Title: I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?
Author: hansbekhart
Rating: R for excessive vomit and use of the F-word.
Summary: Dean is cursed vegan, which makes him puke a lot. And cry. Big, pussy, vegan tears.
Notes: So I was looking for a story to write for my sister's birthday, and sevenfists posted this idea, like, CURSED VEGETARIAN and CRYING DEAN and I thought, hey! My sister used to be vegetarian! We teased the shit out of her for it! Now, even though she eats meat, I can still tease the shit out of her about it! Heh. JUST KIDDING I LOVE YOU essenceofmeanin! Thank you so much to unperfectwolf for the awesome macro!

ETA: This story is available for download as a podcast through the motelwincest community, here!










When Dean starts having nightmares about rabbits, Sam is almost able sympathize. He remembers watching Watership Down as a kid, remembers Dean getting yelled at for letting him watch it after three days of screaming nightmares. Sam's had a deep suspicion of rabbits ever since; Jess' kid brother had a rabbit, an enormous lop that ran free in the house and chewed through every cord and made a disquieting amount of grunts and squeals. He'd never been fully convinced that the damn thing wasn't about to eat his face.

So yeah. Sam can sympathize after three nights of Dean waking up shrieking. But that doesn't necessarily mean he's telling Dean that.

“Seriously, man,” Dean tells him, hands clenched around the diner table. “Fucking rabbits. Like, eight feet tall and black like death and evil. Quit fucking giggling, you piece of shit.”

Sam’s still grinning when the waitress comes over with their coffee. Dean’s got his face buried in his hands and doesn’t even look up when Sam glances at the girl’s nametag and informs him that Bunny is there to take their order. There are no words to describe the look in Dean’s eyes when he looks up and Sam just saves himself the trouble and smothers his whole face in a napkin.

Bunny’s not too amused and Sam’s half expecting their breakfast to come out with steaming piles of spit and pubes on top, but Dean’s chicken fried steak and Sam’s chorizo scramble look absolutely delicious when Bunny slams the plates down on the table. Dean offers a miserable smile in her direction, kicks Sam hard in the shin, and digs in. Sam’s grinning too hard to eat, which is why he’s still looking at Dean when his brother’s face turns an actual, literal shade of green. He gets half way through Dean’s name when Dean bolts from the table and loses his three bites of breakfast in the middle of the diner, all over Bunny’s brand new lime green pumps.



**



“This isn’t fair,” Dean says mournfully, six hours later. It’s also not food poisoning, as Sam has been patiently telling him, because food poisoning takes hours to develop and everybody else at the diner is fine. Since then, Dean’s kept down an entire box of Saltines and a bottle of Sol, so if it was food poisoning, which it it’s not, he’d still be puking. It’s not stomach flu, because Dean has a cast iron constitution and anything he’s carrying, Sam’ll have it too.

They make an early night of it on Dean’s suggestion. Sam gets cheese pizza, Dean sulkily stuffing crackers in his mouth, and they drink beer until the basic on the hotel TV turns into crackling snow. “I’m starving, man,” Dean says. “There any pizza left?”

“Nope. I ate the last piece,” Sam says into his pillow. “Go to sleep.”

“Cocksucker,” Dean says, which is totally uncalled for. “I got some jerky in my bag, I guess I’ll eat that.”

“Damn right you will,” Sam says. “Go to sleep.”

He hears Dean fucking around in the bags, tossing clothing over his shoulder, talking to himself. He has to be talking to himself, because Sam told Dean twenty minutes ago that he was definitely, absolutely going to sleep, and to quit talking to him. “This shit’s gotta be like, eight years old,” Dean says sadly.

Sam very carefully says nothing. If he said anything, it would have to be, you’re not getting in this goddamn bed with me if your breath smells like ancient jerky.

“Oh well,” Dean says, sounding a little more cheerful. “Won’t taste any worse than the day I bought it. Mmmm. Delicious.” He’s chewing with his mouth open - Sam could identify that sound if he heard it underwater on the other side of a canyon, it’s been that much a staple of his life – probably rolling it around in his mouth open because that nearly made Sam barf when he was sixteen, and then he’s up on his knees, hurtling towards the bathroom so fast that he hits the dresser and the door on the way in.

