AN: with my move coming up in like 4 days and then orientation and moving into my apartment after that, I may not update for the next week or so, but I will be writing on all my flights and my lay over instead of sleeping... yay red eyes across the ocean. Hope you guys are enjoying the story! I got a review last chapter and I was so excited :] keep it up my loves!
When they had reached Piedmont and settled into their hotel, which thankfully had a pullout couch for Nicole to sleep on, they boys changed into plain black suits and explained their FBI ruse to Nicole.
"So this is why you told me to pack business clothes?" She mused out her pencil skirt and blazer. "Do I get a badge too?"
"Probably at some point, but not yet," Sam told her, "Sorry, Kid."
Nicole scowled at him, "I'm only like 2 year younger than you, Sam. Who you calling a kid? And besides, who are we going to tell people I am if I don't have a badge?"
"You're our trainee," Dean grinned at her, knowing the idea of being called a trainee would piss her off.
"Great," she muttered, hauling her clothes into the bathroom to get changed.
After being in a car for 3 days straight, it felt so good to actually primp that Nicole decided to go all out. Her wavy hair was actually cooperating, despite being slightly ruffled from sleeping in the car, but Nicole combed through it with her fingers and pulled half of it back in a clip, deciding that looked professional enough. She did her make-up, putting on some eyeliner, blush, and a little bit of lipstick, before slipping on her blouse and skirt and tossing her jacket over her arm. Praying that there wouldn't be any running involved today, Nicole opted for some black heels to match her blazer.
Both of the brothers looked up at her when she stepped out of the bathroom and Nicole was pleased to see Dean's eyes get wider.
"You look great," Sam offered.
"Way too hot to be an FBI agent," Dean countered, "You look more like a sexy secretary." He wiggled his eyebrows at her.
"Thank you, Sam," Nicole said, tossing a glare in Dean's direction, "and shut up, Dean. You watch too much porn."
When they got to the tiny building that Piedmont called a police station, Sam and Dean flashed their badges and Dean gleefully introduced Nicole as their agent in training and they set to work gathering all the information about the girls that had gone missing. The poor unsuspecting deputy talking them with handed over all their case files, not knowing that he was giving away their case to some criminal ghost hunters and their sidekick vampire.
Taking the case files back to their hotel room, Nicole and Sam immediately dug into the backgrounds of the victims, while Dean pretended to flip through a file while he sipped on a beer.
Pacing around the room with a file in her hand, her heels long forgotten, Nicole sipped on a cup of blood that they had snatched from an animal hospital a few states back.
"The more I read this, the more I think that this is just a regular old human serial killer with a preference for blondes," Nicole mused to the brothers.
"You'd be surprised what supernatural things can have a preference for, sweetheart," Dean replied, "We once ganked this ghost that kidnapped and killed blondes from their apartments after he kidnapped our friend Jo."
"Ghosts can kidnap people?" Nicole questioned, pausing in her pacing to cock and eyebrow at Dean.
"Yup, and a vampire this ancient could have easily developed a taste for a certain type of lady."
"Gross…" Nicole and Sam said at the same time. "Also," Nicole continued, "You said he'd probably have a permanent residence somewhere, so how come these disappearances only go back three weeks?"
"It's possible that the people who do his dirty work for him rotate cities to avoid detection, or it's possible that this isn't our Alpha," Sam told her. "Actually I'd be surprised if it was our Alpha hiding in the first place we check, but people are still going missing here so we need to check it out to be sure."
By the end of the night, the trio had narrowed down where all three girls had been snatched from. Judging from their credit card receipts, each girl had been out at a local bar called Tom's and had left alone according to witnesses, which meant that they were probably taken off the street as they walked home.
"Looks like we get to stake out a bar," Dean said, rubbing his hands together, "best case ever."
"Better yet, each of the girls were taken on a Friday, which is tomorrow, so why don't we give him a girl to take?" Nicole asked, holding her hands out to the side. "Put me in a blonde with and call me a trap."
"Absolutely not," both brothers replied immediately and the smile fell off Nicole's face.
"Why not? It would save some other innocent girl from being taken and we can see what's been happening to them."
"Last time someone one played decoy around us they almost got murdered by a ghost," Dean told her.
"Are you talking about that Jo girl? Because I'm betting she wasn't a nearly immortal vampire," Nicole pointed out.
"No she wasn't," Sam conceded, "but just because you can't die, doesn't mean bad things can't happen to you."
"We know the stats on girls who get kidnapped and we are not about to send you out there to possibly be raped," Dean said, crossing his arms across his chest in an attempt to look intimidating.
"Oh, come on," Nicole threw her arms up, "I am a vampire, meaning super strength, super speed. Dean you know how strong I am." She looked to Dean for support, but got nothing.
"Come on, try and tackle me," she said, "if you can pin me down and hold me there, I won't try and be a decoy, but if I can throw you off then I'm…"
Before she could even get the words out, Dean charged at her, knocking her to the bed. Caught off guard, it took Nicole a few moments before she could mount a defense. Dean had already pinned her hands above her head and thrown his full body weight on top of her. For a split second, Nicole's breath caught in her throat as she took in their position, but shaking herself out of it she began to fight against Dean. She may be weak for a vampire, but she was still stronger than most humans. Ripping her hands out of Dean's grasp, Nicole shoved him hard in the chest, knocking him off her. Without wasting another second, Nicole rolled sideways on the bed and jumped on Dean, attempting to pin him down instead. After a few moments of struggle, Nicole managed to straddle him and wrestle his arms down to pin them next to his head.
