Just noticed it's been over a month since I last posted. Oops! Sorry about that.
Disclaimer: Don't own any of the characters, Whedon and Kripke are the rightful owners, even if there is a lot of abuse and neglect on their part.
"I'm coming too."
Dean froze with his hand on the car door. "You should stay here and keep doing the finding spells."
Willow snorted. "Those spells are next to useless. I don't know if my magic doesn't work here, or someone's hiding them, but either way my staying here is pointless. Maybe Ruby knows something that could help me adapt the spell."
Dean pouted a little as he thought through the pros and cons of bringing Willow with him. One of the major pros being that she was a scary, powerful witch who was probably coming whether he said yes or not. "Fine. But you stay out of my way and we do things my way."
"With brute force and ignorance?" Willow muttered under her breath. It had only been a couple of days and she was already on the point of murder from all the insults and comments about witches.
Dean pretended not to hear her and continued climbing into the driver's seat. He needed to be on the road as of yesterday and arguing with Willow was not going to help with the frustration that was already strongly urging him to blow all the stop signs, red lights and speed limits on the way to Derby. Luckily, Willow wasted no time clambering into the passenger seat. Wasn't like there was anything for her to pack; she'd been alternating between the clothes she got here in and some of Dean's clothes when those went in the laundry.
Dean was pulling off before Willow had managed to pull the door shut.
"Where are you going?"
Dean cursed but showed no other sign of surprise. Willow on the other hand jumped out of her skin, instincts rearing to duck out of the way and grab a weapon.
Castiel watched her startled movements curiously.
"To have a little chat with Ruby." Dean replied. "How did you even know we'd gone anywhere?"
"After Dawn and then Sam's disappearance I have been monitoring you both closely." Castiel replied, nonplussed and serene, before a slight edge crept into the open stare he directed at Dean. "You have contact information for the demon?"
"'Course. She's a bitch and I don't trust her as far as Minnie Mouse can throw her, but if Sam's gonna insist on seeing her then I'm damn sure gonna know how to get ahold of her." The car gave a small lurch as Dean pushed down on the gas a little suddenly, his hands clenching the wheel tighter, though his face betrayed none of his sudden lack of control.
Cas looked like he was on the verge of breaking his unspoken vow never to pull a human facial expression and roll his eyes. "Why did you not pursue her earlier?"
Dean's scowl deepened. "'Cause I'm not a god damned angel like yourself, Cas," he said, sarcasm dripping from his tone, "I'm human and humans don't have that infallible bullcrap going for us. We screw up and we don't always think of the solution the second we know the problem."
Willow sighed and leaned back into her seat, her arms folding across her chest as she determinedly turned her attention away from the manly displays around her. She didn't care what the show writers had to say; angel or no angel, Cas was most definitely male. There was no other explanation for his attitude. She wondered if all angels were male or if there were actually some angels that wanted just to slap Lucifer and all the demons across the face and not talk to them for the rest of time. Not that she hadn't known plenty of girls with attitude and anger problems, just there was always a slight difference, a certain hardness with a double helping of sadistic moves that had no other point but to hurt, while men were all about winning and dominating. Men wanted to prove who was stronger. Women just wanted their enemies to feel powerless, vulnerable. She would know after all. Guilt washed over her as she remembered the pain she'd inflicted on so many people, her friends included.
While Willow was contemplating the difference between men and women's attitudes, Dean had gone back to glaring out of the windshield with Castiel staring intently at the back of his head. She shook her own head and sighed. It was going to be a long drive.
They pulled up at Ruby's motel still in silence. Castiel had repeatedly disappeared to check new locations and whether Sam and Dawn were still hidden, but had returned very quickly. As more time went on Sam and Dawn could have gone further, there were more places to check, but he was still an angel who could teleport. Willow had spent most of the journey surreptitiously doing every spell she could get away with in the confines of the car and had determined that while it had slightly different effects a lot of the time, most aspects of her magic were in working order.
Ruby flung the door open as soon as Dean's knuckles struck it. "It's about time! Do you know how risky it is for me to be sitting still like this? Anybody could have found me!"
"What about your fancy hex bags?" Dean retorted as he barged into her room, eyes already searching for Sam like he might be standing in the corner with a lampshade on his head for camouflage.
"I'm out." Ruby stepped back to allow Willow into the room, pausing with widened eyes when Willow came close. "Woah, packing some big guns these days, huh? Thought you boys learned your lesson about witches."
Willow blanked her, too used to the comments for more than a tensing of the shoulders to betray her offence. "What happened to them? Far as I know there's no expiration date." She asked, already suspicious. She knew who Ruby really was, and as much as she wasn't going to alter the world she was in unnecessarily, she also wasn't going to stand back and let Ruby's actions or lack thereof harm Dawn. If she got even the slightest hint that Ruby was behind Dawn's disappearance then the demon would find herself wishing for Dawn's safe return as much as Willow.
"The good ones were in my car. It's been stolen." Ruby used the hand not currently resting on her hip aggravated wife style to swing the door shut as Castiel appeared in the room without passing by her.
All three turned to look at her incredulously.
"What?" Ruby demanded, looking more than a little embarrassed.
"You let someone steal your car?" Dean asked, a laugh in his voice.
"I didn't 'let' anyone do anything; they stole it while I was asleep." She snapped back.
"Demons don't sleep." Castiel said casually, looking suspiciously and frustratedly at the closet, like he was sure something was off but couldn't work out what.
