And She Was, for OhSam
I don't even know what tickled my muse on this one. It's a mystery. Will probably always be, but there you have it!
Title: 'And She Was'
Characters: Sam and Dean
Wordcount: ~3,200
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: language, boobs, genderswap
Summary: The one where Sam has cause to hate witches as much as Dean does. Or maybe not.
Notes: Written for an anonymous Triple Play prompt at ohsam: "1. Author's choice 2. Dean 3. Genderswap.... specifically, Sam grows bewbs and they hurt." Set sometime early in Show. Season One or Two, likely. Not that important. No beta; all mistakes and absurdity are mine mine mine. Title from The Talking Heads.
Dean took the corner too fast, slammed off the alley wall but kept his boots under him. The smell of dumpster and urine hit him like a fist and he nearly wiped out in a greasy puddle. His breath ached in his chest and he’d lost his gun and goddammit, he couldn’t hear Sam for all his wheezing.
“Sam!” he barked, hands on his knees, winded. Sam wasn’t a gazelle but he had legs two yards long and should’ve been keeping up. Easily. “Shit, man, where are you?”
The whole coven had been hot on their heels in a pimped out Mustang and on-foot; they didn’t have time for Sam’s dicking around. Dean pushed off the bricks and risked a glance around the corner, his blood still pounding in his ears. The street was dark and empty. No Sam, but no witches, either. Fan-fucking-tastic.
He hoped upon hope that at some point, Sam had simply taken a different turn. Wasn’t a bad idea really, splitting up, forcing Sabrina and her teen-aged serial killers to split their ranks as well. Dean wiped his forehead on a sleeve and headed out the back of the alley, still winded but if he didn’t find Sam, he’d probably implode from the vacuum left by his brother’s absence. Stupid ingrained response.
At a cautious lope, he circled back around, eyes peeled for the Mustang. They hadn’t gotten a motel yet, so Dean had to assume Sam would make his way back to the Impala; the witches didn’t know where they’d parked Baby so it’d be the smart thing to do.
Two blocks and zero interruptions later, Dean approached the spot where they’d left the car. Streetlights cast dubious shadows across the graffiti-stained buildings that framed the parking lot. Music issued from one of the buildings, small and tinny, a radio playing from an open window.
“Sam,” he hissed. “SAM.”
The wind moaned in response. Or maybe it was a stray dog.
Or the dark mass huddling by the Impala.
Dean’s belly curdled and he hustled to the lump which he noted, as he neared, was wearing Sam’s plaid. His brother was crouched and possibly retching, Dean couldn’t be sure. The sounds coming from him vacillated between guttural coughs and painful keens.
“Sammy, look at me,” Dean ordered. He got a hand around Sam’s shoulder and nearly jerked back when the shoulder shifted like bones grinding in a sack of skin.
“Deeeeean,” Sam wailed, and Dean stuffed back panic, grabbing two fistfuls of shirt and hauling Sam to his feet.
“You bleeding?”
“N-no …”
He spun Sam around and stared at him. Hard. Apart from the expected pinched expression of pain, Sam looked unharmed and solid. Must’ve been the panic playing tricks with Dean’s brain. “Great. Get in the car. Let’s put space between us and them, and then we’ll deal with this.”
Sam nodded, or shuddered, possibly both, and fell into the shotgun seat as soon as Dean got the door open. They left rubber on the pavement as they tore out of town.
Once the Impala hit the solace and speed of the highway, Dean felt some tiny bit of the tension leech out of his spine. Sam had been suspiciously quiet, twisted in on himself and hidden behind his hair. Dean half-wished Sam was still moaning or wincing or doing any of his typical responses to injury. This weird hush left too much of an opening for the other shoe to drop.
“Hey,” Dean said. “Alright, so what’s going on? What’d you hurt?”
“Dunno,” Sam told him tightly. “Feel strange.”
“Stranger than usual?”
When Sam didn’t shoot back a “Fuck you,” Dean knew it was serious.
Dean readjusted his grip on the wheel. “We need to pull over? You gonna hurl? Because if you puke in my car-”
Sam sucked in breath and rubbed his palms on his thighs.
The sound drew a sharp glance from Dean. The strobing shadows were messing with his eyes and made it look as though Sam was practically vibrating. It’s the goddamn shadows. But just in case, Dean started watching for safe places to pull over: an exit; rest stop; hell, a scenic overlook.
He had to settle for an abandoned weigh station when Sam began clawing to get out of the car, not thirty seconds later.
