hot guy? A feeling that you were craving an ice cold beer?"
"A mystical Key type feeling, maybe?" Dawn gave her sister a look of 'please don't freak out'.
"A mystical KEY type feeling?!?!" She hissed because she couldn't yell.
"Please don't freak out."
"Since when do you have 'mystical Key type' feelings? Is this a new thing? A thing that you haven't been telling me about? What the hell, Dawnie?"
The bartender approached the Summers women with two girly drinks. The kind with umbrellas and cherries in them. He plopped them down in front of the sisters.
"What the hell, Mr. Bartender Guy?" Buffy asked in the exact same freaked out tone she had used on her sister.
"From the two gentlemen at the table over there."
Buffy peered around her sister's shoulder toward the other side of the room and saw two men in their early fifties with visible paunches and receding hairlines. "Wow. Ambitious much?"
"Not those two," the bartender chuckled. "Those two."
Dawn turned to look as well. A cute brunette with freckles she could actually see from across the room grinned and raised his drink in a salute. She shifted her gaze to the other one and let out a gasp.
Dawn started walking toward him, leaving the drink at the bar.
Buffy grabbed both drinks and followed her sister, "Dawn? What. The. Hell?"
"Check it, Sam, they're headed this way." Dean popped his brother on the shoulder again. But Sam didn't protest. In fact, Sam was getting up and headed toward them. Or more specifically, her. The brunette. Sam stared at her and walked in almost a trance. "Dude, try to play it somewhat cool. Sam? Sam?"
But Sam was completely ignoring him. So Dean grabbed both of their beers and started to follow. "I preferred the blonde anyway, jerk."
The two who it seemed only had eyes for each other made their way, trance-like toward the center of the room. When they got to each other the just stood there, smiling weirdly.
"Weirdos" Dean muttered and attempted to hand his brother his extra beer. Sam didn't take it though, he just stood there. Smiling at the girl. Like... well ..a weirdo.
A tiny, feminine hand took it instead. "Yes. Much better than a girly drink." She glanced down at the fruity cocktail that she sat on the nearest empty table. "Thank you."
"Hi," Dean said, temporarily ignoring the weirdness that was his brother. "I'm Dean."
"Buffy. This is my sister, Dawn. Say 'hi' Dawn."
"Hi." But she was saying it to Sam, not to Dean. In fact, the brunette, Dawn, still had that weird smile on her face.
"My brother, Sam." This time, Dean nudged Sam. Hard. Hard enough to knock him off his balance. Thankfully, the weird trance seemed to break.
"Um, hi, Dawn. I'm Sam." And the smile, a little less weird this time, popped right back onto his face.
"Hi, Sam." Her smile was a little less creepy too.
"Great we all have names. And drinks. How about we grab this table. Right here. This one."
"Do you babble often, Dean?" Buffy asked, raising the beer glass to her lips while she sat.
He leaned into her and said, "Only when my brother is being really weird."
"Well. My sister is always weird.... you know, actually she's not. I have no idea what has gotten into her."
"This is weird," Dawn said to Sam, quietly. "It's weird, right?"
"It's weird," Sam agreed. "It's like...."
"I know you," Dawn finished. "But I know..."
"We've never met." Sam shook his head. "And does it feel like...?"
"We're supposed to go outside? Yes."
"This is weird," Sam repeated.
Dawn looked at her sister and Dean, who were engaged in some light banter and then back at Sam. "Should we go outside? It might be..."
"....a trap. I know. But it just feels..."
"Right. And not malevolent."
Sam smiled. "This is really weird."
"So, we don't go outside. Because it's weird. Wait. Why would you think it was a trap?" Dawn asked.
"No reason." Sam reasoned, "That would be a weird thing to think."
"It's certainly not something I would think," Dawn lied.
"Did you use the word 'malevolent'?"
"Yes. It means..."
"I know what it means. I just spend a lot of time with my brother. He mostly just grunts a lot."
Dawn smiled at Sam and they sat in silence for just a few minutes, listening to Buffy and Dean argue about music.
"I'm telling you, no good music was produced after 1990. Nothing."
"Two words Dean. Pearl. Jam."
"Pssh."
"Seriously? Did you just counter my argument with 'psssh'?"
"Pearl Jam? A 'pssh' is all that argument warrants, Blondie."
Dawn stared longingly at the front door of the bar. "We aren't going to go outside then."
"Right," Sam agreed. "Although...I could be craving a hamburger."
"A hamburger would be good. And the kitchen here is closed. So we'd have to leave."
"So we aren't going to go outside because we feel like we should..."
"We're just hungry."
"That sounds reasonable."
"Do you think you could convince your brother?"
"Dean," Sam nudged his brother. "Burgers?"
"Hell yes, burgers!"
"You guys are leaving?" Buffy asked.
"I really want a burger, Buffy," Dawn insisted, grabbing her sister's hand. "Can we go too?"
"Dawnie. You're being weird."
"I know, Buffy. I know."
“Dawnie? Where are you going?”
“Hey losers, the diner is this way!” Dean yelled as Sam and Dawn headed towards the park across the street with a single-minded purpose. To Buffy, he asked, “Are they holding hands?”
