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“You're as close to a seasoned witch as we've got in this lot.” (Rowena to Sam, 15x03)
“Sam,” Dean says, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
He takes a sip of his coffee, just in case his caffeine-deprived brain is playing tricks on him. The hot coffee burns his tongue, but the image in front of him doesn’t disappear.
“Sam, there is a chicken on the map table.”
“I know,” Sam says, appearing from around the corner with an empty Amazon delivery box in his arms.
Dean looks from Sam to the chicken, then back at Sam.
“But … “ he starts, and doesn’t quite know how to continue. “I mean … just … why?”
“Uhm,” Sam says shiftily, and sets the cardboard box down on the ground.
“I made it.”
“You … made it,” Dean says slowly. Maybe if he repeats the sentence, it will actually start to make sense.
“How do you make a … from an egg?”
Sam exhales, his expression hovering in that weird in-between space that’s 50% embarrassment about his own life choices, 50% exasperation at Dean’s attitude. It is one of those expressions that are very uniquely Sam, and that Dean is way, way more familiar with than he should be.
“No, Dean,” Sam says dryly. “From a spell.”
“Let me get this straight,” Dean says, and takes another sip from his cup. He needs way more coffee if he’s expected to deal with this so early in the morning.
“You – magicked up a chicken.”
“Look, I don’t know either, man,” Sam throws up his hands, helplessly. “It’s just – I haven’t been sleeping and I’ve been trying to get some more practice, and … I don’t know, conjuring up poultry seemed safer than experimenting with dark blood magic at four in the morning, you know?”
“Well, can’t argue with you there,” Dean concedes, and tilts his head to contemplate the chicken. The chicken stares back, unfazed.
“Can we eat it?”
“We are not going to eat the chicken!” Sam gasps, appalled, and that’s when Dean realizes why Sam is carrying the cardboard box around.
He is making a nest for the chicken. Because of course he is.
After all, this is his brother, Sam Bleeding Heart Winchester, who apparently seems to have decided that having a stable roof over his head for the first time in his life means he should start adopting every lost soul they come across, be it Lucifer’s child, Lucifer’s vessel, hunters from another universe, or a magic chicken. No wonder he and Jody Mills get on so well.
“You are the one who is going to take care of it,” Dean finally says, because he knows when he’s fighting a losing battle, and he might as well preserve his energies.
“Of course,” Sam says seriously.
“And the moment the next apocalypse comes around, the chicken is going straight into the pot.”
The chicken looks decidedly unimpressed. Sam, on the other hand, looks like he is barely holding back a smile.
“Absolutely,” he nods. “It’s gotta taste better than barbecued lizard, that’s for sure.”
“I’m glad we understand each other,” Dean says, and wanders off into the kitchen to see if they have any turkey sausage left, leaving Sam to wrestle the chicken into the Amazon box all by himself.
The chicken, they find out, is a Rhode Island Red, and all in all not the worst animal to have around. Dean still thinks it would look better on a plate, but the chicken pays Sam back for protecting its life by laying a fresh egg every day. Sam seems happy enough to suddenly have access to 100% organic, free-range eggs, and any source of animal protein Sam consumes willingly is a good thing in Dean’s book.
So Dean cooks him scrambled eggs, and eggs sunny side up, and tries not to think too hard about where exactly the chicken came from.
The thing is, Dean isn’t entirely sure when Sam started turning into their very own Samantha Stephens. He is even less certain how he feels about it.
Even with all the ways that Dean’s world has rearranged itself, over and over, with every death, every resurrection, every barely aborted apocalypse; even after having the ground pulled out from underneath his feet more than once (sometimes even literally); the knowledge that (a) Celine Dion sucks and that (b) witches are bitches were among the few simple truths he could still rely on most of the time.
Ghouls, ghosts, vampires – those are dangerous, but ultimately predictable and straight-forward to deal with. A pinch of salt, a drop of holy water, a well-sharpened machete are the tried-and-tested ingredients that work against most of the garden-variety supernatural creatures they encounter in their line of work. And Dean’s got silver bullets, a demon blade, and an angel knife to take care of the rest.