The Impala was still rolling as Sam shoved open the door and staggered out. He caught himself on his palms just short of face-planting, careening off towards the derelict station. Dean braked and slammed Baby into park, yelling for Sam even before leaving the car. Sam wasn't hurking, at least. He was stumbling, unspooling beneath the pallor of a half-moon. Shaking out his arms as if they'd fallen asleep. Tweaking in a way Dean had never seen before, even when Sam’d been drying out from demon blood.
"The fuck," Dean said under his breath and jogged after, gravel crushing under his boots like bones.
Sam was having none of it. "Just … don't. I need-" He twitched, clearly didn't know what he needed, and shook his head to warn Dean away.
As much as it galled him, Dean stopped, hands fisted. Sam expected him to just stand there? Watch him unravel from this hex or curse or whatever the fuck one of those goddamned witches had thrown at him? Wasn't going to happen. "Just ... just ride it out, Sammy. We'll call Bobby and he'll stick his nose into a two-ton book and come up with the cure-all. But you gotta talk to me, tell me what's going on."
Sam scratched at his arms, shoved his hands through his hair. Couldn't settle. "Doesn't feel right ... in my skin."
Now that Dean took pause and forced himself to analyze, it didn’t look right, either. Something sharp and alien was happening to Sam’s face, and it wasn’t just the fear plastered there. Dean took a step forward, palms down in a gesture meant to soothe. Sam backed away and Dean stopped again.
The next hour was spent with Sam pacing on the far side of the decaying parcel of concrete that used to be the weigh station. Dean kept his distance, sitting on the bumper of the Impala or the curb or the ground, amidst weedy grass coming up through the cracks. He leaned on a tire and watched as Sam kept up at a restless wander, back and forth and back again, the constant ache of concern sitting in Dean’s chest. Dawn was bleaching the sky pale when Sam finally slowed down and swayed like a reed.
Dean stood up too fast and his knees popped, head swam, but he got to his brother in time, before Sam cracked his melon on the concrete.
Sam wasn’t as heavy as he should’ve been, less dense; Dean had hauled Sam's ass around enough to know. He grunted and lowered him to the ground before they both fell, tits over teakettle.
“Sam? Sammy, come on, man.” Dean swiped a hank of hair off Sam’s face and set several sharp, but ineffectual, slaps to his cheek … his delicate cheek. Shit, his face was practically elven, Dean didn’t know how better to put it. Androgynous, yet still ‘Sam’ but thinned and fragile, a narrower jaw that was smooth, suddenly unshadowed by even a hint of stubble although neither of them had had the luxury of a razor in the past three days. His brow was soft and slack in unconsciousness and … and his sideburns were gone. His precious sideburns were no more. That struck Dean as doubly bizarre. He placed a pair of fingers to Sam's throat and tracked his fluttering pulse.
The dew was falling, adding clamminess to the panic, and Dean didn’t want to be out in the open any longer than necessary. He wanted to be off the road and somewhere safe, where he could think on this with the help of a phone call to Bobby Singer and a bottle of Jack.
Sam’s clothing billowed as Dean slung him over his shoulder. He tromped back to Baby, put Sam in the back seat with his knees drawn up to his chin, and didn’t stop driving until the Motel 6 just outside of Pigeon Forge.
The birds were fucking mocking him with their morning song as he tried to be inconspicuous about carrying Sam into the room. The last thing he needed was the cops called by some nosy Good Samaritan. His back twinged and he was exhausted with worry and good old-fashioned physical fatigue. He was getting too old for this.
Sam barely stirred when Dean flopped him onto the bed closest to the bathroom. His breathing had finally evened out and he curled with a sigh into the coarse polyester bedspread, hands tucked between his knees like he was taking a goddamned nap.
Dean sat on the edge of his own bed, watching. Wearily wondering what was happening and what the hell to do next. He should call Bobby but it was barely 6 a.m. He should take a handful of aspirin but his body wasn't on board with moving. Before he knew it, neither of those things had come to pass and he'd drifted prone, his mouth flapped open. He woke himself up with his own snoring and the sounds of Sam grumbling out of bed, shuffling his way to the bathroom to piss.
And then some chick was swearing a blue streak. From inside the bathroom.