It’s almost enough to get Sam out of bed. Really, it is. He’s usually pretty good about that, too – Jess couldn’t hold her liquor and Dean can’t hold his painkillers, so Sam can hold hair back and offer water with the best of them.

Fuck him, though. Should’ve known better than to eat an eight-year-old Slim Jim.



**



“I think I’m cursed,” Dean says earnestly.

“Because you puke when you eat meat,” Sam says.

“And the nightmares. Don’t forget the nightmares.”

Last night, Dean’s subconscious traded bunnies for pigs. Sam thought the whole thing couldn’t get any funnier, but listening to Dean describe the horrific, pervasive, nauseating stench of bacon is proving him wrong. “You love bacon,” Sam had said. He could’ve sworn he saw tears in Dean’s eyes.

“I do, I love bacon, holy shit do I love bacon. But it just. It just smelled. Wrong. Like, like …” Dean had waved his hands in the air, his mouth trembling, beyond words.

“Like death and evil?” Sam had asked, unable to contain himself.

“You’re not cursed,” is what he says now, rubbing his arm where Dean punched him.

“It’s not food poisoning,” Dean says.

“Your only options are food poisoning or curse?”

“I’m having nightmares about bacon,” Dean says, and this time Sam’s sure. There are tears in Dean’s eyes. He scratches fitfully at his neck, where a rash popped up barely five minutes after he’d put on his leather jacket. “Look, I ate crackers all day yesterday. The instant I put anything in my mouth that used to have a face, I barf it all up. It’s gotta be a curse.”

“You need to get out more,” Sam tells his brother. “Look, you don’t have to prove it to me. Seriously, dude. Just – wait for this whole stomach flu thing to blow over.”

“I’m gonna prove it to you, though. You just watch.”

Which is why Sam is treated to the sight of his brother, teeth clenched, glancing over his shoulder to see if anybody’s watching, ordering a salad. With oil and vinegar dressing, please. No, hold the bacon bits. Sam watches Dean choke the whole thing down, still itching at his neck. He grins at Sam when he’s all done, like he’s won some sort of bet. He’s got lettuce stuck between his front teeth, which Sam doesn’t tell him about before he calls the waitress back over and orders a cheeseburger please, extra onions, extra cheese.

He smirks at Sam when Daisy brings it back, those extra onions wafting out from the kitchen like an advance attack. She sets it in front of Dean, who turns a little green.

“You don’t have to prove anything, Dean,” Sam says, scooting backwards. “Seriously.”

“Yeah, I do,” Dean says, and it’s his tone of voice that really, really starts to worry Sam. The last time Dean sounded that grim, they were exorcising demons.

To give Dean credit, he really does try. He manages two bites, grease and onions squirting through his fingers. Then he sets the burger back down gingerly, and rests his hands on the table to either side.

“Dean?” Sam asks. Dean shakes his head. His fingers are trembling. “Dean? You okay?”

Considering that Sam gets compared to Bigfoot on a fairly regular basis, he’s a pretty nimble guy. Every time he’d hit a growth spurt, Dad would take him out for target practice, with Sam starring as the target. He’d dodge rubber bullets in a field until Dad was sure Sammy wasn’t going to trip over his own feet and end up as something’s lunch. So yeah, Sam’s fast. Just not fast enough.



**



“I’m sorry, okay?” Dean calls through the bathroom door.

“I can’t hear you,” Sam yells back.

“I didn’t mean to puke in your hair,” Dean shouts.

“Gee,” Sam shouts back, “Thanks for the reassurance.”

Dean looks so hang-dog when Sam gets out of the shower that he’d almost like to forgive him. Dean may be a disgusting pig, but he probably wouldn’t vomit in Sam’s hair on purpose. Probably.

“I’ll suck your cock if that’ll make it up to you,” Dean suggests.

