FicWad

Not Exactly Ovid
by ErtheChilde

_____________________________________________________________________________________
"I swear, if you even think the word 'Midol' I will end you."
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Chapter Five:

Motel Lorelei,
New York City, New York
Friday 21 May 2010

Dean awoke feeling as though he'd gone three rounds with a Mexican prizefighter and then chugged a vat of battery acid.

A dull, pulsing throb encompassed his entire body, his skin stinging like he had spent too much time in the sun. His head ached in an unfortunately familiar reaction to a night of excessive fun, but thankfully he was without the urge to empty the contents of his stomach any time soon. In fact, there was a gnawing sensation in his gut like he hadn't eaten in days. Drained and feeling weak as a kitten, it took him several tries before he could finally force his eyes open. Even then, his vision remained blurry for several seconds.

'Christ, I hope I got lucky last night,' he thought bleakly as the picture became clearer and his awareness returned. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for his short-term memory.

He was lying on his side – alone after all – on a too-soft mattress, beneath a slightly moth-eaten comforter. On the bedside table he could make out the stationary from the motel that he and Sam had checked into after arriving in New York.

The familiar snore coming from somewhere to his left settled whatever bit of unease he might have had from waking up slightly disoriented. If Sam was still sawing logs, there wasn't any immediate danger he had to worry about. He couldn't hear anyone else in the room with them and there was no uneasy sense that an angel was lurking nearby.

Something inside him twinged uncomfortably at the thought of that. Cas was still AWOL, and they hadn't even had a chance to go looking for him yet, all because they had spent yesterday…

He frowned against his pillow.

'Was it yesterday?' he thought to himself, for the life of him unable to remember when they had actually showed up. He had the vague sense of temporal displacement, like he had lost a few hours. Or maybe days. 'I guess I got monumentally shit-faced at some point if I can't remember the date.'

Exhaling heavily, he heaved himself out of bed and padded toward the bathroom, grimacing at the ache in his abdomen. He must have been really hungry, because it felt like his insides were trying to claw their way out of him. Still straining to remember when it was the last time he had eaten, he didn't pay much attention to the odd lightness in his steps or the feathery sensation on the back of his neck.

He wandered into the bathroom, ignoring the light switch as a favor to his still sensitive eyes, and turned on the tap. He waited for it to run clear – a lifetime of nomadic living had taught him just what might come out of a motel sink – and then splashed some water on his face, hissing in surprise at the way it felt against his oddly irritable skin.

'What the hell did I –?'

Dean froze, his thoughts grinding to a halt as he lifted his gaze and stared at the dripping face in the mirror.

For an eternal second, his mind couldn't interpret the information his eyes were giving him – at least not in any way that made sense. Because there was no possible way that he was seeing what he was seeing.

Except he was.

A green-eyed woman with shoulder-length sandy-colored hair was staring at him with exactly the kind of abject horror that he felt rising within him. He raised his hands to his face again, tentatively wiping at some of the water droplets that ran down his chin; the woman's gesture was identical. Most terrifying of all was that he could see himself in her face. They had the exact same pattern of freckles, the same frown crease between their eyebrows, the same lines of exhaustion around the corners of their eyes –

Disbelieving, he gazed down at his body, hoping against hope that he was just dreaming, or that perhaps the mirror was cursed.

Instead, he found himself confronted with two raised bumps bulging up his now too-large Hell Hazers II shirt. Automatically, he moved his hands up to cup the breasts he knew he hadn't gone to sleep with, fighting back a choked groan when they felt exactly the way a woman's breasts should feel.

Impossibly, inarguably real.

Nausea swirled in his empty stomach, and he reached tentatively for the hem of his shirt to further examine the new additions. He paused before he'd gotten it half-way up his torso, staring at the pink scar that nearly followed the curve of his ribs. It didn't sting the way a newly inflicted wound would, and from the texture it looked to be months old.

As Dean continued to stare at himself in the mirror, mentally trying to break himself out of the shock that had overtaken him, his memories decided to make their first appearance of the day. He recalled the mediocre club and the terrible music, and the creepy bald dude, the knife cutting into his flesh –

And then he remembered the crazy goddess that had said she was going to help him and how he had gone against his own better judgement and accepted her help because they were in a jam. She had said she was going to 'transform' them, but he hadn't expected anything on this scale.

