The Great Easter Hunt
The Great Easter Hunt
word count: 2125
rating: PG
warnings: none
characters/pairing: Gen, Dean, Sam
summary: Anything that crawls out of the TV and creeps around your house needs to die, especially red eyed rabbits that cluck like chickens, even if your brother tries to tell you that you’re stoned on pain meds and hallucinating.
Written for the SPN Big Pretzel Spring Fic Exchange, based on the prompt "High on pain meds, Dean is convinced he's seeing the Easter bunny and forcing a secretly amused Sam to come along on the hunt."
Art by the brilliant kuwlshadow.
also available on AO3
The mighty Dean Winchester was brought down by something less than 1/2 inch in diameter.
Winchesters had learned very high pain tolerances over the years and generally didn’t go to the hospital unless they thought the Reaper would be showing up at any moment, so when Dean was in the floor, doubled over in pain and begging Sam to take him to the hospital, Sam really was afraid his brother was dying.
Dean spent the entire trip into town swearing he would never again fornicate with strange women if Chuck would just stop the pain and peeing blood, so Sam knew it had to be at least 27 on a scale of 1 to 10.
Sam mentally composed the emails to Jody, Donna, and Garth, telling them that Dean had Stage 4 Cancer or Dengue Fever or an alien had exploded out of his gut.
Two and a half hours and a vial of morphine later, the doctor pronounced that Dean was in fact not dying of any dread disease, sexually transmitted or otherwise, but had a kidney stone.
Sam was ready to hug the man.
Until the doctor told them that the stone was small enough that if Dean drank plenty of fluids and took pain medicine, he should be able to pass the stone without assistance.
In other words, they were sending him home.
Sam argued for keeping Dean there a few days to make sure he didn’t need surgical intervention or non-surgical intervention or at least IV fluids or something.
Dean, who was higher than Cheech and Chong combined at the moment, was completely in favor of coming home with lots of drugs.
So Sam ended up bringing Dean home with instructions on how to monitor the intake and output of the plenty of fluids Dean was supposed to drink, a urinal bottle, and both long acting and breakthrough pain meds.
Once they got back to the car, Dean emptied his pockets to show the chocolate he had swiped from the drugstore.
“Hey, Easter is less than a week away and I spent all night watching Cadbury Cream Egg commercials.” Dean shrugged.
He settled Dean into the memory foam bed with a gallon of water and snacks on one side, the urinal on the other and set up a laptop with Netflix for him. There was a brief argument over whether or not a six pack of beer constituted “plenty of fluids” which Sam won by threatening to withhold Dean’s pain meds.
The first day passed fairly uneventfully, which was great because Krissy and Aiden needed help with some lore, so Sam spent most of the day doing research for them.
Midway through the second day, Dean declared that he was bored sitting around watching anime porn, despite Sam pointing out that Dean probably would have been sitting around watching anime porn between cases if he wasn’t trying to pass a kidney stone.
But Dean was impatient, so he found some dandelion tea in the pantry and drank two cups while Sam was in the archive room.
The good news was that the tea got the stone to move.
The bad news was that the tea got the stone to move.
Dean was once again doubled over on the floor, screaming that Alastair didn’t have to use whips and fire, he could have just given people kidney stones and they would have been begging to become demons.
Sam gave Dean his pain meds and let him wash them down with three fingers of whiskey in hopes that the stone would soon pass and life could return to the Winchester version of normal.
He tucked Dean back into bed and went to make him something to eat and more dandelion tea.
Almost an hour later, because the ground beef had been frozen and spaghetti was one of the few things Sam could cook, Sam was waiting for the garlic bread to finish toasting when he heard Dean coming down the hall.
He was creeping as stealthily as possible for someone too hammered to pass a field sobriety test and alarmingly, had a gun in his hand.
“Dean, what are you doing?” Sam asked.
“Be vewy quiet.” Dean said. “I’m hunting wabbit.”
“What rabbit?” Sam snorted.
“Shut up!” Dean hissed. “It’s gonna hear you!”
“What’s going to hear me?” Sam whispered.
“That fucking rabbit.” Dean told him, looking at Sam like he had lost his mind.
“What rabbit, Dean?” Sam asked.
“It’s white with red eyes and it clucks like a chicken.” Dean said, pressing himself against the wall before whirling to check around the corner and very nearly falling on his ass.
“Dude!” Sam hissed, wrapping one arm around Dean’s waist to steady him and pushing the gun toward the floor with his other hand. “You’re stoned. You’re trying to hunt the Easter Bunny. This is like after the rawhead when you were wound up on morphine and wanted to hunt the Snuggle Fabric Softener Bear.”
