Disclaimer: I don't not (unfortunately) own Supernatural, I'm just playing in the wonderful sandbox that has been created by Kripke and company.

Spoilers: None really, set in the back half of season 6, before everything goes pear shaped.

A/N: Thanks to Chrissie0707 and BlueRiverSteel for their help with this little project. This story is a result of a prompt from Chrissie0707, the prompt was:

Sam and Dean...and maybe Rufus
Humor
A heist
Sam acting like a germaphobe
The line "They're magically delicious."

I hope this satisfies and I hope y'all enjoy. Thank you in advance to those who take the time to read and review. Your words are very much loved.

Dean folded his arms over his chest, stuck somewhere between vaguely amused and mildly concerned as he watched his brother flitter around Bobby's house like Tinkerbell on a caffeine binge.

Bobby came to stand next to Dean in the doorway between the kitchen and study. He gestured toward Sam, who was ignoring them in favor of his new life mission. "So this curse . . . it makes him . . ."

"Yup."

"That's idiotic."

"Yup."

Bobby blew out a breath. "We could drug him . . ."

Dean shook his head. "Tried it. Didn't work."

Bobby turned toward the younger hunter, his eyebrows jumping up underneath his baseball cap.

Dean held his hands up in front of him. "Don't give me that look. You sit in a confined space with him for nineteen hours and you try not to kill him. He's lucky drugging him is the only thing I attempted."

"All right, all right." Bobby tapped his fingers against the air. "Don't get your panties in a bind." He waited a beat, then took a deep breath. "So tell me again. How did this happen?"

"Bobby . . ." Dean rolled his eyes, letting his arms drop to his sides.

"Just . . ." he cut him off. "Humor me, okay?"

He cast a glance back to his brother, still flitting away, still oblivious to the world around outside his singular purpose. "Fine." Dean rubbed a weary hand across the back of his neck. "We got a call from Rufus the other day, said he needed our help with something . . ."

"We need to talk about your definition of a little job." Dean narrowed his eyes at the man standing next to him packing a bag on the tailgate of his pickup truck.

"That was a small job . . . mostly." Rufus gave a nonchalant shrug.

Dean's eyebrows scrunched upwards. "Mostly? It was a black market occult auction house with more security than a bank. It wasn't a robbery—it was a heist."

Rufus turned, gesturing to Dean. "Which is why I brought someone experienced in bank heists with me."

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose, resigned to the fact that no matter how much time passed he would never live down the botched job in Milwaukee. "That wasn't a heist. We were hunting a shifter."

Rufus spared him a quick glance. "Uh-huh." Midway through turning back to his packing, Rufus did a double-take, looking at something over Dean's shoulder. He opened his mouth then shut it, tilting his head to the side.

Dean looked over his shoulder to see what had so thoroughly grabbed the older hunter's attention and was greeted by the sight of Sam, ass end up, doing . . . something inside the Impala. "The hell?" Dean wondered, his expression now matching Rufus'.

"There's an image I could have lived without." Bobby frowned at the thought.

Dean let out a soft snort. "Try seeing it in person. I was more than a little worried about what he could possibly be doing to my baby in that position, so . . ."

Dean covered the short distance in just a few steps; he stopped next to the open passenger door, leaning down to see what it was his brother was up to. Sam was kneeling on the front bench, feet hanging off the side, crouched low and scrubbing at something just under the car's dashboard.

"Sam?" He received no answer. His brother seemed very into whatever it was he'd found the need to obliterate via . . . wet wipe? "Sam!" Dean called louder, smacking the younger man's ankle as he did.

A very forceful "Shhhhhh!" was what he received in return.

Dean jerked his head back, eyebrows shooting up toward his hairline. "Sam . . . what are you doing?"

"Shh, I'm cleaning," Sam replied in a loud whisper.

"Yeah, I can see that." Dean paused for a moment before asking, "Why?"

