Author's Notes:

Hello! I'm back. And I've been away for freaking ever, I know. Surgery's done and was a success, but it took a while for me to get everything in order again. Anyway, here I am. *g*

I have a load of review and PM replies I owe everyone, I'll get to those as I can.

In the meanwhile, enjoy the story!

This is my entry for the SPN Reverse Bang and I had just as much fun with it this year as I did last year. Senegalus is a wonderful artist who gave me a delightful starting picture and plenty of encouragement.

A big thank you goes to the spn_reversebang mods. They, and my artist, were incredibly patient and understanding with my delays and missed deadlines, and I'm very grateful for the support.

As always, Cheryl has been an awesome beta reader, and SandyDee84 was willing to be a sounding-board for all my insane ideas.

If anyone's impatient to read the whole thing at once, the full fic and download links are on my LJ.

Disclaimer: I don't own the boys.

Summary: Sam and Dean run afoul of a curse that turns people into animals. Oops. Now they have to figure out how to break the spell when Sam's colourblind and uncoordinated, Dean's even shorter than usual, and nobody can handle a gun.

Moose and Squirrel

Part I: Squirrel

Once upon a time, a moose and a squirrel were very good friends. They lived together in the forest and –

Yeah. That's not the way this story is going to go. Do I look like Aeschylus to you? (Aeschylus is the Greek guy with the cutesy stories about animals, right, Sammy?)

This story is about Sam and me and a lot of bad things happening, because most stories (yeah, yeah, Aeschylus, Aesop, whatever) about Sam and me involve bad things happening. But we both came out of it alive, which is one of the few good things that sometimes happens. So it's not a tragedy or anything. (Like Sophocles. See? I listen to you sometimes, Sam. Even when you're yammering on about dead Greek dudes.)

Sam can (and if you're very unlucky, he probably will) explain how exactly the curse worked. He made sure to read all about it when we got back to civilization, and he made extensive notes that are now part of the Men of Letters' library. (They're filed under W for Witch. But the section on Witches takes up an entire room by itself, so good luck finding them.)

All I know is that we were driving – well, I was driving, and Sam was sitting shotgun and complaining about my music – and all of a sudden I got a weird tingly feeling in the tips of my fingers.

One of the first things you learn as a hunter is that weird tingly feelings should never be ignored because they are always, always something. I pulled over onto the side of the road (which was, lucky for us, empty). I was just in time. A moment later the tingling intensified to full on burning, like my bones had turned into red-hot pokers.

I heard Sam gasp next to me, a soft, bitten-off sound that meant pain. I reached for him, but my fingers came up inexplicably short.

Then the world went dark.

I woke up to noise, a horrible high drawn-out grunting that sounded like a cross between an owl and a man trying to push a semi truck up a mountain. There were words mixed up in it too, I couldn't hear them but I could sort of sense them in my head. Out out out out out and Too close too close too small too small.

I opened my eyes.

The world was… Different.

The Impala was huge. I was still in the driver's seat, except that now the steering wheel was approximately five hundred feet above my head. I could see trees and sky through the windscreen, but the colours were weird. Too much red and yellow, and the blue of the sky faded to almost grey.

The noise hadn't stopped. It had just grown louder and more frantic, both the grunting and the words.

I turned.

There was a mountain of fur next to me. It looked like a sort of dull orange, but photographic evidence shows that it was brown. (Of course it made the papers, Sammy, and every Instagram and Twitter account in a twenty-mile radius. What did you expect?) If I craned my neck, I could see something dark sticking out the top of the mountain.

The mountain was thrashing wildly.

In a way that was guaranteed to –

Screeching metal interrupted my thoughts. I saw the passenger door give way. The mountain followed it out.

Crap.

It was a few minutes before I could master movement. Cursory examination revealed that I had… paws… and fur… and a tail, and some kind of weird furry skin between my arms and legs.

And there was no sign of Sam.

Except…

The voice in my head had sounded a lot like him.

I glanced sideways at the mountain of fur, sitting where it had landed outside the Impala.

No. Way.

And then I realized I could still hear the grunting, but this time the words in my head were Dean Dean Dean Dean Dean.

Right. Sam, then. Sam as a four-year-old, apparently, if the way he was repeating my name without pausing or drawing breath was any sort of indication. It figured that Sam would turn into some big badass animal that could rip a car apart and I'd be a hamster.

I made my way cautiously across the seat. The line of Sam's back still looked like Mount Everest, but when I grabbed a bit of fur I discovered I had a knack for climbing. It took me less than a minute to shinny up to the top of his head.

I don't think he even felt me.

Judging by the huge antlers jutting out on either side of me, Sam was a moose.

With his great hooves on the torn-off door.

Crap. It was going to take a lot of work to fix her up again, even with all the tools and space in the bunker's garage. And Sam making more dents in the door wasn't really helping.

I tried to yell his name. What came out was an embarrassing, high-pitched chittering sound.

But Sam must have heard what I was trying to say the same way I could hear him, because he went completely still.

Then there was another grunt, accompanied by Dean? in my head.

Yeah, I'm here. Get off the door, idiot. You're making it worse.

Dean! Sam scrambled to his feet, and it was only by grabbing the nearest handhold I could reach – his ear – that I managed to keep from being flung away. Dean! Where are you?

He was turning around in circles, and I would've laughed at him if he wasn't making me dizzy.

Sam! Stop moving.

He froze.

Now go to the car – slowly.

Sam obeyed, sidestepping around the door. I jumped off his head, instinctively spreading my arms and legs as I did. Something caught me, and I glided down in a gentle slope, landing lightly on the hood.

Sam was staring at me. The moment I landed, he ducked his huge head to peer at me from about four inches away.

Dean?

Yeah.