“Sam,” Dean said, trying to wriggle free. “I swear to you there is a big clucking rabbit loose in the bunker! I am not hallucinating!”
“Dean.” Sam sighed. “Wait a minute, okay? Let me turn the stove off and I’ll help you hunt it, okay?”
“So you just believe me that easy?” Dean snorted.
“No, but I don’t want you to get hurt.” Sam told him. “Come in here with me.”
Dean followed Sam back to the kitchen and sat down to wait while Sam turned the burners off and took the bread out of the oven.
“Okay, tell me what you saw.” Sam said.
“It was a big,” Dean held out his hands to show the size. “White rabbit, with red eyes, and it clucked like a chicken. It hopped out of the tv and took off down the hall.”
“Was it wearing a waistcoat and carrying a pocket watch?” Sam asked.
“What? No!” Dean made a face. “It was just a plain, white … naked … rabbit.”
“Why do you think it needs to be hunted?” Sam asked.
“Sam!” Dean threw up his hands. “Horror movies! Anything that crawls out of the tv and creeps around the house needs to die!”
Sam shrugged because he couldn’t argue with the logic of that. “Okay, so if you’re right, and there is some kind of monster rabbit loose in the bunker, you don’t want to shoot it.”
“Why not?” Dean asked.
“Because … “ Sam scrambled for an excuse to take a loaded gun away from his brother who was too stoned to aim properly. “Remember when we hunted those Dire Capybaras that had been sold as extra large Guinea Pigs? We had to stab them, with an iron knife? This is probably something similar.”
“Yeah.” Dean nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.”
He put his gun down on the table and stood. “I’d better get us a couple knives out of the armory. Why don’t you hit the lore and see if you can figure out what we’re dealing with.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “What we’re dealing with is you on pain meds.” He said under his breath.
Sam went to the library, pulled two books off the shelves, left them open on the table, and went to make sure Dean wasn’t getting grenades or something else equally dangerous out of the armory.
Dean had two iron knives on the table, as well as a crossbow with iron tipped arrows, a taser, holy water, and some throwing stars.
“So get this.” Sam said, sliding the crossbow out of reach. “I think I know what we’re dealing with. And we’re not going to need any of this.”
“Okay, so what is it?” Dean asked.
“A Pooka.” Sam told him.
“A Pooka?” Dean repeated.
“A Pooka.” Sam confirmed. “It’s an Irish animal spirit. You said you saw it as a white rabbit, right?”
“Yeah?” Dean frowned.
“Okay, that’s good.” Sam said. “If it appears as a white animal, then it’s benevolent. If it appears black, then it’s evil.”
“So a good rabbit monster crawled out of my tv?” Dean raised an eyebrow at his brother.
“It’s not … “ Sam shifted his weight from one foot to the other and gestured with his hands. “It’s not a monster, really. It’s a spirit creature. And it can be good or evil.”
“How did an Irish rabbit creature crawl out of my tv in Kansas?” Dean asked.
“The same way an okami turned up in South Dakota, I guess.” Sam answered.
“Okay, so how do we get rid of it?” Dean asked.
“If they’re white, they usually want you to give them a drink and listen to them tell a story.” Sam said. “If you are friendly and drink with them and listen, they will disappear without saying goodbye, and give you good luck when they go. If they’re black, then they want to cause harm.”
“Sounds like my kind of rabbit.” Dean said. “So if we find this thing, and drink with it, and listen to it talk, then maybe it would help me pass the kidney stone?”
“Well, it could.” Sam shrugged.
“All right then.” Dean rubbed his hands together. “Let’s go get Bunny O’Rabbit some whiskey.”
They went back to the kitchen, where Sam got a bottle of Evan Williams and three cups. With Dean leading the way, they set out down the hall.
Dean was in full tracking mode, even if he was slightly swaying on his feet. He stopped at every doorway and looked in for the rabbit.
Sam hung back slightly, letting Dean get far enough ahead that Sam was able to film Dean as he crept clumsily along, not so softly calling out “Here Pooka, Pooka, Pooka.”
When Dean passed the bedroom next to the one Cas used, Sam slipped in and slammed the closet door.
He was standing just inside the room when Dean came rushing in, catching himself on the doorframe before he fell.
“Did you get him?” Dean asked.
Sam motioned for Dean to keep his voice down. “He went into the closet.”
Dean headed for the closet door, but Sam grabbed his arm.
