A Winchester Easter
Summary: 1-shot Easter edition. A simple case turns into something more as Dean and Sam discover that even an innocent Easter tradition like a mall bunny can turn sour in the wrong hands. *On edge/protective!Dean & Worried/hurt!Sam* Set in Season 10 so may have spoilers.
Warnings: Contains mild language, some minor violence and a giant bunny.
Tags/Spoilers: It's not tagged to anything but it is set in Season 10 so it might contain minor spoilers for those behind on the season.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but to mind that creates the plots.
Author Note: So the muse decided while writing on something else that it wanted to do a Gen piece for Easter. This is the result.
SPN SPN SPN SPN SPN
"Tulpas, werewolves, witches, pagan gods bringing to life the anti-Claus. I know I said I wished for simpler times again when it didn't seem like Sammy and I were saving each other from dying every other die or saving the freakin' world from the crap Heaven likes to toss at us but come on, seriously? A goddamn possessed Easter bunny suit in the middle of a mall? Damn this is gonna be ugly."
Dean Winchester was pissed and he had been since the simple case of a mall bunny gone bad turned into what could be a mall bunny possessed by ancient magic turning the mall into a slaughter house if he didn't get his brother to pick up his goddamn phone.
The hunter knew Sam had picked the case because it seemed like a basic simple job. A series of people all associated with a small mall in the backwoods of Pennsylvania had been found dead recently.
The four men and two women had been found in their homes. Their bodies scratched up but their throats were torn out and drained of blood. The only evidence left behind were scruffs of white fur that the local crime lab said tested as animal hair; and not only any animal but rabbit fur.
Normally animal deaths did not fit their usual type of job except as the older Winchester knew most bunnies did not attack and kill people. Then after a brief and blurry glimpse of one victim's security camera caught sight of that the police believe was the perpetrator the hunters decided it might be their type of case.
"Six foot bunnies don't exist," Dean had said after his younger brother had pulled the image up to get a better picture of it to see what did indeed appear like a six foot giant furry bunny covered in blood as it fled the scene on foot by disappearing into the woods.
Of course as both Winchesters knew it still could've been a man in the bunny suit but it didn't explain why the fur tested as real and not synthetic as if from a costume so they spent the next two days looking into the mall employees once Sam discovered that all the victims worked in some way for the local mall and the only other way they were connected was they'd been responsible for the nasty and somewhat public firing of the man who'd played the mall Easter Bunny for the last 15 years.
That day they'd split up. Sam went to the mall to keep an eye on the bunny who was holding court like usual for all the little kids while Dean went to scope out their suspect's home for any signs of hoodoo, witchcraft, etc. The popular theory was the ex-Bunny got pissed at being fired that he either made a damn demon deal, Dean was going to kill Crowley if that was the case, or he started messing in something most normal people didn't understand to get revenge on those he felt wrongly got him fired. The hunter wasn't expecting what he found when he picked the lock of the run-down house on the outskirts of town.
"Oh. Okay. Yeah, this is just perfectly…normal. Not." Dean pulled his gun the moment he stepped inside to see something out of a bad movie about a guy who might look perfectly normal only to turn into the killer clown kind of person as he took in a house that looked perpetually like an Easter parade threw up inside it.
Dean was just getting over the shock of the brightly colored walls, the Easter decorations as well as a giant blow up chick in the living room when he grimaced as the damn Mark of Cain on his arm suddenly picked that moment to remind him it was there and he had to push that pain back down.
The mark was getting stronger and he was having a harder time controlling his rages, the need to inflict violence. It was something he was trying to hide from his worried younger brother but Dean knew Sam wasn't stupid and probably suspected he was covering a little too much.
Right then, the mark was not an issue for Dean. They were working and he had a crazy Easter obsessed guy to find to tell him how the hell a monster bunny was killing the locals.
A search of the bottom level revealed nothing but more weird decorations. Pulling open the door in the kitchen that led to the basement had the hunter's nose curling in disgust as a familiar smell hit him. "Of course. It's always in the basement," he muttered but started down slowly, weapon ready to fire if anything jumped out.