She walked over to the bed and dropped into a sitting position heavily enough to bounce on the mattress slightly, leaning back on her arms to she didn't have to kink her neck to look at them. "We don't have to. Doesn't mean we can't."
"Lot of stuff happens when you have your nap, doesn't it?" Dean said bitterly, kicking about in Ruby's discarded clothes for anything of Sam's.
"Could Sam have taken it?"
Ruby and Dean turned to Willow.
"Why would he have done that? He had his own car with him." The demon said and pulled a face. "If it could be called a car."
"The hex bags, they work against angels?" Dean asked Ruby without looking at her.
"Sure." She replied confidently, like there was no question.
Cas scoffed. "Temporarily."
Ruby glared at the angel, though her eyes held a little spark of worry that Willow couldn't help but smirk at.
Dean didn't notice. "How 'bout high level witches? The bags good against most spells?"
"Yeah, if not all. It'd take something pretty powerful to break through those, nothing that I know of could do it." Ruby inspected the nails on one hand. Willow could tell she was lying through her teeth and she could see Dean and Cas thought the same, though none of them knew how to voice it without Ruby getting overly defensive and lying some more.
"Gimme the exact spell you used on them. And when I say exact, I mean every ingredient down to the breed of cat and the colour of the bag." Dean demanded.
Ruby sighed. "It won't do you any good."
"Yeah, well, you'll forgive me if I don't take your word on that." He grabbed the notepad from the small table and searched around for a pen.
"Hey, I want to find Sam as much as you do. I wouldn't mess up my chances of finding him just to piss you off." She grumbled, without even pretending to help look for a writing implement.
Willow fumbled in the bedside table, pulling out a bible and a handful of pamphlets as she went.
"Cas, would ya help a little?" Dean asked irritably when he noticed the angel stood staring.
"I don't understand what you're trying to do." Castiel answered. "Are you looking for something?"
"Yeah, a pen. You got one?"
The angel shook his head.
Dean went back to searching, grumbling the entire time until Ruby finally pulled a pen from her bag and lobbed it at him. Dean wrote as she listed off the details about the hex bags and called Bobby as soon as she had finished, relaying it to him so he could get to work on finding a way to bypass them.
"Alright, you're coming with us." Dean told Ruby, leaving no room for argument.
"I really don't see the point." Ruby said with a put upon sigh. "If I'm with you I won't have access to the demon grapevine, and that could come in real handy in the search for Wonder Boy and co."
Dean looked undecided for a moment, but Cas gave him a hard look that said exactly what he thought of letting the demon out of their sights. "Yeah, well, we'll just have to do without. Get your things, we're leaving in ten minutes, and anything that isn't packed isn't coming."
"And where exactly are we going?" Ruby asked scathingly. "We don't even know which direction he went in. Hell, we're not even sure he's the one that stole my car!"
"At least it's a place to start. Bobby called a friend, he's going to check cameras and stuff, see if he can find your car." Dean answered. "He should have something by the time we head out."
"Wait, how does Bobby have my license plate number? Or rather, how do you have my license plate number?" Ruby asked warily.
Dean shrugged. "I'm good at remembering. Plus Sam texts me the number each time you change it."
Ruby looked furious. "That little-"
"For just this kind of a reason." Dean pointed out, interrupting her and making her shut her mouth with a scowl.
"Ten minutes doesn't seem like a lot of time." Ruby pointed out.
"Believe me, it's gonna take less time for him to get that information than for you to pack your shit up." He asserted, casting a disdainful eye over the pile of clothes on the floor.
Ruby took the hint and started shoving things in her bag.
Dean got a text back from Bobby just as Ruby came out of the bathroom, hands full of the free toiletries and a towel that probably belonged to the motel. It had been more than ten minute but he wasn't going to say anything. It had still come before Ruby was ready. "No dice on Ruby's car, but we finally got Sam's. Gas station a couple hours away. Car's still there."
Ruby dumped her armful into her bag and picked it up. "Why would they dump it there?"
Dean frowned. "They?"
"Sam or whoever has him." Ruby replied evenly, flawlessly covering her blunder. "Why not dump it somewhere harder to find?"
"Who knows." Dean looked to Cas. "You head out and we'll see you there."
Castiel glanced at the phone screen and nodded, disappearing without a word.
Willow and Ruby followed Dean out to the car, each headed for the front seat. Neither wanted to end up sitting next to the other.
"Willow, you're in the front with me." Dean said, not even glancing around. Ruby shot Willow and Dean a glare, but climbed in the back without protest. "Been a while since the last finding spell, think you can do it while we're moving?"
Willow hesitated but gave a nod. She wouldn't usually risk it, but by now she could probably do it blindfolded. She tried to ignore Ruby's eyes on her as she worked.
"So how'd you get roped into all of this?" The demon asked, purposely interrupting just before Willow was supposed to chant.
Willow ignored her.
"Oh, come on! I'm sitting right here, the least you could do is answer me." Ruby waited for an answer that didn't come. "It's rude to ignore people, you know." She grumbled, sitting back with her arms folded.
"You're not a person." Willow muttered in response as she finished the spell; no luck once again.
"That's not nice." Ruby narrowed her eyes. "I would go so far as to say it's racist. Demons are people too. Just... Without the soul part." She pressed her hands dramatically to her chest, over her stolen body's heart. "We still feel."
Willow just tried another spell, an irritated frown forming.
Ruby smirked.