“You don’t want to scare him.” Sam explained. “Remember, if he turns black … “
“Yeah,” Dean nodded. “So what do we do?”
“Let’s sit down and have a drink.” Sam motioned toward the bed. “We’ll see if he comes out to join us.”
Sam poured just a tiny splash of whiskey in a glass and handed it to Dean.
“Dude, seriously?” Dean asked.
“We can’t drink it all before he comes out.” Sam said. “What if he tells a long story and we have to refill a few times?”
“Yeah, this is why you’re the smart one.” Dean nodded, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
Sam poured a little more whiskey in a second glass, which he put about halfway between the bed and the closet. He then poured himself some, and sat down by Dean.
“How are you feeling?” Sam asked softly.
“I’m good.” Dean shrugged, yawning. “Pain meds are working.”
“Good.” Sam told him.
“I’m glad the Easter Bunny isn’t evil.” Dean continued. “I like those frigging cream eggs and it would suck if we had to kill him.”
“Like Garth had to kill the Tooth Fairy?” Sam reminded him.
“Yeah.” Dean barked out a short laugh. “I didn’t know there was a real Tooth Fairy. I wouldn’t have spent so much time scrounging change to put under your pillow if I thought a real fairy would have done it.”
“I know.” Sam said, knowing Dean was probably too stoned to remember any of this later. “I’m glad you did. You tried to give me as much of a normal childhood as possible.”
“Normal?” Dean snorted. “You believed in the Easter Bunny until you were eleven and a half.”
“Only because someone kept filling up my Easter basket every year.” Sam smiled at him.
“Yeah.” Dean sipped his drink. “But you were so cute when you were all excited about it. And you shared your candy with me.”
Sam sipped his own drink and didn’t comment, not trusting his voice not to break at the moment.
“Sweet little Sammy.” Dean teased, yawning again. “You were such a good little kid. Then you grew up to be a smart mouthed Sasquatch.”
“At least I didn’t grow up to be a big jerk.” Sam said.
“Nah, just a bitch.” Dean answered, leaning his head against Sam’s shoulder.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, until Sam felt Dean’s breathing even out.
He took the glass from Dean’s hand and gently eased his sleeping brother onto the bed.
Sam gathered up the glasses and bottle, took them to the kitchen, and then sneaked to Dean’s room to steal one of those chocolate eggs.
word count: 2125
rating: PG
warnings: none
characters/pairing: Gen, Dean, Sam
summary: Anything that crawls out of the TV and creeps around your house needs to die, especially red eyed rabbits that cluck like chickens, even if your brother tries to tell you that you’re stoned on pain meds and hallucinating.
Written for the SPN Big Pretzel Spring Fic Exchange, based on the prompt "High on pain meds, Dean is convinced he's seeing the Easter bunny and forcing a secretly amused Sam to come along on the hunt."
Art by the brilliant kuwlshadow.
also available on AO3
The mighty Dean Winchester was brought down by something less than 1/2 inch in diameter.
Winchesters had learned very high pain tolerances over the years and generally didn’t go to the hospital unless they thought the Reaper would be showing up at any moment, so when Dean was in the floor, doubled over in pain and begging Sam to take him to the hospital, Sam really was afraid his brother was dying.
Dean spent the entire trip into town swearing he would never again fornicate with strange women if Chuck would just stop the pain and peeing blood, so Sam knew it had to be at least 27 on a scale of 1 to 10.
Sam mentally composed the emails to Jody, Donna, and Garth, telling them that Dean had Stage 4 Cancer or Dengue Fever or an alien had exploded out of his gut.
Two and a half hours and a vial of morphine later, the doctor pronounced that Dean was in fact not dying of any dread disease, sexually transmitted or otherwise, but had a kidney stone.
Sam was ready to hug the man.
Until the doctor told them that the stone was small enough that if Dean drank plenty of fluids and took pain medicine, he should be able to pass the stone without assistance.
In other words, they were sending him home.
Sam argued for keeping Dean there a few days to make sure he didn’t need surgical intervention or non-surgical intervention or at least IV fluids or something.
Dean, who was higher than Cheech and Chong combined at the moment, was completely in favor of coming home with lots of drugs.
So Sam ended up bringing Dean home with instructions on how to monitor the intake and output of the plenty of fluids Dean was supposed to drink, a urinal bottle, and both long acting and breakthrough pain meds.
Once they got back to the car, Dean emptied his pockets to show the chocolate he had swiped from the drugstore.
“Hey, Easter is less than a week away and I spent all night watching Cadbury Cream Egg commercials.” Dean shrugged.
