Title:A Tricky Hunt
Author:Wysawyg
Summary:A run in with another trickster leads to an interesting situation for Sam and Dean. Humour fic.
Rating:PG-13
Author's Notes: This fic is part of a challenge between myself and my wonderful beta, TraSan, in order to kick-start our muses. The three prompt words are listed at the end to avoid spoilers. Go check out TraSan's entry for the challenge when she posts it. Apologies to anyone who saw the first version of this where ate my page breaks.
Fic:
"I can't believe we are here," Dean stated, his head falling forwards, only the swift intervention of his hands stopping it from crashing into the ketchup-sticky diner table.
"You know the first two hundred times you said that I didn't believe you but I'm starting to get the idea now," Sam sighed, pushing the last piece of pancake through the small ocean of syrup on his plate. "It's a valid case, Dean."
"I know, that's the worst part," Dean replied plaintively, jabbing his fork into one of his remaining strands of bacon and cramming the whole length into his mouth. There were a few perfunctory chews before the swallow or rather the swallow that should've been. Instead Dean's eyes widened and his Adam's apple started the half-hitch and cough that indicated something was lodged in his throat.
It was a scene all too familiar to Sam. In that never-ending Tuesday, he'd had to watch Dean choke to death on a sausage, an apple, a fizzy cola bottle and a nickel. He made it around the table in record time, wrapping his arms around his brother's torso and applying the Heimlich. Two quick pulls and Dean was spitting up bacon, only wheezing showing he was any the worse for wear.
"Dude, back off," Dean croaked out as soon as he had control over his larynx again and Sam obediently returned to his side of the table, all interest in his remaining food lost. "Can't we get Bobby to take this one?"
"Bobby is refusing to take any more of our cases until you apologise for that Succubi case you asked him to do."
Dean huffed and jabbed his fork into the recently regurgitated bacon, putting it back into his mouth. "That was hardly my fault. I didn't know it was just a prostitute with one helluva work ethic and it's not like I'm the one got Bobby arrested for solicitation."
"You are the one who showed up at the police station and told everyone you were taking away Ol' Uncle Bill's viagra prescription." Sam could feel his cheeks redden just at the memory. It was nothing compared to the look on Bobby's face when he found out just what his 'nephew' had been telling people to get him released.
Dean's face cracked into a grin as he chewed and swallowed the last fragments of bacon. "Man, it was worth it. Okay. So it looks like we've got to do this then. Are you sure there's none of Dad's old hunting buddies in the area?"
"Why are you having so much trouble with this?" Sam asked, taking a sip of his coffee. "Three months ago, we staked two pagan gods with a Christmas tree."
"That's a good point." Sam knew better than to claim victory already. "Why don't we ever run across any Buffys? I'd settle for a Willow in the later seasons too. Instead we just get skanky Rubys or Bela who would be hot if it wasn't for the fact I'd like to slit her stomach open and use her intestines as a jump rope."
Sam shot his brother a rather startled look.
"What?" Dean protested. "Bitch keeps stealing my stuff."
"You know if we were still in kindergarten, that'd mean she likes you."
Dean turned a little green, "Dude! My breakfast is disagreeing with me enough as it is. Shut up and drink your girly coffee."
"It's not girly," Sam argued, taking a sip and letting the cool liquid slide down his throat. "It's just sensible in this heat."
"It's called a Dancing Elephant!" Dean exclaimed and Sam had the feeling that it was the whole basis of his argument.
"So if a black coffee was called a Pink Fairy then you wouldn't order one?"
Dean tilted his head to one side in confusion, "Why would someone do something like that?" Sam was a little worried about how genuinely distraught he sounded.
"They wouldn't but just theoretically..."
"Why would you even theorise about something like that?" Dean cupped his hands protectively around the mug, shielding it from the world. "Sometimes I worry about you, Sammy."
Sam took a deep breath and reminded himself of all his brother's good points. "Back to, you know, the entire town's worth of missing children?"
"Right," Dean agreed. "So, the kids go into the wood, don't come out. Parents go nuts, search the woods, find nothing. One of the parents finds a summoning ritual in their kid's room with a few key words changed and all this adds up to..."
"Accidentally summoning the Easter Bunny, yes. Well, not the actual Easter Bunny but a spirit out there which is close enough."
"Which you think is Muhugunuu."
