a little give and a little take, tag; Alaric & Hunters, etc.

”Feel free to walk past me, Charles”

Gunn considered giving Wes a piece of his mind at that point. The coldness was written all over his face, but he forced himself past, bumping shoulders slightly and headed towards the books. But he paused and turned to look at Dean as he explained the step-by-steps of hitting it off with Illyria, and he couldn’t help but make a slightly disgusted face. “Since when did you get down with demons?” he said – with casual ease, as if it were a normal topic of discussion, but not really wanting him to answer. That was not an image he wanted to have in his head, let’s just say that. He just didn’t think of Dean as the kind of guy to…go the cross-species route. But you learn something new every day, apparently.

And…he really didn’t know what to think about that in general – so he resolved not to think about it. Whatever the blue chick wanted to do in her bedroom – or secret lair, or whatever, was her deal. He already made a promise to himself to give up on the idea that Fred was still alive somewhere within Illyria after that whole memory altering thing happened because of Cain. He let himself hope for a bit that Fred was still living – somehow - because Illyria was so convincing. But after it was all said and done, Gunn knew he was doing some serious wishful thinking. He couldn’t let himself do that again. It was literally like losing Fred all over again.

If anything Gunn was somewhat concerned about Dean. With all the stuff going on with demons and vamps going crazy, having escapades with Illyria probably wasn’t the best life decision. Yeah, he’d definitely have to do some real talk with those Winchester brothers.

But before he could say anything else, Wesley threw a sucker punch at Dean, and immediately things got hectic. Gunn took a step forward, reflexively, ready to break something up if things got ugly, but he didn’t really calculate his reasoning. For the most part, he had mad respect for Dean since the day he met him. And the other part – there was something automatic about Gunn wanting to help Wesley. Wesley’s reaction was so very…him, that it was like this whole Cain mess didn’t happen. That Wes was still grieving Fred and he took Dean’s comment personally. But Gunn stopped himself when he took that step forward – anger returned to replace that gut instinct. He watched as Sam pulled a gun on Wes. Oh yeah, he didn’t want to get his brains blown out by jumping in the way either.

It was then that Stephen commanded Wesley to him, and Gunn was slightly unnerved by the power Stephen had over Wesley. Thoughts started churning about what the manifestation of Cain really meant – what was Wolfram & Hart planning? But Gunn was too miffed to think about it and he already had the current supernatural insanity problem to worry about. But he wasn’t going to leave this place until he talked with Wesley. No more surprises. No more playin’ around.

Once Wes and Stephen left, a voice pulled him back to the task at hand.

”Section D,” Ric said and Gunn looked at him.

“Yeah,” he said, simply agreeing with the fact that they needed to get back to business. Over in section D, he looked for the books he thought would be useful – completely ignoring anything else. He did notice Ric pausing, gazing over the titles curiously.

“Man,” Gunn said, finally deciding on the books he was going to bring back to the hunters. “You really are a teacher. Don’t get too caught up, you ain’t gettin’ quizzed on this stuff.” He cracked a grin before leaving him to it, taking the books he found and bringing them to the rest of the hunters.

“So, I'm not entirely sure where you want to keep looking..” Reade said to the hunters. Gunn pulled out a chair and sat down, grabbing a book. “I’m thinkin’ we start with what we have. If only to get goin’ before somebody pulls out a gun again,” he shrugged. "I don't know about ya'll but it kinda kills my concentration."

Yeah. This was gonna take a while. And sure enough, it did.

(ooc-had permission from the thread starter to jump time a bit. So after this point they've been researching for a while.)

Ric returned an amused smile, though it was considerably smaller than Gunn's – Crowley's mention of Samael had seriously shaken him. The other hunter had a point though, and Ric followed him back to the table after Gunn had picked out a few books, and began sifting through one of them after he was seated. He grimaced, nodded at his comment... and began reading.