"Dirty."

"Dude. My baby is not dirty."

"That's what they want you to think," Sam replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

Dean cocked his head to the side, blinking once before asking . . .

"They?" Bobby tilted his chin down and raised his eyebrows.

Dean raised his hand. "Just wait. It gets better."

"Sam . . . who are you talking about?"

Sam jumped out of the car so fast Dean stumbled back, bouncing off Rufus' chest. Sam waved his hands up and down urgently. "Shhh, they'll hear you!"

"Who?" Dean pressed more forcefully.

Grabbing a fistful of Dean's shirt and yanking him close, Sam looked around as if checking to see if anyone was listening before continuing in a way-too-loud-to-be-a-whisper, "Them." He nodded, as if that one simple word explained everything.

Dean gently pried his shirt out of his brother's surprisingly strong grip. "Okay, Sammy." He pressed his lips into a forced smile. "Why," he started in a slow, calm voice, as one might when talking to a very young child, "are you cleaning under the dashboard of my car?"

Sam pressed his lips into a thin line, looking back into the car. "There's dirt and blood in the car, and that means germs, which can get to us and make us sick and then kill us and then we could die and our bodies will decay and release more germs into the air and other people willgetsickandthentherewillbeawholepandemicandeveryonewilldieandthentherewillbenoonelefttodisinfectthegerms."

Dean blinked once, then a second time, trying to process the run-on sentence that had just spilt from his brother's lips. Before Dean had the chance to shape his thoughts into a proper response, Rufus stepped forward, looking at Dean while gesturing to Sam.

"I assume that's a normal thing?"

Dean threw a glare over his shoulder at the old hunter, then returned his attention back to his brother. Sam was now becoming agitated, his eyes bouncing from the inside of the car to Dean. "Dude, talk to me. What the hell is going on in that head of yours?"

Rufus leaned forward, almost over Dean's shoulder. "Sam, when we were at the . . ." He rolled his hand in the air then cleared his throat. "Did you touch anything?"

"He kinda jumped to that conclusion awfully fast, if you ask me." Dean glanced over at the older hunter with a half shrug. "I mean, he was right, but still."

"Rufus does that. It's a mixture of assuming everyone's a moron and being pretty sharp himself. If you tell him I said that, I'll deny it."

Dean held his hands up in surrender.

Bobby cleared his throat. "So what did Sam have to say?"

Sam's eyes widened and he shook his head. "What? No . . ." Something akin to a nervous chuckle crossed his lips.

"Sam?" Dean squeezed his shoulders and gave him a hard look, one he'd given Sam many times when they were younger.

"No, I . . . I wouldn't." Sam fidgeted under Dean's gaze, like a three-year-old that got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He shifted, casting his eyes away from his brother. "Maybe," he mumbled.

"I told you not to touch anything in there." Rufus shook his head with a roll of his eyes.

Dean squinted, then looked at the older hunter. "Actually, you didn't."

"I didn't?" Rufus paused, looking upwards. "I could have sworn . . ." He shrugged. "Well, it was implied."

Dean shook his head, turning his attention back to his little brother. He didn't really disagree with Rufus; they should have known better than to just touch anything labeled "occult." He knew Sam knew better, as his brother was often the one yelling at him not to touch things. "Dude, seriously, why would you touch anything in there?"

Sam muttered something under his breath too low for Dean to catch, despite standing right in front of him.

Dean tilted his head forward, trying to catch his brother's eyes. "Come again?"

Sam fidgeted, raising his voice just a hair higher. "They were magically delicious."

Dean snapped his mouth shut with a painfully audible click, jerking his head back. He shifted his feet, his mouth opening and closing in aborted attempts to respond. After a long and pregnant pause, Dean finally settled on a well-thought-out and eloquent, "What?"

"Wait." Bobby held his hand up between them. "You wanna try that again?"

"I swear, Bobby, that's what he said. They were 'magically delicious.'"

