dean's best friend(so say we all)

Coda, so spoilerish for 5x16?

Dean walks into their room, and on the rug in front of Sam's bed there's just a big pile of Sam's clothes and a sad looking puppy in the middle of it all. Dean doesn't really know what to do with that, except stare.

So he stares. "Dude."

All he gets in return is a whimper, and that's it; he can't be standoffish to the freakishly cute puppy, starts walking over to it. "Sam, that you?"

More whimpering as the puppy lifts his paw up and places it on top of the clothes. When Dean reaches him he kneels down and the puppy lifts his paw again. This time the tiny thing comes to rest on the tip of Dean's boot. Well damn that's cute. And sneaky. "Kinda taking your love of dogs a bit far here, Sammy boy," Dean says, but he's reaching out and petting him all the same. Sam's fur is soft and shiny, and he closes his eyes when Dean gives his a little scratch behind the ears.

It's not the worst situation they've even been in - not by a long shot - but sitting around on the floor won't make this go away. "So we gotta do something here." Dean looks down at Sam and concedes, "Okay, I do, anyways."

Picking him up doesn't seem to be the solution though, because the moment Sam's got lift-off he starts squirming and emits a high-pitched whine that increases along with his distance from the ground. Dean sets him right down again, and it stops.

Dean is starting to feel tired; he's had enough of things he can't fix. "I don't speak dog, Sam."

Sam doesn't seem to be listening, too busy clawing at his clothes, digging past his flannel shirt. This is ridiculous enough as it is, without Dean attempting to explain to his dog-brother that he's got fur for a reason. And Dean Winchester is not dressing up a tiny dog. He mocks those people for a reason.

Sam wades back into his discarded clothes, yaps a couple of times and burrows his head into it. Dean decides to let him do his thing, maybe work off some energy so he'll calm down. After about a minute of muffled barks, the tail sticking our from under Sam's shirt starts wagging furiously.

"What'cha got there?" Dean asks, and assists Sam's extremely awkward extraction by picking him up. Sam's head emerges with Dean's medallion dangling from his mouth, pendulating back and forth.

Dean is dumbstruck, doesn't know what to say, but he comes up with, "Oh." Under the circumstances that's pretty impressive.

Sam's looking at him like well, duh.

Dean points out, "Dude, your Lassie is crap."

Sam's expression doesn't change.

Dean sighs. "Guess I gotta to take this off yours hands," he says and gives Sam's right paw a light squeeze between his thumb and index finger, "'Cause, no hands." Sam doesn't seem to mind, and gives Dean's hand a few licks before nudging at it with his wet snout. "Snuggle-freak," Dean teases, but his hand stays put even when Sam's nudging turns into playful biting.

:::

"Okay, so we're fixing this." Sam peers up at him, all love and trust. "Yeah yeah, you're adorable, but no way am I following you around with a plastic bag." With one hand blanketing the warm ball of man's best friend curled up in his lap, Dean starts Sam's computer and gets to finding a way to solve this mess.