Witches though, man. Witches are the worst. In Dean’s experience, a typical encounter with a witch can only go one of two ways: it leaves you either curled up on the floor, writhing in pain, gasping for air as you feel your internal organs slowly turning into goo, or with a truly embarrassing affliction, like a sudden but passionate crush on a random stranger, testicles that itch as if besieged by fire ants, or a persistent hard-on that can only be cured by ejaculating onto a picture of David Hasselhoff on a motorbike.
All that is to say that Dean has his (entirely valid) reasons not to trust witches. Even Rowena, who certainly came through for them in the end, has double-crossed them so many times that he doesn’t feel too guilty for still not entirely trusting her, especially considering her recent career change as the newly elected (or rather, self-appointed) Queen of Hell.
So there’s a part of Dean that is mildly unsettled by the realization that Sam – former psychic, king-of-hell-to-be, demon blood addict, host of Lucifer and Gadreel – can now do things like bring ghosts back from the dead or conjure a heritage chicken out of thin air.
At the same time, he is fully aware that Sam still struggles to shake his guilt over what he did to Rowena, even knowing that she is more than happy where she is now. Immersing himself in her spell books is Sam’s way of making it up to her, a way of honoring her legacy on Earth, and Dean has a hard time being mad at his brother for that.
And then there is that other part of Dean that cannot help but feel a certain amount of pride at seeing Sam take to spellwork and witchcraft the way he used to take to his European History AP classes in high school, once upon a time. Dean has always known that Sam is smart, but watching him master yet another one of Rowena’s more difficult spells feels as if two sides of Sam, the nerdy straight-A student and the walking honey-trap for hellish powers, have joined hands and forces to achieve something powerful, awe-inspiring, magical.
If Sam was anyone, anyone other than his dork baby brother, Dean might even say that it’s kind of hot.
Because it’s Sam, he only thinks it quietly to himself.
“Dean,” Sam says, in that particular tone Dean knows means that even though mortal danger may not be imminent, he is probably not going to like what is coming next.
“There’s something I wanna try.”
“Okay?” Dean says, carefully, because at this point in their lives that could mean anything from Sam going full vegan to him coming up with a new and creatively suicidal plan to gank God.
“There’s this spell,” Sam says, “that – uh – could come in handy on hunts, I think, but we should probably test it first between the two of us.”
“I’m listening,” Dean says. Witchcraft or not, he is not going to turn his back on anything that might end up saving their lives.
“The thing is,” Sam continues, “I would totally do it myself, except, well –“
Dean can see where this is going, because Sam’s way of processing practical dilemmas is nothing if not predictable.
“Except for the part,” he picks up where Sam left off, “where you would not be able to fix it if something goes wrong, so I need to be the guinea pig and you need to be the one behind the wheel.”
“Something like that,” Sam nods, and the fact that he doesn’t even call Dean out on his mixed metaphors is a clear sign of just how much it costs him to ask for this. Which, crap, only makes Dean feel like he can’t possibly back out.
“So what kind of spell are we talking?” he asks, trying his hardest to make it sound like he has not already agreed to this plan.
Sam bites his lip. “It’s a shrinking spell.”
Dean frowns. “What exactly is it going to shrink?”
“You, Dean,” Sam sighs. “It’s going to shrink you.”
“No, but I mean –“ Dean coughs. “All of me?”
Sam blinks at him in confusion, then his face clears and he rolls his eyes.
“Leave it to you to worry more about the proportionality of your dick than about the prospect of being all of ten inches high.”
“Hey man,” Dean lifts his hands defensively. “You know how witches are. Always going for the junk.”
“Fair,” Sam concedes. “But no. This is more Honey I Shrunk The Kids and less Teeth, so your penis should be safe.”
“You have seen Teeth?” Dean gapes.
“So not the point, Dean,” Sam says, impatiently, and Dean would agree, except he can’t even remember the last time he has seen Sam kick back and simply enjoy himself, and yet today he learns that at some point in the past years his brother apparently made time in his busy schedule for a weird horror flick about a dick-eating pussy with teeth.
“When we are done here,” he says sternly, “remind me to sit you down and talk to you about your strange ideas of what qualifies as fun.”
“I never said I liked it,” Sam protests. He looks away, drags a hand through his hair. “I just – didn’t sleep much during the whole Michael thing. I watched a lot of bad movies at night, that’s all.”