"Sonuvabitch!"
Dean had expected a lot. Hell, in his life as a hunter he'd seen a lot but this was not what he'd been expecting. The basement was something out of a horror movie. It was covered in blood and in that blood was drawn some kind of symbols that he snapped with his phone so Sam could later figure them out. Then a sound had him turning and that was when their simple case turned deadly.
The Easter season was always a popular one at the small local Pennsylvania mall. Parents brought their children to have photos taken with the Easter bunny. It was a long standing tradition but in recent years the mall had decided their long time Easter bunny had gotten too old, too stale to do the job correctly so they'd fired the older man to bring in a younger person who could hop around when not taking pictures in hopes of bringing more excitement to the crowd and draw in more as the lines decreased.
No one immediately put two and two together when mall employees suddenly started dying. It wasn't until the two FBI agents started asking questions that the mall manager realized the odds were uncanny. He didn't want another public scandal like he'd had when he'd fired the old man so he hoped it didn't turn out that his current Easter bunny was a murderer.
Sam Winchester was watching the six…closer to seven foot white and grey furry bunny hop around, dance, and do tricks for the kids that day. It was the usual routine as he'd watched him interact with the kids except something seemed off that day.
The bunny looked different to Sam. He couldn't place it but it seemed more lifelike than it had before. It was also a bit too interactive in some ways as it moved around its little area in the same pattern multiple times as if…
"Oh shit," the 6'4" hunter suddenly felt his stomach drop as a cold hunch begun to form when a security guard nervously appeared at his elbow to whisper that the manager was asking to see him in the back rooms.
Sam didn't want to leave but something about the guard's eyes told him that something wasn't good so he headed for where he knew housed the locker rooms to see the short, skinny manager leaning over a garbage can throwing up while pointing back to the locker room.
Pulling his weapon on instinct, Sam stepped inside to feel his heart stop and then his stomach flipped as he covered his mouth and nose with an arm as he took a careful step into the bloody locker room to see a man in half a bunny suit laying dead, soaked in his own blood while the two female assistants who helped with the kids and the photos were also dead.
"If…if the bunny…or Jed's dead…then who the hell is that out there?" the manager finally asked from the door; his face was still a sickly green.
Sam took in the symbols scrawled in blood as well as the scraps of real fur and suddenly knew even as he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket with a text from Dean. "Shit."
"'It's old time summoning magic. But the things gone rogue and killed the guy who summoned it. Watch yourself! I'm 20 minutes out.'"
"Evacuate the mall," Sam told the manager as he turned to run back to the center court. "Get these kids out of here! Now!"
Sam heard the PA system begin announcing an emergency and that everyone had to leave the mall immediately but as he neared the center court and heard screaming the hunter knew it was too late.
He saw people running with their kids but then as he ran up he swore under his breath. The damn thing, he still wasn't sure if it was a possessed suit with real fur or an actual goddamn real seven foot bunny, had four kids; two girls and two boys, at either corner of his little area and the knife in its paw…hand…was a clear indication of where this was going and what Sam had to do.
Without knowing the kind of magic or spell used, Sam didn't know what would kill this creature. He knew it wasn't a human in a suit so that took care of his worries about the moral issues he still felt at times when they had to kill a human, even one possessed or being used. This was plainly something that had been summoned for an act of vengeance but then it either got too powerful or it was just using the man who'd summoned it in order to get its original purpose accomplished. Sam wasn't sure what that was but he knew he wasn't letting it kill any little kids on his watch.
"Hey!" he shouted in hopes to get the bunny's attention off of the spell it seemed to be chanting, the first time Sam could recall hearing the damn thing speak and had no damn idea what kind of language since it sure wasn't any Latin that he'd heard.
The moment the bunny jerked its head up at his voice and stepped back from the child, the hunter fired in the hopes of disarming it only to stare as the thing dodged the bullet. "Okay, that's not good," he muttered but saw the shot did seem to snap the kids out of whatever trance they'd seemed to be in so their screaming parents who hadn't been able to get past what looked like a glowing line on the floor could now try to grab their kids. "Run! Grab them and get the hell…ugh!"
