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(I cannot take credit for making this gif, see the author's note for the link)
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Oh shit. This was not good. This was very, very not good. They had decided to split up while searching the house and Sam wasn’t sure if it had been a terrible idea or if he was grateful he hadn’t been in the room when Cas and Dean had found the witches. The coven had thrown a curse at the pair before the group escaped through the window and, from the looks of it, it was a powerful spell by how deeply Castiel was under its influence.
Sam almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing when he ran into the room that the shrieks and shouts had come from. Dean reached out of a closet and smacked Castiel’s head causing Cas to jump around and claw and hiss at the spot Dean had occupied before he had hidden again.
“What the hell, guys? There are witches out there, why are you just dicking around?” Sam’s voice was incredulous as he questioned his brother and the angel but his answer didn’t come in the form of words. Instead, Cas cautiously approached Sam and began rubbing his head and face against the taller hunter’s arm. “Cas… what? What are you… doing?” Sam asked, raising his arm but Castiel continued rubbing himself against Sam, only stopping when Sam’s hand landed in his hair.
When Cas stopped rubbing he started… purring? It was the best word Sam could come up with for the sound the angel was making. “You have got to be kidding me” he spoke, starting to understand what had happened in the room.
Sam made his way to the door Dean was still hiding behind and, after a few minutes, managed to coax his brother out of the closet. Dean immediately pounced on Castiel and the two began rolling on the floor wrestling and batting at one another. Sam left the two grown men - who apparently now had the mindset and mental capacity of cats thanks to the coven they were tracking - to their wrestling match and sat on the bed to begin formulating a plan.
He could track the witches down and take them out but, from the looks of things on the floor, they were a powerful group and tracking them again could take days, especially now that they knew hunters were on their trail, and Sam wasn’t sure he’d be able to take all of them out on his own. As he sat, the two men on the floor grew bored of one another. Castiel hopped up on the bed first and once again began rubbing his face on Sam. Knowing what he was seeking this time, Sam just sighed and started petting the angel’s hair. Upon seeing the attention Cas was getting, Dean also jumped onto the bed and demanded to be pet.
With his brother curled up against his side and Castiel’s head in his lap, Sam realized that he really only had one option. Sam stood quickly, startling the two faux furr balls and earning a hiss from his brother. He closed the window the witches had escaped through and made sure the other windows in the room were closed before leaving the room and closing the door behind him so Dean and Cas couldn’t get out. Sam made a quick trip to the Impala and gathered everything he would need from the trunk. When he returned to the room where he had left his brother and Castiel, he found Cas still curled up on the bed but Dean had returned to the floor where he was attempting to lick himself. Luckily for Sam’s eyes, his brother was still biologically human and definitely not flexible enough to be anywhere near successful.
Sam set the things he had brought in from the car on the night stand and began preparing to summon Crowley. He drew the sigil and set up the candles but he didn’t light them just yet. Instead, he mixed the ingredients he needed in the metal bowl. As he mixed the blend of herbs, nuts, and dried fruit, Castiel came over to investigate. “Hey Cas, I need you to leave this alone, man,” Sam tried, not actually hoping the angel would understand.
Cas looked at Sam, turned his gaze to the nearest candle, looked back at Sam and purposely batted the candle onto the floor. Sam picked the candle up, grateful that he hadn’t lit anything yet, and put it back in its proper place on the sigil before returning to the bowl of ingredients. Cas made a mewling sound in an attempt to get Sam’s attention again and when the hunter looked up, the angel knocked the candle over again. Sam put the candle back again but, this time, he kept one eye on Castiel as he finished preparing the summoning spell. When Cas reached out to bat over the candle again, Sam was ready.
“Castiel, no,” he commanded in a strong voice.
The angel paused and stared at Sam with his hand in mid air, hovering just behind the candle. Without breaking eye contact, Cas pushed the candle off the table for a third time.
Sam sighed in frustration and collected everything for the spell before leaving the room again, making sure to close the door behind him. He made his way to the kitchen and set up the summoning ritual there, instead. As he lit the contents of the bowl on fire, the tell tale sounds of another wrestling match broke out.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the demon to appear. “To what do I owe this honor, Moose?” Crowley asked.