His eyes roved farther down the body of the woman in the mirror, and then he looked down at his actual body. With the same deliberate care he used when dealing with cursed objects, he worked his fingers downward to flip open the waistband of his boxers – which were also too loose on him now. Casting a pleading glance heavenward, as if it would actually do him any good, he cringed and peeked down.

Just as he feared, there was nothing but empty space where his junk used to be.

"No fucking way," he said, feeling his heart practically stutter at the sound of his voice. His usual smooth, deep Midwestern drawl had gone up several octaves. The sound still had a low, throaty quality, but now with a distinct feminine edge to it. It was something he would have found – in addition to the breasts – sexy on a woman.

Not on himself.

In all his years of weird, nothing could actually have prepared him for something like this. Even Gabriel hadn't tried anything like this, and that winged bastard had had one screwed up sense of humour.

"Sam!" Dean yelled, whirling around and marching past the room divider and into the sleeping area.

He grabbed hold of the comforter covering his brother and hauled it back. Part of him hoped it wasn't just him that was afflicted and the other part fiercely hoped he was going to reveal his dopey, sasquatch brother with his limbs lying akimbo and drooling on the sheets.

The person in the bed curled into a protective fetal position at the onslaught of cold. Sam had shrunk significantly, although Dean was pretty sure his brother would still be taller than him once he stood up. Sam's once stupidly long hair had grown longer, and his already soft features had become even smoother. He now sported his own brand, spanking new bosom which was thankfully covered up. Aggie's supposed 'transportation' service had at least had the decency to keep them dressed. Dean was having enough trouble comprehending the idea of himself with tits, let alone his brother.

There was a groan and then familiar hazel eyes fluttered open. They stared at Dean, at first in confusion, and then in suspicion as awareness took hold. Sam shot upward, ready to fight off and threat.

"What's goin' on?" his now feminine voice slurred, retaining enough of Sam's inherent bitchiness to put at least some of Dean's mind to rest. Sam's eyes widened, probably at the sound of his own voice, and then he was staring down at his new and improved body, before gaping up at Dean in bemusement. "…Dean?"

"Yeah, Sammy, it's me," Dean said, weary. A second later, his hand flashed out and he cuffed his brother in the side of the head.

"Ow! What the hell?"

"This shit is your fault, that's what the hell!"

"How's it my fault?"

"It just is!"

Sam sent him a bitchy glare, which was made all the more effective because Sam actually was a girl now.

"You knew as well as I did we'd be getting a new look," he said, getting up off the bed and examining himself curiously. Dean had been right; Sam was still about three and a half inches taller than him, even as a girl. His hair fell down his back and despite the fact Sam now had rounded hips, his pants were slipping down over his hipbones. "Supernatural witness protection, remember, Dean?"

"Yeah, but I figured it'd be a goatee and gaining a hundred pounds!" Dean yelled. "There was nothing in the contract about growing a vagina!"

Sam had the decency to look slightly freaked at that, his eyes flitting in the direction of his crotch as though he didn't actually believe Dean. A second later, he took a deep breath and met Dean's gaze again. In a placating tone, he reminded him, "Look, it's only temporary."

"Damn right it's only temporary," Dean snarled, "because we're going back to that psycho and having her set this right!"

"You're in that much of a hurry to get more of your liver carved out?"

"To get my dick back? Gee, let me think, Sam – YES!"

"Even though we're off the radar the way we are now?" Sam pressed. At Dean's expression of apoplectic disbelief, he made a defensive gesture. "Hey, I'm not crazy about the way this turned out either, but we might as well take advantage of it while we can."

"You know what? Maybe she didn't make a mistake with you," Dean snapped in disgust. "Maybe this is how you're supposed to be."

"Very funny, Dean."

"No! That's the whole point! This ain't funny!"

"It could be worse," Sam offered cautiously, obviously aware of just how close Dean was to a full on freak out.

"How? How the hell could this be worse?"

"She could have made us look like Ed and Harry."

Dean opened his mouth to argue, and then promptly shut it again. Sam did have a point. As much as he was livid at the idea that he had been pretty much castrated by a pagan goddess, he would probably have done serious violence to himself if he had woken up looking like one of those freaks from the Ghostfacers. Still, it didn't change the fact that this situation completely sucked.

