The information Sam left him about Djinn was very interesting. There were several entries out of various old reference books and a number of illustrations to go with them. A lot of the text was highlighted or crossed out or edited for accuracy, and annotations littered the margins warning against misconceptions, but even the fanciful hyperbolized accounts of old Arabic genies were fun to read.

It boiled down to a few pertinent things: very fast and strong; do not let them make physical contact; can change appearance at will to blend in with humans; can only be killed by silver knife dipped in lamb's blood.

Allison read over the sheets while Stiles dumped their overnight bags into the backseat of the Impala, frowning thoughtfully and tapping a ring dagger idly against her bottom lip.

"Does it have to be a knife?" she asked.

Dean's head popped up over the top of the car. "Does what have to be a knife?"

"To kill the Djinn," she clarified. "It says we need a silver knife dipped in lamb's blood. Does it have to be a knife or would anything silver do?"

"Those daggers wouldn't work, if that's what you mean," Sam said, leaning on the open passenger door. "Too many other metals included in the alloy."

"She means her arrowheads," Stiles told him. "She always carries a few silver-tipped arrows after that one time with the thing a while back."

"They're pure silver," Allison assured him. "If I treated them with the blood, would they work too?"

Sam made a thinking face, his head nodding back and forth for a moment as he deliberated. "Yeah, I don't see why not," he said. "Should be functionally the same."

"Great!" Allison said brightly. She tucked the ring dagger back in its sheathe on her forearm, tugging down the sleeve of her jacket. It was one of those fitted ones that had to be special ordered, but it wasn't restrictive, just like the rest of her outfit: stylish enough for any occasion, but comfortable enough to hunt monsters in. It was honestly impressive how she managed to dress like that all the time.

"So how are we doing this?" Stiles asked, leaning his forearms on the car's roof and looking expectantly at the brothers.

Sam pulled out a folded sheet of paper: the warehouse listings he'd gotten off of Chris' computer.

"These give us his most likely locations," he said, "but the problem is that there's no way to narrow them down from just this. These are the ones Chris considered probable, but he would've had to track the Djinn once he got here."

"How many are on the list?" Allison asked.

"Seven."

Allison's jaw clenched, but she showed no other outward sign of distress when she said, "Too many to just check arbitrarily. We don't have time to go running around the city on a scavenger hunt, and splitting up to cover more ground is a bad idea with a creature this strong. We need another way to tighten our focus."

"That's why we're getting breakfast," Dean said with a grin.

"Excuse me?" Allison asked, eyes narrowed in the way that usually made Stiles duck for cover. Dean didn't flinch though.

"Breakfast," he repeated blithely. "Can't hunt on an empty stomach. And the best place in a town like this to pump the locals for information is the local diner. We go in, have a casual chat about the weird disappearances we've been hearing about, and see what we come up with. Chances are someone will be able to point us in the right direction, whether they realize it or not."

"It's the best chance we've got," Sam told her. "Most of our hunts start like this, and it's probably where your dad went first too."

Allison still didn't look happy about the plan—as sweet a girl as she was by nature, she much preferred the hands-on aspect of hunting over talking and gathering intel—but she caved after only a few seconds and slid into the back passenger seat without further protest. Stiles climbed in the back with her, patting her knee. She shot him a grateful smile.

When the brothers were both in the car, Stiles leaned forward to prop his chin on the back of Dean's seat, right over his shoulder.

"So where we going?"

Dean startled visibly at hearing Stiles' voice almost directly in his ear, which made Sam laugh. Dean shot him a dirty look and then tossed one back for Stiles too. Stiles was almost certain there was a blush on his cheeks and he couldn't suppress a grin at the knowledge that he'd put it there.

"Third diner in the google search," Dean said gruffly, focusing back on the road, probably so he didn't have to acknowledge that Stiles was still up in his space. "First two are usually tourist traps. Third one's where the locals go."

"Cool, cool," Stiles said easily. "Sounds like a good plan."

He stayed where he was a moment longer, long enough for Dean to dart another shifty glance back at him, then relented and collapsed back into his seat with a grin. Allison shot him a sidelong look but Stiles just shook his head.

The diner they'd chosen was open and colorful, the floor scattered with tables and lined with well-maintained linoleum booths. Delicious food smells wafted out from the window to the kitchen, plates being passed out every minute or so. The servers in their white aprons were smiling and chatting with the people at the long counter as they went about their work.