"He ate something that was in a black market occult auction house?" Bobby shook his head. "How did that even happen? I would expect something like that from you, but Sam? He's smarter than that."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

Rufus tapped the air with his fingers. "Did you . . . eat something in there?"

Sam ducked his head down, his refusal to answer as good as a voiced confirmation.

Rufus pressed his lips into an amused frown and nodded his head. "All right. Well, you two have fun with that." He gave a small wave and turned back toward his truck.

Dean spun around, keeping one hand on his brother's shoulder. "Wait, you can't just leave."

Rufus paused, looking at Dean. "No, I'm pretty sure I can." He nodded, agreeing with his own statement.

"This wouldn't have happened if we hadn't been helping you on your heist."

"True, but I didn't tell your brother to eat some strange item he found in the middle of a black market occult action house."

"No, but Sam . . ." Dean looked over his shoulder to the empty spot his brother had just occupied. "What the hell?" Dean spun around on his heel, his eyes whipping across the area, halting as he found his brother half inside the Impala's trunk doing . . . something. Dean couldn't tell from his angle, and he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.

"Sam!" Dean covered the space between him and the back of the car in two strides. "Dude, what are you doing?"

"I'm mustering the troops."

"You're mus—what?" Dean stopped abruptly as he turned the corner around the car and took in the sight before him. Lined up in a perfect row like soldiers at roll call were various types of cleaners, bleaches, and detergents, some of which Dean was positive they hadn't owned that morning.

Dean looked from his brother to the "troops" and back up again. "Sam—I—are you—" He turned his palms upward, then curled his fingers into a loose fist, then opened them wide again. "I got nothing." He turned back toward Rufus, only to find the man and his truck gone, tire marks in the gravel the only evidence he'd ever been there. Dean threw his hands in the air. "Fan-fuckin'-tastic!"

He let out a huff of air and started weighing out his options. At this point there really weren't very many. He could go back to the auction house, but he couldn't take Sam there, not like this, nor could he leave the younger man alone. Leaving Sam alone made him itchy under the best of circumstances, and this was most certainly not even remotely close to good circumstances.

"All right. We'll go to Bobby's—"

Sam made a noise caught somewhere between a whimper and a squeak.

Dean looked over to his brother. "What?"

Sam lowered his voice in a conspiratorial whisper."Its dirty there. They will be able to mount an attack."

Dean pulled open the passenger side door. "Sam. Get in the car."

Sam dragged his eyes away from the cleaners to his brother, his face melting into a kicked puppy expression.

"Sam," Dean growled between clenched teeth.

Sam hesitated for a moment longer before shuffling over to the passenger door. He was about to get in when Dean reached out, pulling at the item cradled in Sam's arms.

"Sam, you are not taking . . ." Dean began to wrestle Sam for the item in question. "Sam, give it . . . now." They struggled over the box for a few more minutes before Dean managed to tear it from his brother's hands. Sam immediately lunged for it, causing Dean to press one hand against Sam's chest and hold the other one as far out of Sam's reach as he could.

"Sam!" Dean snapped, drawing his brother's attention. "Tide doesn't love you like that, man. Let it go." He paused, letting his words sink in before adding, "Get in the car."

Sam's eyes bounced between the detergent and his brother as if he was unsure who he should listen to. Dean worried about how accurate that might be, because that's what would make this day better, his brother hearing voices from inanimate objects. "Sam. Car. Now."

"Tide?"

"Tide."

Bobby gave a small nod. "Rufus really leave?"

Dean snorted. "Like hellhounds were on his ass."

"Dean!" Sam yelled from across the small Gas-N-Sip.

They had stopped just outside of town only long enough to fill up the car and go inside to pay. Originally Dean was going to leave his brother in the Impala, but the idea had been quickly discarded for a desire to keep his brother in sight. That, of course, lasted roughly the two minutes he'd had his back turned to pay for the gas. Dean quickly ate up the space separating him from his brother, worried about the trouble Sammy could have found in that short amount of time.