Dean lurched awake in a hot second. He was still grabbing for his gun, which had bruised a trench in the small of his back, when the bathroom door flew open and a woman in Sam's clothes-well, most of Sam's clothes-was staring wild-eyed around the room. Sam's plaid shirt hung to the middle if her thighs and his jeans sat in a pile by the bathtub. Her glare hooked on Dean and she said to him, voice clipped, deliberate, and familiar: "It's. Gone."
"S-Sam?"
"Yes, Dean. It's me. With one. Major. Exception."
Dean blinked the grit from his eyes. So, not a 'her.' Him. Sammy, sans ... little Sammy, he construed. Dean almost let absurd laughter bubble out, though none of this was funny. Much. "I ... whoa."
"Don't. Even." Sam threatened, and shit if it didn't sound more dangerous coming from those lips.
It was dusk; they’d slept the day away. Though Bobby bitched about the phoned interruption to his fine TV dinner, he listened to Dean’s recount of the hunt and reasoned that Sam’s delicate situation was probably temporary. There were no indications of hex bags, sigils or blood magicks, or anything really that might’ve indicated that the transformation was permanent. It would just be a nuisance for a day or three so Bobby counseled them to stay put, wait it out. And next time, Dean, don’t call witches “bitch”, even the ones with dicks. Idjit. To which Sam shot Dean the most poisonous, narrow-eyed glare ever.
The expression took on a whole new level of venom, what with Sam’s newly feminized features. The finely curved brow and cheekbones, the almost feline eyes. Mouth, pulled tight and pissed off but flush with blood and-
“Quit fucking staring, Dean,” Sam spit out, the sleeves of his shirt flapping as he pointed a slender, accusatory finger.
Dean wanted to feel guilty, he really did. “Alright, alright. Don’t get your panties in a-”
“Finish that sentence and die.”
There was no winning this, Dean realized, much to his malicious amusement. He’d always poked Sam about being a princess but to see it actualized was … was something of a twisted gift. At least Sam wasn’t twitchy and in pain any longer; if all they had to do was kill time for a few days, it was a small price to pay for a hunt gone ass-backward. Witches - 1, Winchesters - 0. Next time, they’d leave the witch-hunting to some other dumb schmuck. “You hungry? I’m hungry.”
Sam huffed, pawed his hair off his face only to have it flop back into ridiculously artful curls. “I can’t exactly go anywhere like this so you’ll have to make a food run.”
“Why?”
“What?” Sam gaped, incredulous. “Why leave the hotel room when I look like I’m wearing someone else’s clothes and skin? Really?”
Dean lifted his hands in a graceless gesture. “No one will know but us. It’s not like you’ve got a third eye in the middle of your forehead or … or a hunchback or whatever. You’re …”
Sam stared him dead in the face and dared him to finish the sentence. Dean was often foolhardy, but not suicidal. Not today, anyway.
“Fine.” Dean let out a long sigh. “You want jalapeños on your half of the pizza? Or you want a salad? You know, watching your girlish figure and all.”
“I hate you.”
oOo
Sam spent the better part of his time alone avoiding reflective surfaces. Whenever he caught a glimpse of himself in the tarnished mirror over the desk, he freaked out just a little. All right, a lot. He’d never been particularly attracted to skinny, flat-chested boyish women, so to be one, all of a sudden, was nothing short of disturbing. He felt hollowed out, like a good stiff wind would bully him around. His top-heavy mass was gone, though he supposed by feminine standards, he was broad-shouldered and sinewy.
Wearing jeans was hopeless but Dean’s sweatpants seemed to stay put, and he refused to ponder the disappearance of his dick; that was just too much right now. Sam cuffed his sleeves a half-dozen times and sat, slump-shouldered, on a bed with his laptop resting on his knees while he tapped into the motel’s wireless and killed time. He almost didn’t notice the growing ache in his chest until he found himself rubbing his own breasts.
He pulled his hand away like he’d touched a hot stove. What. The Fuck. This was something he’d catch Dean doing, for god’s sake. Even if Sam had good cause because his chest hurt like burning and felt tight. Inflammed. Swelling-
Sam pushed aside the laptop and scrambled to the mirror. He fumbled with the buttons of his flannel and peeled back the fabric and stared.
So much for the ‘flat-chested’ condition. Adding insult to injury, they throbbed feverishly and had gained actual weight when Sam wasn’t paying attention, gravity effecting them in unfamiliar ways. B-cups, he supposed, based on anecdotal evidence. Sam groaned miserably and his cheeks flushed hot with renewed mortification.
“Kill me now,” he groaned. He turned in profile but couldn’t force himself to stand up straight.
