When they reentered the shop, no one looked up. Looking around the table of their new allies, Sam and Dean couldn't help but notice how exhausted everyone looked. Especially Buffy.
"So, uh, what's our next step here guys?"
Giles' answer served to prove their suspicions of exhaustion. He sounded irritated by the interruption, "Well, Dean, that's the thing. Right now we don't have a next step."
"Right now we were thinking of calling it a night. Starting fresh again in the morning. If you want you guys can come home with me and Dawn. We've got a couple of extra rooms."
"Your parents won't mind you bringing two strange men home?"
Dean had always hated when people talked about tension being so thick you could cut it with a knife but now he understood it. Dawn didn't even look at him, just saying shortly, "She's dead."
Sam shot his brother a warning look while Dean apologized weakly. Then they all left the shop and went their separate ways, Sam and Dean following Buffy and Dawn at a respectable distance to Dean's car which was still parked a few blocks away. Back at the Summers' residence, Buffy showed the boys a nice room where they could stay for as long as they chose to stay.
When she left, Sam and Dean looked around at what would be their home for the next few days at least.
"Wow. This is nicer than any place we've stayed in the past year or so."
"No kidding. This place isn't infested with anything I could smash with my boot and look, sheets that I bet don't have any secrets a black light would reveal."
"No kidding."
"Of course, with this kind of quality comes a price."
"Oh yeah? And what's that?"
"No porn."
With that Sam gave his brother a disgusted look and went into the adjoining bathroom.
The next morning, Buffy, Dawn, Sam and Dean met in the Summers' kitchen for a simple breakfast of cereal and milk. They ate in a silence which persisted until they arrived at the shop half hour later. They got there ahead of most, only Giles was there sitting amidst the same pile of books from last night.
"Good morning, all."
"Morning, Giles. So where do we start?"
"With all due respect, I think I have a suggestion."
"Dean, you're already on thin ground here so if this is just a stupid joke, kindly shut it."
"No. You see, Sam and I have a friend back home. Been like a father to us since our own father…well, you know. Anyway, he's pretty good with this whole research thing. Might be able to give us a hand."
The annoyed look on Giles' face was quickly replaced by one of hope, "Oh! Well, in that case would you mind giving him a call? Seems we could use any help we can get."
"Yeah. No problem, I'll be right back."
With Dean gone, Sam now found himself in the awkward position of being alone with these people who he hadn't yet gotten the opportunity to learn anything about.
"So, ummm, how did you all meet?"
"Well, Dawn's my sister, I'm sure you already knew that," with that snide comment, Sam started blushing, knowing his question hadn't been the smoothest. "And Giles was the librarian at my old high school."
"Oh, so you're a librarian! That's very cool."
"Actually, I was a librarian. I actually own this shop now. Once the school blew up there was really no need for a librarian."
"Of course."
Dean came back to the room a few minutes later to find the other four sitting around in complete silence. "Hope I'm not interrupting anything here, but Bobby wants to help. Especially after I explained to him about the whole apocalypse side of things."
"Good good. Did you explain to him the situation at hand?"
"Yeah. He hasn't heard of anyone or anything named Glory and his knowledge of gods is pretty sketchy but he promised he'd do some digging and get back to us."
"Alright then. Once the others get here we can start working on a plan. There's gotta be something else we can do while we wait to hear something."
Another chapter done :) I know it's been awhile so hopefully people are still interested. School's kind of been consuming most of my time but the semester's almost over so after that I'll be able to work more on this. Hope you guys enjoy!