He slid to a stop next to a perfectly healthy-looking brother standing in the cleaning aisle. "For the love of . . . Sam!"

Sam ignored his brother's annoyance and pointed to a large tub sitting on the bottom shelf. "We need him."

"Him?" Dean looked to where Sam was pointing, a mirthless chuckle slipping from his lips. "Oh, no. Sam. There is no way in hell."

"Dean, he could be our general. The frontline man to lead the charge. Our victory could depend on him!" He turned his floppy-haired puppy-dog eyes on Dean.

Dean shook his head. "Sam, that's a seventy dollar bucket of . . . I don't even know what, but nobody needs that. Nothing is that dirty!"

Sam turned the puppy-dog look up a few notches, pressing his lips into a thin line and tilting his head to the side.

Dean began to contemplate the merits of fratricide.

Bobby glanced over at the large bucket sitting on the desk. "I'm gonna take a wild guess on how that one turned out."

"Dude, have you seen his puppy-dog face in full mode? Christ, we should have just used that on Lucifer. The dick would have just gone back into the cage willingly."

Bobby let out a small snort. "I take it this is somewhere around when you tried to drug him?"

"Yeah, the first time."

"First time?" Bobby snapped his eyes over to the younger hunter. "How many times did you try to drug him?"

Dean shrugged. "I don't know," he snapped back. "How many miles are there between here and Maryland?"

Dean had one hand on his brother's shoulder as he steered him from the Gas-N-Sip toward the Impala. They were almost to the car when Sam let out a shriek no human being over the age of six should be capable of and jumped on top of a nearby picnic table.

"What the . . . Sam, the hell are you doing?"

Sam's face collapsed in pure terror. He lifted a shaky finger, pointing at the object of his fear.

Dean looked around until he found the small, fluffy bunny sitting three feet away, nibbling on grass. He blew out a breath and dragged a hand down his face, caught somewhere between wanting to laugh and wanting to strangle his brother. "Sam, I swear to God—" He bit off the end of the sentence, knowing it wasn't really Sam's fault. "This is going to be a long ride." He turned toward the car.

"Dean!" Sam yelled, eyeing the fluffy ball of germs and death. "Dean!"

"Well, look at the bright side." Bobby adjusted his cap.

"The bright side?" Dean's eyebrow arched up; he was positive there was no way there was any type of "bright side" in this situation.

Bobby nodded. "Think of the blackmail."

A tentative smirk crawled across his lips. Then again . . .

Sam, I swear, if you don't stop fidgeting I'm gonna shove you out of the car and leave you where you land." Dean shot a glare over to his brother, who had done nothing but move restlessly since they pulled onto the highway. Ten. Freakin'. Hours ago. Dean was seriously contemplating taking another shot at drugging his brother into oblivion; he was pretty sure they had something in the first aid kit that could accomplish that.

"Dean," Sam started in that loud whisper that he'd been using earlier. "We need to stop."

"Stop? Where? And why?"

"I need to muster the troops. Dean, if I don't do something they will win, and then the world will look like it did when it looked like the way it did that one time you did that thing."

Dean opened his mouth then snapped it shut. He shook his head. Not even gonna ask. "Look, Sam. Let's forget about doomsday or whatever for a moment."

"Dean, I—"

"Just—" Dean held a hand up between them. "Just humor me for a moment. It's important. Do you remember the auction house?"

Sam nodded. "That's where I found out about the war."

"War, right. Do you remember eating anything while there? Maybe something cursed or magical?"

Bobby slid his gaze to Sam, tilting his head to the side as he watched the younger Winchester, then blinked and shook his head. Probably best not to ask.

Dean followed Bobby's gaze, tilting his head also, his expression mirroring the older man's.

Bobby cleared his throat. "Did he tell you what it was?"