He says the last part reassuringly, as if he actually thinks the idea of Sam spending sleepless nights watching gruesome movies while his angel-possessed brother was off experimenting on vampires is somehow going to make Dean feel any better. It doesn't. Especially since – fuck, Dean thinks – there is a higher-than-zero chance that Sam watched Teeth precisely because he thought of it as something Dean would want to watch. It would be just like Sam to torture himself like that.
Dean coughs, a little awkwardly, both to announce a change in topic and to dislodge the treacherous lump in his throat. “So what are the risks?”
Sam shrugs. “Aside from the chance of mini you falling off a chair and breaking your neck? Nothing much.”
“Yeah, right,” Dean snorts in disbelief.
“No, really,” Sam says, again in that reassuring tone. “It’s one of the spells Rowena used relatively frequently, so there’s plenty of data to compare regarding its efficacy, and I think she would have mentioned somewhere if there were any serious side effects.”
Dean thinks Sam is giving Rowena far too much credit if he trusts her to reliably define what counts as a serious side effect. He is leaning towards humoring Sam anyway, because Sam does look a little like he hasn’t gotten more than two solid hours of sleep ever since he and Eileen got kidnapped by God, and because – ah hell, who is he kidding.
It’s Sam, he doesn’t need a reason to feel like humoring him.
“Hello Sam,” Castiel says, wandering into the kitchen. “Where is Dean?”
“Right here,” Dean says. He means for it to come out confident and assertive, but unfortunately his vocal cords seem to have shrunk along with the rest of him, and so it sounds a little too squeaky for his taste.
Castiel frowns, casts a confused glance around the kitchen, and actually bends down to check underneath the table (though what Castiel imagines Dean would be doing between Sam’s long legs underneath the kitchen table, Dean doesn’t know). He straightens again, then does a double take when he spots Dean sitting on the table, cross-legged, his back propped up comfortably against Sam’s coffee cup.
“What happened?” Castiel asks, somewhere between fascinated and horrified.
“We are experimenting,” Sam says. He breaks off another piece from his blueberry muffin with his enormous, enormous hands and offers the crumb to Dean, who happily takes it from his fingertips.
Because Sam is a paranoid mother hen who was worried that Dean might trip over a pencil and concuss himself if left to his own devices in his current state, Dean has spent most of the past two hours leaning against the pleasantly warm wall of a half-empty coffee mug, watching YouTube videos on Sam’s phone, while being fed baked goods by his very, very tall brother.
“Experimenting?” Castiel repeats, his voice now sliding more towards horrified – as if he has any ground to stand on, Dean thinks indignantly, what with his own tendency to stick his fingers into people’s minds and chests and wounds at random, just to see what happens. Sometimes Castiel is like an overgrown toddler with a fork and a power socket, except that the fork is his angel grace and his favorite power socket is Sam.
“Relax, dude,” Dean says (squeaks) and licks blueberry juice off his fingers. “It’s just one of Rowena’s spells.”
Castiel doesn’t look like he finds that particularly reassuring.
“Do you know how to reverse it?” he asks, suspiciously.
Sam scratches the half-caramelized sugar grains off the top of the muffin and rolls them carefully into Dean’s outstretched hand.
“It should wear off in about ten to fifteen minutes or so,” he says, sounding remarkably relaxed, as if he, too, is perfectly content to sit at the kitchen table feeding carbohydrates to his brother, the ten-inch hero, while they wait for Dean to revert back to his normal size.
Castiel still looks a little doubtful, but eventually he sits down at the table and reaches for the pastry box. A video of a cat riding a Roomba starts playing on Sam’s phone, and Dean happily chews on sugary muffin crust.
This whole witchcraft business really isn’t so bad.
Granted, there are some setbacks, most notably the time Sam plays around with an invisibility spell and accidentally dematerializes himself, floating around the bunker as a disembodied voice.
By the time Dean comes back from the garage and realizes that something is off, Sam has already worked himself into a panic, his voice just this side of the frantic, unhinged quality Dean usually associates with full-blown hallucinations or one of them being stabbed in the chest.
“Don’t do this shit without backup, man,” Dean says angrily, the frustration in his voice disguising - badly – just how close he, too, is to freaking out. “Just tell me next time you are planning to evaporate your body, Jesus fucking Christ.”