He couldn't have honestly taken a guess as to how long they'd been there. Ric's head was full to the brim of new-old, old, old things, stuff he'd never even heard mention of before... whoever knew there was so much information on ancient beasts and spells? It was definitely a different kind of history that he'd been reading for the past few hours. The CEO's threat had never been forgotten, but he was immersed in the books completely, a small crease in his brow, eyes narrowed as he read, shifting now and then so his back wouldn't get too sore. All of this stuff sounded like some fictional Harry Potter stuff rather than reality – but most of it was some, vague reality, if not in another dimension (dimensions were a concept he had a hard time wrapping his head around but yeesh, how could he be surprised by anything these days.) The Wolfram & Hart employee, Ms Reade, was still around. Alaric had done his best to ignore her, until eventually he'd had to go look up some references and hadn't wanted to disturb Gunn or the other hunters. He didn't know how easily distracted they were with this sort of thing. Ric was good at researching, remaining on task, actually taking in whatever weirdness he was reading; he didn't know the others very well so he didn't want to bug them just in case.

The more he read, the more he decided Wolfram & Hart had a ridiculous reach. Just how much information could one law firm hold? They weren't supposed to house some extraordinary library of eras past. Then again, the word law firm really shouldn't be attached to 'demonic,' either. Alaric had thought he found leads several times only to be disappointed, so by the time several hours had passed and a headache had begun to make itself known, he was frowning at the pages in more than concentration. Alaric put the large volume he'd been reading down and rubbed his eyes tiredly, missing the bourbon that typically accompanied him on his research tasks. It wasn't that this stuff wasn't interesting... it just didn't explain what was going on with the supernaturals. Ric looked over at the rest of the hunters, hoping someone was having better luck than him. It was just days ago that his friend had killed him – Ric was nursing a vendetta against whatever was behind Damon's extra crazy, in addition the grudge he held against the vampire himself. There was so much crap going on in general... he didn't want this thing, whatever it was, to remain hidden. Ric went back to reading, not exactly tired yet, as he was used to researching for stupidly long hours into the night, but feeling the pressure to find something of use. He flipped through the last chapter, found nothing yet again, and discarded the book into the 'useless' pile with a scowl. Damn it all. Just how long was this gonna take? With a barely suppressed sigh, Alaric reached for what had to be the dozenth book, if not more.

Sam watched with some detachment as the ghost got yanked away from them all, tucking the gun back into the waistband of his jeans. The truth was he wanted to have asked him a few things, like what it was he’d done to piss off the room full of hunters or what the heck an Illyria was since asking his brother either question might lead to either a lecture about how he should think before he acts or some boast about sexual prowess that Sam really wasn’t in the mood for. Of course the way Dean had described her as being blue now Sam was having a hard time not picturing Dean making out with Smurfette and he blamed that on his elder brother’s strange four am cartoon habits (not that he’d rather it be a four am porn habit). As he sat back down he heard Dean try to defend his decision to sleep with Illyria in a way that sounded awfully familiar to him and he honestly did harbor some resentment toward his brother reacted when another demon had done the same for him.

“Dean.” Pausing a moment, his voice oddly softer than it had been in recent weeks, in fact it almost was like there was the old Sam inside of there just waiting to find his way out. “You’re starting to sound like me.” Knowing his brother would know exactly what demon saved his life and what happened after it. The truth was that had Dean not stabbed Ruby he never could have, he would have stood by and watched as Lucifer came up from the cage next to her, confused and heartbroken that the woman…demon he’d come to care for was using him the entire time in order to not only further the goals of the demon he had sworn to kill but also to raise up Lucifer from where he was trapped and pretty much end all existence. All the time he had been told by pretty much everyone he cared about to not trust Ruby but he still did, following her blindly because she’d saved his life and because he cared about her. It was more than that too, Sam honestly believed in Ruby because he saw in her something more, the fact that if she could have all that evil inside of her and still fight for good then maybe there was hope for him, maybe the curse he’d been dealing with his whole life thanks to Azazel wasn’t one he’d have to see as a burden but one he could use for good, maybe if she could be saved then he could too. In the end though all it did was almost end the world and had been the biggest mistake of his life.

