Kudos, and possibly an ***AUTHOR CREDIT***, go to Leahelisabeth, who saw where this was going two chapters ago...
Chapter Seven
Sam stood gawping at the squirrel, which scratched its side and raised its little snout to the air.
"Is there any more popcorn?" it asked.
"Dean?" Sam managed eventually.
"Uh, present and correct!" chittered the squirrel, smiling widely to reveal its teeth, then looked down at himself. "Or at least, I'm present, and, and, and, I got the correct number of limbs."
Bobby took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose with a put-upon sigh. "You know, whenever something happens, it's for a reason," he began. "It aint necessarily a straightforward reason, and it aint necessarily a good reason, but even if it's just the random motion of the universe, whenever somethin' happens, it has a reason." He glared down at the squirrel. "And I gotta tell ya, son, whatever the reason is for this, I'm just dyin' to hear it."
"Well, you'd have been really angry if I'd just grabbed somebody off the street," the squirrel chittered irritably, "And the only other option was a nearby skunk with an upset stomach, and I didn't think anybody would like that."
"Uh, I think that what Bobby is getting at," Sam clarified, "Is, um, why are you not in your own body." He paused. "Dean, why the hell are you not in your own body?"
"Ah, well," began the squirrel, "There's a totally good reason for that."
"And?" prompted Sam.
"Well," the squirrel continued, "I wanted a pair of cowboy boots, right, and so I went to this store, do you remember the one just out of Gillette? We saw it when we were on that job in Wyoming – I remembered it because I remember this chick I hooked up with there, Marianne, her name was, and she had this pair of boots, and didn't she look awesome in those and nothin' else, and…"
"Do you think we could get to the point?" Crowley asked trenchantly, "Only I've got a meeting to get to six months from now."
"I'm gettin' there," the squirrel chattered, "So, anyway, I thought, hey, if I want a pair of cowboy boots, I can just go and get a pair of cowboy boots!"
"And you needed a squirrel to steal a pair of boots," Bobby didn't sound convinced. "Makes perfect sense. Or at least, in a world where the entire population suffers from congenital brain damage, it would make perfect sense."
"No, no," squirrel!Dean assured him, "It's only a small shop, and I wanted to do it… unobtrusively." He waved a paw at Crowley. "It was his idea."
"What?" yelped the King of Hell. "It sodding was not!"
"Do stuff unobtrusively, you said," the squirrel actually managed to pout, "So, I thought, hey, I'll just duck in, and pop into the owner, find a pair in my size, take 'em out to where I am, then put him back in the store, smoke out, he thinks he's nodded off and had a short nightmare, he has an excuse to go get a drink, I got a pair of boots, win-win!"
"That was a really stupid plan," humphed Sam.
"It was a totally awesome plan!" countered the squirrel, tail bristling in irritation, "And it worked perfectly!"
"So, this," Sam gestured vaguely at his brother's current host, "This was part of the plan? Could you just go back and explain the bit where 'I Want To Live As A Squirrel, And I'd Like You All To Call Me Rocky From Now On' comes into it?"
"Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time," offered Dean.
"I could get real sick o' hearin' that from you," grumbled Bobby.
"Dean, you are now a frigging squirrel!" Sam waved his hands in agitation, "How the fuck did you end up inside a frigging squirrel?"
"That's what she said, folks," beamed Crowley.
"I'm gettin' to it!" snapped the squirrel. "So, I stashed my body in a park, where nobody would see it. Then I went and got the boots, then took 'em back to the park, there I was, no problemo, so I took the boot man back to his store, then I smoked out, headed back to get my body, and my new boots…"
"But," rumbled Bobby, "This is the bit where we get to the 'but'."
"When I got back there, the place was crawling with people," the squirrel replied, managing to look sheepish. "Some woman was walking her dog and it found me, and she was talkin' to a cop, and, and, and then this van came, and, and it bodynapped me!"
"So you lost your body," Sam glared at the squirrel.
"No! No!" the squirrel protested. "It's not lost! I know exactly where it is!"
"Well, what are you doin' in a damned squirrel?" Sam's voice took on a note of shrillness. "Don't just stand there, take the poor thing back where you found it, smoke out, and go get your own damned body back!"
"I tried that," the squirrel drooped glumly, "I couldn't get in."
"What?" Sam yelped. "What do you mean you couldn't get in?"