The familiar tone of 'Smoke on the Water' interrupted any comeback he might have been able to muster up, and he stalked across the room to where his jeans had been tossed onto the chair. Ignoring the possibility that the creepy bald guy that had cut part of his liver out might have undressed him, he yanked out his phone. The barest glance at the caller ID told him it was Bobby, and so he flipped it open and barked, "What?"

There was a pause and a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the phone, before the older hunter actually spoke. "That you, Dean?"

"Well, it's obviously not Sam, because he's loving his new modifications," Dean growled. "I assume you know what's been done to us?"

"Might have gotten a call from Aggie after she had you two dropped off," Bobby answered, sounding gruff and tentative at the same time. "I gotta say, I didn't think you'd go for it. Either of you."

"Oh, bullshit," Dean bit out, dancing out of Sam's attempts to take the cell from him. "You knew exactly what was going to happen when you sent us to her!"

"Don't put that on me, idjit, it ain't my fault you didn't ask the right questions," Bobby retorted. "Thought you were taught better than that."

"Spontaneous gender fucked-upedness is not something I've had to deal with!" Dean hissed, jerking out of Sam's reach.

"Other hunters ain't gonna be lookin' for two women, are they?" Bobby reminded him meaningfully. "So stop throwin' a temper tantrum and lay low for a while. Let things blow over some."

"We actually have the time to plan our next move now," Sam added gently. He didn't try to take the phone again, although he stayed close enough to Dean that he could hear Bobby on the other end. "Dean, we probably don't even have a record anymore, not in these bodies. I'm willing to bet she changed our fingerprints and DNA markers too. If we wanted to just up and leave all this behind today, we could do it."

"Except that's not what we're doing," Dean said tightly, the reminder ringing warningly in his tone.

"Of course not," Sam said hastily. "You said we figure out what happened to Cas and Adam, that's what we'll do. Just, now we don't have to look over our shoulders. As much."

Dean exhaled angrily through his nose.

"And on that note," Bobby continued, obviously able to hear Sam on his end, "Aggie gave me some information for you to follow. She told you about her contact in Elwood?"

"More like she mentioned him in passing and expected us to trust that he was real," Dean grumbled. "Considering the clusterfuck we've found ourselves in, there wasn't much of a choice but to trust her. You got a name for us?"

"Nope," Bobby replied. "Her kind don't use names unless they have to. Attracts too much attention. But she gave me a case that'll put you in contact with someone to help you. Supposedly."

"And you trust her," Dean deadpanned.

"Already told you I did, or I wouldn't have sent you to her," Bobby growled. "I know you're in a fix over there, boy, but Aggie's the best I could come up with on short notice. In case you've forgotten, there's a demon out there hangin' onto my soul. Excuse me if I haven't been as completely focussed on your problems as you think I should be."

Dean winced, Bobby's word's hitting their mark. All things considered, he really shouldn't have been complaining.

"Now, d'you want the case or not?" Bobby continued, businesslike.

"Yeah, sure, here, talk to Sam," Dean muttered, feeling defeated. He practically tossed the cellphone at his brother and threw himself back down on his bed, trying to ignore the bounce of the new breasts as he did so. He couldn't think of them as 'his'. It was too weird, and it seemed too much like giving in to the cosmic practical joke that had been played on him.

Examining his hands – too small and too slender to actually be his – he frowned thoughtfully. The past week had not been the best ever, even though half of it he had apparently been out cold for. Aggie and Ethon must have put some major mojo on them to knock them out for three days straight. He'd lost his brother, his body, his car and his angel all in the span of days.

"Not that Cas is mine,' he thought distractedly, not noticing for several seconds that his hand had gone to rub the bare patch of shoulder where the angel's palm print had been. He had been trying for days now not to notice how weirdly naked he felt without the scar there. The sensation of having his metaphorical strings cut hadn't disappeared; if anything, it had gotten stronger.

"Okay, yeah, we'll check into it," Sam was saying.

"I'll keep lookin' on my end," Dean heard Bobby promise. "And tell Dean to relax. Stress is the number one killer of women your age."

"Tell Bobby he's not funny," Dean snapped, sitting up and shooting a glare at the phone.

"He's already gone," Sam answered, with an unimpressed frown of his own as he flipped the phone shut.

"What's the case, then?"