“It was supposed to make me invisible, not immaterial,” Sam says defensively, right next to Dean’s ear, as if he’s seeking comfort in the physicality of Dean’s presence; except Dean doesn’t feel anything, not even the cold spell or air flow he would sense around a ghost, which makes him think that Sam probably can’t feel him either, and damn if that doesn’t make an icy shiver run down his spine.
“Okay, okay, what do you need me to do?” he asks, running trembling fingers over the open page in the spell book on the reading table.
“Just – put the crushed emerald into the cauldron,” Sam’s voice says, and Dean reaches for the small bowl with the green powder, trying to get his heart rate under control as he follows Sam’s instructions, because this is so not the time to make sloppy mistakes.
“What now, what now?” he asks, staring down at the ominously smoking mixture as if he can make Sam rise from the potion by sheer willpower.
“Stir clockwise while you say the incantation,” Sam says anxiously, “third and fourth line, but you gotta pronounce the ‘r’s properly, or it’s not going to work.”
“You so owe me for this,” Dean says darkly as he picks up the silver spoon laid out on the wood. “I’m going to make you clean the bottom shelf of the fridge.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sam says, his voice now all breathy and thin, fuck, “you can exact your revenge after we get to the point where I have actual hands again, come on,” and Dean swallows down his fear and focuses on the words in front of him, going slow so he can get the pronunciation right.
The liquid in the cauldron turns red, Dean exhales a shaky breath, and then suddenly he is being crushed by 200 pounds of Sam sprawled over his back, the impact strong enough to make him stagger forward against the table and lose his balance.
They tumble down to the floor in a heap that takes a moment to detangle, and end up on their knees, facing each other, both breathing a little too hard, clutching each other’s forearms as if to reassure themselves of the solid materiality of their bodies.
Dean looks at Sam’s pale, shell-shocked face and finds himself thinking, I cannot lose you again. Please. I cannot lose you again.
Out loud he says: “Maybe not this one, huh?” His voice is a little unsteady, but Sam doesn’t call him out on it, just breathes a wobbly little sob and shakes his head and keeps his large hand wrapped tightly around Dean’s elbow for another minute or two.
“Yeah, definitely not this one,” he says, and doesn’t protest when Dean insists that they burn the spell asap.
He even hands Dean the lighter, then goes, unprompted, to scrub moldy leek out of the fridge.
All in all though, Dean is coming around to see why some people might actually dig the whole spellwork thing, momentary brushes with existential terror notwithstanding.
There is that one night, for example, maybe a week after the dematerialization debacle. Dean and Jack are coming back late from a routine job, which Sam had graciously allowed them to work without him for the sake of, as he called it, family bonding time, although Dean suspects that it had more to do with Sam not wanting any witnesses around while he was trying to finally get the hang of a rose-scented pink bubble bath spell.
Dean had left him behind with strict instructions not to do anything dangerous and then checked in every two hours or so, just to make sure that both Sam and the bunker (but mostly Sam) were still in one piece.
Jack had sat in the car next to him and smiled benevolently every time Dean pulled to the side of the road to check his phone, but he hadn’t commented on it other than to say “Tell Sam about the goat we saw!”, and Dean had felt overcome with deep affection for the kid.
By the time they get back to the bunker, Sam is apparently done with magicking for the day. No pink soap bubbles or random farm animals are in sight – it’s just Sam and Castiel sitting at the table in the library, chatting quietly. Sam is idly toying with the half-empty whiskey glass in front of him, and they both look unharmed and moderately relaxed.
Dean exhales a breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding.
Sam looks up at them with an easy smile, Castiel with his usual expression of intense earnest, and Dean slides the heavy duffel bag off his shoulder, wincing as the strap jostles his shoulder.
“You alright?” Sam frowns, concerned, and Dean shrugs carefully and tries to roll out his shoulder without grimacing too obviously.
“Fine,” he grunts. “Must have pulled a muscle when I dug up the grave.” He grins ruefully. “Guess I’m not getting any younger.”