Picking up a book, pushing away thoughts of Ruby and times past that he had no way of changing, Sam started to flip through it, seeing it wasn’t one that could help them and standing up and moving to the bookshelf. As time wore on he didn’t know how much time had passed but he made his way through title after title, sometimes pulling open a notebook to jot down a fact or two about something other than what they were looking into, knowing that eventually it’d be useful. Just because there was one case they were supposed to be here working on didn’t mean to Sam that they couldn’t get information on the other cases they were working on. Besides he wasn’t sure when he’d be seeing the inside of the library again honestly and he wanted to get as much out of this visit as he could. He closed the next book and added it to the pile, rubbing his eyes a moment then getting up to get himself a cup of coffee, checking out everyone else’s stacks to see that most of them were as tall as his, yep, no one was getting anywhere fast.

“Still not human, Dean!” Jo replied; of course it was a big deal. Not all creatures out there were bad, she got that – although the freaking vampires were, without a doubt, and this whole thing just highlighted that – but that didn't mean that it was okay to have sex with them, not even slightly. They might not hunt them, might even get them to help, but that didn't mean that the lines weren't there. They weren't going to kill someone that was genuinely good, but they weren't going to sleep with them either, however human they might have seemed. Cas was Jo's friend, for example. She was frustrated by the fact that it was impossible to reach him, especially when she needed him, but equally, he was still family. He wasn't human, but she wasn't going to kill him, and not just because that was pretty much impossible to do. She also wasn't going to be having sex with him any time soon, and God, what was Dean thinking? She knew that things had been messed up lately, she knew that there were issues with Sam, undoubtedly, but...seriously? What was wrong with him? Maybe she was just agitated by it because they were here, again, in the room where they'd almost died, and Jo wanted to shoot every single person who worked for this freaking law firm, regardless of how the building might decide to torture her. She wouldn't, but she wanted to; she didn't actually want to be tortured again, but she couldn't forget it, either, she couldn't forget what had happened the last time they were here, and why were they even trusting that the information in these books wasn't going to be modified in some way? If the building could magically build walls, then she was sure that they could magically change some words in a book to direct them down the wrong path. She'd be sceptical of what they found, without a doubt...but Jo also knew that it was their only chance. They were screwed, otherwise, so there had to be a little trust. Well. Trust was debatable, but they were here.

They just had to find something that would work, without a doubt; they could not let the world continue to be this way, let the vampires and various monsters be worse than they ordinarily were, because people were getting hurt, and if this was the only way to get information then Jo would suck it up and work, and try and put thoughts of dying in this very place out of her mind. God, she couldn't wait to get out of her and have a drink, but she was pretty sure that it was going to take a while. There were a lot of books in this library, after all, and they had no idea what they were looking for. It was like searching for a needle in a haystack, and she wasn't feeling particularly optimistic, right now, not with being at Wolfram and Hart, of all places, not with a ghost hitting Dean, Sam actually being the one who sounded sensible. Everything really did seem to be screwed up here and Jo sighed as she selected a pile of books – preferring to make several trips than put down her shotgun, honestly – and set up at one of the tables by Sam and Dean (hey, she might have been a little afraid of Sam, she might have thought that Dean was way off base with his non-human thing, but they were still the people that she trusted most in this room). At least she was good at research? She started flipping through the books, shotgun on the table beside her, knife in her hand, now, spinning it around absently, digging the point into the table and not giving a crap about the marks it might leave; it helped her concentrate, somehow, a nervous habit that she did when she was researching. A pen was between her lips, sucking absently on its end, but she wasn't finding much to write down. Jo sighed, God knew how long later, barely having made headway in her to-read pile, leaning back in her chair and stretching out her back. “We need to target these books better than just reading through everything, or we'll be here 'til next year.”