Sam frowns at him. He’s just about to tell Dean to get on his fucking knees already, when a thought strikes him. “Wait a second,” he says. “Do you – do you think that would count as meat?”

“What? Wait, you mean -- ”

Sam sits heavily on the other bed and they stare at each other for a long moment, eyes wide. “Well,” Dean says, hesitantly. “They do call it ‘man meat.’”

“That’s gross.”

“Yeah, for real. Hey, what if it was like, the come that’d do it? You could just … not come in my mouth.”

“I could … put a condom on,” Sam says thoughtfully.

“Dude, that’s disgusting. I’m not sucking on a rubber.”

“Hey, we’ve got those flavored ones, don’t we?”

“It doesn’t taste any better if it’s pineapple flavored, trust me. No fucking way.” Dean picks at his chest.

“You look like a meth head,” Sam tells him. “Quit doing that – that junkie shuffle or whatever.”

“It itches,” Dean tells him sourly. “Fuck you. No blowjob for you.”

“Your blowjob would smell like puke.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean says. “Your face smells like puke. Oh! Oh shit! It actually does right now! What a loser!”

“Hey, bite me,” Sam says. “Or don’t! You might throw up in my hair again!”

Dean gives him a withering look. “That’s it? That’s your comeback? Dude, you are lame. You are all that is lame. You are lame incarnate.”

“Yeah, well,” Sam mutters. “At least I can eat bacon.”



**



They retrace their steps. Luckily enough, their last couple jobs were in the Pacific Northwest. “Look on the bright side,” Sam says. “This could have happened in Texas. At least here, you’ve got stuff to eat other than salad.”

“I don’t know what any of this is,” Dean says, squinting at the menu in his hand. “Why is this burger called a Chix? Is it because chicks eat it? Does it have like, girl stuff in it?”

“Girl stuff?”

“Yeah, you know, like those chick energy bars. They’ve got calcium in them to maintain bone health and prevent osteoporosis. Oh, and iron. To prevent anemia because they lose a lot of it throughout the menstrual cycle.”

Sam stares at him. “Hey, they’re good,” Dean says, hunching his shoulders. “Better than a lot of those energy bars, taste like sawdust. Shut the hell up. Hey, is this tuna?”

“Tuno.”

“That’s what I said. I think there’s a problem with this place’s spell-check or something, everything has Nayo in it. Get it? You’d think someone would catch that.”

And Sam’s trying, he really is. He’s trying to keep laughing because this is really funny, as funny as the time Dad was turned into a llama by some hack magician. But this is just sad. He reaches across the table and takes Dean’s hand.

“Just order a Griller, Dean. It’s gonna be okay.”



**



Oregon and Washington are rainy, cold and, surprisingly, seemingly devoid of suspiciously hippie curses. “Thought for sure we’d hit gold in Olympia,” Dean grumbled as they crossed the state line. They were in drier climates for months before they hit the Great Pacific Northwest, bouncing across the Midwest and deviating down into the state that refuses to be geographically grouped: Texas.

It’s not until they’re a week away from rainy weather that Dean remembers getting into an argument with some hairy armpitted chick in an Austin dive.

“You didn’t think this was important?” Sam hisses.

“Yeah, well,” Dean says, shrugging, “I was kinda drunk? And we were talking about meat? So I just sort of assumed?”

“Jackass.”

“You should talk.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Damn straight.”

They buy a pack of soy dogs and a thing of Boca Burgers to last Dean until Austin. They find motels with kitchens after they find out that even eating something cooked on the same grill as meat will make Dean hurl. Dean has started crying in the bathroom after meals. He forces Sam to order the meatiest, greasiest thing on the menu and then watches him eat with the most awful expression on his face.

“It’s the same look he gets when he’s watching porn, like, really filthy porn. Gangbangs and double penetration and animals, you know?” Sam says over the phone.

“Huh,” Bobby says. “ Can’t say I know that one.”

“So have you ever heard of anything like this? Anything you can think of to break the curse?”

“I dunno, Sam. It’s a new one on me. I mean, most curses are designed to really hurt someone, you know?”