All around, it was pretty a cheerful place. Which meant the Winchesters stuck out like sore thumbs, all dingy colors and an aura of danger.

When it looked like the two of them were about to go traipsing on in anyway, Stiles stopped them with a hand on Sam's arm.

"Hey, how about you let me and Allison handle this?"

Sam frowned, but Dean looked personally offended by the suggestion.

"Why?" Dean demanded. "What's wrong with me and Sam?"

"You don't really fit in, is all," Stiles said with a shrug. "You're not in your suits, so you can't do the FBI gig. And you just don't look like reporters, fake creds or no."

"Yeah, well, what angle do you have?"

Stiles slid an arm around Allison's waist, pulling her close against his side, and said, "Hey, Alli, baby. Marry me?"

She put on an exaggeratedly excited face and leaned up to kiss his cheek. "Gladly!"

"There you go," Stiles said, satisfied. "We're officially honeymooners! Now, you two go sit somewhere inconspicuous and try to look less inherently threatening. Don't worry, guys, my dad's a cop. I know lots of very efficient interrogation techniques."

He didn't wait for the brothers to protest. He just steered a giggling Allison through the tables, preening with the absolute certainty that Dean was watching him go.

Dean watched them go, fighting down the urge to call them back and demand they stop the charade. But Sam was already sitting down at a random table and Dean had no reason not to follow him. After all, it wasn't like this was the dangerous part of the hunt. It was sort of hard to screw up casual conversation and, while some people might have managed to blow it, he was reasonably confident that Stiles and Allison were smart enough to get the kind of results they needed.

He made sure to sit where he had line of sight on them though, just in case. He watched over Sam's shoulder as the two of them somehow finagled an invitation into an occupied booth, sitting down opposite an older couple who smiled at them and shook their hands.

A waitress came over to take their orders and by the time Dean looked back, Stiles had his arm around Allison again and they were all cuddled together. She was practically sitting in his lap. Dean couldn't hold in his snort of disdain.

Sam looked over at them too, and he turned back looking confused.

"What?" he asked.

Dean waved a hand at the direction of the happy couple, who were holding hands on the table now.

"Just—what even is that, anyway?" he asked.

"The honeymooner act," Sam said slowly. "It's not exactly a new technique. Pretty sure you've used it before."

"Yeah, but…" Dean trailed off, distracted by the way Allison laid her head on Stiles' shoulder and he kissed the top of her head. "They're just—they're overdoing it!"

Sam looked back at them again.

"You think so?" he asked, clearly skeptical. As if the way Stiles laughed at something Allison said wasn't so obviously fake. Nobody laughed that brightly if they weren't trying to sell something.

"Look at them!" Dean cried. "They're doing the freaking nose-rubbing thing! I mean, for god's sake, who even does that in real life?"

Sam didn't bother to look back at the others this time. He just looked at Dean, head cocked to the side, as Dean watched Stiles kiss Allison on the lips. It was disgusting is what it was! Shameful, and utterly unrealistic. This whole plan was stupid and pointless and they should've just done the reporter thing instead.

"Dean, do you have a little crush on Stiles?"

A splutter of horror and indignation made its way out of Dean's mouth before any words could form. He tore his eyes away from the booth, finding that the waitress had apparently come back with their food at some point while he hadn't been paying attention. He couldn't be blamed for being distracted though, not with Stiles' and Allison's wanton display right there!

"What?" he choked out. "No! God, no, that's—that's ridiculous! Jeez, man, why the hell would you even think—I mean, Stiles, really? I can't stand that kid!"

Sam just tilted his head the other way and took a sip of his drink.

Dean scoffed again, trying to infuse it with all the disgust he felt at the mere idea of him liking Stiles.

"Psh! Dude, no. No, definitely not. No way."

"Sure, Dean," Sam said lightly. "Whatever you say."

Dean shoved half a waffle in his mouth to make absolutely sure that nothing else stupid came out of it, even though Stiles was letting Allison swipe whipped cream off his bottom lip with her thumb.

When their breakfast companions finally took their leave, Stiles resisted the urge to pat himself on the back for a job well done. Before he could leave the booth though, Allison turned toward him and propped her chin on her hand.