“Let me see,” Sam says. He gets up from his chair and steps around the table, and Dean expects him to dig long inquisitive fingers into the aching muscle, maybe pull Dean’s shirt up to check for a bruise, but instead Sam sets a careful hand against Dean’s back, fingers curved around the shape of his shoulder blade, and whispers words against his neck that Dean can’t quite make out.
The dull ache in Dean’s shoulder gives way to instantaneous, complete relief.
“Better?” Sam asks, his hand dropping away, and Dean straightens, so much more easily now that his right side isn’t one big cramp anymore.
“Uh, yeah,” he says, a little roughly. “Thanks, Sammy.”
“Anytime, old man,” Sam smiles and instead of sitting back down makes a beeline for the kitchen.
“Anyone want a beer?” he asks over his shoulder, slipping a casually fatherly hand over the back of Jack’s head in passing.
“Yes,” Jack beams, and Dean shouts: “Make that two!” before he lets himself drop into the nearest chair, his back still tingling faintly with the sensory memory of Sam’s touch.
Castiel doesn’t say anything that night, but he does corner Dean in the laundry room a few days later.
Sam and Jack are in the library, deeply immersed in a conversation about polytheism that Dean desperately wanted to escape, both because it reminded him way too much of that one time with the motel and the people-eating and the porn, and because the discussion was boring him to death. Rubbing stain remover into Sam’s mud-covered jeans seemed a much better alternative.
“Do you think this is wise, Dean?” Castiel asks, and Dean glances back and forth between him and the soap-slick denim under his fingers.
“Well, the grass stains are not going to come out with detergent alone,” he shrugs. “And a bit of fabric discoloration has never hurt anyone.”
“I have no idea what that means,” Castiel says, “but I was referring to your and Sam’s … experiments.”
Dean pulls a face. “You make it sound really weird.”
“It is a little weird,” Castiel feels compelled to point out.
“Says the Angel of the Lord who binge-watched Scandal last week,” Dean says dryly. “Anyway, it’s not a big deal. Sam is just trying to come up with better ways for us to protect ourselves. I’d have thought you would approve.”
“Yes, of course.” Castiel inclines his head. “And despite the fact that my background admittedly makes me somewhat biased against the power of witchcraft, I certainly cannot deny that Rowena’s and Sam’s spells have proven to be very useful in the past.”
“Then what is it,” Dean asks, stuffing the jeans into the washer and reaching for the next piece of clothing in the hamper without really looking at it.
Castiel sighs. “I just want you to be aware that magic doesn’t remain without effect on its user.”
Dean freezes, fists clenching around the fabric in his hands. “What is that supposed to mean?” he asks sharply. “You think this is turning him into something he’s not?”
“No,” Castiel says quickly. “No, nothing like that. Witchcraft … doesn’t corrupt humans quite the same way angelic grace does. It’s certainly nothing like demon blood in that regard. It doesn’t alter the user’s soul on a fundamental level.”
“So then what’s the problem?” Dean asks impatiently. “It’s not exactly deep dark magic, you know? He’s just using it for little stuff.”
“Yes,” Castiel nods. “Exactly. It’s casual use. And like any skill, when practiced frequently, witchcraft eventually becomes a part of the user, like … “ He lifts his hands. “Like being able to handle a firearm and drive a car is part of you.”
“I still don’t see how that’s a bad thing,” Dean says, uncertainly.
“It’s not,” Castiel says. “I don’t think.” He takes a deep breath. “It’s just that there will be a point when Sam will not just be practicing witchcraft anymore. He will be a witch. And you should probably consider how you feel about that.”
“Hm,” Dean makes. He looks down at his hands and realizes that what he has been clutching in his fingers is a pair of Sam’s underwear, the boxer briefs with the pink poodles that were a gag gift from Dean but supposedly fit perfectly under Sam’s running gear. Dean stuffs them into the washer hastily and closes the door.
By the time he straightens and turns back around, Castiel has already left.
After the conversation in the laundry room, Dean can’t help but pay a little more attention, and eventually he has to concede that Castiel may have a point.
When Sam first started dabbling in witchcraft, every spell was a procedure, a ritual, complete with theatrical intonation and dramatic hand gestures and velvety purple table sets.
What he’s doing now is – not that. The way Sam casts spells is matter-of-fact, almost absent-minded, a habit, not that different from Sam pushing an errant strand of hair back behind his ear or wetting his lips with a little flick of his tongue.
