I'm back! And boy, do I have a lot for you! Let's just say NaNo was successful! Thank you so much to my beta trinastar818 who is a rockstar who even though she's studying abroad, she found time to edit the massive amounts of chapters I sent to her!
Sam and Dean sat outside of Hermione's shop in the Impala waiting for her to wrap up everything she needed to do. She was currently on a Floo call with someone named Harry about feeding her cat until she got back, and calling in favors with a couple people to come run her shop for her while she was gone. Dean was tapping impatiently on the steering wheel while Sam was looking out the window at the shop waiting for Hermione to come out.
"How long is she going to take? I'm ready to get on the road. Ice some spirits."
"It's only been twenty minutes, give her some time. She's doing us a favor coming along."
"She doesn't need to come. She'll just get in the way. She can stay here, do some research while we're taking care of this spirit, and hopefully she'll have the solution for the mark on my arm by the time we get back. We don't have time for her to get in the way, to teach her how to defend herself," Dean said.
"She can take care of herself. I'm sure she knows some spells that will come in handy, maybe even better than what we use. And besides, you know I'll feel much better with another person there with us. You're...unpredictable at best these days, and I don't want to be in the middle of a case, alone, and for you to have complications with the mark."
"We'll call Cas in, he can be your backup."
"We haven't heard from Cas since he left to be with his daughter. I think it's best that we just let him deal with his family thing. I don't know why you're so against Hermione coming with us. You kissed her earlier. That doesn't seem like the actions of a man who doesn't want her around."
Dean turned in his seat to face Sam. "She told you I kissed her?"
"Yeah," Sam answered, not looking at him.
"Why, why would she tell you that? That's none of your business."
Sam took a deep breath and turned to face his brother. "Because I kissed her, too, okay?"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Dean said, holding his hands up. "You kissed her too? After I kissed her, you kissed her?"
"Yes, but I didn't know you kissed her, until she told me, after I kissed her. Though technically she kissed me. But that's neither here nor there."
"Wait, she kissed you? Like she initiated it? Why would she do that after I kissed her?"
"I don't know, Dean. Because she wanted to? I mean neither of us even knew you had any positive feelings for her, let alone that you were attracted to her enough to kiss her. You've been an ass to her the entire time we've been here. The two of you have been at each other's throats."
"I haven't been an ass to her. Name me one time I've been an ass to her."
"You tried to kill her when you found out she was a witch!" Sam yelled.
"That was one time!" Dean yelled back.
"You've been snapping at her and a sarcastic bastard the entire time we've been here. How was I supposed to know that you were attracted to her?"
"I was flirting," Dean tried to explain weakly.
"No you weren't!" Sam yelled.
"Fine, I wasn't. It's this damn mark. It's like the thing hates her because it knows she wants to destroy it. I like her, I really do. I think she's amazing and smart and beautiful, but instead of allowing me to act like I think all those things about her, the Mark makes me tease her, and taunt her, and try and hinder all of her progress."
"Really?" Sam asked.
"Really. Like really truly. I'm sorry. If I had made it clear that I liked her earlier, would you have still kissed her?"
Sam was quiet. After a few moments, he finally answered. "Yeah, I would have. Because I think she's amazing and smart and beautiful, and when we were at her apartment earlier, she said that she was attracted to me. But we agreed that we wouldn't do anything until after we took care of your mark. It's too dangerous right now to add feelings into the mix. So I think you need to do the same thing. You need to agree that there will be no more passive aggressive kissing until we take care of this mark. Then we can deal with whatever feelings there are between the three of us after, agreed?"
Dean sighed. "Yeah, agreed."
"Good, because here comes Hermione."
The brothers looked up to see Hermione walking out of the shop, her beaded bag the only thing she was carrying. Sam opened up the passenger door, before climbing out, leaning the seat forward and then climbing into the back seat. Hermione climbed in and shut the door.
"Sam, you didn't need to climb back there, I could have. I'm much shorter than you."
"It's okay, I'm good. You shouldn't have to climb over the seat."
"How chivalrous of you, Sammy," Dean snarked from the driver's seat, as he put the car into gear and peeled away from the curb. "Is that all you brought, Glinda? You realize we're probably going to be gone for several days. Unless you're going to do your 'poofing' trick, I don't think you brought enough for this mission. You sure you don't want me to just take you right back and you can stay here?"
Hermione held up her beaded bag. "Undetectable extension charm. I have a week's worth of clothes and all of the books I could find at my flat and in my shop on Ancient Runes, along with a few books I could find that I remembered that mentioned vengeful spirits. I figured I better do some reading up on the subject since I have no idea on how to deal with them."
"We can fill you in," Sam piped up from the back seat. "Besides, we're not even sure that that's what we're dealing with. We'll have to figure out what it is when we get there."
"So, how do you guys usually go about getting your information? I don't want to hinder your investigation at all so tell me what you need me to do."
"Well, Dean and I usually go in as the FBI and ask around. We have fake badges and aliases. We don't have any of that for you, so I think it would be best if you stay at the motel while we go and talk to the locals and figure out what exactly is going on. We can call or text you with the information we find, and you can use the Internet or your books or one of ours to try and narrow down what we are dealing with. I mean, if it's a vengeful spirit, it'll be pretty obvious and cut and dry. In that case, we'll just need you to help us find out where the body is buried so we can salt and torch the sucker," Sam explained.
"You guys impersonate federal agents?" Hermione asked incredulously. "Dressed the way you are? In layers of flannel? Who believes that?"
"We have suits, Glinda," Dean snapped from next to her.
Hermione started laughing.
"What's so funny?" Sam asked from behind her.
"You two in suits. Oh, I can't wait to see this!" Hermione said, before opening up her bag and grabbing a book to read.
"What are you doing?" Sam asked.
"Researching," she said. "If we're going to be in the car for a while, I might as well work on figuring out if that mark is a rune or not."
"Hand me a book," Sam said. "I'll work on this, too."
Hermione pulled another book out of her bag and handed it back to him.
"Oh for Christ's sake," Dean said. "If you two are going to have your noses in books the whole ride, I need some music."
He twisted the radio knob roughly, and the sounds of Lynrd Skynrd filled the car for the whole drive.
So, during NaNoWriMo, I wrote TWELVE chapters of this and twelve of Fallen! I'm going to try and have some self control and update once or twice a week. I'm going to keep writing, and hopefully finish the fics soon. Then, once I get them finished, I'm going to update every day until they're complete. Please leave me a review on what you thought of this chapter, and remember, if you want responses or just to talk, you can find me on Tumblr, my username is beatlechicksteph.