I can't see very well.

Sam sounded mournful. I wanted to laugh, and I also wanted to hurt something for making him sound like that, and most of all I wanted to figure out how to undo this thing because it was completely ridiculous for a hamster to be feeling protective of a giant bull moose.

You're not a hamster, Sam said. His head inched closer and he sniffed.

Dude! I snapped. Stop smelling me.

But it's the only way I'll know you. He backed up a bit. You're not a hamster, anyway. You're a flying squirrel.

So I can fly?

You can glide. Sam looked down at the door. Sorry about that. I just… needed to get out.

Yeah, well, I said dismissively. I can fix it. If we can fix this.

Who do you think did it?

Witch, maybe? We'll figure it out. I took a couple of steps forward and patted his nose. Don't worry. But we need to get the car off the road, and hidden. Any ideas?

Sam straightened. To me with my new diminutive size, the tips of his antlers seemed to be a mile off the ground. Judging by how tall he was relative to the Impala, it was probably about ten feet.

I suppose I could push it.

Smartass. I tried to climb up to the top of the car, but I couldn't find purchase on the glass, and I didn't want to risk scratching it. You'll have to put it in neutral first.

It wasn't easy, and we ended up with a crack in the windshield and the steering wheel out of alignment. But in the end we managed it. Sam pushed the car off the road behind a useful bank, and the door with it, and he dragged a bunch of fallen branches and leaves over to cover it. He kept muttering about how I was making him do all the work, but what point is there having a bull moose if you can't sit on the top of his head and ride around while he hauls things?

Good job, I said when he was done.

What do we do now? I thought about that, patting Sam's ear absently. He flicked it irritably, but when I patted it again he said, Do you remember when you started feeling… weird?

I thought about that. Ten, maybe twenty miles back.

There was a house, said Sam, proving that being turned into a moose hadn't affected his annoyingly accurate memory. Just about fifteen miles from here.

You think it was cursed or something?

It's all we have to go on.

I estimated the distance to the Impala. About ten feet. I could probably make it.

I jumped, ignoring Sam's startled protest, glided to the Impala, and landed on the roof with a slight thump.

We'll be back soon, baby.

When I turned back to Sam, though, he took a step away.

Oh, no. You are so not riding me.

Sam. Come on.

No. You have legs, Dean. You can walk.

You're going to make me walk? Fifteen miles? Look at me, Sam! It might as well be five hundred miles.

Maybe you can figure out how to glide.

There isn't even any tree cover.

You're not actually a squirrel, Dean. You don't need tree cover.

Predators may not know I'm not actually a squirrel.

There are no predators here! This isn't the damn jungle.

What if I get eaten by a cat?

A –

Or a dog?

Dean –

Or a fox? How would you feel if I got eaten by a fox?

Sam huffed out a frustrated breath, but he let me climb up on his head again. I settled down pretty comfortably, clutching one of his ears to keep my balance.

All right, Sammy. Chaaaaaaarge!

Shut up, Dean, Sam said, moving forward at a slow, ambling place that I was sure was deliberately calculated to infuriate me.

Giddyup!

Sam ignored me.

Mush!

Sam stopped altogether, tipping his head forward so I had to tighten my hold on his ear to keep from falling. It wouldn't have hurt – there wasn't that far to fall, and the grass looked pretty springy – but it was the principle of the thing.

Sam!

You want a ride, shut the hell up.

Fine, I muttered. No point arguing once Sam's started being prissy.

The road was empty for the most part. We saw the odd car, and once a minivan stopped and four kids tumbled out to the back to stare and take pictures. I was sure they hadn't noticed me; all the same, I tucked myself behind one of the huge antlers. No sense being on the front page of Weekly World News and inspiring some naturalist to come looking for us.

Sam sped up a bit once I'd stopped encouraging him to hurry, proving how contrary he can be, the little bitch. (What do you call a female moose? A she-moose? A moosette?) We covered the fifteen miles pretty quickly, and then there was a little house sitting by itself. Yellow walls, red-tiled roof, and it had that indefinable abandoned look to it.

I tugged on Sam's ear to get his attention.

How do we break in? You can't pick locks like this. I could try, but I left the kit in the Impala.

Climb up to the top, Sam suggests. Must be an opening somewhere that you can get through. Then you can come down and open the door for me.

Climb.

I looked up. The roof was high. Sure, there might have been trees that were higher, but I hadn't been a squirrel for very long, and I don't like heights anyway. You'd think, of the two of us, Sam would be the one to end up with wings, but no such luck.

You'll be fine, Sam said, and it was just typical that even his voice in my head sounded sappy. I wish I could help.

Yeah, yeah. I tugged his ear. Will you be able to see me up there?

Probably not. Moose can't see very well. Sam's ears pricked up in panic. Dean, what if I can't find you again? What if you get lost? You're so tiny –

Hey!

And if you go up and I can't find you later –

HEY! I yelled, because the grunting sounds that were what humans would hear when Sam spoke were getting high and panicked, like a moose in distress, and we didn't need PETA coming to investigate. I might be tiny, but you're not. You just hang around the house, stay out of sight of people, and I'll find you. Don't I always come for you?

Well, there was that one time in Tallahassee when you were so busy with the checkout girl at the grocery store that –

Sam!

Yeah, OK. Sam went up to the wall, walking along it until he found a drainpipe. I slid down his muzzle and grabbed the pipe. It didn't give me a comfortable grip like Sam's fur did, but I could manage.

Stay out of trouble, I said. I'll be back, OK?

Yeah, Sam muttered.

I didn't look back at him. I knew if I did he'd be puppy-dogging me for all he was worth. And considering how lethal those big dewy eyes were on human Sammy, I was sure they'd be even worse on moose Sammy.

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