"Michabo," Sam corrected. "It's an Algonquin spirit, their version of the Trickster, who commonly takes the form of a rabbit."
Dean wrinkled his nose, taking another long sip from his coffee, "Haven't you had enough of Tricksters recently?"
Sam felt his hand tighten on the table not of his own volition and forced it to a slow release, "This is a different form of Trickster. According to mythology, he was the original hunter who bequeathed many of the signs and charms that we still use. Those Anasazi symbols to ward off the Wendigo were passed down to them by Michabo."
"Okay, he's a good guy, I'm getting the idea. This doesn't explain why he's decided to kidnap thirty children."
Sam shrugged, "He's still a Trickster. The children called him for a hunt and so he's giving them a hunt."
Dean tipped back the last dregs of coffee into his mouth, swallowed loudly, "So, what do we need to do?"
"First of all, we need a rabbit."
""""""""
"Dude, we can not do this," Dean crouched down towards where a smudge grey rabbit struggled in the snare. He held one hand out and the critter shied back, liquid eyes widening in fear. "Come on, Sam!"
"It's the only way to summon Michabo," Sam said though Dean noticed his brother wasn't exactly leaping in with the knife.
"Isn't there some stupid geegaw we could use to summon him?" Dean protested, wedging his fingers into the snare to loosen it a little and give the rabbit room to breathe.
"It's just a rabbit. For all we know, this rabbit could've been due to be eaten by a fox tonight. We're just bringing its death a little early and for a good purpose." Sam paused after he spoke, "For crying out loud, aren't you the one that usually advocates killing the bad guys?"
"But the bunny hasn't done anything bad," Dean said, hating how pathetic his voice sounded but if it worked on Sam, he wasn't going to regret it. "Anyway, doesn't this Mocha-moe manifest as a rabbit? He might get a bit upset if we still killing off his brethren."
Sam twirled the knife in his hands, "He just looks like a rabbit, he isn't really one. I promise to make it quick, okay?"
"Poor bunny," Dean said but he couldn't help but see the sense in Sam's words. He stood reluctantly and turned away. He heard the slick tearing noise and a brief scream from the rabbit then it was silent. "Poor bunny."
"Poor bunny indeed," The deep baritone didn't belong to Sam and it sure as hell wasn't Dean's voice. He turned and very nearly let out a scream of his own. Crouching a few metres away from the late lamented rabbit's corpse was its six foot big brother. Even more disturbing was the fact that the voice was emanating from beneath its twitchy whiskers. "Why have you summoned me?"
Dean motioned to his brother to take point. It was only fair that his brother got the talking to giant rabbits duty.
"It's about the children and their hunt. You see, I think there might be a language barrier issue. They didn't want a real hunt, their parents are worried about them and they should be allowed to come home now." Sam took a step backwards from the Algonquin spirit as he spoke.
"They called me to the hunt and I came. Intentions are irrelevant." Michabo tilted his head, one smoke-hued floppy ear tilting over his head.
"They're too young to be proper hunters," Sam argued.
The giant rabbit's eyes were unwholesomely sharp as they settled on Sam. "They are old enough to be learning and that is what they are doing."
"Look," Dean cut through whatever logic Sam was about to lay on. "They are kids, too young to be out hunting without adult supervision. I get that they summoned you from where you were and I'm guessing you are a bit pissed about that, not to mention my brother offing Thumper, but please just bring the kids back."
The bunny's nose twitched three times and one oversized foot thumped briefly into the ground. "Hmmmm. No," it answered in that booming voice then disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Dean sighed and turned to Sam, "Well, that was worth that poor bunny's life."
"Would you get off the rabbit?" Sam retaliated. "Perhaps if you haven't antagonised it…"
"Me? I wasn't the one that sliced and diced its baby brother!" Dean objected.
"Erm, hello?" A small piping voice came from the area of Dean's ankles. "Are you really adults?"
Dean tilted his head down and found himself staring into the glasses-ringed blue eyes of a small boy. "I know it might not seem like it right now but yes, me and Sam are adults. Wait, are you one of the missing kids?"
The boy bit his lip as he thought that over. "Maybe. I mean, I don't think I'm missing me but my parents might be. I'm Eric, Mom says it's rude not to introduce yourself."