Sam had been shouting to a father when he was suddenly bowled over by a solid weight of a now very pissed off rabbit like creature with glowing yellow eyes, very sharp fang like teeth, claws that appeared on its paws and a knife still clenched, ready to use on the hunter.
"What the hell are you?" he demanded while struggling to toss the weight off of him, to get his gun where it had dropped when he was taken down hard and hitting his head on the small step that led to the chair where the Easter bunny sat with children. "What…what did you…want with the kids?"
"Blood."
The voice that spoke was odd; it was guttural, non-human, and chilled the hunter to the bone. Sam had fought, faced, and killed a lot of non-human entities, demi-Gods, monsters, and the like since becoming a hunter but nothing like this.
He was fighting to keep the snapping jaws away from his throat while trying to reach for his pistol to at least buy him some space to defend himself when he saw the paw with the knife move and had to give up the search for his weapon to attempt to keep the killer possessed rabbit from stabbing him but the longer the fight went on the stronger the creature was becoming while it seemed like it was drawing strength from Sam until he felt his grip getting weaker.
Pain brought his drifting consciousness back as he felt pain in his shoulder, unsure if it was from teeth or the blade but all Sam knew was he was in a world of trouble until he heard another sound; a sound that would never fail to make him smile.
"Hey! Bunny-boy! Get your damn paws off my little brother!"
Dean had sped from their now deceased suspects house after finding him clinging to life after his summoned creature of vengeance had turned on him when he tried to stop it after discovering that the thing had plans to kill a mall full of innocent children in some form of worship to an ancient God that the hunter didn't even bother trying to learn how to pronounce the name.
He'd gotten enough out of the dying old man to learn how to stop it and then had pushed the Impala and the legal speed limit to get to the mall, to get to Sam with a growing dread when his brother didn't return his text or answer any of his calls.
The mall parking lot was in chaos when he skidded to a stop. He got a short version from the agitated manager to know what was happening and then Dean was ignoring the burning mark on his arm to bolt into the empty center of the mall to see an enraged monster bunny about to rip the throat out of his younger brother and reacted in pure Dean Winchester style.
The moment the seven foot real life looking creature turned at his voice, Dean shoved the oddly carved stick coated in blood that he'd grabbed from the old man's house into where he hoped was the creature's heart and before it could react, lit the crudely drawn spell that he'd finished right before the man had died on fire to smirk as the creature's big yellow eyes bulged and it let out a horrible scream.
"Go back where you came from. No more blood for you, asshole," he growled, watching as it dropped to the mall floor to writhe a few times before in a plume of black smoke the seven foot creature was gone and in its place was what looked like a normal tame rabbit that just sat there as if in shock. "Stay, Thumper," Dean told the bunny before dropping to the floor beside his still brother. "Sam!"
Sam was breathing but it looked like in shock and half unconscious as he bled from the shoulder and several scratches on his face and neck.
"Okay, we've gotta go," Dean didn't want a confrontation with the cops right then much less the real FBI so he struggled to pull his heavier than he honestly remembered little brother to his feet while supporting him, grabbed the bunny and struggled to get both into the Impala. "You never saw us," he growled to the mall manager. "Got it? You tell the cops whatever story you want but you leave our descriptions out of this or I will be back."
Not waiting for the stunned man to respond, Dean got behind the wheel and quickly burned rubber to get as far out of the state of Pennsylvania as he could before he finally located a small motel two states away to stop at.
Sam had come around enough to hold a rag over his shoulder and tell him that he was okay but he was still too quiet for Dean's liking. There was also the rabbit in a hastily bought cage in his backseat to be dealt with later once he was certain his brother was really alright.
The hotel was small, out of the way but had an attached diner which Dean took advantage of after getting Sam into the room with the caged bunny.
By the time he got back with hot food that actually smelled like food and not the usual diner crap Dean saw that Sam had taken a quick shower and changed into jeans but left his shirt off so Dean could dress and use antiseptic on the claw marks and what now looked like teeth marks on his shoulder while there was also a shallow knife cut on his neck.