"Kind of sounds like a tabloid article, actually," Sam said, sitting back on the bed with a thoughtful look on girly face. "Disappearances, reports of crop circles, bright lights in the sky – if Bobby didn't tell me Aggie was sure this was her guy, I'd say it was people trying to build up some kitschy UFO flap."

"UFO," Dean repeated tonelessly. "You saying ET's gonna beam us down to Hell and back?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying."

"Damn it, I need a drink…"

"You can't, you just had half your liver cut out," Sam reminded him.

"Then at least some damn coffee!" Dean shouted. Sam raised one eyebrow, and Dean pointed at him warningly. "I swear, if you even think the word 'Midol' I will end you." Sam lifted his hands in surrender, and Dean scrubbed a hand down his face. Even the familiar motion felt wrong. "You know this is retarded, right?"

'We've been through stranger," Sam tried.

"Oh yeah? Name one."

"Suicidal teddy bear."

Dean snorted. "Yeah, okay, I'll give you that one."

"So just…keep in mind that we're going to change back. We'll get through this."

"I need a timeframe on this, Sammy," Dean grunted. "'Cause I really don't see how I'm supposed to focus on helping Cas or Adam when I'm not even me enough to do the focussing."

"We're still us. Just different packages."

"Great. Make it feel like I'm possessing some poor girl's meat suit."

"But you're not. You're still you. I'm still me. It's still our bodies and our blood, Dean; we're not actually using anyone else."

"Whatever you say, Mr. Rogers, it's still creepy as fuck."

"Fine – if you can't get past that, at least keep in mind this whole thing's giving us extra time that we wouldn't have had with hunters, angels and demons gunning for us."

"How much time, Sam? It could take forever to find anything!"

"Give it a month."

Dean made a noise of frustration. "How much sanity do you think I have? A week."

"Two weeks."

"Fine. And then we're going back to our pal Aggie and getting her to fix this shit, and we'll deal with the fallout after that," Dean stated decisively.

"Fine," Sam sighed. "Two weeks and we'll go back. Which means we've got to start looking now."

"Well, then let's check out of here and get going," Dean said, already grabbing for his duffel bag.

Sam didn't follow suit, instead cocking his head to one side and adopting a pained expression, like he knew what he was about to say wasn't going to go over well.

"Uh, Dean? There are a few problems we need to deal with first…"

(*)

Convincing Dean that they needed to buy some more appropriate clothing if they were going to follow Aggie's lead had taken less time than Sam would have thought. His brother wasn't stupid and he knew that they were bound to draw attention walking around in men's too-large clothing. Convincing Dean that they actually had to leave the motel room to do said shopping had been another story altogether.

It had taken the rest of the morning, and it wasn't until Sam had ventured out to the diner down the street and returned to bribe his brother with pie and coffee that he had managed to talk him around.

And what a trip that had been.

Waking up as a woman was one thing, but walking around pretending he had always been one was more difficult. While Sam wasn't as freaked out as Dean was about all this – because Dean just wasn't as mentally flexible as he was – Sam still felt as though he had been thrown for a loop.

Even though no one knew what had happened to him, he felt as though everyone had been staring as he made the four block trek to the coffee shop and back. Well, they had been staring, but probably not for that reason. He knew he would have stared too, if he'd seen a woman walking down the street dressed in too-large clothing and walking like a man that was seven and half inches taller.

Even worse, the oddness of his appearance hadn't stopped some of the stares from turning into leers.

Sam had felt the appraising look some of the men standing behind him in the coffee line up had been giving him, and he had felt his stomach jump uncomfortably. Because he had known he'd had that same look on his own face before, even if he had thought he'd been careful about it.

He had decided not to tell Dean about any of that, of course, because it would probably have made his brother decide to turn hermit, and they really needed to get down to business if they were going to make any headway within the next two weeks.

Dean had refused to drive, which was equal parts disgust at New York traffic and protesting being seen in the clunker they were using, and so they'd decided to hail a cab to the nearest mall. Sam had decided that because they needed underwear in addition to new clothing, and shopping for panties in a second hand store was kind of gross, they should probably go to a different venue than their usual style. That, and there was the added benefit of no hunters ever frequenting such an establishment.

"Can't we just order some chick clothes online?" Dean complained for the hundredth time as Sam led them through the white-washed, columned atrium of the Manhattan Mall.