Sam crouched, holding a hand out, "I'm Sam. This is my older brother, Dean. Do you know where the rest of the children are?"
Eric shook the hand and then stared back up at Dean like he was something amazing. "My older brother never lets me hang out with him, he says I'm stupid." Eric gestured off towards the forest, "The rest of the kids are over there. We've been taking it in turns to check the limits of the forest but it won't let us out. Every time we get to one side, we appear on the other one. I don't think that's normal."
Dean frowned at his brother. "Guess we know why the children have been trapped here. How about we get Eric out of here and then go back for the rest of the children?"
Eric seemed happy about that, a toothy white grin spreading across his face. "Piggyback?"
"Sam," Dean offered.
"Why me?"
"Because I fulfilled my piggyback quota when you were little," Dean argued.
"Fine," Sam said. "Come on!" He crouched down, letting Eric clamber on then stood.
The walk to the forest wasn't there which is why half an hour in when they were still walking, Dean started to get a little confused. "Sam, you sure it was this way?"
Sam had sweat beading on his forehead, probably from the combined effort of his walking and carrying Eric. "This is the right way, we should be out by now."
"See," Eric chirped from Sam's back. "You walk and you end up on the other side of the forest."
Dean glowered at Sam, "So we're trapped here now?"
Sam shrugged, "You are the one that said the children shouldn't be out without adult supervision. I guess Michabo decided to rectify that."
Dean scowled. Getting stuck in a never-ending forest was not his idea of a good time. "So boy genius, how do we get out of this one?"
"Michabo is a hunter, I guess he wants them to finish the hunt."
Dean stared at his brother, trying to figure out if Sam was being serious or not. "Dude, it's for chocolate eggs."
"A hunt is a hunt. Come on, let's find the rest of the children. Eric, what way?" Dean barely stifled a giggle as Eric took that as an invitation to grab Sam's hair like the reins of a pony, tugging one handful for direction.
It was another hour's walk before they reached a small clearing filled with children. Half of them appeared to be sleeping and the others engaged in some kind of counting game. Of course the sleeper promptly awakened when Eric hollered, "Look! I found adults," in that particular decibel rating that only young children could manage.
A stampede of short people swirled around Dean and Sam's legs and a thousand questions were burbled all at once, most of them asking if they could go home now.
"Hang on," Dean tried to get away from his stragglers to speak. "Hey, shut up!" The kids eventually fell silent and Dean found himself on the end of thirty hopeful pairs of eyes. "Right. We can't get out of here right now." There was a chorus of sighs. "But… I'm Dean and this is my brother, Sam, and we have a good idea about how to get you out of here. We need to finish the Easter egg hunt."
The blinking was almost audible.
"Look, it's a little hard to explain at the moment but we're pretty sure if we finish the hunt then the forest will let us go," Sam took over the explanation. "How far did you all get with the hunt?"
Eric had apparently decided Sam fit the purpose of podium as he straightened up and started barking orders in a lisp, "Charlie, show him the hidey hole!"
A spotty boy who was presumably Charlie scurried over to a patch of turf. He lifted it up, revealing a nest of shiny, sparkly objects. "These are all the ones we found so far."
Sam walked over and peered in, "I count forty five." That provoked a series of impressed ooohs from the children. "Does anyone know how many there are in total?"
A pig-tailed blonde girl in dungarees spoke up, "I heard my mommy tell my daddy that there were fifty eggs to find."
"Great, just five eggs to find then," Dean said, earning himself his own chorus of approval.
Sam glanced down at the collection, "If there was an even distribution of colours from the original packets then that means there's two red ones, a green, a blue and a purple left to find."
Dean was tempted to join in with the children's impressed 'Oooohs' this time. "Sam, you are far too much of a geek." He leant up to ruffle his brother's hair, remembering the old days when Sam'd rush home with his Math homework to show it to Dean. "So, who has mean parents?"
"Dean!" Sam said, shooting him the bitchface.
"What?" Dean protested. "I figure the kids have already found all the eggs hidden by the nice parents. We need to find the eggs hidden by the kind of bastard parents that get bored of buying presents one year and tell their kids there's no San--"
"Dean!" Sam hissed.
"Sandbags," Dean hastily changed verbal direction. "In case there's a flood." Fortunately the only expression on the children's faces were confusion rather than heartbreak. "Anyway, we need the kind of mean parents that would hide them at the top of the tallest tree or bury them in the ground."