"So what was it?" he asked as he sat on the bottom of the bed farthest from the door but kept his eyes on the big eyed bunny in the cage.
"Okay, so from what little I understood of this whole mess, first off the old guy in question wasn't a saint and probably would've ended up on one of those news shows eventually," Dean began while nudging a container of food into Sam's shaking hands and watching until he saw him begin to eat. "He was fired for being too old, and a little…weird so he got pissed. He found an obscure old book in some out of the way little shop with old time 'folk magic'. One of the remedies was how to gain vengeance on those who wronged you by taking an innocent animal…Thumper over there and using some old Romanian or other Eastern European folk spell to bring to life a 'Taker of Vengeance and Revenge'."
Sam eyed the fluffy bunny who was munching on the lettuce Dean put in the cage, nodding as he recalled earlier research. "Only the creature it summoned wanted more than to do his bidding."
"The old guy didn't want people killed he said before he croaked. He wanted to shake them up. When he began to read the news and realized what he'd let loose he tried to stop the creature only it was too late," Dean sat down to begin to carefully clean the scratches with some antiseptic he mixed with Holy Water to be sure nothing left over from the old spell might be in the wounds. "He found out from more research, why these jackasses don't do research before summoning something is still beyond me, that this thing was planning to kill the kids at the mall to get blood for its ancient God or something. That's when it turned on him. He was still alive when I got there and was able to tell me how to finish the spell to gank its fluffy ass."
"We…we killed the Easter Bunny," Sam whispered, looking next to him to see Dean's green eyes staring at him. "Didn't we? Or…it's going to look like it to those kids who now believe the Easter bunny tried to kill them. Why can't all this crap leave innocent stuff like Santa Claus, the Easter bunny and the Tooth fairy alone?"
Dean started to make a snarky joke about his brother still believing in the Easter Bunny only to stop and frown as he realized Sam was upset. "Okay, first off…we did not kill the Easter Bunny. That was not the Easter Bunny. That was a vile creature summoned from some old man's desire to have vengeance and he used an innocent fluffy bunny that he trapped in the woods behind his house to do it," he began while hearing a sharp hiss as one of the scratches burned and old time instincts came back as he blew over it to take the sting out of it.
"Next, if anyone takes on the guilt it's me since I'm the one who stabbed the monster with the oak staff and no, don't ask me what kind of blood it took to wipe it off the map," Dean caught Sam's head to lift it back so their eyes could meet. "Those parents back there will tell those kids that same thing I'm going to tell you right now. That was not the real Easter Bunny. The real Easter Bunny is kind, good hearted and loves all little kids. He will bring baskets of too much chocolate and fake stuffed toys in baskets on Easter because kids believe in him. And he outsources to pretend bunnies at malls since he's too busy to visit every small mall since the whole commercial thing increased business. Feel better now, Sammy?" he asked with a teasing smirk, relaxing as he finally saw Sam's lips curve a little into a grin.
Sam knew it was stupid to feel like he had but he had to chuckle at his older brother's attempts to make him feel better and not give him grief over it. "What do we do with the bunny?" he asked while nodding to the cage. "Is the spell totally broke? Can we let it go or will it…"
"No, it won't revert back to a seven foot killing machine," Dean replied. "I figure we'll let it out when before we leave."
"Wait, you said the guy trapped it in the woods behind his house?" Sam was frowning as he finished his meal to go over to kneel down to look into the cage before looking back at his brother. "We have to take it back there and let him go."
Dean choked on his drink of beer at that suggestion. "Seriously? You want to drive back there just to let some rabbit out of a cage?" he stared at Sam and wondered if that lump he'd cleaned on his head might be worse than he'd thought. "Sam, that's…tell me you're not…God, you're serious cause you're giving me Puppy-Dog eyes number seven," he groaned in dismay. "Really?"
