Girls! Girls! Girls!

Demon/angel war? What demon/angel war?!

Have some "the boys as girls with the Sweeds" silliness! Pre-deal in the Strangers and Angels universe.

xxxx

"You have got to be kidding me."

The shock had worn off and been replaced by a vague sort of disgust.

Sam blinked enormous, nonplussed eyes at him. "We're girls," he repeated. For, like, the 18 billionth time.

"No shit, Sherlock," Dean ground out, glaring at himself in the mirror over the dresser in their room. His eyes shifted to Sam beside him in the reflection.

Sam's attention had returned to the two of them in the mirror. Dean looked around 15, dark-blonde, chin-length hair, freckles over a snub nose and green-eyes; Sam was 10 or 11, several inches shorter now than his brother, a mess of wavy, chestnut hair down past his shoulders, narrow ski-jump nose and hazel eyes.

Sam squinted at their reflections, touching the tips of the hair falling over his chest with his fingers. "We're girls," he said again. He sounded the same way he looked. Like a little girl.

"Stop saying that." Dean tried to growl it, but his own voice had gained an octave or two and even in his own ears he was starting to sound a little hysterical. He clamped his lips together and cleared his throat.

You have got to be kidding me.

xxxx

The night before they'd both collapsed on the one bed in the room that hadn't been strewn with weapons and books and research. Neither had been hurt badly, but they'd been exhausted beyond care, three solid days and nights of a hunt for a witch that had cumulated in a fight that had been brutal physically and psychically. Dean hadn't understood more than half of the curses the old hag had hurled at them, only doing what he could to fend them off as he and Sam had worked to contain the bitch and end her control of the small community.

They'd been relatively unscathed—scrapes and bruises aside—once they'd managed to dispatch her, left doubled-over and panting in the center of her wrecked living room after she'd disappeared with a shriek and a plume of pink smoke. They'd staggered to the Impala congratulating themselves on a job well-done, driven the three miles back to the motel, and fallen face down and side-by-side onto the bed closest to the door. Both had been asleep before they'd hit the mattress.

Over the years Dean had awakened more times than he should probably acknowledge to the sight of a girl he didn't know sleeping next to him. But never before had he opened his eyes to a pre-pubescent one. If he'd toppled off the opposite side of the bed with a fairly undignified and kind of girly squeak, he thought he could be excused.

The fact that Sam had made an equally undignified exit from the bed when he'd groggily woken to the sound of Dean's thump onto the floor and been confronted by Dean's teenage-girl visage peeking warily over the side of the mattress had been something of a consolation.

Now they stood in front of the mirror still clad in the t-shirts they'd been wearing the night before. They'd been fully clothed when they'd fallen into bed, but neither jeans nor boxers had stayed in place and… yeah. Dean really didn't want to revisit that. Ever. He'd taken one horrified look down at his new self and averted his eyes. And if Dean had felt vaguely dirty after a single glance at the slender body of what was clearly that of a still-developing teenage girl, he could only imagine how Sam had felt.

Surely they'd have this resolved before either of them had to shower.

xxxx

"OK, so how's this?" Sam was sitting cross-legged on the bed, swimming in his t-shirt, computer open in front of him, composing an email to Bobby. They'd decided that there was pretty much no way they'd be able to hide the changes in their voices over the phone, so they'd opted for claims of no service and malfunctioning cell phones instead. Because there was also no way they were going to subject themselves to Bobby Singer's unending ridicule at the two of them turned into little girls.

Sam was reading the email he'd written, and Dean listened with half an ear as Sam spun his story for Bobby. Sam had a better handle on some of the language the witch had used – freakin' witches – during their altercation, and was giving the older man enough back-story coupled with the witch's spell work to weave a fairly credible lie about two other guys who had been turned into little girls.

And what the hell? They were little girls.

With Sam's attention fully on the computer, Dean was able to study the changes in his younger brother unobserved. Sam's face was squinched up in concentration as he tried to adjust his technique to the tiny hands he was currently sporting, and Dean watched in a kind of appalled fascination. Sam was awash in the shirt he was wearing, collar gaping over his collar-bone, slightly askew and falling off a frighteningly fragile-looking shoulder. This was just wrong. On so many different levels.

"What do you think?"

Dean shook himself, realizing from the tone of Sam's voice that this wasn't the first time the question had been asked. Dean met his brother's searching, annoyed gaze. Damn. Sam was a little girl.

"Fine," Dean said. Not a little boy with long hair. But a girl, features still Sam, but delicate in a way they'd never been before, not even when he'd been a child.

"Dean," Sam said in exasperation. He moved his hair impatiently out of his face.

"What?" Dean responded. Not just shaking his hair out of his eyes, but tucking it behind an ear in a gesture that was so feminine it made Dean's stomach turn over.

"Were you even listening?"

Dean scowled at him. "Yes, I was listening," he defended himself.

The expression on Sam's face told Dean how little he believed him. "So? Should I send it?"

"Yeah. Send it." Dean pushed himself up from his chair.

Sam did and set the computer to the side. He drew his knees up under his t-shirt. He was so small. "What now?" he asked, resting his chin on a knee and watching Dean complacently.