When the motel door rattled, Sam clutched his shirt and spun around, cringing, buttoning up clumsily before he could give Dean any more fodder for teasing.
“Picked up beer, too. Figured we’d need it,” Dean announced as the door slammed and Sam composed himself. The sweet, sweet smell of cheesy grease and garlic filled the room and in spite of itself, Sam’s stomach practically thundered.
“Good. Gimme.” Sam took a breath before turning around to snatch the six-pack from Dean. God, he needed a beer. He cracked a bottle, downing several healthy swallows before he realized Dean was staring. Again. It was becoming a thoroughly aggravating habit. Sam pointed from his budding breasts to his face. “Eyes, up here. Jerk.”
Dean made several abortive attempts at backpedaling before he just shrugged, walked over to Sam and got himself his own beer. “Can you blame me? Come on, Sammy. Don’t tell me you haven’t checked ‘em out.”
“No!” he snapped, too quickly. Dean smiled, showing all his teeth, and Sam knew he had to be blushing right up to the tips of his ears. "Besides, they're mine."
"Aw, come on. One squeeze."
"Seriously?"
"A peek?"
"Bite me." Sam flipped open the pizza box.
Dean was grinning and relentless. "In three days, they'll be gone. In three months, we won't even remember this happened."
"Creep."
"I don't wanna make out with you, for crissakes! Just ... just take a look. What'll it hurt, Sammy?"
Sam whirled away and the very act of twisting made him hiss from the unexpected sting. He swore they felt poisoned, like over-grown spider bites. On his chest.
"They hurt, okay?" Sam couldn't keep the whine out of his voice, higher and more plaintive than expected, but it wiped the leer clean off of Dean's face. His brother actually managed to seem contrite for about 1.35 seconds. And then it was gone.
"Can I just--"
Sam finished the last of his beer like his life depended on it. Or rather, as though Dean's life did.
oOo
The pizza and beer went a long way to improving Sam's disposition and after he'd popped a couple of Ibuprofen, he was propped up against the headboard with hazy eyes and Dean finally allowed himself some conviction that this stupid curse-or spell or whatever it was-would go the hell away. And even if it didn't, well, there were worse case scenarios. Sam might've hated to admit it, but he made a decent-looking chick. He was leggy and the smarts flashed in his gaze, and when he laughed, he still threw down the dimples. He moved gingerly because his tits were still giving him grief, and though Dean couldn't exactly relate to that particular lament, pain was pain.
Sam didn't complain about hurting. Dean's bad jokes and table manners? All the time. But pain? Not so much, so when Sam did think to mention it, or even wince outwardly, it was a pain worth noting.
"Hey, Sam."
"Hmm?"
“How you feelin’?”
Sam just rolled his eyes.
"Why don't you take the first shower," Dean said.
Sam's lips parted and he blinked his dark lashes, clearly not realizing how girly it made him look. "For real? You'd give up your turn? Who are you and what did you do with the real Dean Winchester?"
"I'm just awesome like that," Dean said with a magnanimous nod. "Ladies first."
"Nice."
"No, really. The hot water'll probably help, you know-" he gestured in circles across his chest "-the headlights."
Sam scowled initially but his brow smoothed out as he seemed to consider the truth of Dean's suggestion. And then he smiled, all fucking white-toothed and pink-lipped, and clambered out of the bed. "Don't mind if I do."
"You're welcome," Dean said to the shutting door. But he found himself smiling too, around the rim of a beer bottle.
Within minutes, he heard the spray of water, muted. Dean stood up, stretched until his spine popped with relief. Tension flowed out of him like a tide. He located the TV remote and was sitting on the edge of a bed, toeing off his boots, when the bathroom door cracked open. "You forget your loofa or what?"
"Dean."
"Yeah?" He looked over, pulling a sock by the toe.
Sam was standing in the now-open doorway, his expression unfathomable. Steam rolled out around him and he shifted his weight, such as it was, from one bare foot to the other, his fingers toying with the hem of his shirt. The humidity made ringlets of his hair.
"Sam?"
With one gliding move, he pulled his shirt overhead, flashing Dean a pair of plush, sun-tanned breasts, punctuated by modest but eminently pinch-able nipples, the color of plums. His belly was tight and smooth over the boxers that just barely hung on the swell of his hips. "Don't say I never gave you anything," he told Dean, just before slamming the door again.
