The Winchesters were the real deal. Not that the Argents weren't, it was just that the Argents that Stiles had the most contact with already had one foot in the metaphorical retirement home, or had otherwise been out of their freaking minds. Allison had certainly never hunted in earnest and while Chris was very badass and knowledgeable, he was also kind of a soccer dad who spent as much time in PTA meetings as he did with a gun in hand nowadays.

For Dean and Sam though, this was their entire life. They lived out of their car—the awesome car with the enormous stockpile of weapons in the trunk—and spent their days on the road, going case to case and monster to monster without pause, and they knew how to kill freaking everything. It was pretty damn impressive, not that Stiles was gonna say that out loud.

And their knowledge base was far from the only impressive thing, if he was being honest: their bestiary, in the form of their dad's old journal; Sam's ability to connect to wifi even in verified dead spots; Dean's ass; their collection of fake IDs, credit cards, and various law enforcement and government issue badges.

Lots of impressive things.

None of that made Stiles any more inclined to trust them blindly, though.

They hadn't done anything to raise red flags, nothing beyond the basic shadiness that came with their chosen profession. It was more that Stiles was a naturally suspicious person whose experiences had only fostered that trait in him. After all, four out of the five hunters he had ever known personally had tried to kill either him or his friends and family, so he was bound to be a little bit wary around that particular demographic.

He had tried to talk Allison out of calling them, to convince her that it was a bad idea bringing unknown hunters into a town like theirs, but by then they had already gone through all of Chris' junk twice and were really no closer to tracking him down. When her bottom lip had started wobbling, signaling incoming tears of hopelessness and frustration, he had caved.

The number had been on a business card, plain flimsy cardstock with literally only the phone number printed on it, that Stiles had found tucked away in a file with a bunch of news clippings on missing children in Nevada from a few years ago. Winchester had been handwritten above the number itself in pen, and not by Chris.

Allison had recognized the name. According to her, they were a small family of well-known hunters with a reputation for getting the job done no matter the odds, but she didn't know anything past that, not even first names. They'd put the card away and only come back to it when they had exhausted all other avenues of investigation and admitted defeat. Chris hadn't left a memo on where he'd gone or why, and the two of them simply didn't have the knowledge or experience necessary to figure it out on their own.

Now Sam was sitting at Chris' desk, shuffling through papers, and Dean was alternating between squinting at the bookcase on the far wall and perusing the four-day-old newspaper he had asked Allison to dig up for him. Every few seconds Dean would make a thoughtful humming noise before turning the page and Sam was tapping a pen against the desk in a staccato rhythm that made Stiles wonder if it was equally annoying when he did that himself.

He and Allison leaned in the doorway, one on each jamb, and watched them with growing impatience.

"Sammy," Dean said, holding the newspaper out and thwacking it into the back of his brother's head until the man turned around to grab it. "Page three, bottom left."

Sam scanned the article in question and nodded to himself like it made sense, then turned back to the desk and rummaged around some more. Dean went back to the paper.

Not two minutes later, Sam spun the desk chair around and said, "We think he was after a Djinn making trouble up in Sutter Creek."

Stiles and Allison exchange a look, nonplussed.

"A what?" Allison asked.

"A Djinn," Dean echoed, tossing the newspaper aside and leaning up against the bookcase. "A creature from Arab folklore, also sometimes known as a genie, though not half as cutesy as the Disney portrayal. They're humanoid monsters who supposedly grant you your deepest wish, but in reality they're trapping you in one long, elaborate, very pleasant hallucination while they feast on your blood. Victims can feel like they live out a whole lifetime in the time it takes to drain them dry."

A shiver ran down Stiles' spine; elaborate hallucinations were something he had plenty of experience with, though admittedly he'd managed to avoid having any pleasant ones. Nogitsunes weren't half as conscientious of their victims' comfort as Djinn seemed to be.

"You think it got my dad?" Allison didn't sound at all happy about the prospect, not that Stiles could say he blamed her. "He went after it and it...trapped him, has him strung up somewhere so it can feed off him?"

"Probably in an abandoned warehouse somewhere," Sam said by way of agreement. "They like big ruins, but there aren't a lot of those in California so that's probably the next best place to find it. Your dad's got a few listings here, so I'm guessing he narrowed it down to those before he left."

"That was days ago," Stiles said lowly, and he felt Allison go tense beside him. He wished he didn't have to say this, or that she didn't have to hear it, but somebody had to ask the important question here. "How long does it take for these things to drain their victims?"

How likely was it that Chris was already dead?

Dean gave him a sidelong look, the clench of his jaw and the way his eyes flicked briefly to Allison saying that he knew exactly what Stiles was really asking.

"We've got some time," he said gruffly. "But we should get moving."