"So, think like Dad?" Sam offered.
Dean rolled his eyes, "Issues later. Egg hunt now. So, anyone?"
Dean felt a tiny tug of his jeans and peered down. A tiny brunette with her hair in two thick plaits was staring up at him. "My daddy hits me sometimes," She volunteered.
Dean felt a flash of anger spread down from the tip of his head down into his toes. He glanced across to Sam who had a similar expression of fury.
Sam crouched down by the girl, "Okay, that's not the kind of mean we are looking for right now but me and Dean here will be having a word with Daddy after the egg hunt, okay?"
The girl bit her lip and nodded, "Okay."
"Anyone else?" Sam asked as Dean pushed down the swell of anger. A few hands shot up and there were mutterings about where their parents might like to hide things.
"Okay. We know the what, we know the how. Now let's get to it," Dean felt like one of those hokey motivation coaches he caught on TV. "I say we split into two teams and get to finding the eggs. Eric can be team leader one and you with the nasty father can be team leader two. Pick away."
"Dean," Sam grumped, even as he swung Eric back down to the ground. "Surely there's a better way to pick teams."
"What's wrong with the tried and tested method?"
"It's mean," Sam protested. "There's always a child who gets picked last."
Dean glanced around the sea of hopeful faces, "Anyone here care about getting their feelings hurt? No? Alrighty then." Fortunately the team picking went off with a minimum of fuss and even the last choice picks didn't seem that upset. "Okay, Team Tyranosaurus and Team Raptor.."
"Dude, dinosaurs suck," one of the pint-size hunters interrupted, a disgusted expression on his small face.
"Well, fine. You pick the names." Dean grumbled, letting the child go over to the group and start the discussion. He turned towards Sam and muttered, "Dinosaurs do not suck."
"Let it go," Sam patted his shoulder.
Dean was all for letting the little twerps decide for themselves except that they were currently still discussing. The suggestions coming out seemed to range from the cast of Lost to cartoon characters.
"Okay, kids. You are about ten seconds away from being Team Tinky-Winky and Team Dipsy so just pick already," Dean glowered down. When the children still didn't come up with a suggestion, Dean huffed, "Okay, Team Metallica is with Princess Sammy over here. Team AC/DC is with me."
A red-headed girl immediately burst into tears, "I don't wanna be on Team AC/DC. I wanna be on Sam's team. Dean's mean."
Dean blinked and turns to Sam, "What? I'm not mean. You're stupid."
Sam stared at his brother. "Dean, you're three times her age, could you try to act that way?"
Dean huffed, "Fine. Team Metallica is with me. Team AC/DC goes to Sam. Better?"
The little red-headed girl immediately brightened.
""""""""""
"How many of you have older siblings?" Dean's group had already set off into the woods but Sam felt it was more important to connect with the kids first. After all, it would be his responsibility to lead them which usually required knowing them first. "Yeah, lots of you. Okay, we need to win this for all younger siblings everywhere, okay? For all the times they've stolen the free gift from the cereal packet, for all the noogies and wedgies and short-sheeted beds. This is our chance to show that just because we're younger, it doesn't mean we're not also better."
There was a silence from his audience.
Sam cleared his throat, "Erm. What I mean is, we're gonna win this, okay?"
That got a slightly more exciting chorus of cheers.
"I'm going to split you up into three groups. Eric, Billy, you will be group leaders. Your job will be to keep an eye out for your group, make sure none gets lost and report back to me when you find eggs." Sam checked his watch, "Meet back here in thirty minutes, okay?"
Sam's group consisted of three boys and one girl. There was Antony, who had only taken his thumb out of his mouth once so far and that was just for the length of time it took to say his name. There was Tim, Sam didn't want to be mean but Tim was the kind of child that'd spend his time chasing parked cars if he had the option. There was Andy. Andy was the one that didn't like dinosaurs but was in all other ways a mini-Dean. Finally there was Lissa. Her blonde hair was perfectly plaited despite the length of time they'd been in the forest and her nails showed no trace of dirt. Sam was beginning to wonder if the child was human.
Ten minutes worth of walking, Tim spotted the first egg. Sam soon revised his opinion of how great a normal life would have been as obtaining the egg involved the kind of acrobatics usually only seen in cheerleading pyramids. Sam's shoulder had started a dull throb as a result of playing the base of the pyramid. They were now one shiny red egg closer to getting out of the woods.