Now it was Dean's turn to blink. In three days, they’d be gone. In three month … nope. Dean wasn’t gonna forget this.
Title: 'And She Was'
Characters: Sam and Dean
Wordcount: ~3,200
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: language, boobs, genderswap
Summary: The one where Sam has cause to hate witches as much as Dean does. Or maybe not.
Notes: Written for an anonymous Triple Play prompt at ohsam: "1. Author's choice 2. Dean 3. Genderswap.... specifically, Sam grows bewbs and they hurt." Set sometime early in Show. Season One or Two, likely. Not that important. No beta; all mistakes and absurdity are mine mine mine. Title from The Talking Heads.
Dean took the corner too fast, slammed off the alley wall but kept his boots under him. The smell of dumpster and urine hit him like a fist and he nearly wiped out in a greasy puddle. His breath ached in his chest and he’d lost his gun and goddammit, he couldn’t hear Sam for all his wheezing.
“Sam!” he barked, hands on his knees, winded. Sam wasn’t a gazelle but he had legs two yards long and should’ve been keeping up. Easily. “Shit, man, where are you?”
The whole coven had been hot on their heels in a pimped out Mustang and on-foot; they didn’t have time for Sam’s dicking around. Dean pushed off the bricks and risked a glance around the corner, his blood still pounding in his ears. The street was dark and empty. No Sam, but no witches, either. Fan-fucking-tastic.
He hoped upon hope that at some point, Sam had simply taken a different turn. Wasn’t a bad idea really, splitting up, forcing Sabrina and her teen-aged serial killers to split their ranks as well. Dean wiped his forehead on a sleeve and headed out the back of the alley, still winded but if he didn’t find Sam, he’d probably implode from the vacuum left by his brother’s absence. Stupid ingrained response.
At a cautious lope, he circled back around, eyes peeled for the Mustang. They hadn’t gotten a motel yet, so Dean had to assume Sam would make his way back to the Impala; the witches didn’t know where they’d parked Baby so it’d be the smart thing to do.
Two blocks and zero interruptions later, Dean approached the spot where they’d left the car. Streetlights cast dubious shadows across the graffiti-stained buildings that framed the parking lot. Music issued from one of the buildings, small and tinny, a radio playing from an open window.
“Sam,” he hissed. “SAM.”
The wind moaned in response. Or maybe it was a stray dog.
Or the dark mass huddling by the Impala.
Dean’s belly curdled and he hustled to the lump which he noted, as he neared, was wearing Sam’s plaid. His brother was crouched and possibly retching, Dean couldn’t be sure. The sounds coming from him vacillated between guttural coughs and painful keens.
“Sammy, look at me,” Dean ordered. He got a hand around Sam’s shoulder and nearly jerked back when the shoulder shifted like bones grinding in a sack of skin.
“Deeeeean,” Sam wailed, and Dean stuffed back panic, grabbing two fistfuls of shirt and hauling Sam to his feet.
“You bleeding?”
“N-no …”
He spun Sam around and stared at him. Hard. Apart from the expected pinched expression of pain, Sam looked unharmed and solid. Must’ve been the panic playing tricks with Dean’s brain. “Great. Get in the car. Let’s put space between us and them, and then we’ll deal with this.”
Sam nodded, or shuddered, possibly both, and fell into the shotgun seat as soon as Dean got the door open. They left rubber on the pavement as they tore out of town.
Once the Impala hit the solace and speed of the highway, Dean felt some tiny bit of the tension leech out of his spine. Sam had been suspiciously quiet, twisted in on himself and hidden behind his hair. Dean half-wished Sam was still moaning or wincing or doing any of his typical responses to injury. This weird hush left too much of an opening for the other shoe to drop.
“Hey,” Dean said. “Alright, so what’s going on? What’d you hurt?”
“Dunno,” Sam told him tightly. “Feel strange.”
“Stranger than usual?”
When Sam didn’t shoot back a “Fuck you,” Dean knew it was serious.
Dean readjusted his grip on the wheel. “We need to pull over? You gonna hurl? Because if you puke in my car-”
Sam sucked in breath and rubbed his palms on his thighs.
The sound drew a sharp glance from Dean. The strobing shadows were messing with his eyes and made it look as though Sam was practically vibrating. It’s the goddamn shadows. But just in case, Dean started watching for safe places to pull over: an exit; rest stop; hell, a scenic overlook.
He had to settle for an abandoned weigh station when Sam began clawing to get out of the car, not thirty seconds later.
