Chapter Four

Dean was no stranger to hearing things that he didn't want to hear. He'd been hearing things he didn't want to hear all his life. He heard things he didn't want to hear all the time.

"Dean, they didn't have any pie, all right? If there was pie, I would've got pie. But there wasn't. So I couldn't. So I didn't."

"Now, this might feel like a little bit of a sting, just hold still."

"Nope, no bacon left – you idjits ate the last of it yesterday. I told you yesterday, you idjits have just eaten the last of the bacon."

"Given where the injury is, it would be prudent to refrain from sexual activity for at least two weeks."

"Growf grrrrrf ruff rowf rumph grrrrrrrmf hrrrmphrumph". (Sorry, dude, I'm stuck again – can you get me a beer?)

Sometimes, he heard things he really didn't want to hear.

"Yeah, I'll cast some 9 mil silver ammo for you. Just as soon as you apologise for the crack about my wardrobe. I like flannel. It's practical. You can get me a six-pack, to make amends. And none of that undrinkable Yankee crap, either, I want proper beer. Shut your face, before I demand a slab. Go on, bugger off, get alcohol, make yourself useful."

"Okay, so that cast will have to stay on for six weeks."

"Step out of the car, please, sir, and place your hands on the roof."

"Hello, Dean – why are you using your brother's shower products again, when he has repeatedly asked you not to do so, especially for Special Me-Time?"

"Harrrruff ruff ruff rowf rumph grrrrrrruff ruff!" (There's a really amazing dead skunk over there, Alpha, here, get a sniff, I rolled in it to bring you the scent!)

Or things he really, really didn't want to hear.

"The only room we have left is a king bed, but that'll be fine for you guys, right, we're totally cool with that, we're a non-discriminatory establishment…"

"No, sorry Squirrel, no idea where Moose is, and if I did have, I wouldn't tell you, darling, I have standards to uphold."

"Brrrrumph hrrrrrrrm grrrrrrrrmph." (Oh, maybe I shouldn't have tasted that dead skunk.)

Or even things he really, really, really didn't want to hear.

"Shut up, Dean, just shut up – that laceration goes all the way up, we're miles from the nearest ER, where you'd only have to sit around – or stand around, as the case may be – for hours, and for the record, I'm not enjoying this either, so just drop your damned pants, jerk, and let's deal with this."

"Whiiiiiine" hrrrrrrrrrrrrk "Rumf!" (I feel better now, I just threw up on the back seat.)

But every so often, he heard something that he really, really, really, really, really, really didn't want to hear, to the point where, if he could, he'd go back in time by a couple of minutes, just so he'd have time to poke out his own eardrums with a spork.

Being told that he was going to be transformed into a woman to do a job was right up there at the top of the ear-sporking list.

"Wsfgl?" he went.

"Look," Sam began in a placatory tone, "There's no other way. We cannot walk into this as ourselves. Men showin' up at one of these meets would be conspicuous enough, but we show up as us, worst case scenario, somebody figures out that we're really, uh, real."

"This way, you'll be able to mingle with other writers, and talk to them as equals," Bobby continued. "I know you don't like the idea, son, but this is really the only option."

His mouth open in disbelief like a talent show hopeful who's just been told that in fact no, they can't sing, in fact they should go and join a cloistered order somewhere where they can take a vow of silence, Dean sat down heavily on the sofa.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he managed eventually. "Why does God hate me so much? Damned celestial deadbeat dad. What the fuck have I ever done to piss Him off this much?"

"Well, it could be the constant blasphemy," Sam pointed out, "And maybe calling His kids 'flying dicks', and frankly, you're pretty rude to Him or about Him at least once a week, so…"

"God aint got nothin' to do with it," Bobby said sternly, "It's some fugly that's to blame, so you just get off The Almighty's case, and do what you gotta do to get the job done."

"Great," muttered Dean, "Just great. I'm gonna be bespelled by Gimli here, and the-OW! Hey!" He glared resentfully at Yiayia Panagopoulos as he rubbed his ear.

"I was reading Tolkien before you were born," she growled at him. "You'd like to see me swing an axe like I mean it?"

"Ignore him, Yiayia," Sam said, shooting Dean a searing Bitchface #1™ (Dean, I Don't Believe You Just Did/Said/Ate/Punched/Shot/Had Sex With That!), "He suffers from dyswitchia, an irrational and irresistible compulsion to do everything he can to piss off a witch."

"You keep a civil tongue in your head, boy," Bobby snapped, "You aint too big to be put across my knee."

Dean gave him a hard stare. "If you wait until I'm a chick, that'd be just creepy," he sniffed.