Dean shrugged and opened the curtain slightly to look out at the parking lot. They were actually in pretty good shape cash-wise. And they'd used a credit card for the room, so Dean thought they could manage another couple of days extending their stay if they needed to before they'd run into trouble on that front. In the meantime they needed to find some clothes that would fit them better. But getting somewhere in public without being picked up… that might be problematic. He turned and looked consideringly at Sam.

His brother's head came up. "What?" he asked suspiciously.

xxxx

One advantage of staying in the types of no-tels they usually did was that haphazardly attired children didn't necessarily set off the alarms they might in better areas. Kids dressed in over-sized (or undersized) clothes, making due with what they had wasn't that uncommon.

So when Sam, dressed in one of his own t-shirts and a belt cinching the waist, walked bare-footed into the convenience store down the street, he didn't prompt a call to the police or CPS. And if the abraded skin on his jaw-line did elicit a pinched expression from the middle-aged man at the register when he put two pairs of flip flops and a box of cereal on the counter, Sam managed to allay the man's concern enough with an easy smile and courteous "thanks."

The shoes had gotten them both on the bus and headed to a nearby Wal-Mart.

Dean scowled at the boys who watched them go by in their t-shirt dresses as they clambered off the bus and into the store. He was wearing one of Sam's shirts, too, as it hit further down his legs than his own.

"Perverts," he muttered under his breath, hunching his shoulders forward and crossing one arm tightly across his chest even as he tugged the hem of the shirt down. It was cool enough that their lack of warm clothes was prompting stares from more than just adolescent boys. The sooner they got out of these clothes, the better, Sam thought.

"Dude, they're your age," Sam said. "And they weren't looking at me." Sam wasn't exactly sure why Dean was so freaked out by the attention, but he didn't take the time to think too carefully about it, scanning the signs as they moved into the cavernous building. Where was the…?

"Shut up," Dean hissed, ducking behind a rack of clothes and yanking shirts off their hangers.

Sam eyed the picture of a pregnant woman on the nearby the display. "I don't think those are going to fit," he said carefully.

Dean finally looked at the sizes and realized they were in the maternity department. He snarled at his brother and stalked away.

Sam hurried after him, shorter leg frustratingly slow in helping him keep up. He'd always hated this part of being younger. Getting as tall as and then taller than his brother had had a number of perks. And while teasing-rights had been at the top of that list, not always having to run to keep pace had been a very close second.

Finally in an appropriate section of the store, they grabbed jeans and shirts and sneakers and boots, neither even considering girls' clothes as they rifled hurriedly through the boys' racks. It wasn't a challenge to find clothes for Sam. His little-girl body wasn't all that different from its male counter-parts at that age. For Dean though…

"Damn it!"

Sam was standing outside the dressing room door, and his brother's displeasure had gotten louder and increasingly vulgar the more things he tried on.

"What?" Sam asked warily, smiling nervously at the women in the corridor who were casting disapproving looks his way.

"If they fit at my hips, they're too big at the waist!"

Sam was sure it was his imagination that Dean sounded on the verge of tears. Sam had gotten another pair of jeans the last time Dean had sent him out for more options. He braced himself. "Here." He opened the door a crack. "Try these."

The jeans were snatched out of his hand, and Sam was positive he hadn't heard a disconsolate sniff through the opening at the same time. Under the door he saw the pants Dean had just tried on puddle to the floor before being kicked spitefully aside. The new jeans went on.

"Hey. These fit."

"Yeah?" Sam tried for casual. "Great. You want me to get you another pair?" He thought maybe if he rushed it Dean wouldn't…

"Flower Petal?"

Too late. Dean had seen the tags.

"What the hell, Sammy? You got me chick jeans?" Dean's outraged shriek had the disapproving looks deepening into unhappy frowns. Sam grimaced back apologetically. Sorry, he mouthed.

"Look, dude," Sam whispered fiercely, trying to push the door open even as it was being shoved stubbornly back at him when he managed to get it slightly ajar. "You're a girl, OK? Right now you're a girl." The door suddenly swung open, and Sam staggered into the small room. Dean jerked him out of the way before he slammed the door shut behind them. "And you're, like," Sam went on undaunted in the face of his brother's scowl, "developing," Dean's cheeks flamed crimson, "so your hips are, you know, starting to," Sam made vague rounding motions with his hands before Dean slapped them down furiously, "curve, so you can't…"

"Fine!" Dean shouted at him, right in his face.

"Girls!" There was a peremptory knock on the door. "That's enough! If you can't…"

Dean opened his mouth, clearly intent on unleashing a barrage of language that was liable to get them arrested or at least kicked out of the store before they'd actually bought anything.

Sam leaped forward, slapping a hand over Dean's mouth. Don't! he telegraphed with his eyes. Just don't!

"We're sorry!" Sam shouted. "We're sorry! It won't happen again!"

There was a hanging moment of silence.

"Well, see that it doesn't," the woman huffed. Her feet disappeared from the gap under the door.

Sam looked up at Dean to see how his brother was reacting, surprised, frankly, that he hadn't already been bitten or at least licked.