They weren’t going to let him live down the whole sleeping with a non-human thing, were they? It wasn’t as if he made a habit out of it. And given the circumstance, it made plenty of sense at the time. No, in hindsight, he knew better than to sleep with anything that wasn’t human, but he wasn’t there to hear judgment on it either. It wasn’t something that he would generally brag about openly, but he wasn’t going to have himself shamed because of it either. Especially not in an evil law firm that was nearly the death of him before. And if any of them had a problem with his little escapade with the blue God-King then that was their thing. Well, he couldn’t say that entirely, because Jo and Sam’s opinion did matter to him. In fact, it mattered strongly and hearing Jo’s comment caused him to open his mouth in reply, but he was shut up by Sam’s own. That was where it hit him. He knew exactly what he was referring to. He was taken aback a little bit and it sounded more like the Sam he knew than the Sam that had been walking around posing as his little brother lately. “Damn it, Sammy.” He said, in an almost resigned way. It was his way of not wanting to talk about it here and not wanting to make the connection that he was. And looking to Jo, he took a breath. “I know, all right? Just jump on me about it later, when we don’t have a job to do.” Dean wasn’t going to get into more of an argument about his recent habits in the sheets. Yeah, not happening here, especially not in front of people that he didn’t have a close relationship to. Hell, he’d rather it not happen with his family either. This was irrelevant right now. What mattered was hitting the damn books. “Can we actually do what we came here to do now?” If there was anything to get Dean eager to read, an uncomfortable conversation was it.

Research was Dean’s least favorite part of the hunt. If he could get out of it, no doubt, he usually would. Sam was always good at it, but he had always been more into reading than Dean was. When it came down to it, Dean didn’t even care to read for fun. He didn’t find it that exciting or worth his time. And when it came to research, it was the boring part. Dean liked being a part of the action and wanted to be on the chase and the kill, not with his nose shoved in a book. That wasn’t to say that he was bad at it. He wasn’t. Dean might have been more street smart than book smart, but the fact was that he still had plenty of intelligence to spare. He could research with the best of them, it just so happened that he could be more begrudging about it. At this point though, he was sure that everyone was begrudging it. Dean slammed shut yet another book and rubbed his eyes to keep them from swimming. He had a notebook scribbled with a few notes that may or may not be any good, but so far it wasn’t great. “We’ll get nowhere at this rate.” Dean agreed with Jo, his eyes wandering over to Sam. “Hey, grab me one of those, will you?” He asked, while he cracked open yet another book that he had on his stack. Coffee might make him feel better about the fact that he didn’t feel like he was getting anywhere, although it was a lot better than the previous conversation involving—he paused. Illyria, damn it. The realization of one forgotten detail made Dean feel like palming his own forehead. Earlier talk about his sex life and his general avoidance of it had caused the relevant information he gained from the blue creature to slip out of mind. Frankly, he didn’t know how reliable it was and so far, he hadn’t found a mention in any of his books, because had he, he would have picked up on it fast. But, if there was any credibility to it at all, it might help to bring it up. “Did any of you catch a reference of an Eve, or something ‘bout a Mother?”

[OOC: As planned, Wesley is returning in the thread, considering the fact that a time lapse was written into it. This post follows his separate thread with Crowley, "choke chain", in which the cause for his current state of spirit will be explained.]

The library was the last place on this planet where Wesley wanted to be at the moment. What he craved for almost desperately was some time for himself, which he was fully intent on spending far away from the demonic law firm. First of all, the ghost of a man needed to be alone in order to deal with the physical pain which Stephen inflicted on him. No matter what the CEO did to him, Wesley still had his pride and that pride did not allow him to show his pain in front of anyone else. From his point of view, giving up that pride would have been the same as admitting his defeat in front of the Senior Partners. Stephen had pushed him close to giving it up earlier but, fortunately, the CEO was stopped in time, thanks to...

He supposed he could call it divine intervention, in spite of the fact that he had never really believed in the existence of divinity – not in the sense in which it was depicted in the Bible, at any rate, because he did believe in the existence of the Powers That Be (which were nothing but a variation of that myth, upon closer examination). Today, for the first time in too many years for him to count them any more, Wesley's faith in the Powers – or that absent God which Lucifer was speaking of – was restored. Madeline, the poor unfortunate child of Stephen Crowley, managed to achieve the impossible and restore Wesley's long lost hope. It wasn't much – if he wanted to be poetic, he could have probably said that it was comparable to the faint glimmer of a distant star on the night sky. Nonetheless, it was better than nothing and it was the fuel which Wesley needed in order to continue standing up to Stephen and to the three demons he was working for. They were working for.