"I don't know!" The squirrel put its hands on its hips and humphed in a way that would've made Chip 'n' Dale hand in their Cute Cards. "I tried to get it back, but I couldn't get into the building where they took it! It's like it was warded, or something."
"And what building would that be, Dean?" asked Sam with a searing Bitchface #15™ (There Had Better Be A Good Explanation For This, Dean) just as his cell chirped. He grabbed for it and answered it.
"Is this Sam Winchester?" asked a woman in a businesslike fashion.
"Uh, yeah," he replied, glaring at his brother.
"Mr Winchester, my name is Diana Ledo, and I'm calling from the Campbell County Sheriff's Office in Gillette, Wyoming. I need to ask you, Mr Winchester – do you know a Dean Winchester?"
"Yes," Sam told her, "He's my brother." And right now, he's a squirrel, he added sotto voce for the benefit of said sciurid sibling. "He's, uh, he's not in any trouble, is he?"
Her voice took on a softer tone. "Mr Winchester, I'm afraid I have some bad news for you."
She talked. Sam listened. Sam gave what he hoped were appropriate responses. When he cut the call, he turned eyes full of murder onto the little rodent.
"That was the Sheriff's Office in Gillette," he told them, "And they'd be ever so grateful if I could go and ID the body of one Dean Winchester."
"Balls," said Bobby.
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"The thing is," Bobby mused over a glass of scotch, "We gotta get Dean back into his body ASAP."
"But I couldn't get into the building," the squirrel reminded him, hopping up onto the arm of his chair and sniffing at the glass. "You think I could get some of that on a saucer?"
"Shaddap," Bobby pushed him off. "If it's an old historical building, or there's been our sort o' trouble there in the past, Hunters may have warded the place," he suggested. "I've seen it happen. People took that sort o' thing a lot more seriously two hundred years ago."
"We can't just show up and break the wards to get in," Sam added, "They could be there for a reason. We got no idea what might already have been there, and what any Hunter might've done to lay it to rest."
"Besides which, you can't just show up and grab his body," Bobby reminded them. "It's been found, it's been documented, it's in The System. And because an otherwise outwardly healthy man was found dead, there will have to be an autopsy…"
"Noooooooooo!" screeched the squirrel, "How will I eat if they pull my guts out?"
"Maybe they'll start with your brain," shrugged Sam, "You could definitely continue to function as usual without that."
"The point is," Bobby attempted to steer the conversation back towards relevance, "The point is, if it goes missing, that will set alarm bells ringin'. " He sighed. "It won't be released until it's IDed, and the autopsy has been conducted - only then will be released to a funeral director. You can't just sign for it like a package, and put it in shotgun in the car."
"What, you never saw 'Weekend At Bernie's'?" said Crowley brightly.
"That could take days," Sam groaned.
"That'll leave scars!" howled the squirrel.
"There's also the question of, uh," Sam began uncomfortably, "What if it, uh, you know, it doesn't have homeostasis or a demonic occupant to keep it together…?"
"Cold storage will help," Bobby replied, "But, yeah, it'll be slow, but it'll be startin' to decompose as we speak."
The squirrel let out an anguished squawk. "No! We can't let that happen! I don't want to go squishy around the edges!" It chattered anxiously. "We gotta go get it now!"
"Dean, it's not that simple!" Sam snapped, "Thanks to you and your stupid boots, we can't just go take your body back!"
"So, take me back to my body," suggested the Dean-squirrel, preening its whiskers.
Sam let out a huff. "Dean, I can't just walk into a Sheriff's Office with a squirrel on my shoulder," he said.
"Tell 'em I'm a furry parrot," said Dean.
"You are not a furry parrot," Sam ground out through clenched teeth.
"If I sit really still, I could be a big wart?" Dean offered.
"I'm prepared to concede that you're some sort of malignant growth, yes, but it wouldn't work," Sam replied.
"I could hide under your shirt, and we'll tell everybody you've got a tumour?" prompted Dean.
"You could hide down his trousers and we'll tell everybody he's a porn star," smiled Crowley.
"Assistance animal? Guide squirrel?" Dean proposed as Sam shrieked at the thought of having his brother literally squirrelled away down his pants. "I could do tricks! You could say, 'Fetch the pen', and I could, like, pee on your shoulder, and… ow!" As he preened, a couple of whiskers came away with a piece of skin. "Ow! My whiskers just fell out!" The little animal stared in horror as a patch of fur came away next. "OH MY GOD I'M GOING BALD!"