Dean watched Sam balefully over a small hand.

Carefully Sam removed his hand meeting his brother's disgruntled eyes.

"Dean…"

"I get it, Sam," he sighed resignedly. "Go grab me another pair."

xxxx

That night they went back to the witch's lair.

They'd waited until almost midnight, slipping into the car unseen and driving the three miles to her house. It had taken longer than either of them would have expected just to get the bench seat of the Impala moved close enough for Dean to reach the pedals. Sam had finally climbed into the back to push, braced between the seats, while Dean maneuvered the lever and tugged with all his might. Finally they got it in a workable position.

Sam flopped over into the front seat again. They were both panting slightly.

"Holy crap," Dean fumed as he turned over the ignition.

Sam raised up to get a better view over the dashboard.

Dean snickered. "Maybe we should have brought you a couple of phone books, princess," he said.

Sam just rolled his eyes and flipped him off.

xxxx

They found nothing at the house.

Frustrated and exhausted, by the time they finished searching the entire building and its environs, it was close to three. Dean fought back a growing impulse just to sit down somewhere and let someone else deal with this mess. He was tired and confused and sick of feeling like a stranger in his own body – small and weak and emotional and…

Sam stumbled next to him, and Dean grabbed his arm without thinking, about to snap at his brother for his clumsiness when he registered the thinness of the bicep through the layers of shirts and jacket. Crap.

He sighed. Suck it up, Winchester, and deal.

Sam righted himself and pushed away. "Sorry," he mumbled. "Maybe Bobby'll have something for us tomorrow," he tried, every bit as discouraged and tired as Dean.

"Yeah," Dean said without much hope.

Sam trudged ahead of him toward the car and Dean stopped, watching him go.

"Sammy, I think we need to leave the car here," he said.

Sam ground to a halt and turned. "What?"

"I think it'll be safer if we leave the Impala here and… walk back." He approached Sam cautiously. He knew just from looking at Sam that this was going to be hard on his brother. Because little girl or not, Sam was wearing an expression Dean recognized.

"Dean…" Sam started. Not a whine really. But a plea definitely.

"Sam, man, I'm sorry. But, dude. There's no way we can explain a trunk full of weapons if we get tagged with the Impala the way we are." Hell, there was no way they could explain a trunk full of weapons when they were themselves. But two young girls on their own in a skeezy motel were liable to draw a kind of attention to the Impala and her contents that two grown men just didn't.

Sam was staring up at him, fists clenched at his side, mouth working and eyes disturbingly bright in the moonlight.

"If the car's not in front of the room I think we've got a better chance of laying low till we can come up with something. Or Bobby can. And if they think no one's in the room people might keep their nose out of our business and leave us alone."

"Or they'll use it as an opportunity to search the room," Sam said tightly.

"Maybe." Dean had to acknowledge that as a possibility. "But if we stay out of sight, there won't be any reason for someone to get suspicious and want to search the room," he said.

Sam's eyes went from the car to the long, dark driveway that lead away from the house and back to the main road. He shivered slightly as he looked to Dean again. Thin shoulders sagged. "Yeah," he sighed. "OK."

They moved the car around to the back of the lot and started toward the motel.

It was a long, wretched walk back, and Dean ended up carrying Sam piggy-back the last half mile. Brushing aside Sam's embarrassed assurances that he was fine, Dean crouched down after the fifth time Sam had stumbled and almost fallen.

"This is stupid," Sam said unhappily even as he climbed onto Dean's back.

Dean shrugged, adjusting Sam's weight so that he had a better grasp on his brother. "It isn't the first time, Sammy," Dean answered tiredly. "And it's just going to take us longer to get there if I have to stop every five minutes and pick you up off the ground."

"Sorry," Sam whispered. He shifted his face to rub it against his brother's back before hooking his chin over Dean's shoulder.

"'s, OK, Sammy." He smiled. "You owe me one, though."

Sam snorted quietly. "When we're big again," he agreed.

"When we're big."

They got back to the motel close to 5, and it took Dean a frustratingly long time to get the key to work in the door. Darkness and his own exhaustion combined to make the simple task seem impossible. Sam had slid down from his ride when they'd gotten to the door, but stood close, leaning sleepily against Dean's back. When the door had finally swung open, they both staggered inside. Dean managed to keep them from ending up on the floor, aiming them toward the near-by bed and using Sam's momentum to get the younger boy onto the mattress. Clumsily, Dean pulled Sam's shoes off and then fumbled his own off as well before trying to wrestle the bedspread and sheets out from under them.

"Maybe we'll be ourselves when we wake up," Sam mumbled exhaustedly into Dean's bicep as they finally got settled in under the covers. Dean rolled onto his side, dislodging Sam, who muttered unhappily before scooting close again and pressing his face into Dean's back. His nose was an oddly comforting pressure point against Dean's spine.

On a sigh, Dean started a weary agreement. "M…," he began to mumble back. But he was asleep before he could finish the thought.

In the morning Dean woke to Sam curled tightly against him, tangle of long dark hair and small body that had still somehow forced Dean to the edge of the bed.

Or maybe not.

xxxx

TBC