At fifteen minutes into the woods, Sam started the turn-around taking an alternate route back towards the base camp which unfortunately didn't yield any more eggs. There was one of the other groups waiting as they got back but they'd been unsuccessful at finding any eggs. The last group arrived about five minutes late with one of the group clutching her arm to her. It didn't take long for Sam to diagnose a broken arm. He tore a strip off his t-shirt to turn it into a sling and then put the little blue egg that the group had found into the hollow.
Sam sighed and flipped open his phone, "Dean, how are you doing?"
"""""""
"Who here is good at climbing?" Dean called, turning to walk backwards and address his followers. "Come on, don't be shy." A very short boy raised his hand. "Excellent. You are Chief Monkey. Your job is to clamber up the trees as often as possible and take a birds eye view for any eggs."
Chief Monkey immediately scampered over to one of the trees and started scrambling up it, using his midget height to weave in and out of the branches faster than Dean could manage.
Dean tapped a random kid on the shoulder, "You, you listen out for what Chief Monkey calls down and relay it to me." Dean glanced back at the marching kids, "Who likes playing in the mud?" This time his query was met with about four dirty hands in the air. "You four go crazy in the ground, some fuc... erm, some parents have probably buried eggs. Try to look for places where the ground is disturbed already."
The only problem was that Dean now found himself facing nine expectant faces, all waiting to be given a special task. "Erm, right. Who has good eyesight?" Two hands went up. "And who is good at running?" Another three hands went out. "Okay, you are our scouting parties. Your job is to roam the forest, report back any patches of disturbed earth or shiny things for the Diggers and Monkeys."
The kids nodded and dashed off which left four pairs of eyes watching him. "So, what are you good at?"
"I can burp the alphabet!" A pudgy boy said.
Dean winced, "Erm, we might have to hold that talent in reserve. Anyone else?"
"My daddy says that I'm the loudest loud person who ever louded," A girl shrilled at him, her voice reaching the kind of decibel heights that castrata could only aspire to.
"Okay, you play siren. If anything goes wrong, you just scream as loud as you can and hopefully Sam'll come running. You think you can do that?" Dean asked.
The girl opened up her mouth and let out a shriek that seemed to reverberate right through Dean's skull. Fortunately it only lasted a second before the girl brightened and nodded.
"Mr Dean! Mr Dean!" One of the scouts came running over, her dark hair flying behind her like a bird's wing. "We found an egg. Come on, come on. We're gonna need a Monkey."
"Okay, team. Let's go," Dean strode off after the scout as she dashed off towards the path. It was a short charge and then the girl was gesturing upwards. Dean revised his opinion on parents as monsters as he spotted the glitter of purple nestled in a knot in the wood. The problem was that the knot was in the middle of a branch-sparse area that Dean had no idea how to reach. He wasn't sure how the parents had got it in there in the first place.
"Um, any ideas, kids?" Dean half-wished his gargantuan brother was here. Sam could probably reach up and pluck that egg straight out. Part of Dean acknowledged that maybe he was exaggerating his brother's height a little.
"We could rope some twigs together and poke it out of there."
"That's great. Anyone got any rope?" Dean asked. Unfortunately his plan fell apart a little at the Mexican wave of head-shakes. "Any other plans?"
"If enough of us climbed up then we could dangle down in a chain until we can reach it?"
"I think that's our plan," Dean said. "Who has the strongest grips? Okay, Monkeys, help those people up the tree. I'll stand beneath ready to catch anyone who looks like they will fall." When the kids just looked at him, "What are you doing? Get to it!"
Dean was just beginning to wonder how Sam was doing when his phone rang.
"""""""""
Sam couldn't help but smirk as he hung up the phone. Dean was halfway to one egg while Sam had two. It felt good. It felt like justice. Admittedly Easter egg hunts had never been part of their childhood. They had only done one as kids and that was because Dean had persuaded their father to treat it as a training exercise. The boys had had an hour long lecture for letting a bunch of spotty-nosed suburban brats beat them, their dad hadn't understood how competitive the kids were. Sam rubbed at the memory of an elbow-shaped bruise.