"Sutter Creek's only eight hours away," Sam said, hauling his lanky form out of the chair to put a hand on Allison's shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry. We'll get him back."

Stiles could see the change as Allison consciously shook off her fear and pulled on that mask of professionalism she always wore when there was danger to be dealt with. In the next second, she was standing tall with her head held high, every bit the leader she was raised to be.

"Yes," she said firmly. "We will."

Stiles clapped his hands together, making everyone in the room jump with the volume of it and turn to glare at him.

"Great!" he said. "So whose car are we taking, yours or mine?"

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me!" Dean cried. "There is no way we're taking that!"

"I'm just saying, it's got more leg room," Stiles insisted, leaning back against the bumper of a powder blue jeep and kicking his feet out in front of him. "If we're trying to take four people and a bunch of weapons on this road trip, we'll fit better in this sensible vehicle than in your little hot-rod over there."

"Or we could just leave your ass here and then we'd only need to fit three people," Dean suggested, quite reasonably in his opinion, but Allison sent him a withering look from where she was packing her bow into its travel case. "Why are we even riding in one, anyway? We've got two cars; we should take two cars."

"Because," Stiles said blithely, "I'm 86% sure that if we take separate cars, you two will give us the slip so you can take care of this yourselves without involving us."

Dean mouthed at him soundlessly for a minute because, damn it, the kid was right. Even Sam was grimacing, which meant he'd been thinking the same thing.

At a loss, what came out of Dean's mouth was an accusatory and shamefully childish: "You made that statistic up."

Stiles' snorted.

"I'm 100% sure I don't care. We're still riding together, pal. And if we take the jeep then—"

"Oh my god, Stiles," Allison groaned. "Which vehicle already has an arsenal in the trunk? Theirs. So get in the car and let's go. We've wasted enough time already."

Dean took some measure of petty satisfaction from the look that put on Stiles' face, like he was sucking on a lemon, but any triumphant feelings disappeared when Stiles shrugged his loss off and said, "Fine, but I get shotgun."

"Like hell you do!"

Stiles got shotgun. Dean had no idea how the little bastard had managed to convince Sam to squeeze himself into the backseat with Allison, but by the time they were pulling out onto the road, there Stiles was in the passenger seat with a state map spread out on his lap and one sneaker-clad foot wedged up against Baby's console like that wasn't treason.

"Shouldn't be hard to find," Stiles was saying, completely ignoring the way Dean was seething with indignation. "Take I-5 north for a few hours, eventual east turn on 88, and GPS can take us anywhere we need to go from there."

Dean unclenched one hand from the steering wheel to shove at Stiles' leg.

"Feet off the dash, you damn heathen."

Stiles rolled his eyes but obliged, shifting around so he could perch that foot on the edge of his seat instead, the other tucked sideways underneath him, which left his legs spread so obscenely wide that the seam of his jeans was pulled taut along his inner thigh. It was downright indecent and, as he turned back to the road, Dean had to wonder if this position was better than feet on the dash or worse.

"It'll be dark long before we get there," Sam spoke up, leaning forward a bit from his place behind Stiles with his phone in hand again. "There's a motel about a mile out. We should stop there for the night."

"We won't have time for that," Allison said immediately. "We have to find my dad as soon as possible."

"Look, Allison," Sam said in that gentle voice he always used with victims' loved ones—gentle enough to come across condescending, apparently, judging by the dangerous look Stiles sent over his shoulder. Sam didn't stop talking, but he did modulate his tone to something less mollifying and more matter of fact. "I know you want to find your dad. We all do. But trust me when I say you don't want to try fighting Djinn in the dark. You're no help to your dad if you get killed before you can find him."

A quick glance in the rearview showed Allison tight-lipped and pale, stubborn as anything. But a minute later she was slumping back in her seat, which Dean took as grudging acceptance of the motel plan.

He felt for her, really, he did. He was all too familiar with the particular brand of agony that came with the hurry-up-and-wait plan, especially when someone he cared about was in the line of fire. But that was why the person with the most to lose was never supposed to be the one who made the calls. That made people reckless, and then they ended up dead. As much as it sucked in this circumstance, it was better for them to get some sleep and wait for sunrise before they went searching.

The tense silence that followed that decision was broken when Stiles took it upon himself to start futzing around with the radio. Dean slapped his hand away, earning a squawk of protest.

"Driver picks the music," he said. "Shotgun shuts his cakehole."

"How about driver drives and shotgun does whatever he wants?" Stiles threw back at him. "Focus on the road, will you? Before my dad has to ticket you for reckless driving."

"Your dad a cop?" Sam asked.

"Sheriff," Stiles informed him, going right back to messing with the dials as if Dean had never protested.

"Did you, uh...tell him where you were going?" Sam asked, wincing as Stiles hit a station full of white noise. "He's not gonna be worried or anything, is he?"