"Dean, we can't let him out in strange woods. He was caught in woods he was familiar with, woods where his family probably still are. He'd never survive in these woods where he doesn't know any place to hide, or burrow or the other wild rabbits might…" Sam stood up to face his brother fully. He understood it wasn't a big issue but for some reason it was to him. "Please? Can't we drive it back?" he asked with his best sad look. "I'll drive."
Dean paced the room as he stated reasons why this was not a good idea but when he looked back to see both Sam and the damn bunny were giving him sad eyes the tough as nails hunter, the man fighting the Mark of Cain, blew out a breath and gave in. "Fine! But I'm driving and this had better never get back to anyone we still know."
"Who would I tell? Charlie?" Sam countered but quietly thanked his brother multiple times on the drive back into Pennsylvania.
"Yes, and she'd never let me live it down," Dean muttered and stood back as Sam carried the cage into the start of the woods to open the cage and release the bunny back into his natural habitat. "Can we go home now?"
Sam smiled and nodded after the bunny hopped away with a single look back and then it was gone. He still felt a little weak but some research on the way back to the bunker showed that part of that particular monster's power was to sap the will of its victims before killing them so he guessed Dean's arrival for well timed.
He slept for the most part, only waking to ask if his brother wanted him to drive when he noticed Dean rubbing his arm and looked tenser at times.
By the time Sam fell face first onto his bed he'd decided to sleep off the rest of the effects and get back to finding a way to remove the mark from Dean's arm as soon as he woke up. He didn't realize how tired he was until he finally pried his eyes open 19 hours later to groan.
Sitting up to rub his hands through his hair, Sam winced at his still sore head and then blinked to clear his eyes so he was certain he was seeing what he thought he was.
There on his desk was sitting an Easter basket. Not one of those store bought generic baskets but an actual basket that looked to have been hand filled with a little colored grass that was cushioning for the several colored hard boiled eggs, bags of Sam's favorite types of chocolate along with other treats he rarely admitted liking. There was also a leather bound edition of a new book he'd been eyeing on the computer for months, a pack of socks, and a gawdy pink stuffed rabbit holding a card with a bunny on the front.
Opening the card, Sam felt his eyes burn as he read the short message and recognized his brother's name scrawled at the bottom.
Grabbing the basket, Sam headed to find his brother. The moment he opened his door, he smelled food so he guessed Dean felt like cooking so he started for the kitchen.
Sam went through the library to see a bowl of plastic Easter eggs on the table as well as bowls of various candy and wondered how Dean had pulled this off since usually his brother wasn't into Easter as a general rule except for the candy aspect and teasing Sam.
Half the time they were hunting or working a case so there was rarely an actual dinner but as he stepped into the kitchen Sam stopped to see the kitchen table set for two and complete with a ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, baked beans, potato salad and a cake that looked like a chick.
"I cheated and bought the cake," Dean said from behind him, leaning in the door as he watched his brother take in the food. "I was bored, you were sleeping and I felt like cooking so we'll be eating leftovers for a week."
"Do I need to do the Holy water in the face thing?" Sam asked while turning to gesture with the Easter basket. "What's this?"
Dean smirked at the comment that he was acting odd. "What? Just because I have a cursed tattoo burning my arm doesn't mean I'm still not nesting," he scoffed while looking at the basket and then at Sam. "So, it looks like the Easter bunny came while I was cooking dinner. Cute bunny, Sam."
"Dean," Sam started to growl only to stop as his brother's hand squeezed the back of his neck in a gesture that Dean hadn't done in months and knew to let it go.
The simple touch had always been between them. It had started as a way for Dean to offer silent support when Sam needed it without getting a lecture from the father about being too soft on his brother. It was also how Dean showed emotions that he still had trouble expressing so when Sam felt it now he understood what this was and knew to let it go.
Placing the basket on the counter to take back to his room later, Sam pulled out a chair to sit down as his plate was filled and noticed that while Dean's plate was as full he was happy to see his brother still eating. "Thanks, Dean," he murmured and knew his brother would understand for what as they settled in for a quiet dinner that Sam silently hoped would be repeated next year because he was determined not to lose his brother again.
The End