"Look, I don't know why you're getting so upset," Sam commented, "It's not like you haven't done this before. At least you've had practice at living as a female, when you and Ronnie got swapped into each other's bodies."

"And you think I'm lookin' forward to it?" Dean shot back. "Sam, I know that you'll appreciate this, being the SNAG kind o' guy you are, I'm tellin' you, sometimes it's hard to be a woman."

Sam gave him a blank stare. "You burst into song, I'll hit you too," he said flatly.

"No, no," Dean waved his hands in agitation, "There's… it's… look, there's all these little things that kind of add up, okay, a whole bunch of things. Like undergarments."

"Undergarments?" echoed Bobby and Sam.

"Bras," Dean stated. "They constitute cruel and unusual punishment. And you gotta sit down to take a leak – you'll probably have to put the seat down, first, and nobody else ever changes the TP roll when it runs out."

"Given that this is only going to be a temporary thing, that's hardly enough to put the kybosh on it," Sam suggested.

"Huh," humphed Dean, "Come back and say that when you've been wearin' an underwire all day. That's just the start of it, you can feel people judgin' you on your appearance, and you can tell that men just want one thing…"

"Well, you'd have been familiar with that from way back," Sam observed tartly, "Seein' as you've been doin' that to women since you were a teenager."

"This will only be a short term thing, maybe a week," Bobby cut in, "So the wider sociological implications of entrenched discrimination won't be pertinent to the job."

Dean wasn't listening. "And then," he swallowed nervously, "Then, there's… it."

"It?" repeated Sam doubtfully.

"It," Dean said again, "If you're a woman, you can't escape from it."

"Uh, okaaaaaay," Sam replied carefully. "So, uh, you know, if you could be a little more specific, bro…"

"It! It!" Dean hissed, "You know, it! If your timing's bad, there's it!"

Understanding dawned on Sam's face. "Ah, it," he nodded. "Yeah, well, it's a perfectly normal physiological process for a healthy adult female body, Dean."

"Don't you dare lecture me about 'perfectly normal physiological process'!" Dean hissed angrily. "What would you know about it? Do you know what it's like to feel as though your pancreas is tryin' to strangle your liver with your kidneys?"

Sam looked bewildered. "Uh, no, no, I don't, but I could imagine…"

"No, Sam!" yelped Dean, "You cannot imagine! That's the whole point! As a man, you cannot imagine! You have no idea what it feels like! Like your legs are tryin' to pull themselves off the rest of you to get away! Like somebody is stabbing you from the inside with a rusty knife! Like some asshole Predator alien is tryin' to pull your spine out of your body to make a trophy! Like if you move, every single muscle in your body will tear itself to pieces at once!"

Sam gave him a dubious look. "Well, Ronnie did say that she feels a bit tired for a day or so…"

"And then," Dean's face was a picture of anguish, "Assuming you can get enough drugs into your system to convince yourself that you aint gonna die, and in fact maybe you don't actually want to die, you spend the next few days feelin' like you got a mattress shoved down your pants…"

"Dean…"

"And you can be just sittin' there, and it's just, it's just, it's just gross…"

"Dean…"

"It's no wonder Carrie freaked out, Sam, it'd make Dexter freak out!"

"Dean, I think you might be over-reacting just a bit…"

"You have no idea what you might be lettin' yourself in for!" Dean finished with a horrified squeak.

Yiayia Panagopoulos let out a snort of amusement. "This right here, this is why the women have the children," she chuckled. "If the men had the children, the human race would have died out before it even started."

"Don't get me started on childbirth," Dean growled, "I can tell you, it aint the least bit funny…"

"Might I remind you," Bobby pointed out, "You only got to experience the, uh, feminine mystery, and the joys of childbirth, because you're so good at bein' rude to witches. So, why don't you stop it, before you end up, uh, learnin' somethin' else about the female state that you'd rather not."

"Look, Dean," Sam tried in a calm tone, "If we get hit with the, uh, feminine mystery, we'll just have to get on with it, dose up on drugs, or camomile, or chocolate, or whatever, and get on with it. It's what women all over the world do."

"You've been warned," Dean intoned ominously, "You've been warned, Sammy, you can't complain later that nobody told you…"

"Okay, I've been warned," Sam cut him off, "I'll take that intel on board, now stop being such a drama queen."

"Fine," rumbled Dean, "Fine, we'll do this job, we'll do it your way, but if the hormone fairy flutters by and whacks you over the head with her wand, don't come bitching to me about how unattractive you feel. So, what's the plan?"