"Worried?" Stiles scoffed. "Please! It's just a monster-hunting rescue mission with my best friend's ex-girlfriend and two fugitives from justice. What's there for him to be worried about?"

Oh Jesus, Dean really hoped they weren't going to end up fleeing the long arm of the law again just because this obnoxious kid couldn't keep his mouth shut around his cop dad. They'd had too many close calls already, and Dean was far too pretty for prison.

"Don't look so alarmed," Stiles said, smirking at Dean like his entirely justified reaction was hilarious. "He gets how the hunter thing goes by now. And even if he didn't, I once hid a murder suspect in my bedroom for a day or two while dad was out searching for him, so you wouldn't be the first I've run interference for."

"You did what now?" Dean demanded, no less alarmed than he was before.

Stiles just paused in his incessant radio surfing to say, "Good times, good times," with this nostalgic look on his face, yet again ignoring Dean entirely.

"He was a wrongly accused murder suspect," Allison clarified. "And I really doubt Derek would've called it a good time."

"Yeah, well, Derek was a stick in the mud back then," Stiles said, shrugging. With one more twist of the dial, the radio came to life with an actual song and Dean almost swerved off the road in his haste to change it.

"No!" he yelled. "No way! We are not listening to that sappy chick music all the way to Sutter Creek!"

Stiles intercepted his efforts, blocking the dashboard with both his hands and slapping at Dean's to keep him from making any changes.

"That's totally sexist, Dean," he said loftily, fumbling with the volume knob to turn the music up while still holding Dean at bay. "Besides, teen heartbreak is universal. T-Swift knows what's up and she will not be silenced!"

"Boys!"

Allison's shout had them both firmly in their seats, hands to themselves like scolded children, in a heartbeat.

"Will you two please control yourselves?" she asked. "The song will be over in a minute and a half anyway."

"And besides," Sam said innocently, "it's not like this is the first time you've had Taylor Swift on in this car."

Fucking traitor.

Stiles laughed uproariously, Dean ground his teeth until they squeaked, and Taylor crooned on in the background uninterrupted.

Eight hours in a car was never particularly pleasant, no matter how many times Dean had done it before. By two hours in his ass was numb, by four his eyes were getting tired. They had to stop for gas at around the five hour mark, everyone taking the opportunity to stretch their legs and grab something out of the vending machine before getting back on the road for the rest of the interminable journey.

Time always seemed to move strangely on the highway, the monotony making it hard to tell if things were moving too fast or too slow or both at once. It was almost hypnotizing, but not in a bad way, at least in Dean's opinion. On some days, it could be boring as fuck but on others, on the hardest days, letting the endless pavement dull his mind was the only way he could really relax and unwind.

This trip wasn't quite like that. Sure, the miles of asphalt and the purr of the engine were the same as always, but it was hard to be bored with four people in the car, especially when one of them was Stiles.

The kid rarely sat still, for one thing. When it was just Dean and Sam, one of them usually ended up sleeping, but Stiles was wide awake and radiating a restless sort of energy. He always had something moving, whether it was a tapping foot or a jiggling knee or air-drumming to whatever song was playing—Stiles had surrendered the radio after half an hour, having had his fill of tormenting Dean with that pop crap, and switched to classic rock instead, which was a blessing at least.

For another thing, Stiles had apparently jacked some of Chris' reference books, which had Allison leaning around his seat to flick him hard in the ear. He'd pulled one of them out of his jacket pocket an hour into the drive and that distraction had earned Dean forty-five minutes of the kind of peace he was used to.

Then Stiles had started talking. He read out the bits he found most interesting, just in case the rest of them hadn't heard whatever fascinating fact he'd stumbled across. He asked questions—a lot of questions—on monsters and the lore behind them, turning all the way around to kneel on the seat so he could converse with Sam properly. And when he finished going through one book, he pulled out another and did it all again.

The kid was no slouch, that much was obvious. He and Allison both had a pretty decent knowledge base when it came to the uglies that went bump in the night, even if their education seemed confined more to certain areas than others. They asked intelligent questions, listened attentively to the answers, and offered up their own tidbits and anecdotal evidence where possible.

All in all, Dean found that he didn't mind having Stiles in the car, once the radio issue was put to rest. He was bright, clever, and quick with a joke. He wasn't out of tune when he hummed along to the radio like Sam always was. His steady stream of chatter was even interesting most of the time instead of annoying like Dean would've expected it to be. The only annoying thing was that at some point, Stiles had stopped being annoying.

Well, the really annoying part was that Stiles had only stopped being annoying when he started bonding with Sam. Evidently it was only Dean that Stiles felt the need to be a dick to. Dean didn't know why the hell that was, but he was pretty sure it shouldn't bother him as much as it did.