The Impala was still rolling as Sam shoved open the door and staggered out. He caught himself on his palms just short of face-planting, careening off towards the derelict station. Dean braked and slammed Baby into park, yelling for Sam even before leaving the car. Sam wasn't hurking, at least. He was stumbling, unspooling beneath the pallor of a half-moon. Shaking out his arms as if they'd fallen asleep. Tweaking in a way Dean had never seen before, even when Sam’d been drying out from demon blood.
"The fuck," Dean said under his breath and jogged after, gravel crushing under his boots like bones.
Sam was having none of it. "Just … don't. I need-" He twitched, clearly didn't know what he needed, and shook his head to warn Dean away.
As much as it galled him, Dean stopped, hands fisted. Sam expected him to just stand there? Watch him unravel from this hex or curse or whatever the fuck one of those goddamned witches had thrown at him? Wasn't going to happen. "Just ... just ride it out, Sammy. We'll call Bobby and he'll stick his nose into a two-ton book and come up with the cure-all. But you gotta talk to me, tell me what's going on."
Sam scratched at his arms, shoved his hands through his hair. Couldn't settle. "Doesn't feel right ... in my skin."
Now that Dean took pause and forced himself to analyze, it didn’t look right, either. Something sharp and alien was happening to Sam’s face, and it wasn’t just the fear plastered there. Dean took a step forward, palms down in a gesture meant to soothe. Sam backed away and Dean stopped again.
The next hour was spent with Sam pacing on the far side of the decaying parcel of concrete that used to be the weigh station. Dean kept his distance, sitting on the bumper of the Impala or the curb or the ground, amidst weedy grass coming up through the cracks. He leaned on a tire and watched as Sam kept up at a restless wander, back and forth and back again, the constant ache of concern sitting in Dean’s chest. Dawn was bleaching the sky pale when Sam finally slowed down and swayed like a reed.
Dean stood up too fast and his knees popped, head swam, but he got to his brother in time, before Sam cracked his melon on the concrete.
Sam wasn’t as heavy as he should’ve been, less dense; Dean had hauled Sam's ass around enough to know. He grunted and lowered him to the ground before they both fell, tits over teakettle.
“Sam? Sammy, come on, man.” Dean swiped a hank of hair off Sam’s face and set several sharp, but ineffectual, slaps to his cheek … his delicate cheek. Shit, his face was practically elven, Dean didn’t know how better to put it. Androgynous, yet still ‘Sam’ but thinned and fragile, a narrower jaw that was smooth, suddenly unshadowed by even a hint of stubble although neither of them had had the luxury of a razor in the past three days. His brow was soft and slack in unconsciousness and … and his sideburns were gone. His precious sideburns were no more. That struck Dean as doubly bizarre. He placed a pair of fingers to Sam's throat and tracked his fluttering pulse.
The dew was falling, adding clamminess to the panic, and Dean didn’t want to be out in the open any longer than necessary. He wanted to be off the road and somewhere safe, where he could think on this with the help of a phone call to Bobby Singer and a bottle of Jack.
Sam’s clothing billowed as Dean slung him over his shoulder. He tromped back to Baby, put Sam in the back seat with his knees drawn up to his chin, and didn’t stop driving until the Motel 6 just outside of Pigeon Forge.
The birds were fucking mocking him with their morning song as he tried to be inconspicuous about carrying Sam into the room. The last thing he needed was the cops called by some nosy Good Samaritan. His back twinged and he was exhausted with worry and good old-fashioned physical fatigue. He was getting too old for this.
Sam barely stirred when Dean flopped him onto the bed closest to the bathroom. His breathing had finally evened out and he curled with a sigh into the coarse polyester bedspread, hands tucked between his knees like he was taking a goddamned nap.
Dean sat on the edge of his own bed, watching. Wearily wondering what was happening and what the hell to do next. He should call Bobby but it was barely 6 a.m. He should take a handful of aspirin but his body wasn't on board with moving. Before he knew it, neither of those things had come to pass and he'd drifted prone, his mouth flapped open. He woke himself up with his own snoring and the sounds of Sam grumbling out of bed, shuffling his way to the bathroom to piss.
And then some chick was swearing a blue streak. From inside the bathroom.
Dean lurched awake in a hot second. He was still grabbing for his gun, which had bruised a trench in the small of his back, when the bathroom door flew open and a woman in Sam's clothes-well, most of Sam's clothes-was staring wild-eyed around the room. Sam's plaid shirt hung to the middle if her thighs and his jeans sat in a pile by the bathtub. Her glare hooked on Dean and she said to him, voice clipped, deliberate, and familiar: "It's. Gone."