Sam outlined the plan he'd been working on with Bobby: head to the next fanfic meeting, which would be in Chicago, join in, and try to identify the next likely victims, ID and find whatever-it-was that was inspiring the murders and stop it.

"So we'll only have to be female for a week or so," Sam pointed out, "If we can figure out what the fugly is."

"Fuck my life," Dean muttered, "So, what do we have to do?"

Yiayia P. will work up the spell for us," Bobby explained, "Then you two idjits head off on a girls-only road trip, pass yourselves off as rabid Supernatural fans, and then get on with the family business."

"Be still my beating fangirl heart," grumped Dean, sighing deeply, "Okay, then, lay it on us." He resisted the urge to add 'Gandalf' to the end of the sentence.

Yiayia Panagopoulos went about setting up her altar, Sam helping her to gather the ingredients she'd need for the spell, while Dean spent some time with RJ.

"The only consolation here is that you're too young to remember watchin' your dad turn into your mom," he sighed glumly to his son. RJ gave his dad a sympathetic look, patted his face consolingly, then offered him a leg of Stanley the knitted honey badger to chew on. "Uh, no thanks, buddy, although I appreciate the offer," Dean couldn't help but grin. "I just hope this doesn't freak you out as much as it will freak me out."

"Meh," said RJ equably, chomping serenely on Stanley.

"You can be pretty damned Zen for a kid your age," Dean observed, "Not like your Uncle Sammy – he could scream the place down if something unexpected happened, like, say, his sippy cup was thirty seconds late. Seriously, he had OCD even back then."

Bobby and Sam assisted Yiayia with the spell, as she muttered in Greek both ancient and modern, nodding encouragement to them as they performed their roles. Dean grudgingly had to admit that Yiayia certainly seemed to know her stuff: as one old-school practitioner of the craft of mechanics, he could appreciate another old-school operator. There were bells, there were candles, there were arcane symbols, there were strange and ululant phrasings, there was stuff being set on fire – he nodded in approval. He might not like witches and their magic, but he knew what it was supposed to look like.

Finally, there was a whoomph noise and a flash of pink light. Yiayia peered critically into the extremely ugly goblet she'd used, and let out a small humph of satisfaction.

"Success," she declared, passing the goblet carefully to Bobby. "Drink up before bed, wake up to experience feminine mystery."

"Thank you, Yiayia," said Bobby, "We'll just put this somewhere safe – now, can I offer you coffee before you go?"

Bobby and Sam chatted with Yiayia Panagopoulos, while Dean went outside to spend the afternoon with his car, "Before I have to worry about gettin' my ass slapped when I've got the hood up," he told his car grumpily.

Afternoon faded into evening, which faded into dinner time, then bed time.

"Why is there always something disgusting that I gotta drink?" complained Dean, peering into the potion with a grimace. "I've brushed my teeth already!"

"Jerk," huffed Sam, taking the mug containing the potion and gulping down about half of the contents. "Oh, hey," he said with a smile, "It tastes like beer!"

"Yeah?" Dean grabbed the mug, and took a large mouthful. "Arrrrrrgh! Blarrrrrgh! Oh, fuck me, that tastes gross!"

Sam simply gave his brother a sunny 'Gotcha!' smile, and headed for his bed. "Night, bro."

Night, bro. Well, bro for now," Dean sighed, checking on RJ in his cot, where the little boy was fast asleep, cuddling Stanley. "I just hope that come morning, he doesn't scream any louder than me."

"Go to bed, jerk," instructed Sam, turning out his bedside lamp and rolling over.

"Yes, Mom," drawled Dean, getting into his own bed.

He lay in the dark, wondering what it would be like: would it be a Cinderella moment, when one minute, he was male, and the next, pop, he wasn't? Or would it be a slow process, the inexorable shrinkage here and expandage there until he was finally down two kiwis and a banana, but up two melons? He clenched his hands into fists, making himself refrain from clutching protectively at his most prized possessions.

He was still wondering about it when he finally fell asleep, and his gentle snores joined the others.

In the Jimiverse, Dean first experienced the feminine mysteries in 'Wolf Whistle', and underwent an existential pregnancy in ''Pregnant Pause'. Both as a result of pissing off witches. Yep, acute dyswitchia, that one.

Well, little Alfie-Con the mafia plot bunny is being a talkative little rodent, so your kind reviews must be encouraging him. He's just trying to work out if anybody else should be dragged into this Hunt - should RJ go? (He at least could be disguised convincingly as a beautiful little girl). Should Castiel go? (He could try another vessel)? The mind boggles...

Send more reviews because Reviews are the Cuddly Knitted Toys In The Cot Of Life!