Nikki POV
I let out a long, content sigh as I lifted my face to the sky, letting the light mist that was floating around land on my sweaty face. It was refreshing. I'd been using what little research skills I had (for information from this century) to help him try to find Ava. She was a nice girl, I hated to think anything bad happened to her.
"Aren't ya'scared you'll mess up your makeup or somethin'?" I heard Dean ask.
"Not wearing any smartass." I sighed, not opening my eyes. After being cooped up in a motel room for more than 36 hours, it was nice to breath in fresh air.
I heard Dean set something on the hood of the Impala, and looked over my shoulder at it. I eagerly took the coffee cup and took a drink. Dean tossed the bag of gas station food in the back of the car before leaning next to me on the side of the car. I gave him an odd look over my coffee cup. "Ok, what do you have to tell me?" I asked him.
"Huh?" he asked with that 'innocent' look he had on his face whenever the local cops questioned whether he was a real FBI agent or not.
"You've been staring at me like you have to tell me something for the past day and a half." I told him. "Spit it out."
"Do you and Sam have something goin' on?" Dean blurted out.
My eyebrows shot up. "Ex-cuse me?" I asked slowly.
Dean rolled his eyes and turned so his arm was on top of the car and he was leaning towards me slightly. "Do you, have a thing, for my brother." He asked slowly. I laughed a little, looking back down at my coffee cup, tapping my fingers on the plastic lid a few times.
"What is so damn funny?" Dean asked me, clearly a little pissed off. I shook my head a little, shrugging.
"So…You're asking if I have the hots for Sammy?" I asked, looking up at him.
His face contorted in confusion as he stared blankly back at me. "What?"
I shrugged. "Well, you sorta asked me that already." I told him.
His eyebrows furrowed. "No I didn't."
"Yeah, you did…At the hospital…" I mumbled. Dean's eyebrows shot up.
"Well, is there anything else you wanna tell me I did?" Dean asked sarcastically.
"You considered putting your spirit-y head through a wall to watch my change." I remembered with a shrug. Dean seemed to consider this for a moment, and by the look on his face he was having too much fun with it, so I smacked his arm.
He glared at me a little, then ran a hand down his face. "You never answered my question."
I shrugged. "Well, when Andy suggested that we were a couple Sam laughed, so…What do you think?" I asked, a sharp edge in my voice.
Dean considered this for a second, then his face split into a shit eating grin. "Oh this is good." He laughed.
"What?" I asked carefully. I didn't like the look in his eye.
"My brother, my nerdy little brother, has a witch chasing after him!" He chuckled as he got in the driver's seat.
"Hey! It's Wicca to you!" I snapped at him. "And I'm not-I'm not chasing after him!" I insisted as I slammed the passenger's side door.
Dean was still laughing.
"By the way, you breathe a word of this to Sam, I swear to God I'll put hawthorn in your food for the next month!" I threatened him. He just rolled his eyes and drove.
"Fine fine fine…" Dean chuckled. "I won't tell Sam you have a big fat crush on him."
"I swear! Hawthorn in every bacon cheeseburger for a week!" I said loudly, only to be drowned out by the radio.
We drove in silence after that. I'm not sure why back at the hospital I'd wanted to tell Dean what he'd said so badly. Now, every time I look at him, he has this shit eating grin on his face that makes me want to slap him. Hard. In the face.
"You call Ellen?" I asked Sam as I walked into the motel room. I let the door swing shut and almost hit Dean in the face.
"Yeah." Sam sighed, glancing at the wall full of 'missing person' posters with pictures of Ava on them. "She's got nothing." Dean handed Sam his coffee.
"I've been checking every database I can think of, federal, state and local. No one's heard anything about Ava." Sam took a long drink of his coffee. "She just—into thin air, you know?" He looked up, glancing between Dean and me. I nodded, Dean shrugged a little.
"Ellen did have something, though." Sam said. "A hotel in Cornwall, Connecticut—two freak accidents in the past three weeks." I nodded, looking over his shoulder at his laptop.
"Yeah, what's that got to do with Ava?" Dean asked.
"It's a job." Sam stated plainly. "I mean, a lady drowned in the bathtub, then a few days ago, a guy falls down the stairs, head turns a complete 180, which isn't exactly normal, you know?"
I shrugged, sitting on the edge of one of the beds. "Don't you guys usually go after stuff that's more along the lines of missing hearts or spontaneous combustion?" I asked.
Sam and Dean shared a look before Dean shrugged. "We go after anything that goes bump in the night." He muttered, not paying attention to me.
I frowned at him, then glanced at Sam, who was looking at his laptop, looking up at me a few times. "Oh my God." I said, realizing what this was about. "You guys are testing me, aren't you?"
"Huh?" Sam asked, while Dean made a sort of 'Uh' sounding grunt.