He settled Dean into the memory foam bed with a gallon of water and snacks on one side, the urinal on the other and set up a laptop with Netflix for him. There was a brief argument over whether or not a six pack of beer constituted “plenty of fluids” which Sam won by threatening to withhold Dean’s pain meds.
The first day passed fairly uneventfully, which was great because Krissy and Aiden needed help with some lore, so Sam spent most of the day doing research for them.
Midway through the second day, Dean declared that he was bored sitting around watching anime porn, despite Sam pointing out that Dean probably would have been sitting around watching anime porn between cases if he wasn’t trying to pass a kidney stone.
But Dean was impatient, so he found some dandelion tea in the pantry and drank two cups while Sam was in the archive room.
The good news was that the tea got the stone to move.
The bad news was that the tea got the stone to move.
Dean was once again doubled over on the floor, screaming that Alastair didn’t have to use whips and fire, he could have just given people kidney stones and they would have been begging to become demons.
Sam gave Dean his pain meds and let him wash them down with three fingers of whiskey in hopes that the stone would soon pass and life could return to the Winchester version of normal.
He tucked Dean back into bed and went to make him something to eat and more dandelion tea.
Almost an hour later, because the ground beef had been frozen and spaghetti was one of the few things Sam could cook, Sam was waiting for the garlic bread to finish toasting when he heard Dean coming down the hall.
He was creeping as stealthily as possible for someone too hammered to pass a field sobriety test and alarmingly, had a gun in his hand.
“Dean, what are you doing?” Sam asked.
“Be vewy quiet.” Dean said. “I’m hunting wabbit.”
“What rabbit?” Sam snorted.
“Shut up!” Dean hissed. “It’s gonna hear you!”
“What’s going to hear me?” Sam whispered.
“That fucking rabbit.” Dean told him, looking at Sam like he had lost his mind.
“What rabbit, Dean?” Sam asked.
“It’s white with red eyes and it clucks like a chicken.” Dean said, pressing himself against the wall before whirling to check around the corner and very nearly falling on his ass.
“Dude!” Sam hissed, wrapping one arm around Dean’s waist to steady him and pushing the gun toward the floor with his other hand. “You’re stoned. You’re trying to hunt the Easter Bunny. This is like after the rawhead when you were wound up on morphine and wanted to hunt the Snuggle Fabric Softener Bear.”
“Sam,” Dean said, trying to wriggle free. “I swear to you there is a big clucking rabbit loose in the bunker! I am not hallucinating!”
“Dean.” Sam sighed. “Wait a minute, okay? Let me turn the stove off and I’ll help you hunt it, okay?”
“So you just believe me that easy?” Dean snorted.
“No, but I don’t want you to get hurt.” Sam told him. “Come in here with me.”
Dean followed Sam back to the kitchen and sat down to wait while Sam turned the burners off and took the bread out of the oven.
“Okay, tell me what you saw.” Sam said.
“It was a big,” Dean held out his hands to show the size. “White rabbit, with red eyes, and it clucked like a chicken. It hopped out of the tv and took off down the hall.”
“Was it wearing a waistcoat and carrying a pocket watch?” Sam asked.
“What? No!” Dean made a face. “It was just a plain, white … naked … rabbit.”
“Why do you think it needs to be hunted?” Sam asked.
“Sam!” Dean threw up his hands. “Horror movies! Anything that crawls out of the tv and creeps around the house needs to die!”
Sam shrugged because he couldn’t argue with the logic of that. “Okay, so if you’re right, and there is some kind of monster rabbit loose in the bunker, you don’t want to shoot it.”
“Why not?” Dean asked.
“Because … “ Sam scrambled for an excuse to take a loaded gun away from his brother who was too stoned to aim properly. “Remember when we hunted those Dire Capybaras that had been sold as extra large Guinea Pigs? We had to stab them, with an iron knife? This is probably something similar.”
“Yeah.” Dean nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.”
He put his gun down on the table and stood. “I’d better get us a couple knives out of the armory. Why don’t you hit the lore and see if you can figure out what we’re dealing with.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “What we’re dealing with is you on pain meds.” He said under his breath.
Sam went to the library, pulled two books off the shelves, left them open on the table, and went to make sure Dean wasn’t getting grenades or something else equally dangerous out of the armory.
Dean had two iron knives on the table, as well as a crossbow with iron tipped arrows, a taser, holy water, and some throwing stars.
“So get this.” Sam said, sliding the crossbow out of reach. “I think I know what we’re dealing with. And we’re not going to need any of this.”