"Right, teams," Sam addressed the upturned faces. "There are two eggs left to find. If my calculations are right, there should be one green and one blue egg. Keep an eye out for anything green or blue and sparkly. We'll split up again and meet back here in an hour."
"Mr Sam," one of the children piped up. "I'm tired. I don't wanna go egg hunting."
Sam peered around the horde and found a bunch of drooping faces, a couple of them looking half-asleep. "Who isn't tired?" A few hands went up but most of them stayed down. "Okay, tired people go back to the clearing and get some sleep. The rest of us will try to find the last two eggs."
It was hardly a vibrant expedition that set forth. The children were stumbling a little and their frequent yawns were enough to set Sam off. "Come on, kids. Just a little while longer then we can all go home." It brought back memories of long hunts when they were kids, Dean walking at his side and cajoling him.
"I see one, I see one," the child calling out was enough to set Sam into motion and he hurried over to where the kid was pointing. "Oh, s'just a beetle. I don't think I've seen a beetle that shiny."
Sam sighed, "Good try, kid." Sam patted his cell phone, tempted to call Dean again and see how his brother was doing even though it'd only been fifteen minutes since the last call. "Keep your eyes sharp."
"Mr Sam," Sam peered down to where one of the munchkins was tugging on his jeans. "Mr Sam, my feet hurt. Can I have a piggyback like Eric?" Sam sighed and crouched down, "Fine, up you come. But this is just so you get a better point of view."
The extra weight already made Sam's shoulders ache, especially the one which was already sore from the human pyramid. It didn't help that the kid was determined to join in the fun as he shifted about, forcing Sam to grasp his legs to avoid the child falling.
"Mr Sam. Mr Sam. Mr Sam." One of the children chanted at Sam, practically dancing in front of him.
"What is it? Did you find an egg?" Sam asked.
The child shook his head, "I need to go potty."
Sam blinked, "Erm, can't you just go behind a tree?"
The child stared up at him, pale blue eyes starting to look a little watery, "You said not to wander off on our own."
"This time you can, just come straight back when you are… done."
The child wandered off and Sam brought the group for a halt. The last thing he wanted to do was lose a child, especially when they had to be fairly close to collecting them all.
He wasn't expecting the child to come tearing out of the woods like the hounds of hell were on his tail. "Mr Sam! Mr Sam! I found an egg, I found an egg." He pressed the blue-shrouded chocolate into Sam's hand.
Sam turned it over in his hands, "Good job! Where did you find it?"
"I peed on it." The child said ecstatically.
Sam dropped the egg, rapidly wiping his hands and then carefully picked it up again in a sleeve-covered hand. "That's a good job. One more egg to find." He looked around his kids who were looking less excited and more tired. "Maybe tomorrow."
Sam pulled out his cell phone and dialled his brother, "Dean? Yeah, we've got one more egg to find. How tired are your kids? Yeah, mine too. How about we head back to base camp, get some rest and find the last egg in the morning?"
"Okay, kids. That's it for the night, let's head home."
""""""""
They'd managed to get a good fire going. There was plenty of wood around, the only issue had been creating enough of a block to make sure the fire wouldn't spread to the rest of the wood in their sleep. The kids were now asleep around the fire, most of them huddled together but Dean was still wide awake. Fortunately for him, so was Sam.
"You remember that egg hunt when we were kids?" Sam asked, twirling a knife in his hands, firelight glinting off the blade.
Dean grinned, sinking back into memories for a minute. "That was great. Though, dude, those kids were vicious. I swear I looked like I'd got in a fist fight with a Wendigo after battling those brats for the last eggs."
"But we made a great team," Sam said, far too big a grin on his face. "One of us to hold off the other kids, the other to get the egg. I think I missed that with this hunt. I mean, my kids were great, greater than yours at least. So says three eggs to one."
Dean stuck out his tongue in response which was hardly the mature thing to do but they were on an Easter egg hunt, it was hardly the place to be mature. "Obviously you bogarted all the good kids. I knew that switch at the start was just an excuse."
"Hey, you can't blame your subpar hunting skills on a bunch of seven year olds."
"Why not? They're asleep, they can't hear me." Dean pulled his coat a little tighter around himself and leant in closer to the fire. "Hey, are you hungry?"
Sam shook his head, "Not really. Why?"
"Because I'm not." Dean rubbed at his stomach, "I'm never not hungry."