It was already packed in there, both because it was New York City and because it was Friday afternoon; groups of kids skipping school and nubile twenty-somethings starting their weekend shopping sprees thronged the hallways, packing it almost as closely as the club had been.

He tried hard not to notice the looks he was getting from most of the people they passed, or the embarrassment that flared up whenever he accidentally met someone's gaze. Especially when that someone was male and leering very obviously at Sam's braless chest; Dean had already nearly punched one kid out before Sam had managed to haul him away.

"Online stores don't usually deliver to motels – and I don't think Bobby would take too kindly to some guy from Victoria's Secret showing up at his doorstep. Not that we can actually afford to shop there."

Dean glared.

"How can you be taking this so calmly?" his brother demanded angrily.

"It's not as if we have much choice in the matter," Sam shrugged. Still, if he was honest with himself, he was forcing himself to be calm just to balance out Dean's temper.

They descended to one of the lower levels and headed for JCPenney, which Sam imagined was the most affordable option right now.

"Hi there," a blasé sounding blond teenager greeted, eyes roving over their rather slovenly appearances. Sam could read the judgement in her gaze. "Just to let you know, we've got our spring promotion on now, where if you buy two sets of lingerie you get the third one half-price."

The 'and you look like you really need it' went unspoken.

"Uh, thanks," Sam said, trying to muster up a friendly smile. "We'll keep that in mind."

"Can I help you find anything particular?" she asked; the question sounded stilted and forced the way it always sounded coming from someone who only made their money on commission.

"Actually, yeah, maybe," Sam said, knowing he knew absolutely zilch about shopping for lingerie.

Back when he and Jess had been together, he'd attempted to buy her sexy lingerie for Christmas. He'd ended up having the foresight to show Rebecca Warren what he'd chosen, and she'd promptly vetoed his choice as looking like 'something a stripper might wear'. After that, any time Sam wanted to get anything like that for Jess, he'd asked Rebecca to pick it out for him.

The problem right now was how to explain to this teenager that a woman in her late twenties didn't know how to shop for underwear. "See, the thing is…"

And his mind drew a complete blank.

Which was the exact point when Dean decided to become 'helpful' again.

"My sister and I grew up with the Angels of Fire and Brimstone and God's Almighty Baptizing Sword," he said, arranging his face into an approximation of shellshock. "Our leader believed many of your modern comforts were the work of the devil. Underwear, hairspray…toilet paper." He shook his head, ostensibly rueful. "We weren't even allowed to brush our hair. 'He Who Walks Behind the Rows considers that to be vanity. We were only just 'liberated', as the law enforcement says."

Sam mentally groaned. Of all the stories Dean could have contrived, he had gone with that?

"Oh my gawd!" the teenager's eyes widened, and her bored look was immediately replaced by one of pity. "That's terrible!"

"Yes, it was terrible," Dean agreed, looking like he was fighting to keep his face straight.

Before he could come up with anything worse, Sam interjected. "So, now we're just trying to start over, and so we supposed – clothes were the best thing to start with. The agency that's looking out for us right now gave us a spending allowance, but we don't exactly know…you know, what to get. "

"Oh, I can help you!" the girl said, her boredom now gone. "We can start with the simple stuff first – follow me!"

She waved at them to follow her toward the back of the store and Sam shot Dean a frown. "Dude, that was the worst story we've ever come up with. And it could have backfired."

"Tailor to your audience, man. She was wearing one of those 'Team-I-Think-Vampires-Wear-Purity-Rings-And-Sparkle' Shirts. No way has she ever seen Children of the Corn."

The girl, whose name was Kathy, led them to the store's lingerie department and began to chat with them about underwear styles and types of bras. With their permission, she took their measurements and confided in them that it was a good thing they were doing this before buying anything, because so many women wore the wrong size.

While she was looping the tape around Dean's chest, Sam noticed his brother adopt an odd expression. He thought it might have to do with not wanting to be touched while he looked the way he did.

"Is there anything in particular you might have in mind?" Kathy asked as she finished with the measurements and had proclaimed Dean a 32C and Sam a 34A. Sam had almost laughed out loud at the notion that Dean had a bigger cup size than him, but he had stopped himself just in time. They weren't supposed to know anything about bra sizes.

Thinking back to the things Jess had complained about, Sam replied, "I guess comfortable is our biggest concern. And no padding. Padding is the devil's invention."