Both of them we breathing hard and Dean's eyes were blazing. Nicole vaguely noticed that her pencil skirt had ridden up around her thighs, but that was pushed from her thoughts as Dean closed his hands around hers, his eyes boring into hers.
"Don't do this, Nikki," he pleaded with her.
"Dean… I just proved that I can take on anyone or anything that tries to mess with me, and you guys will have my back."
"What if we're too late?"
"Let me ask you something… would you sit on the sidelines and let innocent people get killed just because it might be dangerous?" She asked. Dean stayed silent.
"That's what I thought. I'm just doing what you or Sam would do if you could, so don't be sexist and let me help these girls, Dean."
Climbing off of Dean, she noticed Sam in the corner with a blush on his face pretending to read over one of the case files. Digging through her bag, Nicole pulled out a sports bra and a pair of running shorts.
"I'm going for a run," she announced to the room, "I'll be back in an hour."
When Nicole reemerged from the bath room in her running attire, she saw Sam had changed into shorts and a t-shirt too.
"You mind if I come? I haven't had the chance to get a run in, in a long time."
Sam and Nicole ran in silence for a while and Sam was surprised to note that despite being over a head shorter than he was, Nicole was easily able to keep up with him. It was probably just a side effect of being a vampire, but he was impressed none the less. She ran with her brow furrowed and Sam had a feeling that she was still brooding over Dean.
"I'm sorry about my brother," Sam broke their silence and she turned towards him with her eyebrows raised. "I don't just mean tonight," Sam continued, "I mean everything since we met you. He's used to living in black and white and you're forcing him into a gray area."
"You don't seem to have trouble with gray areas…" Nicole pointed out.
Sam sighed, not breaking their stride. "I was raised a little differently than Dean."
Nicole shook her head, her long pony tail swinging behind her. "You're gonna have to give me more than that Sam."
Sam was silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts. There wasn't much to see along this stretch of road in the middle of nowhere North Dakota.
Finally, just when Nicole thought that Sam wasn't going to answer her question, he broke the silence between them.
"See, I was raised as normal as a kid could be that lived out of motel rooms and changed schools every few months, but only because I had Dean as my older brother. Dean was raised to be Dad's little soldier. Everything he was ever taught was 'Protect Sammy' and 'Shoot first and ask questions later.' There was no grey area with our father after Mom was killed and Dean was ingrained with that too. When we were kids, I befriended dogs and did science projects, while Dean made sawed off shot guns and guarded the hotel room door."
Nicole studied Sam for a long moment out of the corner of her eye. "Sounds like you're carrying a little guilt from that, Sam." He didn't respond. "It wasn't your fault. I didn't know your dad, but it doesn't sound like her took the death of your mom very well and you and Dean suffered for it, but you couldn't have changed things when you were a kid. I do know that no matter what happened back then, you guys grew up to be amazing guys who have saved more lives than I can even imagine because I'm new to this."
Sam didn't respond to her and she was afraid she went to far talking about their dad, but mid-stride, Sam caught her hand and gave it a squeeze.
"Try not to be too hard on Dean. He's trying to come to terms with the fact that something he was taught to kill his whole life might not be totally evil and it isn't going easy for him," Sam grinned at her. " I'm not saying you have to stop messing with him, just try not to get too angry with him."
"I think I can manage that. I feel like we both grew up in war zones. His was literal and mine was more figurative, but maybe we aren't as different as I thought."
Sam let out a huge laugh at that. "Different?" he scoffed, "You're problem is that you both are too much alike."
Nicole frowned and punched Sam in the arm. "Not true."
"Whatever you say, Nikki."
When they got back to the hotel room, Nicole immediately spotted a blonde wig sitting on Dean's bed. She immediately grabbed it and turned to face Dean.
"I went to the costume store, got some weird looks and bought that for you for tomorrow," he said, by way of an explanation.
Grinning, Nicole immediately stuck it on top of her sweaty pony tail. "How does it look?" She asked Dean.
"Good enough to get kidnapped," he said, a sad grin spreading across his face and Nicole immediately felt bad for how she pushed him earlier.
Without warning, she pulled Dean into a tight hug and buried her face in his neck. "Thank you, Dean. Thank you for trusting me to do this."
Dean relaxed into the hug and even wrapped his arms around Nicole as well. "We'll have your back tomorrow, Nikki, no matter what."
Nicole pulled back to meet his eyes. "I know, Dean." She leaned in and gave him a quick peck on the cheek before turning to shout at Sam.
"Sam Winchester, if you even think about getting into that shower before me, I will take your bed and you can sleep on the pull out couch." Sam threw a towel at her and out of the corner of her eye, just before shutting the bathroom door, Nicole caught a glimpse of Dean touching his cheek where Nicole's lips had been seconds prior with a dazed smile on his face, and Nicole hoped that Dean realized that he had been forgiven for the other night at the back in Phoenix.
AN: Please keep reviewing! I know exactly how i want this story to end, but I'm pretty flexible about how we get there so if any one has an suggestions or things they want to see happen, send them my way and you will get credited in that chapter. But reviews just to say hey are great too!