"I guess Michabo didn't want the kids starving to death. Still, I want to get out of here. I'm not looking forward to the hunt for the last egg. Judging by the ones we've found so far…"
"Yeah, makes our dad look like a teddy bear." Dean shuddered at that image. "Hey, seeing as all the kids are fast asleep, why don't we have a scout around?"
Sam just the knife one last twist and stuffed it back into its sheath. "Sounds good. Much as I've grown almost tolerant of these kids, I miss the old-fashioned hunt. You and me versus nature."
Dean looked at his little brother, "Did you get a concussion at some point? We're entering in a grand contest to find a tiny blue chocolate egg."
Sam shrugged, "It's better than sitting here all night, letting half of us get progressively colder while the other side gets too hot."
"That's a good way to put it. Come on, lets get going," Dean stood up, checking his gun and tucking it into a side holster.
"Dude, we're hunting tiny chocolate eggs, they don't tend to be that vicious."
"I'm not going out in the forest naked," Dean protested. "Where are the areas we haven't searched yet?"
Sam shrugged, "I don't have a map. I think that way sounds good though."
"The tried and tested eenie-meanie-miney-mo method of hunting," Sam's instincts usually tended to be the right ones as annoying as that was. Dean headed in the direction Sam'd pointed, keeping his eyes peeled for the wrapper. "You watch high, I'll watch low."
Sam nodded affirmatively and kept his eyes fixed on the trees around. "I swear this egg hunt is even worse than the last one. I think there was one egg there as bad as the ones that we've found here. Can you imagine being in this town when it had a bake sale?"
"Cake crumbs flying everywhere, icing smears on the pavement, glace cherries strewn in the road," Dean watched the dirt, keeping an eye out for any unusual disturbance in the soil. "Hey, what's this?" Dean crouched down, peering at the slight mound.
Sam knelt down in the dirt and started scraping away some of the dirt. Dean was glad that Sam was taking that responsibility. Judging by the noises around the forest, there were plenty of things out there pooping on the soil. As far as Dean cared, Sam could get his hands covered in crap.
Fortunately the parents hadn't hidden it too deep as he pulled out the shiny object, the last egg. It was almost ceremonial how Sam handed it off to Dean and he held it aloft in triumph.
There was a brief ripple in reality and suddenly the giant rabbit was back. Dean double-blinked, his brain having a solid argument with his eyes that were fairly sure there was trees there, not a rabbit. "Hey, we've found all the eggs," Dean protested. "You can't set more conditions."
The rabbit's fuzzy mouth opened up, glistening white buck teeth jutting out but all that happened was a deep laugh. "I just came to congratulate you. It's always nice to meet real hunters, there are too few around these days."
Dean glanced over to his brother, only to see Sam sending him a similar look of perplexion back. "You're a fan?"
The rabbit snorted, nose and whiskers twitching, "I wouldn't say a fan. I'm a God, you mortals are around too briefly to really admire. Still, you aren't too bad." Dean smirked which Michabo seemed to notice as his dark eyes turned on him, "Not the best I've seen."
He heard Sam barely stifling a giggle next to him.
"The path is now clear," The rabbit continued as if it hadn't heard anything. "I look forward to hearing more from you later."
Before Dean had any chance to make a response, reality wavered and Michabo was gone once more.
Dean stood there for a moment, "A God thinks I'm cool."
Sam huffed, "A God thinks we're cool."
"He was looking at me."
"He's a rabbit, how can you tell where he was looking?"
"Come on, let's go wake the kids."
"Which one of them do you reckon summoned him in the first place?" Sam asked as they started walking back.
"Oh, definitely Billy."
"Billy? I was thinking James. That kid just screams trouble."
"Really? I thought he kinda reminded me of me when I was that age." When Sam's only response was a smirk, Dean paused, "Hey! I was not trouble. I wasn't."
"Whatever you say."
"You were trouble. Always wandering off. I once suggested to Dad we used you as bait seeing as you always ended up that way anyway."
"Did not. I remember you were the one always getting injured."
"Only because I kept having to save you."
"Did not."
"Did too."
"Race you back."
"Bitch."
"Jerk."
Prompts were: Michabo, Dancing Elephant (a strange expresso, icecream and tiramisu coffee TraSan was drinking) and gewgaw.