"Stiles," she said seriously. "Are you hitting on Dean?"

"Allison," Stiles responded with just as much gravity. "Have you seen his biceps?"

She hummed. "That's fair," she said. "Carry on."

"Also his ass," Stiles went on, licking his lips. "And the abs, Alli, the abs. "

"Yes, Stiles, he's very hot. I get the picture."

"So did you get anything out of that little charade of yours?" Dean asked when Stiles dragged a chair over from another table and plopped down at his and Sam's. The kid immediately reached over and snagged a piece of waffle off Dean's plate with his fingers to stuff in his mouth. There was a smudge of Allison's lipgloss on his top lip, highlighting that goddamn smirk that seemed to live there.

"Yeah, totally," Stiles said around his food—Dean's food.

Allison pulled up a chair of her own and sat down with much more grace than her erstwhile husband, and without stealing anyone's meal out from under them because she wasn't a savage.

"I think we can eliminate any of the warehouses on the east side," she said. "Where the victims lived and worked was fairly spread out, which is why my dad made the wide selection he did, but where the victims spent most of their recreational time is much more clustered in the western part of town. If they were all attacked in the evening hours, which seems most likely, then that's where they were more likely to be."

"Okay. That narrows it down to—" Sam pulled out the listings and ran a finger down it. "—four options."

"And that is a workable number," Stiles said, drumming obnoxiously on the table. "So let's get a move on, compadres."

He led the way out of the diner, Sam and Allison close on his heels. That left Dean to toss a few bills on the table with a curse, not bothering to wait for the check, and chase after them.

The others were already clustered around the car—Dean's car that they would probably have driven off in without him, even if he was the one with the keys, because apparently Stiles was the one leading this hunt now—by the time he got there. Sam and Allison were standing like normal people, but Stiles had practically plastered himself to his door, his whole front rubbing up all over Baby's paint job. That was just downright disrespectful, okay, it was sacrilegious, but he didn't get the chance to protest.

"Should swing by the butcher shop first," Sam was saying. "We used up the last of our lamb's blood a few weeks ago. Gotta get some fresh."

"We can still do some light reconnaissance in the meantime, right?" Stiles said.

"Hey, here's an idea," Allison piped up with a look on her face that made Dean unaccountably nervous. "How about we go in pairs? Two warehouses each for surveillance, one pair stops off at the butcher's first?"

"You know, I think that sounds like a great idea," Sam said, and the look on his face was downright alarming because Dean had seen it a million times before. Usually right before he found out his hand had been superglued to his beer bottle.

"Is splitting up the best plan?" Stiles asked, calmly enough that he probably wasn't reading the warning signs the way Dean was. "The safest plan, I mean. Alli and I have never faced off with something like this."

"Which is why we split the other way," Sam said earnestly. "I'll take Allison with me, and you can go with Dean!"

"Whoa, whoa!" Dean cried, holding out both hands in vehement protest. "Let's not be too hasty here. How about we—"

"No, that's perfect!" Allison broke in. "That way there's one experienced hunter in each pair and you've both still got someone to watch your backs."

Sam nodded agreeably. "Exactly. So Allison and I will swing by the butcher's and then take the northwest warehouses—"

"—and you and Stiles can take the southwest," Allison finished for him.

"Okay, when the hell did you two get so buddy-buddy?" Dean snapped, as irritated by those two hijacking the mission as by the fact that Stiles wasn't saying a word to put a stop to it. "Come on, I mean, you're finishing each other's sentences now?"

With no other recourse, he looked to Stiles for backup, gesturing widely to Sam and Allison and all their meddling, traitorous ways. Stiles just stayed as he was, elbows perched on the car roof as he looked back and forth amongst the three of them like he was watching a particularly fascinating game of pong, and offered him absolutely no help at all.

No one even bothered to respond. Sam just said, "Okay, so we've got our plan! C'mon, we'll drop you two off first." Then everyone was getting in the car and peering through the windows at Dean expectantly. He barely resisted the urge to aim a kick at the nearest tire, and even that was just because Baby was the only one who hadn't betrayed him so far.

Dean got in the damn car without any violence, muttering curses under his breath that would've made his dad blush. Considering he was gonna have to spend what might be hours alone with Stiles and his infuriating smirks, he figured they were plenty justified.