Kathy and Dean stared at him, Sam winced as he remembered himself, but Kathy had already disappeared to find a few items for them to start out with.

"I know we're going with the cult escapee story, but that was a little over the top," Dean remarked conversationally.

"It's something Jess always said," Sam replied defensively. "When you were with Cassie, didn't she complain about stuff like that? She kind of struck me as the opinionated type."

"Oh, she definitely was but we were both more focussed on other things, if you know what I mean," Dean waggled his eyebrows. "It's why it lasted as long as it did." His expression turned serious. "Now that I think about it, Cassie was probably the longest time I've stuck around anyone that wasn't family."

"Not true," Sam offered. "You and Cas have been hanging around each other a while."

"Longest time I've stuck with anyone I've been sleeping with," Dean corrected in a deadpan.

"And whose fault is that?" Sam joked.

"Nice, Sam," Dean frowned. "Who's being the jerk now?"

"Does that make you the bitch or the shorter bitch?"

"Ha, ha."

Kathy returned with several different colored items and styles, in both their new sizes.

"I'll just leave you two alone to decide what you like," Kathy told them as she led them to the dressing rooms. "If you need anything, give me a shout. I'll just be in the next section."

"Telling your coworkers about the clothing retarded cultists you're helping, I bet," Dean said quietly as she disappeared. He watched her go, and his expression morphed into the familiar Dean-leer that usually showed up when he was about to say something lewd. Strangely, it looked even more predatory on a woman's face. "Hey! I just thought of an upside to this whole mess. Girl on girl!"

Sam groaned. "Come on, man, I really don't need to be picturing that. Whether you're a girl now or not."

"Hey, I'm just trying to find the silver lining."

"Yeah, well, don't look for it there. She's still jailbait, whatever body you're in," Sam cautioned, picking through the piles of underclothing. He made a face, noticing that Kathy hadn't exactly followed his request for comfort.

Beside him, Dean muttered something under his breath and then dug out the flimsiest, laciest bra and thong set he could find, and then flung it at Sam. "There you go, Samantha."

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen," Sam retorted. "Those things itch like crazy." Dean stared, and Sam realized what he'd just said. "No! Not like – I never actually – Jess had a few pairs she would wear on special occasions…"

"Whatever, man. No judgement here," Dean said in a tone that conveyed the absolute opposite of that.

"Oh shut up. The point is, she was always complaining about how itchy and uncomfortable they were. Considering our lifestyle, all I'm saying is comfort is probably more of a concern for us."

"And on that note, let's get through this so we can get back to that lifestyle," Dean said, finally just grabbing an armful of material and closing himself into the nearest cubicle.

Sam sighed and followed suit, heading for the dressing room beside.

As he struggled trying to get the bra on – because apparently just because he could unhook a bra one-handed didn't necessarily translate to being able to put one on with the same ease – he found himself thinking about Jessica again.

It had been a while since she had been so present in his thoughts, and he wondered if that had to do with his sudden transformation into a woman or if it was his subconscious trying to tell him something. With the end of the world not panning out, suddenly there was a faint hope once again blossoming up inside of him. Whatever happened with their quest to save Castiel and Adam – and figure out what exactly had brought him back and why – the fact of that matter was that they didn't have to worry about the Apocalypse any longer, barring a visit from Raphael. Which meant there was a possibility of having a future again.

When he was a kid living in crappy motel room after crappy motel room, he had always imagined getting out, marrying a nice girl and having a normal family. He had wanted to do it right. He had almost gotten that with Jessica, but since her death he had filed it away as something he could never have. He hadn't actually been with anyone since Dr. Roberts in Iowa, and before that Ruby –

He shivered at the memory. That had been his worst judgement call to date, even worse than his decision to say 'yes' to Lucifer. At least the latter had been an attempt to stop the world from ending and protect his brother. Trusting a demon over his own flesh and blood, on the other hand…

He shook his head as though to clear it.

Obviously, normal wasn't going to cut it anymore; Sam had long since given up on his dream. He knew that no matter what happened – even if everything supernatural all of a sudden disappeared the next day – he wouldn't be able to just go back to normal. As much as it sucked, the hunters looking for him and Dean were right: once you almost destroyed the world, you couldn't just go back to the way things were. Sam wanted to do something with his life to at least try to make up for all of the crap he had done.

But at the same time, he wondered if that meant he would have to be alone to do it.