And it’s small things, really. Dean gets caught in a sudden downpour and drags himself into the bunker, dripping water like a disgruntled wet cat, and Sam looks up at him from where he’s sitting at the map table and snaps his fingers just so, and already Dean feels the unpleasant dampness evaporating, leaving behind a cozy, comforting warmth in its place.
“Uh, thanks?” Dean says, and Sam squints, a little startled.
“What?” he says, and then: “Oh. Huh. Did I do that?”
Another time, Dean shuffles into the kitchen at eight in the morning because they are meant to head to South Dakota and trying to get an early start. Tired and bleary-eyed, he plops himself onto the bench and grumbles: “Can a guy get some coffee around here?”
He doesn’t actually expect anything to happen, except perhaps Sam throwing a piece of bread at his head, so he almost topples off the bench in surprise when a steaming cup suddenly appears right in front of him.
“You – what?” he says, eloquently as always, and Sam glances up from his laptop distractedly.
“I didn’t make eggs,” he says. “Sorry, did you want any? I figured we should try to get going as early as we can.”
“No,” Dean says, “I mean, yes. I mean – never mind.”
Sam gives him an odd look, as if Dean is the one who is acting weird, and in his desperation, Dean lifts the cup to his lips and drinks. Somehow it has exactly the right amount of sugar, just the way Dean likes it best.
The coffee itself at least is still as crappy as Sam’s coffee always is, which almost feels like a relief.
The thing is, Dean doesn’t remember even Rowena magicking quite this casually. Of course, she’s always had a flair for the dramatic, and he didn’t exactly have a lot of opportunity to observe her in private domestic environments, so it’s entirely possible that she had a habit of conjuring up purple puppies and boxes of Turkish delight every morning before her first cup of tea, and he just never had the chance to find out.
But it does make him wonder what it means that Sam seems to be taking to magic like a fish to water, that he casts spells without even noticing what he is doing until it’s already done.
And part of him wonders, with the memory of Sam’s history and Castiel’s words in the back of his mind, whether perhaps he should be more troubled about these recent developments.
But when it comes down to it, the truth is that Dean has come to like it, and that might actually be the more troubling part.
Of course he would cut his tongue out with a butter knife before ever admitting it out loud, but there is something thrilling, exhilarating about realizing just how many of Sam’s spells seem to be geared towards making Dean comfortable and warm and fed. It’s as if Sam’s magic doesn’t care about the clear borders and firm rules Dean and Sam have established over close to four decades, rules that determine how much affection they are allowed to display, how much care they are permitted to demonstrate, how much they get to touch when one of them isn’t actively bleeding out on the floor.
And Dean knows – knows – that Sam loves him, cares for him, is devoted to him, understands by now that everything he’s ever been told to the contrary by Zachariah, by Michael, by Gadreel, by sirens, shapeshifters, tricksters, hell, by Dad, has always been more a reflection of others’ efforts to drive them apart, to break them, than an actual reflection of Sam’s feelings about him.
But having it affirmed by Sam’s spells, by the instinctive, subconscious part of him that seems to steer his use of magic, soothes the irrational, nagging doubts Dean still feels sneaking up on him from time to time.
Perhaps even better is what the magic is doing to Sam. Because despite the pressure and uncertainty of their lives, despite the unresolved matter of God’s personal vendetta against them still looming over their heads, Sam has started to sleep more, eat more, smile more, walk a little straighter, and hell if that isn’t doing all sorts of things to the parts of Dean he tends to keep carefully locked away.
So, Dean will be the first to admit that he’s been kind of hard on Rowena on occasion, but he’s starting to think that maybe he owes her a fruit basket, or a gift basket with kinky dominatrix sex toys, or whatever it is she might get use out of where she’s now. Because apparently naming Sam as her designated successor in all things witchcraft means that Dean’s doing better, and Sam is doing better, and they have been eating fresh eggs for breakfast almost every day, and if that means that his little brother is both slowly turning into a proper witch and quite possibly becoming even more attractive than he already was to begin with, well.
Dean just has got to find a way to deal.