"The whole haunted house job, you guys are testing me! You wanna see how I'd do on a real case!" I said, jumping up.
"What? No!" Sam said automatically.
I pointed a finger at him. "No. Don't lie to me." I told him sternly.
"Alright! Fine! We asked Ellen to find something easy!" Dean said, rolling his eyes. I narrowed my eyes at him. "Ok, fine, I asked Ellen to find something easy."
I huffed, falling back onto the edge of the bed with a pout. "I can't believe you think I couldn't handle a simple haunting." I told Dean, shaking my head.
"Hey? What are you lookin' at me like that for? I didn't think he'd go for it!" Dean defended himself, flailing a hand towards Sam.
Sam sent his brother a confused look.
"I thought you'd be more angst and droopy music, staring out the rainy windows after Ava. Not my fault somethin's keeping you all happy inside." Dean said, sending me a look out of the corner of his eye. I just glared at him. "I'll shut up now." Dean said with a shrug.
"Look, I'm the one who told her to go back home. Now her fiancé's dead, and some demon has taken her off to God knows where," Sam listed off as eh got up and came to sit next to me on the edge of the bed. "We've been looking for a month now and we still have nothing.
"So I'm not giving up on her, but I'm not gonna let other people die either." Sam finished. I just looked at him. It amazed me how he could say thing like that and make them sound profound. "We gotta save as many people as we can."
Dean just blinked at Sam, glanced at me, and then sighed. "Wow, that attitude is just way to healthy for me. I'm officially uncomfortable now. Thank you." Dean said, a small, sarcastic smile on his face.
We all just sat there for a few minutes before I spoke up. "So, we goin' or what?"
I sighed as we passed the turn off to New Haven on the way to Cornwall. Sometimes I missed getting up at nine in the morning to go to classes, then working from 5 in the afternoon until 9 at night, then going home to do my course work.
"Something wrong?" I heard Sam ask. I shook my head, not looking away from the window as the New Haven turn passed.
"Nope. Nothing." I lied, tapping my fingers on the outside of my cup.
A few seconds later, I heard a bubbling sound. Confused, I cautiously pulled the lib off my coffee cup and yelped. "Holy shit!" I said loudly as I threw the cup out the open window of the Impala. Dean slammed on the breaks, sending me into the back of their seats.
"What the hell was that?" Dean demanded.
"Coffee—Boiling in my cup—Damnit Dean I think you broke my nose!" I said, cupping my hand over my nose that was currently feeling very crushed and dripping blood.
"What?" Sam asked, pulling one of my hands away from my nose and handing me some wadded up napkins.
"The coffee in my cup." I said, tipping my head back. "It was literally boiling in the cup!"
"Boiling?" Dean repeated. I nodded. He just shook his head and pulled back onto the highway. "You're a freaky, freaky little Wicca." He muttered under his breath as he chuckled and smiled a little. I smacked his shoulder.
"Ow!" I yelped as Sam gently prodded the side of my nose with two fingers.
"I don't think it's broken." Sam told me. "Just bruised. It should feel better in a day or two." He added. I rolled my eyes a little. He didn't like when I used healing spells; I was always a little groggy after then and it just made him worried.
"I gotta say, if you're dead set on testing my skills, an old school haunted house isn't a bad way to go." I said.
"What do you mean old school?" Dean asked, pulling his duffle bag out of the trunk.
"I wrote a paper on this place my freshman year." I told him, wiping some of the dried blood from my nose with a clean rag from Sam's backpack. "Never been here, but know quite a bit about it. Always wanted to come here. I mean, fog, secret passageways, this place came right out of a Scooby-Doo episode."
"Hmm," Dean said thoughtfully. "Daphne—Love her."
"You two go ahead." I said, nodding towards the house. "I'm gonna finish cleaning myself up here." I said, holding up the rag before I squatted down to see in the rear view mirror. I saw Sam and Dean walk up the steps in the reflection. After they were gone, I said the self-healing incantation a few times. It was still bruised, but at least it didn't hurt anymore.
I checked one more time to make sure the blood was gone, then slung my backpack over my shoulder and grabbed my duffle bag. Sam felt his back pack on the closed trunk lid, so I zipped it up and brought it with me.
As I was walking up the steps, I paused as I passed a planter full of dead flowers. I looked a little closer at the X shaped mark with red dots on the edge. It seemed familiar to me. After making sure I'd remember what the mark looked like, I walked into the house, pausing in the small entry way when I heard Sam, Dean and a woman talking.
"Let me guess—You guys are here antiquing?" The woman asked.
"Uh, how'd you know?" I heard Sam say, sounding like he was pulling one of those awkward little smiles.
"You just look like the type." The woman said. "So, a king sized bed?" She asked.
An idea quickly formed in my head, and I entered the lobby. "You forgot this in the car sweetie." I said, handing Sam his backpack as I gave him a smile.