"Your ickle wickle little host is breaking down," Crowley contributed. "You're a demon, Dean. Squirrels were never intended to hold demons. Acorns, yes, carelessly discarded confectionery, yes, but not demons. You stay in there much longer, it'll just disintegrate from the inside."
"I aint condonin' that sort of animal cruelty," Bobby said firmly, "You get on out of that poor little critter right now, boy."
"Statim, even," grinned Crowley.
"But, but," stammered the squirrel, "Where will I go? I can't just swirl around for a week, waiting for my body to get back!" He looked thoughtful. "I can't eat! I can't drink! I can't play with Jimi! I can't practise my guitar! I can't get laid! It'll be really BOOOOORIIIIIING!"
"It's self-inflicted," insisted Bobby, "So, get on out, before you do the little guy any more damage."
"But where will I go? What will I do?" wailed the squirrel.
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," Bobby deadpanned, "You can go swirl around in the panic room, out of the way."
"But I'll be stuck down theeeeeere!" protested the squirrel. "Don't put me in the panic roooooom!"
"Dean, we don't have another option!" Sam interjected in exasperation.
"Um, actually, we might," said Crowley slowly. Three pairs of mammalian eyes turned to look at him. "But I'm not sure you're going to like it."
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"I hate this idea," griped Sam, as Bobby carefully inscribed the small piece of mottled parchment.
"So do I," griped the squirrel, wiggling its nose adorably.
"This idea sucks," said Sam.
"This idea blows," said the squirrel.
"It's creepy," protested Sam.
"And it's weird," added the squirrel.
"Yeah, it's definitely weird," nodded Sam
"And it's totally creepy," agreed the squirrel.
"For the record, I'm not completely happy with it either," growled Bobby, not looking up, "But it's our least worst option."
"Look on the bright side, children," Crowley suggested, "The fangirls will love it."
"Fangirls?" echoed Sam dubiously.
"You know, Becky and her ilk, 'More Than Brothers'?" Crowley prompted. "The ones who get some incomprehensible enjoyment from the thought of you two having it off. Technically, there'll be one of you inside the other – they'll squee their little hearts out at the thought of tha-AAIII!"
Dean shot across the room and sank his front teeth into Crowley's ankle.
"Getoffgetoffgetoffgetoff!" howled Crowley, shaking his leg back and forth.
"If you two idjits hurt that poor critter, I'll bang your heads together," scowled Bobby, peering at what he'd written. Dean eventually let go, and scampered back up to the arm of the chair.
"I want that vicious, scrofulous little vermin tested for rabies!" yowled Crowley. "And the squirrel, too!"
"Knock it off!" commanded Bobby. "Now, if this charm works, the idea is that it's temporarily givin' your brother here permission to, uh, well, 'possess' aint the right word here…"
"Share?" suggested Crowley brightly. "Co-habit? Shack up?"
"Shut up, you, so if it works, Dean will be able to, uh," he waved a hand, "And, uh, he won't take over, but he'll be there, and, and, look, all I can say is, if you idjits gotta start one of your arguments, just don't do it in a public place, or somebody will call the men in white coats."
"Got it," acknowledged Sam glumly, taking the piece of parchment from Bobby and scanning it. "You know, if this doesn't work, I'm not sure I'll be that disappointed. And you seriously owe me for this, Dean."
"Hey, while we're there, I'll go get you a pair of cowboy boots!" piped the squirrel helpfully, before drooping under the weight of Bobby's glare. "Yeah, yeah, okay, just remember, no thinking about tofu once I'm in there."
"I won't think about tofu if you don't think about sex," offered Sam, picking up the Zippo on the table.
He read the short passage on the parchment, set fire to it, let it burn away, then took the ash residue, pulled his shirt out of the way, and smeared it across his anti-possession tattoo.
A howling column of smoke emerged from the squirrel. Jimi jumped and woofed playfully at it as the swirling vapour eddied around him, then headed for Sam…
The younger Winchester carefully held up his hands, and looked at them.
"Well?" asked Bobby, opening a window and letting the stunned squirrel make a break for the great outdoors.
Sam examined his hands for a moment more, then threw his hands in the air and bellowed,
"ROAD TRIIIIIIIIIP!"
Dean-In-A-Sam; it's like Sam-In-A-Box, only... more oogy.
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