Then Dean comes home from his grocery run to find Sam sitting in the library with a dead chicken in his lap and a spell book in his hand, and for a very, very brief moment, he feels the bottom of his stomach dropping out in abject horror at the sight.
Of course they have both done worse over the years, so, so much worse, but the thought of Sam killing their chicken just to experiment with a spell has alarm bells ringing in Dean’s head that he didn’t even know he had.
Then he looks again, takes in Sam’s dejected expression, the way he’s gently cradling the freaking bird to his chest, and immediately feels guilty for assuming the worst.
“What happened?” he asks and drops the plastic bags at the bottom of the staircase, carelessly stepping over the can of black beans that rolls out of a bag and across the tiles.
Sam looks at him with red-rimmed eyes.
“She ate rat poison off the floor,” he says, his voice eerily blank.
Dean raises his brows. “We use rat poison?”
“Apparently the Men of Letters did.” Sam drags a hand over his face. “I took her to the archives with me. Turns out that stuff is in every corner behind the shelves. I just never noticed before.”
“Huh,” Dean says. “And that crap is still poisonous? What the fuck, we gotta clean that shit out before Jack … wait.” He pauses. “Please tell me you are not in the process of resurrecting the chicken.”
Sam’s face crumbles. “It’s my fault,” he says. “I just wanted to offer her a change of scenery.”
“You took the chicken on an adventure,” Dean says slowly, still wrapping his mind around what he missed in the barely ninety minutes he was gone. “To the archives. That was very nice of you.”
“It was stupid.” Sam swallows thickly. “Dean, what does it say about me that I can’t even keep a magic chicken alive.”
Dean blinks. “Sam,” he says carefully. “It’s just a chicken.”
“Exactly,” Sam replies, running restless fingers through his hair. “Dean, you managed to keep me alive when you were all of four years old, and me, I’m not …”
“You are not going to resurrect the chicken,” Dean says steadily. “It was an accident. The chicken is at peace. At rest. In chicken heaven. Enjoying an endless supply of grains and worms.”
Sam hiccups. “Do you still want to eat it?” he asks, uncertainly.
“The chicken ate rat poison, Sam,” Dean says dryly. “Of course I’m not going to eat it.”
“So what do we do?” Sam asks helplessly. He frowns. “Can chicken come back as ghosts?”
Dean scratches his head. “I have no idea,” he admits. “Better be safe, though, don’t you think? We’ll give it a proper hunter’s funeral. And then we can have a drink in its honor.”
They salt and burn the chicken. Sam spends the entire time trying to hold back tears. Dean spends the entire time trying not to think too hard about the absurdist soap opera his life has become.
Clearly the chicken funeral is the final, definite proof that there is officially no limit to the things he is willing to do to make his brother happy. The realization is not as unsettling as perhaps it should be, but that may just be because at this point in their lives it’s not like it comes as a big surprise.
Once the chicken is taken care of, they wash up, finally put the groceries away, and settle down in the kitchen with the bottle of vodka Dean had picked up at the liquor store in town on a whim, almost as if he knew that they would wrap up the day by scattering the ashes of a large chicken on the slope outside the bunker.
“There goes the era of free organic breakfast eggs,” Dean says after the second glass of vodka, when Sam finally looks composed and relaxed enough for Dean to risk cracking a joke.
“Yeah,” Sam nods, and his expression is grave, but the corner of his mouth is twitching, and Dean takes that as a good sign.
He reaches for the bottle and pours them both another drink, then lifts his glass in a wordless toast and waits for Sam to do the same.
“You do take good care of people, Sammy,” he says, finally, and Sam stares up at him, eyes wide.
“What?” he asks, and Dean shrugs awkwardly and forces himself to hold his gaze.
“I know you have this idea that you are bringing death and despair with you everywhere you go, and it’s not like I blame you with the crap we’ve gotten caught up in over the past decade, but – you do take care of people. You save people. You know how to talk to people to make them feel better.” He swallows. “You take care of me.”
“Dean –“ Sam starts, as if he is going to protest, and Dean raises a hand to cut him off.
“And don’t even try to deny that you did something to the showers after I complained that the water takes too long to warm up.”
Sam pulls his shoulders up to his ears, which is as good as a signed confession from where Dean stands. Dean looks at his brother, the brother who cries over a dead chicken and practices domestic magic with the ease other people show when they scratch their ear, the brother whose stubble is growing far too long again because, as he says, “I can shave when God is dead, Dean.”