He looked confused, but took his backpack. "Uh…Thanks."
"You got two beds, right?" I asked Dean, moving to stand closer to Sam.
"Oh. Gosh, I'm sorry." The woman, a brunette in her 30s stammered, looking between Sam and Dean.
"Oh, it's fine." I said, brushing it off. The woman wrote a few things down, then rang a bell on the counter. "You'll be staying in room 237. Are you sure you don't want to separate rooms? The third floor tower room is very popular with young couples. It's be wonderful to rent it out one more time before we close." She said, looking at Sam and I.
Sam looked like he was about to start stuttering something out, so I spoke up first. "Thanks, but no. The one room will be fine." I said, taking the key before leaning on Sam a little. "Supposed to be a 'bonding' trip with me and this guy's brother." I said, playfully elbowing Sam in the side as glanced at Dean.
"Sherwin, could you show this gentleman and couple to their room?" the woman asked over Dean's shoulder. I followed her gaze and my eyes widened.
And this place wasn't Scooby-Doo-ish enough. I thought as the old man walked up to us.
He took my bag and Dean's before heading up the stairs. I frowned a little as my bag was dragged up the stairs. Every time it was pulled over a step with a Thump! I flinched a little. Sam saw and sent me a questioning look.
"All my herbs and plants are in there!" I said in a hushed voice, flinching again. If the bottles break and the contents get all mixed together, who knows what will happen.
Dean must have heard, because he skipped a step to be behind Sherwin and said "I can give you a hand with that bag."
"I got it." Sherwin said flatly. I sighed, shaking my head.
"So, the hotel's closing up, huh?" Dean asked.
"Yep—Miss Susan tried to make a go of it, but the guests just don't come like they used to. Still, it's a damn shame." Sherwin sighed. "It may not look like it anymore, but this place was a palace."
"Two vice-presidents stayed here, right?" I asked.
Sherwin stopped and turned to look at me. "Yes," he said, sounding surprised. He looked at me for a moment before he kept walking. "My parents worked here. I practically grew up here. I'm gonna miss it."
He came to a stop at a door. "Here's your room." I stepped forward and unlocked the door, taking my duffle bag at the same time.
"Thank you," I told him before stepping into the room. Sam and Dean went in after me and I dug a few dollars out of my pocket.
Sherwin screwed his face up in a way I think was a smile as he took the four dollars. "Thank you, Miss…?"
"Blake." I said politely, then shut the door.
I threw my bag on one of the beds and opened my duffle bag. I sighed in relief after I checked my potion bag. All the bottles and jars were still intact.
"What the...?" Dean trailed off, walking towards a vintage wedding dress on the wall.
"What?" I asked, pulling out my book of symbols and making my way to sit in the chair at the desk under the dress.
"That's not normal." Dean said, jerking his head towards the dress. "Why the hell would anyone stay here? I'm amazed they kept in business this long." I rolled my eyes at him as I paged through my book.
"All right, victim number one—Joan Edison, 43 years old. A realtor handling the sale of the hotel." Sam read off. I saw Dean sit on the bed, only to have it bow and creek under his weight.
"And victim number two was Larry Williams, moving some stuff out to Goodwill." Sam finished.
"They're both tied up in shutting the place down." Dean pointed out.
"Maybe someone doesn't want to leave." Sam suggested.
"If that's true, they're using Hoodoo to fight back." I said, looking up from my book. I turned it around and pointed to the symbol on the page, the same one on the planter outside. "It's a Quincunx. A Five-Spot. Used in Hoodoo spell work. When you mix it with a little Bloodweed you have a strong charm against enemies."
Dean frowned a little. "It's this place a little too white-meat for that type of Hoodoo?"
"Not really." I said with a shrug. "Slaves brought here pre-Civil War brought it up North. Not as common up here, but it's around."
Sam nodded, taking in the information, while Dean shook his head and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like 'Geek.'
"'Course, the most troubling question is, why do these people think we're gay?" Dean asked, completely serious.
"You are kind of butch. Probably think you're overcompensating." Sam said, smiling a little as he looked at the papers in his hands.
"And technically, they think you're gay." I pointed out. I got looks from both boys. I rolled my eyes and shut the book in my lap. "My little backpack and 'sweetie' bit helped Sam on the heterosexuality scale." Sam seemed to accept this easily and nodded.
"Thanks, by the way." He added.
"No problem." I said breezily.
"What about me?" Dean asked. "Where am I on the straight scale?"
"Right now, these people probably think you're in that dress." I said, nodding towards the dress on the wall behind me. "And no, I'm not gonna help you fix that." I added as I got up and walked to the door.
"What? Why not?" Dean asked me, more than a little upset.
"Because you don't think I could handle something a bunch of hippies in a van could!" I snapped, walking out the door.