Sam glances over his shoulder. Dean’s staring at the soy dog on his plate. No amount of ketchup and mustard can disguise the grayish color of it. “I don’t wanna do this anymore,” he says quietly, choking back a sob.

“Trust me, Bobby,” Sam says. “He’s hurting.”



**



Their quarry makes it easy to find her. In fact, she sends them a note. It’s waiting for them when they open the door to their room, a little piece of paper folded in half with a cartoon cow on the front, grinning up at them. Underneath it is a PETA pamphlet. Sam takes the pamphlet and hands Dean the note. Dean stares at Sam like he just handed over a packet of anthrax.

“This cow has blood on its teeth,” Dean says.

“That’s just because it was drawn with a red crayon.”

“I think these are fangs.”

“Just open the fucking note.”

Dean’s silent for a long time, reading. Sam flips through the pamphlet, grimacing. “She wants to meet,” Dean says. “She says hi.” He shows Sam the letter.

“Huh,” Sam says.

“Maybe I can just … tell her that I don’t even remember what we talked about,” Dean says. “That she’s got the wrong guy.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’d work just great.”

“Who goes to all the effort for such a lame curse,” Dean grumbles. “See, that’s why people hate vegetarians. Because they won’t mind their own goddamn business and let me eat a fucking cheeseburger.”

“See, that’s exactly what you should tell her to get her to lift the curse.”

“If they’d just eat their own goddamn salads in peace! Then nobody would bother anybody and the world would be at peace!”

“Are you going to meet her or what?”

Dean throws the letter down hard. It’s a single sheet of paper, so it flutters a little in the air and slips off the side of the table. They watch it fall to the ground, slowly. “Yes,” Dean growls. “I’m gonna go meet her. Hold down the fort. If I don’t return … give everything I own to Ted Nugent and tell him I died for the cause. Tell him – tell him I died bravely, okay?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, just leave already.”



**



It’s late before Dean returns. Sam scopes the local papers for new cases, writes a long email to Ellen. Paces the room. Steps out for a quick lunch at the café down the street. Looking at the turkey on his sandwich makes him pine for Dean, wonder if he’s okay. He had to be okay. If he wasn’t okay, Sam would never be able to tell anybody how his brother died; it would just be too embarrassing. He’d have to make up a story about how Dean … had to save a school bus full of kindergarteners from a pack of possessed demon piranhas.

He’s dozing when Dean finally comes back, shutting the motel door behind him quietly. The lights are out and Sam’s got a knife in his hand before he recognizes his brother in the defeated, slumped silhouette.

“Dean?” Sam asks. “You … you okay?”

Dean sits heavily on the edge of the bed, his hands between his knees. “Sam,” he says hoarsely. “Did you know that because of growth hormones in beef, the average man has less sperm than your average hamster? Did you know that eating meat increases your risk of heart disease, which is our country’s number one killer? Did you know that cholesterol is only found in animal products? I didn’t know that, Sam. I had no idea.”

“Oh god,” Sam says. “So … did she lift the curse?”

Dean nods absently, like it doesn’t even matter anymore. “Men who consume animal products daily are 3.8 times more likely to die from prostate cancer.” He reaches between his legs and cups himself, gently.

“Dean,” Sam says, taking hold of his brother’s shoulders. “PETA also says that if you have the choice between saving the life of a child and saving the life of an animal, you should always choose the animal. You … can’t always believe what that kind of person says.”

Dean whimpers, low down in his throat. He looks up at Sam like he's just been thrown a lifeline. “You mean it? I mean – Sammy, I like meat. I don’t wanna be vegan anymore, this sucks so hard. I can only order like, one or two things in restaurants and I feel like a pussy.”

“You’re not a pussy, Dean,” Sam says gently. “Hey, I got you a present.”

“Is it a cheeseburger?” Dean asks.

“Yes. Yes, Dean. It is.”

And finally, Dean smiles. It spreads slow over his face, brilliant and dopey. “Sammy,” he says. “You’re the best.”




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OMG I LOVE MY SISTER HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!