"S-Sam?"
"Yes, Dean. It's me. With one. Major. Exception."
Dean blinked the grit from his eyes. So, not a 'her.' Him. Sammy, sans ... little Sammy, he construed. Dean almost let absurd laughter bubble out, though none of this was funny. Much. "I ... whoa."
"Don't. Even." Sam threatened, and shit if it didn't sound more dangerous coming from those lips.
It was dusk; they’d slept the day away. Though Bobby bitched about the phoned interruption to his fine TV dinner, he listened to Dean’s recount of the hunt and reasoned that Sam’s delicate situation was probably temporary. There were no indications of hex bags, sigils or blood magicks, or anything really that might’ve indicated that the transformation was permanent. It would just be a nuisance for a day or three so Bobby counseled them to stay put, wait it out. And next time, Dean, don’t call witches “bitch”, even the ones with dicks. Idjit. To which Sam shot Dean the most poisonous, narrow-eyed glare ever.
The expression took on a whole new level of venom, what with Sam’s newly feminized features. The finely curved brow and cheekbones, the almost feline eyes. Mouth, pulled tight and pissed off but flush with blood and-
“Quit fucking staring, Dean,” Sam spit out, the sleeves of his shirt flapping as he pointed a slender, accusatory finger.
Dean wanted to feel guilty, he really did. “Alright, alright. Don’t get your panties in a-”
“Finish that sentence and die.”
There was no winning this, Dean realized, much to his malicious amusement. He’d always poked Sam about being a princess but to see it actualized was … was something of a twisted gift. At least Sam wasn’t twitchy and in pain any longer; if all they had to do was kill time for a few days, it was a small price to pay for a hunt gone ass-backward. Witches - 1, Winchesters - 0. Next time, they’d leave the witch-hunting to some other dumb schmuck. “You hungry? I’m hungry.”
Sam huffed, pawed his hair off his face only to have it flop back into ridiculously artful curls. “I can’t exactly go anywhere like this so you’ll have to make a food run.”
“Why?”
“What?” Sam gaped, incredulous. “Why leave the hotel room when I look like I’m wearing someone else’s clothes and skin? Really?”
Dean lifted his hands in a graceless gesture. “No one will know but us. It’s not like you’ve got a third eye in the middle of your forehead or … or a hunchback or whatever. You’re …”
Sam stared him dead in the face and dared him to finish the sentence. Dean was often foolhardy, but not suicidal. Not today, anyway.
“Fine.” Dean let out a long sigh. “You want jalapeños on your half of the pizza? Or you want a salad? You know, watching your girlish figure and all.”
“I hate you.”
oOo
Sam spent the better part of his time alone avoiding reflective surfaces. Whenever he caught a glimpse of himself in the tarnished mirror over the desk, he freaked out just a little. All right, a lot. He’d never been particularly attracted to skinny, flat-chested boyish women, so to be one, all of a sudden, was nothing short of disturbing. He felt hollowed out, like a good stiff wind would bully him around. His top-heavy mass was gone, though he supposed by feminine standards, he was broad-shouldered and sinewy.
Wearing jeans was hopeless but Dean’s sweatpants seemed to stay put, and he refused to ponder the disappearance of his dick; that was just too much right now. Sam cuffed his sleeves a half-dozen times and sat, slump-shouldered, on a bed with his laptop resting on his knees while he tapped into the motel’s wireless and killed time. He almost didn’t notice the growing ache in his chest until he found himself rubbing his own breasts.
He pulled his hand away like he’d touched a hot stove. What. The Fuck. This was something he’d catch Dean doing, for god’s sake. Even if Sam had good cause because his chest hurt like burning and felt tight. Inflammed. Swelling-
Sam pushed aside the laptop and scrambled to the mirror. He fumbled with the buttons of his flannel and peeled back the fabric and stared.
So much for the ‘flat-chested’ condition. Adding insult to injury, they throbbed feverishly and had gained actual weight when Sam wasn’t paying attention, gravity effecting them in unfamiliar ways. B-cups, he supposed, based on anecdotal evidence. Sam groaned miserably and his cheeks flushed hot with renewed mortification.
“Kill me now,” he groaned. He turned in profile but couldn’t force himself to stand up straight.