Dean shook his head. "He went on this spiel about a coming war, the end of everything as we know it." He held up three fingers between them. "For three hours. Three, Bobby. Do you know how many words you can fit into three hours?"

Bobby held his hands up in surrender. "If Sam didn't tell you what he . . . how he cursed himself, then how . . ."

"Well, luckily—and I use that word lightly—Rufus called."

Dean yanked the screaming phone from his back pocket, flipping it open without bothering to check the caller I.D. "What?"

"Cranky. Someone spit in your oatmeal this morning?"

"Rufus?"

"You expecting the Easter Bunny?"

Dean pulled the phone away, fixing it with a glare despite the knowledge that the old hunter couldn't see it. He placed the phone back to his ear. "What do you want?" Dean made a vague attempt to not let the annoyance he was feeling lace through his words.

"Me? I don't want anything."

Dean resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, if only because he needed at least one hand to keep his baby from ending up in a ditch. "Then why did you call?"

"Thought maybe you might want to know about the thing your genius brother ate. Unless I was mistaken, in which case . . . bye."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Dean practically yelled into the phone. "You found something? What?"

"Well, lucky for your brother, the thing he ate was mostly meant to be a Red Heifer."

Dean blinked. "Sam ate a cow?"

"A cow?"

Dean's brow folded up at the center. "You said he ate a cow."

"What? No. Not a red heifer, a Red Heifer."

Dean rolled his eyes skyward. "Well, that explains everything. Glad you cleared that all up."

There was a sigh of annoyance on the other end, and Dean could practically hear the older hunter's responding eye roll.

"No wonder they say your brother is the smart one . . . though that bar doesn't seem to be very high at the moment. A Red Heifer as in something that is meant to distract you from something more valuable or important."

Dean tilted his head to the side, his face scrunching up in thought. "I don't think that's what it's called."

"Naw, I'm pretty sure it is."

"No, I think you're thinking of a . . ." Dean trailed off for a moment, trying to remember the word he was looking for. He knew what Rufus was talking about, but he had never really had an interest in literary terms. That was more Sam's cup of tea. He glanced over at the younger man; Sam was preoccupied with a whispered conversation to the large bucket of cleaner. No help there. He turned his attention back to the phone and road as the word he was looking for finally tripped off the tip of his tongue. "A Red Herring?"

"Herring? No, that's a fish."

"It's also the term to describe a hint or clue that's meant to be distracting."

"You sure?"

"Pretty sure." Dean shook his head, bringing his thoughts back round to his current problem. "Does it matter? You said you found something?"

"What? Oh, yeah. The thing your brother ate was meant as a distraction, mostly to keep a person from finding the cursed object underneath. Probably a good thing, since it is a nasty piece of work."

"Okay, why is this a good thing?"

"What did that idjit Rufus say?" Bobby's eyes bounced around the study, following Sam's movements.

"He thinks it should wear off. Maybe a day or two. 's long as Sam doesn't get himself killed."

"And the cursed object that was being protected?"

Dean gave a small shrug. "Rufus said he took care of that. We just have to wait this out."

Bobby gave a small nod. "Well, all things considered, it could be worse."

Dean rolled his lips against his teeth, about to respond, when his little brother came bounding up to them, a bottle of cleaner in each hand. "I need your guys' help. I think we have them mostly at bay, but it's a stalemate." He thrust a container into Dean's hands. "I need you to go behind the enemy lines, take them by surprise and attack from the rear." He gestured to the bottle. "You can trust him—he'll help you."

Sam turned to Bobby and shoved the other bottle at him. "I need you to take the basement. I think there are spies down there, and we can't let them get to the main floor—it'll weaken our frontline." Sam gave a nod then scurried off back to his "troops" waiting for him on the desk.

Dean looked down at the bottle in his hands to his brother, then over to Bobby. "I don't care what Sam's high on—I'm not cleaning your house."