Chapter Five
Dean Winchester rarely had the opportunity to sleep late: if they were on a job, The Big Brother Within That Never Sleeps would not be prepared to risk leaving Sam unguarded, and if they were at Singer Salvage, then either RJ and/or Lemmy would provide a wake-up call, involving drooling, slobbery kisses and loud demands for breakfast. So on the odd occasion when he did get the chance to take his time waking up, he enjoyed it.
It looked like that morning might be one of those occasions – RJ didn't usually take advantage of the dogs' Hellhound-blood capacity to pull him out of his cot, but sometimes he'd go downstairs with Sam, his little brother removing toddler and dogs to allow his big bro some extra snooze time.
Dean let his brain take its time waking up from a weird dream about a bowl of fruit salad, finally opening his eyes, then performing the time-honoured ritual of Man Arising (yawn, stretch, fart, scratch groin) in a leisurely manner. Yawning for a second time as he scratched his chin and wondered if it might be worth shaving, he noted that he was alone in the Winchesters' room. Good, he thought, he would have the bathroom to himself, without brother or toddler or dog barging in, so he could take a shower, and maybe use up some more of Sam's toiletries…
He looked down, and screamed.
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Bobby and Sam were in the kitchen when they heard the scream.
"Sounds like he – or should I say she? – is awake, then," observed Bobby, with a brief chortle.
"And he says I scream like a girl," humphed Sam, putting RJ's breakfast in front of the child. The boy smiled up at him, apparently completely unfazed by the fact that Uncle Sammy had, overnight, transmogrified into Auntie Samantha.
"Well, technically, right now, if you did scream, you would," Bobby pointed out.
"We'll have to hit a Goodwill, or something, before we head out," Sam commented, looking down at himself. Herself. It was going to take some getting used to. "Lookin' like a woman who's borrowed some sweats to sleep over at her boyfriend's place is okay for the breakfast table in your own kitchen, but we're gonna need some more wardrobe items than that." He hitched the now-way-too-big tee back onto his shoulder. "And shoes. I could fit both feet into one of my boots!"
It had been a hell of a shock to wake up and find that he was… well, essentially a female version of himself. If Dad had given me an X-chromosome instead of a Y, he'd mused, this is what I could have looked like. I'm still me, but… I'm she-me.
He was tall for a woman, five-ten or five-eleven he guessed, and the, uh, well the anatomy had been rearranged, but when he looked in the mirror, he recognised his own features: hazel eyes, long straight dark hair, and a strong chin, but… softer. Less angular. Definitely female. Kind of attractive in a girl-next-door kind of way, if he was dispassionate about it, a woman in her thirties who'd been blessed with good genes and stayed active and ate a sensible diet.
"I guess I don't have to worry about the, uh, foundation garment thing if I don't want to," he smiled ruefully down at his own modest chest, "There's not a whole lot there, so I can get away with it."
"Karen always used to complain like hell about the cost of, you know, unmentionables," Bobby related, "So bein' a bit on the small-busted side will save you money." He looked down at Sam's feet, swimming in a pair of his own socks. "We might have some stuff in the attic that will get you decent enough to go out in public and get some more stuff that actually fits…"
The thundering down the stairs announced the imminent arrival of Dean.
"Ah, here comes your brother – or your sister, heh heh – now," chucked Bobby.
"That's something we'll have to work out," Sam noted, putting RJ's sippy cup in front of him, "It might be better if we say we're friends rather than sisters, we want to draw as few parallels with ourselves as w- HOLY SHIT!"
Dean burst into the kitchen, wild-eyed and dishevelled, with his – well, her, really – chest heaving.
If he was honest, Sam thought, 'heaving' was exactly the right word for what that chest was doing.
"Saaaaaaaaam! Bobbyyyyyyyyy!" yodelled Dean in a definitely female voice.
Bobby paused and turned to look at… Deanna.
"God's tits," he muttered.
Yep, Deanna. Weren't no way he could possibly think of the person who'd just barged into his kitchen as anything except female. She kind of, well, radiated female. Her femaleness preceded her.
By several cup sizes, if he was any judge.
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The spell that Yiayia Panagopoulos had performed was only a temporary transformation. Nonetheless, it took a powerful and highly competent practitioner to pull it off. However, even given what it had achieved, it was not as amazing as it looked to the well-informed observer.
Any time a human had the temerity to cast a spell, there was always the element of what could only be described as cosmic comeuppance lurking nearby, just waiting to pounce on a practitioner who got too uppity: the Powers That Be, whether it was Karma, or Fate, or Universal Energy, or any one of countless gods, didn't mind humans learning to channel and use magic, just so long as their heads didn't get too big for their pointy hats. Wielding magic was like exploiting any power resource: handled prudently and wisely, it could achieve marvellous things, but carelessness born of arrogance or ignorance could be fatal – or, in the case of The Craft, worse.
The phrase 'Nobody likes a smart-arse' didn't just apply to the entire human race, it was woven into the very fabric of Creation. In spellcraft, Pride didn't just come before a fall, it came before a serious smack-down followed by a plummet back down to earth, with a very hard landing. That's why evil witches often operated alone, not because there weren't other evil witches around, but because nobody in the know with more than half a dozen neurons to knock together wanted to hang out with somebody who had metaphorically coated themselves with fluorescent paint, drawn a target on their own back and went around carrying a sign reading SMITE ME IF YOU CAN BITCHES.
