"You've got to be kidding me," Dean said to himself as they approached the shop. "A magic shop? Sheesh, how clichéd can you get?"

Buffy wheeled on him before the last sentence had even left his mouth, "Listen. You guys wanted in and I allowed it against my better judgment. Don't make me regret it."

"Sorry," Dean apologized, chancing a quick glance at his brother when Buffy had turned away. This woman was by far the toughest he had ever come up against. Normally, women were turned on, if not intimidated by his cocky attitude and undeniably good looks but she came off increasingly impatient by his many side comments.

They entered the shop to find a group of people sitting and standing around a table covered in books. Dean felt his heart drop at the idea of research with people he didn't know but couldn't help cracking another small joke towards his brother, "Wow, Sam. This must be your idea of Heaven."

In response to his voice, six new pairs of eyes met his, each with identical looks of confusion.

A young girl, no more than 16, was the first to speak, "Buffy, who are these guys?"

"Dawn, this is Sam and Dean Winchester. They think they can help and are here strictly on a trial basis." She said this last with a warning glance at Dean who nervously ignored her.

Sam cut the growing tension in the room with an awkward, "Hi," but finding that he had no idea how to continue, quickly stepped back and let Buffy take the lead again. She went around the room, introducing those around the table going clockwise, "Guys, this is Willow, Tara, Anya, Xander, Dawn, and Giles."

"Nice to meet you all."

"So, why are you two here? What is it exactly that you do?"

The man sitting next to the woman who had just spoken smiled at the brothers apologetically and then looked back toward her, "Anya, these two nice men just got here. Why don't we let them sit down before we start in with the third degree?"

"Well, I didn't mean anything by it. I was just wondering what they think they can do that we can't? Do they have superpowers like Buffy? Or magical powers like Willow and Tara?"

The shorter brother answered her, sounding slightly taken aback, "Sorry, ma'am, but nothing like that. We're just two guys who've been doing this for a long time and thought it might be fun to stop an apocalypse."

The red-haired woman looked up at Buffy with a face that looked like it hadn't felt what it was like to be calm in quite some time. "Buffy, do we really want to drag more people into this? I mean, they look nice and all," she continued, smiling politely at Sam and Dean, "but can they really help us here? We can't even seem to help ourselves."

"I know. And that's exactly why I think these two might be able to help. Maybe they'll see something we didn't. They say they've been doing this their whole lives, I'm sure they've seen things we haven't. Even if they haven't, it can't hurt to have more help."

Willow still didn't look completely convinced but turned back to the books in front of her just the same.

Tara was the next to speak, doing so slowly, she still couldn't keep all of the nervousness out of her voice, "I, I think it's Buffy's right. I mean, this is b-bigger than anything we've ever dealt with before. More people could be b-beneficial."

"Unless they're evil."

"Anya!"

"No, Xander, she's right." This was a new voice; the man who hadn't spoken yet and looked old enough to be the father of anyone else in the room. He sounded English, which Dean was slightly surprised to hear, yet given the respect the others seemed to have towards him, it appeared that he had been in the states for some amount of years. "We have no proof that these two are who they say they are. I don't mean to sound untrusting towards the two of you, but in times like these we can't afford to assume anything."

"That's fair. I'd be thinking the same thing if I were you." With that, Dean removed a vial of holy water from a pocket inside his jacket and took a swallow, then handed it to Sam who did the same. "See? Holy water has no effect."

"Yes, well that's not exactly solid evidence."

"Giles, they're for real, okay? They didn't even know who I was when they tried to help. They were surprised. Now can we please just move on?"

So here's another chapter. I hope everyone enjoys it. Reviews or comments are loved :)