Little Brother

"I still don't understand..." Castiel grumbled as he trailed out of the greasy burger joint behind Sam and Dean. "What is so special about the other side of the road that the chicken must always risk fatality to cross it?"

Dean sighed and gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head to his brother. He had tried telling Cas that joke while they waited for their burgers to arrive at their table, and Cas was still puzzling over its meaning, a good half hour later.

"I told you he wouldn't get it," Sam whispered, though he cast a sympathetic look toward Cas over his shoulder.

"That's just 'cause he's not like the rest of us apes. Right, Cas?" Dean smirked and slowed in his steps enough to allow Cas to catch up. One arm draped over Cas' shoulders while Dean's hand ruffled the dark hair on top of Cas' head, which earned him a disapproving glare.

Cas' blue eyes darted from one brother to the other as they exchanged secretive smiles. It always seemed like they knew something he did not, that they had access to some profound knowledge that he could never grasp.

"Why must you do that?" Cas groaned, fixing his hair back into place. They reached the Impala on the side of the dirt road, but Dean paused, bouncing the keys in his palm.

"Do what?" he replied innocently. Castiel was not fooled. By now, he knew Dean well enough to know when he wasn't being entirely forthcoming.

"You...say things that aren't considered to be friendly. You mess up my hair every chance you get. You and Sam gloat endlessly over knowing something I don't. It's...uncomfortable." For his credit, Sam actually appeared remorseful, his hazel eyes wide and apologetic. Dean simply shrugged.

"You're our brother, Cas. Sometimes we like to think of you as our naive little brother," he explained.

"Little?" Cas scoffed. He gave both brothers an incredulous stare. "I'll have you know that I have existed many millennia more than even your great-great-great-great grandparents! If anything, you two are the infants here!"

Dean held up his hands in mock surrender.

"Be that as it may...it just happens. You know, a brother teasing his...brother." Dean stumbled over his words, catching himself before he called Cas "little" again. Cas noticed and narrowed his eyes.

"We don't really mean anything by it, Cas," Sam added softly. He took a small step closer to the angel, hand outstretched in a gesture of comfort. "We don't mean to hurt your feelings. It's all in good fun." Cas regarded Sam and Dean skeptically. He thought they had a strange sense of "fun."

"It's called having a laugh at your expense. It's what brothers do. Sam and I do it to each other all the time."

"Some more often than others," Sam mumbled, but Dean pretended not to hear it.

"Like when I call him bitch and make fun of his ridiculous fear of killer clowns."

"And when I call him jerk and laugh at him for his ridiculous fear of flying."

"So, it's expected of you?" Cas asked. The two brothers exchanged glances again over the hood of the car. Together, they shrugged.

"By now? Yeah," Sam answered. "I would start to think something was wrong with Dean if he wasn't messing with me at least once a week."

Cas nodded thoughtfully. This was simply another staple to their complex relationship as brothers. In turn, they had named him their "little" brother. If he was going to assume the role of their brother, then he would have to meet those same qualifications.

Cas grinned at Sam and Dean, which they found more than a little peculiar. He snapped his fingers. In an instant, the greasy food joint and the Impala disappeared into thin air. The earth was ripped away from beneath their feet as they rushed through time and space in the fraction of a second.

Sam opened his eyes to find himself balancing precariously on a tightrope in the middle of a big-top circus, the kind with a red-and-white striped tent and the lingering smell of stale popcorn. Below him, it was standing room only, the circus tent crowded with a sea of creepy clowns armed with sharp, glittering knives. Hundreds of painted faces gazing up at him with bloodthirsty malice, waiting for him to lose his balance. Immediately, Sam was immobilized by fear, even as his ankles continued to wobble on the wire-thin tightrope.

Not clowns. Anything but clowns.

Miles high in the sky, Dean opened his eyes and suddenly wished he hadn't. He was seated in the middle of a crowded plane full of strangers, the floor jostling under his feet every time there was turbulence. He gripped the armrest and hummed Metallica. Bile raced up his throat. Oh, that greasy burger was coming back to haunt him...

Whoosh.

"I think I'm beginning to understand the appeal of teasing your brothers," Cas noted, materializing in the empty seat beside him. Dean could barely concentrate on Cas' words over his spiking fear and the sound of his humming. "You two are overcome with irrational fear and behave in an overly dramatic manner as a result while I remain peacefully unaffected. Ha, ha."

Cas actually laughed. It was a strange sound, as mechanical and monotone as the rest of his celestial being. Dean grasped the sleeve of Cas' trench coat for dear life.

"You had your fun, Cas. Make it stop!" Just then, the plane tilted forward and picked up speed, falling straight out of the sky. Shrill alarms pierced his ears, along with the sudden bloodcurdling screams of the passengers. Dean clenched his eyes shut, waiting for the violent impact. For a moment, he thought Cas wouldn't comply, but then Cas snapped his fingers.

Far below, in the red-and-white tent, Sam's foot slipped off the tightrope and he dove through the open air, down toward the sea of killer clowns-

He landed face-first on the dusty road, next to the Impala's tire.

"Ow," he mumbled. Picking up his head, he spat out a flume of dirt. There was the Impala, and the greasy burger joint, and his brother paralyzed by fear, still holding onto Cas' trench coat. "Uh...Dean? You can open your eyes now."

"Are we dead again? Oh, God, don't tell me we're stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere with a raging smoke monster."

Dean opened one eye, and then both when he realized it was safe. Technically, they were in the middle of nowhere, but at least he wasn't in the middle of a plane wreckage. He let go of Cas trench coat and wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans.

"That was fun, right?" Cas said, smiling at his two brothers. Dean pointed a finger in his face and the smile disintegrated.

"Don't...ever...do that again!"