“I think so... is your brother acting weird? Because my sister is acting weird.”
“He's usually weird. Hard to tell.” He yelled again, “Saaaaam! Where the hell are you going? Burgers. This way. Come here.”
“Should we follow them?”
“I want a cheeseburger. I was promised a cheeseburger.”
“Dean, we need to follow them.”
“Whyyy? I'm hungry damn it.”
“Because they're being weird.”
“Yes, I know, Buffy. They're being weird. Haven't we established that yet?”
Then there was a 'POP' and a flash of pink light and Sam & Dawn were no longer where Sam & Dawn had been.
“My sister is gone.
“I see that. My brother is gone too.”
“My. Sister. Is GONE.” Thwack.
“Ow. That hurt.” Dean massaged his shoulder. “Heeeey! That HURT!”
Buffy stalked over to the spot where Sam & Dawn disappeared from. She turned around in circles, over and over, making note of the mushrooms that were growing.
“Blondie, you're making me dizzy. What are you doing?”
“It's a fairy ring. I'm in the middle of a fairy ring.” Buffy looked at Dean and threw her hands up in frustration. “Our siblings were kidnapped by fairies.”
Dean sighed. “I'm getting a cheeseburger.”
Three cheeseburgers, two pieces of pie, and two phone calls later, they had a plan.
Actually, they had two plans. Which was a bit of a problem.
“Listen, you arrogant jerk,” Buffy huffed. “My friend Giles said the rungs of the ladder need to be made from a Rowan tree.”
“And my friend Bobby said it needed to be a dog-berry tree. Where the hell are we going to find a Rowan tree, anyway?”
“We're standing under one.”
Dean looked at the image on his phone that Bobby sent, and then up to the tree. Back and forth. “That's a dog-berry tree, not a Rowan tree.”
Buffy huffed and pulled out her phone. A quick glance over Wikipedia and... “They're the same thing.”
Two hours, four more phone calls and innumerable arguments later (they still needed to debate what type of rope to use and what kind of knots to tie), they had a ladder to throw into the fairy realm.
“I'm telling you; you need to throw it right in the middle.”
“Since when do you put a ladder in the middle of a hole? Ladders go on the edge.”
“What hole? It's a mystical portal!”
“It's still a hole, Dean! The ladder needs something to balance against.”
“Do you have to be right ALL THE TIME?”
“I don't HAVE to be right. I just USUALLY AM!”
'POP!'
Sam and Dawn were standing in the middle of the fairy circle, alternating between kissing and giggling, wearing nothing but a shared silken sheet.
“Dawnie!”
“Oh hey, Buffy. How've you guys been?”
“How have we been? We've been worried sick! And you're back and giggly and quite obviously debauched... and.... what the hell?”
Dean smirked at his brother. “Dude. High five.” Thwack! “Woman! Stop hitting me. Do you take steroids or something? I've battled demons that don't hit as hard as you.”
“Dean,” Sam laughed, “She's the Slayer.”
“Come again?”
“Buffy is the Vampire Slayer.”
“And Sam and Dean are hunters,” Dawn offered. “So... Sam and I decided that the four of us are gonna work together from now on. Like a team.”
“You decided?” Buffy asked. “Like in the last seven hours, you decided?”
“Buffy... we've been in the fairy realm for seven days.”
“But... but...we don't know these guys!”
Dawn sighed and looked up at Sam with moon eyes. “Peaseblossom said that Sam and I are soul mates.”
Dean snorted, “Peaseblossom? What kind of name is Peaseblossom?”
“A fairy name. Pay attention, Dean.”
“I cannot take you seriously right now Sam. You're wearing a rainbow-silk- sheet thing and you have flowers in your hair. FLOWERS!”
“And they're both clearly naked under that sheet.”
“Oh. You THINK Blondie?”
“They needed us to power their fertility ritual,” Dawn explained, leaning into Sam.
“They're kissing again,” Thwack! “Make them stop.”
“I'm not going anywhere near that fairy circle. I don't want to get zapped away with some chick to ….you know... I've never been in a fairy realm. Have you, Blondie?”
“There is no way in hell that you and I are ever going to do....” she gestured toward their siblings, who were necking like teenagers, “....that.”
One year later (again)
“When you think about it, it's kind of our anniversary too, babe. The mutual attraction, the heat, the flirtatious banter....it all started one year ago today.”
“Also the irritation, the annoyance and the undeniable need to smack you.”
“You can smack me anytime, baby doll,” Dean smirked.
“Don't tempt me,” She reached over and spanked him on the ass.
“Oh, you wanna play?”
Buffy screeched as Dean heaved her over his shoulder and spanked her playfully.
Sam called out, “Would you two knock it off?”
Dawn rubbed his arm soothingly, “Be nice, Sam. It's their anniversary too.”
“Sometimes I wonder how they're still together when they're always like...that.”
Buffy squealed as Dean unceremoniously dumped her into the front seat of the car and tossed his duffel in on top of her.
“Hey! Don't rough house around the car!”