And you didn't have to be evil to come unstuck. Claire Shepherd, one of the most powerful white witches in Australia, was a perfect example. Having tried to influence the sex of her first child, cosmic comeuppance had rewarded her arrogance and ambition in thinking any human could influence such a fundamentally natural thing with a daughter who would've been considered ruggedly handsome had she been born male, and to rub it in, young Veronica had shown no interest at all in learning The Craft. But at least Claire lived to tell the tale, and more importantly, to learn from her mistake, practising with more humility for the rest of her life. Cosmically speaking, that was getting off scot-free.
So, it was all about doing the least interfering possible to achieve what was needed, Yiayia explained over coffee and cookies – don't try to produce a towering croquembouche when all that's really necessary is a butter cake, maybe with some nice raspberry buttercream. As far as possible, work with what you've got. The story of Cinderella was a case in point - the Fairy Godmother didn't turn Ella into a beautiful woman: all she did was scrub the muck off an already-lovely girl and put her in a clean dress with some very expensive booster corsetry (and mice-into-horses, she scoffed, was a complete doddle, because most horses have an intelligence about on par with that of rodents: they're either ridiculously frightened of everything, or as cunning as shit-house rats).
The less you try to do, the less cosmic attention you draw to yourself. So, if you want to take a tall and shyly attractive man like Sam, and make him female, you work with what might have been, and settle for a tall and shyly attractive woman.
And if you start with a man who, by his own description, is the Living Sex God…
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"Look at me!" demanded Dean, "Just look at me!"
Sam and Bobby were looking at him. Or rather, at her.
No brain that had been born as a straight male could possibly avoid look at her.
On the one hand, it was fair to say that it was Dean's own fault. On the other hand, it was also fair to point out that he wasn't responsible for the genetics that the fickle nature of human biology had dealt him.
On the other other hand, it had to be acknowledged that Dean had taken advantage of the appearance he'd been born with, and had used it, exploited it, and milked it for all it was worth when it suited him.
So it wasn't a complete surprise that his transformation into a woman has sought to mirror the self he was as a man…
"Hey!" Dean snapped, "My eyes are up here!"
"And very nice eyes they are too," humphed Bobby, peering into them, "Wow, I think your eyelashes might be even longer than they were."
"Jesus, Dean, we're all in the same grid square," Sam protested, dragging his eyes away from his brother's – sister's? – astonishing assets. "There's no need to go shouting the place down. So, uh, I see it worked for you, too."
It had worked. Oh boy, how it had worked.
As a man, Dean Winchester had a combination of a masculine build and a disarmingly attractive face, and at all times he exuded a cocky I'm Too Sexy For This Planet confidence. It was a potent mix, where the whole was greater than the sum of the parts, combining to produce the come-hither ambiance of the Living Sex God. It made women want to sleep with him, and men want to punch his face in.
The woman who stood before them was the female equivalent: a body that a cheerleader would cheerfully eat her pom-poms for, a glorious riot of thick, wavy blonde hair, a face that would be right at home on the cover of Vogue with practically no airbrushing; even standing in faded sleep sweats that were way too big, everything about the woman before them screamed Look At How Fucking Gorgeous I Am.
And then, there were the, uh, assets.
The word that sprang into Sam's mind, and refused to go away, was pert.
Bobby examined Dean's new look critically. "So, you're what, five-seven, five-eight?" he estimated.
"Still short, then," Sam grinned.
"Shut up," griped Dean, dropping heavily into a chair. "Ow! Jesus, how the hell can it hurt your… chest just to sit down?" Then he noticed that RJ was staring at him, open-mouthed. "Hey, RJ, how you doin', buddy?"
Entranced, the boy leaned towards his femaled father, extended a small chubby hand, and carefully poked at Dean's chest.
"Uh, yeah, about that," Dean began, "You see, Daddy's gotta wear a kind of disguise to go do a job…"
RJ let out a squeal of delight, and clapped his hands. "Titi!" he hollered, beaming. "Titi! Titi! Tititititititititi titi!"
Dean's beautiful large eyes widened even further in horror. "What the hell?"
"It's your own fault," shrugged Sam, "You're the one who lets him watch Action Figure Therapy on YouTube. You're the one who laughs when that guy called Jungle says 'Moustache with titties'."
"TITI!" shouted RJ gleefully, reaching out to grab at Dean's chest. "TIIIITIIII!"
"OW!" yelped Dean, brushing RJ away as the boy giggled. "Hey, that hurts, they're not handles!"
A truly mischievous grin, a recognisably embryonic form of the Killer Smile, oozed across RJ's face. "Titi," he chuckled in low voice, his little fingers twitching.
"Yep, he's yours," Bobby laughed.
"I don't know what you're laughing about," Dean snapped, "How the hell am I supposed to operate with… these?"
"Look on the bright side," Sam suggested, "If you fall over, you'll just bounce right back up again."
"Bitch," Dean pulled the coffee towards himself.
"Well," Sam looked thoughtful, "Maybe you can earn some extra money while you're like this."
Dean turned a death stare on his 'sister'. "Sam, if you even try to make a joke about me spendin' some time as a working girl, I swear I will…"
'No! No!" Sam cut in hurriedly, "Not at all! Totally not!"
"Good," grunted Dean, letting out an unladylike belch, "Because if you do, I swear, I will do worse than pull your hair."
"I was just thinking that, you know," Sam waved a hand in Dean's general direction, "If there's a magazine somewhere called Busty American Beauties, you'd be a shoe-in for a centrefold shoot."
"I hate you."
Oh Dean, how we love to discombobulate you and watch you splutter. What preparations must they make before they set out as Thelma and Louise?
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