“Okay, so what is it?” Dean asked.
“A Pooka.” Sam told him.
“A Pooka?” Dean repeated.
“A Pooka.” Sam confirmed. “It’s an Irish animal spirit. You said you saw it as a white rabbit, right?”
“Yeah?” Dean frowned.
“Okay, that’s good.” Sam said. “If it appears as a white animal, then it’s benevolent. If it appears black, then it’s evil.”
“So a good rabbit monster crawled out of my tv?” Dean raised an eyebrow at his brother.
“It’s not … “ Sam shifted his weight from one foot to the other and gestured with his hands. “It’s not a monster, really. It’s a spirit creature. And it can be good or evil.”
“How did an Irish rabbit creature crawl out of my tv in Kansas?” Dean asked.
“The same way an okami turned up in South Dakota, I guess.” Sam answered.
“Okay, so how do we get rid of it?” Dean asked.
“If they’re white, they usually want you to give them a drink and listen to them tell a story.” Sam said. “If you are friendly and drink with them and listen, they will disappear without saying goodbye, and give you good luck when they go. If they’re black, then they want to cause harm.”
“Sounds like my kind of rabbit.” Dean said. “So if we find this thing, and drink with it, and listen to it talk, then maybe it would help me pass the kidney stone?”
“Well, it could.” Sam shrugged.
“All right then.” Dean rubbed his hands together. “Let’s go get Bunny O’Rabbit some whiskey.”
They went back to the kitchen, where Sam got a bottle of Evan Williams and three cups. With Dean leading the way, they set out down the hall.
Dean was in full tracking mode, even if he was slightly swaying on his feet. He stopped at every doorway and looked in for the rabbit.
Sam hung back slightly, letting Dean get far enough ahead that Sam was able to film Dean as he crept clumsily along, not so softly calling out “Here Pooka, Pooka, Pooka.”
When Dean passed the bedroom next to the one Cas used, Sam slipped in and slammed the closet door.
He was standing just inside the room when Dean came rushing in, catching himself on the doorframe before he fell.
“Did you get him?” Dean asked.
Sam motioned for Dean to keep his voice down. “He went into the closet.”
Dean headed for the closet door, but Sam grabbed his arm.
“You don’t want to scare him.” Sam explained. “Remember, if he turns black … “
“Yeah,” Dean nodded. “So what do we do?”
“Let’s sit down and have a drink.” Sam motioned toward the bed. “We’ll see if he comes out to join us.”
Sam poured just a tiny splash of whiskey in a glass and handed it to Dean.
“Dude, seriously?” Dean asked.
“We can’t drink it all before he comes out.” Sam said. “What if he tells a long story and we have to refill a few times?”
“Yeah, this is why you’re the smart one.” Dean nodded, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
Sam poured a little more whiskey in a second glass, which he put about halfway between the bed and the closet. He then poured himself some, and sat down by Dean.
“How are you feeling?” Sam asked softly.
“I’m good.” Dean shrugged, yawning. “Pain meds are working.”
“Good.” Sam told him.
“I’m glad the Easter Bunny isn’t evil.” Dean continued. “I like those frigging cream eggs and it would suck if we had to kill him.”
“Like Garth had to kill the Tooth Fairy?” Sam reminded him.
“Yeah.” Dean barked out a short laugh. “I didn’t know there was a real Tooth Fairy. I wouldn’t have spent so much time scrounging change to put under your pillow if I thought a real fairy would have done it.”
“I know.” Sam said, knowing Dean was probably too stoned to remember any of this later. “I’m glad you did. You tried to give me as much of a normal childhood as possible.”
“Normal?” Dean snorted. “You believed in the Easter Bunny until you were eleven and a half.”
“Only because someone kept filling up my Easter basket every year.” Sam smiled at him.
“Yeah.” Dean sipped his drink. “But you were so cute when you were all excited about it. And you shared your candy with me.”
Sam sipped his own drink and didn’t comment, not trusting his voice not to break at the moment.
“Sweet little Sammy.” Dean teased, yawning again. “You were such a good little kid. Then you grew up to be a smart mouthed Sasquatch.”
“At least I didn’t grow up to be a big jerk.” Sam said.
“Nah, just a bitch.” Dean answered, leaning his head against Sam’s shoulder.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, until Sam felt Dean’s breathing even out.
He took the glass from Dean’s hand and gently eased his sleeping brother onto the bed.
Sam gathered up the glasses and bottle, took them to the kitchen, and then sneaked to Dean’s room to steal one of those chocolate eggs.