Dean didn't count, in that respect. He was his brother and that was an obligation thing as much as it was a family thing. Besides, even though now Sam couldn't see Dean giving up the life any more than he could see himself doing it, something told him that Dean might at least dial things back. If they managed to save Adam and find Castiel – when, Sam told himself firmly – Dean might just go the Bobby-route. Start up his own business and keep on the periphery of the life.

'I'm getting ahead of myself,' Sam shook his head, considering himself in the mirror. He'd finally managed to figure out the secret of getting the bra on; it still weirded him out to look in the mirror and not see his own reflection. Objectively he knew that the reflection was just as much him as usual – same lanky build, his anti-possession tattoo was still in place – but it was so weird. Especially since the tall, pale woman in the mirror was someone he might have been attracted to if he hadn't known it was himself.

He idly traced the healing scar by his rib, and then feeling slightly foolish, cupped the smallish breasts that he had been given.

There was a swift knock on the dressing room door, and Sam abruptly dropped his hands.

"What's taking so long? Are you ogling yourself in there?" Dean’s voice was muffled by the door.

"Like you weren't doing the same," Sam told him after he had changed back into his clothes and left the cubicle.

"I actually got stuff to look at," Dean said mockingly. "Unlike your itty-bitty-t –"

"How are you girls doing?" Kathy had popped up again; several feet away, two of her coworkers were idling, pretending to fold away some of the merchandise. Apparently Dean had been right about her chatty nature. "Anything else I can help you find?"

In the end they stuck to cotton bras and underwear, although for some reason, Sam imagined he saw Dean slip a pair of pink satiny panties into his pile of underthings. After a brief stop at the ladies room – ("Holy crap, it's so much dirtier in here than the men's," Dean hissed as they entered.) – where they changed into their new purchases, they headed for the ladies fashion department.

After a brief argument about how much money they should spend on clothes they might not need two weeks later, they decided to stick to a pair of jeans each and a few shirts. Sam figured that they could still get away with wearing most of their hoodies and flannel shirts, and he knew Dean wasn't about to give up wearing Dad's leather jacket any time soon.

The next stop was the barber, where Dean was intent to cut off all of the extra hair tumbling over his shoulders. He grumbled about how much more women had to pay for a simple haircut than men, but offered the receptionist a charming smile when she asked him what he wanted done.

"I want it short," he said.

"How short?" she asked him politely. "Because with your bone structure, if we go too short, you'll end up looking like Justin Bieber."

Sam had roared with laughter while his brother gaped and then stalked wordlessly from the hair salon.

"I could cut it for you," Sam offered when he could talk without laughing.

"Right, so instead of looking like that Canadian douchebag I can look like I was attacked by a lawnmower? No thank you," Dean complained. "Gonna get my body back soon anyway, right? I can wait it out."

"But you'd look good with a swear-word shaved into your head," Sam had teased.

It was the last time either of them considered getting rid of their long hair.

"There's something else we might want to consider," Sam commented as they headed for the mall exit. He figured he'd put Dean through enough for one day.

"Yeah, what?"

"We need to be really careful if we're going to hunt like this," he continued. "I know these are our bodies, but we're not exactly used to them yet. I think we might need to train a bit before we go hunting."

"The swap didn't screw with our memories, Sam, I still know how to throw a punch," Dean deadpanned. "Jo and Ellen did a pretty good job hunting up until the end, so it's not like we can't hunt because we've got girl parts now."

"I'm just saying that things we're used to – like our strength and speed and reactions – it'll be different," Sam pointed out. "We should find out exactly how different before we go looking for this contact of Aggie's. Unless you really want to play the part of the dumb blond chick running through a dark alley way because you can't fight properly."

Dean made a thoughtful face. "Okay, yeah, makes sense. While we're at it, we need to make some new IDs. All my fake driver's licences have me as male, which Joe Cop is going to notice right away." He flashed Sam a grin. "Hey, d'you think I can get out of speeding tickets with this rack?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yes, because that's clearly our biggest concern right now."

_____________________________________________________________________________________
For anyone who is curious, girl!Dean resembles a light haired Eliza Dushku and girl!Sam looks a little like Jaimie Alexander with a little more weight on her bones.

Also, I am Canadian and I still think Justin Bieber's a douchebag, so my comment was not meant to bash Canadians in any way.