“I need your mother to undo some spell work.” Sam’s voice was hard. He didn’t trust Crowley, even after all these years of the quasi-partnership between the demon and the hunters.
“Why can’t your pet angel just snap it away for you?” Crowley responded.
Sam just continued to glare at the demon, determined to not give in to Crowley’s teasing, which was a little too on the nose right now.
“Ah, your little Cassie is the victim,” Crowley surmised. “I suppose that’s why big brother isn’t here. He’s watching over the angel, I presume.”
“Can you get your mother here or not?” Sam finally replied, still not taking the demon’s bait.
“You know they say you’ll catch more flies with honey, Samantha,” Crowley reminded Sam but, again, the most he got from the hunter was a fairly epic bitchface. “Alright, alright. I’ll find mummy dearest but know this: you owe me, Sam Winchester.”
With that, the demon disappeared and Sam had nothing to do but wait for his return. Fortunately, it didn’t take long. Suddenly Sam was joined in the kitchen by Crowley again but, this time, he had Rowena in tow.
“Winchester,” Rowena remarked, her Scottish brogue dragging out the vowels. “My son tells me you need some spellwork reversed. Must be a powerful witch if the angel is affected so.”
“Upstairs,” was Sam’s only response before turning and leaving the kitchen but his mind was whirring. ‘Dean is going to be pissed,’ he thought as he led Rowena and Crowley to the bedroom, which had gone eerily quiet while Crowley had been fetching his mother.
Sam opened the door and stepped into the room followed closely by Rowena and Crowley. Dean noticed the newcomers first and hissed at the witch from the bed. Castiel turned his attention toward the door and meandered over, this time asking Crowley to pet him.
“Bloody hell, they’re cats!” Crowley exclaimed with glee. “Let me take a video of this and we’re square, Moose.”
Sam considered for a minute. Not owing Crowley a favor sounded amazing but he knew Dean would kill him if he let the demon have a video of this. “One still photo,” Sam bargained.
“Five,” the demon countered.
“Three,” Sam replied, watching Dean line up a jump out of the corner of his eye.
“Deal.” Crowley pulled out his phone and turned toward Dean a second too late to prepare for what was coming. Dean leapt from the bed and pounced on Castiel but, being a six-foot-two man and not an actual cat, his large frame took down both the angel and the demon. Cas and Dean began their third romp around the floor as Crowley tried to recover what little dignity he had left and snapped a few photos.
“You can fix this, right?” Sam asked Rowena.
“Are you sure you want to?” Rowena questioned. “Your brother seems much more pleasant in this form.”
Sam rolled his eyes and let his glare do the talking once again.
“Fine, fine. I suppose I do owe you both for not letting the world end with Amara,” Rowena conceded. She held her hands out toward Castiel and Dean, who was on top of the angel and playfully batting at his face, and commanded the attention of the room with a simple incantation, “Gratia sit cures.” The Latin rolled off of her tongue as magic poured from her hands. Within a few seconds, Dean and Cas stopped smacking at each other and both looked perplexed by their current positioning.
“Dean, why are you sitting…” Cas began to ask but then the memories of the afternoon flooded back.
Dean scrambled off of Castiel. “What the hell?” he asked no one in particular.
“I believe we were cursed when we barged in on the coven, Dean,” Castiel responded as he got to his feet.
“Yeah, I figured as much but what stopped it?” Dean’s question made Sam realize his brother hadn’t noticed who else was in the room. Maybe he could get them to leave before Dean knew…
“Hello boys,” Crowley cooed from his perch by the door.
Well, there went that idea.
Dean whipped around and took in the people gathered. “Oh, just great. Exactly who I want to find watching me when I’ve been acting like a freaking cat all afternoon,” he muttered.
“The witches who did this were crazy powerful and know we’re after them, now. I wasn’t going to be able to find them again today,” Sam explained, hoping to placate his brother. “I needed Rowena to break the curse.”
“Don’t worry Pussy Cat. If you’ve forgotten anything from playtime this afternoon,” Crowley commented. “I’ll send you some of the photos I took.”
“You son of a bitch!” Dean reached for Crowley but the demon grabbed Rowena’s arm and they both disappeared before he could get his hands on him. Instead, he turned toward his brother. “Sammy, what pictures is he talking about?”