And perhaps that third glass of vodka wasn’t such a good idea after all, because before he knows it, he finds himself leaning across the kitchen table, wrapping a hand around the back of Sam’s neck, and pressing a kiss to his lips, hard and vodka-flavored and maybe just a little bit desperate.
For a brief, magical moment, it seems as if Sam is about to kiss back. His head falls back, his lips open on a sigh, but already he is jerking away, moving out of reach, Dean’s hand slipping off his neck.
“Crap,” Sam says, and there’s a trace of hysterics in his voice as he lifts two fingers to his lips as if he might be able to feel the evidence of what just transpired between them on his skin.
Distantly, Dean thinks that Hell, Lucifer, the Darkness were nothing compared to the fear that is now wrapping its icy fingers around Dean’s heart, and he is still casting about for an explanation that doesn’t make him sound entirely deranged when he chances a look at Sam and takes in the guilty expression on his chalk-white face.
“Crap,” Sam says again, sounding lost. “I must have – I didn’t – I wasn’t – Dean, can you tell me what it is like?”
“What it’s like …” Dean repeats, simultaneously relieved that Sam hasn’t yet thrown his drink at Dean’s face and utterly confused by his brother’s response. “What? Having feelings for my kid brother?”
“The spell, Dean,” Sam says urgently. “Does it – is it like the last time, with the witches and the love spell, or ...?”
Dean frowns. “You think you accidentally cast a love spell on me?”
“What else could it be?” Sam retorts. “Look, I know sometimes the magic kind of … I don’t know, lowers my inhibitions, but you must believe me that I’d never … on purpose … “
“Dude,” Dean says slowly. “I didn’t kiss you because you cast a spell on me.” He pauses, smirks. “Well, not that kind of spell,” he says and regrets it immediately when he sees the stricken look on Sam’s face.
“Okay, okay, too early for jokes,” he says hastily. “My point is, unless you want to claim that you cast a spell on me dec –“ He coughs. “- years ago, this is all me, so if you want to punch me in the nose, you better do it now.”
Sam does not punch him in the nose. He blinks, lifts his glass, and downs it in one sitting. Then he reaches across the table, and Dean stares like a deer in the headlights, not sure whether to move back or lean in, but the only thing Sam does is to pick up Dean’s vodka glass and empty that as well.
Dean resists the urge to fidget and tries to mentally prepare for getting turned into a chicken by his brother, the newly minted witch. It might not be the worst fate, he thinks – it might increase the awkwardness factor of being in love with Sam, but on the upside, it would solve the issue of being tempted to grab Sam’s butt whenever he is bending over the map table in the war room.
“You are serious,” Sam finally says. His expression is one that Dean has never really seen before, but he knows enough to understand that it’s neither anger nor disgust.
“And you never said anything? Even though all those years you were …”
“Charmed by your good looks?” Dean grins because hell, the cat is out of the bag, Sam hasn’t hit him yet, and whatever his brother is going to do next, for a moment the relief is so strong he feels dizzy with it.
“Dean,” Sam sighs, the familiar sound of reluctantly amused frustration, but now Dean is on a roll.
“You might say bewitched. Spellbound, even. Encha-“
“Oh my God, Dean,” Sam groans. “Shut the fuck up, I swear.”
It’s not exactly the most romantic response to Dean baring his soul, to Dean laying his heart down right here on the coffee-stained kitchen table next to a half-empty vodka bottle, but there is laughter bubbling up in Sam’s voice underneath the exasperation, and his eyes are soft, so soft that Dean can barely stand to look at them.
He stares anyway.
Then Sam slowly slides his hand across the table top, tilts his wrist, offers his palm, and Dean covers it with his own.
“Dean – “ Sam starts over, voice rough, and Dean links their fingers together.
“Sammy,” he says seriously. “If you let me, I’ll show you just how much I mean it.” He smiles. “Every witch way.”
“Shut up, Dean,” Sam says fondly, and leans across the table.
Dean licks his lips. “Make me,” he says.
And Sam does.
Turns out he is quite capable of rendering Dean speechless, no magic necessary whatsoever.