When the motel door rattled, Sam clutched his shirt and spun around, cringing, buttoning up clumsily before he could give Dean any more fodder for teasing.
“Picked up beer, too. Figured we’d need it,” Dean announced as the door slammed and Sam composed himself. The sweet, sweet smell of cheesy grease and garlic filled the room and in spite of itself, Sam’s stomach practically thundered.
“Good. Gimme.” Sam took a breath before turning around to snatch the six-pack from Dean. God, he needed a beer. He cracked a bottle, downing several healthy swallows before he realized Dean was staring. Again. It was becoming a thoroughly aggravating habit. Sam pointed from his budding breasts to his face. “Eyes, up here. Jerk.”
Dean made several abortive attempts at backpedaling before he just shrugged, walked over to Sam and got himself his own beer. “Can you blame me? Come on, Sammy. Don’t tell me you haven’t checked ‘em out.”
“No!” he snapped, too quickly. Dean smiled, showing all his teeth, and Sam knew he had to be blushing right up to the tips of his ears. "Besides, they're mine."
"Aw, come on. One squeeze."
"Seriously?"
"A peek?"
"Bite me." Sam flipped open the pizza box.
Dean was grinning and relentless. "In three days, they'll be gone. In three months, we won't even remember this happened."
"Creep."
"I don't wanna make out with you, for crissakes! Just ... just take a look. What'll it hurt, Sammy?"
Sam whirled away and the very act of twisting made him hiss from the unexpected sting. He swore they felt poisoned, like over-grown spider bites. On his chest.
"They hurt, okay?" Sam couldn't keep the whine out of his voice, higher and more plaintive than expected, but it wiped the leer clean off of Dean's face. His brother actually managed to seem contrite for about 1.35 seconds. And then it was gone.
"Can I just--"
Sam finished the last of his beer like his life depended on it. Or rather, as though Dean's life did.
oOo
The pizza and beer went a long way to improving Sam's disposition and after he'd popped a couple of Ibuprofen, he was propped up against the headboard with hazy eyes and Dean finally allowed himself some conviction that this stupid curse-or spell or whatever it was-would go the hell away. And even if it didn't, well, there were worse case scenarios. Sam might've hated to admit it, but he made a decent-looking chick. He was leggy and the smarts flashed in his gaze, and when he laughed, he still threw down the dimples. He moved gingerly because his tits were still giving him grief, and though Dean couldn't exactly relate to that particular lament, pain was pain.
Sam didn't complain about hurting. Dean's bad jokes and table manners? All the time. But pain? Not so much, so when Sam did think to mention it, or even wince outwardly, it was a pain worth noting.
"Hey, Sam."
"Hmm?"
“How you feelin’?”
Sam just rolled his eyes.
"Why don't you take the first shower," Dean said.
Sam's lips parted and he blinked his dark lashes, clearly not realizing how girly it made him look. "For real? You'd give up your turn? Who are you and what did you do with the real Dean Winchester?"
"I'm just awesome like that," Dean said with a magnanimous nod. "Ladies first."
"Nice."
"No, really. The hot water'll probably help, you know-" he gestured in circles across his chest "-the headlights."
Sam scowled initially but his brow smoothed out as he seemed to consider the truth of Dean's suggestion. And then he smiled, all fucking white-toothed and pink-lipped, and clambered out of the bed. "Don't mind if I do."
"You're welcome," Dean said to the shutting door. But he found himself smiling too, around the rim of a beer bottle.
Within minutes, he heard the spray of water, muted. Dean stood up, stretched until his spine popped with relief. Tension flowed out of him like a tide. He located the TV remote and was sitting on the edge of a bed, toeing off his boots, when the bathroom door cracked open. "You forget your loofa or what?"
"Dean."
"Yeah?" He looked over, pulling a sock by the toe.
Sam was standing in the now-open doorway, his expression unfathomable. Steam rolled out around him and he shifted his weight, such as it was, from one bare foot to the other, his fingers toying with the hem of his shirt. The humidity made ringlets of his hair.
"Sam?"
With one gliding move, he pulled his shirt overhead, flashing Dean a pair of plush, sun-tanned breasts, punctuated by modest but eminently pinch-able nipples, the color of plums. His belly was tight and smooth over the boxers that just barely hung on the swell of his hips. "Don't say I never gave you anything," he told Dean, just before slamming the door again.
Now it was Dean's turn to blink. In three days, they’d be gone. In three month … nope. Dean wasn’t gonna forget this.