The ghost didn't want to return into the library in which everyone loathed him because they could not separate him from Cain, yet he accepted the order to return and be off assistance to the hunters. The reason why he did it: he could not afford giving the Senior Partners reasons to do something drastic, not now of all times. He took form into the library – non-corporeal this time, such privilege being lost after his impulsive reaction – in time to hear Dean speak of an Eve and a Mother. Wesley cleared his throat, advancing towards the hunters, yet avoiding to make eye contact with any of them, trying to act as if nothing had happened, although his posture was visibly more stiff than it had been before, hinting towards the fact that he was simply playing the part which he was required to play. ”Perhaps I could be of some assistance in that matter?”, he spoke and decided not to wait for the rude answers that were bound to come before he stepped towards one of the Templates, one of the firm's most valuable possessions which was resting in a corner of the library in which the hunters had not yet looked. Although Wesley could no longer physically interact with the Templates, the spell which operated them had been adapted to respond to the simple sound of his spoken command, therefore the ghost leaned over it and spoke the words: ”Eve, Mother. References towards both terms, sources from all indexed dimensions, beginning with this one.” He turned towards the hunters and stepped slightly to the side, gesturing towards the large tome. ”If you open it, you should find a list of all the books which might be relevant for those two terms. I could narrow it down if you give me other key words.” Again, he avoided eye contact with the other occupants of the room but his invitation was open for any of them to take. In all honesty, he was slightly intrigued as to what the two words signified, other than the Biblical interpretation he could give them. Considering the fact that the hunters had made a deal with Wolfram and Hart in order to find out, it must have been something important, Wesley had no doubt about it.

It was natural for her to fall back quiet on this, a deep, annoyed furrow easily staying in place on her brow. Whatever Crowley had done to the ghost, well... it was weird. Magic and witchy or whatever stuff had always made her wary, and that was no different. If anything, the idea that she would have already loved to just punch this guy in the face and break his nose, well, it just made it a bit worse. Still, the ghost or whatever seemed to deserve it after the little showing of his inability to contain his own feelings. Shit happened, yeah, and you didn’t need to punch a guy in the face because you were jealous or pissed or whatever. And yeah, she was definitely biased against him and whoever else may have been working in this building just on that. he had it coming, at least, even if... yeah, she didn’t like how it’d came. But if they were going to have to be all peaceful and play nice, then his employees or ghosts or whatever needed to do the same. This was a room full of hunters after all, not just a bunch of research assistants or whatever else this place may have been able to pull out of their ass.

Glancing at the woman who came in the room, she tried not to pay all too much attention to her. Just another employee for this place that she didn’t really want to deal with. Hopefully this one wouldn’t be quiet as bad as Crowley. Arabelle sat down at one of the tables with the others, and went easily with the flow of things, flipping through books. There was definitely more than enough books and going through all of them was going to take a hell of a long time. It didn’t really help that there wasn’t exactly all too much of a start point, they just all knew what they needed to find. It just seemed like it was going to be a matter of how long that was going to take. And it definitely had more than enough potential to take an obnoxious amount of time.

Arabelle rolled the pen between her fingers idly, glancing down at a few notes that she’d taken. None of them referenced to someone named Eve or some kind of mother (the hell?) of sorts, and she was pretty sure that she hadn’t read anything that touched on that area either. She glanced up hearing someone else, and almost immediately straightened up into stiff posture at the site of who had reentered the room. Great. Even so, she didn’t really doubt that he could probably help. He would know more abut what was here and what wasn’t, and at the very least hopefully where it was. She watched as he moved over toward something she hadn’t notice, a furrow deepening on her brow. The hell...? She squinted slightly at whatever he was using, her lips pressing into a thin line. It was weird... but that felt a little predictable for this kind of place. Her eyes flickered around to the other hunters in the room, seeing if they were going to have anything to add to what Dean had said, or really, say anything about it. She sure as hell didn’t know what to say.