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Coming home to the Winchesters meant expecting the unexpected. They had all long since been disabused of the notion of the Bunker as a safe haven, a place to rest where the monsters couldn’t come, but it was still closer than anything else they could imagine. That didn’t mean a spell couldn’t go wrong, or a fight couldn’t break out between the brothers or one of them and Jack, or a more human danger couldn’t get in.
When Castiel heard shouting, his immediate thought went to fight. When he saw the dog, he had what he believed was a good guess as to what the fight was about. He would side with Sam, of course; there was absolutely no reason not to have a dog and Sam would love to have one. Then he noticed a couple small details. First, Sam was not in the room that Castiel could see, although he could feel Sam’s soul. Second, the dog was leaning against where Dean sat, with its head on Dean’s leg and its tail firmly curled under itself. Third, Jack looked even more distressed as he tried snapping his fingers and whatever was supposed to happen didn’t.
“Where’s Sam?” Castiel asked. “I can feel him…”
The dog picked its head up and hit Castiel with the saddest puppy eyes he’d ever seen, and yet, they were so familiar that Castiel immediately realized the answer to his question. He crossed the room in three long steps and dropped to his knees to stroke Sam’s fur. “Hello, Sam.”
Sam whined a little as he pressed into Castiel’s hands. Jack dropped his head. “I’m sorry, Castiel. This is my fault. Sam and Dean were doing their taxes and arguing…”
“I’m sorry, doing their taxes?” Castiel stared blankly at Dean. “You make a living off of petty theft and hustling pool. Why are you doing taxes?”
“Well, y’know. Taxes are how they took down Al Capone, and if I’m going down, I’m going down to something meaningful. Grave desecration or murder or something. Not goddamn tax evasion.” Dean cleared his throat. “Also, for the record, we do have a real steady income now. Sam was digging through some of the old books and found bank records. We’ve checked it out, the accounts are still active, and Sam nerded his way through getting us a legitimate income. Which means we have to pay taxes now.”
“Anyway, Sam made a comment about how he wished he were a dog because dogs have easy lives… they don’t have to think about taxes.” Jack looked up. “I didn’t do it on purpose, but I was thinking about Sam as a dog, and… next thing I knew, he was one. Oops?”
“Well, as dogs go, this is quite a good effort for Sam.” Castiel smiled at the eyeroll that followed. Aside from the puppy eyes that were so deadly effective in Sam’s human face that translated perfectly to the dog, he was the same color as Sam’s hair, and just as soft and shaggy. “That said, he doesn’t look happy in this form, so you should probably put him back.”
“I’m trying!” Jack shouted. “I am, I swear, trying to get Sam back to normal! It’s not working!” Jack held out a hand again, and golden power swirled around it. When he snapped his fingers, though, nothing happened. Sam remained canine.
“Ah. I see.” Castiel reached out with his grace, attempting to reverse whatever Jack had done that caused Sam to be stuck in this form. Nothing happened. He couldn’t feel any residual grace in Sam from Jack’s work. “Jack… I don’t think you did this. It feels like… hmm.” He concentrated. “It feels like magic. A curse. Which is good news, because it means that we just have to figure out how to break the curse.”
“Oh, that’s easy then!” Jack gathered power and snapped his fingers, and this time, Castiel pulled his hands away as Sam started to shift under him. “I wasn’t looking for a curse before, but you were right, I found it. I sent a little rebound with it, so that whoever put the curse on Sam will spend about thirty seconds as a dog themself, just to annoy them. And hey, if we hear about it, I know who to go talk to about cursing my dad.”
“Thanks, Jack,” Sam said, voice a little raspy. “I’m glad to be human again, even if it means I have to finish our taxes.” He didn’t move, though, continuing to lean his head on his brother’s leg while Dean ran fingers through his hair. “Or I could just say it can wait till tomorrow. We were supposed to have movie night tonight, weren’t we?”
“We were.” Castiel retrieved the box he’d brought in, which contained beer, popcorn, candy, and nuts. “We hadn’t decided on a movie, though. Any thoughts?”
“So help me, if anyone suggests Old Yeller, I am going to put my fist in their face,” Dean said. “Any other dog movie, fine, get the jokes about Sammy out, but that one? Do not.”
Sam’s eyes squeezed closed as he laughed. “Shouldn’t that be my line? I’m the one who’d be shot in that situation…”
“And I’m the one who’d be expected to shoot you and live with myself afterward, and you know damn well I couldn’t do it,” Dean grumbled. “Not you.”
Jack looked over at Castiel. “What’s Old Yeller?”
“It’s a movie about a dog. The ending of the movie involves the teenage boy having to shoot his beloved dog after the dog begins exhibiting signs of rabies. I’ve never seen it, but my understanding is that it’s a rite of passage and that it’s not only acceptable to cry, it’s expected. Almost even required.”
“Oh. Some other time, maybe, but not while Dean is still seeing Sam as a dog… although Sam wasn’t yellow.”
Sam cleared his throat. “Forget dogs. Let’s do an MCU marathon. Or… Dean, would you throw a fit about Disney animation? Aladdin, Hercules… you can handle Bambi, right?”
“I can. Not sure about the kid, though.” Dean shot a wink at Castiel. “But yeah, Disney actually sounds good. Why do we have to forget dogs, though? 101 Dalmations, Lady and the Tramp, The Fox and the Hound… Beauty and the Beast if you want to be completely silly about it. Think there’s a dog in Cinderella, too.”